Act 1.
Willow sat outside Drayton Hall, trying to look absorbed in a random textbook when she was really anything but. It was warmly familiar to her, this waiting. A few months ago she had been doing it on a daily basis, a habit she had been devastated to break. Now picking it back up again seemed like the most natural thing in the world, the greatest relief, as if she had been forced to go months without oxygen. She took in a breath, as if to solidify the moment, and tried very hard not to smile with joy.
Tara walked out of the Hall, spotted her, and angled over. Willow could tell that the other girl was trying just as hard to smother her own happiness - it was at the same time selfishly gratifying and a nearly overwhelming relief.
"Tara..." As had been the case every time they had seen each other in passing over the past few weeks, Willow was ready to get down on her knees and pour her heart out -
"Slowly," Tara admonished softly.
Willow nodded reluctantly, biting her tongue. "I know."
"I missed you," Tara said. There seemed to be tears in her doe-like eyes.
"I missed you, too," Willow said, regretting that she couldn't find words more emphatic with which to express her feelings.
Tara nodded reassuringly, as if to say that the words were enough.
"Do you want to get...something to eat?"
Tara shrugged. "Sure. Where?"
"They just opened this new vegetarian restaurant across campus, near the Women's Block. I hear they make the best garden salads, with those little walnut thingies that you like so -" She stopped for a moment when she noticed Tara stifling a laugh. "What?"
Tara shook her head, waving her hand. "This. I'd forgotten how much I liked to hear the sound of your voice. Even when you're babbling."
Willow blushed. "Oh...oh, man."
They eschewed the shuttle in favor of a slow walk across the campus. It was warm, somewhat muggy, and though the forecast promised rain for that night, at the moment the sun was still shining. For Sunnydale U it was more than five weeks till the end of the semester, but already the crowds had thinned out noticeably.
"So..." Willow started. "Been up to any...uhm, magic...doings?"
"Not really," Tara replied.
"Me neither," Willow said quickly. "But, uh, you knew that."
Tara smiled. "Yeah, I knew. It's been really hard for you -"
"It's getting easier, actually. The more I stay away from it, the easier it gets."
"I'm glad to hear you say that,
Willow."
Willow nodded, fairly beaming.
Tara looked around the campus. "So how's Xander holding up?"
Willow's face clouded over a bit. "He's still...pretty bummed. He's been hitting the Cheetos pretty hard the last couple of weeks. Part of me wants to hit him with something blunt and heavy for leaving Anya there in the chapel like that. But another part of me, you know, the part that's been his best friend for fifteen years, wants to just wrap him up until all the pain goes away. I...I know what it's like to feel like you've betrayed somebody you love. How much i-it hurts just to get up in the morning."
Tara nodded sympathetically, though Willow thought she saw the ghost of a smile on the girl's face.
"And...no word from Anya?"
"None. Not so much as a somewhat vengeful e-mail. I don't know if that's good or bad. I think it might be easier for both of them if she came back and they worked this out face-to-face."
"Who's keeping up with the magic store?"
Willow shrugged. "Buffy and I have been keeping it clean. But it hasn't reopened since Anya left."
They walked for a few minutes in silence.
"Have you heard from Giles?" Tara asked finally.
"He calls once a week. I think the Council keeps him on a pretty tight schedule. He said he might be able to make it back stateside for a few weeks this summer. Buffy...I mean, everybody really misses him."
Willow looked down at the ground.
"Buffy's under a lot of pressure," Her voice wavered, but she kept going. "She's...so strong. I don't how she stands it, being Dawn's guardian, the Slayer, holding down a full-time job."
"That's what it means to be a superhero."
Willow smiled half-heartedly, nodded. "I try to help out. Whenever I can. Like, helping her take care of the Magic Box. Shepherding Dawn around. But sometimes...sometimes it seems like she doesn't want my help. Like she's pushing me away."
Tara nodded. "Maybe she feels like she should be able to handle it all by herself. She feels like she needs to shield you, to protect you."
Willow shook her head. "She should know better than that. This is how we've survived for six years on the Hellmouth, by fighting the bad guys together."
"Then maybe she feels like...its time for you to let go. To live your own lives."
They stopped, and sat down on a bench.
"That's exactly what she said, three years ago, right before graduation. I-I told her...I got accepted to Oxford. She was so proud. When I told her I was going to stay in Sunnydale...she didn't want me to. She wanted me to live my own life. I told her, this is my life. This is how I want to spend my life. Making a difference."
Tears beaded in the corners of her eyes. Tara moved to put an arm around her shoulders, and Willow leaned into the other girl, almost unconsciously.
"I...I don't know if I'm making a difference anymore. When Buffy died...all I could think about was bringing her back. I d-deluded myself, I convinced myself and everyone else that she was in some demon dimension, trapped in eternal torment. I didn't even allow for the possibility that we were...that I was going to tear her out of someplace she wanted to be. It didn't matter. I was doing something. I was powerful. I was the one saving the planet, the one making a difference."
She closed her eyes, squeezing the tears out. They ran down her face and onto Tara's arm.
"Now...Buffy's back. There's nobody to fight -"
"The Trio -"
"The Trio," Willow said, not without some dark humor, "they're nobody. Just regular people, like us. As soon as we find them, that'll be the end of it. Besides which, it'll be pretty hard to top a hell goddess for pure bad guy mayhem. A-at least, I hope it'll be pretty hard to top."
Tara chuckled.
"Buffy's dealing with stuff that's just...so ordinary. Non-slayer worthy. Raising Dawn, working for a living, paying the bills, all that normal stuff. She doesn't need Research Gal. She doesn't need Wicca. She -"
"She needs her friends."
Tara kissed Willow delicately on the head.
"Isn't that enough?"
Willow looked up at her, chagrined. "I-I'm sorry. You wanted to take this
slowly -"
"It's alright. I'm glad you still feel like you can tell me these things."
Will nodded, wiping her eyes dry. "Listen...I know you don't want to rush this, but I thought, maybe, we could do...something, tonight. I mean, if you're not doing anything else..."
Tara smiled. "I'm free. What did you have in mind?"
"Something romantic. And preferably inexpensive. Possibly...involving a darkened theater. And a large bag of tropical Skittles?"
"Well, this is romantic. Just the two of us. Alone, in the dark. It feels like a moonlit stroll."
Tara nodded, though it was hard to see her expression in the darkness.
Willow turned to look around the neighborhood. It was like a lot of them in the Sunnydale residential districts, neat and trim, not too big and not too small. The immaculately squared-off lawns, mowed to an orderly inch of thick California grass, almost glowed in the dim illumination provided by the orange streetlights. The only thing that might have struck the casual passerby as particularly odd was the curious lack of outside activity as early as…as…
Willow shone the flashlight on her wristwatch. It was 8:13.
"This is pretty much where Buffy told us to start looking, right?" Tara said carefully. "Near where she got attacked."
Willow silently agreed with her, but couldn't help the bit of resentment she had felt when Buffy has asked for their help. She did want to help Buffy find the Trio, but did it have to be tonight? When she felt so close to winning Tara back?
Willow laughed softly to herself.
"What?"
"I was just thinking," Willow replied. "How...ordinary this is for us. I wanted to take you to the movies, you know, something special." She smirked, remembering what someone she had loved had said to her once.
"Our lives are different from other people's."
Tara glanced around at the tract houses. "I was just thinking...about how nice it would be to own a house like this, one day. Plenty of room for Miss Kitty and company to roam."
"Seriously?" Willow said, trying not to sound too hopeful. "I k-kinda imagined something out in the open, in the country. Maybe up in the mountains. I grew up in town, but I always wanted to know what it was like to live miles from civilization. Silence."
"Did that already," Tara said softly, humorously, "Can I say, overrated?"
Willow smiled, feeling rather awkward.
"Hey -"
Willow looked up the street in the direction Tara was gazing.
"What's that?"
Willow saw nothing besides another block of neatly spaced houses.
"What?" she asked blankly.
"There. Third house down from the intersection, on the left."
Willow strained, saw where Tara was indicating, but it took her a moment to register that something was different. A red haze surrounded the house, a barely detectable glow that separated it from its neighbors.
"What a strange aura," Willow said, and Tara nodded.
"Looks like somebody's been working some magic mojo."
Willow slapped herself lightly in the head. "Of course! This is Jonathan's neighborhood! I remember he used to carpool with us in kindergarten. He must have gotten the house when his parents moved to Arizona last year. Man, I am really out of the loop. We could have looked up the address and saved ourselves a lot of trouble."
"Don't worry about it," Tara said, and bit her lip. "Should we get Buffy?"
Willow shook her head. "I don't think she gets off work for another half hour or so. We don't have to confront them or anything - we can just do a little reconnaissance work."
They moved quietly toward the house.
"Proximity warning," Andrew said, looking at the security camera. "Two...uh, females, e-entering the premises...p-probably not armed -"
"Jeez, if you're gonna talk like a commando, learn how to do it right," Jonathan said crossly.
"Shut up, both of you," Warren said. "It's the witches."
"Willow?" Jonathan started out of his chair, looking up at the camera.
"How did they know we were here?" Warren said, looking dangerously at Jonathan.
Jonathan glanced away, ashamed. "We used to carpool together. Oh, man..."
"Never mind," Warren said, turning back at the camera. The girls were walking quietly around the edge of the yard, toward the garage. "Release the guardian."
"What? No, don't!" Jonathan shouted. "It was alright with Buffy...I mean...at least she could d-defend herself. Those two are just girls. They're normal. They'll be killed!"
Warren grimaced. "So what? It's either them or us, Jonathan -"
"Don't give me that!" Jonathan shouted, and looked imploringly at Andrew. "This isn't a game! Is this what it means to be a supervillian? Just kicking back to watch some random demon kill our friends? They saved my life! They saved all our lives, more than once!"
Andrew looked over at Warren fearfully.
"Push the button," Warren said calmly.
Jonathan made a dash towards the security board, but was caught from behind by the Warrenbot.
"No! Don't push it, Andrew."
Andrew trembled, hesitated, but started to move toward the board.
"Andrew! She'll come after us if you do it. And maybe this time she doesn't stop at just shutting us down."
"Push the button," Warren said. "He's just a coward. He's been against us from the beginning, trying to subvert us. He was just too scared to put up a fight before now."
Jonathan struggled against the robot's viselike grip, and screamed as loud as he could. On the screen, the girls jumped, hearing the noise. They began to move toward the basement to investigate.
Andrew pushed the button.
"What was that?"
Willow shook her head, alarmed. "I don't know. Sounded like somebody screaming."
They moved around the house, and saw the open door to the basement. The lights were on. "I think it came from -"
The garage doors suddenly swept open, and out stepped such a nightmarish vision that for a moment Willow was quite literally frozen with terror. It was seven feet tall, topped with a pair of razor-sharp horns, and covered with black, greasy fur. Strapped clumsily on its back was a bristle of arrows and a gargantuan bow. Such as it was, the extra weaponry seemed redundant. The beast roared, filling the night with sound, and charged them.
Tara shouted something that Willow didn't quite understand, and turned to run. The demon leapt with a deafening roar, covering the space from the garage to the spot where they stood in a few seconds, and tackled Tara from behind. They fell to the ground with a dull thud.
"Tara!" Willow ran toward them. Tara struggled out of the demon's hold long enough to climb to her feet. She muttered something in Latin, and the demon flew back a few feet, with a growl of surprise and anger.
"Come on!" Tara said, grabbing Willow's hand. They ran back toward the street -
Something whistled through the air to Willow's left. An instant later she saw an arrow embed itself into a tree a few feet away in front of them. "Oh, God -"
Another whistle, and Tara was very suddenly on her knees. Willow stopped. "What's wro-"
Tara looked up at Willow, her eyebrows knitted together in surprise. Her mouth opened. She tried to speak, but no sound came out. Numbly, they both looked down at Tara's chest.
An arrow point, slick with blood, protruded from her left lung.
"Tara -"
The girl fell to the ground, clutching weakly, desperately, at the arrow. She coughed, a horribly fluid sound. A fine spray of blood splattered her lips, across onto her shirt, onto Willow's hands.
"Tara, baby, d-don't try to move."
The demon roared in triumph, moved forward to finish the job. Almost reflexively, Willow motioned, and the demon instantly burst into flames. It shrieked in horrible agony, and collapsed to the ground, before disappearing into nothingness.
Tara pleaded to Willow with her eyes. Willow, helpless, pressed her hands against the wound futily. Tara coughed again, and Willow could hear the air damming up in her throat. She drew in one hitching breath...another...
Then silence.
"No!"
Commercials.