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

[DaddyCatALSO]

I also liked that Faith killed the snake - and with a weapon instead of by punching it repeatedly in the nose, so veyr not recommended when dealing with a probably poisonous crittter.

[Katharyn]

Thank you

Azirahael - I think you may have missed a dib there, don't worry about it though

I'm certainly glad Hope comes over that way for you. I'd never conceptualised it in those terms, but that is exactly what she needed to be and - awful as it sounds - why Dawn didn't work for me in S5. Okay, maybe she was realistically annoying as a little sister BUT to make the character work you had to root for her and want her to survive. A lot of the time, with Dawn, I was 'just die already.'

Hope was a reaction to that!

I would've dead-pooled Dawn and found a way around it LOL.

Buffy? She's working off other issues...

Tara's problem with the secret is that she really is playing for all the marbles. Get this wrong and the world ends. She knows what a responsibility that is... it just weighs on her. And she made a deal not to tell without agreement of the other two. They all did...

Thanks!

Kajun - We're pretty much done with revealing Faith (and Hope's) childhood. Actually 'not changing' much is the point (at least so far as they know) because then Faith is left wondering how much of that she went through alone where - in this world - she at least had her sister. I won't say we now have a kinder, gentler Faith BUT I think she's different. Not so much the loner.

Yes, I can see what you mean about this coming story element. And I agonised over whether to go there or not for a long time. But... to change it is outside the rules for what changed and - if you think about it - has a massive impact on the shape of the rest of the season. Taking that out makes the latter part of the season less a 'missing scene' as a complete AU. I was open to that, but it was a big decision and there were some thing I wanted to avoid - as you do - but also some things that come from that I wanted to keep.

So yes, we will be going down the line of Joyce's illness.

Buffy and the spell? I think this is pretty natural. Everything else in her life can be solved with a spell, a ritual or a fist... (okay, there's a dual meaning there I did not intend!) but this time...

Anya... that comes from the show, of course, but i wanted to keep it. I'd made her comic relief for so long, but she has a very valid perspective in all this that can't be ignored... (she won't let it be ignored!)

I think the suspicious side of Faith, mixed with her Slayer powers of observation about Tara and Willow's relationship, probably assumed Tara would've told her... yes. And I certainly don't think Tara is happy to have Willow (or Giles) out of the loop. But them's the rules... at least for now.

And you touched on the ending there. That was important for two reasons. One so you know that the good stuff happens in spite of the bad (even if we don't see it) but also that the secret is not coming between them...

Thanks!

Daddycatalso - I had not consider the punching it in the face hazards associated with giant snakes... but you're absolutely right! Thanks

More on Thursday.

Katharyn

[Rauko]

Hi there, i'm just catching up with the shadow chapters, but i'm really sleep, so i'll be short (of course that is my excuse to write pure nonsense).
I feel bad for Buffy and Tara, a shame that are always the bad situatons or the hard ones that bring people closer, especially since we all know how that especific plot line ends... Angst, i like angts, but not illness angts, that just depress me xD

Diana is in town?, i believed that the invocation of Sobek kinda screams "perfect prey" for a hunter godess, or maybe i just like her.

I was sure that Faith's slip and reactions from Tara and Buffy would give the secret away, but sometimes the scoobies are oblivious indeed.(and i dont remember where they disclose the secret in canon )

And i love your final scene, is sweet, perfect togetherness, yes, that is.

Thanks for sharing and good luck!!!

[Katharyn]

Rauko - Go get some sleep! It'll still be here when you get back...

I mentioned it before, but the Joyce storyline is a really tough one. I went back and forth on it and my decision is elaborated on above but what I've not said is how it changes the story. Like the canon it really did become less 'fun' when that happened. I mean fun to right, it's not something I get my writing jollies from (even though I am perfectly happy with what I wrote) and it's something that's not easy to follow through on day after day... So I get what you mean and it's probably reflected in Tara and Buffy especially...

Again, you have a good idea I never thought of. Yes, Sobek would've been ideal for her and to bring her back to the story more. This is another factor. The sheer volume of STORY in S5 (not simply T/W as in S4) means that I get less time to devote to some characters than I'd otherwise have liked. PoV has an effect too. Diana - and some others - have suffered a little from that.

In part all of that sort of thing is a big reason for the T/W scene there... Because, yeah, you can be feeling bad and find comfort in someone else. Yes, in that way. It's not a betrayal of the circumstances or other people. Actually it can be a great way to cope and get through things. Sometimes I think we lose track of that (if I am talking wider than simply sex) as a society.

Thanks!

New plan, since I have loads of parts ready and I'm celebrating breaking into 'the finale' prep (we haven't even started it at part 154 so plan your lives around that for a while, I am! ) then I am going to put the next part up in a few minutes...

Katharyn

[Katharyn]

Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter One Hundred and Eight
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 first part that parallels ‘Listening to Fear’
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: Once again with ‘Listening to Fear’ we’re dealing with a great many things happening ‘off camera’ in this episode that we just can’t see from the PoV that we’re using. You all know what it is… not a great episode here, but there’s enough B story going on and nice T/W elements that I can’t leave them out and skip it entirely So, just remember what happens in canon and what the characters are reacting to… I’ll fill in the gaps within the PoV as best as I can. As I start to write this I’m also undecided as to whether this will run into ‘Into the Woods’ which is a canon episode that has been gutted by the changes I’ve made in the story so far (and runs straight out of the end of its predecessor).
There’s a bit in here for old Sidestep readers too… a little self-criticism that shows what this Tara is all about compared to that one.  I love Sidestep, I do, and I wouldn’t change much about it. I just like to rag on myself because I spent so long with it and there are… other ways to do things, as this story proves!
Musical credits: I’ve been turned onto the music from ‘The Pacific’, particularly the main theme, by a friend. Doesn’t sound like the sort of show I want to watch, way too gory, but the music is fantastic.




“They honestly call this food?” Joyce asked poking at the plate of… Well, hospitals should have enough people who could identify what was technically nutritional and what wasn’t so… yeah, maybe it did qualify as food.

And for the amount they were charging Joyce’s insurance company? It ought to be.

Willow reached over and picked up a limp piece of lettuce, looking at it and turning it over in her fingers. Lettuce wasn’t supposed to look like that. But then, since Buffy was determined that her Mom was going to keep her strength up, she pushed the strip into her mouth and exaggerated both the effort – none – and the deliciousness – slightly less than none – of eating the leaf.

“Mmm, yummy yummy.”

“Oh, if you like it, you can have it,” Joyce said, pushing the plate towards her.

“No.” Buffy took the plate and put it back in front of her mother. “You’re eating it. What - ? Hope!”

“What?” Hope asked around a mouth full of jello and the spoon that had shovelled it there.

“That’s not for you.”

“It’s fine, Buffy,” Joyce said.

“You’re supposed to be eating that, all of it.”

Hope looked at the bowl and – half eaten – started to push it back towards Joyce. “The jello’s really nice,” the girl said after swallowing.

“And I don’t like jello,” Joyce said, pushing it back towards her. “Never have. You know that.”

Hope didn’t pick it up right away though; reluctant to do so while Buffy was being so openly disapproving.

“Well, I’m not eating it,” Joyce said firmly.

“Oh, go ahead,” Buffy was resigned to defeat on desert at least and Hope picked it up and started shovelling it into her mouth again. It was surprisingly large, for hospital food.

“I’m a – mmm – growing girl,” she said, forcing a smile even from Buffy who was obviously worried by what was going to happen. It wasn’t about the food, not really. It was about taking care of her Mom.

It was about being out of control too.

And it was about being afraid.

This – taking charge - was how Buffy coped with all those things together. Everyone knew it, Buffy included. It was what she needed to do in order to be the strong one. And having a ‘little sister’ was part of that, Willow supposed. Getting one over on Faith, having a seemingly better relationship with Faith’s sister than the other Slayer did? Yeah, that was something that made her feel in control too.

Maybe that was why Faith allowed it without getting bitchy. How was that for a theory? Maybe that was her contribution. Because you only had to talk to either sister to understand that whatever they’d been through - and Tara knew more about it than she did (and more than she was saying) - you couldn’t really get a cigarette paper between them. Not when it counted.

But everyone had what they wanted out of the way things were. Faith had more freedom without Hope to worry about. Buffy had her little victories. Joyce had a little girl – well, not so little in some ways Willow suddenly noticed due to the top Hope had picked out… Was that from her sister’s wardrobe?

“You grow anymore,” Willow said, “and you’ll be popping out.”

“Aren’t they great?” Hope beamed, looking down as she knew exactly what she was talking about.

Mirroring her sister’s figure, in truth Hope was never going to be a ‘big girl’, but now she’d discovered Faith’s closet… she definitely looked ‘bigger’. She’s going to be such a heartbreaker… And honestly, she was coming late to those fashion options that were right on her doorstep, you know, for a girl who’d never shopped at the softer side of Sears. Unlike some people.

“Are you dating?” Joyce asked with a Mom’s ability to zero in on the likely possibilities.

“No…!”

The three people in the room who were over fifteen looked at each other, all of them detecting something else in that denial.

“What?”

“You like someone…” Willow said in a singsong voice. She’d hidden her own love from the others; she thought she probably recognised the signs.

“No. I don’t.”

“Oh, yes you do.”

“No…”

“Hope and someone up a tree…” Joyce sang.

“No!”

Willow could see that Buffy was hesitant, nervous, wanting to be serious and keeping things right with her surgery scheduled for the day after tomorrow but… her Mom was singing? She couldn’t be upset about that, so rather than worry, just for a moment she smiled.

“See,” Hope said, sucking on her spoon, mostly so she didn’t have to deal with her crush – which Willow intended to explore later. “You have to stay a few more days so I can get your jello. It’s always jello.”

“It’s because I always order jello,” Joyce said. “To keep you happy. But hey, Missy, won’t you be in school?”

“I kind of thought – after the operation - ”

“No,” Joyce said.

“No.” Buffy reiterated.

Willow wasn’t about to step out of line and say anything different; especially being as she knew what Tara’s opinion would’ve been if she’d been here. School was important. “Uh-uh. Don’t look at me.”

“Faith would - ”

“Do not do that,” Joyce said. “Don’t you try to get around me by telling us what your sister – of all people – would do. You’re the one who’s getting an education first time around, right? You’re the smart Lehane girl?”

“And now the one with the best rack,” Hope said, smug.

And for whatever reason the three of them looked to her for judgement. “No way,” Willow said. “I’m not getting into whether the super powered Slayer who doesn’t like me very much or her fifteen year old sister has the best… Just no. Damn, why is it you guys all look to me to decide these things.”

“You’re a lesbian,” Hope shrugged. “Seemed like the best idea. And it wouldn’t be creepy, like if it was a guy here.”

“Oh no,” Willow said. “It’s creepy. You’re fifteen.”

“But I’m fifteen and hot,” Hope corrected, which was so out of character… At least it would’ve been -

And Willow thought maybe she understood then. “He said that, didn’t he?”

“He who? Who he?” Buffy asked.

Hope just looked shifty, but Joyce got it right away. “Our little Hope’s heard someone thinks she’s hot… someone she likes…”

“Uh-huh,” Willow said. “Yes, she did…” Of course the guy hadn’t really noticed her until aforementioned ‘rack’ was really worthy of the name.

Of course.

But that was why Hope had started dipping into her sister’s clothes and yes, she made some of them look good even if they made her look… older than she should. But honestly, had Cordy worn anything worse than that in school? Lots and often. It was just a little lower cut than they were used to seeing Hope in, and she’d gotten a boost from somewhere. Or a push up…

She wasn’t about to say it now, because Hope loved her sister, but what made Faith a slut wasn’t her clothes which – actually – were Slayer functional for the most part and no one had ever seen her in a skirt or a dress (a great deal less functional for a girl who plenty suspected of going commando).

No, what made Faith a slut was her attitude. Confidence was one thing; everyone should have confidence, know and get what you want. But Faith went even beyond that.

It was the part that said ‘I don’t care’ which was so anathema to Willow. She knew plenty of girls – and guys – who slept around. Hello, college. That didn’t make them sluts. But Faith… something about the way she was… There really wasn’t any other word. Even someone who slept her way through the football team and the cheerleader squad always would come off less slutty than Faith Lehane. That was just the way things were.

Hope wasn’t going to go the same way, you just knew it. It wasn’t about being smarter – though Faith would admit her sister was, at least in the book smarts – or less embracing of her sexuality – something Willow didn’t want to know anything about for a good five years. Maybe six. It was just that Hope was… different to her sister.

And now someone else had noticed her. Or at least her boobs. Which were – undeniably – right there when she was wearing that top of Faith’s.

“Shut up,” Hope complained.

“Have you kissed him yet?” Joyce asked.

“Shut up!”

“Do we need to have a conversation?” Buffy’s Mom asked. “You know… about the way things are?”

“No!”

“Are you sure?” Joyce asked. “I’m being perfectly serious.”

“Please make her stop,” Hope complained.

“No way,” Buffy said. “I had to have the talk.”

“Not my finest hour,” Joyce said. “You ran into the arms – and bed – of someone I could never approve of and before you were ready.”

“Mom!”

“Well, I’ve been rehearsing since then – in case I needed it again.”

Buffy sighed and turned to the girl. “I’m not helping you out, you little hussy.”

“I’m not a hussy!”

“Good,” Willow caught herself murmuring, but that was leftover resentment of Faith that was talking. She was finding it harder and harder to hold onto that, the more that she knew Hope. This was a kid who spent a good chunk of her waking hours being here at hospital with someone else’s Mom and no one could say that was a bad thing. And she was fifteen, getting into the idea of guys for the first time and… She was stable.

Not something you’d have expected, if you’d only know Faith and never Hope.

Also, it was hard to blame Faith for much when she’d managed to drag her sister up in a frankly better state than she had been at that age – or even was now. Nor would Hope end up making the mistakes Buffy had, while they were thinking about it.

Whatever you thought about Angel, he hadn’t been Buffy’s finest hour.

Or womankind’s, come to that. Yes, it’d been that spectacularly bad that you had to measure it against every woman in the world. Ever. That was what you got for risking apocalypse.

“We’ll have the conversation,” Joyce promised. “It worked for Buffy.”

Buffy just nodded.

“It worked so well that she started dating a vampire and they can’t get you pregnant,” Hope said. “On account of being dead and all.”

“That is more detail than I wanted,” Joyce admitted. “I mean, I hadn’t thought about it. Is that true?”

Willow blinked. The three of them were looking at her. “Again, why is anyone looking at me? I didn’t date a vampire and yes, I am the lesbian in the room. But when you want scientific advice about vampires shooting blanks you look to me? I don’t even know if they shoot – and… I admit now, I don’t want to know. Buffy, please don’t ever tell me. Please…”

Wide-eyed and horrified by the turn of the conversation, Buffy just nodded her agreement with that last sentiment.

Hope wasn’t done though. Like a dog with a bone, she asked her next devastating question. Willow could just feel it coming, like a juggernaut running downhill with no brakes… Everyone could sense the bow shock. No, it was like a train wreck, happening in slow motion before them. You had to look. You had to listen and then…

“I thought vampires, like when they cry its blood? Isn’t that the same for - ”

“Okay – Now, missy, that is far too much information,” Joyce said, definitely not wanting to know.

“Amen,” Buffy breathed. And – presumably – she did know.

“And ewww,” Willow finished. “Remember, I am the lesbian. You can avoid saying stuff like that around me if you like.”

She could’ve said what that brought to mind, once upon a time she might’ve. But no… No. No. No.

“Anyway, just how did this get to be about me?” Buffy asked when it might’ve been wiser just to close her mouth.

“Well,” Willow speculated. “Maybe everything is. It’s like if our lives were a TV show, they’d probably call it ‘Buffy and Friends’ or something like that. If you’re the star of the show then you’re the one that everything happens to. We’re like sidekicks.”

“I don’t want to be the star of the show… What’s wrong with ‘All My Slayers’ or something like that?”

“So we can all be co-stars?”

“‘Tara and Willow – Living it Large as Lesbians.’” Hope’s suggestion might’ve been flattering but kind of unlikely.

“No,” Willow said. “But I could live with ‘Willow and Tara’, it’s all about the billing, baby. I think, maybe, I’d rate an ‘And Willow Rosenberg’, you know, at the end of the cast credits.”

Joyce chuckled, but winced as she did, putting her hand to her head. “Oooh, that’s not… Why does it have to hurt when I smile?”

“No more smiling then,” Willow said, zipping her lips.

“No more smiling,” everyone agreed.

“Okay, so talking of vampires and Slayers then,” Joyce said, not a topic that made her smile since she still wasn’t happy about the very idea of a young girl having to be the one who saved the world which should be better able to look after itself. “Shouldn’t you be – out there?”

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Buffy said. “Not about that. It’s handled.”

“My sister’s out there,” Hope said, unable to keep from sounding at least a little proud.

“Tara’s with her too,” Willow added, just because she was competitive and her girl was every bit as good as Faith. Well, in different ways… and in some ways, she was a lot less bad…

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

“Not bad,” Xander shouted over to them. “Not bad at all. We’re saying a five.”

“I said a six,” Anya shouted.

Tara and Faith walked on, the cloud of dust that had been a perfectly corporeal vampire a few seconds ago drifting on the light breeze.

“Five?” Faith muttered. “What the hell do they know?”

“They have seen a lot of slaying,” Tara explained.

“You think they’re right?”

“No. No.”

“So what would you have given me?”

“Six and a half. Maybe a seven.”

“Seven? The fuck?”

“No… the Slaying,” Tara deadpanned, still not quite used to the almost perpetual cussing that emerged from Faith’s mouth, but she thought that was a bit of a zinger. If she could bring herself to do it, she might pass it on to Willow later.

“Oh, you’re just hilarious,” Faith said, rolling her eyes. “What do you mean seven? That vampire was dust just three seconds after it popped up. And I’d hit it three times before the stake went into the heart. Do you know what kind of reactions that takes?”

“But it wasn’t very stylish,” Tara said. “And there wasn’t any quip. Buffy… she likes to quip. And sometimes, when she’s not in a mood, she likes to show off a little. Don’t take it as a criticism. I gave you bonus marks for the speed. It’s just all about the style. They mark Buffy down too. They’re very harsh. Not easily impressed.”

“Well, what about the axe?” Faith asked. “What if I used that instead?”

Tara considered. “W-well… I think it’d slow you down, but on the other hand you’d probably be severing body parts, if not heads and you do look really good when you swing it, really shows off your arms.”

“You’re looking at my arms now, T?” Faith asked, mischievous enough to suggest she knew just how a nice pair of arms appealed.

Tara, naturally, had to look at them then. Faith had ditched her usual jacket for her to carry and was just in her tank top. It was kind of impossible not to notice her arms when she drew attention to them. But she wasn’t looking at them thatway. “No.”

“What about my hands? Like my hands? I think you’ve some idea of what they can do.”

“Oh, shut up,” Tara said, laughing. “If I thought you were trying to seduce me, for real, I’d run a mile.”

“Even with these arms and hands?”

“Even with those arms and hands,” Tara confirmed, which she had to admit were impressive. But she’d seen better. Had better… wrapped around her before she left the dorm. Touching her. Just… had better. Willow-better.

“What can I do about them scoring me?” Faith asked as they continued.

“Oh, they’re not even really taking it seriously. Sometimes they bring laminated cards out, so they can hold them up. Like ice-dancing, you know?”

“I get the idea you might like ice dancing.”

“No, I don’t have any balance,” Tara said. “I tried to roller-skate once but… It ended badly for my butt. The ice was for the bruises.”

“I meant you like to watch,” Faith said.

Once again, she could shake her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Of course you do. Come on… what is it? Soccer? Tennis? Ah! I saw that. Tennis… you like tennis players. So… you do like arms! I guess legs might do it for you too.”

“Faith…”

“Oh, come on! I know you dig Willow above all others. Everyone gets that. Everyone gets it really, really clear. But damn, T… Everyone looks. Doesn’t mean you wish you were with them, or that your girl was more like them. It’s just… eye-candy. Come on, admit it.”

“N-no.”

“I’m not buying it, T,” Faith said as another vampire sprang from hiding. Another female vamp too. But then there were several, all around them. “Hold on,” Faith grunted and pulled the axe from behind her where it was secured on her back by a piece of string. Not very hi-tech. “Okay… Now.”

Faith was talking to the vamps who were all confused by their ‘prey’ having both an axe and talking to them when it should’ve been fleeing in terror.

Tara could tell, while she tried to keep out of the way, that Faith was actually trying to be more stylish. “Have you got a quip I can borrow?” the Slayer asked after she’d already beheaded one vampire and taken off the arm from another one.

“I d-don’t really quip,” Tara said. “Not very well anyway.” She didn’t think it was quipping if you only thought of something half an hour later…

“Never mind,” Faith took the top half of the one armed vampire’s head off, about nostril level and there was a brief, horrific view of the inside of its brain before… poof.

“Was that actually a quip?” she asked. ‘Never mind’ and then cut the top of its head of?

“Huh?”

“Guess not.”

Three more to go and they were too stupid to actually even think of running.

“How am I doing?” Faith asked.

Tara looked over to where their friends were paying close attention. “Seven – no, eight for that – Aaah!” She shrieked as one of the vampires was thrown in her direction, brushing against her even as it started to go up in a cloud of dust.

“Sorry.”

“That’s why I don’t quip,” Tara said. Always on the lookout for flying, combusting vampires. “Look, I’m all covered in…”

“Vampire skank!” Faith grunted as she spun on the second to last of them.

“I’m covered in vampire skank,” Tara moaned. “That’s not supposed to happen.”

She watched as Faith took the vampire apart piece by piece, breaking bones and extremities before finally putting it down and advancing on the last of them twirling a stake around the fingers of one hand and doing almost the same thing with the much heavier axe in the other. How was that for manual dexterity?

Finally this vampire had the decency – and brains – to be scared and to try to run.

“T?” Faith asked.

“What?” She realised too late that she was supposed to have done something to stop it, but it was already further away than she could catch. Damn, this one could run fast in heels.

“You wanna try stopping her?”

What was she supposed to do? Shoot stakes from her hands? Tangle the vampire up in roots of trees or something? Sure, both were great in theory but she didn’t have but the one stake, her aim sucked and she didn’t know how to make tree roots grow or move fast enough so… no.

On the other hand… “Hey!” she shouted and put her fingers between her lips to give the most piercing whistle that she could manage.

And the vampire, not expecting that at all, just… stopped.

“Not bad,” Faith said as she was sprinting towards it.

Tara could see that she was going for the spectacular. A ten. That was the objective. Even if it meant the vampire getting away or whatever, Faith was ticked that she was being scored low. For a girl who didn’t care what anyone else thought she sure cared what everyone else thought.

Course, someone more spontaneous would’ve put that better.

Entirely in her stride, Faith shifted the course of her sprint a couple of paces to the side and launched herself off one of the benches that was littered around the cemetery. The spring must’ve relied on her Slayer strength because no Olympic athlete had ever jumped as high or as long. Nor gone into a tumble in quite the same way as Faith managed.

As she came down, seemingly right on top of the now moving again vampire, Tara just about caught the movements that ended with the demon’s head being cleaved in two by the force of the axe driving through it. Faith landed just in front of it as it staggered on pure instinct, still on its feet but lacking direction.

Then it went to its knees, collapsing slowly.

Finally, without looking, Faith jabbed backwards with her stake and drove it into the vampire’s heart.

Gone.

She stayed in that pose for a moment while Tara brushed the previous vampire skank from her clothes. Once Faith had finished with her posing she turned to the Scooby judging cluster peering over the low hedge. “Huh? Huh? Come on, I dare you!”

A quick conference between then three of them and…

“Nine,” Xander said.

“Nine? What the fuck? Nine? I guarantee you, B never did anything like that.”

“It was good,” Anya told her. “We liked the landing and the flip, but it wasn’t perfect and we gave you an extra half a point because we didn’t have to get involved. We like having a Slayer do the fighting for us.”

“Maybe… maybe I should boink a vampire?” Faith asked, shaking her head and Tara was right there with her. That had been seriously impressive, but then she’d always been an easy marker.

Easily impressed by things she couldn’t do herself.

“I’d give you a ten for boinking a female vampire,” Xander said, only to be whacked by his girlfriend. “Sorry, Tara.”

“What’s it got to do with me?”

“Umm… you’re the lesbian? You noticed that right? Because we had?”

“There’s nothing ‘lesbian’ about Faith boinking – do we have to use that word? – a vampire, female or not for anyone else to watch… Vampires – most vampires – why does everyone associate female vampires with lesbians? And Faith - she’s – why am I ever having this conversation?”

“What else are you going to do?” Anya asked.

“Actually,” she said, turning to get ready to split. “I have a date with Willow…”

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

[Azirahael]

The Dib, it is mine!

Ok, first up: blood... Eeeeew! Eew! Eew! Eew! Really Eew!
I mean, i'm impressed that Hope thinks the hard thoughts, and has an inquiring mind.
And poor Buffy. Eew!

I really feel for her. Her first time being so... Eew! And followed by death and unhappiness.

And the idea of Faith doing a vampire chick? Eew! Eew! Eew!
So cold, so dead. Squick.

However, i think Tara has to check her lesbo street cred.
I think Faith (an acknowledged girl) doing sexy things with a (girl) vampire, however squicky, would definitely be somewhat lesbian.
I mean sure, Faith's Bi, but the act would be quite lesbian.

Just sayin'

Anyway, there's more, but i got work.

Bye!

R

[DaddyCatALSO]

Haven't read the chapter yet but I once posted a story (gone now but still part of my continuity) a femslash Faith/VampHarmony piece *snicker.

[Rauko]

I wondered (from some weird reason), what flavor the jello was, 'cause here is always green in the hospitals...
Anyway, this chapter was really fun, or at least it made laugh a lot

That thing with the blood, i always thougt that was like the Anne Rice vamps or Vampire La Mascarada ( dont know if is the same name on english, is a RPG), now trough is a new level of gross...
Also i really think Hope dont need "the talk", living with Faith and all...

Love the banter during the slayage and the SC reference (that one is one of my top 5 favorite fics), and the piercing whistle ALWAYS works, true story.

Lol, i just can see Xander and Anya with the laminated cards, and Willow charting (that word exist or i made it up?) the results.

A date?, thats nice, looking foward for the next chapter.

[Kajun]

Katharyn, I blame the turn to icky train wreck of a conversation on Willow. Hope just said vampires couldn’t get a girl pregnant due to being dead. Willow expanded on that in more detail. The curse of the Willow-babble strikes again. LOL If Hope really wants the gory details she should ask Anya. I’m sure the ex-vengeance demon would be thrilled to share her vast knowledge of her favorite activity. LOL Faith may be a slut, but I’m not so sure she would want her little sis having Anya as a sex ed teacher, and it’s not likely she would want to do that herself. Best to let Joyce handle that one. Besides.. Having a youngster to mentor is good for Joyce’s mental well being. She will leave this life knowing she was loved and needed.

Scoring slayage like it’s a sporting event would be insane anywhere in the world but Sunnydale. I love that Faith kicked it up a notch to get higher scores. There was a time, not so long ago, she would have ripped them a new one for daring to judge her. I guess her “never mind” followed by scalp removal went above their heads. LOL Faith is getting along well with the gang and, naturally, Tara picks up on the fact that Faith does care what people, or at least the scoobies, think of her. That whole patrolling scene was a whole lot of fun to read. More please!

[Katharyn]

May the dib be with you, Azirahael

Okay... the whole 'blood' thing. It is possible that I am getting confused with other vampire mythologies, but I thought I had seen it on Buffy (tears I mean) so... Could be wrong. If I hadn't then it was probably left open. How did I get to this? Well, not being pregnant was the point but then the characters just took me to why... When they're in my head it's a scary thing

And it's true, Faith's not doing a vampire. Ever. It's not that she has standards, just that she wouldn't see the point when she's supposed to kill them...

The Faith/lesbian thing... That slipped through. Remember, I only added Paige as a character in a bonus chapter. The rest of the story was written with Faith as 'hetero-flexible' and there was a little of that background in what Tara said (more like 'you're not a lesbian if you're seduced by a vampire in a typical movie, you're just doing lesbionic things.) Yeah, I should've paid more attention to that. Same thing happens later, but I caught and changed that reference in light of Paige...

Thanks so much

Daddycatalso - Faith and Vamp Harmony? Umm... LOL? In my continuity, no matter what Faith thought, that would just end one way. Harmony dead about three seconds after she opened her mouth... People can always find ways to make things work though! That is what makes writing amazing

Rauko - The jello was green. But that does not mean it had a green associated flavour

Pleased you enjoyed it, I had fun with the chapter too and again when I came back to prep it for posting (when alot of the humour slipped in)

I think the word you are looking for in English is 'Masquerade'... I will bow to your memory that says it was not in Buffy though, the blood...

And you're quite right, Hope may not admit it, but she knows more than she might be expected to. Most kids these days do (or even those days) but living with Faith...? You're right! Practical precautions and all...

I should have had Willow doing charts! Great idea!

The date... well, that's leading to a scene you should all be expecting from this episode Big Pineapple's anyone?

Thanks

Kajun - Quite right, Willow's babbling can start all sorts of trouble when other people latch onto it

Actually, I doubt Anya would just come out and spill her experiences to (or in front of ) Hope. I really do think the 'little girl' thing applies as it does in canon. At least in my mind.

Faith's 'sluttiness' - see, this is where different perspectives count. In another perspective I think I already said Faith wasn't... (Tara's) or I will... And it's all down to your perception of the word. I think Faith herself might reclaim it

And yes, Hope/Joyce is a powerful thing...

Your analysis of Faith and what she would've been like was spot on. She is changing and I think Hope is the biggest part of that...

Sorry to be brief, gotta run!

Thanks

Katharyn

[Kajun]

Oh, forgot to mention the vamps in “True Blood” cry tears of blood. That was the first I’ve ever heard of vamps doing that but who knows where it may have popped up before Harris wrote Sookie. I’ve not read any of Rice’s stuff. Anyhoo..

[Azirahael]

Vampire: the Masquerade

A whitewolf roleplaying game went into it in depth.
Stolen blood suffused all the vampire's body, so any and all fluids were at least stained with blood.

That game seems to have become the template for a lot of things...

R

[Kajun]

I’m not sure what’s more disturbing: The discovery that people actually have very heated arguments regarding a vampire’s ability or inability to impregnate someone, or the fact that I just wasted 5 minutes googling vampire tears. Especially since I really don’t care where/when the concept originated. LOL

[Katharyn]

I really wasn't going to engage with this (again!) but... umm... then I had a thought. So *cough* anything that takes the place of a 'fluid' is blood... Do I have to draw a picture of where I'm going now? No, cos I won't.

Needless to say, this was NOT happening in Sidestep.

Katharyn

[DaddyCatALSO]

No evidence that was used in the Buffyverse, which wouldn't stop Hope.

[Katharyn]

Thank you for the research, DCA!

Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter One Hundred and Nine
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 have a date during ‘Listening to Fear’
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: See, there’s a natural pause between this episode and the events of Into the Woods. Two days where yes, something happens, but basically we can have fun with that time. So, how do Tara and Willow get up on a roof? They go on a date and… why not? This is what a ‘missing scene’ fic should be about… I’ve been doing too much reinterpretation of existing scenes for my own tastes – even if anyone has enjoyed them. Sometimes I just want to get out and give you (and myself) something new.
The name of the restaurant later is, of course, a reference to Big Bang Theory. And if you look at the airdates, between Into the Woods and the next episode, falls the one year anniversary of the airdate of Hush. That’s good enough for me to fill in a blank and celebrate that…



“Hey, baby,” Willow said.

“That’s Tara, right?” Joyce asked, sounding weak and not really wanting to turn her head to see who’d come into the room.

“Is there any other ‘baby’ for me?” Willow asked gently.

Joyce just coughed, but she’d have agreed if it hadn’t hit her at that moment, she was sure of that.

“So, how’s everyone doing?” Tara asked, touching her hand as they came to stand next to each other but focusing on Joyce.

“The food’s terrible; my head feels like there’s an omelette trying to break out of it. Oh, and Hope eats all my jello, which is actually the bright spot of my day.”

“Omelette?” Hope wondered.

No one really picked Joyce up on it though, in her head she knew what she was saying, and they all got the point. It was scarier when – and it was rare – she made no sense at all.

“Can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, that’s what they say right. Do you think I’ll get eggs for breakfast?”

“I don’t know, Mom,” Buffy said, trying to quell this sudden surge of excitement. It wasn’t just about Tara arriving – though Willow would’ve been flattered if it was – it was more about the sudden mood swings that took Joyce. Even though it was evident she was constantly in some degree of pain, sometimes she just didn’t seem to feel it and at other times it overwhelmed her.

Willow had long since given up trying to figure it out and instead just did what she could to make things easier or better. Mostly because doing something was much better than just standing and watching and realising how different Joyce was.

You only had to look at Buffy to see how hard it was too. Every time Joyce did or said something… odd. Every time she grimaced in pain.

“Everyone’s coming over,” Tara said, “before they take you in.”

“You mean after they’ve shaved my head?” Joyce asked, touching the hair that she’d soon lose.

“They’re only going to shave the bit they need to, Mom,” Buffy reminded her.

“You might even look cool,” Hope suggested.

“Oh? Really? Says the girl with the hair I’d kill a chicken for.”

Willow shook her head minutely, preventing Hope from questioning that one. Probably more on the egg theme… “Do you like my hair?” Hope asked, pleased in spite of the odd phrasing.

“I think, after tomorrow, I’m going to like everyone’s hair but my own. But yes, honey, I love your hair. And your hair too, Buffy.” Joyce took her daughters hand when she wasn’t quite strong enough to reach up and touch what she was talking about.

The sign of weakness must’ve stirred Tara, because she suddenly remembered the bag she was carrying. “Oh… I have presents.”

“Presents? Is it my birthday?”

“No, but… you kind of mentioned your hair.”

“You noticed I was worried about that right?” It was good that Joyce could joke about it, right?

“Kind of,” Tara agreed. “So… here.”

Out of the bag she took… a UC Sunnydale beer hat?

“I… don’t think that’s the kind of hat I meant, baby,” Willow said.

“It’s the only one I could find on short notice, but I thought maybe a scarf, you know, for when the hat’s not appropriate?” Tara looked kind of embarrassed, and – for once – with some reason.

“Did you get me anything?” Hope asked, well, hopefully.

“I did…” Tara said, passing over a book. Willow leaned in to look at it.

“Thank you!” Hope leaned in and pecked Tara on the cheek in the midst of their hug.

“A spell book?” She wondered whether it had come from the Magic Box. Might not be the best choice.

Tara shook her head. “It’s more about the history and anecdotal stuff. It’s not like she’ll be turning anyone into a frog or anything.”

“Do you guys know how to do that?” Hope asked, once again hopeful.

“In theory…” Willow said.

“Why, do you know any princes?” Tara asked.

“Actually, she does!” Joyce said.

“Shut up!”

“There’s a prince now?”

“There’s a prince,” Willow promised. “He doesn’t know his fate yet, but if she’s her sister’s sister then that boy doesn’t stand much of a chance.”

“I’m not my sister’s – that makes no sense,” Hope pointed out, breaking off from her objection and totally embarrassed. Again. Oh yes, she had it bad.

“You can’t deny it though can you?”

“For now,” Tara said. “Read your book. Okay?”

“I’m not going to do anything,” Hope said.

“You should,” Joyce replied, taking them all completely by surprise. “Life’s too short. Kiss the boy. See what he says.”

“Umm…” Yeah, that was where all three of the rest of them were. Definitely with the umm.

Seeing their doubt thought, Hope suddenly found herself on the other side of the argument. “I’m not stupid, you know? I won’t do anything… else.” She looked at Joyce as if checking that was what she meant.

“Good for you,” Buffy’s Mom said.

“We’ll talk,” Tara promised the younger girl.

Willow could see her girlfriend’s point. Joyce wasn’t exactly at her best. As she’d already hinted, she was looking at things through the lens of what had happened to her recently, facing up to a mortality that Willow was sure was a long way into the future but felt much closer now than it had. More than that, it was tough for anyone to take her seriously with an – empty – beer hat on her head.

And thinking of which… “Anything else in your bag of goodies?”

“Buffy’s history text,” Tara said, pulling it out and handing it over.

“I thought you were giving out gifts,” Buffy complained. “This doesn’t count.”

“You were the one who told me that you had that exam on World War I… you need to do the reading,” Willow admonished her friend. More than that, it’d take her mind of things. At least for a while. Get some routine back into her life. Besides, in the next few days, there were going to be hours and hours when they couldn’t even expect any news but there was no way that they could leave either. So… history.

She approved of Tara’s choice. Not that I ever do.

“Hope gets a present and permission to kiss boys, I get… this?” Buffy seemed incredulous.

“And your Mom got a hat. Man up and deal with it,” Willow joked.

“Oh,” Tara said, reaching back into the bag. “There’s this fun yo-yo too.” She handed it over to Buffy who – at that moment – looked like she might put it to some sort of creative Slayer usage or something. Probably less fun when you considered the possibilities for slaughter and mayhem.

Had Tara considered that?

“A yo-yo…” Buffy said, turning it over in her hands and with typical Slayer grace flicked her wrist once and did a perfect trick the likes of which Willow had never managed. “Here, kid.” Buffy handed it over to Hope.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, I’ve got my exam… I don’t want too much excitement do I now? You know… I’m thinking about not taking it.”

“Won’t that mean that you fail the class?” Willow asked.

“Really? Is that what it would mean?”

“You don’t sound especially bothered?”

Buffy frowned and shook her head. Willow thought she had an idea what was going on in her friend’s head, but this wasn’t the place – Buffy was right about that. Neither as an example to Hope nor, more importantly, as a concern to her Mom who didn’t need to be worrying about Buffy dropping out of college because of what was happening to her.

“Hey, Joyce, are you tired?” Tara asked, taking the hint both from Buffy and her Mom’s yawn.

“No… I don’t want to sleep. I sleep enough.”

“You yawned, Mom,” Buffy said. “We’re getting out of here. Come on, all of you out. And you, up.” The last was directed at Hope who was lying on the bed beside Joyce.

“You’re all good girls,” Joyce said. “I don’t know if I said thank you but…” She smiled.

“You just focus on getting yourself well,” Buffy said, leaning over to kiss her forehead. “That’s all you have to worry about, okay?”

“I think I’ve gotten it now,” her Mom said. “You’ve told me often enough that it must’ve sunk in.”

“Have a good night,” Willow said, taking Joyce’s hand for a few moments.

As they left the room and went out into the corridor, Hope almost fell across a man stumbling down the corridor. He glared at her for the offence, but then threw out his arm and pointed right at the girl. “There is no data there! No data!”

“What?” Hope stumbled back and Willow tried to get in between them to block off an obviously crazy guy. But she was too late. Buffy and Tara were right there, front and centre. Shoulder to shoulder and very determined.

“No data! There’s no data… no data… why’s there no data?”

“What’s he want?” Hope asked, turning to her while the other two were blocking his way. “Why’s he shouting at me? Why’s he pointing? Everyone’s shouting at me, everyone crazy’s shouting at me.”

Willow pulled her into an embrace, aware that an orderly had come along and was restraining the guy. “Hey, sorry folks. This guy’s being discharged, he’s not dangerous – he’s usually pretty shy and in his own skin. Something must’ve freaked him out.”

Something like Hope?

Because yeah… this wasn’t the first or even the second time. Joyce herself had freaked out once… Hope was still a little shaken about it and you could see her steeling herself whenever Joyce raised her voice or spoke unexpectedly. That was just the legacy of that shock though.

Wasn’t it?

“It’s okay,” Willow said to the girl. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. We’re just spending too much time around hospitals. There are sick people here, they’re not – they’re here to be taken care of. That’s all it is. You don’t have to worry about anything.”

At least Hope wasn’t crying, she rarely did. She was her sister’s sister in that respect. “Okay. You – you guys should get going…”

“No, we’ll stay with you,” Willow insisted, looking to her girlfriend for agreement.

Tara nodded behind Hope, but the girl wasn’t going with it. “No, you guys have a date. You should go. I’ll go back with Buffy.”

“It’s okay, I’ll stay at their place with her till Faith gets back,” Buffy confirmed. “It’s a special night. Get out of here.”

It was a special night but - why they couldn’t trust a fifteen year old as sensible and careful as Hope on her own… That was something no one would tell her. But then she’d carefully not asked.

For whatever reason Hope’s sister, Buffy and Tara were making sure Hope wasn’t alone for long.

“Faith’s probably already home,” Tara pointed out. “You sure you don’t mind dropping her off?”

“No,” Buffy said, looking over her shoulder to where the shouting patient was just about going out of earshot. “We’ll have a walk… it’ll be good to stretch our legs. Right, Hope?”

“You can call me Hopeless if you want,” Hope offered, able to joke a little bit now that the crazy guy had been taken away. She was still shaken up though – and who wouldn’t be? “Most Slayers do.”

“No… there’s Hope. There’s Hope.”

Not one of them could miss what she was really saying.

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

“Not exactly what you had in mind?” Willow asked.

“No, I guess not. But this is still nice.” Tara looked around. The place had – at least – cleared out the kid’s parties that it was mostly famous for and left… Well, it left a restaurant that was kid friendly but mostly empty. It closed in a couple of hours and all the staff who were left were towards the ends of their shifts.

And you could tell. They weren’t rude or anything, just weary after a long day.

Weary was a feeling she knew all too well. She’d been afraid for some time about just how much they were – they being all of them – trying to do while Joyce was ill. Not about having ‘just’ one Slayer – the natural state of things – but about school, patrolling, the situation with Glory and…

Hope.

It was all enough to make anyone weary. But you just had to get on with it, didn’t you?

“Good barbecue burgers,” Willow said, brandishing hers. It was practically dripping fat, melted cheese – essentially fat – and some green things that might once have been lettuce before it was doused in the beef flavoured fat and sauce “But…”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Willow continued, “don’t you think there should be some sort of statute against lesbians going to ‘Big Boy’?”

“That’s the great thing,” Tara explained. “We get to go where we want. Even ‘Big Boy’”

“Ah, something to celebrate. Now if they’ll just let us get married…” Willow said, then sipped at her coke.

“You want to get married?” Tara asked, surprised. They’d already been talking about the things that had happened today and she’d had to avoid the question around Hope and what it was the guy in the hallway had seen in her… Now this? Had Willow been listening to her Mom and Dad?

Babies were firmly on Sheila’s agenda, but it seemed more likely Ira that would insist on them being married if that happened.

Happened? It wasn’t going to just ‘happen’, it’d take a whole lot of planning and effort. Not to mention a change in the law. But they were talking about marriage. On their anniversary, they were talking about marriage. Willow wasn’t about to spring something with a ring was she? She peered into the bottom of her coke, wondering if there was anything in there that she didn’t want to swallow by accident…

“I want the right to do that,” Willow said, “sure. I wasn’t – that wasn’t me proposing to you or anything. I mean, I saw you looking in your cup. After all we’ve only been together… Wow, it’s nearly a year isn’t it.”

Tara shook her head. It wasn’t nearly anything.

“Oh… you little minx. You did this! You did this to me! And you didn’t say anything. That’s why they said it was ‘special’!”

“It d-doesn’t matter,” Tara promised.

“Doesn’t matter? Of course it matters.”

“It’s not really when you’d count it from,” Tara said… “I mean…”

“I met you one year ago today,” Willow said. “I’m counting everything from then. And I do mean everything. One year… and you let me forget about it.”

“You were counting it from when we first kissed,” Tara guessed.

“Not if I’d thought about it properly,” Willow told her. “You… You brought me to ‘Big Boy’ for our first anniversary. What’s up with that anyway?”

“Yeah, but I had another reason for it,” Tara said.

“What?”

“You’ll see… but don’t change the subject. You said you wanted to get married?”

“I… I guess I’m just my father’s daughter.”

“That you are,” Tara agreed, seeing a lot more of Ira in Willow now that she knew him.

“And… he’s got that air of tradition about him, plus I know he wants to walk me down the aisle.”

“You want to get married for your parents then?” Tara asked, trying to get to the bottom of this. She got the political point, absolutely. Even if they chose not to say the words, they wanted everyone else to have that right. But it wasn’t something that had ever been put in personal terms. Not seriously.

“No, I’d want to get married for you, doofus.”

She smiled, happier with that reply. “I… I never thought about it much,” she said. “Until recently it was never going to be an option. I’d have been back home… you know.”

“Your Mom still married your Dad.”

“Partly because he knew what he was ‘taking on’ or thought he did,” Tara explained, “even though I know for sure he loved her, I think a lot of that came later. You know? After they were married.”

Willow nodded, not exactly happy with that answer. “You wouldn’t have married me then?”

“I… I already knew that there wouldn’t be any more girls in this family who’d go through the same thing I was.”

“Just because you’re gay doesn’t mean you can’t have kids,” Willow said, dabbing at the ketchup that had missed her mouth. “We’ve talked about that before too – again, my Mom and Dad…”

Ira and Sheila had – without actually telling them to do it – insinuated that money could be found for IVF, once Willow was out of college.

It was sweet in a way and – they like me, they want me to have their grandchildren.

They REALLY like me.

Oh no, there was never any pressure to dinner with the Rosenbergs. It was just a joy, laced with the next surprise announcement or suggestion.

“No, it’s not that. When - because I thought there was a demon in me. I thought – probably – it was best if wouldn’t have had kids.”

“End of line,” Willow said.

Tron quotes? Now…? No. Even though she’d never seen Tron until Xander and Willow had sat she and Anya down and insisted they watch.

Tara nodded. “How… how did we get onto this?” This was supposed to be turning into a happy time as Willow realised the occasion. She’d brought her girlfriend to Big Boy for two reasons. Three if you counted the fact that it was supposed to be really good if all you wanted was a burger. The second was for later and the first… simple. They weren’t in the mood for dressing up and faffing around.

At least I’m not.

There were other anniversaries that they could count and celebrate, as big a party as you liked. The occasion of one year since they’d met and three-hundred and sixty four days since they’d almost died together (for the first time)… It wasn’t a dancing night, for example.

“Big Boy,” Tara said, gesturing with what was left of her burger.

“Well, marriage is a conversation worth having, right?” Willow asked.

“As long as you weren’t planning on asking me,” Tara replied, happy enough to go there.

“You don’t want to then?”

“No – I mean, that’s not why I said it. I – I don’t know what I want when it comes to that but… if I was going to get married, even to you, then I don’t want to propose – or be proposed to – in a Big Boy. That’s not how you want the story to go. You know?”

Willow grinned and they seemed to both be agreed on that. “We could hide the ring in the bottle or a Big Boy Gulper cup,” Willow said. “You thought I had! But we’d probably never see it again. That much coke would rot it all away.”

“For sure we couldn’t drink it, even with two straws,” Tara said.

“So…”

“So?”

“Come on, I want to know. I’m not asking you and I – Just for the purposes of a philosophical debate - ”

“In a Big Boy?”

“For the purposes of a philosophical debate, let’s put aside you and me. Nothing that’s said means anything for us. What you think about the idea – what we think – doesn’t have to apply to us. How’s that?”

“So…” Tara mused, “if I say something like marriage is stupid I can still marry you without being teased about it?”

“And if I say that I think everyone who’s in love should be able to, that doesn’t mean I’m going to ask you,” Willow retorted.

“What makes you think you’d be doing the asking anyway?”

“Well, from what you said so far, I just don’t think if I left it to you we’d ever get there. So… come on. You agree with the ground rules for the topic?”

“Sure,” Tara said. “Let’s go for it.”

“Wait… Is this the philosophical debate, or did you just ask me to marry you?” Willow asked. “I’m teasing, I’m teasing.”

“Here’s my thing,” Tara said. “I want everyone to have the right to be with the person they love. And I want all the legal protections for you – I mean for anyone I was with.”

Willow grinned seeming to be pleased with the slip of the tongue. “You’re not going to say that you don’t need the word are you? That it doesn’t have to be called ‘marriage’?”

Tara thought about that. “At the end of the day if it’s equal in every way, I don’t much care what it’s called and it’s not my religion. But I don’t think – for some people – it would be equal unless it was called that. So… I guess I do care about that.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Willow said.

“No,” Tara said, doubting they were on ‘exactly’ the same wavelength this time. “I think you want marriage for the sake of marriage. You want your Dad to walk you down the aisle; you want to let him say you’re married and that he gave you away. Any other words… don’t do that.”

Willow nodded after thinking about it for a moment. “I think that’s probably fair. And you want it to make sure that we’re not treated differently.”

Tara agreed with her, munching on her burger while Willow sipped her drink.

“You know,” Willow said. “There are plenty of people who get married before they’ve known each other even as long as we have. All sorts of people who do it for all the wrong reasons.”

Tara stopped chewing.

“Gotcha.” Willow beamed. “You’re just so easy sometimes.”

She swallowed the burger and pulled a face. “Got to admit, you had me for a minute there. Another minute.”

“I can wait for you,” Willow said. “To be ready.”

So… Willow wanted to already? Right now? It wasn’t a question of knowing because there wasn’t a doubt in her mind about that. But… “Yeah, you got me again.” She was forced to admit it because she’d been having another expression. Willow sometimes put words together in creative ways, but this was one occasion where she’d known exactly what she was saying.

Willow leaned over the table, expecting a kiss and Tara leaned forwards to give her one. “See, this is where a classy restaurant would’ve been a problem, you’d have set your hair on fire just then.”

She laughed at that one too. “As it is, all I did was drag it in the ketchup.”

“No, you missed. But you know I’d get it for you if you had.”

“I guess,” Tara said, “that’s the sort of devotion a marriage is made from. The woman who’ll clean ketchup from my hair is the girl I’ll marry.”

Willow looked hard at her, weighing up her words. “You… Did you just make a joke about it?”

“Uhuh,” she confirmed. “I… One day, there’s no one, anywhere, that I can see myself wanting to marry but you.”

“The last two words really helped that statement,” Willow said.

“I know, I thought I better get them in there, but… You know, we can’t do this right now if we wanted to. So… until then, do we need to worry about it?” Tara asked.

“Not at all,” Willow said. “But… I want to say this. I want you to hear this.”

“What?”

“I kind of… I really underplayed what my Dad wants.”

After all the things Ira and Sheila had said – or implied – to her face, there was more? “Oh? He doesn’t just want to walk you down the aisle?”

“No,” Willow said. “He’s Ira Rosenberg after all. This is the bit you don’t know. He wants to walk us both down the aisle. He told me. I mean he’ll settle for just me, but…”

Tara sat back in her chair, looking for any hint of a joke in that statement. Anything that meant it wasn’t as serious as Willow had made it sound. Not a sign. Not a clue… So she was being serious. Ira had said that? It wasn’t like it was something that’d just come up in conversation though. “He really said that?”

“He really said that.”

“Why?”

“You know why, he feels bad about the fight you had with your Dad.”

Fight. Of course, Ira didn’t know the actual reasons behind the schism so Willow had called it a fight, one that she was entirely reasonable in and her Dad… wasn’t. The great con though, years and years, generations of her female ancestors being locked up and confined just because… “So he wants to walk me down the aisle too?”

“If you’ll have him,” Willow said. “And of course, if you’ll have me. If you think about it, it’s an elegant solution to the lesbian wedding problem of who gets walked down the aisle without defining ‘roles’ or cluttering up the place with two processions or feeling like we had to fit into the stereotypical thing and you know we’re both look great in dresses…”

“You’ve been thinking about this way too much,” Tara concluded.

“Blame my Dad though, not me…”

“He just… came out with it?” Tara asked. “You didn’t say anything?”

“It wasn’t long after the – you know, when your father was here,” Willow confirmed.

“That’s not all that I asked. Did you say something?”

“I’ll answer your question - ”

“Good.”

“But first,” Willow said. “I want to know why you want to know?”

“I… There’s so much happening. You know I love you.”

“Yes, I’m aware this is a factual statement.”

“And you know that if you asked me whether I ever saw this – us – ending, I’d say ‘no.’”

“I’d say ‘hell no,’” Willow said. “But I accept that fact too.”

“But… We just are, Willow. We’re everything we need to be – at least for now. With everything else going on and I don’t just mean with Diana and Glory… I mean everything, school and the scary thing that’s life after school then… We don’t need to be anything more than we are, for now? Do we?” She deliberately made it into a question.

“Come here,” Willow said.

“Just… tell me, did you say anything?” If Willow wasn’t going to tell her whether it mattered or not, that was fine. But why had all this come up? She didn’t want to disappoint her girl. And if she needed to think about it… she was open to that.

“I just said I loved you. That you were the perfect person for me, the one that completes me. And then he… just said it. In case we were worried about it. He loves you, you know? I think he likes you going round more than me.”

Tara sighed, happy enough with that. “That’s good.”

I’ll ask you right now. If you want me to. I’ll ask you and we’ll wait for the law and we’ll do it. If you want me to.

Because I know all this is real. This is us.

“Is it?”

“It’s good.”

“Well, good,” Willow said. “So… keep your hair out of the ketchup and come here.”

Tara leaned forwards and kissed her again.

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

[Azirahael]

I hereby declare myself king of the Dibsness!

You know what they say, a real friend hold your hair while you vomit.
Holding someone's hair out of the ketchup comes a close second.

I liked to little look at Hope's place in the group.
And i liked the expansion on Ira Rosenberg.

I now have a vision of him punching Mr Maclay in the face.
It's a happy vision.
It really is.

And the girls were nice, and thoughtful as always.
You right them so well.
Making Tara strong, without taking her essential 'Tara-ness' away.

Well done.

R

[DaddyCatALSO]

Why is there a "save" button on this site .? All it does is erase things.

Sheesh- 8 dollars even to rpint latest chapters of this and "Actions Have Cosnequences." I gotta spend less of my limted time on dumb newssites, telling me about stuff getting worse, and more on the Kitten reading!

[Katharyn]

I suspect the ketchup thing was inspired by vomit (but in a nicer way)... I forget now, Azirahael - but that's nothing new!

Ira's been fun since Sidestep. This is very much the same man, but just untainted by tragedy. I don't think I could write him any other way. Trying to blend the very few things we know about him from canon with how I want him to be and all. Better yet, you can just refer to him without having to show it and it just works because anytime Tara spends with him or any approval he shows of her is just an awwww moment

When I think about Tara I know I couldn't write her another way either. In Sidestep she was practically a superhero and I was afraid I couldn't pull back from that towards canon. Turns out I was wrong, that part is easy to lose, but the strength won't go away. Maybe you guys don't feel the same, but I've always thought she had strength in canon. It just wasn't shown.

Coming through the things she did, well adjusted and comfortable with who she is takes strength. Right from the beginning, she comes out to cross campus while monsters are on the loose to go find Willow and help. (Oh, and she think the redhead is hot...) But that's strength right there (and attraction!) as well as a good, moral compass. Apart from one or two episodes (stupid ones) I never felt that she was (like Dawn) the weak link that had to be protected, rescued etc.

And she stuck around right up to the point a hard decision had to be made. Through everything. Staying - and going - took all sorts of strength...

So, it was already there. I just... reshaped it a little

Thanks

Daddycatalso - Sorry to hear about your board troubles! And yes, always spend more time on Kitten.

Thanks

More later today (Tuesday)

Katharyn

[Katharyn]

Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter One Hundred and Ten
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 part of ‘Listening to Fear’
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, I’ve been enjoying myself adding in new or extended material at the start of this ‘episode’ and so we’ve not got very far into the canon events of it, but we have seen the benefits. I’m sure you can live with those.
As we start this part, we’re dealing with the aftermath of the last conversation. With what is happening to Joyce, but – of course – Willow still doesn’t know about Hope. Also, it’s one of those scenes that – to a certain extent – you just have to leave alone to a greater extent than usual. So there are pineapples and everything…
Despite what’s happening though, the needs of the story to have Tara or Willow present at every significant event means I had to split them up in this part… I’m being quite brazen about it, mostly because I couldn’t think of a really good reason ‘in story’.
Thanks to: To the reader who recently reminded me why I haven’t tried to publish my own stuff. Hmm.



Okay, so she felt just the teensiest bit guilty.

Here they were, out under the open stars on the most perfect rooftop for watching the sky – away from bright lights – and she could almost feel the weight of the most powerful forces in nature pressing down on her.

Judging her.

I tried to get Tara to say she wanted to get married. One day. Not like a proposal but… one day.

Okay, so her Mom and Dad had been a lot clearer – and more ambitious – in what they wanted, but still… I did kind of drop it on her.

And that – not the subject – was what she felt a little guilty about.

Just a little.

The fact that the whole thing was kind of a moot point since the law didn’t allow it, didn’t change how she felt about the concept. One – she wanted to marry Tara one day and two – she wasn’t depressed in the slightest by Tara’s very well thought out and reasonable response.

Tara absolutely wanted that right that they were denied by the – very welcome/intriguing/curvy/sensual – accident of their respective genders, and by the time they had those rights they’d have undoubtedly been together a long time. Willow just knew that to be true, it wasn’t wishful thinking in the slightest. That was just the way things were going to be.

Because there was no alternative. Life without Tara? After life with Tara? It really didn’t exist.

The other two relationships she’d been a part of had felt very different. With the shorter of those she’d been carried away by a notion left over from a very early age, confusing friendship with something more for a little while. Luckily they’d never taken things further than she could’ve been comfortable with Tara knowing had happened and Xander still remained a friend.

The other, longer, relationship with Oz… Somehow she’d never felt this way about it. Sure, you romanticised and wished and thought and hoped but she’d never known that they’d be together long enough to make marriage an option even though the law would let them do it virtually right away. All of those other things – the wishing and the hoping - had been necessary with Oz because at the end of the day…

I didn’t feel it.

And she didn’t feel bad about reflecting on that now, on this night, because…

With Tara it was so very different. She did feel it. From the tips of her fingers to the tips of her toes. In her bones and in every hair on her head. So when she thought about marriage, when she talked about it, it was because she really meant it. So they’d have to go to Canada or Mexico to actually go through with it and do something aboot it… big whoop.

And it wasn’t at all smug to lie here, holding her baby’s hand, and thinking one day it’s going to happen. It wasn’t a wish. It wasn’t a hope. It certainly wasn’t a dream.

It just was. Tara had said as much.

“You never asked me what I brought for you,” Tara said.

“Huh?”

“At the hospital, I had something for everyone other than you.”

“Well,” Willow said, “you paid for dinner so I got a Big Boy and I got you. I didn’t think I should get greedy and expect more. But if I ever wanted it… Remember, I know where you get naked, missy.”

“You’re right, I’m all you deserve,” Tara said, giggling at the ‘threat’.

With Tara’s hand in hers, she ran her thumb over the ring that looped around Tara’s. At least when she remembered to put it back on. “Your Mom had big hands,” she said.

“That’s a strange thing to say.”

“But it must’ve been true, I mean… you wear her ring on your thumb.”

“Maybe my hand’s just small and delicate?”

“Maybe,” she had to concede the logic.
“But that’s not what you said when we - ” Tara started to recall one of their periods of experimentation. And it had certainly been an experience. Maybe one that was only for… umm… special occasions.

Like a one year anniversary? No… not tonight.

“Yes, yes… So, Momma Maclay had big hands?”

Tara shook her head. “No, I had to have it enlarged when I… well, you know.”

And she did, so she left that part alone. “What’s special about it?” Willow asked. “I mean, apart from who gave it to you, obviously.”

“Nothing, I think – why’d you ask?”

“Buffy told me – when she was in her trippy trance, looking for spells, remember that?”

Tara’s expression said that yes, she absolutely remembered. After what had happened next, how was she not going to remember? “It’s… got a spell on it?”

“Buffy said it glowed, that it… well, there’s something about it – but you didn’t know did you?” She’d already determined the answer by reading Tara’s reaction as she held it up between them and they both looked at it.

“I have… I had no idea.”

“Maybe we’ll find out one day,” Willow said. It didn’t seem likely to be a problem. It’d come from Tara’s Mom, it’d only be a good thing – assuming she’d known about it. But even if it wasn’t… Tara had had it for years, worn it and… nothing.

“Maybe.” Tara squeezed her hand.

“You think that Joyce will…?” Willow asked, changing the subject. But, of course, it was one that was on all of their minds.

“I hope so,” Tara said.

Hope? That was all? But then Tara had a different perspective on what was happening. She’d lost someone very important to something similar and her belief in anything more than hope had probably all been chewed up and spat out a couple of years ago. She had hoped, prayed and wished. It’d gotten her nothing but pain. “I’m glad that the Doctors are doing their thing though. I guess we just have to trust them.”

Tara shrugged, but didn’t actually explain herself. Oh yeah, her girl had a different perspective, Willow got that but… “What do you think?”

“They’re not gods,” Tara said. “Doctors, I mean. Sometimes -”

“Baby, we have to be positive,” Willow reminded her. Other people needed that from them. Buffy. Hope in a different way. Joyce too.

“I am positive,” Tara told her. “I just don’t subscribe to the idea that the only way through anything is always to take a pill or cut someone up. Sometimes that makes things worse, sometimes it hurts them. Maybe it spoils the life they do have and doesn’t achieve anything at all.”

And yes, that was all coming from the heart. Where her Mom had been through all sorts of treatments, suffered through them actually and… it didn’t help in the end.

Not one bit.

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie, you were right,” Tara said.

“Well, that’s good.” She liked being right. Along with Tara-loving it was pretty much her default state of being.

“I just think you were right for the wrong reason. I think being positive can help just as much, but more importantly, it can never, ever hurt. Then… you do what’s right. If that’s medical, great. But trying something just because you can or it comes with a big charge to the insurer… that’s no way to go.”

“Morbid much?”

“Oh! I didn’t mean go, I meant… I believe that Joyce will be fine. I believe that she’s got good Doctors and that they’ll do her some good. But… if things were worse for her, then… there comes a point when her mental state is more important than anything else. Fighting isn’t just about letting Doctors do stuff to you. Some people who fight, do it all by themselves. We’re wonderful, miraculous beings, you know?”

“I know you are.”

Tara smiled. “And I knew you were going to say that.”

“Because you’re wonderful and miraculous; it lets you read my mind.”

“Really?”

“Yup.”

“So… I should know what you’re thinking now?”

“Absolutely.”

“Umm… You’re thinking you’ve got a hot girlfriend.”

“Baby, come on,” Willow said. “Put some effort in. That didn’t exactly take any intuition.”

“Maybe a little, lovely delusion.”

“Now, you’re the one who’s being deluded,” she insisted. “But what else am I thinking?”

“Umm, you’re looking up at the stars, you’re seeing patterns,” Tara decided.

Actually… she’d been looking at the stars and seeing things as they’d been hundreds, thousands or millions of years ago and that had been just as impressive as anything Tara had said, but it was a product of her background, her reading. Tara had the handle on it which was what most people saw.

“You know that they’re not really like that,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s the big dipper right?”

“If you say so.”

“What does that mean?” Willow asked.

“I just don’t call it the big dipper. All those names, they never really made sense to me,” Tara explained.

“Maybe you’re about to make my point for me,” Willow suggested. “Truth is – it only looks like that from here – here on this planet. Not here on this rooftop. But to someone else, lying with her girlfriend on a rooftop somewhere… Oh, say around that star over there,” she pointed. “To her and her hot girlfriend, they don’t see that at all. Or us, our star is too weak and space is three dimensional. It’s all a matter of perspective.”

“Willow, sweetie?”

“Hmm?”

“Please stop telling me things.”

“Okay.” She could totally do that. It didn’t need to be spoiled. “So… tell me, what do you see?”

“You’ll laugh.”

“I hope so,” Willow admitted. “Isn’t it great when we can laugh with each other.”

“Not at me?”

“Tara!”

“Okay, okay… there,” Tara pointed. “See that?” Willow lined her eyes up along Tara’s outstretched arm, taking a moment to kiss it. You know, because.

“Yeah?”

“Moose getting a sponge bath,” Tara said. “Just one of my personal favourites.”

“Moose…”

“See,” Tara said, guiding her eye back to the moose part.

“Ohhh.”

“What about that, just to the right?”

“Little pile of crackers,” Tara said.

“Not so little,” Willow said. “That’s like thousands of light years…. Never mind. So, little pile of crackers, I see exactly what you mean.” Sometimes you just had to stop being the smarty pants and go with the flow. Especially when the girl you were in love with was well and truly able to get you out of your pants (smarty or not) pretty much on demand.

Or request.

Or slightest hint.

Or even with a raised eyebrow.

And as for being a ‘smarty pants’? This girl could reduce her to insensible whimpers where she couldn’t put more than three words together.

“Short man looking uncomfortable,” Tara pointed and Willow followed her movements, mentally connecting the dots. “And there, see that, my favourite, the Big Pineapple.”

“I like pineapple,” Willow said. “It’s all tropical and… pineapply.”

“But you see it right?”

“I see it. There…” This time she pointed, tracing the shape out and winning Tara’s approval. “And over there,” she added. “Hot girl in a miniskirt.”

“Hot girl in a miniskirt?” Tara asked. “Where?”

“There… look.” She traced out the shape.

“How do you know she’s hot?”

“Well,” she said, “I have to use my imagination… same way you know that’s a pineapple I guess.”

“That looks like a pineapple,” Tara assured her. “And I’m with you that could well be a girl, I mean… she’s got quite a – umm – Hope would say she had quite a rack. But… why’s she hot?”

“Umm, she’s got quite a rack?” Willow tried.

“That’s all it takes for you?”

“Not all it takes,” Willow assured her. “But if the rack’s there then she’s got a leg up – I mean a figurative leg. And if she’s confident enough to wear a mini, then she’s probably got nice legs too.”

“You like miniskirts?”

“I find that I like the theory of them,” Willow hedged, not getting caught out by that kind of question. “I mean… models and so on, they look good in minis. But when it comes to my girls, a pair of shorts is just fine.”

“So it’s girls now?”

“Girls. Girls. Girls,” Willow said. “We talked about this, you may have missed it but if you’re not certain, I’ll say it one more time. Tara, you just need to accept that I’m actually a lesbian. I know it’s hard to accept but… there it is.”

“Really?” Tara feigned shock and made Willow laugh with it. “I’ve been sleeping with a lesbian?!”

“I know! You never would if you’d guessed, would you! Oh – what was that?”

“What - ”

But then Tara saw the same thing that she had and no explanation was needed. A flaming object, bright and burning up as it traversed the sky, coming lower and lower until they could feel the rumble and after it had passed, heard the sonic boom from the speed it was going.

Scrambling to their feet they went to the edge of the roof just in time to see it hit the ground… Out in the woods.

“Oh, boy.”

Meteors were a common enough thing all over the world, but… this was Sunnydale.

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

“I’m telling you, she’s in a mood,” Anya said.

“I don’t think so,” her boyfriend said.

“I would be,” Faith said to them.

This had been going on for a few minutes. As if she couldn’t hear them, but she could. Anya and Faith? Not the most subtle people in the world. “I’m not in a mood, okay?” Willow felt she had no choice but to end the speculation.

“I would be.”

“So you already said, Anya.”

“If I had to kiss my girlfriend goodnight on my anniversary…” Anya was in one of those places where she just didn’t seem able to take a hint. “And then walk out into the woods when I should be home in bed with her…” Then she noticed how Xander was staring off into space. “You’re thinking of me with a girl!? Aren’t you?”

“No,” Willow said very honestly even as Xander protested his innocence and then, a moment later, admitted his guilt but tempered it with the fact it had been her idea so what was he supposed to do?

“I bet it was that Faith,” Anya said as they tramped further out into the forest.

“Hey, how about it, Red?” the Slayer asked, eyes twinkling. “Wanna try it with a girl?”

“Ha ha.”

Finding the crash site wasn’t proving difficult. Follow the smoke, the trail of destruction and the little fires… Everything else that was going on? That was more difficult.

“It was not Faith,” Xander promised.

“It better not have been Willow!”

“Hey!” Why couldn’t it have been her? “And… it better not have been me. Oooh, look everyone, big space rock.”

The group entered the clearing. It probably hadn’t been a clearing an hour ago when the meteor was still falling – but now it was flattened, burnt down and smouldering due to the heat. Fortunately it hadn’t kicked off a forest fire because… that would’ve been unfortunate.

“Yeah, look, honey,” Xander said. “A big rock. From space! There’s something you didn’t see every day. Let’s talk about that.”

Any port in a storm, of course. He made his escape as Anya was overtaken by the same excitement and curiosity that had brought the rest of them out here. Despite their misgivings.

“I still say that this falls somewhat outside the remit of a Watcher,” Giles said. “Or indeed a Slayer for that matter.”

Faith was with them, mostly out of curiosity it seemed and as a favour to Tara, while Buffy wasn’t being disturbed except if the world was going actually – definitely - to end. That was the deal. For now though, this was just an investigation. If the apocalypse came along, or another one, arrangements were in place. They’d beep her. “Good points,” Willow said. “On the other hand, this is rock from the very creation of the solar system.”

Anya snorted, having her own creation myths that she still looked to.

“And also,” Xander said. “Look where we are.”

They all nodded, even Giles. This was Sunnydale. And that carried certain expectations. Things could be simple, but those were frequently dangerous. And the complicated things, they were usually dangerous too. All in all, not the safest place to be.

“Fair enough,” Giles agreed.

Willow put her hand up. “Is anyone else thinking that the big, steaming hold in the ground is kinda like all sorts of movies that usually go badly for the first person to do something silly like… I don’t know, going down there into the pit?”

As she asked the question, Xander hesitated on the lip of the crater as he’d been about to do just that. He got the message, having seen most of the same movies she had.

“And quite often there’s a danger of radiation and sterility,” Giles added.

“Sterility?” Okay, now that was enough for Xander to back away and come join the rest of them. He didn’t seem to need it confirming.

“Why not send the lesbian?”

“I’m right here,” Willow said, pointing that out. “I can hear you, you know.”

“Then you go. Go on.”

“Hey, just because I’m into girls, doesn’t mean I’m happy to be sterile,” she said. Funny how these things came around. You have a conversation sort of about that very subject and the next thing you know a possibly radioactive meteor plunges to earth and someone was telling you to go risk sterility because you were gay.

Typical.

“But why do you need to worry about it?”

“We – I – might want children. One day.”

“But you said you weren’t coming back to boystown?” Anya sidled closer to her boyfriend, possessive and guarding him from her now that the proposition was in doubt.

“I’m not,” Willow said. “But that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Oh…” Anya relaxed, but just a little. “Well, when we actually have a turkey baster, you can’t borrow it. You’ll have to get your own.”

“I’ll try not to feel let down,” Willow said.

“And you’re not having any of Xander’s sperm either. His sperm is off limits.”

Giles coughed and rubbed his glasses furiously. Staying out of it. As far out of it as she wished she could’ve been. Oh, if only Tara had been here. She’d know how to put a stop to this. Maybe.

“Anya,” Willow said as calmly as she could. “I’m going to say this once. There are two things in this world I know I don’t want and you just discovered both of them in one conversation.”

“Hey!” Xander objected, mostly likely not about the turkey baster since he didn’t even own one yet.

“Sorry, but that’s just the way it is,” Willow said.

“I’ll have you know that my sperm’s very likely highly desirable to my gay and lesbian friends.”

“Your gay friends won’t need it,” Faith pointed out. “Well, not for that. But get too close to the hole and… neither will you.”

“If we could please – and I’m quite sincerely begging you now – get back to the topic?” Giles asked, gesturing at the still smouldering rock.

“Sorry,” everyone apologised.

“I… There’s no reason it should be radioactive,” Willow said. “At least not like super charged and dangerous, because everything is radioactive in some way.”

“But you can’t rule that out?” Xander’s hand was still suspiciously lingering as if he was protecting himself from the invisible rays. Or at least a part of himself. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that would do no good at all.

“No… Rock, paper, scissors?”

He nodded, and Willow did wonder why she and Xander were the only ones volunteering to get close enough and thus play the game to decide who ‘won’.

Three bumps of the fist and… paper wraps rock. “You get the honours,” Xander said.

“So much for being a gentleman,” she said and started down into the furrow that had been carved out by the landing of the meteor. The long, deep channel must explain how it came to survive coming through the atmosphere. A really shallow entry because – and she was no expert – this was kind of big for a meteor. At least one that had landed. One that was much smaller had flattened half of Siberia when it exploded back in the day.

“It’s my gentlemen I’m worried about,” he said, helping her down.

“Would this be a good time to say that if this thing is that radioactive then they’ve already been cooked?” Willow asked.

“What’s that?” Anya asked, perking up when there was a threat to having a fully functional Xander.

“Look it up,” she said, meeting Giles’ eyes and sharing the joke. She peered through the smoke and the steam and made out one fact before she even got down to it. “Hey, it’s hollow.”

And that worried her slightly. From what she knew about these things something hollow or that wasn’t solid – like a comet – should’ve fragmented and broken up long before she and Tara had seen it. Let alone landed intact at such speeds… It should’ve exploded… Physics practically demanded it.

“That’s unusual?” Giles asked.

“To land intact, yeah… TV would tell us so.”

“And who are we to argue with TV?” Giles asked.

“Unusual…” Xander said.

“What?”

“Well, this is Sunnydale… and it is hollow so we can theorise that….” Xander said.

“Something could’ve been inside it,” Giles finished for him.

“Whoa,” Willow said. “That’s a big conclusion to leap to. I mean, I’ve seen as much as you all have, but…”

“Will,” Xander said, “this is the place where the swim team take steroids and end up turning into sea monsters. Anywhere else in the world, they just get cranky. I turned into a hyena. You’ve been a slutty ghost.”

“I was not slutty!”

“It is Sunnydale,” Giles said again, he sounded reluctant to accept it himself, but his mind was open to it.

“But Sunnydale’s a Hellmouth,” Willow protested.

“I think you’re making my point,” Xander said.

“No, anything from up there,” Willow said, pointing up at the stars she’d been admiring with her girl by her side just a short time ago, “isn’t going to be looking for the same things as vampires and monsters right?”

“I really don’t know,” Giles said. “But prudence would suggest…”

“Dead body,” Faith said it purely as a matter of fact. She had different perspectives on that sort of thing to most other people. “There’s a dead body here. Is case y’all were going to miss it.”

“See? Prudence,” Giles said.

“I don’t think his name was Prudence,” Anya said as Willow struggled to get back up out of the furrow.

“Maybe he was hit by it,” Willow said.

“As fast as you said it was going?” Giles said. “He’d have been vaporised. Though he might’ve died of fright.”

“Who was he?” Willow asked.

“He has… Hey, look, he has a wrist band, just like Joyce’s.”

“He came from the hospital,” Willow said, having a sinking feeling. This was Sunnydale. “And there’s something on his face, some sort of goop.”

Everyone had the same idea at the same moment, a suspicion really. They all turned to Anya, waiting. But for once she absolutely didn’t go there. “What?”

“Never mind. Well, we have a Slayer, we don’t need to call Buffy,” Giles said.

“Gee, watcher guy. Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Faith said, prodding the body with the tip of her boot.

“But the creepy woods,” Xander said. “You want to explore the creepy woods, looking for an alien in the middle of the night? Because we all know how well that’s likely to go.”

“Let’s not go as far as ‘aliens’” Willow suggested.

“You don’t mind cemeteries,” Faith pointed out, obviously not very impressed.

“We know the cemetery,” Willow reminded her. “It’s comforting and familiar. All of them… except that one where the banshees…” She shivered, not wanting to go back there again, but liking the idea of the woods even less.

“Bunch of wusses,” Faith said.

“I do think - ” Giles started, but was cut off by Anya.

“Vote.”

It seemed like a popular enough idea. “Slayer counts double,” Faith said before showing her hand.

“If she counts double then I should have Tara’s vote,” Willow countered.

“You’re just sleeping with her,” Faith said. “I’m the only one here with the balls to represent her vote. Balls that haven’t been cooked.”

Both Giles and Xander flinched at that one as she smiled as sweetly as only Faith could.

“No. One man – or woman – one vote,” Giles insisted. In the end it was four to one in favour of research and checking out the hospital where the poor guy they were still calling Prudence, despite his gender, had come from.

“Stay away from Buffy though,” Willow said. “She can’t know we’re going there. Agreed?”

Everyone, even Faith, agreed with that part.

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

[Azirahael]

I am the Dibs Master!

Extra double bonus points if you can work out which movie that was a reference to.

THe mystery deepens!

Even though there's no real mystery to it, it still feels myterious.

More please?

R

[Kajun]

Katharyn, Ira is such a cool dad. He obviously knows Willow and Tara are in it for keeps and fully supports them. Offering to walk Tara down the aisle is a pretty big deal. I’d like to believe that, when the time comes, Tara’s relationship with her own father will be mended and both fathers can share in the joyous occasion. Beth and Donny can f*ck off forever though.

So glad you kept the Big Pineapple scene. It’s classic. Then Willow comes up with her own name for a constellation. Hee-hee. It’s all fun and games til the creepy Queller Demon drops from the sky. When this episode aired I kept hoping the creature from space would turn Captain Cardboard into a gooey pile of ooze. LOL.

Diana should have the woods covered since it is her hunting ground. But.. Faith had to kill the giant snake so where the heck is the Goddess? I adore Faith but I’m with the rest of the gang: research and hospital. Mainly so Willow can find Tara. Oh yeah.. and what’s up with Tara’s ring? I’m trying to recall if that was mentioned before Buffy’s reveal spell but I’m drawing a blank. If it’s in an earlier chapter please let me know which one and I’ll re-read it.

[Katharyn]

I forget the movie reference, Azirahael, though I kind of remember it too. I know what you mean

It feels mysterious? When you know what is coming?

I don't actually like this (canon) episode much (apart from T/W pieces!) but it's actually a game changer in terms of the mythology. Call it a demon if you like, but - as they will argue later - it's a fricking alien It came from out there... Ready for the X-Files crossover? (kidding!)

Thanks

Kajun - Yeah, yet another example of me making Ira into just about the best Dad going. In part he's based (though exaggerated) on someone I know quite well who didn't go to these lengths but... yeah.

Keeping scenes like Big Pineapple is why - fundamentally - it's so hard for me to change too much of the canon outside the 'rules'. If I didn't do certain things, certain other things you all like to see would not happen. Sure, I might come up with something cool, but that's not a (sort of) missing scene fic... (and if I was writing it entirely myself, probably we'd have either been done for 6 months or have about 2 years still to go... no middle ground!)

Diana. Yes. Stop pointing out the obvious I should've dealt with! LOL. Diana is... um... doing stuff. Just stuff. Goddess stuff, obviously. We're in S5 and she is VERY MUCH coming back, but things are so busy that... no. Also, get her too closely involved and it's tough to avoid a Diana v Glory catfight and that's the sort of thing you should save up Also, she's one of those things you use sparingly in story terms. She's... too easy. There's too little for the others to do if it's all left to her...

So I had lots of reasons, but yeah, I could've made more use of her to this point...

Faith's not much use for research or hospital

Tara's ring. No, you did not miss anything. I slipped a reference into there when Buffy was tripping and thought that was kind of nice. Whether it means anything? Dunno

Thanks

Katharyn

[Rauko]

Big Boy, in a world that includes a Big Boy, why would i settle for "something like" a big boy?, lol.

I like the conversation in Big Boy, personally i dont believe in marriage, but as Tara i believe in the rigth to do it for everyone (btw, in México is just legal in the Federal District or the capital, is a burocratic hell that includes like 3 briberies to make it hapen, and just since last year, so i dont see them running here to marry, now about Canada i dont have the sligthest idea). But i totally can see them married, and with kids (perhaps i'm thinking of Tony)... And i love Tara's inner conclusion:

"i'll ask you right now. If you want me to. I’ll ask you and we’ll wait for the law and we’ll do it. If you want me to.

Because I know all this is real. This is us."
Really sweet.

About the ring, it remind me of Tara's mothers amulet in SC, i have my theories since Buffy discover it, i really want to know what it really is.

The stargazing scene is a classic, lovely classic, iwont touch it.

The banter on the meteor scene was cool, made laugh a lot, poor Prudence... i probably would have go straigth to the rock and touch it, no matter how many sci-fi movies tell you not to, i also would go wandering in the woods (cane and all) to find the creature/alien out of pure curiosity, but i woulndt touch the goop of the death body, yuck.

And about the response about Diana, i do want to se the Glory Diana Catfight!!!, it could be really awesome, but i totally get your point

Thanks for sharing, good luck!!!

[Katharyn]

Rauko - Oh yes, that is the applicable quote

Okay, so the marriage thing I needed to look back at 2001 but, hey, makes a point about California

I'm similar to yourself, I don't need the word but I understand people who do and support that right. I am not sure Willow really knows what she wants. I don't think she's thought about it outside the romantic notion of it (or what her Dad said.) Oh, she certainly is going to be with Tara and she knows that, but I am not sure she really thought about the rest of it. I don't think she necessarily would until it's real and she can do it, until then it's the realm of dreams and dreams can be as wonderful as you like them to be. What her conclusion would be then, even she doesn't know.

Umm, please, don't all get hung up on the ring. It was a throwaway I might make more of I don't spoil much, but I will this. I don't want you to be chasing things that are missing?

Now that I think of it I should've done a riff on 'The Blob' with the meteor (maybe with the goop), but I think it turned out pretty well as it is.

Glory/Diana... has to happen. But got to be saved up

Maybe not a 'cat fight' though LOL.

Katharyn

[DaddyCatALSO]

I'm saving up for a general comment on the last couple chapters because there are so many little & some big noteworthy things in them.



(I've probably mentioned this before but when I wanted to get them married in 2005 I sent them off to Spain, thanks to Willow's great-aunt having a spending spree with her late husband's money.) I figure they'll have a religious ceremony, I guess JEwish-Wiccan interfaith, for friends and family when they get back, but not until after Mephistopheles is exorcised from Giles.

[Katharyn]

I shall look forward to that, DCA

Also always fun hearing what simialr things other peopel did. Thanks!

Katharyn

[Katharyn]

Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter One Hundred and Eleven
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: Still in ‘Listening to Fear’
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: For an episode I didn’t much like at the time – apart from its T&W moments, I’m spending sooo much time on it here. But I’m having fun, in part because it was so long ago and if I don’t remember it then even the canon-similar parts I get to write pretty fresh. Hopefully you’re enjoying it too. I guess you must be if you’re still here at part 111.
Meanwhile… in the canon that we can’t see due to PoV… the creature from the meteor has made its way to the hospital and you can remember where it goes after that, can’t you?
Thanks to: If you’ve giggled, then… you.




“You can leave me alone. You know that, right?” Buffy asked.

“You won’t leave her alone,” Tara replied. The conflicting priorities had become clear when she and Willow spotted the shooting star that had fallen to earth… Finding out that Joyce had been having a rough night so far and that Buffy had gone back to the hospital just meant that someone had to go be with her and someone who was ‘else’ had to go do the investigating thing.

And since Willow was the science girl who knew about those sorts of things… the choice had seemed pretty clear, especially as Faith was available to go with the others and she didn’t have to worry about the rest of the gang running into something they couldn’t handle.

Keeping the news of meteors to herself had been all too easy. Buffy didn’t need to know so much about the suspicious element… and so she didn’t. But plenty of people had seen the meteor in the sky, it wasn’t the sort of thing you could hide.

I haven’t lied. I’ve just not told her everything.

Yet.

“B-besides,” she continued, “someone has to take Hope home at some point. You know…”

“Yeah, Tara,” Buffy said, clearly tired. “I know.”

“Sorry, we’re not talking about that,” Tara accepted.

“No, I’m not. My Mom’s all that matters to me right now, Tara.”

“I understand, I really do. And that’s the way it should be,” she agreed easily. She wouldn’t have been any different.

Hadn’t been. They hadn’t been able to tear her away.

“But… If I can do some good by watch Hope while she’s here – cool, that’s fine but -”

“Buffy, you don’t have to explain,” she promised. “For everything else, we’ve got Faith and the rest of us. We can get through this while you and your Mom focus on what’s important… Umm, Willow and I saw the shooting star earlier.” She just slipped it in there, for the sake of honestly saying she’d told her later.

“Huh?”

“Oh, there was a shooting star,” she explained. “It was pretty. Willow and the others are checking it out, just in case. You know, this being Sunnydale and all.”

“Oh… right. Sunnydale.”

Tara knew very well that she was being little more than a distraction right now, something to keep Buffy’s mind off that which could not be fought or resisted. Not the illness, no. That could be fought. Buffy was pre-occupied with Joyce. Her mind made up.

This was why they were back here…

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Buffy asked one more time before her Mom’s signature went onto the forms she’d been presented with.

Tara already knew the answer, just as well as Buffy did. Yeah, Joyce wanted this. She wanted to check herself out of the hospital… And now she was doing just that.

They’d already looked at the release forms. They were strongly worded, declaring that she was acting against medical advice. Accepting that left her precisely nowhere to go if anything went wrong. Maybe the Summers' insurer was less weaselish than the Maclay one had been, but she doubted it.

Joyce wanted to go home though. She didn’t want to stay here for the next two days, just waiting. So as long as she took her meds – which had already been handed over to Buffy with strict explanations that they’d written down about when they had to be taken – there was no real reason she couldn’t be home and waiting.

One bed was very much like another. So Momma had always said.

No reason except the fear of something going wrong… She just hoped – and knew Buffy did too – that they’d never have to use it. Joyce wanted to be home and… it was probably going to be better for her to be happy about that, right?

Right?

It was going to be hard work, of course. They wouldn’t just be keeping Joyce company, but actually being her nurses as well – even if she was likely to insist that she should be taking care of them instead. She was a Mom, after all. That was the sort of thing that Mom’s did, even when they should just lie there and take it easy.

“Pancakes?” Joyce asked. “Pancakes on my head?”

“There’s no pancakes,” Tara promised, taking her hand while trying to show Buffy it was all okay while she was getting the last instructions and contact numbers from the Doctor.

“You can make savings at the county fair, you know?” Joyce said next.

This sort of thing was worse for Buffy than any pummelling had ever been. Especially now, taking Joyce home and she was more… disconnected than at any point so far. And for longer. What had once come and gone in moments were now prolonged episodes.

It was tough to avoid the conclusion she was getting worse, even if the Doctors weren’t willing to make that judgement yet. They actually suggested she could’ve been getting better and it might be the medication that was confusing her… But they didn’t know.

Tara held her hand out towards Hope when the girl met her eyes. “You know… you could try not asking Buffy so many questions.”

The Slayer had turned away and Tara was pretty sure that she was crying while – thankfully – Joyce was oblivious to it. That was okay, even a Slayer needed to cry sometimes.

“I just want to know,” Hope said. “I know that she’s going to need looking after.”

“I know,” Tara said. “I know it’s because you love her. And that’s a good thing. But Buffy’s… don’t be upset if she snaps at you, okay? She doesn’t mean it. She’s just really tired and she really needs a break. That’s why I’m here.”

Not that she thought Buffy was going to give herself that break anytime soon.

“She’s worried,” Hope said, looking at Joyce.

“Yeah…”

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

“The lights,” Joyce said, holding up her hand and blocking out a glare that seemed like it was hurting her.

“Sorry,” Tara said, switching out the lights and earning a tired smile in return. For once Joyce didn’t take much persuading to go upstairs to bed, Buffy helping her Mom. Slayer strength could be a real asset on the stairs.

“Come on,” she said to Hope, not wanting the girl to go up there too. Joyce needed her rest now and after a little while Buffy flopped down on the couch beside them once she’d gotten her Mom settled.

“What’s this?” Buffy asked.

“I don’t know,” Tara said. One way or another she didn’t see that much TV and didn’t miss it much.

“Looks like the sort of TV Mom always said would rot my… Never mind.”

“Do you even understand Spanish?” Buffy asked her.

“Umm, no. I’m from Montana, there’s really not much call for it.”

“You?”

Hope shook her head. “With a name like Lehane?”

“So… why are we watching some sort of Spanish fortune teller?”

“First channel that came on,” Hope said. “It’s kind of fun… you know, just watching how bad it is.”

“There’s lots of bad channels and shows, some of which you can even understand,” Buffy said, but she settled back to watch it anyway.

“I’m not sure he’s actually fortune telling,” Tara said. “There’s… he has some sort of Jesus thing going on, as well as fortune telling.”

Buffy just yawned which set the both of them off. How long until Willow got back? She had no idea, but how much trouble could a space rock cause?

Hmm, this was Sunnydale…

Faith was there though and that reassured her enough that she didn’t have to worry. Besides she’d just know if anything really bad happened.

And it hadn’t.

Which must’ve put them on their way home by now. Wherever they thought they needed to check in. Once upon a time everything happened at the school library whether in working hours or not – as Willow told it – these days there was the store, right here at Buffy’s house and various places on campus. They all had bigger lives. Jobs. Studies.

Goddesses.

Cats.

Yeah, there was a hierarchy there. At least in Miss Kitty’s mind.

“Joyce?” Tara asked, hurrying over to the foot of the stairs where Buffy’s Mom had briefly paused. What was she doing up at all? Buffy had only just settled her.

“Got to make breakfast,” Joyce said, heading into the kitchen and starting to pull things out. She was still dressed in her nightgown.

“Mom - ”

“Good morning, darling, do you want eggs?”

“No – I mean, not I don’t want eggs, Mom… it’s not morning yet. You need to go back to bed.”

“But I slept in already,” Joyce said. “Who’s this?”

For a moment, Tara thought that she was looking at her. But… it was Hope that Joyce was looking at, not knowing who she was.

“She’s so shiny,” Joyce said, reaching out to prod at Hope’s forehead as if testing if she was solid.

Buffy caught her Moms hand gently, stopped her from going through with that. “She’s just tired, aren’t you Mom?”

“Tired? I’m bright eyed and bushy tailed. Refreshed. Come on, who wants breakfast?”

“Pancakes?” Tara wondered, just to humour the confusion. “On your head?”

“Plates, Tara. In this house we use plates.”

“Sorry.”

“Mom,” Buffy said, having pulled herself together.

“Have you been crying, Buffy?” Joyce asked, concerned at the sight.

“Just a little.”

“Is it that boyfriend of yours? I always said the quiet ones are the most trouble but… for you, probably not. It’s difficult to see how much more trouble you could get into. You’re not pregnant are you?”

“No. Not that.” Buffy forced a laugh, one that was tainted by the concern as much as anything else. “Mom, look. It’s still night time. Look outside. It’s dark. You’ve not even been to sleep yet.”

“Night?”

“Night.”

“Then… I should be in bed. You should be in bed. Everyone should be in bed. Tara – you should be in bed with Willow. You know that don’t you? You should be in bed with Willow.”

“I know,” Tara promised. “I will be, a little later.”

“Lick her brains out,” Joyce hissed, as if it was a secret, but one that everyone got to hear. Oh yay.

She just made a non-committal coughing noise as Buffy got her Mom calm enough to come back to reality. “Buffy?”

“Yeah, Mom.”

“Was I…?”

“You were just confused,” Tara said, not wanting an apology for that and hoping Joyce didn’t remember it at all.

“It’s the pills…” Joyce said, shaking her head.

“You haven’t taken your meds yet, Mom,” Buffy told her. “We need to go do that and you need to lie down. Okay?”

“You shouldn’t have to take care of me Buffy,” Joyce told her, cupping her cheek. “I should be the one who takes care of you. You do so much – for everyone…”

“You have taken care of me, Mom and you will again, but for now… You do what I say, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Say goodnight. Again,” Buffy asked.

“Good night,” Joyce said.

“Night,” Tara replied.

“Good night,” Hope said.

Joyce smiled, seemingly happy. “Trash day tomorrow, okay?”

Tara nodded. “I’ll put it out.”

“And that thing standing beside you. Put that out too.” But far from being aggravated, Joyce went meekly up the stairs with her daughter, leaving Tara with Hope.

“Why?” Hope asked, tears in her eyes now. “Why does she call me a ‘thing’?”

“Honey, you know she didn’t mean it,” Tara offered, understanding that there was something about those who – for one reason or another - were mentally unbalanced that allowed them to see something… else. Like those Monks had been able to construct reality, but anyone not quite operating within that reality saw something else when they looked at Hope.

“It’s not the first time,” Hope said, storming through to the kitchen but keeping her voice down even though she was upset. Considerate kid. “Why does she say that about me?”

“Earlier,” Tara said gently, following her, “when she was fully with us, when she wasn’t confused, do you remember what she said?”

“She said I was one of her girls,” Hope sniffed. “But - ”

“Remember what I said before?” Tara tried again.

“That was about Buffy,” Hope said.

“But there’s no telling how Joyce will be from moment to moment. She’s sick, honey and she’s been just fine with you. It’s only when she’s having an episode that…”

“Why’s it always me though?” Hope asked. “Not just her… all these cr – all these people?”

“I don’t know,” Tara said. And she didn’t. She could just guess… but she didn’t know. She wasn’t lying. Not really. “Come here.”

Hope was eager enough to accept a hug.

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

“I was just wondering,” Willow overheard Xander saying to Faith.

“What?”

“Are you actually going to pick up a book and try and help?”

They were here in the university library and – remarkably – hadn’t needed to break in. Nor were there many people here so they almost had the place to themselves and had been going through the stacks for books that might help even though she was the only official college student in the group until Eddie had arrived.

Faith had pretty much just been picking her nails though.

With a big, shiny knife.

“Okay,” Faith said agreeably, reached over to the nearest shelf and picked up the first book she found. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” she said.

“Do you really think Star Trek is going to help?” Xander asked.

Faith rolled her eyes and tossed the book aside. Willow might’ve done the same thing in her place. Sometimes… “Hey, Will, this library has everything. Faith found a Wrath of Kahn novelisation.”

“It’s not – never mind. Let’s just get back to it, okay?” It was her anniversary. She might like to go home, take Tara to bed and celebrate in another way… “Astronomy is back this way, remember?”

Leading him back to the books they were interested in, she could tell that Eddie was in his element and – actually – feeling like he was helping his girlfriend. At least in a roundabout kind of way.

It couldn’t be easy, trying to be with someone as focused and self-sufficient as Buffy could be when she set her mind to something. He must’ve felt like kind of a fifth wheel while Joyce needed to be looked after.

And he looked like a fifth wheel too, turning up half-dressed after they’d deduced that someone who actually knew astronomy might come in handy. So here he was in his PJ top and jeans.

“What’s the difference between astrology and astronomy?” Xander asked.

“Everything. Just stay in the astronomy section.”

“We already know what we need to,” Xander said. “Eddie pointed the way. Meteors crash. All the time. That’s what they do. All through history.”

“Sometimes they make history,” Eddie said. “But usually they’re all pretty routine.”

“But the ones that aren’t,” Willow said, “those are the ones you’ve got to watch out for. I mean, I don’t think the dinosaurs thought it was ‘routine’.”

“I don’t think they actually knew what ‘routine’ was,” Giles added.

“Sure they did,” Xander said. “Routine is just what life is. Like us, routine for us is wandering around cemeteries in the middle of the night, hopefully watching super-powered girls kill vampires. Meteors, not so routine.”

“The point I was trying to make,” Eddie said, “is that most meteors we don’t even see, they’re too small, too fast or over unpopulated areas. The ones that light up the sky, most of them don’t do much actual damage. The last really big one anyone knows about was in Russia in 1912, it exploded in the atmosphere and flattened millions of acres of trees.”

“Impressively scary,” Willow said. “That was Tunguska right?”

“It was - ”

“All very interesting, but getting back to the ‘we’re on a Hellmouth’ part?” Xander said. “Look at this. Moon Madness.”

“Moon Madness? What are you reading?”

Xander showed them the cover. ‘The history and mythology of the stars.’

“Oh…” Not exactly the kind of books she’d been intending when they came back for research but…

“But listen to this,” Xander said. “‘People prayed to the moon to quell the madness.’ Like as in ‘plagues of madness.’”

“This meteor of yours,” Eddie said, “it didn’t come from the moon.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one,” Willow said. “But ‘madness’ right?”

“That’s what it says,” Xander said.

“But in plagues? What’s a plague of madness?”

“It happens more than you’d think,” Anya said. “Most often people were eating or drinking something that was tainted. Certain grains were always causing it after a wet, damp year.”

“Hmm.”

“But the way this reads,” Xander continued, “plagues. Plagues of madness. And they stopped just after the meteor fell. So… cause and effect, I guess. Right?”

“Still finding this unlikely,” Willow said. “Not in the book, Anya explained how that might have happened. But here?”

“You really think the EPA keeps us safe?” Eddie asked.

“Well…” No, not really.

“Here,” Xander said. “Iceland. There was a twelfth century impact called the Queller Impact. Plague of madness, just went right away. They credited the meteor – though, this kind of reads like something came out of the meteor.”

Madness.

Out of the meteor.

Implying a certain ‘hollow’ quality.

“Okay, just how did the madness get stopped?”

Xander pulled his face. “It doesn’t actually say, but… reading between the lines, kind of in a ‘fatal’ way.”

Gulp.

“Okay… so how does this thing get here?” Willow asked, setting aside her doubts.

“Are you serious?” Eddie asked.

“It’s Sunnydale,” Willow shrugged. She wanted to be the science girl, she did. But in this town, science intersected with magic and the things you just had to believe in. She was a scientist and a witch. She’d done things that shouldn’t be scientifically possible.

And a few more with Tara that she was never telling these people about but science couldn’t have argued about.

“It’s summoned right? This meteor?”

“So it says here,” Xander said. “The Queller. I think we should call it the Queller.”

“Summoned? By who?” Willow prompted.

“Well, hands up if you think it was this Glory bitch?” Xander asked.

Around the table everyone’s hand went up, but at the back Faith just sat chewing gum. “Any chance you guys will find me something I can hit sooner than later?”

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

This wasn’t good news.

Nice as it was to hear Willow’s voice and be assured that nothing had happened out in the woods, there was no way to even think of it as good news. Because something had happened, just not to them.

“Five?” she checked.

“That’s what it says, I might be missing one or two, but definitely – at least five,” Willow said.

Five people dead. It was a hospital, people did – unfortunately – die. More than that it was Sunnydale and plenty of people went missing or died here… Not that many murders, but plenty of unexplained deaths and missing people. Number one in the country, actually. A claim to fame most people ignored. But…

She was guessing that people didn’t usually die on mental wards.

Or outside them when released…

“What’s happening about it?”

“Noises about enquiries,” Willow’s voice was a little distorted on the phone. “But its early days. It’s Sunnydale… you know how it is.”

Swept under the carpet. Sunnydale had a whole lot of bumpy carpets already. What was it the others said? ‘Gang related, PCP’ had been the default explanation for anything people couldn’t just block out because it ‘wasn’t possible’ didn’t read so easily on the police report.

“Because not all of them happened in the hospital,” Willow said, “one had been released, the one we found in the woods, there’s some doubt about whether it can be the hospital’s fault. That’s probably confusing things.”

“They let him go,” Tara said. Even though she knew that wasn’t why he’d died. This was undeniably Sunnydale… And Willow and the others had found a theory.

They’d run into things supported by fewer facts and found they were very, very real. So this ‘Queller’ thing… could be too.

“If it came from a meteor,” Tara asked. “Then isn’t it from… you know, out there?” She didn’t want to use the A word, but she might be pushed into it.

“We talked about that,” Willow said. “Even though there were some differing opinions, we kind of decided that if you could summon it, then it was probably a demon. Seemed like a good rule of thumb and it avoided the whole A-word.”

“I like that,” Tara agreed. She really didn’t want to start having to worry about things from out there too. Whole big can of worms right there.

“I thought you would. Sorry to be… you know, the bad news bear. Especially today.”

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Tara said. “You only bring me good things.”

“I’ll bring you a good thing when I get home,” Willow promised.

“Baby, if I’m asleep…”

“I won’t wake you,” Willow promised, even though she’d just suggested differently.

“No, you probably will. Just don’t wake me expecting anything. It’s been a long day already.”

“I’m glad we got to dinner though,” Willow said. “Everything else…well, it’s not like it’s a year since we first… you know.”

Tara smiled, Willow mustn’t have been able to speak freely. But yes, she did know. And that was a good point. “We’ll have another dinner…”

“I wasn’t thinking of celebrating that one with a meal,” Willow said. “Eating maybe, but not necessarily a meal. Love you.”

“Love you.”

Hope was hovering, overhearing the last part of the call, but waiting to say something. “Joyce is… well, she’s kind of gibbering. I think. And it’s… I don’t know if I can…”

“Did she say - ”

Hope shook her head, obviously upset. “No. She didn’t – I don’t think she knows who’s here. Not me, not Buffy. She’s getting worse, isn’t she?”

“It’s… just a couple of days until she gets her operation,” she said as Buffy walked into the kitchen. “Hey.”

Without saying anything, Buffy turned the radio on. Just turned it up.

She didn’t want to hear. She didn’t want to hear what was happening upstairs… And she was crying.

There was nothing Buffy could do. Nothing she could fight. And it made her feel helpless. Tara understood that… She’d been there. She gestured to Hope that maybe it was Buffy that needed the benefit of her presence now.

And Hope was happy to go with that.

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

“So, that was the easy part.”

“Yeah, you geniuses figured out it wasn’t browsing in the college library,” Faith said. “Congratulations on that.”

“Now that’s a little unfair,” Giles told her. “There’ve been plenty of times that demons have taken an interest in the library, maybe not this library. But a library. Some of them are quite well read, albeit in their own languages. Or occasionally Latin.”

Willow knew that – for once – she was going to have to agree with Faith. Even though they’d been trying… “Usually, when they were in the library, that was because we were in the library, or Buffy was, anyway.”

“And it was right on top of the Hellmouth,” Xander finished.

“And they were trying to kill you all,” Anya added helpfully.

“This library, this creature – none of those things,” Faith said. “So where to?”

“Well… all I seem to have said tonight is ‘This is Sunnydale’,” Willow remarked. When everything else had failed, you could always rely on that. Another way of saying it was ‘what can go wrong, will go wrong. Because it’s Sunnydale and Mister Murphy would be right at home here.’

It was bound to be something that made sense in that sort of context, wasn’t it?

“You said that Joyce was getting worse, right?” Faith asked. “That she wasn’t herself.”

“Yeah.”

“And my sister and your girlfriend are over there…”

“Yes…” Willow said warily.

Faith had to go and spell it out though. “It’s Sunnydale, doesn’t everything cross our path? Won’t they come to us?”

“We really should check,” Giles confirmed.

“I never thought…” Willow said.

“Why would you? Everything seemed to be okay,” Xander said. “Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“I’m sure no one’s dead,” Anya said, which was her idea of a positive spin on things.

“We could go back and call…”

“Or we could be there in about the same time?” Giles suggested.

Yeah… that was about right. As they started to run for his car, she turned to Faith. “Hey, you said ‘everything crosses our path’?”

“Slip of the tongue.”

“I’ve often slipped my tongue into - ”

“Not now, Anya. Not now.”

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

“Ow!” Tara slipped on the stairs, grazing her knee on the carpeted edge. It’d been years since she’d done that and the last time she was pretty sure she’d cried, but now – even though the pain was the same – she kept moving.

Something was happening. Something bad was happening and they hadn’t heard it… They hadn’t heard it because they’d turned the radio up so Buffy didn’t have to hear… well, a few minutes without her Mom’s scrambled thoughts getting to her. That was all and now...

Hope was up there.

Picking herself up, she took the remaining stairs one – instead of two - at a time and from the landing dashed into Joyce’s room to be confronted with –

Hope was brandishing a chair back from Joyce’s dressing table. It’s been smashed, broken and she could see that had actually helped because now the girl was able to press it against the throat of the thing – and there was no doubt it was a ‘thing’ – that was threatening her.

“Don’t move,” she shouted, even though there wasn’t much chance of that. Hope’s weight was about all that was keeping the demon against the wall and not for much longer either.

It was grey, scaly in the sense that you might call old, dead skin scaly rather than being like a snake. The eyes were a horrid pink-red like the worst movie representation of an albino and the mouth, the teeth… They made her think of nothing so much as a giant lamprey.

And most importantly it wasn’t trying to get at Hope. That wasn’t where its attention was at all. No, it was clawing at the air towards… Joyce.

Hope was defending Joyce, which was where the demon’s fixation obviously lay.

Joining Hope and pushing her weight against the chair back too, there was a crack from the creature's throat, but unfortunately they didn’t seem to have broken its neck for all its vocalisation became a lot raspier. Larynx? Did something like this have a larynx? Either way, the crack didn’t mark much of a success.

Then it was smashing at the chair back, trying to break it apart. Just one blow did nothing with both their weight on it, but the third cracked one of the cross pieces. The next smashed it entirely, leaving just the one support to hold the two sides together and that made their position unstable as anything.

Where was Buffy? Was the radio really that loud in the kitchen? “Buffy!” she shouted, even though Hope had to have been doing the same.

The creature didn’t react. If it understood, if it knew what and who the Slayer was, it didn’t care. It just wanted to get at Joyce.

When the chair disintegrated, the demon lunged and Tara turned her attention to pushing Hope out of the way. “Get back!” she gasped as it hit her in the side and sent her tumbling in its eagerness to get to Joyce, doped on her meds and thankfully oblivious.

Or… that was a bad thing. Because she wasn’t just oblivious, she was helpless too. “Buffy!” This time it was Hope that was shouting, while Tara was grunting in sheer effort as she wrapped her arms around the demon’s legs/hindquarters/whatever, catching it and slowing it down at least, but not by much.

Lashing out at her, it hit her on the top of the head and the shoulders, but not that hard, it was mostly struggling to move forwards against her weight. It was determined to get to Joyce, almost like it was an instinctive imperative. Tightening her grip with one arm, she caught at a handhold to try and hold it back. But it was stretching her grip almost immediately and once she let go – once it forced her to that – then there was nothing between it and Joyce.

Nothing but… leather pants and boots arriving at a run.

Knowing exactly who that was, Tara knew – at least – that she hadn’t failed when her grip was broken and it was free of her.

She rolled backwards as the demon was engaged by not one Slayer but two of them. The other was wearing fuzzy slippers and had bare legs. Quite a difference…

Between them though they practically took the demon apart.

“Thank God,” Tara breathed rolling on her back.

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

Willow didn’t get into Joyce’s bedroom until Buffy and Faith had killed the demon. She didn’t even get to see just how they did it but the damage looked pretty fatal. It was very dead.

And was that part of a chair?

An original use… at least when it came to slaying.

“Careful baby,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“I…” Tara brushed her hands over herself, checking for any damage. “It hit my head.”

“Awww,” Willow said, rubbing it. If that was the worst that had happened Tara had been lucky.

“It’s not your job to get all stabby and thumpy, we talked about that, right?”

“I’m not good at it,” Tara agreed.

“I think she probably saved Joyce,” Faith said. “When I came in, she was bear hugging it around the ass and keeping it from going after her.”

“Really?” Willow asked.

“No. No. It was Hope,” Tara said, getting to her feet wary of light-headedness. “Hope was holding it off, all on her own when I arrived.”

“Both of you,” Buffy said, pulled the younger girl to her and gave her a squeeze. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Maybe enough to explain the chair to your Mom?” Hope asked, hopefully – appropriately enough.

“If it comes to it, I’ll tell her it was me,” Buffy said, hugging the girl again and smiling at Tara, who Willow was really, really proud of.

Worried by, but proud all the same.

“Better get this out of here,” Faith said. “Before she wakes up. I can’t believe she slept through it. That must be good shit you’ve given her.”

“It’s all prescription,” Buffy said defensively.

“Good shit, like I said.”

Xander was looking down at the body and Willow joined him. “So… are we saying aliens are real now?”

“I guess,” Willow said. Demons might seem more comforting, but all they knew for certain was that this thing had come from the meteor and it didn’t look like a demon. If it had been summoned they had no idea who’d done it. Glory? Perhaps, but… why?

“But what about aliens?”

“I said, I guess.”

“No,” Xander said. “Like Aliens like in Alien. And Aliens. And Alien 3. God forbid anyone touches that franchise again… it’s really run into the law of diminishing returns. That’s a real law right?”

Willow shook her head, but she was in total agreement. She didn’t need aliens or Aliens in her world…

Just Tara and their friends.

“Hey you,” she said, pulling Hope’s little finger with her own. “Tara says you did real good?”

Hope shrugged, about as able to take praise as any normal teenager did criticism. “What is it?”

Willow weighed up her answer. As the science girl she was supposed to come up with that sort of stuff. About the only thing she could say right now was… “Dead.”

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

[Kajun]

Katharyn, Thanks for info on the ring. I was worried I missed an update way, way back!

Faith and Buffy are more alike than either would admit. Buffy wasn’t much for the research either. Both slayers just want to be pointed in the direction of what to kill. Nice that Eddie got to join in the research. All those brains (assuming Eddie is smart too) in one room and Xander finds the demon reference then Faith figures out where they should go. See there gang? Faith just proved she is good for more than stabbing things with a pointy stick.. and boinking. Does it make me a total geek if I “get” why Xander made the famous quote and Star Trek connection? LOL

Oh Hope.. poor girl is really taking a beating. It’s impossible to chalk it up to illness when she is the only one in the gang being verbally attacked by numerous sources. Tara can try to comfort her, but it’s inevitable that she will figure out what they are saying is, at least partially, true. Hope does actually exist. It’s what she is that is the question. The Slayer is human given superpowers. Hope is like a superpower given human characteristics. Kinda?

It’s disturbing to know that Joyce’s illness is producing the same effect on her as people after Glory does her mind sucking trick. The Queller can’t tell the difference. And that, in canon, Tara goes thru that same thing. NO!! This is one conclusion the gang has wrong. Glory sure doesn’t want to lose her minions to a Queller Demon. They need to find the real person responsible for the summoning.. and quick! Too bad they don’t know they have it wrong.

[DaddyCatALSO]

Just a short one 'cause I'm still making notes, but, even though Ben isn't really in this fic, the Queller story line is why I c an't join so many fans on the Poor Ben Bandwagon, or be too mad at Giles's resolution of things, even though Giles didn't know about this. Some people say Ben is to be faulted because he didn't kill himself to elimiante the menace of GLory, which is true enough.
But they forget this ep.- abunch of peopel out of touch with reality, but no threat to society in general or Ben himself, but he just summons a dmeon to kill them ebcause thye , what, offend him? Annoy him? He's a true villain,a kiler, and unlike Angel, chipped Spike, or even Anya, he never even tried to deal with or even accept it. (I know it's an "overly-evenned " sentence, but it makes the point.)

Egotisitcal PS my Faith-VampHarmony slash fic would work in very few variant Buffyverse except my own- msot oould end like your idea for it, poof. I ahve Harmony, in punishment for lving like a vampire as a human, has her soul sent back into her demon-animated body, and, becuas ehse has little self-control or willpower, she ahs to watch ehrself get more and more evila s years go by, but reform is at leats theoreteically possible, and she ends up givng Faiht soem valuable help ina fight. And faith ahs conrtinued ehr education in prison and has a cover job as a social worker.