Prompt: Sympathy

'We have to save her, Buffy." The taller blonde's words barely reached Buffy's ears as the girl paced forward in the given direction, her mind set on one thing, everything else was a distraction. They had to get Will, and they had to get a soul back in her. Pronto.

"I know." Buffy could feel a headache coming on, the pounding on her brain taking its toll, perfectly in time to her footfalls, she walked to the beat of her own heart. Her beating heart. The heart that had bled out and withered away before Willow pulled everything back. For a price. God, she should have guessed something had to happen. Giles and Tara always said magic came at a price. She never asked if anything was paid for in return for her. And to find out like that? Part of her wanted to slap Will for that.

"And what are we meant to do when we find her? Convince her home where we strap her down and force a soul down her throat?" That was Xander. "I don't know if anyone remembers but our resident re-souler, doesn't have a soul." That stopped Buffy in her tracks.

The re-souling spell. The one they—Will used to re-soul Angel. She didn't think about the spell itself at all. Did they even have anything they need? For starters they didn't even have Willow. Yeah, they had Tara, but Willow had done it twice, and given her number to some Fred girl in LA lest they ever need Angel re-souled.

"The happiness clause." Giles cursed under his breath, so quiet Buffy was just able to hear it, the others missing it.

"The happiness clause." Buffy repeated, and Xander gasped behind her. From somewhere to her left, Buffy saw Tara raise an eyebrow, so she continued. "A clause put in the re-souling spell for Angelus. If he had even a second of pure happiness, he loses his soul."

"No…" Buffy turned away from Tara, not wanting to look at the other blonde, afraid her own emotions would be reflected on her face. Your two options are soulless-possibly-emotionless-Willow, or has-a-soul-but-can-never-be-happy-Willow. No-one could make that choice.

"Let's keep moving."

"Stop moving!" Willow shouted at the town. Of course, it wasn't to the whole town, it was rather to the cloud of yellow softly approaching her. Sympathy. There can only be one group with that much sympathy.

"So, Buffy tattled." Willow rolled her eyes and turned away, lifting her hands to push the palm of her hands into her temples, blocking the thumping in her head.

Thump.

Thump.

Thu-Thump.

One beat, then another, then a double beat. Over and over and over. It got louder as they got closer, and she found herself edging away from the yellow as it found her, snaking towards her up the bluff.

"Will!" Someone shouted. Who? She didn't care. She just had to stop them. The sympathy hurt. It made her sick. It coiled around her stomach and squeezed. She could taste it.

"Stop!" She commanded, lifting a hand in their direction, still refusing to look at them.

"Willow, sweetheart, please…" She grimaced as she heard her lover talk. How could she look at Tara now Tara found out the truth? Well, half of it. They still didn't know of the tendrils.

"Stop! Stop there!" Willow repeated, backing up in the dirt of the bluff, kicking U dirt as she backed away.

"We're not moving." Xander offered, his hands in a surrender state, to try and calm his long term friend in any way he could. She looked like she was in pain. He didn't know much about souls, but he did know no matter what, you felt pain.

"No! Stop! Stop feeling sorry for me! You're hurting me! Your sympathy is killing me! I can feel it, I can see it, every emotion you have. Love, fondness, family, hate, fear, loathing, sympathy. And they hurt. Stop!"

No one blinked.