This is a continuation of a story started in a thread called “After Willow Brings Word to Angel in LA”, about 5 pages back. (Last post around June 15.) Started as a two-page reflection and has burgeoned into a novella.
My apologies to any and all who were left hanging. Perfectionist (lunatic) that i am, i didn’t like the last section i wrote (Part 4) so i went back and rewrote it, which is why i am re-posting it with the following new developments. (Part 5) The rewrite's only a couple pages long, so...
Standard disclaimers, etc, you know the drill. Not worried about ratings, no 4 letter words that every 3rd grader hasn’t heard, no sex (YET! Hehe) Spoilers: takes place after “the Gift.”
Note: because i'm too lazy to UBB code all the normally italicized parts (internal dialog), they're in single quotes.
A recap, or What Has Gone Before:
Part One
This story follows the events depicted in the first installment of Rane's Post Finale, after Willow (and Tara) came to tell Angel about Buffy's untimely demise.
Okay, Angel bails, W&T retire, Cordy splits and Fred has popcorn for the first time in 5 years. I think that's everything. Oh yeah, after Willow falls asleep Tara comes down and asks Wesley to hold off telling Faith the news because they have a Secret Plan to get the only living Slayer out of jail. But he says he's already talked to her and that he last saw her tearing up the visitor's area of the prison. Of course she chooses that minute to show up, having just broken out of jail.
Part Two
Meanwhile, a deeply distraught Angel has gone for a walk on the wild side and decides that eating a couple of criminals probably won't ruin his diet. Unfortunately, he taps a couple of junkies who are very high on a variety of illicit substances and, presto change-o, hello Angelus. He was last seen converting creepy new best bud Billy Tobin to the un-dead.
Part Three
Back at the hoe-down, Wesley wigs at Faith’s arrival, Gunn asks more questions and Tara commiserates with a distressed Slayer who blames herself for not being there for the Buffster. Overcome with gratitude, the impulsive young Slayer kisses Tara just as Willow walks in.
* * * *
Part Four (re-written)
"Willow! What are you doing out of bed?" The words tumbled out as Tara felt her face grow hot.
"Oh god, no." Faith moaned, shrinking into the corner of the couch.
Tara felt terrible about doing anything to upset Willow. "Sweetie, we were just, you know...talking."
Willow didn't respond, just slowly raised her arms, drawing in energy for a powerful spell. Power began to roll off her in waves, causing the air around her to shimmer. She moved stiffly, strangely, as if she were a puppet controlled by invisible strings. Tara tried to move but the forces Willow called kept her pinned to the couch. She couldn't raise her voice above a whisper.
Willow’s eyes were glazed obsidian and an otherworldly wind whipped the hem of her nightgown around her legs, lifted wisps of red hair. She raised her right hand, a glowing spot of energy pulsing in her palm.
"I conjure thee, by Barrabas, by Satanas, by the Saracen Queen..."
The crackling ball of energy throbbed and grew, an fiery red orb shot through with twisting, branching fractures like black lightning.
Tara gasped in alarm. She knew what that was, and what would happen if the spell was completed. She closed her eyes and quickly whispered a spell of her own:
"By force of heart, my will decree,
As Diana's arrow, set me free.
She launched herself off the couch, shouting, "Willow, NO!" and clapped her hand over the growing ball of hellfire. It detonated with a sound like a thunderclap as the spell collapsed, knocking both witches to the floor, unconscious.
The smell of brimstone hung in the air along with eerie wisps of smoke that twisted and twined strangely as they slowly dissipated.
* * * * Willow and Tara lay crumpled on the floor. Faith put her hands to her mouth and just stared, horrified. 'This is all my fault,' she told herself. 'I don’t deserve to live; everywhere I go people get hurt.'
Gunn switched on the big overhead chandelier, flooding the darkened end of the lobby with light. He ran over to check on Tara, lying on the floor behind Willow. Willow coughed and raised her head groggily.
"What- what happened?" Her eyes narrowed with suspicion, not exactly happy to see Faith. "What are you doing here? What am I doing here?"
Faith stared bleakly past Willow. "Is she dead? It's all my fault." She hung her head, tears rolling down. "God, I'm so sorry. I didn't come here to hurt anybody."
"What are you talking about?" Gunn held a finger to the side of Tara’s throat. "She ain't dead, just knocked out. Fainted or something."
"What? Tara-" Willow looked around, panicked, found Gunn holding Tara. She gasped and grabbed for her lover, tugging her limp body into her lap. “Tara, are alright?’
"Oh thank god are you sure?" Faith knelt next to Willow and reached for Tara's hand. Willow shot her a warning look.
Willow cupped her girlfriend's face in her hands. "Tara. Tara, baby, wake up." She shook her gently, bent close to listen to her breathing, heard her make a sound. "Help me get her on the couch."
Gunn bent to lift Tara, but Faith beat him to it, lifting her effortlessly and setting her gently on the couch. She glanced at Willow, then backed away from her angry glare.
Tara gasped, then gasped again. Willow grabbed her shoulders. "She's having some kind of attack!" she cried.
Tara gasped a third time then sneezed explosively. "O-oh," she moaned, wincing and holding her head. "My head hurts." She wrinkled her nose. "What's that smell?" An acrid, sulphurous odor like overheated metal and burnt gunpowder still hung in the air.
Willow pulled a handful of tissues from the pocket of her robe. "Baby, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I think, just...dizzy."
"Somebody get her a glass of water, please?” She looked at Gun and Wesley, but Faith jumped up and ran to the kitchen. Willow looked after her, frowning. The total change of attitude from the Faith she knew was jarring. She had promised Giles she’d give Faith a chance, but she was reluctant to trust her. Just in case she’d memorized a few spells that should be more than adequate to deal with the supposedly-reformed rogue Slayer.
Willow sat down on the couch with Tara's head on her lap. "You sure you're okay, hon?"
Tara raised her right hand and twisted it back and forth. "My arm feels kind of tingly. But yeah, just a little spacey."
“Would someone please tell me what’s Faith doing here? And how’d I get down here?”
“She just showed up on her own a little while ago. Apparently she broke out of jail.” Wesley didn’t sound to happy about it. “She does seem...sincere in her contrition, though she’s as impulsive as ever.”
Faith returned with water and a damp towel which she folded carefully and moved to place on Tara's forehead. She caught herself and handed the towel to Willow.
"So is somebody going to tell me what happened?"
"You don't remember?" Gunn asked.
"All I remember is going to sleep upstairs and waking up here on the floor. I don't know what happened to me. Or to Tara, either."
In a small voice Faith said, "We were sitting on the couch. Me and Tara. She made me feel better. She was really nice to me..." She looked down at her lap where she was twisting her hands together, worried and uncomfortable.
"She was nice to you and what? You decided to knock her out?"
"No! God no, Willow, I was grateful so I...I kissed her."
"Kissed her? You kissed Tara?" Incredulous, she looked down, but Tara had pulled the towel down over her eyes.
"I didn't mean anything, I swear. I mean, she's cute, but I wasn't coming on to her or anything. She just- she was so sweet and it made me think of- of someone else, and I just got carried away."
"Tara?" Willow looked at her for a response but she had pulled the towel completely over her face. "Tara talk to me." Her only response was an exaggerated fake snore.
"Tara-" More insistent, this time. Tara's belly bounced up and down with silent giggles and she pretend-snored again.
"Tara please-" Trying not to laugh, she lifted the towel but Tara grabbed the other end, starting a mini tug-of-war, giggling out loud. Willow lost it and started laughing, too. In a minute both girls were hugging and giggling as Wesley and Gunn looked on, baffled. Faith stood at the end of the couch, looking mortified.
Finally Tara picked up the story: "It was strange, you looked like you were sleepwalking. You said my name, but not like you knew where we were or anything. Then you looked at Faith and started the incantation. At first I didn't know what it was."
Tara described the ball of energy, and how she'd stopped the spell before it was complete.
"It sounded like some kind of magic cherry bomb," Gunn suggested.
"That was no harmless firecracker, I'm afraid." Wesley leaned forward, his voice low. "What you summoned was nothing less than Hellfire, if I'm not mistaken."
"Hellfire? But- I don't even know how. I mean, yeah, okay, I read the incantation, which witch wouldn't? But I don't have that kind of power. And I would never use it on a person." She cast a dark glance at Faith. "No matter who."
"I keep telling you, honey, you have more power than you think. The spell was almost complete when I broke it."
Willow was terrified at the idea that she could cast such a destructive spell without even knowing it. "But why? I don't understand. Why would I cast such a dangerous spell?
I mean, I'm not really a Hellfire kind of girl, you know? I'm more the cozy fireplace-fire type or a friendly little campfire-fire type, with marshmallows and scary stories but not too scary cause they give me bad dreams about bad things but even in a bad dream I've never dreamed about doing anything like..."
“Shh, darling, it’s okay.” Tara placed her finger over Willow’s lips to stop her babbling. “It didn’t hurt anyone.” She put her arm around Willow’s shoulders and gave her a reassuring hug. “We should go upstairs. Maybe you just need to get some more sleep.”
Wesley nodded. "We're lucky Tara was here. Hellfire doesn't just turn its victim into a human torch. They invariably go berserk, igniting everything they touch, including other people, who in turn ignite everything they touch." He realized that everyone in the room was staring at him in horrified amazement.
He stuck his hands in his pockets and, looking smug, went into lecture mode. "Surely you're all familiar with the burning of Nero’s Rome in 64 C. E., or the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, or the San Francisco Fire in ought-six? These are but a few of the accounts of the 'flamma elementum' in Hume's Paranormal Encyclopaedia-"
"But Wes," Gunn broke in, "I thought it was an earthquake that destroyed San Francisco."
"Ah, yes. Well, as those of us who've dwelt for any length of time in Sunnydale can attest, earthquakes are often associated with otherworldly occurrences and the release of the most dangerous of demonic forces."
Gunn frowned skeptically. "You sure that ain't just coincidence? I mean, earthquakes are pretty common around here. We had one just a couple days ago."
"When you've studied these matters as long as I have, you come to realize there's no such thing as a...ha-ha," he chuckled nervously as a large truck rumbled by outside, "...a coincidence in these matters."
Then they heard it again, a deep vibration pitched so low they heard it more in their bellies than their ears. It was no truck. They looked at each other in wide-eyed alarm as the marble flooring beneath their feet begin to tremble like Jell-O. The low rumble quickly grew to a bone-shaking roar.
"Earthquake!" screamed Tara, wrapping her arms protectively around Willow. No one noticed that the red-haired witch’s eyes had again gone opaque.
Faith headed for the door then stopped, realizing no one was following. She crouched like a surfer on the curl of a wave, shifting her weight as the floor shuddered beneath her. Gunn and Wesley tumbled to the floor as chunks of plaster begin to rain down. Willow and Tara were tossed off the couch and wrapped their arms around each other, holding on for dear life.
Glittering glass prisms and beads began to fall from the chandelier high overhead like deadly crystal raindrops, exploding into shards as they hit the floor. Faith glanced up to see it swinging wildly, one side of the mounting rosette already broken loose. There was no way to get everyone clear. Vaulting over them she grabbed the couch, holding it on her back like a shield above the four prone bodies as bits of glass and plaster rained down..
After another handful of interminable seconds the shaking began to subside. The creaking, rumbling and groaning finally quieted and Wesley slowly raised his head, coughing and shaking plaster dust out of his hair. "Well, as I was saying, there's no such thing as a-" With a deafening crash, the huge chandelier slammed down on top of the couch, driving Faith to her knees as glass exploded in every direction. "-coincidence," he whispered, collapsing in a dead faint.
Part Five. Wherein Angelus continues his wild walkabout and Faith suffers some serious angst.
From here on we’re into the all-new stuff.
* * * *
Angelus found the keys right where Billy had dropped them. The crime scene was deserted except for a couple cops in a patrol car parked behind the Lexus, waiting for a tow truck and the coroner. He slid Billy's corpse off his shoulder onto the picnic table. "Now don't you be going anywhere. I'm feeling a bit peckish."
He appeared silently at the side of the police car. "Hey, how ya doin'?"
The startled cop gasped, dropping a ketchup-laden french-fry on his blue serge shirt. "What the hell do you want?"
"I'm lookin' for a bite to eat."
"Dunkin Donuts two blocks down. Now move along."
"Actually, I'm in the mood for takeout." The cop looked at him strangely.
"Sorry, lame joke, couldn't resist." Without any warning he dragged the cop halfway out the car window and tore into his throat with his fangs. His partner tried desperately to pull him back in, bellowing with outrage as he dug out his gun. When Angelus disappeared into the bushes he scrambled out of the car to follow. He managed to get one round off before his neck was snapped, though he missed his target. The bullet took off the top of Billy's right ear and lodged in his brain. Needless to say, being even deader than the vampire who'd killed him, he didn't feel a thing.
"I got plans for you, Billyboy, but hauling you around like a sack of spuds ain't part of it.” Angelus said, dumping Billy's body into the trunk of the Lexus. “Now that I'm feeling like my old self again, I'd like to introduce you to some friends of mine."
* * * *
The shaking had stopped. Faith heaved the couch to the side. The metal frame of the chandelier landed with a crash and rolled noisily across the floor. "Is everyone alright?"
Gunn, coughing and wearing the same coating of plaster dust as everyone else, waved a hand and slowly stood. It was difficult to breath through the clouds of dust.
“Damn, girl!” He raised his eyebrows at the young Slayer, impressed, then tugged on Wesley's arm to help him up. He remained curled in a ball on the floor, his hands clutched over his head.
Tara raised herself on one arm and whispered hoarsely:
"Tropo, Strato, Aero, Exo,
Elements are brought to bear.
Earth and Fire, spread upon the Waters,
Let the air be cleansed."
She made a sweeping gesture and a cool breeze swept through the room, precipitating the dust and immediately clearing the air. Willow moaned weakly and tried to rise, then collapsed on her side. Tara pulled her onto her lap and wiped the dust from her face. "Honey, are you okay?"
Gunn looked at Tara. "How'd you do that?" but she was too concerned with Willow to answer. He turned his attention back to Wesley. "Yo, Wes, it's over. You can come out now."
"She seems to be getting weaker." Tara looked up at the others, worried. "She must have tried to do some kind of protection spell. We have to do something." Her tone was desperate, but no one knew what to do.
Wesley finally raised his head and looked around. Everyone but Faith seemed shaken by their near brush with death. The lights in the office were still on and everything seemed quiet. He let Gunn help him to his feet then lunged forward to wrap Faith in a smothering hug. “We owe you our lives,” he bleated, his voice breaking with emotion.
She held her arms out, clearly uncomfortable but resisting the impulse to shove him away, them squirmed out of the embrace. “Uh, yeah, whatever.”
Wesley looked nervously at the ceiling. "If everyone is intact, perhaps we should move outside until we're sure the building is safe. There may be aftershocks."
Willow swayed on her feet and clutched at Tara. "Sweetie, can you walk?"
Faith held her hands out, and with a nod from Tara she scooped the unsteady girl up in her arms and strode out into the garden. She avoided looking down, fearful of the accusing look in Willow’s eyes.
Outside in the garden they sank wearily onto stone benches, feeling stunned. Faith gently laid Willow down with her head on Tara's lap, then took off her coat and spread it over her. Underneath she wore a faded blue denim prison shirt with a number stenciled above the left pocket. Tara took hold of the young slayer’s arm. “Um, Faith? What you did in there? That was really...brave.”
Faith met her eyes for a moment, then embarrassed by the sincerity she saw there, she shrugged and turned away. “Hey, no sweat. It’s my job.”
Wesley sank down onto a bench opposite the girls, still shaking in reaction to his first major earthquake.
Gunn smacked a fist into his palm. Wesley whooped and jumped to his feet, then sank back down onto the bench sheepishly. "Oh, sorry Wes, but I almost forgot about Fred. Why don't y'all just chill here and I'll go check on her."
"I'll come with," Faith volunteered.
"Wait!" Everyone looked at her as Tara spoke up. "Listen." They all looked at her expectantly but she just sat there with her head cocked to the side.
Gunn snapped his fingers. "Damn, you're right."
"What?" Wesley glanced around warily, anticipating the next disaster.
Gunn nodded at the quiet West Hollywood street. "You grow up in LA you kinda get used to it, the earthquake thing. There should be, like, car alarms, sirens." The neighborhood was completely still. "It’s too quiet.”
"You're saying this wasn't a natural occurrence."
"Not hardly."
Faith turned and headed for the doors. "We need to find out what's going on here."
Gunn followed her inside.
She paused at the top of the stairs to look down into the darkened lobby. "This place looks like some kind of old movie set. Sort of creeps me out."
"You should have seen it before we got rid of the Thesulac Demon. Nasty bugger, all tentacles." He shuddered. "I'll look in on Fred while you take a look around, check for damage, or..."
"Yeah, I know. Creature features."
But all the damage seemed to be confined to the center of the room where the chandelier and parts of the plaster ceiling had come down right on top of them. The rest of the room was almost completely undamaged. Two more identical ceiling fixtures hung undisturbed. As she looked around the mezzanine she saw that, aside from the layer of plaster dust, there was almost no sign of what had felt like a 6.0 earthquake downstairs. ‘Either this place is built like a brick shithouse or we’ve got some deeply weird weirdness going down here. This is way beyond coincidence, like all those so-called “accidents” that kept happening the last few months in jail.’
Being in prison sucked. It was boring, demeaning, and brutal, but in a strange way it made things easier. The senseless sameness of everything, they unvarying routine, removed the distraction of living in the world and let her focus on herself. Of course, being virtually invulnerable helped. It didn't take long for word to get around that messing with her could be very bad for your health.
She began studying the books Angel brought her. That had been hard, too, stopping every other sentence to refer to a dictionary. But she'd kept at it, even getting some unexpected help from a sweet old ex-minister whose Doctorate of Divinity degree hadn't stopped her from poisoning two husbands.
Besides the reading, she'd spent a lot of time thinking about the lessons her Watcher, Sister Adelaide, had tried so hard to teach her. Lessons about the hidden talents that were as much a part of a slayer's legacy as superhuman strength and speed. She'd been a lousy student, though, too impatient to wrestle with the impenetrable jargon and flowery language of the compendiums and histories in her Watcher's library. She liked the fighting, though; her Watcher had some pretty cool moves for a nun.
After her workouts she'd buy Faith dinner and talk nonstop while she ate. Some of it had sunk in. A lot of it, actually, but what was the point? Why learn all that stuff if the Watcher already knew it? She'd never imagined being without her. Without her Watcher what was she? Just a kid, a messed up kid with no idea of what to do or how to go on. Alone.
‘Why, Sis? Why didn't you stop me? We never should of gone in there. I was so stupid, rushing in like that, thinking I could take him. Then watching what he- what happened, to someone that I.... Dammit! Damn damn damn damn damn!’ She gripped the balcony railing so hard the polished oak began to creak and splinter. ‘And then that fucking bastard Kakistos, dogging my ass for months, chasing me all over the country, running, hiding, no food, no sleep, fighting for my life. How many times did I wake up sweating over some sound in the dark, afraid that he'd found me? Afraid, and relieved that it was over.’
By the time she got to Sunnyvale, she had completely shut down emotionally. Nothing got in, nothing got out. There was no better drug to numb the pain than full-tilt violence and mayhem. She learned to take real pleasure in dancing on the edge of the precipice, flirting with death. On some level she knew her life had become a kamikaze mission, and she didn’t cared. Death could be a powerful ally, if you didn’t care about dying. Even the undead feared death. But she didn’t. Not any more...not since that night.
It was still impossible to think about what happened to Adele. For months she had pushed that memory back down as soon as it surfaced. She'd never been able to talk to anyone about it. Except Buffy. ‘Buffy. God, if only I hadn't been such a stone cold bitch. You even talked your Mom into offering me a room and instead I insisted on staying in that fleabag motel. I wanted- I needed you to understand. I needed you. And I hated you for making me feel.’ She pounded her hand on the railing as a sob escaped her lips, then another. She tipped her head back, biting her lip, eyes squeezed shut as the tears leaked out.
She remembered how it was when she and Buffy were hunting together, sharing a purpose, an instinct. It was like having a sister, a twin almost. She remembered the unspoken communication, the way they would move together like a dancer and her reflection, every motion synchronized, flawless, deadly, invincible. And she remembered when she started feeling things one never would, never should, for a sister. Thought of Tara and Willow crossed her mind, and for a second she felt a heart-deep stab of jealousy.
‘You were the best, B., my missing half. Together we were perfect. Face it, girl: you had it bad, and you got scared. That’s when it all went to hell, wasn’t it? You could never understand, B. You, with all your perfect friends, your perfect family, your perfect life, to lose the only one you ever had, the only one that mattered. No one could stand it, getting hurt like that again. I don't know how I survived the first time. Maybe I didn’t. Not really. Maybe I died that night when I- when Adele did, and everything since is just what flashes behind your eyes in that second between the blow that kills you and the realization that you’re really dead.’
‘When I got to Sunnydale it was like I was in a dream, where none of it ever happened. Whatever I was doing, it wasn’t living. Part of me died when I lost her, and from then on I was just spinning my wheels, waiting for the rest of me to catch up. And you didn’t disappoint, girlfriend. When the time came you were there for me. You did your level best. It isn’t your fault I didn’t die.
Down the hallway Gunn stepped out of a room, closing the door softly behind him. "She’s sleeping like a baby. I don't see any point in waking her up."
She kept her back to him as he approached, not wanting him to see her face. "Look, I'm going to check around the other side." She headed toward the shadows at the end of the hall then stopped. She still didn't turn around. She wasn't about to let any guy see her crying.
"Downstairs it looks like a bomb went off, and up here, nothing. Maybe the floor's just weak down there or something." He didn't sound like he believed it.
"Yeah, or something."
"Well, I'm going to tell them it's safe to come back inside. They're all just about asleep on their feet."
"Yeah. I'll patrol. I mean, I'll just check things out."
He noted the huskiness of her voice, the way she kept her face averted. "You sure you're okay?"
"Five by five."
As she moved down the dimly lit hallway, she could feel a sort of heaviness in the air. It felt like a tugging at her insides, like when a vampire was near, only not quite. It was the feeling of powerful magical forces at work, that much was for sure. ‘It could just be that spell that Willow did earlier, but there's something...’
She headed toward the other wing of the building, not sure what she was looking for. She didn't want to admit it, but she was scared. ‘Now I'm just being paranoid. Angel's got plenty of real enemies, like that pack of lawyers that hired me to kill him. I don't need to go blaming all this on my bad luck. Or karma. Whatever.’ She looked up and down the long, deserted hallway. Apparently this wing wasn't used at all. "Damn, it's quiet in here. Too quiet."
From the garden outside there sounded a piercing shriek of absolute terror.
* * * *
End Part Five
Coming soon: almost everybody (except Wesley)
[This message has been edited by fell (edited July 14, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by fell (edited July 14, 2001).]