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Balloons and paper lanterns were hung cheerily from the trees around the park. People were walking around, some in costume, some holding carnival prizes. Children were happy and tugging at the hands of their parents. A group of cheerleaders wove pompoms and were going through a routine. A group of Chinese men were dancing with a large paper dragon that was decorated with bells and ribbons. Flags of many nations hung from the wires strung around the park.

Nobody noticed the two women sitting on a park bench, seemingly holding hands.

Glory squeezes Tara's hand again and Tara gives another cry of pain.

"Who...is...the key?" Glory said slowly and menacingly.

Tara forced herself to stop crying and look Glory in the eye, defiantly saying nothing, though the pain coursing through her hand and up her arm was near unbearable.

Glory glared.

"Fine. Let's get crazy."

Glory caressed the side of Tara's face with her other hand. Tara whimpered and tried to pull her face away.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Willow had never run so fast in her life. *No.* She thought. *Not Tara. If anything happens to her...*

"Tara!" She called as she entered the park and kept running, through the crowds.

"Tara!" Willow yelled again as she spotted Tara and Glory on a bench. The lady in red leered toward the witch and smiled evilly.

Willow began to chant a protection spell for her lover but she couldn't remember the ending, and was distracted and began to panic when she saw Glory place both hands on Tara's temples.

"No! No!" Willow cried.

As light began to stream out as Glory's fingers entered Tara's head, both Tara and Glory cried out.

Willow reached the edge of the path but was blocked by the men dancing the Chinese dragon and had to stop.

"That she I love must now be free!" She now yelled in a desperate attempt to finish the incantation.

"Tara!" Willow yelled again as she strained to see around the people walking in front of her and blocking her view.

The crowd cleared momentarily and all Willow could see was Tara sitting alone on the bench, her head lolling to one side.

"No!!"

Willow ran over and threw herself onto the bench. She grabbed Tara by the shoulders, but her girlfriend didn't react or even look at her.

"Tara, Tara, are you okay?" Willow said out-of-breath.

"It's dirty. It's all dirty. And all over me!" Tara said distractedly as she brushed at her stomach.

"Dirty. Dirty. I'm bad. Bad." Tara whimpered.

Willow started to cry.

"Tara. Oh god, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She pulled Tara's head down onto her shoulder and rocked her gently, tears streaming down her face.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Willow looked at Tara, her eyes flickering down to Tara's bandaged right hand, and then back up to her eyes.

"She's my everything."

"Well, you can get her released first thing in the morning. But she's gotta spend one night in the psych ward. Just for observation. We'll keep an eye on her, do a couple basic tests, then you can take her home. Does that sound fair?" The doctor said kindly.

Willow nodded uncertainly.

"Well, sit tight then, and I'll send a nurse by in a few minutes to pick up Tara." The doctor continued. He walked out of the room as Anya and Xander give Willow concerned looks. Willow stood and brushed hair back from Tara's face. Tara doesn't seem to notice the kind gesture.

"Man, words cannot express how much I hate this place." Xander said. And he meant it. Memories that Xander never wanted to dredge up again thrived in Sunnydale's hospital: Willow's coma, Buffy's blood-loss from Angel's bite, sitting in the waiting room, waiting for news about Joyce. Hospitals never held good news for Xander.

"It's dreadful," Giles agreed.

"It's like communism," Anya also agreed, in her own way.

Buffy walked into the room, late because she had to travel underground and drop Dawn off at Spike's.

"Hey. Will, I'm so sorry."

She hugged Willow, and looked at Tara, who's staring vaguely at nothing, over Willow's shoulder.

When they pull apart, Willow has tears in her eyes again. She looked at Tara who gave her a huge smile.

"They kill mice." Tara said cheerily while nodding her head for emphasis.

Willow's tears start to fall but she makes no sound.

"Tara." Buffy said and hugged her, but Tara didn't react. Buffy pulled back slowly and looked at Willow.

"I'm sorry it took me so long, but Dawn's safe with Spike, so I-I can stay as long as you need."

Willow put her hand over Tara's non-bandaged hand.

"I'm so scared." She admitted to Buffy.

Buffy put her hand on best friend's cheek.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Spike led Dawn through the lower level of his crypt. He moved a little slowly and with a slight limp. He was still in some pain from Glory's thrashing, even though Buffy's care had helped his wounds greatly.

Spike saw the worried look on Dawn's face.

"No one's gonna hurt you." He reassured.

"Oh yeah? Same no one who did that to you?" She replied skeptically.

"What, these? It's just a few bruises."

Dawn eyes the large bruise that's still apparent on Spike's face.

"Nothin' to write home about," he said and moved past her. He stopped and turned back to see Dawn's nervous expression.

"Hey, chin up, platelet. Don't get scared. Maybe Glory doesn't wanna kill you, maybe it's something--"

"Worse?"

Spike didn't respond and continued walking until he noticed that Dawn had stopped following him. She sat on a rock. Spike turned to watch her as she sat there looking scared, facing away from him. He slowly walked toward her.

"Hey."

He put out a hand to touch her hair, but pulled it back quickly as Dawn turned back toward him.

"You wanna know what I'm scared of, Spike?" Her voice nearly cracked and she swallowed some tears. "Me. Right now, Glory thinks Tara's the key. But I'm the key, Spike. I am. And anything that happens to Tara...is 'cause of me. Your bruises, your limp...that's all me too. I'm like a lightning rod for pain and hurt." She lost the internal battle with her tears and started to cry. "And everyone around me suffers and dies. I...must be something so horrible...to cause so much pain...and evil."

Spike shook his head. *How could a girl so young think she was evil?* He remembered some of the things he had seen in his long life. *No...this girl wasn't evil. Evil isn't hereditary, it's earned.*

"Rot."

Dawn wiped away some tears with her hand and looked up at him, her eyes still watery.

"What do you know?" She said with a perfect teenager attitude.

"I'm a vampire. I know somethin' about evil. You're not evil."

"Maybe...I'm not evil. But I don't think I can be good." She looked up at Spike with a hopeful expression. She desperately wanted to be told by someone that the Key was meant for something good. But she didn't know anyone she could ask.

Spike considered her words for a minute. And then said:

"Well, I'm not good, and I'm okay."

Dawn looked down with small smile. There was a lull in the conversation.

Dawn's smile got bigger and she looked up at Spike and said:

"So...you and my sister, huh?"

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Buffy leant against the wall in the hospital hallway and watched the nurse try to coerce an upset Tara into her wheelchair. Her mind was racing a mile a minute.

She knew that Glory was getting closer. What if Glory ditched her plan to figure out the Key's identity and just picked her and her friends off one by one until she stumbled across it? She was running out of ideas to keep Dawn and everyone else safe.

Willow watched the nurse wheel Tara away. She started to run after her but Xander stepped into her path.

"Willow. No. It's just for one night." Xander said.

"Yeah, I-I know, but...it's a whole night. I don't think I can sleep without her." Willow said as she got a last glimpse of Tara over Xander's shoulder.

"You can sleep with me," Anya offered.

Everyone looked at her.

"Well, now that came out a lot more lesbian than it sounded in my head."

Buffy came forward.

"Will, you just have to rest. Okay? Right now there's nothing you can do."

Willow thought for a minute.

"Yes there is." She said and walked out the door.

"No. No way." Buffy said. She chased Willow out into the hallway and stopped her.

"You cannot even think about taking on Glory."

"You saw what she did to Tara. I can't let her get away with it."

"No. You /have/ to let her get away with it. Even I'm no--"

Buffy suddenly stopped, struck with an idea.

*Get away with it? Or maybe, get away /from/ it?*

She looked at Willow, who had a puzzled expression on her face.

"What?" Willow asked.

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

"She's getting too close. First Spike, then Tara. We have to get out of here." Buffy says to Xander, Anya, Giles, Spike, Dawn, Willow, and Tara who are all gathered in Xander's apartment. The blinds are down, effectively blocking out the sunshine.

Tara has taken her pills already so she's calm. She's now sitting on the couch, next to Willow, her head resting on her girlfriend's shoulder.

Spike and Giles are standing while the rest are sitting in random chairs.

"We can't fight her."

"W-well not yet, no, but-"Giles said surprised.

"No, not ever. She's too strong, Giles. We're not gonna win this with, with stakes, or spells, or pulling out some uranium power core. She's a god and she's coming for us. So let's just not be here when she starts knocking."

This outburst was followed by silence until Anya said:

"Run away?"

Buffy looked at her.

"Finally, a sensible plan."

"That's not what she meant." Xander said, then turned to Buffy. "Is it?"

"Well, we can't stay here!" Buffy exploded. "She'll just kill us off one by one until there's no one left standing between her and Dawn."

"Buffy, we all understand the severity of the situation, but there must be another way."

"No. We stay, we die. Show of hands for that option." Buffy said harshly.

Everyone was silent.

"All right. Nobody tells anybody we're leaving. Move as fast as you can. Just pack up whatever supplies you need and that's it, we're gone."

Dawn found a bright side to the situation.

"Cool. Don't have to study for that geometry test," she said quietly.

"What about wheels? I don't think everybody's gonna fit in the Xandermobile." Xander asked.

"Just get your stuff together. I'll handle the rest."

--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--

Gronx was fussing over a ripped slinky red dress of Glory's and following Ben around the mansion.

"I didn't ask for any of this. I just want to be normal." He said.

"We play the hand we're dealt." Gronx said briskly.

"Nothing's mine, is it? This life, this body, it's all infected. The only thing I ever cared about she's taken away from me." Ben said, referring to how his other side got him fired from work. "You know why I wanted to be a doctor?"

"Flattering drawstring pants?" Gronx offered.

"To be close to people. To witness their lives and their deaths, to be there alongside them, a part of everyday humanity." He sighed. "Maybe it's the drugs."

He walked past the little minion.

"Drugs, sir?" She said and followed him.

"Find the right combination, keep her buried where she belongs."

"Impossible!" She exclaimed. "Her magnificence can never be fully contained! She is a perfect, all-encompassing light, one you should feel honored to be bathed in."

"Oh, yeah, I'm thrilled. Especially with the part where she gets her key back and I cease to exist."

"True, this oh-so-appealing form will of necessity be shrugged off."

"Not if I get the key first." He turned to leave but Gronx stopped him.

"And if you did...what then? Could you do it?" She said with an almost smug attitude.

Ben looked annoyed.

"Take a human life with your own hands?" She continued. Then said comfortingly. "Oblivion is such a small inconvenience in the service of a deity. Accept your fate. I mean, you said it yourself. This life was never really yours anyway, was it?"

"It doesn't matter how I came by it. It's mine. And I plan on keeping it."





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