Cool air flutters through the loose strands of hair around Willow's face. She opens her eyes enough to look around.
She's in Giles' car, in the front seat in Tara's lap with her head resting on her shoulder, and her back against the car door.
It's wonderful; the feeling of movement counter-weighted by the stability of warm arms wrapped around her middle, keeping her safe. Keeping her close, even while the speed of the car makes her feel like she's flying through a night sky filled with roses. Dreamlike.
Giles takes his eyes off the road to glance across at her. He sags slightly with a look of relief as he realizes she's conscious.
He turns his gaze back to the road. There's pressure over her knuckles. He's squeezing her hand and the knowledge of that pierces a fresh shard of agony into Willow's already broken heart.
I'm sorry, she wants to plead. For the visions that had been pulled out of her head and used as a weapon, for how badly she fucked up, for everything and all of it.
I'm so sorry…
Tara's hand cups her forearm, a thumb rubbing back and forth over the sensitive underside of her wrist, soothing her into another lull until she drifts back into oblivion with the sound of wind whistling in her ears.
She resurfaces from it briefly as warm pillowy softness envelopes her exhausted body, blankets pulled up and over her shoulders and her eyelids creak open.
Her room.
Her room in Buffy's house. Lit by the hallway lamp in black and yellow tones. Stark shadows over the furniture and across the walls.
She glimpses more roses at the window before Giles closes the curtains.
She breathes in and is swaddled by Tara's scent, all-encompassing the way scents are after you've been removed from them for some time, and she's dizzy with it, crawling into it as she curls her knees into her chest.
Tara…
"Get some sleep, my girl," Giles says, his hand on her shoulder, and she could cry. She could cry so hard and so deep for the fatherly way he says those words. For how badly she needs them. Like she tried her best and he was proud, even though that seems so wrong for everything that's happened. For the guilt etched into her soul.
I'm so sorry…
She's too weak to say the words, but she catches his sleeve with weak fingers before he moves away, holding on to the cuff, stalling him a moment.
He takes her hand in his warm, firm grip, holding it for a long while, waiting until exhaustion starts to drag her arm down again before he tucks it by her head.
"You're home now. Get some sleep."
She does. And her dreams are gloriously empty. No dark promises whispered in her ear, no sinister eyes watching from the shadows.
Just rest.
"Is she okay?" Xander's voice mumbles from somewhere in her subconscious periphery. Just far enough away to be muffled.
There's a hum of acknowledgment.
"Sh-she will be, I think," answers Tara, and Willow's heart lurches but she's too exhausted to rouse herself from slumber.
"But she's back now?" Dawn's voice this time. She sounds nervous, with a slight hint of hopeful, and a lump comes into Willow's throat. "And you two… are you guys…?"
"She's home, Dawnie," Tara replies smoothly and leaves it at that.
"And no more ghosts, right?" Anya interrupts the calm, and Willow frowns into the pillows. "Yay, everything back to normal?"
"Think 'normal' might be a bit of a stretch," scoffs Spike.
"Her hair is still black…" mumbles Buffy, sounding worried.
"I expect it will take time," says Giles, but Willow is slipping back into deeper sleep and misses whatever else is said.
After what feels like an endless amount of sleep, the clinking of glasses and the sound of the bedroom door closing stirs her awake. The curtains are open and a brilliant blue sky framed with roses greets her. She rolls over.
"Hey," says Tara softly, settling a tray down on the comforter.
"Hey," Willow croaks, lifting her head off the pillow. It feels like it's made of concrete, the neck muscles straining as a headache pounds through her synapses. "What are you doing?"
"We're playing the game of rehydration," Tara replies as she helps Willow into a sitting position. "Spike claims it's patent pending. A-although you won't get a prize for winning… Dawn's getting low on stationary."
Willow smiles despite her confusion as she eyes the multitude of glasses littering the tray. Her eyes land on the largest one filled with a thick, violently fluorescent-orange concoction.
"You made me a smoothie?" she asks, her voice tight with hope as she reaches for it, holding her breath like even picking it up will cause her to wake up into a new, fresh nightmare. It's too much… It's too much to think that Tara is making anything for her. Doing anything for her. Caring at all for her.
It's too much to ask for.
"Mango, orange, ginger," Tara lists, passing it to her. "Your favorite."
"Extra turmeric?" Willow asks and Tara nods as Willow smiles a broken, overwhelmed smile. "Oh, Tar…I—"
"I know, sweetie," Tara says as Willow's lip wobbles, wincing as Tara steadies her shaking hand.
She swallows hard.
"Your face," she mutters, reaching out with trembling fingers to touch a livid, purple bruise on Tara's jaw. Her top lip is swollen too, a healed over split darkening one corner.
Oh Tar…
"Yours too," Tara answers, smiling sadly, running careful fingers over Willow's swollen lip in kind. She shifts so they're sitting side by side and presses a gentle kiss just to the side of Willow's mouth. Willow turns to face her, their noses just shy of touching, wanting to kiss her back so badly.
Unsure if she can.
"I really messed up," she whispers, her throat raw with the words she doesn't want to say. "Tar, I'm so—"
"Shh," Tara soothes, cupping her face, making sure her thumb doesn't align with any bruising. "I-It's okay now. Everything's okay now. Besides, i-it came with… unexpected upsides."
She indicates the roses crowding the window pane, and Willow's eyebrows furrow as she turns to look.
There are several vases filled with more roses dotted around the room. Singular ones standing in mugs of water, wherever there's space.
Willow breaths in their scent. Her memories are fuzzy at best, only dim recollections of the visions that had been seared into her brain. She hauls her thoughts away from images of Tara being swallowed whole, screaming as a tooth-filled mouth devours her.
But somewhere there were roses. Beautiful, glowing ones like a sunrise pushing back the darkness, leading her out of it like breadcrumbs.
Willow swallows. She remembers being carried. She remembers reaching out a hand and brushing petals. Something about their touch had brought her back from the brink by just an inch. Fortified something she thought had broken.
"Wow," Willow manages, blinking as another wave of sudden bone-weariness washes through her. "As an upside, it's a super pretty one."
It barely skims the surface of what she really wants to say, but Tara hums in satisfaction and tucks in closer behind her. She hisses in a pained breath and Willow tries to spin around to help, to settle Tara down into the bed, to say she'll do anything just be okay, be okay, be okay—
But Tara shakes her head, and turns Willow back around, tugging her down and bracing her in a half hug. After a second of shifting into a comfortably padded lean, Tara rests her chin on Willow's shoulder.
Willow hesitates for a moment, not wanting to put pressure anywhere sore, but as Tara's arms wind around her, she sighs like she's sinking into a warm bath, letting her head fall onto Tara's shoulder. Just to touch her again makes Willow's eyes sting and her heart clench. Makes her throat burn with tears she's too dehydrated to shed.
I nearly lost you…
I nearly lost us…
"You made them grow?" she asks after taking a moment to bask in this easy intimacy, to really feel Tara's presence at her back and convince herself she's not dreaming it anymore.
"Mmhmm," Tara confirms, and Willow guesses she's not going to tell her more than that until enough time has passed for them to feel safe talking about it. It all feels too close still. "Giles says they're fading everywhere but here. A-and the old high school. The roots… they go all the way down to the Hellmouth. And into it."
"Into the Hellmouth?" Willow takes a long draught of the smoothie, the ginger working wonders for the low-grade feeling of nausea she's been living with for over a week. The turmeric warms her gut with a pleasant glow. Her headache recedes as she downs the dregs, greedily eyeing Tara's glass too. Tara hands it to her wordlessly and Willow takes a sip, trying to savor it this time. Trying to hold on to the love inside it.
Miracle worker, she thinks to herself, even as her sluggish thoughts try to make sense of what Tara's telling her.
"They've…" Tara starts, her voice hushed and shy. "The roses… they've closed it. Or… I-I guess, clogged it—"
She reaches out a hand to steady the tray of drinks as Willow nearly overbalances it as she turns sharply to face her.
"Tara! What?!" Her eyes are blown wide, her mouth hanging open. "You closed the Hellmouth?!"
Tara grins coyly. "Just a little," she says with an easy half-shrug.
"Just a little!? Pah! Just?! And also a little?!" Willow lets out a breathless half-chuckle. "I'm gonna drink everything on this tray and then I'm going to freak out! You… you goddess!"
Maybe in another lifetime, there would've been a bite of envy lying curled underneath her words. A shard of jealousy dampening the moment. But now—with a gleeful smirk stretching Tara's mischievous mouth, with a chuckle glinting in her eyes—the only feeling Willow has space for is awe.
She's mine.
She works miracles and she's mine.
The words shiver and rearrange into;
She's mine and it's a miracle…
Tara wraps her arms around Willow's middle and leans back into the pillows, taking her with her.
"Better do what I say from now on, or suffer my wrath," she says blithely, turning Willow's head to steal a brief kiss from her swollen lips.
Willow's beams, wide and lovesick, uncaring for the way her jaw aches from the bruises, the way her back teeth feel a little loose. None of it matters, as long as she's got Tara's arms around her. Nothing bad could possibly touch her here.
She sighs in exhausted contentment as Tara presses another kiss to her mouth, and after a heartbeat widens it. Her soft lips feel heavenly against hers, and Willow briefly considers that right at this moment maybe that description has a little added weight, but she is too lightheaded with joy to consider it further. The scent of roses is filling her head with a gorgeous pink fog as Tara's arms wind around her tighter.
"Yes ma'am," she giggles.
