Puff and WiccansIllusion, thanks for affirming! And I'm not a total tease, because here in Eastern Standard Time, it is still Thursday. This chapter was tough. Thanks to all who read it!
Mini Cliffhanger Warning. I'm not entirely sure it's actually a cliffhanget, but just in case....
Title: Terra Firma Chapter 8: Resurrections
Author: Tulipp. Email:
tulipp30@yahoo.comFeedback: Please. Distribution: Please let me know.
Spoilers: Everything.
Rating: PG in this part.
Pairing: W/T.
Summary: Willow and Tara face facts.
Disclaimer: All characters and various plot events that set up this story belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. I am borrowing them and making no money.
Acknowledgments: Thanks, Ruby and J, for reading a truly awful first draft. And a mediocre second draft. Here’s hoping that the revisions worked. (Closes eyes and crosses fingers.)
Terra Firma
Chapter 8: Resurrections
Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber,
The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, have brought me again.
--Walt Whitman, “To the Garden, the World”
Tara walked, a borrowed sweater wrapped tightly around her, although the afternoon was warm.
Bits of the breakfast table conversation clung to her like crumbs. She hadn’t had to hear much about the evidence of the resurrection ritual held at the tower to understand what it meant. Giles was too knowledgeable not to be able to read the signs. He had been too kind to spring it on her right away, had let her find some peace with Willow first, but it had had to be said. Blood sacrifice. A doorway into this reality. Rope to bind whatever crossed that threshold. The gift of milk to welcome a God.
Someone—or something—had tried to resurrect Glory, and Tara had come back instead. At least, that was the good alternative. Her coming back from the dead was some kind of magickal…accident.
The other alternatives weren’t so harmless. Glory could be using her as a host body, the way she’d used Ben, who had died and therefore ceased to function. Or Glory had somehow punctured her mind again, growing Tara a new body to house her own essence.
Or—and this was the one that had stuck in Tara’s throat, the one that had raised a chill on her arms that she hadn’t been able to shake since—or some part of Glory had been in her all along. Willow’s reversal spell hadn’t entirely worked, or it had worked too well, and some echo of Glory had been reverberating in Tara’s brain since that night. Glory was immortal, after all. She had to have been somewhere.
And it made a sick kind of sense.
“She was so weak,” Buffy had said slowly. “Glory, I mean. She had a hard time fighting me. I thought it was the troll hammer and the orb, but maybe it was her. Maybe she wasn’t all there.” Tara hadn’t been able to read the look in Buffy’s eyes.
She would rather be an accident.
When Tara had left the house, refusing company and insisting that she be given some time alone to process this possibility, to walk through the autumn afternoon and clear her head, to meet the others at the Magic Box later, Willow had kissed her hands and understood with her eyes. Tara needed time to think, and as long as she stood next to Willow, she would be utterly focused on Willow. They both knew it. And just at first, Tara needed to be alone.
Now, she touched the place where Willow’s lips had warmed her palm. She couldn’t leave Willow again. She wouldn’t. Not after so much had happened. Not now.
But she was scared for herself, too. For what might happen to her. Did that make her a terrible person?
The thought that she was still connected to Glory was…it seeped into her and clung. Tara had never spoken of the muddy terror that had swamped in her veins after Glory had taken her sanity. A thick sludge of fear around what she knew was true, what she knew was real. And she couldn’t wade through it.
At first, Buffy’s death had eclipsed the memories. Tara had been too busy comforting Willow and Dawn to think about herself. And once Buffy was back, well, she hadn’t really wanted to remember.
It had mostly been just as Glory promised it would be: darkness and small spaces, crawling flesh and quicksand shame, words and images she hadn’t understood pressing in on her. Mice. Doors to be opened. Men who killed. But a few times—only a few—it had been more real than that. And those times were worse. It was during one of those times that she had hit Willow, had actually struck her. Hard. Tara remembered the way it had felt.
The clammy skin, the damp grip of sickly sweet darkness. Darkness that that oozed, that seeped into her skin and then leaked back out. No separation between the darkness and herself. They were the same. Dark. Bad. Unchanging. And then.…
Approaching from the horizon, a pale shape, a face. Blurry but angular. Twisted in anger. The face sneered this at her. The face would make her behave, would control her. It was veined. It had dark hair. It loomed, it leered. It was a nightmare face.
Was it her father? Was it Donny? Tara tried to find one firm place to stand in the mire of her marshy brain. These were the only faces that made sense, the faces that punished and controlled. These were the dark faces she knew, the features that she had seen contorted in rage and looming. The face came into focus: A sharp widow’s peak. Liquid black eyes. It menaced.
But no, it was Willow. Red hair and green eyes and magick. For a moment, Tara could almost move. It was only Willow. It was always Willow.
But then Willow smiled, and as she smiled, her red hair went black, and her green eyes went black, and the smile twisted bitter and cruel and Tara had to protect herself from this nightmare creature who wasn’t her Willow and she struck out against the vision, struck as hard as she could to beat it away. “Bitch,” she cried out in protection.
And, oh, it was Willow after all who turned brimming green eyes to her, and Willow’s cheek was red where she had hit her. She deserved all the nightmares because she had hurt her. She wanted to apologize, but the words that clawed out of her were about figures, and the mud spread over her mind again, reminded her that she had things to do. A tower. And bricks.
Later, as fingers pierced her mind a second time, confusing and unfamiliar images had flooded her mind, a life flashing before her eyes. Dawn, rigid with fear as an old man smeared blood onto her forehead. The contorted faces of short creatures in brown robes. Willow, floating across the floor with outstretched arms and deeply black eyes. Deeply black anger. Deeply black magick.
After she had been thrown and lay sprawled amidst the rubble—able to move again, able to think—hands lifted her. They were Willow’s hands, and it was Willow’s familiar face, and Tara let herself be found.
But she hadn’t forgotten the memories…were they Glory’s or her own?…of that other Willow.
In the grieving time that followed, she had convinced herself that it had been guilt, an echo of that last conversation with Willow before Glory found her on the park bench. Or maybe a trick, like that false and haunting image of Giles killing an innocent person.
And she had never spoken of it.
That was what it had felt like to have Glory take her mind, to have Glory in her. The best thing she knew twisted into a nightmare shape and turning on her. Having to protect herself from the person she loved above everything. When she had learned of the spell Willow had used to tamper with her memory, the memory of that other Willow had risen like bile in her throat. It had come true, that vision. It had been real. Realer than she could have imagined.
She couldn’t go back to that. Not now, not ever.
Maybe it was just an accident, after all, she thought desperately. Maybe she was just herself, only herself, and she could stay with Willow. Maybe Willow’s spell had worked, maybe she had mapped their essences correctly and reversed the spell without going too far. There had to be some way to find out, some way to know for sure. Or to fix it.
Once, she thought, clutching her sweater around herself, the answer would have been magick. The Scoobies had all depended on Willow to solve problems with magick, even before Buffy died. Tara included. She hadn’t always liked it, but she hadn’t always stopped it, either. It had been an answer.
But the answers weren’t so easy anymore.
And the questions weren’t clear, either. Everything had changed. Some of the changes were for the better. At breakfast, she had seen that the Scoobies sat a little closer together, touched one another more. Dawn was stronger, more mature. Giles was gentler. Buffy was more at peace. And Anya and Xander…little touches of shoulder to shoulder, and sidelong looks, gave them away; something was going on there.
But…. But Anya was a vengeance demon again. Xander’s face was scarred with thin red welts that slashed across his left cheek, and Tara had noticed that Willow bit her lip whenever she looked at them. Spike’s name hadn’t even come up. And Willow….
Would Willow ever be the same? Tara stopped walking for a moment, heartsick at the thought of what Willow had gone through. What Willow had done. She could not, she would not let Willow get that lost again.
She had come back for a reason, she felt that. Accident or not, Glory or not…it didn’t matter. Willow had burned out…burned up with rage and grief. And Tara had come back to gather the ashes and let the phoenix out, to see the red feathers in full flight again.
The question was how.
But there wasn’t an answer in sight that didn’t involve magick. Magick and Willow.
****
No. No. No.
Willow’s mind had been in hyperdrive for the last hour. She was turning pages furiously, three or four books at a time open in front of her. She’d nearly forgotten what that felt like. And it was a relief, really, because her skin had started to itch again, and she was trying to ignore it.
Her mind had always worked like a computer, making lightning-fast and sometimes arbitrary connections she could not stop from spilling out into her speech. It sounded like babbling, she knew, but if she didn’t talk through the rapid-fire thoughts in her head sometimes, she’d burst.
But these last months, she hadn’t babbled. She hadn’t talked much at all, mostly to Dawn and the Guides at the coven. She’d had to slow her mind down, to short circuit it to avoid the pain of facing—again and again and again—the inevitable chain of association that always led her to a bullet. Nothing had been safe. No thought. No word. No action.
It could be anything. Honey on her toast at breakfast came from a honeycomb. Combs made her think of brushes, which made her try to remember whether she’d brushed her teeth that morning, which made her wonder where the expression “gritting teeth” came from, if it was the sandy kind of grit or the food kind, like they ate in the South, which was the setting of “Gone With the Wind,” where home was Tara. Deliberate memories she could handle, sort of, but not the ambush reminders that waylaid her at unexpected moments, that doubled her over so she couldn’t eat or sleep.
So she had stopped. She had slowed her mind down to avoid the connections. And once the connections were gone, there was no need to talk to let them out. No babbling. She had simply put her mind to sleep.
It had been, of course, a sleep full of nightmares.
And then Tara had come back, and the nightmare had changed into a dream. Her only dream—to have Tara alive, here, with her. She could stay in the world of that dream forever, the touch of Tara’s fingers on her skin and in her hair.
But Willow knew that now it was time to wake up from the dream and face her life again. Her real life. And oh, thank God, her real life with Tara.
Her body had awakened first, the skin coming back to life under the trail of Tara’s fingernails, her cold flesh rousing under the press of Tara’s hands. And then her heart, stirring under Tara’s thumb, under Tara’s eyes.
It was time for her mind to wake up, too. She would fix this. She would take care of Tara. She had set off her mental alarms, pulled back the covers on the connectors in her mind. Told them to get out of bed. She skimmed through spells and ran her fingers through indexes and tried not to think about Tara, walking through Sunnydale alone and frightened.
Tara hadn’t wanted Willow to go with her. And Willow knew that was because this was her fault. If Glory was still in Tara somehow, it was all her fault. Willow had put her there. With magick. The very thought sickened her.
Was Glory actually in Tara? That was the question.
And Willow knew how they could find the answer.
She rubbed her arms furiously, trying to rub away the tickle, the flesh-prick urge of magick. Because there was a way. She had known it the moment Giles had finished presenting his evidence and Tara had said, suddenly, “Glory. It’s Glory.” Tara had had to explain to the others—to remind them of the reversal spell Willow had performed—but Willow had known instantly.
What she had done once, she could do again. Chart Tara’s essence. Look into her mind. See if Glory was really there. But it would take magick. And she couldn’t use magick. Could she? No, she couldn’t. She couldn’t.
And so Willow hadn’t said a word, had flattened herself against her chair. She had breathed deeply against the nauseating skin-rush that she felt at the thought of using magic again. And then she had slipped out of her chair and gone to the bathroom to be quietly sick.
She had pressed her cheek against the cool of the wall tile and breathed—in and out, in and out—as the magical itch pulsed and twitched just under her skin. It wouldn’t go away.
Now, seated at the research table, she still felt flushed and ill. She knew that even if she wanted to do the spell—even if—she might not be strong enough. Strong enough to do the magick. Or strong enough to come back from it. The last time it had almost killed her. She had wanted it to.
Willow shook her head. This wasn’t helping; this was why she had put her brain to sleep in the first place. She let go of the pages she was turning to press the heels of her hands against her eyes. Then she closed the left-hand book and reached for a larger one to take its place. Her mind raced, and her flesh crawled. She inhaled and exhaled slowly to stay calm and focused, but she knew one thing for certain.
She would not let Tara go again.
She could survive without Tara. She could get through each endless moment by waiting for the next one to arrive. She could hold her breath against the loneliness and the pain. She could shut down her mind and meditate and get through longer than long days. If that was survival, then the past months had taught her she could do it. But she couldn’t live.
And she intended to live.
****
The bell to the Magic Box jangled, and Willow looked up to see Tara walking toward the table, her arms crossed over her chest. Tara paused for a moment in the middle of the shop, locking eyes with her. Willow was stunned all over again by the still-fresh sight of Tara standing in front of her, the manuscripts in front of her forgotten.
Xander glanced up from his book. “Whoa, did anyone just have a serious déjà vu moment?” he asked. “Tara walking in the door?”
Willow pushed back her chair as Tara moved again and met her halfway, leaning into her. “Hey,” Tara murmured, hugging Willow tight, both hands in Willow’s hair. Willow pressed her face against Tara’s rough sweater, feeling the arms around her shoulders. They were Tara’s arms, weren’t they? Only Tara’s arms.
Willow felt Tara’s lips on her hair, the rim of her ear, and she felt a current pass between them, a gentle understanding. And then Tara spoke into her ear. “I’m back,” she said. Willow felt rather than heard the words.
“I know,” she said into Tara’s sweater. “I was waiting for you.” And Tara’s arms tightened around her.
“Tara,” Xander said behind Willow. “Willow’s been hitting the books since you left, but I’m still working on the fact that the big bad Got Milk.”
“Xander, if you say that one more time, I think I might have a minor stroke,” Giles said, walking through the training room door with an armful of books and a basket of charms.
“Where are the others?” Tara asked over Willow’s shoulder. She half-turned in Tara’s arms to watch Xander slide off the counter, but she didn’t let go; her arms gripped Tara’s waist. She had no intention of letting go. Neither, apparently, did Tara.
“Buffy and Dawn went to do an early sweep of the campus,” Xander said. “Rumors of a new guy in town. They call him the Poet. Very threatening, if you ask me: give me your wallet, or I’ll recite a limerick. Ooh, please scare me.”
“Tara,” Giles ignored Xander. “How are you doing?”
Willow wasn’t listening. Just touching Tara, just standing next to her—she felt it as a balm, calming her irritated skin. It soothed her; it almost took away the itch. Almost.
“I’ve been thinking,” Giles said now, leaning against the counter and regarding Tara. “There might be a way to find out, if not how precisely how to fix the problem, then at least what the problem is.” He paused, glancing at Willow. “If Willow is willing to try.”
Willow only heard the words after she registered that there had been a pause, a beat of silence. She looked at Giles sharply, and then, seeing the wariness in his face, she understood what he was saying. And her stomach roiled.
“No,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I won’t do it. Look what happened the last time I did this spell. Tara was okay…at least, we thought she was okay…but Ben died. He died.” Her voice was hoarse, but it didn’t waver. “I will not stand by and let that happen to you. Not again. Not ever again.”
“Wait a second,” Xander said, holding his hands up. “What does Ben have to do with this? Do Ben and Tara have some kind of connection?”
“I can’t do it.” Willow turned to Tara again, lifting a hand to her face. “Every time I use magick, I destroy something. Or someone. I can’t. Not you.” Her fingers trembled against Tara’s cheeks.
Tara’s forehead wrinkled. She looked at Giles for a long moment and seemed to come to a decision. She reached for Willow’s hand. She held it to her own face and closed her eyes, standing perfectly still. Willow felt Tara’s cheeks cool beneath her hot fingers. When Tara opened her eyes again, they were clear and calm and very blue.
“I think we should listen to what Giles has to say,” she said quietly.
“Tara,” Giles said quietly, urgently. “You know what this means?” Willow watched in confusion as Tara nodded slowly. And then Giles turned to her.
“Willow,” he said. “It’s time we talked.”
To be continued in Chapter 9, “Two Sorcerers.”
Edited by: Tulipp at: 7/25/02 8:55:24 pm
oh wait...that's that thing i'm at 9-5 everyday...okay...the problem is i dont' settle in at work...i end up surfing the web more often than not and end up losing track of time reading all the great fics on this site...(and waiting for you to update yours...
) - but it's easier for me...my boss works 30 floors above me...so he can't "drop in" unexpectedly...
at: 7/24/02 9:10:26 pm
Oh and it's just not possible to forget about this story.