Oh well . . . the rest of it is up at Extra Flamey anyhow.
JUST CALL IT MAGICK
by Rhiannon "Shaniezak" Silverflame
EMAIL/FEEDBACK: uberindigo@mediaone.net or filidh@rhiannon-silverflame.net
DISCLAIMER: The characters are, of course, not mine. Rather, they belong to Joss Whedon and Co., Mutant Enemy, Fox, the WB, and whoever else happens to own financial or legal stakes in the matter. I'm just borrowing them here for fun, not profit, because they spark my imagination. If you can't deal with same-sex relationships, what are you doing on this page? Even if I could figure out how to twist your arm over the Internet, I wouldn't force you to read. That'd just be stupid.
DISTRIBUTION: WillTara and SlayerPups mailing lists; Extra Flamey.
SPOILERS: This story takes place just after the events of fifth season's "Family." Any and all episodes preceding "Family" are fair game for being spoiled, as reference is made to quite a few canonical past events.
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: W/T, X/A, B/R
Part Six
Tara jerked awake, drenched in cold sweat. After finishing her paper she'd decided to lie down for a bit, wrapped around the giant stuffed frog Willow had won for her at the UC Sunnydale Fall Carnival. It was a poor substitute for a certain redhead, didn't possess the same tendency to babble endearingly, and was nowhere near as comforting. But the room was cool, dark, and quiet, and it had been a long day; so she'd drifted off anyway.
Her sleep had been fitful, more draining than restorative, and Tara felt as though she were only floating just above the surface of actual sleep, somewhere between consciousness and a state of rest.
Now a searing jolt of fear had ripped through her troubled slumber with the force of a scream. Willow's scream.
"Oh god," she murmured. Scrambling out of bed, she raced to the phone and dialed Giles's number, trying to steady her breathing.
Two rings, then three. She noticed that the clock read 11:43 PM; she'd slept longer than she'd realized. "Wake up, Mr. Giles, please . . ." On the fourth ring, she heard a click, then a sleep-fogged voice at the other end.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Giles?"
"Yes . . . Tara, is that you? What is it?"
The fear in her voice must have been unmistakable. "It's--it's Willow, Mr. Giles, she's . . ."
He was fully awake now, on the alert. "What's wrong, Tara? What's happened to Willow?"
Tara choked back a sob. "I don't know. I j-just had a dream . . . I mean, I was sleeping and s-s-something woke me up, it was like I felt it, and I just knew. Something bad's happened to her."
"Good lord . . . you mean she didn't come back from patrolling with Buffy?"
"No. She should have been back hours ago . . . and I haven't heard from Buffy either." Tara winced. How stupid does that sound? For all Giles knows, they just ran into something that took longer to deal with than they thought, and I'm just an overemotional, distraught girlfriend who probably needs a sedative.
"Oh dear." Half to her surprise, Giles didn't question her word; he just took charge of the situation immediately. "Stay right there. I'll come pick you up, and we'll try to get a hold of Buffy and Riley, figure out what's going on. Call Xander and let him and Anya know; tell them to meet us at the shop."
"I will. Please, Mr. Giles, we have to find her." Thoroughly terrified for Willow, Tara was crying openly by now. "We have to."
"And we will, Tara, I promise. Now, just try to stay calm, and I'll be along as soon as I can, all right?"
"I'll try. Thank you," she whispered, and hung up the phone. She found her address book, leafed through it to Xander's number, and punched the digits into the keypad.
* * * * *
Buffy launched herself at the downed vamp and grabbed a fistful of his short. "What the hell have you done to my friend?"
"Nothing! Nothing! It wasn't me!" the vampire pleaded. "I swear I didn't— "
He was stopped cold by the point of a wooden stake poised over his heart. "Tell me the truth." The words were cold, hard, spit out like nails.
The vampire's eyes widened. "Hey hey hey, easy with that thing! You think if I could work mojo like that, I wouldn't use it on me, get away from you people? It wasn't me, okay? Mr. Universe over there—" he indicated Riley with a derisive tilt of his head—"chucked me into the girl and we both hit the ground, but then she was gone! Just disappeared!"
Riley's eyebrow shot up. "Disappeared?"
The vamp nodded nervously, his eyes never leaving the stake Buffy held against his chest. "Yeah, man, that light, d'you see that flash? Whatever it was, it just sucked her in, I swear it wasn't me!"
Buffy dropped him to the ground and glowered disgustedly at him. "You are so lucky that I now have more important things on my mind than turning you into powdered bleach. Get the hell out of here."
He didn't hesitate, and took off at a dead run. Buffy turned to Riley, who had already whipped his cell phone from a pocket on his vest and held it to his ear.
"Riley, we've got to find her." Buffy thought back on the day's events and winced. "Oh god . . . this is the last thing Tara needs right now."
He shot her a concerned look and shook his head. "I know. But Giles isn't answering his phone, and I'd call Tara but . . . we probably shouldn't worry her just yet. Let me try Xander's line." He dialed the number and listened, waiting.
Buffy wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to stop her shaking, and stared at the scorched ring in the grass, marking the spot where they'd seen Willow last.
* * * * *
Xander rolled over and fumbled for the cordless handset in the dark. "If this is another telemarketer . . . and at midnight, I swear . . ."
Beside him, Anya yawned and stretched out. "That would be a remarkable, yet overly tenacious marketing strategy. Hardly admirable, in any case. Waking a customer from a sound sleep? Never a good sales technique. Unless you run a wake-up call service. Of course, you could take advantage of a customer's disorientation after waking them up, but that's not a very ethical thing to do, and could get you in trouble . . ."
"Ahn. Wait. Not now." Xander was listening to a frantic voice on the other end of the line. "Tara? Hang on . . . what? Oh god, absolutely, we'll be right there." He scrambled to his feet and started to dress. "C'mon, Anya, get your clothes on. We've gotta go."
She blinked at him. "They made the sale?" Then it hit her. "That was Tara. What's going on?"
"We don't know yet." He'd already grabbed the car keys and was shoving his feet into a pair of unlaced workboots. "She says she's got a feeling something happened to Willow. She wants us to meet her and Giles at the shop."
"You mean," Anya asked as she pulled on a skirt and sweater, "that we're getting up in the middle of the night just because she thinks something's happened to her girlfriend?"
Xander whirled, fixing her with a stern look. "Ahn, listen. If I thought, just thought, something bad had happened to you, I'd be doing the same thing right now. And we can't not be there for Tara, not after everything that's gone down for her lately."
The former demon's face fell. "I know. You're right . . . I'm sorry. I'd do the same for you." She crossed over to him and gave him a hug. "I love you, you know that?"
Xander kissed the top of her head. "I know." He took her by the hand and opened the door. "Come on."
* * * * *
Riley snapped the phone shut, frustration evident on his face. "No luck. They're not answering either."
"So we head back into town," Buffy replied. "Try Giles's place, and the magick shop. Maybe they're already there, though I don't know how they'd know already."
"Buffy." Riley pulled her into his arms for a hug. "I can sense you, you know that? I don't just . . . I mean, it's like instinct, or something stronger. More definite, I don't know. All I can say is, if something happened to you, somehow I'd know. So I think Tara knows."
She tried to relax into his embrace, with only partial success. "Poor Tara. Hasn't she gone through enough?"
He sighed. "More than her fair share. Let's go find them; she's going to need her friends right now, and so is Willow."
* * * * *
The lights were already on at the Magic Box when Anya and Xander arrived. Ignoring the sign proclaiming the shop closed, they barged through the door to find Giles, still tousled from sleep, perusing the shelves intently while a frantic Tara sat at the table, her head buried in her hands.
Xander moved immediately to Giles's side as Anya took a seat beside the frightened girl, trying to comfort her. "What do we know so far?"
The Watcher looked at him. "Not much. We haven't been able to get hold of Buffy or Riley, and that poor girl is beside herself with worry. I'm quite persuaded that she had some kind of premonition, or a psychic connection with Willow alerting her to the circumstances. There's no other explanation for the intensity of her reaction. It's really not uncommon, you know, when two people of such magickal prowess share a bond like Tara does with Willow."
"It's not too unusual, even for us less empowered types." Xander rested his forehead against the bookshelf and sighed. This was Willow, his best friend since childhood, and not for the first time she was missing. They had no evidence other than Tara's word that it was the case, but none of them thought to doubt her. This didn't get any easier each time around; in fact, it got harder. He couldn't help wondering if she only had so many chances to use up. "We've gotta do something, Giles. The shit's really hit the fan for Tara lately, and to top it all off . . ."
Giles nodded. "Yes, I know. Anya told me all about her financial situation. I'm hoping Tara can supply us with more details about this psychic flash of hers, but she's too distraught right now. If she has a few moments to help focus . . ."
The young man took this in. "Coffee help, maybe? Not so sure about the whole 'wired' factor that goes with caffeine."
"Well, we don't know how long we'll be up on this one. It couldn't hurt." Giles indicated the coffee maker that stood in a corner near the candle racks. He didn't mention that Tara's noted propensity for mochas made it less likely for a single cup of coffee to get her wired up.
"I'm on it." Xander rummaged in the cupboard for a filter and some grounds, and set about brewing a pot. It used to bother him that his Scooby meeting task usually wound up being refreshment runs. Buffy had her Slayer abilities; Willow had her computer know-how and, like Tara, her spells; Giles and Anya both had the inside track with information on the supernatural; Riley was a government-trained special agent. And he was just Xander.
Sometimes the notion that he didn't have any unique skills to bring to the group still got to him, though he'd come to realize that he was good at being there for his friends, lending an ear and being supportive when they needed him. It meant a lot that they were always there for him, so he figured it must count for something that he did the same for them. It was definitely rewarding to see Buffy's face light up when he cracked a joke to snap her out of some funk, or to hear the anxiety draining away from Willow's voice after a long talk.
Willow. Xander ducked his head and furtively wiped away a tear. Right now, he was genuinely scared for her. The coffee was brewing now, so he gathered up some mugs and rousted out the sugar and cream.
In the center of the room, Giles seated himself across the table from Tara and rubbed the bridge of his nose below his glasses. He looked at the blonde witch with concern; Anya had a hand on Tara's shoulder, and was gently rubbing her back with a warmth that belied her usual demeanor.
"Now, Tara," the Watcher began, "I'm terribly sorry, and I hate to push . . . but is there anything you remember in detail about what you saw or felt? I know it's hard, but if we're to help Willow—"
"It's okay." Tara took a deep breath and, almost visibly, pulled herself together. She played with her beaded necklace self-consciously as she spoke. "It w-wasn't so much a clear vision as it was . . ." She paused, searching for the words. "A blast of sensation, really. Her thoughts, her emotions . . . I could see a few images, b-but everything was sort of clouded by her feelings."
"Could you pinpoint what it was that she was feeling?" Giles pressed, as subtly as he could.
"Shock, mostly." Tara looked up and offered Xander a weak smile of thanks as he set a steaming mug of coffee in front of her and took the vacant seat at her other side. Closing her eyes, she steeled herself against the waves of anxiety that came on when she tried to relive what she'd felt. "Shock, but familiarity too . . . I think, like she recognized what was happening."
Anya tilted her head. "Like she'd experienced it before?"
"I think so, yes." Tara sipped the coffee and delved back into the memory. "There was recognition. Right before I woke up . . . before the link broke . . . I felt recognition. Willow knew what was happening."
"Was it something she did on purpose?" asked Xander.
"Maybe . . . I think . . . no. Not on purpose. She felt surprised. But I think it also crossed her mind that—what was it?" Tara ran her hand down her face, trying to make sense of the purely emotional backlash she'd received from her lover. Slowly, she pieced it together. "That she should have known. Like whatever it was that happened was something she knew would happen, as a consequence of something she did."
Giles took a moment to process the statement. "Then it would be reasonable to surmise that she is repeating a past experience, or going through something very similar to a past experience. And certainly it's not the first time that Willow's been—" He didn't want to say "abducted;" the term was too upsetting. "Transported to another dimension. That is to say, if that's the case right now."
"It wasn't me this time," Anya objected.
"Nobody's blaming you, Anya, but that's what it felt like . . . um, transported to another dimension, I mean," said Tara, assurance creeping into her voice. "When the link between us broke, it felt like it had been severed by something, forcibly, like there was some kind of . . . boundary, or barrier, that it couldn't pass through."
The chimes on the doorknob jangled just then, only to be drowned out by the two pairs of booted feet pounding across the floor.
"You are here," Buffy managed, relief evident on her face. "We couldn't get a hold of you at home . . . we were hoping . . ."
Xander jumped to his feet. "Buff, what happened?"
"Honey, calm down," Anya admonished him. "That's what we're trying to figure out, remember?"
Riley moved to Tara, put a hand on her arm. "Holding up okay?" he asked.
She nodded. "Don't worry about me. We have to get to Willow. Did— did you see exactly what went on?"
"Not really," he replied for the benefit of everyone in the room. "We were in the middle of a fight with some vamps—big surprise—and she was doing really well. Surprisingly well. There was a really bright flash of light, and she was gone. Buffy interrogated the vampire who saw the whole thing, and he said that something sucked her in."
"Vamps. World-class specialists on suckage, that's for sure," muttered Xander. "Sounds like some kind of portal."
Anya looked up, her eyes suspicious. "What was she doing? Right before she disappeared, what was she doing?"
"Acting like a lean, mean, vamp-dusting machine," answered Buffy as she circled the table in agitation. "She must've gotten four or five, at least. Maybe more."
As much as she adored Willow, Tara was still objective enough to know that her girlfriend couldn't best Buffy or Riley when it came to physical combat. Which meant . . . "Was she using magicks of any kind?"
Riley blew out a breath. "Oh yeah. Willow was really busting out the spells left and right. She threw some of those vampires around like dust rags . . . if you'll pardon the expression."
Tara took another sip of coffee and found it a little bit difficult to swallow. "What was she like, emotionally?" Her eyes locked with Anya's, and it was clear that they were both thinking the same thing. Tara wondered if the expression on her face was identical to the one the brunette wore.
"Pissed," Buffy supplied immediately. "I caught a glimpse of her face, and she was pissed as hell."
"Shit," murmured Anya.
The soft-spoken Wiccan groaned. "I was afraid of that. This whole thing with my family, it's been gnawing at her all day. Buffy, if she was using spells that powerful to vent her anger during the fight, then . . ." Tara looked at the Slayer, pleading in her blue eyes and all the color suddenly gone from her face. "Emotions—they're a powerful part of magick. Negative feelings emanate through magickal energy in a big way. It's like a scream."
She fell silent, and the unspoken conclusion settled over the entire group like a fog. Gazes darted from one person to the next, all carrying the same import. They all remembered.
It was Anya who finally spoke, dispelling the silence. "Willow screamed loud enough that any being sensitive to magick could hear it if they were paying attention." Her voice was sickened with certainty. "And I think we know who was."
TBC . . .
------------------
"Dawn, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me." -- Buffy, "The Gift"
"If I had only thirty seconds to live, this is how I would want to live them: looking into your eyes . . . Always remember: I love you." -- Xena, "Friend in Need"
[This message has been edited by Shaniezak (edited August 14, 2001).]