TITLE: Never The Twain? (Part 26/31)
AUTHOR: Zahir
FEEDBACK: Well, yeah!
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 "Weight of the World" as well as some stuff from "Angel."
DISCLAIMERS: 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. My hope is that they won't sue me. Besides, I don't own much. Honest.

* * *

Scrambling, Willow and her friends managed to get out of the overturned mobile home. The sun blazed above them. More importantly, over two dozen soldiers in chain mail were descending. Buffy met them head on. Riley, Gunn, Oz, Wesley and Tara were at her back--the last (thank god) wearing the Ring of Amara. Not only was Tara immune to the usually-fatal rays of the sun, she was practically invulnerable. The Knights of Byzantium didn't know that.

There was a deserted gas station across the road. Willow, along with Xander and Anya and Giles, formed a protective ring around Dawn. All of them headed for the station.

Buffy and the others backed up after them.

Axes and swords were swinging in the melee. Curiously, the Knights' greater numbers weren't having as great an effect as Willow would have expected. One part of her mind wondered if perhaps they were too rigid in their tactics to deal with such a diverse foe. Then again, three of those they battled were more than human. Buffy was the Slayer. Oz was a werewolf. And Tara--her Tara--was a vampire. Knowing her love was rendered invulnerable by the talisman she wore didn't ease Willow's nerves as much as she'd expected. Hearing the twang of arrows couldn't help but make her flinch. And turn around. No less than three arrows shuddered as they struck Tara's chest. It made little difference, and the Knights at last reacted to the threat she represented. More hurled themselves at Tara, whose face melted into its fierce demon-form, accepting battle.

Once inside the station, Willow began to chant. She could feel the power begin to flow, her blood tingling against her bones. Would this work? Even now, after furious study and practice, she wasn't sure. But she raised her voice, wielding the arcane words.

"Buffy!" Giles called out. "In the station!"

Almost immediately, Buffy responded. She--and those fighting at her side--broke contact with the fanatics. They ran for the gas station, as Willow chanted faster.

What happened next must have taken less than a second. Yet it seemed to last an hour at least...

She was completing the spell. Barely a word remained to be intoned. Meanwhile, Buffy and the others were racing at full speed to the safety of what would soon be a stronghold. The Knights were poised to race after them, but one man gave an order, making them hesitate, then stop. At their rear, five men aimed their crossbows.

The last word of the incantation finished just as the crossbows fired. A mystical barrier immediately began to form around the abandoned gas station. But it did not form instantly. Three crossbow bolts struck the newborn barrier and bounced off. One was slowed, then cut in half, in a fluke caught precisely between the two sides of the barrier. But the fifth and last bolt had crossed before the barrier was up. It flew straight and furious, piercing its target.

Riley coughed blood as he fell. And Buffy, hearing that, turned. She was by his side almost instantly.

The bolt had gone all the way through, its gory point sticking out of Riley's chest. His eyes met Buffy's, refusing to look elsewhere as the light in them fade to nothing.

Willow fainted.

* * *

As the sun began to set later that day, Tara held the still-unconscious Willow in her lap. Her barrier still held. Buffy kept vacillating between nervous pacing and hugging her sister. Gunn and Oz had brought Riley's body inside, covering it with a sheet of canvas. Xander and Anya were holding each other. Tara could relate. Meanwhile, Giles and Wesley were reading the scrolls brought from Doc's office.

"Tara? What's wrong with Willow?" Dawn asked this with hardly any change of inflection. Not a good sign.

"Creating the barrier exhausted her. She needs to rest."

Dawn nodded, accepting this, then wandered off. Tara kept her own gaze on Giles and Wesley as they continued reading. She had skimmed them already, and knew what they contained. And had chosen not to tell the more disturbing details. Buffy's sharp looks in her direction confirmed that instinct, as far as she was concerned. Not that she blamed the Slayer. Especially now. For a horrible moment, Tara imagined how she would have felt if that crossbow bolt had slain Willow. For a moment, the word "hell" took on a terrible meaning--to see Willow die. Slowly, firmly, not wanting to wake her beloved, Tara bent down to press her lips against Willow's brow.

"Find anything?" Buffy's voice was ragged as she approached the two Watchers. They looked up, guiltily thought Tara. But then, she knew.

"Yes," answered Giles at last. "The good news is that Glory is most definitely working against a time table. If she fails to seize Dawn by a specific hour, even a specific moment, then Dawn will be safe." He paused.

"Well," said Anya in the silence that followed, "that is good news. Isn't it?"

"Yeah," Buffy said. "That is. What else?"

"We've calculated the precise day," added Wesley, "and it seems sure that Glory needs to have Dawn by..."

"The day after tomorrow," finished Xander. Everyone looked at him. A lot. "When the new moon is parallel to Sirius and Betelgeuse."

"Y-y-yes," said Wesley. He removed his glasses, staring at Xander.

"Extraordinary," breathed Giles, putting his glasses on.

"And how the hell did you know that?" demanded Buffy.

"Don't know," Xander replied. He blinked. "Just...came to me."

"The exact equation that a hellgod needs in order to accomplish her goals" asked Wesley incredulously, "just...came to you?"

Xander wilted a little under their combined stare. "Yeah?"

"Makes sense," said Gunn. Now everyone looked at him. "The X-man had his brain sucked by this Glory-chick, right? Till you found a way to cure him?"

"That's right," answered Tara. She thought maybe she could see where Gunn was going with this.

"Of course!" uttered Wesley suddenly.

"Makes sense that maybe Xander sees things different now," finished Gunn with a shrug.

"This could prove extraordinarily useful," said Giles, his eyes almost aglow. "Xander--do you have any more insights to offer?"

"Sorry."

"What about you?" asked Buffy. "You two've been oggling these scrolls. What else do they say? Anything else about what Glory wants with my sister? What she's trying to do? Why these Knights want to stop her? Why Riley had to..." Trembling, Buffy stopped herself from saying anything more. She tilted back her head, all too clearly to keep tears from starting to flow. Deep breaths followed. Very deep ones, for nearly a minute. At last, she slowly lowered her head and drilled into the Watchers with bright, hurting eyes. "What" she whispered, "do those damn scrolls say?"

Tara didn't know either Giles or Wesley terribly well, but their discomfort at that question was achingly obvious. Especially Giles. And these were Willow's friends. Her dearest friends, ripping at each others open wounds because they couldn't help it.

"Glory wants to go home, to the hell dimension from which she was exiled. That's why she wants the Key, to open a portal between this world and her own. But to do that, she needs Dawn's blood. She needs to shed it, using Dawn's life to rip open a door. What she can't control is which door will open, so she intends to open them all. Thousands and thousands of dark realms and hells touch this reality in some way. Glory will hurl open all those gates. Chaos will build on chaos as other realities pour into this one while Glory makes her escape. And the Earth dissolves. Until the blood of the Key flows no more, which won't happen until Dawn herself dies. That's what the scrolls say." Tara had spoken slowly, deliberately. It was vital Buffy understand precisely what was at stake. More, she had to take that ugly task away from Buffy's and sweet Willow's friends. That, at the least, she could do.

Buffy looked at Giles for confirmation. He reluctantly nodded. So too did Wesley, meeting the Slayer's eyes unflinching.

Dawn had gone pale. Tara had a flash of deja vu and spoke up again. "Dawn? Anyone can kill. Everybody has the power to torture."

"Not like me."

"But we all have it. What matters is what we do, not what we might do." Should she go further? Explain how as a human she'd been told she was destined to become a demon, that she'd do terrible crimes because it was her irrevocable nature. And that, as a genuine demon (which was an ironic fluke, really, since her family had lied), she learned even then such acts were far from inevitable? No, let her digest what she could for now. Too much and she'd react even worse. Let the truth live in her. For a time.

"Are you telling me," said Buffy in a dangerous voice, "to kill my sister?"

"No!" piped in Anya. "What she's saying is you've gotta keep her out of Glory's clutches for another couple of days!"

"That would, of course, be best," said Giles.

"Ideal," Wesley echoed.

"We know what we've gotta do, then," Xander exclaimed. "Just protect Dawn for another two days. And we're home free." His deliberately cheerful tone faded as he looked at Dawn's eyes.

"Protect me?" she whispered. "Like Faith did? Like Riley?"

No one answered.

* * *

Willow woke to a gentle rocking sensation. It very nearly hurt, her brain feeling bruised and all. But because she knew without opening her eyes whose arms wrapped and swayed and protected her, the pleasure eclipsed any discomfort.

"Hey, you" she whispered, eyes closed. Cool lips pressed against her forehead, feeling good. "Sorry about going all girly and fainting."

"Shhhhhh..." Tara said. "Rest some more. You need it."

"Nope." Deliberately (and reluctantly) Willow sat up. "Ow."

"Your head?"

"Uh-huh. And my guts. Plus there's this weird tendency for my teeth to go all rubbery. No," she resisted Tara's attempts to make her lie down, "time to get up." She nearly regretted this as she peaked out from behind eyelids at a spinning world.

"Sure?"

"No. But its too late now." Willow concentrated. The sun had set, for no light peaked through the windows. Buffy was near the front door, standing towards it, back to everyone else. Nearly everyone was lying down, a few low snores confirming their sleep. Anya and Xander were coiled up together, while Dawn managed to curl her lanky frame into an abandoned back seat of a car. Willow took another sweep of the room. Then another. She looked back at Tara. "Riley?"

Tara shook her head. Willow couldn't be surprised. The image of Buffy's boyfriend's chest with a crossbow bolt emerging from it was only too vivid. Hard to forget. Difficult not think of with horror--especially given the little detail that Willow herself was in love with a vampire. Wooden weapons piercing chests and hearts had become a special terror. Her hand reached to Tara's, almost instinctually checking that her love yet wore the protective Ring of Amara.

No need for words. Their hands held each other tight.

"Some news," began Tara after another minute or two. She kept her voice low. "Giles and Wesley finished reading the scrolls. Everything was pretty much what I thought--although they've worked out the precise time for Glory's ritual. The night after tomorrow. Buffy...didn't react very well. All she can think of what can go wrong."

Willow nodded. Understandable. Two boyfriends in a row killed right in front of her--how can anyone cope well with that? "Any other good news?" She smiled wanly.

"Actually, yes." Tara's reply surprised Willow. "Seems Xander has some kind of psychic power now, so he knows things about Glory, about what she needs. In the morning we're going to do some testing, see how much we can find out."

Too tired to do more than nod at this, Willow leaned up against Tara, who shifted to accomdate her. "Not a good place we're at right now," she quietly said.

"Oh, it could be worse."

"Yeah, we could be up to your eyebrows in poisonous scorpions."

She felt rather than saw Tara smile. "As opposed to non-poisonous ones."

"Or Glory might not have been an invulnerable hellgod."

"What else could she have been?"

"Something worse."

"Like?"

"An insurance salesman."

This time the smile showed in Tara's voice. "A telemarketer insurance salesman.!"

"Maybe a Jehovah's Witness telemarketer insurance salesman!"

"A Jehovah's Witness telemarketer insurance salesman who works part-time for the IRS!"

"No," finished Willow "what would have been really bad--if she was all of that plus she was a televangelist!"

Strange, thought Willow to herself, how little I've heard Tara giggle. Not that hers was a loud giggle--more like a galloping shudder along the length of her body. Punctuated, as it turned out, but tiny snorting sounds. It was really odd. And utterly charming. Willow let herself enjoy the experience for a little bit.

"What are you two laughing at?" Buffy's voice wasn't (quite) a dash of cold water. She did, however, dampen their reactions as she loomed over them suddenly. Unlike either Willow or Tara, she made no attempt to lower her voice. All around the room, people were shaking themselves awake.

"How? Where? What?" mumbled Xander, flickering his eyes open.

"Buffy? Has something happened?" Giles had awakened almost instantly.

"Willow and Tara," the Slayer said in earnest indignation, "were laughing." She looked at everyone as if daring them not to share in condemning them. No one else uttered a word. At first. Then...

"Buffy." Dawn's eyes grabbed her sister. "I say--anyone who finds any reason to smile in all this," she said "let them." It took a moment, but the Slayer began to relax. It wasn't like deflating, more like a letting go. All the battle-ready tension that had made her seem like a spring just vanished. One moment she'd looked ready to attack her best friend's vampire lover. The next, she was walking over to her sister, and hugging her.

"You're only fourteen," she muttered in mock crankiness. "You're not supposed to be wise. Stop it."

Dawn hugged back. "You first."

* * *

Tara heard it first. What sounded like wind--or maybe a stampede, but with only one horse. It was the silence as Dawn and Buffy comforted each other that let her hear it.

Next was Xander. His head whipped in the direction of the dirty windows. Being closer, he got to them first, and looked out.

"Uh...People? Trouble!"

Moments later, everyone was up against the grimy glass. It was night, and the glass was caked with dirt. Plus there was the mystical barrier which distorted everything beyond. Yet certain details were clear. And nothing interfered with the sounds coming from the encamped Knights of Byzantium. Yells were the least of it. The clash of weapons made up much of the noise, along with an occasional scream for punctuation. Meanwhile, a cloud of dust literally made its way through the camp--like a tiny dust storm.

"Dawn," said Buffy, "go and hide." The dust cloud was getting closer. "Now!"

Amid all the tumult outside, a red figure was now very obvious. She was wearing a tight red dress, a mini in fact, with matching pumps. Her golden hair was done up nicely, probably having killed half a can of hairspray to create the effect. Right now, she was moving just slow enough to make out her actions--twisting blades back into their wielders' bodies, kicking armored figures twenty or thirty feet, punching through chain-mail-guarded torsos with all the apparent effort of someone wading through really heavy grass.

Glory finally reached the mystic barrier, only to find herself blocked by a middle-aged man in better armor than the others. She blinked, and grinned. "Gregor!" she exclaimed before picking him up with one hand "Have I thanked you yet for leading me to the Key?"

Then she yanked his head off his neck with one, brutal twist.

Her next blow was against the mystic barrier. It collapsed with a thunderclap. Less than a quarter of a second later--too fast for anyone inside to respond--she ripped open the wall of the abandoned gas station.

Tara raced towards Glory as fast as she could. Buffy of course beat her there, only to be picked up by the Hellgod with a sneer. "Get serious," she said, then tossed Buffy to the other side of the room. Tara landed no less than three kicks to her knee, making Glory stumble but only for a moment. "Hey! Don't I know you?" Glory reached down to pick up a piece of wood. Then she closed one hand on Tara's shoulder before driving it into Tara's heart. Even she looked surprised as her vampiric foe didn't turn to dust but punched her in the jaw. Hard. Twice. "Neat trick," smiled Glory. "Wanna see one of mine?" Bracing herself, she lifted Tara by the wood in her chest and threw the vampire behind her.

Although the wood through her heart couldn't kill Tara, it was big enough (along with the hard landing) to hurt. She barely heard Anya's frantic shriek of "Xander!" When she did, she looked up to see an amazing sight.

Xander was trading blows with Glory. Or something like that, because not one of Glory's fists was ever coming into contact with him. Each time she swung, he perfectly dodged the blow. A good thing, too, since one that missed punched a hole in the concrete wall behind him.

Unfortunately, not of his own blows were doing anything to slow Glory down.

It was at this moment that Dawn tried to run. Glory turned away from Xander.

Buffy hurled herself at Glory, only to be tossed aside. Dawn got barely two steps after that before Glory had one arm around her waist.

Then, with what sounded like a cackle, Glory ran fast enough to leave a cloud of dust in her wake.

As the dust settled, not even Tara's vision could detect a sign of them.

TO BE CONTINUED