Part 77 below Kittens... but first -
Miss Calendar - The contingency is all laid out below in Part 77 and I hope that the one final twist (in this arc at least) will satisfy. Lilah was always there for this purpose. Perhaps it needn't have been Lilah - anyone from Wolfram and HArt would have done - but where was the fun in not playing with a known character - one who the reader knows is ruthless.
YOu point out an interesting question - the "what if Tara had not found out" one. Well I like to think that as events transpired Tara would have still done what she did. She did not do this to get Willow back. SHe did this to stop Willow. That is just my take on it though - she just wouldn't have been able to come to Lilah for help - and what would have happened then... hmmm.
As for Holland... well he has a staring role in the part below. Everything is laid out there. Everything that has driven the "conspiracy" side of the story through this fic. And yeah, I loved him on Angel too. The bad guys on that show were so much more fun.
And yes... Tara has done what had to be done.
My doubts were not so much about writing it - it was written long ago... the doubts were about posting it as it was. It could, relatively easily, have been toned down. Circumstances changed. BUt no...
Anyway thanks... now onto part 77.
Katharyn
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Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – The End of the Night (Part 77)
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: Finding the way back to what should have been.
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: Interesting Question.
Notes: Okay big credit here to the writers of an episode. It provided me with a way and why not? Is it a rip off? Maybe… but on the other hand it is
established and it is the way that they would have chosen.
Thanks To: Kerry for the beta and the logical consistency problem she helped to clear up. Xita who wasn't expecting this so soon. Jo… for all that she has done. Sass for her Point of Singularity. I labelled it a nexus here… but after reading that wonderful explanation (better than anything I had) I decided to add the PoS in there too. How many changes have you made to this now Sass? And yeah the writers I “ripped off.” See above.
The Sidestep Chronicle
The End of the Night.
By
Katharyn Rosser
NowThe Vocah simply stepped out of the shadows once more, this time behind Holland. Once brought to this world it was a master of the darkness. That was, after all, its function here. Where it went, when it was hidden within the blackness of the shadows like that, Holland never would figure out. Perhaps it went nowhere and perhaps, at the moment, it was within every shadow in the world. Perhaps it could be everywhere and nowhere in those moments.
Holland had stepped through that very space only a moment ago and felt nothing out of the ordinary. He nodded over at Lilah who was supervising the clean-up operation in the crypt. Ahhh yes… Lilah. There could be no evidence of the ritual here, just as he had instructed her.
No evidence at least from Lilah’s point of view of the matter which was all important now.
Especially when it had all, apparently, gone so horribly wrong. Young Miss Tara Maclay had, not so much burst in, as stepped over the threshold surging with an almost primal level power. Whilst she was certainly strong and talented Holland suspected that she must have received a boost from the ambient magical level of the crypt itself. That was why they had secured this location after all. It marked a point of transference from one reality to another. Such places were magical hotspots. If one then considered the aftermath of the ritual itself… it was hardly surprising that she had seemed to crackle with power.
And… if that was not the case then her power had been far more impressive than he had been led to believe and there might have been an element of miscalculation regarding the recruitment. Which would be a shame. Still the die was cast now. And still coming up as a six.
Everything was looking just dandy – aside from the fact that it had to
appear that it wasn’t.
The Vocah, perhaps reading his mind about the witch as its kind were known to do, looked through very definitely evil eyes at him. Holland didn’t like to think of good and evil, they were such black and white descriptions – but the Vocah had evil eyes. “Yes,” it said, “she is powerful. But she was never for us.”
That surprised Holland, even though he had never quite had the enthusiasm about Miss Maclay that Lilah had harboured. “Really? We thought there was a possibility.” Holland shrugged, it was beside the point now anyway. Prophecy could very well have been fulfilled. The future had resolved itself, fate and its certainty were removed from their calculations and had given way to the traditional forces of entropy and chaos.
It was certainly good to be home. Life had been getting a little dull on this Project. Predictability was good for the bottom line, but it did absolutely nothing for morale.
“She would have brought destruction on you,” the Vocah continued with absolute certainty. Of course it could be certain. Nothing was hidden from it. Possibilities were simply paths to the Vocah and you had to respect that insight into the past, present and future.
“Who? The witch or the vampire?” he asked, approvingly nodding as the crypt was sanitised by the clean up crew. None of them asked either he or the Vocah to move aside though.
“Yes,” the Vocah replied simply.
“Ah yes.” Together they would have been a greater force, it appeared, than anyone had anticipated. They had certainly already been involved in the removal of some key players in the game. That had forced some interesting calculations to be made in haste at a very senior level. Fortunately, even if he could not admit it to many, things seemed to have gone absolutely marvellously. Not as expected, but swimmingly nonetheless.
“The task is done Holland Manners. I would ask you now what the gain is for the dark powers?” The Vocah’s tone was forceful and insistent.
It was strange, that the Vocah could see so much of the possibilities in the world, but it was blind to the things that were certain. That very blind spot regarding the gain confirmed what he had needed to know. The Vocah’s ignorance was Holland’s assurance that it had all been worth it.
It seemed that everything had fallen into place quite nicely.
Holland just pointed and smiled at the Vocah as he might a favoured client. When Lilah had come to Holland with her request for the ritual he had known her motives. He had banked on it as the only way of bringing things together. There were other things that were prophesised than the witch and the vampire.
He had known that Lilah had been lying to him and he had tried hard to make her believe that he had accepted her reasoning. It had been necessary and having the knowledge of the whole prophecy, whereas Lilah had only seen the first page of he had predicted that this day would come. However, the negotiations for the services of a being as powerful as a Vocah were less straightforward. The Warriors of the Underworld were not welcome upon this plane and they would not come here to perform their services without a great gain in the battle to come. Or at least a reasonable chance of that being the outcome.
And he had perhaps the greatest gain he had ever been able to offer… oh and maybe the Witch too. Maybe not. He looked where he had pointed as Lilah directed the crew. The woman had a marvellous eye for detail.
“Her?” the Vocah asked.
Looking at the Vocah at that precise second Holland fancied that he saw something flash through it’s eyes. The future perhaps, one future. Who knew? That and the past… and the contents of her mind. He wondered if she had felt that intrusion? Probably not after what had already had happened.
It didn’t matter – just as the witch didn’t really matter.
“Yes,” the Vocah finally said. “She will do. The bargain was well made Holland Manners. You are to be congratulated.”
Holland felt the thrill of victory pass through his body. It had been a long time coming. Congratulations from a being as powerful and as dangerous as a Vocah were a thing to be treasured. Unable to help himself he broke out in a huge grin.
“She will do well as one of the senior partners for this world. I look forward to the day that I negotiate with her as an equal.” It watched her come across the crypt towards them. Only at the last moment did it step back into the shadows and vanish once more.
Lilah came up to Holland.
For now though, Holland thought,
she works for me. He graced her with a smile which was returned with the fury of a cold frosty glare.
There’s my girl, he mused.
Back to her best… and perhaps even better. Thank you Miss Maclay, you have proved very useful. I might even have to leave you alone.Lilah hated to lose and she wouldn’t allow it to become a regular feature. Nor would she ever know that she had, in fact, won the most important battle of her life. Not until she fulfilled her destiny. Full Senior Partner. It was there now for the taking. She might work for him now, but Holland was savvy enough to realise that he would have never reached that level. There was something lacking. He was a fine planner and administrator but he lacked the final element that would have allowed him to ascend to those lofty heights. The next best thing was to have a protégée there. One who was bound to be well-disposed towards him.
He wasn't foolish enough to think that it would give him influence, but it would certainly offer him protection. The chosen of the senior partners were allowed
a lot of latitude. Which would bring all of them great rewards.
“She’s ruined the project!” Lilah complained, bitterness dripping from her voice.
Bitterness… Oh yes, thank you Miss Maclay. This was better than we could ever have hoped for. I look forward to watching what you have created for us. Grooming her.“But are
you alright Lilah?” Holland asked, addressing his very real concern. Lilah could have been any one of his employees, right down to a janitor, and he would still have felt the same. Especially when the project was far, far from ruined. In point of fact it had just reached fruition. Not an absolutely perfect result to be sure – that would have maintained total control of the situation. But as good as he could have hoped for at the outset. The finale had been a little unexpected, but the issue was never in doubt.
She paused, looking as if she remembered who it was that she was talking to, then looked back at the now empty crypt and wordlessly told him that she was alright. “I’ve just been working on that project for so long…” She shrugged, “I hate to see it go down the tubes.”
“And now that it would seem to be over you feel like there is a gap in you life?” he suggested. It was hardly surprising. Whatever method Miss Maclay had used to manipulate Lilah’s memories there would undoubtedly be gaps, regarding feelings, that Lilah would have to fill in herself. It was more than a simple spell. The witch had been selective and careful. Not just erasing – but replacing. It appeared, at first glance, to be a masterful piece of work. It was those gaps that were going to be the most fertile places for the attitudes and emotions that Lilah was ultimately going to need in her long term future. The resentment that the witch would have left within her… It was almost delicious and it was already obvious. And Lilah would have no idea what had happened to her.
Or that, it seemed, she might have asked for it. There was no way to be sure, but Miss Maclay did not seem the type to play fast and loose with that sort of magic – or to get creative. She could have made Lilah into a harmless, friendly, soft… person. She hadn’t.
So he had to believe that Lilah had asked for it. Specified it. And that meant that Lilah wanted her destiny – even if she did not know it. Destiny was guiding her. Nothing so powerful as fate – but prophecy was with her.
Maybe he could check the recording of this nights events in the crypt. 3D digital surround sound, top quality recording. Everything ready for later analysis. He let Lilah go home, her report could wait. For some reason she couldn’t explain being ‘knocked out’ had given her a headache from hell.
Almost literally.
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Holland sat back, resting easy in the chair, and triggered the video with the remote. As the initial frames of static tinged blackness rolled by he picked up a glass of wine and prepared to be entertained. Perhaps ‘entertained’ wasn’t quite the right term when all that was really occurring here was the next step in the vindication of his judgement of Lilah Morgan.
When he had first spotted Lilah’s work for her Law Review he had been drawn to go and visit her at college. There was something about the work… an attitude that shone through the rather bland topic she had being presenting. And that visit was one of the things that had restored his faith in the power of reading. Lilah had not been the top of class at the time. Not a battler in the sense that poor Lindsey had been – but an all round more solid personality than her former rival had ever been. Perhaps she had been a little less creative than some others too, but with all that, she had displayed the devious cunning required of a top attorney. Her methods of getting the, frankly under prepared article, published showed the lengths that she would go to in order to succeed. He had known then that, if he was able to bring her into Wolfram and Hart, of the two of them she was far more likely to turn in a solid return year after year after year than Lindsey.
Lindsey might have been spectacular – but that was both in his successes and his failures. Lilah… Lilah was precisely what was needed at senior levels. And the woman was as ruthless as the Vocah… or had been.
There had always been that doubt, that if the right buttons were pressed Lilah might pull back from that cutting edge that was necessary to be amongst the most successful here at Wolfram and Hart. And so they had decided to burn that button away – making use of an obscure prophecy to do accomplish it. And now Tara Maclay had done that for them – Lilah might even have volunteered for that ‘correction.’ Spurned love was quite a motive. The bitterness would now play within Lilah without her even knowing it. There was something almost poetic about it.
Had the prophecy been referring to Lilah? That was uncertain – but Holland had used the Nexus to ensure that it was. The Point of Singularity that was Tara Maclay and Willow Rosenberg. Their ultimate fate had given him the chance to create the next Senior Partner of Wolfram and Hart. Not just an office senior – one who would decide the policy of the whole organisation on this world. Maybe beyond it. Lilah was that good.
And that could only look good on his own file. And there was influence to be had… It was a chance that would come along perhaps once in a century and he had taken it with the Senior Partners blessing. They
wanted Lilah as one of their own and he had made that happen – with the help of a little love.
Everything else was inconsequential. Obtaining the services of Miss Maclay for example… very small potatoes compared to that.
With a loud burst of static the presentation began, the ritual having already begun on an earlier – and infinitely more boring – tape. It was, naturally, long and overly drawn out as these things often were. And the robes, what were they for? They proved nothing. They meant nothing. Still it was better to have ‘professionals’ doing the work when such power was involved. Ultimately the summoning was beyond any mere mortal, but for this even a being as powerful as the Vocah demon could only act as a channel for the will of the Dark Powers. The Vocah was acting here on behalf of the Senior Partners and bargaining for them. Deals were being made – and eventually someone would pay a price for that.
That was the thing with promotion at this firm, it seemed like you were escaping the grunt work and getting to look at the bigger picture. One should have been able to devote more time to that… and instead one got caught up in longer and more complex rituals. Still this one was in the past – he was free of it. At least this time around he could… he pointed the remote and fast forwarded the picture until their was a bright flash that momentarily flared out the image of the specially adapted camera. Holland released the picture search and sat back to observe.
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The Crypt – Earlier.The flare was brilliant, like an explosion and she had known that it was going to happen without even looking. Even if the energy being sucked into the crypt had not been visible through the door and the windows Tara could certainly feel it passing through and by her as she stood, pressed up behind a statue a little distance from the crypt. She had watched them bring the crate, the required vampires already chained around the outside of it and shuffling along. Her pendant had itched as they had come nearer to her but she had ignored that – it barely troubled her anymore.
She was going to take it off soon and never put it back on. One way or another it was going to come off… after… after she had got home. Until then she needed to know if there was anything out there. After that she wouldn’t care. She couldn’t care anymore. She was too tired.
But… yes she did care. She always would.
She just… she was too tired to carry on doing anything about it. There was a new Slayer…. Let her pick up the fight. But…
She was glad that the vampires would be sacrificed for this. It made a strange kind of sense.
And the pendant, would it be the thing that told her if this truly worked? Or would she be able to tell? Just know? She liked to think that she would… even without touching the skin where she would have been able to feel if… well of there was warmth there. Flowing blood.
There were different kinds of warmth weren’t there. Whatever she got back might not feel the warmth. She still feared that somehow Wolfram and Hart would return the other Willow that she had always known to continue playing their games with her. To fulfil whatever purpose she had for them.
Even if what they returned breathed, had a pulse and the skin was warm… she had resigned herself to the fact that another sort of warmth was unlikely to be there. The warmth she felt for the person she had only ever known in her dreams. The warmth of love…
There was so little chance that what ended up in that crate would be hers… could be hers. It didn’t matter though. That wasn’t the point of this. The point was just to get her back. Back here into the world that she had been snatched from five years ago, alive.
And once she was back here, then Tara knew that there was no choice. She had to go through with this, because it was going to happen anyway. Now that she had arranged it all - practically begged Lilah to help her. She couldn’t stop it now – so she was committed. Tara couldn’t leave her with them. Not with them. Even Lilah wouldn’t lift a finger to help her – something without value to them. Not for what they brought back in that box.
Actually Lilah had every reason not to.
After the flash she stood silently for a moment, staring at the crypt as if she could see through its walls, reaching out to see… to feel. But there was nothing that was familiar. But the itching in the pendant was gone. The vampires were gone. The ritual had got that far then. There should be, and were, none of them left. The pendant was quiescent. For so long she had been able to feel a part of that which she most desired through it, but had that just been the pendant? A unique signature perhaps… because if it had worked then… she wouldn’t have been able to feel it.
And Willow was still within her.
But even after she had destroyed the vampire that Willow had been, she had still been able to feel something of Willow within her. Nothing about that had changed, there was just nothing
more. Of course this was not a Willow that she had ever really known. How could she even know what to reach out for?
If it had worked, then what was in that box was not a vampire. Willow wouldn’t even known her.
Or she Willow.
Except through a dream… one that a returned, living, Willow would never have had anyway.
It was all a recipe for heartbreak… it would have been if her heart had not already been broken into several pieces… and not just by Willow and what she had been – what Willow had done. What She herself had done and allowed.
If anything had come back… then it was
not a vampire. That, at least, was a good thing. Even if they had failed in the ritual entirely then Willow was at rest. Finally at rest.
That was something to take comfort in at least. Cold comfort but comfort all the same. She had to take any comfort that she could find.
She reached for her throat, about to rip the pendant away, done with the life that had necessitated the painful warning device. It had also served as a kind of penance. Whatever happened… she was done – with the life. With the penance. She wasn't going to go there again.
But then she paused, stroked the charmed stone and left it where it was, familiar against her skin. She needed to be sure, and quickly… she needed to face what she had caused to be brought back and to deal with it as appropriate. Because if she had brought back another monster, even if that was not a vampire, then she would have to deal with it as such, quickly… and return to her loneliness. She couldn’t inflict it on the world. Allow it as she had in the past.
She was probably going to be lonely whatever happened. She had even given Miss Kitty to Jenny before she came here…
No not even Miss Kitty for Tara.
Pain, guilt and grief had brought her the clarity to know that she had to stop Willow if she was still a monster. She might have lost pretty much everything she cared about, destroyed it herself. And she might want it back… but not at any price. Not any more. The price was never worth it if it was too high.
Especially not when she wasn’t the only one paying the price.
It was time. There should only Lilah, the Vocah demon and whatever was in the box. Security was external unless they had arrived before she had, and had never stepped outside thereafter. She had been watching very carefully. This, along with her earlier activities this night, was the most important thing that she had ever done. It had to be done right.
It wouldn’t take much to get past the human guards. After the energy surge they were distracted and their nervous glances were directed inwards. She stepped from behind the statue when they weren’t looking her way and moved around the corner of the large white marble crypt, looking carefully through a window. It seemed clear. Lilah squatted before the box, peering into the darkness within, saying something. Laying her hand on the bars that ringed the upper portion of the crate. Just at the height that someone’s head might be at if they were cramped up inside there. But it was too dark in there for Tara to see anything.
Something
was in the box… Lilah’s movements proved that.
Something had been called. The ritual had worked and Willow was supposed to be the specific target. But what was really in there? Was it what she yearned for it to be so that Willow could have a chance?
And if it was Willow… And if it was… was she human?
She had to be. If she wasn’t, if the vampire had been recalled – again – then Tara was close enough now that the pendant should have been reacting. And if it had then she knew that she would have to kill Willow once more, whilst she was weak and disorientated. Enclosed in the box. Before she could hurt anyone else, including Tara. Kill her for the last time. It was just a different kind of hurt that the vampire would impose on Tara. Maybe not so different… she had killed Willow.
She closed her eyes, seeing again the dust on the bed. Feeling Willow beneath her… disappear. No. Not now. She couldn’t be thinking like this now. She, hopefully, had another Willow to consider.
But if Willow was human…
then she might not feel a thing for me. She might remember what it was that we did. She might remember that I allowed her to continue to maim and kill and feed. She might know that I loved her. She might remember that the vampire she had been was just… feeling passion for me. That was if Willow, a human Willow, knew her at all. Tara… sort of hoped that she didn’t. At least not the bad. But memory would not be selective like that.
And even then… that was all just going to be
just a memory. A human Willow, with full human emotions… what would she feel?
Embarrassment?
Disgust?
Loathing?
What chance a flickering of acceptance?
It was time to find out, before anything could go wrong. In her bag was a cloth, tied around a very precise crushed mixture of herbs and some other, less pleasant, ingredients. It smelled rank… but it had better work as advertised. Due to lack of time and not even knowing where the local suppliers were she’d been forced to accept a ready-made mixture – something that she had never before contemplated when there were lives involved. It was just too dangerous.
But then this whole thing was one big risk.
She stepped round the corner and they were instantly alert to her, batons in their hands ready to strike her – whoever she was. It didn’t matter to them at all. But before they could even finish the last word of their challenge she had blown the mix into their faces. It didn’t even require inhalation, the enchantment would do the work. Contact with their skin and her breath. The breath gave it the power to knock them out.
They collapsed to the ground, unconscious, and Tara paused, considering what she was about to do. The Vocah… she had never seen a Vocah until tonight, but she had heard of them. Everyone with a detailed knowledge of the occult had. They were like a myth… rarely seen but very, very real. As the warrior’s of the underworld they fought well. But more than that they were like lieutenants to the dark powers. Not mere foot soldiers. They were entrusted with power - the likes of which would be required to bring a vampire back as a human.
Without the Vocah… there would be nothing in the box right now. Whatever it actually was that was in there.
If she looked back she had to realise that ever since she had seen the Two Roses Project file in Lilah’s office and read of the contingency plans that Wolfram and Hart had in place in case the project went awry - she had been building to this moment. The law firm had allowed for the fact that the vampire Willow might not survive until the fruition of the project – she was beyond their influence and control.
She might not have survived to love me, she mused.
And Willow hadn’t survived to love her had she?
That was a good sign surely… if Willow had not been able to love her before – yet the prophecy called for it, that was a good thing? And they had allowed for Willow’s death. They allowed for it by figuring out ways to bring her back again.
They had brought her back once, but there were other ways. This was one of them. The theory was that they had planned, if necessary, to bring her back as a human and they would have one of their pet vampire clients turn her once more.
Into a demon.
Into a thing incapable of love.
If they needed that done.
It wasn't going to happen according to that plan.
The prophecy had called for them to be happy. For them to be in love. That was their fate wasn't it?
Whilst Willow
hadn’t known if she could love Tara… they had never really been happy. Tara knew that she hadn’t been.
The prophecy had not been fulfilled. To be fulfilled Willow had to return, surely. A Willow that could be happy?
Surely Willow was in the box now. Alive.
As Lilah was on her side there was really just the Vocah in her way now. Reading about that kind of demon had not helped. The details had been sparse apart from how difficult they were to kill. No one knew what it’s weaknesses were, or even if it had any. If it had just been herself then that was one thing…
But if it killed her… what then for what was in that box? What it had brought back for her. She had no way to know what reason Lilah had given for the ritual. No way to know if it would fight her for that thing. For what should be Willow.
And if it did fight it… could she beat it? Even survive?
If it
was Willow and she
was human… then Tara knew she could not afford to fail or even retreat – otherwise what would happen to the Willow that she had always wanted? At best she would be in Wolfram and Harts hands. Not very tender hands.
That was the absolute best… Lilah would have to cover her tracks and that meant proceeding with whatever she had claimed was the reason for recalling Willow.
If it was even Willow in there.
She stepped out into the doorway and looked inside, not hiding anymore.
The Vocah stood, enrobed, at the other side of the ornate room. Its stance was one that radiated power. It was not self-confidence as there might have been from a human. It was as if the Vocah knew, for fact, that nothing could challenge it. It didn’t move as she entered. It was utterly unconcerned with her – but it was aware of her. She knew that. She kept a wary eye upon it as Lilah came to her.
And Lilah reacted as it didn’t. She hissed at Tara, “You’re too early!”
So now the Vocah knew about Lilah too. That made things more complicated. Whatever she might do to Lilah to confer deniability on the lawyer would not be backed up by the Vocah’s story.
If anyone ever asked it what had happened.
Tara looked at the Vocah and it looked straight back at her. The stare seemed to burn right to the back of her skull, crisping skin, bone and the grey matter as it forced through her. She didn’t turn away, tried not to blink. She tried to show it that she was strong too. She had an idea of what to do… if she had to. But… that would be taking a giant step magically. A step into the darkness. It’s darkness. And for all she knew that might have been what it, and Wolfram and Hart wanted. Not that… not unless there was no other way to save what was in the box.
“Is-is it done?” she asked Lilah. It had to be done. The power… she had felt it. That had to be the Calling of the thing in the box. Why was Lilah saying that she was too early? Unless… the Vocah was supposed to have left first… Had she been too impatient?
“Yes… but…” Lilah glanced at the other being in the room… or one of them.
Tara could hear something the box. Shuddering breath. “And it’s her?” she asked her friend. She was impatient. She needed to know.
“Tara. The Vocah is not finished… there is the closing ritual,” Lilah told her looking nervously again at the Vocah as it started to pace the alcove it had been stood within.
“It’s her yes?” Tara’s asked again. Her voice was steely, determined, and devoid of hesitation, so much so that she saw that Lilah had a look of shock on face. She needed to know. She had to know. If it wasn't her then she might as well walk out of here now, find a bed somewhere and start to cry.
Lilah nodded though. She actually nodded and it was the most magnificent gesture that Tara had ever seen.
“Yes. It’s her,” Lilah confirmed quietly. Tara knew that the lawyer was familiar enough with her to know… To know that if she had to she would allow herself to die here, tonight, if only Willow would get away. But Tara also had a bargain to fulfil. Lilah’s own price. There was only them and the Vocah… but only Lilah could take the box out of here if Tara was otherwise engaged with fighting the demon… and Lilah wouldn’t do that once Tara fulfilled her bargain.
Catch 22.
For all its pacing the Vocah was absolutely silent. There was not a sound and every time it passed through the shadows it seemed to become… insubstantial. How could she fight something like that?
“And she’s alright?” She’s human? Tara had to ask. She couldn’t just trust in the fact that the pendant had no reaction. The pendant was not enough. The thing in the box was supposed to be the woman she had always wanted to love. The woman she had tried to love… and succeeded… by the proxy of the vampire Willow.
“She’s…” Lilah hesitated, obviously wondering how to put it. The crash and the snarl from within the box took away the need. “She’s there.”
Tara switched her stare from the Vocah and fixed it on Lilah. Accusing without words and she saw Lilah shrink, suddenly very afraid of Tara. Seeming more afraid of her than she actually was of betraying Wolfram and Hart. More afraid than she was even of the Vocah she had summoned for this ritual and waited in the shadows… watching them.
Lilah was afraid of the woman she desperately wanted to be able to love… Tara had used that need in her to her own advantage. But she had done it for Willow. To give Willow her chance. Her life. Now it seemed that there was a live Willow… it was just that she sounded more like a caged animal than the vampire ever had.
Lilah must have known that the greatest punishment Tara could inflict on her if this had gone wrong wasn't death. It was leaving her like this… wanting something she couldn’t have and feeling the weakness that love brought to her. In Lilah’s reaction Tara herself was frightened. When had she ever scared anyone like that? How far had she fallen to allow that to be the case. She could see the burning in her own eyes reflected in Lilah’s. She imagined that she could see the gradual encroachment of a darkness there too.
Knowing how she had made Lilah react, Tara managed to suppress her anger. Soften her apparent feelings. Show nothing more than concern that Willow, if that was Willow, had come back wrong or was somehow not complete.
In fact she was terrified of it.
Had she, in her impatient selfishness, sentenced Willow to an existence where she was alive but… not herself?
“She’s adjusting Tara… we knew this could happen,” Lilah reminded her and Tara recalled that they had mentioned it. “We knew this probably would happen – that was why we had the box. She has been… some other place, Tara. This isn’t the vampire… it’s the woman – the girl – who died five years ago… No one knows where she’s been.”
Tara guessed that wasn’t true, an opinion that was confirmed quickly enough as she looked at the Vocah – a question in her heart.
“I know” The Vocah told them, seemingly having no problem hearing the harsh whispers they were exchanging. Either that or it knew her thoughts.
As she had thought. Why wouldn’t it know? The Vocah had called Willow back, so it had to know where to have found her. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack – easier if you knew which haystack to start in. “Where?” Tara asked, “has she been?” She had to know that. This was Willow. She had come back and now Tara had to do her best for her. Whatever that took, because she was responsible.
She could only do that if she knew. No… she would do it whatever happened. This might just help though.
Lilah grabbed Tara’s arm and tried to stop her advance. “Tara no! Don’t talk to it… don’t listen to it. It excels at suffering.”
The Vocah just looked at them, offering her the option of listening to it or not. She shook off Lilah’s cautionary hand and took another step towards it, even though she could have heard it from where she was.
“Has she been in hell?” Tara persisted. Had she saved Willow from that torment? Was that why she was… like that? She could hear Willow in the box, banging. Scratching. Making sounds that were not based in language but not exactly random either.
Not just pain.
It shook it’s head slowly and the eyes flared in a way that she thought might have been pleasure – either at what she feared or in what it had done.
Not a hell dimension then.
It excelled in suffering…
Oh god. God no.
“Heaven?” Tara continued, praying that she had not snatched Willow, who had died as such an innocent, from some sort of eternal bliss. No… that would just be too cruel. To bring her back to this place… this dark, imperfect, world after that.
No… please…
She was so grateful to hear the Vocah deny that as well. Gratitude to a thing like that… It could have made her suffer then… but it missed its chance to lie.
“No… she hasn’t
been anywhere. She’s been caught in an eternity of darkness. Of trapped souls. Tormented not by the delicious tortures she inflicted as a vampire but by a total… lack… of… sensation. Awareness without body. Blackness beyond darkness. She has been nowhere at all… waiting for her body to pass and allow her to move onwards. And each time it did someone pulled her back from where she was going… Never letting her get there.” The Vocah revelled in the pain of it’s audience of one. “Every time one of you brought the vampire back… you doomed the soul to another eternity of that.”
“An eternity without time. Not even measured. That is what eternity is. Timeless.” It looked right into her again, perhaps detecting what it was that she wanted. “She will never be what she was Tara Maclay even if she is more than she has been.”
The rattling in the box ceased as the Vocah spoke those last words… and there was some scrabbling as if the occupant was trying to move with a purpose and… a pale face at the bars nearest the two women. “Ara… tar… Tara.”
Oh god… Oh god… Tara realised that Willow and it was Willow… had heard her name. She remembered something… did she remember everything? And where she had been… oh god. Was it better to have brought Willow back from that that… but… could she recover?
And… I failed to free her… she could have moved on.
But without her chance. I gave her that.
She knew me! She wanted to run to the box and grab one of those hands, stroke those cheeks. Take her out of there and hug her. But she couldn’t and before she could be tempted any further she, Willow, was back to flinging herself around the box again. Whatever moment that there had been had passed and she was glad that Lilah had made sure that the crate was lined… it might stop Willow hurting herself too badly.
She had to worry about Willow now. Just that.
She knew me… she knew me… “I never knew what she was.” She told the Vocah in reply to its statement.
So why should it matter to me? Willow knew her and it did matter.
“But you wanted it. Her. You always did. I can see your desire and I can feel your pain as you fear that you will not acquire it from her now.”
If it had been human it would have been smug.
Willow was human. Willow was here. Willow knew her. A little…
And she had to get Willow away from here whatever the cost. Away from all of this. “I wanted it for her. Not for me. So go. Just leave,” Tara instructed it, hearing Lilah suck in her breath as she commanded it to go.
Lilah clearly couldn’t believe what she was hearing, and Tara knew why. The Vocah had commanded armies of the undead. Legions of demons, it was only a step away from
being one of the dark powers. It was more important than anyone bar the Senior Partners of the law firm, and those that they represented – and Tara was commanding it to leave like some file clerk.
Tara couldn’t quite believe it herself. Willow was making her brave though – the desire to get Willow away from here, from all of them, to a place where she could care for her.
Get her better.
That was the desire it could feel from her.
And the desire to explain.
To ask her for forgiveness.
But all of that was in the future. She had to get them out of here first and there was the price to be paid to Lilah. That was not going to be easy. Or pleasant. The Vocah was much less important than any of that… it was just that it was the main and most immediate obstacle to her.
The Vocah reached behind it’s back and from nothing a scythe was suddenly there in it’s hand. It placed the tip of the staff on the floor with a resounding thud that might have cracked the marble if it had been any more forceful. The blade looked as if it could cut that stone which was not cracked. It did nothing else though. Made no move for her.
“This isn’t what you are here for.” The words just came from within Tara, she would later have no idea where they originated. She just knew it somehow. Everything that had happened had crystallized in her mind and she knew this wasn't right. She felt as if she was sucking the light from the room to surround her… whilst the Vocah was collecting the darkness to it. They were opposing forces but she and the Vocah were not going to fight. If they fought she would die. Lilah would probably die and where would Willow be then?
How could they be happy if she died?
Prophecy would have to be wrong… and so she had to trust in prophecy one last time.
If it could have smiled it might have done. Instead it simply nodded to her, and regarded the two standing women for a moment before nodding to Tara once more.
“I will give you what you desire,” Tara promised, again having no idea where the words came from. The light maybe. She thought of it as a desire for balance. “Go.”
Shadows shrouded the Vocah, spreading forwards from the corner until it was nothing but a pair of glowing eyes – and then even they were gone. Lilah backed up and sank down against the wall and Tara followed her with her eyes. Eyes that felt like they had been violated by the stare of the evil thing that had just departed. And she knew what she had to do.
What she wanted to do was sink down beside Lilah then, after the fear had passed let Willow out of that box. She couldn’t do either of those things. She was… she was trapped by events. Things that she had to do so that they could be free of fate and prophecy forever. So that Willow could have her chance. So that Willow could too.
There were things that she had promised that she would do.
She had to finish what she started and give Lilah what she wanted. Give the Vocah what she knew that it had been promised… and fulfil the terms of the whole Project – because suddenly she knew what was going on here. What it was all about…
It wasn’t about them at all. She couldn’t care about that.
Only when it was done could she take Willow and go… right now she didn’t dare to even break off to look at her former lover – even though she was hurting and afraid. Tara knew that if she gave herself to Willow now, then she might not be able to do the thing that might let them have a life together… or at least two lives apart.
Avoiding death. That was the priority now.
She went over to where Lilah was slouched, holding her head in her hands. “There’s no way that they will take me back now…” There was no blame in Lilah’s voice. “I’m dead. So are you… you should take her and go. I’ll won’t tell them where you are.”
“You won’t know,” Tara told her even though she believed Lilah.
It was just that Lilah didn’t have all the facts and if Tara told her then she wouldn’t remember anyway – so she wasn’t going to waste the time. One more bad thing to be done so that she could stop. They could stop.
And everyone got what they wanted.
It was the only way to be free.
“There’s no need for that now,” Lilah said referring to the price. “Like I said. I just have to pray for a clean death. A bullet in the head is better than a pack of hounds. The Vocah knows. The Vocah will tell them.” Lilah laughed. “Me praying... Now that’s funny.”
“That won’t happen.” Tara said that with absolute certainty and she could see that Lilah believed her.
“If you do this?”
“If I do it,” Tara confirmed. Knowing.
Tara reached out and touched Lilah’s face with a tenderness that she would never have dreamed of if it were not the first and last time. “Thank you Lilah. You don’t regret it?”
“No. Not for you. For what might have been.” Lilah replied and looked as for a moment as if she though that Tara might kiss her, but they both knew that was never going to happen. “Je ne regret rien,” she added.
Tara moved her hand from Lilah’s face and placed it atop her head instead, teasing her hair like a mother her small child. What she was going to do… Lilah might have wanted it… but it was as good as killing
this Lilah. But this Lilah, the one who loved her… she knew that was a danger. Lilah had told her as much. This was the only way for all of them to be free. She kept stroking for a moment but then turned that into a grip… focusing and concentrating on what she had to do for all of them to have a future. Any future. “You will regret it. I promise.”
Tara met Lilah’s eyes and it was only as Tara started her task that there was a flash of awareness in Lilah of what was happening to her. Tara was going to make those eyes cold and hard once more. She’d promised Lilah. She’d promised the Vocah.
It was all that was going to keep them safe.
It was more than half an hour until she lowered Lilah’s unconscious form to the floor and then stood over her. “I’m sorry Lilah… that I couldn’t be what you wanted.” She was sorry about so many things.
But she would just have to live with that.
Because they were alive. She and Willow. They could live.
What could she have done? It was in the prophecy, she
knew that now. It was supposed to be. And if she had stood in the way of that, if she had refused to do that to Lilah then how could they ever be happy… as the prophecy had insisted that they should be? She couldn’t pick and choose which part of the prophecy she wanted. It was all there.
How could Willow be happy without the whole thing playing out?
The crate was on wheels but there was no way that she could just push it down the street once she got it out of here. She had no choice but to use the magic. Again. She sighed.
When she got home… then she would never use it again.
Not even for Willow.
“We’re going to try and get you home now,” she told Willow and for a moment, as the magic lifted the box, she thought that Willow quietened down.
------------------
Holland saw himself arrive on the tape, realised that he really did need a haircut. It was shame about Miss Maclay. Anyone who could face down a Vocah like that… would have been a valuable asset.
Idly he wondered where they might have gone, but there were more important things to consider. The Project for one thing.
C’est la vie.
******************
by Caoilin » Thu Aug 29, 2002 6:35 pm 
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at: 8/29/02 10:04:49 pm
! But I must say Sassette summed-up my feelings about this fic, so well. 