Okay, we're going a day early with this one to make it fit better around a posting break starting next week where there will be no updates for a week.
But we'll have a couple of parts more before that...
Enjoy
Katharyn
*****************************
Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter Ninety-Two
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: Tara, Faith and Buffy face Glory for the first time. Oh, and other stuff happens.
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: Okay… so now we come to Glory herself. It’s just about killed me not showing her until now. But as I may have said before about other story elements missing in a T/W centred story, I would’ve had to insert one of the girls into Glory scenes to I show the character any earlier and that just wouldn’t work in this style. She’s too dangerous and unpredictable to put the girls in her space and still have her as a credible threat when they walked away.
On the other hand I really didn’t want to have to wait for the equivalent of Glory sitting on a bench next to Tara… (Do you figure that’s going to happen sometime given my love for her?) So anyway, this was a solution. Send Tara along with a Slayer and… voila. Glory in the story. We won’t see her as often as in the episodes, just because so much of her screen time is separate from anyone but her own minions, but she’s here. A presence and increasingly a threat.
Anyway, so now you all know what – and who – is coming, but I’ve left this part a little shorter for those dramatic reasons and hey, because I like the feedback… I leave you where I do and you can start talking about it if you like
There’s a little dig at the physics of disintegrating concrete when a human body hits it here… as came up in the show, I’m just riffing on it
For dramatic and perspective reasons I have – again – chosen not to alternate the Willow and Tara PoV in the same ways as I’ve usually done in this story. As usual Willow is the one getting short-changed, but I figure that the flow of the Glory stuff is more important…
But of course, Willow doesn’t know what’s going on so we’ll start with her.
Thanks to: Oh Glory, Glory, Glory.
“Can we talk about something else?” Hope asked.
“Sure, honey. Your house, your rules.” So her young friend didn’t want to talk out what Buffy had – almost - done.
Again.
Hope had no more idea ‘why’ than she did, though she had been able to add some meat to the bones of the story.
‘You’re not real’? Why would Buffy say that? Especially when it was perfectly obvious that Hope was – pretty much - right here? And had been, well, since Faith came to town. They’d practically had a hand in raising her when Wesley hadn’t proven the best role-model. And that included Buffy, who’d put her big sister in hospital all that time. Buffy had been fine with her up to then, they’d gotten much better than Buffy Summers and anyone named Lehane should’ve done.
“It’s not exactly my house – and it’s an apartment anyway,” Hope said.
“Close enough. Hey,” Willow said, “want to see something cool?”
“Sure.”
Bringing it up on her iBook, Willow did a quick search, entered the ZIP code and building name and then waited for the internet to catch up and deliver the data… “Here.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s the apartment downstairs, on the other side? The one that’s for sale.”
“Oh. Mister Mainwaring? Why?”
“Why’s it for sale?”
“No, why are you showing me it?”
Willow grinned. “Well, look, it doesn’t have the view, it’s not the penthouse and it’s not decorated as nicely but… look at the asking price.”
“Holy cow!” Hope said as she put it together. “How many – how many zero’s is that before the decimal?”
“This one has got to be worth more,” Willow said. “And… it belongs to your sister.”
“I guess… I guess the Mayor really liked her,” Hope said.
“I wish he hadn’t,” Willow replied. “Things might’ve been very different. But as I’ve always said, if you’re going to fall in with the wrong crowd, make sure it’s the insanely-generous-and-rich wrong crowd.”
“You don’t always say that, I’ve never heard you say that.”
“No… but I should’ve and now you can say you’ve heard me say it anyway.”
“My Mom never even owned our house,” Hope said, sitting next to her on the couch, all ready for bed without even being prompted. “And even if she had it wasn’t worth that much. Nowhere near.”
“Well, your sister’s worth quite a lot now. Might not be a great idea to tell her that though…” Willow speculated.
“You think?”
Willow laughed, put her arm around the younger girl and hugged her. “You should’ve been the eldest, Hopey. You’re like me, stable, serious and dependable.”
“But… Willow, you’re like the big kid who lives with Tara,” Hope said. “You know, that’s how I see you anyway.”
“Really?”
“Uhuh,” Hope sipped at some warm milk. “She’s the stable and dependable one – not that you’re not but she’s even more stable and dependable.”
Willow sighed, it was really impossible to deny. Was it the lesbian curse? Being so easily comparable to your girlfriend without gender to get in the way? “I guess.”
“It’s not like your opposites or anything,” Hope said, hedging her bets now that she’d said it. “I mean, she’s a witch, you’re a witch. She likes girls, you like girls… though that one’s kind of a pre-requisite I guess.”
“Not if you didn’t know you liked girls until you met her,” Willow said, happy to reminisce. It was easier than worrying about Tara and Faith – and yes, she worried about both of them as well as Buffy. If something happened to Faith then something was more likely to happen to Tara and that would obviously be a bad thing. “I was sitting opposite her, I looked up - ”
“And you fell into her eyes,” Hope said dreamily. Mockingly. “I know this story. Everyone knows this story. You’ve never stopped telling this story”
“It’s a good story,” Willow insisted. “So I looked into her eyes and she looked into mine and… I just knew.”
“You knew you’d be in love forever,” Hope said in her silly sing-song voice.
“No – that came later, you know, once I’d talked to her. But I knew when I looked at her that nothing about what people expected mattered. Not even what I expected.”
“You really sat there and thought that?” Hope asked.
“Not in so many words,” Willow replied. “But that’s how I felt – once I figured out what I felt. And I think when you feel something, you can think about it later and decide what the feeling means. And that’s what it meant to me. See, you hadn’t heard all this before! Even if you were first to know.”
“Okay… I guess there was still something you could tell me.” The girl admitted. “Did you, you know, feel… umm… sexy about her then?”
“Hope!”
“I don’t know!” Hope said. “I never – I never felt that way about anyone. At least, no one real, that I’ve met…”
“And you shouldn’t have,” Willow said, absolutely happy about that.
“Oh, not you too. Everyone but Faith wants me to be little Miss Perfect. I am fifteen you know.”
“You are little Miss Perfect,” Willow said. “I should know, I used to be her. Then I started dating and… the halo slips. So there’s no one you like at school?”
“Well, there is one guy…” Hope said, drifting off. “But – I don’t know if that’s it. He kind of makes me feel warm and funny and…down there, all over…”
“I think that’s it, honey,” Willow said, laughing.
“Really?”
“Really… so what’s his name?”
“Carlos.”
“Carlos, huh? And is he a jock?”
“No – well – he’s on the swim team, but he doesn’t play football or anything. Does that make him a jock?”
“Umm, the swim team, huh? Does he have - ”
“No, he doesn’t have gills or webbed feet. He has hands. He has nice hands…”
Well, that was a relief. Though it was a different coach and a different school. Since they’d gotten the last one blown up and all. But it was still Sunnydale.
“Hands are one of the things you should notice,” Willow advised, though possibly she’d never paid quite as much attention to them as she should’ve done until Tara. Tara’s hands were… magic.
“I’ve seen you and Tara,” Hope said. “You’re always brushing hands, touching arms… anything just to touch.”
“It’s that obvious?” Willow asked.
“It is when you notice,” Hope grinned.
“Well, missy, you just make sure that until you’re ready, this Carlos keeps his hands to himself and never let them wander… Okay?”
“Willow! I’ve not even talked to him yet! I don’t know if he knows I exist – he’s older.”
“Even so.”
“You’d rather I was into girls?” Hope asked. “Then I’d be safer?”
“Oh, no. Girls are even worse… Or… so I hear. I wouldn’t know, I’ve got the one perfect girl.”
Hope giggled. “I’ve got the perfect present for her birthday, it’s so cool – want to see?”
“Do I have to keep it a secret?” Willow asked.
“Yeah, I guess… Oh, I shouldn’t tell you?”
“You should know me by now. I can’t keep a secret. Not from her.”
“You’ve kept the party a secret,” Hope said. “She doesn’t know, does she?”
Willow thought about that, evaluated the available information. “She thought maybe there’d be one, but I very carefully didn’t tell her any lies when I said there wouldn’t be. Insinuated it, anyway. Actually I let her believe what she wanted to, while not denying it.”
“Think she’ll be mad?” Hope asked.
“No, I think she’ll enjoy herself. Buffy didn’t even mind – oh…”
“If – if you need me not to come,” Hope said. “I mean, because of Buffy…”
“No. That would make Tara mad. Whatever it is with Buffy, we’ll sort it out before the party. You’re coming, no matter what. You have a dress all picked out, didn’t you say?”
“Uhuh.”
“The kind of dress would make Carlos’ eyes pop out if he saw you?” Willow checked.
“No…”
“Good. Men are beasts, remember that,” she said. “Until you’re… I don’t know… eighteen years old. Something like that. Take it from me, I dated a werewolf. Beasts I tell you. Don’t encourage them…”
“But you said girls are worse?” Hope said.
“You don’t like girls though so… Men are beasts. That’s all you need to remember.”
Hope grinned and snuggled up to her to watch some more TV. “Beasts, gotcha.”
------------------
“That’s the Beast?” Faith asked.
Even though she was fretting over Buffy, Tara looked back around when she heard the unmistakable click of the heels against the concrete floor. At first she’d thought maybe it’d be claws making that noise, but no…
Heels. Expensive heels if she was any judge – and actually she wasn’t since her and heels rarely went together and never comfortably. Balance – as Willow put it – became an issue.
Expensive heels. Expensive, figure hugging, red dress. And… quite a figure.
Not a blonde hair out of place despite what appeared to have happened here and the fight with Buffy. Not a mark, not a smear of the lipstick (that was just as red as her dress) nor any sign of disrupted makeup. The woman appeared older than them, but still young and… She was glorious.
Not her type - even if she hadn’t been something not very human - but it was a description that rang especially true. Glorious…
Glory.
Glorificous.
“I’m fine,” Buffy insisted, pushing her hand away but then there was another hand that was pushing her away, sending her sprawling as Glorificus shoved her and reached for Buffy, picked her up with one hand. Like, entirely up in the air and then, almost casually, flung her into a column that was supporting the roof.
The impact was so brutal that bits actually fell down from the ceiling above them. She knew that was impossible, that anything a human body hit that hard was impossible to survive – Slayer or not – but Buffy got up anyway, finding a second (or maybe third) wind from somewhere inside her and managed to actually launch a counterattack.
And one – even after those impacts – that no opponent should’ve been able to resist or withstand.
She’d seen it before, used against vampires and demons. Buffy was a whirlwind, fast and accurate but… the woman in the red dress dodged every punch. Every attempt at a kick – which was a sure sign Buffy was worried because kicks made you vulnerable. That was what the Slayers both said, but if you needed the power and were vulnerable anyway...? Did that make it okay?
Glorificus just moved her head and the fist went sailing on by and made Buffy overbalance just a little. “I’ll be with you two in a moment,” she said. “I want to finish up here first. You know… I always wanted to try this. You know that thing with worms where if you have one, you rip it in half and you get two worms? Do you think that’ll work with you?”
Willow would’ve said it was scientifically inaccurate, but they had bigger problems. By the time the ‘woman’ had completed her taunt, she had Buffy pinned up against the wall and seemingly beaten since nothing that the Slayer was doing seemed to have much effect.
Faith wasn’t standing for that though.
“Hey, bitch.”
At first the woman in the red dress ignored Faith, which just made her mad. Of course, she’d already been in a bad mood before they got here. “Bitch!” This time the presumed-Glorificus did turn, still grasping Buffy by the throat and looking like she could pop her head off at any moment if she so chose.
The pause was one of curiosity and Buffy’s struggles were getting more desperate but also starting to look feebler as she was starved of air.
“I’ve got my business of my own with my girl, B so why don’t you… fuck off and leave us to it?”
Glorificus looked absolutely shocked to be addressed in that way and must’ve relaxed her grip on Buffy just a touch – either that or a moment’s respite was all Buffy had needed – because when Glorificus turned back to her, Buffy head-butted her in the face.
It was the first blow Tara had seen her land, the first that was in any way effective anyway.
“Are you crazy?!” Incredulous at being struck that way, that Buffy didn’t have the decency to just give up and die, Glorificus was momentarily staggered by the attack and by Faith – fresh and uninjured – joining in to start wailing on her.
“You can’t go around hitting people,” Glorificus said as a number of the blows landed and Buffy – after a moment’s ‘rest’ – got back into the attack herself. “What, were you born in a barn?”
To illustrate her point, Glorificus caught the next punch that Buffy threw in her hand and with only that limited hold, swung one Slayer around to crash into the other, knocking Faith flying but catching her by the ankle before bringing both the girls together in a mighty slapping movement. Then she flung them both outwards into the columns that supported the roof.
Tara hardly knew where to look or who to be most worried about. And she had to keep herself looking very small because… if the Slayers lost this round then the creature that was feared even by Diana was going to be coming after …
Me.
But so far everything Diana had said about needing both the Slayers wasn’t bearing fruit. If they were supposed to be able to deal with Glorificus then… they weren’t.
Buffy had been in the fight longer, had already been pretty beat up before she and Faith had even arrived so her inclination was to look out for her if she could, but what could she really do anyway? And of the two, Faith was probably a closer ‘friend’.
Or at least Faith needed her more – in general terms. If not in this.
Buffy had so many others to look out for her.
Instead of doing anything then, she was pretty much frozen to the spot but so, so grateful that there were signs of life from both the Slayers. After that last attack, Buffy seemed to be favouring the arm that Glorificus had swung her by – maybe it was dislocated or something? – but otherwise both seemed to be up and moving okay…
Groggy. Hurt. But still effective.
Buffy went over to Faith, said something to her which surprised her counterpart. Were these the beginnings of a plan?
“I just noticed something,” Glorificus said as the Slayers conferred. “You two have superpowers. That’s so cool…. I wonder, can you fly? Let’s see.” She started towards the Slayers and – unbelievably – Tara saw Faith hit Buffy in the shoulder. Very… precisely and even though Buffy cried out in obvious pain, it seemed to do the trick as she was flexing her arm again once that had happened.
Relocation of an arm through precise violence… great in as much as it freed Buffy to square up to their attacker, but not before giving her something to do.
“Tara, get the monk, get him out of here.”
Monk? She hadn’t noticed anything but the battle – but yes, there, tied to an overturned chair was a man in a brown robe, typically monk-y. Stereotypically, perhaps. Was this one of the ones who'd used the dagon sphere? Had he been holed up here? Because obviously Glorificus had broken in. This wasn’t her lair.
“B, you’re fucked up too. Get out of here. Now,” Faith said, squaring up to Glorificus who was seemingly amusing her with the bravado. The creature from another dimension looked absolutely thrilled, waiting to allow her to finish her posturing.
Maybe if there’d been a mirror to hand Faith would’ve realised that she too wasn’t looking all that great either, but since there wasn’t… There was no time to question what she’d been asked to do.
Faith was already drawing Glorificus away from both the monk and the exit, because someone had to distract her until that had been done. Or else… they were leaving him here.
And he already looked broken in ways she hoped never to see her friends.
Fiddling with the ropes for a few seconds, she found that they weren’t even that tight. More likely they were there to keep the man in the chair than to keep him from escaping. How did you even get away from a god-like being?
Oh… Good, relevant, question. How did you get away from a god-like being? They needed to know that, and soon… She was trying to pull the monk, who was at least her size, across the floor when she was joined by Buffy who seemed to have taken Faith at her word and helped drag him back towards the door.
Mad as hell – what had Faith just done to her? – Whatever it was, Glorificus stamped her foot… Was she mad that she’d broken her heel? Yes, they were lovely – impractical – shoes, but when she stamped her foot… the whole place shook. And when she stamped again… Tara happened to look up.
“Faith!”
-------------------------
“What. The. Fuck. Was that?” Faith demanded. Dust billowed as most of the building that they’d been in collapsed with a mighty roar behind them. The process wasn’t like a demolition, with the whole place coming down at once.
Instead after the initial, main, collapse, there was perhaps a minute or more of additional clatters and breakup while – they’d have to guess – the building came down within the blanket of smoke and dust. It was impossible to see and luckily they were on the outside.
“Faith,” Buffy said, objecting to the bad language. “This is a monk.”
“Not for long,” the other Slayer said, looking down at him to give a realistic appraisal.
Tara had to agree. They were all caked in the dust and it was making all of them cough, even though they’d gotten away from the worst of it. But when the monk coughed, he was bringing up blood that flecked the side of his mouth. Bubbling from his nose too.
“My – my journey is done, I think,” he said in accented but recognisable English.
“You – you must protect the Key.” He coughed, interrupting her attempt to ask him what that was. “You must protect it – Many more will die – everyone will die – if you do not.”
“Why - ” Buffy asked. “What did you - ”
The monk shook his head, grimacing and obviously in greater pain when he moved in any way. “Not you. Her.”
He was gesturing at Faith and dismissing Buffy entirely.
“Me?”
Totally surprised, it looked to Tara like Faith wasn’t going to get it together enough to ask the right questions. Not before they’d have no one left to address them to, anyway. “What – what is this Key?” she asked.
“Energy,” he wheezed, the blood from his nose turning into a trickle. That couldn’t be good.
“A portal that opens the Door. For centuries - ” Wracked by a spasm, they had to wait and hope for him to continue, even as they tried to make him as comfortable as they could. “For centuries it had no form at all. My brethren were its only keepers; we thought we could keep it safe. Then the Abomination found us. We scattered, tried to draw the Beast to other parts of the world while we hid the Key.”
“Where? What did you do?” Buffy asked.
“We had to hide it. We had to - We gave it form, moulded it flesh… We made it human and sent it – we sent it to you.”
“Me?” Faith asked again, obviously not realising what she and Buffy had but not given voice to.
“Hope,” Tara said quietly. What he was saying and what Buffy had seen in that trance came together in one terrible moment of understanding.
“What – what else could we call it? But now the beast is here – here so close to what it’s sought since times before records and now there is no one - ”
“What did you think you were doing?” Buffy asked. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“A Slayer… never have there been two. Never with those so pure of heart around her for all her failings…”
“What does he mean? What failings?” Faith asked, but the monk seemed not to notice.
“It’s been in my house!” Buffy accused. “It’s been – it’s been in our minds. All of them… God, was that what happened to my Mom? Did you do that to her?”
Tara was forced to intervene as Buffy grabbed the dying man, evidently to shake an answer out of him, but it was obvious that he was fading fast and no matter what he’d done – or not done – or been a part of it was also obvious that he’d done it for what he’d thought were the right reasons.
Nor had he been alone in that.
“You’re saying that Hope is…”
“Oh get with the programme. She’s not your sister,” Buffy snapped. “She’s some sort of… thing.”
He shook his head, coughing again. Was it a good sign or a bad one that it added no more blood to his lips? “No… It – she’s flesh and blood. We built your memories, everyone who knows her – we built all your memories so you’d care for her.”
Perhaps he was trying to argue that gave Hope some sort of reality, but certainly Buffy wasn’t taking it that way. “You can’t just do that! What you did – to my Mom?!”
“Hope’s…” Faith wasn’t stupid, even though she played down her own intelligence plenty in favour of everyone expecting less from her. This hesitation wasn’t that she didn’t understand it, she just couldn’t accept it. And Tara had a good idea why. The things, the bonds, between them… This wasn’t a girl who’d just been dropped into her life as her sister.
The things that had happened to the pair of them – or that Faith remembered happening to them… Tara had known Hope for a little over a year, so that was all she remembered. But she understood that Faith had ‘known’ her little sister for the more than fifteen years and the last few had been the only ones approaching ‘good’ for either of them.
Ironically enough, Faith going off the rails here in Sunnydale and killing someone – ending up in hospital for months – was probably an improvement on what had gone before. Even though neither sister was talking about it.
“She’s not your sister,” Buffy said again. “Don’t you get it? She’s not your sister. She isn’t anyone’s sister, or daughter or friend. She’s not real.”
“You cannot abandon - ”
“You gave me a sister that’s not real – you made me feel for her?” Faith demanded, standing astride the monk. “What is she – what is she really?”
“We don’t know,” Tara said.
“She’s human,” he said. “She’s human and helpless. A true innocent and… she… She doesn’t know.”
Those were his last words.
********************
