The Quiet One – Tara

"I'm under your spell."

It is approaching 4am and Tara is still awake. She crosses her legs and sits up straighter on the couch, being careful not to spill her cup of warm cocoa. She lifts it up her lips and gently sips at it. Her girlfriend is upstairs sleeping but Tara knows that it will be a while before she is able to do the same.

Tara has always been an extremely shy and sensitive individual, even when she was a little girl. Willow has changed her life and allowed her to come out of her shell. She is far more confident and outgoing; Willow has brightened her previously dark world. Instead of being content with the life she has been leading, she is now delighted.

Even though there has been alterations to how she lives her life, Tara is still the level headed Wiccan she was before she met the woman who is undoubtedly her soul mate. Her feelings have not changed and her respect for the magicks remains the same. Tara has practised magic longer than Willow and is more cautious when it comes to abusing it or relying on it the way Willow has.

Buffy died and they had brought her back. More specifically, Willow had brought her back but she, Xander and Anya were heavily involved. They have messed with power, with magicks and unknown forces and it obvious to Tara they there have been serious consequences. Buffy confessed that she was in Heaven and she was happy there. Tara also is aware of how hard this information has hit Willow, she is upset about learning this fact but it is the only way she is going to learn from her mistakes.

The Slayer died and perhaps she should have remained dead. It's clear that she was happier with that arrangement.

Tara finishes the last of her cocoa and leans forward to set it down on the coffee table. She sits back and leans into the cushions while gazing back to the bottom of the stairs. She is lost in her thoughts; she is concerned for Willow who's becoming far too dependent on magic. It is a disturbing trend that she has been noticing lately but it's not her overuse of magic that is worrying her the most. It's who Willow has been using it on that concerns her.

When she was looking after Dawn earlier that night, the teenager had mentioned something about her and Willow arguing. Willow and Tara had never fought and she was very certain that she would remember having a fight with her lover. Instinctively, Tara knew that Dawn had no reason to mislead her and remembered the bramble she had found beneath Willow's pillow, the one Tara had been wearing most of the day.

It had set off alarm bells in her head. She had urgently sought out the books at the Magic Shop in the hopes of finding out more about it. Her worst fears had been confirmed, it turned out to be "Lethe's Bramble". It was something used for augmenting spells of forgetting and mind control. Willow had cast a spell to make Tara forget they had ever fought.

Tears sting Tara's eyes as she recalls that moment, she felt completely betrayed by the words on the page but again, they had no reason to lie to her as they were just words. It is as painful now as it was a few hours ago. How could Willow do this to her? How could see willingly alter her memory after what Glory had done to her?

She feels hurt, she feels confused and disappointed but above all she feels utterly betrayed. Couples are supposed to settle arguments by shouting it out or talking it through but Willow had taken the only course of action that she knew. She had turned to magic to solve the problem or make it go away, just like she had been using it to do everything else.

Tara no longer feels that she can carry on this way. She cannot and will not stand by and watch Willow continue to act this way. She loves Willow with all her heart but she is only left with one choice and a difficult decision to make.

"Wish I could stay…"