Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter Four 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: Still the same night… Introducing another character… This is the way this story goes, we’re just working through the season so while some events – especially at the start – are familiar – who Tara was back at the start of the season interests me a lot and I wanted to get this in early. 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: Yup, more short parts I’ve consolidated into one longer one, which affects how they flow just a little and we might have some mini-climaxes along the way when that happened (no, nothing dirty!) Once I got a little deeper into the fic this stopped happening, I only chaptered after about 2500 to 3500 words. But at the start, I wasn’t sure how I’d be structuring it so apologies for that. Yes, as in the last chapter Oz is mentioned here as Willow’s current boyfriend. Don’t even tell me about it. Please see the lengthy disclaimer at the start of the thread and the events of Chapter One which establish that by the end this will not be the case. Oh, Tara and the Wicca Bi-yatches (as someone put it), yeah, they’re not that welcoming but what I am trying to get to here too is that some of this Tara does to herself. I know that I do, in real life. You have a clean slate with people and you often bring your history to the table and spoil it before it starts. Also though, it’s just Tara’s perspective, not an objective truth… Thanks to: If something in this story sounds cool, especially dialogue, then the chances are I lifted it (or just sub-consciously brought it over) from the canon episodes. So thanks to the talented people who wrote those. Basically we’ve all been copying that style since the episodes aired and what I hate about that – after 10 years not watching the show – is that I really can’t say where it’s happening and where it isn’t so I can’t be specific about it. This was why original writing was just so much easier LOL.
“So once again everyone, thank you, thank you all for coming. Blessings on all of us. I know we didn’t get around to much at the last meeting, but we’ve always run this group primarily as friends and I think it’s important to get to know each other. And when we next get together, we’ll start to explore what it is to be a Wiccan in the modern world.”
Eliza’s blessing rounded off the meeting and then – as often happened – people formed little clusters.
Tara had seen that sort of thing plenty of times before, from the outside. By now she was quite adept at judging where it was going to happen and avoiding getting in the way. Who wanted an awkward girl getting in the way, it wasn’t exactly fair was it?
Awkward girls should just keep to themselves, it was what they were good at. Her too.
The two girls who were obviously together, they’d been sneering their way through everything after the introductions. They wouldn’t be back, actually they looked like they had better things to be doing – with each other - right now. They didn’t hang around any longer than it took to chat to the two friends who’d also arrived together, spreading their negative feelings and promising to meet up later. Somewhere else. So there wasn’t much chance those two would come back either.
That left another eight, a group of three and one of five. Eliza, clearly, was at the heart of the larger group and the other three, realising they were out in the cold moved to get closer to her. Nothing new there then.
She supposed that there’d be new people coming along in the coming weeks as people found their feet in college and started to look around at what was on offer. Though there’d been a delay at the start of the semester, it was only now that people in her dorm were really looking around at what else they could do but study.
Not that she thought any of them would come here.
But it’d be nice, when the numbers went up. And once they were out of the introductions, then they’d get meetings where the existing members from the last couple of years intake came along too.
Reassured by those thoughts she pushed her notebook into her bag, ready to leave. She’d only brought the book because she’d thought that maybe there’d be some spells to write down. Maybe next time though, maybe she’d want to take notes about being a Wiccan in the modern world. That sounded like it might be interesting too – she wasn’t here just for the magic.
It didn’t really bother her that no one really said anything, though there were a couple of half-hearted waves. No one was going to talk to her, not unless she went up to them and she was hardly going to do that. Not that she blamed them, introducing herself had been a little disaster all of its own. Better, perhaps, than introducing someone else and messing that up but…
Maybe they’d understood that actually she didn’t do the talking thing all that much. A couple of people had looked like they were taking pity on her and she wasn’t the only one who’d stumbled on her words but… She could tell that most of the others talked all the time. Most people did. It just wasn’t her thing. She was comfortable in silence.
Plus she liked to think that when she had something really important to say then everything would just come together and the words would no longer elude her. It was often the way. Until then though, quietly was the way to move through life.
“Bye, Lara,” Eliza said as she walked past the group, leaving the rest of them there to finish off. Okay, she felt a little guilty leaving them to clean up, but she didn’t want anyone to feel like that had to make small talk to her either.
“B-bye.”
Okay, so Eliza hadn’t quite remembered her name but, it was close and her handwriting on the badge wasn’t the best and she had made a mess of her introduction last time. So it really wasn’t Eliza’s fault. Just because she wished it was different, didn’t mean that it should be.
The worst thing ever was when she couldn’t quite get her own name out. Soooo embarrassing.
Not living in the past though was something she’d gotten good at. She’d wallowed in her grief over Momma for so long that she’d lost some of those friends who’d still been with her. It’d been mostly her own fault when they just stopped calling. Now… she was looking forwards.
New people, new opportunities and new friends.
She’d worked towards college when it was something that the family couldn’t really afford. Especially given what was going to happen down the line…
Now she was here and this was one more chance to get out, meet new people and… have them laugh at her?
Not out loud - at least not many of them - and she tried very hard not to show that she’d even noticed when she’d faltered for the third time, but of course she was used to spotting the signs of her own vocal irregularities.
People could be cruel, but it only hurt the most if you let it get to you and – at the end of the day – they were mostly showing themselves up for what they were. Pretty girls, many of them, who’d never quite fitted in at school and now they were in college, excluded from the sororities, started to behave like the girls who’d looked down at them had.
After all, cheerleader types didn’t end up at Wicca Group.
It made them feel better about themselves and their empty little lives and she wasn’t about to take that away from them.
Hmm, where had all that come from?
“I-I’m sorry,” Tara said, just avoiding walking into someone. Daddy would’ve told her not to look at her feet. But Daddy wouldn’t have wanted in this room at all.
“I’d consider it a favour if you’d hold for a moment?”
The voice was… strange, female and young but… not quite what it should’ve been. It was like there was some sort of buzzing in her head when… “Umm – hold what – I m-mean, yes?”
“Would you know if this is the temple of Diana?”
“N-no,” Tara replied, surprised at the question. “It’s a school, a college.”
“A place of learning,” the young woman said. “I know these words.”
Finally looking up, she noted the bare feet and the long, taut and bare legs. “Are-are you alright? Are you a student here?” she asked. If there was a problem with security then she ought to say something to someone, but if this girl was in trouble – mostly you were in trouble if you’d lost your shoes – but…
Meeting her eyes though, they were so green that you could lose yourself in them and not in a good way. Not in a way you’d ever want to. It’d be more like… drowning.
“I seek the temple of Diana.”
“There’s no temple here,” Tara said. “This was the Wicca Group – but it’s finished now – Wait. D-Diana? Do you mean the Goddess? That Diana?” It’d suddenly occurred to what the girl might’ve meant.
“The Goddess… yes. Do you worship her?”
The buzzing was still there and it seemed more excited, like bees that had been aggravated. Something just felt… Something felt ‘off’ about all this. Off enough that she knew she ought to listen to her instincts which were to admit everything. Say whatever you have to. But tell the truth.
“I’m a believer,” Tara found herself saying.
“And your mother before you and hers before that…” the woman said, looking into her eyes.
“H-How did you know?” Were those green eyes sucking the truth from her somehow?
“A guess, no more. Do you leave immediately?”
“Yes, I – I have to go. Now.” It wasn’t the buzzing that was making her feel uncomfortable.
“The others, in there. Do they also believe?” the woman asked.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” This girl was behaving very strangely and speaking… oddly too. She looked like she’d lost most of her clothes and her shoes, could she have been attacked? “Would you like me to get someone?”
She didn’t look like she’d let herself be attacked. So where were her shoes? The rest of her clothes?
The girl smiled, running one hand around the door Tara had just come through. “Thanks to you, but no. I am quite well. It might be that we will meet again.”
“I – That would be n-nice,” she said as the woman slipped by her into the meeting room.
Okay, so if she’d not been hurt then perhaps maybe this was someone who was into those re-enactments? There’d been a group down the road in Shelbyville when she’d been growing up, every so often on a weekend you’d hear the boom of replica cannon and the shooting of rifles.
Except, generally, they weren’t looking for the Wicca Group. They’d been pretty firmly opposed to anything of that kind, most of them would’ve cheerfully participated in a re-enactment of burning witches too. If they’d known about them.
Tara hesitated, reaching out with the senses that Momma had shown her but Daddy had always said she should keep under wraps. Laying her hand against the wall, letting the sensations flow through her…
It was less obvious than listening at the door and attuned to the things that couldn’t be seen or heard. Once Momma had taught her the trick, one of many, the chief use for it had been for gauging just how bad it was, that time when Momma had to be confined for her own good.
To stop the demon from getting out.
And that was the last time that she’d felt the buzzing… Around another person like herself, someone who had access to these tricks and – in Momma’s case – someone who was just as possessed.
Of course, Momma had – sometimes – touched her in the same way. Stretching out with senses that no one else possessed. And, somehow, they’d felt a little less lonely in those moments. It’d helped both of them to do that.
Because Tara knew that one day her demon would emerge and then all the tricks, all of the education and the sniggers at the way she talked wouldn’t matter. Then she’d just have to do what was for the best… go home and make sure that she didn’t hurt anyone.
Until then though… Life was for living. Right?
Reassured that there was nothing wrong in the meeting room, Tara slipped out into the cool night air, wondering whether she should be surprised that the buzzing had returned? After all, she’d been to Wicca Group and even though there’d been some awkwardness and a strange, barefoot woman turning up towards the end… generally it’d been a success.
She’d be coming back next time.
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“Willow, you do understand, don’t you, that I’m no longer a Watcher?”
“Just because they replaced you with a younger model, they took your away your secret decoder ring?”
Ha! So who couldn’t manage a quip?
Even if it was something that she’d heard Buffy say earlier in the night. Recollection was an underestimated part of producing a quippy quip though.
The stuffy Englishman and the valley girl Slayer… They were worried about each other, even though they might make a great play of the fact that they were moving on with their lives. It was natural, she supposed. The end of high school – especially in an explosive manner – had been a big change for both of them. Giles didn’t even have a job at the moment, outside being a Watcher – or not being, which was his point.
“No, but when my Slayer doesn’t need me anymore – a fact she’s made quite plain and I happen to agree with – I can consider myself… officially and unofficially retired. It’s a natural process. A cycle, if you like.”
“Birth, life, decrepitude, death?” she wondered.
“That’s not quite how I’d have put it, but if you like… yes. This game belongs to the young.”
“Like Wesley?” Wesley who’d rolled in, failed, rolled out and now was… who knows where?
“The Council really did take away his decoder ring,” Giles said, showing her inside since – obviously – she had no intention of leaving his doorstep until she’d discussed what was on her mind.
She was quite proud of that, the old Willow would just have buckled and let him get back to… “You weren’t doing anything were you?”
“Ah, only sleeping – it is what is traditionally considered the middle of the night. In some cultures – including this one – it’s also considered the time for sleeping.”
“That’s it! Exactly!”
“What’s it?”
“My roommate, she’s clearly from another culture where night isn’t for sleeping.”
“Ah, you’re still having problems then?”
“Problems would imply there was a solution,” she replied, doing her best imitation of him.
“You know, in my own day, I too had a difficult roommate.”
“What did you do?”
He looked just the tiniest bit sheepish. “I’m not sure my solution is really what you need right now.”
“No, come on, lay that English wisdom on me. At this point I’m ready to try anything. Even tea and crumpets.”
“Actually, I gave him one of my spliffs. We didn’t have any more problems after that.”
Willow sighed. It was all too easy to forget – mercifully given that incident with the band candy – that Giles had once upon a time been the party guy. Full time rebel and only part time college student. Oh and part time black magic practitioner, which was really too many parts for one person, but… He’d made it through and become the man he was today. He didn’t wear tweed pyjamas, which was unexpected. “You think I’m too uptight?”
It was something she’d wondered about.
“Not at all. From the perspective of a gentleman of my generation, I’m entirely sympathetic.”
“But if you were you when you were you back then and I was me and your roommate – not that I’m sure they had co-ed roommates even back then in England – you’d be giving me some of your drugs wouldn’t you?”
Which led her to uncomfortable consideration of what else he might have been giving her in those circumstances. Ewwww. Puppies. Kittens. Chocolate. Nice things!
“If it had been called for,” he said. “But I’m not proud of it. Drugs, after all, are bad.”
“Don’t worry, you convinced me,” she reassured him.
“Why are you here, Willow? Lovely as it is to see you, of course at… one in the morning, but if Buffy needed something then I’m sure she’d have come herself.”
“Buffy’s gone back to her nice, quiet room to sleep,” Willow said. “Even if she’s got an interesting roommate, it’s not one that keeps her up at night and makes her cry because all you really want is more than two hours of sleep before class.”
“While you come here to plague me – I’m sorry, I mean, consult with me over…?”
“Look, I can go if you like?” She was half convinced that he might say ‘yes’ and, in all honesty, what she had to say could wait. Going back to the dorm was just…
It was ‘just’.
Considering what someone might be doing on her bed too – even though it’d been there for years already – took her back to that ‘eww’ place. It wouldn’t be the first time…
“No, not at all. I… couldn’t sleep anyway. Not after the doorbell rang. Tea?”
“Tea won’t help you sleep either,” Willow pointed out. “The caffeine – “ Then she shut her mouth.
“What happened tonight then? I assumed you and Buffy were out patrolling?” he asked while he busied himself with making his tea.
“She was patrolling,” Willow said. “I was along for quips.”
“Kicks?” he asked as he put water into the tea kettle.
“Quips – humorous comments made at opportune moments - ”
“I’m well aware of what a quip is, I just couldn’t hear you very well. So did you come up with any?”
“What?”
“Quips?”
“Oh… a few, it was one of those too much to say, too little time things. Buffy was happy in the end. She stabbed something, you know how she always feels better when she stabs something.”
“I’d noticed but I’m sure you came here for some other reason than to confirm that you can, in fact, quip adequately?”
Or inadequately actually, but a girl had her pride. Not much right now, but some.
“Well… here’s a question for you, what makes a vampire run away?” Willow asked.
“I don’t think it’s that surprising that a vampire would run away from Buffy, after all she has quite the reputation locally - ”
“No,” Willow corrected. “He ran into us, he didn’t even see us until he was already falling over Buffy. Seemed like he was running scared of something. Something else. Not us. Not Buffy anyway.”
“Well, if there’s one thing that giant snakes have taught us, it’s that there’s always someone or something that’s bigger and scarier than you are,” Giles replied, but he’d given it a few moments thought.
“So you don’t know?”
“Well, no… as a rule the demon shapes the behaviour of your average vampire. They remember who they were, it might influence their behaviour to some extent, but generally they want to inflict fear, to strike terror into the hearts of their victims in order to savour the taste all the more when they feed - ”
“That’s more information than I needed,” Willow told him firmly, it wasn’t something she’d really considered. Or needed to.
“That’s not the only influence, of course, the hunger drives them and we’ve seen many times that there’s a fierce streak of self-preservation which runs through even the most inept vampire. Perhaps you merely came across one who was more skittish than the others?”
Willow considered that possibility. She’d seen enough vampires over the years and few enough of them running away… “No, he was absolutely terrified of something.”
“Well, I assume you didn’t see anything to explain his reaction?”
“No,” Willow confirmed, “and Buffy had staked him before I could ask anything so…” Shrugging she had to admit there wasn’t anything else she could really add. “Seems little enough to have gotten you up for, right?”
“No, no… not at all. I mean, I wish you had shown a little more consideration, but since you didn’t I think it’s a good enough reason. If there is something out there that makes vampires flee in abject terror it’s something we need to be aware of. One way or another.”
“It could be good for us, you mean?” Willow checked.
“The enemy of my enemy is, quite often, my friend.”
“Or the enemy of my enemy is a bigger, scarier monster-type enemy?” Experience pointed in that direction, after all.
“Quite. I’ve been thinking about your problem,” he said when she didn’t make any effort to get up and leave, even though the conversation was pretty much over and the night wasn’t getting any younger. Except for how it was because it was, you know, morning.
Leaving though… back to her dorm? Nah.
So actually she was glad to have something else to talk about. “Problem?”
“Your roommate?”
“Oh. Her.”
“It seems to me that you already have a – what do they call it? Exit strategy? Surely you could go and spend some time with Oz? He lives quite close to campus doesn’t he?”
“Yeah…”
“Or have I struck a nerve?” he wondered.
“No, not really it’s just… He’s being a guy.”
“Oh.”
“You’re supposed to ask what I mean,” Willow prompted.
“I may not be married, but I’ve learned enough over the not inconsiderable number of years that ‘He’s being a guy’ should be explanation enough in its own right, even though it might cover a multitude of sins – real or imagined.”
Willow shook her head. “There’s no sinning, especially not in the multitudes. It’s just… he has this really cool house with the guys…”
“Ah, it’s too guyish?”
“They’re just… cool. I mean, it’s my boyfriend who is cool too, but the more I’m around there, the more I realise that no matter what I do to my hair - ”
“Oh, you cut your hair! Yes, very nice.”
“Way to go Mister Watcher, but no matter what I do, I’m always going to be the one who’s less cool than they are. And until they all put on fifty pounds, work dead end jobs and lose their hair while they cling to their youthful best years that’s probably going be the way it is. Not that, you know, I want that to happen because I like Oz with hair. Not like – hair hair, werewolf hair, but his hair. Oz hair. I like that. He does too – and I should just stop now.”
“It’s probably for the best,” Giles agreed. “So you don’t go round there?”
“Of course I do, but… I don’t want to be always hanging around. I came to college to be me, not to be…”
“A groupie?”
“Exactly. I’m not the band’s girlfriend… and that sounds different than I meant it to.”
“But it remains a denial, which is the important part,” he pointed out after sipping.
“Absolutely!”
“Do you want my advice, Willow?”
“Yes…” Even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. Giles had a nasty habit of telling truths that weren’t easy to swallow.
“Stop worrying about what other people think, Willow,” he said. “Your friends and your family know who you are and I’m proud to count myself amongst both.”
Easier said than done but… if he could say that, he was right.
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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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