Break Down
Spoilers: Post "The Gift"
Distribution: Sure.
Disclaimer: The usual stuff about Joss, Mutant Enemy, yada yada.
Feedback: Please! Bear in mind I'm writing this on my lunch hour, so don't expect Dostoyevski or even Kurt Vonnegut.
Notes: This might be a sequel to "Unfinished Business." And it might be a prequel. I'm not sure I care, come to that. You need not read the other if you don't want to (but don't let me stop you.)
Rating: PG-13 (at most)
Summary: Tara acts as Psuedo-Mom to the Scoobs, but her own recent experiences take their toll.
Tara almost ran down the stairs when she heard someone knocking on the Summers' front door. "Got it got it got it!" she called out to Willow and Giles, sitting on the couch going over the invite list for the funeral. She opened the door to reveal Xander, standing with hands in pockets in the early morning light. "Hey, Xander. You actually knock?"
He shrugged. "It ain't my house. I was taught better than to just barge in...wait a minute, I wasn't. My parents didn't teach me anything worthwhile. I guess I learned my manners from Giles," he said, stepping over the threshold.
"Chance would be a fine thing," the Watcher muttered, but his heart truly wasn't in the jibe. Willow, Xander and Tara all raised eyebrows as Giles' passivity, but chose not to pursue the matter.
Xander turned back to Tara. "Got my car keys?"
"Right here," she said, digging into her cargo pants with her right hand without stopping to think. She winced when the material pressed against her still-sore and healing hand, and a momentary glimpse of Glory --
fingers pressing to her brain pulling like taffy i'm a psychotic marionette strung out on a taffy machine glue sticky gum chewing blowing bubbles with my mind going POP!
"Here!" she said, a little too loudly, pulling her bandaged hand out fast and slapping the keys into Xander's hand fast and hard.
He transferred the keyring to his left hand and shook out his right. "Easy there, Slugger! How'd you get along with the XandMobile?" He remembered his apprehension in lending her the car in the first place...
"I gotta go see Angel," Willow had said, standing in Anya's hospital room. The ex-demon had drifted off to sleep, the pain medication hitting her like the ton of bricks that had injured her the other night.
"We need to borrow your car, Xander," Tara continued.
"'We?' Tara, I can do this myself. You're not..."
"...not staying here while you go off by yourself to L.A. And-and what are you going to do, ride the Greyhound? Why don't you just hitchhike? You can hook up with more rapist-murderers that way."
Xander blinked at Tara's assertiveness. Since her return to the Land of the Sane (which, unfortunately coincided with Buffy's death) Tara had been taking the front seat in her and Willow's relationship. It was quite a change from the shy girl who, as Spike once put it, "wouldn't say boo to a goose."
"You got a license?" he asked Tara.
"Yes. S-somewhere, in some state. M-maybe not current..."
"Insurance?" Silence. Xander heaved a sigh and dug out his keys. "Try to bring it back in several large pieces."
"I did okay. No major body damage. I'm glad it was an automatic."
Xander nodded. "Yeah. I don't do too well with stick."
Tara had a flashing image of Faith, who amazingly enough looked a lot like Buffy at the time, making a crude comment to her. She shook it off as she replied, deadpan, "Neither do I."
Xander looked over her shoulder. "Hey, Dawnster! Wazzup!" Tara turned around to see the teen descending the stairs, in neat but drab clothes, posture drooping. The circles under her eyes were mute testimony to the lack of sleep she had been getting. She didn't respond to Xander's inquiry, which worried him.
"Dawn," Tara inquired, without preamble, "did you call the school?"
"For what?" Dawn riposted sharply.
Xander was about to try to defuse the tense moment when Tara overrode him. "For the assignments you've missed." The tone in her voice carried a hint of don't-mess-with-me-young-lady-I've-faced-worse-than-YOU.
Then again, Xander reflected, I suppose she has.
Dawn, to her credit, picked up on Tara's manner and elected not to escalate matters. "No," she muttered, looking at the carpet on the stairs.
"Why don't you call them now? Just see if someone can come over here and bring you the books and stuff you need. Okay?" Tara's voice, pleasant enough, did nothing to dispell the tension. Willow was uncomfortable reminded of Buffy in her "mom-mode" after Joyce's death.
Dawn nodded and plodded down the stairs towards the dining room. "I'll use the phone in there."
"Okay. I'll make breakfast after you're done," Tara said brightly.
Dawn gave Tara one of her patented are-you-kidding-me looks. "I think I can manage Frankenberry-and-bananas, thanks all the same." She stalked off towards the dining room, leaving another in a series of uncomfortable silences in her wake.
Willow left the couch, leaving Giles to look like he wanted to interject, but failed to complete his thought. "Don't you think you're being..." Willow began.
"You're gonna be late for work," Tara blurted out to Xander, as if Willow hadn't even spoken.
Xander was a little stunned that the blond witch would be that blunt, especially talking over her girlfriend like that. "I, uh, I could call in. What the hell do I need sick days for anyway?" he said with false cheeriness.
Tara shook her head. "You've missed enough work as it is. Now off you go."
Xander vacillated between being offended and being amused. "Okay, Mrs. Brady, you're the boss." He waved a quick goodbye to Giles, kissed Willow on the forehead, and made like a tree.
Willow came as close as she ever had to giving Tara Major Stink-Eye. She settled for pursing her lips and turning away from Tara, who if she noticed her girlfriend's irritation gave no sign. "Do either of you want breakfast?" she inquired of Willow and Giles.
"Not hungry, thank you," Giles replied.
"No. Thanks." Willow replied, just this side of a snide retort. She ostentatiously picked up the forms she was going through, ruffled them, and set them down.
"Fine. I'll just do some dishes." Tara went into the kitchen, to find that the dirty dish count had not risen considerably since her last marathon dishwashing session. She picked up a glass on the counter, preparing to give it a quick rinse.
The glass was shaking for some reason – no, it was her hand holding the glass that was shaking. The hand covered in bandages, which underneath was still purple and bruised and criss-crossed with stitches.
The hand Glory crushed.
The pain was excruciating, and she was no stranger to pain, oh, her father had made sure of that, and Glory was sitting right beside her, getting off on her pain, her wanting to cry out in agony, for help, for anything, but Glory would kill anybody who came to her aid. Glory asking again about the Key, where was it, Who was it, just tell me. She could feel the bones in her hand painfully rubbing against one another, just tell her, her father's voice said, just tell her, Tara, you can't handle this, it's too much for you.
That had done it. No way was her dad going to get the last word in this. Tara turned towards Glory, and even through the pain the resolve hardened her face into a ghost of a defiant smile.
Then the cold fingers on her head, in her head, and every beating her father gave her and every time Donny had…
Ah, then the comforting madness came.
With sudden savage force she threw the glass into the sink, not bothering to duck or shield her face from the shards bouncing up from the porcelain. She gripped the counter as her entire body began to shake from repressed rage, sorrow and terror.
"Get hold of yourself," she muttered. " Get Hold. You-you lose it n-now, what g-g-good are you?" Talking became difficult again, the stammer she'd had since childhood trying to reclaim itself. "Who's g-g-gonna get them through this?" she hissed, hot tears threatening to fall from her eyes. Tara squeezed her eyes shut and, calling on every mantra she had ever learned from her mother about controlling her emotions, little by little, reasserted her shaky control.
"We're all going to get through this." Tara spun around with a short cry, to find Willow, Giles and Dawn standing right behind her. She hadn't heard them come into the kitchen.
"I-I'm okay," she lied, trying to steady herself. She crossed her arms in her characteristic defensive gesture.
"No, you're not," Giles retorted gently. "Tara, you've been looking after us for the last few days, but you've been through a horrid experience yourself. You're wearing yourself thin, child."
Dawn placed her hand on Tara's elbow. "I feel so bad about what happened to you…" she began.
Tara shook her head. "That wasn't your fault, Dawnie. Please don't…"
"I'm not talking about that!" Dawn shouted back. "I just feel bad for you! Can't I feel bad for somebody besides myself?"
"I know you feel bad! Everybody feels bad!" Tara shouted back. "Everybody's moving and talking and no words are coming out, Giles, it's like you're barely here, Xander's still in denial I think, somebody's got to keep it together, get things done!" She paused, trying to draw in deep breaths that threatened to turn to sobs. "I can finally help, I know how to do this, my mom, she died and I know how to deal, what needs to be done…" Her words were running together so fast her stammer disappeared.
"Sweetie," Willow said. "I know you were trying to help – and you were helping. You're a part of this family too, and I know you're hurting."
Tara fought a losing battle to contain herself. "I d-d-didn't m-mean…to let you f-f-find me like th-this,"
Willow stepped and raised Tara's chin. "I told you before….I'll always find you." With that, Tara finally broke down, sobbing uncontrollably onto Willow's shoulder, clinging to her as if to life itself. After a moment of awkwardness, Giles and Dawn wrapped their arms around the Wiccans and held them both, as the sun climbed into the sky for a new day.
Break down, go ahead and give it to me,
Break down, it's all right,
It's all right.
-- Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
