This story takes place during season 6 and begins where 'Tabula Rasa' ends.

Tara decides to get away from the scoobies to rebuild herself after Willow's betrayal...

Note : I originally wrote this story in french. As I do not speak english fluently, you may find english mistakes. Feel free to tell me about it

Prologue : Tabula Rasa

It was the last one.

Tara put down her last package with her other cases in front of the house of Revello Drive and turned to the opened door, looking at the inside of the house which had been kind of hers, during all these months and that she got ready to leave, her heart destroyed. Her glance went through the stair in search of Dawn's silhouette. The teenager was at the top of the stairs and looked at her. When she felt Tara's glance settle on her, Dawn turned around and disappeared from Tara's sight without a gesture for her. Tara felt her heart squeeze up and she had to fight for containing new tears. She looked again at her bag and her two small boxes which laid at her feet, containing all her life there. Or at least, all that remained of it.

Tara turned again to the house and to the stairs. Dawn had not reappeared and she could feel that Willow had not moved from the bathroom into which she had locked herself since their return from the magic box. One second, a tiny small second, the urge, the need to run at the top of the stairs, to open this bathroom's door, to take the redhead in her arms and to forgive her for everything, invaded Tara. But the second following, she saw the crystal broken on the sewers' ground again. She sawthe book and the paragraph on the lethe ' bramble effects again. And her heart squeezed up so violently in her chest that she had to support herself against the frame of the door to prevent her from falling.

"You ready?"

Xander's voice brought her back to reality. The young man was standing in front of her, a grave and sad air plastered on his face. Tara wondered if he felt sorry for her pain or if he felt resentful to her for making Willow suffer. The witch was too much a prisoner of her own feelings to understand the others' ones.

She shook her head shyly and Xander took both boxes towards hiscar, parked in front of the house.

" You need one minute? " He asked again, pointing the inside of the house.

Tara looked at it again. Dawn did not still show herself and she knew that it would be a mistake to try to speak to her now. She shook her head and collected her bag, ready to follow Xander.

The young man piled up both boxes on the back footpath and Tara added her bag. Then she rose on the passenger seat and Xander put himself in front of the steering wheel.

He started the engine and the car quickly went away from the Summers house, taking definitively Tara too much far away from her home.

" You sure of what you're doing? " Asked Xander after a silence.

He tried to ask it in a neutral voice but Tara felt a point of bitterness there. She did not ask about it and confirmed by head.

" You sure you don't want to come some times to our place? " Asked again Xander, in a sweeter voice this time.

Again, Tara shook her head.

" It's very kind of you but I think that I'd rather be alone. "

" Anya insisted a lot " resumed Xander. " She will doubtless wanna kill me for failing to convince you. "

He tried to joke but the heart was not there.

" It is really sweet, Xander, but I need to be alone. Really. "

The carpenter shook his head and added nothing during some minutes.

" Anya didn't come because she doesn't like goodbyes " he said finally. " She said that it would be probably sad "

Tara answered nothing. It was sad. Effectively.

The rest of the road up to a small motel in the centre of the town was silently made. The street was almost deserted and Xander had no trouble to park in front of the hotel. He went out of the car and came to the right back door, which Tara had already opened to help her to take her cases. But before she had the time to catch them, he stopped her gesture and forced her to look at him.

" Tara, are you sure? " He asked again. " None of us likes knowing you alone here. You could come home "

Tara offered him a pale smile.

" Don't worry Xander, it's only for a day or two. The time needed for me to obtain a new room in the dorms. It won't be difficult, free rooms don't miss here. "

"Yeah"

New hush. Xander still didn't let go of Tara.

" You sure? "

She shook her head again in a gesture that she wanted sure.

" Sure. "

Xander released her and both collected the thin cases of Tara before carrying them inside. In the hall, Tara got back the key of the room that she had reserved a little earlier by phone and Xander took up her luggage there. He did not linger. He embraced Tara quickly and quickly re-tumbled down the stair, wishing to come back as quickly as possible at home to offer the little comfort that he could to his best friend.

And Tara was finally alone.She had always been lonely before her meeting with Willow just two years earlier, but anyway,it was strange to her to be alone again.

She wasn't used any more to this solitude, which had been her only friend for a so long time. And the circumstances of this new loneliness were only too painful.

Simply evoking it in a corner of her head brought back the tears, although she thought she could not cry any more. She just couldn't believe what happened to her. Willow played with her memories; Willow manipulated her spirit to control her.

Tara was not able to repress a groan at that thought ,while streamed in her clouded mind, memories of happier times. Willow who laughed, Willow who loved her, respected her. Willow who made her grow up, go out of herself to become a woman. Willow who made her taste joy and happiness. To her, Tara, who strongly believed to never be entitled to it.

During her best time with Willow,shesometimes caught herself shaking, thinking that all of this was too beautiful to last. And it did not last.

Finally, maybe,her father was right. Love, light, happiness, all these things were not for Tara.