Note: This chapter takes place in Same Time Same Place, Episode 3 and Help Episode 4 of Season 7. They're sort of like scenes in-between what we, the viewers, saw. Think about them logistically and place them chronologically. Any questions, please feel free to ask!
Bracing her arm against the doorway, Willow cringed as the pain seared across her belly. She slowly approached the bed, cradling her stomach. Gingerly, she settled into a cross-legged position, placing her palms on the familiar place atop her knees, taking a moment to survey the room.
Nothing here reminded her of the room down the hall. And for that, Willow was supremely grateful. She thought back to the high school sleepovers she and Buffy had; the gossip and whispers they'd shared, bowls of junk food, afternoons doing homework. This was an innocent space; a room devoid of shame, death, and triggering memories. A room without Tara.
Determined to start healing, Willow took the familiar deep breaths, and sank into her meditation.
She was surprised to find how quickly the earth opened itself to her here. Granted, it was a Hellmouth, but still. The regular connection was there, but it was a much vaster system than in England.
Here, Tara was in the roots.
They ran onto the porch a giggling soaking mess, having tried in vain to shield themselves with schoolbooks and purses, which flopped uselessly against their heads. It had been an unexpected rainfall, unusual for this time of year, even more so in Southern California. "Willow!" Tara shrieked while fumbling for the keys as hands slid up her back.
"What?" Willow looked back with false innocence.
Tara laughed, eyes twinkling, "We're soaked!" She looked so beautiful with tendrils of hair twisting down her neck and around her ears, skirt sticking to her legs. Her shawl had fallen off one shoulder leaving it bare, and she bent down to tie her boots, laces having gotten loose in the mad dash. She was an absolute mess. She was perfect.
"I know," Willow said with a mischievous grin, "I kinda wanted to keep it that way."
Tara rolled her eyes good naturedly. "Can we please get inside first, you horndog?"
"And waste this perfectly romantic moment?" Willow waved, gesturing widely. "Getting caught in a rainstorm together?"
Moving her hips awkwardly, Tara winced as she pulled at her skirt. "It's not as romantic when there's a wedgie the size of Montana riding up your butt."
Willow laughed as the door finally opened and they marched in together.
It didn't take much longer for the clothes to come off after that.
A different energy hummed alongside the memory, powerful and strong, and Willow's eyelids fluttered.
Slowly, Willow pulled back from the remembrance space, finding her way back by climbing up the roots. She felt the familiar pull of Tara leaving her and kissed it goodbye as she always did. Earth magic, natural as it was, was all the more draining and she leaned back into the pillows. "Buffy," Willow said weakly.
Standing hesitantly in the doorway, Buffy looked unsure about whether to leave or stay. "I didn't mean—," she started, looking almost embarrassed. "Sorry to interrupt."
"That's all I had left in me anyway," Willow confessed.
"Didn't realizing meditating was such hard work," Buffy took a tentative seat at the foot of the bed.
"I'm healing, growing new skin," Willow shared.
"That's... wow. This is magic, right? When most people meditate they don't get extra skin, do they? Cause Clem should like, cut back." The banter was awkward. Nervous. Willow tried not to think about how that was her fault, too.
"It's magic," she confirmed. "I'm drawing power from the earth to heal myself."
"We're on the second floor," Buffy deadpanned, confused.
"Y'know, Giles says everything is part of the earth. The bed, the air . . ." As she rubbed the bedspread in front of her, Willow felt it swell—the ghost of a proud smile graced her lips—a memory, ". . . Us." For a moment, Tara thrummed. I'm finally doing it right.
"Explains why my fingernails get dirty even when I don't do anything."
"Plus you stuck your thumbs in a demon."
"True."
Exhausted, Willow leaned into the pillows behind her. Buffy watched, and then, "You're wiped out, I should go."
Willow's stomach sank. She felt the moment, that precious moment, between them slipping away. She thought about a life without Buffy, about disappointing her again and again and again, and desperately reached out. "No. Please stay? I missed you so much when I couldn't find you," Willow begged, talking about so much more than the Gnarl demon and her accidental spell.
Buffy must have known, read it in her eyes, because her reply was as earnest as Willow's. "We missed you, too. I missed you, too," she corrected. "Dawn's working on what caused the mutual no-see-ums, but I don't—"
"I did it," Willow interrupted guiltily.
"You did a spell?"
For one terrifying moment, Willow thought her worst fear had come true. That right then, Buffy saw her as an enemy. Again. "I didn't mean to, I-I just remember thinking that I wasn't ready to see you guys yet. I was afraid we wouldn't, you know, connect?" Willow admitted. Like we haven't in years. In a lifetime. Like we almost aren't now.
"So, you made it happen just by thinking it?" Buffy confirmed.
Willow braced herself. It was harder than waiting for Giles' retribution. This was Buffy. "Guess I have a ways to go before I master my powers, huh."
But Buffy's only response was, "S'ok. Long as you're all right," and Willow exhaled a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. There was forgiveness in Buffy's eyes, and it was more than Willow had dared hope to see again.
"It's nice to be forgiven." The weight of the past year nudged its way forward, and she flushed with shame. "Too bad I need so much of it."
Buffy looked down and Willow was afraid she was going to change her mind and take it all back. "I have a confession to make. I thought it might be you. With the flaying."
Relief flooded Willow again. Guilt she was good at. "I know."
"I wanna be the kind of person that wouldn't think that. Xander never thought it."
"He did, a little. Heck, I did a little. Xander has the luxury of not saying it, but you're the Slayer. You have to say stuff like that. It's ok. It's ok too if you still don't think I can recover from this magic stuff. 'Cause, honestly? I'm not that sure about it either," Willow admitted, feeling very much like the shy lonely girl Buffy had faced at the water fountain all those years ago.
But that just reminded Willow of the past six years all over again, so she leaned forward, sighed, and began meditating again.
"I thought you were too tired," Buffy pointed out.
"It hurts too much not to try."
"I'm sorry," Buffy apologized, despite her having nothing to apologize for.
"It just takes so much strength. I don't have that much."
Buffy scooted herself onto the bed and situated herself across from Willow. "Well, I got so much strength, I'm giving it away."
She remembered when it used to be like this between them. When it was trust and support that shone brighter than the darkness that surrounded them, giving them the strength to defeat it. When their friendship brought them together instead of drove them apart. "Are you sure?" Willow asked, giving Buffy the space to decide.
"Will it help?"
Willow nodded gratefully, "Much."
"Good."
And there it was, shining bright and strong. It felt so good to finally— finally—feel it again.
Reaching out tentatively with her magic, carefully pulling some of the Slayer energy into her own. It felt….familiar. Buffy grabbed her hands and held tight. Just like she used to; like it could be again. She felt stronger already.
"Hey," Willow slumped, sitting on her knees like a child.
She remembered going for walks around the Coven's property and picking up small rocks to put in her pocket. They weighed her down like an anchor and it was an apt metaphor for someone who felt like they were drowning a good part of the time.
During the meditations, she'd take out one of the rocks from her pocket, cradle it, and think of Tara: her other anchor. As the Coven surrounded her, she drew from their strength and steadiness. They were warm and gentle and she took great comfort in their number. Usually hovering around thirteen people, it was the ideal minyan.
Willow would meditate with the women around her, borrow their numbers, and say kaddish.
It had felt strange at first.
Willow's participation in Judaism had taken a markedly drastic downturn since her Bat Mitzvah. After that, it seemed her parents felt their job was over, and didn't care much anymore. They went to synagogue the obligatory two or three times a year, and even that had petered out by high school. What she knew was fragmented, archaeological almost; just scraps of Hebrew terms and abstracted beliefs. And Willow had never done well with abstraction. She preferred details, facts, formulas, and codes (losing sight of the bigger picture had always been her undoing).
She became frustrated at her lack of knowledge of her own history. Had she always been so ignorant of herself, of who she was and where she came from?
The one thing Willow did remember were the rituals of Jewish bereavement. After all, the Scoobies, were always within Death's reach. Death lingered in the doorway, never leaving, waiting for the next person. But death could be structured. So she clasped to the ritual, the way the shiva process was designed to be held. It gave her something to hang on to, a way to grasp small things.
Things like rocks.
Willow would sit with the Coven, close her eyes, sink past the meditations and into a special separate place. There in the earth, in the deepest reaches of her chest, Willow found Tara.
The first time she had said the prayer, the words felt foreign in her mouth. The Hebrew and Aramaic seemed deeper, more ancient even than the Latin Willow had grown accustomed to. The words felt rusty on her tongue after so many years. But Willow clung to the ritual, letting tradition burnish her against the wake of her mistakes. She stumbled over the mourner's kaddish, forgetting whole lines, but with every passing day, each time she spoke, it became smoother. By the end of the second week it felt natural. Comforted by the women surrounding her, Willow's meditations turned into prayer. Into benediction. And the stones grounded her. To Tara.
Prayer carries, Willow remembered.
"What's that," Tara asks, shrugging off her jacket, back in the dorm room after Joyce's funeral.
"Hmm?" Willow murmurs.
Tara nods to the book in Willow's hands.
"Oh, it's nothing," she replies distractedly.
"Looks an awful lot like 'something'," Tara says as she makes her way over, wrapping her arms around Willow and pressing a soft kiss to her shoulder.
Leaning into Tara, Willow tilts the book to share the page. "It's my old prayer book from Hebrew school. I haven't used it since, well, I got it, really. But after today? I dunno. It got me thinking about where I come from. And even though I'm not really so much with the practicing, I remember going to my grandmother's funeral."
Tara's thumb rubs circles on the backs of Willow's knuckles as she continues, "I only met her a few times. The Rosenbergs? Not too big on the family front, but we went to the funeral. And there's this whole thing afterwards, at the house, shiva? I dunno, it was really nice," Willow trails off, tracing Tara's fingers with her own. "Tons of visitors, seeing each other again after so many years, reminiscing and telling stories about her." She looks up at Tara, "I could see how good it felt for them. Remembering her and connecting with each other, y'know?"
Tara leans forward, connecting their foreheads with a kiss. "It's a beautiful tradition, Will. There's life in death."
Of course, after Joyce, had come Glory, so the prayer book was soon abandoned again.
Ever so tenderly, Willow traced Tara's name, as deeply engraved in Willow as it was in the headstone. She touched reverently, fingers trembling for a moment before they fell. This was harder, so much harder than she had ever thought possible.
Rocks were permanent.
"It's me," she breathed. "Happy Birthday."