Chapter 25

Willow smiles as she slowly wakes, being snuggled up against a warm body something she’s missed immensely since she andTara had broken up.  Brows furrowing as she wonders exactly who she’s curled up against.  When a soft snore and strong arms clench convulsively around her, Willow’s eyes widen in shock.  “Faith.”  Willow whimpers as she says the slayer’s name.  The strong, warm body that she’s half lying on feeling better than she could have ever imagined.  ‘Oh, this is sooo not of the good.’  Willow mumbles internally as she tries to extract herself from the slayer’s arms without waking her.  Whimpering as Faith pulls her even more firmly against her, literally dragging her body fully onto her as the slayer’s breathing deepens and hands clasp her butt cheeks. 

“Oh, hell.”  Willow groans and drops her face down to Faith’s shoulder.  Not knowing what to do as strong hands seem to almost knead her ass.  Her body responding to the slayer’s touch, Willow bites her bottom lip in confusion and worry.  Confusion at the fact that she’s being turned on by a woman that she’s talked herself into believing she’s pretty much hated since the moment she first laid eyes on her, and worry that maybe it was never hatred but being attracted to her and not admitting it to herself when she was younger and afraid of what people would think about her.

Slowly relaxing into the slayer’s body, Willow gives into the tiredness working through her from the long, draining day and falls back asleep with thoughts of the dark-haired slayer featuring prominently in her dreams.

***

Faith stiffens uncontrollably as she realizes there’s an unusual warmth and weight on her body, barely stopping in time from shoving Willow bodily off her.  Carefully easing Willow off her body, Faith shifts her legs over the edge of the bed and glares at the clock.  “Can’t even fuckin’ sleep in when I ain’t in jail no more.”  She growls softly before carefully stepping over the mini-slayers and makes her way to the door, her eyes unconsciously looking back to the redhead that had been using her as a body pillow.  “Shit.”  Faith grumbles and darts out of the room deciding a cold shower and then some hot and extremely strong coffee would be for the best.

***

“Who the hell is awake this early?”  Tara groans rolling over onto Buffy’s body as she hears the door shut a little more forcefully than necessary to the bathroom across the hall.

Buffy grunts softly at the weight of Tara landing on her aching body, smirking at the thought of their night of decadent fun.  Listening to the quiet grumbling coming from the bathroom Buffy chuckles as she figures out who it is.  “Faith.”  She wraps her arms around Tara’s back and closes her eyes.

“Remind me to kick her ass when I’m awake.”  Tara mumbles into her lover’s neck even as she falls back asleep.

“Uh, huh.”  Buffy smiles as she follows quickly behind Tara.

***

“TWENTY MORE PUSH-UPS!”  Faith yells as the potentials groan but keep going.  Turning a glare on Kennedy as the woman snarls at her, Faith takes a step towards her until the potential looks away and concentrates on doing her pushups.

“I have to go to work.  Tara’s leaving to fill out paperwork at the temporary school offices.  You okay here?”  Buffy questions curiously as she looks at the potentials already sweating and obviously the worse for wear.

“Yep.  We’re gonna go for a little run this afternoon after lunch.  Wanna make sure they have somethin’ to puke up.”  Faith growls, fighting the smirk that wants to cross her face as she hears a couple whimpers coming from the girls. 

Buffy snorts and looks away from the girls.  “I should be home around four.  Tara will probably be back before noon.  Be warned, Tara was threatening to kick your ass for waking us up this morning.”  Buffy chuckles as Faith growls quietly at her.  “By the way…”  Buffy hesitates until she has Faith’s full attention.  “If you like her, tell her.”  Buffy nods towards Willow who’s in a lawn chair researching and making notes.  Having heard her best friend’s name mentioned earlier that morning when Faith was grumbling while she showered.  As Faith’s eyes widen in shock and her mouth drops open, Buffy smirks.  “Teach you to keep your mouth shut, won’t it?”

Faith actually feels her face heat with embarrassment as Buffy laughs and jogs out of the back yard.  “Damn it.”  Faith rubs a hand over the back of her neck.  “Ten minute break.  Get yourselves somethin’ to drink.”  Faith orders the girls as they finally finish the push-ups, unconsciously looking towards Willow before shaking her head and sighing.  “Why ain’t she threatenin’ to kick my ass?”  Faith wonders softly, unconsciously looking towards where Buffy had disappeared to go to work.  Taking a deep breath, Faith slowly makes her way over to Willow. 

Willow purses her lips as she re-checks the spell she’s working on, hoping it might work if Xander and Jason can’t figure out a different way to reinforce the stakes so they can pierce the Uber vamp’s chest.  Glancing up as a shadow crosses her book. 

“I, uh, was gonna get somethin’ to drink and wondered if you wanted somethin’.”  Faith offers, grasping her hands behind her back as she tries to keep from shifting nervously from foot to foot as she looks down into brilliant green eyes. 

Willow blinks before looking at her watch, surprised that she’s been sitting outside researching and working on the spell for almost two hours.  “Some tea sounds wonderful.”  Willow admits, marking her place and uncurling her leg from under her to stand, groaning as she stretches her back.  “Have to remember to not stay in that position for that long again.”  Willow winces as she gets a twinge in her lower back, reaching back to try and rub the stiffened muscle.

“I could, uh, if you want…”  Faith points to Willow’s back, blushing lightly as Willow looks at her in surprise.  “I mean, I ain’t a professional or nothin’, but I can probably loosen it up for ya’.”  Faith smiles uncertainly at the redhead.  Watching as Willow seems to hesitate, Faith shrugs and turns away.  “Sorry if I overstepped the boundaries, I thought maybe that’s what one friend would do for another or somethin’.”

“No, Faith!”  Willow hurriedly reaches out to grasp the slayer’s arm.  “It is something a friend would offer for another friend.  It just kind of shocked me that you were the one offering.”  Willow admits softly as Faith turns around to look at her, the wariness in the brown eyes obvious.  “You’ve never came across as much of a… touchy-feely type person and I just didn’t expect it.”  Willow tries to explain, watching as the wariness slowly lessens and Faith nods her head.

“Well, ya’ got that right.”  Faith smirks at the redhead.  “If we were dancin’ or something, then I’m definitely a touchy-feely type of person, but everyday contact I ain’t much for it.”  Faith admits quietly. 

“You’re going to have to get used to it around here.”  Willow nods her head as Tara comes jogging out of the house.  “Tara’s very much a touchy-feely person, if you haven’t figured it out already.  Plus she gives great backrubs, but that’s something I don’t think I can ask her for anymore.”  Willow smiles sadly as the blonde closes the distance between them.

Tara blushes as both women look at her.  “Hope I’m not interrupting, but I was getting ready to leave to fill out the paperwork and was wondering if you two needed anything from anywhere.”

“I don’t need anything, thanks.”  Willow chuckles and shakes her head at the blonde. 

“Umm…”  Faith rubs her neck as she hesitates as she thinks about asking Tara to pick up something for her.

“What is it you need, Faith?”  Tara reaches out and gently rubs the slayer’s shoulder, frowning as Faith darts a quick knowing smirk towards Willow, and Willow giggles in response.

“Ummm…  I don’t have no razors or anythin’ to use.”  Faith shuffles slightly, uncomfortable. 

“Do you prefer to use razors, Nair or wax?”  Tara grins crookedly as Faith’s eyes dart to her in surprise.  “We all do a little bit of the above.  I can’t use Nair, it breaks me out… and well Buffy and I use wax.”  Tara blushes darker as she remembers how Buffy insists on helping her with her ‘bikini waxing’.   

Faith snorts out a laugh, seeing the tell-tale blush on the blonde’s face.  “I prefer ta wax myself.  But I’ve been using the razors for the last couple years and unless people can deal with my stubby hairs until they grow out far enough, I probably should stick with the razors.”

“It won’t bother me, if you’re worried about me feeling the stubble in the bed…”  Willow blushes at her forwardness and waves as she darts towards the house in embarrassment.

Faith quirks her lips in bemusement at the sight of the redhead’s face matching her hair as Willow darts towards the house. 

“I’ll pick up a good razor and a waxing kit for you, also.  Anything else, sweetie?”  Tara chuckles as she turns her gaze back to Faith. 

“Nah, I think that’ll do it for now.  Unless ya’ wanna pick up some more lunchmeat or somethin’ for lunch today.”  Faith shrugs as she walks with Tara back towards the house as the potentials start to stream out of the house. 

“I’ll do that.  Feeding the hungry horde has a tendency to empty the refrigerator quickly.  Now with two slayers we’ll go through the food even quicker.  I need to see about getting another refrigerator or chest freezer here in the house.  We could use it.”  Tara sighs before grinning at the slayer.  “I’ll be back in a few hours.”  Tara waves as she grabs the keys to the Jeep and her purse striding through the kitchen. 

Faith chuckles softly at the quickly departing blonde.  Knowing Xander was at work and Jason was out getting supplies for them to use trying to figure out the best way to help with the Uber vamps, in case there’s more than just the one.  Reaching into the refrigerator, Faith notices the kettle of water on the stove, chuckling at the thought of Willow hightailing it out of the backyard in embarrassment.  “Guess ya’ didn’t need that backrub that badly.  Then again, I might offer later tonight anyway, just to see what kinda response I get.”  Faith snorts and sips on her water as she heads to the back yard, yelling at the girls to pair up for some hand to hand combat.  Chuckling softly as the potentials perk up.

***

“Here’re the different prototypes we came up with.”  Xander sets down three different stakes, sighing quietly.  “This one, as you can tell, we just melted down some metal and basically dipped the tip of the stake in it to coat the end.”  The men had been working on the stakes the last few days. 

Faith picks it up and plays with the end, silently wondering if the metal coating will end up falling off when it’s used, but deciding to wait and see what happens. 

“This one we actually cut grooves into and filled them with the metal, hoping to strengthen the wood so it’ll pierce the vampire.”  Jason picks up the other one, tossing it to Buffy who’s leaning back against Tara. 

Buffy catches the stake, turning it over as she runs her fingers over the outside of it.  “Do you think we’ll have a problem with the metal popping off or out of the grooves?” 

“That’s our biggest worry with the stakes.”  Xander admits, frowning as he looks at them.  “This last one Willow added a little something to.”

Willow blushes lightly as everyone looks at her. “It was a relatively simple spell to do, it was actually figuring out the spell that was difficult.”  Willow admits, handing the piece of paper to Tara so she can read the spell that had taken her a couple days to work out.  “It actually petrifies the wood.”

“Petrified wood is of the good, right?”  Faith questions curiously, as she looks at everyone.  “Ain’t that like super hard and strong?”  Faith’s eyes finally land on Willow, watching as the redhead nods excitedly.

“It’s like rock, and if it works, a simple incantation will petrify the wood and we can do it on all the stakes.”  Willow rambles quickly and excitedly watching as Xander tosses the stake to Faith. 

Faith scratches her head as she looks at the item for a few moments.  “B?”  Looking up at Buffy who looks at her curiously, she tosses the stake to the blonde slayer.  “Should we test it on a tree or somethin’ first?  Or wait and try it on the real thing if another one of those fuckers show up?”

“Please.”  Willow nods at the thought.  “See if it’ll hold up to going into something tough.  I would rather it be tested first, before you actually need it for real.”  Willow nibbles on her bottom lip, smiling at Faith who was looking at her somewhat worriedly.  “It’s a good idea, Faith.” 

“Well, I don’t wanna kill one of your trees, B.  So…”  Faith smirks at the slayer as Buffy rolls her eyes at her.

“Fine, I’ll go outside and see if it’ll hold up.”  Buffy furrows her brows as Tara hands her the other stake.

“Might as well try all of them to see how they hold up.”  Tara shrugs and grins crookedly at her lover.  “So both of you can go kill ONE tree.  No sense in staking more than one.”  Tara narrows her gaze on her grinning lover. 

“Party pooper.”  Buffy chuckles and winks at Tara before striding towards the front door, Faith gathering the last stake as the whole group follows them. 

Buffy tucks the petrified stake in her back pocket and looks at Faith questioningly as she comes to a halt beside the largest tree that would hopefully live through the experience.  Swapping the metal tipped stake for the one with the strips on it with Faith.

“Age before beauty.”  Faith smirks and crosses her arms over her chest, holding onto the stake with the metal strips. 

“Bitch.”  Buffy growls at the slayer, the grin letting Faith know she didn’t mean it.  Flipping the stake in her hand, Buffy quickly and forcefully slams it into the trunk of the tree.  “Shit.”  Buffy shakes her hand as she releases the stake, the sting somewhat painful.  “That was pretty tough to penetrate.”  Buffy admits, looking at the tree trunk and the stake she’d managed to slam about two inches into the tree.

“And the moment of truth.”  Faith gently urges Buffy aside as she grabs the stake with both hands and yanks it out of the tree.  Sighing as the metal tip obviously stayed behind in the tree.  “Well, the stake stayed whole.  It may be only good for one use, but it only takes once to get the job done.”  Faith tosses the stake to Xander who catches it and inspects the stake. 

“Your turn.”  Buffy waves to the slayer, laughing at the glare she gets from Faith. 

“Hand still hurtin’, B?”  Faith comments as she steps up to the tree.

“You’re about to find out how much it hurts.”  Buffy sniggers, then yelps as Tara smacks her hard on the ass. 

“Behave.”  Tara murmurs softly in her lover’s ear. 

“Can’t help it.  Pushing each others’ buttons is like second nature.”  Buffy pouts even as she leans into her lover’s arms as Tara pulls her back into her.

“And that’s probably one of the reasons you two butted heads so much.”  Tara points out softly into her lover’s ear, watching as Faith darts her a quick glance, seeing the seriousness in the brown eyes.  Knowing her lover and Faith are the only ones that can hear her.  “So I want your promise to not push so much.  Joking is one thing just don’t let it get nasty.  Work on communication between you two, also.  That way each of you can know when you’re close to the line or have crossed it.”  Tara warns, keeping eye contact with Faith to let her know she’s talking to her, too. 

Faith slowly nods her head slightly as she shifts her eyes to hazel eyes looking at her seriously. 

“That’s fair.”  Buffy nods towards Faith, smiling softly as the other slayer grins at her and relaxes.  “Are you going to stake that tree sometime today, or are you afraid of it hurting your sensitive hands?”

“Kiss it, B.”  Faith smirks knowingly at the slayer before adjusting her grip on the stake and slamming it into the tree so quickly it’s a blur to everyone watching as she grunts loudly with the sting going up her arm. 

Buffy chuckles at the quick flash of pain crossing Faith’s face before she schools her features.  Turning her head, Buffy brushes her lips over Tara’s jaw before stepping away from her lover and grasping the stake.  “Show off.”  Buffy growls at the stake that had to be buried about four inches into the tree, just enough room to grasp it with one hand.  Wrapping her other hand overtop of her right hand, she braces her feet and yanks back hard, backpedaling a couple steps as the stake finally breaks loose.  Running her fingers over the metal imbedded into the stake, she notices one of the pieces is loose, but the other ones seem pretty sturdy.  Tossing that stake to Jason, she nods her head.  “That’s better, one of the strips is loose, but the others look pretty good.”

Faith turns around, looking at the potentials that had been murmuring excitedly behind them.  Noticing Kennedy inching her way closer to Willow, Faith unconsciously growls at the potential.  Taking the quick two steps towards Willow, she urges the woman over, so she’s standing between her and Tara as Buffy prepares to send the last stake into the tree.  “This one’s your baby you need a front row seat.”  Faith tries to explain herself to Willow as the redhead looks at her in surprise. 

“Thank you.”  Willow blushes lightly as she can almost feel everyone’s eyes on her, before she tears her eyes away from warm brown eyes, silently wondering if Faith had ever looked at her like that before. 

Buffy snorts at Faith’s machinations, though she is surprised at Willow’s obvious attraction to the dark-haired slayer, turning her gaze on Tara, Buffy shakes her head at the knowing smirk pointed towards her.  “Yeah, yeah.”  Buffy grumbles as she flips the stake a couple times as she maneuvers to another spot on the tree. 

Willow unconsciously reaches over and grasps Faith’s hand, squeezing it tightly with both of hers as she waits excitedly to see if her stake holds up.

Faith’s eyes widen as she looks down at her hand being held tightly by Willow’s.  Swallowing back the quiet squeak that wants to escape her lips, she bites her bottom lip roughly as she concentrates on watching Buffy instead of the small cool hands squeezing hers excitedly.  ‘Squeaking is NOT something I will ever do.’  Faith grows internally, her eyes drawn once more to the small freckled hands holding hers.  This time fighting a groan that works through her at the thought of those freckled hands caressing her body, she clenches her teeth and glares at the tree, silently wondering if she can shoot holes through the tree with her eyes.

Tara darts a quick glance at Faith and Willow, her lips curling up into a fuller smile at the sight of Willow grasping the slayer’s hand tightly between hers.  Glancing up at the almost fearful look leaving Faith’s face and her eyes narrowing on the tree as she obviously is fighting some internal battle, Tara can’t help the quiet chuckle that escapes her lips, quickly looking away as brown eyes turn to glare at her.  Whistling softly under her breath she watches as Buffy finally sends the stake home into the tree.  Tara even noticed that it seemed to enter the tree a little easier than the other two stakes.

Buffy tilts her head at the stake and smiles before wrapping both hands around it to yank it out to look intently down at the item.  “I think we have a winner.”  Buffy grins as she looks at Willow.

“YES!”  Willow jumps up and down excitedly as she releases Faith’s hand, she still wasn’t aware of holding as she launches herself at the dark-haired slayer, hugging her tightly.  “It works!!”  She exclaims loudly.

Faith coughs slightly as Willow almost strangles her in her excitement.  “Yeah, Red, you did good.”  Faith somewhat uncomfortably pats the woman on the back with her hands as she looks wide-eyed at Buffy and Tara who are giggling at them.  “Maybe ya’ can do up a dozen of ‘em for us to have with us on patrol when we go out?”

“I’ll do that right now.”  Willow releases Faith and darts into the house.

Faith finally glares, then growls at Buffy and Tara as she strides past them towards the back yard.

Xander scratches his head as he looks from Buffy and Tara who are now laughing and leaning against each other to his lover as Jason chuckles softly under his breath.  “Did I miss something?”

“Yes!”  Kennedy snarls as she strides down the street angrily.

Jason groans at his clueless lover and shakes his head.  “I’ll explain it to you.”  Jason wraps an arm around Xander’s shoulders. 

Tara sighs quietly as she looks down the sidewalk and the stiff form of Kennedy stalking away.  “Should I…?”

“No.  Let her walk it off.  Even she isn’t dumb enough to stay out after it gets dark.”  Buffy snorts at the thought.  “That’s one way to get rid of her annoying…”  Trailing off at the look she gets from Tara, Buffy smiles embarrassedly. 

“Not nice, honey.”  Tara admonishes softly before placing a quick kiss on her lover’s forehead.  “Let me get dinner started, you go play nice with Faith.”

“Yes, dear.”  Buffy rolls her eyes and smacks her lover on the ass as Tara walks towards the house, smirking at the narrow-eyed look she gets in response.  “Go relax before we go on patrol tonight.”  Buffy shoos the potentials that are still lingering around the front yard before she spins around and heads to the back yard and Faith.

***

Chapter 26

Faith groans softly as once again she wakes up with Willow using her as a body pillow.  Two weeks the same thing happens every morning.  She wakes up before dawn with Willow curled up on top of her asleep.  Not knowing how the redhead does it without waking her, but it never fails.  Of course, more often than not she finds her hands grasping the redhead’s ass firmly.  Growling as she realizes that’s where her hands are right now she’s half tempted to say fuck it, roll the redhead over and do what comes naturally. 

Finally easing Willow off her body and shoving a pillow in her arms, Faith growls at the potential on the floor by her side of the bed, half tempted to kick whichever one it was that was sleeping there this time.  Mentally berating herself, Faith steps over the young woman and pulls out a pair of sweat pants, t-shirt and underwear before snagging her running shoes.

Doing her morning duties while she gets ready to go on an early morning run to clear her mind and get her body off the fact that it really, really wants to get to know the quirky redhead in the biblical sense.  Sighing softly at the thought of the redhead and how one moment she seemed to be flirting with her and the next running away embarrassed.  Not knowing if she’s comin’ or going half the time with the redhead, just knowing that she won’t be able to take much more of the indecision and the nightly snuggle fests. 

Stepping out of the bathroom, Faith growls at the closed door to Buffy and Tara’s room.  “Like you two are a fuckin’ help.”  Faith snarls softly, even though the two women tried to be quiet when they were able to have alone time.  Her slayer hearing usually made every whisper, moan, groan, muffled cry and comment the two women made like she was in the room right there with them.  Having to admit the first time she’d heard them, after she’d gotten over the shock of the obviously more than ‘vanilla’ sex session, she’d wanted to laugh her ass off at the thought of Buffy, the original no fun, stick up the ass slayer, obviously getting up to some serious bedroom slayage.  Of course seeing the innocent looking Tara and thinking about what the woman obviously does to Buffy and the comments the two women make just about made her want to double-check that Tara hadn’t been taken over by a demon. 

Snorting at that thought, Faith unlocks the door as she looks at the group of potentials crashed on the floor of the living room and dining room, most of the furniture having been taken out of the rooms and put in storage to leave room for everyone to sleep.  Willow’s house was overflowing with witches and Watchers, too.  Though between the protection spells around the houses and the individual anti-detection spells on the potentials seem to be helping to keep them safe from magical detection, she and Buffy had discussed it wouldn’t help much if they came after them in person, it would be kind of obvious with all the younger girls staying with them what they are to The First or his disciples if they came a knockin’. 

Shaking her head at her mind’s wandering, she stretches quickly looking around the quiet streets as the sky slowly lightens.  Flashes of red hair, brilliant green eyes and an impish smile accompanying her on her run.

***

“Where are you going?”  Buffy looks curiously at Willow as she grabs her backpack and starts to make her way through the sea of people.  Buffy growls at someone who bounces into her, smirking as she hears a scared ‘sorry’ and whoever it was disappears into the throng of people lining up for food. 

“I need to pick up a few things to do more stakes for you guys.”  Willow grins at Buffy as they dodge their way towards the door.

“Not by yourself.  Grab someone to go with you.”  Buffy orders, seeing the look on Willow’s face, Buffy rolls her eyes.  “It’s a precaution, Wills.  Just someone, it doesn’t matter who.  Preferably someone that’s halfway decent with a weapon.  Sunnydale is slowly becoming a ghost town people wise, but demons, it seems to be picking up.  I know you can protect yourself to a certain degree, but an extra set of hands and eyes is of the good.”

“I’ll go.”  Kennedy pops up, having already grabbed something to eat. 

Willow tries not to sigh at who offers, though the dark-haired potential had let up on the attitude somewhat over the past couple weeks.  Seeing the questioning look cross Buffy’s face, Willow shrugs.

“Fine.  Grab a short sword and jacket to hide it with, along with a knife and a couple stakes.  Be careful and keep your eyes peeled.  Bringers have been popping up more and more in town along with the different demons, it almost seems like three come to take the place of every one we kill.”  Buffy looks around at the people, still not having found Faith, though the slayer usually took off in the early mornings anymore for a long run and usually didn’t get back until nine or ten, knowing Buffy didn’t start the training until 10:30 to give everyone a chance to wake up, get fed and organized.

“Get something to eat, Buffy.  I’m sure Tara snuck you a full plate away somewhere.”  Willow pushes against Buffy as they step out on the porch.

“Of course she did.”  Buffy grins and strides across the porch and pokes her head into the open window.

Willow chuckles as a few minutes later, Buffy pulls out of the window with a plate filled with food.  “You are loved.”

“And don’t I know it.”  Buffy grins at Willow as she settles down on the swing and watches as Kennedy finally steps out of the house.  “Please be careful, there hasn’t been many things happening during the daytime, but I don’t want you to take any chances.” 

“Yes, boss.”  Willow grins back as she lightly trots down the stairs.  “We’ll be back in a little while.  I might have to try and dig through the basement for a few things.”  Willow warns as she waves at Buffy.

“Check, no worrying for a couple hours.”  Buffy smiles at the quiet laughter coming from her friend as Willow and Kennedy stride down the sidewalk.  Listening to the group of potentials and the Watchers and witches that show up early as they research whatever books the new influx had brought with them, hoping for something that might help in the fight against The First, and hopefully a way to ward off him being able to get a foothold on earth. 

Smiling softly as Tara settles on the swing beside her, Buffy leans into the soft kiss she gets from her lover. 

“Did you get enough to eat, sweet one?”  Tara looks at the almost decimated plate.  “I hid away a few extra links and eggs for you with Faith’s plate.”

“I’m fine.  Faith will probably eat the extra when she gets back.”  Buffy finishes what little bit of food is on her plate before frowning.  “You did fix yourself something, didn’t you?”

Tara chuckles and runs her fingers through Buffy’s hair.  “Yes, I did.  I don’t want a certain slayer angry at me.”

“Good.”  Buffy sets the plate down and wraps her arms around Tara, smiling as her lover snuggles against her.  “Faith’s going to blow here soon.  What exactly is going on between her and Willow?”

Tara giggles softly and rubs her cheek against Buffy’s shoulder.  “Willow is something of a snuggler, sooooo….”

“Oh, God.  Faith’s probably in hell right now.”  Buffy laughs at the thought.  “Why in the world isn’t Willow saying anything to Faith?  I mean, even I can see that she likes Faith.”

“Willow’s grown up a lot over the years, but she’s still shy, honey.  Plus, now with the way she’s acting around Faith, I can guarantee you that she was attracted to her when she was in high school.”  Tara smiles at the low grunt she gets from her lover. 

“Okay, I guess I can see it.”  Buffy finally admits.  “She’s got the whole sexy, bad girl image thing going on.”

Tara smirks at her lover’s comments before nuzzling against her ear.  “The sexy, bad girl image, huh?  The dark hair, dark eyes, leather, cleavage being flaunted…” 

Buffy growls and turns her head to glare into her lover’s mischief-filled blue eyes.  “You trying to get me riled?”

“Like you haven’t noticed.”  Tara taps her lover’s nose, grinning crookedly at the light blush that comes up on Buffy’s face.  “I’ve noticed you have more of an appreciation for the female form than you used to, sweet one.  And that is allowed… as long as it doesn’t become more than that.”  Tara warns playfully.

“Never.”  Buffy becomes serious at the thought.  “That’s something I’d never do… and especially to you.” 

“I know, Buffy.”  Tara cups her lover’s cheek and brushes her lips lovingly over Buffy’s.  “That’s one thing that I would never think that you would.  Still might tease you about checking other women out, though.”

“Only if I get to tease you back.  Obviously you’ve been paying attention.”  Buffy laughs softly at the quiet groan coming from Tara.  “Giles out back doing the Watcher-dude thing?”

“Yes.”  Tara drops her head and shakes it softly.  “Not even here two hours and he’s in the thick of things with more books and research.  Speaking of which…”  Tara sighs heavily at the thought.

“Take a break today.  Let the Watchers and other witches do the research.  Grab one of those romantic smut books you like to read when you get a spare chance, go upstairs to the bedroom, shut and lock the door and read.”  Buffy smirks at the light blush that comes up on her lover’s face, loving to tease the witch after she’d found her little stash of lesbian romance novels.  Leaning in, Buffy whispers softly into her lover’s ear.  “I picked you up a couple more a few days ago and added them to your stash.  Maybe one will catch your eye.” 

“You’re too good to me.”  Tara places a quick, hard kiss to Buffy’s lips before grinning happily. 

“You deserve the best.  Now go, read, have fun.  I’m going to go play with the kiddies.”  Buffy smiles softly as she watches Tara hop up and excitedly stride into the house, loving the sight of Tara being happy and carefree.

“She’s got ya’ fuckin’ whipped.”  Faith comments as she makes her way up the walk. 

“Your point?”  Buffy quirks an eyebrow at the slayer as she turns and looks at Faith. 

Faith searches hazel eyes and sighs quietly.  “You’re happy, ain’t ya’?”  Faith wipes a hand over her forehead to wipe some of the sweat away before continuing.  “What’s it like, B?  What’s it like ta’ be happy and with someone that loves ya’?”

Buffy searches brown eyes that look at her wanting to understand.  “It’s the most wonderful, exhilarating thing in the world.  It’s also one of the most scary, worrisome things in the world.”  Buffy finally admits after a few minutes.  “Sometimes you just need to take a leap of faith… Faith.”  Buffy barely keeps from smirking as Faith glares at her.  “As Tara once told me, love isn’t a bad thing, whether it’s for a day, a week, a year or a lifetime.  Enjoy it to the fullest while it’s available to you, because life’s too short not to.”  Standing, Buffy gathers her dirty dishes and looks at Faith who seems to be thinking heavily.  “Time to go irritate the children.”

“Yeah.”  Faith answers, though her heart isn’t in it as she thinks about the redhead that she’d held at knifepoint and threatened to kill, silently wondering if there would be a chance to have any kind of relationship with Willow.  Sighing heavily at the thought, she knows there’s only one way to find that out, and that is going to take her some time to get the cojones up to ask.  “Fuck me.”  Faith slowly moves around to the back yard, planning on grabbing half the potentials and bringing them out front to work with them, since the neighborhood’s empty.

***

“I’m ready.”  Rack rubs his hands together as he looks at the last of the harnessing crystals he’d been waiting on is empty and ready for Strawberry’s power.  “Now, where are you my lovely, tasty girl?”  Rack starts a locator spell to get the area Willow’s in, ignoring the four Bringers that he’ll send out to capture her, thanks to The First and Caleb.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”  Rack crows delightedly.  “Making things easier for me, aren’t you Strawberry?”  Laughing he grabs the four amulets, tossing them to the Bringers.  “That will keep her magic from harming you, and actually absorb it.  No sense in wasting any.”  Striding around to settle in his chair, he purses his lips and presses his fingertips together as he considers the Bringers.  “If she’s by herself or with just one or two other people, make a grab.  If she has more people around her, or if one of the slayers is there leave her be and get back here without being detected.  It’s going to take some time to fill the crystals with enough power to give your boss what he wants.  She’s at the Magic Box right now, I’d suggest waiting outside and checking out the situation first, before going after her.  Now, have a wonderful time.”  Rack waves the Bringers out of the room as he spins around in his chair and looks at the array of crystals, having had to call in quite a few markers and favors to get what he needed.

“Strawberry, you will be mine once more.  And once I finish draining the majority of your powers into the crystals, you will be again.”  Rack chuckles at the thought of having the redhead at his disposal once again.  Trailing his finger over his lips he leans back as he continues to think.  The lack of junkies coming to him with everyone leaving Sunnydale has weakened him somewhat, not being able to feed his own powers with theirs.  If he hadn’t made and keyed the amulets before everyone had started to leave, he probably wouldn’t be able to control Willow as he’d planned.  “Ahhh, to think ahead and not put off ‘til tomorrow.” 

***

Chapter 27

“Come on!  You can’t really be attracted to that, that, that murdering slut?”  Kennedy waves her hands around, as Willow ignores her and continues to search and collect different items. 

Willow barely keeps from biting out an angry retort to the potential before tearing into another box and searching through it, setting out a couple packages to add to the booty she’s taking back to the house with them.  Kennedy having started questioning her about Faith a couple blocks from the house.  Finally breaking down that yes, she was attracted to Faith.  That comment having actually shut the young woman up for a little while.  Now she started again with this outburst.  Silently Willow counts to ten then twenty to keep from grabbing something and shoving it into the woman’s mouth to shut her up.

“I mean, I’m nineteen, I’m rich, I’m in excellent shape, I’m pretty, I’m an excellent lover and I don’t sleep with any Tom, Dick or Harry.  Hell!  I don’t sleep with men period.  I play on your side of the fence, and have you ever known Faith to?  Then the biggie, I have NEVER KILLED ANYONE!”  Kennedy finally yells, tired of being ignored. 

Willow clenches her jaw and her hands, turning to glare at the rich potential.  “And you’re a spoiled fucking brat that’s used to crooking her finger and getting everything you want!  You didn’t practically grow up on the streets scraping and fighting for every bite of food.  Finding some cold corner of a warehouse or alleyway to try and sleep in without being attacked by whatever jacked up, drugged out asshole that comes by.  Have you ever even gone to bed hungry?”  Willow snarls at the potential, having had enough of the whiny little bitch.  “Get out of my sight.  I’m not in the mood to see or hear anything from you right now, because you don’t know how close I am to zipping your mouth closed permanently!”  Willow dismisses Kennedy as she jerkily goes back to sorting through the ingredients.

Kennedy stares in shocked surprise at the redhead before spinning angrily around and striding up the stairs to the main part of the shop.  Pacing back and forth as she thinks about Willow defending that… that…  Kennedy growls as she can’t think of a bad enough word for that murdering bitch of a slut.  “Fine!  You don’t want to see or hear me, you won’t!”  Kennedy finally strides towards the front door, unlocking it and striding down the sidewalk without a second thought.

***

Faith groans and strides away from the idiot potentials that she’s trying to teach how to hold a sword, silently wondering what their Watchers were thinking.  “Want a water, B?” 

“Sure, check the time while you’re in there.”  Buffy knows it has to be about time for Willow to be coming back and wants to double-check. 

“’Kay.”  Faith jogs towards the back door, knowing Buffy is trying to figure out when Red is going to be back, having already asked her where the redhead was, and honestly not too happy at the thought of Kennedy going with Willow, but since Willow was okay with it she figured she couldn’t argue too much, looking at the clock before going out to the garage and grabbing two cases of water to take out for the potentials.  “It’s almost 12:30, B.” 

Buffy frowns.  “She should have been back by now.” 

“Fuck, don’t tell me that, B.”  Faith doesn’t think she just grabs a couple swords, spinning around to dart out of the back yard, literally plowing over Kennedy.  Stopping and spinning around, Faith barks at the potential.  “Where’s Red?”

“I don’t know.”  Kennedy snarls at the dark slayer as she carefully stands, rubbing her chest from where Faith had slammed into her.  “Why the hell should I know?  I’m not her fucking keeper.”

Faith drops the swords and grabs the potential picking her up and shaking her violently.  “WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE?  DID SHE COME BACK WITH YOU, YOU STUPID FUCKIN’ IDIOT?  YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE WATCHIN’ HER!!!”

“FAITH!”  Buffy cries out the slayer name as she hears and sees the other slayer shaking Kennedy like a rag doll.  Jerking the potential from the other slayer’s hands she watches as Tara comes flying from the front door and the rest of the Watchers and witches gather behind her.  “Where is she, Kennedy?”  Buffy glares at the potential, her eyes showing how angry she is, her tones cold.

“Last I saw her she was at the Magic Box.”  Kennedy curls her lip up in disgust.  “She said she didn’t want me around, so I left!”  Kennedy yelps as she goes flying backwards, landing hard on the ground knocking the air from her lungs.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill her when I get back.”  Faith warns, her tones deadly as she glares at the potential even as she picks up the swords again, taking off running as fast as her legs will carry her. 

“Double-check to make sure she isn’t in the house.”  Buffy looks imploringly at her lover. 

“She isn’t.”  Tara admits softly.  “I can do a tracking spell like I did…”  Tara trails off blinking, realizing Buffy probably doesn’t know about that, since the last time she’d used the spell was when they’d brought her lover back.  “Follow the light.  I’ll explain later.”  Tara states simply seeing the questioning look on Buffy’s face.  Collapsing down to the ground and concentrating, Tara does the spell to send the light after Willow, whispering the soft chant, before frowning heavily.  Concentrating harder, she growls and snaps her eyes open to look at her lover.  “Something’s blocking me from locating her.” 

“I want everyone to grab whatever weapons are at hand and get to the Magic Box, since that’s the last place we know for a fact that Willow was at.  We’ll spread out in groups of four to five people with a couple potentials, a Watcher and a witch comprising each group.”  Buffy snaps out quickly in a no nonsense tone even as she strides towards Kennedy, the potential slowly gaining her feet.

“Buffy…”  Tara starts to only stop as her lover glares at her angrily.

“She had one thing to do, Tara.  To stay with Willow and help protect her.  She couldn’t do it.”  Buffy snaps her head back to Kennedy as she reaches out for the potential.  “You’re a fucking idiot, but you’re going to be with me and Tara to find Willow.  Because I’m not going to have your death on Faith’s conscience, even though I don’t much blame her, because God knows I’d be happy to tear you limb from limb.  I’m going to save that to see if Willow’s okay.  If not, then you’re going to pay for your stupidity.”

“You can’t touch me.”  Kennedy snaps at the slayer, yelping loudly as Buffy backhands her, her head snapping to the side with the power of the hit, feeling the blood fill her mouth, she spits it out to the side.

“That’s a love tap to what I can do to you Kennedy.”  Buffy warns, deadly serious.  “If anything and I mean anything happens to Willow, you will be sorry.”

“Buffy, I don’t think…”  Giles snaps his mouth shut as Buffy growls angrily at him.

“Tara, can you get my sword and some of the stakes in our room?”  Buffy keeps a tight grip on Kennedy as she looks at Tara.

“Of course.”  Tara murmurs, honestly having only seen her lover this angry twice before, and somewhat fearful for what she’ll do to Kennedy if something has happened to Willow.

***

“Stop here.”  Tara orders everyone as they look at the Electronics store as she magically unlocks the door and disappears inside.

Buffy furrows her brows as she wonders what her lover’s up to until Tara comes out pushing a small cart loaded down with walkie-talkies and batteries.  Pressing a quick kiss to her temple, Buffy murmurs softly.  “Good idea.”

“I have my moments.” Tara admits, as she starts tossing the items out to everyone with Buffy ripping into the batteries to hand out to put in the walkie-talkies.  “The packages say they’re good up to five miles, but I’m not positive about that.  But we should be able to get into contact with someone if you have any problems or find something and they’ll be able to get to the rest of us.”

“And if you come across Faith, contact us.”  Buffy looks at the group of people, everyone somber and worried.  With the notable exception of one potential that was surly and aggravating until Tara had gagged her and basically put her on a leash.

“What channel?”  Giles questions as he finishes putting the batteries in the one he’d grabbed. 

“Doesn’t matter, just make sure they’re all on the same one and they work.”  Buffy grunts out softly.

“Channel one.”  Giles offers, as he puts his on channel one.  Everyone checking to make sure theirs works.  “Grab extra batteries while you’re at it, just to be on the safe side.” 

“Let’s go.”  Buffy orders as she snatches Kennedy forcing her towards the Magic Box, her anger a cold ball in her gut mixed with fear for Willow.  The closer they get to the store, without coming across Willow or Faith worrying her deeply.  Sparing a glance for the rest of the group, fear and worry is at the forefront with a couple with determination and anger obvious on their faces.  Remembering the worry and anger combating the most on Xander’s face, seeing him dart a disgusted glare at Kennedy before she’d finally talked him into staying at the house in case Willow showed up, she silently wonders if they’ll have to fight him for first dibs on the potential if something’s happened to the redhead. 

Tara unconsciously rubs her lover’s lower back as they make their way quickly to the Magic Box.  “We’ll find her.” Tara whispers softly, planning on trying a couple different spells when she gets there to at least try and trace which direction she went in, if they didn’t find her at the shop.

Buffy reaches back and threads her fingers with Tara’s, squeezing gently as she looks worriedly at her lover. 

***

Willow groans softly as she raises a hand to her head, wincing at the tenderness of her scalp and the huge bump.  Pulling her hand away she looks at the small amount of blood.  “Great, I probably have a concussion.”  Willow grumbles, looking around at the small room.  “Where the hell am I?  And what the hell happened?  Last thing I remember is bitching about Kennedy disappearing and leaving the shop.  Everything else is a mystery.”  Willow carefully pushes herself up and investigates the room.  “Great, no visible doors…”  Willow trails off frowning at the thought, trying to get the elusive thought of why that rings a bell.  Concentrating on the immediate problem, she groans loudly as she realizes she’s in a magically protected room that won’t allow her to penetrate the invisible protection spell around it. 

Sighing heavily, she makes her way slowly back to the cot and collapses onto it, throwing her arm over her eyes silently wondering what she’s gotten herself into this time, and if something happened to Kennedy and that’s why she wasn’t at the Magic Box.  Starting to feel bad about how she went off on the potential, Willow groans.  “I hope you can find me, because I sure the hell don’t know where I am and I can’t get out of here.”  Willow admits, knowing it’s useless to even try with the protection spells around the room. 

***

Chapter 28

Faith snarls and slams her fist into the brick wall as she finds the bag of items Willow had obviously dropped when she was taken.  “FUCK!” Kneeling beside the items, ignoring her bloody knuckles, she quickly sorts through them trying to see if maybe Willow might have been able to leave some clue as to what happened, though knowing in her gut that if Willow had any idea someone was after her she wouldn’t be gone right now.

Turning her gaze to find something, anything that might give her an idea of which way to go, Faith runs a shaking hand through her hair.  Seeing a small scuff on the sidewalk, she sighs.  “There’s no way for me ta’ tell if it’s Red’s or not.”  Gathering the items, carefully putting them in the bag, she inhales deeply, silently wishing that the redhead wore some kind of strong, obvious perfume instead of the light slightly flowery scent she does wear.  Setting the bag against the wall, she stands and takes a deep breath to calm her racing heart before she takes off at a quick walk, all her senses on high alert as she tries to find something to help her find the redhead. 

***

“She was here.”  Buffy sees the bag.  “Actually, both of them were.”  Buffy holds up the item on top of the bag. 

Tara sighs at the sight of the mangled piece of metal.  Looking around she points to the brick wall with a fist-sized hunk missing. 

“Okay, from here, I want groups going out in every direction.  If you find anything let us know.”  Buffy orders, pointing the different groups in the direction she wants them to take before she looks down at the ground and waves Tara over. “I think Faith headed this way.  The blood drops from where she hit the wall seem to be going this way.”

“Then we’ll follow her.”  Tara starts digging through the bag of items, knowing Willow was planning on picking up stuff to be able to do tracking spells.

“Tara?”  Giles questions softly, wondering what the witch is doing.  Having been somewhat shocked and surprised at her willingness to silence Kennedy.  Swallowing hard as he remembers the normally warm, soothing tones of the witch being cold and sharp when she’d told the potential in no uncertain terms that the two slayers aren’t the only one’s she’ll be answering to if Willow was harmed in any way.  And what she could do to her would make her wish for the slayers’ retribution instead. 

“Tracking spell.”  Tara answers the unasked question.  “Buffy, one of your knives, please?”  Tara holds her hand out as she kneels by one of the blood drops, placing the ingredients directly over it.  Accepting the knife without looking at her lover, she uses the handle to grind the items together, effectively mixing the relatively fresh blood with them before whispering the incantation, a muted red ball rising and bouncing in front of her. 

Buffy watches as Tara stands brushing off her knees after handing her the knife back. 

“Definitely Faith’s blood.”  Tara waves to the ball of light, sending it off as they quickly follow it.

“You can tell?”  Buffy looks curiously at Tara as they jog after the light, everyone else already probably a block or further away in their different routes. 

“The rage in her past is making it red, but she has control of it, more or less now or it would be a brighter red.”  Tara admits softly.  “If it was Willow’s, it would be darker, more a violet bordering on black because of the amount of dark magic she’s done.”

Giles listens to Tara’s explanation as he makes Kennedy keep pace with the two women.  He has actually been watching Buffy and Tara since he arrived back in Sunnydale, whenever he could get the chance.  And the way the two women interacted with each other, there was no doubting that they were a couple in every sense of the word, but what was most surprising was how Buffy and Tara worked together trusting each other implicitly with very little extra words needed between them. 

“Mine?”  Buffy purses her lips as they continue to jog after the light.

“Honestly, I haven’t any idea.  It shows up colored by the sums of our experiences.  With you…”  Tara shakes her head and smiles sadly at her lover before turning her gaze back to the light that just turned the corner around a warehouse. 

Buffy grunts softly in understanding, realizing because of her dying, her slayer status and a million other things, it would be hard to tell. 

“Whatever color, I’m sure it would be warm and bright.”  Tara murmurs softly, under her breath.  “It’ll shine from your heart, love. Because that’s what you are.”

Buffy shifts closer to Tara, letting her shoulder brush softly against Tara’s.  Needing the contact and warmth she always feels when she’s with her lover.  Turning the corner, she catches sight of Faith turning the corner ahead of them.  “FAITH!”  Buffy yells, picking up her pace and running after the slayer.

Tara, Kennedy and Giles pick up their pace to catch up to Buffy and Faith.

Buffy slides to a stop behind a glowering Faith.  “We have everyone looking for Willow, Faith.  They’re spreading out to search Sunnydale.” 

“I…”  Faith starts only to stop as she unconsciously takes a step towards Kennedy, the anger at seeing the potential enough to where she has to fight the urge to rip the young woman limb from limb. 

“Easy, Faith.  Let’s work on finding Willow first, then take care of everything else afterwards.”  Buffy quickly intercepts the dark-haired slayer, putting herself between Faith and Kennedy.  “Is there a particular reason you were heading this way?”

“Nah.  I can’t find nothin’ indicating which way she went.”  Faith admits, her shoulders dropping as she looks into worried hazel eyes.  “I got a bad feeling, B.  Can ya’ do some kinda spell or somethin’ to find her?”  Faith finally questions as she looks at Tara.

Tara sighs at the pleading look in Faith’s eyes, hating what she’s going to say next.  “I tried, Faith.  Something’s blocking me from Willow.  I’ll have to do some serious research and try different spells to see if there’s a way to work around whatever is blocking me.  Right now, searching Sunnydale is the next best thing.” 

Giles steps up after letting everyone know that they’d found Faith, but still haven’t come across Willow, everyone else reporting in that there was no indication of where the redhead is, yet.  “I suggest that we continue our search for another two hours, then head back to the Magic Box, pick up all the supplies and books that we might need and head back to the house.  Everyone will be on research detail for any kind of spell to help us locate Willow if we haven’t found her beforehand.”

Faith shakes her head about to argue, before she finds herself being hugged between the two women. 

“Shhh.  Running around with no idea or clue where she is, isn’t going to help anything.  You’ll need to be on top of your game when we find her.”  Buffy silences Faith looking up into worried blue eyes on the other side of the dark-haired slayer, not that surprised to find Tara trying to comfort Faith at the same time. 

“We’ll find her.  It may just take some time.  But we will find her.”  Tara promises softly to Faith and her lover, knowing Buffy’s as worried as the rest of them are, though she’s trying to hide it. 

Faith stiffens her back and nods her head, fighting the worry and fear she’s feeling, pushing it back as the two women step back releasing her.  “Let’s go.”  Faith finally growls softly, darting one last hateful look towards Kennedy before spinning around on her heels and taking off in the same direction she’d been heading before they had caught up with her. 

Kennedy drops her gaze down to the ground, guilt finally working its way through her at the fact that Willow is definitely missing and possibly worse.  Jogging after the hurrying slayers and witch at the prodding of the Watcher, Kennedy realizes she’s fucked up bad. 

***

“Are you going to keep your mouth shut?”  Tara finally asks, the slight drain of keeping the potential silent, starting to tire her after having kept it in place for the last two hours.  When Kennedy quickly nods her head, she disperses the spell and turns to look at her lover and Faith as they come out of the building they’d just finished searching.  The disheartened look on both women’s faces obvious. 

Giles steps up after talking with the other groups.  “No one’s having much luck.  One of the witches thought she felt some kind of disturbance but when she re-checked it, it disappeared.”

Buffy furrows her brows as something tickles her memories her eyes on her lover as Tara seems to get a thoughtful look on her face.  “I feel like that should mean something.”  Buffy admits, rubbing a hand over her forehead as she feels the stress headache that had been a dull pain starting to pound harder. 

“Me, too.”  Tara admits, sighing heavily.  “I think we’re all too tired and stressed out right now to have our thoughts working properly.”

“And I dare say it’s going to be dark here soon and we should call an end to the search…”  Giles starts only to be stopped.

“I ain’t quittin’!  She’s here somewhere, and we gotta find her.”  Faith finally spouts out, having kept quiet the rest of the time as they searched Sunnydale. 

“Faith, you’re tired and hungry.  Hell, we all are.  We’re not going to be much good if we’re too worn out to fight whatever took her.  Let’s get everyone to head back to the house, pick up some maps of Sunnydale and work on a plan for tomorrow.  We’ll send people out in groups like we did today, but we’ll concentrate in sections of Sunnydale.  Each group working on a block until it’s completely checked inside and out before working our way to the next block.”  Buffy offers, knowing that’s going to be the next best thing.  Even they hadn’t been checking every building and every room. 

“B…”  Faith starts only to see the worry and sadness in Buffy’s eyes, knowing the slayer doesn’t like it any better than she does, but ultimately believes this is the best way to go about it.

“I think everyone will do better with food, a halfway decent night’s sleep and a fresh start in the morning.  We’ll get up at the crack of dawn and start the search over again.”  Tara offers softly, her arm slipping around her lover’s waist, frowning as her lover sinks heavily against her.  “We’ll also spend a good portion of the night working on different spells to try and locate her.”

“Let’s go.”  Faith finally murmurs, disheartened but knowing it’ll make things harder trying to search at night, if there is some trace of what happened they’d probably miss it. 

Giles quickly connects on the radio, telling everyone to head back to the Summers’ residence for a meeting asking them if they pass anywhere that’ll have street maps of Sunnydale to go in and grab all that they have. 

***

Chapter 29

“Hello, Strawberry.”  Rack grins wickedly at the redhead as he sets down the tray with food and drink on it for Willow. 

“I should have figured.”  Willow sighs, now the magical signature around her becoming clear, though Rack’s signature is always different, since he usually uses a lot of other people’s magic.  Standing she narrows her gaze on him and starts to work a spell.

“Ah, ah, ah!”  Rack waggles his finger around and shakes his head.  “Won’t do you any good Strawberry.  Your magic won’t harm me I have protective spells placed on me just for such a purpose.”  Pulling out the crystals, he sets them down on the table.  “I can tell you’ve been keeping to the not so fun magic lately, but have been draining away all the excess.  I also know that you’re due for another drain and unless you put your magic into these crystals it’ll keep growing within you.”

Willow clenches her jaw and hands tightly, her eyes glaring at the magic dealer.  Knowing he’s right, that if she doesn’t drain away the excess magic, eventually she’ll lose control.  Something she’s promised herself she’ll never do again, but knowing Rack isn’t doing this out of the goodness of his heart, he’s obviously wanting her magic for some reason or another.  “What do you want, Rack?”  She practically spits his name out as she glares at him.

“You, Strawberry, to taste you again, to feel your delightfully sweet-tasting power flowing through my veins.”  Rack shivers in remembrance of how much power is at the redhead’s fingertips.  “We could do so many things together, Strawberry.  And we will.”  Rack laughs delightedly as he waves his hand, opening the magical doorway and stepping towards it.  “Use the crystals.  They’re the only thing available here for you to drain your magic with.”

Willow glares as the ‘doorway’ disappears behind the magic dealer, her eyes dropping to the crystals.  She’s not stupid, she realizes they’re harnessing crystals and will capture her magic so it can be used again later, but honestly not knowing what else she can do.  Deciding to wait as long as she can before having to drain her magic, Willow picks up a piece of fruit and sniffs it cautiously, though honestly believing Rack wouldn’t chance harming his little ‘magical’ storehouse.  Finally tossing the piece of cantaloupe in her mouth, she sighs as she chews the piece of fruit. 

Sitting down in the chair, she slowly works her way through the food and the water, knowing she’ll have to keep up her strength no matter what happens.  Her eyes continuously moving as she looks at the room, knowing that her friends will find her.  The only problem is, that no one would probably think about the possibility of Rack and his ability to ‘hide’ his always moving… business which is hard to find except for certain people.  Though the amount of witches they have here in Sunnydale at this moment would actually probably work in their favor… if they realized what they were feeling to investigate it further.  Sighing quietly, Willow finishes eating before standing and pacing slowly around the small room.

“Eventually I’ll get out of here, Rack.  And not only will you have to deal with me, but you’ll have to deal with my friends.  They won’t be exactly happy, and they’re not the type of people you want mad at you.”  Willow comments, even with her screw ups of the past, in her heart knowing that the group won’t quit until they find her. 

***

Tara holds her lover tightly, the slayer practically burrowing into her as she stares up at the ceiling, the niggling thought earlier having woken her from her restless sleep.   Listening to the soft snores and movements of the potentials lying on the floor of the bedroom, the house filled with potentials, witches and Watchers, everyone having decided to stay here until they found out what happened to Willow.  Xander and Jason having stayed at the house in case Willow possibly showed up while they double-checked the flamethrowers that the government had dropped off in response to Buffy’s call a while back.  Honestly not knowing what Jason had said to Xander to keep the man from barreling out of the house, but glad that he had spoken up. 

Hands stroking over the back of the slayer, Tara blinks as she tries to remember what had flitted through her mind on waking, knowing that there was something she was missing in regards to where Willow might be that would help them to find her.

“You need to sleep.”  Buffy whispers softly, knowing her lover is awake.

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to wake you.”  Tara leans down and brushes her lips softly over the top of Buffy’s head. 

“Not your fault.”  Buffy relaxes the grip she has on her lover and shifts to lie more beside her than on Tara.  Propping her head up on her palm, she looks down and brushes a thumb under Tara’s worried eyes. 

“I’m missing something.  Something Jeanine said about feeling a disturbance is ringing a bell.”  Tara reaches up and rubs a hand over her forehead. 

“You were out of the room at the time when she spoke up saying it felt almost like a combination of a shielding and glamour spell.”  Buffy comments after a few minutes as she thinks about it, her lover having left the room while everyone was talking to check on Faith as the dark-haired slayer had strode out of the house angrily a few moments beforehand. 

Tara shifts up in the bed, automatically shifting the pillows behind her to prop her up, running her fingers through Buffy’s hair as Buffy maneuvers to lay her head on her lap.  “We know that there have been the intermittent Bringers in town, a couple Uber Vamps and other demons have occasionally popped up.  What does The First need to really enjoy what he has planned?”

Buffy furrows her brow as she thinks about it, deciding on the simplest answer.  “A body?”

“Exactly.  How can he enjoy world domination if he can’t touch or smell it?  Why bother?  He needs to become physical.”  Tara scratches Buffy’s scalp as she thinks, her mind going over the different information that she has. 

“Major mojo to become physical… right?”  Buffy finally gets where Tara’s going, blinking at the thought.

“And Willow is very, very powerful.”  Tara sighs as she closes her eyes and tilts her head back.  Though her body is tired, her brain is too busy to let her sleep.

Buffy looks up at Tara, noticing the dark circles under her eyes and the tension etched into her face.  Carefully shifting around, she maneuvers Tara back down onto the bed and turns her on her side facing away from her before spooning against her back. 

Tara smiles as Buffy’s arm wraps around her and her hand gently strokes over her stomach.  Feeling the other arm wiggle its way under her neck and reaching up to grasp across her chest holding her tightly to her.

“Sleep, Tara.  You’re not doing anybody any good wearing yourself down.  We have something like forty people, Watchers, witches and two slayers to find her.  We will find her, honey.  And God help whoever or whatever took her because between you, me and Faith they aren’t going to have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it out of there alive.”  Buffy’s eyes become cold as she thinks about what she’d like to do to whatever took her best friend. 

Tara closes her eyes as she hears the cold fury in Buffy’s voice.  Knowing in her heart that none of them will be the same if something happens to Willow, and she’s going to do her damnedest to make sure they find her before anything can happen to her ex-lover.  “You need to sleep, too, Buffy.”

“I know.”  Buffy admits after a few minutes, sighing heavily into Tara’s hair.  Hugging Tara even tighter to her, Buffy rubs her nose gently against the back of Tara’s head.  Inhaling deeply of her lover’s scent, Buffy wiggles her hand beneath Tara’s waistband.  Feeling Tara tense slightly and start to say something, Buffy shushes her.  “Not going to make love… I just need to feel you.”  Buffy admits softly, gently cupping Tara’s apex sighing quietly at the feel of curls against her palm and the heat against her fingers.  As Tara relaxes slowly Buffy lets her thumb caress over Tara’s stomach as she starts to relax with her lover.   “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”  Tara moves her hand to stroke over Buffy’s forearm and closes her eyes, having to admit the soothing stroking of Buffy’s hand and the comforting feel of it against her is helping her to relax. 

Buffy presses her lips to the back of Tara’s head and closes her eyes relaxing as she feels Tara finally easing into sleep.  Taking deep, measured breaths Buffy slowly falls asleep a few minutes after Tara.  Knowing in her gut they’ll find Willow, there’s no other outcome that can come to pass.

***

Faith lies on the large bed by herself, thankful that none of the potentials had tried to share it with her, knowing her temper is short and she’d be just as likely to pick the girl up and throw her out a window than to tell her to get the fuck out of the bed.  Staring up at the ceiling for an hour, her mind trying to come to grips with the fact that she’s honest to gods scared that something might have happened to Willow. 

Moving her arm up to rest over her eyes, Faith fights the anger and tears that are working their way through her.  Knowing the anger will make her do something stupid, and the tears aren’t good for anything.  With her free arm she reaches over for Willow’s pillow, pulling it on top of her and clenching it to her chest.  The action woefully lacking as it doesn’t come close to taking the place of the redhead’s familiar weight. 

***

Willow glares at the crystals, not knowing for sure how long she’s been captured, but knowing that she has to start draining some of the magic away with the build up inside her, she figures she’s been here for at least a day since she usually drains her magic every other day and hadn’t done it the day before she was captured.  The harnessing crystals worrying her though, knowing what they are and the fact that they capture her magic to possibly be used later isn’t something she’s thrilled with, especially with Rack and the Bringers working together.  If they’re working together, she’s very aware of the fact that he’s in league with The First and any way you look at it, her magic being in play is not of the good.

Sighing heavily with no other choice, she grasps two of the larger crystals, hoping that not filling them up and distributing the power might give everyone time to find her.  But unless they think about Rack, they may never find her.  His lair being magically cloaked and guarded against tracing spells would be extremely efficient in keeping them from finding her.

Settling on the cot, she starts her meditations and slowly drains her excess magic into the crystals, part of her mind trying to think of something that might help, but the magically blocked room limiting her.

***

Tara glances up as everyone hurries through breakfast, as with the rising of the sun everyone had gotten up and hurried through morning rituals, though with everyone in the house, that takes quite a while in and of itself.  People eating in shifts while taking cold showers, though people are using the houses around them, but it still takes time and not willing to go any further away from the main house.  Looking back at Jeanine, the witch that had felt the slight disturbance yesterday, Tara questions her softly.  “What did it feel like?”

“It…  It’s honestly hard to explain.  It felt like a combination of a glamour spell along with some kind of cloaking spell.  What’s weird is one second it was there and the next it was gone.”  Jeanine explains worriedly.

“You know…”  Anna blinks and rubs a hand over her forehead.  “I felt something very similar to that when we were heading back here after calling it quits yesterday.  But we were at least six or seven blocks from where you were.”

Tara starts to pace as she nibbles on her bottom lip.  “Feels the same, moves around?”  Tara stops and looks up at the morning sun, frowning as she thinks heavily.  Remembering talking with Dawn after her arm was broken.  ‘She took me to a magic dealer’s place.  The people in it were like junkies, and she had to feel where it was magically because it moved around.’  “Oh, sweet Goddess.”  Tara murmurs, realizing that the magic dealer was probably blocking any magic coming in and going out of his ‘business’.  Looking around the room, she doesn’t see either Buffy or Faith.  Darting outside, she sighs as she sees the two slayers sparring with each other, obviously trying to get some built-up tension released.  Running over to them, she looks from Buffy to Faith and back again.  “The magic dealer that she went to before.”  Tara sees the confusion on Buffy’s face before it clears up.

“Rack.”  Buffy snarls angrily her eyes flashing.  “Makes sense, he would know her and know how powerful she is.  If I was playing with the big boys and needed major juice, the first person I’d grab is Willow since I was already familiar with her.”

“Gather all the witches and whomever else can detect or do even a small amount of magic.”  Tara orders hoarsely, darting away and back into the house to gather ingredients for a simple spell that should help them find and track the magically cloaked lair.

“I’ll hit the houses where the rest of ‘em are on this side.”  Faith throws over her shoulder even as she’s darting out of the yard to the surrounding houses.  The worry she feels still in her, but now that they have something to go on, she feels better and knows that none of the people here will give up until they find Willow.

***

Chapter 30

“Sometimes the KISS method is the best method.”  Tara murmurs softly as she watches Anna finish the magic detection spell. 

“Kiss?”  Faith questions hoarsely, bouncing hard on the balls of her feet, anxious to find Willow and get the redhead back. 

Buffy smiles softly at her lover, Tara having explained it to her before when she’d made a similar comment.  “Keep it simple, stupid.  K-I-S-S.”  Buffy explains softly.

“Instead of where I was trying to key into Willow, she’s keying into the magic signature that will be left from Rack’s little fortress and we’ll track her down that way.”  Tara nibbles on her bottom lip, leaning back into Buffy’s offered support as her lover wraps her arms around her waist.

“It might be a slower process, because we’re following the trail of the magical signature, but we’ll find her.”  Anna nods towards the group. 

“We don’t know what we’re going to find, people.  We don’t know what kind of strength they have both physically and magically, so try and be prepared for anything.”  Buffy orders, looking around at the large group, before hugging Tara.  “Don’t blame yourself, you didn’t know or you would have thought of this yesterday.  You did great by realizing it’s Rack.”

Tara nods her head, though feeling guilty, as now the Magic Dealer has had Willow for at least twenty-four hours, looking up in surprise as Faith steps in front of her.

“Come on, Blondie.  Don’t blame yourself, ya’ didn’t do nothin’ wrong.”  Faith pats Tara gently on the shoulder before striding away, having already loaded herself down with her weapons of choice.

“We’ll get her back, Tara.  You did everything you could with the knowledge we had at the time.  Now because of you, we have more knowledge and are coming at this from a different angle.”  Buffy hugs Tara tightly against her, burying her face against the back of Tara’s head.  “I love you.  Now, let’s go get her back.”

“I love you, too.”  Tara smiles as she slowly relaxes a small amount, knowing she won’t be able to relax fully until after they get Willow back safe and sound.

***

“I told you it would take some time.”  Rack clenches his jaw as he looks at the ex-priest. 

Caleb stares unblinkingly at the magic dealer.  “We’ve waited long enough.  My brethren have contacted me to make me aware you have what you were waiting on.  Now rip the magic we need from her and let’s get this show started.”

Rack unconsciously shifts back from the ink-black eyes glaring at him.  The pure menace and evil he feels directed towards him, makes even him scared. “But if I do that, she won’t live through it.”

“She wouldn’t live anyway.”  Caleb points out, narrowing his eyes on the magic dealer, having been gathering their forces just outside of Sunnydale waiting for the moment that The First Evil can be made corporeal, and with the power of the Hellmouth at his disposal, turn this world into never-ending darkness. 

“But…”  Rack starts to only snap his teeth shut at the dead-eyed stare coming from the ex-priest.  Knowing that Caleb isn’t completely human, but honestly not knowing exactly what he is. 

“Do it now, Rack.  Tonight I want my body.”  The First coalesces beside Caleb. 

Rack fights the snarl of his lip as The First appears as Buffy.  Cracking his neck, he nods.  “I’ll need at least six hours to get the amount of magic from her that you’ll need for the spell.”  Rack figures on the side of caution, Willow having already filled some of the crystals over the time she’s been here even with putting it off as long as she can and only draining the tiniest bits to make her magic manageable.

“Go.”  The First orders unceremoniously as he watches Rack stand and stride out of the room.  Turning to look at Caleb he quirks his eyebrow in silent question. 

“I’m ready.  As soon as the spell is done, my body will be ready for you to take it over.”  Caleb answers simply.

“You are a most trusted and loyal servant, Caleb.”  The First Evil smiles before fading away.

“Thank you.”  Caleb continues to stand, placing his hands behind his back as he calmly waits for Rack to drain the redheaded bitch of her power, a feeling of accomplishment already streaking through him at the thought of taking all that power back along with Rack to the caves for his master to have them do the spell, releasing his spirit at the same time as The First’s spirit will inhabit his body.  This is what he’d been bred and trained for, the perfect vessel for his Master.

***

“So help me, if that bastard has hurt her…”  Xander growls deeply at the thought of Rack and what he might have done to Willow.  Looking at Jason as his lover reaches down and squeezes his hand gently. 

“We’ll find her.”  Jason looks around at the group of men, women and yes, even children since a lot of the potentials are barely hitting their teenage years.  Between the two slayers, and all the witches he swears that they could probably take on the whole world and win.  “And one way or the other, I have a feeling things are about to come to a head.”

“Probably.”  Xander smiles somewhat nervously, the rumbling in his gut getting louder at the thought of what might end up happening.  Glancing towards Buffy, surprised to see her up front with Anna, the two women conversing together as he searches for Tara, usually the two women inseparable, but at this moment Tara seems to be using her own special brand of calmness to help Faith, the other slayer ready to come to blows with anyone and everyone, especially Kennedy.  Smirking as he glances at the potential, seeing the swollen shut eye, from where Faith had given her a little love tap when Kennedy had unwisely opened her mouth this morning about Willow within Faith’s excellent hearing distance. 

***

“We’re getting close.”  Buffy warns as she looks back over the group, unconsciously seeking her lover’s blue eyes, relaxing when she makes contact before nodding at Tara.  “As far as we’re aware, Rack’s human, just an asshole Magic Dealer that feeds off anyone with any magical ability.  So, try not to kill him, I’d rather not have his death on any of our heads.”

Faith snorts, her eyes glittering dangerously.  “What’s one more?  At this stage of the game, the bastard deserves it, especially if he hurt Red.”

Tara starts to open her mouth to argue with Faith, but realizing she pretty much feels the same way, she can’t say anything, knowing in her heart that if Buffy had been the one taken and possibly hurt, she wouldn’t stop at anything before getting her lover back.  Hell, even with her and Willow being broken up for over a year now, she still feels protective of the redhead and would do almost anything for her.  “Let’s just get her back safe and sound.”

The group continues working their way through Sunnydale, all the witches and even the other people that have a small amount of magic now able to feel the slight trace left from the hidden ‘business’. 

Tara reaches over to grasp Faith’s arm as Anna calls a stop that they’d caught up to Rack’s place.  Looking at the slayer, she shakes her head.  “Let three or four of the magic wielders in first, sweetie.  Then Buffy and some other people that are good with weapons.  We have to be prepared in case we get someone trying to sneak up behind us.”

“I want to be in there.”  Faith growls softly.

Tara looks into angry, flashing brown eyes, staring at Faith as she sees worry and fear buried beneath the anger.  “Buffy, swap out with Faith.”  Tara calls out softly.  “Don’t do anything that you’ll regret, Faith.”  Tara begs softly to the slayer.

Faith stares at Tara, blinking momentarily before nodding her head.  “I ain’t gonna guarantee ya’ I won’t do something stupid, but I’ll try not ta’ kill anyone not a demon.  But if she’s hurt, all bets are off.”

Tara nods her agreement as Faith spins and pushes her way through the group as Buffy works her way around the other side. 

“Is that a good idea?”  Buffy questions softly, directly into Tara’s ear, watching the dark slayer make her way to the front, pulling a short sword as she bounces lightly behind the witches that are about ready to enter the hidden magic base. 

“I don’t know.”  Tara answers honestly.  “But she needs to be up front, in the first wave going in there.  I think she needs to find Willow, Buffy.  Something about what happened before between them.”  Tara finally looks at Buffy, seeing the dawning realization in her lover’s eyes.

“Giving back what she almost took.”  Buffy whispers, her eyes darting back to the front of the group as they finally breach the magic dealer’s fortress.  Taking a deep breath she runs a hand down Tara’s shoulder as she looks around, keeping her eyes and senses open.

Nodding silently, Tara watches as the first wave goes in, clenching her jaw and sending up a silent prayer to the Powers That Be to be there for them, not knowing what they’re going to encounter, magic-wise, Bringer-wise or even possibly other demon-wise.

***

Rack slams into the room, disbursing the magic door as he glares at Willow, not wanting to give up on having her, no matter what The First says.  “You have one shot, Strawberry.  Fill the crystals willingly and now, and you’ll live or I’ll have to take your magic from you.  You know what that means.”

Willow clenches her jaw as she stares at Rack, having stood as soon as he slammed into the room.  The dealer obviously pissed, she crosses her arms over her chest and watches him intently.  Already taking note that he’s wearing one of the crystals and any magic she sends at him will be collected by it.  “Why are you doing this, Rack?”

“It’s none of your concern.  All you need to know is that either you play nice and do what I want you to do, or I’ll rip your magic from you and leave you to die.  It’s as simple as that.”  Rack warns roughly, pushing the crystals on the table to the edge and glaring at the redhead. 

“No.”  Willow glares at him and shakes her head.  “You’re not getting anything from me, and it’ll take someone better than you to take my magic from me, Rack.”

“You forget, Strawberry.”  Rack starts as he strides over to the witch, reaching for her cheek, snarling as she jerks away from him.  Grasping her chin tightly in his hand he stares into angry green eyes.  “I’ve tasted you, I know you.  You can’t keep your magic from me.  Once I’ve had you I can have you again easily.”

Willow snarls her lip and jerks her head away from the tight grip, stepping back from the man.  “You don’t have enough magic left in you to take it from me, Rack.  I might have believed you, if you hadn’t touched me.  But you can’t hide your weakness.  The lack of junkies in town has made you weak, since you have hardly no actual magic of your own.”

“BITCH!”  Rack backhands her hard, his eyes flaring with anger, watching as she collapses on the floor, groaning quietly.

Willow wipes the blood off her lip and blinks to try and focus on Rack, finally bringing him in and grinning at the anger in his eyes.  “It’s taking almost everything in you just to keep the protective shields around this place up, isn’t it Rack?  I’m not stupid, you’re working with The First, but does he know that without all your little followers you’re nothing?”

Rack reaches down, yanking Willow up and shaking her angrily.  “You can’t stop me if you’re unconscious, bitch!  You had your chance, Strawberry and you squandered it.”  Rack laughs wickedly as he draws his fist back planning on knocking the witch out and taking her magic from her, the witch not being able to block him while unconscious. 

Willow glares up at the magic dealer, spitting the blood in her mouth in his face from where she’d bitten her tongue to go along with the split lip from where he’d hit her.  “Then do it.  I’m not stopping you.  Because that’s the only way you’re going to get any more of my magic.”

“So be it.”  Rack snarls back at the redhead.

***

Chapter 31

“Giles, have the Watchers surround the area, just in case.  We’re going in.”  Buffy orders Giles as she and Tara run inside having heard Faith yell out to them, leaving a good majority of the Watchers and a few witches outside to protect their back.  Xander and Jason both going in with them, the two men having held back to wait and see what happened. 

“SHIT!”  Buffy snarls as she looks at the Bringers and demons seeming to come from everywhere, trying to overpower the group.  “Xander tell them to send in some more Watchers, I think everything’s going to happen in here.” 

Tara looks for the witches as they gather together, pooling their energies to help protect everyone from the Bringers and demons flooding the area. 

“Uh, Buffy…”  Xander blinks as he pokes his head back in from the magical entrance/exit, looking back at Buffy with his eyes huge.  “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

“What?”  Buffy growls as she swings, taking the head of a demon before stabbing a Bringer then spinning around to stab another Bringer.

“We’ve moved…  I think we’re somewhere out near the caves, because there’s woods all around us.”  Xander calls out to the group.

“Fuck!”  Faith snarls, fighting and wading her way through the demons and Bringers, her anger fueling her as she swears she can hear Willow.  “Where is she?”  Faith growls as she skewers a demon on her blade, snarling in his face as he just hisses back at her.  Slinging him off the blade and into some Bringers heading her way, she pushes her way forward to another doorway. 

“I don’t think so.”  Caleb grins evilly as he steps up in front of the slayer.

“Get the fuck out of my way!”  Faith snarls angrily, spinning the sword in her hand as she advances on the bastard. 

“BUFFY!”  Tara cries out to her lover as she sees Faith lunge at Caleb and the man… demon, whatever he is backhands the slayer, causing Faith to spin like a top into a wall even as he pulls the sword out of his stomach, grinning maniacally, black viscous liquid coming from the wound.

Buffy snaps her head around as she hears her lover calling her, unconsciously taking note of everyone fighting for their lives, a few SIT’s wounded as Xander hacks at the demons and Jason grabs a couple of the wounded to pull back away from the fighting.  As Tara points, Buffy frowns as she sees Faith stumbling up and swaying, blood pouring from a wound on the side of her head, the stubborn woman going after the devil son of a bitch, Caleb with her bare hands.

Tara looks pleadingly back at her lover, having a gut feeling if someone doesn’t take out Caleb that he’ll kill Faith, and Goddess only knows how many other people. 

“Help her.”  Anna grabs Tara’s hand and yanks on the woman, forcing Tara to go to Faith.  “You have it in you to tap into their healing abilities… and other abilities, you can center it.”  Anna finally tells the witch, the other witches having been testing Tara without her knowledge since they’d been there and everything leans towards Tara having untapped resources in her.

Tara’s eyes widen as she stares at Anna.  When the witch nods her head and smiles encouragingly at her, she turns back to Faith, the woman fighting off the ex-priest with everything in her, though the woman is obviously weakening.

“Use me.”  Buffy growls, having heard what Anna said, grabbing Tara in her free arm and running towards Faith, dodging and protecting her lover as much as possible, wishing Tara was far away from this madhouse as she feels something bite into her side, but keeps going, prepared to do whatever’s necessary to protect her lover since she can’t have what she wishes. 

It takes a second for Tara to realize what Buffy said, before taking a deep breath, opening herself to ‘feel’ for her lover, their relationship and love making it easy for her to tap into the ‘slayer essence’ deep inside Buffy.  Silently asking for permission from the essence, realizing it’s more of another entity within her lover, Tara feels a slight resistance even as she quickly explains to it what’s needed, a bright flash of golden warmth and light seeming to coalesce and surround her, Tara accepts the gift. 

Buffy arches slightly as she feels an unbelievable warmth inside her, blinking in disbelief as she literally feels the wound in her side heal quickly and her strength seem to triple.  Setting Tara down beside Faith, she pushes the other slayer away gently into her lover as she snarls at Caleb.  “Tag team time, bastard.  You’re mine!”  Buffy snarls angrily and comes at the ex-priest.

“Goody.  You’ll die in just as much pain as she will.”  Caleb grins evilly at the blonde slayer, before grunting in pain, his eyes widening slightly as he watches the slayer pull out some of his insides gripped in her black-coated fist.

“I’ll take you apart piece by piece.”  Buffy gets in Caleb’s face, her eyes gleaming brightly.  “And I’ll enjoy every single second of it.”  Slinging the stuff off her hand, she dives back into the wound Faith had caused with both fists and ignores his flailing fists, honestly not even feeling the blows as she works on tearing him apart from the inside out.

Tara winces as she catches the blows Caleb is raining down on her lover, even as she centers on Faith, part of her realizing that the blows don’t seem to be doing any damage, at least none that she can see and Buffy obviously isn’t being phased by the powerful strikes as she works on ripping him to shreds.

“What the fuck?”  Faith bounces up quickly from where she’d been knocked to the ground, looking in disbelief at Tara, knowing all the bumps, cuts, bruises, broken bones and everything else are healed. 

“Find Willow.”  Tara orders softly as she turns back to the group of people fighting bravely, dodging and diving between the fighting demons and humans, Tara takes a deep breath and concentrates the warm, healing ball of energy on one of the fallen SIT’s, thankful when she sees the girl healing in front of her eyes. 

Faith hesitates, watching Tara before turning back to Buffy.  “B?”

“Go, I have this bastard under control.”  Buffy head butts Caleb, smirking as his head splits partially open.

“NOOOO!!!”  The First appears, looking like Buffy as he comes to be with Caleb as soon as he felt the life force starting to ebb from his vessel.  Caleb’s natural healing ability leaving him with every part that the slayer rips from him.  “YOU CAN’T TAKE HIM FROM ME!!”  The First screams, the link between them that he’d forged draining his powers as Caleb weakens even more, drawing closer to death.

Buffy laughs as she sees The First appear, but he appears more incorporeal than before, almost see through and as she rips more bits from Caleb, she watches The First become lighter and more transparent.  “What’s wrong, Firsty-boy?  You have some kind of link with this prick bastard?  Because I have to tell you, you’re looking a little peaked there.”

The witches look at each other, hearing the slayer’s words as they make their way towards Buffy, the rest of the group having turned the tide with Tara’s helpful healing and infusion of strength. 

Anna nods her head.  “It make sense, for him to be seen on this plane, he would have to tie his essence to something else.”

“And if he wanted to become completely corporeal, that essence would end up being his body, because that’s who he’s anchored to.”  Tara growls angrily, her eyes flashing as it finally makes sense.  “Kill him, Buffy!!  Kill Caleb and it’ll sever The First’s link to this mortal plane.”

“WAIT!!  Not yet!”  Claire yells, darting towards the slayer.  “Anna, do you have Manga Root?”  Claire calls as she digs into her bag of herbs, her mind working feverishly as she recalls the spell that is supposed to disperse a ‘spirit’ from the earthly plane forever. 

“I think…”  Anna frowns as she starts digging through her herbs, not even questioning Claire, the other witch extremely knowledgeable on different spells and with her photographic memory, she obviously recalls something.  Finding the Manga Root, she hands it to Claire.

“What the hell?”  Buffy steps back, panting heavily as she watches Claire combining the ingredients as she starts to incant some kind of spell that coalesces around The First and Caleb.

Tara grabs Buffy, unmindful of the black gore dripping from her lover, pulling her back and away from the spell being cast, knowing it shouldn’t harm her lover, but not wanting to chance anything since Buffy is covered in Caleb’s blood and guts.  Listening with half an ear to the spell Claire is casting, she buries her face in Buffy’s neck.  “Caleb and The First are tied together, if you kill him it’ll dissolve the link The First has to his incorporeal body and he’ll be just an entity that can’t be seen until he finds another willing vessel that is proper for what he wants.  The spell she’s casting will actually sever all ties to the mortal plane that The First has when you kill Caleb, severing their link.”

“No more First?”  Buffy pants, blinking as her lover’s words ramble around in her head.

“No more First.”  Tara agrees softly, hugging Buffy tightly to her. 

Xander and Jason come panting heavily up to the group.  “Where’s Willow?”

“Faith went after her.  I have to knock out ex-preacher asshole here, then I was going to go after her.”  Buffy admits looking at the two men. 

Xander glances at Jason, the two men nodding and darting around what’s happening back through the doorway and disappearing from their sight. 

“Oh, shit.  How come I have a bad feeling about that?”  Buffy groans, starting to go after them, but Tara’s arms wrapped around her keep her from moving. 

“No.  Let them go, you need to finish with Caleb.”  Tara orders, pressing a quick hard kiss on Buffy’s lips.  “I love you.  Find me when you’re done.”  Tara doesn’t give Buffy a chance to argue as she bolts for the same doorway.

“TARA!”  Buffy yells her lover’s name, glaring after the already gone woman.  “I am so going to kick your ass.” 

Claire finishes the spell and steps back a few moments later and turns to Buffy.  “Finish him off, hopefully that should end The First’s hold here on Earth permanently.”

Anna watches The First mouth something, but no sound is coming from him, tilting her head she slowly takes in his form with her regular sight before letting her inner sight see the tenuous link between The First and Caleb, the black light pulsing slowly and weakly. 

“My pleasure.”  Buffy growls even as she’s stepping up to finish what she’d started.

***

“Where the bloody hell did they go?”  Giles spins around, not able to feel the magic hideout any longer as he glares at the other Watchers.  Looking at the three SIT’s left with them before dropping his hand and the sword in it to look disbelievingly at the place the slight shimmering had been before, his magical ability letting him see it after they’d located it. 

John shrugs and lifts one of the walkie-talkies up to his mouth and tries it, calling for any of the group to answer him.  Waiting for a few moments, he tries again, shaking his head as he looks at Giles. “They may be too busy to answer.”

“Yes, and they may be bloody well in fuckin’ Egypt and not ABLE to hear it.”  Giles snarls angrily, rubbing a hand over his forehead as he tries to think what he should do. 

“Can you track the trace left over from the hideout, like Anna was doing?”  Kennedy hesitantly questions, almost afraid to say anything, though Faith isn’t there to hit her again.  Her eye is swollen shut, and hurting more than she’ll ever admit to anyone. Having a feeling the slayer cracked her cheekbone when she’d smacked her.  Silently praying that Willow will be alright, because if not, she has a feeling the pain she’s in right now will be a day in the park when the slayers and everyone else gets done with her.  Wincing slightly as Giles turns his glare on her.

“No!  I don’t have the ingredients for it on me, and I think they pretty much wiped out the majority of ingredients I would need from the Magic Box.”  Giles admits angrily, running a hand through his disheveled hair as he looks at the other Watchers.  “Any suggestions?”

John holds up the walkie-talkie and shrugs.  “This is the only thing I can think of.”

Giles looks down at his own walkie-talkie and sighs heavily.  Turning his gaze back on the group, he realizes there are ten of them here.  “Split up in two groups, keep trying to raise them on the walkie-talkies and make your way slowly to the other side of town.  Keep your eyes and ears open for anything and anyone.”

John hands a couple extra sets of batteries to Giles.  “Just in case.”  John turns and points to two other Watchers and two SIT’s.  “You’re coming with me, let’s go.”

Giles tucks away the batteries and looks from Kennedy to the other three Watchers.  “Bloody fucking hell.  Let’s go.”  He finally orders as he heads in the opposite direction from John.  Every block they travel, he tries to raise the group on the walkie-talkie.

***

Chapter 32

“Ya’ lay another hand on her I’ll rip your fuckin’ heart out.”  Faith snarls as she enters the room, having heard what was said and taking in the damage done to Willow with a quick glance.  Capturing happy green eyes with hers, Faith breathes out a sigh of relief as the woman is obviously not hurt badly.  And obviously full of piss and vinegar with what she’d heard.

Smiling at the sight of the dark-haired slayer, ignoring the pain of her lip Willow feels a sense of relief and happiness working its way through her.  “Rack, you just fucked up royally.”  Willow growls, darting forward and ripping the crystal from around his neck so her power won’t be absorbed by it any longer even as Faith darts forward, popping him hard on the jaw.

“Yeah, and ya’ ain’t gonna get a chance to hurt her again.”  Faith growls angrily, picking up the unconscious Magic Dealer about ready to body slam him into the ground when she feels a small hand clasp her forearm gently.  Turning to look into searching green eyes, Faith hesitates.

“Don’t, Faith.  You aren’t that person any longer.  Don’t let it get the better of you, please.”  Willow begs softly, searching brown eyes that seem to soften, the anger slowly draining away.

“He hurt ya’… he was gonna…”  Faith stops, feeling the lump in her throat grow as she can’t continue what she had started to say.  “Ain’t nobody gonna do that to ya’…  I ain’t gonna let it happen.”  Faith swears softly, still holding the unconscious Rack above her.

“You didn’t.  You stopped him.”  Willow squeezes the strong arm under her hand more firmly.  “Please, Faith.  He has no hold over me… or anyone any longer.  He tapped himself out by moving everyone here, look around you.  Even as we’re standing here, it’s dissolving.”  Willow sees Xander and Jason slide to a stop as they come into the room.  Smiling at the sight of the two men, she turns her gaze back on Faith.  “If Tara is here, she and I can make it so that he can never access anyone’s magic again.  He doesn’t really have any of his own.  He always has to take from others.  If he can’t access that ability, he’s just another asshole jerk that will slink away into the night.”

Faith takes a deep breath, closing her eyes tightly as she thinks about what Willow’s telling her before swallowing hard, the urge to break the man into a dozen pieces still working through her, the sight of Willow’s split lip and the blood splattered top making her heart ache for the redhead. 

“Please, Faith?  For me…”  Willow hesitates as Faith slowly opens her eyes to look at her.  Taking a gamble, she runs her hand gently up Faith’s arm to cup the woman’s cheek.  “For whatever may be between us?”

Faith whimpers softly and presses her cheek into the small hand before slowly nodding her head and easing Rack down onto the ground, standing she finds her arms filled with the redhead.  “I…”  Faith starts, only to stop as she doesn’t know what to say.  Finally she just buries her face in the redhead’s neck, holding her tightly to her as Willow starts to shake.  “I’m here, Red… I’m here.”  Faith hoarsely whispers, lifting the slight body and cradling Willow against her as the woman’s legs start to give out on her.

“For once, I wish that this prick bastard would know what it’s like to be used, abused and taken advantage of like he’s done to all the people he’s hurt over the years… of course, preferably somewhere far, far away from here.”  Xander growls looking at the Magic Dealer that’s lying unconscious on the ground, leaning against Jason as his lover wraps his arm around his waist.

“Wish granted.”  Anya materializes, looking down at Rack, a wicked grin on her face as she zaps him to another world before turning to a shocked Xander.  Looking from him to his boyfriend and back again, she slowly nods.  “Have a long and fulfilling life, Xander.  Be happy.  Let Buffy know that the Hellmouth is all hers again, I won’t be back here to visit.”

Xander opens his mouth in shock, about to say something to his ex-girlfriend before she smiles softly at him and disappears.  “Thanks, Anya.”  He finally whispers softly, feeling tears come to his eyes.  “I’m sorry for what I did to you.”  Knowing the Vengeance Demon heard him, also knowing that she probably realizes he still does love her, but things have changed and there’s no going back for either of them.

Jason pales slightly as he realizes who that was before he looks at Xander.  “Is everything okay?”

“Better than okay.”  Xander hugs the blonde to him tightly, taking a deep breath and relaxing as he finally feels like he’s come home.

Tara smiles as she watches the rest of the magical illusion dissolve around them, her eyes landing on Faith holding onto Willow like she never wants to let her go even as the redhead cries into the slayer’s neck.  Turning her gaze to the two men hugging each other tightly she slowly turns as she looks behind her, nothing left of Caleb except little clumps of black goo everywhere.  Her lover striding towards her with the beginnings of a smile crossing her lips.  Smiling in response, Tara starts to laugh and launches herself at her totally slime-covered lover, not caring one iota. 

“I think this means we won.”  Buffy grunts quietly, hugging Tara tightly, her eyes being caught by brown eyes, chuckling at the sight of Willow being cradled against Faith’s body and Faith obviously more than happy to have her there. 

“Umm… where are we?”  Anna questions, holding up the walkie-talkie that’s now coming to life as they’re being paged, realizing that the magic that powered the hideout was probably also blocking the walkie-talkies from working. 

“Tell them we’re out by the caves, and we’ll start heading towards town, if they want to wait for us with some vehicles… hopefully.”  Buffy answers after noticing where they are, knowing it’ll be something of a trek back towards town, but nothing to be done except to start walking.

“Hey, Blondie?  Can ya’ do your mojo over here?”  Faith hoarsely questions, nodding towards Willow as she turns towards Tara. 

“I don’t know…”  Tara searches for the golden ball of healing energy, finally locating just a small amount left in her, having spent almost all of it on healing everyone else.  “Let me try.”  Tara squeaks as Buffy swings her up into her arms.  “I can walk!”

“Uh, Uh.  If Faith is going to act all studly by carrying Willow around, I’m carrying you.”  Buffy grins happily at her lover as she steps over towards Faith and Willow.

Xander eases back from Jason and eyes his lover.

“Don’t you even suggest it.  There ain’t no way in hell either one of us could carry the other one more than ten yards.”  Jason warns, glaring at Xander.

“Spoil sport.”  Xander starts to chuckle, the fear finally draining away to leave a giddiness in its wake. 

“I think you’re all nuts.”  Tara grumbles even as she grins hugely, gently running her hand over Willow’s head, smiling into watery green eyes that open to look at her.  “Slayers are handy to have around, Willow.  And just to let you know… their energy level can make for very, very happy witches!”  Tara grins crookedly at the redhead even as she spends what’s left of the healing energy on Willow. 

“Ah, man.”  Faith groans loudly as Willow looks up at her with a mischievous smile. 

“I don’t know… mine hasn’t even kissed me yet.  How do I know if she’s handy…”  Willow whimpers as full, warm lips capture hers in a heated, demanding kiss.  As Faith’s tongue delves into her mouth, staking her claim, Willow groans loudly as a streak of pure desire flows through her body.

“Shut up, Red.”  Faith growls roughly as she looks into hazy green eyes after she ends the kiss.  Not able to keep from chuckling at the sight.

Willow whimpers and licks her lips as she looks up into twinkling brown eyes.  “Kiss me like that and I’ll be more than happy to shut up.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”  Faith grins down at the redhead in her arms before spinning around and taking off at a light jog towards town. 

“Faith!”  Willow squeaks, wrapping her arms more firmly around the slayer’s neck.

“Wanna see what’ll happen when we take this further than a kiss… and I’d prefer to do it on a bed this first time.”  Faith grins wickedly at the redhead even as she picks up her pace.

“Who said anything about going from our first kiss to bed?”  Willow starts to laugh uncontrollably at the pure look of devilment that crosses Faith’s face. 

“I did, just now.”  Faith laughs with the redhead as she holds Willow tightly to her, not knowing what might happen between the two of them, but more than willing to take a chance and see.

***

“Don’t you dare!”  Tara warns Buffy, seeing the gleam of competitiveness starting to burn brightly in her hazel eyes.  “Put me down, you aren’t going to go jogging and running through the forest with me bouncing around like a sack of potatoes!!”

“But…”  Buffy pouts as she looks down into twinkling blue eyes.  “Tara!”  Buffy whines slightly.

“A whiney slayer never gets what she wants.”  Tara starts to laugh as Buffy growls, yet sets her down on her feet.

“Slayer wants witch at home in bed, naked.”  Buffy growls softly in Tara’s ear.

“Seems to be a re-occurring want here.”  Tara looks out to where Faith and Willow had disappeared before starting to giggle at the thought.

“Hmmm… wonder if there’s something about slayers and witches in some kind of prophecy.”  Xander tilts his head before dodging the smack coming towards him from Buffy.

“Don’t even MENTION the word Prophecy around me, you buffoon!!”  Buffy growls menacingly.  “Come on, I want to go home.  And hopefully actually end up with it being my home again here soon.”  Buffy sighs deeply as she thinks about another apocalypse being avoided and The First being taken out, hopefully to never be heard from again… at least on her watch.

“What, you don’t want the house invaded by roughly thirty people?”  Tara grins crookedly at her lover as Buffy narrows her eyes on her. 

“No.  I want our bedroom to only have US in it from now on, tired of having to sneak away just because I want to get some lovings.  That was getting seriously old.”  Buffy wraps her arm around Tara’s waist and pulls her in tightly against her side.  “We haven’t been able to do an all-night love fest since you and Willow picked up Faith.”

“I know, sweet one, I know.  Trust me, I’m sure we’ll have our bedroom back to ourselves before much longer… as a matter of fact, I bet you we’ll have it all to our lonesome tonight.”  Tara grins at the thought.  “I believe that the witches and Watchers might be able to take a few of the extra SIT’s with them over to Willow’s house tonight, now that the threat should be over.”

“Don’t tease the slayer, Tara.”  Buffy warns softly, her eyes gleaming at the thought of getting her lover alone for a full night without having to worry about anything or anyone else. 

“I’m not.”  Tara chuckles softly before kissing Buffy firmly, knowing the rest of the group are now walking around them and heading back towards town.  “I love you, Buffy.”

“And I love you, Tara.”  Buffy whispers, holding her lover against her and pressing a soft kiss on her lips.  Relaxing and finally willing to believe that maybe she does have a future after all. 

***

The End

Buffy/Tara Navigational Page

Main Navigational Page

Feed Me!