Disclaimer: See chapter 1 for full disclaimer and notes.

Thanks to my reviewers from ff.net and Twisting the Hellmouth and thanks for sticking with it. Sorry about the delay. I was sick and unemployed and basically everything bad all at once, but I'm better now, thank goodness. The next chapter should be up next weekend.

Chapter 21: The Eye of the Storm

"This is ridiculous!" Tara exclaimed, bursting through the potions classroom door in the early hours of the morning.

"What is ridiculous?" Snape asked, barely glancing up from his work.

"This-" Tara began before taking a closer look at the haggard professor. "Have you been working all night?"

Snape nodded, still concentrating on his stirring.

"Oh, um, I could come back after you've gotten some sleep," Tara stammered, suddenly unsure of herself.

The hand that was stirring faltered for a moment. "Stay," he said, gesturing to the seat next to him with his free hand.

Tara's nervousness left as quickly as it had come and she did as he requested, taking the empty seat and curiously inspecting his potion.

"So, what are you making?" she asked, stalling as she tried to make sense of why she was in the room in the first place.

"Actually, it is something I wanted to discuss with you," Snape answered, "but I would first like to know what is so ridiculous."

"Did I say ridiculous?" Tara asked, feigning innocence as she helped him bottle the now finished potion.

Snape raised an eyebrow at her, clearly not amused.

Sighing, Tara put her bottle on the table and played with the cap as she organized her thoughts.

"I've been going over it in my head. Trying to justify my feelings. It's like."

Snape continued to look at her, waiting for her to get her thoughts out.

"It's like I don't recognize my own head." She gave him a half apologetic smile. "I don't really know how to put it."

"You're confused because I am not a woman," Snape replied, almost as a question.

Tara's smile faltered. "I'm confused because you're not Willow."

The Potions Master frowned, reaching forward to stroke Tara's cheek lightly. "Did you really think that we are only allowed one chance in our lives?"

Nodding, Tara's eyes closed briefly as Snape's hand stayed where it was, now simply resting on her cheek.

"Why?" he asked in a low tone, afraid that if he spoke too loudly they would suddenly remember why this was a bad idea.

"She made me what I am," replied Tara, trying to make him understand.

The Professor abruptly removed his hand, causing Tara to look up at him in surprise. His eyes were narrowed and he suddenly looked angry.

"No" was all he said.

Tara studied his face, confused as to what he was answering with "no". Her confusion, and perhaps the smallest hint of fear, did not go unnoticed by Snape, who tried to soften his expression before elaborating.

"She allowed you to be who you already were. No one can make another person be anything. They can only speed up the process a little."

Tara stepped back. "You don't know what it was like for me before her. She did make me better."

Snape looked at her in silence for a moment. Finally, his expression turned to one of resolve. He held his hands up in front of him in a gesture of defeat before taking a nearby seat.

"You should be with the person you love."

Tara's eyes widened and she took another step back. "Oh." She said before sitting down hard on the bench behind her.

Snape's expression changed from resolve to concern at her reaction, but he stayed where he was.

"I get it now," Tara said, possibly to herself more than the other occupant of the room.

Snape waited for her to continue.

"I was you," she said to him, coming back from wherever her mind had drifted a moment before. "It's exactly like before."

Staring at her face, trying to discern where this was going, Snape spoke up. "Before?"

"Before, with Willow." She replied, his look of resolve from a moment before now on her face.

After a lengthy silence, Snape cleared his throat, startling Tara out of her thoughts.

"Um, with Oz. Willow and me and Oz. When Oz came back Willow and I had just started being together. Then he's back out of the blue and she had to figure out what to do about it. She felt an obligation to Oz because she had sort of assumed that they'd be back together after he figured out the werewolf thing, and he was her first real love. But she chose me."

Tara looked up at Snape and smiled. "I told her she should be with the person she loved and she said she was."

The Professor's brow furrowed for a moment as he absorbed what she was saying, and then his eyes widened. "Ah."

Tara's smile grew wider. "I think I've figured it out. It won't be easy, but it feels so much better to know."

"You have to tell her."

"I know," Tara said, the smile still on her face, "but I can worry about that later, can't I?"

Snape nodded, willing himself to get up. He took the few steps to Tara and pulled her to a standing position. He smiled back at her for a moment before leaning in and doing what he had been wanting to do for what seemed like forever. Tara returned the kiss, hesitantly at first, and then with more fervor. They finally broke apart when they both had to breathe, looking at each other in a whole new light.

Snape hugged Tara to his chest tightly. He didn't want to ever let her go, now that she was here, but he knew that this wasn't the right time. He still had potions to prepare before classes began.

Sighing, he stepped back from her and stroked her hair once. "I need to get some things finished before class, but perhaps you could come back at the end of the day?"

Tara smiled, nodding. "Of course. I should probably get back to the rooms before Dawn sends out a search party."

Snape touched her cheek one last time before nodding himself. She gave him a large grin and then turned and left the classroom, which now seemed so much warmer than a dank dungeon.

*~*~*~

By the time she arrived back at the rooms she shared with Dawn, Tara's smile had almost left her completely. She hesitated before saying the password and slipping inside. As she entered the cozy common area, she was surprised when, instead of an angry teenager, she encountered a former demon.

"Hi Anya," Tara said, taking a seat next to her.

Anya glanced up from staring into the fire, and Tara saw with surprise that she had been crying.

"What's wrong?" asked Tara, immediately on guard.

Anya shook her head, wiping her eyes. "Everything. I think I made a bad decision.

"What decision?"

"I thought it would be like it was. Xander is just a stupid man who hurt a woman and needed to see the error of his ways, so I took what I had been wanting for so long and I became a demon again, but now I have all these human feelings and I can't make them go away."

"Oh." Tara said, relieved that it wasn't something worse.

"And Giles has been very helpful, but I can't trust him, being a man and all, and I'm afraid that when I get back to the shop all the money will be gone."

Tara smiled a bit at the last part. "I'm sure the money is fine. Who did you leave in charge of it this time?"

"Buffy."

"Oh," Tara said, biting her lower lip. "Because Spike is a man, right?"

"Of course. And Willow can't be trusted to not make the cash register disappear."

"Right."

They fell into an awkward silence as Tara tried to think of something comforting to say that didn't involve complimenting Anya on her money. Finally, she gave up.

"Even if the worst happened, and Buffy did ruin the shop, I'm sure you could make it up in no time on the stock market or something."

Anya sat up straighter. "That is true. I am very good at investing wisely. It's really not that hard once you figure out how the whole thing works, you know." She turned to Tara and smiled brightly, her sadness momentarily forgotten. "I could show you. I could give you a tutorial on investing soundly."

"Um, sure," Tara replied, "maybe later in the week. I'll get back to you on that."

Anya's smile grew and she hugged Tara briefly. "I'll make some graphs."

She jumped up from the couch and straightened her skirt. "I should get back to my room. I have a lot to prepare."

Tara nodded, not wanting to say the wrong thing.

Anya left, the door shutting loudly behind her. Tara's smile returned for a moment before she remembered that Dawn was in the next room, still hopeful that Tara and Willow would patch things up especially after the Xander/Anya fiasco..

Tara sighed, pulling her legs up onto the couch. She stared into the fire and tried to figure out how she was going to break the news to Dawn.

*~*~*~

A few hours later, the room was bathed in sunlight and Tara was still unsure as to how she was going to tell the teen what she didn't want to hear. There would almost certainly be some yelling, and possibly some crying. Willow and Tara were almost like surrogate parents to her, and it would be like her parents getting divorced all over again.

Tara pulled herself out of her morose state and looked down at her watch. Frowning at how late it had become, she stood. After stretching a few kinks out, she crossed to Dawn's room and knocked lightly. No one answered. She knocked again, louder. Still no answer. Finally, she opened the door and peeked around.

"Dawn?" she said, her frown deepening as she saw an empty bed and Dawn nowhere in sight.

Butterflies filled her stomach as she entered the room, hoping that Dawn was just hunched over behind the bed where she couldn't see her. After walking all the way around the room, it was obvious that not only was the teenager not there, she hadn't been there at least since Tara had arrived back at the common room.

Tara tried to tell herself that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for Dawn's absence, but all she could think was that she had failed to protect her and something horrible had happened.

She ran out of the room and headed out in search of Giles.

*~*~*~

All she found in Giles's room was Anya asleep on the couch. Trying to keep herself from panicking, she considered all the places Giles could be, and decided on the Great Hall.

Tara ran through the halls of the castle faster than she knew was possible, almost knocking down a surprised student and going right through a very angry Sir Nicholas. She skidded to a halt outside the Great Hall, composing herself before entering. To her dismay, the room was empty, everyone having already eaten and headed to class.

As she turned around to run off in another direction, she smacked into the object of her search.

"Tara?" Giles said, grabbing her arm to keep her from falling backward. "What's wrong?"

"Have you seen D-dawn?" she stammered, immediately knowing that the answer was no as fear flooded his face.

"How long has she been missing?" he asked.

"I don't know. At least a few hours. She must have left in the middle of the night."

Giles took his glasses off and cleaned them furiously. "We should find Dumbledore."

Tara nodded and fell into step behind him as he led the way to the Headmaster's office.

*~*~*~

"We should call the Weasley twins in and see if they know anything about this. She may have just fallen asleep in their common room and headed to class with them in the morning. There is no reason to panic yet."

The Headmaster was obviously trying to be comforting, but his use of the word "yet" didn't help Tara calm down at all. The three of them were sitting in his office, trying to figure out where Dawn could be and why she wouldn't have at least left a note.

"It isn't like her. She knows how worried we are about the whole situation. I think she would have told me where she was going to be so that we wouldn't freak out."

"It's okay," Giles said, patting Tara on the back in a comforting manner, "We'll find her. We've dealt with worse."

"But Buffy was always around for the worse."

Giles nodded, apparently out of comforting things to say.

Just then, the door to the office opened and a worried looking Harry Potter entered, followed by an even more worried looking Professor Lupin.

"What seems to be the problem?" Dumbledore asked, eating a lemon drop and looking almost as old as he actually was.

Lupin looked at Tara and Giles. "Mr. Potter has told me something that concerns you two."

He motioned for Harry to speak.

The young boy swallowed audibly and looked straight at Tara. "It's Dawn."

"What about her?" asked Giles, now holding Tara tightly to his side.

"I wasn't supposed to tell, but I asked Professor Lupin and he said that it was important that you knew everything she was doing."

"What?" Tara asked in a quiet voice.

"She snuck into Hogsmeade last night."