Where We Belong
This Is Our Sanctuary
We Can Find Shelter And Peace
This Is Our Sanctuary
You Are, You Are Safe With Me
We Can Find Shelter And Peace
This Is Our Sanctuary
You Are, You Are Safe With Me
Tara tapped the wheel to the beat of the song playing through the car stereo.
She glanced over at Willow and smiled softly.
“Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile…the girl with kaleidoscope eyes…”
She lifted one hand and gestured for Willow and Sally, in the back, to join in to sing the next line together.
“Lucy in the sky with diamonds! Lucy in the sky with diamonds!”
From the back seat, Sally spoke over the next verse.
“Who is Lucy, and how did she get up into the sky? And why bring her diamonds? If I was going up into the sky, I’d bring my Switch or a sandwich or something.”
“I’d bring a sweater!” Willow piped up with a grin, “Probably wouldn’t stave off the hypothermia, but at least I wouldn’t be so exposed. And fashionable!”
Sally barked out a laugh, making Willow scowl. Tara lifted her hand briefly to squeeze Willow’s shoulder as she looked back in the mirror.
“I don’t think she brought diamonds, sweetie. I think the diamonds were already in the sky.”
“I think it’s a song about getting high and nothing makes sense anyway,” Willow retorted, though very much under her breath.
Tara squeezed a little harder. Willow cleared her throat. Triumphantly from the back, Sally piped up again.
“Did you know if you got high enough,” she started, making both Willow and Tara exchange alarmed looks, “With no space suit or anything, your blood would boil in your body?”
Willow glanced sidelong to Tara, both of them relieved.
“It’s true. Your saliva and tears would go first, but eventually, yep. You become your very own boil-in-the-bag except instead of rice it’s, you know, organs.”
“Gross,” Sally replied, but was grinning from ear to ear.
Tara blinked heavily.
“Well then, I’d bring a telescope so I could look down at my girls,” she tried to steer them back to something resembling pleasant, “And make sure they were the last thing I saw before I became a pre-prepared side dish to whatever alien was passing by.”
Both Willow and Sally emitted the same laugh, which could only be described as an I-love-Tara laugh.
“This is a weird song though,” Sally pressed on, “What are newspaper taxis? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Tara exchanged a knowing look with Willow before answering.
“It doesn’t have to. Sometimes there’s meaning in the unmeaningful.”
Sally’s brow furrowed.
“How?”
“Let’s make up a nonsense song right now. It’ll be fun!” Tara replied and started to hum a little tune, “Through a garden made of jellybeans, where the skies are pink and the ground is green…”
She looked at Willow expectantly, who started stumbling wordlessly.
“I…saw a…goat…in a…bowtie?” she eventually stuttered out, and Tara just smiled kindly and caught Sally’s eye in the mirror.
“Riding a rainbow as it passed by,” Sally sang back easily.
“See?” Tara grinned, “Total nonsense, but now we all have a very funny image in our heads. Doesn’t that mean something?”
Several horns beeped in the traffic outside.
“Even the city of Los Angeles agrees with us.”
There was another shared laugh, and Willow reached over to tickle under Tara’s ear affectionately. Tara giggled in surprise and accidentally put her foot on the gas for a moment, though she recovered quickly as she was right in front of a stoplight.
Tara’s grip tightened on the wheel when a honk blared outside. Her smile dimmed slightly, and Willow glanced at her like ‘you okay?’ but Tara didn’t have time to respond. The swift movement made something roll out from under the seat in the back, which Sally eagerly picked up.
“Ooh, a Skittle!”
The word reverberated in Tara’s brain like a car skidding around a corner.
Time slowed.
Her vision narrowed, her breath caught, and panic slammed into her chest like a truck.
“Sally, don’t!”
With gasping breaths, she tried to twist in her seat, but the belt strangled her. Willow acted quickly, grabbing the small candy from Sally.
“It’s an actual Skittle,” she waved it at Tara, then bit it between her teeth to demonstrate, adding a grimace, “An old one.”
Willow could feel Tara’s palpable stress and Sally’s utter confusion. She looked into the back seat first.
“Don’t want you eating off the floor, kiddo,” she said calmly, “We’ll be home in less than five minutes. I’m pretty sure I have some Skittles in my candy stash. You can have some, okay?”
Sally’s eyes were guarded, but she just nodded once. Willow faced forward again and put her hand gently over Tara’s.
“Tara, the light will go green in a few seconds,” she said, quiet enough to just be between them, “Are you okay to get us home? If you need me to tag in, we need to switch right now.”
Tara barely heard her above the sound of her own heartbeat, but she did listen to her.
She got her hands back on the wheel, held on for dear life, and drove on as soon as the light changed.
The mood had shifted, and the rest of the, thankfully short, journey home was tense. Tara went straight to the apartment, so Willow followed her in with Sally, who held her backpack unsurely on one shoulder and was carrying Miss Kitty’s carrier with the other hand. Willow watched Tara put the keys down on the table and noted that her hand was shaking.
A moment later, her voice came out in the same manner.
“I-I…I just…need to do something in our room.”
The door banged behind her, startling Sally, who had never seen Tara slam a door in her entire life. She turned to Willow, unusually vulnerable.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Willow bent down.
“No,” she shook her head, “Definitely not.”
She didn’t reach out to touch Sally as she knew it wasn’t always welcome when she was upset.
“Why don’t I get you those Skittles, and you can watch some TV for a while?”
Sally seemed to know she was being mollified, but candy and Gravity Falls cured a lot. Willow made sure Miss Kitty had some water and kibble before creeping over to the bedroom, easing the door shut behind her with a soft click.
Tara was hunched over the vanity, her shoulders rising and falling with deep, uneven breaths. Willow’s brow furrowed. She crossed the room quickly and laid a gentle hand on Tara’s back.
“Sweetie…”
But Tara jerked away, twisting to face her with panic in her eyes. She shoved Willow backwards, not hard, not even on purpose, but enough to show she was on edge.
“We’re not kids, Willow,” she snapped, voice tight and trembling.
Willow blinked, taken aback.
“I…I know,” she said softly, reaching again but staying cautious.
Tara motioned toward the door, toward the rest of the apartment.
“We have a kid,” she whispered fiercely, her voice cracking just a little.
Willow nodded, inching closer.
“I know, baby.”
This time, Tara let her take her hands, but they were trembling badly.
“We could’ve lost her,” Tara said, her voice rising, “First that blackmail nightmare, and now this. If anything had happened–”
Willow tried to interrupt.
“Tara, it was out of our control–”
“No! It was my fault!” Tara yanked her hands back and buried her face in them, “I’ve been playing music in clubs since I was sixteen, and I was too stupid to realize I was being drugged. Again!”
Willow winced, her heart twisting.
“We’d never been to a rave,” she said carefully, “We didn’t know the signs, the lingo. It could’ve been worse. Way worse. But it wasn’t. And now we know better. We won’t let it happen again.”
She tried not to grimace at the thought of them being in this situation before.
“Again-again.”
Tara’s hands slid into her hair, fingers gripping tightly.
“What if they do a surprise drug test? What if they decide we’re unfit?”
“Tara, they haven’t tested us since the initial application,” Willow said quickly. Her voice dipped to something almost pleading, “And even if they somehow decided now was the time, we’re fine. We’re gonna be fine. Our pee will be clear by Monday.”
Tara flung her arms up.
“How is this our life right now?! How are we talking about pee tests and losing custody?”
Willow stepped in, firm but gentle.
“Okay. Stop. Come here.”
She guided Tara to sit on the edge of the bed and knelt in front of her, holding her hands again, this time with intention. Grounding her.
“Breathe, Tara. Deep. With me. Okay? Take a breath. Take a long, slow breath.”
Tara’s wild gaze found hers. Slowly, she inhaled. Then exhaled. One breath at a time.
Willow mirrored her breath until Tara’s shoulders started to lower, her hands loosening slightly. When Tara finally felt still again, she spoke softly.
“Now name five things you can see.”
Tara closed her eyes for one long moment. She remembered doing this with Willow in Dubai and felt this giant pang of love that brought her back into the moment. She opened her eyes and let them cast around the space in front of her.
“Closet. Hairbrush. Charger. Mirror,” she listed before allowing her gaze to fall on Willow, “Willow-Eyes.”
Willow smiled, knowing she’d caught on.
“Four things you can touch.”
“Blanket. Shoes. Necklace,” Tara answered, though each small breath before squeezing their fingers together, “Willow-Hand.”
Willow nodded encouragingly.
“Three things you can hear.”
Tara closed her eyes to focus.
“TV. Car horns,” she answered, as the city of angels never let up, “Willow-Breath.”
“Two things you can smell,” Willow continued, feeling Tara’s tension leave her body.
“Lotion,” Tara answered as she inhaled deeply, and a small, familiar crooked smile graced her lips, “Willow-smell. Strawberry-mocha.”
Willow blushed, but was smiling too.
“One thing you can taste.”
She leaned in a tad but let Tara have control. Tara closed the gap and pressed her lips onto Willow’s. She let the kiss linger, soft and grounding, until her mind quieted to a single word.
“Willow.”
Willow ran her hands up Tara’s thighs.
“Yeah, Willow. I’m right here, baby. And Sally is in the next room. And no one is taking her.”
Tara nodded evenly.
“When I thought she’d found drugs in the car…”
Willow lifted herself and sat beside Tara on the bed.
“What happened was scary. We essentially roofied ourselves. Again. We lost control, and we have to make sure it never happens again. For us and her,” she said with a resolute tone, “But the solution is easy. We just don’t drink anything we haven’t brought ourselves to shows or use sealed bottles from now on. Okay?”
Tara looked at Willow, trusting but still with anxiety in her eyes.
“What if someone has footage–”
Willow put a finger against Tara’s lips.
“I promise you, if anyone had footage of anything, it would have been on social media by now, and I know you know I’ve been scouring every mention,” she reassured firmly, “All that’s up there is compliments about your show.”
Tara looked deep into Willow’s eyes and allowed the trust and assurance to permeate her body.
“Better than when I’m completely straight?” she asked with a crooked smile.
“You? Completely straight?” Willow snorted, “That’s the darkest timeline.”
Tara laughed, quiet but deep from her belly. Willow beamed.
“That’s the sound I like to hear.”
Tara reached forward and played with the ends of Willow’s hair.
“I could have been straight as an arrow, but as soon as I met you, that arrow would have started spinning.”
Willow turned her head slightly.
“I said that to you,” she said after a moment, “You were hopped up on painkillers. When you broke your wrist. You remember that? You were so out of it.”
She grabbed Tara’s shirt with dramatic effect.
“Oh no, was that when all this started? It was the Dilaudid, wasn’t it? When will this drug-seeking behavior end?!”
Tara laughed again, and Willow joined in this time. They both laughed until they were disturbed by the sound of a door banging.
They gave each other a look, then jumped up and headed back into the living area.
The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. Willow’s stomach twisted as she registered the missing sounds of cartoons and candy wrappers.
There was only the sound of Miss Kitty scratching at the door.
“Sally?” Willow called out and ran over to the other bedroom to look inside, “She’s not in her room!”
She grabbed her keys and they both ran out the front door. Willow made a gesture that she’d go left while Tara went right.
The street was busy, but Willow caught sight of the purple jacket Sally had gotten as one of her gifts, and she tried to harken back to running track in high school to catch up.
It was when she put a hand on Sally’s shoulder to pull her back, nearly collapsing in the process, that she remembered that PE had been the only class she ever came close to failing.
“Sally!” she gasped, doubled over and wheezing. Her lungs burned, her thighs screamed, and her only coherent thought was Cardio. Must. Happen. More. Regularly.
Sally looked like a deer caught in the headlights and tried to bolt again, but Willow was gripping her too hard.
“Sally, what the heck? You can’t just leave on your own like that!”
She noticed Sally’s backpack was over her shoulder again.
“Why do you have your bag?” she asked, pushing out short breaths as her heart started to slow again, “Where were you trying to go?”
Sally looked around uncomfortably.
“The bus stop,” she muttered, her cheeks flaming red in a way that Willow hadn’t seen in a while.
“Why?” Willow asked, loosening her grip on Sally’s jacket when she was confident she wouldn’t try to run again.
“I don’t want Tara to die,” Sally blurted, avoiding Willow’s eyes, “Or you either. I don’t want to be the reason something bad happens.”
Willow was stunned into silence. Her breath caught, her heart aching at the way Sally said it, not with drama, but with deep, quiet fear.
So much for a kid to carry.
It made her feel guilty not just for inducing it, but that she’d tortured herself so much at the same age just for falling in love with the girl next door.
She vowed to give Sally all the love she hadn’t given herself.
Her internal monologue was broken as Tara caught up with them, more in control of her breathing than Willow had been.
“Sally, what on earth were you–”
Willow quickly put a hand around Tara’s arm and squeezed to let her know to stop. She stood behind both of them and moved them forward.
“We’re taking you home where you belong. Where we all belong.”
Sally didn’t argue. Neither did Tara.
When they got home, Miss Kitty busily weaved through all of their legs with a labored purr before flouncing over to her bed and curling up to sleep, exhausted from all the emotional turmoil.
Willow looked ready to curl into a ball herself, but instead, she took charge gently. She led Tara and Sally to the couch and pulled a chair over, sitting opposite them with her hands folded tight in her lap.
“Sally said she ran away because…she was scared we were going to die.”
Tara’s face froze, then turned sharply toward Sally, her eyes wide with alarm.
“Sally, sweetie…what? Why would you think that?”
Sally kept her gaze low, her fingers knotting together.
“I heard you,” she said, voice clipped and quiet, “Talking.”
Willow and Tara shared a puzzled glance, worry creeping into both of their faces. Sally wrinkled her nose.
“About…doing drugs.”
Tara inhaled sharply, her hands pressing hard into the couch cushions.
“Oh. Oh no, sweetie, that’s not…What I meant was…”
“Tara?” Willow reached over and took her hand, gently but firmly, “Maybe we should just tell her. The real thing. She can handle it.”
Tara hesitated, her eyes moving slowly between Willow and Sally, then gave a tiny nod.
“Okay.”
Sally shifted, arms crossed over her chest now, but her eyes lifted with interest.
“You remember that gig I played on Saturday?” Tara started, her voice slightly nervous, like she was trying to make it sound smaller than it was, “Well, um…we drank something there without realizing it had, uh, something in it. Drugs.”
“We didn’t know,” Willow said quickly, “Not even a clue, or we never would’ve touched it.”
Tara nodded in agreement.
“It was really scary. We both blacked out. The next thing we knew, we were in the car, hours later, no memory of how we got there.”
She left out the part where they woke up missing their clothes, freshly inked, and with a wad of casino cash.
Sally listened carefully, one hand rubbing at the sleeve of her sweater, thumb twitching.
“I heard you say you were scared of me,” she said, quieter now.
Willow and Tara looked at each other, confused – until realization dawned. Tara leaned forward and gently cradled Sally’s face in her hands.
“Oh, no, no, sweetheart,” she whispered, “I wasn’t scared of you. I was scared for you. I was scared because…well, drugs are serious. And I was afraid that if anyone found out, they’d think…I was a bad person. Who couldn’t take care of you.”
Sally’s eyes flicked up, alarmed.
“I don’t think you’re a bad person,” she said quickly. “They told us at school about people getting their drinks spiked. That’s what happened, right?”
Tara blinked, then smiled softly.
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
“Definitely. It wasn’t our…well…we didn’t mean to. Just…a really bad accident,” Willow added.
“Did you get hurt?” Sally asked, genuinely worried.
“Only our pride,” Willow answered gently, “And a little in the butt.”
Tara gave Willow a look but rubbed her shoulder gently to ground herself.
“No, we didn’t. But it made me realize how easily something could have gone really wrong. And how scared I was…of not coming back to you. Of letting you down again. Of exposing you to anything harmful.”
Sally’s face crumpled slightly, her eyes glistening.
Willow leaned in closer.
“Sally, honey…did you really think we were going to die? And…did you think it would somehow be your fault?”
Sally didn’t answer. Not with words. But she looked away again.
“Like with my mom. She died from drugs.”
Willow’s breath caught in her chest.
“You are not responsible for what happened to your mom. Or your dad,” she said softly, watching that shadow cross Sally’s face, “Did he tell you it was your fault?”
The silence said enough.
Tara was quiet for a moment, then asked gently,
“Do you know anything about her? Your mom?”
Sally shrugged, almost embarrassed.
“I wasn’t s’posed to ask.”
Tara leaned in, voice careful and full of care.
“Have you ever visited her grave?”
Sally shook her head.
“Would you like to?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“That’s okay. You don’t have to know yet. But if you ever do–we’ll be there with you. We can find out,” Tara said.
“I’d like to see a picture,” Sally said after a long pause, “See if I look like her.”
Tara nodded slowly.
“We can talk to your social worker.”
“And I’ll hit the internet. My old friend,” Willow added with a smile, “We’ll do a deep dive. Well, I’ll do a deep dive.”
Then she tilted her head, a little more serious.
“But listen. You can’t run off again like that, okay? It’s really dangerous.”
Sally twisted inward, knees curling up. Her voice was soft and strange when she spoke.
“Sometimes it feels like my brain’s buzzing. Like one of those vibrating chairs at the mall. Everything gets too loud and I just…I wanna be a rock. Then nothing can get me.”
Willow’s heart ached.
“Hey…maybe we could make a little ‘rock out’ corner. Just for you.”
She snickered at her own joke. Tara raised a brow at her, but with love.
“Like, your own space,” Willow went on, “We can turn your closet into a hideout. Put in your beanbag chair. Maybe a little color-changing lamp?”
“A mini fridge?” Sally perked up.
Tara smiled.
“If you promise that that’s where you’ll go next time you feel like running. Not out the door.”
Sally nodded solemnly.
“I promise. And I won’t tell anyone about…the drug thing.”
Willow and Tara exchanged a look of concern, but Sally cut them off.
“I’m not stupid. Social workers don’t always get things right. Maybe they don’t mean to twist stuff, but it still happens.”
The words of experience, unfortunately.
Tara reached out and touched her hand.
We won’t ever ask you to lie. Not for us. Not about us.”
“You didn’t,” Sally said with a shrug, “It’s just what family does.”
Both Willow and Tara swallowed hard at that, eyes suddenly misty. Tara leaned in and kissed the top of Sally’s head.
“We promise. We’ll be smarter, safer. You can count on that.”
Sally shifted in her seat for a moment before jumping up, throwing her arms around Tara and Willow before bolting for her bedroom to do a good survey of her closet.
Willow looked at Tara, surprised, who pulled her gently into the seat beside her.
“Thank you. I couldn’t have done this without you.”
Willow wrapped her arms tight around Tara.
“You won’t ever have to.”
Tara inhaled softly from the top of Willow’s head, allowing her heart to calm again.
“You know that song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds?” she asked, so softly only Willow could hear, “It changes its time signature between 3/4 and 4/4.”
“Yeah?” Willow asked gently, closing her eyes as Tara’s breath acted like a massage against her scalp.
“Yeah,” Tara exhaled, filling Willow with a cascading warmth, “3/4 is that waltzing sound you hear. The sort-of hypnotic, drifting beat. Why everyone thinks it was written about drugs.”
“It isn’t?” Willow asked in surprise, though she didn’t open her eyes.
“No,” Tara chuckled softly, “It was based on a painting that John Lennon’s little boy did, mixed with some Alice in Wonderland imagery.”
“Hence the newspaper taxis,” Willow murmured, almost lulled to sleep again under Tara’s tender embrace and the release of emotion.
For a moment, Willow thought Tara had fallen asleep as well, but then she spoke.
“They call 4/4 time ‘common time’. It’s what you hear most of the time. It’s steady. Consistent.”
“Mm,” Willow agreed. She’d listen to Tara talk about anything.
“You are my 3/4 time and my 4/4 time,” Tara whispered into Willow’s ear, “My beautiful, ethereal mix of dependable and enchanting. The only rhythm I ever want to follow.”
She kissed Willow’s neck.
“My girl with kaleidoscope eyes.”
Willow felt a rush of color and shapes and emotion.
Reliable Dog-Geyser Person didn’t sound so bad with a bit of magic thrown in.
She turned her head, meeting Tara’s lips in a kiss that was soft, chaste, but lit up every part of her.
A few moments later, Sally skidded out of her room, brightened.
“Quit being mushy and get me a measuring tape!”
They both separated and raised eyebrows in the same manner. Sally’s nose scrunched.
“Please?” she asked, so innocently, without even meaning to.
Willow smiled at Tara and squeezed her hand as she stood and went over to a kitchen drawer to get a measuring tape.
“You know I once saw a mini fridge shaped like a Rubik's Cube.”
Sally’s eyes lit up.
“Could you twist it to release a soda?!”
Tara watched them go with a small grin playing on her lips.
Diamonds were definitely something to start thinking about.
She tuned back in to hear talk of a screen being mounted with screensavers of cats.
“I want in on the cute cat videos!” she called as she went in to join them and all three huddled up in the too-small-for-three closet.
“Meow!” Miss Kitty interrupted, indignant at the idea of needing any other cute cats to look at. She flounced at their feet.
Willow brought up a cat slideshow on her phone and held it up where a screen might go on the wall.
A few pictures passed by with various commentary before Sally grinned and looked at Willow to tease her.
“That one looks like you,” she said as she spotted an orange kitty out of the corner of her eye.
“Then the other one must be Tara!” Willow giggled.
Sally’s glee faltered as she saw the full picture.
“Ew, gross! You’re infiltrating the cat videos with your mushiness!”
“It’s in the air!” Willow threw up a hand joyously, “But nice vocab.”
Sally rolled her eyes but didn’t move from her spot cushioned between them.
“This was supposed to be a spot for one you know!”
They both went to stand, but Sally pulled them back down.
“I didn’t say go.”
They settled back, and Tara put her arm around them both.
“I think we have all earned some cake. What do you say we head to Milk Bar?”
“Can I get a milkshake?” Sally asked excitedly.
Tara nodded.
“You can get whatever you want.”
Sally fist-pumped the air triumphantly and ran out toward the door.
“Just no Skittles,” Willow murmured as she and Tara helped each other up.
“NEVER again,” Tara vowed.
Willow patted herself off and smiled.
“We did look like those cute kitties.”
“Because we’re purrrfect together,” Tara trolled in Willow’s ear, who giggled.
“Can we bring Miss Kitty back a kitty cup?” Sally asked as she rubbed the cat down by the door.
“We can walk her over if you want,” Tara suggested, “Get some fresh air.”
“Cool!” Sally replied, moving to grab Miss Kitty’s harness.
Tara got their jackets and took Willow’s hand after donning hers.
“I’m very ready to put all of this behind us.”
Willow agreed with a succinct squeeze.
“Let’s consider this our new year. And what better way to start than with cake?”
for a late comment:
And I thought I couldn't hate the dead scumbag more than I already did... 
Willow is so cute! I don't understand what did happen to the parcel with the keyboard, though - if it was stolen, what does she mean with the ants?
I really appreciate it!
I love how Tara's family comes in and helps without even having to be asked. It's sad to think that Sally didn't even mention her birthday. I hope the other kids who think their too good for Deli's aren't mean to Sally when they go back to school. Yay for Dawn getting to come.
What a party, I'm impressed with your rap skills. Hope you have a great vacation.