Fic; Stranger In Her Eyes -- 2/3

[Jim_D_Means@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Before we do part two of my story, a little background.

When I write in Shyfox's universe, I make it a point to send her my story first, to make sure it 
jibes with her continuity. As you no doubt have guessed, her story takes liberties with the 
series. The way I figure it(and she seems to agree with me), the Oz and Veruca story took 
place in early October, and he left before Halloween. Since there's no Initiative(yay!) and no 
Riley(double yay!) in Shyfox's timeline, Buffy was not distracted by them, and was there to 
console Willow.(Also, this means that Spike doesn't have his chip. Hmm...) The original 
story, "Sappho's Spell" took place just after Halloween, and the pregnancy was discovered 
shortly after. The episodes 'Pangs' and 'Something Blue' didn't take place in this universe, but 
the events in 'Hush'(currently my all-time favorite BTVS episode, for its innovative use of 
silence, and general spookiness. The Gentlemen were way more scary than ADAM!) did 
take place, minus the Initiative. Clear on that? Good. (Oh, Shy, if I'm mistaken on anything, 
let me know off-list please.)

Thanks large to the fair and lovely Shyfox for beta-ing, encouraging and generally being a fan.

Kirayoshi



Disclaimers;
I don't own these wonderful characters. Joss owns them, charts their destinies, makes them 
fall in love with the wrong people. You'd think Buffy would give that jerk Riley the time of 
day if I owned her? Huh?

Author's note;
This story deals with two women in a long-term relationship. You gotta problem with that? 
No? Good.

Once again, I'm dipping my toe into Shyfox's pool. I wrote one short story for her "Sappho's 
Spell" series, and she didn't kick me out yet, so I'm at it again. Here's a toast to the 
wonderful Shyfox. "If I have seen farther, it is because I've sat on the shoulders of giants." --
Sir Isaac Newton

This story was inspired by the fourth season episodes, "Something Blue" and "Who Are 
You". Sorry, gang, but Faith isn't the main villain in this one. This story will answer the $64 
dollar question, "Where's Tara in this storyline?"

Feedback; Like I need to ask? Jim_D_Means@xxxxxxxxxxx

Tonight's episode features music by Peter Gabriel, The Who(just to give Giles a happy), and 
the Talking Heads.

Summary; The girls are married and on their honeymoon. But someone covets Willow, and 
will go to extremes to get her, pissing off Buffy in the process. Ooh, bad move!

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Stranger In Her Eyes (2/3)
Written by Kirayoshi
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Chapter two
Who Are You This Time?

"I woke up in a Soho doorway,
A policeman knew my name.
He said, 'You can go sleep at home tonight,
If you can get up and walk away.'
I went down to the Underground,
And a breeze blew back my hair.
I remember throwing punches around 
And preaching from my chair.
Well, Who Are You?
'Cause I really wanna know!"
--The Who
"Who Are You?"

Willow Rosenberg-Summers cooed with pleasure as jets of hot water cascaded against her 
naked body, while Buffy kneaded the area behind her left shoulder blade. "Ooh, yeah," 
Willow groaned as Buffy's skilled hands eased the kinks out of a particularly sensitive spot. 
"You practice this out on Angel when you two were together?"

Buffy slowed down her hands, as Willow turned her head to her, grinning. "Well?" she 
asked, her eyes flashing, almost cat-like.

"I refuse to answer that," Buffy said, amid her companion splashing her, "on the grounds that I 
may incriminate myself. Hey, cut that out!"

"C'mon, Buffy," Willow insisted, feeling friskier. "We're married now. Total honesty."

Buffy regarded her beloved's face with a mixture of bemusement at her impertinence, and 
rapture that she chose to share her life with her. "No, Willow," she said somberly. "I never 
gave Angel a backrub."

"Just as well," Willow contemplated as she sank back against Buffy's chest and luxuriated in 
the hot tub in their honeymoon suite. "One good rubdown like that, and that happiness clause 
would kick in. Your hands, Buffy, are magic."

"Considering who's saying this, that's high praise indeed." Buffy shifted slightly, turning her 
body to face Willow's. "You make me happy, Wills. If I never knew you, I don't think I'd 
have survived my sophomore year. I never knew what it was to truly love someone, to give 
my heart in exchange for another's, before you. I love you, Wills." She stroked Willow's 
cheek with her hand, and Willow smiled, taking Buffy's hand in her own and kissing the palm.

"I love you, too, Buff. And you make me happy too," she replied, love illuminating her green 
eyes. "You're my family now. You, your mom, Giles, the Scoobs, and soon," she rested 
Buffy's hand on the swell of her belly, "our daughter. She's gonna be so lucky to be raised in 
that family. Just as I'm lucky you wanted to be mine." She leaned in to kiss Buffy, who 
reciprocated without hesitation. No more words were needed, as the two lovers caressed 
each others bodies languidly. They made love in the hot tub for over an hour, happy in their 
love and confident that nothing would ever part them again.

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"Candles, check. Bowl, check. Herbs, check. Spell, check. Okay, seems I'm ready."

The room was dark, lit only by a ring of pillar candles. Their flames burned steadily in the still 
air of the room. Tara sat inside the ring of candles, going over the supplies she required for 
the spell she was planning. 

She looked wistfully at the bulletin board on the wall in front of her. Every square inch was 
covered with photographs, clippings from yearbooks, and a few newspaper clippings. The 
pictures were of the same subject. Willow Rosenberg, now Willow Rosenberg- Summers. 
The most recent clipping was of the wedding announcement between Willow Rosenberg and 
Buffy Summers. The clipping bore tear stains.

Tara blinked tears away as she turned her eyes from these reminders of her heartache. She 
had loved Willow from the day they had first met, from the time those silent demons that she 
called the Gentlemen attacked Sunnydale and stole their voices. But she now knew that she 
never had a chance. Willow's heart had already been claimed by Buffy Summers. And now 
they were married. And Tara was miserable.

She began her spell, hoping to end her sorrow;

"Hark and will ye elements, I summon thee now," She began as she prepared handfuls of 
herbs and placed them in the bowl. As she mingled the herbs, she recited the spell;

"Control the outside, control within.
Land and sea, fire and wind. 
Out of my passions, a web be spun. 
>From this eve forth, my will be done.
So mote it be."

As she spoke the arcane words, her thoughts were still centered on one person.

Willow.

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"How's the steak, Buff?" Willow asked, as she observed her wife on the opposite side of the 
table, tucking into her filet mignon.

"Mmm-mm," Buffy answers as she finishes swallowing the bite in her mouth. "I could see 
myself doing this regularly. Too bad our budgets don't allow it."

"All the more reason to enjoy it more when we have it," Willow observed, as she savored her 
pasta primavera with shrimp. The dining room at the Piedmont hotel was subdued, as the 
two women enjoyed their meal later in the evening. They would have arrived sooner, but 
they were otherwise occupied with each other. However, the two women were so infatuated 
with each other that they wouldn't have noticed if Tom Cruise were at the next table. Their 
eyes were fixed solely on each other.

"Hey, honey," Willow suggested, "the ballroom's open tonight, and there's supposed to be a 
live swing band playing. You wanna shake and shimmy off the calories from this decadent 
meal?"

"You mean a chance to see your body gyrating on the dance floor?" teased Buffy. "And to 
hold your body as we move against each other?" She smiled wickedly. "Wouldn't miss it!" 
She took Willow's hand in her own, her fingers caressing the diamond engagement ring. 
"When's the last time I told you I love you?"

"About five minutes ago," Willow answered, her cheeks dimpling with her smile.

"I though I was behind," she chuckled. "I'm just glad I got you when I did. If I had waited 
three weeks more, I might have lost you for good."

Willow stopped eating and asked, "What makes you think that?"

"Oh, don't tell me that you didn't notice Tara looking at you today at the Quad," Buffy teased 
Willow. "The way her eyes were practically ripping your clothes off. Trust me, Wills, she's 
warm for your form."

"No way," answered a disbelieving Willow. "Really?" Buffy nodded enthusiastically. Willow 
giggled at the thought. "Well, it's a good thing you got your bid in when you did, isn't it, 
Slayer?" She sobered slightly, adding, "I wouldn't worry about that, Buffy. You had a claim 
on my heart long before I even met Tara. I have always loved you from afar. Now that 
we're here, together," she squeezed Buffy's hand, "married, it's like my existence has been 
verified. Like I know why I'm on this planet. To be a witch, to fight evil, to help others, and 
above all else, to love you and build a family with you."

"I love you, Wills," Buffy breathed.

"I love you too, Buffy," the redhead answered. "Now, let's finish our dinner, and hit the 
dance floor. I wanna dance 'til the cows come home!"

"And then we'll dance with the cows," Buffy agreed wholeheartedly.

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"It is my will that my heart be healed," Tara shouted to the night. "That the ache in my soul 
abate and my love for Willow no longer tear at my soul." She waited for some kind of result, 
but still felt nothing but emptiness and pain over Willow. 

She tried to test her spell by opening one of her textbooks. "I will that this book speak its 
words to me!" The book remained silent.

She picked up a bent Q-tip from her dresser. "I will that this Q-tip become unbendy?" 
Nothing happened. Tara sank to the floor, defeated. Her spell, her one chance at forgetting 
Willow, at ending the heartache she felt over never having known her love, had failed her. 

She picked herself up and looked in the mirror. The straight blond hair, the large blue eyes, 
her curving figure. She wasn't unattractive, she knew that. She might have been shy, unsure 
of herself, unskilled in social situations, had a tendency to stutter under stress. But she was 
still pretty, still intelligent, still a caring soul. So why didn't Willow love her?

She leaned her head against the mirror, and sighed, "Willow, dear sweet Willow. If only I 
was the one that you loved!"

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When Tara looked up again, she knew at once there was something wrong. She was no 
longer standing in her dorm, but in a large chamber. A ballroom. The ceilings were twenty 
feet high, and a large mirror-ball hung and rotated from the ceiling's center. Rich red curtains 
flanked beveled mirrors along the walls, and several couples danced without care as a live 
swing orchestra played. 

Tara didn't have enough time to figure out what had happened, when a warm voice said to 
her, "Hey, lover, let's dance." She turned to the voice, and saw her dream, her Willow, 
standing next to her in a stunning red strapless. She smiled happily, and only for her. For 
Tara. 

"Uh, yeah, sure, let's dance," Tara managed to get out before Willow dragged her to the 
dance floor, and took her in her arms. They swayed gently to a chorus of "Moon River", and 
Willow leaned against Tara's shoulder as if she had always belonged there. 

Tara was torn between rapture at finally being in the arms of her loved one, and 
bewilderment at being yanked from the cramped confines of her dorm into this fantasy world. 
She was afraid that the clock would strike midnight and she would turn into a pumpkin. As 
she and Willow passed one of the huge mirrors on one of the walls, she glanced at herself.

She saw not her own body, but the body of Buffy Rosenberg-Summers. Instantly, she 
guessed what had happened; her will-be-done spell worked far better than she had hoped. 
She wished to be the one Willow loved, and now she was.

She held Willow a little tighter, and said to her what she had longed to say to her since they 
first met; "I love you, Willow."

"I love you too," she answered. Tara smiled to hear those words. Willow loved--no, she 
loved Buffy, not Tara. 

But now Tara was Buffy, and as Willow snuggled into her arms, she decided that it was going 
to stay that way. 

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Buffy was suddenly aware that her forehead was touching glass.

She lifted her head, seeing her reflection in the mirror. She shut her eyes hard, and opened 
them again. The face in the mirror wasn't hers. She examined the face more closely. She 
remembered; this was the face of Willow's friend, Tara.

She looked around her, surveying her surroundings. She recognized the layout; one of the 
dorm rooms at Stevenson Hall, where she and Willow had lived. The room was lit only by a 
ring of candles. "Hoo-kay," Buffy said to herself, surprised by the unfamiliar voice that came 
out of her mouth. "Spooky stuff here." She tried to figure out what had happened to her, 
when something in the center of the candle ring caught her eye. She looked down on the 
floor and saw a large, ancient book. Her first thought was "Spell book", and the candles 
suddenly made more sense. Tara was a witch, and she must have switched bodies with her. 
But why? And why now?

The answer to both questions hit her like a sledgehammer when her line of sight hit the far 
wall. The wall was half-covered with photographs, newspaper clippings, and drawings of 
Willow. "Oh--my--god--" Buffy whispered as the implications hit her.

Tara.

In her body.

With Willow.

That was all she needed to know. It was time for action, and Buffy had to save Willow from 
an obsessed suitor. She ran out of the dorm room, and headed back for the Piedmont.

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Willow snuggled into her wife's shoulder, blissfully unaware of her surroundings. All she 
knew was that she was in her wife's arms, dancing as the band played "Fly Me To The 
Moon". As far as she was concerned, she was halfway there already.

Tara wrapped her arms--Buffy's arms--around Willow's waist, and began to gently caress 
her back. Willow shivered at the contact, and Tara's soul sang. Yes, my beloved Willow. 
You are mine.

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"Excuse me, miss," a large attendant stopped the blond woman who tried to enter the 
ballroom. "This is a private dance. Hotel patrons only."

Buffy put up a protest, trying to get past the guard. "I have to get in there. Willow's dancing 
with someone else--"

"State your name, Miss."

"Buffy," she answered. "Buffy Rosenberg-Summers."

The attendant checked his registry, and turned to Buffy, a sour frown on his face. 
"According to the registry, Mrs. Rosenberg-Summers is in the ballroom, with her wife, 
Willow."

"No, that's not her," Buffy tried to explain, her voice growing more panicky as she spoke. 
"This isn't easy to explain, but she did something to me, she's not really me, she just looks like 
me--"

"Lady," the attendant said, rolling his eyes. Another crazy gatecrasher, he thought, just what I 
need. "Do you have a key-card?"

Buffy thought back to the patrons ID cards she and Willow were issued when they checked 
in last night. "I left it in my other body," she answered testily.

"Then you can't come in here. I'd advise you to leave now, before I call security and have 
you thrown out." He spoke calmly, but with authority, and Buffy knew that she wasn't going 
to win this fight. In this borrowed body, she didn't possess her Slayer strength, and the 
attendant looked too much like Evander Holyfield for her liking.

"All right, I'll go," she threw up her hands in defeat and left the hotel. The attendant forgot the 
incident and went back to work.

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A scared Slayer waited alone on a bench in Whetherly Park. She hoped and prayed that her 
hunch was correct. If not, then--she shuddered at the thought of Willow sleeping in the arms 
of another.

She couldn't go back home after being ordered out of the Piedmont. Her mother might be 
able to accept many things, but her daughter in a different body was pushing it to the max. 
Besides, she didn't want to involve her mother if she absolutely didn't have to.

That left Giles. He had said that he and the Scooby Gang would be handling the slayage 
while she and Willow were on their honeymoon, which meant that he would probably be 
patrolling tonight. And since Whetherly Park was a favorite 'fishing hole' for vampires, it 
made sense that he would be here. She hoped that she hadn't missed him. Or that he wasn't 
taking the cemetery route that evening. Or that he wasn't at home, making out with her 
mother.

She shut out that last thought quickly, and returned to her current predicament. She was, to 
say the least, P.O-ed. Apart from being away from Willow when they were supposed to be 
together, this was the second time in as many months where someone tried to screw with her 
identity. "Great," she mused sullenly. "Last month, Ira Rosenberg tried to convince me that I 
was someone named Sarah. Now, I'm stuck in Tara's body. Sarah, Tara, who'll I be next 
month? Laura? Mara? Scarlett O'Hara?"

"Well, missy," an unwelcome British accented voice announced, "I've never been very good 
with names." Buffy held her head in her hands, and moaned silently; Not him, not now!

A leather jacketed punk stepped out from behind a tree, smiling like a shark smelling blood 
on the water. Which is what he smelled. Blood. The crew-cut vampire nodded toward his 
intended quarry, saying, "Oh, my name's Spike. Don't bother introducin' yourself to me, I'll 
just call you," his face contorted into that of a vampire before making the attack, "dinner."

"Back off, Spike!" Buffy shouted. "Right now, you're the last person I want to see, not that 
you're ever on my Top Ten, even on a good day!" She crouched in a defensive stance, her 
eyes never wavering from her target.

"Oooh, scary scary," the British vampire taunted his intended prey. "Just who do you think 
you are, Buffy bleeding Summers?"

"C'mon, Peroxide Boy!" Buffy shouted, hoping that her fear wouldn't be apparent in her 
voice. "Hey, how's that ho Dru doing these days? Still boffing anything with a pulse? Or 
without one?"

Spike's hands trembled with rage. Good girl, Buffy, the Slayer thought to herself. Just keep 
him mad. She knew that as long as she was trapped in Tara's unfamiliar body, she couldn't 
count on her Slayer strength and healing ability. But her mental battle computer should still be 
operational. She hoped.

"I was going to make your death nice and painless," Spike growled, then stopped himself. 
"No, wait a sec...No I wasn't!" The vampire lunged at Buffy, who ducked instinctively, 
letting Spike fly over her. She timed his leap just right, and as his torso was directly over her, 
she pushed up, as hard as she could.

Her shoulder protested the strain, and a white hot ball of pain lodged into her back, but she 
managed to push Spike away from her, and the hapless Brit tumbled tailbone over head into 
a nearby thorn bush. She had hoped to incapacitate him long enough for her to run, but the 
sudden pain in her back made running difficult, and her action only made Spike madder.

"Right!" he shouted. "I'm gonna do you messy!" He scrambled to his feet, and stalked 
toward the frightened Slayer. She tried to run away, but the feet of her borrowed body 
weren't as agile as her own, and she managed to trip and fall to the ground. Spike advanced, 
grinning a feral grin. "I love the smell of epinephrine in the morning," he chortled. "The fight-
or-flight gland. Adds body to the blood." She struggled to stand up again, but Spike was 
too close. 

All she could think was, Willow, I love you. Take care of our little girl...


TBC

Xander; So, ya wanna go in the broom closet and make out?
Cordy; Geez, is that all you think about? -- Okay.