One comment then the next part:
Insanity - Finally? It took about a week? Ok, I’m just happy that it is so eagerly awaited. Makes me feel good. Yes with the grieving and it will get better but another dark one is coming up…
Title – Paths Diverged/Divulged Part 2–
Desperation Author– JustSkipit - Debra
Spoilers–Season 6
Rating– Part 2 - PG
Disclaimer – Guess what, I don’t own W&T, Buffy or the rest of the BtVS crew. Any similarity to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental and fortunate.
Notes and Thanks Thanks to DMW for help on the HTML formatting and to Romy and Susan for hosting my work.
Thoughts in italics!Flashbacks and dreams indented Willow lay in the darkness of her room. Not her old room. Not Tara’s room. This was a room Tara had never slept in. Willow slept in Buffy’s old room now and Buffy slept in their room. How could Willow possibly ever sleep in that room again? How could she go in that room again? She hadn’t been in that space since that day. Every time she passed even the doorway she could hear Tara’s last words, “your shirt?” and see the stain appearing on her chest as her body fell toward the floor.
And how could she possibly sleep? She remembered telling Joyce once that she couldn’t sleep without Tara. They were visiting Sunnydale for Christmas break their senior year in high school and had just come out to the entire gang. Joyce asked them not to sleep together and Willow had used her persuasion (and babbling) skill to convince the woman to allow them to sleep in the same bed fully dressed and with the door open. How could she have known at the time that there would come a day in which she was presented with the horror of trying to sleep every night without her love?
And now: so many people were dead. Was it a mistake to come home to Sunnydale? Joyce had died not of supernatural causes but of natural. Buffy died saving the world although her friends brought her back. And now Tara.
If we hadn’t come here, she would be fine. She would be alive and we’d be together. I thought choice was so important but it was the wrong choice. She berated herself. How could it ever be ok? The two women had decided together to attend UC Sunnydale so they could hone their magic and help the Scoobies in the fight against evil. Who could know that the biggest threat would come not from some super demon but from an angry, greedy, super nerd?
Unable to sleep Willow returned her mind to its favorite current pastime: obsessing in what if. Just as some people might sit and think about what they would do with a million dollars or unlimited power, Willow lay each night and thought about bringing Tara back. It was an exercise. A mantra almost. Every night a different plan for bringing the blonde witch back to life.
What if she was turned into a vampire? What if I had brought her back by Osiris? What if I raised her as a zombie? What if I raised her as we did Buffy? What if I wished her back? Each night the redhead lay in bed completing her mental exercise. She started with a new fantasy and carried it through from initial thought process to complete execution. What could go wrong? What materials would I need? What are the upsides? (always Tara alive and with me!) What are the downsides? (brain eating, evil and murderous, etc.). Her mind followed these paths until exhausted she finally slept a restless sleep filled with zombies, vampires, and demons.
And each morning she woke to memories of last night’s fantasy and nightmare. The balance of the joy of her fantasy and the terror of her nightmare determined if she acted upon it. And with what success? Osiris refused her call more than one time in the last three months.
Zombie Tara came straight for Revelo drive, stopping to attack a passerby in the street. The shouts reached the second floor of the Summers house prompting Buffy to run toward her former friend. Willow shouted before Buffy could reach the creature, tearing the picture in half rather than seeing the slayer destroy Tara’s decaying body.
Vampire Tara? Not an option since she died so quickly.
Wishes? Willow had tried twice now. The first ill-thought-out wish she phrased so poorly, “I wish that Tara wasn’t in front of the window when Warren shot the gun” that it only moved Tara’s location from their bedroom to the backyard where she was visiting with Buffy when she was fatally shot.
Willow thought out her second wish more carefully wishing that “Tara was at school when Warren came to the house.” But it seemed that the fates had something in for them as Tara was hit by a car crossing the street when she thought she heard someone calling her name. After that Anya refused to perform any more wishes as she concluded that Willow was not in fact attempting to exact any vengeance. She only wanted Tara back, which didn’t perform vengeance on anyone, certainly not anyone unfaithful. Finally she relented to allow Willow to wish the original death back so she could at least have the reality of holding Tara’s body as she died.
Eventually Willow’s mental review of her desperate actions since Tara’s death had lulled her to sleep, into a sleep filled with dreams of their years together. Of the love they found and nurtured through catastrophes and pain and joy. But each dream ended the same place: with Willow on the floor of their bedroom cradling Tara’s broken and lifeless body as Dawn and Buffy attempted to pull the two witches apart.
---
Willow woke to the still silence of mid-morning. Glancing at the clock and finding it not on the nightstand but the floor, she realized that she must have hit the snooze button and knocked the clock to the floor.
Who cares? There’s nothing I have to do today. No where to be… Her schedule was completely flexible. Nothing to do. Nowhere to be. Only one stop to make and that stop was the same every day. Back to the stone. Back to the cemetery. It was the only place that mattered.
Forty-five minutes later she walked into the cemetery once again. This time she found an unexpected visitor as Buffy sat in front of Tara’s grave. “Hey?” Willow asked.
“Hey,” Buffy replied. As Willow leaned forward to place her stones on the gravestone and then kneeled to begin tracing the letters the slayer continued: “Will?” Knowing how Willow could become so entranced she waited for the redhead to look up. “It’s Wednesday.”
Willow looked at Buffy in neither surprise nor understanding. “Still comes after Tuesday right?” she questioned her best friend.
Buffy took a deep breath. She was worried about this but everyone agreed that she was doing the right thing. The night before Dawn, Buffy, Anya, and Xander had all met to discuss Willow’s progress. Although Anya refused to disclose much information, claiming demon/wisher confidentiality, all the Scoobies agreed that Willow needed help. “It’s Wednesday, August 7 Willow,” Buffy explained. Willow returned her gaze to the headstone without responding so Buffy continued, “you said that you needed three months.”
“It’s not long enough,” Willow whispered through her tears.
Taking her hand Buffy agreed, “I know it’s not, but you have our help. And you and I will make it through.”
“I can’t do it,” Willow cried.
“I’ll help you Will.” As she held her friend, Buffy whispered, “we’ll stay here a little while and then go start ok?” Finally the redhead nodded. She wanted to be able to do this. To make it through but it was just so hard.
After a long time Willow and Buffy walked back to the house. “Do you want to eat first?” the slayer offered. Willow shook her head refusing the offer. She was completely convinced that any food she might eat would be wasted so why even try? Slowly they walked up the stairs.
At the doorway to Buffy’s new room, the room that had been Tara and Willow’s and before that Joyce’s, Willow stopped and turned her back. Buffy silently moved into the room before emerging with an armful of clothes from the wardrobe. Moving into Dawn’s room she set the clothes on the teenager’s bed. The group had agreed that this would be the easiest way, that if Willow became overwhelmed she could still retreat to her own room with Tara’s belongings in Dawn’s room. Boxes stood ready against the wall.
Willow nodded as the slayer laid the clothes on the bed and began holding up each piece one by one as she waited for a sign from the redhead. Most of the clothes she knew were Tara’s but some she needed to check. Sometimes the wacky wardrobes of the two girls seemed to overlap and the slayer couldn’t keep it straight. Although honestly she couldn’t understand why the blonde witch ever wore those weird skirts and shirts when she looked so good in jeans and boots.
Not that I was staring at her ass Buffy quickly thought as soon as she wondered about Tara’s clothing choices. She mollified herself by remembering the look that had frequently crossed Willow’s face as she took in the sight of her lover dressed in riding clothes. And the sounds. Even without slayer hearing, Buffy had heard the two women together enough times to know that Willow appreciated the way her girlfriend looked.
Shit Buffy she thought
Focus on this! Get your filthy mind off of Willow and Tara’s sex life, or former sex life. The final addendum pretty much returned Buffy to a more pensive frame of mind. She held up another piece of clothing as Willow nodded toward the box that was quickly filling with Tara’s belongings.
The afternoon was like slow torture for Willow. She remembered when Giles had made the comment that Angelus had tortured him for hours and for pleasure. That was what the afternoon was. Not pleasure though: pain. Hours and pain. Each item that Buffy held up made the redhead remember her lover in that outfit. Some of them elicited memories of hundreds of days. Some she allowed Buffy to put in the box while others she reached out for and rubbed to her face, hungry for the scent of her lover. That scent had been fading from her life and her memory. In the days after Tara’s death, she smelled her everywhere. Willow had always reveled in the essence of their lovemaking remaining on her fingers for hours or days afterwards. But it faded so quickly…
And then it started to fade from other things: their bedclothes, stuffed animals, Tara’s clothing. And now, just three months later, she hungrily snorted each piece of clothing to try and drain any last smell from it. To remind her nose and her mind of the scent of her soul mate. Willow’s tears fell throughout the afternoon, never in an overwhelming breakdown but a constant rain until she thought she must be empty.
As Dawn entered her room after school Willow looked up to note that the afternoon was nearly gone and so was her Tara. The teenager didn’t speak but moved behind her friend and gathered her in a hug. Willow didn’t think about it: she just allowed her body to rest against Dawn’s comforting hug as she gave in to her emotional exhaustion.
Hours later Willow woke panicked, as she looked around unable to place herself. “Shhhh,” Dawn whispered, “you’re in my room with me. Buffy went to patrol. She left dinner. Can you eat?”
Willow nodded as she rose from the bed. “Thanks Dawn,” she spoke quietly. Dawn allowed the witch to wash her face before coming down stairs and eating the fried chicken Buffy had left on the counter. Knowing that the redhead was a “breast gal” Dawn served her those pieces and took two legs for herself.
The two ate slowly in silence. Finally Dawn spoke: “Do you want to finish?” Willow swallowed down the lump in her throat and the threat of her food returning as she nodded. The two girls made their way back to Dawn’s room and Dawn followed Buffy’s earlier path retrieving drawers from Tara’s dressing table and bringing them to her room.
The two girls worked in relative silence as Dawn held up each item before placing it in a box. Some items Willow took from the youngster, smelling it or running her hand along the blond hair caught in the comb or barrette. “Hey, what’s this?” Dawn questioned as she pulled an envelope from the bottom of one drawer. She handed the envelope over to the witch who looked at it for moment before placing the item on her lap.
The envelope was sealed with the words “Tara Too” written across it. Willow pressed the item through the paper as she tried to remember the reason for the envelope. Then she remembered.
Tara sank tiredly into Willow’s desk chair as she sighed. “This has b-b-been a strange day,” she repeated.
Willow sat down on the bed as she asked, “can you tell me about it?” This was so strange. Here she was in a room with the woman she loved and she felt like she couldn’t even touch her. It was obvious that Tara was largely uncomfortable with the redhead although she had agreed to come in the room and talk to her. That was something at least. In addition to looking at the floor rather than at Willow, she was continually playing with her hair band. She kept taking it off and putting it back on. The redhead recognized it as one that Tara and her mother had made when she was younger. Perhaps Anya had cast some kind of spell on her as they were leaving. No, that couldn’t be. Tara had seemed fine until Willow had gone to the computer lab.
Tara and Willow had accidentally brought their alter-egos from another dimension to their reality. While Willow’s other self was a vampire who stayed in Sunnydale, Tara’s other self was a student like themselves. The morning after returning the confused girl to her own reality Willow had found the hair band on the floor of her room. At first she thought it was Tara’s but her girlfriend had shown that she still had her own band and they concluded that the visiting girl must have dropped it when she and Willow went to Michelle’s room. Unwilling to destroy or discard something that Tara’s mother had made Willow had sealed it in the envelope and forgotten about the item until now. Setting it aside, she indicated to Dawn that she was ready to continue going through the drawers.
Near midnight Dawn pulled the covers over Willow. The redhead mumbled as sleepy and exhausted “thank you” as Dawn returned to her room to wait for Buffy to get home. She knew that the slayer would be happy that she made such good progress. Tomorrow Xander had promised to come early in the morning and take away the boxes before Willow awoke.
---"The simplest and most popular cosmological model today predicts that you have a twin in a galaxy about 10 to the 1028 meters from here. This distance is so large that it is beyond astronomical, but that does not make your doppelgänger any less real." - Scientific American
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has replaced you with a JustSkipIt-bot as part of his evil scheme to replace all the best writers with robots in order to deprive us of WT stories.
. But 
for the beginning of your story. But I've totally faith in you that it will certainly be better. And as far of your title, I have really difficult to read it and or even understand it (
sorry about that, I think my English is not as good as I thought 
This is a difficult read, and I will try to remain patient until things get better. 
at: 7/12/03 8:20 pm
