P.S. - This idea was pointed out by bzengo below. If you want me to write a fic with a quote you like, gimme the quote and I'll maybe see what I can do.
Quotable #1
Title: Hell Is Made For Every Person
Author: MellindraX
Rating: PG
:>Angst Warning<::[/b]Disclaimer: These characters are owned by Joss and Mutant Enemy unless I created them myself. No copyright infringement intended, just having fun with them.
Summary: Hell has a special creation for every person, and Tara has hers too.
Notes: This is a tiny bit AU, basically that after the end of season 5 Willow did not ressurect Buffy, did not do dark magic addiction, etc. It is now about 20 years since then.
Hell is a public bathroom in New Jersey.
–Chris
Tara let the cold water rinse over her hands, washing away the almost greasy soap as she sighed, looking at the mirror in front of her. The years had passed her by, but they were not cruel. Her large blue eyes looked back at her, rimmed by only the lightest touching of crow’s feet, and her dirty blonde hair was pulled back in a casual ponytail low on her head, with only a few thin strands of grey standing out against the uniform color. Her full lips were set in an almost permanent smile, little creases a pleasant testament.
Turning the handle, Tara turned off the water and looked away from the mirror, swinging her hands around to look for paper towels. Swiping away the water absent-mindedly, Tara listened to the sounds filtering through the door a few feet away. She could hear cars, and occasionally the shrill ‘ding’ that sounded every time a car left the gas station, but she didn’t pay any attention to those. Instead, her smile grew broader at the giggles and laughs she would have recognized anywhere.
Willow, the love of her life for nearly 20 years now, and Catherine, their adopted daughter for all ten years of the young girl’s life. Both were laughing over something, anything, it didn’t really matter. It never really had. Just that the two girls she loved the most were happy, that was all she ever needed to know to feel her heart spill over with her own happiness.
In the past two weeks, Tara had had so many moments of such simple joy that she’d lost count long before now. They’d set out on the extensively planned road-trip with a common unspoken dread of the many expected hours of boredom. Tara distinctly remembered the first two solid hours of the trip filled with Willow’s high-strung mind shooting out anything that popped into it. Considering the power of Willow’s mind, that was quite a bit of talking and Tara actually giggled remembering Cath’s successful attempt to stop her Mom.
“-because you know that mousses will just jump out into the middle of the street and try to make us crash our car which would be bad because we don’t have a med kit in the car and then one of would get hurt and the other ones of us wouldn’t be able to help her unless we stopped next time we see a store to buy a med kit and maybe then we could pick up some drinks ‘cause I’m getting kind of thirsty and I’m sure you guys are too what with-”
“Mom?”
Willow stopped short, her extensive babbling actually causing her to pant slightly as she swung her head around to look at her daughter. “Yeah, sweety?”
“You remind me of Tigger.”
Willow merely blinked, glanced at Tara who merely smiled, and then looked back at her daughter, completely confused.
“They’re bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy, FUN! FUN! FUN! FUN! FUN!” Cath finished, bouncing in her seat and giggling as she sang the song she could remember from years before.
Willow smiled and actually sniffled a little until she felt a hand on her arm. Turning, she looked at Tara who still had her eyes trained on the road.
“And you want to know the most wonderful thing about Tiggers?” Tara looked at Willow sideways with a soft smile. “There’s only one.”
Tara remained firmly locked in the memory, remembering the perfect Willow-smile she’d elicited by simple truth. After that, they’d spent the rest of the day in the car trying to dredge up the lyrics to old songs, and get the others to sing along. It was going fine until Tara had mischievously begun to hum the tune to the only song by the group ‘Miss Fortune’ she knew. Soon, the car and possibly the entire road was filled with Cath’s more than enthusiastic singing of the favorite songs of her favorite group.
Every day in since then they’d decided on a game to play in the car while they ate breakfast, then spent the rest of the day playing that or whatever variation it morphed into by the time they pulled into the next motel. Already half way through New Jersey, Tara knew they’d be in New York in no time and able to give Dawn a surprise visit. They hadn’t seen her in nearly a year, so Willow decided they would have to visit her, and at the same time make sure their daughter had visited at least half of the fifty states by the end of the trip. From one innocent comment of missing Dawn, Tara had planted the idea of a major one-month road-trip expedition.
So wrapped up in her reminiscing of the happy weeks before the trip, and the weeks included, Tara didn’t notice as the door behind opened and shut a second later. She didn’t even notice as someone walked up behind her. She did, though, notice when that person put a hand on her shoulder.
Spinning around, Tara opened her arms expecting to envelope one of her girls in a hug. Instead, her hands remained spread out beside her, the contented smile of a moment ago flitting away from her face in an instant. Tara could feel her heart freeze and her mouth go dry, all in a moment.
Donnie smirked, the expression staying as far away from his eyes as it could get.
“Good to know you finally got a hug for your big brother.”
Tara stumbled back, her arms dropping to her sides once she’d regained her senses. She recognized her brother in an instant, though he had changed quite a bit since last she’d seen him. Much thinner, the clothes Tara could distinctly remember him wearing from almost as early as sixteen hung of his body, the colors faded away until it seems all he wore was grey-brown. His once wide and deceivingly jovial face had shrunk to give him a sallow face, his once bright beady eyes sunken and utterly dull. Even still, the expression on his face alone gave him away to the woman who had grown up with that smirk lording over her life.
“D-D-Donnie.” She winced; she hadn’t stuttered in years.
He didn’t step forward, choosing to simply stand there and block her way to the door.
“I saw you outside, with that girl.” The last word practically dripped with disgust and loathing. “Twenty years, twenty years since I last saw you and you’re still going around, flaunting your affront to nature.” Donnie shook his head, sighing. “Probably corrupting that poor little girl.” He looked over his shoulder at the door, a high-pitched giggle coming through as if on cue. Bringing his cold brown eyes back to rest on his sister, Donnie’s face contorted into a painful grimace. “Hell, I’ll bet you’re even teaching her that…” He paused, his features somehow growing even more pained. “Witchcraft.”
Tara blanched, trying to shrink back farther into the wall.
“Wh-what are you doing here?”
Now Donnie took a step forward.
“No more than two miles from the house you grew up in, and you can’t imagine why I’d be here?” Donnie scoffed, shaking his head in amazement at his own sister’s stupidity. “You probably weren’t even gonna come and say hi, for old times sakes.” The smirk returned in full force, Donnie leaning back and shaking his head slightly.
“I hop-, I thought you’d moved.” Tara replied, slowly straightening her back against the wall, eyeing the man across from her warily. Donnie looked back at her like she was insane.
“What?! Sell the house? You know how long it took Dad to build the special room. If we moved out, we’d be at least a month without. People could get hurt, Tara. I’d ‘of thought you’d be the first to think of that.”
A shudder worked it’s way up Tara’s spine, memories of the “Safety Room” as her father had called it flooding back into her mind. The solid steel walls and ceiling, with concrete on the floor. The thin slit of a window, almost completely covered by bars. The thick, industrial strength chains nailed with railroad spikes straight into the wall. And the door, spikes more resembling more spears peppering the inside. Staring back at her brother, Tara looked at him in confusion.
“You, you still believe it?”
“Fff, just cause you’re willing to risk your friends’ lives doesn’t mean all the Maclay women are that selfish, Tara.” His expression had become completely sober, looking with total seriousness at his sister. “You can still come back, y’know. I can help.”
Tara just stood, completely floored the revelation. “You still believe it.” For a moment, she simply processed that what she had known for years, that what she had known for years before that was not true, was not known to Donnie. And then his words caught up with her. “You’ll help me?
Donnie nodded. “Of course I will, little sis. If you want to finally start helping yourself, your family has always been there for you.”
Tara shook her head vehemently. “No, I don’t want your help. But… you’ll help me?” She paused. “What happened to Dad?”
“He died about 14 years ago.”
Tara remained pressed against the wall, shocked by the blunt statement. She couldn’t help but wish she were outside right then, laughing and joking with Willow, with Catherine. It occurred to her that she could call out, and that Willow would be there in a second flat, and she could be saved.
“A lot’s changed since you left, Tara.” Donnie’s jaw was set, for once not enjoying giving his sister misery. “Dad died, like I said. Beth tried to get Reverend Store to perform an exorcism, but of course it failed. She committed suicide, deciding she couldn’t live with the demon anymore I guess. I lived alone for almost seven years after that, but I met a great girl named Julie. We got married five years ago, one daughter.” He paused, taking a shuddering breath. “We had a son, too. I found him one morning, torn to shreds behind the house. That was the first sign the curse had taken Julie.” He stopped, staring at the floor for a second. When he looked up, the smirk had returned. “This really wasn’t why I came in here.”
Donnie took another step closer, stretching up to his full height to try and gain an imposing stance over his sister. He didn’t even notice when she didn’t shrink down like she always had before, that she was standing eye to eye with him.
“So, are you going to come home and finally end this charade that you’re normal?” He sneered. “Normal as you could ever be, anyway.”
Tara shook her head, looking her brother straight in the eye with as much of a glare as the shy witch had ever used. “I’m not going home with you, Donnie.”
Donnie’s sneer disappeared, his face already becoming livid. “This really isn’t a choice, Tara. You’re coming home.” His arm reached out, intending to grab his sister. Her hand caught it midway.
“I said no, Donnie.”
Donnie’s face was quickly becoming red, his sunken eyes bulging slightly. “How are you going to stop me? Turn me into a toad, right?”
Tara looked straight back at him, none of the fear in the back of her mind showing in her face.
“I’ll do worse, if you try to force me away from my wife and my daughter.” Donnie glanced down at the hand being held with no kindness by his sister, then back at her suddenly cold eyes. “And if you try to tell my daughter, through mail, by approaching her, by telephone, however, that she’s going to become a monster, you’ll wish I really were just a monster.”
For a second neither of them moved, the only sound being Donnie’s harsh breaths. Tara let go of his hand, and shoved him backwards with an uncharacteristic expression of complete disgust. “Just go.”
He took one last fleeting glance at his sister, before turning and walking out of the bathroom with as much dignity as he could muster. A second later, the door opened again, and Tara’s smiled reappeared.
“Hey baby. You ok? You’ve been in here a long time.” Willow walked closer, pulling Tara into a brief kiss.
“Fine, now.” Tara pulled back, taking Willow’s hand as she walked out of the small room. The bright sun greeted her, and Tara could see as a car quickly pulled away, moving down the highway before turning into a small side road only a few seconds away. They walked hand in hand to the car, where Cath sat nonchalantly munching a bag of potato chips.
“I believe those were my chips, dear.” Tara pointed out with a small smile.
“’Were’ being the operative word.” The girl pointed out primly.
Willow shook her head and sighed, exasperated. “Goddess, I think we have a teenager.”
Tara laughed, pulling the love of her life into a drawn out hug before releasing her and giving the same treatment to her only daughter. Two minutes later, Tara was at the front wheel of the car, driving calmly in the direction of New York. She would have to remember to ask Willow to remove New Jersey from their route home.
It is my solace, my home, the place where my walls crumble and fall away, because no one can know who I truly am. Thank goodness for the Internet, preserver of sanity! -Unknown
Edited by: BytrSuite at: 11/30/03 6:57 pm
. Oh, and bzengo pointed something out. If you want to suggest a quote to me, I'd love to try and write something to go with it. I've already got the next few planned out, but your quote will go into the selection, no fear! I think I'll put that into my main post....
. Once upon a time I too was that kid that got made fun of, that felt so left out. And you so captured the thoughts, the feelings that I can only imagine our Tara would have felt in early S4. So I guess the appropriate response to this fic is....
Yes, I'm sad, I know this.
It's simply hilarious! Loved it! Keep up the great writing