My Lazarus Stance by ObliqueReference

"The ferris wheel comes around," Oz said as he set the uncomfortable weight down beside him.

"Yeah," Johnny drew out, "about that…oops? See, its my brother's. I sort of lifted it, you know, in case...nevermind."

"Christ," Kennedy slapped her hand on the arm of his chair, more from exasperation than from intimidation. "Enough about the damn gun. Tell us what you want."

Johnny touched the weal on his cheek where Kennedy smacked him. "Okay," he said, his jovial air all but dissipated, "but I gotta warn you: it's a long story."

Willow sat on the bed, sliding next to Kennedy, terrified of touching her for fear of triggering a carnal chain-reaction that would leave them both aching for release, and not in the good way. "Go on," she said, her voice cracking as Kennedy leaned back against her, fully aware of her wicked influence.

Johnny took a deep breath, like a diver, then plunged into his story, his fingers twiddling with a braid the whole time.

"I was fourteen when they took my daddy away. He got in trouble with the law on some bullshit possession charge back in the seventies, and near as I can remember, had been running ever since. Y'see, dad was a Black Panther, back in the day. He was all about fightin' the pigs, you know, and would go to these marches… Anyway, he met my mom there, and they sort of bounced off each other. I never got the whole story, 'cause, hey, it's my moms, you know what I'm sayin'? But like I said, mom and dad saw some five-oh kicking the shit out of some fifteen year old. They testified, and low and behold, the next month, dads learns he's got a warrant out on him for some weed charge he never did. So they pack up my big brother, make like a cowboy and get the fuck outta Dodge. I was born later that year."

"Hey, hey," Kennedy interrupted, "I appreciate you spilling your life story like this, but why do I care?"

"Yo," Johnny addressed Willow, "You'd better make sure not to feed this chick after midnight. She might get all Gremlins on you."

"Gremlins?" Kennedy craned her neck like a hand crank, "Boy, you are about six seconds away from a six month stay in traction!"

"Just," Willow put a calming hand on Kennedy's shoulder, "Just finish the story. The short version." Then she added as an afterthought: "Don't make fun of my girl."

"Shit, the short version. Okay, how's this: me, my big brother, my mom and dad move here. First thing we notice: no cops. We think it's a bonus, right? Well, my dad had to go out of town, and the minute he stepped outside the town limits, and I mean the exact freakin' second, the pigs have his ass in cuffs. My moms gets sick and dies a few years after that, and it's just me and my brother. We sorta settle down. He gets married to this bovine lookin' chick, she pops out my little niece nine months later. She's the sweetest thing you've ever seen. Just loves her uncle Johnny." He clenched his fist, knuckles draining of color.

"Then, then… " He looked to the door, trigger finger nervous and stroking his thumb. "I've never seen anything like that. I saw Day of the Dead, and I always thought that I'd kick serious zombie ass. But I just…" Johnny shook his head remorsefully. "I just froze. Like a little bitch."

"That's what I smelled," Oz stated, then clarified, "The zombies. Not the bitch."

Johnny ignored him. "They came to my house. This guy, looks like a fuckin' circus ringleader, he knocks on the door. Thing just – pow – explodes all over us. Smacks us around like it ain't no thing. Doesn't even touch us." Johnny reached into one of the oversized pockets on his jacket, pulling out a pristine box of cigarettes, like a tiny nicotine filled superego to the jumbled id of his garb.

Johnny shrugged, rolling the cigarette between his fingers, worrying it to tatters. "He, um…" his eyes glazed over in remembrance, "he…took my little niece. That m – motherfucker." The word wouldn't come, as if it were a disservice to that degree of evil to use so common an epithet. "That thing, he took her. And…he gave us a message. Said that the Red Witch would thank us. I think he didn't know that I knew who he was talkin' about. That he'd get the town to turn against you."

"I said I won't go there," Johnny pointed out, "I never said I wouldn't tell y'all exactly how to get there."

Well, one thing was for sure: these people did not believe that cleanliness was next to godliness. Her first meal was little more than a Tupperware bowl filled with oatmeal. The oatmeal was fine, flavorless, but fine. The Tupperware really bothered her. Aside from the unpleasant yellow tint around the inside edge, the disparity of a plastic container in this turn of the century home rooted Tara firmly in the real world, a place she fervently hoped was only a dream.

She began to get a sense of the dynamics of the household, gleaned from snippets of overheard conversation, the patterns of coming and goings, but most of all from their body language. She hadn't seen the big one since his outburst (attack, she reminded herself, struggling against the gravitational pull of her father's euphemisms), and the old woman came and went at will. The other one, the well-dressed man, came to bring her food and blankets. Obviously not niceties, Tara deduced that he was beholden to the old woman, as was the other big man. The two men seemed to be related, or at least very close, judging by the row that broke out as soon as The Dandy left her with the gray oatmeal.

The Dandy, Cackles, and Hands. She came up with those nicknames on a whim, but they stuck like a post it note to each mental image she conjured. So she might as well use them. The Dandy and Hands were still screaming at each other, Hands' voice pitching wildly up and down the scale, over and undercutting Dandy's steady drone, like an oscilloscope sent to a madhouse. They stormed of in opposite directions, both men muttering curses. They had to be brothers: anyone else would have come to blows over that kind of a shouting match. On the other withered hand, they seem to have a healthy respect and fear of Cackles. She might be reining them in.

Tara wrapped the cotton blanket around her like a shroud. A burial shroud, she mused morbidly. He condition was something she had to figure out as well. She was dead, then she was somewhat dead, then she was alive. Sort of. She was weak, but it was a weakness borne solely of the lack of muscle on her bones. Her arms and legs were Rwandan-thin, and the skin was crawfish pink around the joints. She could control the pain now; shove it to the back of her mind like a toothache or a noonday beating. All this told her nothing, in and of itself. Tara turned her state over and over again inside her head like a down pillow in a dryer. And just like that down pillow, she almost exploded all over its insides when she thought too fast. Fortunately, she had a clue.

'Beggars can't be choosers,' Dandy said. Maybe that was the deal: this was the only way she could be brought back. Okay, Maclay, time to drudge up those Wiccan lessons. She died, and died a natural death, as far as she knew. In her mind, a natural death was heart failure, not a bullet. Well, the bullet did *induce* heart failure, so maybe the Powers That Be had a far looser definition for 'natural', or just a very sick sense of humor. Tara laid her bets at the feet of 'sicko humor', something she was beginning to appreciate. She was digressing: she died. She died a natural death. So how do you bring someone back who dies a natural death? She wished Willow were here to help her figure it out.

You can't just try your standard resurrection spell: you're more than likely to get a slavering insane corpse than…oh, crap. That's her, the corpse is, or was, her! She was the corpse! Slavering and insane! Her head swam; the walls bulged and squeezed in menacingly. Tara forced herself to breathe, focusing her thoughts, smudging over the panic. She wasn't a corpse. Well, she was, but she wasn't anymore. Why?

Okay, what was that saying mother always referenced: all life is a vessel for the vessel of all life. That which is within is without, and vice versa. She needed basics to start with. This was outside her faith, denied by it. And yet, here she was, wrapped up in a blanket like a newborn babe. So back to square one: how does a dead body come back to life?

The first and most obvious answer was vampirism. Mr. Giles had the old rigmarole down pat: person dies, soul goes away, body gets inhabited by evil bloodthirsty demon. Tara didn't feel vampiric. The thought of blood still made her queasy, and she sure as hell wasn't super strong and endowed with cat-like grace. Of course, that didn't mean that she wasn't some other type of demon. Except that didn't feel right, either. If she had no soul, then why did she still empathize with things? That poor baby… if she let her mind trip over that thought too much, she would be mad. Her spirit was still there, she knew it like she knew her name.

A warm wind blew through some crevice or another in the basement, sending the tea candles clamoring into stock exchange clusters. One tea candle bumped into another, flame whipping about and holding on for dear life, which then bumped into another, then another, like the steel ball bearings suspended from fishing line that Dawn wouldn't stop playing with at the Spencer's gifts in the mall. So that's how they did it! Tara entered the mental space of the teacher she once felt destined to be.

Something she had long suspected was that the body/spirit duality was false. What if, instead of the soul being incorruptible and absolute, it was instead a reflection of the condition of the body? More like a symbiosis than a more important, deeper truth. The connection to the spirit world, so to speak. The spirit world is, if she could wade through Willow's techno-babble adequately, sort of a big soup of emotions and thoughts given form. And the soul could live in this, could continue to sustain itself in this miasma. Well, some people could. Others would gravitate toward their karmic level upon death, the severing of the corporeal form freeing it from earthy concerns. So all is maintained when the death is from a non-magical source: the soul bubbles to the surface or sinks to the bottom, the body rots.

But if you had the power to bring a body back to life, then it's just a matter of re-establishing a link with the spirit realm, the soul would either be pulled to the body or formed anew, and Tara honestly couldn't think of a difference between the two. If it looks like a soul, smells like a soul, and quacks like a soul, it's a soul, right? She chuckled to herself: spiritual materialism. What is the world coming to?

Of course, you can't just bring a body all back at once. Tara had herself a eureka moment: most resurrections fail because they try to do too much. But Goddess's tits, the power and complexity of the magick to rebuild her, specifically her brain. No wonder they decided to put her back together in little baby steps. She belted out a hollow laugh that wilted and curled into a desperate sob. Those bastards murdered that poor baby, they killed her and forced Tara to drink her blood. Baby steps. Tara was not a vindictive woman: even when she had taken up arms in protection of others, she never felt any joy in hurting even the foulest demons. Sometimes a sense of grim satisfaction, but never demonic glee. She would enjoy hurting these monsters.

Perhaps she wouldn't need to, she thought as a terrible crash sounded from upstairs, wood splintering and raining down in dagger like shards. Tara almost sat up; almost clutched the blanket to her like a child, but her body was still being uncooperative. Someone was yelling, the bass filled baritone of Hands, shouting out curses as more ruckus ensued. Dust rained down in gray sheets as Hands was felled by something that scented the air with ozone.

Three shots barked out, like a two-by-four tumbling down a flight of hardwood stairs. Dandy screamed, once, high-pitched and terrified, and then crumpled to the ground. Tara felt her magical senses warp, twist and bend, her spirit reaching out to that energy, tickling its edges, flirting with it like a newfound lover. Willow's energy. She had come, and by the sounds of it, she was pissed.

The thick, unsavory smell of pipe tobacco and cherry lozenges pulled her attention to the corner of the room. Cackles strode out of her shadow, bent and vulture-like. Her eyes and teeth were black, as were her fingertips, as if she dipped them in ink and tried to wash them off with nothing but cold water. Her omnipresent shawl flapped futilely in a wind Tara couldn't feel, ragged tips darting snake strikes out to the air around it. Her face lit on Tara's, not lit, there was no light in the look she gave her: only a sickening hatred.

"Your little bitch has ruined everything!" she screeched, neck stretched out towards Tara, veined and wrinkled. "You and I're gonna have to get ourselves…acquainted."

Cackles moved to Tara's side, teeth bared in a rictus grin, black fingers crackling with tiny purple sparks. She extended those hands to the cowering form of Tara, prone and helpless, too terrified to cry out. It was an animal reaction, her body and mind frozen in time, just waiting for the inevitable, hoping that it wouldn't hurt, whatever was coming. Tara felt her fragile skin singe as one of the sparks arced to her forehead, turning a strand of hair into a wisp of smoke.

Tara and Cackles turned simultaneously, the rupturing door and proclamation both issuing from the same source: a slender, doll-faced redhead, arms akimbo, hovering a foot above the uppermost step. She slid down the staircase, each wooden plank splintering as she passed over it, the mortar and stone in the walls crumbling into a gray mist that revealed a sphere of force surrounding her. The water dimpled where the sphere touched down, tea candles flickered out as she turned to face the wretched old woman.

Cackles clenched her fists, snuffing the sparks out, and slowly turned to face her attacker, sneer of disdain lit by a wan burgundy glow. She stepped across the water, never deigning to let the base earth touch her feet, each footfall accompanied by a marionette string jerk of her body, hands drawn up to her side like a bird of prey. Tara curled up on her side, trying to pull herself out of the path of whatever fell magicks they would throw at each other.

Willow cocked her head to the side, emerald eyes glittering, untouched by even the slightest hint of darkness. "Well," she said, "I understand you have something that needs to be with me. Give me Tara, and I'll walk out of here."

This time is was Tara's turn to gloat. "You don't want to see what'll happen," she warned, even though her bright tone was lost in her ragged vocal chords.

Willow smiled her widest smile. "Thank you, baby," she bowed her head to the woman she loved. "We'll get you up and going right away, okay? But first –" she turned again to Cackles, the rose glow brightening in her aura " – you and me, we got some grown-up business to sort out."

She dropped the sphere, landing in the ankle deep water with a minor splash. Cackles reacted immediately, thrusting her hands out like The Emperor from Return of the Jedi, same rotten-toothed grimace and arched back making the comparison inevitable. A thick, tar like liquid materialized from her fingertips, boiling and lashing out with inky tendrils. It exploded at Willow like a fire hydrant, a pipeline of concentrated foulness that reeked of rot and self-doubt.

Willow threw her arms open, accepting the sludge without so much as a raised eyebrow. She pulled her arms in, crossing them over her chest, putting her chin to her sternum. Tara froze for a half second, an airy sensation of abject terror almost lifting her off the table. Willow jerked her head up, not to the wavering old woman, but to Tara. She mimicked the expelling posture, but instead of a torrent of blackness, a translucent rosewater tendril slowly reached out to Tara. She let it touch her, a deep seated and instinctive belief in Willow's intentions giving her bravery.

It touched her, and she grew. Her fingers tingled as the tendons and muscles thickened, strengthened. Her skin, once so tender and thin, became full and elastic again. It was like aging in reverse, her hair becoming luxurious again, her lips full and promising. Her rebirth was complete, and she could think of no better way than to be borne through Willow.

Willow spat out a thick, black worm, crushing it under her uncomfortable looking shoes. She reached out to Tara, and Tara reached out to her. They touched again, like the first time, and the melding of their essences felt like home.

"Let's finish this," Willow said to Tara, and they both snapped to the old woman, their eyes clear and true.

"We bind thee," they chanted in unison, no need to guess the other's intention. "We bind thee, we bind thee!" The chant shook the walls, white light encasing Cackles in twin bands, rotating around each other like off kilter hula-hoops. The old sorceress shrieked, then began to dissolve into a pile of smoking clothes, the shawl still smoldering even after the barrier puffed away into a shower of Christmas lights.

"Is that – is that it?" Tara asked, pale eyebrows knitting together in her 'perplexed' look.

"She was a moldy oldie," Willow pointed out, pulling Tara's head around to face her. She pulled her close, their lips meeting. Tara's heart sang. Willow kissed exactly as she remembered, tentative at first, then with increasing passion. Tara longed to fall into her again, to live life as a single being, but there was one nagging doubt in Tara's head.

"Wait," she said as she pulled away, breathless. She looked into Willow's guileless green eyes, swallowing her fear. "Wait. Willow, you're w-with someone…"

Willow shook her head. "No, no baby. She understands. Baby, we were meant to be together." She moved closer to the blonde, drawing her into another kiss.

Tara jumped back as a 'crack!' splintered her sense of peace. Wetness sprayed her face, something salty and mildly sweet on her lips. She opened her eyes, looking in the direction of the report. The Dandy leaned against the ruined stairway, pistol in hand, face a mask, unreadable in any way. The fat, ugly barrel wafted gunpowder fumes. Tara forced herself to look at Willow.

Her head was burst apart, her left eye and most of her forehead replaced by a bloody pink mass of mangled flesh, little white shards of bone poking out at crazy angles. A flap of skin spilled over to cover one side of her mouth, still frozen in that affectionate wistful smile. Tara's world collapsed into a point on unreason. She was floating, standing a thousand feet above her body, watching it like a busted television. Her reflection so many miles below touched her lips, pulling them back to see the white and pink brain matter that clung to her fingers.

Kennedy knew the swamp stank. She read enough mystery novels where the body was disposed of in some Florida bayou to know that the ripe vegetable matter and rotting animal carcasses would produce a most interesting aroma. Words like 'pungent', 'acrid', and 'rank' floated around her vocabulary, free-associating with the thoughts of swampness, like flies buzzing around shit. She smelled hints of it in town when the warm wind would shift, whipping a train of mosquitoes towards her, and it smelled exactly as she imagined it.

What she wasn't prepared for was the smell up close. Under that putrid and inert scent lay another, one that stood out only because of her slayer senses. Cypress trees seeded the air with their vapors, woody and fresh. Tall grasses with wide bladed leaves clumped together in pike formations, bitter and sour in scent. Rot permeated everything, but so did growth. Life feeds on death.

Kennedy usually wasn't so introspective, but the soothing stillness of the swamp brought out something philosophical in her. She wished she'd have more time just to stand here, absorb the realness, the cyclical nature of the place, and think things through. As she slogged through knee high weeds with pale green bulbs that maced her legs like a confused flagellant, Kennedy realized that the time for introspection would soon pass.

That was okay, actually. Action, any action, was preferable to the hours spent pouring over maps with Johnny, watching him fidget and twitch from nicotine withdrawal. The four of them sat in the motel room, crowding over the regional maps that Willow grabbed using the local library's internet connection. She even managed to get several sets of satellite photos, matching up the best routes into and out of the swamp.

"The house is about ten miles outside of town, southish," Johnny said, gesturing vaguely to the greenish block that stood for 'wetlands' according to the map key.

"That's not too bad, ten miles, right?" Willow asked, hopefully, and ever more nervous as the operation drew closer. "I mean, ten miles, that's just zip there and zoop back?"

"No," Oz spoke, scrutinizing the aerial photos that looked like some giant paramecium sample. "That's all bush. It looks like there's an old footpath here, but it's pretty much overgrown."

"About how long would it take to walk it?" Kennedy asked Oz, deferring to his obvious ease at navigating. She was beginning to really appreciate the stoic nature of Willow's ex-boyfriend (she suspected she wasn't as accepting as she thought when that word made her feel a little revolted). He never opened his mouth unless he knew what he was saying, which, Kennedy had to admit, was the opposite of her.

"Three, three and a half hours," he estimated with a stroking of his beard. "That's if we feel like knocking on their door."

"Right," Kennedy agreed, seeing the tiny bug splat that she figured was the aerial view of an old plantation house, half collapsed and invaded by groping cypress trees. She scanned the little clearing that according to the scale was about 100 yards in every direction. "Shit," she muttered, "There's no way to sneak up on the house. And I'm betting they have guards."

"I could, um, cast a spell, a cloaking spell," Willow dashed over to her spellbook, thumbing through pages filled with notes and equations in the margins. She took the book on her pacing journey, nibbling her thumb as she scanned a particularly interesting page, discarded the idea, then flipped a few more pages.

Willow skid to a halt, the book almost flying out of her hands like a shot put. "Nope?"

"No, I need –", Kennedy chewed on her upper lip as she flicked a look to Willow, who looked like she was about to leap off a cliff, " – Willow, sit down. You're making me nervous."

"Good!" Willow resumed her pacing, clutching the open book to her breast, gesturing like a tweaking composer with the other hand. "I mean, I'm nervous! I'm all with the tummy tapdancing Willow wiggins. I can do the, the whoosh-" she drew curtain around her "-vanishing act. It's...oh god!"

"What?" Kennedy said as compassionately as an executioner, rolling her eyes and preparing for another case of the panic attack. And Willow was using the word 'god' to boot, something she only did when she was really nervous and forgot to add the ubiquitous '-dess' to the end.

"What if I'm so frazzled that my dazzle goes-" she almost dropped the book a second time, oblivious to the lack of concern in Kennedy's voice, and stumbled around a suitable explanation "-goes ker-spazzle!"

Johnny B raised his pierced eyebrows, eyes panning from Willow to Kennedy then to Oz. At first he couldn't believe the luck he'd had, both getting the senior most member of the internet-famous Scooby gang on his side, and for not getting his ass beaten into a brown and olive drab pulp. However, after seeing these frequent and more and more extreme panics, he began to doubt the wisdom on entrusting his niece's well-being to them. Still, beggars can't be choosers. He turned to the hirsute man, hoping for some shared 'oh, women' moment, just to make sure he wasn't the odd one out. He was.

Oz looked at the hyperventilating redhead with warm remembrance. The Willow he knew seemed very far away, buried underneath huge amounts of responsibility and sorrow. These little explosions of pure Willow flowing up through the fissures in her crust heartened him is a way that frightened him. It would be so easy, too easy to just fall back in love with her. Love is like an addiction: once you love someone, it doesn't matter how long gone they are, because all it takes is that one odd synthesis sensation and mindset to bring it all back. 'When did we stop being so innocent?' he asked himself, picking at the brown stains under his nails.

"Willow," an exasperated Kennedy sighed, rubbing her eyes with both hands, "unfuck yourself."

"Whoa," Johnny whispered, Willow's iron gaze almost knocking him out of his chair, and he wasn't even on the receiving end. Kennedy, however, met that stony resolve with calm acceptance.

"That's better," Kennedy smiled, smugly content that her ruse worked. She looked to Willow, her smile melting the witch's resolve, as it always did. "Willow, please just sit down. I don't want you to use any more mojo than necessary before we actually go into the house. We don't know what the hell's waiting for us in there."

After another hour of discussion, mostly in the form of keeping Willow from entering a force-ten freakout, they finally decided on a plan. Oz would take point, his keen senses making him an effective scout. Kennedy and Willow would follow several yards behind, Kennedy with her new axe she got from Gunn right before leaving L.A., and Willow with a crossbow and her magical acumen. Kennedy made certain to emphasize that this was just a reconnaissance mission, but if the opportunity presented itself, they would move. Johnny B parked the Buick on the edge of the swamp, ready to take off with passengers as soon as the expedition came back.

That was two hours ago. It was dusk now, and Willow's legs were hurting, slowing her down little by little. She never even considered quitting though, doggedly pushing forward when she noticed Kennedy overtaking her. She couldn't let Tara down again. At every point, every point that mattered, she managed to drop the ball when it came to Tara. She let her down when she went after Glory and nearly got herself killed. She let her down when she raped her mind. She let her down when she died, and almost murdered the world. This time she had to get it right.

In truth, she'd be too paralyzed with indecision to make any kind of meaningful move if Kennedy weren't with her. Every time her throat constricted and her heart stopped beating, the raven-haired slayer would kick start her with some jibe, or joke, or kiss that would keep her from derailing and crashing in spectacular fashion. Willow whimpered deeply in her throat, her world quickly entering the state she not so affectionately called 'The Angst Zone'.

"What's up?" Kennedy spoke in hushed tones, noticing the pathetic mewl. She turned to watch Oz poke an alligator out of the way with the walking stick he carried. The gator yawned, then slithered into the underbrush with a disgruntled hiss.

Okay, so it wasn't a serviceable bluff, but that wasn't the intention, now was it? It was the little game they played, the game that everyone played. You beg for a connection, just some thread to link you to another human being, and when it's offered, you don't take it. You don't take it, because you're afraid of being hurt, or laughed at, or otherwise giving up some advantage in the Machiavellian social game. With lovers, with people who wanted to live in each other's lives, there shouldn't be that barrier. But there is, the lessons of a million million failed strategies imprinted on your mind. So it becomes a game, just like with strangers, but one where you have a slight advantage: you hope the other person will still love you even after you've said your piece.

"Yeah," Willow conceded, eying the patch where the stray reptile left warily, "yeah, it is."

"You want to talk about it?" Kennedy asked, and it was a tone of voice Willow hadn't heard in too long, one that brought back secret moments stolen from a house full of girls.

"I'm," she stopped uncharacteristically gathering her thoughts. "I'm falling apart, Kenn. Again." She turned the corners of her mouth up in an ironic smile, the kind that Tara wouldn't recognize. "It's like all the pieces of me just got put into place, you know? I was all jagged and sharp, and then the edges got smoothed over and ground down, and they could all fit inside?" She looked to Kennedy for confirmation. She just chewed on her lip (a habit of hers ever since she stopped wearing the tongue stud constantly) and listened.

"I don't know what I'm doing," she explained, shaking her head dismissively. "I'm in a swamp with a crossbow, a Slayer, and a werewolf, which in and of itself I should be used to by now, but then comes the doozy. Somewhere out there, Tara is alive. And I don't know what to do about it."

Kennedy closed her eyes, just for a second, bowing her head. Willow saw the woman's shoulders slump. She took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and looked straight at Willow, her brown gaze warm and sad, like a summer funeral in the rain.

"I love you," she said, and it was a plea, Willow could taste the bitter desperation edging her words. It hurt, hurt like another broken shard of glass.

"I love you too," Willow knew her voice matched the timbre of Kennedy's of it own accord. She stepped over a rotten log, then said: "And that's the thing. I love you. I'm in love with you. But, and I've got to say it, I still love Tara. I just don't know if that means anything anymore."

"Don't be stupid," Kennedy spat, her tone more vicious than intended. She softened her voice. "Of course it means something. I mean, you two were…are the real thing, right?"

"So?" Willow yelled, then monitored her volume. "So? That's just because you actually call me on my…stuff."

"Willow," Kennedy held up her hand to silence any complaint, "we're not going to get anywhere like this. You're just going to upset yourself more. Until Tara is safe and unharmed, nothing is ever going to work out. So let's worry about getting her and Johnny's niece out of harm's way, okay?"

Willow nodded, recognizing the pragmatism that she had grown to love in Kennedy.

Oz stopped up ahead, signaling the girls behind him. He really liked Kennedy, on an 'individual not attached to Willow' sort of way. He of course caught the entire conversation, and sided strongly with Kennedy's assessment. She seemed a down-to-earth sort, a personality trait he identified with. He blinked his way out of his reverie, and tuned his sight to the clearing ahead of them.

Being able to read the numbers off a license plate in the middle of the night and traveling eighty miles per hour had its moments. He watched Kennedy pull Willow off to the side of the trail, crouch down, and watch him through a gap in the curving grasses. Oz sniffed the air, letting his wolf brain analyze the scent. Death, and the undead. Most people would never be able to discern the difference between the two; Oz was well versed. The undead, be they zombies, vampires, or the rare unliving wizard, carried a variation of death. They smelled stale, the processes of decay interrupted by their animation. He also caught the hints of aftershave, burning oil, and cooking stew. A mental image formed in his mind, the eddies and swirls of the ether translating into a picture of household activities. There was more than one person in the house, and blood had been spilled recently. He couldn't identify any of the people, specifically Tara. Oz slid into the thick grasses off the trail with practiced ease.

"Well?" Kennedy whispered, too low for the human ear to hear. Willow shivered with nerves beside her.

"Two, maybe three in the house," he replied, using the same subsonic tone. Willow cupped her ears, then clicked her fingernails on one ear, then the other, testing her hearing. Oz smiled, then pointed to the clearing. "There are four sentries, zombies. One at each corner."

Willow's nervousness spilled over into her eyes, big and dark in the dying light. "Guys?" she whispered, "What's going on?"

"We're going to move a little farther in," Kennedy locked gaze with Willow, not asking or comforting: her commander voice. "Then we'll sit back and wait."

"Solid," Oz agreed, nodding. "Where were you when Buffy was rushing into these sort of things?"

"Getting drunk and getting laid, most likely," she said, carefully moving through the underbrush. She ducked under a gnarled cypress root, gently turned away a hanging curtain of moss, and dropped to her knees in the muddy earth. She wiped the sweat out of her eyes, sweat that clung made her shirt cling to her like a second skin and her jeans stick to her knees. Maybe this was why superheroes wore spandex, she mused.

Oz followed behind Willow, a silent shadow that made up for her crunching footsteps whit his silent and nonchalant gait. They kneeled beside Kennedy, who held a finger to her lips and pointed to the house.

Some buildings just have too much history weighing them down. Some of them have so much that it disintegrates the future of the house. Few homes have literally been crushed by history.

A hulking cypress reached its arms into the uppermost floor, smashing in the wall on the rear side, big bark fingers fondling the windows and doors. The arm arced into the earth, like a dryad trying to escape from the foulness of the soil and finding only the plantation to cling to.

The walls were off-white, mud and silt washing the lower edge of the house. The lines of the structure weren't ornate in the slightest; it was almost post-modern in its design. Instead, it was large, an ostentatious show of wealth. The front door was twice as tall as Kennedy, even though the tarnished gold doorknob was at her navel. The windows were just as large, giving the whole façade a surprised look. Plain pillars extended up to the roof, two of them so rotten that they narrowed perceptibly in the middle. The whole structure looked like a snapshot of one of those World War 2 towns being bombed, but frozen, crumbling bricks and plaster teetering precariously close to explosion.

Oz pointed out the four guards, swaying black shapes that all pointed north. They sat and watched them, shifting when a position became too uncomfortable, Willow shifting more often then the other two.

After about an hour of wallowing in the humidity and stinging insects of the swamp, the front door swung open. Everyone froze.

Three figures walked out of the house. They all walked abreast, a jaunty group. As far as Kennedy could see, it was two men and a woman. The woman was old, ancient even, a black plain dress underneath a shawl far too heavy to be worn in the eighty-degree heat. A round cap with bright blue orchids jutting out of it rested cockeyed on her head, unmoving as she walked with her arms linked to the men beside her. One of the men was a mountain of a person, blue jeans and a black t-shirt barely containing him. Kennedy had the impression that this was the equivalent of 'dressed up' for him. He had to take tiny baby steps to keep from dragging the old woman behind him. On the other arm, a narrow and well-proportioned man in a black suit and tie adjusted his top hat and whistled a theme-less tune. They strode towards the path, marching parallel to the spying trio in the brush.

All three interlopers strained to hear their jovial conversation, Kennedy and Oz less so. Willow's hearing buzzed electric wire blue. She shook her head, trying to clear the noise. It didn't help.

"Pirates of the Caribbean," the top-hatted Mr. Creak replied, "We have to hurry. The show starts in about fifteen minutes."

"Is that the one with that nice white boy, what's his name?" Granny practically yelled, "Johnny Depp. He look like a lady in that movie."

"Depp's a fine actor," Mr. Creak protested, leading them down to the edge of the path.

Mr. Creak stepped in front of the other two. He drew a circle in the air, leaving a sizzling fissure in reality. Black energies bubbled around the edge, seeping into the air like the tar pit last screams of dying animals. With a proffered arm to the elderly Granny, he stepped through the hole, as did Big Creak. The tear healed behind them, leaving only a faint ripple in the air.

Willow's back teeth tried to wiggle out of their sockets. She squeezed her eyes shut, the incessant screeching reaching a cacophonous crescendo. She forced her mind backwards, let it fall back, drift in nothingness. The grinding stopped; her teeth reconsidered their escape.

"Will?" Kennedy whispered, gently squeezing her shoulder. Willow opened her eyes to look into the worried face of her lover, voluptuous lips half-open in concern. Kennedy reached into her hip pocket, pulling out a wad of tissue and surgical gauze. She separated the two, shoved the gauze back into her pocket, and handed it over to Willow. Willow noted the tissue with a quizzical wrinkling of her brow.

"Your nose," Kennedy pointed at the offending part. Willow's hand touched beneath it, and came away wet and shiny. She stared at her hand, her blood black in the starlight. Willow mopped up the mess with the tissue, drenching it even as she pinched her nose. Kennedy pulled out another tissue, wiping blood off Willow's chin like a mother hen. Willow tilted her head back down, cautiously removing her fingers and testing the clotting by blowing a puff of air out.

"Wow," Willow whispered, "I mean. Wow. That hasn't happened since…not since I teleported Glory. Since Tara and I teleported Glory. That was," she shook her head, a disturbing degree of amusement evident in her voice, "intense."

Oz peered at her suspiciously with those guarded eyes of his. "What was intense?"

"Um," Willow wiped her nose again, checking the back of her hand for more blood, "I'm not sure. It's like a demonic football team just Gatoraded me with evil magick."

"You okay?" Kennedy asked, running her fingertip through Willow's scarlet tresses.

"Yeah. I think – we need to," Willow held up her china doll hands and forced her thoughts to coalesce into at least one sensical statement. "How long do you think they'll be gone?"

"About ninety minutes," Oz turned to the house, sniffing the air. The ranks scent of the zombies and the mold of the house remained, as well as the coppery bloodstains. "If they're happy with the movie."

Kennedy looked at the tree bridging the gap from ground to manor, and smiled her devious smile.

Kennedy took the first guard in the face with her axe. She hurled it, sent it spinning end over end, hardened steel blade etched with Norse runes smashing into the guard's skull. His head exploded in a black mist of putrescent matter; his body collapsed to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

She pulled the axe from the wood paneling of the house with a yank, spun, and sent it spinning again. The second zombie was no more prepared than the first. It turned dumbly, pale gray eyes uncomprehending as the blade ended its second life with a wet smack.

Kennedy didn't hesitate: this was her world, and everyone else was just visiting. She dashed, low and quick, snatching the axe from the corpse's face. She launched her body into the air, twisting herself upside down. The zombie rounded the corner in a full tilt shamble that instant, investigating the noise. Kennedy brought the axe down with all her strength, the shockwaves of impact running up her arm and up her legs as the axe and she touched ground. Both halves of the bisected guard flopped bonelessly to the grass.

She turned again, spatters of black blood dithering her face, eyes alight with the joy of combat. Her problems vanished, her only world the strain of muscles, the sound of bone powdering around her axe, and her own rhythmic breathing. Every problem, every threat of abandonment, every single moment that might never happen, were just enemies to be dispatched. They were just more blood to feed the tree's roots.

The last guard made his jerky way around to her, ugly rusted machete already cutting the air in spasming swaths. His flesh was sloughing of his yellow skeleton in black strips, held in place only by the tattered remnants of a white shirt stained brown. It cleared the distance between them with surprising celerity, blade dragging behind it like a broken tail. Kennedy dropped low as the machete sliced the empty space above her, then lunged up, smashing the undead watchmen's jaw with her axe haft. Rotten teeth rained in an arc, shortly followed by the abomination's head as Kennedy reversed her momentum, the ever-keen ensorcelled blade taking no account of the desiccated flesh and hard bone of its neck.

Kennedy's heart steadily beat in her breast. The scent of her kills clung to her, sour milk and old fish. She pressed herself against the side of the house, axe at the ready, and watched for signs of activity. Her senses diffused into the air around her, pulling information along invisible cables. She compiled the data, and, satisfied that there were no more immediate threats, waved at the dark copse of brush that hid Willow and Oz.

Oz led the way, silent and casual as ever, orbited by Willow, who spun around in three complete circles as she crossed the bare expanse of grass. Oz scanned over the four guards, did some quick arithmetic, and figured that it took Kennedy no more than two seconds to dispatch each monster.

"Damn," he said, his voice revealing only the slightest hint of awe, which would be lost on anyone who didn't know him.

"You should see her in bed," Willow proudly, and without irony commented. As soon as the sound of her own voice reached her ears, she realized just what exactly she said, and moreover, to whom she said it. "I didn't mean that! Well, I did, but that's personal information that you don't want to hear."

Oz smiled tightly as they met up with Kennedy, Willow either trailing off or just gaining momentum in her babble. Kennedy shot Willow a stern look, the sort of look that made Oz bristle defensively. No one looks at Will like that, he thought, even moving to intercede. He halted his meddling the instant that Willow's babble stopped, Kennedy's look a dam dropped before it. The slayer pointed to the base of the cypress tree, a gray jungle of knots and roots.

Kennedy led the way, moving low and quick around to the back of the house. The roots of the tree were monstrous, bulging and cracked, burrowing like worms into the dark soil, seeking some nutrients not befouled by the house or its damnable residents. The net formed by the roots should have had an entire ecosystem of its own. Tiny rodents should have shared their world with grubs and dragonflies who alighted from the same branches as birds with their nests made of the moss that clung to the tree. The tree should have had life in it, a metropolis of insignificant beings, but it had none of them. It reminded Kennedy of an inner city jungle gym, rusted bars and jagged edges to punish any child dense enough to try to climb it. So of course that was exactly what Kennedy did.

She pulled herself up to the first level, twin knuckles making a passable platform. She hoisted Willow up with her, easily depositing her tiny mass onto their stepping-stone on the knot work ladder that lead to their bridge to the second story. Kennedy reached into her belt, a many pouched affair she liberated from Wolfram & Hart's weapons division not a week before, and produced a palm sized cell phone. She tossed it down to Oz.

"Mine's on vibrate," she whispered in their secret speak, "If you see someone coming, hit 'send', then get the hell out of here. Don't wait for us; we'll meet you at the car."

Oz nodded once, hesitated leaving Willow, then turned tail before the same no nonsense look that motivated Willow zeroed in on him. He jogged to the wood line, made his way back to the entrance of the trail, and found himself a nice place to watch both the trail and the house. He tuned his senses into the night around him, searching for the buzz of insects, the rustle of bird's wings, even the gamey scent of some swamp rabbits. No matter which way he turned, the only sounds were the wind, and the subsonic guttural bellow of alligators searching for a mate. He turned inwards, seeking advice from the Wolf, letting its instincts inform him. All he felt was fear.

Kennedy made it to tree trunk. The moist bark threatened her footing, but her hiking boots held fast. She thanked Willow's good sense that she had dressed similarly: jeans, boots, and a t-shirt. Willow opted for a brown silk blouse, and Kennedy warned her that it would likely get ruined, but Willow wore it anyway. The silk slipped a bit through Kennedy's fingers as she pulled Willow up to the trunk with her, steadying the woman as she too almost lost her footing.

With a sigh, Kennedy began up the slight incline of the tree, holding Willow's hand behind her, each an anchor to the other. The cypress ignored them as they made their way to the house, never once shuddering from their footfalls. Halfway up the twenty-foot bridge, Kennedy's foot slid behind her. She dropped to her knees, took a calming breath, and pushed herself up to her feet. She and Willow shared a 'close call' look. Neither spared too long on the comforting, though. Without another word, they finished their trek up the side of a felled cypress tree.

The branches of the tree began just where the house began as well. Kennedy easily maneuvered through the tangle, years of swinging across monkey bars paying off. Willow followed unsteadily, her hands doing little hops from one branch to the next, her body swaying between her feet and her hands, the stark white of her midriff showing in flashes as she arced out over the two-foot space between the branch and the hole in the wall.

Kennedy reached across the chasm, hooking Willow into the crook of her arm, pulling her across, and held her there, as protective as a mother hen. She almost stopped to ponder something, grow introspective and reach a new and fuller understanding of herself, but her warrior senses told her to save it. The mission needed fulfilling. Kennedy detached herself from Willow, dropped low, all her weight on the balls of her feet, and swept her radar across her new environment, acclimating herself to the indoors.

Willow missed the contact as soon as it left, almost mewling like a kitten and begging for more. Alas, she realized that there would be time for all types of touching, both naughty and non-naughty kind later. Then she remembered what they had come here to, specifically, whom they had come here to free, and her stomach made a nest for itself in her throat. Tara was here, somewhere in the house, waiting for her, and she had to get to her, no matter what. But what did that mean? What if it was a trap (which the silence of the house and the ease of their break-in almost guaranteed), and Kennedy or Oz got hurt? What if she got hurt? What good would she be to Tara if some mook got the drop on her? Then she looked at Kennedy, saw the set of her jaw and the sternness of her liquid eyes, and knew that her woman would not fail. Willow's stomach slowly vacated its new home and crawled back to its old.

Kennedy's gaze raked her surroundings: the house wasn't dark, but the gas lamps that lined the hallways had burnt low and pitched the room into amber shadows. The flickering light made the fingers of the cypress tree wiggle and dance outside the gaping hole in the wall, the wooden slats extending like ribs in a car accident victim. As near as she could tell, Kennedy was standing in a bedroom that capped the end of a hallway, the overlarge door open so she could see the shadowed set of stairs that led to the first floor. The walls cracked and peeled, white paint that didn't react well to the constant humidity of the swamp and rebelled by pulling away from the wall. Two doors sat adjacent to each other in the hallway, most likely bedrooms from the mental floor plan Kennedy drew up. She stepped across the threshold, wincing as her footfalls, be they ever so light, elicited a groan from the floorboards. Willow followed behind, casting furtive glances behind her as she moved. That's my girl, Kennedy thought, watch our six.

The hallway was tall, ten feet tall by Kennedy's guess. The same white paint that flaked off like dead skin covered these walls, rupturing especially around the four lantern holders. They had once been brass, but now were tarnished green, long and fluted with thick rings in the end to hold the their lanterns. The lanterns themselves looked like refugees, sooty black glass cracked and broken in some cases, in other cases replaced with a chicken wire contraption that drew a grid across Kennedy's cautious features. She inspected the doors, each as large and pompous as the other.

The floor keened as she noted the right-hand door. Thick, steel gray bands crisscrossed the wood of the door, reinforcing it into a pentagram of iron, the center of the pentacle a peephole: a heavy metal shutter at eye level. Kennedy's Catholic upbringing struggled against her modern sensibilities, fighting to make her say a prayer against evil. But the pentacle wasn't evil: it was a symbol of protection. She settled herself, leaning in (but not touching, Willow was very specific about the 'no touching strange symbols' rule) to scrutinize the set of deadbolts that lined the door. She counted nine, some of them the same model, some of them older and less robust, but all in the locked position. She took a step back, and turned to Willow.

She pointed at the door, raising her eyebrows and mouthing 'here?' to the redhead. Willow shrugged, the ants in her head frantically scurrying. Tara was so close Willow could practically smell her, the connection like being conjoined at the back, so that all the other person's heat flowed into you. She spun around, once, twice, then tried to pinpoint where Tara was strongest. No luck, she could be anywhere in the house.

Kennedy watched the witch do her little ritual, its absurdity lending light to their situation. It helped her think, having Willow around. If I were an asshole, she thought, where would I keep a witch? The door seemed the obvious answer. A glance to Willow showed that she was thinking the same thing: it was just too easy. Kennedy gave Willow the signal for 'clear the area', pointing to the door behind them and making a circular motion with her fist. Willow squinted at the signal, then nodded as the recognition caught, producing a series of hand jerks (that Kennedy knew weren't any actual signs and was fairly certain were a modified hambone) that evidently meant 'okay'. She slid beside the opposite door, letting Kennedy run her fingertips along the bottom edge of the door, feeling for booby traps.

She pushed Willow gently out of the way, gripped the doorknob, and took a deep breath. Kennedy leaned over to Willow.

"As soon as I'm in the room," she whispered through clenched teeth, "follow me." Willow bobbed her head rapidly, rubbing her hands together as nearly invisible orange sparks tickled her fingertips.

Kennedy flung the door open with a crash, diving in, rolling to her feet. Willow turned the corner like a door on its hinge, a dozen combat spells scratching at the back of her mind. Kennedy immediately stood up, unslung her axe, and began scanning the room for any sign of resistance.

It was a bedroom, but a sparse one. Even the extensive floor space didn't offset the feeling of claustrophobia. A plain four-poster bed sat against the far wall, flanked by a modern-looking armoire. Its sleek black façade faced a similar desk, sizable but not unjustly so, nothing more than an inkwell and a pen sitting on it. Kennedy dropped out of her fighting stance, sliding the axe back into its leather holster on her back. She stepped out of the room, carefully closing the door behind her. Willow looked expectantly at the dead bolted door behind her.

Kennedy reached for the peephole, pressing her face close to the door, her breath rasping in her ears. It was black as pitch on the other side, a velvet cloth suspended somewhere in front of her. No shapes made themselves noticed, no light from windows drained into the room. She turned to Willow.

Willow stepped up to the peephole, moving her head from side to side, trying to get a good view of what lay beyond. With a frustrated sigh she finally spoke.

"Tara?" she called into the darkness, "Baby, it's Willow. I'm gonna get you out of here!"

Both women held their breath, willing their hearts to slow down as they waited fro a reply. It came, but not in the melodic tones Willow knew, but in the soft rustle of fabric against a wooden wall, like leaves falling in autumn. Willow's eyes lit up, her features caught between a gasp and a smile, her mind unable to decide on either.

Kennedy didn't question her lover, just stepped up to the door and began to flip open the deadbolts. She turned them as quickly as she dared, the metallic 'clack' of the mechanism echoing in her own ears, threatening to summon whatever watchdogs these bastards had in store.

'Clack!' The third lock opened. Still no movement, just some shifting about from within the room and a dull tinkling like chains shifting.

Kennedy turned, the shot jarring her concentration. Willow stood, her delicate hand cupping her nose, dark red blood draining between her fingers.

"That's not her," she said, pinching her nose shut. Kennedy pulled a wad of Kleenex out of her pocket, holding it to her lover's face. The bleeding stopped as suddenly as it begun. "It's one of *them*," Willow said, and it needed no further explanation.

"Then let's move with a quickness," Kennedy stated, flipping the axe out of it's holster and choking up her grip on the haft. Anyone who was here had already heard them; there was no point in playing it slow. She stepped quickly but surely, a rolling gait that Willow jogged to keep up with. The axe glinted in the lamplight, held before her like a marine's rifle.

They moved down the stairs, Kennedy cutting across the landing way to jam herself in a corner. She glanced around orienting herself in space. The front door was behind her, met by a tall, short hallway that held three doors and a Louis the Sixteenth table covered in dead orchids. She waved Willow down, and began moving even as Willow took her place.

Kennedy stuck to the left wall like an anchor, stopping as she came to the doorframe made of rotten black wood. She swiveled, kicking the door in with a booted foot, and gave the room a cursory once over. It was another bedroom, this one reeking of rot and mold, piles of waterlogged magazines stacked to the ceiling like Larry Flynt's basement. She ducked back around, moved past the table, and to the door that butted the end of the hallway. Willow followed her, making a wide berth around the open door, fully aware of the nasties that liked to pop out of open doors.

Kennedy kicked the second door open, saw it was a dining room, complete with a silver platter covered by a great chrome dome, and ignored it. Unless they had cooked Tara, she wasn't in there. Willow poked her head into the dining room, leaning in farther than Kennedy had, and saw the wide door to her right. She tapped the slayer's shoulder, then pointed at it. Kennedy referenced her excellent spatial sense, mapping out the dimensions of the dining room.

"I'm betting that door is to the kitchen," she told Willow as she moved to the last door. "It should be right through here."

She shoved open the third door, sliding into the kitchen. A huge wood burning stove centered the room, wrought iron handles rusted shut. Counters circled the perimeter, and by their scent were stuffed with nutmeg and clove, sage and salt. Willow noticed the square, black nails used to seal the cabinets shut, and a horrible image of Tara, trapped and terrified in the dark of a tiny cupboard wracked her heart. But she couldn't be there, the dust was too thick and the grime too pervasive: no one had opened those cupboards in years. On top of the counter sat a set of knives, the thick, long handle of a butcher's knife protruding like a violent flag. Kennedy ignored it, her imagination running away with poltergeist scenarios.

There were four doors in the room. One wide set Kennedy deduced as opening to the dining room, so rich landowners could have their foodstuffs brought to them. One set led to the hallway from which she jus came, and one set led to outside. The last doorway, however, was different. It was more of a shed, a graying wooden thing growing out of the wall. A thick warped crossbeam barred the door.

"Jackpot," she said as she slid the bar out of its place and set it beside her. She pulled the door open, a draft of cool air drying the sweat along her brow. A set of stairs led steeply down, shadows lazily moving is meandering circles at the bottom. Kennedy smelled the dampness first. She sniffed again, juggling the mingling scents of bitter chemicals, coppery blood, and something else, something that balked the death and decay motif. Kennedy smelled peaches, like a hand lotion. Her hearing caught a gasp, ragged and terrified from the dank pit. Whatever, whoever gasped shifted, very slightly. It was her, Kennedy knew.

"I'll go down first," Willow said, her voice steady and solid. "She's gonna be frightened, and it's best if… you know."

"Right," Kennedy agreed, glancing about, her knuckles working the haft of the axe. "Will, if something goes wrong, if it's a trap, just yell. I'll come in swinging."

Willow smiled warmly, something about Kennedy's threat of violence oddly comforting. Willow took the first step down the stairs, her weight making them whisper as she strode down them.

"Tara?" she called, her voice belying the tension that threatened to snap her spine with muscle spasms. "Tara, baby, it's Willow. Your Willow." The last step sent a wave of lukewarm water splashing her calf. Willow turned, almost afraid to look.

The basement ran under the entire house, and constantly leaked water. An army of tiny candles floated on the surface of the water, twirling like dancers in a springtime waltz and painted the walls in swirling shadows. The center of the room held a table. On the table sat a bundle of blankets, all wrapped in one themselves like a caterpillar's chrysalis. Only a few strands of blonde hair sticking out of the far end alerted Willow.

"T-Tara," Willow tried again, fighting every urge in her body that told her to run over to the woman, to pull her into an embrace and never let go, never again. She made herself remember Buffy, remember the daze she was in for days after. The last thing Tara needed was someone flustering her. She had to take it slow, as slowly as she dared.

"Honey baby, I know you're hurt and scared, but I swear baby, I swear I'm here to take you somewhere safe."

"There you are," Willow softly said. She stumbled for second, and words began to fall out of her mouth. "Oh baby, I missed you so much." She covered her mouth, a wet sob working it's way past her. Every ounce of her suffered for this girl. "I know it's hard, I know, but we'll get through it, okay? But please, listen to me, we have to go now." The bundle only shifted again. Willow watched the eye blink.

"Baby," she wiped her eyes dry with the back of her hand, her private mantra coming out with a smile and a heartsick laugh: "I still love you."

That wasn't Tara's voice. Tara's voice was soft, and gentle, and even when she yelled it soothed. This voice was cracked and wet, like a skinned knee. Willow felt a sudden dread, that this wasn't Tara, that this was some monster that had taken her place and tricked Willow. She knew it wasn't true as soon as she though it.

"Yes!" she felt her muscles release all the tension they'd been holding for days. "It's me, Tara-baby!"

She found herself beside Tara before she knew she had decided to move, as if her flesh compelled her without her mind's permission. The candles parted for her like she was royalty, encircling her when she stopped. Willow gasped to notice her own hand reaching out to the folds of the blankets, smoothly and without the slightest tremor. Every thought of propriety, of anything other than giving this girl who'd been through hell every last minute of love washed away like seashells taken out by the surf.

Tara recoiled as she approached. Any second now the dream would change, Willow would see her for the monster she'd become, or Willow would die, or she'd abandon her to her captors out of disgust. This one was too real, this dream had too much weight and mass, and Tara didn't know if she could take it. So she hid, like a little girl, she hid and hoped she'd wake up soon.

"No," she wept, peeking through her cocoon, "please don't look at me, please Willow." She didn't listen; Willow grabbed the edge of the blanket, slowly pulling it to the side. Tara squeezed her eyes shut, tears streaming down her sallow cheeks, the strawberry and hazel wood scent of Willow washing over her.

Willow dropped to her knees as she unwound the wrapping from Tara's head. Blonde locks spilled onto the table, dirty and stinking of pond water. The lightest strand brushed her hand as she worked. The purest sensation of Tara cut Willow. She peeled the blanket off Tara's face, inching it down, her most primitive instincts commanding her to be gentle.

Willow said three words. She couldn't hear her own voice. She couldn't hear anything. She felt the tears on her face, and made herself look at Tara lying there with her eyes shut. Her face was skeletal, drawn and warped around her skull. She could see the muscled of her jaw and face twitching under the skin, like when she held her hand up to a bright light and thought she could see through it. Thick, blue arteries pumped blood to those tissues, wriggling just under the translucent yellow skin. Her nose ended in a hook, like an old woman's, and her eyes were painfully round in her head. Willow felt her voice return, and realized that she was whispering three little words over and over again.

Then she saw the tears on Tara's face, saw the way she clutched the blanket to her, the tremors that ran through her body. What's more, she felt the terror, the abandonment as real as if it were her own. She was Tara. Nothing more needed to be thought.

"Tara?" she placed her hands one the poor woman's' shoulders softly as a dandelion alighting on a cheek. Her guilt attacked her, reminded her how long it had taken to get here, told her that she should have used magic to get here, and worst of all, forced her to imagine every second of torture her poor, gentle Tara had to endure. "Open your eyes for me, okay?"

It wasn't a dream, Tara realized, although she wished it were. She blinked her eyes open, and saw. Willow was crying. It always broke her heart when Willow cried. When she walked away from her, left her in the bathroom every ounce of strength she had was used just not running in there and wrapping her arms around her poor, screwed up Willow. Willow was crying and she had to do something to stop it.

"Hey," she managed, twisting her face in what she hoped was a smile, reminded of a hundred mornings, rolling over to see that face and saying the same words.

"Hey," Willow replied. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, regretting it immediately, as that a sizable portion of cypress tree bark deposited itself on her face. Tara reached up with the blanket, and swept it away. She pulled her hand back to her chest, then reached out again, tapping Willow's adorable nose and giggling.

Willow reached out to touch Tara. She felt her hair, ran her fingertips along her cheekbone, now sharp and elfin, then cupped her cheek. Her throat constricted around her next question.

Tara drifted away for a minute, the smooth, cool hand on her cheek shockingly real through her infant nervous system. Her smile cocked to the side.

"We'll fix you," Willow stated as fact, sniffing and looking up to the stairway. "We have to go now, okay? I don't know how much time we have, and my knees are wet."

Kennedy yelled down the stairway, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She'd been down there a while, a little too long, by her estimation. As much as she respected the idea of a reunion, her inner badass (that rarely stayed so 'inner') was anxious. In general, when you make a lot of noise in the bad guy's house, some sort of evil demon-servant thing comes running to kill you. Therefore, it was logical to vacate before said demon-servant thing showed up and decided to wear your guts for garters.

"I've got her," Willow called back up. She began to scoop Tara into her arms, briefly thinking that adrenaline had given her super strength, then realizing that Tara couldn't weigh any more than sixty pounds.

Willow turned to ask Tara, but the frail creature stopped her, grabbing her arm and holding it. She just shook her head, her little frame tightening as she dropped her head to Willow's shoulder. Willow knew what that meant.

"Fucking monsters," she ground out between her teeth. She then yelled up the stairs: "I'm coming up."

Kennedy nodded. She scanned the kitchen again, grinding her teeth in anticipation of something big and evil barreling down on her. Her axe was ready, the magicks in the blade singing their blood song. The runes pulsed along Kennedy's corded arms, like a low voltage power line. It wanted combat, and right now, Kennedy was inclined to give it to her. Her name was Beatrice, Kennedy decided then. Beatrice and Kennedy wanted to whup some demon ass.

But the kitchen wasn't agreeing with her. Not another zombie in sight, which Kennedy rather liked killing. They were already dead, mindless, and not too dangerous. The mass slaughter of the undead would serve several important purposes as far as Kennedy was concerned. One, it would relieve some much needed tension that had been building up for the past week. And it wasn't gonna get any better, seeing as how Willow was currently meeting up with her ex-flame. Two, it would let Kennedy work out some of the aggression she felt against the scumfucks who would do this to her Willow. She had a mind to inflict whatever pain Willow and Tara had been through in the past few days on the next ugly face that poked its punk ass out. And most importantly, Kennedy really, really, wanted to teach people like this that they can't just run a town into the ground and expect everyone to lie down. Beatrice hummed violently, as she whipped it in a figure-eight arc. There was just nothing to kill in here. Only a stove, some cabinets, and…

Just wait a fuckin' minute here. She slowly, cautiously padded her way to the counter. Dust covered the entire countertop, mixing wit the humidity into a brownish sludge. A single clean square marked the place where the collection of butcher knives sat just a second ago. Kennedy dropped into her fighting stance, axe pulled back, ready to strike. She wasn't alone.

Eighteen
"Willow!" She yelled, glancing to the stairway, "Light a fire under it, we are leaving!"

He was in front of her when she looked back up, just like she knew he would be. It was how these sneaky types operated. She smelled his breath, surprisingly minty and fresh, and saw the casual glint in his eyes. They were widely spaced, his eyes that is, almond shaped and deep umber, like the rust on the side of a dumpster. He slashed out, some kind of straight jacket trailing off his arms. Kennedy flinched back, the knife cutting left-right left-right.

She had just about enough of that mess, and whipped her axe down to cave in the side of his head. It would have worked swimmingly-if he hadn't moved. He stabbed out, sinking the tip of he knife inot her thigh. She let him take it, brought her knee up into his face, driving him back against the counter.

She spun, feinted high with the axe, and brought it low, driving it home deep into his side. He flopped onto his back as she ripped it out of him, a black, bilious substance coating the axe. She brought the axe home again, and again, severing his head neatly at the collarbone. The blood hissed and sizzled on the ground. Kennedy swung around the door jam, leaping down the stairs two at a time.

Willow stood at the base of the stairs, a bundle of what Kennedy assumed was Tara in her arms.

"What part of 'light a fire under it' are we unclear on?" Kennedy held out her arms to accept the Tara-bundle.

"Look," Kennedy motor mouthed, "We need to be gone, like, two minutes ago. I can carry her better than you can. So just hand her over, there'll be plenty of time for snuggles later." God, why the hell did she just say that?

Whatever she said, it worked. Willow handed the bundle to Kennedy, who flinched at the feel of bony arms clutching her shoulders. She hit the stairs running, three at a time, not bothering to look down at who the bundle or behind her. She slid into the kitchen, glancing at the black bloodstain on the hardwood kitchen floor.

"Fuck!" she screamed, noting the lack of corpse, "I knew that was gonna happen! God damn it! Willow, stay close and get ready to fight!"

Willow bumped into her back, which Kennedy took it as a signal to speed up. Wow, she thought, those Scoobies really can hoof it when they get motivated. Kennedy kicked the back door open, popping the hinges of and letting it slide down the small staircase. She leapt off the porch, knees screaming as the extra mass (tiny though it may be) of Tara pushed her off balance. Kennedy's traction held. Willow yelped as she followed suit and rolled on the ground. A rough little whimper came from the Tara-bundle as she took off again.

"Sorry," Kennedy said, finally hazarding a backwards glance to make sure that Willow was still keeping up. "I'm Kennedy, by the way," she said between even breaths.

Oz sprinted across the open field to converge on she and Willow. The blanket shifted, giving Kennedy a glimpse of bugged out blue eyes and semi-transparent skin.

Tara buried her head further in the blanket, hiding. Tara felt like she was in high school all over again, the popular girls pointing and laughing. Her face burnt with shame.

"Don't worry too much," she amended, "I'm sure Willow'll get you back to your old, non-dead self in no time." Okay, not he most compassionate statement, she thought as her legs pumped, putting distance between herself and the house.

"Just ignore me," she sighed, her voice helicopter-throbbing. "I'm an asshole. It's genetic." She smiled at Tara, honestly trying not to upset her any more.

But who isn't upset by Hannibal Lecter popping in front of you, she asked herself as she skid to a stop, ducking the swipe of a knife that nearly took her eye. Willow collided with her back again, this time sending her forward as her feet slipped in the moist grass. She braced her arms, letting her body take the big thump of the ground. Tara fell out of her arms, and she heard both Willow and Oz yell above her.

Willow felt the man's presence more than she saw it, an insect buzz in the back of her head. Wrapped her arms around Tara, her body ready to absorb whatever punishment he had to throw at her. The din of horse hoof beats drown out her scream of defiance.

No, not a horse: Oz. He ran on all fours, arms long and muscled, partially covered with shiny gray hair. His face seemed human, but the expression of sheer feral rage warped him into animalism. He leapt, all four limbs pointed to the man in the straightjacket.

The man just sidestepped, cutting Oz along the rump as he passed. The man's face shifted into a grimace, as overdone as a Greek character mask. Oz yelled, almost yelped, and crashed into the ground in a jumble of rolling limbs.

"Take her!" Kennedy pushed off Tara, let Willow cover Tara with her body, and produced the caltrops from her handy-dandy utility belt. The tiny spiked balls sailed through the air, peppering the man across his face and arms. He seemed more insulted than hurt, wiping off the little spikes and sneering at Kennedy.

Kennedy charged him, then came up short, dropping into a slide and slamming the axe haft across his knees. He was obviously not going to be killed by her axe, and physical damage was just irritating him. What she needed was time.

The blow to his knees knocked him to the ground, so he decided that if he was going to fall, he might as well fall on something that bleeds. Kennedy blocked his stab with her axe, bench-pressing the whole of his weight. He slipped his knife to his other hand, wrestling for control of the axe and slicing out. Kennedy slammed her foot into his stomach, dropping him back as she kicked herself to her feet.

Willow's blood boiled in her veins. She knew her nosebleed started again: iron shavings drained into the back of her throat. Her vision tingled around the edges, her fingers blurred along the tips. Tara curled into a fetal ball underneath her, and Willow knew without a doubt that she could fix this little problem with just a word. She stood and pointed at the straightjacket man.

Kennedy almost laid into him again, almost let her axe do the talking and take his head off for a second time, just to be sure, when the man vanished. She caught him in her peripheral vision, an invisible giant tossing him aside, right into the felled cypress tree. The tree buckled around him like a collapsing bulkhead, splintering and twisting as he disappeared into the darkness, only the occasional crash highlighting his meeting with an interposing branch.

Oz lie there for a second, rubbing his Romanian charm like a nun worrying her rosary. He shut out the chaos around him, let his heart slow into a steady 'thump thump', and pushed the wolf down. Back when he lived in Sunnydale, he never knew the trick of it. He thought he could just swallow it down, like the wolf was indigestion. The trick was calming the animal first, then quietly shutting the cage door. He needed quiet. He got it, but only after years of training. This stunt took a little more finesse. He just had to let the cage door ajar, meet the wolf halfway, and ride out its rage. When the chips hit the table, it was a nice trick to have up his sleeve. The really scary part was putting it back when he was done. He learned that the hard way a week ago. Oz latched his spiritual cage just as a tremendous explosion shook his quiet. A tree exploded. Huh.

"Um, Will." Kennedy leaned in close to the redhead, squinting into her eyes. "I, uh, don't want to freak you out or anything, but um…you're black."

Willow looked at her arms. Kennedy shook her head, then pointed at her own eyes. It took Willow another second to understand the reference, twisting her face back and forth as she leapt through all the potential meanings and permutations that Kennedy could be implying. The two fingers obviously meant something significant. Two is a prime number, and unlikely thought it be that her lover meant this, Willow's mind just bent that way. Two could be a pair, and black could be something more figurative, like bad, or poison, and thus Kennedy told her just what she thought of Tara. Defensiveness flushed her higher functions, which held onto the rim with the steady death-grip of a fighter pilot. Again, unlikely. Kennedy liked sex, Willow knew this to be fact, so perhaps she was referring to covert cunnilingus. Not a terrible idea, if it weren't for the little problem of Tara sitting there wet in the grass and Oz sort of discombobulated looking and the fact that she really wasn't in anything like the mood. Then she realized that Kennedy meant her eyes went black.

"Wonderful." She rubbed them and hoped that Bausch and Lomb would make anti-black magick eye drops. Removes redness, itchiness, and pure evil in mere moments. She couldn't think straight to boot, or even gay to boot.

"Willow?" Tara tried to sit up, settling with propped herself up on her elbow. She remembered vaguely getting really sick on a family camping trip when she was six or seven, and feeling about the same way, all wrapped up and weak. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, baby," Willow kneeled down next to her, shielding her face with one hand. "We just had a little speed bump."

"Speed bump my ass," Kennedy pulled Tara into her arms without a moment's notice, "We have got to fucking motorvate, now. Oz! Quit loafing and get a move on."

"I'm moving." Oz winced as he stood up, the cut on the back of his leg scabbed over already. One of the benefits of being a long time werewolf, he supposed.

Kennedy lead the way again, jogging down the trail with Tara in tow, dodging the slashing blades of the high grasses, blocking out the pain of her bleeding thigh. There'd be hell to pay later that afternoon, the torn muscles knitting it weird ways that'd make her leg all stiff and sore for at least a week. She'd worry about that later; now was the time to just haul ass and worry about the consequences later.

Willow moved in the center, following as best she could, hopping over the fallen branches and not particularly enjoying the shivers that came with her high-speed black magick detox. She balled up all the sludge in her aura, codified it with a few choice phrases, then spat it out on the side of the trail in a ball of black phlegm. Willow felt fine, right up until her legs started shaking and her stomach took six consecutive ninety-degree turns.

"H-hold up," she gasped as her speed dropped like a runner crossing the finish line. Her breakfast of eggs and french toast came up in a heave.

"Will?" Kennedy asked, not even remotely tired yet, despite, by her best estimates, they'd been running for about a mile. "You good?"

Willow tried to nod in the affirmative, but the nausea returned and sent her gagging again. She felt a reassuring hand on her back, warm and smoothing away the spasms. Someone lifted her hair out of her face, someone on the other side of her, and Willow realized that there were at least two people helping her. Her curiosity conquered her sickness, pulling her attention up. Kennedy handed her a napkin, wadded up and compressed. She took it, wiped her mouth, and spat a few times to get rid of the bile taste

Oz stood beside her, chastely holding her hair, smiling, but not as enigmatically as usual. She smiled back, a little awkwardly with the line of drool hanging out of her mouth like some backwoods halfwit. She killed it with the napkin. Kennedy stood on the other side, her concern mixed with anxiety, cradling Tara like a newborn and keeping a watchful eye on the path. Tara turned her royal blue eyes to Willow, wrinkled brow furrowing in her nearly universal expression of worry. She shot her crooked smile to her, looking comically like George Burns.

"'Bout nine miles as the crow flies," Kennedy answered, one hand dropping to the axe as she stood waiting for the straightjacketed man to appear any moment. "Or about an hour as the Slayer runs."

"No good," Oz pursed his lips in an uncharacteristic expression of, well, anything. "We can't keep up. I think Willow's about spent."

"I'm a sprinter," she objected, "Buffy usually killed whatever I was running from before I got winded."

"Well, sorry, but I sort of did kill the freakazoid," Kennedy shifted Tara to her other arms, "He just didn't actually stay dead. But Oz's right. When they come back from that movie and find Tara gone, I'm betting we won't want to be in this time zone. Plus, that dude was teleporting. And while I love a good throw-down with an unkillable monster from time to time, we've got more pressing matters."

"Well, it wasn't supposed to be a rescue," Kennedy turned to start walking, "this was just us on a recon and surveillance mission. It was just too good an opportunity to – what are you giggling about?" She looked into the Tara-bundle, which tittered uncontrollably.

"What?" Willow scanned her memory for some instance of her ever even thinking of Riley in that way. "I never dated Riley! I-oh. Right, the military stuffspeak. Gotcha."

"I'm not even gonna pretend to understand what the hell you two are talking about," Kennedy grumbled. Being the butt of a joke between her girlfriend and a walking California raisin really just ruined her mood. Not that her mood was anything even remotely like chipper: every crunch of grass and snap of twig yanked her attention around. A tug on her shirtsleeve pulled her attention down.

Kennedy took the apology with a grain of salt. Petty and sour weren't the most attractive features to her personality, but the entire situation just reeked of badness and loss way too much. "Don't mention it," she grumbled.

"It's just that," Tara continued, "Um, Riley was a s-soldier, like, Special Forces? And he was, well, at first, really um…" She looked over to Willow for confirmation.

"Right," Kennedy absorbed. Wow. She so didn't expect that. Most people, when they apologize for something, are really just afraid of what someone is gonna think of them, or in Kennedy's case, what she's gonna do. Tara honestly meant no offence. She thought that Kennedy was a professional. "Yeah, my Watcher was a Marine. Er, Royal Marine."

"I don't like talking about her," Kennedy spun around, checking her rearview, twirling her armload of blonde. She stopped walking.

Oz's breath caught in his throat, seizing control of his voice as he tried to scream. An icicle slid into his kidney, freezing the rest of his body. The shock dulled his wits, sent him into an animal panic, his heart beating faster, emptying his veins of blood through the knife wound in his back. He tried to walk away, but his feet just paddled the empty air.

The straightjacketed man, Creak, pulled the boy into the woods, each kick and spasm plucking at his heartstrings. Not a dirge, no, nothing like a Toccata and Fugue in D minor. More like a Ride of the Valkyries, or even The Rites of Spring. A musician must have a keen ear for such things. The kicks would slow as the blood drained, and then one final jerk, a crescendo to mark the soul's escape from this moral plane. Off, off to the aether it would go, and the song would be over. But the music would still play in his mind, and he'd have to find the next instrument to play.

Creak spent years composing his latest masterpiece. He didn't know when, exactly, he got so good at making a guest appearance and then vanishing without a trace, but it certainly helped with his music. The trick about killing and getting a decent performance was the death of hope. The females here positively reeked of hope.

If this little boy would just stop kicking, he could have his fun sooner. The Hispanic one, she would die hard, fighting to the last. The redhead, well, that one he'd have to sacrifice to the greater good. A quick knife to the throat, end it before it starts. The blonde thing though… she had potential to be a true instrument in his concerto. His pliable grin grew even wider at the thought. She would beg for death again at the end, and know her people's deaths were all her fault if THIS BOY WOULD HURRY UP AND DIE!

Creak felt fur wriggle between his fingers. The bones and flesh beneath his hand shifted, like someone rearranging a puzzle wrapped in silk. The music changed from the jitters of the dying into a thrashing. He lost his grip on this dense little ball of fur and rage. Interesting. It's never a good thing, per se, when your tuba turns into a clarinet, but it sure as hell gets your attention. Except this clarinet had claws and decided to tear his throat out. No matter. He'd just get up. He couldn't rest until his symphony was finished.

The Wolf got free. It dropped to the ground. Something hurt it, in its back. Heat, to its left. Whatever made the heat, hurt it. It leapt at the source of the pain, teeth bared and ivory claws extended. Black blood and little bits of canvas flitted into the air like dysfunctional butterflies, albino and deformed from a nuclear waste plant. The thing beneath the Wolf stopped moving, the blood tasted bad, and so it decided that whatever hurt it was no longer a threat. The Wolf howled its victory to the sky, and sniffed the air in search of more prey.

Kennedy heard scrabbling in the underbrush, not more than fifty yards away and closing.

"Can we talk him down?" she asked as she handed Tara to Willow. Tara began to feel like a relay race baton. And coming around the bend is Kennedy, handing off the burden to Willow…

Kennedy reached into the belt pouch at her right hip. She gripped her weapon, squared herself off, and waited.

Oz exploded from the edge of the trail, a brown and gray haired anthropoid wolf wearing a badly torn Alkaline Trio t-shirt, bounding towards her and spitting chunks of brown flesh and oil-dark fluid. He left the ground, jumping less like a wolf and more like a cat, leading with his fangs.

Teeth and fur hit the ground first, the brass knuckles sending Oz into a backwards spin, his momentum absorbed by Kennedy's fist, transferred down her arm and through her boots, which shifted in the earth. He hit the ground with a furry flump, unconscious before he even had time to yelp properly.

Kennedy slid her blood-smeared brass knuckles back into their pouch. She knelt next to the unconscious beast, watching with detached fascination as he gradually melted back into his taciturn, less hairy self. Still unconscious though. This would complicate things: now there were two bodies to tote around. Kennedy considered investing in a gurney.

"Think of something fast," Kennedy hoisted Oz onto her shoulder, her supernatural strength able to handle his weight with ease. It still took her a little bit by surprise; she was used to the matchstick weight of Tara. From the looks of it, Oz took a goodly chunk out of the Michael Myers wannabe, but she cut his fuckin' head off and it just slowed him down.

"Will," Tara whispered to the witch, "You don't have to do anything you're uncomfortable with." Willow just closed her eyes and sighed.

"Yeah, I sort of do. But that's okay Tara-baby. I've got this one well in hand."

"You know what I mean. Besides, I sorta always wanted to try this one. I read about it in De Vermiis Mysterius, the French edition. Well, a translation of the French edition, Giles wouldn't let me read the original Latin source. C'mon, everyone get close together."

Willow drew a circle in the ground with her heel, closed her eyes and focused. Teleportations were tricky for one big reason: no matter which method you used, at some point the body was no longer in one piece on this plane. She could pull a little wormhole action like those three people did just a few minutes ago, but you really had to know your destination. So how about this: just squeeze the space around you, shortening the distance by a good amount. It'd take a little muscle, but in comparison with activating the entire Slayer lineage and unraveling three powerful demons into nothingness, this was purely academic.

Johnny finished playing Tetris on his Gameboy for the twenty-eighth time in the past four hours. How he let those crazy people convince him to play getaway escaped him at the moment. He did manage to beat his previous high score, so it wasn't all a waste.

He parked the Buick across the street behind some tall bushes, a nice little peephole formed by the branches to let him watch the trail. His policy of not going through other people's stuff didn't extend when you were stuck on car detail, he decided. Might as well go through the CD collection. After some furious flipping back and forth between pages, he slid something he could get into into the CD player.

No joke. He could use a beer or six. As soon as Julietta got back, and everything settled back to normal, he swore an oath to get so shitfaced he'd wonder what he did that night for the rest of his adult life. And he'd move out of the hellhole named oh-so ironically 'Hope'. What a crock of shit. There's no hope here, and everyone knew it. They liked it the way it is: stable, boring, teetering on the edge of collapse. How an entire people could just throw up their hands and accept things 'the way they are' was just beyond Johnny. Life, as far as he was concerned, is just a collection of changes.

He leaned over to take some weight off his left butt cheek, which he knew had some horrible bedsores after sitting in this big ass rich white people car for god knows how many hours. Nice car, no doubt, but the waves of pretentious wealth hit Johnny so hard it damn near drown him. He began to want to play tennis. In the car. Shit, he could probably play in the car if he wanted to. The cracker-mobile probably had a button for that. Fuck it, the cracker-mobile probably has a button marked 'Press in Case of Negro'. It'd automatically send for the police. They'd stroll up, sirens blaring.

'This big black man came up and asked me if I wanted my oil checked', she'd whimper, 'I was so scared.'

'Don't you worry, ma'am,' Officer Dumblefuck would say, 'Those darkies like to hang around these here gas stations.'

He laughed, stretching his arms over his head and hitting the roof, which he was certain sat at least a few inches higher. His nostrils began to tickle, like a vacuum cleaner held too close to him.

Johnny squinted out into the trail. That wasn't right. He rubbed his eyes, then looked again.

Someone held up a funhouse mirror lens to the world. The swamp forest bulged around the edges, like a balloon about to pop, or a Windows screensaver. In the center of the bubble walked two figures, both of them carrying a slumped figure. The ground rushed under their feet. The disturbance rippled towards Johnny, who leaned against the door and cringed, imagining his body being torn into a bloody mess and spread around the car. Instead, someone opened the rear door.

Kennedy slid Oz into the back seat, Willow and Tara slid in the other side. Kennedy herself slammed the passenger door shut behind her, yelling "Drive, drive, drive," to Johnny.

He slammed the gas home, slipping and sliding around the street until he found his happy medium between speed and control. He took a quick index of his passengers.

"Where's my niece?" Johnny repeated again, his voice going shrill with panic. Kennedy met his gaze. She just shook her head, then put her face in her hands , wincing as one of the dozen cuts along her forearm opened up.

Johnny's stared straight, his body kept on moving without his soul being there. Something left him, a fresh wound on the inside. No one looked at him. Kennedy just sat there scowling and touching the cuts on her arms, her duty crushing her. Johnny saw it as plain as day. She failed, and for some reason, he felt worse for her than he did for himself.

"The night was dark; it was pitch dark; but it was such a night as this that they had waited for; for it was a night such as this that they had planned to fly."
-Virginia Woolf, "Orlando"

"Clever got me this far
Then tricky got me in
Eye on what I'm after
I don't need another friend
Smile and drop the cliché
'Till you think I'm listening
I take just what I came for
Then I'm out the door again"
-A Perfect Circle, "The Package"

Wet towels splotched with rose petal blood greeted her, swaying along the shitty hotel racks. Her arms healed up nicely, just ugly red scratches where there were deep cuts five hours ago. She was right about her leg: it kept kicking out awkwardly whenever she tried to walk. Limping was not a becoming means of locomotion for a slayer.

She washed her hands in the sink, red and brown deposits lining the dirty steel fixtures. She turned on the shower, cursed the drizzle of lukewarm water that came, and stepped under it. She spent such and ungodly amount of her life in hotels that something about the paper wrapped bars of soap and the midget bottles of shampoo/conditioner mix comforted her. It took a long time to wet her hair, little patches soaking up the water and hoarding it, so she had to move her head around in circles to get a decent saturation. She ran her hands down her body, pushing all the dirt and sweat away like a witch doctor casting off evil spirits.

So they ran north, getting back on the freeway and heading straight through Baton Rouge. Oz suggested they head towards New Orleans. It'd be much easier to hide in a multi-million person population. Johnny called his brother. He didn't say anything about his niece, just lied and told him that he had a job offering in the Big Easy. They stopped just outside the city proper, Johnny walking like a corpse up to the front desk of a Motel Six and requesting a room.

Nobody said much after that. Oz and Tara both needed a hand into the room. She dropped them off, and the showers began. Willow got first dibs, she insisted on taking Tara with her. After the initial adrenaline wore off, Willow literally hadn't taken her eyes off Tara for more than a blink. It was like she just couldn't believe and so had to keep staring. Kennedy didn't understand that. The math was pretty simple: dead person now alive, but in a messed up state. She could tell Tara hurt: the way she barely moved if she could help it, the gloss that came over her eyes when the blanket rubbed her sensitive skin. Kennedy grew ever more pissed with Willow. She shouldn't be bathing the poor thing, she should be digging her books out of the trunk and pouring over them to make her better. If she could be made better.

She turned off the shower and stepped out. The bloodstained towel hid another one beneath it, just a tad pink from the contact. She wrapped it around her chest, then stepped out of the bathroom.

"Hey," Willow said. Tara lay on the bed, the clean blankets replacing her old swaddling. Willow sat next to her, combing out her hair on the pillow. Tara had the sheets pulled up to her eyes, just her forehead and golden locks peeking out. Willow had their suitcase open on the foot of the second bed. Kennedy grabbed a set of clothes, wadded them under her arm and disappeared into the bathroom without a word.

She got her pants on before she broke down. She tried to cover her mouth and keep it in, but saw that Willow would never leave Tara again, even if she never got any better. It'd be easier to hate them. She couldn't, never in a million years could she hate Willow. Kennedy perched on the toilet seat with her head in her hands and sobbed out the end of the best thing ever to happen to her. She cried so hard she didn't even hear the door open.

Willow heard the whimpers coming from the other side of the door. Kennedy never cried like that and it hurt like a physical blow. She opened the door, and there she was, her beautiful face distorted in a soundless wail. Willow felt the pain of her lover, felt her own insides twist and turn. She dropped to her, pulling her head into her chest, cradling her and rocking her. Kennedy let out her cry. She clutched onto Willow, grasped at her shirt, and hiccupped whines into her bosom.

"What?" Willow asked, pulling Kennedy to meet her tear-stained eyes. "What are you sorry for? I'm the one, I'm the guy who just dragged you all over the place and never, we never talked about what-what could happen."

"Oh, fuck," Kennedy mustered her fortitude. "Oh, fuck a duck. Everything's just so screwed up."

She dropped her head to rest on Willow's shoulder, ran her fingers through her hair and breathed a soothing lung full of clean Willow. If she closed her eyes -- hard, she could pretend that nothing was wrong.

"I don't know what it means," she said, "I haven't had any time to digest it. Tara here…just doesn't feel real."

"We should check on her," Kennedy pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Any second she felt like she'd disintergrate upon re-entry. Willow didn't look much better: her eyes puffy, red-rimmed and swollen. Her poor Willow didn't know what to do, which she had to admit was a pretty frequent state of being.

She pulled Willow into an embrace, pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Yeah, I know."

Oz shook his head, instead leaning against the wall, trying to take some of the weight off his back. It hurt pretty badly, but he wasn't the sort to complain. Especially not around this fellow.

Johnny looked like a man who just got diagnosed with cancer, and the doctor forgot to tell him the day before, like in the old joke. His braids hung limply around his head, matched by the cigarette that he only rarely took a long drag off of. He picked the black polish from of his fingernails, leaving a pile of glitter around his feet.

Johnny stabbed out the cigarette on the curb, grinding it around until it was well past dead and left tobacco streaks along the pavement. He flipped it across the street, just for good measure.

"What am I gonna tell my brother?" He rubbed the sweaty strip of skin just above his spiked bracelet. "What happened to her?" he asked, thumbing back to the hotel room.

"Not sure," Oz scratched the scab on his thigh again, "She was dead. Now she's not. And that's not even the most complicated thing I've had happen to me today."

"What about my family? Ain't they gonna be in deep shit when the big uglies realize I'm with you crazy-ass white people?"

Johnny stood up and pulled out another Newport, stuffing into his mouth with all the fervor of a jackhammer. He lit up, sucked on the thing until a fingernail's width of dead ash hung off the tip, and looked at Oz.

Tara lay in bed, the softness a touch of heaven after days spend having little splinters bite her ass. Willow changed the bandage on her arm, held her bony hand like a child even when she whimpered in time with the cotton swabs. Willow's eyes glistened with restrained tears, each cry of pain reverberating along the chords of her heart. Tara knew this because Tara felt the same way.

Her pain lessened around Willow, like the witch was pulling it into her. Tara would never know, Willow would never burden her with that knowledge. She carried her into the bathroom, filled the tub with warm water, and carefully laid Tara into its embryonic warmth. The grime and blood floated off her; Willow washed her sensitive skin with one of the towels, closing her eyes in secret thought from time to time. She lay suspended for what felt like hours. Willow took her out, wrapped her up in a big warm blanket (she felt so cold all the time), and carried her back to the bed. She never said a word. She didn't need to.

The other girl, Kennedy, disappeared into the bathroom. Willow stretched out beside Tara, producing a brush from her luggage and running it through her hair. She cupped Tara's cheek in one gentle hand, the other smoothing out the tangles.

"I didn't really understand what I felt then. You know, wasn't really big on the gayness then. But you know what I did think?"

"I thought, 'I want this girl in my life'," Willow leaned down and kissed her forehead, "No matter what."

Willow suddenly pulled back, stopped brushing, and stared Tara in the face as a single tear dropped down to roll off Tara's cheek.

She dropped her head to Tara's shoulder, wrapped her arm around her other shoulder, and pulled herself into a ball beside her. Tara reached over, fighting gravity with each inch, and laid her hand on Willow's back. She expected sobs to come then, a release. None came, not from Willow. Her brave Willow. Always trying to be the strong one, even when she really shouldn't. She had to smile, even if it was her crooked smile, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Willow made her forget just how bad things were. Willow always made her forget.

"Willow?" she asked, her fingers moving in patterns that tried to be soothing. "What do we do?"

Willow sat up, the blanket draped from her tiny hand. Her eyes looked off into the middle distance, then back to Tara. Once upon a time, their entire world began and ended in each other's eyes. Tara lay wondering if it could again. Willow's gaze averted. Tara followed the look.

Tara got her first good look at Kennedy. Kennedy, who, if her weird half-memories spoke true, loved Willow. She was beautiful, there was no doubting that. Her skin shone bronze even in the fluorescent lights of the bathroom, her form tightly muscled but still curving in the right places. Tara saw something aristocratic in her face and bearing, like a queen or a duchess. Not haughty exactly, but with a confidence saved for those appointed by god herself. Someone who knew what they wanted and got it.

Kennedy's heart sat on her sleeve, pinned there, Tara saw. She was a lot like Willow in that way, but where Willow wavered in her certainty, Kennedy rarely did. And right now, Kennedy looked like iron chains hung from her shoulders. She cast her gaze to the carpet, like a witness to the Rapture, but drifted up to see Tara. To see Tara and Willow, precisely.

Tara felt it threefold. Even with the roughness of her senses and the terror that sat just outside of Willow's range, she still empathized with everything she saw. She felt Kennedy's heart seize, her spirit fall to the floor and lie there unmoving. The poor woman looked sick to her stomach, a look Tara remembered intimately. She felt the exact same way when Oz showed up to the Scooby meeting: like someone ripped her heart out and laughed as they gleefully stomped it to death. She never wanted to make anyone feel that way.

As bad as she felt for inflicting that pain, Willow felt a thousand times worse. Their bond let Tara touch the medley that Willow waded through. She loved this girl, Tara realized, really loved her, and not in a comfortable way. She tasted a hint of fire and challenge, the kind of life she'd never been able to give Willow. She couldn't even keep up with Willow when they went out on patrol. Kennedy ran rings around Willow half the time. How could a shriveled little freak even hope to compete?

Kennedy must have gone back into the bathroom, though Tara didn't see her leave. Willow stood up, then stopped, like a rope anchored her to the bed. She looked at Tara, her utter confusion and pain evident in those big eyes that just wouldn't stop gleaming.

"I have to," she said, hoping Tara would understand, "She needs me. She…never needs me."

Tara watched Willow open the bathroom door, heard the sobs, and tried not to think about where this all headed. Someone was going to get hurt. Willow would want things to be the same. But they weren't, and that was a place she couldn't ever go back to. They could go forward, though, if that was where their fates took them. It must have been so hard for Willow in the past year and a half. Tara couldn't get her mind around the miasma of information in her head from what she affectionately referred to as her 'down time', so she had to settle with her imagination. She imagined just how empty and alone Willow must have felt. She imagined endless days, each as pointless as the last where her darling just barely managed to get through them. She could feel all the recrimination and self-hatred Willow heaped upon herself. And then she thought about this Kennedy person. And she thanked her for giving Willow another shot at living. Isn't that what everyone wants? A second chance, a get out of jail free card when they inevitably screw up?

The door of the motel room opened. The tall black man with the net weave shirt and nose stud walked in, slumping into a chair. Tara pulled the blanket up to cover her face, her self-consciousness returned. The man looked over to the movement, hands hanging in the air like a pastor searching for words during a sermon.

"You Tara?" he asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "She used to talk about you a lot. Online."

Tara looked away. She didn't want to remember that, not that, and not right now.

Johnny picked up one of his braids, a tiny Aztec skull staring back at him. "I need to know what happened. I hear you been all dead and whatnot, but you know, if you 'member somethin', I'd like to hear it."

She stared at the floral pattern on the wallpaper, tried not to think about the taste of blood in her throat, tried not to think about the choice she made, the choice to drink and survive. She traded her life for a child's. She really was a monster.

"Her name was Julie," Johnny rolled the bead between his fingers, "She was ten months old. I don't wanna like, freak you out or nothing. I just figure you might want to know."

Oh, Goddess, it was so much easier when she didn't have a name, then she was just an anonymous little thin, and she could pretend it wasn't any more real than a television show, except this television show had taste and stuck to your teeth like an oil slick.

"They killed her," Tara let herself weep, let herself feel the loss this man's family must have felt. The least she could do was tell them a reason. "They used her blood to bring me back."

Johnny knew the answer. It only made sense: Julie disappears, this chick shows up. I wasn't a fair trade. Tara lived her life, she got her death the same as anyone. Little Julie never even stood a chance. Life could be a bitch sometimes.

But it sure as shit didn't need any help from no zombie-raisin' motherfuckers, neither. Why was it that there's always some asshole out there ready to step on anyone who so much as crossed their path? Wasn't life hard enough without some prick trying to exert their will on everyone else? Apparently not.

Johnny dropped his braid, the stone skull dangling like a hanged man. He just couldn't see why life had to be ruled by the bastards. He should do something about it.

There are times in ones life where everything gains focus: purpose is seen in the tiniest moments. To the religious, this would be seen as God / Allah / Yahweh / Ganesha / Whoever's will. Johnny understood it in his own terms: Every moment of his life lead him to this one decision. The way he saw it, there were two choices. He could catch a cab back to his house, lay low, and go back to his life of shitty dead-end jobs and forget that any of this bizarre world of the undead and witches and werewolves was real, just like his brother would. Or he could let all the bastards who think they can step all over everyone else know exactly what he thought about them. It really wasn't much of a choice.

Tara looked to the bathroom, where Willow led Kennedy out by the hand. The gesture didn't affect her the way she thought it would. She didn't feel abandoned or forgotten, she felt love for Willow, and grateful to the slayer for something she couldn't quite put her finger on. They walked into the center of the room and acknowledged Johnny, who stood looking out the window and not sure exactly how he got there. As to be expected, Kennedy spoke up first.

"We should figure out how to re-inflate Tara." She gave Tara a sardonic smirk. "Don't think that means I'm letting you walk all over me now. It's just we can't do much if we have to carry you everywhere."

"Don't know," Kennedy shrugged, her bravado more affected than normal, "But I have a real urge to figure out a way to kill those monkey farts."

"First thing's first," Willow pulled one of her spell books out. "We need to get Tara on her feet again."

Willow flipped the pages of her book, glancing over to Tara with the same expression of rapt concentration that carried her through accelerated college courses three at a time.

"What do you mean?" Kennedy asked more to direct the train of thought than to satisfy her curiosity. Willow would get around to it eventually, but the question of how soon needed to be answered.

"Well, it looks to me that those m-- bad, bad people didn't finish rejuvenating her. It's like she's half done, and they just threw a Band-Aid on her and sent her on her way like a demonic HMO."

"No," Tara shook her head, "They couldn't bring me back all at once. They took steps. They, um, put my m-mind together first. And then they started fixing my body."

"Tara baby," Willow closed her eyes rather than imagine what hell her girl went through.

Kennedy pulled on her proverbial boxing gloves. Thank god for a little verbal sparring to take her edge off. "That's some tough talk comin' from Lenny Kravitz's little brother. Are you gonna go my way?"

"Hey!" Willow leapt between the two bickering people. Kennedy just smiled, some semblance of normalcy returned by Willow's outburst. Johnny B fell back into his chair, muttering something about the 'scary white woman gonna eat me'. Willow leaned towards Johnny. "You said something about blood?"

"Um, r-right," he stammered, shuffling mental index cards only to have them fly all over the floor. "Uh, you, uh, Tara said they brought her back with blood."

Willow retreated as suddenly as she stormed in. She pouted in thought, three out of five hearts in the room melting. "That makes sense, in a gross, evil sense. If you want to create new material, you have to use the essence of growth."

"So we need the essence of growth," Kennedy pondered for a long second. "I'll do it," she stated, proudly patting herself on the back.

"What do you mean?" Tara felt her nervousness rise. Whatever this girl had planned, she hoped Willow scrutinized it carefully.

"Well, you need to regrow. I'm a Slayer. The way I figure it, up until very recently, all the Slayers did was die…"

"And be reborn," Willow almost snapped her fingers. "Well then. Shall we get to work?"

"Shouldn't someone tell Oz?" Kennedy asked no one in particular. "He's been outside the whole time."

The house was a mess. Half a tree sticking out of the wall like a lever, the back door blown off its hinges, that no account musician out and about, and worst of all, Granny had popcorn grease all over her fingers.

Big Creak ran across the lawn, that big lumbering gait that Granny couldn't help but play a mental tuba to. He stopped right before the house, put his hands to the sides of his head, fell to his knees and started wailing. If he had hair, Granny imagined he'd be pulling it out by the roots. Maybe that's why he went bald.

"Granny!" he twisted his bowling ball face into a frown, "They kill't 'em! My babies, they kill't my babies! Gonna punish 'em! Y'gotta punish 'em Granny, y'gotta!"

"Oh, there, there," Granny said, hobbling to the kneeling and hysterical Big Creak, "You know your, eh, babies 'r'in a better place, right? Laws mercy, child, I bet they even gots round trip tickets they way you do 'em."

Big Creak wiped his flat nose on the back of his hand, watery eyes crinkling at the corners in a smile. "Y'shouldn't make a fella laugh at a time like this. It's disrespectful."

"I just don't wanna see my boys weepin'," she said, "Now come on here. We gonna have to go on inside and see what a mess those little girls done made of my home."

Mr. Creak walked in the broken down back door first, drawing the pistol in his coat. The barrel of the gun lead the way, poking around corners shortly followed by the man himself, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. His finger brushed the trigger a dozen times, but he stayed his hand, saving numerous walls and paintings from certain destruction. He cleared the entire lower floor, smoothly and professionally.

He took the first step up the narrow staircase, then the second, and the third, each slower then the last until he stood anchored to the fourth step like an iron filing to an electromagnet. He wiped sweat from his face, checked his pockets for extra magazines, and licked his lips, but didn't move.

"He isn't up there, Mr. Creak," Granny sighed, "Boy, you slower than molasses uphill in winter, you know that? Now get on up there. Ain't no one in the house anyhows. See what kinda damage those vandalizin' fools did."

"Yes, ma'am," Mr. Creak said. His fear somewhat assuaged, he finished his ascent, fat fifty-cal barrel peering down the hallway like the devil's own eye. The iron bound door remained shut. It didn't matter, those idiot girls left the damn peephole open, and unlocked a third of the deadbolts just to make extra sure he got out. His hand hovered above the other locks.

"He's not here," he said, "He's not here he's not here." He unlocked the fourth lock, the fifth lock, and each lock after came easier. The door opened.

The use of aluminum sheet metal revolutionized containing Creak. They designed the entire room as just one metal cube, tar-colored seams where Big Creak did the welding. The walls, the floor and the ceiling were flat and without ornamentation. Not a single molecule of air could get into or out of the room with the door shut and the peephole closed.

Creak left a present for his brothers. It was human, or had been before Creak had gone to work on it. Now it was human meat, sliced up as delicately as a surgeon, folded into origami cranes, and floating in a sea of viscera and blood. Everything that lay inside now rested outside, formed into towers and streets of blue-veined pink material. Blood flowed through the aqueducts, rushing over fields of muscle stripped from the bone and around organs that quivered in time with a heartbeat. In the center of the town, on a spinal column pedestal, sat a man's head, lips flapping in silent gibberings, the stretched veins feeding his brain, the lungs inhaling and exhaling under some supernatural force like great sails.

"Oh, lordy lordy," she called back to him, "Well, don't just stand there, you clean up his mess now. And don't you forget to use the Pinesol. I don't want this house stinkin' for the rest of the week now."

Granny walked down to the basement, ignoring the grumbles and complaints from Mr. Creak as he blew the thing's head apart with his pistol, and began scraping it into garbage bags. She hoped he didn't skimp on the scrubbing: the last time Creak left a little welcoming gift like that, the whole swamp smelled like intestines and girl flesh for a month. The basement door was open when she got there, as she expected it to be. And just like she expected, Tara was gone.

Big Creak stood at the top of the stairs, rubbing his hands together and shuffling his feet. Granny made him wait for a respectable time; she had to reign in her boys. They were the excitable type, prone to going off all half-cocked on grand adventures. Every other week Mr. Creak and his brother petitioned her for some new project.

'Granny,' they'd start, 'the Slayer should be taken care of. And I have just the plan to take care of her.' 'Course, that was back in the good old days when there was only one of them. But the plots followed, Byzantine and unlikely, and always ending with the same results: the Slayer dead and the forces of evil and yadda yadda yadda. Mr. Creak was a smart fellow, no doubt, but he suffered the same megalomania and greed that crippled so many of his contemporaries. Did they really think that killing a Slayer or a random band of do-gooders would do anything but put a price on their heads? You shall reap what you sow, the Good Book says.

At least, that's how it used to be. Then deviant little witch done rewrote the rules of the game. Now, good Lord, there were little girls poppin' up left and right, each one more than capable of averting an apocalypse or two. Granny shook her head. What is this world comin' too?

"Gr-Granny?" Big Creak finally found the strength to speak, "Do we need to go and get Miss Tara back?"

At least he had the courtesy to ask before mounting up. "Well, young man, I do believe she left of her own free will."

He nodded his understanding, turned to leave, but stopped. "Does that mean no, Granny?"

"I think you and Mr. Creak should go and git rid of what your no-good brother done."

"Yes, ma'am," he almost bowed. Granny listened to his clodhoppers thump up the stairs. How that little shy boy ever grew into such a big man was just beyond her.

Mr. Creak finished dumping the last of the trash bags into the swamp, watched the black plastic float off, one of them rolling over as a passing branch snagged the bottom. It tore open, the oil slick dark sac sliding like an amoeba as it vomited it's guts out into the swamp, which curiously also floated, at least for a few minutes.

Big Creak stood beside him, tossing the undead bodies he had so recently been devastated to find destroyed into the marshlands with the ease of a child tossing a kickball around. He did sniffle once, earning a snort from Mr. Creak, which in turn earned a punch from Big Creak. Mr. Creak was mature enough not to let it escalate into a full-blown brawl, as it had on more than one occasion.

"So where you wanna start?" he asked as the black, bacteria filled flesh of one of the guards hovered for a second, then sank to the bottom.

"We ain't gonna find him." Mr. Creak said. "You know that as well as I do. Creak will get caught when he feels like getting caught."

"Man, you full of it. Last time I tackled his ass and you put that chain do-hicky thing on him. That was just old-fashioned teamwork. Like Laurel and Hardy or some shit."

"Try, just once, to use that bald head of yours to think for a minute. You ever seen how fast that boy moves? And you think your lumbering ass could catch him if he didn't want to be caught?"

"But that don't make no sense," Big Creak turned to walk through the swamp. "Why let y'self get locked up? He knows we weren't never gonna let him back out. I still don't know why Granny made us take him when we went and dug up Miss Tara."

"I think I know," Mr. Creak pulled down his shirtsleeves, even though the damp made them stick to his arms. "Granny didn't want us getting in trouble. So she makes sure we don't ever take our eyes off the job."

"Yes, we would have," he chuckled and shook his head, "we always do. You remember that time with the college kids? I think it was, like seventy-two or seventy-three."

"Texas!" Big Creak snapped his fingers, then wrapped the memory around him. "Those were some fun times, weren't they, Mr. Creak?"

"Yeah, but don't forget how mad Granny got with us. I though for sure I wouldn't get any dinner that whole week."

They walked another hundred yards, through the clawing brush and the sweet stink of the swamp, occasionally pointing up to the top of some tree sheared off by what they could only guess to be Creak's witch-inspired flight. More than one tree was covered with Creak's blood; the brothers hoped he didn't get hurt too badly. He was a pain in the ass, and a constant burden, but he was still their brother, and they wished him no harm. Mr. Creak could only hope that he held them in the same regard.

He always wanted to do something a little more avant-garde. Something a little more Phillip Glass and less Wolfgang Von Beethoven. Not that there was anything wrong with Beethoven, no, imagining his works led to explosive arterial sprays that painted walls. The problem was that everyone's done Beethoven (not in his particular idiom, but still). So he was glad he got to try out something a little more experimental.

Given, just a cover, but his original composition was coming along nicely. Creak thought of doing something a little bucolic, like that Finn, Sibelius, but the sturm and nationalism didn't appeal to him at all. He was a man without borders. Doors couldn't hold him, and no matter where they went, he always found them.

He followed his brother's trail of rotten corpse droppings even though they were nearly a week old. They didn't understand him, not really. Wasn't that always the fate of the true artist? Never mind that; Creak wasn't terribly concerned who understood him. His brother, the graduate, sometimes braved the peephole to tell him any funny jokes he knew, and sometimes, maybe once every three years or so, he'd tell a joke right back, and Mr. Creak would laugh so heartily that it jangled his nerves to split ends. At least Big Creak didn't even try to understand him; he hadn't the creativity to begin to grasp Creak's meanings. Granny didn't think to much of him, which he found curious, and would like to question the old woman at length on it, if it weren't for that problematic 'unstoppable force meeting an immovable object' principle. So he steered clear of her. Besides, it was much more fun to tease his brothers at times like this.

He turned down an alleyway, and decided to skip a few feet. He blinked, and stood before a shoddy square house with peeling paint and a brand new front door, pale pine front not even stained yet. No point knocking: that wasn't part of the composition.

Creak's dangling restraints got in the way for the sixtieth time that night, and he really just wanted to cut them off, but he lost his knife on his impact with the tree. And by tree, he meant plural, trees. As in forest. The witch used him to clear-cut at least ten percent of the swamp. He'd have to figure out a way to work her into his masterpiece. She'd make a fine colorature soprano. Creak blinked his way into the house.

'At least it's dark,' he though, 'if it was daylight this entire overture would be a waste.' He perked his ears up, tilted his head and listened for his tools. They whispered to him, the same way a sculptor looked at a block of marble and saw the statue contained within. He drifted this way then that, like a leaf in a windstorm, finally spinning about and gliding down the hallway to what looked like a kitchen.

He ran his hands over the cupboards, fingers twittering like it were ivories he tickled and not empty air. Nothing called to him from there, and he tapped his chin, the drumbeat in his head infecting the rest of him. He twirled, his straightjacketed sleeves spun with him, like a minimalist yin yang symbol viewed from the top. He stopped, smoothly guiding the straps to his sides. He opened the drawer, careful to keep the plastic runners from banging about too much. Inside the glint of steel set his heart aflutter like a lover's letter come in the nick of time.

A lovely knife, straight edged and sharp as a spinster's tongue rested in the drawer. It sang. Creak picked it up, gave it a few experimental flicks in the air, and took in the weight and balance of it. The knife was a classical element of compositions, clean and clear: the pure strains of a violin rising above the din. He used a shattered window to make his last little present for his brothers, and it did force him to be creative. Would this simple object limit him? It was still as elegant a form as it ever was, but would he end up just repeating himself, leaving the same boring old works behind for the ages? Simply not acceptable, in any way. He decided just to work all the harder on being an original.

The room stuttered as he blinked, the brief period of darkness so black and soul crushing that he sometimes wished he could just stay there, an island retreat in which he could compose the kind of music that changed the world. He moved to the side of the double bed, leaving a clear means of retreat to the door, and took a steadying breath. With a deft pinch, he pulled back the covers and brandished the knife with his best depraved grin.

Nothing. The bed sat empty. He went to the closet, slinging it open and drawing back again. A moot point. Clothes lay strewn about, blue blouses and worn white shirts grappled with each other to escape. Damn.

His instruments had up and left, and in something of a hurry, too. Count on his brother to overdo the melodrama and ruin it for everyone else.

Creak sat on the bed, tapping his knife in his knee a little too hard, watching in fascination as the black fluid that substituted for his blood splattered the shining blade. His frustration was almost sexual, his center going from a comfortable ach into an throbbing soreness. This piece of music played over in his head, winding it's way behind his eyes like a snake slithering through the sand. He jumped to his feet, hopping around the room and trying to exorcise the music. Just put it in the back of his mind, pretend that he never played the first note. But, alas, his perfectionist nature could not let him leave a piece unfinished.

These instruments had neighbors. True, the number and type would be different, but every time you take a composition from your head and make it reality, certain allowances had to be made. The nature of art is improvisation.

Granny gathered her boys before her. She sat at the old dining room table, the dark hardwood reflecting the sputtering yellow light of the squat, burnt-down candles, the tops melting like a mudslide in slow motion. The high backed chair hurt her, forced her spine straight, not even the lavish padding helping. The wallpaper danced, the golden vines that traversed its longitude wavering in the drafts that licked the candles.

Big Creak and his brother sat facing each other, making polite but inconsequential conversation throughout the meal. Mr. Creak cooked a mean dinner when he set his mind to it, and he took the time to serve up homemade mashed potatoes so thick you could mortar a wall with them, honey baked ham that melted in your mouth, and a desert of fried apples in cinnamon. Granny thanked him for the wholesome meal, and Mr. Creak positively basked in the praise. He swallowed the last bite of his apples, laughing at his brother's third helping of potatoes for the evening.

"You grow any bigger and you'll break this house down to the foundations," Granny pointed out, earning a warm laugh from the rest of the table.

Questions nibbled on the edges of Mr. Creak's mind, but Granny was quite clear on her rules about no business at the dinner table. He wanted to ask her exactly what her plan was, as that he learned long ago that if he tried to guess at it, he would most likely be wrong. The old woman took the long view, and as a man who had seen the Civil War firsthand, 'the long view' meant epochs, not just generations. She never had revealed the totality of her plan, and Mr. Creak only caught glimpses of it in his headlights as it ran across his path, but he had the feeling that the big picture would be so big he'd only understand it in the abstract. So he waited for his behemoth brother to finish his potatoes. Thankfully, the Andersons (now chopped into mince and resting at the bottom of the swamp) loved their wealth, and showed it off by owning ridiculously oversized silverware. Anywhere else, Big Creak's spoon would be called a ladle.

The spoon clattered to the fine china as Big Creak pushed his plate out of the way, signaling his gullet finally filling. Granny leaned back against the chair, crochet needles clicking patiently. Mr. Creak cleared his throat.

Granny stopped knitting, pondering the question as if she hadn't been expecting it.

Big Creak rubbed his belly and pushed out his lower lip at the name. That girl had not only denied him, but went and hurt his feelings. "Where we s'posed to find her? She could be halfway to Katmandu by now."

Mr. Creak shook his head. "Not in her condition. The roads'll limit them. I'm betting they went north, seeing as how there's not too farther south you can go. We'll have to just do some old fashioned legwork if we want to find them."

Granny tapped the knitting needle on the table. "Why don't you go an' bring Miss Rosenberg and Miss Maclay back on here."

"Uh, Granny?" Mr. Creak adjusted his tie and swirled his wine around in his glass. "How am I supposed to bring the witch in? She won't come easy."

"Don't you worry about that one none," Granny held up a yarn spider web to the firelight, looking down her nose at it. "I'll tell you just what to do to take the claws offa that kitten."

"Oh, them? You can just kill them. Now then…I suppose we should clear this table off and go do dishes."

She tipped the cup to her lips and drank the sweet wine. Willow supported Tara's head and let her drink as well.

"Rhiannon, keeper of the gates, let me pass into this world fully," Tara intoned.

Kennedy stepped forward, raising a dagger of plain hammered bronze above her head. The candlelight cast ripples in the blade.

"Angels of Grace, attend us. Micheal, cast out the dark spirits. Uriel, let this sacrifice show your mercy." She drew the dagger across her forearm, pumped her fist, the fat drops of blood dripping into the same chalice Willow drank from.

Willow held it in the air again, bowing her head. She set the clay bowl on the bed, and linked hands with Tara and Kennedy, forming a circle.

Tara let Willow lift the cup to her lips again. "This won't make me too butch, right?" she teased. Kennedy ground her teeth, terrified of breaking from her carefully rehearsed routine.

Tara drank, the scarlet fluid coating her lips and tongue, the airy heat of the alcohol mixed with the coppery tang of the blood and sliding down her throat. Her stomach grumbled its complaints at the intrusion. She felt, or imagined she felt, the heat of the wine intensify and spill into her limbs. She closed her eyes, hearing the rest of Willow and Kennedy's words through deep water.

"With my blood, I give you my strength," Tara heard Kennedy say as a cool and moist finger traced a pentagram on her chest. The stylus vanished, leaving her hanging over the edge of something organic and vital, like warm water washing over her.

"With my breath, I grant you life," Willow said, and Tara remembered just enough to open her mouth as a pair of strong lips pressed against hers, and exhaled. Tara took in the breath: it filled her up and shoved her off the precipice upon which she sat.

She arched her back, then floated down into the bed like a sheet of white linen. Then she screamed.

"Hold her down!" Willow yelled at Kennedy, the woman's fumbling attempts at restraint betraying an uncharacteristic hesitancy. She pressed Tara's arms into the soft folds of the bed, amazed at the furnace that burned beneath her skin. Kennedy felt the flesh thicken between her fingers, like trying to grasp a loaf of rising bread.

Willow pulled Tara's face around to look her in the eye. "Look at me," she commanded, and Tara obeyed. Willow watched her features change, not smoothly, but in burps and farts, bubbles forming under her flesh and expanding like worms crawling along her skeleton. The hollows around her sapphire eyes filled first, the raw pink of her flesh softening as intervening layers of fat and skin diffused her inner light. The worms crawled in all directions from there, leaving trails of muscle, cartilage, and flesh in their wake. Tara's eyes locked onto Willow, her hands grasping at Kennedy as the initial shock subsided.

Kennedy, for some reason known only to her screwed up subconscious, expected a rebirth to smell more. She expected the stench of death to waft off her, like it was finally packing up its bags after an extended and unwelcome visit. She at the very least expected the tangy sour stink of sweat, again, for a reason she couldn't fathom. What she didn't expect was the scent of lavender and smooth cream to spread as Tara's struggles slowed. She wanted to bury her head in the pillow and unburdened herself with the promise of safety and comfort that the scent held. That want, however fleeting, struck her as a betrayal, but to whom or what she wasn't sure.

The cut on her arm burnt, the blood dripped into a pool at the side of the bed. As her bleeding stopped, so did the tremors that danced through Tara. Kennedy pulled her away, slowly, like a tricked child who didn't want to be fooled by a mischievous uncle twice.

Tara held her hand up to the candlelight. There she was. The hand with long, elegant fingers that tapered off neatly and veins she thought too thick belonged to her. She recognized herself, the weight of her limbs, the subtle waves that breathing sent through her belly, the sensitivity of her lips. All these and more belonged to her, reinforced her own self-image, mending the crack that began not even a week ago. Her breath came easy; her joints no longer ached. The most fundamental thing, the beat of her heart, steadily pumped away, slower then she remembered it, surer. She decided to try something she failed at every day for the past week. She sat up.

The room was situated the way most every hotel or motel room across the country was: two beds on one side of the wall, facing a TV, and in this case, a mirror. Tara saw herself, and began to cry. She looked just like she remembered: high cheekbones and full lips, a pointed chin and smooth jaw line. Her eyes caught her off-guard: Tara looked exhausted, her simulacrum in the mirror wearily swaying a bit before she fell back into the expanse of pillows to stare at the ceiling. She laughed through her tears, the husky chuckle that used to embarrass her so much sounded like music after days of not recognizing her own voice. She turned to Kennedy, who gripped her wounded wrist with the towel supplied in all foresight by Willow for just that purpose.

"Thank you," she said and meant it. Kennedy's gift was not wasted. Tara turned to Willow.

Willow held a hand over her mouth, eyes impossibly wide and her other hand wringing the fabric of her blouse. A whimper escaped her cage, then her hand reached from her lips out to Tara, as slowly as a woman running her hand through a shower of mist. Her breath hiccupped as Tara met her hand halfway, interlacing their fingers. Willow clamped down, her head tilting back as if in ecstasy, her lips trembling. Tara saw the realization hit her, saw the tears that flowed like crystals in time with the understanding.

Willow wrapped Tara in her arms, kneaded at the warmth along her back, kissed her face a thousand and one times, and shook the room with her sobs. Tara's muscles tensed into tiny knots, the sort of torture a medieval jailer would do with thick manilla ropes and iron bars. Each breath of Willow's that twisted the tourniquet tighter. For some reason, Tara fought against her own emotions, a dim, female figure standing on the periphery jerked her away from her release. But another sob came, and Tara kissed the tears off Willow's face and wept her own. Their lips met, tinged with salt.

The room spun on its axis, like a gyroscope. Kennedy tried to prepare herself for this moment, but knew that such efforts wasted her time: nothing could make her ready for the total loss of pressure she felt, like an astronaut who just realized that he was out of air and a million miles from home. She wanted to pull Tara off her Willow, rip them apart and take her lover right there, lay claim to her like a like she had a hundred times before. A greater part of her felt sick at the prospect. Just looking at them, their fingers winding through the other's hair, felt like a violation. Wanting Willow made her feel like a rapist.

She didn't remember walking outside, she didn't remember shoving the door out of the way, she didn't remember kicking the dumpster over and spilling its colorful and odious contents against the side of the motel. She just remembered a scream, and her fists punching the ground until it cracked and her blood fed tiny rivers on its Martian landscape. Kennedy wanted it to rain, wanted the air to cool, any respite from the heat that now sat at the forefront of her thoughts. She slumped onto the pavement, and felt, not heard, approaching footsteps.

Oz shot him a look that could have burnt out cancer. He touched Kennedy's arm. "C'mon, Kennedy," he said, "Let's go inside."

"Just go away!" She flexed her torn fingers and clutched her head. "Please, please, just leave me alone." She didn't want to be strong anymore, she didn't want to be the tough one, she wanted someone to take care of her. She dared anything to come after her. Kennedy would lie there and let them kill her: that would show Willow just how much she loved her.

"Kennedy," Oz said, then whispered into her ear. Her eyes opened, and she nodded little girl nods, pouting like she expected candy and didn't get it. Oz stood up, lifting Kennedy to her feet. Johnny formed the vanguard, opening the door to the Men's Room, as Willow offhandedly put it. Willow was famous for offhandedly coining new phrases.

The room was identical to the other, save for an array of CDs and musical paraphernalia spread about between the beds. Oz and Johnny had utterly conflicting tastes. Johnny listened to everything hard: hard rap, hard metal, hard punk. Anything aggressive and pounding found its way into Johnny's hands. Oz tended towards the esoteric, and despite not having played in a band full time for a year or two, still had a refined musical palette. When the girls kicked them out of the room for the ritual, they curbed their anxiety by trying to find a common ground. They were still in negotiations when they heard a dumpster flip over.

Kennedy lay down on the bed hastily cleared by Johnny. Oz grabbed a towel from the bathroom and dabbed away the blood and dirt from her knuckles. Kennedy let them pamper her: in her long years of observing the other sex with not the slightest shred of interest, she learned that men were most at ease when they felt like they were accomplishing something. It didn't matter the bleakness of the situation, as long as they had their goal in sight they would labor towards it with single-minded determination. The good men did, at least. She judged these two to be good men. And so she let them take care of her. Her pride didn't matter now.

"Oh," he said, the first smile she'd seen twisting the corners of his mouth. "It, uh, changes. Dependin' on how I'm feelin' or, y'know, what's goin' on in my life." He saw she didn't understand, and explained. "Like sometimes it just stands for 'Black', like if I'm tellin' someone who don't get me what it is. When I'm feeling all revolutionary, you know," he raised a fist, "'fight the power', it's 'Bolshevik'. Um, if I'm having a bad day, it's 'Bullshit', just 'cause that's what I don't wanna deal with. It's pretty stupid, I know."

Johnny wiped nonexistent sweat off his palms. "Right now I'm thinkin' 'Boy has my life taken a turn for the weird.'"

"You should stay here tonight," Oz said in a tone that Kennedy would have argued with on general principle any other time. Right now, all she could do was nod and pull the covers up to her chin.

She hadn't meant it to happen. Willow knew she should stop, that there were too many maybes, that Tara needed to rest and recuperate from her ordeal. She thought about all the reasons why she shouldn't and all of them melted away the instant they kissed.

Then, all she could think about was Tara. She fell into her just as surely as a diver falls into the sea. She knew how much her body responded to Tara, and her fears that time would dull that edge proved fallacious. The full press of her thighs, the taste of her sweat, the weight of her body still sent sparks throughout her soul. She didn't know what she was doing anymore. If she wept, it was far away and of no consequence. Tara was here, Tara was in her arms, and she wouldn't let her go ever again.

In that thought they were one. Both reached out to touch the other, to complete the circuit formed by lips and breasts and hands. Both gasped at the warmth between the other's legs, moving like virgins given experience by mother's gin cabinet. There was no art to their lovemaking: just passion and the primal need to live.

Willow trembled and exploded, Tara following right on top of her, like a fireworks display with twin shells that burst only a second apart and slowly fell, burning out as gravity took its toll. Willow opened her eyes, and saw the oceans of blue that threatened to pull her in.

It should have been so simple: she was in the arms of her long lost lover. She was in the arms of the woman she dreamed of marrying, of starting a family with, and even with the monsters and demons, they still had a future. A future: what a stupid concept. She knew her placei nthe world, and it sure wasn't with two-point-five kids and a jod in the PTA. Those were dreams, the same dreams any soldier dreams. But her reality smelled like brimstone, sweat, and oiled steel. It smelled like Kennedy.

"She's never going to talk to me again. She will, I mean, but she'll be 'I-don't-want-to-talky' and bitter."

Tara pulled Willow even closer. This was a discussion that she would have once preferred to put off for as long as possible, but it was funny how death made you appreciate forthrightness. "You love her," she said, neither a question nor a statement.

"Jeez, isn't this weird? I mean, not but two weeks ago you were… and now we're sitting in bed and having a conversation like nothing ever happened. I don't even know how to react anymore. It's like my brain just picked up where it left off with you. And you are so darn casual about this."

"Well, Will," Tara deadpanned, "Once you're been through all the things I have, a little romantic triangle seems sort of…um…refreshingly normal."

"Point. I still… okay, it's like, I have two totally different people inside me now. I love you, I love you more than anything in the world. I have references for this. And now you're back, and all I can see is a future we should have had, you know?" Tara nodded. "And I have this other person who loves Kennedy. And she's not even worried about the future. In fact, she just learned how to live without being terrified every waking moment. And I owe a big part of that to Kenn. I just don't know what to do. I know that I can't lose you. I won't, not again. But it hurts me so bad to know that Kennedy's in pain."

Tara draped her arm across Willow's shoulder, laying her head on the pillow between them. She was right: it was like a record skipped, a record of heir lives, and yeah, it skipped for a year or so, but it went right back to the part it missed. The problem was that the Willow in Tara's mind was the Willow of a year ago. The no-magic, recovering addict Willow who looked so skinny and forlorn that Tara just didn't have the heart to drag her through the mud of their relationship. This Willow was like a distillation of that woman. Her passion was infectious, an extension of her natural enthusiasm, and that much remained familiar, but like a rock face worn by flood, the channels were deeper and the core was exposed. She was a rawer, truer person, no doubt the influence of Kennedy. Willow also seemed a step removed from everything, or maybe a step closer: she looked at things with the cool appraising gaze of a gardener, ready to coax or prune as necessary. An overall clad Willow with a green thumb danced into Tara's mind; she stifled a giggle into the pillow.

"Baby," Tara linked hands with Willow, "I'm right here. I'm real, I'm alive, and, I w-won't say I'm not going anywhere ('cause we both know how that works out), but I'm yours. And it doesn't matter what happens, 'cause I'm always gonna be yours."

Willow sat up, jerked away from Tara, and pressed the blankets to her bosom, like she was trying to contain her heart as it burrowed through her chest. He breathing hitched, then started rapidly heaving. Tara sat up behind her, pressing her hand to her back, willing her warmth into the redhead.

"I should have waited," Willow rubbed her thumb against her first knuckle with the same motion a nun would touch her rosary. "I should have waited for you, I screwed up, I-I was, was weak again, and now I'm in way over my head like I'm drowning and someone's going to get hurt and I don't want –"

Tara could have slapped her forehead. She almost did, just to enjoy the violence of the motion. She decided it would be too flippant, so she kneaded the violin string muscles at the back of Willow's neck.

"No, no baby. You didn't do anything wrong. I mean, it's not like you cheated on me. I was sort of…dead."

Willow looked at her with such pain and confusion in her eyes that Tara's heart broke right down the middle. Tara felt such an overwhelming need to mother her once and possibly future lover that it hinted at some complex of some sort or another, possibly named after a Greek and more than likely slightly incestuous. She kissed Willow so gently that it might have been the wind if not for the evidence of her own eyes. Willow kissed her back, looked into the mirror across the room, and spoke.

Kennedy woke up refreshed and ready for breakfast. She almost stepped on Oz, who had taken the floor, and nearly kicked over Oz's CD collection, but she managed to semi-stealthily creep around the landmines of potato chip bags and loose change to make it into the bathroom. There wasn't enough toilet paper in the world to wipe the seat with, nor enough disinfectant to make it clean enough for her to grace the throne with her shapely posterior, so she made due by creating a second seat, sort of like a toilet condom, entirely out of paper. She actually found the sensation utterly disturbing, and kept expecting to wake from a particularly bladder-intensive dream to find she had just plopped down on her pillow and let flow. Although the comedy value would be priceless, the reality of being a bed-wetter at the age of twenty couldn't possibly be worth it.

She turned on the shower (after locking the door and flushing the toilet paper throne, which the plumbing accepted heroically) and got her panties on the ground when she simultaneously realized two things: one, she had no clean panties, nor any other item of clothing in this room, and two, Tara and Willow were in her room, probably together, possibly naked, and if she saw that, the National Guard might need to be called to prevent her from kicking that girlfriend-stealin' granola-crunchin' back-from-the-dead-comin' little skank's ass. Well, knowing her, she'd make Kennedy feel bad just for looking at her in anything less than a sacrosanct way. Some people just had that saintly air about them, the kind of magnamity of spirit that would leave a hitman begging for forgiveness for even daring to point a weapon at them. So as hypothetically satisfying as the thought of unloading some angst on said hippie was, it was immediately followed by waves of guilt as her conscience rebelled against the very thought.

She pulled her clothes back on, not remotely relishing the feeling of slept-in clothes sticking to her skin again, especially when the faltering air conditioning did nothing to stem the flow of sweat throughout the night. Her tank top reeked; Kennedy regretted her super senses in the enclosed space of the bathroom. She buttoned the last button of her sort of moist jeans, and resolved to grab a set of clothes from Willow and Tara's room…oh, shit puppets. She just thought of them as 'Willow and Tara', not 'Willow' and 'Tara'. If she were thinking about them as a couple, how the hell would she ever win Willow over? That was just negative thinking at its worst. What she really had to do was be extra super nice to everyone, just to show how confident she was in herself. Because that was the Kennedy Willow got attached to, confident Kennedy, and if she became Clingy terrified Kennedy, Willow would most likely find the least horrible way to dump her and run off to Never Never Land with her old squeeze.

She stared in the mirror, bolstering her confidence. I'm smart, good-looking, and dog gonnit, people like me. Maybe a few thousand of those would turn her into a quiet and timid creature like Tara. That just wouldn't do, she was going to win this one by virtue of being pure, not-from-concentrate, one-hundred percent Kennedy, so her mantra went a little more like: I can kick your ass, I've got a hot body, and the bitches love me 'cause they know that I can rock. She flexed in the mirror for a minute, admiring the cords of muscle that jumped at her command. False confidence was better than no confidence.

"Yo, K," Johnny groggily called, "What the hell you doin' in there?" And then, in typical male fashion: "I gotta take a leak."

She pulled the door open, Johnny's prodigious height (at least in comparison to herself) made her jerk her head up to see the tangle of braids that apparently got into a light skirmish sometime during the night. He rubbed his eye like he was trying to gouge it out with an invisible screwdriver, and then reached down the scratch his balls. The part of his brain responsible for what few shreds of courtesy that survived his punk-rock outlook and social isolation kicked into gear. Tables and tables of propriety were consulted, case histories were drawn up, and a verdict in the second court of appeals was reached in nothing like record time. The message was handed down the pipeline, reaching his higher motor functions just in time to stop his hand between the fifth and sixth scratch and provide his face with a look of dawning realization in reaction to Kennedy's snarl of disgust as she pushed past him, keeping well clear of the offending hand.

The bathroom door shut behind her as she made her way to the motel room exit. Oz lay sprawled on the floor, and Kennedy didn't find it hard at all to believe he had a wild animal in him: his nose twitched and his arms flopped as he dreamed his wolf dreams. Probably hunting some soft prey in a wintered glade, the snow clinging to his fur as he sunk his teeth into its throat, the blood pooling out and staining the white scarlet, like a wine spill on a pristine tablecloth. She thought about blowing him a thank you kiss, a purely friendly gesture, and one she did not bestow on men as a rule, but Oz's words gave her a reason to fight. So she felt it appropriate, all things considered, but the image of him associating a wind of good will with rending the flesh of an elk just didn't sit right with her.

Her knuckles moaned as the scar tissue stretched over her hand, the same bright pink with dried cracks that adorned her wrist. The marks would fade in a day, leaving only the slightest scarring of white. Even that would fade, given enough time.

The sun barely had the strength to cut through the omnipresent humidity, instead suffering to cook it away, never mind the lowly life forms that had to live under its nuclear assault. One thing she never got used to in her brief visit to the south: just how green everything was. The pavement had cracks in it where little weeds scrabbled up, the sides of the motel had a faint split-pea soup glow to them, and the trees that didn't have the decency to quarantine themselves to parks cast irregular pools of ineffectual shadow.

She stood in front of the door for a long time. What exactly was the proper way to go about this? If there was one thing you did not do, you did not cheat on your loved ones. It wasn't about ownership (well, it was a little about ownership) or controlling your lover, it was about respect and trust. And by in large, she trusted Willow. She still trusted Willow, despite the fact that when last she saw her, she had her lips locked around Tara's mouth like a toxin-confused lamprey. If it had been any other situation, anything other than a random resurrection, she would have yanked Willow out of that room and given her a piece of her mind and an ultimatum. Which begged the question: why didn't she?

The fact was, Kennedy knew that when it came down to brass tacks, Willow would choose Tara. She'd have to, there couldn't be any other choice for her. See, to Willow, she was 'meant' to be with Tara, whatever that meant. 'Fated', or something. What it really was, as far as Kennedy could see, was that Tara was the safe option. Every little snippet of information she had less than painstakingly gathered in her courting phase pointed to a kind, quiet, safe and boring relationship. They probably took everything slowly, all the time. Tara would have tried to contribute to the Scooby gang, but at the end of the day, she was better suited to Willow's support structure. No wonder Willow could barely function when the big stuff hit: she'd always had a nursemaid to sing her lullabies. And not that Tara was a big bad or anything, truth to be told, she sort of liked that little hippie. She had a wicked sense of humor and a drill-bit's knack for getting to the center of people. Kennedy respected that. But at the end of the day, she was probably the kind of woman who'd rather spend her time making homemade soap and hand writing Christmas (or Yule or whatever they called it) invitations than actively going out and sending the minions of hell screaming back to their Satanic masters.

Actually, that didn't sound so bad. It would be nice to have someone to make homemade meals for you…but Willow didn't need that. She had to remain firm in her belief that Willow did not need someone to cook and clean for her, she needed someone to motivate her, an equal to share her days with and bust her chops when she started freaking out and make her scream her name in the middle of the day for no other reason than she felt like fucking her brains out. She needed life, not soft and subordinate suburbanite living. And that lead her right back to staring at the door and figuring out what to do.

If she barged in and got belligerent (god, that would make her day), Willow would push Tara higher on her pedestal and build a moat with alligators and bear traps and probably eviscerate Kennedy while she was at it just to make a point, so that was out. If she didn't open the door and just waited for the two to leave of their own volition, then it would look like she just gave up, and give Willow the go-ahead to snog Tara at her leisure. Now, she could calmly walk in, pull Willow aside, and lay the guilt trip on her, which was terrible effective (if he ever had the temerity and crudeness to use it), and watch as her poor baby tore herself to pieces, and probably end up having a breakdown right then and there, and then she'd feel so terrible for hurting Willow like that that she'd just have to run away and live in the bayous with the crazy Cajun people and hunt swamp rats and 'gators for the rest of her natural life.

So what she had to do was walk in, as casual as can be, and let Willow know, in no uncertain terms, that while she wasn't going to pressure her one way or another, she was going to stick around and use her patented Kennedy-charm at every conceivable moment. Tara would just have to fend for herself. Not like she was outclassed or anything, she was only the love of her life. Key phrase here is 'was'.

Kennedy gripped the doorknob, took a deep breath, and twisted it. It didn't open, the lock not being disengaged by the serrated piece of metal men called keys. She reached into her pocket, cringing as the sweat tried to latch onto her hand like a pocket demon. With nothing less than a show of her mystically enhanced Slayer strength, she tugged the key out, it arrival announced by the spray of pennies and pocket lint that clanked and clinked along the ground.

The door opened this time, with the help of the handy-dandy key. The room had the tepid gray glow that was universal to insomniac's rooms everywhere. The curtains tried to block out all the light, the air conditioning unit humming away as its compressor coils (obviously non-faulty ones, as that this room actually was livable) did their compressor coil thing, and the bar of light the open door threw through the room served only to delineate the gloom from the lighter shade of gloom more severely. Kennedy really wished that whoever designed the Slayer powers would have thrown in some kind of glare compensation along with the perfect vision. She couldn't even see in the dark, not any better than a person with 20/20 could. Really, if you're going to design a chick who kills vampires, which are, as a whole, nocturnal, you might be well advised to give the girl some night vision.

Her perfect gloom-vision did answer her first question immediately: one of the beds was unoccupied, and the other held two entwined sleeping figures. Her sense of smell, for whatever it was worth, was perfect as well, and had no trouble picking up the whiffs of sex in the air. No, don't go down that path. If she went down the path, she'd just end up outside again and pissed off at the world. This was torture: that's what it was. She'd been trained on how to shut out pain, how to send her mind away to a peaceful glade far away from the pain. She'd been trained all right, but she distinctly remembered having a hangover that day and forgetting the lessons within no more than ten seconds, so she was pretty much fucked when it came to a placid demeanor. Better to go with achingly upbeat. She shut the door behind her and flipped on the light.

At first she thought that someone had spilled Coke all over the bedsheets, and it sat there all night to stain them caramel brown. Then she realized that they didn't have any Coke last night, and that Coke, as a general rule, does not get crusty when it dries. It was blood, blood splattered the scene, painted on in big finger-paint strokes. Her second fear, that Willow and Tara had been murdered in the night bum-rushed her with a boatload of guilt and self-recrimination. That, too proved to be false: both women breathed steadily. Kennedy almost lost her feet when she realized what she was seeing.

Tara lay on her back, one arm cupping Willow, the other thrown back against the headboard like she decided to 'knock on wood' whilst sleeping. That hand bore the stamp of the night's activities. Dried blood covered her first two fingers, thick and red underneath the nail bed. It covered her entire palm, the pillow beside her, the blankets around Willow, and a streak on her cheek where she must have gotten an itch in her sleep. If Kennedy had been holding anything it would have clattered dramatically to the ground, but as that she entered empty-handed, she could do nothing but stare as she came to understand that she and just caught her girlfriend cheating on her red-handed.

Tara stirred: it seemed impossible for her to ever wake with a start; even in her shocked state, Kennedy could see this. Willow reacted to the shift in breathing pattern or aura or weight with a string of gibberish that something tiny and distant in Kennedy's brain recognized as adorable and endearing. Tara opened her eyes, rubbing her eyes with the back of her wrist as Kennedy pointed and tried to warn her against it, if only for hygienic reasons, but no sound came out of her mouth and she just stood there pointing and chewing air.

Tara rolled over to touch Willow, a habit that didn't even require a single conscious brainwave, shaking the redhead as a sign to start their morning ritual. As often happens with wakefulness, the real world telescoped into view as more and more neurons stretched and woke up. She sat up in bed, this time with a start, fast enough to make Kennedy jump. Tara looked at Kennedy, then at Willow, who whined at the disturbance, the then let her face drop.

"Oh, shit," she said, and could not for the life of her come up with anything more erudite than that to say. She noticed a slight discoloration in her presence, and pulled her bloody hand into view.

Tara leapt out of bed, or a more of a hop, that lead to a chain reaction as her legs, still unused to vertical life, gave out from under her and sent her toppling headlong into the Gideon-blessed inn table. Or she would have, but Kennedy went into motion out of pure instinct, catching her as she went down. Tara looked into Kennedy's face with a mix of utter sympathy, which made it hard for Kennedy to hate her, and embarrassment, which made it even harder for Kennedy to blame her. With a mumbled apology, either for the illicit sex or the fall she didn't know, Tara found her land legs in a hurry and closed the bathroom door. Water ran almost immediately.

Willow sat up in bed, looking around at her situation with a look that reflected approximately twelve times the amount of embarrassment that the entire country of Germany could muster for their unfortunate twentieth century totalitarian regimes going all mass murdery. She pulled the blanket off, swallowing a lump the size of Halley's Comet as she surveyed the damage. Her lap and all the surrounding linens bore the red splotchy marks of her passions. Her mother never educated her personally on the facts of life, but she did receive plenty of informative, if somewhat smarmy reading material on the subject of her period. Everyone had a different way to describe it: being linked with the moon (New Agey), a woman's burden (Postwar housewife euphemism), even 'monthly infection' (thank you Newt Gingrich), but she had never, ever felt the slightest bit of shame for what her biology dictated. She once nearly had a heart attack when she came three weeks late because of her first real magic bender, and spent the time conjuring, figuratively speaking, demonic children ripping out of her stomach, but that was more of her punishing herself for driving Tara away. No, it wasn't until that moment that she felt truly and horribly disgusted with her own body.

And even though Kennedy had to know just what Willow's crime was, and even though had they traded places, Willow knew for a fact that she'd have at the very least stormed out and almost gotten hit by a car, Kennedy pulled the blanket and sheet off of her, threw them in the corner, and materialized a towel out of thin air. She pulled the sheets away, tossed them in the same corner, and handed Willow the towel. Willow bit back tears, the shame almost too much for her to bear. Not only had she gone and betrayed her lover – again, she had to rub her face in it.

"I'm suh –" Willow pressed her lips together, looked at the ceiling and tried to regain her composure.

"No," Kennedy sat alongside Willow, her hands in her lap like a kindergarten teacher about to deliver a lesson. "You don't have to say you're sorry. I…um." Okay, Kennedy, she told herself, time to be Ms. Understando. "I understand." Oh, that didn't sound totally forced. "You're sorry. And I know that this is a really hard time for everyone, and that you were just really happy to have Tara back and that you love her a lot, and I know you love me too, and you're just really mixed up inside, and am I getting close or do I have to keep slinging shit against the wall and hoping something sticks?"

Willow dropped her head, a sick look on her face, which immediately turned into alarm with the quickness only Willow possessed. She lifted Kennedy's hands into the light, running her thumbs over the 'y' shaped scabs along her knuckles.

"You shouldn't do that," Willow said, the anger at her girlfriend's habit of violent self-expression muddied by her own guilt that no amount of friendly patter could assuage.

Kennedy pulled her hand away and remembered to smile. "It's nothing. Just some..stress release."

"I don't like it when you get hurt." Willow made little flappy motions with her lips, then looked at the ground again.

Willow thought she heard a bit of Tara's voice in the statement, and didn't feel like arguing the point anyway. Arguing about personal habits was a mark of two people in a relationship, which might be too much to ask after her betrayal. Well, Kennedy seemed willing to at least suspend her sentence until later, but she had the sinking feeling that it was just that: a reprieve, not a pardon. Kennedy stood up, too fast to play it off as anything other than scarcely controlled anger.

"I want to get breakfast before we hit town," she said as she sorted through her clothes, pulling out an ensemble that she hoped was utilitarian but in a sexy way. Honestly, she had only an academic understanding of fashion: through years of experiments, wearing 'x' in 'y' situation seemed to get results, but why they did was just far too esoteric a question for her abilities. So like a medieval smith who didn't know why his bizarre rituals produced steel, she just put on 'x' outfits and hoped for the right outcome.

Willow nodded, struck dumb be her own nagging internal dialogue. Thankfully, or perhaps not, the bathroom door opened, clouds of steam rolling out and sticking to the low cut carpet. Tara stepped out, a white towel wrapped around her chest and one of Willow's pajama tops over her shoulders, the one tattooed with the comical blue duckies on its flannel skin. She poked her head out first, like a deer looking for predators and not particularly relishing the thought of being torn apart by a mountain lion. Kennedy turned her back respectfully, or some accurate simulation thereof. Tara looked around helplessly staring at the suitcase, waiting for some appropriate clothes to jump out and present themselves to her, complete with letters of recommendation.

Tara thanked her, grabbing the nearest outfit, delighted to see that Willow's anal-retentive packing scheme of preparing entire outfits hadn't changed, though judging by the disarray, the system broke down in the field. Tara dressed with the speed of someone who'd grown up with a brother fond of barging into her room at inopportune times.

So that's how it was, Willow thought. When Tara first died, she spent a solid ten hours a day fantasizing Tara's return. She came up with no less then three thousand different methods of her return, and a thousand different reactions to said return, but in none of them did she have a chaperone. She marched herself into the bathroom and straight into the shower.

Kennedy and Tara sat on opposing beds, spending a respectable time looking anywhere but each other, making a careful and full note of the size and distance of the television, the grain of the wallpaper, and the 'Welcome to New Orleans!' brochures that adorned the inn table. Finally Kennedy bit the proverbial bullet and looked at Tara.

This would be a lot harder than she thought. Tara looked like someone genetically engineered to be as non-threatening as humanly possible. She didn't have any hard corners in her geometry, a marked difference to Kennedy, who could chisel diamonds with her jawline. She wasn't frumpy, exactly, but she looked like she had been once, just the same soft roundness about her frame that carried whatever happened to grace it well. Tara's movements were small and economical, like the calm waves of the ocean to Kennedy's energetic crackling. She was Kennedy's opposite number. Yup, getting Willow to choose Kennedy over her would require some class-A seduction.

"You gonna just sit there all day or do you want to talk about it," Tara said, the words rolling out like a red carpet to a showdown she didn't really want. She didn't want to sit here all day and have Kennedy stare holes into her back either, so she went off the cuff and just laid it all out. Kennedy scowled and crossed her arms, big defensive warning klaxons blaring in Tara's head.

"Okay, Kennedy, put yourself in my shoes," she waggled her toes for emphasis, "A year and some change ago I'm a girl, woman, whatever in love with this wonderful, kinda screwed up redhead. I've been with her for about two years, and even with all the bad things, I know in my gut that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with her. The funny part is that I do. Bam!" she thumped her chest, "and the next thing I know, I'm dead."

Tara paused to let this trivial detail sink into Kennedy's head. The younger woman loosened her death grip on her sides and nodded imperceptibly.

"Well, it turns out that I'm not dead anymore, and a year has passed, and my lover has a new sweetheart, who she loves very much and is nearly the antithesis of me. They mount a daring rescue, and then manage to get me back to some iteration of my old self. Now, this screwed up redhead and I are finally back together, and all those emotions of the past year comes flooding back. You know how passionate Willow is. I don't mean that in the crude sense; she feels things deeply. I'm the same way around her. So we did something. It wasn't planned, it wasn't a conspiracy to take her away, it just happened."

Kennedy tried to conjure a deeply injured face, but all she got was a sardonic sneer. "And you didn't think about how much this would hurt me?"

Tara shook her head. "No. Not until after. And then she-" Tara floated a finger to the door-"got so upset she almost had a panic attack."

"I'm not," Tara forced her self to stay seated and centered herself with a deep breath. "I've been a victim my whole life, Kennedy. I know you can't understand that. There's always been someone out there trying to impose their will on me."

"That's everyone," Kennedy dismissed, "Everyone's trying to impose themselves on everyone else."

"It's not always true," Kennedy ticked off examples on her hands, "if you've got good family, or friends, or loved ones, your goals and stuff sort of…what's that thing called when two things meet?"

"Yeah. They sort of dovetail together. But as a whole there's nothing out there that isn't trying to fuck over something else. You just have to choose your allies and make sure you know your enemies."

"It is. If you're strong and clever, you survive. If you look out for each other, everyone survives. But getting back, yeah, someone's tried to fuck you over. Get over it. That's life."

Tara held her hands up in a calming gesture. "I know you think it's that way, and it must seem pretty black and white to you, but most of the time it's so much more complex. I've been shoved around, and it's not because I was shoved around, it's because they made me think it was my fault."

"I'm not trying to blame the victim here," Kennedy peppered the air with her gestures, "I'm just saying that the sooner you learn that life sucks, the sooner you get to move on."

"I think I know just how badly life can suck," Tara found herself standing, pacing and guarding her abdomen, a primitive chunk of brain matter telling her to cover her vitals in case of attack. "I'm trying to tell you that I refuse to feel bad for having sex with the woman I love. I'm sorry we're stuck in this mess, I really don't want to see anyone get hurt, but I'm not just going to set aside and let someone walk all over me just because I think it'll make me more noble."

"Everyone talks about me?" Tara's demeanor instantly softened, her face glowing and her eyes sparkling. "That's so sweet. Goddess, I can't wait to talk to Dawnie again. She's just gonna die. Okay. Bad choice of words." Tara sat down again, and shrugged. "I'm not the old me. I just feel, I don't know… In control? Maybe you rubbed off on me."

"Oh, I'm not in control of jack shit," Kennedy lay down on her side, happily kicking off her boots that contained heat like a blast furnace. Bye, bye, BTUs. "The only reason I'm not a Faith clone is because of her." Now why did she feel so comfortable telling this girl these things? She was her rival, not her damn sundae buddy.

"Well, I did drink your blood," Tara said, "I guess that makes us sort of sisters." Take that, scary Greek incestuous disorders!

"Actually, you drank my blood," Kennedy pointed out lightly, "so technically, you're my parasite."

"Who's a parasite?" Willow stepped out of the bathroom fully dressed, towel drying her hair and looking borderline peeved at the girlfriend insulting her…um, well, maybe it was time to give up on the need to label everything.

Willow stood stock still, appraising Tara with something akin to a geologist appraising a geode. "No she's not."

Tara rolled her eyes and stood up, touching Willow's shoulders. The action had two purposes: one, Willow needed the reassurance in Tara's there-ness, and two, she really needed some kind of support after her little encounter with Kennedy. The woman just attacked everything in front of her: no hesitancy. Talking to Kennedy was like withstanding the blitzkrieg. She tried to hold her own, but it took a lot more out of her than it did Kenn, who looked ready and willing to go another thirty rounds.

The sideways glances the two girls shot each other did not escape Willow's eye. While no expert on interpersonal matters, having neither the insightful nature of Tara nor the dogged persistence of Kennedy, Willow did have a nervous energy that drew context clues into a larger mural with considerable speed. So knowing the competitive nature of these two's relationship was not the issue. She always knew *what* a person was feeling: her awkwardness stemmed from not knowing what to do about it. She would ask herself What Would Tara Do, indeed, she came a hair's breadth from having little WWTD bracelets made up for her, but it looked like Tara had drawn a line in the sand, or carpet, so to speak. She would ask herself how Kennedy would attack the problem, but she was wearing her predatory grin that signaled her desire to pounce, in every sense of the word. So it was up to her: the fate of her love life rested in her hands. What a pain in the ass.

"You leave some hot water?" Kennedy asked as she grabbed the least saturated towel from the pile on the floor. You'd never guess three women were staying here, she mused. Willow cringed apologetically, but Kennedy just shrugged and bore the lukewarm water with a stoic grace. Besides, the sooner she got out of the shower the less time Willow and Tara would have alone. So she felt a little guilty about giving the recently deceased granola girl a hard time. Maybe she was going about this in the wrong way. Having Tara as a big sister wouldn't be that bad, a little creepy with them after the same woman, but the girl had her head on straight, that's for damn sure. If she got along better with her things might go over more smoothly. Not that she got along poorly; in point of fact, Kennedy wanted the Nobel-fucking-Peace prize for not leaping over the intervening space and strangling her whilst screaming 'MINE MINE MINE' at the top of her lungs.

Kennedy got out of the shower, got dressed, and tried not the look disgusted when she saw Willow and Tara holding hands, Tara whispering something terribly comforting to Willow. That dynamic would be something to watch. Poor Will, she thought as she tossed the towel into the pile from whence it came, you just can't catch a fuckin' break. Another time for that.

"Lets go see if the males are up and about," Kennedy broke the ice with a jackhammer, "I'm hungry and we should get moving."

The girls caught Oz and Johnny in that most perennial of male activities: comparing penis size.

Not literally, of course, but even an extraterrestrial amoeba could tell that the musical game of Six Degrees of Public Enemy was an evolutionary stone's throw away from monkey-Oz clubbing monkey-Johnny over the head with a bone to Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra.

The looks of intense concentration, the sort of concentration usually reserved for bomb disposal teams, brooked no interruption and Oz pressed his way through the Unibomber tangle of wires to link Britney Spears to Public Enemy in a harrowing five steps. They outlawed linkages through record executives, as that all acts since the tenth century were owned by the same three companies. Johnny B slapped his hands together like an Olympic contender in the power-lifting event, then accepted the call of "Nirvana" with a smile in spite of the sweat beading on his brow.

"Boys," Kennedy said for the third time, stamping her foot hard enough to make the table jump. The two looked at her the same way a band of pygmies looked at a white suburbanite in New Guinea: 'you're in the wrong jungle, girl.' Kennedy sighed and tapped her foot as Johnny drew the most obscure connections between the drummer, a roadie, another roadie, a sound mixer, and Public Enemy, collapsing back on the bed and wiping the perspiration from his face.

"Put off the battle of the geeks 'till later," she said, "we're going to get breakfast and hit town. So sayeth the women in sensible shoes."

Oz's massive CD collection collapsed into an impressively small amount of space, accordianing into the black pleather case through some self-made system of folds and turns, about a thousand times more complicated than and Transformer, thereby cementing his status as coolest guy ever in Kennedy's book.

They piled into the Buick, Oz offering to drive solely for the honor of working the CD player in the car, not at all dissuaded by the fact he had to enter from the passenger's side, the door still held closed by the strips of duct tape. Johnny called shotgun, surprised that no one argued the point. The three girls piled in the back, Willow a human separator between Tara and Kennedy. Oz turned around and beamed a rare grin into the backseat.

"He um," Tara laughed like it was an embarrassing fall down a frozen porch into a doghouse. "He sort of tried to kill me."

"It was a bad day all around," Tara explained, "Besides, I could tell you're basically an okay guy."

"An okay guy tries to kill you?" Johnny found a way to ramp up his normal incredulousness to astronomical proportions.

"Hey, pretty much everyone here's tried to kill someone," Kennedy shrugged. "Willow here almost destroyed the world."

Tara snapped her gaze over to Kennedy, not warning exactly, but mother lion protective. She instinctively wrapped her hands through Willow's and Kennedy followed suit, making Willow feel like a wishbone.

"I really wish you wouldn't be all 'yay me' when you say that," Willow grumbled.

"C'mon Will," Kennedy sallied forth with gusto, "it's the ultimate 'my-girlfriend-can-beat-up-your-girlfriend' argument ender."

"Hey," Tara set her jaw in a remarkably Kennedy-esque fashion, "Back off! She doesn't need you bringing that shit up!"

Kennedy smelled blood in the water, and turned around for another pass. "I think we've established that Will can fight her own battles. If you don't respect her enough to let her do her own talking, then that's your problem."

"Tara," Kennedy warned, her eyes darkening, "You might want to rethink this line of –" Kennedy found her voice crumple against Tara's ice-cold gaze like a nine car pile up. Each word slid atop the one in front of it, a brief mumble that trailed off into nothing. She wasn't doing this. She wasn't going to get into an argument with someone Willow cared so much about, just to defend her smartassed statements. And that look! That was a look usually reserved for mothers with nine kids and three jobs, a look that said 'I know what you did and the more you talk the more trouble you're in'. Kennedy clamped her mouth shut and sucked in a breath through her nostrils, a steady rasping in her ears. Suddenly, it became very important that Tara understand where Kennedy stood.

"Tara. I'm sorry. Willow knows I'm just trying to make things a little- I dunno – easier? Lighter? I mean, I love Willow, and I'd never do anything to hurt her. Okay?"

"I-" Tara closed her eyes and looked at her lap, looking for a moment like a Renaissance painting of the Madonna, hands open and inviting, but so sorrowful that it pushed her into the ground. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I don't know how you two work, your dynamic, and I just – I just made a stupid assumption. I didn't have any right."

"Yeah," Kennedy reached across Willow, who went from angry to frustrated to shocked as the conversation developed, and grabbed Tara's hand, squeezing it, and not sure at all why she was doing it. "You did."

Willow could only blink in dumb shock as they merged on the 301 towards New Orleans.

The Big Easy crept up on them like a winter cold. Like all old southern cities, the squat homes and crystalline geometry of the suburbs said hello first. The air had a different weight here, heavy with languid passion and sexuality that misted the air like a gasoline spray, ready to explode at the slightest spark. The cookie-cutter uniformity gave way to tall and wide French houses, as old as the city itself. Most of the homes were painted an austere white, but some bore the garish blues and purples that originally marked the Creole architecture. A little bit old country, a little bit rock and roll.

Kennedy wasn't sure what to expect. She'd never been to New Orleans, despite her highschool fantasies of making it to Mardi Gras. Her father said it was too much of a party town, and her Watcher said it was too much of a vampire town. The vampires here tended towards an Anne Ricean ideal: dressing ornately, feigning refinement, and making friends in the human community. According to her Watcher, all of this was just a ruse, an attempt to blend into humanity while still feeding on them like cattle. Kennedy always wanted to meet a Lestat wannabe, just to kick his ass extra special hard.

One thing about New Orleans: it didn't look like any other city she'd ever seen. The closest she could think of was Vienna, and that was just for the ornateness that suffused the place. As they entered the Garden District, nothing was left plain. The stop signs were supported by black fluted iron instead of the generic green rebar, the fences were covered with bright green vines, and the streets had a sort of regular organic quality that begged them to dismount and walk the avenues and backstreets.

Tara wrapped her fingers between Willow's, laid back in the seat and watched the scenery change with all the enthusiasm of a child. Something vaguely pretentious within her wanted to believe that she was worldly, that she knew her way around and could make do wherever she was, but the truth of the matter was that she spent her whole young life in Texas, her whole adult life in Sunnydale, which was like a Californian Texas with monsters, and never anywhere else. New Orleans, or N'awlins, as a tourist worn t-shirt helpfully explained, was, well, new.

She rolled down the window and caught the air in her hand, pressed against it like a surfer atop a breaking wave, and enjoyed the first breath of fresh air.

The Mississippi split the city into jagged halves, a big brown snake slithering to the sea. It glinted white in the uncompromising sunshine, as if schools of silver fish swam along with the current. The gray steel girders of the bridge spanned above it like the threads of a spiderweb, solid and grounding. Wide barges smoked steadily in the water, covered with trash and seagulls who came from miles around to feast on the refuse of a city. They left wakes of white foam as if "Just Married" signs and tin cans were affixed to their bumpers. Sliding between the barges in the slow-motion chase of nautical maneuvering were huge freighters, blazoned with names from all over the world, dropping off goods in a dance of trade that hadn't stopped in two hundred years. Intermittently the bright red and white of a two story paddleboat flashed between the trade ships that dwarfed it. Just passed the apex of the bridge, they saw the city proper, the city as thought of by anyone who'd ever been there.

Oz pulled onto Canal Street, heading towards the French Quarter. The buildings grew suddenly, going from residential to business to high-rise motels in the span of a few blocks. Johnny tapped Oz on the shoulder.

"Yo, pull into the Hilton there," he said, indicating the towering tan building marked with an equally impressive 'H' which tried to portray a taste of class whilst also being a megalithic corporate neon sign. Oz complied without comment, pulling in front of the hotel as Johnny hopped out of the car before it came to a complete stop. He ran up to the valet, waving amicably. Oz watched as he chattered back and forth for a minute, negotiating some kind of contract. Johnny agreed to something with a nod of his braided head, pulling out a billfold and greasing the valet's palm with a few c-notes. They shook hands, which Oz thought odd for such a short transaction, and Johnny returned to the car.

"Okay," he said as he shut the door, "I got us a parking spot for as long as we want one. It's around back."

Johnny chuckled, "You ever tried to park in this city? You'd have better luck getting to Jupiter with a slingshot and a foot of tinfoil. Besides, this way, we can walk around."

"I'm still hungry," Kennedy said, "Is there a place we can grab something to eat?"

Willow really wouldn't have minded if the walk to restaurant didn't end. Well, minded in the 'oh my god my legs are gonna fall off' sense, but the joy the city bred both in her and in her two girls as Johnny and Oz marched before them made her sore feet a trifle. Tara wrapped on one arm, Kennedy on the other, each girl drifting or darting out respectively as they spied something new or interesting, which was every twelve feet, made Willow feel like the pole in a tetherball game between the Incredible Hulk and Superman.

Kennedy did the little hop Willow found so endearing as she spotted a haberdashery; Kennedy had a soft spot for hats, the more outlandish the better. She pulled Willow to the stone and iron storefront, noonday sun sending waves of heat off the brickwork. Tara scampered to catch up, giggling like the time she and Willow ran home through the rain, the warm fat drops streaming down their faces as they spun each other around. Kennedy pressed her face to the shop window, her nose screwing around as she shifted her gaze from the bowlers to the wide brimmed straw hats over to the fedoras.

"We don't have time," Willow reminded her, hating the disappointment in Kennedy's face. "Maybe later," she offered as a consolation prize.

They walked down the infamous Bourbon street on their way to the restaurant, the behemoth of bars. strip clubs, and sex shops (which Kennedy gravitated to like a junkie to a crack house) slumbered fitfully during the daylight hours. Only the occasional alcoholic wandered out of a corner bar advertising '$2 Margaritas' in Day-Glo orange letters. They closed the road off at night, all the better to accommodate pedestrians, but even during the day that few motorists took a solemn oath not to drive down Bourbon Street.

Never were so many being so creative with their time. Johnny dropped twenty bucks on the street performers alone: the jugglers tossing knives at each other, the four black kids tapdancing with bottlecaps on their feet, and the living statues who painted themselves solid white and didn't move a muscle for hours. Everything felt like a dream since they arrived in New Orleans, the strange décor and the carnival atmosphere casting spells of forgetfulness that purged the outside world from every inhabitant's memory. Outside there was war, death, and famine, but here they put on their Carnival masks just like everyone else and partied until War threw up all over Famine and Death was riding a float like Slim Pickins from Dr. Strangelove.

Bars and porn stores vanished as they crossed a two lane road, one of the few in New Orleans, and were replaced by residential housing. Each house had an alleyway leading back to what they could only assume was a back yard. The alleyways were walled off, thick brick affairs that called to mind a Medieval castle, complete with stout archways and heavy doors. Jagged shards of glass adorned the tops of the walls, a green and brown garden of terrible shapes to convince any miscreant that scaling the wall wasn't worth his time. At the end of the street jutted a sign, unmarked save for the warping of its brown wood, swinging slightly. Johnny stopped at the sign, looked up at it like a soldier addressing a full bird colonel, and walked right into the building. The girls followed, somewhat surprised that Johnny and Oz hadn't just invaded someone's home, ready to regale them with tales of their respective days in a band.

The five sat at a round table in the deceptively large interior. Willow expected something a little more kitschy, like one of those theme restaurants back home with the random street signs and farm equipment attached to the walls like a tornado flew through and brought half the Wheat Belt with it. Something about them was supposed to elicit feelings of mainstream American nostalgia, but Willow always felt like it was the perfect place for a crazed telekinetic demon to attack, and so never stopped scanning for the crowd for telltale horns and scales. This place had a much more conversational air, the darkness in the corners not threatening, but offering the chance for a respite from the constant throng of people that choked the streets.

A huge mirror covered the entire wall, reflecting the patrons of the restaurant. Willow had to admire whoever thought of that little device to ensure a vampire-free dining environment. She bet a dedicated underworld watcher could tell which shops were vampire owned and which were human owned just by looking for the mirrors in the places.

She looked at herself, casually observing the Willow in it's native habitat. Such candid glimpses were rare in life; most of the time she had a chance to prepare for a picture or even a glimpse in the mirror. Such events couldn't help but endure her posturing. A vast majority of one's time is spent looking ridiculous, and getting to see that silliness was an important part of life. So she looked.

There she was, looking pretty much like she thought. Not an evil twin in sight. Pale skin a little sunburnt, red hair a little redder from the sun, apple cheeks and a pixieish nose: the very essence of all things cute, if she did stroke her ego so herself. Her pink Hello Kitty was a bit of a blast from her past, but her lean figure filled it out nicely, and wearing old clothes around Tara felt right. She tapped her fork and knife against the table, something she didn't realize she was doing. Everything, to all appearances, showed a healthy and relatively happy twenty-three year old woman who was loved and nurtured. Then she glanced to her left and right.

On her left sat Kennedy, already tanned because of her mother's heritage, her strong features focused on the menu with the single-minded intensity she brought to everything from writing a letter home to running a Chorago demon through with its own stinger. She caught Willow staring at her in the mirror, stuck out her tongue and grinned, then went back to discussing something with Oz, who just nodded his affirmation from time to time. She suddenly became very afraid for Kennedy, why she couldn't lay her finger on. Something about the woman's nature made it very unlikely that she would ever settle down and find something like contentment. It doubly worried her that she didn't seem to have any such plans for the future. She was the Slayer, to the bone, and even if there were thousands now it didn't dilute the responsibility Kennedy felt.

On her right sat Tara. Where to begin with Tara. Willow had to keep touching her and looking at her just to make sure she wouldn't puff into blue smoke when midnight struck. She didn't really know how to react: a cognitive dissonance kicked in, overriding all the nagging little questions. It was easier to just pretend that she never died, that her absence was a fluke, a long trip that had a stopover in goddess knows where. It was easier than trying to get her head around the fact that death is supposed to be permanent. And yet, here she was: sitting with her hands folded in her lap, drifting up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, her posture a little hunched from years of habit even the grave couldn't erase. She always looked like she was about to fall over, like she didn't have her feet all the way under her, and when she walked it was a swaying fluid movement, like a controlled roll down a steep hill. Tara squeezed her hand, the low hum of conversation filtering through to Willow, nothing gelling, only Tara's baby blues and her cockeyed grin sitting above the cacophony of sensation. But her eyes were a little dimmer than she remembered, her smile a little weaker. She was trying, Willow saw, trying so hard to keep it together. The bitterness, the apathy scratched at the edges of her, worming their way in. It broke Willow's heart.

And then she looked at them both. It was a funhouse trick, that's what it was. The kind that had two mirrors, one perpendicular to the other, so that if you lined yourself up right you could raise one of your hands and feet and your reflection would over in the air like an old wooden doll that danced when you pulled its string. If she looked to her left, she was with Kennedy, in love with a woman who loved her back and would never abandon her. It wasn't an easy love, but she wouldn't trade her Kennedy for all the chicken in Kentucky.

So when she looked at Kennedy, everything made sense. She couldn't be with Tara when she looked at Kennedy, because Tara was dead. But then she looked at Tara, and years of loving her and planning a dual dress wedding came back like it never left. Tara was love and kindness, a member of the family, accepted and loved by everyone, (oh, shit, she thought, I need to call Buffy and Giles and Dawn and Xander ASAP!) and Willow was ready to marry the girl at the drop of a hat. But Kennedy couldn't exist if she was with Tara, because she'd never even look at another woman when she was with Tara. Okay, so maybe she'd look, but it never, ever went past that. Now she saw them both, both women she loved, and she didn't have the slightest clue what to do about it.

"We need grits," she repeated. "Grits are an important part of the southern experience."

"Speak for yourself, K," Johnny said, "Grits are 'bout the nastiest thing ever. Fuckin' gruel."

"Guys?" Willow asked, "What are grits? I mean, I know what grits are, but what are they like?"

"You mean what do they taste like?" Kennedy tapped her chin. "I don't really know how to describe it."

"They don't really taste like anything," Tara said, "They're more like a … a food sponge."

"You don't want grits," Kennedy pressed her hands against the table hard enough to tilt it, "You *need* grits."

"Because they're a vital part of the southern tradition, of which we are to eagerly partake in?" Willow asked with raised eyebrows.

"Bullshit," Johnny waved Kennedy's comments away. "Don't listen to her, Rosenberg. If you never taste a grit as long as you live, it'll be a blessing."

"They're not that bad," Tara whispered, "Um, when I was a little girl? Well, my mom, she used to make grits, and we'd stir in strawberry jam. It was…good."

The table fell silent as Willow beamed, a vague sense of divine revelation filled them, as if this would unlock the secrets to eternal happiness if it they could just twist it around the right way.

"See Will?" Kennedy said, "How can you argue with that. If Tara gives it her seal of approval, it's guaranteed to be wholesome and tasty."

"I don't care if your momma cured lepers and pissed clean and pure bottled water, I still say that grits are a hate crime on all Southerners."

"Your opinion has been noted and duly ignored," Kennedy said as she waved the waitress to their table.

All told, the five ate like they hadn't been fed in weeks. Huge plates of red beans and rice steamed next to the platter of grits, pink and grainy from the two dozen packets of jam mixed in (which the three girls ate with goofy smiles), and a plate full of sausage from various animals that Johnny attacked with fingers and knives. Oz had jambalaya, a hazy collection of ingredients that included at least one member of every animal in Louisiana, but that nevertheless satisfied him, even to the point of him gracing the table with a rare 'yum'. Everyone spent several minutes just watching Kennedy eat, mouths slowly opening and eyes widening in awe. Kennedy eating had the efficient beauty and power of a drag racer pulling three G's off the starting line: a machine built for one purpose and one purpose alone. She finished up, patting her chin with the corner of the napkin and placing it her lap like a Mississippi born and bred lady.

"Okay," she said as she choked down a monstrous belch, "We're all here and we're all alive and mobile. So: what now?"

"We need a crash pad," Johnny said, looking to the others for affirmation, and getting it, before continuing. "I know just the place."

None of them save Johnny had ever seen a motel like this one. Almost like a Spanish mission it stood two stories high and carved of rough sandstone. The rooms had no doorknobs, just deadbolts, a detail Tara found terribly disturbing, as if something intrinsic to her worldview warped. The room was Spartan, if that was what you wanted to call a double bed and two cots, but it was cheap. And with Kennedy's credit card hurting from the last months spent homeless, along wit the general level of paranoia about using something so easily traced, cheap counted for a lot.

Kennedy watched from across the room next to the microwave with complimentary bagels as Willow and Tara held hands and looked positively joyous. On the surface, at least. Kennedy felt it under her feet, a rumbling undercurrent, and for a minute thought that it as something she sensed within the two lovebirds. The vibrations shook her legs though, made her stomach twitch, and she couldn't deny what was going to happen any longer.

They gathered around in a circle like it was storytime, just sitting there for minutes uncounted, each waiting for the other to come up with some plan, some action. No one volunteered, not out of cowardice – there were many vices in the group, but cowardice was not one of them – but a lack of direction. Kennedy waited for Willow to act, Willow for Kennedy, and the rest of the friends sat in the balance. Oz watched this unfold with the affected disinterest that became his calling card. His ambivalence on the Willow-Tara-Kennedy issue pained him, but the word was in the pipeline, and it was just a matter of time. The poor girl's pain depended greatly on how much of that time Willow took to make her choice public. That was the future, though, and right now Johnny was nearly pulling his braids out with impatience, Tara looked small and lost, and Willow and Kennedy were in a Mexican standoff.

"So," he said, making the walls flex as everyone's combined gasps depressurized the room, "We really should get chairs."

"The floor'll have to do," Kennedy reinflated the room in voice too loud for the space, sending it ringing off the yellowish walls. She remained silent for a long while, and Oz almost thought his icebreaker didn't work, that the flows between Willow and Kennedy trapped it and its crew were packing all their foodstuffs to venture out into the Arctic. But just as the captain gave the order to abandon ship, a little brunette shoved the boat from behind and plowed ahead.

"Wait," Willow slashed a panicked look across Kennedy, "We should call everyone. Buffy, Faith, Giles, everyone. I'm not really comfortable with the whole 'suicide mission' scenario."

"Okay, fine, let's call them, but what's the soonest they can be here? Late tonight? Tomorrow? And what about those people in that town? How do think they're doing with that unkillable bastard running wild?"

"We can't even get there until tomorrow anyway," Willow said, "besides, they should hear the good news."

"What good news?" Kennedy yelled, "We're up to our eyeballs in shit here, w--oh. Tara. Right. I still say we should get moving. Hell, put the call in, we'll meet them there. Then it's ass-stomping time."

"Against an enemy we know nothing about? Kennedy, you couldn't kill one of them last time, what are you going to do against four?"

"Then what fuck are we supposed to do, huh?" Kennedy stood up, her face flush and her eyes wet. "Wait for more of your ex's to pop up? Did you have a pet goldfish we should be on the lookout for?"

Oz missed it taxiing down the runway and taking off. He watched it gain altitude with each passing hour, and the bomb bay doors crank open. He listened to the howling wind below, and heard the navigator call out coordinates. Now the bomb was dropping, reaching terminal velocity, and when it hit, something would break. He stood up, grabbed his backpack, scratched his beard, and walked towards the bathroom.

"Taking a shower," he said, which he knew wasn't acknowledged, and closed the door behind him.

Johnny took that as his cue to leave. Getting between those two would be tantamount to death by friendly fire. He quietly picked up his coat, even though he didn't need the ragged drab thing in this weather, and slid out the door, certain that they didn't even notice his passing.

Tara, Willow and Kennedy stood very still;statue still, not even a eye twitching. So still they could have been a picture, Kennedy standing with her fist clenched and her jaw set in rugged defiance, the tiniest glint in her eye from tears that refused to fall. Willow sitting on her haunches, her normally expressive face inscrutable. Tara sat on the edge of the bed, how she got there a mystery, but she dropped the veil of her hair and waited. If Oz saw them, he'd be reminded of pictures in Time magazine of watches frozen in the flash of Nagasaki, forever stuck in that terrible moment.

"What is this about?" Willow enunciated clearly and plainly, the hint of a waver underneath her calm.

"Oh Jesus Christ!" Kennedy kicked the microwave, caving in it's aluminum sheathe, sending skidding across the carpet like a crashed airliner. She immediately wrapped her arms around herself, turning her back to the two women who pulled their limbs into their chests.

"K-Kennedy," Willow slowly stood up, approaching Kennedy like she was a wounded animal. She touched her shoulder, right next to the collar bone, and it sent tremors throughout her whole body, tremors that shook her shoulders and made her chest heave up and down like a ship on a stormy sea. Willow's voice cracked. Not now, not now, give me more time, don't make this happen now. "Baby? Please don't cry. You know I can't handle it when you cry."

Kennedy turned around, her face twisted up, her cheeks wet with tears. Those beautiful full lips, the lips Willow longed to kiss every morning, peeled back into a half-grimace, half-grin. "Oh, Will," she sobbed, hiccupping her name, "Wi-hi-low, I can't do this anymore, I tried, sweetie, I tried and I love you so much but I can't." She made small pleading motions with her hands. "I'm not strong, and you, you-" anger replaced sorrow with quicksilver speed "-god! God damn it! I'm sick of feeling like this!" She screamed, roared her pain out, thought that maybe it was like a cough that got stuck in her throat, and if she just yelled loud enough, maybe it would finally come out. It didn't and all she could do was cry impotently and fall to her knees. She wrapped her arms around Willow's legs and sobbed into her jeans, leaving a wet spot.

Willow faltered; she felt drunk, insensate, her head didn't connect with the rest of her body. She lowered herself to the ground, wrapped her arms around Kennedy, and rocked her back and forth, her own tears falling into the sea of black that was Kennedy's hair. Willow though the stupidest thoughts, sitting there, holding her lover who keened and clung to her back with all her prodigious strength. She didn't stop, her tears didn't let up, and Willow started to get impatient, her knees hurt and her heart hurt, and she knew that she must be some kind of monster for feeling like this, when this poor girl was falling apart on her like a puzzle thrown on the ground. She must be some kind of – of *whore* to treat her like this. And then Willow hated herself.

Tara pressed her palms together, flat, driving out any intervening space. She might be praying, and if you didn't know her, you could make that mistake. She tried not to weep, not out of a stoicism, but out of respect. Kennedy was wrong, she had no right. She was an interloper, an intruder, never meant to be here. Shoved into this world, her place was in the grave, and all the reasons to keep pretending she didn't feel like a lost little girl in the woods were sitting on the floor, weeping.

Oz sat in the bathroom, perched on the toilet, eyes closed as he tried to push himself further and further away from it all, as the bestial voice that stung the back of his neck mocked him. 'You see,' it growled, 'is life. Is pain. I am pain. I am life. You, you hide. You fear. You death.' He just squeezed his eyes shut tighter until he could see white fireworks behind his eyelids and wrapped the prayer beads around his hand until he bled.

"Shhh," Willow ran her fingernails in circles along her back. Just like soothing a baby, she thought. "What do you want me to do? If it'll help, I'll do it."

"Leave me," she repeated, "Willow, please, I can't take this-this, not knowing. I can feel it killing me inside, Will. And I see you, the way you are with her, and I've never seen that person, Will. And I started thinking, you know, what could I offer you? I've given you everything I have, and it's just not enough."

"No, no, Kennedy, baby, it's enough. You're enough for me, because I love you. Why can't you get that through your thick skull?" She tried to laugh at this, but it died in utero.

"What do I have to give you, Will? A future? So you can look forward to me not coming home some night? Don't act like you don't know it's true. Will, I'm a Slayer. One of these days, it's just a matter of time. I'll get too old, or too slow, or something is gonna find me at the wrong time, and I'm going to die. And you know what? It's okay. It's okay be –"

"Yes." Kennedy cupped Willow's face in her palms and prayed for strength. God, she said, please let me do this right. Please don't let me be weak. "But it's okay. That's my station in life. I fight so that other people can have a happy ending. Willow…if it wasn't for you, I'd be dead already. And do you know what my two thoughts were when those three demons were going to kill me?"

"I thought, 'you know what? This won't be so bad.' And then I thought about you. I thought about you, Willow. And I wondered if you were going to be okay. I don't want to die. But I'm going to, and probably it's going to be nasty and hurt a whole lot."

"Please stop talking like this," Willow pulled her face away, no, no, she's not going to die, I can keep them from dying.

"It's life, baby. It's what my life's gonna be for the foreseeable future. And I like it. I like violence. That's what I am, Will, that's what I do. I can't give you a life of babies and white picket fences and being a good mom…I thank the good lord every day that I'm gay and don't have to worry about having kids."

She stood up, pulled Willow on dead legs to her feet. She wiped the tears from her eyes, grabbed Willow's perfect tiny hand between hers, and went on one knee, like a knight before his liege.

"Willow, I love you. I'm always going to love you. But this is killing me. Let me go. Please. Let me be free."

No matter what you choose, a voice told Willow, someone gonna get hurt. You just have to follow you heart. Gee, Buff, thanks for the pithy sentiment, but what if I don't know what I want? That one thing she wanted above all others was was handed to her on a silver platter. Tara was alive and here. She was hurting, and she needed something to buttress her against her own guilt and ennui. That siren's song played along her nerves like heavy rain on a cold day. And she wanted to put up a fight, to tell herself all the reasons that Kennedy was wrong, but none of them had the iron to stand up to that unceasing patter on her back. There was nothing left to do then. It was over.

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