Chapter Fifty Four: Together at Last

Willow let Eve lead the way to where she said she had left Tara and Wesley. Kennedy acted as rear guard. Willow could still feel the thread that connected her to Tara so she knew the direction to go but that was 'as the crow flies'. The straightest route was not always the easiest route. Besides, Willow thought, letting Eve lead the way would act as something of a test, to see if she really was taking them to find Tara.

After jumping into the open hole which was the entrance to this particular Hellmouth Willow was surprised by what she found. Without giving it any particular thought she had expected to be faced with something similar to the desolate landscape that she remembered after passing through the Sunnydale Hellmouth. But this particular Hell Dimension was very different, or at least this particular part of it was very different.

For one thing it was hot, tropically hot or maybe even hotter. For another it was oppressively humid. Everything was covered in damp and there was a strong smell of rotten vegetation. That was another major difference; vegetation. The area was an exotic jungle with many strange and perhaps dangerous types of plant growing in profusion all around them.

But it was a Hell dimension alright. The myriad of flying insects made sure of that. There was a constant swarm of such creatures all around them, a swarm that Willow quickly kept at bay with a muttered repulsion spell. Being bitten by Hell insects could easily lead to disease or worse.

"How did you know where to find the Hellmouth from this side?" asked Willow as she followed behind Eve. "You certainly wouldn't have been able to see it from wherever it is you left Tara and Wesley."

"I've got my own compass," said Eve, turning and holding it out to show Willow. "I made sure to have one with me when I first came into Kallistien with Wesley and Jenny. It still works down here. We were able to see the fireworks in the distance when the Hellmouth was opened up. I took a bearing on it. When I reached that hole in the side of the cliff I climbed up and found myself where you found me at the entrance to the Hellmouth. I could see from what was lying around in the cellar that I was back in Kallistien."

The hole leading from the hotel cellar down into the hell dimension was not a sheer drop but rather provided an angled passage down into the lower world. It came out near the base of a small cliff. It would not have been difficult for Eve to have climbed up and into the cellar of the hotel.

"How did you know this was a Hellmouth?" asked Kennedy as the three women continued on their way. "What you saw might just have been some of the local demons letting off steam, or whatever it is demons let off."

"Tara," said Eve. "She told us she would get us as close to the entrance to Kallistien as possible. She passed out after the last orb. She'd travelled all the way from Earth through a series of Hell Dimensions to try to get back to Kallistien before she turned up to rescue us. I think she was exhausted."

"You and Wesley had better tell us where you've been, what you've been doing," said Willow. "But not now, when we've reached Wesley and Tara and have somewhere safe to stop."

Eve nodded. "Anyway when we saw the big display in the sky Wesley suggested it marked the location of the Hellmouth. He was right."

Well, she's got an answer for everything thought Willow. But I'm not convinced. I'm not going to trust her any more than I have to. I've still got those spells handy that I can use straightaway if I need to. "How far do we have to travel to find Tara?" she asked.

"We have to trek through the jungle for a while until we find ourselves at the bottom of a slope. When we get to the top of the slope there's another cliff," explained Eve. "There's a cave half way up the cliff. Wes carried Tara up the path leading up there. We were going to have a look around from the top of the cliff but when we found the cave we decided it was somewhere we could defend and rest until Tara felt stronger. But when she was still unconscious the next morning we thought it better for one of us to try to find help."

Eve continued to lead the way through the jungle. They struggled through the unpleasant conditions, sometimes going knee deep in the muddy, squelchy, smelly ground underfoot. Willow began to concentrate on not losing her shoes and making sure she reached her destination. But her concentration was disturbed by Kennedy.

"They're getting closer," she said.

"They? Who's they?" asked Willow.

"I dunno," said Kennedy. "But they've been on our trail for the past few minutes and there are more of them coming from the right. We need to move faster."

"OK," said Willow. She hadn't so far used much magic since she entered the Hell Dimension because she didn't want to attract the wrong sort of attention. But clearly the time had come when they were attracting attention anyway. "Freeze!" she commanded holding her hands out in front of her and the ground ahead of them froze into a solid mass.

The ground did not become like a piece of arctic tundra. At this temperature that wouldn't have lasted long. What Willow had visualised was a path of solid ground leading away from them towards their destination. With a leap out of the mud Willow went ahead of Eve and reached the solid ground. She lead the way up the slope as she ran in and out of the trees followed closely by the others.

Finally Willow reached the top of the slope where with a final gasp she halted. She took a moment to get her breath back as she leaned up against the cliff towering above them. "Where do we go from here?" she began and stopped as she recognised the phrase. She smiled to herself as she remembered Tara's song but only briefly as her thoughts were interrupted by Eve.

"This way!" said Eve who was already angling off to the left. "There's a rough path going up the cliff."

But Eve had to stop almost at once as a large black something staggered out of the jungle and reared up in front of her. Whatever it was it was twice the size of a bear although it had a blurry outline. But it definitely had big teeth, hissed loudly and seemed to be very hungry.

The monster was large but thankfully not very fast. Eve fell to the ground to avoid a large swinging claw. As she scrambled back away from it the creature reared back as if it was ready to come down on top of her. It never got the chance as the fast moving slayer arrived, leapt in the air and took off its head with her flashing sword.

"We've got to keep moving quickly," shouted Eve. She was already back on her feet and jumped over the still wriggling body almost before it hit the ground. She once more led the way through the jungle alongside the base of the cliff.

They had now left Willow's frozen ground, but the footing was firmer around the rocky base of the cliff anyway so she did not need to repeat the spell. Kennedy allowed Willow to go past her following Eve and once more took station as rear guard.

"Nearly there," said Eve a few minutes later as they struggled up the cliff path. Once they had begun their ascent of the cliff they had naturally slowed down. The path might have been deliberately carved out of the cliff face at some time in the past but if so it had not been maintained for a very long time. It was now mostly a crumbly, narrow path which was constantly being further broken down by the tropical downpours which regularly hit the area.

A rock suddenly flew past Willow, apparently thrown from above. She heard a yell behind her and carefully turned, making sure not to lose her footing. On the path below a dog like creature had been hit and was now falling into the jungle at the bottom of the cliff. Kennedy, who had been facing the creature, now turned and hurried up to join Willow.

"Keep moving," said Kennedy. "I've got your back."

Willow turned back and hurried after Eve. A few moments later Willow could see the head of Wesley poking out of the cave above her. He had another rock ready to throw but for the moment no targets. Willow continued her ascent and finally arrived at the cave entrance.

"Good to see you," said Wesley. "You didn't lose anybody in the jungle on the way here I hope."

"No, just the two of us came with Eve," said Willow. "Where's Tara?"

"Over here," replied Wesley indicating the back of the cave. He turned to the newly arrived Kennedy. "If you could guard the cave entrance?"

"Relax," said Kennedy. "Anything small enough to get in here is not gonna be big enough to get past me."

Willow had already passed deeper into the cave and did not hear the conversation between Wesley and Kennedy. She had called a witch light to lighten up the cave and her full attention was now on Tara who was lying on her side. Willow immediately knelt down alongside her unconscious partner.

"I can't see any wounds," she said after a moment looking up at Wesley.

"She wasn't wounded," said Wesley. "She just collapsed. I think the journey she was on including protection spells, all that orbing as well as carrying us to safety just got to her. We were hoping that rest and sleep would restore her."

"Maybe I can speed up the restoration a little," said Willow. She placed her hand on Tara's forehead and concentrated on sending a trickle of her own strength into her partner.

Wesley watched and then took a brief glance back to Eve and Kennedy at the cave entrance to make sure everything there remained quiet. He returned his attention to Tara and Willow. Slowly Tara moved a little in her sleep, something he had not seen happen before in the long hours since she had collapsed. As he watched, Tara sleepily reached out and took hold of Willow's hand.

"I think you're having an affect," said Wesley. "I think she's now sleeping naturally rather than just being unconscious."

Willow resisted the impulse to try to wake Tara up completely. Unless it became urgent she wanted Tara to wake up naturally and have as much recovery time as possible. By now the still sleeping Tara had a firm grip of Willow's hand which she hugged to her like a child's cuddly toy. As Willow watched she was sure she could see a small smile form on Tara's face. Willow now lay down beside Tara and snuggled close.

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"I told them they had to wait," said Gunn coming back into the house and then into the front lounge. "They're going to be staying in a house a couple of streets away. I've got a number to call when we're ready. We don't want Lilah and her pet goons inside this building for any longer than we have to. She bitched about it of course."

"Of course," said Fred. "But we can't do anything before the Whitelighters get back anyway. I wonder what's taking them so long."

At that moment there was a minor tremor. But everybody was becoming so used to that sort of thing, that it didn't even interrupt the conversation.

"The longer the better as far as I'm concerned," said Lorne. "I'm not convinced we should go through with this at all. Not until some of our people get back, some of the major magic users."

"You don't think I can handle things?" asked Amy. "I'll have you know I've been a witch all my life. That's way longer than Willow or the Halliwells."

"Yeah, but could you have shut down the old Hellmouth all by yourself and dealt with all the things trying to get out without their help?" asked Gunn. "Sometimes you need help however strong you are."

"OK, I'll show you something of what I can do and you can judge how strong I am," began Amy but Fred quickly grabbed Amy's raised hands before she could apply the spell she had in mind.

"Nobody's saying you're not good enough but you shouldn't waste your strength," said Fred. "And you're on your own. I don't think any of the others could have done it on their own either, not even Willow. That's why Tara has gone to fetch everybody back, remember. She didn't think just you and her were enough to face what might be coming at us."

"Tara! Oh yeah," scoffed Amy. "And she didn't have any other reason for going to get Willow back did she?"

"Listen!" interrupted Lorne. "Can anybody else hear that?"

"Hear what?" asked Gunn.

"That sort of grinding sound," said Lorne. "It seems to be coming from below."

"Below? You don't mean below as in the depths of hell below?" asked Fred.

"No, I mean below as in the basement where the Stargate is set up below," replied Lorne.

Everybody dashed out of the room and down the stairs to the basement.

Gunn reached the bottom of the stairs first to find that nothing visible was happening. The SG security team were as usual watching the Gate. The Gate was still shut down and apparently dormant and there were no interlopers messing around in the basement. As far as they could tell nothing had been disturbed.

"Can you still hear it?" Gunn asked Lorne.

"You mean you can't?" replied Lorne. "It's a lot louder down here."

Gunn looked at the others but Fred and Amy both shook their heads indicating that they too could hear nothing.

Gunn knelt down and put his ear to the ground. At last he was able to hear something. "There's definitely something happening down there," he said. "It doesn't sound good. It sounds like some sort of machinery is being used."

"This town has all sorts of underground tunnels and caverns beneath it," said Amy. "I don't think anybody has ever explored them all. Well maybe the vampires have but nobody else has lived to tell about it."

"Maybe all these quakes have shaken something loose down there," suggested Fred.

"That doesn't sound good," said Lorne. "Didn't Gandalf say something like that just before all those orcs and that big monster appeared?"

"Maybe somebody is trying another way to get to the Stargate," suggested Gunn, his ear still to the ground.

"You think somebody is trying to tunnel in?" asked Fred.

"Sure sounds like it," said Gunn. "Either that or you've got a big mole problem in this town."

"Well we've had everything else," said Amy. "If any town is going to have giant moles it'll be Sunnydale."

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"So this must mean Dawn has travelled into the past," said Angel. "That must be good news. It means she hasn't simply ceased to exist."

"I think she's sending us a message from the past," said Buffy. "That's why the picture shows her wearing the necklace and the ring. She knows you were doing research Giles. So she must have hoped you'd get to see this book."

"So what's the message? I'm in the past, come and get me?" suggested Connor. "How do we do that? Does it say when and where in the past?"

"If she went into the past she might have found out more about the Key," said Daniel. "She might have arranged for this book to include the information that we need to deal with the Goa'uld."

"We should have thought of something like that when we were in the past," said Paige. "We could have left a message for the future just in case we didn't make it back."

"We can't think of everything," said Prue, annoyed with herself that she hadn't thought of doing something like that. "It's not like there's a user manual for time travellers."

"Perhaps we should write one," said Phoebe.

"You mean something like Time Travel for Dummies," suggested Piper.

"There nothing in that book I couldn't tell you anyway," said Lissie interrupting the cross chat amongst the sisters. "For one thing there's no question of there being two Keys or the same Key twice. There's only ever one Key. I didn't bring the Key with me from the past. It doesn't work like that. The Key's here and the Key's there. As the Keeper I know how to access it whether I'm there or I'm here."

"So you're saying when Dawn went into the past she didn't take the Key with her," said Buffy. "So she's not the Key any more, she's separate."

"She was never the Key," said Lissie. "She couldn't have been. At the most she could only have been an aspect of it or somebody linked to it like a Keeper, like me. A lot of the Keepers look like me, not just your Dawn. She was just the conduit that could be used to access the power of the eternal Key."

"Sort of like the Key to the Key you mean," said Buffy.

"But now she's not linked to it any more," said Angel. "That's what that book is telling us: 'The Last Keeper after she was no longer linked to the Key.' Going back in time has broken her link to the Key. She must have met people in the past who told her more about it."

"So we can use the Key now to get rid of the Goa'uld without any risk to Dawn," said Daniel.

"Not so fast," said Buffy. "How exactly do you suggest I get my sister back? That's got to be the first item on the list of what we're going to do."

"Well we've got to do something soon otherwise the Goa'uld will obliterate all life on this planet," said Phoebe. "The vision I had with Drusilla was quite clear about that."

"But you said Dawn was part of the solution to that so we've got to get her back first," said Buffy.

"Um, that was before I met Lissie," said Phoebe with a grimace. "It might have been Lissie who I saw in the vision. I can't be sure."

Over at the back of the room Xander and Faith had begun a quiet conversation of their own:

"Do you think Dawn's still here?" asked Xander.

"What do you mean?" asked Faith. "Don't you think she really went into the past?"

"Not that no. I mean if Dawn's only linked to the Key, not the Key itself, then where did she come from? Who was she?" asked Xander. "Could Lissie be Dawn before she became Dawn if you see what I mean?"

"Well they look the same apart from their age," said Faith.

"Lissie looks about the age Dawn was when she first appeared in Sunnydale. Really appeared that is, not the whole false memory business," said Xander.

"They're both linked to the Key and we know time travel's a possibility," said Faith. "But if they are the same what difference does it make?"

"Well if they are the same then maybe Dawn will get her memories back one day, her real memories," said Xander. "I think she'd be happy to know the truth. It really upset her when she found out she'd just been created by a magic spell."

"I wonder what Buffy would think of that," said Faith. "Anyway it doesn't do anything to solve our problems here and now," said Faith.

"I guess not," agree Xander. "But we have to make sure nothing happens to Lissie."

"Do we?" asked Faith. "If she's going to become Dawn then something's got to happen to her otherwise everything will unravel."