Beyond Expectation

By Talula

Part 16: Things Fall Apart

Anya’s game had turned into an all out tournament. The entire group had begun playing and they had completely lost track of time. When the phone rang a half hour after the game had started, Buffy looked at her watch.

“Mom’s not back yet,” Dawn said, finally realizing what nobody had noticed.

“Maybe that’s her,” Willow said, gesturing to the phone as Buffy went to answer it. “Maybe she got stuck in traffic.”

“This is Sunnydale, Will,” Xander said. “There is no traffic.”

“Hello,” Buffy answered. The others were silent as she listened to the person on the other end. They watched the expression on her face change to one of confusion. Then tears started to form in her eyes. She shook her head and the phone started to slip from her hand. Giles quickly grabbed it and took over the conversation. Tara could see Buffy’s aura radiating sorrow. She moved over to her and wrapped her arm around her waist. When Giles finished the phone conversation, he looked sadly to everyone. Then he focused on Dawn.

“There was an accident,” he said, his voice shaking as he spoke. “Your mother’s car…she was hit by a truck. She was killed.”

“No,” Dawn said, shaking her head. Tears quickly filled her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. Willow, who was sitting next to her, quickly took Dawn into her arms. Buffy was too much in shock to think about her sister. Then the slayer looked up angrily and pushed Tara away.

“You. This is your fault!” she shouted. Everyone was stunned. Tara didn’t know what to say. “She was fine. The doctor said she was fine. She was on her way home. You and your stupid auras.”

“I-I don’t understand,” Tara said. She wasn’t alone in her confusion.

“Understand this,” Buffy said in a growling tone. “If you hadn’t told her she was going to die, she never would’ve gone to the doctor today, and she never would’ve been where she was to get hit by that truck.”

Tara looked down at the floor. It was a point that never would have occurred to her. Normally Joyce would have been at work at this time of day. She would have been safe at the gallery. Instead she was driving home from a doctor’s appointment that Tara had asked Buffy to convince Joyce to go to. She wondered if the one time she had saved her girlfriend in high school had been a fluke, if all the times she had tried to save her loved ones she had actually caused their deaths somehow.

“You said you were sure,” Buffy said sharply. “I trusted you.”

“She said she was sure that Joyce would die,” Anya said. Buffy glared at her and Anya spoke cautiously. “She wasn’t sure she could save Joyce. She said that she didn’t know how it happened.”

“Anya, shut up and stay out of this!” Buffy shouted.

“I’m just saying—”

“Well, don’t,” Buffy interrupted. She turned back to Tara who was staring down at the floor. Nobody noticed as Buffy’s eyes flared with fresh accusation. “Did you plan this?”

“What?” Tara asked, looking up in shock.

“Did you make up all this aura crap? Is this payback?”

Nobody could believe what they were hearing. Buffy was getting into insane conspiracy theory territory.

“You weaseled your way into my family, into my life. You don’t have a mom, so you took mine away,” Buffy said, stepping toward Tara. The young witch backed up a step. That was a low blow and it hurt her to hear Buffy say that. “Was this all a set up?”

“Are you kidding? Do you really think I wanted your m-mom dead?” Tara asked. “You approached me in class that day.”

“Or so you’d have me believe,” Buffy said. She took another step and Tara backed up again. She was nearly backed against the wall. “Maybe I’m not even in love with you. Maybe you cast a spell to make me love you. Is that it?”

“Buffy, stop for a second and think about what you’re saying,” Xander said, trying to help Tara out. “Tara loves you and Dawn and your mom. She wouldn’t want to hurt any of you.”

“Yeah right,” Buffy said. Suddenly she shoved Tara up against the wall roughly and shouted at her. Giles, Oz and Xander hurried over and struggled to get Buffy off of the frightened witch. “Who are you? Huh? What do you want from us?”

The three men pulled Buffy off and Tara stood there, her eyes wide with fear. She watched as they dragged Buffy backward. Giles looked to Tara.

“I think it would be best if you left, Tara,” he said.

It wasn’t an order or demand. He believed Tara. Buffy was literally insane with grief. He was looking out for Tara’s safety. Right now she was Buffy’s scapegoat and there was no telling what the slayer would do if Tara stuck around. She understood that and looked between Buffy and Dawn, who was sobbing in Willow’s arms through all of this. She spoke in a whisper as she backed to the door.

“I’m sorry.”

She left the house quickly, wiping at her tears as she walked. The doubts Buffy had planted were swimming around in her mind. She wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. Part of her thought Buffy was right. Guilt was winning out.

---

Buffy had never been to a funeral where it didn’t rain, not until she went to her mother’s funeral. The sun shined down on all of the mourners as the preacher recited the typical ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ passages. As the casket was lowered into the ground and the dirt was thrown on top of it, Dawn leaned heavily against Buffy, sobbing. Buffy held her sister loosely, staring at the dirt on the wood six feet below.

The funeral ended and everyone conveyed their condolences to Buffy and Dawn before they filed off to their cars. In her will, Joyce had requested no wake. The Scoobies were the last remaining. Dawn was to go with Willow to spend the night. She had felt uncomfortable around Buffy. Ever since Buffy had attacked Tara and blamed her for their mother’s death, Buffy had been cold, detached. Dawn didn’t like being around her like that. Buffy simply nodded her head as everyone left. She assured them she would be okay and that she just wanted to stay at the cemetery a little longer. Oz, Willow and Dawn were the last to leave and she stood beside the grave, staring down at the dirt, wishing she didn’t feel so utterly alone.

Night fell and she didn’t even notice. He walked up beside her and stood quietly for a moment. She knew he was there but she said nothing. He broke the silence.

“Sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” he said. She reached over and took his hand gently.

“I’m glad you came.”

They sat by a nearby oak tree and Buffy rested heavily against Angel. He simply listened while she talked, venting her feelings.

“It was brutal,” she said, describing the funeral. “Dawn’s a mess. Everything’s a mess, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to get through this. I fight demons, sure, but when it came to the real life stuff, mom was the slayer.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“I don’t think so,” she said skeptically.

“You will. If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you’re a fighter, and not just a fighter of demons,” he explained. “When you went to LA that one summer, you were on your own. You took care of yourself.”

“Not the best example,” she said ruefully.

“You survived.”

“I have to do more than survive,” Buffy said in frustration. “I have to take care of Dawn. I want her to be able to do everything she would be able to do if mom was still around.”

“She will,” Angel said confidently. “You’ll figure it out.”

“How can I when I could barely get through today?” she asked. “And the one person I wanted here most of all wasn’t here.”

“Tara,” Angel said.

When Willow told him about Buffy and Tara, he had been shocked to say the least. It was the last thing he had expected to hear. But the more Willow talked about the two women together, the more Angel could tell that it was the right thing for Buffy. She had sounded really happy with this girl, and that’s what he wanted for her. No matter what happened between him and Buffy, all he really wanted for her was for her to be happy. Then Willow had explained the accusations Buffy had made. He understood why Tara hadn’t come to the funeral. He honestly would be surprised if the poor girl was still in Sunnydale.

“I drove her away just like I drive everyone away. God, the things I said to her,” Buffy said, appalled at herself when she remembered what she had done. “I accused her of planning my mom’s death. I was out of my mind.”

“You were hurting. I’m sure Tara understood that,” he said, hoping he was right about that. He didn’t know Tara, but he was hoping she would react to Buffy’s insane accusations the same way he would have reacted. “She’s giving you some space. I’m sure she’ll come around.”

“Everything’s so messed up,” Buffy said quietly.

“Things will work out,” Angel reassured her. She closed her eyes and sighed.

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

“Oh.”

---

Tara hated going to the cemetery after sunset, but she wanted to make sure everyone was long gone. She didn’t want to run into Buffy for fear of more of Buffy’s accusations. As she walked toward Joyce’s grave she looked up and stopped abruptly, moving to hide herself partially behind a statue. She saw Buffy sitting against a tree near the grave. She was sitting with a man who had no aura. Tara knew instantly who he was. A man she had never met who had no aura could only be a vampire, and Tara knew the only vampire Buffy would sit like that with was Angel. Her heart sank at this realization and she turned, not able to face Buffy now.

When she got back to her room she couldn’t concentrate on anything. She tried to read and do school work. All she could do was turn on her stereo and sit in the chair by the window, staring out at the moon as Ani DiFranco played from her speakers.

it’s rock paper scissors as to whether
I will get over you at all
it’s hand against hand and both hands are mine
it’s standing in a circular line
which is not to say that I’m not also happy
a happy meal with a surprise inside
surprise surprise here’s another bright light in your eyes
exposing all the stuff you’re not calculating enough to hide

The image of Angel and Buffy sitting together was burned into her brain. She had never been attracted to a man before, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew Angel was very attractive. Most girls would swoon over him and be extremely jealous that Buffy won his eternal love. And there she had been, sitting with him like they had never been apart, like he had never left her behind.

“Maybe I’m not even in love with you.”

Buffy’s words echoed in her mind, creating fresh tears to sting at the corners of her eyes. She remembered what Spike had said about Angel and Buffy, about how if it weren’t for the gypsy curse they would be together. Buffy didn’t love her; she was settling. Buffy’s true love could never be with her. Tara was the consolation prize.

this melancholy that I carry makes me feel so grown up
at my kitchen table doing shots of resignation
I never thought I’d see the day when I would say I give up
and break the stallions of my wildest expectations
I do not want to know you this way
surrounded by so much pain
but how am I supposed to let go of you this way
like a bird into the sky of my brain?

She barely even noticed as sunrise neared. All she could think about was Buffy, sitting with Angel, probably telling him that Joyce’s death was all Tara’s fault. The more she thought about it, the more Tara knew that she had some responsibility in Joyce’s death. She was a lightning rod for dead mothers. No sooner did she fall in love with Buffy than Joyce died. She knew she couldn’t stay in Sunnydale.

I think I could accept all these dark colors
as just part of some bigger color scheme
if it wasn’t for the drippy string quartet of sadness
underscoring each smiling scene
desire drags me right out of myself
a gas-soaked rope tied to a piece of coal
and I’m getting pretty good at looking at the bright side
while the flames rip along the sand and swallow me whole

A knock on the door startled her. It was so early, she had no idea who could possibly be visiting her. She moved to the door and opened it. She recognized Angel from the cemetery and was stunned to see him standing in her doorway.

“You’re Tara, right?” he asked. He had a slip of paper in his hand with her name and room number on it.

“Yeah, and you’re Angel,” she said quietly.

“How’d you know that?” he asked.

“I have my ways,” she responded. “I saw you at the cemetery…w-with Buffy. What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk to you about Buffy,” he said.

“It’s close to sunrise,” she mentioned, gesturing to the window.

“There’s sewer access in the basement,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I wasn’t,” she said. He noticed she was very edgy. He could understand why.

“Buffy and I were just talking in the cemetery,” he said. “There’s nothing that could happen between us.” Tara just stared at him, waiting for some reason for his presence. “Can I come in? Or are we going to have this conversation in the hall?”

She sighed, not really wanting to talk to him. She turned away from the door and he was confused.

“You actually have to say it,” he said as she bent down to reach under her bed. When she stood and turned, he realized what she was doing. In her hands she had a small crossbow and a large wooden cross. She stepped into the sunlight that was starting to shine through the window.

“Come in.”

He entered her room and looked around, sticking to the shadows and avoiding the sunlight. He gestured to the crossbow. “You know how to use that thing?”

“Buffy taught me,” she said as she leveled the crossbow so it was aimed at his chest. “So, um, what exactly did you come here for?”

“Buffy needs you,” he said.

“Right,” Tara said, a bitter tone filling her voice. She looked down at the floor. “I doubt that. After all, she’s got you.”

“She and I are never going to be together. There’s nothing left but friendship between us,” he explained. “I’m out of the picture. You’re not.”

“She hates me. She thinks I’m responsible for her mom’s death. She’s right.”

“It was a car accident. Willow explained to me what happened,” he said. “And Buffy doesn’t blame you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tara said dejectedly. Then she glared at him. “And what do you care? Why did you bother coming here?”

“I care about Buffy. I will always love her, but that’s not going to change the situation between us. Nothing can,” he said. “I want her to be happy. You make her happy.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can tell by the way her face looked when she talked about you,” he said. He sighed and looked down at the floor. “I saw that look on her face once. There was a day when Buffy came to see me in L.A., and for a day, I became human. We were together. We were normal. I had never seen her that happy about being with someone and I haven’t seen it since…until now.”

“You w-were human? What happened?”

“Not important. I’m not human anymore, and Buffy doesn’t know that day happened. She is not going to know that day happened,” he said sharply. Tara hesitated and then nodded her head in a silent agreement. “My point is that during that day I got to see Buffy in a normal relationship. She felt safe. And she feels that way with you.”

“I’m safe,” Tara repeated, not really believing everything Angel was saying. He saw she was skeptical.

“She loves you. Whether you trust or believe anything else I’ve said, trust that,” he said. He moved toward the door, having said everything he had come to say. “Take care of her.”

He left without another word and Tara watched as he closed the door behind him. She was surprised that Angel would encourage their relationship, but what he said made sense. He just wanted Buffy to be happy. She had a feeling he knew well what made Buffy happy. Tara knew anything that resembled a normal life made Buffy happy. Anything that was not related to her slayer duty made her happy. She just couldn’t believe that Buffy needed her. How could anybody need her? Tara hadn’t felt that important to one person since her mother died. Somehow, she had become that important to Buffy.

Part 17: Let Me Be a Dream

Dawn opened the front door and was surprised to see Tara there. Tara could see the sadness in Dawn’s eyes and in her aura. It was obvious that she had been crying a lot. She looked accusingly at Tara.

“You weren’t there yesterday,” she said. Tara nodded her head.

“I know. I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I-I wanted to be there, I just…”

“Yeah,” Dawn said understandingly. She hadn’t expected Tara to be at the funeral, but she was still disappointed that she hadn’t come. “She needed you to be there.”

“Is she here?” Tara asked nervously. Dawn nodded her head and stepped back, allowing Tara to step into the foyer. Dawn closed the front door.

“She’s up in her room. I think she might be asleep,” she replied. “I think she was out all night last night.”

“Oh, I should come back…maybe,” Tara said. She saw the lonely, sorrowful look in Dawn’s eyes. “Unless you want me to stay.”

“You don’t have to,” Dawn said. She wasn’t very convincing. “I’m okay.”

Tara took Dawn’s hand without a word and led her to sit on the sofa in the living room.

“You don’t have to be all brave with me, Dawnie,” Tara said. “I know you’re not okay.”

“How did you…deal with it? How’d you deal after your mom died?” Dawn asked quietly.

“I tried to self-destruct,” Tara replied. “I started acting differently and-and dressing differently. I got a fake ID. I would stay out all night and hitchhike to bars. I did everything I could to dig myself into a hole that I hoped to never get out of.”

“I can’t see you doing that stuff,” Dawn said, trying to imagine Tara dressing in revealing clothes and going to bars.

“I turned into a different person because I-I didn’t have anybody who cared enough to help me through it,” Tara explained. “I was trying to escape the life that I had been left behind to live. I felt like my mother abandoned me. So I wanted to abandon everyone else.”

“What got you to stop self-destructing?” Dawn asked curiously. The Tara in front of her was obviously nothing like the Tara that was being described to her.

“That girlfriend I told you guys about, the one whose death I managed to prevent,” Tara said. “I met her when I was out one night and we just connected. I didn’t really change much after that until her aura disappeared. That woke me up.”

“Why aren’t you still with her?”

Tara sighed and thought about that. She knew exactly why. She was almost glad that Buffy and her family knew about the supernatural. She wouldn’t have told them about Joyce’s aura disappearing if they hadn’t.

“After the near death thing, she was freaked out. She wasn’t very comfortable with the idea that I could see when she was going to die,” Tara said quietly. “After we graduated, she moved to New York and I moved here.”

The two of them sat in silence for a moment, each of them thinking about people they had lost over time, either to death or to a rift in the relationship. It seemed like people passed in and out of each other’s lives so easily. Dawn was having trouble grasping the point of it all.

“How do I keep living the same life without her?” Dawn asked quietly.

“You keep a place for her in your heart,” Tara replied. She stroked Dawn’s hair and brushed it away from her face. “You live your life the way she would want you to live it.”

“I miss her so much,” Dawn said, tears springing in her eyes. Tara leaned forward and embraced her.

“I know,” Tara said, holding Dawn gently and soothingly. “But you’re not alone. You have Buffy and me and all the Scoobies. We’ll all help you through this.”

Buffy sat at the top of the stairs and listened to Dawn and Tara talk. She wanted to run down the stairs and just collapse in Tara’s arms, but she held herself back. She knew Dawn needed this. Tara was giving Dawn the attention Buffy couldn’t give at the moment. She hoped Dawn understood why she had stayed at the cemetery. She couldn’t help Dawn grieve until she grieved. She had to be in control of herself first. She was glad Tara was there. She had been afraid she would never come back. She couldn’t imagine going through this whole process without Tara. She would be their strength. She would get them through the hard time, and then somehow she would make everything seem okay.

---

Dawn finally reassured Tara that she’d be okay and Tara left her in the living room to head up to Buffy’s room. She hesitated, staring at the door of the bedroom apprehensively. She feared Angel had been wrong. She feared she was setting herself up for disappointment. She nearly jumped out of her skin when Buffy opened the door and they came face to face. Dawn had been right about Buffy being asleep. She was wearing flannel pajama bottoms with fluffy cartoon sheep on them and a light blue t-shirt. Her hair was tousled and her eyes were dark, as if she had just woken up.

“H-hey,” she said, exhaling in surprise.

“Hey,” Buffy responded back. They stood in silence for a moment and then Buffy stepped back, gesturing for Tara to enter her room. Once Tara had hesitantly crossed the threshold, Buffy closed the door behind her. Neither of them made a move to sit. Tara was gazing down at a random spot on the carpet and Buffy was wringing her hands nervously. Finally she spoke. “I didn’t think you’d come by here this soon…or ever.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Tara admitted. She looked up briefly to gauge Buffy’s reaction. “Angel said you needed me.”

“Angel?” Buffy asked, her curiosity peaked.

“He came by my dorm room to plead your case,” Tara explained. She looked back down to the carpet and shrugged her shoulders. “I guess that mysterious, dark thing can be attractive to some people, huh?”

Buffy smiled for the first time in days and chuckled lightly. “He had his charms.”

“He reminded me of Mark Jacobs,” Tara commented, sharing a smile with Buffy. Mark Jacobs was one of the more popular and more attractive baseball players at Hemry, but none of the girls at the school had the privilege of dating him. He was very quiet and claimed to have a girlfriend who was a freshman at UCLA. Tara was the only person at Hemry who knew that girlfriend was actually a boyfriend. After the fiasco with Liz Lopez finding out about Tara’s orientation, Mark had come to Tara’s house to ask her for advice.

After their brief reminiscent chuckle, the two fell into another awkward silence. Buffy was trying to find the right words to express how she felt about what had happened, but everything sounded inadequate in her head. She decided she just needed to go with it.

“Look, about the things I said…”

“You were upset,” Tara said quietly. “I-it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay,” she replied sharply, feeling even more angry with herself. “I was insane. I was gearing up for my very own pretty white jacket with buckles up the back.” Tara smiled slightly before Buffy continued in a more serious tone. “And one thing especially…what I said about you taking my mom away because you don’t have a mom…” Buffy paused and looked Tara in the eyes. She took Tara’s hand and spoke sincerely. “I am so sorry I said that. I can’t think of anything more horrible that I could’ve said.”

“There might be some truth to what you said,” Tara began. Buffy looked confused. “I mean, none of this was intentional, but what if…w-what if I did cause this? What if by trying to stop her death, I actually caused it? What if that’s what I’ve been doing every time I try to-to help someone? What if my girlfriend in high school was a lucky break?”

“We can’t play the what if game,” Buffy said. “If I did that every time I couldn’t save somebody from a vampire or demon, I really would be wearing a straight jacket right now. You did what you thought was right. We all did. This was nobody’s fault. Especially not yours.”

“I just wish you didn’t have to go through this,” Tara said. She pulled her hand away and picked Mr. Gordo up off the bed, absently playing with his little stuffed pig ears. “I was hurting so much when I lost my mom, and I did some stupid stuff because of it. I don’t want you or Dawn to feel the way I felt. I don’t want anyone to feel that way.”

“You can’t really avoid it,” Buffy said. She sat on the bed and Tara sat next to her. They sat in silence for a moment. It wasn’t awkward. It was just silence until Buffy broke it again. “Thank you for talking to Dawn. I just…I hate that I’m saying this, but I can’t give her what she needs right now.”

“Do you know what she needs?” Tara inquired, hoping to get Buffy to open up more about her relationship with Dawn. Tara knew Buffy loved her sister, but it was rare that she really talked seriously about Dawn.

“She needs someone who knows what she’s feeling but isn’t too wrapped up in herself to listen,” Buffy said. She looked Tara in the eyes and saw understanding there. “Does that sound selfish?”

“It sounds very much like someone who has just lost her mom,” she replied. “I know you and Dawn are so different compared to me. But I didn’t care what anybody else felt either. It’s understandable that you feel you can’t help Dawn.”

“I care what she feels, but I just…I can’t…”

Buffy’s voice cracked and she was finally starting to let go. Tara could tell that this had been held in for the past couple days. Buffy was the strong one, always the fighter. Breaking down felt like being weak to her.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Buffy said. Her eyes filled with tears and Tara wrapped her arms around her. “Mom always knew what to do. Always. I don’t have a clue how we can go on without her.”

“I’m gonna tell you a little secret that your mom probably would’ve let you in on sooner or later,” Tara said softly. “About five percent of the time, people know exactly what they’re going to do in life. The other ninety-five percent of the time, they make it up as they go along.”

Buffy chuckled lightly through her tears and leaned her head on Tara’s shoulder, wrapping her arms around her waist. Tara held Buffy while she cried, just trying to be there for her. Tara was starting to realize Angel was right. Buffy did need her. She needed her to be strong, so she didn’t have to be. She needed to be able to break down in front of someone. Tara was that someone.

Finally, Buffy sat up and Tara made eye contact with her, seeing the wanting in those sorrowful eyes. She wanted to feel something other than pain, something other than grief. She wanted to feel like her world hadn’t just turned entirely upside down. Tara knew that wanting all too well. She knew she could do for Buffy what no one could do for her, what Buffy needed her to do for her. She knew she could make Buffy feel safe, even if it wasn’t permanent.

Slowly she leaned forward and their lips met. Tara could taste the salt of Buffy’s tears on those lips, the taste of grief. She could feel more tears moving down Buffy’s cheeks and she wiped them away with her thumbs, resting either hand directly along her jaw line.

“I just…want to feel safe,” Buffy whispered, locking her tearful gaze with Tara’s. “How do I…?”

“Shh.”

She brushed Buffy’s hair away from her face and moved forward, kissing her again, more forceful this time. She could feel Buffy relax in her arms and settle into the moment. Buffy closed her eyes, but Tara kept hers open, watching Buffy’s aura change. The sorrow slowly faded away and was replaced with desire, wanting. Finally she guided Buffy to lie back on the bed. Tara kissed along her neck, carefully moving her hands up Buffy’s t-shirt as her lips stimulated the slayer’s trembling skin.

Every touch and caress chipped away another piece of Buffy’s wall of sorrow and hopelessness. Each kiss brought with it the idea that things weren’t so bad, that there still was the possibility that she could get through her life. Every new sensation that Tara caused her to feel forced the pain to retreat and give way to feelings of passion and love and hope. As they made love into the night, Buffy felt safer than she ever had before.

“Don’t leave me,” Buffy said quietly later as they simply laid in each other’s arms, tangled in the covers. Tara tightened her hold around Buffy and kissed the top of her head.

“Never.”

The relationship with Tara was different than Buffy had ever experienced. It wasn’t like her pointless boyfriends at Hemry, her status jocks that she clung to. It was definitely not like Parker. No use her and lose her. It was far from being like Angel. Not to say they didn’t have their intense moments. There were times when their eyes would meet and Buffy could see a fire in Tara’s eyes that nobody else would ever notice. Hidden behind every shy smile was a quiet intensity of a passionate lover.

It took Buffy a while to pinpoint what exactly it was that was different about Tara, aside from the obvious fact that she was a woman. Then she found it. There was no disappointment. There was no end of the world. The good didn’t always precede the bad. She could have a great moment with Tara, and she wouldn’t expect a fall out. They loved each other, and it would stay that way without the drama or angst. They could have arguments and fights, but Buffy knew Tara was still there and Tara knew the same about Buffy. The emptiness was filled, and Buffy couldn’t imagine it ever being empty again.

---

Tara had fallen asleep, but Buffy laid awake, watching her slumber. She watched as her chest rose and fell with her even breathing, watched her eyes move beneath her lids, signaling REM sleep. There was a moment when she whimpered slightly in her sleep and her brow furrowed. Buffy simply slipped her arms around her and watched her facial features relax without ever waking her up.

She enjoyed watching Tara sleep. They had slept together several times before—without the sex—and sometimes Buffy would wake up first. She discovered Tara talked in her sleep sometimes. There were times when it was amusing, and there were times when it was just plain weird. Early one morning they had held an entire conversation about polka dancing while Tara slept.

“Don’t bring the shrimp,” Tara said quietly. Buffy looked down at her and smiled. Then she saw that the expression on Tara’s face signaled anxiety or fear. Tara spoke again in a quiet whine. “In the cocktail sauce.”

Buffy had to keep herself from laughing. She wasn’t quite sure how Tara could be afraid in a dream about shrimp and cocktail sauce.

“What about the ketchup?” Buffy asked, trying to see what she could get out of Tara.

“Fifty-seven by the clams,” Tara said, louder and more frantically. Then she jolted awake, looking around in confusion. She saw Buffy smiling at her and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “What?”

“Don’t bring the shrimp?” Buffy asked with a chuckle. Tara sighed and realized why Buffy was smiling.

“I’m, uh, allergic to shellfish,” she explained.

“And you have scary dreams about them?” Buffy continued to tease her.

“You’d be scared too if you had giant butterfly shrimp trying to drown you in cocktail sauce,” she said defensively. Buffy couldn’t control herself anymore and burst into laughter. Tara smiled and joined in the laughter.

“You have a very strange mind,” Buffy said once the laughter had died down.

“Are you complaining?” Tara asked with a raised eyebrow.

“No complaints. It’s fun. I live for the strange,” she replied. “I live for you.”

“Do you?” Tara asked, smiling down at the slayer. Buffy nodded her head and her smile faded.

“And I do love you,” she said, remembering another one of the many crazy things she had said to Tara after finding about her mother’s death. “The only spell you’ve got on me is completely metaphorical.”

Tara raised herself up until she was lying over Buffy. They simply gazed into each other’s eyes for a long while. Buffy reached up and ran her hand through Tara’s hair. Then she gently pulled Tara down into a soft kiss. When they separated, Tara noticed the clock. It was almost midnight.

“Wow, we’ve been here for a long time,” she said. Buffy looked at the time and smiled. “I guess we got carried away.”

“Just a little,” Buffy responded. Then she looked to the door. “We should check on Dawn.”

“She’s probably asleep,” Tara said.

“Yeah, probably,” Buffy agreed absently. Tara saw the concern in Buffy’s eyes and smiled understandingly.

“You should go check on her.”

She rolled away from Buffy and watched as the slayer slipped on her pajama bottoms and t-shirt that they had thrown on the floor. As she opened her door, she looked back to Tara, who just nodded her head in encouragement. Then she headed down the hall, not sure what she would say if Dawn was actually awake.

Buffy pushed the door open gently and saw Dawn was lying on her side with her back to the door. She walked in quietly and sat on the edge of the bed, just watching her little sister in silence. Tara was right about one thing, about people knowing what they were going to do. Buffy knew she was in a ‘five percent’ moment right now. Looking at Dawn, she knew exactly what she was going to do. She was going to do whatever it took to keep Dawn happy and to give her the life she always wanted. She would sacrifice anything to give that to Dawn.

“Buffy,” Dawn said, pulling the slayer out of her thoughts.

“Yeah,” Buffy said quietly. She stroked Dawn’s hair away from her face, but Dawn didn’t turn over or make eye contact.

“Remember when we were little and dad went on business trips? Mom would set up a big slumber party with just the three of us and we would watch stuff like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or The Great Muppet Caper while pigging out on candy and junk.”

“Yeah.”

“Can we do that tomorrow night?” Dawn asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Is Tara staying?” Dawn asked. It almost seemed like an abrupt change in subject. Buffy looked over her shoulder at the door to see Tara standing there, wearing Buffy’s thick, white terry cloth robe. The two of them exchanged a smile.

“Looks that way,” Buffy responded, not breaking eye contact.

“Okay. She can come to the slumber party too,” Dawn said. Tara stifled a laugh, wanting to make sure Dawn didn’t know she was there. She and Buffy simply continued smiling at each other. “Buffy?”

“Yeah,” Buffy responded to Dawn.

“Will you stay here tonight? With me?”

Tara nodded her head and mouthed ‘Goodnight’ to Buffy before closing Dawn’s door behind her and returning to Buffy’s room. The slayer laid on the bed and wrapped one arm around Dawn. They laid together and slowly drifted off to sleep, starting to understand that they would make it forward together.

Epilogue

Tara walked with Dawn up to the top of the hill in Devon, each of them carrying bouquets of wild flowers until they came to the edge of the woods. There at the edge were several tombstones, all marked with various names. Each one had the same date of death. Every time, the two of them stood in silence and read each of the names to themselves until they got to the last one. First the new slayers that had fallen in battle. Then the last three.

Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins, dear friend and hero.

Daniel ‘Oz’ Osbourne, cherished husband and friend.

Buffy Anne Summers, beloved sister, partner, friend.

It had been four years since the battle with the First Evil had turned Sunnydale into a crater, taking all the people whose names they had just read with the town. Tara, Dawn, Xander, and Willow had followed Giles back to England to rebuild the Watcher’s Council, along with the surviving potential-turned-full slayers and Andrew. Faith remained a fugitive from the law and couldn’t risk leaving the United States, not until Willow managed to get that record conveniently erased. A month later, Faith and Robin Wood joined the others in England. Their main goal initially had been to track down all the slayers that had been activated. Now they were training them, as well as new watchers, in order to have the slayers assigned to various locations where demon activity was known to occur.

During all of this, Dawn had nearly completed college. Robin, Andrew, Willow and Xander planned to stay on as watchers with Giles as the head of the council. Faith had grown fond of Wood, and decided she could do some good as the senior slayer. As she phrased it, she wasn’t about to leave the new slayer trainees in the hands of a group of people whose collective asses she could kick while wearing a blindfold. But Tara and Dawn both had different plans. The pain of losing Buffy had been too much for both of them, and they knew now that Buffy was gone, they didn’t want to be involved in the slayer business anymore. It had already been too long, too much.

“Hey, Buffy,” Dawn said. It was their ritual. The two of them would come every year with flowers and they would tell Buffy what was going on in their lives. It was the only way they knew how to cope. They placed their flowers by Buffy’s tombstone and sat side by side nearby. “I’m almost done with school. I’ll be graduating from Oxford in a month. I probably should be working on my final project right now, but it can wait. Actually, Tara and I are both putting off stuff. We get to graduate at the same time.”

“I’m almost done with my dissertation. Once I’ve finished my doctorate, Dawn and I are headed back to the states,” Tara continued the life update. “I’ve already received an offer to teach at Yale.”

“And I got accepted to the graduate program in anthropology at Yale,” Dawn said. “Bet you never thought I’d be all academic, huh?”

“You’d be so proud of her, Buffy,” Tara said with a smile. She was quite proud of Dawn herself. “She’s one of the top students in her class. Giles is kind of disappointed that she won’t join the Watcher’s Council, but I think he understands.”

“He says the council needs my brains to balance out against Andrew,” Dawn said.

She and Tara chuckled. Andrew had actually grown on the whole group, as annoying as he was. He knew when he was pushing boundaries and he truly wanted to do good. After Anya had saved his worthless life, he felt he owed it to the ex-demon turned hero to do the right thing.

“Willow and Xander are actually starting to get really close again, like smoochies close,” Dawn continued. “They’re taking it slow. I think they’re both worried about whether or not it’s too soon, with Oz and everything. I keep telling them that Oz would understand. They’re still hung up on that thing that happened in high school, though.”

The two of them sat in silence, not sure what else they could say. Dawn saw that tears were forming in Tara’s eyes and she took her hand. It was time to finish up their annual ritual.

“May you be happy wherever you are,” Tara said with a wavering voice.

Dawn finished, “May you be at peace.”

“We love you,” they said together as they stood. Then they walked back down the hill, trying to find some way to move on from their loss, knowing they would be back next year.

I sing to life
And to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife
And all that dances through me
The rise and the fall
I’ve lived through it all

~Fin~