NEVER THE TWAIN? 2/31
AUTHOR: Zahir (mailto:zahir@brainlink.com)
DISTRIBUTION: Just ask.
SPOILERS: Be warned, this deals with virtually the entire show, albeit often in only tiny details. This one is about the end of S3 with a couple of details from S5.
NOTES: An alternate timeline in which Willow never completed the Soul Restoration spell. From there, things change. Heh heh heh.
COUPLES: W/T (kinda).
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: All the enclosed toys belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy who're way too cool to sue me I hope cause I don't have anything and I'm not making money off this and anyway isn't it a sign of maturity to share your toys please oh please?
FEEDBACK: Please!

***
Even Tara found the presence of her sire a little unnerving. He sat enthroned in an impressive library, surrounded by a wealth of occult knowledge, listening to her every word. She was still young enough to be impressed at how quietly an elder vampire could do that. But then, Tara found her sire just impressive, period. Most people did.

"You're certain the Mayor is no more?"

"Beyond doubt."

"In an explosion. How…scenic."

Off in the corner, the half-human Doyle took another swig from a bottle. Tara had noticed how squeamish he tended to be. But then, he was only half-demon. And her sire's personality had, she understood, grown only more intense by a few years spent in one of many actual hells. She felt a vague sympathy for Doyle. For his discomfort.

"Not exactly the work of the Lord, yer doin" he mumbled. "All this death and destruction."

"Oh, I don't know," began her sire. "It the Powers That Be wanted a healer, they'd surely have chosen another. Certainly not a vampire. As it happens, I have a perfectly reliable motivation. Wouldn't you agree?"

Doyle said nothing, merely returning to his bottle. Tara's sire gazed once more upon his favorite. She continued.

"The Slayers had armed the students beforehand. Once the Ascension began, I made sure the Mayor saw me fighting alongside them. He followed us into the school, then into the library. That's where the explosives were waiting."

Her sire chuckled in appreciation. "Good, good. Until now I've only vanquished pawns of mine enemies. Paltry younglings, minor predatory demons. With the Mayor, I at last remove a Knight."

"Yeah, well, you must be very happy." Doyle's voice was a tad more defiant this time. No doubt from the ale.

"Moderately pleased," murmured the once-dead vampire. "But I have time. My war has but begun."

* * *

Willow and Buffy enjoyed the sunshine as they strolled along downtown Sunnydale. The battle that had been graduation was behind them, with the vacation that was summer before. Each had slept in for five days straight, recovering from an exhaustion that seemed always to follow a near-Apocalypse. Now they meandered towards a late brunch to celebrate Wesley's release from the hospital.

"So, have you decided what to do about Tara…er, Little Miss Cyclops?" Willow wanted to know.

"With luck, I won't have to. She's probably skipped town."

"Probably," Willow nodded. "What if she didn't?"

Silence followed for a few moments, long enough for Willow to wonder if maybe her best friend hadn't heard her.

"I think" said Buffy at last, "I'm supposed to cut her some slack. For some reason."

Willow didn't quite know how to take this. Even stranger was her own reaction, which mingled relief with a few tingles of fear-not fear of death-or-dismemberment but something else. Something she couldn't identify. Yet.

"Um, mind if I ask why? Not that I'm questioning your decisions or anything…"

"I had this dream."

"Like a daydream? Or a sleepy time dream? Or was it one of those prophecy, gotta-pay-attention-like dreams?"

"Definitely pay-attention-like." replied Buffy. Then she stopped in her tracks. "Oh."

"What?" Willow looked at where her friend was staring. Then she joined in."

Coming up the main street towards them was a middle-aged man. He didn't seem extraordinary at all. Brown hair. Clean-shaven. Average height and build. In his hands were a stack of flyers and a tape gun. He methodically taped flyers to every streetlamp as he walked. They were the type of flyer both Buffy and Willow (along with countless others) immediately recognized. Each showed a grainy picture of a teenage girl, with the words "Missing" above and "Reward" below. A distressing number of such were already posted, each with a unique face, a different name, a separate set of details. These flyers caught the attention for one reason only. Because of the missing girl's face. Round and pretty, with simple blonde hair parted in the middle and reaching past the collar. Whoever had taken the photo had caught her smiling. To Willow, it seemed she had never smiled enough.

Both knew her at once. Little Miss Cyclops. Tara. The one-eyed vampire who'd betrayed the Mayor and so saved Sunnydale. Only in these pictures, she had two eyes. Willow found herself intensely curious about how the blonde had lost her eye.

The man posting the flyers noticed their reaction. He looked at them with an odd expression. A stern, tired mix of politeness and hope. One hand stretched out, a flyer offered to them.

"Excuse me," he said, "have you seen this girl?"

Willow's mouth moved, but said nothing. She shot a panicky glance at Buffy, then took the flyer to gaze at it. Maclay. Her name was Tara Maclay.

"She looks, well, a little familiar," Buffy lied. She hesitated before continuing. "Your daughter?"

H barely nodded. "Going to school at the University. What about you?"

"No. We just graduated from Sunnydale High."

"Ah." The slight reaction told Willow Mr. Maclay had heard something about the graduation ceremony, about the "street gang" and a "gas main explosion." He just nodded in sympathy, his attention obviously elsewhere.

"We've been visiting UCS campus, though." Willow piped in. "But...I don't remember seeing her. Exactly."

Mr. Maclay accepted this. Perhaps he already believed his daughter dead. Maybe he was one of those who can't bring themselves to hope, only go through the motions as if they did.

"Didn't belong down here," he sighed. "Shouldn't have let her come. But after everything, and when'd she get another chance?" For a moment his eyes burned, staring at some situation neither Willow nor Buffy could guess at. Moments later, he nodded politely and moved on. He easily had enough flyers to canvas the entire town.

They waited until he was out of earshot.

"Its not something we think too much about."

"What, Wil?"

"Vampires. Who they were before they became vampires. How much is left."

"Nothing." Buffy's reply was more than firm. It was tight, flat, even forced. Willow was immediately sorry she'd brought up the subject. Even after a year, Angel's fate obviously still hurt. More than hurt. When Angel lost his soul, it had torn Buffy apart and those wounds clearly still bled.

"So," she tried to banish away the memories with a cheerful tone, "you were talking about a dream?"

"Yeah," said Buffy, resuming her walk. "I was fighting like this whole battalion of vampires when the sun began to come up. They all ran towards this big mausoleum with a clock built in. Don't ask me why it had a clock, it just did."

"What time was it?"

"Seven thirty. In the morning, obviously. Anyway, Little Miss Cyclops" Tara Maclay, Willow nearly said, but didn't "was just waiting at the door. And when they saw her, all they did was stop and go poof in the sun. Except she didn't. Just watched the dawn, turned around, went inside. I tried to follow but the door was locked."

"Kinda weird."

"You're telling me."

"Um...maybe the seven thirty is a date? July thirtieth? Do you think?"

"Maybe."

Another five minutes and they reached the coffee shop where Xander, Oz, Giles and a slightly haggard Wesley were listening to Faith.

"Hi guys!"

"Shhhhh" insisted Wesley. "Faith is telling us about her dream. A prophetic dream, evidently."

Buffy and Willow looked at each other.

"Anyway," said Faith, evidently ending her story, "there's Little Miss Cyclops just looking at me after I dusted all these vamps, calm as anything. Just watching. Then she turns 'round and goes into the great big tomb. Locked the door behind her, too."

"That's the problem with dreams," quipped Xander, "never a key when you need one."

"Yes, quite," Giles dismissed Xander's crack with long practice. He turned his attention once more to the dark-haired Slayer. "Any other detail you care to mention? Something that struck you as odd, or stood out in some way?"

"Like a clock build into the mausoleum?" tossed in Buffy.

"Nope. No clock," said Faith. "Just these big letters spelling out The Apostraphe."

Everyone blinked.

"The...Apostraphe?" Giles was now blinking more than anyone else.

"Or something like that."

Wesley suddenly sat up straighter. "The Apostate?" Seeing Faith didn't know the word, he spelled it. She thought for a moment.

"Yeah, that's probably right."

"Is that a light bulb above your head, Mr. Wyndham-Price, or have I had too much coffee?" Xander actually spoke for everyone. Wesley's mind was clearly going a mile a minute. He only noticed everyone's expectant faces after a moment.

"You see," he began, "the Watcher's Council has been hearing rumors for the past few months of a vampire called The Apostate. He--or she, the stories aren't consistent on that point--is supposed to be very old and to have declared some kind of personal vendetta against demon-kind in general."

"Perhaps our former ally," said Giles "Tara, may be this Apostate."

"Not if she's supposed to be old," said Buffy. Willow put the flyer Maclay had given her on the table so everyone could see. Giles was the first to read it.

"According to this, she must have been turned less than a year ago."

Wesley shook his head. "On this point every whisper we've heard agrees. The Apostate is old. Centuries old. With the power and cunning that comes with it."

After a few moments of silence, it was Willow who voiced the theory nearly everyone had already arrived at.

"So maybe The Apostate is Tara's sire?"

TO BE CONTINUED...