A gift from the Powers - Part 1 of 3

[brambless]

[ooc: This is kinda an AU piece. Shane has very graciously indulged me in the writing of it, because watching this season's L Word has just been tearing Tarainmyhead apart, and she wanted to try to fix it. Hence this - S3canon!Shane/FT!Tara. And yes, I feel better now. Thank you!]



Tara checks the address she's been given for what must be the tenth or fourteenth time. 338 Shelterwood Avenue, West Hollywood. She doesn't know what situation she's walking into, doesn't even have the faintest clue. The Powers swooped her up, and gave her instructions. An address to go to, a 'ride' there, and the ambiguous promise that she will owe them a favour by the time this is done. She doesn't feel at all confident that she wants to owe the Powers a favour... but there's no way back to her wife from here. If she finishes this assignment, whatever it is, they'll let her go home. They promised. Nothing for it, so she takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders - before ringing the doorbell.

"Wait a minute! Just a sec!" A voice chirps brightly as the sounds of footsteps all but stampeding over towards the door resound from inside the house. The door swings open and a tiny, pixie-like woman with large blue-gray eyes and dark, board-straight hair clipped to just above her eyebrows stands there, smiling at her curiously. "Hi! Yes? Can I help you?"

"I, um... I hope so. My name's Tara, I'm kind of, um... new here." A cover story would have been a really, really good idea. Too late now. "I just thought I'd come by and, um, introduce myself? So... yeah. I'm Tara. Hi."

"Hi," the young woman says, beaming at her as she brushes her bangs out of her eyes with a careless sweep of her hand. "So you just moved into the house across the street? You're from Bakersfield, right? I'm Jenny. It's so nice to meet you."

Bakersfield? Crap. "Actually, no. I'm from Sunnydale." She should have thought to check her pockets. Last time the Powers dumped her somewhere they gave her somewhere to stay, a key to get into it and even an address so she and Shane would know where to go. Except she thought this was the address. "Actually, I'm, um... I'm not living anywhere just yet. I kind of heard that you had a room to rent?" Maybe, maybemaybemaybe. Worth a try, the logic follows through. "Except the poster looked kind of old. So I don't know if it's still... but I thought I'd check."

"Oh, god, the room! You're here about the room?" Jenny covers her mouth with one hand as she laughs, obviously embarrased. Letting her hand drop, the abashed smile still lingers as she waves her in. "I'm so sorry. Please, please. Come inside. I'll show you around."

Thank the gods. Any of them. Aradia, goddess of the lost, for guiding her in this place. Jenny has a sweet smile, and Tara can't help but laugh in return. "Thank you," she murmurs, stepping across the threshold. "It looks like a beautiful house. From, um... from the outside, I mean. I like... I like porches." Somewhere there's an off switch for the babble mode. Somewhere.

Jenny laughs and it's a sweet, girlish giggle as she shuts the door. "Yeah, uhh... it's not actually -- well, it is sort of mine. I'm paying off my ex-husband's lease with my friend Shane," she replies. "Oh, wait -- that reminds me. Shane!" Going up on her tip-toes as though that will help her voice carry further, she calls the other woman's name out. Turning to Tara, she lowers herself back down onto her feet and smiles at Tara again. "Just a second." She crosses through the living room into another room and disappears down what seems to be a hallway, the soft sounds of knuckles rapping against wood.

Shane? No, it... it couldn't be. A coincidence. It has to be. But if it isn't... then it all makes sense. Why the Powers said she would owe them a favour, as if this was one to her... if Shane's in trouble, any universe's Shane, and they've given Tara the opportunity to step in, to help... That's not a debt she can repay.

"I know..." The house has a great deal of space and openness to it and Jenny's voice filters through the network of rooms and hallways, only just slightly muffled but in fact made somewhat louder thanks to the hardwood floors running throughout the house. There's a bit of silence and then a muffled voice, much lower than Jenny's. "Oh, Shane, please? It'll only take five minutes," Jenny wheedles sweetly, sounding concerned. "She came all the way from Sunnydale to look at the room. We can at least just talk to her...!"

Even muffled, she knows that voice. She'd recognise it tired, happy, hungry, cranky, sad, frustrated, loving, choked with desire. The barrier of a few pieces of wood and plaster is nothing that could stop that voice from reaching Tara's ears. "Shane..." she whispers. "Oh, please, Shane..."

The sound of a door creaking open is greeted by a happy sigh. "Thank you," Jenny whispers. "I promise, it won't be any time at all, okay? You remember the signals..."

"Yeah, I do," Shane replies, lips tugging up into a smile in spite of herself - a secret joke shared between the two of them - as she comes out of the hallway with Jenny, arm in arm. She reaches up with her free hand and rubs at her nose while Jenny tugs at her ear, the two of them grinning at each other as they make their way back to the living room.

"Shane, this is Tara..." Jenny begins, trailing off as she aims a sheepish look Tara's way. "I'm sorry. I didn't even ask you what your last name was. I'm sorry. I'm Jenny -- Jenny Schecter... and this is my best friend, my roommate, Shane McCutcheon."

"Hey," Shane says, nodding to Tara politely as she offers her a small smile.

There's no recognition in Shane's eyes, and that cuts Tara deeper than she thought it could. She's a stranger to Shane, all they've build gone, and how is she supposed to help her wife if her wife doesn't even know her? That thought gets leaned on heavily, pushed back into its place, so that barely more than a flash shows in her eyes, hidden by her loose hair as she ducks her head, nodding at them both. "Tara McC-" she can't say McCutcheon. She'll have to introduce herself with her old name, as wrong as it feels. "-lay," she finishes. "Tara Maclay. I'm glad to meet you both."

Shane's hair is quite a bit longer than when Tara saw her last, tipped with blond and wispy at the ends, looking as though it's grown out from the super-short cut that Shane had given herself not three months before. She looks quite a bit older than the Shane that Tara has come to know and love and she seems a great deal thinner, paler... sadder.

"So, uhh... I'll -- did you -- Shane, why don't you sit down with Tara and you guys talk for a few minutes, okay?" Jenny says, patting Shane's shoulder as she turns and starts walking off towards a room further back in the house. "Did you want -- Tara, did you want anything to drink?"

"Jenny, could you get me a beer, please?" Shane asks, biting her lip as she steps into the living room and flops down onto the couch. Moving around as though the place is familiar to her. Home. Jenny turns back at that request, hesitating for a moment, the indecision glittering in her eyes before she finally nods. "Thank you."

"Um... thank you," Tara replies. "Anything. Um, juice, water, soda. I don't mind." Does Shane still drink Dos Equis, here? So much older, so much time passed. Half a dozen years, perhaps, and they show on Shane's face, not in lines but in weariness. Hesitantly she moves to the chair opposite the couch, and takes a seat. She wants to sit next to Shane, but she doesn't think she can without touching her. And that reaction of Jenny's... is Shane drinking too much? She worries about it, now - or then, rather, back with her Shane... Has half a dozen years on top of hers changed this Shane into an alcoholic?

"Okay," Jenny says, flashing Tara a quick smile that's not as nearly as bright as the ones previously as she disappears. Soon, the sounds of a fridge door rattling open can be heard.

Stretching her long legs out on the table in front of her, Shane studies this new person, Tara, closely for a few moments, arms draped along the back of the couch on either side of her. She's never heard of Sunnydale, but then there are a lot of places she's never heard of. "So, um... Jenny said you were from Sunnydale? Where is that?" She asks, quirking her eyebrow just slightly.

"A few hours drive north," Tara replies, biting her lip to control the reaction she always has at the quirk of Shane's eyebrow. She needs to master those things, and fast. "Another hour out of Bakersfield? It's, um... it's kind of this little hidden place, you probably wouldn't have heard of it. There's, um... there's a university there? UC Sunnydale?"

Shane gives it a few moments of thought and then finally shakes her head, her expression impassive. "No, I haven't heard of it," she replies, her tone faintly apologetic.

"Here we are, guys," Jenny says as she pads back into the living room. "For you..." She says, holding out a chilled bottle of apple juice to Tara. "And for you," she says, handing a bottle of Dos Equis over to Shane with a smile, giving her a quick peck on the cheek as she flops down onto the couch next to her with her cup of coffee.

Shane's smile is gentle, appreciative and fond as she looks over at Jenny. "Thanks."

Dos Equis. Just like home. "Thank you, Jenny," Tara replies, noting the kiss on the cheek as a platonic gesture. She knows how a woman in love with Shane looks, though, even one who isn't touching her with someone else around... and this woman loves Shane. Not necessarily in love with her - she's not sure of that part yet. But she does love her, and Shane loves Jenny just as much. "So, um... I guess there's an interview or something? What, um... what would you like to know about me?"

"Uhh... well," Jenny begins as she draws her knees up to her chest, feet resting on the couch cushion. She tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear as she takes a sip of her coffee. "We'd just like... to know a little more about you. Like, uhh - what do you -- what do you do for, like, work and stuff? Have you found a job here, yet?"

Crap. The hard questions. "I'm a teacher? Um, university level, but I've done high school too. I don't have a job here yet, but I have an interview. Second round callback, so I'm, um... I'm pretty confident. I teach ethics, mostly." Jenny seems lovely, but Tara can't take her eyes off of Shane, that familiar slouch that's so completely at odds with Jenny's closed posture. There's nothing closed about Shane's body, but everything closed about her heart and mind. Jenny looks like she's the other way around. She gives of herself and her affection easily, but her body isn't usually part of that giving.

At Tara's answer, Shane smiles a little and she and Jenny share a look and it appears to be a positive one. "That's very cool," Jenny says, smiling brightly, her tone impossibly sweet and a touch wondering. "So I guess you haven't been in town for very long, then?"

Tara laughs, ducking her head in embarrassment. Better to keep as much of the truth as possible, so this one she does answer honestly. "About, um... an hour and a half?" Shane's smile is still the sweetest thing she knows, even that tiny curve of lips, and immediately her mind is searching for anything she could do or say that would bring that back to Shane's sad, drawn face.

"Wow, that's so amazing! And you've already got your second callback about the job, that's great," Jenny says, visibly enthusiastic and excited for her. She glances sidelong at Shane, who looks back at her for a moment and then opens her mouth in a silent 'oh' as thought to say 'oh, my turn?'.

"Um, we can -- we can give you a, uhh... a tour of the house," Shane begins haltingly. "Right now, there's the studio out back..."

"My ex-husband totally renovated it on the inside," Jenny says, taking another sip of her coffee. "It's completely redone, so all you'd have to do is move your stuff in. I-if... if you like it when you see it, I mean." She adds, looking a little bashful.

"I'd, um... I'd really like to see it, yeah," Tara replies. And then to keep her story straight, "the callback is, um... yeah, that's why I drove up here. Because if I get it, I'm going to need somewhere to live, and I thought I should look around a little and see where, and then I saw the poster and it looked, um... yeah. Nice." She likes Jenny. Jenny seems as prone to foot-in-mouth as she is, and Tara offers her a little smile of understanding.

"Excellent," Jenny replies, smiling. After a moment, the smile drops away. "Oh, shit -- uhh, Shane? I just remembered. I promised Kit I'd fill in for Ethan. He has mono or something."

"Oh, Jesus, Jenny," Shane grumbles, shaking her head.

"I know, I know! I'm sorry, I know -- this is, like, the worst time in the world, but I just remembered," she says, giving Tara an apologetic look. She takes another quick sip of her coffee before she hops up from the couch, slipping around behind it to rest her hand on Shane's shoulder. "Shane can show you the studio, okay? And if you have any questions about the rent or utilities or anything, just ask. She knows everything."

Yeah, she does. But Tara can't say that out loud - and the way Shane sees people, she can't help but wonder if Shane has seen straight through her lousy cover story and knows she's hiding something. "Well, I can, um... I can come back another time. If you rather? But, um... well, if you don't mind, Shane, I really would like to see it..."

"No -- no, it's cool," Shane murmurs, shaking her head as she lifts her shoulder in an easy shrug.

"Great! So I'll see you later," Jenny says, looking down at Shane as she gives her shoulder a pat. "It was really nice meeting you, Tara! Oh -- and Shane..." Leaning down, she whispers in Shane's ear for a moment, Shane's head tipping back on the cushions as she listens, one eyebrow slowly arching. Jenny straightens up again, beaming at her. "Okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's no problem," Shane replies at normal volume, aiming a reassuring smile up at her. "See you later, lady."

"Kay, lady!" Jenny chirps as she disappears down the hallway to change for her shift.

Lady. That's cute. Tara can't help but grin, letting her reaction to that overwhelm her reaction to that damn eyebrow, because pouncing Shane right now is not an option. How she's going to find out what danger Shane is in, though, is another matter. Her wife has always been a very private person, she doesn't expect this older version of her to be any different.

Shane returns her attention to Tara, her smile lingering, though it's noticeably lacking in the warmth that was there when she was looking at Jenny a moment ago. Tara is, after all, a stranger to her. "Umm, if you wanna," she begins, gesturing to Tara's bottle of apple juice as she moves to stand. "It's cool. I mean, you don't ... you don't have to worry about -- you can bring it with you."

"Thanks," Tara replies, cradling the juice in her hand as she rises, her other hand smoothing her long skirt back into its folds. "So, um... do you mind if I ask a little about you and Jenny? And, um... does anyone else live here?"

"Well, uhh," Shane hedges, casting a faintly shuttered glance back Tara's way as she starts moving towards the back of the house, through the living room, into what appears to be a dining room and through the kitchen beyond that. "What do you wanna know?" As she opens the back door, her lips purse tightly. "No, there's... there's no one else living here. Anymore."

"Well, um... any house rules I should know about? Like, um, do you eat together, or do you have separate food? Because I like to cook, so if you eat together that would be, um... yeah, except I'm vegetarian." So who was living there before? Her mind races, trying to find a way to ask. "If there's um... if there's a story behind the last person leaving, something I need to be aware of, or avoid or... that'd be useful to know."

"Yeah, we -- the studio doesn't have a kitchen, but it's cool... y'know, if you wanna cook or anything," Shane replies, nodding to the kitchen just off to one side of the door. "Jenny and I aren't vegetarians, but I don't really care what I eat as long as it tastes good."

"There's no story," Jenny says as she steps out from her room, pulling her long, black hair into a neat ponytail. "Shane's girlfriend sort of took over the studio when she lived here but... she moved out about a month ago."

"Jenny," Shane says, her tone faintly tense, expression growing darker, troubled.

"Okay, okay, I'm going," Jenny replies, holding up both hands in a yielding gesture as she grabs her bag and heads to the door.

She moved out. Okay... so they've broken up? "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry," Tara says softly. "And yeah, that's good. The kitchen, I mean. I, um... when I'm frazzled I cook. So I often end up with more than I can eat. But I'd be really happy to cook for everyone - and my, um, my old girlfriend always thought it tasted wonderful." She can't bring herself to call Shane her 'ex', but she wants Shane to hear that Tara heard that she's out and is in a similar position. 'Old girlfriend' is perfectly accurate, though - because Shane's not her girlfriend any more, Shane is her wife.

Shane watches Jenny until the front door finally shuts, that almost stricken look remaining on her face for just a few moments more until she glances back at Tara, an impossibly vulnerable look on her face for just a split second before she makes an almost visible effort to shutter her feelings away again. "The studio's back here," she says, voice a low, gravelly rumble as she pulls the back door open and heads outside.

She can't help but shiver at Shane's voice, still one of the sexiest things that has ever existed in her world. She wants to hold Shane... but this woman considers her a stranger. Part of her wants to do the Touched by an Angel thing, but without some knowledge of what the problem with Shane is she can't really disturb things yet. Things ended badly with the girlfriend, she can guess that much at the very least.

Walking up to the rather sizeable renovated shed, Shane grasps the door knob, turns it and pushes the door open, stepping aside so that Tara can go in and check things out for herself. I shot a gun once... She'll let Tara look for herself... there are too many bad memories tied to that space, for her. I cheated on you... Pulling a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, she lights one, taking a long, deep drink from her beer.

Tara walks inside, taking a long look around. It's a nice place. Small and simple, but nice, and it'd keep her near Shane without being so close that she'll have to guard her reactions every minute. The smell of Shane's cigarettes drifts on the breeze, the faintest tang to the air. Same brand. Her Shane, for all that she's different. Emerging, she smiles. "It's nice, I like it. How much was the rent?"

"Nine-hundred a month," Shane replies as she snaps her lighter closed, cigarette bobbling between her pursed lips. "Jenny's trying to pay off the last of the lease so she can take the place over for good."

Nine hundred a month is four-fifty is two twenty-five per week. Not cheap, then, but affordable. "And, um... how would you guys feel about me being in the house proper? Like... like if I came in for company, sometimes?" She needs a way she can see Shane, to be close to her - and that means she'll probably be spending a lot of time with them, in the house.

"Sure," she says, shrugging up one shoulder as she draws her cigarette from her mouth, smoke slipping from between her lips as she speaks. "That's cool. We have to share the bathroom and the kitchen, but you can come in and watch tv or whatever..."

She has to wonder, though, if this is the best way. Does time pass, back home, while she's here? Can she afford the time to get to know this Shane, or will her own Shane be going quietly mad as she searches for Tara, even more fruitlessly than Tara searched for her after the kidnapping? "Shane?" she says softly, staring across the garden and back at the house. "Do you, um... you believe in karma, right?"

Cigarette poised half way to her mouth for another drag, Shane pauses and looks over at her. "Yeah," she replies, brows knitting together just slightly as she looks at Tara.

She has no idea where she's going with this, and being clumsy here could ruin everything. But the image of her Shane, searching for her, is stuck in her head. "What about, um... alternate universes? That sort of thing?"

Shane's brows furrow more deeply to go with the frown twisting the corners of her mouth downward. "I ... I don't know," she murmurs. "Maybe? I..."

Stuck for it now. Worth a try. "What would you say if I told you this wasn't the first time we met, Shane? That I know you from somewhere else?" Oh, yes, freak out the woman you love more than life itself. Go on. That's a brilliant idea. She's not the hero, she's not the sidekick, she's the backup singer, and she's not equipped for this sort of thing.

She stares at Tara for a long moment, as though she's searching for something, and her lips thin as she ducks her head, looking faintly chagrined. "Look, umm... if I... y'know, if we got it on and I didn't call you back ... I'm sorry," she says.

...That could have been worse. "No, um... longer ago than that. Back when you used to hang with Clive and Matt. I was, um... there was a car. Four women inside, and one guy. I was the one who didn't, um... who didn't like men. You said you didn't do women, but you told Matt to take care of me." She just has to trust that things played out here like they did at home, that things diverged later than that.

"How did you...?" Shane begins, but the question dies in her throat because Tara's already given her the answer. She gazes at Tara for a moment and the recognition, the connection has obviously been made - it's almost visible behind her eyes. She blinks at Tara in completely unguarded astonishment for a few seconds before shaking her head and looking away. "Shit, I-- I... shit."

"Yeah," Tara replies softly. "Um... do you mind if we go in and sit down? That was... that was actually the part that's easy to cope with. If you, um... if you don't wanna hear the rest, I'll understand, but... but I don't know how to do this without being honest with you." She keeps her head facing Shane, looking at her, making herself available if Shane wants to meet her eyes and see through the layers, the way she does. To know that she's not lying.

She's not sure what Tara means by 'the rest', but somehow - even though she can't put her finger on why - she feels as though she owes that to this woman. "Um, o-okay," she replies quietly, glancing over at Tara uneasily for a moment before she reaches over to shut the studio door and start back towards the house.

"Thank you," Tara says softly, walking by Shane's side as they move back into the house - her bottle of apple juice still cradled in her hand. Now she just has to work out how much she's going to tell Shane.

Nodding mutely, Shane opens the back door, slipping inside and shutting it after the both of them as Tara steps into the kitchen. This feels like it'll be a heavy talk, but she's not sure whether they should have it here in the kitchen or in the living room. Probably doesn't make any difference. Setting her beer down on the table, she pulls a chair out from the kitchen table and lowers herself into it, slouching down as she nods to a chair across the table from her.

Tara takes her own seat, toying with the bottle in her hands. "Your full name is Shane Michelle McCutcheon. Your mother was Kathleen. She was pregnant with your baby brother when child welfare took you away, and you grew up in foster homes. Chances are pretty good you're an apprentice hairstylist, maybe even one in your own right by now. You can't wake up in the morning without more caffeine than the human body should ever have inside it, and you usually only eat properly once a day. The rest of the time is fruit. You hate sweet food, like icecream. You never sing, ever, not even along to the radio. You don't want things."

Shane stares at Tara wordlessly for what seems like an eternity, various emotions of varying depths and intensity flicker behind her eyes... suspicion, fear, confusion, disbelief and the expression that winds up lingering is a mix of all of them. "Who are you?" She asks, eyes narrowing as she tilts her head inquiringly at Tara. "How do you know all that shit about me?"

"My name is Tara McCutcheon," Tara replies quietly, licking her lips as she rises from the table, and turns her back on Shane. Lifting her shirt to bare the tattoo in the small of her back, she says quietly, "and where I come from - an alternate universe - I'm your wife." Honesty. It's a good place to start. She doesn't expect Shane to believe her... but she doesn't know what else to do. She can't lie, not to Shane.

Squinting at the tattoo, at first the collection of lines makes absolutely no sense to her... but then she can make out the strings and the bow. A tattoo complimentary to the one at the small of her own back. The only time she's ever met this woman before was when she was fifteen. She'd gotten the tattoo when she'd turned sixteen, some five months later. She'd never seen Tara again after that night, so there was no way that she could have...

Shane shakes her head, though whether it's in denial or she's just trying to get the broken pieces inside her skull to joggle themselves back together, even she doesn't know for sure. "You're... my wife," she echoes, voice sounding faint even to her own ears.

"Where I come from, yeah," Tara replies quietly, moving to sit down again. "We met back up again when you were seventeen, so I don't know anything that happened to you after that. But... you can test me, if you want. Ask me something you wouldn't tell anyone." Her eyes are soft, sad, and she licks her lips compulsively as she looks at Shane, because right now all she wants to do is go to this woman and hug her tightly, to kiss her until the doubt in her voice goes away. Those words shouldn't ever be a question.

Dragging her eyes away from Tara's face, Shane takes one last hard drag off of her cigarette before she snuffs it out in a nearby ashtray. She takes another long drink of her beer as she tries to think of something... if this woman is supposedly her wife, then she'll know this. "How did my mom tell me she'd know me when she found me again?" She asks quietly.

"Your eyes," Tara replies, just as softly. "You have the same eyes."

Shane's breath catches in her throat and for an instant, the bottle of beer very nearly slips from her fingers. She only just catches it, somehow managing to keep from spilling it all over herself or tipping it over as she sets it on the table with an unsteady hand. "Who was the first girl I fell in love with?"

"...I don't remember her name," Tara replies, after a moment's thought. "I'm thinking Suzanne, but I don't think that's right. But she skinned her knee, and you kissed her better. In the sandbox. You were nine, I think." It's been a long time since Shane told her that story, and she doesn't have all the details right, dammit.

Sinking down a bit further in her seat, Shane stares at Tara across the table, brows furrowed. Tiffany. Her name had been Tiffany. But she'd told the girls about that. There's one thing, though... one thing that only someone truly close to her would know. Something she hadn't told Carmen or Jenny or any of the others. Not even Clive had known about it and he'd been hanging around then. "Can I have kids?" She asks, keeping her tone as well as her expression perfectly neutral.

"We're going to," Tara replies. "You and me. Your egg, my womb. But on your own... no. 'Nonspecific reproductive failure'." Her own expression is far from neutral, knowing how much this one pains Shane. She can't hold back the crack in her voice, or the soft words of, "I'm sorry, baby."

Shane gapes at her openly, head shaking ever so slightly back and forth in disbelief. "How do you -- how do you know that?" She asks incredulously, her own voice breaking. She knows they're having an entire conversation about just how Tara can and does seem to know, but... there's gotta be some kind of explanation for it. There just has to be.

"You told me," Tara replies. "Or rather, the 'you' from where I'm from. The one that's my wife. My knight. I mean, I don't know everything - I only know the things you've told me. Or, um, the things she has told me. But you need to know that you - she..." The words get jumbled and confused, and she just forges ahead, trusting Shane to make sense of it. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me. And I love you, Shane, so much. And I... I want to get back home. Back to the you that knows me, that doesn't see a stranger. But I can't, because I have work to do here first, and it's something to do with you."

"Work...?" Shane asks, frowning. "What are you, like, a couples counsellor or something?"

"No," Tara replies, shaking her head with a soft breath of laughter, more grateful for the break in the tension than anything else. "No, but... but you don't usually cross to an alternate universe without a reason, right? And all I've got to go on is this." She slides the piece of paper that holds Shane's address across the table to the woman that isn't quite her wife. "And then it was your house... so what could it be but something to do with you?"

Leaning forward, Shane grabs the slip of paper up and sits back in her chair as she studies it. Going by the way Tara and Jenny had behaved together, they'd never met each other before today, but... "So maybe you're here for Carmen," she murmurs, lips twisting into a deeper frown as she places the paper back on the table, grabbing up her beer as she pushes her chair back and stands. "After all, I was the fucking loser who left her at the altar."

Tara's voice hits her ears before the thought is processed by her brain. "Don't." Then softer... "Please, Shane. Don't call yourself that. You had to have reasons, right?" Shane was getting married? To someone else? That shouldn't hurt the way it does, because this isn't her Shane. "I don't know Carmen. I know you. The people who sent me here sent me for you." Then a thought strikes her, and it sends a chill through her blood. "Shane? Where's your shaving kit?"

It's those last words that halt her steps, stop her dead in her tracks. Something else that no one else - except perhaps Clive, since so many of the original prescriptions had been his - would know about. Gripping her beer tightly, she holds it against her hip to keep from dropping it as she turns back and glances sidelong at Tara. "I -- I don't ... have it, anymore," she murmurs quietly, though her eyes have once more regained that shadowed, shuttered look.

Tara doesn't bother to hide her disbelief, because if there was any reason that would be big enough for the Powers to send her to Shane it would be that one. Shane, overwhelmed by the harm she'd done a woman she must have loved, by leaving her at the altar... deciding that she wouldn't be hurting anyone else, any more. She's only dealt with something like this once, with Xander, and then Xander pretty much shut himself off from all of them. That look in Shane's eyes, though, means that Tara's cut too close - it doesn't mean, though, that her words are the truth. "Please, Shane. Please. Promise me you won't do that." Shane has no reason to trust her, but... oh, gods, if that's the reason...

"Do what?" Shane asks, her words choked although her expression is something approaching bewildered.

"What's in the shaving kit," Tara replies. "Or... was." Because she doesn't want to outright accuse Shane of lying to her. "Promise me you won't overdose. Please."

"Why?" She asks before she can stop herself, sounding hopelessly lost and young and frightened.

There's nothing inside her strong enough to not go to Shane when she sounds like that, and knowing she would lose the battle within herself she doesn't even try to fight the urge to cross to Shane, to fold her arms around the tall, slender woman, whose body is so familiar. "Because I don't want to live in a world without you in it," she whispers. "Because I've crossed dimensions to come and find you and do everything I can to make you happy and safe. Because I love you, and Jenny loves you."

In spite of herself and the millions of emotions and thoughts - each all pulling her in different directions - rattling around in her head, Shane finds herself leaning in to Tara. "I could have saved you a trip," she whispers, sounding almost apologetic. "I don't know what your wife is like... or anything about her... but whoever she is, she's not me. And you should be glad."

"Tell me about you, then," Tara whispers, stroking her hand in loose circles between her shoulderblades, where the Sanskrit tattoos don't sit... and yeah, there will be differences. She knows that.

"There's nothin' to know," she replies, extricating herself from that gentle embrace and taking a few steps backwards. She doesn't deserve that... she doesn't deserve to be comforted, not ever, ever again. Not after what she did. She's not even sure why this woman cares so much. How can she? She doesn't know the whole story.

"Yeah," Tara replies. "There is. But if you don't want to tell me, that's okay. You don't know me." Her arms feel empty, and she closes them around herself, aching to be allowed to touch Shane, to soothe her in some way. Any way. "And my wife... she wouldn't think she was worth it, either. You've always had low self-esteem, Shane. Always thought you deserved whatever life slapped you with. Karma, right? But when I got this tattoo you told me something. You told me the pain is the price we pay for the beauty of it. This... this is the price you pay, Shane. For what's to come. For the beauty of it."

"I'm alone," Shane manages, throat threatening to close up tight around the words, almost as though her body refuses to allow her to betray even this much about herself. "She's gone and her family are gone, too. How is that beautiful?" Lips twisting, she shakes her head, words tinged with bitterness. "I lost everything. It's just me. I'm not fucking beautiful."

"You are, Shane. But your life isn't. Not yet. I know you want a family, baby..." and that was a slip, because this isn't her Shane, and she hasn't earned the right to call this Shane that yet. "But was she worth it? Was it her you wanted, or her family?" There has to be some reason Shane left her at the altar. It wouldn't have been a split second decision.

For a moment, Shane looks at Tara as though she's grown a second head. "I was in love with her," she replies and she's not sure if that's an answer or not.

"So why did you walk away?" Something doesn't add up here.

"Because it's what McCutcheons do," she says simply.

This wound goes so deep. So incredibly deep, and Tara doesn't know where to begin. "She didn't walk away, Shane. You were taken. She held on, remember? She kissed you, and she told you to be brave, and she promised she'd find you. She didn't walk away. And I've never seen you walk away from anyone who needed you. You'd kill yourself trying to help them before you'd turn your back."

"No," Shane says, shaking her head, voice hushed. "I'm not talking about Kat. I'm talking about... Gabriel. My father."

Okay, this is one she doesn't know. "Gabriel? I'm sorry, I..." She shakes her head. "I don't know your father."

"Neither did I, until a week before my wedding... or when my wedding was supposed to be," Shane replies, pursing her lips. "He sent me a letter and said he wanted to meet me. I invited him to the wedding but he didn't have any money, so a friend of mine paid his way. He didn't have any money for a wedding present for us, so she gave him money for that, too." Her head bows lower as she shakes it again. "He sent his wife back to Oregon on a fucking bus and picked up a girl at the fucking rehearsal dinner."

"Okay," Tara replies softly. "Your father's a jerk. That doesn't make you one. You were in love with her. Were you... Shane, were you happy? Did you wake up and see her in the morning and smile? Did you want to be with her every moment of every day, were you proud of everything she was and every word she said?" She doesn't know if she can tell her Shane this. In the end she will - she doesn't keep secrets from her wife - but there's no way that this wouldn't shake Shane's foundations.

It seems like forever before she finally answers, and when she does, it seems as though it physically pains her to say. "No," she whispers.

"So did you walk away because you're your father's daughter, and that's what McCutcheons do?" Tara presses a little, wishing she could touch Shane, provide that comfort. "Or did you walk away because you were there for the wrong reasons in the first place?" More frightened of being alone than anything, wanting a family... she can see how Shane might have wanted a forever with Carmen and her family - especially if she'd given up on ever having the kind of joy Tara is describing.

"I walked away because... because it was my fault," Shane murmurs. "I should have been better. I could have done more to make her happy."

"And did she try to make you happy?" Tara whispers, holding her breath.

"She -- ... sometimes," she hedges.

The fact that Shane is hedging means that somewhere inside her she knows she deserves more. She wishes she could dreamfast with this Shane, to show her what she and her Shane have... but she can't. "You deserve someone who tries as hard for you as you try for them," Tara replies, her gaze locked on Shane. "Whether or not you believe it, it's true. You deserve that."

Shane slowly shakes her head, her mind completely incapable of processing those words and the meaning of them. "No," she whispers. "I fucked it up... I fucked it up so bad. It's not her fault."

"No, it's not her fault," Tara replies, her voice still soft. "But it's not yours, either. It's just what had to be. You weren't the right person for her, Shane, and she wasn't right for you... and if you stayed together, you both would have been hurt, in the end."

"But I wanted to be," Shane says very softly, voice strained. "I wanted to be the one... like she..."

"I know," Tara replies, her voice breaking. "I know." It's not fair, and she can't pretend it is - but she's so proud of Shane for walking away from Carmen. From anyone to whom Shane's response to the question 'did she try to make you happy' was even slightly doubtful. She has to believe that her own Shane would give an immediate and unequivocable 'yes'.

Taking a deep breath, she draws herself up. "Anyway, it... it doesn't matter, now," she murmurs, shaking her head. "She's gone and that's it."

"It does matter," Tara says quietly. "Because you're still here, and it matters to you." She debates with herself a moment before continuing, and then adds, "if it were me you left at the altar? I'd assume you had a good reason for being scared. That you just weren't ready. And I'd thank you, for telling me no." She doesn't expect Shane to believe that - but she says it anyway. Because maybe, just maybe, it might sink into Shane's subconscious.

"She said I was a fucking selfish whore," Shane whispers. "She was right."

I'll kill her, is the thought that comes into Tara's head, and she bites her tongue hard to hold it back. Again she moves towards Shane, offering a hug, wanting nothing more than to take that pain away. "You're the least selfish person I've ever met, Shane McCutcheon," Tara whispers. "And nobody, nobody is allowed to speak about you that way. Not even you. Fucking's never been a bad thing. Selfish isn't true. And a whore... we all do what we have to, to survive, Shane. You set your rules and you stuck by them. That took strength, more than most people ever see in their entire lifetimes. Promising someone forever when you can't guarantee you'll mean it forever... that's selfish. Caring more about the joy of today than what happens in all the tomorrows. Taking a step back and saying you can't? That's not selfish. That's the hardest thing you could ever do, the bravest thing."

"I cheated on her," Shane says quietly, finally lifting her eyes up to meet Tara's, her own dark and cloudy. "She was right."

"Did you ever promise her you would be faithful?" Tara asks, not flinching under that gaze. "Did you ever say those words?"

There's a quicksilver-brief glint of uncertainty. "No, but..."

"Then you didn't cheat on her," Tara replies softly, her own eyes confident and clear. "It's not cheating unless you were monogamous."

"But I... I was," she whispers, shaking her head. "I mean, I didn't... I wasn't..."

"Was monogamous?" Tara asks, her hand finding Shane's beer on the table and pressing it into Shane's hands. "So why did you do it?"

"She... it hurt," Shane murmurs. "She -- she didn't trust me. I don't know for how long, but... she just... she just didn't. One of my exes showed up at the shop and ... she'd gotten a divorce. She -- she wanted to see me again."

"Were you in love with her? The ex, I mean?"

"I... I was? Once," she whispers, ducking her head as she takes a long sip of her beer.

Shane's utterly determined to blame herself. She always does. That doesn't mean Tara has to accept it. "Shane McCutcheon," Tara says, her voice soft but strong. "You give people their self-fulfilling prophecies. She didn't trust you, and so you became untrustworthy. Because it was what she wanted, even if she didn't want to want it... and so that's what you did." She cocks her head, a soft smile coming to her lips. "Did you ever see Labyrinth?"

Shane's brows crease as she looks up at Tara. "No..."

It figures. Shane wasn't much of a movie watcher. "There's this girl, and she's chosen by the Goblin King, who grants her a wish. Foolishly, she wishes that her little brother be taken away, because he wouldn't stop crying. So then the whole movie is her journey, trying to get her back. But right at the end, she confronts the Goblin King, and he tells her he's been so generous. And she asks how, and he tells her, 'Everything that you wanted I have done. You asked that the child be taken. I took him. You cowered before me - I was frightening. I have reordered time, I have turned the world upside-down, and I have done it all for you. I am exhausted from living up to your expectations of me. Isn't that generous?' You, Shane... you're the Goblic King. You exhaust yourself, living up - and down - to people expectations of you. But everything they wanted, you have done. Even when they realised it wasn't what they wanted, in the end."

"She... told me to... act like I had a girlfriend," Shane murmurs softly, voice catching on the last word. "I -- I was trying. I did try."

"I know," Tara replies, her hand floating up to Shane's cheek instinctively, cradling her face. "I know you did."

Shane's eyes slip closed and she leans her head into that touch, face pinched with anguish. So much the same as Tara's Shane and yet so very painfully different.

"Shhhh," Tara whispers, stepping forward and pressing a kiss against Shane's temple, slipping into well-worn, familiar patterns. "I know, baby. I know." She waits a few moments, giving Shane a breather, but the next push, the next question is already on her tongue, and she opens her mouth to breathe past it, not letting it drop off quite yet.

Even though this woman is a virtual stranger to her, something about the kiss, her touch, feels so right, so comforting... because she really means it. Even though she doesn't know how or why or what that other version of herself is like, it's obvious that Tara loves her very much... that version of herself. Whoever she is.

Kiss delivered, Tara rests her cheek against Shane's, her hand still cupping the far side of Shane's face. Gentle, comforting, even as she speaks. "Was she trying?"

"I... no," Shane whispers after a long, almost interminable silence.

She doesn't say anything else. Shane doesn't need to be pushed, from here, doesn't need Tara to connect the dots. She just holds the woman who isn't quite her wife, her free hand coming around Shane's shoulders to cradle the back of her head, her thumb stroking gently along Shane's jawbone.

It hurts... it hurts and she just needs... something. Tara's skin feels so wonderful against hers and she hasn't even so much as looked at another woman since she left Carmen, but... Tara's been sweet to her. Drawing back just slightly, cheek sliding along Tara's, she turns her head, lips brushing lightly against Tara's.

Oh, god. She wants to kiss Shane back, but she doesn't know how her wife would feel about that. In one sense... this is Shane. It's not cheating. In another sense it is. And she doesn't know how Shane would see it. Thoughts flying through her head, Tara tries to flip the situation around, tries to imagine Shane with an alternate universe Tara, one in pain and in need. Would she want Shane to comfort that version of her? Knowing that this universe's version, chances seem likely, is dead and buried, and will never be able to hold or comfort? ...She would. She has to trust Shane would feel the same way, as she returns Shane's kiss, her fingers stroking gently over the soft hairs at the back of Shane's neck.

Unless the alternate-dimension version of herself is really that different from who she is, now, she's fairly certain that she - that is, her alternate-universe self - would understand, even if she only barely undestands it, herself, right now. Exhaling slowly, she goes to slip both of her arms around Tara's waist, only to realize a moment later that she still has her beer in her hand. Lips still pressed to Tara's, she reaches up with one hand, cradling Tara's cheek as she slowly and blindly leans over, setting the bottle of beer on the floor. Once that's done, both of her hands return, cupping Tara's face as she gratefully loses herself in this woman who loves her... at least somewhere.

Tara sways against Shane, resettling her weight so that her slightly broader hips cradle Shane's as the fingers on Shane's cheek curl forwards, an unspoken beckon and welcome. Her eyes slid closed as soon as Shane's lips contacted hers, impossibly soft, and now she hums just as softly against that kiss as her lips part and her tongue darts out to taste Shane's lower lip, flavoured with the same beer that stocks their fridge at home and so familiar.

Nothing about Tara is familiar to her and she can't help but wish that weren't the case... that she'd been with her before, at some point. If only they'd run into each other again after that night on the street all those years ago. Tara's figure, soft and curvy, reminds her a little of Sandy, a girl she'd known for a short while when Jenny had first moved to town with her boyfriend. That's one thing she's always loved about women, is that softness. Not just their breasts or thighs or hips, but their smiles and their hands and touches... and kisses... and she finds herself thinking, wishing... that this woman in her arms was really, truly hers... and not just in some other dimension.

Tara's hand slowly slips down from Shane's face, circling her waist and resting at the small of her back, sliding under her shirt to gently caress the tattoo that Tara's own completes. She doesn't seek to deepen the kiss, waiting for Shane to meet her - if that's what she wants. The change in position, though, brings them closer, so that Tara's full breasts press against Shane's chest, so that she can feel almost every inch of Shane, muffled by two layers of clothing.

The touch of Tara's hand on her back feels like a familiar one - a touch that Tara has initiated hundreds of times before, but with her other self - but not demanding, just appreciating whatever Shane is willing to give her, if there is some part of her that has something in common with the Shane that loves her. The touch makes her shiver in spite of herself, a connection - and a love - that spans dimensions. She can't bring herself to reach for the tattoo at the small of Tara's back... not yet. Though she would like to see it a bit more closely. Maybe she'll show Tara the tattoo she got for Carmen...

Tara's other hand gently kneads the back of Shane's neck, fingers tangling and pulling gently over the hairs there - completely oblivious to the tattoo she's not yet seen. Her lips are soft against Shane's, meeting and parting in soft, undemanding kisses, just stroking in caressing in ways that are familiar to her but she knows are new to Shane. Giving Shane time to decide what she wants, time to fight past her usual response of not wanting anything to the truth beneath.

Feeling the light tugging of Tara's fingers on her hair, Shane shivers again... only to remind herself a moment later that Tara wouldn't know about her tattoo -- Tara had said, herself, that her knowledge was limited to the first seventeen years of her life, and she'd had no idea about the situation she'd stepped into when she rang their doorbell today. Shane deepens the kiss for a brief moment before a thought occurs to her and she then gently breaks it. "Wait a minute," she murmurs, brows furrowing. "You -- you said ... how old am I? I mean, how old is your version of me?" She asks, only to blink and frown a bit when she realizes that her elaboration has probably only confused matters.

Moaning slightly as Shane breaks the kiss, it takes Tara a moment to focus on the question. "Nearly eighteen," she replies, her hand slipping down to Shane's shoulder. "We've been married four months." It feels like so very much longer than that - is, when she thinks about it, because they lived the same three weeks twice in the transition between Fandom and Metropolis. "Five months, rather."

"I'm... seventeen?" Shane asks, both brows sliding up towards her hairline as she looks at Tara. She stares at her for a moment before dragging her eyes away and chuckling. "Shit."

"Yeah, I know," Tara replies. "It sounds so young, when you say it like that. But you're more mature at seventeen than most of the thirty-year-olds I know. More mature than either of your adopted parents, and they're, um..." Well, one of them is nine hundred years old, but Tara's not going to tell this Shane that. "They're fortyish."

Shane blinks at Tara, the expression on her face impossibly open and achingly vulnerable for just a moment. "I -- I got adopted?" She asks.

"Yeah," Tara says softly, leaning forward to nuzzle Shane's cheek for a moment. She knows Shane, knows that family is the thing she most wants in the world - and she, at twentysomething, is just learning that her alternate self has everything at seventeen that she's wanted. That can't be easy. "Yeah, you did. John MacDiarmid and CJ Cregg adopted you. John's a professor, he teaches Quantum Physics. You're in his class, and you're one of his best students. CJ's the mayor of the city we live in, and she's so proud of you she could burst."

"I'm..." Shane trails off, shaking her head ever so slightly. Adopted. Married... and to someone who genuinely loves her, as best she can tell. "Am I -- am I happy?" She asks hesitantly, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth and holding it there as she looks at Tara.

"There's been some bad stuff, recently," Tara replies, her eyes shadowed as she remembers some of them. "Not between us, just... in life. And you're starting to let your walls down, and so everything hurts more. I don't think it's as simple as being happy, but... I know you wouldn't trade your life for any other? There are always shadows and fears, Shane. Those are still there. But... yeah. Yeah, I think you are."

Shane ducks her head. "It sounds nice," she says softly.

"Yeah," Tara replies, just as softly. "Yeah, it is. But Shane... That's all happened in less than a year. A year can change your life, love. There's always hope." Don't give up.

She licks her lips carefully, purses them. In a year, she'd fought past her own issues in order to take someone into her heart and then lost Carmen, Carmen's family and her own flesh and blood family and her dear friend Dana had died... meanwhile, Tara's Shane had been adopted, had found love and gotten married and was content with her life. "Always," she says and it comes out far more bitter than she'd intended for it to.

"The year before that, you were hustling on the streets. You never would have dreamed to go from there to where you are with me in a year. Things are bad now, Shane, I know - but they'll get better. A year from now... who knows?" Please don't give up. I'd fix it, if I could, I'd give you my address and send you to find me, but I don't even know if I'm alive, here...

The only genuinely good thing that had happened to her was that she'd gotten her own salon at Wax... but hope hurts. Knowing what her other self has, hearing about it all hurts, even though she's not sure whether it should or not. Can you really be jealous of yourself? Glancing up at Tara, seeing the way that she looks at her, Shane realizes that... yes, you can be jealous of yourself.

"What can I do?" Tara asks softly. "How can I help, Shane? Anything." This is what she's here for, isn't it? To give Shane hope? To do something that will avert the disaster the Powers have forseen?

"I wish I knew, Tara," Shane replies, her own voice hushed and sad as she lowers her eyes.