Title: An Old Watcher and An Old Wicca
Author: Shawna
e-mail: smkraus1@juno.com
Couple: W/G friendship
Summery: Willow grieves for a dead friend
Rating: 12
Distribution: Want. Take. Have. Just let me know you're taking it.
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to the great Joss Whedon and anyone else who say it's theirs. None of the characters belong to me.
Feedback: A quick question...Do you know how to hit the reply button? :-)
Note: A huge thank you to the wonderful Nikki, for being an awesome friend and beta reading this...And another huge thank you to Della, who is also a dear and awesome friend, she willingly shared her thoughts with me when I asked...Thanks...
Willow was crying...Sobbing...Her tears fell like rain. Sobs rocked her delicate body as she collapsed onto the fresh pile of dirt.
She glanced up at the cold hard gray tombstone...Staring at the name...
The Slayer was dead. She had been more then a Slayer, she had been a friend...A valued, deeply loved friend.
A thought of using magic once more crossed her mind. Willow could use magic to bring her friend back. For years ago, she had used magic to bring back Buffy...She could tap into that powerful dark magic once more...She knew she could...It would be easy...So easy...Too easy...
Willow took some deep breaths. Trying to control her tears. She wiped her cheeks impatiently. Smearing the fresh dirt from her hands, onto her pale face.
No. She wouldn't use magic. No matter how tempted she was. Not this time. Plus, the Slayer deserved some rest. Some peace.
Willow heard a soft voice behind her, whisper her name.
She didn't look up at him. She stared intensely at the Slayer's grave.
"Willow.."
Giles knelt down and placed his hand upon her back, to try to comfort her. He wasn't sure what to say at times like these. Saying, 'sorry'...That wasn't enough of a word to express what he was feeling. So he decided to go with...
"It's going to be alright."
Willow looked up at the Watcher. Doubt written across her face. Her green eyes spoke her heartache and despair...
"Is it?" She whispered in a husky voice, thick with emotion. "Is it, Giles? Will anything be alright ever again?"
"I...I hope so at any rate."
"She's gone, Giles...She's gone...The Slayer is dead....She's dead..."Willow was close to sobbing once more.
Giles closed his eyes against the pain of his emotions, as well as her pain that was radiating off of her...A sudden thought occurred to him...
"You're not thinking of using magic again, are you?"
"I...I did think about it. But only for a minute."
"And?"
Willow shook her head. "No." She paused, turning her head side ways to look once more at the tombstone. "I can't, Giles....I just can't. She deserves some peace. She deserves some rest. She was one hell of a Slayer and she deserves some form of happiness. She deserves heaven. At one time I was selfish and proud...But...Now..." She broke off as another sob rocked her body...
Giles placed his arms around her. Holding her. Comforting her...
Willow continued to talk...Needing to talk...Wanting him to understand....
"I tried so hard, to keep her alive! I really tried, Giles! I did! Oh, goddess! I wasn't ready for her to die, yet! Not yet, damn it! I don't want her to be dead!"
"But she is, Willow...I'm sorry, but she is..." Giles said softly, as he remembered his own Slayer's death...Her final death...A tear rolled down his cheek and an uncontrollable sob escaped his throat...
Willow looked up at him, returning his tight hug, she said softly..."Is this how you felt?"
"With how many times Buffy died on me? Yes..."
"It hurts, Giles, it hurts so much!"
"Yes, it does, but you're strong. You've proven that again and again! It'll hurt for a long time and the hurt may not ever go away, but remember, you helped keep the Slayer alive all these years and that is a great achievement."
Willow placed her head upon his shoulder and closed her eyes...She breathed in Giles' familiar scent. The face of the Slayer filled her mind...Her Slayer's lovely young face...
Mary....Mary the Vampire Slayer...Her Slayer....She had died not saving the world, like many Slayer's before her...She had died to save her Watcher from a violent death....Mary had died so that she, Willow Rosenburg could live! Because they had been more then Watcher and Slayer, they had been best friends...
***FLASHBACK***
"NO!!!" Mary shouted with rage, she came to a sudden stop as she realized that the ugly green demon had her Watcher by the throat...Willow looked at Mary...Her green eyes meeting her Slayer's brown eyes...The Watcher and the demon were both close to the cliff's edge. He lifted Willow and let her dangle over the precipice. Knowing the demon was about to let her drop, Willow looked down. It was a long fall. A fall that she would not survive. The jagged rocks below played no part in Willow's fate, they existed to mark the age of the Earth not to slay it's creatures, but if one should fall...
Willow looked back at her Slayer...With love and acceptance of her own death in her eyes and whispered..."Mary, love ya..." Willow closed her eyes...
"Love ya, too, Watcher..." Mary whispered back...
The demon laughed and looked at the Slayer...He slowly loosened his grip on the Watcher...Suddenly, with awesome speed Mary was there, grabbing Willow...The demon caught hold of the Slayer...Mary shoved Willow away from the edge...Because of that push, Mary lost her balance...Taking the demon, with her off the edge...
"NOOO!!!" Willow shouted....She looked over the edge..."MARY!!! MARY!!!!"
She received no answer from the broken lifeless body below.....
***
"Tell me, was I a good Watcher, Giles? Tell me, that I was a good Watcher...Please..."
Giles caressed her shoulder length hair..."You are one hell of a Watcher, Willow. One of the Best! I and the Council knows this to be the truth."
"I could have been better! My Slayer would still be alive, if I had been a better Watcher...If only I had been a better Watcher, she'd be alive...She'd be alive, Rupert, I know she would...Oh, God, Giles! I should be the one that's dead! She died saving me! ME! This should be *MY* grave! MINE!! Not hers! But mine!"
Giles closed his eyes once more in heartache...He could remember all the times that he had thought exactly the same thing..."That's not true, Willow..No matter how many times I have thought that, myself...If I had been a better Watcher to Buffy...If I hadn't left her alone...She died saving her friends...Her Watcher....Buffy died for me, even when I let her down..Your Slayer died...Saving you also, true...But you are a great Watcher...Being any better wouldn't have kept her alive longer..If you had died, who's to say she would have lived longer?"
Willow opened her eyes to see her Slayer's tombstone...
"I guess we'll never know, will we?" She said softly.
"You had her since she was called at fifteen. She lived to be twenty-six. Never dying once. You never had to use magic to keep her alive. Not many Watcher's can say that."
Willow nodded. She felt the stake that was in her back pocket. Her Slayer's favorite Mr. Pointy.
The two Watchers became silent as they held each other tightly.
For years Willow had been a Watcher...Watching her Slayer. Watching with pride. With love as she trained her. Cared about her. Loving her as if she had been her own daughter. Watching her slay, night after night. Watching the young Slayer grow...Mature into a beautiful young woman...The Watcher had done more then watch at times, she had even fought beside her...For her...With her...And now...Now the red-haired Watcher was watching her Slayer's grave...
It shouldn't be this way. Willow thought still hugging Giles back. It shouldn't be this way at all..But sadly it was.
She would never know that Giles was thinking the exact same thing...About his own Slayer...Buffy had been dead for many, many years...
It should never have happened this way, but for a Watcher...Death is always certain to take their Slayer. For that is just the way things are and the way things would always be. To one day, watch their own Slayer's grave. Always hard. Yet, there would always be someone around who would understand what a Watcher was going through at the loss of their Slayer, if one looks hard enough...Giles thought to himself...He then thought about his Slayer...Her grave...
Giles unashamed, cried with fellow Watcher, Willow Rosenburg...
For she understood...Now, she understood his pain...His sorrow...As he understood hers.
Together they would watch their Slayer's graves, never to touch their Watcher Journal, again...
Hopefully, one day, they would find a way to deal with each other's pain...
One day....But for now, they would weep...Together....Always together....For what else could two Slayerless Watchers do...
(end of 1 of 1)
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