Alive
By Lacy

Title: Alive 9/10
Summary: My version of what should have gone down in Bargaining.
Spoilers: Through S5 "The Gift", and a tiny bit of "Bargaining, 1 & 2". After that, all bets are off.
Pairing: B/G, obviously. *grin*
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Yes! Yes! Please!
Use: Want. Take. Have. Just tell me where it goes.
Disclaimer: Obviously not my characters, as I imagine we'd all be a lot happier if they were! They're all owned by Joss the Evil, ME, UPN and a bunch of people I don't know. I'm just borrowing them.
WARNING: Character death.

"I don't know what else to do Buffy." Tara looked near tears. "I honestly don't. Willow... she knows a lot more spells than I do. Stuff I've never even been exposed to. Stuff that... would do something like this."

"There has to be something." Buffy was looking at Giles. "He's suffering."

"I'm so sorry. If I'd had any idea that Willow--"

"I know. She needs help. Which we will deal with after this." Buffy took a deep breath. "I don't know how yet. But that's later."

Tara looked thoughtful. "I'll go try and talk to Willow."

The blonde witch padded downstairs. Buffy looked at Giles' still form for a minute, and followed after her. She looked around the living room in shock. Several chairs were turned over, and the coffee table was missing a leg. "Tara?" she called.

No response. The witches were gone. Buffy swore under her breath. And decided to thumb through Giles' books on her own. Flipping through the pages, her frustration grew. Until she stumbled on something that gave her hope. It scared the living hell out of her, but it was a chance.

"Dawn?" she called. "Dawn? I need you!"

Her sister looked quizically at her from the kitchen doorway. "Right here. What?"

Buffy opened her mouth, but couldn't speak.

"Is it Giles?" Dawn cried. "Is he--"

"No."

"Where are Willow and Tara?"

"Gone. I don't know where. Dawnie-- I know that you... I may have found a spell, or ritual. Something. But.. I need a magical source to do it...I'm not magical. I... I don't want to ask you this, but you're...you're still a Key."

"You want to use me...for the ritual."

"Yes," Buffy whispered.

Dawn was deathly pale, but her voice was determined. "What do I have to do?"

Upstairs by Giles' bedside, the sisters tried to figure out how the ritual worked.

"Buffy," Dawn said quietly. "Are you.. very sure that you want to try this? It's going to... it's going to hurt, I think. For you. And..after... there's..."

"I know." Buffy sighed. "But, I can't lose Giles. I can't. We'll just get used to the... well, the side effects thing."

"I can't believe, still, that Willow did this."

"I haven't forgotten." Buffy's voice shook. "But we don't have time to find Willow. If we're going to do this, it has to be now."

Dawn gulped, and grabbed the dagger from the nightstand. She motioned for her sister to get into place. "Don't stop chanting," she whispered. "Don't."

Shakily, Buffy began to read the Latin text from the book in her lap. She took Giles' hand and lay her own overtop of his, interlacing their fingers tightly.

Dawn took a deep breath and sliced the knife across her open left palm. She winced but did not cry out. Buffy continued chanting, and didn't watch as Dawn wiped each side of the blade through the blood in her hand. She held the knife out to her sister, and Buffy nodded. She chanted louder.

Dawn slammed the blade down through Buffy and Giles' joined hands. Buffy screamed once, then slumped backwards. A greenish glow spread from their hands around both of their bodies, eventually covering the both of them in a bright neon light.

Several minutes passed before it faded away.

"Buffy?" Dawn said quakingly. "Giles?"

Buffy sat up slowly. She leaned over and whispered, "Giles? Can you hear me?"

Giles groaned loadly. "Oh, God. Buffy? What.. what happened?" His voice was weak, but clear. "Everything's spinning."

"Shhh. Rest."

Dawn broke in. "BOTH of you, rest."

"What did you do?" Giles said quietly. He gasped when Dawn pulled the dagger from their hands, and bandaged them gently. "You.. "

"I couldn't let you die. Not like that. Not because of me... of.. all of this."

Giles weakly wrapped his good arm around her tightly. "I know. Shhh. And of course it's not your fault. If anything, it's mine for being such a prig to Willow instead of genuinely trying to help her. I don't necessarily behave rationally when it comes to you, Buffy."

He held her for a minute before continuing, "Would be useful to know what you did, pet... as whatever spell was on me was quite powerful."

She hesitated. "You won't like it."

"I expected as much."

"I.. did an enjoining spell. Well, sort of. Kind of a cross between that thing we did to fight Adam, and that weird healing ritual Drusilla did with Angel."

"What? But.. I don't understand. That...shouldn't have worked."

Dawn said quietly. "We figured that you being her Watcher and all, would... be enough of a bond to make it work. Probably."

"So..you..what? Magically bound us?"

"Yes." Her voice was small. "Dawn was my magic source, since she's still the Key.. and.. I knew that my Slayer strength could save you."

He winced as he sat up, with an effort. "Buffy... you ran such a huge risk. You may have lost your Slayer abilities completely, do you know that? We're connected now. In ways that... that I can't even explain."

"I don't care," she whispered fiercely. "I don't. I only wanted to make sure that you were all right."

He leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers. "You daft girl. You utterly daft, completely wonderful girl."

Dawn broke in, curious. "What does it mean, that you're bound?"

Buffy nestled close to Giles, as though wanting to make sure he was solid. "I dunno," she whispered.

"Nor do I," he concurred. "Possibly nothing more than we already share as Slayer and Watcher. Possibly... Lord, Dawn, I don't know. Could be virtually anything."

"I think we need to find Willow, now. I don't know where she went, but Tara's gone too. She's... I think she's dangerous, Giles. I.. um.. kind of threatened her. Then I knocked her out."

"Oh, Buffy." Giles sighed. "Well, I can't blame you. Nor say that I'd have done any differently, myself. I'm sorry that it's come to this."

"It's not really, Will. I think... I think something's been off ever since she went after Glory last year."

"Those books she used... I imagine that would do it."

"She likes the power," Dawn spoke up. "You...didn't see her this summer. She liked being all Control Girl. And..I guess.. Willow's always been kind of quiet and stuff, so probably the chance to do whatever she wants is well, kind of exciting."

Giles sat up slowly. "I'm feeling a bit better. We should.. try and find them as soon as possible. Willow needs help."

Buffy helped him up. "You should stay here. You're weak, still."

"No. I think...the extra boost of Slayer power is helping. Also, I don't think it's safe for you to go on your own when we don't know yet exactly what that spell you did means."

"You're back-up guy, though, okay? I can handle Willow."

"Maybe we should call Xander?" Dawn piped up.

"Good idea," Giles said. "Go downstairs and do just that, and then stay in the house, Dawn. Don't open the door for anybody. I mean it."

"I'm coming with you." The young girl's voice was determined.

"Dawn, please." Buffy said. "This... is so hard for me as it is, I'd really really rather you didn't see anything that... it could get really ugly."

Dawn pursed her lips, and said okay reluctantly. Then she ran down to the phone.

"How're we going to find her, Giles?"

"Well, I imagine there's only a few places that she would go. The shop, for one, or back to Tara's dorm? Since Tara's gone too... I'd guess that the dorm would be the first place to look? She probably took Willow back there."

"Just so you know, I'm driving."

"Well, I've already nearly died once today. Let's go for two."

"Hey!" Buffy made a wounded face.

"Kidding, dearest, kidding."

When they reach the campus dormitories, they were surprised to find that all the power had gone out. But only in the building in which Tara lived.

"Very strange," Giles said quietly.

"Willow's here." Buffy said. "That's what it is."

They got out of the car, and headed toward the building.

"Hey guys," a voice said, stopping them. They turned to see Willow herself standing behind them.

Neither Buffy or Giles could think of words.

"Nice to see you're up and about Giles. Terribly sorry you got so ill."

Buffy made a move to go toward her but Giles grabbed her arm.

"Thanks. I am feeling quite a bit better."

Willow laughed. "That's... nice."

"Though I would like to understand...why exactly you suddenly felt I deserved to get ebola. Or whatever that was."

"Well, it wouldn't have killed you. Not really," she said primly. "And I just wanted you to... you know, know that I could. If I wanted to. It's really quite time that you started recognizing that I'm not Lost Little Willow anymore."

Buffy's face had run a gamut of expressions, and this time, she did step towards her friend.

"No..nobody has *ever* thought of you like that. Never. You're not being fair. We've always, all of us, been nothing but supportive of you. Especially Giles. I can't-- I can't understand. Why would you do this to him? To me, even? You *know* how much Giles means to me."

"Well, you're sleeping with him, so yeah, it follows."

"Willow!" Buffy's face crumpled, but her voice was strong. "It's not *about* that. It's about that Giles has always done the right thing, for all of us, even when it meant that he got hurt, or... Dammit, Will. He's done all of that stuff for *you* too. So, unless you've gone totally insane this isn't about Giles at all. So, if you could just tell me what this beef you're having with me is, we could maybe get around it!"

"Would it have *killed* you, Buffy, to say "thank you"? You don't know, you never asked what went on when you weren't here. Never. I had to... I had to be all Leader Girl, and that's just not me, and I had to know what to do, everybody expected it, and I did the magic and I found a way to bring you back against every single odd and you can't even be one tiny bit grateful!" Willow spat. Her eyes flashed, and the air crackled with power.

"I'm sorry," Buffy said quietly. "I'm... this is hard for me, too. I can't.. it *is* hard to be here. I'm getting better with it all.. but.."

At that moment, Tara descended the steps of the dormitory. "Willow? I thought we said you'd stay inside?" She stopped when she saw Buffy and Giles.

"That's right, Buffy, that's right. Everything revolves around you. You've never respected anybody's power but yours. Well, maybe you should remember that I'm powerful too." Willow's face was contorted with anger, and something like sadness. The air was snapping around her.

"Willow--"

Giles reached forward and grabbed Buffy's hand, pulling her back. "You know that you can't contain this power. It will destroy you. And you know it. It'll make you.. no one will recognize you, Willow. No one."

A zing of heat passed through their conjoined hands. Giles gasped, and instinctively yanked Buffy to him, causing them both to fall over in the dirt.

The blast of Willow's magical rage passed over them. It was visible, in a strange way, like a tornado, whirling and sparking. Trees were flattened like paper, and there was a resounding thunk as Giles' car flipped over.

Buffy screamed, and clung to Giles.

When the air around them quieted, they sat up shakily. Giles looked at their intertwined hands for a moment. "Well, I suppose we could both do with a bit of an early warning system."

"You felt it too?"

"It's how I knew to get you out of the way."

"Cool."

They got up slowly. Willow had disappeared. The yard of the dorm was wrecked. The car was wrecked. Xander came running up, shouting, "Buffy? Willow? Where are you guys?"

"Here, Xander." Giles replied.

"Where's Willow?" he panted.

"Don't know." Buffy whispered. "She went kind of Destructo Girl on everything, and now she's.."

Buffy was interrupted by the sound of screaming.

The three of them ran across the quad toward the sound. They found Willow on her knees by a particularly large felled tree.

Willow was sobbing.

Under the trunk of the tree, was a body.

Buffy started crying.

Xander knelt beside Willow and held her as she cried.

Giles stood, in shock, as Buffy wept all over his shirtfront.

"Tara," he whispered.

NEXT