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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/20/11)
PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 8:14 pm 
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Title: The Sidestep Chronicles: Third Chronicle (Part 43 & 44 (285 & 286))
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler warning: I’m really not going to bother after all this time except to say that this fic will totally spoil my own Sidestep: First Chronicle and Second Chronicle which can be found in the Completed Fics archive (A-M)
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please. (This applies to all my stories, fics and particularly to Sidestep Chronicle as a whole.)
Summary: Faith, the original Slayer Faith, joins the party…
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc. I am making no money from this series of stories however all original characters and situations remain my property.
Rating: The earlier Chronicles of Sidestep were much darker and I slapped a blanket R rating on them for occasional content. This series is lighter in tone caution is only recommended for occasional scenes. However to understand absolutely everything that went before you’d have to have read the first two fully so…
Couples: Tara and Willow forever. Rupert and Jenny are also married with a family. Nothing else referred to.
Text convention: We’re occasionally dealing with some deaf characters here and that has to be addressed. Speech inside asterisks is spoken in sign language only. Occasionally people responding to signed speech may do so inside speech marks, which indicates that they are also verbalising as well. Occasionally I might make a mistake and get this wrong but when dealing with a character that only signs, take it as read that they’re doing so when they “speak.”
Notes: So, I had this checklist of characters who were dead and so might crop up in the Halls of the Dead. But it was more of an anti-checklist actually. I didn’t want it to turn into a roll-call of characters that – actually – they might not have much reason to remember or, frankly, I just have no desire to write. One did stand out though, confusing as it might be since we still have a girl called Faith alive and well in the fic. But this is the Slayer, I say it really early on. Not Jenny’s daughter because that too would’ve been a game changer! She’s a little more mellow now – see the final (epilogue) part of Sidestep II for more on that – but she’s still Faith. At least she should be. If the writer’s done her job.
A double part, because the first one is kind of short… The first of the two canon characters to be added that I mentioned in feedback some time ago.
Thanks to: If you wanted Faith back, well, you didn’t do this. This was always here… but thank you for assuring me that it was a good idea. Now if I can just carry it off…


43 – 285

“Who is that?” Gray asked Willow, still male enough – even though he was dead – to respond to a girl who’d never exactly been shy about her own desires.

Least so Tara had said, not speaking ill of the dead at all. And it seemed uncharitable to label her a slut bomb, which was reportedly the kind of effect she could have on a room full of guys.

And no, Tara had never put it that way. But there’d been a hint of… not disapproval. More, regret that Faith had chosen to live her life that way rather than finding someone special enough to settle down with.

Horses for courses though. This girl had lived her life to the full before it’d been ended and at such a young age.

And who’d ended it…? Bingo…

Willow glared at the open doorway, beyond which were Faith and Tara. She hadn’t been asked to leave, far from it, she’d just chosen to do so. Better part of valour. Discretion. A little fear if she was honest…

But… ‘holy shit’ was about the only phrase that did this whole scenario justice.

“That’s Faith,” she said. “And she is a Slayer.” A kick your ass seven-ways from Sunday, honest to goodness vampire – and witch – killing machine. Sure, witches had been the targets of Slayers once upon a time.

And the Council of Watchers had tried to make it so again, sending Rupert and Faith for Tara…

“A what now?”

Yeah, she had to remember that not everyone lived in their world – even in the past tense. “One of the people born to kill vampires. One girl in every generation,” she explained. “Well, not actually every generation because, to be honest they never last long enough for it to be one. Or even five or six. So it’s really more like one at a time. But they’re stronger and faster than most people and generally kick demon butt. It’s what they do.”

That and hold grudges.

“Like you guys then?”

“More like Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris.” The choice of example seemed to impress him.

“Did Chuck ever get his Oscar?” Gray asked. “I always thought maybe they’d add a category for best fight or something.”

“Umm. No, they didn’t and no he didn’t. He kind of… well, people were talking about him long past when they should’ve been and well before he passed. Anyway, Slayer’s are the real deal.”

“So was Chuck Norris,” Gray said, seemingly affected by the news his hero was dead. Probably that he’d never met him here too. “So what happened to her, if she was so strong and fast?”

“One of them took her by surprise. Snapped her neck from behind.”

And that was why she’d left the room – because she was the one who’d done it. Faith had – under protest – been willing and prepared to kill the Kitten… Damn it, to kill Tara. So the Watcher’s had ordered, so Rupert had conveyed to her later. Faith had, eventually, agreed to follow those orders if Tara wouldn’t do something to deny that it should happen. If she wouldn’t fight.

And Tara hadn’t fought.

But instead of fighting back herself Tara had allowed the vampire to come up behind her friend and beat her to the punch. Because to give away the vampire, saving Faith, would’ve resulted in the Slayer killing it… and she couldn’t have that either.

One of them had been going to die that night and Willow couldn’t be sorry it had been Faith. It was because of that event that she was here at all now, well – not here, but with Tara. Real. Alive. But… now she was face to face with Faith. The girl had always been wild and… she didn’t need staking, thanks very much.

Now she had to worry about Tara too though, who’d been talking to Faith and holding her attention when she let it happen.

“Guess she should’ve wished for super-hearing or something.”

“She was… talking at the time. It was a pretty heavy conversation, important you know?”

“I knew what ‘heavy’ was before you were born,” he said, trying to inject a little more humour into a conversation that had suddenly turned very serious. Or was it? Everyone here – except them – had a death story to tell. It was… pretty much the norm.

Willow might even have thanked him for the effort except… she had no idea what was happening in there between Tara and Faith. Yeah, the vampire version of her had been the one to actually break the Slayer’s neck. But Tara was the one who’d allowed that to happen.

Understanding what was coming, that Faith had her orders, Tara had allowed her soulless ‘lover’ to kill the closest thing she’d had to a friend at the time.

And if she hadn’t done that then their positions might well have been reversed. The Slayer would’ve survived and Tara would’ve been here in the Halls…

And what then for her? What then for Faith? Everyone knew that Slayer’s didn’t live long and happy lives. No, they were short, brutal and ultimately ended in failure. Every single time.

So… wasn’t it better this way?

Better for everyone except Faith?

*****************

44 – 286



“What’s the matter T? You don’t seem too happy to see me.”

Tara bit her lip, nervous and not afraid to show it. It might actually be what saved her life.

“Kind of… unexpected,” she said eventually when Faith didn’t immediately drop kick her into the next life.

“Bet your ass it’s unexpected. I didn’t think you’d dare to come in here and show your face. Least ways not until you didn’t have any choice about it. You know this is my town, right?”

Tara didn’t say anything. Seemed to her it was more like the Master’s town, but telling her one time friend that didn’t seem like it’d be very diplomatic. There were big enough problems they had to resolve or move past without her pricking Faith’s ego too.

“Right?” Faith demanded.

“No, I didn’t know that. I guess I should’ve known.”

“You come here, all alive and shit? What is that, T? No, I’ll tell you. It’s fucking disrespectful, that’s what it is.”

“We’re here to – I’m here to get Willow. That’s it. Then we’re gone. No need for this to get… unpleasant.”

“Really?” Faith asked. “No need? You can’t, perhaps, think of something that might be considered outstanding business between us? Unpleasant business?”

“Alright,” Tara said. “There are issues but… we don’t have to do this, Faith. What would it change?”

“What? You think I’m going to stab you in the heart with a pointy stick? That’s all I’m good for?”

“No,” Tara said, though the thought had crossed her mind until she realised that the one time Slayer didn’t have a stake with her. At least not obviously. There could easily be one in that jacket though.

“Perhaps,” Faith said, circling her, “I could come up behind you and snap your pretty little neck?” The younger, dead woman trailed her finger tips around Tara’s chin. “Then see to your wife the way a vampire should be put down?”

Something about the question…

“Wait,” Tara said. “How did you know we’re married?”

“Lucky guess?” Faith asked, but finally broke. “Oh God, I had you there. I seriously had you there. Man, you’re too fucking serious and easy, Tara – though easy never used to be your problem. Just the serious part.”

Relief washed through her. Fighting Faith might easily have been a losing prospect, not to mention unpalatable.

“You’re not…?”

“Here to get my wicked revenge on the one time best-friend who watched me get killed by her vampire lay?” Faith asked as she stretched one side of her neck, then the other. A loud click emerged when she did. “Been able to do that ever since,” she said. “Not that your injury is supposed to carry over, but it’s a conversation piece.”

Since when had Faith worried about conversation pieces?

“We’re good then?” Tara asked, still wanting clarity.

“Long time ago, T. This isn’t a good place to hold a grudge. Besides, six of one and half a dozen of the other. If you hadn’t done me, or let that bitch do it, then I’d have done you and we both know it. Those wrinkly ass Watchers screwed up something that was good back there because they were scared old men without pair of balls between them. Still are.”

“Yeah,” she said, not qualified to comment on Watchers balls. “And yeah, it was something pretty good.”

They’d worked well together, she and Faith. They’d complimented each other’s strengths and weaknesses and taken down the vampire that was ruling this place now.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked.

“I’ve been watching out for all of you guys for a while now,” Faith told her.

The dead weren’t exactly pallid, but there was something about them that… wasn’t quite alive. Maybe it was the lack of a pulse, blood flow or something. It wasn’t that they looked like Bella Lugosi, but you could tell… you could.

And correspondingly Faith must’ve known she was alive – not here because events or fate had overtaken them.

“Watching?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard by now, this is hardly the only place in this realm. It’s not even the largest or most important. It’s just that – you know, default thing? It’s where people end up – whether they move on or not is up to them. There are better places. Worse ones.”

“Heaven and hell?” Tara wondered, having heard similar already but she’d appreciate another opinion.

Faith shook her head. “To me hell is getting stuck somewhere – or with someone – you don’t really want to be and not being able to summon up the moxie to get your own sweet ass out of there. That’s hell and I guess, right here’s a kind of hell for some of these people by that definition. I’d walked out in a week.”

“You look good though,” Tara said.

Absently Faith brushed at her hair. “Damn right I do. I got taken in my prime,” she said. “I was a Slayer and there’s not much that’s wrong with one of those.”

“Met a few have you?”

“Yeah, they get together sometimes – or some of the Watcher’s like to get them together.” Faith rolled her eyes, showing what she thought of that.

“They have… social functions?”

“It’s what some people know, the British especially. If they had cucumber, they’d be all of making little sandwiches from it. Mostly I try to mess with their heads, make sure I get to the youngsters before the Watchers do.”

Tara smiled. “Sounds like you.”

“It’s not all like this, T,” Faith said again. “That’s important, you know. No one’s supposed to know – I guess – so you don’t end up changing your life to accommodate your death and there’s stuff I really wouldn’t tell you about this place. But… it’s not all like this. There are much better places, places you and that wife of yours will have to come to when you’re here for good.”

Tara must’ve winced then, shown some sort of reaction to the notion of their deaths because Faith – shockingly – felt the need to apologise. “Sorry, Tara. It’s easy, when you’re dead, to forget how attached we were to life. Some of us anyway.”

“Not you?”

“This place… I think it’s better for me. It’s not like I was looking at a big long life expectancy, being a Slayer and all, and up until I came to Sunnydale, my life was pretty much in the crapper anyway. You were about the best thing that happened to me and look where that got me. So… I don’t mind this place. It’s an existence, for now.”

“That’d be one of those things you weren’t going to mention,” Tara said.

“That it would.”

“And I don’t want to know,” she confirmed. Faith was exactly right about that. They did have to live their lives, just as they should do. No better or worse for what they knew was here waiting for them.

“Okay, so how’s that girl you guys gave my name?”

“I thought you were watching?” Tara asked.

“I do, on and off. Not so much any more. I mean… there’s a lot of you now the kids are grown up and I don’t actually know most of the people you hang around with. Everything got… damn it, T. You got old.”

“That’s just what happens when time passes,” Tara replied.

“No, I don’t mean you look it – I mean you got old, Tara. You’re… different. You’ve been good for a lot of people. I don’t think I was good for anyone in my life.”

“That’s not true,” Tara said immediately. Faith had done a lot of good.

The other woman shook her head. “Yeah, it’s true. It’s like that saying, if a bear shits in the forest does anyone hear it? No one knew what we did back then – no one who could appreciate it because they couldn’t help themselves. You got out of that life and you started helping people who really knew you were doing it. I mean damn, girl. You became a teacher. I never saw that coming.”

Tara smiled, there was that. “Seemed like… me.”

“Oh, I get it now,” Faith said. “But back then… what we did? It didn’t seem like there was anything else and I kind of assumed you wouldn’t last much longer than me.”

Tara nodded, that was absolutely true. She hadn’t been able to see a way out of that life except for the inevitable defeat one day. Not a way out that really worked, not one that kept her alive and… sane. But she’d found one all the same.

Found the best one in the worst place.

Found Willow.

How would Faith have found a way out of their life back then? She’d been happy enough, in Sunnydale, as a Slayer. Unlike her, Faith hadn’t wanted much more. Maybe a hot body under her from time to time. Aside from that she’d have killed vampires and demons over and over… but eventually one would’ve taken her.

And if that hadn’t happened then it could only have been because Faith would’ve put herself out of the fight and then what? No Slayer. Where would the world have been then? She might’ve lived a long life, leaving the rest of the world to fend for itself, without triggering another girl to protect the world… It was no kind of answer, it sucked, but there it was.

Even now there was one out there, sacrificing what was going to be a short, dangerous life to keep other people safe. And it was short. Rupert still heard about them, sometimes he let them know so he didn’t have to wallow in sadness alone when one fell. He knew how that was, how a decent watcher would feel.

“I know,” Tara said.

“Took you back that, didn’t it? You zoned out on me for a minute there.”

“Yeah. It did. It wasn’t all bad,” Tara said. “Back then, I mean.”

“Not even half bad. But see, that’s the perspective of age talking.”

“Stop telling me how old I am,” Tara said. “And give me a hug.”

Faith shook her head. “You know what it’s like for us to touch the living, you’ve run into that problem right?”

“Oh, just give me a damn hug.”

Faith did more than allow it, she reciprocated it and Tara could feel her former-friend stiffen in reaction to the sensation but then relax into it. It cost her nothing and if it helped Faith feel good, without being weird, then why the hell not?

“I think that might be a first,” Faith said when they parted. “I don’t remember us sharing many hugs back then.”

“You’re probably right,” Tara agreed, she certainly didn’t remember any previous times either. “That wasn’t who we were. But then, you were right there. I could hug you when I wanted. And… I’ve missed you.”

What would the girl she’d allowed to be killed have to say about that?

“Well, yeah. Of course you did.”


*****************

_________________
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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/21/11)
PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 9:47 pm 
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Katharyn, I understand Willow being wary of Faith, but SHE didn’t kill the Slayer, the evil Willow did. You actually had me going for a minute too. I kept thinking, WTF? I know Faith has been checking up on Tara from time to time. What’s with the ‘tude? Gray said the hotD does things to your mind and maybe something happened to Faith. I could almost feel the tension leave Tara’s body when the Slayer let her in on the joke --That was probably just me remembering to breathe! I wouldn’t recommend Faith pull that on Willow though. I don’t think she would take it too well. Somehow, Faith needs to make it clear that she doesn’t hold Willow responsible for the vampire’s actions. I mean.. she may have the memory of snapping Faith’s neck, but it’s not like she had any choice in the matter. They still have some dangerous work ahead and the less tension there is amongst them, the better.

Speaking of.. I have a feeling Faith doesn’t know VW and The Master are there. She left after a week and looks in on the living world. No reason for her to check on the “waiting” room. I can see her going batshit angry and eager to exact some vengeance. I’m a little mixed on who I would prefer got to dispose of the skanky, evil nuisance. I’m leaning mostly to Willow having that “honor”. She is the one that suffered the most at the claws of the vamp. But as long as VW is made permanently poof, I’m fine whoever does the deed!

Anyhoo.. I’m glad that Faith has found happiness. The wrinkly old watcher stuff had me giggling! And it was very sweet of Tara to give her friend a hug. I’m sure Faith was grateful for the gesture and a little taste of life energy was just the icing on top of the icing. Yes.. icing coz that’s how special a hug from Tara is!

And yes.. bringing Slayer Faith in was a very good idea. Excellent update!!! :)


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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/20/11)
PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 10:21 pm 
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Katharyn, The last two days of my life have been miserable. I have a 6 year old daughter who I adopted three years ago from foster care. Every horror story that you have heard of actually happend to my baby. Because her birth Mom used drugs all through her pregnancy, my daughter has severe respiratory problems. Long story short...she had a massive asthma attack at school. The duty Nurse was not there. So, nobody wanted gave my child her inhaler. By the time I got to the school she was turning colors and throwing up...There is no known adjective to properly describe my anger. I went ballistic...came pretty close to being arrested, which would have really sucked because I am a Jailer/Corrections Ofc/prison guard for the very jail that I would have been taken to. After taking my girl to the hospital, My mother told me to take a walk to get myself under control. I went outside, signed on to the internet on my phone and was greeted with 2 updates of my most favorite fiction (Thank you Kajun). Some people read fiction for the smut, excitement and creativity of the writers. I read it for the escapism. Your stories are a gift (to me) that just keeps on giving and I thank you....

On to the feedback....“And I don’t need your permission. Because you don’t own me. You know that.”...Harsh much? That line was a little hard to swallow considering all Tara went through to get there. However, Willow was right when she said that Tara's little teleportation stunt was very much of the bad...it was almost as bad as going off on your own, to the land of the dead, without your very beautiful and powerful wife!!!!!

The jury is still out for me on Gray. He was a little to curious for my taste. He asked some pretty specific questions that made me a bit paronoid of his intentions....So, we shall see.

The girls have to do something about the Vamps. They should do it to remove the threat for the current and future wannatouchies (specifically them and their loved ones). The only thing that concerns me is...The Master appears to want them to take action against him. Why else would he threaten Willow? Did he really believe he could control her using fear? Or, was this the conclsion he was hoping for? If they do rid Hotd of the Vamps, Does that send them someplace worse (for humanity) like back to the land of the living? Because that would really suck!

Willow and Tara loving on a tarp...well damn. This took me back to the First installment. The kiss...that was the important thing. I have very fond memories of them making love for the first time (which happend to be in a public place that time as well..What up with that?). Eventhough the environment was not ideal, it was still very beautiful because it was all about love..until Jenny walked in.

Kuuuuuuuuush! That's the sound of the can of whoop ass that's about to be opened on The Master and V.W.!!! Slayer Faith baby..Slayer Faith!!! Now, you would'nt go and break my heart by making her a acolyte would ya? Because that would be just wrong!!! She has to be a good guy. Does she still have her Slayer Skills (The Matser and V.W. kept their strength)? Clearly, by her statements, she has not been in HotD this whole time. Where was she? Why did she come back? Did she sense the girls, while they were were *cough* reconnecting, like the other wannatouchies? You scared the sh*t out of me with Faith's fake attitude. That was'nt very nice :kdevil .

Should'nt somebody be thirsty by now? Well, besides you to booze hounds ( That would be you and Kajun). Does being in the halls take away a living person's need for food and water? Or, are you just skipping that stuff for the more important parts of the story?

_________________
The kitten formerly known as SMGOVAN ~Official Head of Security for the Finey_McFine fan club. Ass whippings will be handed out liberally!


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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/21/11)
PostPosted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 11:16 pm 
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katharyn, thanks for the update :)

so pumped that you brought in slayer faith for what's to come. love her attitude and swagger, this should be fun :applause

smgovan, sorry to hear about your daughter. hope she is doing better, it sucks when the little ones suffer...


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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/21/11)
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:55 am 
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Kajun - Well yes, it was evil Willow, but we can't help what we feel and worry about. The tude could have come from all your paranoia about characters, but didn't ;) I considered making her mad to start with but Sidestep 2 really ruled that out so, this

We will find out more about what Faith knows and doesn't so I won't say much about that now but... You would think, wouldn't you?!

This is why she's a great character and hope she will prove so. I see the conspiracy theory has already started though!

Thanks muchly

SMGOVAN - so sorry to hear about that horrific problem! Thats terrible they stick to their rules when it is the worst possible thing. I'd hope - here- that the presumption of doing the best for the child applies, but I fear we're going more like the US and fear of being sued is somehow worse???? Boggles the mind.

Pleased that this thing could help you chill a little though.

The whole you don't own me thing? I think sometimes I need to remind myself they're separate people. And if I think it I say it!

Gray... What does the guy have to do???? Sheesh!

It is clear and no spoiler that the girls will take care of all this. No loose ends! I can't say much more than that though.

Love on the tarp (and what is a tarp there for?) glad you liked it ;) Once again something spoils it for them (relative to perfection!) and what is up with that??? What is your writer hiding? Nothing... Nothing about public places either...

Faith... Yeah. Should be good. Can't say much but I will say she has simply been outside these caverns, that's all. Still in the same realm. As for whether she's an acolyte, not THAT would interesting.

Yes, everyone should be thirsty... I did allow for some water here (flowed down WWs crack remember!?) Mostly it's just avoiding distractions though. In the older Sidesteps I could've written chapters on getting a drink ;)

Hope everything ok there and thanks

Edob - swagger is a great word. That's exactly what she has!!! New entry in thesaurus Faith = Swagger.

Thanks so much

Katharyn

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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/21/11)
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:57 am 
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Title: The Sidestep Chronicles: Third Chronicle (Part 45 (287))
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler warning: I’m really not going to bother after all this time except to say that this fic will totally spoil my own Sidestep: First Chronicle and Second Chronicle which can be found in the Completed Fics archive (A-M)
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please. (This applies to all my stories, fics and particularly to Sidestep Chronicle as a whole.)
Summary: Planning… Slayer Style.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc. I am making no money from this series of stories however all original characters and situations remain my property.
Rating: The earlier Chronicles of Sidestep were much darker and I slapped a blanket R rating on them for occasional content. This series is lighter in tone caution is only recommended for occasional scenes. However to understand absolutely everything that went before you’d have to have read the first two fully so…
Couples: Tara and Willow forever. Rupert and Jenny are also married with a family. Nothing else referred to.
Text convention: We’re occasionally dealing with some deaf characters here and that has to be addressed. Speech inside asterisks is spoken in sign language only. Occasionally people responding to signed speech may do so inside speech marks, which indicates that they are also verbalising as well. Occasionally I might make a mistake and get this wrong but when dealing with a character that only signs, take it as read that they’re doing so when they “speak.”
Notes: I just noticed my overly anal bracketing in the title line of this story. I think this comes with monkeying around with Excel formulas for too long in my earlier career! Also this note represents the only time that you will see either ‘excel’ or ‘anal’ in this fic but it might drive google wild… Okay, yes, as I write this I am sleep deprived but determined to make my daily objective to redraft a part and getting some words in, even if they make little sense. Apologies if what follows is redrafted to within an inch of making no sense at all!
Later edit – the above needed substantial redrafting itself… Damn, I must’ve been zoned out.
Thanks to: Whatever it is that gives me ideas that I just have to write…




“I already said, I’m not going to bite,” Faith said to her.

On an instinctive level, Willow wasn’t so sure about that and so was keeping her distance. “I…”

“Bitch, if you apologise again, I might take it on myself to kick your ass though.”

“I thought you’d hold more of a grudge,” Willow said instead.

“Everyone seems to. I had a similar conversation with your girl – make that your wiife.”

“I think we have reason to worry,” Willow said, not keen on the way Faith said the very important word, ”knowing what you can do.”

The former-slayer shook her head. “I’ve had a lot of time to hold grudges and you know what I’ve learned?”

“What?”

“I can’t get no satisfaction. And I try and I try and I try and I try.” Faith shrugged. “Maybe it’s a dead thing. Twenty years ago, maybe…”

Willow wasn’t all that certain that this was leading up to the point where they kissed, made up and everything was forgiven and forgotten – for all that Tara and Faith seemed to have done so. The pair of them were even planning to work together one more time. This wasn’t a coincidental visit with Faith just turning up because of no more than chance. Not even because there was a moderately hot guy with them. Yeah, Faith was paying some attention to Gray as well as Jenny.

And she couldn’t say that she didn’t welcome the help but…

“So?”

“I have no relationship with you, Willow. You were a vampire when you killed me. Now you’re not. I didn’t know you back then and I don’t know you now, not really. Even if I’ve watched the two of you over the years.

“But… she loves you and you’ve been together long enough that I can assume she’s not delusional so don’t worry about me and you. Now… tell me what you know about that guy you’re hanging out with?”

“Gray?”

“That’s his name?”

“We introduced you,” Willow pointed out.

“Excuse me for not having seen two of my friends for a while.”

That was true. If there’d been any hesitancy and doubt about this girl and Tara then there’d been none with Jenny. Willow really only knew the facts of the relationship of the Slayer and her Watcher and his wife. She hadn’t… been around at the time. But they’d taken Faith’s death hard, she knew that much. They’d named their first born daughter after her, which just went to show how they’d felt about their charge.

Jenny hadn’t hesitated a moment in welcoming and embracing Faith.

“You know, she’s like you,” Willow said, sensing a way into a conversation about something other than feeling guilty.

“Who is?” Faith asked, looking back after Gray.

“Faith – the other Faith. The Faith I know.”

“You think?”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t think I’d have ever hooked up with a blind chick,” Faith revealed.

Willow smiled, that was the blunt way of assessing it. “Faith, the other Faith I mean, says she’s good with her hands.”

“Well, you’d know, I guess. It’s not like any of you drive stick anymore.”

Willow found herself blushing. This was someone who’d known Tara back then. In a time when Faith had probably been the only good and healthy thing in Tara’s life. And she was glad of that, that there had been someone to give her something more than the subtle tortures of the vampire. It was just where it had led that brought her to grief.

“God, I’m going to have to say it,” she blurted out as soon as she realised it couldn’t be held in. Even if she’d already said it. It needed to come out, she needed to do something – say something – to try and make it right. What Faith had said wasn’t enough. Not by a long shot.

“Go on, get it out of your system then,” Faith said, gesturing at her to bring it on.

“I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.” And I’m totally inadequate, just like the words.

“Can we leave that alone now?” Faith asked. “We do have some demon ass to kick don’t we? That’s why I stuck around, after all.”

“Yes,” Tara said, walking back into the room. “We do have demon ass to kick.”

A council of war had been called once Faith had come into the picture and it had quickly decided that the Master – and what he’d done to the people here – wasn’t going to be allowed to stand.

Willow wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Yeah, it was the Master and they didn’t want him waiting here for them. They didn’t want him ruining the… deaths of these people. Torturing them for kicks.

On the other hand… it was the Master and it really wasn’t their problem, even though they’d had some involvement in how he came to be here. It was the Master.

He’d killed her.

Owned her. Controlled her. The things she’d done for him…

And he could kill her again. He could kill all of them. And if he did… then it would really start. Then they’d belong to him. Was it selfish to wonder why, just for once, someone else couldn’t fix things?

But Faith was an influence on Tara and Jenny both. Not necessarily a bad influence, but she did up the ‘gung ho’ quotient quite considerably.

“Point one,” Tara said as she came into the centre of the room and the two smaller groups came and clustered around her. Jenny and Gray were getting on by necessity since they were excluded from the super-heroes club, as the dead man had put it. Their friend also seemed to have retained her interest in a his butt.

“T, you’re really going to lay all this out point by point?”

“I like to,” Tara replied.

“You and I never used to have the patience for that,” Faith said. “I remember Rupert trying to tell me what to do – you too a few times – and we always said that nothing we said was going to matter a damn once we got into it anyway.”

She remembered Tara saying that too, and it was true as far as it went. But going in unprepared hadn’t turned out too hot either, from time to time. “I used to work alone,” Tara told her, then started again. “Point one.”

Faith sighed and settled in for the briefing, putting her feet up on the makeshift ‘chairs’. “By all means.”

“Some of us here are alive and intend to stay that way,” Tara said.

“So that means dead boy and I are in the lead?” Faith asked.

“No, it means that if we’re forced to, Willow and I are going to look out for ourselves and Jenny.”

“Wait, just a second,” Jenny said. “Why don’t I get to look out for you two?”

Tara looked at her and Willow had some sympathy. Faith was bad enough; she didn’t need more interruptions just for the sake of making them. “You know what I mean. Same as when we went in there before, but this time we have Faith. You still have the attributes of a Slayer, right?”

Good point, Willow thought. It seemed worth checking, rather than just assuming? And this was why you talked things out – so you didn’t go in there only to find that Faith was no more physical threat than Gray or Jenny.

“Well, I don’t know what an attribute is but…” Faith’s response was… kind of typical of what Tara had described. Action orientated. “Hey, dead boy, think fast.” With that she threw a coin at him that bounced off his chest and landed at his feet.

She beat him to picking it up even after he’d missed the catch and was still blinking.

Course, that brought her up in front of him and from Tara’s expression, Willow could see that her wife recognised the look in Faith’s eyes. Of course, they weren’t much apart in apparent age and Faith was… Faith. Even here. She’d heard enough about the girl, back in the Sunnydale days, to know what she was like. The Kitten – Tara – had sometimes not shut up about her.

Sometimes she’d – it’d – had to find a way to distract and muffle her…

Back before it/she had sent Faith here.

“Too slow,” the Slayer said to him.

“Okay,” Tara said. “Faith’s still got her speed.”

“Wanna see something else?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Tara said.

Recognising the signs, Willow could tell, that sometimes violent sense of humour was aroused and now Faith just wanted to humiliate something. That or have sex. Even after this little time with her, she could tell that the two were apparently pretty close in the girl’s psyche.

Witness how she lingered while straightening up the front of Gray, and don’t think he hadn’t noticed.

“Faith…” Tara said in a low voice.

Faith ignored the warning, took Gray’s hand, gently lifted it to her breast and placed it there, a smile on her face. And then, when she was fully upright, and after pausing for one pseudo-shocked moment, “Hey! How dare you?”

“What?”

The next second Gray was flying towards the wall and only Tara’s quick reactions stopped it ending with some sort of sickening thud as she inserted as a column of thickened air behind him.

“Faith…” she growled again. Oh, Willow recognised that tone. She’d heard the very word, said the same way, more times than she cared to remember.

Of course, sometimes, Tara could say her name just the same way. Dozens of current and former pupils at the school could also testify to what that voice meant.

“Just making a point,” Faith said as she went to help her victim up.

Gray just seemed confused. “What just happened?”

“You got grabby with my tits; I had to defend my… umm… what’s that thing? Oh, yeah, my honour.”

Honour? Ha!

“I did? I mean – I did?”

Faith nodded. “Don’t worry about it, I don’t take offence easy. In fact, one day, you might like to try it again. But not right now, okay dead boy? Tara’s trying to talk and what you did was just rude and that inappropriate thing. In fact you should probably apologise – to everyone.”

Still confused, Gray mumbled something that might’ve been an apology.

Tara just shook her head. What had she expected though? This was very much the girl that the Giles’ as well as Tara remembered and had told her about. Who said that the dead felt things less?

After that Faith turned to Tara. “You were saying, T? Point two, I think?”

“Thanks. Point two. Bearing point one in mind – everyone remember point one?”

Nods all round.

“Bearing point one in mind, Faith will focus on the vampires when we get to them. Until then Willow and I will keep the acolytes off us.”

“And if you can’t I’ll see to it,” Faith inserted.

“I know you will.”

“It’ll be my pleasure. Lame ass stay at homes…”

“Us or them?”

“Them,” Faith said. “Sticking around here when there’s more out there than anyone could describe in a lifetime.”

“Hey!”

“Present company excepted,” Faith said to Gray, though she didn’t look like she really meant it.

“Point three,” Tara said, moving swiftly on. “Our objective is taking out the Master. That’s all that matters.”

“There’s another vampire here,” Faith said. “And you know it.” She was looking at Willow.

“Yes,” Tara said. “But if we have to choose, one or the other, then the Master is always the target. The other vampire – Willow – isn’t as much of a threat. She doesn’t have the… stability to plan or make things happen like he does.”

Faith didn’t look especially happy about that but then she didn’t argue with it either, which was some measure of acceptance unless she’d changed in the last few years. Wasn’t that while point a sign that she still felt she had unfinished business with her doppelganger too though?

“Target Master,” Jenny confirmed, just to emphasise the point and bring them back to it. “Check.”

“Point four,” Tara raised, obviously grateful for her friend’s support and showing that she had the numbers – even without her wife – despite the fact this wasn’t exactly a democratic event. “Target of opportunity – the other vampire. The other Willow. Okay?”

“I still think that’s freaky,” Gray said, rubbing the back of his head. “You’re here and you’re also her? Damned strange.”

“It’s like untangling knots,” Willow said in a hushed voice. “You really don’t bother unless you really want to get into it.”

“I don’t think I do,” Gray said.

“Good choice.”

“Point five, if you don’t mind, love – we have a one other priority and that’s finding the man we came here for.”

Raised eyebrows from the dead people in the room at that announcement. “You think he’s in there?” Gray asked.

“I… I don’t know where he is,” Tara replied with complete honesty.

“You remember what English always used to say to me?” Faith asked.

“He used to say lots of things to you,” Jenny pointed out. “It’s what he does.”

Faith smiled. “I guess. But he had this thing called a fools errand and I’m pretty sure that this is one of those, least it sounds that way. Come on, T. You’re looking for one, single, solitary person in the realms of the dead. Forget the Halls, that’s just the front porch. We’re talking about the entire place, a whole world out there. You have no idea where he is or probably even what he looks like - ”

“We’ve seen pictures,” Willow said. “And we kind of saw him – if not at his best.”

It was true, they had. Except Tara knew very well where Faith was going.

“What? Twenty some years ago? Those that don’t die really young, they don’t necessarily look like their pictures. Their own self-image, that’s what you see here. Usually as they wanted to be remembered, old, young. Whatever. Don’t think you can just go take a look around and there he’ll be. You might walk right past him – you might already have killed him – and you’d never know.”

“All true,” Tara said. “But that doesn’t mean that we don’t try to make this trip worth something.”

“After what you said she did, I’d be going back and kicking this girl’s ass,” Faith said. “Seriously. She doesn’t deserve any favours from you, T. Not from any of you.”

“Yes,” Tara said. “She does. Because maybe, if we get him back, she can get out of that life she’s in and go back to being a real person so we don’t have to worry about her anymore”

“It’s true,” Willow said. “If we don’t get him, she’ll stay there. She’ll try and make another deal.”

“Well, I hope she makes a better one. And one that says how you’re going to get this guy – her father – out of here. Getting into the Halls isn’t the hard part,” Faith said. “Everyone ends up here. Getting out, with one of the dead in tow, now that’s going to be the trick.”

“How do we do that then?” Jenny asked.

Everyone looked at each other and ultimately to Faith. “Since when,” Faith asked, “did anyone ever expect me to have a solution for anything beyond hit it, kick it, stake it or bang it?”

“Fair point,” Tara agreed, giving Faith a one-armed, supportive hug. “If we find him we can worry about it. If we can’t… we don’t.”

“There’s lots of other people you guys must give a damn about,” Faith pointed out. “What about them?”

“They won’t solve the problem,” Willow said when Tara stayed quiet. “And besides, they’ve had their time.”

“Okay,” Faith said. “Okay. I’ll buy into this. We spot some dude that I don’t know what he looks like and you say he needs to come with us to get him back to the living world through who the hell knows what method, I’ll do my part. Until then though, I’m sticking with hit, stake, kick and…” The slayer looked over at Gray, who wasn’t paying attention. “Bang.”

When you put it that way…

“Anything else you wanted to say, Tara?” Jenny asked quickly.

“Only that you don’t have to come this time,” Tara replied. “You can wait here and, you know, stay safe.”

“Strikes me that the safest place here is more likely to be around you three than here on my own,” Jenny replied.

“Cut the crap, Jenn,” Faith said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Cut the crap. You’re scared shitless and if you’re not then you should be. You went in with Tara once, got this one back. Great. Rupert will have a fit if something happens to you in here. Leave this to the people who know what they’re doing.”

“Blunt as ever,” Jenny said after a few moments reflection on that. What else was she going to say?

“No point in pussy-footing around the truth and what the hell is pussy-footing anyway?” Faith asked, looking to she and Tara.

“What?” Willow asked.

“Well, it must be something dykey,” Faith explained. “On account of the pussy.”

“Everything to do with the word – everything to do with that is somehow lesbionic?”

“Okay, okay, I’m out of line, obviously. Moving on. Jenny stays here. The dead boy stays with her.”

“Umm,” Gray put his hand up. “Please top calling me ‘dead boy’ and, by the way, I’d agree with you but you guys need a guide.”

“No,” Tara said. “We got close enough last time, we can find the way. But thanks all the same.”

“Besides,” Faith said. “I hung around here a little when I first arrived, before I figured things out. You know, after a few days – not twenty years or whatever. Point it I can get you where you need to go.”

If she said so…

“You’ve done enough,” Willow said to Gray, which despite him not wanting to get hurt had to be something of a let down by how he reacted. They’d hurt his pride, but given him what he wanted all the same. “But will you stay here with Jenny?”

Gray looked over at their friend and nodded. “Sure I will. She can tell me about those teeny computers.”

“Deal,” Jenny said, knowing a losing battle when she saw one. Besides which, this was going to be even more dangerous. “Do you need anything else from us?”

Both she and Faith looked to Tara, who shook her head. “Willow’s right,” she said. “You’ve done enough.”

“Glad we’re leaving you here,” Faith said. “You’ve got good kids, Jenn. They deserve to have Mom still around.”

“Yeah,” Tara agreed. “They do.”

“So how do we do this?” Willow asked.

“You said you went in there already?” Faith asked. “What then?”

“Pushed a shield of fire up a hallway, stopped the Master’s people getting at us. Fear of being burned is pretty primal.”

“True, but you can bet that he’ll have them motivated by now,” Faith said. “There’ll be some who’d jump through fire to do what he said. Some that’d torch themselves rather than return after another failure. That fanger you used to be, Willow, she’s one real motivational bitch.”

“Okay,” Willow said, pushing that connection aside. “What do you suggest?”

Tara had been thinking about it, obviously. “Do you think he’d expect we’d try the same thing again?”

“I thought we said no to the fire shield and the tunnel,” Willows said.

“She doesn’t mean that,” Faith said. “You thinking death from above?”

“It has the virtue of being tried before.”

“It has the virtue of having fucked up my leg something chronic,” Faith pointed out.

“Yeah, but things are different this time. Fewer vampires - ”

“Means fewer targets we can put down permanently,” Faith countered. “Look, do you really want to take down all these poor, dead smucks over and over until you get to him?”

“What I really want,” Tara said. “Is a way that he’ll stay dead.”

“You don’t know?” Faith asked.

“Know what?”

“What he is? I just assumed that you knew… I mean, since you were all set on doing this.”

“Umm, why don’t you assume we’re as dumb as we probably sound right now?” Jenny asked on behalf of all of them.

“I wouldn’t have said ‘dumb’,” Willow added. “More ‘oblivious’.” She didn’t do dumb.

“I’m not sure that’s much better, baby,” Tara said, squeezing her hand.

“Well, it works better for me,” Willow told her. She definitely preferred to be oblivious rather than dumb.

“If you two are done?” Faith asked. “Look, you have to understand what this place is. This is where you come when you’re dead. If your human, if you’re a certain type of demon. But vampires – no. They don’t come here period – least not as a vampire. That’s why they were such a big deal when they arrived here – and they didn’t arrive together. I guess… Well, the one that’s freaking me out because she’s sat right here too, that one arrived after him. I guess, probably, when you brought the real, human version back at your end?”

“I do have a name, you know,” Willow said.

“And I give a damn,” Faith said sweetly. “Him, he was already here. But he wasn’t what you see now. No vampire, alive or dead, comes right here. Not without something else happening.”

“Wait - No vampire?”

She and Willow must’ve had the same thought at the same time. “Oh, frig.”

“What?” Faith asked.

“No vampires… we never even thought of it.”

“Toni’s Dad. He was… turned right when he died. After he was dead. You ever read about an abomination?”

“I was never one for the book learning,” Faith said. “You know that, just assume I don’t know and it’ll keep things moving along.”

“Abomination is someone who was dead when they were turned, when the mind had died but the body was still there. They come back alright, but pure instinct. Not even as much brain as those red-neck brothers, the Gorch’s.”

“That’s definitely pretty dumb,” Faith said. “So now you’re here looking for something that isn’t here?”

Willow paused, held up a finger. “Unless he came over in that moment between death and being turned.”

“You could argue that about anyone who got turned though,” Faith said.

“You’d have been here, baby,” Tara agreed. “Between, I mean. If it worked that way.” If Toni’s Dad wasn’t here and this whole thing, all of it was for nothing. Except… they could take this place away from the Master and do everyone still alive a great big favour. “What about the Master though, what were you going to tell us?”

**************

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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/21/11)
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 10:52 am 
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Okay, Faith still has her slayer skills. That's great news. So, will Willow and Tara keep their magic when they die? Was the Master lying? What in the blue hell is he?

I don't like leaving Jenny behind with Gray. He has been very reliable so far. However, I still do not trust him...at all!

I'm with Faith on the Toni situation. If it was just about her, I would tell her to go to hell with gasoline drawers (panties) on. But, I understand the girls wanting to complete the mission just so they don't have this crap hanging over their heads.

Great update. Keep em coming!

New Thesaurus entries

Willow-effect = Makes all things in Tara's world seem possible
Faith = swagger
Faith with a stake = Swagger McDagger
Gray = dead boy
super-heroes club= Tara, Willow and Slayer Faith

Thank You edob and Kajun!

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/21/11)
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 11:02 am 
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Once again I say, there's only one character in the fic who knows everything (not that the character in question represents the writer!) and we haven't met them yet... So any or all of these perspectives can/are flawed. Until you see something happen or is stated pretty unequivocally (e.g. Faith's hardly likely to march in there without Slayer skills) then it's simply an opinion. That goes for the Master, Faith, Tara/Willow and Ethan...

That said, I'm not hiding things from you. Just playing it straight as a piece told from PoV. No mystery surprises pulled out of my ass to change everything and get myself out of a hole... :)

Gray... Hmm, something could happen with him and Jenny off together. Hmm... Still, probably safer than what the girl's are about to try!

Thank you for the updated thesaurus, though it's kind of a dictionary too :)

And again, lovely to have you along for the ride. Thanks.

Katharyn

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/21/11)
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 12:57 pm 
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Katharyn, WOW.. this was so much fun.. like the old days! It may take a while for Willow to finally accept that Faith really doesn’t blame her. For now though, there are more pressing matters. Faith got to show off her Slayer power.. at Gray’s expense. Hilarious and true to her “swagger” style going above and beyond in demonstrating what she can do. I wasn’t too surprised that Toni’s dad is still on the ”to do” list. If there is a chance to get Toni away from WaH and on to a better life they must take it. And yeah.. agreeing with SMGOVAN about Gray. Being with Jenny.. alone.. Ahhhh! No telling what he is like once there’s not an audience. He better not touch her!! What is the Master? What? What?

Also digging the Sidesteppian Thesaurus or dictionary or whatever you wanna call it!

Ready to see the super heroes club kick some dead.. undead.. vamp only something different.. whatever it is.. KICK IT'S ASS!! :grin

SMGOVAN, Heads should roll for not properly attending to your daughter’s medical needs. Better to risk a lawsuit than put a child’s health in danger. I don’t understand their “logic” at all. Maybe if they were sued for NOT administering treatment, it would force them to take appropriate action in the future. There is a possibility of getting sued either way. Treat the child first, worry about lawyers later! Prayers sent for you and your family.


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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/21/11)
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:56 pm 
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Kajun - Love your combination of summary and demand for where everything has to go now. If I hadn't already written it I might have had to be swayed... anyone remember 'Choose Your Own Adventure'? It'd be like that ;)

Maybe edob likes Gray... maybe LOL

I think it's a given that they have to close all these things down, loopholes and whatever. And since they have Faith - although she likes to take shortcuts if she can - there's even less chance they'll just walk away.

Oh, and there will be the use of a lower limb in connection with the lower torso of vampires. Yes, this will happen :)

Thank you so much.

Katharyn

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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/21/11)
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:58 pm 
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Title: The Sidestep Chronicles: Third Chronicle (Part 46 (288))
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler warning: I’m really not going to bother after all this time except to say that this fic will totally spoil my own Sidestep: First Chronicle and Second Chronicle which can be found in the Completed Fics archive (A-M)
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please. (This applies to all my stories, fics and particularly to Sidestep Chronicle as a whole.)
Summary: Revelation and planning…
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc. I am making no money from this series of stories however all original characters and situations remain my property.
Rating: The earlier Chronicles of Sidestep were much darker and I slapped a blanket R rating on them for occasional content. This series is lighter in tone caution is only recommended for occasional scenes. However to understand absolutely everything that went before you’d have to have read the first two fully so…
Couples: Tara and Willow forever. Rupert and Jenny are also married with a family. Nothing else referred to.
Text convention: We’re occasionally dealing with some deaf characters here and that has to be addressed. Speech inside asterisks is spoken in sign language only. Occasionally people responding to signed speech may do so inside speech marks, which indicates that they are also verbalising as well. Occasionally I might make a mistake and get this wrong but when dealing with a character that only signs, take it as read that they’re doing so when they “speak.”
Notes: Well, we’re close enough to the end now that I’ve managed to lay out how I’ll stretch this to 300 parts for the full Sidestep Chronicles. A little rearrangement of the ending chapters, the acceptance that some of them will be smaller scenes than others (written that way, not artificially split), but I get a kick from numbers and Three Chronicles, 300 parts is just too perfect to give up. What it does mean that I intend to add a couple of new parts. Rest assured really short scenes will be posted at least two at a time so you get something satisfying out of it (but I’m told size isn’t everything – except when you go to certain online stores, well… “small” isn’t often an option. *COUGH*)
By the time you read this though (I’ve just posted part 12 as I do so) you may already know this since I have a habit of revealing things in feedback, but at least at this point it’s new to me.
Thanks to: Kajun, for reminding me that peeps out there have anxieties about feeding back and posting. Worthwhile lesson. If I wasn’t writing I’d have probably been in the silent majority myself, struggling for something worthwhile to say. But you know what writing has given me? The absolute ability to be witty and funny in a post or IM. What it absolutely has not given me is the ability to back that up in real, live conversation unless its my chosen specialised subject… So do I mean go out and write? I dunno, but thanks anyway (coming back to the point)



The Master.

There was a certain kind of horrible logic to what Faith revealed to them about him. So much so that Willow was having trouble believing what she was saying – and showing it. Which was just annoying the woman she remembered killing…

Not the best idea, on balance.

“You’re sure?” Willow asked again.

“Trust me on this,” Faith said. “I take a certain interest in what happens to people I knew. And – for better or worse – I had reason to remember him. He was one of our finest kills.” Faith held up her hand to Tara for a high-five.

Willow had to smile as her wife’s hand slapped against Faith’s. How long since she’d seen Tara do that? How long since she’d anyone do that?

“Something funny?” Faith asked, jumping on the smile.

They really weren’t getting along all that great, no matter whether Faith had really put that snapped neck behind her… so to speak.

“Just I’ve never seen Tara do a high-five with anyone, at least not for a long time.”

The Slayer seemed to accept the explanation, subsiding a little. “You keep questioning me though. What’s up with that? I’m just telling you the way it is. You don’t know. I do. So just listen to what I say. It’s simple, book-worm.”

“It’s pretty… I just find it hard to believe he’d resort to something so…”

“It’s true,” Faith said. “When he arrived here he was human.”

“But why?”

“Speculation,” Tara said. “That’s all it can be, but didn’t we hear that he’d been brought back from beyond more than once before? That probably changed something about him.”

“Same as me…” Willow mused.

There was some logic to it when you thought about it that way. She could get into the Halls because she’d been brought back from being a vampire – and she’d arrived here human so… he had too?

“Apparently,” Tara agreed.

“You’ve always been the same, Tara. Looks like the missus is as bad. You over-think what should be very simple. Sometimes that’s a good thing, I mean there’s lots of shit I’ve just run into and regretted it later, but sometimes it’s not. Sometimes you just have to grab simple, throw it down and hump it till you get where you need to go.”

Willow’s instinct was to leap to her wife’s defence, but she bit her tongue and stayed silent. Aggravating the woman whose help they needed wasn’t the smart thing to do and maybe that was over thinking it. Besides, the metaphor wasn’t one she really wanted to follow up… Maybe Faith was just getting antsy and needed… well, to hump something simple.

Which was how she liked her men, from all accounts. It wasn’t their brains that she was really interested in and – according to the people who’d known her – she’d been pretty open about that.

Or just pretty open.

“Okay,” Tara said, also willing to mollify the dead woman, but probably not thinking the humping through since their was… well, it was a different kind that they were into.

But, Willow knew, they did owe Faith a lot, after all and her catty thoughts didn’t make her feel good about herself. No matter how true they might be.

“So the lawyers got him turned again and then what?” Willow asked. That was the thing, Wolfram and Hart had existed here and now they didn’t. The Master – if Faith was right – had come here as a human, maybe he’d already done that more than once, and… now he wasn’t human anymore.

What did it take to get turned here? Where you were already… dead? How did you move from dead to undead? She had no idea, but she was willing to bet that someone at Wolfram and Hart had.

“Then he killed them.”

“He started a revolution by killing all the lawyers,” Willow said. “It’s a classic threat, looks like he might’ve actually done it. To protect his secret…”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Faith said, losing her not exactly infamous patience.

Tara touched her arm and Willow subsided. Yeah, she had been all but calling Faith either stupid or a liar for a few minutes there. If she accepted what she was saying then… Yeah, she should just accept it and move on. Who was going to tell them anything else? Obviously Gray didn’t know any better. The Slayer was the best they had. “I’m sorry. Please, go on.”

“Then he turned on the rest of the living,” Faith said. “After what he did it can’t have taken him by surprise that he couldn’t turn them but that’s not what this place is. The already-dead, as you call them, were just…dead.

“And after the others tried to turn on him, that forced his hand. He needed power to preserve himself, he couldn’t just do it by his sheer presence – plus, he’s kind of a dick. He took over the whole place – here at least. He doesn’t have a jot of influence outside these Halls though. Believe me, if he stuck his nose out there… there are things that would tear it off.”

“So why don’t they do anything about it?” Willow asked. Why don’t you do something about it?

Okay, she was willing to believe that much – the Master hadn’t been here long, he couldn’t turn anyone so how would he manage to take control of more than he could personally hold? Faith was right. Probably. But if there were things that could take him down, oh like a Slayer, then why wouldn’t anyone have done that.

“Don’t forget,” Faith said. “We’re none of us the same here as we were when we were alive. Not me, not them.”

“They don’t care?”

“You could put it that way, it’s not the full story, but it’s about as good as I could explain it,” Faith said. “If you think you can do better though…?

“This doesn’t matter,” Tara said, patiently. “Please, look, you two just need to… cool it.”

“Baby, she - ”

“No, she - ”

“Both of you, just work together,” Tara instructed.

“Okay,” Faith said first. “I can do that.”

“Me too!” Willow said, instantly competitive and regretting it as Faith shook her head. Why did she get to be the second to say so? Wasn’t she married to Tara? Didn’t that win her something aside from a hot woman, hotter sex and all the love she could possibly handle? Weren’t there any other benefits?

“We can kill him then?”

“Don’t see why not,” Faith said. “I could be wrong. It’s been known.”

“And if you are?” Willow asked.

Tara coughed significantly.

“No, I don’t mean – Look, I’m not ragging on her. But look, if we can’t kill him – if he won’t stay dead then what?” It was something they definitely needed to know and to plan for or they were going to end up knee deep in do-do. Possibly deeper than that.

“We get out and just keep going,” Tara said.

“What about you?” Willow asked Faith, accepting that they did always have the ability to head home. At least, they thought they did…

“Like I said, he won’t stick his nose out past the boundaries of the caverns. There’s more people just here in the cavern than he can ever hope to corrupt, much as he wants to try. He won’t bother with me unless I crossed his path again. But really… we can take him out, I’m telling you.”

“Okay then,” Tara said. “That’s good enough for me.”

Willow, about to object once again, realised that there wasn’t much of anything that they could say, plan or do in the absence of any better intelligence about the Master. And no one to get it from apart from her doppelganger, who wasn’t likely to talk. Especially after that whole thing with the arm. She nodded.

“Lets get ready then,” Tara said.

“You need wood?” Faith asked.

Willow sighed, looked at Faith and the Slayer was keeping an absolutely straight face. Not a flicker of anything except a perfectly serious question.

“For stakes?” Faith clarified, talking to her as if she was stupid.

“Oh! I’m good,” Willow said. “Good for wo - good for that. But Tara might? Baby?”

“Anything you can get,” Tara said. “We won’t need many for just two vampires, but who knows how many times we’ll have to kill him? I’ll take a bag full if you can find enough.”

“Okay,” Faith said. “I’ll go get you some, I want to talk to Jenny anyway.” With that decided and no apparent need for more talk Faith got up and left the room.

Faith was a do-er rather than a talker. No matter who she was doing.

“I am sooo hungry,” Willow said, putting the slu – make that the slayer out of her mind.

“I know what you mean,” Tara said, hugging her with one arm. “We’ll be out of here soon though.”

It hadn’t been a complaint, not really and Tara hadn’t been requested to find her a solution. But… yeah. Even something as plain as a cracker would go down great right about now. The dead didn’t need food though and while furniture and other things traded from the other side might last… Not food. Not so much as a sniff, she was just having to make do with water and half a packet of gum from the bottom of Jenny’s bag.

“What’s she doing?”

Willow was looking out into the other room where Faith and Jenny were stood talking to each other.

“Please try, baby,” Tara said.

“Try what?”

“Try to get on.”

“Me? I am trying. I’m not the unreasonable one – In fact I think - ”

“You killed her, well the other you did. And she was always a little… quick to rush to judgment.”

“As well as to open her legs,” Willow said, regretting it.

Tara frowned, but ignored the remark. “So just try not to get on her bad side. She doesn’t know you – anymore than you really know her - and now that she’s met you, you’re much older than we were back then.”

“Thanks,” Willow said.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah… I know what you mean.” And she absolutely did. She was so wary of offending Faith in one way that she ended up… offending Faith in every other way. Overly sensitive on both their parts? Yeah, probably. “And I will try – I am trying. What’s she doing though?”

“Ask Jenny later,” Tara suggested, brushing the unheard conversation off.

What bothered Willow more wasn’t that Faith was talking to their friend, but that she’d deliberately stepped out to do it. Without them. Was she being paranoid? Very probably. “They have history, I guess.”

“Yeah, they really do,” Tara said, slipping an arm through hers to gently draw her away from watching the pair.

Since when had she ever been able to resist Tara taking her arm?

“That’s why she and Rupert took it so hard,” her woman went on to explain. “Faith was like their first kid in some ways, even if she came to them as a bit of a wild teenager. Definitely they were good for her too – Faith didn’t have much of a family life before she got to Sunnydale.”

“And then I killed her.”

Willow winced as she remembered the feel – as well as the sound – of that spine popping. The life-giving filaments of nerves giving way beneath the masking cover of the bone. Anticipating both the sound, the limp feel of the body and the sheer pleasure…

“Don’t dwell on it, love,” Tara said.

“It’s this place,” Willow said. “Even more with the Master here and… her.”

“Faith?”

“No, her.”

“You mean it.”

“Yeah,” Willow said. “I guess I do. I mean it. The vampire. Around here… it’s impossible to forget. Every time I turn around there’s something or someone there that I killed. Or… did other things to.”

“You’re not the only one,” Tara said so plaintively that Willow just had to kiss her. To show her that it was both okay and going to stay that way. “Thanks, love, I needed that.”

“We both did.”

“You know why we have to do this,” Tara said.

I told you why we had to do this,” Willow corrected. “He… he just can’t be here when we come back.”

“You’re right,” Tara said. “But I want to stop talking about that. We have as much of a life in front of us as we do behind us. More. After we do this then we don’t worry about that sort of thing for… thirty years or so? Okay?”

Willow pulled tighter on Tara’s arm, bringing her in closer. “Deal. Do you… do you really think it’ll be as easy as she says?”

“I think I don’t know, but we’ve both learned enough to know that you can always err on the side of staking a vampire and worrying about the rest later,” Tara said.

“Sounds like a plan.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“They seem to be done,” Willow said, straining her head to glance back through the door. “What? I’m just saying – I’m not wondering what they were talking about, I’m just saying they seem to be done and – hey, Jenny looks like she’s getting ready to leave.”

That caused Tara to sit up and take notice too, trotting through to the other ground floor room. “What’s going on? I thought Jenny and Gray were going to stay here?”

“Well, about that, T. There’s something I have for them to do.”

“You can’t send them out there, Faith,” Willow objected.

“First of all, I’m not sending them anywhere – Jenny volunteered to go and dead-boy – I mean, Gray volunteered to go with her,” Faith replied testily. “Second of all you’re not the boss of me. Third… they’re not alone. I have a friend outside waiting for them. By the way, did I mention you’re not the boss of me?”

“A friend? Really?” Willow asked.

“Don’t sound so surprised, I was friends with Tara before you even met her.”

“No – I mean – I wasn’t surprised that you’d have a friend, just that they’d be out there and close enough to do something and - ”

Tara put a hand on her arm again, cooling both the questions and the explanations. The look on her face just said ‘children.’ “Who’s your friend, Faith?”

“Slayer, mid-eighteenth century. Goes by the name of Vicky.”

“A Slayer? Why don’t you invite her in?” Tara asked.

“Because… Look. I did. I asked her to come in. I told her it’d be cool, then I told her what ‘cool’ was. But she’s a little shy.”

“A shy Slayer?” Tara asked, smiling. “Who’d have thought it was possible?”

“Yeah, well not everyone can be up to my, high standards,” Faith replied. “She’s a good kid. Just… I get the impression her Watcher wasn’t very good to her. As in downright bad at her job and fucked her right up. So… I cut her a lot of slack. You should too.”

“Can we meet her?” Willow asked. They’d met Slayer’s before, since Faith, when they passed through Sunnydale or came to pay courtesy calls the Giles’ while in the proximity of the school. That was, apparently, what you did when you were the watcher with the Slayer.

According to Rupert it demonstrated that she was okay and being looked after and well, that you were doing a good job. Generally, you showed her off. Willow had always taken an interest in getting the girls away from their parental figure for a little while, just to give them a break… so meeting this one… mid-eighteenth century? Wow.

“Sure.” Faith went to the door, stuck her head out. “Hey, Vee, come inside. No, come inside. Look, I told them about you and they want to meet you. Okay?”

More argument, but quiet… Another difference between the eighteenth and twenty-first century versions. Finally though, Faith must’ve persuaded the girl to come inside.

“These are my friends. Tara, Willow. Jenny and Gray will be the ones you take over to the circle.”

You could tell that the girl, who looked all of about thirteen, was just as introspective as Faith had said. She was barely able to make eye contact and just stood there looking worried.

“She’s kind of shy,” Faith explained again, unnecessarily. “But she’s a Slayer all right. She’ll take care of your friends. The things Vee can’t do with an double-headed axe aren’t worth talking about, are they?”

The girl did, finally, break a smile then but Willow noted that she didn’t actually have a double-headed axe with her. Or any kind of axe at all, which might technically be called a flaw in the plan.

“But where are they going? What’s this circle?” Willow pressed. Tara might not want her to run into a confrontation with Faith – she didn’t want to run into a confrontation with Faith either – but they couldn’t just let Jenny wander off with a teenage, shy Slayer either. Not without good reason. “Oh, and hi Vicky. Sorry… but…”

The girl looked at her and, seeing her eyes, Willow noted that one was green while the other was blue. Intensely blue. Maybe that was why she kept her head down? Or perhaps she just wasn’t good around people, because when the others took a moment to welcome her she looked even more uncomfortable. If that was possible.

“Trust me,” Faith said, returning to the question. “I have a hunch and the circle is what we need.”

“Good enough,” Tara said, and Willow saw something pass between Jenny and her wife in that moment. Jenny trusted Faith. Tara trusted Faith. Jenny trusted Tara and vice versa.

Now, was there a missing link in that circle of trust?

“Good enough,” Willow murmured, her own discomfort probably more to do with just not knowing what was going on.

“Right, now everyone trusts each other, lets get whittling shall we?”

Willow, like her wife, had to smile at that expression of enthusiasm. Tara – back in the day – had always loved whittling. Carving any little thing from spare wood that hadn’t been converted into stakes. It’d been a while since she’d done that – so far as Willow knew – but maybe for this occasion her woman could be tempted.

Maybe she’d make something for Vicky?

****************

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 11:36 pm 
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Katharyn, AHA. There it is. The Master killed WaH’s people after they made some kind of deal with him. He owes the firm a debt.. more so since he also destroyed their employees and a lucrative trade in art and goods between the worlds. No wonder Holland was being so “helpful” in fulfilling Toni’s wish. I’m guessing bringing VW to the hotD was part of the deal and the moment she arrived.. they began the killing spree. Typical of the Watchers to miss the big picture. The wannatouchies are dead anyway right? And they sure wouldn’t care about evil lawyers getting killed. Stupid council.

I’m not happy that Faith isn’t letting Willow and Tara in on part of her plan. But, she has taken a young Slayer under her wing (awwwwwww) and if she thinks the girl can hold her own.. well.. Jenny is in good hands then. Hmm.. what’s up with the circle? A place of sacrifice or maybe a hidden entrance to another part of the realm? A black hole? Yeah.. stake the vamps and scatter their dust in a vortex!! See if they can come back from that!

Poor Willow. This was really her deal and now Faith has stepped in and took over. I won’t be surprised when/if Willow catches on to something very important before anyone else. Not like the council always got their facts straight and Willow has damn good hunches of her own!

Looks like Vicky has already made a good impression on Willow. I’m sure if they have the time, afterwards, Tara will be happy to whittle a small keepsake for the young Slayer. That would be pretty cool. :) On to the big showdown..next?.. exciting and nerve-racking!


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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 2:53 am 
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Hey Kajun - the speculation begins again :) As usual there's a mix of good ideas and actual truth in your guesses but I shan't spoil since it's coming fast enough for you not to worry about it! Faster still since I realised I miscalculated... We'll be all done by Wednesday night so I don't leave you hanging :)

I never thought of the Watchers being very organised here. Just... dead. And yes, certainly, the wannatouchies are dead. Most everyone here is.

You'll see Faith's reasons later... And yeah, I did feel the need to give Jenny some security in the form of a Slayer. After all this isn't a safe place while the Master is in charge.

I'll give you a prize if you can actually guess what the circle is before its revealed... It's not exactly obvious. Nor is it any of those things...

Oh, BTW, Faith is working alone. There's no Council here. You think she'd really pay attention after what they sent her to do way back? Nah.

And yes, we're getting close to the showdown... about 8 to 10 parts of 'endings' so the main plot will be done within those timeframes.

Thanks again

Katharyn

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 6:24 am 
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Just had a significant moment as I finished the final polish of Part 300 of Sidestep...

All done bar the posting

Katharyn

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 10:07 am 
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Wow, done by Wednesday? That's bittersweet....So, WaH created this mess and want the girls to clean it up for them. That's just great...Luckily, for them, Tara is still obligated to the firm. I'm guessing they knew Tara would'nt go. So, they manipulated Willow into going knowing that Tara would follow. They really are a bunch of bastards. I hope the whole firm gets burned to the fricking ground when all of this is over.

Faith is just being Faith. But, i'm still nervous about the Jenny thing. Having Vicky the Vampire Slayer as a escort makes things better. But, fear of the unknown (the circle) gives me the belly rumblings.

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 10:44 am 
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Yeah, very much bittersweet. Not wanting to let go of Sidestep is what we're still doing here really... Perhaps I am supposed to write some kind of piece in the period between SS1 and SS2 LOL

If there's WaH manipulation going on then surely it begins with Toni? They'd have had to manipulate her in that scenario... wouldn't they? ;)

There's a kind of resolution of the W&H thing coming - of course - but maybe not quite so far as you suggest...

If you're all so worried about this, maybe I actually managed tension! It's weird, as a writer, you're very close to it and know where it's going. There's no tension in the writing of it. Indeed I was seriously VERY worried about all this holding up and bringing people back for more. Just goes to show :)

Thanks
Katharyn

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 10:50 am 
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Title: The Sidestep Chronicles: Third Chronicle (Part 47 (289))
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler warning: I’m really not going to bother after all this time except to say that this fic will totally spoil my own Sidestep: First Chronicle and Second Chronicle which can be found in the Completed Fics archive (A-M)
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please. (This applies to all my stories, fics and particularly to Sidestep Chronicle as a whole.)
Summary: Immediately before the attack on the citadel…
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc. I am making no money from this series of stories however all original characters and situations remain my property.
Rating: The earlier Chronicles of Sidestep were much darker and I slapped a blanket R rating on them for occasional content. This series is lighter in tone caution is only recommended for occasional scenes. However to understand absolutely everything that went before you’d have to have read the first two fully so…
Couples: Tara and Willow forever. Rupert and Jenny are also married with a family. Nothing else referred to.
Text convention: We’re occasionally dealing with some deaf characters here and that has to be addressed. Speech inside asterisks is spoken in sign language only. Occasionally people responding to signed speech may do so inside speech marks, which indicates that they are also verbalising as well. Occasionally I might make a mistake and get this wrong but when dealing with a character that only signs, take it as read that they’re doing so when they “speak.”
Notes: Sure, I could just have skipped right through to launching the attack on the Master, but what would that do other than deny us some character moments (which are my entire reason for writing, if I’m honest! I could care less about the beginning, middle and end of the story except in as much as what it shows us about the girls and their friends)
Thanks to: People who put up with my (occasionally missing) thank you notes… Bless you all.



“So I was thinking – I mean, have you thought about what it would mean for people to know that there’s something after death?” Willow asked. “I mean to know for sure that there was something here?”

Faith sighed. “T… doesn’t she ever shut up?”

“Maybe this isn’t the best time, sweetie,” Tara said, trying to keep the peace between her wife and Faith was like trying to keep the peace between young children. As best as she could tell it wasn’t that they hated each other or that there was any lingering resentment for what had happened years ago. Bygones, in fact. Faith was remarkably adept at leaving that kind of thing behind – without a lethal calling card.

This was all new, fresh, aggravation. Faith and Willow… grated on each other.

Faith had a wicked, sarcastic sense of humour that could border on cruel and Willow had one that was… very much of her own.

“No, but seriously,” Willow pressed as the negotiated the outside of the vast citadel building.

“I think Tara’s concentrating on other things,” Faith said, but that was plainly just a gambit to get Willow to keep quiet. A pretty good one, actually. Faith was learning how to work the Willster too, which was good because it was bound to be more effective than arguing with her.

Faith was right through, she was concentrating. She was maintaining that cushion of air behind them. All three of them had slipped and been slowed or caught at least once so far and it was a long time to hold that cushion there. But in terms of effort and a ‘steady as she goes’ policy, the safety net seemed like a better idea than expending much more energy – if quicker - to try and lift all three of them up where they were aiming for.

Lose her grasp on them doing that and someone would end up dead. Or deader, as the case might be. And there was still the descent from the dome to consider once they were up there. So they were making it as a climb. Okay for a super strength Slayer, you’d have thought, but even Faith had slipped. This place hadn’t been designed for easy access.

“Well,” Willow said, ignoring Faith’s attempt at manipulating her, “this will take her mind off it.”

“Goddamn, I want her mind on the thing that’s going to catch us if we fall!” Faith said. “So should you.”

“Shush,” Tara said. “Both of you. It’s like… It’s like being at school.”

Willow and Faith paused in their efforts, looked at each other. “We’re sorry.”

“Yeah. Sorry, T.”

“Willow,” Tara said. “You were saying?” See, no matter what else, Willow was the one she’d married so… Yeah, she got to have her say and it really wasn’t interfering with her ability to hold that cushion just beneath them.

But her girl better not dare use the implicit support as an opportunity to glory it over Faith. Nobody liked that sort of kid. And actually, not[i] thinking about them falling the whole time, might actually make this easier. She might’ve been right about that in the first place.

Willow, maybe catching the tone of her voice, went back into it rather than picking another fight with Faith. “So what if people knew, I mean knew as a fact rather than just believed it, that there was something after death? That you might meet a lot of the people you knew in life – whether you treated them good or bad? Would that be a good thing?”

“Are you talking about us?” Tara asked. Because they did know now. They understood very clearly that there was a future here, even some of the rules that would govern that existence. Frankly, that was kind of a relief to her.

“Maybe,” Willow said. “Not necessarily though, I mean we were clued into the mystical already. But for most normal people…”

“I think it’d scare the shit out of them,” Faith said simply.

“Why?”

“I can see where you’re going, but most people would be scared out of their tiny, safe little minds. Because everything you did would then mean so much more.”

“But this isn’t a place based on religion, is it? Or whether you were good or bad in the real world?” Willow questioned.

“Didn’t say it was,” Faith said. “I just say what I see. But you don’t get a clean slate here. We all know that. People you screwed over in life will be just as screwed over in death. Maybe that won’t matter but…” She probably would’ve shrugged but while they were trying to move up the face of the dome, fingers and toes grasping the joins between the sheets of stone as well as the occasional builders hand hold, shrugging wasn’t really a good idea.

“But any good you do,” Willow said. “Wouldn’t that follow you too?”

“I guess,” Faith said. “I didn’t do a whole lot of good for people who ever knew about it. Bit more of the screwing over.”

“And screwing,” Willow said under her breath.

Tara looked sharply at her wife. Fortunately Faith didn’t seem to have heard her this time. Besides there wasn’t anything she and Willow could say to the Slayer about less than ideally appropriate sexual relations. What had ‘they’ been doing during the time that Faith had first known her?

Yeah, so shut up lover…

“You’ve seen it now. The truth,” Faith said, “is that this is just another place. All the people in the churches and everywhere else where people go to worship, they make this big deal about life after death. Living a good life so you’ll be raised up instead of being cast down. None of that matters. Like the real world, you make your own way. In this realm… you find the place you deserve and fit in. If you don’t bother, you end up stuck right here. You put the effort in and you end up better places. Maybe worse, if that’s what you like. Everything and everyone has a place, but you’re not stuck there. It just… it gets to be habit. You get stuck in a rut, just like regular, living people.”

“I get that,” Willow said. “I just wonder what if people knew.”

“You going to tell them?” Faith challenged. “Be some kind of prophet?”

“No! But…”

“I think it’d cause panic,” Tara said.

“Let’s do it then,” Faith deadpanned over a grunt as one hand came loose unexpectedly, but she caught herself anyway.

Tara rolled her eyes after a moment of concern. “People, generally, aren’t ready to hear something like that. Even those that don’t think they believe in much actually believe in the lack of an afterlife. Those who do… well, it might rip up the tenets of a few religions. It’d be huge. People aren’t ready for ‘just another existence’ and ‘don’t get stuck in a rut’ simple as that seems to us now that we know.”

“I guess,” Willow agreed.

“Okay, fine,” Faith said. “It’ll be huge. Everyone who cares is agreed. Now can we please get back to the part where we’re trying to infiltrate a master vampire’s lair to assassinate him?”

“I think I can see the top,” Willow said.

“You said that a while back,” Faith sniped.

“Well, I thought I should’ve been able to.”

Tara just breathed, focused on the cushion of air behind them as well as where she was putting her hands and feet. Maybe this [i]was
harder than the alternative.

If they were going to keep at each other than maybe she should’ve just tried to lift them up here. Maybe they should’ve just walked in the front door again. The trouble Faith was referring to was that the dome was so large and the curve so prolonged that though it wasn’t that steep spotting the actual top was difficult to judge in distance terms.

“Actually,” Faith admitted after a few more minutes progress. “You might be right.”

“Aha!”

“It’s just the top,” Faith said.

“And it’s past the point where I’m going to tell you two to stop – I don’t know what it is that’s going on but please, just stop… competing!” Tara said. “So… So long as you’re ready for what we have to do then I really don’t care which of you is right.”

“You’re right,” Willow said, suddenly all noble. “I’d offer to shake hands with you, Faith. But… I don’t think letting go would be a good idea.”

“I’ll see your caution and raise you a ‘hell no,’” Faith agreed.

They’d be back at it the next time they had a differing opinion – of course – but perhaps peace could break out now that they were within sight of the nipple – make that the target. If Faith could work off some of that tension, beating the crap out of something, then she’d be easier to handle. And a lot of it, for Willow, was lingering guilt about killing the Slayer in the first place.

Willow still wasn’t sure how to deal with it – or Faith – how to process it. There just hadn’t been the time. Maybe it would’ve been easier if Faith had actually been mad at her.

The three of them edged up to the top of the dome. There was a hole, right at the very centre, surrounded by a large circle of stone that… Tara didn’t want to think just how much weight and pressure was bring put on that circle to keep this all up, so it was easier just to see it as the nipple and have done. What she did hope was the addition of three – pretty small – women really wouldn’t end up being the straw that broke the camel’s back in architectural terms.

Even though it was level enough now that they could’ve stood up, all three of them remained on their bellies.

“Wow,” Willow said, edging back away from the edge of the hole even though only the top her head had been pushed forwards over it anyway. “That is…”

Faith was next to look. She didn’t back off though. “Mmnn, yeah. That is…”

Tara suspected that she understood the problem, but seeing it for herself didn’t make her any less susceptible to the sheer scale. Seeing it from the inside, climbing up the outside – a long, gradual incline – didn’t prepare you. “That is a looong way down.”

“You said it, sister.”

“Too far?” Willow asked.

“Too far for the original plan,” Faith said.

“We had an original plan?” Tara checked.

“We agreed that we’d do it like the Bronze, first time around. Death from above?” Faith said.

“Yeah.”

“Well, that time you stayed up top and spat stakes at the vamps while I beat the shit out of them and this one… well, it stayed out of the way.”

“I’m here this time,” Willow said. “And this time, I have a pulse.”

“But that’s too far for Tara to get a bead on the vampires for stakes,” Faith said. “Tell me I’m wrong?”

“And there’s not enough of them,” Willow pointed out before Tara could say anything. “To make it worthwhile.”

“I keep telling you people, pointy sticks work well against other things than vampires,” Faith reminded them. “Pretty much against anything here actually. But not from here.”

“The bigger problem is I’m not sure I could get you down safely from here anyway. We’re all going down there or none of us are,” Tara said. Easing someone down on a cushion of air when she couldn’t really judge scale or distance with any accuracy… it was a recipe for broken legs, or worse.

Either that or leaving the one who was descending to be a sitting duck while she took it way too slow through being over cautious. Whether their enemy had anything that could hit someone in the air or not she didn’t know, but was it worth taking the chance?

“Okay,” Faith said. “Death from above times three then. Drop us all down.”

“Works for me,” Willow agreed. “If you think you can hold us all?”

“Fine,” Tara said, ignoring the question. She’d have to, that was all there was to it. “Then you stay with me and you hold onto me. Both of you.”

“Never a problem for the wife, right?” Faith quipped.

“Not usually, no. But you – you have to hold onto me. If you spill sideways then there’s no saying I can catch you again.”

“Don’t worry, T,” Faith said. “I’ll be sticking so close to you that your girlfriend will be getting even more jealous.”

“’More’? What does that mean - ?” Willow started to demand.

“Quit it.”

“I am not jeal - ”

“Quit it.” Tara was firm with them. “Okay, we get down there and…” She was testing them now. It was good enough for the Dirty Dozen, it was good enough for the… not-so-dirty three.

“Tara holds off the acolytes,” Faith said.

“Faith goes after the vampires,” Willow added.

“With my pointy stick of choice,” the Slayer added.

“And Willow’s the last line of defence. If the acolytes come after us then they’re going to burn,” Tara completed the mantra they’d worked on.

“Also,” Willow pointed out, “If I see him, I’m going to take him down.”

“Good enough,” Tara said. “Are we ready?”

She looked at the hole. That was a looong way down. A long way. Far enough that she could only really make out movement down there, not individuals or details about them. How in the world had he gotten this, the giant boob that they were standing at the nipple of right now, built so quickly?

Motivation she didn’t want to consider, undoubtedly.

“Five by five,” Faith said.

“And – excuse me – but what does that even mean?” Willow asked as Tara felt her wife push up against her.

“Well, right now it means that I’m about to get gay with your girl,” Faith said, pushing up on the other side of her.

Tara sighed as she put her arms around both of them and they clung to her.

“And the ‘jealous’ thing, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m younger, more… supple. Pert. All the good stuff you left behind,” Faith said. “Plus, I’ve got a rack.”

“I’ve got a rack,” Willow said. “I’m racked up.”

“Not so you’d notice,” Faith said. “What you think, Tara? We’re both pressed up against you…? You decide.”

“I think you’re hella straight,” Tara said, trying to forestall another argument when she was literally caught in the middle of them. Racks and all.

“I’d go lesbo for you, T,” Faith promised, a huge grin on her face. “Especially you being all alive and touchable cos damn, this feels… pretty good.”

“As if,” Tara mumbled. That wasn’t Faith at all.

“As if she’d have you,” Willow retorted at the same time.

“Oh, she’d have me,” Faith said.

“Well, I maybe guess everyone male has – even here!” Willow accused. “ And, hey that’s my wife you’re talking about –”

Tara couldn’t take it anymore. She just stepped off the lip of the circle – pulling them with her - and they plunged downwards, barely supported by anything. They deserved a little panic first.

Finally Faith and Willow agreed on something. “Shiiiiiiiiiit.”


***********

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 12:47 pm 
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Ha! That was great. Why don't they just pee on her to mark their territory. Poor Tara. She has a Wrinkled Willow, a Dead Slayer Faith and any minute now, an insane Vampire Willow all vying for her attention (we know who her heart belongs to). I love Faith. But, I can see how she could rub Willow the wrong way.

So, now it's on to plan b, operation nipple drop. I really want Faith to be the one to take out V.W. but i'll be happy with whomever does the deed as long as the bitch stays dead.

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:08 pm 
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Katharyn, Faith and Willow squabbling back and forth is hilarious. Willow has a valid question, but knowing the “Truth is out There” :wink and cluing peeps in would change the entire living world, not for the better, I suspect. Back to the banter.. I think Willow is starting to enjoy going toe to toe with the queen of quips. After all.. Faith still has both arms! LOL! She sure pushed a button with the lack of rack comment. Willow needs to figure out that poking Faith about her numerous sexual exploits isn’t gonna faze her. That’s like a badge of honor for the cleavage-y slut bomb! Tara sure found a way to shut them both up.. for a while anyway. LOL. Okay, here’s my first guess on the circle: It is exactly where Willow, Tara and Faith are going to land. There has to be a reason the Nipple Factory is open at it’s peak. Vampires don’t need air so why would VW design it that way? And.. if I’m correct, why would Faith send Jenny and Gray smack into the thick of it all? I’m thinking outside the box.. or in this case.. inside the Tara boob. The epicenter represents the heart of Tara! How far off base am I?

Adding: technically speaking.. you might have to take a “sidestep” to the left, or right, to get to the heart. Hee.. sidestep.. :grin


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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:20 pm 
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Kajun made a funny :lmao. I agree. I think it would be total anarchy if people knew there would be no reprocussions for doing evil deeds. No reward for being good (Heaven) or punishment for being bad (Hell) would allow people to live uninhibited. While I believe some people would still live virtuous lives, a whole lot more would allow their dark sides to rule their existence. I know i've been tempted to do great bodily harm to people a time or two. The only things that stopped me were Fear of Jail and Fear of the wrath of God!!!

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 3:24 pm 
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I was wondering how to get through the extra parts necessary to make the new schedule... an extra one now since you've already read this then. Timezones can be useful!

Pee on her, SMGOVAN? Kinky... So you want Faith to kill VW? We'll have to see then won't we? :)

Thanks, but back to you in a minute

Kajun - It was very easy to get Faith and Willow arguing. In their own way they both want Tara's attentions, and they're natural rivals too... Which isn't to say you're wrong. Willow might well be enjoying herself, after all she keeps pushing it. But I can only see Faith as the winner in a rack - sorry, quip, comparison!

You're right. Faith doesn't care that Willow's a one woman gal. She doesn't see herself as slutty or if she does, she doesn't apply the negative to it.

Circle guess... while true this is A circle. It's not THE circle. You kind of provided your own evidence, since Faith was unlikely to send Jenny there, even with Vicky.

Thanks

SMGOVAN Redux - That's fairly deep stuff! I will allow you to read on though.

Speaking of which...

Thanks and enjoy what follows. I think it's what you wanted.

Katharyn

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 3:25 pm 
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Title: The Sidestep Chronicles: Third Chronicle (Part 48 (290))
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler warning: I’m really not going to bother after all this time except to say that this fic will totally spoil my own Sidestep: First Chronicle and Second Chronicle which can be found in the Completed Fics archive (A-M)
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please. (This applies to all my stories, fics and particularly to Sidestep Chronicle as a whole.)
Summary: The confrontation with the Master.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc. I am making no money from this series of stories however all original characters and situations remain my property.
Rating: The earlier Chronicles of Sidestep were much darker and I slapped a blanket R rating on them for occasional content. This series is lighter in tone caution is only recommended for occasional scenes. However to understand absolutely everything that went before you’d have to have read the first two fully so…
Couples: Tara and Willow forever. Rupert and Jenny are also married with a family. Nothing else referred to.
Text convention: We’re occasionally dealing with some deaf characters here and that has to be addressed. Speech inside asterisks is spoken in sign language only. Occasionally people responding to signed speech may do so inside speech marks, which indicates that they are also verbalising as well. Occasionally I might make a mistake and get this wrong but when dealing with a character that only signs, take it as read that they’re doing so when they “speak.”
Notes: Of course, the best laid plans never work out quite as you expect. That’s as true of writing as it is for the characters in this part of the story. This is something that – in this fic – just has to be done. The moment of crisis and the point at which faith (small f! No conspiracies!) is tested.
Thanks to: Since I’ve finalised four parts today with various thanks on them I’m just going to go back to my girl…



That things weren’t going to go as planned didn’t actually occur to Willow.

At least not while they were falling – make that ‘hurtling’ - to the ground. Luckily Tara was able to offer them enough support that their descent was relatively even and they weren’t tumbling.

Broadly they were managing to stay upright, in a standing position and if they hit the ground this way – at this speed - then her kneecaps would be blasted out the top of her body and left up around her ears.

It also wasn’t a problem that she and Faith didn’t manage to subdue their panicked ‘shiiiiiit’ for long enough that someone below had to have heard it.

No, the problem was something she noticed in those few seconds of freefall and – with the air rushing past her mouth – was unable to communicate to the others.

Tara was aware of her panic, that was true, the connection they shared was more than specific enough for that, but the detail she’d have to discover for herself. This wasn’t the time to try touching her wife’s mind and putting definite impressions there. Focus, Tara, focus.

It was something for after they hit – or ideally touched – the ground. Tara needed to be focusing on that because the ground was rushing up awfully fast. Wasn’t her woman ever going to slow them down?

The fear of being mashed against the marble floor inside the dome conflicted with what she’d seen down there and ultimately trust in Tara was all that allowed her to prioritise. Tara would get them down safely, that was a given. If she didn’t then she wouldn’t have to worry about the other thing anyway…

Apart from landing on top of them.

The Master hadn’t been idle since they left here…

Children.

There were children down there.

The tiny figures got larger as they descended and some of them just became visible.

Babies. Small children and toddlers running around uncontrolled by parents or adult figures.

He was going to try to make them kill children to get to him? That was what he had in mind? A junior human shield? Of course, these would be children that were already dead… Children who’d never grow up in this place? It shouldn’t matter if they were already dead. It shouldn’t… look what they’d done to the adults.

But, of course, it did. And he knew it. Understanding people, victims, was a part of his success.

“Goddaaaaaamn him,” Willow gasped, if only to herself as the words were whipped away from her mouth and left behind while they kept falling.

If Faith had seen them then the Slayer was definitely more worried about the up-rushing ground. “Taraaaaa. Now. Now. Now. Nowwwww!”

The brakes still didn’t actually go on but Tara didn’t seem to be worried or panicked. She seemed… serene.

Good for her, though it might’ve been easier for she and Faith if Tara had actually been looking at the up rushing ground instead of just ‘feeling’ it.

Because neither of them wanted to ‘feel’ it hit.

So, even with Tara not seeming to pay attention, they didn’t actually ‘slow down’ but they did fail to slam into the ground.

Yay for failure. It was her new favourite thing.

Instead, about ten feet up, they ran into a very literal airbag and that was when Willow understood what Tara had been doing. Focusing on something sufficient to catch them rather than a neat slowing down. Once cushion of air, static. It was simple genius.

The cushion was bouncy and fortunately was up to the task of absorbing the energy of their descent. God forbid they’d let go of each other though because any sort of tangle might still have broken arms and legs. Instead, the cushion absorbed most of their speed and then they bounced up off it to one side.

Expecting to be cushioned again when they came down, Willow was sorely disappointed. And it was going to get even more sore as – instead of that soft landing – she hit the ground on her butt with an “Ooof.”

Faith’s landing was rather more catlike, absorbing the force through her bent knees and instantly ready with her stake in hand.

Tara stumbled but Faith’s grip on her kept her upright and they fell into each other’s arms in a pose that might’ve made Willow jealous if she hadn’t known the cause of it.

“Thanks,” she gasped, hand instantly clutching her sore butt. No one had thought to catch her then?

They’d landed in the middle of the area covered by the dome and as you’d expect pretty close to the Master’s throne. Since the vampire had a sense of the dramatic and what his placement should be. Right in the centre, commanding the entire space.

It wasn’t the Master that was sat on the throne though.

It was the vampire that was wearing her face, lounged across it in ways that leather pants had never been designed to be flexible enough for but millions could appreciate. It was practically begging for a wardrobe malfunction and yet… The vampire didn’t seem concerned either by that possibility or even by their presence.

Faith didn’t hesitate; she was on the move towards the creature instantly.

The phrase was ‘target of opportunity’ and Willow remembered Faith’s determination to take up that opportunity but she was also absolutely conscious of the children that were all around them and… the smell. God, the smell…

“Tara…” she warned.

“I know,” her wife said. “Faith! NO!”

Credit to her, Faith’s reactions were more than up to the task of obeying the tone of command in Tara’s voice and she stopped, just as the vampire wagged a finger at her like a recalcitrant school crossing guard. “Uh-uh,” it said, and then brought one hand up from where it had been draped across the edge of the throne. One hand… since the other was raw, pink and had somehow grown back.

Oh, that just wasn’t fair – and neither was what it was showing them.

There was a child in it’s grasp, an infant. No more than a few months old and presumably fated to remain that way forever.

“It’s already-dead,” Faith said, but she didn’t sound like she believed in taking the action she was advocating anyway. She didn’t sound much like she was trying to convince them either.

“Wait…”

“Yes, do wait,” The Master’s voice filled them, booming around the acoustics of the place. It was difficult to get a handle on where he was, but eventually Willow spotted him.

“Faith,” Tara repeated, “Please… just wait. Don’t you smell it?”

“Smell? Smell what?” The Slayer edged back towards them though and they were a group again. No one was exposed.

“Good doggie,” Vampire Willow said, putting the child in her lap and stroking its hair, though it’d been Faith she was talking to. “Sit. Roll over. Ruff! Ruff!”

“Don’t get over emotional about this. It’s already-dead,” Faith said again. “Just like me. That’s why it’s here and… the poor thing isn’t going anywhere. Isn’t getting any older. We hesitate because of that and you two are going to be dead too – stuck here.” She was just starting to look around at the multitude of kids in the immediate vicinity.

All sound logic and Willow had a lot of sympathy for what Faith was saying, but…

“Look around us,” Tara said.

Children, from the age of that infant right up to ten year olds. In the context of how many there must be here, not many. But enough. Hundreds. The older ones watching over the younger ones, or at least some of them were. Young demons in the mix. A true rainbow of races and species. Which just went to show… everyone died. Sometimes they died long before their time.

Faith whispered. “Vicky and Jenny must’ve got there too late. Jesus…”

“He won’t help you now,” the Master said. “Believe me. Plenty have pleaded for him already. I’m still waiting for him to take my call.” He was stalking amongst the children, the threat didn’t have to be explicit, it was just plain obvious.

Children…

It was low, Willow thought, even for him. But inevitable. When you wanted a human shield and your acolytes had previously been burned and tossed around like straw dolls, this was something that had stopped them in their tracks. He’d known they’d come back to him and he’d taken steps to deal with it. To make them at least hesitate. “Don’t you smell that?” she asked.

“What?” Faith asked, but she was sniffing and obviously detected something that overcame her irritation.

“Oil of some kind?” Tara wondered.

“Mmm, yes, Kitten…” the vampire on the throne said. “It’s all over… we had all of our pets scrubbing it and when your little girl uses her fire. Whoosh! Barbecue.” She licked her lips. “By the way, it’s lovely to see you again… I’ve waited so long. And you brought gifts, for me.”

Willow who objected to being called a little girl, but not so much to being called Tara’s, lifted her foot and found her shoe was adhering to the ground a little. “It’s all around us.”

All around where the children were too. She pushed the mental process – sometime reflexive – to call flame to her fingertips right to the back of her mind. Far away. Right now she was anti-flame, anti-sparks and anti-smoking of any kind.

“No water here to wash it away with either,” Tara commented.

“So you’re saying that if we make a move then it can’t be using the fire you were promising would be all kinds of effective?” Faith checked.

“Or the whole place goes up, including us.”

“Couldn’t you live through that?” Faith asked, looking at them. “I mean, you used it – you said you walked through that fire barrier Tara used before.”

“I guess – depends how long it burned,” Tara said. “Will’s better at it than I am. But the kids…” Fire didn’t just kill. It hurt and everything here was capable of feeling pain.

“I know he’s raided the Circle,” Faith said. “I can’t believe it but…”

“Wait, the Circle?” Tara asked. “What is that? Isn’t that where you sent - ”

“Jenny and Gray…” Willow completed for her wife.

“And Vicky,” Faith said. “It’s partly why I sent her. To watch over it but he must’ve got there hours ago to be able to get all these kids over here. Jenny won’t have run into them... The circle is… It’s like a crèche, I guess,” Faith said. “You can see, children here… they always remain children. Some of them are old enough that – in time – they mentally get to be more than they were when they died. Others… it’s just too young, they’re not physically capable of ever looking after themselves but – when you don’t need food or water – you can’t just leave them lying around anyway. So… the Circle.”

It made a horrible kind of sense. Without the awareness to develop some kind of self-image children would be stuck where they were, so even though adults would reappear here as they saw themselves, perhaps in their prime, there was no prime for these kids.

“And they stay there forever?”

“No,” Faith said. “There are places, outside, where kids can be taken or go for themselves. Good places, I guess. But it doesn’t happen for a while if they can’t make their own way. Someone has to take them.”

“So why did you send Jenny there?” Tara asked.

Willow just had a flash of insight, bearing in mind what Faith knew. “Don’t answer that,” she said instantly, preventing just that. She didn’t want the Master hearing it.

Her realisation – and the block on it – must’ve told Tara what she needed to know anyway and she signalled her agreement on silence.

Which left the question of whether Jenny and Gray were here now. Despite what had been intended to keep them out of it… Had they been taken? Was Faith right that they’d have gotten there after the Master had taken what he wanted. He’d only brought a few of the kids from there, surely, even if it seemed like a lot right now. But if they had run into his people… What had happened to that tiny, shy Slayer if they had?

It seemed unlikely, because if he’d run into them then he’d have had Jenny front and centre as a human shield, not some kids.

Unless the crazy vampire had gotten to her first and been unable to resist a bite of its former teacher… Willow well remembered the plans that her doppelganger had made with vampire Xander over just what they were going to do to the Whitehats and those around them. Jenny’s hat had been about as white as it’d come without being a Watcher herself and the plans had been… more involved and prolonged since they’d both had more than one interest in her.

“Do you see - ” she hissed. Just in case she was missing something, three pairs of eyes were better than one.

Faith shook her head, so did Tara. Neither of them saw their friend.

That’s a good thing, Willow told herself more than once. A very good thing.

“So have you taken stock, children?” The Master asked, after waiting in silence while he toured the place. “Do you understand?”

“I understand that you’ve broken every convention, every law - ” Faith said.

“Spare me! You were never one for the rules, Slayer. Oh yes, I remember you. I do remember those who kill me – and there’s been a few over the years. But you were the only Slayer. Congratulations on that – how’s death working out for you?”

“It was better before you got here,” Faith said testily.

“I could say the same.”

“Attacking the Circle - ”

“Children don’t usually interest me,” he said pushing a claw up under the jaw of one whimpering child. “But I knew that they’d interest you. What those two witches did earlier… very impressive if ultimately pointless and serving my interests. Besides, my former protégées predilection for fire became a little disconcerting.”

“It would’ve been more than that. Let the kids go,” Willow demanded.

“I don’t imagine you think I’ll just do that,” he said.

No, she didn’t, but talking was giving her and Tara – hopefully even Faith – the chance to think of another way through this. Their plan had just gone out of the window and now they were playing it by ear.

He wanted something, even if it was just to be left alone.

“And don’t think I’ve forgotten your woman’s taste for stakes either. You’re both impressive in your own ways. But I do suggest that you drop that piece of wood.”

Tara’s stake dropped to the ground with more of a wet thup, falling into a pool of the oil that could incinerate them all.

Willow’s mind was awhirl; she was trying very hard to think outside the box – to avoid calculating the casualties or how likely it was that killing this place would really go up if she made any use of the element that served her best. Those weren’t really options. Not in any serious world. Whether the kids were living or already-dead.

But then it came to her, she could remove the threat of the oil – with Tara’s help.

“I’m bored of this already,” Willow said. “Bored of it all.”

She felt Tara’s eyes turn on her, Faith’s too. They didn’t know what she was doing and they might not be very happy once they did. But she was depending on them to realise and to react appropriately. At the right moment.

Of course that was a lot of guess work.

“I want out,” she said, refusing to meet Tara’s eyes even when her wife squeezed her hand. “I want to come back.”

The Master’s eyes narrowed. He was suspicious. Of course he was. But he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to be human and she could play to that.

“I don’t want to die, some sack of old meat getting saggy and decrepit,” she said. “I still remember it all, did you know that? I want it all back.”

Faith was the one who sold it, whether she was playing along or actually believed what she was hearing because of their antipathy. “You colossal bitch. Once a vampire always a fucking vampire.”

“Quiet, Slayer, you’ll get your chance.”

She glared at Faith, all the animosity she really did feel channelled into convincing the Master that this was really how she felt about the Slayer.

Did Faith get it?

Tara would. Tara would know it was a ruse. But the vampires would be a great deal easier to convince, surely.

“I can see how that would be… unappealing,” The Master said, slowly.

“You can make me what I was again, can’t you?” she begged, letting the old memories guide her. The subservience he wanted and she was happy to display in the presence of his power. “Make me whole?”

The vampire Willow had already slunk to his side. “Make her. I want her and the Kitten. I wants them both…”

His problem – she hoped – was that he couldn’t actually turn her. He’d have to find a way and that would give her even more time. Time would equal opportunity…

He didn’t believe it either. He wanted to, but he didn’t believe it because he had too much common sense. Less mercurial than the doppelganger, his mood wouldn’t change at the sight of something shiny. There would be tests caution and doubt… It wouldn’t just happen if he believed her at all. “Pick a child then,” he said.

“What?” Talking of tests…

“Pick one of the mewling meat bags, one that you’d have appreciated in the old days, Willow. Show us you still have your… good taste.”

A test then. That was clearly it. She had to, she had to play along and besides… this was a chance to keep one of these kids safe. Or at least safer. As such she walked around, away from Tara who protested by saying her name in barely more than a whimper. She didn’t dare make eye contact though… to give it away too early. Tara knew what she was doing, of course she did, but that wouldn’t be something she could hide looking into each others eyes.

The Master was perceptive enough to know he was being deceived, even if he already suspected it.

Picking out a child was more a question of age. A near newborn – no matter how long it might’ve been here – unable to do anything at all to protect itself. It’s clothing and blankets already sodden with the oil.

“Nice, barely more than a morsel but enough… Rip its throat out,” he said.

“What?”

“Show me the desire.”

“I’m not a - ”

“Show me you want to be and we’ll discuss it.”

Walking over towards him, carrying the child by the back of the sodden clothes – no poop and puke in this realm – she prepared herself for what has to be done.

“Do it,” he said. “You remember how and you still have teeth if not fangs.”

And that was the terrible thing. She did remember how.

“Do it. Do it. Do it,” the doppelganger said over and over. So excited it’d forgotten it’s interest in the Kitten – Tara.

“Willow…”

Tara was there and… yes, she was ready. She wasn’t sure what she was ready for but she was definitely ready. Willow did, finally, meet her wife’s eyes. He couldn’t see her, but he could see Tara’s reaction and it did appear sad.

“I’m sorry, Tara. You don’t know what it’s like… to remember. To have all that inside of me and to be getting… old. Even with you. I just can’t… I have to get out of this…” One last emphasis. As for Faith, she’d had about as much warning as she was going to get. Willow turned back to the Master, hiked the child up on her shoulder and encircled it in her arms in what she hoped was a predatory manner. “I’m ready.”

“Then take what you’ve been missing,” he said, granting her the permission to take an innocent life, albeit one that had already been taken by fate or some other circumstance.

She was close now, close enough that she could smell the leather on him. The dead thing that he was. Much deader than anything else here.

“Is this the only way?” she asked.

“Of course it is. The blood always tells.”

“Very well then.” She lowered her perfectly human teeth towards the neck of the child and for one, terrible, moment she knew that Tara was actually convinced that those jaws would close – whether she did actual harm or not. Because the child would come right back, somewhere safe… or at least safer than this. But Willow hesitated. “Wait.”

The Master was back on alert, of course. But she was where she wanted to be, holding the child – which was squirming now – more tightly. It hardly mattered because Willow threw one arm around him too and grabbed him even more tightly.

That was where it should’ve started to get messy. He should’ve shrugged her off. Thrown her across the room. Sliced her open with his claws or ripped her head off. Any of these things he could’ve done.

But instead…

Willow didn’t hesitate or pause. She did the last thing he could’ve been expecting.

She lit them both up.

*************

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 5:07 pm 
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Katharyn, AHHHHHHHHH…. Frickinfrakinflippinflappinfuuuuuuuuuuuuu…

What a slime ball. To use children as a shield? The Master would give Satan a run for his money. So the person from the circle is the one you’ve mentioned before, in feedback replies, right? The only ONE who knows everything about the hotD. Did Willow see Jenny there, hiding amongst the children? Which would mean, hopefully, Vicky is there too. How do you remove the threat of oil? Turn it into coal? It would take a higher temperature to ignite. Tara would have to turn everything surrounding Willow, the baby, and the Master into coal and use air to lift the burning trio away from the combustible material and out of harm’s way. Then what?... Or what?..

HOLY SHIT! I cannot even guess what Willow figured out that she doesn’t want the Master to know and how they are going to get out of this mess. OMG! WTF is going on??? Don’t leave us hanging too long… please..


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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 5:14 pm 
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Un-Holy Shit!!! Piro Willow lit his ass up!! If she can walk through fire, she can most certainly survive this. V.W. is insane. She is so easily distracted. But, i'm shocked that the Master fell for the game...or did he?

The reveal on the Circle was upsetting. But, is very logical based on the rules of HotD. At least they don't have to lay around in soiled diapers for all of eternity. I'ts not much of a consolation. But, at least it's something?

Where in the world are Jenny, dead-boy and Slayer Vicky? (jury is still out on Gray)

I'm all revved up!! I don't want it to end. But, i'm super excited to see what happens next!!!

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 5:35 pm 
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I think I got it! Or at least part of it.. Toni's child. That's why Faith sent Jenny to the circle and Willow didn't want the Master to know. Coz the evil bastard would take great pleasure in using ONE child against them all. AHHHHHHHH..


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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 10:27 pm 
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Kajun (Twice!) - Actually no, the person who knows what's going on isn't in the circle... Or at least I didn't put them there - I mean, maybe they are and they didn't tell me. I'm only the writer.

And yes, he's slime...

It may not be that the circle is actually circular at all. It may be a metaphorical one, if you think about it. If you have a lot of kids to worry about, you need more than just a circle! Even if they don't need feeding and changing.

The threat of the oil... well, we'll see very shortly :) But your idea, wow if I knew stuff like that then I'd have definitely done that!!!
And no, you know I won't keep you hanging on long. Just a matter of minutes now...

As for your second post, the speculation... You're reaching a little... why does the Master know anything about Toni's kid? Or Toni? But if he did, sure...

Thanks :)

SMGOVAN - We have PyroWillow do we now? PW? Did the Master fall for it? No, but he wants to. And he probably has a hard time believing anyone is content to get old and die, to NOT be a vampire - especially when they know what it was like. After all he's gone back to it several times...

Yeah, the circle was a logical necessity based on the rules I'd established. I had an 'oh shot' moment when I realised what no growth, returned in your prime would mean. I could've let them grow to some level, I suppose but that would've fundamentally changed the nature of the realm. I think though, for the ones who aren't very young, it wouldn't be so bad to stay a child... I mean, we all look back to it.

Where are the others? Well, we can't assume that everyone's timing was identical... even in my world of coincidence and fate :)

I don't want it to end either, but very soon now we will be at the end of the 'adventure' and into the finale for a number of parts... shutting character threads down and the like... Stick with me. As it says in the notes, at least that - unlike the end(s) of Return of the King - you can go to the bathroom!!!

Next part coming... now.

Thanks so much

Katharyn

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 10:29 pm 
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Title: The Sidestep Chronicles: Third Chronicle (Part 49(291))
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler warning: I’m really not going to bother after all this time except to say that this fic will totally spoil my own Sidestep: First Chronicle and Second Chronicle which can be found in the Completed Fics archive (A-M)
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please. (This applies to all my stories, fics and particularly to Sidestep Chronicle as a whole.)
Summary: The battle.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc. I am making no money from this series of stories however all original characters and situations remain my property.
Rating: The earlier Chronicles of Sidestep were much darker and I slapped a blanket R rating on them for occasional content. This series is lighter in tone caution is only recommended for occasional scenes. However to understand absolutely everything that went before you’d have to have read the first two fully so…
Couples: Tara and Willow forever. Rupert and Jenny are also married with a family. Nothing else referred to.
Text convention: We’re occasionally dealing with some deaf characters here and that has to be addressed. Speech inside asterisks is spoken in sign language only. Occasionally people responding to signed speech may do so inside speech marks, which indicates that they are also verbalising as well. Occasionally I might make a mistake and get this wrong but when dealing with a character that only signs, take it as read that they’re doing so when they “speak.”
Notes: I’m told there should be ‘action beats’ in stories. Well, we’ve had a couple, with me living up to that ‘instruction’ but this is the one that always had to be here. Now, as a writer, I’ve been kind of curious about how you guys see this sort of thing. You know we’re towards the end of the fic. You know that I’ve always said ‘Tara and Willow – happy and together’ so (unless you’re paranoid I will kill them and leave them here and together in the Halls of the Dead) you know where it’s going, so… As a reader, I think I’d be looking for the how and the hopefully cool stuff about it rather than actually ‘worrying’ about our characters. Or is that just me? (Disclaimer: This notes section makes no claim of coolness in the part that follows. Any coolness that may be found is not the responsibility of the author and – in fact – is in the reader’s own perceptions. Any lack of coolness probably has more to do with the author because this writer… isn’t cool. Coolness may cause shortage of breath, tears, rage or acne. Always read the label.)
We’re into the final ten parts – including this one – now… 300 here we come.
Thanks to: Back to those who helped me out so much in the old days… three or four beta-readers no longer around these boards… Miss you all.



Tara wasn’t completely certain what was about to happen but she felt that she a good enough idea...

Since it was Willow’s play and they hadn’t exactly had a chance to discuss it, she just had to be as prepared as she could be. The ‘hints’ she thought Willow had been giving her suggested the need to put out a fire, really, really fast and there was a certain genius to that if it was the case.

The Master was all prepared to prevent Willow using her fire when in fact all Willow probably needed to do was just to burn some of the flammable liquid off. The trick was the need to protect everyone else from it while she took away that supposed advantage.

So the whoosh, when it came, was – fortunately – what Tara had been expecting. Put it out. That was what Willow had meant. She was igniting all of the oil around them, hence the whoosh, and expecting Tara to ensure that it never actually burned beyond that. Not anything and especially not anybody.

And so she’d already been there, prepared and did what she was expected to, blanketing the whole area in a very thin layer of carbon dioxide, already pushing the oxygen away in just the same way as – coming into the citadel the last time – she’d fed the fire the oxygen it needed to sustain it. Once again, that’s what she knew she was doing but not how she was actually going about doing it.

That she needed and wanted to achieve that was enough. That and the fine control over their respective elements that she and Willow had been working on for years and years.

The ignition took, but so did the suppression. The flames died everywhere… except around the Master… which was something she hadn’t planned. She just wanted them out, and that meant Willow was the one who was keeping the flames going there. Overwhelming her efforts to the contrary.

Fine, if that was her plan then Tara wasn’t about to worry about it overmuch.

Everywhere else there was a kind of ‘burp-whoosh’ between ignition and the extinguishing. From the centre though, the flames were intense and noisy. Willow had the child under one arm –seemingly untouched - and the Master in the other and… to look at Willow you’d have said she was burning too. Tara knew that wasn’t quite true, Willow was protected. So would the child be. But the Master…

He was burning.

As the for other vampire, Willow’s doppelganger, it had leapt up onto stone throne, like the archetypal housewife brandishing a broom at the cartoon mouse that was running around her heels, except this mouse was flaming.

“Faith!” The name came out as more of a hiss, but it was taking all her effort to keep down the fires that were flaring all over the area. A few would spring to life but she could react to them fast enough that no one would get more than a little singed hair. But she had to focus on that, feeling the change in the air – it was all around her of course - as flames sucked in oxygen to feed them.

Hiss or not, Faith didn’t need telling twice.

The Slayer surged into action and Tara actually thought that she saw jets of flame on the soles of Faith’s boots, where the oil was being dragged up from beneath the blanket of carbon dioxide and brought close to other ignition sources.

Faith didn’t deviate from the unspoken plan either, figuring out what was happening pretty quick and now just doing her thing. Tara was still fighting fires, but giving as much of her attention as she could to both Willow and Faith – both of whom were now focused on the same target. The Master.

The uber-vampire was being driven wild by pain and the goddess only knew how Willow was hanging onto him as well as protecting the child that she was carrying. As the Master thrashed in her embrace, she kept them both – apparently – burning. It was easy to see parts of the ancient creature - for all he’d been recreated anew - dissolving where the fire had burned him a second or two too long.

Eventually he’d totally combust if this carried on but for now he was mad as hell.

But then so was Faith.

The Master, perhaps realising there was a more immediate threat to his existence than Willow, tried to bodily throw Tara’s wife at the onrushing Slayer. Faith sidestepped without even breaking stride and Willow went clattering, rolling neatly as she’d never been trained to do and sheltering the now squealing child with both her arms.

The Master was still on fire though as the Faith reached him which – for a short period – actually gave him an advantage with his arm and skin threatening to burn her.

His newest attacker wasn’t put off by the fear of that kind of pain though. She was – or had been - a Slayer, experienced in fighting vampires and risking life and limb to do it. Tara had seen her get beaten, sliced and cut up enough times. Helped her wash and heal a few of those injuries too.

In combat against a Master Vampire – and Tara had only met a few of those in her long ‘career’ – the Slayer didn’t enjoy so many of the advantages that she did against other, more normal vampires. She was stronger, faster and hardier than most. But against a truly ancient vampire that wasn’t the case at all. If anything, she was overmatched.

The Master was wounded though, injured and frantic as he realised his own mortality. He certainly fought like someone who knew he could not only lose but be destroyed entirely.

Which was reassuring… she hoped. If he thought he could die, without coming back, then that was good enough for her. He must’ve known the rules to get the lawyers to bring him back at all.

Before he killed them all.

The combat was harsh, it was personal and it was devilishly fast, almost impossible to follow except where one of them managed to connect with the other and there was some sort of visible reaction. Both of their movements were a blur, compounded by the smoke and shimmering air which just gave it all a movie like quality.

The battle flowed one way and then the other, Faith took some blows but she delivered a few too. The thing was that – despite her presumed lack of action in this realm – Faith had kept her skills intact and Tara could tell always had her stake poised to strike even if she was feinting more than actually trying to drive it home into his chest.

Like a boxer, holding the right hand back and ready to deliver the hammer blow, so Faith was with the stake. It twirled in her fingers, shifted from hand to hand in fact as well as switching from fore to backhand while she punched, kicked and swept to trip him up. But it was always there, always threatening.

And the Master couldn’t have been unaware of it, but he was smouldering and even burning in places and under attack by a woman who had nothing in particular to lose.

A woman who was fighting for her friends and had back up.

A woman who couldn’t die again. If he killed her, she’d be right back here a few minutes later – something that might now work against him rather than furthering his twisted manipulations.

Meanwhile Willow was gathering up children, pulling them bodily – and pushing them through the judicious use of magic – away from the worst of the oil. Just in case… Tara couldn’t fault her as she gritted her teeth and kept the CO2 level up across the whole of the ground. Large scale and yet also with precision, no wonder she didn’t she had much left to do much else.

But Faith was holding her own, at least for now.

“Hold on, baby,” Willow said.

“I’m holding. I’m fine. Get those guys, over there,” she nodded where she meant for Willow to go.

She realised, just at that moment, that she’d lost track of the other Willow. Then she hadn’t anymore because the vampire jumped down between the two of them.

“Willow…”

“Don’t worry, honey, the bitch is mine,” her wife said, shoving a young child into the arms of an older one and then turning on the doppelganger.

With the Master still active – and increasingly suffering from both his burns and the damage Faith was inflicting – Tara didn’t have much choice but to let it be that way.

Of course the other advantage was that Willow – her Willow – could, theoretically, let rip with elemental power without any danger from the oil. In reality though, Tara hoped her wife stayed cognisant of the danger. Fire was an imprecise offensive weapon at the best of times and there were far too many of the children around for her to start messing around that way, not that Willow would ‘mess around’ but accidents happened.

For all that every one of those kids was in the Halls for a single, simple reason that was no cause to put them through trauma unnecessarily. And the Master had known it… that was why they were here, now.

Talking of children, Willow pressed another child she’d been carrying into Tara’s arms with the seeming blessing of the vampire she was facing off against. She didn’t delude herself that either Willow was looking for a fair fight, but quite possibly neither of them wanted to win – or lose – because of that sort of advantage either.

It was, if you thought about it, typical Rosenberg competitiveness. You had to be the best and you couldn’t be the best if you weren’t demonstratively the best. And what use was being the best unless the person you’d beaten knew it?

Tara kept her concentration on quelling any flare ups, watching children with the rest of her attention and snatching them away from running into the battles that were raging.

Meanwhile Faith was still fighting the Master who had – at least – managed to put himself out. A little side effect of what she was doing, suppressing the flames, was that when Faith knocked him to the floor then the fire that was burning wherever he went under that thin layer was extinguished.

He wasn’t anywhere near stupid and rolled a couple of times when that happened.

But he was damaged. Fortunately the child Willow had thrust at her wasn’t and aside from a little singeing seemed to be just fine, which meant that she could return her attention to the matter at hand.

“Stake,” Willow said.

Tara reached into her bag, threw it towards her wife only to have the vampire doppelganger of her skip between them and snatch out of the air. “Thank you, Kitten. Always so thoughtful. What else have you got in there? Anything we can enjoy?”

The idea of a vampire using a stake would’ve been absurd if it hadn’t been so serious. It hardly needed any more of an advantage.

While Faith parried renewed attacks by the Master vampire, Willow and Willow circled each other and Tara did manage to get another stake to her wife. The sporadic fires were lessening now and all the sources of ignition were under control, freeing her to take part in this melee.

Wrong.

With a stake in the palm of her hand, just ready to lance into the heart of any vampire that gave her half a chance, that chance was proving elusive. First of all the Master and Faith’s combat was more like something you’d see in a martial art movie. A whirl of fast strikes and reactions. The occasional moment of weakness and opening that the other exploited but never to a conclusion.

Point was that she couldn’t have guaranteed not to hit either of them, even guiding the stake in flight – which she had been fully capable of once. But Faith was more than holding her own. More like she was holding back, waiting for the perfect moment. Despite the Master’s age and power, the Slayer was looking the more likely victor.

Willow, on the other hand, looked more vulnerable.

It wasn’t a Master Vampire she was facing, but it was one that had been counted as third – or later second – in the only vampire dominated town that the world had known in hundreds of years. And, like Willow herself, the doppelganger was more of a thinker than a fighter. Faith would’ve dealt with it – ironically enough – in a matter of moments.

Willow wasn’t that good, not hand to hand.

Except Tara realised that perhaps Willow didn’t need to be… her wife was doing something sneakier and more suited to her own reputation as a thinker – one not dragged down by insanity.

It was at that point that she realised that a loose circle of Acolytes had formed over the last few minutes. They’d barely been in evidence until then, but now they were here and as focused on the combats as she was. “Faith…”

“I know.”

“I know too, honey, don’t worry about me knowing – ooof.” Willow grunted as the vampire delighted in punching its progenitor in the stomach.

It was, Tara could tell, playing with Willow to some extent. It wanted to humiliate her, beat her. Just as easily it could’ve struck her then open handed and driven razor sharp claws into her stomach and might even have killed her. But no, it’d been a punch to wind her.

Willow was countering in her own way though, her focus allowing too many of the physical attacks through. So Tara helped her. Yes, she was still waiting for the opening to stake either of them, but in the mean time she was using her skills to push the remaining oil, which was after all a liquid, up from the floor of the chamber and gradually up onto the vampire’s feet, legs and higher… It didn’t seem to realise until the coating reached its skin when it started to brush angrily at the slick substance.

And only succeeded in spreading it around further.

With both she and Willow drawing the oil up onto the creature through – Tara supposed scientifically it was pushing the liquid along the concentration gradient though that wasn’t how she was doing it – the vampire was quickly covered.

And it realised it, looking around for something to rub up against or douse itself in.

Nothing doing.

In that moment of confusion both she and Willow got a chance to try and stake it. Tara had released the stake from her hand before Willow started her strike and belatedly had to snatch at it in mid-flight to divert it past her wife’s ear – and then just barely – while Willow swung at it by hand.

The stake she’d diverted in mid-flight slammed into the vampire’s left shoulder – that was the arm Willow said she’d taken earlier but had now grown back - and that probably contributed to Willow’s miss too. The lurch towards that side turned its body and Willow’s stake plunged into its chest but below the breast and to the right of the heart. Well to the right.

The vampire roared, a sound unlike any her Willow had ever been able to make, giving vent to the demon inside. It reacted to the pain and then turned back to Willow and backhanded her so hard that she was lifted off her feet.

Tara saw it almost in slow motion. Willow’s head snapped back and sideways and she fell backwards with the predator leaping after her before she’d even landed, it intended to come down on Willow and end this. No more playing the dominance game. No more teasing.

Tara snatched at her wife with a cushion of air, softening the landing and pulling Willow towards her at the same time – away from the aerial attack that saw the vampire land and slam the stake it’d taken from its shoulder into the hard floor. Splintering it with the force.

Not to be deterred, the vampire leapt again to where Tara had brought Willow to rest. Her wife seemed so shaken that she couldn’t do much for herself. But the other thing Tara had been doing with that cushion of air was keeping Willow from getting too much of the oil on her.

Holding the child and Willow – in different ways – didn’t leave her much capacity, but then she didn’t need much.

Willow wasn’t the only one who could start a fire.

Her eyes locked with the vampires as it savoured the moment – in it’s descent – that it expected to end her wife’s life. To claim her as its own.

Tara shifted the child and then held up the fingers of her free hand. Snapped them. The spark leapt to the vampire, igniting the oil that Willow had been thoughtful enough to coat it with.

And it knew what she was doing in that split second. It was aware. It screamed at her and it was still screaming – in echo at least – as the ashes of settled over Willow and then even those gradually burned away into nothing.

“Get up,” Tara said, adjusting her grip on the child once more to rest the little boy on her hip. He was a little big for her, but she’d manage for as long as she had to – adrenaline would carry her through.

And the creature was dead… dusted.

“Uhh.”

“Willow, get up, you’ll be in the oil.” Tara couldn’t remove her concentration from that unless her wife got to her feet.

Willow was obviously shaken and that was fine, she didn’t have to do anymore fighting. But lying down wasn’t an option right now. They’d pushed a lot of the oil up onto the vampire Willow and more had been ignited and quickly burned off, but she’d only smothered most of those fires so… dangerous. She stretched out her hand to her wife, helping her up.

“Tag,” Willow said, obviously tired and shaken, but thankfully thinking and talking okay. “You’re it.”

“Oh, baby,” she replied, looking at where the vampire had hit her hard enough to send her flying – in defiance of every rule of physics. “That’s going to bruise.”

Then, on her feet, Willow pretty much passed out and Tara was left supporting both her wife and the kid. “Great.”

Even better when the circle of acolytes had reacted to the destruction of one vampire by moving in closer – but they hadn’t interfered with Faith’s fight with the Master. Surely that couldn’t go on any longer? These things hardly ever did, you fought with brutality and someone won. Quickly. That was the real world. But here time seemed to have stretched, things had been flashing by – decisions taken, acted on and regretted or proved right seemingly as fast as synapses would fire.

Faith was getting beat on though. Now that the vampire wasn’t aflame and given the effort she’d already put into it, it’s greater speed and resilience was starting to tell. Maybe they’d been fighting a minute. Maybe. But that was a lifetime in such things. Most fights she’d seen a Slayer have with a vampire were over in seconds. They didn’t even qualify as fights.

The longer it went on, the worse things would get for Faith – even though she was already-dead herself. But if the Slayer fell then, yes, she’d come back. But in the meantime the Master would be free to launch himself at she and Willow.

Tara found herself screaming a warning at Faith, shouting her name, when the vampire seemed to get the better of her. Knocking her to the floor so she landed awkwardly, twisting her knee.

The knee that had been damaged in the last fight Faith had with him though – being dead – that might not have been a factor. But Tara saw it twist unnaturally in ways that it’d never been intended to.

She heard the popping as well, even over everything else that was going on.

Faith didn’t need her warning and was rolling as the Master pounced towards her, more controlled than the catlike vampire Willow had been, his booted foot aiming for where Faith’s neck had been a moment before she rolled. Aiming to snap her neck just as Willow had done once.

But when he landed, the master froze in place – even while Tara struggled to get a stake from her bag and try to do something practical to help. It would’ve been a perfect shot except her hands were full of her wife and a child.

Then, through his abdomen, emerged multiple prongs of the large, wrought iron candle holders that stood taller than she did. The candles were mushed and gone, but the shape of the metal – even when it was pulling pieces of his inside through with it – were unmistakable.

For all of his strength, for all his speed and those vaunted powers that few other vampires had ever displayed, he was still vulnerable to an ex-computer science teacher armed with a grudge and a gothic, six-foot candlestick holder.

Everything stopped for a moment as Jenny twisted the multiple spikes inside him – through him even – and they all just stared. She wasn’t supposed to be here and she certainly wasn’t supposed to be doing this.

Seeing that though the acolytes were plunged into uncertainty and rage. Those who’d bought into the Master’s reign were suddenly faced with the possible loss of their powerful patron – and protection. Those who hadn’t done so much were probably the ones who were willing to back off. But it didn’t matter what they thought because, into the centre of the gathering, marched no less than twenty-five teenage girls, though some were a little older. Maybe more. Their confidence and the way they looked at the Master revealed exactly what they were.

Slayers.

Lots of them. And it was way more than just the initial twenty-five. Maybe a hundred more, with the others following on behind and circling the existing circle of acolytes.

“Are those what I think they are?” Willow asked, seeming woozy.

“They are, baby,” Tara agreed. Gray and Vicky were at the head of the line of Slayers and their composure, their quiet strength kept the acolytes at bay as well as allowing them to go and collect all the children. One even came and helped Faith back to her feet while the Master writhed where he was impaled, pinned by Jenny like a bug to a specimen tray in the museum.

Faith shook off the help once she was up and limped her way towards the Master. “Tara?”

“Got my hands full,” she said and tossed one of her spare stakes over to her friend.

She had no real desire to be the one to do it and Willow was hardly in shape for it so… why not Faith?

“You should’ve learned the last time,” Faith said to him. “Slayer’s don’t do well with Master’s.” She collapsed beside him and without waiting for any further signal from anyone she slid the stake into his back, the motion of an assassin rather than a Slayer.

They sat back and watched because, once the stake found his heart, the Master was stripped to his bones by the ravages of age that transcended that body’s vampire age and rather reflected his whole, demonic existence. It was like sand, being sucked away from bones that didn’t seem to have ever been just human.

Impressive, even to the last.

“Baby,” Willow said.

“Yeah?”

“I think…” Then Willow threw up.

**************

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/22/11)
PostPosted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 11:13 pm 
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Bad ass!! That was fricking awesome....Tara killed V.W. (again), Jenny and Faith layed the smack down on the Master (I loved that Jenny was the one to save the day) and Gray (I guess I was wrong about him) and Vicky led the Slayer Army into the fray. The fighting was very exciting (I did'nt like Willow getting bitch slapped). Yes, we know that Willow and Tara are going to survive. But, we (at least I do) care about the well being of the other characters as well. It would hurt if the girls made it through while Jenny perished. You've written her in a way that makes me care about her almost as much as I care about the girls.

I liked Kajun's speculation about the baby. I, like Toni, was totally focused on her dad. Faith did say that she watched over the Giles' clan. So, she would have been aware of the baby's passing. I figured that was what Faith and Jenny's little sidebar was about.

Here's a thought...Since we now know that your life on the mortal plain does not affect your afterlife (in the Sidestep Universe), Maybe you can make Ton's little Family reunion take place in HotD. I'm not suggesting that she kill herself. I'm thinking she could go to the halls and make peace with her family's passing (Dad, Husband and Child) knowing that they can all be together again someday. If she could see that they were okay maybe she could find some peace.

One down.. nine more to go :sob

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/23/11)
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 3:20 am 
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Lordy, don't you ever sleep, SMGOVAN?

'Bad Ass' and 'Fricking Awesome' are good comments to get. I likes them, thanks :)

It seemed good that Jenny have a real purpose to being here other than riding shotgun on Eyhgon. I deliberately didn't make her into a character who was always getting into trouble, but equally she had to have something to do. So why not that? :)

The Willow bitch-slap, really, was one of those things that has to be done for the tension. As I've said many times before, Tara and Willow really are 'Mary Sue' characters. They're practically perfect, uber powerful and won't be defeated. Also, since I promise you 'happy and together' there's little that I can do to them long term. That's a problem in story telling terms. You have to have something that provides tension, they have to work for it in order for it to read 'awesome' and 'bad ass' ;)

And no way was I going to kill Jenny either... I'm still aggro about the whole S2 'my boyfriend went evil and its all about me and what I feel' crap which practically ignored Jenny's death (after the episode itself) So there. LOL

My sacrificial victim was Faith, a long time ago and now I can point to this and say it was all in the plan. She's still bad ass :)

But I am certainly glad you care about Jenny... I just wish I'd gotten to her piercings somehow but then, at her age, I think that might've gotten into realms I didn't want to write. JK.

So you were wrong about Gray? There's still 9 parts... LOL

Nice speculation there, workable and I can't contradict it. But nor would I confirm it :)

Oh, come on. You were totally suggesting Toni should die there to make that happen! Rest assured that all is NOT forgiven when T/W get back to that girl/woman... However, that is a wonderful idea you had. Sadly too late for me to integrate it I think and the practical problems of 'finding' those three in the teeming wannatouchies is problematic too... but I do love the idea. Wish I'd thought of it.

Thanks so much
Katharyn

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 Post subject: Re: Sidestep - Third Chronicle (new part 10/23/11)
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 10:55 am 
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Title: The Sidestep Chronicles: Third Chronicle (Part 50 (292)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler warning: I’m really not going to bother after all this time except to say that this fic will totally spoil my own Sidestep: First Chronicle and Second Chronicle which can be found in the Completed Fics archive (A-M)
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please. (This applies to all my stories, fics and particularly to Sidestep Chronicle as a whole.)
Summary: The aftermath of the battle.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc. I am making no money from this series of stories however all original characters and situations remain my property.
Rating: The earlier Chronicles of Sidestep were much darker and I slapped a blanket R rating on them for occasional content. This series is lighter in tone caution is only recommended for occasional scenes. However to understand absolutely everything that went before you’d have to have read the first two fully so…
Couples: Tara and Willow forever. Rupert and Jenny are also married with a family. Nothing else referred to.
Text convention: We’re occasionally dealing with some deaf characters here and that has to be addressed. Speech inside asterisks is spoken in sign language only. Occasionally people responding to signed speech may do so inside speech marks, which indicates that they are also verbalising as well. Occasionally I might make a mistake and get this wrong but when dealing with a character that only signs, take it as read that they’re doing so when they “speak.”
Notes: And so we’re into the aftermath. There are things to clear up from this main story of course, but also some characters and situations that need an end point if I’d already introduced them into this story. Because I am consciously – in this whole fic – trying to close off everything that was previously left as an open thread, this will go on for a few parts yet. Not the perfect way to end, but hopefully less annoying than the multiple endings in LOTR. At least here you’ve been able to take potty breaks rather than suffering the last half hour on a full bladder. And with that, I think my notes should probably cease…
Thanks to: The supporters of this story. I hope I’ve brought in some of the things you had to offer (though not the crazy convictions you had!) Oh, and Jose Cuervo Especial.


“You’re sure you’re okay?” Tara asked for the fifth time.

Breathing deeply, Willow answered truthfully. For the fifth time. Yes, she was fine. Yes, there would be a bruise, it was already showing up – so she was told – and no, she hadn’t hurt herself.

“I’m better than I was an hour ago.”

They were all better than they’d been an hour ago. With no ‘natural’ healing in this place, it’d been a surprise that Faith had been up and around on that leg relatively quickly. Maybe it was a Slayer thing but no one was telling them everything about the way things were here. On the other hand, the doppelganger had grown its arm back in record time too… Something was going on even if there was no life.

Equally she was feeling better too. Really. Yeah, okay so her brain felt like it’d been rattled around inside her head like a baby’s… well, rattle and yeah, she’d been sick a couple of times but a former Doctor whose licence who’d only expired with her life had cleared her and insisted that any serious injury had been ruled out, including a concussion.

Tara, inevitably, wasn’t reassured by that but about all she could do was insist on a check up once they got home.

Things had moved quickly since seeing the doctor though and Willow had missed a good part of it in enforced quiet time. But her first bout of sickness had been accompanied by dozens of teenage girls squaring up to rather fewer dangerous men and women who’d not quite abandoned the by then dusted Master.

Even through her pain it’d been an impressive sight. Evidently the acolytes hadn’t understood what they’d been dealing with. It hadn’t taken many scuffles for them to figure it out and slowly slink away. Those who’d pushed it hadn’t come back once they’d been ‘killed.’ Not like last time.

After all, what did they have to come back to now?

“What did Faith want?” she asked since Tara had just come back to her, having been called away for several minutes of hushed whispers and more than a few looks in her direction.

“They… found something.”

“In the boob-dome?” Willow asked. Inject a little humour, maybe they might not think she was as bad as she felt – even if there was no real hiding it from Tara.

“No. Wherever… well, the place that the dead… arrive.”

“What?”

“If you’re up to it I think it’d be better to show you – we’re not sure and we’re hoping that you might get it.”

“Tara?”

“You don’t have to come,” Tara said. “And if you’re feeling bad then it can absolutely wait.”

Actually, the idea of getting up and walking around didn’t exactly fill her with giggles, but… “You think I should?”

“If you’re fit.”

The fact that Tara wasn’t giving her a flat out ‘no’ was probably a reflection of how serious it was. Or at least might be. It took a lot for Tara to put something else ahead of how she was feeling, especially right now with medical advice already having being sought.

“What is it?”

“I can’t – we’d like you to have an open mind.”

Mystery much? Or did she know enough?

She got up from the bed that someone had found for her, pulling the blanket around herself before, unsteady on her feet, she fell back down on her butt and… Owies after that fall from the giant nipple, landing on her butt while everyone else had been all catlike. Maybe she was going to have to start falling on her face, at least until things started to be a little less tender.

“Okay,” Tara said. “Forget it. Get your feet up, you’re - ”

“Help me,” Willow instructed firmly. “You obviously think its important enough to mention so I’m going. I can lie down later. Right? I can lie down later can’t I?”

Tara sighed and then came over to offer the practical support that Willow needed. “You are lying down later. No arguments.”

Leaning heavily on her wife, they shuffled through to the other room where at least three of the Slayers – aside from Faith and Vicky – were clustered around… who?

As the posse moved aside she spotted a man, naked but wrapped in a sheet or perhaps it was a shroud.

Everyone was looking at her. Everyone was waiting for something… Or more accurately for her. “What? Who’s he? I never saw him before.” Was it - ? Had they found Toni’s Dad? Was that what they thought?

“Sure?” Faith asked.

“Why – who?” Then she looked, really looked and… The facial shape, something about the eyes… the lips. No, no relative of Toni. “What? Is that…?”

If you set aside the features that would’ve been shifted by the demonic possession over centuries, taking on that unnatural visage…

It could have been… The Master.

“You think this is him, don’t you?”

“And you see it too,” Faith said. She wasn’t asking a question.

“He denies it,” Tara told her. “Says his name is Henry Joseph, from Cleveland.”

“Unfortunately we don’t have a phonebook to check,” Faith said.

“It’s him,” Willow concluded.

“Baby, are you sure – because - ”

“Because if he’s the Master, back here as a human, then eternity’s going to be real long,” Faith promised. “For him.”

“And if he’s not?” Tara asked, revealing her concern that this really could be mistaken identity.

“Your wife says it’s him, T.”

“Why do you think that?” Tara asked her. It wasn’t that Tara wanted to let him go, oh, hell no. It was just that Tara didn’t want to turn Faith and the Slayers loose on someone who didn’t deserve it.

“The name,” Willow said. “His real name – the Master’s real name is, Heinrich Joseph Nest. Henry – Joseph, see?”

It seemed much too much of a coincidence, and with him claiming to come from another Hellmouth? After the whole reason he’d ended up in Sunnydale was because he’d tried to control the power of the Hellmouth there? There was no doubt in her mind.

“You’re sure?” Tara asked.

“Yes.”

“Then…” Her wife turned to Faith. “You do what you want to him.”

Faith smiled. “We don’t need to do anything.”

Instead the Master was to be given to his own acolytes. The men and women he’d twisted and trained to inflict pain and suffering. What they’d make of him… well, it wasn’t hard to imagine having seen what they did to the ‘ordinary’ already-dead.

Tara did seem worried about it though, for all that she’d been the one to hand him over. Willow was well aware her wife had a sense of fairness that was troubled by the thought of giving anyone over to the cruel attentions of someone else. More to the point, those acolytes needed to mend their ways, not continue them. They had no place here now.

“Don’t forget,” Willow said. “He’s been like this before, human. He… turned his back on that chance – even though he was dead – and he got someone to find a way to turn him.”

“Wolfram and Hart,” Tara said.

“And then he had them killed, along with the rest of the living. They won’t help him again, you can be sure of that – even if they were still here, which I should point out they’re not.”

“So sure?” Tara asked.

“Okay, so they’re immoral and unscrupulous but when we tell Toni what happened and she takes that back to them…?” Willow let the thought hang. “Even if they didn’t already know? His days of making deals with them are done.

“Wolfram and Hart will still be immoral and unscrupulous, pretty much like ninety percent of the lawyers out there, but he offers them nothing now and we both know they’ll want to make a point.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! What am I supposed to have done? I’m not who you think I am,” the former-Master cried.

“Yes,” Willow said, still supported by her wife. “You are. I can hear it in your accent and I can see it in your eyes.”

As these things went he’d been a fairly average young man, taken too early in life but at an age that had probably been all too common during the period he’d been alive. After that he’d revelled in his vampirism and apparently reclaimed it more than once. The leader of the Order of Aurelius had so much to answer for… including the things that she’d done.

But she didn’t feel like this was any kind of justice, or even revenge. Giving him to his own acolytes?

“We’re so not doing this,” Willow said.

“What?” Faith, Tara and Heinrich Nest all asked the question at the same time.

“What do we gain by giving him to them, we just have a bunch of people with a penchant for cruelty - yeah, I found a use for the word ‘penchant’, just get over it – but a bunch of people like that running around and still being… well, cruel? Why is that any sort of good thing?”

“After what he did?” Faith asked.

Even if Tara had been willing to sign off on it - and Willow wouldn’t have been surprised if that was all about some sense of loyalty to her – her wife knew better than to let this happen. But she was willing to because this man had had all his chances and spurned them all to stay a monster. To become one again and again.

“After what I did to you,” Willow countered Faith’s question. “Do you want me to stay here in their tender clutches?”

Faith met her eyes and Willow wondered if there was even a part of her that wanted to say ‘yes.’ If there was, it didn’t show. Which was kind of a relief given all the sniping that had been going on.

“That’s different.,” Faith said.

“Perhaps,” Tara replied. “But she’s right.”

“Which she?” Willow checked.

“You she. My she. Wife she. You’re right, Will. We can’t do this. What you were talking about earlier Faith, how does that work if we allow this? At what point do you stop it?”

“What – what were you talking about? “Willow asked. “I mean, I fly across the room on the end of a vampire’s fist and everyone starts making plans without me? What did she say?”

Faith looked around. “The – we, that is – all us Slayers, we realise that we’ve been… slack. We kind of saw ourselves as having done our duty, dying fighting these things was what put us here and we all moved on to better places, beyond the Halls. But if there are going to be monsters here too, then someone ought to be keeping them in line.”

“You’re going to start patrolling?” Willow asked.

“Something like that,” Faith said, somehow seeming a little embarrassed by admitting it.

“What’s wrong with that?” Willow asked. “I think it’s a great idea.”

“I don’t know… it seems… not many of us wanted to be what we are, we never asked for it in life. Now - ”

“But you loved it,” Tara pointed out with Jenny nodding in the background.

“Parts,” Faith said. “But I guess it seems like a backward step. But hey, it’s not one girl in all the world. There’s… well, one place or another, we’re all here. Just the ones that came down here are enough to make us pretty damn invincible. Add in all the others, wherever they are – there’ve been Slayers for thousands of years, you know? But, if we do that, this place won’t get out of hand again.”

“Feeling guilty?” Jenny asked, coming up behind Faith and pulling her hair back for her, a strangely familiar and intimate gesture that just spoke of their bond. No one did that for Faith, did they?

“No! And… you’re the only one who ever did that.”

“We miss you,” Jenny said, unnecessarily.

“But what would you have called your little girl if I’d still been around?” Faith asked.

“Not so little anymore,” Jenny commented. “Sure you’re not been haunting her?”

“I don’t roll the way she does,” Faith said. “Least, not often.”

Jenny laughed. “But… about him?”

“You’ll keep an eye on him?” Willow asked Faith.

“We’ll keep an eye on all of them. At least, this time, we’re not going to die young.”

“And you’ll always be pretty,” Willow said.

Faith pouted. “Willow Rosenberg, are you making a pass at me, right here in front of your wife?”

All eyes turned to her. “Umm, no?” Only some of the people in the room knew her at all.

“Good,” Faith said. “Because we both know what the Missus would do if you did.”

She looked at her wife, who was taking in good humour. And actually, she had no idea what Tara would do because the subject had and never would come up. “Back to the topic though,” she said, uncomfortable to be at the centre of this sort of attention. “Let him go then.”

“Are we sure?” Tara asked.

There was hesitancy from a few, but eventually everyone nodded or otherwise signalled their agreement. It didn’t seem like much of a punishment, but she’d always wanted to be human. Him? Even now he was again, it was something he’d never wanted and no one would turn him again. No one could.

And – to him – that was a punishment.

“Wait, one second,” Willow said just before he was about to be kicked out.

Heinrich Nest looked at her without a hint of gratitude for the fact that she’d saved him from a near eternity of torments. Actually, he probably thought she was weak for not going through with it.

She moved in close enough that he could hear her but no one else would be able to. “You might think you’ve proven something,” she said. “That you’ve won somehow. But understand this… there’s a near infinite number of Slayer’s you can’t kill and they’re dedicated to keeping you and any others like you that get here from controlling this place. So… You. Lose.”

And just to emphasise the point she applied herself, all the energy she could summon, to applying her knee to a reminder of just how human – and male – he really was. “Asshole.”

Even Faith was impressed.

*****************

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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
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