Pairing: W/S and sort of W/T
Distribution: My site (http://magical_worlds.us/musings/), winter_spillow and my LJ (shannon730)
Disclaimer: They all belong to Joss Whedon, ME, UPN, FOX, WB.
Summary: Willow wants to make sure Tara's soul is in heaven.
Spoilers: Up to early season 7 (around the time Willow returns to Sunnydale)
Author's Notes: This is mostly AU from Grave on. Some parts of Season 7 will have happened (early episodes only) and most of that will be mentioned if it really matters.
And a huge thanks to Gabrielle for betaing this at the last minute for me.
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She wasn't really going to try to bring her back again, she was gone, and Willow had to accept that. Osiris had said she died naturally. She could probably force it now, bring her back anyway; she had the power to do it. She had the power to do anything she wanted to do; but the question was should she do it? Was that the right thing for Tara, or for her?
She had brought Buffy back without giving any real thought to whether or not she wanted to come back. She had convinced herself and Xander that Buffy was in a hell dimension. Tara and Anya had just fallen in line when they had insisted it was for the best. Buffy had been miserable, she didn't want to come back. She had been in Heaven, she had been happy there. Bringing Tara back could mean the same thing; she didn't want Tara back if she was happy where she was.
That's why she was locked in the dining room, why she hadn't told anyone what she was doing. They wouldn't want her to do it. They wanted her to grieve and move on. That was what she should do, and what she would do, as soon as she knew that Tara was okay. She just wanted to know that Tara was in Heaven, that her soul was at peace. She would locate Tara's soul and then go away, leave the other witch at peace, but she had to know first.
She lit the last candle and began to recite the spell from memory. She had spent so many nights studying it, first in England, then Sunnydale, that she no longer needed the book to perform the spell. She smiled slightly when the small light floated from the center of the circle where she had placed a kind of map that the coven had given her; it showed all the known heaven and hell dimensions the light would point out which one Tara's soul was in. No one but Willow would ever know.
Her smile faltered and changed to a frown as the light moved away from the circle and floated toward the blueprints Xander had left on the table. Blueprints of the new Sunnydale High School. Standing up, she followed the light as it now hovered over the paper. As she approached, the light landed gently on the space that was the new basement and disappeared.
Tara's soul was in the basement of the high school? How could that be, souls didn't stay here, they left, they went to... Unless. No, that wasn't possible, was it? He did get his soul at roughly the same time Tara had died. No, they didn't know that it was his soul; just that he had a soul now. Angel had never even really said he had Liam's soul. It had just been assumed. Was it possible that Spike had.? She had to find out. She would have to find a way.
*****
Spike watched the small light float in front of him, a small smile creeping across his face. He was crouching in the corner of the high school basement, trying his best to avoid the thing that was haunting him, the thing that was making him like this. He had thought it was the soul, the soul was too good, but it wasn't that. There was something in here with him. The light had frightened him at first, he thought that it had found a new way to torture him, but the soul had seemed calmed by it, not afraid. The soul knew what it was, even if his demon didn't.
He had tried to get rid of the soul; he had wanted his soul, not hers. He knew it was the witch's soul. He hadn't at first, of course, but as soon as he saw Red, he had known, she had come down here and the soul had reached out to her. Wanted to assure her that she was okay. He had wanted to tell Willow too, wanted to do what Tara wanted. He couldn't though; they would've thought he was even crazier than they already did. If he told them, the slayer would stake him; she would think he was trying to hurt Willow.
He wasn't though; she was the one Scooby he had never wanted to hurt. Part of him knew that if she hadn't found Tara when she did, his obsession with Buffy might never have developed at all. He had been fascinated with Willow for years, since he had first come to Sunnydale, but that was when she had the wolf. Then he thought he had a chance when the wolf left, but he was chained to a bathtub. By the time he wasn't, she had found the other witch. Then there had been Buffy, and everything had gone wrong.
He understood now, the light was Willow. She was searching for.him. No, that wasn't right, she was searching for Tara. For her soul.his soul now. He would be able to tell her the truth at last, he could tell her everything, and she wouldn't think he was crazy. He just had to find a way to do it, a way that wouldn't scare her away.