There is a warning attached for this part for a reason Kittens. Pay attention to that. I am sorry that I cannot make it explicit - but I will not spoil the story for it. Suffice it to say that a mod has okayed the concept of this part in the context of this fic and knowing what is to come later (ie this is not a precedent), however it is as dark as this dark fic is going to get. If you are likely to be hurt by that - do not read it.
Onto happier things -
TaraBearRS - Yeah I think Faith woulld have wanted to hate the idea of a baby Giles... but a baby Faith - she might have liked that.
As for the OMG... read on.
Vamp Nurd - Extra Flamey is a good place to be. Not as good as Willowhand though.
Okay here it is.
Katharyn
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Warning - This part deals includes things that some readers may not wish to read. I have told you all that this fic was dark. This part is the darkest place. I have also said where this is going – happy and together. I promise you that.
Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle– The Last Dance (Part 76)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome.
katharynrosser@hotmail.comSpoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe though reference is made to events that occur in both realities.
Summary: The Last Dance. What more can I say? This is it. This is the start of where it has all been heading.
Disclaimer: I still don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS or Angel. All rights lie with the Production Company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories.
Rating: 15
Couples: VW/T
Notes: “The Last Dance” of the title is a reference to “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie. As before I recommend the wording of the last verse to all readers – see where a lot of this is coming from?
Thanks To: Kerry for this one. She saw it long, long ago – within a day of me making the decision and writing it - and had some wonderfully helpful stuff to say as well as the beta to struggle through. From the start she has been there and anyone who likes this fic owes her and Jo ‘Wizpup’ a lot. Also Xita… she knows what for.
The Sidestep Chronicle
The Last Dance
By
Katharyn Rosser
The rain was pouring from the sky when Tara had arrived at the apartment block. The last time she had been here the sun had made the sidewalk so hot that she hadn’t been able to step on it without putting her shoes back on. It had seemed much further from LAX tonight than it had last time that she had been to this place. That was just the way it was. Everything was looking darker, wetter, further…
Worse now.
When else would it rain down on me? Just when I’m feeling at my worst. Still, she had made it indoors now… for as long as it took the person she was visiting to throw her out and curse her for even showing her face. After the rejection what could she expect?
How had it come to this?
Tara looked back out at the rain.
Someone up there doesn’t like me. But then that was obvious. What sort of deity would dump her in a life that had turned out like this and yet have any liking for her? She hugged the precious item wrapped in brown paper to her chest and hurried up the stairs.
It felt like hurrying, but really it was a slow, uncertain, trudge. She had no idea what she was going to say when the door opened.
What she was going to ask for.
What she was going to offer for what she needed.
It was funny… Her thoughts carried on churning in her mind as the water ran down her face. A drop hung briefly on the tip of her nose then detached with a slight tickle and splashed on the carefully wrapped parcel she clasped. It was funny how she never used to think like that.
The paper was water marked, the tiny dark circles making a random pattern. She rubbed that latest drop, agitated by any disturbance of the package. She was trying to dry it off and she just succeeding in making more of it a little less wet.
Self-pity never suited me. But then I never had anything worth pitying. Not even much of a self to worry about.It wasn’t just her now though.
She had someone… something… else to think about. To worry about. Maybe that was where it had all started to go wrong. The whole righteous justice thing that she had been doing being corrupted by… feelings. For something… someone that she should have hated from the moment that they met.
Or maybe that was where it all started to go right. Maybe that was, for better or for worse, the point at which she had started to feel. When she had come to have something in her life that was not
just hunting, justice and vengeance. Maybe that hadn’t been perfect but hadn’t it been better than what went before? Emptiness.
I don’t even know. I don’t think I ever did.Tara rang the bell and she almost hoped that the occupant wasn’t here, because she still didn’t know what she was going to say. What she was going to do. But it wouldn’t make much difference. If the owner wasn't in now then Tara knew she would just have to sit here until she arrived, or the security guard that she had eluded eventually tracked her down on his rounds and called the police.
Then she would just have to stand outside in the rain.
There was no choice about this. It had to be here. It had to be this person. No one else would do. Tara didn’t know what she was going to say. Going to ask for and offer… but she was sure that it was this person that she had to see. There was no choice about that at all.
Tara knew that she might get arrested for stalking or lurking or something. But then she did have the best lawyers. That was sort of funny actually. Didn’t the best lawyers think that they had her?
Maybe they’d just think that she belonged to them. Maybe they really would have her. If she paid their price for what must be done then they would. She didn’t think that they were very big on pro bono work at Wolfram and Hart. Not without an angle that benefited them at least. Was she enough of an angle for them?
Was what she offered enough of an angle? If she offered it?
Because I’m not any kind of angel… not any more.
Angel, angle. She took no comfort in word games. None at all.
There was nothing that could really comfort her.
Maybe there never had been since her mother had died. She had thought that maybe… there had been. But it was just a pale reflection of something comforting.
Perhaps I never was an angel. Had she ever been called that? Had her mother or father ever called her an angel? Their angel? She couldn’t remember any life other than the one she was living now and that was the terribly sad thing… She’d forgotten so much and only remembered the things that she didn’t really want to. A life filled with shades of grey and one that was still getting darker and darker.
It would keep getting darker until she killed someone and then the darkness would be so complete that there would be no more light at the end of the tunnel. So dark that she wouldn’t even be able to see the walls of the tunnel. Even though those walls pressed on her so tightly that she couldn’t even turn around to look back. To see where it was that she had come from.
It was so dark where she was now but she could, barely, still see the tunnel. Barely.
It was only when the door was opened by a bleary eyed Lilah Morgan that there was even a glimmer of light at the end of it. That the walls of the tunnel expanded and she could breathe again. Lilah was there – that was just the start. But a good one.
“I need you,” Tara whispered barely even hearing herself. She clasped the package tighter still, protecting it from the other person, even as she was pulled inside. Even though Lilah didn’t even look at what she was holding. But it was still dark where she was going. There was no light in there.
But that was okay, what had she expected?
She had just lied to Lilah anyway. She knew what Lilah would think… it was just that she meant something different.
Very, very different.
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Lilah pulled Tara inside the door. The younger woman was soaked and wearing that same damn coat that she had for as long as Lilah had known her. Bad fashion sense and being drenched were the least of her problems by the look of her. It wasn't like she was a regular visitor now or anything… she’d been here just that once before? And look how that one had turned out.
Lilah had just got to the point where she had stopped thinking about what had happened then… every damn night. How badly she’d handled it. How she had got herself to the point, allowed herself to get to the point, that she had been willing to say that sort of thing to a younger woman.
The sort of thing like ‘I love you.’
Without an ounce of preparation or any fall back position. She had never considered that Tara might not… what… let her win? Say the same thing to her. Even though she had known about Willow and how they were together. She had thought that, being human with soul, she was better than the vampire for Tara. Obviously she’d been wrong.
So that was the last time that Tara had been here. They had not even spoken since the morning after. The morning after, when Tara had insisted that they would be friends and Lilah had promised herself that she was going to go back to the woman she always had been.
She had told herself that love was not who she was.
It was funny though how, as the door opened, everyone of those feelings had returned to her. When she had laid eyes on Tara. Love might not be who she really was… but it still had a hold on her.
Anyway, how had Tara even got into the building? Well that was a stupid question. That was what she did… even before Wolfram and Hart had taken any steps to get their claws into her Tara had been capable enough.
That was why they thought that they might have wanted to use her as they had always intended to. And Lilah… Lilah wanted to save her life.
Lilah didn’t let go of the sopping sleeve. She just shut the door and pulled Tara through into the living room. Literally pulled. Not even led. Pulled. It wasn’t that the younger woman was fighting her or holding back, it was just that she was barely moving. Sluggish. Except maybe in her mind where, if the frantic eyes were anything to go by, there was plenty going on. Or round. And round.
It was suddenly as if Tara was very old.
The eyes, the window to the soul. Lilah believed that. She’d had peoples eyes removed for just that reason. If they had a soul – which Tara still did. There was just pain in there now though. A kind of pain that was also a function of the soul. Lilah didn’t think that a person could hurt like Tara obviously was unless they had a soul to feel it with. “What’s wrong Tara?” she asked she helped the younger woman out of the coat, throwing it over the back of a vacant chair and then sat her down.
There was terrible pain.
Even when taking her coat off, Tara wouldn’t let go of the package that she held clasped to her. She wouldn’t put it down and when Lilah had touched it… the look in Tara’s eyes had been scary.
“I need you,” Tara repeated and she sounded a million miles away right then. At least until Tara managed to focus on her.
How long did I wait to hear her say that? It had been a dream of Lilah’s, about how the last occasion that Tara had been here should have gone in a perfect world – or at least a better one. She had wanted Tara to need her. She had wanted Tara ask her to help her. To love her. Those were just dreams though. Had been just dreams. They were firmly of the past now.
Even if Lilah still felt the effect of the words inside.
She knew that wasn’t what Tara meant though. There never would be a time when Tara meant
that. Tara had said ‘never.’ And she had meant it. Lilah knew that, she, perhaps, had always known it deep down. She’d, sort of, accepted it.
She isn’t for me, even if I would have been for her.That was the whole basis of the project really wasn't it? That Tara was for someone, something, else. No… it had been someone. It had just become something. Willow had.
“I need you to...” Once more with the need.
“What can I do for you Tara?” Lilah asked. She sat beside Tara and carefully pulled the soaks strands of hair back from her wet face.
All that Tara could want was her professional services… that or a friend. They both had few enough of those now. Faith, Lilah already knew, was gone. She knew that Willow had been behind that – and well… good. That must have cut Tara off from the Watcher too. His profile didn’t suggest that he was going to forgive the killer – or someone who had allowed it anytime soon.
And where the Watcher went so, presumably, went the fiancée.
The Mayor… well that had been Willow too, as Lilah knew
very well.
The second of her Two Roses had been a very busy girl. Willow had left Tara with no one.
No one but me. There were things that a person couldn’t talk to a vampire about. A vampire couldn’t understand some things.
There were things that a person needed friends for and a lack of those was something that was they had both chosen - or had forced upon them by circumstances. Maybe Tara wanted her both as a lawyer and as a friend. Which was fine. Much as she hated to admit it she owed Tara for her life when Willow had found her with the Mayor. It had been Tara’s inhibiting influence that had stopped the vampire from killing her. Even though she guessed Tara didn’t even know about it, now the witch was here to collect on that debt. And if Tara had known then she probably wouldn’t even have asked.
She was like that. That was what made her… Tara and special.
“I need…”
“Me I know,” Lilah told her again.
“No!” the denial was almost a shout and it was immediately painful to Lilah. Tara calmed herself almost instantly though and when she explained it was almost apologetically. “I need her,” Tara told her. That was obviously all the explanation she thought that Lilah needed.
There was only one
her for Tara. Lilah knew that well too.
“Willow?” Who else would it be? Always Willow. That damned vampire. If it hadn’t been for Willow then…
I never would have met Tara and besides which she said ‘never.’ She meant it too.“I thought that she was… well with you. In Sunnydale?” Lilah suggested. Had the vampire left…? As far as Lilah knew from the reports Willow, as a vampire, had never left Sunnydale. It was a part of the territorial nature of the creature. It was part of what made Willow want Lilah dead. Violently. Tara was her territory and Willow knew that Lilah wanted to trespass.
Had wanted to. Maybe…
She remembered checking the reports from the observation teams. Willow was still in Sunnydale – still staying in Tara’s apartment. Even after the death of the Slayer and the Mayor. There was the ongoing ‘innocent’ body count from the feeding that Willow did to survive – and for fun.
The Obs team was doing just fine now that Tara had accepted their presence and prevented Willow from ripping their throats out. The quality of the reports had improved no end.
Maybe Tara just didn’t care anymore. Maybe she had other things on her mind.
“No. You don’t understand, Lilah. I want
Willow.” Tara smiled sadly and looked across into Lilah’s eyes.
Yes, Lilah thought, there was a soul there and it was in pain. The window was wide open. Tara was wide open. The pain. The need. Yes even the love. It was all on display. Good god. Lilah knew that she could, if she was right about what Tara was asking, secure anything that she – or Wolfram and Hart – wanted. Anything at all. Tara would pay that price for what she was asking. Any price that she cared to name. It would be hers for the taking. “You mean…?”
Tara wanted the cure.
The cure for Willow.
“I want the
real Willow,” Tara told her.
“You never met the real Willow,” Lilah pointed out. Tara had only ever known the vampire except in the dreams that she had mentioned and sometimes even in those the vampire Willow had been there.
Tara nodded. “I know that - but I don’t want her for me. I’ll probably never even see her. I need the real Willow to have a chance, Lilah. The human. The woman. Not the demon who has her body and some of her memories,” Tara replied. The sadness in that voice then. It ripped her apart – and she was a lawyer.
Tara was willing to give up her Willow? Her lover?
If she would do without her… then the price she could secure. Gods. Tara would… Anything.
“If it were possible-” Lilah was about to make another obvious point. Tara started to interrupt her though, maybe to insist it was possible or to agree to whatever price she thought that the lawyer was about to suggest. Lilah cut her off with a raised hand. “No… listen Tara. If it were possible… you
know that she might not be the same as she is now. You know that?” That was a stupid question. That, to Tara, was the point. What the younger woman might not have considered though… “She might not love you and you can’t make her do that.”
Well she could… but spells like that were something that Tara wouldn’t consider.
“I know that Lilah,” Tara said without any bitterness in her voice. It was just sad. “It’s because she loves me… well as much as she can, and I love her that I’m asking you for this. We can’t live in each other’s worlds any more. I can’t let her kill over and over. So many people… But we can’t live in separate worlds either. Because I still love her.”
Tara sounded as anguished as she looked. “Willow kills people. So many people - and I just let her. I can’t let her do that anymore… but I can’t stop her either. Only the real Willow, the living Willow, has a chance. She has to have a fair chance – please Lilah. She never had that. You – you and Wolfram and Hart – can get her for me. I know you can do it because I’ve seen the file. Your firm can do it.”
Lilah started to object. She wanted to talk about the cost, the problems involved in any of those approaches, but Tara just kept talking.
“The contingencies you had in place for when she was first destroyed… in case it happened again. I can’t do those things. It needs… more power than I have on my own,” Tara told her.
Lilah wasn't so sure about that though. She suspected that Tara might have the power, it was just that she didn’t dare to use it. Tara knew what that would cost her. What it might cost the whole world if she surrendered to the dark for any reason.
“I’ll pay the price whatever it is,” Tara revealed.
And Lilah had to believe her.
“You shouldn’t ever say that Tara,” Lilah warned her. “We – they charge a very, very high price.” That sort of blanket acceptance would be turned into a contract in a heartbeat at Wolfram and Hart. Acceptable terms.
And here was she, a junior partner, trying to dissuade the woman she had wanted to love her from entering that contract.
“I’ll pay it,” Tara told her again.
“What does she say about this?” Lilah asked. ‘She,’ of course, was Willow.
“She doesn’t know,” Tara told her. “She’s a demon – why would she want to be human? She wants to remain a vampire for eternity and she wants me with her - if she can get it. Just like I want her for always… but not on those terms Lilah. Not on her terms.” Tara looked at the rain still pouring outside the window. “Eventually, Lilah, she would turn me. She might even be thinking that it would keep us together and I can’t let her make me one of those… things.”
The way Tara said ‘things.’ It was as if she… she had lost some of the hatred. The thirst for justice or vengeance or whatever it was. Tara sounded tired.
“You love one of those things,” Lilah pointed out, not really believing that it could be this simple. Everything seemed to have gone so wrong after Tara had found out about the project and how Lilah had felt. Holland had never said a word but Lilah knew there had to have been disappointment at some fairly senior levels. But here, now, she could salvage everything in one fell swoop. Who needed the vampire? Holland had long accepted that Tara might have been of use to the firm even without Willow.
And now she could secure Tara’s services with a click of her fingers.
Just a word and Tara would be far, far more than Holland and the partners had ever imagined that she could be. Prophecy was tricky, she reminded herself again, one could never be certain about it.
But this
seemed so simple. Almost perfect.
“I know, and I’m asking you to help me to keep loving her,” Tara said.
But from what she had said Tara didn’t mean, necessarily, staying with Willow. She was talking about loving her from afar then? If she had to? If that was all that was left.
Tara would do that. If it was right. If it was good, then Lilah knew that Tara would do it. It was who she was – even if she lost sight of that within herself.
There was something inside her though that made her ask the question. Something that had to know why Tara would come to her. If this was just a deal then she could have approached Holland directly. Holland could authorise this sort of thing when Lilah couldn’t…
But Tara didn’t know that. She realised it even as she asked the question. “Why would I do that Tara?” She wasn’t asking what was in it for Wolfram and Hart. She wasn't even asking what was in it for herself. The question was precise – as she had been taught.
Why?
“Because you told me once that you loved me,” Tara told her simply.
“And so I should help you try to be with someone else?” Was that the only reason that she had? Tara must be hoping that Willow, after her ‘cure’ would be hers. Even if she accepted that it might not be – that was what she wanted, maybe even just subconsciously. And Tara was going to ask her for that? Was that all she had been able to think of coming here? Hadn’t it crossed Tara’s mind that she might say no?
Of course it had and Tara wouldn’t dream of lying to her to get her to do this.
Because Tara believed in love. Its power. Tara would believe that Lilah, loving her, would do exactly what she was willing to do for Willow for the same reason.
“Unless what you said was all just part of your elaborate recruiting pitch or a way of controlling me,” Tara told her, again without sounding bitter. She was just forcing Lilah to come clean over what those words had meant. What she would do.
“It started that way, you know that Tara. That was why I got to know you. The Mayor suggested it. I admit that,” Lilah paused, considering the consequences of either lying or telling the truth now. “But then it became so much more. I wanted you in my life Tara,” Lilah told her.
“I know. You still do.”
Lilah shrugged, smiled. So the witch was still able to read her – good. “Want it? In a different world maybe… but here? No. I know that’ll never be Tara. You told me that. I knew it anyway. Fate and all that jazz.”
And she had known it. Perhaps it was just the challenge that had appealed to her at first.
The challenge and then Tara of course.
“Help us?” Tara pleaded with her. But her voice had never changed from that matter of fact monotone.
“Because I think I love you?” Lilah asked then quickly corrected herself, “loved you?” She knew what the answer would be. “I accepted that I could never have you Tara and now you want me to let you be with her? At great
personal risk?”
Lilah looked at her, weighing what Tara wanted but there was no doubt. Tara just wanted Willow cured. She wanted the real Willow back in the world. Ideally to love her, but mostly just alive. Living. Having a chance. Even if that was far away from her. Tara couldn’t bear the fact that she loved the shadow anymore. The pale reflection. “You do know what you are asking for? What the rituals entail?
What has to perform them? And what that will cost?”
“That’s what I’m asking you to do, yes. And there is no risk to you,” Tara told her.
Lilah knew that wasn’t true. Tara believed it, but that wasn’t the reality of the situation. There was always risk. With this more than anything she had known before.
“I’ll pay the price I told you that,” Tara said firmly.
Lilah let that naivety go by. Even if Tara could pay the price she wouldn’t be the only one to be charged for this. Something like this… it would have to be authorised by the senior partners. Her first request of them since her promotion… and for this? “Even a price that means that you can’t be with her?”
Tara had to understand that might be the cost. Willow might be there, and she might be able to love Tara. She might
want to do that… but the price might prevent that from being their reality and future. It might prevent everything that Tara should have wanted.
Everything that Lilah would have wanted.
Tara was better than that though. Tara was purer than she was.
Tara wanted the best that she could get for Willow.
And what if Tara had never learnt of the contingencies? Would she have remained ‘content’ with the vampire?
No. Lilah knew that she couldn’t have remained. The signs had been there ever since she had known the younger woman. The.. problem… had been inevitable. The realisation.
“E-even that yes,” Tara assured her.
And Lilah believed her.
Just what did Tara think the price might be? She had to have guessed to come here, but … Willow was more important to her than anything that might be asked of her. Willow’s future – her chance was more important. All that Tara cared about. Lilah wanted to be sure though. “Even if that price is that she is human and you lose her anyway? You’ll pay that price?”
The yes or no here was going to be like a contract. She would hold Tara to that – because she would have to. Once she approached the partners… she would have to go through with it.
“That price and whatever Wolfram and Hart need from me. I have no choice,” Tara told her.
So Tara thought that the losing Willow would be a greater price than any Wolfram and Hart could exact from her? Maybe she was right about that. But having no choice? There were always choices. Bad ones maybe. But always choices.
“You can still be turned, you can still have eternity with her – on her terms. You won’t even care once she does it.” Lilah couldn’t believe that she was even suggesting it when she was so close…And it was the more obvious option. But perhaps that was one price that Tara couldn’t pay.
That and letting the bloodshed continue.
She knew that was what was consuming Tara. People were dying to allow her to have a lover. A lover who could not love. And Willow was being denied her chance. Her life.
Tara could become a vampire though…
“No.” Tara smiled sadly. “I can’t.” She put the parcel down and unwrapped it, and they both stared at it on the coffee table for long moments. Lilah looked at it, realised what it was. Knew what was there before her. And she couldn’t show a reaction – because she didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
“Oh god Tara, you didn’t?” Lilah looked into those pained eyes once more to find her answer.
Tara just nodded and Lilah knew that there was no way back for her now. Nor was there any question that she would fail to help the young woman.
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The Previous Night.There was nothing there. Still nothing there. No matter what she did there was nothing within this woman. Nothing that was good.
Nothing.
And that meant that she had no choice… It was like this that they were as close as they ever were. And there was nothing. There was no choice.
Tara rolled from atop Willow and flopped down on the bed beside her, out of breath. It probably seemed to the vampire that she was sweating from their exertions. But that wasn’t it. She was sweating because only her body had been there with Willow. This Willow. This cold Willow. The only warmth in Willow was from the air. From the frictions between them. Tara had no real basis for comparison but Willow was always so physically cold… Her body had been doing the searching and her mind…
Her mind had been elsewhere. Her mind had been… still uncertain if she could do what she had to. What she thought she had decided to. Even as she gave Willow that last chance to show her just the tiniest… but there was nothing.
Besides she had known that if it went as wrong as it had – that last chance – she would need Willow… distracted.
The coolness of Willow had never been more than a distraction to her before. Back when just having a Willow was enough. But now… at this moment she wanted warmth in those lightly bound hands. She wanted it in the flesh that she had stroked and caressed to a climax. She had made love to Willow but she hadn’t really been there. It hadn’t been love… it had been sex. Sex for a reason – to try and dig out the Willow that she had always wanted. Just one more chance.
The Willow she had always wanted had not been there. She never had been.
The Willow she had always loved was… more than room temperature. But she couldn’t have that… not now. This Willow was all that she had. All that she could have, and she had learnt to make the best of that.
To try and forget the worst of it. What this Willow could and did do.
She rolled over and kissed Willow on the lips one more time, intending simply a kiss that represented the affection they shared and she found instead a thrusting tongue forcing its way into her mouth. That too had never bothered her before. The raw passion of the vampire had never bothered her whilst she had wanted Willow to be in love with her. Willow didn’t know if she
could be in love. Ever.
And at that moment she wanted Willow to be still, to be quiet. Just to receive one more kiss of love... without giving the passion back. There was a difference between love and lust. And Willow was only capable of one. This Willow was.
Before…
She pulled back and knew that if Willow really wanted to pursue her with her lips then the bonds that secured her to the bed frame would not last a second against the vampire’s strength. Willow stayed as she was though, secured and spread-eagled in the way she’d insisted that Tara restrain her. The ribbons had served a purpose – she’d had to get this one last chance. Now they might serve another one. For someone who wanted her Kitty to be in charge, Willow was not giving up the power she thought she had. She was there, lewdly awaiting Tara’s next pleasure.
Willow’s sensuality, lewdness… that had never bothered her before… Enjoyed some of it undeniably – but it was hollow. The power thing – if this had been a Willow that she had been able to love – she wouldn’t have cared about the power either. If this Willow had loved her. She wouldn’t have cared.
But now… now she knew that she only wanted another Willow. She wanted the Willow that she was thinking might be there. That might… be possible to bring back. Even though she loved this Willow – the part of her that reflected that other. Even though she had only ever known this Willow. She knew that there had been another one once and she knew that really that other was the only Willow that could ever be
her always. Even if that didn’t come to pass… even if something went wrong and there was no way… what choice was there?
Even if when it worked… if it worked… there were no guarantees. The chance… that was what mattered. The chance for Willow.
Willow’s own alternative was not always but instead eternity… an eternity being as cold and empty as her Willow was now. The only heat in Tara, after that, would be coming from their passion – if that even survived - and the blood that they would drink.
The people that they would kill together for that blood.
To do nothing… to do nothing was to condemn people to death. More people. More people than she had already let Willow kill. And that was the thing… even if this Willow
had loved her… how could she just let the killing continue?
Maybe even true love wouldn’t have been worth that price… and whilst she did love Willow, this Willow couldn’t even know if she loved her. Let alone tell her that…
That price of inaction was so high.
Too high.
And the other price, if she joined Willow in eternity… She knew that the day would come when Willow couldn’t face her ageing any more or when the vampire thought she would die. And then Willow would turn her.
Tara had seen it in her dreams – nightmares. She had seen what she would become then. What
they would become. A scourge on humanity. She could see it every time she looked at this Willow. That wasn’t even the thing that scared her.
What terrified her aside from allowing the deaths to continue was that sometimes, even knowing all of that, she still thought that she might have allowed Willow to do it sometime. If it was that or lose her, Tara knew that in a moment of weakness she might allow what she had always resisted and fought against.
And it would only take a moment to submit to being drained and then she would be fed a little of Willow’s blood. One moment of weakness. One moment of love when it appeared that otherwise it might be all be lost.
Love for this vampire could destroy her and all that she had ever been. She would become what Daddy had always warned her about. By her own choice.
And it wouldn’t even have been Willow’s blood that she was fed. Not that the fact should have made the slightest difference. What did matter was that it would have been the blood Willow had stolen from others. Killed people for. Just as she would have to do if she gave herself over to that last cold embrace.
Willow had never asked or threatened.
But she would one day.
One day Willow would do it and she might not be able to resist her. That scared her too… but the main thing was the people that would suffer because of it. That already were suffering because of what she had let Willow do. Continue to do.
To be turned would simply be horror upon horror.
She knew that her Willow was as close to loving her as the vampire could probably be, but that couldn’t be enough when there were people dying to maintain that. And even setting everything else aside… even if the deaths had not been hanging around her neck like an albatross, Tara had to doubt whether her own love for Willow would survive if she were turned. ‘As close to love as possible’
wasn’t love.
Could it be the same? Would I even know the difference? And if it was different what does that say for Willow’s feelings for me now? They had talked of loving forever. But with Willow it was eternity… for her it was always.
It wasn’t the same thing. Not at all.
Tara thought that it might not have occurred to Willow what the difference meant for them yet. But it would mean everything … even without every other, more important, reason why this was going to have to happen. Tara couldn’t let herself go there. Not when there was a choice. But was there a choice? Really? She had to be sure… Otherwise this would just be the end… not a new beginning.
How can I be sure?Sure wasn’t a factor. No. Regardless… She had given Willow a chance and there had been nothing there. Nothing that changed anything. The only way to give Willow another chance was to risk the end.
What choice then did she really have? What choice did they have? Eternity or always? Something or nothing… Nothing was better than the wrong thing.
In some ways.
She knew her own mind now. Those last moments with Willow had helped her dispel any doubt.
Feigning passion once more Tara retook her place atop Willow and the vampire leered again at her, expectant…Leered. Was that what she wanted? A leer from someone who should have been her lover? It was fated that they would be together. What had the cost of fate been? For others… for them?
She had never cared before about the leer, now she was hyper alert to everything.
No… she had cared, she had just chosen to close her eyes.
“Kitty wants to party again?” Willow asked her.
“Kitty wants to party again,” Tara confirmed leaning forward so far that Willow could raise her head and nip at already tender nipples. Tara barely felt the pain or anything else because there was worse to come. Much, much worse than that. She reached behind the headboard as Willow licked at those tender spots now. She reached to where the dream had pointed her. To where she had secured their future long, long before – without even knowing what she was doing. Secured with a piece of tape. So long ago… back when she had remained in doubt of this ‘version’ of the wonderful woman she had dreamt of. Willow wasn't a woman was she?
Not this Willow anyway.
She touched what was back there, but did not remove it just then. Simply held onto the bed-head, stretching over Willow in a way she knew the vampire would appreciate.
“Bored with being tied down,” Willow told her. “Want to play with the kitty.” She strained at the ribbons. Probably wanting to be untied by Tara rather than just to break free which she could have done with ease. Tara knew that the vampire wanted her to submit to
her once more… and ohhh some part of Tara wanted to do that. It would be so much easier. To be taken and loved and held once more.
Loved?
She had always thought of it as making love… even when it so clearly wasn’t.
How long had she deluded herself?
That sort of delusion couldn’t be allowed. Not now. Now she had to be clear and focused. She had to…
Tara reached down with one hand and stroked Willow’s face, distracting her for that last moment that she needed as she shifted to rest on her spread knees over Willow’s midriff. “I’m sorry…” The word seemed inadequate and Willow must have realised from her sad tone that something was wrong as the vampire began to form a question… The tape was old, and gave way easily to let her take the future in her hand, hidden from Willow for that brief second behind her wrist.
Their future was hidden from both of them.
And then Tara let their future do it’s work. This was the only way that it could. She had searched for something, anything, else – right up to the last moment - and this was the only way.
The ribbons collapsed as if in slow motion as wrists and ankles disintegrated within them. Gravity seemed to take time to react to the change. It was oddly fascinating as Tara pulled back the stake with which she had destroyed the imperfect manifestation her one true love. The stake that was their future.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered as tears mixed with what was left of Willow.
------------
“I’m so sorry,” Lilah told Tara and remarkably enough she actually was. Now that wasn’t how things were supposed to be. “She’s….?” she pointed to the container that Tara had unwrapped. It was nothing special, just some container with a screw lid that would keep the contents dry and safe.
“Yes. She is…” Tara pulled it back as if what was inside might be contaminated by Lilah’s very gesture or attention.
Lilah’s mind was bursting with questions; what did this mean for the project? Where exactly did it fit into the prophecy and Tara’s fate? Would Tara be able to come and work with her now – getting out of the life that she had left… The life that for the most part no longer existed.
But Tara wanted something of that life back.
No not that life, another life.
Tara wanted Willow brought back… and she was willing to pay a price. A price that might keep her from the restored Willow – if that
could even be done. A price that might deliver her talents up to Wolfram and Hart. That would allow Lilah, she was sure, to save Tara’s life.
Now there was a way. Given what Tara had done… either she had reached the end of her tether regarding Willow, it had all become too much… or…
Tara knew.
Tara had seen the file, the contingencies were listed in that file. It wouldn’t take too much research after that… Tara knew that it could be done. That was the reason she was here. She wasn’t hoping.
She might even have planned this.
But Tara couldn’t know whether Lilah could anything for her. Anything at all – but still she came here talking of prices… and paying those prices.
Tara had done, whatever she had done, to Willow… and what Wolfram and Hart could do for her was secondary to that. She hadn’t killed Willow to have her brought back. Lilah knew that because, no matter what she had read, Tara couldn’t be sure that would happen.
Lilah knew Tara well enough to know that the younger woman would have realised that. Tara would have made the bargain in advance if this had been all about bringing Willow back. It wasn't hard to see. Tara had done this to stop Willow. Everything else was secondary.
They had talked, or rather Tara had, about the killings the vampire Willow had carried out – about how they had continued because Tar had let them. Lilah knew the effect that those deaths had on her friend.
So this was her solution… anything else was a bonus. Tara had stopped the killing… even if that had cost her the only person she had ever loved. Gods, a woman with that sort of strength… she would make a wonderful employee.
Except for the whole conscience thing that was going on in there too.
A conscience that, Lilah guessed, was actually making Tara feel guilty about killing the vampire - as well as about letting that vampire kill for so long.
A conscience was going to be a tricky thing to sell to the Senior Partners. And this would have to go to the Partners. There was no way to get it done otherwise.
“We won’t need that anyway,” Lilah told her as Tara moved the container full of… Willow… away from her. Protecting it. Somehow she knew that Tara had been right to come here. She knew that she had to do this for Tara. Lilah had done some pretty shitty things to people in her life, but that was business and she was damn good at it. This… with Willow gone this wasn’t business – without Willow there was, officially, no Project anyway. Not according to her brief.
It would have to look like business though, to those outside.
“Then you’ll help me?” Tara asked her. There was no begging. No concern even. It sounded… it sounded like Tara was half dead and the half that was living… so tired.
Maybe without Willow in the world she was half a person – they were fated to be together and so when they were apart…
Lilah knew that
she couldn’t leave Tara like that.
Especially as she couldn’t help feeling that she was partly to blame. “I’ll try for you Tara, yes.” ‘Try’ being the operative word. The Senior Partners… well they were not likely to let this go through out of the goodness of their hearts. If they even had hearts. She thought that at least two of them did, having been human once. “There will be a price Tara.” There had to be a price to tempt the senior partners. And they would be easily tempted by Tara promises. Her signature on a contract might do the trick, but Lilah wasn't so sure that was what they wanted.
“I know. Just tell me what it is…” Again with the deadness. Tara stared at what was left of Willow.
And she was asking such dangerous questions. She was leaving herself wide open. If the Senior Partners found that out… they would take advantage of it. Not that there was any real way to hide it. As long as Lilah remembered what she could have…
Remembered.
That was it… that was the price. That was the way. For both of them.
“I will tell you. When I know… but I think…” Lilah told her, thinking about what she would remember.
It was then that the lawyer made the decision. What was it about this woman that had rejected her that kept making her want to help her? “… I think that it would be hard for you to pay that price, whatever it is, if you were not here - where they could track you down. If neither of you were. Or in Sunnydale…”
The use of the plural there was quite deliberate on Lilah’s part. Tara couldn’t do what was necessary if she didn’t find something to live for. To hope for. That something could only be the return of person she had loved.
Not the return. The delivery.
In another, better, aspect. A person that might not love her at all.
Or even like her.
Lilah was finding it hard to think that prospect of a Willow that did not love Tara was unappealing – but then she was just being selfish about that. Selfish in a dream. Nothing was ever going to come of her and Tara. Willow was still in the way. She was dead and she was still in the way – a living Willow would be an impassable obstacle.
Even if Tara could not have her.
Which was why she had to help Tara bring Willow, the real Willow, back.
She wasn't doing it for Willow – to give her the chance that Tara had always felt the girl had been denied – she was doing it for Tara because her friend needed it from her.
Which was just great, Lilah knew that she was about to approach the senior partners and she was having these fuzzy, friendly, feelings. It was a recipe for disaster – but she could get through that, justify it as being a need of the Project, it was the next sweep that she was worried about. She had to be. The telepaths… they would catch her out.
It would be a sweep when she would know that she had encouraged the violation of the firms objectives. A sweep when she would probably know where Tara was and they would take that from her mind before her contract was terminated.
Permanently.
She wanted to help Tara, the young woman had been right about that, because she had loved her. Still did somewhere inside. But she wasn’t willing to commit suicide to do that. Risks were fine, Lilah took risks and revelled in them everyday.
Suicide was just plain dumb.
It was also where Tara might head if she refused to help her. So what choice did Lilah really have? This had to be done right… and it had to be done fast. Before the sweep. No one ever knew when the telepaths would next be called into the office. They were there to check the loyalty of the staff – that was the point – but it had been a few weeks already.
She couldn’t be caught with these thoughts in her head. The guilt about what she was about to do to the firm. Not if she was going to help Tara. Not if she was going to live.
It had to be soon. It had to be… complete. And that meant that she was going to need Tara’s help too.
“They’d find me… us,” she heard Tara say. The young witch wasn’t wrong.
------------------------
“They’d find me… us,” Tara was very sure of that. Wolfram and Hart had assigned people to watch her and Willow for years. They would find her if they wanted to. Find them… Lilah was right about that. She had to think positively about the outcome too though. It was just all too easy to let the despair take her.
What the hell had she done?
You did what you had to Tar, that’s what we do. The deadly duo.
And now she was hearing Faith again. Better than her daddy at least. Faith was usually on her side. Even when it came to Willow – who had killed her.
She knew what Lilah was suggesting when the lawyer was saying that she should get away, but she had never considered for a moment that it might be possible to do that. She knew how Wolfram and Hart operated - if not as well as Lilah did. They would find them and then payment would have to be made in full.
That was even if Willow was with her.
If she, they, got Willow back. The real Willow… then why would she stay with Tara anyway? She wouldn’t be the Willow that had played with the her Kitty. She wouldn’t be the Willow who had felt
possessive about her and
passionfor her.
It would be the Willow that always should have been and if she remembered anything about Tara at all… why would that be anything good?
But she might have to stay around Willow, if not with her, to keep her safe. Safe from anyone who might hurt her. The lawyers, the Watchers. Mr Giles… Anyone. She owed Willow that as much as she owed Willow a chance at life. As much as she had owed the vampire death. She looked at the container full of ashes.
That’s just your body I know… I just want you to be happy. To have a chance…so… don’t be mad at me for doing this.“Maybe…” Lilah said in response to the assertion that they would find them. “Unless you went somewhere that no one would ever expect you to go. A place which would no longer be noted in your files at the firm. Which I could tell them you would never want to go back to and be fairly certain that was true.”
Lilah’s voice was full of doubts so how could Tara even begin to believe it was possible? But still… for Lilah even to risk the offer… that showed that she was a friend. Maybe not as close as she had wanted to be to Tara.
“The files?” she asked. The files were… the files were in the offices.
“I’m sure that you could reach them,” Lilah suggested slowly. “That’s what you do Tara… the impossible. Try it one last time. One last dance?” Lilah said in such a way that Tara couldn’t doubt that it was the
only way for she and Willow to be safe. “You could go there, say whilst the ritual was being performed…”
Lilah looked at her and Tara nodded at her to continue.
“A lot of the security would be diverted to protect the ritual anyway, and then when you have done that you could come and get… her.”
There was an unspoken ‘If it works. If it’s even possible’ there.
What choice did she have though if she wanted Willow to have her first real chance at life? And what choice did she have but to protect that chance if this all worked out? She couldn’t do it and stop… if she paid the price that she had been prepared to, to Wolfram and Hart, how would she stop them from hurting Willow?
She had no choice at all. Lilah was talking about the only way.
Whether she would be with Willow or she would spend her future hiding in the shadows to avoid being seen by the woman she loved… she was going to have to be near Willow. And that was going to hurt.
Being near and not being able to have.
Because whatever happened this would
not be the Willow that she had known. It would be a Willow she had never met, anywhere but her dreams. Where she had fallen in love. With a dream…
And that was about ten times scarier to contemplate than breaking into Wolfram and Hart to destroy the files.
Tara knew it wouldn’t be that easy – just breaking in there. The firm was likely to be the easy bit. At least compared to the denizen of the underworld that was required to unlock the realms necessary to perform the ritual. That wouldn’t be one that she could take lightly. Not a vampire… not a chaos demon. Like nothing that she had ever seen. She had only heard about them in whispers. Demon scare stories for their spawn… ‘watch out or…’
The files were not it. The files were not the only places that the information would exist. There was one other location. One other thing that she had to do to make things safe.
For Willow. For herself.
Not for ‘them’ though.
That wasn’t even on the cards, Tara had accepted that everywhere but her dreams. Last night… last night she had dreamed, hunched in the chair by the window, of her lover.
The woman she loved.
Both before and after what she had done. Before and after the tears.
One other thing to do and Lilah had to know that. Lilah had told her about the ‘sweeps’ at the office. That might be why the lawyer appeared so on edge about all this. She had to be afraid of what Tara was going to have to ask her to do.
“You… I would have to…” Tara tailed off. She knew that Lilah knew… It didn’t make it easier to say and this was not what the magic was for. Never this. This was… this was a place that she should not have ever had to go.
There was no good enough reason for this. Ever. Even with the consent or the request of the person involved.
Except this one reason. Willow and her right to have a chance at her life.
“You have to make me forget Tara,” Lilah acknowledged.
“Yes. Otherwise they’ll hurt you and through you they’ll find us,” Tara told her sadly knowing the necessity. There was no point in them trying to do any of this unless it was completed through this last, desperate, action.
“Can you do it?” Lilah asked her.
“Yes,” Tara told her. The theory was there. She had the control. She had the knowledge of how to do it. But she had never actually tried it. She had never actually even tried a little ‘forget’ spell. Even when she could have used it to escape detection she had refused to go there.
It was messing with people’s heads. Not what the magic was for. Far too dark.
She watched Lilah draw a long breath and waited for the words that would inevitably follow it. Where Lilah laid it out for her. Whatever she was going to say… what could she do though? It was Willow. The real Willow.
“Then this is
my price Tara. I want you to make me forget it all. Because otherwise it will eat at me… the rejection, the loss, the fact you chose a vampire over me and one day I might just come after you myself. That’s the sort of person I am.”
Tara said nothing.
---------------
Lilah took another breath and continued. “Get rid of all that you meant to me but I never meant to you. I want it gone. I want to be the bitch that you first met again.” She knew that it was the only real way to keep from being discovered on the very next sweep at the office, but the sweep was the least of her reasons.
Look at what she was about to do, she had freely offered to do it. That was not who she had been. It was not who she could afford to be if she was going to continue making a career at Wolfram and Hart without being concerned about Tara Maclay.
Tara had changed her and she wanted, if she couldn’t have Tara, to be the person she had been before that change had occurred.
-----------------
Tara closed her eyes considered it all. She knew what Lilah meant, she knew the logic behind hiding herself and Willow like that. And she didn’t like it. To use the magic to hide them that was one thing, but to do it to change Lilah? To make her… someone else, someone bad, who might hurt people… no. That wasn’t right. But what choice did she and Willow have? Mentally she asked Willow that, but of course the container full of what was left of Willow refused to answer her. She was all alone.
I’m alone because I killed her and doing this was going to be like killing someone else. The Lilah she had come to like. Come to trust with Willow’s existence.
But she had walked in here and told Lilah that she would pay any price. She had promised herself that she would – for Willow. This was the best way to keep Willow safe.
The only way.
She had to pay the price. Just like she had said that she would. “Yes, I’ll do that,” Tara told her. She was not the only one willing to pay a price. To do anything… Lilah was there too. For different reasons. It could have been a moral dilemma, and should have been. But it was Willow.
“For me?” Lilah asked her. She sounded as if she already knew the answer.
“For Willow. She deserves… something…” Tara told her. She would do it
to Lilah. Not for her.
Lilah just nodded, perhaps a little sad. “Then I’ll start the arrangements. I can’t see you again till it is done Tara – and even then… there will have to be witnesses who see me… What you do to me.”
Tara already knew that this was going to be the last time that she would see Lilah and be able to really talk to her. There would be a few brief minutes after Willow was back and before Tara would rip the lawyers her brain apart. Then she would put it back together for her friend… just a little differently. Just as she had asked.
And she trusts me to do it for her. Just as I am trusting her with Willow. I am trusting her with my life. Lilah was probably the only person she could trust to be able to do this. In the whole world.
Willow was her life.
“Yes.”
-----------------
This was goodbye. Not only to Tara but also to the person that she had become through knowing the younger woman… even if it would take a few days yet. But Tara… she couldn’t keep seeing Tara and know that it was all going to go away. Knowing that she was going to forget – even if she had asked for that. Even the unhappy memories that she had – unhappy but as treasured as any others. She led Tara to the door. It was still raining outside the window and in fact Tara was still soaked from before and neither of them seemed to care. Tara stepped out into the hallway, still clasping what remained of her Willow to her.
“Tara?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“If…well… if there had been no Willow…” Lilah needed to know. Tara had said never, but that was in a universe in which there was a Willow maybe.
“We wouldn’t have met. But I’m glad that we did Lilah,” Tara told her.
That wasn’t what she’d meant.
“Me too Tara, but if we had…” Lilah persisted. “Would you? Could you? Would we?”
---------------
The question barely registered with Tara but she knew that she had to tell Lilah the truth – no matter what that risked. Besides it would all be gone soon. There would be nothing left of this conversation or any other that they’d had. Lilah knew that.
“I don’t think so Lilah… we’re… we’re not right for each other. I love you as a friend, but I couldn’t love you more than that… even without Willow.”
And there it was.
Without Lilah there would be no Willow. And there had never been anyone else for her but Willow. She was just lucky that this world had featured a Willow for her. Without that she would have been so lonely. Forever. She still might be.
She touched a hand to Lilah’s cheek.
This was goodbye.
No matter what had happened.
There was no one for her but Willow.
It was fate.
******************
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by the vamp nurd » Tue Aug 27, 2002 2:18 am 
.
and it's appropriate after the brilliant chapter you delivered.
but yay for Tara getting the real one 
