Title: Meet and Greet

tth100 theme: Witches

Crossover fandom: The Italian Job

Characters: Tara, John Bridger

Prompt: 002- Death

Word Count: 396

Rating: G

Timeline: Post S5 and the Italian Job (the new one 'cause I want Tara to have been there longer!)

Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Someone else owns all things Italian.

--On with the story…--

"So you're a criminal?" Tara said bluntly to the grey haired gentleman standing before her.

"One of the best there was. I hardly ever had to hurt anyone to get what I wanted." He growled, expecting her to go all wide eyed and back away quickly. He wasn't in the mood for company. He, John Bridger, was in the mood for brooding.

Tara was looking at him unimpressed, and that impressed him. She had one eyebrow raised, her lips pursed and her arms crossed over her chest. It was a stark distinction to all the other people at the heavenly 'party'. They had a cake and everything.

"You should be so proud." She said sarcastically. She'd faced vampires, demons, a hell god and crazy-Buffy, a thief wasn't gonna scare her.

He held her glare for a moment before rolling his eyes heavenward. Well, not heavenward exactly because they were in heaven, but in the general 'up' direction. "If you don't mind, I'd rather be alone."

"Why?"

"In case you hadn't noticed, I've just died. And now I've got to spend the rest of eternity sitting on a cloud with other dead people eating 'nibbles'. And the last I heard, my only daughter had joined up with my former crew to get vengeance on the man that killed me."

Tara groaned. "Oh she's not making a wish is she? Because that never ends well."

He gave her an odd look. "I think she was just going to rob him."

"Oh that's alright then." She said in relief. Tara looked at his hangdog expression and softened. "Come with me."

John eyed her cynically. "Where?"

"Just come." She demanded as she walked into the next room where things were a bit quieter.

John watched her go. He looked over to where hundreds of dead people were milling around hundreds of bowls of dip and thousands of celery sticks. Anything was better than this.

"Where did that come from?" The 'what' in question was a huge television screen suspended in mid air.

She grinned. "Magic. So what's your daughter's name?"

He stared at her blankly.

"Well? If I'm gonna find her then I need something to go on." More staring. "Do you want to see what she's doing or not?"

He nodded. "Stella. Thank you."

She shrugged, calling a picture up on the screen. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."

--Finis--