TITLE: Never The Twain? (Part 9/31)
AUTHOR: Zahir
ARCHIVING: Just ask is all.
RATING: PG13
COUPLES: W/T, B/R, X/Ay
SPOILERS: Through "The Replacement" with references through all of Season Five, and a few things from "Angel" as well.
NOTES: An alternate history in which Willow never finished the Soul Restoration Spell on Angelus. Differences include the fact that Tara is now a vampire. That's the big one, really.
FEEDBACK: Of course!
DISCLAIMER: I'm just playing with the toys Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy left lying around. I'll put them back where I found'em. Honest!

* * *

Tara felt a kinship with the creatures staring at her. She didn't know what kind of kinship. In fact, she lacked the means to even think of the concept. But the blonde ugly female and the tall handsome male were her own kind, and part of her recognized that fact.

"You're kidding? That...thing...is Tara?" The ugly blonde spoke. Her words almost meant something.

"Exactly so," answered the handsome male. His voice was lovely, like a snake's. On some level Tara knew this creature as her parent.

"But...how?"

"It has taken me some time to figure this out myself. At first I assumed this to be some kind of temporal spell, perhaps an act of malice on the part of an enemy. Or a mere mistake. But I think not."

"So what happened to her?"

"Our Tara has been riven. Split into two halves, as it were. What you see before you is the vampiric demon which makes up half of her nature. Half of ours as well."

"You mean--I've got that in me?"

Even to Tara, the pause before her parent answered was full of threat. The ugly blonde took a step back. "In a very real sense," he whispered, "that is what you and I have in place of a soul." His yellow eyes looked again at Tara behind the bars of her cage. "Pure predatory instinct. The hunger for blood and everything that goes with it. The cunning of the hunt, the pleasure that goes with it, and an intuitive understanding of the limitations you and I know only consciously. As a pure demon, Tara need never be told to avoid sunlight. She already knows. Just as she understands when she has been invited into a home, and when she has not." The approval in her parent's eyes was clear.

After a long silence, the blonde asked "So what are you going to do?"

* * *

"Oh! My! God!" It was the tenth time Buffy had said those words in the last thirty seconds. "Oh! My! God!"

"Buffy, you need to breathe," Willow told her best friend.

The Slayer looked at Willow, who was half-dressed by now, then at the bed where a clearly-naked Tara clutched the sheets around her. For a moment it looked as if Buffy was listening. Her eyes, huger than Willow had ever seen them, went back and forth from Willow to the bed and back again.

"Buffy?"

She said nothing. The eyes moved and nothing else. Willow had no idea how this was going to turn, and was more than a little nervous about finding out. Buffy, for once, seemed paralyzed. She's stopped with the oh-my-god-ing, but her jaw still moved. All in all, it was as impressive an example of wigging as Willow had ever seen

Riley stepped in from the dorm hall. Buffy spun in his direction. "Riley!"

"Yeah?" The ex-soldier knew at once something was wrong. Fortunately, all his attention went to Buffy. For now, anyway.

Buffy moved her lips, but what came out was sounds, not words. In desperation, she pointed at Willow, then Tara in the bed.

"Willow! Tara! Last night! Here!" Ah. Speech restored. Willow hurriedly pulled on the last her clothes, watching Riley take in the whole scene. She very nearly saw the light bulb appear over his head. Just as Buffy did. "Them! Together! Willow! And Tara!"

Riley put his hands on Buffy's arms. He stooped slightly and looked her right in the eyes. Okay, this might be good. Emphasis on might.

"I understand." He spoke just a little slowly. Probably unnecessary, really, but why take chances?

"You do?" Buffy sounded a little less hysterical. A little.

Riley nodded. "Tara is human now." Willow silently cheered Riley for starting with this. She looked at Tara to give a quick look of reassurance. "And last night, Willow and Tara spent the night together."

"That's right," Buffy nodded. "And they had sex!"

"Yeah, I got that."

"Willow had sex--with a vampire!"

"No...!" He said this soothingly.

"Okay, well maybe not a vampire now. But a vampire then and that counts for something!"

"Buffy" Willow decided it was time to intervene. Tara's nerves were visibly shredding. Buffy looked at Willow. "Tara is a human. Look--sunlight." She pointed to the window. "And look at this." Willow picked up a mirror and set it next to Tara. Her nervous face reflected.

After several more seconds, Buffy seemed to calm. Riley carefully let go of her. Her eyes still looked like they might pop out of her head, but at least her breathing was returning to normal. At last she spoke. "Sorry. I was--surprised. I'll...I'll let you get dressed." Then she deliberately stepped out of the room.

Riley followed.

Willow looked Tara. Her honey-blonde hair was all over the place. Somehow she'd managed to turn herself into a ball while keeping the sheets wrapped around her. The angle of her head hid her one remaining eye. Willow lifted Tara's chin.

"There," she whispered, "that wasn't too bad, was it?"

* * *

All the Scoobies met in The Magic Shoppe. Willow almost defiantly sat next to Tara, refusing to let go of her hand. Giles did his best to both look at them while not doing so. Giles kept doing little takes at the sight of them as a couple. Buffy was pacing, while Riley hovered nearby.

"Y-y-you need to know," the newly mortal Tara began. She hesitated before speaking again.

"Out with it." Buffy was in full command mode. The feel of Willow's hand gave Tara strength she desperately needed.

"M-m-my sire, the one who made m-m-me. He's called Th-th-the Apostate." Out of the corner of her eye, Tara noticed Giles nod at this news. "He's evil."

"We've heard of The Apostate," said Giles. To Tara's immense relief he sounded calm, civilized, and non-judgmental. "And from what we've heard, he wages a private war on demonkind."

Tara nodded. "He's been like th-th-th-that ever since he got back from hell."

Buffy stopped pacing.

"I d-d-don't know all the details. But he was sent to hell and he somehow got out. I th-th-think he had some kind of help. S-s-so now he want revenge on the ones who tortured him. But he's still evil. Horribly evil."

"Tara?" Willow's voice. Music to Tara. "Is he the one who took your eye?"

She nodded. "T-t-to teach me control, he said."

Willow put her arm around her. For a moment, Tara let herself fall into that embrace. Not very much, but a little. Here was all she'd hoped for.

Buffy's voice broke into her thoughts. "Describe him. What does this Apostate look like?"

Everyone was looking at Buffy now, with the same worried look on their faces. The only exception was Riley, who looked puzzled at the intensity of Buffy's question.

"He's ugly," answered Tara. "M-m-maybe he's always been that way. Or maybe it was all the time he spent in hell. But he looks..." she struggled for the right words. "He looks like a vampire looks when they change, but w-w-with less humanity."

Now Buffy kneeled to look face-to-face with Tara. "Does he ever look different than that?"

"N-n-no."

"What about details? Does he ever mention his real name? Or maybe just another name he used to use? I mean, he wasn't always known as the Apostate, was he?" Her voice was rising.

"Buffy!" Willow interrupted the Slayer. They looked at each other for a moment. Buffy relaxed slightly.

"Sorry." Her voice was almost a whisper.

Riley was looking at everyone else's reaction. "Excuse me. What's going on here that I don't know about?"

Silence. Anya opened her mouth but shut it again at a gesture from Xander. Giles cleared his throat. "It is rather a long story, Riley. Might I suggest we table any explanations until later? Now, Tara," he sat across from her. "You say the Apostate ordered you to help us?"

Tara nodded.

"Do you have any idea why?"

"S-s-some. He wanted you to have that scroll Faith got from Los Angeles. B-b-because of the prophecy about a Vampire With A Soul."

"What about it?"

"He w-w-w-wants Willow to use the Soul Restoration Spell on him." Beside her, Tara could almost feel the red-haired witch's shock. She could see it in the face of the everyone else. "He wants his soul b-b-back."

* * *

Even deep underground, Tara could sense the sun was nearly down. She greeted that fact with a terrible glee. Her parent paced nearby, the key to her prison in his hand.

"The essential fact," he was saying, "is that the two of you are one. Magic may have riven you apart, but every instinct and intuition in both you longs for reunification. Anything else is unnatural."

He neared the door. Darkness was soon. Soon. Very soon.

"Which means my dilemma is about to solve itself." He smiled. Any human would find the sight disturbing. "And so my covert preparations against Glory may soon continue. The Slayer should thank me. She really should. But somehow, I doubt she will."

Not until the sun had actually set did he turn the key and open the door. All the other doors to the surface were already open.

* * *

Off in the corner, Tara sat and stared at setting sun through the window. She'd loved to watch sunsets once. Before her rebirth.

Willow came away from the others. "Hey."

Unbidden, a smile came to Tara's lips. "Hi."

"They're still trying to figure things out." Willow tilted her head to the back of the store, where all the scoobies were in deep talk. Or argument. "You know--what's going to happen next, the kind of things we have to prepare for, and so on."

"Whether to trust me."

"Yeah. That too." Even embarrassed, she was almost too beautiful to look on. Tara didn't understand why she had an urge to look back outside at the night.

"One other thing."

"What's that?"

"Two things, really. First, the Apostate said that someone extremely dangerous was coming here to Sunnydale. Someone he fears, and he thinks Buffy will need his help to defeat her. But I don't know any details."

Willow took this in. "And the second thing?"

"I love you."

A grin broke across Willow's face. She opened her mouth to say something, but then Giles called her name. "Be right back," she promised before heading back towards the Watcher.

I love you, thought Tara. Even as a monster, I love you.

* * *

Tara's words ringing in her ears, Willow came back to the circle of Giles and the others.

"Do you still have Jenny's notes about Soul Restoration?" The Watcher asked without preamble.

"Yes, of course."

"And do you think you might try it again, if such proved absolutely necessary."

"I...I don't know. I mean, sure I've gotten better since then but that's a really advanced spell. Not that I wouldn't try if it we really needed it, but do we? Need it, I mean?"

"The Prophecies say there has to be a Vampire With a Soul" Buffy said, her voice matter-of-fact.

"But," noted Giles, "that person's role in the forthcoming crisis is ambiguous at best."

"Which is why we've got to control who that is!"

"Buffy..."

"What?"

"Doesn't that kinda depend on who the vampire is?" There. She'd said as much as she could without actually explaining everything to Riley. Or setting off too many alarms. A quick glance at Riley left Willow uneasy about her success on the latter. He knew. Not what was going on, but that something was going on, definitely.

"Of course, Wil. That's why you have to do the spell. No one else."

Xander joined in. "Well, let's first find out all we can about this Apostate guy. Tara, is there anything more you can tell us about him?" They all looked in the direction where Tara had been waiting.

She was gone.

* * *

Tara ran into the night. She didn't know why she was doing this. More than most, she knew what sort of horrors stalked the darkness, especially in Sunnydale.

After all, she'd been one of them.

But what she'd come to think of as her witch's sense brooked no refusal. She didn't even know where she was headed. Nor how long she'd been running, until breathing began to hurt, forcing her to stop.

Looking around, she saw one of Sunnydale's many graveyards. Of course. And in the darkness, she knew something was moving towards her.

Something familiar.

TO BE CONTINUED