(A/N: There's really no radio usage in this chapter, but the "spell" they're under extends to songs replaying in their thoughts. Flashbacks are in +text+.)

Radio Conspiracy Theory

Chapter 4

Willow knelt on the cold damp grass that now grew thickly around Tara's grave. Distant flashbacks of semi-unwelcome memories swarmed her head, and she sobbed.

+The air was filled with the scent of freshly unearthed soil, and her cheeks were soaked with tears, her shoulders trembling violently with each breath. She was gone, and she couldn't try to comprehend the emptiness inside of her. She could feel it, like she was just an outer shell of skin and emotion, and the rest of her was this black and empty void. Tara's void. She wanted her baby back, and no number of tears or murderous rages could ever bring her back. It made her feel so helpless, and incredibly ignorant that she only realized now, far too late how much she needed Tara, and how she tried to use magic to keep imperfections to a minimum. Little fight, toss in a spell, argument, and make her forget, what the hell, right Will? She thought to herself angrily, and she wanted to die too. She felt she needed to be in a hell dimension, total opposite of where Tara deserved to be right now. Willow hoped she was in heaven. The best possible heaven anyone could ever dream of. Even that wouldn't have been worthy+.

She seemed dressed in all of me, stretched across my shame.

All the torment and the pain

Leaked through and covered me

I'd do anything to have her for myself

Just to have her for myself

Now I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do when she makes me sad.

She is everything to me,

The unrequited dream,

A song that no one sings,

The unattainable.

She's a myth that I have to believe in,

All I need to make it real is one more reason,

I don't know what to do; I don't know what to do when she makes me sad…

"I'm so sorry, baby…" She whispered, and she placed a single long-stemmed white rose onto the lawn in front of Tara's tombstone. She looked up to the sky, and realized it was very dark. She checked her watch.

"Seven thirty…" she said to herself. She had been sitting there for nearly 3 hours, crying, mourning, and missing her baby. Kennedy was probably worried sick. Willow prayed for her sake that she wouldn't dare come find Willow here. She… she wasn't allowed. Willow didn't want Tara to see her make-believe life that she had built from the ground up. Kennedy wasn't real to her, and Willow knew it. It was like Spike was to Buffy. It was just… a quick fix to a temporary problem. Willow chuckled to herself bitterly. Her parents had used that slogan to describe suicide. That's what Tara's death was to her, anyways. She hadn't really been totally alive ever since. Sure, she was living, breathing, but she wasn't feeling. She couldn't. Emotions would mean abandoning Tara's absence. Emotions would make her finally realize she wasn't there.

She found herself sobbing again. She held onto Tara's tombstone, heaving forward, her forehead scrunched up into a tortured frown. Above her head, where she couldn't see, her hands were glowing. Not from moonlight, they were glistening with magical essence. She had lost control of her power before, but she had felt it, and been able to stop it. This magic, pure in agony and pain flowed into the polished stone, down into the casket six feet below the surface, and small unnoticeable tremors emanated from it. Willow's tears glowed bright silver as they dripped from her face and were absorbed into the soil.

She would have to stay here for a while longer. She couldn't leave yet.

But I wont let this build up inside of me,

I wont let this build up inside of me,

I wont let this build up inside of me,

I wont let this build up inside of me,

A catch in my throat,

Choke, torn into pieces I won't - No

I don't want to be this,

But I won't let this build up inside of me (won't let this build up inside of me)

Willow rose at the crack of dawn, shocked that she had fallen asleep. Her back was to Tara's grave, and her right side was coated in crusted mud, and water. She was more shocked at the fact that no vampires had so much as disturbed her slumber, let alone bite her. She began to roll over, and her foot fell into an empty hole in the ground. She jolted up; gasping loudly as she found that Tara's stone was gone too. There was no sign of a burial ever taking place here. Her eyes widened, and they bulged, and a lump formed in her throat. What the hell had happened? And how did she not notice it?

She looked at her watch and it was 7:30. 'What?' she tapped it, and put her ear to hit, not hearing a tick. It was dead. A sense of panic struck her full force, and she stood up, running to the exit of the Cemetery and out into the parking lot. She looked at her hands; they were trembling and shaking. No use driving, she'd just make her situation worse. 'What exactly is my situation? I fell asleep beside my dead girlfriend's grave and now it's not there?' She thought, and she could hear her heart.

She began running again, trying so hard to remember where the hell her home was. She remembered and quicker than she assumed was possible for her small body, she ran.

She burst in the door, and nearly walked into a startled Kennedy.

"Will? Babe where have you been?" Kennedy asked, stepping closer to touch Willow's face, to see if she was ok. The redhead stepped out of the way, totally ignoring her girlfriend and running around the floor. The kitchen: no Buffy. The dining room: no Buffy. The living room: Yet again, no Buffy.

"Where's Buffy?" Willow half-screamed, to anyone who was willing to hear.

"Up here, Will!" A voice called back. Buffy.

Willow found the stares, she was sweating, and panting and her heart was on the verge of failure, but she couldn't possibly care less.

"Just one sec, I'm getting…." Buffy began, but was interrupted by Willow bursting in the door.

"Changed!" She squealed. Not that it mattered, Willow had seen everything more in depth than Buffy herself could have.

"Tara's gone." The witch stated, not having blinked once.

"W…what?" Buffy asked, her eyes imitating Willow's.

"She…she's gone, like… there's…there's n-nothing!" Willow blurted out, stuttering in panic.

"Where were you…?" Buffy asked.

"I was there! I slept beside the fucking tomb!" She exclaimed in response.

Buffy finished putting her shirt on and put two strong, comforting hands on Willow's shoulders.

"Did you hear anything?" She asked, looking the redhead directly in the eyes.

"Nothing!"

"Did you… do any spells?" Buffy asked carefully.

Willow shook her head, her face taking on the innocent features of a child who just lost her mother. Buffy nearly cried at the sight, it was far too familiar to her, as Dawn showed the same look when she told her Joyce was dead.

Before any more could be said, there was a gentle knock at the door. Willow spun around, barreling down the stairs. Doors meant answers, and she could certainly use one right now.

"Hi, can I help you?" She stopped hearing Kennedy speak to the visitor.

A Blonde girl stepped in, looking around.

"Hello…um. W-who're you?" She asked in a quiet voice. The girl looked like she thought she was in the wrong house for a minute, until she saw Willow standing on the stares, when she smiled.

Buffy was just in time to catch her.