fandomtownies | Magic Box, Thursday, 3/29

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Magic Box, Thursday, 3/29

Tara noticed Annie's table in the lobby on her way to work this morning, and that reminded her that prom would be tomorrow. She was a bit ambivalent: It was her last school dance as an actual student, but she'd never been big on going to dances on her own. (Or on dances, period, but the whole prospect was far less frightening when she had a date.)

Eh. She'd put on something pretty, hang out, maybe talk somebody into a dance or two. Maybe not her dream night, but it was far less pathetic than the alternative of staying in with Mr. Moxy.

That decision made, she turned her attention to sorting out the books about alternate dimensions. She was still trying to figure out if what had happened to the Tara in Kennedy's world needed to have any bearing on her actual future.

{OOC: Open shop, no OCD!]

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Wesley came by a little before noon, partly because he'd been experimenting with wheeling around without colliding into things and partly because he could really use a couple of books to help him with one of the most recent cases that Charles and Cordelia had delegated to him. Turned out the school library wasn't exactly full of titles on how to get rid of demon eyes in the back of little girls' heads. Weird, right?

"Good morning, Tara," he said, wheeling over to her without hitting anything. He was very proud of that accomplishment, yes.

[[slow for the next few hours, but couldn't resist]]

"Good morning," Tara echoed, without really looking up, and blinked hard at Wesley when she did.

Or, more specifically, at the chair.

"You, uh -- should I know what happened?"

"Oh," said Wesley. You'd think he'd have gotten used to this by now. It wasn't like it wasn't noticable. "Ah. Gunshot. By a, er. Zombie... policeman. Actually."

Beat.

"How've you been?"

"Okay," Tara said, still frowning. "I mean ... mostly good. B-better than you, I guess. There are zombie policement?"

"Just this once, as far as I know," Wesley assured her with a slight smile. Yes, that was meant to be helpful.

Hoping to steer the subject away from himself, though, he peered at the books she'd been sorting through. "Dimensional books, eh?" he observed. Half-teasingly: "Those always seem the most inclined to move around and swap shelves in the library."

"I hope it's just the once," Tara said, still quite concerned. "Are you getting around okay?"

She dropped it for a second at his next comment, though.

"And ... yeah. I m-mean, they don't move here." The library was weird that way. "But ... Kennedy found out some stuff about the me in her world? I'm curious if it's true for me, me, too. Is that weird?"

Kennedy knew a Tara in her world? She hadn't brought her up. And that was oddly worrisome, actually, considering that Kennedy had been so quick to mention Willow.

"I don't think it's that odd," he said carefully, wheeling a little closer. "What, ah. What did she find out?"

"Some ... personal drama stuff," Tara said carefully, stalling as she weighed how specific she wanted to get. "And, uh, I'm supposed to be three years older than her? It kind of makes me want to find baby Kennedy back home."

Wesley took a moment to process that visual. "Good lord," he said after a moment. "She must have been a nightmare."

Tara smiled, amused by the reaction. "I met her when she was little once," she volunteered. "Really little, I mean, not, 15. She, um ..."

Tara considered it. "Yeah, kind of a handful. But cute."

"Did you now?" Hmm. "I imagine there were a lot of 'mine's and 'gimme's going around," Wesley ventured with a grin. Because... Kennedy.

"Not that many," Tara said loyally. (Read: Lots and lots.)

She studied Wes for a moment. "Have you ever tried to find me or her back home for you? Or is it ... kind of too weird? I never have."

Clearly Tara was the world's nicest human being, then. It was the only explanation.

"I've... never really thought about it, to be honest," he admitted. "I -- well, I know Kennedy's universe is a few years ahead of mine, so it seems as though it might be... problematic?"

"She's ahead of me, too," Tara noted. "And ... I don't know where you are. It's, uh, this year, at home, if that helps."\

She rubbed her forehead. "This might give me a worse headache than the dimension books."

"Truly," Wesley agreed with a sigh.

He waited for a moment, then tried carefully, "Is there -- something in Kennedy's world that you were curious about?"

"Uh, yeah, but I don't wanna..."

Tara sighed, figured she was going to tell somebody and better Wes than some of the other possibilities.

"She ... met some people who knew me," she said. "She said that there, there's, um ... I get into an accident." She couldn't say I got shot, not with him in a wheelchair. "A bad one. I want to see if it has to be for real."

"...oh," Wesley said, processing that. "A... oh. I'm, er. I'm sorry."

Was that even the right thing to say? What did you say to someone who just found out that an alternate version of herself had been in some kind of serious accident?

"I... well, I did a bit of studying up on dimensions when I first got here," he offered. "There's -- really rather a lot of them. Ah. That is, for example, there's one -- entirely made up of shrimp, and one without any shrimp at all, and -- that sort of level of specificity. And there's likely a dimension for every imaginable variation of shrimp. So -- that is to say -- what happened to your... counterpart in Kennedy's world... I don't believe it's inevitable. Given, ah. All the possible things that could be different between your worlds. Does that make sense?"

Tara nodded. "That's ... kind of what I thought? But it's, uh, good to have somebody else say it. And I always like hearing about the world without shrimp. I'm allergic."

She scrunched her nose. "Could be worse. Could be that in her world everybody turns into shrimp."

Wesley wrinkled his nose. "Doesn't sound very efficient," he decided. "In terms of easy movement alone..."

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Magic Box, Thursday, 3/29

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NFB from here please!

Re: NFB from here please!

Re: NFB from here please!

Re: NFB from here please!