One comment then an update.
Jenamber - Hey thanks for the thoughts about all my fics. I’m glad you like them. If it’s any consolation, this part isn’t that heavy on emotion. Yes, I think it gets much better and much more of a focus on W&T together from here out. Thanks for sticking with it so far. Thanks for the congratulations.
Title – Paths Diverged/Divulged Part 21 –
Window Shopping Author – JustSkipit - Debra
Spoilers –Season 6
Rating – Part 21 – PG
Disclaimer – Guess what, I don’t own W&T, Buffy or the rest of the BtVS crew. Any similarity to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental and fortunate. Also Rachel thinks I should point out that I don’t make any money from this…
Thoughts in italicsFlash backs indentedMemories and dreams indented AND italic Tara sipped on her coffee and looked again at her biology book. It was just so boring and there were at least a hundred things she’d rather be doing.
Like kissing Willow? her mind, or perhaps a region farther south, suggested. A dreamy smile crossed her face as she admitted to herself that yes, she would rather be kissing Willow or talking with Willow or doing a spell with Willow or just about anything with the enchanting redhead. Her reverie was broken by Scooby’s bark, which was quickly followed by a light knock on the door.
Since her leg was still feeling pretty good from the ritual a few days ago at the ranch, she decided to leave her cane at the dining room table as she moved toward the door. “Scooby, stay down,” she ordered the excited dog as she pulled open the door.
“Ok, well I should have called I’m sure but I was already in my car before I decided to come see you plus which what if I’d called and you said you were too busy to see me or you had important things to do or you weren’t even home. But just stopping by, I could look forward to seeing you and then maybe see you anyway.”
Tara giggled as she allowed Willow to continue her babbling greeting. She considered leaning forward to kiss the redhead but allowed her to finish her speech anyway. While Willow took a breath Tara took her hand and pulled her into the house and kissed her softly. “Not too busy,” she whispered.
The redhead dropped to the floor to greet Scooby and pet the dog behind the ears. As she stood back up she looked at Tara again. “Look at you with the no cane all the way over here,” she pointed.
Tara nodded as she elaborated, “that ritual was really good Willow.”
“It’s my favorite spell,” the redhead agreed as they walked toward the table. “Oh you were studying. Maybe I should go?” she offered.
Tara snorted a little, “I wasn’t really s-s-studying: more like wishing I was doing something else.” She quickly changed the subject: “do you want something to d-drink Willow?”
Tara’s quick change of subject was not lost on the redhead. “Water would be great.” She teased, “so… what were you wishing you were doing?”
Tara handed the girl the bottle of water and took her chair again as she blushed, “I’ll take the f-fifth on that one.”
Willow continued her teasing as she playfully waved her hands in the air, “taking the fifth. That’s got to be good.”
Tara laughed out loud at the redhead before leaning forward to kiss her again. “Adorable,” she declared not for the first time since meeting the redhead. “What’s up Willow?”
“I found an apartment,” Willow explained, “and I move in next week.”
“That’s g-great,” Tara exclaimed.
“And I need furniture so I wondered if you wanted to go and spend my money with me. I’ll take you to dinner after,” she offered.
Tara quickly got up from the table as she agreed, “let me go change and w-we can go. Spending your money sounds fun and of course you can take me to d-dinner.” While the blonde was in her room Willow picked up the small newspaper on the table and began reading it. Tara re-entered the room a few minutes later so see Willow with a look of consternation on her face. “What’s w-wrong Will?” she asked.
Willow held up the Chronicle as she asked, “what’s wrong with these people? Here’s one: ‘You: Anna at the Bostones concert. Me: Mike. We danced and made out for hours. Coffee sometime?’ They danced and made out for hours and he didn’t get her number?” She looked up to see Tara grinning at her. “Or this one: ‘You tight black T-shirt on 6th street. Me, tan slacks and silk shirt. Wanna party?’ We don’t even know when or who or what gender or anything. It could be anyone.” Now she noted that Tara was beginning a full-fledged laugh rather than a giggle-fest. She decided to add one more: “here’s my favorite: ‘You: white Toyota going South on Mopac. I passed you in a Suburban. You smiled. Wanna drive somewhere sometime? There’s plenty of room in my truck.’ They were driving down the road? How crazy is that? Like this person even knows her? How does this species even reproduce?”
Tara laughed openly at Willow as took a seat at the table again. “I always love reading those. The best one I ever saw said: ‘Running at Town Lake. You: Sandra Bullock. Me: Guy shouting, ‘Hey it’s Sandra Bullock. It’s Sandra Bullock!’ Sorry. Can we have coffee?’”
“Do you think it worked for him?” Willow teased.
“Hard to imagine,” Tara agreed. “So do you have a list of what you n-need for your apartment?”
Willow smiled as she pulled a piece of paper from her pocket: “Bed, Desk or Tables, Chair, Couch, Sheets, Towels, Bathroom stuff, Plates, Silverware, Pots and Pans, Stereo or Boombox. I’m sure lots of other stuff but I thought we could just kind of wander around and fill up the cart. What do you say?”
“I saw w-we better g-go if we’re gonna get started,” Tara agreed as she picked up her cane from the back of her chair. As they headed out the door she teased, “you can d-drive.”
Once they got in Willow’s car and started driving toward the furniture Tara asked, “s-s-since we’ve got some time … uh …”
Willow glanced across at the blonde. She was obviously nervous but wanted to know something. “What do you want to know Tare?”
“You said Buffy was d-d-dead?” Tara led.
Willow took a deep breath as she parked the car. “Wow, that’s a long story. I’ll try to start at the beginning but sometimes it’s hard to know where the beginning is. You know?” she asked. As Tara nodded that she was listening and that she understood the complexity of the story she decided to continue. “Ok. Buffy has a little sister named Dawn.”
“Sure,” Tara agreed, “you showed me pictures.”
Willow took a breath: “right. Well the thing is that she didn’t always have a sister.”
Tara laughed at Willow’s story as both women continued walking down the row of mattresses, pressing on them with their hands. “Sure Will,” Tara giggled, “she’s a l-little sister. So Buffy didn’t have a sister till Dawn was born.”
Willow lay down on a firm mattress and patted it indicating that Tara should lie down and test it out also. “Try this one sweetie,” she suggested.
“Ahhh a shopping expedition to g-get me on your bed?” Tara teased.
“No that’s what dinner’s for,” Willow teased back. As both girls went to look for a salesman she plunged into the confusing part of her story. “It’s not just that Buffy didn’t have Dawn before she was born. Uh… Ok, well you see Dawn was … well… created by monks. She didn’t used to be human. She was a mystical energy source called ‘the key.’” They sent her to Buffy as a sister so Buffy would protect her. She entered our lives when she was 14 and we were 20.”
Tara knitted her eyebrows together for a second as they walked to the car to drive to the next store. “So you’re saying that D-dawn isn’t really human. She’s really some mystical thingy? Why did y’all believe that she was B-buffy’s sister then?”
Willow nodded her head, “the $100,000 question. The monks didn’t just build a sister. They gave us all memories. I remember her interrupting us when we were having Scooby meetings and tripping and ruining Buffy’s 16th birthday cake. We all remember her entire life as did she.”
“Wow,” Tara commented, “that’s a real mind-fuck. I mean what a t-t-trip.”
“Right, when we found out it was really confusing. I think that actually Tara did the best of all of us. She and Dawn were always really close,” she explained.
“But w-why did these monks send her?” Tara asked. She stopped for a minute remembering everything Willow had said before asking, “and then Dawn stayed with Giles after Buffy died?”
“What huh?” Willow asked. “No she stayed with Tara and I,” she explained.
Tara laughed slightly as she clarified, “no I mean in this world: Dawn stayed with Giles? And I guess s-she and Faith are a couple?”
Willow’s mouth dropped open in shock as she thought about what Tara was asking.
Ok, I’m the world’s worst story teller. Or explainer or whatever, she thought. “Huh what?” she said.
“Well,” Tara started, “I get that Giles is the same person who was Buffy’s watcher… I mean as much as I’m the same person as Tara was but you know what I mean. Right?” Willow nodded and the blonde continued, “and you always mention Giles and Faith and Dawn from here so I f-figured that she must be with Faith since you always mention them in the same breath.”
Willow laughed at Tara’s confusion and particularly at the somewhat twisted image in her mind of Dawn in a relationship with Faith
Maybe if she was older she and Faith would look good together, she mused,
no still too disturbing. “I’m sorry to laugh baby,” she apologized, “it’s just that the idea of Dawn with Faith is pretty ridiculous.” She saw the puzzled look on the blonde’s face and continued, “she’s her sister.”
“Back up the t-train sweetheart,” Tara interrupted as they continued their shopping expedition. “You just said she’s Buffy’s sister.”
“Ok,” Willow agreed, “one thing at a time. In that world she was Buffy’s sister. In this world she is Faith’s sister. “The monks who made her,” she looked at the blonde to see that she was following, “sent her to someone to protect her from great evil. In each world that was the slayer.” Willow took a deep breath. Before last week she had hesitated to tell Tara about Buffy because she didn’t want to go into Buffy’s death and resurrection. But now it was more than that. Willow didn’t understand exactly about this woman’s dreams, her seeming insanity, but it was obvious that she had been through hell and that she knew that Glory had caused it. Willow hesitated explain the role Glory had held in all of this. “Well,” Willow started, “before Dawn was a sister, she was a ‘key.’ She was a grand source of mystical energy.”
“What did she o-o-open?” Tara asked. The blonde could feel that Willow was holding back. The more shopping they did and the more the redhead opened up her wallet, the less she seemed to be opening up her story. Tara had a nagging feeling that Willow was keeping something important from the blonde witch--something that had to do with her.
Moving from couch to couch the redhead tried to explain as gingerly as possible, “she opened a dimensional portal. Unleashing Hell on Earth.”
“Who would w-w-want that?” Tara asked bewildered.
The million-dollar question, Willow thought. “There was a hell-god--well a hell-goddess-- she wanted to get back to her hell dimension and she didn’t care who died in the process. She needed to use Dawn’s blood to open the portal to get home,” Willow explained.
“Holy shit,” Tara breathed out. She sat heavily onto one of the couches and whispered her last word: “Glory.”
Willow sat down by the blonde, ironically liking the couch she happened to have collapsed onto. “Yeah baby,” she confirmed, “it was Glory. That’s why she did what she did to y’all. She thought Tara was the key. Then she tried to force Tara to tell her who it was and when she wouldn’t, Glory stole her sanity.”
Tara heard Willow’s words as if they were traveling a long distance to reach her. For years she had looked at that period of darkness as an indication of her variable and unstable mental health. But now… In a few days she had found out the cause of her madness and now she had someone to aim her residual anger at. But in addition it turned out that somehow Glory was associated with Willow’s best friend’s death? The blonde steeled herself for the rest of the story but first she asked Willow, “d-did you pick a c-couch sweetie? We can pay and leave.”
Willow was shocked to hear Tara’s words. She certainly would have been in shock and crushed to hear this story but perhaps this woman was just displaying that amazing strength Willow admired so and was quickly coming to love. She smiled at the blonde and indicated the couch they were sitting on: “let me go and pay and arrange the delivery and we can continue on our combination spen-a-thon/disclose-a-thon.”
After leaving the store the two girls decided that the rest of the conversation might go better at a restaurant rather than another department store. Since they had already gotten all of her furniture, which was scheduled for delivery the next week, they only needed to stop at Target or Wal-mart for the remainder of the household items. Tara gave instructions to reach a restaurant and Willow was surprised as they entered to find that it was in the style of a 50s Drive-in without the drive-in. “Baby, this is a hamburger place. What are you going to eat here?” Willow asked.
Tara laughed at the redhead: “sweetie, you have so much to l-learn about dating a vegetarian.” She pointed at the menu explaining, “you can order any burger in beef, chicken, veggie, or buffalo.”
“Buffalo?” Willow asked, “now that sounds completely gross.”
Like meat doesn’t sound totally gross? Tara thought giggling. Tara ordered a chocolate shake from the waitress and Willow did the same. “Do you want to sh-share some fries?” she asked the redhead. Both girls took a few minutes to look over the menu before ordering some dinner.
“So this skanky blonde hell-god sucked our brains and killed your friend?” she led.
Willow looked at Tara in shock. Who knew she could put it so succinctly or bluntly? The redhead took a drink of her shake and looked up noticing that the blonde was laughing at her. “What?”
Tara leaned across the table slowly and sensually tracing her fingertip over the tip of Willow’s nose and pulling it away covered with whipped cream. As Willow’s green eyes locked on hers she slowly ran her fingertip over her lips, tracing the sweetness over her red buds before pressing her own fingertip slightly inside her mouth and sucking on it. As she pulled her finger out of her mouth she slowly used her tongue to clean the creamy goodness from her lips. “You had whipped c-cream on your nose,” Tara explained unnecessarily and seductively.
“Uhhh huh,” Willow answered.
You could say something you know. Something. Anything. Something more intelligent than ‘uhhh huh.’ Something. “Uhhh huh,” she repeated as Tara giggled.
“So skanky blonde hell-god…” Tara again started.
“Oh right, Glory,” Willow answered. Really this should be the easy part of the conversation: she had already mentioned Glory and that was the part that Tara would be sensitive to, so why did she feel so weird? “To sum up: Glory needed Dawn’s blood to open a portal to get back to her hell dimension:
Willow gave the blonde permission to leave the magic box. She looked once again at her lover before walking silently out the door and down the street. The redhead followed Tara from a few feet behind with the rest of the Scoobies forming a loose group just behind her. Everyone but Willow carried a weapon, prepared to battle Glory and her followers in any way possible.
Willow looked up to realize that towering above the city was a shakily metal structure. It appeared to be blowing slightly in the wind and the redhead’s breath caught in her throat. She almost giggled to herself as she wondered why they needed Tara to lead them. As the blonde walked she tore the bandages from her hand and threw them on the ground. Oh baby, we’ll go back to the hospital as soon as we can, she thought as she noticed the motion.
Willow stood just at the doorway to the building site and watched her lover pick up a brick to help. Suddenly the hell-god appeared asking, “what are you doing here?”
Now was Willow’s time. She stepped up telling Glory, “she’s with me.” Now I’m punning? Did I turn into Buffy when I went into her mind? was Willow’s last thought just before she began thrust her fingertips simultaneously through Glory and Tara’s skulls. The redhead used every shred of her power to guide Tara’s essence back into her head and from Glory’s. It was overpowering, the most overwhelming experience the redhead had ever had. It was like a burst of light and wind rushing through her brain as it built in power and speed. Suddenly she felt her body thrown against a pallet as Tara’s was thrown in another direction.
While both witches lay in crumpled heaps Buffy began to do battle with Glory. After fighting for a while Glory knocked her head off at which point she realized that it was just a robot she had been fighting.
“It’s kind of a sick story but … well… Spike had had a buffy-bot built for …well… and I reprogrammed it to fight Glory,” Willow explained as an aside to the tale. “One of the things we were scared about was that we knew that if the portal was opened by Dawn’s blood, the only thing that could close it was for her blood to stop flowing.”
“She would have to die?” Tara asked horrified.
Willow nodded. “That’s why Buffy was so dead-set on protecting her sister even if it meant the end of the world.”
Now the real Buffy stepped up to battle the hell-god. In the meantime Willow woke up. She crawled over to Tara and cradled her girlfriend’s body as she whispered her name over and over. Her relief was amazing when Tara woke and obviously recognized her explaining that she, “…got so lost.”
Suddenly Willow realized that she could barely make out a figure on the tower with Dawn. Spike, Giles, Anya, and Xander were ensconced behind a barrier but no one could reach the steps to the tower. An idea hit Willow but she would need to communicate with Spike for it to work. She sent her thoughts into his head and fortunately his vampire nature allowed him to hear her. She told him to make a run for it as she thrust her hand behind her to grasp Tara’s. Combining their power they were able to scatter Glory’s followers so that Spike could reach Dawn while Buffy continued to battle Glory.
From Willow’s vantage point, she could not tell what was happening on the top of the tower but she knew that Spike reached the top before being thrown from the tower. But it was obvious that someone had damaged Dawn as a portal opened in the sky above them. Suddenly Sunnydale as they knew it was in peril. The city hall had turned into a hellish version of itself with mangled bodies and demons sticking out of the walls, dragons flew above the city, and a large lightening strike split Main Street down the center causing car crashes and mayhem.
While this was happening, Buffy had apparently defeated Glory and raced to the top of the tower. Next Willow saw another figure, someone she didn’t know fly from the tower. A few more seconds elapsed before she saw something she couldn’t believe. It looked like Buffy was running and then jumping from the tower. Willow and Tara both screamed out, “NO!” but it was no use. The slayer slowly drifted through the portal, which closed upon her passage, before her unmoving body came to rest near her friends. Exhausted from the fight and grief-stricken at Buffy’s death, they all gathered around unable to speak.
As Willow told her story, Tara had reached out to take the redhead’s hand. It would have been apparent to anyone that Willow was crushed by her best friend’s death even without the tears running down her face. For a few minutes the two girls held hands and ate in silence. Finally Willow put a happy face on as she concluded, “the end.”
Tara looked a little sidewise at her date. It obviously wasn’t the end since she Buffy was alive again but perhaps that story would wait. Finally the blonde spoke: “c-c-can I ask questions.” Willow nodded but didn’t answer out loud. “What happened to G-g-glory?”
Willow smiled at the question. Of course Tara would want to know what had happened to the creature that had caused them all so much pain. Even this woman in another dimension had obviously been harmed by Glory’s cruelty. Briefly Willow wondered if thousands of other Taras in thousands of other dimensions had suffered too. But maybe the connection between her Tara and, well her new Tara was because they had met in high school? “Glory and Buffy fought for a long time. Buffy hit her continuously with a Troll-god’s hammer. And well… see … Glory was sharing a body with a ‘normal’ man named Ben. After all that damage he returned. After Buffy jumped, we found him dead on the ground. I guess the damage Buffy did to Glory was too much for him.”
“Good,” Tara said with just enough venom for Willow to be glad she had never been the target of one of the blonde’s bad moods. After taking another big bite of her burger the blonde asked her next question: “how did Buffy jumping into the portal close it?”
“Because her blood stopped flowing,” Willow answered as if Tara just hadn’t been paying attention to the story.
“Ok…,” Tara responded, “but that means Buffy’s blood stopped flowing. What does that have to do with Dawn’s blood stopping flowing? Why would that close the portal?”
Willow screwed up her eyebrows in confusion at Tara’s question. “Well,” she answered, “Dawn told us about what Buffy said before she jumped. She said that Buffy said they shared the same blood so that’s why she jumped.”
Tara again looked confused. “That doesn’t make sense,” she finally declared.
“What about it doesn’t make sense?” Willow questioned. “That’s the way it happened.”
Tara attempted to explain her problem with the scenario the redhead had laid out: “Ok first off, I c-c-can’t see how stopping the flow of Buffy’s blood would close the portal. Second, didn’t Dawn’s blood clot and stop flowing pretty quick anyway? Maybe that’s what closed the portal and Buffy just jumped for no reason at all.”
Willow stopped chewing to think about what the blonde was saying. “I never thought about that. It doesn’t make any sense…” A sadness washed over her again as she realized that maybe Buffy had been wrong: maybe she didn’t need to die at all.
“Hey,” Willow interjected, “let’s change subjects: are you still making me dinner this week?”
“Oh,” Tara answered, “about that. C-c-can we reschedule for next week?” She saw the frown that quickly took over the redhead’s usually adorable face.
“Why?” Willow pouted, “I want my Tara-time.” The blonde laughed as Willow shifted to cave-Willow voice: “me want Tara-time. Not enough Tara-time. Me want!”
By now Tara was laughing her full-throated sensual laugh that just made Willow’s soul melt. “Jess called me from the v-vet’s office earlier. Her sister had her baby and she n-n-needed someone to fill in tomorrow night. Since we have Michelle’s party Friday I thought we could have dinner next week?” Willow’s gaze had softened considerably to the point that it was obvious that she was just pouting for fun at this point. “I could m-make it up to you,” Tara purred suggestively.
Willow gulped in surprise at the tone of Tara’s voice.
What does she mean? What? What? What does that mean? Make it up how? How is she going to make it up? Huh? The redhead opened and closed her mouth a few times trying to find the words to answer Tara. Finally she settled on the stunningly brilliant retort: “ok?”
Tara was amused to hear Willow’s squeak in response to her flirting. After finding not much success in the dating arena, mostly due to her own disinterest of course, she loved the attention that Willow gave her. It was exhilarating to have such a beautiful and wonderful and magical woman so entranced with her. And the way that Willow reacted when Tara flirted with her was just wonderful. It shocked and amazed Tara that such an overwhelmingly sensual woman could be so caught off-guard and embarrassed by Tara’s flirting. The blonde giggled warmly and pulled Willow’s small hand toward her to kiss the soft skin on its back. “Adorable,” she again whispered.
“Lamps!” Willow suddenly shouted.
Tara again erupted in full-throated laughed. “Did you just shout ‘l-lamps’?” she asked as both girls noticed the people all looking at them in the restaurant.
Willow took Tara’s hand as both girls continued laughing. “For reading and studying,” she giggled. “Let’s go keep spending my money baby,” she told the blonde as both stood up and moved toward the door of the restaurant. Wanting to be considerate Willow asked, “how’s your leg? Do you want to shop more or go back home Tara?”
Tara leaned across the car to tell the girl, “you’re really sweet Willow,” as she pressed their lips together. “But,” she continued, “let’s go k-keep spending your money.”
---
"It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or demons, heaven or hell." - The Buddha
.
Debra,
that update! 
You were right it did really pull at the ol' heart strings. Came close to 
and 
to share. I also love the way you lightened the mood:
the next update. 
Update soon, please? 
at: 8/28/03 5:19 pm
I dont know if i can take it anymore
..........CONGRATULATIONS to both you and Rachel on your 
..........pls send my regards, to Rachel n the BB, u'll make a great DAD....
Hey Debra! It always brightens up my day to see an update to this fic! 
Let's pretend this is a carnation 
) on Willow's fear of rejection. She held back on telling her about the fight between T1 and herself and is now holding back on the ressurection. This is another hurdle for Willow to overcome before they can really move this relationship forward... although...
, I'm in love with all Tara's, but I feel for this one a bit more, in a way. And I am so happy that Willow is taking care of her all the same and caring for her. These two always belonged together, no matter what universe really.
at: 9/5/03 8:43 am
. Such incredibly intimate moments yet Willow seemed to take in stride when see saw them. I can’t help but wonder if it’s because they came from ‘another’ Tara or she’s just used to seeing herself nekkid and in the throes of passion.