Hello Kittens. I have finally gotten around to finishing this story. I could have written more and dragged it out a bit, but I felt that this way was better. I hope you enjoy it. I'm interested in what you think of the way I finished it.
Thanks for reading.
It has taken time. Days turn into months, and months in a year. Progress is made in slow steps. Just when Willow thinks it’s better, a setback occurs and it seems to start all over again: the grief. Willow knows that this is the way it has to be. Because of Tara, because of who she is. Tara can do nothing else but grieve. It is understandable.
Willow wishes she had that much compassion. She wishes that she had it in her heart to feel remorse for the death of the angel. And yet...
Her heart just isn’t big enough for that, she thinks to herself guiltily.
Sometimes, she thinks herself a bad person for not caring that the angel is dead, for, and this she admits to herself only, feeling glad that he had died. Because it means that she has Tara. It means that Tara gets to stay. And so she sits up at night in vigil for her love. Waiting for the nightmares that she knows will come and trying her best to comfort the blonde through them.
Willow feels powerless against the nightmares. She feels that she should be able to do more. Tara told her once, in full detail, what they were. Willow couldn’t take it and ran to the bathroom to throw up. After that, Tara vagued up her descriptions. She still talks about them, Willow insists on it, but Willow knows that they aren’t presented to her in their full glory.
The nightmares are mixtures of memories of the angel’s death and the abuse Tara suffered at the hands of her father. Sometimes, Tara said, the angel became her father and Tara killed him instead.
Willow can’t feel bad about that either. She wishes she was the one impaling the sword in the bastard’s gut.
Willow doesn’t think herself a good person. She knows she is flawed. She knows that a better person would see things differently. She doesn’t share her feelings with Tara. At lost not these. What good would it do? She thinks. Who would it benefit?
Instead, she focuses on the fact that Tara is there. That it’s more than a year since Tara died, and they are together. Instead, she focuses on the fact that the nightmares are less frequent, coming now once or twice a month. And that Tara is smiling, actually smiling more. And laughing.
Goddess, what a miracle: Tara laughing and walking and alive.
She turns her head when she hears the approaching footsteps by the bedroom door. She sees Tara in the doorway and instantly smiles.
“Hey, baby,” she says stretching her arms out in welcome. “I thought you were going out with Dawn?”
Tara moves into the embrace instantly finding peace and a sense of belonging in the redhead’s arms. “Change of plans, we’re going a bit later.”
“Everything okay?”
Tara nods. “Everything is fine.”
Willow smiles and kisses Tara on the head. “Good.” She looks at the bed and then back at Tara, “Snuggle time?”
Tara smiles up at Willow, “Oh, yes.”
The move over to the bed and settle down comfortably in each others arms. After a few minutes Tara yawns.
“Sleepy?”
Tara smiles sheepishly, “So it seems.”
“Rest for a while.”
“What about Dawn?”
Willow runs her hand through the blonde’s hair, “I’ll watch over you, tell you when it’s time.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Baby, you’re in my arms. What’s to mind?”
Tara snuggles closer into Willow’s embrace. “I love you Will, you know that right?”
Willow moves in and kisses Tara on the cheek, “I do.”
Willow stares down at the other woman for a while, noticing the change of breath that indicates sleep. She continues caressing the blonde’s hair with her hand. Thinking of how much the blonde gave up for her, and feeling infinitely grateful for it.
Willow settles back against the pillows and prepares to once again stand vigil while her love sleeps, prepares to take on the demons that might possibly plague her.
She doesn’t mind this, not ever. If this is the price she must pay for having Tara back, she’ll pay it willingly. Because she knows the one simple truth: Tara is her heaven. She has found it, and she has no intention of letting it get away.
and I 
and then I was like 
with Tara remembering what her father did to her. You have to tell me if there is more to this story, please!?!?!?! There only a few fics out there that can make me get all emotional like that (don't tell anyone that I cried, please, heehee 
). And this one totally did. AWESOME!!! AMAZING!!! 
