A/N: Well, it's done. Over. Finished. Finito...You know where I'm going with this. I really don't know why, but I'm incredibly nervous putting this out. Maybe it's because it just feels kinda final with it being the last part and I've spent so much time on it, ignored so many phone calls at work, nearly got fired...well, not really, but you get the picture. I also just wanted to point out that my feelings about the characters of Warren, Andrew and Jonathon do not reflect my thoughts about the actors who play them. I met them recently, and they are all just the sweetest people, ever. I kind of have a crush on Adam Busch now. Oh, and if anyone gets the chance, if you haven't already, check out his band Common Rotation. I've been listening to their CD's since I went to their gig last week, and they're just really addictive. As I've already been told, it's just another obsession for my collection.

Losing herself in the power was a feeling that this Willow relished entirely. With all the energy around her, she didn't have to think about anything. It's what she needed to do. Thinking made her angry, and angry wasn't going to get the job done. Her fury was being held in check by the promise of what was coming by her own hand, but soon that wouldn't matter at all when the green energy was shooting frantically from her fingertips at the statue. With the earth rumbling by her will, and the winds swirling around her, Willow felt at home, and she didn't much care for the person lying beneath the effigy she held so dear.

Tara's quiet determination was once something the redhead had admired in her girlfriend, when they were researching late at night and she wouldn't give up until they had found the demon of the week, or the right spell to vanquish said demon.

But now... Now it was just annoying, as she watched the blonde girl sit up at the base of the temple, an arm across her chest, holding her ribs as she interrupted the flow of magick once again. The energy stopped abruptly, reminding Willow of the hosepipe she and Xander had used once when they were fourteen, spraying each other with cascades of water. They had soaked each other thoroughly, until Jesse had stood on the pipe, making the liquid stop suddenly and abruptly, almost like it had never been there at all. Just like now.

"Why are you doing this?" Tara asked quietly.

"Because I can," Willow told her as she glared at Tara. "You can't stop this," she told her.

Tara nodded, uncertain but resolved. "I k-k-know that," she stammered out from behind the curtain on hair falling over her eyes, and as she tucked it back quickly, felt how knotted it had become, a weird thought in light of the situation. "It's just...where else would I go?" she asked honestly. "I mean, you're my only real link to Sunnydale," she told her. "No family here – what little of them I can actually tolerate – and no real friends other than the ones you brought into my life. You're my g-g-girlfriend..."

"Is this the master plan?" Willow asked scornfully. "You're gonna stop me by telling me you love me?"

"Well, I was going to tell you that I'm planning on buying a new cat, and that it would need two mommies," Tara said, "But I thought it might bring up a few too many memories of Miss Kitty meeting an unfortunate end with one of Dawn's awry crossbow shots."

"Joking, huh?" Willow sneered. "Not really one of your strong points."

"I'm just..." Tara said, shaking her head. "I'm not joking. I know you're in pain. I can't imagine the pain you're in. And I know you're about to do something really bad, but I still want to be here. You're Willow."

"Don't call me that!" she spat at Tara angrily. "I'm not," she told her. "Not anymore. I never will be again."

"Do you remember how nervous I was when we first started casting spells together?" Tara asked. Willow didn't respond, just kept her stance determined. "Magick can be scary and unpredictable, but with you...I wasn't afraid. I wasn't scared because you were there. I felt that connection between us, Willow, and it's never gone away."

"That's what you think..." Willow told her.

"It's what I know," Tara said adamantly. "In the hospital, after you were hurt...you used that connection to heal yourself. You weren't strong enough alone, and you needed me to help you."

"You think that mattered to me?" Willow asked, a smirk on her face. "You think that was love between us, Tara?" she asked. "It was me getting what I wanted from you. It wasn't you I wanted, it was your power," she said cruelly. "It was me doing whatever I had to so that I could go after those bastard murderers. I didn't care who the power came from, just that I had it."

"Look," Tara said desperately, "I know you've tasted evil, and—"

"I have," Willow confirmed with a bright smile, interrupting her. "You want to know what it tastes like? Surprisingly chalky."

"Willow..."

"I told you not to call me that!" Willow screamed at her. "You don't know Willow. You have no idea who she was, because if you did...you wouldn't be here."

"Listen to me—"

"No!" Willow told her. "You listen to me," she said. "Everything Willow ever was...was down to him...to Xander. Don't you get that?" she asked.

"That's not true. I know exactly who you are..."

"You can't," Willow told her. "You can't know because you weren't there when Willow was born. When that lonely, shy little girl became Willow."

"If you do this," Tara began, "do you know how many people you'll be hurting? The millions of lives you'll be destroying?"

"Yeah, thanks," Willow said. "I got the memo."

"He didn't define who you are, Willow," Tara said pleadingly. "I know he was a big part of your life...but you're Willow and he was Xander. I mean, your parents—"

"My parents?" Willow spat. "You think I care about them now?"

"You should," Tara told her. "They loved you. They wanted the best for you."

"Just because they didn't try to convince me I was a demon for 19 years of life they're suddenly Parents of the Year?" she said with a laugh. "They...they never understood me," Willow said bitterly. "They never even tried to. I mean, my mom...you met her. Everything's an essay paper to her. It always was. If she ever spent any time with me when I was younger, it was to study my behaviour so that she could talk to her next class about it. And dad...well, he pretty much kept to himself. You know, up until the age of three, I thought I had three parents. My mom and dad, and my babysitter, who practically lived with us. I thought that was normal.

"Then I met Xander..." she smiled to herself in spite of everything. "His parents were no better. They treated him like a slave, something to be at their beck and call most of the time. 'Xander, get this', or 'Xander, get that'. When we first met in pre-school, I was too shy to even talk to him. I was living this life that was so lonely, but I had never known anything else, and when I saw him...it's like the room filled with this amazing light and energy, and he just shone. I didn't think he would ever notice me. I didn't want him to, because I was sure he'd hate me. I thought he'd tease me, like Larry used to do to Cordelia, pull my hair and steal my toys. But he didn't. I don't even know what happened. I was alone, and then he was chattering away to me, like he'd known me forever. And that's how it felt. At that moment, I was so full and happy, not empty and alone like before. I looked at this boy beside me, and I knew he'd always be in my life.

"Things change over the years," she said wistfully. "I mean, you can try and keep them the same all you want, but that can't happen. We changed. One minute we were wrestling in the mud in my back yard, and the next we're at the eighth grade cotillion, wearing fancy dresses and clip on ties, and I'm worrying about whether or not I look pretty enough compared to all the other girls. One minute I'm normal, and the next minute I feel like a freak because I have a crush on my best friend.

"But I wasn't the centre of his universe anymore," Willow said sadly. "I was there, sure, but he had Jesse when we got to Junior High. He could do all the stuff with him that he couldn't do with me, which actually wasn't much, and I got to do all that girlie stuff with Amy.

"It never really lasted, though, us being separated. Adults came and went from our lives. Babysitters, aunts, uncles, grandparents...but we stayed together. He came to my door one night, about three weeks after we had started Junior High, with his sleeping bag and asked me to camp out in the back yard with him. That was something we had always done over the years, ever since I managed to convince my parents that we were responsible enough not to keep the neighbours awake all night.

"We'd lie there all night, talking about the good stuff, and not talking about the bad, like when my parents forgot my birthday, or when my grandfather died. Or when Xander's father stubbed out a cigarette on his back, or bruised his arm so bad he couldn't play ball for a week. We didn't need to talk about that stuff, because we both knew what happened. We just knew that if we were together, none of it could hurt us.

"We had always envied Buffy because of her relationship with her mother. Joyce took care of her, regardless of whatever Buffy had done, she loved her unconditionally, through everything. She took care of me and Xander, loved us like part of the family. My parents...I mean, they never meant to be cruel and they loved him like they loved me, but that wasn't saying much. I'm glad he knew in the end that not all parents were like his. That they could be nice and loving and do anything to make things better for you.

"When you grow up like we did," she explained, "not knowing who you're supposed to be...you cling to the one thing that makes you happy. You hold on to the one person who makes sense to you, who can make everything else disappear with just one adorable smile.

"I never thought Jesse and I would get along," Willow said. "I mean, he seemed like a nice enough guy, but I didn't think he liked me. He thought it was weird that me and Xander had been friends for so long, that we still spent so much time together, still slept over at each other's houses. But once I got to know him, he was pretty cool. He was a lot like Xander. He had that sense about him that you knew you could tell him anything, even though he used to tease me so much for how I felt about Xander. He said he knew it as soon as he saw me and him together.

"When Jesse died, something in Xander changed," Willow told Tara. "On the outside he was the same, happy, smiling, joking around. But I knew. I saw it in his eyes. Everything changed so suddenly. One day we're discussing which brand of hot chocolate is the best, and the next we're getting attacked by vampires.

"I don't think it really hit me about Jesse being gone," she said thoughtfully. "It was one night when I was on the phone to Xander, and we were talking about everything we'd done that day, which was a lot compared to what we were used to. Pop quiz in the morning, studying in the afternoon, fending off an end of the world attempt by vampires at the Bronze in the evening... I think I cracked some kind of joke about Jesse's crush on Cordelia, and I just lost it. I was crying so hard I didn't think I'd ever stop. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't talk. I just sat there in my room, sobbing, with the phone in my hand.

"But, then...there was Xander," she said. "He ran all the way from his house with a cross in his hand let himself in my door with the key he'd had since he was eight. He held me for so long that night, and we both cried for our friend. When the sun came up, when it was just barely light, we went out to say goodbye to him. We walked to a little park that was around the corner from Sunnydale High, and we dug a little hole in the ground, and we put in some pictures and some other bits and pieces, and we stood there for hours. We talked about what had happened to Jesse, and what we were going to tell his parents. I wanted to tell them the truth, but Xander knew it would only hurt them, and he said we had to let the police take care of it.

"After, when everything had died down, Jesse's parents had a little memorial service for him. There weren't many people there, which was really sad, 'cause Jesse was such an amazing guy. Xander grew up so fast when that happened. He had always been so carefree, despite his family life and everything else, and you couldn't tell unless you really looked at him, but his eyes...they were so much older than they had been before. They carried so much guilt that he hadn't been able to stop Jesse being taken, and even more about being the one who staked him when the time came.

"He only really talked about it to me once, though. One night when we went to the park to say hi to Jesse, which we did maybe once a week or so. He told me that he never wanted to go through that again, and he made me promise that I'd never leave him, because he said that he wouldn't be able to make it without me. I just thought it was the sweetest thing that he wanted me around, but I still made him promise the same. He said that he wouldn't leave me, not even if he tried, because he physically couldn't.

"See, with me and Xander," she explained. "We didn't grow up like other kids did, with their parents telling them what was right and wrong, and giving them curfews and rules. We just had each other. When I was being teased in the playground, Xander would tell me that I had to ignore them, because then they'd see that they couldn't bother me and get bored. When Xander came to school with a bruise on his arm where his father had taken his bad mood out on him, I told him to sleep over at my house and go home when his father was on a rare day at work. We were together through everything that life and our families threw at us, and we didn't care, because when we were together, nothing could hurt us.

"When Buffy came into our lives, I was so glad to finally have a real female friend. Amy and I had drifted, and it was nice to talk to someone about the girlie stuff. But a part of me hated Buffy, and a part of me always will, for being a part of the reason he changed. She had gotten us into that part of her life with all the supernatural stuff. I know you could argue that we would have been dead if she hadn't come along when she did, but see, I know that if we had died, we'd have done that together, too."

"Willow," Tara said gently. "We can get through this together, me and you. If you can just—"

Willow looked at Tara with emptiness in her eyes. "Do you have any idea how in love with him I was?" she asked. "Of course you don't," she said, shaking her head. "I would have done anything for him, just to get him to notice I was alive. I think he did. Eventually. The last summer we spent together, just him and me, just after sophomore year when Buffy was with her father, I had resolved to tell him how I felt. I knew he thought he was in love with Buffy, but I never thought it was real. Every day we spent together, I told myself that I'd do it later, or I'd do it the day after because we had all summer. But then, suddenly, we'd spent every waking moment together and we were going to be back at school in a few days.

"I told myself that it wasn't meant to be," she said sadly. "I knew he'd never be interested in me...not like with Buffy. She was all blond hair and perfect skin and perfect figure, and I was all stupid bright red hair, freckly and pale, with a body that I hid under baggy overalls and shirts. But something happened one night. We were just hanging out together, talking, playing games, and then, his face was inches in front of him and he was about to kiss me. I wanted to freeze that moment in time forever. For me, everything I had ever wanted was so close, so when it was snatched away with a vampire making its appearance I was ready to jump on it and stake it myself. I was sure something changed between us in that moment, because he couldn't forget about, could he? But he did. One look at Buffy and he was gone again.

"I felt like I didn't exist anymore," she said. "I mean, I was there, but I wasn't his best friend anymore. Yes, I was jealous of them, the way he'd do anything for her and all she had to do was say the word. I was jealous because he just let her order him around, slaying-wise or not, and he'd fall in step with her without a word of argument. I listened to it day after day, 'Buffy was so great when she did this...' or 'Buffy was so cool when this happened...'

"When Oz came along, everything was a new experience. I don't mean the physical stuff. I just mean...having someone look at me and really see me, you know? Having someone who wanted to be around me, who listened to everything I had to say, who wanted to be close to me and thought I wasn't entirely dog-like. Having him around made it easier not to love Xander. I still did it, because I couldn't help it, but it just...got a little easier. Xander had broken my heart pretty much every day since I'd known him in one way or another, but Oz helped to fix it.

"Of course, Xander was jealous," she said with a smirk. "I mean, he was used to being the number one guy in my life, whether he acknowledged it or not, and now he was being sidelined. I didn't get the jealousy thing. He and Cordelia were...I don't know, making out in supply closets or whatever, so he had already pushed me to the back of his mind, so I didn't know what the problem was. I guessed it had something to do with the fact that everything was changing. We were changing. Becoming different people. Not living in each other's pockets anymore. Growing apart.

"Maybe that was why, when all of that stuff happened in senior year with the fluking and everything, we didn't quit when we had the chance," she said sadly. "We were both so afraid of losing each other that we found a new way to be close. There was curiosity there, too, of course. I mean, he was an eighteen-year-old boy full of hormones, looking at linoleum made him horny. But for me...having the one thing I had wanted, dreamed about for so long...it was like a dream. I felt guilty, sure, every time I looked at Oz or Cordelia. But feeling what I had missed out on for so long, having Xander want me, too...it didn't feel like it was real, and that was all the excuse I needed not to end it until I was forced to. I had what I had always wanted, but I knew I didn't really have it, you know?

"I think that's why it hurt so much when he slept with Faith," she said pensively. "Because up until then, there had always been this flicker of hope in my heart that one day...I don't know, that we'd get a happy ending somewhere down the line. When I looked into the future, all I saw was him. All I wanted was him. I had Oz, but that wasn't the same. He was sweet and nice and comfortable and when he kissed me I was happy. But there was no fire there. It was nothing like what I felt with Xander. I had wanted him for so long, it was hot and passionate and uncontrollable and mind numbing, but he didn't want me.

"Faith was like the final straw that broke Willow's back. What he did with her horrified me. Not just because of the act itself, but I thought he was better than that. But then, there's the aforementioned linoleum thing, so I guess it's not that surprising. After that, I couldn't let him in anymore, not like before. I kept him at a distance, hardened myself to the way he used to look at me and smile and talk about when we were kids. After that, I put all of the feelings that I had for him in a non-best-friend way into a little box inside myself, and swore I'd never open it up again.

"All of those years of hoping and praying..." she said slowly. "It was like they were just the run-up to the main event, you know. The rehearsals for when my heart did actually break, that moment when I sobbed to myself in the stall of the girl's bathroom. I didn't think anything would ever hurt as much as that did. I loved him, but he didn't love me, and never would."

Tara had been listening to her, because if this was what she needed to do to be okay, she'd do it gladly. Somehow, though, this was about more than giving her a history lesson. What was scaring her the most was the look in Willow's eyes, empty and glassy and glaring, and the way her voice sounded almost emotionless and cold, like this person in front of her was a totally different person to the girl she knew like she was talking about someone else. But she couldn't give up.

"H-He did love you," Tara told her, tears in her eyes welling with sadness. "I know he did."

"Oh, yeah?" Willow asked, stepping forward a little, swaggering as she stared the other girl down. "You two were such good buddies? How could you know that?"

"Because I saw it..." Tara told her gently. "I s-s-saw...the way his eyes softened when he looked at you... The way he smiled when you talked to just him... The way, when he spoke, he always used to flail his arms around," she said with a smile, "Except for when he was around you. When you were there he was calmer, like you were the thing that kept him grounded. I saw the way he was so protective of you when we first started out. He'd be nice, polite, make conversation...but always making sure that you were okay by hanging around when he should have been at work, or when he was supposed to have plans with Anya, keeping himself busy and finding something to do so he could be near you for just a few extra minutes. I saw the way he'd sit beside you with a smile that I only ever saw when he was with you, finding any excuse to just touch your arm, or hold your hand, sometimes without even noticing it, just because it was the most natural thing in the world to do because he'd been doing it for so long. It was obvious to anyone who saw you together."

"Whatever," Willow said, shaking her head. "Not really looking for validation from you right now."

"There are so many different variations of the feeling," Tara said, almost like she was explaining the concept to a young child. "There's the sibling kind of love, a parental kind of love, a friendship kind of love...and there's the intensity of feeling like you'll never be able to live without someone because you're in love with them."

"You planning on pulling out a pie chart on me?" Willow sneered.

"He loved you in every single way there was, and deep inside, you know that, and you loved him the same way."

Willow cocked an eyebrow, maliciousness on her face. "You think?" she asked sarcastically.

"I know," Tara said sincerely. "I've always known that about you, Willow, and I've never wished any different. When we first met, you had this powerful love in your aura, but I never really knew what it was for, who it was for, until I met Xander."

"He may have loved me," Willow told her, "but not like I loved him. If he did, he wouldn't have just died like that. He would've thought of me, like I'm thinking of him before I die."

"Willow—"

"He told me once..." Willow said suddenly. At Tara's blank stare, she continued. "That he loved me," she informed her. "And in more than a Sorry-I-Stole-Your-Barbie kind of way. He never thought I'd heard him, and for a long time I didn't even realise. I was really confused at the time, what with the head trauma and being in a coma, but he told me. I wanted it to be him so badly, because I'd had so many dreams that one day he'd say those words and really mean them and it'd all be perfect. But I just didn't believe it was possible, you know. Oz had been the only guy to ever show any interest, so it wasn't a great leap to put two and two together and come up with a guitarist.

"When you and I went our separate ways a couple of months ago," Willow told her. "I was feeling pretty low, what with being dumped and all. I just wanted to make myself feel better. I needed to know that my life hadn't been a series of disasters, so I conjured a spell. It wasn't anything major – at least, not major for me. It was just a little look-see into my past. I wanted to see the happiest moments of my life, and one of those moments was the first time anyone had told me they loved me in a non-platonic kind of way. The thing was that, instead of helping me remember them clearly, it showed me them, like I was the viewer of a really peculiar sounding television show and I was watching with an audience."

"Did you ever tell him you knew?" Tara asked.

Willow's eyes widened incredulously, the corners of her mouth pulled into a smirk. "What do you think?"

"Maybe you should have done."

"Yeah, hindsight's great," Willow commented.

"He must have known that you'd figure it out one day," Tara said. "In your heart, you know that it isn't just those words that tell how someone feels about you. It's about how you act around them...the things you do for them... You can't hide that stuff. He loved you, and he showed you everyday, whether it was a small gesture like giving you the last piece of his candy, or whether it was something like saving your life."

"I don't know anything in my heart, because I don't have a heart anymore," Willow told her. "It's broken, and it'll never fix." She shook her head against everything that was running through her mind. "And I'm angry at him for that. I'm angry because every time I think of him, I see his cold, dead body lying on the ground instead of how happy he made me, and that's never going to go away. I never thought it was possible to feel like you don't exist anymore. I hate him for leaving me."

"Willow, he saved Buffy's life," Tara pointed out. "He didn't die intentionally."

"Yes, he did," Willow said. "He saw that bullet, and in that split second, he thought that saving Buffy was more important than anything else. Something told him that was the right thing to do. He thought he was doing the world a favour. He did it because he'd rather die than see anyone else he cared about go through the pain of losing her again. He always thought of everyone else before himself, wanted to make them happy. But he didn't think about what he was doing to everyone else by just leaving us like that. He didn't think how we'd feel to lose him. He never thought how I'd feel. He just left me here, without saying goodbye, without...anything, when he promised he never would.

"So do you think this is what he'd want you to do?" Tara asked. "Give up and destroy everything you've worked so hard to save?"

"You didn't know him," Willow spat. "Don't talk about him like you did."

"I know what you told me about him," Tara said back. "That was enough. I know that he was your best friend."

"I don't think he did..." Willow said quietly. "After I pushed him away...I don't think he ever really knew that for sure. He'd say it, but when he looked at me sometimes...I saw him missing me. But I couldn't let him be that close to me anymore. Even when Oz left, he was the only person I wanted there with me. I wanted to have him hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay, like he did when my grandfather died when I was fifteen. But I felt like there was so much I had missed out on. He had been away for a whole summer, and when he came back, he was all grown up. I wondered when that had happened, why I had missed it. And then, just when I reached over to grab the phone to call him...I'd remember that it was my fault.

"After Oz was gone...I thought about Xander all the time. I mean, a lot. Times when I was so upset that I'd been left all alone, I'd think of Xander instead of Oz, and it was just so confusing. I was the one who had instigated the separation of our friendship, and because I'd been with Oz so much before, I was mourning it. I wanted to turn back time to when it was all so much easier, to stay lost in those memories forever, but reality gave me a giant kick in the ass. I think some part of me...some deep down, repressed part of me, thought that now Oz was gone - the person I had been so afraid of hurting again - maybe we could've... But there was Anya, and then you."

Tara smiled fondly at her. "And is that such a bad thing?"

"Yes," Willow said.

"Why?"

"Because...that was the final nail in the coffin," Willow told her. "He was supposed to be my best friend. He was supposed to be the one person who knew me inside and out, no matter what. He had done so much for me, made me the person that I was... And I didn't even tell him what was happening to me."

"Why not?"

"I was scared," Willow said. "I was having these strong, deep feelings for someone who he had barely even met. For someone he never would have expected me to fall for. I didn't want to make him feel awkward, and I wanted him to be proud of me."

"You don't think he was?"

"He was," Willow said. "But admitting how I felt about you to him...it was like saying that I never really loved him."

"Why would you think that?"

"Because if I loved you, if I was all 'gay now', it meant that I was never really totally happy with Oz, and that I was never in love with the guy who had been my best friend since Pre-K. It meant that there was never going to be another chance for him and me ever again. It felt like I had been lying to him, and that was something I couldn't forgive myself for, so instead of trying to be his best friend, I kept pushing him away. I let the void grow between us all because then they didn't have to know. I was never ashamed of what I felt, but I didn't want things to change even more between him and me. So...because I was so selfish...because I didn't have the guts to tell him that I had found someone new...he found out during an argument, when everyone was angry and yelling. This was something huge, and I never told him, and it hurt him."

"He understood."

"He felt like he was a spectator in my life," Willow said harshly. "Not a part of it. For so long it had been just us. He was mine and I was his, and it was so simple. We belonged to each other. But somewhere along the line...we lost that."

"Just because you forget about something, it doesn't mean it stops being yours," Tara said softly. "He knew how important he was to you. He knew you'd always be there for him."

"He didn't," Willow said with a cruel laugh. "We lived separate lives, and the weird thing was that I don't think we barely noticed. Things were strange between us. We still talked, laughed at his dumb jokes, but it was like there was a shift and it was just about the comfort of being with someone familiar. It never seemed like we got the chance to talk about us, our friendship.

"Maybe if we had...he wouldn't have gone through so much when he decided not to marry Anya," she said thoughtfully. "I know that he loved her, there was never any question of that, but I saw what he had to grow up with. I saw the only real example of married life he had. When he told us he was getting married...I should have taken the time to talk about it with him. See, he was having doubts even then, but he never really told anyone. He coped with it on his own. All those months leading up to the wedding...and I was too busy getting my magick on to see how much pain he was in. I didn't see just how much it was tearing him up inside.

"When we were kids, he used to tell me that he never wanted to be like his parents. That he'd make sure that he knew for certain that he was doing the right thing. Till he knew he could be a better person that his father had been, and wouldn't put anyone through what he had seen his mother cope with. I should have been the one person he could have come to, but instead I find out in the middle of a huge brawl that he couldn't do it. I guess I know how he felt that time at Giles', huh?

"Oz once said that being without me was like losing a limb, or a torso...but I never really understood what he meant by that until now."

"Please..." Tara said sadly. "Don't..."

"Tara, just leave me alone," Willow told her, sounding weary and bored. "This has nothing to do with you."

"You're about to end the world that I live in," Tara pointed out.

"Well, you know, apart from that..."

"I can't leave," Tara told her solemnly. "Not when I'm part of the reason you're standing here with all of this power."

"Don't flatter yourself."

"I'm serious," Tara told her. "When we met...I saw all of this power in you, and it was bright and wonderful and I could see that you had the potential for so much. I never stopped to realise that might be a bad thing someday. I encouraged you with your Magicks. I helped you. I gave you books, blessings, crystals, and candles and turned a blind eye to some of the things you did, like when Dawn wanted to raise Mrs Summers. I let you do things that I didn't agree with...because I wanted to see how far you could reach. I never had that natural ability like you. I had power, sure, because I inherited from my mom, but you...it was like you were born for it. I never saw how dangerous it was until it was too late, until I'd fallen for you so hard it felt like I'd never hit the ground again."

"Yeah," Willow told her. "You did encourage it. You wanted it, Tara, until it got too much for you. I was better than you, and when you realised you couldn't coast by on my power, you bailed. You're such a hypocrite, just like Giles. The only reason you're here now...it's because you feel guilty, because all of the time we were together you were jealous, and this is just a way to make yourself feel better."

Tara nodded, brushing her hair from her face. "So, I'm partly responsible for this, so I should be here."

"Oh, please!" Willow yelled at her. "Give me a break."

"One night," Tara began, determinedly, "You came to my door with a rose and a spell. We sat on the floor together and we held hands and we channelled our energies into something beautiful. I'm here because the beautiful, redheaded girl I fell in love with is inside that dark body somewhere, and I want to get her back. Underneath all of the black hair, and dark veins and empty eyes, you're still Willow."

Willow looked on at the other girl, more than thoughtful at her words. "No," she said slowly. "I'm not," she told her. "Not anymore. I'm not anyone anymore. Xander's gone...and so is Willow. Nothing makes sense. It's all gone...it's all pain and suffering and death...everywhere. That's why all of this has to end."

"You know..." Tara began. "You're seeming awful chatty for someone who wants to kill everything in existence. I can't help but think you're stalling, and I know why."

"Oh, yeah?" Willow asked, amused. "Why's that?"

"Because you can still feel it," Tara told her. "You can still feel that connection between us. The thing that's kept us together through everything. I still feel it, Willow."

This time, Willow did laugh, a cruel and harsh sound in the morning light. "That's what you think?" she asked. "This isn't connecting, Tara," she said, sneering at her. "This has nothing to do with you. I'm not up here explaining myself to you, why I'm doing this... You don't matter to me anymore." She looked at her with only the tiniest trace of emotion in her eyes. "This is about me trying to get back some of what I lost..." she told her. "This is about me wanting my last thoughts on this earth, my last memories of this life...to be of him."

"That means you'll be killing me, too," Tara informed her. "You think you can do that?"

"Not a problem."

"You saved my life yesterday."

"Right now, kinda wishing I hadn't."

"So you're just willing to let me die?"

"Pretty much."

"Please..." Tara begged. "Don't do this..."

Then, risking everything, risking incurring Willow's wrath further, she stepped forward. "I love you," she said sincerely.

Willow's face folded in anger. "Shut up!" she told her through clenched teeth, reaching out and gesturing with her hand wildly, intent on her face.

No magic bolts came from her outstretched fingers this time, but Tara felt her head jerk to the side, as if she'd received a physical blow to the face from her. She put a hand to her cheek where a searing pain had begun, feeling the outlines of three deep, parallel cuts on her face, and she looked at Willow in shock.

Tara could see a change in Willow, something almost invisible to anyone who didn't know her, but she was feeling something. Opposite her, the former redhead was watching, arms at her sides, panting in what seemed like nervousness as Tara's eyes sought out the other girl.

"I love you," she told her again, resolute and certain.

Willow made another wild gesture, the result of which made Tara double over and fall to her knees on the dry land of the Bluff, an arm across her chest. When she stood, panting with the pain coursing through her body, her hand barely covered the three parallel cuts that had appeared on her chest, visible through the now-torn sweater she was wearing.

When Tara stood once more, she grimaced in pain, but determined to do this, facing Willow, panting to catch her breath. "I...love...you—"

"Shut up!" Willow yelled angrily, more expression in her voice and face than had been seen since this whole thing had begun, and throwing a bolt of energy at Tara.

When the magic hit her, it made Tara stagger, but she didn't fall with the force. There was none of the power behind it that she had felt earlier, and this gave her hope.

Willow's hand was still out in front of her, ready to deliver another blow to the person standing in her way, but this had surprised her. A little magical energy crackled around her hand and fingers, her weapon of choice, obviously not performing how she expected. She looked down at her hands, anxious and panicked, thoughts whirling through her head and throwing her off balance mentally.

Tara saw her chance, and slowly moved towards Willow, something that seemed to unnerve the witch even more.

"I love you, Willow..." Tara told her honestly.

"Stop!" Willow screamed at her, sending another blast her way, but with the power from Giles in her fading, it barely even touched Tara, not hurting her but making her flinch, the uselessness she was now feeling making her tear up in frustration and pain.

She saw Tara still walking towards her slowly in that non-threatening way she had, but all she wanted was to keep her away. She continued to hold her hands out in front of her, still hoping for the magic to come back to her, to get her away from anything that might make her feel again, because that was the one thing she couldn't bear.

"I love you..." Tara said again.

"Stop!" Willow told her, tears now springing to her eyes and making her cry as she found Tara now directly in front of her. She balled her hands into fists, fury and grief overtaking her as she began to sob, bringing her hands to Tara's chest and hitting the girl wearily, hardly any weight behind the blows as she pounded on her, Tara letting her do whatever she needed to do.

Then, as it all became too much, and she was overcome by the pain she felt, she stopped hitting her and just sobbed, crying for everything she had lost from her life, lost that would never come back to her. She felt it overwhelm her and she began to fall to her knees, Tara right there with her the whole time, catching her in her arms and sinking to the floor with her, holding her there on the hard ground in the early morning sun.

"I love you..." Tara told her as Willow continued to sob in her arms, heartbroken cries that touched Tara's heart, making her cry the tears that had been threatening to envelop her since she had seen Xander's cold body lying on the ground.

Relief overwhelmed her when she saw Willow's hair fade from the pitch black back to her natural, beautiful red, and her face as porcelain as it had been before any of this, her eyes back from the ebony depths to their natural emerald state.

She held her there for who knows how long. It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. But when little Willow's wrecked body finally ceased its crying, and the sobs no longer shook her tiny, frail, spent form, Tara held her tighter, vowing to do whatever it took to fix Willow again, to make her what she was, even though there was still a tiny part of her that knew that could never be.

Everything that Willow had told her...that all she ever was came from him...she knew that some of that had to be true. She loved Willow completely, and that would never change, but if this event caused her to change so drastically, what would become of them now?

He had been such a huge, influential part of her life, the extent of which Tara had never realised before. She had known that Willow's power was more than what either of them could have imagined, but she never thought it would have corrupted someone so good. No one could have foreseen that the power would have taken over her completely, but no one could have foreseen his death. It scared her to think how this had affected Willow.

It wasn't just the tired bundle she held in her arms she worried for, it was the future of the girls well being. She had been prepared to end everything just so that she didn't have to live in a world without him in it. She had gone to extremes to end her own suffering, and everyone else's that she claimed to be able to feel, and she had killed people. She worried over how Willow would ever get through this. If the grief didn't get to her, the guilt almost certainly would.

The world had lived, but what of Willow?

Accepting the fact that Willow was never going to be the same again was something Tara was simply not prepared to do.

"It's okay, sweetie," Tara whispered into Willow's tangled hair, gently kissing the crown of her head. "Everything's going to be okay. I love you..." She felt Willow pull out of her embrace, and moved her arms from around the girl's body to her face. She took her face in her palms, Willow's skin cold and damp from crying, but it still felt like Willow-skin so it was okay. She took a long hard look at her, thanking whatever goddess there was out there that she had come back to her.

But Willow looked haunted. She looked like she had given up. Her face was so sallow and pale, it made her look almost inhuman, like an ethereal being visiting the earth. Her body, had anyone been paying attention, would have thought this girl had completed a gauntlet, or a thousand years in a hell dimension, it sagged so against Tara. She could barely lift her arms to steady herself on the other girl, barely keep her eyes open and focussed she felt so completely drained and exhausted.

"He's everywhere, Tara," Willow told her sadly and quietly, her voice catching with the tears that she still held inside. "Everywhere I look, everywhere I go...there's a memory. There's a reminder of him attached to everything here. I don't think I can take it..."

"You can," Tara told her. "You're stronger than that, Willow. You don't have to give up. You're an Amazon, remember?"

"I'm not..." Willow told her, shaking her head as more tears filled her eyes and she put her head down in defeat.

"You are," she told her resolutely, using the hold she still had on her face to force her to make eye contact again, needing her to know that she would do anything to make this better. "It's all going to be okay..." Tara repeated to her, her voice strong, tears falling down her cheeks in a melee of different emotions. "I love you so much..."

A ghost of a smile formed on Willow's face, the corners of her mouth turning up ever so slightly as she gently nodded her head. "I know," she whispered. "I love you, too..."

Everything that Tara had been feeling disappeared as she felt her face light up with relief and some happiness. She had been worried what would happen in the next few hours, days, weeks, months...but somehow, none of that mattered right now. She resolved to think about that when the time came. For now, things were far from perfect. Her girlfriend was hurting so badly it had been a physical thing for her, but they had gotten through it. They had done it together. It was all going to work out.

"...But it's not enough..." Willow continued.

As Tara's eyes widened in horror and her mouth fell open with words that wouldn't come to her, Willow used every little bit of strength that her body still possessed, which wasn't much. She pulled away from Tara completely, leaving the other girl kneeling on the ground in bewilderment. She ignored the pain shooting through her spent limbs and broken heart, and, steadying herself with her shaking hands against the hard ground, she forced herself to her feet.

She stumbled, staggered, as Tara looked at her, eyes wide in denial as she let her eyes find the effigy on the temple a few feet away from her, flickering from the statue back to Tara briefly. "I'm sorry..." she whispered.

"No..." Tara said to herself, frozen to the spot as a cold chill seeped into her heart, hardly able to believe this was happening, sobs catching in her throat. "No..."

But Willow stood unsteadily, holding her hands out in front of her, palms up and fingers outstretched. She looked different to how she had been when she'd done this a little while ago. She had been an entity so consumed with vengeance and grief that it had changed her, turned her into something dark and evil and different.

Now, though...she wasn't any of those things. She was Willow, with her red hair and green eyes and a penchant for fuzzy sweaters. That's why it meant more now. Why Tara was so stunned and wasn't making any attempt to stop her - yet.

The purple bolts of energy shot from her with hardly any encouragement at all, power summoning itself from within, knowing its purpose, power she didn't know she still had, more than any she could have stolen from anyone else as she realised that this was what it had all been for.

No one could have known how powerful she was going to get back when she had cast that very first spell to restore Angel's soul. That was the thing...no one was supposed to know. Everyone had been so worried about the effects it had on her, about the power that could consume her at any time.

If you believed that everything was pre-destined, it was why Angel had entered Buffy's life when he did. Why they had fallen in love so deeply and consummated that love with something so sacred and beautiful to them. It was because Angelus needed to be brought forward, why he had killed Jenny. It was why Willow had to delve into Magick to bring him back. It was why she'd never known before that Xander loved her. It was why she had met Tara, to learn from her and to let herself be guided by her.

Right now...this moment in time... This was why she had it. This was why she had been given it.

She had felt the weight of the world's emotions on her shoulders. She had felt pain and suffering and grief from every corner of the world and Tara had brought her back from it. The thought of all of those souls so tortured had almost been too much to bear, but she had done it.

It turned out that the pain she couldn't take was her own.

Her power and energy hit the effigy, suffusing the statue in a brilliant glow, the sound crackling in her ears and the brightness of the lightening bolts filling the air, making her close her tired eyes against it.

The last thing she saw was the perfectly preserved image of Xander in her mind, looking like he had the first day they met, all mussed-up brown hair and brown eyes and adorable smile, his hand held out to her.

The last thing she heard was him calling her name, calling out to her and telling her that they were going to be together again and that everything would be okay.

The last thing she felt was her heart aching for him, yearning to be near him again.

Then she felt nothing at all.

The world was on fire.

The End

Authors Notes 2

See? All those people who, when the first few parts came out, said they were looking forward to seeing where I went with this, I told you it wasn't up to such anticipation.

This piece of fanfiction is something that has been very special to me. I tend to base a lot of my work on scenes or dialogue from the original episodes, and this idea just kinda came to me while I was reading another piece a while back. It started off as a monologue piece that was going to be from Willow's POV, with the changes I've made being described. In the end, I figured that wouldn't really work, both from my perspective as the author and as a reader. It wouldn't have held much interest for anyone, and I probably would have gotten bored writing it. It was never meant to be as long as this, and was never meant to contain as much transcribed stuff. The problem I found was that only briefly mentioning events made it hard to follow the story, even if you remembered the original events. This piece has taken me something like six months to complete. That's six months of my life thinking, and writing and editing this. That's a lot of time.

I was trying to make specific points with this piece. Whether or not those points are plausible or made boldly enough, I'm not sure. The feeling I was going for with this was, we know Willow loved Tara. But she loved Xander, too, in a deeper way than anyone could have imagined. I just got to thinking...what if it had been Xander on the ouchy end of the bullet? I was trying to get across that Willow probably would have tried to bring any of the gang back, barring Spike, but it would have stopped there. She would have followed the same path she went down with Tara's loss, but there may have been various events that she would have done differently. I wanted to bring out how connected the two characters were, how intertwined their lives were, even if they hadn't known it before. Not only that, but the power Willow has would have fed her grief, and that has a lot to do with her reaction. Season 2 Willow would have been devastated, but she maybe wouldn't have ended the world. I know that, compared to the original s6 stuff, it may seem unusual that Willow spends so much time talking when she's on the Bluff. I had to put this in to make sure that Tara could understand exactly what was going through Willow's mind. As I stated above, Willow talking about their life together was a way of re-living it, and wanting her last thoughts to be about him.

What had been sorely missed, in my opinion, was the friendship angle that the show had been based around so much in the first few seasons. There are always going to be things that a viewer doesn't agree with, that they wish had been done differently. Thankfully, there's fanfiction to release those frustrations.

If you've actually read all of this, you have my deepest sympathies. It wasn't a bunnies and fluffy clouds ending, but it was the only one I could have imagined in this scenario.

Thanks for reading, and the reviews that I've received have been a great source of confidence and motivation.

Lysa