The Ultimate
Betrayal
by jamies_lady
Summary:
After the Battle in LA Riley brings news to Buffy which will change
things for ever.
Goes VERY off canon after the Battle of Sunnydale
Chapter 14
Oz was sitting quietly on the stage. He regretted leaving Willow in
such a manner: he’d just been so upset when he smelt Tara all over her,
he'd always hoped that they could get back together but in his heart he
knew they never could, not now. She was lost for all time. He had to be
philosophical about it, after all that was him.
He hardly noticed the bright whirling mass of light appearing in the
middle of the room.
'Hi Oz.' Willow had been volunteered to be the one to go talk to Oz;
she knew it would be hard, he would not know about years of the
Scoobies history. For him, Buffy was still at college, and she was with
Tara.
‘Willow?’
‘Hi, yep, it’s me.’
‘You’ve changed: you look really different and I only saw two days ago.
What’s happened?’
‘It’s been a lot longer for me,' Willow wasn't sure where to start.
‘You smell different as well. Willow what’s happening? My nose tells me
you’re Willow, but older.’
‘Yep, about 5 or 6 years we think. And eww with the smelling thing.’
Oz nodded, he didn’t freak or anything, his laid-back attitude was one
of the things Willow had always loved about him.
‘Drink?’ He asked, pointing to the bar.
‘Soda please.’ She answered, grateful for the normalcy of the
conversation.
Oz put his guitar down and made his way over to the bar. He hopped up
and fetched a couple of cans. Opening one he sat at the table and put
it down in front of Willow, opening and taking a long drink out of the
other.
‘So spill. This must be important for you to time hop.’ He looked at
his first true love, she seemed amazing now, mature and smelling better
than ever. He could feel the wolf coming to the surface, and it wasn’t
thinking about violence. He took a deep breath to try and calm himself.
Bad mistake: he could smell and taste her in the air.
Willow picked up the can, managing to spill some of the drink in her
lap, she was clumsy and wanted to babble, sure signs that this was hard.
‘Are we together? In the future I mean? Come to tell me to wait
patiently?’ Oz joked, hoping to get her to relax.
‘No, no togethering; I’m with someone.’
‘Tara?’
‘No.’ the sadness in Willow’s voice couldn’t be hidden. ‘She was
killed; I waited for years then met someone else, very different from
Tara, but she loves me and I love her. I think you’d like her: she’s
funny and loyal and good to me…’
‘I’m glad.’
‘You’d be welcome to come and see us, when you get to our time, but
we’re about to face another apocalypse and we need your help.’
‘Why couldn’t you just ask me then? You know, use the phone and call?
In your time?’
‘Cause you don’t have the Ring of Amara then, in our time; we need it
back.’
Oz looked at his old love. The wounds were fresh and painful for him,
but he knew Willow better than most and this woman wasn’t his Willow.
She was Willow though, and she was being truthful. His wolf side didn’t
sense anything wrong: she was nervous, but he could smell she was
human, just older, more mature. Not a demon or a vampire, just Willow,
sweet loveable Willow.
‘OK, I haven’t taken it to Angel yet, but he’ll know if I give him a
fake, and from the way you’re talking you don’t want the time lines
meddled with.’
‘We thought of that. We made one, it will last for about 4 hours from
first being worn, but that’s it, it was the best we could do. We know
Angel is going to destroy the ring, so we made the fake.’ She handed
over a perfect copy of the ring to Oz. ‘Please understand Oz, this is
really important.’
Oz nodded and went to his guitar case. He opened the pocket that held
spare strings and fetched out the original gem and handed it over to
Willow. Willow grasped it tightly in her hand: the first task was done.
She smiled at Oz. ‘You know I do miss you,’ and headed back to the
bright light of the portal. She turned before entering the shimmering
playing light.
‘If you’re in LA in about 8 years, we’re at the Hyperion, but don’t
come ‘til you hear about the second big gang fight OK?’
‘OK,’ Oz said with a gentle sad smile, ‘I’ll see you around.’
‘Oh, you will.’ Willow stepped into the light and it shut off behind
her. Oz stared at it for a few minutes and shrugged. Second big fight?
He was leaving the city as soon as he could. New York seemed a good
idea.
He picked up his guitar and started playing again. Life was sure
strange at times, he thought to himself and lost himself in his music
once more.
Willow stepped through into the small room they’d set aside for the
portals to be opened into. It was more a storage closet than a room and
they hoped it would prevent mishaps like someone going through
accidentally. They knew that now they had started using magic they had
little time. Giles would be able to track them, but the list of jobs
was important.
Mary and Cathy had arrived two days earlier, they were supposed to have
flown all the way to LA but Cathy had received a really bad feeling at
the airport just as they were getting on the plane. She’d run from the
building, before they’d even checked in, dragging Mary behind her. They
had had just enough time to get clear in a taxi before a ‘gas
explosion’ had taken out the plane they were supposed to have been on.
Thirty people dead and Cathy could feel the oily stench of dark magic.
They’d hopped a taxi, and driven to a private airfield and persuaded
some lad to take them half way to LA, it had cost them $5000, but
they’d made it. A greyhound the rest of the way had seen them turn up
dirty, tired and hungry, but alive.
They were welcomed by the sight of a run-down, if not derelict
building, but this was where they’d been told to come. They pushed
against the door and it tingled as they entered into a well lit and
clean foyer. Looking around, Mary saw Willow who was waiting curled up
on a chair reading a book.
‘Hi, anyone home?’ shouted Cathy, only for the two of them to be
grabbed from behind as they were noticed by the red haired witch. Cathy
and Mary reacted immediately. Their attackers regretted their actions
almost immediately. Cathy and Mary may have been tired and hungry but
they were still slayers. They grabbed the arms around their necks and
executed perfect judo throws, perfect with added slayer. The soldiers
who had supposed to be on guard duty had immediate and comprehensive
flying lessons, over Willow’s head and into the opposite wall where
they landed with an umph as the air exploded from them. Sam had come
into the room at the first sign of disturbance and had seen the flying
guards as they sailed majestically across the air.
‘OK, who was so stupid as to piss off a slayer?’ She asked as she
nursed the peppermint tea Willow was insisting she drank. Between that
and some of the other concoctions she’d been made to ingest, Sam was
suffering none of the normal side effects of her pregnancy, but her
bulge didn’t look right in combat fatigues.
‘These two, er, females got past the guards on duty and when we went to
question them they attacked us,’ one of the soldiers, Brian, said. He
got up from the floor and headed towards Mary and Cathy, loosening his
gun as he came forward, a determined look on his face.
‘Want to try again?’ Mary was in no mood for lies. ‘We walked in and
were grabbed: no words, just hands and we dealt with it. Didn’t see
anyone other than Willow,’ she pointed at the witch who was staring at
the pair of them, not having said a word.
‘You two report to the colonel and may I remind you again, not to hit
any slayer, they make look like weak females but they can kick your
asses, and you’d look really stupid without any teeth; dismissed.’ She
turned away from the two men hurrying towards the office and smiled.
‘We’ve been expecting you two: Mary and Cathy? Yes? Buffy wants to see
you asap, and she said you have something for Willow.’
Cathy nodded and lifted up the case. Willow came over and took it off
of her ‘Thank you,’ she said ‘I’ll get started immediately.’
Willow went down towards the basement where Morgana was waiting. They
had a circle ready and it was the work of only a couple of minutes to
complete the ritual now they had the blood of all those affected.
Morgana opened her mind to allow Willow in: they only needed one witch
to do the spell but she was supposed to teach Willow all she knew.
Willow allowed herself, her ego, to be free and followed the trail in
the older witch’s mind, hitchhiking where Morgana’s thoughts took her.
Morgana had placed the case of phials of blood in the centre of their
circle: she wove her hands over it, ‘feeling’ for each of the lives the
blood represented. She could feel Willow and Xander, Buffy and Dawn and
hundreds of others, each tied to the horrendous glamour Rupert Giles
had wrought.
It was a matter of seconds and a touch of white magic to break the
spell. The screams from the slayers echoed in their minds. Faith would
be fielding a lot of calls in the next few hours and Giles had run out
of allies. None of the slayers felt like they would back up a warlock
who had raped and murdered with impunity amongst them.
There was one phial that felt as if it hadn’t been affected. Andrew’s.
The spell woven on it was a heady mix of black and white magic. Morgana
tasted the spell, ensuring Willow could feel her every move and, using
dark magic herself, started to unweave the diabolical curse. It broke
under their ministrations, but Willow and Morgana were exhausted: they
collapsed quietly onto the floor. Willow’s last thought was that she
was glad they hadn’t locked the door.
Septamus heard a sigh and a soft thump from his place in the storeroom.
He had been going through all the files that those nice young soldiers
had brought with them. Something told him he should look into the
noise: as far as he knew he was he only person down in the cellar. He
timidly peeked around the door, and was quite astonished to see both
Willow and Morgana asleep on the floor. They didn’t look comfortable
but he couldn’t reach them: the circle prevented him entering the area.
He started to panic and went in search of help. He found Dawn talking
quietly to the medic, Martin Longsworth. Dawn had found every excuse
she could think of to help the young man, she’d help him set up the
medical bay and was presently going through the files on demon medicine
with him.
‘Excuse me,’ Septamus stuttered.
Dawn looked up, her cheeks slightly red from a blush. ‘Can we help?’
‘I do hope so, it’s Willow and Morgana, they appear to have collapsed.
I couldn’t enter the circle; they’re in the large storeroom,’ he
shouted to the disappearing backs. Martin had grabbed his bag as he ran.
Dawn was first into the room. The circle prevented her from going to
her friend and she started screaming loudly for her sister.
Buffy came down the stairs three at a time, terrified of what she would
find, Closely followed by Xander and Riley. She looked in amazement as
her little sister was chanting and bringing down the walls of the
circle of protection. As soon as she had, Martin was on his knees
checking both Morgana and Willow.
‘They’re alive, it looks like exhaustion, but I need to check them out,
we’ll get a stretcher and take them through to the infirmary.’
‘No need,’ Xander said coming into the room. He picked Willow up in his
arms and Buffy picked Morgana the same way.
‘We’ll follow you,’ she added and they made their way out of the room.
‘How did you bring down the circle?’ Septamus wondered at Dawn. Dawn
showed her finger, a single drop of blood.
‘It opens every door.’ she smiled.