Chapter 9

Tara had lain awake most of the night, but eventually drifted off into a fitful sleep, scattered with nightmares. Once asleep, she woke often, at one point bolting directly from sleep into a sitting position and immediately flicking her bedroom light on, thinking that her father had come after her. A quick search of the tiny studio revealed nothing, which really only succeeded in making the witch feel more isolated instead of secure. She briefly considered calling Mary, just so she wouldn't be alone, but decided against it fairly quickly. It was too late to go bothering anyone.

School was tedious, running on very little sleep and quite a fair amount of nerves. As it turned out, neither Michael nor Amy went in to school the following day, which frankly didn't surprise Tara one bit. She kept eyeing Michael's empty desk in History, and P.E. was definitely no fun without Amy, who was usually partnered off with Tara for the classes exercises. Alone again, the Wiccan sighed.

Before lunch, she headed for the restroom, but stopped short when she saw Willow sitting by the sinks talking to Buffy. After a few seconds, she regained her momentum and headed for one of the sinks, washing her hands and, well, she really couldn't help overhearing.

"Buffy, he won't even talk to me!" the redhead said, sounding distraught.

Buffy put one hand on Willow's shoulder, the other hand holding a box of tissues. "I know, Will. It's gonna take time for him to-"

Willow blew her nose loudly, tossing the tissue into the trash can. "But I apologized! I never meant to hurt him, it was just – we thought we weren't gonna ever get out of that building, a-and desperation makes you do weird things. We, we weren't thinking."

"Cordy isn't talking to Xander right now, either. You can't really expect them to get over this right away, but you and Oz really have something. I'm sure he'll accept your apology and get over it. You'll move on. Together." The bell rang, echoing through the tiled room. "Look, Will, I really have to go meet Giles. He'll blow a gasket if I'm late again. We'll be in the library, you can catch up with us there, okay?" She momentarily pondered exactly what a 'gasket' was, then handed her friend the box of tissues she'd been holding and hopped down off the ledge. "It's gonna be okay, you'll get through this," the blonde emphasized as the late bell resonated through the building. "We'll talk about it more this afternoon, I'm really sorry I can't stay. Sometimes he just gets all British about punctuality and doesn't understand major life happenings."

Buffy headed for the door, and Tara moved closer to Willow, reaching for the paper towels. "Hey, W-Willow? Are you okay?" Tara asked gently, blue eyes locking with the redhead's red-rimmed green ones. Willow mutely shook her head 'no' and wiped tears from her eyes with a tissue. "No, um, that – that was a dumb question. Is there, is there anything I can do for you?"

"Not unless you can turn back time," Willow said in a defeated tone.

Tara shook her head. "No, I can't do that. But if you want someone to talk to, while Buffy's um, in the library. I'm your girl." She blushed slightly.

The redhead sniffled. "I'm not sure you'd want hear about it." Another tissue landed in the trash can.

Tara smiled sympathetically. "Hey, I offered because I m-meant it. I'm a good listener."

"Okay. If, if you're sure."

Tara nodded. "I'm sure," the witch stated confidently. She hopped up into Buffy's vacated seat on the ledge. "I'll even take over as Kleenex-holder, if you like."

Willow sent Tara a grateful, if wavering, smile and relinquished the tissue box. "Well, um, I'm sure you heard that Cordy's in the hospital."

The look on Tara's face clearly stated that she in fact had not heard. "Oh my gosh, is she okay? What happened? When?"

"She, she's okay. I mean, she's got a lot of stitches and stuff, but yeah, physically she's gonna be fine. It's just, um," Willow puzzled over how to just say this to a complete stranger. Which, she reminded herself, was pretty much what Tara was. No matter how open and friendly she seemed. "Well, see, Xander and I, we got kind of … trapped. In this, this run down building outside of town, pretty much off the beaten track. Well, we couldn't find a way out, and we started to kind of panic, you know. Because we thought our best-case scenario involved, like, being stuck there until we eventually starved to death. So we had the whole impending death thing going on in our minds, and we kind of … kissed." She looked up into Tara's face, and Tara sincerely hoped that there was not a trace of the disappointment she felt inside showing outwardly. "I know, we shouldn't have! It was so, so blindingly stupid. Oz and Cordelia, they were looking for us, and somehow, they actually found us. And that's, that's pretty much when they came in to rescue us.

"So um, they took one look at us and, and needless to say they were pretty upset. Cordelia, she turned and started to head outside, but the staircase collapsed. She fell, and um, she was hurt pretty bad. We, for a while we really weren't sure she was gonna make it." Willow reached for another tissue and dabbed at her eyes, which had begun to tear up again. "But we got her to the hospital, and they got her stabilized. But she didn't want to see Xander at all, or any of us. She made them send us away. He's pretty upset about the whole thing, I mean, it's our fault it happened. And Oz, I tried to apologize to him, explain, a-and he's all avoid-y now. He said he can't talk to me right now, or even see me, not 'til he figures stuff out. Oh Tara, I screwed up so bad."

Tara gently wrapped an arm around Willow's shoulders, and the dam burst. Willow collapsed into Tara's arms, and the blonde Wiccan held the other girl uncertainly. The tissue box slipped off Tara's lap and fell to the floor with an audible plop, but Willow didn't even seem to register the noise. She wrapped her arms helplessly around Tara, tears flowing, taking refuge in the blonde's embrace.

Gradually Tara began to get more comfortable with what was happening, now speaking quietly and soothingly to the redhead. Willow seemed to calm marginally, and Tara gently smoothed Willow's hair, cradling the smaller girl's body easily against her own. After several minutes like this, Willow slowly pulled away, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand and looking nowhere but at Tara. A click of approaching heels sounded, but neither girl paid any attention to the noise, staying close to one another. That is, until the door swung open.

"Oh my God, I'm not like, interrupting your make-out session, am I?" a taunting feminine voice declared.