For a few shocked, silent moments, it seemed that Willow’s words had caught everyone in the room completely off guard.

Every one of them had expected that her anger, her threats, had been directed at the vampire who was still hovering over her best friend, still in game face, his fangs still stained with the blood he had taken from his throat.

To find that her rage was actually directed at Xander was stunning to them all.

“Do it.”

The softly spoken words were chilling to the heart of the Slayer, who still stood pinned to the wall by the force of Willow’s magic – and though she could not see her face, her eyes widened on the back of her sister’s head, where she still held her in front of her, holding her back from going any closer to the enraged witch.

“Dawnie…” she gasped, stunned by the cold words, though she could not say that she was really all that surprised.

Dawn’s hatred for Xander had grown up swiftly, only during the past two days, but it was a fiery, vengeful storm, consuming the past love she had had for the boy, until all she wanted now was to see him pay for the damage he had wrought in her best friend’s life.

Willow slowly turned her head toward the youngest Summers, no expression visible in her black eyes, but her lips turned up slightly in a smile of surprise. “He deserves it, doesn’t he, Dawnie?” she mused thoughtfully, turning her eyes back toward Xander as she spoke.

“Dawn…” Buffy tried again to stop her, having a very bad feeling about Willow’s drawing Dawn further into this.

“Yes, he does!” Dawn spat the words out with a defiant glare over her shoulder at her sister. “He deserves to die for what he did to Spike!”

“What he did to all of us,” Willow corrected softly, her smile fading, her expression becoming sad, taking on a strangely dreamy quality, as she waved her hand idly over her shoulder.

Suddenly, Buffy found her restraining hands on Dawn’s arms flung down at her sides, again without the violence it would have required to actually hurt her – but allowing Dawn to move forward to Willow’s side, as the witch silently beckoned her.

It appeared that the girl was moving of her own free will – but then, with Willow in the state she was in, there was no way to be sure.

Xander had fully regained consciousness now, though he was still too weak to move much. As he struggled to raise his body up on his arms, Spike cautiously moved away from him, his wary eyes moving between the face of the witch, and of his best friend now standing beside her.

At the moment, he was pretty sure it was a very bad idea to be anywhere near Xander.

“Willow – Dawn – don’t do this!” Buffy cried out, her voice trembling with frustrated fear and desperate anger, as she struggled against the invisible force that held her back.

“Willow, this isn’t the way.” Giles felt the need to back up his Slayer, though at this point he was not quite sure himself what the boy *did* deserve.

What he *did* know was that if Willow killed Xander – nothing could ever be made right again.

Neither Buffy nor Giles seemed to notice that no one else in the room was offering any protest to what was happening.

Angel’s face bore a grim expression of resolve, making it clear that unless Willow directly threatened his childe, or any of the other relative innocents in the room, he would not have any problem with whatever she might choose to do to Xander.

As for Anya, although she had spent nearly the whole of her human existence – and a good deal of her time afterward, for that matter – loving the young man who now lay wounded and broken on the floor; she knew vengeance better than she knew everything – and she knew that at this point, Xander deserved whatever ended up coming to him.

“But there really is no right way at this point – is there?” Willow shook her head with a sad, empty sort of smile. “No way to fix what he’s done…nothing left to do now – but to punish him…”

“Willow – what gives you the right to punish him?” Buffy pointed out, her voice higher than usual, desperate and shaking with emotion. “We can still fix this! If you let this go now, we can still find a way to…”

Her voice trailed off suddenly – when her eyes locked across the room with the wide, crystal blue gaze of the vampire crouched on the floor, several yards away from Xander. The expression on his face stopped her cold, her heart smitten within her by the pain, the betrayal in his eyes. What he was feeling was painfully clear.

Hearing her speaking up in Xander’s defense was killing him.

Except – she wasn’t *really* defending Xander.

She was as angry with Xander as anyone – knew that her friend deserved to pay for what he had done to Spike. But at the same time, she was not sure that she was the one to mete out that punishment; certainly she was sure that Willow was not that one, either. Xander had been an integral part of their little group for so long now – it was almost unthinkable to think of his no longer being there, no longer even being *alive*…

…no matter how much he might deserve death.

“No, Buffy,” Willow continued, her voice still chillingly calm, as she extended a hand toward her friend in preparation to strike, blue arcs of energy sparking between her fingertips, as her eyes narrowed in anger and wounded rage. “Don’t you see? This can’t be fixed. How could this ever be fixed?”

All were silent, waiting for her to go on, as she silently surveyed her friend – now alert, staring up at her in wide-eyed terror, but not daring to move.

“What should I do to him, Dawnie?” Willow asked softly, a cruel smile turning up the corners of her mouth. “You seem like a girl with a plan – if you only had the means to carry it out. Well – now you do.” Her dark, frightening eyes met Dawn’s for a moment as she asked again, “What should I do to him?”

Dawn’s eyes widened momentarily, startled by what Willow was offering – and then narrowed again in anger, her jaw setting as she looked back toward Xander with cold, pitiless eyes.

“He needs to suffer,” she said in a voice that was barely over a whisper. “He needs to hurt like he hurt Spike. He needs to hurt until he *begs* for it to stop – and then he needs to hurt some more.”

Willow released a cold, vicious laugh, throwing her head back slightly before focusing her eyes on her former friend again.

“Now *there’s* a plan,” she smirked, as she extended a hand toward her fallen friend, sending a tremendous bolt of electrical power from her fingertips, directly into his chest.

Xander let out a terrible, wrenching scream of agony, as his body arched up off the floor in agony, until Willow finally released him from the grip of her power, allowing him to collapse to the floor again.

“Willow,” he croaked out in a hoarse, painful whisper. “Willow – please…”

Willow was still not addressing him. “Is that enough, Dawnie?” she asked softly.

Dawn’s eyes were wide, horrified by what she had seen – and yet flooded with angry tears, her jaw working with indecision, before she shook her head, whispering out in a tearful voice, “No…no, it’s not…it’s nowhere near enough for what he did…”

“Willow, no…don’t do this…don’t do this to *Dawnie*…” Buffy sobbed, broken-hearted by the sight of the emotional ordeal her sister was going through, more than by the pain Xander was experiencing.

Willow was not listening, as she struck her friend again, and he writhed on the floor, moaning in agony, screams torn from his body by the terrible pain she was inflicting.

This time, Dawn looked away, her eyes scrunched shut, her hand raised to block her eyes.

“Enough?” Willow persisted, her voice hard and unyielding, relishing the power and the vengeance she was wreaking.

Dawn’s voice was a broken sob, and she could not look at Willow, at Xander, at anyone, as she crossed her arms protectively over her chest, whimpering out, “It’s not…it won’t ever be…oh, God, Willow, stop…I can’t…”

“Look what you’re doing to her, stop, Willow, *stop*!” Buffy nearly screamed at her friend, straining against the invisible bonds to reach her distraught little sister. “My God, Willow, just leave her out of this!”

“Fine!” Willow snapped.

Buffy flinched as she waved her hand behind her in the Slayer’s direction – but then shook with relief, when all the magic did was to release her from her bonds. Willow seemed to have sensed that at this point, all Buffy would do with her freedom was to go to her sister, taking her in her arms as she collapsed to her knees on the floor.

“God, Buffy, it’s not enough – it won’t ever be enough for what he did – but – but it’s too much, I can’t…I can’t do it…it’s – it’s *Xander*…” Dawn sobbed, as she turned in her sister’s arms.

Buffy did not even consider an “I-told-you-so” response, though she knew that her sister now understood her feelings of before.

“I know, Dawnie,” she whispered soothingly, holding her close to her. “I know…” Over her sister’s shoulder, she looked anxiously across the room at Spike, who was still standing against the wall, watching Willow carefully for any sign of a threat – though at the moment, her attention was focused completely on Xander.

Too bad for Xander.

“Willow,” he whimpered fearfully, drawing back up to his knees, staring up at her in bewildered fear. “Willow, please…don’t do this…please…”

“We were a whole – all of us. We each had – our place,” Willow went on as if he had not spoken, her voice softening slightly as she expressed the roiling emotions within her, driving her to this place of rage. “You – you were the heart of us, Xander…” Her voice broke slightly, as she shook her head, her features twisting briefly in pain, before she regained control of her feelings enough to continue, “You were *my* heart – when I thought I’d lost it…when I lost…when I lost *everything*…”

They were all silent – a thick, heavy, painful silence that was filled with the memory of the one who had been “everything” to Willow.

Buffy was surprised to find that her face was streaked with tears.

“But now – you knew how dangerous the magic was – you knew that I was out of control – and you – you *used* me!” Willow’s voice sounded lost, disbelieving, barely above a whisper. “You were my best friend – and you lied to me, and you used me, to – to get your petty revenge – revenge you weren’t even owed…”

“He – he took…Anya…Bu…everything…” Xander whined the words out pitifully through desperate, terrified tears. “He deserved it – you wouldn’t have understood…”

“This is about Anya?” Willow sounded incredulous. “Is that why you shot her? Is *Spike* the reason you killed your own *parents*, Xander?”

The boy had no response for those words, as his face went deathly pale, his eyes widening at the impact of the reality she was forcing him to face.

“You *killed* them, Xander,” she repeated. “And I know they hurt you – and I know there’s a lot of bad history. God, Xander, if anybody knows, *I know*!” Willow’s voice softened with a distant horror, as she shook her head slowly and added, “But you know there’s no coming back from that.”

Xander stared at her with wide, blank eyes for a long moment – before lowering his head and breaking down into sobs. “I’m sorry,” he moaned, with the voice of a guilty child who’s very, very sorry, because he knows that he’s been caught. “I’m so sorry – so so sorry…”

“You brought me back, Xander,” Willow whispered, her own voice choked with tears. No one was looking directly at her – so no one noticed the slight flicker of her eyes to emerald green, for just the barest moment, before they returned to the black of midnight, her features hardening with bitter anger as she added in a voice of anguished desperation, “But this time it’s you, Xander – it’s you who’s taken everything I had left – *you* were everything I had left…”

Her voice lowered to a chilling, heart-rending whisper of lost suffering, as she finished, “…and who’s going to bring me back this time?”

In that moment, Buffy knew that her entire world was about to collapse around her – again.

Willow was too hurt, too lost and confused, to come back from the brink of madness to which Xander’s madness had driven her. Willow was going to kill Xander, and then the loss of the person who meant more than anything to her -- *again* -- was going to drive her to a second destructive rampage, from which she would likely not return on her own – and from which none of them would be able to bring her back.

It was all about to be over, Buffy realized with a sense of rising anguish and despair.

*And it’s all going to be my fault…*

**********************************

Spike watched the painful scene unfold around him, his mind racing as he tried to think of a way to keep it from ending in the way it was beginning to appear that it inevitably would.

There *had* to be a way to stop Willow, before she did something that would destroy her – destroy them all.

Spike’s recent memories of Xander were of nothing but trauma and suffering – but he *did* have other memories of the boy, now…memories of all of them; and he knew, now, how deeply Willow cared for Xander, really – and how terribly her own murder of him would devastate her after it was done.

He could only imagine what horrors the emotionally distraught witch would create once she had killed her friend – and once she had realized what she had done.

They would all die.

Buffy…Dawn…Anya…

Willow would kill them all.

It was a difficult concept to accept, all things considered – especially his desperate desire to see Xander punished for the horrible abuses he had committed against him.

But – if Willow killed Xander…they would *all* die.

To save any of them – he might have to save *Xander*.

Spike had never been one for careful planning, or over-analyzing situations, or looking before he leapt.

He had always been a vampire of reckless action – and he still was.

And as he watched the witch draw back her hand in preparation to strike the killing blow – there was only one line of action that occurred to him…so that was the action that he took.

As the arc of power launched from Willow’s palm, heading straight and true toward the heart of her former best friend, destined to stop it forever…

…with no heed for anything but saving the lives of his loved ones – Spike leapt directly into its path.