Well, this chapter I’m playing about with genetics and temporal mechanics as well. Enjoy. Sorry for the lateness.
Alternatives
Chapter 14
Rating: PG13 for violence
Spoilers: All of season 6
Disclaimer: I own nothing but that which I create. All else belongs to people who can sue/excommunicate/execute me if I don’t write this.
Disclaimer #2: I am going to mess about with the ideas of religion in this fic, this is not intended to offend anyone, or contradict anyone’s beliefs, but it’s necessary for the story. I apologise in advance for any offence taken.
Summary: A visit from the future
Feedback: Send all constructive comments to
rmmik@hotmail.com (please put something like “Re: your fic” in the subject, otherwise I’ll bin it). Send all abuse to someone else.
Authors note: I don’t like Season Six’s ending (obviously), so here’s my way of making things better. Eventually. After much angst. But hopefully you’ll like the W/T bits. The happy ones I mean. Hold on tight!
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Willow watched as Tara’s nose crinkled, then grinned. The day had gone so quickly, with Anya closing the shop and them all ordering pizza and Tara’s tales of all the mischief she and Kel had caused in the hierarchy of the lower dimensions. When she had described Lucifer’s pout as his fortress was destroyed, well, it was priceless. They had talked well into the early hours of the morning, with many hugs and tears and laughs as they reaffirmed their friendship. One thing stood out in Willow’s memory, though, a comment someone had made about Kel had provoked a response from Tara.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” She had said “She does this from time to time. She’ll be back in a week or two. Probably tying up some loose ends.”
But her expression was troubled, just for a moment. Willow doubted anyone else had caught it, except her. However, now she was content just to watch her love sleep, watch those gentle features tweak as she wandered the realms of Morpheus.
Towards dawn, Willow drifted off herself, but was awoken only 20 minutes later by a soft whimper from the body curled up against her. Tara whimpered again and whispered,
“Lex…….el, don’t….save…ex.”
She turned over, instinctively seeking the warmth of Willow’s body, and began to weep softly.
“Tara? Wake up, baby.”
She shifted, which made Tara cringe.
“No…don’t take….Willow…my girl……our…love her.”
“Tara?”
She shook her lover awake. By this time Tara had tears streaming down her face.
“Tara, baby, what’s wrong?” Willow was not completely surprised by the fact that Tara was having nightmares, but she expected a more volatile reaction, rather than this soft lamentation.
“Oh, God, Willow….I left them behind. I’m sorry.” Tara clung to Willow, sobbing.
“Hey,” said Willow, smoothing her hair. “It’s okay, it was a nightmare, you were dreaming.”
“No...I left them.” It was all she said. Willow held her for a few minutes until her breathing evened out and she slept once more.
Kel stepped back and surveyed her work. It had taken decades of labour, although she knew the Scooby gang were probably just falling asleep on the day she left, but the new and improved palace of Chaos was complete.
Luc came over to his sister.
“So, what do you think?” She said
“It’ll do.” He replied
“Time to go check on the future?”
“Want me to come?”
“Yeah. Let’s go see if we made a difference.”
Luc grinned at his sister, took her hand and they both simply disappeared.
A few hours later, they returned to exactly the same spot. Kel panted for a second, an odd gesture for someone who didn’t need to breathe, and turned to her brother.
“Well, we made a difference all right.”
She glared at him.
“We have to warn them.”
“Well, since I’m the one that always screws everything up, you have to deliver the packages anyway, and they don’t trust me after taking Tara…”
“Yeah, okay, you big baby, I’ll go.”
They embraced once, and Kel left to prepare.
A week had passed since Tara had returned, and things were finally settling into a rhythm, although Tara’s nightmares returned every night.
Tara was helping Anya and Willow in the Magic Box, Giles and Buffy were training, Dawn was doing homework and Xander was reading comics. All in all, a normal Scooby afternoon.
Tara plunked down the box she was carrying and stretched. The door chimed.
“We’re closed!” The Scoobs yelled in unison.
“To customers yes, but to me?”
“Kel?!”
“Hey Kel.” Tara carried on lifting boxes, but her eyes were on the former angel constantly, hoping for news.
“Don’t get too excited guys, I said I’d be back in a week and here I am.”
“Where did you go?” Tara asked.
“I went back. I had some stuff to do.”
The pack she wore on her back wriggled. Tara’s eyes lit up.
“Which reminds me, I have a surprise for everyone.”
Willow stood close to Tara, as always, so she could feel her lover’s skin practically humming with excitement.
“You didn’t?” Tara asked, voice full of hope.
“I did indeed!” Kel smiled, eyes sparkling. She knew Tara had been having the nightmares, so her first priority was to returning the squirming bundles to her.
“Have you told them?” She asked, suddenly serious.
“No,” Tara replied, looking bashful.
“I didn’t know how.”
The smaller of the two bundles wriggling in Kel’s arms squalled.
“Tara, what….?”
Tara sighed. She knew everyone would find out sooner or later, but she had wanted to tell Willow first. That plan was out, so she took the direct route.
Taking the squalling bundle from Kel, she pushed back the cloth covering it to reveal a new-born, pouting baby, with light red hair, fading to blond at the temples, and dark blue eyes. Beside her, Kel revealed the second bundle to be a slightly larger child, with hair so fair it didn’t seem to be there, except at it’s very tips where it was reddish and wide, green eyes that watched its surroundings intently.
“Tara….what?” Willow said again.
“This is Alex and Willow.”
“Who? What….huh?”
“Actually,” Kel said, indicating the child in her arms, “This little one is called Alexander Rupert Rosenberg-Maclay and Willow Elizabeth Anya Dawn Rosenberg-Maclay is the grumpy one over there.”
“Whoa….what?”
Tara looked at Willow.
“They’re our children.”
Willow’s jaw dropped. So did everyone else’s. Except Anya’s.
“Okay, I’ll accept that they’re Tara’s children, but Willow’s? I know you’re good with miracles, Kel, but Willow and Tara are two females, who were in different dimensions, one of whom has not actively cast a pregnancy spell, and even if you could have children through all that, HOW can two WOMEN have a SON without a Y-chromosome in there?”
“Um…yeah, it’s kind of a funny story. It’s all to do with that little locket Tara’s wearing.” Kel blushed.
“Um….” Willow said, staring at the locket.
“Um….” Said Xander, staring at the children.
“Um….” Giles said, staring at his daughter.
Buffy just gaped at everyone.
“Well you see, the locket contains some of Willow’s hair. I took it from her before I left, if you remember? Well, when Willow and Tara experienced the Link, the spell on the locket took that to mean they were…um…recreating. It was supposed to allow the hair to age so you could have children when you returned, I didn’t expect you two to Link down there. See, we were down there a
long time. Not many geneticists know this, but the Y-chromosome is in fact a corruption of the female X-chromosome. After so long, the genetic material in the hair began to degrade. Hence, Y-chromosome. Hence, a son.”
Everyone capable of doing so raised an eyebrow. Buffy and Dawn raised both. Kel ignored them.
“Because you are both from this dimension, they grew at the same rate as they would have here. I sped the pregnancy up though, because I was bored of fighting for four of us but I wasn’t gonna let a pregnant woman battle demons. When you Linked, it gave the spell all it’s components; genetics and spiritual matter from both of you to create life. The oldest child, Willow, was female, but Alex was a boy. I’m a firm believer in a woman’s right to choose, and now you can.”
“Um….” This time it was said in unison.
Two hours later, things were much the same, with two main differences. Kel was pacing impatiently, and Willow had regained coherent speech and was talking with Tara at the table.
Kel had had enough.
“Look, no amount of talking is going to change this. Willow and Tara have two beautiful children, you all get to play aunty or uncle or grandad, and I have one less objective to worry about. Let’s move on, shall we? I need to tell you something.”
“What objective?”
“Huh?” Kel obviously wasn’t pleased with Xander’s interruption.
“You said ‘I have one less objective to worry about’. What does that mean?”
“Oh, well, when I was sent here to change things, I was given a list of targets.”
“What were they?”
“You want the list?”
Why did I have to get into this? Kel thought miserably. We don’t have time!
“Yes, we want the list.”
“Okay.” She began to rattle off the list. “One, stop Tara being killed. Two, make sure Willow is ready to face her addiction. Three, restart warrior bloodlines, i.e. the kiddies. Four, eliminate any threat to said bloodlines. Five, train you all to fight properly. Six, get the entire group back together. Seven, get you through the apocalypse alive if possible. Eight, eliminate any threat to the bloodlines. Nine, close the hellmouth. Ten-“
“We get the idea!”
“Good. Too bad it isn’t working.”
“What?”
Kel sighed. Memories flashed on her mind’s eye, the blood, the fire, the death.
“I went to check on the future. I needed to know if our actions had made a difference.”
“Did they?”
Kel let a hollow laugh escape her as she struggled to stay afloat of the images in her mind.
“Oh, they’re different all right.”
“It’s that bad?” Anya asked.
“No,” Kel said grimly. “It’s worse.”
“How bad?”
“Let me show you.”
Kel walked to the same place that the portal returning them home had appeared, and simply said “Reveal.”
The air twisted and wrenched itself back like a curtain, shimmering in the light, to reveal a horrifying scene. Trees, twisted, burned and disfigured, littered the landscape, which was totally barren except for the occasional ruin of a shack or a mangled skeleton.
“What is this place?” Dawn asked, voice full of awe.
“Sunnydale, 16 years from now.”
“What?”
Across the terrible desert a shadow moved, speeding towards them like a tornado, and as it got closer, it became clear that the shadow was a group of people running from what looked like a huge black cloud that was gaining ground on them very quickly.
Kel’s voice was sad.
“I came here to help, and this is the result.”
The runners came near to the portal, and Kel called out in a strange language. The runners changed course immediately, diving through the portal, which closed instantly.
The Scooby gang came face to face with…the Scooby gang, Buffy at it’s head.
“Welcome to the future.” Kel said to the younger group.
“Kel?” The other Buffy asked.
“Where did you go?”
“Here,” she replied.
“We could have used your help out there. Where are we?”
“You’re in Sunnydale, 16 years ago.”
Willow stepped forward. “You’re-“
Suddenly she had six crossbows aimed at her.
“…safe.”
Time seemed to slow for Tara as she watched each member of the other gang fire and reload almost instantly. She threw up a hand and the bolts stopped in midair, then dropped to the ground. A flick of the wrist disarmed the newcomers, and a quick glance incinerated their weapons. All this occurred in a space of two seconds. The other gang rushed at her.
Several minutes later Kel had gotten everyone relatively calm. On one side of the Magic Box stood Buffy, Dawn, Giles, Anya, Xander, Willow and Tara who were both holding an infant.
On the other side, looking much older and wearier, stood Buffy, Dawn, Xander, Spike, one unidentified boy with fair hair going red at the tips, and…Faith.
Both sides were completely on edge. Kel was in the middle, waiting.
“Okay,” the younger Buffy said, “Who are you?”
The older Buffy conferred with Kel in the same strange language she had used earlier.
“Hey!” Willow squealed. “Don’t call Buffy that!”
Everyone stared at her.
“What? Didn’t you hear what she just called her?”
“No, Will, all I heard was some weird language. What did she say?”
Tara answered for her.
“She called you an immature, whining twit. Personally, I think she’s spent to much time with Kel.”
“Wait,” Xander said. “You understand what they’re saying?”
“Of course. I do speak English, you know.”
“Actually,” the older Buffy said, “I was using the old tongue, the language of the angels. Not that you even remotely resemble an angel.”
Kel sighed. “Buffy, this is not the Willow and Tara you know. These are the women that have just conceived two children from pure love. They are the friends you knew and loved. The Buffy over there still hates Faith. They aren’t the same people you know.”
There was a heavy pause.
The older Xander was first to speak, his voice strained.
“Anya?”
“What?”
Xander watched the older, more muscular version of himself laugh coldly, a laugh that had seen too many tears, and walk over.
He touched Anya’s cheek briefly, then turned away, tears tracking down his face.
“It’s really her.”
Faith touched his arm gently.
“Hey, it’s okay.”
They shared a moment of tenuous silence, Xander’s shoulders shaking.
Spike growled, game face on.
“Fight?” He asked the young boy.
“No, Spike. We don’t fight today.”
His voice was oddly familiar to the younger Scoobs.
“Who are you?” Willow asked.
His burning green eyes met hers, equally emerald.
“I’m your son.”
Silence.
“So, is this all of you?” Giles asked, then winced at the implications of his own words.
“No,” Faith answered, coming up behind the older Buffy.
“There are more.”
Kel wasn’t in the mood for word games.
“Tell them the current population of Earth.”
All of the older Scoobs winced.
“What is it?” Anya asked. The older Xander stared at her.
“Four million, twelve thousand, two hundred and six and counting.”
A moment of stunned silence passed.
“What happened? How could almost six billion people die in 16 years?”
Spike giggled quietly, but the boy – Alex – put his hand on Spike’s back and he was silent.
“They were murdered.” Faith answered.
“How? By who?” Willow asked, horrified.
Kel interrupted.
“That isn’t important, right now we need find a way to change it.”
“Who killed those people, Faith?” Tara asked, and there was a steel in her voice none of the younger Scoobs had ever heard. The older ones, however, were very familiar with it and it set them on edge.
“You did. You and Willow.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Why do think we tried to kill you?”
Kel sighed. “It was my fault.”
“Shut up. We’ve had this conversation. You couldn’t have known.”
Faith and Kel glared at one another for a few seconds, then Kel turned away.
“What happened?” Giles asked.
Kel sighed again.
“When we came back, I left again. Then, Luc and I went to check on you all. When you saw he had returned…you…turned against us. Told us to leave. So I did. I went back to England, and because I wasn’t here, Tara died.”
Willow inhaled sharply, and clutched the child she held to her a little tighter, watching his older counterpart move.
That’s my son, she thought.
Kel was speaking again.
“Willow had seen what she could do, so she decided to…improvise, I guess. She summoned Spike and…made him…turn her. Then they both went from town to town, destroying everything, killing for the sake of killing. Getting more powerful every day. After a while there was only Sunnydale left. I made a sanctuary, a cavern under the ground, bang over the Hellmouth, where you couldn’t enter. What was left of the Scooby gang rounded up as many people as they could from Sunnydale, and I summoned the rest. Now all we do is fight and die. Those of us that can, that is.”
“Um…”
Anya stood.
“What did you mean ‘what was left’ of us?”
Faith stepped forward.
“When you saw what was happening, Kel gathered us together and linked us. At the start there was all of you, plus Alex and Willow junior, and Cordelia, Wesley, Angel, and the other L.A. people, Oz and me. It came to 16 in total. We taught others how to defend themselves, but we were the raiding party. The ones who fought. Now there’s 11 of the original group. Giles was dead within two years. Willow junior a year after that. Oz, six years ago, Lorne, four. Anya,”
The older Xander winced.
“Six months ago. Of course, that isn’t counted Michael, Lucifer and the dozens of other friends. All dead.”
Willow had gone white.
The older Buffy spoke.
“But there’s been life as well. Alex did okay,”
She indicated the young man beside her.
“And we’ve got the kids. Michael, Kelly, Luke, and Thomas.”
“Who?”
Faith spoke again.
“Michael and Kelly are my twins, named after Kel, and Michael, who was their brother and died at birth. Luke and Thomas are Xander and Anya’s boys. Our legacy.”
“You have children?” Xander asked Faith.
“So do you,” she replied.
Silence.
“What was chasing you?” Anya asked.
“Willow. Or one of her concoctions.”
“Oh.”
Buffy turned to her alternate.
“You don’t hate her?” She meant Faith of course.
“No. She’s saved my life more times than I can count. She earned my trust and respect. Besides, there’s so much hate and death around us every day, we need all the love we can get. She’s become my rock.”
Faith grinned, and regarded the younger group of people before her. Her smile faded.
“I envy you. I really do.”
Her eyes went wide, she gasped and dropped to the floor, wheezing.
“Faith?”
“She’s broken through…she’s in the sanctuary.”
“Who?”
“Willow. She’s gonna kill them. She has Michael.”
The brunette Slayer looked up at Kel, eyes brimming with tears, her pain evident.
“Help him.”
Kel’s eyes were full of sorrow.
“I can’t.”
“You can’t just let him die!” The older Buffy yelled, eyes flashing.
“I don’t have a choice.”
The entire congregation was silent except for Faith’s crying.
“He’s gone…they’re all gone.”
The older Buffy turned away from Kel, and scooped the sobbing woman into her arms, rocking her gently.
“Hey…shhhh…I’m here.”
“My little boys…all of them…our boys…they’re gone.”
Faith suddenly went silent, untangled herself from the other Slayer, and stood up. Facing Kel, her eyes were suddenly full of the rage and pain that both Buffy’s had seen before.
“You could have helped them. You should have stopped her.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I should kill you.”
Kel just held her gaze. Faith’s hands curled into fists. The silence became a knife point, and their entire future rested on which way the knife would tip.
Ruth
+ 
forever!
P.S. I need feedback from this chapter. The next one kinda depends on it. Cheers.
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"He killed her, didn't he?"
"They don't have a word for what he did to her."
Edited by: NewRuthRising at: 3/5/03 8:01:23 am
Hey Ruth!! Glad you decided to give us another update!
But the bruises are mostly healed and the cut over my eye is fading(the kids in my family are very affectionate, and of course violent) so I thought I'd distract myself from revision. I know Willow hasnt featured much lately, but we're getting there. So here y'are.
You go girl!!!!!!!!!
Should be interesting to see where this goes now!
Another fic, and keep us waiting. Well, I think your 30 minutes are up. More please 
I'll be quite now, but remember...Were waiting
I'll sing you a lil melody if you give us some update-y goodness... PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!