"We're lost!" Faith repeated in a much high-pitched tone.
"God! How's that!" She yelled to anyone in particular.
Tara wrapped her arms around her chest in a protective gesture and looked frantically around her.
"A-are y-you s-sure?" she asked hesitantly. "Maybe…"
She turned around, walked a few steps looking like she was searching for some kind of clue.
"May-maybe…" Tara repeated in a firmer tone.
"No" Faith coldly interrupted. "I'm sure. It's the third time we're going that way"
"You-you s-sure?" Tara repeated again.
"Yeah, I'm sure!" Faith exclaimed letting her anger taking over her. "We're lost Blondie!"
"We are lost!" she repeated, stressing each syllable. "What word don't you understand in that sentence?"
Tara looked down and didn't answer. She wrapped her arms even more tightly around herself then carefully looked up to look around her.
"Wh-what… may-maybe…"
But she fell silent before ending her sentence. Maybe because her stutter prevented her from finishing or maybe because Faith wasn't listening to her anyway.
The Slayer was looking around like a hunter on the trail. She was pacing around, irresolute to be defeated. Tara didn't dare to interrupt her and stood still without telling a word.
Faith eventually stopped and threw her crossbow in rage for the second time of the day.
"Damnit!" she grumbled.
She grabbed her crossbow, made sure it wasn't damaged and came back toward Tara with a dark look on her face.
"Lost! We're lost!" she informed. "I can't recognize a thing. I probably got it wrong somewhere. And we can't see a thing…"
"What are we going to do?" Tara asked in an anguished voice.
Faith nonchalantly shrugged and jumped to sit on a rock beside the witch.
"Nothing. What do you want to do?" she asked.
She plunged her hand in a pocket of the bag and got her cigarettes. The Slayer lit one and dragged a deep puff.
"There's nothing to do Blondie. We won't find our way back tonight. We have to wait for daylight"
Tara looked at her in horror.
"W-waiting? He-here?" she stuttered.
"Yeah" Faith simply replied. "Be patient"
Tara went on staring at Faith for long seconds. Seeing she still had no reaction, she turned to the left then to the right, trying to look as far as possible in the dark night.
"F-faith… Everything is d-dark here" she said after a moment.
Faith looked up to her and dragged a new puff before snorting at Tara.
Yeah! I'm so glad you're here to tell me that!"
She then rolled her eyes and dragged a new puff without adding a word.
Tara got closer to the Slayer and after some kind of internal debate, decided to try again.
"B-but we c-can't s-stay h-here…" she tried. "Y-you m-must have a-an I-idea of w-what to…"
"No" Faith interrupted, bored to wait for Tara to finish. "I'm a Slayer, not a mountain guide"
Again she dragged a puff before looking at Tara.
"You know you should be the brain ?"
In front of Tara's questioning look, she vaguely gestured and rolled her eyes.
"Forget it"
"Well… maybe…" Faith added a second later, her eyes coming back to Tara.
"You're a with, aren't you?" she asked as she stood, suddenly enthusiastic about the idea forming in her mind. "We've taken your magic stuff. You could do a spell? A locator spell? Something telling us where we are and how we get back?"
Tara looked at her in surprise then shook sadly her head.
"N-no. A locator spell doesn't w-work that way"
"It's used to locate isn't it?"
"To locate someone l-lost" Tara tried to explain.
As Faith grimaced, the witch understood quickly that the Slayer had no idea what she meant, which Faith voiced just after:
"We're lost, aren't we?"
Tara wavered then shook her head again.
"It-it doesn't w-work that w-way" she simply said.
A guttural cry pierced the night at that precise moment, making both girls jump. Faith only slightly jumped but Tara nearly stumbled.
"Great!" Faith ironically said. "Trapped here for the night in hostile mountains with a chicken witch unable to do a spell! It's great!"
Saying this, she furiously crushed her cigarette against the rock behind her. She stood still for a moment, carefully listening to any sound around her. When she was sure that nothing was threatening them, her body relaxed and she turned to Tara. The blonde witch had wrapped again her arms around her and was trying hard to control her shaking legs. Faith sighed and looked again around her.
"Well, we ain't gonna stay standing here" she announced. "You look scaring Blondie, you can use some rest"
She gestured to Tara to follow and got away toward a big rock whose shape recalled some giant animal wide opened mouth. Faith inspected its surroundings and looked satisfied.
"We're gonna settle here Blondie" she explained. "With that rock surrounding us, I can easily see if something's coming toward us. I only have one direction to watch for"
Tara nodded but Faith wasn't sure she had really understood. The blonde settled against the rock and folded her legs to her chest. Faith let herself fall a few meters across from her and watched her in silence. Tara was frighteningly pale and her eyes were roaming around as to look for some possible threat.
"Relax Blondie" Faith told her a few minutes later. "I'm watching, there's nothing you should be scared of. You should try to get some sleep"
Tara didn't answer nor nodded her head. She just stayed where she was, only her eyes telling Faith she was still alive. Faith stopped looking at her and relaxed against the rock in her turn, her eyes lost in the distant night in front of her, her mind roaming away.
When she turned to Tara again along time later, she saw that her eyes were still wide open.
"You should sleep Blondie" she repeated.
"I c-can't" Tara stuttered.
"Why that?"
"I-it s-so d-dark. My God, I hate this"
Faith watched her obviously questioningly because Tara felt like explaining:
"I'm afraid of the dark"
In other circumstances, Faith would probably have laughed to such a confession. But something in Tara's tone – seriousness and terror she heard - prevented her to do so.
"A-and I-it's s-so c-cold" Tara added.
"Yeah" Faith commented.
She noticed that the witch was violently shaking and chattering her teeth. Faith nimbly got to her feet and went a few steps away.
She gathered branches and twigs and came back to Tara with her arms fully loaded.
"I'm gonna build a fire" she explained as she unloaded her burden near the witch. "Light and warmth" she added as to justify what she was doing.
She started to gather the twigs and put some branches above. She got her lighter in her pocket and switched it on near the twigs. They caught fire at once and Faith let escape a small victory cry. Which transformed into an unhappy growl when the flames almost immediately disappeared. Faith started again her actions. Twice. Three times. And she faced the same failure each time. When the flames died for the fifth time, Faith turned to Tara with a resolute look on her face. The witch was still motionless and was looking at her with a fearful look.
"Don't worry Blondie, I'm gonna do this"
Faith gathered new twigs and changed the setting of the branches. This time, she set them pyramid-shaped around the twigs pile. Again she switched her lighter on and added new twigs as the pile was burning in front of her.
That time worked. Soon, flames grew and branches caught fire in their turn.
Faith grinned as she was fire getting stronger and reaching the top of her pyramid. She then waved her lighter under Tara's nose and bragged:
"Next time you tell me it's bad to smoke, remember that night!"
In front of Tara's dubious look, she specified:
"No cigarette, no lighter. No lighter, no fire"
She bustled about the fire again, made sure it was strong enough then gestured to Tara to come.
"Come closer Blondie, get some warmth"
Tara did as she was asked and came closer to the fire. She spread her hands near the flames and when she looked up to Faith, the Slayer saw a glimmer in her eyes she read as one of gratitude.
"Th-thank you" Tara said as a confirmation.
"Maybe you'll be able to sleep near the fire"
Tara didn't answer but she settled on the ground as comfortably as possible. She closed her eyes. But they didn't remain closed for more than a few seconds. Tara slightly stood and saw that Faith was looking at her from across the fire.
"Everything's fine Blondie. I'm taking care of the fire and I'm watching around. You should sleep"
Tara closed her eyes again and Faith curled up as the blonde had done a little while before to try to keep warmth. Despite the flames dancing beside her, Faith was now feeling the cold too. She was starting to feel tired. Her shoulder was hurting, her legs were numb from the long run then walk she had forced them to do.
Faith rested her head on her knees and remained still for a long time before turning to Tara. The blonde was looking at her.
"Still not sleeping?"
"I can't" Tara breathed.
"Still cold and scared?" Faith asked.
Tara slightly nodded and tightened her arms.
"It's that dark…" she explained in a low voice. "And that silence…"
Faith slightly moved toward her to hear and addressed her a curious look.
"It…it recalls me about wh-when I… I ca-came b-back…"
Faith arched an eyebrow to that.
"When you came back?" she repeated.
Then she suddenly realized what the blonde meant and her eyes opened wide.
"Oh!"
Silence fell again but it suddenly felt a lot more heavier and meaningful than previously. She waited for Tara to say something but nothing came for long minutes, as the blonde remained violently shaking and staring blankly in front of her.
When Tara finally went on in an even lower tone, Faith had to come closer and to bend to hear.
"It was dark all the time…And…"
She fell silent again, breathed deeply in before resuming:
"It was dark. And I could hear nothing… almost nothing…"
Dark.
It was dark.
Absolute dark.
No light. No sound.
A shrine of void.
Everything was so dark and silent that you would think for a moment that you had just find out the heart of nothingness itself.
But it wasn't.
Instinctively you could guess the four rough walls enclosing that spot of vacuity, keeping it out of reach from the outside world.
There was no window or any kind of ventilation. Even the frame of the heavy door – which was the only access to the world – didn't allow any light. Nor sound.
In that deathly silence, a patient and trained ear could bit by bit perceive a sound coming from the center of the room. So low that it needed a great concentration to be heard.
It was just a breath.
A breath.
A weak breathing. Laborious.
Breathing in. Breathing out.
Following the source of that jerky breathing, a shape was finally perceived in the dark.
A bed. Just a bed in the center of the little room.
An inert body was lying there on its back. A thin and naked womanly body. Motionless, save for the almost regular movement of the chest.
Long blonde hair was lying on the mattress along the young woman body. The face that shadows finally revealed was pale and emaciated. Cheekbones were high. Lips were white and gaunt. Closed eyes shuddered, announcing they were soon going to open.
Eyelids slowly fluttered open and revealed blue irises. Gaze was still and blank.
The young woman remained motionless like this for a long time. A really long time. Minutes? Hours? Days ?
She had no idea. No clue.
She tried to turn her head on her side. But the effort to make seemed insurmountable. Her muscles refused to obey. Her body didn't feel like responding.
But she wanted to know what surrounded her. That feeling of void around her made her dizzy. She needed to know. She didn't hear anything. Didn't see anything. She NEEDED to know.
But there was nothing she could do. Despite all her efforts, her neck refused to move. She was too weak. Too weak just to move her head.
She would have wanted to cry. To cry as terror helplessly overpowered her.
She wanted light. She wanted to see. She wanted to know. To know where she was. What she was doing here. What had happened to her. What would happen to her.
She wanted to cry. She felt her chest rising as if racking sobs were about to burst out of her chest but no tear ran along her cheeks.
She wanted to yell. But unclenching her sealed lips was even more painful than trying to get a sound out of her dry throat.
Her eyes moved to the side to try to see her surroundings. In her limited field of vision, all she could see was darkness.
She tried to move her fingers to feel the mattress she was lying onto. Scraping the blanket with her forefinger required endless effort and perseverance.
She would have cried in pain if she had been able to. But she still couldn't.
When the door opened, light filtered through the half open door and she blinked and was forced to close her eyes as brightness was unbearable. She guessed someone was coming close to her but her eyes couldn't make out who or what had just come in.
Panic suddenly oppressed her. And the only thing she was able to do until then became even more laborious than it was. Her breathing quickened, she started to feel short of breath. So short that she thought she might suffocate.
A hand came then to her chest. Between her naked breasts. A cold and callous hand. She shivered in horror and cold when she felt long and rough fingers slowly going down. Disgust and powerlessness met in her dizzy mind. Her breath choked in her throat.
The hand stopped and opened. The palm rested on her belly.
"Come on, miss Maclay"
Voice strangely rang in the room. Male voice. Cold and metallic. And it felt so far from her…
"Calm down…"
She felt warmth on her belly. Discreet and diffuse. Almost immediately, her breathing calmed down, air came back into her lungs. She was able to breath again.
Breathing in. Breathing out.
"It's better like this miss Maclay"
Maclay. The name rang to her ears. It felt familiar. Almost common. Almost obvious. She hardly frowned.
"You have to be careful not to have any violent emotion Tara" voice resumed as the man moved around her. "You're not strong enough yet"
Tara.
Tara Maclay.
A more than familiar name.
Her name.
"Would be a shame to waste a so great work, wouldn't it?"
She felt again the hand on herself. Tracing her face, running along her curves, weighting her members, as she was nothing more than a straw.
"Wonderful. Really wonderful miss Maclay" the voice congratulated as the hand left her body.
Maclay.
Tara Maclay.
Her name.
Remembrance tore away the darkness surrounding her memory.
She was Tara Maclay.
The hand came back to her face. Fingers opened her dry lips. She felt something at the corner of her mouth. She felt liquid running down her thirsty throat. She drank the water of resurrection with eagerness. She was so thirsty.
Thirsty.
She was thirsty.
She remembered how it felt. She remembered how it felt to quench her thirst.
She was Tara Maclay and she was quenching her thirst.
"Good Tara. I'm proud of you" the voice said again as cool water was loosening her throat. "We're gonna do great things together, you'll see"
Tara.
The name was now resounding in her ears like church bells pealing. As if water flowing into her was sweeping away the heavy mist tightly surrounding her memories.
And something else burst out off void even more suddenly that had came back to her the obviousness of her own identity.
"Willow !"
She breathed the name in a hoarse voice she didn't recognize but was nevertheless hers.
"Willow !"
She spat some water back and was about to choke again. The hand came back to her belly in a soothing gesture.
"Calm down miss Maclay" the voice said in a monotone voice. "There'll be time for each thing"
Willow.
Willow.
Willow.
That new name replaced her own as throbbing song in her ears. And images started to appear before her eyes. Faces, places, and events she couldn't clearly see and that disappeared as fast as they had appeared. A stream of scenes not connected with each other bathed with light, life, death or darkness.
"Willow…" she repeated and again her throat was dry.
As if he had read her mind, the man beside her poured water in her mouth again.
"Really good Tara" he encouraged. "It's really good. Let me fix that body and you will be my greatest success"
Water stopped flowing and she heard the sound of a bottle closing. She knew a tall man was here, watching closely her motionless body from head to toes but she couldn't clearly see him.
"My greatest success" he repeated with a hint of pride in his voice.
And she was alone again.
Alone in the dark.
Darkness and silence almost complete.
If she carefully pricked up her ears, she could hear smothered noises. Steps coming closer? Voices in the distance? Grunting? Scraping? It wasn't clear.
She didn't resolve to wait. Resolving to wait would have meant she had a choice. But she had none. She had no other choice, no other possibility than waiting.
How much time went by between that first burst of consciousness and her following awakening? How much time between her awakening and another visit from the man whose name she would learn soon was Gideon? How much time before her voice was enough confident and her mind enough clear to ask for a blanket? How much time went by in that dark empty cell before she was strong enough to sit and to hold a fork and a plate? How much time to bear light and to open her eyes wide?
It took her time, a lot of time to begin to understand the reality of her situation.
It took her tears and pains to learn to stand on her feet again and to walk - supporting herself on walls she couldn't see.
But despite all this time, she never was able to shake off the terror darkness of her convalescent prison inspired her.
What she didn't know however, was that, when finally the door would open for her to go out, being outside these four walls, exposed to light and gazes again, would be as frightening.
Faith was staring at Tara in silence. A glimmer Tara had never seen before was shining in her brown eyes.
"Eh ben" was the only comment the Slayer was able to say.
She was motionless, nailed on her spot by the blonde's tale.
Faith was looking at her differently for the first time since the beginning of their trip. When the blonde most of the time inspired her only pity, disinterest or annoyance, she now looked at her with compassion. But Faith couldn't think of words to comfort the blonde, she couldn't even think to comment that come back from the dead trip.
She stayed a long time just looking at Tara, playing in her head the events the blonde had told her as the night was passing by. The witch didn't pay attention to her reaction. Her last words said, she looked down at her trembling hands, looked around her like a deer caught in lights, then she finally lied down near the fire. She curled up as much as she could, trying to keep the warmth the night was stealing from her and tried to sleep.
Faith watched her closing her eyes and violently shaking. She heard her teeth chattering as she was getting cold herself.
After a long internal debate, she eventually asked:
"Not better Blondie?"
Tara's eyes opened immediately and she looked at Faith with a questioning look.
"Not better Blondie?" the Slayer repeated.
Before adding:
"I mean… Still cold and scared?"
Tara seemed to waver. Then she slowly nodded her head and tightened her grip around herself.
"It-it's c-cold"
Faith sighed then gestured for her to come closer.
"Come on here Blondie"
Tara looked at her without understanding but nevertheless stood.
"Come on here" Faith repeated.
Tara came slightly closer and stopped moving when she was within Faith's reach.
"Come on here" Faith said again and lightly tapped her shoulder. "Come against me, I'll keep you warm"
Tara frowned, as she hadn't correctly heard. As she still wasn't moving, Faith grabbed her shoulder and pulled her toward herself. Then she awkwardly wrapped the blonde's shoulders and pulled her body against her own.
"Not my favorite part of the deal, but I have to protect you" she felt like explaining. "I guess it does include protecting you against cold too"
She fell silent for a second as Tara tried to settle more comfortably between her arms but tried not to be too close to her at the same time. Faith rolled her eyes, as the blonde's tries were obviously inefficient.
"I'm pretty sure that B will kill me if you freeze to death here beside me. No matter if it's not a vampire sucking you dry. She'll kill me"
She fell silent again and imagined the blonde Slayer lecturing her about her ridiculous and dangerous expedition in the mountains.
"So I'm doing my job" she concluded in a defeated tone.
"There's not much time left before dawn" Faith added a little later. "You should try to get some sleep Blondie. There's nothing you should be scared of, I'll keep my eyes open"
Faith felt Tara tensing in her arms then slowly relaxing and finally letting go.
"My name's Tara" she whispered.
"Yeah" Faith said with a smirk. "You should try to get some sleep Tara"
