Sunnydale, November 2nd, 2001
From: xharris@ucsd.edu
To: bridge.carson@fandomhigh.net
Date: November 2nd, 2001
Subject: Hey
So you know that place I said I was never ever ever ever ever ever ever going again ever?
Yeah. (I really really really really hope for the sake of your ears that Parker's not reading over your shoulder.)
Not that I think I need to tell you every time I'm with somebody - it's been more than a year, and I *know* you so it's not even like I think you'd want to know. Just this one seems like I should, because... I don't know. Because. You've got the right to call me an idiot and throw shoes at me for going there just as much as Parker does even though you wouldn't, plus this is the one there that I went before I went there with you, and...yeah.
And if it'd just been the once I probably wouldn't say because we could chalk it up to beer, congenital stupidity, accidentally introducing her (and you, FWIW) to the proof that it's congenital, and more beer, but once seems to have turned into not so once, and the beer seems to be optional. I know I said something like that before, but this is different, I think. Like that wasn't a Thing, just a thing, and this... isn't either but it might be a Something. Or something. *What* I have no idea, it's only been a week or so, but...erf.
And this is why I'm a Construction Management major. All I know is Larry never woke up in my bed, y'know? And Faith kind of...did. And then kind of did again. Think it surprised her more than me even, because let's just say she's not exactly into sleepovers.
Course I think the winner of the brand new deluxe refrigerator and matching dishwasher in the surprise game would be Willow, argh. I didn't exactly *forget* she has a key, but I wasn't expecting not to hear her come in, and then I mentioned argh, right? She is Not Happy. Like forgot whatever it was she came over to tell me, is totally pretending it never happened except for she won't actually *look* at me, and had some kind of argument with her girlfriend about it in the back of the shop that I only overheard half of but those two *never* fight so she had to be majorly thrown. Something about not being able to talk to me about It and you could hear the capital letter, and being on her own now which no but Willow's got her own special brand of paranoid.
And we're even because I don't really know what to say to her either - it's not her business but it is, kind of like with you, and I get why she'd be upset (at least she didn't tell Dawn - that'd have been a disaster and a half), but I repeat, argh. The weird thing is I think Buffy of all people would get it, though the weirdest thing is Spike does. Don't ask me how I ended up telling him - I just needed a break from not being looked at so I headed down to the Bronze to shoot some pool, and there was beer (no, not enough beer for *that* because there would NEVER be enough beer for that) and yeah.
I should get back to the magic shop - stopped at the Espresso Pump for coffee and free internets, but Faith'll be showing up there before patrol and I really don't want to picture her and Willow ending up alone in a room together right now.
Amazingly still unkillinated though I can't guarantee that'll last the night,
love,
Xander
__
The Magic Box, evening
Xander found the Closed sign already up but the door unlocked, neither of which was unusual; what was a little off were the half-dimmed lights and the fact that there was nobody out front. It was Willow's night on the register; he'd have expected her to be tallying up the receipts or at least putting books away while a couple of brooms did a slightly unnerving re-enactment of the Magician's Assistant cartoon.
"Anybody home?" he called, heading for the small light in the alcove where they usually spread out books for research.
"In here, Xander." Tara had a book in front of her, a herbarium, and was frowning as she paged through it, fingering a tiny flower in her other hand. "You're here late."
"Yeah, I was kind of hoping to catch Willow," he said as he walked in and dropped his keys on the table, pulling out a chair. "She's...not exactly full of the Xander-love at the moment."
Tara bit her lip, and held her place in the book, watching him closely. "I-I heard. I'm sorry, Xander. She just-- with Faith, she can't--" She looked down at the book, and smoothed its cover. "She'll get over it. She just needs some time. I know she will."
Xander winced. "Willow doesn't really get over things like that, she just tries to find clothes that drape well around the knife she thinks is still stuck in her back." He sighed. "Which... sounds mean, but the thing is I don't know that she's wrong, especially the way she found out. Just...gyah." He shook his head. "Sorry you got dragged into that; she must've been really messed up to fight with you about it."
Tara had opened the book again, but looked up at this, puzzled. "Fight? We haven't been fighting."
"I kind of heard you." Xander gave her a glance both skeptical and apologetic. "Part of it anyway. Didn't mean to, but Willow wasn't exactly using her inside voice."
"I wouldn't call that a... fight, exactly," Tara said slowly, considering her words with care. "More Willow needing to let off pressure before her head exploded like a shaken-up can of pop."
"She doesn't usually let off steam by yelling at you, though. In the way where not usually equals never that I ever heard. Really didn't mean to put you between a rock and a hard place."
"Xander, I-- you didn't." Tara continued to study him with sincere bewilderment. "Willow didn't yell at me. She just...." Her brow furrowed as she tried to remember what Willow had done. "Just. Ummm."
Xander frowned at her. "This afternoon? She was saying something about how obviously she couldn't count on me now but she thought you of all people would back her up?"
Tara's eyes widened with something approaching panic. "No. I don't -- that doesn't make any sense. Willow was upset, but she didn't say anything like th-that." Tara stuttered for the first time in a long time, caught herself, and then shook her head. "I don't know what you heard, but that wasn't what h-happened."
Even if he couldn't tell just from her face and voice that she was sincere, he'd only ever known her to be untruthful once, and that was about her family.
"I'd say maybe I woke up in a parallel dimension - which actually would go a long way towards explaining the last week or so - but we know that's out. And I'm definitely confused, but not about what I heard. I was gonna try talking to her back then, or at least find out whatever it was she came over to show me in the first place, but it felt like I'd be walking into Ground Zero if interrupted you guys, so I bailed and hit the Bronze."
Tara shook her head, completely baffled. "Then why I don't I remember?" She stared at Xander, beginning to be a little frightened. "I... don't remember what she said, after she said she was angry about you two, and how shocked she was." Her already pale complexion went a shade paler. "I just remember her leaving," she whispered. "And... Oh, goddess." Her eyes filled. "After all this time, I can't, Xander, it can't be Glory again? Can it?"
Xander shook his head after a second's thought to make sure he wasn't just reassuring her. "I don't think she could come back, and even if she did, she never tried to make people forget anything except for who she was. I'm not sure she had that kind of fine-tuning; everybody she messed with just got..." He trailed off. "Well, you remember that."
Tara clung onto that like a lifeline. "Yes. Okay." She nodded, feeling a little desperate. "I remember... she said she was going to visit Buffy's grave. And, and--" She squinted, concentrating. "There's a gap. In between, I remember her at the door, but not... not what she said before that."
"She went to see Buffy." Xander sighed. "Well, I could track her down there and see if she knows what happened, but seems like the kind of place she might want to be alone."
He stood up and walked around the table, glancing about the shop to see if there was anything that looked out of place. "Nobody came in after she left? Or... no kind of new wacky shipment of something that could've messed with your memory? Or," he added, though he wasn't the one with bits of time missing, "mine, even?
Tara looked around, still frowning, and then blinked at the box on the table. "I don't remember that being here, either." She looked at the address on it: Willow Rosenberg, c/o the Magic Box. "And why would she have it sent here?"
Frowning, she looked back down at the book she'd been reading, and turned the next page, trying to remember. Willow had been so upset, so unhappy, and then she'd been-- bright. Cheerful. Which was, as Xander said, Not Willow. She loved her more than anything, but she had to admit that Willow never forgot any hurt, any pain. Other people's too, of course. She doesn't forgive Faith for what she did to Xander, that's why she can't understand, she's not jealous, she's just confused. And hurt.
Tara turned another page, absently, not even paying attention, still caught up in her own thoughts. Then she blinked. "Lethe's Bramble?"
"What's bramble?" Xander asked, walking over to pick up the box she'd pointed to. "Willow had this - this morning when she came over to my place. That's what she was gonna show me, whatever was in it. But then, well. You know. She didn't so much stay to chat."
Tara read the entry, and her fingers tightened on the little pink blossom. She felt like she couldn't breathe.
"Lethe's. As in the river." She swallowed. "Of forgetting, in Greek mythology. 'A flowering plant used in s-spells of forgetting and..." She looked up from the book, her expression bleak. "Mind control."
She looked at the box, and shook her head. "She wouldn't. She wouldn't do that to me."
Xander turned the box, which was maybe a foot and a half square, over in his hands, looking for a return address, but he found none. "Seriously, I don't think it could be Glo--" He stopped and looked up at her, his expression going from confused to incredulous. "You mean Willow."
Tara shook her head, still almost speechless, and whispered, "She had the book, and the flower fell out. And-- the way she's been doing magic, some of the spells...it worries me. I said so, I know I did, but then, later, I-- we don't fight." Misery made her hunch forward over the table, arms hugging herself. "We don't. But, if we did, I'd remember."
Xander shook his head and looked from Tara to the flower in her hand. "Willow wouldn't--" Something itched at the edges of his vision, the split-second flash of a freckle in the sunlight, but he couldn't place what he wasn't quite seeing. He could however place the thought that there was a lot he hadn't quite been seeing. It wasn't a thought he particularly liked.
"Maybe I don't know what Willow would do." He turned the box over in his hands again, and a slip of paper fluttered to the table. He picked it up.
"What's that?" Tara asked, still trying to deny what some part of her was already recognizing as truth.
"Packing slip, I think. Must've been caught under the flap." He read it once silently, then, puzzled, aloud. "Willow's name and the address, an eBay auction number, then 'Last remaining Urn of Osiris, as specified. Transaction bonded under...' something in squiggly letters. 'Seller not responsible for damage to buyer due to misuse, substitution of inferior spell components, or smack-talking the gods. Please leave feedback prior to attempting to use product, due to the aforementioned conditions.' "
Tara stared at him. "Urn of Osiris? But that's for--" She got to her feet so fast she knocked over the chair she'd been sitting on. "Oh, no. Oh no no, Willow what are you doing, no..."
"For what?" Xander put his hand on her shoulder, still holding the box with the other. "What is she doing?
Tara shook her head, the tears she hated starting to spill. "Resurrecting the dead." She took a shaky breath. "We h-have to stop her, Xander. She could die trying to do that alone."
"Res--" Sometimes, just every so often, Xander could be quick on the uptake. "...crap. Let's go."
He scooped his keys off the table, and was already reaching for his phone as he walked towards the door.
__
[OOC: Cliffhanger whaa? *looks innocent* Third preplayed verse, same as the first. But not the First. That's next season. Tara courtesy, again, mparker17.]
To: bridge.carson@fandomhigh.net
Date: November 2nd, 2001
Subject: Hey
So you know that place I said I was never ever ever ever ever ever ever going again ever?
Yeah. (I really really really really hope for the sake of your ears that Parker's not reading over your shoulder.)
Not that I think I need to tell you every time I'm with somebody - it's been more than a year, and I *know* you so it's not even like I think you'd want to know. Just this one seems like I should, because... I don't know. Because. You've got the right to call me an idiot and throw shoes at me for going there just as much as Parker does even though you wouldn't, plus this is the one there that I went before I went there with you, and...yeah.
And if it'd just been the once I probably wouldn't say because we could chalk it up to beer, congenital stupidity, accidentally introducing her (and you, FWIW) to the proof that it's congenital, and more beer, but once seems to have turned into not so once, and the beer seems to be optional. I know I said something like that before, but this is different, I think. Like that wasn't a Thing, just a thing, and this... isn't either but it might be a Something. Or something. *What* I have no idea, it's only been a week or so, but...erf.
And this is why I'm a Construction Management major. All I know is Larry never woke up in my bed, y'know? And Faith kind of...did. And then kind of did again. Think it surprised her more than me even, because let's just say she's not exactly into sleepovers.
Course I think the winner of the brand new deluxe refrigerator and matching dishwasher in the surprise game would be Willow, argh. I didn't exactly *forget* she has a key, but I wasn't expecting not to hear her come in, and then I mentioned argh, right? She is Not Happy. Like forgot whatever it was she came over to tell me, is totally pretending it never happened except for she won't actually *look* at me, and had some kind of argument with her girlfriend about it in the back of the shop that I only overheard half of but those two *never* fight so she had to be majorly thrown. Something about not being able to talk to me about It and you could hear the capital letter, and being on her own now which no but Willow's got her own special brand of paranoid.
And we're even because I don't really know what to say to her either - it's not her business but it is, kind of like with you, and I get why she'd be upset (at least she didn't tell Dawn - that'd have been a disaster and a half), but I repeat, argh. The weird thing is I think Buffy of all people would get it, though the weirdest thing is Spike does. Don't ask me how I ended up telling him - I just needed a break from not being looked at so I headed down to the Bronze to shoot some pool, and there was beer (no, not enough beer for *that* because there would NEVER be enough beer for that) and yeah.
I should get back to the magic shop - stopped at the Espresso Pump for coffee and free internets, but Faith'll be showing up there before patrol and I really don't want to picture her and Willow ending up alone in a room together right now.
Amazingly still unkillinated though I can't guarantee that'll last the night,
love,
Xander
__
The Magic Box, evening
Xander found the Closed sign already up but the door unlocked, neither of which was unusual; what was a little off were the half-dimmed lights and the fact that there was nobody out front. It was Willow's night on the register; he'd have expected her to be tallying up the receipts or at least putting books away while a couple of brooms did a slightly unnerving re-enactment of the Magician's Assistant cartoon.
"Anybody home?" he called, heading for the small light in the alcove where they usually spread out books for research.
"In here, Xander." Tara had a book in front of her, a herbarium, and was frowning as she paged through it, fingering a tiny flower in her other hand. "You're here late."
"Yeah, I was kind of hoping to catch Willow," he said as he walked in and dropped his keys on the table, pulling out a chair. "She's...not exactly full of the Xander-love at the moment."
Tara bit her lip, and held her place in the book, watching him closely. "I-I heard. I'm sorry, Xander. She just-- with Faith, she can't--" She looked down at the book, and smoothed its cover. "She'll get over it. She just needs some time. I know she will."
Xander winced. "Willow doesn't really get over things like that, she just tries to find clothes that drape well around the knife she thinks is still stuck in her back." He sighed. "Which... sounds mean, but the thing is I don't know that she's wrong, especially the way she found out. Just...gyah." He shook his head. "Sorry you got dragged into that; she must've been really messed up to fight with you about it."
Tara had opened the book again, but looked up at this, puzzled. "Fight? We haven't been fighting."
"I kind of heard you." Xander gave her a glance both skeptical and apologetic. "Part of it anyway. Didn't mean to, but Willow wasn't exactly using her inside voice."
"I wouldn't call that a... fight, exactly," Tara said slowly, considering her words with care. "More Willow needing to let off pressure before her head exploded like a shaken-up can of pop."
"She doesn't usually let off steam by yelling at you, though. In the way where not usually equals never that I ever heard. Really didn't mean to put you between a rock and a hard place."
"Xander, I-- you didn't." Tara continued to study him with sincere bewilderment. "Willow didn't yell at me. She just...." Her brow furrowed as she tried to remember what Willow had done. "Just. Ummm."
Xander frowned at her. "This afternoon? She was saying something about how obviously she couldn't count on me now but she thought you of all people would back her up?"
Tara's eyes widened with something approaching panic. "No. I don't -- that doesn't make any sense. Willow was upset, but she didn't say anything like th-that." Tara stuttered for the first time in a long time, caught herself, and then shook her head. "I don't know what you heard, but that wasn't what h-happened."
Even if he couldn't tell just from her face and voice that she was sincere, he'd only ever known her to be untruthful once, and that was about her family.
"I'd say maybe I woke up in a parallel dimension - which actually would go a long way towards explaining the last week or so - but we know that's out. And I'm definitely confused, but not about what I heard. I was gonna try talking to her back then, or at least find out whatever it was she came over to show me in the first place, but it felt like I'd be walking into Ground Zero if interrupted you guys, so I bailed and hit the Bronze."
Tara shook her head, completely baffled. "Then why I don't I remember?" She stared at Xander, beginning to be a little frightened. "I... don't remember what she said, after she said she was angry about you two, and how shocked she was." Her already pale complexion went a shade paler. "I just remember her leaving," she whispered. "And... Oh, goddess." Her eyes filled. "After all this time, I can't, Xander, it can't be Glory again? Can it?"
Xander shook his head after a second's thought to make sure he wasn't just reassuring her. "I don't think she could come back, and even if she did, she never tried to make people forget anything except for who she was. I'm not sure she had that kind of fine-tuning; everybody she messed with just got..." He trailed off. "Well, you remember that."
Tara clung onto that like a lifeline. "Yes. Okay." She nodded, feeling a little desperate. "I remember... she said she was going to visit Buffy's grave. And, and--" She squinted, concentrating. "There's a gap. In between, I remember her at the door, but not... not what she said before that."
"She went to see Buffy." Xander sighed. "Well, I could track her down there and see if she knows what happened, but seems like the kind of place she might want to be alone."
He stood up and walked around the table, glancing about the shop to see if there was anything that looked out of place. "Nobody came in after she left? Or... no kind of new wacky shipment of something that could've messed with your memory? Or," he added, though he wasn't the one with bits of time missing, "mine, even?
Tara looked around, still frowning, and then blinked at the box on the table. "I don't remember that being here, either." She looked at the address on it: Willow Rosenberg, c/o the Magic Box. "And why would she have it sent here?"
Frowning, she looked back down at the book she'd been reading, and turned the next page, trying to remember. Willow had been so upset, so unhappy, and then she'd been-- bright. Cheerful. Which was, as Xander said, Not Willow. She loved her more than anything, but she had to admit that Willow never forgot any hurt, any pain. Other people's too, of course. She doesn't forgive Faith for what she did to Xander, that's why she can't understand, she's not jealous, she's just confused. And hurt.
Tara turned another page, absently, not even paying attention, still caught up in her own thoughts. Then she blinked. "Lethe's Bramble?"
"What's bramble?" Xander asked, walking over to pick up the box she'd pointed to. "Willow had this - this morning when she came over to my place. That's what she was gonna show me, whatever was in it. But then, well. You know. She didn't so much stay to chat."
Tara read the entry, and her fingers tightened on the little pink blossom. She felt like she couldn't breathe.
"Lethe's. As in the river." She swallowed. "Of forgetting, in Greek mythology. 'A flowering plant used in s-spells of forgetting and..." She looked up from the book, her expression bleak. "Mind control."
She looked at the box, and shook her head. "She wouldn't. She wouldn't do that to me."
Xander turned the box, which was maybe a foot and a half square, over in his hands, looking for a return address, but he found none. "Seriously, I don't think it could be Glo--" He stopped and looked up at her, his expression going from confused to incredulous. "You mean Willow."
Tara shook her head, still almost speechless, and whispered, "She had the book, and the flower fell out. And-- the way she's been doing magic, some of the spells...it worries me. I said so, I know I did, but then, later, I-- we don't fight." Misery made her hunch forward over the table, arms hugging herself. "We don't. But, if we did, I'd remember."
Xander shook his head and looked from Tara to the flower in her hand. "Willow wouldn't--" Something itched at the edges of his vision, the split-second flash of a freckle in the sunlight, but he couldn't place what he wasn't quite seeing. He could however place the thought that there was a lot he hadn't quite been seeing. It wasn't a thought he particularly liked.
"Maybe I don't know what Willow would do." He turned the box over in his hands again, and a slip of paper fluttered to the table. He picked it up.
"What's that?" Tara asked, still trying to deny what some part of her was already recognizing as truth.
"Packing slip, I think. Must've been caught under the flap." He read it once silently, then, puzzled, aloud. "Willow's name and the address, an eBay auction number, then 'Last remaining Urn of Osiris, as specified. Transaction bonded under...' something in squiggly letters. 'Seller not responsible for damage to buyer due to misuse, substitution of inferior spell components, or smack-talking the gods. Please leave feedback prior to attempting to use product, due to the aforementioned conditions.' "
Tara stared at him. "Urn of Osiris? But that's for--" She got to her feet so fast she knocked over the chair she'd been sitting on. "Oh, no. Oh no no, Willow what are you doing, no..."
"For what?" Xander put his hand on her shoulder, still holding the box with the other. "What is she doing?
Tara shook her head, the tears she hated starting to spill. "Resurrecting the dead." She took a shaky breath. "We h-have to stop her, Xander. She could die trying to do that alone."
"Res--" Sometimes, just every so often, Xander could be quick on the uptake. "...crap. Let's go."
He scooped his keys off the table, and was already reaching for his phone as he walked towards the door.
__
[OOC: Cliffhanger whaa? *looks innocent* Third preplayed verse, same as the first. But not the First. That's next season. Tara courtesy, again, mparker17.]