Chapter 8

"Who the hell does she think she is?" Willow asked Buffy as soon as they were in her Jeep. "Just walks right in and assumes because I'm her girlfriend that I'm…her girlfriend."

"She's a Slayer. She's got the attitude," Buffy offered.

"You're a Slayer. You don't have that attitude."

Buffy shrugged. "Maybe my Giles is a better watcher than hers?"

Willow seemed to ignore the comment. "And did you see the way she just waltzed right around the coffee table, strutting like she's some kind of peacock? How dare she? A-and how dare she assume that just because she's around she's got the right to call me 'her girl'? I am not her girl."

"You were," Dawn answered from the backseat. "Before Kennedy came along."

Willow knew that Dawn had Tara/Kennedy issues. The day Kennedy offered to make pancakes for everyone was a memory that Willow didn't want to remember anytime soon. Of course Kennedy didn't understand how the thought of breakfast could send Dawn running up to her bedroom but she just figured it was teenage hormones until Willow explained that Dawn's favorite morning food was pancakes and Tara made them every morning.

Willow turned to face Dawn. "Nah ah. I clung to Tara's memory before Kennedy came along. The Tara we knew is gone Dawn. It took me a while to see it, or even to admit it, but she's not coming back. Sure that woman at the house looks like Tara but it's not her. A-and for all we know that person back at the house could be an agent of the First. We don't know how it operates; what it's got in its…arsenal."

Willow and Buffy looked at each other their eyes going wide in realization.

"Hang on!" Buffy announced, before putting the Jeep in a sharp U-turn heading back to the house. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Buffy berated herself as she raced along the streets.

"It was just a thought," Willow told her trying to calm the Slayer, maybe even herself. "It probably is just a dimension warp but…Oh god why didn't we think of this sooner?"

"Because it's Tara. We let our guard down. We let our emotions get in the way and if you ask me it's just the underhanded thing the First might pull on us."

"Oh God I hope they're alright. They're all there Buffy. Everyone. Xander, Giles, Kennedy—all of them."

Where do you want to go from here?

Tara is an agent of the First    Tara isn't an agent of the First

Send Feedback to Author

Back to CN's Stories...