Xander had started up the hill and turned when he finally realised that Willow wasn’t behind him. He called out to her but she didn’t move, didn’t even seem to hear him. I got out the car and brushed her hair from her face, she looked up in surprise when she saw me there. “Buffy?” she said, it was the only time in my whole life that I’d really hated my name. I mean, it’s a weird name, right? But I’d never actually hated it before. I wished I could be called anything else at that moment and prayed silently that she wouldn’t say it again. I didn’t answer her, I wrapped her in a hug. She went rigid in my arms. It hurt me more than any beating from a demon, more than everything that had happened with Spike the previous year. I’d say it hurt as much as my mothers death. One simple movement that caused so much pain. I pulled back from her, trying to hide how I felt, she needed me and Xander to both be strong for her. She needed her friends — her family.

We knew we were nothing compared to Tara. Willow doesn’t believe this now, she remains adamant that we were all important but I know that, without Tara, she felt like a piece of herself was missing. It’s not a bad thing, I mean, I’m not complaining. I just wish she would’ve opened up more to us, let us help her through it.

Anyway, I pulled back from the hug and looked at her. “I can’t do it!” she’d whispered. “If I go up that hill, then it means she’s really gone. She’s really….” Her voice had trailed off as though saying the word would bring reality crashing in around us. I told her she didn’t have to go if she wasn’t ready but she shook her head. I could see the internal battle and the intense babbling that was going on inside her, her eyes flicked back and forth between both sides of the argument she was having with herself. “I have to tell her!” she said, despite the sadness in her eyes she didn’t cry.
I skipped town when Angel died, I was so lost and cried for days, but Willow. Oh no, Willow is the strongest of us all, she’s been through so much and it doesn’t matter how many times you knock her down, she gets right back up. I truly believed that that Christmas she was invincible, you could see the cracks in the veneer but she still got up every morning and functioned. I would have given up and hidden under a rock, or walked out into one of the cemeteries and waited until something scary came along and killed me, but not Willow.