Time for a Talk
Who: Willow and Tara.
When: After fighting nature demons.
What: A serious converstation.
Where: In the garden of the new HQ.
( This was not of the good. )
When: After fighting nature demons.
What: A serious converstation.
Where: In the garden of the new HQ.
( This was not of the good. )
"Yeah, happy," Willow echoed, looking startled when Tara pulled her into a kiss. Wow. What was going on here? If she didn't know any better she'd say her girlfriend was on some sorta rush. Like-- like drugs. Or-- to much magic. Was this what Willow herself had been like when she'd been using to much? Kinda whack and stuff? Cause Tara was till Tara, natury and that, but she was also kinda not Tara.
Way with the confusing.
"Okay, Tara, honey..." Willow started, wondering *where* she should start. Actually, she realized as she plucked the flower from behind her ear and gazed at it... the question was *how* to start. "Do you remember when I was using a teensy teeny bit to much magic?" she asked quietly, worried eyes tearing away from a flower which shouldn't be here to gaze at Tara.
"I'm gonna be honest here, sweetie, I'm kinda worried a bit. A bit lot actually."
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She was surprised she hadn't put it all together earlier. The worried look on Willow's face earlier, the surprise when she took the lead. Of course her girlfriend was worried. She didn't know what to do about that though. How to reconcile her new feelings of adequacy and pride with Willow's worry.
"Hm," she started, unsure what to say. She tried to choose her words carefully. "I get that you're probably a bit concerned, and you'd probably be the expert here, but this doesn't feel bad." A thought occurred to her and she addressed it quickly. "I'm sure it didn't feel bad for you either, I guess. But this is the first time I've actually felt like your equal. Not you're little magic groupy, here for backup spells and recharges."
As soon as the words came out, she regretted them. She looked down at her feet, not wanting to look up and have confirmation that she had hurt Willow's feelings. "I don't want you to think I minded doing that. I didn't." She corrected herself. "I don't. But... well, when I was working with the coven, I felt useful. We worked as a team. Being back here has made me miss that so much, Willow. Being around the Scoobies again just makes me feel like second fiddle to you, and I'm not sure how to deal with that."
She picked at her fingernails, then looked up. "I don't get how making the flowers grow or not having to pay Xander for a busted frame is a bad thing."
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She looked at her girlfriend shocked and more then a little hurt. To hear Tara say things like that hit Willow hard. She'd never seen the blond like that, and neither had any of the others. Tara had fitted right in and Willow had fought so hard to make things up to her back then. Only to hear her girlfriend say she regarded her as nothing more then a groupie, some sort of-- not even a right hand to Willow?
Was it jealousy? Was that it? Willow didn't know, but she more then anyone knew that she had *nothing* to be jealous off. She was a murderer, no matter how you looked at it. She had gone off the rails because of magic and taken a life. Of course back then she'd say it was 'because of Tara', but that wasn't entirely true. Other people had lost loved ones and hadn't tried to destroy the world. It had been the magic that had made her act that way. The same way she now feared Tara was going.
"I remember you breaking up with me," Willow said quietly, wrapping her arms around herself. She rounded the bench and looked up at the sky. Gray and dreary, kinda like her mood was getting. "Telling me to get a grip on the magic. Telling me that I was using it all kinds of wrong, using it to much. And now here you are, doing the same, and saying you don't understand my concerns?"
Rounding the bench again, she frowned and looked down at Tara. "You wont even look at me, Tara. Do you really think so little of yourself that you feel the need to lash out at other people in a hurtful kinda way?" Lash out at Willow at the moment, but that much was obvious to both of them. "It's not you, Tara. I have *never* seen you as some sort of back-up. The only one who has is...is you. What happened? Why are you pretending not to understand?" This wasn't the Tara she knew. Of course she wasn't the Willow from back then, people changed all the time but.... When did this happen? What happened recently to-- do this. Hmmm.....
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She realized she was on the verge of shouting and took a deep breath. She stood up quickly and made some space between the two of them. “God, Willow. I get that you’re concerned. I get that this is new territory for us. But I’d rather work with you to figure this out than to be told that I’m heading down some dark and scary road the second that I go past grinding herbs in a stone bowl and chanting to Gaia for pleasant weather.”
She shook her head and her blonde hair fell across her face. “I don’t know what to do, Willow. We worked together to bring down Phenex, and you didn’t seem to have a problem when your eyes went the color of tar, but the second I do anything it’s ‘once you go black, you never go back’? Why does it get to be okay for you and not for me, Will? I’m not asking for your approval to go around on a killing spree- I’m just asking my girlfriend not to guilt trip me the second I show any sort of backbone.”
She clenched her teeth and felt like she should regret the last barb but couldn’t force the emotion to come. She really hadn’t thought that what went on in the house was that big of a deal, but she was suddenly being confronted as if this was magic-users anonymous and she was about to lose her chip. “I’m not the same person I was before, Willow. When I met you, I was scared of my power. Scared that if I used it, I’d become this… evil thing”, she said, quietly, remembering the lies she’d be fed back home. “Being with my coven really showed me how much good I can do in the world, and I think this is just the next step. I’m sorry if that threatens you, but I’m not going to stand by and watch you incinerate men made of rock by raining fire and have then have you tell me that when I do the same thing I’m one foot away from total destruction.”
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And where the heck was all of this coming from anyway? Willow was painfully aware that she was the one of the most powerful witches, if not *the* most powerful witch in the world. What no one seemed to understand though was with what a price it came. The fight day in day, day out, every hour, every minute, every second to keep the darkness away. No one seemed to notice that.
Not even the woman she loved, the woman who had warned about what might happen, the woman who *should* understand. The woman who was now going down the same path but didn't see this. The woman who was accusing her of-- of what? Wanting to keep Tara weak and puny or whatever? Why would she do that?
Willow wondered for a second time if there was some jealousy involved, but was to afraid to bring it up. It certainly sounded like it. And for the first time in a long time, she had no idea how to handle this. No clue, none. Cause this? This wasn't the Tara she had known. And she wasn't the Willow she had been back then. She was a murderer now, she'd taken a life. Tara might be going down the same path she had warned Willow about so long ago, but just didn't seem to want to see it.
The words being spat out by the blond witch were like the bullet that once entered Tara herself. Willow felt every word, every lash out (even if Tara didn't think she was doing it, she so was) almost physically. Tears started to form in her eyes but she quickly pushed them away.
"Cause you are," she whispered, looking at her girlfriend with desperation. "You want to go down my path? The one you warned me about so long ago? Is that what this is about? This-this isn't right, Tara. Why don't you see that? Yeah, my eyes turned 'the color of tar," thanks for pointing that out, "you think I *want* that? You think I *enjoy* that? I don't and you *know* there's a price to pay. I just-- I don't know how to reach you anymore, Tara."
Did they grow apart? Time heals all wounds they said, but was that true? Willow was desperate not to let the girl she loved so much make the same mistake she had. Maybe she should talk to Giles; he'd know what to do. He'd been there when she'd gone bad. No, not just bad. Evil. Pure evil. He had to know a way to talk some sense into Tara, cause she *obviously* couldn't.
Giles! They should go see Giles. Yeah, Giles had been there when Willow had... And Tara hadn't been there. She'd not seen how bad it had been, how close to evil Willow had been. And maybe that's why she couldn't understand how big of a struggle the red-head faced on a daily basis. Maybe that's why she couldn't see the danger-- okay that last made no sense. Since it had always been *Tara* who had been warning Willow about that.
"Maybe we should to talk to Giles," Willow tentatively suggested, giving her girlfriend a very worried look.
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She bit down on her tongue and tried to choose her words correctly. “I understand you’re concerned,” she started, slowly, “but all I want is to help you. I’m finally at a time where I feel like I can control my magic and do good and I get this kind of response? You talk about not knowing how to reach me. A good start would be not belittling my feelings while simultaneously telling me I’m bad.”
The wind rippled past her and she felt chilled. She hugged her arms tightly to her chest and continued. “If you didn’t want this kind of power, at least on some level, you wouldn’t do the kinds of things that we do. And I don’t even know what path you’re talking about, Willow! Is it the path where we saved the world yet *again*? You know, not even a few months ago? If you don’t want to be doing it, let me help. Let me pick up the slack. You say in one breath that I was always your equal but then talk as if you are the only woman in the world that can harness the magicks that we need.” She shook her head and their eyes met. “I’m telling you, you’re not.”
At the mention of Giles, Tara gave a slight laugh. “So, you think that I’m heading down a path of out of control but you want me to talk to Giles? If I remember correctly, you told Giles off more than once. If I’m so bad off, why would I listen to him?” The question came out loudly, near shouting again, and the blonde witch realized that she had lost her temper again. She sighed, tears of frustration and anger prickling her eyes. “I’ll go talk to him, sure”, she said softly. “But I need some time to myself right now, okay?” A tiny smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I promise, I won’t go blowing anything up or taking out little old ladies.”
Rubbing her arms vigorously with her equally-cold palms, she turned and walked away, and finally let the tears flow. She couldn’t help but think that things were going to be different for a long time between the two of them. She mentally kicked herself for believing that she could just pick up where they left off years ago and that things would be perfect again.
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