4. “Dark Days”Willow scanned the crowd in the Bronze. They had gone quiet again as the eerie glow of the witch light illuminated them. They seemed to have instinctively huddled together in the dance floor, or perhaps it was long experience at work. Either way it kept them out of the way. Willow squeezed Tara’s hand harder for reassurance. She wanted to do something more active to help, however it was taking all her power and concentration to keep the light going.
Tara was oddly glad of the distraction, she was almost used to dealing with vampires, and she had been dreading the possibility that Willow was going to unleash some magic on Harmony. Tara had sensed that Willow’s pain was building not receding as the day went along, and sooner or later she needed to vent it. Tara had just hoped, expected, that it would all be poured out in a flood of tears on her shoulder. The front door of the Bronze burst open and startled her, if Willow hadn’t been grasping her hand so tightly she would have jumped a couple of feet in the air. The dim light made the vampires look even more ghastly than usual as they stood in the door. The pair of them looked over the crowd, trying to decide where to start. It was a big mistake as a pool cue flew through the air like a javelin and speared one of them right through the chest. As it disappeared in a cloud of dust Buffy closed with the remaining one and sent it tumbling to the floor before she skewered it with a piece she broken off the pool stick.
“Buffy!” Angel’s voice called out. Willow cast a glance over her shoulder and saw another pair of vamps launching themselves off the stage while Angel wrestled a third to the ground. One of the vampires grabbed a girl in the crowd and Xander sprang into action. He had kept a second pool cue for his own use and now he swung it down across the back of the vampire, shattering the cue and sending the vampire sprawling.
“Are you ok?” he asked the girl whose back was to him.
“I’m fine.” Anya responded ungratefully as she turned. Xander was going to say something more, however the other vampire lunged at him and he staggered back in the direction of the bar.
As he slammed against it Willow acted. The ball of light shot downwards and plunged into the vampire as it moved to sink its fangs into Xander’s neck. The light was extinguished for a moment before the vampire staggered back and burst into flames briefly before disappearing in a cloud of vapour and releasing the light once more. The vampire Xander had hit with the cue staggered to its feet in time for Buffy to grab it, spin it round and sink a jagged piece of wood into its chest.
Angel had finished with his opponent and climbed down for the stage area. “Maybe we should consider doing something else with our dates, I hear dancing’s fun.”
Buffy smiled. “Yeah, but it’s not such good exercise. Anyway I think we’ve had about as much fun as we can stand for one night.” There was a hearty chorus of agreement from the others.
Tara lay looking at Willow in the sunlight that was filtering through the dorm room curtains; they had both fallen asleep almost as soon as they climbed into bed. The spell had taken a surprising amount out of them, especially as they had to keep it going for sometime after they left the Bronze. She looked at Willow’s sleeping form and saw that even now there was a frown disturbing her face. Tara wished there was some advice she could offer for dealing with this situation, but she had dealt with her parental problems by running away and never speaking to her father since. Tara had come to realize after she left that she had long since given up on getting any glimmer of affection or respect from her father, Willow however was not in that place. Even if she wouldn’t admit Tara knew that Willow still wanted her parents to be proud of her, to accept her, and Tara had no idea how to achieve that, how did you get a parent to deal when their only child dropped a bombshell on them? As that thought passed through her mind it occurred to Tara that maybe there was someone she could ask for advice.
Willow opened her eyes and saw Tara watching her. “You should have woken me,” she suggested and reached out to run her fingers over Tara’s face.
Tara shook her head. “After last night I thought you needed your sleep.”
Willow remembered how drained she had felt. “Maybe you were right.”
Tara hesitated for a moment, and then decided there was something they had to talk about. “You scared me last night, with Harmony. You were going to zap her or something.”
Willow couldn’t evade that gaze. “I was so angry, I wasn’t planning on anything.”
“I know, but you’re becoming very powerful, and that means you have to be very careful, you have to keep the magic and the anger apart.” Tara stopped as she realized this was turning into a lecture.
Willow wasn’t about to argue, she had been turning it over in her mind as she went to sleep. “I’ll try, if you promise to help.”
Tara kissed her gently. “Always.”
The area around the Bronze was a maze of police tape and the streets were choked with vans from all the major utilities. Added to that were tow trucks dragging several expensive cars out of the vicinity of the Bronze and there was a scene of utter bedlam. Buffy had taken advantage of that to slip through the police lines and scout round. She was making her way back out when she spotted Willow and Tara standing behind the line watching the action. She noticed that Willow was looking a little frazzled, and not in the relaxed happy way she often looked after a night spent at Tara’s.
“Did you see anything interesting?” Willow asked.
“Not unless sweaty workmen are your thing, so I’m going to say no.” Buffy answered.
“Nothing’s working still?” Tara wondered.
Buffy shook her head. “Nothing that was there last night anyway. Everything they brought with them this morning seems fine.” As she finished the streetlights behind the police line burst into life, along with shop signs and at least one car. The trio gazed at this sudden return to life, along with the police and utilities workers. As they got over their surprise the workers began to test and check their equipment all over again, and then one by one they packed up and drove away. When the last of them was gone the police pulled down their tape and followed them out of the area.
“And that was all that happened?” Wesley demanded.
“Well unless you count that UFO we saw hovering over the Bronze.” Buffy answered grumpily.
“Your sarcasm is uncalled for.” Wesley snapped.
“Well what do you expect? Everything came back to life and the Mayor’s stooges were only too happy to sweep it all under the rug, just another Sunnydale mystery to ignore,” she pointed out. They were sat in the library once more, the gang scattered around the table with exception of Tara who had a lecture to attend. Wesley was pacing up and down, and Giles watching the other man’s discomfort with a degree of ill-disguised amusement.
“Maybe it was the vamps.” Xander suggested, wanting to cut off another round of sparring between Buffy and the Cordelia-chasing dweeb.
Wesley looked at him frostily. “You think some ragtag band of scavenging vampires could work this sort of magic?”
“Well if there was someone organising them.” Xander mumbled.
“No, the only person who might have organized it would be the Mayor, and his purpose could only be to distract us. Have us wasting our time on a minor incident when we should be working to prevent the Ascension.”
“Didn’t seem that minor to me.” Willow piped up, “Six vamps in a dark room full of teenagers. I think that was pretty serious.” Buffy didn’t comment but smiled at Willow’s comment.
“I was thinking in terms of the larger picture, I wasn’t intending to belittle your efforts.” Wesley looked to Giles for some backup, only to find the librarian apparently fascinated by a patch of dust on a bookshelf. Without any support he turned back to the gang. “I would be prepared to have us investigate this if any of you can offer this least clue as to where to begin?” No one had any suggestions to offer. Wesley couldn’t resist a triumphant smirk, “Very well then let’s focus on our true nemesis.”
Tara had never visited the gallery before; indeed she had to check through the phonebook to track it down. It had been done out in a thoroughly minimalist style. White walls and a blonde wood floor avoided taking attention away from the art works that were carefully hung on the walls and set on plinths. It all looked kind of weird to Tara. She liked art but mostly paintings with actual people in them. She had been fascinated by a nude study of a woman she had found in an art book gathering dust in Quincy high school. It had been one of the things that made her realize that she found the female form in general pretty fascinating.
“Tara? What brings you here?” Joyce was surprised and not a little worried to see Tara here in the middle of the day.
Tara hesitated, still not sure she should do this, then she thought about Willow’s pain and knew she had to. “I need to ask you for a really big favour.”
5. “Why Does It Always Rain On Me?”This lunchtime there was no sweet Tara type diversion to distract Willow from her troubles. She had eaten what passed for food in the cafeteria with Xander and Buffy, and neither of them was in the mood for small talk. Xander was still brooding about Cordelia’s interest in Wesley, as though he still had some say in the matter. Buffy was just getting overloaded, between Faith’s betrayal, restraining the passion with Angel, and figuring out exactly what the Mayor was up to, she didn’t have a lot of attention left even for her best friend. That didn’t upset Willow, she understood about Buffy and wasn’t really interested in Xander’s clumsy attempts at sympathy.
As soon as she was finished with the food Willow made an excuse and left the other two to their own devices, she just wanted to think things through about how to deal with her dad and her mom,
her mom? Willow tired to convince herself it was a mirage, but there she was, Sheila Rosenberg standing in the entrance to Sunnydale High and looking around until she spotted Willow and strode purposefully towards her.
Willow briefly considered running away and then mentally scolded herself for slipping into an old mindset. She was not going to be intimidated. “What are you doing here mom?” she asked, more harshly than she had actually intended to.
“I’m here because this seemed the only way to speak to you. You haven’t been home for two days.” Sheila pointed out while trying to sound reasonable.
“Well you knew where I was, you could have come to see me, bring me a change of underwear.” Willow matched her mother’s tone.
“You expected me simply to condone your running away from home?” Sheila’s reasonableness was already beginning to crack, she simply wasn’t used to such sustained defiance.
Willow managed to keep her tone even. “I don’t really expect anything from you.”
Sheila could see that some of the other students were watching their conversation. “Look Willow, perhaps this is a conversation we should have at home tonight.”
“Fine, I’ll bring Tara and then the four of us can sit down and settle our differences.” Willow saw the look that crossed her mothers face. “That’s what I thought, Tara is persona non grata.”
“Willow this is a family matter.” Sheila tried to wriggle off the hook.
Willow wasn’t having it. “Tara
is family, she cares for me, she can tell exactly how I’m feeling, and that’s more than you can do.”
Sheila jerked back as though Willow had slapped her in the face. “How can you be so cruel? Willow you are simply too young to be plunging yourself into such an intense relationship, it’s not healthy, and this attitude just proves I’m right.”
Willow’s tether had reached its limit and now it just plain snapped. “You haven’t any right to judge my relationship with Tara, you have no idea what I want or need, and you never had!” her yelling would have drawn more attention if the hall lights hadn’t wavered, dimmed and then died out.
Unlike the Bronze there was no great panic, after all it was broad daylight and the hallway was simply rendered dim and gloomy rather than pitch black. The noise level did rise though as students and staff spilled out into the corridor and began to speculate about what was going on. As the crowd built up Willow took advantage of it to slip away from a distracted Sheila, she had no great desire to continue her second public shouting match in two days, and beside she needed to try and reach the library, she was in no doubt that Buffy and Xander were already en route.
It took longer than Willow had expected because Snyder showed up and decided to follow the fire drill procedure by hustling all the students out into the courtyard. Unsurprisingly she found Buffy had beaten her to it, when Buffy wanted to she could plough through a crowd better than an NFL linebacker. She bounced up off the table as Willow walked in. “Are you ok? You look kind of…” she hesitated trying to find a nice way to say ‘terrible’.
“My mom decided to pay a visit.” Willow offered wearily, the adrenaline rush of the argument had worn off and left her feeling drained.
“Oh, sorry.” Buffy said weakly.
Willow didn’t want to think about so she asked, “Is everything out?”
Giles stepped out of the office. “It certainly is, phones, lights, even the computer.”
“And he is so broken up about that, aren’t you Giles.” Buffy quipped. “This is kind of like your perfect world, just you and the books and no machines.”
Giles frowned. “While I may not be as in love with gadgetry as some others I have no desire to try and read by the light of a guttering candle. There’s a difference between a traditionalist and a survivalist you know.” The good natured bantering put a smile back on Willow’s face, it was good to know there were some things she could depend on.
Wesley stumbled through the door with his glasses clutched in his hand. “I think I’d rather face a herd of stampeding elephants,” he was too flustered to realize he had said it out loud until he saw the smirks on the others faces. “Regardless of that we need to find out the cause of this event.”
“Oh now we have to investigate, what happened to the big picture?” Buffy asked.
“Under the circumstances I have had to revise my opinion,” he turned to where Willow was standing. “Did you bring your laptop to school with you?”
Willow shook her head. “It’s back at home.”
“Well that’s good, it means it should still be functioning. Perhaps you could retrieve it and interrogate the systems of the city authorities. Could you do that?” Wesley asked politely.
Willow was suspicious when Wesley started being polite, still it wasn’t a bad idea.” I can probably get it out of there, probably better do it now if I want to avoid any more rows.”
“Well if you wouldn’t mind?” Wesley gestured towards the door as she spoke. Willow shrugged and headed back out into the melee in the corridor.
Buffy was watching Wesley closely, what he had asked Willow to do made sense, and yet there was something just not right about the whole scene. “What’s going on here Wesley?”
Buffy’s tone made Wesley hesitate for a moment, and then he realized that this was not going to be any easier however long he hesitated. “I wanted to raise a theory that I didn’t think it would be wise to mention in front of Willow.”
“Maybe you should just spit it out.” Buffy didn’t know where Wesley was going but she was beginning to get annoyed.
“Very well, I saw Willow in the corridor arguing with her mother, she was extremely angry.” Wesley explained.
“And?” Buffy prompted.
“Well I believe she was engaged in berating some girl in the Bronze last night.” Wesley was hoping that either Giles or Buffy was going to make the logical leap before he actually had to say it himself.
“It was Harmony, and yeah Willow was giving her a piece of her mind last night before the lights went out.” Buffy stopped dead, and then a very hard look formed on her face.
“Buffy think about it.” Wesley pleaded. “Doesn’t it make sense? Both incidents occurred when Willow was in an extreme emotional state. I’m not saying it was deliberate, she simply lost control.”
Buffy didn’t say anything. She wanted to punch Wesley’s lights out for making such an accusation against her best friend. The only thing that held her back was that some corner of her mind was agreeing with Wesley, she hadn’t consciously admitted it but the moment Willow had mentioned the run in with her mother the thought had taken up residence in a corner of her mind. She turned to Giles, hoping that he was going to pick apart Wesley’s theory. Giles was simply stood there polishing his glasses, he saw the expression on Buffy’s face and understood what she wanted; he just couldn’t provide it. “I’m sorry Buffy, it’s a credible suggestion; I’m not saying I’m convinced, but I can’t dismiss it out of hand.”
Wesley was relieved to find he wasn’t on the receiving end of Buffy’s slayer strength. “I can sympathise with your reluctance, but we have to face the strong possibility that Willow has lost control of her power. If that is the case she could be very dangerous, without meaning to be of course,” he emphasized to reassure the other two, “Nonetheless I hope we are agreed we shouldn’t mention this to Willow in the meantime,” he got reluctant nods from the other two.
Tara had left Willow working with her computer, she sometimes thought that if she had rival for Willow’s affections it was that little black box. She could live with that,
after all I’m pretty sure I’m a better kisser than it is. She smiled at the thought. As Willow was working away Tara had offered to go get some munchies. A polite cough made her look over her shoulder, “Trying not to make you jump.” Buffy explained.
“Thanks, Willow’s back in the dorm room, doing some research.”
“That’s what I figured, I really needed to get you alone.” Buffy did not sound happy.
Alarm bells went off Tara’s head. “What’s the matter Buffy?”
Buffy sighed, and then outlined Wesley’s theory, watching the increasingly horrified look on Tara’s face.
“Tara I’m sorry I don’t believe it, I don’t want to believe it. It’s just I can’t ignore it, I need someone to tell me it isn’t true, and I can’t go to Willow, in case…”
In case it is true. Tara looked at Buffy; she could see the Slayer was desperate for reassurance. “It isn’t true,” she told her and saw the relief on Buffy’s face, “I mean I can’t prove it isn’t true, but I promise you I will,” she was promising it as much for own peace of mind as Buffy’s, as confident as she was trying to sound Tara found she was now also carrying a nagging little doubt in the back of her mind.
6. “Clarke’s Law”As she marched up the steps Willow spotted a soda can sat on top of the low wall that lined them. She fixed it with a steely gaze and it rose into the air and crumpled into the shape of a hockey puck. She spotted a nearby waste bin and the crushed can spun through the air like a Frisbee and buried itself amongst the candy wrappers and waste paper. It actually did relieve a little of Willow’s tension, but only a little. When Tara had back with the food last night Willow had packed up the computer and decided to try and relax, Tara though had been every bit as stiff and tense as she was and they had ended up simply slipping into bed and drifting off to sleep in each others arms.
Willow couldn’t really blame Tara for not being very amorous; this whole air of gloom that was hanging over her was clearly getting to Tara. It couldn’t go on, something had to be done to resolve her family mess. The snag was that so far everything Willow could think of to try seemed like a surrender, giving into her parents, and that Willow had no intention of doing. “Excuse me, Willow Rosenberg right?” Willow turned to see a boy standing there with an eager expression on his face that to Willow seemed a little, creepy.
“That would be me.” Willow replied cautiously.
The boy’s air of warped enthusiasm increased “Great, I wanted to ask you some questions.”
Willow groaned inwardly, if this was some kind of cheesy pick up she was going to do something appalling, “Look I really have a lot of stuff to do before class.”
“Hey that’s cool, I just wanted to pick your brains about robotics,” the boy explained.
This complete non-sequiter threw Willow. “What?”
“The rumour is that you and you buddies had a run in with some sort of humanoid robot, and I figured you wouldn’t just have passed up the chance to, you know take a look under the hood?” The boy had leaned in and his voice had dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.
Willow knew it was wrong to judge a person on one brief conversation but there was something about this boy that made her skin crawl. She took a couple of steps backward. “Look I don’t even know your name.”
The boy didn’t seem remotely to notice Willow’s effort to distance herself, “My bad, I’m Warren, Warren Mears.” Willow couldn’t explain but she felt a sudden sense of loathing, as though there was something especially terrible about Warren Mears though she hadn’t the faintest idea what.
“Look Warren trust me when I say this, you do not want to mess with that sort of technology it always works out badly,” she tired to convey a sense of doom in her words but Warren was oblivious.
“So there really was such a robot?” Warren asked eagerly.
Willow sighed with exasperation. “It’s dangerous, leave it alone.”
“You don’t want to share? Fine. I’ll work it out on my own.” Warren looked smug as he walked past her.
Willow couldn’t believe the arrogance of the jerk, Ted had been as bad as ninety percent of the demons Buffy had ever battled, and of course for a while Buffy had thought Ted was a demon. That robot was walking proof of Clarke’s Law;
any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. Of course Arthur C Clarke didn’t know there really was magic or he might have put it differently. I t was just an idle thought running through Willow’s head, but she couldn’t push it away, magic and
technology indistinguishable. Willow smacked hand against her forehead, “Dummy!” she cried out to the empty corridor and then looked around to make sure she really was alone before she raced off to the library.
Tara felt like a total traitor, she should have torn a strip off Buffy for even suggesting that Willow could be responsible for what had happened at the Bronze and Sunnydale High, but she hadn’t. Failing that she should have told Willow all about Wesley’s crazy theory and told her what a jerk he was, but she hadn’t. Instead she had kept her mouth shut and climbed into bed with Willow and felt like pond slime while her girlfriend sought solace from her. Try as she might Tara couldn’t shake off that nagging doubt, she didn’t want to believe that Willow could have lost control in that way, however she could also remember watching her mother slide over the edge into darkness, all the while trying to convince herself that mom would be ok, that she was in control. That thought firmed up Tara’s resolve, this wasn’t about a lack of trust, it was about protecting Willow and helping her if she was in trouble.
The baggy of magical powder Tara was carrying was intended to show up the traces of any magic that had been worked in the locale. Given the power of the spell that would have been needed to black out the bronze it should be pretty easy. Tara’s hope was that the powder would be drawn to the place where the trace was strongest, the point where it had been cast. It was a good theory but Tara wished she could have checked it out with Willow. The Bronze was firmly locked up in the daytime, there was simply no passing trade to speak in the area, and there was no one around to see Tara open the baggy and sprinkle part of the contents into her hand. She swept her hand around in an exaggerated manner that scattered the powder into the air and watched; as it slowly and very unmagically drifted to the pavement.
The baggy was completely empty by the time Tara had circled the building; she had gotten as close to where the bar was inside the building as possible and yet the powder had stubbornly refused to perform. The last time she and Willow had made this stuff they had done so in a hotel room with less than ideal conditions and ingredients. On this occasion Tara had followed the procedure to the letter, it just couldn’t have gone wrong. The only other explanation was that there wasn’t any magic to detect. Tara frowned at the thought, and then a broad smile spread across her face, if there wasn’t any magic… She hurried to get back to the dorm room.
Willow had cut class without any difficulty, her home troubles actually working in her favour for once. She was hurrying along the corridor to Tara’s dorm room going over everything she had found out, so distracted in fact that she nearly knocked over Tara going in the other direction. “Willow what are you doing here?” Tara asked as soon as she got her breath back.
“I wanted to tell you something important, I was going to leave a note on your door and then go search the campus. Why aren’t you in class?” Willow was bemused; she had been running on adrenalin all the way over to the campus.
“I was checking something in my room and then coming to see you at the school, Willow it wasn’t a spell that blacked out the Bronze!” Tara announced dramatically.
Far from looking pleased Willow looked crestfallen, “I was going to tell you that.”
They stared at each other for a moment and then they laughed, “I think we should go to the dorm room and swap stories.” Willow nodded, happier than she had been for days because she and Tara were on the same wavelength.
Sitting in the dorm room Tara filled Willow in on Wesley’s theory and her conversation with Buffy the night before and watched as Willow’s frown grew deeper, “I’m really sorry baby, I didn’t really believe it but I had to get some hard evidence, you do understand don’t you?”
Willow gout up from the chair she was sitting in and sat on the bed next to Tara and stroked her hands, “Baby I’m not mad, I think if I had thought of it I might have thought it was true, I think,” Willow looked confused, “Did that make sense?”
Tara kissed her on the cheek, “Close enough, but how did you figure it wasn’t magic?”
“Sort of a random thought, that really advanced technology sort of looks like magic to someone who doesn’t understand it, and then I realized that we are so used to magic we never even think about a scientific explanation for anything that happens in Sunnydale. Once I started thinking hardware instead witchcraft I thought of EMP.” Willow could see that she was overwhelming Tara so she reached for her laptop and powered it up so she could add some visual aids. “EMP is electromagnetic pulse, it can wipe out electrical and electronic devices in an instant.”
Tara stared at the screen, “I see that but according to this it’s caused by nuclear weapons, and I think I would have noticed if one of those went off around here.”
Willow nodded, “I think so but this is Sunnydale and in addition to a Hellmouth and a fine selection of demons we also have an outstanding crop of mad scientists, including our own Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll. If someone was going to make a gizmo that could do this without the mushroom cloud they’re going to do it here.”
Tara nodded, it made sense to her, “So we go tell the others.”
“What, that I have a theory for how I’m not to blame for the blackouts? That you had some magic that didn’t work? I want some hard evidence, so I can see the look on Wesley’s face when he has to say sorry,” she finished with a malicious grin.
Tara could also see that point, and she was willing to go along, especially as this was the first time she seen Willow genuinely upbeat since she had turned up in tears after the row with her parents. “Ok so where do we start looking?”
Willow had already figured that out as well, “Where else? Sunnydale High.”
7. “Murphy’s Law”Try as he had to make the apartment homey Wesley was painfully aware that he had failed. The truth was he just didn’t have enough possessions to truly mark this place out as anything much more than just a rented room. He had plenty of clothes and books and such, there just hadn’t been many mementoes or photographs to bring with him and stamp his imprint on the room. It was appropriate in a way; after all he had singularly failed to make any impression on either Slayer who was supposed to be under his guidance. Buffy still looked to Giles and made no attempt hide it; indeed she seemed to revel in making it clear that he was an irrelevance. The subject of Faith didn’t bear thinking about, his entire tenure with the Watchers had been jeopardized by her betrayal, and only the fact that most of the blame had fallen on the retrieval team had spared him from censure after the death of the deputy mayor. Now she had gone rogue and aligned herself with the very forces she was supposed to fight. It had been made clear to Wesley that one more ‘mishap’ and he would be looking for other employment.
As the phone began to ring Wesley snatched the handset off its cradle. “Hello? Yes sir, thank you for getting back to me so quickly. You have been briefed on the situation? Good, and you agree with my analysis? Well as I said we are in a very precarious situation and we can’t afford to introduce any more unpredictable elements. No the girl is definitely not doing anything deliberately, that’s what makes the situation so dangerous. Yes? Well if you could just give me a moment.” Wesley put the handset down and searched for a pen and a scrap of paper. “I’m ready now, and this individual will be able to deal with this matter without harming her? It could be awkward with the Summers girl if anything were to happen to Rosenberg? No I understand sir, we have to concentrate on our main mission; regardless of the sacrifices it requires.”
Sheila was pouring herself a glass of wine when the doorbell rang and she nearly knocked it over in her haste to answer. She knew Willow had slipped in the previous day to retrieve her computer and a few changes of clothing; raising the prospect that it could be a while before Willow elected to sown her face at the Rosenberg house again. She was severely disappointed at who she found on her doorstep, “Oh, Joyce.”
“Good to see you too Sheila.” Joyce smiled; she knew exactly what Sheila had been hoping so she wasn’t offended by Sheila’s reaction.
Sheila realized that she was being rude, “Sorry Joyce please come in, would you like a glass of wine?”
Joyce decided that she might need a drink before this was over, “Yes please.” Sheila handed her the glass and Joyce took a seat and tried to make herself comfortable, which was a practical impossibility, she still wasn’t sure how Tara had talked her into this. “Sheila I’m not going to beat around the bush, Tara asked me to come here.”
Sheila was about to take a sip and hesitated, not quite sure she heard correctly. “Tara? The Maclay girl?”
Joyce winced, “I mean Tara, she’s unhappy about the rift between you and Willow. She knows you won’t talk to her, and Willow won’t talk to you, so she asked me.”
“What makes you think my family problems are the concern of Tara, or you?” Sheila asked harshly.
“It’s Tara’s concern because she’s a sweet, thoughtful, and caring girl, who loves your daughter.” Joyce saw Sheila’s reaction, and pressed on before she could interrupt again, “And she asked me to talk to you because she thought that I could understand your position and perhaps help you to understand Willow’s.”
“And what makes her think you have special insight into my situation?” Sheila asked witheringly.
Joyce smiled, “I think you should refill your glass Sheila, I have a few things to tell you about Buffy…”
A few days earlier Sheila would have assumed that Joyce was suffering from some sort of nervous breakdown. That of course was before her coffee table had taken to floating on the ceiling. “She kept all of this secret from you? The vampires? The, slaying?”
Joyce saw her opening, “Well she didn’t tell me about any of this, but it wasn’t as though she was actually very good at keeping her secrets. There were plenty of clues Sheila, incidents that happened, the way her friends behaved, times when she was unaccountably happy or sad. And I ignored it all, I chose to turn a blind eye to things that were too awkward. When I finally had to face up to reality I gave her an ultimatum and you can guess what happened then.”
Sheila wasn’t quite ready to concede the point, “My daughter hasn’t run away.”
Joyce decided to be firm, “Sheila, she may not have gone very far, but she has run away. In the end really it’s up to you. You can either accept who Willow is and who she wants to be. Or you can carry on trying to make things be the way you want them to be. I was lucky; Willow and Tara brought my daughter back to me. I don’t think I would want to count on that sort of luck happening again.”
Wesley was absolutely useless at skulking in dark corners and being inconspicuous. It seemed as though every passing stranger fixed the shadowy corner he was lurking in with a hard stare until they were safely past. He was growing increasingly worried that one of them was going to take an interest in the contents of his wallet or his jugular. Finally he saw the person he had been expecting, it wasn’t hard to pick them out from the general run of passers by, none of them was dressed in quite such a dramatic, gothic, style, or had such a dark saturnine visage.
“Wesley Wyndham Pryce?” the man prompted in a deep rumbling voice that spoke of stage training at some time in the past. The man's whole appearance seemed more like a costume than street clothes.
“Yes that’s me, I’m sorry I wasn’t given your name.” Wesley asked.
The man raised a hand with a melodramatic flourish; “I prefer to keep my name to myself, safer that way.”
Wesley was beginning to find the man’s theatricality more than a little irritating. “Very well I take it you understand the nature of the task you are being asked to perform?”
“It seems straight forward enough, hardly necessary for us to meet in person.” Now the man sounded irritated.
“I simply wanted to emphasise face to face that the girl is not be harmed, that would precipitate other problems.” Wesley wasn’t about to share any information he didn’t have to with this individual.
The man smiled now, “Don’t worry I can handle one little girl.”
Those words of reassurance filled Wesley with an awful dread, somehow this was all going to turn into a disaster, and Wesley Wyndham Pryce was going to be on the receiving end.
The U-haul truck was splattered with mud and dust, it had been on the road practically non-stop for nearly four days. The rental company would be appalled at the state of it, or they would have been if the driver ever intended to return it to them. The truck drove past a side street and a second truck turned the corner and fell in behind it, a few blocks later a third turned in and joined the convoy, which headed into the commercial district of Sunnydale, stopping when it came to an empty and padlocked warehouse. The driver of the van leapt out and pulled a key from his pocket. It took him a couple of attempts to undo the rusty padlock but he managed and the three trucks disappeared into the dark interior.
Once the door was firmly shut the lights were turned on and the backs of the trucks slid open allowing the weary men inside to get out and stretch their legs. They were of varied age and build, linked together only by a taste for khaki and short haircuts. “Alright people get organized, get out cooking gear the sleeping bags, and the then the rest of the gear. Get some hot food in you and grab some shut eye, we have to get this show on the road before dawn. Is that clear?”
“Yes sir!” Came the shouted reply almost in unison. The men pulled the afore mentioned gear from the trucks, along with a selection of automatic rifles and other weapons that would have been adequate to equip a group several times their number. The man giving the orders gave the group the once over. They were hardly the cream of the organization, however they were all the council was willing to risk on such an, ‘unusual’ operation.
The dweeb better deliver, he thought,
or this town was going to get a preview of the second revolutionary war.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Willow: ...I have to tell you....
Tara: No, I understand you have to be with the
person you l-love
Willow: I am
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I can't wait to read the next installment.
Arrogant little twerp. And Wesley is not much better.
