Hello my friends! Sorry it has taken so long for the next part. I am officially posting the last fully written chapter that I have. finding time to write these days is very challenging. I made it just under the monthly post wire. *wipes brow and looks at LadyCallie*
I hope that you all enjoy the next bit.
Take care all and thank you very much for reading!
Rating: PG maybe pg-13 for a curse word or two.
Feedback: I'd love to hear what you are thinking!
Archive: Copy, cut, paste I don’t care it’s all for pens readers anyway.
Copyright Disclaimer: Joss and Company owns all the original BTVS characters... blah blah blah
and now....
Part 10
“There’s impatience in the way a ten-year-old rides.” Al wrapped his hands around the fence, cocking his boot up on the bottom rung. He smiled, watching Buffy enjoy her niece’s happiness.
“She’s eager for something that’s harder.” Buffy looked back at him from her upper-rung perch. “Training is like that.”
They’d been watching the child ride for most of the morning. Abbey had woken from a long restful night to find the two Slayers sitting out in the yard. She assumed they’d started the day early and took advantage of every moment she could get to ride. She had scribbled a quick note and placed it on the kitchen counter, then tripped out the back door, pulling her boot over her half socked foot. Al and Buffy had decided their conversation about Hellmouth lore could wait, seeing how eager the young Rosenberg was to go riding.
Abbey worked her horse into a steady gallop. The large animal followed her lead as they paraded around the yard. “Can I take him out into the pasture?” She smiled a pleading smile. She knew she was asking a lot but the tall grass in the field looked very inviting. No one at the ranch was allowed to ride alone, especially someone as young as Abbey.
“You want to get me fired?” Al pulled himself up onto the fence beside Buffy.
Abbey shook her head. “I want to do more then ride in circles.” She pulled back the reins. The horse stopped, kicking up a cloud of dust that swept across the yard and onto the Slayers.
“What would your parents say?” He knew exactly what they would say and the answer did not involve a tour of the pasture.
Buffy answered. “They’d say no.”
Abbey gently kicked her heels, tapping the horse’s sides. She hissed to command the horse to move. “They’d say, I should ask you nicely to take me.”
He looked at Buffy. “They might say that.”
The seasoned Slayer shrugged. “They might.” She pointed her thumb toward the house. “I could run up and wake them.” She jockeyed one leg over the fence, straddling both sides.
He looked at the young blonde. “Ask your aunt to go with us.”
Abbey dropped the reins, commanding the horse with a subtle squeeze of her knees. “Aunt Buffy doesn’t ride.” She giggled. “She’s afraid of big animals.” She rubbed her hand across the horse’s soft neck. “That’s why she never comes with us.” With a gentle pat the horse stopped in the middle of the yard.
He looked at his fellow Slayer. “Afraid?”
“Not afraid… more like intimidated.” Buffy paused. “Yea, intimidated.” She pointed toward the approaching animal. “They’re really large.” She stretched her arms to measure the girth.
He jumped off the fence and walked toward the barn. “I tell you what, Abbey. I’ll take you on a long morning ride, if you can convince your aunt to come with us.” He pulled open the door.
“Come on, aunt Buffy,” she pleaded. “Please… oh please, oh please.” She pressed her hands tightly to prayerfully beg.
The Slayer leaned back as her niece approached on the very large horse. “They’re bouncy and jumpy and I might fall off.”
A voice echoed from the barn. “I won’t let you fall off.”
“See!” Abbey hitched her thumb toward the sound coming from the barn. “Al will show you just what to do.” The child pulled the reins to guide the horse backward.
“Who taught you to ride like that?” For the first time she noticed how talented young Abigail was at riding.
“I did.” Al walked from the barn, leading a tall quarter horse. He twirled the reins around his hand. “She’s good, isn’t she?”
“I’m impressed.” Buffy looked at the horse in front of her. “But she didn’t start out on that big thing?”
“Well, she started out with me.” His boot kicked into the stirrup as he effortlessly mounted the horse. He held his hand out to the Slayer. “I can teach you.”
“She’s a chicken.” Abbey circled the yard faster, clucking at her aunt.
“Be quiet, you.” The woman stuck out her tongue. She looked over at Al, their eyes level from their separate perched heights. “Where am I supposed to sit?”
He slid back in the saddle and easily lured the woman forward. “Put your foot here.”
She stepped on his boot and slipped over the saddle. His arms immediately braced around her. “Comfortable?”
“How can you ride like this?” She felt his body tighten behind hers.
He smiled. “I can ride any way necessary.”
Abbey watched the two settle in. “Can we ride now?”
They looked at her.
“Please?” She realized her tone was demanding.
The Slayers rode to the gate. Al flipped it open and the young blonde raced out in front of them. “ I want to see you at all times, missy!”
She bounced in the saddle. “Ay, ay, captain!” She dropped the reigns to salute. She rode off through the tall grass of the field.
Buffy giggled. “She’s an amazing rider.”
His heels nudged the animal below them. “Of course she is. She had a great teacher. Remember?”
“Great teacher. Right.”
Al kept the horse moving at a slow pace. He could feel his partner’s nervous tension as she gripped the horn of the saddle. Abbey rode circles around them and the monotonous motion made Buffy dizzy. She smiled at the freedom her niece found in riding.
*************
The redhead watched the coffee drip from its maker, the hot liquid sizzling through the open ridge of the pot. She knew where her son was but wondered where the rest of her clan had gone. Looking out the back door she could see all the employees working their daily chores. It was like watching life move in fast-forward as she stood in slow motion. She scuttled around the kitchen, putting mugs out for hot drinks and noticed a letter scribbled on a scrap of paper. ‘I’m riding with Aunt Buffy and Al, Ab.’
Willow trusted her daughter’s safety in the hands of the Slayer. “Slayers. How could he… be?” She added sugar to her cup and a dash of cream to her wife’s. “Two Slayers.” She stirred the cups. “Maybe this time Buffy will be happy.” She sat at the kitchen table and flipped through a small stack of papers.
“Maybe she will.” Tara kissed the back of the redhead’s neck. “Good morning.”
“Hi, baby. I made you a cup.” She pointed to the mug across from them. “Just the way you like it.”
“Thanks, Will.” She sat beside her wife. “Patrick asked if Buffy would come and read to him.”
The redhead pointed to the wall. “She’s been lured out into the wilderness.”
“Riding?” Tara smiled. “They got her onto a horse?”
“Apparently Al has more then Slayer powers.” She winked at her lover.
Tara leaned over to kiss her wife. “Good thing he’s got that magic focused on Buffy. It’s some seriously powerful stuff.” She grinned.
“The only magic I need is yours.” She held Tara’s hand.
The blonde looked out of the opened window. Her lips turned down, sadly. “Do you remember when my family visited me in Sunnydale?”
Willow concentrated on her wife’s vacant stare. “Tara?”
“Do you remember?” Her question was direct, commanding an answer.
“Yes, as if I could ever forget that.” Willow’s confusion grew with each passing second. “Why, Tara?”
“All the things I did. All the spells I didn’t help you with, all the research I did to hide who I was… to hide what I thought I was becoming.” She pulled her hand away. “Al did so many of the same things. He was here with us this whole time and I could have helped him.”
“You didn’t know, Tara.” She understood her wife, and could tell the blonde hated not knowing the situation. “He should have talked to us. He knows what we do.”
Tara walked to the kitchen window, her mind stepping back in time. She could see her mother standing beside the barn, in the place that had always been her vegetable and herb garden. The blonde watched her mother lovingly tend the leafy growth; the warm breeze shifting the hem of her dress. Her aged hands moved through, carefully plucking flowers and placing them into a basket. Tara could see her lips move, as if she was speaking with someone. She wondered what her mother was saying.
Elizabeth glimpsed back and her eyes met Tara’s. She smiled, quietly mouthing ‘I love you’ to her child. The elder Maclay collected the basket and placed it on the cast iron hook hanging on the barn wall. She walked to the window, keeping close watch on her daughter. Tara placed her hand on the mesh of the screen. She could feel her mother’s touch through the woven wire. “Remember what I taught you, darling child. Remember who you really are.”
Tara felt a rush of breath move through her chest. Her eyes opened wide. Staring up at the bedroom ceiling she exhaled, giving her mind a moment to focus. She turned toward the empty space beside her. Her hand moved to rest on Willow’s pillow. Tara clenched her trembling fingers. “Will?” She sat up, scanning the room for traces of the redhead.
The blonde felt the hush of being alone. The darkness left hollow answers. She threw her legs over the edge of the bed and quickly bundled herself into a terry cloth robe. Her naked feet felt the icy glaze of hard wood as she raced from the room. She wondered, as each foot met the repetition of steps, if her wife had felt the same way after her many recent dreams.
She paused to look in on her son. He waved from his bed to summon her in. Tara looked down the hall toward the kitchen; she needed to see her wife but went to her son first.
Patrick smiled. “Good morning.”
Tara slid onto the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling?” She leaned over to kiss his forehead.
His face lit with happiness. “I had a really good dream.”
“Did you?” Tara was curious to hear.
“I did.” He wiped the crumbly sleep from his eyes. His hand grasped the bar dangling over the bed. He pulled himself upright and, once adjusted, he raised the headrest so he was seeing his mother eye to eye. “I saw grandma and she took me for a walk.”
“She did?” Tara masked her fear with curiosity. “Where did she take you?”
“It was beautiful, Mom. She took me all around the house. She showed me secret doors and beautiful gardens. We picked flowers by the barn.”
“You picked flowers with grandma?” She was pleased that her son was part of the vision. “What else did you do?”
“Grandma showed me a way to heal my legs.”
“Showed you?” The blonde worried about the exchange of information. Her son wasn’t ready to begin magics and Tara wanted to understand why his dreams would lead him in that direction. “What did you see?”
He explained the herbs and plants that the two had picked from the garden. Tara handed him a pencil and paper and asked him to write down what he could recall. “It’s important to remember our dreams.” She explained.
“Why?”
“Well…” She smiled at his curiosity. “Dreams can tell us a lot about who we are.”
His eyes widened. “They can?”
“Oh yes.”
He started writing on the tablet. “Grandma says that magic can heal me.”
Tara masked her shock. “Grandma said that?”
“She told me that I had to believe that I could be well.” He continued writing, concentrating on noting every moment of his dream.
Tara walked from his room. She quickly removed a frame from the wall and carried it back to where her son sat passionately scribbling. She showed the photograph to him. “Is this the woman in the garden? Is this who talked with you?”
He looked up at the frame. “Yep, that’s her.” He continued writing. “Grandma’s really pretty.”
Tara was confused and needed to figure out what the visions meant. “I’m going to find Aunt Willow and see what she thinks about your dreams.” She tussled his hair. “Will you be alright for a little while?” She tucked the frame into the fold of her arm.
“I’m fine.” He looked up. “Do you think you could ask Aunt Buffy to come and read to me?”
Tara stopped. Her hand rested on the doorknob. “I’ll send her to see you when she gets back.” The blonde realized she’d mixed her dreams with reality. “Let me find out where she is and I’ll send her to see you.” She smiled. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
She closed the door and carefully returned her mother’s portrait to its place on the wall. She immediately sought out her wife. The redhead sat at the table in the kitchen, thumbing through a small pile of papers. “Hey, baby.”
Tara could almost predict what was to come. “Is that for me?” She pointed to the hot cup of coffee on the table.
Willow smiled at her wife. “It is. Just the way you like it.” She stared at her wife, enjoying the way the knotted robe accentuated her curves. “Did you peek at Patrick?”
Tara sat beside the redhead. “I did. He’s asking for Buffy. Is she around?” The blonde knew the answer.
Willow began to speak. “She’s gone…”
“Riding right?”
The redhead looked confused. “How’d you know?”
“I had a vision this morning.” Tara stared into the hot steam rising from the cup. “Like the ones you’ve been having, I think.”
“What did you see?”
The blonde walked toward the window. “I saw my mom.”
“Where?” Willow felt comforted by her mother-in-law’s visit. She could only see it as a good thing for her wife.
“Out there.” Tara pointed to the patch of dry earth that had once been a lovely garden.
“You saw your mother by the barn?” The redhead was surprised by the location.
The blonde smiled. “There was a beautiful garden there when I was a child.”
“So you saw the past?” Willow was confused. Her visions were a look forward. Tara’s seemed to be a look back.
“I don’t know what I saw. I was standing here and my mother was in her garden. She was harvesting herbs and plant flowers.” Tara looked at the barren space. “Then she put the…” The blonde stopped. Her eyes caught glimpse of the basket hanging from the same rusty hook.
“Tara?” The redhead could read her wife. “What is it?”
“The basket. Mom put that basket in the same place.” She touched the window’s screen. “She touched my hand.”
Willow knew what the experience had done to her wife. She knew how the blonde longed for just one more moment. “Oh baby.” She wrapped around Tara. Her hand trailed up to cover her wife’s.
“It felt so real. I could feel her, Will.” She pulled away. “I have to go look.”
They walked out to the barn. Tara lowered the basket from the hook and closed her eyes, reliving the moments of her dream. “Mom put these here for us. She said I should remember who I am, remember what she taught me.” She touched the flower stems, looking toward her wife. “How did she do this?”
“By Cliodna. She has the goddess’ blessing.” The redhead took the basket handle. Her fingers rested on her wife’s. “This is a message, baby.”
“There’s more, Will.”
“More?” She took the basket and walked with her wife toward the wooden bench in the yard. “Is it good more or bad more? I can handle good more because good is good, but after yesterday, bad more is bad, very bad.”
Tara smiled as she untwisted the twist of her wife’s question. “It’s about Patrick, sweetie. It’s not all bad.”
Willow sat, pulling her wife down beside her. “I don’t understand. How is it about Patrick?”
“He had the same vision.” Tara corrected herself. “Well, it was kind of the same.”
“This is the not all badness part, isn’t it?” Willow separated the contents of the basket.
“Sort of.” The blond gave an unconvincing smile. “He saw my mother. He was with her in the garden. She told him that magic would heal him.”
“She told him?”
“You don’t have to say it.” The blonde expressed her confusion. “I can’t imagine my mother turning to magic that way.”
“Are you sure it was her?”
Tara smiled. The two of them had an unspoken synchronicity. “I showed him the picture from the hall.”
“So now what?”
She stood from the bench. “Research?” She reached to help her lover.
“Right… research.”
*********
“Buffy and Albert sittin’ in a tree.” The child giggled as she circled the couple.
“You gonna let her get away with that?” Al nudged the woman in front of him.
Buffy sat forward from her relaxed position against him. “Yep. I think I’m gonna let her go on and on.”
“Fine by me.” They rode slowly behind the singing child.
Buffy felt his strength holding her in the saddle. She liked the position. “So this is riding?”
Al chuckled at her innocent statement. “This is hardly riding, Buffy.”
“Hardly?” She questioned. “But we have the big horse.” She smiled. “And we have the saddle thingy here.” She patted the squeaky leather. “What else is there?”
He reached for her hand. He ran his fingers inside her palm, draping the reigns across the calloused flesh. “Trust.”
“Oh.” She looked out at the pasture, watching her niece ride freely. “Trust is hard for me.” The position of their bodies masked the truth in her words, and the brunette was embarrassed. The one word turned her bravery into a cluster of knots. “I’m not great with the trust thing.”
“Well you might say I have a few issues myself.” He held her hand, guiding their movements to control the horse.
“You wouldn’t believe the half of it.” She turned to look back at him.
He rested his chin on her shoulder. “Can I ask you a question?”
The brunette reached back to grab his hat. “Ask away.”
“Yesterday…” He ran his hand through the stubble on his head. “I felt things. I saw things. Things I can’t even define.”
“When you came into the house?”
“When I came into this power.” He pulled back on the reigns. “I saw some horrible images. I don’t even know how to describe them.”
“The awakening.” She cleared her throat. “That’s what I call it, anyway.”
He slipped Buffy’s foot from the stirrup and twisted off the back of the horse. “Awakening doesn’t do it justice.” He moved her hand to the horn of the saddle.
She grabbed his. “Where are you going?”
“I need to stretch but I’m not going anywhere.” He looked across the open field. “Can you see our young equestrian?”
“Young what?” Her confusion was obvious.
“Abbey.” He smiled. “Your niece.”
“Oh,” her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. She looked around from her mounted perch. “She’s just about to go over that hill.” The Slayer pointed.
He led the horse in the same direction, yelling toward the young rider. “Abbey, don’t go over the ridge until we can see you in the valley. Ride back around to us.”
Abbey yelled over her shoulder. “Can’t you just ride faster?” She reached the highest point. She let go of the reigns, flopping her arms back to let the rush of wind flow around her.
“I’m walking for a bit,” Al replied.
Abbey kicked her heels and tugged the reigns. Her horse responded instantly and the two headed swiftly toward the Slayers.
Buffy could hear the pounding of rapid hoofs against the rigid prairie soil. She smiled as her niece approached.
Abbey wanted to see that her family wasn’t in danger. “What happened? Why are you walking?” The young blonde looked twice at the hat on her aunt’s head.
Buffy noticed the second look. “His butt got sore.” She grabbed the hat and slipped it off her head.
“Your butt doesn’t get sore.” She glared at her aunt. “Were you mean to him?”
Al smiled. He enjoyed the young girl coming to his defense. “She wasn’t mean.”
“But she has your hat.”
Buffy leaned over to drop it back on his head. “Nope, he’s got his hat.” She smiled a satisfied grin.
Abbey pouted. “Are you going to walk for a long time?” She was clearly concerned that the pace would hinder her freedom.
“I’m going to walk until we get to the ridge, then you can ride through the valley.” He straightened his hat. “Got it?”
“Yes sir!” She saluted and rode off toward the ridge.
“The river is high this time of year.” He watched her pause to listen. “Don’t try to cross it alone. You’ll need my help.”
She saluted again. “You call me if you need my help with Aunt Buffy. She can be really tough sometimes.” Abbey giggled. “Except on a horse. She doesn’t look so tough on a horse.”
Buffy protested, adjusting her posture. “I look tough.” She turned toward Al. “I look tough, don’t I?” She puffed out her chest.
Abbey yelled back over her shoulder. “I’m really intimidated.”
“Hey!” She waited for Al’s reply. “Some help here.”
He pulled the reigns from around the saddle’s horn. “I’m very intimidated.”
The Slayer adjusted her hands to tighten her grip on the saddle. “See! Al’s intimidated.”
“That’s because you are just a scary woman. Not a scary woman on a horse.” Abbey quipped.
Buffy’s jaw dropped. She looked toward her fellow Slayer.
“She makes a good point.”
“You think I’m scary?” Her face paled and turned serious.
Al tried to explain. “Well, you are scary for different reasons.”
“Reasons?” Her eyes locked on his face. “You have a list?”
“It isn’t a list, so much as a mental summary.”
“You summarized me?”
He stopped walking. His hand moved to her stirruped foot. “I made a note about all the reasons why you and I couldn’t be anything more then friends.”
Buffy stared, her face clearly relaying surprise. “We couldn’t be?”
“I’m a Slayer, Buffy. You of all people know what that means.”
“Still not understanding the scary list.”
He slid her foot from the stirrup and launched himself back up behind her. “What do you feel when I’m sitting here behind you?”
She could hear her pulse pounding against the frame of her chest. She could feel his. She was hyper aware and she knew he would be, too. “I don’t know.”
“Trust, Buffy.” He whispered in her ear. “Trust me.”
She released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “I’m excited.”
*********
“I’m sure it was.” The redhead nodded as she squeezed the phone between her ear and her shoulder. She balanced the handset as she scribbled notes on the tablet in front of her. “Do I need to call or will they call us here?”
Tara raised a brow. “Have them call us, honey.”
Willow smiled. “That’s great. We’d prefer that.” She ended the call and rested the phone on the kitchen table. “We need to write down everything that we can remember.”
“Mine will be easy. I just had the one this morning.” Tara reached for her wife’s hand. “What did Mr. Giles think?”
“Honestly?” Her face scrunched, hoping Tara wouldn’t want the real answer.
“Well, no. I want you to lie.”
“He said it was nothing. Maybe something we ate.”
The blonde slammed her hand onto the table. “Damn that vegetable loaf.”
They shared a smile.
“Giles said it might be stress. He also said it might be mystical.”
Tara stood from the table and moved mechanically through the kitchen. “It didn’t feel dangerous. She was here, Will.” She paused to look out the window. “I don’t care what this reader says. My mother wants us to concentrate on magic.”
“Do you think you were dreaming?” The redhead turned the page of her notebook. She continued writing as her wife shared her thoughts. “We talked about using magic to help him. Could this be wishful dreaming?”
“Under any other circumstance, I would say yes.” Tara touched the screen in the kitchen window.
Willow looked up from her writing. “Baby?”
“I felt her, Will. Like I feel this, I could feel her hand against mine.”
The redhead abandoned her work and moved to stand behind her lover. “Maybe she’ll come back. Maybe we need to look into something she would have done.”
“She would have known exactly what to do.”
“Exactly!” Willow turned the blonde toward her. “She might be pointing you toward something bigger then Patrick’s physical health.”
“What do you mean, Will?”
The redhead looked at her wife. “What if this is all about keeping him? What if this is supposed to help us make him whole as a man?”
Tara smiled, mirroring the crimson lips in front of her. “You think my mother came here to keep us all together?”
Willow held her lover’s face in her hands. “I think magic could help us protect him from what scares him most.”
“Losing his family?”
The redhead nodded. “Something we all fear more than anything.”
“But what about the shared dreams?” Tara pulled herself up to sit on the kitchen counter.
Willow smiled, watching her wife stare out the window. “Maybe we invited him.”
The blonde raised a confused brow. “Invited him, how?”
“Well as soon as you mentioned it this morning, I started thinking.”
“Mmm hmm.” Tara looked curiously at her.
“I was thinking maybe last night we masked out Abbey because she was beside us.” The redhead hesitated, nervously twisting her fingers. “But he’s right below us and I wondered if maybe…”
“It shouldn’t matter, honey.” Tara opened a book and began flipping through the pages. “It’s a magic connection between you and I. We shut out the world last night.”
“So you’re sure he couldn’t have…”
“I’m positive, Will.”
The redhead sighed. “Then how?”
“He’s a part of my dreams for a reason.” Tara shrugged. “We’ll figure it out.”
TBC...
Urn of OsirisA new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a joke or worried to death by a frown on the right person's brow. Charles Brower