Author: Gem
Spoilers: All of season 6
Feedback: I’m a junkie. I won’t be able to sleep at night unless I have at least one reply.
Rating: This part, just PG-13. Probably less actually, but I have a reputation to uphold.
Disclaimers: Aren’t mine – if they were ‘Grave’ would never have been thought of, let alone filmed and aired! I’m not earning any money from them either. The song is Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears in Heaven’.
Synopsis: Leads from the events of ‘Grave’ to where our girls and very happy, very loved and very very alive.
Part 1 – Being Rational
Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven?
Would you be the same if I saw you in heaven?
I must be strong and carry on
‘Cause I know I don’t belong
Here in heaven
Would you hold my hand if I saw you in heaven?
Would you help me stand if I saw you in heaven?
I’ll find my way through night and day
‘Cause I know I just can’t stay
Here in heaven
Time can bring you down time can bend your knees
Time can break the heart have you begging please
Begging please
Beyond the door
There’s peace, I’m sure
And I know there’ll be no more
Tears in heaven
Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven?
Would you be the same if I saw you in heaven?
I must be strong and carry on
‘Cause I know I don’t belong
Here in heaven
Wearily, Buffy moved down the stairs to the kitchen, glancing over her shoulder occasionally. Dawn’s soothing tones followed her, and despite her exhaustion, Buffy managed a faint smile. The one good thing about the hell of the past two months was that Dawn was finally maturing – was thinking about someone other than herself. Namely, Willow.
Even as she thought it, Buffy felt guilty for finding anything good out of Tara’s death and the change of events that it had caused in all of their lives. Then she felt guilty for not seeing the light in the darkness – the way Tara had. Buffy had been feeling the day that Tara had been hit by that bullet. The bullet that was meant for her.
Moving into the untidy kitchen, Buffy glanced around the room, realising that she really needed to spring clean sometime soon. The phone was on the wall behind her, and she purposely turned her back on it, wiping down the kitchen counter with a clean cloth. The phone was still there, bright and noticeable – and what had possessed her to buy a red phone, anyway?
“Buffy.” Dawn poked her head around the door, then noticed her bag on the counter and entered the room fully to retrieve it. Her sister showed no signs of having heard her. “Buffy!”
Shaken, Buffy spun round, moving automatically into a fighting stance. The action worried Dawn. Her sister’s un-Slayerish action proved just how tired they had all been lately. “I’m supposed to be doing a science project with Janice,” Dawn said, anticipating Buffy’s question. “Is it okay if I stay the night?”
Buffy nodded, forcing herself to smile as she moved forward and kissed Dawn on the forehead, pushing a lock of long brown hair behind her sister’s ear. Wriggling, Dawn pulled out of her grasp, pulling a face. “Willow’s asleep.” She turned to leave the kitchen, but at the last moment, she turned to face Buffy, and nodded towards the phone. “Please, Buffy. Just – just call him.” She hurried quickly out of the kitchen and the house, grateful to escape the bonds of maturity and responsibility once more.
The Slayer stood still in the kitchen for several more minutes before returning to her task of wiping the counter. She was the Slayer – the warrior of the people, Giles said. She had averted more apocalypses than any other Slayer on record, and she had come back to life twice. What good were all the enhanced senses and physical powers if she couldn’t get her best friend out of the shell of solitude and depression that she had withdrawn into?
Buffy turned around and picked up the phone.
*********************************************************************
Willow whimpered at the pain in her stomach, and curled up into a ball, a light sheen of sweat breaking out on her upper lip. The room was dancing around her, the colours blending into each other. Buffy worried when she couldn’t see right, but she didn’t mind. It was pretty. All those greens, and pinks, and yellows.
Tara’s hair was yellow.
No, it isn’t, Willow scolded herself. Tara’s hair is blonde, not yellow. Buffy’s hair is yellow, and Anya’s hair is yellow, but Tara’s hair is blonde.
Where’s Tara?
“Where’s Tara?” The words escaped Willow through dry, cracked lips before she even realised she’d said them. She knew where Tara was. Tara was dead, she was in the ground. Buffy had been dead, but she’d come back.
Why hadn’t Tara come back?
Reluctantly, she dragged herself from the last vestiges of sleep, wiping her eyes with one hand. That last dream had been the same as all the others – Tara happy, Tara laughing, Tara smiling. Tara dead. Willow forced herself to sit up in bed, leaning back on both hands as the room spun once more. “No more self pity,” the redhead told herself firmly. She’d learnt early on that the worst times came when she felt most sorry for herself.
Even as she crawled out of bed and slowly moved towards the dresser, Willow knew that she was slipping into rational mode, the way she always did when she and Giles were researching.
Where’s Giles?
Buffy liked it when Willow was sensible, when she helped make dinner. Buffy couldn’t cook, but Tara had taught Willow. Dawn liked it when Willow was the way that she used to be, and she helped her with her homework, just how she had always done before Tara’s death, in the summer. Those had been good times – just the three of them. Willow had been sad, because she thought Buffy was hurting. Buffy was hurting more now, though, and Buffy returning had caused Tara’s death. She shouldn’t have brought her back. Xander liked it when Willow was sane, and she talked to him about the old days, about Jesse, when the mean kid on the next block, or Cordelia, was the worst thing in the world. When they thought all guns were plastic and bright orange and had Action Man stickers on the side of them. Anya liked it when Willow was happy, and she helped her in the shop like Tara used to.
Willow hated it when she was rational, and Tara wasn’t there.
Carefully, slowly, Willow got dressed into jeans and a t-shirt. She was sensible old Willow now, completely sane, and there was nothing she could do about it, so she might as well help Buffy. Her stomach hurt, but that was because she’d been vomiting all morning. It would pass eventually.
*********************************************************************
Buffy paced the length of the kitchen as she waited for Giles to pick up the phone. “C’mon, Giles, dammit,” she muttered under her breath. “Pick up the damn phone, would’ya?”
“Hello?”
“Hey, Giles.”
Through thousands of miles of bad phone communications, Buffy could still tell that he was thrilled to hear her. He’d been complaining on the phone the other day that England was totally different to how it had been during his childhood. “Buffy.” His voice was warm, and welcoming, and it made Buffy’s day just that much more bearable.
“Listen, I don’t have time to really talk now Giles, and I’m sorry, but - how would you like a visitor?”
Startled, Giles, standing in the hallway of his appartment – the one thing he really missed about America were the cordless phones – took off his glasses and dangled them in one hand, the way he always did when he was thinking. “Buffy, I would love to see you, but don’t you have – well, responsibilities?”
“Yes, Giles, I’m all with the responsible-ness. I didn’t mean me. I meant Will.” Buffy hesitated, realising that she might not have thought this through properly. “Uh - you’re not still mad at her, are you?”
“Are you?”
“No,” Buffy replied firmly. “I didn’t take it so brilliantly when Angel died, and he wasn’t the love of my life. Willow had every right – well, maybe not, but I’m not angry at her any more for what she did.”
“In that case, I would call it rather unjust if I were to retain any grudges, considering that you have been supporting her through this current crisis and I haven’t, wouldn’t you, Buffy?”
Buffy blinked. The problem with talking on the phone to Giles was that Willow wasn’t there to translate his English-speak. “Was that a no?”
“No, I am no longer angry at Willow for her actions. And she is perfectly welcome to come and stay with me. I could use someone other than my co-workers to talk to – I had no idea how devoted I had become to America and her inhabitants.”
He could tell she was smiling. “Is that your way of telling me you miss me?”
“Naturally.”
*********************************************************************
“You’re shipping her off to England?” Xander asked, shocked. “Just – sending her on a plane to the guy that she tried to kill? You know, Buff, you’ve come up with some pretty terrible ideas in the past, but this really takes the biscuit.”
“What does that mean, anyway?” Dawn wondered aloud. “I mean, taking the biscuit. Does that mean that biscuits aren’t a good thing? I like biscuits.” Xander rolled his eyes.
“I have no idea, Dawn. Ask Will, she’ll know. Oh, no, sorry – she’s halfway across the world!”
“We’ve explained this to you, Xander,” Buffy was pacing across the living room, resembling something close to a caged tiger. She was also looking at Xander as though he was dinner. “We’re not helping Willow. She needs help, and she needs to get away for a while. Staying in the room that Tara was killed in probably isn’t doing much good either. She always thought of Giles as a father, considering her own weren’t any good. So, please, Xander, just listen. This is what I have to do.”
Dawn looked up from where she was picking at a stray thread on the couch. “She’s not going to get better, Buffy, she isn’t. Just like if you hadn’t come back, I never would have been the same. Willow loved Tara too much for her to move on and be the same Willow that she always was.”
Buffy looked sharply at her younger sister, once more realising how much Dawn had actually changed since Tara’s death. She was well aware that Tara, once she had died, had replaced Joyce and later Buffy as ‘mommy’ of the house. Willow had taken on the big sister role, but even once Buffy had returned, Tara had continued to mother the youngest Summers, talking to her about her day, making dinner. Anger and hatred rose up inside the Slayer as she became, for the first time, truly aware of all that they had all suffered, and it made her even more determined to send Willow to England. Tara was dead and Willow would never be the same again – but she’d be damned if she let her condition worsen.
“Y’know,” Anya mused, glancing up from where she was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside Xander – the Summers women had quickly claimed the couch, protesting that it was their house, “Willow’s so gone in the head,” she made twirling motions in the air with her finger to demonstrate her point, “that we could probably just build her a Tara sexbot and she’d be perfectly happy in her own crazy little Willow Whacky World.”
Xander stared at her, shocked that his ex-girlfriend had once more managed to defy every rule of tact and consideration, when Dawn started to giggle at the thought of Tara acting like the Buffybot. Buffy joined in, albeit reluctantly, and soon the four solemn remaining Scoobies – Dawn insisted that she had been officially initiated – were rolling around on the floor of Buffy’s living room.
Gasping and red-faced, Xander was the first to regain his composure. Anya recovered as well, wiping away tears as a look of puzzlement crossed her face. “That wasn’t supposed to be funny,” she complained. “In fact, it was plain depressing. Why were we laughing?”
“Because we needed to,” Xander answered simply, putting his arm around her. Buffy’s eyes widened, and he suddenly realised what he’d done and leaped back, falling over the coffee table in his haste. “Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean to. I mean, I have to – uh – bye!” he stammered, backing hastily out of the door. Dawn and Buffy stared after him, as Anya looked down at the floor in much the same way that Willow had after Tara protected her from Anya’s accusations at Buffy’s birthday party.
“Well, that was awkward,” she announced after a moment, but her words lacked their usual spirit as Buffy and Dawn nodded their heads in agreement.
Edited by: xita
at: 10/14/02 2:30:08 pm
and i like this a lot. gilesspeak, 
way to go. 
Loving the whole "had to experience darkness" factor. more soon??