Coulda. Woulda. Shoulda - Chapter 176 - 01/27/14 - COMPLETE

[Katharyn]

Everyone must be on an Easter break Don't blame me if you have a lot to catch up on

Azirahael - We always think of Oz being close to NZ but it's thousands of miles isn't it? I mean it's closer than here but... LOL. Tentative plans to head down to that part of the world for my 40th in a few years... I don't like mega-heat so it may have to be NZ LOL

As for killer grass? There's a movie there, I'm sure... "It grew at millimeters every day. Every. Single. Day. It was coming for them."

LOL

Iceland, also supposed to be lovely though hella long way for you to go since (I understand) Iceland's a place to go for a few days! Got your own ice down south...

Anywho, enjoy yourself down there and don't let the grass get you.

Next part up in just a moment.

Katharyn.

[Katharyn]

Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Bonus Chapter – Team Building Part 1 of 2
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: An interlude into the decision behind what to call the respective teams. Part 1 of 2
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: Okay, so this and the part that follows it are ‘bonus’ chapters, as we’ve had before. This means that they may not actually occur at the very moment that I post them chronologically but in these cases, probably closer than some of the others. However, the results of these are sort of bound up in what will follow so I will be amending chapters that follow them slightly.
You should read them though with some latitude as to the continuity but mostly these are 'bonus' chapters because I couldn't be bothered incrementing the part numbers for the next 90 parts or so so I could insert them...
These two came to being thinking about the names A Team and B Team and what anyone would rather be. Some chapters commented on this already and more probably will too, however I thought I’d go back and actually address it. Because hey, it’s fun and it adds to the togetherness (and rivalry) of them all.
Thanks to: You readers who allow me to keep indulging myself this way and adding new parts! You said you didn’t mind things that stepped out of the plot, well this well and truly does that. Also, it’s likely to be the last addition to the story that I make in this way with my self-imposed 12 writing months I’ve given to this story (though because of posting sequence you will see another later that I wrote earlier… Doctor Who never had this problem…) Back to the revision of the ending for me now!




“Okay, not to downplay your feelings on this, b-but I – I really have to ask. Do we really think this matters?” Tara asked. She was hoping that the answer would reflect the spirit of the question.

In that regard, the answer was going to be a let-down. She could just tell.

“Actually, I think that it does.”

She’d been appealing to Giles as the voice of reason in all this and now… he was right there with the others in terms of thinking it was something that had to be decided? What was wrong with that picture? When everyone else – including the most reasonable Englishman she knew – was against you, it did make you wonder whether it was well… you.

Me.

And Anya… Anya was on her side.

Which really didn’t help.

Much.

“You’re not possessed are you?” Anya asked him. As the ex-demon had said, several times, she really didn’t care. And it wasn’t that Anya actually agreed with her so much as she didn’t think it was something that had to matter. More of an ‘enemy of my enemy is – oh I can’t be bothered’ type of situation.

It shouldn’t matter, Anya was right about that. It really shouldn’t.

In fact, the whole debate – and at times an argument – had blown up over something that wasn’t even real. It has started out as nothing more than a shorthand. A little joke. Who’d have thought it would come this far?

Who’d have thought there would’ve been an actual argument?

Giles took a moment before replying to Anya’s question. “No, however I do feel that there’s a question of status and seniority here that really ought to be addressed.”

“But no logic?” Ethan asked. “Eh, old man?”

“Don’t you start,” Tara groaned. “You don’t even want to be a part of it!”

“True, but never let it be said that I’d abandon a pretty lady in her hour of need,” he replied.

“And Faith’s the pretty lady, right?” she checked, deflecting too. She didn’t need him hitting on her, not even – not for any reason.

“Of course,” he replied. “Attractive as you are, my dear, lost causes don’t suit me and I rarely stick with them.”

Thank goodness for lost causes then. And she thought that perhaps Willow had said as much, under her breath.

The fact that Faith hadn’t yet labelled his pursuit of her a ‘lost cause’ just went to show that there were stranger things in heaven and earth than you ever, ever, ever wanted to think about too deeply.

The Slayer didn’t react to his flattery now though, mostly because she was too caught up in what they were talking about.

Which was new.

“It seems obvious to me, Buffy begins with a B so these guys should be the B team,” Faith said. “I’ve been saying it since day one. Calling her that. Right, B?”

“We’re the A Team because we were the first – what are you lot anyway? The F Team?” Buffy questioned all too logically.

“Whatever we are, we’re not the B Team,” Faith insisted and Tara could tell that the whole thing was about to degenerate again. Actually, she wouldn’t have minded the ‘F Team’. Willow would probably have had an interesting interpretation of what ‘F’ could stand for…

And – if she was lucky – have shown her where her part in that was. Cos… girlfriends as hot as Willow did that.

But… This was one of the few times they’d got everyone in the same room at the same time in ages and what? Now they were bickering about what to call themselves? At least no one – especially the two Slayers – had come to blows.

Not physically anyway.

“Or maybe we shouldn’t have teams?” Anya suggested.

“That’s right,” Tara said, grateful to her friend for that suggestion, “maybe we shouldn’t have teams. Maybe we just... I don’t know, maybe we just mix it up as much as we need to.”

“No way! Part of what makes us successful,” Willow said, “is that we all know each other so well. But you can totally join our team whenever you like, baby.” A blown kiss wended it’s way over to her too.

Funny, I thought I already had. But Team Willow had a membership of two and both slots were taken.

And there was something she never wanted to say out loud. At least not to anyone who didn’t have slot privileges.

Ahem.

“So it’s really just me you don’t want?” Faith challenged.

“No, it’s him I don’t want,” Willow said, gesturing at Ethan. “We’ve got the best old English guy already.”

“Hey!”

“Sorry,” Willow said to Giles. “But we do and you are.”

“I suppose it’s alright, I am… older than the rest of you and certainly English,” Giles said. “So by any objective standards, we should be the A team.”

Xander grinned, he’d been grinning since it first came up. “I’m sorry, I still think that’s just so cool. We could build guns out of drainpipes to shoot cabbages and… maybe not because that wouldn’t do much to vampires – unless there are demons that go ‘poof’ when they’re hit by a cabbage. Do those exist?”

The room just took a moment to deal with that.

“Really?” Faith challenged. “By any standards?”

“Any standards,” Giles reiterated, but he had the decency to sound embarrassed by his teammates suggestion.

“Do I need to remind you lot just who rescued the boy who can lick his own balls?” Faith asked. “While y’all were just locked in an office waiting to clobber the first person through the door, even though that was us?”

“That’s a good point,” Anya said, seemingly volunteering to keep score. She just loved a good argument, so long as she was only watching.

“And,” Ethan said, “went down into the belly of the beast a second time to help out with the cyborg threat? Hmm?”

“We were there too,” Buffy protested.

“A point each, perhaps?” Anya suggested.

“Honey, don’t you want me to be on the best team?” Xander asked her.

Anya considered that for a moment, looked at her fingers where she’d been counting and then said, apologetically. “I’m sorry, Tara. I know that you want to be my friend but... I have sex with him. I don’t have sex with you or Faith. Yay, go Team Buffy!”

“Aha!” Ethan cried.

“What?”

“She said ‘Team Buffy’. Team B. B Team,” Ethan pointed out.

“Here first, first letter of the alphabet. A. Team A,” Giles countered. “As in Alpha. As in original and – if I may say so – best. No offence to all those of you who have nobly supported our efforts and done your very... best.”

“No offence taken,” Tara promised, “you were here first.” She didn’t want this battle, even if some part of her – the part that remembered Daddy’s lessons – said that actually, this wasn’t entirely a ‘bad thing’. Building identity and camaraderie was good, right? The thing was, couldn’t they do that so they were all on the same team?

“As in old,” Faith said. “And new is always better, it’s the American way, baby. I mean, look at me and B. New is always better.”

“In point of fact, I’m younger than Ethan,” Giles pointed out, before Buffy could take offence at Faiths suggestion.

“I’ve told you before, old man, you’re only as old as the person you’re feeling and I’ve been very spry since I arrived here.” For some reason Tara chose not to contemplate, Ethan was looking right at Faith when he said that. As far as she knew, Ethan wasn’t – and hadn’t been - ‘feeling’ the Slayer.

Yet…

But not for want of trying.

If Faith said ‘yes’ though, it’d probably scare the pants off him. The things she could do that no one else he’d pursued could… Eep.

On the other hand there were reputedly plenty of other young ladies that he had been charming into his bed. She just hoped that the ‘charming’ hadn’t involved any actual – magical - charms. Because... No, he wouldn’t do that. It wasn’t who he was. He wasn’t a ‘bad guy’, just a chaotic one.

“You’ve accomplished a lot,” Tara said, trying to keep the thread going. Trying to keep ‘her’ team respectful and agreeable. If there had to be a team she didn’t think she was going to be very comfortable if it was a boastful and combative one. At least not combative against their own friends and counterparts.

“Sure. Before we were around,” Faith pointed out.

“Or – or – Giles, help me, what’s that word I’m looking for?” Buffy asked almost desperately. “Those words you use, when you’re telling us something went well even though it shouldn’t have?

“Or in spite of you?” Giles suggested.

“That’s right, that’s what I meant,” Buffy confirmed. “We did well ‘in spite’ of you too, F.”

“Or – here’s an idea - why don’t we just pick other names?” Tara sighed. “If we have to have team names at all?” She was looking to her girlfriend for help. That was the sort of thing Willow should be doing with her. They were a team in their own right and they should be working together to keep the other teams in line with each other.

Right?

“What other names?”

And now everyone was looking at her, expecting her to come up with some sort of answer right off the cuff. What to say?

Spontaneous creativity under pressure? Not traditionally her thing.

A and B were causing problems. One and two would be no different. Colours were fraught with favourites and gender stereotypes and while she and Willow might be team pink or team rainbow, she couldn’t see the others going for that.

What then? Flowers? Roses perhaps? No, the boys wouldn’t like that either.

So…animals? Who’d want to be team dog? Or team cat, with the obvious connotations involved there. Anything involving creepy crawlies or insects was out and ‘snake’ probably would be subject to all sorts of innuendo on the one hand or presumptions about what that meant on the other.

“Umm, how about Team One and Team Alpha. Then both are first?” She looked around hopefully and at least she’d made them think…

“I’m not sure I like that,” Willow said.

Tara could’ve spanked her. Of course Willow would’ve enjoyed that so as punishments went it was a bit of a non-starter. But still, she really could’ve. It’d seemed like a perfectly good solution to level things out.

“Why?” Buffy asked.

Great. So Buffy would’ve gone for it but now Willow had found a reason not to? Someone was going to have to be very apologetic tonight. Very apologetic. And actions really did speak louder than words.

Of course, she wouldn’t put it past her girlfriend to count on that and be stirring this up just so she could be apologetic. Willow could be quite devious when she wanted to be. Always finding new ways to ‘make it up to her’ which frequently involved more ‘down’ than ‘up’ and… my girlfriend’s a giver.

“Well, it’s like bringing us down to their level,” Willow said.

“Or maybe it’s bringing us up to yours, Red,” Faith countered. “Right? Did I mean that?”

Probably not, Tara considered.

“Absolutely,” Ethan said, his eyes fixed on the Slayer’s rear so he wasn’t paying enough attention.

“I love you, baby, I do. But your team hasn’t proven itself - ” Willow said. “Wait – I haven’t finished. Over a long period of time. You’ve made great starts, but… proving yourself – as a team and not a bunch of individuals – I just don’t think you’ve earned that kind of promotion yet.”

“You really want me to prove myself?” Faith asked, verging on being confrontational.

“Not you, the team,” Willow explained, as if talking to a child.

“I could kick your ass. How would that be?”

“Well, duh.”

“Not mine though,” Buffy said. “You tried kicking Willow’s ass and I’d have to kick yours.”

Faith looked at her. Tara shrugged. She didn’t want any part of any of this but… yeah, they were her team. It just seemed to have happened. Everyone had divided into the old and the new and she was the bridge between the two camps. She had a foot in both or – as Faith had insinuated without the actual ‘insinuation’ – a finger in both.

How little she knew if she thought their ambitions – and accomplishments – were limited to just a finger. But… that was a thought for another time.

“Nobody is kicking anyone’s ass,” Tara said firmly.

“Why not?” Anya asked. “Maybe that’s the way to settle it?”

“What do you mean?” Buffy asked her.

“A competition. A team competition if you like. When I was a demon I often had people compete for survival, to keep their body parts intact or to win the handsome prince. You know, the usual sorts of things. But this time, you could compete for the right to pick the team name. Maybe to pick the name for the other team.”

“Why not settle it?” Eddie volunteered, breaking his silence as he ran his finger over the back of his girlfriend’s hand, lightening her mood.

Tara hadn’t actually noticed it until that moment but the group had – as they’d been talking – gradually split into two distinct camps. She was kind of left stranded in the middle, but with Faith and Ethan closer to her than Buffy, Giles and even Willow.

Was this the only way to settle it? Looking around, she thought… Maybe.

It might even be good for all of them, get some of this rivalry out of their systems and it wasn’t like they had anything else to worry about.

Daddy and his stories about esprit de corps… Fine.

“Well… Okay.”

-----------------------

“Mmm,” Willow said, “I just loved how you were today.”

“Really?” Tara asked, “I couldn’t tell.”

“Oh, baby, you can’t hold that against me. They’re my friends, and you’re my girlfriend and we agreed that we’d never compromise who we were just because we were madly in love and sleeping together and doing the sexy thing as often as we could.”

Actually, she thought that was the very essence of being a couple. You found comfortable place that suited you both, but you did it while keeping your own opinions and views.

“I did say that, didn’t I?”

“You did. And I thought you were really calm and thoughtful and you could’ve knocked me down with a feather when you said we could have the competition.”

Of course, Tara could do anything she wanted with a feather. In fact, it was something she’d already put to her girlfriend as an… option.

“You – we – We were all competing, anyway, kind of,” Tara said. She’d already admitted that she’d been a little riled when they suggested that ‘her’ team wasn’t worth as much. It seemed to have worried her too. “I thought maybe we needed to get this out of all our systems. You know, before the next crisis comes along.”

Yes… they had already been warned of one. But… different priorities for right now. “Come to bed and tell me more,” Willow said. Throwing back the covers while Tara hung up her clothes.

“Tell you more about what?”

“Well… what you thought. Or maybe how it’s going to go?” The competition was set for tomorrow morning, twenty four hours after the challenge had been set, but no one had yet announced how it was going to be ‘fought’.

Of course Tara, as the one who hadn’t really wanted this at all and the one who was trusted to be impartial had to be the one to set things up. Ethan simply wouldn’t accept that of Giles and there were really no other candidates, so… Tara was the one who was empowered to set the challenge.

Or challenges.

And Tara had already been gone for hours, arranging… what?

How was it going to work? How Tara was going to make everyone admit it was fair and go through with it? Enquiring minds wanted to know.

“Anya was right!” Tara said.

“She was? What about?” It seemed unlikely… but hey, anything was possible.

“You! My girlfriend and you’re - you’re trying to wheedle information from me.”

“Am not!”

“Are too! I’m sure you’d have wheedled me a lot more too, if I hadn’t caught you at it.”

Tara got into bed beside her despite her misgivings about that and – fortunately – didn’t turn her back. Was she serious about this? Was she really going to not say anything?

“I’m really not trying to wheedle anything from you, but if you want me to wheedle, I’d be happy to try… Any. Way. You. Want.” There, she’d turned it into a joke.

“I’m wise to your ways, oh siren,” Tara said.

“I don’t see no rocks in this bed,” Willow countered. Couldn’t be a siren without rocks to lure ships – in this case Tara – onto. Of course Tara being stranded with her anywhere… not entirely a bad thing. She’d be a siren without malice if she was going to be one. A loved up siren too. “And you know I can’t sing for toffee either.”

“What if it’s not your song that lures me,” Tara told her.

“Oh. Well, good. So… you can be lured?” She made play of trying to appear sexy and coquettish, but perhaps that was let down by the cow-print pyjamas? Certainly it would’ve been easier in a nightdress like Tara’s. Somehow though, this was just more how she was feeling.

Cow print.

“Sweetie, you know I can be lured, but not tonight.”

“Really?” She played with the button, as if it might just… sprung open. All on its own. As buttons did in these circumstances. She didn’t have much of a bosom, but she could definitely make it heave if she had to.

She’d been practising with the heaving bosom.

“I promised,” Tara told her.

“Did you promise you wouldn’t sleep with me? Really? Because, honey, we’re about to break that rule.”

“Not exactly…” Tara said, which led to her to believe that the promise had probably been to Faith and in that case… ‘sleep’ probably wouldn’t have come into what she’d guaranteed. Not even as a euphemism.

“Go on…”

“No.”

“You can tell me what you promised, at least? Right? Did she swear you to secrecy about that?”

“Well… no.”

“So?”

“It’s just not – you know how Faith is, the way she talks.”

She nodded. “Of course I know, but… you must agree with her. You must think that I’d take anything you shared with me in the heights of passion and use it to compete against you. And baby, that just hurts.”

Hurt in a playful way…

“No,” Tara pointed out. “It will hurt, if I give you an advantage.”

“She threatened you?” Faith would do that? Tara would let her?

“Not in so many words…” Tara hedged.

Closer but not yet quite there. She was talking though and that was good, that would get them closer to the rocks. Cos, those sirens, they were damned sexy minxes… right?

“I want to know, I don’t care if you have to have potty mouth. I want to know what she said.” All part of the plan…

“Well,” Tara started, “first she said that if there were any loose lips, they better be not be any talking going on.”

“Uhuh, and then?”

“Then she kind of said that if we were – you know, doing anything – then my mouth had better be fully occupied.”

“She really thought - ”

“Obviously she was right too,” Tara said, looking down at where she was doing her best to make her bosom heave. “So... Tonight we’re not. And I’m not saying anything and you don’t get any unfair advantage.”

Willow considered that. “And if I said that I was happy to… oh, I don’t know… try something new?” Not that there was anything wrong with the ‘old’ but they did have that list of things to explore. They were making slow progress with it and not because it wasn’t great, but sometimes things were so good there was no need to move on too quickly.

And some things required additional… testing. Just to make sure they were doing them right. Or doing each other right, sometimes.

“First of all I’d say that if you’re willing to try something different before the contest you’d be willing to try something after it too. I know you, love. Once it’s in your head… it has to come out.”

“I was definitely thinking about ‘in’,” she pointed out. That next item on the list – not that they had to go in order – had been tantalising her for a while.

Lists were… cool.

“Whatever, but second of all I’d have to tell you that while I’m happy to, umm, work our way down the list together, I don’t need anything more than we have – do – or whatever, anything more than now.”

Which was sweet and lovely in a way but didn’t help her get to what she needed to know, did it?

Her seductive wiles had failed her, which just went to show that they weren’t all that, and that up to now Tara hadn’t needed to be seduced. And that was something she was kind of cool with. Very cool, actually. Tara hadn’t been seduced, she was just naturally hot for her.

Every. Single. Time.

Way to make me feel like the sexiest girl in the world, love. And… because I do, I could really do with some of the sexy… Now.

So… logic? “Actually, it’s not really an unfair advantage you’d be giving me,” she said. “You’d know on your side and I’d know on mine. That’s even and fair.”

“But I’m the one they expected to be impartial, people trust me. I’m not going to risk that just for a wild night of passion with a beautiful woman,” Tara said, though she was wavering in how reasonable she was managing to sound.

“Maybe you should’ve been a secret agent!” Willow said. “You know, if you can keep your mind on the job in the face of a woman as beautiful as me.”

“Maybe I ama secret agent,” Tara said. “Did you ever think about that?”

Miss Kitty chose that moment to leap up onto the bed and stand on Tara’s butt – covered by the bedding – looking at them both curiously. ‘What ya doin?’

“What’s she? Your sidekick?”

“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

“With love, though, right?” She could think of a few ways Tara could kill her with love. Wind her up until it was just too much… Deprive her of breath in alluring ways. All in all, if you had to go, there’d be worse options. Much worse options, and she’d unfortunately seen a lot of them so she had context.

“Oh, naturally with love.”

“Naturally and with love?” she wondered. “Or naturally it’d be with love?”

“Umm, the latter – but can we not talk about it?”

“Okay, double-oh-five.”

“Five?” Tara wondered.

“You know, because of you liking – umm – well… five - ”

Miss Kitty was the one to interrupt, mewling for attention. But Tara probably would’ve stopped her too. She liked to do it more than she liked to talk about it. Which was fine, you didn’t have to talk about everything. Even as a couple. Not if you were enjoying yourself without the words. There was a lot of the ‘good girl’ in both of them, even though they were stretching the boundaries of the term by failing to recognise any ‘bad’.

“Aww,” Willow said. “No one’s paying attention to you either?”

Tara rolled her eyes, not really liking Miss Kitty to be on the bed when they were about to sleep in it, even though she was here all day when they were out and did whatever she liked (fortunately use of the litter had been quickly learned). It was just one of Tara’s things though.

But it was Tara’s thing and she was quite happy to pull their young cat over (because she was the one who got to stand on Tara’s butt if anyone did) and give her some attention. This was what the hand sanitizer by the bed was for. Going from one kitty to another…

“I think she wants to join the competition,” she said. “Don’t you, diddums? Yes, let me at that nasty Slayer!”

“You shouldn’t call Buffy that,” Tara said, deliberately misinterpreting her and choosing to prolong the word games.

“I didn’t call Buffy that.”

“Well, what makes you think Miss Kitty would be on your side anyway?”

“It’s obvious,” Willow said, trying to think of what made it so.

“Oh?”

Damn, Tara was just going to call her on that and get her to explain?

“Well, she’s A Team material. And only has a bit of a nip habit. Unlike all the things Faith’s addicted to.”

“I agree, she is A Team material,” Tara conceded. “Which is why she should be with me. Also, she’s always lived with me and she was my idea and even though she’s yours too – when she picks a team, it’ll be mine.”

“Standing on your butt isn’t picking a team,” Willow said. “High School would’ve been very different if that was how things were done.” Not to mention the other things they’d gotten up to in this bed.

“Okay, maybe not, but… Hey, what’s ‘a bit of a habit’ got to do with it anyway?” Tara asked.

“Well everyone on the B Team, your team, is seriously addicted to something,” Willow said. “She really wouldn’t fit in with you guys.”

“Oh? Please, sweetie, tell me more about out addictions?”

“Ethan’s addicted to young woman, inappropriately young for his age even if they’re legally kosher. Oh, and chaos too – let’s not forget that. Faith’s addicted to – well, we all know what Faith’s addicted to and you… you’re addicted to me. You can’t get enough of me.”

“Oh, really?”

“Really. But Miss Kitty… She’s only had a few tastes of nip. We’ve watched her go crazy and everyone had a good time but she can take it or leave it. So she’s… on my side.”

“At least you’re calling it your side instead of the ‘A Team’ which is my side. At least as of tomorrow.”

“I thought,” Willow observed, “you were the neutral who didn’t care.”

“I didn’t, until you bought into it so much,” Tara told her.

Have I made a monster? A monster who knows all the rules in advance?

“As for Miss Kitty,” Tara continued. “Shoo.”

Their cat took the hint and made her own way, almost perfectly down the line between them on the bed. Not making any favourites by her passage. Traitor. I offered you a slot on the A team and… Well, you’re the only pussy that refused me in this bed.

Yeah, she had to grin when she thought of that.

“So… did you want rid of her for a reason?” she wondered idly, perhaps there was still a way to get a clue – which was what all of this had been about.

“Yes. Because we both need our sleep.”

“Oh… So there was no other reason?”

“No. Just sleep.”

“Because tomorrow’s going to be quite a battle?” she tried. Could she at least get that much? A Yes or a No?

“Yes. Yes it is.”

*********************

[Azirahael]

Kangaroo powered Dibs !
I like that the thing are having so much fun with this.
It shows how far they've come that they are squabbling about this, but rather than really fighting about something else.

And yeah, I there's something about Tara that you'd think, 'yup, and she'll actually be impartial', unlike everyone else


And while I love these side stories, i can't wait to see how it goes down with Glory, and now that there's an entire second scooby team to back them up.

I just hope Ethan doesn't start worshipping her.
He seems to have a thing for powerful women.
And she's pretty damned chaotic.
Stay strong Ethan!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the competition.
Do we get to vote on the team names? Or have you got them already?

R

[Katharyn]

You got your dibs to be Kangaroo powered? Well, there is a bouncing thing, Azirahael

I do regret, in a way, packing so much 'fluff' into the summer. Partly because I wanted to write the ideas I was given and put them somewhere and summer was the best option. So while I happy with the parts themselves and also the general flow, it's one of those fanfic vs novel things. You'd never do this in a novel. So I get what you mean about wanting S5. I want that too because I want to see the reaction(s)...

As to this part, yeah... Someone asked about the names and so I just had to do this.

Ethan and Glory... interesting point, though he has his Goddess... One that is actually easier on him than I can see Glory being! True though, she is very chaotic. Hmm, good point...

Team names? Hmm, ask me after the next part. I am always open to suggestions. There will be a winner in that part, but not necessarily a choice on the names... It's a bonus part so I'm not overly editing into into the future. But occasional references... sure.

Thanks for your Kangaroo powered support! At least you found internet on your vacation!

Katharyn

[Azirahael]

Having dealt with this exact silliness before, the usual story is to name them after colours or animals.
I was thinking cat team For Tara, because of miss kitty, and and dog team for Willow/ A team, because she's more of a dog person.
Or gold team and black team.

Or team leather and team lace.
The Iook on Tara's face whenever discovers she's on team leather, or Xander when he discovers he's on team lace would be priceless.


And the arguments should be something to see.
See ya soon!

R

[Katharyn]

I do like leather and lace... (as story options! Oh... wait, no, not just as story options...)

Like I said, come back after the next part which is... oh, now.

Thanks
Katharyn

[Katharyn]

Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Bonus Chapter – Team Building Part 2 of 2
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 day of the competition…
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: You may have to live with the implausibility of Annie setting all this up – overnight - without either knowing all of the Scoobies that well or without any help, but hey… she’s a good friend and resourceful with it. I meant to set up how resourceful she really was a long time ago, knowing this day would come. Honest! (Not really!)
However, I did reference the fact that she had a little help from Tara – who is trusted to be fair and independent by all. Also, I wanted to make sure that Annie came back into the story in some way because I hate to forget about characters. Talking of which, in the first draft I didn’t include Eddie in this. I’ve inserted a few mentions of him here just to make clear that he is involved and still with Buffy! (Also, some suspicious people – you know who you are – may have thought that I Sidestepped him, AKA introduced him to the dead pool AKA killed him. Just because I’m occasionally known to do that. It’s an unfair reputation! I didn’t do it, I tell ya! I’m innocent! (Well, maybe not ‘innocent’… but I certainly didn’t do that!)
Thanks to: Wikipedia, that’s just been feeding me (possibly bogus) info for future (non-W&T) novel ideas… Whether anything that will come from it? Who can say… but it’s fun to speculate and have the ideas. Lord knows, we don’t write because we like typing and staring at screens for hours at a time  MS Word is my friend…




“Ladies and gentlemen! Well… boys and – what do you call men who aren’t gentlemen?” Anya asked.

“Men?” Tara suggested, wondering what – or who - Anya was getting at and just why she wouldn’t want to call her guy a ‘man’? Or did she just mean the two Englishmen and Eddie – the latter of whom was watching from the side-lines.

Ready to cheer his girl on.

While my girl is competing against me. Funny, I really do think it’s better this way.

“Oh. Right.”

Anya started again. “Ladies and Men. Welcome to the first - ”

“And only,” Faith insisted. “We’re settling this once, no rematches.”

“Welcome to the first and only – umm – what are we calling this?” Anya asked.

“Competition to decide on naming rights?” Giles chipped in just as helpfully.

“You need to be catchier! Sheesh. It’s all about branding! Who announces something like that? No, this is the first and only ‘Title Match’!” Anya beamed, pleased with herself for having thought of that and expecting them to join in with their congratulations.

“Well done,” Xander told his girlfriend. “That’s very good, honey.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. “And I thought you announced it very well too.”

Anya frowned, obviously seeing through his praise. “Oh no, don’t try and get around me, Mister. I told you what I’d do if you’re on the winning team. But I’m not doing it otherwise. At least I’m not doing it tonight.”

Seeing and accepting that, Xander appeared to find his motivation. Squaring up against… No one really. An Englishman, a witch and a Slayer on each side. But their opponents side had… well, Faith liked to call him ‘the idiot’. Others had considered the merits of ‘the fool’ since they had a classical goddess in the area. She didn’t think that was very fair either but… he was rather at a loose end when he insisted on lining up with the others.

He was part of the teams though, the one man advantage that the old timers had brought to the party. As was their prerogative.

As for the venue, one of Sunnydale’s parks – conspicuously far from the Hellmouth even though it was nearer noon than midnight. That hadn’t been the reason for the decision, but it’d help keep everyone’s mind off what else they usually did in places like this.

There’d be no slaying involved. That was pretty much the only rule everyone had agreed on.

Apart from the location, mostly she’d picked this park because she knew it was equipped with everything they’d need to make this into a fair competition. One that she’d tried very hard not to load in anyone’s favour and that aspect had required Annie’s help. Yes, so no matter how much Willow had wheedled her – wheedling had been inevitable - some of the details were unclear even to her. It was her friend who’d sorted them out on very short notice.

Maybe, she’d mused late last night after the wheedling, she should’ve asked Eddie to help Annie out. He was a fair minded kind of person too. He’d have done the right thing and wasn’t, actually, competing in this for either team. Buffy’s boyfriend was more like… moral support.

‘Not everyone has to kill vampires,’ Buffy had reassured him earlier when they’d been on their way to the park.

She was aware they’d all been surprised not to be in a gym somewhere where the Slayers could beat each other to a padded pulp or something… No. That wasn’t what she had in mind at all. Well, it hadn’t been a part of the brief to Annie… whether or not her friend had figured out more than she’d actually been told?

They’d have to see.

Also in the brief, it had to be the middle of the day (no one had wanted to get out of bed except Ethan who’d been keener to get someone else out of his bed) and so they weren’t going to be doing a competitive vampire hunt either.

That had been another thought some of the others had. Who could bag the most? Which team deserved to be the champions? Well, that was all fine and everything, but it’d be more about who got which cemetery or – even worse – who put themselves in the most danger.

Staying out of danger was another firm rule for this competition. One of the biggies.

Even if… The thing was… she didn’t actually know – exactly - what they’d be doing. Guessing? Sure, Annie had asked for and needed her help so, yes, she’d helped with a securing a few things so she had an idea what could be happening but… Not all of it. Not by any means.

And she’d refused to answer any questions when her friend had asked what they were trying to prove. All Annie had been told was something that tested brains, brawn and working together. Oh, and any tricksiness she wanted to include was just fine.

With a smidge of the impossible, if she could manage it. Something for the witches to have a go at if they wanted to. But since Annie didn’t know anything about witches, vampires, Slayers or any of that – no matter what she might suspect as a temporary resident of Sunnydale – it was the element she was expecting least of. This wasn’t going to be a competition requiring magic.

Though it was unlikely to be explicitly banned either.

Annie couldn’t ban what she didn’t know existed. And the same applied for super strength, remarkably agility, ritualistic expertise and – in Willow’s case – unique hotness.

None of those things would probably be included in the rules. Waving her smiling friend over, she started the process of deciding what they’d be called as mini-collectives. As everyone had made clear, this was important. “Thanks, Anya. Now, you all know Annie?”

While everyone else said ‘hi’, Ethan decided he’d better introduce himself properly because college girls were probably half the reason he was still in Sunnydale. “Hello, I’m Ethan Rayne and yes, it’s an English accent.”

Annie rolled her eyes; she’d already been warned about Ethan. Ethan though the man was on her team, she’d thought it was only fair. Not that – unlike Faith – Annie seemed willing to give him any hint of encouragement. The Slayer preferred to keep him in the chase while not actually giving him a sniff of what he wanted.

Well, not much of a sniff.

Or much more of a sniff.

It was a game the two of them played and neither of them showed any pretence of keeping whatever they had in their pants when it came to other people but still… It was something that she really just didn’t understand. But then not everyone could find and fall in love with someone as wonderful as Willow.

Willow who was her rival today.

Must be fierce. GRR!

“Okay,” Annie started. “Thanks – and hi, again. I’m not really sure why we’re here or why I’m doing this but it’s a nice day and what else was I going to do? So Tara told me that you guys have something to settle. And I was told that to keep things neutral, you needed someone to set the challenges so you could decide who – won, I guess. I wasn’t really told all that much.”

Nods all around as everyone looked across at their counterpart. Buffy versus Faith. Giles versus Ethan. Those were established rivalries with plenty of bite behind them.

She and Willow? That was new… It might be the first time they’d competed over something. At least something that wasn’t for fun – intimate fun…

Which left Xander and… Miss Kitty.

This far into the heart of the park – far from any roads – they’d decided that Miss Kitty could get to experience the world a little more. She had a bell on her collar – which was driving her to distraction even though all she’d stalked so far was flowers - and Annie and Eddie were going to keep an eye on her. But after frolicking around in the new, wild, open air, Miss Kitty had paused to wash her whiskers and in doing so pretty much lined herself up opposite Xander for the Maclay/Rayne/Lehane team.

Soon to be the ‘A team’, she hoped.

She really didn’t mind who was called what, and that was the truth. But she had to admit – even if just to herself – that being with Willow and having all these friends, had brought out another side of her. A side that said if there absolutely had to be a winning team and a losing team then she needed to be on the victorious one.

Just for once.

And she’d been first pick for her team too – because everyone else had arrayed themselves around her. That, also, was new.

There wouldn’t even have been a team if it hadn’t been for Faith’s continued presence in town, but… Well, here Faith was and Miss Lehane was looking to her for leadership. Looking to her for the win. How could she betray that trust after everything she’d said? So, yes, she’d do her part. For all of them, in a way. This was a way to help Faith.

And there’d be the kicking of someone’s metaphorical ass… She wanted to see what that was like. Spanking a more literal ass, it just wasn’t the same.

Or so Anya said…

“So here it is,” Annie said, taking in the apparent match ups and the animosity that existed between some of them. Not as serious as it once had been, but it’d probably be good to get it worked off, right? Daddy would’ve said ‘yes’ but then this wasn’t the Marines. This was about as far from the Marines as you could get aside from the fact they weren’t so far from the ocean. Still, his methods…

Or could this all just make things worse? She had worried about that possibility.

What if they fractured – after all their successes together – and over a name that didn’t even matter? Perhaps not mattering was what made this so important though? Better to sort it all out before something that did matter came up?

May the best team win and all that. Just so long as it was hers.

“Here’s what I was told – I hope you all like it. But not too much.” Everyone laughed at Annie’s joke, but it was nervous laughter. They were taking this that seriously.

“Mental. Physical. Chance and intelligence tests. With a dash of… the impossible. Because, for some reason, I was asked to include the impossible thing so… I tried but it didn’t seem like there was much point. Anyway - as teams - you will undertake the following tasks.

“Task number one. Hidden around the park there are a number of chess pieces. One player on each team - that you will select - will gather as many of them as you can find. You guys over there - ” Buffy’s team – “will be white and your pieces are on that side of the park. You guys will be black and your pieces are on this side. You have five minutes from when I say go to find as many as possible. Whatever you have at the end of five minutes you play with at that table there.” Annie point at the chess board built into the surface of a picnic table.

Some pieces were already there, but not many. Clever, so even if they didn’t find any they had a theoretical chance. Not much of one, maybe, but it’d still be a competition.

“What does the winner get?” Willow asked.

Annie frowned at being interrupted. Willow should’ve known not to do that. “The winner gets to join the rest of his or her team in completing the task they’ve been set. The losing player is eliminated from further competition. Oh, and this is speed chess. You make your move inside ten seconds or you forfeit. I’ll be watching the others, so I’ll have to ask you to police yourselves.”

Okay, Tara mused, that’s not great. The opposition had at least two chess players in Willow and Giles. She knew the moves, but she wasn’t a real player while Faith… umm, probably not. Ethan then?

“The rest of you, at the same time as all that is happening… You will see over by the trees that there are two sets of equipment. Planks, boxes and ropes. Take care, I had to… umm, borrow it. But none of you may touch the ground as you move from one end of the course to the other. Touch the ground and the whole team – and your gear - goes back to the beginning. Touch it five times and you lose a player.”

Looked like a physical as well as a mental challenge. The number of players per team was going to be a factor there, especially if they lost the chess.

We’re one player down from the start, Miss Kitty’s not… reliable in either of those tasks. She’d be better distracting the opposition with her cuteness.

“The winner, before anyone asks, gets to choose the weapons for a sparring session at the far end. Also, they get to rest until the other team catch up because you will both complete the course.”

“So we finish with sparring?”

“That’s right. Someone said that there’d be someone on each side who liked to… spar. I thought for a minute she meant like facials and massage treatments but… No. The winner is the first to get three touches with the weapon, kind of like fencing but without the bungee cord thing holding you back.”

“I’m cool with that,” Faith said. “You’ll come along, won’t you big boy?”

Ethan, suitably encouraged while everyone else was slightly grossed out, agreed.

“T?”

“It was my idea to ask Annie, I can’t back out now. So… you guys?”

“You won’t be calling us ‘you guys’ when we’re done,” Buffy replied.

“No,” Willow said. “We’ll be the ‘A team’.”

“Over my dead body, Red,” Faith said. “And someone watch the cat.”

Tara was just amazed she’d resisted the urge to go for the obvious joke. Faith must’ve been really focused on what she was about to do.

And that was good, because for once...

I really want to win

------------------------

“Do you want to do this?” Willow asked.

“Certainly, I’ve always been rather good at chess,” Giles told them.

“Good enough to beat their player?”

“We don’t know who their player will be though…”

She looked across at the little huddle that was formed around Tara while Miss Kitty gambolled around chasing some insect and then, caught it. Eww… now she was ripping into it. You kiss Momma with that mouth, kitty!

“Could be Tara, but I doubt it.”

“Does she play chess?” Giles asked speculatively.

“Probably, I mean, doesn’t every kid who wasn’t popular at school at least know the moves?”

“I wouldn’t know, I wasn’t unpopular when I was at school, I just became frightfully unhip once I’d graduated from university,” Giles said. “I think it’s more likely to be Ethan.”

“Because he’s English?” Buffy asked.

“Because what other use will he be? Certainly he’s not one for obstacle courses…” Giles said. “Rather too much like hard work for his taste.”

“And every good villain plays chess. It’s almost like a rule. Right?” She looked around, asking for opinions, though this really wasn’t helping them make their decision and that was eating into their time to find enough of the pieces to actually make this a contest. Or not.

The board itself was half populated. Nearly all the pawns and a couple of the bigger pieces on each side. The queen was missing from both, amongst other pieces. That’d be a huge advantage if the other team found it and they didn’t.

“We need to get on with this,” Buffy said. “Giles, you play. Beat his ass and then get back over and help us. Okay?”

“I could’ve done this,” Willow pointed out. “I could’ve beaten Ethan’s ass. Wait… that sounded wrong.”

“I know you could,” Buffy agreed with a smile. “But I’m hoping you can do something witchy for us and I don’t want to lose you if Ethan turns out to be some chess master or something.”

“But you don’t mind losing me?” Giles asked as he started on his scavenger hunt.

“Right now? No, I don’t. We’re in this to win it.”

“You should’ve asked Xander,” Anya said, just a little miffed as her boyfriend was already off examining the materials they had to cross the course. “He knows chess moves.”

------------------------

“Maybe they’ll ask the idiot?”

“Please don’t call him that,” Tara said, just a little testy. Faith and Ethan both had their own things to say about nearly everyone on the opposing team, but they were both especially disparaging about Xander.

Ethan for his intellectual shortcomings and Faith for… other shortcomings. Emphasis and short. Could be of stature. Could be of duration. Or both. But… Oh, that worked in another way too. Umm… she didn’t want to get into that. At all.

“You’re playing r-right?” she asked. “Chess, I mean?”

“Me?” Ethan asked.

“You’re British.”

“Checkers is really more my game. Though, I have to let you know now that we used to call it Draughts.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Really, we do. It’s draughts.”

“No, I mean about you - they’ll be putting Giles into this – or Willow.”

He shrugged. “What can I say? I had better uses for my time than playing chess. It really didn’t do much for the girls. And – again what can I say – I did.”

“I could play…” she suggested.

“Hell no,” Faith said. “We’re already a man down even if that man is the dumb-ass and I need you for the obstacle course. ‘Dumb-ass’ is okay, right?”

She was too worried to argue.

“Can’t you leap the course in a single bound?” Ethan asked, mocking Faith’s boundless self-confidence. But she was taking this seriously. She wanted to win. She intended to win.

And that meant she was willing to play with others.

What do you know? Maybe we’re actually becoming even more of a team?

Mission accomplished.

“Do you know the moves of chess?” Tara asked.

“Well, yes – but - .”

“Then you’ll do, get out there and find some pieces.”

“And then win,” Faith said.

“I can’t promise that,” Ethan told them.

“Try.”

“What’s my reward?”

“Come on,” Tara said.

-------------------------

“I’m sure what you’re doing is probably cheating,” Anya said.

Willow could’ve done without her providing a running commentary – almost always criticism - but no one had said that she couldn’t use magic to keep herself off the floor.

Technically no one had said that she couldn’t use magic to keep them all off the floor and just lift them over to the other side of the course. Explaining that away to Annie might’ve been a little tricky though. It was one thing admitting going to Wicca Group and Annie being aware that there was more to Sunnydale than the college brochures had suggested, but it was another thing entirely to be friends with real live witches.

And she didn’t have the right to ‘out’ Tara that way either. Why yes, she’s my girlfriend, we make love – a lot – and so we’re lesbians. Witches? Don’t be silly! Whoever heard of such a thing?

Using magic too much would’ve just led to an escalation by the other side. Tara was more than capable of matching – or surpassing – her. Usually more subtly too, so she was the one who’d end up with magical egg on her face. So she was just making sure that if she looked like she was going to fall then… she didn’t.

Magically.

Once or twice she’d extended the favour to Xander, but it seemed like he had a little more natural balance than she did. Perhaps because of all the positions Anya had put him in?

She clenched her teeth in the face of the girl’s criticism and then - “I’m not cheating, this isn’t against the rules and do you really want your boyfriend to be part of the B Team?”

Anya considered for about a second. “Yay. Go witch! You could levitate them all the way couldn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” she said, stealing another glance at Tara’s group. “If Tara was with me, sure. Together we can do lots of things but – if I did that, she’d know and she could do the same and she has less people to worry about than me.”

“You could leave Buffy behind?”

“Buffy needs to make it to the other side,” the Slayer said, “because Buffy needs to be the one to fight them. Okay?”

“Well, you’re not leaving Xander behind.”

“No one’s getting left behind,” Willow said. “This is good, we’re making good progress and we’re pretty much in the lead. I think.”

It was hard, complicated, work but they were into a rhythm now having figured out how to use the planks and other pieces to cross the ground, picking them up behind them and putting them down again. Everyone but Buffy was sweating though, while this was no more than a light workout for her.

“Oh! Look, Giles won!”

-------------------

“What the fuck was that?” Faith asked as Ethan ambled up to their group. He’d scooped up Miss Kitty on the way over and she was revelling in his scratching under her chin. Batting his hand to demand more of the exquisite attention.

Little whore that she was.

“I did my best.”

“You didn’t even try.”

“If you want to play games with me, Faith, there are some I’m much better at than chess. And the pieces are larger too.”

“After that performance?” Faith scoffed. “You’ll be lucky if I kick you in your special place.”

Just as they were building up some teamwork, this? At least they were all trying to win though. At least win something… “Keep moving,” she said. She was pleased by the fact that they’d figured out the best ways to proceed first. Only to be copied by the Willow and Buffy’s team. And then with fewer hands, it’d been hard work keeping up. Very hard work, her shirt was getting soaked and not in a good way.

“You’re not paying attention,” Ethan said, tinkling the bell on Miss Kitty’s collar. “Don’t you see I just did you a favour?”

“Oh, how’d you figure – no, T, there. Put it there.”

Once she’d laid the plank down, Faith threw over the next support and then jumped from the end of the plank over to it. A risky move that no one but a Slayer could’ve hoped to land and balance on every single time, but it was getting them back into the game. It was just that then she was the one who had to feed the plank over to Faith without it touching the ground… That was hard even with the rope to lower it down.

“Look at them,” Ethan said, nuzzling her cat. “They were already a man up on you, but now…”

Tara paused, glad of even a couple of moments to catch her breath. “There – Wait. Look! There are too many of them?”

“Uhuh. Me winning might have helped you, but Ripper? He can’t touch the ground, he has to stay on the same materials they already are using and…”

“They can’t pick them up without all huddling together.”

“That girl of yours is cheating, you know?” Faith pointed out.

She hadn’t wanted to say anything, but yes, she’d felt the pull of the magic from her lover. Just catching herself – and the others – if they looked like putting a foot down. She hadn’t needed to do that over here, hadn’t even thought of it until it was obvious what Willow was doing.

Over here, she was being careful and Faith was just good. Buffy too, probably, but she noticed it more with Faith now she was up close. The girl could probably balance on a quarter that was stood up on its edge. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but not much of one.

“Don’t worry about it, I could do the same if one of us fell,” she said. “Probably…”

“Fine. So you’re just going to stand there and watch?” Faith asked Ethan, momentarily losing her balance but then recovering as she leaned against the plank Tara was pushing her way.

“While you play games with a lesbian? Certainly. What else would I be doing?”

“Ha ha.”

“I could shout encouraging slogans, if you thought it would help?”

“Sure, why not? Oh – nice one, T.”

“Hmm,” Ethan said. “Let’s see. I hear that there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’.”

“Not now you’ve gotten yourself eliminated,” Faith quipped. “And don’t think I don’t know it’s about not ruining the shirt.”

“I wasn’t dressed for the occasion, it’s true.”

“You could’ve taken it off?” Faith suggested, manipulating the next plank like it was made out of paper and turning in place to lay it down over the block that she’d already thrown out there. Good aim, good judgment and plenty of strength.

“Please don’t,” Tara said.

“I would’ve, if I thought you’d appreciate it, dear lady,” Ethan told Faith, ignoring her request entirely.

“Oh, I usually find something to appreciate. If not, should’ve been good for a laugh.”

“Quite – how about this? ‘Go Team’!”

She rolled her eyes and then – when she almost fell off the plank, focused properly again. But she did risk a glance over at the others. While they had been well ahead, it seemed like she and Faith were catching them. “Well-oiled machine,” she murmured.

“Oil?” Faith asked. “Kinky… but sure, I’ll give you a massage, T. Wait until we’re done right?”

“Can I watch?” Ethan asked. “In the spirit of closer team work?”

“N-Not what I meant,” she told them.

“I’ve got strong hands,” Faith said. “You might’ve noticed.”

Both of them paused from their labours, looked at each other and then broke down laughing. Strong as Faith’s hands might be, massage clearly wasn’t going to be her thing. Also, those hands weren’t going to go the sorts of places that Willow’s would’ve. But as an idea, a massage for the winner?

That had… possibilities. After the rivalry of the morning, the re-connection of the evening? Willow might go for that – even if she lost. When Willow lost.

And Miss Kitty would probably be tired out too, so she wouldn’t be interrupting them either. As she’d taken to doing when one of them made a noise that was a little too high pitched. A young cat, standing on one of them and mewling her ‘What ya doin?’ had been cute the first few times, but felis interruptus wasn’t Willow’s favourite thing.

But first things first.

For now she was all about winning.

Ethan had been right. They were gaining now that the other team were inconvenienced more than helped by the addition of a new member. Had Annie known what she was doing when she made the winner of the chess game a potential liability?

Probably not, in other circumstances where they had a good chess player who was otherwise essential – like say Buffy or Faith – getting them back would’ve been invaluable. This way? Not so much. Giles wasn’t a great deal of help for the additional complexity that he introduced to their opponents movements.

Whether that had been Ethan’s calculation or he was just being lazy? Who could say? Either way it was working out for them. A bad position was turning into quite a good one.

“We can do this,” Faith grunted, hefting another plank over the next gap for her to traverse.

“Sure we can,” she said, feeling more nimble than she ever had – despite being tired. Practice was really making perfect and they’d had a lot of practice. Eighty percent of the gap they had to cross. More perhaps.

But it turned out that they really couldn’t close that distance right down and that was somewhat her fault. She had her part to play and the super strength of a Slayer couldn’t do everything for her. They were close, very, very close but the numbers of fresher people on the other team meant that they could rotate themselves, despite the lack of space it left them, and take it in turns to help Buffy with the lifting.

While her muscles were screaming at her that she wasn’t, in fact, a Slayer and they should stop asking her to be.

This wasn’t actually news to anyone.

But trying to play her part in doing what Faith did almost effortlessly? That was tough going. She hadn’t really drawn on any magic though, unlike Willow. Moral superiority was one thing, but it could actually be a lack of creativity that had seen her hold back from trying anything like that.

Or, maybe, she was just working too hard trying to keep up with Faith to concentrate on magic.

“Move it, witch!” Faith said, finally looking to actually be straining as they were so, so close… This ought to be the last cycle of movement, maybe one more, but the others – though they were level – were farther through the transition from one crossing to the next.

“Sorry - ”

“Shut up,” Faith hissed. “Don’t apologise. Win!”

Straining every sinew, she was pushing as much as she could but every time she glanced across she could see that actually… the others were going to win.

Which was when she spotted what was about to happen…

And she stopped and smiled.

“Tara!”

---------------------

“We’re going to win!” Willow said, handing off to Xander.

“Of course we’re going to win,” Xander said, only showing off a little as his girlfriend cheered him on. Looked like he was going to have the honour of being the one to –

“No!” she gasped, stopping dead when she realised what was about to happen.

“Come on, Willow,” he said.

“Move it, Will,” Buffy reinforced, slipping past her. “I know you don’t want Tara to lose but - ”

“No, it’s not that! Xander! No!”

But he was across the line, foot on the grass and…

“Winner!” Annie cried.

---------------------


“Fuck! I really wanted that sword.”

“No, really, don’t worry about it,” Tara said, lifting the plank one, last time.

“I should’ve jumped for it,” Faith said, blaming herself more than her partner. She knew the truth, but she wasn’t worried about it. If it hadn’t for the fact she’d lost a competition, she’d never seen Faith express anything less than complete confidence she could take Buffy down any time she wanted to.

“No, really… don’t worry about it. Look what happened. Look what actually happened.”

Xander had picked up the wooden training sword that Buffy would’ve wanted. It was a good match for the one that she’d seen Buffy sometimes used. But when he tried to give it to her, Annie stopped him. Pointed across at them.

At Faith.

And his face fell.

“Okay, what just happened?” Faith asked, confused by his reaction and what Annie was doing.

“He won. He was first and he chose a weapon. Not Buffy.” Tara gasped as they crossed the line with Faith in the lead. As it needed to be. She made absolutely sure of that. “Now he has to fight you.”

“Him?”

“Him.”

Suddenly losing the race didn’t seem to bother Faith nearly as much.

“Oh. That’s… just fine. Here boy!”

-------------------

“Get her away from me!” Xander screamed.

“Get back here, you chickenshit!”

Willow watched as her team mate ran from the field of battle with Faith in pursuit. Faith had only picked up her wooden sword and while Buffy tried to give him emergency pointers he broke down and… Ran. He couldn’t seriously think that he could get away from her could he? He really did know better than that, or he should do anyway.

And it wasn’t going to be a real beating… Umm, yeah. Faith. Maybe I’d have ran too.

“This really doesn’t prove anything, you know?”

Tara took her hand. “Oh, it does. It proves that we won.”

“How can you say that? Sweetie, you and Faith lost at everything!” she said, trying to make herself and the others feel better as much as to convince Tara.

“Uh-uh,” Tara replied, disagreeing. “Ethan decided it’d be too difficult to have more people on the planks, so he threw the game.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Well, maybe not, it is Ethan. But we caught you all up faster once Giles had come back to join you. We were only like a couple of feet behind you at the very end.”

Willow nodded, looking her girl in the eye. “I saw that, I was very impressed. You were totally keeping up with Faith.”

“Not really, I think she was slowing down for me.”

“No, I saw. You were keeping up with her and you… you got all sweaty and you were doing so much with your hands and your muscles… I couldn’t see your muscles but they must’ve been - ”

“Sweetie?” Tara asked.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t go there.”

“You mean ‘yet’ though, right?” she hoped. ‘Don’t go there yet’ was just fine.

“Yet.”

“We lost on a technicality,” Buffy said, coming over to watch Faith chasing Xander down.

“But, you still lost,” Annie told her. “The rules were the same for everyone, and being the smartest team isn’t about just winning a chess game or whatever. It was about making sure you watched out who won for you. But – does he always run away from girls like that?”

“He doesn’t run away from me,” Anya said. “And even though he won at least a part of this – I’m thinking that perhaps the shrieking while running away from Faith… it’s not something I should reward. Do you think that’s right?”

“Probably not,” Ethan said. “In my experience girlish shrieking never goes down well with the ladies. And talking of going down… Annie, I was wondering if - ”

Tara took her teammate’s arm and steered him away, well away, from Annie. On the whole, it was a move that she could only recommend as wise. Wise enough to join them.

“Is he… always like that?” Annie asked.

“If you see him in a terrible shirt, then… pretty much, yeah,” she replied.

“And he always wears terrible shirts?”

“If he’s coming onto you, then… again with the pretty much, yeah.” She smiled. Ethan Rayne was hardly the only man in the world to be like that. He was just the oldest, with the worst shirts, that she happened to know.

And now… he was on the A Team?

Or whatever Tara and Faith chose to call themselves… It was still to be decided, but all in all, she thought Faith would want to rub their noses in it for as long as possible. That was just her nature. She, on the other hand, wanted to rub her nose in… Well, Tara.

“How did we lose that, Will?” Buffy asked.

She thought about that for a little while before answering. “We were unlucky and we were stupid. Didn’t see the built in traps.”

“Hmmpf, do you think they did?”

“You think Tara knew what was happening?” Willow asked, ready to leap to her defence. She’d seen Tara – and Faith – making the same mistakes they had.

“No – or if she did, she hadn’t told Faith. You couldn’t stop that girl from trying to beat us. Me.”

“I think you’re right,” she admitted. “I don’t know what you’re worried about though… after all, I’m the one who has a price still to be paid.”

Buffy stood, looked at her. It said, ‘come on.’

“What?” she asked. “I have to pay the piper.”

“Oh, come on. You seriously expect me to believe that?”

“I made promises. I might have got carried away and made a few… side bets. Wagers of sin,” she admitted.

“No, do you seriously expect me to believe that anything that happens at Casa Rosenberg isn’t something you’d be doing anyway? Happily? And by ‘doing’, I mean doing Tara. Just in case we weren’t clear?”

Oh, yeah, they’d been plenty clear.

Just because Buffy was right, didn’t mean she had to say so though. There was such a thing as the privacy of the bedroom. Or maybe the shower… They’d definitely need showers. Saving water was noble, right?

But it was time to change the subject. “So… what do you think they’ll pick? Will we really be the B Team? I mean, we were beaten and all. Fair and square…”

“I guess,” Buffy replied, allowing her boyfriend’s presence to comfort her now that he’d approached. Eddie had obviously letting her cool off a moment there. “But in the immortal words of Huey Lewis. Isn’t it hip to be square?”

“It’s always worked for me,” she said, shrugging. It probably wasn’t a good time to admit that she really was looking forward to paying off some of her wagers with Tara.

Very much…


***************************

[DaddyCatALSO]

Hee-hee-hee!

[Azirahael]

Nice!
I'm curious to see what the names are going to be, or at least the logic behind the naming.
Goddamn, Darwin bush is hot.
Looking for reward to the next bit.

R

[Katharyn]

Daddycatalso - Nice to have you back! Thanks!

Azirahael - Logic? What's logic got to do with it? The name might have to wait until they go into action again

Now, it maybe just me channeling Faith (or Willow) but this may not be the place to note that 'Darwin bush is hot'. Just saying...

As for the next part? Momentarily.

Thanks

Katharyn

[Katharyn]

So I have a question – am I posting too fast? I get the feeling that I may be leaving people behind and creating a barrier to catching up when they miss a few parts. Open to advice on this…

Katharyn


Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter Seventy-Three
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: Another ‘Summer’ part. Faith. Miss Kitty. The girls. What can go wrong?
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: One last – officially intended – short, summer chapter, before we return to begin season 5. (EDIT - Though there is one more bonus chapter after this one) Writing this note at first draft, I’ve been doing a little plotting of the early episodes in that season and things have gone a slightly different way with how I’m doing that. Because – with one clear exception – there’s not a huge T/W ‘relationship’ element to sort out, I’ve been starting from the point of the episodes rather than the progression of the relationships. So, to a greater degree than S4, we’ll be following canon – especially as we get deeper into the season.
That doesn’t mean I’m just re-writing them, but more that the process is just… different to how S4 played out. After all, this is a story based around an actual plot. Not ‘just’ a W/T missing scenes fic. Even now I could easily stand to make it that, but by now you’ll have been reading for 4 to 6 months where I’ve been teasing actual plot so… I think I have to go through with it!
So this is the last (EDIT – but one) of the webisodes… and it’s a good point for me to break as – in redraft – I’ve just come to the end of October, having written Tara and Willow every single day for the last 7 months or so. I’ll still be doing some every 3 days for posting, but I’m taking a month off from redrafting to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month.) Which, hopefully by now, you will have read! It’s like time travel, I tell ya.
Redraft Note: – Okay, when originally written I had not done the ‘Meet the Rosenbergs’ bonus chapter and – in the original version – the girls were living at the Rosenberg’s over summer but hadn’t told Ira and Sheila they were girlfriends. Plainly that was stupid and I’ve removed/edited the chapter to allow for that already having happened. However… because I did it in such a way as to keep the other stuff intact (I changed the emphasis to sex because… Faith’s the character driving the conversation) I may have missed a couple of references.
Also this chapter paralleled that with Tara’s family situation. Obviously that parallel is a bit less… umm, straight? Since one side of the parallel has been removed? However it’s a nice little chapter and I didn’t want to just remove the whole thing.
Thanks to: The boys and girls at NaNoWriMo.



“So you promise?” Willow asked.

“Of course I promise.”

Miss Kitty liked boxes. In that she was almost childlike, kids of a certain age – Willow had observed in a brief encounters with them – always enjoyed the boxes more than what actually came in them.

What Miss Kitty was enjoying was investigating – probably with some claiming of territory going on – a box. But she was going to find herself getting sealed in it if she wasn’t careful and that would be… Well, when she struggled to get out then things would undoubtedly get shredded.

Things they wanted, which was the point of this exercise.

“I’ll check everything before I seal it and I’ll seal everything before we go out.”

“You know what - ”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tara said, stroking her cheek. Just like Miss Kitty, she could’ve purred right then.

“I do worry, you might’ve noticed that about me. I do worry really well. I’m a champion worrier.”

“Really? I just thought that you planned well,” Tara replied, “for every contingency. But… if that’s really worry?”

She grinned. Her girlfriend had her pegged then. “It’s gonna be weird moving out – again,” she said, looking around the house. They hadn’t yet begun to pack in earnest, but between everything Tara had accumulated last year and their purchases of the summer… their new dorm room was going to be a busy place.

And after all this, having a whole house – the house she’d grown up in - to themselves… Yeah, that was going to be a bit of a shock to the system too.

Other people on the other side of the wall once again… Hmm, that might mean some modification of their behaviour. Because while Faith was staying here with them over summer, she was so rarely in her room at the same time they were… not really an issue.

Say what you like about Faith, but she knew to keep her alley cat ways… well, in the alley.

“We’ll be fine,” Tara said. “It’ll be cosier than right now, but it will actually be – more kind of – ours. You know?”

“True,” she conceded. Here, it felt like they were keeping secrets. Mom and Dad were all embracing of the ‘gay girls’ thing, which was very cool and totally unexpected, but they didn’t know anything about Faith…

Nope. The renegade Slayer houseguest was something that her folks didn’t know word one about. And she hoped to be able to keep it that way for a few years until they could joke and reminisce. ‘Hey, remember when we had that super-powered slut staying with us?’ Yeah, that would be a great time to break it to them.

But more immediately, she had to ask. “You’ve been okay here, right? I mean, I know it’s kind of ‘mine’ and not ‘ours’…”

“You made it ours when you opened up to me,” Tara said.

“Umm.”

“I mean when opened up your home.”

“Not like anything else I might, you know, happen to open up to you whenever I can?”

Tara smiled, but didn’t rise to what must’ve been very tempting bait. “I like it here, I do. I’m surrounded by Willowness. I can’t help but like it.”

“I’ll surround you with Willowness,” she said, just as Faith walked in and looked around.

“Hola, box packers. Oh, don’t mind me. Just sit on her face, or however you’re going to ‘surround her with Willowness’.”

Willow shook her head, it might help distract from her blushes. She did consider a retort about that being what Faith considered a double entendre, what with the ‘box packing’ thing, but Tara was the only one who’d get it. “Faith, this may come as a shock, but not everything is about sex, you know? Anyway I thought you were patrolling?”

“I was patrolling but… B’s got it. She said that, she made that real clear. She said ‘Faith, I got this.’ So here I am. Knew I should’ve just gone and hit a bar.”

“You know, you’re not going to be able to do that when you’re back at school,” Willow said, unable to resist picking at one of Faith’s least favourite subjects.

“Not going to be able to do what?” Faith slumped into the couch and Miss Kitty was on her in a flash, losing all interest in the boxes or their contents in favour of her chosen resting spot. Constantly reasserted possession being nine-tenths of the feline law and all that.

They’d speculated, but not for long, that that the attraction was possibly because a Slayer’s lap was really warm. Enhanced metabolism and all… But then they’d stopped speculating about Faith’s lap because… it was Faith’s lap.

“Umm, go to bars… at night.”

“You think I should go in the afternoon?” Faith asked, scratching at Miss Kitty. Both Faith and the cat were watching her, as if waiting for an answer.

“I kinda think they’d frown on that,” Willow said.

“Probably more,” Tara pointed out. “More than at night.”

“Oh… You do know I don’t drink right?” Faith asked. “Even though I burn through the stuff, what’s that word you used - ?”

“Metabolise?” Willow suggested.

“Yeah, I can’t hardly stay drunk any time at all, even if I wanted to.”

“Buffy - ”

“Buffy’s a lightweight,” Faith said. “Hey, it’s me.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed it’s you,” Willow said.

“What’s that saying, burn bright burn fast?”

“Don’t think - ”

“Please?” Tara asked. “Guys? Just cool it, okay?”

“Sorry.”

Faith didn’t apologise, but she did shut her mouth and turn her attention to Miss Kitty, which was about as much as anyone could expect. Things had to be truly screwed up for her to actually apologise, but it’d been known.

How Tara had so much influence over her was just a mystery? Herding cats? That would’ve been a walk in the park compared to getting Faith to do what you wanted her to. Tara managed it though.

“Buffy’s back to patrolling then?” Tara asked, very obviously and deliberately changing the subject.

“She and the boy toy are back in town and so she’s throwing her weight around. Next thing you know she’ll be pissing on lampposts.”

“You can’t blame her for wanting to put some patrols in,” Willow said, ignoring the last part. She was pretty sure Buffy wasn’t going to do that sort of territorial marking.

“Make sure I haven’t been fucking up and slacking off?” Faith asked.

“You’ve said it yourself,” Tara said. “You get antsy if you don’t slay for a while. I doubt she’s had chance while she was away. If she didn’t trust you wouldn’t she have been out there the very first night she got back?”

“Maybe she was, but it’s probably more like she trusts you, T. And she’s not wrong to. But…” Faith shrugged.

“We talked about this,” Tara said. “You can’t just expect her to forget about what’s been her job for so long. You two are getting along right?”

“Sure.”

“And… you’re moving back into your apartment when we move out of here, right?” Tara continued. “The one the Mayor got you?”

“Right?” Faith sounded less sure about what the connection was.

“Buffy could’ve asked for you still to be supervised,” Willow pointed out.

“Is that why I’m here? Am I being supervised now?”

“No, you’re here because you decided didn’t want to be with Diana and Ethan and so you needed a place. And you’re here because Willow’s parents were too far away to know about it,” Tara said.

“And you’re here because you turned up at the door with your bag of stuff,” she reminded them.

Faith smiled, “Okay, I’ll buy into that. But talking of things your folks don’t know – when are you two going to break the news?”

Someone else could change the subject just as effectively as Tara it seemed.

“What news?” Willow asked. There was no news. Was there news? She hadn’t been told that there was any news.

“That you two have been doing the nasty in their bed.”

Oh… That news.

“They know,” Tara said.

“Kind of,” Willow said. After all, they hadn’t really like come out and said it. It’d been more sort of… implied. They had the big bed after all. And where else were two girls who were sleeping together going to… sleep together?

“‘Kind of’…” Faith said. “Yeah, that’s really clear.”

“We bought new sheets,” she pointed out, though that seemed kind of lame now she said it. “And I – we - don’t have to explain this to you,” Willow told her. And she really, really didn’t. Of all the people… She shuddered to think what might have happened – that certainly never had before – in her old bed.

And had Faith bought new sheets?

Note to self – buy new sheet for that bed and ritually burn the ones Faith’s been using.

“No. No, you don’t have to explain it to me, does she, T?”

“Faith…”

“Oh, come on. You told them about the pair of you right? They know you’re clit whisperers?”

“I – Clit whisperers?” Willow asked. “Really?”

Actually, she kind of liked that. No one ever threw that as an insult. In fact it suggested a certain high level of skill.

And while there wasn’t actual ‘whispering’ involved, it did sometimes involve gentle action with the tongue and lips.

Kind of the same.

“Come on… Doesn’t it bother you just a tiny bit that they don’t know that you guys sleeping with each other in their bed? See how I did that? I didn’t say that you were fucking, I just said sleeping together? That’s good, right?”

Willow shook her head, she wasn’t having that.

Mom and Dad loved Tara. And not in the sense of ‘she’d like another daughter’ either. No, they just loved her being around. Especially Dad.

How Tara had gone about that was… unusual. Unlike most people her girl hadn’t tried to make them like her. She hadn’t even shown them how special and perfect she really was. Mostly she’d just been herself and… Yeah, they loved her.

Which was fine, because her Dad was kind of a quiet man too and her Mom… Well, Sheila Rosenberg was renowned from the mall to her office to the synagogue for one thing.

She could talk.

And she did.

Meanwhile Tara had sat there quite happily and taken it all in. And that was the key.

And about the sleeping together thing, it wasn’t like she’d hidden anything. They had to realise – even if they didn’t know the intimate detail and she really hoped they didn’t – that she and Tara were… sleeping together. In a sex way.

She’d actually thought that she had – told them that is. She was pretty certain that – without using a lot of words that neither of her parents would’ve been very happy with over dinner – she’d made the point. What else did ‘she makes me happy’ mean? Apart from the… well, happy thing?

And so if they didn’t know, it was probably because – genuinely – it wouldn’t have crossed their minds. It wasn’t the sort of thing parents liked to think about, especially where they didn’t have to worry about her getting pregnant or anything like that.

I’d been all ready with my ‘it’s the safest sex’ facts and figures too.

Now, maybe, that oversight pointed to a certain blindness in her Mom and Dad but maybe it was just as much about where her own thought process had taken her. Expectations set by a certain someone who liked to make all sorts of jokes about petting their pussy.

Except the Slayer was much more creative than that. Never the same joke twice. Just similar themes.

Yes. This was what happened when you lived with Faith, of all people, for any length of time. She was like… she got into your head, and not by actually trying. Everything, everything was given a baser motive that was to do with sex or violence.

Faith Lehane is in Ira and Sheila Rosenberg’s bedroom. Had there ever been anything more unlikely than that?[/i]

“Yes, thank you so much,” Willow said as Faith claimed the credit for only using the F word when she was pointing out that she hadn’t used it.

Faith held up her hands, only to return one back to stroking Miss Kitty when the feline in her lap objected to the cessation with an irritated flick of her nose.

Whore. My cat’s a whore.

“It’s fine,” Tara told them both, she supposed. Yeah, Tara would’ve waited until she could say that and it’d mean something to both of them.

“Fine?”

“If they asked I’d - ”

“Blush a lot?” Faith suggested.

“Deny everything?” Willow asked.

“No – not either of those things. It’s not like it’d come up, but if it did it wouldn’t be blow by blow - ”

“Pretty sure there’s been no blowing here,” Faith quipped.

“Willow sometimes blows in my…” Tara trailed off. Getting it. Some girls, with their gold stars, didn’t have to worry about the hetero lexicon. “Ear.”

Faith just grinned, pleased with herself.

“And if Sheila did ask some questions that - ”

“Why my Mom?” Willow asked.

“Can you really see your Dad asking either of us? Anything?”

“That’s a good point.”

“If Sheila did ask… well we’d…” Tara made a gesture.

“You’re going to have your throat cut?” Faith asked, confused by the choice of gestures.

“No – umm, maybe I meant sort of -”

“I’d change the topic,” Willow completed. She knew the gesture. It wasn’t exactly subtle, but it’d worked so far. “Or Tara would. We’re a team.”

“Yeah, that’s true. It takes two to pack boxes like you do.”

“You already used that one,” Willow pointed out.

“Oh. Right. Give me a break, how many eupha – eupha-whot-sits can a girl come up with?” Faith asked.

“Euphemisms,” Tara supplied for her.

“Sounds like smoker’s disease. They didn’t even tell you when you can get back into dorms yet?”

“It’s not so much that,” Willow answered for her girlfriend. “More that they’ve not told us whether we can get in there early and my parents are getting home a week next Thursday. So we’re doing a little pre-packing. Of boxes. Oh, God, just laugh at us already. So we’re organised!”

“Honey,” Tara said gently. “It was the box thing. Really.”

“A week next Thursday,” Willow repeated. She refused to do more than blush.

“By which time Faithy needs to be gone?” Faith asked.

Tara’s hopeful little smile was about all that was going to make that happen, was it? Willow sighed… She’d not actually had a look at the state of the room Faith had been occupying. She was showing trust. That was what Tara had called it anyway. Showing trust and respecting Faith’s privacy… Except she didn’t actually trust Faith. Some things, sure, Tara had brought her around on the ‘saving the world’ and ‘not slitting our throats in our sleep’ things but the state of her old bedroom after a couple of months of Faith occupancy? No…

“Everything okay in your room?” Willow asked, trying to sound casual about it. But Dad would absolutely freak if she’d left it in a state bad enough that it needed to be redecorated. Minor damage, sure, that could be an accident but… evidence of Slayer training, axe marks, crossbow bolts in the wall? No, that would be a no-no.

Worn-down wallpaper or indentations in the dry wall behind the bed…?

And the sheets, oh… the sheets. Yeah, they’d really have to go buy new sheets for the bed. Faith wasn’t supposed to have had ‘guests’ and even if she had the washer should’ve been enough but… It was Faith, if she’d had guests then no amount of washing would be enough before she wanted to ask anyone else to sleep on those same sheets.

Like the movie said, ‘nuke ’em. It was the only way to be sure.’ And she wasn’t talking about putting them in the microwave.

“Red, if you’re so worried, why don’t you just ask to take a look or – you know – just walk in. There’s nothing I need to hide. The chains on the walls, the swing hanging from the ceiling… it’s all good. I’m not ashamed of it of all that.”

“She’s joking,” Tara said when she must’ve looked just a little concerned. “You are joking?”

“Jesus… yes, I’m joking,” Faith said. “What do you think I am? There’s nothing I’m interested in that I can’t do in a bed or…against a wall.”

They were going to have to paint; there was nothing else for it. And do a good job. So it’d look like a favour – a thank you for letting us live here - and not emergency measures.

“In the shower…” Faith continued.

Scrubbing too, lots of scrubbing. Harsh chemicals would probably do the trick.

“And there was that time on time on the kitchen island - ”

How much would new marble cost? Again with the harsh chemicals and ewww, I chopped salad there last night!

“She’s still joking,” Tara said, more convinced this time.

“Maybe, but not about all of it,” Willow judged, weighing the probabilities.

“I swear, T, this is why I don’t have friends,” Faith protested and then thought better of what she’d just said. “Other friends, I mean.”

“Oh, that was almost, a heart-warming moment,” Tara said, putting her arm around Faith’s waist and pulling her into a hug. “Good for you!”

Faith’s sigh said that she wasn’t used to having friends, wasn’t sure that she wanted friends and just as obviously wasn’t sure how to get rid of one like Tara. But also that, somewhere deep-down, she didn’t want to get rid of Tara otherwise she’d have found a way by now.

For someone like Faith, it wouldn’t be that hard to drive anyone away.

It’s been pretty expressive for a sigh though.

“Willow’s sorry,” Tara said. “Aren’t you sweetie?”

“I am,” she sighed. “I’m just spazzing out – if my Mom and Dad come back and the place is much different to how they left it – they don’t need perfection, because it can’t be perfect, but they need very close to perfect – then…” She shrugged, failing to come up with the consequences, but hopefully they’d both understand that they’d be severe.

Miss Kitty had already been giving her kittens. So to speak. What with the scratching and the shedding and the little accidents until she’d shown them just where her litter tray was supposed to have been put.

“Didn’t your Mom try to burn you at the stake, Red?” Faith asked.

“Thanks for raising that, yes, yes she did.”

“Was that something to do with a badly behaved house guest?”

“No, you know what that was. She thought I was a witch.”

“You are a witch. And now you’re a lesbian witch… Must be a disappointment to parents when their kid grows up to be a cliché, huh?”

“Well – Umm - Well - ” What to come back with? Something biting. Something witty. Something that wouldn’t earn her a chastisement from her girl either… “Well – umm - Your momma!”

“Okay, now that was just going too far,” Faith said, turning away and already rubbing her eyes free of tears.

Willow looked at Tara. Umm… had she done that? Okay, so Faith’s family never really got mentioned and it can’t have been a great situation but… “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to - ” Faith turned back, grinning with no sign of tears in her eyes. “Damn it! I take it back. I meant every word. Your momma.”

Faith mimed being stabbed through the heart, which she had a better perspective on than most. But Willow did notice a flicker… one that she didn’t follow up on for the sake of some stupid joke. But… yeah, it was there alright. Even Faith had family.

“Don’t worry your witchy little heads about it, when I move out you won’t even know I’ve been here. Cross my heart but, T, I really kind of wish your girlfriend wasn’t checking out my rack when I did that - ”

“I didn’t!” Willow protested. “I’ve never – I mean, I’ve rarely – I’ve no interest in her rack. I’m not interested in your rack,” she virtually hissed.

“And you call yourself a gash snacker…?” Faith said, shaking her head.

“No, actually. I never called myself a – I’m a lesbian. Not a clit whisperer, not a minge-muncher and not a box-packer. I’m not a gash-snacker either. I’m a lesbian. A one girl lesbian who doesn’t want anything to do with your rack. In fact I’m more of a Taraian or a Tarian or… wait, that sounds like something out of Star Trek. But have you got it?”

“Tell me those names aren’t accurate then?” Faith challenged.

She should deny it. But she wouldn’t, because whose business was it but theirs? And she couldn’t because… Yeah, she was all of those things. And more.

Faith, shaking her head, turned to Tara. “She’s definitely all yours. She want feeding? Miss Kitty, I mean.”

“Sure,” Tara said. “You can. If she’ll eat.”

“Sure she’ll eat, she’s a growing girl,” Faith said, hoisting Miss Kitty up to chest level where the young kitty darted her head into Faith’s cleavage. “And at least she appreciates my tits.”

“Only because you put food between them!” Willow called after her but all she got in response was laughter. Mocking laughter.

“Why do you do that to yourself?” Tara asked, just barely holding back from laughing.

“Well, pardon me for being a stick in the mud. I just think it’s wrong to put kitty treats between your boobs,” Willow said.

“Not that. All of it. Why do you pick fights with her?”

“What else am I supposed to do?” she asked.

“You could try being her friend?”

“How’s that different from being nice?” Willow asked, a little uncertain.

“You’re always nice. But you’re not always her friend. Besides, she can take pretty much everything you can dish out so you’re just wasting your time with arguing with her. You can’t win because she doesn’t care. So… maybe it’s time to try something different?”

Tara’s suggestion was to just give up? Somehow she wasn’t sure that would ever be acceptable to her. By the time she was ready to give up, there’d be no need to fight with Faith anymore, would there?

“You only have to ask,” Willow said. “And I’ll do it. For you.”

“I’m not going to ask you though,” Tara said, smiling and taking her hand. “Like I said, you’re nice, you’re a good person. You’ve been great with her, all summer long and I think, maybe, one more step and you guys can really be… Look, she basically called us friends, she almost made the first move.”

“So you’re not going to ask me, you’re just going to guilt me into it?”

“Welcome to having a girlfriend, love.”

“It’s only a couple of weeks more,” Willow said, looking at their pre-packing that was arrayed all around them. Maybe they had started a little early, after all they’d only finished unpacking about a fortnight ago. “What do you bet that when she moves out she’ll just shove everything she owns into a bag and walk?”

“No bet. She travels light,” Tara said. “But thank you.”

“For making bets that I can’t lose?” Willow asked.

“No, but for being you. You didn’t have to let her stay – but I think it’s done her good, you know?”

And the terrible, awful thing was that she couldn’t disagree. Maybe it was true what Tara said. That what Faith needed was some semblance of family, ordinary life. Friends… hadn’t she already shown it in the midst of the ‘stealing Buffy’s body’ thing? When she could’ve run, scot free, instead she’d come back because… she’d liked what she experienced and it had started to change her.

Now, after half the summer living in the same house, she might not ‘like’ the girl but she could admit that maybe things were coming together and she could see that Tara wasn’t undertaking a project in Faith. She wasn’t doing what she was doing to help prevent bad things or to save the world. She was doing it because Faith really was her friend.

“It’s not how I imagined things,” Willow said.

“I know.”

“I mean, when we said at the end of the semester, when we said ‘where shall we stay this summer?’ This wasn’t – none of it really. I didn’t think we’d be staying here. I didn’t think Faith would be with us. I thought it’d be you, me and Miss Kitty but… I wasn’t even sure you wouldn’t go home for a while?”

Tara was the only one who hadn’t been home. Well, Tara and Faith but for this one, the Slayer didn’t count.

Her girlfriend just shrugged though.

“Can’t bear to be away from me? I have to admit I was kind of dreading it, but I still thought you’d want to go. Even if it was just for a few days.”

“That’s it, that’s it exactly,” Tara said. “Your dread.”

“Don’t you want to see your folks?” she asked. She felt a little guilty. She’d never promised Tara she wouldn’t pry, but all she’d ever done was hear about her family, almost always in the past tense. Like everything good had dried up when her Mom had passed and… that might well be true. They’d been so close and different people dealt with things in different ways.

It was obvious Tara still loved her Dad and even her – obviously asshole – brother. She had a big heart. But just as clearly it hadn’t crossed Tara’s mind to go home. And that love she had for her father, it was a love made of respect. Not genuine affection. That seemed pretty clear too.

And so even though she liked to think that was all about her and her charms, somehow it probably wasn’t. Not all of it.

“I’ll see them,” Tara said, “but we’ve been busy here too.”

“So you really couldn’t bear to leave me?” Willow probed. She felt a little guilty for pushing, actually, but this was as close as she’d gotten. They’d never quite had this conversation apart from her joke a moment ago. Maybe they wouldn’t again, something usually seemed to distract them but that never seemed to be Tara’s design. Strange though, how it always happened.

“I’d take you with me,” Tara said. “I mean – I mean if you wanted to come.”

“Have you ever known me not wanting to come with you?” Willow asked, letting her smile betray the double-entendre.

“No,” Tara conceded. “You’ve always been very firm about coming with me. You want to come with me as often as you can.”

“If not at the same moment,” Willow said. Because, really, how often did that happen? “But I could really come with you, I mean, home?”

“They know about me,” Tara said. “I mean- they know that I like girls. If that’s what you’re wondering.”

Yes, she’d known that part. And – to be honest – that’d surprised her. That a man as staunchly conservative as Mister Maclay sounded would be calm about that. But it just went to show that stereotypes weren’t real people.

And hey, who wouldn’t love Tara no matter what?

“Do they know about me though?” Willow wondered. She was in no position to judge, living in the same town they’d held off telling them for too long.

Tara nodded. “Yeah, I’ve told them that I have a girlfriend and that your name is Willow.”

“And?”

“My Dad… My Dad said you must be the daughter of hippies,” Tara said. “That was really all he said.”

“I think your Dad and mine should get together, they’d probably surprise each other.”

“Probably,” Tara agreed.

The very idea made her uneasy though. Ira Rosenberg in the same room as Tara’s ex-Marine Dad? Hmm. There was a paternal alliance just waiting to spring into existence right there.

“When they get home,” Willow said. “I want - ”

“You want to tell them?” Tara asked. “That we – umm - ”

“Well, no,” she decided. After all, that wasn’t the sort of thing you talked about with your parents unless – she supposed – you really were the daughter of hippies. Which, in Tara’s case she almost was. Mrs Lilian Maclay had, apparently, been a bit of a flower child. A late blooming one though, years after people had been naming their kids ‘Moonbeam’ or, she supposed, ‘Willow’.

“They won’t mind,” she added. “I don’t think they’ll think you’re violating their daughter. Even though you kind of are, often as I can get you to.”

“Violating is a harsh word,” Tara replied.

“Seriously,” Faith called to them. “Try ‘fucking’, it’s good for all occasions.”

“We should close the door,” she pointed out. “If we don’t want her to hear. But – seriously, baby, don’t use the F word with my Mom. She’ll…”

“I keep thinking that getting burned at the stake wouldn’t be fun,” Tara teased.

“You know what that was. You shouldn’t hold it against them,” she said.

“I know, I know, I’m just teasing you.”

“You probably shouldn’t mention that either though,” she said. “Mom… None of them, none of the parents really remember what happened then. It’s Sunnydale, you know?”

“I won’t say anything,” Tara promised. “It’s not really how to make a good impression is it? Now… Do you want a drink?”

“Warm milk?” she asked with a hopeful smile.

“You and Miss Kitty… peas in a pod.” Her girl unfolded her legs and stood up, stretching for a moment before setting off for the kitchen.

“Tara, baby?”

“Hmm?” Tara paused, waiting for her question.

“Do I even want to know what a swing is?” Willow asked, suddenly recalling what Faith had suggested might be hanging from her ceiling. She was kidding, whatever it was. Wasn’t she?

“Love, all I know is that I don’t want know,” Tara said.

“I think that’s a good call, baby. It may even be a really good call.”

**********************

[Azirahael]

Dibs!

[Katharyn]

I think we're at the point worrying about dibs is superfluous LOL

Katharyn

[Azirahael]

And yet no one told me these things.

I figured there was probably an etiquette to these things, but hey stuff it, i got Dibs!

And it makes me sad when I see Willow fighting with Faith, or even just being unnecessarily snarky.

Faith has made huge strides, and i think Willow needs to recognise that and not be a big meanie-head.

Not that I'm hating on Willow, it just always bugs me that the scoobies can forgive prettymuch anyone for anything.
Except Faith.
Angel, Giles, Anya, Willow, all forgiven.
Ok ok, I'll shut up now.

Anyhoo, good chapter, though I'm sad we miss out on the coming out scene, it's always fun, because there are so many ways it can go and so much stress :-)
Given the already mentioned stake - burning incident, there's plenty of room for wackiness or weird guilt stuff.
Oh well, never mind.

Also i don't think Faith is actually going out banging dudes or chicks every night.
Sure, there will be a bit of that, but i reckon she'll be dancing, slaying or just enjoying a bit of alone time to most of the time.

But she never misses a chance to mess with Willow :-)

Ok, inspired to write now, gonna go write a bit where Giles sez 'chew you out' to Willow and Tara and gets all flustered.
Should be good.

R

[Katharyn]

Heya Azirahael

Oh, I wasn't talking 'etiquette' on the dibs. Dib away if you like, but you're dibbing yourself LOL.

Faith/Willow... hmm, yeah. Slight hitch there with the added bonus chapters which were 'out of time' and I wrote them much later than 73 so... Yeah, she may have seemed to backslide a little. On the other hand Faith's in her bed... And, knowing Faith... ew.

I think I said in notes, but originally this chapter referred to them outing themselves. Well, actually, you DID see it? Remember the first bonus chapter? Aha! That was ages ago. But they kind of had 'the talk' and you got to see it. Or at least the aftermath. Wow, I remembered something.

Unless I dreamed it?

Faith? She's banging precisely as many people as she wants to. But you're not wrong. Legend has it though that after she slays she has to... well, not dance. It is a quiet summer though.

Yes! Go write! But enjoy whatever vacation you have left too.

Thanks!

Katharyn

[Kajun]

Hey Katharyn, Annie did an excellent job coming up with challenges. It reminded me of the stuff they do on that “Survivor” show. I only watched the first season so it may be entirely different nowadays but, anyhoo, I really enjoyed this. Who knew losing could actually help win the game? LOL I definitely expected Faith to take it seriously but the nice surprise was Tara. Heck, she wanted to win almost, if not as much as, Faith. That’s what I like to see.

I think Willow should feel embarrassed that she resorted to magic. Tara didn’t even though it looked like they weren’t going to make it across first. Talk about a lopsided competition.. basically four against two and team Buffy still lost. HAHA Willow isn’t the only one who should hang her head in shame! Tara’s original idea of Teams “Alpha” and “A” was really a good solution. Too bad Willow had to put a clinker in that one. Maybe they should just go with the names “winners” and “losers” then maybe Willow would be less inclined to disagree with Tara in the future. LOL

I’m very happy MKF got to join them in the park! And check Faith out.. making sure someone kept an eye on the kitten during the competition. Her heart is much bigger than anyone, aside from Tara, realizes.

Faith doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to move into her apartment. When she does, it’s bound to be tough on her. Lots of memories there, including Buffy’s attempt to commit murder. Hmmm.. Faith didn’t specify that Tara was her only friend and I doubt she would have passed on the opportunity to make that clear to Willow. It’s too easy, and fun, to get her all riled up. Actually, she could have pointed out her excellent Slayer enhanced hearing. Willow and Tara don’t know what she might have gotten up to in Willow’s room but she surely knows all about their activities. Give the Slayer some credit. She could tease a lot more, with details. Willow really needs to back off and stop being so judgmental. Wanting to paint the walls? Now that’s just silly.

It’s not a good idea to visit Tara’s family without back-up. Yikes. I can’t see Tara taking that risk. She still thinks it will all be over by her next birthday. But.. considering it took quite a while for Tara to meet the Rosenberg’s, a mere few minutes away, it’s doubtful Willow would be in a big hurry to make a road trip. Plus.. the school year is fast approaching. Faith may need a tutor and I know just the person for the job.

As for your question: I don’t want to see less frequent updates. If you were to post once a week, say two or three chapters in one post, that would be cool. My best case scenario would be to read the entire completed story.. like.. right now. Seriously though, just post however fits with your own schedule.

[Katharyn]

Hey! Kajun! Great to have you with us again

Annie's a very useful person to have around. She obviously didn't go home in the summer cos she keeps showing up (see next part!) Also very creative in a pinch, but to be honest she's only as good as the writer who was so disorganised as to not have a clue what the competition was. So I just made it up real fast LOL. All the bonus chapters get written in a day, maybe 2 so I don't stop and think much

Tara? Yeah, I like to think that - if she's faced with winning or losing - she will try to win. Just because she's in love doesn't mean she's a doormat and she knows - for sure - Willow will try to beat Faith! On the other hand, Willow didn't really want to be on team Buffy. She just ended up there... She'd rather be on team pussy, I'm sure (cos of MKF!)

MKF is a kitty, of course, and she has decided Faith is hers. Ergo, Faith is expected to look out for her Never underestimate the power of pussy *cough*

Faith moving in... I don't know, maybe it was rented out. You're right, but I didn't plan it that way. Just happened I wanted her around for a while and then - when they are back in dorms - that won't work so... yeah I guess I could say it's that whole 'keeping an eye on her thing' expiring...

Visiting the Maclay's? No... no road trip here. Family is the Maclay introduction as you'd expect. Though it's a valid question Willow should ask herself which is why it's here at all. Also it keeps things in mind and I wanted to really push something that is already there in the story, that Tara's father is all about the demon. Having a girlfriend or even doing witchcraft isn't his problem at all. I'm softening him some in favour of demonising (no pun intended) someone else. Not entirely, but some... I just don't see the Tara we know coming from a household where her Dad was so anti everything. Given she doesn't have a job I can't see how she could go to college without his support. That's something that has to be dealt with in story terms so... he can't be a flat out villain.

Posting... We're not far from you being able to read the entire thing, but I'm a feedback whore. Why would I do that?

Thanks so much

Katharyn

[DaddyCatALSO]

I always figured , if Tara had had a dream sequence in "Restless," trhe First Slayer wouldn't've killed her, just abducted her and taken her home.

[Katharyn]

So it turns out, after all my lazy attempts to avoid renumbering due to bonus parts, that I just couldn't count and need to renumber anyway LOL... Ah well.

Daddycatalso - Well, who wouldn't take Tara home? LOL.

Next part in a moment...

Katharyn

[Katharyn]

So... Willow has a fetish. Another one. We all do, one way or another. I don't use the term in a negative way, pretty much every one of us likes our own things in certain ways (that came out ruder than I intended) and therefore we all have our own... Willow's just discovering hers and loves to share.

Enjoy...

Katharyn

----------------------

Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Bonus Chapter
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: Tara and Willow go swimming. Naturally that’s not all they get up to, or it wouldn’t be a bonus.
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: Now, I’ve probably said so before, but I have no idea who regularly reads my notes and you may be wondering why these are ‘bonus’ chapters, I’ve done a few now. The answer is really that a) they aren’t directly part of or necessary for the overall story, just me indulging a nice idea or two and b) that I’m lazy. Once I decide to do these and then find a place for them, the reference for every part number in the story after that (all allocated now) needs to be incremented by one, including in my notes etc. That’s easy of there are ten parts, not so easy when there are ninety or so to go. So… nah. Call them bonus parts and don’t worry about it! In hindsight, maybe they should’ve been 70a or something.
Now, there’s some physical descriptions here that, frankly, down to personal research on my part. But I swear, if I swim like Willow, the only girl I’m following is mine… And I’m more subtle about it than she is. I’m positively a sneaky-cat.
In water.
The mention of Annie at the end was just to keep her in the picture, no biggie but I’d missed her for a while (same with another bonus chapter I just wrote) but is she there over summer? I may have said differently somewhere but it’s such a throwaway line that I don’t have to care 
Thanks to: My swimming partner. She knows what I do in the pool, but never let me do what comes later in this story… But that’s okay, this is pure fan service. Just because it came to mind when I wasn’t thinking of Tara and Willow shouldn’t mean anything.
Pronunciation Guide: – There is a word in this part ‘bob’ that should be pronounced – for those of you who know the TV show Blackadder – exactly as it was done there. And if you don’t know it, just purse your lips before saying it, really emphasising the first ‘b’. It makes all the difference. Oh, then get Blackadder II off Netflix and laugh yourself silly because you should know that show!!



“You were right,” Tara said when Willow reappeared.

“Well, yeah, Baby, I know I was right.”

“Sorry, sometimes I forgot you’re correct in all things.”

Her girlfriend grinned and kept swimming without another word. This could be, it seemed, Willow’s new thing. Certainly she was taking to it well, positively eagerly and exercise wasn’t bad for anyone.

For her, she’d realised that running away was a useful skill to have here – before she’d known a Slayer – and chosen to start. Now she felt that she was getting quite good at it too. Even enjoyed it. But Willow? Willow had been drawn to the swimming pool.

Why? Who could say? There was so much about Tara’s girlfriend that was a glorious mystery. But in terms of general fitness and giving her girlfriend a newly toned look, she didn’t think she could find an objection.

Maybe Willow was anticipating water based demons? Though it seemed best not to get in the pool with them in the first place – rather like a shark in a pond, being able to swim away quickly actually just masked the stupidity of getting in there in the first place.

Just a thought.

But she’d found that she was having fun too. She hadn’t really swum for a while, not since she’d been a kid, really.

So she and Willow had been swimming for a little while now, maybe a quarter mile so far, but her girlfriend was doing a lot more of it underwater. Pushing off from the wall going about a quarter of the length under the water and then swimming a proper breast stroke (yes, there were plenty of jokes about that they’d already gone through) but dipping her head back into the water at every stroke.

Willow was almost like a proper swimmer, a competitor. Not as fast, but mimicking that style. She’d have believed it was that competitive spirit if Willow had been racing against her but… no.

On the other hand, her style was a little different. She was keeping her head up and had fastened her hair up. A nice, demure, swim that still gave her a workout without getting all the chlorine in her hair and then needing to dry it out. No need for a bucket of conditioner either.

So why Willow was spending so much time underwater, with the goggles on? She wasn’t certain - Except… really she was. Know Willow even a little – as her (lesbian) lover – and you’d have certain suspicions.

Tara knew the truth.

Willow’s underwater – risking the state of her hair and the racoon eyes from the goggles – because most of me is under the water.

That very first time they’d come swimming together Willow had referred to her as the ‘lesbian iceberg’ and only amended it to the ‘hot lesbian iceberg’ when connotations of vast size crept into it. Not exactly complimentary.

But thereafter, it hadn’t taken a lot of imagination. Though she did wonder what the specific attraction might be. After all, Willow got to see her whenever she wanted. Swimsuit or even a bikini. Lingerie – Willow had repeatedly said how she found her sexier wearing something that nothing – and naked of course. Running kit… the sweaty thing, somehow that worked for Willow too.

Was this something like that?

“I do know,” she said when they reached the far end again. Willow just a moment behind her. She’d even experimented by slowing down and her girl had stayed back there. To her left and just to the side.

“I know you know lots of stuff, baby” Willow confirmed. “But what do you know right now?” The other woman was taking a moment to fiddle with her goggles, the ones that would leave big imprints around her eyes for the next couple of hours but kept the water out so that was okay.

“I know what you’re doing.”

“Oh? I didn’t think I was doing anything, I mean, you’re the only thing – umm – person - that I want to do. Like, ever.”

“Flatterer, stop changing the subject. I know.”

“Okay. So, what am I doing?” Willow asked, but she’d already set off for another lap. This time, being left behind with her goggles off and not quite adjusted, her girlfriend had to scramble to catch up, or whatever a scramble was in the water. But by the time they’d made the turn at the other end, Willow was right where she’d be expected to be.

“I know you’re watching me. Underwater.”

“You got me. I’m guilty. I’m really, really guilty. I should probably be punished or something? If you wanna?”

Well, there it was. Now she knew – eventually – they were going to get to the ‘why?’ so maybe she should just ask. “Why?” But as soon as she spoke the word, she set off, this time on her back. Okay, she was getting her hair wet anyway but… hey, some things took precedence.

“Tara!”

“No, you come with me and you stay on the surface.”

Willow sighed and set off after her. “So unfair,” she was grumbling when she caught up. But she was only teasing. “You’re there, on your back, all mmmm and breaking the water in interesting places and - and you ask me why?”

“Sure. Why?”

Her girlfriend sighed, pretending this was really annoying. The sparkle in her eyes, no matter how red, said that it wasn’t. “Well, you know how I find you sexy, right?” They both slowly traversed the pool on their backs, just fluttering their hands by their sides and kicking gently.

“It’d come to my attention,” she replied. “Sure.”

“Well…” Willow started and then seemed to think about how she wanted to say it. “Right now, right here, you’re ridiculously sexy.”

“Ridiculously?”

“No, ridiculously. You want me to spell it out – oww!” Willow had swum too far, too fast, taking the lead because – again – she wanted to be able to look at her, even above the water. Now she’d clonked her head into the side of the pool.

“Aww, poor baby.” Tara turned neatly and set off the other way. That was all the sympathy she was offering up in the circumstances.

“Even now, even that way up… ridiculously sexy. I mean… look at what’s just coming out of the water…” Willow sounded so wistful, so appreciative, that she did glance down her own body and yes… certain parts were just a little bit exposed as she floated there. Exposed above the water, because everything was covered up. Her back was exposed by the diamond shaped hole in the suit, but everything else was well covered and nothing was disappearing up any kind of crack.

She wasn’t Faith, after all.

“I’m wearing a swimsuit, right? You see it too?”

“Yes, I see it but… again with the ridiculously sexy.”

“Uhuh?” She got it, of course, but the ‘ridiculously’ part was intriguing. And, really, who didn’t like to be told she was ‘ridiculously sexy’ by the woman she loved?

“It’s like I always said, I always find you hotter in some wrapping than just naked,” Willow said. “I said that right? I didn’t just think it? Not that I don’t find you hot when you’re naked because that can be really hot too. I like how hot you are, but it’s good – just to jumpstart the hotness – when you’re still wearing some clothes. Then I can undress you with my mind, my eyes and only after that with my hands. You know what I mean, right?”

“And so do the other people in the pool now,” Tara said as they reached the other side. “Watch your head this time.”

“How did you know - ?” Willow looked around, trying to see but getting a face full of water for her trouble.

“I watch the roof,” she explained. “Count off the beams. When we reach five, we’re near the other side.”

“Mmm, you’re smarter than any hot blonde should be,” Willow grinned. “You know, you can say I’m hot in a swimsuit too. If you like. I promise not to feel objectified or anything.”

She looked at her girl, willing to tease. “I – I’m sorry baby… I just don’t see it. It’s the goggles. They don’t do anything for you.” Teasing, of course. The boy-shorts and halter style top Willow was wearing were actually a very interesting look. Especially the shorts.

“Mostly because I’m under the water and it distorts the light, I bet. That’s why I have the goggles and that’s why I like to… swim underwater some. To look at you. I mean…” Willow lowered her voice. There weren’t many people in the pool, but sound would carry more over water, wouldn’t it?

“It’s not like it’s a sexy swimsuit,” she pointed out.

“Are you kidding? Utilitarian and sporty is practically lesbian chic. That’s like the white tank-top of swimsuits. Except blue and all backless… but your muscles. Ohhh, you have muscles when you’re wearing that. Muscles in your back and everything and when you move…”

“You’re just a big old perv,” Tara said.

“When you move they ripple…”

“That’s why you swim behind me?”

“Umm, no… I swim behind you so I can look at your legs and the way you kick so I can look between them…”

“Why?! You can’t see anything!”

“I don’t need to, you see… I know what’s there,” Willow said.

“Baby, I love you, but… I’m starting to think I shouldn’t come swimming with you. Except then maybe you’d perv over some other girl.”

Willow shook her head. “There’s only one girl I perv for. And you know I love you wet…”

“Oh, haha.” She’d been waiting for that one for weeks but ‘breast stroke’ had lingered as the swimming joke for most of that time, displacing all the obvious alternatives. Now there was a challenger.

“It was a joke, but kind of true too – I mean… wet is actually a good look on you and now your hair too.” Willow bit her lip thoughtfully. She obviously really meant all this.

“My hair’s - ”

“All wet and fastened up but wet and there’s some strands that are just… yum,” Willow said.

She laughed, unable to help herself. This wasn’t the sort of thing you really expected to find out about your very attentive girlfriend at a time like this. Of course, Willow’s love of getting frisky in the shower or bath – when they could safely (and privately) arrange such a thing – should perhaps have been a clue. Now that they were in the Rosenberg house for the summer, things were easier. Faith was barely there so… they pretty much had enough time to themselves.

“That’s still not it,” she said. “I know you, don’t forget. You might’ve come up with all this later but there was one thing, one thing that really caught your attention. That’s what you do. I was just lucky that it was me.”

“Actually, it was your smile and your eyes, back at Wicca Group.”

“But what is it this time?” she wondered.

“You really want to know what it is?” Willow asked. “More than anything else?”

“Please…”

“It’s your boobs,” Willow told her.

“Oh. Well. Umm, you’re not really telling me anything new there.”

“Oh, I am… every time you kick, baby - they shake. No, not shake. More sort of… bob forward.”

“Really?” she asked. When Willow said it, it sounded sort of obvious but it wasn’t something she’d realised.

“Bob. Deliciously. That’s why I time my stroke so my face is in the water when you pull and your muscles and the bobbing… Like I said, deliciously.”

“Ridiculously deliciously?”

“Ridiculously.”

And now that she thought about it, setting off and kicking again, yeah… she could see and feel how that worked what with the support of the water and all. Bob “When?” she asked, at the other end. “When did you discover this?”

“Right about the time I first went swimming with you. Just a happy accident but colour me motivated.”

“And so now you’re a mermaid?” she asked, figuring that if her girlfriend would just come running she’d get more than her fill of bobbing.

“You wouldn’t want me to be a mermaid,” Willow replied confidently.

“Really?”

“Nope, you like my bottom just as it is.”

Dang it, she was right.

-------------------------

“Do mermaids even exist?” Tara asked.

“I told you about the Sunnydale High swim team, right?”

“They were the ones who became fish men?” Tara checked.

“Uhuh.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

No. Because, for a start, Tara had meant an emphasis on ‘maids.’ But probably not in the… virginal sense of the word.

“Oh, you meant the naked girls with long hair draped over their breasts, calling out a sirens song and luring unsuspecting redheads to their doom?”

Willow smiled to herself. She knew exactly what sort of doom Tara was talking about too. So she’d been caught out keeping an eye – underwater – on her sexy girlfriend. It was worth it. Even with the racoon eyes. She peered into the mirror and checked them out. Right now, looked like someone had taken eyeliner and gone around them.

Possibly the goggles were too tight but if they were too loose then the water got in and she looked like she’d been drinking for four days straight.

And Tara-boobage would’ve been all blurry and what use would that be?

“Something like that,” she replied, anticipation building. She was glad there was no one else here in the changing room to spoil it. There were – after all – a few things that Tara didn’t know about her. Not many, but definitely a few.

“What are you doing?” Tara asked, catching on that something was happening. There was no hiding from her, of course. Only the specifics.

“Looking at my racoon eyes,” she said.

“Your eyes are right there, you’re looking at me in the mirror.”

“Can I help it if my girlfriend is the most ridiculously sexy girl in the world?” she asked. “Whether she’s bobbing underwater or not?”

“I guess,” Tara said, still blushing to be complimented after all this time, “it’s a cross you just have to bear.”

“Yup,” she said happily. “Or, you know, some other religious symbol.”

“Oh, I hadn’t realised what I was saying.”

Willow smiled, turning and leaning against the counter, looking at her girlfriend. Of course, if someone walked in right now then she was going to get all flustered – and not a little regretful – since there was no way Tara would be so bold as to do what she wanted with someone else there. “Go on…”

“Go on what?”

“Do it.”

“What?”

“You know,” she said.

“Umm, no. I mean, I guess – maybe – you want me to get naked. But there’s nothing special about that. I mean, that’s what the whole changing room is for. That and getting dressed again. Oh, and showering.”

Willow shook her head. “You’re wrong on two counts there – about the naked thing, cos you were right about the rest. But first all naked's not what I wanted – at least not why I wanted it and second, it’s always special.”

Tara’s smile would’ve been playful in their bedroom, but here… she was a little worried too. But if she’d remembered what she’d been told then she wouldn’t have had to worry. She wasn’t about to ask her girlfriend to do anything she wouldn’t have to do anyway, just to get changed and go home she’d have to do this. All she wanted was for Tara to do it for her.

All it involved was… letting go.

“So?”

“Just keep going.”

“So you do want me to take it off - ?”

“Yes, but I told you, that’s not why! Don’t you remember what I said last time?”

“Ohh. That?” Tara was all kinds of sexy just stood there… Gosh.

“That’s right.”

“So really?” Tara asked. “This is really a thing for you?”

“It really is.” She looked on as Tara started to peel the suit away from her damp body. Sexy enough, obviously, to put all sorts of thoughts in her head that they couldn’t live up to here. But not the ultimate purpose. Not what she was looking for.

No, not even the looking. That wasn’t the sense she was looking to be stimulated.

“I think,” Tara said, when her breasts were free, “that this is probably what they call ‘a fetish’.”

“You’re my fetish,” Willow said. “And what is a fetish anyway? Who’s to say?”

“It’s anything odd. And believe me, honey, this is odd.”

“So far so good,” Willow said, not willing to commit herself on that. There were things they liked, both of them, that – sure – might’ve been considered outside the mainstream. But if you were going down to that level liking girls went against the mainstream of about eighty percent of the female population. Guessing, obviously, to factor the bi women in there. And the ‘flexible’ ones like Faith. No one called that a fetish anymore. And this… wasn’t the sort of thing that got counted.

Which might be why Tara gave it the ‘fetish’ label?

But maybe it was actually very popular. Maybe it was just Tara who didn’t get it?

“You’re sure this isn’t just about me getting naked?” Tara asked, pausing when she was just about to lower the suit to the point things would get really interesting from the nudity point of view.

“Not just about it, no. And no matter what you think about me, ravishing you in a changing room, in public, isn’t one of the things I’m into.”

“Ravishing? Who mentioned ravishing?”

Okay, so the thought had just popped into her head. But in a negative ‘I’m not going to do that’ way. Nothing else. “Tara, please… go on… It’s not the same at home, we tried and it just isn’t. Something about the floor. The water, I don’t know…”

With a resigned sigh – and a mischievous smile - Tara let the suit fall to the floor and Willow caught her breath ready for… Nothing!

Her lover, her beautiful, wonderful and infuriating lover caught it on her foot and didn’t let it hit the ground then bent to pick it up. As alluring as all that might’ve been – visually – it was a different kind of stimulation that she’d been hoping for and had now been thwarted.

“Witch.”

“Pervert.”

“Gah…”

Tara held up the swimsuit, waving it back and forth and… retreating? Where was she going. She asked the question.

“You’re my girlfriend and I love you, but I’m just not indulging your fetishes in public.”

“It’ll only take a second! No one will even know! Come back!”

“I’ll know…” Tara was backing up and heading back towards the walled off cubicles for the women who liked a little more privacy. Seemed like a strange thing to do when she was already naked and… “You come here.”

Oh.

“Really?”

“Come in here,” Tara said through the open door. “And I’ll give you what you want.”

“What if someone catches us in there, or coming out?”

“It’ll only take a second, like you said,” Tara pointed out. “And you weren’t worried a minute ago.”

With the swimsuit up at shoulder height, in her hand, Tara made a convincing argument. “Oh… okay.” She hurried after her naked girlfriend and shut the door behind them.

“Are you ready?”

“Don’t tease me anymore, baby.”

“Are you sure you’re ready?”

“So obviously you tease me right away…” Willow complained, but she was going to get what she wanted. Who could argue with that?

“Three.”

“Two.”

“One.”

Tara released the swimsuit and a second later. THWAPP. The wet fabric hit the tiled floor. “Ohhh… baby, that’s the sexiest sound ever,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You know, honey,” Tara said. “If you think that’s the sexiest sound ever then… you really are a little strange.”

“There might be one or two that are as good,” Willow replied. Sounds made by people… One person. This person. Tara.

“Well, we’ll talk about that another time. Get out of here, I need to get dressed.”

“Your clothes are out there…” Willow pointed out. “In our locker.”

“Okay… maybe. So we both need to get out of here.”

And when they opened the door… Annie. Of course. Someone who knew them and would jump to a reasonable – if incorrect – conclusion.

“Hey, girls,” their friend said, suppressing a smirk. Actually, no. There was no suppressing here. Just a smirk.

“It’s not what you think,” Willow said, trying to be gallant enough to shield Tara’s nudity with her – still suited – body because that was what a good girlfriend, caught out, would do.

Right?

“No,” Tara said. “It’s weirder than you think. So much weirder.”

*****************

[Azirahael]

No Dibs.

It's not a fetish until you NEED it to get off.
If it's just something that turns you on, it's a preference, or possibly a kink :-)

But as kinks go it's pretty harmless.

I thought flexible prettymuch was the definition of bi?

Plus: woo and hoo!
They have just legalised gay marriage in New Zealand!
Before this it was the 'equal but not really' civil union.
The buggers waited until i was out of the country to do it, and but at least they did it.

Now to find someone to marry to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity.

Story, bonus, and it's all good. Looking forward to more

R

[DaddyCatALSO]

Azirahel:

It's not a fetish until you NEED it to get off.
If it's just something that turns you on, it's a preference, or possibly a kink :-)

Wish I could get some folks on a certain other board to accept that :-).

A great slice-of-life type chapter, showing how they interact. (I was a bit dubious when Joss gave Willow a bit of a breast fixation, cliche, y'know, but you (and soem other writers here on the board) have shown me just how normal it is.

Previous chapters; I knew as soon as you told us the name what the unmaking spell would do. And the dream sequence; this Willow seems less unsure-of-herself and ehr identity than canon. Will it paly out that way, or will it be shown elsewhere? (And lol on nailing me on how unclear i was in sayign *which* home the First slayer would take Tara to!)

[Katharyn]

So I am getting schooled on kinks and fetishes.

I shouldn't really be surprised around here Let's just say that the girls have never had to know this either so my/their ignorance is absolutely excused by that. Those who DO need to know this... well, well done for the info

Azirahael - Yes, it is a pretty harmless kink. I think Willow is discovering all sorts of kinks at the moment. I mean, she's realised who she is now and I imagine (but could be wrong) that means that until Tara (and girl thoughts!) she's never really had kinks at all... Now, life is just full of them

Flexible is the definition of bi? Well, in Faith's case (for example) she's flexible in all sorts of ways of meaning and yet somehow I don't apply that to her sexuality. I think her sexuality is pretty rigid. It's rigidly selfish, rigidly opportunistic and rigidly about whatever feels good to her. I don't think 'she'd' call herself flexible at all. Just... adaptive to the situation. Also, from her partner's point of view, she knows that giving them a good time is going to deliver the most for her too. So... stepping out to the extreme that is Faith, I'd have to say that 'flexible' isn't the definition of bi. But for other people? I dunno, I won't get into that and risk offending anyone

Finally, cos you got me talking about Faith (I am having SO much much at the moment working on prepping the posts for BvsD which she features in) I honestly don't think she's ever applied a label to herself. And not because she doesn't like labels. Her mental conversation - to me - is 'I'm horny/there's the person I want/it's a guy/girl <delete as applicable>/demand results.'

This is why she's so much fun. She's a force of nature, right on the extremes in so many ways - even when you soften her. She's not even "slutty". It wouldn't occur to her that she was, even if someone was calling her that. It's the double standard that too often applies to women over men, but I know in my life there've been all sorts of women who are sleeping around (with women) but you'd never consider a 'slut'. Faith is very much one of them. It's all about attitude. Nor would she ever consider castigating anyone else for 'sluttiness.' Buffy, for her bad choices, sure. Tara and Willow for being exclusive? Sure. But any girl getting what she wants? No. Faith's never going to deride them as a slut - even though the word comes out of her mouth as a general description.

Sorry if I misspoke in any of the above, but I hope you can see what I am trying to get to about her! Note all the quotes I've added in... Strictly my opinions on Faith, not getting into my own thoughts or stuff about the real world.

New Zealand... wow, yes. There was a (male) parliamentarian who did a GREAT speech I am sure you've seen being from there, but it was just fantastic.

Yeah, go find someone to marry. Now. What are you waiting for? Get DIBS on her!

Thanks for letting me ramble!

Daddycatalso - You were dubious of the breast fixation? LOL. I was more like 'nope, it's not just me and the girlfriend I'd had at that point.' You won't find many people hereabouts who don't think breasts are just great

Spell of Unmaking... Yeah, that was a nice 'get out of jail' spell, guaranteed to have the right effect. Of course, were I to use that in S5 then all we'd have was naked Glory, beating someone up... Umm, am I wrong to feel that might be a good thing?

I think the difference between my S4 and the canon is that I didn't really tear the scoobies apart. Hardly at all. I think that is what lay behind Restless in canon. It wasn't necessary to mess around with that sort of episode given that no one pulled them apart. Another good reason to kill Spike. Also, doing justice to Scooby problems (and resolution) in my S4 would've been hard with the focus so much on T/W... would've made it about 50% longer at a guess. And it's long enough!

Thanks so much

Katharyn

[Katharyn]

Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Seventy-four-A
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: Finally! The day at the beach from Buffy versus Dracula. This part takes place earlier in the day than we saw in the episode (which comes next in part 74B)
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: I have to credit Kajun for the idea for this. It was going, originally, to just be a scene presented immediately before the ‘canon’ summer on the beach thing (that I always had a version of in the story) but I was having so much fun with it that it grew and basically became its own part, set earlier that day on the beach.
Actually, I did have reference to playing games in the original beach section (it may even have been volleyball) but I hadn’t worked it up and presented it fully. You know, with bikini’s and skin and wobbles which is pretty much what Miss Moderator Fantastico asked for cos, like Willow, she’s a big old perv. But if you have to be a perv, be a perv like Willow.
The volleyball section was just a bit of fun added because I could. And then I thought… yeah, I can add that girl back in from the other bonus chapter I did. I hope you enjoy that thread of continuity – and the part – but don’t assume there’s any significance to her presence. Just a case of two chapters being written – out of sequence – but consecutively so… why not? Though I am wondering about an on-going storyline for her…
Thanks to: All of you who can put up with these moments that are just – basically – for fun. And all those of you who can forgive me for being too lazy to renumber every part that comes after this and just leave these as bonus chapters!
As of next part, we’re into paralleling canon S5 so… no more distractions. After this.




“I’m not so sure this is a great idea,” Willow said.

“You know how to play don’t you?” her partner asked. She couldn’t help noticing that it wasn’t a question about the ‘rules’ just about how to play. That said something, right there.

“I always kinda thought it was like dodge ball. But without the rules?” she guessed.

Her partner smiled for a second. Liking her joke? That was new. That was… very new. Of course, Faith was in a good mood. This Slayer obviously liked the beach and she liked the attention she was getting on the beach too.

Some people, say those with pale skin, red hair and freckles, didn’t do so well here and had to cover up so much it wasn’t even funny. Some people might’ve thought that – out of sympathy and being out of the game when it came to attracting attention from guys especially but from anyone else – her girlfriend might’ve covered up a little more too. Show a little solidarity. But Tara…

Tara seemed to be getting into that idea. She’d stripped off her t-shirt – citing not wanting to get it sandy – and was stood spinning the ball (not on the tip of her finger because Tara Maclay wasn’t exactly a founder member of the Harlem Globetrotters) – and wearing no more than a bikini top and shorts.

Somehow she was supposed to be grateful that Tara had – at least – kept the shorts on.

This… wasn’t what she’d expected. First of all she’d never expected to be asked to play. Neither of them had really. Then she hadn’t expected Tara to say ‘yes.’ Then she hadn’t expected her girlfriend to go with the stereotype of the beach volleyball uniform.

It was a whole big stack of unexpected. Unexpectedly staying upright.

This was Tara Maclay they were talking about. Montana girl who’d never even seen the ocean – or even a big lake – until arriving in Sunnydale. Now she was ‘beach volleyball chick’? Seemed like an… unusual twist.

Hot – obviously - but unusual too.

Because no one was going to tell her that - as she tossed the ball to Faith and reached up to fasten up her hair - Tara wasn’t about as hot, sporty and all around yum as she’d ever been.

As anyone had ever been.

In the striped bikini – which wasn’t exactly tiny – and with her arms up like that, Tara was playing (stealthily) to more than one of her beautifully discovered fetishes. Boobs and the curves and lines from the side of them up to her arms and oh so interesting shoulders… But then the shorts gave her a different quality to the other girls that just… worked for her. Oh honey, you are a sexy, sexy girl.

And with the hair up too? Tara was all business. Like a sexy tiger. In a bikini and shorts. Rawr!

A sexy, sexy, smexy, lexy, girl…

And yes, she was the tiniest bit jealous. In several – equally tiny but different - ways.

First of all… How was it that a girl from Montana should have a complexion that worked on the beach? How fair was that? She’d lived in California all her life and all of that time she’d had to cover up and slather up the sunblock (more fun when she had Tara to help, admittedly.) Her girlfriend though… she just tanned and got a different kind of beautiful.

Secondly, this view… this sexy view should only be for her. That was the girlfriend privilege. Exhibit A, she’d strip off for her girlfriend – in private – in a heartbeat. Here… not so much.

And yes, that was the sun again that was stopping her – and the way thick lashing of sunblock made her look like a greased up zombie - but you couldn’t go through life with double standards now could you?

Third, and finally, she happened to believe that the beach volleyball uniform – though possessed of its charms as a woman who loved a woman – was just a little bit sexist. Though, faced with the possibility of – umm – facing Tara across a net and looking at her… sexist was kind of looking sexy and – and -

And, okay, her third reason wasn’t so final. Fourth, just how was she supposed to concentrate on winning when Tara was being so damned sexy? It was so unfair…

So unfair it might even be… a tactic? Had her girlfriend – finally – embraced her inner sexiness and was she now exploiting it? Had Tara been waiting for this moment to bring out the big guns? Not that the bikini boosted her that way, but there was enough.

It seemed unlikely, but far from impossible. Just look at the evidence. See, now she was bending over. Stretching! Good, athletic idea but… soooo distracting.

Sneaky witch!

Or possibly just completely naïve about it. Yeah, in the duality that was the Tara she’d used to know and fallen in love with – compared with the Tara she was currently even more in love with – either might be possible.

Sensing that something might be about to happen on court (really no more than a patch of sand with a net), a group of people – the majority were guys – had already gathered for the all-girl two versus two match. Eddie, Anya and Xander had already been there, of course. But the rest of the crowd?

They might’ve bothered her – and she’d have assumed it would bother Tara too – but in reality all those eyes were going to be fixed on the Slayers who’d be partnering the two of them. She and Faith versus Tara and Buffy.

Buffy was in her bikini too, but not as tiny as Faith’s black one and – to be honest – (again as a woman who loved a woman she felt most highly qualified to observe) Faith filled hers better. That was just a fashion choice, not a comment on Buffy’s bod which was totally Slayer appropriate. Just a better bikini pick.

Though Buffy should take comfort from the fact that, with sexy Tara over on the other side with her, the average hotness of the teams was definitely in Buffy and Tara’s favour. If she’d dared risk a bikini herself then that really wouldn’t have helped – no matter what Tara said – a thick shield of sunblock was definitely not sexy to the average person.

Not, she fancied, to Tara either. No more than – in the days that would’ve followed – the bright pink and red skin where she’d have burned. It was really just the pain and (the wrong kind of) pink she was avoiding.

So, she and Faith were going to lose in the sexy stakes, but how about the match?

What was up with these teams? Hadn’t they fought a battle this summer to decide on naming privileges – still not settled – and now they were mixing those up?

“What’s your problem, Red?”

“No problem here,” she said. “Just I’m going to get picked on as the weaker team member. That’s always the way it goes, I get on a team and then they pick on me until I’m out.”

“You don’t get ‘out’ in volleyball, I told you.”

“I might, if Buffy hits it at my head. I might get out then, right?” Or maybe my teammate will do me in. Friendly fire…

“Nuh-huh. You’re not getting out of it that easy, oyster shucker,” Faith said as she watched Buffy and Tara huddle on the other side of the net.

“Oyster shucker? That’s new. Not bad.”

“Saw it on TV, seemed pretty obvious.”

“You didn’t think of clam?” Willow wondered why she was getting drawn into it.

“Too obvious,” Faith replied.

She rolled her eyes and bemoaned the fact that things had to be this way. Without saying it, obviously.

How come my best friend she gets to huddle with my girlfriend?

Doesn’t my perpetual dibs on Tara count for anything?

Course, it’s probably because no one’s stupid enough to put me and Tara up against the two Slayers together.

The teams had been decided rather than picked, with her – naturally – insisting on a split of Slayers and Witches. But she’d assumed that she’d get Buffy and Tara would get Faith. That was the way that things were supposed to go. A Team and B Team. Team Leather or Lace – as Faith kept suggesting without revealing who was who. Tara was still searching for a compromise along A and Alpha. Yeah, it was still a sore topic.

Not as sore as she was likely to be after trying to keep up with Faith though.

Tara was mixing things up though. Trying to promote cooperation and the like. After the last time they tried a competition to decide the team labels, she’d have thought her girlfriend would’ve learned a lesson – it’d actually just caused some recrimination in the wake of Faith lording it over them - but Tara was nothing if not a trier. She’d never give up trying to make things right between Buffy and Faith.

Or between her and Faith, actually.

And they were all getting along. Like, she’d really, truly be amused by the ‘oyster’ thing. Used to Faith and her barely veiled innuendo. And who would have believed that Faith would’ve come to the beach with them just a few months ago? That Buffy would be the one to ask her if she wanted to come with? And that Faith would stay pretty close to them? Shared a picnic hamper (Faith didn’t have one) and an icebox (she didn’t have one of those either)?

No one, that’s who. Not a single, solitary soul would’ve believed it. Hoped for it, sure, in Tara’s case. But not believed it.

They could always do better, that was Tara’s father’s motto and there was so much to live up to considering Mister Maclay that she was quite nervous of ever meeting the man. Something that would happen sooner or later, she was still surprised that Tara hadn’t at least paid a visit home in the summer.

But perhaps if I could say that I’d won a volleyball match? A beach volleyball match. Despite the hotness of his daughter distracting me? He might respect me then. Right?

It might feel farfetched, but is he any more likely to respect me if I lose? No. So I’ve got to win this just in case it will impress. Sexy girlfriend – oh, what’s she doing now… Oh. I didn’t know that was a physiologically valuable stretch… Umm. Yum?

“Should we be stretching?” she wondered.

“I’m always ready to go,” Faith said.

Talking of innuendo…

“Look, fair warning,” she said to Faith. “You have to realise, I’m not the most… sporty person.”

“Really? You’re shitting me, Flo Jo.”

She didn’t rise to the sarcasm. “Really. Also, I’m very small and that net’s very high.” Faith wasn’t much taller, but she had game. She could jump.

“Don’t worry about that, Red, we’re going to keep this really simple. Your job, your only job, is to keep the ball off the ground and inside the court – somewhere near where I can get to it. Apart from that, I’ll take care of everything.”

“You don’t mind how?”

“I don’t care if it hits you in the head, butt or bounces off your tits – you’re flat enough for good contact. Just so long as it goes up or towards me. Right?”

“Tits. Right.”

“Try for the hands, Red. It’ll really be easier that way.”

“Hands – okay. I’m good with my hands,” she said.

“This is a different skill to the one you mean,” Faith said. “Don’t embarrass me, Rosenberg. Lots of guys are watching. And that girl there, she looks a little butch. Might be on your team.”

“I already have a team and I don’t need anyone else, butch or not.”

“Okay… okay, but it’s always nice to be looked at. And she is looking at you.”

“Shut up!”

“Hey, Tara can’t be the only person that thinks you’re hot.” Faith shrugged. “Come on, B. T. Get on with it.”

“We’re waiting for you,” Buffy called back.

“Balls on your side,” Willow pointed out. That might easily be her greatest contribution to the match. To bring logic to the fore. Identify the starting position.

“Nah,” Buffy said, serving from the back of the court. “Faith’s the one with a collection of balls.”

“You know it!” the darker Slayer said, leaping impressively high to smash the lazy serve back and – right towards Tara.

“Oh! Ouch, baby! Are you okay?”

The ball had deflected off Tara’s shin and into some of the onlookers, leaving her limping for a moment. She waved the enquiry off.

“That’s good,” Willow said, smiling. “She’s okay. And… one – nil. Suck it!”

“You do know why I did that, right?” Faith asked.

------------------------

“You want me to get her?” Buffy asked.

“No!”

“But she said ‘suck it’, she didn’t just say it, she was kind of... gleeful. Once she knew you were okay. That’s… not my Willow. Is it your Willow?” Buffy asked.

Tara peered through the net. “That’s her. The sun block’s a dead giveaway. But she’s… Faith did that so you’d target Willow, didn’t she?”

Buffy shrugged, uncertain. “Whether she did or not, we might have to if we want to win.”

“But won’t they do – won’t they keep doing that to us?” To me?

“This is what you get for having a Slayer and a normal person on the same team.”

“I guess…”

“Are you two going to play? Come on!” Faith demanded. “Or have you had enough already?”

“So what’s it going to be?” Buffy asked. “Either we go for Willow, or Faith will just keep going for you and the way Willow sounded, she was pretty much decided that she’s in it for the win.”

Yeah, it did sound that way… Something had brought out her competitive streak. Again.

So there really was no choice, aside from walking away. Buffy wasn’t about to do that and she wasn’t about to abandon Buffy either.

“Let’s win this thing.” What else could she say when the route to losing was being pounded by spikes by Faith?

--------------------------

Pretty much the myth of the short people had been laid to rest. Between Faith and Buffy, they’d proven that girls of diminutive stature could actually jump. Usually to fire the ball back towards she or Tara.

What had happened though was that Faith and Buffy had gotten so into it, so possessive of the fact that she and Tara couldn’t stand up to them, that they were both running around the sandy court like crazy women and defending them.

If you could call what Faith was doing ‘defending’.

More than once, Faith had knocked her aside just to get to the ball first, without even giving her a chance to try and dig it out herself.

The first time she’d been okay with that – kind of – refusing to get angry about Faith trying to win for them. And yeah, they’d gotten a point out of it so what was she supposed to say? Not much that she could do…

But then the second time Faith had ended up on top of her, basically straddling and falling across her. Obviously the watching Anya took umbrage at that in terms of Xander being allowed to play. “Well, we’re not playing the winners if she’s going to do that,” the ex-demon announced. Having seen the punishment the ‘normals’ were taking, Xander didn’t seem that bothered by not going on court.

And then to make things worse - when she was trying to get up - her hand inadvertently strayed to Faith’s thigh.

“Hey, Red, number one – quit trying to cop a feel. Number two, you have a second job. Get out of the fucking way.” Faith helped her up and she noticed Tara was looking on, smiling and shaking her head. She’d seen the hand. The expression was as if she was incorrigible.

When really, she was just accident prone. “Thanks. For helping me up, I mean, not for knocking me down.”

“Or the thigh?”

“Oh – come on - ”

“Red, you’re marginally more use on your feet than on your ass,” Faith said.

“Just marginally?” she asked.

“Well, I did have a moment – when that ball hit it and bounced up again – when I wondered. But you’re slightly more mobile on your feet. And there’s less of you for me to avoid.”

“Thanks.”

A few more points went back and forth, following a familiar pattern. “I can’t believe Buffy’s targeting me.” Hitting it into Faith’s side seemed to just be something they did for variety. “I can’t believe Tara’s letting Buffy do that either.”

“Just like you’re letting me do the same thing to them – Look out!”

Willow skipped neatly out of the way this time. “Yay! I dodged it! Did you see that? She smashed it and I got out of the way! Yay!”

“Yeah, and they got a point.”

“Oh. Right. Again, wrong game.”

“Wrong game.”

“I do want to win,” Willow said, setting the ball up for Faith to spike it and send a cloud of sand up into Buffy’s face, leaving her spluttering.

“I know, Red,” Faith admitted. “It’s just you’re not built for it. There’s strategy, but no time to think and no time for magic. That was pretty good though – more of those, please.”

Was there time for magic? Maybe… except Tara would know it instantly and that’d be cheating. As Faith would say, it’d be ‘wrong.’

I can’t be the first to resort to that. But if they did, could the two of them deal with their opposing Slayers?

No. I’m a good girl.

It was good to have convictions, especially when you were face down in the sand, spluttering. You’d have thought that would be when she was most tempted.

Once again, Faith helped her up. “Nice try.”

“Sorry.” Was that two bits of praise in a row?

“No, I mean it. It was actually a nice try. You threw yourself into that, I couldn’t have got there.”

“We still lost the point though.”

“Ball bounced off the cord, you’d have had it with one more inch. They’d never have got there.”

Really? “Oh, yay me. I have sand in my shirt.”

“By the time we finish, you might’ve got this, Red. And by the time we leave the beach, you’ll have sand in lots of places Tara will have to dig it out.”

Brightening and feeling a little bolder Faith’s attempts at praise actually did spur her on a little to the extent that she paid a little more attention. To the ball. To the crowd. To the game in general. And to Faith.

She could see what was setting the guys who were watching – and a few girls – a twitter when Faith moved or served. She wasn’t a big girl in any regard, but her ‘girls’ were more obvious than any of the rest of them in that bikini and… they – and she – moved in fascinating ways. When it came to throwing herself into something, Faith wasn’t slow with the throw.

Nor was she reluctant to make the most of adjusting her the garment, getting trapped sand out of it and the like. And that made her very popular. Almost as popular as playing to the crowd. Guys loved attitude, it seemed. At least the guys who hung out here did.

The whole thing was a performance, of course. Look at me. She was a needy girl, a therapist would probably have said.

Of course, a therapist would probably have given up in despair at the contradiction that was Faith Lehane. Because she wasn’t really a show off, it wasn’t ‘look at me’ because she wanted to be looked at. More like… she didn’t want to be alone, even though she thought she should be.

“Willow!”

Tara’s shout brought her back to the very real present just in time to cover her midriff as a ball looked to hit her.

It bounced off her wrist – that was going to be sore – and somehow Faith got to it, just tipping it over the net. A dribble of a ball that just…oozed over the net cord and fell on the other side.

“Yay! And ow.”

“Mind on the job, Red,” Faith said, slapping her ass as she passed behind her.

“Hey! What was that?! And ow. Again.”

“Something to make you focus, also… the guys liked it.” Faith’s eyes were sparkling, as alive as Willow had only seen her a few times. It wasn’t the guys though, it was the prospect of winning, she was sure. Guys had their purpose and their use, but that was purely physical for Faith. This was something else.

“So did that girl,” Willow said, noticing. “If the butch girl’s looking at me then that one’s definitely got her eyes on you.”

“That’s just Paige,” Faith reminded her and she could place where she’d seen the tattooed, toned girl before. Yeah, Faith and Annie’s tattoo artist. The one who’d supposedly done some slightly – or very – intimate ink for her. Possibly reinserted some even more intimate piercings after the whole spell of unmaking thing… “You remember her?”

A point passed and they switched sides again, moving Faith away from the girl.

“Well? Are you going to wave at her or something?”

“That’s your bag, not mine,” Faith said, but did look in her direction.

“I thought you were – what was the word? Hetero-flexible?” Willow asked. Why? She had no idea. The idea of Faith doing something – or someone – different wasn’t fresh, she did someone different practically every time she… well, did someone. But… maybe a girl could calm her down?

Tame her?

Except – like Miss Kitty in her dreams - this pussy probably didn’t want to be tamed.

“What?” Faith asked.

“I – I - ” I’m never, ever, saying that. Did I say that? Out loud? “You should talk to her. You know, after. I mean… even if you don’t, umm, want her then you know how the guys will react…”

I’m a bad, bad girl. I should be spanked by my hot girlfriend for even thinking it, let alone encouraging her.

Tara might even see it the same way if she admitted what she’d done. And that could be fun.

But she didn’t feel bad. Not for a bunch of guys who were here not for the athletic spectacle but more for the jiggly, yet pert, flesh on display. Not for encouraging them, not for getting Faith to mislead them – because they’d only ever suit her purposes – and if she felt guilty for anything, it was for Paige who hadn’t taken her eyes off Faith.

Now, did she feel guilty because she was suggesting Faith toy with her – and not in the way she might have appreciated – or because being with Faith was a singularly short term thing?

I’m not sure, I don’t know her. But maybe she’s looking for nothing more than a hot body and a couple of hours of playing with it too?

Presumably there wasn’t any sort of tattooist/patient rule. No, that was probably just doctors. Was there a tattooist oath? Enquiring minds and all…

“Focus, Rosenberg,” Faith said.

“Huh?”

“It’s still match point.”

“What? Really? Time’s just flew by – I was having such fun.”

“This is why they’re serving,” Faith said. “Your mind is… somewhere else. You’re not even staring at that girlfriend of yours.”

No, I’m finding you one. Whether you want it or not. Hetero-flexible is flexible enough… If you’re a bad girl with the boys, then maybe you can be a good girl with the girls?

“Sorry. You know - ”

Tara’s serve was deceptively low and spinning but – maybe for the first time – she got a really good contact on it and set it up perfectly by the net for Faith to spring up and –

Buffy dug it out in a cloud of sand. Tara popped it up and over the net.

“Get it!” Faith said, too far across the other side of the court to get there even with her speed.

Oh… this was going to hurt.

Willow threw herself sideways, aiming to hit it with her hand but she’d estimated wrong and the ball hit her hip instead and bounced up. Up… Faith knocked it high in the air. “Get up!”

She scrambled and stood there, under the descending ball, mesmerised by it. Part blinded by the sun.

So slow. What do I do?

The ball had gone almost straight up and now it was coming almost straight down again. Faith couldn’t touch it again, so it had to be her. But what if I miss? What if it just fell, right at her feet? And they lost? What would Tara’s Dad think if she didn’t have a victory to offer him to prove her potential as his daughter’s mate? So she jumped… and slapped the ball with the heel of her hand, just as the sun dazzled her.

Where had it gone? In the general direction of her girlfriend, she was sure so generally the right direction.

The next thing she knew she was being embraced by Faith, hoisted into the air and spun around.

“Uh! Oxygen – breathing – becoming an issue.”

“You did it, Red!”

“I did?”

“Yeah, you did. Tara missed it.”

“Yay! And – obviously I’m sad that Tara lost too, because I’m a good, supportive girlfriend.”

“Yeah,” Faith said, amused, “that’s what I thought when you said ‘suck it!’ before. How supportive you were.”

“I did?” Willow looked over the net to where Buffy was trying not to fume and Tara was… smiling, happy for her. That was her girl. Her, hot, bikini and shorts wearing, volleyball playing, girl.

Her losing girl. Sorry baby, but this time I’m on top.

“I… I think I just won a sporting contest for the first time,” she said. “Do I get a prize?” There really should be a prize, right?

Faith weighed that up. “I thought we were done for as soon as I ended up with you. But… you’re the competitive one, T’s not so much. Okay… I’ll give you a prize. What do you want? I could get you - ”

“Nothing stolen,” Willow said firmly. Tara wouldn’t thank her for that. “Go talk to her.”

“Who?”

“Your tattooist.” Willow waved to her, to show Paige that they had seen her. The girl just smiled back, but of course they’d only met once and that just before… well, Faith had gotten her last piece of work done. There were at least two, from what Tara said, and even in a tiny bikini neither of them were visible.

Go figure.

“That’s what you want?”

“That’s what I want.”

---------------------

“What’s she doing?” Tara asked as Faith went not to the crowd of guys – some of whom were jostling to get the court and others who were trying to keep the winning team on court with them – but to the other side.

“That’s Paige,” Willow said as if it had some significance.

“I know, I saw her earlier,” Tara said. “So?”

“I sent Faith over to say hello. My prize, because – you know – of how I’m the winner. On the winning team while you and Buffy were on the losing team for some reasons. Oh, yeah, because you’re the losers. You know, that prize?”

“I get it, you won,” Tara said, kissing her on the lips. “Well done.” But the eyes of the crowd were more on Faith and Buffy.

“Not now, baby,” Willow said.

“Don’t be embarrassed - ”

“I’m not! Never. I’m just watching Faith and Paige,” Willow said, grinning. “I want to see whether I have a future as a matchmaker.”

Somehow she couldn’t see it. After all, Faith’s dalliances with girls had – she said – only been a question of feeling good at the time. And they had no idea about Paige, they barely knew her. Willow was making big assumptions. Except… look at Paige now Faith was over there.

“Maybe… maybe you do.”

“It’s because I’m such a winner,” Willow said.

“So… how long until you let that go?”

“Oh, at least a week.”

“Or maybe longer?” Tara wondered.

“Maybe until our next competition.”

I might have just set Faith Lehane up with a date. If you can call it a date. But… Sunnydale, this place is just weird. Anything can happen.

*****************

[Azirahael]

Yay for more lesbians!

I gotta say, i like how willow predictably spaces out, but not about what you'd expect

And i like how our girls are able to be competitive, without hurt feelings.
very mature.

Also, we haven't heard from the little blonde slayer in a while.
I just wonder what's going on with her.

Anyway, looking forward to the story

R

[Kajun]

Katharyn, Hooray for beaches and bikinis! And Faith kicking ass.. again.. and this time with Willow on her side. I’m so proud of Willow. She acted more like a friend toward Faith during the game than.. well.. ever. I was crossing my fingers and toes that she wouldn’t blow a cork after getting a mouthful of sand-sandwich courtesy of the rogue Slayer. And not getting all laser-eyed when Tara took a hit to the shin? Wow.. she really was itching to win after losing the last round of competitions. That was tough to choose which team I wanted to win. Normally, I’m all over Tara but since Willow was being such a good sport, I’m happy she won and made the game-winning play!

It’s also a good sign that Willow’s request as a prize was something that could potentially bring happiness to a person other than herself. I would never try to set up an acquaintance, regardless how well I knew them, with someone I didn’t like. Actually, I was recently asked to do this very thing and refused. In that case, someone I barely knew would have gotten burned by someone I knew very well. Funny how that works sometimes. Anyhoo..

It seems that Faith has a knack for getting people to regain their focus and she is proving to be a very good “team” player and leader. Hopefully, Buffy recognizes this as a good thing and doesn’t get all petty just coz she lost a couple challenges. Faith needs these small victories. She has a lot of confidence but that’s mainly about slaying and sexing. She needs to know that she can succeed in other things like building friendships and getting an education.

This was so much fun and so very much better than what I originally had in mind! Thank you! Furthermore.. I've said this before but it still holds true: your changes to canon and additions fit within the Buffyverse a millions times better than the crap they have done/are doing from SR to current time. And not just coz the focus is on W/T. Well done!!

[Katharyn]

It's insane how much fun I have been having with the parts paralleling BvsD and The Real Me... I've basically sacked off everything else I was doing to part prep the next few LOL (which usually means you all will be underwhelmed!)

Anyway... Thanks to both of you

Azirahael - Lesbians... yes. There is a lot of women loving in this episode - implied, referenced or existing LOL. For reference, Paige is not the same supposed lesbian who was watching Willow. I know it may have read that way. Just thought I'd say cos that means there's another one! And they're not all witches or wiccans!

Love Tara as much as she does, Willow can't help but compete and Tara... she's not a walkover either. As for the blonde Slayer, we get more on her further into BvD as you'd expect

Thanks!

Kajun - Yeah... I decided that even if Willow had to cover up, Tara didn't have to. By the time you see her in the episode in canon it got breezy and she had to put something on cos... I wanted her in a bikini!!!

I very much wanted to put Faith and Willow in a team together to heal that rift and also because they WOULD be so competitive. It's never going to be perfect between Faith, Willow and Buffy. Never. But it's not as bad as I sometimes think you sometimes see it. They're complex, they have a different relationship those three and it is getting better all the time. As we will see (with flare ups still happening) Don't hold it against Buffy!! Faith's still a bitch!

Willow setting up Faith - or making her do something about it - well... She likes to be right and now she's on the lesbians team, she's all about spreading the word (if not the legs!!) I also think the scientific part of her wonders if Faith + Girl > Faith + Guy. It's an equation she wants to solve and I wish I had written it in!

Thanks so much for the idea. As you will see in the next part it was a pretty good fit (I really only added the reference to the game) anyway, but Faith will spin off into her usual ways once Paige leaves the beach. There's another complex - and under used because I thought of it very late - relationship.

I wonder if your thoughts about the changes will hold up at the end of the season? That is tougher to say BUT I really do think we can have a lot of fun getting there regardless

Thanks again

Katharyn

[Katharyn]

Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter Seventy-Four-B
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 very beginning of a different version of ‘Buffy vs. Dracula.’ But set after the previous chapter’s volleyball game. It’s the same day on the beach.
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: The notes below were largely written before I decided to add the volleyball game into this day on the beach so this - 74B - was originally the very start of S5 proper and the BvsD episode. Sorry for the broken nature of them!! Think of it like time-travel. Oooh! Story idea!
I am back to redrafting after an extended period for NaNoWriMo and due to the end of S4 natural break. Feels like coming home, but also feels like ‘there’s still all that to do?’
So here we go, we’re into Season 5 proper. Some of the reason behind the summer parts was trying to establish who was where and when over summer as – in canon - we don’t see Tara and Willow moving into dorms until ‘The Real Me’ so I count ‘Buffy versus Dracula’ as the very tail end of summer. The episode showed us a little of that and there were nice moments, so I’ve left them – in a new version – here… We’ll get into the Dracula stuff as we go on deeper into the episode.
One consequence of the new way in which I’m approaching these episodes, may be that we’re somewhat longer going through the new versions of the episode events, and other episodes skipped almost entirely. Not sure how this is going to go yet… but everything’s still from the girl’s point of view (except for one section coming up not too far in the future for a very necessary reasons (those who remember the show may be able to guess why, who and how that is presented!)
There’s a little repetition of the description from the prior part as they were written months apart, but there’s no harm in that so I’ve left it there.
Thanks to: My Nanowrimo collaborator for giving me a much needed break  Nose to the grindstone again.



“The tank’s a good call,” Willow leaned over and said conspiratorially, “a very good call. I mean, I was pretty sure things couldn’t get better than that striped bikini – Have you ever noticed how the stripes, running the right way, really bring out curves and when we were playing volleyball you were all… you were getting jiggy with it and then when you went swimming the water was all cold and you were – what was I saying?”

“Tank top?”

“Oh, but that’s even better. When it was clinging to the bikini, when it was wet…” Willow sighed.

Tara shook her head and laughed. Calling this a tank top was stretching the truth so far that it was practically broken. It was just a top that was a little more substantial in the strap department than, say, Buffy’s. That Willow liked to characterise that as a ‘tank top’ said much more about her reading and research (not to mention her fantasies) than it did the top itself.

Willow loved her as she was, that was abundantly clear, but really wouldn’t have minded if she got a little butch. Just for an evening. Or a whole night.

“I love your tee,” was all she said as she replied.

Willow shook her head and then straightened her oversize hat. “I look like a ginger girl hiding from the sun. Because… guess what!?”

“Doesn’t mean that I don’t like it,” Tara said, seeking a kiss.

“Hey, hey! We agreed. No sloppy stuff,” Buffy called. Since this had practically turned into a couple’s day out then the rule might seem a little out of place. She and Willow, Buffy and Eddie – similarly wary of the sun but for different reasons – and Xander and Anya.

Of course the ‘rule’ was really aimed at Faith, who hadn’t come out here with anyone, though Willow had tried to set her up with someone. Namely, in this case, a girl.

Why? She’d ask that later, but… Willow didn’t do much without a plan.

In addition to not coming with anyone, Faith hadn’t brought much to wear either. Once she’d stripped off the belted, oversize tee and revealed her swimsuit that’d been all she needed.

Now they were sitting around, it kind of made her glad she’d covered up a little after the game. Her bikini was much more modest – though it had distracted Willow - but… there was no competing with Faith. No one else was even trying. Not anymore. Even Anya - who regularly scowled at all the male attention the Slayer was getting and wasn’t being mollified by the fact that she had a man of her own – had pretty much given up.

Of course, her man wasn’t as buff, muscled, twelve-pack abs-worthy as the ones Faith was attracting. And – despite the amount of time she’d spent with Paige earlier – the Slayer was still lapping it up, just off a little way on her own from their group. Within calling distance, but far enough apart that they didn’t have to be introduced to anyone Faith actually picked up.

“Just a peck then,” Willow said and gave her what she’d been seeking.

“I thought there were rules,” Anya complained.

“There are rules,” Buffy replied. “No public displays of affection. No talking shop and no talking about what happens in the bedroom.”

All of those rules were aimed at different people. The PDA was intended for Faith more than anyone because she defined ‘affection’ differently. The bedroom talk for Anya and the shop talk was just a general thing, to avoid the tension they’d left behind in the summer. Oh, and there was a rider on the ‘bedroom’ definition to include whatever other places Anya and Xander – or Faith – had been indulging themselves.

Since the end of the game of beach volleyball that had initially attracted so much attention to Faith – who’d pretty much insisted on authentic uniforms since that was all she had – nothing else had really involved Faith at all.

It was, largely, Faith’s choice. Okay, Buffy hadn’t enjoyed losing to her – again – and maybe giving them a chance to be competitive hadn’t, in hindsight, been the best idea, but things were relaxed. Just… Faith wasn’t quite with them. Even if she wasn’t quite apart from them either.

Buffy and Faith were getting along much better; the game hadn’t really set that back in any lasting way. Willow thought dodge ball was bad? But volleyball at full Slayer power was… dangerous. She was surprised they’d all come through it without scars or blood being shed.

Including the spectators.

Some choice – very loud - remarks by Anya about the likelihood of the Buffy/Faith rivalry all being due to repressed sexual tension between the two hadn’t helped anyone. The former-demon was doing too much reading but an explosion of sand as the ball had smacked into the beach in front of her had left her spluttering, wiping sand off her newly sub-blocked skin and Buffy glaring at her.

Faith had seemed more amused by Anya’s conclusions, but that had been the end of the competitive events. Not even Xander had dared to back his girlfriend up, perhaps because – like her and Willow – he didn’t believe it for a moment.

“I’m adding another one,” Buffy said. “No talking about me and Faith because that is so not happening. Look, she was hitting on that girl – Paige – earlier. Nothing to do with me!”

Buffy needn’t have worried, Willow was pretty sure that if Faith wanted anything like that, there was only that one girl she was going to. Paige… Strangely, she didn’t actually see the need for every girl in the world (or even just all their friends) to be into girls but… Maybe they would be a good match. Paige hadn’t seemed like she’d take any S.H.I.T from anyone, and Faith always needed people like that around her.

People who’d put up with her. Of course, she needed people who’d get horizontal with her too.

“I don’t know,” Xander said, speaking before he’d engaged his brain as he was often caught out doing. “I think it’d be hot, am I right Eddie? Eddie? Right? Back me up here, man?”

Wisely Eddie said nothing and everyone was avoiding Xander’s eyes.

“Can you imagine the… cat…fight.” Xander paused, seeing Buffy’s glare. “So… yes, a new rule has been called for vote. All in favour say ‘Aye’ Aye!”

“They say being overly defensive is a sure sign of denial,” Anya commented, somehow thinking she was sticking up for her man as well as her own opinions.

“I’ve never denied anything,” Willow said, kissing her one more time.

“But you’d already admitted it to yourself by the time anyone else knew - ”

“Aye!” The chorus went around the circle before Anya could take things any further.

“Look at her,” Buffy said, looking over at Faith and her bevvy of male admirers. “What’s she got that I don’t? Girls and guys… I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, guys – a guy. This guy, that’s all I need.”

“She’s got availability?” Tara tried. “You’re happy and unavailable.” It felt like she should be asking a question there, but it’d be impolitic for sure.

“There’s also a certain degree of hotness,” Xander added, “not that anyone here’s lacking that quality, but when you put it together with the FHM swimsuit shoot hair and – well – the bikini? Yeah… I’m really shutting up now.”

“You should, unless you’re asking for abstinence for your birthday,” Anya told him. She hadn’t thought about that at all.

He mimed a zipper across his mouth. Not a peep would be heard. Though the look Willow gave her suggested she didn’t believe Anya could manage that for any prolonged period anyway.

“You know?” Willow asked. “I actually thought she’d be more… European.”

“Hairy?” Buffy asked, glancing over to where Faith was adjusting her hair flirtatiously, giving a chance to see her pits.

“No! Sheesh, I meant free spirited. You know… European.”

“I’m pretty sure,” Anya said. “That if you want to see her boobs, you only have to ask. She doesn’t obey the law unless it’s convenient.”

Willow shook her head. Tara knew she had her own feelings about both American prudishness but also about an over-abundance of boobs. “I’ve got all the boobs I need, thank you. Recent evidence suggests that every girl should have four. Hers and her girlfriend’s.” Once again they broke the rules with a peck.

“It's confidence,” she said quietly to try and get them away from Faith’s chest. And so everyone looked at her so she wished she hadn’t. “Umm – it’s not – well, it’s not a lesbian thing. Not much anyway – I mean, I just think, well, I recognise what I don’t have a lot of…”

“You had enough confidence to ask me out,” Willow said. “While we were being attacked by the Gentlemen. Without words, you did it without words so – yeah, eat it. I mean – not that you said that, just… damn it… when will this stop happening to me?”

“Confidence,” Xander gallantly came to Willow’s rescue with half an eye on the threat of abstinence. “It’s true, that’s a big – underrated – thing.”

“Xander also has a big, underrated thing,” Anya said, not wanting to be left out. She was beaming too. “Well, underrated anyway. When a girl’s gone troll - ”

“New rule - ” Willow started.

“Carried,” everyone else chorused.

“I thought the rules were all aimed at Faith?” Anya asked, scowling.

“Guess not,” Buffy replied.

“So it’s confidence,” Willow asked, trying to change the subject.

“I’m guessing, I’ve never been that confident though,” Tara said.

“Do you think that confidence is directly correlated with teenyness of swimsuits?” Buffy asked.

“There may be a correlation,” she agreed. You had to be confident to get away with that and not just look desperate and slutty. And that was the remarkable thing, despite the insults they through around. It wasn’t slutty or pornographic. Just… barely there. Somehow.

“It’s really not that tiny,” Xander said. “It’s just… well cut. Not that I’ve been looking.”

“I’m surprised you can even see her,” Willow told him.

Buffy nodded. “It was like the tide going out when she went into the ocean, all the guys followed her down to the water’s edge.”

“Ah, yes. No doubt they were anticipating the effects of cold water,” Xander said. “Oh – God, please just shoot me and kill me. I keep walking into this…”

“Keep going, you won’t need to call on your God,” Anya said so sweetly there was a definite threat that went beyond her previous one.

“So, it’s great that we’re all here,” Tara said, hoping she was doing a better job of changing the subject this time around.

Willow backed her up. “We’re all having a good time right?”

“Some of us better than others,” Buffy said archly, looking at Faith one more time. “Yeah… I shouldn’t bitch. She just makes it so damned easy. Which is appropriate, being as she is - ”

“I’m having fun,” Anya said.

“Really?” Xander asked.

“Every time you open your mouth I am getting to think of many unusual punishments,” Anya volunteered brightly and not helping Xander’s mood. “I’ve not had to do that for a while, I think I’ve been missing the vengeance.”

“So… everyone’s happy,” Tara said. “Come on… it’s been a good day.”

“I’m with you, Tara,” Eddie said, speaking up for the first time in a while. His nerves around the rest of them – when they were being so tight-knit and having these sorts of conversations - reminded her of how she'd have been a few months back. “Today’s been… cool. It was great to spend time with you all.”

She grinned with pleasure at his accordance. It was too easy for them to focus on what was bothering them now, but they’d already had a lot of fun so far, just hanging out had been nice and Faith had occupied them only since the unfortunate grudge volleyball match. Up to that point… good times had been rolling.

It was his very genuine enthusiasm – and perhaps that he didn’t speak up that often – which seemed to make Buffy relent and where Buffy led, the others were inclined to follow. “Mister Ed’s right,” Xander said. “No one can say this isn’t good times. Good weather, sand, ocean without those damned jellies that swarmed me last time we came down here. Good food too – more to come. I’m looking forwards to the barbecue because who doesn’t love barbecue?”

“Why do they call you Mister Ed? Anya asked Eddie. “Is it because you’re hung like a - ”

“No! Rules, people! We have rules!,” Buffy said. “Please. I mean… seriously. Just… no.”

Anya mouthed ‘speedo’ to them when Buffy wasn’t looking. Honestly she hadn’t looked when Eddie had been wearing one earlier. Before he was gently reminded that he should put his shorts on again. It was so far down her list of things to look at. Besides, she’d been slathering Willow in sun block.

“You having fun, Willow?” Xander asked.

Taking her hand, she was well aware that Willow wasn’t about to say ‘no.’

“Good company,” Willow added to the pile, squeezing her fingers and rubbing her palm.

“So say the sidekicks,” Tara teased.

“What do you mean?” Xander asked, totally unexpected. She’d been hoping to unite the rest of them in cheering Buffy up and instead she was being questioned?

“Well, we’re all kind of… sidekicks. I mean, I know that – that if I kicked anything it’d be all sidey and things. That’s why I don’t think we kick much – we’re sidekicks. Slayers need sidekicks. Right?”

“I know this one does,” Buffy said.

“See, but you’re the one here who’s not a sidekick, baby,” Willow told her.

“Me?” A flutter of panic went through her. She felt like she was being separated from the herd. She didn’t want to be the one who stood out from this group of friends. Not really. There was a reason the herd herded. Safety in numbers and all that?

“Willow’s right, Tara. You’re the essential one,” Xander said, nodding at the suggestion. “Buffy’s a well-adjusted – kind of – young woman. We hang out with her because she makes us look better than we would and a little of her cool comes our way. But you… Nah.”

“I don’t get her cool?” It’d be nice to get someone’s cool.

“You don’t need her cool,” Xander corrected. “Not that way.”

So… I’m cool enough? No, that didn’t feel right. What were they saying?

“He’s right,” Anya said and Willow nodded too. What was it that they all – apparently – knew and she didn’t?

“Got to admit it,” Buffy said, shaking her head. “You’re just not sidekick material, Tara.”

“Don’t worry, sweetie. It’s a good thing! If it wasn’t for you, Faith wouldn’t be helping and she wouldn’t be under control either,” Willow pointed out.

“If you call that control,” Buffy complained, glancing back at Faith who was getting sun screen rubbed into her bare back by one of the guys. “But it’s a point, Tara. I wouldn’t care if she wasn’t helping just so long as she’s not part of the problem. That’s all you. You’re like a Giles for the new generation.”

“No - ” she started to say.

“With a vagina,” Anya added helpfully.

Willow, who Tara had been looking at, silently pleading for help, went all big eyed. Apparently her vagina was something no one else was supposed to be talking about. And that was very cool with her. She could absolutely live with silence on that topic apart from Willow and, one day, a gynaecologist. No one else needed to mention it.

“It was a comment, Willow, not an invitation to fantasise - ” Anya started.

“Anya!”

“What? Aren’t I allowed to say anything now?”

“Can’t you say anything… I don’t know, more appropriate?” her boyfriend asked. “I love you but – we talked about this, remember?”

“You talked, but I’m not allowed to,” Anya bit back and Tara had to wonder about why it was that it was only since they’d started talking about having a good day that things started to go wrong with it. “Remember what I said about what goes into my mouth?”

“Okay! That’s enough of that one - ” Willow said, cutting off anything further.

“You can say anything you want,” Tara reassured her, before anyone took their bat home and just refused to engage with the rest of them.

“Really?” Anya asked hopefully.

“Sure,” she agreed while Willow made frantic ‘no’ gestures. But she wasn’t afraid of anything Anya might say. Embarrassed, sure. But not actually afraid of it.

She had much better things to be afraid of.

“I know you’ll… try to be sensitive to what people want to hear,” she finished, hoping that would work better. Nothing more, please, about Anya’s conditions for giving oral – Just nothing more on that. And maybe she did get it? Because she didn’t try to finish the thought that Willow had interrupted.

“Thank you, Tara. And that’s why I’m right about you. You know what to say, you pull people together. You listen to me, too. Without telling me off. And you have a vagina, I stand by that point.”

“Umm… thanks?”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’m sure Willow likes your vagina a lot.”

She whimpered as jaws dropped. Even for Anya… yeah.

“I’m about ready to start the barbecue,” Willow said, determined to change the subject herself this time.

Tara shook her head. “Not unless you’re doing it with a proper taper you’re not.”

“Aww.”

“You’re not doing magic, not when you’re all… het up.”

“She’s het up thinking about Tara’s - ” Anya started confiding to Eddie, as if he needed it explaining. Maybe she wasn’t quite so under control…

“Uh, thanks,” he managed to stop her.

“You’re welcome too. But I don’t know why everyone has a problem with the word ‘vagina’? Especially the lesbians, they must be more in touch with their vaginas, and each other’s, than almost anyone else?”

Okay, it was plain that setting rules had ceased working and – actually – Anya had kind of a point. One that everyone wished she didn’t have, but a point all the same. They were a group of five girls and yes, if conversation turned to – well, they should be able to use the word freely. Why not?

“But here’s the thing, honey,” Xander said. “There are things that you just don’t expect to say at a day on the beach.”

“Why?”

“You… just don’t. It’s a people thing,” Buffy said.

“And… now that you’re a real, beautiful person,” Xander said and making her beam at the compliment, “you need to fit in with the people things.”

Tara nodded, smiling. Her boyfriend had found the right lever. Maybe. She'd thought she had too though. Fail.

“I think I understand. So is Willow not going to light the barbecue anymore?”

“I’ve been waiting,” Willow moaned.

“And you’ve been practicing.”

“I’m pretty sure that that any Giles, female or not, would suggest using the proper tools for the job right now.” Xander was backing away from the kit that they’d picked up from the store.

“Have a little faith, will ya?” Willow said.

“Me, I’m having as little faith as possible,” Buffy said under her breath but everyone but the girl herself must’ve caught it. Faith was otherwise occupied. Or just didn’t care, flirting now with a different guy who’d done her back.

“Willow’s g-got this,” Tara said, confident that her girl would make her proud. She wanted to be the supportive girlfriend. She did. But… safety first. “But… just in case, you might want to get a little further away from it.”

“Further? Really?”

“Singed eyebrows are never pretty,” Willow said, turning her focus to the barbecue and – wisely – everyone did what she said and backed off a little further.

“Faith!” Tara called. The other Slayer was down to just the one guy now, which bode well for his chances, she supposed. “Fire in the hole!”

When she looked back to the group, they were all looking at her with some sense of wonder. Even Willow. “I… My Dad was a m-marine. He always used to say that when something was being let off, like a fire cracker, but I’ve never had the chance to say… Never mind.”

“‘Fire in the hole’, it sounds like really hot Thai - ” Xander broke off and let out a high pitched yelp as Willow ignited the barbecue with a rush of flames. They quickly died back but… damn. Caution had definitely been merited.

“Don’t do that!” Xander finished. “Not without warning people, by which I mean me.”

“It’s what ‘fire in the hole’ means,” Willow pointed out.

“Right… That.”

“I just didn’t think there’d be so much ‘boom’, you should be a registered lethal weapon, Will.”

“Just sticking up for the sidekicks,” Willow said. “Now, which of you men is going to stand over it and cook our burgers to perfection.”

“I’m having sausage,” Anya said.

“Of course you are…”

Anya looked over to where Faith was actually smiling. She only did that for guys she was seriously considering giving a chance to and might’ve been put off by her more natural sneer.

“I think maybe Faith is too.”

----------------------

“So it went ‘boom’!” Willow said. Okay, so she was proud of that. And why not? It was another of the practical applications of magic. Number three – lighting the barbecue. And it was an all-weather solution too. Even if she hadn’t – exactly – meant it.

Not that you’d be having a barbecue on the beach on the rain but, totally unaffected.

Giles didn’t seem to be quite as impressed as she wanted him to be. In fact he seemed quite distracted.

“Sounds very… flamey,” he said absently as he turned the page in the book he was meticulously scanning while she worked on the metadata to build into their search capability. Extra-indexy.

“You should’ve been there,” Willow said. “Everyone agreed that the meat was extra-tasty too. Though now I think about it, some people might’ve meant something different. But maybe the magic gave it an extra… something.”

“Actually, I’ve had a very productive day,” he said. “I’ve made considerable progress.”

“So I see,” Willow said. She was having to skimp on the time she’d ordinarily have spent browsing some of Giles’ most dangerous books in order to catch up with his scanning. Yes, she’d blown it off to go to the beach with her Tara and their friends. About all she had time for now was to ask him for his thoughts on additional search terms. “Gray’s Demonic Anatomy?” she said, showing him the cover.

“Exactly what it sounds like, really,” Giles said. “One of the first comprehensive examinations of the anatomies of a number of demon species, with some rather wilder speculation as to the sources of their powers thrown in.

“Madame Gray - note the Americanised spelling - had an unfortunate tendency to add rather too much significance to genitalia, or what she assumed was genitalia, but despite that her work was ground-breaking in that’s she took things further and – with her husband who’d studied in China – found some uses for demonic body parts you wouldn’t have expected. It actually established a rather grizzly market and offered significant power to those who could secure them and… Well, it usually involved grinding the parts up.”

Fortunately for her sanity, her focus had been lost at ‘genitalia’ simply coded it under ‘demon –anatomy – parts.’

“So why the sudden rush to move into the twentieth century?” she asked.

“First of all, I noticed what you did there,” he said. “I’m well aware that we’re now in the twenty-first century. If your recall I was with you at the millennium.”

Yes, he had been… Shivering on top of the tomb of Heinrich Korgamom who prophesied his own return at just that time. A man who’d been reputed to have enough power to make it happen but ultimately… hadn’t. Which was unfortunate if you were him and wanted to wreak havoc as the world entered a new – arbitrarily designated – millennium but quite lucky for everyone else.

Unless you’d wanted to celebrate that millennium’s arrival. Such was the life of a sidekick.

“But why the move?” she pressed.

Giles hesitated for longer than he usually would just to consider his response, but then pushed ahead and gave his answer. It wasn’t something you saw every day, not that he rushed into his words, but that flicker of doubt about whether he would tell you or not. That was… worrying.

“You’ve put that quite well,” he said. “I’m actually planning on making a move.”

“A move? To new digs? Because as a representative of the team, I have to say that we all think this place is great, home from home really. Central and - ”

“A move back to England, Willow.”

She stopped, thinking through the ramifications of that. Nearly speaking up a couple of times, but then not. But she had to say something. “I want to ask if you just mean for a visit, a cup of tea and a cucumber sandwich, but you don’t. Do you? You planning to take your books, you’re planning to take everything.”

“Everything,” he agreed. “But I didn’t want to leave you all without the benefits of the library so I… conquered my fears of these infernal machines and here we are.”

Now she wanted to argue, wanted to beg him to stay but… he seemed resigned to it. Not firm, not angry, nor disappointed. And she thought that, maybe, she understood. He wasn’t sure of his place here anymore. That was something they’d all wondered about. More than once. His Slayer was her own woman, all grown up and his employers had forsaken him (that was what the paperwork said ‘forsaken’) and there was Faith.

Faith, who also had Tara. Kind of.

She didn’t want him to go, that was the obvious thing. But… he knew that. “I think Jenny would be proud of you,” she said. It seemed like a good compromise, and true too. In more ways than one, they both understood that. Sometimes, sometimes what would’ve happened if Miss Calendar had… survived?

Sometimes she wondered whether Miss Calendar had been her first girl crush too. Tara thought ‘maybe’. Just an innocent one.

“I didn’t think Principal Snyder would mind if I used the software from the old library,” Giles said, moving the conversation from what would be uncomfortable ground.

“What with the being dead and all, I’d guess not. Do you want me to ask you why?” She thought it was better to check. Even though she kind of knew.

“You will eventually, but you can’t say anything to Buffy and the others. It – I need to make sure that you all have everything you need. I need to break it to them in the right way.”

“You want me to keep it a secret?” she asked, an edge of panic fluttering through her.

“I know you’ll find it difficult, Willow, but for now. Yes, I’d rather you did.”

“Okay,” she said, trying to sound confident. “You think we don’t need you, don’t you?” She’d been willing to – well, enquiring minds. She had a very enquiring mind. Like she was going to be sleep now she had a secret? She’d be asking herself the whole time so -

“Everything’s changed,” he sighed. “Even before Diana’s arrival and the change of circumstances that wrought, I was contemplating my future. Buffy doesn’t need a Watcher anymore.”

“We were just talking about this – well, not this, but this kind of thing. Buffy’s still alive, when most other Slayer’s wouldn’t be, because she had friends, because she had a good Watcher. She knows that too. She’s not going to be happy.”

“Yes, actually, she will be. She has gentleman friend - ”

“You mean Eddie?”

“Yes – one who isn’t likely to try to end the world. And her friends will still be here, last year’s shenanigans simply demonstrated that I don’t serve much of a purpose here anymore. She’s grown up and she has all of you – more of you in fact than ever before.”

Aha, better argument right there. “Faith! Faith needs a Watcher, if there was ever a girl who needed a good Watcher then its Faith. Whoever saddled her with Wesley was - ”

He shook his head, denying that. “They weren’t a good pairing, but Wesley was simply unlucky. I think perhaps that I’d have struggled with Faith too. Fortunately I had a readymade excuse for not doing so. Now Faith has Tara, you all do – though you most of all.”

“Tara?” After the conversation on the beach, the terrible phrase ‘Giles with a vagina’ entered her head and she swallowed, horrified that was now associated with her girlfriend… From close, personal experience (on one side) she could clearly state it was inaccurate.

“Tara wouldn’t – Tara would be horrified if you said that to her. You know, apart from the 'having me' part. Which she does – I mean, romantically and supportively not having having – well, not just having having but… Tara would be horrified.”

“Which is precisely why she’s a good choice, if she’s willing to continue to shoulder the burden? She’s not a Watcher, she’s not been trained and I’ll wager that she has no interest in being one either. And I truly believe that if Faith survives, if she’s going to survive, then Tara will be the key to that. She’ll leave that girl able to walk alone. Without ending the world.”

Actually, she couldn’t argue with that. Her girlfriend had another woman in her life. Faith Lehane. And Tara was about as likely to leave either of them as the other – which was to say it wasn’t going to happen.

“But when all is said and done - between you all - you have all the components necessary for success.”

“Name one!” she said. And I wasn’t planning to argue with him?.

“I’ll name several. Buffy’s an independent young woman now, as well as a Slayer, and I couldn’t be prouder of her for that. Both she and Faith will occasionally need advice, a level head and that’s where Tara is already stepping up to the wicket. She’s doing that for Faith and Buffy gets on well with her too. She bridges the schism between them rather neatly.”

“Research?” Willow challenged, then remembered what she was doing. “Oh.”

“Exactly and for the more esoteric knowledge, there’s always Ethan. I trust him about as far as I can throw him, but he does seem loyal enough to Diana and to be following Tara’s lead – for now. Everyone else has suffered in his dedication to his God… now he’s met her and I think there’s a level of trust that you can have in him, so long as you remember there are limits to that.”

“Limits, check. Tara… check.”

“And then there’s Diana herself. No one can be quiet certain of her, or her motivation, but it’s plain that this Darkness she’s warned us about is - ”

“Aha!” Willow interrupted. “Yes, the Darkness. Glorificus. What about that?” They needed him for that, right?

“She’s a Goddess, Willow. Immortal. Her timeframes are not ours. We could all spend our lives waiting for that to come around and never find ourselves confronted with it.”

“Or,” she suggested, “it might happen next week. What? It could happen that way, and you can’t deny it.”

“Everything I’ve said still stands, and the leadership of Diana, Goddess of the Hunt, will surely surpass anything I can add to it. I don’t trust her, not entirely, but that’s because I don’t understand her, I don’t think any of us can.”

“I think Tara feels the same way,” Willow said.

“Which just goes to show that she’s an excellent choice to step into that role of coordinating your efforts. Making sure that the two Slayers work together. And the rest of you, I’m sure, won’t abandon her to that.”

“No… but you’re going to at least ask her right?”

“There’s no need,” Giles said. “She’s already doing it. It’s not a job, not something you sign up to. I was always told that a good Watcher was one who represented discipline and control, continuity of ancient trusts and regimes. That’s twaddle. What makes Buffy a success is – I’m certain – friendship and a level head. Both things I’m proud to have given her.”

“She’ll still be horrified you’re saying she can do that. She won’t think she can.”

“I dislike modesty as a trait,” Giles said. “Which is fortunate in this country of yours. But I much prefer someone who doesn’t understand how valuable they are. That’s Tara, I’m quite convinced of it. And – after all – there are phones, electronic mails and aeroplanes. To paraphrase Buffy – something I never thought I’d do – if the world ends, you can still beep me.”

She smiled, that was certainly true enough. He could be here in a day and most of what he offered – at least in supernatural terms – was knowledge he could provide from anywhere.

He paused, thought for a moment. “Do you really think Jenny would be proud?”

“I think Miss Calendar would be the first to tell you that you were doing the right thing,” Willow said. And that made her even sadder.

*********************

[Kajun]

Katharyn, Eddie? Who’s this Eddie person? Haha. He was playing it smart by not getting sucked into Xander’s idiocy. I suppose he’s always gonna tread extra carefully when Faith’s in the picture. There’s one thing, among many others, Buffy has that Faith doesn’t: A devoted, considerate boyfriend. Until/unless you put him at the top of the dead pool, that is. LOL

Oh Dear.. Giles is leaving.. let the waterworks begin. I really do love the old Watcher. He knows Willow can’t keep a secret! Maybe that was the point of telling her first? Some of the smaller details are a bit foggy in my memory. His support of Tara and acknowledgment of all she has achieved made me smile. I don’t think Tara realizes just how big of a positive impact she has made on everyone.

Please tell me you’re including the part where Xander becomes a butt-monkey. LOL Hooray that we have now begun my favorite season!

[Azirahael]

OMFG!

You better not!

Hey, threatening to leave is one thing, but we need our Giles!
And so do the scoobies.

Just because there are others who could potentially fill parts of that role, does not mean you are unnecessary!

Willow is a witch, we don't need Tara.
Faith is a slayer, we don't need Buffy.
Xander is a regular guy. We can get one of those anywhere.
Silly, silly Giles. People are more than just a skill set.

With logic like that, relationships would end as soon as another person came along that fit the criteria, but with better details.

'Oh hey, i'm dating a tall athletic blonde. this one is also tall and blonde and even more athletic! out with the old and in with the new!'

Grrr!

Um, can you tell, i've run into this one before?

Going now.

R