so my GF made the mistake of watching BTVS tonight and was so furious/disappointed/disgusted that she told me I'd better get cracking on an update or she would (get with the cracking that is -- which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing , but um, anyway). so here is a very belated update.
but first grim, I know what you mean about Faith acting out on very little info, but that's kind of what she does isn't it? no impulse control and all emotion. she acts from her heart and gut. hmmm, if I wanted to get all Psych 101 I'd say she was the Id and Buffy was the Superego. or the Super Ego [img]http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/smile.gif]
and snuggle - sigh. thank you as always for being patient .
and thanks to everyone for reading.
on with the fic...
Part X - The thing with feathers[/img]Something’s not right, this is…
The redhead fidgeted nervously next to her and she turned see that she was dressed in a pair of jeans and a white peasant blouse. But there was something wrong. Was that paint?
"Willow, your shirt…"
Willow turned to her with a beatific smile, her head tilting slightly in a question and Buffy looked down to find a growing circle of red on the clean white of her own shirt.
"Buffy, where’s your ring?"
"I.." she began and then stopped. The device was now resting in the palm of her hand. Silver with stars. And warm.
"Remember sweetie? We don’t need them." Looking up from the crimson on her shirt she found a matching stain on Tara’s. Mesmerized, she watched the liquid red blossom and grow on the blonde’s chest.
A loud scream brought her back to the moment.
"Dawn?" She turned wildly to locate the source of the screams only to discover that they were in a cemetery. And it was dark.
A wedding in a cemetery? Must be Sunnydale…
Everyone was gone and she was left with the screaming that seemed to come from every direction at once. And Tara.
"Do you remember now?"
And Buffy knew what she meant somehow, as if the words had been waiting here for her. "Back before Dawn," she mumbled and Tara smiled that lopsided smile that somehow meant as much as Mom’s and nodded. "Where is she?"
Tara looked to her left with a heartbroken grimace and slowly closed her eyes. Buffy followed her line of sight to find Willow in red overalls and a striped shirt lying face down on the grass as she concentrated on floating a slowly turning pencil. She looked so young and vulnerable. Impossible that this girl had faced vampires and demons. That this was the girl she had fought so hard to protect.
"Right where you left her," Tara answered softly. The redhead’s sneakered feet kicked in the air as she focused on the levitation with childlike determination and the Slayer felt her throat tighten at this vision of her old friend.
"Hey Buffy, I think I’m getting pretty good at this magic stuff!" And then she saw the eyes. Black with dark magic and felt the nightmare fear run through her body like ice. But this wasn’t the demon Willow. There was no anger or malice, just the incongruity of those black eyes set in the elfin, naïve features.
"I’m sorry Tara," she managed to whisper.
"Don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world," the blonde witch offered with a sad shrug.
Another agonizing scream ripped through the night and Buffy felt a terrible pain in her chest. She brought a hand up to the searing wound and felt warm wet. The blonde witch stayed silent, but gave a sad glance to a crumbling crypt. Buffy cleared the distance in seconds as the screaming grew louder and more panicked. Tearing the rusted metal door from its hinges she rushed in to find herself in the familiar blinding white of a hospital room.
Important-looking machines flashed numbers and beeped regularly. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of antiseptic and bleach. She hated hospitals. They were never about healing and cures. Hospitals were suffering and death and surgeries that didn’t work. And ‘complications.’ Which she had learned was just another word for torture and death. She followed the tubes and cords to a bed and felt the pain in her chest grow bright and hot.
"No." Dawn lay in a white hospital gown, her head bandaged and bruised, a respirator bringing her chest up and down at unnaturally regular intervals. "I’m sorry I’m too late," she whispered.
"You know if someone’s underwater you can still talk to them," she felt tears slide down her cheeks at the sound of the soft voice beside her. "They can hear you from miles away." Buffy turned away from the terrible sight of her sister to find Faith standing next to the bed. "It just takes longer to get there."
"I don’t dream about you anymore." Buffy said calmly as Faith efficiently spread a clean white sheet over her sister, careful not to cover her face.
"Yeah, right," a soft smirk played across the dark Slayer’s features. "You know you really ought to get that looked at." Faith extended her arm to brush two fingers over the bloody material clinging to her chest.
"It’s my heart," Buffy said quietly, but found that she couldn’t look away from the pale hand hovering just in front of her.
"It was meant for me," Faith’s hand turned over slowly to reveal the silvery demon device sitting like liquid mercury in her palm. "So I could fix things."
"I’ll fix it," she responded curtly, but couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the shining metal. "That’s my job."
The image before her eyes began to waver and shrink as if it was receding. "That’s the thing B, Slayers aren’t made to fix things," Faith’s voice grew more distant as the metal began to shimmer and shift as if…"we’re the breakers." And she was suddenly out of breath, a strong mail-covered hand holding her down. Holding her underwater
It’s those Renaissance Fair guys who work for the fatty. I followed Faith into the sewer and now we’re both going to die…and she doesn’t even care. She thinks this is fun!
If I can just get that device I can stop everything…
She reached out through the cold, foul water toward the shiny brightness, but her hand met nothing, her eyes and brain fooled by the water, lungs burning for air as she fought. Why wasn’t Faith helping her?
Why should she? I wouldn’t help her. Now.
She was dying. She knew what it was like to drown because she had done it before and this was it. But she had lived through this particular ‘drowning’ hadn’t she?
"Buffy!" It was Faith’s voice that brought her back, her eyes focusing immediately on the clear image of the metal heart. And then it was Willow’s voice and Tara and Dawn’s, all of them desperate and terrified and far away.
Buffy sat up in bed gasping for air, the sheets knotted and torn in her fists.
It was a dream. Just a dream, she told herself, but knew that it wasn’t. It was that kind of dream. A dream that wasn’t. And she couldn’t seem to suck the air into her lungs fast enough because it was still waiting in the room with her ready to steal her breath.
"Buffy honey?" she jumped at the sound and turned to find her mother beside her. At the sight of the gentle expression of concern she finally let go of all the worry and grief and burst into tears in her mother’s arms.
As gentle hands stroked her back, she felt the sobs subside and sniffled.
"Sorry if I woke you up."
"It’s okay, I was up anyway," her mother pulled back to study her face. "One of my headaches."
Headaches. Mom.
"You have to go to a doctor!" It came out much louder than she expected and her mother blinked once in confusion before her face softened into a tired smile.
"I’ve been to a doctor, honey. I’m fine," she tucked a strand of her daughter’s hair behind her ear. "Really. It’s just…"
"But…no. You need to see another doctor. Ten doctors!" she held her mother’s shoulders in her strong grip and fought back the tears. "Tomorrow. Okay? Promise me."
Her mother studied her carefully, her head tilting slightly to the right and then closed her eyes in her signature gesture of acceptance. "Okay honey, but tomorrow’s Saturday." That was when she noticed the playful smile. "Getting appointments with ten doctors on the weekend may be a little difficult."
"No. I am the Slayer," Buffy began with mock-sternness and then wiped her nose with a pajama sleeve. "And what I say goes. So, you’ll just have to find ten doctors who are all willing to be all doctor-y on Saturday."
Her mother’s smile widened Buffy felt all of the tension drain away as she placed a kiss on her forehead. "Are you going to be able to get back to sleep honey? That sounded like quite a nightmare."
"Well, maybe if I could sleep in your bed, they wouldn’t be able to find me," she said softly amazed at the child-like tone of her own voice. But her mother’s gentle laugh reminded her that it was okay. This was her mother. She could be scared and small here and no one would have to know.
"Well, you are the Slayer, so I guess I don’t have much choice."
"No, you don’t," she smiled and rose from the nightmare bed to make her way to the room that would always be her mother’s. She knew what she had to do now. It was all there. Had always been there waiting for her to find it. She didn’t have the entire picture, but she had the pieces and tomorrow she would begin to put them together. Tomorrow. But tonight…
"Mom?" Her mother turned in the darkened hallway at the serious tone of her daughter’s voice.
"Yes."
"You know I love you right?" She didn’t need Slayer vision to see the smile on her mother’s face, she could feel it. Everywhere. Always.
****
It was the scream that did it. Spike’s scream as the stake pierced his chest brought the limited contents of Dawn’s stomach up in a convulsion that drove her to her knees.
"Fuck!"
She waited on all fours staring at the dark blades of grass for the low whisper of the vampire’s end, but there was nothing. Just the howling obscenity as Faith threw her head back in frustration and unanswered rage. Which meant that Spike was alive. Or more accurately, was still undead. And she should feel happy, but she didn’t. A large part of her wanted the Slayer to stake his undead, wannabe-rapist ass. No more Buffy sleeping with vampire issues. Her sister would be free of him because he would just be gone and it wouldn’t even be her fault because she tried to stop it. Right? It would just be Faith and her unstable, kill-anything-that-moves impulses.
"Shit!" And then a long guttural groan of a yell like a wolf denied its prey. "He’s a fucking vamp D!" She was right of course. "And I’m a Vampire Slayer. Do you know how many people he’s killed?" Dawn just blinked from all fours. "Try, like, a hundred thousand at least."
"I know, but he saved me. Or he tried at least," she managed softly and shifted back to sit on her heels. It sounded so selfish out there with all those others who hadn’t lived. Whose lives had been ended by the vampire’s two-hundred-year reign of terror. What was one silly Slayer’s sister in the face of all those thousands?
"Stake me then," Spike sobbed as he hung limp from the stake in his chest, his feet dangling like a child’s beneath him. He didn’t look so dangerous now. He looked like the guy who watched cartoons with her. Not the bloodthirsty killer she knew he was. Because he was. There were whole books written on the subject of William the Bloody. Xander had shown them to her. And where was Xander anyway?
"Shut up!" Faith screamed in a rage at the vampire and held a fresh stake in front of his face. "Fucking anger management classes. I should have killed that therapist! Getting me in touch with my feelings!"
"Stake me!" Spike was now yelling and grabbing at Faith’s stake. "I can’t take it!" he moaned and then clawed at his chest with his free hand, writhing around the stake in his chest. "I can’t…please…" Dawn could see the strain on Faith’s face as she grew very still, her eyes narrowing as she studied the blonde vampire. And then she stumbled back, the stake falling to her side.
"How d-did you…" she stammered in angry shock and then stopped, bringing the stake back up between them.
There was something happening here, something huge. Dawn could see that now. Whatever it was it was enough to make Spike cry and make Faith just… stop. And that was big and important, but she knew she couldn’t ask. She shouldn’t break the fragile calm that had suddenly descended on the scene.
Then it broke.
"You think that makes a fucking difference?" Faith demanded, her mouth twisting in hard snarl.
Oh god, oh god. What makes a difference?
Whatever it was it was dangerous enough to frighten Faith. And that couldn’t be good.
"No! I didn’t. I didn’t want this," he shook his head and sobbed, his body hanging limp from the stake. "It’s terrible, the things I’ve done…
"Shut up!" All Dawn could think over and over was shutup Spike. Please shutup. Because she was there again, the Dark Slayer and she wasn’t sure she could stop her this time. In one quick motion Faith stood over the vampire, a stake drawn back to impale him. "You think it makes a difference?" she yelled into his face and Dawn saw something truly miraculous and terrifying -- tears in Faith’s eyes. "Every murdering, raping, child molesting scumbag on this planet has a soul William! It doesn’t mean a fucking thing!"
Dawn watched terrified as the crippled vampire cowered before the Slayer. She could feel the cold wet of the grass soaking through the knees of her jeans, pulling all the warmth from her body. Spike had a soul? Like Angel? Did that mean he was good now? Did that mean Faith wouldn’t stake him? But he had still done all those terrible things. He had still hurt her sister. And she was scared by how much she wanted the Dark Slayer to hurt him. To punish him.
And then suddenly she was weightless, dangling from an iron clamp around her neck. Faith and Spike were now below her as she clutched at the thing around her throat. A hand? A very strong hand like metal or stone.
A deep voice growled from someplace to her left, "The Key," and then Faith’s voice far away screaming her name.
****
Willow groaned as she slowly returned to consciousness. She was in someone’s arms. Someone who smelled like Tara. And she was humming softly, whoever this someone was.
Her thoughts quickly coalesced around the events that lead to her current situation. The device that Tara had given a name to. Occum’s Heart? And Tara. She had somehow gone back in time to Tara. And the magic. She had blacked out. And that meant…
I lost her again.
It was over. She had known it couldn’t last. And it hadn’t.
"Tara!" Her eyes were wide open in an instant, already filling with tears. She expected to see the terrible room in the Summers’ house, but it was Tara staring down into her eyes. And beyond her the familiar room with dark walls and strings of tiny lights. Tara. Staring down at her with an expression between concern and…was that fear?
Without thinking she reached up and threw both arms around Tara’s neck and held her tight, mumbling her name over and over into silken hair. She moved to kiss Tara’s cheeks and her forehead before finally pulling back to study her beautiful face.
The blonde smiled down at her. "Are you o-okay?" Willow nodded and let her eyes wander over the miraculous sight above her. "I th-thought you w-were…" she began and then stopped to kiss the redhead firmly on the lips. Willow couldn’t help but smile into the warm lips on her own, wondering what had brought on such a bold move from the shy blonde.
"You thought I was?" she prompted carefully, still smiling. Still unable to believe that she was here. With Tara.
"The W-Willow from this time. The one who d-doesn’t…." she began with a sad smile and rolled her eyes in embarrassment "I m-mean, when the spell’s over, you’ll probably, uh, go back to being th-this…Willow, right? The Willow who doesn’t um, want me?"
Willow watched as Tara’s eyes lost their focus. She was reading her again. Seeing the future Willow’s energy with all its darkness.
And she’s glad I’m still here?
"Tara I never didn’t want you. Ever. Believe me I was always with the wanting of you. It just…it gets so," she tapped her head lightly, "…busy up here it takes me longer to really know some things. You know?"
Tara nodded, but still didn’t seem convinced.
"In fact, in the real timeline, tonight was our first kiss." Willow tucked a strand of gold behind a perfect ear and watched as Tara’s face erupted into a beaming smile.
"Really?"
"Really," she nodded. "But just a kiss. I was way too shy for," she lifted her eyebrows playfully, "…you know, all that."
"All what?" Tara asked and she recognized the flirtatious tone in her voice immediately.
"All this," she murmured and pulled the blonde down into a long deep kiss.
"Oh that." Tara’s tone was teasing. Playful. Sexy even. And Willow felt the want hit her with overwhelming force. Then the slight tug of magic calling her back. She said the words that would center her self and felt the tug recede.
"Willow? What just happened?" Tara’s voice was small and scared.
"You felt that?" A small nod from the blonde and Willow sat up, furrowing in concentration. "The spell, I think. From the device. I keep feeling it like it’s still trying to work on me…" The blonde’s eyes, when she met them were unfocused again. Studying her. "What do you see?"
Tara’s eyes were still far away. "Um, sometimes it’s not so much w-what I…see. Sometimes it’s m-more what I f-feel." Willow waited patiently as the blonde’s forehead furrowed in concentration. "It was k-kind of like a, um, an earthquake…but magic. And…" she trailed off and looked at her hands.
"And what?" Willow brought a shaky hand to her face, letting her fingers glide over a soft cheek.. Tara’s eyes closed and she let out a long breath.
"And, well, at first I thought it was…" she blushed and Willow wondered what could possibly be causing the blonde so much doubt and discomfort. She cupped her cheek and ran her thumb over perfect lips and Tara smiled into her hand to begin again. "I could feel you…like, everywhere and I th-thought it was ‘cause, um…" she ducked her head with a shy smile and the redhead felt her own heart race. She knew now.
"Because you’re in love with me."
Tara just nodded. "B-but then I saw the dark that w-wasn’t you…and it…" she frowned and ducked her head. "It was p-pulling at you…everywhere." And blue eyes found her own staring with trust and absolute love. "Because you’re everywhere. I mean…not just m-my everywhere, but really…everywhere."
Willow turned Tara’s words over in her mind trying not to get lost in the blue. Because this was important. And it had everything to do with staying here. And hanging on to Tara. But she couldn’t reach it. Not yet. She shook her head in frustration and her eyes fell on the books on the bed. "What do you know about it? The Heart?"
"Not much." Tara frowned and reached to pick up one of the tomes. "Just that it’s a…um, a d-demon device created by some kind of super witch to get a second chance to be with her lover."
"Oh." Willow swallowed loudly and felt her throat tighten. A second chance. She would have given anything…
"Is that w-why you…I mean, did you want a s-second chance… at something," the blonde asked softly staring into her eyes.
"Um," she began haltingly and then stopped. The tears were right there, waiting to spill out of her. "Buffy activated it…the device," she faltered. "So, um, not mine…the second chance."
They sat in silence for long moments and Willow let her hand fall from the blonde’s cheek to her hand. Tara slowly entwined their fingers and Willow felt the familiar surge at the contact.
Tara gasped and then met her eyes. "Then w-why are you here Willow? It’s…the H-heart is only meant for one p-person."
"I…" Willow began and then stopped, falling into the blue of Tara’s eyes that seemed to go on forever. Everything turning over in her mind in a maelstrom of possibilities and potentialities. But it wasn’t physics or magic, it was the sound of her name on Tara’s lips that meant more. The way it stopped everything. Like a spell. And that was familiar somehow. Second Chance. Tara. The Heart. Magic and time. And Tara had said she was everywhere….
My energy is everywhere and the Heart controls reality. Bends time. And I tried to stop it with magic.
"I…I think I get it now," she began and took the blonde’s other hand in her own. "Or at least some of it." And she felt the familiar, beautiful rush and flight of something she hadn’t experienced in months in the real now. Not since that moment in their bedroom.
Hope. The thing with feathers.
"Tara I think I’m controlling the Heart."
TBC Edited by: lipkandy at: 2/4/03 10:24:34 pm
by ExtraFlameyWT » Mon Jan 13, 2003 4:22 am 
oh my god...how could you leave us hanging like that?! lol
time. Followed by large glass of hot chocolate (comfort food)
scene in the bedroom with willow and tara (loved her pulling up the skirt) and will telling her the truth just as she's about to be zonked away! you meanie! 
ahhh! i'm just a freak on crack cause you're back! 
. Read:when our Will curls up on her bed wailing upon realizing what day it was. W/T's love was a powerful thing & you've managed to totally convey the feel, smell, sight & taste of it.
Especially the way Tara could read Willow but didn't assume it was Willow herself who had caused the darkness. Very Tara reactions. Of course, I'm hardly the authority, since I am a fairly new to the BuffyVerse (S5's "The Gift" was my intro) but Tara has always been my Favorite character. And since ME's cruel & unnecessary end to all things Tara, reading fic where she is brought back ('specially those were it's believable) has become my escape.
now look what you did. You really made me blush...and now it's happening again, see .. 
