It isn't long after Buffy comes home slamming the door hard enough to rattle the doorframe, that a gathering is called.
"And it took the forms of your mother, and you," Giles says, turning to Willow, clarifying, "Tara." Both girls nod solemnly, harrowed by the memory.
"I haven't seen any ghosties since Tara," Spike says. "And she's been real for days. Can I go now?"
"No," Buffy barks , eyeing him distrustfully. Twisting his lip into a half-hearted sneer that looks more like a pout, Spike flops back on the couch, none too pleased. "And no one is going anywhere until we figure this out."
"I'm not certain how much there is to know at this moment, Buffy," Giles admits. "We don't know what the nature of this evil is, only that it can take many forms. And, though, causing great emotional pain, seems to be non-corporeal, thus causing no physical harm."
"So what, that's it? A shape-shifting ghost, that's all we've got?" irritation and impatience drip off Anya in waves.
"We've worked with less before," Xander points out.
Tara tucks one leg under as she slides onto the couch. "It thinks Willow is a threat."
"What, it's afraid of redheads?"
Tara ducks almost nervously. "It tried to get me to kill her."
The room goes still for a brief moment before Buffy yelps incredulously when she finally processes Tara's words. "It what?"
"Me too," Willow adds, before Tara can respond. "I mean, it wanted me to kill myself, too," she admits in a soft, nearly shameful voice.
"It what!?" Xander and Dawn join Buffy's vocal disbelief.. Tara, for her part, regards Willow with a calm, curious look. Willow picks nervously at her sleeve, uncomfortable under their gazes.
"Well there's no way that's happening," Xander states firmly. "I vote no more dying for anyone this year. All in favor say 'aye'," he finishes, raising his hand. Dawn raises hers immediately in agreement.
"No one's dying," Buffy vows. "And the sooner we figure out how you became alive again, the better. This thing is messing with us, and we need to figure out the answers to the old questions before we start with new ones. Got it?" Everyone nods, Spike included, until he realizes what he's doing, makes a face, and stops.
"Wait a minute," Tara muses, wheels turning. "Spike, you said you saw other ghosts before, besides me. Who else have you seen?"
Before he can answer, Giles interrupts with a question. "Do you think there could be a connection?"
"Maybe," Tara offers.
"If this thing tried to get to Will out of the picture, maybe it's doing the same thing to Spike."
"How is Spike being crazy the same thing as trying to kill Willow," Xander asks in an increasingly agitated tone.
"Because while Willow and Tara were being visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past, I was getting a free therapy session from a psych major-turned-vampire who says Spike sired him."
Everyone's eyes widened in surprise, save Spike who practically growls at the notion. "Bollocks," he spits in disgust.
"I'm just telling you what the dead guy said," Buffy raises her arms in defense.
"Well he's wrong," Spike snarls. "I didn't cross the ocean, go to the end of the underworld to get my soul back only to rot it by killing again."
Buffy regards him for a moment, pondering everything that's come to light. "Well, until we know for sure, you're staying here, where someone can keep an eye on you," she declares with finality. "Any questions?"
He scowls and huffs back into the couch disgruntled, but doesn't argue.
Hands on hips, Buffy faces the group, and in her most Slayer-like voice that suffers no argument, speaks, "We figure out what's going on, and we figure it out now."
It's been over two weeks, but Tara still has a hard time with the quiet.
It used to be her preference, in a world full of violence and noise, to keep the safe haven of home a place of quiet solace. It always calmed and centered her. Now the quiet reminds her too much of where she'd been, with its' unnatural, stifling stillness. But since coming back, Tara leaves a radio or television on low - not loud enough to hear the program, but just enough to remind her she's not alone. To ground her.
She keeps windows open, too, regardless of the approaching winter, letting the blissful sounds of the suburbs -cars passing, dogs barking, lawn mowers buzzing- comfort her. Especially on evenings when sleep is elusive, slipping through her fingers with each passing hour. Nights such as this.
She lays quietly in the dark with Dawn's even breaths rising and falling nearby in a soothing rhythmic pattern. It's been hours but still the memory of the figure in the kitchen earlier haunts her. Though it hadn't been her real mother, Tara still feel almost dirty with the transaction. As if she'd somehow betrayed her mother's memory as opposed to it having been twisted and hijacked by an unnamed evil. What memories she had of her mother were precious and few enough; they feel tainted now, somehow, bookended by such corruption, and she burns hot with anger and resentment. At least if anything, she'll use the outrage to strengthen her resolve.
The sound of the screen door creaking open and shut filters up through the open window, interrupting her thoughts. It gives her the excuse to abandon pretense of sleep, so she peels the covers down, slips on a robe, and heads downstairs.
The house is quiet and dark as she creeps through the first floor. A small light illuminates the stovetop where the kettle sits, steam escaping, left open as to not whistle. Tara pauses, pulls a mug from the cupboard, and pours herself a cup before stepping outside.
It's Willow on the stoop, and she turns around at the sound of the door latch, brightening instantly. Tara winces as the screen door creaks despite trying to carefully ease it shut, "Mind if I join you?"
"Not at all," Willow smiles warmly, scooching over a little to make more room.
Tara blows on the tea, trying to cool it before taking a tentative sip. "Maybe one day we'll sleep at night again like regular people," she remarks dryly.
"Pretty sure I've been disqualified from being a regular person since spending high school fighting monsters." Willow jokes briefly sobering under the nights' heavy events. "You okay?"
Tara thinks a moment before responding. "For the first time in a long time, I feel like it will be."
Willow nods, as if digesting the words, but the line of worry on her forehead only deepens. A question pulls at her. "How can we be sure?" Tara regards Willow with a confused look, uncertain of what she meant. "About what it said. A-about me," Willow clarifies nervously, referring to the shades that tormented them a few hours ago.
Tara contemplates the question thoroughly, quietly, while Willow holds her breath. After what seems like forever, Tara finally opens her mouth, and speaks slowly, giving weight to her words. "If it were true, it wouldn't have needed to try so hard."
It might have been logical, but still Willow's doubts linger. Tara sees it on her face, as she always did, and lays a hand atop hers. "The magic is a part of you, Willow. But that's all it is; a part."
They sit in silence a few moments longer until- "You were right," Willow admits suddenly. "About everything. You always were." She twists the mug tightly. "And I think knew, too. That day at the fair? When-" she inhales sharply as the memory slices anew, "When we had our first fight. Do you remember?"
Tara stiffens. Everything about that wretched day was broken into her bones.
"I didn't want to listen, but I think maybe part of me knew and lashed out, 'cause I didn't want to think about it. If you were right or wrong, who that would make me."
The past presses so heavily, Tara feels like she's strangling on it. A dark, shameful secret, darker than the prison of her mind she was trapped in with Glory, long since pushed to the deepest fathoms of her heart rises like bile. "It's my fault," she chokes. "The fight. I was afraid."
"Of me, I know. You were ri-"
"No." Tara shakes her head, insistently. "I wasn't. You were learning so much, so fast. And I...I was worried. That if I didn't have anything left to teach you. . . "
Willow sits stunned as she absorbs the admission, eyes growing wide as understanding dawns. "The magic. You thought...you thought I was going to outgrow you."
Tara nods miserably, unable to meet Willow's gaze. The secret has burned in her since that day, but like too many important things, there was never a chance to talk about it. There was Glory, and Buffy, and Dawn, and…by then it was too late.
Part of her had felt what happened after was punishment. That she had driven her own insecurities into Willow, planted seeds of doubt that had never been there, and questioned Willow's love. Falling victim to Glory was nothing less than what she deserved. She'd been a monster after all.
"Tara, look at me." Willow nudges Tara, who refuses to meet her eyes. When she does, Willow's eyes are gentle, full of nothing but tenderness. Tara feels her gaze bore into her so deeply it scrapes her insides hollow, and remembers why she had fallen in love with her so quickly. "Magic brought us together, but its not why I fell in love with you. You are why I fell in love with you. The magic was just...extra. Tara, I could never outgrow you. If anything, you're the fertilizer. You...you're the sun."
Tara's heart clenches painfully against Willow's love. She hadn't realized it already found its way back to Willow until this moment as it aches in a chest that isn't her own. "Are you sure?" she mumbles, [feeling at home] slip into place again as seamlessly as it had the first time. "Cause I'm feeling pretty dark right now."
Willow dismisses the thought with a wave. "So you had a momentary wiggins. It happens. And I didn't exactly help by overreacting." She looks down at the cup of tea in her hands before continuing. "It's kinda funny, actually. One of the reasons- the biggest reasons- I didn't want to give up magic last year because I thought the magic was why you kept loving me." Tara's jaw drops, hanging slack and insulted at the concept. Willow smiles wryly. "We're kinda silly, aren't we. You were afraid I wouldn't love you without the magic, and there I was, off doing the same thing."
Tara can only look at her in incredulity. Willow shrugs, as if the truth is obvious. "You didn't know who I was, before. I was nobody. And I was afraid you wouldn't like who she was. If I gave up the one thing that made me special, who would that have made me?"
There's so much to unpack in Willow's self-loathing. How could she have not seen how deep and insidiously it had taken root, before? There are hundreds of words of rebuttal in her heart, bursting at the seams, but all Tara choke out is, "Someone I love very much. I only ever wanted you to be you, Will."
She looks over with a sad smile. "I'm not so sure who that is, anymore. Or who it ever even was."
A thought comes to her mind, completely unbidden, and seemingly disparate, but suddenly the connection appears, clear as day. "Did I ever tell you about lobsters?" It's something Tara learned from her mother; making something out of nothing.
"The Big Pineapple," she'd said once, patiently and lovingly, under the stars. That was one of the things she loved about Willow - the patient way she'd wait for her words to make sense. Tara never felt like a helplessly awkward freak.
"Their flesh is soft, but the shell is hard and doesn't expand. As the lobster grows, it becomes more uncomfortable under pressure from the shell until it sheds and grows a new one. It does that multiple times and every time, the lobster is uncomfortable then vulnerable, but it needs to shed its shell or else it dies." A shooting star passes overhead. "I think you stayed inside the shell too long, Will," Tara laments.
She can feel Willow's hard swallow as her own as she takes a long sip of tea. "I guess that's another reason the Rosenbergs were never much for shellfish," Willow remarks emptily.
Tara meets her eyes, seeing the self-loathing, shame, and regret. But she also sees strength, wisdom, and self-awareness. There's nowhere else to hide, anymore. "I have a feeling the Willow you're becoming now is the biggest and strongest one yet."
Having had the unnamed evil test her so viciously and cruelly, to have had it try and sow more doubts in Tara's mind and convince them otherwise, is proof alone of this certainty. Armed with the knowledge that Willow has learned from her mistakes, learned her lessons in the hardest, most painful ways possible, Tara knows what Willow will choose, next time, when faced with the tough call; herself.
Only now is she wholly, truly, Willow.
It's Willow's turn to break. "I'm sorry it took me so long to understand." The words are choked out in a strangled voice, but she herself is finally free.
In this grace, Tara can finally see room for herself there too, and she smiles wetly. "Better late than never, right?"
Willow's face crumbles with a fresh wave of tears and this time Tara doesn't hold back-no guarding, no conflict. There is nothing between them now. She closes the space between them and gathers up the sobbing Willow in her arms. Her own tears well hot and thick, but Tara holds on, desperate to grip this moment of honesty and forgiveness. Love, like always, carries them through.
They cling to each other for several long minutes, as the grief and regret ebb, replaced by hope and the soft white of a new beginning.
In a cruel, self-fulfilling prophecy, blinded by fear and insecurity, they'd both gotten lost on the same lonely path, forgetting the magic wasn't what was stronger when they're together: they were. True magic crackles between them with every breath and touch, lighting them up from within, and sharing that light in the darkness. Love is brave and hard. And when the world presses down, love lifts up.
They rise.