Chapter One Hundred and Nineteen

Paradiso: The Soul's Ascension

A/N I was originally planning on writing a Tara prequel, that's why there's never been a flashback to Tara's childhood before. But then the lovely people who are writing the Buffy prequels decided to do it for me. And 'The Bewitching Hour' releasing in August 2023 is set in Vermont so I am going by that for where Tara grew up.

San Francisco, the world without shrimp - April 2005

Rupert Giles could not have possibly anticipated what he witnessed the moment he walked into Buffy and Dawn's apartment. Spike was cooking. "Sorry, I'll just go and walk through a portal into the dimension I belong in." He said sarcastically. Spike whipped around, possibly the worst thing about this whole ordeal was that he was wearing an apron. Over. His. Duster.

"No, this is yours alright," the blonde vampire replied, untying the apron as he walked to Dawn's room and knocked heavily on the door. "Breakfast is ready," another sarcastic remark, accompanied by a tone of contempt. "Oh Buffy's not here, she's 'out'" inverted commas were still not Spike's forte. Then he noticed Giles' still bemused smirk and responded - "oh this?" He pointed to the apron in his hand and the pan of scrambled eggs on he stove, "I lost a bet." Then he walked over to the counter and picked up a mug of body temperature blood and slurped loudly.

"Ooh yummy, eggs." Dawn said, rubbing her hands together as she emerged from her room. Clad only in NSYNC pyjamas, a cheery look on her face - gloating from winning the bet - Giles surmised, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat, dropping his bag by his feet as he'd come straight from the airport. "Oh hi Giles," she said after a few seconds delay, a fork full of scrambled eggs passing her lips eagerly.

"Where is Buffy?" Giles asked bluntly, he'd had a long flight and really what he wanted to do was sit on the couch with a cup of tea in his hands and fall asleep. But that wasn't why he was here.

"Oh she's um, she's..." Dawn thought on it, and realised she hadn't a clue where Buffy was. "She's just-" She continued mumbling out - something inside her not wanting to disappoint Giles.

"She's right here." Buffy said from the open doorway. Her arms folded and an interested, hard look on her face that melted the moment she saw Giles.

"Buffy," he said in a relieved tone, pulling her into a hug. She inhaled his musky man scent and felt like she was sixteen again - a young girl in need of training - so blase and naive to think she knew everything there was to know about vampires and the killing of. "Do you have somewhere we can talk?"

They were squeezed onto her bedroom, Giles' larger frame perched on the edge of bedspread as he took in what was now Buffy's bedroom. He could visualise her old room like it was still in front of him, all those years spent pent up in that house. "This is cosy," Giles said, it was an understated - the room was tiny. The walls were painted in magnolia, like the rest of the apartment, the only patches of colour coming from the red patterned rug and the fairy lights Dawn had put in there to brighten it up a bit.

"Oh come on Giles, it's boring. It's empty and boring. The weapons chest is the only exciting thing in here." Buffy said with a sad chuckle as she sat down. The chest itself was a replica of the one Xander had made her in Sunnydale all those years ago, he said it was about time he upgraded it anyway. Now it came with more storage and a false bottom for all the amulets and witchy objects they'd collected over the years.

"I must say Buffy it's not very you, but then again, I know how much you lost when Sunnydale was destroyed." Giles said patiently, getting to the point of why he was here; "Spike called me. A few weeks ago, about you. He was worried about how you were doing, apparently you are not so much yourself."

"Spike called you? He must've been worried. Giles trust me I'm fine. I'm totally and completely fine, no bizarros going on in here," she pointed at her head. He could see she was lying. The years of being a teacher, the years of being her teacher. He could tell when she was lying.

"Spike told me what happened. With Dawn?"

"Nothing happened Giles. Nothing at all happened that night, I froze. I couldn't move, all I could do was watch Dawn take control and dust the vamp. I couldn't do anything." Buffy replied, her head dipping as she felt shame for the first time in a long time. "I really wish I could talk to my mom about this." She continued sadly, a tear edged towards her eyelid but she brushed it away.

"I know, Joyce was- well Joyce was very important. I think it was just a blip, I think you've realised that Dawn isn't a little kid anymore, she doesn't need protecting as much as she used to. Buffy, she's so talented, Joyce would be so proud of her, of both of you. But she's almost qualified, she'll be a watcher by the summer."

"I know and I am proud of her, I am. But if-if she's a watcher, then what am I? What is my purpose anymore? There are hundreds of slayers, my sister no longer needs looking out for because she can take care of herself." Buffy said. The sadness creeping into her as she felt herself falling. Giles didn't know how to fix this, purpose was the one thing he didn't have an answer. Buffy was right, all her life she'd been the chosen one, her whole life was decided for her, she was the slayer - she had a destiny. But it was like she'd served her time and someone had given her a stay of execution at the last minute and now she didn't know what to do with her life. Looking after Dawn was the last straw in the plan.

"Now you get to be you. Everything was decided for you and now it's not. Enjoy it Buffy! Go out there and enjoy your life, you're young and you've still got so much life left to live." He finally said, placing a firm fatherly hand on her knee and standing up abruptly.

"I feel like I've lived my whole life already." Buffy replied quietly before following Giles back into the kitchen where he was ordering Spike to make him a cup of tea.

*Flashback* Sunnydale, the world without shrimp - 2002

Willow looked down at her lap. Her left hand was fiddling the nails on her right, picking at the loose skin, chewing her already bleeding beds. She held her knees to her chest, rocking.

"Will?" Tara called gently, she peered around the corner before walking into the student centre. Willow had run away from the only class a week they had together. She had taken a few sharp deep breaths before clutching at her chest and running out of the lecture room. Tara had followed her quickly, trying not to make a scene. And now she found her girlfriend sitting in an armchair, panic attack ensuing, her heart beating too fast. She could hear it inside her head, sometimes bonds like this formed, she wasn't sure why, something to do with the magic. The magic inside Willow was reaching out, trying to help itself the only way it can, by pulling on Tara's magic.

"Oh honey," she said softly, her hand reaching out and stroking the side of Willow's face. "It's okay, whatever it is, it's okay, I'm here." She said, her arms wrapping around the other girl's shoulders and gripping her tightly. "Whatever it is you can tell me."

San Francisco, the world without shrimp - April 2005

Willow remembered that day; the one where she'd run out of class. It was soon after they came back from the coven, one of her first weeks back. Tara had sat with her for hours just letting her cry, her body was shaking, and yet she never left her. Tara had always had to be there if she went bad again. There wasn't any room for her to have her own life, for her to be her own person. That's why they'd broken up the first time, because she'd been using magic irresponsibly and Tara wasn't being listened to.

After their fight they had made up partially, niceties were shown to one another but there was no real closure. They had just gone to bed that night on the argument, neither one of them discussing what had just happened. And by the next morning it was as if it had never happened at all. Willow had finally realised where she went wrong, so when she got home one night, bursting in through the door, she called out to Tara. "I'm sorry!"

*Flashback* Vermont, the world without shrimp - 1991

Tara hugged her knees to her chest, rocking. She was sat underneath her father's desk in his office - she didn't think he'd look for her in there. Donny had been playing a cruel game with her, his fingers raking through garden dirt and trying to throw it all over her. She was scared, not just the fear of getting her clothes dirty scared, I mean properly scared. Scared for her life scared. Her jeans had a hole ripped at the knee where she'd fallen on the deck, a stream of blood had run into the frayed cotton edges and was seeping into the denim itself. Tara closed her eyes and counted to ten like her mother had taught her, using her hand to conjure a small light to guide her. She called on the goddess Theia to show her hope, to show her the light but nothing was working.

Then she heard his booming voice - her father, "where is she?! Where is that girl? That demon in my house." He sounded angry so Tara crept a little further back under the desk and held her breath. Her light extinguished as the hinge of the door squeaked into life.

San Francisco, the world without shrimp - April 2005

Tara grew up learning the proper laws of magic, the rules that needed to carefully be followed. For years of her life she lived in fear of turning into a monster, she'd lived in fear of her father, of his drunken violence, of his prejudice. How was it fair that she'd kept her call for all those years, and then Willow gets to go off the rails and everyone is just expected to walk on eggshells around her. No, she'd had enough.

But a scared little girl had turned into a brave young woman, and Tara knew how to stand her ground now. She was angry with Willow, sure, but a part of her was mad at herself for not putting more of herself first. She'd escaped a life of fear only to be pushed around by her girlfriend. Her light hadn't been allowed to shine. She loved Willow she did, she really did, but she thought there were also problems that they had been too busy saving the world to deal with. Now was the time when they had to look at themselves and figure out how to fix the pieces.

"I'm sorry!" She heard Willow's voice and came out from their bedroom. The redhead was standing in the middle of the room, bag tossed to the side, hands out to the side in a position of absolute despair. Tara wasn't sure what had brought this on, she took another step forward and was about to ask what Willow was talking about but then she started talking.

"I messed up. It messed it all up." Tara gave her a confused quizzical look, "I'm so so sorry. Why didn't I check in with Buffy? Why am I so selfish? So wrapped up in my head. Tara what have I been doing?" Willow spilled out, there was a tone of revelation in her voice. A lightbulb moment of recognition for everything Tara had done for her over the last few years. "I mean why are you even still with me? I am totally and completely useless." She said with a serious sadness; she slumped onto the couch.

Tara couldn't contain her giggles. Here Willow was realising all her mistakes, the guise that had blinded her for so long had lifted. "You are an idiot." She squeezed out between chuckles, "Willow I love you, you're not useless. I wouldn't be with you if I thought that, I am in love with you, all your stupid mistakes. I love you but I don't always agree with you, and you do wind me up sometimes." She finished, pulling Willow up off of the couch and into Tara's arms, taking in the warmth of her girlfriend. The closeness that she'd missed with all the tension between them.

She peeled away from her for a moment, "I love you too, and I'm going to try not to let you down anymore." She said, kissing Tara lightly on the lips and closing her eyes as their foreheads rested together.

"There's some things I've been thinking about too though Will." Willow pulled back from her and nodded expectantly, "I think I need to go and see my family." Tara said, with a finality that left them both speechless.