"Mission Statement" (Post-Season 6)

[snuggle79]

Thanx Bagheera, merry christmas and happy holiday for you too!

snuggle79

__________________

"I got so lost"

"I found you, i will always find you"

[Bagheera]

Part 3

Rating PG13 - Adult themes, coarse language, low level violence.

Song credit: "Lorelei"; Phil Chevron



“Let me get this straight: we’re sorry Riley’s dead, right?” Anya was saying. Buffy and her friends were sitting around one of the upstairs tables; it was marginally quieter up there, and they were well away from the bustle and crush that was still happening downstairs. Saturdays at the Bronze were busier than ever; as agreed, the Scoobies had met there quite late, the last band had finished their final encore and were packing up, but the throng did not seem particularly inclined to make their various ways home just yet.



Giles removed his glasses and blinked owlishly at his wife, thinking for the thousandth time since their marriage what a curious blend of primordial wisdom and seemingly wilful ignorance Anya was. He picked up his glass with his free hand. “Yes we are, dear,” he said evenly. “We’re all very sorry about it.” The pinched faces of the others nodded slightly in agreement. Large glasses of Irish draught, an appropriate mourning shade of black, were dotted about the table. Blending in, Dawn had a cola, easy on the ice.



Anya smiled briefly and girlishly, as if she was doing a jigsaw puzzle and she had just managed to assemble a particularly difficult bit of sky. “I thought so,” she said a bit too brightly. “But,” and she sipped appreciatively at her glass, “why then are we having this party to celebrate?”



There was an uncomfortable stirring of bodies at the table in response to this latest question. Willow champed down hard on her tongue to stop herself saying something precipitous and harsh. Tara sensed her partner’s tension and moved to embrace her. Willow responded, half-turning to Tara and burying her head against the the blonde’s shoulder. Xander, seated opposite Anya, just looked away, inwardly congratulating himself at his narrow escape from his ex-fiancee. Dawn scowled and sipped her drink. Faith and Buffy paid the least attention as, arms tightly around one another, they held a furtive conversation in low murmurs.



“It’s not exactly a celebration,” Giles explained patiently. “We are gathered here as Riley’s friends, we can - reminisce. We are commemorating his life and the all-too-brief time that he spent with us.”



Anya nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Then I have one more question: if I’m having a good time tonight, am I supposed to feel guilty about it?” Giles just looked at her and replaced his glasses. “I mean,” the vengeance demon continued, “I miss him and I’m sorry he died, but - we haven’t seen enough of our other friends lately, and I’m relishing being in their company - and this beer is quite marvellous,” she concluded, taking a long draught of it.



Willow snuggled closed to Tara. She asked her: “Reminiscing?”



Tara nodded. “I remember making that dumb joke about Glory and her insect reflection. He was so nice about it. Riley was a gentleman.”



“That he was,” Willow agreed.



There was a sudden shift in the conversation. Faith was whispering something in Buffy’s ear, too quietly for the others to hear. The brunette’s face was rigid with tension, as if she was talking on eggshells. The older Slayer suddenly recoiled, her hazel eyes blazing.



“Don’t tell me how to feel!” Buffy shouted at Faith. “You bet I’m damn well angry!”



“B, please,” Faith cringed. “I’m sorry. I wanted to hurt you, but it was about me. I was punishing myself! I never wanted it to go as far as it…”



“I’m not angry with you!” Buffy raged. “I’m angry with him - with Riley!”



“Buffy?”



Buffy’s eyes spat flame. “That macho, hypocritical S.O.B., you know what he did to me? He NEVER trusted me. He never let me in. But he expected ME to trust HIM! He never told me he was from the Initiative, I had to find that out for myself. He never took ME to meet his folks, but he expected to be part of MY circle of friends. And then - when mom got sick, and Glory was looking for Dawn, and it was getting too hard, and I HAD to keep secrets because if I didn’t there was a good chance that people would get hurt - or killed,” Buffy glanced over at Tara who nodded slowly in understanding. The blonde flexed the fingers of one hand, remembering the agony when the hell-god had crushed them. “And he STILL didn’t trust me. So he started fooling around behind my back. And when I found out about THAT, he wouldn’t talk to me about that either. HE accused ME of pushing him away.”



“He left,” Buffy continued, more quietly and sadly now. “Not a word for months. Than all of a sudden he was back in town, the big he-man soldier boy, as if nothing had changed. He wouldn’t even tell me he was married, SHE had to introduce herself. And then as he was leaving for the - l-last time and we finally had a chance to make it right and I wanted to tell him how sorry I was about what happened between us, and he said that I never have to. And I just wanted to - punch his stupid full of himself face in,” Buffy lowered her head, sobbing, a tear streaking down one cheek.



“It’s okay,” Faith whispered, taking the Slayer’s hand in hers. “It’s okay.”



“But it’s not! I’m still mad at him! He wouldn’t talk to me about his feelings. He left me, he jumped in a helicopter and flew away to avoid talking about it. He came back, married, happy, while my life was in the sewer. Whether he meant to or not, he rubbed my face in it. And he STILL wouldn’t talk about what happened. And now he got his stupid self killed, and - and, I’ll never…” Buffy trailed off into silence as fresh tears fell from her eyes.



“He was a guy, B,” Faith said simply, embracing Buffy. “No worse than a lot of other guys about that stuff. It couldn’t have been all bad times.” The older Slayer shook her head but said nothing.



“Tara,” Willow whispered, “play for us?”



The blonde reached behind her for her guitar case. Knowing that Tara would take a couple of minutes tuning her instrument, Xander took the opportunity to dash downstairs to the toilets. As he was returning, he bumped past someone who was half-hidden in the shadows of a pillar. Xander was just about to apologise when he realised that it was Spike.



“Spike, what do you think you’re doing?” Xander demanded accusingly. He wondered if it was a coincidence that the vampire was skulking in the shadows, or that his position gave him a reasonable view of the Scoobies’ upstairs table.



“Well, if it isn’t Xander the Jammy Bastard Harris,” was the vampire’s retort.



“I’m sorry, you don’t come with subtitles, Spike.”



“Then I’ll spell it out for you. You must have the most indulgent fairy godmother in the cosmos.” The young man tried to object, but Spike carried on. “I mean, there you are, right, half a dozen of the Hellmouth’s finest have got you and they’re going to take you back to their gaff for a few large ones. And what happens? Not one, but TWO Slayers magically appear and rescue you.”



“So your little plan backfired, huh?”



“Never my plan, Larry Storch. But wot really pisses me off, is that when you think about it, this happens to you all the bleeding time. You attract trouble like flies to the honeypot, but when the fat lady starts lubricating her larynx, you always get away with it. What’s your secret?”



“I haven’t the first idea what you’re talking about, Spike.”



“Yeah, right. Do me a favour - piss off.”



“I’ve got a better idea,’ the young man shot back. “Why don’t you? Or would you like one of the Slayers to find you here and introduce you to Mr. Pointy?”



Spike guffawed. “Oh, you gonna call one of your mates over to sort me out? I’m quaking in my boots, son. But seriously, that’s a schoolyard trick. But that’s all you are, isn’t it? A big overgrown schoolboy, right Harris?”



Riled, Xander shoved past Spike roughly and headed for the stairs. Instinctively, the vampire pulled back a fist to send the young man on his way with a punch to the back of the head, but the blow never landed as a sudden piercing headache courtesy of his behaviour modification chip stopped Spike in his tracks. Holding his head and cursing, he watched Xander go back upstairs.



Tara was playing quietly, just for the benefit of those seated at her table. She sang:



I travel far and wander wide

No photograph of you beside me

Ol' man River's not so shy

And he remembers Lorelei



River, river have mercy

Take me down to the sea

For if I perish on these rocks

My love no more I'll see



But if my ship, which sails tomorrow

Should crash against these rocks,

My sorrows I will drown before I die

It's you I'll see, not Lorelei



One of the downstairs patrons apparently took offence to this gentle ballad, for he yelled in a voice disinhibited by Bronze beer: “Hey, knock off that weak shit! Rock hard or go home!”



There was an instantaneous response from the upstairs table, not from Tara, who had heard worse and simply kept playing, but from Faith. The brunette vaulted the railing and flew down like a vengeful angel. She identified and grabbed the heckler by the collar, tossing him against a pillar like a rag doll, even though he was half a head taller and a hundred pounds heavier than the Slayer. “You shut your fucking mouth!” she raged, “or I’ll shut it for you!”



Faith was getting ready to do just that when a warning shout of “Don’t!” came from Buffy. The others were by the blonde Slayer’s side, peering down at the drama.



Tara had stopped playing and was at the railing too. She caught Faith’s eye. “Faith, it’s okay, really; just forget it,” she called down.



Faith hesitated, and then let the idiot go. Perhaps not understanding his narrow escape, the heckler muttered something under his breath and shaped to throw a punch at the tattooed Slayer. Faith noticed and grinned. “Take a swing and I will break your face, bone by bone” she promised him in a tone of absolute certainty. The would-be brawler backed off. Without another word, Faith returned upstairs to the others.



Like everyone else, Spike had watched the confrontation with keen interest. After it had ended, he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. A firm hand clapped him on the shoulder.



“Just what I like to see; a man with a plan,” came a gruff voice at Spike’s ear.



(To be continued)

[funkyasian]

you know, for all the redeeming qualities spike has, he has 10 times that in damning qualities...



anya sometimes is just too much, although i can kind of sympathize with her...not knowing exactly what to do most of the time...



can't wait for more!



~steph

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. ~ Oscar Wilde

[Bagheera]

funkyasian: You've got the equation exactly right about Spike, clever you!

And as for Anya - her social skills are a bit of a work in progress, but she's sort of getting there.

Thanks and I'll try not to keep you waiting too long.



B.

"I am a girl. I am nice. I can play. I can jump. I can sleep." My daughter's first essay (aged 5)

[AntigoneUnbound]

Ah Bagheera, I love a good bar-room gathering with hints of a brawl a-foot...The image of Faith vaulting the railing is a fantastic one, both in its physicality (I mean, it's Faith, so how unappealing could it be?) and its emotional motivation. God, the history with all of these people is just incredible and you weave it together in a convincing way--not always easy to do w/ a complicated set of pasts. Speaking of pasts, I can't believe you remember Larry Storch! Amazing! Ah, it dates us both, does it not?



I loved Buffy's anguished diatribe about Riley's emotional unavailability. Perspective truly is everything, isn't it--as she was talking, I realized that she was making fantastic points. I'm glad she IS feeling this anger, even though I know it's just one part of an truly wretched cocktail. I commend you for your quite legitimate "review" of those facts.



This was a great glimpse into Anya as well. Hats off, eloquent one, for this description: her being a combination of "primordial wisdom and seemingly willful ignorance." I think I dated her once...But it is certainly true that our grief rituals can be a bit hard to figure out, and I think Anya voiced that fact quite well (albeit with her characteristic oblivion). And of course, the Irish in me greatly applauded your choice of libation.



Now (Mary paused, rubbing her chin thoughtfully)...what's this with Spike lurking about, and just who is that speaking at his elbow? Am I remembering that it was a deep voice? I guess that rules out Cordelia...(Insert ironic smile here.)



Have a wonderful New Year's Eve and Day, Bagheera, and may the coming year hold everything that you could wish for to enrich your life.



Mary

Edited by: AntigoneUnbound at: 12/30/02 6:28:26 pm

[Bagheera]

Oh, AntigoneUnbound,

Let me just pick myself up from the for a moment. As ever, your feedback is utterly brilliant and you seem to be able to cram such a great deal of perceptive comment into so few words. I guess I'll just have to tackle this point by point, because you've raised some great ones.

I know you have a soft spot for Faith, as do I. She has grown in this story and I hope readers are able to put aside their dislike of the Faith from Seasons 3&4 and appreciate her as you and I do. She will continue to be important as this story unfolds.

The past entanglements of these characters are a truly complex mix. It makes for some interesting situations, though I will be the first to admit that at times it makes this story very difficult to develop. I note also that at times the / focus may get a bit blurry, but this I assure you and all other readers is a temporary shift only which will be fixed very soon indeed.

Larry Storch, the ultimate sidekick? Yes, it dates us to an extent. Spike, being a vampire and having been around for a good few years, would of course remember him. Probably went way over Xander's head though.

Buffy and her response to Riley's death: you make some excellent points. I went back over the history of this couple and I am fairly certain that Buffy would harbour some resentment towards Soldier Boy, especially if he went and got himself killed in some faraway place. He wanted to be intimate with Buffy, but it was always on his terms. So I painted Buffy as being angry as well as grieving and full of regret. There is Faith's past behaviour as well, which complicates matters.

Quote:

---

a combination of "primordial wisdom and seemingly willful ignorance." I think I dated her once

---

Just once - proof of your good sense if nothing else. And the emerald green blood flowing in your veins appreciated the choice of drinks for Riley's wake - splendid.

The voice at Spike's elbow will be attached to a face in the next part. I'm just about to proof read it one more time, then I'll put it up.

Thanks for your New Year's wishes. I can only wish you the same. One thing you can do to enrich my life is to keep writing.



Kind regards,

B

"I am a girl. I am nice. I can play. I can jump. I can sleep." My daughter's first essay (aged 5)

[Bagheera]

Part 4

Rating PG-13 Minor angst and sexual references



“Tara, if you didn’t really want to do it, why did you say yes?”



“It-it’s not that I don’t want to,” Tara hesitated. The witches were walking home together hand in hand. After Faith’s near fistfight, matters had settled down and after a couple more rounds of drinks, the gathering had quietly split up. Anya and Giles had gone home with many embraces and promises to catch up real soon, perhaps at the housewarming. Buffy, Faith and Dawn were walking Xander home prior to performing a quick sweep of the cemetery and surrounds before bedtime. Faith had given the distinct impression that she wouldn’t mind encountering a vampire or two in order to work out her frustrations. Then, just as Tara and Willow were leaving, the duty manager had called the blonde witch over for a brief word. One of their bands for the coming Wednesday had cancelled, and he wondered if Tara would mind filling in. After a moment’s hesitation, the blonde witch had agreed.



“Willow, I love playing. If someone’s listening and responding, that’s great. But I made it clear I was going to play on my terms: solo and acoustic. No b-backing band. No Dingoes, ex or current.” Willow made a wry face at the mention of Oz’s old band. “Just me. If the crowd don’t like it, I don’t care.”



“Well, if they feel that way, it’s their loss. Personally, you could sing the phone book to me and I’d be entranced,” Willow giggled and gave Tara’s waist an extra squeeze.



“I get that,” Tara hugged back.



“You know that I’m completely besotted with you?” Willow continued, leaning against her blonde lover a little too heavily, so that Tara almost tripped and fell.



“Ow, careful, Willow!” Tara warned.



“You besot me,” Willow murmured, leaning against Tara a little more carefully. Now perfectly balanced, Tara pressed herself against the redhead and inhaled deeply, breathing in her scent, her hair, her skin. “You know what that means?”



“Love,” Tara said simply, brushing Willow’s hair with her lips, then the redhead’s fair freckled cheek. She was about to pounce and kiss Willow’s lips when her target abruptly and teasingly pulled away.



“More than love!” the redhead exclaimed. “Besotted means you completely infatuate me.” Tara nodded. “And more than that: it also means that you turn me into a sot.” The redhead grinned.



Tara frowned. “I think at this point, Giles might say something like; ‘I say, steady on now, young Willow.’”



“And of course,” Will persisted, “a sot is an habitual drinker.” She caught Tara’s eye and winked.



Tara smiled broadly. “But I’m not Giles, so I’ll just say: Willow darling, there are some drinking habits that I will do nothing to discourage. Quite,” and she took Willow in her arms and kissed her warm lips there and then, “the contrary.”



“Mmm,” was Willow’s eloquent reply.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I’m sorry, you seem to have mistaken me for someone who gives a bugger,” Spike, in the shadows of the Bronze, replied to the man who had accosted him.



“It’s almost a reflex, isn’t it?” was the man’s reply. He was squat, burly and middle-aged, with a silver crew-cut so short that it was difficult to tell where the bald patch ended and the hairline began. “As men our instinct is to be suspicious of each other. The last thing on our minds is the possibility that men might be able to help each other out. Just part of that competitive masculine nature, right?”



The guy was right. Spike’s instinct was to tell him to go and stuff himself. But there was something about the glint in the man’s pale blue eyes that stopped the vampire. Or was this some sort of a pick-up? Spike waited, beer half-raised to his lips, his expression wavering between neutral and politely bored.



“My name’s Joe Withers,” the speaker continued, “and before me I see a man drinking on his own. That can mean one of two things: either he’s shy and has no friends, or he’s having problems with a woman. Somehow I don’t see you as the shy friendless type.”



“Offering me the wisdom of your advanced years then?” Spike retorted. “You ought to know that I’m a bit older than I look.”



Withers smiled. When he did so his eyes narrowed to slits so tiny they almost disappeared into his face. “Not wisdom or advice, son, no. Only you can work out what you want. But I might be able to offer you help. See, a man on his own, he’s easy meat for a woman. She got tricks to twist him around her little finger. But what if he’s not alone? What if he’s got the help of some like-minded guys behind him.”



“Is this a wind-up?” Spike demanded. “Are you about to invite me around to sample your hot-tub?”



“Nothing like that,” Withers said smoothly. “The group of guys I hang out with, we’re absolutely straight in word, thought and deed. All we offer is support and help. Without judgment. If you’re a guy and your lady is causing you trouble, the offer is there. All you have to do is swallow that macho pride and ask. What have you got to lose? Self-respect? Let me guess that you’ve laid that on the line already. For her.”



Spike, although something about Withers disturbed him, had to admit that he was intrigued. He leaned forward and gave the human his full attention. Joseph Withers smiled once more, and his eyes repeated their vanishing act. “Have you ever heard of the Sunnydale Wolverines?” Spike hadn’t, so Joseph briefly outlined what the local men’s support group was and in general terms described what they stood for. When he had finished, Spike chewed the information over for a while.



“Do you have any contacts with the local police?” Spike finally asked.



Withers nodded. “Sure we do. A few of our members are serving police officers. They have marital problems the same as anyone else. Maybe more so. We help them, and from time to time they help us. But never with anything illegal, you understand.”



“That goes without saying,” Spike replied.



“You have something in mind?” Withers asked.



“Maybe.”



“But nothing illegal,” Withers repeated.



“I got that,” the blonde vampire replied. “Quite the contrary, actually.” They both grinned.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Darling?” Tara said abruptly in the stillness of their bedroom. She was lying with her head on Willow’s breast, her long blonde hair spilling over her lover’s fair torso.



“Hmm?” was Willow’s sleepy reply. Tara had known from the thudding of the redhead’s heart that she wasn’t quite asleep.



“Have you been getting any vibes lately?”



“Only the good kind,” Willow purred, tracing the outline of Tara’s shoulder blades with her fingertips. What a beautiful shape they are, she thought.



“No Apocalypse, no Big Bad rising?” Tara probed.



“No,” Willow admitted. “Have you?”



Tara shook her head slightly. “Nothing specific.” There had been no further visits from Vampire Tara since the night the witches had laid her to rest at Tara’s old grave. “Just a vague something.”



“Schlepping toward Bethlehem?” Willow queried.



Tara gave a faint silvery laugh in the darkness. Miss Kitty, from her position at the foot of the bed, lifted her head and twitched her ears, but made no sound by way of an answer. She lowered her head back onto the blanket and went to sleep. “Something like that,” Tara said at last. “I just wonder if Riley’s death is a warning of something bigger about to happen.”



“I can feel a research session coming on,” Willow warned.



“Yeah, but I don’t know how well it will go when my only search term is ‘vague unease.’”



“We’ll manage Tara, of course we will.” Willow reached out in the darkness, took one of Tara’s hands in hers and pressed it too her lips.



“Of course,” the blonde witch agreed.



“And you know what else?” Willow added. “Suddenly, I’m not sleepy any more.” She reached out for Tara, who raised her head, smiling. Her soft eyes were indigo in the darkness.



(To be continued)

[Bagheera]

To recap – This entire story arc takes place after Season 6. I recently stopped calling it Season 7, because it was becoming increasingly obvious that this bears almost no resemblance to the S7 currently screening in some countries. I haven’t seen a single frame of video from THAT series and the more spoilers and whatever else I encounter about that show, the more sickened and demoralised I become. Hence the recent change, from “Season 7” to “Post-Season 6”. Hope this hasn’t confused people or put anyone off. It’s still the same story.



In the “Mission Statement” Core, Tara suddenly returned to life through a heinous conspiracy hatched between First Evil and The One, a gestalt entity composed of all the vampires and demons that Buffy had killed since her encounter with The Master in her sophomore year at Sunnydale High. The One was trapped on the other side of the Hellmouth, and the plan was to use the combined powers of two vampire witches to re-open the Hellmouth. To this end, Tara was resurrected and immediately bitten and turned. Vampire Tara however refused to obey; she returned to Willow and protected her from all attempts to harm her - the accepted explanation is a protection spell Tara cast upon her own soul a few days before she was shot. Eventually, together with Willow she tricked The One, destroyed the Hellmouth and managed to resurrect herself. The Scooby gang as a whole have also undergone a number of changes:



Willow – has recovered from her addiction to magic. She is still troubled by events from the past but with Tara’s help she is dealing with her guilt. She is generally happy these days.

Tara – Is living with Willow in their old room in Buffy’s house. She is a talented musician and singer, as she always was, doing occasional gigs at the Bronze, but she’s aiming at going back to college.

Buffy – Same old, same old. Oh, except that Riley was killed in action recently overseas, and Buffy is currently engaged in a passionate affair with Faith.

Faith – See above. The rogue Slayer escaped prison to avoid being murdered. Willow has obtained a new identity for her, but Faith doesn’t have a paid job. She does however rob vampires for cash and valuables. Then she stakes them.

Dawn – is attending Sunnydale High and is not as whiny as in the past. She has responded positively to having stronger female role models around – Willow, Tara, and Faith. Yes, and Buffy, who at least is not boinking Spike anymore (shudder).

Giles and Anya – Recently got married (think “Tabula Rasa”) and are settling in Sunnydale. The Magic Box has been sold, and Anya is now a property investor. She is making stonkingly huge amounts of money from a housing boom that has resulted from a sudden fall in the Sunnydale mortality rate. Giles as ever doesn’t seem to be short of money either. I assume that the Watchers’ Council spend most of their time watching the FTSE.

Xander – recently gay, Xander is prospering in the construction business, but remains unlucky in love. There was a recent affair with a student named Tony of barely-legal age (thank you Bethany ), but Xander managed to make a mess of that one. He has been doing some stupid things lately. Same old, same old.

Spike – has a soul. No-one knows and I rather suspect that no-one cares. He knows about Buffy and Faith and he’s consumed by jealousy. I fear he bears Faith some ill will.

Miss Kitty Fantastico – Suddenly reappeared a few weeks ago. Willow and Tara are overjoyed to have her back, but are extremely curious about where she’s been all this time. MKF is however not forthcoming, though she was a great help when Tara was attacked by a demon that was trying to consume her life force.



Phew…now read on…



Part 5

Rating: R for coarse language and violence, teeny cliff hanger

Song credit: “After Everything Now This”; Kilbey/Koppes/Powles/Willson-Piper



Wednesday evening had come around at last. In the curtained area offstage at the Bronze, Willow and Tara were making final preparations; Tara was tuning her guitar, and Willow was brushing her partner’s long blonde hair and applying some last minute make-up. The racket from the band onstage was building to a crescendo as they worked through their last encore. Even the curtains seemed to be trembling in time to the beat. Willow peeped through a gap in the drapes. She spotted Buffy, Faith and Xander at a table near the back. Then the redhead glanced at the band and frowned slightly.



“Something the matter, Will?” Tara asked, stretching up and putting her mouth against her partner’s ear, for the noise was truly phenomenal at that moment.



Willow looked at Tara and shrugged. “Just thinking – kind of a hard act for you to follow.”



Tara laid a reassuring arm on her lover’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. If the crowd all stop moshing and head for the bar, they’ll sell them a whole bunch of beer. The Bronze can’t lose with a crowd this big.” She smiled at Willow and continued, “What I want to know is: are you going to watch from in here, or are you going to sit out there where I can see you?” She indicated Buffy’s table with a tilt of her chin.



“Well,” Willow replied, kissing Tara’s cheek, “if you put it like that…” Tara brought her head around and she sighed as her lips found Willow’s. Onstage the band clattered and twanged their way to a chaotic finale.



There was a happy atmosphere at Buffy’s table. The Slayers were holding hands and looked relaxed, while Xander, sitting opposite, sipped his drink and let his eyes roam with nothing in particular on his mind. The confrontation that Faith had feared over Riley had never happened. Buffy was dealing. They had talked it over, and Buffy had found herself saying that what she had told Faith that first night at Angel’s old place still held true. Faith had screwed Riley, it was true, but Buffy had left it behind her. So many other, more important things had happened between Buffy and Riley that that one night was a trivial event. “I slept with him, you slept with him, now we’re sleeping together,” Buffy had told Faith a day or so ago. “In a way, Riley is someone we have in common. Does it matter now after all this time?” Faith had felt a flood of relief at Buffy’s words, even though she remembered the hate she had felt for Buffy and for herself the night she had given herself to Riley. The memory of it tore at her heart. Buffy’s calm acceptance of it all caught Faith by surprise. Maybe it was time to have another little chat with Willow. Of all the Scooby Gang, Faith thought, Red is the one I can most relate to. Because she’s been to some of the places where I’ve been.



“Whoa, check that guy out,” Xander said suddenly, looking in the direction of the pool tables.



“Not my scene at the moment, but okay,” Buffy smiled, but then the smile faded from her face. Xander wasn’t pointing out a potential mate for anyone – unless his taste in men had suddenly changed for the worse. The Slayer wondered fleetingly if Xander had been checking out his “One Million Years BC” video again, but that didn’t seem right, either. Where the cavemen had been a bit rough around the edges, the guy Xander was now looking at was a brute, pure and simple. Average height, but massively built, the hulking monster must have weighed three hundred pounds at least. Ugly barbed-wire tattoos criss-crossed his face and upper arms. He had a rocking gait as his massive legs propelled him between the tables. The expression on his face said nothing more than: “get out of my fuckin’ way.”



As the seated trio watched, a pool player wearing a Sunnydale High jacket was setting up a shot, oblivious to the passing leviathan, and made the error of bumping him slightly. The monster growled and lashed out with an elbow the size of a fireplug, felling the poor student. The brute followed it up with a stomp to the body of his prostrate victim. Then he walked on, oblivious to the cries of protest from the other students at the table. He disappeared into the shadows at the back of the Bronze.



Faith half-rose from her seat. She glanced at Buffy. “What do you think?” she asked.



“Big, stupid ugly thug,” the Slayer decided, “but human. Not exactly our territory. The kid’s okay,” she noted, as the stunned and confused student was being helped to his feet by his friends. A lurid purple bruise was already bursting into flower on his cheek. “Just watch him if he comes back and causes any more trouble.”



“Okay,” Faith agreed, resuming her seat. “That guy though – I’m sure he’s been behind bars.”



Xander nodded sagely. “You’re right, in a zoo.” Faith chuckled and sipped her drink.



There was a smattering of applause. The trio turned their attention to the stage. Tara had taken her place on a stool centre stage. A lead ran from her acoustic guitar to a single small amplifier. She adjusted the microphone before her, then she looked out at the audience, her blue eyes half-hidden behind the bell of her golden hair. She smiled and murmured a greeting. The applause died down just as Willow took a seat at the table with her three friends. Tara tossed her hair back and began to play.



And Tara was doing fine. There was a hubbub of conversation of course, it was just a bit more noticeable than if a full band with PA had been playing. Most of the patrons of the Bronze were giving Tara at least some of their attention, and although she was refusing to act the part of the legendary rock goddess that had blown the roof off the place a few months earlier there was still something about her that drew the eyes and attracted the ears. Willow couldn’t keep a goofy smile off her face as she swayed in time.



After everything, now this happens

It's not a grand illusion, it's a stupid little trick

The show must go on, these people have paid

Standing in the wings feelin' kinda sick



There was a sudden commotion off to one side and Willow, annoyed, reluctantly took her eyes off Tara to see what was happening. The hulking brute was back and in what was considered one of the rudest acts it was possible to perform in the Bronze, had plugged in the jukebox and turned it on. A piece of spectacularly ugly rock was playing loudly over the speakers. It blended murkily with Tara’s playing. Willow flicked her attention back to the stage, and unhappily, saw that Tara was having difficulty concentrating on what she was doing. A wave of sympathy and white-hot anger surged through the redhead as she saw the distress on Tara’s face. Faith noticed it too.



Quietly, Faith slipped off her seat and walked casually over to the jukebox, a spring in the young Slayer's step and an arrogant half-smile on her face. The hulk was standing there, staring into the jukebox’s brightly lit glass front, ignoring everything and everyone around him. Faith stood silently beside him for just a moment too long, nodding and looking with apparently serious intent at the play list. He gave her a very quick, surly look.



Still not looking the ugly monster in the eye, Faith asked casually: “Where'd you get those muscles from bro', you been lifting those weights, huh? Don’t you know that steroids make your balls go tiny? You’ve probably got a pair of sultanas in there by now. If there’s anything left at all.” She grinned wickedly and finally looked him full in the eye.



“Oh, you want to fuck with me?” the brute demanded, bringing up his massive fists.



Faith moved in a blur, landing several jabs to the hulk’s face with her fists before he could even begin to defend himself. She followed them up with a brutal blow to the midriff that dropped him to the floor. Remembering what he had done to the student, she kicked him a few more times for good measure as he lay groaning, not sure what had hit him. Faith then yanked the jukebox’s power cord out of the wall and waved gaily to Tara. Faith looked down once more at the semi-conscious thug and smiled.



“You should learn to pay your respects,” the Slayer started to say, but then the house lights suddenly went up and there came a series of urgent shouted commands. From everywhere at once came uniformed police.



“Nobody move! Stay where you are! You!” a beefy cop addressed Faith, still standing over her beaten foe with the power cable in her hand. “Face down on the floor!” The Slayer made no move to obey. The next instant, the cop drew his gun and pointed it at Faith’s face. “On the floor, now!” the cop shouted.



(To be continued)

[funkyasian]

well, that was a setup...and damn spike...the hatred i feel for him...grrr....promise you'll make it better? please??



~steph

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. ~ Oscar Wilde

[deixs]

Faith helping Tara was really nice.

But why are the cops there?



Stef

[the vamp nurd]

the title says it all... {TVN grins so widely she nearly blinds someone.}

"He beats me with wet noodles!" Amber Benson.

"Bored now." Vamp Willow

[Bagheera]

First of all Kittens, thanks ever so much for reading and your responses. Let's deal with those first:



steph - stand by, things are looking up slightly in this next update. And Spike - the blonde bad boy's in a bit of strife all of a sudden.



Stef - Faith has grown to respect and like both Tara and Willow of late in this tale. There'll be a bit more of that later, too. Cops - aha, see below for partial explanation.



the vamp nurd - Well done, you! One of the title's meanings, well spotted, excellent!



Part 6

Rating: PG-13 Angst and occasional coarse language.



Tara was the first to move. She mumbled a hurried, “Thanks, good night” into the microphone and caught Willow’s eye. The blonde mouthed the word, “bow” and pointed urgently in Faith’s direction. The Slayer was still in a standoff with the police officer. She hadn’t dropped to the floor, and he hadn’t shot her. A couple of other officers were moving forward to seize her.



Tara leapt from the stage and moved to intercept them. “W-wait! I saw everything!” she shouted, addressing the policeman holding the gun but hoping to distract and slow the others as well. It worked. While they were concentrating on the approaching Tara, Willow caught Faith’s attention and with urgent sign language, informed the Slayer that it would be a good idea to lose her concealed weapons, fast. Faith gave the tiniest tilt of her head to say that she understood. Willow, with a worried Buffy in tow, began to move through the crowd towards Faith.



“It was s-self-defence,” Tara continued. “She’s n-not armed, why did you pull a gun on her?”



“Do you know this woman?” the officer demanded of Tara. “Would you like us to take you in for harbouring a known felon?”



If he expected that his threat would make Tara back off, he was mistaken. “And p-perhaps you’d like a civil suit for false arrest? Or p-perhaps a complaint to your senior officer about improper use of a f-firearm in making an arrest?” the blonde countered. One of the other officers, a woman with a cooler head than her colleague, had reached Tara’s elbow and quietly suggested that the police be allowed to go about their business. During the exchange, Faith was able to surreptitiously slip her bow and stake out of her jacket, allow them to fall to the floor and push them under an adjacent table with a gentle push of her foot. With Buffy covering, Willow managed to duck to a crouch and pick them up without being spotted. Once this had happened, Tara stepped back and let the police continue their work. Faith looked at Buffy with an expression of deep regret, but she did not speak a word. Not taking her eyes off Buffy for a moment, she stretched out her arms and allowed herself to be searched. She was then handcuffed and led away. The man Faith had beaten up, now semi-conscious, was also arrested and taken outside.



Tara rushed to Willow’s side. Xander was there also, attempting to comfort Buffy, who had started to cry.



“Stupid, stupid,” the older Slayer was saying. “She knew this could happen! She should’ve let me handle it.”



“Willow, is there anything you can do?” Tara asked.



“I don’t know,” Willow trembled. “Maybe. At home. It depends…”



“Then we go now. Xander, would you mind collecting my guitar?” Tara looked at the carpenter who nodded, took Buffy by the hand and walked away in the direction of the stage. They seemed to wade into an ocean of excited conversation as the Bronze patrons relived the drama of the last few minutes. Tara took Willow’s arm and together they left the building.



At the very rear of the Bronze, in the shadows under the stairs near the toilets, Spike was sipping at a bottle of beer, a frosty smile on his face. So, Xander was looking after the Slayer for the moment, but he wouldn’t be there all the time. And when it came to shoulders to cry upon, Xander’s just wouldn’t be up to the task, the vampire knew. He grinned and took another swig.



“Satisfied?” Joe Withers was at Spike’s elbow, a couple of large men standing a half a pace behind him.



Spike, trying to assume a serious expression, nodded. These berks with their all-night drumming and running with the coyotes, their manly embraces and support groups. Well, they’d served their purpose, and now he, Spike, would be on his merry way. Back into Buffy’s arms, where he belonged.



“One thing about a brotherhood like ours,” Withers continued, “is the concept of mutual obligation. We’ve done you a big favour tonight. We’ve also brought a dangerous fugitive to justice, so we’ve fulfilled our civic duty at the same time. You also weren’t exactly honest about who that Faith chick actually was. If Lonnie’s got a busted jaw, that’s on your slate. You already owe us, but now the way I figure it, you owe us double. So it’s time you granted us a favour in return.”



Spike tilted his bottle to his lips once more. “Sure mate, if I can help the cause in some small way…”



“Oh, you can all right,” Withers assured him. “In fact, you can do something for us right now.”



“Can I finish this first?” Spike asked affably, indicating his drink.



“No.” Joseph Withers’ voice was like a sudden blast of Arctic wind. The two men behind him reached into their pockets and pulled out what looked like pistols. Spike glanced at them and began to smirk, but then he took a second look - they were tasers. “Come with us - now.”



Outside the Bronze, the police cars had already left and the street was quiet. Tara turned to Willow. “What can we do?” she asked.



“The only thing we can do,” the redhead replied nervously. “If I can switch Faith’s fingerprints on file for someone else’s, they’ll let her go; or she gets just a misdemeanour assault which is way better than escaping custody, and mass murder, and, and - oh Goddess, Tara, I don’t know how long they’ll take to check her prints, or even if I can do it.” She trembled, and the blonde nodded and embraced her.



“Then we have to fly,” Tara decided. “Right?” Willow nodded. “FLY!”



Hand in hand, the witches ran up the street. At first. After a few seconds, Willow noticed that her feet seemed to be touching the ground only one step in about six. Then they overtook a moving taxicab, and Willow knew that something decidedly odd was happening. The wind whipped her hair about and stung her eyes. She decided to stop running, just to see what would happen, and she squealed aloud in delight. It was like swimming through the air. Her feet trailed behind her and her body seemed to hover parallel with the ground. She looked across at Tara. The blonde’s hair was streaming out behind her like a pennant, and she was smiling, her eyes aglow. Wow, just wow, Willow thought. We’re like Supergirl - and Supergirl.



“When did you learn to do a Fly spell?” Willow shouted above the wind to her partner.



Tara laughed aloud. The euphoria of it hit Willow like a breaking wave, and she was unable to suppress a joyous shriek of her own in reply. Tara started to answer, but then her face became stern with concentration. “We’re home,” she said simply.



Carefully Willow lowered her feet, until she was standing tip-toed on the doorstep of Buffy’s house. Tara did the same, and Willow, suddenly back in the real world and remembering the urgency of the situation, fumbled for her key. Tara slipped her hand out of Willow’s grasp and draped it around her lover’s shoulders. “Don’t you understand yet?” she asked Willow, even as the key slid into the lock. “I didn’t do that spell by myself. I can’t. We cast that spell together.”



The redhead kissed Tara then. She wanted it to linger, as their kisses usually did, but time was short and she was afraid. Willow felt herself getting ready to panic, imagining Faith at that moment being photographed and fingerprinted and hauled off to the state penitentiary, where a cold-eyed inmate was waiting in the shadows for Faith, waiting to put a bullet in the back of the young Slayer’s head. Or maybe the guards would do it themselves, shoot her in the back in cold blood and file a report that Faith had attempted to escape. The incident would be buried before the body was. Though Willow knew full well what Faith had done and what she was still capable of, she understood that prison was no longer an option. Faith's own conscience was worse than any jail sentence, particularly since she had no hope of parole when she sat in judgment of herself. And Willow had a good idea how much Faith meant to Buffy. In the few short months since her return to Sunnydale, Faith had made Buffy happier than any of Willow’s best friend’s previous lovers, Angel not excepted.



Willow hurried into the kitchen and turned her computer on. Tara lingered near the front door of the house, noticing that the TV was on in the lounge room. Miss Kitty sidled up to the blonde witch, purring contentedly. Dawn must have forgotten to feed her until comparatively recently, Tara deduced. As the blonde witch’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she noticed Dawn sitting in solitary splendour in front of the TV with a fizzy drink and a bowl of popcorn.



“Hi Tara,” the teenager mumbled around a mouthful of salty, buttery, crunchy goodness.



“Hey Dawn,” Tara greeted her.



Tara glanced at the TV screen. Hugh Grant was engaged in a very awkward and earnest conversation with Julia Roberts. “I’ll just fire away, shall I?” Grant was saying. Julia Roberts smiled and nodded back. Tara grinned too - she could relate to the excruciating shyness being played out in front of her. “Right. Umm... the film's great,” Hugh stumbled, “and I just wondered -- whether you ever thought of having more...horses in it?”



“Well,” Julia Roberts replied carefully, “we would have liked to - but it was difficult obviously, being set in space.”



Dawn laughed aloud, losing a fragment of popcorn in the process. “Oh Tara, did you hear that? Horses in space; how ridiculous!”



“Ridiculous,” Tara agreed, “though I’m sure some hack of a TV producer is writing ‘horses in space’ onto a beer mat even as we speak and will ‘develop’ it into a ‘groundbreaking and original’ series in a year or two.”



Dawn snickered again. “It’ll crash and burn,” she predicted. “And it’s been done on ‘Red Dwarf’ already.”



Tara nodded her agreement, though she hadn’t actually heard of the show Dawn mentioned and for the hundredth time worried that the teen was spending altogether too much time in front of the box.



“You’re back early,” Dawn noticed the time.



“Yes,” Tara said, her face suddenly turning serious. It had been good to escape into silliness, even for a minute. “There was a fight at the Bronze - and Faith got arrested.”



“Oh, shit!” Dawn was off the couch in an instant. “We have to do something! Is Buffy - ”



“We are doing something. And Buffy’s on her way home. And please watch your language.”



“Tara,” Willow called from the kitchen. Tara hastened to Willow’s side. The hacker’s face was grave. A prompt on her screen demanded a password.



“It’s not like the coroner’s office or the traffic department,” Willow trembled. “I need top security access to change anything in the database.”



Tara knew at once that something on Willow’s mind was making her hesitate. “Darling, whatever it is, please tell me what the problem is.”



Willow looked nervously at her lover. “I h-have two choices. I can try to guess an eight-digit alphanumeric password in three goes without a single clue…”



“Or?” Tara took Willow’s hand.



“Or do a spell,” Willow said in a tiny voice. Her lower lip quivered. “Is this the start again? Taking the easy way through magic?”



Tara took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and squeezed Willow’s hand between both of hers. After a moment, her eyes opened, and her clear blue eyes looked deeply and searchingly into Willow’s troubled green orbs. “Time is short, darling. I flew us home to save time. I don’t understand the ins and outs of breaking this code manually, but I understand that you’re not confident you can do this without a spell. Darling, I trust you. I - trust - your - judgement.” Willow looked into a Tara’s eyes for a moment longer and nodded. The situation had reminded the redhead a little too uncomfortably of the time she’d hacked into a DOT computer to track down the Nerd Trio’s van. Like she did every morning and evening, Willow took a moment to utter a silent inner prayer of thanks that Tara was alive again and that they were together. She turned back to the screen and muttered a brief incantation. The database opened up before her like a virtual flower.



“What are we looking at?” Dawn wandered around to check the screen.



“Oh, up to ten years for trespassing a justice department computer, if we get caught,” Willow smiled thinly.



“Jesus, Willow!” Dawn exclaimed.



“Language,” Tara admonished the teenager gently.



“Maybe you guys want to leave the room for this next bit,” Willow said quietly, “just so you’re not technically guilty of aiding and abetting a felony.” Dawn took the hint and retreated, but Tara stayed.



“I’m staying,” the blonde witch told her lover. “If you’re guilty of anything, I want to be there beside you.”



Willow nodded, but she kept her eyes on the screen, concentrating fiercely. She made a couple of changes to database registry entries, a message popped up: “Do you want to save changes Y/N?”, Willow answered in the affirmative, and then she cruised over to the access log and deleted a couple of entries there. She confirmed these changes as well, and then she carefully retreated her way out of the system and logged off.



“There,” the hacker said at last. “I think that might have done it. I’ll log back in at a lower level and check.”



“Are we safe?” Tara asked.



Willow looked at Tara. “I th-think so. It’s the best I can do.” She tried to smile, and just about managed it.



The ringing of the telephone startled them both. Simultaneously, there was the sound of a key in the front door.



(To be continued)

[the vamp nurd]

who's at the door?



[TVN grinns insanely]



"And it's awfully cute." Jane Esp on Willow and Tara. Tara's jealousy IWMTLY

"He beats me with wet noodles!" Amber Benson.

"Bored now." Vamp Willow

[AntigoneUnbound]

Oh, Spike, you foul-hearted creature...We've all been voted off of the island of love at least once in our lives; we usually show more grace than to go back and contaminate the water supply.



Bagheera, you've given us a new kind of creepy in this Mr. Withers: he's human, and he scares the be-jeesus outta me. Something tells me his favors come with a very high price tag that (obviously) isn't always immediately visible, and now Mr. Spike is about to get a look at that tag.



I loved the interactions b/w our girls in this update, b/c they give us micro-glimpses into the daily pressures that they face and the decisions that they have to make, all of which have potentially dramatic consequences. It tugged my heart to read Willow's dilemma re: computer code, and it touched on one of the most difficult aspects of her addiction: in many cases, it could help them in the pursuit of a very admirable goal. I admired Tara giving it serious thought w/o retreating reactively to moral high ground OR giving her an ill-considered go-ahead in light of the pressure of the moment. She thinks about it, and then says what Willow most needs and deserves to hear: that Tara trusts her.



I was also struck by Buffy's protectiveness of Faith, by her desire to do something to help. That's truly part of her essence, isn't it: to act, to do; preferably in the most physical sense of those words.



Now...who's at the door? I seem to recall mention of a key turning, so it makes me think that it's someone who has rightful cause to be there, but could that be a red herring that Bagheera tosses out? The questions are many, but I, ever the patient Kitten, await the update on tenterhooks, which I've never actually seen but have every reason to believe are quite painful.



Excellent work, Bagheera, as ever.



Mary

Edited by: AntigoneUnbound at: 1/15/03 9:06:30 pm

[Bagheera]

Bagheera smiles back at TVN - "If brevity is the soul of wit, I'm done for," Bagheera thinks. Methinks it's about time I posted some more of this story.



Antigone Unbound Aha, you scored yourself an avatar. It's very nice.

Ah Spike, how do we hate you, let me count the ways: 1,2,3,4...I seem to recall someone in one of your recent stories doing something not completely dissimilar when faced with rejection.

Jos(eph) Withers is a singularly nasty human. He grew out of a throwaway idea I had many weeks ago of Spike joining a local men's support group to get over his rejection by Buffy. Now, {warning, seriously veering OT here} I don't know what men's groups are like in your country, but I am told (I stress, I am told, I don't know this firsthand), they consist to a large extent of pretty ineffective people who sit around crying in each other's beer, offering manly pats on the back and helpful advice like: "it'll be right mate...bloody women, eh?" But then I thought - how about such a group with something to hide, who would have a reason to welcome a vampire into their ranks - why? Partial answer begins below...

Ah, thanks for your comments about and in this part. It's pretty much what I'm trying to convey. In this crisis, they are equal partners in fixing the situation. More of that coming in the next couple of parts.

Key turning in the door - well, spotted. Not much of a cliffhanger when you think about it, but I need places to break this story up. There are so many characters and such a lot happening that some of these updates (I think) are tending to get rather long.

"Tenter" - a frame on which cloth is stretched during the manufacturing process in order that it may retain its shape while drying.

"Tenterhook"- one of a series of hooks or bent nails used to hold cloth stretched on a tenter.

Therefore, to be on tenterhooks is literally to be "hung out to dry"



I'll post the next part right under this one once the formatting's right.



Regards,



B

"I am a girl. I am nice. I can play. I can jump. I can sleep." My daughter's first essay (aged 5)

[Bagheera]

Part 7

Rating: M15 for low level violence, coarse language and sexual references

Feedback: Yes, YES, YES! Please. This posting marks the halfway point of this story. I know it's been slow going so far, but, questions/comments/criticisms of all sorts are most welcome.



At the end of a narrow gravel road in a patch of woodland, the silver-grey sedan pulled up. The headlights died, the engine juddered to a stop. For a moment, the only noise was the whir of the cooling fan. The passenger door opened, and a man got out. He pulled something out of his pocket and opened one of the rear doors. Stepping back, he made room for Spike to get out of the car. Joseph Withers emerged from the other rear door. The lights of Sunnydale twinkled in the middle distance.



“This it, is it?” Spike asked. “Anyone got a cigarette - last request and all that?”



“Spike,” Withers said soothingly, approaching the vampire, “you’ve got us all wrong.”



“Keep your distance; I can still take care of myself,” the vampire bluffed.



“Oh, I hope so, I really do,” Withers pointed to a cluster of rocks and shrubs a couple of dozen yards away, half-way up a steep hillside. One of the men gestured with his taser, and Spike slowly walked in the indicated direction.



While one of the others kept Spike covered, Withers pulled at a clump of shrubs, revealing a small tunnel entrance.



“We’re going in there?” Spike wondered aloud.



Withers shook his head. “No. You’re going in there. We’ll wait for you to come back out - with this.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Spike. The vampire, confused, curious and more than a little uneasy, unfolded it.



“It’s too bleedin’ dark to see what this is,” he complained.



“There’ll be plenty of light down there, don’t worry. Now I suggest you get going. And don’t even think of coming back out unless you’ve got that thing with you. Oh - and don’t think that you’re going to hang around down there until we get bored and go home - we won’t, and once you find out what’s down there with you, you won’t want to spend any more time in there than you have to.” As if in answer, echoing out of the blackness there came a deep, low sound, half way between a sigh and a low growl. It might have been a puff of wind reverberating away in deep dark tunnels far underground, but it sounded distinctly like the breath of something large and very hungry. “Move,” Withers concluded. His henchman stepped forward, taser in hand. With a fatalistic shrug and a muttered curse, Spike turned, bent double and disappeared into the waiting darkness.



“Keep watch,” Joe Withers told his goon. “I’m gonna go see if there’s some good talkback on the radio.” He walked back to his car.



The front door opened, and Xander and Buffy entered. The Slayer had stopped crying, but there was still an aura of hurt about her. She had her arms drawn about her body, and although this may have given her some comfort, it also tended to discourage other people from approaching her. As the two friends entered the kitchen, Willow noticed Buffy’s posture and the hacker frowned. Pushing people away and withdrawing into herself were unfortunate habits that Buffy had developed over the years when things went from worse (which was the usual state of affairs in Sunnydale) to completely dire, and here was yet another example. There was the ready excuse that the Slayer fought alone, but this was nonsense, Willow had decided. She had a inkling that it had a lot more to do with Buffy’s reaction to her parents’ divorce, which Willow was sure had hit Buffy a lot harder than the Slayer had ever admitted.



Tara meanwhile reached the telephone. It was Faith. “Are you okay?” the blonde witch asked at once.



“They’re trying to lean on me, but I’m okay,” the Slayer’s voice came crackling down the line. “They’re trying to tell me I’m some escaped felon.” Tara noticed the slightest tremor in Faith’s voice. Though she was putting on a bold front, Tara knew that the young Slayer was on her own and frightened. Even though Faith faced death every night, this was different, because being with Buffy had given her something to live for, and now it was something that was about to be taken away.



“K-keep calm, Fa-Fay” Tara said, carefully using Faith's alias, wondering idly if the call was being monitored. “Once your fingerprints are compared, they’ll s-see that they don’t match, and you’ll be home in no time.”



There was silence at the other end of the line for a moment. “Don’t match. Right. Red. Of course.”



“Have you b-been charged with anything yet?” Tara asked.



“Just assault so far; they’re holding me on that. I front the judge at ten o’clock tomorrow. And Tara? I don’t have enough money for an attorney, and I don’t want some fucking legal aid flunky to defend me. Can you help?”



“W-we’ll come up with something. D-do you want someone with you now?”



“Nah, I’m fine. Just need my beauty sleep, that’s all.”



“Only answer questions about the fight. Just tell the truth, there are hundreds of witnesses. Don’t answer any other questions about anything, okay?”



“Here’s me takin’ the Fifth. Sure, Tara. Ciao.” The line went dead. Tara put down the telephone and returned to the kitchen, where Willow was sitting with Buffy’s hands in hers, trying to reassure the Slayer that everything was going to be all right.



“How can you be so calm, Willow?” Buffy was saying. “If you get caught, they’ll lock you away in the cell next to Faith’s.”



“And I’ll be there with her,” Tara smiled, crossing to Willow and circling an arm around the redhead’s slender waist. “We’ll go to jail together.”



“I don’t believe you guys!” Buffy objected. “If you get Faith out of this, I am so going to kill her. What she did - was so stupid, so incredibly stupid, she might as well wear a T-shirt saying ‘I’m the Slayer, lock me up!’ You shouldn’t be forced to take risks like this when she’s been so irresponsible!”



Willow paused, taken aback by Buffy’s words. Irresponsible, she thought, looking in turn at Buffy and at Xander. “But it’s what we do; it’s all we’ve ever done,” she said simply.



Tara interrupted and reported what Faith had said. Willow nodded and turned back to her laptop. “I needed to go back in anyway,” the hacker commented. “I’ll check the charge sheet as soon as it’s entered on the system, see what we’re up against. And I can browse some legal Web sites while I’m at it; work out a defence for Faith.”



“And maybe find out who set Faith up,” Buffy added through gritted teeth.



“You think it was a - I mean,” Xander corrected himself hastily, “of course Faith was set up, it was completely obvious. Any fool could see that.”



“Someone told them who she was; they knew before they arrested her,” Tara observed.



“But no-one knows, outside of this house - and Anya and Giles,” Buffy objected.



“I think Spike knows,” Xander said quietly.



“Spike!” Buffy exclaimed.



“He’s been hanging around the Bronze lately,” Xander explained lamely.



“And you were going to tell me about this - when?” Buffy demanded.



“I, well - ” Xander hesitated, “I mean, he’s still got his chip, what harm could he do to Faith?”



“Quite a bit, it would seem,” Buffy seethed. “When did you see him?”



“He was around at Riley’s wake - and one time before, you know, the night you and Faith - got me home.” The young man squirmed with embarrassment, but continued. “Actually, I’m surprised you didn’t meet him, he was with me in the alley when the vamps attacked.”



“What? He what?” was all that Buffy could manage. The Slayer blushed to the roots of her hair, remembering exactly what she and Faith had got up to in the alleyway. If Spike had heard or seen any of that…



“I - well, Spike said I was too drunk to drive, so he offered to walk me home.”



“Master of understatement, that Spike,” Willow muttered, rattling away at the keyboard. Over coffee the following morning, Faith had gleefully told the redhead about the state Xander had been in when they had found him.



“He was there?” Buffy stared. “The whole time?”



“I don’t know; I was unconscious after the first punch, as usual,” Xander said in his defence. “Maybe he ran away.” From a fight? How ridiculous, they all thought. “And would Spike really want to do anything to - ”



“Get Faith out of the way? H-hurt Buffy? Try to get back together with Buffy?” Tara put in. “Can I take a super wild guess and say: yes?”



“Buffy?” Willow asked her best friend. The Slayer was trembling violently, her eyes wide and her nostrils flaring. The blush on her cheeks, if anything, was even more intense than before. “What’s wrong?”



The Slayer shook her head. “Nothing,” she said quietly, as she rose and walked towards the kitchen doorway.



“Where are you going?” the redhead persisted.



“I’m going to acquaint my ex-attempted rapist with the ultimate meaning of the word: ‘ex’,” Buffy said over her shoulder.



“But don’t you want to know who he’s working with?” Willow persisted.



Buffy paused. “Yeah, okay, what do you know?” she said at last.



“I’m working on it,” Willow answered, her eyes back on the screen. “I’ll start with that arresting officer. And the guy Faith beat up. See if there’s a connection.”



The Slayer shrugged and headed for the door. “Then I guess you’ll let me know - or maybe I can beat it out of Spike before I dust him,” Buffy concluded as she left the house.



“I better go help her,” Xander said, making a move to follow the Slayer.



“Get some sleep,” Tara suggested. “Buffy can handle it, and maybe you should let her do this - alone.” She took Willow’s hand and squeezed, remembering vividly the horrible vampire Chastity, the one who had bitten her. Tara had not had any idea how much hate she was capable of before that time. Not even her own father or Donny had made her feel that way. She remembered waking in the crypt, confused, not knowing who or what she was, but then came the slow realisation that she had been made a vampire. And the only thought she had was of Willow, her darling gentle Willow, who was good and kind and mortal and who could never love or be with a vampire. She had looked at Chastity at that moment and known in an instant just how much it was possible to hate another. Thank the Goddess it had fallen to Willow to behead the revolting Chastity. Yes, if it was Spike’s time, it was fitting that it should be Buffy who got to face him at the last.



Xander eventually agreed to Tara’s suggestion and went home. The witches turned their attention back to the computer and the matter of Faith’s court hearing. “Okay, charge sheet’s on-line,” Willow said at last. “‘Assault and criminal damage’. I guess they’re using that to keep her overnight, and hoping to have a fingerprint match by the time of the hearing. I think a crack legal team like ours can have a win here,” the redhead grinned.



“Legal team?” Tara frowned. “You mean…”



“You and me, sweetie,” Willow affirmed, holding out her arms. Tara straddled Willow and lowered herself into the redhead’s lap, settling comfortably into a warm embrace.



Willow sighed. She felt Tara’s breathing, so close against her it sent a warm tingly feeling way down into her belly. Already, her nerve endings were beginning to wake up and clamour for more of Tara’s touch. Much more. A sweetly familiar heaviness began to seep through Willow’s body, and already she could feel the earliest dampness between her legs. She whimpered softly, and pressed herself against Tara. The blonde gasped and trembled in Willow’s arms, and Will knew at once that Tara had felt it too.



“Is it safe to come back in now?” Dawn’s voice piped up from the kitchen doorway.



“NO!” Tara and Willow yelled simultaneously. The teenager disappeared like a startled rabbit.



(To be continued)

[deixs]

Hi!

Quote:

---

“Is it safe to come back in now?” Dawn’s voice piped up from the kitchen doorway.

---

This was funny!!!



And for Spike



Stef

[the vamp nurd]

Ha ha ha ha [TVN grins]



"No!"



Oh sweet......



[TVN smiles then runs off to update her fics.]

"He beats me with wet noodles!" Amber Benson.

"Bored now." Vamp Willow

[Bagheera]

Stef - Oops, a little bad timing from Dawn. I think she gets it from her older sister. I seem to recall that Buffy is always getting in the way when and want some happy time alone. Go back and watch the rest of the movie, shiny-haired one!

And Spike - a vampire biting off more than he can chew is an unusual thing, but Blondie has managed it, it would seem.



TVN - I really like your writing style; it's very MTV, if you don't mind me saying so. Dawn, you wicked girl, interrupting poor Willow and Tara. And they have so much work to do preparing for court tomorrow, they deserve a little relaxation time, don't you agree?

"I am a girl. I am nice. I can play. I can jump. I can sleep." My daughter's first essay (aged 5)

[Bagheera]

"Bastard Universe" Part 8

Rating: PG-13 Coarse language

Feedback: Yes please, Kittens. The pace of this story is beginning to pick up (at last, I hear you say).



The sky was gradually lightening in hue from inky black, through violet to indigo, when the guard taking his turn watching the tunnel entrance heard unsteady approaching footsteps coming up from the darkness. He turned and whistled. Behind him, two car doors opened, and the other goon and Withers, who had been napping, came trotting up the hill to join him. A faint puff of pre-dawn wind sighed through the treetops. The trio waited, and a few moments later, Spike emerged from the tunnel mouth. The vampire looked a wreck. His coat was ripped in several places and he was covered in gashes and bruises. Whatever it was he had met down there, it had been large and distinctly unfriendly. The three men looked the vampire up and down unsympathetically.



“Did you get it?” Withers asked impatiently.



Spike turned bleary eyes upon the chief Wolverine. He nodded, and pulled an object from his pocket. It was round, slightly smaller than his palm, and consisted of intricately worked tendrils of gold, set with a number of large green and red gems. Joe Withers snatched it from Spike’s grasp and without another word turned on his heel and set off back towards his car. The goons followed.



“Wot, not so much as a thank you?” Spike demanded. “I’d say we’re more than square wouldn’t you? Hey! At least give us a ride back to town; the sun’s coming up!” At a muttered command from Withers, one of the goons popped the lock on the car’s trunk. Withers reached inside for something. He looked at Spike a final time, and without a word brought out an old blanket and dropped it on the ground beside the car. He then closed the trunk, got into the back seat and the car sped away.



The first rays of sun were already glittering on the tops of the trees above Spike. The vampire dashed down the hill, snatched up the blanket and draped it over his head.



“Bastards!” he immediately shrieked. Evidently the blanket had previously belonged to Joe Withers’ dog, for it was riddled with fleas. “Get off me you bastards! Sodding Wolverines; I’ll bleeding wolverine you, you complete bunch of…” Muttering and snarling, he began the long trek back to town.



Tara and Willow presented themselves to the police station not long after sunrise. It had been a busy evening and night for the two witches. They gave their credentials to the officer at the desk (Willow had done a superb job printing them up) and sat down to wait. Tara smoothed down the pleats of her skirt and brushed a fleck of lint from her jacket. She shuddered and closed her eyes, trying to calm the rising acid in her gut. She wished she’d had another outfit she could have worn, this one had too many shocking events in its history. For it was the very same set of clothes she had been buried in, all those months before. The clothes she’d worn when she had dug her way out of her coffin and been cornered by the vampires in the crypt. The same clothes she had worn when she and Willow had found each other in the graveyard and gone home together. The outfit she’d worn when she had confessed to Willow that she was a vampire. She hadn’t worn it since. Too many memories



“I still don’t see why you can’t be the lawyer,” Tara muttered to her partner.



“We went over this,” Willow hissed back, dropping her eyes as she saw the cop on the desk look at them for a moment. “You’re older than me, and you’ve been on stage, and - and being in court is just like being on stage and when I go on stage I - I go to pieces and run away.”



“You were fine at the w-wedding,” Tara protested.



“For all of two minutes. You’ve been singing for months without any problems.”



“Because I don’t stammer when I sing. Do you w-want me to sing to the judge?” Tara had a point. Nearly every person with a stammer, loses the stammer when they sing. Singing uses a different part of the brain to talking.



Willow tried to suppress a giggle at the thought of Tara doing an Ally Maclay in the courtroom. The sheriffs forming a high-heeled, high-kicking chorus line, Tara belting out a searing torch song, batting her eyelids at the judge and her, Willow, in her tux and tap shoes, waiting in the wings for the big finale. If THAT didn’t get Faith released, nothing would. I’ve still got my tux from the wedding tucked away in the wardrobe…maybe tonight when this is all over we can put some jazz on the stereo, clear away the lounge room furniture and…



A policewoman interrupted Willow’s delightful fantasy. The prisoner was ready to be seen. Hurriedly, Tara and Willow stood and were led to the cells.



Faith was more than a little surprised by the witches’ appearance. “What I meant was maybe you guys could lend me a few bucks and get me a real lawyer,” she began.



Pretending to be hurt, Willow said, “Tara IS a real lawyer, see; credentials and everything.” The redhead waved an impressive-looking diploma under the young Slayer’s nose. “And I’m assisting - and instructing,” she added, her resolve face in situ, but with a substantial twinkle in her eye. “Go ahead - ask us anything.”



“Okay,” Faith took a deep breath. “Don’t take this the wrong way or anything Tara, but - what do you know about the law?”



“You don’t have to answer that,” Willow told her lover quickly.



“F-faith,” Tara said carefully, “we’re familiar with the facts of the police case and w-we’re confident that we can mount a strong defence. M-more to the point - are you ready?”



“You don’t have to answer that,” Willow told Faith.



“I’m ready,” Faith said.



“As far as w-we can tell, the police case outlines a barroom fight. They don’t allege any m-malice on your part…” Tara explained.



“There wasn’t any,” the Slayer said. “The guy was a dick, I thumped him.”



“Don’t say that in court,” Willow advised.



“We think they’ve been kind of l-lazy with the brief,” Tara continued. “They’re expecting something to crop up from the fingerprint files in LA this morning.”



“I’d like to see their faces when they get the news,” Willow grinned.



“What news?” Faith asked.



“That no news is good news - for you,” Willow said.



“We’ve just got one more call to make,” Tara said. The witches rose, hailed a cop to let them out, and left Faith alone. The Slayer watched them go, shook her head, grinned, and stretched her arms out way above her head.



Buffy had come to work straight from patrol. She was tired, she had found no trace of Spike anywhere, and she was in a completely filthy temper. By late morning, Buffy had come within a whisker of beating up two graffitists. She had also suggested that a tearful and depressed student “get over herself”, advice that perhaps could have been directed a little closer to home, but insight had never been the Slayer’s strong suit. The Principal couldn’t fail to notice, and he duly ordered the elder Ms. Summers to take a half-day off before someone got hospitalised, or fired, or both. In a fouler mood than ever, Buffy stumped off home.



Tara and Willow hovered in the foyer of the courthouse. Their last call had come through for them, and a fax was still warm in Willow’s hand. They spent their last few minutes going over their papers one more time. Willow had helpfully highlighted the salient bits. The acid eating at Tara’s stomach had been joined by a flock of flapping vultures and a menagerie of small gnawing animals. But at least she wasn’t the only one feeling the heat.



“You call this a brief?” came an exasperated voice down a corridor. Willow and Tara stopped what they were doing and tuned in. “What, you were waiting on a fingerprint ID? And you struck out? Now you’re sticking me with this babyshit? Judge Meissner’s gonna rip me a new one for this. It’s a total fucking waste of time! Yeah, right. Thank you very fucking much. Bye.” The witches shared a brief triumphant glance, and the next moment a harried prosecutor came into view with an armful of briefs under one arm and a cell phone in his other hand. He noticed the duo. “Good morning, are you here for…”



Willow pretended to consult her papers. “Miss van der Graaf, the alleged assault and property damage,” she said helpfully.



“Right. Yes, look - ” the prosecutor’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You look kind of young to be lawyers.”



Willow flourished a business card. “I’m Willow, I’m instructing; this is Tara Morgan, we’re from Maclay Morgan Rosenberg.”



“I’ve never heard of them - wait,” the lawyer turned his attention to Tara. “Are you any relation to that uber-ball-breaker Lilah Morgan from Wolfram and Hart?”



Tara swallowed nervously. Oh Goddess, she thought, the game’s over. I’ll open my mouth and my tongue will flip into a reef knot and it’ll be obvious that I’m no lawyer and never will be. We’ll be laughed out of there and Faith will be locked away forever. Failure. But from some place deep within the blonde witch she heard a calm, quiet voice: Courage, mortal. Tara lifted her head and looked the prosecutor full in the face.



“I taught cousin Lilah a thing or two,” Tara said quietly.



The prosecutor blanched ever so slightly, but he tried to put on a bold front. “Okay Missy, I think it’s a straightforward case. And if you’ve never fronted Meissner’s court, you oughtta know he’s a carnivore who loves to eat lawyers that waste his time. So, are you planning on pleading guilty? Both counts?”



“Not guilty to the assault,” Willow said smoothly, “but we’re willing to do a deal.”



“Not…” the lawyer spluttered. “It’s an open and shut case, we have a hundred witnesses.”



“Call them,” Tara answered, as an icy calmness flooded her system. “Call them all, we still have a valid defence.”



“What!?”



“Consent,” Willow said simply.



There was complete silence for a moment. The lawyer erupted. “What the - are you out of your mind?”



“The alleged victim consented to the assault,” Tara argued. “He entered the Bronze last night for the sole purpose of starting a fight. We have witnesses that will testify to this. We will cite his past record of habitual violence. Our client obliged him in his wish. Not guilty.”



“The victim’s criminal record is inadmissible,” the lawyer countered.



“Then we’ll put him on the stand. And then we’ll uncover the exact nature of his relationship with the arresting officer,” Tara fixed the by now sweating attorney with her coolest blue-eyed stare.



“What?” the lawyer loosened his tie, suddenly finding that the air conditioning in the courthouse foyer was turned way too high.



“Or you can drop the charge,” Willow said, the voice of earnest reason. “Consent sounds so much better than ‘entrapment’”



The lawyer whipped out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. “Lilah’s your cousin, you say?” he muttered. “Jesus H suffering Christ…okay, we drop the assault, if you plead guilty to the property damage.”



“Done,” Tara extended her right hand, and they shook on it.



“You certainly have been,” Willow whispered, too quietly for anyone to hear.



They were called into the court shortly after. Faith was waiting quietly for them. Willow gave her a wave, a cheeky grin and a thumbs-up, but the redhead quickly remembered where she was and stopped, folding her arms demurely in front of her. Tara could feel her nerves beginning to reassert themselves. After the adrenaline rush of getting the more serious of the two charges dropped, the aching feeling had begun to return to Tara’s stomach. She wanted it to be over. She wanted a mocha, a proper breakfast, a back rub and a longish session of Willowhand, not necessarily in that order.



Judge Meissner did not keep them waiting. He was an aging silver-haired bulldog, and he gave everyone in the room the unshakeable impression that they were a bunch of idiots and that they were all keeping him from his cigars and port. Faith was led forward to stand before him, the witches by her side.



“State your name,” the sheriff ordered.



“You don’t have to mmph mmph…” Willow began to reply in an undertone, before Tara was able to clamp a discreet hand over the redhead’s mouth.



“Fay van der Graaf,” Faith replied, giving the name on her falsified papers.



The judge grunted and nodded to the prosecutor to get the hell on with it. “The people have dropped the charge of criminal assault; there remains the charge of malicious damage to property - namely a CD jukebox.”



“This can’t be handled as a civil matter?” the judge rumbled, already thinking ahead to the next case. Tara felt herself begin to relax again. “Oh, very well - how do you plead?”



“Guilty, your Honour,” Faith said.



“You understand that by pleading guilty you waive the right to remain silent?”



“Yes.”



“Anything to say?” the judge turned his harshest, don’t-waste-my-precious-time look upon Tara.



“I-if it please y-your Honour…” Tara began.



“Speak up!”



Tara swallowed and gulped in a great lungful of air. I can do this! “It please your Honour, we have a signed deposition from the proprietor of the Bronze who is the lessee of the jukebox in question. He states that he is happy not to take the matter further if my client makes good the cost of repairs and cleaning, together with appropriate compensation for - l-lost earnings.” Willow passed a copy of the fax to the prosecutor, who nodded and put it away with the rest of the brief.



“Mm-hm. Life’s too short for this damn crap,” the judge muttered to himself. He directed his attention back to Faith. “You agree to cover the cost of repairs to the damaged property?”



“I do.”



“Very well. I find you guilty, the sentence is time served. Next!” Faith, Tara and Willow turned and left the courtroom. The prosecutor gave them a look that was equal parts envy and relief as they passed him.



“Wow!” Faith shouted as they reached the open space of the courthouse square. She twirled and threw her arms up, sucking down a chestful of late morning Sunnydale air. It tasted like freedom. “Get outta jail free! You guys rock!”



Tara and Willow grinned and they all hugged one another. “G-glad to help,” Tara said simply.



“Seriously though,” Faith continued, “you guys got any idea yet who set me up?”



“Well,” Willow began, looking around nervously, “the gorilla you beat up and the arresting cop were in it together. They knew each other, they both belong to a local men’s advocacy and support group.” Faith rolled her eyes and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I’ll check up on them some more later. But we think the one who put them onto you was Spike.”



Faith’s brow clouded and the Slayer glared. “William the Bloody Bastard, huh?” Tara and Willow nodded silently. “Okay, that does it. Spike’s humping the Acropolis.”



“Wha-?” Willow queried, a deeply, deeply disturbing image forming in her appalled mind’s eye.



“He’s fucking history,” Faith explained. “Lend me five bucks? Pay you back later.”



“Sure,” Willow handed a bill to the Slayer from her purse.



“Got a stake?” Faith pressed.



“Had to leave it at home - bag search,” Will explained.



“It’s cool, I have to call into a hardware store anyway,” Faith said. She waved cheerily and was off.



“Buffy’s probably staked him already,” Tara called after the retreating Slayer’s back.



“No harm in trying,” Faith laughed, quickening her stride.



Tara and Willow looked at one another and smiled. “Mochas? Tea?” Willow suggested.



“Oh, yes,” Tara agreed, linking her arm through Willow’s as they began to walk.



“Willow!” came an urgent voice. The witches stopped. Willow looked around, and was surprised to see Devon, the tall ex-singer of the Dingoes hurrying towards them.



“Devon?” the redhead wondered what he could possibly want.



“I’m glad I found you,” the singer said breathlessly. “I thought I should tell you straight away. I rang your house this morning, and Dawn said you’d be here.”



“Tell me what?” Willow demanded, alarm bells beginning to sound in the back of her brain. “Are you in some sort of -”



“No, not me,” Devon said hastily. “It’s Oz. He’s - he died - five months ago. I only just found out. I thought you should know.”



(To be continued)

[MellindraX]

Sung to the toon of "(Whatever the heck that Witch song from the Wizard of Oz is called)"

Ding-dong! The dastards dead!

Which old bitch?

The jackass bitch!

Ding-dong the wicked dastards deeeaaaad!



...*pause*....



Ok, It's out of my system, sorry. Love the update (if you couldn't guess).

And of course I always love a cool, confidant Tara

Update more!

On the official Buffy board, freaked-out Willow lovers demanded that the plot be revealed as an evil spell, or that the two girls prove to be nothing more than really, really good friends. (Although some good-natured petitioners went in the other direction, demanding a "tasteful shower scene.") –Girls’ Night Out, Article on Nerve.com

[chilled monkey]

Ok, Riley's dead, Oz is dead. Do I see a pattern forming?



This fic is brilliant! How do you manage to keep writing like this? A whole 12 episodes worth and then some! I really admire that.

[Bagheera]

MellindraX - The tune is "Ding-ding the Witch is Dead" which is an interesting choice. When Dorothy's house lands on the Wicked Witch in "The Wizard of Oz" it means liberation for the inhabitants of Munchkin Land. Will Oz's death be similarly liberating for ?? Her reaction will be in the next part. Oh, and if you want to read a really, really good exploration of what happened between Willow, Tara and Oz, if you haven't already check out AntigoneUnbound's "On Second Thought" in the Pens Archive. I'm not saying that what happens in this story follows on from events in that story, but let's just say that they are not incompatible.

And who doesn't love a confident Tara? Some of that fell into place by accident - the choice of "Morgan" as Tara's mother's birth name (way back in Part 1.12 of this story) was solely in reference to Morgan le Fay from "Le Morte d'Arthur", with the implication being that Tara is descended from one of the most famous and powerful witches in literature. Sharing the surname with a character from "Angel" was pure coincidence, but it helped in unsettling Tara's legal opponent, so I used it.

Glad you're enjoying, and I will update in a few days.



chilled monkey - "Do I see a pattern forming"? Well you might, but the question has to be, when will Tara and Willow spot it, and what will they do? Tara's clearly bothered about something, but she can't put her finger on it just yet.

Thank you for your most kind words about my writing. How do I keep going? The thing I find most helpful is to have an ending in mind. Getting there can at times be a chore, but if that finish line is always there, it's only a matter of time before I get there. Personally, I think I'm taking too long at the moment to get this story in motion, and because of the large cast of characters and the sub-plot involving Spike, the updates have tended to be longer than ever. But...at last I see the road ahead.

"I am a girl. I am nice. I can play. I can jump. I can sleep." My daughter's first essay (aged 5)

[the vamp nurd]

Hmm, are the male members of BTVS getting killed off?

[Bagheera]

tvn - This next part will probably add to your suspicions. But patience, I beg of you.



Part 9

Rating M15 for violence and high level coarse language.



After he had left Sunnydale the last time, Oz’s wanderlust had never been satisfied. It had taken him to a place that Devon couldn’t even pronounce. In the fall of the previous year he’d hitched a ride in a truck, intending to cross a mountain pass in Kyrgyzstan. No-one would ever know how it happened, but the truck ended up in a ravine. Before anyone even realised that it was missing, the winter snows had come and buried it. A herder, taking his flock up a watercourse in search of lush spring pastures, had come upon the wreck months later. The bodies of the driver and Oz were still in the cab, along with Oz’s backpack and his papers.



I’m NOT going to cry. Not for him. Never. Any feelings I had for him left me years ago. The instant he showed his true nature, that moment of truth when he attacked Tara and tried to hurt her, that was it. All the excuses in the world, all the injured male pride, the beast released from within the man, the pain of rejection, none of it mattered. HE TRIED TO HURT MY BABY! And I will NEVER cry for him.



“Willow? Honey? Please say something.”



Tara’s voice, like a puff of warm scented spring air, cracked the frost that circled Willow’s heart.



Willow shook her head distractedly and drew in a deep trembling breath. A traitorous tear at last trickled down one cheek. The redhead made an angry sound deep in her throat and brushed at the tiny drop. “Dammit!” she exclaimed.



“Darling, it’s all right…”



“I’m not crying for him. I’m NOT!” Willow insisted.



“That’s okay too,” Tara said simply. She reached over the little café table and laid a hand on Willow’s arm. Through the soft cotton she could feel the underlying tension in the redhead’s forearm muscles. Cups of steaming mocha sat, ignored, on the table between them, along with a slice of pie that they had bought but which neither of them had touched.



“Why did he tell me?” Willow asked, meaning Devon. “Why would he assume I even cared?”



“He wasn’t to know,” Tara said reasonably. “It’s not like we told anyone what really happened. I’ve seen quite a lot of Devon and the other band guys over the last few months. I never said anything about it. Devon and Oz were friends, weren’t they? I think Devon was upset and wanted to tell everyone he could think of. I’m sure he didn’t intend to hurt you.”



At last Willow relaxed a little. She nodded, and let her other hand close over Tara’s and press it. She looked into Tara’s eyes then and said: “Do you know that you are the miracle that sustains my life?”



Tara smiled but said nothing at first. Poor Willow, her heart was so big, it was no wonder it was always being bruised and hurt. So big. It had beaten for the two of them for all those weeks when Tara’s own had been still. And now, on what should have been a pleasant morning after their courtroom success, they should have been happy even just for a little while. But along came some unexpected news, and the pain was back. An echo of past hurt, and a vague threat of pain to come. First Riley, now this, and with it, the unspoken and unanswered question: what next?



“It’s a relief, as much as anything,” Willow continued, quietly. “There was a time when I thought there’d always be a part of him in my life, that I’d be walking the streets of Istanbul, turn a corner and he’d be there, and I wouldn’t be surprised, not one bit. But after - what he did - I only dreaded seeing him again. Not that I was afraid of him or what he might do. There were just - too many unpleasant memories.”



“Relief,” Tara echoed. “Yes.”



“But,” Willow’s lower lip trembled, “what if I’m secretly, kinda - glad?” and another tear chased after the first. “What does that make me?”



“Please darling, don’t hurt yourself like this,” Tara took Willow’s limp hand in hers and pressed it to her lips, and then her forehead. The blonde closed her eyes for a moment, thinking. Eventually she asked, in as even a tone as she could: “Were you glad - when you killed Warren?” She knew the answer, but it seemed to Tara that Willow had momentarily forgotten.



Willow flinched, but then shook her head. Thin-lipped, she replied, “No. I’ve never felt emptier in my life.”



“Darling, it doesn’t make you anything. Except the love of my life. Can I…talk about something else?”



“Please do,” Willow sighed.



“I was telling you about those vague - feelings I’d been having lately? About Riley?” Tara ventured.



“Tara? You don’t think…?”



“A connection? I don’t know. I mean - maybe I’m only making the connection because we’ve heard about Riley so recently. Oz’s death - and Riley’s - they happened months apart, and - who knows? - thousands of miles away. Maybe it’s just me, making connections when they’re not there.”



“But what connection could there be? They’ve met each other, but Riley was with Buffy, and Oz - used to be with me.” Willow shook her head. “Riley died in battle, Oz in a truck accident. I can’t see how it fits together.”



Tara sighed, folded her arms and rested her elbows on the edge of the table. Willow at last picked up her mug and sipped. After a few seconds, Tara followed suit. Eventually, the blonde said, “More research.”



Willow nodded. “I should get started on it soon, I guess. Besides, Buffy will probably want to know everything about these Wolverine guys as soon as she gets home from work this afternoon.”



“Want to go now?” Tara asked, taking a larger drink of her mocha. Willow agreed, and they each managed a quick bite of pie. As they stood to go, Tara suddenly remembered: “Miss Kitty needs food; honey, you want to go ahead? I’ll drop into the store and catch you up.” Willow was okay with this, so the witches parted with a kiss and Tara went to the counter to pay.



______________________________________________________________________



Most mornings, Willy’s was dead slow - literally. Only the hardiest of diehard vampires and demons could be found there during early daylight hours; drinking or playing cards, mostly. In the old days vamps would sometimes gather in a group to celebrate if the night’s hunting had gone particularly well, but since the closure of the Hellmouth, those occasions had been very few. But on this particular morning, things suddenly got very lively indeed.



Faith swaggered into the bar from the street entrance, dangling a metal one-gallon can in her hand. She looked around the dark corners of the nearly empty bar and grinned. Just one member of staff was there, a surly-looking human with greasy dark hair. He was mopping the tables and bar-top with a soiled dishcloth when the Slayer made her entrance. He scowled.



“Don’t harass the customers,” he warned her, trying to at least keep the drinkers on side. Not surprisingly, they tended to get skittish when the Slayers were around, and the way the barman figured it, it was better if even a few of them hung around rather than all of them making a hasty exit, leaving him at the Slayer’s mercy. And this was the dark-haired one, who by consensus was the “bad cop” of the pair.



“That’s okay,” Faith said brightly, “I’m gonna harass you.” She plonked the can on the bar. It resonated in that curious way that only a full can does. Liquid could be heard sloshing about inside it.



“What?” he looked at it suspiciously.



Still grinning, Faith unscrewed the top. An unmistakeable scent of gasoline began to filter through the bar. The Slayer slipped the screw top into her jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette lighter.



“Woah, woah, hold on!” the barman shouted, alarmed. The demons and vampires in the bar started to edge towards the exit. “Are you crazy? Put it away!”



“Say please,” Faith smiled, suddenly reaching forward with her free hand and grabbing the man by the shirtfront. A button popped off as she hauled him towards her so that his chest was immediately above the open top of the gas can. He began to sweat. Faith brought her face, which wore an expression between a grin and a snarl, next to his. “Where - is - Spike?” She twirled the lighter in her free hand in front of his eyes.



“I don’t know! I don’t know!” he pleaded. “She was here last night too, asking for him, he hasn’t been in. You’ve got to believe me - please!”



“You’re really not trying, are you?” Faith said, exasperated. In front of his eyes, she caressed the wheel on the lighter with her thumb. The barman stared with wide panicked eyes. At the back of the bar, one or two demons made a dash for the basement exit.



Just at that moment, there came a commotion of feet accompanied by a string of curses from the bar’s front door, as the blonde vampire himself burst through the door from the street outside. Casting aside the filthy dog-blanket that he’d held draped over his head for the past couple of hours, Spike shouted, “O-neg; make it a double and make it…” but then his eyes lit upon Faith standing at the bar. “Oh…bugger.”



“‘Oh, bugger’ is not a blood type!” the Slayer cried as she flew at him. Spike tried to back away and make a run for it but he was too late. An eternity too late. Faith’s first punch caught him across the chin, freshly re-opening some of the wounds Spike had sustained in his overnight battle beneath the earth. The Slayer, her face twisted into a mask of rage and hate, struck at Spike repeatedly with her fists, bloodying his nose, smashing through the feeble defences of his arms, clubbing him again and again until at last Spike fell.



The vampire tried to regain his feet, but Faith kicked at him, drove him back down onto the floor with blows to his back and ribs. In desperation Spike tried to crawl away, slithering like a wounded snake on his hands and belly. Faith snatched up a bar stool and brought it down across Spike’s back; the metal legs of the stool clanged musically from the impact. Finally, a couple of foolhardy demons came forward to Spike’s aid. They grabbed one of Faith’s arms each and tried to pull her back, giving Spike just enough time to roll onto his back and start to get up. The Slayer, with a great heave of her shoulders, shrugged off the demons, springing forward and seizing an empty bottle from the bar-top. In a single movement she swung it and broke the end off the bottle against the bar’s edge, then with a great windmilling strike, drove it into the vampire's body.



The wound seemed to knock the last of the fight out of Spike, because he stopped trying to get up. A little blood oozed sluggishly from the corner of his mouth as he turned his battered face to the Slayer and silently looked her in the face.



Faith's chest was heaving as she drew great tearing breaths into her body, a combination of the effort of the fight and the hurricane force of her emotions. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth in a wordless snarl. Finally, she reached into her pocket and drew out a hardwood surveyor’s peg, closing her white-knuckled fingers around it. She looked at Spike one last time, but then Faith’s eyebrows knotted and the Slayer hesitated.



Sensing Faith’s uncertainty, Spike yelled: “What are you waiting for? Do it!”



The Slayer stood still, and then she lowered her stake a fraction. She was thinking of prison, the place she had narrowly avoided returning to that morning, thanks to Willow and Tara. In prison, there was a sort of justice. If someone crossed you, or set you up, or stole from you, and you found out, you paid them back as publicly and brutally and completely as you could. Faith looked at Spike once more and thought: this is prison justice I’m giving out here, isn’t it? Except, I’m not in jail anymore; or am I?



“No,” Faith said at last, wet-eyed.



“I’m a useless, worthless, stupid bastard. I deserve it! Stake me!”



“Fuck you.”



“Finally lost your bottle, Slayer?”



Faith wasn’t quite sure what sort of a bottle Spike was talking about or how it was possible to lose it, but she guessed, correctly, that Spike was suggesting she’d lost her nerve.



“Somehow, I just can’t see the point,” Faith said, half to herself, looking at the roughly-carved end of her makeshift stake.



“Bollocks. Do me a favour, girl. Get it over with. Don’t hang me out to dry!”



“I won’t. You want someone to stake you, go ask Buffy,” the brunette replied, her voice dripping bitterness.



“Buffy,” Spike shook his head sadly. Experimentally, he dabbed a couple of fingers into the jagged wound in his side. He looked at his own blood dispassionately. “What a bloody monumental cock-up. Everything I ever touched turned to shite. When I got it back, I thought it was some sort of reward for effort, you know; ride back into town a changed man, get the girl, ride off into the sunset. Well, maybe not the last bit. Should’ve known it was just a ticket to come back for more pain. Everything hurts more, for a start.”



“Yeah, whatever, I guess,” Faith agreed, though she didn’t really follow what Spike was talking about.



“Y’know, I always thought I was the worst of the worst,” Spike went on. “The Big Evil, grr, nasty, that was me. Didn’t know the half of it.” The vampire sighed and reached into his pocket, pulling out the folded piece of paper Withers had given him earlier. He tossed it towards Faith, who bent and picked it up. “More proof there’s someone out there nastier than me. As if further proof were needed. Wolverines, this lot call themselves, they wanted it. Give that to the librarian, he’ll know what it is. I haven’t got a clue. I never sodding did.” Spike glanced up at the bar and noticed the open can of gasoline. “Was that for me?” he asked brightly. Faith nodded. “Stylish, very stylish. I always knew I liked you the best.” Painfully, the vampire dragged himself to his feet. Faith backed away, giving him room. He limped over to the bar and picked the can up, weighing it in his hand. He turned back to Faith one last time. “Tell Buffy I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’t give her my love, she’d only throw it back at me. Again.” Then the vampire turned and walked slowly out of Willy’s, heading for the street entrance. As he passed through the doorway, he lifted the can high, upended it and began to pour the contents over himself. Rivers of fuel trickled from his hair and clothes and splashed onto the floor as he left.



A second later, there was a flash and a thump, and an orange ball of flame came bursting through the front door of Willy’s. The pools of gasoline on the barroom floor caught fire. The barman, who been standing stock-still for the past few minutes, suddenly came back to life. He ran forward with an extinguisher and put the spot fires out. Faith slowly walked forward and peered through the doorway. Outside in the bright sun, there was a circle of burning gasoline, with a now bent and blackened can lying on the ground beside it. Of Spike, not a trace was left. Faith circled the flames and walked away.



___________________________________________________________________



The pet food store’s bell tinkled as Tara opened the door and walked out into warm sunshine. In her arms, the blonde witch had a bag of cat food goodness, Miss Kitty’s special favourite. She set her steps towards home, but then she stopped as she recognised the slim young man walking towards her. She frowned, surprised.



“Tony?” she said.



The young athlete, Xander’s ex-boyfriend, stopped walking too. He blushed. “Hello, Tara,” he said uncertainly.



“You’re not in school today?” Tara asked.



The young man gave Tara a troubled look, and then he cast his eyes down at the ground. He shrugged. ‘Got a - a minute?” he said eventually.



“Of course,” Tara said, intrigued.



_________________________________________________________________



Willow was a little surprised when she got home and found Buffy already there, but she didn’t press her friend for more details when the Slayer told her she hadn’t been having a great day and had decided to come home early.



“I’m fine, really,” Buffy reassured the hacker. “Can you tell me more about Spike and his new playmates?”



The redhead nodded, went into the kitchen to turn on her computer and pour herself a glass of water. She sat.



“Buffy, so far we know that both the guy that Faith beat up and the arresting officer are card-carrying members of an organisation called the Wolverines.”



“Wolf-riders? Like in ‘Two Towers’?” Buffy pondered.



“Wol-ver-ines. It’s an animal. Sort of a bad-tempered overgrown weasel.”



“Sounds like quite a few men I’ve met in my time,” Buffy commented. “So, who are these guys?”



“Well,” Willow began, “the Wolverines are a men’s support group based in Sunnydale. If you believe their Web site, they’re a happy bunch of neck-tie burning, drumming, tree-hugging guys who relate to their wives and like nothing more than to take their sons out into the woods and teach them to be strong but sensitive.” Oz probably saw himself as that type, once, Willow thought unhappily to herself.



Buffy rolled her eyes. “And the catch is…”



“There are a few of those,” the hacker said, wondering vaguely why it was taking Tara so long to get home from the store. “The main one is that they are currently the subject of a covert operation by a special task force of the LAPD.”



Buffy’s eyes widened. “Investigating what?”



“They think it works like this,” Willow explained. “A woman kicks out her husband, she’s got the kids and the house and the court order that he’s got to stay away. Now, our guy goes to see his Wolverine buddies, and they do a deal. A bit like in ‘Strangers on a Train’. You harass and intimidate my wife and I’ll do the same to yours. Until she’s scared enough to drop the court order - and take him back. But the police are finding that proving it is - difficult.”



Buffy grimaced. “I think I begin to see why Spike might be welcomed into a group like that.”



“Yes,” Will agreed.



“So how do I find these guys?”



Willow frowned. “There’s an e-mail address and a box number, and they meet every fortnight. I’m trying to track down the president’s home address, but he doesn’t seem to have one.”



Just at that moment, the front door opened. Willow went eagerly to see who it was, and tried to hide her disappointment that it was Faith and not Tara. The younger Slayer entered, smiling, carrying the day’s newspaper under her arm.



“Hi Red,” Faith greeted Willow cheerily. Buffy came out of the kitchen, frowned, but then ran forward and hugged her partner fiercely.



“You crazy fool,” she murmured. “Do you know how worried I’ve been? Don’t you ever do anything like that ever again, you hear me?”



“Lighten up, B,” Faith grinned, holding Buffy at arm’s length with her free hand.



“Lighten up? I’ve been worried sick about you, I haven’t slept a wink, I’ve been looking for Spike all night -”



“I found him,” Faith interrupted.



“And?” Buffy demanded.



“Oh my, what happened?” Willow added.



“I always knew Spike was a dog; well, he went ‘woof’,” Faith replied. She laughed at their confused looks, and then she briefly described what had happened. Buffy was relieved that Spike was gone at last, but she still did not calm down.



“Are you trying to get arrested? Do you hate being free? Do you hate being with me that much?” Buffy scolded. Faith tried to open her mouth to protest, but the older Slayer was on a roll. “Attempted arson, assault, in broad daylight yet? What is the fricken matter with you Faith? Any more of this ridiculous behaviour and I’ll…” She left the sentence unfinished



“You’ll what?” Faith asked quietly, her eyes bleak.



“Oh, never mind,” Buffy stormed out of the house into the garden. Faith watched quietly as her partner began a savage assault on the shrubs with the pruning shears. The brunette shrugged and rolled her eyes.



“What can I say?” Faith said at last, half to herself and half to Willow, who had stood silently watching Buffy’s outburst.



“She’ll be okay,” Willow ventured. “She hasn’t slept, and she’s upset. Take it that she’s happy to have you back home in one piece.”



“I think I got that,” Faith agreed. “Well, I better not go near her for an hour or two. I might just relax and read the paper.”



“Oo, if there’s a cryptic crossword, can you leave it for me?” Will said instinctively. She instantly regretted her words. People were dying all over, vicious mysogynists were roaming free, Tara wasn't home yet, and here she was salivating over the prospect of a cryptic crossword. Priorities, Willow!



“Sure, Red. Later.” Faith grinned and headed upstairs to the bedroom she shared with Buffy. Willow watched her go, a pensive expression on the redhead’s face.



(To be continued)

Edited by: Bagheera  at: 1/28/03 9:47:45 pm

[deixs]

Great updaet!!!



Stef

Willow: Hey, clothes!

Tara: Better not get used to 'em.

Willow: Yes ma'm

[funkyasian]

woohoo!!...i knew you wouldn't disappoint me...thank god that damn spike's gone...a nice gallant way to go even...but gone nonetheless. whew...so now focusing on more important things...the connection between oz's death and riley's? definitely something to ponder...i think we all know not to doubt tara when she gets one of her feelings...



okay...i'm going now to wait patiently for the next update...*saunters to the corner, makes a drink, and sits quietly watching passersby*



~steph

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. ~ Oscar Wilde

[Bagheera]

deixs/Stef: Thanks - glad you liked.



funkyasian/steph - Thank you. Yes, Spike out of the picture at last. And a bit of gallantry at the end, insight even...taking as I did the end of S6, I rather reluctantly took on board the idea of Spike with a soul, though to be honest, I don't think the Spike I ended up writing was all that different to the one with just a chip, though perhaps his bumbling and tendency to get himself into trouble harked back more to earlier seasons as well. And what is a soul anyway? Vampire Tara had a far more interesting question to deal with: the idea that she might have one, but she wasn't sure because she wasn't sure where it was. A very human dilemma, if I may say so.

And now - much to wonder about. I hope your drink has some nice umbrellas and things in it and that the passers-by are pleasing to your eye.



Regards,



B.

"I am a girl. I am nice. I can play. I can jump. I can sleep." My daughter's first essay (aged 5)

[Bagheera]

Part 10

Rating: R18 Adult themes and sexual references





Willow spent a while longer at her computer, looking for additional information about the elusive Wolverines. It didn’t take her long to find something that intrigued her. The president, who called himself Joseph Withers, seemed to have perfected the art of invisibility. As far as Willow was able to detect, Withers had no home address, no occupation, no registered motor vehicle, no telephone number, no relatives, no birth certificate, no record of marriage and he had never paid taxes. As far as the usual information sources were concerned, he didn’t exist; but here was his signed manifesto on the home page of the Wolverines’ Web site. Willow rested her chin on her fist for a moment. She wondered if Spike had been forthcoming with any information about Withers or his cronies before he’d decided to take his little walk in the sun.



The redhead exhaled noisily through her nose, reached forward and turned off her computer. She closed it, stood and walked upstairs to Buffy and Faith’s bedroom door. She made a movement to knock on the door, but then she stopped. What sounded like a muffled sob reached her ears from the room beyond.



“Faith?” the redhead asked tentatively. Finally she reached out and tapped softly on the door with her fingertips.



“Come in,” came a muffled unsteady voice. Willow opened the door and entered. Faith was seated on the bed with the newspaper spread open before her. The Slayer’s eyes were red and haunted.



“Red, what kind of a crazy, stupid world are we living in?” the brunette asked. Willow, taken a bit by surprise by this question, said nothing at first. Faith continued: “I face death and horror every night. Vampires, demons, whatever. Today, that piece of vamp scum that tried to rape Buffy is dust, it’s a nice sunny day, I come home and I want to relax and read the paper. And now I so wish I hadn’t.”



“Faith? Whatever’s wrong?” Willow approached tentatively. Faith gestured to a tiny column of text, no bigger than an inch. The redhead circled around the mattress so that she could read it right way up.



“Dead inmate identified,” the small headline read. “Authorities have released the name of the prisoner found dead on Tuesday in the gym of the California West Serious Female Offenders Facility. She was Lola Mayfield, 31, who was serving a life sentence for the 1998 murder of her husband Steve. The cause of death has not as yet been released. Mayfield achieved minor notoriety in 1999 when the then State governor commuted her death sentence to life behind bars, a move condemned by many as too soft. Widespread public support for gubernatorial candidate Hauer’s tough on crime platform was cited as a major reason for his landslide win in the election the following year.”



“Some obituary, right?” Faith commented. “I guess mine would’ve read the same. Let me tell you about Lola,” the Slayer leaned forward, grasping Willow fiercely by the arm. Quietly, Willow sat on the edge of the bed and listened.



“Lola was a quiet, gentle woman with a good heart,” Faith began. “She was also in love, and she was gay. And she also happened to be married – to a violent drunk. She was leaving him. He came for her with the knife, do you understand what I’m saying?”



“Then surely it was self-defence!” Willow protested.



Faith shrugged. “Lola was unlucky. She only got cut a couple of times before she got the knife off him, then she stabbed the bastard a few too many times. Cops and the DA didn’t like that. Said it made it a ‘brutal and savage attack’. They conveniently forgot that Lola was six inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter than Steve. And that she was terrified of him. The only thing she knew, when the knife first went into him, was that if he didn’t die, he would get better and he would only come after her again. How many times is enough when you’re that frightened? And she stabbed him in the face. The DA went ballistic on that. But hey – what’s cutting a guy’s face? He was probably dead already when she did it. How does it measure up against ten years of beatings, broken teeth, busted ribs, cigarette burns, rapes? You understand how she might have felt, don’t you Red?”



Willow swallowed nervously. She understood well enough. “But what was her defence attorney doing?” she wondered.



Faith uttered a brief, cynical laugh. “He – he – was a born-again Christian that hated gays. Lola didn’t know until afterwards. He was just a public defender, what could she do? I hear he’s an assistant DA now. When they interviewed her, she’d lost a pint of blood; she was still in shock and hadn’t even seen a doctor. She had no idea that her attorney was trying to shaft her as quickly as possible. That’s why I asked you not to let me have a public defender, remember?” Willow nodded.



“She should have been found not guilty,” Faith continued. “Or at least, guilty of manslaughter. But before she knew it, she was guilty of murder one and was going to get the Green Dream. It was all she could manage to get another lawyer and have her sentence reduced to life. Reduced – ha!”



“You met her in jail,” Willow stated.



Faith nodded. “She was my cell mate for a year. She was real good to me – I had a lot to get through, and she was a good listener. You remember the way I used to be?” Willow nodded slowly. “I guess I always felt cheated, coming to Sunnydale and finding Buffy here. I was supposed to be the Chosen One, but she was already here, doing my job. I got it, eventually. I spent a year trying to be Buffy. I wanted to have her friends, her life, her boyfriends. I wanted it all. Sleeping with Riley was the last straw. I was just so sick of myself and everything I’d done, I just wanted to get away to LA and get myself killed.”



“But you didn’t; Angel wouldn’t kill you,” Willow pointed out.



Faith smiled thinly and shook her head. “No. So I went to jail. And I thought about everything, and I talked it over with Lola. Some of it; I left out the vampire stuff. And in the end it was ridiculously easy. I didn’t want to be Buffy, not really, and if I didn’t, then what did I want?”



“You wanted to be with Buffy,” Willow ventured.



“Yes,” Faith squeezed Willow’s hand. “So when I broke out, I came here to see her. To ask B if she could give me a chance. I wouldn’t have had the courage to ask if it hadn’t been for Lola. She always said: ‘No matter where you come from or what’s happened in the past, you always have the chance to change.’ That was her, always on her journey. She was a lifer, but she was the freest person I think I’ve ever met.” Fresh tears coursed down the Slayer’s cheeks.



“She sounds like she was very special,” Willow said.



“She was,” Faith agreed, her voice breaking.



“You loved her?” Willow asked gently, trying to help Faith let out her feelings.



“No!” the Slayer said vehemently. “No, I didn’t love her. It wasn’t possible. I loved – I love Buffy. And Lola’s girlfriend, she was going to wait; ten years, fifteen, whatever it took, she was waiting. She used to write letters between visits, and Lola would memorise them; long after lights out, she would recite them in the dark for us. Jesus, but that girl could write. Lola and I looked out for each other, but Willow – there’s no love in prison. Love is like blackmail; if you love someone, it means they’ve got something on you. And even if they don’t use it, someone else will. So no, it wasn’t love. We had sex a few times, mostly when things were bad and one of us needed it. It helped take the pain away. Lola said it did, anyway. But not love.” A fresh pair of tears overflowed the Slayer’s eyes and trickled down her wet cheeks.



Willow felt her own eyes beginning to fill, but what Faith said next went beyond sorrow.



“You’re the genius Red, would you mind telling me what in the fuck is going on?”



“Sorry, I - ” Willow was confused. She hadn’t mentioned Oz, had she?



“People we know are dying. People I know, especially. Do you know that of the people I’ve slept with, only two are still alive: B and Xander Harris?”



“What! Are you sure?”



“Yes,” Faith said tiredly. She gestured helplessly at the telephone extension next to the bed. “I rang back East a couple of minutes before you came in. Even the boy down my street I gave my cherry to is dead. Killed in a drive-by six months ago. They’re all gone, Willow. And look at Buffy. Everyone she’s slept with – everyone – except me, is dead now. Parker, Riley, and now Spike.”



“Well technically, Spike was dead already, and you’re forgetting Angel.” Willow countered, even though the redhead was profoundly troubled by what Faith was saying.



“Angel – Buffy killed him too, remember?”



“But he came back.” Oh my! Willow thought suddenly. Angel…I hadn’t even thought of him. Angel came back. Tara and now Oz, both dead…only Tara came back. Goddess, what if Faith’s right? What does this mean?



“You think something might happen to Xander?” Willow suggested.



“Yeah, him too,” Faith admitted. “Right now I’m more worried about Buffy. Go figure. Or maybe she should be worrying about me.”



Willow was silent for a couple of minutes. Faith sat quietly and watched her, knowing that the redhead’s brain was whirring at a mile a minute, trying to sort through what was happening and come up with a plan.



“I – I’m not sure if this is the best thing to do or not, and it could be dangerous,” Willow said at last. “And I’m thinking on my feet here, but if there is a pattern here and it involves both you and Buffy…” Willow hesitated. Should I come clean and say it’s probably happening to me too? But how does that help? “We could try communing with the First.”



“First Evil? I really, really don’t - ”



“No Faith, the First Slayer,” Willow corrected her. “You are the latest of a long line that goes back for centuries, the Chosen One who will battle the forces of darkness. The First Slayer was created by a very powerful and wise group of people. The Slayer carries the legacy of that wisdom inside her.”



“Yeah?” Faith frowned. “Did it run some sort of a bypass with Buffy?” Off Willow’s surprised and angry look the Slayer added: “Hey, I’m the Slayer too, and I’m her girlfriend. If I can’t say these things, who can?”



Will chose to ignore Faith’s rhetorical question. “A couple of years ago, when Buffy was unsure which way to go, she went into the desert and spoke to the First Slayer.”



“Just before she got herself killed, right? Must have been great advice.”



“I think it was ‘death is your gift’.”



“Wonderful.”



“But Faith,” Willow protested, “Buffy was in a crisis! She was fighting a god, Joyce had died, Riley had left, Dawn was in danger. It was all coming down on her at once. She needed help.”



“Death must have been a relief,” Faith commented, her dark eyes introspective.



Willow thought about this. “Only partly,” she conceded. “When Buffy died, she saved Dawn’s life, and she knew – she knew with no question, no shadow of a doubt – that she was doing the right thing. When it happened, death was a gift to Buffy. So the First Slayer was right.”



Faith pursed her lip, nodding. At last, she flashed Willow her wildest, most carefree grin. “Okay, let’s do it. I don’t mind finding out if I’m gonna die. Like I didn’t know already. Where do I find her?”



“Giles will know. But you’ll need a car, I think it’s a long way from here.”



“I have a car.”



“You have a - ” Willow gulped. “I’m n-not asking,” she concluded nervously.



“Relax Red, I ripped it off a vampire, and he’s not going to tell anyone about it.” The Slayer’s dark eyes twinkled. “The plates are current. It’s cool, trust me.”



“Can you drive?”



“Passed my test a month ago.”



“Where do you keep it?”



“Parked around the block.”



“So Buffy doesn’t…”



“No. I’ll tell her when I get a chance. I don’t think she’s quite in the mood for it right now.” They both listened, and from the garden below came the brisk clicking of the pruning shears.



“Faith,” Willow said nervously, “I don’t want to come across as a nag or anything, but y’know, Riley kept secrets from Buffy. I don’t think - ”



“I know, I know. God,” Faith sighed. “You think I don’t worry about this? I want it all with Buffy, but I screwed my life up. I’m putting the pieces together as well as I can. You’ve done great with the new ID, Red, no-one could have done any more than you have. I’m grateful, right? But I’m still in a mess. I can’t get a job, except minimum wage stuff, and I’m the Slayer, which is always going to get in the way. I mean – look at Buffy, she can’t hold a steady job. And I can’t come in from the cold with the Watchers’ Council. Not yet. Giles says they’re not ready. Stealing from the undead’s the only living I can make right now.”



“I know, I know. It just – scares me.”



“Me too. You wanna go – pack a bag, and I’ll call Giles and throw a couple things together.”



“Oh! You want me to come with you?”



“Yeah, and Tara too. You got a problem with that?”



“No!” Willow said at once. Not a problem, it was just a surprise, and perhaps a little flattering. Willow said as much.



“What? I can’t take my lawyers with me?’ Faith winked. “I might need your expertise again.”



“I would have thought you’d take Giles with - ” Willow began.



Faith shook her head. “I don’t want Giles to know about this yet. Not Buffy, either. Not until we know what’s going on.”



“We?”



“We.”



Willow agreed, and left Faith alone in her room to phone Giles. She went to her room to pack an overnight bag, and was delighted to find that Tara had at last come home. The blonde was just on her way up the stairs.



“Tara,” Willow exclaimed, throwing herself into the blonde’s arms as the bedroom door closed behind them.



“Darling,” Tara murmured, her trembling cheek pressed against her soul mate’s. “Oh, darling.”



“Listen, Faith thinks there may be a pattern to these deaths.” Willow pulled back a little to look into Tara’s eyes. The blonde nodded, her expression both serious and a little sad. “I thought we might go ask the First Slayer what’s going on. Faith wants us both to come.”



The blonde hesitated. She looked into Willow’s eyes and saw the fear and doubt there. “I think that’s a very good idea,” Tara said at last. “We’re going now?”



“Yes.”



“All right.” The witches kissed, and held each other for a long, comforting moment. Neither wanted it to end, but soon after, they heard Faith’s brisk footsteps outside their bedroom door. Slowly, reluctantly, Tara and Willow released one another. They quickly gathered a couple of items and followed the Slayer downstairs and outside.



Faith and Buffy said a brief, awkward goodbye, though Buffy seemed relieved that the witches were going with the young Slayer to keep her on the straight and narrow, as it were. It was a little puzzling to the older Slayer that they hadn’t told her exactly where they were going or when they’d be back. She watched them walk down the front path and out of sight. She turned back to her gardening, but after a moment changed her mind and went into the house. She picked up the phone and punched a couple of buttons.



“Xander here. That you, Buff?”



“That’s amazing,” the Slayer said. “How’d you know it was me?”



“My call ID’s working.”



“Oh. Well for a minute there, I thought you had suddenly developed amazing psychic powers.”



“Sorry to shatter your illusions Buff.”



“Xander, how would you like to do a little undercover work for me?”



“Always happy to help.”



“Just one thing; do you think you can act straight?”



“I did pretty good for six years, didn’t I?”



“I guess you did.”



Xander laughed. “Okay, so what’s this little job?”



“Come round after work and I’ll fill you in.”



“Okay, see you then. Bye.” The call ended.



(To be continued)

[MellindraX]

As ever, I loved the update! Keep'em coming soon as you have them

On the official Buffy board, freaked-out Willow lovers demanded that the plot be revealed as an evil spell, or that the two girls prove to be nothing more than really, really good friends. (Although some good-natured petitioners went in the other direction, demanding a "tasteful shower scene.") –Girls’ Night Out, Article on Nerve.com