We step out of the bubble onto the sunlit sidewalk in front of the boarded up Magic Box. There's a tired Opening Soon banner hanging across the panel across the door. Anyanka looks at us and takes out her amulet. It's just Anya that takes it off and walks over to Buffy. I can't explain it, she doesn't look any different, but Anyanka is gone.
"I have a plan," Anya says hesitantly. "It's a backup for Dawn in case something happens to Tara, and it's a way to backup the information."
"Your amulet?" Dawn asks worriedly. "What about you?"
"I'll get it back months from now," Anya points out. "It won't be much good against Grey anyway. I'm going to summon, cast a glamour and then give it to you. I've recorded the information we needed."
"What about Gwen?" Dawn asks pointedly.
Anya sighs and turns around, speaking low into her amulet.
"Ready?" Anya asks. "This is going to be quick when it gets here."
"Just one more thing," Dawn says quickly. She pulls her hair back, tucks it under her collar, zips up her jumpsuit and nods mostly to herself. She hugs Buffy and Anya quickly.
"Ready," Dawn says tightly.
Buffy stands to Anya's right; Dawn and I are behind Buffy. Anya chants the first few words of a basic summoning when the Rwasundi pops into being. It leaps around in time but I can see it clearly. I step quickly behind it and call out to Buffy. The demon looks surprised when her fist sends him to the ground for a second.
Dawn leaps to its back. She places an arm under its chin and levers the thing's head around. Buffy nods and Anya places her amulet's chain around Dawn's neck. The demon shifts but stops when Dawn tightens his grip.
"Back in time on my will," Dawn orders in the coldest tone I've ever heard from her. "I don't have anything to lose. Tara, don't look back."
I start back along Dawn's trail in time, skipping to the week before she could see me. The first shift goes without problems. I sense a green glow behind me as I focus on traveling towards my funeral.
Suddenly, I feel an image. That's the only way I can describe it. Anya is terrified but determined as a light fills the sky over Sunnydale. A moment later, Miss Grey is angry, frustrated and uneasy as she leaves her bed, summons her clothes and arrives in front of the Magic Box's tired shell. Buffy's pent up rage lets loose in a blow that would fell a tree. Miss Grey's magic blocks most of the blow but fear now brings an edge to her.
Anya is glowing like a searchlight, all surface magic and nothing else. Miss Grey takes the bait and turns her attention toward my friend. Something familiar and horrific is touched and I know Miss Grey has reached for her grisly magic focus. Anya is all fatalistic angry resignation as she grabs the bone and opens herself to its power. Buffy grabs Anya as she arches with one hand and shatters the focus with the other. Miss Grey is shock, horror, and anger that mere animals should be such trouble for her. Buffy and Anya are filled with fierce joy. There's a light past brightness.
The clouds disappear and a wall of bright white light roars behind us as we race through time. At Xander's death, I notice Dawn' green light behind me changing to a brighter green. I concentrate as I close on Willow's funeral and Dawn's sham court appearance. Willow's death makes me ache but when we pass the last day they were together, I almost sob in relief. I know Dawn will save her. I see them weeping after my funeral. That's when Dawn's light changes.
The green light becomes chaotic as pain and anger war with fear, a fear of failure. I look back to see Dawn, drenched with sweat, writhing as the Rwasundi claws her arm. She's straining to keep her hold but her bloodied arm gives and the demon bites her arm. His mouth glows green as Dawn slumps on his back. I turn back in a rage, reaching for him before I think and a shaft of green light touches me.
I am power itself. I feel time slow, and I know I can save them all; heal them all. I touch Dawn and feel a warm arm, rough jumpsuit, and warm sticky blood. Dawn looks up at me and smiles.
"You're alive," she says simply in happy wonder, but her voice is tired and weak.
Somehow I know that I can save all of them except this lean young woman. I command the Rwasundi to head towards my funeral. We move gently. Dawn is smiling as we approach the hour.
"Dawn," I say gently as I touch her face. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay," she insists sleepily. She's losing her grip on the demon.
I touch her arm and force all the power I can back into her. Dawn's eyes snap open as she jerks to wakefulness.
"No! Tara-" Dawn starts.
The Rwasundi for a split second has nothing controlling it and leaps. The demon is true to its nature and heads for the Hellmouth. Dawn tries to get her grip back but only partially succeeds.
I lose contact with Dawn before all the power can travel back to her. Dawn is trying to control the Rwasundi but failing, her fear building as she sees a blackness ahead, an evil mass that starts to become agitated. I touch the last vestiges of the Key's power and place myself between the Hellmouth and them. Dawn knows the danger and pulls back with all her strength. The demon's neck snaps.
The Rwasundi's death throes attract the Hellmouth and a long jet of evil tries to touch the dying thing. I summon a wall but it falls almost instantly. I push everything I have into the probing darkness. I'm losing, and then Dawn calls out "Taraaa", her fear for me and my safety echo in my heart. I think of my family and I feel the love and the pain, acceptance and loss. Emotions so basic and deep I can't put them in words or hold them back. I ride them and the Key's power into the darkness that flails for Dawn.
I am the Hellmouth for a heartbeat, then two, then three. Pain is inadequate to explain what I feel; horror is an echo of what I see. A million things try to sort themselves out in my head as I flail against the darkness. Then the darkness retreats almost angrily without touching Dawn. A split second of relief fills me until I see Dawn's head jerk back as the demon's final convulsion slams its head into hers. The two limp forms separate.
Dawn and I are falling into the linear flow of time. The demon's body falls ahead of us. It's smoking as the energy it touched in Dawn consumes it.
I see Dawn, now limp, heading towards Anya and see Giles with my friend. Far off I see my Willow cradled in Xander's strong arms and Buffy walking in a beautiful California morning with a Dawn just a little younger and much more innocent. Hope fills the morning. I touch the older Dawn just before we touch the linear time flow and try to cradle her still form. I feel her heartbeat, faint but steady. She's alive. I hold her and cry in relief.
We touch the world. There's a flare of emerald light.
Dawn and I come into time in the Magic Box. I'm too weak to hold her. It takes everything I have just to ease her to the littered floor and place my hand on hers. I can feel the pain in my chest front to back that marks the trail of the bullet that killed me, but I'm alive. This isn't how it's supposed to be. I can't give Dawn back the last bit of the Key's energy I have, and I don't know why. I feel her heartbeat under my hand grow irregular. I hear Giles whisper my name in fearful wonder.
"Help her, please," I croakingly sob. "I'm losing her."
Giles calls out for Anya. I turn my head to see her kneeling in the doorway, one hand on her amulet in her sweater and the other to her head. Anya looks up, confused. Her eyes are emerald green.
"Giles, bind to the earth," Anya says quickly.
"Bind to the what?" Giles asks.
"Watch," Anya says.
Anya takes Giles hand in hers. For a moment there is silence. Giles and Anya look at me. They release their clasp as Giles turns toward us.
"Good Lord," he whispers.
"What do we do?" Anya asks brightly.
"Go to the other side of Dawn and hold her hand," Giles commands gently.
I feel fear, loss and desperation closing on us. I try to focus. It's fast, inhumanly so with the crush of emotions fueling her. Buffy bursts into the wreckage that was the Magic box.
"Dawn!" Buffy cries out and rushes toward us.
"Buffy!" Giles roars, then more gently, "Keep her head up."
Buffy stops at Giles voice then cradles her sister's head on her lap and looks to Giles in fearful hope. Giles takes my hand and looks at Anya. I can feel his concern and sense an odd power in him.
"Now, gently push just what isn't yours into Dawn," Giles orders. "Tara, let go for a second."
I reluctantly let go of Dawn's hand. Buffy looks at me.
"Tara?" Buffy asks in a weak voice. "What? How?"
"It's okay," Dawn says weakly. "Giles an' Xander an' Willow are alive."
Anya looks wobbly but she's got a proud grin on her face that lights up the room.
"Time," Anya starts to babble with a slight slur. "The Hellmouth, and Willow and tree nymph meditation spell, what crap, But that stock is a loser. Oh, I see. Who's Gwen? Basic Power!"
"That doesn't- that's not how it works," she adds with a puzzled frown.
"Willow," Dawn says quietly.
"She's alive," Giles reassures her.
"Tara, can you take it away?" Dawn asks weakly.
"Don't," I start weakly, "you need the power-"
"I'll have one of you at least," Dawn answers. I hear the plea in her voice.
Buffy and the rest really look at me for the first time. I can see the sleeves of the blue top I wore the day I died. I don't think I'm bleeding because I should be empty. With that thought, I feel stickiness all down my back where I had lain dead in a pool of my own blood. I guess the autopsy was delayed. Giles and Buffy seem to understand part of what Dawn is saying, hear the loss in her voice. Their silent looks of pain reflect Dawn's.
"No," Anya says with groggy anger a moment later.
I don't answer her. I just close my eyes. I see Willow in Xander's arms. I can feel my protection spell on him, no longer fading but coming back to strength now that I'm alive for a moment. My spell for Willow spell is gone completely.
I was following her on love alone.
I use Xander as my base, but my spell won't let me touch him any more than that. I fear what that means. It comes to me in a sickening rush. Dark magic is keeping me alive. That's why I can't push the last bit of the Key's power into Dawn, because I'd have to use my magic to seal it to her. I touched the Hellmouth for three full heartbeats. Three is enough my mother taught me. The Hellmouth is giving me power and life.
I reach for Willow's tie to the Hellmouth. It's huge now, spread through every part of her. Willow's own magic is used up. No wonder she couldn't break the darkness that drove her to suicide! Willow whispers my name with love. Xander tightens his grip trying to will his strength into hers; I sense his hope that she's finally mourning me. I take strength from them and do what I have to for her. I call to the binding, dark power to dark power, and it tears out of her.
Willow calls out my name in horror and pain. For a second she can feel my presence. I can't explain it to her and that tears me. I touch a spark of living green light to the raw psychic wound to help heal her. Willow slumps, then cries brokenly in Xander's arms. I hear her betrayed sobbing as I come back to myself in the Magic Box. Touching the darkness has made me tired to the bone. I hate it and the dark follows my commands with loathing.
"It's...gone," I whisper to Dawn.
Giles takes my hand in his. Anya takes Dawn's other hand and grasps it tightly between both her hands. I feel so tired I can't think. Giles says my name gently and all I can do is nod weakly.
"Tara, I'm going to give you just enough power to push the energy into Dawn," Giles explains gently. "The power's not mine, so Anya is going to push back any that isn't needed. I see the darkness don't worry. Are you ready?"
I give another tiring nod and steady myself. I'm afraid but I know I won't live unless I can be on the side of Light. I have no defense to drop so I give every bit of energy I have left to clearing a way for Giles' borrowed power so it won't touch the creeping evil.
"Now," Giles says.
Time slows as Giles lets down his defenses and the power flows into me. I'm glad of it; this beautiful essence of magic is everything I could have wanted. I know it's not mine but its passage through me is pure joy. It envelops the last vestige of the Key's power I have and the green streams into Dawn. I see that most of the Key's power is gone. Dawn as the Key will never be a danger again. Dawn as a teenager and young woman is going to have a unique path. I can see so much for her, as full as any young human with potential for good and evil. I'm glad she has her family.
I see Anya's power touch Giles'. There's a touch of imbalance. I can see she's pushing too hard. She's bound to the earth, but still pushing hard. Anya and subtlety are still getting acquainted. Giles moves, swiftly in the real world, but gently here. The power is about to touch me when I feel his hand cover the wound on my back. The power surges toward his hand, and in its wake the dark power leaps after it. Giles is bound to the earth but unshielded and defenseless against the darkness. His is a healing power, something that can't have defenses.
"No!" I shriek here. "Shield yourself!" In the Magic Box all they hear is a murmur.
I stand in front of the dark magic that surges toward Giles. Anya, Giles, Dawn and Buffy are linked. I touch love and rage and leap to defend my father, my family. I pull the darkness away from Giles. Ever so slowly he pulls away from me. The darkness screams in frustrated rage and tears at me to get him, to get them. I tear into it with the fierce joy I felt from Anya and Buffy as they fought their forlorn action against Miss Grey. I'm already gone but I'm taking this bastard power with me.
Giles pulls away untainted. I fall into the darkness knowing I've won. I know the healing failed because the true magic left no trace. Then Dawn takes a huge breath. There's a bright green light that turns to white.
Buffy, Dawn, Anya and I are in a white room positioned just as we were in the Magic Box. At least I think it's a room. I'm not sure of anything. There's the somber lady from the clouds at the end of time standing by us and a woman who wears a hard life on her face and pride in her stance next to her. There's a sense of waiting in the air. My friends are still, almost posed. I lift my head and look at the standing older women.
"I refuse vengeance," the careworn woman says looking at Dawn and Buffy with tears in her eyes. "But a life is owed."
"It is," the somber woman answers. "There is another who could take the debt, Erin."
"Not her!" Erin, the hawk faced woman, snaps. "She is tainted."
"Not now," the dark skinned woman answers. My heart leaps at those words in this place.
"Take me," I say, expecting a croaking noise, but just hearing me.
"You're dead," Erin says angrily.
"Almost," the somber woman says. She looks at Erin and I know somehow that she's the mother whose child I helped to steal away when we took back Buffy. "Choose."
The mother looks at my sisters in heart. I can see Erin's come to a decision, and it's not me.
"LEAVE THEM ALONE!" I scream as I charge her.
I killed a demon with an axe and helped hunt vampires. I thought I learned how to fight in that summer. Erin shows me how wrong I am. I hear something break and feel agony run up my arm. She turns back to them as she steps away from me. I charge, off balance and weak. The dark magic giving me life can't give me power here. She shows me again how much I don't know about violence. This time she stays over me and hits me. Tears are streaming down her face, and I feel sorry about that, even as she hits me.
"You knew better!" Erin cries. "You could have stopped it! WHY?"
All I can do is sob how sorry I am as I look into those pain-filled eyes.
Buffy stops her arm is mid swing. It's not just the Slayer looking into those haunted eyes; it's Buffy, all of her.
"Look at her, Momma," Buffy says gently.
Erin looks at me and sees me, battered and bleeding, and then herself fighting and losing, watching her children die, my useless attempts to save my family and Gwen. All the images blend together until the woman just sags weeping into Buffy's arms with a soft wail of pain that pierces the three of us to the soul.
Buffy becomes her shelter as strong young arms hold Erin's weeping form and stroke her hair, murmuring soft assurances that give comfort beyond thoughtful knowing. Finally the mother looks into Buffy's eyes and returns her caress as Buffy and she say goodbye to the might have been we took from them. Erin looks toward the dark lady.
"A life is owed, but she is already dead, or will be," Erin says tiredly pointing at me. "Can she take it, Michelle?"
"It is just possible," this Michelle answers.
I look at the dark woman from the future and those terrifying clouds. I hold up my hand and whisper desperately.
"Please?"
The pain is almost as bad as the Hellmouth holding me, but different in a way I can't describe.
"A life is owed, and the debt is yours," the somber woman declares. "Now is not the time for payment. Know this, if you die before this debt is paid, one other of these will be held for the debt."
In a second I go from wild joy to dread. My failure condemns someone I love. I'll carry this until the debt comes due. I've lived in Sunnydale too long not to know what a life owed means.
Michelle looks up and says, "It is done and over. Leave this place."
"Make me," Buffy says as she crosses her arms.
"B-Buffy that's not such a good idea," I say frightened for her. I felt this woman's power.
"I don't choose to go, Michelle," Buffy says tightly as she advances on the dark skinned woman of power. "Are your bosses gonna be happy when they notice someone's been messing with their mojo to make this pretty room and do something to my sister and my friends. I'm betting you're really an assistant to an assistant."
"You presume much, Slayer," she answers with a powerful echo to her voice
"Anya, does your amulet tell you things that make sense magically?" Buffy asks casually. "Or do some things just not fit?"
"It's confused, but it doesn't quite fit," Anya says with a questioning tone and a tilt to her head. "It's off just a bit."
"Tara, did you and Dawn decide on your very dangerous plan?" Buffy asks in a way that makes me want her to ask someone else.
"Um, yes," I admit meekly. "But we had to, there wasn't any other way. Other people made decisions that were going to kill everything. You and Anya decided too," I add defensively.
"We'll discuss this later," Buffy snaps, then gives Michelle a smile that's more baring her teeth. "How long is it going to be before someone comes looking? I think I've got more time than you do, especially here. Warrior of the Light' and Chosen One' and all that. You got any snacks?"
For a moment, Michelle almost vibrates with frustration. Then she sighs and looks around her with some apprehension.
"What do you want?" Michelle asks Buffy in a defeated tone.
Buffy turns to her would-be mother.
"What happened?" Buffy asks gently.
"When we lost you, Hope, it drove some off in despair," Erin says tiredly, closing her eyes. "That night one fled back to us in terror. We stupidly saw only our lost one coming home, not the life drinker he had become."
"Vampire," Buffy said flatly. "Hope?"
The woman just nods and took a ragged breath as Buffy gives a tiny, sad smile.
"We have no name for them. There were none before the magic failed, before the destruction and the Great Hunger. They were a new horror. That night we learned how strong they were, and how clever. Your brother tried to save your sister. They couldn't get out. They were just out of reach of the latch. I insisted the latch be out of their reach so they wouldn't wander out. I wanted them to be safe."
Buffy holds Erin as the hard woman struggles with a pain I can understand too well. Our tears match.
"Here's how this is going to happen," Buffy states to Michelle. "You're gonna open a door to where I was supposed to go, and I'm going to do what I was supposed to do."
Her last words are aimed with angry reproach at me. I know she's right but I can only see the danger my coming back has placed her in. This isn't how it was supposed to be.
"There's only one way now to get to that door," Michelle warns. "I can't keep that door open."
"I will," Anya and I answer. Anya still sounds a touch shaky but there's a new understanding in her voice.
"And Will and Xander," Buffy says firmly. That feels right, but not quite complete.
"And me," Dawn says with a calm that makes Buffy hold the "no" that was coming automatically.
"There's so much I want to show you," Buffy says after a moment, seeing Dawn as a young woman for the first time here.
"We'll just get through this first," Dawn says with a brittle laugh.
"How do we get to the door?" Buffy asks Michelle quickly.
The poor Magic Box is starting to form around us. Michelle is fading.
"Tara will be your guide, and your family your anchor," She explains. "You must go to Erin's world through the Hellmouth."
"How can Tara guide us through the Hellmouth?" Buffy asks angrily.
"Her life is tied to it until the debt is fully paid," Michelle's voice says sadly. "It was the only way I could keep her alive."
This isn't how it was supposed to be.
My family, except for Dawn and I hope Giles, looks at me so hard. Buffy doesn't want Dawn near me. I don't blame her. I'm someone that was supposed to be dead being kept alive by the Hellmouth. But Dawn sees a friend who knows what she's been through. Dawn chafes under Buffy's protection, and there's anger building there. Xander and Willow look lost; they've lived with the lurking evil of the Hellmouth for so long they can't understand how life for something good can come from it. Neither do I.
They're trying to see if it's me or something evil with a trusted friend's face luring their friend to death. Willow feels violated by me on a level she can't explain. I can tell she wants to be happy I'm alive and share it with me. The fact that she can't hurts her deeply. Xander is seeing me: but remembering an old friend of his and the horror of watching a trusted face turn into a killer. Anya is confused and tired. She wonders if the murmurings from her amulet and my return are a trick. Giles is exhausted, hiding his pain from us.
Buffy feels a fear she can't show; not when she has to trust me to do what she knows she must. I see her die in the Hellmouth. Then I see Buffy's true fear. Dawn replaces Buffy in the memory. I wince.
Empathy, magic, my own memories and the flashes of almost memory from the Hellmouth mix into insights so dark it makes me huddle in the wreckage of a place I loved. The morning's hope is gone and I can't find it anywhere. What if I'm being filled with the evil that consumed the woman I love? How can I guide Buffy to where she's driven to go?
I look up to see Willow holding onto Xander's arm so tightly, trying to understand what's happened in the space of a day. Xander is holding her hand on his arm. I feel jealousy and remember a broken woman and a man who loved her trying to find comfort for just a night. The jealousy and the power the emotion brings from a dark place I am so aware of now frightens me. Will I hurt him? Will I hurt Willow, my everything? Will I hurt them, or will they never be now?
All I had were feelings in death; briefly I had hope. Now I doubt everything I knew then for fear of falling to the darkness that took my Willow. In a flash, I know I want Willow for myself. Is it love or the Hellmouth trying to get her back?
My doubt fills me. A shard of broken glass rests gently under my fingers. I touch it, take it gently in my hand and remember broken things have the sharpest edges. I stop and put it down gently. The only thing keeping that cold edge off my wrists is the knowledge that someone I love will take the debt of a life owed that's keeping me alive. It might be any of them. It might be Willow.
Love for a woman who can't trust me and love for the family I'm tearing apart keeps me alive for now.
This isn't how it was supposed to be.