chilled monkey Okay, here we go. This, the final part in this story, will appear in 3 pieces.
Part 16a
Rating: M15 Offensive material, coarse language, angstJoseph Withers turned his flinty blue-eyed gaze out into the audience, a humourless grin on his face. He cleared his throat. The roomful of men was silent.
“What you have to understand,” he said, “is it’s all about power. And there's only so much to go around. Power shared, or power abdicated, is power that is lost, perhaps for all time. The man who gives up power is a fool. For years we have been fools - we've been letting what should be ours slip away from us. Gentlemen, we are here today to restore that power to where it belongs. With us.” He held aloft the talisman, and the assembled men cheered.
Breakfast at the Summers household on Monday morning had been a tense, silent affair. Buffy was ready early and was halfway to the front door before Willow and the others realised what was happening. The redhead ran after Buffy and caught up with her on the front porch. But when she got there, Willow was momentarily at a loss. What could she say?
Fighting a strong urge to break into tears, perhaps beg Buffy to wait, or even to babble out the whole sorry, sick tale of Xander and his wish, Willow instead crushed Buffy in a violent hug, pressing a burning hot cheek against the Slayer’s.
“Woah there Will,” Buffy smiled, taken aback by Willow’s forceful goodbye. “It’s just a bunch of weasels, remember?”
Willow gulped, but she nodded. “Take care,” she managed to say. “Come back to us in one piece.” By this time, Tara and Faith had caught up and had joined the hug. Dawn hovered in the front doorway, glass of juice in hand, unsure as to what was going on.
“Come on you guys,” Buffy smiled a little uneasily now. “You’re beginning to scare me.”
“Good luck, Buffy,” Tara said. “We love you, and we’ll be with you in spirit.”
“And we’ll be there in person as soon as we can,” Faith added. “Love you.”
Buffy hugged them all back, reserving a special embrace for her lover and fellow Slayer. “Now you guys are really scaring me. You’re not casting the Adam-smasher spell again, are you?”
Willow shook her head. “If only it was that simple,” she said.
Buffy took the hint. “Okay, fill me in when we’re done.” She waved, turned and was gone.
I so wish she hadn’t said that last bit, Willow thought to herself. She turned back to the house, and saw Dawn looking back at her oddly. While Tara and Faith filed inside to finish breakfast, Willow allowed Dawn to accost her.
“What’s going on? Willow?” the teen demanded.
Willow looked at Buffy’s younger sister for a long moment, and remembered the fear she had expressed to Tara the night before. She knew at once that she couldn’t send Dawn off to school to face what could turn out to be her last day on earth, alone and completely ignorant.
“Dawn, I’m so sorry,” Willow whispered.
“Is Buffy in danger?” Dawn asked severely.
“Buffy’s always in danger,” Willow responded.
“You know what I mean.” Dawn was becoming agitated. “Tell me what’s going on! Please!”
“Dawn,” Willow took the teenager’s hands in hers. “I’m not sure of anything anymore. Buffy’s battle this morning could be nothing, or it could be - everything. But you should be with her. It was wrong of Buffy and Giles to try to keep you away. Go - take your best weapons - and be careful.” Willow gave Dawn exact directions and sent her on her way with a blessing and a kiss. Finally, she re-entered the house.
Miss Kitty, Willow noticed, was curled up on the front room couch. The witch approached the cat. Kitty must have sensed something, for she woke up, half-opened her lids and yawned as Willow approached.
Willow put her face up close to the cat’s and whispered, “Thank you Miss Kitty, for everything. I still don’t understand who or what you are, but I know that you’re good, and I’m glad you came back to us. I hope we’ll meet again when this is all over.”
The cat said, “Roaw,” purred, and stretched out a forepaw, claws sheathed, and patted Willow’s cheek. Then she snuggled down and went back to sleep. She was still there, lying in an inert ball, when the witches and Faith left the house.
“You know,” Faith said suddenly as she drove, “it’s made plenty of things a lot clearer. Finding out about the wish, I mean.”
“Like what?” Willow asked.
“Well, there’s the gap between Buffy’s income and her wardrobe,” Faith winked in the rear view mirror. “Could never work that one out before.”
“There’s the fact that a truly liberal-thinking, intellectual, progressive woman like Sheila would never dream of allowing her only daughter anywhere near people like the Harrises,” Tara said with sudden venom. Willow wondered where that had come from, but then she remembered that Tara had been appalled more than once by Anthony Harris’ behaviour at Xander's aborted wedding. After so many years of memories - even false ones - Willow had to confess that she barely noticed it anymore.
“And there’s the yawning gulf between Xander’s ability and the amount of work he does, versus his remuneration,” the red haired witch added. That had also been one of the clauses in Xander’s wish; that he’d be well off without having to tax his brain or work too hard.
Willow sat beside Tara in the back of Faith’s car as they drove slowly through the streets of Sunnydale for what she understood was the very last time. Willow had Tara’s hand in hers, and she gazed sadly out the window at the places that she remembered so well, even if all those memories were false. “Goodbye Sunnydale…goodbye movie house,” as they passed the movie theatre. “Amelie” was currently screening. Just down the road was the community bank. “Goodbye you wonderful old Building and Loan.” The next block was a construction site. Yet another block of apartments was climbing into the sky as fast as they could truck in the concrete. About three floors up, pacing in a lordly fashion on the new building’s steel skeleton, was a familiar figure in a yellow hard hat. “Goodbye, Xander Harris…Faith! Stop the car!”
“We really don’t have time for this,” the Slayer complained.
“Stop this car NOW!” Willow shouted. Faith sighed and brought the car to a halt at the kerb. Willow leapt out.
“Ten minutes,” Willow told Faith. And as Tara made a move to get out and follow, Willow added: “No Tara, please. I have to do this alone.” The blonde nodded and sank back into her seat.
Faith let the window down and lit a cigarette as she watched Willow’s receding back. She inhaled deeply, and then blew out a great cloud of smoke with a sigh. “I’ll probably give these up when this is over,” she commented. “Want a drag, Tara?” The blonde witch gave Faith a little smile in the rear view mirror and shook her head.
A burly guy in a hard hat tried to stop Willow as she strode through the metal gates at the site entrance. “Lady, no visitors allowed -” he began.
Willow bared her teeth at him. “I’m not a visitor,” she snarled. “I’m here to see the guy in charge.”
“He’s up top,” the guy pointed at Xander. “You’ll need a hard hat.”
Willow’s eyes flashed, large and black. “Then give me one!” she commanded. Suitably attired, she stepped into the wire cage elevator for the ride up.
Xander was standing on some duckboards, leaning against a steel beam. He was gazing out over Sunnydale. A light breeze sighed through the skeleton of the growing building. There was almost no sound from the street below. Even the noise of machinery below was muffled. It was as if the earth was stilled, waiting to see what Willow would say or do.
Xander hadn’t noticed Willow yet. The redhead resisted a sudden urge to rush at her false friend and tip him over the edge onto the concrete slab below. She knew it was futile; that she would probably trip over a rivet or some such and fall to her death in his stead, unless Tara was watching her like a hawk and was able to cast a very quick levitation spell. Willow hesitated for a moment longer; she knew there was a spell she should do for controlling anger, but then she thought: No. I think I want to be angry. Quietly, she said: “Xander.”
“Oh,” the construction chief started. He began to come forward and put his arms out for a hug, like always, but something in Willow’s expression made him stop. Not sure what to do with his arms, he folded and unfolded them and finally stuck his hands in his pockets. “Will, uh, you’re on your - way - to the fight...?” The witch nodded. “I’ll be going soon, in a…” he trailed off into silence awkwardly.
Finally Willow came a step closer and said: “So how do you like it? This world?” She indicated the town below with a brisk tilt of her chin.
Xander appeared puzzled by the question. “Willow? It’s what it is. We deal.”
“Deal, yes,” Willow sneered just a little. “You’ve been dealing. And you’ve been stacking the deck for seven years.”
“What?” Xander swallowed, Willow’s cold but obvious anger making him uneasy. “Will, what’s up? Have you - are you - ?”
Will made a low furious animal sound in her throat and wrenched a folded piece of paper, one of the copies of the wish, out of her pocket. She thrust it furiously into Xander’s hand. “Read it and weep,” she snarled. “You read - the rest of us weep.”
Confused, the dark-haired man lowered his eyes to the paper and began to scan through it. After a couple of paragraphs, he stopped and looked uncertainly at Willow. “I - don’t get it,” was all he managed to say.
“Surely you recognise your own handwriting?” Willow accused.
“Well yeah, but…I don’t remember writing any of this, and - anyway it’s just stupid, kid stuff…”
“Every word of which has come TRUE!” Willow shouted at him.
“Daydreams…just daydreams,” Xander tried to say.
“Haven’t you got it yet?” Willow fumed. “This is Sunnydale. Thoughts become reality here. All of this stuff has HAPPENED.”
“Coincidence…”
“Okay, who’s Rynox?” Willow changed tack suddenly.
“Umm -”
“Rynox is REAL. And here!” Will jabbed a furious finger at the fatal paragraph near the middle. Helpful as ever, she had highlighted it. “YOU KILLED TARA!”
“No, wait…” Xander looked this way and that like a cornered animal. Once he even looked down at the ground below them and it was if he was thinking about casting Willow off the building, to stop her from saying these terrible things about him. And to save him from having to think about them.
Willow screamed at the top of her lungs, all her pent-up fury boiling forth in a black, irresistible torrent. Just as Tara had seen two nights earlier, Willow grew terrible before the shocked young man’s eyes, pale-skinned and veined. She drew herself up to her full height and her huge, cold black eyes looked Xander up and down dismissively.
“You’re pathetic,” the dark witch said at last. “You think hurting me can stop this? You think you can try to shut me up? It’s over, Xander. And I’m so over you.” She half-raised a hand, as if she was getting ready to blast Xander into atoms.
“You know,” Dark Willow continued almost chattily, as Xander stood, rooted to the spot with terror. “The One had us pegged all wrong. It wasn’t one deadly sin each; you had the full collection: Avarice, Gluttony, Sloth, Wrath, Jealousy, Envy, Pride. They’re all you, Alexander Harris. And what happens to sinners, can you tell me?”
Xander finally seemed to get it. His shoulders, once so broad and manly, were slumped in defeat. His eyes and face fell. He had read far enough through the document by now to recognise the world he lived in. So all of his wishes had come true. But, regaining the use of his tongue, and clinging to a last shred of hope in Willow’s question, he managed to say in a husky voice: “F-forgiveness?”
Dark Magic Willow threw back her head and laughed. She pinned Xander beneath her deathly gaze once again. “NEVER!” she shouted. “For sinners, there is only PUNISHMENT. And for what you’ve done, I swear that you will lose everything.” Her eyes blazed red for a brief instant.
“Willow, please,” Xander begged. Did she just curse me? Did that happen? “I lo-”
“DON’T YOU DARE SAY IT!” Willow screamed at him. She stretched her hand out towards him
Xander cowered, sure that Willow was about to annihilate him with a spell. “What, then? Willow, what can I do?”
“Go. Go to Buffy and die by her side. Now.” Willow turned on her heel, her face beginning to resume its normal colour and her hair reddening. She walked briskly back to the elevator. Xander made a move to follow her down. Willow’s eyes flashed an angry black one final time. “Take the next one,” she hissed, slamming the wire cage in his face. She took a last look at the fine fading scars on Xander’s cheek and thought: when I did those, I really wanted to hurt him. Tara is right about my instincts.
(To be continued)
Edited to correct several utterly crass mistakes - urgh!
Edited by: Bagheera 
at: 3/17/03 8:13:50 pm
Glad to hear you’re still with this story. “Tara and Willow – The Series” – now there’s a thought, and with an intro like that, nobody would ever run out of script or story ideas. Tara meeting DMW was supposed to be just a bit on the scary side. I assume you noticed that it was a bit like Mission Statements 1.2 “Bargaining on a Counterpane” and 1.11 “Love Bites” except with the roles reversed. It was also using elements of Grave, but putting Tara into the scene in a way that (hopefully you’ll agree) was more kind to Willow. At least Tara had no underlying motive (such as self-preservation) for telling Willow that she loved her.
.But it's your story, not mine. I'm still looking forwards to seeing what happens next. 
I'm really intrigued now. What comes next should be interesting to say the least.
's face if he ever read this? 
i can't wait to see what happens next......
Rocktoddy 
