Days of Grace Chapter 06
CHAPTER SIX:
Willow woke up to what was probably the happiest morning of her life in recent memory. Until panic set in. It was real, wasn’t it? It wasn’t some long, incredibly detailed dream?
She leapt out of bed and checked the other rooms, but even Dawn’s bedroom was empty. Nervously, she made her way down towards the kitchen. No words could describe how her heart twisted when she heard a familiar voice asking, “Funny shapes or round?”
“I missed the funny shapes.” The shy, happy voice of Dawn.
“Good, because to tell you the truth, funny shapes might be all I can manage right now. Still not a hundred percent on the pancakes but maybe...Oh hi, Willow.”
“H-hi,” Willow managed, her throat tight.
Tara was dressed casually in a simple, body-hugging shirt and jeans, and her dark blonde hair was gathered into a ponytail. She looked wonderfully, gloriously alive.
Casting about for something to say, the redhead went with, “You should’ve woken me, I could’ve cooked.”
“No, it’s okay. Dawnie and I were up really early.”
Willow looked at the pair of them. “Does ‘really early’ translate to ‘no sleep’?”
“Something like that.” Tara smiled. “We had a lot of catching up to do. Pancakes?”
“Thanks.” Willow hoped the other two wouldn’t notice how her hand trembled as she took a plateful from the blonde. “Wow, this is a lot.”
Tara’s expression was sheepish. “Sorry, I sort of went on automatic.”
“No, no, it’s fine. It’s great!” the redhead assured her. “Don’t you think it’s great, Dawn?”
“Uhuh,” Dawn mumbled, her mouth stuffed with pancakes.
“I keep expecting Buffy and Xander to walk in. That’s probably why, you know, enough pancakes to feed an army,” Tara explained. She handed Willow the syrup, studiously ignoring the way her hand tingled when their fingers brushed.
“Well you might see them, but not today.” Dawn swallowed and reached for the milk. “Buffy called this morning. She says she can’t stand it, she’s flying in if there are no developments with the vamps by tomorrow. Xander wanted to come, too, but someone’s got to stay with the SITs.”
“SITs?” Tara asked. “Oh, the potentials?”
“Slayers-in-training,” Willow nodded. If Tara remembered the potentials then that meant that more of her memory was coming back. “The first batch of potentials are Slayers in their own right by now, of course. Those who decided to continue at any rate. But we’ve been getting the younger ones, and we make sure that they go to Buffy for training first.”
“‘Those who decided to continue?’” the blonde echoed. “Slayers can choose now?”
“Oh yeah. It’s in the new and improved Watchers’ Council’s guidebook and the Slayer handbook,” was the enthusiastic answer. “Buffy insisted, and it makes sense since there isn’t just the one Slayer for this generation anymore.”
“Willow should know, she wrote them,” Dawn piped in. “I guess you could call them her first crack at writing.”
The redhead looked embarrassed. “Somebody had to. The old ones were burned with all the other books, and the stuff Giles could remember was totally antiquated, like so nineteenth century. It badly needed an update.”
“So there’s a new Council, and it’s f-friendlier?” Tara had met the old Council once, and she hadn’t liked them very much. They had been intrusive, prying people who seemed to spend a lot of time holding their collective noses in the air. They’d been awfully intimidating, too, until Buffy had put them in their place.
Willow nodded. “The First Evil destroyed most of the old Council. There was a bunch of Ethan Rayne-types who tried to set up another one, but those guys were so Idi Amin, we and Angel had to put a stop to it. The new one’s run by Giles. It’s busy as anything because there’s a lot to rebuild and so few of the old Watchers left, the trustworthy ones anyway...Where was I? Oh yeah, new Council, friendlier, lots of changes. For one thing, active Slayers now have an allowance,” she announced proudly.
From her tone, Tara could guess whose nifty idea that was. “I always wondered why they didn’t before.”
“It was because of the ‘Slaying’s a calling’ thing,” Willow explained. “I mean, Giles and I agreed that no one should be doing Slayage for money because that’s just demeaning and wrong. But Slaying takes a lot of time, and the original Slayers like Buffy and Faith are even busier now because they’re asked to teach the SITs. So no salary, which satisfies tradition, but the Council makes sure they have funds for living expenses and weapons and stuff so they can concentrate on the slaying if they need to. We even took out group insurance.”
“Nice compromise,” Tara commented. Her forehead crinkled in a frown. It sounded like Willow and Giles had “agreed” on a lot of things. Plus, the redhead had written the new rules, and it seemed like she’d helped stop the old Council too. “Willow...are you part of the Council now?”
“Not really, I -”
“Totally,” Dawn jumped in, glad that the witch had figured it out. “What? Oh come on, you so know you are, even if it’s unofficial,” she said over Willow’s protests. She leaned towards Tara. “This part I forgot to tell you last night. Willow’s sort of Head-Watcher-in-training. Giles is Head of the Council now, but everyone understands that if he ever decides to step down...”
“Then someone else takes over,” the redhead cut in emphatically.
Dawn didn’t back down. “Willow, you know no one else can run Slayer Central like you can. You’re practically second-in-command. I know you think being a Watcher is awkward right now because of K- er, because of stuff, but who else is going to do it?” she asked in exasperation
The hacker ignored the near-slip, stubbornly maintaining that other people were more qualified. “Buffy can. I mean who better to guide the Slayers than the original?”
The brunette nearly laughed. “Hey, I love my sister, but please. You know it’d drive her crazy in a couple of months. Buffy and Faith, they’re Slayers not watchers, and that’s how they like it. They like being on the ground, in on the action. Remember Giles’ little speech? What the Council really needs are people who can see the big picture, but who understand what it means to fight evil.” Dawn bit her lip. “Why else did you stay in England for so long, if you really didn’t like being there?”
“Dawnie...” There were other concerns, mainly having to do with Willow’s conviction that a person who’d fought a Slayer, worse, the Slayer, no matter how briefly, shouldn’t be part of the Council at all, much less possible Head. But the girl’s question and the way she asked it took the wind out of her arguments.
Tara felt like she’d stepped into the middle of a long, ongoing dispute with lots of undercurrents. She knew that Dawn had resented Willow for leaving. She’d gotten the sense, since her return, that the two had reconciled. But that didn’t mean that there weren’t still a few sore points. “So Buffy’s coming? When?”
As she’d hoped, the question allayed the tension and brought everyone’s attention back to the present. “Tomorrow. I’m booking her a flight late in the morning. I’ll pick her up from the airport, if I can borrow the car?” Dawn asked Willow.
The hacker nodded. “Go ahead. Just no Hellmouthy side trips please.”
“Yeah right, as if I would.” The girl rolled her eyes. “God, I’m full. Thanks, Tara.” She stretched. “I’m going to take a shower and straighten out the room. Otherwise I’ll never hear the end of it. Do Buffy and I really need to share a room?” she asked with the slightest trace of a whine.
“Unless you want to try to convince your sister to camp out on the sofa, sorry, full house,” the redhead quipped.
She stood up as the grumbling girl left. “Coffee?” she offered to Tara.
“Please,” the blonde nodded. She sat down at the small dining table and waited for Willow to join her with two steaming mugs. She sipped the drink slowly, savoring it.
“Is it okay?” Willow asked anxiously.
“Just the way I like it,” Tara affirmed, touched that Willow remembered the way she took her coffee.
The redhead looked pleased. “Did you sleep well last night?”
It was on the tip of Tara’s tongue to say yes, the expected answer, but instead, she suddenly found herself blurting out the truth. “N-not really. I started to remember some things, and it was...it wasn’t pleasant.”
The memory of the First had returned last night, and the sense of that evil had been so disturbing, it had shaken Tara from sleep. But that hadn’t been the most difficult part. With the First had come the recollection of the potentials...and of the girl called Kennedy.
“Maybe before,” Tara thought, “as a spirit, I felt different.” After all, it was she who’d told Dawn to let Willow and Kennedy be. But now?
The thing with memory loss was, even though she knew she was simply recalling events that she had once known, everything felt new, like she was seeing them for the first time. So when the images of Willow with another woman hit Tara, it ripped through her very human heart.
The pain was exquisite. Visions of Willow losing herself in a younger girl’s kiss, in another’s strong brown arms swirled with the memory of her own spirit resolutely guarding the door, as the Slayer-to-be made the love of Tara’s life moan in a way that the witch had always thought only hers to command...
Then it got worse, because it was Willow’s turn, and everyone in the house must’ve heard the cry of ecstasy that was Willow’s name wrung from somebody else’s lips...Oh Goddess, take this away from me. Please!
Tara had sat up on the bed, trembling. She had wanted - oh why deny it - yearned for Willow, who was only a few steps away, in the room across the hall. She had struggled with the urge to get up and “check” on the redhead, with the hope that maybe once there she’d be invited to stay. Because she knew what she’d do then. Rightly or wrongly, she’d claim Willow as hers once more, stamp out those memories with new ones. She would make the redhead scream her name until she forgot the other Slayer...
“Tara?” Willow laid a concerned hand on the blonde’s arm. She frowned as she felt her shiver. “Are you okay?”
“What?” There was a distinct flash in the blue eyes, and then they cleared. “Oh s-sorry, I w-was just remembering.”
“Well, that’s...good,” the hacker said a little uneasily. Was she imagining it or had there been, for a second, something blatantly possessive in Tara’s gaze? Oh great, now I’m projecting. “Anything interesting?”
“N-not really.” The blonde ducked her head and...was that a blush?
“Dawn came in before...er, a few minutes later. She tried to be quiet, she just wanted to check if I was okay I think, but I was already awake so we ended up talking. We’ve spoken before, of course, but a few minutes of conversation with a ghost - it’s not the same, is it?” she asked lightly.
“I guess not,” Willow replied, but there was a wistful expression on her face. “Tara, Dawn said you...couldn’t appear to me? You said much the same thing to me the first time I saw you, something about blocking?”
“It was the only way I could think of to stop the First.” Tara frowned as she struggled to describe what had happened. “L-let me tell you first about the Summerland. Or at least what I can. Everything there is soft...ethereal? It feels a little like everything’s floating, and you’re at peace. I don’t think I was Tara when I was there. I mean I was,” she clarified as Willow’s eyes widened, “but I was also...everyone my soul had ever been, including who I was when I passed.”
“The part of me that was Tara was connected to Dawn, to Buffy and the Scoobies, even to my f-family, but mostly...to you. I don’t know how to explain it. I was aware of you, but it was like I was...watching from afar? Though ‘far’ isn’t the right word either. The Summerland isn’t a place like we think of places, it’s not locked into a location. Even time’s not the same there, there are spaces when there’s time and then there’s not-time.” Tara knew it wasn’t the clearest of descriptions. She was frustrated by her inability to communicate more than this vague picture to Willow, but there was simply no human frame of reference she could use that would encompass the experience. “But sometimes I would get stronger impressions, flashes of feeling and seeing. When I first arrived, I was overcome by an outburst of rage and pain. For a second, there was a distinct image of y-you, except...I thought it couldn’t be you. It was a girl with your face and your body, but everything about her was dark.”
“Dark hair, black eyes, veiny skin,” Willow described in a voice that shook, appalled that her former lover had seen her like that. “Dark soul.”
“Hurt, enraged soul,” Tara corrected. “Oh Willow, I would’ve come to you then, if I had known how. But I was so new, I couldn’t even tell if what I was seeing was happening right at that moment or if it was an echo of something that had already happened. I’m sorry...”
“Gods, Tara, don’t apologize!” the witch burst out fiercely. “Not for that. Never for that. It was all me. It was my fault.”
“I’m not blaming myself, Will,” Tara explained gently, knowing that the mere possibility horrified the redhead, “but I wish I could’ve helped.”
Willow shook her head emphatically. “No, I’m glad you weren’t there when it happened. I was out of my mind. Who knows what I would’ve done or tried if you’d actually appeared to me? At least in the end it turned out alright. Xander saved me, and Giles and Buffy.”
“Xander saved the world,” Tara agreed softly.
“Yeah well, we take turns. It’s a Scooby thing. Buffy’s still ahead, though.” The tiny joke drew a smile from the blonde. Willow continued seriously, “I wish that none of that had touched you. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I mean, it’s good that you feel sorry for what you did,” Tara said, “but don’t be sorry that your soul cried out to me. It’s part of loving someone, Willow. It means that our love was strong; it formed a bond between our souls. I wouldn’t give that up for anything.” The gentle witch looked down into her cup. “B-but I did give up something later.”
“Tara?” Willow was alarmed to see tears rolling down the woman’s face.
“I th-thought I’d cut myself off from you forever,” Tara’s voice dropped to a whisper. “W-when I blocked the First.” She was surprised when Willow took her hands and held them firmly in her grasp.
“Tell me,” the redhead said softly, lending her strength.
It was the Summerland, and the last, disturbing image of Willow was far behind. It had not been repeated, much to Tara’s relief. There were still flashes of pain and anger, but those were the signs that the young woman was healing. Content, the soul who was Tara-and-more resumed her reflections.
The intrusion was sudden, fierce and filled with malice. The malevolent intruder probed and prodded, and before she could even react, it had snatched the memories of her and Willow. Willow... In an instant, the young soul was overwhelmingly Tara once more, filled with the need to protect her lover. Because she knew immediately that this being was not after her, but after Willow. Its desire to hurt the redhead was tremendous.
It twisted again, this time trying to steal her image. NO! Tara stepped out of the Summerland to stop it, but it was too fast. It was an entity with ties to the earth, and it would get there sooner than she could ever hope to. But that didn’t change the fact that she would not let herself be used to hurt Willow. Never! Even if it meant that Willow couldn’t see her again...
With barely a second thought, Tara raised the forces of her old magic and wove it tightly around herself. From now on, Willow would be blind to the sight of her.
The thing screeched in thwarted outrage. It had not expected resistance from a newborn soul. It sped faster away.
Tara followed as closely as she could in its wake. She would not give up. She would not let it hurt the ones she loved. And that was how she discovered the path to the waking world...
By the time she finished her story, they were both in tears. Willow squeezed Tara’s hands once before slowly letting go.
Tara felt the loss of the contact acutely.
“You’re so brave,” Willow said, her voice tinged with awe.
“It was for you,” Tara demurred, as if that explained everything. “It was the First Evil, wasn’t it?”
The redhead nodded. Even now there was a nervous cast to her face.
“T-tell me?” it was Tara’s turn to ask. “What happened a-after? It got here so much faster than I did.”
“Are you sure? It’s a long story.” Willow’s reluctance was obvious.
“We have time.” She gazed intently at her love. This time she was the one who reached across the table to take the redhead’s cold hands. “Please, Willow? What did the First do to you?”
The hacker swallowed. Haltingly, she told her side of the story.