katharyn, thanks for the updates

two a day, wow, i'm gonna have to lace up my shoes and tighten my seat belt and take the chair outa park take charge tara here we go

toni's dad :hm

at this pace i may become an extra flamey kitten, who would of thunk it

Yes! Willow finally lit that Bitch up!! And, Tara's on her way!........Um, I'm getting a bad vibe about all this. Does Tara know that V.W. is in the Hotd? I have a felling she's gonna run smack dead into W square ( 'Wrong Willow') and end up a hostage. V.W. has to be all kinds of pissy about getting her arm torched.

It kind of blows that the wannatouchies get to return so fast. Can anything exile them permanetly? Can anything exile the Vamps permanetly? Because, the prospect of the girls returning to Hotd powerless sucks major ass!

I pray that the vamps are not immortal. It would be of the good if Willow's theory about them needing blood to heal was true. Because, if it isn't, the deck seems to be stacked against them.

More, more moooooore !!

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

Katharyn, Wow.. I don’t know if I can keep up with you but.. I will try! I do love the rapid fire updates!

Holy crackers! I can’t believe she fried the vamp’s arm completely off. A.W.E.S.O.M.E!! Willow isn’t the one needing to think twice. VW is already showing fear by her feeble attempt to make a deal. If they don’t succeed in permanently destroying the vamps, it won’t matter what they do while still having magical abilities. It’s not as if the vamps would ever refrain from causing as much pain as possible to both girls -- It’s just not in their nature. Besides.. I don’t believe Willow and Tara will lose their magic when they pass on. The Master and VW have every reason to lie about that. Heck.. the Master doesn’t even know what Willow and Tara are so how could he possibly know anything about their afterlife? Liar, liar, arm’s on fire!

I feel bad for Tara but she knows there is no other choice. Once they die and come back, I would think the only ones jumping into the fray again are the acolytes. The innocent wannatouchies would wanna get as far away as possible. Surely the numbers will thin eventually?

Hang on Tara, Jenny and Gray.. help is on the.. ummm.. way.

edob - spontaneous combustion is not what I had in mind! Yeah, I know you meant posting levels... thanks so much for the support! Hold on!!!!

SMGOVAN - Oh noes we're calling real Willow Willow squared now? I can't keep adding stuff!

Storytelling again, the wannatouchies have to come back fast or else why bother? At least unless I'd made one into a significant character so that you knew that they'd come back!

Also I have to agree that VW would be ticked off... Arms, hands and fingers have so many uses!

More you say? How about right now? Thanks.

Kajun - keep up, it's a sprint (or at least a fast trot) to the end. You can do it!

I stole the arm thing from another vamp story on tv when I was writing that. Unfortunately I then forgot I had taken it so on redraft I had some fixing to do!!

I think you can safely assume the situation will be resolved by the end of the story. But on the loss of magic? I am not sure the Master is wrong here. He might be (or could be lying) but he does have the evidence to look at even if he doesn't know what they are.

As for the rest, I can't say but I can post the next part...

Big thanks to you too.

By the way all, I love this. I write to hold these conversations with interested people. So thanks again.

Katharyn

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

Chance in *Chance*
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***********************

Title: The Sidestep Chronicles: Third Chronicle (Part 37 (279))
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: Tara attacks, from her own perspective this time.
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: This isn’t supposed to be ‘nice’ and nor is anything else involving violence in this series. The canon portrayed violence in a very cartoonish way much of the time and it meant very little. Here you could argue that the deaths involved mean even less as the already-dead come right back but it does, it has to mean something to Tara and Jenny – even if they are left with no choice.
Thanks to: People who make up their own Sidesteppin language!


“This is horrible,” Jenny said.

Tara was way ahead of her friend on that particular scale. She hadn’t been able to think about it too much, just having to react and push on, but yes, it was horrible. Right from the first moment they’d been attacked, before they’d even realised that already-dead were coming right back at them and quickly too.

The dead people and other kinds of beings that were rushing them weren’t vampires.

That meant that they weren’t easily identifiable, they didn’t set off any of her senses if they got sneaky and they didn’t combust in a nice, neat pile of ashes either. These were no ‘wannatouchies’, just trying to cop an asexual feel. No, these were beings that wanted to – were determined to – hurt them.

And they’d had to respond in kind, protecting themselves against whoever came their way.

In places they’d actually had to clamber over the bodies that were the consequence of that response. Not all of them ‘dead-dead’ or even ‘already-dead-dead.’ But despite the bodies they were leaving behind, it was clear that their attackers were coming around again after a short delay. And how did that even work?

Even worse, telling Jenny to stick them in the chest if they got too close wasn’t really an option. They’d let some of them get that near, some had appeared to be fleeing, which you’d think was a good thing, and – when allowed past – just kept on going. So it wasn’t like they were up against a hundred percent dedicated army here. More like a bunch of conscripts littered with a hard-core of psycho nutcases. They could spot those psychos largely through the red robes.

But for all the ones that retreated and ran past them – out of citadel she assumed – there were always one or two who’d try to double back and attack them from behind. Gray’s arm had been opened up in what would’ve been a life threatening wound if he’d had a beating heart to pump the blood from his body. Jenny had stuck a stake into their chests then and – missing the heart – only succeeded in getting gunk on the end of her stake.

Even if you did hit them in the heart it didn’t seem to be a killing blow. Since the organ didn’t actually do much now, the effectiveness of it was an open question – even after lots of experimentation. Sure, you could stake them but it was much harder than it was with – relatively fragile – vampires. And they got pissed off too…

So, to Tara, it had become obvious that she had to stop trying to guess who was a bad guy and who was a not such a bad guy and treat them all pretty much alike.

And it was taking it out of her. Damn, it was taking it out of her.

Most of her best tricks were off the table. The stakes – she didn’t have enough and they couldn’t decide what they achieved anyway. Triggering nature to spark into life that could assist her – well, that was tough when there was nothing living down here and they had a very limited number of wooden stakes. She hadn’t seen a standing body of water while they’d been here and there didn’t seem to be anything under the ground that she could tap into either.

What did that leave?

Well, it was easiest to use the air, rather than fire, but that was much more of a defensive element. If not totally so.

She’d been using the air – of which there was an abundance – to fling their supposed enemies into the walls of the hallway, lift them up off their feet and slam them down again. They’d heard plenty of crunching bones and more than a few such moves had resulted in ‘fatalities’ if you could describe killing the already-dead that way. She’d also been driven to fling their discarded knives and swords back at them with enough force to decapitate or take other body parts.

And yes, occasionally, things had gotten close and desperate enough that she’d had to resort to cleansing – all too indiscriminate – fire.

If there’d been any question about whether these people – yes they were people – felt pain then it was taken away as the fire consumed them. That was something else that wasn’t as fast and convenient as it would be with vampires. Burn a vampire – all over – for a few seconds and it would combust entirely. Do that to a human – even an already-dead one – and all you got was anguished screams until enough damage was done to put them down.

It was the first time she’d been to blame for the infliction of that sort of pain and she refused to believe that whoever was directing these people wasn’t doing that deliberately.

The stench, the sound and… all of it. Not forgetting the sight.

But what choice did she have? If they got that close… she had to protect their lives and try to minimise the casualties. The coin only came down one of two ways. ‘Them.’ ‘Us.’ Sure as anything it wasn’t going to be ‘us.’

She was sure that if Gray could have thrown up – if there’d been anything in his stomach – he would’ve done. The ‘boy’, no matter how long he’d been like that, was fortunate that he hadn’t lived a life that showed him that sort of thing. Back in his day may even have still had a draft that he’d obviously missed. A foreign war you didn’t have any choice but to go to.

“Why do they just keep coming?” Jenny asked.

“Hold on,” Tara said, seeing another cluster coming towards them. “You got any change?”

“Change?”

“Coins?”

“Umm, yeah – wait a second,” Jenny said, fumbling in the pocket of her jeans, having abandoned her purse to practicality some time ago. “Here. You owe me… oh, just call it three dollars.”

Jenny dumped the coins in her hand and Tara added them to the few she’d had. Not that many but… Placing them in the palm of her hand there seemed to be enough. She focused and flung them with every bit of force she could still muster.

Diverging from the moment they left her hand, she didn’t even try to control the coins. Not even one. But by the time they reached the onrushing attackers, they bit into already-dead flesh at chest and head level. Some of the attackers went down, but others were just momentarily staggered. One even paused and pulled a coin from his chest – staring at it before glancing back from where he’d come from and then bellowing with rage.

At them.

“It’s fear,” Tara concluded. That test had just cemented her opinion.

Gray seemed to agree. “They’re more afraid of what’s behind them than they are of anything you’re – we’re doing to them.”

“That’s sick,” Jenny said, looking around at just what they were doing to the already dead.

“Yeah.” Tara gritted her teeth and flung the robed attacker who’d pulled the coin from his chest into the walls. He dropped a vicious looking weapon that was more like a hand scythe than a sword apart from the impractical-for-harvest spikes around the hilt. She shook him, this way and that, against the wall and the ceiling until she must’ve caught him just right as he didn’t even groan when he fell to the floor.

Another person that she hadn’t come here to hurt… what? Killed? Dead and resurrected again somewhere nearby to come at them again? At least when they did come back they didn’t have weapons in their hands. They must be picking things up on their way through to here then.

“Some of them want us dead – or worse. Some of them have no way back and have to do what they’re told – I don’t blame them for that. But what they want doesn’t really matter.”

“What the vampires want…”

“They haven’t come after us themselves,” Tara concluded. “That says to me that either they don’t care – which I don’t believe for a second – or that they want to make us kill and kill and kill. That it’s more about what we do than what their people do. If we die… I doubt they’ll shed any tears but its not what they’re after.”

“Maybe,” Gray said, not sounding convinced.

“You have another idea?” Tara asked after pushing three more attackers up against the wall and smothering them with a near solid block of air. Ata certain density you just couldn’t breathe it any more.

“Obviously I’m no big monster hunter like you chicks,” he hedged.

“Every opinion’s welcome,” Jenny said, even now warming to the idea of being a chick. In Tara’s opinion it was a blessing to be able to find something to appreciate in the midst of this. “Trust us, half the time we don’t know what we’re doing either.”

Tara spared a moment to throw a look at her friend. Way to inspire confidence, teach...

“Maybe they’re afraid,” Gray said. “The vampires, I mean.”

Tara blinked, thought about that. It was possible… Surely not. But then she’d killed the Master before – along with a Slayer at the top of her game, one of the best Slayers the Council of Watchers had in the last century, but all the same… “He wouldn’t have to be afraid,” she said. “If – when he died – he just came back.”

“He can’t make more vampires though,” Jenny concluded. “Or this lot would all be in the fang gang and we wouldn’t be up to our shapely ankles in dead bodies.”

“Not a bad theory, huh?” Gray asked. “Watch it!”

Tara sidestepped the onrushing female attacker who must’ve just been waiting for them to come around the corner before charging at them. The woman smashed herself into the opposite wall and Tara followed it up with a burst of fire. She wasn’t as elegant with the application as Willow could be spontaneously but it did the job, that one had been too close for finesse. Now if she could just shut out the stink of cooking, dead flesh.

“Not a bad theory,” she admitted, avoiding looking at the twitching, screaming body. “I’m not sure I’m sold on it, but it might explain some things.”

“Fits the facts,” Jenny said. “All we have to do is disprove it.”

“Don’t want to believe it?” Gray asked.

“I’d rather think the worst,” Tara replied. “For now. But definitely – if they are afraid us then we can use that. I will use that. It might be crucial.”

“So I’m not so useless, huh?”

“You’re not useless,” Jenny said. “You’re like Sat-Nav.”

“Sat-Nav?”

“Egotistical machine that knows where you want to go better than you do – until it messes it up,” Jenny said. “And sends you down into a river.”

“Right…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tara said not having the immediate patience to listen to a better description. “Which way?” Her sense of Willow gave her a general direction, that they were in the right proximity, but no more than that. And given that this place was a labyrinth - designed by bureaucracy as best as she could tell - to get nearer to Willow they’d sometimes been walking in the opposite direction, turning that sense of her wife around entirely.

They’d been fighting most of the way too, with only occasional bursts of rapid progress and getting closer. Hopefully this would be another being as…

All at once she realised that – for the longest time in the last hour – no one had attacked them.

Dare she take a breath? Take a moment? This hadn’t ever been easy, but it seemed it was harder now. Maybe she was old, maybe she was out of practice. But it was harder than she remembered to keep going this way. Thank the Goddess for the ability to manipulate the elements, rather than using pure magic as she’d first learned to do. That would’ve knocked her out or perhaps even killed her by now. Brain aneurism for certain.

But then maybe they’d never really tried anything quite like this. The only other times that had been at all comparable Willow or Faith had been right there by her side, the elements had been accessible to her and killing vampires was a good deal easier – apparently – than killing or suppressing already-dead humans.

Or the other things that served him. A smattering of demons amongst the already-dead horde.

Hadn’t I gotten out of this life?

But then, once Willow had gotten into trouble, this had probably become inevitable. And what did she really think of Gray’s posit? That the vampires had something to be scared of?

Actually, she just hoped it was that, she really did. Creatures of instinct, it was easier to work with them in a fearful state than it was when they were actually engaging their brains.

“This way,” Gray said.

“Wait,” Tara said. “Slow down there. I need a minute.”

“You okay?” Jenny asked, rubbing her back and neck, working out a little of the tension. Tara realised it was just what Willow had used to do for her, Jenny must’ve remembered from… well, from a long time ago. Or perhaps her muscles were just visibly knotted Felt like they could be… everything was… Magic, even elemental magic, wasn’t without its cost.

“I’ll be fine, just not as young as I was.”

“Me neither,” Jenny said. “But then I’m not being much help.”

Tara forced a smile, even though all she could see around her were the bodies – active or re-dead – of everything that had come up against her. There had to be a better way than this? Didn’t there?

A better way without toasting them all, which would’ve been Willow’s most obvious – if not preferred – way through it.

“You’re helping,” she said. “You’re keeping me focused and I definitely needed the massage.”

“Get hold of that woman of yours,” Jenny said. “She can take over this duty – not that I mind, but its definitely her place.”

“Get hold of that woman of mine,” Tara replied, tilting her head and still feeling a little sorry for herself – she figured she deserved it. There was always a physical cost to the magic, but it was easier working with the elements. Less by way of aneurisms. Easier. Not easy. “And I don’t know what I’m going to do to her.”

“Mad at Willow?” Jenny wondered. “You’ve got every right, but…”

Was she mad at her woman? “I don’t know, I haven’t had time to think about it yet. I’ll kiss her, call her names for a while and then see how I feel.”

“Getting in here might be only half the battle,” Jenny said.

“I know.” But they’d be twice as strong on the way out, because sure as hell they weren’t leaving without Willow. And her wife was here. She knew that much. No matter how convoluted the path, they were getting closer. She knew it. Willow knew it too.

“Gray,” Tara warned, seeing the aged teenager straying ahead of them, about to step out of her sight. She could tell what was about to happen because it was obvious. She’d been taking a break, relaxing just for a moment – naturally he chose that moment to step out of sight and BOOM.

The hit would’ve done a college football player proud. Gray was being carried backwards – his attacker’s head and shoulder buried in his belly – clinging on for dear life while punches rained into him.

“Damn,” Tara said, dragging herself up and over to him, adrenaline kicking in once more to give her the push she needed. Jenny was right beside her.

Just as Tara was taking a necessary split second to decide what to do about it, how to avoid hurting their new friend, Jenny solved the problem for them wedging a stake in between the man’s shoulder blades and causing him to howl and jerk upright, trying to reach the impossibly placed stake.

Didn’t require much subtlety to conclude that move. Tara used the air to thrust him backwards and thus to drive the stake deeper into him, until he collapsed to the ground like someone had cut a cord.

Maybe the spinal cord.

“Damn,” Jenny said. “He’s still – his eyes.”

Obviously he couldn’t move and by pure luck, her friend – or that last thrust of power – had hit the attacker in that especially vulnerable spot.

“Might be crueller to leave him,” Gray said.

“He was about to beat you to death,” Tara said. “If you were lucky. You see that knife he’s wearing?”

“Yeah, I do.” Gray bent and took it off the man.

“This…” Tara was more than unhappy. These weren’t vampires and while they weren’t strictly living people either… this wasn’t what the power she’d been blessed with was supposed to be used for. Not even to get Willow back. “This isn’t right.”

“Got a better idea?” Gray asked.

Jenny’s looked seemed to back up his question.

“Yeah, maybe I do. Maybe – I give them a choice,” Tara said. She hadn’t tried this – not on her own – ever before.

“A choice?”

“Get out of the way or face the consequences,” she replied. “Maybe we can be worse than what’s behind them. There isn’t much that’s not afraid of fire. More afraid of it than anything else.”

“True,” Jenny agreed. “But can you control… well, whatever it is you’re going to do? After all this already?”

She didn’t take any offence at the doubt. Her friend’s concern seemed to mirror her own. If she lost control of this – assuming it didn’t flash back to threaten them – then she was looking at hurting even more people. Killing them… but maybe she could do something about that?

“I’m not saying it’s not without risk – but we should be helping these people, not killing them. They’re his victims, just like so many people in Sunnydale were.” Just like my parents were, in a roundabout way. Just like Willow was.

“And fire’s the answer?”

“Properly controlled and as a way of scaring them?” Tara wondered. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure I can see a better way without killing even more, killing indiscriminately. Gray, how close are we? How close do we have to be? I’m not sure I want to go around too many corners or to have to try and re-establish this.”

Jenny looked wary, perhaps having some idea what she meant.

“Re-establish what?” Gray asked, rubbing his belly and looking at the still living – but paralysed – man who’d just attacked him.

“You’ll see,” she told him. “But when I do this, it’s a lot more work to create it and bring it under control than to keep it that way. But if my concentration lapses…”

“If your concentration lapses… what?” he asked.

“I think they call it ‘hitting the deck’. You’ll definitely want to do that.”

Yeah, that was about the best that she could recommend and all she could think about was the Cold War history lesson she’d used to teach, talking about just how effective ‘Duck and Cover’ would’ve been.

Yeah… this was taking a chance.

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

_________________
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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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Katharyn, Ugh.. the blood of the innocent. For anyone else, this forced mass murdering would surely leave irreparable scars. Tara and Jenny have dealt with the consequences of collateral damage in the fight against evil before. Not on this scale though and it’s gotta be taking a toll on them. Puzzling out that the vampires are forcing them to commit these heinous acts for their own sick pleasure leads Tara to a risky solution. Even if Tara is not consciously aware of it at the moment, using Willow’s element prepares the stage for her lover’s inevitable arrival. Willow will be able to pass thru the barrier created and take the lead. I’m anxious for her to get to Tara, but I’m glad to have Tara’s perspective first. Love Jenny and Gray contributing useful theories on what may be behind the wannatouchie’s relentless attack. To hell with Toni’s dad.. bring Gray back instead! But.. Someone has to take over the HoTD once the Master is gone. Can’t think of anyone more suited for the job than our newest Scoobie!

Ready for another..

Happy, happy, happy dance ...another update ! When I was in the Navy, I was stationed in Misawa, Japan for two years. Misawa was a very rural city. Nothing but farms, corn fields and Marijuana stalks growing wild. Anywhoo's, burial space is very scarce. So, most (if not all) people are cremated. Again, Misawa is a backwoods, hick town in Japan (we had to drop a deuce in a hole in the ground!!!). So, every thursday they had 'Dead Body Day' (mass burnings of the recently dead). Now, i'm not sure exactly where they burned the bodies (in a open field perhaps?). But, the stinch could be smelled thoughout the entire base. That smell, of burning flesh, is one that will stay with you hertofore.....So, I said all that to say...I pray that Tara's plan works. Hopefully, the re-dead wannatouchies will be scared straight and the others will back off when she goes all pyro on their asses.

I can't wait to find out if the Vamps are really afraid of them or if they are just trying to dampen Tara's spirits by forcing her to cook a big ole batch of refried wannatouchie bean burritos.

Great update....ps. W square stands for 'Wrong Willow' (which would be V.W.)....meaning, I hope Tara is not sensing Vamp Willow and mistaking her for her adorable wife. Does Tara know that V.W. is in Hotd? I have asked twice already. So, i'm guessing....not!

Sonya's Sidesteppian Thesaurus

HotD- Halls of the Dead
Wannatouchie- Residents of the Halls of the Dead
V.W.- Vampire Willow
W.W.- Wrinkled (human) Willow
W square- Wrong Willow (mistaken Identity)
Nipple Factory- Vamp Willow's chamber of Torture/ The Master's Command Center
Jack- steal, loot, five finger discount
Spicy one- Kajun

This should help you decipher my feedback a little easier See what happens when I get to excited about an update?!?!

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

Oh Lordy, we have a thesaurus now

Kajun - Yes, it was a tough balance to find. You have these deaths, over and over and they have to push aside what that means in their world and understand this is a different place where it is uncomfortable but not as terrible a thing.

Tara's solution is perhaps all she was left with. A wall of air would've led to a wall of wannatouchies too. Water is unavailable. Fire should drive them off or test their commitment... Also the Master's victims are sadly used to death now, it's a common occurence for them even before they turned up.

As for Gray's role as the new Master... why does anyone need to take over?

Thanks

SMGOVAN - From happy, happy dance to rural Mizawa... wow. I can only imagine. But yes, that is something that should stay with Tara... We'll see very soon how successful the move was.

A helpful thesaurus thank you, though I suspect that I won't be using any more of those in the coming parts (I've already inserted some!)

If you've not seen anything that says Tara knows who is here with the Master then she doesn't know. There'd almost certainly have been a reaction

Again its a story thing. You don't want to waste the realisation on a different character telling her rather than how she does find out... Even if perhaps she should know. For now the Master is bad enough news...

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*
-------------------------

Title: The Sidestep Chronicles: Third Chronicle (Part 38 (280))
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: Finally the girls are poised to reunite.
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’ve been a bad, bad kitten to keep them apart this long.
I always doubted that I wanted to tell a story that – physically – separated the girls because surely most of the fun of writing them is having them together. Well, actually it is. But I hope that the story, knowing this is what they’re coming back to, was worth the separation. Plus it has allowed other characters into the story. I think if they’d done this together they’d have just leaned on each other, finished things quicker and then what would I have written?
This is another part where I only realised a mistake on redraft, completely losing the plot of where I left Willow at the end of her last part (losing her arm)… I figure I can gloss over that with some explanation in favour of some cool stuff ?
Thanks to: Everyone who waited long enough for me to make it a Tara and Willow story again.


“Tara?” Willow asked.

The voice in her head, the sheer presence of her wife, had seemed so close and so in your face right at that moment that she’d spoken her name aloud in response. If she breathed in surely she could’ve smelled her wife’s delicate perfume?

Willow swallowed her desire to be with the woman she loved. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about it. Let alone expressing it.

Not that the vampires had missed her reaction but they seemed to be pretty happy with how things were going even if their acolytes were beginning to flag a bit by now.

Repeated deadness seemed to take it out of them.

“The kitten?” the doppelganger asked.

“She’s coming,” Willow said, no point in holding it back. “Tara’s coming for both of you now.”

“Then you better make her understand what it will mean, hadn’t you?” The Master told them. “I was never a patient man, it was one of my greatest flaws, but – you see – I haven’t been a man for a very long time. As one of the risen, I am very patient indeed. I can wait for you, for both of you for as long as it takes… and when you do come to me…?” He left the threat hanging and laughed.

“When you come,” the one armed doppelganger said, “then I’ll have my kitten back and you… you’ll belong to the Master.”

“But you’ll still have one arm,” Willow retorted, looking pointedly at the stump she’d left behind. A nice neat cauterization.

“Not for long,” the doppelganger said. “It’s already itching - ”

“Girls, girls,” the Master chided them. “Don’t squabble now.”

“She started it,” the doppelganger accused.

“Did not. You started trash talking about my wife.”

“I have to side with my protégée, she just decided,” the Master said, his manner imitating some sort of sit-com where the husband complains about his wife’s domineering ways. “What am I going to do? But her new arm itches and I treasure her so.”

They were mocking her now, the fact that she’d backed down in the face of this threat. That she wasn’t defending herself – no, she had been defending herself. She just hadn’t been helping herself.

“A new kitten for me,” the vampire said. “One who’ll scratch my itchy arm. A new Willow for her. One that’s not so saggy and… old.”

“Respect for your elders, my dear,” the Master admonished it lightly with a wave of one clawed finger. “Respect.”

Willow had to fight down the urge to do… something. Flee. Kill them both. Burn the entire place. Thrown up. What it was she might’ve done changed moment by moment, but something, anything rather than this.

Rather than that.

Because if the Master said it then it would happen if he could make it so. And he was right about one thing – they were right – now she had power. When they died, when they came to the Halls by virtue of their mortality then… No more fire. No more crisping bad things. They’d be powerless. Like these other poor fools that were still being forced and manipulated into going up against Tara. An endless stream.

Driven to their deaths or incapacity.

She doubted he or his henchpeople had affected even a tenth of one percent of the people down here. Less than that. But it was still an immense army that he could throw against her girl. Again and again.

And she wasn’t helping…

Taking the vampire’s arm had been immensely satisfying but only minutes later the doppelganger hadn’t even seemed to care. Nice clean burn off and it must’ve been healing enough for it to think about the itching of re-growth, having a new one. How did that even work? But they were undead in the world of the dead, maybe that was closer to life rather than closer to death? Maybe the rules didn’t apply?

And where had taking the arm gotten her? The Master’s command had stopped her. She’d been going to Tara – threatening to burn the head off the other version of her – and… what the hell had happened? One word. ‘Enough’ and that had been enough?

He’d imbued it with whatever it was that made him unique amongst vampires. His power. His… aura. The horror he could inspire. That word had carried a flash of vision. A possible future? One in which… Terror. Horror. Torment without end that made the experience of these poor dead people around here seem tame by comparison. This, what had happened to them, was without him paying attention to them… if he turned his eye to her, focused…? All of it had rushed into her mind with that word. Froze her in place.

And she’d understood that what she knew from having being this other vampire was nothing compared to what he was capable of. When he put his considerable mind to it there was nothing he couldn’t do.

He’d pushed it all into her head. Into her heart. Into every fibre of her being. And she’d stopped.

Stopped dead.

Unfortunate way of putting it, but she might’ve ended up that way. The stricken, enraged doppelganger could easily have taken the opportunity to rip her apart – even one armed.

The Master himself might’ve taken her head just to have it done with. With Tara already on her way – and free to go after her himself – he might’ve seen that as acceptable.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t deal with them, not at all. She could… but it wasn’t one sided just because she had the power. Even though she’d been wary of him, she’d not… understood. Mess it up, get it wrong and they could seriously hurt her. Separate her from Tara.

Bring her here… early. And leaving them in existence, with that terrible promise resonating around her, stripped of any ability to defend herself… He’d driven the passion for destroying them from her and made her just want to curl up in a ball.

That had faded now; it was a momentary thing but a moment that lingered in the mind. He hadn’t done that to her when she’d been fifteen, in fact he’d barely bothered to acknowledge her presence until she’d been turned and impressed him with her… insanity.

The Master though, he was the sanest vampire she’d probably ever met. Terribly sane. Totally balanced. In fact he was utterly unlike every human or vampire she’d ever met. It was himself he’d Mastered, and that was probably what had given him his power. Over himself. Over others.

Moments of clarity like that he’d pushed into her…

No wonder he could control and dominate. It wasn’t fear. Fear was nebulous.

It was terrible certainty that he inspired.

Though he had proven that there was no other choice too. He had to be removed, whatever happened to the doppelganger, he had to be gone before they returned here. The other Willow Rosenberg didn’t even matter compared to him.

“The Kitten’s doing my work for me while I’m not at my best,” the vampire giggled as if it hadn’t recently lost a limb. “Over and over and over…”

Yes, Tara was now complicit in the torture that was breaking the spirit and the minds of the dead. But none of the blame lay at her door, and Willow would make sure that fact was absolutely clear in her wife’s head. Later. No more blame games. They’d left the guilt about things they couldn’t help or control behind a long time ago. No way they were taking that on again now.

Willow knew that she had to straighten her head out in order to have a later though. Yes, he’d put something terrible in her mind. But these… things weren’t worthy of her consideration. That was the truth. She and Tara – together – they were a match for anything, including these two. It’d been a stupid, dumb mistake to come here on her own just because she’d been trying to protect Tara and fulfil their bargain with Wolfram and Hart at the same time.

No one had known that the Master was here… except maybe the lawyers?

Had Toni known? Had Toni sent her here knowing that? It wasn’t a question she could answer right now, but the truth was she’d come here because she’d genuinely wanted to try and help the young woman too – even though she’d initially been forced into it.

While it would’ve been nice to been asked rather than be forced, she could even see why the girl – woman – had done what she had. After so long immersed in Wolfram and Hart what other path had she seen? If it was just about her Dad then she might even find a way to forgive her the coercion, but if it had been more lawyer games, if these two vampires had been the point then… what then?

All of which mattered more when she was back with Tara and it was time to deal with what she’d come here for.

Shoving her worries behind her, turning her mind to the purpose of her visit and to the determination to be with her wife, the confidence she had in the pair of them, Willow stood up and started walking, not running or even hurrying, in the same direction as the acolytes.

She didn’t take any steps to stop the scurrying lackeys or to slow them down, she was still wary of forcing the Master’s hand and that was a confrontation that – though inevitable – she didn’t want to provoke any earlier than she’d already done.

Even bearing that in mind though, he wasn’t making the rules anymore. She and Tara would be the ones who decided what happened next. Her wife was here, almost within earshot she was sure and once they were together… Once she could take Tara’s hand in hers… All this would change. Until then… she’d play it cool. Cool biscuits.

Vampire Willow bounded along side her. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to Tara.”

“We had an agreement.”

“No,” Willow corrected. “You told me what you wanted, you threatened me and Tara and I didn’t say anything.”

“Willow,” the Master called to her when his lieutenant plainly hadn’t been successful. She kept walking, purposefully, towards the exit from the hall. Towards Tara.

And with that in mind ignored him. Steeling herself in case he tried the same trick to stop her. A trick, a possible future. Not the actual one. They wouldn’t let it be. Just a trick. He couldn’t create that future if he was nothing but dust.

“Willow,” he repeated – something he hated to do. “You don’t want it this way, believe me.” Only the two of them understood exactly what he meant, had shared that awful moment.

She did pause, but she didn’t look back. A loose ring of acolytes had formed around her – though they weren’t actually blocking her way. “Please,” she said, loud enough for him to know who she was really talking to. “Try to stop me.” Simple words, no sign of any flame – though she could’ve snatched it from the candles, snapped her fingers, changed the concentration of oxygen in the air and… vrooosh.

Could have.

Knowing him as she did, she didn’t tend to believe that he’d have shown any fear even if she had been looking at him, but there was a reason he made the decision that he did. He recognised her change of mood. She’d let him bully her for too long, the fear and respect for him was too ingrained in her memories just to be let go.

But now she was past that through her focus on someone who meant infinitely more to her past, present and future than he ever would. He probably sensed the change.

“There will be consequences,” he said. “And you know them.”

Yeah, he’d threatened her and Tara with an eternity of torment. He was promising to make this place into a true hell when, in fact, she didn’t believe that was how things worked at all. He’d set himself up as ruler of the reception area, the waiting room for the realms of the dead. The Hall of the Dead? That was probably just this cavern and it sure as any of the hells wasn’t filled every person who’d ever died.

No, out there was more. And knowing that, understanding the rules, meant that she and Tara – when they did cross over – wouldn’t be subject to his wrath. They’d find a way to ensure it didn’t happen that way.

And that was if they didn’t find a way to change things before they left - which she was minded to and was sure Tara would also be. The people here were only dead, they’d done nothing to deserve… him.

“There are always consequences,” she said and walked away.

Part of the illusion of having no fear – she had plenty – was in not looking back. But she was alert for pursuit. For whatever reason the Master halted the flow of acolytes down this path though. Perhaps not wanting to tempt fate. Or tempt her to go back and bathe him in some cleansing fire.

Yes, he was afraid of her. Of them. The key would be why.

She didn’t actually look back until she’d rounded two ninety-degree corners, at which point enough attitude was enough and she checked behind her, letting out a shuddering sigh of relief. “That could’ve been nasty,” she said to no one and leaning against the wall. “Oh, jeepers. I do not want to do that again.”

Since she wasn’t being followed and because she could sense that Tara was working hard to do whatever it was she was doing she picked herself up and kept going, faster now. Not quite breaking into a run but hurrying along. She wanted to have the energy to help her wife with whatever it was when she got there.

The screams and shouts from ahead of her didn’t sound like anyone she knew. But it did say that many of the already-dead that the Master had sent ahead of her were still down here and she was… getting closer to whatever was happening. Willow paused and considered. They… nah. Could they? Were they actually coming in her direction?

She was less than two hundred metres from where she’d left the Master and the vampire but… yeah. The acolytes were definitely coming the other way, towards her. So they were… moving away from Tara.

Okay, that was good. But it could easily cause her problems –

Except they really weren’t focused on what was ahead of the as they retreated – her – and definitely were more afraid of what was behind them. What on earth was Tara…?

Then it became obvious. Really, really obvious.

A wall of fire.

You often heard that term, ‘wall of fire’ but usually it didn’t mean what it did here. A literal wall of fire, moving along the tunnel at a steady, controlled pace.

She wondered how in the world Tara was managing what she was doing… How would you? You’d need two banks of air, one in front and one to the rear, to hold the flame in place. But you’d have to be giving it fuel too or it would just burn itself out and you needed to let it consume anything foolish enough to press ahead into the ‘plug’ for flame that filled the corridor. On a ‘professional’ level she could definitely appreciate what Tara was doing. “Cool. Way cool.”

Fire was a primal fear, even for the already-dead it seemed. You learned early in life what hurt and what you had to stay away from. Fire was one of those things; it was why Willow appreciated its influence so much.

Beyond the wall of fire – that was steadily advancing down the corridor towards her – she could see shapes. One she was very familiar with, the proximity to Tara set her tingling and another that she thought she know. But there was another one… Who was that?

Stepping forwards, Willow went past the last of the fleeing acolytes and up to the wall of fire. Tara couldn’t let it drop, Willow knew it’d be much harder to re-establish than to maintain. But that was fine. Gathering a sheath of air around her, she starved it of the combustible oxygen and surrounded herself with carbon dioxide instead.

Of course that was what she understood she was doing in a text book kind of way, the actual process was more like ‘this isn’t going to burn me.’ Elementalism really didn’t mingle with science despite the use of the term. Whatever though… it worked.

And she walked through the fire without being touched by it.

“Help,” Tara said, the effort contorting her face and sweat running down her.


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

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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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thank you for the updates katharyn

hope the ladies are gonna kick some ass on those two vamps and their torment without end, be very afraid you two fucks...

smgovan's thesaurus

Katharyn, That was more than way cool.. it was the ultimate of coolness!! Magic powers or not in the afterlife, Willow and Tara will have power.. in abundance. What she completely believes in, what she and Tara can do together, the love they have for each other is the ultimate power. He resorts to baiting Willow with the certainty of spending an eternity of horrors in the hotD to control her. That would make him a Master-baiter. (in a bad non sexual way coz.. ewwww) But she didn’t bite. She proves she has power beyond magic by breaking free and resuming her path to Tara. Love is her power. If he understood that, he would have killed her when he had the chance. Too late now! It appears Willow reached Tara in the nick of time. I knew Tara could hold it together until her girl arrived. Now it’s time to find a way out of the Nipple Factory. They need a safe place to rest, refuel and formulate a plan. Smoochies for the reunited lovers would be in order too! Bears repeating.. Awesome!!

SMGOVAN, Thanks for posting Sonya’s Sidesteppian Thesaurus! I’m sure you will be adding to it before this Trilogy is complete. Fantastic idea –you rawk!

edob, Well said.. you rawk too!

edob - I think it's safe to say ass will be kicked, or something similar in effect! And yes, yay the thesaurus!

Thanks

Kajun - ultimate in coolness? Wow! Thanks. It is true that the girls would find a way but just the same I wouldn't want to face the Master without an edge! Love or not...

I think Willows triumph here is patience and self control. And, since you point it out, not getting involved in Master-baiting... Ewww indeed!

As for the rest have you been reading ahead, you cheat?!?!

Thanks so much all

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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Title: The Sidestep Chronicles: Third Chronicle (Part 39 (281))
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: Tara and Willow, back together again.
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: Finally, huh? That tiny moment of togetherness in the last part wasn’t what you really wanted was it? Huh? Huh? No… Course things aren’t immediately wonderful. Just… better cos, when they’re together things just… are.
Thanks to: I suppose I should shout out to the Dog Whisperer. Yes, how they deal with vampires comes partly from there (if there’s no frying or staking involved!) Endless source of anti-vampire strategies. Try it!



There were twin cores of relief that flooded through Tara as Willow stepped through the wall of flame that she’d been struggling to control.

The first – and most obvious – was that her wife was alive, seemingly well and most importantly here.

The second was more practical and desperate. Sure, she wanted nothing more than to grab her woman, kiss and hold her. Willow being here made this doable… The strength that she gained just through having Willow here beside her was immense, but she was very well aware that she was already at the limits of her endurance and she didn’t know how much longer she could hold -

“Help,” she begged, even as her concentration peaked and she was able to exert more and easier control than she had for the past few minutes. Willow-effect.

Willow stepped up alongside her, well aware that she was struggling and didn’t even wave to Jenny before slipping a cool hand into hers.

Instantly they were connected on the most fundamental level. Not only was it relief and reassurance but she was able to hand off the fire itself to Willow, to focus on the air around it. Willow took the strain and made it… easier.

Without a word they were sharing the burden from that moment and there was no explanation required. Willow simply accepted what she was doing and their combined self reallocated part of that task, allowing Willow to focus on what she was good at while she did the same.

But she did have to resist the unspoken request for Willow to be allowed to take the whole burden from her. A squeeze of the hand, reassured her that all she needed was help and now she had it.

They stayed still for some long moments then, not speaking and not doing anything. Not until Tara was satisfied that their shield of fire was stable and – perhaps – she’d gotten some of her breath back.

“Can’t believe you tried that without me,” Willow said.

“You weren’t there,” Tara said, biting back all the things that were supposed to come before that. “I didn’t have much choice.” Admonition for running off, trying to do this alone, to the Halls of the Dead of all places. Words of love that Willow well knew and didn’t need to hear but would always be welcome anyway. Just because you knew them didn’t mean you didn’t want to hear them.

And she’d missed them out, but by Willow’s own choice. She’d opened the door to this… Because she was feeling guilty or something?

“About that,” Willow said. “Sorry.”

“Later,” Tara said. “What’s up ahead?”

“The Master,” Willow revealed.

“I heard, but I didn’t want to believe it. We knew he came back from being staked – more than once – I guess that makes him something that gets in here then?”

“I guess,” Willow said. “There’s only one more vampire here though.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah… Just one.”

Something about the way Willow said that… “Anyone we know?” Perhaps the cruel, insane creature that had turned the teenage Willow? Drusilla? Perhaps Darla or Luke?

“One we both know,” Willow said.

“No,” Tara breathed, realising what her wife meant. Logical as it might be but…

“Very much yes.”

The vampire that she’d found in Sunnydale? The only Willow she’d been able to find back then… The conclusion of a prophecy in one sense, but the start of a terrible journey in another. She was well aware that Willow remembered everything that had happened between she and the vampire… She understood that her wife felt some guilt – for no good reason – about those things.

Tara carried guilt of her own. She’d allowed things to happen because that was the only Willow she could find. She’d allowed harm to come to a friend because of her love for what the vampire had once been, enough harm that the Giles’ had to commemorate the Slayer by naming their first child after her.

And other, more intimate things… Willow remembered and knew all of that as well as she did, just from another perspective. It wasn’t in any way okay. But that creature was here now? With the Master?

With them?

“Did we cause that?” she wondered.

“Something about the Vocah, I think,” Willow admitted.

Tara sighed, letting out some of the tension she’d built up. They’d done this then? She’d done this? She’d inflicted that creature on the people here? Those who were supposed to be at rest – or heading to their rest? Just to bring Willow back? Was there no end to the price to be paid for that?

“We didn’t do this, baby,” Willow followed up, presumably seeing her face or just feeling her reaction. “Whether we brought her back or not, we didn’t do this.”

“But it wouldn’t have happened without us.”

“Not the same thing. We’ve been through this before, we got through this before. I’m not going back there again. Tara, if you want to blame someone for something then beat the crap out of me for coming here, alone and for keeping you out of it and – how in the world did you get here anyway? You’re not -” Willow looked horrified as she realised the possibility.

“No, I’m not dead.” She had to put that idea to bed right now.

But Willow was right; there were dangers in getting into this now. Like the wall of fire getting away from them. Dangers in getting into it at all, they were too prone to guilt to go there... But she was sure she wasn’t going to be able to push it away for long. And Willow had a valid question that ought to be answered now.

How had she got here?

“Toni lied to you,” she said.

“What?” Willow’s voice was quiet and suddenly kind of dangerous.

“I’m sure she didn’t know it, but if she told you that you were the only one who could get here then she was wrong.”

“Obviously. I guess. So what was it?”

Tara took a breath, looking at the fire wall rather than her wife. “Possession.”

“Oh, baby no.”

“It’s done,” Tara said. “And the demon is gone – Well, it’s here somewhere but not in me. It was Eyghon, one of the undead and so once it had possessed me I could cross over and come and get you.”

“You want something to feel guilty about,” Willow said. “That’s my guilt right there. I know… You know what I know. I know you do.”

Of course Willow knew how she’d been raised. There’d been a time when Tara’s wife had been on the family farm, strapped down to the very table that generations of men had used to subdue and restrain her female ancestors for no good reason other than their own paranoia and fear. The only genuine use it had ever been put to had been calming a wild young woman driven insane enough to hurt herself by the years of nothingness. Complete nothingness.

And yes, Willow knew the reason, the fear.

She knew what it had cost her to let that demon into her now, and now she was blaming herself for that?

“Too much blame,” Tara said. “You’re right. So the vampires are up there ahead of us – take them on or leave? You guys get a vote,” she added for the benefit of Gray and Jenny after ignoring them in favour of Willow. She figured they wouldn’t mind the reunion, no matter how unconventional.

“You’re not at your best,” Jenny said. “You’ve pushed too hard already.”

“I agree,” Willow said.

“I’m fine now I’ve got this woman of mine back. I feel a hundred percent better. On the other hand,” Tara noted, “if we quit now we’d have to force our way through all this again to get back in here to do anything about this.”

Willow was frowning. “We do have to do something about them but...”

“Why?” she asked, having her own opinions on it, but Willow had been here longer. Might have seen more. What was she thinking? What had she realised? The same thing? That they couldn’t just leave this because now they could do something but… when they were dead they might not have this power or that option.

“Tell you later.”

Something that could wait then... “Okay,” Tara said. “Pull back. Get somewhere safe, consider our next move?”

“Right on.”

Why ask? Why not just get on with it and pull back? Well, now that Willow was here – Willow was here! – she didn’t have to be the one who took sole responsibility for three lives, or two lives and an unlife. What had the objective of coming here been? Get Willow out.

That had been met.

Pushing an attack now, for whatever reason, without understanding what would happen if they did – or the reasons for it – just seemed like folly. And no matter how much progress they’d made to get this far, now she had Willow back and they were together it’d be much, much easier to get in here again.

And she wouldn’t have the two mundanes – if a dead guy could be called a mundane – that she had to worry about and protect. For all that Jenny and Gray had covered her back, she’d been spending more time and effort worrying about them than they’d actually saved her.

Now there was Willow and that’d all work more effectively.

“I’m assuming you don’t want to turn this thing around?” Willow asked, prodding at the air cushion to their side of the contained wall of fire.

Tara looked at it, biting back a reproving remark. Willow couldn’t help herself, she was always passing her hand through candles at dinner tables and burning wax too. But she was right, at the moment there was no one behind them, no one the wall was threatening.

And she was fairly certain there was nothing and nobody in their route out of here.

“No,” she said. “The lady is not for turning.”

“So let’s drag it along behind us,” Willow winked, squeezed her hand gently.

“We do need to talk,” Tara said, quietly.

“I know.”

“We’re leaving?” Gray said, backed up by Jenny.

“Here?” Tara checked. “Yeah. We’re leaving. We’ll bring the…” She pointed.

“I think we’re calling that a ‘wall of fire’,” Jenny suggested.

“Yeah, well we’ll bring that along behind us, to cover us back to the place we came in.”

“Okay,” Gray said. “By the way, I’m Graham. I’m dead. Nice to meet you. You must be Willow?”

“I guess I must be, got the ring and everything. I’d shake your hand but supporting big wall of fire and can’t let go of this woman of mine,” Willow said, jiggling their linked hands around to make the point. “Thanks for doing – what did you do?”

“I was the guide,” he said. “I’d been up here a couple of times before.”

“And with that,” Jenny said. “Let’s go please. You two want some privacy?”

Willow looked at her but Tara shook her head immediately. “No, you both stay close.”

“Oh, thank God.”

Willow leaned in. “We’ll talk later?”

“Definitely.”

No way in the world – or any world – that this was going unremarked.


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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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Yes, they are finally back together! I loved how Willow slipped her hand into Tara's and it made all the things she was struggling with bearable. They are sooooo much more powerful when they are together. That part of the update took me back to a happy place. It reminded me of the episode with the Gentlemen and the flinging of the soda machine.

I hate that Tara feels guilty about V.W. and the Master being in HotD. But, i'm thinking it can't be her fault. The master was killed way before she made the deal to bring W.W. back. Was sending the vamps there part of a prophesy? Or, was it just a freak side effect of what the Vocah did to bring Willow back? With W&H involved, i'm inclined to believe it was all part of a 'Master' plan.

Now that I don't have to worry about them finding each other, I can concentrate on Mr. Gray. I really want him to be a good guy. But, i'm way to paranoid to take him at face value. Now, I know it's not fair to condem all wannatouchies based on Ethan's betrayal....But, I never claimed to be fair. I think he's either a spy or he will turnout to be Toni's (bitch) dad. Either way, he's not who he pretends to be.

Falling back and regrouping seems like a sound plan....unless Gray turns out to be a spy.

Great update!!!....Master-Baiting ...definitely going in the Thesauras!

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

SMGOVAN - Putting the start of my writing for the day on hold to reply to you (see how devoted I am!)

There's a lot of them holding hands to come, so much so that you might well start saying 'enough already with the holding of hands'

And yes, they represent the 4 elements. Each of them can manipulate all four as part of being together, however they have their speciality two. Together though they can harness all of that so... yes, powerful Funny, I wrote recently about that soda machine... but I think you know that and what came after!

Tara's not going off the deep end with guilt this time. In Sidestep 2 she was pretty much 'guilt city population me' and living her life by that. On the other hand, she is who she is. She's going to realise she may have had a hand in it and because she can't be blase about that she has to at least acknowledge it and do what she can. That's just (my) Tara.

I should say though - because it is no secret - two different things happened for the Master and VW... They didn't arrive together.

And yes, the girls are back together and won't really be parted again now for any length of time. Which brings you (and thus me) to Gray... All I will say is that 'we' know who Toni's Dad is/was from Sidestep 2. Whoever he was then is broadly the person he will be/is/was in the HotD. Unless of course he'd been tortured or something. Also, the girls know him - vaguely - on sight. They saw him them (at least as a vampire) and will have seen pictures over the years... However, he may well be younger in the HotD than anything they saw...

Of course, if I actually described characters you wouldn't have to guess, be paranoid and see conspiracies!

For the record, if you add Master-Baiting to the thesaurus then make sure it's with the 'i' in there or it just looks like bad spelling one way or the other!

Thanks

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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10-4 Spelling Police !..... and excessive hand holding is always of the good!

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

SMGOVAN, I think you should add Willow-effect.

Katharyn, I love how Willow and Tara work together seamlessly. Willow-effect.. that is perfect! I kinda think they both have some groveling to do. Willow much more so for sneaking off, but Tara could have stayed behind. No way, no how she would have though. I will forgive Willow’s momentary thought that Tara had died to get there. That is something she would have sensed previously or, at the very latest, known wasn’t the case the moment she touched Tara’s hand. They’ve been through a lot, after all, and obviously need to take a break. Cheers to Jenny for chiming in with a vote to leave. She can see the tremendous physical and emotional strain Tara has endured up to this point. And.. it was sweet to offer the girls a bit of privacy. Gray introducing himself by saying he is dead was almost funny. I have to join the Thesaurus creator though. I sooo want him to be a good guy but how did he manage to enter the nipple factory several times without getting snatched up by an acolyte? If he did turn out to be Toni’s dad in his prime that would certainly lessen my anger over them being forced into this mission. It would suck if they did all this to bring back some jerk-wad. Whoever/whatever Toni’s dad turns out to be.. at least this will free Willow and Tara from WaH’s clutches and, hopefully, restore the hotD to its pre-Master days. I demand smoochies now!!

Kajun - The girls are just good together... but you knew that

And yeah, there's fault on both sides and they'll get into that eventually but this isn't the time. Willow's worry about Tara only reflects that she could be wrong about what she thinks she knows. They react so heavily to each other that she couldn't be 100% certain of what would happen if Tara was dead... how would she? But you're right about the factual side of that, which is why its momentary

Taking a break... sure, coming right up.

Gray... damn, you guys are tough on everyone!! Doesn't matter who they are, if they're not T&W then their obviously enemies or spies!! I am surprised you've not let rip on Jenny yet...

There's obviously not much I can say to your questions but really? You demand smoochies now? Now? Right now? Like, this very moment?

Ohhh... what the hell...

Coming right up...

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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Title: The Sidestep Chronicles: Third Chronicle (Part 40 (282))
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: You think these girls can get away without processing of some kind?
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: Okay, the girls might not have been apart that long but they’ve been a long way apart. So what they gotta do? They have to process and they have to reconnect. One involves talking and the other… doesn’t. Besides, after having them apart for most of this story, they have to have their moment.
Thanks to: Anyone who’s been patient enough to get this far. Remember, I always said (from 10 years ago) ‘happy and together.’



Jenny hadn’t exactly been subtle about giving them some space. The former Calendar girl was capable of subtle, when she wanted to be, but it wasn’t her default option. Mostly she liked to make a point, even if it was a point about just how subtle she wasn’t being.

That Gray had stuck around long – heading off after Jenny - after they reached the largely abandoned building said that they weren’t done even in his mind. The fact that this place was abandoned – apparently nearly every place the living and the already-dead had once occupied side by side was this deserted - just went to show why.

They weren’t done. Not by a long shot. But they were together and before they could worry about anything or anyone else, they had to worry about themselves. Selfish? Not really. Just realistic.

The furniture was next to non-existent, though there was the odd thing lingering from whatever had been here before. Trunks and storage in some places too – which apparently was where Tara had found what she was wearing. The occasional stick of furniture. Right now though they were sat on a tarpaulin that they’d bundled up and tried to make more comfortable than the bare stone floor.

Not so cold at least.

Side by side, Tara had was sat cross legged, while she was hugging hers and they hadn’t touched since that ‘giving them some space’ time Jenny had declared had commenced.

“So, where are you shopping these days?” she asked, looking at Tara’s leather jacket, it was a good way to open conversation, right? Plus, Tara in leather?

“Jenny already said about that,” Tara reminded her. Yeah, that was how she’d known about the trunk.

“I was building up to a compliment,” Willow suggested, not put out in the slightest. There hadn’t been an ounce of irritation in Tara’s words. “Or trying to. That you look good?”

Tara smiled softly. She knew very well – having been told enough - that a leather jacket was one of her better looks. “Thanks.”

“But you knew that?” Willow asked.

“I knew that.”

“What is it we really need to talk out?” Willow asked. “I should know, I know I should know but… I don’t know if I know what I should know because I know…” She shrugged, getting confused about what she didn’t even know. Or didn’t even not know.

“There’s too much?” Tara suggested.

“There’s a lot,” Willow said. “But I’m thinking we can distil it down to a few key points.” There wasn’t exactly a deadline, but there were things that needed to be done. She’d be apologising for weeks, month’s maybe. Even if Tara let it go, she’d still be doing that – just because… Right now though, they had to get past what was at the nub of it.

“You put yourself in danger, love,” Tara said.

“And without giving you a chance to help me,” Willow responded. “I know that.”

“Let’s be honest,” Tara said.

“Or what’s the point?”

“Exactly. You knew what would happen if you asked me,” Tara told her.

“And I don’t need your permission. Because you don’t own me. You know that.”

“No, you don’t and no I don’t,” Tara agreed, removing the potential planks from her own argument. Not that Tara would’ve ever founded it on possessiveness. Not with so many other good points to be made and plenty of time to rehearse them.

“But I do need you to know where I am, that I’m safe and not doing anything monumentally stupid,” Willow said.

“There is that,” Tara agreed.

“I did something monumentally stupid,” Willow admitted. And there was no two ways about it, she had. She’d listened to what Toni had told her – listened to what Wolfram and Hart had told Toni – and reacted.

She hadn’t thought about it beyond planning for the practicalities. She’d worried. She’d panicked. She’d assumed the worst and just gotten on with dealing with it. “I didn’t think I was, I thought I had a handle on it – but things here were out of control. I had no way of knowing that, but I shouldn’t have assumed...”

“What did she tell you?” Tara asked. “First I mean? Was it the carrot or the stick? That she’d found a way to get her Dad back – or at least to get to him – or that they’d told her there was a way to bring that… thing back in your place? Back to our world?”

Willow understood why her wife wanted to know. It was whether Toni had tried to persuade her or just flat out threatened her. What sort of person she was now. But did that really make any difference? “I couldn’t do it, Tara. I couldn’t do it to you. And I couldn’t be that… thing again. You don’t understand what it was - ”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I do now,” Tara said. “A little, at least.”

Willow turned, reached for her wife and found it awkward. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. Hug her. Kiss or caress her. Fuck her brains out. Hold her. All or none of those things. She settled for running one finger over Tara’s cheek bone which she found a little damp. “You did something you shouldn’t ever have had to do,” she admitted. “I never wanted that.”

“But I do know what you mean,” Tara said. “I was… trapped in there. I could see, I could hear and feel but I wasn’t in control of myself.”

Willow shook her head. “That’s more what it’s like now,” she said. “I remember all those things that – in my memory – I did. But I wasn’t there at the time. I did them all, I did all those things to you but I didn’t… I couldn’t control it because from one perspective I wasn’t there but when I remember it… I enjoyed it. At least you were fighting against your demon, whatever it did you were there and you hated it. I loved it, baby. I revelled in it. I couldn’t let that thing come back again.”

Tara stayed silent, probably realising that she still didn’t have a handle on what had happened all those years ago. What Willow felt about them. Then… “They weren’t my finest years either. Because I did have a choice and I let it happen anyway.”

“What if… What if Wolfram and Hart had gotten the Vocah to take my soul again, Tara? Whether or not they wanted to bring the vampire back? What if they’d just taken my soul?”

Tara considered that for a moment. “I would’ve fought to get you back.”

“But?” There was something hanging there, some sort of unfinished – unspoken – statement.

“I wouldn’t have let that thing out in the world,” Tara said.

“What about you and it?” Willow wondered.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“It’d be the only part of me that was left to you,” she suggested, hoping Tara saw where she was going with this.

“That was true once,” Tara said. “When I hadn’t known you. Now… I have my memories, I’d have always had my memories. I wouldn’t have let it hurt anyone.”

“Including you?”

Tara shook her head. “No, baby. I’d have been way past being hurt by the time it got anywhere near me.”

Willow bit her lip. “I should’ve come to you. I mean, if we’d just done a little research I’d have… How did you find out how to get here anyway?”

“I went to Toni, then to the Giles’ as you can see.”

“Is time…” She gestured to show what she meant. Was time flowing differently?

“No.”

“Doesn’t seem like enough time…”

“Rupert was pretty quick,” Tara explained.

“But…”

“But?”

“There’s something you’ve not dealt with,” Willow said. She didn’t want to accuse, she had absolutely zero right to turn the tables. But there was something Tara hadn’t mentioned and they both knew it was out there. She’d witnessed it, she’d been stood right there. And if it hadn’t been for this place, it would’ve been the hugest thing they had to discuss in years.

“I… teleported,” Tara admitted.

“Yes, you did.” Willow understood the theory but the only experiment they’d ever done… Well, it drawing on pure magic – there wasn’t any elementalism that could help you with that… There was nothing natural about shifting from one place to another like that, no crutch you could lean on.

Which that made it dangerous.

And Tara had known how dangerous it was. “And you did it when you were angry. Much as you wanted to bitch-slap Toni, you definitely shouldn’t ever have done that.”

“I almost passed out in Toni’s apartment,” Tara said. “I was just… I was so damn mad at her.”

“You could’ve killed yourself,” Willow admonished. Okay, change of stance. Tara could chastise her later, but she was well within her rights to turn the tables about this. Besides, which had happened first? Teleportation. Justification for concern located and locked.

“I know.”

“When we tried that, it was into the next room. What you did was across states!” It was only her innate sense of the woman she was partnered with - in more ways than the words on the paper or the ring on her finger - that had assured her Tara hadn’t been dead.

The only way she could go on as she had. If Tara had been seriously hurt at that point, it would’ve stopped her – of course it would. And what sort of indictment was that? That she’d gone ahead, even worried about Tara, because she’d known her girl wasn’t seriously hurt or dead.

That was twisted and it made her feel very, very small.

“I know. Believe me… it won’t happen again,” Tara said. Willow tended to believe her. Her wife always learned her lessons well. “I back flew after that, talked to Rupert and Jenny, and then…”

“Sunnydale Hellmouth?” Willow wondered.

“Got friends there,” Tara pointed out, as if she hadn’t known.

“I knew there was a reason you were keeping the giant, demon-eating snake Mayor company. All along you were just waiting for when I screwed up and you needed to come get me from a hell dimension.”

“It was always at the back of my mind,” Tara played along with the joke, but she sounded so very tired.

In fact she sounded… old. And that was something Willow had never thought before. I did this. “I’m sorry,” Willow said again, stroking her lover’s hair.

“Will, you wouldn’t be you if – occasionally - you didn’t go do something bold, impulsive, that panicked me but it worked out in the end. You’re just not used to the boot being on the other foot.”

“Has it worked out?” Willow said.

“Hasn’t it?”

Willow resisted the urge to explain what might lie in their future – their future beyond life – until she got a handle on what else was going to happen. It was a consideration, but it wasn’t the main one.

“We haven’t got Toni’s Dad back,” she said.

“Right now – and I hate to admit it – that isn’t even fourth or fifth in my list of priorities.”

“I know you’re mad at her - ” Willow started.

“Aren’t you?”

“No – I mean yes, but I can understand it too.” The things they’d done, for each other. The things they’d still do. Tara had just been agonising about the most recent of them, verbally and silently, it wasn’t like she hadn’t been able to tell.

“Don’t think I’m not sympathetic - ” Tara began.

The ‘but’ hung in the air between them, so she gave it voice. “But…”

“Her Dad [died. And it was long time ago. A lot of people have died. Some of them we were responsible for. Some of them were people we loved very much. Some of them… Willow, she didn’t put this much energy into grieving for her own daughter. Or Mal. And that was only recently, in the scheme of things.

“She’d built him up, built up getting him back into something it really shouldn’t ever have been. It’d been so much better if she’d never even known it was possible – then she’d be living the right way, for herself. She might even still have her family.”

Willow nodded, realising what it cost her wife to make that last assertion. Harsh truth, one that she agreed with. “She’s made it into her life’s work. Nothing she’s done – and she’s done a lot of things we don’t even want to know about – means a thing if she doesn’t get him back.”

“If we don’t get him back. I don’t know if I’m minded to validate those things she did for Wolfram and Hart, Will. I really don’t. They’re done. Nothing will undo them, nothing will be ‘better’ if we got him back – even if that’s possible. Not one single thing will be better and right now, I’m not certain she deserves an iota of happiness.”

And it just kept getting more shocking.

That was about the harshest thing she’d ever heard Tara say about that sort of thing. Simply put, but blistering in what it meant for her relationship with Toni. You might’ve thought that there was no way back for the girl who’d been like a daughter – or more like a younger sister – to them.

Willow wasn’t so sure, that wasn’t her wife. There was a way back for anyone because Tara understood better than most people what it was to need a way back from the places you’d taken yourself. A way to redeem yourself.

And sure, people didn’t have actually do what they believed in, but then again – and maybe she was biased – Tara was better than most people were when it came to that sort of thing.

Better than her for sure.

If their positions had been reversed she’d probably have been advocating never speaking to Toni again – at the very least – and maybe something harsher. Tara simply wasn’t minded to give her what she wanted. Big difference there. A more mature outlook, perhaps.

“Okay,” Willow said. “I can get with that. She shouldn’t get anything out of this, but we’re here…”

“And we can leave just as easily.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“What is it?” Tara asked.

“You know what it is. We can’t just leave here,” Willow said. “I didn’t want to get into it but we both know it’s there. It’s the woolly mammoth in the middle of the room. It’s one thing being here now. We have a way out and we have the ability to defend ourselves, even to take the offensive – you proved that. But one day…

“Baby, no one lives forever. Not even us. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want the Master waiting for me.”

“He said something? Threatened you?”

“Not just me.”

Tara was quiet for a moment; Willow could imagine the thoughts that were running through her wife’s mind as she weighed the options. But she was certain that the inevitable had already occurred to the beautiful, smart and compassionate woman she’d married. Tara didn’t miss the inevitable.

“Go on.”

“It’s not all bad,” Willow said. “Like your friend said, and others, there’re places beyond these caverns, a whole world out there. We could easily…”

“I think we’re supposed to go to those places,” Tara said. “This is just like… the waiting room.”

“Some people wait here too long, or don’t know where else to go. They get too used to it. We could choose now, decide where to go and… Look, I hate talking about this but there’s a very real point to talking about what happens if one of us, you know, goes first. Not like finding someone else or who to give the cat to, but now we need to consider where we go when we’re here. Where we’d find each other. We could decide that now and it wouldn’t matter what the Master did… we’d get there and wait.”

There it was. That was the option. A real choice. Just make a decision and get out of here. Even though she didn’t believe it was enough – much as it might be a good plan for them. What about everyone else?

“And what about everyone else?” Tara asked, turning her thoughts into words. “You can’t make me believe you’ve not thought about that.”

Yeah. That.

Tara knew. It was already in her mind what they had to do and Willow didn’t think her wife would take much persuasion.

“I’ve thought about it, but we said we weren’t going to put everyone else first, remember? That we’d try to be more selfish?” It’d seemed important at the time to live their lives for them, not everyone else.

“Yeah, well…” Tara drew that word out. “This is our mess, isn’t it? We did this?
“Kind of,” Willow agreed. “Probably. Maybe. Yeah…”
“And if we don’t sort it out then, well we’ll have to deal with it later?”
“Yeah.”

“When we don’t have the tools for the job?”

“That’s right.”

“So we don’t have much choice really, do we?” Tara asked.

“I don’t reckon so,” Willow said, trying not to slip into the southern drawl she sometimes tried to affect when she usually said those words. But there was nothing funny about this. The Master was…

She didn’t want to be his victim. Moreover she didn’t want him to use Tara to get to her.

Because she knew very well what he was capable of. Better than anyone, perhaps.

And now he knew what she – they – were capable of. The last time he’d seen Tara she’d been more of a Slayer, simply using magic rather than physicality to do very much the same things. Now she was a full blown elemental witch and – best as they could tell - the world hadn’t seen the like since long before even he’d been turned.

He had to know that they were more dangerous than anything he’d faced in a long time. Believe that he was thinking about how to deal with them. Most likely he’d used what they loved against them – that was his thing. He’d find and exploit a weakness.

For a few minutes now their fingertips had been playing in each other’s palms. A subtle dance that they’d played out more times than either of them could probably count. A tiny change in their connection and perhaps a downshift in the urgency of the situation, in what had been keeping them apart since they’d found each other again.

Willow was dimly aware of the fact that Jenny must’ve also noticed something, took Gray with her to another part of the empty building. It wasn’t like they were all over each other, but they were alone now and…

“Might it even be a good thing we ended up here, now?” Tara asked.

Willow nodded. What else could she say? It really might be important that they’d come here while they could do something about all this… clean up their own mess. No matter how inadvertent it had been. Both to help everyone else in this realm, but also to protect themselves and their extended family.

“I was so scared,” Tara said, recognising that they needed to change the subject back. Back to them. Living them. “So afraid I wouldn’t find you.”

“You know better than that,” Willow said. Tara’s breath was warm over her face; they were so much closer now. Making tiny movements before each other, fingers still dancing. It was just a question of when – not whether – the kiss would come. They needed it. They’d pushed it aside because both of them recognised they shouldn’t gloss over what had happened. But…

“Knowing it and feeling it are different things.” Their lips almost brushed, but the tips of their noses certainly did as – for a second – their movements were slightly out of alignment.

“Eskimo?” Willow wondered.

Tara shook her head, rubbing their noses together again, making Willow break into laughter. “No,” she said. “It’s not cold enough for that.”

“Doesn’t feel cold at all,” Willow remarked.

“Not at all,” Tara agreed.

“It’s getting warmer, actually.”

“Oh, just kiss me will you?”

“That simple?”

“When it gets complex I have to come and rescue you from – not even a hell dimension – you choose to get complex in the Halls of the Dead,” Tara said. “I’m all tuckered out with complex.”

“I didn’t need rescuing,” Willow said, not at all sure that was true. There’d been some moments there she’d only survived because the Master had willed it. But she had – that was what counted.

“But you’re glad I came?” Once again their lips brushed, but nothing deeper than that.

“I can always rely on you,” Willow said. “I know that. Stupid as I may be from time to time, I never let go of that.”

“Not stupid,” Tara promised her, finally pressing their lips together. “Just… impetuous.”

“Can you really be impetuous at our age?” Willow asked, breaking the kiss – just to tease. Making the answer to the question seem more important.

The way that Tara grabbed the back of her head and pulled her in, allowing no further prevarication, said ‘yes’ just as clearly as any words could have. Willow more than melted. She submitted to it. Tara needed her to and it was her delight as well. Her wife’s kiss was made into much more than the sum of its touch, taste and emotional resonance.

It was the expression of love that it had always been. It was a reconnection of lovers parted. It was what was left of her anger. Powerful and directed in a positive way. It was the fear, fear of losing her, that Willow would never allow to happen. It was everything.

She heard a moan and realised that it’d come from her as Tara’s tongue explored her mouth. Falling backwards on the folded tarp she didn’t resist in the slightest as Tara’s hands started to wander her body, not even when it they started to make her intentions even plainer.


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

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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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Katharyn, Lovely, just lovely. I think if Tara wanted to leave right there and then, Willow would have honored that request. Both realize they’ve made some blunders by reacting in the heat of the moment. I like the way they discussed their options, neither girl pressuring the other into doing anything beyond returning to the living world. It is a tough decision whether to move forward with the original mission. Tara is still angry with Toni and rightly so. Technically, if they permanently destroy VW, WaH would have nothing to hold over them, right? The terms of the contract are probably specific to linking the two –vampire and human. The Vocah would be powerless to enforce its “due” if part of the terms no longer exists. That’s like winning a million dollar settlement against a homeless person. You can’t collect when there’s nothing there to be had.

Anyhoo.. I think the Master was supposed to move on to the fiery pits of HELL but he’s really a big chicken shit. He knows there are things bigger and badder than he ever dreamed of there and HE would be the one in shackles! Big pasty faced poser. Grrr.

I dig Jenny and my brain will not allow thoughts of anything other than.. she loves Giles.. she loves and supports Willow and Tara.. she is way cool.

Loved the way Willow and Tara slowly made their way back to the physical connection and the long awaited smoochies! THANK YOU!!! More please!

Thank you Kajun - since you asked for exactly what was coming I just had to provide that third part yesterday LOL. You haven't been reading ahead have you?

I think you're right, Willow would've left if Tara had wanted her to. She got them into this, but they'll get out together.

WaH's threat to them never was about VW. It was about the Vocah stripping Willow's soul away again, returning her to being that creature. Now, I suppose you could argue there can't be two VW's (VW squared?) but maybe there can be? The Vocah wasn't threatening to switch them, just make Willow like that again by removing what it gave her. So the threat is still there - technically. However the attempt to get Toni's Dad may be enough. They came over, they tried... regardless of whether they succeed. Think about the odds here... how many people have died, ever? How big is this place? How do they find him when they didn't know if magic would work?

I think...

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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Title: The Sidestep Chronicles: Third Chronicle (Part 41 (283))
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: A Gray and Jenny interlude, reflecting on the girls.
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: One of those necessary little pieces – IMHO – that may not seem to do much, but actually goes to how other people see the girls. Seeing them through the eyes of other characters and how they relate to them is one of the most satisfying things about writing them. Besides, it’d be tough to set up the cliff-hanger from within the girls’ perspectives.
Thanks to: The conspiracy theorists, if I didn’t do that already. If I did… tough. Maybe dual thanking is another conspiracy, huh? Yeah, you betcha… I honestly have no idea what conspiracy you will be up to now and what you’ll make of this…



“There’s something about those two chicks,” Gray said to Jenny as they left the room.

“You have no idea,” she said.

“And what does that mean?”

How to explain without getting into their personal stuff, the things she knew but they wouldn’t want anyone else to? How to put across something so fundamental to who Tara and Willow were, without getting into what had made them that way? Events that even they didn’t like to think about too much, let alone discuss.

“Do you believe people are supposed to be together?” she asked the younger-looking man. It was tough to remember that he’d been dead almost as long as she’d been alive. He’d have seen things, here, that rivalled anything she’d seen back in the real world he’d been snatched from far too early.

He was, he’d proven, a good guy. Someone had had good instincts about him. It might even have been her. Another contribution.

“I… I didn’t believe in God when I was a kid, death was just supposed to be the end. There’d be nothing else at all once you died. I thought…” he shrugged.

“And then you found yourself here,” Jenny said.

“That’s right. So do I believe in more now than I did when I was alive? I guess I do. Not God, or that stuff – I mean where is he? But I believe in where I am – that’s something else, something we never knew about. So, yeah. I guess I can believe in what you’re saying. Whatever it is.”

Okay, with that out of the way then perhaps she could explain it. “They’re supposed to be together,” she said. “I love my husband and all my kids - ”

“All? Why? How many have you got?” he asked.

“Four. One’s just graduated, one’s just starting college and the other’s are still in school. I was saying though – “

“Sorry.”

She waved away the apology. “I love my husband and kids, but I can’t pretend we were always supposed to be together. Even though we got past some major personal and cultural differences to hook up, which was a good thing, it made us work at it.

Even with that, we were just something that happened, just like most people hook up. For some people it ‘unhappens’ later or they realise they were wrong or drunk on hormones. But those two… they were always supposed to be together. Some very powerful people bet a whole hell of a lot on the fact that they would be. It couldn’t have been any other way. Doesn’t mean it was easy for them – in fact it put them through the ringer in ways that most people would’ve just given up on - but it was always going to be.”

He looked back to the far side of the room they’d just vacated. Tara and Willow were having a little couple time and probably needed it. She wanted them at their very best when they took the next step and some time together was about the best thing she could think of – for all of them.

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

“They’re very… alive,” he said.

“That they are. And they’ll be better, stronger, when they’ve had some time together.”

“That magic they use…?”

“I don’t think they call it magic,” she explained. “But for the rest of us, it sure is. They’re connected to nature and the elements almost as closely as to each other.”

He considered that for a few moments. “I would’ve thought that Tara would’ve been mad as hell,” Gray said. “You know, after her wife just came here without telling her?”

“For her that probably was ‘mad as hell’ at her wife, but I don’t think she knows how to stay mad at Willow, especially when it isn’t even Willow’s fault.”

“No?”

“No… My adopted daughter, Toni, she… she tricked Willow into coming here.”

“Why?” he asked, immediately curious about that too.

“To get her father,” Jenny explained. “She’s been obsessed with it, for years. Everything she’s done since she was about fifteen when she lost him has been shaping to find a way to get him back.”

“And how old is she now?”

“Old enough to understand what death is. Old enough that she should just accept it but it’s too big a deal for her now. It’s made her do things for her employers she can’t be proud of. Threatened her marriage, muted her grief at the death of her own child and husband before it collapsed.”

“That’s fucked up,” he said. “Excuse my French.”

“I’m right there with you. It is fucked up. And the worst thing is that she’s been played. Those employers, who gave her the tools to get Willow to come here, deceived her. She could’ve taken the same steps years ago that Tara and I did and brought herself here. We proved it.”

Gray whistled through his teeth. “Man, that’s cold.”

“You know that law firm that used to be here?”

“Them?”

“Them.”

“Wow. That’s a big coincidence.”

“Yeah,” Jenny agreed, though when it came to Wolfram and Hart perhaps they shouldn’t have been surprised.

“So they aren’t just going to leave are they? They aren’t going to leave the Master in control here?” Gray asked, sounding as if he’d gotten to the root of what he really wanted to know just as they left the room, leaving Tara and Willow completely alone – which she judged was only proper considering things had started to look they were about to… move along.

Jenny had been wondering about his question since they’d started the retreat from the citadel. She wanted to say ‘no’, they were all mortal and one day this would be at least a stop on their journey to what came after. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “If I had to guess I’d say no – that they’d stay and do what has to be done, that’s who they are… But…” she shrugged. No way to be sure.

Maybe she’d get a vote, but the decision was ultimately theirs. Without their power neither Gray nor she would stand a snowball’s chance in hell.

“You know them well,” he said. “So you’re probably right.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I – we know them well. I couldn’t be closer to them if they were my sisters or my daughters. It’s weird; you know? We’re in that half a generation of age difference. They could be either to me, I used to teach once upon a time but Tara ended up as Principal at the school I retired from. How I see them, it kind of changes, back and forth. Course when Tara was my boss, the mothering instinct tended to recede.”

“So she’s a school principal? That’s what she does back there?” he asked. Perhaps a little unnecessarily, given that she’d just told him. On the other hand it was always possible Tara had changed her career at a later date.

“Tara’s principal at a school for the deaf and the blind. As I said, I was a teacher there until I retired.”

“For deaf kids, huh? Wow, I had no idea.”

“It was a shame really, she does a really good job now but she was a great teacher, the kind that turns kids lives around,” Jenny said. “I think she was a better teacher than she can be anything else. But they wanted her to step up and she’s making a big difference now too. Just in different ways.”

“I guess she can set an example to the faculty,” he said. “I mean, the Principal at my school was a rat faced ass-hole. He didn’t care about anything except his budget, saw kids as an inconvenience to the smooth running of his school and didn’t back up his staff any either.”

“I’ve in worked places like that,” Jenny said, knowing exactly what he meant. Of course, the rat-faced asshole in question had gotten eaten in the end, which just proved that Karma was a bitch.

“What did you teach? I mean, you said you retired or something – you don’t look old enough for that, but you said…”

“Yeah, I do look just that old,” she said, laughing. “But bless you anyway. I got out early, my husband’s a little older than I am and I wanted to spend more time with him while we were both still fit and healthy enough to enjoy it. I taught IT, computers and things? Still do a few courses here and there.”

“Computers, huh? When I passed over anything serious was still big enough to fill a room. I hear they’re smaller now.”

“So small we can’t even use them,” she joked.

It went completely over his head though. “So… why?”

“That was a little joke – little joke, get it?”

“Very - ” He stopped. Looked back at the door through to where Tara and Willow were. “No. They’re too alive – it’s – they have to stop it.”

“What?”

“Whatever they’re doing – they have to stop.”

“What? Why?”

“Everyone will feel it, everyone will know – they’ll all come.”

Jenny’s jaw dropped. It wasn’t something she’d thought about but now that he’d raised it… It’d been bad enough before when they were being chased by some of the already-dead wannatouchies, but if Tara and Willow somehow brought all of the dead here, seeking contact with life – let alone the one’s who could lead the vampires here – No… that was a bad idea.

“Shit.”


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

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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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Katharyn, Wait, wait.. no more smoochies.. at least not until they get far, far away from the wannatouchies. Shit, indeed. It didn’t occur to me their connection would be sensed not just by those nearby, but way beyond that. Willow and Tara turned each other on, and then into, a giant life energy beacon. They can’t really turn that off either. Temper it, yes, but it’s not something they can put a leather jacket on for protection. Can they harness some of it and send it across the hotD similar to how Tara manipulates air? Use it as misdirection for the wannatouchies. I don’t know!!!! Ack. So much for hiding, eh? I was just starting to get a little suspicious of our scoobie-dead boy when he realizes his sense of Willow and Tara’s life energy is getting stronger, which means others will start sensing it too and wastes no time in telling Jenny. Those points for being a good guy are adding up!

I hope just the fact that they tried to get Toni’s dad back is enough. But you can’t trust WaH. They will demand their pound of flesh. That’s just how they roll. Maybe the former Mayor can eat the Vocah.. then they won't need to worry about it. Is that even possible? Or.. The PTB needs to intervene and ensure no one snatches Willow’s, or Tara’s, soul. The girls have earned that. Biting my nails again… Good stuff

really, really good stuff

thanks for the update katharyn

kajun - Ohhhh, so now you don't want smoochies. Make your mind up!! No reason you should have realised what would happen, that's what I'm for!

So you think they should be turned on and throw on a leather jacket? Fair enough...

And aha, now you start to think Gray is good. I can spring my devious plan! No, that was part of it!

Funny, I was just finalising the 'what WaH think of it' part this morning...

The Mayor going on a Vocah diet is a great idea. But there is no PTB in this story. I always thought it was a contrived addition to Angel to deal with some plot having never been mentioned in 5 years of the original show.

edob - Thank you very much indeed

Thanks

Next part, telling the girls what effect they were having. Yeah, that's all that's going on...

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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Title: The Sidestep Chronicles: Third Chronicle (Part 42 (284))
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: Relief becomes frustration becomes shock.
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: You know, I wondered about the start of this. If they really would do this, there, on a tarp. And hey, sometimes you do just need. I will – carefully – admit to ‘reconnecting’ in some less than orthodox places in my time. Not because, ‘hey that would be a cool thing to do’ but just because sometimes you need and there’s no reason not to except... (Note to clarify, it’s not like your author is an exhibitionist or something! There was privacy!!) Point is, after a while apart – or I imagine some serious danger – you need to be with someone. That might mean a kiss. It might mean more. I hope it doesn’t take you out of the story.
And no, I’m not going to comment on the ending now… saving that for feedback.
Thanks to: I’m truly humbled that those who have been feeding back actually find this engrossing and worthy of attention. I was very worried that it was repetitive within itself, too much ‘monster of the week’ and not ‘enough’ compared to the first two Chronicles. But the fact that you do seem to be having fun says that I know nothing… Thanks.




Simple need had taken over. The surroundings weren’t exactly luxurious or what anyone would call romantic.

They weren’t even conducive, but there was something… She needed to connect with Willow on every level. Love would always be with them, but everything about her wife as they’d kissed had screamed ‘Please, take me. Please show me ‘it’ doesn’t matter. Be my wife/lover/partner/woman/friend once again.’

Tara wasn’t at all sure that Willow was as conscious of the need and the demand as she was, she probably understood Willow’s nuances better now than her own body, her own heart.

It wasn’t a physical thing that brought them to this, not for her at least, but it was manifested that way. She was lying on top of Willow, between her parted legs, her hand thrust down the front of her wife’s jeans.

The need was simple, it was raw and it was utterly emotional. Orgasm, when it came, would wash over both of them and it’d be a thing of love – as it always was between them – rather than simple lust. Otherwise she’d never have done this here. She wouldn’t have done it now. It wasn’t physical relief that either of them sought, just a re-affirmation of them and it looked like that was going to be reaffirmed in a physical way.

A wet, hot, pantingly physical way.

Fact one, when they just tried to do the pure lust thing they always failed. Utterly. It was – after all this time – pretty much impossible to set aside the love. They’d long since given up trying even for the sake of extra spiciness.

Fact two, once they let the love find a physical form… the lust was right there anyway.

As Tara moved her whole body back and forth over Willow, their lips continued to meet. Her wife’s hands moved over both their bodies, baring, squeezing, rubbing and caressing.

And it wasn’t going to take long.

Their combined need was great and both of them would be fulfilled in this interlude. A bright spot in the dark greyness that this place seemed to offer. Though it was full of weird and wonderful colours, the odd hue of the light, the fire red rocks and the great green, blue and red marbles of the citadel, the impression was overall one of greyness. Neither one thing nor another.

And they were filling it now with some light. “I love you,” Willow gasped, not there yet, but moving to make sure that Tara didn’t pull back from delivering that pleasure. As if she could’ve done with their friends outside the door and waiting for them. As if she could’ve denied Willow now for much more important reasons than that.

“I love you,” she returned. “I love you. I love you.” At each movement of her body, her hand and her fingers she renewed the most important of their vows.

Dimly she was aware of some sound, some knocking?

And then…

“What the hell?”

Jenny had burst into the room. “I’m sorry,” their friend said, averting her eyes now she’d been noticed. “I am but - ”

Tara’s hand, caught by Willow’s desire, stayed right where it was and there was no hiding what it was that they’d been doing.

“You need to stop,” Jenny said, still defiantly looking in what was noticeably another direction. Like some spot above and beyond them. It was about as much privacy as she was likely to find.

Willow’s groan was painful in its disappointment as either the words, or Tara’s inaction, cut through to the part of her that had been carried away in the moment and severed her from the all important mood.

“What?” Tara asked, pulling her hand free of Willow’s… well, of Willow really since there was no other way to put it.

“You need to stop – You’re… Gray says that you’re sending out energy, you’re too alive; you’ll be drawing the dead here. Maybe all of them.”

“Oh, come on,” Willow said, still bound up in her disappointment.

Tara found she had the presence to be a little more detached about it. Perhaps because of where her hand was, or perhaps because of where Willow’s wasn’t.

“There’s already a crowd milling around out there,” Jenny said. “Maybe it’s not you but – and I am sorry - but I wasn’t willing to bet he was wrong.”

It made a certain kind of sense, since they were doing this to feel… alive. To be together and to get past the simple greyness of this place. And because it was what two people in love – and armed with a tarp – could do.

Tara rolled off from the top of her lover, falling back onto that tarp and feeling just how hard the floor beneath really was. Willow hadn’t seemed to notice but... “Damn...” she cursed, partly at the situation, partly at the disappointment and finally at the news Jenny had brought them.

“Don’t worry, he’s out there,” Jenny said. “Trying to tell them it was somewhere else.”

“They can feel us – they knew - ?” Willow sounded more than dubious. But then she’d been the one on the verge of orgasm and they both knew that being thrown back down the mountain when you were nearly at the top, without the benefit of a safety rope… well, it could be more than simply annoying.

More to the point, Tara supposed, Jenny was right. They couldn’t take the chance. And actually, if the dead could feel that then it was rather like they were voyeurs. She’d never have let things gone so far as they had if she’d understood that much. An audience, of any kind, was the last thing she ever wanted. This was between them. Someone else seeing, watching or feeling their connection? Eww.

A quickie, that was what they’d thought they had chance for. A momentary re-emphasis of that part of their love. And why not, apart from the fact it might bring the innumerable dead to their doorstep?

Or worse.

It better not be like this the next time they came here though… but then, they wouldn’t be alive, would they?

“As reasons to be interrupted go,” Willow said, pushing her shirt back into her waistband, “Army of the already-dead is kind of a doozy.”

“Sorry,” Jenny said again. “You know there’s nothing I’d less rather I’d walked in on.”

“Walking in on Ben?” Willow suggested.

“That’s not funny.”

“Faith,” Willow continued, showing that she must really be ticked off.

“That’s definitely not funny.”

“Did it look so bad?” Tara wondered, forcing a smile. This wasn’t Jenny’s fault. She refused to feel guilty for what they’d been doing, but equally she could see that it ranked lower on the totem pole of things they had to worry about than… well, practically everything else.

Jenny just laughed, putting Willow’s suggestions behind her.

“We better prepare,” Willow said. “I mean, what if Gray doesn’t persuade them?”

“Hopefully things will have calmed down,” Tara said, reflecting that he’d resisted the lure – again. He could’ve exploited that sensation for himself, but hadn’t. It really was a mob thing, get a few of the already-dead together and they reinforced the attraction to what they were lacking… the flicker of life. She doubted – and hoped she was right – that the wannatouchies had actually been homing in on them having sex because… well, eww. More likely, surely, that it was simply the amount of life they were putting out there? They already knew it could be detected when they were in proximity…

“I know I have,” Willow complained.

“Oh, poor baby.” She kissed her wife by way of compensation. Small compensation, she was sure. It hadn’t exactly been a satisfactory outcome from her side either.

“So this is the future?” Willow wondered. “I mean, a post-death future? No nookie?”

“Don’t worry,” Gray said from the door but absolutely not looking in on them, just in case they hadn’t yet been decent – which they were. “First of all I did keep them from storming in here and secondly, sure you can have the nookie, it’s just that you two are alive. Around here…. Just being alive, full of those kinds of emotions and energies is like playing opera on loudspeaker out the window. But add in that kind of action…”

“Oh, thank goodness for that,” Willow said to general acclaim. Everyone was just as happy. Of course, there wouldn’t be time for ‘nookie’ if they didn’t do something about the Master and that other vampire.

But there wasn’t one of them in the room – Gray excepted – who wouldn’t be deeply grateful for that, with the right person. Who knew what Gray would be grateful for, but he seemed to want to be away from that door. If he’d been alive, he’d probably have been blushing furiously.

“Can be kind of confusing though, and unfair for those taken really young. When you die… lots of people return to their prime, at least to what some people have been calling their ‘self-image’. It’s not like I’m walking around with my neck all swollen up now is it? Like some sort of zombie that swallowed a tyre.”

Tara shook her head. He had a point.

“But kids,” he continued. “They never had chance to grow, to reach that prime. They have a ‘life’ here that’s shaped by who they were when they died. As for the rest of us, there’s still the fact that the guy that looks twenty years old might’ve been here for centuries while you look forty and you’ve been here a week. Kind of weird…”

“Unless,” Willow said, linking arms with her, “you know exactly who you’re with.”

“That can hurt too,” he said. “You see it all the time. Couples who come through here, they expected death to be the end and – in some ways – they welcomed it. One life was enough. One of them wants that, one of them doesn’t.”

“That’s not us,” Tara said. She couldn’t ever see it.

“That’s what I hear,” Gray said. “I don’t doubt it – but then you have to be ready for the fact you don’t feel things as keenly here. Extremes, yes. But not the everyday things… I can’t even remember… well, some things I can’t even remember.”

“You’re not selling it real well,” Willow said.

“I’m not trying to. Don’t think of it as life after death. It’s not. It’s not even death after life. It’s another existence. It’s just that you remember all this stuff…” he said. “The people who do best, they get out of here I think. They go the other places, outside and they have another ‘life.’ Maybe that’s with some of the same people, but if you try to continue what you had in the real world, you’ll only be disappointed. That can’t come back. Places, things, people…” He shrugged.

“Don’t listen to him,” another voice said from the door, but they couldn’t see past Gray who was blocking it. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s been here too long, never even stepped out into the rest of the world. Too chicken.”

All eyes in the room turned to the owner of that young, female voice as she pushed past him without any fear of shoving him aside. He’d been in her way and now he wasn’t, not withstanding he was taller by far than the dark haired, young woman.

“Who the hell are you?” Gray asked, rubbing his arm where he’d got shoved aside.

“Gonna tell him, T? Or shall I?”

“Faith.”


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

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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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Katharyn, This is going to be very short because…

OH. MY. GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so excited I can hardly breathe.. think.. FAITH found Willow and Tara! Oh yes.. let the vamp ass-kicking begin!!!

Not exactly a surprise since you were asking for it ages ago... but it was always there

Of course now I have committed the cardinal sin of any writer, not only having two characters with similar names but actually two characters with the SAME name.

It's a recipe for disaster or - I hope - reuniting two or three characters that just worked really well together.

Outside of T/W of course the most powerful and favourite pairings I've had in the last 10 years of writing this have been Tara and Faith, and Faith and Jenny (of course this isn't a sexytime 'pairing') but there's something about those pairings that just works...

If I had known where I'd end up (300 parts of Sidestep) Faith would never have died back then, though I'm not sure how I'd have achieved the same effect LOL. But there's just something about how my version of Tara could interact with Faith that... it still blows my mind. I don't get to play with that as much as I'd like here but those two were just wonderful characters together

Katharyn

(BTW - I've been drinking... so yeah, that is why I am going on and on after a short feedback! Thank the lord for the squiggly line to tell me when I mess up typing)

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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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Katharyn, I had to install a glass cabinet and this chapter put me in such a good mood.. it went smooth as silk. Not how I was expecting it to go. So.. Thanks! And now.. on with some proper feedback!

I completely agree with Tara. Her connection with Willow is just between them and other characters shouldn’t be seeing or feeling that. Voyeurism doesn’t belong in Willow and Tara’s private world. Neither does having W or T, by force or accident, touching a “naughty” part of some other character just to give the reader a cheap thrill. It’s disrespectful to Willow and Tara and their relationship. (None of that going on here and I really appreciate that! You put them thru the ringer sometimes but always take care of them.) Anyhoo.. sensing an individual’s life energy and W/T’s connection are two different things. So glad Jenny interrupted before the entire hotD showed up!

Gray is pretty observant but he is limited by his experiences in the hotD “waiting room.” Now, Faith.. she would know what is out there. She probably looked around for all of two seconds and said, “Screw this!” and quickly made her way out.. to a better place. And that’s exactly the kind of thing Willow and Tara, all four really, needed to hear.

There are a few issues Faith and Tara need to discuss. Will they take care of that now or wait til the mission is over? Faith would probably want to get on with the ass-kicking. Here’s what I am anxious to know: does Faith have her Slayer powers????

I think I’ll have a drink too.. in celebration of Faith's much anticipated arrival! WHOOHOO!

Kajun - Well done on the shelves. I hate doing that sort of thing but unfortunately I am unnaturally good at doing it so I end up with all of it.... *GRUMBLE*

And well done for terrifying me! I was pretty sure I hadn't done any naughty touching of other characters! Then you said as much... Couldn't agree with you more on that.

All the dead turning up would've been unfortunate, but Gray was exaggerating a little... Would you trek for days to get to T&W? Well, okay, YOU would, but would anyone else? No. So he's really talking about the wannatouchies in the immediate area...

We'll cover all of Faith's thoughts on the caverns as well as people who stay there... I think you may have got the right words though.

Yes, there are T/F issues. But also W/F issues since Willow is the one who did it while Tara let it happen. If there's legitimate blame then yes, it rests with Tara. But Willow feels it just as much... after all they never got on.

As for the rest... we'll see very soon. Two short chapters coming up in the next post....

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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