Summers Back Yard, Sunnydale, California, Late March 2003 (Tuesday Fandom Time)
So Buffy and Giles were having some kind of argument, Kennedy could tell that much. Something to do with Spike's chip, or possibly the principal of the high school who might or might not be evil. To tell the truth she was a bit too distracted to pick out the details. She had good reasons, though, right? Potentials to wrangle, Slay-training to do, three months' worth of unresolved tension to, uh, release (in a PG sort of way) with that girl she wasn't calling that word yet since they were sort of easing into this thing.
Okay, mainly that third item, but in her defense see above re: three months. And change.
If the other Potentials had noticed, and it was hard for them not to considering the number of people in the house and accompanying relative lack of privacy, they weren't giving her a hard time about it to her face. Mainly, Kennedy suspected they were reaping the benefits of her good mood. Even if they did have anything to say she wouldn't have cared.
The Scoobies were a slightly different matter, if only because they were actually friends with Willow, but again Kennedy wouldn't have let it get her down if they didn't like it.
Well, no one had said anything to her yet, although she thought she'd heard Dawn muttering in the foyer when they'd snuck back upstairs for a few minutes after breakfast.
Still? She was in a pretty good mood, and humming to herself as she wrestled makeshift practice dummies into position for the afternoon's training session.
Dawn
So. Stuff had happened. Spike didn't have a chip. Dawn didn't know how she felt about that. Buffy had a date. That should end well. Xander had a date. That would probably end even better. And Willow....
"You're nothing like her, you know."
Kennedy
"And hi to you too, Dawn." Had the kid seemed more hostile toward Kennedy than she had in a while? Maybe, but Kennedy hadn't exactly noticed.
So if she was being baited, she wasn't going to rise to it just yet. Seriously, why ruin her good mood?
Dawn
Dawn glared as Kennedy ignored her tone. This wasn't about the usual teasing and making the newbie cranky. This was about....
"You don't get it. You don't get any of it. And you don't know enough to even ask."
Kennedy
"Okay, what?" Kennedy turned around and leaned against the stack of hay bales (she wasn't asking where they'd rounded those up) that made up their little home archery range. Hooking her thumbs into her belt loops, she shook her head at Dawn. Still level-voiced for now, but wary. "I get that maybe this is where I'm supposed to be defending myself, but... some context here, maybe?"
Dawn
"They were going to be together. Forever." Dawn walked down and punched at the dummy just to see it move, not looking at Kennedy. "Willow had finally gotten clean, and then Tara came back, and they were happy. I came up that morning and they were all wrapped up in sheets and giggly and things were good, and then Warren--" Ruined it. Ruined everything. She looked at Kennedy. "And Willow just didn't deal."
Kennedy
Okay, that--
That was so easy to picture, the two of them together, even if she didn't cheat by thinking about Homecoming that one year. Kennedy's heart melted a little at the image, and that reaction manifested itself as her closing her eyes for a moment and wincing. She wanted to yell at Dawn, tell her to back off or drop it or something, but damn if Dawn wasn't right about how perfect it should have been and that just hurt right now.
"Can you blame her for not just dealing?" was what she said instead, still quiet and steady but just barely. "'cause I sure as hell don't."
Dawn
"No." Yes. When she thought of the other chances Willow had, and blown, and her threatening to unravel Dawn like a ball of yarn. "Sort of." Thought of Tara. Her voice softer, Dawn said again, "No."
She studied Kennedy, evaluating her more. It almost sounded like maybe, maybe Kennedy did get it. A little. That didn't make up for it, though. "But you, you don't get what the power does to her. Or what being hurt does to her. You're just being all optimistic and gung-ho and let's-deal and it's not that simple."
Kennedy
"Never said it was. I mean, god, there's nothing about this that isn't complicated." And maybe there was a warning in Dawn's words, but... Kennedy picked a stray bit of hay from one of the bales and stared down as she worried it to bits between her fingers.
"Hell, if it wasn't, I'd have made my move a long time ago."
Dawn
"Didn't notice it really stopping you." Dawn knew she was being childish. Tried to care. But the essence of it was, Kennedy wasn't Tara. And it still made her angry, almost a year later, that Tara was gone.
"I was the one that sat with her body. For hours. While Willow went on a rampage." Tears were standing in her eyes. "Buffy and I were the ones calling people because Willow was too wrecked. And I didn't mind that part, I wanted to do something. She was special. And now...." What, she was just supposed to be okay with this? Be all friends with Kennedy and happy Willow had someone new? "You aren't her. You'll never be her."
Kennedy
Kennedy was trying to keep it under control, she really was, but it was too easy to picture that, too. She didn't want to. She kept trying not to think about it and focus instead on how the Tara she knew was okay, but--
"I'm not her, I know! I get that, okay?" she finally snapped, her voice really breaking now. "Do you even know how much I get that, or have you just been waiting to go judgey on me for it all this time?"
Dawn
Dawn frowned, wiping at her eyes, surprised. Watching Kennedy. She'd needed to say it to somebody! Everybody else was just so happy Willow was better, it was like they forgot Tara. And Kennedy was tough, and she hadn't known her, and... "How much do you get it?" she asked, voice quieter.
Kennedy
You'd think explaining this would get easier on the third try, but no. Not really.
So maybe it was a surprise that Kennedy reached a hand up to dash it across her eyes, once, like she was annoyed with herself for having to, except that she didn't look all that annoyed when she pulled her hand away.
"Because," she said, looking right at Dawn with her jaw set but her voice still shaky, "I fell in love with her for being nothing like me. Okay?"
Dawn
Dawn took a step forward, didn't wipe at her eyes again, voice cracking. "What?"
Kennedy
"You heard me," Kennedy said, a little more firmly by now but only because she was forcing it. "You don't really know me, Dawn, so don't assume what, or who, I do and don't know. I spent the best year and a half of my bizarro high school life with that girl, so I'm pretty much painfully aware how much I'm not her."
Dawn
Dawn just stared, face still damp. "This better not be a joke. Because it's so not funny." She didn't think it was, though. Kennedy looked like Dawn felt, in a Kennedy way. "Wait. So Tara. Another Tara. She's still... somewhere?"
Kennedy
"I wouldn't joke about that," Kennedy snapped. "Not about her, ever."
She ran both hands through her hair, kept her fingers tangled up in it. "And... yeah. She is."
Dawn
Dawn sniffed. Fought to keep her face from crumpling. Inhaled. "That's... Amazing." She hugged herself, trying to deal. And even after all this time, and knowing it wasn't her Tara, and that was a bad idea, she had to ask, her voice very small. "Could you tell her I miss her?"
Kennedy
That shocked a tiny, strangled laugh out of Kennedy, who had to bite down on one knuckle to half-muffle the sound before it turned into something truly embarrassing and much more along the lines of crying.
"If I could even get in touch with her right now," she got out. "I mean, I don't know, but..."
She took a breath and nodded. "Sometime, if I ever get back in touch, I'll think of something."
It probably was a bad idea. But then, a lot of hers were.
Dawn
Dawn wiped at her face with both hands, nodding hard, pacing away, and back. Then stopping to look at Kennedy. Apologizing would be too much, but. "So. Okay. You get... parts of this."
Kennedy didn't get the whole Doomed Scooby Romance Deal, or how absolutely screwed up various people in this house were when it came to the opposite or interested sex. But. Who could, if they hadn't been here for six years?
Kennedy
Well, she'd heard the short version of Xander's story, but she kind of refused to believe that sort of thing was applicable across the board.
...though arguably she'd had a taste of that herself, just a week or so ago.
"Parts of it," she agreed, because that was true. "Not everything. Grant you that."
She shrugged. "Look, you want to hate me for being here when she isn't, go ahead. I don't care. Hate me for 'replacing' her, even if that's so not true. You wanna do that, have a ball. I hate a lot of things in the universe because she's not here now. Just... don't assume I don't understand why Willow still misses her so much."
Dawn
She'd learn. Probably. (Hopefully she'd be around long enough to learn....)
"I don't hate you." Dawn rolled her eyes. "It was a valid assumption. Just, you know. Wrong. Alternate universes mess everything up." She swallowed. "I'm not cutting you any slack. But. I'll give you crap for being you. Not for not being Tara. Fair?"
Kennedy
Kennedy snorted, this time with a touch of humor behind it.
"By this point? I'd wonder if you were a pod person if you didn't give me crap."
Dawn
"Heh." Dawn smirked. Blinked more tears back, and nodded. "There's speeches about shovels and stuff I should give here, but honestly, if you hadn't figured out what I'll do to you if Willow gets hurt by now, you're dumber than you look."
Kennedy
"Hey," Kennedy said, but mildly; the unexpected emotional gutpunch of the past few minutes managed to combine with her overall good mood of the past few days in a weird, weird way that took away a lot of her inclination to argue. "I already promised Xander, if she's gonna get hurt it isn't gonna be by me. If I break that promise, you can fight him for first-shovel privileges."
She paused.
"Hell, I break that promise, I'm holding you to it."
Dawn
Dawn nodded solemnly. "Deal."
And if Willow ended up hurting Kennedy, Dawn wasn't going to say 'I told you so.' Because hey. If she cared enough to try, she deserved her shot. Dawn might even smack Willow, if that happened.
She headed back toward the stairs, not feeling up to the usual annoying comment on Kennedy's fighting skills. "And if all the dates work out like they could tonight, you'll get a chance to really consider that position. So have a stake ready."
Kennedy
Between the two of them, they were just a regular annoy-a-thon. Like an endless loop of annoying if they really put their minds to it.
How come nobody ever thought of fighting the First Evil by threatening it with that, anyway?
"Optimism isn't a good look on you, Dawn," Kennedy retorted, back to wrangling the practice dummies.
Another beat.
"...wait, there could be actual slayage involved?"
Cool.
[[nfi/nfb, ooc-okay, you know the drill. preplayed with the effervescent regretiz4suckas as inthekeyofme, and based on a cut scene from btvs 7x14, "first date." oh, variations on scenes i wish had happened in canon.]]
Okay, mainly that third item, but in her defense see above re: three months. And change.
If the other Potentials had noticed, and it was hard for them not to considering the number of people in the house and accompanying relative lack of privacy, they weren't giving her a hard time about it to her face. Mainly, Kennedy suspected they were reaping the benefits of her good mood. Even if they did have anything to say she wouldn't have cared.
The Scoobies were a slightly different matter, if only because they were actually friends with Willow, but again Kennedy wouldn't have let it get her down if they didn't like it.
Well, no one had said anything to her yet, although she thought she'd heard Dawn muttering in the foyer when they'd snuck back upstairs for a few minutes after breakfast.
Still? She was in a pretty good mood, and humming to herself as she wrestled makeshift practice dummies into position for the afternoon's training session.
Dawn
So. Stuff had happened. Spike didn't have a chip. Dawn didn't know how she felt about that. Buffy had a date. That should end well. Xander had a date. That would probably end even better. And Willow....
"You're nothing like her, you know."
Kennedy
"And hi to you too, Dawn." Had the kid seemed more hostile toward Kennedy than she had in a while? Maybe, but Kennedy hadn't exactly noticed.
So if she was being baited, she wasn't going to rise to it just yet. Seriously, why ruin her good mood?
Dawn
Dawn glared as Kennedy ignored her tone. This wasn't about the usual teasing and making the newbie cranky. This was about....
"You don't get it. You don't get any of it. And you don't know enough to even ask."
Kennedy
"Okay, what?" Kennedy turned around and leaned against the stack of hay bales (she wasn't asking where they'd rounded those up) that made up their little home archery range. Hooking her thumbs into her belt loops, she shook her head at Dawn. Still level-voiced for now, but wary. "I get that maybe this is where I'm supposed to be defending myself, but... some context here, maybe?"
Dawn
"They were going to be together. Forever." Dawn walked down and punched at the dummy just to see it move, not looking at Kennedy. "Willow had finally gotten clean, and then Tara came back, and they were happy. I came up that morning and they were all wrapped up in sheets and giggly and things were good, and then Warren--" Ruined it. Ruined everything. She looked at Kennedy. "And Willow just didn't deal."
Kennedy
Okay, that--
That was so easy to picture, the two of them together, even if she didn't cheat by thinking about Homecoming that one year. Kennedy's heart melted a little at the image, and that reaction manifested itself as her closing her eyes for a moment and wincing. She wanted to yell at Dawn, tell her to back off or drop it or something, but damn if Dawn wasn't right about how perfect it should have been and that just hurt right now.
"Can you blame her for not just dealing?" was what she said instead, still quiet and steady but just barely. "'cause I sure as hell don't."
Dawn
"No." Yes. When she thought of the other chances Willow had, and blown, and her threatening to unravel Dawn like a ball of yarn. "Sort of." Thought of Tara. Her voice softer, Dawn said again, "No."
She studied Kennedy, evaluating her more. It almost sounded like maybe, maybe Kennedy did get it. A little. That didn't make up for it, though. "But you, you don't get what the power does to her. Or what being hurt does to her. You're just being all optimistic and gung-ho and let's-deal and it's not that simple."
Kennedy
"Never said it was. I mean, god, there's nothing about this that isn't complicated." And maybe there was a warning in Dawn's words, but... Kennedy picked a stray bit of hay from one of the bales and stared down as she worried it to bits between her fingers.
"Hell, if it wasn't, I'd have made my move a long time ago."
Dawn
"Didn't notice it really stopping you." Dawn knew she was being childish. Tried to care. But the essence of it was, Kennedy wasn't Tara. And it still made her angry, almost a year later, that Tara was gone.
"I was the one that sat with her body. For hours. While Willow went on a rampage." Tears were standing in her eyes. "Buffy and I were the ones calling people because Willow was too wrecked. And I didn't mind that part, I wanted to do something. She was special. And now...." What, she was just supposed to be okay with this? Be all friends with Kennedy and happy Willow had someone new? "You aren't her. You'll never be her."
Kennedy
Kennedy was trying to keep it under control, she really was, but it was too easy to picture that, too. She didn't want to. She kept trying not to think about it and focus instead on how the Tara she knew was okay, but--
"I'm not her, I know! I get that, okay?" she finally snapped, her voice really breaking now. "Do you even know how much I get that, or have you just been waiting to go judgey on me for it all this time?"
Dawn
Dawn frowned, wiping at her eyes, surprised. Watching Kennedy. She'd needed to say it to somebody! Everybody else was just so happy Willow was better, it was like they forgot Tara. And Kennedy was tough, and she hadn't known her, and... "How much do you get it?" she asked, voice quieter.
Kennedy
You'd think explaining this would get easier on the third try, but no. Not really.
So maybe it was a surprise that Kennedy reached a hand up to dash it across her eyes, once, like she was annoyed with herself for having to, except that she didn't look all that annoyed when she pulled her hand away.
"Because," she said, looking right at Dawn with her jaw set but her voice still shaky, "I fell in love with her for being nothing like me. Okay?"
Dawn
Dawn took a step forward, didn't wipe at her eyes again, voice cracking. "What?"
Kennedy
"You heard me," Kennedy said, a little more firmly by now but only because she was forcing it. "You don't really know me, Dawn, so don't assume what, or who, I do and don't know. I spent the best year and a half of my bizarro high school life with that girl, so I'm pretty much painfully aware how much I'm not her."
Dawn
Dawn just stared, face still damp. "This better not be a joke. Because it's so not funny." She didn't think it was, though. Kennedy looked like Dawn felt, in a Kennedy way. "Wait. So Tara. Another Tara. She's still... somewhere?"
Kennedy
"I wouldn't joke about that," Kennedy snapped. "Not about her, ever."
She ran both hands through her hair, kept her fingers tangled up in it. "And... yeah. She is."
Dawn
Dawn sniffed. Fought to keep her face from crumpling. Inhaled. "That's... Amazing." She hugged herself, trying to deal. And even after all this time, and knowing it wasn't her Tara, and that was a bad idea, she had to ask, her voice very small. "Could you tell her I miss her?"
Kennedy
That shocked a tiny, strangled laugh out of Kennedy, who had to bite down on one knuckle to half-muffle the sound before it turned into something truly embarrassing and much more along the lines of crying.
"If I could even get in touch with her right now," she got out. "I mean, I don't know, but..."
She took a breath and nodded. "Sometime, if I ever get back in touch, I'll think of something."
It probably was a bad idea. But then, a lot of hers were.
Dawn
Dawn wiped at her face with both hands, nodding hard, pacing away, and back. Then stopping to look at Kennedy. Apologizing would be too much, but. "So. Okay. You get... parts of this."
Kennedy didn't get the whole Doomed Scooby Romance Deal, or how absolutely screwed up various people in this house were when it came to the opposite or interested sex. But. Who could, if they hadn't been here for six years?
Kennedy
Well, she'd heard the short version of Xander's story, but she kind of refused to believe that sort of thing was applicable across the board.
...though arguably she'd had a taste of that herself, just a week or so ago.
"Parts of it," she agreed, because that was true. "Not everything. Grant you that."
She shrugged. "Look, you want to hate me for being here when she isn't, go ahead. I don't care. Hate me for 'replacing' her, even if that's so not true. You wanna do that, have a ball. I hate a lot of things in the universe because she's not here now. Just... don't assume I don't understand why Willow still misses her so much."
Dawn
She'd learn. Probably. (Hopefully she'd be around long enough to learn....)
"I don't hate you." Dawn rolled her eyes. "It was a valid assumption. Just, you know. Wrong. Alternate universes mess everything up." She swallowed. "I'm not cutting you any slack. But. I'll give you crap for being you. Not for not being Tara. Fair?"
Kennedy
Kennedy snorted, this time with a touch of humor behind it.
"By this point? I'd wonder if you were a pod person if you didn't give me crap."
Dawn
"Heh." Dawn smirked. Blinked more tears back, and nodded. "There's speeches about shovels and stuff I should give here, but honestly, if you hadn't figured out what I'll do to you if Willow gets hurt by now, you're dumber than you look."
Kennedy
"Hey," Kennedy said, but mildly; the unexpected emotional gutpunch of the past few minutes managed to combine with her overall good mood of the past few days in a weird, weird way that took away a lot of her inclination to argue. "I already promised Xander, if she's gonna get hurt it isn't gonna be by me. If I break that promise, you can fight him for first-shovel privileges."
She paused.
"Hell, I break that promise, I'm holding you to it."
Dawn
Dawn nodded solemnly. "Deal."
And if Willow ended up hurting Kennedy, Dawn wasn't going to say 'I told you so.' Because hey. If she cared enough to try, she deserved her shot. Dawn might even smack Willow, if that happened.
She headed back toward the stairs, not feeling up to the usual annoying comment on Kennedy's fighting skills. "And if all the dates work out like they could tonight, you'll get a chance to really consider that position. So have a stake ready."
Kennedy
Between the two of them, they were just a regular annoy-a-thon. Like an endless loop of annoying if they really put their minds to it.
How come nobody ever thought of fighting the First Evil by threatening it with that, anyway?
"Optimism isn't a good look on you, Dawn," Kennedy retorted, back to wrangling the practice dummies.
Another beat.
"...wait, there could be actual slayage involved?"
Cool.
[[nfi/nfb, ooc-okay, you know the drill. preplayed with the effervescent regretiz4suckas as inthekeyofme, and based on a cut scene from btvs 7x14, "first date." oh, variations on scenes i wish had happened in canon.]]