Children, children...*S* Just kidding. Nice to see some debate. I realised after laying out that Giles semi-defence yesterday that I really shouldn't have done or at least have prefixed it all IMHO. Yes that is my opinion but I have always wanted the reader to take what they find from this fic... you know what I think and my opinion is no more valid than anyone elses so I will leave that alone. Both Grimlock and Kalita are making reasonable points, see how the future sways that.
All I will add is that you really do have to consider Giles's circumstances here from coming to Sunnydale to now. This Giles not "our" Giles. The gIles who has had to fight almost alone - and lose friends. Then go ahead and hate him if you want to*S*
Zahir... The senior partners. I think some are certainly big old demons, but I also tend to think that maybe some aren't. Almost as if a human lawyer can be as bad as a vicious demon (sorry VN12 who I believe is studying law!) As for what happens to Lilah... well maybe that will be shown one day - but not in this fic.*S*
Valeria - Hi! Thanks for what you said. Now give us a wave. Just a wave*S*
Part 95 below... enjoy Kittens.
Katharyn
--------------
Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – The Nest (Part 95)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome.
katharynrosser@hotmail.comSpoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe though reference is made to events that occur in both realities.
Summary: Willow and Tara have to make a decision.
Disclaimer: I still don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories.
Rating: 15
Couples: W/T
Notes: And this sees the start of the last lap.
Thanks To: Xita. Kerry. Jo. Louise. Paul. Sylvia and all those who read the damn thing.
The Sidestep Chronicle
The Nest
By
Katharyn Rosser
The calm moments after the storms of passion were actually, almost as good as the storms themselves. This one no less than any other they’d experienced. It was just… after. After the cries and the clutching. After the lathing and the lust. The light sheen of sweat was still with them. The evidence of their passion, the tastes, smells and the way that they felt was still with them. The love… the love never went anywhere at all. No matter what.
That was always there. Just as it would always be. Love was always and eternal that was the whole point of love. Forever.
The love was there as they came to be face to face once again. It was there as they tenderly started to kiss and tasted more than just each other. It was there as they gently ran hands over skin that was still sensitised to every little touch or even breath that whispered over delicate flesh. It was always there. Always and eternal.
“You know,” Willow murmured. “One day, if you keep going like that, you might make me float again…”
Tara smiled. Willow’s magic was a subtle thing. Prone to work or fail by moods or emotions rather than anything to do with effort or lack of it. She was getting better at it though, and after that first bad experience they were both being really, really careful. They were learning the right way. Willow was learning and Tara was learning how to teach. That might sort of fit with her ambitions.
One day.
“Was that what that was?” she asked her lover, referring to the high arch that Willow had reached at that ultimate moment of their passion. Tara hadn’t thought a back would contort that far.
Willow was… flexible, which was proving to be good sometimes when they wanted to play as much as they wanted to love.
“No, that was just me, little old normal Willow,” her lover replied. “But there, whilst you were… and I was… Well, I could have… I thought that I would for a moment.” Willow snuggled up against her and resting her head onto Tara’s shoulder. “You make me feel like that, you know?”
Oh, Tara knew all right. She very much knew about that. Willow made her… Float was as good a word as any. But not, yet, magically. Or literally. Right now it was just a sensation rather than an actual reaction. That was something she didn’t think was going to happen to her, as good as Willow could, and did, make her feel. She supposed that it was probably the restraints she had found it necessary to place on herself - for so long. Willow didn’t have that. She hadn’t needed to be anything but careful. Willow hadn’t had to be afraid of the darkness. Not yet. They’d have to watch out for that though… the darkness and the floating. Tara wasn’t at all sure that floating was what the magic was for. Even if it came to them unbidden and even if it hurt no one.
You have to watch out for the magic Tara, its sneaky. I know Momma. I have been watching for it.Not that she was planning on stopping Willow, or herself, if it happened. There might have to be words afterwards though. Words and hugs. And kisses. But maybe words… she would have to see how the magic felt to her then. She thought that she could tell the difference… even if it was being sneaky to express itself. Not how she felt
right then, because at that moment she was sure that it would feel pretty damn good, but after that she would have to see.
Love was a good thing – there was no darkness in love or the expression of love. But… it wasn’t what magic was for…
Willow was in the middle of a vulnerable time in magic terms. She knew enough now to be able to do some things by herself and yet she’d never been tested by the darkness that magic could be. Except for the manifestation itself, and that hadn’t been so bad, not compared to some stories Tara had heard. Tara hoped that Willow would never be tested by it, but all in all this was a bad time really. That was why they were being so careful – Willow really seemed to get it, and she wouldn’t even practice alone. Let alone actually do anything by herself.
Willow understood what could go wrong – in theoretical terms. It was the dark, magical, reality that scared Tara more than theory though. She’d been far too close to it, far too often not to be scared.
“Show me that letter again?” Willow asked her. Willow loved the letters. She liked to hear what was going on in the world beyond them. There was the TV news of course, but that never really seemed like real people to them – even though they knew that it was.
The letters from Jenny though, the latest of which had arrived that morning - actually yesterday morning now as it was so late, were a breath of fresh air to Willow. Tara knew it. She felt the same way about them. It was good to know things and it was good to know about Jenny, Mr Giles and their baby. Even if they didn’t know about Willow… not as such.
Faith.
Little Faith… with a name that should have chilled both of them to the bone. But somehow they both liked that she had been given that name. It was… fitting that somehow Faith could live on and that Jenny and Mr Giles could show how much they had thought of the other Faith. The one that was dead now. It was a tribute to all she had done for Sunnydale, and the world, and that had been a lot more than the Slayer would ever have admitted to. Faith had never been modest – but she hadn’t been one to accept praise either.
It would have bored her and made her look for the next vampire to kill or party to visit.
Faith… The vampire had only known her to kill her – those were all the memories Willow had of her. Tara had tried to get across what Faith had meant to her as a friend, as well as an ally, and Willow really seemed to have got it. ‘Chalk and cheese?’ she’d asked. Tara had been forced to say yes. That was kind of what had made it work. They’d complemented each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
Tara rolled over onto her stomach and felt Willow reach straight away to caress her bare buttocks as she reached for the drawer in the bedside table, her legs across Willow’s. Mmmmmn, well, she might have to search for the letter for a while longer than she strictly needed to. Perhaps Willow understood that was what she was doing though – and that was why there was a playful slap there instead of the continuation of the caress. Perhaps she’d been verbalising the signs of her pleasure at the touch – that was possible. She sometimes didn’t realise that the moans were actually audible. They couldn’t all be audible, because in Willow’s presence she’d never be silent.
Besides… they were definitely done with all that for the night… they had to sleep sometime. Didn’t they?
Letter first though. She pulled it from the drawer, slid that closed again, then came back to Willow. She stayed lying on her belly to look at the contents of the envelope and that forced Willow to do the same, but when her love had adopted that position Tara gave her a little kiss. Willow didn’t seem to mind the inconvenience at all.
----------------------
Mmmm, naked Tara-back. She would have to remember to pay more attention to that in the future. It was just so damn kissable. Not to mention strokable, caressable and lickable. For now she ran a finger up Tara’s spine, delighted to see her love shiver before it tracked back down the same way. With a little extra distance.
She did like making Tara shiver… there had been the ice-cube evening just a few days ago too. Cubes really, as there had been more than one… they’d kept on melting and things had got a bit wet. Still the heat had dried out the sheets… if not the other things that were damp.
And there had been many, many shivers.
She lay there and read the letter which Tara was holding in between them. It wasn’t the first time she’d read it and it might not be the last. She wondered why Jenny, of all people, wasn’t e-mailing them but then she’d remembered what Tara had said about Mr Giles’s abhorrence of all things that replaced the printed and written word. That might be it, or perhaps he didn’t know that Jenny was writing to Tara. A letter could be kept secret… if Jenny forgot to delete an e-mail…
And also Jenny would realise, from what Tara had told her, that people might be after them – or at least her. Letters were safer too.
The main thing about letters though, Willow thought as the first page was turned, was that they seemed to carry more emotion than an e-mail ever could. The look of the handwriting suggested the mood of the writer as much as the words themselves did. And there was always something else to notice in there each time you re-read it. She had to admit that she liked letters and if she ever had to be parted from Tara for any length of time, which was something that she was fervently hoping wouldn’t be true, then she wanted letters. Daily letters. She’d already told Tara that and received one of those smiles which promised it - without having to say the words to each other.
Sometimes the words weren’t necessary and sometimes they were absolutely everything.
She ran her hand back down Tara’s back again and this time she didn’t stop. Instead she followed the curves wherever they led her. There were no shivers this time, but there was, at the end where she met the sheets, wriggling and a gentle admonishing look that said ‘I’m reading… but do go on sweetie.’
Why not?
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The letter had been carefully placed aside when the wriggling had turned to something that was a little more than a wriggle. Not too much more, but just a little into the realm of snuggles. They were both already pretty much sated, but snuggles weren’t something that Tara regretted in the slightest. Sunnydale was still in her head though.
Sunnydale and the people who were there. The places.
They had to go back sometime didn’t they? Was that even a possibility? To avoid that place altogether? No. Not really. They’d come here, Tara had brought Willow here, because Sunnydale wouldn’t have been safe for them – not with what was likely to happen.
But now… it was safe… it had to be safe. She and Willow were both in computer systems all over the place under their own names by now. Willow had even passed her High School Equivalency – in her own name. Okay, so there had been a slight manipulation of the application after it had already been accepted. Willow had convinced her that she could apply under one name and if it seemed safe then hack the system to change it to her own later. That way the results would be in a name that she could use. So Anne Dawson had changed, after the fact, to Willow Rosenberg. But they hadn’t touched the actual assessments. The results were all genuine.
When that had gone okay… after the changes had been made and it was under her name, then they’d managed to get Willow into her SATs as well. Tara had done those when she was at Sunnydale High, finishing off her education, and she’d been pleased with her scores, all things considered. They’d shown that she could’ve had a future.
And with Willow she did have a future. Because she wanted to have a future with Willow… and that opened up all sorts of doors. Fate was on her side now.
But Willow’s SAT results… oh my. Fifteen hundred and forty combined score. After making up all her courses so quickly, after all that she’d been through – refusing to leave the crate in which she’d been brought back from the dead just a few months earlier… and now she had got fifteen hundred and forty combined? Wow.
The verbal score had been a little lower than the math and Tara guessed that result might have been due to the fact that Willow had been forced to do a lot more purely book learning than she would have at school. Though Tara could try and talk things through with her it wasn’t like she was an expert at anything except killing vampires. It was a meeting of peers when they did that learning thing together and not the teacher-pupil thing that would perhaps have benefited Willow a little more.
But still… 1540. Wow.
And if Willow had actually been at school… oh wow.
Scores like that, and even her own slightly more modest one, should have given them options in life. College options. It was nice to have options – except that they really didn’t have all that they might have wanted. They’d been living something of a dream by even hoping that there might be a way they could both go to college - and it had to be both. Neither of them wanted to go without the other. Not leaving the other behind at least. As long as they were in the same place… that was all. Not necessarily both in college.
Money was the thing. They could live here, maybe a little frugally, without having to even get jobs. The insurance took care of that, but they would want jobs if they stayed. A normal life together with some nice things. But out here there was nothing in the way of furthering their education. No community college, no night school. Nothing. No options. Not here.
There was another place, that they knew, where they might have some more options…
If they could make things right.
Even so… If they went there they could get jobs as they studied, but probably not paying enough to cover tuition and living costs too. Which was what they would have to base their plans on.
Willow could certainly, with scores like those get herself a scholarship… maybe they both could, but then they might not get into the same schools… and they had to be together. No long distance relationship was going to satisfy them when they were already so close after so long apart. It wasn't a question of maintaining it… they would love each other whatever, it was just that they’d been apart plenty long enough already. Maybe… Tara could get a proper, full-time, job wherever Willow went to school. That would pay the bills that they’d incur. But did she even have any references? She had sort of arranged to have her last employer… removed. Not something she could put on her application forms.
And this was based on the Willow even deciding that she wanted to do that, and Tara hoped that she would.
But even if she and Willow went somewhere that wasn’t Sunnydale… they couldn’t go back into the world without dealing with all that they had left in that world. The hurt. The guilt. The pain.
They’d have to deal with that before they could go out there.
“We just have to face it,” Willow said.
Tara whipped her head around, wondering if somehow Willow had known what she was thinking and was about to respond to that. “What? We do?”
“Yes we do,” Willow told her. “We’re just too perfect together.” She planted a kiss on Tara lips and Tara was happy to reciprocate.
“Too perfect?” she had to ask a minute or so later when she had shown Willow what she thought one definition of perfect was.
“Well,” Willow mused, “Maybe perfectly perfect. Just perfect enough. Perfect enough for jazz.”
“I love you,” Tara told her – her mind already turning back to what had been dominating it for most of the day.
“I know.”
“I just - I just want you to know that and I like to say it too,” Tara said to her. She was going to have to say something about this. It was the getting there that was going to take some doing. She hated to just dump things like this on Willow, she preferred a nice run up. A suitable topic to lead them in.
“Now I’m all suspicious girl,” Willow told her. She didn’t sound worried, but she knew that something was on Tara’s mind.
There was just no hiding anything from her and actually the question probably made it easier. But first there was another kiss from Willow. “Is that how you do suspicious?” Tara asked her. “I mean you must be suspicious girl all the time, you know… given how much we kiss. I think I like suspicious.”
So Willow kissed her again. “Every time,” she said after they parted again. “What’s wrong baby?”
How to explain it all? Aside from their opportunities and not wanting to miss those… there was more to it than that. They needed… they needed to be out there, in the world. A part of the world.
Right now this house was their whole world. Maybe town was in there too. But they needed to be out there. Both of them did. Together – but out there. Tara was… she loved Willow so much. She loved this house, together, but… she was starting to feel like she had when she was younger. That there was more than just this. There had to be more for them than this.
And this time she already knew that there was. There was a whole world. Some of it was bad… and some of it was so very good. She’d seen both sides.
For them there was the woman that they each loved and there was the entire world that they wanted to share. They each wanted, and needed, both of those in their lives. It was just a question of saying as much, admitting it to each other and getting to the point where they could have the whole world – and still have each other too. Time was pressing though… time was really starting to be a factor – but less so in Sunnydale than anywhere else. Sunnydale was still a town that was trying to live down its reputation. The Mayor had always been very concerned about that reputation – though maybe not for the purest of reasons. If there were going to be applications to be made then they were already late applications. In Sunnydale that wouldn’t be such a problem for them as it would be anywhere else.
More than college though, they had to be out there to face what they had each done and who they’d hurt. They had to do that if they were going to be able to live in the world. They hadn’t come here to escape those things – even if they had managed to do that for a while. They’d come here to get Willow better – that was all. Better, while keeping her safe. They’d come here so that Willow
could go out into the world some day. And now that Willow was so much better… now that they were actually a ‘they’ and there to support each other… well it was getting time to go and face things.
You can’t hide forever Tara.It was time to start to live in the world that they’d left behind when they had come in here and closed the doors behind them. They had to exist in a future that was more than just them and the only real way to do that, Tara had convinced herself after a lot of thought, was by dealing with the past first.
Willow was so much better now. Tara knew that
she was better than she had been too. She had hardly been using the magic and the darkness hadn’t threatened her for so long that she’d almost forgotten how that worry felt.
Almost. It would never totally leave her.
Loving Willow had made her a better person… really being able to love her – without reservation – was what had done that for her. Willow had saved her, and she’d saved Willow too.
But that didn’t excuse the things that they’d done in the past. In Sunnydale. Except Willow hadn’t done them… even if she had.
Tara had been forced to wonder, apart from not finding Willow, what would have happened to her if she’d never gone to that town. She would never have found the justice that now seemed to be something less important than it had been. She might have never survived this long. Things had been easier when she’d had help – rather than being always alone.
But until she’d gone to Sunnydale the darkness hadn’t been as pervasive. It hadn’t been pushing her quite so hard. She’d never done things where she had to wonder if they were right in the ‘bigger picture.’ She’d never really done things that she knew were wrong either.
She’d been a good girl.
Sunnydale had given her Willow. It had given her friends. But it, that place, more than the death of her family, had taken her innocence too. The purity of her desire for justice. Maybe that had always been revenge – it hardly mattered now. But she’d compromised herself in Sunnydale. Everything that she’d believed had been pushed to the very limit.
Some of that for justice. Some of it for Willow.
The fact that they were together and in love was a wonderful thing, but there were things that had happened that couldn’t be excused or explained away. For Tara, Faith was just the worst of those things. And the best of them in another way.
She didn’t know how she was going to actually face Jenny, who she was at least corresponding with, let alone Mr Giles. She’d seen them at the funeral last… and Mr Giles had looked as if was going to attack her. Why would it be any different when she went back? She just knew that she had to go. As unlikely as it was she couldn’t live wondering if he was going to be in the freezer section when she went shopping. Or at the bus stop, though with his car that was more likely.
Besides she owed it to the people who’d befriended her. They had to know the how and the why… if they wanted to – if that would help them at all.
So few people had ever been her friend and trusted her… she owed them that.
And Willow… Goddess, Willow couldn’t face everyone that the vampire had hurt. Tara wasn't sure how Willow would react to even meeting one of them – the family members… but there
was someone that Willow really…
One day she would have to face him… what choice did she really have?
They could have stayed here forever but for each of them it really would have been half a life. The dreams that they had, practical or not, were dreams that showed that they really wanted to be out there. In the world. Where the jobs were. Where the colleges were. Where the people were more than anything. Everything was out there except for each other.
Good and bad.
A bed was just a bed. Whichever bed that was, with Willow, was a special place. Home… but the rest of the world was outside of the bed, outside of the house. Pretty much outside of the state actually. Telling Willow that though…?
Willow sort of knew it, Tara was sure of that. The things that she said from time to time pointed to an awareness of the things that they had to face. There was always a ‘later’ to it though. To Tara ‘later’ was getting to be much, much closer. It had to be if they were going to combine what they had to do with what they wanted to try and do.
Willow, that other Willow, had done way more bad things than she had. This wasn't the vampire that she was lying with now though. But… other people might not, probably wouldn’t, get that. It was going to be worse for Willow. She wouldn’t even be able to walk down a street in Sunnydale without wondering if there was somewhere there whose loved one she had tortured, fed on or killed. It hadn’t been her – but Willow remembered it and that was enough to give her all the guilt that the vampire had never recognised. Willow had joked once that she had got the love that the vampire had never been able to feel too, for Tara, and that she had the better end of the deal.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Why rock the boat?
Because the boat needed to be rocked. Because they
were guilty but they were also together. Together they could do and get through anything. Because the guilt wasn't fading or going anywhere… no matter how long they stayed here in the safe place. Eventually, Tara thought, the guilt itself was going to make this place unsafe.
They’d got past it… but they had never really faced it.
It was still there and if they didn’t face up to it then it was going to catch up to them. Somehow… When you were two women who were fated to be, and choosing to be, together - how could you not believe that the world… and things that you had done… would catch up with you?
They could do this. Together. Love would get them through it. It wouldn’t be nice. It wouldn’t be pleasant, or fun, but it
would be the right thing to do.
“You drifted away there baby,” Willow told her with a gentle smile.
Had she?
--------------------
“You drifted away there baby,” Willow called Tara back to the present from wherever she’d been. Her smile was deliberately one that asked no questions, not because she didn’t want to know, but because she recognised the look that had been on Tara’s face.
She’d been weighing up the big stuff, the serious stuff. Willow had seen it before – back when they had still been ‘dancing’ around each other – without the music or the nice holding though – and what they could be together. Tara had looked like that quite often then and she’d explained how she’d been feeling. So Willow knew. She’d felt that way herself.
If she thought back, looked into memories that she didn’t really want, then Willow knew that Tara had had that sort of expression a lot back in Sunnydale. When pondering the big issues had been about thinking whether she could kill the vampire that was her lover then.
It was strange. She’d used to be jealous of that Willow for knowing a side to Tara that she didn’t. A time that she hadn’t. Except, as they’d just proved once more, now they knew each other in every way – and way better than the vampire had ever understood Tara.
She thought that she knew what Tara was thinking about too. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out really. Tara was weighing their options, their future. Willow liked to think about that but she always preferred to gloss over the thing that
had to happen before they could get into that.
Tara was always the one that would face the realities. Tara had seen more reality in her short life than anyone should ever have been expected to. Willow was aware that Tara knew that reality had to be faced and she knew how to do that too…
“You think it’s time don’t you baby?” Willow asked.
A look of understanding passed between them. Of course Tara thought that. Tara had been thinking it was time for more than a little while now. Maybe the letter had just clarified that in her head. Maybe this conversation had always been pencilled in for tonight. Willow was well aware of the deadlines they faced, as well as the much more serious things that they needed to do.
“Time?” Tara asked her. She sounded as if she was just making sure that they were talking about the same thing. Tara knew what she meant though.
Time. Time to face what they had to. But did they really have to? There were things that one had to do, like breathing, and there were things that were very definitely optional – like going back to a town where your face was recognised as being the herald of an unpleasant death.
With licking.
If the viewer of that visage was lucky it might
just have been death.
Willow had faith in Tara’s judgement though. Faith – Tara had her own demons to face back there. Willow, at least, could claim that it hadn’t been her. Tara had no such excuse. It had been her. Always her. A her that had faded though… There was a new Tara, a Tara in love.
Even if most of those things back then had been done out of love... Willow knew what Tara was facing and she also knew that Tara didn’t want to be spared that. She might not
want to actually face it… but she would do anyway. That was the sort of person that her baby was. Responsible.
“It is time,” Willow told her lover.
She would do that for Tara. For herself. With Tara. With each other.
“We don’t have to do anything, you know, about… him,” Tara reassured her.
Willow just nodded, she didn’t want to really think too much about that, not just yet. There would be a couple of weeks before they could go anywhere, at least if Tara was going to tell Jenny that they were coming. She didn’t think it would be a good idea to totally surprise them all. And there was more than that to do. They’d already figured out that if they were going to try and get into college, late as it was, this year then they would have to apply to UC Sunnydale. And quickly. A college whose applications volumes were definitely affected by being on a Hellmouth.
It was one thing to live as an accident of birth on the Hellmouth, it was another to choose to matriculate there. There was a chance. They would apply… and then they could think about the money after. No need to worry about that unless they were both accepted.
Thinking about birth led her back to him. She couldn’t think of going back to Sunnydale for any length of time and not see him first. But she couldn’t think of what she was going to say to him either.
Willow knew what the vampire had done to them, and worse than that the vampire had done it in
her name. It had been a revenge for the things that it, the vampire, thought that they had done to
her before she’d even been turned. It was the only time that the vampire had done anything for Willow. Or thought that she had. She remembered the thoughts. It had all been about Willow. Not the vampire.
Except for the cruelty.
“Good,” she said to her soul-mate.
She wasn't ready for him yet.
Maybe not ever.
“It-It’s just that there are people,” Tara started.
Willow kissed her. “I know.”
“People who have to understand,” Tara continued.
“I know. And they will.”
Maybe not all of them though. What was she going to say? “Hello Dad… sorry about Mom?”
*********************
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If I want a little pussy, I got my own to play with.
Chance in
Chance.------------------------
.
...... he has some nerve I'll grant him that. Talking about morals while discussing killing people. He wants it both ways, he declares he wouldn't have send the report to the CoW if he knew this outcome but he still goes along with the outcome anyway (hypocritical).
, "good shivers" indeed. Can't wait to see what happens once W&T return to Sunnydale!
at: 10/29/02 1:17:12 am
God, I love this story.
.