Rising from the Wreckage

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Summary: Willow makes it to LA and finds help from an unexpected source.

Willow got off the bus at the LA station. She was weary; her fatigue went bone deep. "Deeper than that," she thought. "Maybe soul deep." She wondered if it were possible for someone's soul to get tired. She gripped her two suitcases and walked over to one of the benches, plopping down the moment she got to it.

Willow's body language screamed defeat. No one could look at the girl and not see the pain radiating off of her in waves. She was taking mental stock on her life, and realized that it was gone. Her life, or at least the benchmarks she used to define who and what she was, were all obliterated by her recent behavior.

The Willow Rosenberg she considered herself to be was no more. Tara's lover was gone; destroyed twice over by a betrayal of trust. Buffy's best friend was dead; killed by selfish hedonism- sacrificed on an altar of smashed and twisted metal and buried by the near-death of a teenage girl. The powerful Wiccan was lost; drowned in a sea of black magic.

She had no idea how long she sat in that spot, her mind lost in her inner darkness, when she noticed someone had sat down next to her; close, but not quite touching.

Angel had been waiting at the bus station when the coach from Sunnydale arrived. He hardly recognized the girl who got off of the bus as being Willow. If he hadn't known in advance that she was on that bus, he wouldn't have recognized her

He waited to see where she would go before letting her see him. He wanted to know if she had already made arrangements on where to go or what to do in LA. He was surprised to see her stumble to the first bench available and just sit there unmoving for over thirty minutes. She just sat there, staring into space. He became concerned- Buffy had just said that she was coming to LA, she hadn't said why. Obviously, something terrible must have happened. The Willow he remembered had always been full of life, full of passion and innocence. Even when things were at their worst, even when she was frightened, she had seemed to have faith that things would be ok- somehow they'd work it out.

This girl looked… empty. She looked like someone had sucked the life, the spirit, from her- leaving a somnambulant shell.

Angel suddenly noticed one of the predators that tended to frequent places like this- looking for the lost and alone to feed on- was moving in on Willow. It wasn't even a vampire- just a human man who probably wanted to take and sell her on the street, or even just use her and discard her himself. Angel quickly walked over and sat next to Willow, making eye contact with the little man to let him know the redhead was under his protection.

The man hesitated, and for a moment Angel thought he might actually challenge him, but he backed down, apparently deciding to look for an easier target.

Angel was starting to get really worried when Willow noticed him but made no reaction- didn't even look up to see who he was- for over ten minutes. Finally he spoke, "Willow? Come on, Willow, talk to me."

Willow turned her head to look at the person speaking to her. She saw a worried face looking at her with obvious concern. It took a moment for her to recognize that it was Angel. She hadn't seen him in many months. Not since she went to his hotel to tell him that Buffy was dead. She grunted in false humor, this time she was here to tell him that Willow was dead.

Angel resolved to find out what had happened to turn the once vivacious Willow into this hollow shell. His eyes opened wide in shock when she finally responded to him by grunting and saying, "Willow's dead."

He tentatively put his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward him. "Willow, what happened?" he asked softly. For the first time since watching her get off of the bus he saw some emotion cross her face. A single tear trailed down her dirty face, and he saw a sense of horror in her eyes before she broke down completely. He wrapped her in his arms and rocked her as she sobbed and wailed into his coat for over an hour.

Willow had been so exhausted that she fell asleep in Angel's embrace. When she woke up in bed, she figured that he had taken her to the hotel. When she pulled back the covers and saw that she was only wearing a t-shirt and panties, she got pissed off. How dare he? Just because a girl cries in your arms doesn't mean you get to take her clothes off! For some reason she was infuriated by this and stormed out of the room to give him a piece of her mind.

"Angel! How could you…" her rant dwindled off as she realized she wasn't in the hotel- she was in an apartment, apparently. "Hello! She called out."

She wandered a bit, finding the kitchen, where there was a note on the table. She picked it up and read;

"Ok, so this is Cordelia's apartment," Willow mumbled to herself. "And, apparently, there's a ghost?"

The lights in the kitchen switched on and off one time, and Willow jumped in alarm. "Jeez! Don't *do* that!" she shouted.

Nothing happened for a moment, and Willow sheepishly said, "Uh, sorry about that. You, uh, startled me," she paused, not really knowing what to say. "So, uh… you're Dennis, I take it?"

"Oh, uh…" Willow was kind of at a loss as to what to say. "Hi. I'm, uh, Willow, I guess. I mean I don't guess I'm Willow, I know I'm Willow. I mean, I guess I don't really know what to say, and I tend to babble when I…" she shut her mouth when the pad of paper Cordelia's note was written on lifted up into the air, along with a pen, and the words "It's ok. Nice to meet you Willow." were written on it.

Willow was thinking of what she should say next when she heard the door to the apartment rattle and then open.

Cordelia trudged into her apartment. She had picked the Visigarth demon, out of one of Wesley's books, as the creature from her vision. "And, may I say, what a lovely way to wake up in the morning!" she thought. She'd been woken up at three in the morning by her boss, who was carrying a passed-out Willow Rosenberg and asking her to put the wasted Wiccan up for the night. Cordelia had asked why he didn't just take her to the hotel. He'd explained that she was apparently having some kind of trouble and had run away from Sunnydale, and might not appreciate waking up to a bunch of guys in a big empty hotel.

Cordelia had been amazed that Angel had managed to be that thoughtful, but didn't let on. She dramatically sighed, and said she would, but that she'd obviously not be able to come in in the morning if she was going to take care of Willow. Of course, just after she had managed to get back to sleep, she woke up to another lovely Vision- leaving her nearly debilitated with pain. She'd been barely able to pick up the phone and let Wesley know what she'd seen.

Four little yellow Dilaudid pills allowed her to get back to sleep for a whole 3 hours before Wesley had called and woken her up. He had the choice of baddies narrowed down to 4, but needed her to positively identify the culprit, as the four had drastically different methods of dispatch. So it was that Cordelia had dragged herself out of bed- once again- and made herself relatively presentable before going in to the office. She left a note for Willow, just in case. She didn't think the little hacker would wake up, as out of it as she'd been when Angel brought her in, but you never knew. Willow had never been to Cordelia's apartment before, and Cordelia didn't want her freaking out and casting some spell that would damage her apartment… or Dennis.

The lights in the kitchen flickered on and off at the same time she heard the redhead's voice coming from the same room.

Cordelia walked into the room and took in the vision that was Willow. "Damn, Willow. You look like hell."

Willow's eyes bugged out momentarily at the brunette's bluntness before she gave a rueful chuckle. She imagined that she did look pretty awful. "Tactful as always, Cordy; it's nice to see that some things never change."

Cordelia had the grace to look at least slightly embarrassed. "Sorry, it's just… you look…"

"Like a homeless person?" Willow supplied. "Don't worry about it. It's a fair description. I *am* a homeless person," Willow said resignedly. "No home equals homeless."

Cordelia raised her eyebrows, waiting for Willow to explain. When nothing was forthcoming, she suggested, "If you're up, why don't you take a shower. I'll go out and get some breakfast. You look like you haven't eaten in about as long as you haven't showered." She turned and headed back to the front door. "You can tell me what's wrong after that."

Willow wanted to be offended by that, but for one thing it was true, and for another, there was no condescension in Cordelia's voice, just a tired resignation. If she'd thought about it, Cordelia sounded a little like she did herself.

Willow felt better, physically at least, once she got out of the shower. She didn't realize just how much she stank, until she caught a whiff of the clothes she'd been wearing, now that she was clean. She'd found yesterday's outfit in a garbage bag in the room she woke up in. Upon opening it she recoiled from the stench. Thinking back, she'd gone three days since she'd showered, and almost that long since she'd eaten. She'd been so depressed that she hadn't even noticed.

Well, she still felt depressed, but Willow Rosenberg wasn't one to wallow in self pity for too long. She needed to pull her head out and see if she could salvage anything of herself.

As she walked slowly into the kitchen, she didn't hold out much hope. She'd made a royal mess of her life. She didn't know if she could fix it. She needed to re-evaluate who she was and what that meant. Was she really dead like she'd told Angel, or just severely wounded with a slim chance at recovery yet?

As she was dwelling on her pain and failure, she noticed Cordelia sitting at the kitchen table, her face in her hands, head down on the table. Her body was quivering slightly, and as Willow silently approached, she could hear quiet sobs from the statuesque brunette that she'd never really considered a friend. Even so, nothing was more likely to pull Willow Rosenberg out of a self-pity party faster than seeing someone else in pain. It was as though the urge- the absolute need- to help others was coded directly into Willow's DNA.

Cordelia sniffled back her tears and scrubbed at her eyes- trying to wipe away the evidence of her crying- before uncovering them. She put on her smiling mask and said, "Oh, just tired, Willow. That and a little headache," she lied smoothly as she stood up and walked over to the counter to recover the bagels, a couple of plates and a knife to spread the cream cheese. She'd had lots of practice with this particular lie and it came out very convincingly.

Willow, however, was an old hand at covering up and denying misery. She'd spent most of her teenage life doing it and recognized it right away. "Angel and Wesley buy that act?" she asked archly.

Cordelia spun around, nearly losing all the stuff in her hands, a denial poised on the tip of her tongue. She saw the clear knowledge and understanding on Willow's face and decided not to bother. "Yeah, well… they're men. What do you expect?"

Willow waited for an explanation while Cordelia set out breakfast- a half dozen bagels and a tub of strawberry cream cheese. She didn't say anything as she began to prepare herself a bagel, only now realizing just how hungry she was.

Cordelia sat down and watched the redhead spreading the cream cheese and asked, "Why'd you run away from Sunnydale?" She began her own preparation as she waited to see if Willow would answer.

Willow froze for a moment. Did she really want to share this with Cordelia? Did she really care why Cordelia was sobbing only moments ago? Resignedly she realized the answer to the latter at least was yes. She also knew Cordy wouldn't share without a little quid pro quo- even if the former cheerleader probably didn't know what the words themselves meant.

"I screwed up. I hurt Dawnie… and Tara left me," Willow said. "Goddess, it still hurts just to say that," she whispered.

"So what, Buffy kicked you out?" Cordelia asked, surprised. She never imagined Buffy and Willow could end up like that. She couldn't believe Buffy could be that much of a bitch. Cordelia knew Willow had sacrificed pretty much her whole life to stay in Sunnydale with Buffy. Unfortunately, Buffy was too clueless to see that sometimes. "How did you hurt Dawn? Why did Tara leave?"

Willow answered with a question of her own, "Uh uh, your turn. Why were you crying?"

Cordelia just stared at Willow for several moments. There was a part of her that wanted to share this, to commiserate, just to frickin' unburden herself of this beast, even if only for a little while. As frightened as she was, and as much as she wanted the comfort of sharing her pain, she was afraid too of Angel finding out, of him trying to somehow take the visions away or something.

Finally she looked away, mumbling, "The visions. They… hurt." While not untrue, that statement didn't nearly cover the enormity of the situation. In essence she'd chickened out.

Willow could tell that there was more to it, the pain must be pretty awful if it made her cry like that- not tears of physical pain. No, those sobs were ones of hopelessness. She knew it because she'd been weeping like that herself recently; a lot. She didn't comment on it directly, but answered part of Cordelia's question instead. "I cast a spell. I made Tara forget an argument we were having."

Willow was remembering the events; Tara thought she was doing too much magic, that she was using it for everything and anything, that Willow was out of control. Then Willow basically told her to shut up and let her do what she wanted. She'd been so sure of herself, that she could do whatever she wanted without any consequences. So, she'd cast a little spell, what's one more? Just a little spell and everything was ok again, Tara forgot all about their fight, and everything was right with the world.

Cordelia was a little stunned by that, "And your response was to snap your fingers and make her forget?" She shook her head, "No wonder she left."

Willow was shaking her head now, deep in self-recrimination. "Oh no, it's much worse than that. Tara somehow figured out what I'd done. She called me on it when I was suggesting we cast a forget spell on Buffy. She threatened to leave me and I promised to go a week without using magic to prove to her that she was more important than the magic."

Cordelia could see where this was going. She decided to ask about the forget spell on Buffy later, she said, "I'm guessing you didn't make it a week."

Willow loathed herself for what she'd done. Not only that she'd done it, but that she'd been so convinced of her rightness- she never even considered how wrong it was. She imposed her will on others just like one of the big-bads they'd fought against for years. She was no better than the Master, or the Mayor, or any of them. At least they acknowledged that they were evil.

"Not even a day. I cast another forget spell; this time on Buffy and Tara. But, of course, something went wrong. All of us lost our memories and almost got killed until Xander smashed the crystal I used and all of us got our memories back."

Willow just nodded her head. She had never really sat back and strung it all together, but now that she was, she realized how amazingly out of control she had been, even before ever going to Rack.

Willow shook herself and focused back on Cordy. "No, Buffy didn't kick me out, I left, but that wasn't why- that was a while ago. I got even worse after that."

Willow saw Cordelia's shock, "Yeah, I guess you could say I've changed. I pretty much fall on the evil side of the fence now."

Cordelia couldn't conceive of Willow Rosenberg as evil. Her head was shaking back and forth involuntarily, "No way… *No way* Willow! You, evil? Impossible."

Willow just looked at her with empty eyes. "You don't know, Cordelia. I did far worse than that. You know I raised Buffy from the dead," she started.

"She was in heaven Cordy. I dragged my best friend out of heaven and back to hell on earth."

"Oh, I told myself I was saving her, but that's a lie." Willow kept speaking over Cordelia's protests. "It was purely selfish. I wanted her back- no matter what it cost. So, I dragged her out of the absolute peace of heaven- a reward for her hard life of fighting evil at the cost of everything she loved- an then, I left her in her coffin."

Cordelia was shaking her head "no" but Willow pressed on, "She had to dig herself out. I snatched her out of paradise and stuck her in a box under six feet of dirt. Then I had the gall to be upset that she didn't thank me for it. You'd think that would have taught me to be more careful, to think before I acted, but no. I did all that other stuff and drove away my lover, hurt my best friend some more; and then I really lost it."

Cordelia couldn't have been more shocked if Willow's head started spinning around on her neck. He mouth just gaped open and shut like a fish out of water as Willow continued her terrible confession.

"After Tara left, I got lonely, so I figures out how to turn Amy back into a person. And, it was easy. I could have done it months, maybe even a year ago if I had wanted to- if I had thought about it. But no, it wasn't until I was lonely for another witch, someone to replace Tara. So I changed her back and we went out partying at the bronze. Oh, just for fun we started changing people. We turned people into animals, stuck them in cages to dance naked… basically had our way with a club full of innocent people just for kicks."

Willow's self loathing was reaching a peak. "But, that wasn't enough, no. Amy knows this warlock- he's like a dealer in black magic. We started going to him, casting spells for pure pleasure- swimming in black magic like it was a drug- getting high on the power and pleasure. I took Dawn with me one night. And, when I was swimming in it I accidentally conjured a demon. Or, it followed me back or whatever. In any case it chased us down, and I magicked this car so that we got away. But then, I wasn't watching where we were going, I was too busy laughing at how scared Dawn was, and how cool I was for getting away from the demon, that I drove us right into a bridge abutment.

Dawnie broke her arm and cut her head in the crash, and then she got attacked by the demon while I was passed out from hitting my head. If Buffy hadn't shown up looking for us, it would have killed Dawn.

By now tears of rage, pain and emotional anguish were pouring down Willow's face. "A- and t- then… Buffy still didn't hate me, she just said she was mad, and t- that I had to pull myself t- t- together!"

Cordelia couldn't do anything but watch as Willow broke down, the words barely making it out past the sobs.

"So… instead of being g-grateful that she didn't k- kill me right there… or at least t- throw me out of her life f- forever…"

"It's like a train wreck" was the thought Cordelia had running through her mind. She was horrified by what Willow had gone through- much of it her own fault, but nonetheless… She wanted to turn away, but couldn't stop herself from asking, "Instead you... you what?"

Willow's sobs tapered off- only because she had cried so much lately that she didn't have much left in her. Clearing her throat she said, "I screamed at her, accused her of wallowing in self-pity and a bunch of other horrible things. Then I slapped her in the face and left."

"So now you're, what- wallowing in self-pity yourself instead?" Cordelia asked, hoping to get a rise from the devastated witch.

Willow didn't even raise a brow. "I just had to get away. I have no idea what I'm going to do now."

She didn't really feel any better having revealed everything to Cordelia. In fact she felt worse. It was the first time she had laid it all out like that. Usually she fixated on either yanking Buffy out of heaven, or driving Tara away. Both of those had felt like terrible mistakes. Now, looking at her behavior since Buffy's death, it felt a lot more like she was an evil person, than a good person who had screwed up a few times. Everything she'd done for the last year almost had been nothing but selfish. So now, she figured the least Cordelia could do was be honest with her. "So what's the real deal with your visions?" Willow asked finally. Right after she said it, she realized that was selfish too.

Cordelia couldn't bring herself to hold back, not after Willow had essentially just gutted herself- emotionally, at least- for her. "Uh, well… could you promise me you won't tell Angel?"

Willow shook her head resignedly. "Ok, I promise I won't tell Angel." She leaned forward to hear Cordelia's whispered reply.

"Well, I guess human brains aren't strong enough to handle the visions," she said evasively.

"They're not sure. Maybe as much as a year." Cordelia said- fear and resolve warring in her voice. She was surprised when Willow started laughing.

"I never could compete with you, Cordelia." Willow said when she could catch a breath.

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Rising from the Wreckage

Chapter 5

By TheBear

Thebear@papa-bear.com