by Katharyn » Thu Aug 01, 2013 9:31 pm
Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter One Hundred and 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: The second chapter covering the period and events of the canon episode ‘Shadow’
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: There’s no getting around the fact that some of this is just… depressing stuff. You have a much loved character and you start on this road with her, bringing in – since the PoV is Tara and Willow – Tara’s memories of her Mom… In my head I’ve always seen this version of S5 as quite ‘down’ compared to S4. That’s not been entirely fair as, when I redraft, I can see that nice story opportunities and outright humour again. But there it’s almost like the ‘Shadow’ is now in the fic too.
Thanks to: Everyone who has stuck by me thus far and everyone else who comes along later and makes it this deep into the story. Over 2/3 the way there…
This isn’t a flashback.
Not a flashback. This is real. This is now.
Tara had been in a room with two other people once before, hearing what the Doctor had to say and dreading both the news and the reaction. Not knowing how to comfort them. Not knowing what to say. Who to hug. Or whether to stand there and just let things happen around her.
No, it was very real. It was very now. But why did all hospital rooms look basically the same? In a free market wouldn’t it make more sense for the décor to vary?
You’d have thought –
It was a brain tumour. A low grade glioma.
Like Buffy, she didn’t get much beyond the word tumour when the doctor explained what a ‘glioma’ was.
It’d been right there since the ‘shadow’ was reported after the scan, but now that the scans had been looked at by a specialist who did this for a living, Joyce’s diagnosis was certain.
But not the prognosis.
She’d learned the difference the hard way, once upon a time, after believing they were basically the same thing. She can still be okay. Even though it’ll be hard on her. Hard on Buffy too, but in a different way.
She can still be okay though…
It wasn’t like they hadn’t been worrying about what it could be. They’d all been worrying about it.
Up to now there’d been the chance, a small chance, that it could’ve been something else or the medical equivalent of dirt on the lens.
But now the word was there.
Tumour.
She was glad now – even though she’d been dreading how she’d handle it - that Buffy had asked for them to be present when she found out the news. So they could be there for her.
Hope, perhaps, wasn’t as aware of what it could mean and so her reaction was probably prompted more by that of Joyce, Buffy and herself. It was good that the girl was there though, slipping her hand into Buffy’s. It seemed like a good thing to have Hope with them.
She has the right name and a personality to match. She’ll be good for Joyce.
Buffy was squeezing the girl’s hand now, fortunately not with Slayer strength, as they listened to the Doctor explain what it meant. The symptoms that were being described were consistent with what they’d already seen and pointed the way to what would happen next.
Could happen next. Nobody knew. He’d admitted that. He could easily be wrong.
“It could progress quickly,” the Doctor said. “These types of tumours are aggressive and fast moving for all that they’re usually operable. You’re likely to see loss of appetite, though she will need to keep eating and hydrated. Loss of vision is possible, lack of muscle control will become more likely and there will almost certainly be mood swings.”
The Doctor’s description was somewhat clinical, but Buffy had pushed him into giving the information that way. She wanted to know exactly what she was dealing with, without softening it. His bedside manner – however good or bad that had been - fled in the face of Slayer willpower.
But it all sounded very familiar to her, clinical or not.
“I have to stress,” the Doctor said, “that we’re looking right now at how operable your mother’s condition is. There’s a good chance that we can cut it out and if we can then prognosis is good. One in three people do just fine.”
One in three[i]?
That was thirty-three percent. The better question was what happened to the other two… Did they experience complications? Permanent problems? Or were they… gone? Buffy’s hand tightened on hers this time, like she as thinking the same thing. But they had to be positive. One in three [i]was a good chance. People bet their life savings on much worse odds than that.
But this wasn’t Vegas.
“Low grade’s good, right? Better than high grade?” Hope asked, focusing on one of the first things that had been revealed.
“Low grade’s better, honey,” the Doctor agreed, though his face said different. Fortunately, Hope was focused on the words. “I do have some questions, if you can help me? Does your mother live near any overhead power lines?”
Buffy didn’t say anything.
“Miss Summers?”
Buffy just looked at her mother’s still face. Joyce was sleeping and would be for a while yet.
“No,” Tara said for her friend. “There are no power lines at the house. But I don’t know about her office. I’ve never been there.”
“There aren’t,” Hope said. “I was – I went with her -”
Had the Monks implanted reality there then? Down to whether there was a power line at Joyce’s office? Or had Hope really been there? Now they were answering questions that might be really important to her health based on the recollections placed in Hope’s memory by the monks?
Well-meaning as they had undoubtedly been – they were monks after all – had they understood that this kind of thing could happen?
“Does she have a cell phone?” the Doctor asked.
“No, no,” Tara said.
“She doesn’t like them,” Buffy added. “The buttons are so tiny. She doesn’t like the tiny buttons.”
“Okay. How about those phones you can walk around the house with?”
Buffy was gone again though, lost in the tiny buttons. “Yes,” Tara said. “She does.”
“Does she do business on it? Spend a long time on it?”
“Not that I noticed,” Tara said. “Hope?”
The younger girl shook her head. Again… maybe she didn’t know that level of truth though.
“I… I don’t call her enough,” Buffy told him. “So… I guess not.”
“Don’t worry about it,” the Doctor said. “It’s just something we ask, trying to determine a cause. Sometimes though, these things just happen. It’s no one’s fault. She’ll be in recovery for a while yet and she’s got lots of people looking out for her, why don’t you take a break?”
He was addressing himself to Buffy, but looking at her to try and make it happen. Tara didn’t get the chance to reply though.
“I want to be here when she wakes up,” Buffy said and then disappeared into her own thoughts once again.
Tara was the one who thanked the Doctor when he had to leave and Buffy hadn’t moved, still looking at her Mom. Hope was obviously worried about her too. Buffy still hadn’t looked up when she drew her attention.
“Tara.”
“Yes?”
“I want you to find something for me.”
“Name it. Anything you need.”
“I want you to find me a healing spell.”
Oh no
Of course she understood why Buffy would ask, but she also knew very well that her friend had no idea what she was asking and what the price would be even if she could…
Her silence, caught by surprise, finally made Buffy look up. “Don’t you tell me what shouldn’t be done, I want you to find me something. I want you to find her something. Science isn’t helping… one in three? What is that?”
“It’s a chance,” Tara said, conscious that Hope was still with them and looking stricken because of Buffy’s reaction. The girl was realising this was worse than she’d maybe thought. “It’s a pretty good chance.”
“No, it’s not acceptable,” Buffy said, shaking her head. “Let’s see what magic can do… all I want is an option. I’m not expecting a miracle, but tell me that there’s nothing that can be done. Can you tell me that?”
She couldn’t… not at all. She didn’t know any but those sorts of spells had been reputed to exist; miracles had been performed in days gone by. But how much of that was just a story and how much was real? How many limbs had really grown back? How many growths had been expelled? How many diseases had been sloughed off?
How much of all that had just happened because sometimes nature was its own miracle?
How many times had it failed, for all the times it might’ve appeared to succeed?
How much had it cost? And not the sort of price you could pay with money or stuff… No, these were real costs. The costs that took more than you gained.
And the answer to all those questions… No idea. That was what she had. No idea. All she knew was that a healing spell wasn’t without consequence. Nothing came for free in magic and the price was almost always in proportion to what was gained. An inverse proportion. Most old spells that were referred to also involved sacrifice… and not chickens or rats. No, they were talking about very dangerous ground. Blood magic was the only thing she could even think of...
After spending her whole life staying away from it, for very good reason.
Which wasn’t to say she couldn’t look. Look for something else. But… she wasn’t hopeful. If she’d known about such a spell already, if she’d known about it three years ago… Wouldn’t her Mom still be with them?
Wouldn’t Momma have healed herself?
Or maybe that just wasn’t possible. Maybe the price always had to be paid by someone else?
“Sometimes – sometimes people j-just get sick,” she said but she knew full well Buffy wouldn’t accept that. She wouldn’t have either. She knew she wouldn’t because she’d already walked in Buffy’s shoes. “Sometimes even magic can’t do anything.”
I looked. I started to look. I looked hard enough I started to understand why Momma never wanted me to.
“Tara - !”
“I tried, okay?” she said. “I tried with her – I tried on my own, even though my Dad… I looked. I looked everywhere that I had access to. There was… nothing.”
But I could’ve looked more… deeper.
Darker.
She wouldn’t let me though. She knew what I was doing. She knew the temptation.
And now she’s not here to tell me what I already know.
“Maybe it’ll be different this time, here…” Buffy said, trying a different tack. “There are all Giles’ books – Ethan?”
All Giles’ dark, dangerous books.
“Please,” Buffy pleaded.
And what could she say? Buffy had stood alongside the others and named her as family. Hope was as close to Joyce as she probably had been to her own mother. Closer. How could she say no? She’d pointed out what might happen, but Buffy was right in that this was different. She did have access to more books, more sources. She had Willow, Ethan and Giles.
All of whom should’ve told her what a risk they’d running trying any kind of spell of that kind. What the price could be.
But Buffy wanted options and she couldn’t make a decision if she didn’t even know what was possible.
“You’re right,” Tara said. “Maybe it’ll be d-different. If there’s anything… I’ll find it.”
“You can go now?”
“I have some work to do, but I’ll get right on it after that,” Tara said. “You… you’re going to get your schoolwork done. Okay?” She patted Hope’s back, breaking her out of her realisation of Joyce’s mortality.
And she didn’t argue. Not a word.
She was a good girl.
A good girl in shock. I wasn’t much younger.
“Tara?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you – will you ask Faith to keep up the patrols? Will you ask her to - keep on top of things? I can’t – I can’t – leave her. You know?”
“Of course. And she’ll do it too,” she said, nodding and then hugged Buffy one more time. “Try to get some rest. Willow or Giles, one of them anyway will be along later.”
Buffy nodded, but called her back when she was about to leave. “Tara?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
You might not want to thank me… whatever I find.
------------
“Gin,” Willow said, laying down her cards.
Eddie, her opponent, sighed. He was doing quite a lot of sighing. He was missing Buffy; she knew that much even if he was taciturn enough not to admit it. He understood that she had to be with her Mom though, did some shifts in being with her and knew that she had other people to support her too.
It was a different kind of hard for him, being helpless to actually do anything except be here.
Besides, Buffy usually sent him away, feeling guilty herself for not being around him as much as she’d have liked but not having the energy for that guilt.
He got it though and went along with what she needed. He could’ve been a whole lot more needy and thankfully wasn’t. Lots of guys wouldn’t have put up with Buffy’s schedule even before Joyce’s illness… He might not look like it, but she’d pencilled him as a keeper and intended to tell Buffy as much if the subject ever came up and if her friend didn’t seem to realise.
That wouldn’t be for a while though.
“Am I going to win a game?” he asked.
“You’ve got a lot on your mind,” she excused him easily.
“No more than you. Less, maybe.”
“This is true,” Willow said. “You are a guy.”
“Ha ha.”
Over the other side of the store Anya was getting excited about something or other, but she couldn’t bring herself to care… “Deal ‘em,” she said.
“Hey!” Anya shouted again. “Is anyone listening to me or am I just talking to myself – as usual?”
Willow looked up at the same time as everyone else, something about Anya’s voice just said ‘this is important.’ Of course, her definition of what was important was different to most other people’s.
“What’s wrong?” Giles asked as they drifted over.
“Look at this. Someone sold Kohl’s amulet and the Sobekium bloodstone?” She was brandishing a receipt from the register. Kind of accusing both in gesture and tone.
“Yes?” Giles said.
“Together? In the same transaction?” Anya liked transactions. Trading things for money just appealed to her on some very basic level. She even liked the word, Willow had caught her saying it over and over once. But this one seemed to have aggravated her.
“Yes. The pretty young lady in the - ” the purveyor of fine magic (or magic adjacent) items explained.
Everyone looked at him.
“Alright, yes, the one without any noticeable underwear. Not that I was looking for things like that.”
Anya was the only one unmoved by the best description they’d been able to come up with since there had actually been another woman in a red dress that day – though not quite as attractive. “You can’t sell those together. I wasn’t happy with you even stocking them so I put them far apart on the shelves, but you sold them both to the same person?”
“Yes… why? Or… why not?”
Anya sighed, her patience clearly exhausted, not that she ever had much. “The clue’s in the name – No? No one get it? The Sobekites were an Egyptian cult, heavy into dark magics and – incidentally – worshipping Set. The amulet was a transmogrification conduit and the bloodstone is ideal to fuel any kind of ritual of that kind, you knew that right?”
“I… did?” Giles said.
“And you still sold it to her?”
He coughed, buying some time to think. “The knowledge required was lost thousands of years ago, there are no active worshipers of Set anywhere in the world, his dark fire faded a long time ago,” Giles said, then overrode Anya’s next objection to finish his thought. “And even if that wasn’t the case, the young lady in the red - ”
“The one without the underwear,” Willow added.
“Yes, even with the bloodstone that young lady would need simply enormous power to… Oh, dear lord.”
It hit them at the same moment. They knew who he’d served. Who’d been in the store with them… Someone who did have the power. Had been around thousands of years ago.
Glorificus.
And they’d sold her what she needed for a powerful spell… Just… great. Couldn’t they ever make life easier for themselves? “What does it do?”
Tara was going to be ticked…
Tara was going to be really, really, ticked.
--------------------
“Hey, baby,” Willow said to her as she entered the store.
“Hey, you.” Tara hugged her girlfriend on demand. It was pretty much what she did at the moment. Hugs for whoever needed them, but Willow had priority and always would.
“How are things?”
Obviously Willow meant at the hospital. Perhaps it was written in her face; maybe she was giving something away there. Or maybe her girl was just asking. “Not great,” she admitted. “I – It’s not great. The scan showed a shadow, they said it was a low grade Glioma.”
“Oh no. That’s… that’s what it sounds like, right?”
“Pretty much.”
“Poor Buffy.”
“She asked me to… find her a healing spell.”
“Are you going to try?” Willow asked, having a better understanding of what that meant than her friend.
She’d already admitted to Willow all that she’d done to try and help her Mom a few years ago, her utter failure there and Willow hadn’t held back from wanting to try again once it was obvious there was something wrong with Joyce. The argument then had been that they didn’t know what it was and anything that they tried could make things worse.
But her girlfriend understood the full extent of what could go wrong and how bad that could be… She’d been sure to explain that part too. How Momma hadn’t wanted her investigating those kinds of magics.
To cure or repair something, you had to damage or inflict as much sickness as you were fixing. At least as much. To save a life already lost you had to take a life.
At least one.
Those were the rules. And yeah, maybe you could use animals for that but not bugs. Not things that wouldn’t feel the pain. It wasn’t the ‘aww’ factor either, the books suggested that the more intelligent the animal the more power it held in that regard and she was very, very afraid that it was only a hop, skip and a jump from trying something like that to actual sacrifice and realms of magic no one here – even Buffy – wanted them dabbling in.
For any reason.
Not even the best one.
You didn’t just dabble. Magic was alluring anyway, after all look at how a simple touch made her and Willow feel because of it. But those dark, blood magics even more so.
That was the kind of magic that could suck you in and turn you dark, that was what she’d always been told. Then you had your one bad apple that could get everyone burned at the stake.
Of course, she’d always been told – even by her Mom – that there was a demon inside her so, right now, she was willing to accept that maybe she didn’t know everything about magic. Maybe not even a little bit of it.
“I’m going to look,” she said. I’m going to look in the safe places… I can’t face down the darkness. No one can. “If nothing else there are some pain amulets I read about that aren’t so… risky.”
Willow nodded, looking relieved. “I’ve read some stuff, I know you have and… I’m not sure there’s any way to just ‘heal’ her. Not that – you know – anyone would actually do.”
Faith might just because of how she looks at the world. She might even think she was doing the right thing for the right reason. Instead of the wrong thing for the right reason.
And Buffy might if she was left with no choice.
One in three isn’t much of a choice.
“I have to be honest with her,” Tara said, “but I want to look things over first. Talk to Mister Giles and Ethan. See what they know, what they might’ve heard of.”
“That’s a good idea,” Willow said, kissing her lightly to seal the agreement. “The mystical and the medical aren’t supposed to mix. That’s why the old spells, the ones that are really dangerous and powerful, have died away. The price was too high and science came along anyway.”
“A kind of magic,” Tara said.
“There can be only one.”
Drawing a blank, Willow apologised for her pun – whatever it meant.
“It’s true though.”
“I know.”
“I know you know, I just thought I was better saying it. We don’t want to make things worse.”
“Not when we’ve already done enough to make things worse,” Anya said, coming over to them.
“Worse?” she asked, looking first at Anya and then at Willow. They’d just been sat here, what could they have done to make things worse?
“Umm… We – that is Giles – may have sold Glory an amulet and a bloodstone that’ll allow her to conjure a monster.” Willow blurted out.
“There’s no ‘may’ about it,” Anya said. “He did. He sold them together. And what else can you use them for?”
“There was little cause for concern - ” Giles said as his accuser got loud enough to be heard over the other side of the store.
“No!” Anya shouted back at him. “Not unless you have an ancient being on your doorstep, looking to cause trouble! Which we do!”
“Well, yes… but she looked so…”
“Perky,” Willow supplied when he was struggling and then turned to her girlfriend. “You didn’t tell me she was so perky.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘perky’,” Tara said. “B-but maybe I was too scared to notice.”
“If we’re not saying ‘perky’ then we’re definitely saying ‘fricking hot.’”
“Again with the scared, baby,” Tara pointed out. “She was beating on two Slayers – at the same time – that was the last time I saw her. Are we sure she was here – that it was her?”
“Pretty sure,” Willow agreed, looking at the others. “She fitted what you said – we realised later – and… This is Sunnydale.”
Yes, it is.
“At least,” Giles said, obviously about to try and ease his guilt with a mitigating point, “we know that – whatever she is and whatever she wants – she does actually require spells and ritual items to accomplish her goals. Truly puissant beings would be able to conjure seemingly from nothing. There are limits to her powers for all her physical prowess.”
“Puissant?” Willow asked. “We’re using that word? Seriously?”
“Just because it’s French doesn’t mean it’s bad.”
Tara shook her head. “You said you knew that it conjured a monster? C-can we be a little more specific?”
“A reptile demon,” Giles said. “Although there’s no reason to believe it’s similar – except in general terms – to other reptile demons that we’ve seen. Reptiles have had negative connotations associated with them that - ”
“Adam and Eve,” Xander said.
“Creepy crawlies,” Eddie weighed in. “And snakes.”
“Penis’” Anya said, looking at her like she was supposed to agree solely on that basis. “Plural.”
“Yes, thank you – but reptile demons have long been a staple but in this particular case it’s Sobek, the aspect of the High Priest of Set who ascended several thousand years ago.”
“Whoa,” Willow said, holding up a hand. “Ascended? Like the Mayor? Are we talking about a giant snake? Because I don’t think we have that much dynamite left and I really don’t want to blow up the college. Please? I worked hard to get there.”
Giles shook his head. “No. This would merely be an aspect of him. Calling on his energy and power, rather than calling the actual demon himself.”
Despite her obvious anger, Anya agreed with him. “It’s part of the deal of becoming an ascended demon,” she said. “And it’s the reason that demons like this can be conjured and summoned repeatedly. Some of the energy comes from the demon realm, from the other side, from the actual demon whose aspect the conjured one will take.”
“Just so long as we’re clear. I like it here. I want to finish my education and not with a big bang. Are we all agreed that we will not be blowing up the college or any significant part of it?” Willow’s demand was fairly simple. “Certainly nothing more than a small building.”
Nods all around. Even from Eddie who’d not only heard about it but definitely seen the crater over at the old Sunnydale High.
“So…” Tara asked, feeling that they’d somehow been side-tracked even further. She’d promised Buffy but… this was more important. This was… Hope. And the end of the world. Buffy would understand. “What does else does she need? Anything? And how much of a head start has she got?”
“A couple of hours by now,” Giles admitted.
“We didn’t realise until I examined the receipts,” Anya said. “Too late.”
Giles coughed. “We called Faith – we think she’ll need a snake. Glory – not Faith. Specifically a cobra. Transmogrification is exactly what it sounds like.”
“Awkward to spell?” Xander quipped.
“Yes, precisely. That’s the biggest flaw with her plan, spelling. Do be quiet.”
“Hey, sorry, I’m not the one who sold demon chick the bad things just because I wanted to impress her.”
“You wanted to impress her?” Anya asked, rounding on her boyfriend.
“No… I said he wanted to impress her. That’s all.”
Tara shook her head again. Maybe it was what was happening with Joyce, but this banter wasn’t… She felt like they were just failing to get to grips with something important and should’ve known better. It looked like Willow had been playing cards. What did they know?
“Where’s Faith? If you called her where is she?”
“Well,” Willow said. “We think Glory needs a snake and – luckily – cobra’s aren’t exactly indigenous – because that would be bad on a level like Australia where the entire country tries to kill you – so, anyway, we figured that it’d have to come from the zoo, at least that’d be the most obvious source. Right?”
“Sounds reasonable. You sent Faith there?”
“Yes.”
Of course now she had to worry about her friend who’d already been beaten off by Glory once when Buffy was there as well. Was Faith stable enough not to get herself into trouble? Hopefully, yes. There wasn’t much of a ‘hero’ gene in that Slayer but she liked a good fight. But she might also try something desperate to protect Hope…
Faith might even give her sister away by accident. Yes, she really could see that happening.
“How… how did – do you think she knew who you were?” Tara wondered. Glory had just walked in here, made a purchase. For actual money. And then left? It didn’t seem very… big-bad.
Maybe they were wrong. Maybe something else was going on. Maybe she’d been scoping them out? But… the Hell God Tara had seen beating on Buffy and Faith hadn’t looked the type to bother with anything like that.
“No,” Giles said. “She… She said saw the new advertising.”
“I told you,” Anya said. “I told you it was going to bring in the wrong sort of clientele.”
“It didn’t seem like it at the time,” Giles said weakly, in the face of evidence to the contrary. Then the phone started to ring.
“Saved by the bell,” Anya insisted as he went through his greeting. “I was ready to go further.”
The Englishman frowned at her. “Thank you for calling the Magic Box, Rupert Giles speaking, we’re here for all your supernatural needs. How can I help you?”
Anya had thought the call script sounded professional and he was probably using it now because she’d been proven right about at least one thing and it’d help placate her. Not that he was going to hear the end of this for some time.
The bell hadn’t saved him, more… held off his fate for a few minutes. Unless the news was something… bad?
“Oh,” he said. “It’s you. Why didn’t you stop me? Yes… very funny I’m sure.”
Listening for a while, he covered the receiver and updated them. “Faith found Glory at the Zoo. She wants to speak to you.” He held out the phone to her.
“Me?” Tara asked.
“She’s your Slayer,” he said with a thin smile that said he didn’t mind that at all. He’d have fought to keep his position with Buffy, after what had happened last time the Council had interfered. But Faith?
No, he was perfectly happy for her to take care of Faith’s needs. Even though she wasn’t a Watcher.
But – as he’d told her – the last thing Faith needed was a Watcher. She needed a friend. A responsible friend.
And she did like to think she was responsible.
“H-hi?”
“T? That you?”
“Last time I checked,” Tara confirmed. “Are you okay? You didn’t fight her again did you? Wait - Are you… running?”
“Yeah, genius.”
“Umm… and you’re calling how?” Faith didn’t have a cell. None of them did.
“I borrowed a phone,” Faith said. “Out of the way, asshole! Make a hole!”
Borrowed. Right. That was exactly how it had happened. Somehow she was going to have to find a way to give it back.
“Listen, T, I found her at the Zoo. Move! She was in the reptile house.”
“What - ?”
“Don’t worry – I took a deep breath and asked myself what you’d do. No, I didn’t fight her. I want the odds stacked in my favour next time I – idiot, move! – next time I try that. Next time – next time the bitch is going down. And I don’t mean like you do.”
“Good,” Tara said, finding the whole thing very surreal. She needed to know what Faith was doing but she kind of already knew, obviously she was running. She must be chasing something.
And it wasn’t very likely it was Glory who could just have swatted her.
“Saw her conjure a snake, looked like she took a couple more and said they were for shoes. The one – the one she conjured is – damn, where is it – hold on…”
Tara waited, but then Faith came back. “Got it. It’s big, human big though. Not like the Mayor after he -”
The Mayor. Faith’s patron and former employer. A father figure just as much as Joyce was a maternal one to Hope. The man/snake who’d given her an apartment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars because – in his own way – he’d somehow cared…
The man/snake that Buffy and the others had blown up. They didn’t talk about him much in front of Faith. For obvious reasons.
“It’s out there,” Faith said. “I tracked it to a couple of churches already and I think it’s heading for another. Damn, I lost it in the trees…”
Churches. And Glory had been chasing monks down so… she was using the demon to look for something. Presumably the Key… Hope. The Hell God thought the church still had the Key. Which meant Glory couldn’t know 'it' was now a 'she'.
“Keep looking,” Tara pressed.
“I am. Where’s my sister?”
Tara pursed her lips; glad she was the one who was talking to Faith. She was the only one here who knew it all. “She’s with Buffy, at the hospital. It does… it does her good to have someone she can watch out for her.”
“Call Buffy, T. Or get her. Tell her what’s happening and get her to keep that snake thing away from Hope until I can track it down and wring its neck. Does a snake have a neck? Or is it all neck? Where is that motherfucker?”
“You lost it?” she asked Faith.
“Not yet,” Faith said, but she sounded doubtful she could track it down again.
“I’ll get word to Buffy,” she promised. “I’ll get her back here. Get them both back here until we can track this thing down.”
“You do that,” Faith said, but Tara could tell she was angrier at herself for losing the demon that was – very likely – looking for her ‘sister.’
“She’s chasing it down?” Willow asked. “The snake?”
“She lost it,” Tara said.
“But you think it’s looking for this Key?” Willow asked, unaware of just who that was.
“It’s been to two churches, Faith thought it was heading for a third when she lost it.”
“She seems pretty convinced the Church has it,” Willow said. “Glory, I mean.”
“If we’re lucky,” Tara said, feeling like an absolute traitor for having to hide this, for having to lie, “then it’ll be somewhere else. Protected.”
“Otherwise the world comes to an end,” Anya said. “That would be bad. Even I drew the line at wishes that destroyed everything. Changed things around, sure, but not that.”
“I guess you must’ve held off,” Willow quipped. “Since we’re here.”
“Yeah, honey,” Xander said. “That one was kind of obvious… Or, maybe it needed restating.”
“I could’ve though,” Anya said, still giving her boyfriend the kind of look that fitted an ex-vengeance demon. “It was within the scope of my contract.” She sighed. “Happy days.”
Aside from all that, what this proved to her though was that this Glory was willing to take additional steps to find what she wanted. And that she was able to. Next time it might not be a transmogrified snake. Next time it could be… maybe mind reading or some sort of detection spell. Whatever… anything that kept the circle of people who knew about Hope really, really small had to be the right move at the moment.
I’m sorry baby, I love you and I’d trust you with my life. But… this is everything. Everyone’s lives. All the marbles.
“I… I have to go get Buffy.”
“Are you sure that’s necessary?” Giles asked. “Faith’s keeping up with the Slayer duties and Buffy has enough on her mind.”
“She needs to know about this,” Tara said.
Because it’s Hope we have to protect. I just hope she’ll forgive me for asking her to do that now.
*******************************
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.
Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------
I like that you usually come up with something I’ve not thought of. Makes for a fun ride!
