Summary: "Ever since Tara could remember, she'd had the scar in the palm of her left hand Ò a tiny pale pinwheel of raised tissue that sat between her head and heart lines, right next to fate." A BtVS novel,ðset mid-season 6, featuring palm reading, timelines, mysterious Initiative files, vampires, Funny Fun balls, and cool special effects.

Rating: R

Disclaimer: All hail Joss from whom all these characters flow

The astral body was a blithe and curious nothing, notoriously inattentive to piddling details like food water air. So, it was no great concern to Tara's astral self when it took off on this mission, whether or not she had a Willow anchor holding her physical body's hand.

Astral projection was misnamed anyway. How could it be called travel if it was instantaneous? If it made no sense unless you were actually experiencing it Ç exhilarating careless acceptance of, and wonderstruck love for everything. All-Self, and All-Space, and All Time Now. A small subtle shift from cognition to recognition, so that the moment she recognized whatever it was she was looking for Ç from arcane ritual to misplaced library book Ç she was there, with it. And just as quickly would be away to something else. Wheels for legs. Wings for arms.

But this time was nothing like those times. For it seemed she was in fact a projectile hurtling through space, or rather more like a slow moving bullet traveling through a barrel of bubblewrap. Her body-like presence spiraling through the barrel caused a ripple of soft pops as the bubbles collapsed. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, but she could feel it. And it was happening so slowly. Or probably very fast. Like Alice down the rabbit hole. Comes a point in the falling where it doesn't feel like falling anymore, but more like a life. Without Willow to reel her back would she spiral around and around this corridor until her body died, naked and alone on the floor of her dorm room? It seemed kind of ... ignominious. Downright undignified.

But after a subtle while of Time she became aware that she was no longer spinning, languid and slow through the barrel, but was now walking through a corridor. Though the bubblewrap effect was still in evidence, the bubbles were larger and didn't give way as she brushed them. The view was distorted too. She could see vaguely familiar woodlands, could feel the forest floor give way, a muted crunch of pine needles and twigs beneath her naked but somehow, protected soles. She could hear too. Bird calls and water dancing in the creek. And voices. Women's voices. Cognition to recognition. She moved towards the cadence and familiar rhythms of those voices.

The message light was flashing when Willow got home. Tara's voice, only a hint of faltering stammer as she asked Dawn to call her back about seeing a movie that night. No "hi, how's everybody doing?" or "Baby, I've changed my mind, can't live without you."

So. OK. Fine. That took care of Dawn then. Buffy was working the closing shift and wouldn't be home until after eleven Ç later if she decided to patrol. Which left the bulk of the evening to very absorbing research of the science-y kind. Willow put coffee on and went to the basement.

Of course, the first box she came across would have to be the one with all her magical paraphernalia in it, all the stuff Buffy had helped her pack up and was supposed to get rid of! Willow stared at it, swaying a little, overwhelmed by the supernatural vibes and the stink of loss that accompanied it.

It wasn't so much the items inside. She didn't need the stuff Ç any of it really Ç to do magic, and she supposed that ought to scare her. It did scare her. But what seemed scarier were all the mementos, testaments to a failure to be loveable that were contained within. The amber pendant she'd worn to her first real sabbat. Her athame with her secret name etched on the blade in runes and symbols Tara had taught her. Gifts they'd exchanged. ("Trade you the spiderwitch t-shirt for the silver ring." "OK.") Things they'd bought together, like the rose quartz crystal that had a smaller one sprouting from its middle like a pregnant tummy. Or stuff found on walks Ç the tiny skull of a cat, the cast off skin of a snake, a stick that looked like a leprechaun's shillelagh, a rock shaped like frog that they used for burning incense. It was full of Tara, her Tara of soft mossy secrets, whirlpools and tide pools and Tinkerbell lights.

Helpless rage, self-flagellating guilt, and the certain sense that she although didn't deserve Tara, she didn't deserve this, filled Willow as she rifled the box, eyes burning with tears she refused to shed, hands tingling with magic she refused to use. There were bags of herbs collected at various phases of the moon, and little brown bottles of tinctures and oils. Mortar and pestle. And— oh! Shitshitshit. The amplifying crystal.

A velvet pouch wrapped in a plastic shopping bag from Safeway Ç one of the many Buffy routinely brought home from various grocers with the excuse she forgot to ask for paper and hey, plastic bags had a thousand and one uses, for example— to pack one of the most powerful crystals Giles had ever had in the shop. Anya didn't know who'd actually purchased it. Willow had been pretty clever about that, justified it beautifully. Anya was a greedy capitalist. The crystal belonged with the people who might really need it, people who'd know how to use it in the constant war being waged against the Hellmouth. In short, it needed to be Willow's.

She didn't need to take it out of the box to see it in her mind's eye Ç a small wand of double terminated clear quartz with dozens of needle-like inclusions of black tourmaline imbedded within. Tourmalinated quartz was supposed to be able to amplify energy sent towards it, then send that energy back to the source, or to wherever or whenever or whatever goal the practitioner using it chose. Double-terminated meant the process could be repeated endlessly. Mirrors within mirrors within mirrors. In theory anyway. She hadn't tested it. Something about the way it felt in her hands always made her drop it back into its little velvet pouch and hide it away again. But now, it was like a spider, waiting for to her disturb its ugly, environmentally irresponsible nest.

Panting with anxiety she closed the flaps of the box and kicked it back under the stairwell. She cast about desperately trying to remember what brought her down here in the first place. Then she spotted it, on the shelves by the washer and dryer, the rusting biscuit tin decorated with Dutch-blue windmills. In it she'd placed everything she'd gathered in furtive haste when they left the Initiative underground for that last and final time. If anyone had asked her then (which they didn't) she would have told them these things might be useful someday. But later on she'd been so exhausted she couldn't begin to start the long, tedious process of decryption, salvaging half-burnt files ala CSI, or figuring out what this or that weird little doohickey did. Like everyone else, she just wanted to move on.

Now she pressed the tin to her chest like a poultice for her sad, sorry heart, and went upstairs to plug in her laptop and pour a cup of coffee.

As soon as the sedan pulled to the side of the road, Dawn regretted her sudden impulse with the thumb. Sometimes it felt like her little devil had her little angel of common sense in a constant choke hold. She shook her head at the car, and kept walking, trying to impart through apologetic shrugs and smiles of refusal and shooing motions - never mind, everything's good, no problems here Mr Hellraiser, you just drive on by. But the car rolled slowly along side her, tires kissing the gravel on the shoulder of the road where she was walking, matching her pace,

To her right was an open flat that seemed to go on forever, and to her left, on the other side of the road, an imposing wall of dirt, stones, and angry shrubs all covered with wire, sporting warning signs about falling rocks and mudslides. Behind her, the road curved round into darkness. Ahead, the lights of Sunnydale proper seemed impossibly far away.

The passenger window slid down, and a man's voice said, "I'm going to assume you're fleeing the attentions of an aggressive date, or that you've suffered a recent terrible head injury." He had a kind of Giles-y accent.

"Um ... yeah, that sounds good," she said. Still walking, not looking too close, maintaining a cautious distance from the car's door.

"Because otherwise," he continued, "I'd have to believe you're a very stupid girl to be hitchhiking on a dark road at night. You're not are you?"

"Hitchhiking? No!" Now she was looking at him, a dark-haired man wearing glasses, giving her a worried but reassuring smile. "No, definitely not—or you mean am I stupid? Um, well, I sure feel stupid. I-I kind of lost my bag—" She saw his eyes slide to the tiny purse on a long leather string she had hooked over her shoulder. "My-my backpack. Somebody stole it when I was getting coffee. It had all my school books - my college school books - and my cell phone in it, and- and all my credit cards! I have way too many credit cards."

"Oh, that's awful. You must cancel them as soon as you get home."

She relaxed into the lie at his apparent concerned acceptance of it. "Yes. Yes. I know I'm just so pissed off about it. I was supposed to be meeting my boyfriend. At the college. He goes there. He's majoring in psychology. I go to a different college. We were supposed to meet at a-the tavern. Have a couple of beers, you know, study for a big psychology test. But he wasn't there. I waited for like— ever. He can be such a jerk sometimes."

"College men are often inconsiderate that way."

"Don't I know it. Anyway, I got so mad I started walking home."

"Ah. I see. Well, we've just come from the college."

"You have?" she squeaked. Oh god. What if he was a teacher? What if he asked her about psychology?

"I was giving a lecture," he said. "The wife and I were just on our way back to our hotel. We'd be happy to give you a lift. Unless you'd rather walk. Though, honestly, I don't think it's a good idea. Not safe, especially for a young co-ed like yourself. I don't think my wife would let me get a moment's rest if I allowed it."

It was almost five miles into town. Take her a couple of hours at least. She bent down a little to peer in at the driver Ç the man's wife. The woman had turned slightly in her seat and appeared to be looking back at her, but Dawn couldn't see her eyes really, or much about her features the except the dark bruised color of her lipstick and a lot of wavy black hair. She didn't exactly give off a concerned vibe. Probably jealous. Probably her professor husband had affairs with lots co-eds.

They both thought she went to the college. How cool was that?

"Or, look, we could drop you off at the service station up the road. You could call someone from there. I'd let you use my phone but I'm afraid the battery needs charging." He turned to his wife. "Darling, you have some change in your pockets, don't you?" Then he turned back to Dawn. "It's no trouble really. Let us give you a ride." He looked really earnest. Worried about her.

She gnawed on her lip. She could hear a truck or car coming, the jittery glow of headlights broadening at the bend in the road. With her luck it would be the gun-rack pick-up driving pantyhose strangler. "Well..."

He opened the door. Began to step out—

The single bouncing headlight of a motorcycle coming up hard and fast. She'd barely registered who was on it before it zoomed by. "Spike!" she yelled. Without slowing, the rider gave a quick look over his shoulder. Dawn jumped up and down, waving her arms like a crazy person in case he needed proof it was her. "Spike! It's me! It's me! Stop!"

There was no way any human could have heard the pitch of her screeching over the sound of that bike, and it was definitely no human that spun the bike around, back tire pitching gravel fifty yards in every direction. The front of the bike reared up a little, like a bronco under a crazed cowboy as the growl of the throttle brought it back her way.

"It's okay," she shouted to the couple in the car as she sprinted across the highway. "He's my boyfriend!"

When she got closer to the bike she could see Spike squinting at her one-eyed, bemused and wary. "Your boyfriend now?"

"Many lies were told," she said climbing up behind. She locked her arms around him tight and laid her cheek against leather. "I'm so glad you're here. I need Taco Bell. Stat."

On the other side of the road, Aaron drew his foot back in and slammed the door. The window slid up with sigh.

"That, that cabrao!" the woman growled. "That scrawny little dog! May he choke on her blood—"

"Don't spit in the car, darling."

"May her blood be a poison that rots his cacete—"

"I'm so sorry, luv, really. I was certain we had her. "

"—may it fall off and be stolen by another scrawny little dog who chews it up and buries it in the dirt! May it be dug up by an even smaller dog—"

"Yes, all right! You're terribly hungry! He absconded with your meal! I'm sorry, but there is a Chevron station just up the road—"

"Aaron! Don't you recognize the vampiro on the motorbike? Who will be eating so much better than I this night, by the way."

"Vampire? You're sure?" He leaned across her with a new urgency, peering out the driver's side window. "What am I saying? Of course you're— oh. Well, well. Isn't that interesting." He pulled back, settling into his seat again, and gave her hand that gripped the steering wheel a little pat. "Don't think it's a cause for worry, my dear. It's very likely he won't have met us yet. Come on. We can worry the problem after we've got you all fed up."

The sedan pulled out onto the road, and after a moment, the bike, heading back towards its original destination, passed the sedan, and was soon a little dot of wavering light gone over the horizon.

"Give me liberty or give me death NO mama's gonna give you a history test, take what you like and ignore the rest, doomed to repeat what you do the best—lalalala -lalalalalalalie—"

Dawn bounced back to the table, head bobbing to the music, tray heaped with tacos, burritos, and packets of fire sauce. She shoved a straw into a beverage cup as large as her head, and tore the paper off a burrito supreme. "I'm so freaking hungry. All I had to eat today was a pop tart, and a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie. Oh, and whipped cream on a mocha."

Spike blinked like a crocodile, uncrossed his arms, and laid a hand on the table, palm up.

"What?" she said, opening a packet of fire sauce with her teeth. He wriggled his fingers. She pushed the tray closer to him. "You want the mexi-nuggets?"

"Gimme my change, you little piss ant."

"Jeez. Can you wait till I finish my meal?"

"Nooo. Not gonna play it that way. Not like last time. 'Spike, can't you wait till after the movie, 'cause my hands are all greasy from the popcorn.'"

"I didn't want to get butter on my jeans!"

"You didn't want to get butter on my money in the pocket of your jeans."

"Once! One time. It's not my fault you forgot to ask for it later. And that didn't even sound like me. You so cannot do American accents."

"You're givin' it back."

"I will! Jeez."

He pulled his hand back, and stretched his arm along the plastic back rest, managing to look both relaxed and annoyed, while she concentrated on getting as much food in before the conversation turned to the inevitable. She got through the burrito and was working on one of the tacos when he said, "So, lucky your boyfriend happened along before you were forced to eat candy in a stranger's car."

"Yes. Very lucky." She grinned around a mouthful of slimy lettuce. "Thank you, my boyfriend."

"Were you on your way to Taco Bell by way of Ojai?"

"No. I went to meet Tara but I forgot she's not in the same dorm she was before—And I lost my notebook with all my phone numbers." She frowned delicately. "Or maybe it's in my locker at school. Anyway, I didn't have money for the bus. Why? You gonna squeal? Rat me out?"

"Now you're just insulting me. Clearly our love affair is over."

She giggled. "We're breaking up already?"

"Don't see as I have any options. Can't be with a women who doesn't respect me."

"Yeah, right. So that leaves, who? Harmony Kendall?" Usually the mention of the H word got a rise out of him. This time it was met with silence. He was staring hard at the tabletop. "Oh my god. She's not back is she? You're not—tell me you're not!"

He looked up again, clearly not tracking "Whowhatnow? Oh, bloody hell, Dawn. Christ no! Don't know where she is, and don't want to."

"Good, because her soul didn't take up much room in her head before she got turned."

"It's a very empty head, I'll grant you." After a second, he scratched behind his ear. Which meant he was going to get serious. "Look. Serious now. You can't be pulling this kind of shit. You know what goes on around these parts."

"I know but—"

"But nuthin'. You're not some brainless Cali girl got her head in her arse looking for the latest fashionable footwear up there."

"But I am! Or I mean, I'm not looking for shoes up my ass, because hey, if Buffy can't pull money out of her ass - as she so often points out whenever I ask for any - then I sure as heck won't find any shoes. But I'm a California girl born and raised. At least my memories say so. A normal teenaged girl who, unlike every other girl, has no life."

"If you're still on about that Am I Real Am I Memorex crap, I'm gonna thump you."

"That's not it. So over that. It's just—okay, prepare for some unattractive, but legitimate whining—"

"Tiny violin at the ready."

"Nobody wants to hang with me, OK, but they all want me safe in my house. Doing what? Homework? Dishes? Watching Green Acres marathons on Nick at Nite? I make dinner by myself, for myself. Then I watch TV by myself, then I go to bed by myself—" off his arched brow she added, "which, of course I do, because I'm fifteen, and going to be a nun someday."

"Wouldn't. Vampires love nuns. They're crunchy with the Lord."

"Uh huh. Can we get off the perve track, and back to my problems now?"

"Please. Continue talking about yourself at great length."

"OK. It's like—it's like I'm this dog that you only pay attention to when the neighbors complain about the barking."

"So this is you barking loud in the night, is it?"

"I guess. I mean, Tara's gone, and Willow's all depressed. And Xander and Anya are completely crazed about this wedding. Giles is off eating biscuits instead of cookies. And you. You never come over anymore. And why should you. Buffy's not there."

"That's not why, Bit."

"Even so. You probably see her more than I do."

"justpatroltogether—"

"At least you get to do that! She's never home, but she won't let me go anywhere. I can't spend the night with anybody, or go to a freaking party Ç I swear to god, people at school think I'm Amish. Did you know she wouldn't sign the permission slip for me to go on a field trip to see this Shakespeare thing because the bus wouldn't get back until 10 at night? How lame is that?"

"Shakespeare thing?"

"Some play. Janice told me that there was a scene where this guy is completely naked, like full monty naked, and like Mr. Espinosa didn't know there was gonna be nudity but he got in trouble for it anyway because Carrie Dentweiller's mom is like real religious or something and it was this really big thing and I didn't get to see it. Are you even paying attention?"

"Some play. Shakespeare. Naked guy."

"Yeah. It's not right. Buffy used to go out all the time when she was my age, and not just to slay stuff. She was sneaking out of the house to meet Angel all over town when she was sixteen. They all used to go out. Xander and Willow and everybody at their high school. They went to the Bronze, dances, movies. They were going out all the damn time even though there were vampires and monsters and Giles telling them not to. I mean, what the hell, you know? People have been living here for a hundred years or whatever, and they keep making more people, so somebody in this town must be having fun somewhere. Just doesn't happen to be me. So what am I supposed to do? Bark louder?"

"Finish your tacos for one." He reached across for her soda.

"You know, I was thinking ... I mean, I know there isn't much money for, you know, anything funÇ"

"Gah! Jesus! What is this?"

"Mountain Dew. So, anyway, what I thought was, maybe I could go with you guys? Patrolling sometimes?"

"Whu-what?"

"It could be like a ride along, like on COPS. I wouldn't try to fight or anything, I'd just observe—"

"Yeeaah, well ... " He hissed through his teeth and dragged his fingers over his neck then up through his hair so it stood up in little tufty chunks. He'd messed up his hair and wouldn't look at her. Not a good sign.

"Man," she said, softly, "I didn't think it was possible for you to look any whiter."

"'S the lights. See, thing is, Buffy'n me—we work in, whatcha call it, tandem. Takes-takes a lot of concentration. A lot. One misstep and we're-we're outa sync like. I mean, what we do? Slayer's business? All kinds of dangerous, and violent, so, so terribly violent, and—"

"Right." She swallowed hard, eyes fixed on her own hands as they pulled at the bits of greasy paper on her tray.

"Buffy'd never go for it anyway, you know that."

"Fine. Whatever. I'm done." She wiped her mouth and hands with a napkin Ç tense, hard little motions. Now it was her turn not to look at him.

"Niblet, come on, you know she wouldn't listen to me," he said, watching her cram the remains of her meal into the slot of the trash bin, followed by the heavy sloshing thump of her half-full extra large beverage. "When has she ever?" The tray was banged onto a stack of others with a fury that made the counter people jump.

"You don't have to give me a ride home. I can walk from here."

"Don't be a git," he said, getting up, feeling suddenly very old. His actual age, even.

"Oh." She thrust her hand into her tight little hip-huggers and slammed the money on the table. "And here's your stupid damn change."

"Just keep it for fuck's sake. Wasn't serious 'bout all that."

"Yes you were."

"Yeah, then, but— Dawn!" He scooped the change off the table. "You're not walking home alone. You know I'll just follow you." He was following her even as he spoke, wading through the wake of her dramatic exit to the parking lot. "Stop now. Stop! I mean it. You're getting on the bike and I'm taking you home." She marched right past the motorcycle, turning her nose up at it like the imperious little princess she was. So like her sister in fact, that he wanted to kiss the top of her head while tearing it from her neck. "Stop. Right now! You're not walking home alone. It's complete, utter nonsense! I won't allow it."

She stopped. She actually stopped because he said so. Paused mid-stride as if immobilized by the power of his adult authority. When she turned, he realized that, as was so often the case of late, he'd overestimated his power by quite a lot.

"Oh my god," she squealed, pointing at him with malicious glee. "You sounded exactly like Giles!" There followed a great deal of mocking at his expense, after which she did agree to get on the bike.

"Can't promise about the patrolling," he said, cigarette hanging from his lower lip, "but I'll see if I can get her to let you off the choke chain once in a while. Won't promise much there either ... "

"It's OK. Thanks."

"We amigos again?"

"Si, senor." He started the bike and she mounted up behind him, wriggling her bottom into a comfortable position. "Can I still keep the money?" she shouted over the engine.

"You do an evil man proud, Bit."

"Althea, child, she won't feel more'n a little prick. Like at the doctor's. I done it to you when you was a baby and you didn't utter so much as a cry. At my breast right after like nothin' happened."

"So you say, Mama, but I don't remember it, now do I? What am I gonna tell Dave when he sees it? He'll wonder how she got it. You know he will. He won't understand. And I can't lie to him. He's my husband."

"We'll make it so he won't know it's there."

"Bible says that man is the head of woman as God is the head of man—"

"Also says, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. What we're doing here is none of Caesar's business. You may be his wife, Althea, but you're my daughter. A Moontree woman. And this child is a Moontree woman as well. We got to protect her, and we got to teach her. Otherwise—"

Moontrees, Tara thought. I know where I am now.

"He already thinks you're touched in the head, Mama. He thinks I ought not to— He doesn't want you spending time with the children anymore. Is that what you want? Because he can make it so."

"Oh lord, Althea ... baby ... you know it'd break my heart. But I'd risk it to keep this little girl safe. That man don't know what we know."

"I don't know what we know! You've been filling my head with this since I was born, but I can't— it's not how the real world is, Mama. Dave—Dave is good to me. He loves me in spite of- of what I am."

Even with the tenor the conversation, they were so sweet to look upon, those women, that baby, sitting on the old flying geese quilt, in a circle of white stones. They could have been enjoying a picnic, instead of doing what they so often did here Ç healing folks, and setting spells, and brewing potions in the old copper pot. So sweet, and so achingly young.

"What's he been telling you?"

"He thinks the power comes from the devil."

"You think the gift of healing can come from such a thing?"

"Course not. But that's not all we—"

Suddenly, both women started, and turned toward the trees. Their mouths hung open in identical slack-jawed shock for a second, then the younger woman made a panicked squealing sound and tried to scuttle back, clutching at a baby that didn't want to be clutched.

Tara realized they could see her now, and that's why they were afraid. She wanted to laugh. Because she was nothing scary. But then, Granny never welcomed any spirit she didn't invite to the circle herself.

"Granny? Mama?" Tara said. She grinned and wiggled her fingers in a wave. "It's just me."

The older woman's face crumpled as she realized what sort of spirit was speaking to her. "Tara, honey. What have you done, girl?"

"It's all right, Gran. Nothing to be afraid of. See?"

"No! Get back! Don't come no closer—"

The baby gave an angry squeal, pressed tight against her mother's chest. She arched her back in that powerful way of babies seeking freedom, and twisted her torso so she could look at the pretty girl in the bubble of light. A grin like a toothless, slobbery sunbeam as she reached out one chubby little finger to pop the bubble—

Tara heard her grandmother shout something, but then it was swallowed by the white noise of rushing particles and molecules rearranging themselves, and she found herself once again sprawled on the floor of her dorm room. She was naked and cold and her palm itched. "Means expect money or a visitor soon," she whispered to the dark.