Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“We come bearing the finest cuisine the wastelands have to offer,” Xander announced as he unbolted the door and plopped his worn-out backpack on the counter. “Canned lima beans, canned garbanzo beans, and…” He dug through the contents, “Oh, canned peaches! Yum.”

“Plus toilet paper!” Willow grinned with pride, “Two-ply!”

A few years ago, neither of the two would have been quite so excited by the prospect of eating some fruit preserved in its own juices or wiping one’s ass with something softer than a piece of loose leaf. But times had changed, and so had they.

“Jesus Christ,” said Buffy. “What took you guys so long? I was worried sick.”

“We had to go a few abandoned towns over,” said Willow. “The closer stores are all looted by now.”

“Besides,” said Xander, “We can take care of ourselves.” He paused. “Well, Willow can take care of both of us.”

“Look, you know we don’t want to draw too much attention with the magick,” said Buffy. “You know how it is these days.”

“Right—well that’s why we’re also armed to the teeth with military-grade firearms,” said Xander as he took off his rifle and leaned it against the wall

“I don’t like you guys going out without me,” said Buffy.

“Buff,” Willow said, “You're still hurt from last night. Besides, you’re just as useful here watching the house and—”

“Tara!” Spike cried, chasing the witch in question down the stairs. “Put that down, luv.”

Willow raced over to Tara as she reached the landing, saw the big knife in her hands.

“Hey baby-girl,” said Willow, eyes soft but stern, “What’s that? Can I see it?”

“No, it’s shiny,” Tara whimpered. “It’s pretty. Ever since the energy left—”

“Give it to me, baby-girl,” Willow cooed. “Come on.”

Tara reluctantly handed Willow the knife and cocked her head, confused. “There’s more tigers in the cupboard.”

“I still think we need to raid the hospital,” Willow told the group, turning from Tara as she petted her hair. “She needs meds, and that stuff goes for a fortune in the Markets.”

“Not like we don’t have it,” said Anya from where she was counting little rocks at the counter. “A fortune, I mean. Sure, we are low on fragments, and trust me, I’m more bummed than anyone that the US Dollar has lost all its value. But the good entrepreneur adapts, and we have to accept that the modern economy runs on magick. And you know as well as I do that we’re basically rolling in it.”

"Anya," said Giles as he stood gingerly, a cane supporting his left side.

Buffy held her hand out to stop him and snarled at Anya, “I’m not doing business with demons,” Buffy spat. “We don’t have to stoop that low yet.”

“Actually, Buff,” said Xander, “We kinda do. Will and I were digging for scraps today. If we don’t start engaging in the post-apocalyptic capitalism thing, we’re gonna starve.”

“We’ll figure something out,” said Buffy. “We’re not like them. If we start playing by their rules, they’ve won.”

Anya scoffed, “They’ve already won, Buffy! It’s been over two years. You have to stop acting like you’re still gonna save the world. This is the world now and you’re gonna have to learn to live in it. There’s nothing to save anymore.”

There was a long silence.

“Willow-treeeeee,” Tara whined. She whimpered and rubbed her stomach.

“Are you hungry, baby?” Willow said. She looked over at the sparse pickings of food stacked on the counter and felt her own empty stomach growl. “You can’t eat right now. The food has to last, or there won’t be anymore and you won’t be able to eat tonight. Alright?”

Tara whimpered again. “Only dragons hoard the gold.”

Buffy frowned at Tara, and then sighed and addressed the group. “Fine,” she said. “Tonight me, Will, and Anya will go to the Markets and pick up some essentials.”

“Why does she have to come?” was the pointed question both Anya and Willow spat at the same time.

“Willow knows about magick. Anya knows how to haggle.” Buffy shrugged, “Keep it civil or no one’s going.”

“There’s nothing civil about the Markets,” Anya muttered.

Two years and five months ago, the demon-God Glorificus used the Key to open a portal to Hell. Buffy and her friends had tried desperately to stop it, of course. Willow’s attempt to restore Tara’s sanity was soured when the Hellgod saw her coming and punched her unconscious, and Buffy and Spike were unable to make it up the tower in time to stop the letting of Dawn’s blood.

It was said that once the Key’s blood stopped flowing, the portal would close. So in a moment of heroic righteousness, the teenaged Key pushed her sister out of the way and dove off the tower herself.

Only it didn’t work: The portal didn’t close, and across the Earth, Hell broke loose in the most literal way.

“Why?” Buffy had cried, clawing at Giles’ chest. “She died for nothing! Why didn’t it work?”

Thing was: they never found Dawn’s body. So, with absolute horror, the surviving Scoobies decided that Dawn Summers, the Key, must still be alive in some other dimension, unknowingly keeping the door to Hell cracked open.

For three days the portal stayed open. Then, some balance restored, it slowly closed on its own. But it was too late; the damage was done, many times over. What was released from that portal over those 72 hours would make the Earth its own.

Humanity liked to fight, though, and demons liked to hunt even more than they liked to kill. So the race hadn’t been, wouldn’t be, wiped out completely. Still, the post-apocalyptic United States was desolate and lonely and vast; most of the demons lived underneath the cities in the Underway, what once functioned as the sewers when buildings still had running water. The remaining humans hunkered down in whatever shelters they could find or build, hollowed-out stores and abandoned homes, either looting their ways through the days or earning a living by cultivating goods or performing services for those people, demons, bandits, and things that got lucky and were better off.

At first, Buffy tried to fight. To fight everything, every demon, every danger: such was her instinct. But it was no use, and soon the other Scoobies convinced her that for now the best thing they could do was to make their home base the Summers home and survive. Tara was still insane. Xander and Anya were engaged to be married, if that meant anything in this new world. Spike was around, for some reason. And Buffy’s soul was steeped in failure: to her sister and to the human race.

At first, they survived by looting. With at least half the human population brutally murdered by demons, the comparatively powerful Scoobies were the lucky ones that got to indulge in the left-behind resources. But now things were growing scarce, and the rise of bandit gangs and the like meant that they weren’t even safe from other humans anymore when they went to scavenge during the day. Luckily, there was another way to stay alive:

The US Dollar meant very little these days. Demons just killed to get what they wanted, and humanity quickly realized that its fiat currency only worked as long as everyone played along.

No, the post-apocalyptic American economy ran on magick. Trinkets, artifacts, books, power. Anything a person or thing could use to protect himself from the creatures of the night or day or dusk or dawn was fair game. And the barter system lasted a good year. In fact, it still largely persisted, especially for bigger, rarer purchases. But in the time since The End, something simpler came about: in a system that almost resembled one a civilization might have, money now took the form of fragments : bits and pieces of Hell that spewed from volcanoes, fell with the rain, and erupted from trenches when worlds collided. Earth was riddled with them, now, black rocks with a reddish glow that each held just a little bit of power, a little bit of Hell at its core.

For demons, they were a little piece of home that could briefly boost their strength. For witches and warlocks, they were a foreign temptation that could empower their spells and open their minds. Still for others, they were a paranormal drug more potent and more abundant than the regular stuff. For most, though, they were now the most basic unit of currency with which to shop in the Endlands.

“Do you think Anya’s right?” Buffy asked as she whittled a stake on the porch, the sun having just dipped below the horizon.

“‘Bout what, luv?” said Spike, coming around the side of the house and shaking a can of gasoline like he could magically make more appear to fill the motorcycle Willow and Xander had near-depleted on their journey for loot.

“About the world,” said Buffy. “Is it really past saving?”

“I think…” Spike sighed, “I reckon saving this world just looks different than it did three years ago. It’s never goin’ back to the way it was, that’s for sure. But things can still get better, even if they ain’t good.”

“What if that’s not good enough?” said Buffy. “Last night I busted my arm fighting a pack of demons, and for what? They outnumber us now. I don’t want live in a world run by monsters. I don’t want to just… survive.”

“Thing about this world, luv,” said Spike, “Is it’s brave and new: no one runs it yet. Demons are fighting each other. People are fighting each other. Demons are fighting people, bandits are fighting demons, factions fighting factions… Gotta see how things play out. But till then, I think we gotta play the game, Slayer.”

“You mean go to the Markets. Deal with demons like they’re people. Use the para-tech and snort frags till I’m seeing stars?”

“Never said you had to start doing drugs, though you could definitely use something to take the edge off. All I’m saying is you and your Scoobies can keep on pretending that one day you’ll open your eyes and you’ll realize this was all a bad dream, or you can wake up now and live your lives. Make the most of it.”

“This world was built for you,” said Buffy. “So why are you hanging around with us?”

“Are you kidding?” said Spike. “Still got that chip in my head. Plus vampires are not appreciated by these so-called pure demons, ‘specially a neutered one like me. Us vamps got it just as bad as you lot. Worse, I reckon, ‘cause now these bloody transplants are taking all the food. Killing people and not even eating them, what a waste!”

In the garage, a red-haired witch sat at a bench with a pile of metal parts and a collection of tools.

“I think I found what I needed today,” Willow muttered either to herself or to Tara, who paced in the background, “One more part and we’ll have a working para-phone. Could help us, maybe we could get in touch with Angel or the Watchers or something?”

“Beams only break the dark,” Tara said.

Willow wiped some sweat from her brow, smearing grease or dirt on her face, then glanced at her laptop. “And maybe… Maybe with a few more parts we can get access to the internet again—well, the supernet, whatever we’re calling it these days—and then maybe I can find something to help you…”

The thing about apocalypses is that everything just stops. After the End, it was only a matter of time before the lack of human supervision and upkeep had those functional, technological parts of society breaking down. After a week, the internet was out. Two weeks, the cell towers. A month, the electrical grids. Then the phone lines went, and the plumbing. The remains of humanity had to pretty quickly relearn what it was like to live in the 16th century.

But they did have some things: they had batteries and generators, which provided limited power but needed to be conserved. They had cars and motorbikes, but gas was a rare commodity so those needed to be used sparingly too. They still had radios, and although cable didn’t work anymore, TVs could still play tapes, CD players CDs, and record players records as long as you could find a way to power them.

And where structure and civilization, or the lack thereof, meant that some technologies would fail, another thing took its place and gave human- and demon-kind alike a whole new medium with which to invent: magick.

You see, magick was no longer hidden to the overworld, and technology no longer foreign to the demons that had lurked beneath. And, as it turned out, the supernatural and the electronic made a markedly powerful combination. While cellphones quickly became obsolete, their parts, combined with Fragments and a little bit of magical power, could create a device that functioned in much the same way (though these were clunkier in a do-it-yourself sort of way—would be until Nokia started up again in this post-apocalyptic hellscape). The internet, or some stripped-down version, sprang up again about a year into the end of the world, this one powered by mystical energy instead of just ones and zeroes.

Naturally, Willow Rosenberg was a whiz with para-tech (short for “paranormal technology”, because the citizens of the Endlands needed to have a cool name for everything), and had already started designing new devices. She’d built a robotic leg for Giles after he’d lost his to a Entmer Demon (the leg wasn’t quite strong enough to support all his weight, and its movements were clunky at best and disobedient at worst, but the fact that it could move at all was a marvel), and she’d pimped out all of the Scoobies’ firearms with techno-magical upgrades.

Right—the guns. Buffy hated them, still refused to use them and understandably so. The things were loud and reckless and impersonal. If the Slayer was going to kill something, it would be up close and personal with a stake to its heart, not from 20 feet away with a shotgun.

But guns kind of came with the whole apocalypse thing, and it was quickly decided that her friends would need to arm themselves if they wanted to survive. Luckily, that military base they’d stolen a rocket launcher from back in high school was abandoned and ripe for looting when those soldiers were some of the first to face and perish against Hell’s beasts.

Xander carried around an assault rifle and a handgun, plus a few grenades for emergencies. Anya had a trusty shotgun of her own, and even Willow toted a pistol and a hunting knife despite her magical powers, lest she find herself trapped in combat with her energy depleted. Her belt was loaded with all kinds of powders, potions, herbs—and explosives. Anything she might need should a bandit come out of the shadows and attack her.

Like Buffy, Spike wasn’t much for weapons and preferred to travel unencumbered. But if he was in a fight and found a shotgun on the ground, well… he wouldn’t be opposed to using it.

“Be careful tonight, Ahn,” said Xander as his fiance got herself dressed and armed. “Those Markets are… Icky.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Anya, “I know how to talk to demons. Don’t forget I was one.”

“Oh how I would love to forget that…”

“Hey!” said Anya, “You’re disrespecting my demon heritage.”

“Right,” said Xander, “Sorry.”

Anya bent over a vanity and seemed to be doing her makeup.

It was normal, these days, for people to disguise their humanity when they went out into demon society. They covered their faces, painted inhuman markings on their heads and arms to throw off hunters, like when a butterfly had eyes printed on its wings to confuse predators.

So the three women didn’t quite look like themselves when they gathered at the front door: Buffy had dark green ink running from the corners of her eyes over her cheeks and down her chin, her mouth hidden under a bandana (if they can’t see your mouth, after all, for all they know you might have fangs). She wore a practical utility vest over a long-sleeved shirt, and fingerless gloves to hide her hands, a gray hood over her head.

Willow had painted asymmetrical markings on her own face in a deep red: a thick horizontal mask across her eyes and stripes across one cheek. A hooded black cloak hid her hair and arms, a sheer black scarf over her mouth. She wore her own fingerless work gloves to hide her hands while still being able to access her magicks.

And Anya had disguised her face with blobs of black ink over her eyes and that ran behind her ears and back across her cheeks, a dark blue scarf over her face, hair hidden under a repurposed military helmet.

“You guys ready?” said Buffy.

“I haven’t been ready for anything for the last two and a half years,” said Willow, “Why start now?”

“No magick. Capisce?” said Buffy. “We do not need to draw attention to ourselves.”

“What if someone attacks us?”

“I don’t know, shoot ‘em,” said Buffy. “You got our merch?”

“Yep,” said Willow, shaking the satchel she wore across her body, “All the trinkets we have left.”

“And I have the frags,” said Anya, “We have seventy-six. Can probably get us food to last us the month if we make it stretch. Would be smart to pick up a bounty while we’re out there, Buffy.”

“We’ll see,” said the Slayer.

“I’ll keep my ear out for repair jobs,” Willow offered.

“Alright.” Buffy opened the door and took a deep breath, “Let’s go."

Chapter Text

The Markets were bustling, creatures of all shapes and sizes browsing the various stalls. What was a desolate desert clearing in the daytime became the center of post-apocalyptic commerce as soon as the sun fell behind the horizon.

The girls’ mouths watered as they entered the grounds and the smell of cooking meat wafted past their noses. All of the Scoobs had grown dangerously thin over the past few years as they tried to conserve food, subsisting off quickly dwindling supplies of nonperishables and little else.

“That smells so good,” Willow moaned as she felt the sharp pang of hunger knock against her gut. “BBQ.”

“Everything down here is either human meat or demon meat, and we can’t afford to eat out anyway.”

Willow frowned and tried to turn her attention away from the food, though her stomach still growled painfully.

“I’ll go look for weapons,” Buffy said. “You guys find some supplies and stay together .”

“Fine,” Anya said. She handed each of them a fistful of frags. “Come on, Willow.”

Anya led the way, and Willow struggled to keep up with her while dodging the chaotic pedestrians. “Slow down, would ya?” said Willow.

“I wanna be quick or the good deals will be gone,” Anya replied.

“Can we get some apple sauce?” said Willow, noticing some at a stall. “Tara likes it, and it’s easy for me to feed her stuff that’s mushy.”

“For 5 pieces a cup?” said Anya. “We can’t afford it. Besides, I doubt it’s real apples. Probably mushed up demon worms.” 

Anya picked up her pace, but Willow hung back slightly, distracted by the smells and colors and creatures of the markets. She watched as Anya stopped at a booth and started to haggle for some food and, instead of joining her, wandered silently off to a nearby scrap parts shop.

She looked around at the odds and ends piled messily about the stall. She recognized rusted pieces of old cars and radios, computer chips and speaker heads.

“How much for that battery?” said Willow.

“Fifty,” said the shopkeeper. He was a nasally little demon who Buffy could probably slay with her eyes closed. That was the thing about the apocalypse: some of the demons had no interest in the hunt, and they just wanted to live their unlives, too. In their own kind of society.

“What?” said Willow, “That’s insane.”

“You want the supernet or not?” the demon said with a shrug. 

“Come on,” said Willow, “Help a girl out.”

“Look at the sign,” the shopkeeper shrugged.

She did. It read: ‘Chag’s Scrap & Crap’. 

“Do you see the word ‘charity’ anywhere?” said Chag, “I didn’t think so. The price is fair, power’s tough to find. This thing’s rechargeable if you got a generator. So pay up or scram, brat.”

Willow growled as someone else, a taller demon, ambled up to the stall and plopped a para-phone onto the counter. “Hey, can you fix this?”

The shopkeeper investigated it for a moment, “Sure. For 20 frags.”

“Seriously?” said the demon. “Ugh. Fine.”

Willow muttered, “I’ll do it for 10.”

“You know how?” the taller demon said.

Willow pulled up her sleeve and held out her hand, five metal and yet fully-functional robotic fingers sticking out of her fingerless gloves. “I know what I’m doing.”

“10 pieces? Deal,” the taller demon said. “Probably do a better job than Chag the Cheat over here anyway.”

The shopkeeper glared at Willow and she smirked back, victorious. She was able to quickly repair the man’s phone at one of the empty tables with the tools on her belt. He paid her and she turned back to the food stall to find Anya, but she was gone.

“Oops,” Willow muttered to herself. Buffy would be mad that they got separated, but the Slayer was a little paranoid these days, anyway.

Willow picked a direction and started walking. She wasn’t sure what Anya had picked up already, so she didn’t know what to buy. She was pretty aimless—that is until some books caught her eye.

Magick books.

She couldn't help but to pace faux-nonchalantly over to the stall. She picked up one volume and ran her hand along the intricate leather cover with longing. Magick and Gods was printed on the dark red leather in gold.

You see, these days witchcraft was all but outlawed, or it would be if there were any laws. The demons knew that witches had the power to fight them, and that was no good.

A year and a half ago, every witch on this side of the continent gathered to try to put a stop to this whole apocalypse thing, to undo some of the damage that had been done to the world. But some traitor tipped the demons off, and every witch at the gathering was massacred before Willow’s eyes. A war started and ended that day, and witches were no longer welcome in the Endlands unless they could prove themselves useful (and Willow knew that ‘useful’ mostly meant kidnapped as slaves).

A spell here or there was still common—even demons liked to perform magick, sometimes. And mystical artifacts and books proved useful in lots of ways to humans and demons alike on a casual spellcasting basis. But beyond that, full-blown witches and warlocks, humans that dedicated themselves to the craft, that harnessed the powers of Hell for themselves (or worse: for the good of humanity), were hunted by demonkind. After all—the more bloodthirsty of the demons couldn’t let a few empowered humans take away their brave new world.

Willow still had scars from that attack, claw marks on her body and face and a missing left hand she had to replace with rudimentary robotics which she controlled with her magicks. She still wasn’t sure how she got away, the last thing she remembered her arm being devoured by some big sharp-toothed thing, but once she woke up, her hand mangled beyond repair… Well, that was when she accepted that this was the world now, and there was no changing it.

So she had to do much of her magick in secret, which to be fair wasn’t so different from her life before all this. There was a fine line between powering para-tech and casting spells that would send her status from useful to hunted.

She opened the book, mostly because of curiosity and nostalgia. Her eyes widened when she read the heading she’d miraculously opened up to:

Summoning Gods the page said. Willow’s heart was filled with hope—hopefully not so much that the demons around her could hear it beating and pick her out as a human (or worse, reading a magician’s tome: a witch).

“How much for this?” said Willow quickly. The shopkeeper leaned over, this one big and slimy.

“What are you, a witch?” the shopkeeper said. Willow’s breath hitched. Then he laughed, “Kidding. I couldn’t care less, I just wanna sell my loot. 30 frags.”

Willow clicked her tongue. She had 20 from their stash and the 10 she just made. But Buffy and Anya would kill her if she came back with nothing but a stupid book.

“What about 10 frags and an artifact?” She pulled a pretty silver necklace from her pack. “This is the Pendant of Athena. Has the magical power of fifty frags, easy.”

He looked at the necklace for a moment, gave it a lick (which made Willow cringe). “Deal.”

“I’ll take that sword,” Buffy decided, pointing to the weapon hanging on the wall of the weapons stall.

“You strong enough to carry that thing?” said the demon shopkeeper as he pulled it down.

“Yeah,” Buffy said.

“You look familiar,” the demon growled, pointy teeth jutting from its mouth. “You’re not a human. Are you?”

“So what if I was?” said Buffy. “You know the only humans coming out to the markets can take a demon or two, don’t you?”

“Didn’t mean to offend, little lady,” said the demon. “Just saying that the less entrepreneurial among us might be out looking for a meal.”

“Just give me the blade,” Buffy said, throwing some frags on the counter.

He did, and then cleared his throat. “Hey,” said the shopkeeper, handing her a flier. “You know how to use that thing and you wanna make a frag or two, there’s a bounty out on Phralix the Liar. Owes half of us here too much to keep being not dead.

She took the flier from him, and then turned to find Anya approaching with a sack of food.

“Where’s Willow?” Buffy said.

Anya shrugged, “I dunno. She wandered off.”

“What?” said Buffy, “Anya, she could get hurt if they find out—”

But then Willow emerged, from within the crowd, “Hey guys.”

“Where the heck have you been?” said Buffy.

“We need to get you a leash or something,” Anya said.

“Sorry,” said Willow. “I got distracted. Fixed someone’s cell for 10 frags.”

“Good,” said Buffy. “Did you—”
“No magick,” said Willow. “What’d you get, Anya?”

“Bread and some preserves, plus a chicken—well, I think it’s a chicken—we can make tonight and a few cans of green beans.”

“Wow,” said Buffy, “Good haul.”

“I’m good,” said Anya. “And here.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a sealed cup of apple sauce. She handed it to Willow, “It’s expired, but it’s the real thing, from before The Leak, and it probably just tastes a little weird. Tara deserves it.”

Willow smiled softly, almost guilty that she spent their money on a book she wasn’t planning on telling them about.

“What’d you get, Will?” said Buffy.

“Alcohol,” said Willow. “I mean, the medical kind. For cuts and wounds and stuff.”

“That’s it?” said Anya.

“The post-apocalyptic demon market isn’t exactly overflowing with band-aids, Anya,” said Willow. “Let’s get home, I bet Xander’s wrestling Tara for the last of those stale oreos right about now.”

“You’re back,” said Spike, meeting Buffy in the garage after they had returned. “So how was the mall?”

“Slimier than I remember,” said Buffy. “Couldn’t find the Claire’s.”

“You should have let me come,” Spike said, “You know. Me being an actual demon.”

“You know what’s worse than us being found out as humans?” said Buffy, “If someone from the old days recognized you as the guy who can’t kill people anymore. Then we’re all outed and we’ve got the hoard after us. Besides, most of the demons there don’t care, they’re just looking to make a buck. I think this one guy knew I was the Slayer. Still sold me his sword.”

“In my day, my reputation was to be feared,” Spike scoffed.

“Besides,” said Buffy, “You know the Bleeders don’t care for vampires. At least humans they can eat: what are you half-bads good for? And you’re not even half. With that chip you’re, like, quarter-bad at most.” 

Bleeders were what they called the demons who had jumped through the portal while it was still open, during what was affectionately dubbed The Leak. Plenty of demons were in Sunnydale long before that, and they didn’t all like all the new blood that had moved in. Still, there wasn’t much of a choice for anyone but to assimilate into the new world.

“Anyway,” said Buffy, “If you’ve got some killing instinct you wanna get out, I got a bounty on this guy Phralix. Could use your bike if you wanna help me bring back his head.”
“Look at you, taking missions from demons now,” said Spike.

“Look, I don’t have a choice, Spike,” said Buffy. “And the guy’s a demon, so what’s the difference? Are you gonna help me or not.”

“You just tell me which way to drive, Slayer.”

Willow sat in her room. She brushed Tara’s hair idly while flipping, focused, through the book she’d purchased earlier.

Tara whined when Willow accidentally pulled her hair too hard and slapped the book in Willow’s hands, crinkling the pages.

“Stop it, baby,” said Willow. “I’m trying to find a way to help you.” She looked down at the page Tara had mistakenly turned to and squinted at the words, eyes widening in realization as she read.

“Oh,” she said to herself, or to Tara. “This… I can do this. I wouldn’t even need that much—! Baby, I can do this!”

She glanced at Tara, who ran her hand along the scar over Willow’s right eye and pouted at her, almost disapprovingly.

Willow clenched her fists with resolve. “It’s the only way, Tara.” She kissed her, “I’ll always find you. I’m gonna find you.”

Chapter Text

“So,” Spike called over the engine as they drove through town the next night, “What’d this guy do anyhow?”

Buffy shrugged, “I guess he jipped a bunch of the other demons outta some frags or something. It’s funny, the more things change—”

“The more things stay the same,” Spike finished. “So, we’re playing the game now, are we? You ready to live in DemonDale?”

“I’m ready to do what we have to do to survive, Spike.”

“Atta girl.”

Willow padded swiftly towards the door. She’d shushed Tara and put her to bed before putting on her utility belt, painting her face and climbing carefully down the stairs, creaking the the door open to step out into—

“Willow? Where are you going?”

She cursed inside her head. For real, too: she didn’t just spell it out like she used to before all this apocalypse business. “Nowhere,” she said. “Out.”

Giles limped over to her, leaning heavily on his cane. “It’s dark out.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Willow. “I mean, I can take care of myself.”

“None of us go out alone,” said Giles. “That’s the rule. I don’t care how powerful you think you are.”

“‘Think’?” Willow scowled. “Look, I made some money the other night ‘cause I fixed some guy’s cell phone. I think I could make us some more. Set up shop in the markets. Or something.”

“Take Xander or Anya with you,” said Giles.

“Xander and Anya are—” They could hear the muffled squeaks of a bed on the second floor, “---Busy. Besides, it’s just the Markets. People are slimy but they don’t come there looking for murder. What’s the worst that’ll happen?”

“What if someone finds out about your powers?”

“They won’t, Giles. I’m not stupid,” said Willow. “Watch Tara for me, okay? I’ll be back by morning.”

He couldn’t stop her as she shut the door behind her.

Willow didn’t like lying to Giles. And that’s why she didn’t: not technically, at least. Sure, she left out a few things, like the reason she was looking to make some fragments in the first place, but she really was just going out to work. This would benefit them all in the end, she was sure of it.

“So, how do you figure we find this bloke?” Spike asked. “I’d say just look for the ugliest guy around, but unfortunately there’s a lot of that going around these days.”

“Says on the poster that he’s big into gambling," said Buffy, "So I say we try The Bronze.”

“Do you think they still have that blooming onion thing?”

The Markets were just as bustling tonight; it may as well have been Fifth Avenue. Willow sighed, her stomach rumbling as she could smell the various meats cooking in the open-air ruins of Sunnydale’s mall.

She made her way back up to Chag’s Scrap and Crap.

“You again?” said the thing. “You here to keep stealing my customers?”

“Here to make a deal,” said Willow. “I’ll work for you. You’ll pay me. Kinda how society used to work.”

“Why would I do that?”

Willow shrugged. “Less competition?”

“Could kill you,” said Chag. “Then there’d be less competition.”

“Yeah,” said Willow. “But this way you can fix twice as much tech and half of it will actually work.

“‘Scuse me,” said a scaly blue man who approached the stall with some cobbled-together radio. “Can you fix this?”

Chag snorted. He gave the thing to Willow. “She can.”

It seemed like everyone was staring at them as they walked into the Bronze. Buffy kept her head down.

“‘Scuse me,” came a booming voice. Buffy and Spike turned to see a demon holding out his hand.

“No way you need my ID,” said Buffy.

“5 frags,” said the demon-bouncer.

Spike scoffed, “There’s a cover ?” He forked over a handful of frags and the two of them continued inside.

Hard rock music was playing from somewhere, almost drowned out by the demonic chatter. There was a game of pool being played with eyeballs instead of balls, darts being thrown at a human chained to the wall. A game of poker progressed in the corner, kittens piled high in the center of a table.

“I don’t see him,” said Buffy.

“This is all pretty tame,” said Spike. Buffy raised an eyebrow, “Comparatively. I figure there’s a backroom where the real games are played.”

They both eyed a door with another bouncer in front of it, this one bigger and meaner-looking than the last.

Buffy said, “That’s the storeroom.”

“I think it stores more than Guinness, Slayer.”

“How do we do this?” said Buffy. “I got a feeling this guy wants more than a few frags to let us down there.”

“We fight him? 

“Could make a scene.”

“Could be fun,” Spike said.

She rolled her eyes and shot him a look. “Distraction?”

“Gotta be you, Slayer,” said Spike. “Got a feeling he doesn’t go for my type.”

“I didn’t say that kinda distraction,” said Buffy.

“Got a better idea?”

“Yeah,” said Buffy. “Put your demon face on and watch this.”

Buffy strode up to the bouncer, maximum swagger in her step. “Hey. You gonna let me down there or what?”

“Or what,” said the bouncer. “Invitation only.”

“I’m invited. Wanna see?”

She pulled her hand out of her pocket and then pushed him through the door and down the stairs.

“I thought fighting would cause a scene,” Spike said.

“Spotlight’s nice once in a while,” said Buffy. The other patrons of the bar stared at them for a moment, but then continued on with their goings-ons. “Come on. Let’s see what’s hiding down there.”

This work was meticulous and tedious and hot . Willow swiped some perspiration from her brow and noticed that her makeup was coming off with her sweat.

“Dammit,” she muttered, wrapping her scarf more tightly around her face both to keep up her disguise and to keep the solder, fumes, and particles from her lungs. The markets weren’t the healthiest place to spend loads of time if you were a human, and she knew that the otherworldly components of this kind of tech emitted dangerous radiation that she was now exposing herself to for hours at a time.

“Here,” she said, handing Chag some kind of palm-pilot-esque thing. “Fixed.”

“Nice job, Righty,” said Chag. He never bothered to ask her name, but if she ever forgot she was missing a hand, he certainly wouldn’t let her now.

“Sun’s up soon,” said Willow. “Give me my commission and I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“I thought I’d pay you weekly,” said Chag. “Like a salary.”

She glared at him, ready to fight. But before she could a violent, hacking cough overtook her. She was dizzy from fatigue and fumes and hunger, and all she wanted was to get out of this place.

“Fine,” she said. She gathered her tools and made her way back home.

The guard wasn’t quite unconscious as he started to rise from the bottom of the stairs, so Buffy stomped on his face.

No one seemed to notice, though, because they were too focused on something that Buffy and Spike couldn’t quite see. A small crowd surrounded something in the center of the room.

“Do you see him?” Buffy asked.

Cheers erupted—and some shouts of frustration. And the crowd parted and it was all Buffy could do not to gasp in shock. Because there was a scantily-clad Faith Lehane standing victorious over a dead man.

“ Faith?” said Buffy. “ Faith?”

“Oh hey, B!” Faith said. She pushed her way through the crowd and approached the other Slayer. “Figured I’d run into you eventually. Here to place a bet?”

“Faith, what the hell are you doing?” said Buffy.

“Earning a living,” Faith shrugged. “What else do you do in the apocalypse? I have a certain skillset. Maybe you should think about trying it too.”

“Dogfights but for humans? No thanks,” Buffy said.

“What are you doing here, then?”

Buffy held up the poster. “We’re looking for this guy.”

“So you’re a bounty-hunter then. Makes sense.”

“Do you know him?”

“Yeah,” said Faith. “He’s my handler. Well, I let him think he is anyway. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

Spike clicked his tongue in understanding. “I guess someone got wise to his gimmick, parading you as some little bird and hustling frags outta everyone when it turns out you can hold your own. I reckon usin’ a Slayer is cheating in these games.”

“It’s the apocalypse," said Faith. “What’s the point in playing fair?”

A big, tall red demon sauntered up to them, patting Faith on the back. “Good job, Faithy,” he said. “We’re earning big.”

“Phralix?” said Buffy.

“Who’s asking?” Phralix said.

In a flash, Buffy had Phralix against a wall, a knife at his throat.

“There’s a bounty on your head,” said Buffy. “And I have no problem killing demons for a buck.”

“Another Slayer?” said Phralix. “Why don’t you come work for me? We’ve got a good thing going, me and Faithy.”

“I’d rather choke on nails,” said Buffy.

The other demons were watching them, but no one seemed to care enough about this Phralix guy to intervene.

And a fight ensued. The guy punched Buffy in the gut, and she went flying back against the opposite wall. Spike stepped in to give Phralix a pounding of his own as Buffy recovered, but this guy was pretty strong. The duo kept getting knocked back one after the other until finally Buffy glared at Faith.

“A little help here, Faithy?”

Faith seemed to ponder this for a moment. Her life fighting for Phralix was pretty cushy, but dammit if she didn’t miss fighting demons instead of humans.

She picked up Buffy’s knife that had fallen to the ground.

“Hey Phralix,” Faith said as he whipped around in surprise. “Thanks for the frags. I’m done being your pet.” And she stabbed him right in the throat. He fell to her knees and bled purple out on the floor.

“So B,” said Faith. “Where do we pick up our reward?”

“We’re home,” Buffy called. “And we brought a surprise.”

Xander, Anya, Giles and Tara all gathered in the living room at her call. There was a moment’s stunned silence.

Xander spoke first. “Faith?”

And then Giles, “Faith?”

“I didn’t really know her, but I don’t want to be left out,” said Anya. “Faith?”

Tara said, “Not-Buffy.”

“Thanks for the warm welcome,” Faith said.

“I thought you were in jail,” said Xander.

Faith shrugged, “Jail kinda stopped being a thing when the government broke down. Demons raided the prison, tried taking us as gladiator-slaves. Some of us went willingly; better than trying to survive alone in this place.”

“But you changed your mind,” Buffy said.

“Saw what freedom looks like,” Faith said. “Looks good on you, I wanted to try it on for myself.”

“Are you evil?” said Xander. “Are you gonna betray us?”

“Like I said, surviving alone would suck balls,” said Faith. “I could use a team. If you’ll have me. What’s it they say? ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’? Well I think we all have a common enemy: the wasteland.”

Buffy blinked at her friends, “Where’s Willow?”

“She went to the markets,” Giles said.

“Alone?” Buffy panicked.

“I tried to stop her,” Giles sat down with some effort. “She insisted. She told me she was getting a job fixing para-tech.”

“Giles!” Buffy cried, “She could get hurt, or they could find out about her powers, or—”

“Hey guys.”

Buffy almost crumpled in relief when Willow trudged through the door and flopped face-first onto the couch.

“Will!” she said. “Are you okay?”

Willow groaned, lifting her head, “Nothing like a night of soul-crushing labor to beat you into the ground.” Buffy stared at her, "Figuratively, Buff. I’m fine.” She looked behind Buffy, dumbfounded. “Is that Faith?”

“It’s a long story,” said Buffy. “We can trust her. Probably.”

“Whatever,” Willow shrugged. She dropped her soot-covered face back on the couch.

“Hey!” said Anya. “Go clean up. We don’t exactly have dry-cleaners for the linens anymore.”

Willow rolled her eyes and staggered to her feet. She stopped on her way upstairs to glare at Giles. “Told you I’d be fine,” she said.

Tara was unusually quiet, and followed Willow up the stairs like a puppy-dog.

“What happened to Willow’s girl?” Faith whispered.

“Hell-goddess,” said Buffy. “That happened even before the Apocalypse.”

Willow carefully poured some water onto a rag. The bottled water was for drinking, but Willow’d invented a kind of purification system for the rain and river water they’d collected, which they used for cleaning. Still, it needed to be conserved.

Before she wiped her face, she looked in the cracked, dirty mirror. She was covered in soot, her disguise-makeup oozing down her face. Her hair and clothes were completely soaked in sweat. It was a good thing they all got used to feeling gross a few weeks after the showers went out.

She wiped her face with the rag, and then poured some water and soap on her hair. God, she missed shampoo.

“Willow-tree,” Tara whined from the bathroom doorway.

“Hi baby,” said Willow.

“I missed you.”

Willow left the bathroom and took Tara to the bed. She sat her on its edge and hugged her. “I know, baby. I’m sorry I have to go away at night. It will just be for a few months, I promise. I’m doing it to help you, Tara.”

“It’s wrong,” Tara said. And Willow froze. “You know it is.”

It seemed so much like Tara understood what Willow was doing and what she was saying. But she couldn’t. Right? “Tara—”

“There’s blue in the floor,” Tara cried, and Willow sighed with a kind of guilty relief. Tara wouldn’t approve of what she was doing, she was sure of it. Would she forgive her once her mind had returned?

Chapter Text

“Faith, this isn’t a spectator sport, y’know!” Buffy cried, a blade inches from her neck.

“Yeah yeah,” Faith said. She grabbed the demon by the shoulders and swung him around into Spike’s fist. “She shoots,” Faith said.

“He scores,” said Spike.

“And he’s sore,” Buffy readied a stake to finish off the demon.

“Please let me go,” said the demon. “I… I promise I’ll be good. I haven’t killed a human in a year!”

Buffy hesitated. What exactly had this demon done to her, after all?

Faith rolled her yes, though. She grabbed the demon’s sword, sliced his head off, and kicked it into her hands like a soccer ball.

Buffy looked at her, a little regretful.

“We’re bounty-hunters now, B,” Faith said. “Not superheroes. No head, no cash.”

Willow pulled her scarf over her mouth to keep the solder out of her lungs as she worked on some gadget. She vaguely registered the man walking up to the counter and watching her. He stayed there for several minutes, as though entranced by her work—or by her.

“Your arm,” said the man, and Willow flinched in surprise when he spoke. “I’ve never seen tech controlled so precisely.” He raised an eyebrow, “Unless of course, you’re controlling it with magick.”

Willow gritted her teeth and glanced at him. He wore a mask over his face, and she wondered if he might be human under there.

“Of course,” he continued, “It would take someone with quite a bit of power to have such command over an appendage like that. Might even take a witch.”

“Hey!” came Chag’s booming voice. “You buyin’ something or what? Keep starin’ if you want, but I’m gonna charge ya.”

The man nodded slowly. He took one last look at Willow and then disappeared into the crowd of shoppers.

When Willow arrived back at the house, she went straight for the kitchen to find something to eat. There wasn’t much.

“Uh, Will,” said Buffy as she cut the mold off a slice of bread. “I know society is a little past superficiality, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, but are you aware you look like a walking corpse?”

Willow blinked sleep from her eyes. “Hm? Oh… It’s work.”

“Which you do all night long, and then you spend all day tinkering and taking care of Tara. I need you sharp.”

“I need to work, Buff,” said Willow. “And I enjoy it.”

“It’s making you sick and you know it. And no offense, you’re not bringing in as much dough as I’d expected. Besides, me and Faith and Spike are making bank with the bounties. You don’t need to keep doing this.”

Willow was only contributing two thirds of her earnings to the house fund. The rest she was saving for her plan, but Buffy didn’t need to know that.

“I just need…—” Willow coughed. “Just a few more shifts. Then I’ll quit.”

Tara didn’t like being around Willow so much lately. Willow told herself it was because she smelled like grease and kept coughing. She didn’t want to think it was because Tara didn’t approve of her plan. There was no way she could understand what Willow was doing. Right?

Anyway, Willow went to the bathroom to clean up and then reached into the back of her dresser and pulled out her secret stash: a shoebox filled with the frags she’d stowed away over the last few months. She pulled a coin purse off her belt and added those to the collection. Tara watched her quietly from the bed.

Willow counted her money and grinned. In just three months she was now, by all accounts, swimming in it, and she was ready to go shopping for ingredients. She had already scouted most of them throughout the markets, and acquired the easy things like Eye of Newt and Chickens' Feet and Faerie Dust quite easily. Still she had yet to find the most important (and, likely, most expensive) piece of the spell.

And so, the next night, when everyone else thought she was going to work, her search took her into the Backway, the blackest part of the black markets deep underneath what used to be the mall’s parking lot.

“Grakk tail!” called a shopkeeper, and Willow’s mouth watered as she smelled barbecued something, aromatic smoke billowing from his cart . “Grakk tail! Two frags!”

Willow tried to swallow her drool, to swallow her hunger. But her empty stomach growled. She quickly pulled out her pouch of fragments and thought for a moment. Biting her lip, she approached the booth.

“Here,” she said, handing him the pieces. “I’ll take one.”

“Sauce?”

She nodded fervently.

“Type A or O Positive?” he asked. Willow’s eyes widened in disgust. “Or BBQ.”

“BBQ, please,” said Willow.

He handed her the stick and she took a huge bite, her eyes rolling back in her head with pleasure. She would never get used to eating demon meat, but right now this was like the greatest thing she’d ever had. She was pretty sure this was kind of what BBQ ribs had tasted like. Idly, she considered that she was keeping better Kosher now that most of the pigs were dead than she did before the Apocalypse. “Do Grakk Demons have cloven hooves?” she wondered aloud.

“Talons, actually,” beckoned another demon shopkeeper as Willow happened by. He eyed her. “Human, right?”

She narrowed her eyes, “Who’s asking?”

“I got nada against no humanas. I’m just saying, a demon’d know what a Grakk Demon looks like, so you’re human.”

Willow pulled up her sleeve and made a fist with her metal hand, hoping he’d be threatened by her skills if not her strength. “Only mostly.”

“You’re looking for something powerful,” said the demon.

“How’d you know?” said Willow.

“Human doesn’t come down to this part of the markets if she’s not,” the demon said. “Now what do you need?”

Willow reached into her cloak and pulled out a crumpled up page from the spellbook.

“Oh,” the demon said, taking the page and studying it. “Yeah, I got one of those.” He disappeared behind the counter and came back up with an ornate box. He opened it up and showed it to her. Indeed, there was the brilliant red amulet that the spell called for. She could feel its power and knew it was real just by looking at it.

“How much?” said Willow quickly.

“Seven hundred. Not a frag less.”

“Seven hundred? I don’t have that kinda money. No one does.”

“This piece is rare. Only a few in the world. Seven hundred, Roja.”

Her eyes widened. She was in disguise—why would he call her “Red” unless…? She realized a lock of hair was sticking out of her hood and she quickly tucked it away. “I have artifacts,” said Willow. She poured her satchel onto his counter. “Trade?”

He inspected her merchandise and then scoffed. “No deal, Chica. If you want this piece, you’re gonna need to give me something with real power.”

Willow gritted her teeth. “Like what?”

“You tell me,” said the demon. “Looks like you at least sort of know what you’re talking about.”

“This is all I have. This and three hundred frags.”

“Not enough,” said the shopkeeper. “Sorry, Roja.”

“What about blood?”

He laughed, “You gotta be kidding me.”

“ Witch’s blood.”

He stopped laughing and grinned, “Well now you’re talking.”

“You’ll trade me that thing for some Witch’s Blood?”

“Three hundred frags, the rest of your trinkets, and a vial of blood and you got yourself a deal. But I want the good stuff. Anyone can cast a few spells but I want real witch’s blood, with real power. And don’t try to jip me, I can taste it.”

Willow gritted her teeth. She could always come back, she supposed… But nothing mattered more right now than Tara—not her money, not her disguise, and certainly not her reputation. She looked up at the moon: she needed to do it tonight, or wait till next month. She was sick of hiding, anyway, so she grabbed a glass vial off the counter and pulled her knife from her belt. She quickly swiped the blade across her flesh palm and let herself bleed into the vial.

The shopkeeper stared at Willow as she cut off the bottom of her cloak and used the fabric to wrap her still-bleeding hand. She handed him the vial.

“The amulet, please,” Willow said.

The demon’s gaze was a little bit shocked and a little bit fearful. He stuck a claw into the vial, tasted it, and then he smirked. “Well this changes things, Roja. I figured you’d just stumbled across the body of some poor apprentice and bled her dry. But from what I understand… There’s more where this came from.” He grabbed her arm with ghastly claws. “I could make a lot more selling you , Chica Bruja.”

Fast as lightning, Willow took his arm in a crushing grip, her fingers glowing magic-red, a sickening crack sounding loud enough for the other market-goers to turn and watch.

“I was making you a deal to be nice ,” Willow seethed, eyes no longer green but black like nighttime instead. “To be civil. But I forgot, civil doesn’t get you very far these days, does it? I’m taking my blood and my artifacts. And I’m taking the amulet. You can keep the frags. Go buy yourself a new hand.”

She let him go and flicked her fingers, sending him telekinetically against the stone wall, a magical wind blowing down her hood as she collected her things—and the amulet.

“B-big mistake, Roja,” the shopkeeper stuttered. “Word travels fast down here. You’ll never find peace again once the whole underworld knows you’re a witch!”

Eyes widened around her, some patrons stepping back, some moving in to get a closer look, some grinning, eyeing her like meat, as she stalked away and pretended not to notice them. 

It was the middle of the night when Willow got back, and everyone was asleep in the house. Even Tara, who usually stayed up to wait for Willow. 

Willow creeped into their room, grabbed her other ingredients from the dresser, and then kissed Tara gently on the head. “I’ll see you soon, baby-girl," Willow said, but she didn’t see Tara open her eyes as she shut the door behind her.

Willow snuck out into the backyard, all her supplies prepped and ready. She formed a circle with blessed tree bark and then peppered it with faerie dust. Okay, maybe the circle was a little oblong. God, why were her hands so shaky? She wasn’t nervous; couldn’t be. She knew she was doing the right thing, after all.

She sat herself just outside of the circle. She put on the amulet and then poured a concoction into the grass.

“O deities of the accursed underworld…”

“Ugh,” Spike moaned. How could Tara be crying so loudly that he could hear her from the basement? He tried to cover his ears, but it was no use. “Chrissakes.”

Spike stomped up the stairs and called, “Will! Shut your bird up, will ya?”

But there was no response, and Tara kept on screaming.

He marched up to the second floor to find Tara alone in their bedroom, crying in the dark. He wanted to be annoyed but he melted a little. “Oh, don’t cry, Kitten.”

Buffy rushed in behind him, rubbing her eyes. “What's going on? Where’s—”

“Willow!” Tara cried. The window was forced open by a supernatural breeze from outside, and Tara dove for it. Spike had to hold her back before she could leap out of it. He and Buffy could see Willow in the yard, something magical clearly afoot.

The chaos awoke the rest of the house, but it was Spike and Buffy who made it out the door first.

“Willow!” Buffy cried over the whooshing of magick that whipped her hair. “What the hell are you doing?”

But Willow didn’t answer. She was obviously lost in the spell as she chanted away in languages they didn’t understand.

“Bad magick,” Tara whimpered, cowering behind Buffy, and Spike took that at face value. He leaped forward, and just as the spell reached its climax, he used his foot to sever the circle Willow’d drawn.

Willow shot him the dirtiest of looks, her eyes pitch-black. But then she seemed to lose steam, her strength fading away with the magick. “No…” she muttered, but she definitely meant for it to be a shout. “Why would you…—?”

“Willow!” Buffy seethed as she caught the witch by the shoulders and shook her violently. “What the hell did you do?”

“I’m sorry, Buffy…” Willow mumbled, and her eyes looked sleepy but still fierce and resolute. “I had to. It’s okay… It’ll be okay. I had to. For Tara…”

Buffy shook her harder and Willow looked like she might barf from the jostling. “What. Did. You. Do?”

“She has her mind,” Willow muttered. “It was the only way to get it back…”

“Who, Willow? What are you talking about?”

“Glory…” Willow breathed, fading fast. “I… I summoned Glory.”

Chapter Text

Buffy looked about ready to strangle Willow, but she didn’t get the chance because the witch fainted in her arms. Still, Buffy couldn’t keep from squeezing her shoulders hard enough to bruise them, digging her nails so deeply into the witch’s forearms that she might have drawn blood.

She threw Willow to the ground, eyes teary and angry as she whipped around to see the rest of the household gathered in the yard.

“Calm down, Slayer,” said Spike as he watched the girl seethe with rage. “I don’t see any skanky bimbo goddesses here, so odds are the whole thing failed.”

“Well, not exactly,” said Anya, stepping forward. “You broke the summoning circle.” She said it like her meaning should have been obvious, but Spike and Buffy’s blank stares told her otherwise. “I mean, the spell may have succeeded: the circle is meant to contain the summoned entity. If it’s broken, Glory—well, whatever Willow summoned—could have appeared anywhere.”

“It’s impossible,” Giles muttered. “Glory is dead.”

“What?” Buffy demanded. “How could you know? I mean, I just… assumed she went back to her homeworld like she planned…”

Giles gazed at her, his pale eyes remorseful but certain.

“You killed her?” Buffy whispered. “No…” And realization struck: “You— You killed Ben.”

“I did what needed to be done,” said Giles. “I thought it could save… Well, I thought I could save Dawn. And the world.”

“So, Willow tried to summon something that doesn’t even exist anymore?” said Xander. “Would have been nice for her to know before she went through the trouble, but that means we’re in the clear. Right?”

“I suppose,” said Giles. “Although, it might stand to reason that the forces that made up Glorificus are out there somewhere, in some other form. Willow may have summoned a different entity, but there is no reason to assume it will be a threat or that the spell succeeded at all. A ritual like this is meant to draw on the powers of a dozen magick-users. Willow alone… It’s a miracle she isn’t dead.”

“A miracle,” Buffy scoffed.

“Buff,” said Xander softly, “She was trying to help Tara.”

They watched Tara wander up to Willow and kneel next to her. She played with Willow’s hair and ran her fingers over her eyes and lips, whining pitifully.

Buffy closed her eyes and took a really deep breath. “She’s gonna be okay, right Giles?”

Giles shrugged. “I’m sure she’ll be fine after some rest. And a proper scolding.”

“This amulet,” said Anya, kneeling beside Willow as well. “This must have cost a fortune.”

“So Red’s been stealing too,” said Faith. “Gotta say, kinda cool being the good guy these days. Comparatively.”

Each detail seemed to make Giles’ blood boil hotter, so he kept the lid on and gritted his teeth. “Spike,” he started, gesturing at Willow.

“Yeah, I got her.” Spike lifted Willow into his arms and away from Tara, to the latter’s dismay. “Just taking Red to get a good rest, Pussycat,” Spike said. “Don’t get your yarn in a knot.”

Xander yawned. “Well I’m going back to bed. All in favor say ‘aye’.”

No one did, but everyone followed him inside and slinked back to their beds, Spike carrying Willow and Xander coaxing Tara. Everyone, that is, except for Buffy, who stared at the book Willow’d left on the ground, and Giles, who watched his Slayer carefully.

“She tried to summon Glory,” Buffy said, a rage-colored mutter.

“She was doing what she thought was right,” said Giles. “Glory may have destroyed the world, but to Willow Tara is the world.”

“Glory didn’t just destroy the world,” Buffy said, tears starting to fall. Giles embraced her, and Buffy squeezed him tight. “She didn’t just open a portal to Hell that destroyed humanity as we know it and sent us back into the dark ages. She didn’t just start an apocalypse," she sobbed. "She killed my sister!”

"Stop!” Willow cried as consciousness crashed back into her, a migraine hitting her like an anvil as she bolted upright. “Ow…” She plopped back down on the couch and buried her face in a cushion.

“Oh, finally,” came Spike’s voice. “Been waiting to go to sleep, but had to make sure you didn’t put yourself into a coma first.”

“What happened?” Willow mumbled.

“See, why do I have a feeling that this amnesia act is just another one of your bluffs?”

Willow was pretty genuinely confused, but it was slowly starting to come back to her. “I don’t… Tara?”

“Upstairs sleeping,” said Spike. “Didn’t seem too keen on being around you for once. Once again, your dark arts have done a beauty of a job of pissing everyone off.”

Willow shot up again, gritting her teeth against her aching everything, grabbing him by the wrists as the puzzle in her memory worked itself out. “Spike!” She growled. “You— You ruined it! Why would you—?”

“Ruined what?” said Spike, ripping his hands from her. “Your little plot to bring back the monster that got us all into this mess? What the hell were you thinking? Or were you?”

“I can try again,” Willow muttered, frantic. She grabbed at her chest and held her necklace. “I still have the amulet, I can try again…”

“No. You can’t,” said Spike. “Glory is dead. Do you understand me, Willow? She’s dead!”

Willow froze, and her eyes went all wide. “What?”

“The Watcher killed her. Well, he killed that doctor-boy which did the trick. Told us while you were out cold.”

“No…” Willow squeaked. “He… No, that can’t be true.”

“It is, Red.”

“No!” Willow cried. “Don’t you get it, Spike? Giles didn’t just kill Glory, or Ben. Glory had Tara’s mind. And if Glory’s dead… He killed Tara!”

Spike softened. “Tara’s not dead, Will. She’s… lucky she’s got someone committed as you to take care of her.”

“I just… want her to be happy,” Willow sniffled.

Spike sighed. “Are any of us, really?”

Willow took a very deep breath, and her face hardened. “I…I guess you’re right.”

“Okay, B,” said Faith. “Don’t you think you’ve killed the guy enough? I don’t think they pay extra just ‘cause you made it hurt.”

Another day, another bounty-hunt, and this time Buffy scowled at the bloody pulp she’d been punching. “Yeah, I guess he’s dead.”

“Yeah, for the last twenty minutes,” said Spike. “Slayer, you need therapy.”

“Too bad all the therapists got eaten.” Buffy raised an eyebrow, “Say, how many bounties do we need to get on the post-apocalypse healthcare plan? You think they include mental health services?”

“I think civilization’s gonna have to develop a little more before health insurance is a thing, B,” said Faith.

Buffy shrugged, “I wouldn’t really call insurance companies ‘civil’, would you?”

“Back to the matter at hand,” said Faith, “Yours are covered in that guy’s blood and I know you didn’t need to go that hard.”

“In a bad mood. So what?” said Buffy.

“I know you’re mad at Red,” said Spike. “But can you blame her for being a little out of her head? She was trying to help her girl. I’d do the same—” He blinked. “If I had a girl, I mean.”

“I’m not mad at her for trying to help Tara,” said Buffy. “I’m mad at her for lying to me. For keeping it a secret.”

“If she told you she was gonna summon the Hell-Bitch back here,” said Spike, “Would you have even thought about saying yes?”

Buffy sighed. “Well, no. Anyway, it was selfish and stupid. What if it had worked? She could have gotten us all killed and started—”

“—Another apocalypse?” said Faith. “Bleach’s right, B. Alright, Will tried to do something a little dumb, but it didn’t work. So all’s said and done and no harm, no foul.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Buffy said. “Maybe this was the kinda shock Will needed to… to accept Tara’s situation. To move on.”

“Dawn’s gone,” Spike said softly. “You moved on because you had to. But Tara is there to remind Willow of what she lost every single day, Buffy.”

Over the next few days, Buffy’s anger waned and so did Willow’s exhaustion. But something else had taken hold of the witch: a haunting apathy; a dead-and-buried look in her eyes that seemed to point, vacant, far past the people in front of her.

And tonight she sat awake, watching Tara sleep. Willow had done that every night since the failed spell, the magick burning in her veins keeping her wired and alert, but doing nothing for her all-consuming depression.

I just want her to be happy, Willow thought over and over and over and over again. Are any of us really? 

Over and over and over again.

She tapped Tara gently on the shoulder.

“Willow-tree?” Tara yawned.

“Come with me, baby-girl,” Willow said, voice soft but flat, eyes loving but far away. “I have something to show you.”

Tara stood, a little wary, apparently. She had been ever since the spell. But still she let Willow take her hand and guide her through the house and into the garage.

Tara whimpered, tugging on Willow’s sleeve, “Sleep.”

“Soon, baby,” Willow said. Her flesh hand was shaking uncontrollably, and her metal one moved with inhuman precision as she opened the large wooden cabinet.

She stared into the closet for a long time. At the rifles that hung on the wall, at the swords strapped to the doors and the explosives lining the shelves. With her shaking flesh hand she reached for a box of bullets, counted them, and decided that they could indeed spare two.

And then she reached into one of the drawers and pulled out her pistol. It was seldom-used, but Willow had had plenty of unsolicited target-practice at the start of the apocalypse.

She tried to load it, the gun in her steady, unfeeling metal grip and the bullets in her trembling human one, but she quickly lost her flimsy hold and the bullets clattered to the floor. “Fuck!” Willow cursed, which she did so much more these days. She dropped to her knees and tried to collect the fallen ammunition.

Tara came over, as if to help, but Willow blocked her with her metal forearm: “Stay over there!” she spat.

It took her a moment, as she recovered the two bullets and finally got them into the gun, to realize that she’d just snapped at the love of her life, and that Tara was looking at her with terrible fear.

“I didn’t mean that. I love you, baby. Everything I do is ‘cause I love you. You know that, right, baby?” She cocked the gun and slowly raised it towards Tara. “I love you, baby,” Willow said, tears shimmering behind her vacant, loving eyes. “And I’ll see you real soon. Okay?”

She stayed there for either a millisecond or an hour. Her flesh hand was still shaking vigorously as she tried to steady it with her robotic one. She felt like she was gonna barf or pass out.

And for the first time, and only for a moment, as she looked into Willow’s bloodshot gaze, Tara could understand one thing: she wasn’t the only one who had lost her mind in this apocalypse.

Willow moved her finger towards the trigger, looked into Tara’s wide doe-eyes, and took a deep breath—

Bang!

Willow gasped and dropped the gun. Had she fired? Her hand was shaking so much she couldn’t tell. Was there blood? Tara was crying. Wait, Tara was crying! Alive. Willow knelt next to her and hugged her, almost gasping for air. There was no blood. Tara wasn’t shot. She was just crying because of the noise. The gun hadn’t fired. Thank god the gun hadn’t fired. Thank god thank god thank—

Then whose gun did fire?

“Come on out, Slayer!” cried a voice from outside. Another gunshot and Tara screamed.

Willow didn’t have time to wallow in her guilt or to be shocked at what she’d almost done. She grabbed her gun, hand still shaking wildly, and ran from the garage, Tara behind her.

She entered the backyard to see Buffy, Spike, and Faith already outside, the rest of the house slowly joining them, a group of three gun-wielding demons at the treeline.

“Alright, what do you want?” Buffy said. “It’s late and I’m trying to sleep.”

“Maybe you don’t wanna come after two Slayers in their own home, huh?” said Faith. “Sounds like a suicide mission.”

“You make it sound like this was our idea,” said one of the demons. “We’ve got a boss. And she’s stronger than any demon or Slayer you’ve ever met.”

The demons each stepped to the side to reveal a large quadrupedal hellbeast. It took Buffy’s eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, but then she realized that there was someone atop the demon, riding it like a horse. A lanky young woman in tight leather and with bright red lips.

Willow recognized her first—she could sense her own magicks lingering in the air. She could already feel her stomach turning and nausea sweeping over her. She opened her mouth to speak—

“G-green energy…” Tara stuttered, eyes wide and tears now dry.

For a second Buffy assumed it was just more nonsensical babble, but then she whipped her head back around to the newcomer and felt her breath catch. “Dawnie?”

Willow finally found her voice. “Dawnie.”

“Oh my god,” they heard Xander mutter from closer to the house.

Dawn dismounted her “steed” and stalked towards the group in high-heeled combat boots.

“It’s Dusk now, actually,” said Dawn. “At least, that’s what they called me in Hell.”

“In… Hell?” said Buffy.

“Yeah, sis, in Hell,” Dawn seethed. “Where you left me. Where you all left me!”

“Dawn–” Buffy said, and Dawn punched a tree so hard it fell over.

“I was talking,” said Dawn. 

Willow couldn’t take it anymore. She stumbled over to a flowerbed and fell to her knees, vomiting into the dirt. She was sickened by what she’d almost done in the garage—and now this?

“You don’t look so good, Will,” said Dawn. She lunged forward, faster than even Buffy could catch her, and grabbed Willow by the back of the shirt, pulling her back and away from the dirt. “I can taste your guilt. Is it all catching up to you? What you did to me?”

“She didn’t do anything, Dawn,” said Buffy.

“You got that right,” Dawn said. “She left me there! She had the power to bring me back here and she sat around doing nothing!”

“Dawn. Leave her alone.” Buffy didn’t want to approach Dawn, and motioned for the others to stay back as well, afraid of what her sister would do lest they attack her.

“You left me there,” Dawn spat at Willow. “Was it worth it, Will?”

Willow just stared at her, pale and dazed.

“Green energy,” Tara cried, reaching out towards Dawn. “Golden energy…”

“Golden energy?” Willow squinted her bleary eyes and realized she could see it too, a familiar aura of magicks and power surrounding her. “G-Glory?” she rasped.

“What’s left of her,” Dawn said. “Guess all that power had to go somewhere, huh?”

“I don’t understand,” Buffy said.

“Willow tried to bring Glory back,” said Anya, who was standing near the house with the rest of the gang. “Glory’s dead. And her power…”

“Energy can’t be created or destroyed,” Willow mumbled. “When she died… It went back to her home dimension and into—”

“Dawn’s a god,” Giles finished.

Dawn still held Willow, and started squeezing her throat. “So it was you, wasn’t it? You could have done it all along. And now you finally brought me back… by accident!”

“Black and blue and red all over,” Tara babbled. Then she cried, “Stop!”

Dawn loosened her grip, letting Willow fall, gasping, to her knees.

“Tara…” Dawn said, turning to the other witch. “You were the best of all of them. You were the only one who knew right from wrong, really. No wonder they lost their ways without you…” She put a hand on her face. “They kept you like this? All this time?” She slowly wrapped her fingers around Tara’s neck. “I would have put you out of your misery”

Willow summoned all her strength, and suddenly she had her flesh hand clutching Tara’s hair and her robotic one clawing at Dawn’s scalp.

She said a word in some dead language, and suddenly the two women were each flung across the yard. Willow fell back to her knees, retching in the grass but nothing coming up this time.

“What did you—?” Dawn started. Suddenly, a gun went off—one of her goons, no doubt—and Dawn took the distraction to hop weakly up on her creature. “Whatever Will did, it’s not gonna stop me.”

Tara had crawled over to Willow, rubbing her back, trying to get her to stop gagging. She glared up at Dawn. “Get out of here.”

It took everyone a moment to recognize that Tara had just uttered a coherent sentence.

“Alright,” said Dawn. She looked at Buffy, “I’ll go. For now. But I’ll be back, sis.” She turned around on her creature. “Oh, and Tara? Glad you’re back.”

“You’re just gonna let her go?” Xander gaped at the Slayer as Dawn and her crew stalked off. “Buffy!”

Buffy stared at the retreating figures, in some kind of shock.

“She’s a god, Xander,” said Giles. “There’s nothing we can do.”

Buffy blinked and turned. “Willow and Tara. Are they—?”

“I think she’s m-mostly in shock,” said Tara, rubbing the tender purple finger marks on Willow’s neck.

"That spell..." Willow grunted.

Buffy barely even looked at Willow. “Tara?”

Tara nodded. Wary, though, like she was unsure if her sanity was only fleeting and would leave her again if she moved too much.

“Tara!” Buffy cried, and she and the others ran to give her a hug. Tara flinched, though. “S-sorry. Uh… I need a bit, I th-think…”

Buffy finally gazed down at Willow, who still looked totally out of it. More out of it than just the visit from Dawn should have left her, no matter how shocking it was. Still, she’d stopped gagging and now stared at Tara like if she blinked she’d disappear.

Willow looked down and realized her hand was resting on her gun which she'd dropped in the grass. She looked at it in horror and swiped it away.

“Willow,” Tara cooed. “Willow, it’s okay. We’re okay. You’re okay. I’m okay. Okay?”

"T-Tara...?" Willow whispered.

“I was..." Tara started, "I w-was so lost…”

“I… I found you…”

Willow was panting and shaking as the adrenaline left her, and she reached for Tara as if for dear life, but Tara jolted away, almost instinctively. Confusion and then guilt crossed Willow’s face as she lost her balance, collapsing where Tara would have been and Buffy catching her instead.

Willow gazed deliriously up at Buffy. “I found you…”

“Willow needs to rest,” Giles announced. “She had not fully recovered from the spell to summon—” He cleared his throat. “From her previous spell. Tara, you should rest too. And the rest of us, while we're at it. We can discuss what’s happened in the morning.”