Disclaimers:
These are obviously not my characters, I'm just borrowing them from Joss Whedon and anyone else who owns them.
If you have issues with people of the same sex loving each other, or live someplace where that's illegal (in which case, consider moving) please move on.
"Why do I have to stay here?" Dawn whined. She hated being treated like a baby who needed babysitting, and she hated being left with Anya most of all.
"You know why. Look, we'll be back soon, okay?"
"This sucks. Tara was the only one who ever liked me."
Willow started shaking slightly at the sound of her dead girlfriend's name. Buffy saw this and turned angrily to her sister.
"You know better than to say things like that!"
"It's not fair! I lost her too! I miss her so much and I don't even get to say it because Willow might go all dark-evily again! I'm tired of it! I wish she had been shot that day instead of Tara!" she yelled angrily without thinking about the fourth person in the room.
"Done."
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"Guys?" Dawn turned around, finding herself in a small room with two bunk beds and not much else. "Buffy? Willow? Anya?"
She walked warily outside the room and down the hall where she found a kitchen.
"Hey Dawn, can you help me with these beans?" a girl a few years younger than her asked. Another teen was stirring something on the stove.
"What? Who are you?"
The girls both looked at her strangely. "Did you hit your head or something?"
"I don't know, did I? Who are you?" she repeated.
"I'd better get Mrs. Yates." The bean-snapper said and rushed out of the room.
"Dawn, this isn't funny." The other girl said, turning back to her pot.
"I'm serious!"
"Fine, I'll play along. Your name is Dawn. Mine is Tiffany. We live here, with the Yates, our foster parents. You've been here for the past three months."
"F-foster parents? What about Buffy?"
"Dawn, your sister died almost four months ago." A new voice joined in as an older woman entered the room.
"See, I told you she's being weird." The younger girl said.
"Keisha, please. Dawn's been through a lot."
"Yeah but she's been fine. Sad and all but if she was gonna forget who she was don't you think she would have done that right away?" the girl said rather snippily.
Dawn felt faint. Suddenly she realized what had happened. She remembered Anya turning to her and saying Done. And then she remembered that Anya was a vengeance demon again, and she'd made a wish. How could she have been so stupid?
"No, I…I just woke up or something, I'm a little fuzzy, I'm okay."
She walked back to the room she'd first found herself in.
"How many times do I have to accidentally wish in front of a vengeance demon before I learn my lesson? And this makes that whole birthday thing look like well, a party."
She didn't really know how calling vengeance demons worked, but she tried just yelling her name. Well, saying it loudly, so that the people wouldn't think she was more crazy than they already did.
Luckily, that seemed to work, and Anya appeared in front of her.
"Interesting world you wished here. That's two new worlds I've created with wishes. I'm going to be famous again!"
"Listen, Anya, we have to go back."
"Why, you wanted this world."
"No I don't! Buffy's dead here! Willow must be too!"
"What about Tara and Xander?"
Dawn fell silent. Her wish had been to keep Tara alive. But then, she hadn't wanted Buffy to die, so she wondered what had happened to the blonde witch.
"Okay, we keep it until we find out what happened to Tara."
"And Xander." Anya said.
"Yes."
"How are we going to do that?"
"Um. Why don't you go ask around from the demons? You know, Spike and the gang."
"Spike left Sunnydale, remember?"
"Maybe not here! Or Clem, anyone who would know! I'll see if I wrote anything down. I'm sure I kept diaries here too."
Anya rolled her eyes but disappeared, presumably to look for information.
Dawn searched around the room and finally found a journal under a mattress that turned out to be hers. It was exactly like the one she had in the other world. She flipped back to the entries before Tara died and realized they were the same. Hesitatingly, she flipped forward. Her jaw dropped but she kept reading, forcing herself to read the horrible words.
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"Anya!" She called again when she was finished.
"Well? Any luck? I couldn't find Xander."
"You're not going to. He's dead. So is Buffy, and Willow. They died that day from Warren's gun. Xander died a few weeks later, killed by a demon when he was trying to patrol alone. Tara…seems to be in jail. She killed Warren and she's in jail." Dawn burst into tears. "That's why I'm here, in a foster home."
"Xander's dead? You wished Xander dead?"
"I didn't wish him dead! I just wanted Tara not to have died! I have to go see her." She suddenly decided.
"Do they let kids visit criminals?"
"She's not a criminal!"
"Well, but they think she is." The vengeance demon pointed out calmly.
"I…I don't know. I'll find out."
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Her diary seemed to suggest that she'd visited Tara before, so Dawn went to find her foster mom and asked if she could go. To her surprise, it was much easier than she'd expected, and Mrs. Yates offered to drive her to the prison, which was somewhat outside of town. An hour later, she walked into the visiting room and burst into tears again when she saw Tara sitting there.
She rushed over and enveloped her in a huge hug. She hadn't thought she'd ever see Tara again. To her surprise, the witch didn't really hug her back. She pulled away and looked at Tara to find dull eyes looking back at her.
"Tara, what's wrong?"
She shrugged. "Nothing new Dawn. What's wrong with you?"
"Tara, you aren't going to believe this, well maybe you will since our lives are so weird, but I haven't seen you in months. Not since the day Warren shot Buffy."
Tara didn't say anything, clearly in pain from the mere mention of the day.
"I made a wish. To Anya. It made this world. It isn't right. You shouldn't be here. Why are you here?"
"I killed somebody Dawn. This is what happens when you kill someone. What do you mean it isn't right?"
Dawn hesitated. "In the real world…Warren shot you, not Willow. You died, and she went crazy on black magic and fixed Buffy but she couldn't fix you. She tried to end the world but Xander stopped her somehow and she's mostly better now, only she's not of course because you are gone, and life sucks because you are gone so I got mad and wished that she got shot instead of you and then I was here." She was crying again by now. Tara was just staring at her. "What happened here?"
Tara stared for a minute more before speaking. "I-I guess I have to believe you. Why would you make that up? Yes, he shot Willow. She died instantly. I don't remember all of what happened next, but I just got so…I've told you this before but you don't remember it, do you?"
Dawn shook her head.
"I never told you before then, but when my mom died I…did some black magic. Nothing like what Willow ever did" her eyes watered at the name "but it was bad. I guess that all just came out in my grief again. When Xander said it was Warren, I went and found him. He was in the middle of the street but I didn't care, I just pushed him against a wall with my mind. I don't remember what spells I shot at him, but by the time I collapsed, he was dead. It wasn't much of a trial. Clear motive and tons of witnesses."
"Oh god, Tara…"
"I'm sorry, Dawn."
"No, it's my fault, I was so selfish, I wanted you back and I didn't think and now you're here."
"It's time to go." A prison guard came up to them.
"What? No, I…"
"You can come back tomorrow."
"You won't be back, will you." Tara said blankly.
"I-I'm not supposed to be here. I have to find a way back. But I don't know, maybe the me of yesterday will. I love you Tara." She threw her arms around the figure she had come to think of as a mother. She couldn't think of her as a murderer.
By the time she got back to the foster home and called Anya, the demon was quite annoyed.
"You know, this world isn't fun at all. Why did you wish it?"
Dawn ignored the question, realizing it was futile to explain again that she hadn't actually wanted that wish to come true. "Anya, the last time a wish made a new world, that was Cordelia right? And somehow they got the real world back and that made you human."
"Yes. Giles broke my power source." She touched the necklace around her neck.
"Then we have to do it again."
"But then I won't be a vengeance demon anymore! Last time got me stuck in high school!"
"I know, but we have to. Xander's in the other world, remember? He's not here."
Anya pouted. "Oh all right. But you have to tell him I did this for him. It will make him feel very guilty." She paused. "Oh wait, you probably won't remember. The others didn't remember, last time."
"What? I won't remember?"
"Probably not." Anya said gloomily. "I will."
"Then how did they know about it? I heard stories."
"They only knew after I tried to get my necklace and ended up bringing the Willow from that world to ours."
"Oh." Dawn pondered that for a second, and then her eyes went wide. "Oh! I have the best idea ever!"
"Will it get me my powers back?"
"No, but it'll get Tara back!"
Anya looked interested. "I liked Tara. She was nice. Like your mom. Why do the nice people die?"
"I-I have no idea Anya, but listen. If you could bring the Willow from that wish-world to ours, couldn't we bring the Tara from this wish-world to ours?"
"I don't know. I was trying to get my necklace, not the creepy vampire Willow."
"Okay. So we'll have to do some research. But you have to tell me about this world, okay? You have to remember everything about it, about how everyone's dead and Tara's in jail and sad. Oh and how she killed Warren with black magic. Even if we don't get her back, that might make Willow feel better."
"I thought you were mad at the crazy witch."
"I was until I lost her." Dawn said sadly. She proceeded to tell Anya every detail of the jail visit, until the vengeance demon started rolling her eyes with boredom. "So are you ready to get back to the real world?"
Anya sighed as she pulled off her necklace and smashed it.
The world spun and suddenly Dawn was back in Anya's apartment. She heard her say "Done." But nothing happened, of course, and only Anya knew why. Anya went over to the couch and sat down in a huff. Buffy barely gave her a glance.
"All right, so I'll see you in an hour. Be good Dawn."
As soon as Buffy and Willow left, Anya sulkily explained to the teen what she'd done, stressing the fact that she'd lost her powers again to get them back to the real world. Dawn apologized multiple times to the sulking ex-ex-ex-vengeance demon. Finally she got around to Dawn's idea about bringing Tara back.
"You're saying we could use the spell to get Tara back?"