Just give me 'till morning to give up this fight... and I will give up this fight.
"Turn down the lights, turn down the bed,
Turn down these voices inside my head.
Lay down with me, tell me no lies,
Just hold me close, don't patronize.
Don't patronize me..."
I walked away from Buffy, feeling the strength of her essence, and the way its warmth seemed to cover a person with a certain glow. I supposed, though I never doubted or questioned, that that was why she was a leader. To have such an effect on people, just in essence alone, was an incredible, inherent thing. Few people had that. The ability to sufuse strength in others, just by being.
Yet, part of me was so much emptier still.
So I could walk away from our talk, with a simple understanding of why I was here, who and what had brought me back. I could feel touched, beyond any even best attempt to articulate how touched to the core I was, that when it came to bargaining, one life for the eternal loss of Angel's soul, my life had been chosen. And I could go into this next battle, knowing we were going to win it, if not for the sheer fact that it was what we had always done.
But I still walked away knowing some fights would not be won. That they had already been lost.
And it felt so cold inside the mystery.
I could get through it, I know. But ghosts, they linger for a long time. Probably the reason it's so hard to give them up, even long after everyone else felt it was time.
"Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't.
You can't make your heart feel, something it won't.
Here in the dark, in these final hours,
I will lay down my heart, and I'll feel the power.
But you won't, no, you won't.
'Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't."
I hadn't really learned the place yet, as well as I'd have liked to, but I managed. Managed to get past all the people, and up into my room without a tear being seen. And it surely wasn't for lack of falling, because they were. But just for some unnamed blessing given to me, as I wiped at tears, and my nose; with the back of my hand.
Memories were flooding me, like so many walls had been broken, dams had collapsed, and everything inside me, that remained, that had survived the death of me, began pouring out into vast nothingness, where it could remain. I was an empty vessel, with room for rain. And on this sadness, I would float.
(Or perhaps drown.)
Willow: You were there looking for me?
Tara: I thought maybe we could do a spell, make people talk again? I'd seen you in the group, the W-Wicca group. You were... you were different than them, they didn't seem to know...
Willow: ...what they were talking about?
Tara: I think if they saw a witch, they would..um.. run the other way.
I smiled blindly through the tears as I relived that moment, stopping in the doorway to just... really be in it one more time, before I could push myself the rest of the way through the threshold, closing the door with my back against it.
Seeing Willow for the first time... I couldn't forget it if I died a a thousand times and had all of my memories stripped from me. I would always remember her hair, red, and fiery, which is definitely not her element, fundamentally. But it can be, depending. And her eyes, sparkling with the excitement that was all to soon crushed by the poor immitation of Wicca group we'd both joined. She was beautiful, and not in the way that so many girls are.
She was different. Everything about her. From her obvious distinction from the other would-be witches, to her smile, and everything between, and beyond. The parts of her I would only come to know. I felt them then. They awakened something inside of me, and there was a connection there. Without forging it, it was there.
I just never thought it was dissolvable.
"I'll close my eyes, then I won't see,
The love you don't feel when you're holding me.
Morning will come, and I'll do what's right,
Just give me till then, to give up this fight.
And I will give up this fight."
Willow: Thanks for coming with. Hunting for a pyschopathic super bitch is definitely in the above and beyond category.
Tara: It's OK really. So, um.. what do we do when we find her?
Willow: Run, flee, maybe skedaddle. We're not here to engage, this is strictly recon.
(Tara laughs)
Willow: What?
Tara: You said recon, you're like cool monster fighter.
I slipped off my shoes, and changed into something more comfortable, just wanting to curl up with my memories, since they were all I had left.
Numbly, I turned down the blankets on my bed, slipping under them. I curled up tight around myself, seeking comfort within the confines of my own fetal embrace, as the still waters ran even deeper, and the memories became tidal waves I was losing myself on.
Willow: Tara:, it's not like I don't want my friends to know you. It's just well, Buffy's my best friend and she's really special and there's this whole bunch of us. And we sort of have this group thing that revolves around the slaying and I really want you to meet them but I just kinda like having something that's just you know, mine? And I usually don't use so many words to say stuff that little but, do you get it all?
Tara: I do.
Willow: I should check in with Giles, get a situation update.
Tara: I am you know...
Willow: What?
Tara: Yours...
Hers...
I was. When she wanted something that was just hers, I was. We only belong to ourselves at the end of the day, but as much as I could be anybody's, I was hers.
Tara: I think there's a way we can... The passage to the Nether Realm. There's a ritual, if you can find Buffy there, you should be able to see.
Willow: If it would help her. (Tara: frowns) What?
Tara: Well, the Nether Realm exists beyond the physical world. Accessing it is like astral projection. It's very intense. I have to be your anchor, keep you on this plane.
Willow: I trust you.
Tara:: It's not like anything we've ever...
Willow: I trust you.
And without anchor to the physical world, even now it felt, I was lost.
Those days, when I was living them, I never imagined us being here now. I'd always imagined myself alone. That's what I'd expected, until Willow came along.
But then it was like, all of a sudden, there as a tie there. And I could believe in concepts such as forever, and trust, and... and not being alone.
Willow: No candles? Well I brought one, it's extra flamey. Tara, I have to tell you that...
Tara: No I understand. You have to be with the person you l-love.
Willow: I am.
Tara: You mean?
Willow: I mean. Okay?
Tara: Oh yes.
Willow: I feel horrible about everything I put you through. I'm gonna make it up, too. Starting right now.
Tara: Right now?
Tunnels... deep, and dark, and undending. My mind was on fire tonight. Or like, one of those movie reel things. And the girl's sitting alone in the theatre, watching old movies in black and white, crying.
Except my old movies weren't in black and white.
They were in vivid, surreal color.
And that, I think, made it infinitely harder.
Willow: I still can't believe you didn't tell me about your family and all that.
Tara: I was just afraid if you saw the kind of people I came from, you wouldn't want to be near me.
Willow: See, that's where you're a dummy. I think about what you grew up with and then I look at what you are... it makes me proud... it makes me love you more.
Tara: Everytime I... even at my worst, you always make me feel special. How do you do that?
Willow: Magic!
I turned over in unrest, trying to curl up around myself even tighter. I wanted to stop this madness. But the parts of me that wanted to remember were too strong,and a sudden montage of memories hit me without reprieve.
Willow: You know I used to love to look up at them when I was little. It's suppose to make you feel all insignificant but, they made me feel like, like I was in space. Part of the stars. There's Canis minor and Cassiopia.
Tara: And the big pineapple.
Willow: Uhm, you know I'm not sure I remember that one.
Tara: Oh, it's a major one. See those three bright stars right over there?
Willow: Yeah.
Tara: And see those stars along there? That's the bottom of the pineapple.
Willow: It's big.
Tara: Hence the name. The real ones never made sense to me. I sort of have my own.
Willow: Teach me.
*
Willow: We can come by between classes. Usually I use that time to copy over my class notes with a system of different colored pens, but it's been pointed out to me that that's, you know, insane.
Tara: I said "quirky".
*
Tara: Our relationship?
Willow: We're friends.
Tara: Good friends.
Willow: Girlfriends, actually.
Tara: Yes, we're girlfriends.
Willow: We're in love.
*
Willow: I had too much nog.
Tara: Oh, baby, do you want me to rub your tummy? (to Xander and Anya) She likes it when I... (Willow looks at her, slightly embarassed...) stop explaining things.
*
Tara: Shhh...
Willow: Tara...
Tara: Shhhhhh, darling...
Willow: I can't do this...
(Kisses)
Tara: We can do this.
*
Willow: It's okay. I can do this. I'm gonna take care of her. Even if she never... She's my girl.
Buffy: I understand.
Willow: I know you do. (To Tara) Hear that, baby? You're my always.
*
Willow: Tara? Tara!
Tara: Willow?
Willow: Tara?!
Tara: Willow... I got so lost ...
Willow: I found you.
She kisses Tara's face and they embrace tightly
Willow: I'll always find you...
*
Willow: Tara.
Tara: Nobody messes with my girl.
Xander: Tara, nice axing.
Tara: My first.
*
Tara: Ohh. (Laughs) Your feet are cold.
Willow: Better warm me up.
Tara: Mmm. This is how everyday should always end and start and all the stuff in the middle.
*
Willow: When did morning happen?
Tara: After the moon went down. (KISS)
Willow: Ohhhhhh, hmmm. I forgot how good this could feel. Us. Together. Without the magic.
Tara: There was plenty of magic.
*
Tara: Your shirt.
I shivered,feeling it move all the way up my spine as I closed my eyes tight against the memories trying to cut them off, but only spilling more tears. Like the blood I had bled. Except this time? Willow's shirt was clean.
I stood up, moving to my window andpullingback the blindsas I lookedout into the darkness, the night. I wrapped one arm around myself, the other holding the curtain open. Through bleary eyes, I saw lights, and a city that lay beyond my memories, in its newness. Still, I failed to see the light.
How could we have lived all of that, together, and then go on to seperate lives? How does anyone do it? Live a whole new life, when there's so much in the one you already have.
Was I being selfish in not understanding how these things happen?
Tara: Things fall apart, they fall apart so hard.
Willow: Tara.
Tara: You can never…put them back the way they were.
Willow: Are you ok?
Tara: I’m sorry, it’s just… (deep sigh) You know…it takes time. You can’t just have coffee and expect…
Willow: I know.
Tara: There's so much to work through. Trust has to be built again on both sides. You have to learn if...if we're even the same people we were. If we can fit in each other's lives. It's a long and important process and... can we just skip it? Can... can you just be kissing me now?
But she wouldn't be, not this time. Not ever again. All those things that need to happen after a thing falls apart weren't even applicable. Because we hadn't fallen apart.
She had just fallen out of love.
Crossing back over to my bed, I curled up under the sheets once more, resinging myself to a Fate I could not force or make happen. I couldn't just make Willow be in love with me again. And for all the history we had, I knew nothing of the history she had begun with her new love.
And so I would begin my life alone. My new life, the one I'd always believed I'd been intended to lead anyway.
But I would always, for the rest of my life, remember.
Willow: I'm definitely nothing special.
Tara: No, you are!
"Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't.
You can't make your heart feel, something it won't.
Here in the dark, in these final hours,
I will lay down my heart, and I'll feel the power.
But you won't, no, you won't.
'Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't."
Turn down these voices inside my head.
Lay down with me, tell me no lies,
Just hold me close, don't patronize.
Don't patronize me..."
I walked away from Buffy, feeling the strength of her essence, and the way its warmth seemed to cover a person with a certain glow. I supposed, though I never doubted or questioned, that that was why she was a leader. To have such an effect on people, just in essence alone, was an incredible, inherent thing. Few people had that. The ability to sufuse strength in others, just by being.
Yet, part of me was so much emptier still.
So I could walk away from our talk, with a simple understanding of why I was here, who and what had brought me back. I could feel touched, beyond any even best attempt to articulate how touched to the core I was, that when it came to bargaining, one life for the eternal loss of Angel's soul, my life had been chosen. And I could go into this next battle, knowing we were going to win it, if not for the sheer fact that it was what we had always done.
But I still walked away knowing some fights would not be won. That they had already been lost.
And it felt so cold inside the mystery.
I could get through it, I know. But ghosts, they linger for a long time. Probably the reason it's so hard to give them up, even long after everyone else felt it was time.
"Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't.
You can't make your heart feel, something it won't.
Here in the dark, in these final hours,
I will lay down my heart, and I'll feel the power.
But you won't, no, you won't.
'Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't."
I hadn't really learned the place yet, as well as I'd have liked to, but I managed. Managed to get past all the people, and up into my room without a tear being seen. And it surely wasn't for lack of falling, because they were. But just for some unnamed blessing given to me, as I wiped at tears, and my nose; with the back of my hand.
Memories were flooding me, like so many walls had been broken, dams had collapsed, and everything inside me, that remained, that had survived the death of me, began pouring out into vast nothingness, where it could remain. I was an empty vessel, with room for rain. And on this sadness, I would float.
(Or perhaps drown.)
Willow: You were there looking for me?
Tara: I thought maybe we could do a spell, make people talk again? I'd seen you in the group, the W-Wicca group. You were... you were different than them, they didn't seem to know...
Willow: ...what they were talking about?
Tara: I think if they saw a witch, they would..um.. run the other way.
I smiled blindly through the tears as I relived that moment, stopping in the doorway to just... really be in it one more time, before I could push myself the rest of the way through the threshold, closing the door with my back against it.
Seeing Willow for the first time... I couldn't forget it if I died a a thousand times and had all of my memories stripped from me. I would always remember her hair, red, and fiery, which is definitely not her element, fundamentally. But it can be, depending. And her eyes, sparkling with the excitement that was all to soon crushed by the poor immitation of Wicca group we'd both joined. She was beautiful, and not in the way that so many girls are.
She was different. Everything about her. From her obvious distinction from the other would-be witches, to her smile, and everything between, and beyond. The parts of her I would only come to know. I felt them then. They awakened something inside of me, and there was a connection there. Without forging it, it was there.
I just never thought it was dissolvable.
"I'll close my eyes, then I won't see,
The love you don't feel when you're holding me.
Morning will come, and I'll do what's right,
Just give me till then, to give up this fight.
And I will give up this fight."
Willow: Thanks for coming with. Hunting for a pyschopathic super bitch is definitely in the above and beyond category.
Tara: It's OK really. So, um.. what do we do when we find her?
Willow: Run, flee, maybe skedaddle. We're not here to engage, this is strictly recon.
(Tara laughs)
Willow: What?
Tara: You said recon, you're like cool monster fighter.
I slipped off my shoes, and changed into something more comfortable, just wanting to curl up with my memories, since they were all I had left.
Numbly, I turned down the blankets on my bed, slipping under them. I curled up tight around myself, seeking comfort within the confines of my own fetal embrace, as the still waters ran even deeper, and the memories became tidal waves I was losing myself on.
Willow: Tara:, it's not like I don't want my friends to know you. It's just well, Buffy's my best friend and she's really special and there's this whole bunch of us. And we sort of have this group thing that revolves around the slaying and I really want you to meet them but I just kinda like having something that's just you know, mine? And I usually don't use so many words to say stuff that little but, do you get it all?
Tara: I do.
Willow: I should check in with Giles, get a situation update.
Tara: I am you know...
Willow: What?
Tara: Yours...
Hers...
I was. When she wanted something that was just hers, I was. We only belong to ourselves at the end of the day, but as much as I could be anybody's, I was hers.
Tara: I think there's a way we can... The passage to the Nether Realm. There's a ritual, if you can find Buffy there, you should be able to see.
Willow: If it would help her. (Tara: frowns) What?
Tara: Well, the Nether Realm exists beyond the physical world. Accessing it is like astral projection. It's very intense. I have to be your anchor, keep you on this plane.
Willow: I trust you.
Tara:: It's not like anything we've ever...
Willow: I trust you.
And without anchor to the physical world, even now it felt, I was lost.
Those days, when I was living them, I never imagined us being here now. I'd always imagined myself alone. That's what I'd expected, until Willow came along.
But then it was like, all of a sudden, there as a tie there. And I could believe in concepts such as forever, and trust, and... and not being alone.
Willow: No candles? Well I brought one, it's extra flamey. Tara, I have to tell you that...
Tara: No I understand. You have to be with the person you l-love.
Willow: I am.
Tara: You mean?
Willow: I mean. Okay?
Tara: Oh yes.
Willow: I feel horrible about everything I put you through. I'm gonna make it up, too. Starting right now.
Tara: Right now?
Tunnels... deep, and dark, and undending. My mind was on fire tonight. Or like, one of those movie reel things. And the girl's sitting alone in the theatre, watching old movies in black and white, crying.
Except my old movies weren't in black and white.
They were in vivid, surreal color.
And that, I think, made it infinitely harder.
Willow: I still can't believe you didn't tell me about your family and all that.
Tara: I was just afraid if you saw the kind of people I came from, you wouldn't want to be near me.
Willow: See, that's where you're a dummy. I think about what you grew up with and then I look at what you are... it makes me proud... it makes me love you more.
Tara: Everytime I... even at my worst, you always make me feel special. How do you do that?
Willow: Magic!
I turned over in unrest, trying to curl up around myself even tighter. I wanted to stop this madness. But the parts of me that wanted to remember were too strong,and a sudden montage of memories hit me without reprieve.
Willow: You know I used to love to look up at them when I was little. It's suppose to make you feel all insignificant but, they made me feel like, like I was in space. Part of the stars. There's Canis minor and Cassiopia.
Tara: And the big pineapple.
Willow: Uhm, you know I'm not sure I remember that one.
Tara: Oh, it's a major one. See those three bright stars right over there?
Willow: Yeah.
Tara: And see those stars along there? That's the bottom of the pineapple.
Willow: It's big.
Tara: Hence the name. The real ones never made sense to me. I sort of have my own.
Willow: Teach me.
*
Willow: We can come by between classes. Usually I use that time to copy over my class notes with a system of different colored pens, but it's been pointed out to me that that's, you know, insane.
Tara: I said "quirky".
*
Tara: Our relationship?
Willow: We're friends.
Tara: Good friends.
Willow: Girlfriends, actually.
Tara: Yes, we're girlfriends.
Willow: We're in love.
*
Willow: I had too much nog.
Tara: Oh, baby, do you want me to rub your tummy? (to Xander and Anya) She likes it when I... (Willow looks at her, slightly embarassed...) stop explaining things.
*
Tara: Shhh...
Willow: Tara...
Tara: Shhhhhh, darling...
Willow: I can't do this...
(Kisses)
Tara: We can do this.
*
Willow: It's okay. I can do this. I'm gonna take care of her. Even if she never... She's my girl.
Buffy: I understand.
Willow: I know you do. (To Tara) Hear that, baby? You're my always.
*
Willow: Tara? Tara!
Tara: Willow?
Willow: Tara?!
Tara: Willow... I got so lost ...
Willow: I found you.
She kisses Tara's face and they embrace tightly
Willow: I'll always find you...
*
Willow: Tara.
Tara: Nobody messes with my girl.
Xander: Tara, nice axing.
Tara: My first.
*
Tara: Ohh. (Laughs) Your feet are cold.
Willow: Better warm me up.
Tara: Mmm. This is how everyday should always end and start and all the stuff in the middle.
*
Willow: When did morning happen?
Tara: After the moon went down. (KISS)
Willow: Ohhhhhh, hmmm. I forgot how good this could feel. Us. Together. Without the magic.
Tara: There was plenty of magic.
*
Tara: Your shirt.
I shivered,feeling it move all the way up my spine as I closed my eyes tight against the memories trying to cut them off, but only spilling more tears. Like the blood I had bled. Except this time? Willow's shirt was clean.
I stood up, moving to my window andpullingback the blindsas I lookedout into the darkness, the night. I wrapped one arm around myself, the other holding the curtain open. Through bleary eyes, I saw lights, and a city that lay beyond my memories, in its newness. Still, I failed to see the light.
How could we have lived all of that, together, and then go on to seperate lives? How does anyone do it? Live a whole new life, when there's so much in the one you already have.
Was I being selfish in not understanding how these things happen?
Tara: Things fall apart, they fall apart so hard.
Willow: Tara.
Tara: You can never…put them back the way they were.
Willow: Are you ok?
Tara: I’m sorry, it’s just… (deep sigh) You know…it takes time. You can’t just have coffee and expect…
Willow: I know.
Tara: There's so much to work through. Trust has to be built again on both sides. You have to learn if...if we're even the same people we were. If we can fit in each other's lives. It's a long and important process and... can we just skip it? Can... can you just be kissing me now?
But she wouldn't be, not this time. Not ever again. All those things that need to happen after a thing falls apart weren't even applicable. Because we hadn't fallen apart.
She had just fallen out of love.
Crossing back over to my bed, I curled up under the sheets once more, resinging myself to a Fate I could not force or make happen. I couldn't just make Willow be in love with me again. And for all the history we had, I knew nothing of the history she had begun with her new love.
And so I would begin my life alone. My new life, the one I'd always believed I'd been intended to lead anyway.
But I would always, for the rest of my life, remember.
Willow: I'm definitely nothing special.
Tara: No, you are!
"Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't.
You can't make your heart feel, something it won't.
Here in the dark, in these final hours,
I will lay down my heart, and I'll feel the power.
But you won't, no, you won't.
'Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't."