1.
Tara saw it first, though she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to. Somewhere between seconds and hours after the words passed her lips - Can we just skip it? Can you just be kissing me now? - and Willow walked her to the bed, their bed, she saw it.
Thick, black lines created the shape of an ancient rune at the base of Willow's spine.
"Did you get a tattoo?" The wiccan's mouth hovered over the curve of her lover's bare hip as she stared at the dark ink dotted into the other woman's back.
"Wha-? No?" A giggle. "But search me if you must."
Admittedly, Tara was distracted. Her teeth dug into soft flesh in response before moving on. Everything about the moments leading up to that instant were utterly perfect. Willow's hands on her back, holding her close; soft lips pulled her impossibly closer. She couldn't mess this up, not so soon. Not when she had only just gotten her back.
The next day, she buried herself underneath piles of books at The Magic Box. The symbol etched in her lover's skin was in the first book she found on Ancient Celtic runes: Hagalaz. Power beyond human ability to harness. Chaos.
Tara knew, on some level, that going back was a mistake. Still, Willow felt so right.
/ / / / /
2.
She wasn't entirely sure how long she'd been there - wherever there was - not quite floating but not touching the ground either. Everything was so calm. The air felt cleaner, softer even, if that was possible, without the malicious energies she had grown accustomed to encroaching their will. It was Joyce that found her as Tara stumbled more than appeared into the dimension.
"A violent death can do that," the maternal figure sagely advised. Then, "We don't have to watch."
Watch. She wasn't sure she wanted to, but then, she wasn't sure she wanted to look away either. Is this all she was worth? Goddess knows it had taken all of her energy to leave her father behind, but this is what she got in return? She should have never left.
And she couldn't be sure if time moved differently or didn't move at all, because she's still watching what was both the longest and shortest day of her life when she feels the slightest tug at the base of her spine. It's sharp and distinctly not good. Suddenly, Tara Maclay was pulled months out of time.
The energy enveloping her was dark and certainly evil, worse than she had ever encountered before. She was barely able to take in her surroundings (the UC Sunnydale library...she'd spent enough hours there with Willow to know it like the back of her hand) before she was returned to her rightful place, this time with her mother's hand in hers. She must have been gone longer than she thought.
Her mother's voice, still soothingly familiar, chanted confidently in Latin. A spell.
"What was that?"
"Nothing for you to worry about."
/ / / / / /
3.
It wasn't long after The Scoobies settled in Cleveland that the idea struck.
In spite of all they had been through, all they had lost...it seemed somehow wrong to not go to the other Hellmouth. Who in Sunnydale stayed behind, stubborn enough to believe that well, I survived the giant snake at graduation, I can ride this one out, too only for the Earth to swallow them whole? From beneath, it devours: cities, memories, innocence.
Maybe now the burden was shared, but a Hellmouth was a Hellmouth and it was not a fight they could ignore. So it was there, in a dusty little magic shop on the east side of Cleveland, that she saw it: a Doll's Eye crystal...shimmering and pink and Tara.
I-It was my grandma's, I think. I found it a long time ago in my attic. I-I want you to have it.
The wiccan picked up the hefty rock, feeling its weight in her palm. Tara's was better somehow, its energy more mature, but Tara's was also buried somewhere underneath three metric tons of rubble. Rolling the rock in her hand, the redhead shrugged. She hadn't much opportunity to flex her new magical muscles yet, but certainly being a super witch proffered some leeway against the iron curtain of death. She'd try tonight.
The necessary supplies were easy enough to find in the small store. She laid them out on the floor of her small-for-Cleveland-but-big-for-Sunnydale apartment after dinner. (Can't do magicks on an empty stomach.) Surrounded by crystals and candles, she called upon the goddesses.
"Hear me, Hecate. I part the veil between this world and the next."
With closed eyes and slow, deep breaths, Willow mediated, focusing her energies on Tara in the Heaven Dimension. The brassy metal bowl in front of her that held a mixture of rosewater and essential oils shimmered in the light as dried sage shifted in the liquid.
Her mind repeated one thought on a loop - Tara. Tara. Tara. - as white light spread from her hair to her fingertips. It was time. Dipping a finger in the bowl, she reached out to the far realms.
Still seated firmly in Cleveland, her mind was worlds away. Her eyes squeezed further shut, fearful reality would break the spell. Then, she heard a voice.
"Willow? H-how? What are you doing here?"
It was Tara. She could see her, plain as day in the bright white expanse of the astral plane...or was this Heaven?
"Oh," the white-haired witch let out an awkward laugh, "I got a power boost at the last apocalypse. Dimension jumping comes with the gig, I guess."
Tara eyed her cautiously, trailing off before asking the question on her lips. "Is that..." safe?
"It's white magick," she tugged on her hair as evidence.
A nod. "That's good, then, I guess."
Long silences hung between awkward probing questions neither woman could remember ever needing to ask, but they talked. Talked about Dawn and Buffy and Hellmouths and eyepatches and funerals. It had been nearly two years, after all. There was a lot to catch up on. But Willow had Kennedy and Tara had, well, Heaven. Not even the brightest of white magicks could pull her away now. Not that she'd want it to - no, she learned that lesson the hard way.