The Dark Rose

By darkmagickwillow

Copyright © May 2003

Chapter 16 (Living in the Past)

Tara pushed the door of the magic shop open and the bell over it jingled, announcing her entrance. She looked around quickly for the proprietor. When she found only a clerk behind the counter, another new girl, she felt relieved. The store always felt a little creepy even though she always came in during the daytime, but when Miss Madison was present, she felt like a rat being watched by a cat. A cat who was deciding whether she was worth the effort of catching.

The clerk looked up as the bell rang, glanced quickly at Tara, then looked down again. There was always a new clerk here every time she visited, and they were always as skittish as mice. Tara supposed that she would be too if she had to work for Miss Madison.

She walked past the shelves of trinkets, carved staffs, brightly colored "magic" robes, and the like, heading for the darker back of the shop where the supplies for real practitioners of the craft were kept. Tara glanced at the shelves of heavy leather bound volumes, wanting to see if they had anything new.

She forced herself to look away and focus on the selection of magical artifacts instead. She needed a bowl of seeing for the spell, but she couldn't find it in the eclectic collection of crystal balls, ancient pottery and statues, and assorted odd pieces of jewelry. She'd have to go up front and ask the clerk.

After making her way back to the counter and waiting a few minutes for the clerk to look up, she cleared her throat. The clerk jumped up with a start, almost tipping her chair over in the process.

Tara reached over to steady the clerk and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

The clerk flinched away from her touch and mumbled "It's okay," looking down at the bare surface of the counter the whole time.

An awkward silence followed with both girls looking down. Finally, Tara said "I'm looking for a bowl of seeing. I couldn't find it out there." She gestured in the direction of the magical artifacts case. "Do you have one or could you order one if you don't?" She didn't know what she would do if they didn't have one. The spell wouldn't work without it.

"I'm not sure," the clerk said. "I'd have to check with Miss Madison. " The clerk stood silently for a moment, her brow furrowed as she tried to figure out a way to avoid talking with Miss Madison. Just as Tara began to open her mouth to interrupt her, the clerk came to a decision and said, "I'll be back in a minute," before descending the stairs behind the counter.

Tara waited impatiently at the counter, trying to distract herself from the possibility that they might not have one by idly looking through the bins of junk there, rabbits' feet, rubber spiders left over from Halloween, and other stuff that she'd never buy. It had been at least five minutes, maybe more, before she heard two sets of footsteps coming up the stairs.

The first person up the stairs was Miss Madison, her face fixed in what seemed to be a permanent frown. She was closely followed by the timid clerk, her eyes firmly fixed on floor by her feet. Miss Madison gave Tara such a baleful glare as she placed a bowl of seeing on the counter that she almost fled the store. If she hadn't needed the scrying bowl so desperately, she would have.

"Is this what you wanted?" Miss Madison asked brusquely. Without waiting for an answer, she continued, "I hope you can afford it. It's a rather expensive item for a college student."

The bowl itself was beautiful in its simplicity. It was carved from a single piece of an iridescent blue grey stone, polished carefully without any carvings or adornment that would distract from its purpose.

"H-how much is it?" Tara stammered.

"It's $1,500, and there are no refunds for any reason," she said. "If you don't know how to use it or don't have the power to use it, that's your problem." Her eyes were full of doubt about Tara's ability to use the bowl.

Tara straightened up and looked back into her eyes, trying her best to look confident. "I'll take it."

"How will you be paying?" Miss Madison asked with one eyebrow raised.

Not for the first time since she discovered the true nature of Sunnydale, Tara wondered what sort of customers came here after dark and how they paid for their purchases. She silently handed her credit card across the counter. She didn't have a lot of money, but there was enough from her mother's life insurance to pay for school and a little more. She felt that if there was ever a time to spend money on herself, it was now.

Miss Madison handed her the receipt for her signature. After Tara signed it and returned it to her, she carefully checked that Tara's signature matched the one on the back of the credit card. She looked sharply at Tara before handing her the card back. Then she began carefully packing the bowl in a box with lots of soft packing material. "So Tara," she said. "What are you planning to see with this?"

Suspicious of the proprietor's sudden solicitude, Tara answered vaguely, "The past."

"Ah," said Miss Madison as if Tara had provided her with a significant answer. "This is a very good artifact for viewing the past." She finished securing the seeing bowl in the box. "I'm sure it will be just what you need," she said, giving Tara a knowing look.

Tara was finding the nice Miss Madison to be even more creepy than the more usual annoyed one. She picked up the box and said "Thank you" before heading for the door. At the door she turned her head to look back into the shop and saw Miss Madison still watching her with a faint smile on her face. The smile broadened and she said, "I hope to see you again soon," as Tara left the shop.

The bowl of seeing sat in the center of the hardwood floor of Tara's dorm room, flanked by two thick, white candles which provided the only illumination in the otherwise dark room. The flickering light of the candles created dim reflections that shifted and flowed on the surface of the still water filling the bowl. The Althea incense burning on the little table by Tara's bed scented the air.

Tara stood near the bowl, meticulously casting a protective circle around herself using fine blue sand. She wore silver hoop earrings and a silver chain around her neck to enhance the efficacy of the scrying spell. Once the circle was complete she sat down crosslegged in front of the bowl to begin the spell.

As she closed her eyes, her mind was buzzing with thoughts, worries about Willow preventing her from attaining the clarity of mind she needed for the spell. She forced herself to focus on her breathing, pulling each breath in to fill her belly then her rib cage and with a last bit of effort her upper chest. Each time her mind brought up a new fear about her spell, she yanked it away and back to focus on her breathing. Again and again, she did this.

She let out a long sigh as she opened her eyes. This wasn't working.

She was trying too hard.

Bringing her hands to her temples, she massaged them gently. The forced concentration was giving her a headache. She consciously released her breath in another long sigh. She had to relax, be patient, let it happen. You couldn't make water still by pulling or pushing at it, and the harder you tried the less calm the water became.

With that image in mind, she closed her eyes again, allowing her worries to come up one by one without trying to pull herself away. She simply accepted them and didn't allow herself to become attached. She let her fears flow through her, fears that the spell wouldn't work, that it would work but that their past held none of the loving moments she so wished to see, that no matter what she saw they were doomed to repeat the tragedies of the past, and so many more.

She let them all flow past until there were no more and only she herself remained, empty and calm. Ready at last, she made her request to the spirits of the past. "Show me the memories of the past. Show me the life Willow and I led before."

The water suddenly cleared, no longer reflecting the room but instead showing her a vision of the past.

Willow was hugging Tara from behind, her hands clasped around her waist. Tara's eyes were downcast. She was obviously unhappy about something. "Is someone making you uncomfortable?" Willow asked. "Is it Xander? It's Xander, isn't it?"

"Xander's a sweetie," Tara answered, but her eyes still didn't quite meet Willow's.

Willow rested her head on Tara's shoulder. "It's Giles," she said. "It's because he's British and doesn't understand about stuff."

"It's no one," Tara said, gently leaning her head against Willow's. "You guys all just have this really tight bond. It's hard to break into that. I'm not sure I want to."

Willow smiled. "I'm sure," she said. "You're completely one of the gang now." Tara smiled in response to the redhead's enthusiasm, but there was still some doubt in her eyes even though it was clear she wanted to believe. Willow continued, "Everyone accepts that you're one of the good guys."

Tara realized that she was holding her breath as the vision dissipated. She let it out in a long, shaky exhale. The other Tara in the vision looked and acted so much like her. It hadn't fully hit her that she really had lived and died before until now. That was really me, she thought to herself wonderingly.

Yesterday she'd accepted the fact of her reincarnation intellectually, but today she was forced to accept it emotionally. In her dreams she was always her, but the vision in a bowl of seeing was different. In the vision, she saw the Tara of the past as a different person, yet one who so similar to her as to make her unsure of her own identity. That Tara looked similar enough to have been her sister, but they were much closer than sisters.

She felt conflicted. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to rebel, to prove that she was her own woman by being different from the Tara of the past, or whether she wanted to be more like her, to be the Tara that Willow had loved and had come back for after nearly twenty years. She wanted Willow but she felt that she had to be more than the continuation of some person from the past.

Her only certainty was that she needed to see more. If she knew more about the past, perhaps her own feelings about it would become clear to her. Forcing herself to focus again, she brought forth another scene in the scrying bowl.

With a shawl wrapped around her, Tara stood in a magic shop holding some Tarot cards in her hand as she said, "I just keep thinking how cool it would be if we could get a real psychic to set up here and read fortunes and stuff."

Willow sat at a small round table looking up at her. "You should do it," she said encouragingly.

Tara shook her head slightly. "Not me," she said. "But I'd love to watch and learn from someone who's really good, y'know."

"You're really good," Willow asserted, looking slightly distressed. Willow looked up challengingly at her and smiled. "I'll prove it," she said, holding out her hands. "Here ... do me."

Tara smiled and sat down across from her, taking one of Willow's hands in her own. She examined the hand closely a moment and murmured, "Hmmm."

Her curiosity piqued, Willow asked, "What do you see?"

Tara looked up from her hand and said, "Willow-hand", her smile broadening sensually as she gave Willow a knowing look. Willow almost blushed as she smiled back at her.

As the image dissolved, Tara smiled. It had been so sweet. There had been more to their life together than the fighting and dark magic. They had loved each other. She'd seen it in their eyes as she'd felt it in her dreams. She shouldn't have doubted Willow, but she had needed to see this confirmation of their past love with her own waking eyes. It felt like a tremendous burden of darkness had been lifted from her soul.

She thought about terminating the spell now that she'd found what she been searching for, but she wanted to see more of the good parts. She wanted to know how it all turned out like it had though she was afraid of seeing her own death in the scrying bowl. She looked into the waters again and concentrated, bringing forth another vision.

Willow had short hair and was wearing a dark flowered dress. She looked so happy, smiling as she approached Tara. Tara was sitting at a table piled with presents talking to a girl in a party hat. Willow asked "My dance?" then took her by the hand and led her out to the dance floor where she wrapped her arms around Tara's waist. Tara placed hers comfortably on Willow's shoulders. Willow asked, "Good birthday?"

"Best birthday!" Tara said with a smile.

"I still can't believe you didn't tell me about your family and all that," Willow said.

"I was just afraid if you saw the kind of people like him from you wouldn't want to be near me," Tara said wistfully. She looked into Willow's eyes for the support and love she hoped was there.

"See, that's where you're a dummy," Willow said seriously. She swallowed and paused a moment before continuing. "I think about what you grew up with and then I look at what you are ... it makes me proud ... it makes me love you more."

"Every time I ..." Tara said. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, "Even at my worst, you always make me feel special." Willow smiled at her words. "How do you do that?"

"Magic!" Willow answered, beaming at her.

They rested their heads on each other's shoulders then pulled each other closer, each girl holding the other tightly. Then they slowly floated up until they were several feet above the dance floor, aware of nothing but each other.

Tara felt warm inside as the vision finished with the image of them in each other's arms feeling completely content as they floated above the dance floor. She couldn't stop herself from smiling. It had been so wonderful. She wondered if she and Willow would float too if they slow danced together. She'd never been that interested in dancing, always feeling like everyone was watching her awkwardness, but with Willow she could forget the world and perhaps they would float together.

In the vision Willow had seemed serene, completely at peace with herself and her love for Tara. Seeing her that way was bittersweet for Tara because she had never seen Willow like that with her. Her Willow was calm and controlled but never at peace with herself or the world. She was wary and melancholy, wounded soul-deep by a death that happened almost twenty years ago. Her death. Still, Willow was changing. She couldn't imagine flirting over coffee with the black-clad witch she'd first met in the graveyard.

Tara had to be patient, and she was willing to wait if she could have what she had seen today. She didn't have to be patient with the vision though. She could see more now.

Tara sat beside a flannel-clad Willow on a bed in a university dorm room. A young girl with beautiful long brown hair sat beside them. Tara wore pajamas and had a cast over her right hand. A blonde girl in a black leather jacket sat on a chair beside the bed and handed Willow a sandwich. "Chicken salad?"

"Right here." Willow took a sandwich from her.

The blonde dug into a white bag, taking out more sandwiches. "Eggplant, that's me. Salami with ..." She wrinkled her nose. "Ew, peanut butter. Dawn." She handed that sandwich to the brown haired girl.

"Yeah, like eggplant is normal," Dawn said. She teased the blonde, "It's what - half egg, half plant? That's just unnatural."

"What's Tara got?" Willow asked.

"I got her tuna. Does she like ..." Dawn said to Willow. She looked at Tara and gently asked, "Tara, you like tuna?"

Tara looked panicked at Dawn's offer, saying, "Plastic and their six sisters. Six sick sisters." She looked pleadingly at Willow as if begging her to be saved from the tuna, "Willow?"

"It's okay," Willow reassured her. "We'll just start a little slow today." She asked the blonde girl, "Buffy, can I have that?" Buffy handed her a plastic spoon and a small container of applesauce. "Here you go," she said to Tara and began spoon feeding her the applesauce. "That's my girl." Tara's teeth clacked on the spoon, but she seemed comforted by the applesauce.

"Can I help?" Dawn asked. Willow nodded and handed her the container and spoon. Tara looked at Willow for a moment, an expression of inchoate longing on her face as if she wanted desperately to express something significant but was too lost to know even her own feelings. Then it was gone, whatever the momentary feeling had been, and she turned to face Dawn, who began feeding her more applesauce.

"What are you going to need?" Buffy asked.

"I don't know ..." Willow said. "They gave me a lot of stuff to keep her calm. They said I might have to restrain her at night, but sometimes she's fine, she looks at me and she's fine."

"I'm sorry I couldn't ..." Buffy said.

"It's okay. I can do this," Willow said. "I'm gonna take care of her. Even if she never ..." Willow broke off a moment then finished, "She's my girl."

Buffy reached out to stroke Dawn's hair and said, "I understand."

"I know you do," Willow said. She smiled and looked at Tara, saying "Hear that, baby? You're my always." Then she kissed Tara on the forehead. Tara smiled like a happy baby as she leaned into the kiss.

Tara shuddered. It was horrifying, seeing what she become after the Hellgod brain-sucked her. Her vacant expression. The irrational fears. A lost expression that might have been a cry for help from the depths of her mind.

Yet at the same time it was wonderful seeing Willow standing by her no matter what. Despite how lost she had been, she still had Willow, and she still had known that when she known nothing else. Willow had taken care of her when she couldn't take care of herself and hadn't given up on her even after she died.

She thought that Buffy must be the Slayer, the one whose name Willow and Giles could never quite say. She thought she knew why Giles couldn't talk about her. Every Slayer-Watcher relationship ended in death. It had to be difficult training someone and becoming close to them, knowing that no matter how well you prepared her, she would always eventually fail. Yet Giles had the courage to begin the process again with Spirit. She was less certain why Willow couldn't talk about Buffy. She knew that they were friends, but there was something more there that she hadn't seen yet.

Tara wasn't sure who Dawn was. She had some type of close relationship with the Slayer, but Tara couldn't tell from the vision what exactly it was. Clearly she knew Tara well too, but Willow had never mentioned Dawn's name. She suddenly wondered if Dawn was still alive. Perhaps Giles could tell her. She'd like to meet someone from her past who was neutral about Willow as Giles was not, yet who was also less haunted by the dark times as Willow was.

Storing that thought away carefully for later perusal, Tara focused on the scrying bowl again and brought forth a new scene.

"Are you worried?" Tara asked in a soft, gentle voice as she took off her robe, revealing a simple white sleeping shirt underneath.

"Worried? Tara, it worked fine," Willow said, rubbing lotion into her arms. She was wearing a pink tank top with a picture of something tropical. "It's all good." She turned away from Tara.

Tara turned down the covers and sat on the bed. "Hey Will, this is me. It doesn't have to be good and fine. This is the room where you don't have to be brave. I still love you," Tara said earnestly. "If you're worried, you can be worried."

"Well, I'm not unworried," Willow said, but the signs of distress in her movements and face showed that her worries went deeper than that. As she closed the door to the room, she continued, "What happened, that was intense. That's gotta change you." She turned out the lights and got into bed beside Tara. "When Angel came back, Buffy said he was wild like an animal." Her voice clearly showed that she was deeply worried about how Buffy came back.

Tara looked over from her pillow and said, "Buffy is not like that."

"Yeah," Willow answered, but didn't sound convinced.

"But?" Tara said.

Willow smiled and said, "She's kind of noisy up here tonight, you know?" Despite the smile, her face clearly showed how worried and stressed she was.

"Yeah," Tara said in a soft voice then placed her head on Willow's shoulder and snuggled close, asking, "Is this better?"

Willow smiled broadly, gently holding Tara's arm which was wrapped around her chest. Tenderly stroking Tara's arm, Willow said, "Yeah. I think it makes things quieter in here," but the signs of worry remained on her face. Despite what she'd accomplished, Willow looked small and frail in Tara's arms.

This vision was an important one for Tara. It was the first time she'd seen that she had comforted and supported Willow instead of being the one to be comforted herself. She felt like the junior partner in their relationship, and the visions hadn't contradicted that idea until now.

Willow seemed so strong and so smart, even in the past, that Tara hadn't been sure that Willow had ever needed her support or anyone else's for that matter. She also hadn't been sure if Willow could accept comfort from someone else if she did need it. Even in the past life Willow had to be asked to show her vulnerability, but when Tara had asked her she hadn't hesitated to let her in.

Tara was unsure if they'd reached the point in their relationship where Willow could let her in that easily yet ... again. It was difficult to know what words to use about their relationship. Was it one continuous whole from Willow's point of view with her no different from the old Tara or was it two separate relationships bridged by Willow's memories of the past?

Even if Tara had all those memories fresh in her mind, Willow was a different person today. She was warier and less open. It couldn't be the same. What had happened over the years to change her? She had lost Tara, but there was more to it than that. Those lonely years left their mark on Willow, but Tara didn't know how or why.

As she looked into the clear water, Tara realized that she could find out. She had enough of the connection with Willow to look into her past too. Was it the right thing to do though? Even looking at her own past life sometimes felt like voyeurism.

Still, Willow knew so much about her and she knew so little about Willow. What she'd learned in the past few days only showed her how much there was that she didn't know about Willow. A few glimpses of Willow's past might help more than it would hurt. She focused on the still waters again, attempting to bring forth an image of Willow's past.

Tara, her face peaceful, lay unmoving in the coffin. They had dressed her in a simple, yet elegant, white gown. Her eyes were closed and her hands were folded across her waist. Her long, beautiful hair was spread across the pillow. She looked like she was simply asleep, waiting for her princess to wake her with a kiss.

Willow was dressed formally, but there was no trace of peace on her grief-stricken face. She hesitantly reached out to caress Tara's smooth cheek. "Forgive me," she whispered as her tears began falling. She wiped them away with her sleeve, but they were quickly replaced by others. Soon she was sobbing so hard that she couldn't stand. Collapsing to the floor, she still held on to the coffin with one hand as if it were the only thing keeping her afloat in a sea of grief. "Tara!" she cried in desperate need.

Long minutes later when the flow of tears began to slow, Willow stood back up. She bent over the coffin and kissed Tara's cold lips. Though still marked with grief, her face was full of resolve as she whispered to Tara, "I'll bring you back. I promise."

Tara pulled away from the scrying bowl, her own eyes beginning to tear. She wanted to take some time to recover, but the image in the water shimmered and changed without her direction, showing her a new vision.

Willow stood at an archway that opened in an ancient, huge wall built of cyclopean stones. She was dressed all in black, jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, her short red hair providing the only note of color. Her eyes were already pools of inky blackness.

Under the archway were two metal gates, each adorned with carved skulls. A tiny ancient man dressed in rotting black formal clothes stood in the gateway. "Welcome to the necropolis," he said.

"I've come for my dead," Willow said. She stood unmoving as the wind howled and tore at the thin fabric of her shirt.

"Then enter, but be warned," he said. "The city's ancient, but it changes like a living thing. It cannot be mapped. You may not find what you seek and in the end you may lose even yourself."

"That doesn't matter," Willow said in a dead voice, barely audible above the wind. The ancient man opened the gates, and Willow strode through them, disappearing into the darkness beyond.

As the vision of the necropolis faded, it was immediately replaced by a new one. Tara realized that she no longer held control of the spell, but before she could worry she was drawn into this new image of the past.

Willow stood in a garden on top of a skyscraper, looking out over the city below her. She was wearing an ankle-length robe of pure black that rippled in the wind and her red hair fell to her shoulder blades.

She turned to see the approach of an inhumanly beautiful woman, her long golden hair flowing behind her like a cape. She wore a white robe with a wide, gold belt decorated with intricate Celtic knotwork. The only flaw to mar her perfection was the utter blackness of her eyes. She reached out with one flawless hand to cup Willow's cheek gently as she asked, "Have you thought about my proposal?"

Willow gazed back into eyes whose darkness matched her own without saying anything.

"All of heaven and earth," the beauty said, spreading her arms. "All of heaven and earth," she repeated slowly as she brought her arms down. "Together, we could have the world."

"But not Tara," Willow whispered.

The woman's beautiful face twisted into an expression of fury as she advanced on Willow menacingly.

Tara wondered who the woman was and how Willow met her. She'd never been confident about her own appearance, but even if she had been no one she'd ever seen compared to the woman in the vision. Then the image shifted again drawing her attention back to the water.

Willow stood frozen, dressed in the black leathers in which Tara had first seen her, her hair longer than in the previous vision. She was staring into a huge floor to ceiling mirror, but it did not reflect the room behind her or even Willow herself. Instead, standing in the center of the mirror was Tara, dressed in the same elegant white gown that she had been buried in.

The Tara in the mirror smiled broadly at Willow and opened her arms. "Come to me, love," she said. "Come to me."

Willow reached out to the mirror and touched the image of Tara's fingers. "Tara," she whispered. "Is it really you?"

"It's me," the figure in the mirror said in a terrible croaking voice. Its flesh fell away in rotting chunks as it reached out of the mirror with skeletal arms to pull Willow in.

Tara jerked her face away from the surface of water, irrationally afraid that she would get pulled in too, but the image was already fading and being replaced by a new one.

Willow limped across an endless plain of broken stones, her twisted leg trailing behind her. Her leathers were rent and torn, and each of the dozens of cuts was stained with blood. Willow's blood. The sky above was the dull red of cooling lava. The land was barren and empty save for a pillar of dust ahead of Willow. From that direction came the faint and distant sound of hoof beats.

"They just keep coming," Willow said in a cracked, mad voice. She chuckled mirthlessly then coughed and spat blood. It hissed as it struck the hot stones. "Tara," she whispered. "I don't think I'm gonna make it." She stumbled and fell on to one knee and hand as the approaching demons came ever closer.

That was no place on earth Tara realized. As she wondered how Willow made it out of that hell, the images began rushing forth faster and faster, showing her ever shorter glimpses of Willow over the years. She could no longer hold the focus at all.

Willow stood in front of a huge stone Pool of Seeing set into the floor of a classical temple, a glowing gemstone in her hand as she cried out, "Find me the soul of Tara Maclay!"

then

Hidden in the shadowy trees, Willow, all in black and her face hidden behind a mask, watched Tara fight a vampire in the graveyard, whispering, "Is it really her after all this time?"

then

A slender stone arch bridged a chasm deep underground. On the bridge, Willow faced the spectral form of a short, slender woman who glowed with an unholy emerald light. Turning towards her, the spectre revealed a beautiful face framed by short pale hair. As if it knew her well, the dark spirit grinned and said, "Welcome home, Willow."

Tara almost recognized the figure but the image fleeted away to be replaced by a new one.

Dressed in her black leathers, Willow stood in a dark cavern gazing into Tara's eyes as a torrent of green fire rushed towards them. As they embraced, a sea of brighness came into being, encircling the two witches. They continued to kiss, heedless of inferno of emerald flames that howled its fury all around them.

The water in the scrying bowl began to bubble and hiss as a new image appeared.

Tara knelt beside Willow, looking up at her face. Her eyes were gloriously green without any hint of darkness. A terrible yet familiar voice said, "The spell is complete," and a crossbow raised into view.

The water hissed furiously as it showed her one final image.

A black crossbow bolt, its head etched with runes the color of the dried blood, sped towards Willow's heart.

With a huge cracking sound the bowl shattered, and Tara was thrown out of the protective circle by the force of the spell's destructive collapse. Her blouse was soaked, and shards of wet blue stone were scattered everywhere, but she was physically unharmed. After a long moment to regain her composure, Tara sat up and surveyed the wreckage in the darkness.

What had happened? She should have broken the spell when she first realized that she'd lost control, but she had been too lost in Willow's past to do that. Still, a seeing spell shouldn't end explosively no matter how little control she had over it.

Underneath her surface calm, Tara was filled with a tumult of conflicting emotions. Her worries about the spell were the least of them. While she felt sorrow for what Willow had gone through with her death, she was also jealous of that beautiful woman she'd seen touching Willow with such intimacy. Who was she and what had been Willow's relationship with her?

Then there was her fear for what Willow had gone through on her quest. There was the terrible dark resurrection of herself, but worse was seeing Willow at the end of all her strength and determination when she seemed to have nothing left to give. She could hardly comprehend the amount of strength it had taken for Willow to get back up after all the hurts she had sustained.

There was also hope. Willow had come out of that terrible hell and found her. Then the two of them faced the darkness together in the future. Willow's eyes green, empty of the darkness that had been there so long. She would give so much to see that.

Finally, what remained was despair. She had seen Willow's death in the completion of a deadly spell, and a crossbow bolt carrying its malevolence towards Willow's heart while Tara knelt by her side, helpless to change its course.

Tara wrapped her arms around her body, hugging herself in the darkness. She couldn't bear to lose Willow just as she found her again. She began to sob quietly, rocking herself back and forth. Before she became lost in her pain, she remembered how Willow had taken care of her when she was lost in her mind and that she hadn't given up on Tara no matter what.

Wiping her tears away, she thought about how she had been there to comfort and hold Willow when she had been fragile and needed shelter. Willow needed her. In both past and future.

Tara slowly stood up, the sorrow and understanding on her face mingling with a new, deep sense of resolve.

Continued...