Well here we are with the next chapter. Thank you all for your patience.
Same disclaimers still apply. Joss owns the characters whatever....
Just one warning here. I figured this would be the last cliff for the story so I made it a big one. Hope you enjoy it.
Thanks again for reading.
Chapter 36
The cold steel scraped across the table, the sound, etching the harsh reality of the events of the day. Tightly clasped hands stretched forward, opening slowly to find the warmth of friendship. Brenda hid the rising pain of rejection, searching the eyes of her friend. Confusion and disappointment pinched tightly behind her closing lids. “I’m sorry Tara.” She hid her face in shame. “How can I ask you to love his son? He was evil. Patrick has only seen his evil. No one will ever take him. No one will ever love him.”
“You’re wrong Brend.” The blonde reached for her friend. “He will be loved and he will be cared for.”
“By strangers.” She swallowed back her tears. “By strangers.”
“By family.” Tara watched, waiting for the woman to react. “By my family.”
Brenda pulled her hands back into her lap, confused by the words. “By who? Donnie was your only family.”
Tara shook her head. “No Brend…he was my brother. He hasn’t been family for most of my life.” The blonde stared directly at her sister-in-law needing to make her intentions clear. “Willow is my family. Abigail is my family. Buffy, Dawn, Xander and Anya they are my family. You are… and your son. Your son is my family now too. If I had known Brenda.” She turned to gaze out the window, watching the world through iron bars. “There are so many things I would have done differently. But I didn’t.”
The cold steel of the cuffs rattled as hands pounded down on the table. “I’m glad you were gone.” Tears fell freely down her face, without care she let them drip to the table’s surface. “You would have been…” She paused, confessing her secret life. “They would have beaten you too. I’m glad you were...” She fought to speak the words.
The blonde grabbed the hands in front of her. “I was never dead.”
“In my heart you were soaring. That’s all that mattered. In my heart you were safe and free, but I believed him. I trusted him and part of me died that day too Tara. I just didn’t care anymore.” She turned away in shame. “You’ve seen my son.”
“I have.” She reached forward pulling her friends face toward her. “I love your son. I see the love that fills his heart every time I look into his eyes.”
“Then why won’t you take him… care for him…protect him?”
“Oh that’s not...” The blonde Wicca suddenly realized her error. “It’s not that I won’t take him. I’m honored…no we’re honored.” She stood from the table, moving around to comfort her friend. “I live in a dangerous place. My magic, our powers, they are often used for protection.”
“For protection?” her brow clenched tightly. “From what.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” She watched her friend’s curiosity peak with concern. “So you have to know that the only promise that I can make is to love him.”
“I don’t know for how long…” Brenda began.
The guard stepped quickly toward the women. “You can’t touch her. Step back around the table ma'am.”
Tara felt the wave of his hand breeze in front of her. Brenda fell back against her chair, waiting to finish her sentence. “I may be away from him forever.”
“Then I’ll love him forever.”
A soft knocking interrupted the conversation. A tall woman entered extending her hand toward the prisoner. “Elizabeth Mckinney.” She struggled with the shake, rattling the cuffs against her bony wrists. “I’m here to represent…” She paused to glance at the open file folder. “Brenda Maclay.”
Tara stared in horror, immediately sensing the attorney’s inexperience. Her eyes drifted back and forth between the two women, wondering; stay or go. Brenda gave her the answer.
“Take him to your home Tara. I will make sure that legally he belongs with you.” Her head turned away. “I can’t do anything for him. I can’t help. Just please…” Her eyes focused on Tara’s tears.
“I will love him. He will know you and he will understand everything in time.” She turned, reaching for the handle of the door. “He wants to see you.”
“NO!” She yelled at the blonde Wicca. “Not here. Not like this. He won’t understand.”
“He needs to see you.” She stepped back toward the table. “You have to tell him goodbye.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
“Figure out a way. Because I’m bringing him in here.” She walked toward the door, grabbing the handle once more. Her body felt the cold resistance, pulling hard two times before the officer on the other side released her from the room. She pounded through the station pausing briefly to focus on peace before approaching her family. The deep sigh brought the eyes of the redhead upon her.
“What?” Willow knew by the look that things weren’t good.
Tara answered. “Take Abbey outside. I’m taking Patrick to see her and then we are going to meet that attorney.”
Willow took the tiny blonde into her arms. “We’ll be waiting for you.” They leaned in, each gently kissing Tara on the cheek. Willow pressed her lips tightly to her lover’s. She pulled away slowly. Whispering in her ear. “I love you. You are amazing.”
Tara smiled, feeling the truth in her words. “You make it easy to be.” She watched them walk outside. She turned toward the tiny boy, “You ready to go see your mommy?”
His fragile expression lifted into a smile. His tiny lips formed a frail response. “Mommy please.” He raised his arms to the blonde, desperate to go, every fraction of motion eager for comfort.
Tara carried him toward the counter, confidently moving back toward the holding room. She motioned for the officer to open the door, wincing as the weight of the child’s body forced his metal braces against her hip. The officer noticed the struggle, quickly allowing them entry. Patrick screamed with excitement at the sight of his mother.
*********~
“Whose bedroom is he gonna live in?” Abbey twirled the long strands of her mother’s hair around her finger. “You and Mommy…you already have a really filled bed. Well and my bed…it’s not really big enough for him too, well unless you turn us sideways, then we would fit. But I’m not sure that it would be so comfy like that. Mom could that be comfy for me and Patrick to live in the same bedroom?”
Willow smiled, touched by her child’s gentle soul. “Well Ab, it’s a wonderful idea but he’s a little boy and one day he’s not going to be so little and he’ll need more space than just half of a sideways bed.”
The tiny blonde eyed the length of her ever-growing body. “Is he gonna be bigger than me?”
“Well I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about that but it’s possible.” She felt a tiny sting along the flesh of her neck as her daughters fingers pulled the fine hairs. She reached to help with the untangling. “We’re all very different.”
“Do boys take more space?” She lifted her hand back into the tangled loops of red. “I could give him my whole bed and sleep on the floor.”
Willow sat on the open tailgate of the truck resting the child beside her. Abbey resisted the separation, clinging to the coppery tresses. “Abbey.” The tiny fingers slipped away.
“Sorry Mom.” She eyed the tangled clump of hair. “I kinda made it knotty again.”
The redhead slowly combed her fingertips through the twisted snarl. “Abbey girl, one of these days you’re going to take all of my hair with you.”
They giggled as their minds formed images of twisted red tangles dangling from tiny fingers. “Can I help you?”
“Sure.” She turned her head offering the snarly mass to her daughter. “But this time be gentle.”
“Okay…be brave Mom, this looks kinda ouchy.” Slowly she combed through Willow’s hair with her fingers, her attempts only weaving the mass tighter together. She sighed, satisfied with her attempt at helping. Willow reached up feeling the clump. “I think it needs a comb Mom.”
“Uh huh.” She shook her head, laughing. “Oh… and no. Boys don’t take up more space, they just use it differently.”
“So he’s going to share with me?”
“I have a better idea.” She hid the tangles under the rest of her hair. “How about we give him the room aunt Buffy uses when she sleeps over?”
“He would like that.” She turned serious very quickly, looking into her mother’s eyes.
“Does that mean aunt Buffy can’t sleep over anymore?” She rested her face in her hands, planting them on her knees with disappointment.
“No sweetie. That means she’ll have to camp on your floor.” She smiled at her daughter.
“Can we toast marshmallows Mom?”
“Yes, but in the fireplace, or in the back yard but not in your room.”
“Okay, do you think Patrick will like toasting marshmallows?”
“I think we’ll have to find out.”
The tiny blonde climbed into her mother’s arms. Her fingers clamped together in her lap. “Are we going home now?”
“Not quite yet.” Tara answered, walking around the back of the truck. “First we have to get some of Patrick’s things and then we are going to visit Gramma.”
The redhead smiled gently. “Hey baby. I called the attorney. He’ll meet us at the apartment.”
“Thanks Will.” She lowered the boy beside her wife. “Brenda made a list for us. There’s also a medical file she keeps in her dresser.” She scooped her daughter into her arms. “So are you ready to get closer to home sweet girl?”
“I’m ready to be home Mommy.” She slipped her arms around her mother’s neck, the tiny fingers instantly twirling the tendrils of blonde. “Patrick is gonna get aunt Buffy’s room.” Her fingers wiggled and flipped the hair tightly. “Then when she visits with me we get to camp and toast marshmallows.”
“You do?” She looked back at her smiling wife. “And did Mom tell you all of that?”
“Yep she did. But we can’t toast ‘em in my room.”
The blonde winked at her wife, lifting her lip with an approving half grin. “Good rules Mom.”
They loaded up the truck, heading back to Tara’s hometown, preparing to go to the apartment complex. Halfway there they met up with the rest of the Scooby gang. The drive was quiet and reflective. Willow slipped her hand into the palm of her lover’s. “Tell me what you are thinking?”
“I was just thinking about the wonderful things that have happened to us.” The blonde shifted her concentration between the road and the wide-eyed redhead. “You have a question?”
“Actually, more like an observation.” She smiled, pressing the tip of her tongue between her teeth. “Would you like to hear?”
“Hmm, I think so yes.” Tara teased. “Well wait.” She paused, glancing back at the passengers behind them, quickly focusing forward. “G rated version?”
They heard a muffled giggle coming from the slayer.
“Oh.” Willow waved nervously. “Oh, totally G. I mean I was thinking G.” She nervously focused her thoughts. “Yes totally G.”
The blonde chuckled at the panicked fluster, basking in the way she could still, after so many years, throw her lover off balance. “Then yes.” She smiled sweetly. “I would love your G rated observations.”
“Well for G rated goodness. I’ve been looking at you and I’ve been wondering when you became so strong.” She felt the hand tighten against her own.
“That’s an interesting observation.”
“Oh…interesting is such a sterile word.” She winked at her wife. “I’m actually enjoying the view now.”
“Um…Willow?” She moistened her drying lips. “G rating sweetie.”
“Even in my head?” She turned toward the passengers behind them. “Oh right. Well I’ll be PG.” She caught her wife’s crimson gaze. “For now!”
“For now.” She chanted as if the mantra would settle the blazing fire rising in her own heart. “Will, I have to confess that I haven’t felt very strong.”
The sudden shift, forced the redhead to blink. The intentions for praise snuffed by her wife’s insecurities. “Tara?” She reached to envelop her lover’s hand.
“It’s just that we have been here for only a few days, and it feels like months.” Her emotion shifted. “There is no reason to stay but I’m sad to leave.”
The redhead listened, captivated by the beauty before her. Invigorated yet again by her strength and courage. “I can’t even pretend to understand.”
“It’s just…” She wanted to stop, to pull over and give her full concentration. “Can we wait to have this conversation?”
“I’m not sure that I want to.” Willow caught a glimpse from the slayer. She watched her shift uncomfortably in the seat behind them. “Oh…I…I’m sorry.”
“No, oh…no it’s not Buffy.” She glanced at the slayer in her rear view mirror. “It’s just that it slips into R rated.”
Buffy giggled. She couldn’t fight her urge to get into the mixing of metaphor. “For kink?”
“Buffy!” The redhead turned sharply behind her. “Buffy!”
The slayer wiggled her brow at the Wiccas.
“Not for kink Buffy!” She turned back to her wife. “Not for kink…right?”
“Definitely not for kink.”
Willow turned triumphantly toward the slayer. “See! No kink here.”
“No kink?” Buffy couldn’t fight her urge to harass her friend, cutting the quickly climbing tension. “Since when?”
“Since you entered the conversation.” The redhead scolded the slayer. “We have plenty of kink…just not for you.” She turned toward her wife for affirmation. “Right baby?”
“Right.” She smiled. “Sorry Buffy, you’ll have to find your own kink.”
Abigail laid a comforting hand upon the slayers lap. Patrick watched the display, reaching to offer the same tenderness.
They pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex. Willow and Tara suggested the children stay with the slayer, knowing the young boy would want to stay in his home. They met with police barricades as they approached the door. Together they attempted to enter the space. They sensed the horror that had taken place inside. Tara approached the officer spending long moments convincing him of the importance of their presence, his refusal to allow entry, forcing the blonde to fall back against the wall.
Willow quickly reached for her cell, dialing the attorney. Within moments after his arrival they had gained entry.
Tara milled through the rooms, recognizing things from her past. Her fingers trailed across the frame on the wall, pausing tenderly to rest on the newborn image of her new charge. Her mind raced, knowing in that moment her childhood friend had fought to create a home for her nephew. An eerie silence fell in the room.
A gentle hand rested on the blonde’s shoulder. A soft kiss pressed against the hallowed flesh of her neck. They moved together into the bedroom. The scattered clothes giving sign of the haste at which she’d packed. Tara sifted through the dresser drawers, searching for the child’s medical files. Her hand caught the edge of a wicker box. Her eyes closed, remembering. She lifted the box from the drawer, walking slowly to the bed.
“What is it?” Willow knelt beside her on the bed. “It looks pretty old.”
Tara sighed. “This was a wish box.” The blonde smiled, rubbing her hand across the textured surface.
“Wishes…” the redhead’s curiosity peaked. “Whose?”
“Brenda's and mine. The idea was..." she smiled remembering. “that when things got really rough we would make a wish that would make us feel better.”
“Did it work?” The redhead leaned it toward the treasure.
“Not very often, but after a while the notes brought the other of us hope.” Tara rubbed the cover of the box.
“Are you going to open it?” The redhead watched her lover closely examine the box.
Tara squeezed the outer edge of the cover, gently lifting it off the box. She closed her eyes remembering the times she’d escaped into her secret wishes. She lowered the cover beside them on the bed. Tara pulled out a small, yellowed piece of folded paper. As if the greatest treasure in the world, she peeled the edges apart. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she silently read the words.
Willow heard them in her head. “I wish I was free.” The blonde turned toward her. “Tara baby, I guess she got her wish.”
“Not hers.” She pressed along the hard crease of the seam. “Mine.”
“Yours?” Willow stared with confusion.
“This is the last wish I ever made.” Her hands fell across her lap. “She kept this in here.”
“Is that bad?”
“No, it just means she wanted the same thing.” She turned the paper over, noticing her friend's written words, handing it to her lover to read.
“I wish I could see you.” Willow watched her wife smile, wiping the tears from her cheek. “You really were all she had.”
“I never knew any of this Will.” She took the paper from her wife’s hand. “So many things that could have been different.”
“You can’t go back baby.”
She placed the paper into the box, tenderly lowering the cover into place. Tara’s hand rubbed across the wicker weaving. “No I can’t. Sweetie I never want to. It just proves that leaving was the right thing to do. I just wish she had come too.”
Willow slipped her hand along her lover’s back, slowly tracing looping circles across the fabric of her shirt. “We all make choices Tara. Sometimes dealing with the consequences lasts a lifetime.”
“But I have been so happy while she has been so miserable. It just doesn’t seem fair at all.” She pushed herself off the bed, slowly carrying the box back to the dresser. Her eyes lifted to the reflection in the mirror. “Will?”
The redhead looked at her wife’s questioning expression. “Yes baby.”
“Was I weak to run?” She watched her wife quickly close the space between them. “Is it wrong to escape and leave so much behind?”
“Tara NO! Don’t even think that. You did what you had to do to live. It was courageous. It is the most courageous thing you have ever done.” She wrapped herself around her wife, drawing their bodies tightly together. “Would she have come with you?”
Tara shook her head. “I don’t think she would have.” She stared at the reflection in the mirror, watching the love in her wife’s eyes. “Even now she’s trapped in fear.”
Willow felt her lover lean snugly against her, arms tightening, fingers trailing, bodies relaxing against the touch. “She made choices Tara, all of them brought her to where she is right now. No one is responsible for them but her.”
“I know… everything you are saying I have had running continuously through my mind.” She turned to face her wife, holding tightly to the embrace. “It’s just that…” she paused briefly debating her next statement.
“Tell me.”
“She killed my own brother and I’m not sad about his death, only about her punishment.” A small tear slipped slowly across the curve of her cheek.
“It’s alright baby. It’s hard to sort through how to feel.” She tenderly spread the tear across her wife’s skin. “She made choices and he made choices and this is the final result.”
“But who pays in the end Will?”
“Pays?”
Tara closed her eyes. “Patrick.”
The redhead pulled her lover’s face tightly against her chest. She folded around, surrounding her with support. “He won’t pay Tara. He is rewarded. Starting today he will never be afraid of his father.” She felt her wife stiffen with fear. “He will never tighten with terror in his lover’s arms.”
“How do you know that Willow? You can’t know that.”
Her hands trailed up against the blonde’s neck and chin, her thumb tenderly caressing the soft skin. “I know. How do I know?” She moved slowly toward Tara’s lips. “He has you.” She pressed tenderly against the soft flesh. “Being loved by you is amazing.” She felt the warmth of her lover’s passion rising inside. “He’ll know your tenderness, your compassion, your embrace.”
“Is that enough?”
Willow nodded. “It always has been for me.”
The sound of a clearing throat broke them from the moment. The officer entered the room. “We need you to finish up.”
The women looked up from their embrace, acknowledging him with a nod. Tara collected the rest of the items on the list, tucking them carefully in an old duffle bag. Willow packed his clothes and a few stuffed toys. They looked back into the silent room, knowing it was a last goodbye to so many things.
They met the rest of the family out in the courtyard.
“Ready to go yet?” Xander walked around the tree, carrying a small boy over his shoulder. Patrick’s arms flailed wildly as Xander stopped to spin him in circles.
Tara smiled at the site of the spinning boys. “We just have to visit the cemetery and then we can go home.”
Together they loaded the children into the jeep. The adults gathered around the back of the truck synchronizing their plan for the trip home. Anya explained her ability to talk the rental car agent down on his fee.
They made the short drive to the cemetery. Tara turned toward the passengers behind her.
“Buffy, if you’d like to come with us? I think it might make things easier for him.” She stared at the tiny boy, his hand gripping tightly to the slayers fingers.
“I got it covered Tara.” Buffy winked as she leaned to unbuckle the boy.
“Can we play with Aunt Buffy after we see Gramma?” Abbey climbed over the seat into her mother’s arms.
“Sure!” She kissed her excited child. “Let’s go see Gramma first.”
They slowly walked through the cemetery, taking caution as they approached the spot of the kidnapping. Abbey held tight to Tara’s neck. Willow felt them stiffen against her arm. Together they walked beyond it, never looking back. Slowly they entered the gated plot. Tara’s eyes widened in shock as she noticed the site.
“Who did this?” She turned toward the redhead. “Oh Goddess Will how …”
TBC
__________________**
"I was wrong, straight chicks can dance." Xita, House of Blues, Vegas
Edited by: Urn of Osiris 
at: 2/24/03 4:17:29 am
by sheila wt » Thu Jan 30, 2003 3:43 pm 
When she yelled at that police officer about Tara's name being Maclay-Rosenberg, not just Maclay anymore, omg I was laughing my ass off!! But damn... I LOVED it, she really told him, thats Anya for ya!! Gotta love her. 
... but to answer your question YES she has definitely done her share of thanking me properly... she was very welcomed! 
. I wish I could’ve seen all this unfold in the big screen. Hell at times the constant sound of music playing on my computer while I read would fit perfect and throw in my wicked imagination, well it might as well be a movie I’m watching
. 
. 
her/him?” a lot as an alternative to just about any situation in the real world. Then I realized some people like that freaky shit. 
I don't wanna see it end, unless there's another sequel planned!!! *hint hint*
) but it's worth it. Wow! 
I'm curious about Tara's response..
You do add so many wonderful twists and turns, keeps the suspense alive.
I wonder! 
me 
-Viv-
