AUTHOR: Zahir (zahir@brainlink.com)
WEBSITE: http://www.virtue.nu/zahir
FEEDBACK: Well, yeah! And not simply compliments, if you're so inclined. Personally, I'd like some real constructive criticism.
ARCHIVING: Just ask is all.
SYNOPSIS: This is a sequel to "Never The Twain?" set in an alternate history in which Willow never completed the Soul Restoration Spell. Of all the changes that flow from that one, the biggest is that Tara is a vampire. Oh, and Faith never worked for the Mayor. She now lives in Los Angeles, along with her Watcher, Wesley. Following events in Sunnydale, Willow and Tara pay her a visit and are caught up in the machinations of Wolfram and Hart.
COUPLES: W/T, F/G, F/L, L/D
RATING: R
SPOILERS: Up through and including S5 of "Buffy," halfway through S3 of "Angel." A few minor things after that, but I do mean minor.
DISCLAIMERS: The toys I'm playing with belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I promise not to make money off them and to put them back none the worse for wear. My hope is that they won't sue me. Besides, I don't own much. Honest.
NOTES: I'm still working on my scifi crossover extravaganza "Fusion" but in the meantime this came to me. Personally, I think my writing tends to need a specific end to aim for, which was one of the weaknesses of "Never The Twain?" This time round, there is a target, a particular scene that I'm aiming for from word one. Hope you like!
* * *
The house seemed empty. Well, in most ways it was. Furniture that had rested on these floors was now gone, along with the clothing and books they held. Cubbards were bare. As was the refridgerator. Even artwork on the walls was gone, leaving behind the occaisional stray hook still embedded in plaster.
"Well," said Willow. She didn't say anything more. Just stared at the emptiness. Every word actually echoed.
"Yeah," sighed Xander, joining her in the staring.
Bare lightbulbs in unadorned fixtures were the only source of light. Trees blocked the streetlamps outside. Overall the effect was stark. And to Willow, the absence of Tara made it more so. Xander, at least, had Anya by his side. She didn't share as many memories with this place, of course. Neither did Tara. But having them here would have been nice.
"That's" pointed Xander "where Zombies broke in during Buffy's welcome home party. Remember?"
"Yeah."
"And over there--remember when the First Slayer tried killing us in our dreams?"
"How could I forget?" She said it lightly enough. Or tried to. "Its like an end of an era. Everything that happened, all we went through--like it was in a different century."
"Mostly, it was," Anya pointed out.
Willow looked at her oldest friend. "Xander?"
"Yeah, Will?"
"Let's just go."
"Okay."
Without too much fuss, the three of them headed out the front door. Xander was the one who locked the door. Giles had lent it to him, knowing he wouldn't make any copies. Not that the new owners wouldn't be changing the locks soon anyway. Over by the big tree, Tara waited. This house no longer belonged to Buffy, who'd invited her inside. Nor to Giles, her heir, who'd done the same. So she'd had to wait outside.
Tara welcomed Willow into her arms. All four shared a last glance at the Summers house, no longer belonging to anyone named Summers but to them that's what it was. For now, anyway. Maybe for always. Then, as a group, they walked away.
"Giles called, did I tell you," asked Anya after a block or two.
"How's Dawn liking England?" Willow didn't look at Anya as she spoke. Neither of them took it as an insult.
"Complaining about the food," Anya noted.
"Kinda saw that coming," Xander agreed. "Poor kid. You do realize her first beer has all the signs of being room temperature, right?"
"Horrible," agreed Willow.
"A travesty," echoed Tara.
"Could be worse," said Anya. "At least in modern England there's little chance of actually starving, or of catching the Black Death. Go back just a few measley centuries, and by current standards England is the equivalent of third world country that's had all its international loans foreclosed on. Good thing we broke off from them when we did."
Now all three others shared a look. And it occured to Willow--did Anya know she'd just made everybody feel better by amusing them? Was that something she planned? Had she begun to notice how people reacted to these riffs of her and then made some conscious effort to use that fact? If she'd thought of it, Willow felt sure Anya would try something exactly like that. But did she? Or was it merely intuition?
Did it matter?
"Good point, An," said Xander.
"I try."
So they walked along the street at night. Not usually the safest thing to do in Sunnydale, but at least they were in a group. Fortunately, they were also a group no casual demon in its right mind would care to challenge. Their combined experience at hunting monsters was impressive. Besides, one of the groups was an ex-demon herself.
Two, Willow thought to herself. Two of us are ex-demons. And holding Tara's arm tighter, she noted that one of them still was. Had Buffy ever really come to terms with Willow's loving a vampire? Could she have?
Am I ever going to run out of rhetorical questions?
* * *
The vampire's lair was even stranger than Lilah had expected. On one level it seemed comfortable, even luxurious. Plush carpetting. Dark wood panels. The chairs were ornate, probably expensive.
But the dozen or so really elaborate and large (and empty) birdcages in every direction seemed wrong in more ways than she liked to imagine.
"Can you hear my owls?"
Lilah took a look around at the cages again. Empty, every one. "I'm a little hard of hearing today," she ventured. "Still getting over an ear infection." It wouldn't do any harm to suggest her blood might be less than wholesome, she thought to herself. Or she hoped it wouldn't. Gazing into those eyes made any seemingly rational decision seem risky, even naive.
"No one can hear them but me," the raven-haired woman (well, she still had a woman's shape anyway) confided. "Because they're ghosts. And they're haunting me." She smiled. It made her seem curiously childlike and utterly psychotic at the same time. Lilah resisted the urge to whip out the crucifix she had in her briefcase. She had a job to do.
Drusilla giggled. I have a job to do, Lilah said to herself again.
"It's come to our attention," Lilah began, "that the Slayer has been causing you some inconvenience."
"Naughty Slayer. Not like the other one. She's even more naughty. But she's dead."
"Faith, you mean?"
The insane vampire shook her head, setting dark curls to shaking. "The other one, with hair like the nasty sun. She's gone. You're talking about the fiery one. With hair like lovely night." Drusilla wandered over to the cage nearest Lilah, staring inside. With a push, she made it spin. "I put their eyes out before I killed them, you know." Then she looked directly at Lilah. "She has hair like you."
"Uh...the Slayer?"
Drusilla nodded. Then her attention was back to the spinning bird cage.
"The point is, my firm wants to help you take care of our mutual problem. Namely, the slayer. That's why I've been sent."
Suddenly, those eyes were on her again, but even more intense. Like some kind of mystical laser beams. For the briefest of moments, Lilah feared that's something like what they really were--that all kinds of secrets now stood revealed for Drusilla to know and use. She had met vampires before, and over a dozen species of demon. Each had been unsettling, and more than one had stirred up fear in Lilah, fear she'd controlled at the time, only allowing herself to actually feel the reaction later. Now, as then, she steeled herself not to react. Yet the simple fact remained--Drusilla was single more disturbing individual she'd ever met.
Of course, that also made her fascinating. It was easy to see why the Senior Partners wanted to harness the efforts of this powerful creature. And why this meeting made such a good test of her, Lilah's, abilities.
"Are you," Lilah said, shaping each word with some effort, "interested?"
Drusilla leaned inward, staring at Lilah's eyes as a child does the inside of marbles. "You're wicked," she whispered with a grin. "I like you."
* * *
They were enjoying pizza at Xander's place. Of course, Tara didn't need to eat (and she very wisely avoided the pizza with garlic that Anya had insisted on) but she could still enjoy the flavor. As she'd explained to Xander when he asked, though, without hunger some of the pleasures of food simply didn't exist.
"So how's Amy doing now?" Xander asked Willow.
"Adjusting," she replied. "Once I gave her the lowdown on what had happened, Sunnydale-high-wise, she wigged for a bit. Plus there's the whole I-never-want-to-eat-cheese-again obsession."
"How does she feel about spinning wheels?" Anya wanted to know.
"Not a subject you want to mention around her, actually. Its kinda a phobia."
"She seemed to accept our relationship without many problems," offered Tara. Even the fact that she was a vampire, which Tara suspected had something to do with growing up in Sunnydale.
"But" added Willow, "we're not really keeping that much in touch. For one thing, she has to study for her GED."
"How'd she explain being away for three years to her father? Somehow 'gee I turned myself into a verminous rodent' doesn't sound like it'd be a hit with most parents." Xander punctuated this with another swig of soda.
"You know, that's kinda funny." Willow's brow furrowed as she chewed. Tara had found this was a subtle but steady pleasure--studying all the many combinations of expressions her lady's face could and would make. "He hasn't even mentioned it. Like it didn't matter."
"She probably put a spell on him" said Anya.
"No! Or--no. Maybe."
"It seems a possibility" said Xander, less distinctly than he might have if he didn't have a bite of pizza in his mouth. He finished chewing, swallowed, then looked around at everyone. They noticed enough to stop and look back. "I miss this."
"Yeah," sighed Willow in instant agreement. "I mean, the new Slayer and her Watcher, they don't know us. So its been like forever since we did any demony research, or helped out on patrol."
"The world hasn't come close in ending in weeks and weeks," nodded Anya.
"Who'd've thought we'd miss that?" Willow looked surprised.
"I don't," Tara said. Everyone looked at her now. "Look, for all of you there's a lot of pleasant memories wrapped up in what you're saying. What I recall is being absolutely certain--beyond any doubt--I was going to see Willow die. No, I do not miss that at all."
Willow was grinning as she leaned over to give her a smooch. "Aw. Sweetie."
In a low voice, so no one else could hear, Tara whispered "Nothing else frightens me any more." For a few moments, they shared an intense, almost searing glance. It might have gone on even longer, but the phone rang.
Xander bounced up to answer it. "Hello!" And his face lit up. "Wesley! How's my favorite stuck up Englishman? No, I lie--Giles is my favorite, but you're up there Big Guy...What?" His smile froze. Then faded. "Oh my god."
Everyone watched Xander, as he listened to whatever Wesley was telling him. Without any explanation, they all realized this must be bad.
"He shouldn't have said he missed it," muttered Anya. "That's like tempting fate. Its totally tempting the gods of fate and begging them to rain retribution on all our heads."
Finally Xander put the phone to his chest, and looked at his three friends.
"Its Gunn," he said at last.
"Faith's friend?" asked Willow.
He nodded. "A couple of hours ago, somebody dumped his body outside Faith's apartment building."
TO BE CONTINUED
------------------
"O let my name be in the Book of Love.
If it be there, I care not of
That other book Above...
Strike it out! Or write it in anew.
But let it be in the Book of Love!"
--Omar Kyam