Transfer, BtVS, G
I'm the worst backup ever.
voleuse, sorry for the delay.

For mazily, who requested Jenny/Willow; in the library, wistful tone.
Transfer
Rated G


Dead, she logs more hours at the school than she ever did when she was actually teaching classes, flipping rooms like channels as she follows them, unseen, unheard. Her classroom, the girl's bathroom, the lunchroom. She goes where they go, unable to stop what the fates set in motion before any of them were born, and unable to stop wishing it were otherwise.

There's no reset button she can push, no back-up files to load. What will happen will happen, what has happened, has happened. She thinks the voice in her head sounds like Uncle Enyos.

She watches Rupert's face when he thinks he's unobserved, the absent minutes where grief and worry seep unattended into the lines at the corners of his mouth and between his eyes, watches as they vanish, mask-like when one of the kids comes in. Sees where the threads of friendship fray in Xander's occasional fear-sharp words and the defensive set of Buffy's shoulders in response.

Asking why she's here doesn't do any good. Nobody listens. Besides, she's pretty sure she's figured it out. Trapped on campus, working karmic overtime. Ignorance of the law is no excuse or something like that. She'd like to change clothes, watch a movie, anything. Too bad it isn't football season, or she could at least catch the home games. Maybe next season, if the world's still around.

Jenny's there when the pencil falls, rolling between the cracks and cracking everything wide open. She couldn't have done it better if she could have done it at all. Fate again, twisting in the wind. Fear and hope and desperation crackle around Buffy and Willow as Jenny leans through them to look at the screen, feeling the echo of emotion in skin she skims.

They're so close to the answer she thinks will set her free. Jenny shadows Willow, shouting unheard instructions about the curse.

Events unfold like clockwork. There's probably a prophecy somewhere, not yet catalogued, that spelled this all out centuries ago. Some arcane text that Rupert would dig out and look through, murmuring something typically understated like "oh dear," or "I'm afraid we have a slight problem on our hands." She's afraid there's blood on hers as she watches the attack on the library from the shadows. Something in her knew this would happen. Who knows, maybe it's the same thing in her that feels Willow lose consciousness, the thing that reaches out with a power that doesn't feel like her own to hold her there.

***

Willow is floating, feet dangling above the floor, trying to figure out what just happened.

From up here, the stacks aren't very stacky any more. She looks down at the open pages in the quiet room. Biology, the life cycle of the frog, and below that, a book on trees. The whole science section must have landed on her.

"Willow." She jumps at the sound of Jenny's voice behind her, spinning around and whirling up and down until she's chilled and dizzy and her head hurts.

She's pretty sure this wasn't what being a ghost felt like last time.

"You're not a ghost."

"Oh, good. Not a ghost is good, because that means I'm not dead. Unless it doesn't. It does, doesn't it? " She doesn't want to be dead, well, not yet at any rate. Not till she's old and grey and wrinkly.

"You're not dead, either. Don't worry." Jenny's sitting on the stairs, wearing the same clothes she wore the last time Willow saw her, wringing her hands absently as she looks at Willow. Her lips form half a smile. "Come and sit down. I get the feeling we don't have much time."

Willow finds where the floor went and walks over, gingerly settling down next to Jenny, only to find that her body keeps trying to float away. Jenny stops wringing her hands, and grabs hold of Willow's.

"You're not supposed to be here. You're supposed to be back with your body. That's why you keep drifting and where you're drifting to."

Jenny's hand feels warm and solid, and Willow feels warm and solid where their hands are connected, which is a lot better than cold and floaty. "So why am I here?"

"Either it's the hand of fate, or I'm just really stubborn when I need to be." The other half of the smile shows up, but it's still not enough to make a whole. "Angel, Willow. That's why you're here."

"The spell!" Willow frowns, remembering. "But they stopped us before we could finish it. I don't even know if we had everything right or anything, or if the Orb of Thesulah got broken, or if the pages are still here..."

"They're here. All of it's here." Jenny tightens her grip, and Willow feels their hands start to merge together, reminding her that she's not really flesh and bone right now. It kind of tingles.

Her eyes follow Jenny's gaze to where the orb and the books sit waiting to be used, a half-trampled stick of sage on the floor where Cordelia dropped it.

Jenny faces her. "You can do this. You will do this." Her eyes are huge and black as she says it, then she blinks and they go back to normal. "I know why I'm here." Finally, her smile's complete. "I know why I'm here, and what I need to do." She cups Willow's chin with her free hand and brushes a kiss across the mark on her forehead. "I know what I need to do. Thank you. I'm sorry."

Then Jenny's hand covers Willow's forehead, and she murmurs words that Willow can't understand. The heat from her palm builds and spreads, flooding Willow's senses in a rush of everything. The murmurs grow louder, and the words start to make sense.

And Willow knows.

Her hand falls, but Jenny's eyes stay locked on Willow's. Heat fades and sound recedes, and all there is is echo. Willow watches as Jenny slowly fades from view, then she floats away and wakes up to the sight of hospital white.