Friend of my Friend Chapter 6.
Title: Friend of my Friend
Author: Dark Wyldchilde (wyldchilde37@yahoo.com)
Rating:NC-17, this is me, there will be sex, and there will be violence.
Pairing: Faith/Tara, Ziva/Abby
Setting: This is the fourth story in my Lock series.
Summary: Marines are missing, and turning up as vampires. The Lock is seeking out the source, and will do so with some new allies.
Spoilers: This story can and will combine any elements I care to from all of the runs of Buffy and Angel as well as the Stony Man Farm/Executioner books. Now it also includes NCIS to present, but it will also contradict them as necessary, because much to my own delight it's taken on a life of it's own.
I have also decided to tinker with the Buffy/Angel time lines since in the case of Buffy the show has been done almost 7 years now.
Disclaimers: This is an independent, non-profit work of fanfiction. I know there are at least three sets (or more) of copyrights involved, and this story is not a challenge to any of them.
Wyld's Notes: You probably shouldn't be reading this story unless you've read my earlier fics "Life on the Farm" "Declaration of War" and "The Front" because without them this story might get confusing.
On a NCIS note I need to add I am keeping the Ziva/Gibbs cannon that she killed Ari to save Gibbs, and not the more recent nonsense that it was to get Gibbs to trust her.
More importantly I must send out my personal thanks to Lisa Countryman. She has been a wonderful sounding board, and has been essential in making this fic possible, including spoon feeding me the incredibly funny chapter 5, writing three whole chapters herself, and healthy sections of other chapters as well.
I also need to add a special thanks and welcome to my new beta reader laura jones.
Chapter 6.
Gibbs found Tara as she was leaving the cafeteria and he was entering. He smiled. "I'm sure you've already eaten, but would you like to grab a cup of coffee?"
Tara smiled and nodded, and walked back into the room with him. It took a second for her to explain the unique nature of food service at the Lock, but the career military man seemed to appreciate food that wasn't prepared in mass quantities and kept in warming trays.
He ordered a turkey sandwich to go with his coffee while Tara got herself cream and sugar, two mugs and a full coffee pot she brought to a table. There was a long moment of silence as the coffee was poured and those first sips were taken.
Tara was the one to break it as her blue eyes met his and she smiled. "So I should probably start with "What the hell happened?"
Her bright smile, and near laugh got a soft chuckle out of Gibbs, and he thought back. While he briefly remembered seeing Tara and her mother at Shannon and Kelly's funeral his stronger memories were soon after Kelly was born and Shannon HAD to show their first born off.
Tara had been about five then, small, and shy, and already setting off Gibbs gut. It had been summer, but both Tara and her mother had always had their arms and legs covered. When he added that to the young girls timid demeanor, and the way the father's eyes were either cold or angry any time the girl was in sight... it left Gibbs not wanting to act, but ready to.
What had touched him as well as her shyness, fueled by something sinister, was that even with that, she had a kind, loving and open heart. Gibbs remembered her sitting in a lazy-boy and holding Kelly. The two small girls, one practically a baby, the other infant content in her cousin's embrace, were dwarfed by the chair, but Tara sat and held Kelly and sang softly to her, a lullaby, and that had been the only time during the visit Tara lit up. Her mother had lit up as well, and like all bullies, Tara's brother didn't like his victim being the center of attention.
The problem was that when he had acted, pulling the brutish brother Donnie away from hitting his little sister the father, Caleb had gotten involved, and at that ended with the father picking up a couple bruises of his own, but when that made Gibbs the bad guy Shannon and he realized that they couldn't do anything until they were asked to.
But he still remembered the look of gratitude on her little face when he stood up for her.
He remembered her quiet strength when later, at Kelly and Shannon's funeral, he had seen her after the service at Kelly's grave. He had watched as she sat cross legged and openly wept while she sang the same lullaby and rested a hand on the earth next to the grave. Tara's father hadn't been on that trip, and the child seemed more alive even with her sincerity of grief, but Gibbs had been too dead inside to reach out to anyone.
Tara, while not even thirteen had come to Gibbs and hugged him. Now, as Gibbs looked back, he knew Tara had somehow sensed what he was feeling. The preteen had took his large, well calloused hand in her small and delicate fingers and looked up at him and said. "They both loved you very much. They still do. They always will. Don't lose yourself along with them."
She'd hugged him again and then wandered off, leaving him stunned by the words spoken by a mere child. It had felt like she knew he was ready to hunt down his family's killer and use the skills the government had given him to put a bullet in the man's brain from a valley away. He had dismissed it as his own mind playing tricks on him.
Even as he remembered, he looked across the table at Tara. She was the leader of a frightening and dangerous operation, but she walked among her people with a loving smile and eyes full of love freely given, eyes like Shannon's, like Kelly's he realized. Her people faced ugly things everyday and seemed to draw strength from Tara's love. He sighed. After all she'd seen and grown up with, she managed to keep that love out in the open. How had she not crawled inside herself after what her father and brother had done to her?
Gibbs startled when her eyes found his as if she'd been feeling his thoughts. She smiled tolerantly as if she was waiting for him to come back to the table with her. He laughed and suddenly realized how his team must feel when he showed up out of nowhere knowing exactly what they were all thinking, but he didn't know what people were thinking, not really. He had a feeling Tara actually did. He watched as Tara gave him one of her gentle smiles, so much like Shannon's it made his heart clench.
She gave him another moment before she spoke. "When I was seventeen Mamma passed and I went through a brief rebellious stage... which didn't go well."
She saw a flash of guilt on his face and reached across the table to take his hand. "And then I left. I realized I had to, but I had to be the one who realized it. Mamma never did. There wasn't anything you could have done."
He shook his head, letting her hand go. "Maybe not, but you still could have called me when you left that place."
She smiled. "Perhaps, but my destiny lay elsewhere." Gibbs look was blatantly skeptical. "I'm serious Uncle Gibbs. My destiny was written on ancient scrolls and it needed me here."
That got his attention and she grinned as she continued. "I managed enough scholarships to enroll in U.C. Sunnydale, but at the time I didn't know their tuition was so cheap because they were on the mouth of Hell."
"I first met Willow, and she introduced me to Buffy, Xander and Giles. I learned who they were and what they did, and I wanted to help." He scowled softly at his niece for volunteering to fight demons, but didn't voice it.
"And for a long time it was good, for fighting demons on the mouth of Hell goes. Willow and I were close..." She looked at Gibbs, but he didn't respond. "And things were good. Then a hell goddess named Glory showed up, and she hurt me..." Tara took a calming breath, and Gibbs reached out to take her hand, and give it a squeeze, his expression concerned. "She stole my sanity, and for a while I WAS insane, but Willow found a way to take my mind back from her and restore my sanity, but in that battle Buffy was lost."
Gibbs swallowed a bite of his sandwich. "You mean..."
Tara nodded once. "She died, and Willow brought her back." Now she knew that for Uncle Gibbs up until earlier today when he saw her dust a vampire the world of the supernatural wasn't real to him. Sure Shannon and Kelly believed in it, but she knew that even when he stood in circle with them he didn't believe in the supernatural, he just believed in them. All that said when he heard of Willow's tampering with the boundary between life and death even HE knew she had went to far, and his expression showed it.
"It was the start of a long, downward slide for Willow. She became convinced that with the right spell she could always have everything perfect. If she needed the laundry done, she cast a spell, and it was done, and folded. If she needed to research something on the net she would cast the right spell, and poof, there the information was. Then..." Tara took a steadying breath, and Gibbs, still holding her hand, gave it a squeeze. "Then Willow decided that she could make me perfect in the same way."
She felt his hand twitch, and when she looked up she saw an expression she hadn't seen since he had pinned her father to the ground after the man had foolishly tried to attack a Marine after he had stopped Donnie from beating Tara. She quickly shook her head. "I'm not with her anymore Uncle Gibbs, I may have forgiven her, but I wouldn't let myself be hurt again."
His posture calmed a bit and Tara continued. "Faith's my partner now."
His posture tightened again. "Partner? I thought you were the mission controller. They have you doing field work?"
It took Tara a second to realize what he was asking, and then she giggled. "No, no... I mean ok on occasion, like this time I went to NCIS because you're my uncle, but no, almost all the time I'm here. I mean life partner."
He shrugged, taking his hand back so he could take another bite of his sandwich. "Okay."
She was unsure. "Okay?"
He smiled. "I saw how she lit up the second she saw you. She loves you."
She giggled again, and then took a deep breath before resuming her story. "But I left Willow. Around this time Faith had been recruited by the government... there's more, but it's a story all it's own. She told them about the Hellmouth and the danger it posed. So they sent her here to scout the town out for them and get a feel for the threat level."
She took a sip of her own coffee. "She found me early on, and since I was mainly known as "Willow's girlfriend" everyone thought Faith and I were together. So we played along to give her a viable cover."
He raised a silvered brow, and she blushed as she smiled. "Yeah, turns out we were fooling ourselves most of all. Faith's report was taken seriously, and she was put in command of the facility before it was even built. She brought Riley in as her second, and initially asked me to just be the head of occult intelligence, but we soon realized we needed a mission controller..." She blushed again. "And Faith knew I could do it even if I didn't, and I've been doing it ever since."
Gibbs nodded, slowly, taking everything in. "I noticed something you said in the car... you said Faith was THE Slayer, but from what I understand all these girls that have been having DiNozzo's eyes bugging out are slayers."
Tara couldn't help but smile, for all the Lock's professionalism, and duties, the slayers rotating in and out for training did often leave it looking like a girl's dormitory. She sobered before speaking however. "She was. I wasn't kidding when I said my destiny was here Uncle Gibbs. The First Slayer was imbued with her powers by ancient shamans to protect them from the creatures of the night... and the day, and part of their spell was that when one fell the powers would be passed to the next. It had been that way for millennia. Buffy had actually been a slayer before Faith, but had drown, and while she was resuscitated she "died" long enough for her powers to pass to the slayer before Faith."
He frowned at the idea, but kept silent. "Faith however held on, while she was put into a coma for over a year at one point she survived to become the slayer spoke of in "The Prophecy of the Elder". It stated that when a slayer reached twenty, the age when the First Slayer was imbued with her powers she would be the one to awaken the entire line."
His sandwich was gone, and his coffee was nearly empty as he took a sip and looked at the pot speculatively. "So where do you come in?"
She blushed, deeply. "While Faith could become a repository for the energy needed to awaken the Slayer line she needed someone connected to her that could shape the energy and give birth to the new slayer line."
He choked on his coffee, once he finished coughing he croaked out. "Give birth?"
Tara's blush deepened. "Not LITERALLY, but sorta." Her eyes however were radiant. "But Faith and I were literally meant to be together."
He cleared his throat a couple times. "And all those girls out there are my grand-nieces?"
Tara frowned. "Kinda."
Author: Dark Wyldchilde (wyldchilde37@yahoo.com)
Rating:NC-17, this is me, there will be sex, and there will be violence.
Pairing: Faith/Tara, Ziva/Abby
Setting: This is the fourth story in my Lock series.
Summary: Marines are missing, and turning up as vampires. The Lock is seeking out the source, and will do so with some new allies.
Spoilers: This story can and will combine any elements I care to from all of the runs of Buffy and Angel as well as the Stony Man Farm/Executioner books. Now it also includes NCIS to present, but it will also contradict them as necessary, because much to my own delight it's taken on a life of it's own.
I have also decided to tinker with the Buffy/Angel time lines since in the case of Buffy the show has been done almost 7 years now.
Disclaimers: This is an independent, non-profit work of fanfiction. I know there are at least three sets (or more) of copyrights involved, and this story is not a challenge to any of them.
Wyld's Notes: You probably shouldn't be reading this story unless you've read my earlier fics "Life on the Farm" "Declaration of War" and "The Front" because without them this story might get confusing.
On a NCIS note I need to add I am keeping the Ziva/Gibbs cannon that she killed Ari to save Gibbs, and not the more recent nonsense that it was to get Gibbs to trust her.
More importantly I must send out my personal thanks to Lisa Countryman. She has been a wonderful sounding board, and has been essential in making this fic possible, including spoon feeding me the incredibly funny chapter 5, writing three whole chapters herself, and healthy sections of other chapters as well.
I also need to add a special thanks and welcome to my new beta reader laura jones.
Chapter 6.
Gibbs found Tara as she was leaving the cafeteria and he was entering. He smiled. "I'm sure you've already eaten, but would you like to grab a cup of coffee?"
Tara smiled and nodded, and walked back into the room with him. It took a second for her to explain the unique nature of food service at the Lock, but the career military man seemed to appreciate food that wasn't prepared in mass quantities and kept in warming trays.
He ordered a turkey sandwich to go with his coffee while Tara got herself cream and sugar, two mugs and a full coffee pot she brought to a table. There was a long moment of silence as the coffee was poured and those first sips were taken.
Tara was the one to break it as her blue eyes met his and she smiled. "So I should probably start with "What the hell happened?"
Her bright smile, and near laugh got a soft chuckle out of Gibbs, and he thought back. While he briefly remembered seeing Tara and her mother at Shannon and Kelly's funeral his stronger memories were soon after Kelly was born and Shannon HAD to show their first born off.
Tara had been about five then, small, and shy, and already setting off Gibbs gut. It had been summer, but both Tara and her mother had always had their arms and legs covered. When he added that to the young girls timid demeanor, and the way the father's eyes were either cold or angry any time the girl was in sight... it left Gibbs not wanting to act, but ready to.
What had touched him as well as her shyness, fueled by something sinister, was that even with that, she had a kind, loving and open heart. Gibbs remembered her sitting in a lazy-boy and holding Kelly. The two small girls, one practically a baby, the other infant content in her cousin's embrace, were dwarfed by the chair, but Tara sat and held Kelly and sang softly to her, a lullaby, and that had been the only time during the visit Tara lit up. Her mother had lit up as well, and like all bullies, Tara's brother didn't like his victim being the center of attention.
The problem was that when he had acted, pulling the brutish brother Donnie away from hitting his little sister the father, Caleb had gotten involved, and at that ended with the father picking up a couple bruises of his own, but when that made Gibbs the bad guy Shannon and he realized that they couldn't do anything until they were asked to.
But he still remembered the look of gratitude on her little face when he stood up for her.
He remembered her quiet strength when later, at Kelly and Shannon's funeral, he had seen her after the service at Kelly's grave. He had watched as she sat cross legged and openly wept while she sang the same lullaby and rested a hand on the earth next to the grave. Tara's father hadn't been on that trip, and the child seemed more alive even with her sincerity of grief, but Gibbs had been too dead inside to reach out to anyone.
Tara, while not even thirteen had come to Gibbs and hugged him. Now, as Gibbs looked back, he knew Tara had somehow sensed what he was feeling. The preteen had took his large, well calloused hand in her small and delicate fingers and looked up at him and said. "They both loved you very much. They still do. They always will. Don't lose yourself along with them."
She'd hugged him again and then wandered off, leaving him stunned by the words spoken by a mere child. It had felt like she knew he was ready to hunt down his family's killer and use the skills the government had given him to put a bullet in the man's brain from a valley away. He had dismissed it as his own mind playing tricks on him.
Even as he remembered, he looked across the table at Tara. She was the leader of a frightening and dangerous operation, but she walked among her people with a loving smile and eyes full of love freely given, eyes like Shannon's, like Kelly's he realized. Her people faced ugly things everyday and seemed to draw strength from Tara's love. He sighed. After all she'd seen and grown up with, she managed to keep that love out in the open. How had she not crawled inside herself after what her father and brother had done to her?
Gibbs startled when her eyes found his as if she'd been feeling his thoughts. She smiled tolerantly as if she was waiting for him to come back to the table with her. He laughed and suddenly realized how his team must feel when he showed up out of nowhere knowing exactly what they were all thinking, but he didn't know what people were thinking, not really. He had a feeling Tara actually did. He watched as Tara gave him one of her gentle smiles, so much like Shannon's it made his heart clench.
She gave him another moment before she spoke. "When I was seventeen Mamma passed and I went through a brief rebellious stage... which didn't go well."
She saw a flash of guilt on his face and reached across the table to take his hand. "And then I left. I realized I had to, but I had to be the one who realized it. Mamma never did. There wasn't anything you could have done."
He shook his head, letting her hand go. "Maybe not, but you still could have called me when you left that place."
She smiled. "Perhaps, but my destiny lay elsewhere." Gibbs look was blatantly skeptical. "I'm serious Uncle Gibbs. My destiny was written on ancient scrolls and it needed me here."
That got his attention and she grinned as she continued. "I managed enough scholarships to enroll in U.C. Sunnydale, but at the time I didn't know their tuition was so cheap because they were on the mouth of Hell."
"I first met Willow, and she introduced me to Buffy, Xander and Giles. I learned who they were and what they did, and I wanted to help." He scowled softly at his niece for volunteering to fight demons, but didn't voice it.
"And for a long time it was good, for fighting demons on the mouth of Hell goes. Willow and I were close..." She looked at Gibbs, but he didn't respond. "And things were good. Then a hell goddess named Glory showed up, and she hurt me..." Tara took a calming breath, and Gibbs reached out to take her hand, and give it a squeeze, his expression concerned. "She stole my sanity, and for a while I WAS insane, but Willow found a way to take my mind back from her and restore my sanity, but in that battle Buffy was lost."
Gibbs swallowed a bite of his sandwich. "You mean..."
Tara nodded once. "She died, and Willow brought her back." Now she knew that for Uncle Gibbs up until earlier today when he saw her dust a vampire the world of the supernatural wasn't real to him. Sure Shannon and Kelly believed in it, but she knew that even when he stood in circle with them he didn't believe in the supernatural, he just believed in them. All that said when he heard of Willow's tampering with the boundary between life and death even HE knew she had went to far, and his expression showed it.
"It was the start of a long, downward slide for Willow. She became convinced that with the right spell she could always have everything perfect. If she needed the laundry done, she cast a spell, and it was done, and folded. If she needed to research something on the net she would cast the right spell, and poof, there the information was. Then..." Tara took a steadying breath, and Gibbs, still holding her hand, gave it a squeeze. "Then Willow decided that she could make me perfect in the same way."
She felt his hand twitch, and when she looked up she saw an expression she hadn't seen since he had pinned her father to the ground after the man had foolishly tried to attack a Marine after he had stopped Donnie from beating Tara. She quickly shook her head. "I'm not with her anymore Uncle Gibbs, I may have forgiven her, but I wouldn't let myself be hurt again."
His posture calmed a bit and Tara continued. "Faith's my partner now."
His posture tightened again. "Partner? I thought you were the mission controller. They have you doing field work?"
It took Tara a second to realize what he was asking, and then she giggled. "No, no... I mean ok on occasion, like this time I went to NCIS because you're my uncle, but no, almost all the time I'm here. I mean life partner."
He shrugged, taking his hand back so he could take another bite of his sandwich. "Okay."
She was unsure. "Okay?"
He smiled. "I saw how she lit up the second she saw you. She loves you."
She giggled again, and then took a deep breath before resuming her story. "But I left Willow. Around this time Faith had been recruited by the government... there's more, but it's a story all it's own. She told them about the Hellmouth and the danger it posed. So they sent her here to scout the town out for them and get a feel for the threat level."
She took a sip of her own coffee. "She found me early on, and since I was mainly known as "Willow's girlfriend" everyone thought Faith and I were together. So we played along to give her a viable cover."
He raised a silvered brow, and she blushed as she smiled. "Yeah, turns out we were fooling ourselves most of all. Faith's report was taken seriously, and she was put in command of the facility before it was even built. She brought Riley in as her second, and initially asked me to just be the head of occult intelligence, but we soon realized we needed a mission controller..." She blushed again. "And Faith knew I could do it even if I didn't, and I've been doing it ever since."
Gibbs nodded, slowly, taking everything in. "I noticed something you said in the car... you said Faith was THE Slayer, but from what I understand all these girls that have been having DiNozzo's eyes bugging out are slayers."
Tara couldn't help but smile, for all the Lock's professionalism, and duties, the slayers rotating in and out for training did often leave it looking like a girl's dormitory. She sobered before speaking however. "She was. I wasn't kidding when I said my destiny was here Uncle Gibbs. The First Slayer was imbued with her powers by ancient shamans to protect them from the creatures of the night... and the day, and part of their spell was that when one fell the powers would be passed to the next. It had been that way for millennia. Buffy had actually been a slayer before Faith, but had drown, and while she was resuscitated she "died" long enough for her powers to pass to the slayer before Faith."
He frowned at the idea, but kept silent. "Faith however held on, while she was put into a coma for over a year at one point she survived to become the slayer spoke of in "The Prophecy of the Elder". It stated that when a slayer reached twenty, the age when the First Slayer was imbued with her powers she would be the one to awaken the entire line."
His sandwich was gone, and his coffee was nearly empty as he took a sip and looked at the pot speculatively. "So where do you come in?"
She blushed, deeply. "While Faith could become a repository for the energy needed to awaken the Slayer line she needed someone connected to her that could shape the energy and give birth to the new slayer line."
He choked on his coffee, once he finished coughing he croaked out. "Give birth?"
Tara's blush deepened. "Not LITERALLY, but sorta." Her eyes however were radiant. "But Faith and I were literally meant to be together."
He cleared his throat a couple times. "And all those girls out there are my grand-nieces?"
Tara frowned. "Kinda."