TITLE: Laid To Rest
RATING: NC-17
COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: Joss owns them. I love ‘em.
FEEDBACK: Yep, tommo27@hotmail.com
SPOILERS: References to Season 5
ARCHIVE: No problem, just let me know eh?
SUMMARY: Set in my own Buffyverse, this continues on from the situation set up in ‘End of the Road’. Faith is out of prison and living in LA for now. However, the events of ‘The Gift’ have happened.
Part 23
“Tara not with you?” Faith spoke through a huge mouthful of sandwich that she had bought literally seconds ago from the snack shop opposite the village green. Swallowing hard, she lifted her hand to her mouth and licked at her fingers. “Damn, these Irish make great food!” she said, almost to herself. Glancing across at Willow beside her on the promenade, her eyes narrowed as she took in the forlorn expression on the redhead’s face. Willow had met her outside in the bright sunshine to discuss plans for their next visit to the castle, but she had hardly said a word since they had wandered from the hotel to the promenade.
Squinting up into the sunny sky, Faith watched as the three seagulls that had been circling her flapped their wings, as if in annoyance that she had thrown them no scraps at all. “Sorry guys,” she murmured, turning her attentions back to Willow. Waving her hand in front of the redhead’s eyes, Faith leant forwards to peer curiously into Willow’s face. “Earth calling Willow,” she said, half smiling.
“Huh?” Willow’s eyes focused on the face of the Slayer, coming into view to blot out the memory of Tara’s sudden coldness last night. Blinking, the redhead jerked back from Faith’s hand, as though only just noticing the bright sunshine beating down upon them, or the warm sea breeze ruffling their hair. Sheepishly, she smiled back at Faith. “Sorry,” she apologised, “got a bit carried away there.”
“I noticed,” a wry grin spread across Faith’s lips. She turned around, leaning back against the stone wall behind her, crossing her legs and folding her arms across her black leather jacket. “Don’t tell me you two aren’t talking again?”
“Uh…” Willow wasn’t sure herself. Certainly this morning Tara had been pleasant and polite. But she knew that it was Tara’s way of glossing over stuff, always had been. And she was still avoiding Willow’s need to know what was bugging her. The conversation they had had last night wasn’t so much worrying as just plain confusing. “She’s um…she’s reading, I think.”
Faith rolled her eyes and leant her head back. “She’s on holiday with her honey and she’s home reading, when you’re out here with a face that’s practically draggin’ along the ground? Right. Reading my ass.” Impatiently, Faith kicked at the ground, scuffing her boots along the uneven stone. “Jeez Red, you know what? One of these days you’re gonna piss her off so bad that she’s gonna go and never come back. Whatever’s goin’ on with you two, you gotta at least give her props for bein’ here in the first place.” Her voice had risen slightly, attracting the attention of two middle-aged holidaymakers out for a stroll along the promenade. As they looked Faith’s way, the Slayer gave them a shining grin and held up her hand in greeting. As they scurried away, alarmed by her enthusiastic friendliness, the smile dropped from her mouth almost instantly as she turned back to the shame-faced witch in front of her.
“Do you want her? I mean, at all?” Faith growled.
“Of course I do!” Willow gasped; affronted that such a thought could even enter the Slayer’s mind. “She’s everything to me!”
“Then you gotta sort this out and fast. Cuz that girl ain’t gonna hang around forever you know. You think because she loves you she’ll sit around and watch you fuck this up?” Faith shook her head disparagingly, “One day you’ll wake up and she’ll be gone.” She threw her hand over her shoulder for emphasis. “Believe me Red, I know what I’m talkin’ about. It’s too late for sorries when your girl ain’t there anymore. If you want her, you have to tell her. Make sure she knows.”
“It’s not that easy, Faith,” Willow said, feeling that the hardest thing she could do right now would be to tell Tara that she wanted her. But she did. More than anything, she wanted things to be right between them. Taking a breath, she turned to look Faith in the eye, meeting the gimlet gaze of the Slayer with some trepidation. Trying to ignore the hardened jaw line of the dark girl, Willow took a shaky breath.
“I feel like sometimes she doesn’t care, and then she does, and then I’ll tell her something and upset her and it won’t matter because in the end I’ll always be wrong anyway. I mean, I know using dark magicks is stupid, I know that but it felt right at the time. And it was alright to use dark magicks when Buffy was around because that was, you know, okay then but we were fighting Glory and we’re not fighting Glory any more and…”
“Woah,” Faith held up her hands to stop the inevitable ranting that she’d come to expect from an emotional Willow. “Let’s try this one sentence at a time, okay?” As Willow shrugged dolefully, the Slayer pushed her hair back from her face and frowned slightly. “So, things were okay until she saw you doin’ the dark mojo on that pirate chick?”
Willow nodded. She opened her mouth to explain, but Faith held up her finger again, stopping her.
“And you can’t understand why she’s all in a funk about it?” the Slayer continued.
Shaking her head, Willow let out a sigh. “No, I understand why she’s upset. I shouldn’t have done it. But I panicked, and it came so naturally…I mean, not naturally, but I just thought it would, you know, help.” She looked at the Slayer for reassurance, but the expression on Faith’s face gave her none whatsoever.
“Sure, if you think making an already homicidal ghost really hate us, then yeah, sure it helped.” Faith’s voice held a hint of sarcasm that wasn’t lost on the redhead. “Come on, Red. You know as well as I do that this black arts shit ain’t to be messed with. Didn’t anything that happened to me teach you that?”
Looking in the Slayer’s clear, deep eyes, Willow knew she was right. She let out another sigh, folding her arms around her, looking down at the weather beaten stone under her feet.
“I know how it feels,” Faith said, her voice lower and more sincere. “You get that rush of power and it’s like, nobody can touch you. Nobody.” She almost shuddered at the memory; almost felt her heart yearn for that feeling once more. It travelled dangerously close to her all the time, the wanting, the needing. She had never quite gotten over that surge of invulnerability, together with the knowledge that she was bigger, better, faster, more deadly. Haunting her as it did every day, she had begun to hate it more than anything. And herself along with it.
“Look, Red,” she leant forward, making sure that Willow could hear her properly above the sound of the waves sucking at the pebbled beach. “When I went…” she winced, “bad, I thought nothing could touch me. I was stronger than I’d ever been. Time for me to get revenge on everyone who’d ever hurt me, anyone who’d crossed me.” Willow’s eyes swivelled up to meet hers; Faith swallowed and took a breath. “I didn’t have nobody to stop me. They were all beneath me. I was up there, on a pedestal so high I thought nothin’ could knock me off. But you know what? When you fall, it’s a fuck of a long way down.” She moved back, shaking her head in shame at her own fall from grace; it seemed like so long ago. But she could still see the rage in Buffy’s eyes; still feel the surprise as the knife slid into her gut, still feel the wind whistling through her hair as she fell from the building. Quite a fall indeed. And when she had woken up, everything had changed.
“People get hurt, Red. They get hurt and there ain’t nothin’ you can do to make that better if you don’t care. If all you want is the power, then go for it. Cuz that blackness, it’ll just take you right in and keep you. And when you’re empty, when you can’t give it any more than yourself,” she pressed her lips together, firming her mouth into a hard line of regret, “that’s when you’re gone. And there ain’t no comin’ back from it.”
Pushing an errant strand of hair behind her ear, Willow’s eyes searched the Slayer’s. In them she saw pain, regret and shame, aching their way into Faith’s expression. Even with the time that had passed, the wound was still so fresh. Faith had a lot of ground to make up, she always would have. It was in her nature to seek recompense for what she considered the great injustice of simply being alive, whilst Buffy wasn’t. Several times, Faith had told Willow that it should have been her that had died. The fact that she was still here, living with the painful knowledge that the first person to believe in her was dead, was somewhat of a divine retribution. Although, a tiny grin crossed the redhead’s lips, Faith mostly called it ‘fuckin’ shit’.
Despite her attempts to turn away from using dark magicks, and her justification for doing so, Willow knew in her heart of hearts that it would end badly. But the knowing and the feeling still didn’t stop the need inside her to continue practising. She had never felt power like it in her life, not for a long time. Calling on all her reserves of mystical energy, the black arts had taken a hold of her imagination. There was nothing she couldn’t do, nothing she couldn’t be, and nothing she couldn’t achieve. And that surely, had always been her goal in life. To be the best. Living dangerously as the Scoobies did, it had seemed to Willow that giving so much of herself over to the dark side wasn’t such a great sacrifice to make. After all, Buffy had given her life.
“It’s not gonna bring her back, you know,” Faith’s voice drifted over to her again, softly and firmly. Willow reached out, grasping the Slayer’s hand in her own for a brief moment, then letting go. “Doesn’t matter how black you get, how strong you are, whatever you do. It ain’t gonna bring her back. But if you lose yourself in that…” Faith trailed off, her lips pressing together as the emotion flooded through her. “It’s such a waste, Red.”
Looking up at Faith through sad eyes, tainted with the memories of what now seemed like an eternal, pointless battle, so long ago, Willow understood. Everything she did mattered. Everything she fought for mattered. Maybe not to the people she saved, or the hellmouths they closed, or the portals to god knows what kind of hellish places they sealed. But it mattered. And it would continue to matter for as long as there were people like her, and Faith, and Tara and all the other Scoobies. Losing Buffy had thrown her off track, she realised. It had made her lose focus on what was important. On who was important. The person who mattered more to her than the entire world. The person whom she was presently pushing away. All the things that she wanted to tell Tara rushed into her head, like the waves on the shore, surging into her mind with a clarity she hadn’t felt for so long. Tara. The person who guided her and loved her and cherished her. As she was. Not as she wanted to be, or hoped to be, or even strived to be. But now, this very minute. And always.
“Faith, I have to – “ she began, but the Slayer simply reached out, giving her a push.
“Go,” she said. “Find her and tell her.”
***********************
Tara had idly leafed through one of the magick books Willow insisted they bring with them. She had eventually pushed it aside, learning next to nothing from it. Nothing she didn’t already know, anyway. The day outside was brightly making its way into the room through the window, casting several hazy beams onto the dull carpet. Outside everything was fine. Inside, it wasn’t.
A sigh escaped her as she rolled over to lie on her stomach, feeling the soft bed yield underneath her body. She knew she was avoiding Willow, if only for the simple reason that she couldn’t lie easily to her. When Willow faced her with those deep, trusting pools of sea green that wound their way around her heart and held her so close, she could deny nothing. But the truth, the awful truth, sat pointedly in her chest, nagging away at her bit by bit. Of course you want to bring your mother back and I wish we could…but it’s not possible. Resting her head onto her hands, Tara closed her eyes, her teeth reaching out to bite at her lip. Everything was possible if you dreamed it was so. Her mother had always told her that. Discovering that sometimes parents lie had pretty much destroyed her faith in anything. Because her mother had never come back. She was gone, and she stayed gone. The natural order of things put paid to that. They put her in the ground…they did, and it’s awful and unfair but this isn’t the way…
Poor Dawnie, Tara thought, her own pain mingling with empathy for the lost girl who had faced them both. Now she’s alone too. She’d tried to explain to Willow once, all about how it felt. But the redhead wasn’t always the easiest person to get through to when she was busy. After Buffy’s death, Willow had thrown herself into being busy with a feverish devotion, and she’d been gone almost every night. Tara knew that feeling well; in the days and weeks following her mother’s death, she had flung herself into reading magick books and expanding her skills in the craft. She had wanted to leave behind everything that reminded her she was alone. Sometimes she had left the house and stayed away for days. Not that her father noticed much, she thought ruefully. Her father never noticed a great deal after losing his wife. Not until Tara began to gain his attention through blacker methods, anyway. And even then, he berated her for being an embarrassment and causing a scene. But by that time, she hadn’t much cared what happened to her. Sometimes, she still didn’t.
After the first few patrols, Tara had begun to find excuses not to go with Willow, preferring instead the company of Xander, Giles, or even Anya. Watching her lover disperse demons, or stake vamps with a mere flick of her wrist, blackness raging through her eyes, had scared Tara. She’d seen the lust for dark power in Willow’s eyes, running in rivulets down her face, consuming her. And she couldn’t compete with the new passion in the redhead’s life. So she had bowed out gracefully, just like she always did. Bone…flesh…breath…yours eternally… She had held a tangible hope that Willow might not seek to feel strong again in such a cruel way. But, watching the redhead surge with dark energy, Tara had agonisingly realised that it didn’t matter how much revenge you sought. It was never enough to sate the emptiness. Never enough to make you feel better, or miss them less. She longed to tell Willow just that; she knew, oh dear god, she knew.
Flinching from her own memory, Tara buried her head in her hands and felt her heart yearn once more for her mother. How long had it been now? It felt like an eternity already. And she was never coming back. It didn’t matter how much dark magick you possessed, or commanded, or threw. She wasn’t coming back. Osiris…giver of darkness… But you still kept trying, because there was always the possibility that one day, you might find something that contained the true essence of her. But dark magick never had.
The door flew open and banged shut behind a panting figure. Startled, Tara opened her eyes and watched as Willow stood before her. The redhead was taking deep breaths and gesturing with her hands, waving them around wildly as though she could hardly bear to wait in order to get the words out.
Leaning up on the bed, Tara frowned. Maybe something had happened. Maybe the ghost had come back or something. Or was it Faith? A myriad of possibilities flashed through her head all at once, confusing her and frightening her. Opening her mouth, she tilted her head onto one side and gazed at her lover. And then Willow started talking.
“Okay, I got it now,” Willow began, pacing the floor at the same time, Tara’s eyes following her footsteps around and around. “I know I’m wrong, I mean, I’m wrong aren’t I?” She glanced at Tara but didn’t wait for the other girl to answer. “Of course I’m wrong. I mean, dark magick, it’s just bad.” She pressed her lips together in disgust and shook her head. “And I used it with Buffy to fight Glory, but that was bad too. And then I couldn’t stop using it because I thought I was – anyway, I used it too much and I know what you said, because you explained it all to me. And I should have listened, and I thought I did but…well, I was wrong. And if it means losing you I won’t ever use it again because I really don’t want to lose you, I mean, really. I can’t even think of being without you again. I almost lost you once and once is enough. I mean, once is too much really, so I don’t want to do that again because I don’t know if I could do all of this without you. You know?” She looked back at Tara again, who was feeling slightly dizzy from Willow’s agitated pacing.
Struggling up into a sitting position on the bed, Tara pushed her hair back over her shoulders and blinked, trying to register Willow’s outburst. “Willow, um – “ she began, but was cut short by the redhead’s impassioned tone reaching her once again.
“I don’t want to push you away Tara, and I promise that I’ll talk to you about stuff, I promise I will. Just please don’t go and don’t leave me and you know, I don’t care what happened in the past because that’s not important right now. It’s just important that you trust me and you don’t, and that’s bad too. But I don’t care about dark magicks anymore, all I care about is you and me. And it’s all going wrong…” Willow slumped onto the bed beside Tara, her shoulders falling into defeat. “I want to fix it. I want us to fix us. If there are things you don’t want to tell me, then that’s fine. But I’m here if you want someone to listen to you,” she sighed. “I don’t need magick to make me feel strong as long as I still have you. And you can trust me, if you want to, that is.”
Tara watched as Willow sat with her back to her, head bent forward in supplication, breathing ragged and emotional. She wanted so much to reach out and touch her lover, just to make a point of physical contact. She wanted to tell her it was all okay, that things were fine. But if she didn’t believe it herself, then how could she possibly make Willow understand? Sure, she could take a chance on the unconditional love Willow said she felt. But how conditional was that? What possible reason could Willow have for loving her when she knew that…Tara sighed. And the only way to find out was to just say it.
“I tried to bring my mother back.”
Whether she’d intended it or not, her words sounded very loud in the quiet hotel room. Almost immediately, Tara regretted telling Willow. The fear that had been resting in her gut, just waiting for an opportunity to flash flood her whole being was set in motion. As it filled every pore and sense, Tara chewed at her lip again. She’d said it in her head so many times, but hearing her own voice speak with such finality, she realised that the point of no return was way, way behind her. And she was left floundering.
Willow slowly turned to face Tara, her eyes wide with disbelief. Tara backed away, unable to hold the expression of her lover in her eyes for very long. Dropping her head, she shifted backwards, drawing up her knees and circling her legs with her arms. A lump in her throat warned her of tears, and she swallowed hard to give herself a few more minutes, at least.
“I wanted revenge. On-on everyone. Everything,” her voice was stilted and almost painful as she continued, hearing Willow’s breath escape her in a long, low hiss.
“M-my mother came back but it wasn’t her,” she whispered. “It was something…something else. S-someone else. Not right. W-when I knew I couldn’t ever get her back the way she was, I wanted to punish the people who couldn’t save her.” She paused for a tiny breath, “So I did.”
She looked up at Willow, just once, her eyes filling with tears, her mouth contorted in the effort it was taking just to say all of this. “I wanted them to hurt like I did,” she added, the corners of her mouth turning down. “I didn’t want to be alone, feeling s-so badly about e-everything.”
A hand reached out to touch her knee gently, Willow’s fingers spreading out and squeezing. The redhead inched forward on the bed, moving closer to Tara, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. “Oh Tara,” Willow said slowly, her own voice cracking with tears, “baby, it was a mistake. We all make mistakes. I know I’ve made enough for like, ten people.” She was close enough now to put her arms around Tara, but as she moved to hold her, the blonde jerked away, scrambling off the bed onto her feet. The painful separation hit Willow like a blow to her body, pushing her backwards on the bed. Her eyes came up to gaze at Tara, hurt deepening their verdant green.
“S-someone died, Willow!” Tara said, her fingers twisting against one another. “I lost myself in all that darkness and someone died. A-and it was my fault. I played around with powers I had no right to mess with. E-everyone thought it was just a terrible accident, a tragedy, they called it. But he was dead and my father, he…” she swallowed visibly, “he stopped loving me.”
She raised her head and looked Willow in the eye, her chin jutting out defiantly, whilst the tears began to flow freely down her cheeks. “You should have believed him when he told you I was a demon. When he said I was evil.” A mirthless smile spread itself bitterly over her mouth, curling it upwards. “He told me it was my fault, you know, a-and he was right. He always said, how could anyone love anything that could use darkness like that? How could he love me after I’d killed someone with the evil that was inside of me?”
Her smile dropped, as did her voice, low and futile, as she didn’t even bother pleading with her lover. A tiny shrug shook the shoulders of the blonde as she looked over at Willow, expecting to see disgust on the redhead’s face. Instead, there was an expression that she couldn’t quite read, no matter how hard she tried. Leaning forwards, Tara asked the question that had been haunting her for a long time. A question that she desperately wanted to remain unanswered. “How can you love me now? Knowing what I did? Knowing what a hypocrite I am?” She shook her head, knowing that Willow couldn’t possibly.
“I just do.”
Tara’s head came up abruptly from her chest and she stared at Willow, confusion blinking its way onto her face. She shook her head imperceptibly, thinking that perhaps she had just heard what she wanted to hear, in her own mind.
“I love you, I just do,” Willow repeated, her brows drawing down sadly over her eyes. It all made sense now, why Tara so desperately hated the seduction and anger of black magicks. A hatred borne from guilt, Willow realised. For all these years Tara had walked around with so much weighing on her shoulders. And her family…Willow clenched her fists in anger, pushing them into the soft blankets on the bed. Her father had let her believe in that guilt and wear it like a scarlet letter, making her retreat further and further into herself until there was hardly anything left. Suddenly, everything made sense. Who Tara was, why she loved so deeply, why she was afraid…it all became clear in one blinding moment.
“How can you…?” Tara shook her head.
“Honey, I can’t help loving you, who you are, what you mean to me.” Willow explained simply. “I can’t help it.”
“Even if I’m a killer?” the blonde said bitterly.
“I don’t believe that. Not for a second. Black magicks go wrong, Tara. People get hurt. You were young and angry. The person I’m in love with could never willingly hurt another human being. You learned that the hard way, sure, but you learned it all the same.”
“People died, Willow! One of the doctors died. He wrecked his car, but I know,” Tara breathed out a sob, “I know it was me.” She closed her eyes tightly as a fresh wave of tears began to fall down her cheeks, squeezed out of the corners of her eyes, trailing hot paths down her skin. “M-my father told me it was because of the black magicks I’d used. H-he told me it was all m-my fault for wanting to hurt people. And he hoped I was happy now that I’d got my wish, but that I was no longer his daughter.”
Getting up, Willow moved quickly to her girlfriend, gathering her into her arms and pulling her close. She stroked the other girl’s hair, offering sounds of comfort as Tara struggled against her. But Willow wouldn’t let her go; she knew then that she would never let her go.
“No, Willow,” Tara muttered against the other girl’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t love me, it’s not right.”
Willow grabbed Tara’s shoulders and held the girl away from her for a second, looking into the face that she knew so well, line by line, texture by changing texture. “What happened was bad, Tara,” she said softly, watching as the other girl’s lips curled in self-hatred, “but you don’t know it was you. You don’t know that. You can’t know that. And your father let you take the blame because it suited him.” Looking at the expression in Tara’s eyes right now, Willow felt pity for a man so desolate after his wife’s death that he would let his daughter think she was a murderer, encourage it, even. “You believe that you’re bad, and evil, but I’m telling you,” she leant forward, making sure that Tara was listening, “that I love you, no matter what. I want you to believe that, love. Believe me when I tell you I love you and I want you. Please?”
“I don’t know…” Tara whispered, “I don’t deserve to have – “
“Yes you do!” Willow said fiercely, her face hardening for a second. “You more than anyone I’ve ever known. The only person you killed Tara, was you, when you stopped believing that you could be loved. But I love you. I love you so much. And I’ll never stop.”
The emotion between them was palpable, lingering for a long moment until the final wall crumbled, crashing down around them and ringing in their ears. As the dust settled, Tara fell into Willow’s arms, her own curling around the redhead and holding on tightly. It was all she could do. Just to hold on.
End of Part 23
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"She looked across at Willow, whose face was filled with light. She had never felt so calm and happy, and strong..." ~ Unseen: Door To Alternity