Willow sat against the tree in the clearing. Silent tears ran down her face, having replaced the wracking sobs that had shaken her entire body for what seemed like an eternity. She ran her thumb over the Doll's Eye crystal. Tara had given it to her two years ago. It was hard for her to imagine that they had been together for two years. And now she was going to lose her.

She had no idea how long it would be before Tara reversed the spell that Amy had cast. Willow was dying inside. She kept thinking of her time with Tara. It was like people said about dying. They said their lives passed before their eyes. That was happening to Willow. But it was just the past two years on repeat.

The night she and Tara met. The power she felt between them when they were running from the Gentlemen. The night she had chosen Tara over Oz. Glory.

Then she looked out into the clearing in front of her. There was a pond and it was beautiful. Just like the day Tara had sang to her. The day she had been under Willow's spell, literally. Tara's voice was so beautiful, so captivating. There had been times when Willow had caught Tara singing in the shower. Tara thought she had been alone in the house. Willow would sit outside the bathroom door and listen. Tara was always too embarrassed to sing in front of anybody else.

But it had all fallen apart. She had spent what had seemed far too long without Tara. Finally they found each other again. Only to be ripped apart.

Suddenly Willow cried out in pain, clutching at her chest. She had never felt anything like it. It was an intense, burning pain that ripped through her chest like a saw blade. She dropped the crystal and fell forward to her hands and knees. She knew where the pain was coming from. It was from Tara. Then the pain subsided and she collapsed, lying on her stomach in the clearing, gasping for breath.

"Willow!"

Giles called out to her as he rushed over. He had come out to find her and seen as she had fallen forward. He knelt next to her and lifted her into his arms. Her eyes were wide in shock and panic.

"Tara," Willow gasped as Giles helped her sit up.

"That's why I've come to find you," Giles said. "I think Tara may have done the spell, but I think it may have gone wrong. I was about to call Buffy, but I wanted to find you first."

Willow crawled over and grabbed the Doll's Eye crystal. Then she staggered to her feet.

"What do you mean it went wrong?"

"As I was with the coven the world flashed, only for a moment. Reality changed," Giles explained. He took Willow's hand and led her back to his home.

A scream of pain from upstairs got the attention of the four in the dining room. Buffy was the first on her feet and led several paces in front of the others as she rushed up the stairs to Willow and Tara's bedroom. She saw Tara sitting there, a look of pain etched on her face as she looked down at her own chest for blood.

"Tara!" Dawn exclaimed. Tara looked up and the pained expression started to fade away. Alternate Willow and Giles had been right. Her death in that reality was the key.

"What happened?" Xander asked.

"That's kind of a long story," Tara explained. She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned on her knees. "But the spell backfired. I can't change what Amy did."

"How do you know?" Buffy asked.

"I was in the alternate reality, the one where the Warrens did exist. That Giles explained that it's too risky to try to change it back," she replied. "As it is, I almost destroyed both our realities this time."

"So you get to stay?" Dawn asked, a smile creeping across her lips. Tara smiled and nodded her head. Dawn jumped forward suddenly and squealed as she wrapped her arms around Tara, who cringed in pain from this expression of joy.

"Ow," Tara said, suddenly realizing that she ached all over, but mostly in her back. "Why am I sore?"

"Oh, the spell threw you through a door," Anya said matter-of-factly. "You might have broken bones."

"Great," Tara said with a pained smirk as Dawn moved back. She rubbed her neck and looked down at herself. "Well, nothing feels broken."

The phone rang and Buffy moved to answer it.

"Giles, we've been trying to call you," she glanced at Tara with a smirk. "Better late than never, I guess." She paused. "Yeah, she did the spell. It didn't work. Uh, yeah. Just a second."

Buffy put the phone on speaker so everybody could hear. It was an overseas Scooby meeting. The first voice they all heard was Willow's frantic one.

"Tara, baby, I felt your pain. It was horrible. Are you okay?"

"I'm okay. It was only for a minute," she replied.

"What was it?" Willow asked.

"Buffy stabbing me."

"I'm sorry," Buffy interrupted, a confused look on her face. "Buffy whating you?"

"Stabbing," Tara said. "In the other reality."

"You were in the other reality?" Giles asked.

"But you were here, too," Dawn said. The confusion on her face echoed that of everyone else.

"I was in both," Tara replied. "The spell did that."

"See. I was right!" Anya said excitedly. "That last line of the spell was too vague."

"So both realities existed because you were in both of them. They were phasing together," Giles said. Everything fell into place in his mind. "And in order to return you to your body in this reality, Buffy had to kill you in the other one."

"That's pretty much the whole story," Tara said.

"The coven feared good magic would not be powerful enough to undo what Amy did through dark magic," Giles said. "That's why your spell backfired."

"That's what the other you said," Tara confirmed. She cleared her throat. "Can I talk to Willow?"

"Sure," Xander responded for the group. They all filed out of the bedroom. Tara picked up the receiver and she could hear as Willow did the same in England.

"So…" Willow said, trailing off.

"I'm sorry that I had to put you through all this for nothing," Tara said.

"You did what you had to do. I understand." She paused. "In the other reality, did you talk to me?"

"Yes," Tara responded. She remembered the sorrow she had heard in the other Willow's voice. "You were in England there, too. Giles and the coven were helping you recover from…what happened."

"How was I?"

"Sad and a little scared, I think," Tara said. "I don't think it had been long since—"

"Right," Willow interrupted. She didn't want to hear any variation of the word 'death' associated with Tara. She'd heard it too much already. They sat in silence for a moment before she spoke up. "Are you upset that it didn't work?"

Tara sighed. She was upset, but she knew Willow was fishing. "I'm upset that I couldn't bring the Warrens back. Nothing more than that. It's just weird to feel guilty for being alive."

"I understand. I felt that way a lot in high school. I think we all did. When some evil beastie killed someone else we knew, we all felt guilty for not being the victim," Willow said. Her mind flashed back to all her classmates who had died. Jesse was the first friend she lost to evil, at least as far as she knew. Then the bodies just kept piling up. "Giles said it was survivor guilt."

"I just can't help wondering if there's anything important the world lost because all those Warrens are gone," Tara said.

"I know something important the world would've lost if they weren't gone," Willow said.

"What?" Tara asked. She could almost hear Willow's sly smile when she spoke.

"You."

THE END