by Rane » Fri Jan 04, 2002 1:05 pm
by Jessie » Fri Jan 04, 2002 2:12 pm
------------------
"And how long have you known your girlfriend's Tinkerbell?"
by xita » Fri Jan 04, 2002 2:17 pm
by AutumnT » Fri Jan 04, 2002 2:26 pm
quote:
Originally posted by xita:
nope, not the fic again. I swear, you guys just tease!
Well the rest of here were sitting around disappointed, so why not let everyone else feel our pain too.
quote:by CaptMurdock » Fri Jan 04, 2002 5:48 pm
quote:
Originally posted by xita:
nope, not the fic again. I swear, you guys just tease!
Hee hee hee...ah, me public....
I do appreciate all the comments, and I really have been trying to work on the next part. It's just that, as luck would have it, on Christmas Day, Mrs. CaptMurdock took a bad spill and severely sprained her knee, so she can't do much around the house, leaving me having to do dishes and cook (not that I didn't do things like that before, but...) so I have even less free time than usual.
Still, she is being a good sport, so tonight I will try to write some more. I may have to post it in chunks, like the last part (X/A's wedding).
Again, thank you all for your kind comments. Have a good weekend.
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"Good God, that's a lot of shake!"
by xita » Sat Jan 05, 2002 3:44 am
And as Rane so clearly reminded me, I do like getting teased! And Autumn a little pain is good too!
by 'lucy' moore » Sat Jan 05, 2002 7:11 am
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fiat justitia,ruat caelum.
by tommo » Sat Jan 05, 2002 3:48 pm
I suppose I can wait, seeing as marriage duties obviously come first. But this is just great fic...dammit...
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"Bitter, party of one. Bitter, party of one." she muttered... ~ Four Months After by Capt. Murdock
by Rane » Sat Jan 05, 2002 4:38 pm
by CaptMurdock » Mon Jan 07, 2002 1:03 am
Rane, thanks for the offer, but unless you live near Cypress, and stack dishes in the washer to my wife's meticulous standards...
***************
Four Months After
Part 8
Willow paid the cab driver and got out in front of the Summers house. With the aid of her cane, she walked up the short pathway, mounted the front steps and stood in front of the door.
Once upon a time, she would not have hesitated to go in. For a while, she had lived here. There would have been greetings and hugs from a young girl, a smile from the lithe blond young woman who was both advisor and confidante, and once there was an older version of these two who had been closer to Willow than her own mother. Finally, later, there would be the one person in all of her life that understood her better than anybody, probably even better than Willow herself. She would have come bounding down the stairs when Willow came in the front door, and give her the crooked smile that Willow thought of as her trademark. Once.
Today, Willow rang the bell, and waited for someone to let her in.
Buffy answered the bell. "Hey, Will," the Slayer said, stepping aside to let the former witch hobble in. "Can I give you a hand?" she added.
"Oh, no, I'm good. You might stash this in the corner for me," Willow said, handing the cane to Buffy before moving over to and flopping on the couch. "I mean, it's totally useless without me."
Buffy dimpled, standing the cane in the corner within easy reach of the couch. "Well, Tara's upstairs, Dawn is over at Melissa's, and…the others haven't arrived yet. I'm just 'bout to go to work, but if you want me to…"
"No, no, go 'head. Tara'll be down in a minute." Willow leaned closer to Buffy conspiratorially. "Have you, uh, met, like, any of these other girls?"
Buffy shook her head. "Tara's mentioned a couple of names, but frankly, I may have listened with one ear, and that was on a good day." She comradely squeezed Willow's shoulder. "Don't worry, okay?"
"Who's worried?" Willow countered. Her eyes, however, were a bit wide for someone who as "unworried" as she professed to be.
"You mean, beside me?" came a voice from the stairs. Tara came down, wearing a loose robe of some dark material. "Hi, Willow," she said, her voice warm but somehow business-like.
"And that's my cue to…something that rhymes with 'cue', I'm sure," Buffy said, grabbing her shoulderbag. She bid a quick goodbye to the two of them and left.
"I'm glad you came, Will."
"Well, I can rarely refuse an invitation from you." Willow smiled, and was pleased to see Tara smile in return. "Now, these aren't the same Wanna Blessed-Be's like the old Wiccan group, right?"
Tara shook her head, still smiling. "No, Will. After you and I…well, I-I needed to find a new direction, and I thought I would, well, bring in some real Wiccans…"
"Staged a coup, did ya?"
Tara nodded, mock-somber. "It was pretty terrible. Armed insurrection, political prisoners, burning all Shirley MacLaine books. Thank God only conventional weapons were used."
Willow giggled. Tara's sense of humor, once so esoteric that even Willow sometimes had trouble getting the joke, had certainly improved. She sensed Xander's slow but steady hand behind this. I'm sure there was a postgraduate course in Mel Brooks 101 at Harris U.
Presently, the other members of the group, all strangers to Willow, began showing up at the house. They were an interesting mixture: Jamaican, Tibetan, Native American, Irish. The last one, whom Tara introduced as Yalia Maibang, was probably the most exotic. Although she had the brownish skin-tone of African descent, she also had the epicanthic eye-fold common to Asians.
Although all the group members, including Yalia, arrived in various types of street clothes, they each excused themselves after brief pleasantries to the downstairs bathroom, to reappear wearing the same sort of robe as Tara. Willow could tell, by the soft swish of fabric against skin, that each woman was nude underneath.
"What's with the no-clothes zone?" Willow asked sotto voce.
Tara took a deep breath, then said, "These sorts of rituals require us to be as in tune with the world around us as possible. Our skin needs to touch the air. The robes let our skin breathe, but...they kinda help preserve, um, our m-modesty."
Willow frowned lightly. "Y'mean, when we did those spells naked...that wasn't just some excuse to get my clothes off?"
Tara's face did a remarkable impression of Willow's hair. "S-Sometimes it was. B-but, Will, this isn't a spell, that we're doing for you, not as such."
"Well, what is it?"
Tara shook her head. "Yalia will explain it to you. She's the...I guess you could say the facilitator of this ritual. Why don't you go and, uh, change." Tara indicated the way to the bathroom. "Oh, uh, do you need any help?"
Willow brightened at that, giving Tara a leering come-hither look that the blonde used to respond really well to. Now, however, she kept her expression carefully neutral, making Willow feel rather foolish. "Uh, no. I can manage."
*********
"The bisalom tewol," Yalia explained, sitting on the floor opposite Willow in the middle of a circle formed by the Wiccans. Tara sat on Willow's right. Between Yalia and Willow, a small tablecloth had been set on the floor and decorated with utensils and napkins, as if a family of munchkins were about to eat dinner. Willow had been slightly bemused by this; patiently, Tara had explained that Melanesian magic, which Yalia practiced, had been subtly influenced by contact with Europeans during the Second World War.
"This ritual," Yalia continued, speaking in an accent that kept reminding Willow of Kendra, although many of the intonations were different, "is part of the rot bilong ka'ako, the path our souls travel between this world and the next. Today, we conduct this ritual, to help our sister back to the road from whence she strayed.
"Willow...I've felt your aura. You have great mana, great power, but there is darkness about you--"
"I haven't cast a spell in months!" Willow protested.
Yalia nodded, her youthful smile rich with an ancient wisdom. "I know. But the darkness doesn't come from the magic that you might wield. It comes from within you. That, as much as anything, caused your injuries, caused you to cripple yourself."
"Cripple myself? You think I did this to myself?" cried Willow in outrage.
"Will!" Tara cut back, reaching over to grab Willow's arm. "Try to be patient, okay? We're trying to help you."
Willow turned to Tara, confusion and frustration warring on her face and in her mind. "I thought this was some kind of healing ritual. All this is, is some kinda half-assed Wiccan intervention! If I wanted--" Willow shut her eyes and sat back, hanging her head down.
Tara was about to tear Willow a new orifice, furious that after going through so much effort on Willow's part only to be dismissed so cavalierly, when Yalia suddenly held up her hand. Tara found herself staying silent, without knowing entirely why.
Willow looked up again. "No. I've been given more chances than I deserved over this past year. I'm not going to blow this one, too."
Yalia smiled briefly, then made her expression neutral. "I must warn you, girl: some of the things you might see are not going to be pleasant."
Willow shrugged, looked over at Tara, who slowly grinned, then looked back at Yalia. "I haven't gotten as far as I have by staying in my room all day and night."
"I thought as much," Yalia said, her eyes seemingly reflecting far more light than was possible. "Then take my hands."
The room around the group suddenly seemed dark, and wreathed in shadow.
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"Good God, that's a lot of shake!"
[This message has been edited by CaptMurdock (edited January 07, 2002).]
by BytrSuite » Mon Jan 07, 2002 1:32 am
Great start to this next chapter. I bet Willow's gonna have some decidedly unpleasant things to face during this ritual. That makes me happy, really. I love this painful healing angsty process.
[This message has been edited by BytrSuite (edited January 07, 2002).]
by xita » Mon Jan 07, 2002 1:41 am
by Quill » Mon Jan 07, 2002 1:53 am
by delany » Mon Jan 07, 2002 5:20 am
by tommo » Mon Jan 07, 2002 8:26 am
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"Bitter, party of one. Bitter, party of one." she muttered... ~ Four Months After by Capt. Murdock
by Jessie » Mon Jan 07, 2002 12:17 pm
More soon, I hope.
------------------
"And how long have you known your girlfriend's Tinkerbell?"
by willow420 » Mon Jan 07, 2002 1:23 pm
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A.K.A. Liz
"What the frilly heck was that?" Willow in After Life
by AutumnT » Mon Jan 07, 2002 1:29 pm
quote:quote:
Originally posted by CaptMurdock:
Willow frowned lightly. "Y'mean, when we did those spells naked...that wasn't just some excuse to get my clothes off?"
by Time » Wed Jan 09, 2002 8:54 pm
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeese?
by Rane » Thu Jan 10, 2002 2:17 am
great update, capt!!!! more please! thanks
by CaptMurdock » Fri Jan 11, 2002 12:46 am
"God-Manup, Jesus-Kilibob, hear our prayer. Guide our sister through her journey…"
Just as Willow occasionally could not determine when the transition between wakefulness and sleep, she could not tell when the Summers living room, with the feel of the carpet under her butt and legs, the feel of Yalia's smooth, warm hands in hers, the smells of patchouli and sage, faded away, to coalesce again as she was standing in a hallway that reminded her strongly of Sunnydale High School, sometime before it was destroyed by a lot of C-4 plastic explosive and lot of mayor-snake.
Strangely, though she was unable to see anyone else in the hallway (which also reminded her of the dormitory at UCS), she did hear voices. Quiet, at first, but slowly becoming more distinguishable as she concentrated on them:
"…no, Willow…"
"…why are you here…"
"…do we have to have Willow on our team…!"
"…thing: know your losers…"
"…do shut up…"
"Where are you?" Willow cried out, a bit more shrill than even she thought necessary. The voices weren't threatening, and yet they touched certain chords inside her that she did not like. She looked all around, but so far the voices were bodiless.
"…a phase you're going through, dear…"
"…don't have any teeth…"
"…some nerd who tutored me…"
"…for losers that couldn't get into Har…"
"…spells are only fifty-fifty…"
"…too much…"
"…didn't have a comeback, huh…"
"…Faith and I…have a connection…"
"…no, you don't get a say in this…"
"C'mon, enough already!" Willow snarled, turning in a circle, chin raised defiantly. "Is this all you have? Dredging up bad memories? I can do that on my own!"
Nevertheless, the voices continued. "…being trendy and all that…"
"…uh, witch stuff…"
"…stealing…!"
"…using too much…"
"…couldn't keep wolf-boy…"
"…you couldn't know what it's like…"
"…you wouldn't understand…"
"…love her, as a friend…"
"…just to make you feel better…not my problem…"
"…you're using too much magic…"
"…I remember, what it feels like…"
"…if I didn't love you so damn much…"
"You're a stupid, arrogant girl!" It took Willow a second to realize that this voice, belonging to Giles, was coming from behind her. A quick turn revealed the English watcher, in his trademark tweed and rimless spectacles. "You're a child playing with forces that are bigger than you! How many times did I tell you – don't play with the sage!"
"He's right, Will," came the voice of Buffy off to her left. There was the Slayer, dressed in mini and knee-high boots, just like in high school, even to the last remnant of baby-fat that she had burned off within a year of meeting Willow. "That magic stuff is way out of your league. You should'a just stuck with what you know best: computers, physics, screaming, getting taken hostage – all your best subjects."
Willow looked down at herself. Surprisingly, she wasn't wearing her old high-school duds, like overalls and pink fluffy sweaters. It was one of the leather ensembles she had gotten last year, like the one she had gone out on an all-night magic binge with Amy Madison.
Willow looked up at the psuedo-Slayer. "How can you say that to me? I took on a god, Buffy – a god that had kicked your ass twice before that. I pretty much held my own –"
"—until Buffy had to come rescue you, again" shot back Xander, looking terribly unhip in his scruffy t-shirt and jeans. His hair was short but still rumpled. "Why can't you face it, Will? You're not the Slayer…Buffy is."
"Yes," added Giles, "your job was to do research, maybe a few divination spells to help us locate monsters, which Buffy could then take care of." He took off his glasses and polished them. "However, you refused to mind your place, and got involved in things that were not your calling!"
"I'll say!" came a jarringly familiar voice. Sure enough, the scourge of Sunnydale, Cordelia Chase herself, appeared, looking just like she stepped out of a prom picture. "You actually thought that you could be something more than just Research Nerd? You should feel lucky that Buffy lifted you out of the pit of Total Loserdom that you were in—"
"I know I do," Xander cut in."
"Hello, still talking here? Hell, the only reason Buffy talked to you in the first place was because she needed you to help her with catching up on classwork!"
Buffy shrugged. "What can I say, Will? Buss-ted. I suppose if there were any other ultra-nerds at Sunnydale High, I would have gone to one of them. 'Course, SHS not being the academic bright center of California, you won the toss."
All through this, Willow felt burning rage coursing through her, as if gasoline had been poured down her throat, followed by a lit match. "N-no. Buffy, please—"
"You were a magnificent scholar, Willow," Giles interrupted, "destined for a quiet life of academia, awards, great literature…and you threw it all away for witless, measly adventure. As if somehow that were your true destiny."
"No, I-I didn't want that…well, yeah, but, I found…I don't know." In the midst of pain and rage, Willow could barely form a coherent thought.
Buffy stepped forward. "You latched on to me because I was a ticket out of your dreary life. Did you ever think to ask me if I wanted to be saddled with you? Did you ask me if I wanted to have to constantly check to see that you're not dead or not captured, making sure you keep up with me? Haven't I got enough to worry about, being the Slayer?"
"I tried to help you! I've always tried to help you!" Willow half-shouted, half-sobbed. "You were always trying to do everything on your own, and screwing it up! If it wasn't for me, Angel probably would have killed you, or, or he would still be in some hell dimension getting jabbed in the ass with a pitchfork! But-but-but I did the soul re-cursing spell, and-and-and…"
"…and he got brought back," Buffy interjected, "where I can't even love him, because he'll turn into a monster again. Nice favor you did me, Will."
"Realllllly," Cordelia drawled, crossing her arms. "Then there was that whole 'clothes fluke'" she said, complete with miming of quotation marks, "with Xander. You were so jealous about him making out with me that you had to spoil it. C'mon, wasn't getting caught part of the whole plan? You knew I wouldn’t take Xander back, so, hey, Mission Accomplished."
"But then, I spoiled it for you." Oz. "When I took you back, forgave you for Xander."
"Noo-ooo," Willow wailed. "I did love you, Oz!"
"Love me?" The guitarist smiled grimly. "Or did you love the cachet of going out with somebody cool?"
Unbidden, Willow's own voice sounded out: "…my boyfriend's in the band…!"
"…hello, dating a guitarist…"
Xander piped up. "Y'see, you made everybody think that I thought you weren't attractive enough for me, Will. Truth was, I wasn't cool enough for you!"
Willow closed her eyes, shook her head. "Shut up."
"We were all just means to an end," Buffy muttered, stepping closer to Willow. "Just Willow's way of escaping her little nerd-life. Isn't that right, Tara?"
Stepping out of the shadows was the blonde Wiccan, all right, but looking much as she did when Willow first met her: head down, hair almost completely obscuring her face, wearing baggy sweatshirts and drawstring pants that did nothing but hide her lovely figure. "F-Face it, Will…you w-would have s-slept with anybody who would …could've taught you magic."
Incongruously, a soda machine slid through the hallway. Xander, typically, started rummaging his pockets for change.
"Then there's that whole 'through-with-men' thing," Oz added. "When I came back, you didn't want me anymore. Because of Tara. Without her, you would have had me in a cold minute."
"No, I-I," Willow sobbed, "No, this is all wrong! I'm not like this, I'm not! How can you all say this about…okay, Cordelia, I can understand where you're coming from, but why are you guys saying this stuff?"
"Because it's true." It took Willow a second to realize that the voice didn't come from one of the figures around her, but from down the hall.
The young girl was dressed in a simple checked polyester dress, with white leggings and tennis shoes. Her brown hair was long, pulled back from her forehead with a barrette.
Cordelia looked over at the new arrival. "Well, if it ain't the softer side of Sears herself."
Willow felt renewed outrage at seeing her younger self. "What are you doing here?"
The tenth-grader smiled and, her hand simulating a series of blinking lights on her chest, replied in a sepulchral voice, "I have always been here."
"Shut up! Don't pull that Babylon 5 crap with me!" Willow marched over to her younger self, furious green eyes burning into diffident green eyes. "I-I'm not you, anymore. I mean, yeah, I'm still Willow Rosenberg, and I'm still a girl, and yeah, okay, still a hacker in my spare time, but I'm not the nerd here! I'm not the one nobody likes, or nobody wants around…"
"Are you sure?" the younger girl asked, all innocence. "I'm not the one who almost drove everyone away. You did that without my help!" The plain face gave a simple, sweet and somehow smug smile.
"Shut up!" Willow drew back a hand and slapped the teenager, hard across the face. The girl's smile faded, but the defiant look she gave Willow drove the witch to backhand her in the mouth. A trickle of blood came down from her lip to her chin, which trembled in pain, as, unnoticed, the other figments of Willow's imagination faded away.
"All my life, people have ignored me," SLAP. "Insulted me." SLAP. "Made fun of me." SLAP. "Used me" SLAP. "All because of—" SLAP. "You! You let people walk all over you! You let people walk all over me, and you just sit there and smile!" This time, Willow clenched her fist and punched her younger self in the face, feeling a terrible satisfaction as the girl fell to the linoleum, blood and mucous streaming from her nose.
The girl looked up, eyes burning with tears that she refused to shed, looked up at the insane woman standing over her. "So, so your solution is to share the hurt? Payback? Are you going to punch the entire world when it doesn't give you what you want?"
"I Hate You!" Willow screamed, thrusting her hands forth toward the girl, calling upon a part of her mind that she dared not access for months. Bolts of pure energy shot from her palms and coruscated around the younger Willow, burning her clothing and flesh. Screams of primal agony erupted from her, making Willow grin in satanic triumph as she called on more power…
…when suddenly, her body jerked violently, as she felt something in her brain give out like a blown bicycle tire. Oh, God, not again! she thought, the thought itself sluggish and sludgey, as she collapsed to the floor with the grace of a sack of potatoes.
Gasping like a beached dolphin, Willow managed to use what muscular control she had, to drag herself to the wall. A couple of agonizing motions later, she was in something resembling a sitting position. She felt as if half her body was trapped in wet cement, and the other half was on fire.
Breathing deeply, she struggled to turn her head over to where her younger self was just getting up off the floor. The girl looked like Willow felt. Her dress and leggings were scorched in several places, as if someone had applied a blowtorch to those places. About a third of the hair on the right side of her face had been burned away. Her left cheek was charred like an over-done piece of veal.
She walked slowly over to the half-paralyzed Willow, looking down at her in bemusement. "Wow. Talk about 'you should see the other guy.'"
Willow had to laugh at that. Then the sight of what she had inflicted on the other girl brought a wave of shame, and nausea. She had never known that she was capable of such anger, except when Glory had taken Tara's mind.
"Do you see now?" Tara was back, this time looking as she had after Willow's love and devotion had shown her how wonderful and attractive she truly was. "Willow, you can't live with all this anger at yourself, and at everyone else. And you can't live with the guilt you feel, either." Willow realized, belatedly, that this was no image of Tara from within her own mind, but the real Tara, speaking through the link that Yalia still had with the outside world.
As if in confirmation, Yalia herself appeared beside Tara. "You stopped using magic, not from responsibility, but from fear of what it might do. And well should you be afraid…but you cannot live with fear of yourself. That, too, can have great power over you. Don't let it."
"Can you help me?" Willow asked.
Tara shook her head. "You're asking the wrong person." Willow thought she meant Yalia, but the Melanesian faded from view, followed by Tara herself.
Willow turned to look at the young girl that she once was, battered, burned but unbowed. She, unlike the present version of Willow Rosenberg, had the ability to endure as well as fight.
Willow reached her good hand up towards the girl. "Please help me."
Somehow, through the blood and third-degree burns, the girl found the ability to smile. "I thought you'd never ask." She moved over, painfully but assuredly, and kneeled down to embrace Willow.
The two Willow Rosenbergs, now able to tolerate each other's existence, began to merge together, to flow like liquid, and disappear…
The redhead in the center of the circle suddenly snapped her head back, arched her spine and let out a gasp that sounded almost like a death-rattle. She overbalanced and fell backwards, her hands slipping out of Yalia's. Tara wasn't quite fast enough to catch her before her head hit the carpet.
"Willow?" she cried, cradling the woman in her arms, trying to feel for a pulse. "Willow?
TBC.
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"Good God, that's a lot of shake!"
by xita » Fri Jan 11, 2002 1:10 am
by ULookSoPrecious » Fri Jan 11, 2002 1:15 am
Kristen
by Puff » Fri Jan 11, 2002 12:04 pm
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Bloody hell, sodding, limey, shagging, knickers, bollocks...oh God...I'm English
by KittyKo » Fri Jan 11, 2002 12:22 pm
by Quill » Fri Jan 11, 2002 1:06 pm
Wonderful update. I was really moved by grown-up Willow's stand against young Willow. *sniffle* More please?
by Jessie » Fri Jan 11, 2002 3:15 pm
Feeling for a pulse, psh. Grrr.
More now?
------------------
"And how long have you known your girlfriend's Tinkerbell?"
by Rane » Fri Jan 11, 2002 3:25 pm
it's very interesting how it's probably tara who should be the cahracter that feels she's worthless, and probably did before, but we see that she let willow bring her out in OMWF. willow hasn't let herself go yet. she hasn't let the demons go. she hasn't grown up yet. sigh... please write quicker!
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