My first Fic: A Certain Point of View

[Padme]

Hi,

Well this is a first for me. I've written before (although not Buffy) but i've never actually posted anything but I figured after reading fic for years I may as well give it a shot.

First an explanation. I was once told that I rely too much on dialogue and that I take way too long to get a story finished so I challenged myself to write this in under one hour and with no dialogue at all.

This is the result. A short internal character monologue of what could be going on in Willows mind. If it sucks I apologise for wasting your time... If you like it let me know cause I think I've finished at least one companion peice. Any feedback at all is appreciated :-)

Spoilers: Up to Smashed

Anyway onto the story

A Certain Point of View: Willow

She woke slowly as if forcing her way out of the fog. Her head throbbed from the spells she had been casting the night before. It sometimes left her feeling like this. The all powerful rush would die and she would be left depleted. She reached over beside her and found nothing but a cold and empty bed.

She remembered now. It had been one week. Seven whole days since her Tara had left her. Tara had thought she had been using too much magic. That she was trying to find a quick fix for every problem. She wasn’t though. She was just trying to make everyone happy. She had to. Giles was gone and Buffy was all depressed and everything so she had to be the one who kept things together and made sure everything was running smoothly. Okay so she had done a couple of spells but were was the harm in that? Okay so the “forget heaven” spell had gone a little wrong but it wasn’t like anyone was hurt.

Except she broke the promise. She’d promised not to use magic for a week. She couldn’t last an hour. She tried. Really she did but she couldn’t help it. She had to make it better and that spell was just there and it was so perfect. It was like fate. That spell had just come to her of course she had to try it. But in doing the spell she had broken her promise to Tara.

Tara was her everything. She loved her with everything that she was but still she lied to her and broke her promise. The spell was just so tempting. It was fast and easy and after it had been done everything and everyone would be completely fine. To let things run their natural course would just take to long and in the end what if everyone was still traumatised? This was the best thing for everyone. Why couldn’t they all see that? Why couldn’t Tara see that?

Since Tara had left her the others had turned from her as well. Dawn rarely spoke to her and even then it was only when she had to. The rest of the time if Willow walked into a room Dawn left it. It hurt so much to see the pain in Dawnie’s eyes but she had to realise this wasn’t her fault. Anya wasn’t much better. She talked to her only when necessary. A year ago she would have been okay with that and she probably would have been happy but a lot of time had passed since then. The ex-demon had grown on her and seeing her disappointed glares every time she walked in the Magic Box was getting a little hard to take. And Xander, Xander who she had known forever, her friend, the guy she had had a crush on for years. He tried to act like things were normal. But she could tell she had known him to long. He was freaked. He hadn’t said anything to her but he could barely meet her eyes when they spoke. And if they were ever alone he always found excuses to be places where she wasn’t. As for Buffy well she was just so upset about the Heaven deal she didn’t have time for anyone else but for some reason Spike. She probably didn’t even know anything was happening.

That’s why she was glad she had figured out how to bring Amy back. With Amy she could have fun with her powers. With Amy there was no lecturing about how it was wrong there was just fun to be had and the rush that came with doing a really great spell.

But she still missed her Tara. Why couldn’t Tara understand? Everything she had done had been for the good of the Scooby Gang. It was all to make sure everyone would stay together and be happy. Why didn’t Tara see that? What would it take for her to understand? She just wanted her Tara back and everything to be right again. Why couldn’t there be a spell that would make everything just right?

[wiltar]

I like your fic very much! Will there be a sequel????

Patricia

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"What are they looking at?"
"The hotness of you, doofus!"

[Wiccagrrl]

Really, really good. I think you caught Willow's mood perfectly, Padme.

[Rane]

this is fantastic! i'm a dialogue kinda girl too, but the narration was perfect. certainly looking forward to more! especially when that last line shows she's not learned anything at all.

[emily 'first']

Padme,
Keep going...There's so much further you can go with this...We even take dialogue as well,'specially as you seem to be developing something here...

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vive,valeque.

[Padme]

Well since a couple of people liked it I thought I would post the first companion piece. What i'm thinking of doing is writing a peice from each of the Scooby's points of view and then having a sequal about how they deal with it together. This part is Xander's. If anyone has any advice at all the want to share please email me at padme81@hotmail.com

Oh and BTW thanks for the encouragement so far it has helped.

A Certain Point of View- Xander

He walked out of the Scooby meeting more worried than when he had went in there. Not that that was unusual. I mean hey it’s Sunnydale if you were living on a Hellmouth wouldn’t you be worried? But this time his reason for worrying was different. This time there weren’t any demons or monsters or Hellmouthy type catastrophes. This time the problem was just one person. Not an undead person or even a person who was possessed just a normal everyday person who had changed so much her life was going off the rails no matter what anyone tried to do to stop it.

The problem for him though was it was the one person who had always been there for him no matter what was the one who was changing. She’d changed so much since they first met. It was expected people grew up and changed it happened to everyone. The difference with this though was this change was not for the better.

He thought back on their life together. She had been there for him through it all. When they were kids they’d played together (she even forgave him for stealing her Barbie). When they were in Junior High she’d been the one who tried to protect him from his family. She’d made sure she brought him over to her place so much he might as well have lived there. She always found a reason for him to come over. Wether it be for study, to help in with his homework or even just for dinner. They were inseparable. They were seen as social outcasts but at least they were social outcasts together.

And then came High School. She stood by him and was his voice of reason through it all. Through their friend Jessie’s death, through his crush on Buffy, through the fights, the tears and even through the Preying Mantis lady, the Mummy Girl, Cordelia and Faith. They stood together even after their own ill-fated fling. And through it all they had been as close as ever. Even with their new friends like Buffy and Oz and even Giles. She was always his Willow.

And then High School was over and there were even more changes. For her it was college, for him a steady stream of different jobs until he finally found his place. For him it was the return of Anya and for her it was the departure of Oz and then when she met Tara.

He wasn’t sure about the quiet, shy blonde girl at first. All he knew was she was nice and she was from the Wicca group but why was she hanging around so much? And then after Oz came back and then left again and Willow finally told them it all made sense. In the end it was seeing Willow so happy after the way she had been so miserable after Oz had left the first time that made his mind up. Anyone that made Willow that happy could not have been all bad. He remembered at the start when he wasn’t sure he though Tara was good enough for Willow. Now he knew the opposite was true. Willow was the one who was not good enough for Tara.

He tried to remember when things had started to go bad. During the fights with Glory that’s when Willow really began to change. She started using more and more magic. He just figured it was a way of fighting back against the God who had reduced her lover to a confused and helpless mess. He didn’t worry about it because she was helping everyone and it was needed. Then Buffy died and even with Tara back to normal Willow became obsessed. He didn’t want to see it at the time but it was there. He should have known it wouldn’t have ended with the resurrection spell but it was his Willow. His old reliable Will. Nothing bad would come from her no matter how much the spells she was doing frightened him.

But the spells she had cast on her girlfriend were unforgivable. Magick had stopped being a tool for Willow and had become her life. If she didn’t like something she would just reshape the way she wanted. If she could do that to Tara, the woman she loved more than anything, she could do it to the rest of us as well.

He loved his Willow but the person she had become was no longer his Willow. She had changed. She had gone from being the shy, scared nerd to a confident and self-assured woman. But then she changed again and became the all-powerful witch he knew now. And as much as he loved his Willow he hated this final change.

[This message has been edited by Padme (edited November 25, 2001).]

[emily 'first']

Thanx,
That was good...
The idea of taking everybody's individual point of view...that sounds interesting...looking forward to them.

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vive,valeque.

[miss_spangles]

Hey Padme, you write really well. I think it must have
been very difficult especially to do the Willow part
at the top but you did it well

[Padme]

Well here are the next two parts (Dawn and Anya). I'll probably finish this with Tara tomorrow and start posting the sequal (which is a full story not character monologues) Friday.

Anyway onto the story...

A Certain Point of View: Dawn

Dawn hated life in the Summers household. Buffy had once again disappeared either off with Spike or slaying something, Amy was there again and her and Willow were doing spells together and worst of all Tara was gone.

It was weird even though she knew Tara was only across town it felt like Tara had left her life completely. Dawn sometimes thought that Tara was the only one who cared one way or another about her and she really missed her being at the house all the time.

In the four months since Buffy died Tara was the one she came to rely on the most. Sure the others tried to be there for her but it was something’s in Tara’s attitude that it made her feel less like a kid and more like one of the gang.

Dawn had had a big year. First she found out she was a key made up of mystical energy and hunted by a crazy god. Then her Mom died and then not even six months later her sister sacrificed herself to make sure she could live. In the end she had nothing but her sister’s friends left.

All she wanted was normalcy to her life. Tara gave her that. When everyone and everything she believed in was taken away from her Tara was there to sit with her and make her feel believe that everything was going to be all right.

After Buffy died everyone sat down to discuss who would look after her. Giles had already decided he wanted to go back to England which was good because as much as Dawn liked Giles she really didn’t want to live with him. Xander at least had a good job that paid him but he was still basically a big kid himself. And besides no-one wanted to see what would happen if Anya was able to have to much influence on Dawn. So it was decided Willow and Tara would move into the Summers house to make sure that she would be fine.

It was kinda weird at first but Will and Tara had always been there for her so she thought it was pretty cool. It was like having two more older sisters around. It made life in the house fun again and when the Buffy-Bot was working properly she could sometimes even forget that Buffy had died and for just a few moments the pain would go away and she could be happy again.

But then things started getting weird. She’d walk into rooms and conversations would stop. Willow would lock herself in a room with Magickal texts for hours. Anya spent hours at a time on E-Bay trying to buy things. Xander started to look nervous and jumpy. But no matter how many times she asked they wouldn’t tell her what was going on. Spike thought something was up too but even he wouldn’t talk to her about it. It was a bad time for everyone.

But then it happened they brought Buffy back. She thought then maybe everything would go back to being normal again. It wasn’t though. Buffy was different. She was quieter she wasn’t the same cheerful person she was when she left. And Willow had changed as well. She still did more and more spells even though things were okay now. And the worse thing was Will and Tara began to fight about magick. She couldn’t stand it when Will and Tara fought. She felt the same way she had when her Mom and Dad had gotten divorced. They were so perfect together why couldn’t they be happy?

But then it happened. Willow went to far and Tara left. At first she hated Tara for leaving her but she understood now. Tara did what she had to do. She knew it was all Willow’s fault. That’s why she stopped talking to her. She’d decided she wouldn’t speak to Willow again until she apologised to Tara. She missed Tara so much. Tara at least payed attention to her. Why couldn’t things go back to normal? When would things go back to being right for all of them?

[Padme]

A Certain Point of View: Anya

Anya sat in the empty Magic Box counting the days takings. For the first time ever she was having difficulty focusing on the money. She was angry and upset and she didn’t know what to do. She should have been happy, she was engaged and planning her wedding and she was making a lot of money but still she was mad.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Buffy was supposed to come back and everything was supposed go back to normal. It didn’t though. Instead Buffy rarely spoke to them, Xander was always upset, Willow was out of control and Tara was broken-hearted.

For the first time in a year she wished she still had her powers. If she did she’d do something really bad to Willow to make her pay for the hurt in Tara’s eyes.

She liked Tara. They had bonded the night of the argument at Giles’s and had stayed friends ever since. They were the “girlfriends” together. Both Scoobies by default because their partners were. To see Tara in so much pain hurt her as well. She wished she could send Willow to some Hell Dimension to make her pay. Maybe even to the land of Bunnies. Their couldn’t be anything worse than that.

In the 1100 years she had lived she’d seen it happen so many times. Why hadn’t she seen this coming. A small taste of the power of dark Magick could corrupt even the purest of witches. During the fights with Glory Willow used a bit but it was the resurrection spell that pushed her over the edge she was sure of it. The power had gone to her head and everyone else was too preoccupied to notice.

Now it was too late. Willow had de-ratted Amy and they were doing spells together all the time. Willow’s power was getting stronger and her attitude was getting worse. Anya could see it. Tara was the one thing that kept her grounded and now that one thing was gone

What Willow didn’t know was for the last week Tara had been staying with her. Everyone forgot. She had her own apartment and that’s where Tara was. She remembered the night Tara first turned up. She’d called her at the Magic Box and asked if she could stay awhile. Tara sounded so upset on the phone she made sure she was there when she arrived. What she had seen was horrible. Tara walked in with a box of clothes put them down and burst into tears. She cried for hours until she exhausted herself and fell asleep.

For the former Patron Saint of Women Scorned this was torture. Willow should have been made to pay. She told Tara that. She even left out a book that had in it the invocation for a vengeance demon that still focused on heartbreak. Okay a couple of hundred years ago she had seen Hippolyta as a rival but now if it made her friend feel better than what did it matter. Okay she wasn’t in the business anymore but at least she could show Tara the right direction. Tara refused her help of course. She was too good and too kind. Tara didn’t deserve what Willow had done but she wouldn’t do anything bad back. Anya however thought this left it all up to her. She was going to make Willow pay…even if it was just by annoying her to death.

[emily 'first']

Padme,
A couple of great updates to feed our hunger.
Thanx.

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vive,valeque.

[tommo]

Padme, I really like your individual takes on each character, delving into their thoughts and feelings. I can't stand Xander, but here you've managed to make him three dimensional and honestly, I kind of liked him. Looking forward to your next piece(s).

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"Yeah, cheers, thanks a lot." ~ Patsy Stone

[Rane]

yay! more please! it's hard to get into the characters heads, and you're doing it really well!