by AntigoneUnbound » Thu Jan 16, 2003 11:11 pm
Gods Served and Abandoned
Disclaimers: I own nothing. Just ask my bank.
Spoilers: Up to season 5. I’ve played slightly with the timing of a certain Big Bad’s appearance, with some implications for Dawn’s entrance.
Rating: R for now; if it changes, I’ll give heads-up.
Distribution: Sure, with acknowledgement.
Feedback: Even more sure! Bring it on!
*****
Part 8
*****
She answered the phone on the first ring, her voice as ingratiating as ever.
"Hey Beth, it’s Donnie. How’s life down there in the small town?"
"I was wondering when you’d call, Donnie. Are you having any luck with Tara?"
"Not just yet, but I’m a long way from done. How’s the old man?"
"Donnie—how would Uncle Nathan feel if he could hear you? He’s your father." Cousin Beth’s tone was filled with moral displeasure, which he found very enjoyable.
"Aw, lighten up. I don’t mean anything by it. How’s he doing?"
"Well, to be honest, he still isn’t saying very much. I think Tara’s behavior hurt him awfully bad, Donnie." She exhaled sharply. "It just makes me so angry to think about it."
"Don’t getyour panties all bunched up, Beth," Donnie laughed. "It’s not good for your circulation."
"You can just watch your mouth with me, too, Donnie. I don’t need any lessons in self-control from
you, of all people."
"Fine, whatever. I didn’t call to get a Sunday School lesson. Listen, is Daddy around?"
"No, you know he’s always milking at this time. Like you would be, if you were here to help," she added.
He ignored her implied reproach. "Good, I thought so. Listen, Beth, I need you to do me a favor."
He could almost see her ears pricking up, her nose quivering like a rat who had caught the scent of something foul nearby.
"Favor? What kind of favor?"
"I need you to get some stuff of Daddy’s, without him knowing it."
He might as well have said that he needed her to steal the big cedar cross from off of the front lawn of the Cold Springs Baptist Church.
"Donnie, you have to be pulling my leg. You want me to steal something from Uncle Nathan? After all he’s been through, you want me to go nosing around and just take something of his?" Her voice was climbing steadily with the force of her righteous indignation.
"In the first place, Beth, it’s not stealing. We’ll put everything back. And in the second place, don’t get all high and mighty with me about nosin’ around. If I know you like I think I do, you’ve already made yourself pretty comfortable with our house and everything in it." He smiled into the silence, enjoying the image of her choking on her own mortification.
Finally, she managed to splutter, "If you’re trying to suggest that I’d steal anything from your father, all I can say is—"
"I ain’t sayin’ you’d steal anything. I’m just sayin’ that you like to know what’s goin’ on, and I imagine you’ve strolled through the house more’n once, takin’ a look at whatever you can see."
There was another brief silence, and then she sullenly replied, "Anything I do, it’s because I feel so bad for your father. And for you, too," she added in a wheedling tone.
"I know, Beth. I’m sorry I teased you about it. I know Daddy’s grateful for everything you’re doing." A little soft-soaping couldn’t hurt anything, he reckoned.
"Really?" The eagerness in her voice was as transparent as her dye job.
"Really. He told me so." He paused for just a moment to let her snatch that morsel off of the floor. "And I’m not tryin’ to put you in a tough position, Beth. I just need some help from that end and I figure you’re the one I can count on."
"Well you know I’d do anything to help, Donnie, but taking something private of Uncle Nathan’s, without his permission…It just doesn’t feel right."
"Beth, you and me both know that Daddy’s never been exactly clear-headed where Tara’s concerned." He could almost see her eyes narrowing with resentful agreement. "I’m just afraid if I ask him to give me the stuff directly, he’d get all uptight and torn-up about it. And hasn’t he been through enough?"
"You don’t need to tell me about how much your daddy’s hurtin’, Donnie. Tara’s the one that needs to understand that."
"So you’ll help me?" He tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. Beth was like a fish that bit quickly but didn’t necessarily take the whole bait. She was wary, in her own way, and he needed to play the line carefully.
"I don’t know, Donnie…I mean, do you think it’s even a good idea for Tara to come back? Really? I can’t imagine that she’d fit in anymore; not that she ever really did."
I get it now. You like bein’ the woman of the house.
"You got a good point, Beth. Tara’s never been a real Maclay, not like you. And I ain’t just sayin’ that," he interjected quickly. "I mean it. But it's just not right that she left like that, and then talkin’ that way to Daddy the other night…She needs to face the music for what she did, whether she ends up stayin’ or not. I just think it would mean a lot to Daddy if we could work together and at least get her to come home and apologize."
He held his tongue then, and waited for her to take the bait before he tried to reel her in at all.
"Well…I mean, if you really think it would help Uncle Nathan." He could hear the last lingering hesitation in her voice.
"I do, Beth. And I need your help. I can’t do it without you.." He tugged the line, just slightly.
"OK. Tell me what you need."
"Thanks, Beth; I mean it. And I’m sorry about teasin’ you earlier. I guess I’m just a little worked up, thinkin’ about all of this."
"Well, I can certainly understand why." They were both playing the part of gracious allies now.
"You’re good to help us out like this. Now—the stuff I’m talkin’ about is in a lock box in Daddy’s press."
"Lock box? But what good will it do you if you can’t get into it?"
"Don’t worry about it," he replied. "It’s not a real tricky one." Especially since he’d had a duplicate key made down at Winton’s Hardware Store after he’d seen where his daddy stashed the original.
There was a brief pause, and then Beth acquiesced to the version of reality that he encouraged her to hold. "So it’s in his closet?"
"Yeah, up on the top shelf. It’s all the way over to the right, tucked in behind some flannel shirts. You’ll probably have to stand on a footstool to reach it," he added, thinking of Beth’s stature.
"But how do I get it to you?"
"That’s easy, at least for you. I’ll drive down there this afternoon."
"But if you’re coming all the way back home—"
"I’m not. I don’t want Daddy knowin’ about any of this, not just yet. I’ll meet you at the IGA and you can give it to me. You still got your mom’s car, right?"
"Yes. And I need to do some grocery shopping anyway, so that’ll work out fine."
"Good. I really appreciate this, Beth."
"Donnie..." She hesitated, but he knew what was coming. "What’s in the box?"
He could hear her curiosity slithering all over her. He smiled, and held out for the dramatic pause.
"Now if I told you that, it would ruin the ending, wouldn’t it?"
*****
That afternoon, Willow and Tara walked to the Magic Box to do some research and gather some spell necessities. Willow was paying for the ingredients, much to Anya’s pecuniary delight.
"I know we live in a capitalist society, Baby; it just seems to me that things needed to fight the forces of evil should be free. God, I can’t even declare them on my taxes!" Willow was waxing indignant.
"I can’t really argue with you, Sweetie. Seems like adding insult to injury that we pay six cents on the dollar for aiding the cause of good."
"Exactly. Things like magickal ingredients—when those ingredients serve integral roles in averting the apocalypse—should be gratis. As should tampons," she added, in what, to the untrained ear, would almost certainly be a jarring non sequiteur.
"Willow, did you call upon the forces of Tampax for some great conflict before I met you? And if you did, do I really want to hear about it?"
Willow nodded somberly. "It was the bloodiest of battles..."
"Oh goddess, please stop," Tara groaned.
"No, it’s just a matter of principle. We have no choice but to use feminine protection products, and frankly, I think they should be subsidized by the government."
Yanking on the shop door, to the accompaniment of the increasingly-wearisome bell overhead, Tara could only shrug. "Gets my vote. You write the bill and we’ll see about sponsorship."
"I think we can rule out Strom Thurmond," Willow grumbled.
They had only been working for a few minutes when the bell jangled again. They looked up to see Buffy and Giles enter. Any of their usual greetings were abandoned when they saw the look in the Slayer’s eyes. Without speaking, Buffy headed back to the training room, slamming the door behind her.
Willow looked up questioningly at Giles. The Watcher sighed, then pushed a chair back from the table and sank into it heavily. "We’ve learned something…about the Key," he managed, his voice weary.
"Giles, what is it?" Willow was quickly becoming frantic. She hated to see Buffy hurting like this. She knew that her best friend could handle any physical challenge, but her heart was far more delicate than anyone else seemed to realize. And Mrs. Summers had been sick so much of the time lately, with those headaches that no one could figure out…Buffy was already coping with far more than she should have to, and now it looked as if something else had been dropped onto her shoulders—uncaringly, remorselessly.
"Actually, Willow, at the risk of sounding melodramatic or secretive, I really do think this should come from Buffy, whenever she’s able to talk about it."
"Did something happen to Dawn?" Tara broke in, eyes clouding with dread.
To their immense surprise, Giles gave a dry, mirthless laugh. "How very odd you should mention that…" Then he shook his head, and looked at them squarely. "No, Dawn is quite safe, I can assure you of that."
The three of them looked up as Buffy walked back into the room. Willow caught the look that passed between Slayer and Watcher; it seemed to her that Giles was giving Buffy silent permission to handle this moment entirely as she saw fit.
"Buffy, are you OK? Do you want to sit down?" Willow was desperately trying to think of something that she could do, however minute, to help her best friend.
"No, Will—I think I need to be standing for this. In fact," she broke off, with a brittle laugh, "I may just need to interrupt this discussion to beat the hell out of something."
Willow started to speak again, but fell silent at the feel of Tara’s hand falling gently on her thigh. She would follow Tara’s lead here. Tara knew her way around the scary dungeons of psychological terrors far better than she did.
Buffy paced for a few seconds—short, staccato steps in which every footfall seemed to sound her outrage—and then turned abruptly and leaned over the table, planting her palms on the dark wooden surface.
"Giles and I have just learned that…We’ve just learned that the Key…" She took a deep, shuddering breath, closing her eyes briefly, and then gazed at them and spoke with the voice of someone much, much older. "We’ve just learned that Dawn is the Key."
*****
Was she really sixteen? Was she really that close to getting away from Cold Springs, and her father? Was she really that close to leaving Donnie behind for good?
She looked at herself in the mirror, trying to stand up straight. "Honey, you’re so beautiful…Why do you slouch over like that, and hide behind your hair? Let everybody get a look at you, Bright Eyes." Her mother was always encouraging her to show more of herself, but everything within her, it seemed, screamed at her to present as small a target as possible.
Time was rolling forward; there was no denying it. Even if the days sometimes seemed to last an eternity, like they had right after she’d been caught trying to press the note into Jo’s locker. She never even looks at me. She must think I’m disgusting. She thought back over the past few months, and the spiraling isolation that had followed her ill-fated love letter. Does Jo ever miss me? Does she ever miss the jokes we used to make, the ones that nobody else would ever think were funny? Does she miss sitting beside me on the bus, and leaning over so that we made our own private universe? She tried not to think about Jo too much; when she did, her stomach hurt in a way she’d never felt before…like somebody had poked a white-hot fist right through her skin and grabbed her belly tight, squeezing it till she couldn’t breathe. Mostly, she just tried to get through each day at school, focusing on her studies and reading by herself at lunch time. People still called her "lezzie," but she’d gotten used to that and besides, they didn’t do it all the time anymore.
For years, it seemed, she’d been trying to hurry time along, nudging it and pushing it and urging it to pick up its pace. Now, for the first time that she could remember, she wanted it to slow down.
Because her mother was sick.
Because her mother wasn’t going to get better.
She knew it, even if her mother didn’t come right out and say so. "You never know, Bright Eyes. The things they can do nowadays…" And then she’d leave the sentence unfinished, because her mother could do so many things, and do them so well, but she couldn’t lie, at least not to her beloved daughter.
Why had it taken them so long to figure it out? Her mother always had energy to spare, but then she’d started getting tired almost as soon as she got out of bed. And her face, which had always seemed to glow with some inner light, even in the dead of winter, became wan, and pallid, and dark circles appeared under her eyes seemingly overnight. When her mother had come into her room that night three weeks ago, closing the door softly behind her and coming over to sit on her bed, Tara had had to fight the urge to run out of the room before her mother had even started talking.
It’s bad. She’s sick, and it’s really bad.
"Sweetie, you know I haven’t been feelin’ exactly myself for awhile, right?" Tara could only nod, the fingers of her right hand inching out to clutch more and more bedspread into her grasp while her left hand held onto her mother’s and tried to memorize the feel of the worn, work-roughened skin.
"Well, I went to see Dr. Bradley last week, and he wanted to run a few tests…"
Stop talking, Mom. Stop talking right now, and we can pretend we never even started this conversation. But you have to stop talking now.
"The tests came back today, Honey , and… and it’s not good." Stop talking, Mom. Please Mama. Please stop talking.
"It looks like I have cancer, Bright Eyes."
And then Tara knew that it was too late, that her mother had uttered the words and the words had made it all real. And she thought, dimly, that her eyes were bright, they had to be, because everything was shimmering, including her mother; she was twinkling and shining and glittering through the prism of tears that made everything so horribly bright.
*****
To be continued
Edited by: AntigoneUnbound at: 1/16/03 9:34:32 pm
And thanks for asking! How cool is that? 
he really needs a smack upside the head or a lobotomy, might make him smarter 
Mr. Donnie is definatly up to no good..and what a prick...talking about his own mother that way! Sheesh..
.
. You made a funny
. That was great thanks
I just have to preface this by saying that I am not having a very articulate day; both my classes today were just crap, and I'm not recovering that quickly.
. I'm glad Willow told Tara what he'd said (even though it was painful). I think she needed to make sure Tara knew it didn't matter to her. I thought Tara talking about the note was very touching and I'm glad Willow managed to talk her round in her own unique Willow way, (and it ended with W/T kissage). Thank-you. Looking forward to more. Karen 
