Losing Faith
AN: Not much to say right now just read and review
"I trusted you, Faith. I trusted you!" Buffy was saying. Dawn had never seen her so angry, not even at Evil Spike. But it was more than anger.
"And you just let it happen," Buffy went on, without glancing at Dawn and the others as they stepped forward, without giving Faith a chance to reply. "Why didn't you do something? If you were too much of a coward to fight her, you could at least have called for me. But you just stood there!"
Faith's face was hard, closed. Her dark eyes glittered, and there was nothing lazy or casual about her posture now. She looked as unbending and brittle as a pane of glass. She opened her mouth, but Buffy interrupted.
"It's my own fault. I should have known better. I did know better. They all knew, they warned me, but I wouldn't listen."
"Oh, did they?" Faith snapped a glance toward Dawn on the sidelines. A chill went through her.
"Buffy, wait," Conner said. "I think-"
"I should have listened!" Buffy was raging on. She didn't even seem to hear Conner. "I should have stayed with them myself. I promised Tara, Jezebel wouldn't get to the fates-and I lied! They are gonna die thinking I betrayed them." Dawn could see it in her face now, the guilt eating into her like acid. "If I had stayed here-"
"You would be dead!" Faith hissed. "This isn't an ordinary baddie you're dealing with. She would have broken you like a twig again."
"And that would have been better!" Buffy cried. Her chest was heaving. "I would have rather have died protecting grandmother then stood by and watched it! What happened, Faith?" She had gotten hold of herself now, and she was calm, too calm; her green eyes were burning feverishly in her pale face her voice vicious, poisonous, as she spoke. "Were you too busy or just too uninterested to interfere?"
"Buffy she is my grandmother too."
Buffy laughed a cold cruel laugh. Faith said nothing. She was just as pale as her sister, every muscle tense and rigid. Waves of black fury rising from her as she watched Buffy.
"Or maybe you enjoyed," Buffy was continuing, moving another half step forward so that she was right in Faith's face. "Yes, that was probably it, being with another killer. Was it good, Faith?"
Faith's fist jerked back and she hit Buffy.
It happened too fast for Dawn's eye to follow. Buffy fell backward onto the soft carpet, long legs sprawling. Willow cried out something, and Conner jumped in front of Faith.
Brave, Dawn thought dazedly, but stupid. The air was crackling with electricity. Buffy raised a hand to her mouth and found blood, black in the moonlight. Dawn lurched over to her side and grabbed Buffy's arm.
Faith was coming after Buffy again. Conner fell back before her, but not all the way. He dropped to his knees beside Buffy, sitting on his heels, one hand upraised.
"Enough, you guys! Enough, all right?" he shouted.
Buffy was trying to get up. Dawn held on to her arm more firmly. "No! Buffy, don't! Don't!" She begged. Willow grabbed her other arm.
"Faith, leave it alone! Just leave it!" Conner was saying sharply.
We're all crazy, getting in the middle of this, Dawn thought. Trying to break up a fight between two angry Slayers. They're going to kill us just to shut us up. Faith's going to swat Conner like a fly.
But Faith had stopped, with Conner blocking her way. For a long moment the scene remained frozen, nobody moving, everybody rigid with strain. Then, slowly, Faith's stance relaxed.
Her hands lowered and unclenched. She drew a slow breath. Dawn realized she'd been holding her own breath, and she let it out.
Faith's face was cold as a statue carved in ice. "All right, have it your way," she said, and her voice was cold too. "But I'm through here. I'm leaving. And don't come after me sister, I'll kill you. Promise or no promise."
"I won't come after you," Buffy said from where she sat. Her voice sounded as if she'd been swallowing ground glass.
Faith hitched up her jacket, straightening it. With a glance at Dawn that scarcely seemed to see her, she turned to go. Then she turned back and spoke clearly and precisely, each word an arrow aimed at Buffy.
"I warned you," she said. "You should have listened to me, big sister. Maybe you'll learn something from tonight."
"I've learned what trusting you is worth," Buffy said. "Get out of here, Faith. I never want to see you again."
Without another word, Faith turned to go and stopped by Spike, the look she gave him had him stepping back and she walked away into the darkness.
Dawn let go of Buffy's arm and put her head in her hands.
Buffy got up, shaking herself like a cat that had been held against its will. She walked a little distance from the others, her face averted from them. Then she simply stood there. The rage seemed to have left her as quickly as it had come.
What do we say now? Dawn wondered, looking up. What can we say? Buffy was right about one thing: Xander had warned Buffy about Faith and she hadn't listened. She'd truly seemed to believe that her sister could be trusted. And then they'd all gotten careless, relying on Faith because it was easy and because they needed the help. No one had argued against letting Faith watch over Victoria and Joyce tonight.
They were all to blame. But it was Buffy who would tear herself apart with guilt over this. Dawn knew that was behind her out of control fury at Faith: her own shame and remorse. She wondered if Faith knew that, or cared. And she wondered what had really happened tonight, Now that Faith had left, they would probably never know.
Outside noises were reasserting themselves: grasshoppers, and passing cars. Willow had one hand pressed to her forehead, her eyes shut. Dawn looked from her to Buffy, to the darkness outside. A wave of sheer exhaustion passed through her body. All the adrenaline that had been supporting her throughout this evening seemed to have drained away. She didn't even feel angry anymore at her grandmothers kidnapping; only depressed and sick and very, very tired. She wished she could crawl into her bed and pull the blankets over her head.
Buffy and Xander were helping Joyce to her room, and then they would take living room and stay there. Spike took Conner and they left to go back to his apartment. Willow was the only one left and she didn't seem to want to go. Dawn sat down at the table and looked at her. Ever since Jezebel had bound her powers she had become very physic. Jezebel could block Tara from coming to this reality but not from Dawn's dreams. She looked again at Willow. "There won't ever be anyone else, will there?"
"No. Not for me." Willow was so tired that her control was slipping and Dawn could see behind the mask. And again she saw that pain and need, so great that she had to look away from Willow.
A strange chill of premonition and dismay trickled through her heart. Willow, she realized, the chill deepening, was different. No matter how much time passed, no matter what she did, she would never truly heal. Without Tara she would always be half herself, only half alive.
Dawn had to think of something, do something, to push this awful feeling of dread away. Willow needed Tara; she couldn't be whole without her. Tonight Willow started to crack up, swinging between dangerously tight control and violent rage that brought out the dark magicks. If only she could see Tara for just a minute and to her . . .
She'd sat next to Willow, to give her a shoulder. But there was something else Willow wanted, she realized, and only she had the power to give it to her.
Without looking at Willow, her voice husky, she said, "Would you like to see Tara?"
Dead silence from the table. Dawn sat, watching the shadows in the room sway and flicker. At last, she chanced a look at Willow out of the corner of her eye.
Willow was breathing hard, eyes shut, body taut as a bowstring. Trying, Dawn diagnosed, to work up the strength to resist temptation.
And losing. Dawn saw that.
Tara always had been too much for her.
When Willow's eyes met Dawn's again, they were grim, and her mouth was a tight line. Her skin wasn't pale anymore but flushed with color. Her body was still trembling-taut with anticipation.
"You might get hurt, Dawn."
"I know."
"You'd be opening yourself up to forces beyond your control. I can't guarantee that I can protect you from them."
"I know, how do you want to do it?"
Fiercely, Willow took Dawn's hand. "Thank you," She whispered
"How about if I go into a trance and try to reach her, and then, once I make contact, try to find you and draw you in? Do you think that would work?"
"It might, if I'm reaching for you too," Willow said withdrawing that intensity from her and focusing it on a candle. "I can touch your mind . . . when you're ready, I'll feel it."
"Right." The candle was white, its wax sides smooth and shining. The flame drew itself up and then fell back. Dawn stared until she became lost in it, until the rest of the room blacked out around her. There was only the flame, herself and the flame. She was going into the flame.
Unbearable brightness surrounded her. Then she passed through it into the dark.
**********
The funeral home was cold. Dawn glanced around uneasily, wondering how she had gotten here, trying to gather her thoughts. She was all alone, and for some reason that bothered her. Wasn't somebody else supposed to be here too! She was looking for someone.
There was light in the next room. Dawn moved toward it and her heart began pounding. It was a visitation room, and it was filled with tall candelabras, the white candles glimmering and quivering. In the midst of them was a white coffin with an open lid.
Step by step, as if something were pulling her, Dawn approached the casket. She didn't want to look in. She had to. There was something in that coffin waiting for her. The whole room was suffused with the soft white light of the candles. It was like floating in an island of radiance. But she didn't want to look . . .
Moving as if in slow motion, she reached the coffin, stared at the white satin lining inside. It was empty.
Dawn closed it and leaned against it, sighing.
Then she caught motion in her peripheral vision and whirled.
It was Tara.
"Oh, God, you scared me," Dawn said.
"I thought I told you not to come here," Tara answered.
"This time Tara's hair was loose, flowing over her shoulders and down her back, the pale golden white of a flame. She was wearing a thin white dress that glowed in the candlelight. She looked like a candle herself, luminous, radiant. Her feet were bare.
"I came here to . . ." Dawn floundered, some concept teasing around the edged of her mind. This was her dream, her trance. She had to remember. "I came here to let you see Willow," she said.
Tara's eyes widened, her lips parting. Dawn recognized the look of yearning, of almost irresistible longing. Not fifteen minutes ago she'd seen it on Willow's face.
"Oh," Tara whispered. She swallowed, her eyes clouding. "Oh, Dawnie . . . but I can't."
"Why not?"
Tears were shining in Tara's eyes now, and her lips were trembling. "What if things start to change? What if she comes, and . . ." She put a hand to her mouth and Dawn remembered the last dream, with teeth falling like rain. Dawn met Tara's eyes with understanding horror.
"Don't you see? I couldn't stand it if something like that happened," Tara whispered. "If she saw me like that . . . And I can't control things here; I'm not strong enough. Dawnie, please don't let her through. Tell her how sorry I am. Tell her-" She shut her eyes, tears spilling.
"All right." Dawn felt as if she might cry too, but Tara was right. She reached for Willow's mind to explain to her, to help her bear the disappointment. But the instant she touched it she knew she'd made a mistake.
"Willow, no! Tara says-" It didn't matter. Willow's mind was stronger than hers, and the instant Dawn had made contact she took over. She'd sensed the gist of Dawn's conversation with Tara, but she wasn't going to take no for an answer. Helplessly, Dawn felt herself being overridden, felt Willow's mind come closer, closer to the circle of light formed by the candelabras. She felt Willow's presence there, felt it taking shape. She turned and saw her, red hair, tense face, green eyes fierce as a falcon's. And then, knowing there was nothing more she could do, she stepped back to allow them to be alone.
Willow heard a voice whisper, soft with pain, "Oh, no."
A voice that she'd never thought to hear again, that she would never forget. Ripples of chills poured over her skin, and she could feel a shaking start inside her. She turned toward the voice, her attention fixing instantly, her mind almost shutting down because it couldn't cope with so many sudden driving emotions at once.
Her eyes were blurred and could only discern a wash of radiance like a thousand candles. But it didn't matter. She could feel Tara there. The same presence she sensed the very first day on campus at school, a golden white light that shone into her consciousness. Full of cool beauty and searing passion and vibrant life. Demanding That she move toward it, that she forget everything else.
Tara. It was really Tara.
Her presence pervaded Willow, filling her to her fingertips. All her hungry senses were fixed on that wash of luminance, searching for her. Needing her.
Then Tara stepped out.
She moved slowly, hesitantly. As if she could barely make herself do it. Willow was caught in the same paralysis
Tara.
Willow saw her every feature as if for the first time. The pale gold hair floating about her face and shoulders like a halo. The fair, flawless skin. The slender, supple body just now canted away from her, one hand raised in protest.
"Willow," the whisper came, and it was her voice. Her voice saying her name. But there was such pain in it that she wanted to run to Tara, hold her, promise her that everything would be all right. "Willow, please . . . I can't . . ."
Willow could see her eyes now. The dark blue of lapis lazuli, flecked in this light with gold. Wide with pain and wet with unshed tears. It shredded her guts.
"You don't want to see me?" Her voice dry as dust.
"I don't want you to see me. Oh, Willow, Jezebel can make anything happen. And she'll find us. She'll come here . . ."
Relief and aching joy flooded through Willow. She could scarcely concentrate on her words, and it didn't matter. The way she said her name was enough. That "Oh, Willow" told her everything she cared about.
Willow moved towards her quietly, her own hand coming up to reach for hers. She saw the protesting shake of her head, saw that her lips were parted with her quickening breath. Up close, her skin had an inner glow, like a flame shining through translucent candle wax. Droplets of wetness were caught on her eyelashes like diamonds.
Although Tara kept shaking her head, kept protesting, she did not move her hand away. Not even when Willow's outspread fingers touched it, pressing against cool fingertips as if they were on opposite sides of a pane of glass.
And at this distance her eyes could not evade hers. They were looking at each other, looking and not turning aside. Until at last she stopped whispering "Willow, no" and only whispered her name.
Willow couldn't think. Her heart was threatening to come through her chest. Nothing mattered except that Tara was here, that they were here together. She didn't notice the strange surroundings, didn't care who might be watching.
Slowly, so slowly Willow closed her hand around Tara's, intertwining their fingers, the way they wee meant to be. Her other hand lifted to her face.
Tara's eyes closed at the touch, her cheek leaning into it. Willow felt the moisture on her fingers and a laugh caught in her throat. Dream tears. But they were real, she was real. Tara.
Sweetness pierced her. A pleasure so sharp it was a pain, just to stroke the tears away from Tara's face with her thumb.
All the frustrated tenderness of the last year, all the emotions she'd kept locked in her heart that long, came cascading out, submerging her. Drowning both of them. It took such a little movement and then she was holding Tara.
An angel in her arms, cool and thrilling with life and beauty. A being of flame and air. She shivered in Willow's embrace; then, eyes still shut, put up her lips.
There was nothing cool about the kiss. It struck sparks from Willow's nerves, melting and dissolving everything around it. She felt her control unraveling, the control she'd worked so hard to preserve since she'd lost Tara. Everything inside her was being jarred loose all knots untied, all floodgates opened. She could feel her own tears as she held Tara to her, trying to fuse them into one flesh, one body. So that nothing could ever separate them again.
They were both crying without breaking the kiss. Tara's slender arms were around her neck now, every inch of her fitting to Willow as if she had never belonged anywhere else. She could taste the salt of her tears on Willow's lips and it drenched her with sweetness.
Willow knew, vaguely, that there was something else she should be thinking about. But the first electric touch of Tara's cool skin had driven reason from her mind. They were in the center of a whirlwind of fire; the universe could explode or crumble or burn to ashes for all she cared, as long as she could keep Tara safe.
But Tara was trembling.
Not just from emotion, from the intensity that was making Willow dizzy and drunk with pleasure. From fear. Willow could feel it in Tara's mind and she wanted to protect her, to shield her and to cherish her and to kill anything that dared frighten her. With something like a snarl she raised her face to look around.
"What is it?" she said, hearing the predator's rasp in her own voice. "Anything that tries to hurt you-"
"Nothing can hurt me." Tara still clung to Willow, but she back to look into her face. "I'm afraid for you, Willow, for what Jezebel might do to you. And for what she might make you see . . ." Her voice quavered. "Oh, Willow, go now, before she comes. She can find you through me. Please, please go . . ."
"Ask me anything else and I'll do it," Willow said. Jezebel would have to shred her nerve from nerve, muscle from muscle, cell from cell to make her leave Tara.
"Willow, it's only a dream," Tara said desperately, new tears falling. "We can't really touch, we can't be together. It's not allowed."
Willow didn't care. It didn't seem like a dream. It felt real. And even in a dream she was not going to give up Tara, not for anyone. No force in heaven or hell could make her . . .
"Wrong, Witch. Surprise!" said a new voice, a voice Willow had only heard once.
Jezebel wore a red silk blouse, and a white skirt. She looked like any regular person, except for her eyes. They were so clear and penetrating. Electric blue, like razor-frosted sly. Her hair was almost ebony, falling down her back. Her wide smile made Willow feel sick.
"Willow, I presume," she said, scraping a curtsy, "And of course the beautiful Tara. The beautiful dead Tara. Come to join her, Willow? You two were just meant to be together."
She looked young, older than Willow, but still young. She wasn't.
"Willow, leave now," Tara whispered. "She can't hurt me, but you're different. She can make something happen that will follow you out of the dream."
Willow's arm stayed locked around her.
"Bravo!" Jezebel applauded, looking around as if to encourage an invisible audience. She staggered slightly, and if she'd been human, Willow would have thought she was drunk.
"Willow, please," Tara whispered.
"It would be rude to leave before we've even been properly introduced," Jezebel said. Hands in her skirt pockets, she strode a step or two closer. "Don't you want to know who I am?"
Tara shook her head, not in negation but in defeat, and dropped it to Willow's shoulder. She cupped a hand around her hair, wanting to shield every part of her from this madwoman.
"I want to know," Willow said, looking at the dark haired woman over Tara's head.
"I don't see why you didn't ask me in the first place," the woman replied, scratching her cheek with her middle finger. "Instead of going to everybody else. I'm the only one who can tell you. I've been around along time."
"How long?" said Willow, unimpressed.
"A long time . . . " The dark haired woman's gaze turned dreamy, as if looking back over the years. "I was at the crucifixion of Christ. I killed with Alexander's army. I fought in the Trojan War. I'm old, Willow. I'm one of the fates."
"I helped bring down the Roman Empire,: the dark haired man continued dreamily. "They called us barbarians-they just didn't understand! War, Willow! There's nothing like it. Europe was exciting then. But your sweetie is just slightly beyond my reach at present. Vibrating on a higher plane, isn't that what the mystics say, Tara? Why don't you vibrate down here with the rest of us?"
"If only I could," whispered Tara, lifting her head and looking at Jezebel with hatred.
"Oh, well. Meanwhile I've got your friends grandmother."
Willow lunged one step forward, but Tara caught her. "Willow, don't! This is her territory, and her mental powers are stronger than ours. She controls it."
"Precisely. This is my territory. Unreality." Jezebel was grinned her staring psychotic grin again. "Where your wildest nightmares come true, free of charge. For instance," she said, looking at Willow, "how'd you like to see what your sweetheart really looks like right now? Without her makeup."
Tara made a soft sound, almost a moan. Willow held her tighter.
"It's been how long since she died? About a year? Do you know what happens to a body once it's been in the ground a year?" Jezebel licked her lips again, like a dog.
Now Willow understood. Tara shivered, head bent, and tried to move away from her, but she locked her arms around her.
"It's all right," Willow said to her softly. And to Jezebel; "You're forgetting yourself. I'm not a human who jumps at shadows and the sight of blood. I know about death, Jezebel. It doesn't frighten me."
"No, but does it thrill you?" Jezebel's voice dropped, low, intoxicating. "Isn't it exciting, the stench, the rot, the fluids of decomposing flesh? Isn't it a kick?"
"Willow, let me go Please." Tara was shaking, pushing at her with her hands, all the time keeping her head twisted away so she couldn't see her face. Her voice sounded close to tears. "Please"
"The only Power you have here is the power of illusion," Willow said to Jezebel. She held Tara to her, cheek pressed to her hair. She could feel the changes in the body she embraced. The hair under his cheek seemed coarsen and Tara's form to shrink on itself.
"In certain soils the skin can tan like leather," Jezebel assured her, bright eyed, grinning.
"Willow, I don't want you to look at me-"
Eye's on Jezebel, Willow gently pushed the coarsen white hair away and stroked the side of Tara's face, ignoring the roughness against her fingertips.
"But of course most of the time it just decomposes. What a way to go. You lose everything, skin, flesh, muscles, internal organs, all back into the ground. . . ."
The body in Willow's arms was dwindling. She shut her eyes and held tighter, hatred for Jezebel burning inside her. An illusion, it was all an illusion . . .
"Willow . . ." It was a dry whisper, faint as the scratch of paper blown down a sidewalk. It hung on the air a minute and then vanished, and Willow found herself holding a pile of bones.
"And finally it ends up like that, in over two hundred separate, easy-to-assemble pieces. Comes with its own handy-dandy carrying case. . . ." On the far side of the circle of light there was a creaking sound. The white coffin there was opening by itself, the lid lifting. "Why don't you do the honors, Willow? Go put Tara where she belongs."
Willow dropped to her knees, shaking, looking at the slender white bones in her hands. It was all an illusion, Jezebel was merely controlling Dawn's trance and showing Willow what she wanted Willow to see. Jezebel hadn't really hurt Tara, but hot, protective fury inside Willow wouldn't recognize that. Carefully, Willow laid the fragile bones on the ground and touched them once, gently. Then she looked up at Jezebel, lips curled with contempt.
"That is not Tara," she said.
"Of course it is. I'd recognize her anywhere." Jezebel spread her hands and declaimed, "I knew a woman, lovely in her bones . . ."
"No." Sweat was beading on Willow's forehead. She shut out Jezebel's voice and concentrated, fists clenched, muscles cracking with effort. It was like pushing a boulder uphill, fighting Jezebel's influence. But where they lay, the delicate bones began trembling, and a faint golden light shone around them.
"A rag and a bone and a hank of hair . . . the fool he called them his lady fair . . ."
"The light was shimmering, dancing, linking the bones together. Warm and golden it folded about them, clothing them as they rose in the air. What stood there now was a featureless form of soft radiance. Sweat ran into Willow's eyes and she felt as if her lungs would burst.
"Clay lies still, but blood's a rover . . ."
Tara's hair, long and silky gold, arranged itself over glowing shoulders. Tara's features, blurred at first and then clearly focused, formed on the face. Lovingly, Willow reconstructed every detail. Thick lashes, small nose, parted lips like rose petals. White light swirled around the figure, creating a thin gown.
"And the crack in the teacup opens a lane to the land of the dead . . ."
"No." Dizziness swept over Willow as She felt the surge of Power sigh out of her. A breath lifted the figure's breast, and eyes blue as lapis lazuli opened.
Tara smiled, and Willow felt the blaze of her love arc to meet her. "Willow." Tara said, her head was high, proud as any queen's.
Willow turned to Jezebel, who had stopped speaking and was glaring mutely.
"This," Willow said distinctly, "is Tara. Not whatever empty shell she's left behind in the ground. This is Tara, and nothing you do can ever touch her."
She held out her hand, and Tara took it and stepped to Willow. When the touched, Willow felt a jolt, and then felt Tara's Powers flowing into her, sustaining her. They stood together, side by side, facing the dark haired woman. Willow had never felt as fiercely victorious in her life, or as strong.
Jezebel stared at them for perhaps twenty seconds and then went berserk.
Her face twisted in loathing. Willow could feel waves of malignant Power battering against her and Tara, and she used all her strength to resist it. The maelstrom of dark fury was trying to tear them apart, howling through the room, destroying everything in its path. Candles snuffed out and flew into the air as if caught in a tornado. The dream was breaking up around them, shattering.
Willow clung to Tara's other hand. The wind blew her hair, whipping it around her face.
"Willow!" She was shouting, trying to make herself heard. Then Willow heard her voice in her head. "Willow, listen to me! There is one thing you can do to stop her. You need a victim of evil, Willow find a victim of evil. Only a victim-"
The noise level was unbearable, as if the very fabric of space and time was tearing. Willow felt Tara's hands ripped from hers. With a cry of desperation, she reached out for her again, but she could feel nothing. She was already drained by the effort of fighting Jezebel, and she couldn't hold on to consciousness. The darkness took her spinning down with it.
Dawn had seen everything.
It was strange, but once she stepped aside to let Willow go to Tara, she seemed to lose physical presence in the dream. It was as if she were no longer player but the stage the action was being played upon. She could watch, but she couldn't do anything else.
In the end, she'd been afraid. She wasn't strong enough to hold the dream together, and the whole thing finally exploded, throwing her out of the trance, back into the dinning room.
Willow was lying on the floor and she looked dead. So white, so still. But when Dawn tugged at her, trying to get her off her face, her chest heaved and she heard her suck in a gasping breath.
"Willow? Are you okay?"
She looked wildly around the room as if trying to find something. "Tara!" she said, and then she stopped, memory clearly returning. Her face twisted. For one dreadful instant Dawn thought she was going to cry, but she only shut her eyes and dropped her head into her hands.
"Willow?"
"I lost her. I couldn't hold on."
"I know." Dawn watched Willow a moment, then, gathering her courage, knelt in front of her, touching her shoulders. "I'm sorry."
Willow's head lifted abruptly, her green eyes dry but so dilated they looked black. Her nostrils were flared, her lips drawn back from her teeth.
"Jezebel!" she spat the name as if it were a curse. "Did you see her?"
"Yes," Dawn said, pulling back. She gulped, her stomach churning. "She's crazy, isn't she, Willow?"
"Yes." Willow got up. "And she must be stopped."
"But how?" Since seeing Jezebel, Dawn was more frightened than ever, more frightened and less confident. "What could stop her, she's a fate, Willow? I've never felt anything like that Power."
"But didn't you-?" Willow turned to her quickly. "Dawn, didn't you hear what Tara said at the end?"
"No. What do you mean? I couldn't hear anything; there was a slight hurricane going on at the time."
"Dawn . . ." Willow's eyes went distant with speculation and she spoke as if to herself. "That means that Jezebel probably didn't hear it either. So she doesn't know, and she won't try and stop us."
"From what? Willow, what are you talking about?"
"From finding a victim of evil. Listen, Dawn, Tara told me that if we can find victims of evil, we can find a way to stop Jezebel."
"That shouldn't be a problem," Dawn said. As Buffy and Xander walked into the dinning room.
"What shouldn't be a problem?" Buffy inquired as she sat down wearily in a chair.
As quickly as they could they filled Buffy and Xander in on what had happened, with each word Buffy's mouth got tighter.
"Dawn, Willow. Do you know how deeply dangerous that was. You could have been killed. I barely survived the last attack Jezebel launched on us and you let her attack you in your minds." Buffy stopped speaking getting herself under control; she looked at Xander for a moment than back to Willow and Dawn. "How do we find a victim of evil, and how do we know we found the right one?"
Willow shook her head. "I don't know. The trance was broken before Tara could tell me."
"I am gonna go call San Francisco and see how Rose is doing." Buffy turned to Dawn, "I don't want you trancing again till this is over and you have your powers back!"
So said she left the room and Dawn crept up the stairs to her bedroom, Willow stretched out on the floor and slept.
T.B.C
AN: So what did you think hehehe? They found a way to stop Jezebel, but hey this is Sunnydale, there are a lot of victims of evil.