Title: Waiting For The Apocalypse

Author: mispel

E-mail: [email protected]

Rating: PG13

Summary: Willow says good bye to the world that ended a long time ago. Part five in the Waiting Room series.

Spoilers: None

Disclaimer: Joss, ME, and Fox own everything.

Feedback: Any feedback would be nice.

Waiting For The Apocalypse

The last buildings left standing were falling to the earthquakes. And the fires were dying. Maybe that's why Drusilla was sitting on the floor, playing with a candle. The house had no roof, and gusts of wind blew straight trough the gaping windows on one side and to the missing wall on the other. Drusilla was turned into the corner so that her body protected the flame.

"What do I look like?" Willow asked her.

But Drusilla was busy. She would pull strands of hair from her head and hold them to the flame. She watched closely as the hair touched by the heat curled upward. As if to escape. She did this over and over until the air filled with the smell of singed hair.

The candle died as Willow dozed on a mattress.

The dying fires churned out thick, black smoke. There were hot winds blowing the dense smoke to the west. Willow knew the ocean was somewhere over there but she didn't want to think about it. The last time Willow had seen the ocean she had collapsed on the beach, curled up on the sand, choking with sobs.

Willow opened her eyes to find Drusilla standing over her.

"You look like cobwebs and burned snow," Drusilla told her, her face twisting a little.

"Thanks, Drusilla."

So Willow didn't know what she looked like. Mirrors did funny things when she looked into them. When she asked Drusilla, she only said things like unborn flowers, or the edge of the paper, or church steps. Ask an insane person a question. It's not like Willow needed to know after all this time. It was only because of the day that she even wondered.

Today she chose to look the way she did at twenty-five. It was comforting to look and know that they couldn't look back and see her.

"It's time, I guess," she said to Drusilla.

Drusilla looked all around, confused. Willow had to take her by the hand.

"We're going on a picnic," Willow said to her and they walked out through the missing wall.

It was soon after they met, when the sky was still stuck in twilight, the clouds not yet thick enough. Drusilla would look up at the sky and smile. She would look for the faint outline of the sun and stare at it like a child. Gloating over an old bully's humiliation?

Willow knew that there had been a time when a creature like Drusilla would have revolted her. Now she found her almost sweet in her innocence.

Because she had hidden in her fantasies, Willow had missed months of portents that had surged through the populace making them crazier than before. Drusilla was afraid to go out. The humans had dwindled into an enraged, struggling remnant. Drusilla looked very thin, even for her. But Willow didn't worry. It wasn't like she would die of starvation.

Now that the end was almost here, the earth sent out a sign so strong, Willow couldn't hide from it. This wasn't the Hellmouth spewing out behemoths no matter how big. This was the end. A final destruction. An end to life and the place that held it.

An apocalypse was worth at least a picnic.

"No use hoarding the magic. Let's spend like there's no tomorrow," Willow said to Drusilla as they walked trying to keep their footing as the ground trembled.

The ground was made gray by a thin covering of ash, but it crunched under their feet, like dry, dead things. Fissures were opening with each rumble. The air was thin and Willow had trouble catching her breath. The sky was completely black and smoke just disappeared into it.

Willow remembered light blue skies and clear night skies that were a dark, dark blue with stars. There were good things in this world once: puppies, long ago eaten; flowers, dead, starved of sunlight. There was music, Willow didn't know what happened to it. Maybe cultists still played old records on hand cranked gramophones. But she doubted it. And there were people to love, but they died.

How much of this was her doing? There was a time when Willow had tried to figure it out, measure her fair share of guilt. She was beyond caring now. The world was like a looted building. The best things had gone first. There was nothing left just to bulldoze the crack house.

Drusilla smiled, first at nothing in particular, then at Willow. She knew. She would have made a great witch. Willow smiled back.

Demon laughter came to her. Drusilla perked up her ears. A few cultists roamed somewhere nearby. There were no screams when they found their pray. Whatever they had caught didn't fight back. The demons knew. Only the human still denied what was coming and wasted time going about their business of cleansing.

Willow got tired of their noise. She turned in their direction and frowned. Her hand twitched as if it yearned to make a grand gesture. Willow just put them all to sleep with one word. Drusilla was very disappointed, but then she went to feed. It was a feast like she hadn't indulged in for ...Willow didn't know how long. She sampled from each, and returned to Willow happy.

They chose a spot. Well, Willow chose, Drusilla agreed. It was Willow's picnic. It wasn't all that different from the rest, but it was a little more secluded and stable.

This time Willow did indulge in some gestures as she made it so they walked on soft, new grass. She spread out her arms and all around them there was green grass, never stepped on.

Drusilla squealed as she felt it on her bare feet. She twirled. Willow walked a little away from her. She looked at her and Drusilla stopped turning. No matter how long she looked, years, Drusilla never really looked back. She was her own world. When Willow had seen inside she had turned away. That was the stuff she had been hiding from, all inside Drusilla's head. So why had she kept her close?

Willow raised her hand and gave Drusilla the night. A clear black sky with just enough stars to count. Then she added people. Everyone Drusilla wanted to see just as she best remembered them, or wanted to see them. She left her to play with them, drain them, whatever she wanted as long as Willow didn't have to watch.

Willow made a sunny, blue sky for herself. She enjoyed the feel of it on her skin and the way it filtered through her eyelids when she blinked.

She raised a hand to each side for some trees. She put some houses in the distance so it wouldn't be too lonely. But it was lonely.

She sat down and ran her hands over the grass, letting it slip between her fingers. She pressed her hands to the earth. She felt the tearing that went on inside it.

Willow was a child in her parents' house.

She saw them.

Her Mom and Dad, wearing their party clothes and big smiles. They had come home giddy from that cocktail party - and maybe a little tipsy. Her father had picked her up to mock scold her for staying up so late. They all took a seat on the couch and her parents looked at each other over her head as they watched late night TV.

Stepping out on the front steps with her arms folded, she yelled at Xander for standing her up and he just stood there. He offered a lame, "I forgot", then leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

"I don't deserve you," he said.

She agreed and he smiled. He let her take him to see a late showing of Four Weddings and a Funeral and he liked it. Well, the funny parts anyway. She saw him cry when the guy read the poem at the funeral, and they shared a big popcorn. Afterward they sat on her porch and she leaned on him and almost fell asleep.

The school grounds were dotted with students. Oz, sitting under a tree, looked up at her as she came over with books. He just smiled and she just stood there smiling back, like a big geek with a pile of books in her arms. Till they started spilling and then she strewed them over the grass. Oz watched her as she read.

The earth shook so violently that Willow fell.

Late night researching at the library, Giles brought her tea and told her to take a break. He said that she had limitless potential, but... He looked at her and squeezed her hand and told her she should have more fun.

"If you wanted me to have fun, you wouldn't be feeding me tea and crackers. You'd be sharing your stash of good cookies."

Willow mouthed the words as the ground started to disintegrate.

"I'd forgotten about them," he had claimed.

"Sure. I believe you."

Then he went and got them from his office and they pigged out.

The Bronze filled with people.

Buffy was dancing with Willow and smiling and being alive. Wearing an awful outfit, her eyes bright, she gave Willow this intense look. And they gyrated around the dance floor ignoring everyone else.

The air was so thin that Willow couldn't breathe.

Tara stood in the field, her face glowing from the sun. Wind was sweeping back her hair and her dress and even the leather coat a little. Her eyes were closed and she said how the world was a wonderful place.

And then it ended.

The end