Part TwoJoyce stroked her daughter’s hair, whispering comforting words to the effect of ‘it’s not your fault, dear.’ She cooked chicken soup, made green jelly and cordial, and sung childish songs. Dawn continued to cry.
“I have to go and tell Mrs Jarell about her cat”, she sobbed, horrified at the prospect.
“I’ll come with you honey. You just have to be very calm. We’ll talk to her, and apologize, and maybe you won’t feel so bad.”
The two walked down the street, hand in hand. They knocked on the maroon door and waited patiently. Dawn wiped the tears from her eyes. Eventually, a middle-aged lady opened the door and smiled when she saw who her visitors were. “Come in, I’ve been waiting for you.”
***
“It’s just, I don’t know if he likes me, so I don’t want to be too bold.” Buffy turned to face her best friend, waiting for the usual flow of helpful advice.
“So? What do you think? Umm, hello? Will?”
“Oh sorry, Buff, my mind went somewhere. Yeah, so we were talking about…some guy, err, Daniel?” Willow chose a male name at random, hoping for the slim chance she would be correct.
“Close enough. Wow, you were listening, Will! Just not with both ears.” Buffy, looking satisfied, continued.
Willow’s mind, meanwhile, was far from the world of boy’s names. She couldn’t help thinking about Tara, the girl from the hospital. The two had stayed in the waiting room for at least another hour just talking, about anything from icecream flavours to the unfairness of sickness. And they’d still had plenty more things to discuss, but Tara had had to leave. Willow thought about Tara's departure for a moment, remembering the look the blonde had given her before she ran out into the night.
What was that look, she wondered. It could have been a friendly goodbye glance, a yay-we're-friends-now look or a grateful expression, but something made Willow think it was more than that.
Buffy stamped her foot, coughed, shrieked, and then finally pulled Willow’s hair. She noticed the slightly dazed, almost lovestruck expression on the red-head’s face, but decided to leave that conversation for another day. Willow was obviously incapable of conversation at that point. She wondered who the ‘potential’ could be.
***
Mrs Jarell talked in a soft voice. “Mrs, er, Summers, was it? Could I please talk to your daughter alone?”
Joyce turned to Dawn to check, and when she received a nod, got up to leave with a shrug of her shoulders.
As soon as the door closed behind her, the woman moved closer. “You see, Dawn, you’re not like other girls. You’re quite unique. I knew that, as soon as you moved to Sunnydale. You’ve got power.”
Dawn looked at her, wondering how this related to the dead cat.
“You’ve passed the first test.”
***
“We meet again.”
Willow’s voice, warm and relaxed, caused Tara’s heart to beat much faster than it had been the previous minute. “Do you want to go and have lunch? We can talk some more.”
Tara wanted nothing more than to have lunch with the gorgeous red-head, and answered “I’d love to. I just want to see my mom first. Can we meet later?”
“Anytime.”
***
Xander sat at the table, avoiding eye contact with his girlfriend. She’d asked the dreaded questions - which of the three Summer’s women he had had sex with - and he’d responded a little more angrily than anticipated. Now the kitchen was filled with an angry silence.
“I’m going out now. Bye.” Anya left without a second look.
She caught the bus to the nearest shopping mall, and fished through her wallet for Xander’s credit card. When she found the shiny card, she grinned for the first time that day.
Taking the escalator to the fifth floor, she entered ‘Aurora’s Dress Shop’ and headed for the black sparkly number she’d had her eye on for weeks. She held it up to her body in the mirror, flickered her eyes up and down only twice, then marched over to the counter proudly.
The young sales woman gave Anya an appraising look, then repeated the price, “$1800”. Her voice indicated her feeling of superiority toward the young woman with bleached hair. But she took the credit card and made the purchase.
As Anya left the store, she heard a couple bickering near the sales rack. She gave them a scornful look, then had an idea. She pretended to look at the rack, but listened intently. “You’re a mean man. Why can’t you treat your wife for the first time ever? It would mean so much to me if you bought me a present, or even thought about it, but you just say flat out no. I wish you could know how it feels to really desperately want something, so much that your heart bleeds for it, and never get your desire.”
Anya took a step closer to the couple and said, with a bright smile, “here’s my card. Not a bad wish, Madam, but with my help you’ll do a lot better. Give me a call.”
***
Willow licked the froth from her lips, enjoying the sweetness of the warm milk, as she watched Tara eat her soup. She was mesmerised by it all: the soft, full lips opening, the tiny perfect white teeth underneath, the jaw widening to fit in the spoon and the smooth, sensual tongue checking the soup wasn’t too hot. Tara was well aware of being watched but pretended not to notice. She didn’t want to embarrass Willow, who seemed easily embarrassed. Plus, she was kinda enjoying it.
She found the red-head incredibly attractive but couldn’t make a move. Willow would never know if Tara loved her, or loved the comfort of having someone to hold and kiss when she was upset about her mother’s illness. Also, she didn’t know enough about her to judge if Willow actually liked her, or was just checking her out. A bit of harmless fun. So Tara kept it cool.
But deep down she knew there was definite potential, and this gave her something in her life to actually look forward to. Before meeting Willow, life without her mother loomed like a revolting black pit.
“Umm, Tare, I feel kind of uncomfortable asking you this, but what does your mother have? I mean, I have access to all the files but it doesn’t feel right, I mean now we’re sort of friends. I’d rather know from you.”
“She has breast cancer. They only found it at the end stages when it was, t-t-too late.”
Tara choked on the words. She wasn’t used to talking about it, only thinking about it over and over again in her own mind. “She has less than a month to live.”
A tear ran down her cheek and Willow, without thinking, wiped it away softly, tenderly, with a tissue. She left her hand on Tara’s soft skin, hoping that her warmth and love would make her feel better.
Both of them enjoyed the contact, until Willow thought of something and pulled away.
“God, I’m so sorry, Tara. Here I am, making you eat soup, and taking time away from you two when you could be…”
“No, Will, don’t think that." Tara interrupted the red-head quickly. "I
love my time with you. I treasure it. It's what keeps me sane. Otherwise I’d go a bit mad, spending all my time in that depressing hospital. Besides, she's asleep most of the time now from the medication.” She was silent for a moment. “I can hardly bear to think of what she’s going through. I act like I’m the one deserving of hugs, when she’s the one leaving this world, and in such a horrible, painful way.”
She slowly opened Willow’s hand and took the tissue, wiping her eyes and sniffling. “Thanks, Willow, for being here, and talking to me and everything.”
“I’ll always be here.” Willow looked at Tara, noticing the continual flow of tears. She stroked her friend's hand for a minute, letting a comforting silence fall over them. “Tell you what, let's play a game. Umm, the Crying Game.”
Tara looked up, startled. One of her perfect eyebrows arched at Willow in surprise.
“No, not the creepy film. A game just for…us.” She smiled. “Every time you cry from now on, I have to give you a hug.”
“But that’ll just encourage me to cry more”, said Tara, honestly.
“That’s fine with me”, replied Willow with an even bigger smile.
***
Mrs Jarell – who Dawn was now allowed to call Tegan – had been explaining things to Dawn all morning. About the cat, which hadn’t been a real cat but a hologram, and all the other strange things that had been happening in Dawn’s life.
“So, that time in school, where we were singing about math and stuff, didn’t really happen? No wonder everyone thought I was loony, and here I was thinking they were all going denial on me…”
Tegan smiled. “Yes, things do make more sense to the Wanderer once they know about their gift. But as soon as the cat incident occurred, I knew I had to meet you. You see, if you didn’t have the gift, you wouldn’t have seen the cat.”
“Wow, this is so Harry Potter”, said Dawn with a giggle. “So what’s the next test?”
“The next test is the really important one. The magical SATS, in a way. I have a woman, very sick – and this is real, not a hologram – and she’s agreed to be part of the test.” She watched Dawn’s face, as the young girl looked both nervous and a bit disgusted with the idea of using a sick woman for the test. “Dawn, don’t worry, it’s a really nice thing for her. A beautiful thing. I can’t really tell you what it is, but you’ll soon understand why she wanted to do it. And I have faith that you'll do it perfectly.”
Dawn sighed. “OK, so when do I do this bizarre exam?”
***
Anya knew she’d call. They always did. Sure, they’d give her a strange look when they got the card. They’d pretend to rip it up, or leave it behind. But in the end, curiosity – and a need for revenge – always pulled them in.
The phone rang one morning, when Xander had gone to look for a new job. The woman on the other end of the phone was cold, distant at first, yet warmed up quickly. After ten minutes, she was incredibly passionate, revealing all sorts of interesting tidbits about her marriage and libido. “Yeah, would you believe it? He calls me menopausal, when he’s as sexless as a castrated goat!” The two women giggled, and then Anya took over. She began her usual shpiel, stopping occasionally to answer the woman’s questions. Two hours later they’d reached a deal.
“OK I’m really excited about this!” exclaimed Anya. “Rarely do I meet a client so ready, so uninhibited about wanting revenge! Let’s meet tomorrow. I’ll bring all the ingredients, you bring the check. Is that OK, Mrs…wait, I don’t know your name!”
“Oh whoops, sorry about that. It’s Sharon, Sharon Rosenburg.”
Anya calmly hung up the phone, then screamed ‘shit’ as loudly as she could, and went to find the Vengeance Demon’s FAQ. She flicked immediately to the ‘When Vengeance Becomes Personal – Family and Friends’ section and read the words as fast as she could. ‘What the hell is Willow going to think?’ she wondered. She shrugged her shoulders and began to prepare for the spell.
***
Dawn arrived at the hospital just on time. She’d told her mother she was doing community service, in retribution for the cat. Her mother was quite confused when Dawn left the house smelling of patchouli and ylang ylang, with silver (magical) glitter on her eyelids. She shrugged it off as teenage experimentation.
Tegan Jarell met Dawn out the front of the hospital, and put her arm around the young girl. She could see how tense she was. “OK Dawn, you’ll begin with a relatively simple exercise.” They walked together to the room and Dawn saw the name on the door “Liz Maclay”.
"Wait, Dawn, I forgot to ask. You don't know this woman in any way do you?"
"No, not that I know of..."
After they were introduced, Dawn was instructed to paint the magical glitter onto Liz’s eyelids, like her own, and put two drops of each oil onto her forehead.
“OK, Dawn, you take her hands in yours.”
Dawn slowly moved her tanned, small hands towards the larger, pale hands.
“Now you shut your eyes and I’ll read the spell for you. Eventually you’ll know it off by heart.
In the eyes of the Wanderer
May memory meet mind
May life be transparent
Onto each kind.”
She lit an incense stick and began to chant Latin words under her breath. She didn’t want to disturb Dawn during her test, but the words needed to be audible.
Images began to fill Dawn’s mind. Slowly at first, then one after the other in quick succession. Some of the images were beautiful, some horrifying painful. All very vivid, intense, and Dawn began to breath loudly and quickly. Tegan was slightly concerned but allowed the spell to continue. Dawn started to speak out loud. Sometimes in sentences, sometimes one off words.
Finally, Tegan blew out the incense and the spell ended. Dawn and Liz’s eyes met. Only they knew those images, those deepest thoughts and feelings. Dawn had experienced each one as though it were her own.
“Well done, Dawn. I can tell that you did brilliantly. Now that you are definitely a Wanderer, I can explain your gift to you.” She began to lead her out of the room, but Dawn lingered for a moment. Then she bent down to the dying woman and kissed her hand.
Edited by: vix84 at: 10/1/02 7:46:43 am