animus_network | [001 ★ voice]

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[001 ★ voice]

So... my world's been destroyed. Yeah, not buying it. It's been tried before, by bigger and, well, probably better than whoever's behind this. In fact, I was sort of in the middle of the whole preventing the apolocypse game show right before I got zapped here, so if I could pretty please go back to that...?

Yeah, didn't think that would work. Well. Hi, everyone? I'm Willow Rosenberg, witch extraordinaire. At least they were nice enough to send me here with clothes and magic supplies. No way am I staying in the white phallus suit.

If someone could fill me in on the features that are not as advertised, I'd appreciate it. I'm sure there's all sorts of stuff to know about this place.

A tour might be nice, too. This is a lotta floors.

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A trade then? Sure, sounds fair. [She shrugs] He used to work as my nurse, then he attacked my students and my school, and I had to kill him. It was a rather messy little fight.

[She takes off half of her labcoat, and rolls up the sleeve of her sweater to display a large, neat ring of puncture wounds on her shoulder.] He bit me, and his image has been following me around since. Can't get any peace and quiet to save my life. Every which way I turn, there he is. It's not real, and logically I know I'm just hallucinating, but it's hard to accept that. If you can't trust your own eyes, what can you trust, right?

[Oh, she really had... come out and said it. Willow had meant that as an out, trying not to press.]

Are you sure it is a hallucination? [she asks hesitantly, sympathetic to what she can tell is a much longer, uglier story than Stein had made it out to be when she'd glossed over it.] I've heard of something incorporeal impersonating the dead, and sometimes, the not so dead. And if he's a witch he could've had all sorts of contingencies in place for getting killed.

[Stein tries to not show how uncomfortable she is at the idea that it's not a hallucination, but other than a slight tightness in her jaw that quickly vanishes, there's no indication of it.]

I think I prefer my vastly more hopeful explanation instead. Besides, my friend cut him up pretty effectively.

With you on the preferring, just, um. Dead people tend to not... stay that way, where I'm from.

I hope you're right, though. Some people are better off gone. [This is a pretty strong statement for her to make, but Willow can't deny that that's how she feels.]

I know. And you're probably right, he's not. My friend didn't eat his soul so with some finagling, he could probably find a way to come back. I can hope, though.

If it makes you feel better, I get to make myself look really, really bad now? You didn't even do anything wrong in your story.

[Laugh] I'm hardly depressed over my situation, don't worry. But go on, I'm eager to hear what you did.

Phooey. I'd be depressed.

But I'll continue. Where did I leave off... oh, yeah. Resurrecting Buffy. [She sighs at the memory. That was long enough ago that Willow didn't feel too guilty about it anymore, but thinking about how awful it'd made her feel then, how pressured and claustrophobic to be the one responsible for bringing her back, was enough.]

After I brought her back, it... it went to my head. I felt like I could do anything, like magic could solve anything -- and the scary part was that it could. I started using it for everything. If I wanted to do something, anything, I just did it.

Eventually I started seeing a warlock to... to get my fix. It was like-- like getting high on the black arts. I was addicted. Tara left me over it; she's a w-- was-- [Breathe, Willow, breathe. More quietly,] Was a witch, too. She knew exactly what I was doing and she didn't approve.

I thought she was just jealous until the day I got into a car accident and almost got Dawnie killed. I realized I had to change. [Her hands twist together in her lap, and Willow stares down at them, shame suffusing her, old as it was. There was nothing to be done about it now.] I tried to. I wanted Tara back, I wanted to prove to her that she-- she could love me again.

It was hard, but I did it, as much as I could. It's not something that changes overnight.

[Stein frowns to herself. It sounded pretty familiar to her.]

I know that feeling. That's what dissection is like for me. It's a rush, being inside someone like that. Someone left me over it too. That roommate I told you about. Spirit. She ran away, married her then-boyfriend, had a child... She was so afraid of me for so long. She still is, really. [But at least they're talking now.]

But it's surprising you could come back from something like that.

I'm sorry, [she says quietly.] That must be hard.

I didn't, not entirely. I'm still-- working on it. I don't know if I'll ever not be working on it. But there's a little more story left if you want up to the part where I turned myself invisible.

I prefer being alone anyway.

[She smiles] And I'm guessing there's no twelve step program for that?

Lucky you. I turn into a big wreck when I'm alone. And I'm just giving you the most flattering, stable picture of myself today, aren't I?

Well, sort of. I spent some time with a coven in England that helped me recover, and taught me how to minimize the whole, self-inflicted magic thing. But it's not really... a support group. The reason I went is because... [Quiet sigh.] Tara was killed, in front of me. And all the magic in the world wouldn't bring her back; it was a natural death, not a mystical one. She was shot.

I... I lost it. I found the man that killed her, and tortured and killed him. And then I tried to end the world.

Xander talked me down. [Slight, sad, fond smile.] If it weren't for him, my Earth wouldn't exist anymore, but he stood there and talked until I came back to myself.

When I got back from England, I was terrified they wouldn't want to see me again. Hence the invisible. And that's-- the story.

I would have done the same thing. Maybe not ending the world, but that's only because I lack that ability. [So she'd killed a criminal. Stein had killed over 100 of them. And she'd tortured nearly as many, and not even just criminals. People she liked, ones she considered her friends, people she might even dare to say she loved if she didn't want to avoid that word at all costs. She didn't understand why Willow would be so upset by that.]

If they didn't want to see you again, they wouldn't be very good friends would they?

[It's a bit different when you hand a kitten what amounts to a nuclear weapon. They get a bit freaked out by it.] Just because it's understandable doesn't make it comforting. I feel like I betrayed all of them. It was always us against the world, and for a while I was... not part of the us. [And for Willow that's a big deal.]

I didn't exactly have my head on straight right then. But you're right-- it did all work out. [At least that part did.]

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