Nov 3rd - Imaginary Jailors

[Sara Stanton]

"No, I guess it isn't, so I'll just have to hang here next to you and take solace in the fact that at least I'm with you until I've been with you long enough that I really do belong here."

[Will Stanton]

"You're insane. They better take you away before I really do cause you harm."

[Sara Stanton]

"It's your dream. If you really didn't want me to be here I wouldn't. I'd be somewhere safe instead of hanging next to such a dangerous substance."

[Will Stanton]

"'Tsnot my dream..." he mumbled, but the walls wavered just a little bit.

[Sara Stanton]

"If you're not punishing yourself then why are you here? Those two couldn't have overpowered you if you truly are as dangerous as you claim to be. You put yourself here and now you're putting me here, justifying your detainment by corrupting me."

[Will Stanton]

"It's not my dream...I don't....I can't... he mumbled, as the walls wavered even more.

From the other side of the room, a door BANGED open as Mara began to rush in, carrying a large and nasty looking set of rusty shears...

[Sara Stanton]

"The only reason you're here is because you put yourself in here. You did the only thing you could think of to make sure you wouldn't hurt anyone, but now she's coming to destroy that. She'll keep me here so you will hurt me!" she keeps talking, trying not to panic at the thought of what Mara might do with those things.

[Will Stanton]

"No...." Will whispered.

Mara LUNGED with the sheers...

And the room dissolved, faded into nothingness, and Sara found herself...someplace else.

It looked like a cornfield of some kind on a bright summer's afternoon, perfect weather, not a cloud in the sky; a great day for a picnic or flying a kite or something.

Oh, and she was still three feet in the air, without anything supporting her--at least, until gravity took a harsh look in her direction and she tumbled to earth.

[Sara Stanton]

Falling to the ground she lets out a relieved sigh, rolling on her back to look up at the sky and recover for a moment. That was too close. Should have really listened to McDohl.

After a moment she pushes herself up and looks around the field. Okay, where am I now? Another dream?

[Will Stanton]

There are fields and plains as far as the eye can see--except for a red brick road, winding it's way leisurely through the countryside

[Sara Stanton]

Well I suppose that's obvious enough. This has to lead -somewhere- at least. she thinks as she makes her way over to the road and, randomly picking a direction starts walking down the street.

[Will Stanton]

Sara walked along in the sunshine, birds singing, trees....swaying to an unseen beat, a calm wind cooling the walk down.

Eventually, and almost out of nowhere, a greenhouse popped up---a humongous, larger than life greenhouse, spiraling impressively off into the distance.

[Sara Stanton]

"What the..." Okay, I should really get used to that kind of stuff. Peering curiously at the massive building she walks up to it to step inside.

[Will Stanton]

At the front gate, almost unnoticeable, Tink sat, reading a magazine, with a security guard's hat on.

[Sara Stanton]

"Uhm... Tink? Hi. Can you tell me what this place is?"

[Will Stanton]

"Hrm? Oh, Sara, heya. Didn't expect to see YOU here," Tink said, fluttering up. "This is the garden of Will's imagination. Pretty swanky, right?"

[Sara Stanton]

"No kidding. This place look huge. Which, I guess, isn't all that surprising... Can I go in and take a look around?"

[Will Stanton]

"Sure thing! Just be a little careful--you break it, you bought it," Tink laughed, tinkling, before going back to her magazine.

"Yell if you need any help."

[Sara Stanton]

"I will. I already got a taste of his imagination beating me down for breaking stuff..." she mumbles as she steps inside.

[Will Stanton]

A wonderful fragrance filled the air as Sara walked into the extremley warm interior of the greenhouse.

There was a path down the middle, with several smaller paths branching off, but the rest of it was an absolute tangled jungle of...well, rather bizarre flowers. Each stalk had a large round bulb, each one glowing--some bright, happy colors, golds and pinks and warm oranges, some dark, menacing colors, blacks and blood reds. Some were larger than Sara was, some were smaller than a pea. They floated around, intertwining, wrapped together, pulsating.

[Sara Stanton]

Okay, I'm not that dense, the red and black ones must be fears. Would those help with figuring out the Willow thing if I find the right one? Wandering around the main path for a while she looks for one of the bigger, menacing ones, stepping closer to it and peering at the glowing bulb.

[Will Stanton]

There's a particularly large, pulsating one, just dying to be touched, nearly in the center of the garden...as Sara gets close...


The vampires were closing in, gunfire ranging over his head, but he didn't care. He cradled Sara's body in his arms, sobbing into her chest, her blood staining his training suit a bright red as he held her tight, rocking her body back and forth even as it grew cold---the door splintered open as the vampires poured though...

[Sara Stanton]

Sara stumbles back from the 'flower' Okay, maybe a smaller one... she thinks, shivering at the detailed fear as she wanders off to find another one to look at. There's a strangely reassuring feeling in the fact that a fear for her live would produce such a comparatively huge 'flower' though.

[Will Stanton]

Passing by several of the orbs, she picks another one that catches her eye--this one with a couple thin bands of gold and pink running through the black.

Sara sat there, holding Will(ow?)'s hand as Dr. Crusher reentered the room with the results. "I'm afraid it's no mistake, Mr...Ms....Will, we've tripled checked the results, and it's come out the same each time. Congratulations, you're going to be a mother.

Will fainted, dead away.

[Sara Stanton]

Weird... but... I guess understandable. Hell it might even be possible and I've got a glimpse of that fear in the nightmare already too.
She looks around, a little lost among the flowers. "TINK! I need some help finding something!"

[Will Stanton]

"Alright, alright, I'm comin', I'm comin, no need to shout, seesh," Tink grumbled, fluttering back through the greenhouse.

"Whaddya need?"

[Sara Stanton]

"Sorry... I was wondering if there's a flower around about Will's fear of responsibility."

[Will Stanton]

"Seesh, what flower ISN'T?" Tink grumbled, before tugging on Sara's hand. "You can't tell the difference, huh? Well, maybe your imagination needs a jump start," she said, before stopping in front of a newer blackish one. "This might be what you're looking for...see, it's not quite so large, but that's because it's new--the larger they are, the more often he's thought about 'em, so the newer ones are still a little tiny--of course, you gotta be careful, as some of 'em are just passing thoughts, y'know?"

"You WHAT?" Sara yelled at him, as he lay there in the hospital bed, casts on both legs. "How could you try that? You're going to be off the teams for SIX MONTHS? That's our stipend--how are we going to keep our apartment, how are we going to get FOOD? Will, you can't just do whatever you want anymore..."

"Not the best example, but it's close--I'm sure we can find something else around here, though..."

[Sara Stanton]

Sara shivers a little at that one, it's tone being all too familiar to fears of her own.

"Thanks Tink. So older ones would tend to be bigger, right? I'm trying to find something that's related to where 'Willow' comes from." She peers around, still looking a little lost. "Maybe something connected to his identity?"

[Will Stanton]

"Whazzis now? I'm not sure I get it..."

[Sara Stanton]

"Well there has to be some kind of reason why there are two personalities in his head. I want to find the that, so I can understand what's going on. I know he's worried about not being 'human', maybe there's a similar fear about his gender?"

[Will Stanton]

"Well you see, there's really four things," Tink says, opening up a door that leads to a back room.

"One, of course, is the fact that Sara--not you, the other one--brought up all these repressed feelings and all that--I bet she could do something similar to a lot of people, right?"

[Sara Stanton]

"Propably... I don't think she meant to though. At least I hope she didn't..." A tiny spark pops into existance next to her head without her noticing right away and dances around her like a flickering ember, joining the one already following her since she looked at the one of Will in a hospital bed.

"So they were already there then. That means those other 3 must be the reason for 'her' existance then?" she asks, following Tink into the backroom.

[Will Stanton]

"Well there's that. Then there's the responsibility thing, right? If Will can't cut it, gotta find someone else who can--and who can he turn to but the other voice in his head?

And then there's his body. First of all, he's done all his lessons by his lonesome--no one's helped him figure out how to deal with it. I mean, you mention a fear about his gender, but, really, that's legitimate, isn't it?" she said, pointing to another dark flower back in the locked room. "I mean, really, he's technically not a guy all the time anymore...

Which brings me to the last thing. He's been trying to live up to people's expectations...he's his parents son. He's the guy from the room down the hall. He's your boyfriend. He's a father-to-be. He's defining himself as that...never allowing himself to see if that's really what he wants. Is it any surprise he's slowly locked away bits and pieces of that side of him? Never allowing his real self to show? Years of hiding who and what he really is from everybody? Even himself?"

[Sara Stanton]

Tink's explanation sparks a bunch of additional little flames dancing around Sara. "Is there any way I can help him? I tried to. I've always tried to make him see that I love 'him', not who he turns into, not who I want or expect him to be, but I think I failed him and now is my last try to make that up to him before he turns into who he thinks he needs to be..." Another, certainly bigger ember joins the ones swirling around her, ill-defined images of her reaching out to Will and never quite reaching his hand as he's pulled away flickering in the flames.

[Will Stanton]

"Well, ask yourself. Who is Will?" Tink said, after a moment's pause.

[Sara Stanton]

Images flash in front of Sara's eyes. Will, Willow, his original shape, his dream self at the house in the mountains, more and more different shapes and forms he's taken since she met him rush past faster and faster, then Willow's expressions, Will trying to get her to order him around, the two keep flickering back and forth, still speeding up, Willow being somewhat vain, Will thinking he doesn't deserve her. More and more images and memories flicker past her until they all run together and crystallize into a single image. It's the first time she met him, one hand turned into a sheet of paper and grinning a little impishly, but his shape isn't really what matters, it's more the look in his eyes and his attitude; a little bit impish like Willow, a tad of Will's shyness, some of her attitude, his desire to help out.

"It... it's both him. He's splitting himself in two..." she whispers at the realization.

[Will Stanton]

Tink applauded, slowly, perhaps a little sarcastically, but with an honest smile. "He held it together for so long, too, but it's too much for him, isn't it?"

[Sara Stanton]

"There has to be something I can do to help him through this. To show him that he can be whoever he wants to be, not what anyone expects from him." She looks around the room and the dark flower sprouting in it. "I don't care 'what' he is. He's just Will to me. He'll be the best father he can be, I KNOW that, and no one would demand more. I don't want him to be someone he's not for my sake. All I want is for him to be what makes HIM happy. I have seen it, I know our dreams and hopes without having to go out there to take another look at them."

A brightly shining flame joins the dark ones circling around her, showing flashes of a laughing Will and Sara; playing with their kid; sitting in front of a fireplace arms wrapped around each other; Will goofing around and making her laugh. More and more streams of brightly coloured light join the flame as Sara pours her hopes and dreams into it, the comparably insignificant embers of her fears getting swallowed up inside it as the flame at least somewhat illuminates the room.

"I know I can show this to him. I have before." she says, ackowledging the existance of the flames for the first time. "Tell me how. He needs to see this, please. I know it won't magically fix anything, but he has to see he already is more than he needs to be to me before he tears himself apart entirely." she pleads with the 'Guardian' Will's mind is projecting.

[Will Stanton]

Tink floated up, and poked the orb. "Well, it's highly irregular to plant someone ELSE'S dreams in someone's head."

She grins a crazy, Tink-ish grin at Sara. "Sounds like fun, right? I'm gonna go see what I can do. Feel free to look around a little more, if you'd like."