Okay then Kitties... without further ado...
Enjoy *hunkers down in the trench and puts the steel helmet on*
Katharyn
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Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Devolution (Promotion Part II) (Part 58)
Author: Katharyn Rosser & Wizpup (you write a paragraph you get a credit!)
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome.
katharynrosser@hotmail.comSpoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe though reference is made to events that occur in both realities.
Summary: The conclusion of Promotion.
Disclaimer: I still don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories.
Rating: 15
Couples: None
Notes: Okay kittens, this lays a lot of things out. Also read to the end before jumping to any conclusions. What I appear to suggest… will never be. You will know what I mean and it shouldn’t need saying.
Thanks To: Louise, who I have not thanked for a while. Xita who reassured about this part before it was ever written and then got me to make the necessary little changes after rendering judegement. Jo… for doing the splits so beautifully. Kerry… aaah Kerry. You know what you did. To Gwen… Sarah misses you too, but I hear that there is something good happening. So that is okay!
The Sidestep Chronicle
Devolution (Promotion Part II)
By
Katharyn Rosser
“Excellent,” Holland commented, looking into one of the bank of monitors spread out before him. What he saw was a crystal clear picture of Tara, seated behind Lilah’s desk. Her head was bowed in a classic pose of concentration, absorbed as she was in the material that lay before her. The file that lay on the desk had, just moments before, fallen conveniently into her possession as she waited for Lilah to find her, missing as she had been from the party. “Shall we give her a few minutes to browse that Lilah?”
Lilah raised a glass of champagne in salute, still celebrating her own good news, then looked at the monitor herself, worried now about the plan. Her plan. Once Tara had read that file, so conveniently left ‘available’ when Tara had been allowed unprecedented access to her office as well, then there would be no going back. Tara would know what she might have already suspected – that Lilah was not her friend.
Not
just her friend anyway. Their relationship, such as it was, had started out simply as a combination of dealing with the Mayor Wilkins retainer and with the Two Roses project. But… well she had found herself genuinely liking the young woman. Tara. She, sort of, liked Sunnydale too. It had a vibe that buzzed as richly as LA. Although she’d never want to live so far from the big city, it was a hell of a place to spend time. There was the energy of the Hellmouth and there was never a shortage of things going on. It was even… pleasant. During the day. And in the right company.
Even if the shopping was diabolical.
Lilah hadn’t realised just how much she had missed moments of ‘pleasant’ in her life until she had gone to Sunnydale and met Tara Maclay. And the ‘right company’ was always the same person in Sunnydale. A person who was already taken… taken each and every night that she’d stayed there by the vampire half of her Two Roses. They didn’t even much bother to hide it from her anymore. There was really no point. She had still not stood face to face with Willow, but Tara and the vampire were fully aware that she knew. It seemed stupid to creep around her – it had done for a long, long time. She could understand that, she wouldn’t have kept it secret either. Tara loved that vampire – how could that be a secret? At first their relationship, to Lilah, had just been the fulfilment of the prophecy. She didn’t have to pretend to like it. It was not her… scene. None of it was. But she had quickly realised that it wasn’t really Tara’s either. At least some of it wasn’t.
The younger woman’s sexuality had never really been in doubt, though it had not been reported to her by the observers who perhaps had no cause to know or realise. The prophecy made it clear anyway. But the way in which that sexuality was expressed seemed, to Lilah, to be more a function of being with Willow than of Tara’s actual desires. And that… Lilah hated. She hated Willow. She hated what she thought the vampire was doing to Tara. It had taken months to realise that what she really hated was that Tara was with someone. It wouldn’t really matter who it had was. A degrading relationship, as she saw it, with a vampire made it worse, but it need not have been Willow to have pissed her off. It could have been Lilah’s sister. If she’d had one. She still would have hated it because she didn’t like to think of anyone else at all being with the witch at the centre of the project.
And what sort of thinking was that? The sort that had not crossed her mind since a few vague thoughts during her teen years and one slight, brief, crush.
There had never the slightest whiff of encouragement from Tara – and why would there be? She had the vampire. It was all neatly prophesied. More than that it was said to be
fate. But Lilah wasn’t sure she believed in that whole Fate thing and things that seemed unattainable had always appealed to Lilah’s nature. Winning was everything – and where was the fun if it was too easy?
There had to be a struggle. She had never bargained with struggling with herself though.
Things had just kept piling up. Little things. Little moments of concern for Tara. Big terrifying moments like when she’d found out that the witch and the Slayer had gone to confront and destroy the Master without her even knowing about it. The Mayor had just arranged it and not even bothered to tell her it was anything more than a possibility. She had shared the worry the Mayor had said that he’d felt. Worry that was not just for the project and what that meant to Wolfram and Hart. And she had shared Tara’s triumph when they had succeeded in destroying the old one. There was no reason for that. Wolfram and Hart had no position on the Master. So why the triumph?
Tara had included her the next time that she’d come to town. Tara had
chosen to celebrate the victory with her friend. Celebrate again really as the Mayor had already done his thing. The Slayer and her Watcher had already done their thing. But Tara had wanted to include her in the joy. Even if the vampire had been there too, at the kill. Even if the vampire had helped them accomplish their goal. Even if the vampire had survived – which of course was required by prophecy, Tara had still chosen to include
her. No on in this town would have. No one in the function room had or would choose to include her in anything like that when they didn’t have to.
It was that sense of sharing that told her that she didn’t want to lose her friendship with Tara. It might have started out as a project, but she had been able to talk to Tara… who else could she talk to about anything at all? Holland? Oh no. Not Holland. Not about
anything. Who else could she share with? Her liaisons were sexual things – not the sort of ground in which you planted seeds of trust. Who else was
there for her in this whole world? Tara, despite her overwhelming loneliness prior to arriving in Sunnydale had things in her life now. Apart from her work. Apart even from Willow. She had friends, the Slayer and those connected with her.
All that Lilah had in her life aside from her work was Tara.
Even though in her head she knew that the Willow creature was what Tara really wanted, in her heart – when they, Lilah and Tara, were in a room together – it felt like there was no one else there with them. It felt like Tara should be just for her, and Lilah knew what all that meant when it was working inside her.
It meant she didn’t want to lose what she had found there. Not even for the project and with Tara reading that file there was going to be some hard talking up ahead. How, now that Tara knew what she needed to, to make her realise that it didn’t have to affect anything but the project? That the project, which Tara had never known existed, was separate from what they had – whatever that was. Friendship or whatever else Lilah might idly speculate about. Well that was what they paid her for; her ability to convince the sceptical as well as the neutral.
And I’m damn good at it.She couldn’t remember trying anything like that when it was the unvarnished truth though. “Yes excellent,” she finally replied to Holland’s comment.
He looked at her and she caught the question in his glance. She must have faded away for a moment there. That was always dangerous behaviour around here. Maybe it was the free-flowing drink – though she was nowhere near drunk. Maybe it was her recent success, or maybe it was just thoughts of Tara and what was at risk now that she could be seen reading that file.
“You find her predictable then?” Holland asked, sounding curious but it was difficult to tell with her boss. He was disarmingly charming but with a heart of ice. He was obviously referring to how she had manipulated Tara into reading what should have been a well-secured file. What was the answer? Predictability was a desirable trait in potential employees. To a point. But the ability to think fast and keep one’s enemies guessing… that was also highly prized. “You knew she would read the file?” he continued.
“I knew that that she would try and help tidy up, if she saw that things were out of place,” Lilah told him, watching Tara in that… quite stunning dress… on the monitor. Even sharing her office bathroom to change she had never seen Tara look more beautiful than she did right now in black and white. Perhaps it was that the younger woman had the information at her fingertips. Most of the truth coming out. No more games.
Well okay, one more game perhaps. Because there were a few things that weren’t in the file at all.
Under Holland’s deft direction the security camera zoomed in on the young woman in her office to see what she was reading, but as it got closer it was, to Lilah, like she could reach out and touch Tara’s cheek. “She likes to help. It’s her nature.” Lilah wasn’t even sure whom she was saying that to. Holland? Or herself? Emotions were spinning like a top inside her head and the question she had to ask herself was ‘why tonight? Why did it have to be on this special night that we did this to her?’ Tara’s birthday. Lilah’s promotion that she should have been sharing with her friend. Perhaps the drink was getting to her a little more than she had thought, she was losing her focus. But perhaps, if she was honest, she had lost it long ago. She finally did reach out and touch the monitor screen, fingers connecting her to the image of Tara’s cheek.
She had never touched Tara’s cheek. Okay now… she was definitely a little drunk.
The screen was cold and unmoving under her fingers, but she did seem just a little bit closer to Tara when she reached out like that. Why had she never touched Tara’s cheek before? Strangely, or not so strangely, she sort of wanted to. Wanted to get just a little closer to the birthday girl. So much to celebrate tonight… her own news, Tara’s birthday and… maybe later something else.
If I can ever pluck up the courage. She knew that Holland was watching her as she moved her fingers across the screen, but she didn’t care at all. She had been promoted to Junior Partner to succeed Holland in his old job. He would still be supervising her but the department was hers. He was moving upstairs and the woman she had realised she wanted to love was in her office… no more secrets.
What she couldn’t see, focused as she was on that image, was that behind her Holland was smiling and nodding, deeply satisfied. Everything was proceeding wonderfully for him too.
Almost exactly as required. One crushing rejection later… and they would be right on track.
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Twenty minutes or so after she had opened up the file jacket and seen Willow’s picture there Tara was thoroughly confused. More than confused, she was filled with fear. That someone, some organisation could do this to her. Not just her. That they could follow her life for years. Have all these details. That they could have known things before they even happened. Things about her, her life. The fear rippled through her like a snake moving across the sand and leaving it’s mark. The file… the plans it revealed. The contingencies that had been in place… It was horrible.
They’d had plans to kill Willow if they had to… They still did. Kill her. Again. And she found this out now? When she had next to no time to do anything about it. To even try and warn Willow. It was too late. Willow would never answer the phone…
And they didn’t seem to know about her. They didn’t seem to know what she was. The most important thing.
We’re a nexus. She wasn’t sure exactly what a nexus was, but the implication was clear enough.
They would kill Willow if they had to.They knew that we would fall in love.They don’t know what I am.They had planned to kill Willow if they’d had to but real life had intruded and she was killed by another persons hand. In that attack by the old Slayer in the factory before she had got to Sunnydale. They hadn’t seen that coming. They didn’t know what she was either. There were holes in their prophecy. Things that they didn’t know.
They didn’t know what she was.
They were using us to manipulate… something else. Some other project that they could impact.
Willow’s death had been authorised in advance. Again. If necessary. Another death for Willow.
Our love was foreseen. My love… I don’t know what Willow feels. Was that another hole in what they knew?But death was not the end… It could be a beginning. So the file said. It could be a beginning too. There were ways. They had brought Willow back once… They were the ones behind Catherine Madison. But there were other contingencies listed. Pages and pages of other ways for other circumstances. Other beginnings that they could have used if that had failed. They were prepared to try over and over again… even if they seemed satisfied with ‘progress’ so far.
They might take Willow away from me. They might even ask me to do it myself to prove some loyalty I do not have to them. They wanted her to work for them, at least Lilah did. They might ask her to kill Willow. Not that she hadn’t thought about that death a million times. Every time Willow came back to her with the evidence of the hunt on her lips and thrust her copper tasting tongue into Tara’s mouth. She thought about what she should have done then. Every time Willow told her of the kills that she had made. Delight and lust in her voice, and Tara could never really be absolutely sure which was for the kill and which was for her.
Willow should have died at her hand along time ago, Tara knew that would have been the
right thing to do. Tara hadn’t saved Willow. She hadn’t redeemed her because that was impossible. She’d just absorbed some of Willow’s desires. Willow was still a soulless killer. But a soulless killer that she loved and who felt at least strong affection in return. Passion. And to kill Willow now… that made a mockery of every death Tara had allowed them to happen because she loved her. If she abandoned the love then what would that mean? Those deaths would mean nothing at all because she had only allowed them because of her love. And whilst she would still love her if Willow’s death was forced on her, to kill her would still make all those others mean nothing.
The file though. Death was just a beginning. Not the end. There were contingencies. Just in case of the unexpected or if undefined thresholds had been violated.
Thresholds…
Why had she found this now… so late?
Goddess she was too late to do anything… Anything but breathe, gather herself and look at the clock. Feel whilst she still could. Sad. Angry. Love. Hate. All of it. She could feel.
That was going to go away? She was afraid that it would.
They were willing to kill Willow.
The antique clock, one of his own collection that the Mayor had given Lilah, was resting on the shelf in a unit and as she looked at it started to strike the hour. She looked up… twelve. It was the next day, or it would be at the last chime… the start of the rest of her life. Such it might be. She sat back in the leather chair, swinging it gently from side to side in time with the chimes and watched the clock, listened to it as they rang out.
At the twelfth stroke, as if he had been waiting for that signal the office door opened and an older man walked in. Lilah was not with him and this was her office. He too was dressed for the party bit he walked in as if he owned the place. This was not just some lost guest. If he knew she was here, and seemed unsurprised, then Lilah knew. So her ‘friend’ was afraid of facing her now? With better reason that she knew because whilst it might have been an accident, or Lilah might have arranged for her to find the file, she hadn’t known what Tara had just become. This man… he might well be her first victim. “Y-you,” she said, recalling the details on the file, “w-would be Holland Manners?” Where was her voice? Where was Lilah? She needed to know what Lilah thought she had been doing to them. She’d trusted Lilah and the lawyer had spat that in her face every time she had opened her lying, bitch, mouth.
And through the confusion – the pain of knowing all that – it was hard to tell what was different now that the date had changed. She could still feel pain though. Anger. Hate. Maybe she was just not aware of the other changes. Maybe the hate was her future. The darkness would love that. She didn’t even know if her memories from before were the same. What she had felt before.
Could she even feel? Apart from the anger?
“Very good Miss Maclay. May I call you Tara?”
She nodded. What did names matter now? Where was Lilah? She wanted her
friend to explain all this to her. Funny how close the word ‘friend’ was to the word ‘fiend.’ All you had to do was leave something out of it. Like the truth from a friendship.
A friendship that seemed now never to have been real at all.
Willow… she wasn’t safe from them. There, that was concern. Surely that was concern. She could feel concern for Willow.
He came over and sat on the edge of Lilah’s desk, flipping through the file that Tara had been reading and which she had made no attempt to hide at his entry. Right now she was in no mood for caution or sneakiness. Given the nature of Wolfram and Hart that might be a very serious misjudgement, but apart from Willow she had no reason left to care. Not even her friend Lilah. Even, as of a minute ago, her humanity had been taken from her. That was probably the root of the despair that she was a feeling. She’d fit in around here perfectly. They all had a tinge of despair in them. She could feel it. Bigger or smaller but it was there. Last whimpering protests of humanity inside them and some of them even yearned to be rid of those.
Holland too.
Just as she was free of hers.
“Entertaining reading?” he asked her. “Did you like what you found out?” He studied a photograph, then looked over at her. “I like your hair better this way, you should think about changing back.”
“No,” she replied to his original questions.
“But do you understand what it all means?” Holland persisted.
“Y-You played with us? Me and Willow. You let Willow die… more than once. You played with us. You, Lilah…”
“Not as much as you might think from that file Tara. Paper isn’t the best medium for reporting this sort of thing. It sounds so flat and dry don’t you think?” She looked confused at that and he continued, perhaps very aware of her ability to kill in a variety of manners. The darkness was whispering to her, it felt her rage. It felt the hate. It wanted to use them for her… to make him go away forever. It was bubbling under the surface. “You two, you and Willow, were fated to be together. You know some of what we do here – it was
far too great an opportunity to pass up.”
“To make me into the sort of person who would love to serve Wolfram and Hart?” she guessed, but something about that did not ring true. The file didn’t point to it except in Lilah’s reports.
“Not at all. Though we would welcome any job application you might choose to make, our employing you was merely one Lilah’s whims – after she read about you and saw what your capabilities. She thinks you have potential.
Actually she thinks that it will save you.” He folded his arms across the file, watching her instead of reading.
“S-Save me?” Still confused, this was all coming out way too fast. And it was too late anyway. The file, now Holland. Where the hell was Lilah? Lilah was the one who should have been telling her this. Long ago.
The darkness wanted to find the other lawyer. The darkness wanted to claim her.
The darkness
wanted.“Lilah feels that you have set yourself on a course and that if you stay on it, you will destroy yourself just by the odds eventually beating you. That worries her. You know Tara, she really does like you. Which is why she is not here now. And why I am.” He grinned, showing that he was pleased to be there anyway. “This is not best explained by someone with an ‘attachment’ to you. And frankly, aside from the needs of this project, I really have no feelings about you one way or the other.”
She looked at him and knew within herself that every word he was speaking was the truth. It did make him the perfect person for whatever they intended. The knowledge came from the sense that she had of people, their words and their actions. And now, she didn’t hesitate to back that up with the opportunity to
look at him; sense him through the magic. But Lilah had defeated that sense for months, or at least misled it. How reliable was it really?
Did it even matter what he said? She had beaten them just by getting to midnight. Their options were closed. She had taken them by surprise.
She was a demon and they had no idea. They might… if the darkness became loud enough. They might find out.
But if Lilah had really wanted to save her, then it was possible that, despite the lies she was trying to be her friend. Again too late though. Had she lied? Tara had never considered that Wolfram and Hart had an interest in Sunnydale beyond the Mayor. Lilah had never lied because the subject had never come up; there was no lie to be told… that was how Lilah had done it. Truth obscured by friendship. The friendship was real, but also deceptive. Lies within the truth. Wonderful. Not that it mattered who her friends were now anyway.
The darkness would swallow them all. Tara didn’t know whether it would be best to be first or last.
“That was never my concern though,” Holland continued. “I was always looking at the bigger picture.”
“Y-you don’t want me?” Whilst the idea of being wanted by Wolfram and Hart was disturbing, the idea that she might
not be wanted, that they might not think she had what it took pricked at the tiny nub of pride within herself that she rarely acknowledged. Evidently it had made the transition with her. All the bad things. Anger, hate and now pride. But really, that must mean… if they didn’t want her then they wanted Willow. And she knew Willow would never bow to them . She wondered if Holland realised that… and of course if they wanted Willow then they intended to work through her. She was the control.
She wondered if Holland knew what she was now. How they had failed. Was that why he had waited? Till midnight? There was nothing in the file about her heritage. Nothing about her mother beyond a name and the relevant dates. The name of the hospital.
“Not at all really. Frankly I don’t think you have the required… temperament for what we do here. You
care Tara and that is a good thing out in the world, but you care too much for what we would have you do, formidable as your skills might be. Those skills would take you so far, and then you would find yourself staring into the abyss – and you would pull back from it. Which we couldn’t allow. Better to never go there all rather than be disappointed. I don’t like to be disappointed.”
They might be surprised. They might have been right. Past tense. Now. Even she didn’t know. Perhaps, now, she was already at the bottom of the abyss looking out. “Then why did you make me what…”
“What you are?” he completed, and she nodded. “Tara, we didn’t. We just watched. We did nothing
to you at all. What you did you did to yourself – or others did it to you. What we did was observe as the equation worked itself out and tried to guide the other terms.”
“T-Terms?”
“Sorry… I minored in maths. It always fascinated me even though I didn’t do terribly well. Equations have terms. If one term equals this then the other term must equal that. Usually you look to work them all out. But you, you were set on a certain course. We knew what the answer would be before we even knew the question. Have you any idea how rare and wonderful that is?”
Tara struggled to think back to her algebra, wondering what he meant exactly. “So Willow is the other term of this equation?”
“No… you and Willow are the most obvious answer. It was fated to be Tara, not even death could keep you two apart. Several deaths as it happened, though we were prepared to lend some assistance in that regard had it proven necessary.” He shrugged. “The precise manner of her recall to this world was never laid down. So, if you two were always going to be the answer then we could ask any question that we wished. Knowing you two, together, were a constant we could manipulate the world around you to achieve some interesting effects. Not all of which were to do with either or both of you at all.”
“We were an ex-experiment?” she said, wondering what the hell had been manipulated in their lives. The capture and turning of Willow? Her family’s deaths? Had she been pursuing the wrong party all this time? No… the file suggested that they hadn’t even known that they were looking for her until after that.
But Willow… they
had done this to Willow.
“You were a certainty and we deeply appreciate it. You know you shouldn’t be upset at all. Nothing has happened that was not according to your own free will or was fated to be. You have your Willow. You have what was always meant to be… and you
know that. You knew it the first time you saw her. You were probably dreaming about her long before you did see her – that’s how fate usually works. Think about it Tara… How many people can claim to
know with absolute certainty that their love was always meant to be?” Certainly, his wife Catherine had not struck him that way for quite some time. Tara’s reaction to his statement though, clearly not exactly as ecstatic as he had been expecting. “Something the matter Tara?” Holland was not without feelings of sympathy. He had the feelings and he pushed them aside. It was a valuable gift in a lawyer.
She let out a bitter laugh. “You tell me this now, the day I lose it all.”
“Lose it?” Holland was suddenly quite, quite lost. The laugh seemed quite out of place with what little he had observed of her personality. Lilah certainly didn’t think that Tara had a bitter bone in her body. So now he was lost, probably along with whatever it was that she thought she had lost.
“My humanity Holland. My ability to have friends like… Lilah.” There was the bitterness again. She still had that too then. “ To love Willow… You tell me that our love was always meant to be… now? Today?” Tara gave a pained chuckle again, leaning back in Lilah’s chair and with a tiny motion of her foot to turn the chair away from him, staring out of the window. She could still see her reflection though. So that wasn’t part of what had happened to her. No bad hair days at least without being able to see to clean herself up unlike vampires. Might be helpful with the slather and slime that went with many demons when they manifested.
“Have you made some unholy deal for your soul?” he didn’t think she was the type, but you never could tell. The youth of today. They would make a deal with any demon who flashed a pointy ear at them. But Tara, he was sure, knew better that that. She’d killed them. She knew that there were few powers out there worthy of her respect. Perhaps Mayor Wilkins, had he offered her something? No, Holland didn’t think so. Dick Wilkins knew that Tara was important to Wolfram and Hart and valued her services himself. Too much to jeopardise that now.
Maybe a little too much. No, he wouldn’t have done anything to interfere.
“No - nothing like that Holland, my demon heritage is revealed today… eight minutes ago in fact. You should probably be careful around me. Not get me upset, I have no idea what is going to happen or if it already has.” Tara’s voice was shaking, but she knew that it also had an edge to it. She was deliberately trying to threaten him. To get a reaction.
And his reaction…
Holland looked at his watch. “Mmmn, as of midnight eh?” She nodded and he could see that movement reflected in the window. “I don’t think so.” He considered everything he knew about her and still couldn’t see it. “No.”
“It’s true, I’m a demon. Part demon anyway.” It had been drilled into her for long enough that she could never forget it. His denials just because it was inconvenient for his plans made no difference.
Remember what you are Tara… I do sir.
“Well there was certainly nothing written about that. Believe me it would have said. They tend to mention that sort of thing in the books, prophets love that sort of detail. Besides it isn’t just vampire detectors we have here,” Holland pointed out to her in a matter of fact manner.
Tara heard the words. She had been relying on Wolfram and Hart’s security. That was why she was here at all of course. So they could detect her… but… they hadn’t. Well, their detectors were either broken… or they didn’t react to her kind of demon. Whatever kind she was now.
“You can detect demons?” Lilah hadn’t mentioned that to her at all. It might be a problem if she ever had to come back in here, uninvited. Did she have to be invited now? No, she wasn't a vampire and this was not a home. But his words held no comfort for her. They were impossible. All of their security… worthless if it did not detect her. Right now, with this news, she was the biggest danger that they faced.
The darkness was whispering to her. Wanting her to give in. To do something about what they had done to her and to Willow.
“Naturally. We represent some, shall we say, unusual clients. Those clients often have unusual enemies. You couldn’t buy the security system here for a dozen souls.” He gave her a not very nice smile which she saw in the window. “I know I asked for a replacement quote just last month. But you, as far as we can detect are not a demon. I practically guarantee it. There is no known species of demon that can get in here undetected. And if you were one then security would have been here within thirty seconds. They’re watching you anyway.”
“I’m not a demon?” That was what he was suggesting, sounding pretty confident too. It couldn’t be true. There had to be some sort of trick going on, some reason why they didn’t want her to believe the truth about herself. Either that or her human side hid what she really was from them. She was still her father’s daughter. At least half human. That might be it. She turned in her chair,
looked at him. Hard. He wasn't lying. Again. Still the same. He genuinely did not think that she was a demon. What little fear he had of her he’d had when he entered the room, before he knew what her reaction to the file would be. Or what she thought she was. Fear was such a reliable indicator. He didn’t fear her. Not like that. And he wasn’t lying… at least in his own opinion.
Could it be true? Could he be wrong?
Could he be right?
“Not so far as I know certainly. Maybe you are something different. But I would say not. Besides you don’t strike me as the demon type.” Somebody, if he was right, had pulled a quite wonderful deception on this young lady. One that he would have to remember for future reference. It could prove a useful method of control if one had access to a subject from a young enough age. Someone else had been trying to control Tara… had they known about her potential? Because this was almost masterful.
Oh well. It was all irrelevant now.
He looked at her as she was sucked deep into thought. He could see the confusion on her face, and in response he picked up the phone on Lilah’s desk, dialling the security desk where Lilah was. “Thom? Holland. Could you arrange a full sweep, Lilah Morgan’s office?” He waited listening to the options. “Both, pheromone and the detectors.”
Tara looked at him as he spoke on the phone, what was he doing? What was he doing playing with her like this.
You know what you are Tara. Daddy shutup!
Holland smiled at her, then held up a finger to forestall anything she might say as the results came through and he put the phone down. “Congratulations, according to the best mystical detectors and scientific instruments this firm and the US government can supply you are completely human. An autopsy might show definitively…” He trailed off even as he said it, smiling again. “Sorry, not really a funny joke.”
“I’m not a demon?” Tara repeated numbly, totally missing the whole joke thing. She was human? Holland didn’t reply to her question. What if it wasn't a game? Studying his reactions, his aura again… she still couldn’t believe that it was a deception on his part. He had genuinely asked for those analyses and he genuinely believed in their accuracy. What did that mean? If she wasn’t a demon then… then she was human and everything that meant. The despair that she had felt wasn’t a condition of being a demon. It was the fear of it. She could still love…
She could still love Willow.
And she did love Willow.
But Willow couldn’t love her. Could she really love? And what did a future actually mean to her?
She was human?
Perhaps Holland would know? About Willow… “Can a vampire love?” she asked him suddenly. Next to being human it was the only thing that might matter. Hell could swallow their project. She didn’t care and wanted no part of it. The question… even asking it meant that she had accepted that he might be telling the truth. That there was more than a glimmer of hope for her.
But what for her and Willow? With a future they would have to find some hope or some ending.
Was there a future?
The question was certainly a bolt from the blue to Holland who sat and considered it for a moment. “Tara, I don’t know. I’m not sure anyone does – including them.”
“But what do you think?” she pressed. He owed her. He owed Willow. Where the heck was Lilah? All this, this project rubbish meant nothing. She had bigger things to think about and she needed someone she knew to tell her things.
“I think…” he paused, knowing that Lilah would still be watching on the monitor and that a key moment was approaching. This had to be done right. “I think that many of them believe that they can and if they believe it then why do we doubt it?” That certainly struck the right note with Tara. He could see it in her reaction. Perfect. Just perfect as he was also playing for the audience. There was just a bit further to push, another button or two and everything would be back in place, and so much enhanced. His eyes flicked towards the concealed camera, Tara had gone back to staring out of the window.
Willow, Tara knew, Willow doubted it – that she could love. Willow doubted that she could… not that she did. That she could. Given his argument then…
If she doubts it… how can I not do the same? Despair was filling her again… even though she was sort of ready to think that maybe she was human. Perhaps despair was the human condition. Not the demon one. Maybe she was suffering because she still could.
It didn’t make it any better at all. He had kept talking to her and something in her managed to answer him, ask him things, but most of her was somewhere else. It was in Sunnydale, wondering about Willow. And when Holland left she just sat there wondering what the hell she was going to do… if she was human.
It changed everything. Everything that her life had been built upon.
Her life… what had she done to her life?
She was so deep in thought that she let Lilah lead her from the building to the car without even a protest at what someone who had pretended to be her friend had done to her.
To them.
--------------------
The limo journey back to Lilah’s loft conversion across town had passed almost as silently as the exit from the offices. Holland had asked Tara not to blame Lilah for what she thought might have been done to her. She had said nothing in reply, barely hearing him in fact. She believed enough of what he had said to understand that Lilah might have actually been genuine in some of things that she had done and said. But even after Tara had accepted that perhaps nothing had been done to them
by Wolfram and Hart it was difficult to accept that Lilah had known all along what was going to happen. The conversations that they’d had, the advice that Lilah had given her from time to time; it all had to be reassessed in the light of what Tara had discovered in her office and from Holland.
And the fact that she was human.
That she had a future with Willow.
Could have a future.
Apart from the fact that Willow
was still a demon.
Lilah had tried to say something to her as they got into the car but the glare that Tara had given her had made it clear that there was nothing that she could say right now that would make things okay. Better. Least of all right.
Willow… what about Willow? Her and Willow?
Tara’s humanity though, of that concern Lilah could have had no previous idea. Tara had carried the burden alone. Hidden it.
The lawyer knew that she should have known that. Her researchers should have picked up on the practices of the Maclay family. It went back generations Tara had revealed to Holland in their long conversation, every second of which Lilah had watched on the monitor. Even if Tara wouldn’t remember saying it. Heads would roll if that spoiled the project. Lilah mentally promised that. Heads might roll anyway… she would have wanted to know for both Tara and herself. She could have helped her. Through Wolfram and Hart she had resources that could have set Tara’s mind to rest long ago. And if it had proven true then that would have been something that Lilah should have been able to consider too.
Either way she had needed to know.
But it was false. Hearing it on the monitor Lilah had checked every demon detector available, carefully hidden and lining the route they had taken in the building. Even before Holland had asked for a focused sweep. Not a peep from any of them. At least not in response to Tara. The young woman was fully human – she, Tara, seemed to be the only one to doubt it. Lilah didn’t want to imagine what that was like… but she couldn’t help imagining it because they had shared so much.
They didn’t actually speak again until the car had dropped them off and the driver had pulled away. Tara had slumped onto the couch and Lilah had sat next to her. The witch had, initially moved away but then seemed to stop herself. Perhaps she thought it might appear childish.
Perhaps, Lilah hoped, Tara was taking Holland at his word and not blaming her too much.
Finally she spoke. “I got promoted.” It seemed insignificant and totally pointless to even mention it, but what else could she say to Tara after what she had found out? How could she open a conversation? And now that admission was more like… ‘I did such a good job in manipulating you and that it got me my advancement.’
Lilah’s aura was filled with something that Tara had never seen there before. Lilah was sad… and the sadness was focused upon her. It was always hard to tell, but she guessed that Lilah just didn’t know what to say. How to make things right. Maybe Holland was right though. She had Willow. And she had her friend Lilah whom she would never have met but for the project. She didn’t have enough friends to risk losing one now. Not when she needed every one she could get. She would be losing them anyway… Now human, she had to confront her future with the Mayor. She had to face Mr Giles finding out about Willow… eventually. Jenny too. Willow herself and their future. She could count them on one hand. “I’m human,” Tara replied with the tiniest sad smile as a reply to Lilah’s news. Her own promotion.
“Congratulations?” Lilah suggested with a questioning tone. Should it be celebrated?
“Yes… congratulations.” Tara was locked deep in her thoughts. Possibilities, closed doors. Opening ones. Contingencies. There had been contingencies. Things that they would do. Terrible sounding things if it all went wrong.
Lilah looked at Tara, wondered about her muted response. At least she was talking though. Maybe they could be alright. Maybe everything could be alright. Maybe she could make it alright… or at least better. “My feet are killing me” Lilah complained, slipped the torture devices off her feet and resting them on the table in front of them, her dress falling away from her legs.
That finally got a smile out of Tara. Even if it was just a little one. They had that in common. “Mine too.” She slipped her own shoes off and placed her feet next to Lilah’s. “I remember now why I haven’t worn heels since I was dressing up with my…” She was about to stop, thinking that the usual pain would arise at the mention of her mother. But for some reason… it was dulled.
I’m human though! Not forgetting… just with fresher pains. “…Mother.” Fresher pains to hurt her. Including Lilah.
“Occupational hazard for me. They give me height and height gives me such a feeling of power… and power gives me such… well a buzz.” Lilah knew that she was getting dangerously close to expressing why it was she did what she did. This wasn't yet the time though. She was managing to draw Tara out of herself. She had the definite feeling that too much introspection right now was not going to be a good thing.
Tara even managed a real smile. “You suit them… you really do, you looked great tonight.”
I’m human… share the happiness. Even with a representative of Wolfram and Hart. My friend. Who manipulated and reported on me to some very bad things. But still my friend? She thought so somehow. Without even having to
look.“You too… I must admit I didn’t think you would look… well you looked good enough to eat.” It was a subtle probe. A compliment definitely, the suggestion was well hidden in a common phrase. It had to be… Lilah wasn’t going to leave herself open. Not wide open anyway. But something told her that if she was ever going to act upon her feelings then she had to act tonight. It seemed absolutely the wrong time but… There never would be another time and her professional instincts screamed at her that it was always best to strike whilst the target was vulnerable.
Instincts had always proved good enough in the past to get her where she was.
Alone.
Am I ready? Lilah asked herself.
No. But I have no choice if I want to do this. Tara knew everything now. With a night’s sleep behind her there might be a change in their relationship, once Tara thought about everything Lilah might have done. Had done. Tara was a good person at heart. Lilah wasn't. But then neither was Willow. Tara wasn’t looking for a good heart. Which was good. No one was offering her one.
Perhaps someone should… but there was just her and Willow.
Willow was hundreds of miles away. There… there was never going to be another time. And the vulnerability… she had to take advantage of it. It wasn’t as if she wanted to cheat Tara or trick her, but there was no better time, not if she didn’t say something now. But she couldn’t say it. She might just have to do. Actions spoke louder than words after all.
That was a fine thing for a lawyer to admit.
“Thank you… I think,” Tara told her, still subdued. “You know with the, well the company in that function room being good enough to eat might not have been such a great thing,” Tara forced herself to make the joke, tipping her head back and laying her hand on Lilah’s arm. Forgiving a lot with that simple touch. Compassion. She still had that. But she wasn’t forgetting. Never forgetting. She would not forget what Lilah was capable of and why she would always have to be wary of her friend.
She could still be her friend. If she could love Willow then she could be Lilah’s friend.
The touch burned Lilah – and it was a wonderful burning. “It’s definitely a good thing.” Lilah let the hand stay there until Tara withdrew it then she moved her bare toe towards Tara’s next to hers and they touched. Something like a shock ran through her. How could Tara not react to such a force? Lilah moved her foot closer, playfully running it along Tara’s arch until her companion eventually reacted with a smirk and retaliated against her, a foot fight. No kicking, just a struggle for supremacy which Lilah eventually won with Tara giving up. Lilah liked to win.
I can win.
I will win.
And I can see the prize. Maybe the biggest prize of my life.Really that much? Was that what this was? Maybe not… but it was the first time she had even wondered if that might be the case.
Smiling across at Tara she leaned in and gave her a peck on the cheek… and before Tara could even think what that might mean she brought her hand to the other cheek of the younger woman and was obvious in her intent to kiss her more fully. But at the touch of the cheek there was no charge between them this time and the moan that Lilah gave was as much disappointment at that as it was finding Tara’s lips were not available to her. Not reciprocating. They were frozen. Resistant. Tara held back from it.
Shocked Tara could not move. She couldn’t react immediately. Lilah… Lilah her friend, whom she had just forgiven for everything she had done, was trying to kiss her when she knew – of all people she knew - what Willow meant. It was only the disappointed moan from Lilah that gave her the jolt she needed, pulling back and taking Lilah’s coaxing hand away from her face. She looked deep into Lilah’s instantly pained eyes. There was fear there. Lilah knew that she had been rebuffed. And she was afraid what else might happen. She had never seen Lilah afraid before. Even when death had threatened them Lilah had always been confident, in her… but now she was afraid. No more afraid than Tara was. Tara was afraid of losing a friend that was capable of the things that Lilah had in her power.
Lilah hadn’t just made a pass at her, the lawyer had tried to stick her tongue in her mouth. That was more than a pass.
A pass would have been bad enough. Hard enough. Tara had only veer been kissed by Willow. That was all that she wanted. Nothing more. No one else.
Lilah was a friend; just a friend. All she could ever be and all Tara ever wanted her to be. It was the only reason she had forgiven Lilah at all and now Lilah wanted to change things? She felt something that changed things? Now?
Had the lawyer thought she was vulnerable? Maybe desperate for love, or at least affection in Willow’s absence.
Willow.
And there was Willow.
If Lilah had ever planned to do this then it was far, far better she had done this here. Far better for Lilah. If Willow ever found out what the lawyer had done… She would kill her. Slowly or quickly… It depended if rage got the better of her or just a desire for painful vengeance.
“There is,” Tara said, “no way Lilah. No way.”
She could see the hurt on Lilah’s face as she uttered the words. She spoke them softly but she might as well have dropped an Acme ten ton weight on the woman, but the steel in Lilah – Tara guessed – still held her eyes. Lilah didn’t look away. She was that strong. The eyes though… the pain. The hurt. The disappointment. It made Tara feel guilty and she had done nothing wrong at all. It was Lilah who had betrayed their friendship with her project. It was she who had forgiven Lilah. And it was Lilah who had these unreciprocated feelings. It wasn’t Tara’s fault but she felt guilty about it anyway.
“There can… never be. Lilah. Never.”
“Never?” That was so much worse to the lawyer than no. That was no hope. No possibility. No room to negotiate. No cards to play. Nothing that could be done. Never… That was pure defeat untainted by even a smidgen of victory. It wasn’t thinking about it. It wasn't even ‘if there was no Willow.’ It was never. It was as bad as she had ever felt in her life. Ever.
“Never,” Tara repeated to be doubly certain.
“Because of Willow right?” The vampire. She had known that was the biggest obstacle, that Tara so clearly loved her vampire. Obscene as that was. But she had also known that Tara longed for human warmth. That she wanted a friend as much as a lover. It was what was making her sad after all. The friend was a role that Lilah felt she already filled.
I am qualified. I am warm. I am human – we both are – and I’m her friend. And I’m a woman. A woman who until I got to know this young woman was so firmly hetero that I could never have doubted it. It’s just her. She does it to me. Makes me crazy. Gives me feelings. Women were what Tara liked.
But that was just it.
Willow was what Tara liked more than anything else in the world. To the exclusion of
all else.
“No, not because of Willow.” Tara told her. “Because of me. I just don’t ever think of you that way. Willow or not. In spite of everything else that happened tonight I value you… but only ever as a friend Lilah. Never someone to kiss like that. Or anything more than that.”
“Never then.” Lilah said.
“Never.” Tara confirmed again and tried to think what it would have been like to have been rejected by Willow, perhaps another Willow who wasn’t a vampire with those desires. A Willow she loved as much as her own. And thinking of that… then she knew a little of how Lilah must be feeling. The lawyer hadn’t mentioned the word love. But Tara knew she would, at least to herself. Whether it was love she couldn’t know, only Lilah could and then she said it.
“I do love you Tara,” Lilah told her, a last roll of the dice. It was so simple. It should be. Two people who were in love should be together. But whilst they were two people in love, one of them here did not love the other that was here.
Tara wasn’t sure what to say so she just stayed silent.
“But I guess I’ll just have to get over that won’t I?” Lilah finished, and a heart that she had almost forgotten she had plunged like a stone into her stomach. Brave face, but only for a minute. She placed her head on Tara’s shoulder and was glad that Tara still felt she could hold her, stroking her hair as she started to cry.
When the hell had she last cried… but right now the tears would not stop.
If someone had told her she would have spent the night in Tara’s arms she would have rejoiced. But this was not what Lilah had in mind. It would have to do her though.
Tonight the humiliation and the tears. Tomorrow she would find the cast iron bitch she had been before she had ever met Tara Maclay and get back to being her again.
**************
by IsayAmberBensonsgorgeous » Wed Jul 03, 2002 1:32 am 
