Assignment Sunnydale
                      ====================

                        by Calle Dybedahl

The window shatters in a cloud of glass fragments. Blood spatters
all over the red-haired girl's white shirt.
  "Your shirt..." the blonde girl between the window and the redhead says,
before she falls to the floor. The redhead rushes towards her lover,
her face transforming with shock.
  "Tara?" she says, pulling her head into her lap. "Tara? Baby?"
  There is no reaction.
  "Baby, come on!" she says, desperation breaking her voice. "Get up!"
  But her baby is still. Below her, blood stains the carpet.
  Tears are trickling down the redhead's face. She cradles the blonde's
head in her arms. She rocks back and forth, mumbling half-felt
unbelieving negations that nobody hears.
  She hunches down further, and suddenly it occurs to her that she's
not feeling her lover's breath. Her beloved isn't breathing.
  In her mind, something *snaps*.
  She uncurls, looks straight up, seeing nothing.
Her eyes are solid black. A faint red spark appears deep within
the blackness. Quickly, so quickly, it swells, making her eyes
glow brilliant pain-red. Magical forces gather around her.
The air thickens, waves of power rippling through it.
Barbarous names pour forth from the redheaded girl's throat,
ancient and powerful names that hasn't been spoken for eons.
She's working from instinct. She's not thinking at all.
The many reasons that the names are never spoken don't occur to her.
She wants her baby *back*. The forces gain substance.
Lines of darkness dance around the girl. Just a moment more.
Just a moment more, and she'll release them. Release them,
and they'll bring her beloved back to her again.
  Before she can speak the final word, a hand covers her mouth.
  The lines of darkness scatter and disperse. The red-headed girl turns
her head. A blonde woman in a blue dress is crouching behind her.
Even crouched, she looks tall. Her eyes are glowing a cold sapphire blue.
Slowly, she takes her hand from the redhead's tear-streaked face.
  "You don't want to do that, dear," she says.
  "But I must bring her back! I did it before!"
  The woman in blue sits down and pulls the girl to her.
The dead girl falls from the living girl's lap, lies still on
the carpeted floor.
  "No, you didn't," the woman says. "Not really. Not *her*."
As she says it, her eyes glow brighter for a moment.
  The redheaded girl collapses against the woman in blue
and starts crying desperately, with huge lung-tearing sobs.
The woman holds her in her arms, calmly doing her best to give comfort.


The gun fires once, twice and, after a second, a third time.
A window breaks. A thin blonde girl lies bleeding on the grass.
A young man is kneeling over her, staring in shock at the blood
spreading over her blouse. A couple of steps behind him, a stern
man in a dark gray suit watches.
  _Is it them?_ the man thinks.
  At the entrance to the garden, where the shooter has just
run away, a tall blonde woman dressed all in blue is standing.
She's running her fingers through the leaves of a bush.
  _No,_ she thinks. _But we're close to the epicenter.
These bushes have been through more loops than the coffee place had._
  The young man is vainly trying to stop the flow of blood from
the girl's wound. The stern man watches, unperturbed.
  _Is there anyone else here?_
  The woman lets go of the bush, turns towards the stern man and smiles.
  _I don't know,_ she thinks. _Something is blocking me._
  _We're close, then._
  _Yes._
  The stern man walks up to the young man, grabs him by the shoulders
and pulls him up as if he was weightless.
  "What...? Who are you?" the young man says, distraught and confused.
  "Is there anyone else here?" the stern man says, placing the youth
firmly on his own feet.
  The young man stares at him. "No. Maybe. I don't know, I've got
to get an ambulance for Buffy, he... He *shot* her!"
  "That is not a problem now," the stern man says. "I must know
if there is someone else here, or if you have seen anything strange."
  "Not a problem?! She's going to *die*!"
  "That is not my business. Is there anyone else here?"
  _Steel,_ the woman in sapphire blue thinks, _He's too traumatized
to think. And I think we're about to have another regression._
  In her room, Willow screams.


Willow buttons her white frilly blouse, in front of the mirror
in her room. Tara's standing near her, smiling and looking happy.
  "Hey, clothes," Willow says.
  "Better not get used to them," Tara says.
  Willow smiles. This is the way it should be. This is right.
  "Yes, ma'am," she says.
  She should be happy. She tries to make herself be happy.
She grabs Tara by the belt, pulls her in close and kisses her passionately.
  "Mmm... You know they're coming, right?" Tara says.
  "Not quite the reaction I was aiming for," Willow says.
  "I'm sorry," Tara says. "But there's not much time."
  She looks like she's bathed in darkness, although the room
is perfectly bright.
  "You'll have to do it again," Tara says. "Before they stop you."
  Willow crosses her arms protectively over her chest and sits
down on the bed.
  "Tara, I don't want to," she says. "Can't you just stay?
Just move away from the window. Let's go to another room.
Let's go eat!"
  She stands up again, suddenly filled with hope that she's solved
the problem, that she can avoid the pain. She takes Tara's hands.
  "You must be hungry," she says. "Let's go down to the kitchen
and I'll make you pancakes, ok?"
  Tara shakes her head. "Not yet, love," she says. "Not yet.
A few more times, and then I'll be with you forever."
  Her eyes are dark, so very dark.
  Willow looks pleadingly at her. "I'm afraid," she whispers.
"It hurts."
  Tara moves in front of the window, her back turned towards it.
  "Be brave," she says. A gunshot rings out. The window splinters
into a million tiny sharp crystals.
  Blood splatters over Willow's white frilly blouse.


The stern man and the woman in blue are walking down a Sunnydale street.
They have left the center of the town behind them, and are a fair
way into the more residential areas. The woman stops.
  The man stops as well, turns and looks questioningly at her.
  _Sapphire?_ he thinks.
  She tilts her head a little. _Steel, can you remember how we got here?_
  He frowns. _How we got here? We walked, I... No, you're right,
I can't. Time-slip?_
  She shakes her head. _More like a regression,_ she thinks.
_We're repeating time we've already been through._
  _What's doing it?_ he thinks. _Something from outside?_
  She shakes her head again. _No, it feels like it's the work of a human.
There may still be an outside force making the human do it, of course._
  _Either way, we have to find whatever is doing it and make it stop._
  _Yes,_ she thinks.
  In the distance, shots are fired.


"I made it," Willow says, smiling.
  "You sure did," Tara says. "And now we have a long time to play
before I get shot."
  Willow blinks. "You remember that? I though I'd be the only
one to remember."
  "We were both at the center of the magic," Tara says. "I remember.
And I know we're moving back to that time."
  "I can bring you back again," Willow says.
  "I know you can."
  Willow frowns. "But then I'll just have to do it again.
And again and again and again..."
  Tara hushes her. "No, you won't," she says, and the shadows
play over her face. "I didn't came back fully this time.
A few more times and I will. Then we can break the cycle and
be together forever."
  "Forever?" Willow asks, not sure that she likes the sound of that.
Forever sounds very, very *long*. But then, she can't imagine ever
wanting to leave Tara, so she guesses it's OK.
  "Forever," Tara says, and for some reason a chill goes through
Willow when she does.
  "I'm cold," she says.
  Tara pulls playfully on her hair.
  "So come here and let me warm you up," she says.
  Willow eagerly falls into her lover's embrace. As she closes
in to kiss her beloved, she pretends not to see the darkness moving
in her eyes.


Sapphire carries two large cups of coffee over to the small round
table in the Espresso Pump where Steel is waiting, puts them down
and sits across from him.
  _So why have we been called here?_ he thinks. _What date
is it anyway?_
  _The seventh of May two-thousand and two,_ Sapphire replies.
_Again,_ she adds.
  Steel looks at her. _Again?_
  She languidly sips her coffee, as if she had all the time
in the world.
  _Again,_ she thinks when Steel looks properly annoyed.
_It's been this day once before._
  _Well, that explains why we were sent,_ he thinks. He doesn't
touch his coffee. _Do we know what caused it?_
  Sapphire shakes her head. _Let's go look,_ she thinks.


The window shatters in a cloud of glass fragments. Blood spatters
all over the red-haired girl's white shirt.
  "Your shirt..." the blonde girl between the window and the redhead says,
before she falls to the floor. The redhead rushes towards her lover,
her face transforming with shock.
  "Tara?" she says, pulling her head into her lap. "Tara? Baby?"
  There is no reaction.
  "Baby, come on!" she says, desperation breaking her voice. "Get up!"
  But her baby is still. Below her, blood stains the carpet.
  Tears are trickling down the redhead's face. She cradles the blonde's
head in her arms. She rocks back and forth, mumbling half-felt
unbelieving negations that nobody hears.
  She hunches down further, and suddenly it occurs to her that she's
not feeling her lover's breath. Her beloved isn't breathing.
  In her mind, something *snaps*.
  She uncurls, looks straight up, seeing nothing. Her eyes are
solid black. A faint red spark appears deep within the blackness.
Quickly, so quickly, it swells, making her eyes glow brilliant pain-red.
  She can feel the forces gather in her. The pain and the
frustration and the loss and the sadness combine into a huge
night-black *thing*, a thing of tremendous destructive power.
She can feel it clawing at the walls around it, trying to tear
down the walls of her mind and the walls of reality itself.
Some small part within her knows that she shouldn't let it lose,
that it'll just bring grief. But that small part is quickly shouted down.
If she's been hurt, why shouldn't they be?
  Screwing her eyes shut, Willow *screams*.