@Will's redemption:
Quote:
"I loved this insight into Tara's past and the bread-analogy. That her mother with her "quiet dignity and strength" is obviously her role-modell explains a lot of her character. I do suspect that she has some surpressed anger towards her mother as well though for not getting her out of the violent clutches of her father and just tending to her bruises instead of preventing them…
Ho boy, is there so much about 'Family' to unpack. And sadly, canon never really gives us a satisfying answer to this lingering issue with Mrs. Maclay. If witchcraft runs in the family, presumably we're looking at at least three generations of women passing on their knowledge to the generation beneath them. So how is it with all this knowledge about witchcraft, somehow the whole demon thing was still instilled in the women?
Tara's reaction might seem harsh, but remember it's only been a week since she came back and learned the truth about what Willow did. Last time Will abused the magics (and Tara herself), Tara stayed away for ten whole episodes. Reconciliation over something the size of the whole world is going to take some time and work.
@taranwillow4ever:Thanks for reading, I'm so glad you're enjoying the story! Don't worry, this story is Kitten friendly, but there's the whole "You can't ever put things back the way they were. There's so much to work through. Trust has to be built again on both sides. You have to learn if we're even the same people we were, if we can fit in each others' lives." Things fell apart even hard and louder this time than they did before. No skipping anything this time around. I promise the journey will be worth it.
@shirrey:Summer colds are no fun! I seem to not be able to shake mine either, hope yours clears away soon. Thanks, as always, for reading and commenting, hope you enjoy the update. It's one I've been quite excited about for some time
Buckle up, Kittens, this is a big one________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Willow thinks about how she took for granted, the years when they were together, not being nervous around Tara anymore.
In the beginning, without knowing why, she had been full of butterflies at the thought of Tara -of doing another spell together, of asking to hang out. It became painfully obvious later, of course, but at the time she’d just chalked it up to the nervousness and newness of having something of her own outside the Scoobies.
Then, there was a flutter in her stomach whenever they did anything for the first time, basking in the newness of being in love and out, together - going to a restaurant, seeing a romantic movie, holding hands.
And later came an entirely different breed of nervousness, after their breakup when uncertainty surrounded every interaction in a haze of guilt. And the bright, shining moment at the wedding, when the jitters turned light and hopeful, fresh with the promise of beginning anew. Each moment, electric; lighting Willow up from the inside out.
But this? This is a new sort of nervousness, even stronger than it had been last year. Her skin itches constantly, but for the first time in a long time, not with the magics. It’s the itch of unknowing, and it keeps Willow up at night. The rest of the world falls away until only the question of Tara remains. And unlike during the pressing apocalypse of Glory, this time, she can devote her full attention toward finding answers. So she does.
It’s been a few days now, since Tara has come back. Buffy has stopped trying to talk her into going to bed; instead, making her promise to take regular REM-cycle length naps. That, at least, Willow can promise. It is nice, though, getting to see more of Buffy after she finishes patrolling, when the lines between ‘late’ and ‘early morning’ are blurred, and they can share a nighttime snack before Buffy crashes for a few hours before school. Sometimes there are other soft footsteps, overhead, in the quiet dark. Willow knows by those steps Tara has woken from another bad dream and is getting a glass of water in the bathroom. Relief and guilt pool in her belly when Tara does not come downstairs.
Willow felt the blade of Tara’s anger; she was intimately familiar with its edges, aware of how conflicted Tara is n her presence. Can’t blame her, at all, either; how can she not be, after the things Willow’s done?
Since not causing Tara any pain or discomfort is pretty high on the list of her priorities, she decides to minimize her presence as much as possible. She shrinks, making herself invisible. She’s had years of practice, after all; it’s been a while since those mousy pre-teen years, but she will be Invisi-girl again in a heartbeat if it means giving more space to Tara.
Willow is done imposing her will on others, wheedling herself back into people’s lives, heedless of their feelings. However Tara has come back, it is her life now to choose what she wants to do with it. All Willow wants is to make sure that it is safe and truly her own. That is a gift Willow desperately wants to give. And that means finding answers.
So it comes as an honest surprise when Buffy dumps a bookbag on the table, jerking a very bewildered Willow out of research mode, and demanding she go to class. She’s forgotten about school entirely. It seems so unimportant in the face of everything else. She goes begrudgingly, and ends up deciding to stay on campus longer to get ahead of the next few assignments and free up time she can use to keep researching later.
The library is near empty, and Willow has a table all to herself. Exhaustion of the last few days seem to catch up, because she finds her eyelids growing heavy, and words blurring on the page. So close to relinquishing herself to a nap, a pair of feet walks into her peripheral vision and stops at the table. She follows them up and is more than a little surprised by who she sees. “Tara?”
She stands without a greeting, hugging herself nervously, eyes dashing around the library, looking everywhere but at Willow. Gnawing her lip, Tara ducks her head, letting her hair fall forward, over her face, and shakes her head softly.
“What’s wrong?” Willow asks, pushing their awkwardness aside as her concern grows. “Are you okay?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, I just . . .” Tara swallows, still refusing to make eye contact. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what? Tara—”
“There’s something I haven’t t-told any of you yet. About where I was.”
Warning bells ring faintly, but desperate to help, Willow ignores them. This is more than they’ve said to each other, directly, since the kitchen the night Tara came back. “You can tell me anything, you know that, right? It doesn’t matter what it is.”
“I’m sorry, I just . . . didn’t know how to say it. I saw things.”
“What kinds of things?” Willow probes gently.
“It was horrible, Will,” she says miserably.
Willow leans forward in alarm, “Did-did it hurt you?”
Tara shakes her head in frustration, “No, that’s not what I mean. Sorry. I’m saying it all wrong.”
“That’s okay, take your time. Whatever you need.”
Tara hesitates, weighing her decision before meeting Willow’s eyes. “I think I was sent back to warn you.”
“Is it the ‘from beneath you it devours’ thing?” She moves to take a notebook out of her bag, “I’m still working on that. There are some texts—”
“No.” Tara interrupts. “Not ‘It’, Will.” It’s clear from the serious tone and demeanor what she means.
“Oh, god,” Willow says as it sinks in. “Me.” Tara nods solemnly. “Oh, god,” Willow repeats. “What did I do?”
Ducking her head again, as if it’s too painful to admit, Tara responds, “You don’t want to know what I saw.”
That’s it. All of the months of painstaking work, the hours of meditations, sleepless nights, all the times she’s wanted to give up and die, it’s all been for nothing. Panic rushes in like a tidal wave, drowning her in abject terror. Ears ringing, she takes desperate ragged breaths to try and calm herself, but finds the air far too thin. From somewhere outside of herself, Willow registers the table suddenly seeming very far away. “Oh, god.”
Tara continues quickly, trying to calm her down, “But if you stop, completely, no more magic—”
Tara’s words slam her back into herself immediately, and Willow clings to them, nodding furiously in agreement. “Right. Right. Stop. But what about Giles and the Coven? They made it seem like it would be just as dangerous for me to quit completely. Like I’ll go off the deep end again!”
“You can’t, Willow,” Tara says with warning. “If you do so much as another spell . . .”
It’s all too much. All she wants to be is Willow but she can’t even do that right. “I tried to stop! I tried! What if I can’t do this?”
“Don’t think that way.”
The tears are hot with shame and weakness. “How can I not? I’m not strong, Tara. I’m just me. Look at what I did before . . .”
Tara thinks hard for a moment. “There is one thing,” she offers, “One thing you could do to stop it from happening.”
Desperate for an answer, Willow begs, “What? Anything.”
“I did it once. It’s not that bad, really.”
A different set of bells ring a warning. This time shrill and off-key. “Tara?”
“You could sleep,” Tara offers with a shrug.
There’s a beat as Willow comprehends Tara’s meaning. Her expression shifts. Distrust and anger darken her features.
“Who are you,” she asks coldly. Deadly.
All gentleness drops from Tara’s face, settling into an almost disinterested calm. “The suicide thing was too far, huh? Huh. You seemed so ripe.”
“Who are you,” Willow demands.
“You know you’ve wanted to. Thought it would be better for everyone—make sure Big, Bad Willow can’t ever come out to play and hurt anyone else again.”
“Tell me who you are,” Willow demands again, less confidently, trying to keep the shakiness from her voice and failing.
‘Tara’ ignores her completely. “I stand by my opinion, you know. The world would be better—safer—if you took a razor blade to your wrists—”
Memories of nights in England come to her a cold rush and the magic comes unbidden. She squeezes a fist against it. “Stop—”
“She’d be better off, too, you know. Without you reminding her of everything you did to her. Of what you did in her name.”
“Stop it.” she begs, “Stop using Tara this way—”
“What, the way you did? When you turned her into a thing to control? When you tortured Warren and tried to kill everyone just because she died? As if you’re the
only person that’s ever lost someone they loved. She can’t stand to look at you, you know that, right? You might as well off yourself now because you don’t know hurt. This last year is going to seem like cake after what I put you and your friends through, and I am not a fan of easy death. Fact is, the whole good-versus-evil, balancing the scales thing . . . I’m over it. I’m done with the mortal coil. But believe me, I’m going for a big finish.”
Willow can only mutter, “From beneath you, it devours.”
“Guilty,” Not-Tara says with a look of smug cruelty that has never once graced her true face.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Tara slaps the dough onto the counter, grinding the heel of her palms forward as if she can push her unrest with it. Buffy has gone patrolling, Willow is at the library, Dawn’s at a friend’s house working on a history project, Spike is at Xander’s; and Tara, once again, is alone at home.
The house is quiet for the first time since her return, and even the light seems still. Silence presses heavily, the way it used to, growing tighter around her chest. She’s turned to the kitchen the way she turned to it before, churning the turmoil of everything into something that can be given form.
“Careful not to over mix,” comes a tenderly soft, sweet voice that stops Tara cold. “You don’t want it to get dense.” A woman with long brown hair sweeping over a shoulder sits on one of the counter stools. “Hi, Sweetie,” the woman says, with infinitely kind eyes.
“M-Mom?”
Giving no sign she hears Tara address her, the woman sits contentedly observing, smiling with a look of mixed sorrow and profound love. Taking in Tara’s appearance—hair up in a messy bun, wearing an apron—the woman makes a soft, broken sigh. “Oh, Tara, honey. I’m so sorry I missed you growing up.”
Tara pales, choking back a sob that presses on her throat, growing bigger by the second, as she falls from one nightmare dream to another. She wears a look of pure longing, but shakes her head in disbelief. “This can’t possibly be real.”
“As real as the day you accidentally made Cameron’s water bottle explode, remember?”
Tara’s eyes grow wide at the memory. “The first time I did magic.”
Her mother nods, smiling. “You came crying to me saying they were right all along, but what did I tell you? ‘There’s no demon in you, there’s only—”
“‘—Tara’,” she finishes. “Mom,” she sobs, this time with conviction. Tara moves to hug her, to bury herself in her mother’s embrace but falters when her hand passes right through her form.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” Mrs. Maclay apologizes, looking equally mournful. “I’m just visiting.” Reminded of this fact, she glances quickly over her shoulder before turning back with a serious demeanor. “And I don’t have much time,” she says urgently. “I needed to warn you.”
“Warn me?”
“Her soul is in danger.”
“What? Who?” Tara shakes her head, furiously wiping at her eyes.
“Willow,” her mother answers. “The magic, it’s stronger than her. She’s going to destroy everything. She came back from it once before, but this time there’ll be no saving her.”
Tara shakes her head, trying to process the overload of information. “But M-Mr. Giles and the Coven said—”
“I know. They all mean well, and she’s come so far, but I’ve seen what happens and it won’t be enough. You have to help her.”
“W-what? How, what—”
She speaks urgently, as if speaking on borrowed time and will be stopped by someone at any moment. “You have to stop her, before she’s lost forever.”
Tara pulls back, as if struck. Doubt flickers across her face. “Mom?” she asks shakily.
Her mother seems to have anticipated this and continues gently. “Honey, she knows. It’s okay. Why do you think she went to England in the first place? It was only a matter of time.”
Tara pulls away slowly, as the message settles, eyes sharpening to suspicious slits. “You’re not my mother.”
The woman’s earnestness falls, her face hardening. Dropping the charade, the figure continues, “The murder thing was too much, huh? Funny, it didn’t seem to bother her.”
“Stop it.”
The figure’s visage twists into a mockery of her mother’s. “She tortured him first, did you know that?” she says cruelly.
“Stop!”
“That’s exactly how he begged. Before Willow
flayed him.”
Tara closes her eyes miserably, shaking her head against the words. “Please, stop.”
The figure places both hands on the counter and stands menacingly. “You think Willow can come back from a stunt like that again? One more temptation, one more spell, and she’s toast. You think it was bad, what happened to you before? Well buck up, sister,” she sneers. “I’ve got big plans, and I’m going to make you wish you never came back.”
“‘From beneath you, it devours’,” Tara breathes out.
“Not ‘it’,” The figure smirks cruelly, “Me.” And with a sharp
pop, disappears, leaving Tara alone in the kitchen, utterly chilled to the bone, and heaving shaky breaths.