The door opened and Amy rolled her eyes when she saw them standing there.
"You guys told me to leave town," she said. "I can't believe you're actually making sure I'm gone." She pointed to Tara. "And you must have a death wish coming around me."
Tara glanced at Buffy. "Actually, I sorta do."
"What?" Amy asked.
"Congratulations, Amy. You get what you wanted," Buffy said. "We're here for info on the spell you cast."
"You want to reverse it," Amy said, a satisfied smirk spreading across her face. She glared at Tara. "Little goody you couldn't live with the non-existence of all the Warrens, huh?"
"Are you going to tell us about the spell or-or not?" Tara said as forcefully as she could muster. Amy's smile simply widened.
"Oh, that was almost intimidating there," she said. But her smile disappeared when Buffy grabbed her by the arms and pushed her up against the wall.
"How's this for intimidation?" Buffy asked. Tara walked in the house behind them. "You're going to tell us about the spell in vivid, play-by-play, technicolor detail."
"Or what?" Amy asked with a chuckle. "You already took my powers. What the hell else can you do to me? You won't kill me, Buffy. You're a goody goody, too."
"I won't kill you, but I can have some fun kicking the crap out of you," Buffy replied with a grin. "I'm not too goody goody for that."
Amy's gaze hardened and her smile disappeared. Buffy dragged her into the living room and shoved her onto the sofa.
"I need to know everything. Wording, rituals, potions. Everything," Tara said, pulling a notebook out of her bag. Amy didn't say a word and Tara sighed. "You're getting what you want. If you tell me about the spell, I die."
"Fine then," Amy said, not taking her eyes off Tara. She smiled. "So, how's it feel knowing you're not going to live to see your next birthday?" Tara didn't respond. "Are you gonna tell Willow? I noticed she's not here."
Buffy noticed the look on Tara's face and turned to Amy angrily. "Okay, we're here about the spell. That's enough commentary."
Amy ignored her. "So, this is the woman she loves so much? You push her down and get her to give up magic. Now you're going to change the world without telling her. Bravo."
"Shut up," Tara said quietly, looking down at the floor.
"Snappy comeback," Amy said with a chuckle. "You didn't answer my question."
"Hey," Buffy said sharply. "We asked you a question first. Answers. Now."
Amy glared at Buffy and looked back to Tara. "A relationship without honesty isn't much of a relationship."
Tara couldn't bring herself to look at Amy. She didn't want to tell Willow. It was a hard enough conversation to have in person, let alone over the phone. Amy smiled, happy with her progress. She had got under Tara's skin. It wasn't exactly magic, but it would do.
Buffy and Tara returned to the house. Dawn was in the living room watching television. She made eye contact with Tara and bolted for the stairs.
"Dawn!" Tara called after her. She sighed and looked down at the floor sadly.
"That's the Summers stubborn streak," Buffy said. She nudged Tara on the arm and they sat on the sofa in the living room. "We're really good at the cold shoulder."
Tara nodded her head and looked over her notes. "I-I've got a lot of work to do. I should probably get started."
"Are you going to need any help?"
"No," Tara replied sharply, shaking her head. She looked up and saw the surprised look on Buffy's face. "I-I mean…this-this is my thing. I should do it on my own. I don't want you to feel responsible f-for—"
"Too late," Buffy said quietly, knowing the end of that sentence. Whether it was Warren or a spell, Buffy felt responsible for Tara's fate. She stood. "Well, I'll let you get to it then." She was at the bottom of the stairs when she turned back. "Tara?"
"Yeah?"
"The stuff Amy said about honesty and telling Willow…" she began. "She was right. Crazy as she is, she was right. Sometimes the crazy people make the most sense."
"You think I should tell her," Tara said. Buffy nodded her head. "But over the phone? I mean, she's all the way in England now. God, she-she'll think I sent her away so I could do this behind her back."
"No, she won't," Buffy reassured her. "Willow knows you. I saw how surprised she was when you said not to reverse the spell. We all were surprised. Out of all of us you're the most decent one. The fact that you could actually be selfish, even for a second, surprised us. Willow knew you couldn't live with the fact that all those Warrens permanently went poof. She'll understand." She smiled sheepishly. "She'll hate it, but she'll understand."
"Honesty is the best policy," Tara said quietly.
"That's the thing about clichés," Buffy said. "They become clichés because they're usually accurate. I'm not good with time zones, but I think it's about ten at night in England right now. She'll probably be done with her training stuff for the day."
Tara nodded her head and watched Buffy go upstairs before she picked up the phone. She hesitantly dialed the numbers, almost striking the wrong buttons with her trembling fingers. Finally she placed it up to her ear and listened for the ring, dreading the conversation she was about to have.
Buffy's calculation of the time in England was short a few hours, but it didn't matter. Giles had become accustomed to late nights from living in Sunnydale, and he had yet to break himself of the habit of staying up later than most normal people would. He looked up from his book when the phone rang and shot a glance at the clock. None of his friends or acquaintances in England would call him this late. So without caller ID, he was still able to deduce that this phone call was coming from Sunnydale.
"Hello," he answered.
"Hi, M-Mr. Giles. It's Tara."
He smiled at her greeting. He had found from experience during his early days with Buffy that stuttering could be annoying to some people. But when it came from Tara he had noticed it was endearing to everyone. He also always had enjoyed the fact that she was the only one of the Scoobies that planted a Mister in front of his last name. She had never just called him Giles like the rest of them—at least, not to his face.
"Tara. Still not quite sure of the time difference, are you?" he asked in a joking manner. His smile broadened when she spoke, having taken his question seriously.
"Oh, I'm sorry. What time is it there? D-did I wake you up?" she asked apologetically. He noticed that she sounded nervous, and it wasn't just because of her mistaken late phone call.
"No, I was awake," he assured her. "Being the watcher of an active slayer has turned me into a night owl, I've discovered. It's one in the morning, but Willow actually just got in about an hour ago. She may still be awake."
"Oh, I should call back," she said, the apprehensive tone in her voice becoming even more apparent. "I should call back tomorrow or tonight or later…or whatever."
Giles looked over when he heard a door open. Willow was standing in the doorway of the bedroom Giles had set up for her. She had obviously surmised that this late phone call was coming from the other side of the ocean as well.
"Nonsense, Tara. She's right here. Just a moment."
When he handed over the phone he motioned that he was going outside. He had a feeling Tara had something serious to discuss with Willow and that privacy would be in order. Willow nodded her head and put the phone to her ear, hesitant to find out why Giles felt she needed a special privacy gesture.
"Hey sweetie," she said, trying to remain cheerful. "What's up?"
"I-I just needed to talk to you," Tara began. She hadn't thought this out. She didn't know what she was going to say. She hadn't planned it at all. She was certain she would do it wrong. Of course there wasn't a right way to tell the woman you love that you're going to die. "I had a nightmare last night. It was about the other reality."
"Oh," Willow said with a bit of relief, thinking that was the main thing Tara wanted to talk about. She could handle nightmares. Comforting was her specialty. "What happened?"
"In the nightmare, I was you. Well, I was the other you. The scary you," Tara explained. "And I killed Warren, the Warren that killed me. Then when I turned around, all the other Warrens were there. They-they all told me that I killed them."
"But you didn't," Willow said. She knew that the guilt would come. She knew it and she almost hated that she had decided to go to England when Tara was going through this guilt. She wanted to be there in Sunnydale with Tara to comfort her, not all the way in another country. "You didn't kill anyone, Tara. It's not your fault."
"It is," Tara said. It was time to do it and get it over with. So she ripped off the band-aid. "I'm reversing Amy's spell."
"What?" Willow asked. She had heard the sentence, but it took a while to register. Buffy had been right about one thing. When Tara had decided originally not to reverse the spell, Willow had been shocked. But she had also been extremely relieved. The thought of losing her soul mate made her heart want to explode right out of her chest.
"I can't put my life ahead of the lives of all those Warrens," Tara said. "I-I can't live with this. No matter how much I want to live and to be with you, I can't live like this."
"But…but…" Willow couldn't speak. Her eyes were welling with tears and her throat felt like it was closing up completely. "How are you going to…?"
"Buffy and I got Amy to tell us about the spell," Tara said quietly. Her voice wavered. She could tell how upset Willow was. They were thousands of miles apart only connected by phone lines, but she could still tell. "I'm going to work the reversal off of what she told us."
Willow said nothing. Tears streamed down her face. She didn't know what to say. Tara could hear her ragged breathing and she couldn't stop her own tears from falling.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry that I couldn't figure this out before you left. I'm so sorry."
"How can I…" Willow paused, trying to find her voice well enough to speak. "How can I go on when I know I didn't have to lose you?"
"You'll go on," Tara said, only managing a whisper. She closed her eyes. "You won't remember any of this."
"Why are you telling me? If I won't remember, why are you even telling me?" Willow asked, a twinge of anger in her voice.
"Because…I promised myself after that last spell," Tara explained. "I promised myself that I would always be honest with you, forever. Even if forever ends tomorrow."
Willow was feeling so many emotions at once—anger, fear, desperation, sorrow. She couldn't separate any of them, and her heart felt like it was tearing in half. In effect, it was. She was about to lose the other half of her soul, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Of course, that wasn't entirely correct. She could fall back on bad habits. The part of her that had been addicted to magic started thinking up spells to keep Tara from changing things.
I can live with Tara never trusting me again, as long as she's alive, part of her thought. I don't care if she finds out.
But she shook that thought away. She couldn't do that. She and Tara had had long discussions about that, some of the earlier discussions turning into arguments. She couldn't lose herself to magic again, no matter what the reason.
Tara sat at the other end of the phone line listening to Willow cry. She wished she knew what Willow was thinking. She wished they were in the same room, instead of miles apart. She didn't want to spend the last days of her life without Willow by her side.
"Baby, please don't do this," Willow finally said, desperation saturating her voice. "How can I live without you?"
"You'll live," Tara said softly. "When I saw things that happened in the other reality, I saw things that happened after I…but you were okay."
"So I just moved on? I forgot about you?" she asked angrily.
"No, of course not," Tara replied. "You continued on. Your world didn't end. You kept a place for me in your heart."
"This can't be happening," Willow said tearfully. They sat in silence for a while and Tara couldn't take it anymore. She knew any moment she would break down completely and she wouldn't be able to do what she had to do.
"I have to go," she said softly. "I love you so much."
"Tara," Willow sobbed. She swallowed hard to force out the words past her sorrow. "I love you. Always."
"Goodbye," Tara said. She quickly hung up the phone and dropped her head into her hands, unable to stop the tears.
In England, Giles came back inside to find Willow sobbing on the floor in the doorway of the guest bedroom. He knelt beside her and took her in his arms. He wasn't stupid. He knew what Amy had done and what Tara's decision had been. He knew the young witch well enough to know she wouldn't stick by that decision. He felt deep compassion for both of them. He also felt proud. Working in the Sunnydale High School library, he had run into plenty of young men and women who sickened him with their self-centered nature. But Buffy and her group of friends had never ceased to amaze him with their bravery. They all faced hardship, but in the end they knew what was right. Willow and Tara were two of the bravest people he had ever known, and that made him proud.