She walked through the park with a lot on her mind. So many things had happened in too short a time. Some happy, and some not so happy.
Cole. The Angel of Destiny's proposal. Piper's baby! Vanquishing Cole. That was the biggest thing on her mind
Her Evil child. The evil she had used. It had tainted her. She could feel it.
She walked through the park. How had things gotten so outta control? Why hadn't she seen it coming? Had it always been inside her?
She killed him. Cold blooded murder. And even after regaining her humanity…she didn't care. He almost killed her best friend, and killed her lover. And she'd do it again. There was no denying that in her heart.
What scared her the most was that it had felt so right. Going back into the past, seeing one of her past lives evil….using the same powers she had later gained.
And when she was with Cole, knowing who and what he was….she didn't care. She had never felt that way about *anybody*
Killing a man was one thing….but ending the world?! She loved this world. Why else would she help to save it? Demon Mayors, evil cyborgs and even a hell god, among others. She had helped fight them all to save this world. To keep the people safe, the ones she loved. To keep Tara safe.
Tara.
How she missed her. She had always said that she was her willow tree, strong and protecting. But when it really counted, where was she?
Two women walked, immersed in their own thoughts, down the wood lined path. They would have passed each other by in the dark night without a backward glance if one or the other had been just a foot to either the left or the right. But as it was, they ran into each other.
"Oh my God!" I'm so sorry!" the brunette gushed.
"Goddess! Are you alright?" The red head asked. They then looked down at their feet. The contents of their purses lay strewn about. "Ops." They said as one.
She thought twice about using magick and finally dismissed the idea of borrowing light from a nearby lamp post or star. Of course at their feet was immersed in shadow.
She fished in her pocket and brought out a flashlight. "It sure is dark."
"Yeah, it is." As the brunette switched on the light, she played with the thought of a simple magnification spell, before once again dismissing the thought of using magick. After last week, the less magick she used the better.
They both bent and started shuffling through the stuff.
"Yours?" The red head asked, after checking the color of a lipstick tube. She shuddered. It was black.
"Oh, that. Yeah, guilty as charged. From a darker time. Really should get rid of it."
"Loved one?"
"Excuse me?"
"I don't mean to pry, but did a loved one die?"
"Uh…yeah. My husband."
"That's so awful. I'm really sorry. I know what you're going through. I lost my….lover just recently. Dark times seem to follow deaths."
"Yeah." Or cause them. She thought. But she smiled slightly at the other's perception none the less. "Oh, by the way, I'm Phoebe."
"Willow." They sorted through some more of the stuff, until Willow came upon a bundle of herbs. "mm! Sage!" she smelled again, "Rosemary and garlic. Protection."
"How'd you know?" Phoebe asked.
"Herbalist." Willow thought fast.
"Oh, cool." They continued sorting. Phoebe picked up Willow's stake, cross and Holy Water.
"Very religious herbalist." Willow lied, laughing.
"Uh-huh." Phoebe was suspicious. She handed the items to the red head. She would have let it slide, if they hadn't gotten attacked. The man went straight for the brunette, knocking Willow aside.
"Hectate, I call! Bind him!" she cried. Her eyes turned black. She was juiced. She threw the stake and the vampire dusted. That was when Phoebe noticed Willow was floating.
"You're levitating!" She cried, partially excited, partially afraid.
Willow looked down at herself, then at Phoebe. Fear was in both of their eyes. "Oh! Goddess!" She cried, and she fell, her eyes returning to normal.
"Are you ok?" phoebe fought against her fear and rushed to the girl's side.
"No!" Tears were coming now. "I haven't……Not since Glory hurt Tara…..TARA!!!" She cried, breaking down fully.
She set the cup of herbal tea in front of the girl. She didn't know when she began thinking of this person as a child, and not a woman. Why had she first thought of her as a woman? Maybe the unfathomable grief had made her seem older.
They sat in the kitchen. Piper, Leo and Paige were at P3, no interruptions. Willow had calmed down considerably, but tears still ran down her cheeks.
She sniffed. "I thought all my tears would be spent by now."
"Wanna talk about it?"
"I don't know where to start."
"When did you become a witch?"
"I learned about the world of the supernatural sophomore year. I was fifteen. It wasn't until a year later that I became really interested. Ice into fire, small stuff at first. Never do that on a bed spread." She giggled at the memory. "As time went by, I tried harder spells. My first big one was a gift of sorts to a friend. That one gave my friends the wiggins. That's when I first realized I had real power, I think. I did some more smaller stuff after that. Soon I was in college, and a whole new world was opened up for me. No more hiding in the broom closet, per say. And then Oz left. He was my boyfriend for two years."
"Why'd he leave?" Phoebe prodded.
"He had…issues. Something I couldn't help him with, no matter what I did. I adjusted to it, though. And I found a Wiccan group at school. That's where I met Tara." Her voice softened, and Phoebe knew they had been involved. "She was the only one in the group who was more interested in the magic than bake sales. Through certain events, we found that our magick was so much stronger when we were together. Do you know the feeling? It was like I was half of the pentagram and she was the other."
"Yeah, my sisters and I are pretty powerful by ourselves, but much more powerful together."
"I hope this doesn't freak you out, it freaked me out at first, and my friends, but I found myself in love with Tara. She completed me in every way.
"This past year I became addicted to magic. It's better than getting high on normal drugs. But Tara was afraid, and she left me." She looked down.
"Sorry to interrupt, but you mentioned a Glory?"
"Glorificus. Hell God just trying to get home, but she stole Tara's mind. I went all dark arts on her, and actually hurt her. That's the only time I've ever levitated.
"Once Tara left me, though, I stopped using magick all together. My friends were afraid of me." Her voice sounded far away, as if in a memory. "Tara came back to me last week, after a few months without magic. But then Warren shot and killed her. It really was an accident, but he also hurt my best friend.
"I wanted revenge. So I took it. It was the scariest time in my life. My hair, eyes, clothes, all black." She ran a hand through her hair. "Veins showed through my pale skin." She ran the same hand down her cheek. "All I could think of was revenge. I hurt Buffy, Dawn, Xander. And I can't forget Giles or Anya. But Xander most of all." She sighed. "And yet, he still believed in me. He saved me, and the world. Because I tried to end it. The suffering, the pain. I could feel it all, and I couldn't take it. I didn't think I could live without her. And now, now I have to learn to control all this magick, that I have no use for, and no need, and no way of controlling." She looked down, then looked to Phoebe. "Listen to me," she smiled, "Here I am, poring out my heart, burdening you, when you have also lost someone."
"Yeah. My own dark time." She mused. "His name was Cole. Cole Turner. I thought he was an attorney, but he was really an assassin for the other guys. Balthazar. But I fell in love with him, anyway, even after knowing. It was too late to go back. He turned against the Source, the 'king' of evil, you could say, and helped me and my sisters. He went into hiding, because he was being looked for, but he came back, because he loved me. He helped vanquish the Source, or so we thought. But then, he became the Source. We didn't know, and we got married, and soon I was pregnant. With an evil baby. And the evilness of my child turned me. I turned my back on my sisters, and our destiny. I became the Queen of the Underworld.
"But then I found out he was giving me this potion, to weaken me, so I would give in to my evil side, and our evil offspring. My sisters and I vanquished him. And through circumstances, I lost our demonic baby as well.
"I loved him so much, and I had to kill him." She said, a tear running down her cheek.
"De ja vu."
"What?!"
"Sorry. Same plot line, different cast. My friend went through the same thing. Boyfriend turned evil by true happiness. You can guess what that was. I turned him back, using magick, but it was too little, too late. She had to kill him to save the world. To stop it from being sucked into hell." Willow said, sadly.
"Hey Phoebe! You here?" They heard from the hall. Piper, Paige and Leo were home.
"Kitchen!"
"Oh-hoh! Innocent!" Piper said, seeing Willow. She had been about to rant about a demon, but with this girl in their kitchen. . . .
"No, fellow heart broken witch. Willow, meet Piper, Leo, her husband, and Paige."
"Hi." They all said.
"Ok, I have to ask, is that natural?"
"Paige has no tact." Piper said, to the unhappiness of Paige.
"It's natural, sorry." Willow liked Paige. She reminded her of Queen C.
"I'm sorry to hear about your heart break." Piper said, having her share of them herself.
"Thanks. It's a slow process, grieving, but I'm doing better than I was. I'm not ending the world, so there's a plus." Willow gave the confused newcomers a smile.