1st Spell

[moontothetide]

Who: Tara and whoever she happens to stumble across
What: A newcomer tries to find her way out, and instead finds a hell of a lot of trouble along the way.
When: All day
Where: The floors listed below
Format: Commentspam or prose, I'll copy whatever you give me
Warning: T for danger and possible violence

Awareness returns all in a rush. The haze and disorientation that always follow teleporting are a little slower to fade. But the first thing Tara knows is that she's on her back, resting on what feels like a mattress.

Opening her eyes reveals a ceiling. It's not a terribly distinctive ceiling. Tara attempts to turn her head, to see and take in more of the room and maybe get a sense of where she is. And the failure of her body to respond to even that simple command is enough to confirm for her that she can't move.

A few more seconds of increasingly desperate and entirely fruitless attempts to move result, before Tara gives up and relaxes her whipcord tense muscles with a whimper. Actually speaking up takes psyching herself up a bit, but finally she manages it.

"Um...h-hello? Can...c-can someone please help me? Or at least, m-maybe tell me how I got here? I...I don't remember. A-And, I...kind of can't seem to move. At all."

Later on, after the sleep paralysis has worn off, Tara can be found wandering the halls of the second dormitory level. She's fished a change of clothes out of her trunk, as well as - after some hesitation - her knife, and feels a bit more herself in a shirt and pants with the knife hanging off her belt. Both hands are clamped tight around her collar, her pale fingers obviously trying to tug it looser, to find any give in it and failing. Indigo liquid runs through it, marking her as an official resident of the tower, now. Her shoulders are hunched and the girl darts a nervous glance at every door she passes and every person she sees. But anyone who looks back will find Tara hastily looking away, staring fixedly at her feet and trying not to be noticed.

***

Tara is sitting at the top of the staircase, eyeing the perilous way down with wariness and exhaustion. She's bleeding and bruised - blood streams down her arm from what appear to be claw marks in her shoulder, and the back of her shirt is torn, as though something made a grab at her as she fled and just barely missed.

In her efforts to magically urge the skin of her arm to knit a little more quickly, she's not liable to notice anyone else on the staircase right away, or her immediate surroundings at all. Given the poor state of repair it seems to be in, this might not be a very good thing for either of you. 

***

After learning even what little she has and seeing even what little she's seen of the tower thus far, Tara is reluctant to relax, even here. The garden that spreads out before her looks lush, beautiful, and peaceful. But there's danger here, and strangeness. She only needs to run her hand along her collar to know that.

But, even so, Tara finds herself wandering out into the garden, drinking in the quiet and letting the scent of flowers soothe her shattered nerves just a bit. She'll stay here, for just a while, wandering the meadow. Every so often, she'll stoop, pick a flower, and weave it into a growing daisy chain she seems to be crafting. But at the slightest sound, the slightest hint of another presence, she goes tense, gaze darting about for signs of danger. If you've just entered the garden, you'll likely feel Tara staring fixedly at you, a half finished daisy chain hanging in her hands, wondering if you're a threat and what she should do if you are.

***

Anyone coming up on the steps leading up on floor twenty two or the steps leading down on floor twenty four are liable to suddenly run into Tara coming the other way. She hurries either up or down the steps with a rather lost expression on her face, to immediately be replaced by one of surprise as she nearly runs into anyone. "O-Oh, my god, I'm so sorry..."

But then, with a frown, she stares up back the way she'd come with an expression of determination. "Not again..."

She turns, as though to start off on the stairs again.

***

Tara is dismayed to find that the staircase seems to simply end, here in the cafeteria. And, after all the walking she's done and the fright she's endured to get down this far, she absolutely refuses to accept it.

So she begins to search. Tara is growing increasingly aware that she's trapped, but refuses to accept it with her last threads of stubbornness. Attempting not to catch the eye of the other people here, Tara begins to pace the perimeter of the room, running her hands along the walls, searching for hidden catches or secret doors. Finding nothing, she examines the floor, seeking signs of trap doors. Finally, in a state of agitation and the in the center of the floor, Tara gives a frustrated growl and stamps her foot. She says a word in Latin that would, under ordinary circumstances, unlock any locked door within her range. But nothing happens, and she knows it, and finally Tara slumps to her knees in defeat. Her stomach feels impossibly empty. Maybe the people who run this madhouse will at least have the decency to feed her.

Comments

oh gosh there is going to be so much tl;dr in this thread, isn't there XD

[guiltapalooza]

Willow makes frequent trips to the meadow. It's one of the few places she feels safe in, where nothing traumatic has ever happened to her, and it reminds her of Devon. Of quiet, and recovering herself, and meditating. Since arriving she's also come to associate it with Tara-- it's where she goes when she wants to visit her grave, since the real one is inaccessible to her. And though it's been a year now for her since Tara died, and she's spent these long, long months coming to terms with that, with never expecting to see her again, it has passed through her mind that she might show up here. The tower has brought dead people here before, after all, and other versions of people, many times. The thought is an upsetting one to Willow, when it occurs to her; Tara deserves her rest, deserves heaven. She doesn't want what happened to Buffy to happen to her.

But this isn't on her mind at all when she steps out into the tall, gently waving grasses. She's injured, and just wants some peace. There's an ugly, scabbed over scrape across her cheek, with yellow bruises blossoming out from it; and a small splint on her hand, and fresh white bandages visible here and there where her clothes end. Willow had been released from the infirmary several days ago, but staying cooped up is depressing, and she's tired of being depressed.

So that's why she's here. When she sees Tara, she comes to a slow stop. It's not real. All rationality leaves her, and she seems like a ghost, sitting there making a daisy-chain as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn't died. But she had, and to Willow it feels like a cruel trick, one she doesn't know whether she should buy into.

Her voice is weak and shaky. "T-Tara...?" She can't move, she can't do anything, she can't believe. The shock is too strong, numbing.

Here's hopin'! 8D

[moontothetide]

When Tara thinks of heaven, she thinks that Willow must have gone there, and that, more than anything, she'll never make it that far to see her. Yes, Willow had made her mistakes, Willow had gone down the wrong path. But she'd wanted to change, she'd been trying to change. Given the time so harshly denied her, Tara has never been anything but certain that Willow could have made it.

But that was a future that she would never know.

"Your shirt..."

Scant days go by where Tara doesn't hear Willow's voice. The difference is that she's forgotten what it sounds like when it isn't twisted in mockery, or hate, or in taunting her with her mistakes. So she cringes, very slightly, when she hears her name spoken in that familiar, beloved voice. But she can't help but raise her head. Every visit by Willow's ghost is still a thing to treasure, a gift she doesn't deserve. So what if Willow hates her, now? At least Willow is still, in some small, sad way, with her. At least she has the chance to etch Willow's face into her memory a little more deeply.

But there's something different in Willow's face, this time. Something softer about it, and somehow indefinably realer. She looks upset, yes, but...it's not the same.

Still. She looks upset. She's looking at Tara, and she looks upset. Tara sags, her shoulders slumping in even further. Well, why shouldn't she look upset? Tara failed her, yet again. She couldn't do what needed to be done, and because of her the Hellmouth would remain open. Yes, closing it would have required taking a life, and she hadn't wanted to, not again, she'd never born Andrew any ill will, no matter what she'd told Willow...but one life, against all the people of Sunnydale. How could there ever have been a choice? Why hadn't she just shoved Dawn aside?

And now Willow was upset. Tara would teleport herself back to that dark cavern and slit Andrew's throat here and now, if only she knew how, if only it would make Willow happy.

But she couldn't. She was trapped, the collar around her throat a definite symbol of bondage. And so, caught in the intensity of Willow's gaze, Tara can only worry at the daisy chain and stammer out a reply, all while looking back at Willow as though she's simultaneously the most beautiful and terrible thing she's ever seen.

"...Willow. Um...h-hey."

[guiltapalooza]

How is she just sitting there? It's like she expects to see her. Some tiny voice in Willow's mind is aware that this might be another Tara, one that isn't hers, but it's still Tara. Her emotions are running too haywire for that bit of sense to permeate through. It hurts-- it hurts just seeing her, but it also hurts to see her nervous, to see her shy away from her. To do anything that isn't get up and run toward her and have a joyful reunion.

But it's not a joyful reunion for her, either, and she can't deny that. She'd like it to be. She wishes it could be as simple as Buffy stepping out of the way, and there she is, alive and whole and forgiving her. Forgiving each other, for leaving, for everything. It's not. Willow feels all the irrational regret and betrayal that anyone feels when a loved one has died, and though she'd mostly put that to rest, seeing her again now summons it up. Her throat squeezes shut, she chokes; a few silent tears start to run down her face as the reality hits her, and she lets out a soft, pained noise.

Even without Eridan, if he didn't exist, this wouldn't be so straight forward as pure relief and happiness for her. Because now she has to deal with the possibility that all the things she's told herself aren't true. Maybe Tara can't forgive her, maybe she wouldn't be happy, maybe she wouldn't understand her moving on. Maybe everything Willow has done since she'd died would only make her disappointed in her.

Willow has worked so, so hard, put herself through so much, to have any shred of confidence in herself again. Tara could destroy so much of that.

And yet... and yet. She trusts her. She has never trusted anyone more in her entire life. She is the person that Willow has used as inspiration and hope, as invisible guidance every time she's had a moral question. In her heart of hearts, she has no doubt, none, that Tara loves her more than she could ever be afraid of her. Sometimes that thought has been all that's kept her going.

It takes several long moments of standing silently and crying for this to surface, but when it does she starts to smile through her tears. She's incoherent, she doesn't know what she wants to say, doesn't know where to start.

She knows one thing. "Tara-- baby... Come here, I-- I have to see you. Come here." She has to touch her and make sure she's real, and wipe away that anxiety from her face. Willow has always wanted to do that for her, ever since meeting her; and she does now, especially.

She takes a step toward her, unable to wait, needing this so badly.

[moontothetide]

She flinches again when Willow takes a step near. But when she speaks, pleads, it feels like her heart is dying in her chest. The pain, the loss and remorse and guilt and need for the other, is so sharp that Tara gasps very softly, pressing a hand over her chest.

Despite herself, Tara finds herself stumbling to her feet, still clutching the half finished braid of flowers like a lifeline. Standing there, looking back at Willow, she feels the urge to obey, to run to her and throw her arms around her. A scant few feet away, she looks so real, she looks so alive, as though Tara really could embrace her and never, never let go again...

But it's a lie. It's always a lie. Willow, her sweet Willow, is dead and forever beyond her reach, except when she deigns to appear and remind Tara of how far she's fallen. She can hear her voice and look upon her, but she can't ever hold her again and Tara is suddenly so very tired of being taunted with that fact.

Even so, if only for the fact that Willow doesn't seem to be angry about what happened, she musters up a tremulous smile. "I'm here," she says, releasing a trembling hand to gesture at herself. "R-Right here. Visible and everything."

She'd never made the attempt. Even when Willow was dead and bloodied in her arms, Tara never tried to bring her back. She knew better. She understood better. Or so she'd thought at the time. Maybe if she'd stayed casting fruitless spells and wasted her energy trying to call Willow's soul back, things might have been different.

It was justice, what she'd done to Warren. Even now, Tara believed that. But it was awful justice, an awful thing she'd done and awful things she'd done to get that far. She didn't expect anyone to understand, or forgive. Willow least of all. She knows she doesn't deserve it.

But the last time she'd held Willow had been when they were both covered in her blood. Tara would give anything for this not to be a lie.

She takes a step forward, drawn by the sound of Willow's voice and the last shreds of hope she thought she'd lost a long time ago.

[guiltapalooza]

It was funny how as much as you'd thought you'd given up on something, one bare moment can make it all come back and make you hope again.

Willow doesn't have have any reason to think that Tara would be a figment of the First-- it's been so long since she's even thought of it as more than a distant threat, to be fought again at some remote time in the future. It's so far away from here, from the tower.

There's no question in her mind, no hesitation, as all of a sudden she rushes forward and wraps her arms around her. She clutches her and hides her face in her shoulder, and it's that moment after Glory had been defeated and Tara had returned to sanity all over again. If this had been even several months ago, she knows what she'd be saying: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, an endless round of apologies. But lately Willow has come to finally understand how selfish that is, indulging in her own fears and insecurities.

Sometimes it should be about Tara, not her.

"You're so beautiful," she whispers, tears choking her voice. "I didn't remember. You're beautiful."

[moontothetide]

For a moment, Tara is just...numb. She doesn't feel anything, not even the air against her skin, to say nothing of the warm and welcome embrace. The disbelief is just that strong. This can't be real. This must be a dream.

But the moment doesn't pass. She's not waking up. She'd be waking up by now, if this was a dream. She always wakes up before she can hold Willow again. But she isn't waking up, and Willow is really here, she feels just the same, she feels warm and alive and real.

Tara wraps her arms tightly around Willow and returns the hug with all she has. Her vision blurs as tears gather in her eyes but she doesn't stop it, doesn't fight it, she lets them fall and dot Willow's shirt, lets the tears serve as just another reminder that they're together.

And, despite everything, despite all the pain and isolation and loneliness, she feels a genuine smile touch her face at Willow's words. "Beautiful". Only Willow could tell her that and make it sound so true. The sweet and simple compliment means almost as much as everything else.

"Willow," she whispers in a choked sob. "Baby, I've missed you. I-I missed you so much..."

[guiltapalooza]

"I know. I-I've missed you, too, I can't tell you how much-- every day--" Or nearly every day, close enough that the weight of grief had felt inescapable sometimes. Only very recently Willow has learned how to live without thinking about her, to put that aside and have her own life again. It feels strange, odd, to have her suddenly back.

"I can't believe you're here. When did you... it hasn't been long?"

It can't have been too long. Willow likes to think she'd have felt her presence before the day was out, so attuned to feeling Tara's energy as she was. Reality starts to intrude on her again as their hugging jostles one of her injuries, and she winces and draws back hesitantly to meet her eyes. They're both such a mess, tearful and injured and overwrought, and she doesn't care one bit. It feels natural to be so close together. It feels right.

And though she dreads telling her that they can't be together again, that she's with someone else, Willow takes this every moment as precious. She can't imagine being without Tara, but more than that she can't betray someone she loves. Not again. She's done that enough times in her life already. Ultimately it's nowhere near as simple as her or him, but just having her in front of her is overwhelming and thrilling. It's more than she ever thought she'd get.

[moontothetide]

"N-Not long at all," Tara says. She notes the pain in Willow's eyes and what have to be the shadows of injuries. But, after her own encounter with the huge, hulking monster over ten floors above, an encounter she'd only escaped by quite literally flying back to the staircase, she knows the tower is a dangerous place. The slash to her arm still throbs painfully, but a bit of magic to at least encourage natural healing had stopped the bleeding.

That doesn't mean it doesn't trouble her immensely to see Willow in pain. Tara draws back just enough to give the other girl space, and moves her hands down to take hold of the others' instead, just to maintain the contact between them. "J-Just a few hours, I think." She couldn't be certain, all she had was the sky outside the windows to go by, but it hadn't felt longer than a day.

"I-I just, woke up..." She nods at the ceiling over their heads, meaning the second dormitory level far above. "Thought I'd look around. M-Maybe try and find a way out."

She'd become so used to Willow's presence that it was odd, having her in the same building and being completely unaware of it. But dead Willow, she was fast coming to see, was much different from living Willow. Given enough time to think and sort out her thoughts, Tara might even think to grow suspicious about that.

"...w-what about you?"

She remembers the letter, and Tara chews worriedly at her lip. They...whoever they were...said her world was gone. She had no reason to believe them, she desperately didn't want to believe them, and yet...

Tara looks back up at Willow, and draws some small modicum of strength from her presence. She smiles, faintly, as their eyes meet. At least Willow is here. It's not all hopeless. Willow is here. Maybe Dawnie is, too.

[guiltapalooza]

"Months," she admits softly, holding her hands in hers without a second thought. She might not intend to betray Eridan, but it feels wrong not to touch Tara at all. But they'll get to that part of the conversation when they get to it; Willow chews her lip, a nervous habit that she can't push down. There's so much for them to say to each other, the words feel looming and huge, an unscalable mountain.

One thing at a time. "It's been almost half a year. I... never thought I'd see you again. I gave up on that a long time ago, ever since-- what happened after you died."

That's another topic she isn't eager to discuss, but she can't put it off forever. Tara deserves to know, all of it. She has to make her own decisions and have her own feelings. Willow doesn't deny that now, would never try to control that for her again.

[moontothetide]

Tara simply stares at their interlocked hands for several seconds, feeling something warm and bright and bubbly growing inside her at the sight. She runs her thumbs along the back of Willow's hands. She smiles a silly sort of smile and swings them a bit, enjoying the way doing so makes their arms move together. It's impossible not to touch Willow. After so many months denied even the simplest sign of love from her, to do anything else is just impossible.

So it's a second or so after Willow speaks that Tara understands. A slow frown creeps over her face. She stops running her thumbs along the back of Willow's hands. She stops moving, and just...stares at nothing.

"W-What?"

[guiltapalooza]

"What, what?" Willow instantly frowns back at her, hands tightening in their grip, uncertain. Her earlier suspicion that this isn't the Tara she was expecting comes back to her, but she doesn't want to listen to it. She wants this to be her as much as she doesn't want it to be.

"Do you... want to hear what happened?" The words are tentative. She tries to live up to her mistakes, and not flinch away from what she's done; but that's a lot to live up to with no preparation for talking about it with her. "It's not a fun story, it-- I just lost it after I saw you g-get shot, and I couldn't... I couldn't bring you back."

[moontothetide]

"I got shot?"

Tara can't help but blurt out the words, can't keep the shock out of her face or her voice. She shakes her head, freeing one hand from Willow's grip so she can reach out and rest it against her one-time girlfriend's cheek. "W-Willow, baby, that's not..."

She realizes with a thrill what must be wrong. Or, at least, she thinks she does. Assuming Willow was brought here, somehow, directly after what happened...the suddenness of what happened probably meant she hadn't had time to process it. She'd probably made up an entirely different version of events, just to account for her own survival, one where the bullet hadn't torn into her.

Tara couldn't fault her, having Willow here when Tara had personally buried her was requiring a reworking of her knowledge of the world as it was.

...she won't deny her the lie, then. It would just be unkind. And it might mean that she doesn't have to be the one to tell Willow the truth.

"...sh-shouldn't have tried to bring me back," she finishes, softly. "Y-You, you should have known better. After...a-after Buffy."

[guiltapalooza]

Willow, on the other hand, knows instantly from the way Tara reacts what the likeliest answer is. Before she can bring it up, there's that mention of resurrection, and she flushes in shame.

"I know. I know that now, I promise." She's eager to prove her sincerity, tone earnest and eyes wide, a little desperate. "You deserve your rest, you... out of anyone, you deserve to be in heaven, sweetie. But I was so angry, I couldn't think straight. I just wanted you back.

"Did you... not get shot? Where you're from?" Willow doesn't want to dump the whole alternate reality theory on her without getting some more information first. Even for the Scoobies it's weird and unreal.

[moontothetide]

Even for the Scoobies...and Tara was never much of a Scooby to start with, not without Willow...this entire day has been weird and unusual.

And the last explanation Tara is going to consider is "alternate universe", having never had to endure the utter badness that was Willow the Vampire. So she's evidently a bit confused by the question, and has to spend a second or so wondering how much to say.

She should tell the truth, she knows, she should tell her everything, especially if this is really her Willow, but...

"Nope. N-No getting shot, here."

[guiltapalooza]

But no getting shot means... Willow feels her heart lurch in her chest, and she swallows a lump in her throat. She knew this was a possibility all along, but it hadn't felt real, and now she has to explain that to her. She has to not only ruin her own hopes but Tara's.

She's hesitant still, anxious and vulnerable as she always is when she has to tell bad news, her eyes trailing over Tara's face to gauge her reaction.

"Then you... Tara, I... Sometimes there's people here from, from different versions of reality. L-Like at home there was a vampire me once? From a different dimension. And... I think that-- we are. From different dimensions.

"I know I saw you get shot," she assures her, real grief edging into her eyes. Her voice shakes a little as she finishes, but tries to keep it under control. "I could never forget that-- there was so much blood-- so..."

[moontothetide]

"...I got shot?"

She repeats the words more slowly, and with rather less disbelief. Different selves from different worlds where different things happen...

...it explains a bit, if she really thinks about it. It explains how Willow is here, for one thing. It isn't as though Tara hadn't wished that somewhere, somehow, things could have gone differently.

If "gone differently" involved her getting shot instead of Willow, well, that actually sounds fine and dandy.

"I-I think I like your dimension better."

[guiltapalooza]

"Wh-what?" She stares at her in shock for a second, and then blurts out, horrified, "No! You can't like it better, there's nothing better about it! You're dead, there." Willow takes a step back to put distance between them, though she keeps their hands linked, too upset to be that close anymore but unwilling to let go completely.

It's an automatic, instinctual reaction, a complete kneejerk. Any world without Tara in it was by default worse. Though intellectually Willow could think of plenty of catastrophic things that could potentially happen to their Earth, emotionally they didn't bring up the associated trauma of seeing her killed in front of her, and the resulting mess.

"How could you say that? What... what happened to you?" This is the overriding question looming in her mind, and it's getting bigger with everything Tara says. To prefer Willow's world at all made her afraid to hear what it was really like for her.

[moontothetide]

There's a sad edge to Tara's smile, now. She stares down at their joined hands, absently swinging their arms again.

"Because you're not."

It's as simple as that. Willow is Willow, in this other Sunnydale that apparently exists somewhere. She's not an angry ghost, and no one tore her out of heaven like they did Buffy and made her live in a world she'd moved on from. That in particular was a weight lifted from Tara's shoulders. She thought someone in this tower must have used similar magics, brought her back from the dead, and all the reassurances she'd given Buffy aside, that just wasn't something that should be done, for the sake of the dead if nothing else.

But the reality was apparently much, much simpler than that. Willow had never died. It was such a simple explanation, but it was perfect. And Tara smiled to know it. Okay, she had died instead, but...well, that didn't matter. Not really. It was still so much better.

Willow wouldn't have messed up all the things Tara had.

There's just one worry she has left, and she voices it hesitantly:

"A-And, and I'm not a ghost? O-Or anything like that? I-I'm not all...angry and scary?"

Because Willow's ghost, much as Tara needed it around, was angry and scary sometimes.

"...w-was it Warren?"

[guiltapalooza]

"Angry and scary? You could never be angry and scary. Well, angry maybe, but only when you should be, and never scary. So... no, not a ghost, not anything."

Willow can't be as sanguine about this as Tara is. She's still concerned, a frown furrowing her eyebrows, uncertainty clear across her face. If she could hear her thoughts she'd be upset at them, but since she can't, she's left feeling overwhelmed with trepidation.

Her voice quiets. "... Yeah. It was Warren. Why are you asking me this? What happened?" The more Tara says, or rather doesn't say, the worse it's starting to seem.

[moontothetide]

"...y-you got shot. Not me. You. Y-You were s-standing in front of the window, in our room, and I guess Warren was down in the garden, looking for Buffy, and, and h-he..."

Needless to say, it's not a memory she likes recalling. Tara frees one hand to scrub at her eyes, chasing away the warning sting of tears, before she holds Willow's again. But she still stares resolutely at her feet, knowing that she can't hold the sobs back forever. Her voice is still shaking a bit, tight with long suppressed grief.

"I-I...I saved Buffy. But...you were, um, already...a-and, and then, um, bad things. Very bad things."

She has to say it. She has to. Willow might hate her for it, or be disgusted by what she did, but...she has to know. She deserves to know what Tara did, for her, in her name, even if it was horrible.

"I...I killed him. Warren. I killed him. S-So he...couldn't hurt anyone else. L-Like you, or his girlfriend. Th-Then I left. I talked to Dawnie...a-and Giles...h-he tried to stop me. But I left."

omg I'm sorry this took, like, a week.

[guiltapalooza]

She should have seen this coming, should have guessed, but she's shocked. Maybe in shock. She stares at Tara blankly for several long moments, and then horror starts to come over her face, overtaking it. It's hard to process what she's saying.

It slowly filters through, that Tara had to endure what she had had to, something she wouldn't wish on anyone. That entire time after Tara's death was hazy and shrouded with the magnitude of her emotions, and her consequential turning to the dark; it had taken on an unreal weight in her mind. Imagining her, in front of her, having to endure it... She realizes belatedly, with sinking dread, what 'very bad things', and 'killing Warren'-- what that meant. Tara had used dark magic, too.

But when she says that last line, that's not what she can focus on. Willow chokes on her own breath, and her hands in Tara's tighten as much as they can given one is splinted, squeezing her fingers. She meets her eyes, and searches them, and tries not to let on how confused her heart is by all of this. Her feelings are a roiling mess, jumbled and leaking into each other.

"You... you left? Baby, why would you... You need them. I-I know I wasn't-- wasn't there, but trying to deal with that alone... I know. I went to England for a while, to recover, and. And afterward everyone was just glad to have me back.

"You shouldn't do this by yourself. Do everything." More than anything else, Willow didn't want to think of Tara grief-stricken and recovering from the thrall of dark magic by herself. She couldn't fathom doing it herself and coming out the other side sane.

But it's a great tag! So I'm not :)

[moontothetide]

"I needed you. They needed you, but...they, th-they just had me, instead. Besides, I...I-I didn't think Buffy would be too happy, with a.." She screws up her face and all but spits the word out. "...m-murderer taking care of Dawnie."

Warren had to die. That didn't mean anyone had to like it.

Tara had never felt quite as close to the other Scoobies as a group. It had been individuals, instead - looking after Dawn when Willow couldn't, trying to be there for Buffy when the Slayer had been at the end of her rope. With the others, though...well, Tara had known, deep down, that they would have wanted Willow instead of her.

"...and I wasn't alone."

But there's a note of disquiet in her voice, now, that wouldn't have been there before this reunion. Maybe Willow, her Willow, had been right to be so angry with her. But compared to this person, this real flesh and blood person in front of her, Tara found herself doubting.

"That's, um, th-that's why I asked if, um, I was a ghost, after I died. Because...Willow, after I left, you...you f-followed me. You, y-you were dead, but you stayed with me, and you told me things, and you helped me. And..." Because that sounds so very selfish, now that she tells it to Willow herself, and one thing Tara had always tried to avoid being was needlessly selfish. "Baby, I, I-I did try to help you, I tried to let you rest, I was working on it, but..." Here she tugs wryly on her collar. "H-Here I am."

Selfish it may have been, but it had been better than being alone, which is something that Tara had feared since fleeing Sunnydale. The Ghost of Willow had known this, and threatened her with it often.

"So, see?" She smiled back at Willow, trying force the tremble from her voice and the hesitance from her smile and not quite succeeding. "I, I wasn't alone, a-and I wasn't surprised to see you, because...y-you never left."

dawwww thank you <3

[guiltapalooza]

She can't help but be hurt, both personally and on her behalf. "You think I didn't kill Warren, in my version?" she asks, before she can stop herself. As always, Willow's feelings overtake her, and it's clear that she's upset at the suggestion. "They let me take care of Dawn. I didn't think I deserved it, either. And-- yeah, I'm sure they were grieving, but Buffy would never give up on you. I know that she wouldn't."

Willow's faith in Buffy is one of the few unshakeable things to her, something she couldn't fathom betraying.

The rest is all a lot to take in. It's a cascade of realizations, of putting together what had happened to Tara, what had really happened. She'd probably used black magic, she'd killed, she'd been alone-- and she'd been followed by Willow's ghost. Or something pretending to be Willow's ghost.

It's been a while, months even, since she's last thought of the First. But the dread and helplessness and utter sense of wrong that was associated with it came back to her as fresh as ever. It's not hard, after everything that'd happened back home, to put this together. There's a chance that it isn't what she thinks, of course, given alternate universes; but it seems so slim and remote, when everything else had been the same. Tara reacts and speaks and smiles like Willow remembers, and when all the rest matches up, that means...

"No... Tara, I-- That wasn't me. That can't have been me. You know that natural deaths don't-- don't do that, that's why I couldn't bring you back." It's said with numbness, only slowly giving way to pained understanding.

"Don't you... know anything about the First?"

[moontothetide]

"I-I know that." She had known from the second she'd felt Willow, dead and lifeless and unmoving in her arms, that that was it. But ghosts, ghosts were different. The frat house where the poltergeists had crawled in her head...people who died violent or sudden deaths, they were the perfect candidates to come back as ghosts. And it had hurt, to see Willow in such a state, but...she'd told Tara how she could help, and Tara had tried.

It had all made sense at the time.

"F-First?" It sounds familiar, and Tara casts her memory back. After a few seconds, it clicks into place, and she nods vigorously. "Y-Yeah. I, I mean, not a lot, but I think Buffy must have mentioned it, once. The, um, the First Slayer, right?"

Buffy had seen her, when she'd been on her trip after Joyce died.

[guiltapalooza]

"Oh, god," she whispers, staring in shock again, tears welling in her eyes before she can stop herself. "Goddess. No. Not the First Slayer.

"It's-- the First Evil, the origin of... of badness. All badness. More than you can imagine. It can take the form of people who've died. It showed up as Mrs. Summers to Dawn, tried to trick her; and as Buffy to Spike, made him go all crazy. For you... it could be me."