Chapter Thirteen-Conversations
The morning after the Grappler battle was actually the afternoon after by the time everyone was present and recovered enough to gather. The hospital had insisted Buffy stay overnight for observation, so Dawn had stayed with her. The Slayer arrived home with one arm in a cast, several broken ribs and a nice bump on her head to go along with general abrasions and bruises, but was already feeling the benefit of her accelerated healing.
Thanks to Isobel's healing, Willow was only feeling the drain of so much magick use. She had taken a shower, cut her hair to a uniform un-singed shortened length and borrowed one of Buffy's long-sleeved shirts to wear.
Tara's headache was under control and Isobel was quiet, but seemed in good spirits despite the scariness of her first demon experience. Xander had ordered pizza and they gathered around the dining table. Xander asked for a full recounting of the evening's events, which Buffy provided as they ate.
When Xander asked Willow to fill in her part of the events, Tara asked Dawn to take Isobel upstairs. Willow started with her preparations for the amnesia spell in the woods and explained how she had heard Isobel shout and had come to investigate. She had seen the demons chasing Buffy and followed them and took up the fight. She ended with Isobel's miraculous healing. When she finished explaining, she didn't know what to do.
"The items I need for the spell are probably still in the grove, I should get them. I'm sorry Tara, I won't be able to do the spell for another three months now, I missed my window and the conditions won't be available until then."
Willow was staring at her lap when Buffy's glare caught Tara's attention.
Tara looked at Buffy and then got up and walked over to where Willow was sitting and crouched down so she could see into the redhead's face.
"We have all been looking for you for the last three days. I shouldn't have asked you to do that spell. It was wrong, I was wrong. I'm not glad that we got attacked last night, but I'm glad you didn't do the spell, Ok?"
This time Willow looked up and asked quietly, "You mean it? You don't want me to do the spell, ever?"
Tara answered, "Don't do the spell, ever. We need your help, Willow, all of us. I didn't see what happened last night being mostly unconscious, but Xander and Buffy say you were amazing, and you acted to protect Isobel. That means everything to me Will."
Xander saw how emotional Willow was getting and decided to refocus the witch.
"So what do we know about those demons, why were they here, and why did they want Isobel?"
"Oh, I forgot!" Willow exclaimed as she took the small metal sphere out of her pocket.
She studied the markings on it carefully for a minute. "Oh no. It can't be."
This time Buffy spoke up, "What is it? I saw the demon use that to get through the shield."
Willow's hand shook slightly as she set the ball on the table. "The markings. They are from Khul, the dimension I was in. It shouldn't be possible. Those demons weren't from Khul, we've seen them before, but that ball is etched with magick in the Khul language."
They all took a moment to let the implications settle in, but it was Tara who spoke. "So someone from a dimension that only you have any connection with wants to kidnap my daughter, and you have no idea why?"
Willow's head dropped again. "I know it looks bad, but I really don't understand. The only magick users on Khul use light magick. And no one from the Light would engage in interdimensional travel and use demons to kidnap a child! It makes no sense. "
"Well, research and extra caution seem to be in order, " Xander stated when no one seemed ready to provide further input.
"I'm beat and need to head home. Will, you need a ride?"
Willow looked at Buffy and Tara sheepishly, "No, I'm staying pretty nearby, but thanks. Buffy, I'll take patrol for now. You're going to be out of commission for a while, again, I might add."
"Sure Will. Thanks. For saving my butt, again," the Slayer answered.
"You said butt, Aunt Buffy!" The adults heard as a small redhead peeked into the room from the stairs.
"Sorry kiddo. But you shouldn't be eavesdropping either."
"I was thirsty. And I wanted to see if my Mommy would get me a drink," Isobel responded.
"Sure honey," Tara answered as she started to get up from the table before she saw that Isobel had scurried over to stand next to Willow.
"Mommy?" Isobel asked again before Willow realized she was being spoken to.
"Me, Isobel? Well, sure, I'd love to, but only if it is Ok with your Mama, you know."
Now completely flustered, the adult redhead stood up, only to find Isobel taking her hand and dragging her towards the kitchen. A drink turned into a snack and a series of rapid fire questions about a hundred different topics from the small redhead to the larger one. Finally, Tara intervened and sent Isobel to her room to play.
"Will you be here tonight Mommy?" Isobel asked one final question as she flung herself into Willow for a hug.
"Isobel, I won't be at the house, but I'll always be near you. I'll always help protect you, along with Aunt Buffy and your Mama. I'll see you soon," she added, cringing when she saw Tara's raised eyebrow.
"I'll walk you out." Tara stated firmly.
"Willow, I have a lot to think about. Yesterday I thought there was a good chance you were going to be out of my life forever, and I had accepted that. Now you are here, you are doing magick, and Isobel has this connection to you."
Both women had stopped walking and were standing on the porch.
Willow took a deep breath. "Tara, I don't want to anger you, but Isobel has a connection to me because she is my daughter. She sensed me with her magick. She is amazingly powerful. Now that I have met her, of course I want to get to know her, spend time with her. I also want to be in a position to protect her."
Tara frowned. "We were attacked by demons working for someone who wants to kidnap Isobel. Demons that apparently had a connection to the dimension you were in. This is going to take some time Willow. I still don't trust everything that is happening. And I'm not going to open the shield to any other magick users but Isobel and myself for now."
Willow listened carefully until Tara was finished. "Tara, I said I would do whatever you asked, and that hasn't changed. Anything that happens with Isobel I will do on your terms."
Tara nodded and started back into the house until Willow called out, "uh, Tara? Could you let me out? Through the shield?" Tara held her hand up and incanted a short phrase and waved Willow toward the opening that appeared. As Willow left, she was thinking to herself that her priority needed to be discovering what was going on with the sphere, the demons and the connection to Khul.
Willow had exhausted her limited library and internet research regarding the Grappler attack within a day. She needed access to a more complete collection and only knew one place in town that could provide the research capabilities she needed. She asked Xander and Anya to meet her at the Magic Box.
"First, let me apologize for not getting in touch sooner Xander. I was, uh, preoccupied you might say by getting things set up for Tara and Isobel and then the spell."
Willow looked down for a moment, before she held Xander's eyes with hers. "I really missed you."
"I missed you too, Wills. Ask Anya, she said I still thought too highly of you."
"Yeah, she might have mentioned that," Willow replied, looking over at Anya. "How have you two been?"
"Xander finally married me. We decided it was best to just go to Vegas. Away from all our families. I own this place and Xander is a construction foreman. The money is acceptable. Surprisingly, the orgasms are still good even after all these years."
Xander shook his head laughing lightly and took his wife's hand, "We're good Will."
Willow pondered how to proceed and realized she needed some background to do so.
"Xander, what happened after I left? I mean, it seems like the demon attack was a surprise last night. They used to be a regular occurrence. Did the demons disappear from Sunnydale when I did?"
"No offense Will, but actually it did sort of seem like that. Right after you disappeared, Buffy and I had to deal with this trio of nerds, but they were just greedy humans. The leader, Warren, tried to shoot Buffy after we stopped his big heist. I was in the right place at the right time for once. I heard him yelling at Buffy in the backyard and came in just in time to knock the gun out of his hand. No way was I going to lose another friend."
"Oh God Xander. I'm so sorry." Willow reached over and placed a hand on his forearm, squeezing lightly.
"It's Ok. It was a long time ago. Well, the trio all went to prison and then it got real quiet. We still got the typical vamps and occasional demon, but no major apocalypse. Nothing Buffy couldn't handle with the occasional assist from me or Tara."
"I told Tara I have a theory about what happened." Anya suddenly interjected.
"What's that Anya?" Willow asked, noticing Xander's slight scowl.
"I told her that when you left, balance was restored. You brought the darkness into our lives and used it to tilt the scales in our favor. But there is always a price with dark magick and you paid it, well you and Tara. So when you left, everything evened out again to normal Hellmouth levels."
"I don't know, An, that seems pretty harsh. Willow was only trying to help, at least at first." Xander stepped back into role of defending his childhood friend.
"It's Ok Xander. She could be right. Chaos does seem to follow me. If me being gone gave you all four years of relative peace, well that's a good thing. That brings me to why I wanted to meet here. I'm worried about that sphere I found, the one with the Khul language etched on it. It seems trouble continues to follow me." Willow said despondently.
"I need to research, and my resources are limited. How is your library Anya?" Willow asked flinching thinking back to her destruction of the dark magick texts four years ago.
"Fine, no thanks to you. I was able to save the books that contained no dark magick. I have been reacquiring copies of several texts you destroyed. Some were unique or are too expensive for me to replace."
"I'll provide whatever funding you need," Willow quickly offered. "But I won't be researching any dark magick for myself. I can't use dark magick sources anymore. I just want to see what I can find on interdimensional travel and on Khul specifically."
"Well, if you are willing to pay for the damage you did, I suppose I could let you research here." Anya offered. "I don't think you'll find much. As I told you before, demons aren't very interested in Khul with the absence of dark magick. Difficult to corrupt people without it."
Xander had been sitting, thinking about what Willow said. "No dark magick, huh Will? You said you can't use it, not that you won't. How is that?"
Willow spun around on the bench and lifted her shirt, showing Xander and Anya some of the tattoos on her back. "Don't worry Anya, nothing kinky, just answering Xander's question. I got these in Khul. Most give me access to specific light magick powers, but the first one you get blocks access to dark magick sources, permanently. So yes, I can't. And even if I could, I wouldn't, you know? Didn't really bring much good to my life."
"Never saw you as a tat kind of girl, Will, but they look good on you."
Xander stood up suddenly and pulled Willow into a bear hug. "I missed you. What say you come over for pizza and beer and tell me more about this other dimension. We'll figure it out Will, we always do."
More weeks of research at the Magic Box had achieved Willow exactly squat. She was increasingly frustrated by her inability to find out how the sphere had made its way from Khul to Sunnydale. Even with the addition of the volumes she had purchased for Anya, there just wasn't enough on interdimensional travel of inanimate objects. She had seen no signs of inhabitants of Khul and the demons who attacked were ones they had dealt with before. She had never seen or heard of them on Khul, so she was left with the assumption that the object had made the trip alone, but somehow with instructions. She was just about to call it an afternoon when Tara entered.
"Oh, hi Tara. I didn't think you were working here anymore, with your new job. Congratulations on that by the way, I know you always wanted to help kids, and I'm sure you are great. And getting a Master's degree in social work, well wow. Social services is lucky to have you." Willow found herself in disbelief at her inability to shut up, babbling like an adolescent after all these years.
Tara looked amused. "Thanks. I told Anya I would help out tonight, but I'm not doing regular shifts anymore. My job keeps me busy, and well, my financial situation has improved recently, although we should really talk about that."
Willow waited for the recriminations to start about her recent financial gifts and the trust fund she had set up for Isobel.
"I can't say I approve of you paying off my student loans. But helping Buffy, Dawn and Isobel, well, I can't really argue with that. Although the trust fund is a lot of money Will."
"Well, I guess you could give some of it to charity, if you'd like. It's just I thought I only had one chance to make sure that Isobel was taken care of, so I had to go big. Sorry."
"Hmm. I guess I can understand that." There were so many issues she wanted to address with the redhead, she wasn't sure where to start.
"Thanks for taking patrol. Buffy wouldn't rest unless she trusted you could handle it. I also appreciate you staying away from the house for now as I asked."
"Of course. I told you, I will do whatever you ask, although it hasn't been easy, I really do want to see Isobel."
Tara had to stop the conversation to help a customer for a few minutes. When the shop was empty again, she returned to where Willow was researching at the table.
"We do need to talk about Isobel." Tara started, unsure of how to have this conversation with Willow.
"Ok." Will responded quietly.
"She really wants to see you." Tara looked to see Willow trying to suppress a smile. "In fact, she has been throwing quite the tantrums about it."
"Again, sorry Tara." Willow tried to look contrite, but was just too hopeful to pull it off.
"I'm willing to allow you to visit." Tara stated. "With conditions."
"Whatever you say Tara. Name it." Willow was so excited she was bouncing up and down on the bench.
"First, you have said you can't do dark magick anymore. I need to understand that Will."
"Well everyone else has seen my naked back, I certainly don't mind if you do!" Willow looked at Tara and realized her attempt at levity had not gotten the result she was looking for.
"Sorry, you wanted the serious version."
The Light Witch stood up and displayed her bare back to her former lover.
"These tattoos represent my commitment and training to Light Magick. Look at the one on my upper left shoulder. It prevents me from accessing Dark Magick sources." Willow encouraged Tara to come closer.
"I know better now and would never do what I did again, but with this you don't have to trust me. I can't use dark magick. It's not possible." Willow glanced over her shoulder to see Tara examining her tattoos carefully. "The others are sort of graduation symbols for my Light Magick training."
Tara was fascinated. She had never seen anything like this before. She didn't even realize she was stepping closer and closer to Willow as she took in the symbolism of the runes.
"This one represents a magickal connection with nature, doesn't it?" She asked, reaching forward and touching a particular tattoo on Willow's right lower back.
Willow couldn't stop the gasp that escaped her lips when Tara touched her. She hadn't expected the contact and with it came the same electric charge that had always accompanied Tara touching her. She could tell Tara felt it too by the way she suddenly jumped backwards.
"I. . . I'm sorry. I s-s-shouldn't have done that." Tara stuttered.
Tara had to pause for a minute before she could say anything else. She had felt it too, that amazing charge that had always existed between them. She had just never dreamed it would still exist.
"You can see her at the house. No magick, of any kind. If I'm not there, Buffy or Dawn need to be." Tara struggled to regain her composure.
Willow smoothed out her shirt and found she couldn't even look Tara in the eye, her emotions were in turmoil. "Thank you."
"Come over tonight, have dinner with us and we can work out the details." Tara invited.
"I'll be there." This time Willow couldn't wipe the smile off her face.