Part 74 is below... but first...
Tulipp - Hey there, I don't think that you can ever be certain where the perception of either of these girls ends and the truth begins. The truth is almost something different to each of them - or anyone else. For example... Faith. Giles's truth is that Tara as good as killed her. Tara's truth is that she allowed fate to take its course and that choice got Faith killed. Willow's truth is like "yay I killed the Slayer."
The truth is something different for everyone. I feel that I know the "objective truth" and I write on that basis - but really, in this story, no such animal. Yet. When everyone is perceiving the same thing - and it is all of their truths perhpas that is an objective truth?
Versions of fate? Wow... interesting notion that I had not considered - at least in those terms. I'll think of that.
Thanks Juli and I hope you like what is below.
Katharyn
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Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Five by Five My Love (Part 74)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
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: Giles and Jenny a few days after the funeral.
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: G/J
Notes: As you will appreciate there is no personal experience of what follows…
Hugs for: Jo.
The Sidestep Chronicle
Five by Five My Love
By
Katharyn Rosser
“It was…” Jenny stopped, thinking back to the bright sunlit afternoon in the cemetery a few days ago. Really just a few days ago? It had been the last funeral of so many for both of them. But the one that had hurt her most since she had arrived in Sunnydale. The town that had always stank of death. “The funeral… it was nice.” He had caught her crying and understandably he’d wanted to know what was wrong with her. He had wiped the tears away and held her for a while and somehow things had seemed a little better after that.
A little better. Faith was still gone and she wasn't really one for being the ‘weepy female’ but she thought that perhaps she had cause for once. Faith was still gone, despite the good, manly, job he had done comforting her. She let him, sometimes, be manly – she had always found that kind of attractive in him… along with the fuddy-duddyness. They had comforted each other. He didn’t like to show it as much but he was missing Faith too.
And not the Faith who had been the Slayer.
The Faith who had been like a member of their family. The Faith who had poked fun at his accent, his clothes… just basically at him all round. But she knew that he had never taken that to heart. That was who Faith had been. Faith who had been her friend.
It was all so past tense. That was part of what hurt, having to think about how things used to be when they should have been making plans for the future. Moving on. That was important. The cliché was that life went on – and it did. It was just that sometimes life seemed to leave you behind for a while – in the past.
Jenny had found one of Faith’s socks down the back of the sofa-bed on which the Slayer had slept for all of those months she had been staying with them. The months in which she had become a part of who ‘them’ was.
That stupid sock had brought it all back.
It shouldn’t have done. If things had been perfect they would have been able to remember Faith – honour her memory and not break down whilst doing so. But if things had been perfect then Faith wouldn’t be dead at all, would she?
She would still have been here having her fun. She would have still have been taking Jenny out for nights of fun… fun that she was going to have to leave behind now anyway. There still would have been Tara to talk to.
Jenny missed Tara too – all the more because she had been able to see that the young woman had also been deeply hurt by what had happened. Whatever part she had played in Faith’s death, and Rupert couldn’t stand to hear her name said at the moment, she hadn’t killed their mutual friend.
Tara was hurting. Jenny was hurting. Rupert was hurting. They should all have been together. They should all have been coping with it together and sharing the future. Instead Tara was isolated and somewhere out there on her own. That made Jenny sad too. That brought tears to her eyes.
She’d never cried much. Not until now.
She had lost friends before, students… even one… the one… who had done this to them now. But she’d never felt like this before. But at least she knew part of why that was. It was only to be expected really.
Just because there was another explanation it didn’t make it any better though.
What had happened had to have a reason behind it. Tara hadn’t just turned around and told Willow to kill Faith. Tara, Jenny was convinced, had no clue that it was going to happen. Nor could she believe that she knew everything that had happened that night. She hadn’t been there.
That was the one thing that still bothered her about Rupert. When it came to the Council he was still evasive with her and she had to wonder if the Council had anything to do with what had happened? Had they been there? Had they barged in on Faith and Tara? Had Willow reacted to that?
Poor Willow.
Until this had happened, she had not really thought very much about the girl she used to know. The girl she had known could never have done this. For any reason. If Jenny had ever doubted just what a vampire was then she knew now.
It was nothing to do with the person that it had been.
Nothing.
Which had begged the question what was a person like Tara doing with a thing like Willow? A killer?
It had made her head hurt – thinking about Willow and remembering what had been lost to the world when she had died. Either that or something else had made it ache. She’d had to lie down a lot lately, Rupert had been getting worried about her. It would get better though – she knew that at least.
Faith, Willow and Tara. That was a lot to be sad about.
Faith who really was gone… Willow who should have been and Tara… Tara who seemed to wish that she was. She hadn’t made a move to defend herself from Rupert in the cemetery. Not a single move. Nothing had stirred her until the Mayor had shown up and there had been a threat, with Rupert in his grief, of a conflict.
It was then that Tara had come alive. Tara had helped them all leave unscathed. An understanding had passed between them. Jenny knew that Tara would always help them. And it wasn't just guilt…
Something had been going on.
Something that she didn’t know about. But it was gone now… of the past. Too late. Faith was dead and what Jenny didn’t know back then wouldn’t bring back the young woman who had brightened their lives, even saved them.
It was time to refocus. They had to. She might be weepy and Rupert might be mopey for a while, but they had to be moving forwards. They couldn’t become stagnant, obsessed with what could have been – but wasn't anymore.
“Yes, it was… nice,” he said with the sad sort of happiness that had come to characterise their support for one another in this time.
They had discussed the funeral a few times now. It had been nice to see people that Faith, and Tara, had helped were there to mourn her. To remember her and the good that she had done. He came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. It was always nice that he was bigger than her, but never more so than at times like this. It made her feel safer in sort of primal way – sometimes it was just nice. Moments could get on top of her just like anyone else. One day, soon she hoped, she would stop crying and things would still be better. Faith and Tara – and Rupert – had made them better for everyone. She leaned her head back against his shoulder and he folded his arms around her. They still had each other. Always each other.
Acquaintances, friends, pupils and now Faith had gone, but they still had each other and that seemed, right now, more important than anything else. They had always got through that sort of thing together. And maybe… maybe this would be the last. Sunnydale was a better place now than it had been. The sort of place that they had always wanted it to be… dreamed it could be. People still died here – but not so many now. Faith should have been able to enjoy that too. And Tara was still working to make it even better.
She had made a huge step. Surely it had been her. It must have been. The Mayor was gone and it was hard to believe that it wasn't something to do with Tara. Perhaps only Jenny could have known that as only she had seen the young woman’s eyes at the funeral when the Mayor had come over to them. For the first time in Tara she had seen something close to hatred.
They would remember Faith. They would remember all of them and if the time came then Jenny would remember Tara too, but now she was sure that nothing would happen to them – she and Rupert. It wasn’t just optimism that she had found in the last few days – it was something more than that. They would always have each other.
Every time that someone they knew died they told each other that. They whispered it to each other as a ward against the worst possible thing happening but it meant something new to her now. Maybe soon, when Rupert got over this a little, it would to him too.
What was getting to him more than anything was a sense of his own failure. She knew that because she’d had to tell him every night that it wasn't his fault. She knew why he thought that though. Faith had died after it was supposed to be all better. The Master was gone. The Mayor was gone now too. It should have been an easy time for a Slayer. After all that Faith and Tara had accomplished this should have been a time when they could have been themselves a little more. Had a life.
Maybe Tara could have sorted herself out and got herself away from that Willow when things became easier. Instead of that everything, for Tara, had got so much harder. It couldn’t be any other way.
It made Jenny glad that she had Rupert. Uncomplicated, loving, fuddy-duddy, tweed-clad Rupert. They always had each other. But not Faith. Faith didn’t get to have anything or anybody. She had done so much and this was her reward?
She shook her head, that way lay more bitterness and anger. This was not the time for that. In either of them.
“Couldn’t the Council have sent someone?” she asked, still appalled that Rupert had been the only official representative of that body… and he would have been there anyway. He was Faith’s friend – as much as a Watcher ever could be.
“Wesley was there,” he tried to soothe her, his hand making gentle motions on her arms.
He always defended the Council… why did he have to do that?
“I spoke to Wesley,” she told him. “He was just nearby when he heard. He wasn't sent. And the new Slayer… she was from Whitley. It was all coincidence.” The town was only a hundred miles or so away. How lucky could that have been? For Wesley. Wesley hadn’t been sent.
She still couldn’t decide whether taking the new Slayer to the funeral of the old one was a good thing – for a Slayer. For a little girl who had to grow up quickly and fill some big boots, it probably was.
Poor little thing. She had looked terrified by it all. What was she? Fourteen maybe. At least Faith had been a little older. She had, Rupert said, come to it late. Jenny couldn’t help thinking that it was a good thing.
It shouldn’t be allowed at that age. No matter how much good she might do, it was just cruel. She was someone’s sister, someone’s friend. Someone’s daughter. “Damn that Council of yours Rupert.”
“I was her Watcher…” was all he could say by way of reply. He probably thought that nothing else was necessary. He probably thought she was just thinking about the funeral. She wasn’t though. She was thinking about the little girl who’d had her life taken away from her just as surely as Faith had. She just hadn’t died yet.
“Not ‘her,’ Rupert. Faith. We should say her name with pride and love,” she insisted even though she was feeling so much safer in his arms. Everything was supposed to have been better now… but Faith was dead anyway. Tara was lost to them. Faith was dead. She had been here such a short time… but in that time everything had changed in their world. Everything. Things had become so much better. She didn’t want to argue about the Council again, not now, so she let him believe that he knew what she was talking about. “The Council should have sent someone. Other than you. Would they have sent someone if you had… been with her?” She shuddered at the thought of her Rupert… especially now.
Not now.
It was the first time she had thought about it that way. She worried about him so much even if she had always refused to show it – which would have worried him. She had never considered what would have happened if he had been with Faith… at the end. At Tara’s apartment.
What then?
“No. Probably not. It isn’t their way,” he sounded as if he knew that she was right, but for some reason he had to keep upholding… the honour, or something… of the Council. This was different though.
“Damn them,” she said again. They took people’s children and they got them killed. That was all that they did. And they didn’t even care…
Perhaps some residual part of his upbringing and training had suggested that he should defend them then. Perhaps she had pricked something in him. “For generations it has-”
She cut him off. “Generations Rupert?” She wanted to laugh but if she started with that she might end up crying again instead. Especially now. Hormones and all that. They were tearing her apart at the moment. “What do they know about generations huh?”
She had to admit that was a very strange question, but it was sort of giving her the opening that she had decided she needed. The chance to give him something positive without just dumping it on him in an ‘Oh by the way…’ moment.
After all what does anyone know about generations? It was just that those that came before were before. Those that came after… would be after. What more was there to know? Well she found herself with a new perspective on that.
“Er… quite,” he replied to her little outburst.
He didn’t understand. ‘Quite’ was that was what he said when he just didn’t get it. Jenny supposed that she was just going to have to tell him. She took his hand from her arm and kissed his fingertips, and in response he tightened his grip with the other strong arm around her waist… She kissed his fingertips and them brought his hand down to her belly and laid it there.
It was their game. She would kiss his fingertips, place his hand and he would rub there. Had that started out as a comfort thing or as part of sex? She didn’t even remember as they had been doing it so long it was just who they were now. With her placement on her belly he started to rub her there. Reassuring her with his presence, his touch and his love. He was still missing the point though. She hadn’t intended to… say anything. Not so soon, not when things could still not be quite right…
Faith’s death had changed all that. Now she needed him to know so he would be careful and make sure he came back to her each and every night. So that he would make sure that she didn’t have to stand beside his grave. She didn’t think he would do anything stupid now like trying to patrol alone… but he might. Or he might look for the dramatic gesture and it could get him killed. The rage he had barely suppressed at Faith’s funeral towards Tara. If he went… further… he might get killed. She was sure that Tara wouldn’t… do anything to him. But there was Willow too. Willow who had killed Faith. She couldn’t let anything happen to him. Not now.
And aside from all of that, she just needed to share it with him. From the start. Now that she was sure. Now that they needed something to hold on to. She wanted them to share everything whilst they had everything to share. And one thing more now. “You probably shouldn’t rub so hard…”
He stopped rubbing and she could almost hear him thinking. She could imagine his face changing. She could imagine that he might have a desperate urge to clean his glasses. He was getting it. She even found a smile… though he could not see it from where he was behind her. The offending hand was snatched from her belly as if it was on fire and he was afraid he might burn her.
She took that hand and kissed his fingers once more and then returned it to where it had been. “You don’t have to be careful Rupert… I just didn’t know how to tell you. Besides I don’t much like your face when you look shocked.”
He would be shocked. She didn’t need to see him to know that.
The hand rested on her there, neither rubbing nor light. Just a steady pressure as if cradling. It was best he did get some practice in and she didn’t even want to think of the very British man that he was at the classes. If she did then she was going to crack up. “Oh Jenny… How?”
She luxuriated in his suddenly joyful touch, even tinged as that joy was with their lingering sadness. “How? The normal way. I’m pretty sure that you were there.” She made a play of thinking and counting on her fingers. She nodded. “Yup you were definitely there.”
He managed a laugh and he was focused entirely on her. Well not entirely anymore. Perhaps he never would be again. But that was okay – that was the way that it should be. She wasn't focused entirely on him either.
“I mean… Well I thought that…” the spluttering English male. It had always seemed so improbably sexy to her. It was probably like some sort of fetish.
She knew what he meant though. They had agreed to postpone the family that they both wanted. Until things in Sunnydale were better. Until they could raise a child and not have to worry about pushing the pram home before sunset got close…
And now Sunnydale
was better, thanks to Faith… and Tara. There was no denying Tara’s role in it, but all she could think about right now was Faith and the new, better, life they would have as a family. She wished that Faith could have known too… she would have probably been wonderful as a big sister and protector. That was why she had come to a decision that he might not like. Or he might love. She wasn’t sure. That was why she had to ask. Why, so soon after the funeral, there was something she was more afraid to say to him than the fact that they were having a baby.
“She’ll be a while yet Rupert,” she told him, anticipating the next question and answering his concerns. By then Sunnydale would be so much better. Wesley was even carrying out the new Slayer’s training locally – in the next town to the west, before they received their assignment – and there was always Tara too.
Sunnydale would be right for their little girl by the time she arrived with them.
“She?” he asked.
“You caught that huh?” she smiled. “We gypsies have our ways. Yes she’s a she, I’m sure of it. Can we call her….?”
She knew that he had always promised his mother that any daughter would be named after his grandmother… Philomena. But it seemed unnecessarily cruel in a world that was hard enough already. Besides was there anything more fitting after what had happened this week than for him to agree? He hugged her, rubbing a gentle hello to their daughter. “Yes. I think that she, that Faith, would… get a
kick out of that.”
She turned and kissed him, “Five by Five my love.”
*************
by zero » Mon Aug 19, 2002 10:59 pm 
intriguing 
building up the tension. i so can't wait to see what Tara needs to do and whether VW gets her deserved reward or not 
or a too frustrated VW will kill Lilah. btw what is her business in Sunnydale, except to see Tara again? sorry, i'm impatient, i guess we'll find out eventually.
) is Tara knows the Mayor needs to be dealt with, and having to deal with emotional/intense situations (ie about to attend Faith's funeral), she feels the guilt for thinking she might of "suggested" this to Willow (ie her feelings/guilt on the inside are influencing her perspective in how she remembers her encounter with Willow). 
at: 8/20/02 6:16:57 pm
Nothing like a bit of light reading eh? 
.