Paul - You have not had your sneak peekscos you said you wanted to be unspoiled for the end.
I suppose I do owe Willow some time - W as opposed to VW.
Quiet about the whispers - that is WHY they are whispers.
Part 99 is below kittens - to stress again NOT the penultimate part as we now finish in 102.
Enjoy
Katharyn
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Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Convictions (Part 99)
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: The continuation of what was started in 98. Giles returns home and finds T/W there.
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: T/W
Notes: I think this is a story that needs to be told – just have faith in what I always said… Together. Happy. Happy. Together. Kay?
Thanks To: I’d like to thank the scampering one. She always keeps me amused and makes looking for feedback an extra pleasure.
The Sidestep Chronicle
Convictions
By
Katharyn Rosser
Tara and Willow had stood and sat respectively under the accusing barrage from Sunnydale’s resident watcher. Tara had noticed Willow moving a hand, the first time she’d really dared to move anything apart from her whole body in the rocking whilst holding Faith, to shield the baby’s face from her own father’s anger. It was an automatic and pointless gesture. Faith wouldn’t know or understand. But in amongst his rage she couldn’t help thinking that it was a sweet thing for Willow to have done, to protect Faith from seeing her father made that angry by their presence. They’d been responsible for this after all.
His rage was virtually incandescent. And why not? They both knew that it was based in nothing but cold hard facts. Something that had been called ‘Willow’ had killed Faith, but what had to be worse to him was Tara. Tara, who’d been invited into this home before as a colleague and perhaps friend of that other Faith, and a friend of Jenny, and had allowed it to happen. Before her very eyes.
And she’d admitted it to them at the funeral.
Having admitted it, Tara couldn’t deny a word of what he said to her. His anger was entirely logical and justified. Except when he broke to rail at Willow for a brief moment. But he always came back to her. What wasn't clear to any of them, perhaps not even Mr Giles himself, was just where he was going with it.
Sometimes it looked like it was an outpouring of grief for the death of the young woman who had been a friend to all of them bar Willow. Other things he said, seemed to make it clear that his concern was much more current than that, for his wife and his child. Tara knew that she would never have let anyone hurt…
Except that once she had let someone be hurt. And not even for the woman that she loved now.
And it didn’t take little Faith long at all to be distressed by the shouts… even if they were all one-way. She’d woken up and seemed to be building herself up to a more vocal reaction. Tara didn’t try to argue with him at all. He deserved his chance – the Mayor had taken that chance away from him the last time they’d met. She just sat there and absorbed it, aware of everything that was happening in the room. Not just Mr Giles. This was affecting everyone. Jenny, plainly, was upset by it. Either by the anger, or that her husband and her daughter were upset.
Willow tried to comfort the infant and her careful shielding motions, turning away Faith away from Mr Giles, along with her obvious concern seemed, to Tara, to mollify the watcher somewhat – at least towards her. While he had been as angry with Willow he must have been able to see the truth. Willow obviously wasn't a vampire and she was obviously concerned for Faith. He lowered his voice and turned from dividing his attention to focussing almost exclusively on the one whom he obviously really blamed.
Rightly so.
It was good that he realised that. Willow didn’t need his anger – not after all the feelings that she’d been forced to confront already on this trip. And after all, how could she argue with any of it?
“You let her die!” he hissed at her more quietly but with even more power for the lack of the volume. Faith wasn’t crying but she seemed to be close to that and they all knew it.
Tara looked him in the eyes and just nodded slowly.
“There you see,” Mr Giles turned to his wife who had been trying to quiet him down with pleas to be reasonable, to avoid waking Faith and now that she was awake to avoid upsetting her. “There you see Jenny? She doesn’t even try to deny it.”
How could she deny it? It was true and she’d already admitted as much.
Jenny looked over at Tara and must have known that she was just going to stand there and take whatever it was that her husband doled out. Abuse, argument, scolding. A beating or even death. Tara wouldn’t lift a finger to protect herself. Or say a word to argue with him – not unless he started on Willow. Because it really wasn't her lover’s fault.
Tara knew that she
had to hear this and take this from him. She needed him to reach a point where he’d dealt with her as he needed to. That way… that was the only way that she could really start to get past it herself. And Jenny looked as if she hated it – as if she also knew that he needed to get it out of his system too. He had to express his rage and his grief, which had never before had a genuine target, whilst Tara needed face the consequences of her choices. She faced it, mentally, every day – despite how happy she had become with Willow. This was a step, not to forgetting, but instead to rejoining the world. A world that included people who’d been hurt in Sunnydale.
Willow had faced her father.
I have to, Tara told herself,
face Mr Giles. He was really the closest thing the older Faith, the Faith who was gone, would of had to a father, even in those few short months – but longer than little Faith had been around in the world and how much did he love his daughter already? Bonds of love could be quick to form and harder to destroy.
Tara understood that very well now she and Willow loved each other so deeply. So it was a different kind of love… fine. But it was still love.
Love was love.
“What’s she supposed to say Rupert?” Jenny finally asked him as he paused for breath and, seemingly to gather himself for a renewed assault.
“Faith,” he spun on his wife as if daring her to actually defend Tara and her actions, “is dead!”
Tara didn’t want that. She didn’t want to come between Mr Giles and Jenny. Or for Jenny to get between her and Mr Giles. Not for this. Not for anything. She just wished that Jenny would let him get on with it but couldn’t say that.
“And your shouting is bothering
our Faith love,” his wife argued entirely more reasonably than he was being. If she’d leapt into the argument defending Tara it might not have done a thing to calm him down, actually it might have made things worse. But protesting on their baby’s behalf. That seemed to be working.
Tara watched as Mr Giles looked at his daughter in the arms of… someone who he had only ever really known as a vampire. A vampire who’d killed – many, many times – and hushed his voice again to a loud whisper as Willow comforted the child as best she could. Tara thought that Willow must have been doing pretty well with Faith in all this. Then he turned to directing his ire at Tara once more, obviously not a little hurt by his wife supporting the witch. It seemed that he couldn’t forget… and why should he?
Just don’t be angry at Jenny please…“You,” he said to Jenny “Let her in here?”
It was an obvious statement. Would she and Willow have broken in? Then chatted to Jenny as Willow held Faith? No. He just couldn’t believe that Jenny would let them in. Tara knew he expected his wife to feel the same way that he did about Willow and herself.
That wasn’t the way that feelings worked though. Everyone had their own and they couldn’t be dictated.
“I did,” Jenny confirmed pulling him back by the arm so he wasn't quite so much in Tara’s face.
“And I’ve been writing to her for a few months now, once I found out where she was. Where they were. How could I not? She spoke to me at Faith’s funeral, she tried to explain - to say something… and instead of listening to that you were about to attack her.” Jenny smiled at her then turned back to her husband again. “She’s more than sorry Rupert. Look at her. Really look at her – see Tara and not just the person you want to hate.”
And he did look at Tara and perhaps really saw
her for the first time since his arrival. Not some killer, not some demon that his mind had turned her into. Not the witch who had failed the assessment of the Council. Just a young woman who’d lost her way with some desperate results. “And she was in love…”
“Love? You’re going to use that word for it?”
The word stopped him though, when it filtered through his anger, and he looked at Jenny, then at Tara again. Love was something that he could relate to. It gave him reason to pause.
“With Willow,” Jenny finished.
Perhaps that wasn’t the best time to have brought Willow into it as it caused him to turn back to Tara’s love again.
“Ah… The one who actually did the deed,” he started but quickly ran out of steam with her.
Tara could understand that. She could see that he knew that Willow was human now, whatever she – or it – had been before. He could see that. How it had happened he could have no real idea, though she thought that in other circumstances he might have found the actual method fascinating, but right now he had an ever-lessening sense of righteous fury to work through.
Tara looked up at him as he was stood right in front of her again, confronting her. She could feel his anger, but she knew that something of what Jenny had said, perhaps also her own acquiescence had got through to him. Jenny had given him the reason. Or at least part of it. The part that she knew about.
Surely he realised that he had no quarrel with this Willow. He had to realise that Faith’s
actual killer was finally dead. And surely he couldn’t doubt that love now. Then, at the time, maybe… but not now. Not for this Willow – who was the one that she’d loved even then. Let him try. It was no excuse but let him try to doubt it and tell her that it hadn’t been real… what she’d seen of this Willow buried deep within that other one. Trapped… unable to make the slightest influence on the vampire. But there, in the creature’s memory.
“With a vampire though?” Mr Giles was disgusted. “They have no soul, you know that more than most” he accused Tara and she knew what he meant. How could anyone love a vampire – and if you could then how could you expect to receive love in return? She could tell that he was wondering if this witch was seriously going to suggest that love was not facilitated by presence of the soul alone.
He had no way to know that she’d spent months thinking about that very question and as a result now she knew the answer beyond all doubt. Hers had been an inaction of love… for something that she’d thought she could never have. But the vampire… that hadn’t been an act of love.
“B-but I do. I l-love
her. Even when…”
“When you let your
love kill Faith?” he completed with his interruption, obviously not wanting to hear any lily-livered words that might sugar coat the crime.
“E-even then I loved her,” Tara confirmed gesturing at Willow with a tiny tip of her head. She meant that she loved the woman that she loved now. Willow recognised that and gave her a tiny, sad, smile of support. Willow knew. Willow had figured that out a long time ago.
“More than Faith’s life?” he asked, perhaps not noticing the gesture or not registering what it meant. “You loved a vampire more than Faith’s life?”
“I-I loved Willow. M-more than my own life… and I would have let her do it. I would have let Faith do it. Faith was going to kill me, you know that, you gave her the order. You kn-knew.” It wasn’t intended as a defence when Tara told him that, just a simple fact but she knew as soon as the words slipped out that she should
never have said it. “I would have let her,” she said quietly and as Jenny reacted to her statement Mr Giles’ face changed – abruptly.
He knew what she’d said as well as she did.
He wished that she hadn’t as much as she did.
------------------
Willow hated it and she couldn’t, with Faith in her arms Faith, even hold Tara’s hand. Let alone cuddle her. And Tara wouldn’t want it anyway. She wanted this done… over. But as Tara said those words Willow knew that something would change. She watched as Jenny whipped her head round to her husband.
“
You were going to have Faith kill
her? A human? You ordered Faith to do that to her friend?” Willow’s former teacher asked.
“The Council…” Giles floundered in the face of his wife’s disbelief, suddenly forced to defend what Willow, seemingly like Jenny, considered indefensible. But Mr Giles found an unlikely supporter in Tara who completed his sentence this time.
“The C-Council g-gave a reasonable order. I was… I was too much in love with the woman to do what I should have about the d-demon,” Tara said, clearing not wanting Jenny to assume the worst about her husband. “Not until it was too late for her…”
“Faith was about to do it,” Willow said quietly and they all looked at her. “Faith was about to kill Tara.” Tara gave her a look that was filled with regret and spoke again before Mr Giles could turn to focus on her again. Tara wasn't going to let her help – at least not by making it sound like it was Faith’s fault in any way. Willow looked at the new Faith and let them continue.
“Sh-She d-didn’t want to do it. Faith wanted me to change, or to at least fight her. But I wouldn’t. I would have let her kill me then,” Tara told them.
“But instead you let Willow kill her,” his tone was a little less accusing now. Indeed, Willow thought, that it might even be carrying some guilt.
Willow, holding another Faith, looked up again. At Mr Giles this time. He met her eyes and swallowed. He must have been able to see the memory. The pain that Willow felt. And he understood… some of it.
“You let the vampire kill her,” he made the distinction – but there was more accusation again.
Willow met Tara’s eyes and silently tried to give her the strength to tell her story, or at least the only bits that mattered to him. And Jenny.
“I did, I r-really did, b-but you have to know that if Faith had killed me then I wouldn’t have cared. I let fate have me when I was in that room. I d-didn’t care if I lived or died. All I cared about was the Willow that’s here right now… and how I couldn’t have her. But somehow… she was just a little closer when the demon was there. Just a little closer, you know?”
Of course he didn’t know. He couldn’t have any idea about that there really was no way to explain it. She could have written a book and never made it clear how she’d felt.
“I’m sorry,” Tara slumped into a chair, her feet looking as if they were unable to support her, and Willow was glad that by sitting Tara found herself at a greater distance from Mr Giles. It was a little better that way. A space that Jenny stepped into to take over her role in the confrontation – confronting her husband.
Good, Willow thought, someone should.
“Let’s get back to you
passing on an order from the Council to kill Tara. A human and my friend,” Jenny insisted. “You never said a word. You never gave me reason to believe that there was anything wrong and you did that?!”
Willow appreciated just what that meant. Tara had told her enough about the Council of Watchers, and the vampire had known about the White Hats as well. A human… for the Council to order the death of a human made a mockery of their so-called ‘mission,’ to protect humanity from the scourge of the undead.
The only way that it could have been ‘right’ was if Tara had been a bigger threat to humanity… The thought must have occurred to Willow at the same time as it did Jenny. Willow looked at Jenny rather than Tara though. She knew that her love wasn't a threat. She never had been… she’d killed more vampires even than Faith.
Jenny looked back at her, then at Tara who was still slumped, head down. Probably upset by the argument she would feel she was causing between Jenny and her husband.
No, Tara wasn’t such a threat to anyone.
“Your damned Council, Rupert,” Jenny virtually spat the name of that body. “I never liked them or what they stood for. They left you alone out here for years – not even bothering to check if you needed help, but when they whistled you went running back to them. You could have died out here and it wouldn’t been more than a slip of paper to them – our daughter wouldn’t have a father or might not have been born and they wouldn’t have cared and you carried their fight – without the Slayer they promised you for years.
“People died. Oz and Nancy,” she threw the names at him. “They died because of that damned Council… and they were never even recognised by them. Why would you be so damn loyal to them that you would break every rule of decency? Not to mention the law.”
At least, Willow thought, Jenny was angrier with the far-off Council than their local representative. Forcing herself to be a little calmer, the teacher continued.
“It’s good that there was someone to help, advise and train the Slayer if there has to be one. You did a good job there,” she told him but she wasn’t letting go of the arguments. “But tell me why ‘one girl in all the world’ need an army of sanctimonious, self-important prigs sitting across the ocean in another country handing out death warrants?”
“It’s – Well, it’s the way that things have always been,” Mr Giles stammered.
“Is it?” Jenny asked. “I mean think about it Rupert… I just bet that there wasn't even a Watcher for the first Slayer. How could there be? They couldn’t have any idea what was happening here.”
“I abandoned the regular training routines… and look what happened,” he told her.
“She was the Slayer Rupert, she was a good one. She barely needed you – because you’d helped to make her who she was,” Jenny soothed him. She wasn't letting him take the blame for that, but Willow could tell that she did want to know what was behind the Council’s ‘decision.’ Jenny asked him as much.
Mr Giles paused, drew a breath and then started to explain. “It was a decision taken after a Council assessment. An attempted assessment at least, which was in itself revealing.”
“That man, Michael… Collins?” Jenny surmised.
He nodded. “Assessments are, traditionally, carried out without the knowledge of the subject. She,” he gestured at Tara who still wasn't looking up though Willow saw her eyes flicker, “humiliated the assessment team, and quite seriously injured one of them. He could have died.”
Finally that was enough to provoke Tara into offering her own side of the story. A story that Willow knew, but had no right to interfere with – not unless Tara chose to do so. She tried to encourage Tara mentally as she looked up to speak to them all.
----------------
At least Willow was there for her, and Jenny… She’d known that her love would be, but Jenny… Jenny shouldn’t be falling out with her husband about this. About her. Ultimately it all came back to the fact that she was guilty of allowing Faith to die. If she’d interfered with the vampires intentions… then she would have lost the only Willow that she’d ever known back then – and she might still have been killed... And if Faith had killed her, Willow – her Willow – wouldn’t have come back. Wouldn’t have had her chance. She looked at her love and could see that Willow wanted her to speak up. To challenge the idea, as Jenny was, that he’d been right to send Faith after her.
She swallowed hard and then spoke up. “T-That was an accident, his fall, as much his fault as mine,” Tara told him. She had to accept some of the blame… he’d tried to shoot her with a dart and she’d turned it back on him. Had she, for a moment, considered where the edge of the roof was and how close he was to it? No… she’d just thought about herself then. The Council operative had fallen from the roof of the building he’d pursued her into.
“Had your behaviour been better then the assessm-” he was cut off by his wife.
“Humiliation and injury are not exactly cardinal sins, Rupert,” Jenny told him, “and she said that he shared the blame. Please tell me that your friend and his ‘assessment team’ didn’t chase her up there?” Her voice offered the challenge and the chance for him to tell her.
“No. Well yes, but-”
“They, your good friend Michael and his buddies decided to get their revenge on her for beating them at their own game didn’t they?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “She spotted them, she was too good for them and when she tried to get away from them, not knowing who they were, one of them got hurt. There was an accident. But your friend, and the Council, didn’t like that – they felt all small and useless so they decided to get their own back. And the great Watchers Council went along with that.” She didn’t wait for him to confirm or deny it.
Maybe, Tara admitted to herself, they would never know what the reason had been. The outcome was still the same wasn't it?
“You too – you played along with that,” Jenny accused him.
“She killed Faith!” he glared at Tara as he reminded his wife of that simple fact.
Tara knew that he was right – it
did all had to come back to that. That wouldn’t go away.
“She
allowed Faith to be killed” Jenny started to argue.
“Is there a difference?” he demanded of her though.
Tara couldn’t honestly see one.
“And,” Jenny continued, “if she hadn’t been put in that position by your damned Council then Faith wouldn’t have even been there at all. Which she shouldn’t have been. Which part of ‘Vampire’ and ‘Slayer’ did you not understand? If she’d done it herself then it would have been self-defence, no jury in the land would convict her when Faith was there to kill her. But she didn’t do it. A demon did. You and the Council are almost much to blame as Tara. More… because she was in love.
Is in love. What was your excuse?”
It all sounded so very reasonable when Jenny said it, Tara almost believed it herself. Almost. She had been in love… just not with what she’d had in her, darkness filled, life then. She’d been in love with what she had now. The idea… the feeling. The young woman. She hadn’t wanted to lose the only link that she had to that – to the real Willow.
But… eventually she’d done it herself. She’d done what she refused to do before. She’d done what would have saved her that night when Faith had come for her. She’d killed Willow anyway – not even knowing if she could bring her back. So why had she let Faith die?
Because I was in love?Mr Giles’s initial anger had subsided a little with the distance between them and Jenny’s forceful logic. “I never thought to question their motives – it seemed obvious to me when the communication arrived – with what she was doing that she was a danger. To all of us. That was why she was assessed in the first place” he told his wife who placed a hand on his. Squeezed it. Jenny was defending Tara, but she was showing him that she still loved him.
Good.
“I never knew all the reasons why,” he continued. “I assumed that they were the same as the suspicions that I’d been compelled to report to the Council – it was my duty as Watcher. You really love her?” he asked Tara. “You did back then?”
As if a little love would excuse it… would make everything all right. No. But perhaps it would make it a little better. His tone suggested that there might have been some mitigation on offer there.
She’d loved Willow, this Willow, and allowed the vampire to continue her ‘games’ because of that. That must have been, from what the Slayer had said that night, the key factor in why the Council had assessed her at all… and then the fact that Faith had been sent after her.
Ultimately it was all still coming back to being her fault. It had to be. Otherwise why would she be blaming herself?
Tara nodded though, it had been love, and he looked at her carefully. Seeming to make some sort of decision. He could have challenged her on the nature of love. On whether a vampire could do that. But perhaps he understood that he wasn't looking at a woman who’d been in love with a vampire. He was looking at a woman who’d been in love with a possibility. A chance. A reflection and a memory.
Abruptly he turned away from Tara and, calmer now, the Watcher crossed the room to Willow and studied her just as hard but didn’t say anything as he did so. Seeming to be satisfied he reached and held out his arms. “Give me Faith.” There was no hate in his tone. No accusation. No fear of her or what she might do. Just a desire to remove his child from her. Willow shifted, ready to hand Faith over as requested, but was prevented from handing her over by Jenny who took her husband by the arm and led him towards the stairs which, when she got him there, he calmly walked up, preceding her. She looked, a little sadly, at the two young women, trying give them a supportive look and then followed him up the stairs hurrying him along as he turned back to them from the top.
Tara knew that Jenny hadn’t bargained for any of this when she’d written a letter saying that ‘they’ could come here to see her. She hadn’t reasoned with the possibility of falling out with her husband. She hadn’t known all the facts. She hadn’t even known about Willow – though now she was defending the love that Tara had for her former pupil.
They might have retreated to have their conversation but there was no hiding most of the words that were spoken up there. The place was not designed for private conversations. Mr Giles’s words in particular were audible as Willow came over and sat beside Tara on the couch, close to each other and baby Faith. Tara knew that she was feeling a little better simply because of the proximity of her love.
“It’s not good enough I’m afraid. Sorry is not good enough in the slightest,” came the male voice.
“You think she, that
they, don’t know that Rupert? Above all people, that they don’t know that?” Jenny replied.
And didn’t they know it? Nothing would ever be good enough to make real amends for that and the other things… By their own actions or failure to act they both had blood, not just on their hands but coating them, running from those hands, dripping from their hair even. There wasn’t enough guilt in the whole world, but that was just it. They had to be in the world to face that fact, to try and do something that would make things in the world a little better than they were now.
“Faith is gone!” he said again.
“And she’ll still be gone no matter what you say now,” Jenny told him as they listened. Her voice became quieter.
“Why are they here?” he asked a few minutes later.
“From what I can tell they just want to make a life together. Living. Together. Loving but not hiding,” Jenny told him.
“But they can’t rest because they are feeling guilty? Well good. Maybe they shouldn’t rest! Maybe they should hide – and then no one else has to die.”
Tara closed her eyes and Willow bent to kiss her cheek tenderly. What would she do without her Willow now?
“No one else is going to die… and Tara helped far more people than she ever hurt,” Jenny told him not allowing him to interrupt her this time.
“You did help them,” Willow reminded her.
Had she? Really? She didn’t answer
“Willow is human now,” Jenny went on. “You saw that. She’s the young woman, the girl I used to teach, but she remembers it. All of it – can you make her feel any worse than she does? Do you want to?”
He stopped – that obviously being news to him then he was quieter again. “And I remember how hard it was for you when she, Faith, was killed, I really do. But Willow isn’t the problem… she never really was, even at her worst. She was just another vampire. No worse than some and no better than others. Willow, as a vampire was a demon. Despicable but ultimately understandable. The motives of vampires are very clear. Tara on the other hand…”
“Was a young woman filled with grief and a desire for revenge when her family were slaughtered,” Jenny finished. “You know that. At least she was a volunteer. Faith never asked to be the Slayer.”
“Tara is a woman with tremendous power. Power you must remember, she hasn’t lost like Willow. Perhaps she
is feeling guilty now, but what happens when someone sets her off again and she needs to find some revenge – or something threatens that love again?” he asked.
Tara could deny none of that. Sensing the direction of the argument above, Willow adjusted little Faith’s position and inserted her suddenly free arm under Tara’s, and pulled it to her. She was pulling Tara close to her as she held Faith. They looked at each other. They could face this. They’d faced much more before… besides it was all true. Tara said as much.
“From a certain point of view,” Willow suggested and kissed her again.
“And you hate her for that?” Jenny asked obviously not believing it. “Power? Is that even what you are really bothered about?”
“I don’t hate her. I... blame her for allowing Faith to die.”
“And if she had warned Faith then Willow, the vampire Willow, might have been killed. And Faith might still, following your orders, have killed Tara. And are you even sure that Tara
could have stopped Willow? In the time that she had… there was no struggle.”
“May I say ‘good’ about the vampire?” he suggested. “Willow Rosenberg was not always what now sits in our house Jenny. She was a creature of evil. A spawn of hell.”
“And the young woman who sits downstairs - who holds
our Faith… she mightn’t exist. Tara would have lost the link to what she loved and she would be alone, bitter, using that power you’re so afraid of. If Faith hadn’t killed her for some Council ordered spurious reason.
And the Mayor might still be alive…”
“She did that?” he asked. Tara could tell that he’d never even considered that. Actually it had been Willow… the vampire Willow. But she
had encouraged the demon in that direction. Despite the positive outcome it wasn't something she was proud of… even if there wasn't any actual guilt.
“Who else?” Jenny replied mistakenly.
“And so… because of the love and the undoubted good that she did for this town once upon a time we should forget Faith? Hmm?”
There was silence for a long moment and Tara could imagine Jenny looking at him, not saying anything – letting him draw his own conclusions.
“What are you going to do? ‘Slay her?’ What would you like me to do? Throw them out when I said that she… they… could stay tonight?” Jenny seemed to pause and when she spoke again she’d obviously gathered herself and controlled the irritation that she’d been feeling. Rupert, it’s time to look forward – to look to
our Faith. Your Slayer, the first Faith that we loved, is dead. Nothing is ever going to bring her back and from her death… and well… some good came of it. Not enough – never enough for that price, but ultimately it did. And love too.”
“So that makes it alright?” Giles’s tone was softer now, harder to hear once more.
“No… but this world, whether we like it or not, is actually still a little better for it all. Sunnydale is. Faith, your Faith, was good for this town. With Tara. Together they lifted the veil of darkness and did you, or the Council ever thank Tara for removing the Master?”
“No we didn’t.” Only the words came through. The feeling behind them was as good as inaudible.
“No. But
you know that without Tara, Faith might have died a lot sooner. Only together could they kill the Master – they both would have probably died alone. Only together… but Faith would have gone alone without Tara. You would probably have been forced to ask her to… or you might have gone along and you’d have died too. You know that. That was the sort of woman she was. Brave, but a little reckless. Strong but not strong enough to do it alone. That’s the sort of person you are – its because of how you felt about her that you’d probably have died with her. Love… Tara probably actually gave her more life than she could expect as a Slayer. She probably gave you a longer life… She gave us our daughter and
I thank her for all that.
“And now, now is it better for those two that they feel hated, isolated, maybe pushed into using that power you say you were worried about once more… or that they be forgiven and be allowed to love each other?”
“She doesn’t deserve it…” he said, obviously a last argument.
“To forgive is an act of compassion, love. Do it because they need it… not because they deserve it,” Jenny told him. It sounded like she was reciting it though – something she believed. Something he might have said… it sounded like his words. “They need to be forgiven for whatever they feel they did – not what you think that did.”
“They?”
“They.”
There was silence from above Willow and Tara for a long minute and the words soaked into them in that time. Tara had never considered any of that, that she might have kept Faith alive longer than otherwise…
No I killed her… as surely as if I snapped her neck myself. I killed her. Didn’t I? And Mr Giles? Would he have… Leaving Jenny alone…
If Jenny really thought that… no wonder she was so passionate in her defence of them.
“Faith really had no chance did she?” Giles finally asked his wife. Tara could hear in his voice that he hadn’t just meant Faith though.
“Not here love. She was the Slayer and try as you might, try as she might, she would have died. Maybe a little later. But probably a lot sooner. The only reason you, that we ever really got to know Faith might be the woman you say deserves to be punished. A woman who gave up her whole life to carry out a mission that wasn't even hers. And now she’s trying to get that life back – she can have one now. I think Faith might, in her own way, have wanted that for her. Tara just got lost, Rupert. Now she’s finding herself. They both are.”
Tara’s soft crying certainly couldn’t be heard upstairs but to Tara herself it was loud enough that she couldn’t hear Giles’s final words before they came back downstairs to them. “I don’t hate her,” was what he said when he was back in earshot.
He obviously didn’t like her too much right then… but he didn’t hate her.
And there he was before them again, Jenny by his side. As he drew breath to speak Tara winced, ready to flee, ready to be thrown out. To be shouted at. She deserved it all. But instead he was calmer than he had been.
“You were assessed-” he started to say. That was his conclusion to that whole conversation? He might not hate her, but she was obviously still considered dangerous by him. Perhaps she
was still dangerous… he had mentioned fearing the magic – her power. The darkness was still there. In her. Waiting and whispering. And more than anything else Faith was still dead.
But he wasn’t shouting.
“What right did the Council have to even consider assessing her?” It wasn’t Jenny who demanded that answer. It was Willow. Silent until now, and everyone turned to look at her but, still cradling Faith, Willow’s blazing eyes were fixed on Giles alone.
“What?”
-------------------
“Tara isn’t a vampire. She wasn’t the Slayer. What right did your damned Council have to assess her anyway?” Willow asked him.
“Well, based on my reports of her activities,” he looked at Tara to avoid that powerful glare from the younger woman, “and your successes they wanted to see if she might be a candidate for recruitment.”
“Recruitment?” Willow couldn’t avoid a sad laugh. “Perhaps they should have come to work for her. She did more for people around here than anyone else. But,” Willow concluded, “because she didn’t want to be recruited or didn’t even know what they were doing, because she humiliated them, then she had to die? That’s not right Mr Giles
and you know it. None of the rest of it matters,” Willow told him. “None of it would have happened without that first mistake and it was yours… or the Council’s. I don’t care anymore whose fault it was but you’re not going to shout at her just because really
you feel guilty. Tara’s got enough guilt of her own – without taking on yours too.”
And that was the truth of it. They both had guilt – they both had done… or remembered doing, bad things. They really didn’t need his. Not from him and his Council.
------------------
Tara looked inside herself for the memory of that dark time. She didn’t need to dig very far. This wasn’t Mr Giles’s fault and she couldn’t let it be portrayed as such – not even by Willow. She
had been on the edge – even before she came to Sunnydale and met the vampire that resembled the only person she’d ever loved. The edge, the darkness… she still feared it. That was why she’d stopped using the magic so much since. She had to be afraid of it. Why shouldn’t he and his Council be as afraid?
And Faith was still dead.
The edge… she
had been over it. Far over it. “No. I was, I was doing bad things and… I knew that I was nearly what I feared most. I knew that one day Faith might have to do something about me. She’d warned me in her own way – given me a chance. And I couldn’t deny what was wrong with me then.”
“You knew it, that she would come for you?” Mr Giles asked, seeming surprised. “And you’d really have let her kill you?”
He wasn’t quite believing her yet – but starting to get it perhaps. It didn’t matter if he did or not really. “Then, at that moment I was faced with d-death or damnation.” A stark choice. There hadn’t seemed to be any way out of that choice other than to let Faith and Willow make it for her. Fate was supposed to be so important. Would fate have allowed Faith to kill her? Was that why the vampire had been there at all? Was Willow’s presence fate? The prophecy?
But how hard did I really look for another way?“And so you think that you’re damned now?” he looked over at Willow, who was still holding his child. He couldn’t still be worried about Willow. But this Faith was his daughter… he had to worry.
“No,” Tara replied. “I’m in love. I was though, damned by what I did, but we were given a second chance.”
“Perhaps,” Jenny interjected, “But really it was, this is, your first chance. You had no chance before Tara. Maybe you had no choice either.”
“Maybe,” Mr Giles mused, clearly thinking on what had been said about his own part in the affair.
“I’m sorry” Tara said again not sure who she was saying it. Everyone perhaps. Perhaps she was even saying it to this Faith… who would never know the woman she was named for, or that other Faith… who’d fallen victim to fate. And Tara herself.
“I know you are,” Mr Giles acknowledged. “Maybe that’s a start.”
Tara didn’t even jump when something furry landed in her lap. Miss Kitty clambered up her, claws poking holes in her sweater and said hello to her once again.
It looked like she was getting accepted by everyone?
***************
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If I want a little pussy, I got my own to play with.
Chance in
Chance.------------------------
by Cicca » Thu Nov 07, 2002 1:55 am 
)! I liked how the word "they" (and the significance it held) was emphasized. It's interesting (and makes sense) when Tara wondered if "he might not be able to accept them". Really I was so focused on the "bigger issue" of how Ira would react to seeing Willow again in connection to VW (and the pain/torture she brought to his life), that the "smaller" fear of acceptance of their relationship subtly sneaks up on you. Or in other words, it would be a big "blow" if Ira can accept the human Willow, but in the end not be able to accept Willow the lesbian. Glad Ira seems to be fine with their relationship (ie emphasis "they" would return to visit), and I was so moved with Willow saying, ("I have to help her Dad", 'like she helps me'- 'It's love you know?"), which beautifully conveys their connection/depth of their love.
to leave that part with the cliffhanger of Giles "entering the scene", and I can't wait to see what happens with his presence "added to the mix". Willow has had her "breakthrough", and now with them being a "they" Tara has the needed support to confront her past/Giles, to move past the heavy burden of guilt in order to truly have the future she deserves with Willow.
Edited by: VampNo12 
at: 11/7/02 2:10:14 am
. It went fairly well anyway. I loved Willow wondering about biology/science things when holding Faith jr. She just HAS to have an explanation for everything doesn't she ? Loved the image of Willow rocking Faith jr. while speaking baby-speak 