Tara blinked.
Willow’s eyes widened as her face paled, and she carefully seated herself as the room threatened to unsettle itself once more. Tara sat beside her, immediately noticing her lover’s fatigue, and gently slipped an arm around Willow, rubbing the small of her back soothingly.
“The Capitula Dea,” Giles whispered, awe in his tone as he stared at the two wiccans in shock. “The Two That Are Blessed. Of course. I should have known right from the very start.” Muttering to himself, he moved away to sift through a pile of research books on the counter.
“The Two That Are Blessed? Is that what it means?” Buffy asked curiously, wishing she’d listened when Willow had tried to teach her Latin.
“No, it actually means The Purity Goddesses,” Tara responded. “More often than not, though, they are known as The Two That Are Blessed, or The Blessed Ones.”
Willow turned to her curiously, “You’ve heard about them?”
Tara nodded. “My mother told me,” she explained. “A long, long time ago. She didn’t say anything about it while I was gone, though,” she wondered, and winced in sympathy as Willow turned away slightly, hating every mention of the time that they had spent apart. “Sorry, darling,” she whispered, taking the slim hand in her own.
“You’re goddesses,” Buffy said suddenly, as though Anya had only just that second announced her new-found information, though in fact all five had been stunned into silence for close to ten minutes.
“Well, duh,” Anya said matter-of-factly, pretending her mouth hadn’t been hanging open in shock. “I knew there was something different about you two, and with the dreams combined, any demon with half-a-brain would have figured it out.”
Giles stopped rifling through the books. “Dreams?” he asked curiously. “You didn’t say anything about dreams.”
“Well, of course they’ve had the dreams!” Anya threw up her arms in frustration. “What kind of a Watcher are you? It doesn’t say in the book, there isn’t any written record of it, but that’s how you can tell that they are The Two That Are Blessed. That’s their gift. The gift of insight, and from it they find their purity through peace of mind and heart,” Anya quoted, remembering something that Hallie had told her a long time ago, and acting as though she hadn’t longed for that gift since long before she had become a demon. “Tara told you that it was your duty to carry the burden of dark magick, right, Willow?” Anya asked, smiling in satisfaction as the confused redhead nodded. “You have dreams about the future, right?” she checked.
Willow’s eyes widened. “How did you know?” she asked in shock. “I only told Tara and Buffy…” she turned to the Slayer, knowing that her soulmate hadn’t mentioned anything to Anya. Buffy shook her head.
“Okay, and Tara, I’m guessing you see things that have happened in the past, only with a different kind of perception on it?” Tara nodded, knowing that it was her gift that had sent the dream to her. The dream that told her to return to Willow the day before her own death.
Anya nodded. “Those are the dreams. That’s their gift.”
Tara opened her mouth to ask Anya a question, but the demon seemed to have anticipated her query, because she added quickly, “Oh, and did you get ill? Because that was the darkness washing out of both you. When you receive the Gift, the Purity takes over. That’s why women get morning sickness when they’re pregnant as well. Scientists have come up with this whole scientific theory, but it’s really that the goodness of the child is releasing the darkness that comes with aging.” Anya sniffed. “Scientists. They don’t know anything.”
Willow scowled. “Well, how come Cordelia gets our gift too? She gets visions. If she’s a goddess too, then I’m giving my goddess-power back.”
“Xander’s skanky ex-girlfriend has no such gift,” Anya growled. “Her visions get passed from person to person like baggage. Yours are specifically for you. Willow, you’ve spent your life since you were sixteen fighting demons. Your girlfriend died. I’m guessing you’re pretty scared of what the future holds for you, and for your friends, or whether it holds anything for you at all. So, The Powers decided that you carry the dark mantle, and the mantle of the future. Tara, your dad ruined your entire childhood. Your past, like Willow’s whole ‘Oops, I just cast a spell on my girlfriend’ scares you. That’s why you get dreams about the past, and that’s why you cast light-based spells, because everyone’s purer in their youth. The dreams are meant to bring you two peace of mind, so that you’re not scared any more. That’s how you achieve purity of soul and heart. That’s why you two carry the mantle of Capitula Dea.”
Willow’s eyes widened, and she shook her head exaggeratedly. “Wow. Geez, was nothing in mine and Tara’s lives a coincidence?”
“Of course not,” Anya responded, missing the sarcasm. Willow opened her mouth opened to correct the demon, but closed it again as she felt her lover’s hand, wrapped securely in her own, start to shake.
“What is it?” she asked Tara softly. In reply, Tara wrenched her hand from Willow’s grasp and jumped up, heading towards the door. Willow followed. “Tara, don’t go. Please.” She didn’t notice their other three companions slip silently out of the back door.
Tara turned back to Willow. She was shaking violently, and a light sheen of sweat covered her brow as she reached out both of her hands to her lover blindly.
Willow drew the blonde into her arms without question, kissing silky hair, gently smoothing her hands up and down Tara’s back as she waited for her soulmate to calm herself.
Eventually, the shaking slowed and stopped as Tara gathered her thoughts. “Let’s sit down,” Willow murmured. She tried to guide the blonde into a chair, but her legs wouldn’t support her, so Willow lowered them both gently to the floor, kneeling down as Tara sat in front of her with her legs stuck straight out in front of her, leaning back against the redhead.
Willow wrapped her arms gently around Tara’s stomach, smiling as she felt the blonde relax into her loving ministrations. “You wanna tell me what’s the matter?” she whispered into Tara’s ear.
Breathing deeply as her mother had taught her to, Tara nodded. “You and our daughter are the best things that have ever happened to me,” she told her soulmate, knowing in her heart that Willow had known this for all of her life. “Now I’m finding out that you, and our gift, was given to me because of the way that he treated me. His hatred of me led to your love, and I just don’t understand why we both had to suffer so much in order to be loved! We’ve had our destiny’s arranged, practically had our free will taken away, and we’ve had to suffer for it.” Hiccuping, Tara realised that she wasn’t making much sense, and idly wondered if she’d picked up Willow’s babbling habit. Trying to explain, she asked in a childish voice, “Shouldn’t we be allowed to love anyway? I don’t want goddess powers, Willow. All I want is you and our daughter, and I don’t see why we had to go through hell to get that!”
“We?” Willow asked curiously.
Tara closed her eyes, letting the tears roll down her face. Strangely, her pain calmed her. She was used to pain. “When I was dead, Mom said that I had gone through actual hell – the hell that’s in our minds and hearts, not the place hell – when I was little, because of the way he treated me. While – and while I was gone, we were in hell, Will. Your personal hell was to lose me, to kill and to hate, and my personal hell was to be without you. We went through that, Willow, just so that we were allowed to love each other, and shouldn’t we be allowed to love anyway?”
“Of course we should,” Willow responded, knowing the answer instinctively, as though it had always been within her. “Everyone has the right to love. Only, Tara, what we have isn’t just love. I love you with all my soul. That isn’t something that gets handed out on a daily basis, and I’m guessing that the scales had to be evened out a bit. We went through hell, and now we’re in heaven. You are my destiny, my gift, my everything.”
Tara smiled as she turned, wondering how her lover always knew exactly what to say. This time, though, she knew her line perfectly, for her heart murmured it with every beat.
“You, my Willow, are mine also.”
Yah Gem dear, gotta remember that I'm very much taken, although it's my bad for letting my post wander into the gutter.... it's the girlfriend missage (and the fact that there was a really nasty show all about sex on TV when I was surffing for a show.... *shudders*).
) and that my dear, is why we are here!
I do wonder what's up with Tara, being sick out of sympathy is kinda overdoing it I think 
.
Hey, Gem dear.
Sorry!
Sorry I confusseled you Gem dear.