TITLE THE HIGHGATE TUNNELS
AUTHOR Vivienne
RATING PG-13 ....for the moment!
DISCLAIMER All BTVS characters and certain other aspects of this story belong to Joss Whedon, Fox, ME and associates.
SPOILERS Diverges from canon somewhere early in season six.
THANKS To Wayland (Clare) for her unstinting beta-ing.
FEEDBACK I have read so much first-class feedback on the kitten board. I would be delighted to be on the receiving end of some of that.
The Highgate Tunnels
Chapter 4
The Citroen turned into the short drive and pulled to a halt on the gravel outside the front door. Giles switched off the engine and glanced in the mirror at the sleeping beauties behind him. Again, he wondered what had brought them here in such alarm. They both looked so relaxed and peaceful; it was hard to reconcile the sight with the tension in Willow’s voice on the phone, or with the overwhelming relief of her greeting on the station platform. Well, explanations could wait for a little longer. His concern now was to get them safely indoors, settled and fed. Then he looked forward to satisfying his curiosity.
Tara stirred at the absence of sound and motion. She opened her eyes, looked around, and then gently kissed the top of Willow’s head. Willow stretched, yawned and sat up, but not before giving Tara’s hand a little squeeze.
‘Oh Giles, we’re here already, wow.’ Willow unbuckled her seat belt, leaning forward with a smile.
‘Ah, you’re awake, good. Shall we go in?’ Giles smiled back at them both and started getting out of the car.
The women followed suit, retrieving their bags from the trunk of the hatchback, catching up with him as he unlocked the front door of the house. He gestured them in ahead.
Willow dropped her bag on the hall floor and looked around. How long had it been since she stood here? Five years? Six?
The image of a deer flitted through her mind. A young deer on the ground, the light fading from its eyes. Willow shuddered at the memory of that awful time. She had come here, and, with help, had found her way back from that dark and terrible place. Since that time she - and Tara – had practised only the gentlest of magics. Magics designed to help and heal, to ease and to nurture.
Willow felt light-headed. The steady rhythm of the grandfather clock at the foot of the staircase steadied her.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, we know, you’ve had a shock, it seemed to be saying to her.
Her breathing slowed to match the swing of the pendulum, her head began to clear. The scene with Tara and Giles at the station came back to her. Willow’s relief on seeing Giles had overwhelmed her. It was only then that she had realised the extent of her fear. Fear for herself, yes, but so much more for Tara. Drained and shaky, she’d walked to the car wishing she’d been strong enough to make Tara stay in Sunnydale. So she’d snapped at Tara and instantly regretted it.
It’s been so long since we had anything to fear, thought Willow, and now I am afraid.
She shouldn’t have come, but she did. So here we are. Okay. Willow knew she was glad that Tara was here, and she tried her best to stop fighting it.
‘Willow?’ Giles was peering at her.
‘Are you okay, baby?’ said Tara.
The grandfather clock receded back into its place against the panelled oak of the hall. Willow became aware that Giles, both bags over his shoulder, was half-way up the stairs with Tara close behind.
‘Oh, yes – yes!’ Willow hurried to join them.
Outside, the Mercedes drove past the house. A minute or two later, it came back the other way and slowed down as it neared the entrance to Giles’s drive. One of the darkened windows rolled down for a few moments, then closed again as the car went past.
‘I hope this is alright,’ Giles said, putting down their bags. ‘It was all a bit of a rush, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh Giles, it’s perfect, thank you!’ Willow looked around the pretty guest room with its comfortable bed and rather old-fashioned country furnishings.
Tara nodded and smiled her thanks, gazing longingly at the pile of fluffy towels and trying to remember the last time she’d had a chance to bathe or shower.
‘You have your own bathroom,’ Giles said, opening a panelled door to reveal a small, but obviously well-appointed en-suite. He looked at his watch, ‘Shall we say forty-five minutes until dinner?’
Tara and Willow had not been oblivious to the delicious smells emanating from the kitchen. They looked at the former school librarian with an affection born of years of knowledge and shared experience. It came to them both how much he had, and continued to, care for them and their companions. How much he had risked, how often, and how much he had lost. Seeing the expression on both girls’ faces, Giles blushed.
‘Oh now come on girls, it’s only a venison casserole.’
‘It might be just a casserole to you,’ said Willow.
‘But to us it’s. . . it’s. . . .’ mere words failed Tara and she simply put her head on one side and gave him a gentle smile.
‘Well, er, I have dumplings to see to,’ Giles pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and hurried out. ‘Forty-five minutes,’ he called over his shoulder.
He had to clear his throat two or three times as he went down to the kitchen.
Honestly, it was just a venison casserole,
no need to get so emotional. But he was smiling to himself as he removed the wrap from the tray of dumplings.
Tara sat on the bed and looked at Willow. All the hope she had gained from her reassuring winks on the train had been lost in Willow’s snippy moment in the car park. Only to be restored immediately by her contrition and affection. Tara sighed.
‘Look, I know you don’t want me here, but. . . .’
‘No, no, it wasn’t about not wanting you, it was about keeping you safe. I thought we’d been through all this.’ Willow’s eyebrows drew together in anguish.
And through it all they
had been, on an epic scale, with much shouting and many tears before they left Sunnydale. But Tara had stood her ground and Willow, forced to capitulate, had reluctantly bought two tickets instead of one. Hardly aware of anything but their own hurt, and their fear for the other, they had thrown things into bags and left for the airport in choked silence. During the long flight Tara had tried, with the utmost gentleness, to repair the damage. In the end she had to content herself with checking out their fellow passengers in case they had been followed. Willow had stayed behind the wall she was so good at putting up around herself.
‘It’s me they want,’ Willow went on. ‘I couldn’t bear to think of anything happening to you. I thought if you were at home, you could just carry on as normal and Giles and I could deal with this.’ Even as she spoke the words she knew how ridiculous they sounded.
Tara cocked an eyebrow. ‘So I sit at home and mind the shop while you go half-way around the world and fight the monsters? Yeah, right.’
She paused for a moment and then looked at Willow.
‘Will, who do you think I am?’
Willow took a deep breath as the last pieces of the shell she’d unconsciously built around her fell away.
Oh Tara, my Tara, she thought, and staggered a little with the force of emotion that swept through her.
Tara was on her feet and at Willow’s side in an instant. She took Willow into her arms. They stayed like that for a long moment until both their heartbeats steadied, each feeling the closeness and the warmth of the other. Another long moment of absolute peace followed, and they knew that they were together again. Tara drew her head back a little to study Willow’s face.
‘What?’ Willow smiled.
‘Just checking,’ said Tara.
‘Checking?’
‘That you’re ready for this,’ Tara murmured, leaning in for a kiss.
‘Oh no, when did I last brush my teeth?’ Willow’s face screwed up in delightful mock consternation.
‘Don’t care, this one is way overdue,’ Tara held her closer.
When they came up for air, eyes sparkling, Tara said huskily; ‘Now, how about a bath?’
‘Do you mean a bath? Or a
bath type bath?’
Tara’s slow grin and dilated pupils left Willow in no doubt about which kind of bath she was suggesting.
‘I think there might be time for that kind of bath if we concentrate,’ Willow said, picking up a stack of towels and heading for the bathroom.
‘My powers of concentration are particularly good, right this minute,’ said Tara following her and shedding clothes as she went.
Giles hurried to garage the Citroen in the gathering dusk. He looked up at the lighted bathroom window from which squeals and giggles emanated.
Glad they’re feeling a little better, he thought as his foot squished on something that was decidedly not gravel. Back inside, he examined the sole of his shoe. It was decorated with the remains of an apple core.
Now where on Earth did that come from? he wondered. He slipped off the shoe and took it to the kitchen to clean.
Tara, wrapped in a big towel, rummaged through her bag for clean clothes, eventually pulling out a rumpled sweatshirt and jeans.
Willow, already dressed, sat on the edge of the bed watching, her hair washed and dried to a deep russet gleam.
How could I treat her so? she thought,
How could I forget? I forgot us. Her eyes welled, spilling tears down her cheeks. She sniffed. Tara turned at the sound and crossing the room, took Willow’s head in her hands.
‘Will?’
‘Oh Tara, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ she folded her arms around Tara’s waist and buried her face in Tara’s midriff. ‘Why do I do it? I don’t mean to,’ she went on, ‘I love you so much, how can you stand me?’
‘Will, Will,’ Tara gently pulled Willow to her feet, ‘It’s ok, you’re not doing it now, you’re back, and I love you, too.’
‘How could I be so dumb? You’d think I’d know better by now.’
Tara laughed, ‘Yeah, ok, I’m not gonna argue with that!’ She raised an eyebrow, ‘I’m glad you haven’t forgotten how to take a
proper bath, though.’
Willow was quiet for a moment, then, ‘It’s been a while, hasn’t it? My fault, I haven’t been paying attention.’
‘I think that’s down to both of us, Will,’ Tara drew her closer, ‘We can fix it,’ she blew a strand of hair off Willow’s
cheek.
‘And we will.’ Willow sealed her promise with a kiss, which was interrupted half-way through by a low rumbling sound.
‘Was that your stomach or mine?’ Willow chuckled, ‘I’m starved.’
‘Me too,’ Tara looked at her watch, ‘Let’s eat. Oh wait,’ her expression turned to one of anxiety, ‘th-that thing, is it still ok?’
‘It’s fine, yep. Here,’ she took Tara’s hand and placed it at her own neck. Tara took the object in her fingers for a moment, and then let it drop back on the thong that secured it around Willow’s neck.
***
Giles took the casserole out of the oven and put it down carefully on a wooden platter. Removing his blue and white striped oven mitts, he turned up the oven to a high heat, sprinkled water over a couple of frozen baguettes and placed them directly on the middle rack. Next, he opened the second bottle of burgundy he’d brought up from the cellar and took it through to the dining room.
The last rays of the dying sun slanted through the patio doors, catching the silver tableware and the polished surface of the oak dining table. When Giles had put the wine on the table he went to the doors, taking a final look at the garden in the fading light. The old oak was already asleep in darkness, with the lawn and flowerbeds not far behind. Blue evening mist had begun to settle over the river and the hills on the horizon were blending with the sky.
Giles sighed, pulling the drapes across the scene and plunging the room into near darkness. How very different from that same morning when all he had to contemplate was a day of satisfying, solitary writing. And now? His brow creased in thought as he took a box of matches from a drawer in the side dresser. Now he had no idea what was going on or where it would lead.
As he moved around the room lighting the candles in various candlesticks placed about, he recalled Willow’s taut anxiety on the phone and their pale, exhausted faces when he met them off the London train.
Still, he thought,
at least the bath cheered them both up a bit, and then he blushed a little, embarrassed at thinking it, even to himself.
Finally, he lit the lovely three-branched silver Georgian candelabra, one at each end of the dining table and then went through to the study, quickly banking up the log fire in there before returning to the kitchen to take out the baguettes. As he set them on the side to cool slightly he glanced at the kitchen clock.
Right, that’s it, he thought,
I can’t take any more. Curiosity and anxiety at a peak, he slammed his oven mitts down and strode out to the hall. With one hand on the newel post he craned his neck up the stairs.
***
‘We’d better go eat,’ said Tara, patting the invisible object around Willow’s neck.
‘Mmm, c’mon,’ Willow took Tara’s hand and led her out through the bedroom door as a slightly exasperated voice came floating up the stairs.
‘Mrs and Mrs Rosenberg-Maclay, dinner is bloody well served!’