Double Red
by
Kelsey
Disclaimer: Not mine. Joss owns all, and wrecks episodes with the mastery of someone who owns all.
Summary: The events of "Seeing Red," twisted. AU from immediately before Warren shoots people.
Rating: PG-13 for now, probably R later.
Chapter One
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Tara shut herself down as much as possible as the solemn-faced paramedics bundled the limp bodies of Buffy and Willow into body bags and rode away. She signed where indicated, wrote down the Summers' telephone number and never spoke while they worked. Xander, tears streaming down his face, answered anything they asked.
It was a quick glance at the clock on wall that reminded Tara of the figures in this equation that they hadn't taken into account yet. Someone needed to tell Giles and Anya. And someone had to go tell Dawn.
Tara knew that she could easily ask Xander to do it-- he would, in a second. But the blonde Wiccan had spent all summer taking care of the grief-struck teenager, and she felt she was closer to Dawn than Xander was, as much as the teenager still idolized him. Rousing herself slowly, she spoke in a monotone. "I'm going to go get Dawn."
"Oh, God." Xander's face paled at the thought, and he went a sort of sickly shade of green. "Oh, God." He braced himself against the counter. Tara picked up the phone and handed it to him.
"Call Anya." The ex-demon was probably still mad at her ex-fiance, but Tara had no doubt that she would come. She would come and hold Xander and cry with him, and forget to be angry until they were both a little more together. Anya was strange, but she felt, just like the rest of them.
Tara grabbed her keys, her jacket and her purse, and walked out the door. Whatever was holding her together was extremely tenuous, and she needed to get to Dawn before she fell apart.
The drive was slow and boring, and Tara's mind went utterly blank. The image of Willow, looking at her, right before she'd pitched forward and died, tried to worm its way into her mind, but she pushed it ruthlessly away. Finding a parking space, she walked slowly but steadily into the high school.
The first desk she reached had a woman behind it shuffling papers, and she looked up with a smile. "Can I help you?"
"I need a student," Tara said dully. "Family emergency."
The woman's smile turned into a frown. "I'm sorry." She turned to the computer. "What's the name?"
"Dawn Summers."
"Are you family?"
Tara shook her head. "Tara Maclay. Buffy said she put my name on the list." Since Buffy's resurrection, a lot of changes had been made in the provisioning of Dawn's care-- among them that most of the Scoobies had the authority to made medical decisions for Dawn, pull her from school, or anything else necessary if Buffy couldn't.
The woman nodded. "May I see some ID, please?"
Tara reached into her purse and pulled out her UC Sunnydale student ID card and handed it to the woman. She looked at it briefly and then nodded and gave it back. "If you could wait a moment, I'll send someone to get her."
Tara nodded and took a seat in one of the chairs by the door. Blankly, she stared into space, waiting for Dawn to appear.
Dawn hurried in the door ten minutes later, carrying her bag of school supplies and looking mildly concerned. It certainly wasn't the first time she'd been pulled from school for Scooby business under the lie of a family emergency, so she wasn't overly concerned. Until she saw Tara.
"Tara?" Her face started to twist as she started to panic. The look in the witch's eyes was so... blank. "Oh god, Tara, what's wrong?"
Tara stood up and opened her arms. Dawn crossed hers and refused to come any closer. "Answer me, God damn it! What's wrong?"
The witch answered, softly. "Buffy. And Willow."
"They're hurt? But... but they're okay, right?" Dawn was becoming more frantic by the second. "Please, please tell me they're alright!"
Tara shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry, Dawn." Tears started to stream down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry."
Dawn's cheeks whitened in shock and she started to sway. She sat down abruptly on the floor, and Tara knelt down beside her, not very steady herself. "They're... they're... gone?" She looked up, praying she'd misunderstood the witch.
Tara nodded, and Dawn sat back in shock.
They sat on the floor for a few long minutes that way, the witch wrapped around the teenager, sobbing, and the brunette staring into space, not quite able to digest that something so dramatic had happened in her short life once again.
After five minutes or so, when the scene showed no sign of changing, the woman at the desk, who had been fidgeting, unsure of whether she should go over or not, finally stood and moved to the floor beside the girls. "I'm terribly sorry. Is there anything I can do?"
Anger roused Dawn out of her stupor, and as Tara wiped the tears off her face, ready to politely tell the woman no, she lashed out. "My sister and her girlfriend" she gestured at the witch, "are dead! There's nothing anyone can do!" A huge sob rose up in her chest and she collapsed onto Tara's shoulder, finally letting the tears out.
Tara looked over at the woman, who didn't look mad, just upset. "I'm sorry," she said. "She's just in shock."
The woman nodded. "I understand." She stood, and with a final, sad glance at the two, went back to her papers.
Tara roused Dawn from the floor a few moments later, and still in shock, the teenager followed her numbly from the school. Tara had to hold open the passenger side door and help her inside, and then once she was in her own seat, do up Dawn's seatbelt for her. She seemed to have totally shut down.
The drive back home was silent, and a red-eyes Xander answered the door, a sobbing Anya clinging to him. "Why? Why did this have to happen?" She looked at the two girls as if there was chance they might know the answer. "She was a good Slayer, and a good person, and there was no vengeance demon anywhere that would have wanted this to happen and she shouldn't have died! And I didn't know Willow very well, but she was nice to me, and she didn't tell me to shut up like everybody else and she had all that power, you could feel it, and she could have been something great and now they're gone!" She burst into tears again, and Xander pulled her close to his side. Tara and Dawn ignored her.
"I called Giles," Xander said softly. "He's coming in on the first flight. He'll be here in the morning."
Tara nodded, and steered Dawn towards the living room. Urging the teenager to sit down, she sat beside her, and Xander pulled Anya down onto his lap in the chair across from them, where the vengeance demon curled up and sobbed. "So what do we do now?"
Dawn broke from her stupor long enough to turn her head and answer the witch's shaky, slightly panicked question. "Angel. We have to tell Angel."
******
The annoying ring of the phone woke the vampire from a sound sleep at five in the evening. It was May and the sun was far from set, so he grumbled as he turned over and picked up the receiver. It was his private line, something that he'd given out to only a few people, but Cordy and Gunn called it often enough when they knew he would be asleep and not answer the phone in the lobby. "Hello?"
A strained male voice crossed the line, clearly not happy at having pulled this particular duty. "Angel."
He frowned and struggled to place the voice for a moment. When he did, panic washed over him. "Xander? Buffy. Is she okay?"
Xander's voice was grim. "She's gone."
A flood of emotions rushed through the vampire, and his supernaturally strong body went weak on him. "Oh God."
The man on the other end of the line continued delivering the bad news, though. "Willow, too."
Angel didn't reply. He hadn't had time to wonder why Xander was calling-- the young man hated him with a fiery passion and it was usually Willow who called or showed up with news, and now the second piece of information hit him hard.
Xander let the line hang with silence for a moment until the vampire got his voice back under control. "Dawn?" He asked.
"Broken up, falling apart, but physically fine. Everyone else, too."
Head spinning, the vampire gave up on trying to process his emotions for the moment, and shut them ruthlessly down. "Who will her custody go to?" He asked, facing the one problem he could possibly do something about.
Xander's voice was grim. "State. We can't get a hold of her father, and she has no other relatives who want her..." He trailed off.
"Okay." The vampire tried several angles in his head, none of which worked out, but he figured he could fix this if he tried hard enough. "Bring her here. I've got some contacts, I'm sure we can do something about her custody."
"You can?" Xander sounded genuinely surprised, and a little taken aback.
"Yeah. I made sure... the first time." He didn't have to explain what he was talking about.
"Okay. Giles is flying in tomorrow, the funeral's the next day. We'll come back with you from the funeral." He didn't question that Angel would be there, and for that, the vampire was grateful. He really didn't want to have to wheedle an invitation to his own lover's funeral.
"What time?"
"Four o'clock. We'll set up a shelter for you, but we can't have the Slayer's funeral at night. It would attract too many baddies." His voice was void of emotion.
"Okay." He paused. "I'll be there. Plan to come back with me, and we'll take care of things."
"See you then." The phone clicked, and Xander was gone.
Slowly, the vampire returned it to its cradle, and put his hands on his forehead. The tears that fell from his eyes fell silently, but his body shook with deep-seated pain and grief. This was the state Cordy and Gunn found him in three hours later when they arrived to start their work "day."
******
Giles arrived with red-rimmed eyes and a small duffel the next morning. Xander was there to pick him up, Dawn not being in any shape to go out, but refusing to leave Tara's side. Anya was refusing to leave his side equally vehemently, but the vengeance demon was dealing better than the teenager, so they'd been voted to go get Giles from the airport.
When Giles came out of the terminal, Anya grabbed him and hugged him hard, sobbing on his shoulder. He patted her back awkwardly, and Xander peeled her off, resulting in he being smothered by grieving vengeance demon instead of the older man. He gave a weak smile and then held his ex-girlfriend, rubbing her back and kissing her forehead.
"Hello."
"Hey." Xander sounded tired, and much older than his age. "Good to see you. Come with us." His voice was almost void of emotion, and Giles followed him from the building to the car in absolute silence.
The ride back to the Summers' house is almost as bad. A few pleasantries were exchanged, but really, there was nothing said until they pulled into the driveway. The three people piled out of the car, and Giles went to get his duffel out of the trunk. Anya was staring at the house, something indescribleable crossing over her face. "I don't want to be here," she announced, and as they turned to look at her, she disappeared in a flash of air.
Giles could feel his jaw hanging a little. "She's... she's a demon again?" He asked, not really seeing any way to be delicate about it.
Xander nodded. "Apparently took D'Hoffryn's offer right after I left her at the alter." He winced, the pain of that day still fresh in his mind.
"How..." he paused. "How are you dealing with this?"
"You mean the torturing of men thing she does now?" Xander asked frankly, and Giles nodded reluctantly.
He sighed. "I don't really know. Right now, we're all in shock and grieving, and I'm just not spending any energy thinking about it. Later, I guess we'll have to deal, but right now... I don't want to lose her."
Giles nodded again, and didn't make any further comment. Xander smiled at him, trying to convey his gratefulness.
They made their way into the house quietly, and Tara rose from the couch to come and give him a gentle hug. He embraced her fondly, and smiled sadly at her bedraggled appearance. Dawn didn't move from the couch until he walked over to her, and then she rose and allowed his to embrace her, but didn't make any move to embrace him back. He tried not to take offense, after all, she was deep in shock.
Xander gestured at the house and then Giles. "Casa de Summers. Make yourself at home. We don't really do anything."
Giles frowned. "Pardon?"
"We don't really do anything. Dawn and Tara sit on the couch and cry and hold each other and Anya flits in and out when she wants, and when she's here, she's usually crying, too. I try and make everybody eat, but so far, nobody's touched it. We've run five movies through the VCR, but nobody's seen one." He sounded stretched thin, exhausted, and frustrated that he couldn't seem to be more helpful.
Giles nodded. "It's barely been a day, Xander. Be patient with them." He glanced at the two women on the couch, trying to gauge their response to Xander's little speech.
Tara made an effort to smile, but couldn't really. "He's right. I'm sorry about that."
Giles shook his head, noticing Dawn's utter lack of reaction. "There's nothing wrong with grieving. Though you should eat." He frowned at the stick-thin teenager. "Especially Dawn."
Tara shrugged. "She didn't eat for five days after... last time."
Giles nodded. "We'll try and get something into her before then, at least."
"I'm sitting right here." Dawn's voice was strained, and she sounded angry. Tara looked over at her kindly.
"Hey. We know. But you've been kinda incommunicado, sweetie. Do you want to eat?"
The teenager stood up, rod-stiff, and faced them. "My sister is dead for the third time, my deadbeat dad is hiding from the social workers so he won't have to take care of me, and the one person who held us all together last summer is gone. Do you really think I'm hungry?" She turned and moved silently out of the room.
Tara made a move to go to her, but Xander put out his hand. "I'll go." Gratefully, the witch nodded. She loved Dawn, but the teenager tended to lash out when she was in pain, and she didn't feel like being reminded of Willow's death again, when it was already all she could think about.
Giles sat carefully down on the sofa, a few feet between him and the most recent addition to the Scoobies. Quietly, he just let his presence offer itself, and slowly, Tara leaned over and let herself be wrapped in his arms. Her chest heaving silently, she curled up in the Watcher's arms and cried.
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