"Are you ok?" Willow turned to Tara from the defensive stance she had taken in front of her.
"Yeah. I'm fine. W-what w-was that?"
"I wish I knew… It was strong. I couldn't quite tell what its spell was trying to accomplish as I blocked it, but it wasn't… it wasn't just going to kill us right out…"
"I know. There was something about it… I'm not sure what it was… But it felt… I'm not sure. Not essentially evil…"
"We should go to headquarters, start researching"
"Headquarters?"
"The council"
"Buffy's working for the council again?"
"Oh, yeah, I forgot I didn't get that far… To what we've been establishing over the last two years… Well, I guess its time to show you… I would try to ease you in, but we really need to get to researching that thing, before it comes back…"
"Willow, what are you talking about?"
"After Sunnydale was gone, we had to find all the newly awakened slayers. The watcher's council was gone, destroyed by the first, so we had to set up our own council, a safety net for all those with mystical problems. So we created the Council, composed of 3 orders. Giles, Xander and Dawn head the watcher's order, helping slayers and doing the researchy stuff. I helped them set up a database with all the texts and everything, so its a lot faster than it used to be, but still not always fast enough… I haven't been able to get everything uploaded, there's just so much, not to mention the need for heavy duty security on it… Then there's the slayer order, headed by Buffy, which sets slayers up in teams of threes and fours, so that the slayers can take nights off, a benefit she never got… And then there's my division, the Wicca order. We monitor world wide for wiccan activity, and when we spot some, we give them an offer to join. Even if they don't we keep monitoring them, just making sure they're not doing anything too dangerous. Anyone who starts getting, you know, addicted, or just too dangerous gets sent to rehab. Its actually being run by the campus wiccans… Even when they started to see witchcraft as you know, witchcraft, they were still a little hesitant. They do mostly life-force, healing stuff… The rehab rate isn't great. I can't give them the kind of strength it takes…"
Tara took it all in silently. At the last part, about addiction and rehab, Tara reached out to take Willow's hand again.
"I never got a chance to thank you. When you left was one of the worst nights of my life, before… before you really left… but it gave me the strength I needed. Strength I couldn't have gotten elsewhere. You gave me the strength to quit, and I owe you so much for it. You saved me from myself, Tara. I know how hard it must have been for you to do, but you saved me, for a while anyways. It could have been a lot worse than it was…"
A tear rolled down Tara's face, as she smiled, meeting Willow's eyes. "It was the hardest thing I ever did. It killed me to do it, and I still wasn't sure I was doing the right thing."
"You were. You did. I can never thank you for that. Give that strength back to you…"
They suddenly heard movement in the next room, and remembered Kennedy. They rushed out to make sure the demon hadn't added to her already long list of injuries. But the rest of the apartment looked untouched. Kennedy was sitting up on the couch, and nothing looked to have been disturbed by the demon. As if it had appeared right in the doorway to the bedroom.
"Are you ok? The demon didn't get you?"
"Demon, what are you talking about?"
"You didn't see it? It as this huge, monster… Unlike anything I've ever seen… It was here only 10 minutes ago…"
"I didn't see anything, Willow…"
"Oh… We're heading to headquarters to get on some research. You going to come, or…"
"I'm going to stay here… Start packing…"
"I'll send Buffy, or Faith to check on you in a few hours…"
And with that Willow lead Tara out the door.
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Ok, i know this is getting to be a lot of crying, but it just always seems so fitting, like the natural course this would take... These will hopefully be some of the last tears in this story...
Also, I know that this might not be how everything is set up in the comic, but I haven't read that, so... I'm making up my own new world order...
please review!!!!!!!!