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?”
**************
_________________ ------------------------- If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.
Chance in *Chance* -------------------------
|