Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Five 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 conclusion of Hope’s party and Faith’s reappearance to her. 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: So here we are, the penultimate part. I have doubts – as I redraft this – about whether it all goes far enough. But this is an epilogue. The big, dramatic ending was lots of parts ago when Faith entered the rift and crossed the river. Everything after that has really about leaving the characters in a better/good place. The final part – 176 – will consist of two scenes. One of which won’t surprise you in tone and content. It’s the girls, of course. The other… well, I’m trying to decide which way around to put them. One works better than the other, but on the other hand, this is the girls story… As for this chapter, some of the ideas of this next part (around kids growing up too fast) were suggested by the contents of a biography I read some time ago. I forget exactly whose it was, a musician I think. He was shocked at his daughter’s birthday party (12 or 13) at some of the behaviour that his daughter’s friends were up to. This from a hardened rocker who’d seen and lived it all… We’re not copying any of that here and there’s no ‘bad’ behaviour, but here and there the themes will come into play and – of course – Hope is a little older than that so you’d kind of expect… Well, actually I don’t expect it. I don’t have kids, I don’t have close family members who do but I’m old enough to be surprised (I nearly put ‘shocked’ there) at how fast kids are asked to grow up these days. Now, some of you are only ‘kids’ from my point of view but you will be the same when you’re my age. Of course, things can’t KEEP getting younger… can they? Also, I should note that right from the point that I introduced Hope, I wanted to do her birthday party. I had no specific ideas about that, but I knew I wanted to do it. I had abandoned the idea as it was just too light to bring into S5’s canon time period. I’m glad to bring it back now though. Thanks to: All of you. Whoever and however many of you there are. Three more days or so after this and we’re done… Thanks.
“What are they doing?” Willow asked.
“They’re being kids,” Tara said, “and – ow.”
“Oh, was that me?” she asked.
“Just a bit.”
“Sorry baby. She relaxed her grasp on Tara’s arm. The one that she’d been clinging too, perhaps a little bit too hard. But… this was all a surprise to her.
Okay, so Buffy’s birthday. Nothing like this. So big plus there. Typically those involved the end of the world or – more recently - too much knife action for safety.
But even so, this wasn’t the way things had used to be. Certainly not when she’d been younger.
And living in this house… so there really was a direct comparison between the two.
The last birthday party she remembered being thrown by her Mom and Dad had involved a clown, balloon animals and squeaky noises that still terrified her to this day (for some reasons she now expected clowns – which were bad enough – to squeak like that too.)
No clowns this time. Bonus.
No balloon animals. Two for two.
And no squeaking, except for some of the strange noises being made by some of Hope’s friends. Noises that made you wonder just what was going on in some of the more secluded spots of the garden.
See, what her last party in this house most assuredly hadn’t involved was teenagers making out behind the bushes and around the sides of the house and… Were they inside? In the bedrooms? In her bedroom?
Even if that was now Hope’s and –
She trusted Hope herself not to do anything stupid – or desecrate the place – but her school friends? No, she didn’t trust them at all.
Darn kids.
I’m not even twenty-one and they’ve got me feeling old!
“We have to go inside,” Willow said. “We have to – I need to make sure - ”
“Sheila’s patrolling in there,” Tara promised her, trying to calm her down. “You can’t think she’d - ”
“I think teenagers are sneaky creatures and – no, they’re obviously sneaky, horny creatures. They could be doing anything. They could be doing it anywhere.”
“Sweetie, it’s really not that kind of party,” Tara tried to reassure her and usually that would be all she needed to hear, but… somehow she couldn’t help thinking her girlfriend was being naïve. The evidence was all around them, surely?
“It doesn’t matter what kind of party it is. Boys and girls. Coming together – No! No coming. There will be no coming together – or alone. No coming. That’s what we need to aim for. Everyone arrived, that’s all the coming that’s necessary right here.
“That’s a simple rule everyone can stick to. Right?”
“Willow, baby.”
“Some of my stuffed animals are still in there – what if - ? They don’t need to see that kind of thing - ”
“Willow…”
“Sweetie?” She asked, even though she already knew that Tara was about to do more than reassure her and maybe that was going to be a good thing.
“Stop.”
As usual when Tara told her that, she found the mental space to just… take a breath.
Another.
Then a third. Tara just knew her so well. It was never really a command to do that. No, it was always permission to turn it down a notch or two. “Thanks.”
A kiss marked it as Tara’s pleasure to help. And - for a moment - the kiss caused a minor flutter because - well – teenage boys were what they were, but they subsided fast enough when those boys found themselves looking deeply uncool in front of girls their own age they no doubt wanted to lock lips with.
Now why, when I was at school, couldn’t I look deeply uncool around kissing girls? Might’ve made things move along faster if I’d known what I was missing and I was deeply uncool anyway.
So deeply uncool she’d never have been invited to a party in High School. Which may have been the problem.
It had been early evening when this one had started and the kids had started to drift in some numbers around six. With Ira doing barbecue – and surreptitiously watching the garden – while Sheila watched over the inside of the house, she felt her best role here was to rove.
As an expert in the Rosenberg house – even if she’d not really used its potential make out spots – she did have a duty to perform. A roving duty.
Also, now they were the college kids at Hope’s party. So how cool was Hope for having them here? And by extension how cool were they? At least to these kids?
Most of the time they never got labelled ‘cool’. It just wasn’t a thing for them.
We might save the world, but we’re not exactly the cool kids. Never have been.
So was this better than the Bronze? No, but the party would move down there later when likely some of the even cooler kids would turn up. For now, free food, chocolate fountain which was – umm yum – and Hope… almost holding court.
As a seasoned watcher of school cliques – you had to know who to watch out for didn’t you – she could spot the types in attendance and the omissions too. Maybe some would turn up later, but Hope hadn’t invited like the whole football team or anything like that, which was good. She’d seen a couple of Razorback’s jackets, but one of those was being worn by a girl so she must’ve snared herself a boyfriend and…
No. Wait. There shouldn’t be boyfriends.
Hypocritical, maybe, but all these girls should just hold out for college and find themselves a ‘someone’ then. A nice girl, perhaps, or a nice guy if they really were laced that way.
Of course, telling that to kids was never going to fly so… Wear your jacket, if you think it gives you dignity.
The party was lacking in the geek and nerd department too. She felt like she was having to represent on their behalf with her E=MC squared tee-shirt, but that was fine. Even if Hope had asked some of those guys and girls, some of them would’ve cried off from the social challenges it presented.
Yeah, she recognised that too. More than once she’d gone to a party only to be laughed at for her clothes, her hair or just being a redhead (half the girls who had later dyed their hair the same colour in a blatant exhibition of double standards).
If I’d been a witch then I might’ve gone all Carrie on them.
Wishful thinking…
But, Tara liked the shirt. She said it made the most of her – limited – assets.
Overall though, instead of cliques and groups and what have you, the people who were here … well, they seemed like actual friends of Hope. Or at least friends of friends, which was close enough. And there were more of them than she and Tara could’ve mustered in school.
Even added together.
From her point of view a Slayer and a really good friend counted for like, at least ten people. But then… Hope was still doing better than her on that exchange rate. Not a person here knew anything about what she’d been last year. Maybe they knew about her sister, but to them… Hope was just another kid.
Kids.
Acting all too grown up.
And then she was right back where she’d started. Worried about Mister Iceberg and what the stuffed bear he was witnessing from atop her old cupboard…
“I can’t do it,” she said.
“I told you, just breathe.”
“No – I mean, I am, pretty much always actually. With the breathing. I only have to worry when I stop breathing but that’s not what I meant. I can’t… I can’t just look at her and see some kid.”
Like right now, centre of attention at her own party. Surrounded by friends, telling them… something. Hope was entirely at ease. They’d made the right choice in asking Faith to hold off… for now.
Asking? Practically begging. Because what other leverage did they have?
Letting Hope have this time with her friends, because once big sister stuck her…well, whatever she stuck in, it was going to all be about her and that wasn’t fair... This party needed to be a success for all her friends, not a curiosity to be laughed at. They knew too much about how these things worked to let it happen here.
And Hope deserved it too. Losing her sister, she was still getting the grades. Not going off the rails – which you totally expected from a Lehane.
“Oh?”
“That’s right,” she said, leaning her head on Tara’s shoulder. “Just not some kid.”
“So?”
“So? Oh, you thought there was more? No, it was a complete thought.”
“I mean,” Tara said. “How do you see her?”
“I feel… kind of like a big sister.”
“She already has one,” Tara reminded her. “She’s the surprise later. You remember?”
“Of course I remember, Faith’s been surprising me all the time I knew her. About time she was surprising someone in a good way. But – that doesn’t mean we can’t be her big sisters too does it?”
“Well, wouldn’t you then you’d be Faith’s sister too?” Tara point was a very good one.
“Oh.”
“And, can I then be a big sister in law?” Tara wondered. “It’s kind of the same thing, but it’s your Mom and Dad who are fostering her so I should get some sort of title.”
“You can be whatever you want to be,” she promised. “You know, as long as you’re mine.”
“Oh, that’s the deal is it?”
“You can take it or leave it,” she replied. “By which I mean you can take me but not leave me. Because of the whole ‘mine’ thing. I might’ve mentioned it. Once or twice.”
Tara made play of thinking about it which she kind of expected, but then going on for a little too long. “You know what you’re supposed to say!” she followed up.
“I’m thinking!”
“Well, stop thinking and say the words, you witch.”
“Which?”
“Yes, witch.”
“No, which words?”
“You know which words, witch – umm, Tara.”
Another kiss then. “Well, when it comes to being – you know, yours. I am, you know…”
Willow grinned, kissed her again and didn’t care when the passion involved raised a decidedly male whoop. What she did care about was what was happening over Tara’s shoulder – two kids sneaking off to –
“Leave it,” Tara said, noticing where she was looking.
“There can’t be - ”
“What? Kissing?” Tara asked, pointing out the absurdity of trying to enforce that when they’d done it twice in the last couple of minutes themselves.
Moral guardianship required absence of lip action?
Curses. I might’ve gotten laid if it wasn’t for those pesky kids.
“Okay,” she said. “But second base, that’s right out. And that means you too, missy. My roving patrolling means we have to set standards.”
Tara pouted. “Wait, umm – I feel I should check. Are we back on the same base scale as the straights now?”
Oh, yeah, they had that problem, hadn’t they? Never been quite sure of the equivalence “I think they’re the same up to second at least so… Just keep your hands off, witch. Don’t make me a hypocrite when I’m trying to be a moral guardian here.”
-------------
“She said she’s a moral gardener?” Buffy asked.
“No, she said guardian,” Tara corrected. “Moral guardian, she’s kind of freaking out about anyone doing, well, anything… actually. Somehow… I don’t know, but somehow stuffed toys are involved.”
“Figures,” Buffy said, nodding wisely. “Mister Iceberger – he never had to be like the three wise monkeys. He didn’t see, hear or say anything.”
“Uhuh.”
“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” Buffy asked.
“No… but I think, one day you’ll have to tell me.”
“Deal. You know, you should’ve seen her in High school.”
“I kinda wish I had.”
With Buffy’s arm around her shoulder – impossible to resist or escape even if she’d wanted to – they walked across the garden, casually tracking Willow as she checked one of the more private spots, just around the corner of the fence.
“I don’t think I ever gave you the whole story on Willow in school either, did I?”
“I heard it from Xander,” she replied.
“No,” Buffy was shaking her head. “No. See, he might’ve known her longer, but he has a guy point of view. Willow - if you hadn’t noticed, Tara - is a girl.”
“I knew it! I knew it! I knew there was something about her. There were some little things, you know. Little things that gave it away.”
“Oh, right. I’d forgotten. There was that whole lesbian thing. I guess you’ve gotten a pretty good look.”
Tara rolled her eyes. “I suppose you could say that, yes.”
“Up close examination and all,” Buffy pushed. “Once or twice.”
“No closer than you and Eddie,” she replied, finally making her friend blush. It was funny, Faith wouldn’t bat an eyelid telling you she’d done the football team – not that she’d ever actually said that – but Buffy blushed about the slightest innuendo involving her long term boyfriend.
Takes all sorts.
“Okay, okay, but remind me sometime? I’ll give you the whole story. I might even do one of those slide show things. I have photos, you know.”
“Oh, I’ll definitely remind you then. I’ll even bring popcorn.”
Buffy smile, but that soon faltered. “So… Faith.”
“She’s okay,” Tara replied.
“I didn’t actually ask.”
“You didn’t exactly not ask either.”
“But I hadn’t yet, let the record reflect that I hadn’t yet.”
“So noted for the record,” she agreed. “Faith – I really believe she’s okay. She… convinced me.”
“She saved me,” Buffy admitted once again.
“She saved all of us. Everything.”
“And you know her, better than me probably. But the Faith we knew, did she ever ask for help?”
“No. Except with Hope – and Glory, I guess,” Tara said. “And then she pretty much demanded it. It wasn’t really ‘asking’.” She knew where Buffy was going. She’d thought about it.
A lot.
But there came a point you just had to… believe.
“So… if she’s in trouble, if – I mean, god, Tara… look at what she’s doing?”
And she had. She’d talked to Faith, she thought she’d gotten the truth of it out of her. That she could handle this, that it wasn’t forever… just for a very long time by all of their standards – barely a blink to a god though.
And not as dear a price as he could’ve easily demanded.
As dear as they’d assumed the Lord of the Underworld would expect.
They’d thought Faith was dead. Whether it had just happened or Hades had demanded it. They’d been – sort of – okay with that because that was the risk Slayers took. A risk they all took.
Faith was right, it was the lack of death which had flummoxed them.
But she believed that Faith, she’d be okay. “I know. I don’t like it any better than you do. But… I kind of think she… I really don’t want to use the word ‘likes’ - ”
“Good! Because there’s no room for ‘likes’ in this conversation.”
“I kind of think she likes him. Maybe not all of the deal – but… she definitely doesn’t hate him. I don’t think she could hide that. From him or from us. She’d not that good an actor. She’s really not. And she used the word ‘fond’.”
Obviously Buffy was sceptical about that…
“Tara, lord knows I’m no expert but that’s a sound basis for a marriage?” Buffy asked. “That she definitely doesn’t hate him? And ‘fond’ really?”
“No… but marriages were something very different in the past to what they are now and… he’s not being…”
“She’s sleeping with him, as part of a deal.”
Yes, that was the part that she’d had too much trouble with too. But… “She’s sleeping with him because she married him and… she’s Faith. She doesn’t… You know she doesn’t attach a lot of significance to that. It’s not being with other people that’s more significant to her. Really.”
It wasn’t how she could ever have been, but Faith had a different way of looking at that kind of thing.
“You want to know what I think?” she asked. Buffy wasn’t reassured by all the surface things that were obvious – with a little thought – to everyone who cared about Faith.
She wanted the deeper wisdom. Okay, fine. It wasn’t exactly new. She remembered saying something very similar when she’d been explaining why Faith should be given a chance after trying to steal Buffy’s body.
“Please, god, yes.”
“I think she’s always liked people who won’t let her get away with the things she does, but that also… like her too?”
“You mean you?”
“Me, for one. You too – once. Maybe again. I mean, you guys were close there for a while before it all went wrong,” she said. That was what she’d heard anyway. Hope’s version of things may have been skewed and based on a monk’s eye view of events, but… Buffy didn’t deny it either.
Instead her friend pursed her lips, thinking about that. “I… I guess. And after, I mean, once she’d helped with Adam, once Hope was in the picture. I really did…”
“People like us, and maybe Hades – who knows – but I think we… I think we give her boundaries. Without being assholes about it – that’s her word, not mine.” She didn’t like to say things like that, but sometimes you just had to get the point across.
With Faith, that often meant cussing.
“I thought it would be,” Buffy said. “I’ve noticed that about you, you’re not the kind of girl who says ‘asshole’ a whole lot.”
“You noticed?” she asked, pleased.
“I’m pretty observant,” Buffy said. “It comes as part of the Slayer package. Judgement? That’s where I fall down. Especially when it comes to guys.”
“Before Eddie, you mean?”
“Before Eddie,” Buffy confirmed, her expression creeping into a smile. Yeah, it wasn’t quite smug, but it was getting there.
And with some good reasons. It was going well and Eddie hadn’t once killed anyone or threatened to try and end the world or even just gone evil. Also, far from sleeping with Buffy once and turning into a monster they’d slept together many, many times and only gotten closer.
A very real fear of Buffy’s – the price of intimacy – had just about gone away.
“I’m observant too,” Tara said. “I just never used to be able to talk about what I was observing. But you know what we think.”
“I know, but doesn’t mean I don’t like to hear you say it anyway.”
“Okay,” Tara said. “Eddie’s good for you, Buffy.”
“I know.” Now there was a little smugness. It was cute. “But not like Hades is for Faith, right?”
“Not like that – I mean, I don’t think I said Hades was ‘good’ for her. It was more that he wasn’t necessarily ‘bad’ when you think about what she might be doing anyway,” Tara said.
“Or, you know, she could’ve been dead.”
“We all could.”
“Yeah, lets not forget about that,” Buffy added. “The dead part. End of the world, she made a deal to prevent that and we thought she was gone anyway so… this would have to be pretty bad to be worse, right?”
“Right…”
“So why can’t we see things in the big picture way? That anything was better than that?”
“Because she’s our friend,” Tara said. “And we don’t want to think she might be being hurt. Especially if we could blame ourselves.”
There it was. That was why all the agonising. Because Faith had done what she had for them. So no one else had to. Because she was the only one who could.
And they all owed her.
“Do you know why I think I maybe didn’t give her as much of a chance as I could when she first came to town?”
“Not that it would’ve helped,” Tara added, not at all certain Buffy was wrong. Faith had been… She wasn’t the same person now as she had been then.
“Okay, maybe it wouldn’t have helped,” Buffy agreed. “Much. But… I was the one who saved the world. I was the Slayer, you know? We did all this, we – literally – saved the world and I died… People think you get resuscitated and it means nothing but, it did to me. I died to save the world and what did I get for that?”
“Replaced,” Tara nodded.
“Exactly. Much as I moaned about the job, being a Slayer and all… I got replaced. It was easier when it was Kendra because she wasn’t here, in my face. And… Faith was. She wasn’t just in my face, she was rubbing my face in it and that sounds a lot dirtier now than I thought it would now I think about it…”
“I know what you mean,” Tara confirmed.
“I was replaced by someone I couldn’t really stand because – in a lot of ways – she was everything I wasn’t. Confident with guys, she didn’t make mistakes with them because she didn’t stop to think – let alone over-think. Just took what she wanted.
“She was just as good at fighting, better at some things and… everyone wanted to know about Faith.
“I guess, I wasn’t fair to her.”
“It worked out though, in the end. What happened there, maybe that saved the world in its own way because if you and everyone else hadn’t been that way, things wouldn’t have happened as they did and Hope might’ve been, I don’t know… your sister or someone else’s? Maybe stuff would’ve gone down differently. We’re… All you can say about life sometimes is that we’re all where we’re supposed to be.”
They watched the party in silence for a few minutes.
“You want to know what’s awful?” Buffy asked.
“Game shows?”
“No – well, yes, but no. I…” Buffy took an extra minute to find the words. “I’m glad it’s her. I am – I’m sorry but… I’d have died to save the world; I’ve always known that could happen. I could die for nothing other than bad luck – let alone an apocalypse - but I couldn’t do what she’s doing now.
“I really couldn’t.
“So I’m glad it’s her and I’m grateful – to Faith – that it doesn’t have to be me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that, Buffy,” Tara said, because – at least at one point since finding out Faith was alive – she’d felt exactly the same way.
There was nothing wrong with feelings. You couldn’t stop them. It was what you did about them that counted.
------------------
“It’s been the best day, thank you!” Hope squeezed and then kissed her on the cheek before switching over to Tara to do the same while they made their way to the Bronze with more people than had been at the party. Things weren’t winding down, they were building up.
Second phase…
Buffy was already twitchy. A few of her birthdays had gone bad here but… No. Not happening this time.
“Thank Ira and Sheila, honey,” Tara said.
“Oh, I did. They didn’t even ask me to come and clean up!”
Teenagers got to be smug about saying thank you before they were asked to. It was just a teenager thing.
“I just wanted to thank you two, too. Tutu?” Hope added, which was typical of her – if not teenagers in general.
“You had a good time then?” Willow asked. It was almost nine, not exactly late on your birthday, but as late as they’d got Faith to agree to make her appearance. She’d pretty much expected that agreement to be ignored but... Not the case.
Faith had stayed away. Just as she’d promised. The surprises just never stopped…
And Tara and Buffy both seemed to be at peace with what Faith had done. That was… new. And good.
“The best time!”
“And your friends?”
“They had good times too – and everyone loved those little pastry things your Dad made,” Hope said. “What were those?”
“Umm, little pastry things, that’s what I called them,” Willow said. “But they are delicious.” She’d had five herself.
“Wait,” Tara interrupted. “You’ve got Ira cooking? Not just barbecue?”
“It happens,” she said. “My Mom can’t cook worth a damn, but usually they eat out.”
Hope snorted.
“What?”
“Wait. That wasn’t a joke?” Hope asked.
“What?”
“Eat out – I thought – maybe it was a joke, you know the sort of joke you tell more than – a lesbian joke?” Hope was just getting redder and redder. “I don’t even know what I’m talking about – it was just something I heard…”
“First of all, that’s my parents you’re talking about so… eww, and second of all – what do you know about it?”
“Nothing. Obviously…”
That Hope was ‘romantically active’ was pretty much a given. She was a sweet girl, confident as her sister in her own way but with more ‘normal’ appetites. Much more sense too – fortunately.
Oh, and more than just pretty. She’d had a couple of boyfriends in the last year but… that was all. Friends who happened to be boys.
And things had never gone too far.
When moral gardening required them to think about it at all then on the straight bases scale, they were all assuming first and brief forays into second. Certainly nothing more than that.
Not that she wanted to know. But her Dad, as moral and actual guardian, was bound to have his concerns and ground rules.
In her days in the Rosenberg house the ‘Birds and the Bees’ was a talk that had largely consisted of making sure she’d done the reading for her biology classes. The more important talk – in Ira Rosenberg’s eyes – had been the one that started and ended with ‘not under my roof’.
Which was kind of flawed in the implementation, since there were many more roofs that could be involved.
Or no roof at all, if you liked that sort of thing.
As a daughter who’d recently danced naked around a fire and – but for the reappearance of Hope’s sister - would’ve gone further than that, the lack of roof was something she’d recently been thinking quite a lot about.
“Well, see that it stays that way, young lady. Emphasis on young. And lady. Emphasis on ‘young lady’. Until, you’re, you know… at least - ”
“A freshman in college with a hot, sexually adventurous girlfriend?” Hope wondered, batting her eyelids innocently.
“You think Tara’s hot?” Willow asked.
“You think I’m sexually adventurous?” Tara was focusing on a different part of the statement.
“It’s always the quiet ones,” Hope said. “I mean – I’m told it is. I mean – Buffy said – because Eddie, he’s kind of quiet and he’s - ”
“La-la-la,” Willow said. “Don’t want to know, thanks though! And sweetie, you are definitely adventurous but – I’m not saying more than that now. Because Hope doesn’t need to know.
Hope kissed them both in turn on the cheek again and left them there.
“Really?” Tara asked. “Adventurous?”
“She was right about hot too.”
“Adventurous? Am I?”
Why was this a big deal to Tara? After all, she should be aware of just how… adventurous they’d been. In certain ways and directions, keeping themselves to themselves though there had been that time on the picnic table in the middle of the woods but – yeah, that one was my idea.
“Of course.”
“You’re the one who reads all this stuff,” Tara said very reasonably.
“Stuff? That’s our sex life you’re talking about, missy. Another physical expression of our love.”
“It might be, but you’re still the one who reads it.”
“And you’re the one who lets me turn reading into action – or, you know, does it for me… That’s pretty adventurous. I mean, its not every lesbian couple that has - ”
She broke off as they both noticed, at the same time.
Faith.
Right away they were looking around for Hope who’d only just left them. This wasn’t really how it was supposed to go down. They were supposed to go out and get her – but Faith’s patience wasn’t exactly noted for either its length or its girth and… No. That was a very bad analogy. One not to return to.
Ever.
Tara mustn’t have been thinking the same way; instead she was already on the move. Pushing through people to try to get over to Hope again. Faith was on the steps and she was following close behind her. Because, what else could she do? Hope was going to need… something. And they were there to give her whatever that something was.
On her way, she gestured to Buffy who was dancing with Eddie. Eddie who – apparently – was adventurous too. Who’d have thunk it?
Yeah, Buffy was noted for her slayer-enhanced observational skills. Apparently not when she was looking into her boyfriend’s eyes while they danced, seemingly lost in them.
Waving didn’t catch her friend’s attention, she was going to be no help in holding Faith back or letting Tara get to Hope first.
Glancing back to the steps, Tara hadn’t reached them and Faith had already entered the Bronze proper. No sign of her. Maybe she was doing that freaky shadows thing because, god knows there were enough shadows here. It was Eddie that finally noticed her waving and attracted Buffy’s attention.
Gesturing towards the steps did nothing because Faith had moved and so she made an F with her fingers. Realised it was the wrong way around and tried again. Buffy’s eyes widened and she got the idea as she checked her watch.
How were they going to explain to Hope?
How were they going to explain that they’d known all day? Earlier than that for she and Tara?
Or would she even care? Bigger things were about to happen than a blame game about that.
The three of them, she, Tara and Buffy were now approaching Hope instead of the missing Faith. But there she was, not doing the thing with the shadows, just moving through the people like they weren’t even there, everyone seemed to just get out of her way – no matter who they were dancing or making out with – and always in the direction of Hope who was also dancing with her girlfriends.
Then Faith stopped. Uncertain.
All Hope had to do was turn around and she’d see but –
Somehow Tara reached Faith first, a hand on her shoulder to ask her to stop and then went past her to get to Hope first.
---------------
“Honey?” she said, touching Hope on the shoulder.
“Oh! Hey, Tara! You want to dance with us?”
“Umm – n-no, no thanks. I – me – Willow – Honey, look, umm - ”
She still had no idea what she was going to say. But she couldn’t just let Faith grab her sister or start dancing with her and her friends or –
In that final moment of indecision, Hope was looking past her and suddenly she didn’t need to say anything to prepare her.
Too late for that. Too many chances allowed to pass by.
I should’ve done something earlier.
“Is - ?”
Hope had seen her sister and the first, unthinking reaction was one of disbelief. Shaking her head. Faith… she didn’t seem to know what to do, which made two of them. Her sister was stood there like an apparition. As if she wasn’t really there at all, as if she could really be a figment of Hope’s imagination.
“Hope - ”
“Do you see?” Hope asked, staring past her at Faith. “Do you see her too? Sometimes I – am I - ?”
“She’s here,” Tara said, tears in her eyes. There was no way she could hold them back. “She’s here for your birthday.”
Clearly Hope was beyond disbelief now that someone had confirmed she wasn’t seeing things. “Get Buffy – get someone – do something - ”
“Honey - ”
“My sister’s dead – that’s not her. Tara! That’s not Faith.”
It wasn’t some Key-type instinct telling her that. Just plain belief in the reality she’d been living the last few months.
“Yes, it is,” she said. “I know it is. I’ve spoken to her. It’s really her.”
If Faith would just get over here, show her sister that she was real. That she was who she seemed to be – She turned around, ready to glare, but suddenly Faith was at her shoulder. “Hey, Hopeless.”
Hey, Hopeless? That was it?
“What – How?”
Hope was asking both of them the same thing. Expecting an answer from someone.
“It’s – it’s one of those long stories. And I… I never managed to tell you a long story, did I? You always fell asleep after the first parts, I was so boring.”
“No, it was just the sound of your voice,” Hope replied, almost without thinking. Carried off in her memories. “It made me feel safe. I could sleep, when we were safe.”
Could be that was the right thing for Faith to have said, to have convinced her sister.
“It did? Well, that was good, because I didn’t know any of the endings,” Faith admitted.
“I knew that. It’s – it’s really you?” Hope prodded her finger at her sister’s arm.
“It’s really me.”
“But how – no? No. You’re – you’re dead. Everyone knows you were dead – you were - ”
“I told you before, Hopeless, don’t ever count me out till you see the body. Didn’t I tell you that?”
“You… It’s you?”
“It’s me.”
Hope turned on her then. “How long – how long have you known, Tara?”
“Last night, until last night – we thought she was gone too. We went through all this too, worrying and wondering and – it’s her. We’re sure it is.”
“They opened the door for me,” Faith said. “The fuzz-bumpers. You don’t want to know how – but they did.”
“You – she’s like a zombie?”
“No, I’m not a fucking zombie,” Faith said. “I – I’m me. I’m…”
“What’s that on your finger?” Hope asked, noticing it.
The ring that no one else could see until Faith chose to show it to them, the band of shadow. Hope could see it because – in a very real way – they were the same. And the ring was very, very real.
Real like very few things in the universe could be.
“Well, here’s the thing. I’m kinda – sorta married.”
“You?”
“Me.”
“Who to?”
“His name’s… Ah, shit. It’s Hades.”
“You’re married to the God of the Underworld?!” Hope demanded, wanting confirmation. “Tara!?”
“She really is. It - ” No, it wasn’t her place to try and explain that.
“It was what I had to do – to…” Faith shrugged.
“To save me, right? You did it to kill Glory?” Hope didn’t need it all explaining anyway. She’d jumped to exactly the right conclusion.
A nod from Faith and that was all the answer she seemed like she was going to get.
All the questions they’d already asked, they were probably taking form in Hope’s head. Bubbling away and building up. And the problem was obviously where to start?
“Why would you do that?” Hope asked, angrily brushing off the questions of her friends who could see she was getting upset. Tara was grateful as Willow shepherded them away with some excuse or another.
This wasn’t something for civilians.
And this was why they’d kept Faith away as long as they could, because they should all have enjoyed the party first. But how could you make her do that? What right did they really have?
“You already answered that question,” Faith said. “You already know why I did it.”
“You can’t get married to save me - ”
“Already did. And… you know, he’s not such a bad guy. For - what’s that word that means thousands of years?”
“Millennia?” Hope suggested.
“For a multi-millennia old guy, he’s till pretty buff. Buff enough, anyway.”
“But - ”
“Hopeless, think about it. I’ve been through this with T. Would you rather I was dead?” Faith asked. “Because that’s what you thought had happened.”
“But - ”
“Remember how proud of her you were?” Tara asked, gently inserting herself into the conversation. “She… she saved everyone. That’s not changed. And this is how she did it. Now though, she’s here.”
“For good, right?”
Faith shook her head. “No. I have to go back.”
“What? When? Will I – Will I see you again?” Hope asked.
“More than you’ll probably want to,” Faith replied. “Six months a year, Hopeless. That’s the deal.”
“Six months?” Did that sound like a long time to her? Or too short a time? Maybe it’d be different the closer to the end of it came.
“Then…?”
“Back to him.”
“For how long – I mean, you can’t like… divorce him right?” Hope asked.
Faith shook her head. “And he’s not going to drop dead on top of me – or under me – either.”
Tara winced, had she had to go there? But Hope had heard much worse. She was a Lehane…
“It’s not fair - ” Hope started.
“Yes. It’s fair, kiddo. It’s the best damn deal I made in my life,” Faith said. “And I don’t regret it – I won’t regret it. Not a minute.
“I – I got to be the hero. Just once. I saved the whole fucking world and you got to know I did it. I got to save you, just like I promised I always would. I said I’d always look out for you – and now I still can.”
“But – six months and - ”
“I get to see you grow up, have kids or whatever it is you want. Do normal people stuff. And hey, I’m always staying pretty too.”
“It’s… forever?” Hope asked, smiling at that last comment even though she was upset. She got it though; she’d gotten to the heart of the matter. How long this was for.
It mattered, once you accepted that it had happened at all.
“No. It’s not forever. I’m not that stupid. But… it’s for long enough.”
Hope’s life. She bought her sister’s life and she’ll pay throughout it. Happily, willingly pay… If I doubted it before – well, I can’t now. Seeing them together.
“And you know what else?” Faith asked.
“What?” Hope didn’t really sound – or look – like she was ready to deal with anything else.
“I can do cool stuff.”
“Really?”
Faith nodded, looked at her. “Plus… I think I kinda have a girlfriend as well as a husband.”
“Tara?”
“No, not Tara! Paige…”
“This is news?” Hope asked.
“It was to me,” Faith admitted. “If it wasn’t all so screwed up I might even use the L word.”
“Love?”
“Yeah… Yeah, let’s say its that.”
*********************
_________________ ------------------------- If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.
Chance in *Chance* -------------------------
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