Please see chapter 1 for disclaimer and general warnings.
Chapter warning: Discussion of attempted rape. Not detailed.
Note: The next chapter is already written and will be posted in a couple days
Giles sat on his couch, pouring over another ancient tome in the hopes of finding any other description of battles held on or near an open hellmouth.
In addition to the sorcerer who opened the seal being very likely to try and stop them closing it, Giles knew a variety of monsters had probably bunkered down surrounding it, not to mention any denizens of hell still coming out of it.
It wasn't just the enemies that concerned him, however, but the effect and power of the open hellmouth itself. As a mystical convergence it was both very powerful and very unpredictable in its effects on demons, witches and warlocks and of course the slayers with their mystical nature.
The unease which Tara had been feeling ever since seeing Dawn so upset earlier in the day coalesced into a ball of fear when she saw Buffy sitting in the hall against her door, hugging her knees.
"Buffy? What's wrong?" She asked, scanning the slayer for injuries and noticing with growing concern that she was wearing comfortable rather than stylish clothes, something she almost never did outside of her own home.
"Tara. I was worried cause I couldn't hear you inside and it's the middle of the night. But then I thought you might be with Faith, or friends, or a special lady friend so I didn't know whether to go out and look..."
In contrast to what she was actually saying, Buffy was mostly expressionless, seeming disconnected from the meaning of her own words. Tara remembered seeing her this way before - immediately after her resurrection it had been her default state of being, and Tara pushed down her growing panic at the realisation, certain that she would have heard if someone had been badly injured.
"How about we go inside and talk?" She suggested.
Buffy just nodded and stayed seated, apparently not making the connection that she would need to move until Tara stepped forward and began going through her keys. Finally she stood slowly, supporting herself against the wall and favouring her left side.
"You're hurt." Tara realised, ushering Buffy inside. "What happened? Do you need me to..."
"It's late." Buffy was focussed on the dark outside Tara's window, and the witch wondered if she had even realised that it was night when she came over. "Why were you out? There's demons." She looked genuinely worried, and Tara was a bit reassured to see any kind of emotion.
"Don't worry, I used protection." Tara joked lamely, trying to earn at the very least an eye-roll, but Buffy didn't seem to get the reference. "What are you doing out? You came to see me?" She tried.
"Dawn found out." Buffy explained, looking anywhere but at Tara. "And Willow and Xander."
"About Spike?" Tara asked. She had known Buffy would be upset at them finding out, but she and Faith had found Dawn running out of their home hours ago. Tara wondered if Buffy had been in this state ever since.
Buffy nodded. "Just that we'd been...together but weren't any more. Not the rest."
She had never gone into detail about their liaisons with Tara, only implying that they were particularly violent (enough that Spike's chip should have responded) and that there was more left unsaid that Buffy was intensely ashamed of.
Assuming those aspects where what 'the rest' referred to, Tara decided to find out what had happened before seeing whether Buffy might open up about the shame that was clearly plaguing her.
"What did they say?"
"They were hurt. Angry. Disappointed." Buffy glanced at her briefly, gauging her own reaction. "Xander asked if it was my fault the hellmouth got opened, if I let the sorcerer get away with it because I was too distracted with Spike to notice."
Tara was very fond of Xander, not least because she knew and respected how much he cared about Willow, and the ways he had supported her when she had no-one else. But when his anger got the best of him it often burst out as accusations, which happened to be the worst approach to disagreeing with Buffy.
"You didn't let the sorcerer do anything." Tara reassured her. "You're stronger, faster and smarter than most, but there's no way you could have known it was going to happen. No prophecies or portents. It's amazing we even worked out something was going on in time to be there when it was opened, we were totally unprepared for the kind of defences he had set up."
"I'm the slayer. He should have been too afraid to even try." Buffy clenched her jaw, and she seemed to be almost shaking with the effort of holding herself together enough to speak. "It's my fault."
She took a deep breath and shook her head in disgust. "Of course he thought it was okay." She spoke her thoughts aloud. "Just like all the other times I said never again, just like before we fought, so just like before he thought we would fuck." Buffy finally looked over at Tara, eyes shining with unshed tears. "So why does it feel so much worse?"
Gradually working out that they definitely weren't discussing the sorcerer, and that Buffy could not have been talking about anyone but Spike, Tara pieced her words together.
"Spike raped you?" Clenching her fists, Tara could barely remember ever feeling so angry.
"No!" Buffy quickly corrected, looking alarmed. "He...tried to force things. I couldn't fight very well because of my back, but...I threw him off. And he stopped."
Tara tried to consciously relax, knowing that her fury at Spike did nothing to help Buffy and may be misinterpreted. "It's not your fault Buffy, I promise."
Tara wasn't sure how open Buffy might be feeling to physical comfort at that moment, but as soon as she lifted an arm to test, maybe with a reassuring hand on the shoulder, her friend collapsed into the offered arms and buried her face in Tara's shoulder
"You don't know everything I let him do." She mumbled into Tara's shirt.
"Did he ever...force things...after you said no, before?" Tara asked, careful to use Buffy's own words so that her answer was based on what had happened, not whether she felt she was to blame.
"No. I mean...I often said I was breaking things off and then I'd see him and we'd get into a fight and..." She trailed off.
"One thing led to another?" Tara suggested.
"How sick is that?" Buffy asked bitterly. "You say 'We were kissing and then one thing led to another...' or, 'We were lying on my bed and one thing led to another...'. You don't say 'We were beating the shit out of each other with bricks and rebar and one thing led to another." She pulled away and pressed a fist against her temple, apparently trying to drive her thoughts out by force of will.
"I guess that's where the word bloodlust comes from." Tara suggested. "It isn't something I've ever felt, but Buffy – I don't think you're sick. And I still know it isn't your fault."
"How can you say that?" The blonde asked. "I kept changing my mind, and I let violence and sex get all mixed up together, and I let..." she paused, still unwilling to share some of the details. "Well. I let him hurt me. I hurt him. How could he have known that I really meant it this time?"
"I know it for a lot of reasons." Tara answered, calm and firm. "But first, you're still injured. How about I take a look at your back while I explain?"
Buffy considered this for a moment, twisting her shirt in her fingers as she thought. Instinct was screaming at her that a prone position with back turned and skin showing was far too dangerous. She could imagine, she knew the many ways someone could kill her like that. Or what kind of use Spike may have found of it. Looking over at Tara she could see that her host was simply sitting patiently and waiting for her to decide.
Feeling a rush of appreciation for Tara's willingness to let her choose, even if it meant leaving her to nurse an injury in stubborn silence – she lay down.
"Dear lord." Giles dropped his book and grabbed the phone, dialling quickly then cursing under his breath as there was no answer at Willow's home. Tara, then. No – they were on the outs. He must contact her too, but she tended to use far less magic than Willow. Xander, he would know where she was. He was dialling even as he thought it through.
"Y'ello?"
"Xander, thank goodness. Do you know where Willow is? I've just discovered a most disturbing distinction between accounts of a previous attempt on the – "
"Woah, stop. Willow's at the Bronze. Short version?"
"Er...magic bad." Giles cringed at his unconscious Buffy-ism. "I'll come past and pick you up, and -"
" - explain on the way. Got it."
