"That's a strong plan," Anya said, nodding happily. "Opening the shop a little late is good sense, because it saves on electricity, salary, and wear and tear on the carpet and furnishing, as there are rarely any sales early in the morning, and when there are, they usually don't cover expenses," she finished, looking over at Willow. "It lowers overhead," she said, nodding again, as a slow smile crossed Willow's face.
"You remembered," Willow said with a little laugh.
"I never forget anything that has to do with money," Anya said with a little shrug. "So, let's go," she said, not waiting for a response and heading for the front door, sure that everyone would follow her.
"So, umm … how are we going to do this?" Xander asked when they all got outside, looking at his car dubiously. It could seat five fairly comfortably, but six was pushing it. "I'm not sure we're all going to fit in there."
"Willow can sit in Tara's lap," Dawn said innocently.
"Oh, or I could sit in Xander's lap!" Anya said excitedly.
"Hon - a little distracting for the driver," Xander said, a little smile quirking his lips as he looked at Anya fondly.
"Just, everyone pile in," Buffy said, rolling her eyes and opening the door, the front passenger seat forward and crawling in. Tara shrugged and climbed in after Buffy, followed quickly by Anya.
"Umm … I think I could probably …" Willow said, biting her lip and looking at the back seat thoughtfully. "Yeah," she said with a little nod and a mischievous look, crawling across the three other women in the back seat, until she was laying across their laps, her feet propped up on Anya, and her head resting against Buffy. "Hi," she said cheerily.
"Now that's my Willow," Buffy said with a laugh, the return of Willow's humor and silliness more than welcome.
"Sweetie, I don't think this is safe," Tara said with a little frown, her hand naturally coming to rest on Willow's tummy and rubbing it slowly.
"You can be my human seatbelt. You won't let me go, right?" Willow asked, looking at Tara with a smile.
"Never," Tara said, a slow grin crossing her face despite herself.
"Mmmm…" Willow said, a little smile crossing her face as she shut her eyes. "I could take a nap here. You guys are comfy," she said, wiggling around to make her point.
"Dorks," Dawn said, though there was no sting to her tone as she rolled her eyes and pushed the front seat back, settling herself in and buckling up.
"If I get pulled over, I'm taking you all to jail with me," Xander said, shaking his head - but laughing - as he climbed into the driver's seat and shut the door, turning on the engine and slowly backing out of the driveway. "Everyone got their human seatbelt?" he asked.
Affirmative yells greeted him from the back seat, and he stifled a grin as he pulled onto the road, heading towards Dawn's school.
He had certainly done a lot of driving this past week, going here, going there, shuttling people back and forth. Is that what being an adult was about? Driving around? Would he eventually drive his kids to Little League practice and piano lessons? Did Anya even want kids?
With a frown, he peered into the rearview mirror, looking at Anya quickly before turning his attention back to the road and shifting in his seat. Did >he< want kids? It was kind of the natural progression of things - meet girl, fall in love, get married, have kids. Start drinking. Become embittered and spiteful. Ruin lives.
Xander shook his head, clearing away that line of thinking. There was no point in thinking about that. If there was one thing he had learned on the Hellmouth, it was that no matter how scary something seemed, if he just dug a little deeper and gave it all he had, with his friends at his side, they could defeat anything. It was a niggling fear, in the back of his mind, that he and Anya would become like his parents. Except for Joyce, he had certainly had no positive parental role-models in his life, and he assumed Anya hadn't either - or if she had, she didn't remember them, it was so long ago. But did that mean he would become his father? That Anya would become his mother?
No, of course not. He was the Captain of his Fate and all that stuff he barely paid attention to in high school. Willow would remember the whole thing - Willow was great for things like that. She'd be great with kids, too, he mused. His kids would love their Aunt Willow, and their Aunt Tara, and Aunt Buffy and Aunt Dawn. All in all, he was a lucky man, he decided, a wide grin crossing his face as he drove.
He had a family that he knew beyond a doubt would never let him down, and that he'd do everything in his power to make sure he never let them down, either. He might mess up sometimes, because those things happened, but part of being family was forgiving, wasn't it? And knowing - knowing as deeply as it was possible to know something - that he always had a place in the world. His place was with these people, driving them around wherever they wanted to go.
"All right, Dawnster," Xander said cheerily as he pulled smoothly up to the curb. "You got all your homework and stuff?" he asked, as Dawn stepped out of the car.
"You're asking me that now?" Dawn asked, raising an eyebrow at him as she waved, walking backwards a few steps and smiling as everyone wished her a good day, then turning and heading into the school.
"Okay, that's enough smooshy-Willow," Willow said, trying to sit up. "Could someone, ummm … move the front seat?" she asked. Anya reached forward, bending awkwardly over Willow's seat and finding the catch to push it forward, then everyone helped her sit up and crawl out of the car, until a breathless and red-faced Willow stood on the curb. "Okay, it's a lot harder getting out than getting in."
"So you're saying Tara's easy?" Anya asked with a smirk, her mind immediately jumping to naughty things as she got out of the car.
"She is not!" Willow protested immediately, her eyes widening.
"You're the one who said getting in was easy, and getting out was harder," Anya pointed out as a grumbling Willow crawled into the back seat next to Tara.
"Tara, she's twisting my words," Willow whined, pulling her legs up to her chest and resting her head on Tara's shoulder.
"Don't listen to her, sweetie," Tara said, stroking Willow's hair soothingly. "She's just trying to get a rise out of you."
He'd definitely have to have more than one kid, Xander mused as Anya got into the car and he pulled away from the curb. Willow and Anya could teach them how to bicker.
"Why would I want to get a rise out of Willow? It's an exercise in futility - she doesn't have the parts," Anya pointed out, turning in the front seat and peering over the headrest.
"Anya!" Xander said, his mind already imagining little ones running around.
"What?" Anya asked innocently.
"You sure you can spend a whole day with her?" Tara asked Willow softly, tuning out Xander and Anya's argument. "It's not too late to trade, y'know. You could spend the day with Buffy."
"Absolutely not," Willow said, shaking her head against Tara's shoulder, a small smile crossing her face. "You going to have a Slayer Shadow all day, and you're going to like it. I can handle Anya. She's just … she's so …"
"Outrageously straightforward and given to taking the most innocent comment as innuendo?" Tara asked.
"Right," Willow said with a little shrug. "Nothing I can't handle for a few classes. It'll be a breeze."
"I'm going to remind you that you said that," Tara said, turning her head and placing a light kiss on Willow's hair. They sat in silence, each enveloped in a sense of peace that not even Xander and Anya having a 'discussion' about appropriate comments could mar, sighing in unison and smiling as their eyes drifted shut.
"UC Sunnydale, last stop of the Xander Bus," Xander said, bringing Willow and Tara back to the present with a start. "Hey, you two okay?" he asked, having turned to look into the back seat when they both jerked awake.
"Yeah, fine," Willow said, blinking her eyes. "Just kind of … snoozed a bit, I guess," she said with a shrug and a sheepish smile.
"Haven't been sleeping, huh?" Anya asked knowingly, getting out of the car and moving the seat so the rest of the women could pile out.
"Anya, are you going to taunt Willow all day?" Buffy asked exasperatedly.
"As long as it's still fun," Anya said cheerfully, closing the door, then leaning in the open window to give Xander a kiss. "Have a good day at work, honey."
"And you have fun with school," Xander said. "And try not to piss Willow off too much, okay? For me?" he asked, batting his eyelashes outrageously. Anya reached into the car and swatted him on the shoulder.
"Fine, but only for you," she said, mock-pouting and crossing her arms. "But you owe me!" she shouted after him as he pulled away. "What?" she asked, looking over to find Buffy, Willow and Tara exchanging bemused looks.
"And you said I was whipped," Willow said with a smirk.
"You are," Anya said with a little shrug. "I just don't mind listening to Xander when he tells me to be nice to you now, because I get it."
"Get what?" Tara asked curiously, as they started to walk onto campus.
"I get that Xander doesn't want to have orgasms with Willow, because he loves both of us, but he loves us in different ways. Willow is like his power center," she said.
"His power center?" Willow asked, raising her eyebrows.
"Right," Anya said, nodding. "Like, when I had my Vengeance Demon pendant, it was with me for a thousand years. I don't really remember not having it - that's all kind of blurry - and when I lost it, I was angry and scared and confused, and I just felt terrible. I was very, very lost. If you ever went away, Xander would feel like that, only worse, and I understand now."
Willow blinked a few times, digested Anya's words. Had Anya just …? Yes, she had. "I … thank you, Anya," Willow said slowly, a puzzled look on her face.
"Well, this is where we head the other way, and I'm kind of running late," Tara said slowly, looking down the path that led to her classroom. "I, umm … have a good day, sweetie," she said, looking over at Willow, watching her carefully.
"You, too," Willow said, hugging Tara close before letting go.
"I'll take good care of her, Wills," Buffy promised seriously, squeezing Willow's arm lightly. Willow just nodded and gave a little wave, finding herself unable to speak as Tara and Buffy walked away.
"So, which way to class?" Anya asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet once and looking around the campus.
"Ummm … that way," Willow said, pointing at the opposite path. She looked at the pavement running through the lawn lined by bushes and paused, a puzzled look on her face. Was that … was that the way to class? It was, she knew, but it looked … wrong, somehow. Her head tilted to the side as she looked closer, her mind turning over images of this exact path and mentally comparing them to what she was looking at now.
"This way?" Anya pointed, looking on as Willow seemed suddenly confused.
"Yeah, this way," Willow said, trying to shake off the feeling and heading down the path, not noticing the worried look on Anya's face as she followed.
The path curved the right way, the surrounding bushes and things all looked the same, Willow considered. The hallway she was in was just the way it had always been, but it seemed … different somehow. It was like … it was like she was looking at it all on a TV screen. It looked exactly the way it was supposed to, but … unreal. She couldn't quite put her finger on what it was, but something seemed so very strange about the familiar halls of UC Sunnydale.
Trying to shake off the thought, she pushed open the door and stepped into the computer lab, quickly finding her seat and pulling up a chair for Anya.
"So what is this class?" Anya asked, looking around curiously.
"It's, uhh, SQL programming," Willow said distractedly, frowning as familiar students sat in familiar places, somehow creating an overall sense of wrongness to it all.
"Sequel programming?" Anya asked with a smile. "Like, where do you schedule Terminator 2 in your TV line-up, and how do you take out all the swearing?"
"No," Willow said with a frown. "'S' 'Q' 'L' … it stands for 'Structured Query Language'. It's database stuff. Computer stuff. Buffy made the exact same joke," she realized, looking at Anya sharply.
"I know," Anya said, her grin widening. "Buffy told me about it."
"Does anything happen to one Scooby that the rest of the Scoobies don't find out about within a day?" Willow asked, a wry look on her face.
"Well, none of us still know exactly what you and Tara went through in Hell," Anya pointed out.
Willow's whole body stiffened and her eyes widened as her heartbeat sped up. "Let's not talk about that," Willow said quickly, wiping suddenly damp palms on her jeans. "I … let's just not."
"Fine, keep it bottled up inside," Anya said with a shrug. "It's just going to be worse in the long-run."
"I just don't want to talk about it," Willow said harshly, turning to her computer and booting it up as the professor walked into the class.
Anya opened her mouth to speak again, but was silenced by Willow's glare and her nod towards the teacher, indicating class was starting.
Bored, she watched Willow work on the problems the professor presented, trying to make some sense of what Willow was doing. It looked fairly straightforward, and she figured she could probably do the basics if someone explained it to her, but she didn't really feel the need to learn anything about databases. If she wanted a database, she could talk Xander into talking Willow into making her one.
"Damn," Willow muttered as her computer beeped at her. Shaking her head, she retraced the lines she had just typed, looking for the gross error the computer had found. "Stupid 'Group By' clause," she muttered, shaking her head at the elementary mistake she had made. "Shouldn't it just automatically 'Group By' any field that isn't aggregated?" she mumbled, glaring at the screen in front of her.
The problems the professor had given them to work on were easy - she knew that - but she kept making mistakes. It was like her brain just wasn't in it today, and she couldn't seem to concentrate on what she was doing.
She couldn't, really, concentrate on anything, she found. Her mind seemed to be buzzing along, but she couldn't track down any one coherent thought. White noise seemed to be filling up her head, drowning out her thoughts and keeping her from doing what she would have thought were fairly simple tasks.
A flash of a vision of deep dark water flared across her mind as a cold chill tore through her, and she stifled a gasp. She couldn't gasp - couldn't breath in, because if she did, she'd swallow the water, and she'd drown.
As quickly as it came, it left again, and Willow opened the eyes she had automatically squeezed shut, trying to block out the sight of drowning souls, to find herself back in the computer lab. She looked around, blinking for a moment, then wiped her face with shaky hands, turning her attention back to the monitor in front of her.
Frowning, she tried the SQL statement again, and again, finally getting it right on the third try. With a frustrated growl, she started in on the second problem, buckling down as Anya watched with a confused expression on her face.
Four tries later, the statement executed, and Willow felt ready to toss her monitor across the room. Shaking her head, she tried to clear out the noise bouncing around the inside of her skull, starting on the third problem, only to find the rest of the class packing their books, and the professor calling out the reading assignment.
Willow's eyes widened as she watched everyone leave, a look of shock on her face. Had it really taken her that long to get through two problems? She had only gotten two done?
"Willow? Are we going?" a voice asked from behind her, and Willow jumped in her seat, her heart hammering in her chest until she realized it was just Anya.
"Yeah … yeah," Willow said weakly, grabbing her bookbag and hefting it over her shoulder, following Anya out of the classroom.
"Are you okay?" Anya asked after they had walked in silence awhile. Willow had seemed … not herself. Anya certainly hadn't understood what was going on in the classroom, but she knew enough about Willow and computers to know that Willow should have been able to do the problems easily, but she seemed stuck.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Willow said automatically, looking around the campus in confusion. It was all wrong - everything was all wrong. Was this even the right school? UC Sunnydale always gave her a warm fuzzy, but this was just … she felt nothing at all as she looked around, except an eerie kind of detachment. She had always … belonged … here. Now, she didn't feel like she fit in anymore.
"Are you sure?" Anya pressed again, seeing the look of utter bewilderment on Willow's face. "You look a little …"
Anya's voice faded in Willow's hearing, replaced by a menacing voice - a voice she had heard in her dreams, taunting her as it had taunted her in Hell.
"You can't stop me," it whispered to her, the dark chilling tones sending a shiver up her spine, the warm sunlight of mid-morning no longer enough to warm her.
She looked around, the shadowy image of a cave superimposed over the strange familiarity of the campus quad. Her eyes widened, and she backed away, her mind grasping for something real to hold on to.
"Willow?" Anya said, her tone and volume making it clear it was not the first time she had called Willow's name.
With a start, Willow looked at Anya, her unfocused eyes blinking several times before the images cleared, and she could see that familiar face before her.
"Yeah, I just … I kind of …" Willow began to say, when movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned her head. A camera … a group of friends, laughing and talking … a flash.
The light rushed forward, containing the darkness, keeping it at bay, and Willow looked around wildly. Tara. She had to get to Tara … to keep Tara safe.
"Willow?" Anya asked again, seeing Willow's face go completely white. She frowned and stepped forward, placing a hand carefully on Willow's forearm.
"Oh, God," Willow said, shrinking back when something came into contact with her arm. "I ... I don't know if I can do this," Willow gasped out, her body trembling where she stood. The wall of light before her shattered, and the darkness was freed, rushing towards her with malicious intent. With a small cry, her knees buckled, and she crawled away backwards, trying to escape the shadows - the Trickster - as they swarmed over her.
Eyes wide, Anya reached for her cell phone, and quickly opened it, slowly approaching Willow, trying not to startle her. "Dammit, Buffy, pick up quick," Anya said urgently into the phone as she dialed the number with shaking hands, glancing back and forth between the keypad and the huddled form on the grass in the quad. "Nothing to see here - move on!" she yelled as curious students slowed their pace.
In a classroom across campus, Tara looked up from her notes. "Willow?" she whispered, the hairs on the back of her neck rising as she looked around the classroom with wide eyes, her heart hammering in her chest. She turned and looked at Buffy, her face pale and stricken.
"Tara? Did something happen?" Buffy asked, only to feel her own face drain of color when she heard the cell phone ring. "Oh, God - Willow," she said, picking up the phone and dashing out of the classroom, Tara close on her heels.
Edited by: Sassette at: 8/8/02 10:27:51 pm
Thanks!
That's a good one, Sass! I'll have to remember that. 
Fabo update.........must go and make pancakes now. 
that sounds very interesting, though. Kinda scary, too. 
