A/N: I wrote this story for the Kitten Board (Willow/Tara fanfiction archive) but never have posted it this fanfiction site before now. The story is already complete, so I'll be posting at least two chapters a week, perhaps four. Enjoy!

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Chapter One

Fallen Leaves

Tara Maclay, RN, awoke to a pearly, fog-encrusted slat of early morning sunshine directly over her eyes. The sun confused her for a moment – she was diligent about drawing the heavy drapes in her bedroom before slipping off to bed. She blinked several times; the opalescent glow wasn't quite powerful enough to sting her eyes, but it was enough to wake her from a slender and painful sleep. It took only this slim moment for her to recognise the antiseptic smell of the hospice, the faint tang of industrial laundry detergent right under her nose, and the slightly hissing sound emanating from the bank of dials and machines surrounding the bed. She slowly raised her chocolate brown head from her bony pillow, her neck muscles aching, realizing that she had fallen asleep on Mr. Whitney's frail abdomen and arm. Instinctively she studied the beeping monitors and then relaxed slightly. All was well.

Tara tucked wayward wisps of hair back behind her ears and slowly got to her feet. Two hard fists of pain contracted her lower back and she absently rubbed them, feeling the pin pricking of new blood flowing to oxygen deprived limbs. The window was only a single step away – back when Mr. Whitney had been conscious he enjoyed his view of the garden courtyard studded with oak trees dripping holly, framing a giggling waterfall. The morning fog hadn't burned away yet, suffusing Tara's little world with an ethereal glow, and Tara near-reluctantly pulled the blinds so the radiance wasn't shining directly on poor Mr. Whitney's face.

Tara returned to the bed and took Mr. Whitney's wrist. With a practised hand she felt for his pulse and began counting. She could sense the slow shushing of blood through his tired veins. Standing thus she could still feel the insistent pull on her lower back and a dull needle of pain began to surge through the back of her head. She hadn't meant to stay last night, but she really had nothing better to do at home, especially since the recent death of her beloved cat. So she had smiled wistfully at John, the night nurse, when he chastised her for staying. Besides, she had only a couple dozen pages of 'Runaway Jury' to read to the unconscious Mr. Whitney. So when his body began to spasm in the middle of the night she sank into him almost eagerly to take his pain.

And now his blood whispered to her, a tiny voice almost hidden among the constant medical noise of machines and monitors and dials. Tara gave a small sigh, yearning for a hot bath and a soft bed, then with fingers that fumbled a little from tiredness she untucked his blanket, untied two flimsy strings that held his hospital robe together and laid bare Mr. Whitney's chest. Here she could see a mirage of his former self, as a young father who played hoops in the driveway with his sons, beating back the belly that so many of his fellow accountants had developed. All before a multiplication of cells had exploded in his pancreas. In the hard months between then and now, Mr. Whitney's body had shrivelled, his hair had fallen and regrown, and his spirit began to shine with the patient whiteness of death Tara recognised so well. She wondered how much time he had left. There was one certain way of finding out.

Tara shuffled very close to the bed and sat carefully on the edge of it, then splayed her long, lithe fingers wide and placed them delicately on the thin, bare skin of Mr. Whitney's chest. She took a long, deep breath with her eyes open, then allowed her eyes to close. Still muddled and bemused with lack of sleep her eyelids felt heavy and thick. A cramp lit up her lower back and she clenched her jaw, ignoring it. Breathing softly, slowly, deeply, she formed in the whiteness of her mind a single, majestic oak tree. The tree was in its prime, green leaves glowing with health and vitality, lit by the radiant sun of Tara's soul. With exquisite care she sent this tree ghosting through her veins. As it hit the barrier of Mr. Whitney's chest she gave it a small mental push, until it diffused in its entirety on the other side, appearing in the vast blankness of Mr. Whitney's mind.

In the space of seconds this glorious, tremendous tree had withered in the blasting winter of Mr. Whitney's diseased body, leaves yellowing and falling in a golden fountain until only three leaves remained.

Ah.

Tara hadn't realised that Mr. Whitney's death was so close. Just last week when she sent in the tree there had still been an entire branch of yellowing leaves. For a moment Tara debated with herself, wondering if she would have time to find and talk to Mr. Whitney here before having to go out and prepare his body for his final, deathbed visit with his family. She mentally shook her head. He wouldn't be hard to find. In the long months they shared together she had traversed the wilderness of his mind dozens of times. In some ways she knew him more intimately than his wife. As the cancer progressed, stretching metastatic fingers of maliciousness into every crack and crevice of his besieged body, Tara had begun teaching him how to retreat to a place of peace in his mind. Last week, when he finally fell completely into the long unconsciousness, she had found him in the place she helped him create. She knew where it was, and she knew that he was there now.

She closed her mind's eye and reached, feeling for the beaten path to the garden of his soul. When she opened her eyes again she saw the near-dead tree she had brought with her as a reminder of what she still had to do on the other side. She grimaced. She hated bringing this dying tree into his garden of delight. She looked down at herself, curious to see what she looked like. When her mother had first started teaching her to

(mindsurf)

enter other people's minds, she had imparted an interesting piece of information. Tara remembered the day clearly – she had been thirteen or fourteen, wearing impish pigtails and sitting on the edge of her bed. Her mother was sitting cross-legged at her feet so Tara could easily place her clumsy and juvenile hands on her mother's silken head. Just before 'going in' for the first time, Tara's mother had admonished, "There is only truth here, Tara. In the open vessel of the host mind, the host determines your physical form, and you will appear exactly as the host mind sees you. Only truth. The deepest truth."

And when Tara had finally, laboriously, clambered into her mother's mind that day she was surprised to find herself as a little girl in a sunflower dress and pigtails. Later, her adolescent pride crushed, she demanded to know why. The answer was a typical one. "Because you'll always be my little girl."

Tara's aspect hadn't changed much in her many forays into Mr. Whitney's mind. She always looked exactly as she had on the day he was admitted – wearing scrubs with dancing teddy bears, a stethoscope around her neck, and her favourite bright red converse sneakers on her feet. A nurse. His nurse.

"I wondered if you would come."

Tara turned at the sound of his voice. He was puttering in his garden, which he had named the Elfin Forest, shamelessly plagiarising the name of the natural reserve just outside town. She supposed no one was going to come in here and sue him for it. The plants had flourished in his steady care this past week, and she smiled to see the blooming holly and jack-in-the-pulpit.

"It's almost time, but I couldn't leave without saying goodbye," Tara replied, sorry again that she had to bring his dying tree into this perfect garden. She looked and found delight after delight – the woolly lamb's ear contrasting with the smooth green and gold of english ivy, the multicoloured columbines swaying above masses of fragrant thyme.

Peter Whitney stood, and she was glad to see his strong, young body, his smooth skin and dark hair. He brushed dirt from his hands, then purposefully walked among his plants, plucking daisies and honeysuckle and lilies into a fresh bouquet, ducking his head a little as he handed the fresh bundle to her. Tara lifted her mouth in her insolent half-smile as she sniffed the blossoms.

"Thanks for everything, Tara," Mr. Whitney said softly. "I couldn't imagine how difficult this whole ordeal would have been without you."

Tara's face flushed a little, and she opened her mouth to stammer some nonsensical reply, but Mr. Whitney continued. "No, let me finish. I may not have understood how you did what you did, how you took pain away like it was never there, but that doesn't make me any less grateful."

Tara smiled and nodded. "It was my pleasure to help you, Peter."

Mr. Whitney smiled, then turned serious as they both saw another leaf fall from his death-tree. "Any chance I could get a romantic deathbed conversation with my wife?" he asked softly.

Tara placed the flowers on the ground, took his hands and gently shook her head. "I'm sorry, Peter. It's far too late. I can't bring you out now." She took one last envious look at the paradise of his mind, then clasped his hands tighter in hers. "I have to go."

He shocked her then, by lifting her hands up to his lips and kissing them like a courtly gentleman of yore. "I'll never forget you, Tara Maclay."

"Nor I you, Peter Whitney."

He gave her a full grin, and she smiled back, picked up the flowers, and began to pull herself away. "Tell my wife I love her, and that I'm proud of my kids," he called to her, as she continued to retreat, and she gave him a last knowing nod before disappearing.

She awoke on the other side, her fingers warm and tingling on his chest. She was almost surprised to see his real appearance and she frowned for the beauty the cancer stole away. With considerable effort she stood up and felt again the mean gremlin bite of pain in her lower back. She had no time to waste, but she stood and looked at him anyway, the translucent light of morning reflecting off the glow his soul made that only she could see. She smoothed the skin of his cheek, and then touched the hair of his head and whispered, "Goodbye, Peter."

Pulling herself away was harder than she thought. She felt rubbery, like an elastic band that would snap and pull her back to him. They were always so sweet before death. She could practically drink the sweetness in, bathe in the glow of soulfire, and when the light came to them they would walk into it and she would watch, and yearn, and wish it could be her. Maybe then her farce of a life could have some meaning, because isn't there always meaning in the end?

Not even the poet knows the end from the beginning.

One of her mother's sayings, which she used to illustrate the vagaries of life. It made little sense to Tara back then when it was first said, when Tara lay weeping on her mother's chest, suffering the injustice of it all. When the clods of dirt landed on her mother's coffin she understood even less. All she knew was that, once her mother died, life had little joy for her. She was stuck in a home she detested, with a father she feared, a brother she dreaded, a fictitious wish in her heart.

But you're out now.

Yes, but like an elastic band, she feared the inevitable snap and pull back into that hellish dimension of life. Anything was better than that. Even this, this emptiness, this abyss of love. Her dead cat and empty house in Los Osos was better than her dead mother and fiendish family.

No time to waste, Tara.

Tara tucked errant brown hair back behind her ears and walked to the door of Mr. Whitney's private room, dreading the sound of squeaking coming from her sneakers. Closing the door carefully behind her (why, Tara, Peter is unconscious, you know) she went down the hall to the nurse's station. It was almost seven in the morning and Penny was there, looking perky and chipper and every other early-morning person adjective. There was a coffeepot making comforting gurgling noises behind her and Tara longed for a cup.

No time.

"Penny, we need to phone Mr. Whitney's family. It's time," she said to the older nurse. Penny lifted her head from the forms she was reading and mock-glared at Tara.

"Were you here again all night, honey?" she asked, looking Tara over. Her practised eye (near thirty years of nursing service, thank you very much) could see what Tara was trying very much to hide: exhaustion, headache, and backache. "You really need to get a life outside these walls," she continued in her soft southern drawl, softening the bite of her words with a smile.

"Just c-call them, please," Tara replied, turning her head away, knowing Penny could see the truth and hating it.

"I don't know how you always know, honey," Penny said in a placating tone, "but you're nivver wrong. I'll call 'em. You get Mr. Whitney ready."

As Tara returned to the

(deathspace)

sanctity of Mr. Whitney's room, she could hear Penny flipping through his file to find the phone numbers of his family. They lived in Santa Maria, which meant that, with the blessing of rush-hour traffic, she would have about an hour to get him ready to receive them.

Within that hour Tara managed to give him a sponge bath, had combed what remained of his hair and shaved his face, then dressed him in fresh hospital robes and tucked him back into his narrow bed. Then, all that remained was the wait. She propped a chair by the foot of his bed and put her hand on one of his blanketed feet. She wasn't sure if that reassurance was for him at all; he couldn't feel her, or hear her. He was far away, puttering in his garden, watching the fallen leaves and thinking of his wife.

And she was here, yet again. Half a dozen times Tara had been the one to sit and patiently wait while the souls of her patients were cleansed through pain and heaven-fire. She was the one to watch as their bodies

(husks)

were thinned, until their souls shone through them, lighting them aglow, embossing them like the sun behind soft petals. Their light would always wound her, for she carried her own darkness within. Her charges, they were the hallowed ones and she was struck by remorse. How often will she come here, a black and malevolent spirit always desiring the end her patients received? Tara realised that she was their partner, the other side of their coin, they the light, she the dark one that always hides a little to the left, deep in the shade. Would there ever be anyone to bring her to the light? Or must she always glut herself on someone else's pain?

Tara heard the door scrape open, and she looked over to see the drawn face of the soon-to-be Widow Whitney. She had been a frequent visitor while Mr. Whitney was conscious. Once he lapsed into that deeper state, Tara had pled with her, knowing that the filter in his mind was so thick that Peter could barely see through it to the waking world. He would never know she was here. Tara promised to stay near, and she fulfilled that promise.

Mrs. Whitney came right up to Tara, and Tara could see her whole frame quaking. She warmly took the smaller woman in her arms and held her close. Tara couldn't do much good without touching bare skin, but she sent what waves of compassion she could through her fingers and into the woman's clothes, not knowing if it was a futile gesture or not. Like holding Mr. Whitney's blanketed feet, maybe that gesture was more for her.

"I can't thank you enough for being here with him," the woman whispered, finally pulling out of Tara's arms, thin streaks of moisture marking her face.

"He l-loves you very much," Tara stammered, blinking and hating herself for it. "He's proud of his family." She clasped Mrs. Whitney's cool, clammy hands in her own for a moment longer, then let go. Their two sons crowded the space, the younger one (did he just turn fifteen?) staring at her and blushing. Tara tried not to blush in turn, but failed, remembering a conversation with Mr. Whitney in which he revealed his youngest had a crush on her. She wanted to tell him how futile it was (I'm gay, Mr. Whitney), but she never did. There was no point. That part of her life was intensely private, and the bounds of the nurse/patient relationship shielded her.

So she merely tugged the curtain closed and said, "I'll be here if you need me."

Tara couldn't leave the room. Not now. Not when it was so sweet. The early morning fog had been vanquished and deflected sunlight streamed fiercely into the room, painting the silhouettes of Peter Whitney's family on the thin curtain. She sat on an available stool and watched, and waited, scarcely listening to the murmuring of his sons, only listening for the steady beeping of his heart monitor to finally lapse and fail.

And the veil felt thin.

She could practically see them, the hosts of angels on the other side. They would be lining the avenues, getting ready to pop the champagne and throw the confetti the moment Peter Whitney appeared on the other side, congratulating him on the win. A life without vice, a family that loved him, a battle with cancer well fought.

And her heart quailed with fear. What would her death be like? Who would line the avenues for her, who would applaud her years of abuse and despair, who would understand her love of women, who would forgive her death wish?

So she sat, and the pain in her back paled next to the pain in her heart.

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Well, dear readers, I don't even know if there are still any Buffy fans active, but I'm proud to share this story nonetheless. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know by hitting the box below! Two chapters today, just to get you hooked!