Author's Note: I know in the beginning Tara's ghost says something about being a higher being with Cordelia, and since Lorne is at Angel's you're probably wondering how he got back and such. Well I decided to make it so Cordelia doesn't come back from being a higher being once they come back from Las Vegas, but no one knows she is a higher being yet so that's why Willow had not seen Cordelia and was all nonchalant about it.
Tara was surrounded by darkness, the only light was being emitted from her, all she could hear was someone yelling…. "ANGEL! I'M HERE!" The voice awoke Tara from her rest.
"Where am I?" She asked the other woman.
"Huh?" Cordelia barely herd the young woman.
"Where's Willow?" Then all the memories came back to her.
Tara was standing in front of the window when she heard gun shots, and then suddenly crimson was on Willow's shirt "Your shirt!" and the look of total horror played across her lover's face as she entered into a tunnel, not really a physical tunnel, more of a tunnel that was appearing on the ceiling of their room, slowly the white of the roof was fading into the darkness of the tunnel "That wasn't there before." She said as she realized she was now standing and not laying on the floor of her bedroom. And then she flew forward hair brushing across her face as the wind blew it back, and now she was in a room, a room with no walls only a white expanse, her mother was sitting at a table.
"Hello Tare Bear." Her mother smiled, she was wearing a white flowing night gown, the one she had been buried in.
"Mama? Where are we? Am I dead?" She was too shocked to do anything else but just stand dumfounded.
"You are here to watch and to know." The woman said without actually answering any of Tara's questions. "You are where all souls go when their journeys are done, you are at the end of the road, the choice is yours whether or not to turn around and find a new path or to continue on to the After Road."
"Okay. Of course I will go back to Willow!" Tara began to turn back around but the tunnel had disappeared.
"First you must watch." And Tara's mother snapped her fingers as they were back in the room standing over Willow screaming Tara's name.
"Tara baby!" The redhead screamed loudly. "Come back! Baby!" She shook the dead body of the woman. Tara leaned down to try and comfort her lover.
"I'm here baby." But as she looked into Willow's eyes she saw the dark magics in her eyes, the black orbs filling the void where her usual green eyes where. "Oh sweetie I'm right here."
"Bring her back to me!" Willow yelled as clouds replaced the ceiling and a face appeared.
"Oh dear lord!" Tara whispered more to herself than to anyone else.
"You have already risen one! This is a human death by human means!" Osiris yelled to the witch as Willow shot fuming gas out of her mouth to the god.
"Do you see Tara? We must right the imbalance taken from us. You and her raised one dead soul by magic, now we must right that by taking one as pure as the one who taken, you were the only option out of the group. I am sorry my love, but it had to be done." Tara's mother told her.
Tara began crying as she looked down at her wounded body. "So I cannot go back?"
"No, not yet." Her mother whispered, reaching out her arms to encompass and hold the young witch. "Your time will come. For you to understand I must explain. I am your guide so I must guide. When Buffy died she was taken to a higher plane of being, all souls go somewhere when they die, they either go to purgatory, heaven, or hell. Where the individual soul goes depends on the life that one person lead. Heaven is a plane in which those with supernatural abilities and sacrificed their life for others or spent most of their life protecting others, it is where the supremely good souls go so that they can further fight evil. Purgatory is where normal people who did neither good nor bad go. And hell is where supernatural beings who harmed others for personal gain go, where evil goes. Do you understand?" Somehow they had returned to the white room without Tara even having noticed.
"So far yes." Tara responded. "But that still doesn't explain what you said about us causing an imbalance? Was it when we brought Buffy back?"
"Yes. You see Buffy was a supremely good soul, true to the cause in every way. To get to heaven there is an entrance exam if you will. Three things that must have occurred in each person's life in order to become a higher being; First they must be supernatural, Second they must fight evil, and third they must willingly give up on the love of their life in order to keep an evil from arising. Buffy staked Angel without any remorse in order to save the world. She is a slayer making her supernatural. And she of course fights evil." The woman held her daughter tightly "When you and your lover brought her back, it is what was needed, but still it created an imbalance not only in the natural ways of death, but inside Willow. The only way to right these wrongs was to have you die in a way that made her inable to magical resurrect you. And a way that would push her over the edge and make her use up all of that dark magic and replace it with something beautiful and pure. In other words we needed her to become a goddess and this was the only way. While allowing for Buffy's place to be replaced by you."
"But… I never willingly gave up my lover for an evil arising." Tara said matter of factly.
"But you did! When you left her for her dark magics use. The hardest thing you ever did."
"And you said I wasn't going back now? Does that mean I can go back?" Tara asked.
"Every champion that fights for redemption for The Powers That Be has a battle they must fight against a specific evil, once they have completed their fight the PTBs give them the one thing in the world they most desire. With Angel it is a human existence. With Willow it will be you." Her mother laughed "You realize that no one left heaven until you and your friends and now there will be three of you not only leaving but coming as well at whims!"
Tara looked around now realizing where she was, Heaven.
"THIS IS SO BORING!" The woman next to her yelled.
"Did I hear you say Angel?" Tara asked.
"Yes!" Cordelia contemplated this new person. Has she been there the whole time? "How long have you been here?"
"I just got here. Are you talking about Angel as in Buffy's Angel?" Tara asked the young woman.
"Yes! You know Buffy?" Cordelia asked amazed that there was one of the Scoobies next to her. At least now I'll have someone to talk to.
"I do. You know her as well I assume?"
I assume? She must be a nerd maybe Xander's new girlfriend or something. "Went to high school with the Slayer! I'm Cordelia, you can call me Cordi. I would shake your hand, but seeing as we are both kinda glowwy I don't know if we can even get close or what not. So how do you know Buffy?"
"My name is Tara, I've heard a lot about you from Willow." Tara smiled at the girl, she doesn't seem as bad as Willow had described her.
Willow? "Well you can't always believe what The Slayer and her rag tag group of sidekicks say about people. Well I mean they were probably right, but I'm different now higher being and all." Cordelia laughed. "So how'd you get here? I saw that there was some crazy stuff going on in Sunnydale, but that's not where I'm supposed to be looking, I'm the LA protector. I'm guessing they brought you to watch over Sunny D."
"Oh me? I died." Tara looked at the glowing woman next to her. "What about you?"
For some reason Cordelia laughed. "Has the news not traveled to the Scoobies yet? I was turned into a higher being on my way to profess my love to Angel. Something about having to fulfill a requirement of willingly giving up love." And Tara realized that all the glowing lights around them must be like some sort of group of former demon hunters from all around the world and from many different time periods who willingly gave up their lovers in order to fight evil. "Probably better that way. I mean not being able to have sex would really suck, and I just don't know if I could give it up. Wait so who'd you have to give up in order to join this group of highly beings?"
"Willow." Tara whispered.
"Did I hear you say Willow?" Tara nodded. "Oh Willow's gay?" Tara nodded again. "That's why she went crazy!" Crazy? Willow? What?
"What do you mean?"
"Well look for yourself." Tara looked down, not really know where to look, but as soon as she did she saw exactly what she was looking for, in the white mist that surrounded her thousands of pictures shot up, the one that came foremost at the front was one of Willow with dark hair and her dark Willow eyes, she was walking through a forest of some sort when an explosion went off in front of her causing Tara to gasp. Until she realized Willow had frozen the orb of light and walked right through it. Tara caught a glance of an axe coming out of the air right toward Willow. "Look out Willow!" She screamed as the axe landed into Willow's shoulder blade causing the red head to fall to the ground. Only to rise again magically, she was laughing, and as Willow turned she could see who she was laughing at. "Warren." Then the image changed again, Warren was tied between two trees and Willow was looking at him, now she could hear Willow speak.
"The one person in this world who should be here, and now she's dead because of you." Tears filled the evil witches eyes as the man screamed into his lips that were sewn shut, and he had a mean hole in his chest. Tara could hear footsteps coming and Willow undid the magical stitch work on the boys mouth.
"Please I'm sorry!" The boy's body was turning read and Tara knew his time was near.
"Bored now." Was all her former lover said as a movement of her hand tore away all the skin left on the boy's body. And it hit Tara, Warren had killed her. He had been the one who took Willow away from her, made her this thing, this evil vengeful thing. Tears began to slowly fall from Tara's face as the image changed again as Willow stood over Giles' incapacitated body. "Oh no Willow." She whispered thinking Willow was about to kill Giles, but instead of reaching deep into his skin, she reached deep into his aura and pulled at the energies surrounding her old friend.
A voice entered Tara's mind "That is the magic we want her to take. Pure magic from the Earth, it will make her immortal and it will make her into the champion you will watch over until she is done with her task."
"What task?" Tara asked.
"Killing the senior partners of Wolfram and Heart, she has already begun her task as she was directed by your ghost, but soon she will need help. You are to direct her to begin a job at Angel Investigation. That is why you were put so close to Cordelia here."