NEW Fic: To Cross the River Styx (6a/?)

[PChazzman@xxxxxxx]

TITLE:  To Cross the River Styx (6a/?)
AUTHOR: Chazzman
E-MAIL: PChazzman@xxxxxxx  
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They all belong to Joss and the WB network. Please don't sue. 
SPOILERS: Open season on Season 4. 
SUMMERY: I'm re-inventing season 4. Skipping a few eps to get to 'This Year's Girl'.
RATED: PG
DISTRIBUTION: Just ask me, please...
FEEDBACK: Is very welcome.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you again to all the wonderful people who have sent me feedback saying they are interested in seeing more. 


To Cross the River Styx

Chap 6a

"Hey there," Buffy said as she strolled into the room and sat down in the chair near the bed.  She slipped a book from her backpack and settled back in the chair.  It had become a ritual of sort.  Willow was at one of her weekly psych-therapy sessions to help her cope with the after effects of being kidnapped, so Buffy had come to the hospital to see Faith.  Sometimes she talked to her about what had been going on, other times she read aloud from her texts to the girl.

"I got a B on my Lit essay, and I got to beat up Ethan Rayne for turning Giles into a demon. So it's been a good week."  She proceeded to describe how Giles had awoken one morning and found himself transformed into a Fyarl demon.  Fortunately, Spike who had still been staying with Giles was able to speak Fyarl and had immediately called Buffy.  A quick search of the magic shops had revealed that Ethan was back in town, and an even quicker search of the hotels, thanks to one of Riley's frat buddies, had enabled Buffy to catch Ethan and make him reverse the spell.

An hour later, as Buffy finished reading to Faith the latest chapter in 'Ancient History 103', she looked up to find Tara standing in the doorway waiting for her to finish.  They would go and spend the next hour or so practicing Tara's witchcraft and Buffy's sorcery, as Giles insisted on calling it.  Of her friends, only Giles and Tara knew about her trips to see Faith.  And Tara only knew because they had been spell-casting together.

The first time they had practiced together, Tara had immediately sensed Buffy's convoluted feelings about Faith and had cautiously asked her about it.   After Buffy had told her about what had happened, Tara had seemed to understand Buffy's need to do something, anything, to ease her heart over Faith's condition.  Not that she wouldn't have done it again.  But it was still painful to Buffy that it had been necessary at all.  Tara had listened to her and had gently encouraged her to do what she had to do in order to purge her heart of the anger she felt from Faith's betrayal.

Buffy smiled and closed her book. "Hey.  How's it going?"

"Good," Tara smiled back. "All set for tonight?"  

"Excuses ready to go," Buffy nodded.  Although she had finally told Willow about Tara, she was still keeping quiet about her new powers to the rest of the gang.  Willow been quiet subdued when Buffy had introduced her to Tara, and Buffy had felt that Willow would have been too upset by the information about her new abilities.  Additionally, to prevent any accidental slips of the tongue, she had not told Xander and Anya.  Giles helped her cover by claiming to be giving Buffy more training time, which technically was true.  He had mapped out a course of concentration and meditation techniques for Buffy to practice control of her new abilities in addition to working on her Slayer skills.

***

Willow slowly emerged from Faith's body.  It felt like pushing through warm jello.  There was no resistance but it felt like something clinging to her as she moved.  She had been experimenting to see if she could communicate with Buffy by using Faith's body.  Use her voice.  Move her hand.

In other words, she was trying to posses Faith's body.

Not permanently, she had promised, but since Faith was in a coma and all, it seemed logical that someone should get some use out of her body...

Not that it mattered.  Although she felt as if she should have been able to do it, thus far she'd had no success at any sort of control over Faith's body.  It was frustrating.  Almost as frustrating as her attempts to move objects.  Since that night over the Hellmouth, Willow had been unable to do so much as lift a feather.  She had finally put it down to Buffy being 'super-charged' that night from the amulet being close to so many lines of magical power.  So she had moved on to attempting possession of the comatose Faith.  And failing utterly.

Not that it had been a total wash out.  She had found herself able to do certain things that she had not yet been able to do in Buffy's body.  One of those things was an ability to occasionally link into Faith's subconscious and see her dreams.  They had frightened her at first.  Some were violent distorted images from Faith's childhood and from slaying.  Others were an incomprehensible mishmash of images, not really frightening, just surreal.  Then there were the nice dreams: Training with her first Watcher, Christmas at Buffy's house, the Mayor taking her on a picnic.  However even these pleasant dreams often ended in horror with Faith's first Watcher being torn apart by Kakistos, and Buffy walking up and stabbing the Mayor.

Willow had had enough after the third time she watched a stone-cold killer Buffy disrupting Faith's gentle memories of the Mayor.

"That's not what Buffy is and you know it!" she shouted at the Faith.

"What the-," Faith looked around with a puzzled _expression_ as Willow strode forward.  

"He was the monster, Faith, not Buffy," Willow growled out, "At least you could have the guts to face the facts in your own head."

"She's too much of a coward to face the truth!" snarled Buffy as she stepped forward with the knife still dripping with blood.

"I- I- What are you talking about?" Faith stepped back from the angry duo.

"What am I talking about?" Willow looked over at the bloody body of the Mayor and suddenly the scene shifted to that of Graduation and the Mayor shifted and grew into a 60-foot long demonic serpent, which began gulping down people. "That's what he wanted to become.  Buffy fought to save lives.  You gave up and just tried to destroy 'em."

"You don't understand!" Faith yelled back.  "He did more for me in a few months than anyone else in my entire goddamn life.  He cared about me!"

"You don't deserve to have anyone care about you," growled the Buffy image.  "You're nothing. A slut.  A killer.  You should be dead.  You were supposed to fight for good and you betrayed everything.  You're EVIL.  You belong in Hell!"

Willow was suddenly alarmed at the way Buffy was acting.  "Now wait!" cried out Willow but neither Faith nor Buffy heard her.  Buffy dove at Faith fully intent on stabbing her again

"No!" Faith cried out in fear and stumbled backwards.  She flung out her arms to protect herself and suddenly Willow felt herself being expelled from Faith's body.  After that experience, Willow decided that rather than confront Faith she would simply manipulate the scenes and hope that maybe they would have some influence on how Faith viewed things. 

It was a shocking realization to herself that she had done the same thing to Faith in her own mind that Faith had done to Buffy.  Replaced the person with a simple character that exaggerated the perceived faults of that person.  Slowly, Willow was beginning to see beyond the picture she had developed in her own mind of Faith as nothing more than 'psycho-girl' and instead she began to see her once again as a person.  

As she left Faith's body to follow after Buffy and Tara, she did not notice the small tendrils of energy that remained behind, linking them to the dark slayer.  Giving her energy.  

Hastening her awakening.

*******

The door to the closed as Riley Finn left the meeting.  He had done his best to control himself but there was no mistaking the aura of anger that exuded from him at many of Eve's comments.  Finally, when his report was finished and the cross-examination over, he had been allowed to leave.

"He's getting nowhere and he's really more of a liability right now," snapped Eve.  "He almost blew it at the magic shop the other day, when he called for help on tracking down Ethan Rayne."

"I honestly don't see the need, either," Maggie added.  "Eve has provided us with plenty of details regarding her activities.  This foolishness endangers the main project, 314.  The risk is unnecessary."

"Riley stays," said Jude calmly.  "My interest in Miss Summers is not your concern and has no bearing to your project."

"Wrong.  You're using my people for 'Your Project' and that makes it my concern."

"Does Agent Finn know about Adam?  Is he aware of what you have done to him?  No.  Besides, there is still the whole outstanding question of whether 314 will be truly feasible.  You're still a long way from success, Doc.  Meanwhile, the successful recruitment of this 'Slayer' gives way to a whole host of opportunities and possibilities."

Jude stood up.  With a glare at Eve, he ordered, "Riley stays and you are to do everything to help him establish a relationship with Miss Summers."  With that he walked out of the room.

Dr. Ackerman took a nervous drag on his cigarette.  "Well, that was fun," he grumbled sarcastically.  "Why do you let him get to you?  Shouldn't we be preparing the teams for tonight's hunt?"

"You're right," sighed Maggie, as she ran her hand through her hair.  "It's just that there's something about him that irritates me."

Eve handed a few sheets of paper to Maggie.  "This is all I was able to find in Giles books on Polgara demons.  I don't believe the Glormgist would be prudent due to potential difficulties with disease."

"Difficulties?" asked Dr. Ackerman.

"Glormgist demons tend to lair with rodents."

*** 

Giles looked about with a sigh as the wind began to pick up.  The clouds were moving in rapidly so it looked as if they would have to cut the practice short.  Still, he had been very impressed with Buffy's progress in developing her mental powers.  His research into past slayers with similar powers had unfortunately been stymied by the lack of access to the resources of the Watcher's Council.  He and Buffy had decided to try and keep Buffy's new powers secret, not even Willow and Xander had been told.  Willow had not been told because Buffy worried how she might react.  When Buffy had told her about Tara finally, Willow's only comment had been to accuse Giles of purposeful neglect.  He still cringed whenever he remembered her softly spoken words: 'Maybe if you had trained me properly I could have defended myself and might not have had my brain chopped up.'  Since then, Willow had only once been over to the apartment, and that had only 
been because he had been turned into a demon by Ethan.  

Tara smiled as she felt Buffy expanding her spell to include her and Giles.  It felt as if she was being enveloped in her mother's arms.  A sensation of warmth and security passed through her body as Buffy's detection spell expanded outwards.

Buffy felt a sense of pleasure as she stretched the detection spell to a circle 20 feet in radius where she finally detected Giles and Tara.  Being careful to hold the detection spell steady, she used her mind to pick up a book and a crystal.  The book she floated over to where she 'felt' Giles was and the crystal she held in the air by Tara.  She then reached up and removed her blind fold.

"How did I do?" she asked as she blinked to adjust her eyes and looked over to the two figures in hopeful expectation.  Her smile slipped and shoulders slumped as she saw Giles holding the crystal and Tara holding the book.

"Drat."

"No," Giles and Tara both said at the same time.  They looked at each other, and Tara, blushing, indicated for Giles to continue first.

"Buffy, what you have managed to do in such a short time has been nothing short of amazing."  Tara nodded firmly.  "And in no small part, a little frightening."  Buffy looked shocked at that statement, but when she glanced at Tara she could see that the blond witch agreed.  Giles noted the surprise and worry on Buffy's face and continued.  "It's not that I am afraid of you become evil.  I've known you too long and after all that you have faced, well let's just say that I believe you have too strong of a moral character to ever seek to do evil with this power.  Many magic users tend to be unaware of the potential for evil overwhelming them when they seek the easy path to greater power.  A path that you don't seem to need, frankly.  I'm not sure how strong your powers are but we haven't even begun to stretch them with what we've been doing here.  These... exercises are simply thing to teach you control.  That you are still
 making some mistakes is actually in a strange way, reassuring."

"I'm getting credit for mistakes? Why can't you be one of my professors?" Buffy grumbled.

"And I'm also very pleased that you haven't let this power go to your head and start using it every day during slaying.  It is important that you not become slack on your physical aspects just because you can float a couple of stakes in the air."

"Ninety-eight," said Tara softly.

"What?" 

"She's up to being able to control ninety-eight different stakes in the air at the same time.  Of course that was last week..." she trailed off with a small sheepish shrug.

Giles looked shocked while Buffy just smiled.

"So what next Obi-Wanita?" Buffy asked Tara.  "Try again?"  Suddenly a rumble was heard from overhead.

"M-Maybe we should stop for the night," Tara said as she nervously looked up.

"Quite right," said Giles still trying to picture the vision of Buffy patrolling with 98 stakes floating around her.  Vampires would never be able to even get near enough to touch her.  He began to pick up some of the supplies.

"OK.  Hey Tara, tomorrow Willow's gonna be studying at the library till eleven, you wanna go to the Bronze?  I'll call Riley.  Maybe we'll get lucky and find you that special girl?"  Buffy grinned at the now blushed Tara.  Tara had finally told Buffy about her homosexuality in order to stop Buffy from trying to set her up with any of Riley's friends.  Buffy had blinked for a moment after Tara's revelation, Tara had been certain that she had heard the shifting of gears, and then Buffy had proceeded to talk about working on finding 'that special girl for her'.  

Tara smiled back at Buffy.  She had finally become used to Buffy's teasing and cajoling.  Her confidence was still quite low but being around Buffy always seemed to make her more daring.  She met the challenge in Buffy's eye, flipped her hair back in a nonchalant manner and nodded.  "You're on."

It would have sounded better without the stutter.

*****

"What the fuck is your problem?" snarled Riley as Eve stepped out of the front of Lowell House.  

Eve look calmly at the angry young man.  "Problem?"

"Every goddamn meeting it's 'Riley is screwing up', 'Pull Riley', 'Get rid of Riley'.  I'm having enough trouble with this mission without you trying to sabotage my every effort."

Eve arched an eyebrow and began to walk off.  When Riley didn't follow she stopped and called back over her shoulder, "Walk with me."  After a minute of walking in silence Eve began to speak.

"What exactly is your mission, Agent Finn?  Get in close with the Slayer?  Why does Jude Law want you next to Buffy?  I am already there.  I can provide all the needed information on Buffy and her activities.  Instead my orders are to slowly isolate myself from everyone until I receive orders to tell them that I am leaving Sunnydale.  That I can't handle the constant fear.  That I need to get away and start fresh.  And after I have left, do you know what will happen to me?"

She stopped walking to look him straight in the eye.

"I will be shutdown.  Program completed.  End of run.  I'm a loose end that the government can't have running around.  Jude Law is afraid of me and wants me packed up and liquidated.  I know this and still I will follow Dr. Walsh's orders.  I have to.  But don't expect me to enthusiastically welcome you when you're doing such a pitifully poor job."

Riley's face had blanched when she had mentioned being liquidated, but then he thought about what she was and calmed down.  Eve did not miss the change in his face.

"That's right.  I'm just a thing.  I don't deserve to exist.  Keep think that.  After all, you've got enough on your conscience what with killing me once already," Eve said with a smirk.  Riley took a step back as his face flushed with guilt.

Eve started to turn away but stopped and looked back over her shoulder.  "Here's something else to think about.  Jude told you he wants to recruit Buffy, but do you really think that Buffy would join a group that traumatized her best friend the way my cover story has been put forth?"

"So what are you saying?" 

Eve cocked here head to the side.  "I don't know.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think you're here to recruit Buffy by getting her in the sack.  Jude Law came here to eliminate problems.  Buffy Summers being in jail for murder would solve a lot of his problems."

"Wha- Wait a minute.  Why would she be in jail for murder?" Riley asked in frustration.

Eve smiled coyly at the soldier.  "Be honest Riley.  You've seen her in action.  Do you think you'd have the slightest chance of surviving an angry Slayer if Buffy ever found out what you've done behind her back and how you are deceiving her with every kiss?"

She walked off leaving a very troubled Riley alone with some very dark thoughts. 

*****

As Giles drove them back to the campus, Buffy thought about the problem of fixing Tara up with someone, and compared it to her problem of trying to fix Willow.  With Tara the problem was self-assurance hampered by an almost painful shyness.  Willow was actually now very self-assured and confident, even more so than before her kidnapping, however her trust in people had been destroyed.  

She worried about how solitary Willow seemed now.  Buffy had kept Tara away from Willow since the incident with Giles, not wanting the shy blonde witch to become a target of Willow's anger, which seemed to erupt at the most inopportune times.  Last week she had suddenly flared up over a minor joke by Xander and proceeded to rip into him over his currently aimless life, lack of any career goals or prospects, and had told him to just stay away from her with his 'Demon Lover'.  Buffy had tried to smooth over the hurt by talking to Xander but a number of Willow's comments had cut too close to home leaving him in a deep depression.  

"I don't want Xander around her any more.  She's not getting better, Buffy.  She's getting worse and she's starting to affect everyone around her," had been Anya's comment on the whole situation, and Buffy had been surprised to find herself agreeing with the former vengeance demon.  Buffy had recently found herself not wanting to be around Willow because whenever she was she felt a continuous sense of anger and rage inside over what had been done to her.  Most of the time, Buffy would quash those feelings because she saw that Willow was alone and needed somebody, even though she said she didn't.

Thoughts about Willow inevitably led once again to thoughts about the 'angel' she had seen several weeks ago while dangling over the Hellmouth.  Was it truly an angel?  How had she been able to see it?  Why had it looked like Willow to her?  Another odd thing was that now whenever she thought about the angel, it would always seemed to produce a surge of warmth, comfort and a deep sense of love within her.  Why?  She had even talked about it with her mom, again leaving out the detail of it looking like Willow.  Joyce had simply found comfort in the idea that as the slayer, perhaps she wasn't as alone in her fight against evil as had always been thought and that maybe it was a guardian angel.  Giles had been unable to find anything after weeks of research, as most of his texts dealt with the demonic end of the supernatural spectrum.

Tara watched Buffy as she stared out the car window.  She could tell by the look of bliss on her face that she was thinking about the 'angel'.  The first time she had seen Buffy looking this way she had asked if the slayer was daydreaming about her new boyfriend.  "Hardly," Buffy had laughed and then she had frowned as she realized that her thoughts about the angel had giving her a more fulfilled feeling than any of Riley.  Buffy had simply told Tara that she was just trying to remember what the angel had looked like, but Tara wasn't fooled.  The look on Buffy's face had been one of enraptured adoration. 

Riley was in for a major disappointment.  Just like she had been.

*****

TBC...