Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter Thirty Six
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Absolutely, yes please. That’s why I write for this place, to engage in the discussion about the story.
Spoiler warning: Not sure why I am bothering, really, but Season 4 and Season 5 of BTVS.
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please. No conversion to eBook or other formats please. Enjoy it here.
Summary: Buffy and Willow are found by what they’d been looking for and Tara comes around to their room for only the second 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. As this is a missing scenes and alternate reality fiction lots of scenes are new versions of those seen in the show, as such dialogue and situations are taken from the show. I’m sure you can tell which. All credit for those aspects goes to the original writers.
Rating: Occasional, tasteful, adult situations and contextual bad language. However by and large equivalent to the show.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever, that’s all I’m bothered about.
Text convention: Use of italics denotes either special emphasis if used for a single or a few words in a sentence OR first person thoughts if used for a whole sentence.
Notes: This part was once joined to what is now chapter 37. It was too long, after redrafting, so it’s been split up leaving us with a slightly longer one (36) and a shorter one (37). The end point of this chapter is a good line to end on though.
And yes, events here have probably delayed the thing you and the girls have been waiting for… Am I stretching credulity yet? Perhaps, but there’s other stuff that needs to happen and it’s not necessarily the case that lots of time is passing between episodes/chapters.
Also, remember that ‘Meet the Rosenbergs’ (the bonus part I posted after the last chapter) MAY not have actually happened yet…
Music: Today’s music is Peter Gabriel, more especially Secret World Live featuring the delectable and talented Paula Cole and a whole load of less delectable – but equally talented – musicians from around the world. Go on… give it a try. Finest concert album ever.
“I think,” Willow said. “That I’m going to head off once we get back.”
“So you’re going to see me home?” Buffy said, tightening the grip on their linked arms, Slayer strength pulling Willow closer. She gave in to it without a struggle and didn’t feel like a bad friend just because she was wishing that someone else’s arm was linked with hers. “That’s a new one.”
“I can be chivalrous. And when it’s cooler weather, I can be shivering too.”
“I think those two words are spelt differently. Right?”
“What’s this now?” Willow asked. “Buffy Summers being escorted home and taking my traditional place as the fountain of all knowledge? You know, at least when Giles isn’t around.”
“I adapt and overcome,” Buffy said proudly. “Everything’s been changing, you must’ve noticed.”
“Uhuh, you and Eddie for a start.”
“Me and Eddie? That’s not where the changes are. What about you and – you and whatever’s dragging you out nearly every night. When was the last time you spent the night in our room anyway?”
“Tuesday, but are you jealous?” Willow asked. She’d had good reasons – other good reasons – for some of those nights, but yeah… quite a lot of the time she’d been sleeping at Tara’s.
Just not with Tara. Not in every sense of the word anyway. Beside. Yes. Not with. Not exactly.
“Happy,” Buffy replied. “If you are. I just… I kind of got used to the Willow who couldn’t wait to tell me – and anyone else who’d listen – that she had a boyfriend. This new Willow, the one keeping him hidden away, she’s a whole new animal.”
“What makes you think I have a boyfriend?”
“Willow, come on.”
“No, seriously.” It wasn’t lying. She really didn’t have a boyfriend.
“Willow, come on.”
“Okay, okay,” she said. “I admit it, there’s someone in my life now and I’m totally going to introduce you, all of you. But… I’m waiting for when the time’s right.”
There was lots of waiting going on. For the right time. Oh… when would they actually find it? It was both of them, of course it was, Tara wanted – she knew very well that Tara wanted, but they both wanted it to be special. Perfect.
Meanwhile, sleeping at Tara’s wasn’t just about getting some rest. That was how she knew that Tara wanted. The signs were… deliciously obvious and they weren’t exactly being ‘chaste’ by any reasonable definition of the term.
“Well, I’m glad you finally admitted it,” Buffy said. “I’d hate to think we were keeping secrets.”
“Oh, like I’ve been working for a Goddess and going off on missions that involve Ethan Rayne without telling you or Giles? Those kinds of secrets?”
“I’m choosing,” Buffy said, “not to look at it like that. We asked you to go undercover.”
Yes, I’ve absolutely been under some covers.
Buffy continued. “And no matter what Giles says, it’s really hit pay dirt. We might not know much about the Goddess yet, but we know way more about these Army guys and the thing that they’ve stitched together. I just can’t believe that Professor Walsh was the one behind that. I thought she was pretty cool, but what a bitch!”
“I preferred to call her ‘mother.’”
Willow’s spider sense was tingling just as much as Buffy’s as the voice was so close behind them and – jeepers!
“What. The. Hell. Are. You?”
Buffy was clearly stuck for quippiness again, taken by surprise, but that didn’t much matter because Willow wasn’t really expecting quips right now. They turned around and were being confronted by something that might once have been human, at least as its original basis, but now was a mess of a human remainder, metal and obviously demonic skin. The face was there, partially, which gave it a human visage and then the… bits.
Oh, and an old fashioned floppy drive. Did anyone who was serious about their technology still use those? Just because your PC shipped with… Okay, now was definitely not the time to be worrying about it. Now was the time to be backing away, slowly. Clearing the area for whatever Buffy needed to do.
“Mother called me… Adam. At least she used to.”
“You killed my professor. A professor I actually liked,” Buffy said. “Do you know how annoying that is?”
“She was failing you,” Adam said.
“She – Wait, you know me?”
Adam looked as if he was focusing somewhere else for a second, a place just behind his eyes. “Elizabeth Anne Summers, also known as ‘Buffy’. Originally from… right here. C average student in High School but with a letter of recommendation from local Superintendent of schools.”
“Why’d he give you that?” Willow hissed while the bad guy went about impressing them with his knowledge.
“I don’t know!? I never met the man,” Buffy said. “Maybe he didn’t like Snyder, but, Will, please let’s worry about it later.”
“Idiosyncrasies in your records suggest that you’re possibly more than you appear to be,” Adam said. “Additionally muscle density and mass is atypical of appearance, bone density significantly higher than human norm, supporting the hypothesis. Ah, if mother could’ve met you in other circumstances, you might yet have been a part of me.”
“Sorry, I’m just too pretty for the monster mash.” Buffy didn’t seem content to wait anymore and launched a lightning fast attack, smashing her forearm into Adam’s cheek.
Anticipating flying teeth – one of the few things that the Professor appeared to have left intact – Willow was disappointed as the goliath’s head moved only fractionally sideways under the force and featured only a small, red mark at the point of impact to show that Buffy had done anything at all.
“Impressive PSI for any human, let alone one of your size and gender.”
“Got something to say about my gender have you? Yeah, I’m a girl and I know just what you won’t like,” Buffy said, rubbing her elbow but not yet looking worried as she lashed out a foot up between his legs, only to find that he didn’t even flinch.
While Buffy might not obviously be worried, she was keeping on backing off all the same. So far Adam hadn’t thrown a punch or done much other than take what the Slayer had dished out but when these two really started on each other she didn’t really want to be too close to the epicentre.
Her mind – stupidly - flashed to the possibility of teleporting him somewhere, but without Tara and a great deal of calm preparation that she was unlikely to get, then it seemed like it’d just good way to give herself an aneurism. Or worse.
“Your presumed target was deemed unnecessary in this build,” Adam informed them.
And that explained that. Because, yeah, there was a vulnerability thing but you probably didn’t want something like this trolling for a date either.
“Figures,” Buffy said, looking like she was about to take this a whole lot more seriously.
“Buffy…” Willow said. She had a very bad feeling about just what this creature was supposed to be. The Government wouldn’t run around trying to create a bad guy, they’d have been trying to build something that had the strengths of the creatures they were studying, but none of the weaknesses.
Which pretty much guaranteed that any piece of wood that Buffy had secreted about her person and tried to stab in his heart would break before it even got close. And what would it do if it hit anyway? This thing probably had a pump instead of a heart. Or his heart was in his ass or… something.
Maybe he didn’t even need a heart? Did he have blood? Human parts, but lots of metal that might need oil and demon parts so… goop.
“Will, I’m working here - ” Buffy started only to be knocked off her feet as the deceptively quick creature stirred from its observations.
“Sorry,” Willow winced, just pleased in the aftermath that her friend was still mobile and looked like she was going to be able to get up. It was what you expected from a Slayer, but no guarantee.
“No big, cos talking of girls, you hit like one,” Buffy said, stretching and clicking her neck as she got to her feet. The fact that Adam had drawn blood shouldn’t have disturbed her at all.
“Impressive ability to withstand damage,” Adam said. “Shifting up from twenty-five percent of capacity to seventy-five.”
“Umm, Will, what does that mean?” Buffy asked, dancing out of its way as it lunged at her again. Fast but… not exactly clumsy. Just – it certainly wasn’t what you’d call graceful like Buffy.
“I think it means he wasn’t really trying,” Willow guessed. “Next time he’s going to hit you twice as hard. Three times, technically but an additional doubling.”
“Thanks for the explanation,” Buffy said, dodging again, “I might’ve been a solid C average – with coaching – whoa – but I can divide seventy-five by twenty-five.”
“Yeah, sorry. Sometimes I forget my own superpowers aren’t so super.”
Buffy ignored her apology though, darting in behind Adam and punching him rapidly where his kidneys were supposed to have been. Given it was all green and scaly back there, no telling what she was actually hitting.
“Damn.”
“Better part of valour?” Willow suggested, pressing herself backwards into the wall. It felt comfortable here but she’d have preferred to do the running away thing.
“I never did that well with discretion,” Buffy countered, only just ducking under a swipe from one of those arms that had suddenly sprouted a bone spur. The thing extended at least a foot beyond his fingertips, massively increasing Adam’s reach.
“How do you do with skewering?” she checked.
“Any ideas?” Buffy’s question followed a leap from the top of a trash can, foot impacting Adam’s chin and rocking the creature… marginally. When the Slayer rolled out of the way, it was only just dodging that spur which dug into the turf only to be ripped free.
“Seems slower than you,” Willow noted, zipping out of the way as the fight came her way. It wasn’t really a fight though. This was Buffy proving ineffective in hurting him but and Adam struggling to tag her again.
“Yeah, only managed to hit me at all thanks to a cheap shot. No one teach you how to fight, big boy?”
Adam remained emotionless, not rising to the bait, not even when Buffy continued to press him.
“Got concrete in your boots?”
While Buffy taunted the demon-hunting demon, Willow turned her attention to keeping one of the people who’d noticed this, right in the middle of campus, away from the fight. “Don’t worry about it, it’s just a costume, you know those geeky role-players…”
“He doesn’t look like a geek,” the quivering girl said, eyes wide.
“No… he doesn’t, but I mean, you’d only put something you’re done with into a costume and no one needs their floppy drives anymore do they, see, it gives it away.”
“He looks like he’s trying to kill her,” the girl argued.
“Not at all… they’re just – they’re just kidding around. I’d go home, nothing to see here, unless you want to hang out with the geek squad?” She forced a smile, trying to be convincing even though it wasn’t exactly one of her strengths.
“No… no…” That collective common sense that told people here – even newcomers from out of state – that what they were seeing couldn’t possibly be happening obviously kicked in and the girl hurried away rather quicker than an encounter with roleplaying geeks should’ve made her flee.
“Sorry,” she said, turning back to the developing fight and just in time to notice Buffy dodge one blow that turned out to be a feint and then, while rolling, get struck full in the chest by a pile driver blow. She could hear the snap as something inside there gave.
That’d be a rib. At least one.
“Limits established,” Adam said. “Seventy-eight point three percent force will be adequate for the task. Optimising.”
Then he rushed again, moving faster and threatening harder while pushing Buffy totally onto the defensive as she tried to protect her damaged ribs from any further punishment.
Long years of experience had taught Willow that yelling warnings had no effect and probably would only serve to distract her friend at a critical moment. She’d stuffed that up already once in this encounter and she wasn’t about to do it again, not when he’d actually injured the Slayer. As Adam pushed Buffy back, risking being trapped against the side of the Physics building, Willow turned her attention instead to what she might actually do to help.
And… nothing was coming to mind.
Nothing at all… A vacuum. But that was something she couldn’t have managed if she wanted to, it’d take forever to remove every molecule from around him, but it did give her the idea of what was needed.
Not teleportation, not taking all the air away, just lifting him a little way off the ground. Wouldn’t take much, just a few inches would be enough, surely. If she could just manage it. With no Tara, no practice and no second chances…
And he was big…
But as the little green Muppet had said, “Size matters not.”
Willow stretched out her hand, gesturing as she imagined you were supposed to do when you were lifting an X-Wing out of a swamp or a big bad up off the ground to immobilise him. Funny, the Muppet had been right, she didn’t let herself be surprised when he did rise up off the ground, it would’ve broken her concentration.
“Come on,” she hissed as she held him there.
“Will - ”
“I can’t hold him long,” Willow said. “Let’s go. Please.”
Up off the ground, the monster with a name couldn’t make progress, couldn’t do anything except kick and swing, and turn on her. In his eyes, she could see the calculation – literally. He was figuring value, capabilities and what use he might put someone like her to. Or possibly – and grosser still – parts of her. And all her parts belonged to Tara.
Also he might be figuring countermeasures, the guy had a computer in his head and no one said big had to be stupid just because of some outdated hardware. He might think of a way to get out of what she was doing, or have some sort of defence against magic – some demons did… but fortunately she wasn’t using it on him, it was the air around him that she was manipulating.
Buffy came to her side, waiting for her. Which raised the question of how to stop him coming right after them while neither of them was equipped to do anything about it?
With a surge of effort, she pushed back against the natural portions of Adam, forcing him backwards on the air that was keeping him suspended, easier than if he’d been digging his feet into the ground. Back, back, back, faster and faster it got easier and easier… natural laws helped rather than hindered her. Momentum was her friend.
And he was impaled.
Right onto some railings that were conveniently placed just where she needed them.
Squish and scratch… a bellow of actual pain when she pushed and pushed and pushed… not stopping as the spikes slid into him, deeper and deeper, tearing flesh and grating against metal. No one could’ve forced a knife or sword so deep, Adam would’ve torn them apart before they could get close but with the distance and the determination that there was no way, no how that this thing was laying a hand on them –
“Wow, Will… Just wow.”
“Buffy?”
“Yeah?”
This was embarrassing… second time in a little while. “I think you’re going to have to carry me.”
Then her knees buckled and she struggled not to keep her attention where it needed to be, keeping that huge mountain of a demon away from them, long enough to get away.
---------------------
“No one told me,” Tara said, sitting on the edge of Willow’s bed. She’d let herself in, something she’d never usually have done but… when the choice was getting Willow out of it then that was no choice at all. Eventually Willow herself had called and explained her absence when she’d been expected. The only time she’d not turned up when she said she would… Yeah, she’d been worried.
“No one knew to,” Willow said, “that’s my fault, not theirs.”
“Are you okay?”
“Just tired,” Willow said and Tara put a hand out, making contact with Willow’s. Not only because she wanted that touch between them, but because she’d realised it would let her judge what Willow was saying. Also, it might help.
And her girlfriend was weak, but that was all. Not hurt, not sick, not bleeding from the nose or anything like that. The energy flow between them levelled out and while she knew it was draining her a little, it was also helping Willow. “You shouldn’t have done it,” she said. “Not so soon after what happened with Ethan.”
“No choice,” Willow replied. “Me and Buffy would’ve been a freshwoman-kebab if I hadn’t.”
“How is she?”
“Giles took her to hospital, there’s not much they can do for the ribs except strap them, we knew that, but better someone she won’t beat up for hurting too much while they did that than one of us.”
“Guess you did a good thing then,” she admitted.
“Thanks, Mom.”
Tara bent down, kissing Willow on her smooth forehead. “That’s to make it better.”
“I do, I feel better,” Willow said, clutching her hand. “Try again.”
Tara smiling, bent over and kissed her again.
“One more time?”
This time it was a sigh that accompanied it. “You’re totally looking down my top, aren’t you?”
“I’m sick…”
“No, you’re a pervy-peeper,” Tara said.
“If I close my eyes, will you kiss me properly?”
How could she resist a deal like that? And the beautiful thing was that she felt, absolutely was convinced that, she really was helping Willow when she did it. It was like with the energy already levelling out between them, that a little of her strength went to Willow through that simple action of a kiss. Willpower perhaps rather than just energy.
It was simple and pleasurable too. Like most things, that would seem to be the ideal.
Her lips left Willow’s with the small sounds of parting dampness and Willow emitted a long sigh.
“Better now?”
“Much,” Willow said, finally opening her eyes.
“I can’t believe you took on that… demon, alone.”
“I didn’t. Buffy took him on and his name’s Adam. Sounds kind of strange, saying that a demon has a name just like ours. Four letters, starts with A. You’d be like, ‘must be something like AADI or something.’ Adam just seems very… normal.”
“Some demons are.”
“Not this one, he… he has a floppy drive in his chest.”
“Huh?” Willow seemed to think it was a very big deal and she was confused about that.
“Tara, that’s like so little data that… it’s not even worth the effort. More like someone said, ‘look, we have this slot left and we need to fill it with something or there’ll be thing big, empty port and he’s got everything else why don’t we put a floppy drive in there, never know when we’ll have to reboot him after a virus or something.’”
“He’s vulnerable to a virus?” Tara asked.
Willow looked surprised. “Actually, I never thought about it – but maybe. Maybe not… mostly he seems to be flesh and blood. Just… lots of different flesh and we never saw his blood. Buffy gave it everything she had and he just worked out how hard he needed to hit her, without being inefficient, to actually hurt her. That’s what happened to the ribs.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t make a sore head sound like much, does it?”
“But you’re not the Slayer,” Tara reminded her. “Sore heads are about as much as you, I or anyone else are equipped for. You helped though. You did help, didn’t you?”
“Oh, I absolutely saved the day, but… I don’t think he’s very happy with me now and he might be wondering about… well, about my witchy parts.”
“He can keep his hands off your witchy parts,” Tara told her. “I’m wondering about them too.”
“Not those parts,” Willow said, but the point stood as far as she was concerned. Anything that eased Willow’s concern and – after all – it was all true. “Look, I was thinking…”
“Uh-oh.”
“What? I didn’t even say anything yet!”
“You were thinking and you had that… you kind of had that tone.”
“What kind of tone?”
Tara kissed her Willow’s hand, just in case she managed to offend her, wanting her to understand that she didn’t mean anything bad by it. Was it so easy to be misunderstood? “The kind that says, ‘I’ve got an idea but you’re probably not going to like it.’”
“You know that tone? Already? When have I ever used that tone on you?”
“Once or twice, when you were thinking you were the one saying that we should wait until everything was perfect.”
“We should wait and I was the one saying that.”
“Just not the only one,” Tara reminded her. “But… you used it then. Should I get used to it?”
Willow took a moment to think about that. “Yeah, I probably would.”
“Glad I recognise it already then.”
“Since you’re sticking around and all.”
“Since I’m sticking around, yeah. And all.”
“You’re all sticky then?” Willow asked, the very personification of wounded innocence.
That one Tara wasn’t quite ready to say ‘yes’ to.
“So… do you want to hear this?” Willow asked when she didn’t reply.
“Absolutely and there’s something I need to tell you too.”
“Okay, but should I go first?”
Tara nodded, sat back on the bed beside a more animated and active Willow, listening. She knew that her presence had helped and that felt good.
“I ran across this spell earlier and I was planning to come to your place so we could do it and… well, then I’d have this really great excuse to be at your place – which, I realise now sounds really lame because you’re the really great excuse to be at your place - ”
“Willow…”
“Yeah – well, so I found this spell, and I think it could really help us out.”
“Another spell?” Tara had her doubts. Notwithstanding the tiredness that Willow was obviously feeling after helping Buffy out, she knew that she must still be feeling the lingering effects of that teleportation spell too. Certainly she was. Also… it wasn’t good to keep using magic. You could start to become dependent on it, Momma had said.
It wasn’t something she’d experienced because she’d always been careful and…
And if you were dependent on it then it became the easy way out, except… it wasn’t easy. It just seemed that way. Magic was hard on you for a reason, when you broke the laws of nature, when you tried to re-order the universe, there was a kicking that it had to give you in return, proportionate to what you’d done.
But keeping using spells… If there was another way then you should find it.
Except, for what they’d done, she couldn’t think of another way. How else to get Ethan out of the Initiative? How else could Willow have helped Buffy?
Maybe this was the same?
Except that was – Momma had said – what you did. You started to rationalise. What else could I have done?
“Yeah, but this is way simpler. All we’re doing is tracking him.”
Ohhh… the universe didn’t mind that. Probably. Finding things wasn’t like moving them. Except when you found them and you did move them, she supposed. But you weren’t moving them through magic.
“Tracking? How?” Over her concern, she could get into the idea of another spell.
“Well, there’s a spell that appeals to the Goddess Thespia and I have everything we need for it right here, simple stuff really. And - ”
“Wh-what does it do?” Tara asked, suddenly recalling what Willow might be talking about. She’d seen…
“It finds all the demons around here. Makes them show up on a map, well, kind of a map, more like a representation. I guess it depends on how much work we put into the representation as to how much use it might be. If we built a scale model it would be really accurate but if we only drew like, North, South - ”
Willow was still talking and she could see that her girlfriend was animated, excited, thought that this might really help and be a good thing.
The thing was… she couldn’t hear the words. She couldn’t hear the words because she didn’t want to hear the words. She didn’t want to hear how good this would be, how much it would help. How it might save lives and how it could be the undoing of this hotchpotch demon that had been unleashed.
She didn’t want to hear any of that.
She already knew. She knew how it could be a good thing. She knew that it might really be a way forwards when they were all wondering what happened next.
And she knew that she couldn’t allow it to happen.
Not here in a Slayer’s dorm-room. Not without preparation, not without getting Willow to understand why there was a demon in her room with her right now. Why this wasn’t a betrayal – another betrayal – and that everything between them had and did mean everything that she thought it did.
Except she was afraid that, in a little less than a year… it wouldn’t. She was so desperately afraid.
But she was ready to fight for what she wanted. That was what college had taught her, Willow had shown her… Fight for what you want. She had to, because no one else would.
*********************
. Where have I seen that before 
?
.
?
. She just can't help lashing out. I know you have to stay true to the story. But, she is one of my favorites, behind Tara and Willow. So, I hate to see her behaving like such a P.O.S.
.
