Chapter Twenty-One
"Help"
A/N Next chapter here, sorry last one was very short. This one will be longer.
Sunnydale, the world without shrimp 2002
As Tara came back from the bathroom she heard Willow's poetry uttering and skewed her eyebrows into a strange configuration. Walking past Dawn she leaned over Willow's shoulder, her fingers crawling up her back.
"Bit morbid sweetie." She said, Willow craned her neck and smiled, she liked being taken care of. And the gentle caressing of her lower back was making her all tingly.
"It's Cassie's poetry." She pointed at the screen, scrolling through more endless images of word soup. Tara's chin resting on Willow's shoulder.
Buffy was thinking about the words Willow had spoken, the repetition of 'dirt' made her mind spin, she remembered the dirt. The way her hands felt for days after she left the god awful grave. Not her friends' fault, they didn't know. Willow hadn't known what she was dragging her out of. If Cassie knew what was on the other side she might welcome death a bit more openly. Don't think like that. She imagined what Dawn would say, she could even imagine Tara saying something like that. Encouraging her to carry on, that life is the hardest part but it makes the contemplation of heaven worth it. Somehow the thought of her friends being beside her was comforting. They were here in life, that that's where she'd rather walk.
She remembered the last time she'd thought of heaven, the heaven she'd been so easily pulled out of by her friends. Willow was hanging in the clouds, raging a dark thunderstorm. There were broken wiry bodies everywhere and her friends were sort of broken. Now sort of seemed better than that. She had her best friend back. No life-threatening evil for the moment.
The almost instantaneous joint "love poems?" From Xander and Tara snapped Buffy out of her prisonous mind. It was an excited question out of Xander's mouth, but a rather strange jealous eyebrow raise from Tara. Willow's head flicked from best friend to girlfriend and back again. She wasn't sure who to address first. After several deliberations she decided she'd better talk to Tara first.
"Baby," she turned her body to face the blonde, taking both of her hands, which reluctantly she took in her own glancing down at Willow's hazel eyes. "I was sixteen, he's only Xander. He doesn't even compare to you." Tara sighed, giving up her angst. Letting her hands be squeezed by Willow as she turned back to Xander. Who was in a slight huff about being 'only Xander' he wasn't entirely sure why that bothered him but he huffed anyway.
"I'm over you now, sweetie. But I still love you." Willow said to Xander, hearing another heavy sigh from behind her, she turned back to Tara. "I love you too. In a different way. He's my best friend, you're my soulmate. It's different." Tara melted a little. She was allowed to melt after all. Not holding herself back from planting a kiss on Willow's lips before they carried on with the Cassie research.
They were sitting on the couch, an assortment of sad faces amongst them. Xander was opposite in the armchair staring vividly at the carpet, it was possible he could identify every pattern on it by now, but you wouldn't ask him to. Dawn was crying, but no tissues were in sight, she just let the tears fall off her face. Willow and Tara were squeezed into the middle, Tara half holding Dawn, half holding Willow.
"I failed her." Buffy said, Cassie's death was so sudden, not one of them knew quite why it had to be today. Why couldn't she have had longer? Tara remembered her mother's theories on death and fate. Cassie hadn't known what was coming, it was destiny all wrapped up into a neat little package. But she knew she was dying. She knew it and she told so many but no one could help. There's that word again, help. All Buffy ever tried to do was help, it never landed her squarely where she wanted though did it? She thought about giving it all up some of the time. Let the world fill with vampires and demons and have done with it. Let the coming apocalypse wash her away like it would everyone else.
It was Dawn's words that cut through her despair however. "Uh-uh. No. You didn't 'cause you tried. You listened and you tried, she died because of her heart, not because of you." It was like a knife through butter. Dawn's such clear mind talking through rusty tears. She leaned into Tara comforted by the warmth as she quit speaking. Buffy blinked. Taking in the words for the last time. My sister is so brave, and I love her. She thought, her first coherent, happy thought in a while.