Celia - I am sure the kittens aren’t ready for the answer – especially when I just thought of what the truth really is there.
I know all about you and your caves (note the plural!)… And thanks for the u.
Xita - I realise now what you were getting at. Dirty girl. Shhhhh. ‘Cept innocent too.
We can all go caving with Licky. I don’t think she has limits on numbers.
And now I realise we are speaking in tongues, so onto the fic…
Thanks hun.
Part 122 below.
Enjoy.
Katharyn.
Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle - Doing it the Geeky Way (Part 122)
Author: Katharyn Rosser & TiredSoul
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome.
katharynrosser@hotmail.com Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe as set up in “The Wish” though reference is made to events that occur in both realities. Nothing is referenced that occurs after S5 though. Guess why? Most “spoilers” would be for the first chronicle of this fic rather than the show and if you haven’t read that then much of this will make no sense but you can try and get round it by reading the preface to Part 104 which summarises most of what went before.
Distribution This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens (This applies to all of the Sidestep Chronicle)
Summary: The communication issue starts to be addressed. Just starts though…
Disclaimer: I 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. You know the drill.
Rating: R – a general rating for occasional content. Individual parts might be less than this level.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever – others couples as necessary but nothing unconventional.
Notes: I use ‘chat’ in this part. It is not ‘chat’ as we know it. The typos and spelling mistakes we all suffer from are not there (and we know Tara hates them.) No smilies either. The balance had to be struck between readability and being true to real chat.
Thanks To: All My Brilliant Beta Readers (AMBBR) Kerry (Forrister) and Jo (Wizpup) who for some reason signed right back up for this fic after seeing the size of the last one. No accounting for madness is there. And Celia (TiredSoul) who should have known better but signed up anyway. *HUGS* and Big Thanks to all of you. This was one of Celia’s and again with the yellow highlighter. She even gets a writing credit. Once you are adding paragraphs to the beta you get a credit. Assuming I like them – and I do like them. When she protests just ignore her. Xita – thanks for Willow’s screen name. Also credit to the writers of Checkpoint (remember back before it all went to shit?) for the influences and even the writing in a few lines.
The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle
Doing it the Geeky Way
By
Katharyn Rosser & TiredSoul
Toni had known what they meant when they’d pantomimed the movement of fingers that universally conveyed ‘Do you type?’ She’d seen the computers in their dorm room. A desktop like they had at home – and weren’t they all basically the same. And a laptop too. They wanted her to type for them. She could do that.
Not fast, but she could do it well enough to type up her assignments for school.
Home…
Was she ever going to go back there? She supposed that maybe she was… but only for long enough to pick up some of her stuff, because no one was going to let her stay there. Not alone. Maybe they’d put her with her Mom and they’d both live there? No. Mom had run out of that house – out of their lives – so there was no way she was getting back into it now. If she had to be with her Mom, if anyone ever found her, then it wasn't going to be there. Not if she could help it. That was where she and her Dad had a
home and home wasn’t just where you lived. It meant something.
And her Mom meant very little to Toni.
Anyway. She was here now and she knew she was going to have to explain more than she felt she could… but she did want to, too. She wanted to tell someone and have them understand what had happened – believe her – and then maybe let her cry? Was that what she needed in order to cry? To tell someone? She wanted to… let it out, but it was all caught up inside her.
Her Dad was dead. He was gone. And she wanted to do something about that. She wanted… she wanted him back so badly, but she couldn’t have that. She knew that wouldn’t happen. So, instead, she wanted them gone – the vampires – every last one of them and for everyone they were going to hurt to escape.
And, stupid as it might have seemed, these two tiny women who’d just bought her breakfast as well giving her a place to stay over night seemed the best candidates for doing that for them. It was like… well, she’d never heard of vampires really existing until they came for them. She’d seen the stories on TV, read a few books – but not many as she was no geek – but she’d never thought they were real. Until then. Until someone had told her Dad what they were.
They weren't the same as the stories. They didn’t fly, they weren't all brooding and pretty. They were just evil monsters that killed people. There was no getting around that. None at all. The stories were wrong.
The police didn’t seem to get the truth either or else they’d be doing something already.
But… these women had saved her life. Twice. And they not only knew vampires existed, they knew how to kill them too. They
were killing them. Now she wanted to help them do that by telling them what she knew they’d probably want to know. But…
They’d killed like a single vampire… twice. Both had saved her life, but one at a time and it had taken both of them to do it.
Down there though… there were loads of vampires. There could be hundreds for all she knew. If she told them about that, how many there were, would they go down there? And if she didn’t tell them what she knew and they found out some other way and went down there anyway…. then they could still get hurt, or worse, she might get hurt with them.
And if she didn’t tell them and they didn’t find anything else out, if they didn’t go… there were all those people down there waiting to be meals.
She needed to think about what she was going to say. There didn’t seem to be a right answer without a bad side for someone – and it wasn’t even the vampires.
She just didn’t want anyone else getting hurt. But she wanted the vampires gone too. And she… she had to try and find her Dad if she could. If they hadn’t done something with his body. She had no idea what they might have done because she didn’t understand them at all. They were monsters, but she had to find him. She had to… he’d want to be buried. There was a family plot where his own Mom and Dad, Toni’s grandparents, were buried already. He’d want to be there with them. He’d planned to be there. He’d told her that when they’d buried her Granny a few years ago. Without worrying her, he’d let her know. They pretty much just had each other – who else could he have trusted with that information?
But not yet. He hadn’t intended to be there yet. That was the whole deal they’d made. She’d listened to him because he’d said it was a long time off – and yet he was gone already. It wasn’t fair, but she was going to see that he was there, that he got what he’d wanted. She was going to do that for him as well as living.
All she needed now was to find him.
He’d done everything for her and she’d never realised how much of it there had been when he was there. There was obvious stuff and there were things which she knew she’d never noticed at all. All the stuff around the house whilst she was out training and couldn’t help with the chores. All the food he’d put on the table. All the time he gave up for helping her with her homework and just being with her, after long days at work himself. But he never complained. He’d done so much for her – all by himself.
All that was gone now and she’d never really thanked him for any of it.
She hoped that he hadn’t thought she was selfish at the end…
Because she sort of had been really. Wasn’t that what girls her age were supposed to be? Teenagers? Selfish?
She just wished that she hadn’t been like that.
She’d never even said goodbye. Except as they’d looked at each other and she’d known what he’d known. They’d been killing him with their beating and there was no way they were going to let up. He wasn’t worth enough to them to keep alive – not when he could be used to scare the others into staying put. He had tried to escape and she thought he might have known what the penalty for that would be if he got caught.
But he had been right, it had been better than just waiting for them to kill them. And, as much as she hated to admit it, she wasn't sure she could have led him through the sewers fast enough to get away from that vampire.
Even if things had worked out that way.
She wanted him back and she wasn’t going to leave him down there with
them. There were all those other people too. And it wasn't as if she didn’t think she could trust these two women – despite her lingering fears about what the red haired one might have been, and the other one being in her head like that. The one called Willow seemed to be setting up the desktop so it could talk to the laptop they would be probably be using. Whilst they’d proven they could kill vampires, or a vampire anyway, she wasn’t sure they could handle everything that was down there.
She wasn’t sure anyone could.
If Willow had been a vampire, Toni would be dead now - she’d slept in their presence. Besides, Tara wouldn’t have been with her if she had been one of those creatures. And if Tara had wanted to do anything in her head again… there had been last night. But neither had happened. She actually felt better, the effects of what the vampire had done had faded. She couldn’t
feel the horror – even if she still remembered it all too clearly.
Toni thought, it was more likely anyway, that Tara had made a mistake and the images of Willow had been put there by the vampire precisely to make her afraid of these women who’d saved her life. To make her run from them too?
She felt she could trust them then, but if she told them everything that had happened – and the details of where… Well, they might think that they had to do something about it. And, no matter who they were or what they proved they could do, there were too many vampires for just them – alone – to deal with.
They could end up dead too and she’d never thanked them either. But she would. As soon as they fired up the ‘chat thing’ that she supposed they were going to use. She’d seen it before, but never actually done it. It should be as easy as typing, right? Encouraging smiles said ‘yes.’ It seemed that Willow, was the computer expert here. She’d been the one messing around with the cables and setting the software up. Pretty quickly too – a real geek then.
Willow didn’t look like most geeks Toni knew.
She didn’t know that much about it all, but she supposed that there wouldn’t have been any need for them to do anything like this before. After all, they talked to each other. They didn’t need to ‘chat’ between themselves like this. She’d always thought, as a person who didn’t use computers outside of finishing her school work, that ‘chat’ was kind of lame and just another way, for her, of denying who she was and learning someone else’s language. Also, it was what the geeks did.
One thing no one had ever called her was a geek. At least not so that she’d ever known.
But actually, thinking about it more carefully, this could be her language as much as anyone else’s. After all it was just communicating with her fingers in her own language. And she was good at that. Written English was hers as much as it was anyone else’s. She was okay at typing, she typed her essays and that had given her everything she needed, right? Where was the bad? Everyone was the same doing this – it wasn’t like writing notes and passing them back and forth.
She had bad hand-writing apart from anything else.
First thing though, she had to remember to thank them. Just in case something happened to her…
And then Willow offered her the seat, which was only facing them over the top and around the sides of the screens, and she gratefully sat in it. She wanted to be grateful – she wanted to thank them so that nothing happened to them without knowing that she did appreciate what they’d done for her. She didn’t want that, not telling someone about how she felt, to happen again. Yet, if she told them then something might well happen as a result. Perhaps they had more sense than to follow up on it? But how was she going to get her Dad back? They’d given her another chance at life, twice in fact, and she was about to tell them something that… well, part of her wanted them to do something about it. Take the risks for whatever reasons they might have had to be doing this.
And part of her didn’t. She didn’t want anyone else dead – except the vampires.
She didn’t know what their reasons were. She couldn’t guess at them – she was just glad they’d been there to save her life. She was glad there was someone out there who did care enough to take on the monsters. No matter how dangerous it was.
She didn’t wait for them to send her a message. She could see ‘Willow’ on the screen as the only person in her ‘friends’ list. She’d seen this done before. She clicked that, guessing it should give her the options she needed, and saw the message box come up with a blinking cursor. She knew what that meant. It was blinking at here, waiting for her to ‘talk.’ She typed the first thing she wanted to tell them.
Toni: Thank you.
She winced as her hand reminded her it was sore. She’d smacked that vampire in the nose and now her whole hand felt a little stiff. She tried to flex it under the table and decided that maybe, one handed typing – or at least favouring the other one – would be better for now.
She’d just typed ‘Thank you’ so far, but it tagged it with her name too. They must have set her up under her own name. And there it was at the in the title bar of the friends list. Willow seemed to have thought of everything. Fast work too. Really, really geeky then.
Geeks weren't seeming so bad now as they had at school. If Willow was a geek then she was one who was doing a lot of good, had herself a girlfriend she obviously loved and didn’t mind helping people out. She didn’t have glasses or pocket protectors either.
There was no way what the vampire had put in her head could be the truth. Willow wasn’t dead. She wasn’t a vampire. It had been a lie. The vampires were afraid of her being with these young women who’d saved her. That was why they’d allowed for her escape and put the visions there. Even if it had seemed so real as the dark haired violator of her mind had drained Willow’s life.
Not real. It couldn’t be because the living proof was here in front of her eyes.
She watched as the two women immediately looked up from whatever they’d been about to say to her. They seemed to think about it, as if they hadn’t been going to raise the thing Toni had to thank them for right away. She’d probably put them off her game. As if they’d probably expected to be leading off, setting the tone, the pace.
Toni didn’t like to run her races from behind. It was a good way to lose. If you were out front then all you had to do was to stay there.
After a few moments they figured out how they were going to get themselves going – though there hadn’t been a word spoken between them. Maybe they were in each other’s heads.
That was fine – just so long as they weren’t in hers.
Wiccanfoo: That’s okay, Toni. It’s what we do.
Wiccanfoo? What the heck was a ‘Wiccanfoo?’ She had no idea. And so she’d have to ask them. After she rejected the brush off of her thanks. It might be what they did, but it had saved her life. Twice.
Toni: It’s not okay.
Toni: You helped me stay alive and I wanted to thank you.
They nodded, smiled. She was glad she’d gotten to tell them that. Just in case. Maybe they still thought it was no big deal, but no one had saved her life before. Except maybe her Dad, looking after her in the vampire’s cages. And she’d never thanks him.
Toni: And what’s a Wiccanfoo?
Toni smiled as Tara playfully slapped… what was it they were? Girlfriends? Partners? Lovers? She liked ‘girlfriends’ best until they told her any different. Tara slapped her girlfriend’s arm playfully and said something to her. Willow flushed red with embarrassment. Toni had thrown them right off their stride now – race-wise she thought she was home and dry.
Wiccanfoo: Sorry, I meant to change that name to Willow and Tara.
Wiccanfoo: Wiccanfoo is well, it’s… what we do. What we did out there, that you saw, it’s a kind of magic.
Wiccanfoo: And a part of that is Wicca. So it’s like Kung Fu, but with Wicca. Our friend came up with it.
Wiccanfoo: He moved out of town so we chat to him a lot, cheaper than calling.
So they didn’t mind men then. That was one fallacy blown out of the window. She’d been pretty certain they wouldn’t hate men. The impression she had was that they really wouldn’t hate anyone. The girls at school who ‘knew’ these things about lesbians were always signing with their butt cheeks about everything.
Tara said something that made Willow smile.
Wiccanfoo: And yeah, no kicking.
Wiccanfoo: We really don’t do well with the kicking.
Tara had something else to say, something else Willow had evidently missed.
Wiccanfoo: Or shouts.
Toni: You can shout if you want to, it won’t bother me at all.
She made sure she was smiling as she hit ‘enter,’ despite her hand hurting her again. Some people wouldn’t know how to take a statement like that, and without sign she couldn’t get any feeling into the words. Chat seemed, lacking in any way to show emotions. When people talked she could see their faces held the emotion, and she’d read the words sounded different too – depending how you said them. She could do the same in sign. But here in chat, all she could do was look over the computer at them. And besides, it was true. They could – they could scream and she wouldn’t ever hear them. Down there, underground, she’d been glad of that. She knew that there had to have been screams and cries down there underground. She was glad that she couldn’t have the sounds to go with the sight of her Dad’s last moments. She couldn’t imagine how horrible that memory would be.
Screams were bad things – so she was sure that she didn’t want to know what they were like. He’d been screaming, until there was no more air left in his lungs, she was sure. Or if not screaming then… She didn’t want to think about it except she couldn’t
not think about it.
The supposedly reassuring smile must have flickered, because there was concern on their faces now. It was thinking of her Dad which had done it – not that she ever really stopped thinking of him.
‘It’s what we do,’ they’d said. Toni forced herself to think about that some more instead. She supposed that it
was what they did. For whatever reason. It wasn’t something they’d just happened to be around for – in a park at night. Being able do those things had to take practice, didn’t it? And they… well, being able to do those things they did, it was a good thing that they weren’t on the side of the vampires.
Which they weren’t. She knew was certain of that – no matter what strange things were still buzzing in her head about them. The doubts she had, weren’t at all about whether they were with the vampires.
Toni: Just thanks.
She supposed she ought to really introduce herself, even if they already knew it from her note. Even if she already knew who they were – from their quickly drawn signs, despite them being backwards to start with – introductions were important. It was good manners and she’d been raised to have good manners. When Dad had told her to ‘Live’ she was sure he’d meant ‘live a good life – like I taught you.’
He’d have settled for her staying alive, but now she’d managed that she could try and fulfil his deeper wishes.
Toni: I’m Toni. Like it says on the screen.
Wiccanfoo: I’m Willow, typing, and the lovely lady by my side is Tara.
Toni watched as Tara’s face flushed a little at her girlfriend’s compliment. Yeah, she was still liking the word ‘girlfriends’ for the pair of them. They looked like ‘girlfriends’ to her. The embarrassment was kind of sweet to Toni. That they were obviously so into each other, probably had been for a while, and yet they could still feel embarrassed at compliments like that – from each other. Yeah… definitely sweet.
Lesbians weren’t looking so bad as the ignorant kids at school had suggested. It might not be her choice in life or how she was put together, but it wasn’t anything bad.
Wiccanfoo: We’re friends and roomies.
Toni just looked at them, amused by the description, and in response Tara said something to Willow.
Wiccanfoo: Good friends.
It was like a guess or something, but missing a question mark. Willow looked at Tara, Tara looked right back at her and they both looked to Toni wondering if they could, should or needed to go further than that.
Toni was all for full disclosure – so long as they weren’t her secrets.
Wiccanfoo: Girlfriends, actually.
Tara nodded and smiled at her. Toni was happy to live with girlfriends as a description. It was everything they needed to say.
Wiccanfoo: We’re in love. We’re…
Then she hesitated, appeared to think better of it. Well Toni wasn't having that. Her Dad hadn’t raised her for anyone to be ashamed of what they were. Okay these girls weren’t ashamed, she could see that, but they thought they had to be reticent for her? She was fourteen for gods sake! She’d never given a lot of thought to what it might involve, but she knew what they were… beyond girlfriends.
Toni: Lovers?
Willow placed her hand on Tara’s knee, which Toni couldn’t help thinking was a sweet. Gesture. Just one of a few she’d noticed. They were always making contact, even over breakfast. Just little touches. One day she so wanted that kind of easiness with the guy of her dreams. Or at least the guy who was available because she didn’t think Josh Hartnett would be. Then they realised what she’d typed – and didn’t care, which was even sweeter.
Wiccanfoo: Yeah, we’re lesbian, gay-type lovers.
And that got a reaction from Tara who flushed bright red again. Toni could imagine why. It just wasn’t the sort of thing you said when you were introducing yourself to someone you didn’t know very well. Or maybe it was? Toni wasn't up on the politics of being ‘out’ mainly because she didn’t need to be. Perhaps this was how they did things. Besides…
Toni: Tell me something which isn’t so glaringly obvious?
She smiled again, because that also seemed harsh in type. It was missing the amused sarcasm she’d wanted to convey. These two were so together… She hadn’t seen anything like that sort of ease between two people since her grandparents had died, and they’d been together for forty years by the time the first of them went… away.
Like her Dad had gone ‘away’ and she couldn’t get away from that. It was the most important thing in her world – and she needed them to know it. They wanted to know her a little better, she could tell, and knowing her meant they had to know the only thing which really mattered.
Toni: My Dad is dead.
They stopped for a moment. They’d kind of looked happy that she’d been able to smile about them being together. And as glad as she was that someone was having a life that was good for them, but she couldn’t get past the most important thing or keep it hidden any longer.
My Dad is dead. She hadn’t been intending to type that then. It had just sort of slipped out – because it was always there in her head. She wanted them to know that though – to understand her and to help her. She wanted them to understand the things that she was going to say to them, and ask them to do – maybe. She wanted them to be able to get the fact that it was because he was dead that she had to do those things. And because she was all alone now.
Eventually, it was Tara who typed the response to that, leaning past her girlfriend. Willow… Willow seemed to be a little overcome by what she’d typed to them. She supposed she could have felt bad for just putting it out there like that. But it wasn't like she was looking for pity. She’d never wanted pity. She needed their help and in order to get that, they had to know.
They had to understand where she was coming from.
Wiccanfoo: We know that honey.
Tara continued to type, Willow shifting to allow her girlfriend better access.
Toni: How?
She ignored the fact they’d called her ‘honey.’ She wasn’t anyone’s honey, but they weren’t to know that and they didn’t mean anything by it. It was probably the sort of thing they called each other – and other friends – all the time. Then Willow was back in the driving seat and Tara was resting her hand on her girlfriend’s arm, telling her something. Maybe that it was ‘okay’ to tell her how. But was anything really ‘okay’?
Wiccanfoo: We saw the note that you left them at the police station. We’re so very sorry.
Their faces told Toni that… they really were. Sorry and they were supportive and willing to help her. And she kind of got the impression that they knew something about how she felt… maybe. The impression that they weren’t just willing – but also wanting – to help her. That was probably why they’d been looking for her last night – because they wanted to help.
They might not be as keen if they knew. Because right now they didn’t know just how she wanted them to help her.
Tara said something and Willow started typing again, probably relaying it.
Wiccanfoo: Do they have your name?
Toni had to think for a moment how they meant. The police, it had to be. So, they were getting into the practicalities so soon? Maybe that was a good thing. She’d thanked them, they’d had the introductions, and now she had to ask them to kill all the vampires for her so that she could get her Dad back to put him in the ground where he wanted to be – to bury her father when she should have been looking forward to their vacation in a few weeks. Asking them to kill all the vampires so that she could help the people who were still down there. Some of them she’d seen down there would already be dead… those that were in the second cage she’d been in… well, they were probably dead already.
That was what the cage was for. Getting people ready to die. These women had only killed two vampires. There were lots more down there.
Did the police have her name though? Why did they want to know about that? What difference did it make?
Toni: No.
Toni: They never got to that. How do you know about the note? How do you know I went to the police?
She wanted to know those things. It had just been last night – had it been in the papers? Well, there wasn’t much of a story there and it had been too late for it to get to print, surely. She’d gone to the police station and she’d left after hours of just waiting. All she’d done was write the note to say why she was there and then they’d kept her hanging around. If they’d really cared about her Dad being dead they would have found a way to ask her about that – one that worked – quicker than that.
An interpreter had never shown up – her Dad was dead and someone was just staying in bed sleeping? What sort of place was this?
And no… they hadn’t got her name. They hadn’t offered her more than a drink and the use of the bathroom. Even that had only involved a rudimentary gesture toward the restrooms and a can of soda set down next to her when she’d returned to her seat. Not even a choice of diet or regular. They hadn’t seemed to care much about what she’d been through. Maybe they’d have cared more when the interpreter showed up and she could tell her story. Then they would probably have wanted to blame her for leaving people behind and stuff - for not coming to them sooner.
Yeah, it would all be her fault then.
And, somehow, she was pretty sure that they wouldn’t or couldn’t have done anything. Which was why she’d left.
Wiccanfoo: We, err…
It was strange to see type someone type ‘err.’ She’d read it in books and understood it to be a hesitancy thing. But this wasn’t supposed to be speech like books were. So why go ‘err.’ It seemed to be more for effect than actual hesitancy. If you wanted to hesitate in chat then surely you just didn’t type anything?
Then they did hesitate. Perhaps she had it all wrong about ‘err’ then?
Willow looked to Tara and Tara nodded to her girlfriend who was in control of the keyboard. A secret then? No one should have seen that note but the police.
Wiccanfoo: We sort of found it on the police computer. But you can’t tell anyone that. Okay?
Toni: Okay.
She agreed easily because she really didn’t care what they did. They’d helped her, and seemed to want to help her again. Though it was interesting to know that they were good enough to tap into the computer at the police station though. Wasn't the word ‘hack’? She’d seen ‘Wargames’ on TV a few years before – it was just like typing in a password wasn't it? Backdoors or something? Actually she
reallydidn’t care. They definitely must be geeks though. At least Willow had to be. She seemed to be the more geeky of the two – even if they were re-writing her opinion of geeks as they went along. Anyone with a life didn’t sit around working that stuff out – how to get into other computers.
Toni: Why?
Why would they have been looking at the police computers, looking at her note anyway?
Wiccanfoo: We were looking for you.
Wiccanfoo: Wondering where you went after the other night. Hoping you were safe.
They’d been searching for her? They’d been hoping that she was safe? Yeah, well, that seemed to be them all over didn’t it? They were fighting vampires when no one else appeared to be – even if her Dad had died anyway. They’d come looking for her when no one else had. They’d saved her life twice when there had been no one else around and they’d given her somewhere to rest after she’d already spent one night sleeping in a clock tower. They’d given her food too, bought her breakfast this morning and now they were giving her a chance to tell her story.
If she dared to do that.
It was obvious that these two women were people who cared – not just about her, because they didn’t know her, but probably about
all people. One of the last exchanges Toni had had with her grandmother before she’d died… it had been in sign of course – Gran had been signing in different ways for nearly seventy years – had said something about people who cared. One of her children, Toni’s uncle Norm, had been born deaf too. What was it she’d said? It was the sort of ‘Granny-wisdom’ that her Dad had always told her to respect. It sounded silly sometimes and you might forget the words she used… but Toni knew that she would never forget the sentiments. ‘Stay away from people who can’t care. They’re no good. Grab hold of the people who do.’
Grab them?
Well… Maybe her Gran had meant something a little different than actual ‘grabbing.’ Getting older and thinking about boys more, Toni thought that maybe Gran had been referring to that sort of romantic future. But the things that sweet old lady had told her… well, they rarely just meant one thing. In this case, she thought that she could trust these two women to try to do the right thing about the vampires. Because they cared. Trusting them, when she didn’t know them at all was just like grabbing them.
It was Toni’s own choice what she told them – and if she put them in the position where they would try going down there – they’d surely die. She knew it and she was afraid of it.
Toni: Why were you out there then?
Tara reached over and typed the response on the keyboard before Willow could do a thing about it. Which was a little strange, wasn’t it? It was a pretty simple question, which she was sure Willow could have answered on her own. After all, Willow had been there too.
Wiccanfoo: Chance
So they’d just happened to be there? Going to the playground? No… cos they were old and they didn’t hang out like that anymore. Old people didn’t hang out in kids’ playgrounds, which was seen as creepy - and with good reason. Not only that, it was at night… late at night. Willow read that response on the screen though, and… she looked over at Tara who didn’t react to the apparent implied question at all. Toni didn’t miss it though. She could see that there was more there, more that Willow would have said and Tara wasn’t going to.
So it was just an accident that they were there? That they found her? Fine. Let them say that if they wanted to.
It was hardly chance that they chose to save her life though.
Twice. They’d made that decision and she was glad they had.
She wondered though whether it was ‘chance’ that had stopped them from finding the vampires that had killed her Dad
before it happened? Before they’d even been brought out here to Sunnyhell. Why… why did they have to go out looking for vampires when they could just head underground and find all of then there?
How could they have missed them? The place was huge. It had taken Toni ages to run out of the area that they’d prepared for their hunting.
Either… either these women had ignored it because it was dangerous or they were blind to it? Or maybe there was no reason that they should have known? She’d have to find that out. It was important to her. Willow took control of the keyboard again without any argument from her girlfriend and asked another question of her own.
Wiccanfoo: What happened to you Toni?
It wasn't nice to think about, but she needed to tell them. They needed to know and then, she could make a decision on just how much she’d give them that could get them hurt.
Toni: We… we were taken from the house at night.
Wiccanfoo: Where’s home?
Toni: Fremont CA.
She knew what they were thinking right then as they looked at each other. Fremont was miles away. She’d found a map in town yesterday and looked just how far. She’d never heard of Sunnydale before she’d gotten out of those sewers but it was miles and miles to Fremont. A lot of driving. She’d known that much from the journey down here in the back of a dark truck which hadn’t got any windows.
Wiccanfoo: And they brought you here? They didn’t
Willow must have hit enter and then paused as if thinking of the best way to put it before she carried on, splitting the sentence asunder.
Wiccanfoo: do anything to you, either of you, there? Or on the way?
Like what? Killed us? Beaten us until we died in agony and passing out was a blessing? Itw as okay if they didn’t do it there? As long as it was here? Her Dad was dead and Willow was checking nothing had happened to them
on the way? No, that wasn’t what Willow was saying – or asking. She wasn’t that insensitive. They were just trying to figure something out – so Toni put it aside and just answered the question.
Toni: No. They just brought us here.
She saw the look that passed between the two women, and the tiny shrug that Tara gave Willow as a response. It was definitely a ‘huh’ moment. They’d expected something different as her answer. Something didn’t fit with what they thought they knew. She could see it in their faces and their postures. And that was why they were having to ask these questions like this.
Wiccanfoo: Sorry about all this, but you do know what they were that were chasing you?
Oh, she knew too well.
Toni: Vampires.
They looked at her, perhaps wondering if she meant to add a question mark to that. But she knew. She was certain. Even if they weren’t
really vampires, then they did stuff that the bad guys in the films did. Which was close enough for her. They were monsters. They’d killed her Dad. What they were called was kind of irrelevant.
Wiccanfoo: How do you know that? How do you know about them?
So vampires were what they called them too. For some reason it felt a little better to confirm that. At least she knew she wasn’t crazy now. No one else might believe her, but these women would.
Toni: Someone told my Dad, after we’d arrived here.
She didn’t see what the problem was. They knew it was vampires – why did they have to ask her how she knew that? What did that matter? Her Dad was still down there and so were those other people. But did she tell them about all the other people? What would that make them do? But what if she didn’t tell them?
She didn’t know what to do for the best.
Wiccanfoo: And it was vampires that took you away?
Toni: Why?
But before they had a chance to answer her, she had to carry on.
Toni: What does that matter?
Toni: We never saw the ones that took us again. Okay? So how would I know? How would he have known? My Dad had to be told. They weren’t supposed to be REAL.
She stopped. She was letting it get to her and it wasn't their fault. Whatever their reason for asking – it was probably a good one. She knew that they were just trying to do whatever it was they had to so they could get them – the vampires. They might even want to get them
for her. If they cared, they might do that – just so that she didn’t do it herself. Were they afraid of that? Toni wasn't stupid though. She knew how dangerous something like that would be.
She just stopped typing and stood up, moved away from the keyboard and went across the room to the bed she’d slept in last night, sitting down there instead. It didn’t take long for Tara to stand up and come over to her, sitting beside her.
Toni half expected a pat on the back, her hand to be held or to get a hug. Something that was supposed to be comforting, but was really a waste of effort. Her Dad was dead – what gesture was going to change that? There was no gesture though. Instead there was nothing but another human presence. Which might have been… perfect. Nothing but a person there with her.
Toni’s mind went back to the boy she’d shared the cell with. The one who’d been taken away before she had been. The one who’d been that other human presence at the time just as Tara was being now. She didn’t consider anyone else in that second cell to have been a human presence. More animal and more bothered about themselves than anyone else.
That boy was dead now too. She’d seen his body in the tunnels. Just left there.
Tara’s presence was as comfortable and unthreatening as that had been… back in that cage. That was what she’d needed then and funnily enough, that was what she needed now, too. Just someone who was there and with her. She was lucky she supposed - she had two someones who were there for her now.
But she wanted her Dad.
She couldn’t have him back though and there was no one else left to take care of her. Now, she had to do that for herself and if anyone wanted to help her do it. If anyone wanted to make her feel a little better, as if she wasn't quite so alone, then that was all good.
They were helping her and there was one thing left that she could do for her Dad. There was something that she could do for all the others down there too. But… did she dare to tell?
Did she dare not to?
It would get someone hurt either way and she hated having no
good options. She hadn’t had any for a while now.
Eventually she went back to the keyboard and was followed by Tara, who pulled up a chair, sat beside her - smiling hopefully over the screen hopefully at her girlfriend.
Toni hesitated as she reached out to start to type. What was she going to say? There was so much she could… and so much she couldn’t. Or could she?
Toni: They held us. And lots of others in a cage.
Wiccanfoo: Others? How many?
The numbers had their interest. Bad enough if it was just her – but if there were others as well… That was what made this more urgent.
Toni: Lots, I think.
And this was what she had been afraid of… their urgency. They could shoot off and get themselves killed right now and she wouldn’t even have much of a chance to say goodbye – though she’d at least said ‘thank you.’
Wiccanfoo: How many?
Toni knew that maybe they’d wanted to hear something different, or maybe not to start pushing her this hard after she’d come back to the keyboard but the words were so very much harder than the expressions, and probably the feelings behind them too. She was glad that she could see their faces. If she hadn’t been able, if this had been used like the ‘chat’ was supposed to be…
Words, on a screen, weren’t like sign where the face, body language and the nuances in the movements of the hands were enough to tell you what the other person really meant. What was sarcastic. What was urgent. When they felt bad for someone and when they just didn’t care.
Toni: 20 I think. At least.
And once again the two women looked at each other – something about what she’d typed obviously meant more to them than it did to her. That was why they were pressing her and that was why she supposed she had to answer. Before they’d been taken out of their home and brought to this town, she supposed that she’d have left the room by now. She wasn’t much of one for putting up with stuff. But they were talking about other people’s lives – or lack of them.
Wiccanfoo: At least 20 people?
Twenty people? She wished…
Toni: At least 20 cells
She corrected them and then checked their reactions before adding;
Toni: In ours there might have been 20 people. It was full though.
Willow closed her eyes, as if trying to block out what her eyes were telling her and when Toni turned to Tara seated beside her she could see the effect the news was having on the blonde woman too. There… until she blinked, Toni could have sworn that there were tears in her eyes. Forming but not quite rolling yet. How much more would have been needed to make them flow?
It had to be the numbers, which seemed to make it worse.
The numbers and what they meant for real people. How many people had been through those cells? How many people might have died here already? Toni was sure she wasn’t in the first batch. Or even in the first year.
Wiccanfoo: Where?
Willow asked the question and it was Tara’s eyes that were closed now. Toni didn’t even bother looking back at the screen until those eyes opened and then looked over at Tara’s girlfriend.
Wiccanfoo: Where Toni?
Toni looked at Willow and this time her face was very serious. It had to be, Toni supposed, because there was no way to soften what must have been happening here. Right underneath them. Tara stood up and went across to the dresser, opened a drawer, searching for something in there. Another question mark blinked onto the screen from Willow. And another. Then another sentence.
Wiccanfoo: Where are they?
Wiccanfoo: In the sewers?
Wiccanfoo: Did he chase you from the nest? Do you know the way back?
Toni looked at Tara’s back. The blonde woman seemed… she seemed to be smaller somehow than she had been when they’d rescued her the night before, especially now as she fumbled through the clothes that were obviously stored in there. She looked back to Willow. The determined redhead was following her girlfriend with her eyes, just as Toni had done. She wanted to know what Tara was doing at this moment too. This was a time when Tara should have been paying attention, shouldn’t it?
Toni knew… she just knew that if she said that ‘yes,’ then she’d be leading them down there, maybe even tonight, and… they could all die. One vampire she’d seen them deal with – but not all the vampires that she knew were down there. Not when they had to protect her too. It was… if she said ‘yes’ now, then she was afraid that none of them would see tomorrow morning here. She felt that, down in her bones. She knew what the future held if she chose one word over another.
She’d seen that phrase, about the bones, before but… she’d never felt it herself.
And if she said ‘no’ then people who were still down there would die. More of them. And what about her Dad? He was still down there somewhere and she needed to bring him out into the daylight so that he could be buried properly. And so that she could, finally, cry.
Yes or No?
No or Yes?
What should she say?
She needed to know more about what they would do… or maybe that was just putting off the decision. Whatever it was, she didn’t think that she could make it now, not under pressure. Things were… things were so big and serious now and they hadn’t been before.
Time to change the subject.
-----------------------------------
Toni: What are you both?
Toni: Apart from lesbian, gay-type, lovers that is?
Toni asked the questions as Tara came back over towards them. Willow could see that her baby was carrying something, something that seemed much heavier than its obviously tiny size would have suggested. It was wrapped in Tara’s closed fist – and Willow couldn’t help feeling that it was much, much bigger than that.
The way that Tara had gone over to the dresser. She hadn’t seen body language like that, not from Tara at least, for years. Not since the farm. What had she picked up from there? What had she brought back? Willow wasn’t aware of anything being kept in that drawer that was special.
And the questions just kept coming – not so light this time. Willow had to hand it to Toni, she knew how to turn a conversation on its head.
Toni: What was that you did? With the fire?
Willow didn’t miss the overall diversion. She’d asked an important question, ‘Do you know the way back,’ and the Toni had seemed to ignore it, moving on to a question of her own. It was obvious – very, very obviously done. She could see that Tara hadn’t missed it either, but Tara was leaving her to answer Toni’s question, watching the screen over Toni’s shoulder and unable to respond herself.
Unwilling too from the look of her girlfriend.
Wiccanfoo: Most people would probably call it witchcraft or Wicca.
But that wasn’t exactly true was it? Wicca wasn’t a representation of what they did now. It was a starting point, or the magic they had access to now was and had been starting point for Wicca? Maybe… That was more detail than Toni needed though. Definitely more than she would understand.
Wiccanfoo: Okay, so most people would call it magic,
Wiccanfoo: If they believed it at all. But those who thought they knew might call it Wicca.
Toni pulled her face before typing again. Patience probably wasn't her strongest point.
Toni: So your saying it’s not Wicca? Whatever Wicca is.
Wiccanfoo: Simply put, Wicca is a religion to some, bound up in all things natural.
Wiccanfoo: But to those who know how to use it it’s a magical tradition too. But… what we did isn’t quite that. That’s something else. It’s
Tara was shaking her head as Willow hit enter and had been about to add something else to her description. That was a ‘too-much-information’ shake of the head. Willow knew that one well, but this time… it was less amused than it usually was. Not that Tara was mad or anything – Tara didn’t really get mad – not like most people seemed to. No Tara was… her baby was down for some reason.
It was a reason that Willow could pretty much guess at and have a good chance of being right. It wasn't hard, she knew her love so well and the same thing was getting to her, too. Tara had… more of a history with that kind of reason too. And Willow hadn’t been over to the dresser to pick something up like Tara had. What was that she had in her hand? What was in there?
Maybe it was nothing. After all, Tara was back sitting with Toni now giving her the support of her presence. Tara wanted to know all this tuff as much, or more, than Willow – but this way Toni got to feel she had someone on her side. Willow wasn’t playing the bad gal, but Tara could be the good one all the same.
So what was it that Tara had? It was… It was only nothing if Willow had misread her lover’s entire body language. And how likely was that when she knew that lovely body – and the even lovelier person within – so well? Not very likely at all.
If Tara was thinking the same sort of things as she was, then she was right to be worried…
Well, Willow could see that much, but it was more what she was worried about. If the answer to ‘where?’ was ‘down there, in the sewers’ then there were so many people down there. Willow was pretty sure that the reason that Toni had avoided the question
then, just as she’d asked it, was because of her correct guess. But even if the nest was in the sewers… well, she and Tara needed more precise information than that. Otherwise, if they went in not knowing where, they could search for days and nights in the whole Sunnydale area without finding the right place. And in doing that, they risked giving themselves away as well.
If the vampires knew that they were coming then they might kill all the people in the cages Toni had described. Or… well, they might be ambushed or just attacked by lots and lots of vampires, which was never a pleasant event.
They’d gotten through it before – or at least Tara had, with the Slayer Faith, and Willow remembered being there as that other ‘Willow’… the vampire she had been back then. There had been lots of vampires in the Bronze the night that they’d killed the Master, but they’d had surprise on their side and that Willow, as a trusted favourite, had been an ‘ace in the hole.’ Betrayal had made things easier.
Not like now.
Since then, it had usually been no more than 3 or 4 vampires at a time that she and Tara had encountered. Encountered and fought… fought and won, being as they were still here. This was going to be much more, and without them being able to sneak in there. And if they’d been hunting for days and days, then it was going to be tough to deal with that sort of level of vampires.
Toni didn’t have to say how many there were – lots of cages full of twenty people… meant lots of vampires. More than the Master would ever have allowed in one small town. More than could be sustained – except these people weren't from Sunnydale, were they?
They’d been duped, fooled into believing everything was okay. That was where Tara was right now.
Willow didn’t doubt that they
could do it successfully, together they could do anything, but… well, it was going to be harder than anything had been for a long time. Sunnydale had been quiet, peaceful even – for a Hellmouth – but… maybe that had all been an illusion? Maybe this was the real world they should have been living in. Maybe they just hadn’t seen what had been happening around them.
Or under them.
Yeah. That was what was going through her love’s mind. The idea that they might have missed so many vampires… allowed them to operate under the streets of the town for… how long? Months? Years even?
Willow couldn’t believe that they had… but it seemed that it must be the truth – at least to some extent. She could only imagine what Tara thought about that. Her lover was… way more sensitive to the perception of failing people. Especially in that way.
And then she knew what was going on; as she watched the woman she loved put something around her neck.
No. No. Not that baby. She was so shocked that she couldn’t even say the words. They were on the screen though. For some reason her fingers had gone to automatic pilot and typed the denial for her. Toni looked at Tara and obviously didn’t get it.
Willow knew what it was though.
Tara had put it back on.
In that small action, Tara had taken herself back to the past. Tara was back in the past, and now they’d find it hard to even focus on the now. Let alone look to the future. And that was pretty much all Willow had wanted for them that they didn’t already have.
That was the one selfish moment she was going to allow herself before she went back to supporting Toni. With what had just happened, she thought she was due that one moment.
And she didn’t doubt there would be other moments she regretted what had happened.
-------------------------------------
[/b]Wiccanfoo: [/b] No. No. Not that baby.
Tara gave her love a tiny, sad smile. Willow knew just what the pendant meant. It meant a return to the past and how things had been back then. At least some parts of the past. Some other things in the past though… the magic had been bad for her. The kind of magic that she’d been using – the motives for that – it could have corrupted her forever. It nearly had. But… somehow she’d come through all of that to find Willow.
This Willow here and now. All that was around her neck was a pendant.
And some ritual magic which was bound up in it.
But, this time she still had Willow and she was doing this solely for the people that she knew she had to help. Revenge, or justice, wasn’t an issue for her now – except perhaps in as much as it was something that would help Toni. And helping Toni in those ways would save people too. The pendant was just a tool.
There was no problem there and she had Willow, the real Willow that she loved with every fibre of her being and who would be with her every step of the way.
There was no problem in wearing the pendant again.
Was there?
Some pain of course, when there was a vampire, but she knew how to deal with that. It hurt more when other people died. Especially if she hadn’t been wearing the pendant. That kind of pain never subsided. She wasn’t sure which of the pains Willow was most worried about.
If she’d been wearing it over the past few years… well, the vampires under Sunnydale might never have taken a hold. She’d have detected them even when she couldn’t see them. Proximity to them – just walking above a nest – would have been painfully obvious. Literally. Patrol routes would have taken her over it eventually – if they even had a chance to get the nest established.
She’d stopped wearing the pendant as it was a symbol of their past which Willow hated because of the painful signal. Even as a vampire, Willow had hated that pain. Pain had been no fun unless there it had been inflicted by her. Her Willow, though… She still hated it. And the pendant was a symbol of the life she had been leading.
That was fine. That life was gone. Gone for good.
This was their life now – together. But the pendant was also a tool. An infallible tool that had saved her life and a hundred others. A thousand. And because she’d let it become all-symbolic to her, she’d stopped wearing it. She’d stopped accepting the exchange of discomfort and pain for prior warning of vampires being around.
And now people were dying.
They might have been for a long time now.
Toni’s Dad had died. He might not have been taken if she’d been wearing it.
If she’d worn it then they’d never have been able to do what they did. What they were still doing and would continue to do until she and Willow did something about it. That was the way vampires were – they stopped only when you stopped them. But, knowing all this, there was something wrong. The pendant should have just been a feather-light weight around her neck, but instead it hung heavily as if when she relaxed, it would pull her down into the ground so it could swallow her up.
Toni, poor Toni, had no idea what was going on or what was wrong with Willow.
Tara fully intended to take it off when they’d dealt with this. She would… really.
She knew better though. She knew that if she did, then she’d blame herself the next time something came here and she missed it – even if the pendant wouldn’t have helped. The vampires would continue to come – she knew that – and she’d have to continue to kill them. If she missed any of them, then they’d get dug in and then it would be a hundred times harder to get them out.
There could be a hundred of them down there now…
And she’d never known about it.
They were bringing food in from outside? Where had that come from? She’d never heard of anything like it. They were bringing people, like Toni, in from outside Sunnydale. That was one thing, the Master had tried something similar to mechanise the feeding process. But he’d never hidden. They were staying underground and not drawing attention to themselves.
It was pretty obvious they were avoiding her and Willow. There was nothing else it could be for. The old Mayor was long gone, Balthazar… There were no big bads in Sunnydale anymore. Just them.
Goddess help us, vampires were actually defying their instincts to avoid contact and that was something that those demons didn’t usually do. They did what they wanted, took what they wanted and that was what – usually – made them easier to kill. They acted stupid.
And every so often there was one that acted smart – smart enough.
If that one, smart vampire created more, or attracted, followers, then there was a problem. A potentially, big problem. One day, like roaches spilling out of dumpsters when the food was gone, they’d boil out and consume anything that they found. It had happened before. It could happen again. It was the worst thing that could happen to a town filled which had vampire problems.
On that day, more people would die… people from this town, people she knew.
How could she have been so stupid? Happiness had made her… No, not happiness. Happiness wasn't at fault here – or Willow. She’d failed to learn all of the lessons of her past. She’d shut it out to live in the now. That was good – for them – but she had to remember the past when it came to what she did. She was still paying for the choices she’d made back then – choosing to make amends – but she ignored other things from her past?
And people had died.
She’d take the pendant off again.
She would.
Later, when they were done with the vampires.
Toni: What’s wrong? That’s a pretty pendant, Tara.
Yeah… Real pretty. Willow couldn’t take her eyes off it.
*************************
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If I want a little pussy, I got my own to play with.
Chance in
Chance.------------------------
), but I have to tell you that I am addicted to this story. 
at: 7/30/03 9:45 pm
)
with her fear of Willow and all but she is smart and has caught on. 
Pax! -Bev