Chapter Three-Cookouts and Coffee Dates
For the last five years most Sunday afternoons at the Scooby Firehouse had been devoted to what Xander had termed 'the neighborhood cookout'. The reality was more akin to a soup kitchen, although the Scoobies had adamantly refused to ever serve soup. The residents of the Tenderloin district of San Francisco had been hit hard during the economic collapse and the unemployment rate in the area was far above the already elevated rate of the city and state. Some blocks had reverted back to their worst days of drug distribution and prostitution, but people in the area noticed that the streets directly around the old Firehouse were somehow safer and the free Sunday meals were welcomed by many.
At three o'clock the doors to the large space downstairs would open and families from the area would join together for a hearty meal of chili or spaghetti or some other simple but filling fare. Any leftovers would be packed up for the families with children and Buffy would make sure everyone was fed and headed home before night came to the often dangerous part of the city.
The meals had been Willow's idea. She saw the end effects of poverty and drug use every day at work and wanted to do something to help. She also thought it would be good to integrate themselves more into the community since they were all outsiders. Having friends around them could never hurt, and it had always seemed they were so isolated in Sunnydale.
The second part of the tradition occurred after the cookout was complete. The weekly Scooby update on any potential supernatural events in the area was held, usually accompanied by popcorn or ice cream and often followed by movie night. This Sunday evening found Dawn speaking first while the others fought over a bowl of buttery hot corn.
"We are doing an article on a cluster of deaths that have occurred in a three block area of Haight-Ashbury, near Golden Gate Park over the last month. All with 'puncture wounds'. Have you seen or heard anything about that Willow?"
"Not specifically, no. Sometimes if people are transported to the hospital and then pronounced dead, we don't realize there is a geographical cluster. Puncture wounds could just mean drug injection sites and we have been getting an abundance of drug overdoses. I'll keep my eye out for a trend or unusual puncture sites." Willow frowned at Xander as she realized he had gobbled up the last few bites of popcorn while she had been talking.
"Thhorry." The dark-haired man responded sheepishly around a full mouth.
Buffy rolled her eyes at her two best friends. "I'll do a patrol over in that area to check it out. Thanks Dawn." The Slayer turned to Anya. "Anything strange happen at the shop this week?"
"No. Walk-ins are slow this time of year with all the rain, but the internet sales are booming. Oh, and I hired someone for weekends. A witch in fact. I'm hopeful she will work out since she already owes me money for ruining a book."
Willow's head shot up at Anya's comment. "A real witch? She damaged a book and you hired her? I would have thought you would call the cops."
Anya scowled at the redhead. "Yes, a real witch. I mean, she didn't cast any spells, but I felt power on her and she admitted it. She knows her way around herbs too."
Willow couldn't help but feel a little excited. It had been so long since she had talked to another real witch. Without the draw of the Hellmouth, the few she had met over the last ten years had very little power and she had never felt a real connection with any she had come across in San Francisco. She hadn't cast with anyone except Giles and post-rat Amy since high school, and those experiences hadn't all been positive. Maybe she could stop by the shop sometime and meet this woman.
"She's supposed to stop by our office tomorrow to talk about this thing with her brother. I told her we would listen, see if we could help." Xander added.
Buffy tilted her head at her business partner. "A non-paying potential client I assume. What was she pretty and crying?"
Anya barked out laughter. "Oh, she has you pegged my adoring husband. Never could refuse a damsel in distress!"
Xander was still blushing as he tried to change the subject. "Well, it might be more interesting than our current client. That girl is a royal pain in the butt. I don't care how much her Daddy is paying us to watch her, it isn't enough. She snuck out at midnight on Thursday and I found her drinking and dancing with three bikers at this crappy bar in San Rafael. Thank god for the GPS we put on her phone."
Buffy looked less than sympathetic. "Hey, I'm sharing the load on this one, remember? Mr. Flint is paying top dollar for us to keep his teenager in line during the week when he is busy and his wife is in Europe. I know it isn't exactly exciting crime fighting, but we can handle one adolescent a few evenings a week for a few months, right Xander?"
"Of course." Xander looked over to see a familiar glint in his wife's eye and stood up, taking her hand. "And on that note, I need to get started on my evening of groveling and apologizing for offering help to a pretty girl, even though I proclaim my intentions were true, right honey?"
Anya swatted him playfully on the rear as they started towards the stairs to their apartment. "You've got that right."
With the meeting participants all drifting away Willow headed to her small office downstairs thinking about magick. She had trouble remembering the last time she had cast anything other than general protection spells on the firehouse and the Scoobies themselves. That saddened the part of her that still loved the feeling magick could give her, the feeling that magick had brought her when she first started practicing in high school.
But those early positive emotions had been tainted by experiences in college. The spell she almost cast on Oz in her lovesick grief. Her 'my will be done' spell. The spiral into using more dark magick during the long months after Glory to try and keep up patrols with the Buffy Bot. The Slayer's resurrection and the sad time that followed until she had found herself taking what Rack offered, like a drug, and hurting Dawn in a car wreck.
Both Buffy and Giles had stepped up with the tough love at that point. She remembered her weeks with the coven at Devon, learning the foundations of the craft that she had skipped over in her desire to get to the offensive skills. The dark magick withdrawals had been a painful lesson, one that gave her a mature appreciation for the power inside of her and caution in using her gift.
She had used magick to help during the battle with the First Evil and had ultimately been responsible for activating the Potentials into Slayers worldwide, but since then her hacking and forensic skills had provided as much assistance as the occasional spell.
Which led her back to thinking about the witch Anya had hired. What if she could talk about magick with someone who really understood? What if she was interested in casting together or she knew of other local witches? Willow had assembled a respectable library of magickal reference texts. Maybe she could offer her resources to the mystery witch.
Well, for now that could wait. She booted up her private office laptop and quickly entered the backdoor she had created for easy access to the Medical Examiner's database. Plugging in a few search terms, she waited to see if the information Dawn had provided yielded anything concerning for Vampire activity.
The system was so slow it drove her to distraction. It had been designed by James Pierce with promises of quick accessible information on all of the cases handled at the office. But the program was so full of errors and inefficiencies, he and Willow were really the only two doctors who could use the system at all. Ironically, her computer prowess was one of the reasons the redhead had retained her job through all the government cutbacks despite her lack of seniority.
Finally the results came up on the screen under the heading Dead and Unidentified Management System. Willow had joked to Elise at the office that only James Pierce would name a program and not realize the acronym was DUMS. Scanning through the tabulations quickly showed her that Dawn's article was likely to show only a sad collection of drug overdoses concentrated in a small area.
Closing the laptop, Willow looked through her bookshelves for a text she had picked up in England and never read. She had always hoped one day to have a reason, and now maybe she would. She settled into the loveseat in the corner of the office and opened to the first chapter of 'Casting Together: A Guide to Covening.'
By the time Willow got back to the firehouse on Monday evening, it was much later than usual. She started work painfully early in the morning for a lifelong night owl, but the reward was usually being home by six o'clock. Not tonight. The computer system had gliched again and she had stayed late to put together a patch. She was surprised to see the light on in the office of Chosen Investigation and Security Services and to hear Buffy and Xander talking to someone.
The redhead paused near the open door when she heard Buffy speaking quietly, but with a certain sternness.
"Tara, it's just, well, by your own account you haven't been around your brother for several years. Have you considered the possibility that he might have gotten into something he couldn't handle?"
Willow heard a deep sigh and then a quiet melodic voice. "I know it seems difficult to believe, but I know my brother. He isn't the smartest, but he isn't a drug dealer. And I could see in his aura, when I talked to him, he was telling the truth."
"You can read auras?" Buffy sounded surprised.
Willow didn't hear the answer she was so distracted by a surge of excitement when she realized that Tara must be the witch Anya had hired at the shop.
Now the Slayer was sighing. "I'm just not sure what we can do. For starters this all took place in Sacramento; I don't have many contacts there."
"I understand." The response came in a trembling voice.
Now Willow heard the mystery witch start to sniffle. Was she crying?
"I don't have a way to pay you anyway." A chair scrapped the floor. "Thank you for your time, Buffy, and you too Xander."
She was definitely crying, the redhead realized. For some reason that made her stomach feel all acidy.
Another chair scrapped. "Don't cry Tara. The money doesn't matter. We can check it out, right Buffy?"
Now it was Xander, obviously trying to comfort the witch. Somehow, that didn't make Willow feel much better, she needed to do something. Not having a clue what that something was, she found her feet had carried her into the office doorway where she found herself looking at Xander's back as he hugged the smaller woman, blocking Willow's view.
"I shouldn't be crying or burdening you with this. You have both been so nice to me, and Xander's wife gave me a job. I just don't know what to do."
"We'll see what we can find out Tara. I just don't want you to get your hopes up, Ok?" Buffy sounded much more sympathetic now.
Willow was definitely feeling bothered by the prolonged hug Xander was still engaged in with the witch.
"Buffy?" Willow couldn't come up with anything else to say to announce her presence.
"Willow! Hey, you're home." Buffy on the other hand seemed almost relieved to have the tense situation interrupted. "Tara, this is my best friend Willow. Doctor Willow Rosenberg, this is Tara Maclay."
Willow frowned at Buffy for throwing Doctor into the introduction, but stepped forward hoping the still unseen guest would reveal herself. She could sense that Xander had released his hold and the woman had stepped back to collect herself. Willow waited patiently until she was ready.
When the mystery witch moved out from behind Xander, it was Willow who found she was completely unprepared. Her mouth opened slightly and a small squeaking sound came out when Tara stepped in front of her and held out her hand.
The redhead was frozen. The person Xander had been hugging, the witch Anya had hired and Buffy was trying to help was the most captivating woman Willow had ever seen. Long blonde hair fell loosely onto her shoulders framing a soft expressive face. But it was the eyes that had the redhead speechless. Crystal clear blue shone out through a prism of tears being held back from release. Willow felt she could fall into those eyes full of deep emotion and never want to return.
Xander looked from Willow to Tara and then over to Buffy with a shrug. Nobody was moving. "Hey Will? You Ok?"
Willow jumped slightly at Xander's words and looked down at Tara's still outstretched hand, thinking she must have looked a little silly.
"Sorry. Nice to meet you Tara. I'm Willow, Rosenberg. Like Buffy just told you." The redhead reached out and took Tara's hand in her own, trying for a polite handshake to stop her mouth from continuing to run.
Now it was Tara's turn to be surprised. She gave out a slight gasp and squeezed Willow's hand tighter.
"You're a witch!"
Willow smiled. "You can tell? That's awesome. I can't do that, although I can do other things. I haven't done very much magick lately. Mostly protection spells and the occasion Vampire flaming. I used to do a lot more in Sunnydale."
The two women were still standing holding hands in the middle of the office, Buffy and Xander all but forgotten.
"Y-y-you used to live in Sunnydale?" Tara had heard of the Hellmouth cursed town. She had been offered a scholarship to UC-Sunnydale as a senior in high school, but her father had declined before she could even consider it. Then a few years later the city had been destroyed in what was reported to be an earthquake, although she had wondered what really happened.
"Born and raised until the city was, well, razed. We all lived there, and then moved here." Willow gestured to Buffy and Xander as if suddenly remembering that they were still in the room. She then looked down and dropped her hand, somewhat embarrassed that she had been grasping onto the blonde for so long.
"That's why you all know about magick, believe in it." Tara spoke her thought out loud.
"Yeah, that's part of it. It's kind of a long story." Willow couldn't stop staring at the gorgeous blonde. Her whole body was humming and she was practically bouncing on her toes. "Umm, I could tell you about it sometime. And we could talk about magick, if you want. It's been a long time since I had someone to talk about magick with other than Giles, and he's an older gentleman and lives in Cleveland now. It would really be nice to have a friend who's a witch."
Tara looked at the stunning redhead with bright green eyes shining and smiled. "I'd be your friend, if you want."
The redhead beamed in reply. "Maybe we could get coffee. Get to know each other. How about Friday?" Willow found her voice had gotten shaky for some reason.
"That sounds nice." Tara stepped over to the desk and grabbed a pen and paper. "Here's my number. Call me later this week." The blonde turned to Buffy. "Thanks again. Even if you don't find out anything it means so much to me that you were willing to try."
As Tara started out the door, Willow snapped out of her trance. "I'll walk you out."
Tara gave the redhead a shy smile and touched her arm. "I'll be fine Willow. The door is right there. I'll see you Friday."
Willow watched the blonde walk down the short hallway to the front door and realized she hadn't really looked below Tara's face until now. The rising blush in her cheeks confirmed that was probably a good thing as she took in the other woman's shapely figure. When Tara got to the outer door she stopped and smiled back at the redhead who could only grin and give her a small wave.
Willow was still standing in the hall with her hand up when Buffy and Xander filed out of the office.
Buffy took one look at her friend before busting out in laughter as she picked her up by the waist and spun her around. "Will, you have a date! I'm so proud of you!"
Xander couldn't stop himself from adding. "And what a hottie! Did you see those. . ."
"Stop it. Both of you. It's not a date. We are just meeting to talk about magick. She's a witch, I'm a witch, we're witches having coffee and talking." Willow slapped at Buffy's shoulders to get her to put her down. "Slayer squeezing can stop now."
"Really Willow. I think it's a date. What do you think Xander?" Buffy set the redhead down on her feet but didn't let go of her completely.
"I think we just watched our witchy friend ask another lovely witch out on a date, and said blonde witch agreed." Xander reached over and poked Willow in the ribs as he spoke.
"She probably isn't even into women. You know my gaydar is terrible. And that's Ok, I really would like to just have a witch friend." Willow tried to sound convincing as they headed for the stairs that led up to the second floor living area. But in her mind she couldn't stop the happy thought that maybe, just maybe, she had a coffee date with the most beautiful witch she had ever seen.
