TITLE: Remembered Love pt5
AUTHOR: Joe T
DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to Joss Whendon, Mutant Enemy, WB, others, and just about everyone but me.
DISTRIBUTION: You want it, just let me know where you're putting it.
SUMMARY: Continuation of Forgotten Love.
SPOILERS: As always, everything is fair game
RATING: PG-13 implied sex.
Part 5
After managing to separate Xander and Cordelia long enough to bring everyone inside, Buffy and Spike practically collapse into chairs themselves, Buffy asking, "Now, can someone please explain things to me, or do we have to wait for Angel to show up?"
Standing over by the stairs, Tara answers, "Willow was using magic to change people around to suit her." Seeing the look on Buffy's face, Xander adds, "Give it a few hours Buff, I'm sure you and even Giles will start remembering things she'd made you forget too."
"Why did she…" Buffy trails off as Tara answers her again, this time tilting her head at Xander while making an explicit hand gesture.
A look of horror passing over her face, she can only answer, "Oh…"
"Well that's one way to put it." Spike jokes, "But why didn't she just…"
Interrupting him, Xander answers his question before he asks it, "It wasn't just about sex, she sorta chipped me so she'd become more important to us all."
Leaning forward, his attention now undivided, Spike asks, "She chipped you? How?"
"Not the same as you were, she just made me less useful." Seeing the confused looks he is getting, Xander continues, "Come on Buffy, you'd think after more than five years I would have learned something. She first started messing with my head a little after you came back senior year, making it so you all wouldn't want my help."
"What did she do?" Buffy asks, remembering how often they had all feared for Xander's safety.
"Well, remember the Halloween where we all became our costumes? I remembered how I beat up that pirate even though it was Larry, twice my size, football-playing Larry. Skill and technique overcoming size and strength and all that. So I started taking boxing and judo, and working out a little. She made it so I couldn't remember how to fight, or even use all my strength unless she was in danger."
"Yeah, I thought you hit me pretty hard outside." Spike interjects.
Speaking up, Tara adds, "I remember, when she made all of us forget who we were, that vampire in the sewers. It was beating you up until it went after Willow, and then you killed it no problem."
Nodding his head, Xander continues, "She also made me as terrible at research as she could. Which really sucks because I like reading." Chuckling softly at the looks on Spike and Buffy's faces, he adds, "I'd read
Kerouac long before I decided I wanted to go on a roadtrip, not just the big name writers either. If I weren't so bad with math my GPA would have been a lot better too."
"It fits, I guess. I'm thinking about it now, and I never wondered why Giles didn't train you along with me, or how quickly we pushed you out of the loop on stuff." Buffy says.
Nodding his head, Xander says as he stands, "I'm going to make some coffee, anybody want anything?"
"I'll help." Cordelia says as she stands also, seeing everyone nod his or her heads.
As they go into the kitchen, Buffy continues to sit, not really looking at anything for a few minutes, finally saying out loud, "I can't believe I never noticed any of this."
Speaking gently, Fred reassures her, "The way I understand it, Willow had spells on you and Mr. Giles also, so you wouldn't notice. Tara got it so Xander remembers everything, but whatever magic Willow used is still working, it should fade over tonight though."
Thinking over what Fred has said, Spike gets up and walks to the kitchen to see what is taking so long. Opening the door, he quickly sees Cordelia sitting on the kitchen counter, her legs wrapped around Xander's waist. Sighing, he says, "You two are supposed to be getting us coffee, not breaking in Buffy's counter tops, you can make up for lost time later, so hurry up with those drinks will you?"
From the living room, Buffy shouts, "Not in my kitchen, OK!"
Smiling at Cordelia, Xander shouts back, "So you don't mind if we use any other rooms?" He stops as he sees through the window that Tara has used the distraction to begin walking home. "Hang on, I'll be right back."
"You'd better be." Cordelia answers.
Running once he gets outside, he falls into pace with Tara, until she stops walking and looks at him.
Arching one eyebrow, he simply says, "Hey."
Staring at him for a moment, Tara finally shakes her head and smiling, answers, "I could never do that, you know, with my eyebrow."
"You don't have to head home yet, it's still pretty early."
"I thought it might be best. I have some packing to do…"
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know."
"It wasn't your fault."
Shaking her head again, not smiling this time, she answers, "I trusted her, I should have noticed something…"
"Same here. And I had way more time to notice anything than you did."
"What happened…"
"I just regret how it happened, not that it happened…is that pig-ish of me?"
Smirking, "Depends, if Cordelia wasn't here, what would you be trying?"
Throwing one arm over her shoulder and slowly leading her back to the house, Xander answers, "Same as now, hoping you don't hate me for it."
"I don't, it just hurts that…"
"It was incredible and she enjoyed it more than both of us at the time."
"Sorta, yeah…so, do we just forget it happened?"
"I think I've forgotten enough things to last a lifetime." Looking down at Tara, Xander continues, "I'd say we just go on from here. It was magic that made it happen, it could have been beer and angst that did it just as easily. We're friends Tara, I won't hold it against you if you won't hold it against me."
Stopping, Tara exclaims, "But we're not friends, no one in there really knows me. I haven't stuttered since the sixth grade, unless I'm really nervous. Willow thought it was cute, so she made me do it more often. I stopped being so freaking shy when I moved away from my family, but she liked that, so guess what? I ended up the way I spent months trying to get over. None of you know the real me, just what she wanted me to be. You said it yourself, she made you terrible at fighting and research, you saw Buffy's face when you said you liked to read…"
Gently interrupting her, Xander asks, "Did I ever stop trying?"
Confused, Tara replies, "Huh?"
"Did I ever stop trying to help them? That was something Willow and Anya both wanted. They didn't want me to patrol, and they only wanted me to bring food for the research parties, nothing more. But I still did it. She made it harder, but she couldn't change who we are. You're not my friend because you're shy or you stutter, you're my friend because I like who you are. You're the person who found out how dangerous it was here and stayed to help, who keeps Dawn and Buffy from killing each other over what cereal to buy…"
"Who made you unable to see demons…"
Holding her shoulders, Xander states, "Who was terrified of being pushed away from us because you might have been different. That's something I can more than relate to. You don't even want to know what happened when Cordy dumped me and I turned to magic for revenge."
"So we just go on from here huh?"
Leading her up the porch steps and to the door, Xander replies, "You have a better idea? Let's just wait for Angel and the others to show for now…maybe there's something good on TV."
One and a half hours later
Slowly walking up the steps to her home, Dawn fearfully notices the damage to the porch, and then the fact that the door isn't just unlocked, it is slightly open as well.
Quietly entering, she is shocked by the scene she finds.
Spike, sleeping in his favorite chair in the living room, the fact he doesn't breathe making her just a bit uncomfortable.
Buffy and Fred both asleep on the sofa, Buffy with her feet actually up on the table.
And Xander sleeping on her couch, Tara's head on his shoulder, Cordelia sitting on his lap.
Turning to shut the door, she screams when she sees Angel standing there, everyone in the room instantly wide-awake, grabbing for whatever weapon might be close at hand.
"It's just me." Angel says with a slight smile.
Slapping his arm, Dawn scolds him, "Don't do that. Jeez, you probably knocked ten years off my life." Turning back to the others, she asks, "And what happened here?"
"How did you get here, you said you were staying…"
Interrupting Buffy, Dawn answers, "Anya showed up at Cassandra's and said something happened tonight, I got worried so I had her father bring me here." Looking over as the rest of Angel's group shows up, she says, "So what happened?"
"You really don't want to know."
"Yeah I do."
"I really don't want to explain it until you're old enough."
As Dawn glares at Buffy Xander cuts off any retort she might have and offers an explanation, "Willow turned out not to be as nice a person as we all thought she was."
Spike suddenly looks up, realization spreading across his face and remarks, "You know, even without her magic, she was a hacker and all, she still could mess things up for all of us."
Xander quickly answers, "Not really, she hasn't hacked without using magic for years. Basically, she's using an old Atari and everybody else has Playstation 2."
As Buffy invites everyone in, Wesley grabs the remote for the television from Xander and says to everyone, "There's more. You might want to see this, we heard it in the car on the way over." Flipping through several stations, he finds one that has a breaking news bulletin interrupting the normal programming.
Everyone listens intently as the newscaster describes the discovery of a multitude of computer crimes, "…the crimes were discovered less than an hour ago, and cover a wide range of computer systems in the private sector. A large number of government computers were struck as well, including hospital records and land records for several cities in California. It is believed the hacker evaded detection for so long by using far outdated techniques, and a lot of luck. Although the identity of the perpetrator has not been released, we have learned they were discovered after closing a bank account, which they had used a virus to hide nearly two hundred thousand dollars in from the IRS…"
"So all of her spells are wearing off?" Xander asks, exchanging a fearful look with Angel
"Could the soul spell…"
"No, once a spell is cast, it's done. These are enchantments she had cast, they needed her to constantly give a little magic energy to keep going. With her powers bound, they are all fading."
"I can't believe she got away, and got rich too." Cordelia growls.
Chuckling softly, Xander replies, "Not really." Seeing the looks he is getting, he smiles even wider and continues, "She has to buy a whole new identity for herself, no matter where she goes, cause she doesn't have the skills to do it on her own. She doesn't know the type of people that can do that, so it's gonna cost her plenty. Then she'll probably use what little is left to start over somewhere. She's smart, but she can't exactly mention where she was going to college anymore. So she has to start from the beginning if she goes back to school, and has to pay for it all. She might have enough to buy a decent car and a few months rent after that, so she's going to have to get a real job, except she has to keep her head down now too, cause the cops and IRS are looking for her. So, she can never open her own business, or even earn too much money, or they'll look closely at her and whatever new identity she has will fall apart. Willow is pretty much going to end up a nobody, working a boring, unimportant job that won't bring her any attention."
"She'll be miserable." Tara finishes.
"I'd still feel better if we tracked her down or something." Cordelia says.
"I have some vacation time coming up, but I can think of better ways to spend it." Xander says as he wraps his arms around Cordelia's waist.
"I suppose we could finally take that drive up the coast you were thinking of before she broke us up."
Smiling, Xander answers, "Hmm, surf, sand, and bikini's. Well, it's your choice."
"Don't you forget it."
AUTHOR: Joe T
DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to Joss Whendon, Mutant Enemy, WB, others, and just about everyone but me.
DISTRIBUTION: You want it, just let me know where you're putting it.
SUMMARY: Continuation of Forgotten Love.
SPOILERS: As always, everything is fair game
RATING: PG-13 implied sex.
Part 5
After managing to separate Xander and Cordelia long enough to bring everyone inside, Buffy and Spike practically collapse into chairs themselves, Buffy asking, "Now, can someone please explain things to me, or do we have to wait for Angel to show up?"
Standing over by the stairs, Tara answers, "Willow was using magic to change people around to suit her." Seeing the look on Buffy's face, Xander adds, "Give it a few hours Buff, I'm sure you and even Giles will start remembering things she'd made you forget too."
"Why did she…" Buffy trails off as Tara answers her again, this time tilting her head at Xander while making an explicit hand gesture.
A look of horror passing over her face, she can only answer, "Oh…"
"Well that's one way to put it." Spike jokes, "But why didn't she just…"
Interrupting him, Xander answers his question before he asks it, "It wasn't just about sex, she sorta chipped me so she'd become more important to us all."
Leaning forward, his attention now undivided, Spike asks, "She chipped you? How?"
"Not the same as you were, she just made me less useful." Seeing the confused looks he is getting, Xander continues, "Come on Buffy, you'd think after more than five years I would have learned something. She first started messing with my head a little after you came back senior year, making it so you all wouldn't want my help."
"What did she do?" Buffy asks, remembering how often they had all feared for Xander's safety.
"Well, remember the Halloween where we all became our costumes? I remembered how I beat up that pirate even though it was Larry, twice my size, football-playing Larry. Skill and technique overcoming size and strength and all that. So I started taking boxing and judo, and working out a little. She made it so I couldn't remember how to fight, or even use all my strength unless she was in danger."
"Yeah, I thought you hit me pretty hard outside." Spike interjects.
Speaking up, Tara adds, "I remember, when she made all of us forget who we were, that vampire in the sewers. It was beating you up until it went after Willow, and then you killed it no problem."
Nodding his head, Xander continues, "She also made me as terrible at research as she could. Which really sucks because I like reading." Chuckling softly at the looks on Spike and Buffy's faces, he adds, "I'd read
Kerouac long before I decided I wanted to go on a roadtrip, not just the big name writers either. If I weren't so bad with math my GPA would have been a lot better too."
"It fits, I guess. I'm thinking about it now, and I never wondered why Giles didn't train you along with me, or how quickly we pushed you out of the loop on stuff." Buffy says.
Nodding his head, Xander says as he stands, "I'm going to make some coffee, anybody want anything?"
"I'll help." Cordelia says as she stands also, seeing everyone nod his or her heads.
As they go into the kitchen, Buffy continues to sit, not really looking at anything for a few minutes, finally saying out loud, "I can't believe I never noticed any of this."
Speaking gently, Fred reassures her, "The way I understand it, Willow had spells on you and Mr. Giles also, so you wouldn't notice. Tara got it so Xander remembers everything, but whatever magic Willow used is still working, it should fade over tonight though."
Thinking over what Fred has said, Spike gets up and walks to the kitchen to see what is taking so long. Opening the door, he quickly sees Cordelia sitting on the kitchen counter, her legs wrapped around Xander's waist. Sighing, he says, "You two are supposed to be getting us coffee, not breaking in Buffy's counter tops, you can make up for lost time later, so hurry up with those drinks will you?"
From the living room, Buffy shouts, "Not in my kitchen, OK!"
Smiling at Cordelia, Xander shouts back, "So you don't mind if we use any other rooms?" He stops as he sees through the window that Tara has used the distraction to begin walking home. "Hang on, I'll be right back."
"You'd better be." Cordelia answers.
Running once he gets outside, he falls into pace with Tara, until she stops walking and looks at him.
Arching one eyebrow, he simply says, "Hey."
Staring at him for a moment, Tara finally shakes her head and smiling, answers, "I could never do that, you know, with my eyebrow."
"You don't have to head home yet, it's still pretty early."
"I thought it might be best. I have some packing to do…"
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know."
"It wasn't your fault."
Shaking her head again, not smiling this time, she answers, "I trusted her, I should have noticed something…"
"Same here. And I had way more time to notice anything than you did."
"What happened…"
"I just regret how it happened, not that it happened…is that pig-ish of me?"
Smirking, "Depends, if Cordelia wasn't here, what would you be trying?"
Throwing one arm over her shoulder and slowly leading her back to the house, Xander answers, "Same as now, hoping you don't hate me for it."
"I don't, it just hurts that…"
"It was incredible and she enjoyed it more than both of us at the time."
"Sorta, yeah…so, do we just forget it happened?"
"I think I've forgotten enough things to last a lifetime." Looking down at Tara, Xander continues, "I'd say we just go on from here. It was magic that made it happen, it could have been beer and angst that did it just as easily. We're friends Tara, I won't hold it against you if you won't hold it against me."
Stopping, Tara exclaims, "But we're not friends, no one in there really knows me. I haven't stuttered since the sixth grade, unless I'm really nervous. Willow thought it was cute, so she made me do it more often. I stopped being so freaking shy when I moved away from my family, but she liked that, so guess what? I ended up the way I spent months trying to get over. None of you know the real me, just what she wanted me to be. You said it yourself, she made you terrible at fighting and research, you saw Buffy's face when you said you liked to read…"
Gently interrupting her, Xander asks, "Did I ever stop trying?"
Confused, Tara replies, "Huh?"
"Did I ever stop trying to help them? That was something Willow and Anya both wanted. They didn't want me to patrol, and they only wanted me to bring food for the research parties, nothing more. But I still did it. She made it harder, but she couldn't change who we are. You're not my friend because you're shy or you stutter, you're my friend because I like who you are. You're the person who found out how dangerous it was here and stayed to help, who keeps Dawn and Buffy from killing each other over what cereal to buy…"
"Who made you unable to see demons…"
Holding her shoulders, Xander states, "Who was terrified of being pushed away from us because you might have been different. That's something I can more than relate to. You don't even want to know what happened when Cordy dumped me and I turned to magic for revenge."
"So we just go on from here huh?"
Leading her up the porch steps and to the door, Xander replies, "You have a better idea? Let's just wait for Angel and the others to show for now…maybe there's something good on TV."
One and a half hours later
Slowly walking up the steps to her home, Dawn fearfully notices the damage to the porch, and then the fact that the door isn't just unlocked, it is slightly open as well.
Quietly entering, she is shocked by the scene she finds.
Spike, sleeping in his favorite chair in the living room, the fact he doesn't breathe making her just a bit uncomfortable.
Buffy and Fred both asleep on the sofa, Buffy with her feet actually up on the table.
And Xander sleeping on her couch, Tara's head on his shoulder, Cordelia sitting on his lap.
Turning to shut the door, she screams when she sees Angel standing there, everyone in the room instantly wide-awake, grabbing for whatever weapon might be close at hand.
"It's just me." Angel says with a slight smile.
Slapping his arm, Dawn scolds him, "Don't do that. Jeez, you probably knocked ten years off my life." Turning back to the others, she asks, "And what happened here?"
"How did you get here, you said you were staying…"
Interrupting Buffy, Dawn answers, "Anya showed up at Cassandra's and said something happened tonight, I got worried so I had her father bring me here." Looking over as the rest of Angel's group shows up, she says, "So what happened?"
"You really don't want to know."
"Yeah I do."
"I really don't want to explain it until you're old enough."
As Dawn glares at Buffy Xander cuts off any retort she might have and offers an explanation, "Willow turned out not to be as nice a person as we all thought she was."
Spike suddenly looks up, realization spreading across his face and remarks, "You know, even without her magic, she was a hacker and all, she still could mess things up for all of us."
Xander quickly answers, "Not really, she hasn't hacked without using magic for years. Basically, she's using an old Atari and everybody else has Playstation 2."
As Buffy invites everyone in, Wesley grabs the remote for the television from Xander and says to everyone, "There's more. You might want to see this, we heard it in the car on the way over." Flipping through several stations, he finds one that has a breaking news bulletin interrupting the normal programming.
Everyone listens intently as the newscaster describes the discovery of a multitude of computer crimes, "…the crimes were discovered less than an hour ago, and cover a wide range of computer systems in the private sector. A large number of government computers were struck as well, including hospital records and land records for several cities in California. It is believed the hacker evaded detection for so long by using far outdated techniques, and a lot of luck. Although the identity of the perpetrator has not been released, we have learned they were discovered after closing a bank account, which they had used a virus to hide nearly two hundred thousand dollars in from the IRS…"
"So all of her spells are wearing off?" Xander asks, exchanging a fearful look with Angel
"Could the soul spell…"
"No, once a spell is cast, it's done. These are enchantments she had cast, they needed her to constantly give a little magic energy to keep going. With her powers bound, they are all fading."
"I can't believe she got away, and got rich too." Cordelia growls.
Chuckling softly, Xander replies, "Not really." Seeing the looks he is getting, he smiles even wider and continues, "She has to buy a whole new identity for herself, no matter where she goes, cause she doesn't have the skills to do it on her own. She doesn't know the type of people that can do that, so it's gonna cost her plenty. Then she'll probably use what little is left to start over somewhere. She's smart, but she can't exactly mention where she was going to college anymore. So she has to start from the beginning if she goes back to school, and has to pay for it all. She might have enough to buy a decent car and a few months rent after that, so she's going to have to get a real job, except she has to keep her head down now too, cause the cops and IRS are looking for her. So, she can never open her own business, or even earn too much money, or they'll look closely at her and whatever new identity she has will fall apart. Willow is pretty much going to end up a nobody, working a boring, unimportant job that won't bring her any attention."
"She'll be miserable." Tara finishes.
"I'd still feel better if we tracked her down or something." Cordelia says.
"I have some vacation time coming up, but I can think of better ways to spend it." Xander says as he wraps his arms around Cordelia's waist.
"I suppose we could finally take that drive up the coast you were thinking of before she broke us up."
Smiling, Xander answers, "Hmm, surf, sand, and bikini's. Well, it's your choice."
"Don't you forget it."
