Disclaimer: Pixies told me that I really don’t own Btvs, it’s sad but the Pixies, they don’t lie.
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Chapter 28: A Willow in the Land of Denial

Buffy poked her head back into the main hall. All the guests and bridal party were still stuck in the magically bound chairs that Willow had forced them into.

“Willow?“ asked Dawn with fear in her voice. “We need to get up to do the whole Bride’s Maid thing.“ Dawn tried to move from her magical restraints.

An embarrassed smile came over the witch’s face. “Sorry,“ she said, waving her hand in the direction of the various members of the wedding party.

Tara stood up with a grimace on her face, but followed Willow and the other Bride’s Maids to the back of the hall.
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“What did you do!” yelled Anya once the rest of her Bride’s Maids, and Giles were on the same side of the wooden door separating her from the guests at her wedding.

Willow shrunk back from the bride. “I...I made them stop.”

“By magic-ing them to their seats? Ya good move Willow. There are like twenty Vengeance Demons out there right now, do you really think that they are gonna be like this crowd when you muck up a spell. It’s all ‘La La La Willow screwed up a spell again, don’t worry Buffy’ll fix it’ Not with these guys Willow. Vengeance Demons!”

Hallie nodded. “It’s true! I mean, aside from the fact that D’Hoffryn once wanted to recruit you, you are screwed.”

Willow’s face had scared look on it.

“What have I done?” she whimpered.

“I’m sure everything will work out fine,” said Buffy, pushing people into place. “And afterwards, Willow and I are going to have a talk about how we don’t use magic on wedding guests.”

“Or your friends,” added Tara.

Willow gulped. With a sigh and a nod, Buffy let the musicians know it was time to start the ceremony.
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Standing at the makeshift altar, in front of the justice of the peace, Buffy couldn’t help but drift off into her own dream world as the ceremony droned on.

Of course Buffy’s dream world consisted of what exactly her own wedding to Spike was going to be like. It wasn’t something new that she had been fantasizing about. Literally every wedding she had had with whomever it was she was marrying, all six of them, she would think of some new thing that she wanted as part of her make believe fantasy wedding with Spike. But each of these details were between her and her then dead and dust lover, and not for her soon to be husband.

Now, a hundred years and a bit backwards in time, Buffy was going to get her wish. She had his ring on her finger, his bite marks on her neck. She was whole, complete, she only had to make sure he survived the First.

Buffy was so caught up in her own fantasies that she was completely surprised by the loud yell that was coming from the mouth of the Bride.

Buffy turned in shock, watching her friend crumple in pain. As only the wedding party were mobile at this point, there was a massive conglomeration of mint and black around the falling Bride in white. There was however one member of the wedding party that did nothing to aid her friend. Halfrek watched on impassively as Anya writhed in pain.

And Xander noticed.

“Make it stop!” he yelled at the Vengeance Demon.

Halfrek raised her hands in defence. “I’m not doing it.”

“Then who?” asked Buffy, kneeling beside Anya, her face contorted in pain.

“I’d raise my hand if I could,” said D’Hoffryn, still clamped down in his seat. “I honestly thought that the ceremony would be over by now. It’s been a while since the last human wedding I attended, I thought they were much shorter.”

“What are you doing to her?” asked Xander, his body language implying a threat, but really, it was Xander after all.

“It’s her wedding gift. Elevation is painful. She knows this. Happened to her a thousand years ago,” answered the bearded demon.

Anya’s screams stopped. Everyone turned to look at the Bride that was trying to raise herself up off the floor. Her dress was making that difficult. With the help of Tara and Dawn, Anya regained her feet and began fiddling with the new addition to her jewellery.

The pendant glittered all by itself, regardless of the light, the green stone reflecting off the golden setting.

“Oh D’Hoffryn, it’s beautiful,” said the new demon fingering her new pendant.

“Hey, hold on a minute. I thought wedding gifts were supposed to be for the Bride AND the Groom,” pointed out Xander.

Anya ignored him. “Thank you so much!” Anya gushed.

“Welcome back to the fold, Anyanka,” said Halfrek, giving her friend a hug.

“There will be no folding!” shouted Xander. “Don’t I get any say in this, you can’t just be a demon again.”

“It’s a gift Xander it’s not a job,” said Anya, then turned to D‘Hoffryn for clarification. “It isn’t is it?”

“No strings attached, consider yourself, freelance,” said D’Hoffryn.

“See?” Anya said smugly to her groom. “No strings attached. I can do vengeance if I want. Plus, I can teleport again. No more walking for me. The morning commute will be much less hassle.”

There were murmurings from both sides of the congregation, that grew louder as the seconds ticked by.

“So what you are telling us, is that you are now marrying a demon, a real demon?” came Mrs Harris’ voice.

There was silence from Xander. Anya took a long hard look at her fiancé.

Buffy watched with fascination as she saw Xander gulp and wipe his brow before speaking. The whole population of the hall focused on the next words he said.

“Of course I do, Anya,” he finally said.

There had been a lot of hesitation in his voice. They all had heard it.

Anya shook her head. “I don’t really think you do, Xander. I think you want to be married to a nice, normal human girl. I would have thought by now that you would have figured it out that I’m not. I’ve been a demon longer than your ancestors could claim they were literate, and I don’t want to have a husband that only marries me because after some hard thinking is what he knows is the right thing. It would have meant a lot more Xander, if you had answered right away. I can’t marry you today Xander.”

The crowd erupted into frantic talking.

“Ahn, please,” Xander begged reaching out for her.

“No Xander. I need to go somewhere to think. And I think maybe you do too. I love you Xander really I do, I just don’t think you are ready for this kind of change in me.”

Anya stepped off the carpet handed her bouquet to Buffy and in a flash of green light, was gone.
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In the week that followed, an outsider really couldn’t have seen that much had changed within the Scooby group as a whole. Anya still ran the Magic Box, while Giles put his energy into researching what ever it was that Buffy needed to research, demon wise. Buffy spent a good deal of her mornings there too, with her brand new lap top typing up her notes from her personal research.

The glaring changes was Xander Harris’ nervousness every time he stopped by. He didn’t know how to act around the woman/demon that professed to still love him, but didn’t want to marry him. He looked lost, not knowing what his life’s direction was now.

Anya had moved back into Arashamahar, and teleported to work each day. She stayed at the Magic Box because she enjoyed it, and Buffy was extremely proud of her friend for resisting the urge to do vengeance.

It was a nervous dance they were participating in, making Buffy extremely glad she was sure of her relationship with Spike.

The other relationship in Buffy’s house, Willow and Tara, wasn’t faring too well.

Tara had been extremely not happy with Willow’s display of power at the wedding and binding her to a chair. There are had been words, uncharacteristically harsh words coming from Tara. The next strike would be strike three. Willow had to learn that people were not dolls to be played with.

And Buffy whole heartedly agreed.
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A week after the wedding, Buffy rolled over in bed, and gave her fiancé a kiss full on the mouth, waking him from his slumber. She felt like this would be a good day.

Batting away the arms of her lover, who was trying to draw her back into bed, Buffy pulled the covers over him, covering what one assumed was his naked glory. Sitting down at her mirror she began combing out her long blond hair and humming quietly to herself.

It was a tune that she hadn’t heard in a while, a love song that had been popular when she was younger, 40 or so. She had used to sing it to Eleanor.

“What’s with the humming pet?” asked a sleepy Spike.

Buffy turned back to him with a smile. “Just happy. It’s gonna be a good day.”

“How do you figure that then?”

“I’m big with the positive thinking today I guess. The sun is shining, birds are singing, it’s a beautiful day. And ooh, I have my own teeth, so bonus there,” she said with a smile and a laugh.

Dawn had a test, Willow was moping about Tara and Tara was grumpy about Willow, so Buffy made French toast.

“A full tummy makes everyone alert and prepared for the days events,” the Slayer said briskly, shovelling food onto her sister’s plate.

“You haven’t been switched with another you from the future have you?” asked Dawn poking at her French toast.

“Nope,” said Buffy, “it’s the same old switched from the future me.”

“Did Spike propose again?” asked Tara.

Buffy shook her head.

“You got smoochies last night,” observed Dawn.

The three other women gave her a look.

“What?” said Dawn shovelling more food into her mouth.

“For your information, Dawn Summers, I get smoochies every night, so why should it make a difference?” asked Buffy.

“Don’t know, you are just spectacularly happy this morning,” noted Dawn.

“And I can’t be happy?”

“You can be happy,” said Willow. “But it still freaks us out.”
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Buffy happy mood was contagious. When Spike properly woke up he had decided that today he was gonna be singing the entire Ramones song collection, with several lapses into ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ for good measure.

Dawn had arrived home her Math test in hand, proudly presenting to anyone who dared show any interest her fabulous 91% score.

Buffy went looking in the Magic Box broom closet for a broom only to find Anya and Xander making out in said closet.

They had all settled into what seemed to be their Tuesday night ritual of looking through spell books, attempting to find that elusive spell that Buffy was convinced existed somewhere. Giles had even broken out his hoard of imported shortbread for this occasion.

After a few hours of mindless flipping through books, Buffy was beginning to think that her happy feeling this morning was all for nothing. Sure it was nice to be happy, but Spike singing ‘Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment’ was starting to get on her nerves. Several times she had just wanted to scream that she needed something new.

In fact, she was on her way across the room to ask him politely to stop singing when Spike looked up from the musty book he was holding.

“This what you are looking for then, love?” he asked the silent room.

Buffy peered over his shoulder and broke into a huge smile.

“That would be it,” she confirmed, after having read the spell over. “Boy are you gonna get some serious smoochies tonight.” Buffy took the book from her fiancé, taking a moment to bite down on her marks that adorned his neck.

Spike let out a small moan of pleasure, capturing her lips as she pulled away from his neck.

“Ug, get a room,” said Dawn. “No kid wants to see her parents get it on, biological or adoptive. And if I didn’t want to see Mom and Dad go at it once upon a time, I certainly don’t want to see you two.”

Buffy rolled her eyes at her sister/daughter/mystical key and promptly sat down in Spike’s lap.

“This is a pretty complicated spell, it calls for three witches or warlocks and a whole slew of ingredients for the potion that we bathe the ‘item of mystical power whose essence is to be transformed.’” Buffy stared at the spell, committing the list of ingredients to memory. “There is even some things that we need that the Magic Box doesn’t carry. Anya you might have to do some Ebay shopping for us.”

“Goody,” said the demon.

“So these three witches or warlocks...” said Willow hesitantly.

Buffy noticed from the moment the spell had been found that Willow was itching to hold the book in her hands. Buffy took a deep breath, she didn’t really want to deal with this issue right now, but then she’d been putting off the whole Willow thing for such a long time.

“Willow this spell, it’s a lot of power. It needs people who know how to control their own power and I don’t think that’s you,” said Buffy seriously.

“The thing at the wedding that wasn’t, I didn’t mean to be scary Willow. I just got angry,” explained Willow.

“That’s what she means Willow. You get angry and your power takes you over,” added Tara.

Willow slid further into her chair. “Who else are you going to get? I’m powerful. I can help.”

“I know you can,” said Buffy soothingly. “I just don’t want to have to deal with black eyed Willow after the spell.”

“I didn’t go black eyed Willow when I brought you here,” Willow muttered so low that only Vampire ears could have picked it up.

Unfortunately for Willow, there was a Vampire in the room.

“Say that again,” ordered Spike.

“Nothing...I said nothing,” defended Willow.

“You said something, something that I know the rest will want to hear.”

Willow cringed and shook her head.

Dawn stood up in front of her and crossed her arms. “We’re just gonna hound you until you tell. We’re really good at that kind of thing.”

“Ok,” gulped Willow. “I did it. The spell that put future Buffy into our Buffy’s body. I did it. It wasn’t supposed to end up the way that it did. But hey everything worked out right? Everyone’s happy?”

“You did it?” asked Tara, “All this time and you didn’t tell anyone?”

“I was afraid of all the ‘grr faces’ looks like I was right too, cause, you all, grr.”

Buffy jumped off Spike’s lap and walked towards her friend. “I’m not grr Willow. In fact, thank you. Thank you for mucking up a spell so that I could relive my life. The thing is though, the spell that needs being done now, it can’t go wrong. One wrong thing and it could go kerblewy. I’m talking end of the Slayers, end of the world. That’s not something that we can forgive and forget, cause we won’t be alive to do so. I really hope you understand. Until you learn to control your power, you are very much in danger of letting it control you.”

Willow stood up from her seat. “You don’t know that that’s going to happen! It’s just a guess.”

“It’s not a guess Willow. In my world, the first time, a couple of weeks from now, you try to end the world. Magic takes you over. And not good fluffy puppy magic either.”

“I wouldn’t do that...”

“But you did, and I’m afraid, Willow, so desperately afraid that it’ll happen again.”
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tbc...