Loco2 - Sorry Steph, I didn't
mean to sound appalled! I suppose it's because I lack confidence in myself. People are always telling me I'm good at things I do, but I never believe them! Anyway, I'm glad you ain't leavin', the best (for W/T) is yet to come!
Tulipp - No problemo. I don't really expect any replies at all! And I know what you mean about not reading other people's fics while you're still creating. I've hardly read a thing while I've been writing 'Endless', and now I have a lot of catching up to do. 'Terra Firma' is first on my list.
gertie1 - Thank you, Helen. Your wait is now over.
So....here's the final part. Thanks to everyone who stayed with it through the pain. Goodness at the end is your reward.
(And can I apologise in advance to anyone who knows real Latin or Welsh? I did the best I could with what I had, but I'm damn sure I screwed up with the grammar!)
Title: ENDLESS
Author: Mike of the Nancy Tribe
Feedback: I’m open to anything.
Rating: PG-13, I think. No laughs, no smut. Very serious.
Disclaimer: Most of the characters herein belong to ME. They should have taken better care of them.
Pairings: Willow & Tara, together again, at the end.
Spoiler Warning: Only if you haven’t seen season six. And I’ve used the hints we’ve been given of what will be happening at the start of season seven.
Summary: My way of bringing Tara back. It’s not easy, but it ends well.
ENDLESSPart Four: HomeThe rush of blood sang through my head, dragging me back into the world. I can only have been unconscious for a matter of seconds. Pain and shock radiated from the point where the bolt had struck me, but I was still alive.
From where I lay crumpled at the foot of the wall I could see Henry, the crossbow still in his left hand – but his right was covering Willow’s face, blocking her mouth and nose. Her body was resisting. Her chest arched upwards, her hands clawed at the bed covers. She was not giving up.
“Get away from her!” I gasped.
He turned, levelled the weapon at me again. “Let’s finish this now,” he replied calmly.
Very well, I thought. My right hand was covered in my own blood. I thrust my arm out, red palm towards him, and shouted
“Amoveo!” He flew through the air and struck the wall opposite about six feet from the ground. He left a smear of his own blood behind as he slid to the floor in a tangled heap.
As Henry’s hand left Willow, she drew in a heaving breath, and a shudder went through her helpless body.
In her own head it was probably a scream, but the word that came from her aching throat was little more than a sob. But it was a word. The one that I knew would be her first:
“Tara!”I levered myself up from the floor, gritting my teeth against the pain that throbbed through my left arm.
Willow was quiet again, exhausted and sleeping. I brushed the hair away from her face, so pale and peaceful now. I hoped that she was dreaming of Tara.
The crossbow bolt had pierced the muscle above my left breast. I hoped it had a plain steel tip, and not a barb. Wiping the blood off my hand, I grabbed the shaft and withdrew it in one swift movement of glorious pain. Gasping, I saw that the wound was clean, and I still had movement in my arm. I wadded up a couple of handkerchiefs and placed them under my shirt, against the hole.
I had come so close to failure, so close. But I had no time to dwell on that now. Surely the noise would have stirred someone to investigate? Unless….I mentally ‘sniffed’ the air. There was a dampening spell on the room. No sound could get in or out. So Henry had a little power of his own, then? Or there was another nearby. Council operatives rarely work alone. I think it’s a matter of trust – or the lack of it. I was one of the few who ever did….mostly because my style and methods were ‘distasteful’ to others.
So my plans had to change. I needed help.
But first, I still had to make sure that Willow was strong enough for the journey back to Sunnydale. A different kind of journey. I could have begun the spell again, but there was another solution at hand. Henry was still breathing, but wouldn’t awake for hours. I dragged his limp form over to the bed, and propping him up, swallowed my loathing as I placed his hand upon Willow’s. My own hand covered theirs, as I said the words:
“Drink of his strength, little one, in the name of Lludd, that bone and sinew both may be restored. Drink!” I could feel his energy flow through me into Willow. The temptation to take it all was very great. She deserved it so much more than he.
Take it Willow, take it all. Use it to grow strong again, to help me take you back to Tara. And when you meet again, I’ll cry at your first embrace. And when you kiss, I’ll know the world is right again.I took my hand away, and his. I had taken life before, but not like this, draining someone dry like a vampire. Even I had never gone that far. And Willow was breathing more steadily now, and her eyes were dreaming again. Her face was brighter, her lips had more colour. I had taken a little of the energy for myself, to help in healing. Henry was a puppet with his strings cut. I threw the rag doll away from the bed.
There was no way now that I could get Willow away from the house unseen. No way to get her on a plane before the Council’s hounds tore at my heels. I needed Marion Joyner, and all the power she had left. I didn’t know if she would help me or hinder me. But she had been a friend for a very long time. And Willow and Tara and I….we all needed a friend right then. There was only one way to find out.
As I opened the door, the dampening spell dissolved. Without speaking, I called Marion’s name, and cast a minor summoning. Within a minute or two she emerged from a room below, climbed the huge staircase and appeared in the doorway.
“John?” she said, “I thought I heard you call me. Is anything….” Then she saw the blood seeping through my white shirt. “Dear Goddess! What’s happened? Are you all right?”
“Shut the door, Marion. I’m hurt, but I’m okay. Willow’s okay.” She glanced over to the bed, saw Willow apparently at ease, breathing strongly. Then she caught sight of Henry’s tangled form.
“John! What have you done? Is Henry….?”
“He’s alive, though he doesn’t deserve to be. He’s Council, Marion. Wet works, if I’m any judge.”
She looked sharply at me, as she checked the fallen man’s pulse. She was deciding if I had tried to be judge
and executioner. “You’ve taken from him, haven’t you?”
“For Willow. Only for Willow.” She probably saw the small lie in my eyes. “He shot me with a crossbow, and tried to suffocate Willow. They’ve been watching us, Marion. Waiting to see if I could bring her back. They’re scared of her, and you know they haven’t trusted me for a long time.”
She was weighing my words, and her own trust in me, as she said “Let’s take care of that shoulder. I can see you have a lot more to tell me.” So I told her.
As she fetched antiseptic, painkillers and bandages from the bathroom, and began to tend to my wound, I told her of what I had found within Willow. Her hands were skilled, and her eyes never left mine.
As I spoke, the natural stillness of her face seemed to desert her. Emotions that I had never seen in her before came to the surface. I think there was disbelief at first, for which I didn’t blame her. Then wonder perhaps, and sorrowful joy, and a dawning acceptance that the universe held more miracles than even she had ever dreamt.
I think she
had to say the words. “Is it really true?”
I nodded, my eyes glistening. She asked me another question with her eyes. I answered the same way. She placed one hand upon my chest, and the other across my brow. She wanted to feel what I felt, know what I knew, at the deepest level. As she listened to what my mind and soul contained, she closed her eyes, and began to gently weep. I wept with her, for what had been lost, and what had been found, and the love, the immense, unending love that still cradled both.
She was quiet for a time after she broke the link between us. She knew all that I knew, but not what I planned. Marion was in her early fifties, and had been Wiccan all her adult life. She knew better than to mess with matters of life and death. Would she stop me if I told her? She was all that I had left. I knew I had to take another gamble. But I also knew that she might do the same as me, for the one she loved above all things. Her wife, Leah, was Willow to her Tara. I had stood by them at their handfasting, twenty years before. The love between the two of them was the strongest I had known, until now. She would understand. She had to.
“I have to go to Sunnydale. With Willow. And it has to be tonight.” She just looked at me, saying nothing.
“There may be another one watching us, from inside or outside the house. I can’t let them stop me.”
Still no answer. But I saw comprehension begin to dawn on her face.
“Marion, please….”
“Just tell me, John. Trust me enough to tell me the stupid thing you’re going to do.”
“Going to do”, not “intend to do.” Hope rose in me. She knew, and would not stop me.
“I’m going to bring Tara back, Marion. And Tara will bring Willow back. You know what’s in my heart. You know I have to try. Until they’re back together, I’ll have no peace. It feels….it feels as if they’ve always been there, at the end of the dark path I’ve been walking. A love as powerful as theirs can’t be denied. You know it Marion. You’ve felt it, through me. I have to do this.”
She looked at me sadly. “I know. And I think I know the cost. What you’re going to do affects the balance. If it were anyone else, I would stop them in an instant.”
She looked at Willow.
“But you’re right. My heart tells me you’re right. I can deny them nothing. What they had….what they
have goes beyond my experience. Only the Goddess knows what lies ahead for them. But I feel her hand in this, John. Whatever powers you call upon to achieve this, it’s her love that has bound their fates together. I trust in her to trust you.”
I took both her hands in mine, and kissed her cheek. “Bless you….and thank you. But we have to move swiftly. Who can you trust? Do you have the power?”
“I trust all my witches. Henry wasn’t one of us. He brought the doctor from London, and stayed on to help care for Willow. I should have known. There was another man with him, who went straight back to town, or so they said. I’ll let the hounds roam the gardens tonight.”
“Good, good,” I said. “But after what you did for Rupert, can you get Willow and I to Sunnydale?”
“I think we can,” said Marion. “I’ll need my strongest, Leah and Megan. But I can’t tell them why. I’m already straining my oath as a Wiccan by helping you. But for this….I think perhaps the Goddess will understand. We’ll begin at eight.”
Before she left, she told me where Tara was buried. Giles had told her. Her blood family had allowed her friends to take care of her. It seemed her father no longer had any interest in her, and so left her to her real family, in Sunnydale. I blessed them in my heart, for loving her. Marion swore that she would send me right to her.
I sat beside Willow as she slept. She was definitely dreaming now, her lips murmuring Tara’s name over and over. I wanted to meld with her again, to feel once more the love that flowed between the two immortal souls caught in each other’s orbit. But I would be an intruder now. They had to find each other, and learn that the story they thought had ended was still being told. If the gods allowed, it would never end.
She’s with you Willow. She will always be with you. Hold on to her in your heart, and she will soon be in your arms. I swear it to you.Henry’s still-unconscious form was taken away soon after. Then others came to clean the room, and tend to Willow. While I prepared myself elsewhere, the IV tubes were removed, and she was gently washed, and dressed in her own clothes.
I meditated alone, steeling myself for what was to come. I could do this. I could. All the threads of my life were pulling together to weave this one moment. Over countless years I had travelled lonely roads darker than most people would ever see. To help others, I had caused hurt, and pain, all in the name of the greater good. Many times I had wondered if there was still any good in me. I had bargained for magic with beings older than time, and left parts of me in places that would never see human light. But for Willow and Tara, I would change the world. That selfish part of me was saying, if I can save them, maybe I can save myself.
But there was a bigger part of me, the one that saw the love they shared, and rejoiced, that wanted nothing more than to give them back to each other. Their love was an element of nature, without which the universe itself would be incomplete. Willow loved Tara. Tara loved Willow. A fundamental truth at the heart of all things. I knew contentment, and was ready.
Just as Marion had said, they began at eight. The carpet was rolled back. In Willow’s locked room, I sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, Willow cradled in my arms. I felt like a father at last. And I had two daughters. She was shivering a little, but her mind was finally beginning to waken.
Each breath was a whisper of love to Tara, to the only one who could mend her and make her complete, as she made Tara complete. I saw in her gentle face all the hope of love that I had ever known. And so much more. I envied them all that they had had, and yet could have. They were not perfect human beings, I knew that. Willow especially had so much to forgive herself for, and for which to be forgiven. But if their love could overcome death itself, then all the walls of the world were broken down, and all possibilities made real. That was my faith.
A circle of sand and light was laid around us, and a triangle of branches. The three women assumed their places, each at one of the triangle’s points. To my left stood Megan, youngest of all the coven, to my right, Leah. As Marion came to stand before me, she caressed her wife’s cheek, and I knew that she was thinking
“For you, my love. I would do this for you.”As the chanting began, I wondered how it would feel, this journey that we were about to make. I had never done this before, and Giles hadn’t told me what to expect. From what little I knew, it would be draining, for all of us. And the time it would take was unpredictable….like so much magic. I looked up at Marion, through streamers of light that were now encircling us like the aurora.
“Thank you. And goodbye, old friend,” I smiled at her.
Willow stirred in my arms. Now she was smiling too. I knew that they had found each other. I hugged her closer to me as she murmured sleepily “Tara baby. I love you. Take me home.”
Yes Willow, I’m taking you home. Sleep now my love. No more bad dreams. We’ll be home soon.I no longer knew if the thoughts were mine, or Tara’s.
And then we were gone.
----------------------------------------
And then we were there.
Between had been a tunnel of whirling energy, and a force like many gravities pulling at my skin. It seemed to last an age. A hundred days of darkness and light, and no air to breathe. I was exhausted. I opened my eyes.
We were on grass, in a cemetery. Trees were scattered everywhere among the graves, with grey stones becoming visible as the sky lightened to the east. I checked the time and date on my watch. Past midnight, into the next day, and dawn was coming soon.
I wanted to sleep, but Willow was breathing heavily, and her face seemed drawn. I hoped the journey hadn’t taken too much from her. I gently moved her from me, leaned her back against a gravestone. I smoothed away the hair that had fallen across her eyes.
“Home, Willow,” I whispered. “You’re home.”
Her voice came to me in the same breath. “Home. We’re home, Tara. You’ll always be my home.”
I looked around me. If I had to search for Tara’s grave….But Marion hadn’t failed me. Sheltered beneath an overhanging tree - it had to be a willow - not fifteen feet in front of me, was the simple grey headstone. I could smell the honeysuckle flowers mounded around its base. And in the growing light, I could read the words.
Tara Maclay
1980 – 2002
Loved by Willow
Loved by us all
Oh Tara. Here you are. Cold and lonely while the sun comes to warm the world. What monsters are they that think you could deserve this? Who judged you, and said “No more?”
I can’t let it end here. I won’t.I hoped I had the courage.
I rested for a few minutes beside Willow. I looked at her and saw an angel. The pre-dawn glow bathed her face, her hair becoming copper in the radiance. I had never seen anything more beautiful. She was worth all I had to give. Nothing in my life had prepared me for this, but I knew it was
right. Here, in this grove of light and shadow in a place of death, I would have the chance to make right a terrible wrong. The need for mercy had never been greater.
As I lifted Willow in my arms, her body light as air, she moaned aloud the beloved name once more. Their souls were touching now, I was sure, aching for each other in ways I couldn’t dream of. I lay Willow down against the smooth bark of the tree that bore her name, and stood, for her, at the foot of Tara’s grave.
I had nothing with me. No books of magic, urns or crystals, no candles or herbs. It had to be me. Down to the raw essence of whatever power I possessed. But then….hadn’t it always been this way? All the rest were just props, trinkets to help make the mood, to bring out whatever was inside. I thought of what was inside Willow, and knew where the true magic lay. That was the true power, what they had between them, what bound them to each other. Nothing else was real.
For what I had to do, Tara had to be here, above the earth. The thought of those hands, so loved by Willow, having to do what the Slayer did, froze my blood. I couldn’t make her claw through dirt in darkness and terror, not her. Though still without life, she had to rise another way.
On my knees, I called out to the winds:
“Notus! Aquilo! Mihi parendum est! You must obey me!” My bones began to hum, in tune with the air.
“Carus Tara! Beloved one! In nomine deos priscus!” Beneath me, the earth was shivering.
“In the name of the elder gods, unearth! Rise up! Eruo! Exsurgo!” The ground above the grave began to boil away. My outstretched arms felt the weight beneath them as the wood of the coffin broke the surface.
“Exsurgo! Aperio!” Then the casket itself melted away, and she lay there, on grass that was undisturbed, as if death had never come to this place.
I stayed on my knees, breathless, looking towards that still form. Her friends - her family - had dressed her in a long gown of golden-brown, and a close-fitting bodice of blue-green that shimmered in the early light. She looked like a princess, waiting for the soul-deep kiss that would wake her. I laid Willow beside her, and placed her fingers upon Tara’s lifeless hand.
Only a few weeks had passed since that terrible day, but I couldn’t look upon her face. I wanted to know her as she had been, as Willow had loved her. Willow had caressed that cheek, touched those lips with her own, tangled her hands in that long, sun-blonde hair. Their eyes had gazed at each other with longing and love. And the knowledge that, for each of them,
this was the one. The only one. The heart of everything that life would ever be. I wanted to know
that Tara,
that Willow, alive and loving, and living for each other.
But I knew that I never would.
Because that was the price.
I had learned from my years on the dark road that humans are born of three elements that make us whole: body, soul, and life. Without any one, we are ghosts, or empty shells. The body of Tara was there. The soul was there too, comforted and safe at the core of the one she loved above all. I knew that I could call it willingly out, restore it where it belonged. But there was no spark. No force of life to heal the wound, to knit body and soul again into a living, breathing girl.
No force of life but mine.
All magic has consequences. I knew this at the beginning, and would give all I had willingly, and a hundred times over if I could. For these two, no price I could pay would be too much. I felt regret that I wouldn’t see them as they were, as they should be. Complete. Content with each other, facing the uncertainties and pains together, understanding at last that their love was the only force no enemy, no monster, could ever truly overcome. But I was happy. They wouldn’t need me to face whatever came after, just each other.
Now two souls were calling me, knowing that an end and a beginning had come. For one last time I had to meld with Willow, and I fell into her soul with joy.
The shadows had lifted, and the endless search was over. Though pain and guilt were never far away, the knowledge that Tara was here, with her, at the heart of her being, made Willow’s spirit sing. And there was Tara, the sun in the centre of her universe. Beautiful, brave Tara, whose love for one instant never dimmed under the cloud of her lover’s torment. Unwavering Tara, who had to come back with me, for a brief time, to a cold and lifeless home. I had to take her from Willow to give her back.
“Tara, I’m here. It’s time.”
N-now?“Yes, Tara. It’s time to come back to the world. To Willow.”
Oh. W-will I really see her again?I gave her all the strength of hope that I could, to make her trust me. I would be taking her from the one place she felt safe, and loved, to emptiness and uncertainty, if only for a moment. But I made her know that they would be together, in life again, and at the last, she found her faith in me. I couldn’t fail her.
Okay then. I-I guess I’m ready.
Willow baby? Wait for me?I knew it would cause Willow pain, but there was no other way. The voice of her spirit wailed as I rose with Tara to the waking world. Her rage against me struck like another arrow to my flesh. She was losing her dearest one again, and I was the cause. She couldn’t hate me more than I hated myself at that moment. But there was no other way.
I held onto Tara’s soul as we rose, and emerged into the light of dawn. Quickly I placed a hand on each head, saying
“Animae Tara, revenire!” and I felt her essence flow through me to its rightful home. I could only imagine the shock it must have been. From warmth, light and love, to a hollow husk. But Tara was strong. She knew what had to be done. Only her voice, her touch, her endless, giving heart would bring Willow back to her.
I looked at them both, their bodies side by side beneath the willow tree, the morning sun turning them to gold. And I backed away. This was for them. All for them. I loved them, and I loved them for loving each other. I was crying as I said goodbye.
I had to walk with my gods from the old world one last time.
I threw up my arms, and cried out, in the tongue of my fathers:
“Arawn! Tywyll arglwydd o Annwfn! Lord of underearth, hear me! All that I am, all that I have been, for thee! Arawn! Lord of the dead! Gwrando!”A fierce wind began to build about me. I could feel him listening.
“Arawn! In the name of Gwynn and Gwydion, I beg thee! Cymryd fy anadlon a fy bywyd! Take my breath and my life! The dead one calls to thee, asking mercy! Give to her, the dear one, the fire that is mine, and take my soul to thy starlit hills!”His dark face filled my eyes. I only had to whisper now.
“Arawn, tywysog o helwriaeth. Prince of the hunt, I would ride with thee. My life to her, for her love. Grant me this, I beg thee.”He searched my soul, and the ones nearby, and his gaze took in all the world that I had known. I heard his answer in the wind that fell away and was no more:
“Yesss….”I fell back, as the power of my life was drawn from me, and fed to Tara. “My gift to you….to both of you….” I murmured as the world dimmed around me.
But it was not the end.
Some tiny, fading flame remained. I had given a gift….now one was being granted to me. The mercy was not just for Tara, but for me. The old god waited in shadow at the edge of sight. But beside him, the sun to his dark moon, stood the Goddess. I smiled my thanks to her. I didn’t know which of them would soon take my hand, but it didn’t matter, not now. I heard her words:
“See what you have given….” And I saw.
I saw Tara take breath, as if it were new to her. Her body too was renewed, and seemed to glow from within. She
was beautiful, I could see as she sat up. And just as I had seen in her soul, I could see in her face the truth of her love for Willow.
Like a startled deer, she cast her eyes about, and saw me, laying back against a gravestone.
“J-John?”
It took all my ebbing strength to smile at her, and slowly blink my eyes to answer.
Then Willow’s hand tightened about hers, and she moaned aloud. Tara turned, looked down, and the love that was pent up in her as if behind a dam broke over Willow. She clasped the sleeping girl to her, and cried. She held her across her body in an embrace that said: You’re mine, and will always be.
“Willow! Oh god Willow! I lost you and I lost me and I thought it was all gone!” She buried herself in the red-gold hair, and planted desperate kisses all over the young girl’s face. From her brow to her jaw, from eyes to cheeks the kisses searched, followed by tears.
“C’mon baby, it’s me, I’m here for you darling. I’ll never leave you again. Open your eyes love, please, for me.” She rocked Willow gently in her arms, all the time pleading, coaxing, tears splashing onto Willow’s upturned face.
“Oh baby wake up! I’m here Willow, I’ll always be here! Oh I love you so much! Come back to me, Will!”
And the sea-green eyes opened. Now, at last, there was life in those eyes. And they saw the only one that mattered, the one who had called her back.
“Tara?” Her voice was faint, but filled with wonder. “I-I thought I heard someone calling me….Tara? Oh god Tara! Is it really you?“
“It’s really, really me, Will! We’re home. We’re both home.”
Their arms furled about each other as they wept, shaking and shuddering with relief and joy, and the fear that this moment would end. Their voices merged into a wordless sound of utter love as their lips crushed together, again and again.
Each held the other’s face between their hands, and looked through the blur of tears at the sweetest sight in the world. Through the sobs, their voices came faintly to me.
“I looked for you so long Tara. So long, and I couldn’t find you. Then I felt you inside me and I didn’t believe it. Hold me baby, hold me and never let me go.”
“Never. Never again. You took my soul with you, Will. It’s always been yours. You’re the other half of my sky. I love you more than my life.”
“And I love you so much. Oh Tara….when you were lost, I did terrible, terrible things. I hurt my friends, and I….”
“Sshh, my love, not now. We’ll face it together, we’ll be strong.”
“Strong….like an Amazon?”
“Like an Amazon.”
“Always?”
“Always.”
*I think it’s almost time for me. But I’m happy.
I can still see them, together, wrapped in each other as they were always meant to be. But it’s getting dark now, for me, in the light of the new day.
My story is almost ended, but theirs will go on. In every world, in every lifetime, their story will go on.
Two souls like theirs can’t be parted for long. Willow has a chance now, with her Tara. I’ll never know what lies ahead for them, but they have a chance, together. It’s where they belong.
Because love endures. Oh yes, love endures. Sometimes, it never dies.
Goodbye to you. I’m honoured to have known you both. And I’m happy.
You made me believe.End.