Well, perhaps you can blame it on the lack of a wild feed yesterday, or maybe it was just time for me to start writing again, but I've gone and produced a new fic! You're my guinea pigs (guinea kittens?) here, so please tell me what you think.

And if you like this, you can find the rest of my fics at: slayerfanfic.com/RobertBl...black.html





WARNING! This fic contains material based on the SPOILERS we've received for the final four Buffy episodes of the season. Therefore, I will add...



SPOILER SPACE



TITLE: "When It Mattered"

AUTHOR: Robert A. Black ( bbovenguy@mindspring.com )

RATING: PG

SPOILERS: Based on spoilers for "Tough Love" through "The Gift"

DISTRIBUTION: Please ask before posting somewhere, okay?

FEEDBACK: Ain't too proud to beg...





When It Mattered



by Robert A. Black





Tara's world had turned against her.



Actually, it had turned in a number of different directions - inside out, upside down, sideways and backwards, all at once. Thoughts whizzed through her mind and bounced off the walls of her skull, only to flip around and come back the other way. Nothing made sense any more, and there was nothing she could do about it.



She shut her eyes tight, trying to concentrate. For a moment she seemed to bring the world under control, but then when she opened her eyes the chaos returned. The world spun and twisted into grotesque shapes, then righted itself before twisting into something else again.



Tara screamed, hoping the noise would somehow shock the world back into behaving normally, but it was no use. The noise ricocheted off the sky and flew back at her. Tara looked up as the sound hit her, up into the terrible sky. The eight great fissures that slashed through the sky were still there, staring down at her, mocking her. Eight enormous rips in the fabric of Tara's reality, torn by the fingers of the Beast who had done this to her. Tara couldn't figure out why all the air wasn't rushing through them and out into space. She almost wished it would. Almost wished the air would rush away and leave her to die. Maybe then the horrors she saw and heard and felt would leave her in peace.



No. Mustn't think like that. Mustn't give up. She had to live. It was important for her to keep living. Important why? Important to whom? She tried to remember, but the reasons were just beyond her reach.



Unable to look at the sky any longer, Tara spun around and tried looking at the ground instead. It was no better. The trees in the nearby woods were all waving at her, their lithe branches moving back and forth in rhythm. It was as if they were trying to tell her something, but Tara couldn't understand the message. Frustrated, she turned and tried to run away, but now the stones in the sidewalk were moving, shuffling around, rising up and looking like little skulls. Little gray flesh-covered skulls. Gentlemen skulls. The Gentlemen were coming out of the earth, coming to get her, coming to do what they had failed to do before.



No. NO. NO!!! It was an illusion, Tara told herself. Memories leaking into the present, now that the walls she used to hold them back had been destroyed by the Beast. Could she trust anything she saw any more?



She stumbled forward, kicking Gentlemen skulls out of the way as she did. One of them flew through the air and turned into a giant cobra that quickly slithered off and crashed through the window at the Magic Box. She heard a loud growl behind her, and turned to see an enormous troll swinging a large hammer at the Gentlemen skulls, sending them in all directions as if they were golf balls.



This was too much. Tara had to find safety, had to find someplace where the horrors couldn't find her. She stumbled off the path, and found herself heading back toward the nearby woods, which now looked even stranger than before. The leaves of the trees had all turned red, and they rustled at her from the long supple branches. Again she felt like they were trying to tell her something, but she couldn't make it out. Again she turned away from them, desperate to find something that made sense. Anything at all.



She ran as best she could, through the Gentlemen and past the troll, on down the path that may or may not have been her way home. As she did, another beast ran in front of her. A four-footed beast, covered with black and white markings.



"Miss Kitty!" Tara exclaimed. The cried out with joy upon recognizing the animal. "Miss Kitty!" she said again, trying to hold onto the name as if it was a life preserver. "Misskittymisskittymisskitty..."



It was no use. Things were spinning out of control again. The stage of the Bronze erupted from the ground, and spotlights shone down on it from nowhere. Miss Kitty jumped on the stage, took the microphone in one paw and began to sing. "O Fortuna velut luna statu variabilis..."



Tara tried to run again, but now the ground itself was clutching at her, trying to drag her down into it. She screamed and struggled, and the world twisted around her until she no longer knew which way she was going. She didn't care any more, anyway. She simply wanted to run, to flee, to get away from the ever-increasing horrors. But it was no use. The horrors were with her. The horrors were inside her. They mocked her from within her own head as mercilessly as they did from her surroundings.



Time itself was folding and unfolding around her now, so Tara didn't know how long she spent stumbling through the confusion. At some point, though, she found herself standing in front of the strangely altered woods again, the trees with their red leaves waving at her even more vigorously. What did they want? What were they trying to tell her? No matter how hard she tried, Tara couldn't put the strange movements together.



Near tears, she fell to her knees in the grass. "Please help me!" she cried. "What do you want from me?"



The trees said nothing, but their movements began to change. Then their shape began to change. They began to merge and become something else. Something familiar. Someone familiar. Was Tara really seeing all this, or were her memories and fantasies making another cruel intrusion into reality? She didn't know. She didn't care. Anything familiar gave her reason to hope, and that was enough for her.



"Who are you?" Tara cried as the trees continued their metamorphosis. Now they had risen up from the ground, shrinking together and growing closer together as features formed underneath them. The red leaves weren't leaves any more. They stretched and twisted until they formed long thin strands instead.



Strands? Strands of what? Tara threw all her remaining strength into focusing on what she saw. As the did, she began to see something new take place. The red leaves that were no longer leaves were strands of hair. Red hair. Red hair that framed a face. Tara gasped as she realized the face was someone she knew.



"Willow!!!" Tara cried.



Tara tried to get up. It was taking everything she had to focus on Willow's face and remember Willow's name. How could she make her body move as well? Especially when the grass she had knelt down in didn't want to let her go. The blades were growing, wrapping themselves around her legs, around her arms, around her entire body. She struggled against them, but as she did Willow's face began to blur and fade away.



"WILLOW!!!" Tara cried again. "HELP ME!!!"



It was no use. The grass had completely enveloped her and was pulling her down to itself. She tried to break away, but the grass only held on more securely. Willow's face began to fade from sight. Her name began to slip from Tara's mind again.



"NO!!!" Tara screamed. "NO!!!! Willow, help me! WILLOW!!!"



*****



"Willow!" Tara said, softly but firmly. "Willow, wake up!"



Willow gasped and snapped her eyes open. Her heart was pounding against her ribs, and she felt sweaty and out of breath. She tried to move, but quickly discovered that she was wrapped tightly in the blankets of the bed.



"Willow, are you all right?" asked Tara. It was still dark, but Willow could feel Tara's hands trying to help untangle her. Then the memory of the dream exploded into her mind again. For a moment Willow's head spun, trying to separate the real from the surreal. Then her arms came free and she could reach out and feel reality for itself.



Tara. Tara was there in the bed with her. Tara, alive and well again, no longer the deranged and frightened victim she been for what seemed like a million eternities.



As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Willow could make out Tara's face looking at her worriedly. "Honey, are you all right?" she asked.



It was too much. The confusion and terror of the dream, followed by the relief of rediscovering that her lover was well again. Willow collapsed into Tara's arms and burst into tears.



Tara held Willow against her breast and rocked her gently. "Shh, darling," she whispered softly, kissing the top of Willow's head. "It's all right now."



"Tara," Willow gasped. "Tara, you're all right... You're all right..."



"Yes," Tara whispered. "Everything's all right now. Except maybe for Miss Kitty." There was a slight laugh in Tara's voice, and Willow briefly looked over to see their cat's eyes shining back at her in annoyance from under a chair.



"I... I had the dream again," Willow said, resting against Tara again. "You know the one. Where I dreamed I was you, back when you were... when Glory..."



"Shhh..." said Tara, rocking Willow gently again. Tara's voice continued to be soothing, but Willow could feel tension trickling into her lover's fingers.



"I'm sorry," Willow whispered quietly, feeling herself starting to cry again as pangs of guilt rose up in her. "This is so unfair. Here I am, asking you to comfort me, when you were the one who... who had to go through..."



"Shhh..." Tara said again. "I know, darling. It's all right."



"But it's not fair," Willow insisted. "I shouldn't need this. It shouldn't be like this. After what you went through, I should be the one who's there for you."



Willow heard her lover sigh, and felt the tension leave her lover's hands again. "Willow," Tara replied, "Don't you know? You were there for me. If you hadn't been, I wouldn't be here now."



With that, Tara took Willow's head in her hands and gently guided Willow's lips up to meet her own. "You were there for me," she repeated. "You were there when it mattered."





The End