thanks
puff and darkmagicwillow I needed that [img]http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/smile.gif]
hey
willowsgirl! cool! I'm so glad you're liking...I only hope the finale lives up to everyone's expectations. and thanks for posting. I love the feedback and thanks for the rose [img]http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/smile.gif]
on with the fic...
Finale Title: Tempus FugitRating: R.
Disclaimer: all characters belong to Joss & Co. except for a few minor characters. The story and all original material belongs to me. To quote the fabulous Missy Elliot [/img]
S4 that[/img]
S4 Tempus Fugit is more for you. Looking for a bit of angst? Start reading below.
*note my fabulous beta recommends reading S4 first for backstory or you will miss some of the references.
Spoilers: None. This story diverges from canon after S6. I started writing it months ago so there is no crossover whatsoever with S7.
Feedback: yes, please.
If we accept multiple universes, then we no longer need worry about what "really" happened in the past, because every possible past is equally real.
-Joseph Gerver, 1971 Physics Today.
Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning and end.
Mahapurana (India, ninth century) taken from Michio Kaku’s Hyperspace
It was the dream. That same dream that had tormented her back in the real now. And that meant she was there. It had worked. Or not worked. Because she was back in that room with the pain and grief and the dream of Tara. She could tell now that this wasn’t the dreamtime of the Nether Realms. It was the real dream of the Tara that was gone. That she could never see again. And that meant she was in that room in the Summers’ house that was once theirs. All of its smells, its peculiar acoustics and the unmistakable memory feel of it that let her know she was back there just between waking and sleep. She didn’t want to wake up. Not yet. Just a few more minutes with her love.
Because now that she had lost Tara a second time it was the terrible dream that wasn’t so terrible anymore. Her first instinct had been to wake immediately and find Buffy. Find everyone and make sure things were right. Make sure everyone was healthy and alive. But there would be all the time in the world for Buffy and Dawn and Xander later. This was still hers. She inhaled jasmine and sandalwood and felt that gilded warmth against her side and she let herself sink back a little. Back to the dreamworld where Tara was warm and alive against her. Back to the world where they were safe. Where pancakes and a morning of the gentle push and pull of comfortable chatter with Dawn and Buffy waited for them beyond the walls of this room.
Their fingers were entwined and she drew the tapering lines of slim fingers with her own careful not to wake herself. Careful to hold on to that drowsy detachment that would keep her far from the real. Willow opened up her consciousness to feel the whole of the moment. The smooth heat of a bare leg pressed to her own. The soft swell of a breast against her arm. Then it was the gentle flutter of the blonde’s breath against her ear, the sultry play of air over sensitive skin. The murmur of Tara’s lips moving in sleep. Saying her name over and over in a low sing-song and that vibrant living connection between them that was more sensual and alive than any physical act.
But she needed that myth of the physical for a few moments. With drowsy amusement and overwhelming sadness Willow remembered the relentless progression of the dream and reached out to trace the soft lines of Tara with trembling fingers. The whole of her love that she would never see again.
"Willow!"
Buffy’s panicked yell violently snapped the redhead up and out of sleep. Blinking in the faint flickering yellow light, she struggled to her feet and realized in a rush of modesty that she was standing completely naked before her best friend.
A quick look to the floor revealed a crumpled red sheet that she hastily drew around herself.
"Oh, uh…" the Slayer turned her back while the redhead struggled to cover herself and she noted absently that her friend’s clothing were unfamiliar. Dark, form-fitting pants and a tight dark shirt. Nothing she recognized and very un-Buffy in its utility. It looked like a Matrix-y version of a superhero’s wardrobe – tight, sexy and functional. Right down to the shoes. She shook off the confusing wardrobe analysis and watched the Slayer as she surveyed the damage wondering how much had changed. If anything. "Wow. Did we do this?" Buffy reached out to the black scoring on the walls that Willow knew instantly were evidence of a terrible struggle and magic. Big bad magic. Definitely.
"Probably when I went all with the dark magic to stop the spell," Willow shrugged and wondered with her still sleep-fuzzy brain where exactly they were. Because they were definitely back in the future, in the Summers’ house, but what did that mean? Were they back where they had left off? She and Buffy?
And what’s up with Trinity the Vampire Slayer?
But she had more important things to worry about because there was so much now between them. The memory of the angry exchange in Tara’s room made her wince with an almost visceral pain. She had been so determined not to return to this room. To abandon her friends and die with Tara in that other past. And that was kind of unforgivable wasn’t it?
That brought her to another enormous question mark – the spell’s completion. If it changed the past, she should remember only the new version and that stolen time should have disappeared. But she remembered everything. Everything about those precious moments with Tara. The shy young woman with the surprising strength and confidence. Another new first kiss that probably wasn’t anymore. Everything. But those memories created a path for the grief and pain to find her. She could feel the them pulling at her with desperate insistence and inhaled sharply to focus herself. This was not the time for grief. This was the time for Scooby action. Tears could come later when she was alone.
To take her mind off the awkward possibilities Willow studied the room with the clinical detachment of a Scooby looking for clues. The walls were black in large sections on the south wall and broken pieces of furniture and torn clothing lay strewn around the room. But something was wrong. The bedframe and mattress propped against the wall weren’t the catalog pieces she had returned to from London. And the clothes were a strange mix of familiar and completely foreign pieces. Torn black t-shirts and tanks.
Following the circular path of debris, Willow’s eyes drifted to her feet where a careful line of powder was drawn on the carpet. The beginnings of a circle that stretched away from her, lit by candles. Around her. Someone had cast a spell here. She could still feel the residual magic from the Heart and something else. Something familiar.
They tried to help us. Dawn and Faith must have cast a spell. Or maybe Anya?
Her thoughts were interrupted as Buffy turned to her, her face a mix of confusion and something like defeat. The Slayer’s strong hands worked against each other as she stared down at the floor and then up to meet her best friend’s eyes.
"Wil, I’m so sorry I couldn't --" she began, but her voice died and her head tilted to the left slightly as her forehead scrunched in the Slayer’s trademark expression of shock and confusion.
"What?"
Oh god, we changed things and I’m, like, two-headed monster girl now or something…or maybe I’m all permanently veiny and with the black hair and…
Willow searched the walls for a mirror, but found only scorched plaster, nails and yellowing tape. She reached tentatively to her face to make sure, but felt only her regular features.
But I could have forgotten. I could just think that my face feels normal and really…okay stop with the head-trippiness.
Hello, you remember. You remember everything…which is totally bizarre in itself.
But what does Buffy remember?
She searched her best friend’s face, but found only confusion.
"Buffy what is it?"
The Slayer’s mouth opened once as if she would speak and then closed abruptly as she studied Willow carefully. Her eyes travelling over the redhead’s features and then beyond as if she were deciding something.
"Um, Wil…" she began and then closed her eyes. She felt two strong hands on her bare shoulders as her best friend turned her gently away.
"Buffy…" she began, but trailed off as she found herself facing the windows, the Slayer’s hands still resting on her shoulders. Tara’s armoire rested in pieces on its side under the window and her destroyed laptop had been placed carefully on top of it. "You know you could have just told me, really. I’m not like that anymore. I know that it’s just a comput--"
Her body understood before the visual information made its relentless progress through her sluggish brain. There was someone else here in the room with them. Someone blonde and naked in the circle with her and every muscle in her body locked in rigid tension with the knowledge. She closed her eyes and fell back slightly, the Slayer’s strong arms holding her upright.
No. It’s not her. Don’t even think that. It can’t be her. She’s gone. You left her there… Don’t delude yourself Rosenburg. It’s probably Anya skyclad for the spell or…
"Wil?" Buffy whispered gently behind her and Willow felt hands those supporting hands squeeze her shoulders gently. "It’s okay. I’m right here."
Movement at her feet brought her other senses into play. Whoever it was they were stirring, bare skin brushing against her legs. And the soft sounds of someone rousing from sleep. A breathy sigh and the impossible smell of jasmine. It was the dream. She was still dreaming. Had to be.
But the Slayer’s hands were firm and real on her shoulders.
"Buffy?" she choked on the word and squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that were already rolling down her face. It wasn’t Tara. It couldn’t be. "It’s not…it’s not her Buffy…"
"Wil, open your eyes." The Slayer’s voice held a note of tenderness that she hadn’t heard in years. The sound of her best friend, the girl she had trusted once with everything.
Through a blurry haze of tears, the room began to materialize around Willow. The broken lines of the magic’s ruinous path and something soft and glowing below. Swallowing hard against the desperate fear and grief, Willow leaned back into her best friend’s grip to take in the sight of Tara lying on her side, naked at her feet. The candlelight softened the familiar curves, but it was unmistakably Tara.
"She’s dead isn’t she? Or in a coma? Or a ghost? That’s it, she’s some kind of ghost haunting…" Willow’s eyes closed involuntarily as her mind raced through the nightmare of possibilities. She felt Buffy squeeze her shoulders again.
"Not a ghost…and so not dead."
"How could you know that…I mean, you haven’t even…" she sobbed.
"Slayer hearing …her heartbeat, breathing…she’s just asleep." Another squeeze. "Trust me Wil. It’s Tara."
"Willow?" There was no mistaking that voice. Low and musical and still husky with sleep as it rolled over her in a breaking wave. Her eyes were open in a moment to find Tara blinking up at her.
"Baby?" she fell into those arms and kept falling as the warmth encircled her in a world of Tara. Real and solid and there in the room where it had all gone so horribly wrong. They were crying against each other, hands tracing the lines of each other’s faces.
"I thought I lost you," Tara said inside a kiss and Willow found herself blinking in astonished confusion.
"But…I did…lose you," she began and trailed off. Because this was impossible. She had let go of this girl. The connection had been broken. "How…?" she tore her eyes from deep blue, and searched up the black clad figure behind her. The Slayer stood above them, her eyes full of tears as she studied them with a beaming smile. "Buffy?"
"I couldn’t," she began, but her voice broke. "I just…you know…couldn’t lose you both again."
Willow’s mind seemed to be circling the Slayer’s last statement. Racing through the events of the past days and hours. Occum’s Heart and her own dark magic.
"Second chance…" Willow turned incredulous to Tara’s lop-sided smile to make sure it was still real, tracing the familiar jawline gently with her fingers. "This was your…?" she couldn’t even finish the sentence as she returned her gaze to Buffy.
The Slayer nodded through her own tears and Willow rose to her feet in a moment, her arms encircling her best friend, her hero for so many years. They were both crying now and laughing as they held each other. "I love you Buff!" she somehow managed through the tears and the Slayer’s bone-crushing embrace.
"I love you too Wil and I’m so sorry…" they rocked against each other trading insistent apologies as the awkward tension of the past years melted away. And something else, a new set of memories that seemed to be forming as they held each other. Like long-forgotten moments that had been there all along waiting to emerge.
"Buffy?" She pulled back to see the Slayer’s forehead lined in confusion. Both of them struggling with the overlapping memories. Conflicting pasts nudging them. "Are you…?"
The Slayer just nodded.
"Um, should I b-be jealous here or…" Tara had managed to pull on a robe and stood behind them with a soft smirk. Willow found that she could barely look at the blonde. Worried that too much scrutiny would make Tara disappear.
"Tara," the Slayer sniffed and pulled away from Willow to embrace the surprised blonde. "I missed you so much."
Quickly recovering from the initial shock of finding herself in Buffy’s arms, Tara enclosed the Slayer in a gentle embrace. She was clearly confused, but touched by the impromptu show of affection. "I missed you too Buffy." Blues eyes met green over a dark shoulder and Willow felt her knees grow weak.
"Oh my god it worked! You’re back!" Dawn’s voice filled the room and the redhead barely had time to turn around before she was practically knocked to the ground by the teen’s exuberant hug. Images cascaded through her mind: helping Dawn get ready for a date; watching Tara teach Dawn a simple spell. But these were new memories. The Dawn she had left here wouldn’t even look at her. Before she had time to recover the teen had suddenly pulled away. "Tara?"
Dawn was gone and Willow heard a soft whoosh and turned to find that the teen had replaced the Slayer in the blonde’s arms. Tara again seemed pleasantly surprised if not more than a little confused as she gently stroked the dark hair. "Dawnie, it’s good to see you too sweetie," she pulled back slowly and gently wiped tears from the teens face. "But I just saw you a few hours ago."
The teen’s head tilted slightly in a gesture that reminded Willow immediately of Buffy. Dawn looked around the room obviously confused, until something seemed to settle. Or click. Willow felt it too. More memories sliding into place. The spell’s magic working to anchor this new future to the past.
"Oh yeah," Dawn shook her head with a smile and rolled her eyes as if she had decided her confusion had been just a momentary slip.
"Hello! Sister back from another dimension and I don’t even rate a hug?" Buffy stood hands on hips and Dawn rolled her eyes again in righteous teenage indignation before leaping into her sister’s arms with a squeal and a wide smile.
Willow’s eyes met Tara’s again and she was shocked to feel heat in her cheeks. She looked away shyly and wondered at her own actions. But the memories were a jumbled mess in her mind, new ones arriving with every moment that passed. And she wasn’t sure which Tara was in the room with her now. Was it the woman she had betrayed, whose mind she had violated or was it a completely new person? Were they even together in this universe? Another stolen glance confirmed that Tara was still studying her with tenderness and concern.
So, okay…probably a couple here. Or were a couple at some point, which is all of the good, but…
"So were you two in, like, a hell dimension or something?" Dawn’s excited voice brought her attention back to the room and she noticed for the first time that the teen was dressed like her big sister in black fighting gear. "Anya said you were an idiot for setting it off by accident and that you were probably going to pull a Glory and end the world…only, you know, by mistake." Another roll of the eyes. "Where’s the thingie?" she continued without waiting for a response. "The Heart or whatever?"
"It should be gone. It kind of erases itself…" Willow began, but stopped as Buffy extended a silver object in the palm of her hand. "Oh."
"Can I see it?" the teen asked and reached for the silver object only to have the Slayer pull it away abruptly.
"No way."
"Well, how did you set it off?"
"Like, I’m gonna tell you that," Buffy began then grew pensive as she studied its surface. "Anyway, I think we broke it." Then extended the Heart to the redhead. "Actually, I think you broke it, Wil."
Willow carefully accepted the object from the Slayer’s hand. It seemed lighter than she remembered. Still warm from the Slayer’s pocket, the redhead still couldn’t shake the feeling that the metal was alive, but there was definitely something different about it. The residual effects of the spell seemed disconnected from the object in her hand.
"What was it like here?" she questioned as she studied the now-familiar star pattern on the Heart’s surface. "Did we disappear or…"
"Suspended animation," Dawn interjected in a matter-of-fact tone. "You know…like Sleeping Beauty."
"Exactly like Sleeping Beauty," Tara offered with a flirtatious smile. Willow felt her face heat up again and with a deep inhale returned her attention to the less-confusing demon object.
"So what were you doing?" Dawn resumed her interrogation. "Did you do something over? Anya said that it’s some kind of do-over demon machine."
Looking up from the Heart, Willow’s eyes met Buffy’s and the Slayer seemed to be searching for answers in the redhead’s face. Her forehead lined in concentration as she grappled with the spell’s magic and her own fading memories.
"I don’t know, it’s all kind of…fuzzy," the Slayer shook her head as if to clear it and then scanned the room quickly. "Wait, is Mom…I mean, is she…?"
Dawn looked almost angry for a moment before her eyes fell to the floor. "She’s um…" she began and trailed off.
"We took flowers to her grave yesterday," Tara moved forward to take the teenager’s hand in her own. "Roses from the garden." The blonde witch said gently and studied the Slayer’s face intently. Willow wanted to run to her, but she couldn’t seem to move. This was her Tara. Calm and beautiful and offering comfort to everyone. But was she this Tara’s?
"Oh." Buffy’s eyes were full of tears, but she nodded her acceptance. "I knew that," the lines between her eyebrows deepened as her eyes fell to the floor. "I just thought…I mean…I don’t know what I thought." Tara reached out to her and Buffy took the hand offered with a painful smile.
In that moment Willow understood what the Slayer had lost. What she had given up for Tara. And Willow. Joyce was her sacrifice.
She could have used her second chance to….
To what? She argued with herself. To go back in time and make her mother go to the doctor sooner and hope that made a difference somehow? To be there to watch her mother die from an aneurysm?
"Buffy I’m sorry…"
"It’s okay, Wil" her best friend interrupted her with a sad smile as she looked at the redhead. "I got to say good-bye…I think." The pain of it was overwhelming. Buffy once again sacrificing so much for all of them. She felt the tears roll down her face and suddenly realized how tired she was. And how scared. Buffy had given up so much for her to have a second chance, but would she live up to it? Willow felt Tara’s hand slip into her own and a wave of calm washed through her, the connection to her love stronger than she remembered.
"Got to say good-bye to who?" Dawn demanded. "Who?"
Before the Slayer could respond a loud voice boomed through the upstairs.
"Dawn! We’re not supposed to be up here ‘til the Lilith Fair is ov-…" She felt the door to the room slam open and a sharp intake of breath behind her. Then a soft, almost inaudible "B?" Before she could turn to see the source of the intrusion, a blur of dark rushed through her peripheral vision and tackled Buffy. Willow stepped immediately between this new unidentified danger and Tara, preparing herself for defense. But…B?
That’s when Willow noticed that Buffy wasn’t being so much attacked as…well…kissed. But the Slayer reacted violently, pushing her attacker to the ground with surprising force. It was only when the dark figure was on the floor that Willow’s mind processed the impossible events. Faith. Faith was now on her knees, her hair pulled back and no makeup in an outfit that was a perfect complement to Buffy and Dawn’s. Dark and stylish and very much twenty-first century superhero wear. It looked like some kind of kevlar weave or reinforced nylon. Something tough and protective unlike Buffy’s usual high fashion-victim Slaywear. After years of Willow’s ceaseless prodding on the subject, someone had finally talked some sense into her best friend.
"Oh, uh…sorry," Faith sat on her knees blinking up at the Slayer, her eyes full of hurt and confusion. She glanced quickly at the three other occupants of the room and back to Buffy. "I forgot you didn’t want anyone to know…" the dark Slayer trailed off and looked at her hands. "About…you know…us."
"Yeah, like there’s anyone on earth who doesn’t know," the teenager muttered, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Except, you know, Giles. But that’s just because he’s clueless… and English."
She heard Tara whisper a gentle, "Dawn," and the teen fell silent. The Slayers, however, seemed oblivious to the intrusion, completely focused on each other as always.
"I mean…damn B, you didn’t have to get all ghetto on me," she let out an exasperated sigh, but when she spoke again her voice was small and gentle. "Didn’t you get my note?"
"What are you talking about? What note? I didn’t know you could write." Buffy fired back angrily and Willow could see the dangerous mix of emotions playing on her best friend’s face. "And…there is no us! Ever." Anger and hurt and confusion. She knew its source because something was shifting within her own mind. Alongside her longstanding feelings of jealousy and anger for the dark Slayer there was something new emerging. A kind of grudging respect for Faith that had somehow grown into trust and friendship. There were vague hints of a still-stormy relationship between the two Slayers. She thought she could feel Tara mixed in there as well and several conversations with the blonde flashed through her mind. The low soothing tones of her voice and the words ‘just give her a chance’ echoing in a thousand permutations.
"Fine. Whatever. There’s no us…." The dark Slayer shook her head obviously hurt by Buffy’s remarks. "It’s in your pocket," Faith pointed still kneeling in front of the blonde. "I mean, it’s not really a note, cause you know, you’re right…not exactly that hot with the whole writing thing…and I would’ve put it in your hand, but kinda…stiff as a board so…." The dark Slayer rambled nervously as Buffy dug in her pocket finally extracting something she held tightly in her left fist, her eyes closing slowly. Willow felt a slow swell of more memories as her feelings for Faith evolved again into a kind of sisterly affection side by side with the other memories of the violent psychopath who had held her at knife point. Faith, she noticed had risen slowly to her feet, careful to keep her distance from the blonde whose eyes were slowly opening to study the object in her hand. A black tube of something. Mascara? Lip gloss? "In case you woke up when I wasn’t here," she finished, her voice painfully soft.
Buffy’s eyes went wide and her mouth fell open as she looked from the tube to Faith and finally to Willow. She didn’t know the significance of the object in the Slayer’s hand, but knew what her best friend was going through. The confusion. The visceral tug-of-war between the dark concrete of the past they knew and the flexible shining thing being built with each second that passed.
"Wil?" Buffy’s eyes searched hers, begging for an answer, an explanation or more likely a denial. She could feel the fragility of the situation, the spell building the past from these moments and the broken memories they all shared. But more terrifying was the power they all had to change everything. Right now. That any action or inaction could affect everything. Could take Tara from her again.
But isn’t that kinda…you know…life?
She could see the desperate pleading in Faith’s face. And something else she had never seen there. Hope.
Second chance. Maybe there was enough to go around. Enough for all of them. And as crazy as it seemed to most of her, as much as it hurt that younger Willow who idolized her best friend and resented the exclusive connection the Slayers shared, the idea of Buffy and Faith together was right in that deep down place she was learning to trust. Her heart.
But how to say it without disrupting things? Without influencing events with her own prejudices and past. Something filtered up through her psyche. Something her best friend had said in that room before the Heart’s spell was cast.
"There’s always a catch?" Willow offered with a shrug and a smile. Buffy struggled visibly with the changing landscape of their past, her face twisted in confusion as the words settled between them.
"Oh, my god, this is hell," she heard her best friend mutter. "I try to do the right thing and I end up in some hell place where Faith and I..." But with a quick glance to her fellow Slayer, a kind of astonished recognition and acceptance became evident in a tiny, terrified smile. Buffy nodded almost imperceptibly as she stared at the tube of lip gloss and it happened. Reality stretched and snapped as the spell lined up the future and the past with a thunderclap of certainty that almost knocked the redhead to her knees. "Faith and I," the Slayer mumbled again.
Buffy cleared the space between herself and Faith in a moment, the two of them locked in a kiss that would have killed another human and Willow felt a ripple in the fabric of everything emanating out from the entwined pair of Slayers in an electric rush.
Without thinking she glanced at Tara becoming very aware suddenly the blonde witch was wearing only a bathrobe over total nakedness and she was wrapped in a sheet. Their reunion had been positively chaste in comparison. Maybe they weren’t a couple? Or had been once and she’d done something to break them up? Her eyes she realized with a start had involuntarily descended to the exposed skin of the blonde’s chest. With a start, she brought her eyes up to Tara’s and was shocked to see her studying her carefully as her thumb circled over the back of the redhead’s hand. Swallowing hard, Willow fought the urge to look away as Tara’s lips curved into a lop-sided smile. Why did she feel so awkward? Like she had a high school crush?
"Okay, sister smooching is just...yuck. I’m going to Rain’s!" the teen announced with disgust and quickly moved toward the door.
"Not in my gear!" Buffy yelled breathless between kisses and Willow laughed at the beautiful everyday insanity of it all. Amazed that the sight of her best friend kissing her former arch-nemesis seemed completely normal.
Not to mention a girl. Miss Straight Girl America is all over a girl.
When did that happen?
Pieces of an awkward conversation in the coffeehouse flickered through her mind. Buffy, red-faced and mortified asking her best friend for advice without actually asking.
‘Buffy, why are we playing ‘hide the gender pronoun?’’
Her face reddened at the memory and the terrifying attempts at conversation and explanation that followed.
‘Really, I’m so not, like, the lesbo guru or whatever.’
"Fine! Jeez! Get a room already!" Dawn yelled from the hall.
"This is my room…or was until Red went all…" Faith growled, only to be silenced by another deadly round of kisses from the blonde. Well, that explained all the dark clothing and the leather strewn around the room. But wasn’t this their room? Hers and Tara’s?
"Ready to go home?" Tara asked gently and squeezed Willow’s hand.
"I, um… home? You mean we’re not home now?"
Blue eyes studied her carefully as the blonde’s head tipped slightly to the left. Tara was reading her. The familiar feel of the blonde’s energy running gently through her and over her. She couldn’t help wondering what she saw there. Was her energy still dark? Did the traces of dark magic follow her? "W-we can stay here tonight if you want."
An image of the two of them making love on the bare wood floors of an apartment coursed through her mind. A fantasy or maybe a new memory. Willow didn’t know but she blushed at the potential and looked to the floor again. "Um, no, I…" she paused for a moment to gather her strength to ask for the only thing she had ever really wanted. "I want to go home Tara."
by snuggle79 » Sun Apr 06, 2003 8:48 pm 
Buffy's goodbye to her mother was really sad. Same thing plus big emotions can be said about Willow and Tara's journey. Wow. 
There is great continuity between your two fics, like the references to the scoobies and their lack of emotional stability. In TF s4, you had Willow reflect on the fact that they all ran away when the situation got bad. In s7, I loved the way that Buffy and Dawn began to question the way they had treated Willow. The way they had automatically ran from the reality of the impact Tara's death had on Willow. Sure, it took a hell of a lot for them to realize that, but they did and they came through. 
). I have to go with Tullip on this one, you are the writer of the impossible. 
Of course this all started with the initial concept of Occum's Heart in TF S4, but I'm looking back at the past few chapters and....Wow. You write not as if your guessing at something which you could truly only ever imagine but as if is absolutely real. And through the eyes of Buffy, Willow, and more amazingly Dawn I not only got to see this "reality" but, I also experienced the thoughts & was overwhelmed by the feelings. As always your amazing writing takes me in & ultimatley leaves me breathless. Don't worry, oxygen issues aside, breathless is good. 
Especially when it comes to fanfic, that and a few other things I can think of.
I can't help but feel that as the dark slayer leaves the earth she takes with her endless possibilities of light. Despite the fact that she most often embodied darkness, all I really see in her is ever so many similarities with all the other characters that we carry so close to ourselves. I see so many paralells (the ones w/Buffy have been commented on too much, so bleh), but also Xander, Dawn, and yes even our beloved Willow & Tara. She could have done so much good, like them. All she ever really wanted was a chance, a second chance at that. Still, without the heart, this is her only shot isn't it? You wrote it beatifully. thanx.
I think I'm in love. heh. and how are your sexy new glasses doing? 
, 
