Title: I Remember

Author: Whiskey Meteor

Rating: PG for character death.

Summary: End of season 6. Sort of an alternate ending after Tara is shot. As Tara dies, Willow remembers

Disclaimer: Everything BtVS belongs to Joss Whedon.

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Gunshots.

I don't know how many. I lose track after the one that hits her, spattering blood, wet and warm, onto my hands and face. Her blood. Tara's blood. Tara...

* * * * *

I remember the first time I saw her. It was in Wicca group. She was sitting on the floor, knees drawn up to her chest, held fast there by her arms. Like she was trying to be as small as she could. Like she was trying to disappear all together.

It didn't work. She was all that I could see. It was like there was a spotlight on her, and the rest of the room was in darkness.

I wanted to unfold her like a treasure map and learn all her secrets- help her protect them if she'd let me. Then she looked up. It was only for a moment, but our eyes met. In that moment, the voices and sounds of Wicca group faded away, and I joined her in the spotlight. And then she looked away, shyly, and I fell back into shadow. The voices rose back to full volume around me, though I wasn't listening.

I was hooked. I needed that light in my life.

* * * * *

She falls to the floor. It takes me a moment to realize what's happening before I'm there beside her, drawing her up into my arms and sobbing her name.

* * * * *

I remember our first kiss.

Sweet and soft and perfect. Simply a touch of skin on skin. Pulling back for a shy smile before our lips tentatively met again. My heart hammering in my chest, uncertain, but somehow absolutely sure.

I smoothed her hair away from her face- sandy blonde, soft as silk on my fingers. "God, you're beautiful," I told her. She blushed and glanced away. I pulled her back to me, claiming her lips and weaving our arms and fingers together. I could feel her heart beating as hard and fast as mine, and I never wanted to let her go.

* * * * *

A red stain blooms and spreads like oil through water over the fabric of her blouse. I whimper and shake and wonder how it's possible that there could be that much blood in one person. Coming out of one person. Oh god...

* * * * *

I remember when she left me and the sprawling gap that her absence left in my life. I remember sitting on the floor with my back resting against the wall, watching her pack up her things. Felt my heart constrict and my face grow wet with tears, wondering how I'd ever live without her.

We didn't say goodbye that day. I don't think either of us could've talked if we'd wanted to.

It was my fault. I'd pushed her away. She was the most wonderful, luminous thing in my life, and I'd pushed her away. I remember looking at our bed after she'd gone. It looked so big- so empty. I slept on the floor that night. I couldn't bear to get into our bed without her.

* * * * *

I can barely see through the salt tears burning in my eyes. I can feel her heart beat slowing and growing faint, and I can't breathe. "Please," I beg, "Tara, baby, please don't leave me..."

She doesn't answer.

* * * * *

I remember her coming back to me. Slowly. At first as friends, stealing awkward conversations on random meetings and scheduling coffee dates.

And then she was back in my arms. Back in my heart. Back in my bed. There were fevered kisses and attentive hands, all making up for lost time. Making love in a big bed that was just the right size with the two of us in it. Reverently touching every inch of each other, reassuring ourselves that we were together again- that it wasn't a dream.

Lying, sated and content, in each other's arms. Talking quietly of anything and everything. The world slipping away, and the spotlight shining on *us* again.

And then there were gunshots and a spreading red stain, draining the light out of my life...

* * * * *

Her eyes don't flutter shut.

There's no shuddering last breath or struggled fight to go on living.

She just passes, quietly, from life to death. It's like someone switched off the light behind her eyes and all that's left is darkness, complete and absolute. I clutch her still body to my breast and tears stream down my face. There's a ringing in my ears, and I realize that it's coming from my mouth. A wail. A noise of pain, that I've never heard issue from between my lips. I close my mouth and the noise stops, bathing the room in dark silence.

It takes all my strength to keep breathing, to keep from letting the darkness and anger take me. There's a weight around my heart that matches her weight in my arms. I close my eyes to shut out the scene around me- the blood and the sadness and the pain. And I remember...

* * * * *

We're lying in that big bed- our first night back together. We're snuggled in the very center of the soft mattress, wrapped in each other's arms and unwilling to let go. "Will we always be together?" I ask. I sound like a child, I know, but I need an answer. I need to know that she'll never leave me again.

She smiles, and pulls me close. Our bodies fit together so well, sometimes it feels more like we're one person, made with two heads and two hearts. "Always," she says, and kisses me softly, on the flat plane of my forehead. "Maybe not like this," she concedes, and traces a line from my collar bone to point just over where my heart lies. "But here..." She flattens her palm on my skin and spreads her fingers out like a plant taking root. "We'll always be together there. No matter what." And I know she's speaking the truth. Wherever one goes, the other will be; separated not by time, nor space, nor life, nor death. Our hearts are joined. Forever. No matter what.

The end.