Willow, what are you doing? You promised not to use magic.” Tara clung to the doorframe of their bedroom, clawing at the woodwork, trying to stop her shaking legs from giving out from under her. She stared at the small dried flowers Willow cupped in the palm of her hand over a lit candle. It was the same type that she had found under her pillow and worn as a love token until she had found out her lovers duplicity.

Willow dropped the bundle of Lethe’s Bramble that she had stolen from The Magic Box guiltily at the sound of her lover’s accusing tones. She had been forced to purloin the small bunch as she still couldn’t work out what happened to her stash. Her shoulders hunched as she turned to face Tara and the betrayal in her lover’s eyes made her blanche. “Tara, it’s nothing, just a…a herb I wanted to use to help me sleep,” she lied.

Tara brushed past her and picked up the dried flowers and pocketed them. Anger and betrayal robbing her of her voice, she desperately wanted to rail at Willow and beg her to stop pursuing the dangerous path she had chosen to walk down. Instead, she spun on her heel and left the room with her heart in her mouth. Crossing the hallway she hammered on Buffy’s door with a clenched sweating fist. “Buffy…Buffy, are you in there? Look, I need you. Please sweetheart, open the door, we need to speak. Willow was trying to hurt you and Dawnie.”

“Tara nooo, don’t. I just wanted to fix it so Buffy and Dawn didn’t remember him.” Willow clung to her sleeve, trying to pull Tara around to face her. So caught up in her denial, her own words betrayed her. “Then everything would be better.” She failed to add her deepest wish, one where everyone loved her and deferred to her.

“Don’t, Willow. I know what you did to me and this is the same flower,” Tara cried out, distress contorting her soft features. “You cannot do this to us. I know what this herb does and robbing us of our memories is wrong. It’s like you’re raping our minds. How could you? After everything that happened.”

“What?” No, honey, I never—” Guilt was reflected in every word she uttered. Willow tried to deny her complicity and faltered when the door opened and Buffy stood framed in it, Dawn behind her staring curiously out at the tragic scene unfurling before them. Her stomach hurt and she wanted to be sick. She’d been caught and now Tara had let her down by telling Buffy.

“What’s going on?” Buffy cut across Willow’s sobs and Tara’s crying, her quiet demand stilling the two women in an instant.

“She tr—ried to steal your memories, o…o…of Spike.” Tara held up the Lethe’s Bramble and dashed the tears from her face with her free hand. “The same way she made me forget I was mad a…about her spellcasting.”

“Hey, that’s the stuff I found in the bookcase!” Dawn exclaimed. She stared at Tara’s shaking hand in shock, missing the flash of pure rage that shot through Willow’s eyes.

Buffy’s body tensed at the implied threat of Willow’s actions. She had wanted to rape her mind of Spike. Goose bumps erupted all over her as she was chilled to the core by the mere thought of all her memories-- old and new-- being stolen from her. She tried to say something but words failed her. Her mind shied away from the fear of losing all that she had discovered about Spike from his own words. The hours spent reading his journals had offered some comfort in the daze of guilt she was immersed in.

“Dawn, what did you do with the flowers?” Tara tried to keep her voice level as she stared in utter horror at Willow.

“I did what Anya does with the icky stuff, crumbled it up and then used running water to get rid of the remains.” Dawn shrugged and then gently laid a hand of her sister’s shoulder. The knotted tension in the muscles that lay under her hand was no surprise, so she gently squeezed Buffy, offering her silent and unequivocal support.

“What?” Willow stared over at Dawn in shock and dismay.

“Good work, Dawn.” Tara smiled reassuringly at Dawn, pleasantly surprised at the younger girl’s initiative and quick thinking.

Buffy laid a hand over Dawn’s and turned her attention to Willow, sorrow etching even deeper lines around her mouth and eyes.

“Willow, why?” she whispered, her voice cracking under the emotional strain. Part of her curled away from the redhead. This was her best friend, the same girl who had been so sweet and shy but who now wanted to control and dominate them all to suit her own ends. Buffy wondered if it had anything to do with Willow being ignored by her parents and as a result, desperately wanted her surrogate family to be shiney happy people all the time. Buffy shivered slightly at the thought of them all being controlled by Willow and becoming puppets to her whims. She looked over at the slender redhead and wondered whether it was safe to have her around Dawn and Tara.

Willow clasped her hands in front of her and stared down at them, unable to meet the reproachful eyes of the three women. A combination of guilt and defiance rose in her in a lethal combination. She jutted her chin up and looked into Buffy’s eyes. “I was trying to fix it so you would be happy…If you didn’t remember heaven and also S…pike, then you would be okay and everything would go back to normal.”

Buffy’s hollow laugh chilled Tara and Dawn to the bone. “Normal? What’s normal? My life hasn’t been normal since Merrick found me in LA and everything changed. Willow, how could you th…” She trailed off, overcome and unable to say anything else.

“Oh, Willow.” The disappointment in Tara’s voice reached the redhead more than Buffy’s impassioned speech.

Great big guilty tears filled Willow’s eyes and she desperately searched all of their faces for understanding or compassion and to her disappointment, there was nothing but cold indifference in Dawn’s face, a shuttered look on Buffy’s and finally Tara’s face was a mask of distress. Something in her hardened. She straightened and looked steadily into Tara’s eyes. “I am not sorry. If I can help her get better with magic, then I will.”

“What about me? How did it help wiping my memory of our fight? Making me forget that about you abusing magic? Did that help me?” Tara’s firm voice surprised them all.

Willow’s mouth opened and closed. She was cornered and unable to summon any form of a legitimate defence.

“Willow, you need to leave. I don’t think it’d be good for any of us if you stayed here anymore.”

You could’ve heard a pin drop after Buffy had finished speaking.

~~~~~~~~~

“Xander, I really don’t think I want Willow here. I want to have loud sex and she is in the next room. It wouldn’t be fair…she might feel left out and I don’t have any lesbian tendencies.” Anya hissed loudly into Xander’s ear. They were back in bed after being interrupted a few hours ago by Willow hammering on the door and crying to be let in.

Xander rolled to face Anya and sighed, “Ahn, we are not have the sex with Wills next door broken hearted.”

Anya sat up, folded her arms over her chest and stared down at him, annoyance in every line of her body. “Honestly, you truly are blinkered when it comes to her. You heard what Buffy said. Willow tried to rape hers and the other’s minds – again, and still you are all with ‘ohhh poor hard done by Willow’. When will you realise that she is a magical hazard in the making?” She kicked him with her foot.

“Baby, come on. She’s my best friend. I couldn’t turn my back on her like Buffy and Tara have.” Xander punched his pillow and flipped onto his side, his back facing Anya.

She made a strange strangled noise at his last idiotic statement. “You are dumb, Alexander Lavelle Harris.”

Realising that sleep was something that was a far off, he rolled over and looked up at his disgruntled fiancée’s face. “No way, I got my High School diploma – if you hadn’t been running for the hills you would’ve seen. Don’t call me stupid. Hey, what are you doing, leggo!” Xander pulled Anya’s fingers from his temples and frowned at her.

“I was searching for those blinkers you always seem to wear.” Anya poked him in the chest with her index finger. “Willow is in a bad place and could easily go nuts on our backsides and suck the entire world into Hell to make herself feel better. So remove your head from that orifice you won’t let me stick my fingers in and grow up!”

Xander’s butt cheeks clenched and he sat up against the pillow and crossed his arms. “She promised not to do any magic on us, Ahn, so don’t worry.”

‘Too right she won’t…those Develiian protection wards were not cheap!’ Anya rolled her eyes at his sweet naivety and nodded. “Sure honey, Willow will be all nice and Swiss now, I am very sure.”

“Swiss?”

“Neutral, non combative. Isn’t that the right words?”

“Sure honey, now come on, lets get some sleep.” Xander pulled her into his arms and tried to ignore the trickle of fear at Anya’s words, tucking the worry firmly away for later freak-outs and over analysis. He missed Giles and wished he hadn’t left.

“Only if you promise to talk with Tara, Buffy and Dawn and don’t make those irritating snap judgements that make my teeth ache. Promise me, Xander.”

He nodded.

Satisfied, Anya curled up against his side and closed her eyes. “I still want orgasms while she is a financial drain on us. You’re a builder, look into soundproofing this room so I don’t scare Willow when I make you scream.”

“Anya,” exasperation coloured his voice.

“Oh my god, what if she’s sitting there listening taking notes? She is sexually repressed despite being a lesbian. I can just see her, taking notes in different coloured pens!”

“Go to sleep Anya, and no I don’t think Willow is listening.” Xander punched his pillow and prayed that Willow wasn’t listening.