Prologue
In reality it had only been a few months since Willow and I had declared our love for each other, embraced it, and as a result had been the happiest either of us could ever recall being in life, but, nothing gold can last. That's how the saying goes anyway. Happiness is fleeting, an elusive mistress, while pain is a much more loyal companion, almost shadow like, stalking you constantly, waiting for the sun to set. The last few months however did two things in all their horrific glory. They gave me much time to think, and they brought Willow and I closer together. At times it seemed as if the direct opposite would result, that the seemingly unending obstacles placed in our path would tear us apart, but together we made it through. Still, now, at the end of it all, certain events are hazy and unclear, as if I were viewing them through a piece of dirty glass. Perhaps that's because I wasn't seeing them clearly at the time they were taking place, or perhaps it's just a trick of the mind. I can't forget, so I glaze over.
The first hurdle had to have been when Oz tried to reconcile with Willow shortly after our ordeal with Rio, and that was a hurdle created solely from my own imagination, my own fears. The reconciliation was not to be, but I clearly remember my feelings during that brief period of time. It was before the rest of the cards came tumbling down, and I remember that I was afraid, afraid that he would succeed. Absence, I think, makes the heart grow needier, but time, time makes it grow fonder. Back then I knew that Willow was my crucial game piece, and she is even more so now. Quod me nutrit me destruit-what nourishes me, destroys me. For a transient moment during the time I saw them speaking, saw him smile at her, and her place her hand on his shoulder, I felt a tightening in my stomach and dizziness in my head. I felt like I was dying, and I knew then with absolute certainty just how much of me she actually owned.
My fears were unwarranted, unnecessary, uncalled for, and mentally I knew this all. But love, I was quickly becoming to realize belonged not to the realm of the synapses, of the brain. I was understanding that it was not something to be intellectualized, but to be felt. Felt with the heart, with the spirit. That, sometimes made love irrational, even painful, but without it the experience we call love would not be the same. Would not be love.
One of the few good things to come out of these last few months was that Oz had rejoined us. He had been informed of the recent developments, he had been cool (as usual), and he had been a great deal of help to us. I had been surprised at how well he had taken the news and this surprise, when commented on, blossomed into a conversation which revealed this: To some extent he had always known that there was something special between Willow and I. Something that he couldn't explain or even qualify, but something that he was aware of nonetheless. He said that when all things were considered, Willow was happy and that there was to be no fault found in that. The best man-so to speak-had won.
The person who devastated me so completely over these few months however, was not Willow, or Oz, or Angel, but Faith. Faith, my sister in arms, my friend. She revealed to me a new insight into darkness that I had never considered before, had never needed to consider. My world of darkness is occupied with demons, and vampires, and creatures with no soul. Creatures who were created with the sole purpose of destroying and inflicting suffering. This being said, when the time comes to remove these creatures from the face of the earth there is no remorse, no moral struggle. But Faith, she's a different story altogether, for I knew the good in her, and the very, very worst. The entire situation with the Mayor, and the ascension, and the murder revealed to me a new breeding place for evil. This place more frightening, more disturbing than all the crypts, and fire demon nests in the world because it's much, much closer. This place is the human soul. When the darkness comes from there the motivations of the individual are not so easy to ascertain, the course of action to employ not so easy to decide, the moral dilemma much more difficult to settle. At the end of it all, as she lay in coma, broken and beaten by my own hand, I'm still not sure what to make of her. I only know that despite everything that happened to us, and that we had done to each other, I still considered her to be a friend, to be my sister in arms.
Cordelia, Wesley, and some chick named Anya also made appearances over the past few months, but that's pretty much all there is to say about them. Mother always said that if you didn't have anything nice to say you should at least have the decency to be vague.