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Title:
The Dark Rose - Part 3 (Homecoming)Author: Dark Magic Willow
Email:
darkmagickwillow@yahoo.comRating: R, mostly for violence, no explicit sex
Pairing: W/T
Spoilers: All episodes through the end of season 6 though this story takes
place 18-19 years after the end of season 6.
Feedback: Yes! Constructive criticism is always welcome.
Summary: Willow returns to Sunnydale.
Magic Note: Magic, even dark magic, is not addictive in my universe,
so there are no withdrawal symptoms and no dark magic dealers.
Here Rack was a dark magic teacher who used his students, not a dealer.
However, you can use too much magic and you can be corrupted
by the power it gives you.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the copyrights or anything else
associated with BtVS. All rights lie with the production company,
writers etc.
Acknowledgements: Thanks as always to my beta readers, Amanda and Juli,
for always asking for just a little bit more.
The Dark Rose
Chapter 3: HomecomingAfter 19 years, Willow was going home.
She didn't want to return to Sunnydale, but she had to. When you lost
something, it was always in the last place that you looked. She had looked
for Tara every place in this world and beyond except for Sunnydale, and
that was exactly what the vision had shown her.
Perhaps it was her imagination, but she felt that the warmth coming from
the soul gem against her chest was gradually increasing as the plane
crossed the Atlantic. She felt restless with hours of flight time ahead of
her, but the thought that she was getting closer to Tara calmed her. Tara
was her home. She'd been homeless for so long, but she was going home at
last.
She had spent thousands of lonely nights doing nothing but remembering what
she had lost that terrible afternoon. The time for that was over. Now she
had to plan for the future, figuring out who or what held Tara's soul and
how to kill it and rescue her love. Afterwards, they wouldn't need
memories. They would have each other.
Willow started to smile at the thought, then felt her stomach left behind
as the plane dropped through a pocket of air. She hated flying this way,
under someone else's control, but it was still the fastest way to
Sunnydale, especially when you were a witch and didn't need to worry about
ordinary things like reservations or tickets.
At least she had her own row of seats in first class. There'd been someone
else in her row, but he got up quickly after she'd pulled her hood back and
stared into him with her dark eyes. He had departed for coach and she
hadn't seen him since.
She looked out the window at the clouds they were flying above. Once they
had been a mystery to her and she had dreamed of walking on them,
hand-in-hand with Tara, drenched in sunlight. The clouds looked soft and
comforting, a special place where she could be safe and happy. Now she
knew better. She had flown through them alone and discovered their true
nature. They were cold, wet, and empty.
She turned away from the window, closing it to shut out the sight of the
world outside, and pulled her journal out of a pocket in her cloak.
Looking around, she saw that everyone else in the dark cabin was asleep.
In solitude as always, she began to write in her journal, describing the
events that had brought her here.
* * * * * * Willow strode off the plane purposefully without acknowledging the
farewells of the flight crew. She hadn't bothered with baggage, not
wanting to waste time with anything unnecessary, so she was out of the
airport in a few minutes. The heat of the soul gem warmed her as she
entered Sunnydale.
Nineteen years of searching were almost over. She was going to find Tara
tonight, but there was one place she had to go first.
Tara's grave.
She didn't expect to find Tara's soul there, but she hadn't visited the
grave since the day of Tara's funeral. She felt guilty about that, but
reminded herself that she had devoted her life to her quest to bring Tara
back. Surely that made memorials unnecessary, she thought to herself, but
the weight of her guilt could not be lifted so easily.
The cemetery felt familiar as she entered it despite all the years that had
passed since her last visit. Even if she hadn't spent too many nights in
Sunnydale's cemeteries, this one would be forever burned into her memory.
Her black leathers and cloak let her blend into the shadows as she walked
through the cemetery. Her face was hidden in the hood of her dark cloak
while her hands and feet were securely encased in black gloves and boots.
The soul gem was tucked inside her shirt and she felt its reassuring warmth
against her chest as she walked towards Tara's grave. It wasn't far now.
Willow reached the familiar grave site and gazed at the tombstone that she
hadn't seen since the day it was erected. The site was undisturbed and the
gem did not urge her downwards. Tara's soul might be somewhere in the
cemetery, but it was not in her grave.
She sighed. It would have been easy to find but she was not sure if she
could have dealt with the knowledge that Tara's soul had been trapped in
the grave for all these years. She looked down at the grave, noticing long
dead cut roses at her feet. Someone had been here within the past year,
remembering Tara, and Willow felt her guilt increase as it hadn't been her.
With her guilt came an upwelling of grief, more than she thought she could
bear. Her eyelids closed over eyes sparkling with unshed tears and her
throat constricted, making it difficult to breathe, as she remembered how
much she had lost. Willow reached out tentatively towards the grave, as if
she could pull Tara back with force of will alone.
Then she curled her hand into a fist and jerked it back towards her. For
all her knowledge and power, she hadn't been able to regain the one person
in this world that mattered to her above all else. Forcing back her tears,
she reminded herself that everything would change tonight.
The soul gem suddenly blazed with heat against her chest, causing Willow to
look up. Willow spotted a figure moving stealthily towards her through the
nearby trees. It was a young woman wearing a black leather jacket and dark
blue jeans with black boots. Her blonde hair was tied back in a pony tail
and she was holding a wooden stake in her hand. Several more stakes were
attached to her belt.
Willow could see from her aura that despite all the accoutrements of a
vampire hunter, the blonde was a witch focused on the magicks of light.
Then Willow looked into her eyes. They were a brilliant blue that looked
too familiar to be real.
Tara?
Could it really be her after all these years?
Her heart swelled with hope in defiance of the doubts that assailed her
mind. The woman was too young, no more than 20 years old, but she looked
enough like Tara to be her sister. While similarity didn't mean that she
was Tara, what about the gem's hot insistence that the woman had Tara's
soul?
Tara realized that she had been spotted by the black clad figure she had
been stalking and froze. As the figure looked up from the grave, the
blonde realized that the black-clad figure was a slender woman. As she
looked at the curves revealed by the tight black leather, she thought how
beautiful the woman was even though she hadn't seen her face.
Her rational mind woke up, reminding her that the woman was dressed all in
black in a cemetery after midnight. In Sunnydale. Tara shifted her stance
uneasily, unsure whether to approach or retreat. She didn't usually take
on vampires by herself, but the woman didn't appear to be a vampire. And
she wasn't doing anything except gazing at her, but she was in a Sunnydale
cemetery after midnight.
Willow's mind was racing as she stood motionless, staring at the blonde
woman. She didn't look precisely like Tara and she was too young, but the
gem said that she was Tara. Even her aura felt similar to Tara's, but it
was not the quite the same either. How could she be so much like Tara yet
not quite Tara? Could the gem be wrong? What kind of warranty came with
millennia-old magical artifacts anyway?
Yet the woman looked and felt so much like Tara. Her heart wanted to
believe, but she was scared of risking her heart again. In her dreams Tara
was alive, but she never was when Willow awakened. What they once had was
a miracle, hot and passionate yet gentle and comforting at the same time.
Tara had seen so much in her that she had never been able to see herself.
She wanted to see herself like that again, but she was afraid it was too
late. They had flown so high, but then she had fallen so fast and hard.
Could she expect another miracle without the dark price that such miracles
had always cost her? It had cost her Buffy's life to get Tara's mind back
from Glory. Then she had gotten Buffy back at the price of Tara's life.
There was always a price.
What should she do? Willow hadn't felt this uncertain in years.
Tara was also thinking rapidly as she watched the other woman. She could
feel the dark stranger's aura of tightly bound power, but she couldn't tell
whether her source was light or dark without fully opening her senses and
exposing herself. Still, she felt more puzzled than threatened.
Tara had so many questions. Who could this person be? Was she just
visiting a grave or was she here to raise something evil from the beyond?
Whose grave was she visiting anyway and why after midnight? Why was she
attracted to her? Something about that last question didn't fit with the
others--attracted to her? Tara hadn't even seen her face. They hadn't
spoken yet. Then she saw movement behind the mysterious woman. It was a
vampire and
that she knew how to deal with.
Willow watched the young woman raise her right hand to throw the wooden
stake she held. She was puzzled at first, then she heard the stealthy
movement of a vampire behind her. The blonde witch threw the stake and as
Willow watched, it carefully zigged around her in an impossible trajectory
before embedding itself in the heart of the vampire behind her.
Willow was quite impressed as she turned to see the vampire dissolve into a
cloud of dust. Unfortunately, there was another vampire behind the one who
had just been slain. She sighed silently. Sunnydale hadn't changed.
Tara ran up beside the stranger and spotted the approaching vampire. Her
blue eyes widened as she readied another stake, saying to the other witch,
"Get behind me."
If this was Tara, she seemed unusually assertive. Willow brought the stake
from the clump of vampire dust to her hand with a thought and said, "If
you'll accept some help, I'll deal with the other two behind you." She
turned around so that they faced their oncoming opponents back-to-back, not
quite certain why she felt secure enough to expose her back to the unknown
young witch.
Tara spared the two vampires behind her a fleeting glance before returning
her focus to the vampire in front of her. She threw another stake, guiding
it with her mind towards the heart of the approaching vampire, but this
time the stake missed the heart, infuriating the monster rather than
killing him. She briefly wondered if she should trust the stranger so
soon, but she had no other choice with so many attacking vampires.
Unwilling to scare the blonde, Willow decided to destroy the vampires with
the stake rather than spells. As the two vampires closed with her, she
quickly staked the one on the left, her hand a blur of movement, while
kicking the second vampire away to gain time.
Tara pulled a third stake from her belt as the second vampire closed with
her. She heard the sound of one of the vampires behind her being destroyed
by her companion then her vampire was upon her. As they traded a few quick
blows, she realized that this vampire was a young one, newly risen from the
grave with superhuman strength but still not in full control of his
supernatural speed and agility. He left his chest exposed for just a
moment. She quickly drove the stake into his unbeating heart, reducing him
to a small pile of dust.
Willow found her second vampire more of a challenge than the first. He
carefully watched her stake and allowed her to score useless wounds on his
undead flesh instead of exposing his heart. She heard the destruction of
the vampire behind her and realized that the young woman was safe.
Subconsciously, she had been listening to the other woman fight in case she
needed help. Now with the blonde safe, Willow could bring her full
concentration to bear on the foe in front of her.
After the destruction of her opponent, Tara turned to watch the fight
between the mysterious stranger and the last remaining vampire. She
admired the graceful movement of the dark witch as she dodged and flowed
around her opponent, closing until she could quickly thrust her stake into
its heart, destroying it.
Willow turned from the remains of the last vampire to find the blonde
watching her with admiration in her eyes. She flipped the stake around in
her hand and extended it to the other woman, saying "Your stake, I
believe."
Tara took the stake from the mysterious woman's hand, her fingers brushing
the black-gloved fingers of the other woman as she accepted the stake back.
Her fingers tingled with a warm energy at the contact. She brought her
hand back to her side and closed her other one around it. "So you've ...
uh ... fought vampires before?" she asked, her voice not quite as steady as
she wished.
"Yes," Willow answered, forcing her voice to remain calm after the amazing
touch. She wanted to reach out and touch her hand again, but at the same
time she was afraid to try to. Whether she was more afraid that would feel
the same or that it wouldn't she wasn't certain. "It looks like you came
here looking for them." She stared at the young witch, wondering if she
really could be Tara after all these years. What had happened? Where had
she been all these years? Why hadn't Willow known about her? Her stomach
churned, upset by the tumultuous thoughts and feelings swirling through
her.
Tara looked down at the stake she still held in her hands. "Yes," she said
awkwardly. "Someone has to stop them." She was thinking about how to ask
the stranger about who she was and what she was doing in Sunnydale when she
heard a voice through the trees calling her name: "Tara! Where are you?"
Willow froze as she heard the name called. It had been so long since she
had heard that name said by a voice other than her own in tones of deep
grief. Years of disappointment had made her cautious so she asked the
young woman to be certain, "Your name's Tara?"
"Yes." Tara nodded then asked, "What's your name?"
Willow's mind spun. Tara? It couldn't be a coincidence. Tara's soul.
Tara's name. Tara's heart? All in this young woman. This Tara had to be
her love but in a new body, a new lifetime.
She had spent all those years searching and failing time after time to
bring Tara back. Now she saw the reason for her failures standing in front
of her. How could you bring someone back who had already returned to the
cycle of life? She would have screamed at her blindness if her frustration
wouldn't have terrified the young woman in front of her waiting for the
answer to a simple question.
She had so many questions. Had Tara returned for her, to love her? Even
if she did, did she remember Willow and their love? Should she tell Tara
about them if Tara didn't remember? Should she tell Tara anything about
her past life, about herself? Suddenly, her quest was no longer a simple
one.
Despite how well her theory seemed to fit the situation, a kernel
of doubt remained. She had been disappointed before. This wasn't the
first time she had thought that she had found Tara again. She shuddered as
she recalled the horror in the mirror. It had looked just like Tara at
first. She couldn't trust appearances.
She couldn't stop herself from hoping though. For now there was one
decision to make--to say or not say her true name, the name she hadn't used
since the day she left Sunnydale.
She decided to trust in life, in love, and simply said, "Willow."
Willow looked intently into Tara's blue eyes and her heart fell as she saw
no sign of recognition. Her name didn't mean anything to Tara. How could
it have? But she had so hoped that they could just be together now.
Tara noticed Willow's pause before answering and her intent gaze
afterwards, but wasn't sure what either meant. Instead of commenting on
Willow's reactions, she said, "I'd better answer her. Spirit gets cranky
when she can't find me."
Tara turned to the trees to call back to Spirit. "I'm over here," she
said. "I'm okay." As she turned back to face Willow, she did a
double-take. No one was in sight. Tara wondered for a brief moment
whether the mysterious witch had been real. Had she been a ghost?
With that thought in mind, Tara walked over to the grave where she had
originally seen the stranger, half-expecting the tombstone to read
"Willow." Her heart thumped heavily in her chest as she read the first
name on the tombstone, but she relaxed as she finished reading the name.
It wasn't her last name.
Tara Maclay
1980 - 2002
Beloved, I Will Return For You
--
"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit. -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."
Edited by: darkmagicwillow at: 11/7/02 11:25:14 am