Chapter 4
'Why did I agree to this?' That thought kept running through the mind of Tara as she was running across campus to get to her apartment.
'Why did I agree to this? A couple of weeks ago I was fine. I was going to class, getting my work done, my apartment was finally starting to look like a home. Now I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't pay attention in my classes and I look like I got dressed in the dark all because of what awaits me at three o'clock today... because of her. So why in Gaia's name did I agree to this?
'You already know the answer to that. But I was doing fine! I was doing really good. Then a few babbling words from her and one touch and I'm broken down again. Actually a few beautiful, pouring out of the heart words, and one exquisitely electric touch to be exact. Willow... even my heart stutters at the thought of her name. She looked so tired. Her eyes... they looked like a storm had just laid waste to them. She looked broken... just like me. She said she was gonna fight for me. Are you going to fight for her?
'I'm not used to this... I was always the one left behind. I'm good at being the one left behind. I don't know how to be the leaver. The words Willow said... the way tears formed in her eyes like water filling to the brim of a cup and then running over. I wanted to hold her so bad, to run my fingers through her hair and calm her like I always could. Before we broke up, before Buffy came back... I remember how each night after patrolling she would curl up on our bed and rest her head on my stomach. Her fingers would paint invisible pictures across the skin of my tummy, and I would hum to her while I ran my fingers through her hair. Could it ever be that way again? I want it to so badly.
'You know why this is so hard. It's hard because no matter how much you said otherwise there was a part of you that believed you would never get her back. And slowly, over time, you resigned yourself to that, to a life without your love, to this cold life. But here she is now, like the appearance of the sun after a stormy night of lightning and thunder. Can the daylight ever be the same after witnessing a night like that? But I want to step into the sun, I want light on my face again. Willow was right... I'm alive, but am I really living?
Tara finally got to the door of her apartment and fumbled with her keys as she tried to get in. Upon entering she looked at the clock on the wall. 'Okay, 2:45, I have fifteen minutes to compose myself. Come on Tara... you can do this. Just breathe... this is only the beginning.'
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Willow found her steps getting shorter and shorter as she entered the hallway of Tara's apartment building.
'So this is where she lives... it's pretty, nice wall color... of course, if you think about it, who really spends enough time in the hallway to pay attention... if you are out in the hallway then all you are focusing on is getting out of the hallway and into your room so all the effort put into it really goes unnoticed.. .unless of course you're a building inspector but even then you would be more interested in the presence of stable walls and not the lovely shade of blue that decorates them... unless the inspector has some weird Martha Stewart Living obsession and in that case they are just evil anyway so their opinions are moot... STOP babbling Willow! You aren't even in the room with her yet and you’re going into babble hyper drive, or like ludicrous speed... Oh! 'Space Balls'… funny movie!
Suddenly, she was there. Room 819. Willow noticed that her hands were shaking as she raised them to the door. On the other side of the door Tara's heart jumped as she heard the gentle tapping on her door. A few seconds and then the door opened.
"Hi Tara... Am I early, I don't want to rush you it's just that I was on campus and I thought it was gonna take me longer to find this place, but it was really easy to find, really good location, and that's what they say about real estate anyway right, 'location, location, location,' its really nice, and the hallways are pretty." Willow thought her babbling was bad enough but 'your hallway is pretty'... ‘Who in the heck says that? Real smooth, Willow.’ The babbling had actually eased Tara's heart that was racing at a new record. At least she wasn't the only one with an uncontrollable case of the nerves.
"No you caught me at a g-good time. I just got back from class."
"Oh really, what class are you taking?"
"Oh the 'Mythology of Ancient Babylon.' Sometimes the lectures tend to drag."
"Yeah, I have professor like that, umm.... did you want to talk here? Cause if you do then that's totally fine." At first Tara was confused by the question. Then she realized that she hadn't asked Willow to come in.
"S-Sorry, I don't know where my head is." Tara moved out of the way to let Willow in and stared at the floor in embarrassment. She tried to hide behind the hair falling at the side of her face. Willow picked up on this trademark move. Tara always did it when she felt like she did or said something wrong. It brought a smile to her face as she thought about one of the first times she recognized this motion. It was early in their relationship and they had yet to cross the friendship line. That time she met her downcast eyes and brushed Tara's hair behind her ear. It was one of the first physical intimate touches she initiated. Now she was at that point again, but this time she opted to just lower her own head and meet the downcast eyes of her ex-lover.
"It's okay, I think your head is the same place mine is... I haven't exactly been running full steam ahead since the party." Tara raised her eyes and smiled in gratitude. Willow could always do that for her, pull her from her shy, submissive stance and make her feel whole again. As Willow came in she looked around the apartment. It was small, but had all the necessary components as far as she could tell. The kitchen was off to the right, with a small dinner table adjacent to it. In front of her was a couch facing left where a window let light into the room. A small table was in front of the couch. A small console with a TV, VCR, and cd-player was directly in front of the couch against the wall. And directly ahead of her she assumed was the walkway to her bedroom. As she stared at the bedroom door she saw it creak open. Something started to peak out of it. Suddenly the object leaped out and revealed itself as none other than Miss Kitty herself.
"Oh Miss Kitty! She's all big now... still cute though." Willow bent down to pick up the cat. She started to nuzzle the cat's face but then realized that she may have acted to too impulsively, after all this was Tara's cat now.
"Sorry, Tara... I didn't mean to... I just..."
"No, don't be sorry, it's your cat too... she'll always be your cat."
"I missed her a lot... you think you know how much you miss something and then you see it again and you realize you had no idea how much you missed them."
"She missed you too... very much." Both of the girls were looking directly into each others eyes. Willow looked at Tara intently and then deposited the cat on the floor, and asked Tara what they both were thinking.
"Are we still talking about the kitty?"
"Maybe not."
"Not much of a segue was it."
"We tried."
Now the girls felt awkward. They avoided eye contact hoping that something in the room would give them some direction. Then Tara broke the silence.
"W-Willow, you said a lot to me the other night. I want you to know that I heard you. I heard of all it. I thought after having a few days to let it settle in I would have something to respond but..."
"I know Tara... just... say anything. I'll wait... but…"
"What?"
"Tara I don't want to pressure you. Ummm... could we maybe sit on the couch? My legs are starting to feel really heavy." They moved to the couch and then Willow spoke again.
"I don't want to pressure you but there is one thing I need to know. I don't want to put you on the spot... I need to know if..." Before she could finish Tara responded. She met Willow halfway.
"I'm still in love with you Willow." Willow was stunned speechless, she wanted to scream for glee and smile, but she was paralyzed with fear that what she just heard was only a part of a dream. Tara continued.
"That's what all my thinking came down to after these last few days. I still love you. You know, for so long, people told me I would move on. That time would let me get over you. That if I just kept getting up in the morning it would suddenly be okay one day. That loving you would just be part of my past. And in the beginning, I started to hope they would be right. That this aching in my chest, this emptiness, would someday be gone... my love would be gone. I didn't want to love you because it hurt so much to hold on. And everyday I would be reminded that it was another day without you. I wanted it to stop... the memories... the hurt... the anger. I didn't know how I could be so mad at you and so in love at the same time. I wanted it over. But I would wake up and it was still there. And I think I just decided that's the way my life would be... me loving you from a distance. I still love you Willow, but I still hurt too."
"Oh god, Tara. I love you so much. What does this mean for us? I want to know the right thing to do. I mean, I know what the right thing for me is. Magic is over. I don't want any part of it. Not just dark magic. I don't have a right to be a part of any of it. But I did that for me. This sounds weird, but I realized that if I wanted to get better, I couldn't do it for you. I had to do it for myself, to believe in myself... to believe I could still love myself even if I wasn't a Wicca super hero. But as I did that I figured it out. That by being better for myself I was being better for you too. Because you're in me... ya know?"
"I'm always with you Willow. But... there is this part of me that feels I… that feels I f-failed you." Willow couldn't believe the words that were coming from Tara's mouth.
"Tara… failed? I failed! I'm the one that let this magic take over me. Me, Tara, Me. You did nothing but love me!"
"But I saw it coming… I saw it coming and I said nothing… because… Oh god, why can't I j-just say this."
"Tara please tell me… don't hold this in."
"I'm the reason you even touched dark magic at all, and the only reason I can be here as a whole person right now is because of that dark magic that you had the power to invoke. I got hurt… I ran out when Glory was around. If I had just stayed inside… this whole..."
"Tara no, oh no, please, you can't think that!"
"Willow, I never should have agreed to a lot of things. Before Buffy came back you had to use these tough spells to patrol. What was I going to say? 'You can't use Dark Magic, Willow, but it's okay that you brought my mind back with it?' And then the resurrection spell came along. I knew that a line would be crossed, but because of this guilt, I let you do something I knew would in some way come back to us. You were in such pain when Buffy was gone, I couldn't reach you. How could I lecture you on doing dark magic to save your best friend when every day I have, I owe my life to that dark magic?" Willow was trying to keep up with all that Tara was saying but it was hard because this admission was so unbelievable. She couldn't understand how Tara could feel guilty about any of her actions. She continued to listen as Tara went on.
"By the time I said something it was too late. You were using the magic all the time… and then you used it on me. I got so scared... so scared when you did that forget spell on me, because I felt like this was nature's way of giving back times three. It was our price for the power invoked... I saw how far gone you were and how I had f-failed you. But I also thought my love would be enough to save you. That what we had was stronger than the magic... and then I heard about that night with Dawn... I knew then that you were gone..." By this time Tara was in tears and Willow was shocked. She never would have guessed that Tara would have any guilt over this. It never even entered her mind.
"Tara I'm so sorry. Please look at me. This was not your fault. Me going after Glory with magic was my decision. The power I invoked was my choice. You didn't fail me. I betrayed you. I did those things because I didn't know how to be me anymore. One minute I'm this geek in high school that people come to when they need their computer fixed. I was convenient. And then, suddenly, I'm this cool monster fighter. People needed me. I was special. I could protect people, I could protect you. Then Buffy is back and I'm not needed anymore. I couldn't go back to being that girl... it was like being taken to the top of a mountain to see this beautiful, perfect place in its valley, then being told, 'that's what you can't have.' The first thing you told me that day in the school lounge was that I was special. But Tara, if I hadn't been a Wicca girl, what could I have offered you? You asked me to stop using magic, and I felt like if I did that I wouldn't have anything to offer you. Just some girl... that's all."
"You were never just ‘some girl’ to me. And it was never because of the magic. That 'just some girl' you're talking about, that was me. I was just some girl. I couldn't even put a sentence together without getting flustered. And then you came into my life and you smiled at me. And for the longest time I had to check over my shoulder to make sure it was me you were smiling at. But then I didn't have to do that anymore because I believed in the love I saw in your eyes when you smiled at me... it made me love myself, I was finally able to say to myself, I'm okay. But it was never the magic. The only reason it mattered to me that much was because I thought that I would have something to offer you. What you meant to me, what you mean to me has nothing to do with magic, it never did.”
"How do things get so messed up like this? All these insecurities just snuck up on us. It's like they became bigger than the both of us." Willow felt so angry. She just hated that she let these insignificant things get in the way of her life. She loved Tara, and Tara loved her. That's all that should have mattered. Why did she lose hold of that? Tara answered.
"They say you can never love someone if you don't love yourself first..." Willow got nervous when she heard Tara say that.
"Tara, I always loved you, please don't doubt that. With all that I am and ever was I loved you."
"I know, Willow... it's just, how do we know this won't happen again?" Willow didn't want to smile but she felt her heart start to sing again. Tara was hinting, it seemed, that they were going to give it another chance. This was it. Her moment to prove it, to show the women she loved she was ready.
"It won't. These six months, as much as it was hell, they actually did me some good. A lot of good. I realized that when you are in love with someone, you have to be able to believe them when they tell you they love you. And the only way to make that happen, to truly make that happen, is to love yourself. You are my soul mate, Tara. I always believed that you completed me. But I realize now that I wasn't looking at it the right way. I thought we were like two halves of a puzzle and together we completed this beautiful picture. But I forgot that if you want to connect those two halves together you have to make sure that each side is complete on it's own. Otherwise they won't fit together, there won't be a strong enough connection and eventually something will pull them apart. My side of the puzzle wasn't complete. I didn't love myself enough and I was missing some pieces. That's why we got pulled apart. But I know that now. I learned that and have been working on that ever since. I know what it means now to say I love you."
Tara was smiling. She knew now that Willow had really changed. She felt something stir inside herself. Something that had been dormant for a long time. She wanted to tell Willow how happy it made her to hear that. But she couldn't find the words and a part of her wanted to hold a little back. There was still a strong part of her that kept her defenses up. Tears started to pour down her face, and for the first time in a long time they were tears of joy. Willow could see that they had reached a point. Willow couldn't help it. She needed to be near Tara. She started to move closer and by impulse lifted her hand to wipe away some of the tears. Then she felt Tara lean into the touch and she opened her palm to cup her cheek. Tara opened her eyes and met Willow’s stare. Slowly they moved to one another, and suddenly they were wrapped up in each other’s embrace. They held on to each other like it was the first time, knowing it wouldn't be the last. They sobbed together, weeping for the destination they had reached. They cried for the pain they felt, the innocence they had lost, and the hope they felt starting to breathe again in their hearts. They cried for the restitution, absolution, and resolution that had finally come. They had found each other, and they were home.
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After what felt like forever they separated and sniffled their way back to coherency.
"Willow, this has to go slow. We need to take this one day at a time. What happened between us... I can't just forget. I need time."
"Tara, the fact that there is a 'we' to go slow is all that matters to me right now."
"Why don't we get used to being around each other as friends. And see how things go from there." Willow was a little disappointed when she heard the word friends but knew that it was the right move. They needed to ease into this. Although, right now all she wanted to ease into was Tara's embrace.
"That's probably best. We started out friends. It's like it's full circle, you know."
"Yeah, it is."
"So as a friend can I take you out for some coffee or something?" Willow wavered as she spoke those words, hoping she didn't ask too much, too soon.
"That sounds really nice." Tara thought some fresh air would do them some good. Besides, they had to get used to just normal interaction again.
"Really? Great! Let's get some mocha goodness." And there it was, that playful banter that Tara missed so much. They headed out the door, and worked their way out of the building trying to get back into the swing of everyday conversation.
As they exited the building they didn't realize they were being watched. In the alley of the apartment building, a man stood peering, as they walked away from his perspective. He rubbed his hands together and as he did, electric sparks started to shoot out.
"So that's where Strawberry has been sowing her seeds. Hmm... looks like I get two for the price of one." His menace filled laugh could be heard in echoes as walked away.
Rack was back.
[This message has been edited by Tempest819 (edited December 29, 2001).]