ok, i've decided that this piddly little pathetic chapter really isn't worth keeping you all waiting so much - here you go - un beta'd:
~~~~~~~~~
Willow knocked on the door to Giles’ with a huge grin plastered on her face and her ‘girlfriend’ by her side.
The door opened shortly to reveal a much more alert Giles standing there, he was now dressed and looking considerably more perky,
Shows what a few hundred cups of tea can do for you… Willow thought, but kept it to herself.
“Hello, Willow,” Giles looked at Tara, standing a little behind Willow, also looking extremely cheerful, and, he noticed, linking her little finger with Willow’s, discreetly, “Tara,” he added. He looked curiously at them for a second, wondering what had them so pleased, then remembered the brief act of passion the blond had shown Willow at the hospital, and had the distinct feeling that the matter had been discussed. Maybe even acted upon. He felt a little strange about it, it being a big change from the Willow he was used to, but being British, he decided not to say anything. “Come in, Buffy and the others are already here,” he beckoned them inside.
Even the thought that Anya was most likely inside, and she would have to spend the next hour or so in the company of the annoying ex-demon didn’t do much to dampen Willow’s great mood.
Tara will be with me – I could handle anything! she thought with a grin.
Tara slyly unlinked her little finger with Willow’s as they passed Giles in the doorway, she for one didn’t particularly want Willow’s friends, her family, even, to see the reality of their relationship. Willow felt slightly hurt for a second before realising why Tara had broken the light contact, then felt immediately the same way. She pulled her hand to her side self consciously.
“Hey, Buffy,” Willow greeted, spotting the Slayer sitting on Giles’ couch. She heard Giles shut the door behind the two girls and backed up a step so she was beside Tara, rather than in front of her.
“Hi, Will,” Buffy said before turning her head to face the two. “Feel better?”
A secretive smirk flashed across Willow’s features as she tried unsuccessfully to hide it, “Much,”
Tara snickered lightly beside her, though Buffy was none-the-wiser. “Well that’s good.” She remarked, turning back around, so the back of her head was all that was visible to Willow over the couch.
Anya, who was practically sitting in Xander’s lap, across from Buffy narrowed her eyes suspiciously at the two, before leaning back against Xander and complaining, “Why am I here?”
The Englishman stepped up behind Willow and Tara, who had distinctly moved away from each other after Anya’s steely gaze was upon them, and attempted to answer her question, “Because, Anya, a seemingly dangerous demon who can tamper with a witch’s magicks is currently roaming the streets of Sunnydale causing who-knows-how-much havoc, and some of us would rather like to kill it, thus saving the innocent, though ignorant citizens of Sunnydale from its wrath.” He attempted to look exasperated, as the young people in his presence would expect of him, though he did allow a somewhat smug expression to cross his features.
And what will she be able to say to that?“Yes – but why am >I< here?” she stressed.
Both Giles and Willow sighed.
“Ahn” Xander prompted gently, “You’re here because Willow and Tara got attacked and you care about them enough to sit through a few hours of research to help them, and anyone else who might get attacked, remember?”
“A few hours?!” Anya asked incredulously.
“Yes, Anya, a few hours of research to save numerous lives.” Giles told the ex-demon, and hoping for some closure on the matter, “Now let’s actually
start the research, shall we?” he added in a tone that said ‘we’re starting this right now or else…’
“Yep, sounds good to me,” Willow exclaimed brightly, moving around the couch to sit next to Buffy. Anya looked at her like she was a bug-eyed little green man from the planet Pluto, but rather than saying anything, she settled herself further into Xander, eliciting an ‘umph’ of protest from the young man.
Tara moved noticeably more gracefully than the excited hacker with the injuries and sat down on the couch next to her girlfriend. “So… research?”
Buffy answered without looking up from a large, dusty, old text that Giles had given her to read about ‘The aerodynamics of swan dives off tall buildings’, (apparently he was expecting her to be prepared to jump vampires from the tops of buildings, now) “Yeah, Giles gets out his boring old musty books so we can look for mentally-scarring pictures of the threats of humanity, so I can kill them,” she said with a perfectly straight face.
Tara’s eyes widened and she looked slightly alarmed, rather like a hamster who was being looked at by a hungry cat. “Um… o-ok.” She stammered, taken aback by the jaded tone Buffy used when talking about her… secret job.
Whenever Willow talks about that
it sounds… nicer,“Ok,” Willow interrupted, reaching over her good shoulder to get her laptop out of the bag there, “so we’re looking for magic altering demons with horns? And tails… and other gruesome things…”
Though no one seemed to be paying much attention, they were more interested in grabbing the books with larger print that were written in
English from the hefty stack that Giles had set on the table about magic demons. Tara, however, waited for everyone else to take a book before doing so herself and watching Willow set up her laptop with a deep look of concentration on her face. She smiled lightly at the redhead before settling down to look through the heavy, old book in her lap.
"I'm not gay - I'm just Trevor's bitch." - some drunken guy about his sexuality
"Oh, bugger off, you BROLLY!" - Anya to Giles on his use of the english language
"We'll all be a lot happier without the constant whining....Mom, Buffy, Tara, Waah" - DMW to Dawn