Chapter Four: Curse the Darkness
She wasn't altogether sure that what she was seeing was real. For …
Hours? Days? Months? Years? Lifetimes?
… a while she'd been … somewhere else. Bad. Dark. Cold. Alone with the things that skittered around her constantly except when they didn't, never staying still long enough to be seen, acknowledged, rationalized. Alone, she cursed the darkness. She'd tried to get out. She was sure she'd tried to get out. She'd never found a way. But there was always a way. Someone used to tell her that. Someone warm and beautiful and safe whose soft words and gentle hands would soothe her fresh bruises while singing quiet words of comfort. Someone who found her own way out and left behind a lonely and terrified little girl all on her own to deal with the cooking and the cleaning and the fists. Alone. In the dark. With the cursing.
Sometimes she thought she'd found the way out. She'd see the warm smile and the emerald pools and the red waves and be overcome with a joyous certainty that if she could just reach out and touch perfection that she would be saved. But those moments were fleeting. The image of home might twist in on itself and become a distorted black thing, a mockery with a cruel smile and unforgiving hands, and she would lash out with every ounce of strength she could muster. Or it might simply fade away, consumed in the endless darkness that invariably sought to reclaim her.
Then everything changed. At first, there had only been the need to build. Every nerve in her body screamed with the desire to create the tower that had been emblazoned into her brain. She had tried to follow the commands, but found herself restrained and unable to comply. Her inability to fulfill her only task in life was distressing, but the green was always there – the lovegreen or the glowgreen or some other comforting presence – and the deep shame and loathing she felt would subside for a time.
And then suddenly she was free. Don't you have some place to be? She didn't hesitate, walking away from the lovegreen and the deathblack and the empty shell and the marked one. She knew where to go, and she headed there directly, stopping only to toss aside the useless bindings trapping her crushed hand.
When she felt Her touch a shoulder and roughly swing her around, she had been filled with an overwhelming awe, equal parts worship and terror.
And then the world exploded.
Fingers wriggling in her mind and she cried out in agony. She had experienced this before, repeatedly in the tiny room with no doors, but this time was different. Instead of feeling like she was losing, she felt herself returning. Everything she ever was and ever could be came rushing back and she was swept away in a tidal wave of pain and memories.
Again, she was alone in the dark. But something had changed. There were no rough hands bringing pain. There were no voices whispering in her ear. She had finally found the way out.
Tara opened her eyes.
Lovegr-- Willow's face consumed her vision, and for a moment Tara was paralyzed with fear. Was this merely another cruel trick she was playing on herself? It felt different, but maybe her mind had simply learned a new method of torture. Tara steeled herself for the inevitable transformation, for Willow's hair to become black as night, for her eyes to morph into bottomless, soulless pits of rage and power as had happened countless times in her living nightmares. But the change never came, and as Tara watched Willow's face crumple with disappointment and grief, she knew that this was the real thing.
She was back. Willow had found her.
At first, Tara could do nothing but cry, nearly hysterical after her ordeal. She allowed herself a rare moment of selfishness, not caring about the war being fought just a few feet away. Willow cried too, rocking her back and forth, and right then, nothing else mattered but the two of them.
When the sobbing finally subsided and Willow broke away to survey the battle, Tara was left to try and puzzle out what had happened since she … got lost. There hadn't been time for explanations. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, calming her mind and body as her mother had taught her all those years ago. When she opened them again, she could see.
Not surprisingly, Willow's aura was the first to attract her attention. Tara was shocked to see how much it had changed in the brief time she'd been away. It was still the deep, warm red of strawberries, but now it was tinged with … Goddess, what WAS that? Tara frowned, and felt a tight knot of concern form in her stomach. What had happened while she was away to cause Willow's aura to become so … tainted? It was clear that her love had somehow managed to increase her power; it was rolling off of her like waves. But those … smudges. Like dirty thumbprints all over the beautiful portrait that was Willow. Unbidden, the image of the darker, more sinister, twisted version of Willow leapt into her mind, but Tara pushed it aside, violently rejecting the threat it suggested. Willow would never allow herself to abuse magic like that. Tara wasn't sure of a whole heck of a lot, but her trust and confidence in Willow was unwavering.
Her resolve strengthened, Tara's gaze swept the dingy construction yard, seeking her friends. She quickly located them, huddled together some distance away and was pleased to see that they were mostly unchanged. There was something not quite right about Mr. Giles, but Tara chalked it up to tension and concern for Buffy and Dawn. Speaking of …
There was Buffy, a bright white beacon shining in the night about halfway up the tower. Her aura was vivid and certain, and Tara drew comfort from Buffy's strength as she often did. Tara loved Willow with all her heart, but she felt a loyalty to Buffy that was completely separate and wholly her own.
Buffy had accepted her. Buffy had protected her. When her father and brother had tracked her down last year and demanded that Tara return home with them, she had given up. She had, after all, proven them right. Tara had used her powers on her friends, the one thing her mother had told her repeatedly she must never do. An it harm none, do what thou wilt. The most basic law, and she had broken it, along with the trust of those most important to her. Her father had been right. She was evil.
"You want her, Mr. Maclay? Go ahead and take her."
Tara's heart broke at those words, but it was … comforting in a way. Ever since Willow had appeared in her dorm room that night with her extra flamey candle, Tara felt like she'd been waiting for something to go wrong, feeling guilty for allowing herself to believe, even if only for a minute or two, that her happiness would last. Some people just weren't meant to be happy. Although Tara knew she'd mourn what she'd lost for the rest of her life, at least she had the cold comfort of knowing that in the end, she'd been right. It wasn't much, but it was something.
"…You just gotta go through me."
Those words changed everything. In that instant, Tara's entire life opened up to her. Buffy knew what Tara had done, knew what Tara was.
Buffy didn't care.
"We're family."
Tara stood now, supporting Willow as the redhead's body was wracked with sobs, and looked at Buffy's body with sadness and regret. She wanted to cry, but knew she couldn't. Not yet. Not while there was still so much pain around her.
All of Tara's life, she had taken care of others. True, she had initially done so under force, but what her father and brother had never understood about Tara was that if they had simply treated her with love and respect, like part of the family, she would have happily taken care of them in return.
Like the love and respect Buffy had shown to Tara.
It wasn't a conscious decision, but Tara knew what she would do to honour Buffy's memory. Buffy had died so her family could stay together. Making sure that happened was the least Tara could do to thank Buffy for allowing her into it. Where Buffy had once given Tara strength, Tara would pass it on to the others. She would be the bright light that kept the darkness away from Dawn, Xander … Willow.
A light to curse the darkness.