TITLE: This Too Shall Pass
RATING: PG
COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: Oh Joss…Joss…you wizard of creation, you!
FEEDBACK: Yep, tommo27@hotmail.com
SPOILERS: Season 5
ARCHIVE: No problem, just let me know eh?
SUMMARY: The aftermath of ‘The Gift’. W/T-centric.
She had cried for two days straight. Hardly sleeping, hardly eating, hardly even breathing, at least, that was what it felt like. In everything, there was some essence that reminded her of Buffy. Some kind of memory held in each and every action and word. And it wasn’t enough to know that Slayers die. It wasn’t nearly enough to know that Buffy had saved the world. No, that wasn’t enough. Knowing and accepting were two different things; things that Willow wasn’t sure she would ever be able to bring together again.
She lay, as she had done for 48 hours, on her bed in the dorm room that filtered in daylight and blotted out the night. Her curtains were drawn, as they had been since she and Tara had returned from the battlefield. Both too tired and emotional to even speak, Giles had ordered them home, whilst he remained to pick up the pieces. Even thinking that made tears well in Willow’s eyes once more. Reaching up, she rubbed at them with the back of her hand, feeling the red raw skin around her eyes smart with the contact. She hadn’t spoken to anyone, apart from Tara; not one of the Scoobies seemed to need one another. Without Buffy, there was no Scooby Gang. And they had dissipated, moved away from one another.
It was hard.
The figure beside her sighed and moved slightly, turning over to stretch out an arm that slid easily around the slight body of the redhead. Tara’s fingers splayed out on Willow’s stomach, pushing into the flesh there. Neither girl had bothered with nightclothes, craving the human contact that only the other could provide.
Blinking in the early morning light that attempted to claw its way into her room, Willow could see the remnants of last night’s dinner; sandwiches and potato chips that they had forced down, knowing that they needed to eat something. She had chewed relentlessly on two bites out of a sandwich before getting back into bed again, refusing to go through the charade of eating like it was all normal again.
Tara murmured something under her breath and moved closer to Willow, pushing her warm body up against the other girl. A flicker of love wound its way around Willow’s heart, clenching with unassuming ferocity for a second, before the sorrow returned to dampen all other feeling. Yes, Willow thought, we’ve all suffered. And what for? Wasn’t there supposed to be some divine retribution or something? Weighing up those feeling against one another; the moment when Tara had opened her eyes and recognised her; the sight of Buffy’s lifeless body in the wreckage of their battle. Closing her eyes, a tear seeped out of one corner and began a trail down her cheek. Joy. Sadness. Comfort. Pain. It was getting hard to bounce between the two polar points without some kind of confusion.
“Willow?” a soft voice heralded a pair of lips pressing themselves against her head, whilst the hand on her stomach moved up and down in a waking moment.
“Yeah. I’m awake.”
Tara pushed herself up on one elbow, trying to avoid putting any weight on her right hand, bruised and half-healed as it was. She leant over the redhead, who twisted round to lie underneath her cool blue gaze.
“Sweetie…” Tara began, the corners of her mouth working themselves downward. She cried when Willow cried. She laughed when Willow laughed. It was always going to be like that.
“It doesn’t get any better. Why doesn’t it get any better?” The redhead’s voice came as a plaintive child who doesn’t understand the way of the world. Fresh tears joined the single drop on her cheek, squeezing themselves out of angry and pained eyes.
“I don’t know baby. I don’t know. I’m so sorry…” Tara delicately reached up and caught some of the teardrops on her finger, caressing her lover’s cheek as she did so. “Buffy saved everyone. It was her duty. I don’t know, some kind of destiny.”
“She died! Tara, she’s dead! For what? I’d rather live in a hell with her than carry on here without her.”
A faint smile worked its way across Tara’s mouth and she smoothed back some hair from Willow’s face. “No you wouldn’t.”
Willow sighed, “No, I wouldn’t. But she didn’t have to go and…I mean, how stupid, doing that for us, for other people who don’t even know what she was, I mean, who she was. It’s wrong.”
“Sometimes we take a risk for the people we love.” Tara’s voice was soft, like a soothing balm. Willow blinked under her gaze, knowing what she meant. The feeling of desparation she had felt when Tara was without any coherence flooded back. She would have risked almost anything to help her; in fact, she reminded herself, she almost did. “When we love someone, it’s the only thing we can do.” Tara added.
The sorrow lost its edge. Love covered it and melted the ice cap until droplets of adoration rolled down the sides of Willow’s heart. She reached up and held her palm against Tara’s cheek, looking up into eyes that she thought would never recognise her again.
“I love you. I can’t imagine being without you. Not ever. I had to bring you back,” she stated simply.
“I know,” Tara said, sighing, her eyes closing against the pressure of her lover’s hand. “Crazy witch. My beautiful, lovely, crazy witch.”
Willow’s hand closed around the back of Tara’s head, pulling her down for a kiss that seemed to last forever. Lips on lips, body on body, perfection attainable that held no curse of pain, no fear of the future. Is this how it’s meant to be? Willow wondered to herself. Am I allowed to be this happy? Should I be this happy?
Tara drew back and nestled against Willow, her head lying easily on the other girl’s shoulder, arms reaching around her to hold her close, as a reminder of what they were. Her fingers moved lazily up and down Willow’s stomach, fluttering patterns of nonsensical love across the smooth skin.
“It will be okay, you know.” Tara whispered, feeling Willow clutch her closer in answer. “I’m here, I promise I'm not going anywhere. And even if I did, you'd find me, remember? You'll always find me. Forever. I’ll make it okay.”
Willow felt the tears again, brimming up in her eyes. This time, tears of absolute happiness, offering hope, offering some kind of solace in the empty space where her heart was lost. In all of this, one thing made sense. One person made sense; the person lying against her, who would never betray her or leave her or stop loving her. In a moment, she knew all of that and more. And she accepted it.
“I know,” she said, closing her eyes, “I know.”
