Music In Our Hearts

Chapter 15: The End

AN: This is going to be a short chapter, it's basically just a conclusion, and I want to thank everyone who has read this story all the way through, and enjoyed it.

Willow fell to the ground again, sobbing as they lowered Tara's casket into the ground. Buffy, Giles and Xander went to their knees around her, trying to comfort her, but knew that nothing they did or said would help in the slightest. Faith, Anya and Dawn stood back, sobbing as well, but didn't make a move to join them on the ground. They shouldn't. It wouldn't be right to intrude. After all, no amount of comfort they could offer would be nearly as comforting as that of her best friends.

Those four had been together since the very beginning. The ORIGINAL four Scoobies. Together from the beginning, through thick and thin. The only thing more comforting than that would be for Tara to wake up right now. And that wasn't going to happen.

Fuck. This isn't fuckin' fair! Faith thought to herself as she cried. If anyone was gonna die, it shoulda been me. I'm the bad guy, not T. T's never done anything but good. Where's the fuckin' justice? Thought it was supposed to be the Slayers that died fightin' evil. Not T. Not Tara. It... It just doesn't make sense.

Dawn was having similar thoughts. Why? Why'd it have tobe Tara? Why'd it have to be anyone? It doesn't make sense. We're... We're the good guys. We don't die. We fight the bad guys, and the bad guys die, or at least go to jail. That's just... That's just the way it works. So, then... why not this time? It wasn't even a really powerful bad guy. It wasn't even a "Big Bad". It was just a random demon. It just caught them by surprize. How did this happen?

This isn't fair. Anya thought. Even she couldn't make sense of what was going on. Good guys don't die. Innocents, they die. Demons, they die. Vampires... They die again. They re-die. Even Slayers die. But not good guys. Not good guys. Not... Not Tara.

Buffy wasn't really thinking anything. She was just remembering. She remembered the first time she met Tara, when Willow introduced her as her girlfriend, and the surprize Buffy felt when she realised Willow was saying she's gay. She'd tried to be supportive, but even to this day, she was afraid she might not have sounded right when she told Willow that she was happy for her. Of course, the initial surprize faded, and Tara became a part of everyday life. And even up until... until she was gone, Tara always seemed shy. It made Buffy wonder if she'd ever really made Tara feel welcome. Sure, she'd been a friend, she was sure Tara thought of her as a friend, but had she really made her feel welcome?

Xander, although he really missed Tara, and definitely didn't think it was fair, was thinking only of Willow right now. God, I can't even imagine how she's feeling right now. What's she really thinking? Is she saying goodbye? Is she screaming in her mind, begging Tara to come back? Is she blaming herself? Is she refusing to let go? Is it a little of all of it? God, for the first time, I don't know what she's really thinking. It's not fair to Willow. Everything she's already gone through, everything she'll have to face without Tara now. It's not fair.

Giles, for once, was blank. He couldn't think anything. Everyone around him... Buffy, Xander, Dawn, Willow, Faith, and even Anya, who was hundreds of years older than him, he considered them all his children. Including Tara. He felt like he'd just lost a daughter, and... No, he had lost a daughter. It wasn't official. It wasn't by blood... It wasn't even by adoption or marriage. But she had been his daughter, nonetheless. ANd to think about anything right now reminded him that he'd just outlived his daughter, and it hurt too much.

Willow didn't know what she was thinking, either. Nothing in her mind made sense. It felt like something was ripping her apart from the inside out. Her mind was scrambled, fried, put in a blender and poured into a Willow-shaped pan, but nothing was right with her. She was lost, and insane, and the only thing that kept her from throwing herself into the grave and burying herself alive with Tara were the three people sitting beside her, their hands on her shoulders. The three that had been with her, and that she'd been with from the very beginning. The original four Scoobies. Other members had come and gone. Angel. Riley. Oz. Cordelia. Faith and ANya, even though they hadn't gone, but they still weren't a part of the ORIGINAL gang. Even Spike could kind of be considered a Scooby for a time.

But the bond between these four was by far the strongest. Buffy. Giles. Xander. And Willow. The Scooby Gang.

They would mourn Tara together.

The End...