Willow
walked into the kitchen and found the atmosphere much more
light-hearted than it had been in days. She was immediately
inundated with a cacophony of greetings.
“Hey
Will!”
“Willow!”
“Hullo Willow.”
“Glad you're
back Will. Everything ok?”
Willow
smiled her first genuine smile in days. “Wow, you're all in a
good mood. What's going on?”
“Well,
given what Terese told us about the coven members, we've managed to
narrow down the list of suspects,” Giles answered as he
continued making sandwiches. “We can be fairly certain that
it's not a malicious demon. Most probably not even
mischievous. Simply either unaware or misguided,” he said,
gesturing with the knife he was using causing a dollop of mayonnaise
to fly off, hitting the front of Xander's shirt.
“Yeah, the problem is that there are still five on the list
and four are shapeshifters.” Dawn chimed in, giggling as she helped
Xander clean his shirt.
“Still, we are a
bit closer than we were. Did Terese have anything helpful to
add after we left?” Giles asked, looking at Xander
apologetically.
Willow hesitated, uncertain
whether or not she was ready to share the information about Tara.
It was all so confusing. She considered keeping it to herself
until she could sort through her feelings of joy, confusion, anger
and, most of all, hope.
“Spill Will . . .
whatever it is,” Buffy said as if reading her thoughts.
“Nothing about our friendly neighborhood demon of the week .
. . ” she trailed off, knowing Buffy wouldn't let it go. She,
Xander and Buffy had been friends too long. And, even if Buffy
did let it go, Xander wouldn't.
“About
what then? Come on, Willow, no avoidy stonewalling,”
Buffy said, not breaking eye contact.
Willow
met her gaze and took a deep breath before answering simply,
“Tara.”
The lunch preparations they had
been engaged in stopped with that one word. They all turned and
looked at Willow expectantly.
Taking
another deep breath, Willow looked at Dawn. “You were right,
Dawnie. Somehow . . . someway . . . we're getting her back,
sort of. If only in dreams, but maybe more. I don’t know how much
more but maybe.” Willow stopped as she finally said the words
out loud. She swallowed hard as tears threatened to overtake
her. Dawn looked like she was about to cry too.
The group was still gaping at her blankly. Swallowing
again, she continued on. “Terese said there was probably a
rip in time, which happens a lot. You know . . . different
choices and events causing alternate timelines. Like when my
doppleganger showed up in our world.” She began pacing as the
thoughts refused to gel. “It's kind of hard to explain.
It's like a spider-web – every choice results in a time splinter.
Hundreds of choices, zillions of realities, all of them unaware of
the others. They're not supposed to overlap, uh, connect.
But, for some reason, now these two are.” She stopped pacing
and looked at the gang. Shaking her head, she continued.
“All I can figure is that when Warren killed Tara in this world . .
. maybe the bullet hit me in that one because, in my dream, Tara was
saying that I was dead. I don’t know, though, maybe I was hit by a
bus or killed by The First or something, but Tara definitely said
that I was dead.”
“But . . . that
doesn't explain . . . how . . . what . . . why . . . I mean . . . ”
Dawn's babbling seemed to give voice to the group.
“Also, none of you guys were there, but she’s living in
Buffy’s house in Sunnydale with Angel. I think maybe we were all….”
Willow trailed off, figuring that they could put the pieces
together.
No one said a word but glances
were exchanged between all of them.
Willow
continued, “Terese said Tara's spirit is fading from this reality's
spirit world. She said that the closer we get to getting Tara
back,” she took a deep breath and continued, “I mean, the more
contact that I have with the other Tara, the more it fades. It
has something to do with Tara's spirit. In this reality, Tara
is dead and her spirit is in the spirit world. In the other
reality, Tara's spirit is still within her… um, of course.
When she crosses into this reality, it would cause two Tara souls in
one plane of existence and the universe won't allow that.”
Willow thought for a moment. “For some reason someone or
something is helping Tara's SOS cross the planes to reach me.
Terese said I'll have what I need when the time is right.
Terese also said there was a second spirit – shadowy – attached
to Tara's. Terese couldn't find out whose spirit it was,
though.” Willow looked at Buffy, not wanting to get her
friend's hopes up but unable to shake the feeling that she knew who
the second spirit was. “Buffy, I keep feeling like the second
spirit is Angel. With my dream of Angel being with Tara, I
think they're together.” Willow watched the emotions play
across Buffy's face as her friend slowly nodded. Willow could
imagine that Buffy was feeling a lot of the same things she, herself,
was. She looked back at the group and brought the topic back
around. “But first we need to take care of the demon
problem.
“We really get her back?”
Dawn asked, her face full of hope. “Really?”
Willow nodded. “If Terese is right, and she
usually is, then yeah, Dawnie,” she looked at the hope in Dawn's
face and felt the tears welling up and spilling down her own face.
“We get her back. For real. Maybe,” she finished
quietly
Xander did his Captain Obvious
routine with a confused expression on his face, “But it’s not our
Tara. It’s that Tara. Does that make sense?”
Buffy quashed the thought, “It’s Tara.”
“But split personalities, different experiences. I mean two
years in another dimension with a different reality and… you know …
is a long time to ….” He sighed in frustration and held his hand
up when the others started protesting. “Will, I’m not trying to
rain on your parade here, but it’s not like it’s The Lost
Weekend. It’s another dimension. It’s a different person… uh…
mostly,” he finished lamely.
“It’s
Tara,” repeated Dawn firmly, “and Angel. It’s them and they
need us. We love them and they deserve our help.”
Willow spoke softly but with no less passion, “Xander, it is
Tara. The Tara we know from two years ago, but it’s still Tara.
It’s like… it’s like she was shot and instead of being dead,
she went to France or something with Angel. We didn’t talk to her,
but she had things happen just like we had things happen. Just
because she had different things than our things doesn’t mean she’s
not Tara.”
Xander stared at her, the
corners of his lips twitching before he guffawed, “Went to France
or something?”
Everyone joined his
laughter at the outrageous comparison, though for Giles, laughter
really just meant a teeth-showing quirk of his mouth.
“Alrighty then, I think I get it now. Let's solve our
shapeshifty demony thing so we can bring Tara home,” Xander
said.
They cheered and, grabbing
their sandwiches, some fruit and sodas, headed back into the library,
talking excitedly.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“So
where do we start?” Xander asked as they re-entered the
library.
“Willow, if you perform a demon
locater spell it could help at least narrow our search parameters.
Then we'll have a better idea of where to look.” Giles said.
Willow nodded. “Okay. I'll be right back, the
supplies I need are upstairs in the work room,” She said as she
left the library and headed upstairs. After double-checking the
ingredients in Kaetyl's Compendium, it took her only a few moments to
gather what she needed. 'Good thing I replenished my aniseed
supply,' she thought, inhaling the licorice-y aroma the herb released
as she ground it to a fine powder. The heavy marble mortar and
pestle had been an indulgence on her part. She could have made
do with something smaller or cheaper but she had loved the blue vein
running through the greyish marble; it reminded her of Tara's eyes.
She sighed deeply as she was once more reminded of just how unfair
she'd been to Kennedy; even something as simple as a tool was chosen
as a reminder of Tara. Checking the ingredients again, she put
the anise in with the other herbs then rinsed the mortar and pestle,
leaving them to dry. She automatically put the rest of the
anise back in its cubby then opened the drawer housing her crystals.
As she looked through the crystals, she settled on a piece of
fluorite to help bring order to chaos and dumortierite for
organization. Extracting the pieces she needed, she winced as
her finger scraped against a corner of the divider, causing a
small scratch to appear. Frowning, she brought the offended
finger to her mouth and sucked on it to ease the owie. 'No
blood,' she thought, 'good.' After she ground the crystals, she
gathered all the materials she needed and mixed them in one bowl.
She could smell the anise and the mint and giggled as she thought
about Xander drooling over the mint and licorice smells. Once
the ingredients were mixed she divided the powder into two small
dishes before quickly cleaning, drying and replacing all of her
tools. She mused that her mother, would probably be amused at her
finally ‘growing up and turning into someone who cleans up after
herself instead of leaving her tennis shoes and computer manuals on
the floor . . . again.’
As she walked
back into the library, she noticed that they had cleared the war
table of all books and had placed a crude map of Scooby Central and
the surrounding area on top of it. Handing one of the dishes to
Giles, she told him, “On three.” Silently praying to
Thespia, she counted out three and she and Giles scattered their
powders across the map. They all looked at the map where six
twinkly lights appeared.
“Six?
Giles,” Buffy whined. “I thought . . .”
“Does anyone else smell jellybeans?” Xander asked.
“Yes. Well,” Giles said, clearing his throat.
Ignoring Xander, he addressed Buffy's question. “We have six
demons but only one is causing our problem. The other five are
seemingly harmless and apparently minding their own businesses.”
After a beat, he raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. “Of
course, they could be doing quite a bit of pillaging and we simply
haven't heard about it yet,” he added wryly.
Buffy shot him an irritated glance and said, “Okay, so which
one's ours?”
“Uh . . . guys?”
Willow interrupted, pointing at the map. “One of the lights
is at the coven.”
The other Scoobies
gaped at the map.
“Well. I'd say
that narrows our search considerably,” Giles said.
“Does that mean it's a witch?” Xander asked, looking
confused.
“More likely one of the
shapeshifters.” Giles answered, giving Xander an exasperated
look.
“Is there anything new at the
coven? A piece of furniture? Or maybe there's a newer member?”
Buffy asked.
Willow looked at Giles as the
niggling something thing in the back of her mind suddenly jumped to
the front. “You're not sneezing,” she said.
Giles looked faintly amused. “Well, no, I'm not.
Is there a reason I should be?”
“You
didn't sneeze at the coven either.”
“Again,
no, I didn't.”
“Uh, Houston to Captain
Obvious, what are you getting at?” Xander asked.
Willow rolled her eyes and looked at him. “The cat.
Mr. Mouser was in the room with us. It rubbed up against you.
Giles should have gone into a sneezing fit or maybe some itchy,
watery eyes . . . something . . . ” she trailed off, looking at
Giles.
“Oh, Good Lord. The cat.
Of course.”
Willow thought for a moment.
“I don't remember when I first saw him but - I had been feeding him
for awhile during my sunrise meditations,” she said with a guilty
glance at Giles. “Then Xander told me one of his guys had
taken him to the coven. But I don't know where it came from or
even how long it had been around. The one shapeshifterr – the
one that gets stuck in the form it chooses until it's revealed or
released – what's the book say?”
Giles
picked up one of the books they had set aside to make room for
Willow's spell. Setting it on the table so they all could see,
he pointed to the entry.
“Here it is.
No mug shot, obviously. The Qnis G'tol: origin unknown.
What is known is that regret acts as a siren's call, drawing it near.
Once it is called, it will maintain its natural ethereal state
until,” he paused, as if trying to translate the passage.
“Until a single thought is powerful enough to cause
manifestation. The facilitation of the manifestation is
decided by the single powerful thought. I supposed it's a good
thing the single powerful thought wasn't of a tiger or
something equally dangerous . . .”
“The
Stay-Puft marshmallow man!” Xander said, interrupting Giles'
explanation.
Giles glared at him before
continuing. “The demon can only be expelled once its true
nature is revealed. If the regret is resolved, the demon will
leave but that rarely happens because as people get the visions of
what they've lost or what they miss, the regret deepens and
intensifies. It thus creates a circle that keeps the demon
strong.”
Willow sighed. “Me and
Kennedy ending, Angel going missing last month, Dawn and Xander being
all moony . . ..” Tactfully ignoring them, she kept her eyes on
Giles and invited comment when he seemed lost in thought.
“Giles?”
Giles jolted then nodded.
“Right. I have my regrets as well. The demon was drawn
to our compound because all of us were regretting something at the
same time. Not just one or two of us. Add to that the
number of members of the coven and . . .” he shook his head.
“So that means what? No big bad to fight? Just a simple
spell and 'poof'?” Buffy sounded almost disappointed.
“Well, that's almost no fun,” she pouted.
“Look at it this way, Buff - demon go 'poof', we start
on project bring Tara home,” Xander said.
Buffy brightened considerably. “Ooohhh . . . I like
this plan. What do you need Will?”
“Nothing, actually,” Willow answered, looking more closely
at the book's information. “I think the same spell Giles used
to reveal the Hansel and Gretel demon will work to reveal this
one.”
“Okay then. Just you two?”
Buffy asked.
“I kinda think all of us,”
she shrugged, “just in case it does end up having a butt that
needs to be kicked. I mean it could be one of the other
shapeshifters and it just hasn't changed at all.”
“Okay. I'll go get weapons for me, Xander and Dawn,”
Buffy said. “You and Giles figure out the mojo thing and
then,” she grinned, “hi-ho, hi-ho it's off to the coven we
go.”
Willow grinned back. 'Demon of
the week and it's business as usual,' she thought, before turning
back to Giles and asking, “So, shall we go whip up a batch of demon
revealing potion?”
He nodded.
“Dawn, Xander, would you both start clearing up in here, please? We
still have another problem to research and these books and notes and
what-not aren't going to be of any use at all. Better we start
with a clear table so we don't waste time looking at non-relevant
texts.”
“Sure, Giles, no problem,”
Dawn answered him.
“You got it, G-man,”
Xander added. “Uh, I mean, Giles,” he corrected as Giles
shot him a withering glare.
Willow giggled
and she, Giles and Buffy left the library in search of potions and
weapons while Dawn and Xander started cleaning up.