Chapter 42 – Quagmire
Dedicated to John. I promise you'll get your own story.

willow.

(star crossed eyes and glinting knives and cowled robes)

willow.

(harbingers of death, tormenters of magic, yet they tremble in the face of)

willow!

(the behemoth, ancient of days, Tawarick)

*WILLOW!*

(he has risen)

Willow shot upright in bed, the light sheet pooling at her naked waist. One hand had been wrapped lovingly around Tara's middle; it was now up by her mouth as a single resounding call forced itself into her very brain, calling with a fear that she - cool monster fighter, demon hunter, witch - even she had rarely known.

*Will—*

The call abruptly ended, yet the thin stream of terror continued to grow within her. At her side, Tara stirred, sitting up herself, rubbing bleary eyes and looking at her clock.

2:01 AM.

"What is it, Willow?" Tara asked, and Willow could easily hear the thread of panic in her voice; wakened too quickly from a slim sleep to an open-eyed nightmare.

"It's Althanea," Willow breathed, looking out the window. Her magical starlight had dissipated, yet the room was suffused with moonlight and streetlight. Thin clouds rushed across the sky, as if they were also fleeing some celestial beast. The moon was full, without pity, distant and sere. It had seen far more catastrophe than this during its millennia of envy. The stars of Orion's belt seemed to wink in some conspiracy.

Looking into the night, as if she could see through the miles that separated Los Osos from Sunnydale, Willow closed her eyes and fought to keep the tenuous connection the British witch had forged, envisioning her bouncy, caramel coloured hair, her delightful accent, and her glowing green aura.

*Althanea?* Willow called. Concentrating, her scrying eyes finally fastened on her quarry, and with her mind's eye she saw

(I know this place)

her. Althanea was holed up in an abandoned gas station, sitting cross-legged on the ground, her clothes dirty and torn, one hand against her side. Streetlight struggled through the dust motes and Willow thought she could see a dark and wet smear under her hand. Althanea looked up, blazing with the collective power of the coven, a forcefield shimmering around her.

*We've got the knife, Willow, but they have Angel and the scythe.*

Even through the telepathic link, Willow could hear the pain in the witch's voice. Her slender fingers were tight against her side. Dark, and wet. The knife was at her side; dripping in some dark morass Willow knew was Althanea's blood – the price to get the knife too high to pay. Willow's throat tightened as she looked at that knife, the obsidian blade that glittered darkly in the thin streetlight, the runes a darker mass against its bleakness. It would not hold the stain of the thousands of lives it had shed, the power it had ripped.

(For that was the gift of p'achi, to take power, to take life, to rip open the mouth.)

(The hellmouth.)

(And the earth would weep, and the tears would be the black blood of the earth.)

Have to help her. Have to see more.

Not even aware how she did it, Willow pulled back a little, able through her scrying link to see the ranks of Bringers that ravened around the gas station. Ghostly memories ambushed her, and Willow could have wept to remember the last time she had seen that place.

It was Giles then who had a hole in his side. Priests had tried to break through Willow's own forcefield. Ben. And Glory.

As if from above, Willow looked around her, her heart hiccupping as she recognized yet another grave enemy. Rack the warlock stood just behind the front rank of Bringers, but he could not sense her. His attention was focused on the forcefield blazing inside, and Willow wondered if he alone had the power to punch through.

Not likely. It was not Althanea alone who held up that glowing sphere. It was Cassandra, Meriope, and Bronwen as well, and with their borrowed power Althanea, even wounded, could keep him at bay.

No time to waste, Willow. Find Angel.

The ensouled vampire was just beyond the sight of the gas station, beaten to the ground and bloodied, a Priest of Danzalthar holding a wooden stake to his back. On his knees, he stared at his captors with every drop of menace available to him. Bringers surrounded him, another Priest held the scythe in a casual hand, yet they did nothing.

Seven years of scoobyage had taught Willow something. A remembered conversation came to her, and she could have wept for the torment of memories it caused.

(An unknown man breezes into town, says he has something of yours. Buffy, this thing's got "trap" written all over it.)

(He won't be expecting a full attack—not this soon, that's why we have to move.)

(You're my most powerful weapon, Will.)

Exactly when did I turn into a weapon?

Steeling her soul, Willow whooshed back to Althanea.

*What do you want me to do?* she asked.

*I can keep them out,* Althanea said, *But I can't get Angel, too.* Ruefully, Althanea looked down at her side, still seeping blood.

*Hang on, I'm coming.*

Dressing herself in resolve, trying to cast off the tattered remnants of fear, Willow prepared to pull herself out of her scrying link. She had to talk to Tara, they had to get dressed, they had to fight.

Yet…

In the distance, out in the desert, beyond the gas station, beyond the Bringers holding Angel hostage. Beyond Althanea's sight, beyond Angel's comprehension. Far away, yet advancing, in a slow deliberation that reminded her terribly of Caleb's scalpel, Willow saw a behemoth. Scrying through the distance, vowing to take just a peek before she returned…

"Oh," Willow breathed. She wanted to open her eyes, look away, because even without her books, without the Magic Box, without Giles, she recognized that face, the glinting horns, the slavering maw, the demon who held a smoking mirror in his hand. Her heart froze.

(Willow, what is it?)

Once again, Willow found herself facing a dark God.

But he was supposed to be dead. The Guardians, they killed him with the scythe. The scythe killed Gods. Was there any witch or warlock with the power to raise him from the dead? How could Rack have done it?

(I could have done it. I raised Buffy, once. Osiris can be beguiled.)

It was vastly apparent that nobody stays dead in Sunnydale.

The great demon's eyes, blazing red with unspeakable delights, focused his eyes in her direction, as if he could actually see her.

But that was impossible. Scrying, divining, it was invisible. No one could sense it. Tara admitted that Althanea had scried on Willow dozens of times this past year. Willow had never known.

Tawarick looked at Willow's scrying link straight in the eye.

(disconnect!)

Willow's eyes were closed. She saw him, Tawarick, even as she felt Tara's hands on her face, heard Tara's soft anxious inquiry, "Willow, what is it?" Willow's fingers curled in the sheet, her knuckles white in concentration.

The maw could not smile over so many teeth. In his hand, he held an obsidian mirror, thin tendrils of smoke breathing in the desert night.

Tara's fingers were warm.

Althanea was wilting under the blazing concatenation of power.

Rack's eyes were as dark and malevolent as ever.

Angel was a demon.

And Tawarick lifted the mirror to his forehead, and his eyes shone black, and he hurled a force globe right at her through her divining link.

(disconnect!)

Eyes flying open in dismay, head swimming with all she had seen and drowning in stale and horrible memories (not that place, please no, Glory), Willow could not disconnect fast enough, and the force globe hit her squarely in her naked chest with all the power of a demon-commandeered freight train. Willow's slight body lifted into the air, streaming away from the light sheet, and smashed into the wall, the drywall caving, a hole gaping, her spine breaking against a two by four.

Fireworks of pain bloomed in her body as she slumped on the floor, distantly hearing Tara's scream, and before she blacked out she saw a most horrible juxtaposition: the leering head of Tawarick attempting to climb through her vanishing scry-hole, superimposed on Tara's whitened face.

Tara's face, which turned to stare at the rapidly appearing Tawarick directly in the eyes, the semi-darkness of the room making her glorious eyes appear as black as his, and with a voice seemingly not her own, Tara growled, "You will not touch her."

Exactly what did Tawarick see when he looked into her lover's eyes?

The black curtain trembled, the pain was a jail keeper, and Willow was yet human. Terror a wildfire in her heart, rally to protect, to save. Tara was dying, crippled by the amulet, helpless.

Willow was only human, and the pain was insistent, and the black curtain fell.

Darkness, but only for what seemed a moment, and when Willow opened her eyes to electric currents of unimaginable pain, weeping near uncontrollably, the hardwood floor cool under her skin, she found Tara's face right in front of her, pale and shaken. Tara's blue eyes, red-rimmed with tears. Tara's hands, warm, comforting, were holding Willow's face. Willow wanted to move, to look over Tara's shoulder to see if Tawarick had somehow followed but pain held her in a vise as sure as Tara's hands. "Don't move," Tara whispered, crying. "Your back is broken."

My back is broken.

My back is broken.

Willow closed her eyes, panting against the pain, feeling a warm trickle of blood coursing down the back of her head, such a small sensation compared to fiendish yowling of her back. Tara's fingers were strong, holding her so correctly. Bringing the memory of the box of Panacea to her mind, delving inside herself to find the oceans of gifted power, Willow whispered, "Heal."

It was no warming ripple this time, passing gently over her body with the caress of the goddess. It was a blinding flood of power, and Willow's eyes rolled back into her sockets even as her body lifted from the floor, as if the goddess herself had picked her up to set her on her feet. Sparks ran from her fingertips, ignited the length of her limbs, and then miraculously, it was over.

Trembling, Willow opened her eyes; her cheeks wet with tears, and looked for Tara. Tara, who was sitting on the ground, was holding her head in her hands, the moonlight and streetlight bathing her naked body. Willow sat down beside her and folded her in her arms, delayed fear causing her own limbs to tremble. They clutched at each other, and Willow willed her heart to stop beating so fast.

She had no idea where Tawarick had learned something like that, to be able to come through the weave of a scrying witch, and her ignorance had nearly cost her

(everything!)

Tara. Willow was almost surprised to notice that her cheeks were wet, that her body trembled like a leaf blown in a hurricane. Was she not a cool monster fighter?

(that was not freaking cool, there could be nothing less cool, not Xander's fixation with comic books, not Anya's fixation with money, not Giles fixation with cleaning his glasses…)

Breathe, Willow.

Giles would have known what that mirror was. Willow's heart clenched in her chest, a tight fist of loss and overwhelming sorrow. The infatuation she had once felt for the librarian had turned into a comforting companionship, as the tweed-clad Watcher rapidly turned from mentor to friend. And to father, more a father than Ira ever would be.

Willow wanted to allow herself some time, a little time to kiss Tara, make sure she was okay, but Althanea's call still raged in her mind, the scent of terror strong over the hundreds of miles between them, and she remembered the scythe, the glinting knives of the horde of Bringers, and that place that was already a sink-hole of misery in her memory.

So she opened her eyes, and found herself still in Tara's embrace, her hands locked around Tara's naked waist, the amulet pricking both of their breasts. One kiss, then two, and then Willow regretfully pulled away.

Dear Tara, whose face shone in the moonlight, those three thin scars luminescent on her cheek. Willow would have blushed to think of what they had been doing a scant hour or two earlier, had she the time.

2:24 am. She had spent more time in the purple faint than she had realized.

"We have to go," Willow said, softly disengaging herself from Tara's intoxicating arms and looking for her clothes strewn on the floor. Helping Tara carefully to her feet, Tara's breath gave a sudden hitch with the movement and Willow's heart lurched. How dare she take Tara into a situation as this, weakened, as she was, fainting and diseased? Even with Willow's vast powers, could she keep Tara safe?

Dare she leave her here? Under a forcefield? Maybe with Ethan?

Why had the gods not gifted her with the ability to stop time?

"There's big trouble, Althanea is hurt and they captured Angel," Willow began to explain, even as they began pulling on clothes. Willow discarded her frilly top for one a bit sturdier, hoping that Tara would follow her example. Tara moved with the seasoned determination of a Scooby, and Willow's heart soared in pride.

"How is she hurt?" Tara asked, pulling on blue jeans and a tight black sweater. It may be warm here by the ocean, but out near the desert of Sunnydale, the nights could be unseasonably cool.

"It looks as if she was cut by the knife." Even as the words escaped her mouth, Willow wished she could recall them, Althanea's warning thrumming in her mind.

"The knife?" Tara asked. Tara had paused in the act of tying her shoes, her eyes open and inquisitive. "What knife?"

"Oh, just a Bringer knife. They all have the same one, I guess they're not too fashion conscious, and it's long and curved and we really need to go." Willow's tongue twisted over the lie.

For a moment it looked as if Tara would question her further, but instead the brown-haired nurse swept into the bathroom for her first-aid kit. "I know you have all sorts of powers, but, just in case…"

Willow could practically hear the unsaid words. Tara used to have so much power. What could she possibly do now in the face of such evil, with a witch such as Willow by her side?

A lamb. Trussed and bleating.

"That's a good idea," Willow replied, trying desperately to keep from sounding false. The last thing she would ever want to do was have Tara feel uncomfortable, or have her feel unvalued. She looked down at the clothes she had been unconsciously choosing. Blue jeans and a sweater. It was pink. Why on earth had she purchased a pink sweater?

(Because I was shopping with Tara, and joking about durians, and the girl at the market was a Slayer)

(And that night I came on her fingers for the first time)

(It was only yesterday)

"Do you have a map of Sunnydale, or that section of California?" Willow asked, lacing up her shoes.

Tara nodded. "It's downstairs," she said, and she led them both down those stairs, and Willow couldn't help remembering carrying her girlfriend up them only hours before. She could still smell the remnants of their four-course around-the-world meal, and her heart knocked painfully against her ribs.

What should she do?

Gather information, Willow, then make a hypothesis. And don't mess up, because once again, the fate of the world rests on your decision-making.

I don't want to be our only hope. I crumble under pressure. Let's have another hope.

Tara handed her the map and Willow truncated a spell she had used dozens of times in the past. No potion this time or solemn invocation. Willow merely said, "Thespia, please, show me the demons."

The area around ruined Sunnydale began to light up, and Willow found the one stationary dot that represented the behemoth that had broken her back. Why was Tawarick sitting out there in the desert? What could he be waiting for?

She was not nearly so engrossed in the map that she didn't notice Tara sit carefully on a kitchen chair, her face pale. In the stillness of the night, Willow could hear her beloved panting slightly, and Willow turned her heart-shaped face to Tara and crouched on her knees.

"Tara, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Tara responded, although breathlessly. She had a fierce look to her face that nearly made Willow's heart sing in pride. There was no doubt in Willow's mind that Tara was being all brave little toaster again – something the nurse did far too often, yet Willow had to bring herself up short. How many times had she swallowed some fear or pain of her own for the greater good?

And how had Buffy done this, time and again, making decisions that could lead as equally to disaster as to good?

Tara was dying of a brain tumour. Althanea was bleeding in her side. Angel was captured. And the fate of them all rested squarely in Willow's hands.

Willow felt her sanity slipping. She had felt this tilting whirl a few times before – the feeling of impending apocalypse. She had been part of an unlikely army before now; anyone who would call an ex-Librarian, an ex-Vengeance demon, a one-eyed ex-military Halloween expert, and a Slayer toting a U-Haul of emotional baggage an army would be likely to get laughed at.

Laugh in the face of danger. Then face it, and die.

How bleak life had become without them.

And how now to operate with such an unlikely duo? A diseased lover crippled with an amulet, and a witch who could never dress as a grown up.

Willow almost looked down at her pink sweater.

Tharn.

Willow felt herself unravelling. It was too much in too short a time, too much to process. Althanea, Angel, the gas station, Tawarick, breaking her back, and always in the back of her mind a mental countdown to Tara's death. Her world would end that day. Could she do anything to stop it? Could she do anything to save Althanea and Angel? Could she do anything at all but dress inappropriately and lose her friends?

Tara must have seen something on her face, the blankness that precedes panic, the freezing of a rabbit in the headlights, for she carefully stood, and Willow could see the stardust of Orion in her eyes.

And Tara took her in her arms, and kissed her forehead, and said, "Now is the time for us to be strong."

How did Tara do it? Tara's fingers moved to cup her face, her lips roved down from Willow's forehead, fastened on her lips. Tara was dying, yet Tara was her rock, and Willow clutched at her even as they kissed, near desperately. In the back of her mind, Willow knew she had no time for even this, but she could not help it.

The depth of her need for Tara staggered her. And despair would have knifed her in the face were it not for the fierceness in Tara's eyes.

Tara drew away. "Let's get them."

Willow nodded. Seven years of Scoobyage, especially with Buffy, had taught her one thing. Strike hard, strike fast, and sometimes you could get away with everything. Willow knew she was not there to take out an entire army of Bringers. Her one job was to go, get Althanea and Angel, and come back.

Looking at that hard line of determination in Tara's forehead, despite the paleness of her face, Willow did not even want to fake asking her to stay behind. What if something should happen while she was gone? Tara could not even call her telepathically, something even Xander and Buffy had learned by the end.

Besides, Willow would not let Tara out of her sight. End of story.

*Althanea.* Willow called, speaking aloud as well for Tara's benefit.

*Merciful heavens, Willow, what took you so long?*

*I'll explain when we get there. You have to drop the forcefield just as Tara and I teleport in. We'll talk then.*

Tara's face was pale. How great a headache roared behind her eyes?

Time had been broken as surely as her back.

Willow closed her eyes and concentrated once again on the British witch, suddenly wary. What if Tawarick, with his smoking mirror, could sense even this?

Rack was waiting at the edge of Althanea's forcefield, the Brotherhood of Danzalthar surrounding him. Angel on his knees, a hostage for the knife. There was no doubt that was the exchange her enemies desired. If her plan worked, she would give up neither.

The First Evil raged while Yahweh slept, and Willow was only mortal.

*We had best time it carefully. There are a few enemies just outside.*

*Once I pop in, I'll take over the forcefield. Are you ready?*

*I'll count down from five.*

Willow looked in Tara's eyes. The kitchen was dim, the streetlights filtered through the oak trees surrounding her house. Yet her eyes were clear, her face strong. Unconsciously, Willow felt a strengthening in her own soul.

Tara's eyes were the ocean, love within its depths.

*Four.*

Tara stepped into Willow's body. She belonged there. Willow put her arms around Tara's waist, her chin on Tara's shoulder. She felt the comforting warmth of Tara's arms around her, the smell of sandalwood and roses in her hair.

*Three.*

With all the concentration she could muster, Willow thought of the gas station, with its boarded windows, its grimy floor. She tried not to wonder if Giles' blood was still on the counter.

*Two.*

Leave Tara with Althanea, knowing the coven could shelter her in the forcefield. Teleport instantly to Angel, grab the scythe, touch Angel, and teleport back. Gather them all and retreat to Los Osos before Tawarick even saw them coming.

A simple plan.

*One.*

Too late, she would remember that the wicked have their plans as well. And that teleporting into a quagmire meant that the morass would be unbelievably heavy to get out of.