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[center]See Chapter One for disclaimers. This is long overdue, thanks all who are still reading.[/center]
chapter 12 - Blurred Vision
Deserted.
Willow barely stopped herself from falling. Braced back against a wall, she stood absolutely still, trying to absorb the sight before her. Suddenly she was in motion, lunging forward, inadvertently kicking the candle across the room in the process. It hit the wall and shattered into several pieces. She stopped and frowned hard, looking around the room once more.
Empty…
The walls no longer decorated; blankets and pillows, drawings and artwork, candles, lamps… fairy lights - all gone. Willow took a few desperate steps toward a dresser. Pulling open the drawers in descending order, each more forcefully and hastily than the last.
Empty?
She flung open the closet door.
Empty!
She twirled around the small room, wildly looking, searching for something - anything. A clue as to where Tara may have gone.
All that was left in the room was the plain institutional furniture. It looked just like every other dorm room, and Willow felt lost. She backed up and checked the room number on the door again to make sure. No, this is… or was, Tara’s room.
She looked around once again and suddenly felt…
Empty.
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“…got here as fast as I could….” Xander whispered to Buffy as he came into the room. Motioning with his head towards his childhood friend standing quietly across the way, he said, “How is she?”
“Not good.” Buffy spoke in a hushed tone, carefully monitoring Willow who was staring blankly out the window.
Xander’s brow immediately knotted in concern. “Has she said anything else?”
Buffy just shook her head. Needing some kind of comfort, she folded her arms around herself. Willow, so quiet, so still, was unsettling.
“Nothing?”
Buffy peered up at Xander, looking at him with all the seriousness in the world. “No, just the one word, ’empty’.”
“How long?” He briefly surveyed the unfamiliar and sparsely lit room. This is Tara’s place?
“All night, all day… all night again?” Buffy shrugged her shoulders. “Since she said good-bye to Oz. I’m pretty sure… she’s still wearing the same clothes. After helping her with Oz-watch, then patrol, I went back to our room and she wasn’t there. I figured, I dunno, maybe she needed time alone or something.”
Maybe she was with Tara talking things out? So ‘time’. “I waited for her in our dorm, in case she needed to talk, but when she didn’t show up the next morning and then the ‘no-show’ for our final, I got worried. I went looking and….” She motioned subtly in Willow’s direction.
Xander looked from Buffy to Willow and back again; something was definitely wrong. Buffy was unusually tense and standoff-ish with Willow. He missed the big Oz-chase-Tara-attack, the slayer filled him in on that much.
He left again, ok, ‘cause Oz wolf by day, bad, but I’m sure we could’ve…. Why couldn’t Will and Oz make it work? What’s happened and why’d I miss it? I used to be in the “Willow-know”. The overwhelming gloom choking the room seeped into Xander too. Though his brain was racked with questions and possible explanations, he could only mouth the simplest of queries. “She missed a test, a full blown exam?”
Buffy tilted her head upward. “Yea.” She could have lied then and told Xander that she tried looking for their missing friend at the library, Giles’, the coffee shop, her parent’s place, the high school, even that creepy magic store. For a split second, she considered that maybe, just maybe, Willow decided to leave with Oz. But really, after what she and Willow talked about, Buffy knew their missing friend could only be in one place. “She’s been over there...” she motioned towards Willow, “…since I found her.”
“This is bad.”
They both nodded, staring at Willow in silence until Buffy finally murmured, “I’m calling Giles.”
Willow did not turn towards her friends. Instead she kept her eyes forward, staring out the window. She kept eyes locked on the distant horizon so that everything in her immediate field of vision became obscure and blurry. She preferred the silence. The talk behind her echoed out with little meaning, the buzz of voices fused with her own bleary vision so that everything became indiscernible. Everything, that is, save the steam on the windowpane and the warm lump in her hand. She liked the way her breath bloomed and dissipated on the cool glass. She stood there feeling a strange kind of serenity in not reacting, not moving, not doing anything.
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“Giles, listen….”
“And hello Buffy, how are you?” Giles dryly interrupted her. Smokey scotch whiskey in hand and music playing, he had just settled in for a leisurely night. The Initiative was just a fraction of what it was, Spike was neutered, and Buffy had everything in good order. There was just one unsettling matter….
“Calm-collected British attitude aside, we have a situation!” Then Buffy grimaced. “And, what is that noise you’re playing, my sensibilities are fragile enough!”
Slightly offended, Giles coolly stated, “I assure you, that so called ‘noise’ is—.” He changed his mind; he attentively sat upright. “You mentioned a situation? Demons, an apocalypse perchance…what has the Hellmouth brought forth now?”
Buffy sighed. “Not that kind of ‘situation’, tho’ it could only happen on the Hellmouth, but still, situation of the major-variety. Let me give you the oh-so-brief version.” Eager to get back to Willow and Xander, she launched on into a quick recap of the last few days’ events.
Buffy knows. Giles absently finished off his drink and then slightly lowering his head he placed a hand around his forehead, “Willow, Tara? Yes, of course.” Every now and again, he would shake his head - “continue”, or nod - “yes”, or simply close his eyes and hold his tongue until she finished. “I’ll be right there.” He set the receiver down and pulled off his glasses.
Dear Lord.
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Buffy quietly re-entered Tara’s abandoned room. “Sooo?”
“Nada, still single-worded.” Xander shook his head. He took a quick look around the room once more. The dresser drawers were partially open, the bottom one lay on the ground. Though there was some stuff littering the floor, all in all, it was a basic room.
Tara’s place, that’s what Buffy said. Hmm, not much going on here? Oz-Tara badness, check, Oz gone, right? But, it’s the end of the semester, so? What’s the big, school break time, right... soon? So, why here? He didn’t quite understand, except that Willow had been missing. He stared intensely at Willow’s hand. “What’s she holding?”
Still uneasy, Buffy sighed a bit.
He squinted. “It looks like a piece of…?”
“Candle…slayer sight.”
Xander snapped his head towards Buffy in confusion. Pointing an accusing finger at Willow’s hands, “magic!” Sometimes Willow’s witchy powers were not of the good.
Tara’s gone…maybe…. “Will’s hocused-pocused Tara and…and….”
Buffy rolled her eyes at him.
Willow’s ears suddenly perked up, the words behind her suddenly became very real, permeating into her.
Candle…magic…Tara. Pulled away from her quiet peace, she furrowed her brow, but refused to turn around. Willow just whispered, “…for Tara.”
Xander was still facing Buffy when Willow spoke. When he heard her voice he swiveled and frowned. Staring first at the broken candle shard in her hand and then up at her solemn profile, Xander took a small step in her direction.
Will speaking, good sign. So, candle for Tara, got it. His voice dropped to a deep gentle tone. “Will? Ok, so where’s Tara?”
Buffy opened her mouth, and then shut it quickly. She had tried talking to Willow; she had mentioned Tara, but it only seemed to make her friend more distant.
Maybe Xander can get to her.
Willow adamantly shook her head.
Inertia…so much simpler. She was upset that her comforting peace was interrupted. Her best friends were annoying her, just their presence, especially in what was once such a special place.
Why is it when I need them, they are never around? Now I don’t want them and here they are? To top it off, they had to bring up the obvious…
Tara. What about Tara?! She’s, hello, not here, is she? Willow felt it, just the beginnings of anger stirring under her skin. Still, she kept her back to them as she became acutely aware of how tired she was, even her face felt weathered.
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“Unbelievable. Why wasn’t I informed sooner?”
Giles tried to put aside the fact that he was not notified about the past few days’ events. He spoke aloud, and with no one present he addressed the only thing seemingly there with him — the scotch bottle.
“Let me understand this, Oz changed during the day, unprecedented.”
Gesturing with a pointed finger, he peered intensely at the thick amber colored liquid encased in the faceted glass bottle.
“Triggered by him sensing Willow and Tara’s child IN Tara — strangely understandable and incredibly disturbing in equal measure.”
Unconsciously, his voice rose slightly as he left his inanimate audience to ready himself to depart, but then he spun back around.
“And now Tara’s departed and Willow’s been…been what? Missing as well, in a sense, yes.”
Turning away once more he went back to his task of leaving. He quickly grabbed his lightweight coat and wallet. Picking up his keys, he momentarily stopped to contemplate the situation further.
“I musn’t dawdle.” With a brisk motion he rattled his keys and then caught them in hand, clutching them soundly. “Right then.”
Just before stepping out of his apartment, he paused at the door holding the handle. Silently, he retraced his steps, took another stiff drink, and then quickly took his leave.
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There was another long pause of silence; it was apparent that Willow would not elaborate more. Uncomfortable in the stilted quietude Buffy announced, “Watcher on the way. I interrupted one of his Dark Ages music nights… I’m not sure I’d call the Velvet Overground music?”
“Underground.” Came a mumbled correction. Willow had garnered a great deal of musical knowledge from Oz.
Thanks Oz. Thinking of him caused the line marring her brow to deepen.
Yeah. Thanks. Oz.
Surprised, but encouraged by hearing Willow’s voice once more, Xander ventured forth sticking to blasé topics.
Keep it all light and normal-like, then ease on over to the heavy. “Yeah…I couldn’t find Anya, but I left her a message.”
“Um, I don’t think that would actually make things better.” Buffy looked at him questioningly.
“Hey!” Xander opened his mouth and held up a finger to Buffy to make a point; everyone was always making comments about Anya; deciding against it, he turned his attention back to Willow.
This isn’t about Anya, it’s about Willow. “Hey, Will? You know… there’s nothing you can’t tell us.” Xander tossed his head back at Buffy but kept his attention on Willow. He ran a hand through his hair and smiled just a little, a nervous grin; at least Willow was now talking. He took another small step forward. “Look, I know I haven’t been the best pal in the world lately. You had all that Oz stuff and then, I get the hint something kind of bad happened between you and Tara, whose been more of a pal lately. I’m sorry about that… everything you’ve been going through….”
Buffy wisely kept her mouth shut nodding only once in agreement.
With more reassurance, he continued taking another step toward her “…and what makes it worse is that we haven’t really been around for you. The fact is, we haven’t really been ‘there’ for each other...any of us. But especially us two, who are the two...”
Willow pressed the hand-warmed wax in her palm. It was pliable, she had been holding on to it for some time. Her fingers easily sunk into the softened paraffin. “No, you haven’t…”
been there for me. Her voice became hard and cold as she finally turned to look at her two best friends. The hollow feeling in her chest began to feel hot, flooding and then simmering.
She let go of the piece of candle.
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Ah ha, Fischer Hall. Giles hurried over and was about to enter the building when he heard….
“Did you get stood up too?”
“Anya…” Giles halted, somewhat surprised, “…a pleasure as usual.” He closed his eyes, giving himself a moment to compose himself before turning towards her, “I see the troops were rounded up.”
“Troops? You know the Initiative is gone, right? Or, did you get hit in the head again? I’m just here to punish Xander for breaking our date.” Anya huffed and promptly pushed him out of her way.
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“Um, well, WE, as in all of us, haven’t been there for each other.” This time Buffy spoke up, not liking Willow’s tone. Her own guilt over their neglected friendship caused her to become defensive. “And, WE have been trying…like now.”
Conveniently overlooking the fact that as time passed Willow preferred Tara’s company to her friends, she could not admit her own shortcomings in the friendship department. “Well, you
two are the
two that need to try harder!” Willow shot her a look. Leftover streaks of tears still on her face pulled tight on her cheeks.
“Hold it!” Xander interjected, putting his hands up. He noticed the worn dim look in Willow’s eyes. It was obvious she hadn’t slept or eaten at all, and was stretched past emotional limits. “Whoa, let’s all just hold it with the anger.”
“Hold nothing. That’s the problem. You’ve been ‘holding it’, holding back, not trying hard enough!” Willow’s voice wavered as she scowled, her insides boiling.
Xander’s head jutted back taking in her comment, but not entirely understanding what Willow was getting at.
“Wait a minute, it’s not like we haven’t been here. Ok, ok, we’re preoccupied and maybe even self-centered, but...” Buffy tried to make a point, but was severely cut off.
“‘But’? But, nothing! Yes, you have been preoccupied and self-centered.” Willow’s eyes watered as her anger escalated, her friends obscuring in the soupy haze of fresh tears.
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Giles rushed to keep up with Anya. He was unsure of exactly what the ex-demon knew and did not know, so he proceeded guardedly. “Anya, the circumstances, that is to say, though this is a Hellmouth….” He was careful not to say ‘problem’. “…situation, with Willow and Tara, well….”
“Willow got Tara pregnant,” Anya snapped. “How stupid do you think I am? I’m over a thousand years old, I can tell when a woman is pregnant.”
Giles stumbled on up two steps. “Ah, well, yes. But….”
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“Ok, I get that this is ‘unhappy, upset, you-stole-my-ruler-Willow’, but let’s not get….” Xander tried to keep things cool, though he was beginning to get riled as well.
Willow gave him a vicious look. “Let’s not what? Get crrank-kee?” Her voice took on a childish whine and she threw her arms up. With the back of her hands, she roughly wiped her eyes, only aggravating them into something Hellmouth-ishly raw and burning.
That did it. “Sarcasm, not so good here.” Xander was agitated. “I might not be the smart college guy….”
“Smart has nothing to do with it.” Buffy cut him off. “You think we are being self-centered.” This was a personal strike at her.
“Not so smart and definitely self-centered!” Willow turned her back on them, blinking rapidly to cool the heat from her eyes.
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“…I think discretion is the better part of valor,” Giles continued, hoping to keep Anya in line. “This is a delicate situation after all.”
“Of course this is a delicate situation, Xander stood me up!!”
“I was actually referring to Willow and Tara’s situation, not yours.” Despite his reservations about Anya, he tried his best to impress upon the ex-demon the need for some kind of sensitivity. “We must approach this carefully, with a certain amount of diplomacy and decorum.” But, as they approached Tara’s room he could already hear raised voices therein.
Anya may exacerbate the situation. Getting the lead on Anya, he positioned himself in front of the door. B
est to time this right, tact is not Anya’s strong point. Alright, poise under pressure…. He wrapped a hand around the door handle.
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“Self-centered is right. Always the Chosen One, so important, and Miss Super Magick Witch. I’ll just hang out in the Batcave and putt around with crusty old Alfred,” Xander grumbled after being interrupted by the Slayer.
“Not you too, Pizza Boy?” Buffy ears perked up and she narrowed her eyes at Xander. “This is just stupid.” The intervention was spiraling out of control.
That stung. “Stupid? So you finally have the guts to say it to my face? I knew it, you both look down on me!” He waved a finger between his two friends.
“I didn't say you were stupid! So stop being an idiot and let me fix this!”
Buffy and Xander began bickering, filling the once sacred room with bitter and petty accusations. It was a wall of sound, a barrage attacking all of Willow’s senses, so she spun back around, her sight blurring. She felt dizzy, her vision dancing back and forth wildly between her arguing friends, “Shut up!!!”
Willow's pleading shrill caught Buffy and Xander off guard, and they quieted down. They could only gape at Willow, who had just shut her eyes tight and had her hands clasped over her ears. Their poor friend’s entire body was trembling and straining in an attempt to stay contained.
All the words were flying in the air, nebulous, running in and out of her ears, to her head, filtering into her brain and landing hard.
You’re the self-centered one, you. You didn’t try hard enough. You let Tara down… again. All aimed at her; it was all her. Was she ever good enough? Willow softened, “…please….” The anger, the accusations, they were all aimed at herself; not them, not her friends. She looked up at Buffy and Xander with watery eyes, she whimpered out a weak, “please?”
Buffy and Xander understood, taking in the abject look on Willow’s face. She always took so much to heart - always wanting to please and always hardest on herself.
“It’s… it’s… Tara’s….” Willow looked around the room again. “My... my fault, it’s all my fault. I got her pregnant, I went off with Oz, and I didn’t….”
Xander’s face twitched. Willow
wwwhaaatt?!
Buffy elbowed him as Willow went on.
“…I didn’t think about her, her feelings. I should have told her, let her know that it was just this Oz-thing I had to do… or finish. You know, that closure-thing. How could she know? I just figured it out myself. But, I didn’t tell her anything; she knew what he meant to me. I mean, all of a sudden, there he was. Oz, after all that time, Oz. But it was different, now everything’s different, I didn’t even get the chance to tell her….”
Xander wordlessly and slowly mouthed to Buffy.
PREG-NANT?
Buffy just nodded firmly.
The shock was evident on his face. He scanned Willow from head to toe as she continued ranting.
Buffy gave him a stern look.
Then, Willow stopped abruptly. “Yes, Xander – pregnant. I, me, Willow. Spelled, magicked - Tara - pregnant, ok? Problem, comment?!”
--
Tact, decorum… Giles walked through the door.
"...Tara - pregnant, ok? Problem, comment?!”
“Bloody Hell!”
Anya was right on his heels. “That was diplomatic.”
Giles just shot her a look, but made no comment. Things were well out of hand and he quickly focused on Willow who was, to put it mildly, a complete mess.
--
“Nope, I’m all with the good. Hands up in the air.” Xander knew when to just accept things and ask later, at least until the Willow-storm had passed. "Just in time Alfred." He tilted his head at Giles and barely made eye contact with Anya.
Oh man, I'm in trouble. What’s the statute of limitations on broken dates with ex-vengeance demons?
“And, she’d bring things up. I wouldn’t answer; I’d just nod my head like an idiot, or be silly and babble. Ok, I went to the clinic a few times and helped her with stuff, sure I filled out the papers, monitored her - charts and graphs, diet and sleep….”
Xander peered at Buffy and then Giles questioningly, but he only received a shake of the head from the Watcher. It was best to let Willow get it all out. Everyone grew somber.
“But, the big thing. That future ‘thing’, it was easy to ignore… for now. She was making plans, she has to, right?” A fluttering thought sifted through Willow, one she had been wrestling with since Tara had vanished. It made her uneasy.
But really…
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From the corner of Tara's former room, Anya quietly observed and listened. After she had had enough of all the self-indulgence, she swiveled right back around and slipped out the door completely unseen. Once in the relative calm of the dorm hallway, she leaned back against an outside wall, still listening. Shaking her head, Anya turned her hand over to examine her freshly painted nails and huffed, “children”.
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It’s easier now; almost like this all never happened…. Willow didn’t want to think it, but she couldn’t help it. This feeling came and went several times, but now it seemed more real. It was a shadow-thought, just at the edge of her conscious, skittering the outskirts of her brain. She knew she should push it away, but in that single moment of thought her life had again regained it’s status quo.
…And it could all be the same again, just like it was before. Then, something burning swelled within her, blossoming into distemper. She was mad at Tara.
I mean, she chose to leave, right? She made that choice; I didn’t force her. And that means no worries, no problems, no complications, except for the good old Hellmouth, because Tara’s gon-….
“Because, Tara’s going to be a mother,” Buffy spoke softly.
Xander wouldn’t let it rest there. In a single rushed voice he added, “and so are you.”
Giles stared at her intently. “Willow….” As he pulled off his glasses, he moved towards her. His voice remained low and even. “You are a remarkable young woman, capable of many things…including handling this.” He placed a solid hand on her shoulder.
Willow was instantly snapped out of her thoughts and dumped unceremoniously back into the real and present. Emotionally exhausted, she had spent the past day or so in Tara’s room. Stuck, thinking and re-thinking, feeling everything from relief to petulance, anguish to nothingness. But, some part of her immobility was because it could be so “easy” again. Just letting Tara go, not doing anything about it was so easy. Doing the right thing, that was hard. She could only stare up blankly at Giles while trying to absorb everyone’s words. Then, she turned toward Buffy whose voice, though gentle as before, seemed somewhat mournful.
“And, she has to plan stuff, lots of stuff.” Buffy looked at Willow, sadly thinking of her own mom. “Especially if there’s the remote chance, you know, that she, Tara,… might have to do this… alone.”
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Anya took one last look at the door, rolled her eyes, and with a quick snap of the head, briskly marched away.
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Alone?! NO. I mean, yes, but she was the one who left…. Guilt invaded Willow and suddenly she was hurdling through a tunnel, focusing her to the point of the situation. It sent away all her previous notions of her life simplified like it had been before. Fleeting as they were, she pushed them back into her subconscious and to the outer stratosphere of her mind. The reality was, there was no returning to what had come before. Her situation, her life, was different; it didn’t just go away and vanish.
…and that doesn’t really change things. Tara is still pregnant and she is still going to be a mother. And I am too.
She wouldn’t? Xander fixed his eyes on Willow. He was conflicted and confused, but couldn’t help the disappointment welling up inside him. His own parents didn’t seem to want him; he hated thinking Willow might be the same. His voice flattened, “you’re not going to abandon…?”
Giles sighed heavily as he pulled away from her; hadn’t they spoken about this already?
She must accept her responsibilities. And now? Now Tara has fled. On one hand he couldn’t really blame either of them. Youth had a tendency to be so… ‘young’. He recalled what it was like to be so juvenile.
Implusive, indecisive, and irrational. Even now many years their senior, he too made mistakes. He looked at Willow sympathetically knowing now was not the time for a lecture.
Willow shook her head; she would not do that. Hadn’t she made her resolution before? Yes, but it was so easy to slip, especially since Tara chose to leave. Willow didn’t leave her, no, Tara left.
Is she really gone?
Willow scanned the deserted room once more and the final shadow of resentment left her, but another invader took its place. A phantasmal deja vu flooded through her, again a hollow feeling expanded in her chest. The emptiness was that feeling that haunted her - abandonment.
“No, of course not.” Willow needed to fill that empty space with her good intentions and confirmation, fearful that she might backslide again. Frightened that the hollowness was so easily replaced with anger and resentment, she blathered, “I told her I wanted to help, be there, so she won’t… alone. But I’m not sure how this is going to work. How’s this supposed to…?” Her voice shook.
Tara had left her, just like Oz. But where Oz had torn in her in two with his hasty departure, Tara’s leaving tore her to pieces. And now she was at a loss on how to form words to explain what she was feeling. Unable to grasp the depths of her emotions, she softly meeked, “…when she’s not here?” She dropped her head, trying to hold back the tears. Despite all her attempts to do right, be better, Willow had been forsaken.
Xander sighed and a pensive smile barely played on his lips. His best friend looked suddenly so small, so lost. It was the same look she had the very day he met her, when Willow had been left to navigate the jungles of elementary school alone. It was the first day of school and her parents simply dropped her off with a pat on the head in front of the school. The old memory became so clear as he studied her now. Rubbing the back of his head over a ghostly pain, he remembered the bully that had swatted him right there. It caused him to turn sideways towards the little redheaded girl just standing there, with tears welling up in her eyes. Her backpack bigger than her and her hands clutched tight, she anxiously watched her parents drive off. He even remembered the first thing he said to her…. He looked at Willow once more, older, but somehow still the Willow of his youth. “C’mon, you can’t stay here forever.”
Willow sniffled and only nodded.
He’s right. Her shoulders slumped forward and then she began to quietly cry.
Xander finally felt comfortable enough to move towards Willow; the storm had passed. Tugging on her arm, he teased her slightly. “We’ll have a junk food marathon...and figure it out.”
“After she’s cleaned up a bit.” Buffy moved closer too, content, at least for now, to do best friend duty. They would find Tara, she was sure, and so she slung an arm over Willow’s shoulders, “Really, I love you…fresh as a daisy, or not so fresh, but…”
Willow wiped her drippy nose and coughed a few times, trying to clear some of the emotional congestion. “Yeah, a shower would be good.” She croaked out a small laugh and dabbed her watery eyes on her sleeve, trying to clear her vision. “Oh, hey…Giles made it for the big emotional melt-down too, huh?” With clarity she noted the hint of disappointment on his face, despite the genuine concern, “I didn’t do too good with ‘things’. And I’m all snotty.”
Giles removed his glasses and let out a chuckle of relief. Though plagued by a million questions, mostly regarding Tara and his concern over where she may have gone, he acquiesced. “You’ve been under a tremendous amount of stress.”
“That doesn’t matter, ‘oh poor me’ feeling sorry for myself when Tara’s out there, somewhere all alone.” Willow woefully pleaded disgusted with her own selfishness and inaction.
Understanding that the poor girl had just emerged from an emotional labyrinth of sorts, Giles stepped in. Temperaments needed soothing and Willow was in no condition for anything at the moment, save a bath followed closely by a decent meal and some sleep. Instead, he gave her tender gaze and when she was about to protest again he put up hand to stop her. “You shouldn’t be so severe…so hard on yourself. Go with Buffy and Xander, I’ll start making inquiries.”
“Don’t worry Will, we’ll find her.” Buffy jostled up against Willow once more.
“Yeah.” Xander wrapped his arms around both his friends. “Giles, you missing out on snotty hugs?”
Putting his glasses back in place, Giles silently and assuredly moved toward them.
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Starcomed thank you for the continued beta.
by WolfDragonGod » Fri Jun 08, 2007 8:53 pm 
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I love this story it shows every bit of Will&Tara, and you do in an amazing way
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