The Borders of Night Start to Give, Chapter 2/26

[punch_kicker15]

Title: The Borders of Night Start to Give
Author: punch_kicker15
Rating: R
Characters/Relationships: Willow/Giles
Summary: A prophecy leads Giles to practice dark magic once again. This sets him down a dark path, and Willow may be the only one who can help. AU in which Willow’s magic training started earlier than in canon.
Word count: 47,533
Notes: Thanks to scratchingpost1 for generously offering a plot bunny that ate my brain, gilescandy and dragonyphoenix for looking over a very rough first draft and offering helpful suggestions and encouragement. Thanks also to the mods (red_b_rackham and traycer_ and other participants at het_bigbang for all of the help and hand-holding throughout. And special thanks to angelus2hot for some amazing art she created for this story.

Chapter Two

I Only Have Eyes For You

Giles

He was sure he'd read a Watcher's diary entry about contacting ghosts recently. He picked one off the top of the pile and started reading.

No mention in Pilar Lorenz's diary about ghosts, though there was a mention of a prophecy about the Light and Dark Slayers. It was the third one he'd come across since Willow pointed it out last year. He wondered--could that be Buffy and Kendra? Could "Light" and "Dark" be as simple as skin and hair color? He made a few notes for future reference, and resumed his search for a method of contacting Jenny. Jenny had good cause to be angry--every day he thought of another thing that he could have done differently, another way that he could have saved her. Perhaps if he spoke to Jenny, he could apologize, and she could--move on.

He scanned the diary for discussions of ghost contact protocols, his hand fiddling with the rose quartz Willow had given him earlier today. He flipped through a few more pages. Had to keep busy. These days it felt like his Watcher tasks were the only thing keeping him from collapsing under the weight of his grief.

He heard a scream, jumped out his chair, and ran down the hall. Maybe this time he wouldn’t be too late to save someone.

“GILES!”

Oh, God, that was Willow. He thought she’d gone home already. He heard her call for him again.

“Where are you?” he yelled, running down the hallway in what he hoped was the right direction.

He found her at the top of the stairs near the lounge. Something was dragging her into a pit in the ground as she screamed for help. He ran to her and grabbed her arms, trying to pull her out. The ghost (or whatever it was that had a hold of Willow) was strong, and for a moment he feared she’d be swallowed up despite his efforts. He yanked as hard as he could, and Willow suddenly sprang free. The momentum sent them tumbling down the stairs together.

He got up and climbed the stairs again. The pit at the top of the stairs was gone. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. If he’d been just a few seconds too late, she’d have been pulled into the vortex forever. Or worse, trapped inside the floor when it returned to solid form.

He turned to Willow and grabbed her arms. “Are you all right?”

She was breathing hard, clearly still shaken up. “Giles, Jenny could never be this mean.”

“I know, it’s not her.” Jenny would never hurt Willow in such a vicious way, even if she were angry. It hurt to give up the idea of Jenny still existing, even as a vengeful ghost.

Willow seemed to understand. “I’m sorry.” There was a look of gentle concern for him in her eyes.

There was much more that he wanted to say, but just then the clock struck midnight, and Willow sprang into action for the exorcism, climbing up the landing to light the candle. Giles watched her struggle with the lighter, then took it from her and lit it.

Soon after that, a swarm of wasps chased all of them out of the school, and the time to say something to Willow had clearly past.

***

Becoming

Catherine

Catherine looked through the printout of the Kalderash woman's soul restoration instructions. The “one moment of happiness” clause confounded her. Why did they have the clause in there and not tell the vampire about it? That seemed utterly counterproductive. Perhaps restoring an immortal being's soul permanently was too difficult, and there had to be some limitation on the spell’s efficacy.

Willow sat across the kitchen table from her, opening and closing a jar of twice-blessed sage. “Giles says that this is dark magic and could be dangerous. He said that it could open a door that I might not be able to close.”

Catherine resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “That’s a rather melodramatic way to put it. It’s dark, absolutely. It’s a revenge spell. Dark magic feeds on negative emotions.“

“So was Jenny evil? Would she have to become evil to perform the spell?” Catherine could all but see the wheels turning as Willow realized the inevitable follow-up question. “Do I have to become evil if I want to do it?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that. All of us have dark thoughts and emotions inside us. The magic draws on them. If you don’t stay grounded, it’s easy to get lost in yourself and your own feelings.”

Willow was watching her intently. “So why do we use it at all, if it’s dangerous?”

Catherine put the printout down. “There are some things that can’t be done by any other magic, and are still worth doing. This spell may be one of them. And if you work afterwards to stay grounded, you can minimize the after-effects.”

Willow straightened in her chair. “Do you think I can do it?”

“Yes,” Catherine said. “I believe you can.”

***

Giles

Giles gripped the spellbook with clammy hands as Willow started the incantation, wondering if he should put a last-minute stop to it.

He’d been going round and round about the soul restoration spell ever since Willow suggested it.

On the one hand, Angelus was bent on destroying the world. What was the worst thing that could happen if the spell misfired in some way? It wasn't as if Angelus could destroy the world twice.

He couldn't assume that Buffy could kill Angelus. Last year she’d been killed rather easily by The Master. It seemed only prudent to have a backup plan for the possibility that Buffy might fail to kill Angelus, or worse yet, be killed again.

On the other hand, there was Willow's welfare to consider. She was only sixteen, and had no sacred calling as Slayer or Watcher. Shouldn't he protect her from the risks of dabbling in dark magic, even for the best reasons?

It felt cowardly: if Giles wanted it done, he should do the spell itself. But the emotions involved in vengeance spells were tricky; someone completely untouched by Angelus might not be able to summon and channel the magic forces in the right way to restore the soul. But on the other side, someone deeply wounded by Angelus might get lost in the spell. Giles’s heart still burned with fury every time he thought of Jenny. If he combined that with a dark vengeance spell, he might lose control, and things could go very, very badly for all of them.

Willow might be exactly the right person to perform it; she was close enough to Jenny and Buffy to carry some righteous anger into the spell, but she was removed enough to stay in control.

Willow continued with the incantation, and he stayed silent.

***

Willow

A week had gone by since she'd done the spell, and Buffy was still missing. After the intensity of feeling the spell working, everything afterwards had seemed like a letdown. Endless sessions of connecting to the earth, to the whole world, blah blah blah.

When her restlessness became unbearable, she asked Catherine, “Can we do a locator spell to try to find Buffy?”

Catherine said, “We can try. But don’t get your hopes up too high.”

There was a flurry of ingredient mixing, and then Willow chanted the incantation. She felt a wave of magic flow through her, but when she opened her eyes, the light was everywhere, not focused like it should be.

“Did I do it wrong?” Another, more upsetting fear came to mind, “Does this mean Buffy’s dead?”

Catherine shook her head. “You did the spell correctly, and it doesn’t mean she’s dead.”

“So why didn’t it work?”

"I don't know. I've never seen one fail that way."

***

"--so I tried a locator spell, and it just went kerflooey, and the light was everywhere on the map, and when I tried a globe, it lit up like Buffy was everywhere in the world."

Giles didn't look particularly surprised. "The Council's locator spells have had similar results. Her Slayer energies are somewhere, but the locator spells have them mirrored everywhere. No one can explain why. Some Watcher in training will probably get a thesis topic out of it. I'm afraid we'll have to rely on more mundane methods to find her."

Willow picked up her newspaper again. Nothing unusual in Portland, at least nothing that suggested that Buffy might be there.

Giles looked like he was about to nod off in front of his newspaper. He’d been doing that a lot lately. He probably wasn’t sleeping well, and maybe there was something she could do to help with that.

It was either blurt it out, or lose her nerve entirely. "Giles, I’ve been studying memory spells, and I wondered if you wanted to erase your memory. Of what Angelus did to you."

"Oh, for God's sake, no!" He looked angrier than she'd ever seen him.

Tears welled up in her eyes. "What's the point of you remembering something like that? What did you learn from it? We've got forty-six volumes of the stuff Angelus did. We don't need another first-hand account of the badness."

For a moment, she thought he might yell at her again.

Then something seemed to shift, and he said quietly, "My memories are a part of me--and I want to hold onto all of them, even the terrible ones. The things I've experienced define me, and I won't wish them away. What I've learned is that I can endure something terrible, and survive it. And I'd rather not have anyone else poking around my mind."

She hadn't even thought about Drusilla. For someone who was supposed to be smart, she could be really be dense sometimes. "I'm sorry, Giles. I just wanted to help."

"You are helping. The patrolling, combing through the articles with me, all of that is helping. You don't need to do spells to help."

It didn't feel like it, not when they were getting only three out of ten vampires on their patrol, and they were sending Giles all around the country following leads that went nowhere. Giles was probably just trying to make her feel better.

It was so frustrating. She was learning a really amazing skill, and none of it was helping people the way she thought it would.

***

Catherine

Willow collapsed in the kitchen chair, resting her head on her arms.

"He said no?" Catherine asked.

Willow nodded. “I wish he’d at least let me start trying spells on patrol.”

Some distraction might help. "I think you're ready to start learning some healing spells."

Catherine walked to the kitchen island, and pulled a knife out of a drawer. After a deep breath, sliced it across her arm, just deep enough to draw blood.

Willow shrieked and backed away a few feet, nearly knocking over the jar of newt’s eyes.

Catherine tried to keep her voice even and hide her frustration. "It's pretty shallow. I'm sure you've seen much worse wounds than this by now."

Willow inched a little closer. "Yeah--but, how can you--with the stabbing and the slicing yourself? Doesn't it hurt?"

Catherine spoke through gritted teeth. "Of course it hurts. If you want to be a powerful witch, you're going to need to have to learn to work through pain. Now let's get started on healing this."

Willow grimaced, but kept her eyes on Catherine's arm, and started to focus on the cut.

After a couple of hours of fumbling attempts, including a rather excruciating moment when Willow inadvertently compressed a nerve, she closed the incision.

Willow stood up and caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror. "Catherine--are my eyes supposed to be all black like this?"

Catherine said, "That's a sign you're struggling to control your magic. Sometimes they’re a sign of someone getting lost in magic, but that’s not what’s happening now."

Willow widened her eyes, moved closed to the mirror to inspect them. “How do I fix it?”

“Doing some repetitive tasks might help calm you down.” Catherine rubbed her arm, making sure the incision had completely closed, then added, “They’ll fade with time."

Willow sighed. “I’ll carve some stakes. We keep losing them on patrols. I just wish there was something more useful I could do.”

***

Ethan

Rumor had it that The Slayer had been on the run for weeks and her Watcher was trying to track her down.

Ethan had no use for the Watcher’s Council, but he couldn’t believe that no one there was competent enough to manage a basic locator spell. Something odd must be going on.

He lit candles, took out a globe, and searched for The Slayer, and instantly discovered what was confounding Rupert and The Council.

The Slayer’s energies had bounced all over the world, creating a funhouse mirror effect, with no way of determining her actual location. And if Ethan was reading the flow of the energies correctly, it was an accidental effect of some profound emotional need to be left alone.

It just figured that a teenage girl with no training at all would stumble onto a brilliant piece of magic like this. Ethan had worked for decades on perfecting his spells, and this chit had done it without even trying.

Still, it was an interesting piece of magic that he could study and tinker with. An ability to fool a locator spell might come in handy someday.

Chapter 3