In which things get very melodramatic, and the future changes.
The sound of a damaged circuit shorting out doesn't really carry that far. Fzzzt, that's about it. But...
YOU BITCH!
It was a scream that woke Tara up. At first she thought it was the dream again, the one she kept having, watching Dawn collapse at the foot of the tower howling her lungs out. But no, this was Revello Drive, the house was dark, and that wasn't Dawn's voice coming from downstairs. Whoever it was, it was familiar but... wrong. As she hurried for the stairs, still half asleep, she glanced into Dawn's room. Dawn was fast asleep, thanks to the pills, and Giles was sitting at her bedside; he had already realised what was happening and knew this was Tara's business. As he looked at her, she knew too. It was Willow, but not like she'd ever heard her before; she was shrieking in pain and anguish, and there was something else too. Dull thuds and gasps, like somebody getting beat up... Tara took the stairs at full clip, three steps at a time, not noticing the pain as her mangled right hand fumbled for the bannister.
She found Willow in the workshop she'd set up in the basement, bent over the lifeless form on the table, a high-pitched howl like nothing Tara had ever heard before emerging from her throat as she took everything out on the half-repaired buffybot. In the last few nights, she'd managed to fix much of the damage Glory and her minions had done to it, but now she was ripping out cables, tearing out its hair and pounding it with fists that were starting to bleed. As Tara moved to her side and put her arms around her, Willow pulled away... and then went limp and fell into her embrace. Tara just held her as the sobs gradually turned into words.
"God... Tara... I can't do this. I can't fix this. She left us... she was supposed to do this and now everyone expects me to... I'm not her, this is wrong..."
"Shhh, sweetie... you don't have to... I'm here, we're all here. We'll help each other be strong... like an amazon, remember?"
"But I don't wanna be strong, I'm trying to and it's killing me, Tara, it's turning me into something I don't want to... if Buffy couldn't do this, if it killed her, what would I have to do to? I loved Buffy so much and now there's just... this... THING..." She lashed out at the ruined buffybot again, but she had no strength left and the punch looked more like some creepy caress. "It's... I lost Joyce, I lost Buffy, I nearly lost you and everyone else gets to fall apart, but I can't... Tara... who am I?" It was the voice of a lost little girl, only hoarser.
"Sweetie, what..."
"I mean... when Faith was in Buffy, you could tell. Can't you tell with me? Who am I now?"
"You're Willow." She looked her in the eyes, holding her. "You're my Willow."
"But I can't be. Not just. I don't feel Willowy... there's something inside of me ever since I fought Glory, something strong, I went toe-to-toe with a god and almost kicked her ass, and it wasn't enough to save Buffy, and I can't help Angel or Dawn or Giles or you or Spike... if it takes more than that, if I have to let everything loose, I'm afraid of what I'll become. Tara, I think I'd be... a monster. You said it yourself, I was getting way too powerful even before..."
Tara couldn't
say anything; that one
(it
frightens me how powerful you're getting)
hit home. She
just held her lover, waiting for the shaking to subside. It didn't.
Instead Willow tensed up again, grabbing on to Tara and staring at
her, holding her gaze like she was afraid she would disappear if she
so much as blinked. "Can't we just... I've got the keys, we can
just get in the car and get out of here... no more hellmouth, no more
vampires, no more demons, no more magic, no more death, I can't take
this anymore..."
Tara tenderly wiped Willow's cheeks, shaking her head. "We can't, I wish we could but... Dawn, and Xander, Giles, we can't just leave them here..."
"Why NOT?" Willow was sobbing again, slipping back into hysteria territory. "Let them leave too, if they want. Why would ANYONE want to stay in this... this... we can leave, Tara, we can set up someplace else, we can send for them, we don't have to... this was Buffy's deal, she's the chosen one, and she's gone, she's gone, there's nothing good here anymore, there's just pain and blackness... "
Tara kissed her, trying to calm her, get her to stop tearing herself apart for just a moment... and it hit her, stronger than ever before, like something had taken whatever powers her mother gave her and amplified them hundredfold.
FLASH
gunshot
FLASH
blood
FLASH
death
FLASH
MY death
FLASH
Willow
FLASH
darkness
FLASH
She was back again. It took all her willpower not to pull back, she held on to Willow, kept kissing her, ignored the ghostly feeling of a bullet ripping clean through her, tried to not remember what it felt like to die... but she knew. She knew the price of staying now.
In Dawn's room, Giles heard the front door shut and the engine start. He had so hoped they would not be the first to leave. He gazed at Dawn, sleeping the deep sleep reserved for the very happy, the very young or the very medicated. He had hoped and wished for so many things in the last weeks, and gotten nowhere with it. What was it Philip had always said to him back in the day? "Wish in one hand, crap in the other, see which one fills up first." Right now he settled for just wishing he had his guitar. What was it, something by Dylan...
The summer
is gone
The
ground's turning cold
The stores
one by one they're a-foldin'
My children
will go
As soon as
they grow
There ain't
nothing here now to hold them...
He stroked Dawn's forehead, awkwardly got to his feet and went downstairs. There was a note on the door, but he didn't want to read it right now. They were gone, that was all the info he needed. He hadn't noticed how uncomfortable the couch was until tonight; whisky makes a great pillow. He knew there was another bottle somewhere, but... no. One slayer dies, the next one is chosen. But he had a feeling that as far as Sunnydale went, he was it now.
He finally fell into a deep sleep a few minutes before the front door opened again.