Her movements were slow and smooth as she mimicked Angel. Her mind was clear of all thought. She knew only the movements of the Tai Chi. It was succeeding on what Angel had said it was meant for. It was meant to give her a sense of focus and calm. On one particular movement her balance faltered and she exhaled in frustration. Angel stopped and turned to her.
"It's okay," he said. He grabbed a towel and handed it to her to wipe off the sweat. "We've been doing this for over an hour. You picked it up fast. Have you ever done Tai Chi before?"
"Never," she replied. She sat and just held the towel in her hands. "I haven't felt that stable since before I…before Moktar. I didn't want to stop."
"That's understandable," Angel said. He sat next to her and they sat in silence for a moment. He gestured to her bandaged right hand. "You got a little destructive in your room the other night."
"Um, yeah," she said, flexing her hand. The slight sting was a strong reminder of what had happened. "I was upset."
"It was more than that," Angel said. "Wasn't it?"
She looked down at the floor. She was afraid to reveal that she was seeing the girl she had killed, being haunted in her waking hours instead of just in her sleep. It made her feel crazy. She knew she wasn't stable, but she liked to think she had some semblance of sanity about her. Seeing dead people didn't really put her amongst the ranks of the sane.
"Tara, if you want me to help you, you need to be honest with me," he continued. "I know you're going through things that you don't understand or are afraid to understand. I'll help you understand them."
"She's taunting me," she said quietly.
"Who's she?"
"The girl that I killed," Tara replied. "She said death comes to all I touch."
"Death comes to everybody," he said. He paused, thinking of himself. "Well, almost everybody. Men, women, children." He paused. "Willow."
She looked up at him suddenly, alarmed by the suggestion.
"Willow's human. Flesh and blood. She could die tomorrow or she could die in 80 years," he continued. "No matter when it happens, it won't be because of you."
"I just don't trust myself," she said, shaking her head.
"I think you do," Angel said. "You trusted yourself the night you went with Cordy and Fred to save the twins."
"Are you kidding?" Tara asked with an exasperated laugh. "I was so far from trusting myself."
"That's what you think," Angel replied. "But deep down you trusted yourself. If you truly believed you couldn't keep yourself from losing control and killing an innocent, you never would have gone with them."
She had never thought about it that way. But she remembered what she had felt when Cordelia had held that axe out to her. She was more concerned about Cordelia and Fred being killed by the vampires than by her. She had trusted herself enough to risk losing control. That was something.
"I never really knew when to say this because I wasn't really sure how to approach you at first," Angel said. "But you are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. Based off what I know about Moktar, I would've expected you to come back completely lost, a vicious animal who knows nothing but killing. You're more like the person Willow and Buffy described to me than like the person I expected you to be."
"I don't feel like it."
"You will have total control eventually," Angel continued. "The things that happened to you won't go away, but they will fade. You will get back to your life."
"What about the Powers That Be and my big plan?" Tara asked with a smirk. Angel smiled. "That isn't exactly the life I was looking for."
"Yeah, I know," he replied. The two of them stood and headed for the stairs, on their way up from the basement to the lobby. "Wes has been working on that, but so far we don't have anything."
"That's comforting," Tara replied sarcastically. "Nothing like going into a situation blind."
They walked into the lobby and Wesley looked up. He gestured for them to join him in the office.
"I've been waiting for you two to show up," he said. "I think I have something."
Intrigued, the two of them waited impatiently as he sorted through his papers. Finally he held up his notes for them to see, pointing to a phrase in a different language.
"I was looking over the shanshu prophecy again and I found this phrase," he said. "This is just a preliminary translation, but I believe this phrase means 'keeper of earth.'"
Tara's eyes widened and she looked from Angel to Wesley. "That's me."
"Precisely," Wesley said, his excitement of his discovery showing through. "I'm fairly certain about the portion that means 'keeper of' but the last bit could mean several things, including 'earth.' I've been cross-referencing several ancient languages to verify this. However, I do believe that this passage is referring to you, Tara."
"Were you able to translate anything else?" Angel asked. "Do you have any idea what her role in the prophecy is?"
"Not yet," Wesley replied. He sat in the chair behind the desk and glanced over his notes. "So far, all I have is that phrase. I will keep working on it."
"Good. The more we know the better," Angel said. He shot Tara a look, thinking about their earlier conversation. "No going into this blind."
Tara smiled and then thought about this discovery. Part of her was excited to know what she had in store in her future. Another part of her was terrified. Angel and the others had given her the impression that this prophecy was a major prophecy, a long term deal working for the PTB. When Lorne had said the PTB had a big plan for her, she hadn't expected it to be this big. She wasn't sure she was ready for it. And no matter how much Lorne said she still had free will, Tara knew she couldn't turn her back on this. She didn't truly have a choice. She had to see it through, no matter how long it took.