Note: Many thanks to masterjendu for her tireless effort in being my beta. I'm glad you enjoyed Rome!
Chapter Twenty Two
Awakening
Tara. Tara. Tara. Tara. Remember Tara.
Willow repeated the mantra over and over as she approached the gleaming marble gateway, the one that led to consciousness and a new, uncertain life. She was leaving behind the safety of the black hole, the comfort of her mind-Sunnydale, all for a pair of mysterious blue eyes. Willow touched the handle and looked back once more at her saviour, wishing she could put all her myriad emotions into words, and that those words would come all nice and normal from her oft-babbling mouth. But looking into the eyes of her nurse, she realized that there was nothing she could say that would disclose her true feelings, no words could express the depth of gratitude she felt for Tara.
“Thank you, Tara,” Willow murmured, unable to leave without saying something. Intoning Tara's name over and over in her mind, thinking of the radiant compassion the woman had shown her, the fantastic kisses they shared in the womb of the tree, the strength Tara gave her so she could bury her friends, Willow strode through the open door.
Tara. Tara. Tara. Tara. Remember Tara.
She was swimming through molasses, her muscles thick with languor and atrophy. Her eyes felt incredibly heavy. There was darkness all around her, a thick cloud of confusion and pain. And before she knew what was happening, a veil seemed to pass over her mind, even as she laboured to consciousness. Willow panicked, there was a name she was supposed to remember, there was something important to remember!
But like all dreams that are so exquisite when sleeping, that fade like starlight upon the birth of a new day, Willow felt something pass from her memory. She knew it was something beautiful, and something she should have remembered, and even as her eyelids trembled to open, even as she felt the first dull searings of pain through her body she mourned its loss without knowing what it was. The feeling of being in her body took hold of her, and she had no more room in her addled mind for clutching at the dream, it was gone, gone within the black hole of her memory, slid down the chute of the coma.
And she was saddened, without even knowing why.
Willow finally commanded her eyes to open, and with infinitely low flutterings they eventually obeyed. The room she peered into was unfamiliar, and dark, yet she could immediately smell hospital smells and knew where she was. She had spent a lot of time in the hospital this past year, bandaging up the Potentials after battles, visiting Xander...
Xander is dead...What?
Before she could panic entirely, she felt a warm hand encircle hers, and a face appeared in her view. Willow gasped a little at the face; it was a stranger, whose cheek bore three hideous scratches under a healing black eye. The stranger's hair was brown, and pulled back into a ponytail. At seeing Willow's eyes, the stranger's face cracked into a huge smile, one that warmed Willow's heart immeasurably. Looking into those eyes Willow felt a huge sense of loss, and it puzzled her. She was equally puzzled by her concern for this stranger, and she tried to lift her hand from her side, to touch that ravaged face.
“Wha-,” Willow started to ask, but her voice was raspy and dry from disuse. She saw the woman move to a tray by her bedside and pour a glass of water. Then the woman went to the foot of the bed and lifted Willow up to a reclining position, then handed her the glass of water.
“Slowly, now,” she said as Willow sipped the water.
Her voice sounded familiar, and Willow stared at her as she sipped. Everything seemed hazy and indistinct, and it seemed like her whole world had coalesced into this darkened little room. As she drank she looked around her, her puzzlement increasing. She had no personal effects, no greeting cards, no pictures, no flowers. Her window looked out into a dimly moonlit courtyard with a beautiful garden and waterfall. But, most puzzling of all was this woman who was dressed in a blouse and blue jeans yet acted like a nurse.
Her throat soothed somewhat, Willow tried again. “What happened to your face?” she softly asked, for she could see the pain in the other woman's eyes, and the demon-fighter within her emerged.
I just want to help people, Buffy.
Buffy is dead.The woman sat down on a chair next to Willow, and Willow noticed how carefully she sat, and the heavy pendant that hung from her chest. Her eyes widened, and the disorientation and confusion surrounding her felt like a swirling vortex that would suck her into an alternate universe. “That's the amulet of Thespia,” Willow said, recognizing the amber stone in the middle and the spokes radiating from it like the sun.
The woman was surprised. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but Willow continued, “What? Where am I?” Willow put down the empty glass and looked at her hands, the one with the IV, both with abraded knuckles. “Where are Buffy and Xander? Why isn't anyone here?”
The stranger was crestfallen. “Please, Willow, calm down,” she urged, placing her hand on Willow's hands, and Willow felt a strange surge of warmth and compassion go through her. “I-I promise to tell you everything, but you must calm yourself. Please,” she pleaded, and Willow leaned back against her pillow again, suddenly exhausted. Unbidden, her eyes began to close, and she fought against it. Too many questions, no answers, who was this woman, why...?
When Willow next came to awareness, she knew it was day, for warm pinkness suffused her eyelids. She slowly opened her eyes, worried about catching a ray of light right in the brain, but she needn't have worried. Someone had drawn the curtain, and the room was light and airy and pleasant with deflected sunlight. She was hungry, and thirsty, and aware. She dimly recalled waking during the night, a stranger beside her, and falling asleep once again. She remembered being confused, but now there was no confusion. A stark and terrible clarity had come to her while she slept, and memories assaulted her.
She had harnessed the white power of the scythe, and turned all the Potential Slayers into true Slayers. She had exited Wood's office to find her friends, to help them in their battle. She had turned the corner to the atrium, and then... and then...
Xander is dead.He had been cut down protecting Dawn, the killing blow coming from his recently blinded side. And Dawn, poor little Dawn was laying on top of him, a sword sticking out of her chest. White seething fury had overtaken Willow, and she had run down a pocket of ubervamps and Bringers, and though she shot off spell after spell, devastating the ranks of them, they had overpowered her, and bitten her, and run her through with a sword, and crushed her skull to the ground.
Why wasn't she dead?
Where is Buffy?Willow looked around the room and saw the same stranger sitting on a brown couch, dozing lightly. She had scrubs on, a nametag that said 'Tara', and a stethoscope around her neck. The morning light was gentle on the woman's features, softening her ravaged face, and Willow felt a stab of envy. She had always been cursed with a body resembling a stick, and this woman had the curves that Willow had always wanted. Curious... she was wearing a heavy pendant, and Willow suddenly remembered recognizing it the night before. Why on earth was this woman wearing the amulet of Thespia? Who was she?
Willow lightly cleared her throat, hoping to get the woman's attention. The stranger sat up with a shot, then grimaced as she lightly rubbed her neck. “Good, you're awake,” she said, coming to Willow's side, taking one of Willow's hands in her own, rubbing it gently.
“Where is Buffy?” Willow asked.
The woman looked devastated. “Sweetie, I know you have a lot of questions, but can I ask you a few things first?”
Willow nodded and tried to sit up, gasping as pain in her legs bit her. The woman went to the foot of the bed and raised Willow once again to a reclining position, handing her a glass of water. “Now,” the woman said, “Could you tell me your name?”
“I'm Willow Rosenberg,” Willow replied, sipping on the water. “What's your name?”
“I'm Tara Maclay,” she said, and her voice was a bit sad. “I'm your nurse.”
“Nice to meet you, Tara Maclay,” Willow said, stretching out her hand. Her nurse
Tara!smiled and gently shook it.
“The pleasure is mine, Willow,” Tara replied. Willow noticed that Tara held on to her hand a little longer than was generally socially acceptable, but she also found that she didn't mind all that much. The woman had soft and delicate long-fingered hands, and she seemed to move with an inherent grace that Willow found simultaneously intoxicating and unnerving. Willow also noticed that Tara didn't want to look her in the eyes for a long period of time before looking away, blinking and blushing. It puzzled her, and Willow vowed to get to the bottom of it.
Tara asked her a few more questions, her parents’ names, her home address, her birthday, who the President of the United States was. Willow tried to be patient, but finally she could answer no more. “Could you please tell me what's going on, Tara?” she pleaded. “Where is Buffy? Where are my get well cards? What day is it?”
Tara told her, and Willow's face slackened in shock. “Two weeks?” she asked. “I've been in a coma for two weeks?”
Tara nodded even as she moved to the cart to take Willow's blood pressure and temperature. Dazed, Willow let her nurse take the measurements, and as she was musing on the lost time, she noticed an older man walk into the room.
“Well, Willow Rosenberg, good to see you in the land of the living,” the man said, striding up to her bed, squeezing Tara's shoulder once as he walked by. “I'm Dr. Ethan Daniels,” the man continued, standing by her bed. “Now that you're awake, we need to do all sorts of fun neurological tests to make sure your brain didn't go all wacky while you were asleep.”
“Is he always like this?” Willow asked Tara plaintively. Tara merely laughed and pulled out Willow's chart, making some notes. Tara was moving slowly, and occasionally a wince would cross her face, a wince that both Willow and the doctor seemed to notice.
“Now, young lady,” the doctor continued, “Your parents are coming to visit later on today, so I'd like to run a neurological series on you before they get here. How does that sound?”
Actually, it sounded scary, and Willow panicked a little. “Can Tara be with me?” she asked.
Dr. Daniels smiled. “Of course,” he replied. “You don't have anyplace better to be, do you, Tara?” he joked.
“Well, the boys at the club really wanted to see me mud wrestle,” she quipped back, “so I'm glad to have a ready-made excuse.” The doctor barked out a laugh as she said this, and Willow relaxed, finding the banter to be incredibly soothing
(I laugh in the face of danger. Then I hide until it goes away)and knowing she wouldn't have to do the tests alone.
First Tara helped her eat a mushy breakfast of lukewarm oatmeal and orange juice. She thought she was ravenously hungry, but Willow found she couldn't finish what little she had been given. She also found her arms and fingers to be trembling, and after she slopped for the second time, Tara came and quietly fed her the rest of her meal. In a quiet moment after she had eaten, Willow gathered her courage for the last time, she just had to know, “Tara, where is my friend Buffy?”
Tara must have sensed the desperation underlying her voice, for she sat down again and tucked wayward wisps of brown hair back behind her ears. She looked straight at Willow, and something within Willow clicked, and she knew truth.
There is a wall there, but why? “Willow, you and Faith were the only ones who survived the implosion,” she said softly. “Buffy is dead.”
And Willow knew. Somehow she knew, even through the cloud of coma. And as Willow thought back to the first time she lost Buffy, she willed herself to tremble and shake in anguish, for tearing sobs to wrack her loyal body, but all she felt was an odd sense of peace. How could this be? She closed her eyes and recalled the dreadful memory of Buffy's grave, but then her eyes flew open.
“What is it?” Tara asked.
“It's gone,” Willow said breathlessly.
“What's gone?”
“Buffy's headstone. I was just thinking back to the last time I lost Buffy,” and Willow's voice thickened and choked her. Holding back a sob, Willow continued, “We put up a headstone for her, but it's not there anymore. I can see her grave, and the stones I left for her, but where is the headstone?”
Tara's eyes had been getting wider until Willow looked at her, and her nurse scuttled back behind the wall in her eyes. “I-I d-don't know, Willow,” Tara stammered. “Some p-people lose memories in comas, you'll p-probably get it back.”
Even as she wanted to blindly rage, to produce a soulful fury at losing her friends, she continued to feel an odd sensation, a memory almost, that made her loss less terrible. She wanted to get angry at herself, she wanted to know why she couldn't cry over them, she should cry, shouldn't she? She looked closely at Tara and Willow could see that Tara was hiding something. She knew too much, and she wore the Amulet of Thespia, and her face was ravaged. Why?
But Dr. Daniels returned, and there was an ECG, and an MRI, and a CT scan, and other abbreviated names she didn't really care to understand at the moment. She was falling into despondency, and as every hour passed she realized more and more that she was alone, that this time wasn't like last time she woke from a coma. It seemed so long ago now, that five years, and she sighed as she thought of Oz. He had been with her last time, he had been there, stroking her hand and acting as her buffer for the doctors. Where was he now? She'd been in a coma for two weeks, it was plenty of time to find her. Sure, they had broken up, again. Wouldn't he come now? He wasn't dead, too, was he?
(You didn't find his body in the school, did you?)
Now where did that thought come from?As Tara was wheeling her back to her room, Willow had another million questions to ask, but the pain and exhaustion was making her lightheaded. Tara seemed to sense this as she rolled Willow's bed back into place (they didn't even let her get into a wheelchair). “Willow, honey, do you need anything for the pain?” she asked softly.
“No,” Willow said muzzily,
I'll never alter my consciousness again. “Just need to sleep...” She closed her eyes and clutched at Tara's hand.
“Then sleep, dear heart,” she heard Tara say. “I'll be here when you wake.”
But it wasn't Tara's voice that eventually brought her out of the depths some hours later, it was the strident voice of her mother. As Willow opened her heavy-lidded eyes, feeling thick and logy, she first noticed that Tara was sitting next to her bed, delicately washing Willow's face. Her mother must have been just beyond the curtain, maybe in the hallway, for Willow could hear every word.
“I want to know where the money came from!” Sheila was saying.
Willow could hear the soothing voice of Dr. Daniels try to calm her mother down. “I assure you, Mrs. Rosenberg, that the money was an anonymous donation made for your daughter's care. There is plenty to provide for her care.”
“What about all the injuries you told us about? She hardly looks hurt at all. Are you trying to bill for treatments that never took place?”
Dr. Daniels voice was positively frosty, “Madam, we have a dedicated nurse who has worked day and night with your daughter. I assure you that the initial reports were not exaggerated. Would you like to look at Willow's file?”
Willow looked at Tara, whose ears had flushed a slight red, and Willow realized that it was Tara they were talking about. Tara kept deftly washing Willow's neck and behind her ears, using very soothing motions. “Tara?” she asked.
“Mmm?” Tara murmured, rinsing the cloth in a basin of warm water. Willow couldn't stop looking at her, at her slow and graceful movements, and she hated to break their close communion, but she couldn't bear to hear her mother's voice any more. It only served as a painful reminder of the last fifteen years. It seemed that once Willow had discovered that she was remarkably smart, her parents seemed to think she needed no further parenting. No discipline, no rules, no interest in her life other than her perfect grades. At this moment, seeing her parents was the very last thing that Willow wanted.
“What money are they talking about?” Willow asked softly. Tara was continuing to wash her in long, languorous strokes that almost made Willow blush, alternately patting her dry with a soft towel.
“There was an anonymous donation made for your care when you were discovered in the Los Angeles hospital. I later found out it is from the Watcher's Council.”
Willow's eyes widened. “You know about the Watcher's Council?”
“Mmm,” Tara agreed, drawing the cloth down Willow's arms, then gently blotting the area between Willow's knuckles. Willow waited, and she could hear her mother continuing to protest something or other to the poor doctor. Her curiosity was hungry, and this woman, her nurse, was a complete mystery to her. “You actually do have another visitor who wants to see you,” Tara finally continued.
“Who?” Willow asked, wondering who on earth was left to care about her?
“Althanea,” Tara replied, shuffling slowly to the other side of Willow's bed and starting to wash Willow's other hand.
“Althanea,” Willow repeated, shocked. “Althanea from Devon, Althanea? Althanea the witch, Althanea?”
Tara smiled at her and Willow felt her heart leap in her chest. “Yes,” she agreed. “She is here to help you do some healing, like you did after the gnarl demon attacked you?”
Willow's jaw dropped. How did Tara know about the gnarl demon? Just how much did this stranger know about Willow's private life? But there was something else she realized, something that her mother mentioned... “Wait, Tara, what about the rest of the healing? I know how badly hurt I was, I was run through with a sword and bitten by a vampire, for crying out loud.” She looked at Tara's face, waiting to see the look of disbelief she would surely have in hearing Willow's story
(Vampires, that's a good one, Willow, now let's get you to a psychiatrist)a look she had gotten time and again from her parents, yet Tara was calm. “And,” Willow continued, and she lifted her hand out of Tara's ministering grasp and pulled down the top hem of her gown, craning her neck to look at her shoulder. There was a slim scar there, and nothing more. Impossible. The uber vamp had been attempting to rip out her jugular. Buffy, with her Slayer healing, could have done it, but not Willow. Not in only two weeks. “Did Althanea help?”
Tara bowed her head, and turned away her glorious blue eyes. “No,” she whispered.
(She's looking away again) Willow probed further, gingerly lifting up the blanket and her robe to look at her abdomen. She remembered, oh she remembered the slash of the Bringer's knife as he nearly eviscerated her, how the sword thrust into her from behind, how she was borne into the dust, her head cracking mercilessly against the tiled floor...
“Willow, no,” Tara whispered, her voice near tears.
Willow painfully rose up and uncovered her legs. They were still covered in bandages, and she could verily feel the hurt underneath them. So there had been unnatural healing done, if some injuries were completely closed and others were open. She carefully placed the blanket back and stared at her nurse. “Who are you?” she softly asked. “If Althanea didn't do this, did you?”
Tara finally looked at her in the eyes and Willow could again see that something there, some secret, hidden and painful. Willow could almost see something else, a faint flicker of strong emotion, much stronger than the normal compassion a nurse typically showed for a patient. Willow could see the spokes of the Amulet of Thespia poking through her scrubs as Tara leaned forward, and Willow clutched at her hand. “Tara, please tell me!”
The words seemed to rock the nurse backward, and Willow could see tears welling up in her eyes. “I did it,” the nurse finally said. “I had to, or...” and Tara looked away again.
“But how?” Willow was interrupted by her mother's cavalier entrance.
“Oh, good, you're awake!” Sheila crowed, coming to Willow's side. Willow watched her mother approach, and she also watched Tara from the corner of her eye, as her nurse took the basin of water and fled their revealing conversation, drawing the curtain behind her. As she was leaving, Willow desperately wanted to ask her to stay, she didn't want to be left alone with her mother, she had a million questions for Tara, but nothing, absolutely nothing to say to the woman who brought her into the world.
“Hey, mom,” Willow said weakly, resting her head back against the pillow. She didn't look at her mother, she stared through the curtain instead, and was pleased to see by Tara's shadows that she hadn't left the room; she was rinsing the basin in the sink and washing her hands.
Stay, Tara, stay...Please.“Are you all right? Do you remember what happened?” Sheila asked, sitting down on the chair Tara so recently vacated.
Yes, mom, I remember what happened. But will you believe me? No. After all, witchcraft was just another 'phase' I was going through. Do I finally tell you the truth?“Not really,” Willow lied. “Bits and pieces,” she temporized.
“Must be that bump on the noggin,” her mother teased. “Seriously, someone was certainly inept somewhere along the line. We didn't hear about your accident until a week after it happened, and then everywhere we phoned people told us you were dead.”
“Come on, mom,” Willow said, exasperated. “All of Sunnydale imploded and you didn't hear about it until a week later?”
Sheila sat back, a little huffy. “We were in Israel, Willow,” she coldly reminded her daughter. “I guess I assumed you could stay out of trouble while we were out of the country. I should have known. You and that Bunny friend of yours always manage to get into trouble. We finally do get back in and that sham doctor over there had told us a huge list of what happened to you: a broken skull, puncture wounds, weird bites. Then I get here and you're barely hurt at all. I'm sure that man is just padding his report to get more money out of us.”
Willow descended into icy depths of fury.
Broken skull, puncture wounds, weird bites... How much did Tara do? And how dare my mother trivialize it? Willow recalled the tremendous amounts of strength and willpower it took for her to heal those few gashes the gnarl demon inflicted on her and she wondered, oh she wondered, how much did Tara do? From the corner of her eye she could see Tara peek around the curtain, and her nurse's face was livid. Willow assumed she had heard the entire conversation and she was glad. Seeing Tara there gave her just enough support. “For one thing, mother, you are not paying for any of this. The Watcher's Council is.”
Sheila's mouth dropped open. Willow had never spoken back to her quite this coldly before.
“Secondly, I was seriously hurt. But Tara,” and Willow paused, as Tara violently shook her head, silently pleading with Willow. Understanding, Willow shifted gears, “I mean, I'm a witch, mother. I know how to heal myself.”
“Not witchcraft again, Willow?” Sheila said, getting up from her chair. Tara hastily departed again and Willow wished she could follow her.
Not now. Not when there are lessons to be taught.
“Yes, mother, witchcraft,” Willow said. “You've never believed me, not even the time that demon made you try to burn me at the stake!” Calm. Triumphant. In the face of her mother's shock she was Serenity Incarnate. “In all the years since, didn't you ever wonder how I could do the things I do?”
“What things?” her mother shot back. “Hang about with your good-for-nothing friends? Slip your grades? Endlessly fantasize about a world teeming with demons and vampires? You need some serious help, Willow, and it's obvious that I have spent too much time away from you.” Her mother came back to the bedside, and Willow seethed in anger at her words. “I guess this means I should stay here and try to find you a competent therapist, if one exists in this little town,” Sheila continued. Then her face melted in concern, and Willow raged all the more. “Honey, don't you think it's time you gave all this up? Hmm? Especially with all your friends gone.”
“What do you know, mom?” Willow asked, desperate. “What do you know about my friends?”
“We did look for you, Willow,” Sheila said, finally near tears herself. “And everywhere we looked we were told you were dead. There was a list, Willow, and your name was on it, along with the names of that Harris boy, Bunny Summers, your boyfriend Daniel, and dozens of others. Just what were you doing there?”
“Oz?” Willow choked. It felt like someone punched her in the chest. “Oz is dead, too?” But he left her, he had left her again, and finally she was content. She didn't need him anymore, or their sham relationship. Why was he in Sunnydale? Was he trying to find her? Was he trying to help?
“I was surprised to see his name,” Sheila continued. “I remember you saying that he broke up with you again. I always thought you could find someone better than that goyim guitar player.”
Inwardly, Willow cringed. There was no one better. She had looked for years, every time that Oz broke her heart she would look, but every guy she saw was no better than he. Increasingly over the last year, Willow had begun to look elsewhere for the affection she craved, had remembered her first crush in junior high
(Her name was Sandra, and she had beautiful legs)and allowed that memory to fill her with hope instead of revulsion. For just a little while, Willow dared to look at girls as well as guys to fill her raging need.
It would have to be someone kind. Someone daring. Someone understanding. For she, Willow Rosenberg, lived on Earth but in a world far different from most other mortals. She tapped into the energies of the universe, she was one with all the chakras of the earth, she weaved the energies of fire, air, earth, water, and spirit in an endless tapestry depicting her endless fight of good against evil. She was all this, yet she was more.
For she was also simply Willow. Who liked to sip mochas and eat pizza and surf the Internet. She liked watching sappy romances with Dawn, and she liked reading obscure texts and she liked cooking. Wasn't there anyone who could understand her fully, see past the witchery to the ordinary girl within? Or oppositely, could anyone see the normal girl on the outside and still believe the powers she held in her grasp?
And for some reason, she thought of Tara. She was a stranger, a mere nurse, yet she bore the Amulet of Thespia, and did something to help Willow heal, and spoke of Althanea, and had the softest hands Willow had ever felt, the bluest eyes Willow had ever known. And she hid behind a wall, and some primal force in Willow wanted to tear that wall down, to see what her eyes truly wanted to see.
What did she mean to Tara?
What did Tara mean to her?
And there was a maddening glimmer in her mind, a phantom of a memory, a ghostly wisp of something so beautiful, so right.
Breadcrumbs“Willow, are you even listening to me?”
Willow was snapped from her reverie, harshly brought back into this most awful argument with her mother. Oz was dead. But that grief didn't swallow her as she thought it might. She forced herself to look at the truth; that Oz had been dead to her all year. They were done, finished.
”We're not the same people we were in high school, Willow,” Oz was saying.
They were standing on the porch of Buffy's house, and the fall air was chill. Willow shrugged, the thin scars on her recently gnarl-ravaged stomach pulling slightly.
“I know, Oz.”
“We've just been going through the motions,” he continued. It could have come out hurtful, but it didn't. Oz was just contemplative, and a little bit sad.
“Yes,” Willow agreed. “And it's not fair to either of us, is it?”
“You deserve so much more than I can give you,” Oz said, and he lightly touched her hair and cheek. “And we both know it.”
Willow hugged her boyfriend of five years, and was almost surprised by the lack of passion. It had been cooling for ages, he had left her again and again, and she had taken him back again and again, more for a sense of security than anything else for the love had gone a long time ago. He could never commit, and finally, finally she didn't want him to. It was the band he loved, and being a werewolf, and chasing futile dreams. He could never be satisfied with what he had.
“Be well, Oz,” she whispered.“Willow!” her mother said again, and Willow took a deep breath as if to shoot back yet another blistering epithet at her condescending mother, to finally lay bare all her anger, yet she suddenly deflated. Then she smiled, a very low smile. Her mother simply wasn't worth it. That truth hurt, almost as much as her legs, but Willow realized she could bear it.
She felt strong. Capable. She didn't need to show her mother any magic to prove its existence. She didn't need to have a boyfriend to prove she was worthy of love. There wasn't a single thing she needed that her mother could provide, and Willow knew that Sheila knew it.
“The house is gone,” Willow said softly. “Where are you staying?”
Sheila sat down once more and sighed. “I guess we should talk about this now, we wanted to wait until you were stronger, but...I have been offered tenure at the University in Jerusalem, so your father and I are moving there. Would, would you like to join us?” she asked, not really meaning it.
Willow took her mother's hand, suddenly very proud. “That's great, mom,” she said wholeheartedly. “That's a wonderful opportunity for you.” She smiled wryly at the thought of being stuck in Jerusalem with her parents and continued, “No, mom, I'll stay here.”
(For there is a mystery here, and her name is Tara, and I am the last member of the Scooby Gang. That's what we do. Solve mysteries. And eat pizza. And laugh in the face of danger.) “Where is dad, anyway?” Willow looked around the room. She knew her father was a little light on the parental togetherness thing, but this was a little insane.
“He's dealing with some paperwork,” Sheila replied. “I guess if this... this Council... is prepared to pay for your medical bills, and with us having to move and buy a new house, I suppose... we could let them.” Sheila looked a trifle sheepish. “I mean, they aren't going to force you into indentured service, are they?”
Willow chuckled. “No, mom,” she said.
They'll probably ship me all over the globe to put out evil fires, though, but you don't need to know that.Her father did come into the room then, and Willow could see Tara peek once more around the curtain, just to check on her. The obvious concern in her nurse's face warmed Willow's heart.
“Heya kiddo,” Ira said, coming to Willow's side and awkwardly giving her a sideways hug.
“Hey, dad.”
Silence reigned in the room as the three adults looked at each other. It was thick and uncomfortable, and with a great pang, Willow missed the bantering of her dear friends. Tears began to threaten behind her eyes, but she wouldn't let them loose. Not here. Not with her parents watching.
For half an hour she endured their idle chitchat, their talk of Israel and the house they were going to buy. They didn't mention Sunnydale or Willow's friends again. Her knuckles got whiter and whiter as she gripped her bedsheets, willing them to leave; it was taking all of her strength to keep from collapsing in front of them. Finally Tara returned, took in Willow's ashen expression in one glance and smoothly said, “Willow needs to rest now.”
Ira squeezed her hand and Sheila pecked her on the cheek and, promising to write, they were gone. Tara followed them out the door, then gently shut the door behind them. Willow's jaw hurt from keeping it clenched for so long, and she waited for Tara to return to her.
They needed no words. Tara sat on the edge of Willow's bed and opened her arms. Willow crumpled; she leaned forward and buried herself in Tara's welcoming embrace, and felt Tara's arms go around her, so tight. She could feel the spokes of the amulet poking her breasts, she could feel Tara's palms on the back of her robe, she could feel...
Love.
Impossible.
Could Willow truly feel love again? Her very purpose in existing seemed obliterated in that last terrible battle against the First. Her mother's almost casual revelation of all her dead friends smacked of the uncaring aloofness she had suffered at the hands of her parents her whole life. With all of them gone was there anything left to live for?
Willow broke down, sobbing. She buried her head in Tara's shoulder, her fingers convulsing on the thin material of Tara's scrubs. As she vented her deep heartache, the yawning emptiness that swelled inside her, consuming her from within, she could hear Tara whispering softly to her, gentle endearments. She had never been held like this, and again something in her mind nagged at her. This seemed far too familiar, and the longer that Tara held her, the longer she felt the softness of Tara's breasts against hers, the more confused Willow became. She could feel a tightness in her chest, a strange and hurtful joy, and as Tara continued to hold her, showering her in waves of compassion, Willow finally stopped thinking of her friends and enjoyed the exquisite feeling of being held so protectively. Long after her weeping subsided she remained in Tara's compassionate embrace, finding in her nurse a peace and strength she had always longed for.
TBC on Tuesday, December 4.
Feedback, anyone?
? No lopping! No lopping!
very good, yeah 
