Hey Kittens, Part 82 is here.
Enjoy,
Katharyn
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Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – What She Wanted (Part 82)
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: Through their dreams W/T come closer – sharing.
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 yet. But you wait !
Notes: Not much to say this time.
Thanks To: All of the usual suspects.
The Sidestep Chronicle
What She Wanted
By
Katharyn Rosser
She was pinned down. She was trapped. Again. It was happening all over again. Just like it always did. They never left her alone. They never would. Nor should they.
It was never the same and never any different. Why couldn’t they just leave her alone? They had to just keep hurting her? Over and over they had to make her suffer because she had made people suffer – she had made them suffer?
Why would nobody stop them?
Because nobody could. They only came to her in the night. The days were a respite from them – then she only had to remember. Remember this… remember what she’d done. Why she deserved what was happening to her now and always would. What she had done was forever for them. It was only fair that it was for her too.
The skeletal face looked down into her own as he sat astride her on the bed. It was the Master, as she had seen him last – without his skin. The bare bones were somehow filling out the leather garments that he had always worn. She didn’t have to be guilty about doing that – he was just there to remind her what she herself had been. What she had been happy to do.
She’d supported him in terrorising a town. They’d killed so many people together and they had done it, as he would have said, ‘with a song in their hearts.’ That was who she was… who she had been. The type of thing that could do that. Enjoy it. And not just for the food or the power.
Just for the rush.
And then she had killed him too. She’d got another rush from that. She had betrayed him not because there had been the tiniest bit of good in her, but instead because that was the nature of thing that she had been – or was? She’d never been doing any of it for him – she’d been doing it because of how much she enjoyed it. The pain, the death… the fun. He never said a word in these dreams, there was nothing there anyway. There was nothing but bone for him to speak with was there? No larynx. No throat. No lungs. But it was a dream and that didn’t have to make too much sense. It wasn’t as if he would hurt her – that was left for the people that deserved to have their revenge on her. And besides his lessons had always been very final. The lessons the others were teaching her went on and on. Over and over.
One thing that she had learnt from him though was about going out after dark – and when not to do that. When not to be late. Especially when she was with…
“Why’d you hold us up that night Will?” the Master suddenly asked her, surprising her with the voice. Except that it wasn’t the Master was it. It was Xander. Xander who was the first one she had hurt – the first of so many. He’d told her that he loved her – just before they’d both died. He’d told her that after she had asked him and yet she hadn’t been able to say anything back to him. She hadn’t been able to tell him how she had felt.
Why was that? Why had she only been able to give him what he had always called the ‘brave little toaster’ smile?
It wasn't as if she hadn’t. She’ always loved him in different ways, she’d even had a crush on him for the longest time. And then she’d got him killed. Her dawdling in the chem. lab just a few minutes too late had got them caught. It had still, barely, been daytime when they had left – but no matter how they hurried they would never have been able to outrace the setting sun. Never have been able to get home fast enough to be safe. He might never have said that he loved her if they hadn’t got caught like that.
Better for him to be alive than to have said that.
She was alive and where was he? He’d had his throat ripped out just like she had. He had watched it happen to her and then it had happen to him. And he’d been brought back just like she had – that first time. And they’d gone on to do terrible things. Things that she remembered. They’d been together. A team of killers.
They had been… really, really, bad.
He was right to blame her for all of that as he pinned her down in the same position the Master had been in. It had been her fault he was caught at all.
There was a time that she had even fantasised about Xander being on top of her. It would probably never have gone anywhere, she could admit that now. Girlish dreams were just that… girlish. She felt older now. Much, much older. Reality was such a harsh teacher.
She hadn’t ever had to grow up, she’d just come back to a world that he wasn't in, knowing what had happened to him. To everyone. She’d been brought back… more than once, but always as that creature… until now. Only when she had come back as a person, as someone who could care, had she managed
to care.
So now she was alive again.
And he was dead.
Still dead. Her best friend who she had got killed. The only good thing was that he didn’t have to feel like this.
And this… all this was her growing up?
“Why’d you hold us up Will?” he asked her again.
“I just wanted to finish that experiment, we lost track of time remember? Whilst you were fooling with the frogs?” He’d always been fooling with stuff in the lab while he waited for her. She just had to make sure that he never did anything dangerous and ‘pooof!’ inducing.
“Why’d you hold us up Will?”
He’d keep asking and no answer would make any difference to him at all. She’d been here often enough already. He didn’t seem to care what she told him – and she’d tried saying different things. She totally got that though. He was dead. She would never see him ride that skateboard again… While she was alive again. Really, really alive.
So why couldn’t he come back too?
Why couldn’t she get him back? If she tried…?
If he came back then he would have to remember these things too. All the things that he’d done. What he had done to his Uncle Rory. But if she deserved to be back – and it was her fault that he had been killed and turned in the first place – then why couldn’t he come back too? As that thing she had become she was unable to even miss him, but she could miss him now… and she did. He and Jesse had been pretty much her only friends and now there was just Tara – if Tara was her friend. She wasn’t sure what was going on there just yet. It was sort of complicated.
Tara had killed her.
But that was a good thing.
She couldn’t ask for Tara’s help with bringing him back though. She knew that it wasn’t going to happen – no matter how much she wished that it could. He was the only one of those she knew of who’d become a vampire – and the only one that she knew
could be brought back but…
There were so many people that she should have brought back if she could even do that one. But he… he had been the first of them that she had been responsible for… and she hadn’t even been that monster then. She’d just been Willow and she’d got her friend killed.
Xander was gone. The cost of getting him back… if it was indeed possible… The cost that Tara had paid to get her back…
She might have liked to be ‘just’ Willow once again – but no one could give her that back. Not now. Not anymore. That girl was long gone – changed by the memories of what another Willow had done. “We’re bestest buds that ever there was, remember?” she asked Xander.
But it wasn’t Xander anymore.
After Xander it could have been any of thousands – it had been on other nights - but it wasn't this time.
This time it was the last of them. The dreams were really going for the extremes this time. The Master and now The Mayor of Sunnydale. She couldn’t want to see what else the dream had in mind for her… because it was hard to feel guilty about those two. Those two had deserved to die… it must have been the human her that was saying that… and that worried her. Who was she to say someone should die?
“Well now, this isn’t very seemly,” he said to her as she lay with her arms pinned by her sides between his legs. He picked himself up, and offered her a hand which she refused to take. He shrugged. “As you will. You know that there have to be standards, for politicians more than most.”
Willow didn’t move.
There would be someone else here in just a moment so she didn’t have to worry about him too much – him less than most. That was how the dreams went. “I see you found your way back Miss Rosenberg. Congratulations.”
“Yes,” she replied. Unless this was her mind’s idea of hell – leaving her with him for some indeterminate amount of time. Better not to wonder about that in case her psyche picked up on the idea and ran with it for a while. There were curses and there were
curses. She’d sometimes wondered in the last week if she had brought all this on herself. Well of course she had, she was guilty wasn't she? But… thinking about it. Wondering how she would ever be able to face the people that she had hurt. Had she created this, particular, nightmare for herself?
“Perhaps I should say that you were led back and I have a very good idea by whom,” he smiled and of course, being a figment of her guilty mind, he knew all that she did. “I hope that you’ll be very happy.”
And he would do. The real Mayor… he would have wished that for Tara but… “Happy?” This wasn’t usual. Usually the dreams were just there and she couldn’t do anything about them. She had to go through them so that she could wake herself up and then get some real rest. Ever diminishing rest. But then she’d never seen him in the dreams before. He was… he was different to the rest. And he just had to have his say.
“With her,” he suggested.
“I’m not with anyone.” Least of all with her. ‘Her’ was the person who she had to face, in her guilt, every single day – before she could go back to sleep and face the nightmares. Even if she tried to stop Tara seeing that – to stop herself hurting the other woman even more. It was difficult when Tara was fretting over her. When they were living in the same house.
She had hurt Tara more than anyone. She still was.
He pulled a face that suggested disappointment. “Well now that’s a shame, she did so much for you too” Was that a forked tongue that flickered between his lips as he considered that? Just the dream-her’s imagination.
“She killed me,” Willow told him. He was right though. Tara had done so much.
“Yes she did,” her mother replied. “Though I have to say that in her situation I think most young women of her age and background couldn’t be expected to put up with your antics for any longer than she did Willow.”
Wow, Mom said that without even drawing a breath. Willow just looked at her mother and she knew when the last time she had seen her was. Where it was. What state she had left her in… all to terrorise her Father. It hadn’t even been, especially, to hurt Sheila. It had been to get at Ira Rosenberg – to see how far she could push him before he snapped.
God… she’d done that too. She knew that she had… but she’d let that become just one of a million terrible nightmares that she knew were actually real. How had she been able to push that aside – why had it taken so long to come back to her? It was probably good that it had.
She’d killed her own Mom.
No…
“Yes Willow. After all you killed me,” Sheila Rosenberg inspected the place that her nail had used to be before the vampire had removed them. One by one. Alternating between hands and feet. Left and right.
Willow wanted to scream – but the scream came later. They weren’t going to let her wake up just yet. She hadn’t paid enough yet. They hadn’t had their say. “You know Willow that made me feel like something of a failure as a mother, having my own daughter kill me. Acting out is one thing, but homicide is more than just a cry for attention, Willow. Homicide is permanent. Death is permanent and I think that you just have to have a better appreciation of what you did. I can’t always be there to tell you these things.”
“No. No, its not permanent Mom,” Willow told her, but as usual her mother wasn't listening to her – she was just carrying on with all that she had to say. They’d never been close… which was why the monster had probably only used Sheila Rosenberg as a tool – rather than as an end in her own right. But the Willow who’d done that hadn’t had much interest in listening to her. Even when she’d been begging.
“What sort of daughter kills her own mother?” Sheila asked her.
A bad one. One who would have done anything just to have a little more fun. One who knew where the line was drawn and didn’t care at all.
And did the same thing to a woman who loved her… sought fun. Crossed lines.
And suddenly Willow was being pinned down again and somehow her Mother had morphed into… the Slayer was there on top of her. Was it Faith’s turn tonight? She sort of hoped so – then it would be over. The Slayer had a big axe and Sheila’s suit on. It didn’t fit her, hanging off Faith, just as much as the Slayer’s head hung to one side where the monster had snapped it. There was no support there.
“You know I might have forgiven you for your ma and all – I never had much luck with mine either,” Faith said rocking backwards and forwards above her – restless and twitchy. The Slayer needed to be doing something – she was like the monster. More like her than she knew – perhaps that was a part of why that Willow had hated her so much. That and the friendship that kept the Kitty out so long. Both of those and being the Slayer.
Oh and Faith was good of course.
But always moving. Every time the Slayer rocked her head countered the motion, controlled by gravity rather than muscle, cartilage and bone. And there was a sound… like bone rubbing together.
A horrible sound.
“Really?” Willow asked. What was this? Understanding from someone she had killed? Someone, like all the others, that she had enjoyed killing at the time. The only one that had pained her at all was Xander… and she had been dying herself when that happened. She was suffering the pain now though – the guilt.
“Apart from the whole, ‘being a vampire’ thing. That, you know, I have a few issues with that. They’re my issues though – not yours. Sort of like it’s my head hanging like this. You’re all sideways round you know?” Faith didn’t sound happy. Would she be the one this time? Would she be the one that would deliver a taste of what Willow had been dishing out to others this time round?
Other nights, other dreams there were other people that she didn’t really remember that wanted to hurt her. There had been so many that they could go on forever before they all got their turn. And they did take it in turns to do that to her. They got to say their piece and then another time they got to make her suffer like she had made them suffer.
Except it was always easier on her than she had been on them.
That was the way that it happened though. That was the way that it had to be in her head. That was what she had wondered about – facing all the dead people and looking into their eyes before they took their revenge on her. And here they were doing it. She’d created this dream because she needed it. She needed them to have their chance – because the only chance that she had ever given any of them was a chance to run and be chased. For her fun.
She looked up into blue eyes and Faith wasn’t there any more. Someone who wasn't dead was there instead. The only person she had directly hurt without killing.
No. There was just one other person like that.
But here the blonde haired woman was, on top of her. Was she going to act it out again – that act that had started all of this off? This specific dream was based on what the blonde had done. There was a stake in her hand… just like the one that had ended the existence of that bad Willow not so long ago. The act that had brought her back here to suffer for that one’s crime. It was easy, in the dream, to think that Tara wanted her to be feeling guilty and that was why she was here now.
To feel that was the reason she was back. To feel the guilt, because that other Willow couldn’t. So she had to do it. It was easy to feel that it wasn't fair. Maybe it wasn’t, but it was just. And in a moment or two, would Tara slip that stake into her? To deliver this nights justice?
It hadn’t been Tara’s turn before and now it looked like it was. That was fair… everyone deserved a turn at killing her.
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How long could she leave Willow like this? Nothing that she had been doing was really helping her. No matter how much space she gave Willow or how attentive to her she was during the days – and she had tried it both ways - every night she had to lie awake and listen to Willow. Having the dreams – nightmares maybe. She could hear them. She could often, if she left her bedroom door open, hear one side of a conversation that Willow was having in her own head.
Tara could imagine the other side of those conversations. They weren’t that hard to figure out.
The dreams had started out after Tara had moved Willow into what had used to be her parent’s bedroom. That had taken a few days to get ready though. She’d had to, like the rest of the house, clean the room up and moved some of her mommy and daddy’s stuff out - then she’d been able to give it to her guest. It hadn’t even bothered her to have to move those things out of there. There was someone who needed the room now and she wasn't going to put Willow in Donny’s room now was she? Mom and Dad would have understood, Donny would never have got it. That was who he was…. Who he had been. Besides it was the nicest room in the house and Willow had seemed to like it too.
When she was awake.
‘Like it’ meaning that she had showed some, small, response to it. She’d been through the formalities and said that it was ‘nice.’ It was still the most enthusiasm that Tara could remember Willow showing for anything. Food, clothes… Tara. Anything at all.
That had been two weeks ago, a couple of days after Willow had remembered who she was. Some of what she’d done. The guilt that went with it. Those feelings had started to come back and it had seemed like a good thing that they were - then. But… there were more and more coming back and they seemed to be sucking Willow under. During the day Tara tried to keep them both busy, but at night there was nothing she could do. In her sleep Willow was being haunted by the ghosts.
Not that she ever said anything about it. Not that Willow ever complained. About anything – even when Tara gave her food that she didn’t like and they were feeling their way with that one. But Willow wasn't really getting any better – she wasn't coping better with it all after that first, initial, improvement. Willow knew things now, she wasn’t so confused, but it was like every night – after every final scream of anguish that must have woke the haunted woman up - and preceded a few hours dreamless sleep, Willow was dying a little more inside. Willow could feel the guilt and it was eating her up.
And the amount of sleep she was getting… was getting less. She hadn’t noticed it for the first week, but then she had realised… the dreams were lasting longer. The quiet time was so much shorter. As if there were more dreams to be fitted in.
Tara didn’t expect Willow to recover straight away. She didn’t think it was going to be quick or easy at all. She knew that it was going to take Willow a long time just to get used to the idea of what that other Willow had done – Tara could compare that to her own blossoming guilt – but the way it was going… It worried her.
They were living in the same house and during the day they were civil with each other but that was really it… and Tara was really trying with her – trying to get to know Willow. Trying to be the person that she thought Willow might need her to be at a time like this. Her friend. Her support. Willow just wasn’t interested. It wasn't that she was just not interested in Tara, it was that Willow couldn’t find the tiniest enthusiasm for anything much. She pushed food around her plate as if she expected it to leap up and bite her nose. When Tara had suggested that to Willow a few days ago it hadn’t even raised a smile.
She was starting to wonder if Willow needed a doctor… or some sleeping pills. Something that might help her. None of the spells that she knew to make people sleep would stop dreams. From what little she knew they might even promote them and that would be even worse. The dreams were eating Willow up. Tara knew about having bad dreams… but Willow’s seemed to be getting worse rather than better. And they were getting longer.
The worse the dreams the night before, the worse Willow seemed to be in the morning. It wasn't scientific but Tara knew that there was a link.
Some days she barely got a word out of Willow without really pushing her for it. Tara was all for giving her space, but wasn't there a point where she had to try to do something about it? Wasn't there a point where she had to try and help Willow a little more than she was doing? A point where she had to admit that what she was doing, what she had thought was for the best, just wasn't working.
Yes there was.
She had, lying and listening to Willow for over an hour now, reached that point and this time she
was going to so something about it. The only thing that was left to her, at least if she was going to help Willow stay here. She had to because she couldn’t bear the sound of Willow in pain anymore – without trying to help her. Worse than that she couldn’t bear the way the other woman was slipping away from her. From the world. It wasn't like dying or anything, just getting more distant – instead of closer. Or even staying where she was.
She hated to compare this living, breathing woman to the monster she had known… but sometimes that other Willow seemed more alive than this, the real one. By the goddess that was an awful thing to thing.
For a little while things had looked better – after that first improvement when Willow had remembered her name. But maybe Tara had been deluding herself about that improvement. Wanting to see it and finding any clue that she could latch onto – like just not being unconscious. Maybe she’d been comparing that Willow to the one that she had known before in a different way – blinded by the fact that she was alive now. Warm. Human. Even if those ‘clues’ had been realistic indicators then Willow hadn’t continued that progress she had made in the first few days.
It was like she had gone a little way up the mountain and then she had started to go down again… maybe it was that the path was just too steep for her. Even if she was there to help Willow up. Maybe it was because Willow wasn’t accepting the help that she was offering. She was shying away from it more than a little.
Tara couldn’t push Willow up the mountain, if she didn’t want to go there. Maybe it was time to pull her up there instead and to try and take an easier path at the same time. Tara had the same mountain to climb. She was just a little further ahead of Willow. She’d not had to come back from the dead or anything… and she had a thousand times less lives on her conscience. At least not directly on her conscience… even if she had let the vampire carry on doing what she had been doing.
The few that she had were enough for her to worry about.
One more word from Willow, and it was a begging ‘please’, was more than enough to make her want to run to her parents room. She got out of her bed, shivering a little in cool air after the snugness of being under the covers. Autumn was coming to a close and winter was really wanting to start to settle in. She just hoped that the snows weren’t going to be too bad this year. It would be one more complication that they could well do without. At least unless she could get someone to get the truck running – but that was going to take parts and cash that she couldn’t afford to spend right now.
She went through to Willow’s room. It was too cold to creep and besides, she was going there to wake Willow up and get her out of that dream she was caught up in. From what little Willow had said to her about them, when Tara had really tried to get some answers out of her, it seemed that Willow usually frightened herself out of the dream. That was usually when the last shout, the scream sometimes, came. After that she was okay – for the rest of the night at least. After that she was probably so tired that she could have a brief, dreamless, sleep. It was all that seemed to keep her going. That second sleep.
It was just that the dreams were getting longer and the real sleep was getting less and less. For Tara too. She could rarely manage to stay asleep while Willow was suffering like that. She’d been lying there, fully awake, for two weeks now. She was frazzled herself. Even when she’d been hunting vampires, sleeping on the floor of an abandoned factory, she’d got more sleep than she was getting now. She’d been able to take one night off every so often. Shivering maybe, but able to sleep.
And Willow didn’t nap during the day either. She stayed up and she cleaned. Or she tried her hand at chopping wood – though there was a knack to that which Willow just hadn’t got. She was always doing something around the place anyway. Willow had even done something about the bloodstain in the barn. It must have been Willow. There was no one else that could have. They barely talked, but Tara had just been glad that Willow was staying busy, seeming to take an interest in other things. Not just lying around and looking inward.
Tara had never had to ask her. Willow had always just… done things.
Then it had struck her that Willow was
just trying to stay busy – that was all it seemed to be. Maybe trying to tire herself out – and that didn’t take too much. Tara had come to think that Willow was trying to stop herself from having to remember during the day and trying to make herself sleep at night. A psychologist might have told Willow to face the guilt, embrace it. To deal with her pain.
No psychologist had ever had a patient with as much guilt and pain inside them as Willow must have. Tara knew that she was a sensitive young woman – she could see how much Willow
felt. How could what she had brought back with her not have hurt her badly?
Which was all why Tara had tried, at first, leaving Willow alone – giving her the space. Too much space it now seemed. She opened the door to what had been her parent’s bedroom, which as ever squeaked on the hinges, but Willow didn’t wake up. She wouldn’t have heard it over her own voice anyway – not the way that she was talking in her sleep. Shouting. Whimpering.
Leaving Willow alone like that, giving her the space because she hadn’t known what else to do had ripped her heart out. Again. And Willow had wanted to be alone. It wasn’t Tara’s own indecisiveness that led her to that – it had been a very considered decision indeed. One that she had agonised about while she was listening to this sort of thing. To give Willow what she wanted. She shouldn’t have done that.
“Willow,” she said.
Nothing. No effect on whatever was happening in that head.
She had been wrong about that – the space thing. There was no way that things were just going to ‘sort themselves out.’ Things like that didn’t except in the movies. Willow needed her help and now it was time to give that help. And if Willow didn’t want it… then she was going to give it to her anyway.
She went over to the big bed and looked down at Willow as the sleeping woman murmured, spoke and occasionally shouted. “Willow,” she said again. Louder this time.
Still nothing.
Tara wasn't just going to stand there, shouting at Willow until she woke up. That would make her seem, when Willow surfaced from the dream, like she was angry or something. And she wasn't, not with Willow anyway. She was angry with herself for letting this go on for so long. It hadn’t helped at all. It might even have made things worse.
The small woman was dwarfed in the big bed, the duvet barely covering her at all as Willow had thrashed herself free of its restrictions and warming. The bed was mostly empty – and Tara had given her too altogether too much space. Left the space around her too empty. That had been stupid.
What had she been thinking? She knew what she’d been thinking… she’d been looking back at the ‘space’ that she had been given when she’d lost her family. The only thing was that when her family had died no one had cared enough to help her get through it. Look what had happened… more than four years later she had just started to get over that.
If that space had been
right for her, rather than no one caring, then maybe she could have left Willow alone now… but it hadn’t been right.
Space wasn't going to fix things. Space had given Willow time to think and thinking about the sort of things that were haunting her was definitely not helping at all. It led to the nightmares and that led to her not sleeping and that made her feel worse. The whole thing was… it was just wrong.
So instead of waking Willow up like that she pulled the covers back over her and then went around the bed. This has been Daddy’s side and she’d used to get in that same side when she had been very small and wanted to sleep with her Mommy. There had been something comforting about being there, under the big thick covers, all snugly with someone who loved her. Maybe that would work for Willow too – with less of the snugly, obviously. Willow was facing away from her and Tara just placed a hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her as she said the other woman’s name. Telling her that it was okay but wanting her to wake all the same. She had to get out of the dream.
Out of the nightmares.
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Tara had hold of her shoulder, shaking her even as she lined up the stake at her chest. She was still pinned beneath the woman who had killed her once before. Tara was telling her that it was okay though. “It’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. I’m here.”
Willow could see her – so of course she knew that she was there. She could see the stake too. Even if she hadn’t been able to see it she could feel it pricking at her bare chest. And it
was suddenly bare. Just like it had been the last time Tara had staked her.
Killed her.
Put her to death for her crimes.
As she should have done… so much sooner than she had. In the dreams… in the real world. Sooner would have meant that it wouldn’t have hurt so much and she wanted the pain, the guilt… she wished that it could have been less.
“I’m sorry…” Tara was saying. Willow remembered that too. That was what Tara had said right before she had done this the last time – the first time. Was she always going to be saying that? She tensed, preparing herself for the black nothing to claim her. There would be a brief shooting pain – then nothing. It was all that she deserved after everything. After all the people that had suffered at the hands of someone that was called Willow. They had been her hands. And she remembered it, seeing what her hands had done. She recognised the hands in her memory.
And that made her guilty.
Just because she wasn’t dead like the others didn’t mean that Tara didn’t have as much right as anyone else to inflict a little of her own justice. She might not have killed Tara – but she’d… she
had hurt her. She’d enjoyed hurting her. Playing with the feelings that she knew that Tara had for her. Tara had a perfect right to be there, atop her, now. Just like last time. Willow knew that she’d hurt Tara for longer than she had hurt anyone else. Even her father. And there had been hands there too with Tara.
But it wasn’t Tara anymore that was above her. The clothes were still Tara’s but the hand holding the stake was much paler. The lips that smiled at the prospect of another kill were much redder. The hand that wandered over her still naked body was…
It was her own. Hands… always with the hands. And tongue… lets not forgte the licking.
Willow atop Willow. Skanky, evil and kind of gay. A Willow had done it all and she had as good as destroyed herself in the process. That made nothing right, but it was fitting that she got her own turn with herself. She pretty much hated herself right now. The only person who she hadn’t killed was…
Tara… and where had she gone? Tara had left her to the other Willow. The Willow that she had known before.
“Bored now,” that other her said. Except it wasn’t the other. It was just her. She remembered it so it had to have been her. She was going to stake herself and just because she wasn’t a vampire wasn’t going to make her any less dead. At least until tomorrow night.
Except this time, after all the other times this had already happened, she didn’t feel that point scrape her ribs before finding her heart. Because this time there was a hand on that paler Willow’s bare shoulder. It was jerking her back, spinning that Willow off from the top of her. The stake went flying but it made no sound when it hit the floor. There wasn’t even a floor.
There was another stake though. It was… it was in her saviour’s hand and that other Willow, with a single word, was gone. Not even dusted. Just gone as Tara jabbed the stake into her chest.
The other her was gone and then there was just Tara with her. Tara saying her name again and again. “Willow, Willow.” A softer tone than she deserved. Even the shaking was gentle. Insistent but gentle.
It was like Tara wanted something from her – and where had all the others gone? Why was it dark in here all of a sudden?
Oh… she was awake. It wasn't much better. She still felt exactly the same way.
“Willow?” Tara said to her. She must have sensed the change and realised that she had finally left the nightmare place to come back to the real world. A world where she could think about the nightmares she’d had and the ones that were still to come.
The next night.
The next wonderful night.
And if she didn’t get some sleep she didn’t know what she would do. She was so tired.
“You were shouting,” Tara told her. So nothing new there – what had brought Tara to her this time and not any other time? “You were saying things…”
“I’m sorry I woke you,” Willow told her quickly, and she was. She knew that Tara was trying her best for her. It was just that it wasn’t really good enough. Nobody’s best was going to be good enough. Sometimes she wished that the owner of the house would just leave her alone to her thoughts and her nightmares.
Sometimes she wished that she wouldn’t. Tara was a tie to the past that she dreaded. She had known that other Willow that she had been. And that other Willow had known her. None of it seemed as if it could be good as far as being here with Tara was concerned. What she had done to Tara… That was why she didn’t want to talk about any of it. She didn’t want Tara to tell her how much she had been hurt. And it seemed inevitable that they would get to that… to how Tara had felt. How she still felt.
At least, here in the real world, there was no one apart from Tara to tell her that sort of thing. She’d killed them all… all but one other. They could only see her in her dreams.
And there was the fact that Tara had killed her. Which was something that she could accept right now. What she couldn’t accept was the seeming cruelty of bringing her back. Again. Human this time and feeling all of it. Feeling everything she had done deep down inside… rising up her throat like vomit.
Memories came back to her more slowly. Usually through the dreams. There had been the initial terrible stampede that had caused her to pass out. And she had thought that was as bad as it was going to get. But those memories… those were just the tip of a very big iceberg – she could sense it all lurking just out of sight.
“No… no,” Tara said. “No… it’s not that. I-I just wanted to see if you were okay. Are you okay?”
Pretty far from okay. So far that okay was a far off land that she could only reach on foot and she wasn't even sure where it was. “I’m fine… just bad dreams you know?”
She couldn’t see Tara who was behind her and she didn’t want to turn around. She didn’t want Tara to look at her and see just how un-okay she really was. She didn’t want Tara to see the tears. She wanted Tara to go away so that she could get to sleep. She needed to sleep. She was so damn tired. The dreams sucked energy from her and they gave nothing back. She got no rest because of them – and she was way past desperate. Wouldn’t Tara just go away?
“Do you always get in bed with girls to find out if they’re okay?” she asked Tara intending to just try to force her to leave. But as soon as she said the words she knew that they had been needlessly cruel. It was the tired speaking. Tara had been nothing but kind to her since they had got here – even if she had killed her. What… Why had she said that to Tara? She knew Tara… she knew how that was going to hurt her and that wasn’t something she wanted even if the monster would have done. She knew how that was going to make her feel. That was the sort of thing that the other Willow might have said.
Was that other one still there inside her?
Or was it just because she was so desperate to sleep and didn’t want to talk now? That she just wanted Tara to go. It didn’t matter. She shouldn’t have said that.
Tara would be embarrassed by the implications for her preferences, which wasn’t something Willow ever wanted to inflict on anyone. Tara would think that was how they, and she, appeared to the woman who had been asleep. She’d practically told Tara that she thought that she was going to jump her bones in exchange, perhaps, for being taken care of.
Which she knew that Tara was never going to do. Willow knew that and thanked the other woman for it. Tara had been strenuously avoiding situations that might have become in the tiniest bit intimate – because she knew that Willow knew about the other Willow. The vampire – and what had happened between them. She doubted that Tara realised just what she knew though – how much. What she remembered of those nights and days. Beds… showers… couches… floors. Of everything that had happened. Tara thought that she just
felt guilty. How could she ever tell the other woman that she
knew that she was guilty? Because she was getting to know
exactly what she had done. What she had been. What she was?
Just feeling it would have been a blessed relief in the circumstances.
But she couldn’t share that with Tara, because if she did then Tara would have to know that she knew
exactly what they, Tara and that Willow, had shared – such as it had been. How she remembered enjoying the physical acts as well as the mental games. Tortures really… The things that she had done… to a woman who had loved her. She couldn’t embarrass Tara by letting her know that she knew her body… inside and out.
That should have been gone now and it should have been all a part of that other Willow. Was there a difference between the desire to kill and the desire for Tara? Not to that Willow there hadn’t been. It was all something that she had enjoyed and it hadn’t felt much different to her – the killing and the sex.
There was just the pleasure.
And, oh god, she had stayed silent for long seconds, thinking. Silent after she had said that awful thing to Tara – Tara who had let her shoulder go and was already moving away. Probably to get out from under her covers. “I’m sorry,” Tara told her obviously leaving.
She remembered those words from her nightmares… she remembered them from when Tara had killed her. She knew that Tara meant them now as much as she had then. She really was sorry – and once again, was there anything to be sorry for?
“No Tara…
I’m sorry. I’m just – just…”
Tara had not come back to touch her shoulder again, but she hadn’t got out of the bed either. She had stopped before Willow had finished saying ‘No.’ And that had taken no time at all.
“I know. I’m ‘just’ too. And I-I
am sorry. I left you alone when I shouldn’t have. I’m not going to do that anymore,” Tara told her.
Willow didn’t ask what Tara meant by that last part, but she figured that she would find out soon enough anyway. She was too tired now to stay up and talk to Tara and that wasn’t what Tara would want anyway.
“I just need… I have to sleep, Tara.”
“I know. You sleep… I’ll be here, you know, when you wake up. Then I’ll go.”
“And when I’m dreaming? Will you be there then?” Willow asked her – even though she didn’t expect any more of those nightmares tonight. Tara, this Tara or the Tara in her dreams had changed things. She had stopped the seemingly inevitable conclusion of the dream. She was safe, with Tara here, for the rest of the night at least.
“Then too.”
-----------------------
Tara lay quietly on the opposite side of the bed to Willow. She might, if Willow had not said what she had, have reached out and stroked that red hair until the other woman had slipped into a calmer sleep. But after what Willow had said… she couldn’t. Even after she had explained why she’d said it. That she hadn’t meant it.
It… had hurt her for those few seconds. When Willow had said that she’d felt as if the other woman just thought that she was doing this because she wanted something from her. More than something –
that. She would have loved something from Willow… later. Much, much, later. Something freely given and never asked for. But the thought of being ‘owed…’ No. Never that.
It hadn’t taken her more than those few seconds to realise that Willow had just been trying to get her to go away, so that she could have the space that she’d always had. So that she could try to go to sleep. Perhaps Willow had not wanted to talk either – even though that was not why Tara had gone to her.
But she wasn’t giving Willow space anymore. Space was what had gone wrong before. Now she had to be there for her. More than just there, she needed to be active. Pulling Willow up the mountain.
--------------------
Nothing was different, but things had definitely changed.
There was a dim light outside the window when Willow woke again. At least a few hours had passed then. Better than had become the usual in the last few days. But… she felt refreshed for once. Lighter… without the weight hanging around her neck. She wasn’t waking up tired, even though her sleep had been interrupted. She still had her back to Tara but she knew that the other woman was still there on the other side of the bed. She could feel the heat, the dip of the mattress. The hand that was against her back. She could hear Tara too.
And it sounded as if it was Tara that was dreaming now, making noises in
her sleep. Noises that didn’t sound too good. Noises that said that the dream was not a happy one. Tara should have happy dreams – she deserved them after everything. There was really no other happiness for her at the moment and Willow knew that she wasn't making that any better with her own misery.
It made her feel guilty for feeling the guilt. Guilt that was hurting Tara who she had already hurt so much. And owed so much to.
She had killed Tara’s friend.
She had wanted to kill Tara – or rather wanted to bring that woman into damnation with her. Sick. Sick. Sick B-I-T-C-H that she had been. And that… that was putting it mildly.
She’d played with Tara’s feelings like she had toyed with Miss Kitty Fantastico – the little kitten she had taken to Tara. As a snack. See… Tara had even lost the cat – after all she was wasn’t here with them. Willow didn’t know where she was, Tara hadn’t mentioned Miss Kitty. All because of her.
Why would Tara have nice dreams?
Tara had come to her during the night and she’d pulled her out of the nightmare… just as she had ended the nightmare that the other Willow had really been. And Willow knew that she hadn’t done anything to thank her – other than to insinuate that it was all some ploy to get into her bed. Into more than that by implication. Oh that was bad. Really, really bad.
How cruel? How heartless? A dead thing could have been more appreciative than that. And so Tara hadn’t felt that she could or should hold her last night. It might have been… nice. Willow was willing to bet that the touch, on her back, was a result of sleep and not intention. Instead Tara had just been there for her, if she’d been needed, and the dreams had faded accordingly. Tara had helped in and out of the nightmares.
She couldn’t do any less now could she?
She rolled over and across the bed towards where Tara lay on her back, her head moving and little sounds emerging from her open mouth. Next to her Willow wondered just for a moment what she should do. She had no way to know – she’d never had to comfort someone having a nightmare before. The only model that she had was Tara and what she’d wanted, needed, her to do for her in those times.
What she had never asked for.
All these days Tara had been reaching out to her and she had been metaphorically slapping that hand away for fear of getting too close and hurting Tara more. She’d been hurting Tara by making the troubled woman watch her pain without being able to help her – even when she tried to. Wanted to. Over and over.
And she had totally ignored Tara’s own pains.
So, with Tara’s actions as her guide, she placed her hand on Tara’s cheek and teased the face round towards her. The mouth closed and the sounds ceased almost immediately. Willow wondered if she was in Tara’s dream right now – as Tara had been in hers. A smile even crossed those lips. What was this woman dreaming?
She wasn’t going to wake Tara up though. She was going to go back to sleep when she was sure that Tara was through it safely. She was going to go to sleep with her arm draped across Tara. Some contact between them. That was all that she’d needed or wanted, to be just a little better. She hoped that it would be enough for Tara too. Maybe not what she was used to… but then the monster had never comforted her.
What she knew was that they could help each other. It was a two way street.
Willow had a better idea, perhaps, of what was wrong with Tara than Tara had about her own problems. That was because she’d inflicted so many of them. Whilst Tara hadn’t figured out the extent of what was wrong with Willow – at least she didn’t think so. From what she’d said it seemed that she intended to figure it out. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
And maybe… maybe it was time to accept the help that Tara offered. Maybe she should stop being afraid of hurting or embarrassing Tara and instead they could just help each other. If she could hurt Tara it was only because there was already some pain there. Willow wanted to make all of that go away.
Tara had always had a purpose, as long as Willow had known her. Now, she realised,
she was that purpose. And that was what was helping Tara deal with her own pain that much better than she was. Willow thought that it could help her too, to have that focus that wasn't her own nightmares.
Once she’d been very focused, rather than fixated as the vampire had been. Why hadn’t she got that back? Maybe it was a lack of sleep… or maybe it was that she hadn’t been looking in the right place. She just needed to focus on getting herself better – and then she could help Tara.
The woman to whom she owed everything. Her very existence.
And her existence didn’t have to be a curse.
It could be a chance.
Maybe.
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by Cicca » Thu Sep 12, 2002 11:47 pm 
at: 9/13/02 4:11:53 am
great chapter! wouldn't expect anything less from you 
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