PART SIX

Buffy closed the book she had been trawling through, and leaned back in her chair. "There wasn't anyone else like her. The first time I met her, she was shy, and couldn't do the talking thing - she was the girl all the bitchy types loved to make fun of. But she changed. Grew up, I guess. She became more confident, more aware of what she had to offer. Oz helped, of course."

"Oz?"

"Oh, you haven't met him. He was Willow's boyfriend. They were really in love. I mean, there was the whole thing with Xander, but that was never really important. Anyway, Willow was...cool, I suppose. She always knew the answer to everything; was always ready to help. She was a witch, you know. Well, in training. I bet she would have been good. The night she disappeared...we'd had an argument at the Bronze, and she went off home by herself. I didn't even bother to go after her - I was too busy moping about Angel." Mary watched in amazement as Buffy started to cry. "God, I miss her so much. You wouldn't think it, after all these years, would you? I mean, you're meant to get used to stuff like this. People I know have been dying for years. But...this was different."

"What did she look like? Was she pretty?"

"Yeah. She played it down a lot, but when she started going out with Oz she dressed up more." Buffy reached for her bag, and pulled out her wallet. Flipping it open, she showed Mary a picture of her, Xander, and another girl, a redhead who looked to be about sixteen. "That's Willow, with me and Xander. Giles took that in our junior year at high school." Buffy looked at the picture. "She looks a bit like you, except for the hair, of course." Mary put a self-conscious hand to her hair. It was dark brown. She had dyed it years ago, and kept it that colour. She had never felt that red hair suited her.

The two women became lost in thought: Buffy grieving for the loss of her best friend, and Mary grieving for the loss of her past. It was increasingly clear to Mary that she was Willow - there really wasn't any room for doubt. And while she liked the idea - after all, for eight years she'd been trying to find out where she came from - it all seemed so sudden. Not from a probability point of view - they were on the Hellmouth, this sort of thing probably happened all the time - but simply that she wasn't ready for this. She wasn't ready to come back to this place where she had presumably been so happy, where she had fit in, oh and while she was at it save all the world for mankind. I mean, Willow might very well have been a witch, but Mary sure as hell wasn't, and there was no way she was going to go one on one with an angry demon.

Having got to this point in her inner monologue, Mary admonished herself. Honestly, if she could help, she had to do it. After all, surely Giles could just find some kind of spell or something, and she would just have to say it. No big deal. She had never been a coward, or afraid to face things that needed to be done. Admittedly she'd never actually come up against a world-destroying demon before, at least not in memory, but surely the same principle applied. Anyway, she didn't have to tell the others straight away - the world wasn't due to end until next Tuesday, and it was only Monday. Plenty of time to come to a decision. Satisfied that she had made her mind up, Mary returned to the computer, and carried on researching. If there was another way to beat the monster, that would be fine with her.

As they carried on into the night, the prophecy became clearer. Basically, a demon from Hell would appear on the twelfth night of Saturnalia, wreaking destruction and havoc, testing the souls of humans, and eventually drawing the whole of the earth down into Hell. What fun. The only thing that could stop them was a red headed witch whose purity of soul could never be daunted. Hearing this, Mary decided that it was pretty much essential to find an alternative solution to the whole sucked-into-hell problem - purity of soul was something she was 99% sure she didn't have.

The night continued, time dragging on ceaselessly, until they had all had enough. Cordelia was asleep, her head resting on Xander's arm. Xander wasn't asleep, and he still had a book open in front of him. However, anyone catching a glimpse of his glazed expression would know that he wasn't even looking at it, let alone taking any of it in. Buffy was sitting cross-legged on the floor foreseeing dire retribution to anyone who actually expected her to do anything. Giles was gazing off into space, possibly with some deep thoughts going on in his head, but more likely with thoughts more related to bed and a cup of tea than anything supernatural. One by one, they shuffled out of the library, yawning and whingeing, and yearning for their beds. Mary followed, her mind filled with the important question - until what time did room service deliver breakfast?

PART SEVEN

At eleven o'clock the following morning, Mary eventually woke up. Realising not only that she was late for work, but also that world saveage didn't leave much time for such mundane tasks as, ooh, say, earning a living, she called in sick. She'd never done that before - at least, she had, but only when she actually was sick, which didn't count - and she had a little smile on her face when she put down the phone. Mary, you are bad, girl, she thought. Well, maybe not bad, exactly, but at least verging on naughty.

Laying the phone by the bed, she padded into the en-suite bathroom, and showered, then got dressed and ordered room service. Sadly, she had discovered that they stopped serving breakfast at 10 am, but she ordered tuna salad and orange juice, and figured that would do as brunch. Once it was delivered, she sat on the bed, eating and flicking through the TV channels. Imagine, she murmured to herself, all this time and I've never truly explored the joys of the shopping channel. Twenty minutes later, she'd had enough TV. Stumbling across an episode of "Sunset Beach", she had watched in sheer awe at the bad acting as a mad woman attempted to stop her son Ricardo who was in a wheelchair from marrying Gabby who had had an affair with Ricardo's brother Antonio who was a Catholic priest, then switched off, afraid that she would end up hooked.

Looking around, Mary realised that playing hooky tended to be lacking in the excitement stakes when you didn't actually have anything to do. The hotel room wasn't really Pleasure Island, and even the restaurant and foyer lacked that certain something. Mary gave up the hotel as a bad loss, and decided to explore Sunnydale. So far, all she'd seen was the street where the computer company was located, the high school, and the hotel. Oh, and the road from the airport. That had been a thrill a minute. If she had been Willow - not that there was much of an 'if' about it - where would she have gone? Come to that, where had she lived?

Mary went looking for a phone booth. Finding one was easy; finding one with an intact phonebook was somewhat harder. But eventually, in a nicer neighbourhood than the ones she'd been in so far, she found one, and she sat down at the side of the road, flicking through it. As she paged through, the part of her brain not occupied with remembering what Buffy had said was Willow's surname was taking in the sights of Sunnydale during the day. So far Mary had seen Sunnydale at dawn, Sunnydale at dusk, and Sunnydale in the middle of the night. None of these were particularly edifying sights. But in the bright light of day, Sunnydale seemed more forlorn than evil or scary. Rubbish blew up the street, and occasionally you could hear the sound of someone calling to their children. But it was only faint noise, for everything was quiet. There were no boys on bikes tearing up and down the road, no teenagers hanging about at corners, telling secrets, exchanging dodgy stories. So many sights that seemed commonplace in Pittsburgh - and the rest of the country for that matter - were absent. There were just the bedraggled front gardens of those who had tried to brighten up their houses and the sound of leaves rustling on the few surviving trees.

Shaking off the melancholia, Mary applied her mind to the task at hand. What had Buffy said Willow's name was? Roseberg - that was it. Going to the Rs, Mary found that there weren't any Rosebergs, but there were Rosenbergs, which is what Buffy had probably said. Ira Rosenberg, 1473 Kennedy Drive, Sunnydale. Kennedy Drive it was then. After stopping at a gas station to ask directions, Mary made her way over to the other side of town. She found 1473, and stopped dead at what she saw. The house looked as if a bomb had hit it. There was only half a roof; one side of the house had collapsed completely, and the floor had given way to rampant weeds. It was chaos.

"The Rosenbergs left after Willow's memorial service." The voice from behind made Mary jump. "They couldn't stand being here any longer. They left most of their stuff; just took what they needed."

PART EIGHT

It was Xander. Mary turned to look at him. His shoulders were hunched in an attempt to escape the chill breeze, and he sported a mournful expression. "Somehow they'd managed to never notice all the death in this town, and Willow's death came as a huge shock to them. To all of us," he added.

"Where are they now?"

"I don't know. They never kept in touch with anyone. Can't say I blame them - if I had any brains, I'd be out of here like a shot." Mary looked at him curiously. "Why do you stay, then?" Xander gave a bitter laugh. "Habit. Guess I just got used to fighting demons. What a life, huh?" Mary smiled gently. "Oh, I don't know. Saving mankind repeatedly isn't anything to sniff at. You're doing something good here. Don't knock it."

"Yeah, well, I know how all those superheroes felt. Their alter egos, I mean. Nobody ever knows, nobody ever says 'thank you' or 'well done'." Xander stopped and thought for a second. "Actually, Giles does, but it's not the same. I don't want to famous or anything, but it sometimes feels as though we're not actually achieving anything. Some people we can't save. The people we do save usually don't remember, and quite often don't even know that they've been saved. And then there's the whole futility of it. We kill a few demons here and there - so what? Evil will always exist, in Hell, but on earth as well. No matter what we do, we can't change it. It's like The Exorcist - evil never goes away, it just carries on.

"But in The Exorcist good triumphed. Sure, evil carried on, but so did good, and that's what's important. If nobody ever did anything, we'd probably all be in Hell by now. I can see how it would be hard, but..." Here Mary stopped, as if seeking inspiration, then continued, "I think there's someone keeping score, y'know. I mean, call it God, or whatever, but I don't believe that what you all are doing can go unrewarded. After all, if there's a Hell, there must also be Heaven. Not angels on clouds, but...oh, I don't know. I'm probably sounding completely stupid right now."

"No. No, you're not." Xander bit his lip, then "Look, I'm heading back to the library to help Giles. You coming?"

"I just want to look around a bit more, if that's okay. I'll be along in an hour or so."

"Okay." Mary watched as Xander crossed the street, and got into the dilapidated pile of rust he called his car. As he drove away, she turned back to the house. "I wonder where you are, Mr and Mrs Rosenberg." Shaking her head, she walked slowly away from the house she had presumably grown up in. Wandering around Sunnydale, her next port of call was the internet café, a block away from the Bronze nightclub - how did I know that? As she bought a cup of coffee and sat down at a computer, she wondered whether Willow had ever been here. Probably not. From what Buffy had said, Willow had always had her own computer - anywya, the café didn't look that old. As she logged on, Mary remembered that something had been niggling her about Giles' translation of the prophecy. If only she could remember what that something was... She accessed a copy of the original from a wiccan site she had discovered while researching at the library, and stared at it intently for a while.

Taenarias etiam fauces, alta ostia Dei,
Et caligantem nigra formidine lucum,
Ingressus, manisque adiit regemque tremendum
Nesciaque humanis precibus mansuescere corda.
At quinque festis Saturnali de sedibus imis
Umbrae ibant tenues simulacraque luce carentum.

Saturnalia. There was something about it that didn't quite gel. Mary went to another site, and another, then found what she was looking for. Saturnalia only lasted seven days, starting from 19th September. So where had Giles got his 'twelfth day' nonsense from? It didn't make sense. There wasn't a twelfth day of Saturnalia. She went back to the Latin. Giles had got it wrong - it was the fifth day upon which the 'shadows would destroy the light'. The fifth day. So, Giles had got the date a week late - the prophecy would actually come to pass...

PART NINE

Ten minutes after leaving Mary outside the Rosenbergs old home, Xander walked into the library, swinging the door behind him. There he found Giles sitting in his office, poring over an old book; Oz on the floor by the book cage, strumming his guitar; and Buffy, cross-legged on a chair painting her nails an attractive pale blue. Five minutes later Cordelia came in to very much the same scene, except that Buffy had finished the painting stage and had moved on to the wafting hands in the air stage, and Xander had found some questionable drawings of virgin sacrifices to flick through while he ate a twinkie.

All was quiet as the Scooby gang did their thing, until with a huge roaring upheaval, the library seemed to explode; pieces of wooden railing and stacks erupting into the calm. Where the central reservation had been, there now stood a gaping hole - a hole that oddly enough coincided with the entrance to the Hellmouth. Rising up, amidst the coughing and choking besetting those scourges of the Underworld, they saw a demon. Though unexpected, the general consensus - unspoken, of course - was that this was The demon. The one prophesized. Just a bit early.

The demon looked around and smiled. At least, it would have done, had it had much of a mouth with which to smile. Instead it was more of a slavering mass of an unusually unpleasant and slimy aspect. Today was the day he was going to drag the whole world down into the flaming pits of Hell. What fun. There had been whispers that there was a Slayer around at the Hellmouth, but the demon wasn't particularly concerned. After all, he wasn't a vampire. He was invincible, and no slip of a girl was going to ruin his chance for glory. Anyway, he had a sure-fire method for getting rid of any opposition. The human mind was an interesting thing, and his control over it was even more so. The slayer - should she even show up - was going down, just like the rest of her sorry race.

Having coughed up what felt like three shelves worth of books, Buffy turned to face her new nemesis.

"Well, you're not going to win any beauty contests, are you?" She winced. As lines went, it wasn't exactly of the good. The demon didn't appear impressed. In fact, he didn't seem to be taking any notice of her whatsoever. He had started swaying and making strange sibilant noises, that would presumably have the effect of doing the Hell thing. The room felt as though it was spinning, then a cunning swirling effect started - much like Acathla's whole vortex thing. Buffy decided that she had had enough of the swirling, no matter how cunning, and launched herself at the demon, in an attempt to either distract it, or (if she was really lucky) actually kill it. It was not to be. She bounced off some kind of invisible protection. Unfortunately, her bouncing attracted the demon's attention, and though it didn't stop with the hissing, it did turn towards her, lumbering in that way that only demons of Hell can lumber. Buffy stepped up again, ready to have another go at killing it, when her head was flooded with voices and images. Not protecting Teresa, sending Angel to Hell; sleeping with Angel...Willow. Buffy was swamped with guilt and she fell to her knees. The demon smiled again, still hissing them all to Hell. Aah, now there was something. A lot of guilt was always useful, particularly when dealing with the responsible types. He rooted about in her mind, and conjured up a vision of Willow at eighteen.

"Why did you leave me? Why didn't you make sure I was safe? You were so busy moaning about Angel, you didn't care about your friends any more. You were meant to protect us, but you let me walk home by myself. Why?" Buffy was crying. She didn't stop to think that Willow would never have blamed her, that it wasn't in her nature. The words continued in her mind, filling her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else. Giles, seeing that she wasn't capable of stopping a kitten, let alone a hellish miscreant, did his best with the others' help, but there was nothing to be done. They were helpless. The demon was reaching a crescendo, his hissing getting louder and more..hissy. This was it, thought Giles despondently, as he carried on in his futile battle. They were all doomed. Then Oz lifted his head suddenly, an almost feral look in his eyes. He had smelled something amongst the blood and smoke and dust. Something he knew very well.

"Willow?"

PART TEN

**Author's Note: You've read all the stuff that I've written before, so you know the deal - no Angel, but yes, we have Snyder - now, please try and moderate your sounds of glee. Also, school and library intact etc. Before you do the reading thing, I'd like to take this very fine and worthwhile opportunity to thank all the people who've e-mailed me with feedback - thank you lots. And in particular I'd like to thank Jenny J , who has written me loads of nice 'mails while I've been writing this. Hiya, Jenny ::little wave::!**

Discovering that the fifth day of Saturnalia was actually here had kind of put a kink in Mary's 'wait around and find another solution' plan. There wasn't time to wait around and find another solution. As Mary took in this fact, sitting in front of the computer screen in the internet café, she noticed with a shock that everything was the same. If she'd thought about it, there really wasn't a reason why everyone should be making their wills and crying that the end was nigh, but it was a little bizarre to watch one woman sip her coffee while muttering at her e-mail, and another stand by a printer checking the spreadsheet she needed. I mean, they were going to Hell. There should at least be some kind of acknowledgement. Then it really hit her. The world was ending. They were all going to die horrible painful deaths, and there was nothing anybody could do...

Except that wasn't true. According to the prophecy Giles was so impressed with, there was somebody who could do something. Namely her. It has to be said that Mary wasn't particularly keen on the direction in which her reasoning was taking her. She didn't particularly want to save the world from the bowels of Hell. That is, she wanted the world saved; she just didn't want to be the one doing it. However, she reminded herself, there really wasn't another option. If the world was to be saved, then she'd better do it. And the sooner the better.

Getting into her trusty rented car, Mary made her way quickly to Sunnydale High School. It was essential that Giles found out both that the prophecy would come to pass today, and that she was Willow. Pulling into the parking lot outside the school, Mary saw that she was a tad too late. The grounds were full of shrieking students, and frazzled, frightened teachers trying to get the heaving masses under control. Snyder was stalking to and fro, yammering away into his mobile phone and casting looks of deep dislike at the particularly vocal members of the student body.

The library. That was where all the 'demon-from-Hell' stuff would be happening. After all, that was where the Hellmouth actually opened. So Mary made for the library. Where she found Giles and the scooby gang fighting a losing battle against a large and unpleasant-looking demon. Curious as to Buffy's whereabouts, Mary looked around, only to find the slayer crouched on the floor, floods of tears pouring down her face. She was about to make her entrance known, when one of the few people in the room looked around. And spoke her name.

"Willow."

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