Chapter Fourteen

That time Willow and Tara almost left

A/N A little two shot of the anecdotes from my True Demons S6E22 story. WWS reality but can stand alone because is actually canon. This is from the summer between season 5 and 6 where Tara and Willow had the idea of just moving away from Sunnydale and starting a new family with Dawn. Which I'm told, they heavily considered. This is my version of how they told Dawn and why they decided to stay.

Sunnydale, the world without shrimp 2001

Suddenly a flash of the scene fell into view, she saw herself, her bright red hair, some jeans, Tara was there too, her hair piled up as usual. Not like now though, now her hair was down around her shoulders, blood scratching her forehead, tears splashing her face. In her mind they were sitting around the coffee table in the living room, sitting forward on her knees, her elbows leaning with her palms outstretched, Tara behind her, lightly stroking her back. Dawn was sitting before them, a slightly nervous look plastering her face.

"Tara?" Teary Willow eyes uttered under her breath. The sleep lazily rolled off her, head turning over the pillow as her back filled the empty space between her skin and Tara's. There was a stirring, a small sound of beautiful awakening, her arms stretching out as her face nuzzled the back of Willow's neck, her arms wrapping around her middle pulling to two of them closer.

"Mmm, come here, you." She said softly, not fully awake. The quiet daydreaming of midnight, kept her in that mellow state of imagining. Willow smiled, even if her nightmares were her undoing, pulled her back to that night, forced her to think about their future. She worried. Eventually they wouldn't be able to cope with the vamps anymore, and money was vastly becoming a problem. One day, they would wake up and Dawn would be a grownup, and she'd blame them for ruining the rest of her childhood. So many things were wrong. Her and Tara had been putting off talking about it, call it a pause on the argument.

"Tara?" Willow repeated more urgently than before. Her nerves running around her crazy Willow brain until she didn't want to think anymore. But she forced herself to think, to stay awake, this was too important.

"Yes, sweetie w-what is it?" Tara replied weakly, fiddling with the ends of Willow's hair, twirling them in her fingers. Somehow she was awake, she always found herself awake when Willow was, it was strange, like they were in sync or something. Usually she ignored it because of the amount of times Willow had gone to the bathroom. But this sounded important.

"What are we gonna do?" Willow closed her eyes, letting the warmth between them flow until it rocked her into a slumber, her limbs falling against Tara's as the consciousness escaped, letting her breath out, the worries floating through the open window with it.

"Can't we just go?" By the time Tara answered, she felt her words leave in quiet dispel, but Willow was already asleep. She snuggled up to her favourite redhead, giving her a gentle kiss on the forehead whilst explaining what they would do slowly. She choose her words carefully, as so not to disturb her. Tara would tell Willow all this again in the morning, but for now she needed to work it all out. Her sleepy honey beside her drifting in and out of nervous panics and dangerous thoughts.

Dawn sat down quickly, dropping her bag to her feet, the straps sliding down her shoulders to the awaiting carpet. Willow was sitting with her palms face up, a square way of sitting; her knees far apart as her elbows rested sparingly. Tara was there too, sitting behind her, less tense, she looked calmer than a saint, her hand stroking up and down Willow's back.

There was an anxious looking expression on her face, Tara had told her this was important. It isn't like I've spent all afternoon wondering, Dawn thought to herself, school had been desperately painful when there was news to come back to. Surely, it couldn't get worse, her mum and sister were already dead. She had teared up when she thought about it again, she'd had to run to the bathroom and stuff her eyes with tissue to stop the tears. What could be worse?

"Dawnie..." Willow treaded lightly, broaching the subject with abject caution. Dawn was far too sensitive right now to be mucked about, they needed to be direct and to the point. Why did I volunteer for this? Tara help me.

Tara put her hand on Willow's shoulder, pushing herself forward to the edge of the couch, "it's ok sweetie I got this." Taking a deep look into the forest of Willow's eyes, whispering something inaudible, a silent agreement between just them. Dawn saw them do that sometimes, talk to each other without saying anything, it mesmerized her. How they could they have such a connection just through little touches and glances, their little smirks and pools of mismatching eyes.

"Dawnie w-we wanted to talk to you, a-about," Tara hesitated before continuing, her stutter was worse today, she was as nervous as Willow, but she'd promised. I can do this. "W-we wanted to tell you t-that we're thinking of m-m-moving away." She would explain the rest but the look on Dawn's face was shattered.

"W-what, n-n-no you c-can't." Dawn whimpered out between shaky breaths and heavy tears, arms clutched around her figure. Willow and Tara rushed over to crush her in hugs. Wiping the swollen tears from her eyes as they sat next to her, Tara on her right, Willow her left.

Then Tara did her motherly thing where she would brush the hair behind Dawn's ear, she had never noticed she was doing it, but it always reminded Dawn of home. "No, sweetie that's n-not what I meant,"

But Willow cut her off, putting her hand on Tara's thigh, another secret message. "We were thinking that maybe we should move away to San Francisco, or LA, or something, somewhere where there isn't any Hellmouthy demons."

"Somewhere, we can be s-safe as a f-family." Tara finished. Before they let Dawn say anything they wrapped their arms around her, "you know we love you."

But it didn't last, the next day Willow was doing some off research in the Magic Box with Giles, when she came across the resurrection spell. Her and Tara had a fight about that. Dawn cried about it too, she didn't want Buffy to come back wrong.

Willow fixed Buffybot so they could prepare for when Buffy came back and so the monsters wouldn't know anything was wrong. Or different. Dawn cried about that too, hugging Tara's shoulder because it was so real.

She was a perfect child sometimes. She would go to bed, brush her teeth and not be sad for once. And sometimes they were perfect parents, Tara would make pancakes in funny shapes and one kind of syrup.

But there were pieces missing, cries in the night, nightmares. And then one day it was over, the waiting.