TITLE: Never The Twain? (Part 15/31)
AUTHOR: Zahir
FEEDBACK: Please. Pretty please. With sugar on top. And a cherry.
ARCHIVING: Just ask is all.
SYNOPSIS: This is an alternate history in which Willow never completed the Soul Restoration Spell. Of all the changes that flow from that one, the biggest is that Tara is a vampire. Oh, and Faith never worked for the Mayor.
COUPLES: W/T, X/Ay, B/R
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: Up through and including "Blood Ties" as well as some stuff from "Angel."
DISCLAIMERS: Most of the toys I'm playing with belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I promise not to make money off them and to put them back none the worse for wear.
NOTE: The part of Jocelyn in my own mind is played by Gigi Edgely. For those of you who don't know, she portrays Chiana on the tv show "Farscape."

* * *

"Uh...thanks."

The expression on Buffy's face was a very fixed smile. Very. As in artificial. Fake. Willow stole a quick glance at Riley, anxious he was going to feel hurt. But no--he looked as genuinely pleased as a child winning a checkers. Meanwhile, Buffy looked down at all the weapons manuals she'd just removed from the wrapped box. The wrapping paper was mismatched pastels.

"Happy Birthday!" Riley was grinning as he said it.

Willow stole at glance at everyone else at the party. Joyce was smiling with what seemed like warmth. Giles was nearly as good. Xander, drugged into quietness, just stared at the colors. Only Anya, holding his hand, tilted her head in honest confusion.

"Why did you get her manuals for weapons she doesn't have?"

(Note to self, thought Willow, don't keep wearing turtlenecks around Anya once the weather warms up.)

Riley looked at her as if she'd just admitted to getting polka-dot tattoos. He didn't say anything. Which seemed wrong, somehow.

"For future reference," stated Buffy. "Thanks, honey," she said, adding a loud smooch on her boyfriend's cheek. His smile was entirely too cartoonish for Willow's taste.

"Prezzies! More prezzies!"

Willow nearly handed hers to the birthday girl, but Giles beat her to it. Giles? I must be more tired than I thought. Must remember to take those vitamins and follow the doctor's diet. At the same time, not let her best friend and roommate notice anything was different. So far, not too difficult. Enough travails were wandering around in Buffy's life right now--specifically, a bleached-blonde hellgod looking to find her little sister for Who-Knows-What-Purpose-But-Odds-Are-Something-Evil. So Buffy was distracted. It hadn't really registered on her that Willow was spending a lot of every night away from their dorm room. Or that she was weaker than usual. Yet Buffy was smart enough that if one word of Willow's "anemia" came to her attention, she'd remember how her best friend had managed not to let anyone see her neck in over a week. And the violence would ensue.

She couldn't let that happen.

"Where's Dawnie?" she asked.

"Upstairs," shrugged Buffy. "The angst of the newly minted teen at someone else's birthday."

"All shiny," muttered Xander, "and bright and pretty. Like a doubloon in the pirate's treasure."

Everyone was silent for a moment. United in discomfort. Everybody looked at their good friend, now a wasted remnant of what he'd been. His eyes continued to be vacant, with the occasional twitches in each limb. Anya brought him to her in a comforting hug. Xander mewled. Willow was reminded how she and Tara had been doing some research into maybe healing her oldest friend. Had his insanity been natural, it would have been far too dangerous. But this condition had been caused by magic. Magic, at least in theory, could undo what had been done.

So she hoped.

* * *

"What are you doing out?"

Dawn spun around at the sound of Tara's voice. For the barest of seconds, she had the look of a kitten caught in headlights. But she recovered quickly.

"I can ask you the same question!"

"Fair enough," answered Tara. She emerged from the shadows of the tree outside the Summers' house. Dawn did a little take.

"Your eye..."

Tara touched her face. "Its glass. Pretty good, don't you think? I can't see the effect, myself."

Dawn stepped closer to get a better look. Privately, Tara was pleased to think the Slayer's sister wasn't afraid to get this close to her. The teenager peered into the vampire's face.

"They look alike. Pretty much, anyway. The same color blue." Dawn nodded. "How does it feel?"

"Kinda like a bandage."

"Oh." She clearly didn't know how to respond to this.

"Now, about that deal."

"What deal?"

"You tell me what you're doing out here. And I tell you what I'm doing."

Dawn pondered this for a bit. Then she gestured. "Not here. Let's get out of big sister range."

The teenager led the vampire away, to somewhere they could talk. As they left, Tara took a quick look back at the house where Willow was. She shouldn't feel anxious, she knew that. Later tonight, they'd be together. But this was one of the symptoms of love, she supposed. No way she could get enough of the sight of her beautiful red-haired witch.

* * *

The party continued, quiet in its way but also slightly manic. Willow thought everyone's reaction to cake was just a little over the top. Even her own. Joyce offered a slice to Giles in a decidedly flirtatious way. Buffy glared at them hard enough they parted ways. Riley just would not sit down half the time, insisted on remaining at parade rest. Weird. And the way Buffy insisted on playing Monopoly! It was...odd. Especially as Buffy would cackle everytime she got to buy something or any player had to pay her rent. Stranger--and more disturbing still--were the cracks about beating up anyone who insisted she pay up when landing on their properties. After a while, the way she kept getting out the weapons manuals Riley got her, flipping through the pages and muttering "See, with this one no one could get out alive" really got on Willow's nerves.

Willow found herself off in the sidelines with Anya.

"Does all this seem strange to you?"

"You mean, how Buffy's acting crazy?"

"Well, yeah. Kinda."

"I'm putting it down to stress. Her mom getting sick. Glory the hellgod wanting to grab her sister. After a vampire tried to drain said sister."

"Plus...you know."

The deliberate cheerfulness in Anya's face faltered. "Xander." She looked so sad for a moment, so devastated, Willow decided to be a little reckless.

"We might have found something," she whispered to Anya.

Anya looked at her, baffled. "We?"

"Tara and me. Don't tell Buffy." Willow's voice sank even lower.

"I can't hear you."

Carefully, Willow raised the volume of her voice. "Me and Tara." She shot a quick glance at Buffy, who was far too cheerfully demanding her mother pay up or face the wrath of the chosen one. "She has these amazing books on demonology and magic. Besides, she knows more about Glory than anyone, because of what the Apostate told her. Anyway, there're these references to various healing demons."

"I thought of that," Anya interrupted. "Remember, I used to be one?"

"A healing demon?"

"No. I was a vengeance demon. But I got to know a lot of other types of demons over the centuries."

"Oh. But I thought most demons only stick around their own kind."

"They usually do. But sometimes they act in concert for a common goal. Like when they belong to the same cult. Or a moon demon hunt. Plus sometimes there's a big ceremony where everybody who's anybody has to show up, bring sacrifices, that kind of thing."

"I guess that makes sense. So you know about healing demons?"

"Yep." This was not said with anything like optimism. "As a rule, they're mercenaries of a type. You have to pay them to get their help--usually in pain or body parts." She sighed. "Not that they'd help any friend of a slayer, anyway."

Willow wished she could dispute any of this. Unfortunately, Anya was the expert here, and she had the fiercest motivation for healing Xander. She'd practically put herself in orbit around him.

"We'll keep looking anyway," she whispered to Anya.

"Thanks." Anya's reply was very, very quiet.

* * *

"We could simply break the door, you know."

Tara sighed. She didn't need to, being dead and all. But habits were habits.

"Do you want Giles to know somebody's been going through his things?"

Dawn considered this. "But the shop's getting broken into all the time, anyway."

"No reason to get sloppy." Tara's voice was firm. Dawn subsided, waiting as patiently as a 14-year-old can while Tara tried to pick the magic store's lock. Not very successfully.

"So you're in love with Willow?"

"That's right."

"I thought vampires couldn't love."

"Not exactly." Tara nearly welcomed the distraction. For one thing, she preferred intelligent inquiry to adolescent nagging any night. Besides, she'd been trying to articulate this very thing for a long time. "Vampires are demons. Demons are predators, and we have all of a predator's instincts."

"But no soul."

"Right. I think humans use their soul to feel some emotions. For us, though, the potential is there but atrophied. Most vampires just ride wherever their instincts take them."

"How come that isn't true for you?"

"Don't know."

The teenager pondered this. "So were you always gay?"

"Yes."

"So that doesn't change, then?"

"I don't think so."

"What about Willow?"

Tara stopped. She looked at Dawn. "What about her?"

Both teenager and vampire jumped as the door to the magic shop suddenly swung open. Jocelyn--in full demon face--peeked her head out, taking them in.

"Hey guys! Why didn't ya knock?"

Silence.

Dawn finally spoke. "We didn't know anybody was here."

"And," continued Tara, "we didn't want to bother Giles."

"Okay-dokey. Come on in!"

* * *

"Where're ya goin' Wil?"

"Just for a walk, Buffy. My stomach's upset."

"Too much cake?"

"Yeah. Some fresh air'll do me good."

Buffy nodded in a very control-mode kind of way. Oh dear. Willow felt less than thrilled as her best friend turned to Riley with the air of an officer giving orders. "Willow's going for a walk," she said, "go with her."

"I don't need..."

"Wil, Sunnydale's dangerous enough and now Glory's out there. You're a lot safer with an escort."

Riley was very nearly at attention. What was it with people lately? Giving in to the inevitable, Willow nodded. At least Riley seemed pleased--give the boy a job, any job, and he felt the better for it. Okay. But before she could even take another full step towards the front door, Willow noticed Joyce coming from upstairs, looking distressed.

"Buffy! Dawn--she's missing."

Everybody (except Xander) instantly went on the alert. Buffy turned to Willow. "Could anybody have gotten past that warding spell without you knowing it?"

"No! No way. I mean--it wouldn't do more than slow anybody down, but it's make plenty of sound is anything demonic or even supernatural broke the circle."

"She's probably gone off on her own," ventured Giles.

"In Sunnydale?" Buffy's voice was furious, indignant.

"C'mon," said Willow, "she's only fourteen."

The slayer's face drained of any emotion, gaining that focus Willow knew by now meant she was going to put up with nothing that even smacked of nonsense. Or dissent. "Riley. Willow. Do a circuit around the neighborhood. Anya, you and Giles head for the Magic Shoppe."

"Buffy!"

She looked at Willow. "What?"

Willow gestured towards Xander, rocking on the sofa, Anya's arms protectively around his shoulders, her expression a mix of appalled and defiant.

"Anya needs to stay with Xander," Willow said to Buffy's puzzled expression. Rather more slowly than it should have, Buffy's face registered what she'd said. She looked around.

"Mom? You stay here. Dawn might simply come back on her own. I'll go with Giles."

"Alright, honey."

"Let's go people!"

* * *

Jocelyn proved more than cooperative. When Dawn (rather brazenly, in Tara's opinion) asked to see Giles' most recent journal, the half-demon picked the drawer's lock with no trouble and presented the book to her with a flourish. Now she crouched atop the counter, tail flicking back and forth while Dawn read.

Tara herself looked around the shop, quietly noting how a few books and amulets had been rearranged since she was here last. Nothing very obvious. But something tickled at the back of her mind. Some little detail. A clue?

"The monks," read Dawn aloud, "had to make sure the Slayer would protect the Key with her life. So they gave it human form." She said these last words with no inflection. Then stopped. For what seemed like forever.

"Wow," said Jocelyn at last. "So none of us in this room is completely human!"

"I wouldn't put it that way," answered Tara deliberately. She watched the unmoving Dawn while she spoke. "From what Giles says, Dawn is completely human. She's even Buffy's sister. They altered reality to give the Key a form, but that form is just as real as anything else."

"Still," insisted Jocelyn cheerfully, "its not like she's really fourteen. Or like Mrs. Summers is really her mother."

"Of course she is."

"Noooooooo...!" She shook her head like a clown.

"Yes!" Tara was a little startled at how forcefully she said this. "If I did a spell, for example, that shrimp no longer existed, then I would have changed reality. Shrimp wouldn't pretend not to exist, they really wouldn't. And if I did it right, shrimp would never have existed and no one would remember them. The world wouldn't be full of invisible shrimp nobody could remember! I'd've created a different, but true reality."

"C'mon, that's not the same thing."

"Its exactly the same thing!" Still no reaction from Dawn. This was not good. "If Dawn really is this Key, then she's real. Even if somebody magically created the form she's in now, that doesn't change the fact her form is real. Its kind of like finding out you were reincarnated. Only with some bells and whistles."

Jocelyn looked skeptical. "I think you're stretching, girlfriend."

Tara fumed. "I am not your..." She stopped herself. "Anyway, the whole point is that Dawn is human. However she got that way, she's human now. And she's who she is, even if how she got here is rather...exotic."

"Exotic?" Dawn's voice was so low Tara might not have heard it if she wasn't a vampire. From Jocelyn's turn of head, clearly she heard it as well. "Exotic means weird. Unusual. Freakish."

Silence followed. Cut into suddenly by Tara. "Unique. Individual. Extraordinary. And exotic also means pretty, valuable, rare."

"Alone." If anything, Dawn's voice went even lower.

Tara strode over to where Dawn sat, hunched in and looking at no one. She sat beside her, putting one arm around her. Each shoulder felt like steel, she was so tense. But she didn't react to Tara's presence at all. Memories of her human mother's death came unbidden to Tara.

"Dawn."

No answer.

"Dawn," Tara repeated. "How do you know we aren't all Keys? Or something else? Maybe that's all the universe is, a place for magical some things to have form. Remember last year, when everybody thought Jonathan invented the internet and starred in The Matrix?"

"I wasn't there."

"You don't know that."

"I. Wasn't. There."

Tara paused. "For all any of us know, the world began five seconds ago, complete with a bunch of memories created along with the trees and iguanas and pizza parlors and everything."

Atop the counter, Jocelyn cocked her head. "I like that idea," she almost hissed.

Ignoring her, Tara leaned in closer to Dawn. Pitching her voice low, she spoke with an surprising intensity. At least surprising to her. "Listen to me. This is something I know--it doesn't matter. Not in any way that counts. Whether you're a Key, or a changeling left by fairies, or a vampire or a clone, or simply a little girl whose sister happens to be the Slayer--you are what you think, and do, and feel. That's why people care. And in the end, that's why they love."

Dawn trembled. Only for a moment, and only slightly but Tara felt it. Maybe she was getting through to her? She could hope.

"You," began Dawn, "really believe that?" A deep, almost shuddering breath. "How can you?"

"I do more than believe. By now, I know."

Now Dawn looked at Tara. "Because of Willow? Because she loves you?"

Tara nodded. She could feel the girl's stare boring into her. On an impulse, she hugged her. After a moment or two, Dawn hugged back. Tara rocked the girl gently, feeling the first few deep breaths that came before crying. In some part of her mind, Tara was surprised she still recognized all this. Perhaps she hadn't lost as much as she thought when the Apostate had sired her. Or when she and Willow together had reunited the demon and the human. This was a subtle pleasure, to be sure. Delicate even, giving comfort to a confused and horrified young woman. Yet she welcomed it.

"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY SISTER!"

Buffy stood in the front door, teeth bared, her entire body ready to spring. The axe in her hand only added to the effect.

Dawn pulled away from Tara. Her eyes were red, puzzled, angry. Hurt. She stared at her sister.

Buffy spoke through clenched teeth. "Dawn! Come to me!" The girl hesitated. "NOW!"

"You," said Dawn sullenly, "aren't my sister." Buffy's eyes widened. "I don't have to obey you."

"Do what she says," whispered Tara. "The truth is--she loves you." Dawn took this in reluctantly. With a certain awkward grace, she stood and headed towards Buffy. It took her longer than it should have. But when she got there, she looked the Slayer straight in the eye.

"Why didn't you tell me?" The indignation in Dawn's voice was like nails on a chalkboard. "Why?"

At first, Buffy didn't answer. "I was afraid of telling anyone."

"She was trying to protect you," added Tara from across the room. "In her heart--where it counts--you are her sister."

Now Buffy snarled. She stepped past Dawn, almost ignoring her. From the counter top, Jocelyn watched with fascination. Buffy looked on the verge of a berserk rage.

"Willow's in the hospital," she intoned.

Tara stood. "Why? What happened?"

"You already know." Buffy advanced in a murderous frenzy. "Bunch of Glory's minions tried grabbing her and Riley. In the fight, Willow fainted. Riley administered first aid." By now her eyes nearly glowed. "Guess what he found on her throat?"

What happened next very nearly seemed to be in slow motion. Buffy's axe swept in an arc towards Tara's neck. The vampire managed to duck only barely, then rolled away as fast as she could manage. She was only just fast enough as the axe's blade sliced through a part of her coat and imbedded itself in the floor. Dawn was screaming her sister's name. Jocelyn had stood up, her tail now swinging back and forth like a whip. Tara herself jumped beneath a table, putting its solid bulk between herself and the slayer. It wouldn't work for long, but she needed these few moments. She reached into her blouse as fast as she could, then dashed out towards the back door.

Buffy did something superhuman. She jumped over Tara and landed at the door before her. One spinning kick sent the blonde demon flying to the floor. Without a pause Buffy had her wooden stake out. She leapt with unerring aim, driving it deep into Tara's heart! It went all the way through and its tip hit the shop's floor.

And Tara looked up at Buffy, unharmed.

The slayer's eyes went huge. After that, they quickly went to each of Tara's hands. What she was looking for was on the left--the Ring of Amara. Rendering any vampire who wears it immune to the sun or the stake.

"That's why you seduced Willow," she hissed!

"Wrong!" Tara focused her will. With a word, she pushed Buffy off her and into the air. She landed with a thud. Tara herself jump up, and quickly pulled out the stake. In one movement, she raced towards the front door, tossing the stake at Dawn as she did.

* * *

Once into the night, she fled into the shadows where she knew the slayer could not find her. From alleyway to rooftop, via parking lot and even through a few abandoned buildings, she carefully avoided leaving a trail. She did not stop moving for at least an hour. When she did, she found herself at a motel. The parking area was filled with people, almost all of them her own age. Loud music blared. Pictures were projected onto the wall. Nearly everyone's clothes were...well, odd. One whiff told her that pot as well as crack was being smoked, along with the more usual tobacco. A rave. It must be. Good. The kind of place even a berserk slayer would not turn into a battle zone. Assuming, of course, she even managed to trace Tara here. Wait for an hour or two. Perhaps find somebody in a wacked-up enough mood from whom to feed. Then, back to her hidden lair. Only Willow knew where that was.

Willow. Thoughts of the redhead made Tara pause. Freeze, actually. With fear. Not of death, for in truth she'd died once and since then she'd found a surprising courage. Perhaps a legacy of her demon. But fear of losing Willow.

The tap on her shoulder brought her out of that mood. She turned to see an impossibly perky young lady smiling at her. For a moment, Tara didn't recognize her. When she did, it was all she could do not to drop her jaw.

"Britney Spears?"

"No," said the girl, a shade too precisely. "My name is April. Have you seen Warren?"

TO BE CONTINUED