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Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter Thirty-Three
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 get the information they’ve been hoping for. Naturally, there are things they need to work out along the way.
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: So, these last few parts have been a lot of fun to come back to. As usual for me, I have no memory even for what I’ve written so it’s almost like discovering a new book when I come back to early chapters after first drafting to the end. There’s definitely a difference in my tone between S4 and S5 and that’s making me wonder whether I need to extend the story slightly to bring S5 back around. I am sure, given the canon, you can imagine that S5 is much more gruelling for all involved (though things are different) and to leave a story like that? Once upon a time, Xita told me not to just end in a happy place. I had to show the happy place. I am thinking maybe I need to explore that happy place once again. That’s just the nature of fanfic versus a novel or a script. Another sort of fan service, if you like to put it that way.
Thanks to: Since I mentioned her, let’s go with Xita again. I’m not sure I mentioned it in this story, but she’s still paying the bills around here, keeping the lights on and the ads out.
Music: I’ve mentioned her before but not yet in this fic. Today’s redrafting is Sara Bareilles inspired. I understand she’d ended up on some US talent show (not one that anyone heard of) as a judge. Shame…
Technical note: I know we can’t download stuff as fast as is suggested here even today, not in the volumes I refer to, but hey… they have vampires and zombies too. Roll with it, geeks
“I don’t think Buffy believes there’s nothing going on anymore,” she said.
“Maybe you could just, you know, t-tell her?” Tara suggested. “That might help?”
Okay, reason girl. If things just worked that way in your world…
“Which part?” she snuggled up beside the warm, soft body of her girl. The girl who called her ‘sweetie’ and ‘baby’ and ‘honey.’ No one had ever called her any of those things. Once it would have seemed silly and almost childish, but now she was finding it cute and endearing. And absolutely loving it.
Of course that was probably more to do with the warm, soft body being Tara than anything else. Tara could get away with whatever she liked.
“Any of it,” Tara said, pushed her hair back and revealed one of those – and there were many - spots of her body that she just delighted in. And she hadn’t even gotten to experience them all yet. Pretty soon – she hoped – she was going to have to start ranking. Prioritising even.
She leaned in and kissed the newly revealed neck, just for a moment and it made Tara smile. It made her smile too.
“But all of it?” she asked.
Tara shook her head. “I’m not going there. You know what I think about us. I know what your reasons are though and I trust you. I even think you’re probably right.”
“Usually right,” Willow pointed out. “I’m usually right. Sometimes, but not usually, I’m not right.”
Another smile. “Now’s not going to be the time,” Tara agreed.
“Yeah… Which brings us to the other thing.”
She could just see how that conversation was going to go.
‘Guys, listen. I have a girlfriend now. Yeah, I’m pretty much what you’d call your standard issue lesbian. No, Xander, you can’t. Yeah, you do know her actually. It’s the girl who followed that pesky Goddess we’re so worried about and I’ve been helping her. Oh, and so is Ethan Rayne. Oh, no, there’s no need to be suspicious of any of that and I absolutely haven’t had my mind taken over by her or anyone else.’
Even though she’s all I can think about.
You had to know Tara to be certain of her and asking her friends to get to know her girlfriend when they’d be suspicious? No… that wasn’t fair on anyone. So… if they could just leave things until this was done and there was a big success to point to? Something else Tara had helped them with?
How much could they want from a girl they didn’t even know?
And if they could wait, maybe, until Ethan was gone too… One way or another.
Those two things would go a whole way to helping them accept Tara as they should do.
“B-Buffy? She’s suspicious because you’ve not been coming home every night?” Tara wondered.
“Yeah. She always says, ‘it’s not paranoia when the demons all want to rip her throat out’. So she must’ve noticed…
“I mean, she’s used to being out late herself and when I was with – well, when I was with my ex, I obviously sometimes wasn’t around at night. But now I’m so-called single… How often can I pull an all-nighter in the library before she gets suspicious?
“She thinks you have a boyfriend then?” Tara asked, but way too casually for the answer not to have meant something to her.
“Probably,” Willow said, “because I never gave her a reason, or at least much reason, to think maybe you – the hypothetical you - had girl instead of boy bits. I like the girl bits, in case you were wondering.”
“I noticed,” Tara said and Willow realised that something that had sounded awkward in her head and worse when she actually said it had turned out what? Reassuring?
And they’d made progress in every aspect of their relationship.
They’d graduated to all but stripping off now when they were contemplating sexy-time. Of course they’d wake up in the morning in pyjama tops or tee-shirts, she had some clothes and wash things in one of Tara’s drawers now. Just for convenience. It’d felt like a big step to put them there. But yeah, right now… all but naked.
Just not butt naked. Or naked in other ways that wouldn’t have been taken care of anymore if she actually had been butt naked.
It wasn’t so much nudity that was the final frontier… No, it was to boldly go where no woman has gone before. Very much within touching distance and the sheer willpower it took not to go there, not to flat out beg Tara to go there…
Maybe she ought to be asking Diana for strength or something? But somehow they’d managed to hold themselves back while also finding the closeness and intimacy that brought them closer and made them stronger together. It was fair to say that she was ready for more of that intimacy though.
She’d never have believed just how ‘ready’ Tara could make her. Without even, apparently, trying or knowing what she was doing. Gosh…
“I don’t want you to lie to Buffy, sweetie,” Tara said.
“And I try not to, I really do. I never lie about anything she should know. I just… omit things sometimes. And when it’s about us, I know that’s important, but it’s important to me and to you – not to her because she doesn’t even know. Even so… I hate that you worry about it. I want – you know what I want, don’t you? You know that I’m not ashamed or afraid, right?”
“I know,” Tara said, hugging her. “We’ve talked about it often enough.”
“It’s a good excuse though, isn’t it?” Willow asked.
She looked up at Tara smiling a ‘yes’. They were holed up like this partly because, hey, beautiful sexy woman who wanted to get mostly naked, make out and find out just how close they could get to a home run without actually coming up with a finalised definition… But the main thing, the official excuse, if they needed it over why they were here together, was because Ethan might need them. Both of them.
Easier if they were in one place, right? That was just efficiency.
Beautiful. Sexy. Efficiency.
And all for Ethan Rayne. Honest.
It’d been two days with no hint of a signal to say he needed to be taken out of there. No hint of any activity on the computer front either, but given where he’d hidden the USB stick she’d given him perhaps that wasn’t altogether surprising.
If you simply had to speculate then you might suppose that a bunch of macho frat house guys wouldn’t go near checking all the bits of an old, English troublemaker and finding it.
But professional army guys? She had no idea, except they’d certainly not enjoy it.
Had it been found then? Even if it had… all was not lost. The original plan had been to put Ethan in there. The idea about the USB stick had come later. Just because she was a witchy-witch didn’t mean she couldn’t still go back to her roots.
And it was some of her finest work too. She just hoped it’d get the chance to be tested and used.
Then, if Ethan did need them to get him out of the base, then it would take the three of them to do what they planned. His willing cooperation, but also the two of them to supply the oomph to the ritual.
And there was a lot of oomph that was needed to this one. This was the kind of thing that could really kick you in the nuts – if you had nuts, so lucky break there – to perform. Actually she was really excited about it, after the rose when they’d proven they could work really well together magically, they’d tried a few other spells too and… yeah, somehow that had always led them to bed not that long afterwards.
Also, it was very possible that lately spells were the only things that were letting them keep their panties on as long as they had.
It wasn’t the sort of thing you admitted, but damn… those rituals felt good. Just her touch was special, they both felt it. But magic with Tara… Wow.
Who even needed mail order ‘accessories’? Though that was still on the cards for the future as far as she was concerned.
But something about just how they connected and the power pushed through the combined whole that was Taraandwillow was… They might not talk about it but she was absolutely certain that it was having the same effect on her girlfriend. It’d been tough for her to hide, a couple of times. The rose had simply been prolonged use of magic but anything that came to a conclusion in a burst… another word might easily – and not inaccurately – have been ‘climax.’
Almost anyway.
Not quite.
Not close enough to stop them carrying those feelings over into… feelings.
Would or could it be better when they made love? Undoubtedly! There was literally no doubt and she couldn’t wait for that day or that night… It would have the intimacy, the connection and the love… all right there, even if – and you can’t blame a girl for feeling the pressure – even if one or two of the ‘techniques’ was likely to take a little work to perfect. But the magic… yeah, that was almost delivering the big O anyway.
As in… wOw.
So they spent their time in proximity because they could, because they wanted to and because they genuinely might need to be close for Ethan’s sake. Luckily it was the weekend and in terms of being apart they’d barely had to venture more than the distance down the hall to the bathroom in all that time.
Of course, that was something that had amused Annie no end when they ran into each other. And amusing Annie was something that was usually accompanied by furious blushes. Tara’s friend was an uncannily accurate judge and didn’t hold a thing back. If she thought it then it came out of her mouth.
And yeah, that was probably why she liked Annie too.
Tomorrow though they were going to have to go to go out and then even possibly abandon classes if the call came in at the wrong time. That’d be a drag, obviously.
All the same, even though she didn’t like Ethan Rayne very much, it was hard not to worry about what was taking so long and what might’ve happened to him down there.
No little part of that was selfish. If he’d been captured and interrogated – or worse – then there was the question of what might he have given away. Theoretically – though it was unlikely – they might also track the code on the USB stick back to her. Or at least to some of the illegal things she’d done before with a computer. Code, she was told, was like a fingerprint. It was just a question of whether they had her ‘prints’ on record.
Every time there was a noise outside the room she wondered whether it was some Initiative storm trooper about to burst in.
Of course when she was here, Tara could distract her from that fear and she wasn’t especially worried about anyone bursting into her room. Buffy could take care of herself if that happened. And the intruders.
What was she going to do about Buffy? And the others, but mostly Buffy. Xander had his own life now, he had Anya. Buffy almost had a boyfriend, but not quite yet – last she knew – but they shared a room and they both went to college here and…
They were friends. And Eddie was,undoubtedly, a boy.
Also, maybe now Tara was her best friend? And having a girlfriend – every sense of the word – was different to a boyfriend. With Oz, Buffy had stayed her best friend but now she was with Tara… the things she’d have confided with one person in the world, she’d confide in Tara instead. Wasn’t that what a best friend was? Someone you could tell anything too? Was that a different, lesbionic aspect to being girlfriends?
That she and Tara were – almost – lovers as well didn’t change how she felt about her as that one person.
And didn’t Buffy deserve to know about that change in status? Wouldn’t it just be good to tell her? But the longer it went then the harder it became. The part that was all ‘why didn’t you tell me when you first kissed’ was harder to ignore. By this point, Buffy might be as hurt to find out so late as she would about not finding out at all.
“Ping, Willow,” Tara said.
“Huh?”
“P-ping. It pinged. Your computer pinged.”
“It’s an iBook,” Willow said and not for the first time. But that was okay, Tara wasn’t technically minded. She could type up her papers and that was pretty much as much as she needed any kind of computer for. Email was just something unfortunate that happened to other people.
“Then your iBook pinged,” she said, persistent while Willow was all comfortable right where she was, thank you, Ma’am.
“Oh.”
“Couldn’t that be Ethan?”
She figured it out just as Tara said it. “Ohh…” Untangling herself from both Tara and the sheets proved to be a less than graceful exercise, but once she was up on her feet – albeit mostly undressed – she was able to pad quickly across the room.
“Oooh,” she said. “You’re right. Good ears, baby. Good as the rest of you.” She’d kissed them often enough. Whispered sweet somethings. Because she wanted no part of nothings.
Tara grinned. “It’s him then?”
“Well, it’s not necessarily him, but someone plugged that stick in and… I really, really hope it’s him.”
“Why?”
“Think about where he was keeping it,” she said and waited.
“Ohhh.”
“Yeah. I mean, whoever these Initiative people are they’re Americans and they’re soldiers too and no one who’s serving their country deserves to be… well, handling that. Its asking more than any man can give.”
“You’re right. What can you see?”
She was way ahead of Tara’s question, already exploring what she could do and what she could see. After all she had no idea how long this access would last. In theory it was supposed to be untraceable, but she knew that was a fallacy. It was just extremely difficult to trace, but this was the government and for them ‘extremely difficult’ was usually just a question of how much cash and time you could throw at the problem.
Even though she was good, she wasn’t so good that an army of people with better skills than her at NSA couldn’t track her if they were alerted fast enough. Would they though? And how long to get around her safeguards?
And then it should only come back to the college. Not to this room, or her. She was on the public network, after all and had taken precautions.
But what was showing up… There was lots of it coming in.
“I’m not really paying attention to anything in particular right now,” she said. “I’m basically downloading absolutely everything we can get access to and we can look at it later.”
“Could it be a trick?” Tara wondered.
“Could be,” Willow said. “But the first rule of hacking is that people are often dumber than you assume they’d be. Passwords that are just, like ‘password’ or their name or their dog’s name… stuff like that. That goes for the government too. You have no idea how many times I could’ve shut down the Sunnydale water supply when I was in looking at the sewer systems, all because the supervisor was – Oh.”
“Oh?”
“That’s odd. “Not dangerous,” she clarified when Tara looked concerned. “But it’s definitely… odd.” She continued when it was obvious that Tara was waiting rather than questioning further. “An alarm.”
“Switch it off then, before they… trace you?”
“That’s right, you do mean trace,” Willow said, all proud of her girl. “But it’s not an alarm about me or the computer. In fact, the IT systems are the only part that’s not on alert. It’s like, the whole place is on alert. Something physical is happening over there.”
“Speaking of something physical,” Tara said, draping an open shirt over her. “Put this on… if they come storming in I don’t want them looking at you.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Willow replied, pulling the shirt on and trying to keep her movement around the downloads and the system going at the same time. If they locked down they could cut the connection and she might never get it back in again. But the hard drive she’d hooked up especially for the job – not wanting to risk her iBook and walking around with compromising material - was already getting to 30% capacity and it was just keeping on going…
Yowser. She’d got top of the line, the biggest – backsack portable – drive she’d been able to find. Hooked into the biggest and best internet connection the college could provide for the line in. Maybe all that wasn’t going to be enough.
There were documents, thousands of them. More than she’d be able to read. Video files too, that was where the volume of data was coming from, but the proximity of the data source as well as the fact that the campus seemed to have benefited from the most insanely high bandwidth links that she’d ever heard of meant that this was going about as fast the drive could keep up with. It was getting hot too and she could imagine the little heads inside flying back and forth, trying to write the data and keep up.
“You call it sweet, I call it possessive,” Tara said, buttoning the shirt a little higher for her and peering over her now covered shoulder. “You’re sure that dot above the screen isn’t a camera?”
“As if anyone would sit front of a computer with no clothes on with someone looking at them!”
“Don’t think I don’t know what people use the internet for,” Tara said.
“But not that.I mean… ew. But look at all this stuff? Wow… If this is a trap, if they’re doing this to entrap us then not only am I worse at this than I thought I was but they’d have to faked a whole load of documents and clips and… pictures.” She opened one, figuring just one wouldn’t hurt.
“What’s that?”
She was wrong… it did hurt. “That’s a demon,” she said. “A demon that they’ve cut open. Holy… look at that. I think it must’ve still been alive!”
Tara’s hand tightened on her arm at that moment and Willow turned her head to the left, looking at her. “You’re so sweet and sensitive,” she said, realising how that made Tara feel. “Worrying… It’s a demon, I’m sure they had good reason…”
Tara didn’t seem mollified by that though.
“What if it’d been a person? Say a witch? Or a werewolf?”
It didn’t take much thought to imagine that, considering even Verruca on that table – let alone Oz… No.
“What if it had been me?” Tara asked very quietly.
“But you see, I’d never let that happen. Never,” and she reinforced it with a kiss but then had to turn back to the screen.
“It’s the government, Willow. I don’t think that they’ll much care if we have green skin and horns, pointy teeth and funny faces or we look absolutely normal but can do things that other people can’t. Rituals… rituals are one thing, anyone can do that if they can read and learn. But power…? Momma warned me about times like these. That’s why – that’s why they have to – they can’t keep doing things like this.”
Willow didn’t quite know what to say. Swearing she’d never let it happen wasn’t enough, that was obvious, because standing up to the whole government? That was a pretty impossible task. Maybe a Goddess could do it and stand a chance, but them?
She didn’t know what the answer was. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to look at this stuff and… if they’re doing this, if that wasn’t just bad luck that you picked and opened the only one – like if it had an accident and they were treating it then… If it’s not that - ”
“Go on?”
“They have to be stopped.”
“Stopped?”
“We the people…” Tara said.
Stopped?
Tara meant it.
-----------------------------
She’d gone too far, that had been a mistake.
What if she’d given herself away, what if Willow had realised what she was? They’d come so far, gotten so deeply into each other that… Willow walking away now would break me.
If she leaves me now, I might as well go home and lock myself in that room.
Finding out what she had, that there were people out there – real people – looking for people – things – like her. Momma had always warned her to keep what she could do to herself. Daddy had drilled it into her. The penalties for using her power anywhere outside their own four walls…
He’d never, ever hit her - even though Donny had taken a few whuppings when he’d screwed up. But she knew that he would’ve done, to save her from herself if she’d used what she’d been taught anywhere that someone could see. Somewhere it couldn’t be explained away.
‘Rationalised away’ as they said here in Sunnydale.
“Tara?”
Willow was in the bathrooms, not quite banging on the cubicle doors but being as hers was the only one that was occupied… Yeah, she wasn’t really hiding away.
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
“I… Those pictures just hit me.”
“Tara, they’re only demons,” Willow said and she obviously had no idea, no clue what she was saying. Why should she? She’d spent the last few years helping a Slayer kill virtually everything that didn’t just walk on two legs, eat Dorito’s and crash out in front of the television.
And what did she say now? What did she say that didn’t give her away? That didn’t mark her out as some sort of firth columnist or demon sympathizer?
It wasn’t that she argued with what Willow and her friends – or Diana – had been doing. When something was out there that the police couldn’t help with, hurting or killing people then someone had to do something about it. No question. She’d be first in line – you know, after people who were actually good at fighting – to protect someone else.
But wanting to hurt or kill someone wasn’t what made those things a demon. People were perfectly capable of doing that to each other. Demons, what they called demons, were… born that way. It was no different from skin colour, liking girls or having hair that looked good when you dyed it blonde.
Being a demon wasn’t what you did, it was who you were. Momma had proved that, having one inside of her… It’d always been there, Tara’s whole life her mother had been subject to the presence of that thing and it was in her too. It was where the magic came from.
But Momma had raised two good kids – well, kind of good in Donny’s case – and she’ d been a good, loving mother. Whether a demon was in her or not… And she knew there were all sorts of demons that just got on with their daily lives, never even making their presence known in the world. Let alone hurting anyone.
So if someone was slicing up anyone they thought was a ‘demon’, anyone they thought was different to them… Where did it end? Call it medical research, call it something to help with the defence projects or whatever was going on. She didn’t see that as any different to the worst excesses of the last century, when one group of people with power had tried to wipe out anyone who was different…
Lots of demons were just like regular people. She knew that, she assumed Willow did. So where could ‘they’re just demons’ come from?
Maybe because here, on a Hellmouth, all the demons that Willow met were trying to cause trouble, hurt her friends or to rip reality asunder. That could influence your thinking, she was willing to concede.
But that didn’t make that sort of statement right. Or mean it should be allowed to pass without argument.
“They’re not only anything,” Tara said to the door, knowing that Willow was right outside it.
“I didn’t mean - ”
“Wh-What did you mean?” A Rosenberg thought that way?
“What? Tara, I don’t want to fight about this.”
“We’re not fighting, Willow, we’re not, I promise you. But I want to know, I need to know what you think about… well, anyone who’s not quite a normal person.”
“What’s normal?” Willow asked.
Good question. Great question.
“I mean, I’ve been an outsider all my life. I’m a ginger Jew for goodness sake, it doesn’t get much more unusual than that. Then I’ve been a geek, a nerd, a groupie and hung out with a girl who kills vampires for a living, but doesn’t actually get paid for it.
“I’ve found out I can do magic, without rituals to power them, and now… I’m in love with a beautiful woman who apparently will make me talk to a door if she gets upset with me. So… you tell me, what is normal?”
Tara opened the door, letting Willow look at her. She wasn’t crying, she hadn’t been. She’d come here for… her room had always been a private space, somewhere no one else went. Now… it was a space that belonged to them and rightly so. Which left this space as the best she’d been able to do.
But no, they weren’t having a fight. This was just…
I’m disappointed. Disappointed that she doesn’t watch for her words like I do. Disappointed she feels that way… Terrified of how she’ll feel about me when she finds out what I am. Afraid of what happens if I can’t make her understand before then.
“Normal is… I don’t know, I don’t think I should’ve used that word because I don’t even know what isn’t normal.”
“I knew what you meant though,” Willow said. “I was just… I didn’t like to be called on something I shouldn’t have said so I turned into something about you and I shouldn’t have done. I’m sorry.”
“I – I already told you,” Tara told her, “we’re not having a fight, Willow. You don’t have to apologise.”
“Well, I want to but… not here. Can’t we go back to your room and I’ll say I’m sorry?”
Smiling, Tara let Willow lead her back there. The apology wasn’t overly sensual, not at all. Neither of them seemed to feel like that, though the way Willow had put it had suggested that maybe she’d been thinking that way.
No, it was a calmer, simpler apology. Being close and intimate without the need for much in the way of caresses, removed clothes or kissing. With her forehead pressed up against Willow’s while they lay on the bed, there was no doubt just how penitent Willow really was.
Could she forget what had been said? No, it was one of those things that had already been haunting her on and off. The more she got invested in Willow Rosenberg, the more she had to lose and the more she was afraid of it. But the compensations and the distractions of the life they were living now, students, (almost) lover and hands of the Goddess was more than just a distraction.
“Is that still going?” Tara asked a little while later.
“Huh?”
“The computer – I mean the iBook?”
“Oh – damn it!” Willow darted from the bed – all jiggly - and went back to the computer but… lost her sense of concern. “Still downloading,” she said, relieved. “Whatever was going on in the real world… they’re still going that way.”
“If they were coming for us, they’d be here,” Tara said. “I mean, I guess. It’s not like we’re far away. So… it’s not you that tripped an alarm and they haven’t found what Ethan put in their system?”
“Looks like it,” Willow said. “I suppose we… we better get dressed.”
Tara nodded, already taking steps. “He’s out of his cell, but he’s not sent us a signal yet,” she said.
“So what’s he doing?” Willow agreed. “And have you seen my bra?”
Tara leaned over, following a touch of black at the edge of the bed. Apparently, somehow, it’d gotten shoved down the back of the mattress. “Here. And… I don’t know. I’m new to all this.”
“Me too,” Willow said, putting it on “Usually we just see things get stabbed. I’m not usually braless during that though. But the computer work’s familiar ground.”
“I-I don’t know, but I think there must be something in all this,” Tara peered at the computer and the blinking light on the hard-drive as more and more was downloaded to it. Like Willow had said this must be too much for the government to have faked just for them, which meant that it must be real which meant… they could find out a lot of what was going on, right?
If they could ever get all through the documents. The count showed hundreds of thousands of files. Was that right? What were they supposed to do with it all? How were they even supposed to start?
“You’d think,” Willow said. “There’s so much though that I’ll have to try and find some way of filtering it down. Either that or we get everyone we know to sit and review the documents for as long as it takes. Ooh, tag.”
Willow tucked a tag in for her while Tara considered her words. It was a possibility and as such she didn’t rule it out. Of course the ‘everyone’ would mostly be composed of Willow’s friends, maybe some of the people from the Wicca Group, the ones who’d proven to have some power of their own? A reason to be afraid of this… Of their own government?
Diana? Probably not. Sitting around reading plainly wasn’t her style. More likely the dogs than her.
Once they were both dressed and had found themselves almost kissing once more, a second beep marked… what?
“What’s that?”
“Drive’s full.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we got more, waaay more than I ever expected and there’s more stuff here than we’ll get to look at in a month of Sundays. But, bright side, it doesn’t much matter when they find the USB now at least apart from the direct access it gives me.”
“Okay… and Ethan?”
Willow slipped into the chair before the desk. “Well, now everything’s downloaded let’s see if we can find a way through the system… Damned alert’s flagged all over the place, from security through to the janitor’s office.”
“Security sounds like a good place to start,” Tara said.
“You’d think, but that’s also the place where you run into the most problems and are more likely to get cut off. On the other hand janitors, kitchens and the like… They often have to know things about buildings and people in them that give away the same info without being protected or trip-wired. Look, see…”
“What is that?”
“I think it’s the kitchens. They’re feeding… wow, dozens of people who aren’t going down to the canteens. Now, I say people… Look at some of these ingredients. I mean… It’s one thing to find roaches in the kitchen, it’s another to be preparing them.”
“Eww.”
“Exactly and, don’t look, that’s not the worst of it.”
Okay, she was definitely willing not to look.
“But, yeah, but in the same area they were providing oatmeal, grilled cheese and… pasta, just for the last few days, two days. No menu variation, but sounds like a meal for a human to me.”
Tara couldn’t argue, instead she put her hand over and squeezed Willow’s. “Well done, honey.”
“Oh, I’ve not done much. Yet. But see, if we cross check where the meal was supposed to go with the floor plans and then we’ll know where he was at least and then we take a look… door’s open. He’s out.”
“I’m impressed.”
“You should be. As long as he was actually the grilled cheese boy.”
“I’m still impressed, whether he was or not.” She nuzzled up to Willow, just to demonstrate. It seemed to satisfy her too.
“Now,” Willow said, “what we need to do now is figure out where he is now. I mean… just because he’s not in his cell doesn’t necessarily mean he’s okay.”
Tara pursed her lips, she hadn’t thought about that. With enough freedom to cause the computer infiltration she’d just assumed that Ethan was – at least – on the run.
Naturally he could’ve been caught, he might never have been free, just having a split second to slip the USB from one slot to another. And again with the eww.
Or he might already be dead, but… that seemed unlikely. Would he really have so little time to react that he couldn’t have asked for their assistance? They’d made very specific arrangements before asking him to go down there, surpassing anything Diana had suggested should happen.
From her point of view, if Ethan was going down there then there had to be a way to get him out and yes, it was theoretical and it was going to be difficult but… they could do it.
She chose to believe that. She and Willow had touched on more spells since the ones with the rose and by now they were experts at reaching states of calm – through which the power flowed with ease – very quickly. That was, after all, what Diana’s lessons had been about.
And now they had a purpose where as they hadn’t before.
“I think we should get ready,” she said. “Just in case.”
“We’ve been ready for the last two days.”
“No, we’ve just been here, together,” Tara corrected. “I don’t know, I just think… I think he’ll need us to get out of there soon.”
Willow looked up at her, then nodded, accepting it and they both moved to sit on the floor, facing each other with their hands linked together. Without needing the words that Diana used, their breathing moving into synch, slowed and yet didn’t starve them of air. Instead their heart rates eased to match and Tara was aware, even though she was pulling back from the conscious world, of how much closer they were.
Plucking a rose like this, they wouldn’t be aware of the beauty, but they’d have managed it flawlessly at its most complex and never even notice the effort. Or even a dozen on them all at the same time.
And they needed it.
Time passed without notice as they sat there with each other. Being one. And then the surge of alarm that was rooted in the limited power Ethan was able to manipulate was real and urgent. He couldn’t have summoned their assistance without true urgency and danger if he wanted to, they’d tried, but now she and Willow were instantly aware of it. Her awareness of the need to prepare seemed to be prescient, but now with Willow they were focused on what they needed to do.
Snatching Ethan Rayne from the jaws of danger, possibly death.
That this was theory and book learning, never tested by either of them, had vanished in the calm. Even though she understood it very clearly, or rather they did, it absolutely didn’t matter.
The presence of Ethan was with them. Not knowing to know where he was in a physical sense, they had a grasp on him in the metaphysical side instead. The location came from Ethan himself, his sense of self and his perceptions of placement. The mind and the body could not – usually – be separated and the connection between those elements would pull the soul along with it.
No words were required, no look between them. No ritual ingredients, just the force of their will combined and twisted to bring Ethan…
Here.
*********************
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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.
Chance in *Chance*
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I like the distraction, fighting statues, ha! 
Which always makes me giggle.
