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That night was better. Better, as Buffy would comment many years later, in the sense that Willow was finally able to string together coherent sentences; better, as Dawn would write in her Chronicles that evening, because Willow actually talked to Tara, and they carried on what passed for a very normal conversation between acquaintances, maybe even friends; better, as Xander would that night whisper happily to Anya, because Faith was there in the not-crazy capacity and she telling stories with her arms flying.
“So there I was, standing in the middle of a Mexican airport with sixteen vamps on a private plane, about to take off for who-knows-where, with four hostages that they were planning to serve as an in-flight snack.” Faith was gesturing with a knife and capturing the attention of everyone at the table.
“What did you do?” said Dawn, showing an interest that she rarely had for slay stories. Buffy gave her a slight glare, but quickly returned to listening to Faith.
Buffy actually was feeling very little resentment about everyone’s rapt attention to Faith. She wanted them to like her, accept her; she wasn’t going to get all “I’m the Slayer, she’s the replacement” on them again.
“Alright, so, I chase after the plane as it’s taxiing and catch one of the wing supports – so I’m half riding the plane, half gripping onto a six-foot piece of metal that’s going to snap off any second, and three of the vamps come out of the windows.”
Anya was, if possible, more delighted than Xander. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and stared at Faith with her mouth wide open. It might have been a demon thing, but then Xander was also nodding enthusiastically. Years of Watcherdom had worn down a bit of Giles’ stiffness, and he was also listening with interest.
“So the first one slides down the body of the plane at me, aiming his feet right at my chest. So I swing my feet up, knock him off to the side, and swing myself up the side of the plane and kick in a window, knocking out one of the vamps inside.”
Willow was listening attentively, really, she promised. Okay, no. She was looking at Faith, nodding her head, and laughing when everyone else did, but she kept sneaking glances at Tara. Okay, so it had only been three glances in the past ten minutes, but she felt very bold.
Tara, meanwhile, was watching Willow pretend to listen to Faith.
Three years away and I can still read her face like a book, thought Tara, and although she felt a stab of guilt at the thought of three years, she also felt something warm blossom deep in her stomach and spread through her whole body.
“Then the other two come at me over the plane, but at the same time the vamp pilot swerves the plane trying to knock me off, and they go flying right over me, crash into runway lights, and explode in flames.”
Willow decided she could sneak another look at Tara. She turned her head slightly, as if she was trying to visualize the scene Faith described. Then her eyes oh-so-naturally fell on Tara.
Who was looking right at her.
Willow was startled, and a little embarrased at being caught, but she didn’t look away. And Tara gave her a wicked, side-shuffling grin that said, You vixen. I know what you’re up to.
Willow was overcome by a jumble of feelings. The smile hit her right in her heart – that delicious smile that always preceeded more delicious things, just that smile made her body hum – and then she was embarrassed for being such a slut-kitten – and then she remembered that the smile no longer belonged to her, that she had forfeited the smile, that it might never again mean what it had meant once.
Willow had spent the earlier part of the evening – before Tara arrived – telling herself that she and Tara would just be friends. Willow wouldn’t even add for now; she had to keep herself firmly in line and remember that if she expected anything she probably wouldn’t get it.
Now her stomach became a giant knot as she realized that she could pretend that she and Tara would just be friends, but it could never be “just” for her. She could spend a hundred years with Tara as “just friends” and she would never, ever forget an iota of how much she loved and wanted this woman. She would never forget all the nuances to Tara’s different smiles, all the hidden meanings in the words she chose, all the ways her hands moved over silverware and plates and glistening skin…
And to top off the mass feeling-fest, Willow wasn’t sure if she deserved to have Tara back.
Okay, she’d spent the past three years totally magick-free, which had been huge. But she was beginning to suspect that totally giving up practicing had been overkill; it had been too much, and not the right thing to do. The right thing, she was slowly starting to parse out, would have been to ask for help, to admit that she was unsure of where to draw the line, where to stop magick from changing the shape of things.
She hadn’t done that. She’d lied, again and again, to do any spell she could get her hands on, and when things went wrong and friends got hurt, she pretended that they were accidents and not a pattern. She’d hurt the people she loved most – her family, really. She should have asked for help; she should have stopped long before she did.
There was the one side of her mind going, Without magick you couldn’t have brought Buffy back. And then the other side said, Hey, you pulled her out of heaven, remember? It wasn’t like Angel in a hell dimension. Remember how much she went through just to get used to life here again? Remember how you made her dig her way out of her own grave?
And the first side said, But you thought you were doing the right thing. Ethic of intention, right? If you try to do something good, even if it turns out bad, it isn’t a bad action? And the other side said, You could have used your power some other way – you could have tried to communicate with Buffy. Tara could have helped. You didn’t have to go all Lone Witchy Wolf on this. You should have thought it through. After all,, Buffy chose to die. She was far away from thinking about Tara now.
Tara watched Willow’s face – her eyes deepening, her mouth twitching slightly, her cheeks turning red and then slowly a shade just barely pale past normal. Tara mentally flogged herself. She had meant the smile to be an opening, a friendly gesture that said – something friendly. But instead of an opening, Willow was closed off now, and something else had opened in her mind – something troubling her, something that she hadn’t been dealing with.
Tara wondered if it was the magicks. She hadn’t asked Willow – wasn’t sure if she could ask her – and she hadn’t had alone time with Buffy or Xander or Dawn to ask if Willow was still practicing. Certain things, though, made Tara think that Willow wasn’t. Candles were missing – the herb that Willow had grown on the side table was gone – and other things, more subtle things, that made Tara not know but feel with all her heart that Willow was done – had been done for a long time.
She wanted to comfort Willow, to reach across the table and take her lover’s hand. As she thought this, she immediately flinched – because Willow wasn’t her lover. The Willow in front of her – this flimsy, withdrawn, stuttering Willow – didn’t dissuade her. She knew that Willow, no matter who she was or how she acted, was Willow, the woman she loved with a passion that overwhelmed her. But Tara had given that up. Or had Willow? Or maybe out of some evil coincedence of the fates they both slipped up on their duties to each other at the same time, and didn’t know how to get past that.
I love you, Tara thought, and she knew that Willow couldn’t hear her, but she thought it and hoped that Willow would eventually know it. I know you made mistakes. I did too. I forgive you, with all of my heart, which is rather difficult since you have all of my heart and have had it ever since – since when? Since you kissed me? Since you said you loved me? Since we first touched – since I first saw you at the Wicca group? Maybe I loved you before I met you. I don’t care. I love you.
Willow broke out of her inner turmoil and her eyes met Tara’s again. Her lover – her ex-lover – was staring at her so intensely, and so tenderly, and Willow didn’t know what to do.
“So then the plane swerves off the runway, and crashes into one of those little silver go-carts with the flashing lights and the whole cabin starts on fire.”
“Oh my God,” breathed Dawn, staring at Faith.
If Willow had any capacity for hearing at that point, she would have been very confused, since she’d missed the past five minutes of the story. But all she was thinking was that she needed to get away, even for a few minutes, just to clear her head, because, she decided, existential questions shouldn’t be solved while company is visiting.
“Dawnie, let me take your plate,” she said, standing a little shakily and taking Dawn’s empty plate. The fork skidded around the edge, but stayed on.
Faith stopped her story and looked at Willow. She saw the turmoil on Red’s face, and her heart went out to her. She knew that Red had stopped the magicks, and guessed that she was still mad in love with Tara. Which sucks. How do you reconnect with someone – someone you loved that much – after three years? How do you make up for all that lost time? And then she looked at Buffy, and something in Faith’s stomach twisted, and something in her unconscious bubbled up to the surface. It’s just like –
Faith pushed it down. Buffy and I are not the same as Willow and Tara. I mean, we were connected, and I screwed her over royally, but after all, we weren’t – I mean – we didn’t – we weren’t in l-
She stuttered back into her story. “B-but, I got all the passengers out. One of them had been bitten pretty badly, but we got her to the ER, and she was fine.”
Willow was in the kitchen now, and she caught the end of Faith’s story. Not that she’d been listening to any other part of it. She wasn’t sure if she was going to cry. Part of her really wanted to, but she didn’t want to be a drama queen in the middle of Faith’s welcome home party – and Tara’s too. She didn’t want Tara to think she was some psycho crazy girl whose emotions were all out of control.
She already thinks you’re psycho, said the part of her brain that Willow was starting to consider the evil part. Do you remember what you did to her? To all of them?
Shut up, Willow answered. She scraped the remainder of Dawn’s dinner into the garbage, and looked at her own plate. She’d eaten almost half of the food that Faith had heaped onto her plate, sending her a look over the gravy bowl that said, Come on, Red.
Willow set her plate on the counter. She knew that if she pressed her fingers to her aching head, she was going to cry.
“Hey,” said a voice from behind her. Willow thought, Okay, apparently I don’t need to touch my temples. All I need to do is hear that voice. I’m going to dissolve into a puddle of complications right now.
But she pulled herself together for a few more minutes, and turned around to face Tara, who was standing there with two stacks of dirty plates.
Tara took a deep breath. “You OK?”
Willow didn’t feel terrified. She was way past terror. She was in the realm of emotion so overpowering that an entirely other language would be needed to convey it. She nodded. “Just – sort of overwhelmed, you know?”
“Yeah,” answered Tara, and she joined her at the sink. They stood there, washing dishes, very obviously and painfully not touching. For a few seconds, neither could speak.
“S-so Faith just showed up?” said Tara, desperately grasping for a topic.
Willow grabbed onto it. “Yeah. Kind of a big surprise. Especially since she didn’t try to kill anyone this time.”
“She’s a lot nicer this time around,” said Tara with a smile, and she and Willow glanced at each other.
Willow scrubbed at a stubborn green bean on a plate. “She’s really changed a lot. It’s amazing. I mean, she’s still very much herself, but something about her – something underneath has changed, and it’s showing through in everything else about her.”
Tara didn’t know if Willow was talking about Faith or herself.
“People change,” she answered quietly.
Willow handed her a dishcloth.
“Especially after such a long time,” Willow added.
They both nodded shyly.
Willow’s brain had relaxed to a minor degree, and the Babblemotor suddenly kicked in. “It’s strange. I want to ask her – why now? Why today? Well yesterday really – but why not last year, or next Tuesday? What told her to return to Sunnydale now?”
Oh, thought Willow. Well, that thought really did start out about Faith, but I don’t think it ended there.
Tara looked at Willow for a long moment.
Then she took a deep breath and let out a slight smile. “Because it was time to come home.”
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Hmmmm....?
"You see, I think love comes from God. And so, to turn away from love, real love, it could be argued, is to turn away from God."
- Dare Truth or Promise 
But yes, can't wait to read more!! And i can't wait for Tara to show up either!!
Anyway, she seems helpfull enough here. Never saw Buffy as much of psycho-analytical person myself... seeing her as counsillor is weird. I suppose she works hard at her job and in that way she can be very good at it, she has enough experience with trouble 
. It does seem a rather tough assignment for highschool-students, programming a nicely dancing duck... (not for Willow of course but she was far ahead when in HighSchool :-)
hehe just kiddin. but.. well.. ok maybe only kidding a little bit. but.. um.. is it too soon to whine for an update? 
love it
That really was the nastiest cliffhanger ever!!! And i've seen my fair share of cliffhangers
But i just wanted to say, basically, your writing is amazing. 
And i love how you're portraying the characters. I can't wait for the next part!!! No.... really.... i can't
