Hi, everyone, I'm back. I'm sorry it's been so long.
• Title: Unsystematic
• Author name: myrine
• Rating: R throughout
• Disclaimer: It builds up slowly. Lots of angst, but it pays off. The story jumps around dimensions a lot; from an alternative take at 'The Wish' (season 3) to what happens after season 6.
• Feedback: Sure, if you wish.
• Summary with spoilers: Tara is a vampire sired by Willow inside the context and the reality of 'The Wish'. However, Willow dies, and Tara sets off to another dimension to look for a Willow-replacement.
• Notes: None of the Buffyverse characters belong to me, but this fic does.
12. Morning, Clarice
They had approached Willow without a word. Somehow, an unspoken agreement had been made. Xander, who had been ready to shoot an arrow through Tara’s heart a minute before, pressed his lips tightly and lifted the vampire with Dawn and Anya’s help. Buffy had been completely silent too, except for the almost-whispered “We should take her to a crypt where we can lock her up”.
Willow followed the group with her head low, not daring to open her mouth, but was there something she could say? She felt guilty about the whole thing and was trying to be inconspicuous. Maybe she’d succeeded in tricking Tara, but she had also tricked her friends in the process, particularly Buffy. While Buffy was fighting the vampire, she’d stayed back, crying, but unable to keep her eyes off the combat. It was fascinating, in an eerie and totally wrong way. She had bitten on the inside of her lower lip when Tara had injured Buffy’s arm, and again when Xander had aimed the crossbow.
At the moment, she hadn’t thought about the consequences of her actions; she had just reacted by pushing Xander and running down the stairs. On her way out, she’d opened the downstairs closet and extracted a dart from the tranquilizer gun. It was the one they’d used with Oz after he’d gnawed on Veruca’s neck. It had also worked on her vampire self instantly, she recalled.
Buffy was leading the group into one of the cemeteries, the one closest to UC Sunnydale. At first Willow thought they’d take the vampire to Spike’s crypt, since he still hadn’tl returned from wherever he’d gone, but Buffy had mentioned a crypt where they could lock Tara up and, judging by the direction they were taking, she knew which one: the crypt Oz had occupied during the scarce time he’d assisted to UC Sunnydale.
She quickened her step and positioned herself behind Xander, who was carrying Tara over his shoulder, like a sack: the vampire’s arms were swinging limply over Xander’s back. Willow moved her hands nervously, wanting to do something, stupidly worrying about Tara’s blood flowing all to her head when that couldn’t happen to a vampire. However, when Buffy suddenly turned to look at her, Willow brought her hands down and looked away. She didn’t want to hear anything, no reproaches, although she deserved them. However, the Slayer didn’t speak. It was as if they had all taken an oath of silence because they were all doing the wrong thing: keeping the creature alive.
When they descended the mould-sodden steps and entered the dusty crypt, she felt transported a few years back… skipping down the steps, carrying a paper bag and a thermos flask, eager to talk to Oz and clear things up (everything will be alright), but then she spotted the two naked figures curled up inside the cage: Oz and Veruca. However, the flashback faded away when Xander set the sleeping vampire down on the floor.
They formed a semicircle around her, and Willow glanced at her friend’s faces with fear. The image of Tara lying on the floor, limbs sprawled was seemingly getting to everyone. The expression in her face was peaceful and very human. It was affecting Dawn particularly, who grabbed onto Xander’s shirt with both hands.
“Well, we better lock her in the cage,” Buffy said, matter-of-factly.
The door creaked loudly when they opened it, but it was still functional. Anya held it open while Xander elbowed at a large spider web and dragged Tara into the cage by pulling at her ankles. Willow stared at the vampire’s body moving slowly across the ground, feeling completely at a loss with what was happening. One thing was to react and save this Tara’s life, and another completely different thing was to face its consequences.
“I’m sorry,” Willow uttered, unthinkingly.
Her voice sounded unnatural, too loud, and had the effect of shattering whatever unspoken agreement they’d made. She had done wrong and now she would have to hear it. Xander, who was shaking the door to make sure that it couldn’t be opened, shrugged. “You certainly did it your way, Will.”
“I know.”
“You’re not sorry,” Anya retorted, in her usual, irksome way.
“What? I am sorry, for what I did.”
“But you’re not sorry you did it. How could you? You saved Tara’s life.”
“I agree,” Buffy said, simply.
She turned her head to look at the Slayer, who was bending her left arm very carefully. Willow was glad that Buffy’s arm was slowly regaining its usability, since she felt responsible for it, but awaited the reprimand with clenched fists and half-closed eyes, as if Buffy was actually going to use the recovering arm to slap her.
“You knew we weren’t going to slay a defenseless being,” the Slayer went on. “I’m not accusing you; I understand you don’t want her to die, but now we have a serious problem in our hands.”
“I didn’t want you to kill her either,” Dawn piped in, her eyes on Tara’s body. “The easiest option doesn’t always have to be the right one.”
Good one, Dawnie, Willow thought. She recalled that, in another, more innocent time, before goddesses and Initiatives shot holes through their purity, they often took the road less traveled: the more complicated one, but the one which felt profoundly right to them. However, in this case, Willow didn’t have a clue about what was the right thing to do.
“You’re confusing things, Dawn,” Buffy was shaking her head. “This is not our Tara. We need to remember that.
It had been said with obvious intention, more directed to Willow than to Dawn. Willow knew this but didn’t nod or prove in any way that she acknowledged it. “There must be a way to send her back,” she said, her voice tiny and afraid to provoke another row of remarks against her. “Or maybe she can send herself back.”
“We’ll have to interrogate her tomorrow… or we can try. She’s tricky,” Buffy sighed and brought a hand to her temple. “Come on, let’s go.”
But not before Anya expressed her fear of the vampire waking up and managing to escape. Xander proved to her that the cage was safe by shaking the door once more - although this time, he placed his feet on the door as well. Nonetheless, Anya was unimpressed and remained skeptical. He looked like a monkey in the zoo.
“Don’t make me compare your scrawny body and strength to Tara’s,” she said.
Xander jumped down, droopy-eyed, and Willow frowned at the ex-demon, knowing that she’d just taken a double cheap shot at him where it hurt most -his masculinity-, by implying that he was not only weak, but weaker than Tara. She knew that Xander, who was currently nothing like the wiry adolescent he used to be, wasn’t linking the comparison to the powerful -albeit dormant- vampire at their feet, but to the gentle girl who wouldn’t have harmed a fly.
That kind of thoughts were dangerous, Willow knew, and she wasn’t the only one who was having them. Even Buffy, who was so adamantly trying to keep things separate for their own sanity, was obviously failing in her mind. After all, Willow had heard Buffy’s self-asserting “You’re not Tara” before. The truth was something hard to accept when you had to ignore what your eyes were telling you. Oh, Tara was surely having a ball with the whole situation.
Buffy decided to put Anya’s worries to rest, along with everyone else’s, by dragging Tara further inside the cell and coiling around her arms a chain that was hanging from the skylight. Willow hadn’t even distinguished the thick, dangling chains, covered in old dust and spider webs as they were.
There was no way she could sleep, thinking about Tara lying in that dusty prison cell, chained up like a wild animal waiting to be put down. However, there was no way she was going to sneak out in the middle of the night and risk her life in Sunnydale’s dangerous streets and cemeteries. That cleared, she prepared herself to spend the night awake, but she wasn’t all by herself, since It hadn’t gone very far. It had its particular way of telling her that she’d never be completely on her own, tugging at her stomach, like an irritating reminder.
She had felt it clawing inside her previously that night, when they had set up the trap for Tara. It was telling her that surrendering to her friends was stupid - no one possessing such power should put up with anything. Willow had merely covered her face with her hands and endured the internal torture. She’d also endured the first arrow shot at Tara without wailing out loud (only wailing on the inside), but not the second. Why Tara was standing so still and so sure of herself she didn’t know. Maybe she didn’t feel the least threatened, but Willow knew that Xander had been in the army, if only for an evening.
From the moment she’d pushed the young man, she’d known that she had betrayed her friends, in a way, by agreeing to follow the plan and then busting it. She knew that, if something happened to Buffy or anyone else from that moment on, it would be her fault. But she couldn’t let them kill her. The Slayer had guessed Willow’s thoughts very accurately. As Buffy herself had said: “You knew we weren’t going to slay a defenseless being”. Of course not, Willow thought, picturing a helpless, very grumpy Spike chained to Giles’s bathtub. Funny how easily a monster could become pitiful.
Those were the times before anyone knew that her friendship with Tara was also something else. Now look at me, she mused, addressing anybody in particular. But It heard her all right: “You can have her again. You can have anything you want”.
Doesn’t mean that I should, Willow answered, inwardly, picturing her Tara lying beside her. Baby? What should I do? Tara only smiled warmly, as if Willow had just woke up in the most normal of nights. Tell me you would’ve done the same. But Tara just looked at her lovingly and uncomprehendingly. Please… Willow covered her eyes with one hand, and tried to reach out for Tara’s face with the other, but there was nothing there, of course.
The sun was barely peeking from behind the mountains and Willow was already feeling exhausted, as she hadn’t slept more than two hours. Her nerves had eaten up her chances of falling asleep, and she’d kept calling for Tara, but the only Tara that could answer her was a monster in a cage.
It was daytime now, and vampires were not a threat to her any more, except for that one blonde vampire. It was still dangerous, and Willow knew, but she couldn’t help herself. What would Buffy and the others say? They would disapprove, of course. Buffy would mark her unfit for the interrogation process or accuse her of messing it up, but was Tara going to allow that interrogation? Wouldn’t she just laugh at the lot of them? Besides, Willow was sure they knew that she was the only one which could have some influence over the vampire; she couldn’t be ruled out.
With those rebellious thoughts in her mind, Willow descended the stairs silently, a handbag slung across her shoulders. Yay, she hadn’t woken Buffy and Dawn. Indeed, it was a little early for them. Willow exited the house through the front door, closed it very gently and strode to the cemetery close to UC Sunnydale, where they had locked Tara up.
The grass was well cut, Willow noted, almost as the one in Buffy’s garden. The gardening team had just got there; logically, they wouldn’t do their job in the evening. It struck Willow as funny; the citizens of Sunnydale were paying the gardening team to keep nice and tidy the place where vampires hung out - the same vampires who then fed off those citizens’ blood. That part wasn’t so funny. She thought about her Tara and felt ashamed of herself. Running off to see a vampire only because she’s got Tara’s face… With a chill, it occurred to her that her Tara’s grave could very well be in this cemetery too. She didn’t know. She hadn’t been in a state of wanting to know anything about it. The thought was more than creepy.
She got to the crypt, descended the stairs and shoved the door open. Her heart jumped forwards, as if it was preparing her for a scare, but Tara was in her cage, with the chains still gripping her wrists. Willow heaved a sigh and the vampire raised her head, throwing her blonde hair back. She was wide awake and grinning: a smile that was too smug for someone who was chained up and locked in a cage.
“I knew it was you,” Tara said. “I could smell you.”
Willow was having a Hannibal Lecter/Clarice Starling moment. She imagined that the vampire would know the brand of her shampoo, but the thought was quite disturbing and she pushed it away. Not only did she see the want in Tara’s face, but she recognized it, which was even worse.
“Besides,” the vampire went on. “I knew you would come to see me alone, so that those friends of yours wouldn’t bother us. They'd only get in the way.”
“You knew?”
“Sure. I do things to you, Little Red, I can feel it.”
I know I do things to you too, Willow thought, remembering when she had touched Tara’s vamped out face: a grinning gargoyle, only real, made of skin and bone. More interestingly, Tara’s face had returned to normal with her touch, as if it had really meant something to the creature. But the vampire never seemed to be too far away from cheekiness and mock.
“Have you come for another hug?”
Then there was the hug. During that mock-farewell Willow had planned, with the tranquilizer dart tucked safely inside her sleeve, their bodies had come together as if drawn by something more powerful than them; certainly something stronger than mere vampires and dimension-jumping. But Tara had felt so human in her arms that she’d almost forgotten about the dart.
She remembered hugging her vampire self; it had happened years ago, when the thought about some Willow being “kinda gay” bothered and flustered her. She still remembered that her vampire had stood still, as if she didn’t know what a hug was, but then, her hands had moved across Willow’s hips and caressed her butt in a sexy way. That was what Willow had expected from Tara, not a human-y embrace.
“If you want another hug, you’ll have to come closer,” Tara went on, and then commanded. “Come closer.”
Tracing a semicircle with her steps, Willow slowly approached the cage. Tara was sitting on the floor, with her back against the wall and her arms partially raised by the chains, a satisfied smile on her lips. When she said “Closer”, Willow had another Silence of the Lambs moment.
“I know the Willow in my reality liked to play with her dungeon and her toys… I never expected that kind of thing from you,” the vampire seemed pleasantly surprised. “Hmm, let’s see… You can be the Beauty and I can be the Beast.”
“What’s with the role-play?” she asked, a little irritated.
Tara shrugged, and smiled when Willow circled her fingers around the bars of the cage. “Do you know that you smell just like her?”
“How do you know? I thought you said I was dead in your reality.”
“I sniffed some of your toys,” Tara explained, good-naturedly. Somehow, she didn’t seem to mind her own situation as a prisoner. It had to be at least mildly entertaining, by Tara’s standards. “I was very curious about you, and you can’t blame me. I know you’re curious about me too.”
“Why were you curious about me? I mean… the other me.”
The vampire tensed her arms and pulled herself up, approaching Willow as much as the chains would allow her, which wasn’t much. She leaned forward, looking at her as if she was actually touching her. Then, she arched her eyebrows.
“Because you made me,” she said.
The redhead felt like she couldn’t move. Even so, she retreated several steps and somehow found the lateral wall with her back. She was thankful for the support, for her knees felt like rubber. Her lips and mouth went completely dry. This is impossible. Her breathing accelerated and her head felt empty for a moment, as if she was going to faint. She tried to find a fixed spot on the ground she could concentrate on, but everything was becoming blurry.
Something else had covered her eyes: the remembrance of something sprinkling her face. She had tossed her head away instinctively, not knowing that it was blood. She had it on her white shirt too - a red shower. There had been blood in Tara’s shirt too. But only one of them had died. Why? Because it was the other’s fault. It should’ve been me.
I killed her, Willow thought, shutting her eyes until the tears streamed out. She was human, innocent… She was alive in her world. But it seemed that no Tara would be safe from her in any world.
