What I Did On My Summer Vacation: Part Two: Willow's Story
by Elizabeth Ann Lewis
2:32 AM

Willow sighed, turned over, and punched her pillow. "Sleeping would be good about now," she said out loud.

Nobody answered her.

2:33 AM

It wasn't her job. Right? She wasn't the Chosen One. She just happened to have developed an odd talent for being in the wrong place at the right time. Or right place at wrong time. Or...

2:34 AM

Besides, even Buffy wasn't a Ghostbuster. She was a Vampire Slayer. The fact that they had been up against some other really weird stuff had nothing to do with Buffy's duties, and everything to do with the fact they lived on a Hellmouth. This really was Giles' area of expertise.

2:35 AM

"Great, now I have guilt." Willow dumped her pillow on the floor and flopped facedown into the mattress.

2:36 AM

"Okay, okay, I'll do it." Sighing, Willow sat up and pushed her long hair away from her face. Maybe the ghost didn't want to be released from her captivity. Maybe she was happy to be haunting a house full of computer geeks. Maybe Willow couldn't do anything about it.

But she couldn't sleep until she tried.

There were still faint sounds coming from the computer lab, nocturnal creatures discovering the joys of C++. In her robe and slippers, Willow tiptoed into the small parlor where she had seen the ghost before. "Hello? Anyone here? Hello? Um... are there any ghosts around? Anything undead at all? Okay, I tried. Can I sleep now?"

Before she could turn to go back to bed, a crackle of static energy lifted the fine hairs on her nape. Slowly turning her head, Willow saw the ghost standing in front of the window. Wan moonlight spilled through her incorporeal body.

Willow swallowed. Twice. "Um... hi," she managed weakly. How *did* you address a ghost?

Like their earlier meeting, only when Willow directly addressed the not-quite invisible girl did she seem to recognize Willow's presence. Wide dark eyes fixed on the mortal girl's slight figure. "Oh! Did you find it?" she asked eagerly.

Willow shook her head. "No. Um... what is it that you are looking for? Exactly?"

The ghost turned and knelt in front of the fireplace, poking slightly up the chimney. "My journal. Papa threatened to burn it. He didn't, did he?" the ghost asked anxiously, glancing back over her shoulder.

Willow shook her head vigorously. "No. Um, I don't think so."

Pulling away from the hearth -- without a trace of soot from either modern or prehistoric fires -- the girl sat back on her heels. "Where *is* it, then?" she fretted.

Willow took a step toward her. "What's your name?"

"Oh, how rude of me! I'm Eleanor Gordon. My friends call me Nell. Or at least, they did...," Nell's voice trailed off uncertainly, "...long ago."

"I'm Willow." ~Do you know you're dead?~ Willow thought, but didn't ask.

The girl smiled brightly. "I'm quite pleased to meet you." Her eyes turned vague again. "Where is the blasted thing? It had all my work in it." She rose and turned toward the door.

"Wait! Tell me what looks like at least. Maybe I can help you find it?"

"It's a *journal*," Nell said with the impatience of both youth and ghosthood. "Leather cover."

"What's in it? Is it your diary?"

"No, no! It's my work, do you understand? The new university, the one Stanford is founding, won't take women. But I've got formulas and equations that will *prove* to them that I'm not a foolish girl, that I'm the equal of any of the men who will attend. But if I can't find it, I can't prove to them that I can do the work. And if Papa burned it...."

Nell's transparent face crumpled in grief, and Willow couldn't resist putting out a comforting hand. The electric shock she received when she touched Nell's form jolted her back a step.

When she looked up again, Nell was gone.

"Willow?" Meri, one of the other kids at camp poked her head into the room. "Who were you talking to?"

"Uh... nothing. No one." Willow was still staring at the spot that Nell had occupied a moment before. She had disappeared right before her eyes. Just poof. There, and gone.

"Yes, you were," Meri insisted. "I heard you!"

"Just... myself. Myself."

Meri gave her a weird look, and unpoked her head from the room. Willow stood still for several moments, her heart pounding. The look on Meri's face... as if Willow were some kind of weirdo. ~Isn't that what I am? I talk to ghosts. How much weirder can you get?~ "I thought I could take anything," she muttered. Then she turned and ran from the room.


* * *
Willow avoided the parlor for the next few days. She worked hard on her project, and slept with her pillow over her ears to block out any ghostly pleas.

She didn't *want* this. She'd finally found a place where she fit in, really fit in, and she didn't want anyone looking at her the way Meri had that night. Looking at her as though she was strange, bizarre. Abby Normal. She wanted to fit in.

She didn't fit in at Sunnydale High. She never would. But here... she had a chance to find out what normal was. She didn't want to screw it up.

It was early evening, not even quite dark yet. Willow was brooding in the rec room. Before she had met Buffy, she'd been plain Willow Rosenberg. Resident hacker, tutor-for-begging, doormat and lonely. Since Buffy had arrived in Sunnydale, Willow had nearly died more times than she really wanted to remember. But she'd also been truly, completely accepted for the first time in her life. Xander, always a bud, had become one of her closest friends. And Buffy, while not exactly a role model, taught her fashion and make-up and self-esteem.

Here, she was another computer geek, just another face in the crowd, but a *part* of that crowd. With Xander and Buffy and Giles, she was a part of something else entirely, something that frightened her. She loved them, loved them all, but she didn't know if she could handle what came with being around Buffy.

"Will!" Rick beamed at her. "There you are. Wanna go into town with us?"

She looked up, meeting Rick's eyes, Lily's eyes, Juan's, Ben's. Sudden, she felt a little dizzy. They were all her age, and yet she felt so much older than all of them. They hadn't had to see the bodies of their friends strewn all over. They hadn't had to fight the forces of evil. She wasn't good with people anyway. It had always been easier to just withdraw, to avoid conflict, to not fight.

"Will? Please? I don't want to be the only girl out with all these he-men." Lily's voice was teasing, but her eyes were honestly pleading.

Buffy had taught her to fight. And she knew she could. Maybe she had seen and done things that most kids her age would never have to deal with. But it had made her stronger. More than that. It was a part of her. She was Willow Rosenberg, Slayerette, as much as she was Willow Rosenberg, hacker extrodinaire. Two sides of one person.

She'd proved that she could handle the powers of darkness. She could definitely handle that arguably more scary task of social interaction.

"Sure." Moving forward, she blended with the group. "As long as we hit a McDonald's. I'm starved."

"And a movie? They're rereleasing Scream up here," Rick said, slinging an arm around her shoulders. Willow stole a look at him, and sighed. Yeah, he was cute. But she was a little leery of guys after "Malcolm." And, despite everything, she still loved Xander, as clueless as he was.

Which didn't, however, mean that she couldn't appreciate a little male attention...


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