Twelve Hours which are now gone.
The show, as they say, must go on...
Another character from canon returns...
Katharyn
--------------
Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Whistling in the Wind (Part 73)
Author: Katharyn Rosser & Jo ‘Wizpup’
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome.
katharynrosser@hotmail.comSpoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe though reference is made to events that occur in both realities.
Summary: Tara returns home after the funeral.
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: Not really in this no.
Notes: Yeah… so another old character shows up… Shoot me.
Thanks To: Jo for the sterling work in linking all this together. My thoughts are with you sweetie. Kerry for hopefully (as I write this) saying yes. Sass for tempting me back to Vignettes when I needed a pickup.
The Sidestep Chronicle
Whistling in the Wind
By
Katharyn Rosser
It was several hours after leaving the Mayor that Tara found her way back to her apartment. No paths had seemed to lead there. Not today. The apartment was where it had all happened. Faith had died there… Willow was there. A creature of the night had laid claim to it during the daylight hours and Tara hadn’t really wanted to face her today. Not after the funeral at least. This morning had been quite enough.
After all Willow had killed Faith. It didn’t matter why that had been, for her own fun, to defend Tara or for some other reason. Willow had done that and it didn’t seem right to go back to her so soon. So she had waited for the sun to go down far enough – knowing that Willow would head out as darkness fell, with one thought on her mind. Killing.
For the first time in a long time Tara wondered exactly who Willow would kill.
To kill again.
She thought back to their conversation earlier that day, while Willow had moped around, watching her get dressed for the funeral. Despite thinking through how she would act around Willow, thinking the vampire would be angry at her long absence, the conversation had not been planned; it had been an emotional response at an emotional time, one which otherwise would never have taken place.
Her meeting with the Mayor had started badly, and ended worse and she could finally admit to herself now what she had done. She might have, unknowingly, taken advantage of the situation to suggest something to Willow that she would never have done if she’d not been feeling so fragile. Though part of her wished she’d had the nerve to say it straight out, she couldn’t really be sure that her message had got through to the vampire. And she wasn't sure that she wanted it to. Or that she didn’t.
Had Willow misunderstood her? Or had she understood perfectly… Tara wasn’t sure what she had been suggesting herself. Willow had certainly seemed to perk up a little. She had stopped trying to obstruct Tara’s efforts to get ready and drifted off in a rare thoughtful daze. Tara didn’t want to believe, even now, that she had encouraged Willow to kill.
She couldn’t believe that she might not have done though either.
There was such a difference between accepting that the vampire was killing, allowing her to do that in order to ‘survive’ – and in encouraging it, even indirectly. But that might have been what she had done. She had hinted to Willow that Sunnydale might be a better place without the Mayor.
Not that those words would have done it.
She had hinted to Willow, in that statement, that her own life might be better. And Willow, she could tell, was looking for a way back into it.
She couldn’t do it herself. It would have taken her too close to the darkness. She had accepted that sometime soon she would have been unable to avoid the darkness - but not for that. Not for him. She had… she had that other thing to do. Then maybe if that had gone alright… maybe then. But she had always known that Willow could do it. Willow could, for a change, make things better. Willow could finish what Faith never had a chance to start.
Willow could destroy the Mayor.
Willow would do that for her.
Tara had known that all along. And now she had to believe that subconsciously she had encouraged something. She might have done. Was that where Willow would have gone? To do that?
Willow might be killing at this very moment; only this time she could have been doing it for her Kitty.
How much lower could she go before she was on the vampires level? Lower than that? Because she knew better than the vampire.
When she had started to realise what Willow might have taken from those words, she had tried to think of it as something other than killing. She had tried to see it as justice. She had tried to see it as something that was going to save lives and just for once that self delusion has started to work. She knew what he was. She knew what he was going to do. This time she had no doubts that he had to be destroyed before he could hurt people. That didn’t make using Willow to do that any better.
Not that Willow would do it for Sunnydale. Only for her.
If she was honest, and she might as well be now, Willow wouldn’t even be doing to for her. Willow would do it, if she felt so inclined, for the vague suggestion of a reward. She had said that things might be better… and Willow, who had no interest in things being better in the way that she had meant it, had perked up. Her vampire lover was a mercenary. Tara had worried, that afternoon at the cemetery, about being perceived – if only for a moment – as the Mayor’s assassin. Now Willow had become hers?
If Willow had to kill then better him than anyone else. Anyone else at all.
But even if Willow did it, or had already done it, there would be no reward. Not like she was expecting. She couldn’t. Not just tonight. She couldn’t do that there.. in the apartment. She didn’t know if she could again… it still hurt. The guilt still hurt her so much that she couldn’t bear it. It would be all that she could do to let Willow sleep in the bed beside her. Not because she was repulsed by her friend’s killer, but instead because she knew that despite what had happened she still wanted Willow in her life.
And how twisted was that?
Willow and life. That was a contradiction in terms now wasn't it? Willow had had a life once. Once she had been a person. Once she had been someone Tara would have been proud to have known… rather than a person that she was ashamed to still love. She was ashamed not of the love, but of herself for feeling it.
Willow was just being herself.
Love was what love was.
She had thought that it was supposed to be wonderful. Maybe it would have been if she had been a colder, less feeling person. But she felt everything that Willow did as if she had done it herself. In a way she had.
She allowed it to happen. She was the only person, especially now, who could stop Willow. It was possible that she always had been that one person. Faith might have been the Slayer, but for Willow Tara thought she was that ‘one girl in all the world.’ The one who could stop her. Maybe that was her fate. They were supposed to be together. And they were.
No matter what.
No matter how bad that made her - it was supposed to be.
When she got to the front door of the apartment the door was ajar. Now? Now after all this she had to deal with something else too? Maybe it was just the new lock wasn't catching right. Maybe Willow had left it open on her way out.
No.
She sighed, hearing noises from inside. She didn’t need this now.
Not vampires certainly. Maybe one vampire… but no other one could have got in there, the wards were still in place. They couldn’t get in without a charm, and her pendant would be warning her of their presence by now. Most things that were supernatural would be excluded - though she had really only ever been certain about vampires, werewolves and zombies. Certain demons were also excluded, the most common ones. And who was left? The Mayor? No. Even if Willow had not visited him as she both feared and reluctantly hoped, he wouldn’t be coming to visit her any time soon. What did they have left to say?
Faith…? The thought entered her mind before she knew it.
Stupid Faith would never be here again. She had watched her being buried.
After I watched my vampire love murder her. The police? They had told her that they were done with the crime scene. She must have contaminated any other evidence that they hoped to find anyway. Besides the Mayor had confirmed that he had ensured the case file would be closed.
Soon he might be nothing more than a case himself – if Willow went there. She wondered, just for a second, if she should go looking for Willow, maybe intercept her; stop her from doing it. But no… there was no other way. Tara knew that she couldn’t keep doing this. She couldn’t wait much longer. Whatever Willow had decided to do, the Mayor, like other things, had to be put aside for now. Willow would do something or no one would. Tara had… She had to get out before it was too late and getting out meant that certain things had to have her whole attention.
She took her one, ever-present, stake from her bag and prepared herself for a more mystical defence as well. She always carried it. Faith had been the Slayer. She would have understood Tara having that with her at the funeral. It wasn't vampires in there and though stakes might be ideal for those creatures, they would hurt most things. Kill them if used right. Albeit a bit more messily.
What was one more body in there after the first?
She pushed the door open carefully, making sure it didn’t bang into the wall and give her away. The wall that was still dented after Faith’s violent entry. Was that really just a week ago? The days had crawled by but now that she looked back she wasn’t sure where the time had all gone.
As she stepped into the apartment she saw that the intruder had made no effort to either hide from her or to do anything else as she stepped into her own apartment. She
lookedstraight at it, unsure as to what it was. It was obviously human enough to get into the apartment and to walk around the streets. But there was something about it. Something that was off…
His aura might have been masked by the glare of the clothes he was wearing anyway. A leather coat hung over the kitchen door. The visitor was sat on her sofa, facing the TV. She could hear that he was watching cartoons. She hadn’t watched them for a while. She’d used to like them so much. They used to ground her in reality. He was laughing at something in the cartoon. It sounded like Roadrunner.
Yup. Meep-meep.
She stood there for a moment, then closed the door behind her. If he had broken in and was waiting for her then she wasn’t about to let him run off without an explanation. And god, that shirt was horrible. He tipped his hat towards her in a gesture that rolled it off his head and down his arm, the fact that it worked seemed to please him immensely. The expression said ‘Hey, not bad.’ As if it had never worked for him before. So he was a showman.
Tara scanned the rest of the apartment. Nothing was out of place except for him. Willow was nowhere to be seen and there didn’t seem to be anyone else there. “Who are you?” she asked when she was satisfied that he was alone and probably not, on balance, about to attack her.
“You can call me Whistler, I sorta forgot my own name a while back. Everyone calls me Whistler. And you would be Tara Maclay.” He turned back to the cartoon and seemed to be thoroughly engrossed. She remembered how that was. But this was where she lived, at least for now. He was an intruder.
Somehow though she shouldn’t seem to care too much. He wasn't condemning her or trying to kill her and that was good enough after the day she’d had. She came into the room and found herself fighting the urge to offer him some refreshment.
He was empathic… and he was projecting. Sneaky, but if he was just using that for food then that was just fine – she wouldn’t call him on that.
It was only when the cartoon finished with the coyote holding up a sign, ‘The End’ that he spoke to her again. She even managed a smile at the closing segment after moving further into the room so that she could watch. She’d seen it all before. She’d seen all of them before. But they never lost their effect on her. They made things better.
How could she have forgotten that?
Why had she stopped watching?
He turned on the couch to address her, fiddling with his hat. “This wasn't the way it was supposed to be, you know Tara?” he said to her. “No, not at all this way.” He gestured around the place that they were in.
“I wasn’t sup-supposed to be here?” she asked him. She accepted with no question that he might be completely crazy, but it seemed just as likely that he was sane. Either way, he could well be right. Sometimes things did feel a little… off.
“In this apartment… no. This place was meant for another but that ain’t really the problem. A place is just a place. It’s who you are that matters.”
Profound words for someone who had broken in here and started watching her TV without so much as a ‘hello, how are you?’ She looked at him again.
“You’re a d-demon,” she concluded.
“Yeah. That I am. You got no problem with that though right?” He didn’t seem nervous as he asked, just curious. It was almost as if he knew what part the word ‘demon’ had played in her life so far.
He was right. She really had no problem with demons apart from vampires. She had killed a few other demons that had reacted badly to her own presence in their world… and worked with a few more when their interests had converged. She’d worked for someone who wanted to be one and she’d believed that she would be one herself.
No, she had no problem with demons.
Not those that stayed outside of her apartment where the rest of the world belonged. This was her place.
No… this was their place. Hers and Willow’s. But for how much longer was that going to be?
“I’m Whistler,” he told her again, holding out his hand over the back of the couch without looking at her. Still watching the TV. Engrossed in that.
“You said that already,” she took the proffered hand. Good manners cost nothing. “But its interesting name though,” she told him feeling that the previous words had been a bit harsh. Which just proved that she was too soft – he had broken in after all.
What would Faith have done to him? Once again the Slayer would have kicked his ass. Faith had liked kicking ass.
“It does me for now.”
Like so many people that she met he seemed to be sizing her up – it was just that he wasn't looking at her to do that. Instead he was laughing at the start of the next cartoon.
“What d-do you want?” She was tired and wanted to go get a shower. She wanted to wash herself clean of all the accumulated guilt that had built up on her. The blood on her hands. She also wanted him out of the place before Willow got back. She couldn’t… not now… she couldn’t deal with Willow killing someone else.
Not here.
Again.
Not after what Willow might have done… be doing… ‘for’ her.
“I’m here to tell you what was supposed to happen kid. What
was happening until something changed. Prophecy you know, you can’t trust it at all. There’s always some loser who thinks that he or she can mess around with it and it won’t have consequences.” He bit his fingernail, but he didn’t seem nervous at all. If anything he made it sound as if this kind of thing was routine for him.
He sounded just the tiniest bit bored.
Prophecy? Holland had told her about the prophecy. About her and Willow. “The prophecy?” she asked, wondering what else he could tell her. He seemed to think that he knew something. What effect might what he knew, these consequences, have had on them? Now… Especially now when she was… thinking?
“Yeah, you know. The Prophecy that should never have been,” he looked at her as if she should have known what was going on too, rolled his eyes when she just looked blank.
The prophecy should never have been? The prophecy that said that she would be with Willow? That should never…
But something in that felt so… right. Even when things were wrong.
“Right,” he made a play of slapping his forehead with his palm and gave her his full attention. “You don’t know about all that. The wish and everything. Screwed the whole thing right up I can tell you.”
She had no idea where he was going with this. Holland had never mentioned a wish. Never hinted that anything had affected the prophecy. Affected her place with Willow. Everything, as far as Wolfram and Hart were concerned, was going to plan. She had seen the file.
“There were c-consequences though?”
“There are always consequences kid. Always. Whatever you choose to do. There are always consequences to everything in life. And in death. It’s just that sometimes they are more…” he stopped, looking for the words, “more wide reaching. You know my consequence?”
She shook her head, wondering what he was talking about – what his point was. Was he just a crazy making a lucky guess or did he know something that she should know before she did anything else? That she needed to know?
“My consequence is that I was supposed to be in Bermuda now. A few years there as a conduit for the Powers That Be. To a Champion to no less. I was supposed to have handed the vampire with the soul over to some LA bracken demon by now and then that was me done with Sunnydale. Everything was swell apart from the fact that Angel, the vampire with the soul I mentioned, is now a pile of dust with a soul. And where does that leave me? Far from Bermuda kid. I gotta tell you that them upstairs,” he pointed upwards, “when they get confused by events we could be talking centuries for them to sort themselves out. And by then sea level could have risen… no more Bermuda. And I never got to go.” He raised an imaginary glass in salute to her. “That’s not your problem though is it? So instead of the beach, here I am telling you about your love life.”
She had no idea what he was talking about. But he obviously believed it. He was confused, but not lying to her. Even with the shifting of the unnatural part of him in his aura she could see that. He believed it. So he wasn't lying to her. But he could still be crazy. “M-m-my love life?”
Willow… that was all that her love life had ever been. She spoke the name aloud and he nodded.
“Oh don’t worry you were supposed to fall in love all right. And you have. Am I right?” His voice suggested that he knew that he was.
“I-I…”
“Yeah, you’re in love with her and we got this whole new ancient prophecy that didn’t exist, at all, until about four, five years ago and we’re wondering – how can a prophecy be ancient if it’s that new?” He tossed his hat in the air and caught it, then flicked it onto his head. Still sitting down but as if he was acting out some musical number. “It’s confusing I know but the important thing is this… when you fell in love with her, she wasn't supposed to be dead already. She wasn’t even supposed to die.”
Willow… alive.
That was… what was supposed to have been. She was supposed to have been in love with a live Willow. With a soul… human. Able to love her too?
Did he know about her dreams? They had always... she had fallen in love in her dreams, but never with this Willow that she actually knew. Not the one that she had found. The one that was undead. The one that was a monster. That might be killing ‘for her’ right now.
Willow wasn’t supposed to be dead.
Willow should be alive. She had always known it inside.
He went on and she forced herself to listen to him instead of turning inwards to think about what he’d already said and what that suggested. He might be crazy, but she had to hear this.
“She wasn't supposed to be dead. She wasn’t supposed to die. She wasn't supposed to be a vampire – in any prophecy, even the one you know about. See all of this?” She nodded as he gestured at a world outside the apartment. “This wasn’t your fight kid. Either of you. You’d have had your ups and they would have been pretty special. You’d have had your downs and a few battles along the way but most of them… this wasn't your gig.” He shook his head as if not believing himself what had transpired.
“Gig?” she asked.
“The vampire thing. You weren’t supposed to be fighting that battle. Not you honey. You were just supposed to live, love and learn here in Sunnydale and start the rest of your life.” He paused as if thinking about that for a second, then nodded. “Instead someone messes with causality and things get all messed up. You know how that is.”
“Not really,” she admitted.
He sighed, as if he was forever having to explain it. “Well it’s enough to know that you got messed up kid. Vengeance demons… they make my job a nightmare I tell you and does anyone even notice?”
She took a guess and shook her head.
“Right, no one notices. Because no one can. Just me… and the PTB’s of course and even they have to figure it all out… it’s a nightmare I tell you,” he looked at her, realising that she wasn’t keeping up. Another sigh. “Look, all you really need to know is that you and her, you both got messed up. Your whole lives should have been something else. Both being alive for a start.”
“W-we were s-supposed to be together?” she went back to what he had said at the beginning of that little rant. Somehow she’d always known that was the case. The dreams… the dreams had shown her that. Surely that was why she had come to love the Willow that she didn’t even know.
“More than supposed to kid. It’s fate, it really is. You can’t mess with fate. Even when all of causality gets torn up and flushed down the toilet, fate endures – you can bet your life on that. People have, sometimes it’s not pretty when they do but that’s not really the point.”
She had always known it. And people were betting on them. Wolfram and Hart might not known what had caused all this, or they might, but they were betting on Tara and on Willow. They knew about the fate thing – but they had been affected by causality too. They didn’t know what
should have happened – assuming this Whistler was anything but crazy.
But the clearest thing of all that he had said…
We’re supposed to be together. But not like this. Whilst it had seemed right enough to let them
be it was also so wrong. She had known that from the start too. She had felt it. No, wrong was too harsh a word… It was
different from what should have been. She knew that now.
But this was what she had. She had to live with what she had… not something that might have been. But wasn’t.
“Whatever happened,” he continued, “thanks to fate you two were always going to be together. Now, well now, you just have to figure out how you can stay together. Don’t you Tara?”
How did he know that? Perhaps… perhaps he knew because it was in his new ancient prophecy? Or maybe he was just a shrewd judge of what a relationship would be like between a human and a vampire with whom she was fated to be.
Maybe he was crazy.
Maybe he was suggesting that there were indeed options. Options that she had agonised about…
Staying together. That was the question that she had to answer though wasn't it? The question that led to a hundred more that she had already asked herself over and over. Most often with no satisfactory answer… that was just one reason why she had done nothing. But Willow was unstable… and a vampire. When would she finally take their games a step too far?
When will I be forced to defend myself – or finally someone else. How can I let her keep feeding on innocents just so I can have her with me? And for what? Fate? Was that a good enough reason? Was feeling Willow as a part of her good enough?
When would Willow decide that they could only be together… forever… it she were to turn me? Which I couldn’t allow.“I-I d-don’t know-“
“Of course you don’t. It was never in the script. This was something you should never have had to deal with. Which is why I am here now - to let you know these things that usually you would just have known for yourself. Not knowing isn’t your fault. It’s not even really her fault.”
That didn’t help Tara at all. But he seemed to know that. He’d as good as said that this was the world they had to live in, after things had changed. Knowing things might have been different didn’t help her… them. Except… it explained how she could have dreamed about a person she had never seen.
It explained how she could love a person she had never met.
It explained how she had come to accept what her Willow was… how she had ever managed to know about the old Willow… the Willow that she should have been with had been real.
She wasn’t just a dream.
And we would have been together.“What h-happened. What sh-should have happened?” she asked him needing to know that so that she could think, figure things out.
He smiled. “That’s easy, that was the original prophecy. Part of it at least. See the Master, well done with that by the way, the Master rose and there was no one here to stop him. There should have been a Slayer but something sent her elsewhere and reality changed from that moment on. Like ripples in a pond. You two, you and Willow - well you know what you should have been. Inside you know it. You see it and feel it.”
“My d-dreams.” She wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse. Knowing what she so obviously didn’t have.
“Some of them anyway, that one about the speedboat and the zebra that just wasn’t you.” He smiled again and she couldn’t even condemn him for the intrusion that was implied by the fact that he knew her dreams.
Maybe he just knew and he hadn’t really been peeking. There were ways to know – she knew of such spells herself.
“Your heart knows what you were supposed to be – and so it tells you in your dreams,” carrying on with his explanation. “But everything else in the world tells you just what is
now. What you have to live with and everything else is right. This is the world now. There is no going back. You made it a better place already – I’m not even sure that you would want to go back there. See you two are fated to be together, but it’s my guess that being together here will kill you. Or her. Maybe just make you wish you were dead. She’s a vampire now. You, no matter what you might think, you’re fundamentally a good person.”
“B-but I… I’ve done things…” And failed to do other things which was often even worse.
“Things which you had to do. I’m not saying they were right but trust me, in the great balancing act you
are coming up on the good side of town. The question is can you stay there kid? Vampires and good people – they don’t match too well.’
“You’re s-saying that I shouldn’t be…?” Was that what he was here for? To tell her to leave Willow? To do something to her?
Try as she might she couldn’t condemn him if he was. She had thought about it herself. It was just that she had never been able to do it.
There was love inside her.
But was it love for what might have been? The Willow who might have been? Was it all for
her Willow? No. She knew that. She had fallen in love with another Willow. One that was reflected in hers.
“Be with her? Fate says you should be. Who am I to argue with fate? Not even the PTB’s argue with fate kid. Fate will have its say – it already has. But what you do with your lives is up to the two of you. Fate has nothing more to say about that. But I gotta tell you that it could go either way right now.”
“You can see?” If he could see, and by now she believed that he wasn't crazy, then she had to listen. If he could see the darkness claiming her then she had to listen.
And avoid that. She had to go through with what she already knew.
“Some of it yeah,” he sounded reluctant now. As if he had said too much and feared being overheard. “Look you got a real unique situation here Tara, a little outside my usual area of expertise.”
“What do I do?” She knew that it was almost a plea for guidance. But she didn’t expect him to answer – that wasn't how these sort of things reputedly worked.
“What you want to. Free-will is the greatest of the gifts you have. You’ve always had options. You still have them. You always will in an infinite universe.”
That made no sense. Why warn her about… “B-but why…?”
Unless she could change.
Unless he wanted her to. That was his advice then? She had known it… and now someone else was saying it.
“Why am I here then? To show you that there are always consequences. This is bigger than just you Tara. She’ll die or you will. Whether it is you that kills her, a Slayer or someone else. Someone will kill her and then you lose her. Or someone will kill you. Maybe she’ll do it. I gotta say though, if you go vampy then you’ll do great things. Great bad things. They,” he waved at the air, “don’t want that that – but it ain’t their choice you know? It’s yours. And hers.”
What was he saying?
“People are dead that shouldn’t be,” he told her.
Willow.
“And some people are alive when they should be dead. That’s just the universe as it is now. And you have to deal with that. As it is. As it is
now kid. You can’t unmake the past – but you can shape the future.”
He picked up his hat and placed it back on his head as he stood up, straightening it in the reflection from the window. “Good speaking to you.” He must have seen the look of confusion that she knew was on her face and taken pity on her. “Look kid, do nothing and it might all work out okay. It really might. But I think you know better than that. Don’t you?”
He had left before she even had time to reply.
“Y-Yes.”
She knew better than that, and had done even before. But he had crystallised her thoughts. If nothing else he had done that. He had told her what she had always known inside. Explained some other things… and told her that she could – despite fate and prophecy – shape the future.
Her future.
Their future.
*****************
by Zahir al Daoud » Wed Aug 14, 2002 4:40 pm 
at: 8/14/02 4:17:31 pm
With the real W/T that is what the magic is for...
.
.
great update 
but you don't though, right, because if you did, i can stop.