by AntigoneUnbound » Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:26 pm
AS TIME GOES BY
Part 11
Disclaimer: Joss owns all of these characters. The rest of us? We just continue to clean up his mess.
*****
It was a tense, distracted group that gathered at the Summers' breakfast table the next morning. Willow couldn't remember her dreams, but she knew that they hadn't been pleasant and she knew that she still felt extremely uneasy about Faith. Looking across the table at her best friend, she could tell that Buffy was still thrown by Faith's appearance as well; at least, she assumed that's why she was about to pour orange juice on her Cheerios. A quick "Hey!" from Dawn rescued the circular bits of whole-grain goodness.
Tara was standing at the stove, watching the pancakes with what Willow thought was undue attention. Or was that just her perception? They had begun the morning with their usual kisses and languid embraces and murmured, sleepy plans for their day. Soon, though, Willow felt all of her previous tension stealing back over her, and had answered Tara's query with a vague mention of a rough's night sleep before disappearing into the bathroom. Why didn't I tell her I was still worried? Am I afraid she'll think I don't believe her? That I'm being weak?
Tara had made pancakes every Tuesday morning since they had moved into the Summers' house. By now she could make practically every funny shape imaginable, including most polygons, a number of hooved mammals, and a remarkably good rendition of American Gothic. Dawn, who alone seemed relatively unfazed or preoccupied, held out her plate in anticipation.
"Hey, what's that?" she said with a tinge of accusatory disappointment, pointing to a pancake with a number of seemingly random protrusions.
"Dolly Parton in profile," Tara answered after a moment's consideration, then grinned at Dawn, who grinned back in ready forgiveness.
Willow thought back to two years before, when Dawn had learned that she hadn't, in fact, sprung from her mother's womb but was instead a ball of mystical energy, given human form by a bunch of monks from an order that almost certainly didn't have a local chapter. In the midst of Dawn's hurt and rage and fear--all of which were made a thousand times worse by Mrs. Summers' death--Tara was the one person who could most consistently anchor Dawn back to this life, and convince her of her place in it. Of course, it hadn't hurt that Dawn had been completely smitten with Tara at that time.
Tara hath charms to soothe the savage beast...
"OK, so here's another question for this wise group's learned consideration," Dawn said, slicing off what appeared to be Dolly's ass. "Yours too, Buffy."
"You know, you could have a great sense of humor if you were only funnier," Buffy replied brightly. "So what's weighing on that tiny Chiclet you call your brain?"
"Well, from what we can tell, Faith doesn't know about my fantastic, once-in-a-millenium debut, right? So--do we tell her?"
"Why?" Willow asked quickly, feeling herself stiffen. "There's no reason for it." She forced herself to look only at Dawn, but she and Tara were far too connected for her not to feel the blue eyes gazing at her steadily.
Buffy was nodding in agreement. "If Faith doesn't know--and it looks like she's still watching the wrong channel--I don't know why we'd bring it up."
"Any chance it could be important?" Tara asked, and again Willow had the feeling of being undercut, left out on her own, even though her rational brain--And isn't that supposed to be a very big part of my very big brain?--knew that her partner was only raising a possible consideration.
She was glad when Buffy was the one to ask, "How? I mean, why would it even come up?"
"I don't know," Tara shrugged, setting down with her own pancakes, both of which resembled little carb-intensive cows. "I'm just trying to cover all the bases; make sure we don't end up ad-libbing something that could be important." She looked at Willow, and though she could see the concern in Tara's eyes, Willow also saw the reassurance. She managed what for her was a tiny smile and reached out to squeeze the long, tapered fingers.
"Does Angel know?" Willow asked, trying to make herself see the issue from at least a reasonable facsimile of multiple perspectives.
"Yeah," Buffy replied in that one voice that only came out when she was talking about her former lover; the person she'd once let herself believe she would spend her life with. "I told him the summer after we took down Glory."
"But he promised not to tell anyone, right?" Dawn asked around a mouthful of ample Partonian goodness.
"Right," Buffy agreed promptly. "And," she quickly added, as if to forestall a question, "there's no way he would break that promise. He didn't tell Faith, or anyone else."
Willow had no trouble believing the Slayer. If Angel made Buffy a promise, he would never betray her.
"Well, from what we can tell, Dawn's origins have nothing to do with the current situation," Tara said after a moment. "Unless we find out otherwise, I'd say we vote the Discretion ticket."
Willow felt her uneasiness abate slightly; she didn't want to end up in a situation where she reflexively argued one side of whatever Faith issue lay before them while Tara argued the other.
"Maybe though..." And here Dawn trailed off. The others looked at her expectantly. "Maybe we could use it as a test situation; see if Faith tries to do anything, you know...funky with it."
Silence greeted this idea for at least 1.37 seconds until Buffy burst out, "Are you crazy? I mean, more than usual? You wanna--what--use yourself for bait?"
"Buffy, think about it," Dawn said, leaning toward her sister. "What could she actually do with the information? The portal's closed; using me as a Key was a one-shot deal. Now I'm just plain old Dawn."
"You're not plain," Willow broke in. "You're special, and not being the Key anymore doesn't change that because you are so--"
"Um, really appreciating the affirmation, Willow," Dawn interrupted her. "But I'm not putting myself down or feeling sorry for myself here, and I know that has to be a big relief to everybody. My point is, I'm a former Key. We had to keep my identity secret then. Now the info doesn't really mean anything except that I never actually pooped my pants, which is more than any of you can say." She tossed her hair in faux haughtiness. "But we let Faith in on the secret, act like we still wanna keep it a secret, and see if she tries to do anything with it."
"No. Absolutely not," her sister said flatly.
"Oh, very good, Buffy." Dawn sat back and crossed her arms. "Close that mind and lock it up tight. Pat Robertson will be so proud."
"Dawn, why would we even--"
"Isn't everyone trying to figure out if Faith is for real?" Dawn interrupted. "She starts out a Slayer, fighting the good fight."
"With unnecessarily come-hither apparel and thinly-veiled rage, yes," Willow granted her, feeling her shoulders tightening again. "But then--"
"But then she sold out; went over to the Mayor," Dawn finished for her. "Basically caved in to her fears; didn't trust us or herself enough; needed to feel more special than she did. Yeah, I remember it all as if I'd really been there."
"Didn't exactly book passage on the USS Atonement after that," Buffy said, her voice a challenge.
"I know--she switched bodies with you. And that was awful, I get it--not to mention really weird, because I remember thinking at the time that you were spending way too much time in the bath. I couldn't figure out what you were doing in there, just sorta...murmuring to yourself, like..." Here she stopped, and Willow watched the brightest of metaphorical light bulbs go off over each and every head at the table--including, she was sure, her own. She glanced at Tara, who stared back at her.
"Oh. My. God." Buffy breathed. "You don't think she really..."
Willow shook her head regretfully, trying to end the transmission of the ever-so-naughty images flashing across her mental screen. "Oh yeah. I really, really do. I think she really--"
"Don't say it!" Buffy shouted. "I can't live in a world where those words are spoken aloud."
They all sat silently for a moment; as much, Willow suspected, out of shock as their desire to lessen Buffy's horror.
After a moment, the Slayer muttered, "And I thought her sleeping with Riley was the down-payment for the house in Ickyville..." Finally she squared her shoulders and sat up. "OK, let's act as if this never happened, shall we? Great. The point is, Dawn, Faith has way too many marks in the moral debit column to trust her with that info."
"But what can she do with it?" Dawn asked again. "And besides, do you really think Angel would send her here if he didn't trust her?"
OK, good point, Willow admitted reluctantly. But probably not the one that sits easiest with your sister...
Buffy, though, was silent. Willow knew she was wrestling with about twelve inner demons at one time. When she finally spoke, her voice was calm, and very quiet. "Here's what scares me: is there any chance, any chance at all, that the information could still hurt you?" She stared at Dawn as if Willow and Tara weren't there.
Dawn gave a little smile, meeting her sister half-way at this new, less dictatorial approach. "I'll tell you what: we tell Giles about the idea, see if has any reason why it would hurt to try it. I promise I'll go with whatever he says. So long," she added quickly, "as you don't try to sway him."
After a long moment, Buffy nodded. "OK. It's a deal. But if there's any sign whatsoever that Glory and the monks could still be players in this--"
"We drop the whole idea," Dawn said agreeably, turning back to Dolly's bosom as Willow and Tara exchanged silent glances of admiration: Dawn had negotiated that plan pretty well. "Glory and the Monks..." the teenager was saying. "Didn't they play out at Red Rocks last fall?"
"Whatever happened to those monks, anyway?" Willow asked, glad for a moment of lightness.
"I heard they went to LA and worked for a TV guy who did these weird, sci-fi kinda shows--space travel, stuff like that. Some guy who likes toadies telling him everything he's doing is gold, even when it totally blows."
"I can't imagine working for somebody like that," Tara mused.
"Who here can imagine working for anyone?" Dawn asked, taking a slug of milk to aid Dolly's breasts in their journey. "Let's face it, guys, we live pretty well considering that Willow's the only one with a steady income. If she didn't do computer consulting, we'd be screwed."
"Hey, we need our free time to fight evil, not be a cog in the capitalist machine that is currently devouring the country," Willow replied with a shrug, focusing on her Golden Grahams. Her income was the thing that kept them all afloat, and no one but Tara needed to know that her "consulting" often took the form of hacking helpful yet discreet amounts of money from the private accounts of several big business moguls.
"Is this wrong?" she asked Tara one night as a Mobile oil executive unwittingly donated $2000 to their health insurance fund.
"If it is, I finally see the lure of evil. Color me on swell terms with my conscience," Tara replied promptly.
Tara herself did some tutoring ("Why do people insist on implying when they should infer? And when did spelling become passe?"), while Buffy and Dawn worked part-time at the Magic Box. Buffy had tried giving private self-defense lessons but found it too frustrating that her clients couldn't bounce back from a dislocated shoulder and that they were reluctant to pay her for actually giving them the dislocated shoulder.
"Sissies," she huffed.
So Willow covered many of their expenses, while they tried to save the money from Joyce's will for Dawn's college fund.
"If I even go to college," she once said with exaggerated disinterest.
"As opposed to what?" Buffy asked, her voice veering dangerously close to the "Do as I say, not as I slay" range. "Selling crack?"
After a hasty council with Tara and Willow, the next exchange between the Summers sisters pertaining to the younger's future ended with Buffy saying, "Listen, Dawn, I want you to go to college. But you need to do what you need to do. Hard as it is to admit, I guess it really is your business." Two weeks later, Willow caught Dawn looking through brochures for several state-system universities.
When Kyra arrived, Willow had stepped up her on-line financial enhancement activities (as she liked to call them).
"Honey, I know you're careful and all, but...Be careful," Tara said one night after a Morgan-Stanley broker gave what was really a very nice contribution to help offset the cost of the new roof.
"Baby, now more than ever I wanna make sure we're all secure," Willow said, turning from the cool blue glow of her laptop to the more inviting hues of Tara's eyes. "And if I have to steal from people who make seven figures a year and live off the fat of corporate welfare, I'm willing to do it. I've covered my tracks with enough cyber-detritus to choke a horse, and believe me--there are plenty of rich people in this country. I'll never need to hit the same person twice. Besides," she added sweetly, "who's gonna suspect a nice little lesbian of high-finance techno-piracy? We're too busy throwing potlucks and shopping for Birkenstocks."
Glancing around the table now, Willow felt a warmth steal over her as she considered her family. They'd been through more mayhem and tragedy, on a more epic scale, than most people would ever know.
And yet here we sit, eating pancakes and drinking milk. I love these people.
"So what's on the agenda?" Dawn asked.
"Well, you're gonna go to school and amaze the rest of the junior class with your remarkable poise and fashion sense," Buffy replied.
"Sucks bein' me," Dawn muttered. "Talk to Giles about my idea...And don't be all biased and everything."
"I promise," Buffy said with what Willow thought was transparent insincerity. "You can join us after school. The rest of us will keep trying to figure out what's going on with the suicides." Willow felt her tension start to return, albeit in somewhat diminished form. She and Tara would finish consulting their own books here at home; maybe fit in a little snuggle time...
*****
They hadn't found anything in their books, but the snuggling had been quite good, accompanied as it had been by two very satisfying, creatively-induced orgasms.
"I like this tele-Scooby work plan," Willow murmured. "Much easier on gas."
"And much easier to stroke each other's naked bodies here versus the shop," Tara added.
"Yeah, 'cause we've never done that," Willow grinned, pressing a kiss against Tara's breast.
"Right, because using a place of commerce for quick, sweaty lesbian sex would just be so..."
"Very, very hot," Willow declared confidently.
Tara pulled back just slightly and looked at her. "So...Are you feeling a little less angsty about--about our conversation last night?"
Willow was glad that Faith's name hadn't been used, and she had no intention of uttering it herself.
"Well, I'm still cautious...But yes, I'm less of the angst and more of the 'Get the job done' at this point."
"Glad to hear it," Tara murmured, pulling her close for a soft, warm kiss.
After an early dinner, they headed to the Magic Box where they had agreed the night before to reconvene. Faith had assumed the invitation included her, and promised her own attendance. When they arrived, however, the Dark Slayer was nowhere to be seen. Willow grabbed Buffy and pulled her aside.
"What did Giles say? About the plan?" Even as she asked, though, she knew the answer. The anxiety in Buffy's eyes made the outcome abundantly clear.
"Why did we ever teach her to speak?" the Slayer asked, shaking her head. "Encourage her to think?"
"So Giles gave it the thumbs-up?" Willow asked, slightly surprised. She knew the Watcher to be a cautious man by nature and experience. Although she admired Dawn's perseverance and negotiation, she hadn't really expected the idea to go to launch.
"I think you'd better start hacking some more money, Will," Buffy said grimly. "If Dawn doesn't go to law school, I'll eat my stake."
"Well, she's a smart--hey! Whaddya mean, 'hack some more money'?"
"Yeah, I told him about it when I got here for my shift," Buffy continued, as if Willow hadn't spoken. "I assumed he would shoot it down right there, but he just gave that annoying 'Hmm...' noise of his and then disappeared to 'ascertain all relevant facts,' as he put it. Comes out of his study about two hours later all excited. He swears there's no harm that can come of it. Then of course Dawn shows up and she's just completely gloating about it all. Starts tossing out some ideas and the next thing I know they're laying out a plan. My little sister is plotting with my Watcher." Buffy pressed her lips together in a tight grimace. "It's all very inappropriate."
"Buffy, you know Giles would never OK this if there were any danger to Dawn." She paused, looking at her friend. "You do know that, right?"
Buffy sighed. "I know. Believe me, I made him run through the facts about five times."
"And if it were anyone but Dawn, you'd be saying it was a great idea," Willow pointed out.
"Well, I wouldn't be pasting little gold stars in my Day Planner if you or Tara or Xander were doing it...or Anya," she added, almost as an afterthought. "But you're right...The fact that Dawn's the main character leaves me extra nippy cold."
Willow nodded in understanding. She had no siblings, and Tara wasn't exactly close with Donnie. But she knew that Buffy and Dawn shared something special, even beyond that of most tight sisters. "So what's the plan?"
"What? Oh...Later on, Dawn's gonna create some alone time with Faith--even just a few minutes to talk. She's going to make some reference to being the Key...Just something casual, as if she assumes Faith already knows. Then she'll stammer a little and eventually, quote unquote reluctantly tell Faith the whole story."
Willow mulled this over. "It's a good plan, Buffy. Subtle, but effective."
Buffy nodded glumly. "I know. I just still wish it weren't a plan at all." She looked at Willow and frowned.
Willow was silent for a moment, then said, "Y'know, a lot of it depends on how well Dawn can lie."
The two women looked at each other.
"Faith's toast," Buffy said, in a voice that suggested she almost felt a little sorry for the Dark Slayer.
*****
To Be Continued
I am anxious to find out what is going on.
Welcome back, hope you stay a while.
