The Dark Rose

Chapter 16: Living in the Past

Tara pushed the door of the magic shop open and the bell over it jingled, announcing her entrance. She looked around quickly for the proprietor. When she found only a clerk behind the counter, another new girl, she felt relieved. The store always felt a little creepy even though she always came in during the daytime, but when Miss Madison was present, she felt like a rat being watched by a cat. A cat who was deciding whether she was worth the effort of catching.

The clerk looked up as the bell rang, glanced quickly at Tara, then looked down again. There was always a new clerk here every time she visited, and they were always as skittish as mice. Tara supposed that she would be too if she had to work for Miss Madison.

She walked past the shelves of trinkets, carved staffs, brightly colored "magic" robes, and the like, heading for the darker back of the shop where the supplies for real practitioners of the craft were kept. Tara glanced at the shelves of heavy leather bound volumes, wanting to see if they had anything new.

She forced herself to look away and focus on the selection of magical artifacts instead. She needed a bowl of seeing for the spell, but she couldn't find it in the eclectic collection of crystal balls, ancient pottery and statues, and assorted odd pieces of jewelry. She'd have to go up front and ask the clerk.

After making her way back to the counter and waiting a few minutes for the clerk to look up, she cleared her throat. The clerk jumped up with a start, almost tipping her chair over in the process.

Tara reached over to steady the clerk and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

The clerk flinched away from her touch and mumbled "It's okay," looking down at the bare surface of the counter the whole time.

An awkward silence followed with both girls looking down. Finally, Tara said "I'm looking for a bowl of seeing. I couldn't find it out there." She gestured in the direction of the magical artifacts case. "Do you have one or could you order one if you don't?" She didn't know what she would do if they didn't have one. The spell wouldn't work without it.

"I'm not sure," the clerk said. "I'd have to check with Miss Madison. " The clerk stood silently for a moment, her brow furrowed as she tried to figure out a way to avoid talking with Miss Madison. Just as Tara began to open her mouth to interrupt her, the clerk came to a decision and said, "I'll be back in a minute," before descending the stairs behind the counter.

Tara waited impatiently at the counter, trying to distract herself from the possibility that they might not have one by idly looking through the bins of junk there, rabbits' feet, rubber spiders left over from Halloween, and other stuff that she'd never buy. It had been at least five minutes, maybe more, before she heard two sets of footsteps coming up the stairs.

The first person up the stairs was Miss Madison, her face fixed in what seemed to be a permanent frown. She was closely followed by the timid clerk, her eyes firmly fixed on floor by her feet. Miss Madison gave Tara such a baleful glare as she placed a bowl of seeing on the counter that she almost fled the store. If she hadn't needed the scrying bowl so desperately, she would have.

"Is this what you wanted?" Miss Madison asked brusquely. Without waiting for an answer, she continued, "I hope you can afford it. It's a rather expensive item for a college student."

The bowl itself was beautiful in its simplicity. It was carved from a single piece of an iridescent blue grey stone, polished carefully without any carvings or adornment that would distract from its purpose.

"H-how much is it?" Tara stammered.

"It's $1,500, and there are no refunds for any reason," she said. "If you don't know how to use it or don't have the power to use it, that's your problem." Her eyes were full of doubt about Tara's ability to use the bowl.

Tara straightened up and looked back into her eyes, trying her best to look confident. "I'll take it."

"How will you be paying?" Miss Madison asked with one eyebrow raised.

Not for the first time since she discovered the true nature of Sunnydale, Tara wondered what sort of customers came here after dark and how they paid for their purchases. She silently handed her credit card across the counter. She didn't have a lot of money, but there was enough from her mother's life insurance to pay for school and a little more. She felt that if there was ever a time to spend money on herself, it was now.

Miss Madison handed her the receipt for her signature. After Tara signed it and returned it to her, she carefully checked that Tara's signature matched the one on the back of the credit card. She looked sharply at Tara before handing her the card back. Then she began carefully packing the bowl in a box with lots of soft packing material. "So Tara," she said. "What are you planning to see with this?"

Suspicious of the proprietor's sudden solicitude, Tara answered vaguely, "The past."

"Ah," said Miss Madison as if Tara had provided her with a significant answer. "This is a very good artifact for viewing the past." She finished securing the seeing bowl in the box. "I'm sure it will be just what you need," she said, giving Tara a knowing look.

Tara was finding the nice Miss Madison to be even more creepy than the more usual annoyed one. She picked up the box and said "Thank you" before heading for the door. At the door she turned her head to look back into the shop and saw Miss Madison still watching her with a faint smile on her face. The smile broadened and she said, "I hope to see you again soon," as Tara left the shop.

The bowl of seeing sat in the center of the hardwood floor of Tara's dorm room, flanked by two thick, white candles which provided the only illumination in the otherwise dark room. The flickering light of the candles created dim reflections that shifted and flowed on the surface of the still water filling the bowl. The Althea incense burning on the little table by Tara's bed scented the air.

Tara stood near the bowl, meticulously casting a protective circle around herself using fine blue sand. She wore silver hoop earrings and a silver chain around her neck to enhance the efficacy of the scrying spell. Once the circle was complete she sat down crosslegged in front of the bowl to begin the spell.

As she closed her eyes, her mind was buzzing with thoughts, worries about Willow preventing her from attaining the clarity of mind she needed for the spell. She forced herself to focus on her breathing, pulling each breath in to fill her belly then her rib cage and with a last bit of effort her upper chest. Each time her mind brought up a new fear about her spell, she yanked it away and back to focus on her breathing. Again and again, she did this.

She let out a long sigh as she opened her eyes. This wasn't working.

She was trying too hard.

Bringing her hands to her temples, she massaged them gently. The forced concentration was giving her a headache. She consciously released her breath in another long sigh. She had to relax, be patient, let it happen. You couldn't make water still by pulling or pushing at it, and the harder you tried the less calm the water became.

With that image in mind, she closed her eyes again, allowing her worries to come up one by one without trying to pull herself away. She simply accepted them and didn't allow herself to become attached. She let her fears flow through her, fears that the spell wouldn't work, that it would work but that their past held none of the loving moments she so wished to see, that no matter what she saw they were doomed to repeat the tragedies of the past, and so many more.

She let them all flow past until there were no more and only she herself remained, empty and calm. Ready at last, she made her request to the spirits of the past. "Show me the memories of the past. Show me the life Willow and I led before."

The water suddenly cleared, no longer reflecting the room but instead showing her a vision of the past.

Willow was hugging Tara from behind, her hands clasped around her waist. Tara's eyes were downcast. She was obviously unhappy about something. "Is someone making you uncomfortable?" Willow asked. "Is it Xander? It's Xander, isn't it?"

Tara realized that she was holding her breath as the vision dissipated. She let it out in a long, shaky exhale. The other Tara in the vision looked and acted so much like her. It hadn't fully hit her that she really had lived and died before until now. That was really me, she thought to herself wonderingly.

Yesterday she'd accepted the fact of her reincarnation intellectually, but today she was forced to accept it emotionally. In her dreams she was always her, but the vision in a bowl of seeing was different. In the vision, she saw the Tara of the past as a different person, yet one who so similar to her as to make her unsure of her own identity. That Tara looked similar enough to have been her sister, but they were much closer than sisters.

She felt conflicted. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to rebel, to prove that she was her own woman by being different from the Tara of the past, or whether she wanted to be more like her, to be the Tara that Willow had loved and had come back for after nearly twenty years. She wanted Willow but she felt that she had to be more than the continuation of some person from the past.

Her only certainty was that she needed to see more. If she knew more about the past, perhaps her own feelings about it would become clear to her. Forcing herself to focus again, she brought forth another scene in the scrying bowl.

With a shawl wrapped around her, Tara stood in a magic shop holding some Tarot cards in her hand as she said, "I just keep thinking how cool it would be if we could get a real psychic to set up here and read fortunes and stuff."

As the image dissolved, Tara smiled. It had been so sweet. There had been more to their life together than the fighting and dark magic. They had loved each other. She'd seen it in their eyes as she'd felt it in her dreams. She shouldn't have doubted Willow, but she had needed to see this confirmation of their past love with her own waking eyes. It felt like a tremendous burden of darkness had been lifted from her soul.

She thought about terminating the spell now that she'd found what she been searching for, but she wanted to see more of the good parts. She wanted to know how it all turned out like it had though she was afraid of seeing her own death in the scrying bowl. She looked into the waters again and concentrated, bringing forth another vision.

Willow had short hair and was wearing a dark flowered dress. She looked so happy, smiling as she approached Tara. Tara was sitting at a table piled with presents talking to a girl in a party hat. Willow asked "My dance?" then took her by the hand and led her out to the dance floor where she wrapped her arms around Tara's waist. Tara placed hers comfortably on Willow's shoulders. Willow asked, "Good birthday?"

Tara felt warm inside as the vision finished with the image of them in each other's arms feeling completely content as they floated above the dance floor. She couldn't stop herself from smiling. It had been so wonderful. She wondered if she and Willow would float too if they slow danced together. She'd never been that interested in dancing, always feeling like everyone was watching her awkwardness, but with Willow she could forget the world and perhaps they would float together.

In the vision Willow had seemed serene, completely at peace with herself and her love for Tara. Seeing her that way was bittersweet for Tara because she had never seen Willow like that with her. Her Willow was calm and controlled but never at peace with herself or the world. She was wary and melancholy, wounded soul-deep by a death that happened almost twenty years ago. Her death. Still, Willow was changing. She couldn't imagine flirting over coffee with the black-clad witch she'd first met in the graveyard.

Tara had to be patient, and she was willing to wait if she could have what she had seen today. She didn't have to be patient with the vision though. She could see more now.

Tara sat beside a flannel-clad Willow on a bed in a university dorm room. A young girl with beautiful long brown hair sat beside them. Tara wore pajamas and had a cast over her right hand. A blonde girl in a black leather jacket sat on a chair beside the bed and handed Willow a sandwich. "Chicken salad?"

Tara shuddered. It was horrifying, seeing what she become after the Hellgod brain-sucked her. Her vacant expression. The irrational fears. A lost expression that might have been a cry for help from the depths of her mind.

Yet at the same time it was wonderful seeing Willow standing by her no matter what. Despite how lost she had been, she still had Willow, and she still had known that when she known nothing else. Willow had taken care of her when she couldn't take care of herself and hadn't given up on her even after she died.

She thought that Buffy must be the Slayer, the one whose name Willow and Giles could never quite say. She thought she knew why Giles couldn't talk about her. Every Slayer-Watcher relationship ended in death. It had to be difficult training someone and becoming close to them, knowing that no matter how well you prepared her, she would always eventually fail. Yet Giles had the courage to begin the process again with Spirit. She was less certain why Willow couldn't talk about Buffy. She knew that they were friends, but there was something more there that she hadn't seen yet.

Tara wasn't sure who Dawn was. She had some type of close relationship with the Slayer, but Tara couldn't tell from the vision what exactly it was. Clearly she knew Tara well too, but Willow had never mentioned Dawn's name. She suddenly wondered if Dawn was still alive. Perhaps Giles could tell her. She'd like to meet someone from her past who was neutral about Willow as Giles was not, yet who was also less haunted by the dark times as Willow was.

Storing that thought away carefully for later perusal, Tara focused on the scrying bowl again and brought forth a new scene.

"Are you worried?" Tara asked in a soft, gentle voice as she took off her robe, revealing a simple white sleeping shirt underneath.

This vision was an important one for Tara. It was the first time she'd seen that she had comforted and supported Willow instead of being the one to be comforted herself. She felt like the junior partner in their relationship, and the visions hadn't contradicted that idea until now.

Willow seemed so strong and so smart, even in the past, that Tara hadn't been sure that Willow had ever needed her support or anyone else's for that matter. She also hadn't been sure if Willow could accept comfort from someone else if she did need it. Even in the past life Willow had to be asked to show her vulnerability, but when Tara had asked her she hadn't hesitated to let her in.

Tara was unsure if they'd reached the point in their relationship where Willow could let her in that easily yet ... again. It was difficult to know what words to use about their relationship. Was it one continuous whole from Willow's point of view with her no different from the old Tara or was it two separate relationships bridged by Willow's memories of the past?

Even if Tara had all those memories fresh in her mind, Willow was a different person today. She was warier and less open. It couldn't be the same. What had happened over the years to change her? She had lost Tara, but there was more to it than that. Those lonely years left their mark on Willow, but Tara didn't know how or why.

As she looked into the clear water, Tara realized that she could find out. She had enough of the connection with Willow to look into her past too. Was it the right thing to do though? Even looking at her own past life sometimes felt like voyeurism.

Still, Willow knew so much about her and she knew so little about Willow. What she'd learned in the past few days only showed her how much there was that she didn't know about Willow. A few glimpses of Willow's past might help more than it would hurt. She focused on the still waters again, attempting to bring forth an image of Willow's past.

Tara, her face peaceful, lay unmoving in the coffin. They had dressed her in a simple, yet elegant, white gown. Her eyes were closed and her hands were folded across her waist. Her long, beautiful hair was spread across the pillow. She looked like she was simply asleep, waiting for her princess to wake her with a kiss.

Tara pulled away from the scrying bowl, her own eyes beginning to tear. She wanted to take some time to recover, but the image in the water shimmered and changed without her direction, showing her a new vision.

Willow stood at an archway that opened in an ancient, huge wall built of cyclopean stones. She was dressed all in black, jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, her short red hair providing the only note of color. Her eyes were already pools of inky blackness.

As the vision of the necropolis faded, it was immediately replaced by a new one. Tara realized that she no longer held control of the spell, but before she could worry she was drawn into this new image of the past.

Willow stood in a garden on top of a skyscraper, looking out over the city below her. She was wearing an ankle-length robe of pure black that rippled in the wind and her red hair fell to her shoulder blades.

Tara wondered who the woman was and how Willow met her. She'd never been confident about her own appearance, but even if she had been no one she'd ever seen compared to the woman in the vision. Then the image shifted again drawing her attention back to the water.

Willow stood frozen, dressed in the black leathers in which Tara had first seen her, her hair longer than in the previous vision. She was staring into a huge floor to ceiling mirror, but it did not reflect the room behind her or even Willow herself. Instead, standing in the center of the mirror was Tara, dressed in the same elegant white gown that she had been buried in.

Tara jerked her face away from the surface of water, irrationally afraid that she would get pulled in too, but the image was already fading and being replaced by a new one.

Willow limped across an endless plain of broken stones, her twisted leg trailing behind her. Her leathers were rent and torn, and each of the dozens of cuts was stained with blood. Willow's blood. The sky above was the dull red of cooling lava. The land was barren and empty save for a pillar of dust ahead of Willow. From that direction came the faint and distant sound of hoof beats.

That was no place on earth Tara realized. As she wondered how Willow made it out of that hell, the images began rushing forth faster and faster, showing her ever shorter glimpses of Willow over the years. She could no longer hold the focus at all.

Willow stood in front of a huge stone Pool of Seeing set into the floor of a classical temple, a glowing gemstone in her hand as she cried out, "Find me the soul of Tara Maclay!"

then

Hidden in the shadowy trees, Willow, all in black and her face hidden behind a mask, watched Tara fight a vampire in the graveyard, whispering, "Is it really her after all this time?"

then

A slender stone arch bridged a chasm deep underground. On the bridge, Willow faced the spectral form of a short, slender woman who glowed with an unholy emerald light. Turning towards her, the spectre revealed a beautiful face framed by short pale hair. As if it knew her well, the dark spirit grinned and said, "Welcome home, Willow."

Tara almost recognized the figure but the image fleeted away to be replaced by a new one.

Dressed in her black leathers, Willow stood in a dark cavern gazing into Tara's eyes as a torrent of green fire rushed towards them. As they embraced, a sea of brighness came into being, encircling the two witches. They continued to kiss, heedless of inferno of emerald flames that howled its fury all around them.

The water in the scrying bowl began to bubble and hiss as a new image appeared.

Tara knelt beside Willow, looking up at her face. Her eyes were gloriously green without any hint of darkness. A terrible yet familiar voice said, "The spell is complete," and a crossbow raised into view.

The water hissed furiously as it showed her one final image.

A black crossbow bolt, its head etched with runes the color of the dried blood, sped towards Willow's heart.

With a huge cracking sound the bowl shattered, and Tara was thrown out of the protective circle by the force of the spell's destructive collapse. Her blouse was soaked, and shards of wet blue stone were scattered everywhere, but she was physically unharmed. After a long moment to regain her composure, Tara sat up and surveyed the wreckage in the darkness.

What had happened? She should have broken the spell when she first realized that she'd lost control, but she had been too lost in Willow's past to do that. Still, a seeing spell shouldn't end explosively no matter how little control she had over it.

Underneath her surface calm, Tara was filled with a tumult of conflicting emotions. Her worries about the spell were the least of them. While she felt sorrow for what Willow had gone through with her death, she was also jealous of that beautiful woman she'd seen touching Willow with such intimacy. Who was she and what had been Willow's relationship with her?

Then there was her fear for what Willow had gone through on her quest. There was the terrible dark resurrection of herself, but worse was seeing Willow at the end of all her strength and determination when she seemed to have nothing left to give. She could hardly comprehend the amount of strength it had taken for Willow to get back up after all the hurts she had sustained.

There was also hope. Willow had come out of that terrible hell and found her. Then the two of them faced the darkness together in the future. Willow's eyes green, empty of the darkness that had been there so long. She would give so much to see that.

Finally, what remained was despair. She had seen Willow's death in the completion of a deadly spell, and a crossbow bolt carrying its malevolence towards Willow's heart while Tara knelt by her side, helpless to change its course.

Tara wrapped her arms around her body, hugging herself in the darkness. She couldn't bear to lose Willow just as she found her again. She began to sob quietly, rocking herself back and forth. Before she became lost in her pain, she remembered how Willow had taken care of her when she was lost in her mind and that she hadn't given up on Tara no matter what.

Wiping her tears away, she thought about how she had been there to comfort and hold Willow when she had been fragile and needed shelter. Willow needed her. In both past and future.

Tara slowly stood up, the sorrow and understanding on her face mingling with a new, deep sense of resolve.

Chapter 17: Dawn of Darkness

Holding Willow's hand, Tara walked up the stairs to her dorm room. They were unusually quiet as they came back from lunch so Tara could pick up her books for her next class; Tara hadn't figured out what to tell Willow about her visions of yesterday. She was glad that the silence hadn't bothered Willow, who seemed to be happy simply being in Tara's company. She wasn't sure how to answer questions about her unusual quietness.

A tall, slender woman in her thirties with short, sleek brown hair stood leaning against Tara's door. She had the relaxed attitude of someone who'd been waiting for some time and was content to wait some more. As they approached Tara's room, the woman straightened up, her face brightening. "Tara! Willow!" she exclaimed.

Before Tara could respond, the woman swept her up in a tight embrace. "It's unbelievably wonderful to see you, Tara." She pulled away from Tara, holding her out at arm's length, and looked closely her. Suddenly she seemed embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she said. "You don't know who I am, do you?"

"You're Dawn," Tara said slowly, the hesitation in her voice revealing her lack of complete certainty about the identity of the young woman. So much time had passed. Dawn was no longer the young teenager she'd seen in the past. Yet somehow this made the past more real than it had before with Willow's unchanging appearance. "But you're right," she said. "I don't really know who you are."

Willow felt a deep sadness as she watched their reunion. She and Dawn had once been close, but she had forfeited any right to Dawn's respect much less her love. Perhaps she might have been able to achieve a reconciliation if she'd returned before Buffy's death, but now was certainly too late.

Before Willow could say anything, Dawn hugged her too. "Willow," she said. "It's so good to see you again too."

Willow stiffened in surprise before relaxing and welcoming Dawn with her own embrace. "Dawnie," she murmured softly. She ran Dawn's words through her head again, trying to believe that Dawn had really said what she thought she heard.

When they parted, both women's eyes were wet with tears. "It's Dr. Dawn now," Dawn smiled.

"I knew you'd do well," Willow smiled in return. Then her face fell as she recalled how they'd parted. "Dawn, I'm-"

Dawn shook her head. "No sorries," she interrupted, her face full of firm resolve. "Not when I'm so happy to see both of you again," she added gently.

Tara watched as the expression on Willow's face transformed from one of resigned regretfulness to one of almost shocked happiness. She felt happy at Willow's happiness, but also guilty for she had been the source of all the time and distance between them.

Turning to Tara Dawn said, "Now, Tara, what did you mean when you said you didn't really know me?"

Tara swallowed, feeling self-conscious as both Willow's and Dawn's eyes focused on her. "Um, I've seen you in my ... dreams, and I knew we knew each other in the past, but that's all." She relaxed when Willow nodded, apparently accepting her explanation. Tara continued, "I hate to say this, but I've got to get to class. I really want to talk to you though!"

"It's okay," Dawn said, patting Tara's arm reassuringly. "Can we meet here after class to do dinner?"

"Sure," Tara smiled. She opened her door to get her books, then turned her head to ask Dawn, "Do you want to wait inside? I'll be back around 5."

"No," Dawn said. "I'll just meet you here at 5."

Tara nodded, then disappeared into her room to get her books. Dawn and Willow glanced at each other uncomfortably, each of them unsure of what to say next.

Dawn gazed down at the floor, then looked back up at Willow before speaking. "How much does she remember?" she asked.

"I'm not quite sure," Willow said. She shifted her weight uncomfortably, looking away from Dawn. "More than I expected."

Tara emerged from her room, books in hand. She beamed at Willow and Dawn. "I'll see you tonight." She wanted a goodbye kiss from Willow, but she was too nervous to kiss her in front of Dawn so she settled for a quick hug.

They watched Tara walk away until she was out of sight. Both of them looked down, uncertain how to be with each other after so much time apart.

Dawn scuffed her shoe along the trim by the door. "How-" she began.

"Did she come back?" Willow finished for her. She shook her head. "I don't know, but it wasn't me despite all my efforts." She shrugged, trying to hide the fact that it bothered her that she didn't know. "Fate I suppose."

Another awkward silence fell on them, neither of them looking at the other. Willow broke this one, asking "How did you know she was back?"

"Giles called me," Dawn said, relieved to have something easy to talk about. "I came on the first flight."

"Have you seen him?" Willow asked warily. She hoped Dawn hadn't had much of a chance to talk with Giles about her. This meeting with Dawn was going so much better than the one with Giles, and she didn't want to lose Dawn too.

"No," Dawn said. "I came directly here. I don't think I really believed it until I saw her." She smiled at Willow, certain that Willow would understand what she was feeling. "It was hard enough believing that you were back in Sunnydale. Where were you all those years?" she asked, an expression of intense curiosity on her face as she looked at Willow.

"Dark places," she answered. "All over the world. Anyplace that might help me find Tara again, anyplace but Sunnydale where I found her." She looked at Dawn, her eyes full of regret. "I wish I'd come back sooner, not for Tara since she wasn't here yet, but to see you and Buffy before she-" Her voice caught in her throat.

Braving her fear of Willow's rejection, Dawn reached out and gently stroked Willow's cheek. "It's okay, Willow," she said. "What hurt most was knowing that you were still out there hurting."

"I can't believe you're so forgiving," Willow said ruefully. "My life has changed more in the last month than it has in years. It's so hard believing that she's real."

"It's weird seeing her younger than me," Dawn said. "I mean, she was like a mother to me. You too, for that matter."

"Not me." Willow shook her head, the corners of her mouth turning down. "I was too busy-"

"Keeping the world safer every night and learning how to bring my sister back from the dead," Dawn said defiantly.

"Like that worked out so well," Willow said glumly. She had ruined everything in her life in just a few months.

"But it did," Dawn said. She swept her arms out, her hands grasping the air as if she wanted to shake Willow out of her guilt. "You gave her 15 more years of life. Yes, the first was hard, but she treasured each and every one of those years. I did too. How could I be angry with you for returning my sister to me?"

"But the other things after Tara died," Willow argued, unable to bring herself to say what those things were. She felt that she deserved Dawn's hatred both for what she'd done and for what she'd almost done. She just didn't think that she'd have to work so hard to get it.

"It was a long time ago," Dawn said.

"But-" Willow objected.

"Let me finish," Dawn said firmly.

Reminded by her tone that Dawn was not a child any longer, Willow said, "Okay."

"You're family, Willow," Dawn said, looking steadily into Willow's eyes. "You and Tara both."

Under the cloudy night sky, Amy stood in the graveyard watching the Master. A terrible blight had fallen upon the once youthful immortal. He had become unnaturally old. His skin was wrinkled and spotted with age, and his eyes were sunken. His body was bent and his head bowed as if the Heart was laden with the weight of the world.

Wrapping both palsied hands around the Heart, he stoked the emerald fire with his malice until a sickly green radiance spilled out to illuminate the graveyard. As he pulled his hands away from the Heart, they were filled with green fire. He hurled the fire at the ground, slowly turning to burn a circle around him then filled it with more fire that seethed and flowed like a liquid. Finally he inscribed a pentagram within the circle, completing the mystical symbol.

His hands returned to the Heart to summon forth more of its might, causing the fires around him to leap higher and higher until he was hidden from view by an inferno of emerald flames. The fires grew and grew, tearing at the heavens with tongues of flame. With a final shout from the Master, the fire leaped into the sky like emerald lightning and pierced the clouds. The explosion of power blinded Amy for a moment.

When she could see again, she looked up and saw that the full moon now shone with an ill emerald radiance. Where the corrupt light struck the ground, the soil boiled and seethed. Soon the rotting hands of the dead could be seen clawing their way out of their graves. A growing stream of zombies emerged from the ground like unholy children being born until the graveyard was full of hundreds of the living dead animated by the evil force of the corrupted moon.

A travesty of a smile formed on the Master's wrinkled face as he surveyed his army of the dead. They stood silently watching him, their sunken sockets filled with emerald fire. With a savage gesture, he directed them towards town, and they began to shuffle in that direction. They needed no more instruction than that, for the dead hated the living and would kill them on sight.

Amy smiled as she watched the performance. The Heart was destroying the vampire as she had planned, and this spell might settle another account of hers tonight. She had been surprised to meet the reincarnation of Tara Maclay at her shop yesterday, but it had been obvious what she was after a few moments of thought. Willow had managed to bring her girlfriend back from the dead after all. There could be no other explanation. Fortunately, Tara hadn't appeared to remember her.

It didn't matter if she had tonight. If Willow was in town as Amy expected she was, the zombies would kill her. It wasn't as good as doing it herself, but one had to make sacrifices sometimes. Individually the undead weren't much, slow and uncoordinated as they were, but quantity had a quality all its own and they numbered in the thousands. While the emerald moon shone down on Sunnydale, all the dead that were more than dust would come back to life and kill the living.

All her problems would soon be over and when she had the Heart, her dark moon would shine down over the whole world.

After Tara and Dawn finished placing their orders at the counter, they picked a table. They were the only ones in the tiny restaurant at the moment, so they had their choice of tables. As they sat down, Tara gestured around the tiny room and explained, "I know it's not much to look at. I mean it's just Mr. Xing and his wok, but it's the best Chinese food in Sunnydale."

"You sure like food a lot," Dawn said, smiling at Tara's enthusiasm. "Do you do any cooking? You used to make the most wonderful pancakes in funny shapes." Dawn sounded nostalgic as she recalled her past with Tara, but she was also probing to see how much Tara remembered.

"Funny shaped pancakes?" Tara said, wrinkling her nose in puzzlement. "Why would anyone want funny shaped pancakes?"

"They taste better," Dawn said. Catching Tara's look of disbelief, she asserted, "Really, they did. No one could make them like you."

Tara regarded Dawn suspiciously. "I'm still not sure if I should believe you about the pancakes, but yes, I did cook, but there's not much of a place to do any cooking in the dorm." She folded her arms on the table and looked at Dawn seriously. "So how do you know me?"

Dawn accepted the change in mood gracefully. "Do you know who Buffy was?" she asked. When Tara nodded, she continued, "Buffy was my big sister." Dawn paused for a moment, considering whether to add more, then shook her head. It would just confuse Tara.

"Willow was Buffy's best friend. I met you after the two of you started dating. When Buffy-" Dawn looked down at her hands on the table. After a moment she returned her gaze to Tara and said, "When she died you and Willow moved in to take care of me. Buffy was my only family so you guys sort of became my moms. Willow would help me with my school work and stuff, but she was also busy leading the nightly patrols and filling in for Buffy that way."

"What about me?" Tara asked curiously, wondering how she had fit into this kind of family.

"You made us breakfast," Dawn said, "and you were always there to talk with me when I needed it." She smiled. "That summer I needed a lot of help. Willow faced the outside world, but you held us together as a family."

"I have a hard time seeing myself as your mom," Tara said with a crooked smile. Dawn reached across the table to take one of Tara's hands in hers. "I know I'm older now," Dawn said. "But I remember that you were there when I needed you most. If you ever need anything Tara." She re-emphasized the word, squeezing Tara's hand. "Anything. Just ask me."

"What was Willow like then?" Tara asked, leaning forward.

"She was smart and caring," Dawn answered. "And very much in love." She cocked her head to look inquisitively at Tara. "Was there something in particular you wanted to know about?"

"I've seen flashes ... visions of the past," Tara explained. She pulled her hands away from Dawn's and grasped at the air, reaching for the right words that she couldn't quite find to explain her connection to the past. "That's how I recognized you. But I ... it's not the same as actually experiencing it." She broke off and looked down at the white plastic surface of the table for a moment before looking up at Dawn. "Do you understand?"

"I think so," Dawn said with a nod. "But perhaps that's for the best." Noticing Tara's look of confusion, Dawn continued, "If you knew too much about the past, it would be difficult to maintain your own identity, to keep yourself separate from the Tara of the past."

"But-" Tara began.

"I know," Dawn said with an ironic smile. "I'm not helping with my promise that I'd do anything for you because of events you don't remember from that past. But there's a difference between acknowledging that the past happened and letting it become you."

"How do I find the right balance between knowing too much and not knowing enough?" Tara asked. She knew there was a difference, but she couldn't feel what it was to really understand where the boundaries were. She still felt like she didn't know nearly enough about what had happened in the past to make decisions about her future.

"Let it come to you naturally, gradually," Dawn said. "Don't try to force it. Your dreams are probably showing your past to you at a rate that you can assimilate. Trust them."

Tara looked guiltily at Dawn. "I cast a spell," she admitted.

An awkward silence followed as Mr. Xing brought them their food on styrofoam plates, placing the kung pao chicken in front of Dawn and a Szechuan dish with sauteed green beans and shrimp in front of Tara. He dropped off a bottle of soy sauce and a pair of chopsticks for each woman, then was gone, back behind his counter by the door to wait for the next customer. Tara expertly picked up one of the shrimp with her chopsticks and started to bring it up to her mouth.

"Wait!" Dawn said urgently, stopping Tara mid-motion.

"What?" Tara said, puzzled by Dawn's exclamation.

"You are ... were ... allergic to shrimp," Dawn said, hesitating on her choice of tense.

"I eat shrimp all the time," Tara said mildly, though she put the shrimp down. Pointing at Dawn's dish with her chopsticks, she added, "Peanuts are another matter. I can't eat them at all."

"How about chocolate?" Dawn asked, curious about the differences between the old Tara and the new Tara.

"Chocolate's fine," Tara said with a lopsided smile. "More than fine. It's wonderful."

"Cool," Dawn said, looking for a moment like the teenager she had once been. "Then we can go out for one of our big movie and milkshake fun days." She smiled wryly. "Though you might have to be the one to drink the big milkshake now."

"That sounds fun," Tara said, her smile broadening. It already felt like she had known Dawn for years. "Did we used to do that often?" she asked, taking a bite of her food.

"Often enough," Dawn answered. "You started taking me out after Buffy died. Willow would be at work, or patrolling, or working on the Buffy bot."

"Buffy bot?" Tara interrupted.

"Um," Dawn fumbled for words, trying to figure out how to explain where the Buffybot came from, then decided it was best to just ignore the whole issue. "It was a robot someone built that looked just like Buffy. Willow programmed it so that all the bad guys would still think the slayer was alive and so that the school and state would still think Buffy was my guardian. I wanted to stay with you and Willow instead of being sent to a foster home."

Tara reached across the table to squeeze Dawn's hand. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Dawn said with a smile. "You were a great mom."

Tara wasn't sure what to say to that. Dawn's compliment made her feel warm inside, but at the same time she knew that she certainly wasn't ready to be a mother at her age even if her past self had been. She covered her uncertainty by taking a few more bites of her green beans and shrimp.

"Anyway," Dawn continued, after she took another bite of her food too. "I'd be feeling depressed, or rebellious about summer school, and you'd take me out to a movie or lunch or something. You'd talk to me like I was a real person, not just a kid or ... something else."

"What else?" Tara asked, wrinkling her brow.

"I'll explain later. That's too long a story for now," Dawn answered with a smile, long ago having accepted her unique nature. "But first, I'd like to ask you about that spell you cast. What was it precisely? You didn't cast anything on Willow, did you?"

"No," Tara said quietly, shaking her head. Her smile faded. "I would never ... I just cast a spell to see my past ... Willow's past."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Dawn said, looking encouragingly at Tara.

"I-" Tara began as the door crashed open. A figure in a tattered gray suit stumbled into the little restaurant and tripped over one of the tables. Mr. Xing rushed out from behind the counter to investigate the commotion. The newcomer struggled to get up, pushing the table away. As Mr. Xing bent over him to help, the man lunged at this throat and bit deep.

Tara tore open her backpack to get her stakes while Dawn rummaged through her purse. Grabbing one of the stakes, Tara stood up and yelled at the figure, hoping to distract it from the kindly old man. It looked up at her with glowing emerald eyes, its mouth dripping with blood, and began to get up. The moment its chest became exposed, Tara hurled the stake deep into its heart with the full force of her mind.

Nothing happened. Her calm evaporated as the creature rose to his feet, oblivious to the stake piercing its heart.

"It's not a vampire, Tara! It's a zombie." Dawn grabbed at her arm. "Try for the head."

The sunken eyes gleamed with green fire as it stumbled towards them. Another of the creatures crashed through the door. Shreds of flesh still clung to half its face, but the other half was fleshless bone. A single lidless eye stared angrily at them from the ruined face.

Tara began to feel afraid. These creatures seemed even worse than vampires. But she took Dawn's advice and readied another stake. She threw this one with all her force into the head of the first zombie. Wood shattered bone with a loud crack. The zombie staggered back, but did not fall down. As it regained its balance, Tara saw black goo oozing from a gaping wound in its forehead, but the creature was no more concerned about its brain than its heart. Tara turned to Dawn, a look of panic in her eyes.

"We have to get out of here!" Dawn said.

"In the back!" Tara shouted as she ran to the back of the restaurant. Mr. Xing had an apartment above the restaurant. She just hoped the door was unlocked as the two zombies shambled after them. She pulled the door open so hard that it slammed against the wall.

Dawn pushed her through the doorway then followed her, closing the door behind them. Tara locked the door and then looked frantically about for something to brace it with, but there was nothing on the landing they stood on.

Stairs led both up and down. Dawn looked at Tara, asking, "Which way?"

Tara bit her lip as she quickly thought about the direction. "Up," she said. "I don't want to get trapped in the basement with no way out."

As they rushed up the stairs, they heard the zombies banging on the door behind them. After they reached the top, Dawn pushed open the door and once they were inside slammed it shut behind them, securing it with the deadbolt. Then they turned and looked around Mr. Xing's small apartment. Dawn spotted the old couch first.

"The couch," she said to Tara, pointing at it. Tara understood her immediately. The two women ran over to the couch and pushed it in front of the door. After adding a few chairs and a small table to the barricade, they were both breathing hard as they looked each other.

"Secure enough?" said Tara in an almost calm voice. With the immediate danger over, she was worried but not so frightened as she had been downstairs.

Dawn nodded and walked over to the window to look at the street below. Tara joined her and saw dozens of zombies walking around below. Most of the creatures were the decaying remains of the buried dead, but a few were clearly people the zombies had slain tonight. The full moon, livid with emerald ill, illuminated the hellish scene below.

A police cruiser had crashed into a parked car. Its doors were open and one officer was still halfway inside the car, but the unnatural angle of his neck showed that he was dead. A zombie was mindlessly smashing the head of the other officer into a brick wall again and again, not noticing or not caring that he was already dead. As Tara watched in horror, the policeman in the car twitched weakly then began moving more purposefully. He slowly extricated himself from the car and stood up, his head hanging at an impossible, drunken angle.

Before she could turn away, Tara saw Mr. Xing stagger out of the restaurant below them, his throat in ribbons of torn flesh and his glazed eyes sparkling with emerald hate. She turned to Dawn and said, "We need Willow," at the same time Dawn said, "We need Giles."

Only a month ago she would have said Giles too, but now her first thought of who to turn to was Willow. It wasn't that Willow was the best person to handle this, though she was. It was that Willow had become the most important person in her life. It had happened so quickly that she hadn't noticed exactly when her life had changed.

As Tara watched out the window for Willow to arrive, Dawn paced behind her. They hadn't been able to contact Giles directly, but Tara had talked to Spirit on her cell phone. She and Giles were on their way to the library for weapons and research materials. They said that the town was full of zombies, hundreds of them. Spirit had volunteered to come rescue them anyway, but Tara had told them to go on, that she and Dawn would meet them at the library after Willow arrived.

As Tara wondered where Willow was for the hundredth time, a bolt of blue fire shot down from above and incinerated one of the zombies. She looked up as more bolts rained down from the sky, tearing apart the undead with concussive force then consuming the remains with heat and fire.

Willow floated in the sky, azure fire pouring from her outstretched hands. She was an angel of destruction, beautiful and terrible. Her black cloak billowed around her as the wind tossed her fiery mane. Her face was calm and cool as marble as dark eyes flitted back and forth, finding target after target to destroy.

As Tara watched Willow, she couldn't stop herself from wondering how Willow could maintain such a prodigious expenditure of energy. Was she keeping her promise to Tara? Tara closed her eyes and took three deep breaths to calm her mind.

When her mind was as quiet as clear, still water, she relaxed and allowed her senses to extend beyond the merely physical so that she could feel the flows of life and magic around her. Then she re-opened her eyes and looked at Willow. She gasped in wonder at what she saw.

Willow was surrounded by a diaphanous, opalescent shell of bright energies made incandescent by a pulsing red glow from within. She trailed complex webs of crackling azure and gold energies like enormous gossamer wings. It was so beautiful.

Multicolored streams of power from life and nature flowed towards her from all directions, swirling into gyres of pure, white energy that poured directly into Willow. Her aura surged with brightness as the magic entered her then dimmed as she redirected the power, transmuting it into a conflagration of cleansing blue flame.

Amazed at what she'd seen, Tara peered deeper into Willow's aura. Beyond the swirling, semitransparent mist of glowing blue energies, she looked into the sunlike core of red power that pulsed with the beat of Willow's heart. Deeper and deeper she went, seeing the red shade gradually darker into an almost black color as she reached the very center.

At the center was an inner shell of sluggishly flowing blackness swirled with thin streams of blood red power. These magicks didn't react to what was happening above. They were a quiescent power, but their puissance was as great as that of the active brightness above.

Willow was shrouded with a penumbra of darkness.

Chapter 18: Dark Moon Rising

As Willow finished destroying the zombies below, Tara opened the window so that she could enter the room. Willow alighted on the window ledge and stepped down into the room, ducking to avoid hitting her head on the window. She immediately folded Tara into a close embrace, resting her head on Tara's shoulder and asking, "Are you okay?"

Tara buried her face in Willow's long, red hair. It smelled fresh like the wind she'd flown through, but underneath was Willow's own scent. She smelled like a distant thunderstorm, wild and powerful.

That scent with its associations of danger and beauty brought the image of Willow's flaming aura burning back into her mind. The bright wings of gossamer energies. The cloak of utter darkness shrouding her innermost self.

But Willow was keeping her promise. That she had seen, and with that reassuring thought in mind, Tara was able to relax for the first time since she'd seen the zombies downstairs. She knew that together they would somehow find a way through this night of horrors. In this instant, she was able to forget all her doubts and fears. Her angel was at rest here beside her.

Too soon she heard Dawn's voice. "I think we should get out of here," Dawn said from behind Tara. "I hear something coming up the stairs and it's probably one of them."

Willow gently disengaged from Tara. "You're right, Dawn," she said, turning to face her friend as she reluctantly focused her mind again on the problem at hand. For the first time, she looked around the small apartment, beautifully decorated and immaculately neat with the exception of the heap of furniture barring the only door. Seeing that, she wished she had been here at dinner, sparing Tara and Dawn from the terrible feeling of being trapped in here. "I think my place is safer than Tara's dorm or wherever you're-"

"Giles and Spirit are at the school," Tara interrupted, her voice a little hesitant and her eyes not quite meeting Willow's as she recalled how carefully Willow had avoided meeting with Giles. "They're trying to figure out a way to stop these things."

Willow regarded her for a long moment before nodding. "The spell is too powerful for us to break, like we did with the weather," she said.

Tara nodded gravely at Willow's words, having felt the staggering might of the emerald moon. In fact, her stomach was still queasy after feeling its corrupt magicks with her second sight.

Dawn jumped as a powerful blow shook the door. It was followed by more blows at irregular intervals as the zombies outside tried in their mindless way to break the door down.

"I'm not used to this sort of thing any more," Dawn said with an embarrassed shrug. There had been a time in her life when she had been living with her sister that zombies interrupting dinner would have been no big deal, just another night of the week though probably Tuesday. Tuesdays were particularly bad.

As the pounding on the door took on a frenzied tempo, the door began to creak alarmingly as if it was going to break at any moment. "That's our signal that it's time to leave," Willow said, glancing quickly at Dawn and Tara's faces and finding no disagreement there. "I can levitate down to the ground with both of you."

"Why not fly there?" Dawn asked, using her familiar clinical voice to suppress the fear that arose as she thought about walking to the school from here.

"It would take too much energy," Willow said, her face grim. "I think we're going to need everything I've got before this night is over." Tara's face clouded as she heard Willow's words, but Willow didn't seem to notice. "Dawn, if you put your arms round my waist, I can go out the window with you then take Tara in my arms."

Willow lowered them safely to the ground, but the living dead were already returning to the street. Their eyes burned brightly with venomous emerald light as they approached the three women with stiff, uncoordinated movements. The slow silence of the zombies' attack was unnerving. They watched with horrified fascination for a moment before Willow shook herself out of it. She pushed Tara in the direction of the school, shouting "Run!"

Tara ran a few steps before she realized that Willow wasn't following them. Her stride faltered as she turned her head to look back. Looming large on the brick wall of the narrow street, shadows of the undead staggered towards the small, lonely shadow of Willow. The sickly greenish pallor of the moon's light made them all the more horrifying.

Dawn tugged at Tara's sleeve as she slowed to match her pace. "Come on," she said urgently to Tara. As Tara began to shake her head, Dawn continued, "She knows what she's doing. She'll be fine. Trust her."

Those last words got Tara's feet moving again. She could trust Willow, trust in her love to follow her out of the darkness. She kept those words in mind as she turned back towards the school and began to run in earnest, her heart remaining behind with Willow even as her feet took her body further away with every step.

Willow's hands blazed with pure, blue fire as she faced the legion of zombies. Hearing Dawn and Tara's rapid footsteps behind her, she felt calm as she faced the oncoming horde. Magical fire lanced forward from her hands again and again, burning the animated corpses to the ground. When none remained to follow, she turned and ran after Tara and Dawn without a backwards glance.

Tara slammed hard into the doors of the library, expecting them to open, and bounced back. As Dawn and Willow caught up with her, she hammered her fist on the door, shouting for Giles and Spirit. Immediately she heard the sounds of furniture being pulled away.

Spirit cautiously poked her head out the door. On seeing Tara, she broke into a smile, relieved that her friend had made it through the night safely. "Tara, come in!" She motioned them all inside, then closed and barred the door behind them. She stayed at the doors, replacing the bookcases in front of them, while Tara, Dawn, and Willow darted into the library.

The library was dark, but Tara could see Giles sitting at their usual table surrounded by books and reading by the light of a single candle. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, clearly feeling the strain of reading by candlelight. After replacing his glasses, he smiled wanly at Tara, but his eyes hardened as he saw Willow. "Willow," he said.

"Giles," Willow returned coolly. Her face was devoid of emotion as she regarded him, but the clenching of her hands revealed her inner tension.

Dawn had talked with Giles that afternoon before her dinner with Tara. He had warned her about Willow's darkness, telling her about the destruction of the Council of Watchers, news that neither he nor Buffy had mentioned to her. Despite that, she didn't agree with him that it was best that Tara avoid Willow, believing that Tara had returned for a reason and that reason was Willow. She hoped that the universal threat of the zombies would help bring Willow and Giles closer. "So Giles," she said. "Have you found anything about how to stop the zombies?"

He looked old and tired, his face drawn with strain, as he shook his head. "I haven't found anything about an emerald moon that animates the dead."

"Maybe you're not looking for the right thing," Willow said, looking at him as if he were an obsolete machine, ripe for replacement.

Giles gazed challengingly at her over the top of his glasses. "And what, pray tell, should I be looking for?" he asked acerbically.

"Tara and I could put up an energy barrier around the library," Willow said in a supercilious tone. "It will last well past moonset when I expect the zombies will lose their animating force." Years of experience had taught her pragmatism. The precise nature of the animating spell was less important now than finding a way to survive the zombies.

Tara watched the bickering with growing dismay. Why were Willow and Giles acting this way? Then she jumped at the sudden sound of zombies pounding at the library doors. The doors shook from the force of the thumping but remained securely shut, held steady by the weight of the furniture bracing them. Willow moved closer and placed her right arm around Tara's shoulders to reassure her.

"And if they don't?" Giles asked pointedly, his gaze contemptuous. "What will happen tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow doesn't matter right now," interjected Spirit. She was tired of listening to Tara's friend argue with Giles. She needed to do something. "We have to do something now to save the people out there tonight."

"She's right," added Dawn, giving quelling glances to both Giles and Willow.

"There are too many," Willow said, fixing Giles with a steely gaze. "And they have to be totally destroyed to stop them. We found that out on the way here."

"Just like Return of the Living Dead," Spirit nodded though she was frustrated that Willow addressed her objections to Giles instead of her. She was the Slayer and it was her suggestion that Willow was arguing against.

Dawn turned her head to look at Spirit in surprise. "You watch that sort of thing?" she asked.

"Horror movies are like homework for the Slayer," Spirit said. "Right, Giles?" She smiled hopefully at Giles, hoping to break up the tension.

"Um, I'm not sure about that," Giles said, too preoccupied to smile at her attempt at humor. He reluctantly continued, "Willow's right though. We don't have the firepower to take on thousands of those zombies." He held up a hand to forestall Spirit's objections. "So we'll have to find another solution."

Willow glanced at Giles in surprise as he admitted that she was right. Perhaps she could get him to see reason after all.

"The center of the spell," Tara said excitedly.

The others looked at her without comprehension, but Willow looked thoughtful and nodded. That gave Tara the courage to present the rest of her idea. "The spell isn't on the moon. No one could reach that far with magic," she said, stepping up to the table around which everyone was standing. "It's like a filter between us and the sky that's transmuting the moon's rays. The caster has to be maintaining it right now. If we follow the gradient of the spell's power towards its greatest strength we'll find the caster at the center."

"That's brilliant, Tara!" Giles said, a genuine smile on his face. Then the smile faded and he added with greater reserve, "But we still have to get there."

"I'll go," Willow volunteered. "I can get through the zombies without getting hurt." She glanced at Tara then quickly looked away.

Tara had let Willow push her aside that night with the demons in the graveyard, but she had since learned that Willow needed her as much as she needed Willow. She took a step towards Willow to tell her that she wasn't going to let that happen again, but Spirit spoke first.

"I'm the Slayer, I should go," Spirit said, straightening up and looking defiantly at Willow. She couldn't see why Tara's friend wanted to go alone, but she was the Slayer and she wouldn't stay behind to let others face the danger that was her responsibility.

"We're all going," Giles said as he calmly regarded Willow.

"I'm the only one who can make it there safely," Willow said, her tone matter-of-fact as she placed her hands on her hips. "What's so hard to understand about this?" She looked around at the group, challenging them to find a valid objection to her statement.

Giles started to object, but was stopped by Dawn who said, "How many times did Buffy tell you to stay home and you went with her anyway?" Dawn watched Willow closely as she spoke. Seeing Willow shy away from her own steady gaze, she continued, "And how many times did she need you there? How many times were you able to help?"

"A lot," Willow admitted, carefully not looking at Tara. "But that still doesn't justify putting Tara in danger."

"You can't live my life for me, Willow," Tara said. "I've seen what you went through, but you can't lock me away from life to keep me safe." She looked at Willow, her eyes pleading with Willow for understanding.

Willow gazed back at Tara, her eyes full of fear for what might happen tonight. She didn't have to be having this argument. She had the ability to seal them all safely in a force shield and leave. It would be easy, but as she looked into Tara's pleading eyes she realized that she couldn't use magic on Tara against her will again, not even to keep her safe. She had learned that lesson at an extreme price.

"Okay," she sighed, accepting that they were all coming with her. Walking over to Tara, she pulled off her black cloak and placed it around Tara's shoulders. "This will keep you safe," she said. "Not from everything, but it's best I can do on short notice."

Tara adjusted the cloak. "Thank you," she said, with a grateful look.

Willow gazed into the peaceful blue sea of Tara's eyes, looking into the depths beneath the simple gratitude and saw that she was forgiven, that Tara understood her need to protect her. The serene acceptance in those eyes allowed her heart rate to slow and permitted her to feel a sense of calm as she turned around to face the rest the group.

"Okay, guys," she said. "What do we have for weapons? I think axes and blunt weapons will work best, but there may be vampires there too."

With the continual sound of pounding on the library doors reminding them of their limited time, they busied themselves getting weapons and making plans.

Soon they would enter the night of the living dead.

It had been a constant battle to reach the graveyard. Willow had led the group through the night of horrors, scouring a path through the undead with controlled blasts of blue fire. Tara had followed with Giles and Dawn, armed but avoiding conflict whenever possible. Spirit had guarded the rear, hewing the feet out from under the zombies as nothing else seemed to work. No damage short of total destruction would kill them, but they were a lot slower crawling than walking.

Ironically, the cemetery was the one place in town free of the walking dead, though the churned earth of the empty graves showed that they had risen from here. Tara felt almost physically ill as they entered the cemetery. A miasma hung over the grounds, remnants of the power that brought the dead back to a hideous parody of life. Nausea filled her as she breathed in the tainted air. The corruption was as much moral as magical. She could feel that the power that had been used here tonight could only be used for ill. She wondered how Willow could bear this torment so impassively. Or was she accustomed to this feeling through her use of dark magicks?

She stumbled on a hummock of newly turned earth in the path and almost fell, but Willow caught her by the elbow and helped her over it. She smiled at Willow and received a tight smile back that didn't reach Willow's eyes. Tara noticed that Willow's face was tense every time she looked her way, and that she never let a minute pass without checking on Tara. She worried that the distraction might let something get past Willow's defences. What if tonight was the night of her vision?

Then there was no more time to think about such things.

They had arrived.

The caster was certainly not trying to hide himself. A vampire, bent and old as they'd never seen before, stood in the center of a pentagram blazing with emerald fire. Waves of corruption emanated from the pentagram, pounding at her senses. Five vampires stood outside the pentagram, one at each point.

As they had planned in case of vampires, Tara, Dawn, and Giles attacked the bloodsuckers from a distance, while Spirit engaged the closer ones hand to hand. Willow poured a torrent of blue fire at the ill, emerald power of the pentagram. Three vampires quickly turned to dust, slain by Tara's stake and Dawn's and Giles's crossbow bolts. Spirit beheaded her first vampire handily with her great axe, but was bowled over by the second one.

Tara watched Willow strike at the pentagram again and again with scorching bolts of blue fire. Each time, emerald and azure flames warred with each other, crackling and hissing their rage as they fought. Emerald always won, consuming the pure blue of Willow's magicks, until she renewed the conflict with a new flare of her power. The ill power of the fiery pentagram prevailed more rapidly with each succeeding attack as Willow grew more and more tired, her strength dwindling as she expended it against the seemingly impenetrable defences of the master vampire.

Spirit finished the last vampire with a stake through the heart. Looking tired and frustrated, Willow paused in her struggle to break the pentagram to close her eyes and lean with her hands on her knees. When she reopened her tired eyes, they glanced at each other, wondering what to do next.

The figure in the pentagram turned to face them, his eyes glittering coldly like emeralds. He smiled at them in evil humor, completely unaffected by their attacks. "Destroying the vampires won't help you," he said. "They weren't here to kill you. They were just a symbol of my position as Master." He made a sweeping gesture at the woods behind them. "Those are what will kill you." Then the Master turned away from them as if they were beneath his notice.

Tara turned her head to look behind them. Several zombies emerged from the trees as she watched; the woods were full of shadowy forms shambling towards them. She turned around to look at the woods beyond the pentagram and saw more of the creatures emerging from those trees. She realized that they were surrounded by hundreds of the living dead approaching from all sides. Their Master was summoning them home to protect himself.

Willow quickly assessed their situation. The Master was telling the truth. They were surrounded. Although the zombies were slow, she didn't have much time. She had to make a decision about her promise. If she could pull dark power from the Hellmouth, she could shatter the protective pentagram with ease.

She looked at Tara, her gaze desperate but also speculative as she weighed the alternatives of using dark magic to rescue them from this trap. Tara's eyes widened as she read the question in Willow's eyes. Then she gazed back at Willow with eyes full of resolve as she shook her head firmly.

Willow felt a flash of anger. Didn't Tara understand? Without dark magic she had no hope of destroying all these creatures or breaking the pentagram's power. She had used too much magic already tonight getting them here. She still had enough to take Tara and her to safety if it came to that. Yet how could she abandon Dawn and the others?

As she asked herself these questions, the dark magic of the Hellmouth whispered like a siren in her ears, offering all the power she needed to save them and more. So much more. She just had to ask and her exhaustion would be replaced by a sure, dark strength.

She was powerful even when she was limited to light magicks, but only with dark magicks was her power truly glorious. Tara did mean more than any magic, but why couldn't she have both? She had learned her lesson from casting on Tara and would never do that again, no matter where she drew her power from.

With her rightful power at her command once more, no one could ignore her like this arrogant vampire standing aloof in his pentagram. It would give her such pleasure to destroy him as she had so many others. He had almost killed Tara more than once. Surely, it would be a good action to kill him, no matter how she did it. She could ask for forgiveness afterwards. What was the value of a promise compared to Tara's life?

Then she had it, her mind working feverishly underneath her worries and temptations. A solution. She didn't have to face the impregnable defences of the pentagram directly, matching her puissance against its directly. She didn't need dark magic at all. The vampire was monstrously powerful, but he was an amateur. She just had to discover where he hadn't thought to protect himself, and she knew just where to start looking.

She raised blue fire in her hands again, but this time she directed it at the ground beside the pentagram, ripping away at the earth around the mystical symbol to tunnel under it. Her face whitened as she desperately poured more power into the assault as the zombie horde drew closer.

Finally the earth under the pentagram cracked, tilting half the symbol so that green fire spilled out of its channels on the grass of the graveyard. Instead of burning, the grass withered and blackened when the fire touched it. The advancing zombies faltered as the emerald light of the moon began to dim.

Willow advanced towards the figure in the pentagram, power crackling in her hands, ready to strike. She saw Spirit approaching him from the other side. A gout of green fire spewed upwards from the Master, stabbing at the moon in a desperate attempt to hold onto the unraveling fabric of the spell. Willow countered with bolts of lightning striking directly at his now unprotected form in order to distract him.

The fires of the pentagram had died down enough for Willow to see the Master recoil as her spells struck him. He retaliated for her attacks with a blast of emerald fire that cracked her outer shields in an explosion of brilliant colors. As he attacked her, she could feel the spell holding the dead to life teetering towards collapse.

The zombies around them stood motionless, waiting for the power of the Heart to command them. The Master was powerful indeed, but he couldn't fully engage in magical combat and maintain control over his undead legions at the same time. He would have to choose.

Approaching from the other side while the caster was distracted by Willow, Spirit reached him and unerringly plunged a stake at his heart. The stake shattered into splinters as it struck him. It was as if he was made of granite. He roared in surprise and anger while Spirit looked on in shock, then he backhanded her, smashing her into a nearby tombstone.

The vampire walked slowly towards Spirit, his hands full of emerald fury. "At last, the Slayer," he said with malignant pleasure in his voice. He ignored Giles's crossbow bolt, which struck him in the shoulder and splintered, but Willow's blasts of blue fire caught him in the back and smashed him to the ground.

His face was a mask of insane fury as he slowly got up to his feet. He wrapped his hands around the Heart and squeezed hard. The emerald glow of the gemstone brightened and dimmed erratically, pulsing like the beating of a struggling heart. Having no other recourse to answer his demand for all its dark power, it reached out and pulled back every scintilla of emerald might clouding the moon to answer its Master's request.

Tara watched as the emerald brightness of the moon waned, gradually being replaced by its natural white color. The flow of magical corruption reversed itself as the hideous gem sucked the miasma back into the Heart. The Heart swelled with emerald brilliance as its dark power returned to it.

The zombies fell down in waves, like a forest of trees blown over by a powerful wind as the animating power of the Heart was withdrawn from them. The once again silvery light of the full moon shone down brightly on the now quiet dead. They succumbed to an unnaturally quick decay, their bodies returning to the earth. The Heart had replaced their substance with its own corruption. Bereft of its ill power, they moldered into dust.

"Willow, the emerald!" Tara yelled, the cords on her neck standing out. "All his power is in the gem."

Willow didn't have time to react as the Master struck at her with all the Heart's dark might. The furious blast of emerald fire ripped through every layer of her shields and threw her across the graveyard, smashing her through the stone wall of the crypt behind her. A small cascade of rubble fell from the broken wall of the crypt, burying Willow's slender form in debris.

Tara looked on in shock and horror, unable to say anything. The stake she was holding slipped from her suddenly numb fingers. Her vision narrowed until the only object in her world was Willow's still form under the pile of rubble. Her mind screamed that this couldn't be happening. She'd seen their future in the scrying bowl.

While the Master grinned malevolently in triumph, Spirit stealthily approached him from behind. Turning away from where Willow had fallen, Dawn shot him with a crossbow bolt in an attempt to keep his attention diverted from Spirit. Giles reloaded his crossbow to do the same.

Ignoring the conflict, Tara overcame her momentary paralysis and ran towards the crypt where Willow had fallen, her thoughts completely focused on that small, still form.

Behind her, Spirit grabbed the thick gold chain and tore it from the Master's neck, breaking the heavy links easily with her Slayer strength. She quickly stepped back from the Master and was several meters away before he could react to what had just happened.

Then she made a mistake.

As she shifted the chain in her hands, she accidentally touched the Heart. Emerald fire surged up her arm and engulfed her entire body. She collapsed to the ground, and the Heart rolled free from her limp fingers, its cold flames dying as it left her hand. Dawn and Giles ran towards her still form.

As Tara reached the crypt, she saw Willow's hand sticking out from the pile of rubble. The rubble began shifting as Willow struggled to get out. Tara rushed over to pull some of the detritus off Willow. Willow rose from the rubble like a juggernaut, bruised and bleeding from numerous small cuts, but shrugging off heavy chunks of stone as if they were dry autumn leaves. Her eyes were full of darkness, and her face was contorted with rage. Dark energies crackled at her fingertips. Her gaze slipped across Tara's face without recognition as she looked for the Master.

Tara shuddered as she drew back from Willow. She had never seen her so cold, so angry. She felt that if she lost Willow to the darkness tonight, she would lose her forever. While the dark power of the Heart didn't tempt Tara, she was terribly afraid that Willow in her rage would be all too susceptible to it.

The Master moved slowly to regain possession of the Heart. He was strong, stronger than he had been before the unholy gem had come into his possession, but he was no longer capable of moving quickly. As he approached Spirit and the Heart though, it didn't seem that he needed speed. Spirit twitched weakly but did not move away from his approach. Another crossbow bolt struck him, splintering on impact.

He turned to look back at Giles, who had fired the bolt, and made a mistake of his own. He was not invulnerable, and his turning gave Dawn a perfect target. Her bolt flew directly into his eye. The Master threw back his head and roared in pain, clutching at his ruined eye.

Tara grabbed Willow, her fingers digging deep into the flesh of her slender arm. In a frantic attempt to gain Willow's attention, she shouted, "You promised!"

She could feel the future that she had seen receding from her. After seeing Willow struck down by the might of the Heart, she had lost her faith in the future she'd seen in the bowl of seeing. Willow was the one thing that was holding her together as she tried to accept and understand the revelations about her past. She couldn't lose her. Not now. Not this way. She clung to Willow with a strength born of desperation, refusing to let her love slip into the darkness.

Willow turned to face Tara, visibly wrestling with her anger. She stood frozen for a moment, shaking with inner struggle, her fists clenched tightly at her sides. Tara held her breath as she watched, her hand still clasped tightly around Willow's arm.

Then Willow closed her eyes and took several shuddering breaths. When she opened them again, the darkness had receded to its normal limits. She gently clasped Tara's arm in thanks, recognizing that without Tara there to help her she would have broken her promise about dark magic without even intending to.

It was one thing to chose to draw power from dark sources, but it was another to use it instinctively from anger or fear. Her promise wasn't simply a matter of Tara's comfort. She could lose herself so deeply in the darkness that she wouldn't be able to find herself afterwards.

Willow turned to face the Master, her hands once again full of pure, blue fire, ready to strike. She was battered and bruised from her fall, but there was a new strength in her eyes that pushed back the exhaustion she had felt earlier. The Master had started back towards the Heart, while Giles and Dawn circled him at a distance, quickly reloading their crossbows.

Willow struck the Master with lances of pure blue fire from each hand. The Master screamed as she immolated him in bright, blue flames that clung to him like a living thing, but despite the terrible pain, he dove for the Heart and grabbed it in one gnarled fist. Squeezing the Heart with desperate strength, he stamped his foot on the ground, ripping a deep fissure in the earth. Dawn and Giles grabbed for Spirit as she began sliding into the widening chasm.

Aflame and screaming, the Master hurled himself into the chasm which rapidly began to close behind him. Dawn and Giles pulled Spirit free, but the fissure closed as Willow rushed towards it.

The Master was gone.

Dawn and Giles knelt beside Spirit as she gradually regained consciousness. Spirit's face was pale as she opened her eyes and shivered, chilled to the bone by the intense cold of the Heart's fire.

Coming up from behind Willow, who was still looking down at the crack in the earth which was all that remained of the great fissure, Tara took one of her hands gently. Willow turned and smiled gratefully at Tara with tired eyes. She leaned into Tara, exhausted from her exertions of the night.

Tara wrapped her arms around Willow, pulling her close with weary relief now that this night of terrors was over. She felt tired and stiff, her muscles knotted with tension, but her mind still buzzed with thoughts. She had almost lost Willow tonight. Twice.

Her visions had proved useless. Yet in a way that was comforting. The future wasn't completely determined by what she had seen. There could be a happy ending for the two of them. She'd have to tell Willow about her visions soon though, but not now. They were both too drained by the events of the night.

It was time to go home.

From the protective shadows of a nearby copse, Amy watched the culmination of the fight with disappointment. She'd wanted a conclusive battle with one side dead and the other side incapacitated, ripe for her to step in and take the spoils. While her magic still prevented anyone from seeing her, it was time to leave. The show was over, and she had plans to set in motion.

The Master was not going to be pleased with her disappearing act, but now that she had certain knowledge of Willow's presence and power, she knew exactly what to tell him about Willow and her friends. She smiled as she walked invisibly away from the remains of the battle. It would take longer to get the Heart this way, but she looked forward to settling her account with Willow Rosenberg.

Chapter 19: Secrets

The faint light of dawn streaming through the blinds gradually brought Tara to wakefulness. As she slowly emerged from slumber, she was surprised to find herself holding Willow tightly in her arms. Opening her eyes, she looked down to see Willow's head resting on her shoulder, her long, fiery hair tousled with sleep, and one arm flung possessively across Tara's stomach.

Willow looked small and fragile as she slept. Tara ran one of her hands down Willow's pale shoulder, tracing the faint lines of scars there. Willow had been through so much. As she took one of Willow's small hands in her own, she realized with surprise that all the scrapes and cuts of last night were gone. How had that happened? She didn't know of any healing magicks that effective and Willow hadn't been in any shape to cast last night in any case.

Tara had insisted on walking Willow home last night and was unsure if Willow would have made it even with her help if the mansion hadn't been so close to the graveyard. She had helped Willow get ready for bed and tucked her in. As she had stood beside the bed, trying to figure out what to do with herself, Willow had simply asked "Aren't you going to join me?" The decision had made itself without any need for thought on her part.

She'd felt a little shy about undressing in front of Willow so she'd borrowed a nightshirt and changed in the bathroom. Willow had been almost asleep, exhausted from her exertions of the night, when she returned. Willow had smiled sleepily at her and moved close as Tara got into the bed. Tara had enclosed Willow in her arms, and then they had kissed goodnight. She didn't remember anything after that. It had been a long, tiring night for both of them.

Gently stroking Willow's hand with her thumb as she held it, she smiled to herself as she thought about how appropriate the Gothic mansion had seemed for the Willow she'd first met. The exterior was beautiful yet gloomy. Most of the rooms she'd seen last night were hauntingly empty, though others were piled so full of books that she almost couldn't walk through them. She'd quickly come to the conclusion that Willow wasn't the best of housekeepers even before she saw the piles of assorted clothes on the bedroom floor.

It was almost like there were two Willows. There was the powerful witch, confident and almost invulnerable, afraid of nothing. Was it dark magicks buried deeply in Willow's flesh that had healed her injuries overnight? Tara knew a little about permanent spells. They always had a price, often in blood. Something about the inner darkness she'd seen in Willow's aura made her think that her speculations might be right. She shifted uneasily in the bed.

Then there was the young girl she held in her arms, so vulnerable to her slightest word. In many ways, Willow was her age and not just physically. All those years alone had built in her a terrible strength and determination, but it had been at the expense of a normal life and family. She had seen the depths of that loss when Willow, awkward and uncertain, had met Dawn yesterday. Something as simple as a hug from a friend had been alien and difficult for her at first, yet Tara had seen the wonderful mingling of happiness and sadness in Willow's eyes as she accepted the embrace from Dawn like a priceless gift.

The two Willows weren't completely separate though. They were connected by their love of her.

She shook her head softly as she reached down to tenderly caress Willow's velvet soft cheek. Willow murmured in her sleep and snuggled closer, sighing contentedly.

Her angel asleep.

Watching her sleep, Tara felt a tremendous surge of love for the small redhead. She placed her hand protectively over Willow's heart. The feel of Willow's heart beating against her hand reminded her that no matter what she'd seen of the future, Willow was right here beside her, alive and well, in the present. That was what was important.

The events of last night had tempered her understanding of her visions of the future. She now knew that what she'd seen wasn't everything that was to come or even everything that was important. They would face challenges and experience joys that she hadn't foreseen.

Tara also realized that she had imposed her own meanings and interpretations on the events that she had seen. She had seen Willow in danger of death, but that didn't necessarily mean that she would be killed by that spell. They had faced death and worse last night and come through that desperate encounter intact.

She had love and hope. What more could she ask for? She smiled at Willow, feeling warm and drowsy. Watching the slow rise and fall of Willow's chest as she breathed, Tara drifted back to sleep.

Hours later, Willow awoke with the bright light of noon filtering through the blinds. She felt warm and protected as she drowsily opened her eyes and found herself securely enclosed in Tara's embrace. She looked into the pure serenity of Tara's sleeping face and reached up to brush an errant strand of gold away from her cheek. Tara's blonde hair was mussed from sleeping on it, but it didn't matter. She was the most beautiful thing Willow had ever seen.

She gently ran her fingers through Tara's silken hair as she thought. How did she deserve to be with someone like Tara? She'd come so close to breaking her promise last night. If Tara hadn't been there, she certainly would have. In some ways it might have been better if she had as she would have been able to destroy the Master without any chance of his escape.

But she knew that each step into the darkness took her further away from Tara and her newly rediscovered family. A tenuous family, to be sure, but hers nonetheless. It had felt so good when Dawn had called her family. She had been alone too long. Tara was her always and everything, but there was room in her heart for the rest of her family too.

She hugged Tara tightly to her chest and smiled when she didn't wince at the contact. The fight last night had left her with a few broken ribs, but her magical protections had healed them overnight. Her protections were dark magicks, but ones she had established long ago. She wondered if their presence would bother Tara even though she'd cast those spells long before she'd made her promise about using dark magic.

Then she smiled as she remembered how Tara had blushed while helping her undress last night. Though Willow sometimes felt impatient, wanting them to be closer now, Tara was so cute in these tentative, early steps in building their relationship anew.

She gazed again at the calm beauty of Tara's sleeping face, tracing a track on the supple softness of her cheek with one finger. Her throat choked with emotion as she tried to accept that at last Tara was real here beside her, beautiful and vulnerable. She didn't have to maintain the hard, narrow focus of her quest any longer. Yet if Tara had been hit by that blast of emerald fire last night, the consequences wouldn't have been a few broken ribs.

Every day she spent with Tara she felt her sense of invulnerability ebbing away. As she let her heart open to Tara, she exposed herself to all the hurts of the world which she had been safe from for so long. It was a fearful price to pay, but as she looked into Tara's face she knew that it was worth it.

She couldn't lose Tara again. Not for anything.

Willow wouldn't let Tara face the Master again. When the time came and they knew what they were facing, Willow would go alone to destroy him. Tara's light wasn't meant for the kind of darkness such a conflict would require. Willow knew that she couldn't defeat the Master while keeping her promise to Tara. It would be better if Tara wasn't present to see that. She would make one last journey into the darkness alone to keep them both safe.

Willow pushed her dark thoughts away as she moved her hand down so she could rub the softness of Tara's warm belly under her shirt. She smiled as she felt the sleeping blonde move into her touch. She watched Tara's face in anticipation, waiting for the cerulean eyes to open and fill with delight as they looked at her.

She wanted to see herself in Tara's eyes. She much preferred the person Tara saw with her eyes to the one she saw in the mirror. In those eyes, she was altogether beautiful and wonderful.

When those eyes opened, her whole world would change. Gone would be the world of shadows lurking in a deeper darkness that she had struggled through with obdurate tenacity for so long. It would be replaced by a world full of colors and feeling. Tara's eyes gave her world meaning.

Willow smiled as she saw the first slight fluttering of Tara's eyelids. As Tara's blue eyes slowly opened, her lips quirked into a crooked smile as she saw Willow. Her eyes regarded Willow with a fuzzy happiness that gradually metamorphosed into the full splendour of delight. Tara softly murmured, "Good morning."

As Tara's eyes opened and looked at her, Willow's heart filled with so much love that she couldn't find a way to express it all. It was beyond words. She tenderly placed her lips against the soft pliancy of Tara's cheek and kissed her there before returning her "Good morning."

Tara stretched, arching her body sensually against Willow's, as the fire of Willow's kiss pulled her fully into wakefulness. Then she wrapped Willow tightly in her arms, pulling her close with all her strength as if trying to make them one flesh. She smiled down at Willow. "Can we always wake up this way?" she asked.

"Oh yes," Willow breathed as she brought her lips to Tara's.

As Tara entered the school library with Willow, she reflected on how different it seemed this afternoon. The sun was up, the power was on, and better yet there wasn't an army of zombies outside trying to kill them. Still, all wasn't well with the world. Although Giles and Dawn were reading at their usual table, Giles from a book and Dawn from a computer terminal, Spirit was curled up under a blanket in the comfy chair with a heavy tome on her lap. She looked unnaturally pale and shivered as Tara watched.

"Tara," Spirit said as she spotted her. "You're late!" she accused with a smile on her face. "If I can't get out of research like this, then you certainly shouldn't."

"Willow and I spent all morning-" Tara began.

Spirit raised her eyebrows and interrupted her before she could finish. "I'm sure we don't need to know about that," she teased.

Tara let her hair fall forward to hide her face as she blushed. "We were researching," she protested.

Dawn watched the exchange with a smile on her face. "I remember the kind of research you two used to do," she said, compounding Tara's embarrassment. It was good to let some of their tension out this way after what had happened last night. She'd watched over Spirit carefully today as she was worried about the young woman even though she'd just met her last night. Spirit's courage reminded her so much of Buffy, but she seemed so young to be facing that every night.

Giles was relieved that Spirit felt well enough to tease too even though he was unsure about whether Willow and Tara's relationship was a good thing. He interrupted the teasing, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible as he didn't wish to antagonize Willow. "Did you find anything?"

"We did," Willow answered as she put down the stack of books she was carrying beside Giles. She helped Tara unload her backpack, which was full of more reference tomes. She carefully removed the last item, bundled in layers of cloth, from the backpack and unwrapped the ancient book from its protective covering before handing it directly to Giles.

Giles looked at the book closely before opening it. Turning the pages with reverence he examined the tome closely. "It's the earliest Tacitus I've heard of," he said.

"It's also complete," Willow said with a slightly smug smile.

"But the complete histories have been lost for centuries," Giles protested, as he looked down at the book in wonder.

"Now it's found," Willow said lightly. "It's a gift for you. I know that things between us can't be made suddenly right with a single gesture, but I wanted you to know that I want them to be right." She looked into his eyes, her face open and accepting, willing him to understand what she felt for him, for Dawn, and for all her family.

Giles looked up at Willow, searching for sincerity in her dark eyes. When he finally nodded, accepting the gift with a "Thank you," the tense, worried line on his brow relaxed for the first time since Willow had seen him again in Sunnydale.

Tara saw that there were still reservations in Giles's eyes, but she was happy that things were less tense between the two than last night. She reached over and picked up the most promising of the references they had found, a thin, tattered book. "This one is a journal of someone who found the emerald we saw last night. It's been translated more than once and we're not sure of the exact dates," she said. "I'll read the most interesting entry. It's also the final one." The group at the table gathered around her as she read from the book, while Spirit listened from her chair.

"The experiment was a success beyond our worst nightmares. The Heart's power of resurrection is limitless, but it cannot be harnessed for anyone's benefit. I don't know if the Heart is broken or whether it was simply evil from the beginning, but it will surely destroy any who uses it as it has condemned us to the terrible fate we now face.

After the grotesque failures of our early experiments, we were foolish to try something more ambitious. But the Doctor insisted that it would work, that the problem was the young age of what we were trying to bring back, that it would be easier to resurrect the distant past. Did he truly believe this? I guess it doesn't matter now. I saw the Old Ones take him.

Yes, we succeeded in bringing back the Old Ones. They're hunting me as I write this journal. We didn't know that they would be so terrible. Perhaps they weren't when they were alive, but the Heart warps everything it brings back. Yet, the Old Ones aren't the worst of what we brought back.

The Heart brought back everything. Everything. The land outside the building in which I hide is the bare and rocky landscape of eons ago before life emerged from the sea. Who knows what lurks in the sea off the shores of the island now? Erupting volcanos fill the air with ash, while earthquakes constantly rock the island. That's our only hope ... that the island will destroy itself before the Old Ones can leave. I hear them coming now."

"The fragment ends there," Tara said. They looked at each other soberly as she finished. The library felt darker than it had been when she began reading the journal.

"That confirms what we've seen the Master do," Giles said. He took off his glasses to polish them. "But is there anything about how to destroy it?"

"There was one other important piece of information I gleaned from the journal," Willow said, walking back and forth as she addressed the group. "It's that the greater the stature of the wielder, the more power he can draw from the Heart. It amplifies your innate powers. Since vampires can't generally cast spells, we've seen only a ghost of what the Heart could do in the hands of someone with real power."

"So he could bring back what exactly?" Spirit asked, not sounding overly worried.

"All sorts of things," Giles began. "Perhaps all the demons that lived here before the Hellmouth was close, or-"

"Oh my God," Willow said slowly, a terrible realization dawning in her eyes. "Buffy!"

"What?" Tara asked, puzzled at first by Willow's exclamation. Then as she realized what Willow was talking about, she softly said, "Oh."

"Last night, she was-" Willow began.

"No," Dawn said firmly, placing a gentle hand on Willow's arm. "It's okay. We cremated her body. There was nothing left to raise left night."

"But what about..." Giles began, then trailed off embarrassedly, realizing that it probably wasn't the best topic to bring up when the person he was about to ask about was sitting across the table from him.

"What about what?" Spirit asked in a slightly annoyed voice as the other three exchanged looks with Giles that indicated that they knew what he was about to say. "Or should I say who?"

"Me," Tara said, looking down at her hands spread on the table. She shuddered as Giles's words conjured an image in her mind of herself as one of the walking dead last night. "He's talking about me." Willow put a comforting hand on Tara's shoulder.

"What?" Spirit exclaimed, more confused than ever.

"Not really you," Dawn said from where she was standing beside Willow. "Your past self."

"Okay," Spirit said as she pushed back her chair and stood up. "Somebody needs to start explaining this now." She looked down at Dawn. "First, who are you and why are you here? I know it's more than you being Buffy's sister."

Tara looked up at Willow, wordlessly asking for her help. "Tara's body is protected by magic," Willow explained, causing Spirit's puzzled annoyance to focus on her instead of Dawn. "The spell wouldn't have been able to affect it either."

Tara let out the breath she hadn't realized that she had been holding in a long sigh. Before she could really feel her relief at the thought that there hadn't been a zombie who looked like her last night, another thought nagged at her mind. What kind of attachment to the past did those spells represent for Willow? Were they still there just to prevent something like last night from happening or were they indicative of deeper feelings?

Giles interrupted before Spirit could say anything. "Tara is the reincarnation of Tara Maclay who was a friend of Dawn and Willow," he said. "We just learned about this recently. I called Dawn to help Tara deal with the news."

"That's why I'm here," Dawn said, looking compassionately at the confused slayer.

"And you believe this?" Spirit asked, turning to face Tara.

"It's true," Tara nodded. She looked anxiously at Spirit, unsure of how her friend would react. Today was the first time she had talked with someone about this who hadn't known her in the past.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded of Tara, but the hurt feelings so evident in her eyes belied the anger of her voice.

"I ... I didn't know what to say," Tara said hesitantly as she met Spirit's brown eyes. "I couldn't quite accept it myself at first. I didn't want you thinking that I was suddenly someone you didn't know ... because I'm not." With a diffident glance at Willow she added, "I'm still me."

"I see," Spirit said, getting up. "You're still my 'friend' who doesn't tell me anything." She walked towards the doors out of the library.

"Wait," Tara pleaded, getting up to follow her. Willow watched uncertainly, not sure whether she should follow along with Tara.

"Don't," Dawn said, gently grabbing Tara's shoulder. "She needs some time."

"Spirit," Giles called out.

"Fill me in when I get back," Spirit said as she went through the doors without a backwards glance.

"Well," Giles sighed. "That could have gone better. I meant to ask you to tell her, Tara, but with everything that happened yesterday..."

"It's okay, Giles," Dawn said. "We understand."

"It's my fault," Willow said, garnering a startled look from Giles. "I shouldn't have brought up that subject."

"No," Tara said, taking Willow's hand. "It's mine. I should have told her. She's my friend."

"It'll be okay," Dawn said, feeling that she'd been saying that a lot lately. "She needs some time to think it over, then she'll be back like she said."

"I hope so," Tara said.

"Trust me," Dawn said, then took off her reading glasses and sat back down in her chair. "Now why is it called the Heart?"

"The full name is the Heart of Corruption," Tara answered, letting Dawn coax her back into research mode as she sat down beside Dawn. She stuck her tongue out. "See, I was doing research."

Giles cleared his throat. "Returning to Willow's statement about it being an amplifier," he said. "If it depends on innate power, why is each spell that he casts more powerful than the last?"

"It takes knowledge to fully utilize any magical artifact," Willow said. "Someone must be teaching him." Her eyes darkened with that thought. She knew too many people who could possess such knowledge, many of whom would be happy to use it to hurt her. She had tried to not leave such loose ends behind her, but over the years they had accumulated. She had paid them little attention, confident that she would be a match for any of them, but now her life was complicated. Wonderfully so, but still complicated.

"Then we have to find out who this teacher is," Giles said firmly. "Unfortunately in Sunnydale there are many candidates."

"True," Willow said with a frown. "What did the three of you find?"

"Dawn found something on the net that may indicate where the heart was found in recent times," Giles said. He gestured in Dawn's direction. "Why don't you read it, Dawn?"

"Okay," Dawn said, looking at the computer terminal in front of her. "It's a lab book entry from a UC Sunnydale professor who was studying the Tunguska site in Siberia."

"It was responsible for the 1908 Tunguska blast?" Tara asked incredulously.

"I don't know," Dawn said. "It may have only been uncovered by the blast. Let me read the entry and you'll see." She hit a few keys and started reading from the screen in front of her.

"I found a most unusual stone in a rocky matrix today near the center of the site. Superficially it looks like an uncut emerald, but is the size of a fist, much larger than any known emerald, and gives off a faint green luminescence. The stone is also intensely cold like nothing else that I've ever found. It is also harder than diamond. We can not chip or cut it with anything we have to take a sample for analysis. We'll have to store it until we get back to the Sunnydale."

Dawn turned the monitor around so that everyone could see the picture of the emerald he was talking about. Clearly it was the same huge emerald-like stone that the Master had held last night.

"Let me guess," Willow said sourly. "He's dead now."

Giles nodded. "He made it back to Sunnydale, but died several days later from 'neck trauma'," he said. "However, there was one more lab entry after he returned. It stated that radioisotope dating indicated that the strata it was found in was Precambrian, but that the object was older than the Earth. They thought something must be wrong with their measurement, but there is another explanation."

"The Old Ones brought it with them when they first came here," Willow said grimly.

"What does that mean?" Dawn asked, wrinkling her brow in puzzlement.

"Before life arose on the earth," Giles lectured. "The Old Ones came down from the stars to live here. The demons and creatures that you fight are their distant descendants. No one really knows much about them except that they were extraordinarily proficient with magic."

"Okay," Dawn said. "But what does that mean about the Heart?"

"It's indestructible," Willow said flatly.

They looked at each other uneasily as Willow's words echoed through the quiet library. How could they defeat something that had survived through all the ages of the world?

Deep underground, Amy stood in front of the Master's throne, looking up at the now hideous form of the Master. He clung to a semblance of life with terrible tenacity. The skin of his face and neck had melted and flowed like molten wax. One eye, full of emerald fire, peered balefully out of the wreckage of his features. He cradled the Heart in his hands like a beloved child.

"How do you explain your failure?" he demanded, glaring at her with his single eye full of hate. The Heart flared brightly with his anger.

"The Slayer by herself would have fallen, but she had powerful allies we didn't know about," Amy explained in a calm, reasonable tone. "I can show you how to deal with them though" she assured him.

Green fire spilled out of the Heart as he shot up from his throne to shout down at her. "I don't care!" he shouted. "You failed me!" He raised the Heart high to kill her, haloing himself with magical fire.

"The dark witch is coming for you now," Amy warned him without backing down. "Without my help you'll surely die."

The Master glared at Amy, baring his fangs in a terrible grimace, but sank back down into his throne. "What do you suggest?" he asked petulantly.

"I knew this witch in the past," Amy said. "I know the one spectre that can destroy her." She would give the Master what he would think was the key to defeating Willow, but she would keep the real key for herself. And when she used her key, Willow would hand the Heart over to her without a fight.

"We tried that," the Master said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Ah," Amy said. "But the Master had been defeated in battle. This time we'll bring back someone who never experienced defeat at the hands of any opponent." She smiled promisingly at the Master as she began to explain the details of her plan.

For Dawn, it felt like old times as she walked beside Willow through the graveyard. Tara was ahead of them, leading the patrol. Spirit had still been too ill from her encounter with the Heart to go out tonight so they were filling in for her. Dawn was surprised that Willow was so calm about Tara patrolling, especially as point woman, after how she had reacted last night. Thinking about last night brought up a question she'd been waiting to ask Willow.

"Last night," she started. "Tara told you to remember your promise. What did she mean?"

Willow looked over at Dawn for a minute, considering how to answer her question. "I promised to give up dark magic," she said.

"That's great!" Dawn said enthusiastically. Noting the lack of a positive response from Willow, she asked. "It is great, isn't it?"

"I hate that the dark magic takes me away from Tara," Willow admitted. "But sometimes it also offers the best chance to protect her."

"Why?" Dawn asked curiously. "Is dark magic more powerful than light magic?"

"No," Willow said. "But it's easier to gain access to dark magic. With light magic, the price is up front and to draw great power from light sources you have to be doing something that the light powers approve of. Anyone can draw power from dark sources, but the price comes afterwards. It's more dangerous to use, but you have more freedom." Willow didn't mention to Dawn how much easier it had been to use dark magic after she'd pulled Tara's essence from Glory.

"It still sounds like light magic is better," Dawn said cautiously, not wanting to push Willow.

"It usually is," Willow agreed. "But there are some things you can't do with it. Resurrection being one of them." She looked at Dawn with heartfelt regret in her eyes. "Tell me. Could I have saved her if I'd been here?"

"Buffy?" Dawn asked. "You can't blame yourself, Willow. She died of leukemia." Dawn looked sad but proud as she talked about her sister. She had been able to accept her sister's death in a way that Giles hadn't yet and she was proud that no vampire or demon had been able to defeat Buffy.

"I wish I'd been there for her," Willow said with a regretful sigh. She wished she could have seen Buffy one last time.

Dawn reached out to squeeze Willow's hand. "You can't change the past, Willow," she said. It was a platitude, but one that Dawn knew Willow needed to accept in her heart after spending most of her life trying to do just that. "But you can be there for your family in the future. Don't leave us again," she pleaded softly. "I missed you and Tara so much."

"I won't," Willow promised with soft eyes.

"When the Sun's up one day, we could go visit her grave if you want," Dawn offered.

"I'd like that," Willow said with a faint smile. They walked together in companionable silence for a few minutes, watching Tara ahead of them for any warnings of vampiric activity. They actually hadn't seen any vampires tonight. The Master was apparently regrouping after his defeat of the previous night, but it was better to be safe and finish the patrol.

"There was another reason I asked you to come patrol tonight," Willow said to Dawn.

"It wasn't just for the pleasure of my company?" Dawn asked in a mock hurt tone of voice.

"No," Willow smiled. "Though I would've been more than happy to have you for that alone." Her demeanor became very serious as she looked at Dawn. "We can't destroy the Heart, but there's another way to get rid of it."

"Why didn't you mention it at the meeting?" Dawn asked with a puzzled expression on her face. "Does it involve dark magic?"

"Because I need your help," Willow said. "I didn't know how Giles would react to my request."

"My help?" Dawn asked. "What can I do? I'm not a Slayer or a witch."

Willow gave Dawn an unfathomable look.

"You're the Key, Dawn."

Chapter 20: Three Small Words

Tara steadily sorted the heaps of clothes on the floor of Willow's bedroom into colors and whites, normals and delicates. When she had awakened this morning, she had decided to create some order in here. Willow had readily agreed to her plan, sounding as happy as she was to be doing something as mundane as cleaning house with her. They'd been working up here until a few minutes ago when Willow had gone downstairs to put a new load of clothes in the washer and find some lunch for the two of them.

Knowing Willow, lunch was either going to be sandwiches or delivery food. She wasn't into cooking, claiming that she'd sustained herself on magic alone for months at a time, and Tara hadn't gotten around to exploring the kitchen of the mansion yet. Knowing that vampires lived here for years before Willow, she thought it might require a considerable amount of work to make it serviceable.

As she pulled a pair of jeans from her current pile, the adjacent heap of clothes collapsed. A small black leather bound book fell out, opening to a page near the beginning. She glanced down at the open page and saw a poem in Willow's handwriting. It was short, and she couldn't stop herself from reading it even as she realized that this book was Willow's diary.

Glorious was the sun that shone Now darkness falls, light is gone The grieving moon weeps for the light But forever is the dark of this night Sleep's solace forbidden me A nightmare of eternity

Her throat was tight and she felt like she was about to cry as she finished the poem. How had Willow found the strength to make it through all those years alone? That kind of dedication, to live without home, friends, or even eating was difficult to imagine. It wasn't something that Tara thought that she could do herself. And she didn't know if anyone, much less herself, could be worthy of such devotion.

Most of the time, Tara forgot the years that divided them, but then something like this would happen to remind her, tearing her out of her happy world with Willow in the present. One moment she was folding clothes; the next she was reading about Willow's grief over her death, a grief that had gone on for Tara's whole life, almost the nightmare of eternity the poem spoke of.

The darkness surrounding Willow wasn't simply that of the magic. Willow was shrouded by years of grief and loneliness that Tara could feel every time they touched. Those feelings lightened with her presence, but never went away entirely, and as she read Willow's journal she could feel the shadows of those feelings seeping into her.

She wondered what Willow thought of the years between them. What would it take for their weight to be lifted from her? Why wasn't finding Tara again enough? Was there anything in this journal that would stop those shadows from haunting the two of them?

Did Willow think of her as one and the same as the Tara of old or were there two different Tara's in her mind? She had difficulty seeing the difference herself sometimes, but more than anything she wanted Willow to love her for herself, not for the memories or obligations of the past.

Tara looked down at the poem again. This little book held so many of the answers she was seeking, maybe even the one to her most important question. Did Willow love her for yourself? Should she invade Willow's privacy and read it? The obvious answer was no, but this diary could be the key to pulling Willow out of the darkness, to bringing them together without barriers. How could she not read it?

Tara felt that they could only put the past behind them and move forward if she actually knew what had happened. Her visions had shown her some of it, but she felt that she was still missing too much. Willow wasn't very helpful, talking about the places she'd visited and the things she'd learned, but only rarely discussing the people she'd met. She was even reluctant to discuss the other Tara with her. Why? What did that mean about how Willow saw her? Somewhere in Willow's recollections of the past, Tara felt that she could find what she needed to reconcile her two identities. Now that information was sitting in front of her in a little book.

She flipped forward through the journal, her hands seemingly moving of their own volition as if she hadn't made a conscious decision to do this. She skimmed past more poetry and short, heartbreaking descriptions of grief that Willow hadn't been able to share with anyone. Who would she have had to share them with? She had left home and family behind her. One particularly poignant entry stopped her for a moment.

I realized today that I can't remember how she smelled. I used to love how she smelled. There were the scents of incense and herbs from her rituals and spices from cooking and something undefinably Tara underlying it all, but I can only describe it now. I can't bring forth the smell in my mind any longer. It's only been a year, and I miss you so much, Tara. I will bring you back. I promise.

Tara wondered if she still smelled the same. Then she wondered if she wanted to. It had been disturbing enough looking at a picture of a young woman who could have been her sister and being told that it was her. Did she want to smell the same too? Would there be anything left of her that was hers alone?

Yet how could she not want to answer that cry of grief? It made her want to fold Willow close in her arms and tell her that everything was all right, that she was back and that she would never leave Willow again. She wanted to be able to do even more than that. She wished she could have been there for Willow all those years she'd been without her, but that would mean that she'd never lived her life. How could she give up her life, her family, everything that was her, even for Willow?

As she thought about Willow being alone all the years of Tara's life, for the first time it really hit her what that meant. When she had her first birthday party, Willow had been writing this journal entry in solitary grief. When she was in high school, Willow had been in Hell looking for her as she had seen in her vision. For every happy moment of her life, playing, reading, learning magic from her mother, there had been a dark, grieving one in Willow's.

Tara put the book down and stood up, unable to read any further. The aching in her throat and the tightness in her chest made her feel like she couldn't breathe. This dark revelation kept sinking deeper into her, piling its weight of grief on her heart, as if it had no end. She blinked away the tears that threatened to fall. Looking down at the leather bound pages, she realized that it wasn't simply a book. It was a repository for all the grief that Willow had felt over the years.

The journal seemed unnaturally heavy, weighed down by its contents of grief and despair, as she picked it up again and placed it in her lap as she sat back down on the bed. She looked down on the book without turning the page for a long moment.

It had to be enough, for her, for Willow, that they had found each other in this life. There had to be a reason that fate had brought them together when no amount of magic, dark or light, could have, but no matter how many times she told herself this she still worried that Willow couldn't accept her this way. Willow had been so attached to the past. Her whole life had been wrapped around righting what had happened that terrible day.

Tara slowly turned the page and began reading again, unable to tear herself away from the journal despite the pain it brought her. She felt compelled to understand what Willow had gone through. A long entry caught her attention about a quarter of the way through the book.

I have left her.

I didn't think it would be so hard. Why does it hurt? I didn't love her. We came together for comfort. We made no promises. Should I feel guilty about that? We had both lost so much. We were the same.

Or were we? She was so beautiful, so persuasive. I learned more of the art from her than I had from anyone. Step-by-step, naturally I felt, I came to share her dream. Of dreams. To open the Sea of Dreams and let the stuff of dreams into reality. Together we would reshape the world. All of heaven and earth she promised.

Would it have worked? Can dreams be harnessed to serve our conscious mind or would the sharp, bitter clarity of reality have been dissolved forever into the fuzzy insubstantiality of dreams? I don't know. It doesn't matter now. Without me she cannot open the gates of horn and ivory.

As we worked towards our goal, side by side in her library, we talked about our dreams. At first all I said was Tara, but Arien kept asking me questions. Wouldn't I have liked Tara not to have left me for using dark magicks? Wouldn't I have like Tara to be more beautiful? Each question seemed reasonable by itself, yet step-by-step my image of Tara changed into one of Arien. Did she love me? I think that she did. Yet that wouldn't have stopped her from using me to open the portal of dreams any more than any feeling on my part would stop me from resurrecting Tara.

In the end, I realized that a dream, however beautiful or substantial, wasn't the Tara that I loved. It has to be the real Tara, no matter what the price. But I wonder, when I find her, will I be like Arien, lost too deep in the dark for her to love me?

Tara's first feeling was jealousy, sharp and hot. Did coming together for comfort mean what she thought it did? What had happened to Willow's supposedly undying devotion to her?

No, she was jumping to conclusions. She didn't know for certain what had happened. Then another thought stopped her. She wanted Willow to have had some comfort in all those years of solitude and grief. How could she resent Willow for having found that? Suddenly she felt very selfish and guilty. And there was the last line showing that Willow had wanted the real Tara, her soulmate, not an illusion or a better version of her.

But was she the real Tara?

That was her real question. Was she the real Tara that Willow loved?

She flipped to the last entry in the journal, searching for answers in the book that had only brought her more questions, hoping that in the ending there would be the answers that Willow had found in her dark journey. She began reading.

After all these years I found her and I don't know what to do. I hadn't given this part much thought. It was supposed to be a fairy tale ending where we lived happily ever after. At the very least, I expected her recognize me. It's her, yet it isn't her.

This part was comforting in an odd way. She had been so deeply immersed in her own confusion that she hadn't thought about Willow's. Willow had all these expectations about their reunion and nothing had happened as she had envisioned it. That had to be confusing and painful. Maybe they could find their answers together. She liked that idea.

It hurt to read about Willow's disappointment at meeting her. It wasn't her fault that she hadn't recognized Willow. If she had been able to see her face she might have recognized her from her dreams, but her dreams had never given her a name to go with that face. Still, she had to admit that she would have felt the same if Willow hadn't recognized her.

There was no resurrection. A resurrection is a returning. This is a new turning. Yet I could still perform the resurrection, return her soul to Tara's body. Would it be saving her life or the most terrible crime I've ever committed? Would she love me if I did such a thing?

Her blood chilled as she read this paragraph. Had Willow really thought of doing that to her? She read on, desperate to find a different answer in Willow's journal.

Whether or not she would, I can't do it. She's too much of the Tara I love.

She sighed with relief, feeling her shoulders unknot as she did so, as she read those words. Willow hadn't really thought about doing that to her after all. Still, a sense of unease lingered over her from reading those words in Willow's handwriting. She hurried on to the last sentence, trying to dispel her uneasiness.

Yet can I love her? Would I be faithful to my Tara if I did?

Her face fell as she finished reading the entry. She had her answer. Willow did think of her and the past Tara as separate, but she didn't love her and wasn't sure that she ever could. Unable to dismiss the shadow of the past as mere memory any longer, she shivered as she felt her heart enveloped by its chill embrace. Her fingers cold and almost numb, she let the cruel book slip out of her fingers to land on the floor with a thump.

"What was all the key business about with Dawn last night?" Tara asked. They were folding clothes together, the dryer having completed its cycle while they were eating lunch. The piles of untidy clothes on the floor were gradually diminishing as they created new piles of clean, folded clothes on the neatly made bed.

Tara wished she could talk with Willow about what she had read in the journal this morning. She was certain it would help Willow too. But she couldn't, not when she'd read it without asking Willow.

She tried to push thoughts of the journal out of her mind with the repetitious movements of the familiar tasks of washing and folding clothes, but the feelings still haunted her. They couldn't be driven away by the scents of freshly washed laundry or the familiar ritual of folding clothes. She felt uneasy and depressed, as if she had taken on some of the burden of grief from the book.

Willow didn't seem to hear Tara for a moment as she continued folding the shirts in front of her, trying to figure out how to tell Tara about Dawn. It was complicated, and she didn't want Tara to misunderstand. Tara patiently continued folding the clothes from her pile too as she waited for Willow to answer.

"She's mystical energy transformed into a person," Willow said at last. "She was sent to Buffy to be protected from Glory. I know it sounds weird, but the monks who changed her gave all of us, including you, memories of Dawn so that we thought that she had been there all along."

Tara paused in her work and her brow furrowed as she tried to figure this out. "So she's not really Buffy's sister?" Tara said.

"She is," Willow said firmly. "She was made from Buffy's flesh and blood."

"I like Dawn," Tara said, reaching over to gently stroke the back of Willow's hand, her instinctive urge to reassure Willow overcoming her reservations from this morning. "I wouldn't want to hurt her. I'm just trying to understand."

Willow took Tara's hand in hers. "I know," she said, squeezing Tara's hand gently. "It's just ... if you ever said anything like that to Dawn."

Tara returned the squeeze. "I wouldn't," she said. "But could I ask you another question?"

"Sure," Willow said. Then her eyes narrowed, and she gave Tara an unconvincing frown. "Unless this is just a way to get out of folding clothes." She gave Tara's hand another soft squeeze to let her know that she was kidding.

Tara stiffened for a moment, Willow's narrowed eyes instantaneously bringing back that piercing sensation of cold she'd had as she read about Willow's thoughts about resurrecting her predecessor. Then she relaxed, knowing Willow wouldn't hurt her, at least not in that way.

"Hey!" Tara said, raising her eyebrows in an attempt to respond to Willow's teasing as if nothing had happened. "They're your clothes." She glanced down at their clasped hands for a moment before looking back up at Willow's face. "And it's sort of hard to fold clothes with only one hand." She made an awkward attempt to fold a shirt to demonstrate her point. It ended up in an ugly tangle.

Willow reluctantly pulled her hand away, sliding her fingertips along the length of Tara's hand as she did so. "If you insist," she said teasingly.

"I'll get you for that later," Tara said, but her teasing tone fell flat and her smile didn't quite reach her eyes.

"What's wrong?" Willow asked tenderly, her voice full of concern.

"Why does it have to be blood?" Tara asked, her eyes shadowed with worry.

"Blood is life," Willow answered. Her eyes were distant as her mind filled with thoughts of the past, of the night when she first heard those words. She'd lost her best friend that night, but she'd gotten Tara back. Now she had Tara back again, and she was resolved not to lose anyone, not Tara, not anyone, when she confronted the Master. "It's what makes us alive, what makes us feel," she continued, returning to the present. "Dawn isn't a witch. She doesn't do magic. She is magic, incarnate as flesh, and she needs to shed blood to release her power."

"Isn't there another way?" Tara asked. "Can't you break the Heart somehow?"

"It's older than the world," Willow answered. "I don't think anything could break it, but we can throw it into the Void. I could create a portal to another world, but Dawn can open the Void that lies between them."

"But what if someone finds it there?" Tara asked.

"The Void is infinite. It's not like anyone could stumble across it," Willow answered. She cocked her head as she looked at Tara. "Why do you have so many objections anyway?"

"Blood magic seems dark to me," Tara said. She paused a moment, biting her lower lip as she tried to figure out how to say this to Willow. "I was afraid that night with the Master," she confessed in a hesitant voice, letting her hair fall forward to hide her face. "You came so close to using the darkness. I'm afraid that if you do that, you won't ever come back."

Willow looked down, unable to face Tara directly with the knowledge that she planned to use dark magic once more in her mind. She wished she could tell the truth, but Tara had left her the last time she had broken such a promise and she couldn't risk losing her again.

Yet the Master was too powerful to ignore, and she had to stop him before Tara was hurt. Willow was caught between two wrong choices; lying to Tara seemed to be the lesser of two evils. She just couldn't ignore the Master as she had Warren, knowing the cost of that all too well.

"I will always come back," Willow promised, looking up into Tara's face with determination in her eyes. It was the most she could truthfully promise Tara. She reached over to take both of Tara's hands in her own. "And Dawn's power isn't in any way dark. You can talk with her about it if it worries you."

"I believe you," Tara's said, squeezing Willow's hand. "But I'm still worried about what happened with the Master."

"I just-" Willow began and then broke off. She swallowed convulsively. "I can't lose you again."

"You won't," Tara promised, taking both of Willow's hands in her own and looking steadily into her dark eyes. "You don't need dark magic to keep me. You just need to love me." She looked deep into Willow's dark eyes, searching for a hint of the love that she felt for Willow being returned. "I need you to be just mine. I don't want to share you with the past or the magic."

"I am, you know," Willow said, looking up into Tara's blue eyes then nervously looking away, her heart beating too rapidly. She thought Tara loved her, but she was afraid of saying those three small words too soon. Willow had enough courage to offer Tara these words instead. They meant as much to her, but they were safer. She had treasured them for a lifetime and their memory had kept her going when despair was all around her. She hoped Tara could accept this gift for what it was. A promise of a future together.

"What?" Tara asked, perplexed by the emphasis Willow was placing on her words. She could see how nervous Willow was, but she didn't understand why. Was this when Willow would tell her that she couldn't love her, that she only could love the past Tara?

"Yours," Willow promised in a whisper, needing all her courage to look into Tara's eyes to see her reaction.

She could feel the importance of Willow's words, but they rang hollow to her. There was something withheld from her in Willow's dark eyes. She couldn't believe Willow after what she'd read in her journal. She wasn't Willow's Tara; she was just a shadow of that memory that Willow was willing to settle for.

"Are you?" Tara asked, her eyes full of doubts. "Aren't you hers?" She dropped Willow's hands and stepped back from her.

"Whose?" Willow asked, her brow knit with puzzlement and hurt. Willow felt the caustic words of Tara's rejection burn deeply into her unprotected heart. She had been worried about Tara rejecting her, but she felt completely blindsided by the vehemence of Tara's response. Who could Tara be talking about? There hadn't been anyone else ... not for years and years.

"The other Tara," Tara said harshly, her voice rough with anger and pain. Her expression was bleak, empty of hope, as all the emotions she'd pent up came tumbling out. "The old one. She's the one that you love, not me." She swept her hands out abruptly in a short, jagged gesture as if snapping the thread connecting them, knocking over one of the piles of neatly folded clothes. This issue had been eating at her for weeks. Willow's incredulous face made her all the more angry when she knew from reading her journal that Willow had been thinking just this.

"Tara, no," Willow said, her voice catching in her throat. She reached out to take Tara's hand in her own, but Tara slipped away from her. She gazed at Tara, her eyes full of hurt and her hands empty and slack at her sides. "What happened? Why are you saying these things?"

Driven by her anger, Tara bent down and yanked Willow's journal out from under the bed where she had slipped it this morning. She slammed it down on the bed, knocking over another pile of folded clothes. "I read it in your own handwriting," Tara said, her voice sharp and loud with anger. "Tell me that you love me," she challenged. "You told me that you love her, but you've never said those three small words to me."

Willow focused on the journal for a moment, her heart contracting painfully as she felt a shadow of the grief she'd thought safely bound between those covers fall over her. The thought that Tara would dig up her old pain and use it against her made her feel hurt at first, then angry. She looked back up at Tara, her eyes flashing with anger. "How did you find that?" she demanded. "You had no right-"

"No, I didn't" Tara admitted, cutting Willow off with a short, sharp gesture. "You're avoiding my question," she said. She turned half away from Willow, shrugging as she did so. "But I guess already know the answer," she said in a soft, sad voice.

"Tara, you're still the same person," Willow said. "I never stopped loving you." Her tone was impatient, as if the truth of her words should have been obvious to anyone.

Tara whirled back to face Willow, her blonde hair splashing about wildly. "But I'm not," she said. "I'm me, a real person, not just an extension of the past." She raised her hands as if to plead with Willow, then realizing what she was doing, curled her fingers into fists and brought her hands back to her sides. "Why can't you understand that?"

"I-" Willow began.

Tara shook her head, her eyes dull with pain and despair. "It doesn't matter," she said in a low, despondent voice. She grabbed her jacket and start out the door.

"Tara, wait!" Willow pleaded, her expression desperate and fearful. Her anger fled in the face of her fear as her mind worked feverishly trying to understand why Tara was suddenly so upset. What had Tara read in her journal? If she could just get Tara to talk with her, even argue with her, she could fix things. She reached for Tara's shoulder.

Tara shrugged off Willow's hand, leaving the room with long brisk strides. Looking back over her shoulder, she said "Just leave me alone," her voice cold and hard. Willow followed Tara to the door, desperately seeking the words that would stop her from leaving, but Tara walked out the door without a backward glance.

Willow stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light behind her as she watched Tara walk away. She reached out in a hopeless gesture, but only the fingers of her shadow touched Tara. Then they slipped away, unable to hold onto her.

In a shadowy room illuminated by a single black candle, Amy Madison sat in the center of concentric circles of blood red sand. Between the circles writhed the strange and malevolent shapes of mystical symbols written in some dark, sticky fluid. A black crossbow bolt lay on the floor before her. She held an athame in her left hand and extended her other hand above a small porphyry bowl. A small silver stylus lay beside the bowl.

She cut open her palm with a deft, practiced motion and squeezed blood out of her fisted hand into the bowl. Blood slowly dripped into bowl from her hand. Once the flow stopped, she put the athame aside and picked up the stylus. Dipping it into the bowl, she began to meticulously scribe tiny runes on the bolt in her own blood. "By my blood and thy name, I thee slay," she chanted over and over as she wrote until the bolt was covered in runes of dried blood that spelled death for the one it was destined for.

Looking down at her handiwork, Amy smiled. The lengthy process of preparation was finally complete. No shields or protections could save Willow from a spell enclosing her true name. The slightest contact with the bolt would be fatal.

All she had to do was say three small words.

Willow sat on the bed staring into her bedroom mirror, her eyes red from crying. The mirror was new. She'd just moved it in here today, finally believing that she could keep something so fragile and breakable close to her. Her reflection flickered as the single red candle illuminating the room began to gutter and die out.

She had stared into the mirror for hours, wondering who the person in the mirror was. She had known the person she'd seen in the mirror this morning. That had been Tara's Willow, the Willow of Willow and Tara. The two names felt so right when she said them together.

Now she didn't know who she was. She had given everything, leaving nothing for herself, to get that feeling back. She thought again and realized that that wasn't true. There was grief. And despair. Her old companions had returned when Tara had left.

A single thought echoed over and over in her mind. Tara was gone. She didn't want Willow any longer.

Willow couldn't blame her. She knew it was her fault. If only she hadn't gotten angry, if only she hadn't hesitated to say those three small words. She was foolish to have thought that someone like Tara would want her.

The years in the darkness had marked her. She didn't have the right to bring such darkness down on someone so bright, but there was something she could do. Tara was alive and Willow could ensure that she stayed that way. Tonight she would destroy the Master.

She slowly stood up and began undressing, looking down at the black leathers she had removed from their trunk and neatly laid out on the empty bed beside her. Clean and once neatly folded clothes lay in a tangled mass by the bed. Deliberately, article by article, she replaced her clothes of the day with the black leathers. After stretching her fingers into black leather gloves, she picked up the final article of clothing from the bed and turned to face the mirror.

Years alone had made the image she saw now in the mirror familiar to her. The dark witch in the mirror looked right. Strong, powerful, mysterious. But also alone, grieving, and despondent.

It was how she was meant to be, she told herself. She looked into the mirror and saw a person who could defeat the Master, but there was something missing in her eyes. Where there once always been the smallest of hopes underlying the steely determination, there was nothing now.

Looking deeply into the mirror, she said "Goodbye," whether to herself or to Tara she wasn't sure. Then she placed the black mask over her face. The candle guttered out and the image in the mirror faded to black.