If That's What You Need: If That's What You Need
by Brian Zino
DISCLAIMER: The characters contained herein do not belong to me. They are the property of Joss Whedon, the WB Television Network, 20th Century Fox, Mutant Enemy, and Kuzui/Sandollar Enterprises. And anyone else who I'm forgetting.
DEDICATIONS: To Allison, who showed me the way to the place in myself where this story lived.
And to our dear departed Princess, who was the personification of elegance and grace in a world that is sorely lacking in both.
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And when you came along and turned it all around
I promised myself I wouldn't tell you
Until we stood on solid ground
Holding the candle between us, I'll tell you this
If that's what you need
I'll be the river, I'll be the mountain, always beside you
If that's what you need
I will be stronger, I will be braver than ever before
-- Genesis, 1997
* * *
What was weird was that Willow's house was totally silent when she walked in the door that night, but her parents' cars were in the driveway. It was weird because Willow's parents were both noisy and excessively social, two qualities she had most emphatically not inherited from them. She always heard them when they were home, and when they went out they drove everywhere. So something was definitely wrong.
Placing her keys on the sideboard by the front door, Willow felt her brow crease with concern. Life was predictable in the Rosenberg house, and any deviation from the expected was, as far as she was concerned, cause for alarm. She headed upstairs, forgetting to shut the front door.
"Mom?" she called as she climbed the stairs. There was no answer. "Dad?"
This was definitely no good. Willow reached the top of the stairs and marched quickly to her parents' bedroom. The door was ajar. That was out of the ordinary. Willow pushed the door open. That was also out of the ordinary -- she never presumed to enter her parents' room uninvited.
Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw.
Sprawled on the rumpled bed were her parents. It looked as if they had had a particularly energetic pillow fight, and, exhausted, had collapsed haphazardly on their bed to catch their breath. Except that they weren't breathing heavily.
They weren't breathing at all.
A sickened "Oh no," escaped Willow's lips as she rushed to the bed. One look at her mother's face confirmed her worst fears. Her mom's eyes stared sightlessly through her, the skin ghostly grey. Willow didn't even need to see the bite marks on her neck.
Willow couldn't breathe. It was as if someone had kicked her in the gut. Dropping to her knees in shock, she hesitantly reached out to check for a pulse. Then, as if she decided she couldn't bear to touch the dead skin, she pulled back. She scrabbled backwards, crabwalking, as quickly as she could, running away from it. It couldn't be. It couldn't be. Her mouth was going, "No no no no no," but she couldn't breathe it couldn't be and no sound was coming out she had to call her parents they'd know what to do but they're dead they're dead they're deadeadeadead...
Her back hit the wall, but she continued trying to run. Her hands clawed at the wallpaper as if she could tear through it into another world, the real world where this couldn't possibly be happening.
Then, just as suddenly, her attempt at flight ended. Moaning, she slumped down the wall, her curled fingers trailing. Then she found her breath.
She screamed.
* * *
Xander was on the front walkway when he heard the scream. He was on his way to surprise Willow with a pint of frozen gold: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream, sealed in a Ziploc bag with two spoons. It had been years since they'd indulged in an ice cream binge -- there was a time when it was a weekly bonding ritual. They would down a whole pint of Rocky Road (his favorite) or Pistachio (her favorite) and then, bloated, stomachs aching, they'd loll about on her bedroom floor like lions after a feed and tell each other silly jokes until their faces hurt from laughing.
So tonight he was feeling nostalgic, and decided to try and relive the old days.
But there, on the walkway to her front door, hearing that bloodcurdling scream split the silent night air, all thoughts of ice cream and laughter fled from his mind. It was an almost inhuman scream, filled with all the anguish and pain of a thousand lifetimes.
Please God don't let that be Willow, he thought. Dropping the Ziploc, he booked up the walkway and through the open front door. He took the stairs two at a time, then stopped at the top as he tried to tell where that noise had come from.
The door to her parents' room was open, and through it he could see bodies. The bodies of her parents. His stomach dropped into his feet. "Willow!" he yelled as he tore into the room.
He saw her in the corner. At first he thought she was dead, too, and he rushed over to her side. Kneeling down, he saw that she was alive. Her eyes stared ahead, and her face had frozen into a rictus of combined grief and disbelief. She was sitting in a sort of half-foetal position, her arms curled protectively around her chest. Not sure what else to do, he put his arms around her.
That seemed to awaken something within her. She turned into his embrace and started shivering. "Xander," she mumbled. "Xander. You're real. You're real. You're safe. Make it go away." She continued mumbling and shivering in his arms.
He started to stroke her hair as his eyes swept the room. Willow's parents -- killed by vampires. That wasn't right. She didn't deserve that. She loved her parents and her parents loved her. She needed her parents, and if she hadn't had the bad fortune to live in this damned town she would still have her parents.
"Xander?" came Willow's voice, a little stronger.
He looked down at her and saw she was still staring off into space. "Yeah, Will," he said softly. "I'm here. I'm here."
"Xander," she repeated. Her words were slurred, like she was drunk or drugged. "What're we gonna do? What'm I gonna do?"
Xander kissed her forehead, tenderly, trying to give her strength through that physical contact, trying to will some of his own life-force to help hers. But he couldn't answer her, because he didn't know how.
Finally, he came to a decision. He stood up, gently pulling an unresisting Willow to her feet. He had to get her out of this room, that was a gimme. With his arm around her shoulders, he led her out of the room and down to the kitchen to call the police.
* * *
It was hours later, Xander didn't know how many, when he and Willow were finally able to leave. After an endless parade of faceless patrolmen, inspectors, and sergeants, EMT's and curious onlookers, Xander found the detective to whom Willow had managed to give a statement in a flat, lifeless voice. He convinced the policeman that Willow would be best off staying with him, and had dragged her away from the chaos.
He entered his house quietly -- he had no desire to explain the night's happenings to his parents until he absolutely had to -- and led Willow up to his bedroom.
Without undressing, they laid down on his bed, and Willow proceeded to curl up into a ball again, clutching Xander's midsection to her protectively, like a giant teddy bear.
Then the tears came again.
Xander put his arms around Willow again as her slender frame was wracked by great shuddering sobs. He felt like he had to protect her from the insanity of this damned town.
No, he felt like he had to fix this.
That was when the mote of a plan started to form in his head. It grew, while Willow lay crying next to him, implications and complications presenting themselves. He dismissed them and focused on the plan. And as he realized what the course of action he was contemplating would cost him, he hesitated.
Then he looked down at his best friend, her normally pretty face contorted with grief, the fringes of her long auburn hair soaked with tears. Her shattered sense of family, of peace, of life.
He knew what he had to do. Willow cried herself to sleep at some point in the next hour, and he extracted himself from her grip and slipped noiselessly from the room.
* * *
Giles arrived at the library the next morning to the most unexpected, surprising sight he had yet encountered in a lifetime of dealing with the bizarre and unexplained.
Xander was sitting at the library table reading, a tall stack of books next to him.
When he heard the librarian enter, Xander looked up at him. Giles could see from the dark circles under the boy's eyes that he hadn't slept. "Cool, you're here," Xander said. "Pull up a chair, Giles. I need help."
Giles couldn't rememeber ever hearing quite that note of determination in Xander's voice. "Erm, with what?"
"You haven't heard?"
Giles shook his head, so Xander proceeded to recount the events of the previous night. Giles blood ran cold as he heard the story, and he felt his stiff upper lip threatening to go soft on him.
When Xander had finished, he took off his glasses and peered through them at the floor while he tried to regain his composure. When he felt he could speak, he said, "So, er, you want me to get Buffy to --"
Xander cut him off. "No. We're not bringing her in on this. It wouldn't do any good, except maybe we'd all enjoy watching her dust another vamp. No." He pushed the book he was reading across the table to Giles. "I need you to do this Whooshing thing."
Xander and Willow had been helping Giles with his research about a month ago when they'd stumbled across the Ritual of Wu-Shen. It was an ancient Chinese ritual of resurrection, very powerful. It would allow the person performing it to bring any number of people back from the dead.
All it cost was one person's life.
They had all been in awe of its simplicity and power when they found it. Just a few words of Mandarin and the death of a willing subject. That was very important -- the victim had to willingly give up his life. That was why it was seldom used.
Giles felt a chill run through his body as he began to realize what Xander was getting at. He knew what Xander's answer would be, but he felt he had to ask anyway. "Who -- who were you planning to...uh..."
Xander didn't need him to finish. "Myself," he said calmly.
Giles sat up straight. "Absolutely not."
"Please."
"No. Your death will do Willow no good."
Xander rose from the chair, as though he couldn't physically contain his emotions. "It'll give her her parents back!" he said.
"But at what cost?" the Watcher asked him softly.
"GILES!" roared Xander. Then his voice dropped to a whisper, full of menace. "I'm not Buffy, I know, but if you don't help me I swear I will kick your ass so hard that *you'll* be the one stopping up the Hellmouth like a cork."
Giles was taken aback at being threatened, especially by this normally peaceful boy. Then he realized how deep the hurt must be to cause such uncharacteristic behavior, and he also realized that it was no good trying to reason with the boy. His shoulders slumped. "Xander, I -- I consider you a friend," he said softly. "I won't...I can't just snuff out your life because you ask me to."
Xander was silent a moment. Then he spoke in a voice so full of sudden maturity that Giles barely recognized it as his. "We all make sacrifices. We live on a Hellmouth. We can't expect to live our lives like normal people." The boy turned to Giles. "But here it comes down to a choice between a sacrifice I'm willing to make, and a sacrifice Willow shouldn't have *had* to make. It seems pretty clear to me."
Giles felt the boy was right. But he still couldn't bring himself to do it. To...kill Xander.
"Please," begged Xander.
He's being remarkably strong, thought Giles. The least I can do is try to be as strong.
He squared his shoulders and stood up a little straighter. "Lie down on the table," he directed the boy.
"Okay," said Xander calmly. "Start the ritual. Before I have second thoughts and realize how stupid I'm being."
* * *
Willow had been wandering through the halls like a zombie that day. She had forced herself to come to school, partly on auto-pilot because she didn't know what else to do, and partly because she felt it was what her parents would have wanted.
Her parents. She shook her head. She didn't feel ready to deal with those thoughts yet. So instead she focused on the hallway she was walking in.
She had never been popular, and walks through the corridors of Sunnydale High had often been lonely for her, but she'd never felt more alone than today. People were talking about her, giving her pitying looks from afar, but they all steered clear of her. No one wanted to involve themselves in something as horrible as what had happened to her. No one had come up to offer a word of comfort or any companionship.
Not even Xander.
He had been missing all day, from his classes, from his regular spot at the lunch table. Buffy had tried half-heartedly to engage her in conversation, but it seemed that even the Slayer had been reluctant to involve herself in Willow's grief.
But Xander...she remembered him last night. How caring he'd been. He'd been her river, her mountain. He was right where she needed him to be, just *what* she'd needed him to be, at the moment she needed him. Her heart filled with something -- what? It wasn't the puppy love she'd been carrying around for the boy for years. This was something different, something -- stronger. It felt real. It felt alive. She focused on it, feeling that if she dared let go of that feeling, that there would be nothing left, that she would be swept away in the tide of insanity.
So where was he? Why had he held her, comforted her, gotten her this far, only to disappear when she felt she needed him most?
As she approached the library, she heard faint words through the door. They weren't English, that she could tell instantly. She stopped and listened closer. It was Giles voice, and the words sounded Chinese.
Willow's brow wrinkled in thought, remembering. She and Xander had helped Giles research a book in Chinese. It had had a ritual in it, she remembered. A ritual for --
Oh, no.
Willow ran as fast as she could towards the library.
* * *
Xander could still hear the words Giles was speaking, but they didn't sound like words anymore. Not that they had been all that comprehensible to him to begin with, but as a drowsy numbness took hold of his body, the sound of Giles voice became less distinct. It stopped sounding like a human voice at all, merely a drone, a buzz borne upon the air that filled him.
He felt he was floating. He couldn't feel anything, he couldn't move, but he knew that he was rising into the air. His sense of surrounding blurred.
Someone shouted, "No!" from halfway across the planet. But that didn't matter to him -- the job was almost complete. It was a good thing he was doing. In some remote corner of his brain, he wished that he had actually read "A Tale Of Two Cities" when it was assigned in English class, 'cause he knew there was something in there about nobility and sacrifice and --
Xander was snapped back to awareness and reality when Willow barrelled into him.
She had leaped headlong at him, and landed on top of him with a "Whoompf!", her forward motion carrying them both along. They half-rolled, half-slid off the library table and landed on the floor in an unceremonious heap. Willow recovered first and straddled Xander, pinning his still-weak body to the floor and glaring at him.
"What were you doing?" she asked.
Xander tried to give her his best gotta-love-me grin, but since he still couldn't feel his face, he didn't know how successful he was. "Willow. Hi!" he managed.
"WHAT WERE YOU DOING?!" Willow yelled.
Xander winced. Why not tell her? he said to himself in his brain. You're doing it for her anyway. She'll be grateful.
But all he could do was avert his eyes from her accusing glare. He said nothing.
"He was undertaking the Ritual of Wu-Shen," Giles said quietly from somewhere behind Willow.
Willow never took her eyes off Xander. "I know," she said, just as quietly. "Why?"
Finally, Xander found his voice, but he still couldn't look at her. "I was gonna give you your parents back."
"What?" The disbelief in her voice was almost tangible.
Mustering all his self-control, Xander pushed his guilt to the back of his mind and managed to look directly into Willow's eyes. "You need them," he said.
For an instant, total calm descended over the library. Willow returned Xander's earnest gaze with wide eyes. Then she exploded.
"ASSHOLE!!!" she shrieked, and fell to beating on Xander's chest with her fists. The hail of blows continued as Willow started to sob, letting out all the rage and anguish of the last two days onto Xander. "Haven't I lost enough?" she yelled at him. "You were gonna take *you* away from me too?" Xander finally managed to grab her wrists and hold them. Tears still streaming down her cheeks, Willow glared at Xander accusingly. "I need *you*, Xander," she finally said, quietly. "I need *you*."
With that she clamped onto him with her arms and legs, hugging him ferociously with all the strength in her tiny body. She was sobbing again, into his shoulder this time, and repeating "I need you, I need you," in muffled tones.
Over her shoulder, Xander shot a questioning look at Giles, who hadn't moved during Willow's histrionics. The librarian, though, just shrugged and slouched off towards his office.
Then Xander froze. Had Willow just said what he thought he said? Maybe it was the after-effects of the interrupted ritual, or the muffling caused by the fact that she was sobbing and muttering into his shoulder, but it sounded an awful lot like Willow had just said, "I love you."
What?
He gently took Willow's shoulders and drew her away from his body until he could see her tear-stained face. She had stopped sobbing. "What?" he asked her.
Willow sniffled once and blinked tears out of her eyes. "What?" she asked him back.
Xander started to speak, but then closed his mouth. "Um, nothing," was all he said.
Then he drew her to him again and hugged her back with all *his* might, stroking her long auburn hair gently and whispering, "I'm sorry," repeatedly into her ear.
That was still the scene when Buffy walked into the library two minutes later, Willow on top of Xander, the two locked in a fierce hug on the library floor. Buffy raised an eyebrow. "What on earth -- " she started, but Giles stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
"They, um...fell. But they're alright now," he said. "Can I speak to you in my office a moment, Buffy? Privately?" Without waiting for an answer, he shepherded her away from the scene which had so fascinated her and into his office. As the door closed, Buffy looked back at her two friends. They hadn't moved, and looked to be, impossibly, hugging each other harder.
They looked like they could stay that way forever.
END
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