All disclaimers are the same.
Thanks to everyone who reads this fic.
Thanks to Amber and Alyson for the inspiration.------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 14All six teenagers came charging into the room, the slayers in the lead followed closely by the witches, and Xander and Anya bringing up the rear. They scanned for danger, wanting to know where the attack was coming from.
“What happened?” Faith yelled.
Joyce and Giles looked up at the young group posed to fight and laughed. Soon the other adults in the room joined them in their laughter.
“What’s going on? You all didn’t just do a bunch of drugs did ya?” Willow asked in confusion of this reaction.
“We heard a crash and a scream. What happened?” Tara asked.
As soon as they calmed down Sara spoke first. “We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to scare any of you. I shocked Mr. Giles here a bit and her knocked over the lamp and I’m afraid that it scared Mrs. Rosenberg a bit.”
The Scoobies all relaxed a little and then first glared at Xander and then at their parents. The adults didn’t understand this but they knew that they didn’t want to know.
Mr. And Mrs. Rosenberg stood up and stretched. “Well, it is late and we have a conference we have to pack for. Willow will you be coming home with us, or will you be staying with Tara tonight?”
Willow looked at Tara who looked at her mother. Sara in turn turned to the Rosenberg’s and answered. “We would be glad to have her if she wants to stay over.”
Willow nodded and her parents agreed. They hugged good-bye and Willow said she would come by later to wish them a good trip.
Sara stood up and hugged Joyce and Giles before getting ready to go. “Thank you for having us Joyce.”
“It was my pleasure.” The older Summers woman assured.
Sara smiled and then turned to the girls. “Okay, everyone staying over tonight, get your stuff and lets get going.”
Willow and Buffy both picked up their bags and hugged Joyce and Giles good-bye, before the group set off for the MaClay house.
****
“This was a great day. We should have more days just like this one.” Willow said as she curled into Tara for sleep.
“Yes, many more days like this one.” The blonde agreed.
“And to top everything off, we have three full days to spend together til class on Monday.” The redhead yawned.
“Actually, we have two and a half. I have dress rehearsal for the Talent Show Saturday morning.” Tara reminded Willow.
The redhead gave a full out pout at being left alone for that half a day. But the pout faded fast as Tara took hold of her bottom lip and sucked it into her mouth. Running her tongue along it and nibbling on it a bit before releasing it to kiss the redhead passionately.
“Okay, I forgot why I was pouting now.” Willow said out of breath from the kiss.
Tara only smiled and wrapped Willow up into her arms so that they could drift off to sleep.
****
“Oh My Goddess! How did she do it? What magic did she use?” Tara said as she stared at her cousin.
There was Faith, no black, no leather, and no pants. She had on a midnight blue dress. It was cut to the knee and showed no cleavage. Faith looked as uncomfortable as humanly possible.
“No magic, I lost a bet. This is my punishment. At least I don’t have to buy it.” Faith bellowed and went back to the changing room.
Tara turned to Buffy with a look of shock on her face. Buffy saw this and laughed along with Willow who had know this was coming since lunch that day when the two slayers had made a bet to see who could stand to be nicer to Cordy, who had come over to their table while Tara was in the bathroom. It had taken Cordy all of ten minutes to piss Faith off. Took less for Buffy but she was used to the cheerleader and could hold back the insults longer.
“I couldn’t help making this my prize. She looks great in dresses but refuses to wear them. I saw this as a great way to get her into a few.” Buffy giggles.
After Faith came out of the changing room, in her normal black leather, the girls left the store and went to finish their shopping trip.
As they walked by the music store Tara turned to go in. “Faith you need new strings. You broke three in rehearsal this morning.”
Faith shook her head and followed her cousin into the store. “It wasn’t my fault. Okay, so it was. You know I hate not being able to cut lose. You got your sap song; I just had to try a metal version of it. Didn’t sound that bad really.”
“Oh what song?” Buffy asked hoping her girl would slip.
“It’s mmmm….” Faith said as Tara’s hand clamped her mouth shut.
“You’ll find out at the Talent Show.” Tara answered for the dark haired slayer.
Buffy and Willow exchanged looks and shrugged their shoulders. They had been trying to find out what song their girlfriends were going to perform for months. They were about at the point of giving up. The Talent show was in two weeks.
“Fine!” both girls bellowed.
They paid for the strings and then headed out to finish their shopping. They hit another dozen of so stores before calling it a day and heading home.
Sara had a late meeting that night with some clients, so the girls made dinner so that she wouldn’t have to when she got home.
They were setting the table and placing the food out when Sara walked in the door. She saw the table and smiled. “Thank you all.”
The girls just smiled and sat down to have a nice dinner.
Around the table they talked about their days. What had happened, and what they had planned to do the next day and if they were ready for school to start back on Monday.
“The only good thing about classes on Monday is that we only have two weeks left.” Faith answered.
“I have to agree, get these finals out of the way and watch the Talent Show and then we are free for three weeks.” Buffy grinned.
“Oh yes, how did rehearsal go this morning you two?” Mrs. MaClay asked.
“Really well. We have two more dress rehearsals before the show in two weeks.” Tara answered.
“Great. I can’t wait to see you up on stage. I love that song you are doing.” Her mother grinned.
Buffy and Willow stopped in mid-movement at that. They stared at Sara as if she had just told them that she had killed someone on her way home from work.
“You mean that you know what song they are doing?” Buffy asked.
“Yes.” The older woman answered slowly. “Why?”
“Cause they refuse to tell us what song it is!” Willow squealed.
“Hahaha, Tara, Faith, you always loved to do that. I wondered who you were holding out on this time.” Sara laughed.
Tara and Faith both smiled and softly laughed too.
Things calmed down and dinner ended. After they cleaned up the four girls went out together on a quick patrol before bed.
****
“This is so dull.” Faith gripped. “We haven’t seen a vamp all night.”
“I know, and that is what worries me.” Buffy said as she scanned the cemetery they were sweeping last tonight.
“We should talk to Giles tomorrow and see what big bad is going to be attacking this week.” Willow said.
Tara who was standing next to her just nodded her agreement. Just as she was going to suggest that they call it a night and head home something caught her eye. “Um guys.”
The other three girls turned and looked at her and then saw her pointing and followed where she was pointing too. What they saw was a bleach blonde vampire talking to a huge yellow ooze covered demon.
“Yeah, see, I don’t want you to kill her, I want the redheaded witch alive.” The blonde vamp said.
The demon answered in some form of gurgling language that none of the girls understood.
“No, I don’t give a sodding rats ass what happens to the others! Just bring me the witch!” the vamp yelled and then turned and left.
The ooze demon slugged into a thin puddle and then seeped into the ground.
“Yeah, lets go see Giles first thing in the morning.” Buffy said.
The others shook their head and then the group headed home.
****
“Dear Lord.” Giles quipped after hearing the tale from the previous nights patrol. He went straight to his books and picked up an old dusty leather bound volume. “That demon you described, it’s a Lo’tich’kar. They can shape-shift into anything they touch. Magic is no good against this demon; it just bounces right off. You cannot tell that what you are looking at is the demon while it is shape-shifted. You can only tell when it chooses to revert back into its demon form. You can only kill the Lo’tich’kar while it is in its demon form.”
“So what you are telling me is that I have a huge oozy demon that wants to take my best friend for some reason and doesn’t care what he has to do to get her and all I can do is wait!” Buffy yelled.
“Chill B.,” Faith soothed. “At least we know about it now, we’ll just keep a closer eye on Red.”
“Yeah, okay.” The blonde slayer said calming down. “So what do we do now?”
“You two go and act normal. Watch for anyone new or anyone acting different. Warn Willow and Tara so that they can watch out as well.” Giles advised.
“Okay G-man. We’re outty. We are meeting up with the Wiccans for lunch. We will tell them then.” Faith assured.
“And you hit the books looking for anything that we can use.” Buffy said as the dark haired slayer dragged her out of the library.
****
The rest of the day went by without too much excitement. The scariest thing that happened to Willow all day was the biology teacher announced that it was time to dissect the frogs.
Faith couldn’t help but to give a little laugh at this. She couldn’t believe that Willow barely batted an eye at the ooze demon after her, but she almost fainted at the thought of a dead frog.
The group headed to the library after classes were over to see if Giles had learned anything new. Unfortunately, the only thing that he had found was that the demon needed to revert back to it’s oozy self once every four hours. If they could catch it changing it would be perfect, but you had to catch it and they still had no idea how to do that.
After leaving Giles the girls headed to Willow’s house, seeing that her parents were out of town again.
“Everyone get comfy, I’ll order us up some pizza.” The redhead said absent-mindedly.
Tara saw her girlfriend was out of it and followed her into the kitchen. “Sweetie, are you okay?”
Willow jumped at the voice she heard. When she saw that it was Tara she smiled. “Hey baby. Yeah, I’m fine.”
The blonde looked at her girlfriend and frowned. “This is me Will, you know me, Tara, your loving girlfriend; you can tell me the truth.”
The redheaded hacker hung her head “I know. I just don’t want to worry anyone. I’m supposed to be brave and strong.”
Tara took Willow’s face in her hands, and then brought them together for a comforting, loving kiss. When she pulled back she locked her sapphire eyes with Willow’s emerald ones.
“With me you never have to be brave and strong. You can be scared and weak. You just have to be Willow, that is all.” The blonde witch smiled at her girlfriend as she stroked her face.
With the warmth and love radiating from Tara the redhead broke down and clung to her girlfriend. “I’, so scared baby! What if he gets me? What if he hurts one of you trying to get me?”
“Shh, sweetie. Don’t worry. Everything will be okay. We will get this ooze demon and the vamp that sent him after you.” Tara soothed.
“Promise?” Willow practically begged the request.
“Promise.” Tara answered without hesitation.
****
The next day was spent gathering information about new and old people who could come into contact with Willow. By the time that the girls got together to meet Giles and Xander in the library they had a small list of main suspects.
They made a list of the new people and of old people acting strange or stranger than usual. Then they paid close attention to the ones who seemed to disappear for an hour in the middle of the day.
The girls compared their notes and were waiting to see what the rest of the group had come up with.
“Okay boys, we have our combined and compared list, lets see yours.” Faith called as they entered the library.
The two groups compared lists and added the could-bes and got rid of the ones they knew it couldn’t be. In the end they had a list of four people.
“Okay; here is the list: (1) Mr. Snyder-the new Vice Principle, (2) Larry-He has been acting awfully nice to everyone, (3) Vero-the new exchange student that Willow is tutoring in math, and (4) Mr. Taylor-the new AP Calculus substitute. One of these are most likely to be the Lo’tich’kar. Be careful.”
They all looked at each other and nodded their agreement. They had also agreed that they were not going to wait around for this demon to attack Willow. They were going to take the fight to it.
T.B.C.Grace
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"Fate keeps on happening."--Anita Loos Edited by: bluewillowwitch at: 7/29/04 2:07 pm