And now those 24 hours are up...
A fairly short one to lead us into what is to come.
Enjoy Kittens.
Katharyn
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Title: The Sidestep Chronicle – The Dark Stars (Part 56)
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: Tara breaks the necessary news.
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 usual take care with that.
Notes: I lifted a scene idea from the stargazing stuff here. I just like the parallels. Credit to the writers.
Thanks To: LMC this is all yours… even if it has nothing of what you like.
The Sidestep Chronicle
The Dark Stars
By
Katharyn Rosser
“Why do you still come here?” Willow asked the Kitty when she finally tracked her down. Kitty… no longer the Kitten. The Kitten had grown up when she had destroyed the Master and now she was her beautiful Kitty instead. And Willow loved playing with her Kitty. Showing the appropriate respect for her own empty grave she moved in and nibbled on Tara’s ear, deliberately kicking aside the pebble that Tara had just laid there to mark her visit. Or mark something anyway…
“It reminds me of who you were,” Tara said, ignoring the tongue that dipped into her ear, bending down to lay the flowers and patiently replace the pebble. The old flowers had faded… it had been a busy couple of weeks since she had last been out here. She had started to come here less when she had found Willow… or something that was like Willow as she had ever known, and then she had become more and more involved with the vampire, but recently the need to connect with the girl Willow had been had grown. The young woman who had been before Willow had become what she was now.
It was so close to the day that she would become too.
Sometimes, if she laid her hand on the stone then she thought that… despite the grave being empty… Willow whispered to her. The real Willow. The Willow who was truly dead. Truly gone. Only a memory within this vampire that had animated her dead body. She whispered such sweet things… and such dire warnings.
Warnings of things that she might never see given what was coming.
“You never knew her though,” Willow told her Kitty. “I did. You wouldn’t have liked her Kitty. I remember everything about her. She was sooo boring.” It was not the first time that Willow had told her that. That she would not have liked the old Willow?
Why? She had asked Willow that and as usual with the vampire it had come down to ‘boring.’ Occasionally with an option on ‘fuzzy.’
But alive.
Warm.
Able to truly love. Because with this Willow… she just wasn’t sure at all. What she felt. What she could feel.
That other Willow might not have loved her. But she would have been alive and able to love and that was worth more than herWillow could possibly imagine. Even if that Willow had not loved her… then alive and able to love someone. To have a life. Better than this…
“She is part of you,” Tara told the vampire, kneeling beside the grave and placing the flowers carefully. “You remember her. She shaped you Willow, made up part of what you are.” It was a familiar argument that they’d had before. Tara could play her part of it without much thought or concentration. But they had never talked about it here before. Here where Tara thought she could hear that other Willow.
What would that other Willow have thought of her decisions? Her choices? Would she have understood them? Condemned her for them? Tara knew that someone should have condemned her.
Willow had followed her again but usually they observed each other from a distance out here. Tara guessed it was because she had come here with Lilah that once. They hadn’t set out to come here, but in passing… they had stopped and Tara had laid another pebble. Even Lilah had which had touched her inside. And when, later, she had told Willow about the visit the vampire had suddenly gotten very protective of a grave that she’d never occupied.
Because Willow hated Lilah and yet couldn’t do anything to her because Tara wouldn’t let her. If it were just consequences then Lilah would already be in the ground herself. But Willow was also listening to Tara. She was letting the human tell her what to do. Or what not to… Tara so very rarely asked for anything that when she did Willow almost always gave in to her. The vampire played it as if she was being magnanimous, rewarding her Kitty for what she did but that wasn’t really it at all. Tara was sure of that at least. Willow wanted to obey… for some reason.
“She wouldn’t play. She couldn’t play. She just read her books and did her studying. Not like us Kitty,” Willow continued as if she spoke about a totally different person, which to this Willow she was. Just a memory.
“I know. You said,” Tara told her staying knelt on the ground as Willow’s hand smoothed her hair.
Then the vampire sank down next to her, laid her own hand on the stone. “There is nothing there Kitty. Just grass and dirt.” But Willow left her hand there for a few more moments.
Did the vampire hear the whispers?
“And memories?” Tara asked her, knowing the answer. She had been told often enough.
“And those,” Willow confirmed raising her hand and looking at it as if the grave might have left a mark or discoloured it.
“You do remember her though don’t you?” Tara asked. “Really remember her?” It was important. She needed that to be true. There needed to be a chance of that. There had to be something for her. She couldn’t lose everything and just… forget. She would not be a vampire… but she would be a demon. That had to be sort of the same thing? Surely…
Or maybe… maybe it would be easier to forget. Not to know all that she knew. That she had done.
But Willow didn’t care… she knew and she didn’t care at all.
“Every horrible moment,” Willow confirmed to her. The whole life of the fuzzy Willow and her puppy love dreams of Xander. Her studies… the glorious terror of her death. Willow knew everything about her. Everything that she had experienced. She had explained all that to Tara before and sounded a little puzzled when quizzed about it again.
“Good.” Tara said to herself – though Willow heard her of course. Tara didn’t want to forget. It was November 5th already and she didn’t want to forget. This. Them. All of it. Not a thing.
Where had her life gone? When she had set out… it had seemed that she had so long.
Too long.
To be alone.
Now she didn’t have enough time to be together… even with this monster she loved.
“Why?” Willow asked. She wasn’t insensitive to Tara’s emotions and expressions. Tara knew that she must look sad… and she had to tell Willow. She couldn’t go and not tell her first. She had been putting it off for so long that it was almost too late.
Almost but not quite.
And she had to go. Tomorrow. She had to. It was the only way that she knew to make sure that nothing bad happened. To people. To Willow. It was her one safe option to avoid hurting others at the change and in the future.
Safe…
“I-I’m going to L.A. tomorrow, with Lilah, for a few days,” Tara revealed to the vampire, not turning to look at her. She knew that Willow was likely to explode. That was why Lilah was not here tonight. Tara had made sure she stayed in a hotel this one time. Because she had known that Willow was going to want to take out her rage on the lawyer.
But… there was no change in the vampire beside her.
“No.” Willow said. Just that. No explosion. No rage. Yet.
“Yes Willow,” Tara insisted.
“You’ll be away for your birthday,” the vampire told her as if that explained everything.
And in a way it did didn’t it?
It was strange to Tara that vampires remembered birthdays when they were no longer alive – but somehow they did. Or at least the day that they became vampires. They celebrated that – Willow had told her when she had, not knowing of the date of the cursed event, failed to get Willow anything. No gift. The vampire had accepted a more carnal gift instead. Tara wouldn’t have known what to get for her anyway. She had never had to buy anything for Willow, whose desires were not exactly those you could fulfil on a credit card.
This birthday… Tara would also be becoming. She would be joining Willow in her damned state. They would have that in common – at least they would always know the date… if she came back to Willow at all. It would be easy to remember. The day of her birth and practically speaking the day of her death too. And the day that she became.
“I know,” Tara said. “That’s why, you know, I’m going Willow.”
Tara had no idea what was going to happen to her. No one had ever told her the specifics and that meant that she couldn’t be in Sunnydale. Not then. She couldn’t put at risk the very people she had fought to save. She couldn’t put Faith, Jenny, Mr Giles and yes… Willow at risk. For all she knew, like the Mayor, she was going to turn into a giant snake that would start eating people. It wasn’t necessarily going to be the same as it had been for her mother.
Granddaddy had told her that often enough.
Daddy had repeated it. So she couldn’t be here. Near people she valued.
In L.A., with Lilah, there were the full resources of Wolfram and Hart to stop her – if they had to. Either the beast or uncontrolled magic… or both. Lilah didn’t know it yet but when she had invited Tara to a party that was coincidentally on the day before her birthday, the lawyer had offered the perfect solution to Tara.
The urgent meeting to which Lilah was being recalled was before the big party at the law firm. It coincided with Tara’s birthday… The party would go on to past midnight and the change would be completed by then. Her birthday would come around and would be spent inside the offices of Wolfram and Hart. How much safer could the world be than that? Wolfram and Hart was a big powerful firm dealing with demons. They had to have security capable of dealing with that threat. With what she would become.
But still she had to tell Willow – why.
“Why?”
Tara ignored that question and asked one of her own. “What are you?” She had thought about this for a long time. How she was going to approach it when she had to. When she knew so little and Willow would want answers it had to be done right. To avoid any… unpleasantness and… reaction from the vampire.
Tara could not, even now, allow herself to be bitten.
“I’m a vampire… and I’m yours,” Willow told her then saw Tara looking for more despite the flicker of affection that crossed her face at the words ‘I’m yours.’ “A demon?” the vampire asked uncertain of what she was supposed to be saying to the Kitty here. Tara nodded and Willow smiled – pleased to be right at least. Old Willow was not the only one who could get things right like that.
“You are what I will become… on my birthday… after midnight tomorrow,” Tara told her. “A demon. And I can’t do anything to stop it. That’s why I have to go.”
The slight smile dropped from Willow’s face and she stared right into Tara’s eyes. She had felt a connection with the vampire before. Always. But that look, that measuring, piercing look was ripping her apart.
It was terrible and it was just a look. It was like Willow was dissecting her with her eyes. Cutting her apart to look inside her and discover the truth.
She nodded at the vampire. Yes.
“No,” Willow said.
“Yes,” Tara told her and the eyes examined her still. Tara could have just looked away as it almost hurt the way that Willow was looking into her. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t condemnation or hatred. It was Willow… looking for a way around what Tara had said.
The vampire wasn’t denying the truth of what Tara had told her, maybe she could tell from her voice that it was true, but she seemed determined to find something within Tara that would mean that her Kitty did not have to leave. Particularly with Lilah… of all people.
Tara had already considered all that. What it was going to say to Willow. Do to her to be with Lilah then.
She had considered it long and hard and still had no idea. Every time she thought about it the answer was different. This possibility was not one that she had considered for a long, long time. Simple denial how could she have foreseen that?
“Demon?” Willow finally asked as Tara stood up to avoid those eyes.
“Yes.”
Willow considered that for a few minutes as she followed her Kitty away from the grave. This was not something that should really be discussed amongst the dead. At least the dead that were at rest. “Why?” she finally asked.
Tara looked to the vampire wondering just what had prompted the question but there was only curiosity in Willow’s expression.
“Why?” she wondered.
“Why,” Willow confirmed. “Were you bitten?”
Tara almost laughed. Bitten… how long had she been avoiding being bitten and being turned into a demon? But now she was going to turn anyway. At least that way she might have been with Willow… but… there were still possibilities. The chance that, like her mother, she might not be as bad as some of her female ancestors had evidently been.
Even so Willow couldn’t mean bitten by a vampire. She was, after all, still alive.
“Did you get blood on your skin?” Willow continued. “Or was it a scratch from the watasi plant?”
Then Tara realised just what Willow was doing. She was applying herself. She was trying to figure it out. Maybe seeking explanations or maybe trying to see if she could do anything to change it. It was like the other Willow might have been. Looking in her eyes, Tara could almost see plans and ideas whirling around in there. To be tested… until they worked.
“No,” she told the vampire.
Willow grabbed her arm, stopping them both and making Tara look at her. “What? You know. Tell Willow.” There was frustration there now. As if the other Willow had failed, after such a short amount of time and her Willow had put her back in the box of her mind.
Instead Tara just looked up at the clear night sky. There was no moon up there and she knew that Willow followed her gaze. “Look at them.”
“What?”
“The stars Willow,” she said, marvelling in their beauty. It had been too long since she had looked at them. Would she be able to appreciate them again? She knew that Los Angeles had the smog. Would that block her view of the stars tomorrow? Was this the last time she would get to see them and appreciate that beauty?
“They’re old. Far away. Gone,” Willow told her, slight disgust in her voice, but still looking and still talking about them.
“I know,” Tara replied. “But they are still beautiful.”
Willow snorted. “Dead and beautiful. Relics.”
The way the vampire said that struck a chord in Tara. Like other things not a billion miles away from her right now. How could Willow just dismiss them on that basis? That their time was past? Their light might stop coming to this planet in time, but further away there would always be somewhere from where that light could be seen. Right up to the edge of the universe. Right up to the end of time.
But Willow was right too. Many of those stars were gone. They were like ghosts, haunting the world when they should have gone away. They had sucked people in with their beauty throughout history and, really, there was nothing there to love anymore.
Maybe we, humans, should never have bothered at all.
“Poof,” Willow added.
Just like a vampire. Even a beautiful vampire.
“There’s the Big Pineapple,” Tara said, picking the formation out of the myriad of stars that glistened in that dark sky. Pin pricks of light in the darkness. Yes, some of which had burned out and just hung around until the laws of physics brought their deaths to the attention of humanity.
She could almost sense Willow’s frown. It made her smile. The vampire was confused. The other Willow would have been confused as well. Perhaps, somewhere in there her memory was.
“What?” Willow asked, coming up dry.
Tara grinned and pointed. “It’s one of the big ones. See there the three bright ones?” Willow was following her gaze, no longer bored at the chance of learning something. Maybe there was still something there that wanted to know, at least until she got bored. Maybe there was a chance for Tara too once she became to appreciate things like this. “And those,” she shifted her finger, “the bottom of the pineapple.”
“That is a big pineapple,” Willow told her getting it at once when it was pointed out to her, though she didn’t seem overly impressed even if she wasn’t actually declaring her boredom yet.
“I suppose she, the other Willow I mean, I suppose she knew the real names,” Tara wondered, really wanting to know.
“Mmmn” Willow was kissing the arm that she had been sighting along but Tara took it as an affirmative.
“I never really got them… they never looked like what they were supposed to resemble. And even if they did,” she looked at Willow, “they really weren’t were they? Just points of light in the sky.”
“More,” Willow demanded of her, licking her Kitty’s neck as she waited for more pointing.
Did the vampire even remember that Tara had told her that she was going to become a demon? Yes, she did, she would. This was just Willow not having an answer. Or not knowing what the question was.
“There,” Tara gestured and Willow broke away from her neck to look along her arm again. “Open book under a palm tree.”
“The book’s too big,” Willow told her after a few moments.
“Yeah well… sometimes you have to stretch to get something,” Tara told her. “Sometimes things aren’t obvious… or what you want them to be.”
“Like you?” Willow asked her, shocking Tara with her perceptiveness. This had never been a lesson, just the musings of a rambling mind in its last night under clear skies.
“Like me… this thing that I am, I always have been. Like the stars. It’s who I am. It’s how I get the magic,” Tara told her. “And like the stars…”
“Your light will go out?”
By the goddess Willow really got it. It could be that simple?
“Why are you leaving with the lawyer?” Willow asked after a moment’s confirming silence. “You should be here. With me.” That way she could explore the possibilities inherent in her old playmate. And her new one.
“I don’t know Willow… whether I will go out with a whimper… or a bang,” Tara told her. She really had no clue. She hadn’t been more than a baby when her mother had been… changed. She couldn’t remember it at all and the process, the details had never been something they would talk about.
You have no need to know. It’s never the same Tara. Yes sir.
Only no sir! I needed to know. I still do…
She wanted to curse her father’s name. But somehow she still couldn’t even after all he had done to her.
“You’re going for me?” Willow asked, clearly surprised.
Tara didn’t answer. It was true after a fashion. She was leaving for everyone. Not just Willow. Faith, Mr Giles, Larry, Jenny. Everyone. Let Wolfram And Hart deal with the problem. That was what they were there for to help demons in trouble.
Willow obviously didn’t need the words, just pulled on her arm and took her home, where she received her birthday gift a couple of days early.
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There's such a melancholy to it... with the thought that it's her last night as a human, her last night to appreciate beauty. Even if those beautiful things are dead. It's almost as if... that's all she has left. The stars and her beautiful vampire. And after the next night, she might not even have those. 
at: 6/30/02 10:33:47 pm
) at your avatar! i made the spike-VW comparison from the moral point of view and i did it selectively, meaning taking into consideration only the element which they truly have in common: the fact that they are vampires and that this implies murdering for food. there was no VW = Spike in my mind. thank you for raising the issue though.
Lovely update, as always.