If There Was No Buffy
Chapter Two
A Secret Known
"Do want to spend the night?" Dawn asked Anya.
"Why yes, I most certainly would like to do that! Your deep and abiding concern for my safety on the Hellmouth at night is greatly appreciated. Thank you ever so much."
And without another word Anya climbed the stairs to the bedroom she and Xander used when spending the night; Buffy's old room.
"Why do I even bother trying to be nice to her?" Dawn asked Tara angrily.
"Don't worry about her. It's just the way she is; she'll never change."
Dawn shrugged, her anger evaporating. "Probably not. You know, I think I could use a nice big bowl of ice cream. Care to join me?"
"Well, I don't know," Tara replied with some hesitation. "It's getting kind of late."
"I'm pretty sure I can find chocolate syrup and some sprinkles somewhere. And I know we have bananas."
"You talked me into it."
A few minutes after they had constructed two homemade banana splits, Dawn brought up the subject she had been wanting to all summer, but had been afraid to.
"Umm, Tara?"
"What is it?"
"I was wondering something. I know I'm not supposed to know about this, and I don't want you to get mad or anything, but … whatever happened to Willow's plan to bring Buffy back from the dead?"
Tara dropped her spoon, stunned that Dawn had any idea they all had been discussing that very subject not long after Buffy dove into the portal. But when the spoon hit the floor with a discordant clanging, she was jerked back to reality.
"Dawny! How did you know…?"
"I can't believe you guys think I'm so dumb I don't know what happens in my very own house. I know a LOT of what goes on around here!"
"Like what, for instance?"
"Like there's no way you're going to change the subject. I know Willow said she thought she could do it. So I want to know why she hasn't done it."
"It's - complicated."
"Oh no! Don't even try it. We both know that's just adult code for 'You don't need to know and I don't want to talk about it.' "
Tara still didn't say anything, trying to decide just how much to tell her. Finally she said, "We tried, almost. We actually started talking about it less than a week after she – she left us. Willow was sure she could do if only she could find the right spell, and could get the right ingredients."
"Did Giles know about it?"
"Oh, lord, no! We all knew exactly how he would – what he would say. We kept it from him just like we did from you. Even Spike didn't know."
"So what happened? When did you try it?"
"We actually didn't get to the trying part." Tara paused, taking a breath. "Thanks to Anya we finally got almost all the ingredients, and Willow found the spell in one of Giles' forbidden volumes. The day we went to the airport to see Giles off for England, Anya was able to get her hands on the very last Urn of Osiris. She found it on eBay."
"So why didn't you do the spell?"
"Because there was one last ingredient Willow had to get. But she couldn't do it."
"What was it?"
"The – the blood of a newborn fawn. She needed it as part of the offering to Osiris. And as much as she wanted Buffy to come back, she couldn't kill the baby deer. She said she had one hand on the deer's back, the knife in her other hand, ready to strike, but just couldn't bring herself to do it."
Dawn got a bitter, angry look on her face. "So Buffy gets to spend the rest of eternity in agony, being tortured in some godforsaken hell dimension? Well, that's great. That's just frickin' great! It's really nice to know just how much you really love her!"
Before Tara could say anything more, Dawn ran out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and slammed the door to her bedroom as hard as she could. A few seconds later Tara heard a muffled Anya shout out from the other bedroom: "Hey! Some people are trying to sleep here, you know!"
To Be Continued