The basement is different from the last time Tara remembers it.
Granted, everyone had been tied up, Buffy tripped her down the stairs, and there had been demons trying to kill them. So it wasn't hard for it to seem like an improvement, but still.
Floor-to-ceiling shelving has been installed along the back walls and filled with carefully organized and indexed boxes, four of which are open, their contents piled at Willow and Tara's ankles—remnants of the Magic Box, occult objects, books, magic ingredients, and slightly singed but still meticulously organized tax documents, jars of herbs and amphibian eyes that stare lifelessly until Tara rotates their gaze away toward the back wall. It feels like a mausoleum in the dim light.
It's almost like mourning, she muses silently, as they continue digging through boxes for the particular spell materials. She hadn't had much time to look through her mother's belongings and choose what to save; an entire lifetime held in just a few objects.
Impatient to leave the broken painful memories down in the basement where they belong, Tara hurries to clear the contents and move to the next box, pulling it towards her to reach for the last few items within. It tumbles into her hand, cold to the touch, and she marvels at the weight. She stares, dumbfounded, having forgotten how heavy it was.
Willow looks over at Tara's lack of movement and freezes at the sight of the crystal.
It had been the first time Willow'd stayed. She was still operating on false pretenses, then, about their relationship. Even to herself. Her brain hadn't caught up with what the rest of her felt. She hadn't understood yet.
"I knew." Tara explained much later, one quiet night as she ran her fingers through Willow's hair and down Willow's skin, why she'd eagerly offered the doll's-eye crystal so soon after they met. "Even if we never…" She trails off before starting differently, "I knew that you were where I wanted to be."
Willow stammers, "I-I didn't know it was still here." Bewildered, Willow looks at it with a mixture of guilt and fondness. Her hands twitch, itching to hold it. Can I? Her eyes beseech. Tara offers it to her. "Think it'll work?" Willow asks.
Tara clears her throat, recovering. "For the spell? I don't see why not. It didn't specify a particular type of crystal-"
"No, I mean...do you think the spell will work," Willow clarifies with a bite to her bottom lip.
"Oh," she says, dazed.
Willow is quick to fill in the space with words. "I haven't- Not since...well, there was a whole invisible thing when I first got back to Sunnydale, but that was an accident. This is…real. Deliberate."
Tara can see it in Willow's eyes—the hesitation.
It's strange, seeing uncertainty in Willow's face when it comes to magic; it's a reflection of Tara herself from all those years ago. Tara'd trembled with doubt, night after night, when Willow kept coming back to her room to try new spells. Things had been so delicate and fragile in the cradle of their relationship. Tara, certain of her feelings, but so unclear of Willow's, with the agonizing awareness of falling in love with someone who would never love the same way back; that awful sureness of having lost her without ever having had her to begin with; the miracle of of how a single flame in the darkness could light up her entire life.
Extraordinary circumstance had forged Willow's magic into a superpowered weapon before she understood how to properly use it. Tara had learned the traditions as a child; respect and discipline taught reverently by her mother. But Willow, she realizes now, had been on the front lines with Buffy for years and saw how tradition and rules could bind and fail them. Willow's big, beautiful brain mixed magic with innovation and creativity, finding new ways to save lives and thwart danger. But on the Hellmouth, the lines between life and death are drawn far too often. The right choices become more difficult to make, and the lessons are learned harshly and paid for in blood. They had all paid.
Tara had seen, right away, that day in Wicca Group how big Willow was. How her tiny body could barely contain anything within her. Willow was made of sharp edges and contradictions, but it was her love and passion that pierced Tara so fiercely. A love she had grown to depend on and feared losing as Willow's skill in magic soon began to surpass anything Tara could teach her.
She had come alive under Willow's touch, blossomed under Willow's light, taken root, grown taller, stronger, until she was a tree in her own right.
They had come full circle with the magic, lost and found each other within it time and time again; here they were again, together and tentative.
But now they have lifetimes of experiences, with the benefit of full hindsight and the harsh lessons already learned. It's already different, this time around. She can tell by the way Willow keeps glancing at the doll's eye crystal with a hesitant reverence. If there's anything the last week has taught her, it's that they can't avoid the past. They can only make it a part of themselves and carry it forward.
They have to cauterize this wound.
Tara places the crystal in Willow's hand, closing her fingers around it. Willow's eyes widen, "Tara, I-"
"Will," she interrupts gently. "This became yours a long time ago. Use it. You can do this." Tara doesn't know if the spell will work or if the answers they seek will be found. But she knows it certainly won't be for lack of trying.
"No," Willow says, the corner of her mouth quirking up as Tara's words suffuse her. "We can do this."
It nearly takes Tara's breath away, those words. It's dizzying, hearing them directed back at her all this time later. Willow's confidence is shaky, but it's there, flickering like a candle, growing more steady and true, her self-doubts and fear quelled for the moment, fortified by Tara. That's what it was always about, after all—sharing and trading strength.
Becoming stronger with each other. For each other.
Like Amazons.
"It's time," they say.
The tension lies thick and heavy in the living room, like humidity. The coffee table has been cleared away, making a large space for the spell to be cast.
Dawn sits, nibbling at her fingernails, knees pressed together tightly with one leg bouncing, her eyes skittering around the room. Xander sits next to her, trying not to appear moody or restless, and failing at both. He settles on distractedly rubbing Dawn's back. Anya, in counterpoint, leans impatiently against the doorway with her arms crossed. Buffy hovers near the center, pacing as Willow and Tara ready the spell. Her gaze periodically flickers to Spike, who ignores her, and pretends to be only half-interested. And Giles, also leaning against the doorway, surveys everything with an aloof intensity.
Tara and Willow sit across from each other on the floor, surrounded by a circle of crystals and flower petals, scavenged from the remains of the Magic Box stored in the basement. The preparations are sparse, and soon there's nothing left to do but begin. Tara sits up straight with purpose, holds her arms out, and waits. It is such a familiar gesture Willow goes almost dizzy with it. How many times have they done this? Together in a circle, magic crackling between them like electricity. How did Willow ever forget that the electricity had nothing to do with the magic and everything to do with Tara? Synchronicity and trust . . . Roses and fairy lights. The magic was them.
Willow used it to find Tara. And later, to push her away. Used it to protect her, and then to abuse her. She took the pure, innocent thing between them and corrupted it.
And when is the last time they've even done magic together? A long time—even before Willow twisted the precious gift between them into something selfish and ugly.
Willow looks at Tara's outstretched hands and tries to ignore the way her palms itch. She can feel the dry sprig of Lethe's Bramble in her hand and feels sick to her stomach. But Tara's eyes are beseeching her. Tara's hands are waiting. . . for her. For answers only she can give. Answers she owes Tara. She will not fail Tara again.
Swallowing hard, Willow reaches out and places her hands in Tara's. The magic comes, unbeckoned, before they even have to call it—it turns on a light inside of Willow's cold and dark places. God, how— how could she have forgotten this and left it behind?
Within the circle, lightning crackles, storm clouds brew, a breeze quickly strengthens into a sharp wind, and the familiarity of it fills her with nausea. But Tara's hands are there beneath hers, soft and warm. There are no windows here, and Tara is alive alive alive.
She opens her eyes. Tara's hair flaps in the wind as the spell picks up, but her eyes never leave Willow's.
And then, he's there.