Buffy shuffled into the kitchen just in time to see Xander grab a carton of juice from the fridge. He pulled a glass from the cabinet over the sink and turned, offering her a cheery salutation.
"Ahh, mornin', Buff. I see you're all rise with the shine."
The morning Slayer greeted him with less enthusiasm, grabbed a cup for herself, and motioned for him to pour her some juice as well before slumping into a chair. She drained the cup in a few gulps, put the glass down onto the counter, and grunted a reply. "Ugh. Mornings? So not my thing."
"Funny, considering how many times you get to see it after a whole night of not sleeping."
Since the juice had little effect on her ravenous appetite, Buffy shot Xander a look of pure unamusement before getting up to grab a box of Pop-Tarts from the shelf.
Xander returned the look with one of his own, as he asked, "Which leads me to my next question: How is it you've clearly never been introduced to the world of breakfast foods before?"
With a look of mock offense on her face, Buffy held up a foil-encrusted package, "I'm all about the breakfast foods! This? Total nutrition. It's a meal in pancake form."
Xander raised his eyebrows and countered, "Yeah, if normal pancakes had partially hydrogenated soybean oil, high fructose corn syrup, and chemicals starting with the letter 'x' in them that no-one-can-pronounce, then sure… color them nutritious."
The sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs interrupted the wildly entertaining conversation. Dawn strutted into the kitchen, and squealed at Buffy, "Oooh, Pop-Tarts? Sa-weet!" She yanked the other sugar bomb out of the package and promptly began devouring it with gusto.
Buffy threw her hands up in frustration. "Have you no respect for your elders?"
"Actually, I'm a few thousand years old. So, technically? I'm older than you."
Before the sisterly affections got out of hand, Xander interrupted, "Ooookay, I think that's enough breakfast talk for now."
"What, no more discussions of Pop Tarts or Fruit Loops?"
Xander claps his hands together, "Hows about I take Dawnie here out for a tour of her happy new Hellmouthy home?"
Despite the fact that her mouth was still full, Buffy tried to speak, "Mmm! Xander, don't forget to bring the plans back before school starts." She turned to Dawn, wagged her finger, and continued, "And you, missy, best behavior. Don't even think about trying to steal Tito's hammer again. I won't get in the way of the angry carpenter next time."
Dawn rolled her eyes and huffed, "Omigod. For the tenth time, Xander dared me to."
Xander shook his head and smiled nervously as he quickly shuffled Dawn out, waving to Buffy as they left.
The kitchen felt hollow now, empty of all nose and sound. Silence slowly settled like a cloak and hummed against her skin. Buffy turned back around to face the window above the sink and stared into the sunlight.
She watched the particles float in and out of the flickering shadows of the blinds, swirling and dancing in the luminous rays. They warmed Buffy's face as she closed her eyes, letting her skin soak up the soft moment for a long while.
Then, she grabbed the phone from the cradle, dialed, and waited for the call to go through. After a moment, she heard a small click as someone pick up.
"Giles?"
The first thing she noticed was the sound. It pounded and pulsed everywhere.
With a groan, Tara tried to sit up but a sharp twinge forced her to fall back down. As the pain subsided, she realized the loud sound was, in fact, her head throbbing. As she reached up to rub her temple, Tara opened her eyes tenderly and blinked several times to get used to the light.
She found herself lying on the couch in the living room and again attempted to sit up. This time, however, she was met with success.
From the left, she heard, "Careful, luv. You hit the floor hard, bound to leave a mark."
In a flourish of panic and alarm, Tara fell off the couch and scrambled back as fast as she could, hitting the far wall with a thump. She clutched her chest and felt her heart pound. "W-w-wh…" Too shocked and rattled to speak clearly, Tara cursed herself, and tried again. "What are you?" she hissed.
"What, you don't know me? Spike. Vampire. Big Bad. Helped you Samaritans out of the goodness of my own heart."
Tara shook her head, still crouched on the floor. She was about to speak when Spike interrupted her.
"And I should be askin' you the questions here, luv. You're the one that died," he finished, slumping back into the couch.
The blood in her veins turned to ice.
What?
Somewhere, Tara vaguely remembered feeling numb in the tips of her fingers.
Spike examined his fingernails and reclined in his seat, hoisting his feet up onto the tabletop. "Great. So I'm stuck in some crazy dimension with Red's dead bird. Brilliant."
Dead. Is that what all this is? Tara heard his words through a fog. Time had slowed in a tiny space of her mind. Endless days passed through her mind, reflecting the lonely hours that had loomed ahead, scratched bare of hope or belief.
She remembered the first few terrifying and horrific days. But nothing, nothing had been worse than the first moments.
Willow was radiant. The room had glowed. No, she had glowed with an intense love that warmed Tara right to the gut like a shot of whiskey. It started in the throat, trickled down into her bowels, and spread through her system, leaving Tara merrily drunk in its stead.
Everything was perfect.
She should have known, right then, when people are happiest on the Hellmouth, that something wrong would happen. Blinded by Willow-light, Tara hadn't heard the window shatter. She hadn't registered anything other than her love's beauty marred.
"Your shirt…" she had said before she tripped, numbed and shocked, to the ground.
She had to get up. Willow was covered in blood. She must have been hurt. Willow was hurt, and Tara had to get to her. She pushed the cold away and scrambled to her feet, desperate to help.
"WILLOW!"
The room was gone. Willow was gone.
Tara snapped around, her hair whipping the side of her face, causing several strands to catch at the side of her mouth.
She faced the White.
Piercing ivory surrounded her on all sides and she tried to find her way back. The air was thick; cottony and unyielding. Tara yelled and sprinted forward with her arms outstretched. As if a giant wall had suddenly relented, Tara's momentum propelled her through the White and downward as it gave way, causing her head to smack into a maroon carpeted floor.
She forced her head up, and used her hands to push herself unsteadily to her knees. Darkness pressed on the backs of her eyelids, but she stubbornly wobbled up. She jolted forward, "NO!"
The room was back. But Willow was gone.
Tara had spent countless nights screaming into nothing, and days frantically searching Sunnydale for any signs of life. She hadn't showered. She hadn't rested. She hadn't eaten. She hadn't done anything except look for a way back. And when that hadn't worked, she found herself melting in sobs of hysteria.
She had finally succumbed to exhaustion and slept for what felt like days. It had been the only time she had slept through the night since.
Spike's words were far away, but eventually they seeped into Tara's ear and registered at once. Her head snapped up and she looked wildly into Spike's eyes. "What?"
Realization slowly dawned on Spike and he looked at her with a hint of curiosity.
"You really don't know, do you?" He asked softly.
Tara shook her head.
Spike let a long sigh and ran his hand through his hair. "Word on the streets says you died a few months back. Shot."
Ice filled her chest.
No, it can't be.
"No," she said firmly, speaking more to herself than to him. "Willow was shot."
Her stomach churned and her throat pounded. Tara shook her head forcefully. "No, she can't be. I promised I'd never leave again. I p-promised I'd never l-leave."
Air couldn't come fast enough. It seemed to evaporate the moment it entered her lungs. She tried to gulp it down, but her breathing hitched and gave way to a sob. And that sob to another.
Suddenly, there seemed to be no end to the river that flowed out of her. She cried for all the nights she had spent grasping a pillow to her breast hoping to shake the darkness from her heart. She cried for the mornings she woke with screams and the sound of a window shattering echoing in her ears. She cried for herself. But mostly she cried for Willow. And how it was that she existed without her.
Spike must have gotten off the couch at some point, because eventually an arm starts to stiffly rub her back, awkward but genuine. Through her tears, Tara clutched onto him and gave herself over to the only arms that had held her in months.
And there she sat, hunched on the floor, crippled by grief and bruised by circumstance as she let her aching heart cry.