My first fic, so apologies in advance. This is a bit of a tricky one. If you hate it, if it’s totally unsuitable, please let me know, and there’ll be no more. Only four parts are intended, so it’s not a huge story.
A warning in advance: this story assumes all the events of season six happened exactly as shown on screen. I have perhaps taken Willow’s grief to an extreme. For the most part of the tale, she is comatose, and Tara is dead. It tells of a journey into Willow’s soul, what is found there, and the eventual return of Tara. I wrote it mostly as a catharsis for myself, after the horrible events of last season, and it’s told as a first-person narrative. But the narrator isn’t me – though I wish it could be.
Title: ENDLESS
Author: Mike of the Nancy Tribe
Feedback: I’m open to anything.
Rating: PG-13, I think. No laughs, no smut. Very serious.
Disclaimer: Most of the characters herein belong to ME. They should have taken better care of them.
Pairings: Willow & Tara, in spirit for the most part. But they WILL be reunited.
Spoiler Warning: Only if you haven’t seen season six. And I’ve used the hints we’ve been given of what will be happening at the start of season seven.
Summary: My way of bringing Tara back. But it’s not easy.
ENDLESSPart One: Little Girl LostTwo days. That’s all it’s been since I met Willow Rosenberg. And I think I fell just a little bit in love with her right then. Through her, through the sadness and steadfastness of her soul, I came to love Tara too. I learned what they had shared, and endured, and lost. And it broke my heart.
That was why I resolved to….but no. I don’t think I have that much time left, and I must tell this story the way it happened.
I knew about Willow’s case, and I thought I had readied myself for the task ahead. But nothing could have prepared me for what would change my life in both the best, and the worst, possible ways.
I still shiver a little when remembering my first sight of her. The coven had placed her in a comfortable room at the manor house. Although it was mid-June, there was no real heat in the air. The house was perched right on the cliffs, and the never-ending breeze from the sea kept the whole area cool. Most of the curtains were closed, making the room shadowy and hushed. Willow was under no restraint of any kind. She’d needed none since Rupert Giles had brought her to England, just over three weeks earlier.
According to the reports, she was broken. For the first week she’d been so wracked with grief that any approach was almost hopeless. To her carers, it hadn’t seemed possible that one person could have so many tears inside them. And they had cried too. They couldn’t be human and do otherwise, seeing the level of pain that she was feeling. Between the heart-wrenching sobs, and the terrible gasping for breath, she had said only one word, over and over again, the name: Tara.
Her beloved, her friend, her soul mate,
“her everything”, Giles told me. “They were
meant to be together. I see that now.”
I suppose I felt a pang of envy. I had never known anything as powerful as that.
I’ll never forget the last line of the first report that came to me. It was written by Willow’s prime carer, my old friend Marion Joyner. She was priestess of the coven that had been her life for over thirty years, and even then, considering what came afterwards, I trusted her judgement more than almost anyone else. She had a stillness about her, a calm detachment that some mistook for arrogance. I knew better, but I had never seen her weep. The paper that came to me was signed by her, and I could swear the inky smudges on it were tearstains. The last line said: “How can someone hurt so much, and still be alive?”
From the first day that Giles had brought her there, heavily wrapped and in a wheelchair, the coven had blanketed Willow’s room with calming spells. They had been lifted before I arrived, but I could still feel the echoes as soon as I entered the house – soothing, flowing waves of safety, ease and comfort. They were as strong as the coven was able to conjure, but for several days, they seemed to have no effect on the young woman. Sedation wasn’t considered; medicine and magic don’t mix well.
Eventually though she began to quiet, the heaving sobs giving way to an almost breathless moaning. Then, Marion had told me, on the eighth night since Willow’s arrival in Devon, there was silence. She had withdrawn into herself totally, pulling away from the pain. The doctor despatched by the Council called it a ‘catatonic stupor’. She could do nothing for herself, and she responded to nothing.
For Willow, the world had gone away.
And why not? I thought. The whole reason for her being was gone. The one person that she truly lived for, would have died for, gave her soul to, was gone, ripped away from her in a single second. Would I have fared any better? Would I have cared about the world any more? And then there was the guilt. What she had done, what she almost did. It must have been eating at her soul.
But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
When the calming spells were lifted, the Council’s tame doctor did the only thing he knew. A regime of benzodiazipines, and when they failed, a whole range of barbiturates. The only effect was Willow enduring an entire day of involuntary muscle spasms and vomiting, before relapsing into her trance state. When the doctor suggested antipsychotics and electro-convulsive therapy, I believe Giles threw him bodily out of the house.
I’ve always liked Rupert. The only Watcher I’ve ever met who had any commonsense.
For the next week, healing spells were cast every day. If Willow’s condition had been purely physical, it would have been a risky move. But if the magic made any difference, no one could see it. Then I was called in. Marion called me directly. Normally, the Council is advised whenever my special services are required. This time, I was called as a friend.
And so, here I was.
And there she was, the young woman who had tried to end the world.
She looked no more than a little girl. She had been dressed in a simple white hospital gown, and her feet were bare on the thick pile carpet. She was seated in a wheelchair at the window, facing out towards the sea. But those eyes saw nothing. They were greyish green, but dull now, in a face made haggard by loss and grief. From each one a thin trickle of tears ran down her cheeks. They never stopped. To make her sleep, her eyelids had to be closed for her, and still the tears never stopped. Her red hair hung matted and lifeless, her mouth slightly open.
And yet, through it all, I could see she was beautiful.
Oh Willow. Look what love has done to you. A need so great, a loss so overwhelming. I’m told a friend saved you, but for what? Will you come back if I call you? How deep have you hidden yourself from the pain?My heart went out to her, and I wanted to protect her, to comfort her, to guard her against more hurt. But I knew that right wasn’t mine.
I knelt down by her chair, to feel for her pulse. Her skin felt dry and cool, the pulse delicate. Her frame was thin and frail. She had a tube in her arm for a saline drip, and one in her chest for intravenous feeding. I passed my hand in front of her eyes, but the pupils weren’t reacting to light. I lifted her hand to shoulder height, and her arm remained in place. I looked up to catch Marion’s eye. She nodded. “
Cerea flexibilitas. A common sign of catatonic stupor, the doctor said.” Her limbs could be placed in any position, sometimes painful, and she wouldn’t respond. I lowered her hand again. She was a broken doll.
Giles stood by Marion’s side. I said quietly: “I don’t know if I can bring her back from this, Rupert. I don’t know if she wants to come back.”
“That’s what she said to Buffy”, he whispered. I could see tears pricking at his eyes. “She wasn’t coming back. None of it….none of it meant anything any more.” I rose from my knees and went to him. He turned away, taking off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Bloody stupid girl. She was….she….oh god. She was the best of us, John. Over there, on the Hellmouth. She was the best and brightest of us all. I should never have left…”
I watched his back as he replaced his glasses, lifted his shoulders, and turned back towards me. “We nearly ruined it all, you know. Marion and I, and the coven. If she is to be judged for her actions, so must we. We gave her the essence of true magic, we allowed her to feel the pain of the world…and she almost ended it. For us all. We were arrogant, stupid –“
“Rupert. Please.” Marion interrupted his rising anger. “You know we had to. It was the only way. We had to take the chance – “
He snorted. “Chance! Oh yes, we took a chance. But it was blind. What kind of chance was it that Xander Harris – of all people! – managed to stop her.” He calmed a little then. “Blind chance. And we nearly lost it all.”
I looked at him, put my hand on his shoulder. “Do you really think that’s all it was?” I said. He frowned, quizzically. “One boy? One powerless boy? In the right place at the right time to save the world? Blind chance?”
“What do you mean?”
“You and I both know that there are Powers in this world. Powers that watch, and wait, and sometimes act, because they know the way that things are supposed to be.” I let my arm fall from his shoulder, and walked back to Willow. I looked at her, and said “If they hadn’t wanted it, if Willow, somewhere deep inside, hadn’t wanted to stop as well…then we would all be dead. Saving the world doesn’t happen at random.”
Neither of them spoke. It was only then that I heard a soft murmur, and saw a woman sitting in shadow, in a dark corner of the large room. I raised an eyebrow to Marion. “The Wall of Jhathira”, she said. “One of us chants the spell every day, round the clock. It’s Megan’s turn until nightfall.” I knew of it. A powerful blocking spell. The dark forces that Willow had allowed to permeate her body had fled. The coven had purged them after many hours of labour. But they had tasted her once, and found her willing. They could not be allowed to return, but the spell would block me also. “We’re still rebuilding our power since we gave it to Rupert,” said Marion, “but we do what we can.”
“I think I’d better take it from here”, I said.
“Can you save her?” asked Giles huskily.
“I don’t know. First I need to find her. If she doesn’t want to be found, there may be no hope.”
“I think….I think there may have been only one person she would want to be found by”, said Giles with a terrible sadness. “And she’s gone. She loved Tara so much, John. So very much. She couldn’t forgive the world for still existing without Tara in it.”
And can you forgive yourself, Willow, for seeing her die, and not dying yourself in that instant?I started going around the wide room, throwing open all the curtains. The summer afternoon burst in. I needed light. So did Willow. She had been in darkness for too long. “I’ll do what I can, old friend. Will you be staying on?”
“No. It’s time I went back to Sunnydale. It seems that every time I leave, the children run wild. I have a flight in the morning, from Exeter.” He looked at me steadily. “I….I know we’re leaving Willow in safe hands. She’s very precious to me, you see.”
I nodded. “I know. Okay Marion, now it’s time to let me do my job. No more spells unless I ask for them, but be vigilant. It’s always possible that something may try to follow my path into Willow. Not likely, but it’s possible.”
Marion signalled to Megan to cease her chanting and follow her out of the room. “There are spare IV bags in the cabinet, John”, she said. “You know how to change them, don’t you”. It wasn’t a question. She knew I had been in situations like this before. My medical training was minimal, but I knew what to do.
“Good luck John”, said Giles as they left, closing the door behind them. “All our hopes, you know?”
Then it was just me and the red-haired girl who had lost her way.
The late afternoon hung heavy in the room. The only sounds were the soft shushing of waves below the cliff, and the barely audible breathing of the girl in the chair. I took off my jacket, threw it onto the bed. Like the stuffy old Englishman I am, I loosened my tie, but didn’t take it off. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the bedside cabinet. I ran both hands through my greying hair, and pursed my lips. “Well you old fool”, I said to my reflection, “let’s get this show on the road. Time to dip your toes into darkness again.”
I turned Willow’s chair around, closer to the bed, so the sunlight brightened the right side of her pale face. I sat on the bed beside her, and looked again into those sad green eyes. So beautiful, and so lost.
Was she really seeing nothing? Or was she watching, over and over, that moment when her world fell apart?
I remembered something I’d read, not too long ago, about a woman who had recovered from catatonic stupor. For her, the drugs had worked. She had said something like
“Nothing gets through, but every once in a while you can hear someone calling your name-but there’s no way to answer. Sometimes it’s like your eyes are a camera and you’re watching what’s being recorded. But it’s like you’re in a dark room somewhere really far away--you can’t tell anyone what’s going on”. Somehow, I doubted that was the case with Willow. Despair, horror, the consequences of dark magic – these were what had pushed Willow deep inside herself, not a physical trauma. And from what I knew of her, she had problems long before this. It seemed to me that, on some level, Willow hated herself. Which was ironic, since everyone she knew seemed to love her.
Love can be a terrible thing. The need for love can beat you down. The lack of love can twist you. The loss of love can break you. Now I had to try and mend this young woman. But I couldn’t do it alone. If I couldn’t reach her, if she couldn’t help me……I contemplated failure. I had failed before – not at something like this. I had never done anything quite like this. But there had been failure in my life. And loss.
I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. Not this time. Somehow, Willow had already taken a piece of my heart, but I could afford to lose it. I wouldn’t lose her to the darkness, not her. She had already lost everything.
I slid my left hand, palm upwards, under hers, and gently held it. It was small, and cold. I didn’t realise until much later that, all the time I was holding her hand, I was gently rubbing her knuckles with my thumb. I had no idea why.
I placed my right hand lightly on her breastbone. I had to feel her essence. The dark magic was gone, peeled away by the coven; but deep down, she might still have power of her own. I had to know its nature, and its depth. Closing my eyes, I allowed everything to flow through my fingertips. It was faint, very faint. But after a minute I could feel the distant hum of native power deep inside her. I could tell it was still strong, and it was tinged with grey. It would be a temptation to her in the future, if she came through this. But it felt….unwanted. It was as if Willow had buried it, along with herself, because it would hurt her if she let it surface. It was hard to catch, but I thought it tasted a little like…strawberries. I smiled faintly at that, and broke the contact.
Still holding her hand, I spoke softly to her. “Willow. Willow Rosenberg. You cannot harm me. I am safe. You are safe, Willow. Nothing you do can hurt anyone. My name is John Hughson. I’m your friend, John. I’m going to try to help you. Giles sent me to find you, Willow. Your friends want me to find you. They love you and miss you. Their love can’t hurt you. Nothing can hurt you.” I hated lying to her.
I had found her magic, and knew that it could be tamed, with help. Now I had to find her mind, and her soul. I had to meld with her. If my name were Mr. Spock, I’d just touch my fingers to her face, and mutter “My mind to your mind”. But it wouldn’t be that easy. This first time, I only intended to meld for a few minutes. An hour at most. I didn’t know if I could take the pain for any longer. The real work would begin the next day.
I looked at my watch. Nearly five o’clock. The window faced south, so the light was still bright, and streaming in now at an angle. Willow’s face seemed quite calm, but empty. Was there conscious thought in there? Was there knowing? Or was there only the echo of defeat? A thread of tears still dampened her pale cheeks. I wiped them away with my thumbs, but they came again.
Your tears flow to the ocean, Willow. Your world is an ocean of pain. Help me turn the tide. I’ve got to swim in your pain, Willow, to bring you back to the surface, if I can. Don’t let me drown.I lifted my old brown leather holdall up from beside the bed where I had left it. Inside was the junk I had gathered from a lifetime of treading at the edges of darkness. Sometimes I had fallen in.
A small clay bowl. The shrivelled stub of a dark red candle. A vial of grey powder. A single edged knife with a black hilt. Simple things, but effective. I placed the candle on the cabinet, touched the wick with a finger, and muttered
“Ignis incende”. The small flame bloomed. I sprinkled a pinch of the powder into the flame, which instantly burned a virulent blue, and the air in the room began to thicken.
I brought another chair across, placed it directly in front of Willow. Now there were words to be said, to be heard by those who were always around me, in this land of my birth.
“Hear me. I give of myself, and another, to gain mastery. Guide me on the dark path, the way of knowing. Lords of the hollow hill, guide me well, and grant my desire.” My left hand bore many scars, and the little finger was missing. My magic was sometimes darker than my intention. I hefted the knife and sliced across my palm. The sharp spring of pain made me hiss. Then, to my shame, I did the same to Willow’s left hand.
Forgive me Willow. I truly didn’t want to hurt you any more. But I don’t know what else to do. I don’t think you can feel this, but can you forgive me anyway?Pressing our palms together hard, the mingled blood flowed into the clay bowl. I sat in the chair opposite Willow, still holding on to her, our knees touching. I anointed both our foreheads with the blended gore, then leant forward to touch my head to hers. Brow to brow, hand to hand, blood to blood. It was time.
“Unlock!” I whispered hoarsely.
And then I fell.
Oh god, it was dark in there. So dark. I had never fallen so far, and so fast. I had fallen from a high building, the highest, but I couldn’t see the ground. When would it kill me? When would it rise up and crush the life from me? Air rushed past me in a silent, screaming wind that filled and froze my lungs. But there was no air, no lungs. Only thought, and will, forever falling. Days went by in falling. A lifetime.
Until, at last, it seemed that I slowed, and then was still. And around me there began to gather a mist of light. Pale at first, but growing. I had hit bottom, and I think I reached the place where Willow had hit bottom too.
It was a place of sorrow, of heart-rending loneliness. Willow’s soul.
From out of the stillness, and the burgeoning light, I began to hear voices – whispering, crying, calling, screaming, pleading, whimpering. But they were all one voice. The voice of a redheaded girl whose soul had retreated in the immensity of her loss. The pain hit me like a storm. I bowed under its weight. The voice assailed me, followed by a crashing wave of emotions, most of which I couldn’t identify in that one roiling surge. Some of them I expected: guilt, self-loathing, anguish, remorse.
But underneath it, at first like a muffled heartbeat, was something else. I felt it as a tangible thing, eager, fiery, tender beyond words.
It began to pulse around me, warmed me, lifted me, cutting through the pain. I had never felt anything like it. It came from a place
beyond the darkness, full of soft light, enveloping me. If I gave it a name, gave it a form, it would have to be: love. Pure, unending, overwhelming love. A need and a gift at one time.
Not for me, but for the one whose name I heard in every fold of light in Willow’s yearning soul.
Tara..
Her name, the thought of her, the smell and taste and shape of her, was there, everywhere. The memory of touch beyond passion, the knowledge of love so deep, so shared, the ache of one heart for another. I was blinded by it. No matter how lost her soul, Willow’s love for Tara kept it whole –
and hoping – beneath the dark weight of pain.
I couldn’t believe it. Beyond all reason and logic, there was hope.
Somehow, through the burdens of grief and bone-gnawing guilt, Willow’s soul was reaching out, searching, groping to find the soul that was twin to her own. She thought to find her, somehow, somewhere out there, and never lose her again. I had known love, and passion – but this was forever. A love so deep, so binding, that death itself couldn’t break their souls apart. In my thoughts I was crying from pure joy, and I knew what love could truly be.
And through it all came Willow’s voice, one clear, sad strand of endless hope:
“I will always find you.”I knew then that I would give my life for her.
To be continued.
Edited by: Mike of the Nancy Tribe at: 1/22/03 3:12:26 pm