Chapter Two
"Hey
Buffster," Xander said, his arm still around Dawn. "How ya doin'? So far I'm
glad to see that Spike hasn't done anything to your grave when we aren't
here. I honestly don't know why you
didn't stake him when…" Xander's voice broke for a second, "…when you had the
chance. Anyway, on to cheerier
news. Anya and I are getting
married. I proposed the night…just
before…well, you know…I think I've told you about a dozen times already."
Willow smiled, it was usually her that had trouble getting
words and meaning across. Buffy stepped
closer to her friends, looking directly at Dawn and Xander. She was listening to every word they said.
"It's kind of nice actually, being engaged. There are a whole bunch of plans to be made,
and unfortunately, Giles and I are the ones that have to pay for everything,
but whatever makes Anya happy. Fortunate for me, what makes Anya happy turns out to be me most of the
time." Xander stopped when Dawn poked him in the ribs and looked him in the
eye. Xander only nodded.
"Um, Buffy. I'm not
sure how to say this. So, I guess I'll
just say it. Anya and I want to adopt
Dawn. The school board and just about
everybody else in the world wants to put her in an orphanage or a foster
family. None of us could let them do
that. So, we've all talked and figured
this was the best thing that could happen. Nobody can get in contact with your father, so he's pretty much a lost
cause."
"What about Giles?" Buffy asked, knowing they couldn't hear
her. Tara looked up and in the general
direction where Buffy stood, but Buffy didn't notice, all her attention on
Xander and Dawn.
"Giles is in a really weird mood." Xander said, as though
in response to the unheard question. "When the subject of adopting Dawn first came up, we all figured that he
might want the job, especially considering the way he feels about the two of
you. But when I asked him, he just gave
me this funny look and shook his head and said he couldn't. So, the only other option, was for Dawn to
become Anya and mine's daughter. We've
asked her, and she's agreed. God, I
miss you Buffy. Well, I guess I'll sign
off now and Dawn can take over."
There were tears in Buffy's eyes and quietly she replied to
Xander's statement, "I miss you too Xander. I miss all of you." Then Dawn
began to speak. Buffy could tell she
was hiding the pain, and she hid it well, as she told Buffy about her week,
since she had last visited, and her day, what she learned in school, her plans
with living with Xander and Anya, and how she and Anya went on shopping trips
that always made Xander groan in pain at the mention. At this Xander demonstrated such. Willow laughed aloud.
"OK, um, I miss you Buffy. I love you too, you know that. And I'm being brave. We all
are. I guess its Willow's turn. Willow?" Dawn finished, half turning around
Xander to look at the tall redhead.
Willow nodded, and put her arms even tighter around
Tara. She tried to speak several times,
but nothing seemed to come out. "Just
say what you're feeling Wills." Buffy told her. "I know expressing yourself has never been your strong suit, but
you have my permission to babble. I
kind of miss it really. You're this
cool calm confident powerful wicca, not the shy little hacker girl I once knew. You've grown up and come into your own. So just say what you feel."
Willow suddenly seemed to get more confidence, and Tara had
tears in her eyes that were slowly starting to spill over. "Hi, hi, hi Buffy. Um, again, I'm sorry I-I couldn't be here for the funeral,
but-but I-I j-just couldn't watch them p-put you in-in-in-in…" she stopped and
Tara took her hand in hers, giving the young woman strength. "Anyway, I was in LA, getting Angel. He, Cordelia, and Wesley, and their friend
Gunn all came. They had to bring
somebody else, an innocent who needed their help or something, but she was
nice. I don't remember her name…"
"Fred." Dawn stated.
"Yeah, Fred." Willow continued. "Um, Tara's doing great, her hand healed up great, and the trick
I pulled with Glory worked. I got my
girl back. I just wish that you could
have kept yours." Willow stopped for a
minute, obviously thinking of what next to say. "Um, I've spoken with Giles, and he knows what I did, getting
into the black arts books of his. But
since I managed to control it all so well, he's going to let me continue to
increase my skills, under intense supervision ofcourse. Uh, what else happened? Well, I guess you figured out the tombstone
was Xander's idea, I mean I liked it but who else but Xander would have come up
with a line "She saved the world a lot", and not that I mean any disrespect or
anything like that to Xander, I just figured that you know his sense of humor,
and everybody seemed to like it, especially Spike, I think he's starting to
grow on everybody, you know he tried to save Dawn on the tower, but that demon
doctor, who has thoroughly been killed now by the way, was just too powerful,
and Dawn told everybody what Spike said to him, and even Xander had to clap
Spike on the back for that, and something else happened, I know it did, but I'm
babbling, and you did give me permission to babble and all that, and…"
Buffy and Willow froze. Tara and Dawn looked puzzlingly at the redhead. "Wait a second. How could I have known she gave me permission to babble?" Willow
asked, a scared and hunted look on her face. Tara immediately came to her rescue.
"Maybe you subconsciously heard her ghost say that." The
shy blond offered.
"Oh," was the only response.
"Um, Tara, do you want to…?" Xander half asked. Tara looked up where Buffy was standing, and
if the dead Slayer didn't know any better, the girl looked right at her.
"Uh, yeah, but do you mind if I do it alone?" Tara turned
apologetically to Willow, but Willow only smiled brightly and kissed her on the
cheek. "Ofcourse we don't mind. We'll be waiting by the car." And with that, Xander, Willow, and Dawn
started walking off.
When they were a good distance away, Tara turned back
towards the grave and said a simple sentence. "They still love you." Buffy,
still staring after her friends and sister, only said, "I know. And I'll always love them. But if anything, I understand death. Death was my gift right? They need to move on. I hope you're helping all of them Tara. You were the furthest from me, the one that
didn't know me as well as the others, or didn't feel a certain ways towards
me. You're the only one that can help
them."
Tara looked up from the grave, and there was no doubt about
it, she looked right at Buffy. "No,
that's not true. I'm not the only one
that can help them. And just because I
was new to the group and closest to Willow instead of you, that doesn't mean
that I cared the least about you. Buffy, I'm hurting just as much as Willow and Xander, maybe even more
because they got to know you so much better than I even had the chance to. And I can only do so much to help and
support them. Buffy, you were the
reason that they're together in the first place. Now, it's only Dawn. And
I can't…"
Tara's voice broke and she bursted into tears. Buffy made a motion to hug the hurting
woman, but then stopped, still thinking she was a ghost. 'Ah to hell with it,' she thought and hugged
the girl anyway. She expected to fall
through her, or something else creepy, not actually find the girl sobbing in
her arms. Her surprise was outweighed
by her love and concern for the young woman crying onto her shoulder, so she
just stood there, hugging and soothing the lover of her best friend.
Willow looked on from a distance away, and her heart
lurched at the sight of her love standing there weeping at the foot of Buffy's
grave. Xander and Dawn were both in the
car, waiting for the other two to come so they could get moving. Willow just stood at the edge of the
graveyard, staring at Tara, until she felt a comforting hand slide onto her
shoulder. It was Xander. He just looked at her, and she felt the
tears she held inside spill over and out. He stood there, comforting her by his presence, and then Dawn came up on
Willow's other side. Together the three
turned back to the car, walking slowly. The sky above them clouded over and began to turn dark.
Tara finally managed to stop crying, and she looked up,
with shock on her face. "You're real."
She said. Buffy let the girl go and
dropped her arms. She shrugged and
said, "I guess. I really don't know
what's going on. The last thing I
remember clearly was saying goodbye to Dawn, and jumping off the tower into the
rift. Then I remember feeling
that I wanted to do more for her, that I would do more for her and all of you
if I could. And Tara, I'm so sorry
about what I said. I consider you to be
my friend, one of my best friends, and I love you, just as much as I love the
others. You're Willow's girl, and I
guess you're mine too, but in a different way. You're the girl I would've wanted as a daughter. I love you Tara. So no matter what else I say, please remember that." Tara was smiling, despite tears on her face,
more were coming, but not tears of grief, tears of happiness and joy.
"Buffy, are you…I mean, are you still…uh, you did…didn't
you?" Tara stuttered.
Again, Buffy shrugged and walked silently closer to the
grave marker. "I don't know. Jumping into a rift of extra-dimensional
energies is definitely one way to die, and if that didn't do it, then falling
off a five-story tower without a cushion to land on would most likely nominate
me for being on the Most Definitely Dead list. So why am I here? Why could I
hug you?" Buffy asked the questions she sensed Tara about to ask.
Tara nodded, waiting for the answers. "I really don't know. Maybe it's the whole universe saying that I
still have a job to do as the Slayer, maybe it's the Powers That Be drafting me
to save the world one more time. I just
don't know Tara."
"Why couldn't the others see you?" Tara asked.
Buffy looked at her and asked. "Why can you see me?"
Tara just shrugged, so Buffy answered her question
anyway. "I didn't want them to see
me. I knew it would hurt if they did,
even if they might not have seen me anyway. But mostly because I just didn't want them to see me." Buffy looked up in the sky and casually
noticed that the sky was clouding up, covering the sun and sky in almost solid
cotton whiteness.
"Well, then maybe that's why I can see you. I try and stay in tune with the elements
around me as much as possible. So when
you wished that we couldn't see you, you must have been focusing on Willow,
Dawn, and Xander. I mean, they were the
closest to you and…" Tara didn't finish as something like inspiration crossed
the shy and cute face of the blond witch.
"Buffy, if you're still alive, but have the powers of a
ghost… Buffy you have to tell the
others." Tara saw the look of fear and
apprehension on the dead Slayer's face. "Buffy, I told you, I can't keep them together by myself. Without you everybody is falling apart. Giles has practically gone into seclusion
and Xander's actually starting to get along with Spike!"
Buffy started at that last one, and slowly a smile spread
across her face until she lit up laughing louder than a hyena. "Spike…and, and…hah, hah, hahahahahahahahahaha,
heh, heh heheheheheheheheheheheheh. Spike, and" gasp "and Xander! Hah, hah, hah, hah, hah!!"
After maybe a minute, during which the sky got darker and
angrier, Buffy gained control of her self and went back to the subject of
showing herself to the others. "OK,"
she announced, "Let's do it. How do you
want to do it?"
"Do you think that you could make yourself visible from
here?" Tara asked.
Buffy paled. "I
thought that maybe you would want to get everyone at the Magic shop, turn off
the lights, say hocus pocus, and then I show up and everybody's happy."
Tara just shook her head no. "No Buffy, it's better for everybody if we start right away. Also, you might give Xander and Willow heart
attacks if you just appeared out of the blue right next to them. This way, they can see you coming and have
all the necessary attacks of panic and fear before you get to them. By the way, why are you wearing red?"
Buffy surprised by the question, and looked down at her
outfit. It was the same that she had been
wearing the night she had died, a sweater, denim jeans and black boots. Except that the once white sweater was now a
bright red, and the once gray pants were now a fuchsia pink. Her boots were still black. "I don't know. OK, maybe this is a good idea. Maybe Willow and Giles can figure this out. OK, here goes."
Concentrating, Buffy imagined how much she wanted to see
her friends, all of her friends, and for them to see her. Then, Buffy was surrounded by an aura of
pink, red, and gold sparkles, and both young women swore they could have heard
bells ringing. Not one or two tone
bells, but more like the bells of a wind chime when you run your hands through
all of it, all at once. "What was
that?" they asked as one. Shrugging,
Buffy turned back to the task at hand, facing Willow, Xander, and Dawn.
The sky was now very dark and it looked like it was about
to start pouring any minute, but Tara and Buffy walked slowly to the entrance
of the graveyard. The others were about
five feet from the car, when they stopped. Willow, in between Xander and Dawn, turned around and saw Tara coming
back, but with another short blond woman beside her.
Turning completely around, Willow asked Xander in a timid
voice, "Xander, who do you think that woman with Tara is?"
Xander barely glanced at the approaching couple before
stepping up to the opening Willow had given him. "What, scared of a little competition Will? Ah, don't worry about it, I'm sure that you
can easily turn all of Tara's other girlfriends into toads if you have to. Am I right Dawn? Dawn?"
When Dawn didn't answer, Xander out of concern looked at
her. She was staring in the same
direction as Willow, but she had her "I'm about to start crying, so be ready,"
face on. Something she had in common
with her sister. "Dawn, what is
it? What's…" he didn't finish as he
looked where the two young women were looking. He gulped. It couldn't be…could
it?
The two blond women came continuously closer, and the three
by the car, the only other people around, were frozen to the spot where they
stood. If any had cared to look,
obviously none did, the sky above the graveyard, and Sunnydale in general was
in a foul mood. It was almost as dark
as night now, and definitely dark enough for the light activated street lamps
to come on. And the clouds, the clouds
were rolling and clapping together, but there was no wind, there was no thunder
and there was no sign of rain. As far
as Meteorologists were concerned, a lot of clouds had just swept over a small
portion of a little talked about part of California, where strange weather was
very common. No, there was no wind, but
the clouds still moved and rolled, there was no rain, and there would be none,
and there was no thunder, not yet anyway. Not a soul cared.
Finally, after a two-minute walk, the pair of blond women,
one in pink and red, the other in black and pale blue, came to stand in front
of the other three that were standing there. This close, there was no denying it. The blond woman with Tara, she was Buffy. Their dead friend, the one whose grave they had just
visited. Dawn was the first that was
able to speak.
"B-Buff-Buffy?" she whimpered.
Buffy smiled her million-dollar smile and nodded. "Yeah, it's me Dawnie. Don't be afraid, it's really me. I'm not a vampire or a demon or
anything. Actually I'm not sure what I
am, but I'm still me."
Xander and Willow stuttered as one in saying, "Buff-Buffy,
is it really you?"
"Hey guys," is all she said before lightning struck.
Literally.