Okay so double posting... I know.
Have fun with this Kittens
Katharyn
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Title: The Sidestep Chronicle – Graduation (Part 44)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome. katharynrosser@hotmail.com
Spoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe though reference is made to events that occur in both realities.
Summary: Guess what? Tara graduates.
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: VW/T as far as that goes.
Notes: Sometimes story decisions have consequences. Sending Tara to occasional classes (which you never saw) caused this one. But there is more going on here than just that.
Thanks To: Oh you all know who you are by now.
The Sidestep Chronicle
Graduation
By
Katharyn Rosser
Sitting there surrounded by a whole group of fellow students Tara felt distinctly out of place. A few of them she had seen before – but only in passing. She had gone to their classrooms to hand in assignments over the past few months. She had sat in on a few of the classes for which she hadn’t been able to just do the reading to get by. Those were mainly the science and computer classes, so those were the only students that she really knew. As for the faculty… Miss Calendar… who she now had another reason to know. Dr Gregory who had always been very decent and supportive as well as a great teacher. And Vice-Principal Snyder who seemed to think that he ran Sunnydale High.
The graduating students were all so happy and looking forward to their futures. The lack of that thing, a future, sort of took the fun out of it for Tara. The faculty had various reactions on their faces. Some were proud. Some were bored. Some were pessimistic about the futures to which the students were looking forward. And red… was not her colour really. Still it was a tradition that she had missed out on last time round, due to not actually graduating and, strangely, the fact that she’d finally made it excited her anyway.
The Mayor called the piece of paper that she was about to collect from him her fallback position. But then he didn’t know. No one in Sunnydale did. Not even Willow. She smiled… when Willow had seen her in her gown the vampire had dared her to go out with nothing on underneath. Actually it wasn’t the going out like that which Willow wanted to appreciate – it was the control and what would happen when Tara came back to her.
She had been altogether too… wrapped up in Willow and her desires recently. Was that realisation the growing up that the vampire wanted her to do? Was Willow pushing her towards that? Did Willow want her to rebel and take some control for herself? As much as the vampire had said that ‘Strong Kitten’ was a turn on for her she just kept taking control of their… playtime.
She kept it being playtime and usually nothing more. They had their intimate, almost loving, moments. Moments that could stretch for hours and hours. But then the moment was gone and it was playtime again.
Tara wondered if she should be rebelling against that? If Willow wanted her to? Was the vampire patient enough for reverse psychology?
She shouldn’t keep thinking of Willow like that, as usual it brought out an emotional and slightly physical reaction in her. This was not the time or the place. Safe to say though that she had not done as the vampire had asked with regard to being nude under her gown. Willow hadn’t expressed any desire to celebrate the graduation at all – but Tara guessed that they would probably celebrate that as they did everything else. Wrapped in each other.
Maybe there would even be one of those long lingering moments.
But first she was already scheduled to have dinner with the Mayor and Lilah tonight. Vice-Principal Snyder had tried to invite himself along, but the Mayor had called it a ‘family affair,’ which had kept the ambitious toad out of the night without hurting his feelings too badly. It also showed just what the Mayor thought of her… and Lilah. Although what sort of twisted family was that?
The Mayor was still giving his speech, she had never realised before just how much her employer liked to hear himself talk up on stage. And there were the snippets…. This ceremony last year had been the time that his ascension was supposed to occur. The alignment had been perfect then. She doubted that anything would have stopped him… but this year he was genuinely happy for the students. She could tell.
Last year he would have eaten them. This year he was looking to their futures with hope. At least for thirty six more years. He would get to eat their kids instead. Probably their grandchildren.
The ‘man’ was a catalogue of contradictions. So there he was in his paternal role, Lilah the lawyer as big sister – working for an evil law firm. There was Tara the soon-to-be demon as little sister… and there was the little sister’s secret girlfriend. The soulless vampire. Oh that was a hell of a family.
Or a family straight from hell.
Not that they would ever all gather – Willow wouldn’t go any nearer Lilah than she had to when the lawyer was staying in the same apartment. Tara just had to be glad that Willow had not acted on the threats that she had made. The Mayor… Willow still carried her respect for the Master over into hating him.
Listening to his prolonged speech she was getting near to hate herself. It was a good speech as far as it went but… she had heard it about a hundred times as he had rehearsed and rewritten it before his captive audience. That hadn’t been in the job description. She guessed that both she and Lilah could have recited it in their sleep. At last she recognised the end portion drawing to a close. Following that, when she was called up by Principal Flutie, she accepted the Mayor’s congratulations and her diploma like the rest, she threw her cap… and got one back that was way too big so she just carried it under her arm.
Of course afterwards there were a number of people, parents and faculty members who tried to get close to the Mayor and bask in his reflected ‘glory.’ She wondered how many of them actually knew about him? Could a person bask in reflected darkness? Perhaps her own status was just that. His reflected darkness.
Snyder’s failure to get into her employer’s post-ceremony hand-shaking session with the first wave brought him instead into her orbit... she really hated reflected darkness right now. Lilah was elsewhere, and that meant that she had to put up with him. For some reason every time she talked to him she couldn’t help thinking of Dr Gregory’s science lessons and the frogs that they had dissected.
“Congratulations Miss Maclay.” The stress on ‘Miss’ made it clear that he had no desire to be addressing her like that, but the fact that he was talking to her at all indicated that he knew – or thought he knew - how important she was to the Mayor. Not that she was really comfortable with that, but it was handy enough for now.
“Thank you Mr Snyder.” Well, two could play at that game. She deliberately snubbed his hard-earned title and hated herself immediately for doing so. She had immense respect for the position if not the man.
Always show the proper respect Tara. Yes sir.
He bristled a little. “I must say that you completed the criteria laid down by the school board in record time… Makes me wonder why you failed to graduate at your last school.”
Let him wonder. He had no need to know. And certainly no right at all.
He continued. “So yes, congratulations, you get to join the merry plague of barely educated parasites in a cap and gown today. At least you already have a job though. Every time I head to a burger bar in this town it’s like a reunion – and I am predicting a bumper draft at the Doublemeat Palace this year. They always need new bodies – lord knows they won’t get any minds.”
“You’re stunningly enthusiastic,” she told him. With graduation she didn’t have to fear his position, just respect it. She was already an adult. She was his equal. Even so, the rebellion did not sit easily. He was a teacher. Vice-principal. Despite not being at school much in the last four years, despite the fact that she should have been at college by now… teachers were a group of people that she had always respected.
She’d had it drilled into her.
Listen to your teachers Tara. Yes sir.
“I’m a realist… and that tells me that getting these kids through school alive was trouble enough. Finding them good jobs… that is beyond my capabilities.” He turned, saw that the Mayor was free, and without another word dived off to thrust his hand into the Mayor’s.
Tara sighed as Lilah came alongside her. “That was the toad?” the lawyer asked.
“Vice-Principal Snyder,” Tara nodded, having told Lilah about her run-ins with Snyder on a number of occasions. He had, after all, made her check in with him to get a hall pass every time she visited the school.
“Would you like to sue him?” Lilah asked.
Tara looked at her as if she was mad. “W-What for?” The lawyer might have been joking, she might have been serious. When it came to work it was hard for Tara to tell about Lilah. Not without ‘reading’ her and that always struck her as something that was rude to do to a friend – even if sometimes the Hellmouth amplified thoughts and made them more obvious. It wasn’t doing that right now though.
“Don’t know… I’m sure we could think of something,” Lilah smiled. “That’s the art of being a good lawyer. Not winning cases… just finding something to sue for. And I am good.”
“I know,” Tara rolled her eyes. “N-No, he’s a toad but he hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“What’s ‘wrong’ got to do with it?” Lilah asked, more obviously joking this time.
The point though was serious. What did ‘wrong’ have to do with it? It should be everything. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t just Sunnydale, or Wolfram and Hart… it was the whole world. Wrong didn’t mean what she had always been taught that it meant.
Wrong is wrong Tara, Yes sir it should be.
The Vice-Principal came back past them beaming and oblivious to Lilah’s offer. “The Mayor shook my hand and congratulated me on a job well done,” he told Lilah, realising only after he had spoke that he had no idea who she actually was. He turned his attention to Tara instead. And of course she felt so grateful for that attention.
“It’s good to be appreciated like that,” she told him without a hint of irony.
“Yes it is,” Lilah told him and steered Tara away with an arm linked through hers. “I see what you mean,” she said to the younger woman as they moved away to be finally intercepted by the Mayor.
“There you are! My two favourite ladies. I trust that we are still all on for a slap-up celebratory dinner tonight? My treat.”
“Absolutely,” Lilah told him, “we’re looking forward to it.”
Tara nodded and smiled but she had somewhere to be first. Arrangements to make.
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“So you can patrol tonight?” Tara asked Faith as the slayer totally ignored the chance to put on the pads that Mr Giles had provided them with for training. Not that the Slayer was going to need them, Tara mused.
“Don’t I always?” Faith asked her. “Don’t I always cover for your hot dates?”
“It’s not a ‘hot date,’ it’s just dinner to celebrate graduating,” Tara told her patiently. There never had been a hot date.
“Ah yes, graduation. Remind me again why you wanted to go through with that load of crap,” Faith said. “Crap with gowns.”
Good question Tara had to admit – even though she had been sort of proud to be there. Fortunately she was saved from answering by the entrance of Mr Giles and Jenny, still in their best ‘teacher’ clothing. Something a little less tweedy for Mr Giles too – she hadn’t noticed him after the ceremony itself. He had seemed to duck out, probably back to his library.
And Faith was right. Red wasn’t her colour.
“That,” Jenny said, “would be the idea that maybe Tara has a desire to make something of herself.” She came over and hugged Tara. “Well done, it can’t have been easy going back to school.”
Tara squeezed her back. “It was, you know, sort of nerve racking at first. And then there was the whole learning to write essays again thing. But I got past that and I had good teachers.”
“And of course now Tara,” Mr Giles said to Faith pointedly, “Has something to fall back on. And congratulations,” he added. His extended hand was all that either of them was going to be comfortable with really. She shook it. It was kind of nice to have his genuine respect after all the doubts he’d had – probably still had – about her. Their approval meant something to her. Perhaps as much as the Mayor’s who had encouraged to go back in the first place.
Maybe she was going to be having dinner in the wrong place. Despite finding the Mayor charming. Despite being Lilah’s friend. She would have preferred to be here.
“Oh yeah, congratulations on getting a piece of paper you’ll never use because this,” Faith held up an axe, “is what we do girlfriend.”
Tara didn’t rise to it. She knew all about Faith’s attitude to learning. She had heard it enough when she had mentioned, on the hunt, that she was going to go home and do some reading afterwards. Faith had done all the book learning that she ever wanted to and the real world was teaching her far more. Faith thought that she, as the Slayer, had a limited future. That might even be true… but it was still likely to be more of a future than Tara’s own.
Besides Faith was actually, sort of, right. The real world had taught her more. That the world was an imperfect, dark place and that even the sources of light were really no more than different degree of darkness.
“Okay Tar, lets get to it.” Tara had stopped arguing about the nickname Faith had stuck her with. Besides she seemed to do it to everyone. The Slayer labelled them in her mind and that was it. They were stuck with it. A least she wasn’t ‘T’ to match Mr Giles’s ‘G.’ Well not often.
‘G’ and his fiancée had left the room to go and get changed… which of course had led Faith to the whole ‘screwing’ thing again. Two-track mind this slayer. It was just like being with Willow in some ways. But less with the vampire thing – and definitely none of the obsession.
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“Are you sure about this, I’ve never been much good with the whole,” Tara flung her fists out and feigned punching a few times.
“I can see why.” Faith laughed. Not everyone could have Slayer strength and co-ordination though. Otherwise what would happen to the ‘one girl in all the world thing?’ But she wasn't quite ‘one girl,’ not with Tara here. Tara had been doing this so much longer than she had, always would have been and it was hard to believe that the other woman hadn’t been forced to really defend herself without the magic. When she had explained that Tara had admitted that she had done so. It seemed that luck had got her through.
Which Faith could like totally respect. Luck had helped her a lot too. It was essential and from the way Tara told it at least one other Slayer had been lacking in the whole good fortune department. Look what had happened to her. But Faith was a firm believer in making her own luck. And that meant being the best – and knowing you were the best. Faith knew it very well. She was the best – and with that went a responsibility to ensure that Tara was as good as she could be too.
Tara had the fitness, she had the dexterity… it was just the fighting thing – as demonstrated by the punching – that spoiled her place in the Slayer wannabe pageant. But Faith couldn’t do magic, so they were, sort of, all square. They were also neck and neck in their kill count. Whilst Tara had been sceptical about involving herself in that sort of thing – even more so when Faith had put up fifty bucks for the first to reach 250 Sunnydale dustings – they rarely went more than five minutes after meeting up without one of them raising the subject and adding to the tally.
The girl, Faith mused, had a Slayer-like enthusiasm for bagging vamps.
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To Tara it was revealing that Faith hadn’t chosen to put on any of the training pads that Mr Giles had offered them. To be honest she still wasn't sure that Mr Giles really liked her, or at least whom she worked for. The handshake and the congratulations had been genuine… But then Tara didn’t like whom she worked for either. Nor was she proud of whom she loved which was why she wouldn’t tell anyone. Faith had asked her about a ‘hot date’... The Slayer had been joking, though she might have had some suspicions, and there wasn’t one as such but she would be returning to Willow tonight. That was likely to get hot. In many ways she was envious of Faith’s ‘Black and White’ life. No shades of grey there.
She couldn’t imagine that Faith had ever faced anything she found grey. It was an attitude thing for the Slayer. ‘With me or against me.’ That was Faith’s way – and Tara wanted to fight alongside her, with her… always knowing the day might come when Faith was on the other side of that equation. It was a danger… always a danger if they, any of them, found out about Willow. More so if they ever found out about her heritage and what Tara, herself, would become.
But that day wasn't today. Tara raised her hands in what she hoped was a sort of en garde posture. Faith just laughed and sent a slow blow right at Tara’s chest, stopping a whisker from her. Tara hadn’t moved at all in response.
“Like this…” Faith corrected the positioning and they tried again. Still slowing the attack, but at least Tara made a move to block her that time and after a few minutes practice she was stopping more punches than got through. At low speed. If she ever came across a geriatric vampire then there was hope. “Not bad for a newbie,” Faith admitted.
“Y-You’re not even trying,” Tara admonished her.
“No. You want me to?” Faith asked.
“There doesn’t seem a lot of point. If anything gets that close to me and the magic fails then I’m dead anyway. Those I fight – we fight – are stronger and faster than we are. I can’t take them like you can.”
“No I guess not,” Faith shook her head. Tara could see that she thought it might be worse to let Tara think that she could fight them. Worse for Tara. “But you could shoot them.”
“Huh?”
“Well you do that nifty thing with the floating stakes and all, but I think that you might also like…” Faith turned around and rummaged through Giles’s weapons chest. “This.” She held up a crossbow.
“I-I I’m not so sure that’s a g-good idea,” Tara told her tutor.
“Why not… keep your distance and get to hold the mojo back for the bad boys, must be tiring right?”
“I guess…” Tara still wasn't sure though. Crossbows? Sort of lethal in an uncontrolled mayhem sort of way. But Faith was right – it might help her save her strength for more pressing matters. It was just a matter of aiming right? And she had proved she could aim… at least when she could adjust it in midflight.
“Here try it,” Faith placed the crossbow in Tara’s arms checking the safety was tight to the trigger mechanism.
“It-it’s kinda heavy,” Tara commented.
“I don’t think that the British ever found their way out of the Iron and Wood Ages. Carbon fibre completely passed G by,” Faith told her. “It’s got a good balance though.”
A minute later when they had retrieved the bolt from the top of the dining table and tried to smooth the splintered wood back into place they both reached the conclusion that Tara should stick to her stakes.
It seemed for the best.
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After their dinner with the Mayor she took Lilah straight back to the apartment. She figured that, in light of the celebration, she deserved one night away from patrolling. Besides she already arranged for, and knew that, Faith would be out there. She didn’t have to feel guilty… not this once. Not when she had asked in advance.
She stayed with Lilah, chatting for over an hour. There was more congratulations, school memories from both of them. Words of encouragement about college from Lilah… who, of course, did not know what was coming. And then there was the giggly girly stuff. It was nice. It was always nice. But eventually she left Lilah in the living area, folding out the sofa bed, after promising to be up in time for their outing the next day. One more gift to go with the silver pen that the Mayor had given her and the shawl that Lilah had already wrapped around her. One that she still had on as she went into the bedroom to find Willow taunting Miss Kitty with a mouse shaped toy on a piece of string.
At least this time it was just a toy. She had stopped the real mouse thing after the last time… and that awful crack when Miss Kitty had finally proved herself a killer.
A toy which Willow let go as soon as she stepped through the door. Probably anticipating a new plaything. “You brought the lawyer back again Kitten?” Willow asked. She didn’t need to ask, not really. Tara knew that she would have heard and smelt Lilah and they had been out there for an hour.
“Doesn’t matter Willow.” Just leave it alone Tara was saying. The day had been too good.
“No. You graduated Kitten?” Willow asked her.
Tara smiled. Despite her future, she was still strangely proud of that and would have liked Willow to be too. “Yes.”
“So that means that there’ll be less time with your books.” There was a lingering distaste of all things knowledgey within the vampire. A reaction against the old Willow probably. But she had never tried to interfere with Tara’s studies, snatched moments as they had been between her task, Miss Kitty and of course Willow herself… who could have no cause for complaint. “There will be more time to play?” Willow continued sounding sort of hopeful, as if Tara had a choice.
And of course she did. She always had. There had always been a choice.
“Me, me, me,” Tara said with good humour. She knew what the vampire’s true concerns were and funnily enough they were not totally selfish.
“No Kitten. You, you, you. You make my head go tingly,” Willow told her. “And other things…” The vampire laid herself out on the bed, still fully clothed, but that wouldn’t last long.
Not totally selfish, Tara thought as she crossed to her.
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You hear that baby? I am going nowhere.
Love the little snippet from Faith and the part about them competing to see who could dust 250 first made me laugh. 
I think you two could bet on anything.