Gods Served and Abandoned
Disclaimers:
The people who own these characters are pinheads. I am not a pinhead. Ergo, I don’t own these characters.
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:
…gladdens the heart of this lesbian tart.
*****
Part 28
*****
"Do you think they’ve learned anything new?" Willow asked, tugging a light sweater over her head.
"I don’t know," Tara replied, glancing at Willow in the mirror. "Xander just said we were supposed to be over at Giles’ at eight. I wonder how he’s doing."
"Xander? Why, did he sound weird on the phone?" Willow paused in the middle of tying her shoes.
"Actually, I meant Giles. He’s taking Mrs. Summers’ death pretty hard."
"You noticed that too, huh? Yeah, it pretty much broke my heart to watch him. I think he’s probably been in love with her for a long time."
Tara’s eyes clouded with sadness. "At the funeral, he looked as if he hadn’t slept at all. And then later, he left the house almost as soon as he got there. I don't think he said ten words the whole day." She moved over beside the bed and sat down behind Willow, wrapping her arms around her and resting her head against her back. "Do you think Mrs. Summers felt the same way?"
Willow leaned back against Tara’s warmth. "I don’t know…You know, in a lot of ways, they were really Buffy’s parents, when you get right down to it. Good ol’ Hank’s been pretty much MIA, with the aforementioned ‘Action’ primarily involving his secretary. Joyce and Giles have been the two adult constants in Buffy’s life. I think they were unofficially a twosome, at least in that regard. Plus, there was that whole Band candy episode, in which Giles got in touch with both his inner adolescent and Joyce’s outer breasts. Right there on a police car," she added.
"Wasn’t that during the time when you and Xander…?"
"If you love me, you won’t finish that sentence, OK? The point is, those two definitely had sparkage, not to mention a strong parental connection about Buffy. But apparently he never talked about it, and neither did she."
Tara pulled Willow more tightly against her. "I think that’s what makes me sadder than anything. To have so much to say to someone, and never say a word."
They sat there in silence for a few minutes, each thanking the goddess for the words they themselves had found the courage to say, all those months ago.
*****
The only sound was the sound of water splashing out of the hose and into the heavy trough. He and his daddy didn’t talk much these days, though they certainly had a lot they could say to each other. He figured it was his daddy’s place to start that conversation; after all, he was the one who’d dropped the bombshells on everybody last week. About his mom’s cheating; about Uncle Quinn being Tara’s father. If anyone should start talking about what everyone was thinking, it should be his dad.
But Nathan wasn’t saying much of anything. Nathan pretty much did his work and then looked for more work to do, which was always within eyesight when you lived on a farm. He and Donnie talked about the winter wheat and fixing machinery and the latest milk prices. They didn’t talk about Donnie’s mother taking him along for her meetings with her husband’s brother, or Nathan beating him throughout his entire childhood, or Tara being a half-sister to both him and Beth.
And poor Beth…She just kind of flitted around the house like a bird that kept banging up against the walls and didn’t know it could just fly out the open window if it wanted to. She never talked about going home. The only thing she talked about was the weather, and how the crops were coming along, and whether they might prefer peach cobbler or cream pie for dessert.
They watched each other, that much was clear. Him and his daddy circling each other, always knowing where the other was but pretending not to notice; and then the three of them in the evenings, wobbling like a chair with one leg missing—unsteady, but trying to hold up.
And they never said a word about any of it.
*****
Willow and Tara arrived at Giles’ house to find it cluttered with old newspapers and unwashed glasses. A container of take-out Chinese had been hastily tossed in the garbage. One of the chop-sticks had fallen to the floor; it had never been picked up.
Giles muttered his apologies as he cleared off chairs for them to sit. They had been the last to arrive. Buffy and Dawn were on the couch, while Xander and Anya occupied the bar stools against the counter. As they settled into their chairs, they automatically brought them closer together. Glancing around, Willow noticed that everyone seemed to be touching someone else. Xander had his arm over Anya’s shoulders, while Buffy kept running her hand over Dawn’s hair and down her back. Willow found herself wishing that she’d passed up the chair and just nestled on Tara’s lap; she settled for clasping Tara’s hand tightly in her own.
We all need to comfort, and be comforted. We need to feel the person we’re closest to in order to believe we’re still here. And Giles has no one. She lowered her head and brushed away the tears that had gathered so quickly in her eyes.
"Thank you for coming," the Watcher began, rubbing his forehead as he spoke. "Buffy, Dawn—I know how hard things are right now. I…I wish I could spare you all of this; somehow make all of this just go away." He sighed, and Willow saw now that his eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion, or perhaps something else.
"I know," Buffy answered quietly. "But there’s no bereavement leave for Slayers, is there? We don’t get time off to mourn."
But you wouldn’t take it even if there were, Willow found herself thinking. You need to be doing something. You couldn’t handle sitting quietly in the house right now.
"It’s OK," Dawn added in a small voice. "We have to know what’s going on."
Willow remembered her conversation with the Key at the hotel that night, before Dawn had known who she really was; when the biggest difficulty in her life was a crush on someone older than her who was totally unavailable. Hadn’t that been another lifetime ago? Surely it had been, for the slight teenager in front of her.
"It’s just—well, I’ve received news that I thought you should all know about." Giles took his glasses off slowly, looking at the floor. "I only wish it were good news."
"And so much for the ambiguous foreshadowing," Xander commented, shaking his head. "Can anyone remember the last time we did hear good news?"
"It was ten days ago," Anya promptly answered. "I took that EPT thing and urinated on the little stick, remember? And then we waited for what seemed like an eternity, and you kept pacing back and forth—"
"Right. Of course. How could I forget?" Xander grinned weakly.
"And now, none of us will ever forget it, either," Tara smiled, looking at Willow and arching her eyebrows just the tiniest bit.
If those two ever reproduce, we might all rethink our positions on genetic engineering. But she said nothing.
"Giles, you were saying…?" Xander prompted, clearly preferring the impending bad news to a detailed account of his recent reprieve.
"A few days ago, I contacted the Watcher’s Council, to see if they had any information on Glory." As he might well have expected, a chorus of alarm welled up around him. Buffy’s voice emerged as the strongest.
"Giles, if those sanctimonious bastards know that Dawn’s the Key, they’ll be over here before you can say ‘Tower of London.’ What were you thinking?"
"Buffy, you can’t possibly think I told them anything about Dawn," Giles protested. "I would never entrust them with such information. You have to know that I would never put Dawn in jeopardy like that."
Buffy held his gaze for a moment, and then dropped her eyes to her sister. "I’m sorry…It’s just that I’ve just had nothing but bad experiences with Quentin Travers and that five-alarm freak show he heads up. First they put me through that insane ‘test’ and then they go all wet-works on me when they thought I was Faith. It doesn’t exactly build up your trust and good-will."
"I’m with Buffy," Willow chimed in. "That much tweed in one place must surely tempt the forces of darkness."
Giles shook his head patiently. "Yes, well, I understand; at its worst, the Council is an archaic lynch mob, using the most reprehensible of tactics under the guise of working to eradicate evil."
"And at its best?" Tara asked doubtfully.
"Officious pricks with deplorable fashion sense," the Watcher replied evenly.
"So we’re all in agreement," Xander said emphatically. "The Council of Watchers is hereby on the ‘Do Not Invite’ list for all major celebrations and any gatherings where you don’t want skullduggery to abound. Just say no to COW."
"And to MOO—Mothers Opposed to the Occult," Willow added, recalling her own experience as witch hunt prey. She shook her head wonderingly. "Who’d ever have thought that dairy could be so ominous?"
"Certainly, having been unceremoniously fired two years ago, I hardly consider them close, personal friends," Giles asserted, rubbing the back of his neck. "I would have been guilty of putting vanity before duty, however, had I not considered the possibility that they might have useful information on our current antagonist. So yes, I called them, and I appealed to their sense of self-importance in asking for their assistance. I spoke in the most abject of ways about my own limitations, in both resource and perspicacity, and asked for their learned input."
"And he just said what?" Xander asked, looking at Willow in confusion.
"Giles kissed some COW ass," she answered, nodding approvingly at the Watcher
"And the tweedy little milquetoasts spilled the beans," Giles finished, giving her a slight smile.
"And just what did said milquetoasts have to contribute to the knowledge fund?" Willow asked.
The smile faded quickly from Giles’ face. "As I said, the news is hardly good."
"So enough with the foreplay," Buffy said in exasperation. At the uncomfortable glances and raised eyebrows that greeted her, she added, "Or foreshadowing. Or forehead. Or for which we stand." Turning back to Giles, she fixed him with a hard stare. "What is it, Giles? What kind of demon are we looking at?"
Her Watcher sighed. "Glory’s not a demon." He reached out to rest his hand on her shoulder. "She’s a god."
*****
A few hours later, Tara unlocked her door and they more or less stumbled across the floor and into bed, collapsing in an exhausted heap.
"Do things ever calm down?" Tara asked, her tone suggesting that the question was largely rhetorical. Willow, though, answered her.
"About once a year; for about seven or eight hours. We usually use that time to catch up on our correspondence, maybe take in a movie."
"How do you fight a god?" This time, the question wasn’t rhetorical; Willow, though, had no idea how to answer her.
Finally Tara spoke again. "I guess…I guess we find out everything we can about her and we try to find her weak spots."
"Yeah, that seemed to be the general game plan that emerged tonight," Willow concurred. "The only thing is, in SAT terms, ‘god’ is to ‘weak spot’ as ‘Michael Jackson’ is to ‘mental health.’ I mean, isn’t the whole idea of a god that she’s pretty much invincible? Not to mention that whole brain-sucking thing, a fact without which I could so easily have lived." She shuddered briefly. "Let’s face it, Tara—the hell-god got game."
Tara shook her head. "I can’t let myself get too stunned and amazed about her, Will. I have to believe that there’s some way we can take her down. Otherwise… Otherwise, we just give up and hope that somebody else will take care of her." She turned on her side to look at Willow. "And that’s not really how the Scooby gang works, is it?"
Reaching out to tuck a lock of hair behind Tara’s ear, Willow replied softly, "No ma’am, it isn’t. The Scooby motto is, and I quote, ‘The few; the proud; the profoundly outnumbered."
"I’ll take quality over quantity any day," Tara assured her, nuzzling into the warmth of the arms that reached out for her.
They lay quietly for several minutes. Willow was so exhausted that she could have fallen asleep right there on top of the covers, sneakers and all, and she suspected Tara felt the same. Bedtime without brushing, though, had serious implications for morning breath, and so she forced herself to sit upright.
"C’mon, Baby—let’s get out of these clothes and get ready for bed."
Tara grumbled but complied. "Doesn’t it seem just a bit surreal? Coming back home, washing our faces, brushing our teeth…right after learning that this year’s Big Bad is an honest-to-God, well, god?"
"Gotta admit, it’s hard to find the bright side with this one," Willow acknowledged, walking toward the door. Passing Tara’s desk, she noticed the small packet of mail that Tara had retrieved but not opened earlier that day. "You might wanna check your mail, Baby. You may have already won ten million dollars!"
"Thank you, Ed McMagic. I’ll just make sure there’s nothing too pressing, like a chance to receive TV Guide at a fraction of the news stand price, and then I’m right behind you." Willow nodded and headed down the hall toward the bathroom.
Several minutes later, as Willow peered at her soapy reflection in the mirror, she wondered where Tara was.
Maybe she really did win ten million dollars…And maybe she’s spending it all on TV Guide subscriptions.
She realized that exhaustion was starting to make her incoherent.
She also realized, immediately after that epiphany, that life on the Hell Mouth should have taught her by now that innocuous things often weren’t, which was why she now quickly splashed water over her face and ran back to Tara’s room. Throwing the door open, she felt relief wash over her as she saw Tara sitting quietly on the bed, peering at something she held in her hand.
"Tara? Baby? What is it?" Relief gave way to uneasiness as Tara looked up at her. Her blue eyes were filled with pain. In reply, she simply held out the single sheet of paper.
Willow searched her lover’s face questioningly, and then looked down at the words before her.
Dear Tara,
I don’t know whether you really want to hear from me or not, but I decided to go ahead and write and just hope that you’ll listen to what I have to say. I know that the trip must have hard for you, finding out what you did. I’m sorry that you went through so much growing up. I should have been a better father. You weren’t responsible for your mother’s behavior, but I know that part of me blamed you even though another part of me said I shouldn’t.
Your visit wasn’t easy for me, either. It was hard to relive everything and talk about it after keeping my silence for so many years. In the middle of all of our family secrets, the news that you think you’re a homosexual almost got lost. Tara, I know that the men in your life so far haven’t been very good examples of manhood. Your real father drank himself to death, I was angry most of the time, and your brother beat you up. I’m sure that women must seem must safer and easier to trust right now. But please, Tara, don’t give up on men just because of how you grew up. You’re a fine young woman, and I’m sure there’s a good man out there who could make you very happy.
Your brother hasn’t said anything about all of this. I’m not sure what he thinks. Beth is still here, though I’ve told her that if her mother needs her, we’ll find a way to make do.
I just wanted to you to know that I’m sorry for the way I acted when you were younger. I know that the news about your mother upset you, but she did love you, Tara, very much. I wish you could talk to her, and to your real father, but that’s not possible. However, I thought you might want to talk to your Aunt Beverly. She and Quinn were full brother-and-sister, and she also knew your mother fairly well. In fact, the two of them were pretty close. She and I don’t talk very often, but I’m sure she’d be glad to hear from you. I think she probably liked you more than Beth, quite frankly. Anyway, if you want to get hold of her, her number in Dallas is (214) 555-0124.
Take care,
Nathan, Your father
Willow re-read the entire letter, trying to assimilate both its contents and its tone into her already-overloaded brain circuitry. What must be going on in Tara’s mind?
"Baby? Are you OK?" She rubbed Tara’s back gently, feeling her heart break once again at the pain in those cobalt eyes.
"Willow…Goddess, where do I even start? I mean, I can hardly believe he wrote in the first place. And then he apologizes, which he has never, ever done. And he tells me how to contact my aunt, because he thinks it might help to talk to her. But he also doesn’t believe I’m really gay, because the men around me when I was growing up were such losers. Oh, and my ‘real father drank himself to death,’ let’s not forget that." Her laugh was dry and brittle.
Willow looked at her helplessly. Finally, she turned and slid her right leg behind Tara and then gathered her beloved close, feeling the soft hair tickle her cheek. She felt Tara’s quick, convulsive sob, and then tears were trickling down her neck.
"Tara, Baby, I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry you’ve had all of this dumped in your lap, and you can’t even talk to your mother, because I know that’s what you want, more than anything else." She felt tears stinging her eyes, and dimly wondered if she would ever simply cry herself out; if she would just reach the end of her lifetime supply of tears because she lived where she lived and did what she did.
When Tara had finally stopped sobbing, Willow extricated herself from Tara’s limbs and then gently pushed Tara back until she was prone on the bed. She slowly untied Tara’s shoes and then slid her socks off. Tara struggled to sit up.
"I need to wash my face and brush my teeth," she protested. "After everything we’ve been through, I don’t want you to wake up and have to deal with my morning breath."
Willow took the opportunity to pull Tara’s shirt up over her head. "I brushed my teeth twice, so we’re covered."
"What kind of logic is that?" Tara asked, but let herself be relieved of her bra and then lowered once more to the bed.
"It’s my logic, and I’m extraordinarily smart, so you probably don’t want to question it," Willow replied, tugging Tara’s jeans and then her panties down over her hips and discarding them on the floor beside the bed. "Besides, you never have bad breath—even when you’re sick, even when you first wake up."
"There’s always a first time for everything," Tara argued, but Willow could see that fatigue of both the emotional and physical varieties was winning out.
"Baby, if the hardest thing I have to face tomorrow is that I wake up next to you and your breath isn’t minty fresh, I gotta think I’ve come out ahead."
Quickly shucking her own clothes, Willow crawled under the blankets and pressed herself close to Tara, who was almost asleep. Before she went under, though, Tara mumbled something in Willow’s ear.
"What, Baby? I couldn’t hear you."
"I said, did I tell you today how much I love you?"
Willow draped her arm over Tara’s chest and tried to pull her even nearer. "Yeah, you did. First, this morning; and then late this afternoon when we were on our way over to Giles’."
This confirmation was apparently the last thing that stood between Tara and a profoundly deep sleep, and watching her in the moonlight gave Willow the comfort she needed to do likewise.
To Be Continued
Edited by: AntigoneUnbound at: 5/14/03 11:15:11 pm
. I know that goes for Donnie though, but due to his past actions (against Tara) I can't feel sorry for him anymore. Even when it would be justified, I don't *want* to : -->
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repititiously.
And COW and MOO! What a hoot! {I want Glory in a"Got milk?" ad.
}
) had I but known of your holiday. Will a good time be had by all? You're involved. ('Nuff said. Period. End of story.)
As always a great update. Even if it's two days late and that I've been waiting like crazy.