When Xander returned with the food he walked quickly to the table to set it down. Willow was standing in the doorway of the training room with her arms folded over her chest, watching Tara. Giles and Anya came around from behind the counter. Buffy and Dawn were already sitting at the table.
"I think we might have trouble," he said. "When I was getting the food I heard on the news that a woman, her kid and her dog were all killed this morning. They were eaten alive. The police are saying it was a bear, but since when do we have bears in Sunnydale?"
"Demon bears," Buffy said. Then a look of realization spread over her face. "Eaten alive? Like demon dimension, all I can eat is people, eaten alive?"
"Tara couldn't have done this," Giles said. "She's been here almost all morning."
"So maybe something else did it," Buffy said. "Something else that played follow the leader out of the demon dimension behind Tara."
"That demon said it couldn't stop something else from coming through when he opened the gate," Dawn said.
"I have to find it," Buffy said, standing in preparation to go on the hunt. She turned to Xander. "Where were the people killed?"
"Uh, on Crawford street," he replied. "Not far from where, uh, where the fight with Glory went down."
Buffy brushed past Willow to retrieve weapons from the training room. "Gotta go to the scene of the crime. I'm gonna kill this thing before it kills anybody else."
"I'm going with you," Xander said. As Buffy returned from the training room, she looked to him disapprovingly. "I can drive you." He saw she was looking for more than that. "It killed a kid, Buffy. I wanna help."
Buffy nodded her head and handed the axe over to Xander. She slung the crossbow over her shoulder and grabbed a short-sword. The two of them left the shop, grateful to have something easier to deal with. Killing a demon was simple. Dealing with what happened to Tara was not.
Once they were gone, Giles and Anya busied themselves with tasks around the shop. Dawn walked over to Willow and joined her in watching Tara.
"How are you doing?" she asked. Willow shook her head, unable to answer. Dawn rested her hand on Willow's shoulder. "I'm sorry. If I had just jumped—"
"No," Willow interrupted, turning to make eye contact with Dawn. "No. That wasn't an option. None of us would've let that happen." She paused and turned back to Tara. Her voice started to waver as she spoke. "Tara…wouldn't have…"
As she trailed off she crumbled into tears and Dawn took her into her arms, wanting to do whatever it took to comfort Willow. Giles and Anya watched quietly from across the shop.
"Why did I let her do it?" Willow asked through her tears. Dawn couldn't help but cry as well. "Oh god, Tara."
From her corner in the training room, Tara watched from her crouched position. She saw them all. She smelled them. She felt them. She heard them. But she couldn't believe them. It had to be a trick. She was seeing things. Hallucinating. Everything was a deception. It had to be. After all this time, she couldn't believe that she could be free. It wasn't possible.
* * *
Buffy and Xander walked into the house. The police were long gone. Sunnydale's police weren't the greatest at crime scene security anyway. As they made their way into the house, Xander cringed at the sight of the blood on the floor within the kid-sized outline.
"God," he said. Buffy looked back and yanked lightly on his shirt.
"Come on," she said. "We'll find this thing."
Xander followed Buffy as she made her way toward the back door, following a trail that he couldn't see. She tapped the dog door with her short-sword.
"I hate these things," she said flatly. She opened the back door and continued on the trail. They had walked two blocks before she realized where the trail was leading her. "It's heading to the Magic Box."
"Are you sure?" Xander asked. She nodded her head.
"It's following Tara."
* * *
Giles, Anya, Dawn and Willow were all out in the shop area when a crash startled them all. Giles moved toward the training room, where the crash had come from.
"Girls, stay out here," he said. He moved into the training room and pulled a sword off the wall when he saw a long, thin dark figure had crashed through the back door. Tara was hunched over in a defensive stance, glaring at the creature as it glared back at her. Then the creature turned, saw Giles and attacked. He held the sword up, but it knocked him down, pinning him on the floor in the doorway.
"Giles!" Anya said in alarm. Willow stepped forward and held out her hand.
"Separate!"
The demon flew off of Giles into the shop area. Meanwhile, in the training room, Tara watched. If this was a trick, why would that demon be there? She didn't understand. Unless it wasn't a trick. She pulled hard on her chains and felt them give slightly.
Dawn and Anya stood behind the counter, too scared to do anything. The demon lunged at Willow, throwing her against the wall and knocking her unconscious. Just as Buffy and Xander entered the shop, Giles charged at the demon. It flipped Giles over and across the shop, causing him to collide with Xander and Buffy. The demon turned back to Willow, but it was caught off guard when a length of chain wrapped around it's neck. It howled as Tara twisted the chains around it and flipped it over her shoulder, slamming it into the floor. She held it down, grabbed it's head in her hands and twisted, snapping its neck.
As Buffy, Giles and Xander picked themselves up off the floor, they saw Tara crouched next to Willow.
"Willow," Buffy said, starting to move to get Tara away from her friend. But Giles held his hand out and stopped her. He saw Tara just looking at Willow.
"Wait, it's okay," he said.
Her memory flashed again. Her own voice. Looking at Willow hopefully. "I am, you know. Yours."
Tara reached forward, her hands still chained up. She slowly reached toward Willow's face, to touch her. She pulled back a little bit when Willow opened her eyes. Willow was startled and sat up. Everyone was watching Tara, waiting to see what she would do. Buffy was still at the ready in case Tara attacked. She reached forward again and gently touched her fingertips to Willow's head. Then she ran them down the side of Willow's face. She touched Willow's hair and slowly Willow brought her hand up. She took one of Tara's hands in her own and held it gently. They just looked at each other and then Tara uttered her first word since she came back.
"Willow?"
Willow couldn't stop a choked sob from escaping. She gently placed her hands on Tara's shoulders and then pulled her forward, wrapping her arms around her. Tara returned the embrace as best she could with the chains.
That one thing—Tara saying her name—was all that Willow needed to hear. Tara was back. She wasn't lost. She had come back to her, and everything would be okay.