The Dark Rose

Chapter 21: The Spectre of Buffy Summers

Tara had been staring into the mirror in her dark room for hours. She was still hugging her pillow to her chest, her arms wrapped around herself in a futile attempt at comfort. The redness of crying faded from her eyes, but her heart was still desolate.

The world in the mirror was soft and indistinct, like her life had once been. It had been easy to be happy then, but now she knew too much. Then she had thought she'd been loved. Now she knew that that feeling had just been an illusion. In a way her whole life with Willow had been an illusion, a replay of what happened before, but now she saw reality. Wasn't that better?

It wasn't.

Reality sucked. The illusion had been so much better. But it would have been even better than that to have never loved at all. If she had been cautious and hadn't foolishly followed her dreams, she wouldn't be here sitting in the dark trying to piece together the shards of her broken heart.

She felt lost as she looked into the mirror. She was alone. Yet why should that matter? She'd spent most of her life without Willow beside her. Everything had seemed fine then. Why couldn't she return to the feeling now?

Her momentary flash of anger faded, dropping her once more into the icy embrace of despair. Anger could only warm her heart for so long before she fell back into this cold grey feeling of broken emptiness, but it was good to feel something. Anything was better than this growing void within her.

She had learned the truth of the legend of Icarus. Willow had inspired her to leave the ground of her life behind, and she had dared to learn to fly. But she had flown too high, too close to Willow's sun. Her wings had burned away and she had fallen so fast, so far, crashing into a pit so deep that no light could reach the bottom.

Despite all her fears, her instinct was still to go to Willow for comfort, to forget her pain in her gentle embrace. This time she couldn't though. She had no one to go to. Willow was the source of her pain. She desperately wanted Willow to call, but at the same time she didn't know if she could talk to her.

She had always been able to find a safe place inside of herself where she could hide from the pain before, but now every place inside her was filled with complicated, heartbreaking emotions. There wasn't anywhere she could go to be free of them.

Why couldn't her life be simpler? Why did they have to have this huge burden of history between them? Yet without that history, would she ever have found someone who fit her the way that Willow did?

Tara started at the sound of a knock on her door. She jumped up, dropping her pillow to the floor, and rushed to the door, hoping that it would be Willow. Yanking open the door, she saw Dawn instead. She couldn't stop her face from falling in disappointment.

"Dawn," she said in a dull voice.

"I've had brighter welcomes," Dawn said with a wry smile. "Are you okay, Tara?" she asked, concern entering her voice as she noticed Tara's disheveled appearance and the lost look in her eyes.

Tara shook her head wearily. "No, I'm definitely not okay," she said. Recalling that she was blocking the doorway, Tara stepped aside to let Dawn enter. "Come in."

Dawn entered the room and sat down on the wooden chair beside the bed. Tara closed the door behind her and sat back down on the bed. She stared down at her feet without speaking. Dawn couldn't help her. She was just another person who expected her to be the old Tara.

"What's wrong?" Dawn prompted, her gaze still full of concern.

"You wouldn't understand," Tara said, waving Dawn's concern off with her hands.

"Did you have a fight with Willow?" Dawn asked, thinking that she had seen this look on Tara's face before. That couldn't be good. She remembered what had happened the last time they had argued, but what did the two of them have to fight about? Surely Willow wouldn't break her promise again.

"How did you know?" Tara asked in surprise, looking up at Dawn's face for the first time.

"I've seen that look before," Dawn said with an unhappy half smile. "What was it about?"

"That!" Tara said more loudly than she had planned, jumping up and beginning to pace restlessly. "You've never seen that look on me before. You all know the old Tara, but I'm not her," she said. "I'm me."

"I see," Dawn said, nodding with understanding. She had thought about this potential problem already, wondering what issues Tara's knowledge of her past life might bring up. She had hoped that she could talk with Tara before any problems came up, but it looked like she was already too late. "All of us have expectations of you because of what we remember from our past with you. What exactly was the problem with Willow?"

"She loves the old Tara," Tara said, whirling to face Dawn.

"She did," Dawn said in a soft voice, subtly trying to sooth Tara. She knew that Tara couldn't help but compare herself with her past self and probably come up wanting if she saw her past self from Willow's idealized perspective. "She loved her very much, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't love you."

"She loves her," Tara said, stressing the last word harshly. "Not me." She sat back down her on the bed, the energy of her anger quickly deserting her in her despair. Her shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Did she tell you that?" Dawn asked, her eyes widening in surprise.

"No," Tara admitted. "I read it in her journal."

"Are you sure she feels that way now?" Dawn asked skeptically, finding it difficult to accept the idea of Willow not loving Tara in whatever form. Willow had changed, but not that much.

"She's never told me that she loves me," Tara said miserably, swallowing the lump in her throat. "Isn't that clear enough?"

"I don't know," Dawn said. "But I don't think so." Looking at the unhappy lines of Tara's face, Dawn realized again how young she was. Tara saw this one argument as the end of the world. But it didn't have to be the end of anything. Dawn tried to find the words that would give Tara some of her perspective. "Willow's led a lonely, dangerous life for a long time now," she said. "She's lost so much. I think saying those words could be very hard for her."

Tara looked down for a long moment. "I didn't think of that," she said softly, her voice almost inaudible. "I was just so angry I walked out."

"Well, it's over now," Dawn said, trying to reassure Tara that she and Willow would make it through this argument.

"Over?" Tara asked frantically, her face a mask of fear. "How can it be over? I just found her!" Love and desperation mingled in her voice as she realized that she did want to try again with Willow. How could Dawn offer her hope one moment only to tear it away from her the next?

"The quarrel is over," Dawn reassured her quickly, upset to see how she had caused Tara such distress.

"Oh," Tara said. "Yeah." She looked down, feeling little embarrassed. Her heart was still beating rapidly from her momentary fright.

"You should talk to her when you're both more calm," Dawn continued encouragingly. "It's an unusual situation to say the least. It'll take time for both of you figure out what your new life means."

"How can we figure it out?" Tara asked, flinging her arms wide in confusion. She wanted to see Willow again, but what could she say to her? How could she explain how she felt when she wasn't even sure who she was? She couldn't be the old Tara, but she also couldn't go back to how she was before she had learned about her past.

"I think you're like a quantum particle," Dawn said. Catching Tara's puzzled look, she explained further "Sometimes it looks like a wave, other times it looks like a particle, but it's really something else entirely. Sometimes you're like the Tara we knew before and sometimes you're like who you were before learning about your past, but you're actually someone different from either of those people now. You're still yourself, but you have new memories and connections to the past that is changing you. It'll take time for both you and Willow to learn what this means for both of you."

Dawn's explanation made more sense to Tara than anything she'd come up with herself. Tara had constantly confronted what she now understood was an impossible choice between her past life and her current one. Now she realized that she didn't have to make that choice. She didn't have to force herself to be someone that she wasn't, but she also didn't have to give up everything that had come into her life with the knowledge of her past.

She looked over Dawn's shoulder into the mirror that she'd stared into for hours this afternoon, looking for answers, and saw herself in it for the first time. Simply herself. Nothing more. Nothing less. There was no past, no future, in the mirror, simply herself as she was in this moment. That's all she could be.

As she accepted herself, Tara also accepted that Willow did love her. Willow had come so close to saying that tonight. Tara had seen the fear in Willow's eyes as she had said that she was Tara's. Wasn't that love, belonging to each other? She could be patient about hearing those three small words as long as she kept that knowledge in her heart.

Her stomach tightened as she had another thought. "I walked out on Willow," she said in a stunned voice as if realizing what she had done for the first time. "What if she doesn't want anything more to do with me now?" she asked, looking to Dawn for hope.

"She'll understand," Dawn said, placing a reassuring hand on Tara's shoulder.

Tara stood up. "I should go see her now," she said, not reassured at all by Dawn's comment. She wanted to fix things between them while there was still time. She started towards the door.

"You don't even know if she's home," Dawn protested.

"Yes, I do," Tara said with a smile as she felt for Willow with her mind. Then as her tendril of thought touched Willow, her smile faded. She couldn't tell exactly what was happening, but she could feel that Willow was fighting for her life. And she wasn't there to help.

"Willow's in trouble," Tara said grimly as she ran towards the door.

Willow had almost reached the Heart. She had descended into the depths of the darkness beneath Sunnydale, defeating demon after demon that the Master had set to guard himself. She'd kept her promise to Tara, destroying her opponents without recourse to dark magic. Tara would never know, but it felt right somehow.

She walked steadily down the narrow stone passageway, her only illumination the cold blue witchlight she directed in front of her. Cold water dripped on her from high above, making her look up. There was nothing on the ceiling this time, but there had been spidery demons lurking above earlier. She ignored the water and followed her sense of the Heart's corruption.

It was easy to follow the path to the Heart. With each step closer, the tunnels and caverns grew colder, and the sense of corruption tore more painfully at her senses. She knew that she was very near as the air was icy and her breath came in clouds of white.

The passageway emptied into an enormous cavern. Willow emerged from the tunnel on to a small ledge. The cavern stretched upwards and downwards out of sight into total darkness. She could hear the sounds of rushing water from below. She sent out her blue witchlight to see across the cavern and found another stone ledge opposite hers on the other side.

A slender span of stone blocks arched over the chasm, connecting the two ledges. It glistened with moisture. In the center of the bridge stood an indistinct figure shimmering with emerald energies. It was the Master's final guardian. Willow began crossing the narrow bridge, warily approaching the wraith.

As Willow neared the spectral figure, she saw that it was a slender woman, shorter than her. Despite its small stature and apparent inattention, it radiated a sense of menace. Finally, when she was close enough to almost touch the spectre, it turned to face her, grinning wickedly. "Welcome home, Willow," it said in a voice Willow knew well.

The spirit was Buffy, looking the same as she had the day of Tara's funeral. The dark resurrection performed by the Heart had erased the marks of age and disease. She was coldly beautiful, a dark shadow of the living Buffy, translucent and limned with an ill emerald radiance.

Willow's mouth dropped open in shock. "B-buffy?" Willow stammered.

It was a miracle. Her best friend returned to her in this moment of darkness. She had missed Buffy so much and had felt so guilty about not being here for her at the end. All the things that Willow had been afraid that she could never tell Buffy bubbled up inside. Forgetting for a moment where she was and why she had come here, Willow started forward to embrace her old friend.

"Surprised?" Buffy asked ironically, arching an eyebrow. "Well, you were the last time you tore me out of heaven too."

Buffy's words stopped Willow mid-motion. Why was Buffy saying this? She hadn't done anything to bring her back. "I didn't-" Willow began.

"Not directly," Buffy admitted. "But the Master brought me back just for you." She took a step towards Willow, her emerald eyes glinting dangerously. "And you brought Dawn here and put her in danger."

"Giles called Dawn, not me," Willow defended herself, but she looked away from her friend and started to bring up a hand to cover her mouth. She wanted to hold her breath as the spectre approached for despite Buffy's youthful appearance, she was rank with the scent of decay as if her spirit was rotting away under the dire influence of the Heart.

"Poor Willow," Buffy said, shaking her head in mock sympathy. "Always blaming someone else for your problems."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Willow asked hotly.

"You hurt and abandoned your friends," Buffy accused. "You left me to die alone, and you blamed it all on Tara." Buffy paused a moment to smile mockingly at Willow, her eyes sparkling with emerald malice. "Yet it's your fault that Tara died."

Willow staggered backwards under the force of Buffy accusations. She had abandoned her friends, even Buffy, who had died without any acknowledgement from her best friend. She shared guilt for Tara's death too. How many times had she asked herself what would have happened if they hadn't gotten together that day or if she had been standing in front of the window instead of Tara?

Buffy advanced menacingly on Willow, forcing her to step back towards the edge of the bridge. Willow gagged on the terrible stench of corruption Buffy brought with her as she continued hammering her accusations home. "You chose dark magic over love, driving Tara away," she said, taking another step forward. "Then you ignored Warren, having fun with your magic until you took Tara back at just the wrong time." She stepped forward again, forcing Willow to the brink.

Willow teetered on the edge for a moment, then Buffy lunged forward, pushing Willow into the abyss.

As Willow fell, she desperately grabbed for the edge of the bridge with both hands, still wanting to live despite all she had lost. Her fingers scrabbled for purchase on the slick stone. She managed to hold on with one hand, the rest of her body dangling above the abyss.

Buffy leaned over the edge to observe her, an evil sense of humor evident in her eyes. "Still stubborn?" she asked with a short laugh. "Why are you hanging on? You've lost everything you ever cared for. Just let go and let your pain end."

As Willow looked up into the mocking face of what had once been her best friend, Buffy looked larger than ever. The shadow of her death loomed over Willow now as the shadow of her life had loomed over her teenage years. She felt tempted by the specter's suggestion as despair sank into her soul. Her hand and began to slowly slip away from the bridge. She had lost everything, hadn't she?

She deserved to die for all the things she'd done. She'd killed so many people. How could she expect forgiveness and love? Tara was better off without her. Let her find someone untainted by the darkness who could love her like she deserved to be loved.

Willow looked down into the abyss, trying to stare her fate directly in the face. She reeled with vertigo, clenching slipping fingers in a desperate attempt to hold on to the stones of the bridge. Her fingers dragged along the slippery surface until her little finger slipped off the bridge entirely, leaving her hanging by only three fingers.

Was there any reason she should not let go? Death would be a welcome release from too many years of grief and pain. She had every reason to die and had just lost her only one to live.

As she prepared to let go, an image of Tara's face flashed before her eyes. It wasn't just herself she was fighting for. Tara might not love her any more, but she deserved a chance to live. A chance that the Master would not give her. Willow could die, but not here, not now.

With grim determination, Willow reached up with her other hand and grabbed hold of the wet masonry, preparing to pull herself up. The spectre slowly stomped down on her hand, crushing it under its ghostly heel and forcing her to yank her hand away. She shook her hand to rid it of the numbness caused by the specter's icy touch and prepared to try again.

As Willow reached upwards again, it struck her that she was holding onto too much. Despair from Tara's death. The guilt for what she had done afterwards. The fear of losing Tara again.

All of these feelings had their place, but they weren't the whole story. There was love. She loved Tara more than ever. There was hope. Tara hadn't actually said that she was leaving Willow, had she? There was life.

And there was magic.

Willow released her hold on the bridge with a smile, letting her fears go as she opened her hands. She fell freely for an exhilarating moment, then rose on the wings of her magic until she was level with the bridge. She confronted the spectre who was at last without words.

"Buffy, I'm sorry," she said, her eyes full of compassion as she extended her arms and sent lances of pure blue flame at the spectre. Blue and green fire met with a crash as the elemental natures of dark and light magic were pitted against each other. The spectre recoiled and screamed horribly as the magical blue fire ate into its emerald aura.

Slowly but surely the purity of the blue magic prevailed over the unholy green fire until Buffy's translucent form was burned free of emerald ill. The stench of rot slowly faded from the air. Willow's face paled with the strain as she purged the last vestiges of corruption from the ghost. Buffy's diaphanous form was now haloed with the azure fire pouring from Willow's fingertips.

Buffy smiled at Willow, her face finally free of the malevolent contempt brought there by the hateful magic of her dark resurrection. "Thank you, Willow," she said.

"I'm sorry Buffy," Willow said hoarsely.

"It's okay," Buffy said, reaching out to touch Willow's face. Her spectral fingers passed through the mask as if it wasn't there and felt warm against the soft skin of Willow's cheek. "It hurt, but you freed me."

"I mean about everything," Willow said. Her hands began to shake from the strain of holding Buffy to this plane, but she had to say these things to Buffy while she had the chance. "I did abandon you," she continued. "And I'm so sorry." Tears threatened to fall as she looked at her friend who she had missed so much for so long.

There was an understanding in Buffy's eyes that Willow had never seen there before. Willow wished she had been there to know if it was the flowering of Buffy's experience with life or was the wisdom that came from beyond life. "Willow, I forgive you," she said. "I wish you could have shared those years with me as much for your sake as for mine, but you can't change the past." She looked deeply into Willow's eyes as she added, "You can change the future."

"I can't hold you much longer," Willow said, the shaking in her hands growing stronger.

"It's my time," Buffy said with calm acceptance in her voice. Her spectral form was evanescent as Willow's hold on her spirit weakened. As she faded, Buffy found the strength for three final words, "She loves you." Then death returned for Buffy Summers, taking her spirit back to the place from whence it was stolen.

Willow dropped ungently to the bridge, her hands still trembling. As she pulled off her mask, tears began to fall freely from her dark eyes. She knelt on the hard, damp stones of the bridge, her arms wrapped around herself, as she mourned her friend at last.

Chapter 22: Alone in the Dark

Willow strode confidently into the throne hall of the Master. Her head was held high and her eyes were alert and perceptive without being overly cautious. Her gaze narrowed as she found the Master on his throne, alone in the darkness. He was illuminated only by the throbbing glow of the Heart of Corruption hanging on its chain about his neck.

The huge emerald seethed with ill power, throwing off gouts of icy green fire like the active corona of a miniature star. Deep beneath the surface of the world, its evil strength rivalled that of the Hellmouth itself. Yet for all its fury, it provided little illumination for the Master's subterranean domain. Willow's bones ached in the frigid cold of the tenebrous cavern, and the noisome stench of corruption exuded by the gem almost made her gag.

The Master had been horribly marked in his fight with Willow. Terrible burns scarred his face and one eye was gone entirely. His other eye was sunk deep in its socket and was luminous with emerald fury as he regarded her. His withered hands caressed the Heart unconsciously.

The stone of the cavern around them was perfectly smooth. There were no cracks or rough edges. It was clearly shaped by magic. Yet the marble of his throne was heavily pitted all over and cracks were beginning to form at its base. The corruption of the Heart was destroying the stone around it with its malice as surely as it was eating away at the aged vampire.

The Master attempted to smile at her, but nerves and muscles destroyed beyond even the power of vampiric regeneration turned the smile into a terrible grimace. "You passed my tests," he said, blackened tendons visibly moving in his jaw where the skin had melted away. "But you can't take me, girl."

"We'll see," Willow said without giving away anything on her expressionless face. She wasn't here to banter. She had no real hatred for the Master. He was just an obstacle. She just wanted to eliminate him so she could return to Tara and say those three small words to her.

He stood up slowly, wincing with pain as he did so. "You were a fool to come down here," he said. "Up there you were lucky. Down here I am the power." He clenched his bony fist around the Heart and a coruscation of emerald might erupted from it to surround him in a halo of magical fire.

Willow waved a hand and was immediately surrounded by a pearlescent bubble of force. The Master hammered at her with blasts of emerald fire, but the shield simply shimmered with the blows and reflected them all. This time Willow was ready to face the power of the Heart.

In response, Willow blasted at the stone floor of the cavern by the Master's feet in an attempt to bypass his defenses as she had above. This time flares of green fire met her blue flame to form a terrible storm as they strove against each other. Blue and green flames swirled and clashed in a brilliant display of power. The stone walls of the cavern rang with the sounds of their conflict, but eventually Willow had to give up her attack, as the Heart's might was simply too great to be opposed directly.

Before Willow could mount another attack, the Master struck, hurling a tremendous gout of magical fire at her. It struck her shield and clung there, eating into her defenses like vitriol. Willow panicked for a moment as she watched the fiery liquid flow over magical shield, rapidly pitting its pearlescent outer layers. Then she had an idea. She drew her shield in, then rapidly bounced it away from her just a short distance. The clinging fire was hurled away to be reabsorbed into the gale of emerald flames whirling around the Master. His form was obscured by the violence of the power surrounding him.

Lightning crackled from Willow's fingertips to detonate on the ceiling above the Master. Great chunks of the cavern's stones tore away and fell down towards the Master. The Master saw the attack and erupted with a gyre of wild green fire that consumed the stones, turning them first into red hot slag, then vaporizing them entirely. The tempest of emerald flames surrounding him grew as it consumed the rock until Willow almost could not look into the brightness of its rage.

Then he brought the full vehemence of the firestorm down upon Willow, battering savagely at her shield. The whirlwind of flame howled as it circled her and ate away at her protections. Willow desperately poured more power into her shields, but the rage of the storm was destroying her defenses faster than she could rebuild them. As she strove with all her strength against the dark force of the Heart, she realized that she had reached the limits of what she could do with light magic alone.

It pained her to make this decision, but she couldn't defeat the Master without help. Now was the time to call on dark magicks. However, once she opened her senses to feel the familiar flows of darkness, all she could feel was the dark force of the Heart. It shone to her magical senses like a supernova, obliterating any traces of the lesser darknesses around it. Even the Hellmouth was invisible and intangible this close to the Heart of Corruption. Here in its home, the Heart permitted no rivals to its power.

As Willow began to feel the full force of despair, knowing that she was going to die alone in the darkness without accomplishing her purpose, the Heart offered itself to her. Somehow millennia of pouring malice and fury into the emerald had awakened the stone, bringing to it a dim sentience that wanted to fulfill its dark purpose. It had no loyalty to its owner, only to power, and Willow's native power was far greater than that of the Master. It knew it could do great things as Willow's Heart.

The Heart offered itself with feelings and images, having no capacity for words. It promised all its power to her if only she would reach out and take it. With its help, she could destroy the Master with ease. It would become her heart. The effluvium of its corruption filled her nostrils with the sweet, gagging scent of putrescent flesh as it reached deeper into her mind, showing her a vision of the power it would give her, the world it would create for her.

Willow found herself looking down on the ruins of a city from a high precipice. As she looked closer, the ruins became familiar and she realized that the city was Sunnydale. She knew that she had destroyed it, vampires, demons, and all, finally freeing herself from its evil forever. From the ruins came a stream of people, coming forward to worship the beautiful, dark goddess who had saved them.

The crowd included everyone she had ever known, the living and even the dead who were limned with the cold emerald light of the Heart. She saw the kids who had teased her in school, their heads bowed worshipfully as they approached her. Even her family was there, led by the parents who had always ignored her, their expressions now vacant of anything but a slavish devotion to her.

Above the scene, a transformed emerald sun shone brightly. The green star was furiously active, constantly sending out flares of fire, but no warmth came from its odious radiance. Instead, the light turned the clouds a noxious green color as they hurried across the sky, seemingly eager to avoid the baleful glare of the new sun.

As the procession of people from the city grew closer, winding its way up the steep hills to where she stood, she saw her friends in the vanguard. Even Oz was there, his sad eyes showing his contrition for betraying her. Buffy's face was full of respect, finally seeing that Willow was the hero, not a sidekick any longer. Xander looked up at her as he approached, finally seeing her for who she was and loving her for it, but his eyes were also full of a sick sense of despair as he knew that he was not worthy of her. Only one person was worthy, and she led the group.

Tara was more gorgeous than Willow had ever seen her before, swathed in revealing robes of emerald green. Her smiling face was lost in ecstasy as she gazed at Willow. She neared Willow and knelt worshipfully before her, illuminated by a shaft of green effulgence from the active sun above. Her luminous emerald eyes were vacant of anything but mindless adoration as she looked up into Willow's face, completely under her spell. She was everything that Willow had made her, just a shell of the woman she had once been.

Willow mentally screamed with revulsion, violently hurling the Heart out of her mind. She would never want that empty devotion directed at her. Love was more than mere adoration. You couldn't create love with a spell; you had to make it anew every day with your heart. Love was worth fighting for. Once, she had put Tara under her spell and come so close to making Tara what the Heart had shown her, but never again. She would not even take the first step down that road even if it cost her her life.

And it would, she realized as she found herself back in the real world, her shields rocking from the concussion of the ferocious tempest of magical fire raging outside them. She could feel her life's energy pouring into her defenses to shield her from the conflagration, keeping her safe but draining her nonetheless. It was only a matter of time before she ran out of energy and her shields collapsed.

Then she knew how to defeat the Master. The magicks of blood and death weren't always evil. There was great power in willing self sacrifice. By giving her life in a final strike, she could destroy him and bring this cavern down around their remains, burying the Heart under tons of molten rock and rubble.

It was a simple spell, but it required a purity of essence that she didn't have. The dark magicks providing her with strength and endurance, protecting her from time and wounds, precluded her from making such a sacrifice. They were the last ties holding her to the darkness.

So she let them all go, severing the connections that bound the spells to her flesh, freeing herself from the last taints of darkness. She felt almost giddy, as if she had shrugged a tremendous weight off her shoulders. Her heart felt lighter too as she knew that she was finally living up to her promise as Tara would have wanted her to. She made no more distinctions among dark spells. The darkness was completely behind her at last.

She looked no different as the last remnants of the dark spells left her, but the loss of the dark sources sustaining her left her trembling with exhaustion. The constant drain of power to keep her shields up felt like the rapid loss of blood from a mortal wound. She shook her head, willing herself to stay upright. The spell would only require a few moments more.

As Willow reached inside herself for all the internal sources of power that could only be released with death, readying herself for the completion of her spell, she thought about Tara. She wanted her last thoughts to be of her love. She wished so strongly that they hadn't parted on such bad terms, that she had told Tara that she loved her. It would've been so easy to do then and now she would never have the chance.

She felt like she was about to cry, to open the floodgates of tears that she had held back for so long, but she couldn't. She had to be strong for a few minutes more as she completed the spell. Then it would all be over.

The firestorm outside faded from her mind as she thought about Tara, the fury of the storm inconsequential compared to the passion of her feelings for her love. If only there was another way, but she still could not pierce the veil of darkness shed by the Heart even if she wanted to and her life was not worth the price it required for its power. The Heart had chosen badly in its choice of a temptation for her, but she could feel that it was being truthful. Using its corrupt power would ineluctably lead her to create the world it had shown her.

She wished she could just have a few minutes alone with Tara to let her know that she loved her, to let her know that she was doing this to keep her safe and that she had kept her promise. Perhaps this sacrifice would expiate her sins though she dared not hope for such a gift. But more than anything, she wanted to say those three small words to Tara.

A familiar voice from behind startled Willow out of her reverie. "Do you trust me?" Tara asked.

Chapter 23: Together in the Light

A familiar voice from behind startled Willow out of her reverie. "Do you trust me?" Tara asked.

Willow turned to see Tara standing behind her like an angel, serene even in midst of the firestorm. Her vision blurred with tears. After she had lost all hope, this happened. She had so many questions to ask Tara, but she had something more important to do first. Willow took Tara's hands in hers and said, "I love you."

Blue eyes met green for the first time.

Tara's heart swelled as she heard those words and stared into eyes she had only seen in her dreams. "I love you," she returned in a soft voice.

Every last vestige of darkness had fled from Willow's eyes. They were a vivid living green as they looked back at Tara, verdant as leaves in the height of summer, sharing nothing with the cold emerald green of the firestorm that raged around the two of them. Tara found Willow's eyes beautiful, even more so than she remembered from her dreams, and as she looked into them she felt her fears fly away as if they had never been.

Just minutes ago, Tara had been so afraid that she would find Willow too late. Images from her visions had flashed through her head as she ran as fast as she could through the cold, dark tunnels, following her sense of Willow's presence. She had seen the moment where the two of them faced the storm of emerald flame together over as she ran. Willow needed her to make it through the fires of the Heart.

Tara's own heart was still pounding painfully and her side ached from running, but she had arrived just in time. Entering the cavern, she had been confronted with a conflagration of such intensity that the air seared her lungs and it felt as if her skin would blacken from the heat. The crackling of the green flames drowned out any other sounds she might have heard.

Then she saw Willow in the center of it all, looking tiny within her silvery shields as she defied the colossal might of the tempest of emerald flame that raged around her. Tara hadn't hesitated. She had run straight into the firestorm. Willow's shields had opened to her, welcoming her and protecting her as if they were her own, letting her walk through the fiery inferno unscathed.

Willow had looked desperate and determined when Tara had first seen her, but the joy that had appeared on her face as she turned and saw Tara was like the sun emerging from behind a cloud. Tara was still dazzled by the brightness of her joy.

She could see in Willow's eyes, so alive and loving now without the inky blackness, that Willow was seeing her at last for who she was and accepted her without reservation. She felt her own heart swell with brightness as she looked into Willow's green eyes, wide with the joy of seeing her. Her flesh felt transparent, the light of her heart shining through unhindered by secrets kept or feelings withheld out of fear. They would talk after this, but her heart was content, knowing the answer to her question at last.

When Willow's green eyes met Tara's blue ones, it felt like she was seeing Tara for the first time. In a way she was. She was seeing Tara as she really was, her vision unclouded by the darkness and fears of the past. Tara was who she was, not simply a reflection of the past, but a person who still shared that past with Willow through some miracle she couldn't explain. Tara's cerulean eyes were as clear as the sky, promising her a future that would be as joyful as her time with Tara in the past had been.

Willow accepted Tara's return as a gift of grace. It was not something she ever could have deserved, but it was a gift that she could accept now and cherish without reservation. She could see in those eyes that Tara was offering her everything. All she could do was to give Tara everything she was in return. It didn't feel like enough, but she would do everything she could to show Tara how much she loved her.

There was magic in the world, and it was more than just spells. It underlay every breath and every thought. Life was a miracle beyond comprehension. Love had overcome time and death to meet her here when she had no hope remaining. Tara embodied that magic. It was there in her eyes and her smile. In every small touch. In every whispered word of devotion.

They embraced, heedless of the inferno surrounding them, and as they kissed, the shimmering shield surrounding them grew effulgent with a brilliant white light. A sea of white energies slowly but surely expanded from the sphere of force, pushing away the gales of emerald fire that surrounded them.

Each time a tongue or flare of flame touched the bright sea, it was simply extinguished. The hurricane of cold flame raged and howled against the growing brightness, but its savage fury could not stop the bright energies that steadily forced the storm back towards its source.

They could feel the power flowing between them, growing stronger as it passed from one witch to the other with each synchronized beat of their hearts. While they hadn't yet had time to talk, they could feel that the barriers between them had fallen. There were no more secrets withheld. There were no more dark magicks blocking the connection between them. The flow of force and magic between them before had been a trickle compared to this unconstrained torrent of feeling and power they shared now. The magic felt effortless as they forced back the corrupt power of the Heart.

They turned as one to look at the growing sea of light, never letting go of each other's hands. The eclat of their magic grew and grew until the icy tempest of emerald might was confined to a small sphere around the Master, who was desperately hurling bolts of green energies to ward off the advance of the white brilliance. His frenzied battling scorched the air with the fiery cold of the Heart's power, but it could not touch the immaculate purity of the white magic that simply accepted the blows without slowing its expansion.

The Master clenched both hands around the Heart, demanding ever more power of it to save himself. The gem's radiance throbbed like the beating of a savage heart, but its master was only capable of channeling a small fraction of its energy.

As he drew more and more power in ever more desperate attempts to ward off his doom, he visibly aged. The weight of corruption stooped him, curving his spine as his vertebrae softened with age. Age and rot gnawed at his bones, twisting his limbs until he could barely move. His remaining eye grew rheumy and his skin became spotted and wrinkled. Even immortal flesh was not immune to the corruption of the Heart.

Patches of skin began falling away, exposing pale bone and rotten tissue underneath, but still he held onto the icy fire of the gem with all his rapidly fading strength as if it would be his salvation. He almost couldn't hold on to the Heart with his gnarled and palsied hands, but with a final shriek of fury he called for the full puissance of the Heart of Corruption.

The Heart answered his call. He screamed silently, his fangs bared in a horrifying grimace, as cold, dead light filled him until it burst forth from his mouth. His flesh became incandescent as the gelid emerald fire consumed him from within. His brightness grew until they could no longer look at him. Then he collapsed into ash, completely consumed by the fires of the Heart.

The great gem fell to the ground by itself, its chain melted away in the final throes of the cataclysm that annihilated its master. It rolled slowly on the floor, its prodigious fury dwindling to mere embers of green inside the stone.

Willow and Tara extended their opposite unclasped hands, each one filled with a brilliant, pure light. Together, they wrapped the Heart in layer after layer of protective spells, forming a cocoon of gossamer magics around it so they could carry it safely home to be removed from this world. The beat of corruption's Heart momentarily stilled, they looked into each other's eyes again and smiled, exhausted but still glowing with the joy of their togetherness.

"How did you find me?" Willow asked when they finally had time for words.

"I followed my heart," Tara said quietly, squeezing Willow's hand for emphasis. She hadn't let go of Willow's hand since she had taken it in hers, and she never wanted to let go of her again.

Willow couldn't help but smile at Tara's response, but then a shadow fell over her face. She wished that she had followed her heart, but she had fled from it only to discover in the depths of the darkness that no amount of running would let you escape from your own heart. Not that she wanted to escape now, but she'd been so afraid before. "Tara, I'm sorry-" she began.

Tara put a gentle finger to Willow's lips, forestalling her apology. She didn't want to lose that joy in Willow's face because of the mistakes of the past. They had both made mistakes in coming to this place in their separate ways, but now they were together, and having learned from the past could finally put it behind them. "I'm sorry too, love," she said. "But let's not make tonight about what we did wrong. We found each other and that's what matters."

Willow instinctively wanted to protest. Her mind had already worked out so many scenarios that were better than what had happened. She had made too many mistakes. Then she looked into the pure love shining forth from Tara's face, and found that the darkness of her worries and self-recrimination could not survive in that light. Tara accepted her, mistakes and all.

"I'll always find you," Willow promised, her smile bright with the joy of that promise fulfilled. Her quest was complete. She had found Tara. Even though she had lost herself in the solitary darkness of her grief for so many long years, she had found Tara once more, and in her Willow had found herself again. Everything had changed, but nothing was lost any longer.

"Ready to go home?" Tara asked, her voice wavering with exhaustion she felt. Her face had a soft glow that hadn't abated, and her eyes shined with openness and trust as she regarded Willow.

"Yes," Willow said simply. But her heart was already home. She was tired though, and this dark cavern wasn't the place to celebrate her reunion with Tara even if its walls were still bright with the purity of their conjoined light. She reached down to pick up the chrysalis of enchantments that held the Heart and smiled up at Tara, "Home sounds perfect."

Hand in hand, they walked out of the darkness together.

Chapter 24: The Return of Amy Madison

Willow and Tara walked hand in hand towards the old Gothic mansion. In her other hand, Willow carried the cocoon of magicks that contained the Heart of Corruption. Dawn, who they had found to help them remove the Heart from this world, walked beside them. Willow had felt it best to carry out the ritual at the old mansion where they wouldn't be disturbed.

Willow kept giving Tara oblique glances to reassure herself that Tara was really there beside her. She knew it was silly. She could have felt Tara's presence with her eyes closed even if they hadn't been holding hands. When Tara was near, she felt cherished and safe. Tara's love steadied her own tremulous heart. It just seemed too good to be true.

She'd been ready to die, to sacrifice herself for the future of Tara and the world. Then Tara had been there. The barriers between them had fallen. Unfettered by doubts or reservations, the magic flowed between them and created a miracle to save them, quenching the dark fury of the Heart of Corruption with the power of the love they shared.

Magic wasn't only about spells and rituals. It was also about feeling and emotion. That was something Tara had taught her long ago, but it was a lesson she was only beginning to understand now. If she had learned it sooner, she never would have fallen into the darkness.

Tara was acutely conscious of the sidelong glances Willow was giving her on their walk home. She squeezed Willow's hand each time she received one, reassuring Willow that they really were together. She understood how Willow was feeling, though, as she was feeling much the same. She couldn't quite believe that they'd safely make it through everything. In truth, they weren't done yet. They still had to get rid of the Heart of Corruption. But that seemed easy compared to what they'd gone through already tonight.

Looking at Willow, it was clear that the darkness was a thing of the past. Willow's eyes were bright green and the old lines of sadness had faded from her face. With every glance, Willow showed her that she accepted Tara for who she was, but more importantly, Tara now accepted herself, past and present. Her life felt in balance for the first time since she'd learned of her past.

Dawn watched Willow and Tara's interactions with a smile. It was good seeing them back together. She was unsure of what happened beneath the earth with the Master, but whatever it was, it had cleared away the shadows that had separated them. And Willow's eyes were green again.

She was more than a bit nervous about what was coming up though. She'd only used her power once and she had just been a kid then and hadn't been in control of what was happening. Dawn still didn't understand how her ability worked even though she knew what to do to activate it. That troubled the scientist in her.

At least this time she had Willow to guide her through the process, and she was opening a portal to save the world, not destroy it. Those were major differences, but she still wished it was over already.

As they reached the mansion, Dawn opened the door and let Tara, then Willow, through before going in herself and closing it behind her. The large entry chamber was lined with bookshelves, but there was no other furniture to clutter the room. The walls were bare of ornament.

"I think we-" Willow began, then looked over with surprise when she felt Tara release her hand.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Tara said with a sheepish smile on her face. She didn't want to let go of Willow any more than Willow wanted to let go of her, but she also knew that she didn't have to be afraid. Willow would be here for her when she returned. They wouldn't run from each other any longer.

Willow smiled back at her. "It's okay," Willow said. "We'll figure out where to cast the spell while were waiting."

"Could we go over again when I have to do?" Dawn asked nervously as Tara walked out of the room.

"Sure." Willow began to explain again to Dawn how to open the portal to the Void between Worlds. Dawn had a number of theoretical questions about how the process worked, which Willow had to think seriously about before answering. They were deep in conversation when they heard a gasp from the direction that Tara had gone.

Willow stopped in the middle of her sentence as she turned towards the doorway Tara had disappeared through. She only had time to take two steps before she saw Tara re-enter the room, a handgun pressed to her head, her face pale with fear.

Amy Madison pushed Tara into the room, holding the gun in her hand. She looked much older than she had when Willow had last seen her, unnaturally aged by dark magicks; but it was unmistakably her. Her eyes were cruelly triumphant as she looked at Willow. She was carrying a light crossbow in her other hand.

"Don't try anything, Willow," Amy said in a low, dangerous voice before either of them could do anything. "Even if you could kill me instantly, you wouldn't necessarily save her. Think what a few ounces of pressure exerted by a nervous spasm of my finger as I died would do. Are you willing to take that chance?"

Willow's eyes narrowed as she regarded Amy. It was only a chance, but not one she could take. There were spells that would obliterate Amy completely, even with the limited power she had remaining after the confrontation with the Master, leaving no finger to twitch, but she had left all that behind her. She had to find what Amy wanted while she searched for another way to deal with her.

Dawn fell silent at Amy's words though Amy had barely glanced at her. She looked over to Willow for an indication of how she wanted to handle the situation.

"Good girl," Amy said with a flicker of a smile. "Now give me the Heart."

"And you'll let Tara go," Willow asked, regarding Amy steadily. She refused to allow any of her feelings to show on her face, even though she felt her deepest fear tearing at her insides, frantically trying to get out. The sound of a long ago gunshot reverberated in her mind. She couldn't allow that to happen again.

Willow felt sick at her stomach and only an iron will prevented her hands from trembling. She couldn't give herself away to Amy. Many times in her past she had confronted this type of person and won, but never had the stakes been so high. She knew that she couldn't show fear if they were all going to make it out of this alive.

Tara stood frozen, hardly daring to breathe. The constant pressure of the gun pressed to her head reminded her with every heartbeat of how she had died before and how she might die again in the next few minutes. It was hard to think of anything but the gun with Amy's warning ringing in her ears. Tara looked desperately at Willow for help. On seeing the calm strength in Willow's eyes, she felt hope for the first time since she'd felt the cold metal of the gun against her temple.

"Of course," Amy nodded, her attention almost completely focused on Willow.

Dawn's eyes darted back and forth between Amy and Willow, watching the deadly contest of words and wills with fear in her heart. What could she do? Her power was only good for one thing. There was no way she could stop Amy before she killed Tara.

"Why should I believe you?" Willow asked skeptically. She glanced quickly at Tara's face, beautiful as always, though her eyes were wide with fear, and promised with her own eyes that she would get her safely out of this situation. She didn't want to trust Tara's fate to Amy's goodwill if she could help it, but she needed time to find another way. She had to keep Amy talking long enough to come up with a plan.

"You don't have much choice," Amy said, her expression hard and uncompromising. "Just like when I was a rat and had to trust you to turn me back into myself."

"And I did," Willow said evenly, her brain racing as she came up with scenario after scenario, rejecting one after the other as too risky. She didn't want to risk Tara, but she knew they wouldn't be much safer if she gave Amy the Heart.

"After years of leaving me as a rat," Amy pointed out angrily, her voice shrill. "You could raise the dead, but you didn't have time to cast an easier spell to save a friend."

"That's not Tara's fault," Willow protested. If Amy hated her this much, maybe she could get Amy to take her as a hostage instead of Tara.

"Amy-" Dawn began then quickly shut up as Amy shot her an angry glance, her knuckles whitening as she gripped the gun tighter. Tara trembled, flicking her eyes over to Dawn, as she felt the gun press harder into her temple.

"Like I said, I'll let her go if you give me the Heart," Amy said, staring hard into Willow's eyes. Only the clenching of her fingers revealed her tension. "Now quit stalling!" she barked.

Willow wordlessly tossed the cocooned form of the Heart of Corruption towards Amy. It was a dangerous action, but she could do nothing else with Tara's life in the balance. It would give her a little more time for Amy to make a mistake. The Heart landed on the floor midway between them. "There it is," she said.

Amy stared at the shroud of protections, searching for the presence of the Heart inside them. Her gun never wavered from Tara's temple for a moment. Finally, she nodded with satisfaction. "That's it," she said with a sly smile. Her smile hinted at dark secrets, known only to Amy herself. "Now there's one thing more I have to say to you, Willow."

She brought to the crossbow up, aimed at Willow's heart. "The spell is complete," Amy said, her voice ringing with malicious triumph. "Willow Danielle Rosenberg, I name your true name." Activated by the act of naming Willow, the runes on the quarrel glowed a dull red.

As she pulled the trigger on her crossbow, Tara dove for the bow, heedless of the gun at her head. She pushed the crossbow downwards, but the bolt still fired, striking Willow in the stomach. Amy wrested the bow from Tara's grasp and smashed her across the head with it, knocking her to the ground, then quickly turned the gun on Dawn who had made it halfway across the room while she was distracted.

Tara lay stunned on the hardwood floor. Her world was still spinning as she touched her head gently where Amy had hit her. She winced as her hand came away bloody, but she struggled to get up anyway, determined to stop Amy before she could hurt Willow any more.

"You didn't save her," Amy gloated down at Tara. "The spell on the bolt bore her true name. It didn't matter where the bolt struck her." She pointed towards Willow's body on the floor.

Panickstricken, Tara looked over at Willow. When she saw Willow's unmoving form, the feathered end of the bolt sticking out of her abdomen, her vision blurred with tears. Her chest tightened and it felt like all the life was being sucked out of her. Willow couldn't be dead, not when she had just found her.

Almost immediately the self-recrimination began. She had seen those visions for a reason. Why couldn't she have been faster or done something sooner? She should've been more careful when they came home, knowing from what she'd seen of the future that it wasn't over yet. If she hadn't been a hostage, Willow would never been in a situation to be shot. She should have... Her thoughts were interrupted by sudden pain as Amy kicked her in the ribs.

"I said, break the spells on the Heart or I'll kill you," Amy said, her face flushed with anger from being ignored.

Tara looked up Amy numbly, unable to summon much fear at the idea of being killed. She tried to think of an appropriate response, but before she could come up with anything to say, everything in the room rippled as if it was merely a reflection on a pool where a stone had just fallen.

Amy and Tara turned to see Dawn pressing her bloody palm into the air as if it were a solid surface. Dawn slowly dug her fingers into the air. Gaining purchase, she pulled her clenched hand back. Reality wrinkled around her hand, and as she pulled the corners of the room lost their angularity, melting like a clock painted by Salvador Dali.

The muscles on Dawn's arm stood out as she pulled harder and the fabric of reality tore around her fist, opening a dark gash in the world. Dawn stumbled backwards, landing on her bottom, her hold torn free. Droplets of blood from her hand flew across from room to strike the white chrysalis enclosing the Heart.

The portal rapidly expanded until it was a rough sphere bigger than a person. It revealed wonders as it grew. Through it, they saw millions upon millions of tiny crystal spheres suspended in the absolute blackness of the Void, each containing a universe. The spheres glowed with every color of the rainbow as they floated in the infinite space of the Void. Larger than worlds and farther away than the stars, the crystal spheres still looked tiny and close enough to gather up in one's hand.

Wonder turned to alarm as they felt a wind blowing towards the portal, quickly growing in strength. Papers carelessly stacked on the bookshelves by the walls began fluttering in the gale. Soon, the top sheets of paper were flying through the air towards the portal.

Unnoticed in the commotion, each droplet of Dawn's blood stained the cocoon of protections wrapped around the Heart, creating expanding patterns of pink, like the rapid flowering of a rose. Under the surface, billions of living blood cells, each filled with pure green energy, swam through the protections, seeking to open. Inside the chrysalis, the purity of their living power found its twin in age and power enclosed in the lifeless form of a gem.

Seeing Amy momentarily distracted by the portal, Tara seized the opportunity Dawn had given her. She had nothing left to lose. She grabbed the newly pink chrysalis of enchantments enclosing the Heart of Corruption and leaped into the portal. Even if Amy shot her, she knew her body would carry the Heart into the Void.

Tara entered the portal headfirst, but her plunge was stopped with a sudden jerk as she felt strong hands grasp her ankle. She turned her head back to see Amy standing at the edge of the gateway, her gun discarded as she focused all her strength on pulling Tara back and retrieving the Heart. Tara struggled to escape, but Amy drew her back out of the portal, her grasp on Tara's ankle as implacable as death.

Knowing the she little time to spare, Tara hurled the Heart into the depths of the Void with all her strength. Amy shrieked with unbelieving fury as she saw the Heart fall into the Void. She released Tara's leg and dove into the gate, reaching for the Heart with both hands.

Tara shivered with cold she fell free of Amy's grasp into the darkness of the Void. She grappled with Amy, trying to stop her from reaching the Heart, but was pulled back once again by strong hands on her ankle. She turned to see Willow bent halfway over, holding desperately onto her leg.

Willow was alive.

Tara didn't know how it could be. Amy had been telling the truth about the true name spell; she had seen it in her eyes. It didn't matter though. She didn't care how it had happened as long as Willow was alive, but her joy turned to fear as she saw the dark stain in Willow's leathers around the bolt grow with every inch she pulled Tara out of the portal.

Willow's face was pale with pain and blood loss, but her determination never wavered as she slowly pulled Tara out of the Void. She yanked the rest of Tara's body out of the portal with the last of her strength, the two of them collapsing to the floor. Willow gave a strangled cry of pain as the impact opened her wound further. Tara shivered, her skin blue with cold, and wrapped one arm protectively around Willow while holding onto one of the heavy bookshelves with her other hand to prevent them from being sucked into the portal.

Seeing her friends safe, Dawn raised her hand to close the portal, standing in front of the gateway but somehow unaffected by its consuming power. As she looked into the Void, she saw Amy hurl vitriolic black magicks at the pink chrysalis. The chrysalis tore, revealing pulsing green energies inside.

The Heart was active, but not as before. There was nothing cold or malevolent about the light it shone with now. As Amy reached for the incandescent gem, the gossamer web of spells erupted in a blinding flash of pure green brilliance. The three of them were forced to look away from the titanic explosion that filled the portal.

When they could look into the portal again, a new world floated in the darkness of the Void, enclosed in a sphere of crystal made effulgent by roiling clouds which glowed with a pure green energy. As they watched, the luminosity of the sphere began to slowly dim as the furious energies of its creation cooled. The clouds condensed into a denser oblate agglomeration of matter that rotated around its own center.

As the nebulous shape spun, it slowly flattened until it looked like a pancake with a roundish hump of denser material in the middle. Smaller spheres of denser gas and dust began to form in the outer areas of the disk as gravity brought together the small fragments of matter. All was calm until critical pressure was reached deep in the central core, and thermonuclear reactions ignited there.

In a flash of brilliant green light, a new star was born.

The power of the newborn's solar wind blew away the thin clouds of dust and gas, leaving behind scores of planetoids in eccentric orbits. At first Dawn looked unbelievingly at the green star, then she suddenly understood how such a thing could happen. It was a star of a generation not yet born in our own universe, its mass full of heavy elements that were abundant in the matter from which it had been formed.

Dawn wanted to watch as planets grew from planetoids, then cooled enough for oceans and continents to form. It was a unique opportunity to watch a world being born. Would stars form elsewhere in the little crystal sphere so the new star wouldn't be alone? She had so many questions, but as she turned her head to look at Tara and Willow, she realized that she didn't have time, so she checked the Void for one last thing before closing the portal.

There was no sign of Amy Madison.

The new world disappeared from view as Dawn's touch caused the portal to shrink. The hole in reality diminished as fast as it had expanded, folding in on itself at the last to leave the room unchanged as if nothing of consequence had happened there. As Dawn pulled her hand away, she looked at it in wonder and saw that the cut on her palm was healed without a scar to mark what happened.

Tara gasped as she felt Willow go limp in her arms, slipping into unconsciousness. Dawn rushed over to join her.

"Willow!" Tara cried frantically, shaking her still form.

Chapter 25: Blossoming

The young woman all in black followed the familiar gravel path of the graveyard. She had come here often this winter to visit the grave of her beloved. Each time, the roses she had planted in the dead of winter had remained barren and lifeless.

She could have coaxed them to bloom with her magic, but she knew roses were tenacious. They would bloom in their own time of their own accord. The cold, dark nights of winter had taught her to wait for the natural order of life.

She could feel today was different, though. Spring had come at last. The nights were shorter, the days were warmer. The world was coming to life again. Today her roses would bloom.

As she approached the grave, she saw that the willow tree whose branches sheltered her beloved from the winter storms had newly budded leaves. Their living green was the color of awakenings and rebirth. She smiled, taking that as a good omen for her roses.

Then she saw them. Her roses had awakened from their barren slumber, putting forth new green shoots. Their leaves eagerly drank in the spring sunlight. Her smile broadened as she discovered two flowers nestled together on one branch just beginning to bloom.

Kneeling in the fertile soil, she bent over to take in the fresh scent of the new roses. "I hope you like them," she whispered as she traced the familiar worn letters of her beloved's name on the headstone.

"I know you're not here," she said as tears welled up in her eyes. Her breath hitched, causing her to wince in pain. She rubbed her belly tenderly where the wounds of winter had not yet healed. "I know that better than anyone," she continued as the pain subsided. Despite the tears coursing down her cheeks, she smiled and added, "Well, almost anyone."

She placed her hand on the ground, above where she thought her beloved's heart must lie. The ground felt warmer than it had the last time she did this, as if it too were awakening with spring.

"I wanted to say that I'm sorry," she said. "I did so much that I shouldn't have." Her face twisted as her tears began to flow more freely. "I was so lost. I should have trusted..."

Her winter had lasted 19 years. When it had seemed that she would be lost in its dark storms forever, spring had come to her in a form that she would never have expected. The last storm of winter had seemed strong enough to deny the promise of spring and pull her back into its icy embrace forever, but the changing of seasons could not be denied.

"And I wanted to give you one last gift," she said, caressing the blooming roses as the tears dried on her face. As she stood up, her fingers moved in complex gestures, breaking the spells of preservation. It was time for Tara's body to return to the cycle of life as her soul long since had. As she let go completely of the past, her heart opened fully to the present.

"I have always loved you," she said, her voice fervent with promise. "I will always love you."

With those words, she turned towards the spring sun, love blossoming in her heart. As she walked away from the grave of the past, her roses swayed gently in the spring breeze behind her, a promise of rebirth and the renewal of love.

Winter's night was over at last.

Tara found herself gazing into the mirror on the wall opposite their bed. She sat up in bed as she noticed something different about the image in the mirror, but she couldn't quite make out what it was. She looked back and forth between the mirror and the room; checking the bed, the bedside tables, the lamps, the piles of books that she and Willow each had on their respective tables, even the clothes Willow had left on the floor last night.

With those words, Tara awoke with the light of morning streaming through the window to bathe her in its warmth. As she sat up in bed, she looked into the mirror and saw that she was wearing the faceted clear jewel from her dream. She felt for it around her neck and was relieved to feel its warm presence in her hand.

It was real. She had seen it here before. Willow had called it the soul gem and had told her that it was how she had found her that cold, dark winter night in the graveyard. The reality of the jewel steadied her.

Closing her eyes, she stretched her arms and fingers towards the warm sunlight and curled her toes into the soft blankets of the bed, luxuriating in the simple, calm pleasures of sunlight and the warm rootedness of her home with Willow.

They had planted the seeds of their love in the cold, hard ground of winter, but now the darkness of winter's night had passed. Though the ground had seemed barren, they had planted well and in the spring, the fertile earth had yielded the fruit of their planting. Now in the spring, their love blossomed in the sun.

"You're so beautiful," Willow said, her soft voice completing Tara's reverie as if her thoughts had brought her here.

Tara opened her eyes to see Willow standing in the doorway, hidden by the shadow of their dresser from the light of the sun. "Come here, love," Tara asked, opening her arms in welcome.

As Willow stepped into the light of the spring sun, Tara admired the fire its warmth brought out in her hair. Then Willow crawled into bed and entered her embrace, planting a kiss in the hollow of her throat.

"You're cold," Tara murmured into Willow's shoulder as she unbuttoned her shirt.

"You're warm," Willow replied huskily as she nuzzled Tara's sunkissed throat.

Willow welcomed the warmth of Tara's body, the accelerating pulse of blood beneath her skin, all the signs of life and love. When Tara finished unfastening the last of her buttons, she sat up and raised her arms to let Tara pull off her shirt. Together, they tossed it aside.

As Tara began unzipping her pants, Willow reached behind herself to unfasten the clasp of her bra. She had let go of the cold darkness of the past, and was eager to feel the bright warmth of the present. Freeing herself from the confining garment she tossed it over her shoulder.

Once all of Willow's clothes were off, Tara shrugged out of her robe. They looked at each other for a moment, nothing hidden between them. Like her clothes on the floor, Willow's past was behind them, no longer a barrier dividing them.

Blue eyes met green. The vivid green promised rebirth and growth, the hope of spring. There were shadows of the past, and fears of the future too, but neither occluded the opening of Willow's heart to her. She felt the petals of her own heart opening like a flower to accept the warmth of the love shining forth from those eyes.

Green eyes met blue. They found unconditional love and acceptance in those calm, deep waters. Willow had felt like a rosebush, leafless and barren, bereft of life as she had tried to endure the cold storms of winter. Now though she felt herself blossoming, opening herself to her love like the flowering of a rose.

Tara pulled Willow close to her, warming her with the kiss of skin on skin. Breasts and bellies met as they breathed each other's breaths. Her hands explored the contours of Willow's back with feather light touches, her palms feeling the soft warmth of Willow's skin, while Willow's silken tresses tickled the backs of her hands. There was no more distance between them.

Willow lowered her lips to Tara's, their eyes closing as they kissed tenderly at first, then more passionately. Willow kissed her way across the velvet of Tara's cheek to her ear then down her neck, blessing every square inch of Tara's skin with her love. Their limbs intertwined like the branches of two rosebushes nestled together as their bodies opened to each other and awakened to spring.

They had a new life. A family. And each other.

Winter's night was over at last.

Their love blossomed in the spring.

Chapter 26: Sunrise

"Why are we going to the Bronze?" Willow asked, gazing at Tara with her best pleading puppy eyes.

"Because of your birthday," Tara answered, surprisingly patient despite all the times that Willow had asked her this question.

"This isn't a joke about my age, is it?" Willow asked in an ironic tone. "You know, bronze age, and all that."

Tara couldn't stop herself from smiling, but Willow wasn't going to be able to tease the secret out of her with jokes either. "No, honey. It's so we can dance."

Willow rubbed her belly through the slippery fabric of her scarlet dress. "I had too much dessert to dance," she suggested innocently, encouraged by Tara's small revelation but certain there was more to the surprise than dancing.

"You knew about this before dessert," Tara answered with an oblique glance.

"But their tiramisu was perfect," Willow protested. "I couldn't let any of mine go to waste."

"Or mine either," Tara said, turning to poke Willow gently in the stomach with her index finger. "But you knew we were coming here."

Seeing that her first objection was going nowhere, Willow changed tactics. "I can barely walk in this, much less dance," she said, plucking at the long skirt of her dress. Only Tara could have talked her into wearing a dress, but despite her complaints she loved it. Tara's breathless reaction to seeing her wear it for the first time had convinced her that the dress was a good thing.

Tara took Willow's hand, raised it up, and twirled her around, watching as the hem of the skirt flared out with a proprietary smile. "See," Tara said. "You can dance."

As Tara released her hand, Willow looked up and down the street, but thankfully found no one to see her. "Okay, okay," she said. "I can dance." As she looked around again, it struck her that that the street was too quiet for a weekday night near the Bronze. "Tara?" she asked uneasily. "Where are all the people, the music?"

"They're around," Tara said too quickly, taking Willow's hand to pull her toward the door. "It's perfectly normal." She had to get inside before Willow suspected anything more.

Willow dragged behind Tara, feeling that there was something she wasn't understanding here. She reached out with her otherworldly senses, but found no traces of darkness near them. Shrugging, she let Tara pull her through the door into the brightly lit room.

There were floating balloons, colorful streamers, and a small table piled high with brightly wrapped presents. That wasn't too much of a surprise, but what made her stop in her tracks were the people. There were so many of them. There were all the girls from the campus Wicca group where she was acting as the adviser, the previous one having mysteriously disappeared. And there was Giles. And Dawn. And ...

"Xander!" she exclaimed. His hair was showing the first signs of greying, but he was still strong and fit from years of working with his hands. He looked comfortable in a dark blue button-down shirt and khakis. His dark eyes were warm as he looked at her.

She dashed forward and wrapped her arms around her old friend. After the briefest of hesitations, she felt his arms wrap around her too, squeezing her tightly as if only with this touch could he believe she was real. A long moment later, they relaxed their embrace enough for Willow to look up at Xander. Both their eyes were wet with tears.

Tara smiled broadly as she watched the two old friends embrace. She had been worried about this reunion, but she knew Willow missed her friends of the past even if she was too afraid to call them on her own.

"Will," Xander said. "You haven't changed a bit."

She paused a moment, looking closely at her old friend, noting the scars and wrinkles that hadn't been there before. "You have though," Willow said. "You're more ... solid."

"That's because he keeps eating those ice cream bars," a familiar, matter-of-fact voice interrupted from behind her. "I told him to stop, but-"

"Anya," Willow said with a smile, as she turned to face the woman who it seemed had married her best friend after all. The years had been good to Anya. She was older, but the bitterness Willow remembered was gone. The lines on her face told a story of laughter and smiles. She found hope in that. If Anya could find a mortal life and love after a thousand years of being a demon, then surely Willow could too. "It's good to see you."

"That's not what you said the last time," Anya pointed out.

Willow couldn't help herself from glancing back at Tara as she recalled the disastrous wish she'd made the time she'd met Anya.

Tara took Willow's look as her cue to step forward. "Hi, I'm-"

"Tara!" Anya exclaimed, enthusiastically wrapping her arms around the surprised girl. "It really is you! It sounded like you on the phone, but I wasn't about to believe it until I saw you. How have you been?"

Tara wasn't quite sure what to say, and looked over at Willow. She thought that she'd be ready for meeting people who knew her past self after meeting Dawn, but it wasn't easy to explain who she was. Her understanding was intuitive, emotional, and didn't lend itself easily to words.

"Oh, sorry," Anya said, noticing Tara looking away from her. She released her embrace and clapped her hands over her mouth for a moment. "I shouldn't have asked with you being dead and all. People tend to be sensitive about that. I'm just not used to this sort of situation any longer."

"I'm sure it's okay, An," Xander said, putting a reassuring hand on his wife's shoulder. He looked over at Tara. "Tara," he said. "It's great to see you." He paused a moment, then added, "And thank you."

Tara blinked, looking confusedly at Xander, but Anya interrupted before she could say anything.

"Thank you for ... you know," Anya said, silently clapping the heels of her hands together and leaving Tara completely mystified.

"I'll explain later," Willow whispered in Tara's ear. She hadn't told Tara about the wish Anya had granted her and Tara's subsequent breaking of Anya's talisman.

"I don't mean to interrupt," Dawn said, her long, forest green skirt swishing back and forth as she walked over to Willow. She was accompanied by a lanky, blonde teenager who looked a bit like her. "But I have someone I'd like you to meet. Willow, this is Hope. Hope, this is Willow, your mother's best friend."

"Hope," Willow said softly, regarding the young girl with a sense of wonder. She hadn't known that Buffy had a daughter. The name was so appropriate though. Buffy had lost hope after Glory had arrived and hadn't found it again when Willow had brought her back. Now Willow saw that Buffy had found hope in her life after all. She opened her arms to offer a hug to the girl. "It's wonderful to meet you."

Hope wrapped strong arms around Willow. "You don't look like I imagined," Hope confessed once they broke their embrace.

"Younger?" Tara asked. She had been wondering how everyone would react to Willow looking just like she did in her pictures from university almost twenty years ago.

"No," Hope said. "Shorter."

"Shorter?" Willow said with a surprised laugh.

"You were always such a big part of mom's stories," Hope said, "that it just seemed like you'd be bigger too."

"I told you I was the tallest," Dawn pointed out. After Xander coughed discreetly, she amended her statement, adding, "of the women."

"I know, Aunt Dawn," Hope said, "but some of your stories are hard to believe; all that stuff about portals to other dimensions."

Dawn shot Tara and Willow an amused glance. Her niece gave her no more respect for being the Key than she had given Buffy for being the Slayer when she was a teenager.

Willow turned to Xander and Anya. "Don't you two have any children?"

"We left Arsinoe and Ptolemy at home with a sitter," Xander said. "They're still a bit young."

"And we didn't feel Sunnydale was safe," Anya added, practical as always.

"That too," Xander admitted.

"Arsinoe and Ptolemy?" Willow said, raising an eyebrow. "When did you become a history buff?"

"He didn't," Anya interjected. "I didn't like any of the modern names, and it's not like anyone we knew had common names."

"So," Tara said. "Presents, then cake?" Xander's stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly. "Okay, cake, then presents."

Everyone laughed.

After cake and conversation, Willow sat at the small table opening her gifts. She paused a moment to speak with each guest, still amazed at how many people had showed up for her first birthday celebration in years. In a brief pause between guests, she looked across the room to check on Tara and found her in an animated conversation with Spirit, who must have slipped in once she'd finished her patrol. She was glad the two of them had gotten past their fight. Friends were important, and she didn't want Tara to make the same mistakes she had.

"Willow," Giles said, startling her. She glanced up to see him looking in the same direction she had been. "I'm glad everything worked out between you and Tara."

Willow was surprised to see the warm approval in Giles' eyes as he met her gaze. She had never expected to see that look from him again. "Thanks, Giles," she said. "That means a lot to me."

"What are you planning to do now that you're staying in Sunnydale?" he inquired.

"I'm not quite certain," Willow admitted. "I'm happy the Wicca group decided that they didn't need a faculty member to be their adviser, but that doesn't take too much of my time. I'm thinking of going back to school, but that feels a little weird at my age."

"You should get a real job," Anya interrupted. She was carrying a medium-sized box with an orange bow. "I didn't go to school and look at how well I'm doing."

"Still partners in retail?" Willow asked, looking over to Giles.

"No," Giles said with a look of relief. "I'm happier in the stacks of a library than behind a cash register. Anya's taken over the business."

"We moved the Magic Box up to San Francisco after Giles left," Anya agreed, then added excitedly, "I've got three shops now, and we're planning on opening another one in L.A."

"Life is good?" Willow asked.

Anya looked thoughtfully at Willow for a moment before speaking. "It's not always easy; I've gone through so many changes. I spent over a millennium as a demon without experiencing nearly as much of life as I have these last twenty years. But I've got my children, Xander, my friends, and my business, everything I ever wanted without knowing it."

Willow looked at Anya, surprise showing on her face as she realized how well Anya had understood the subtext of her question. She wasn't sure what to say.

"I'll leave you two to talk," Giles said. "I should go check on Spirit."

"Speaking of the new Slayer," Anya said, deliberately changing the mood. "Tara was telling me about your adventure with our old friend Amy, but Spirit interrupted before she could tell me how you survived the 'true name' spell."

"I'm Jewish," Willow said simply.

"Ah," Anya said, immediately understanding with her centuries of experience with magicks. "So you have a Hebrew name given to you by your rabbi. But wait, wouldn't there be a record of that?"

"I helped my rabbi store all the temple records on a computer one summer," Willow smiled. "Somehow my records got lost."

"Planning ahead," Anya said. "The secret to business success. Thinking of which..." She put the box she was carrying on the table. "This should help you with that. Planning ahead, that is."

Willow smiled as she took a crystal ball from the box. This present was something to share with Tara. Tara had told her about the accident with the bowl of seeing. With this, they could share the seeing together with no secrets between them. "Thank you," she said to Anya.

As the pile diminished, Dawn and Hope came to her together. Hope was holding a tiny festively wrapped box with an ornate green ribbon.

"We got you a gift together," Dawn said. "I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," Willow said, gesturing around her. "I wasn't expecting any of this. Just dinner and a night with my girl, which isn't just at all of course; I'm so happy with every night that we have together, especially nights when we have something to celebrate, though I haven't usually been much for birthdays, but you know what I mean, right?"

Dawn and Hope both laughed. "So I see that Willowbabble hasn't entirely disappeared," Dawn said.

"So what did you get me?" Willow said as she looked at the little box on the table in front of her.

"You'll have to open it and find out," Hope said solemnly.

Opening the box turned out to be more difficult than Willow had anticipated; it was very tightly taped and wrapped, defying her attempts to open it with her fingers. Once she finally got all the paper off, revealing a small jewelry box, the size for a ring, she looked at Dawn. "Is there something you want to tell me?" she said with a wry smile.

Dawn slapped her lightly on the shoulder. "No," she said with a smile. "Now go ahead and open it."

Inside the padded box, Willow saw a ring that looked very familiar. "Is it?" she asked, her voice catching in her throat as she looked up at Hope and Dawn.

Hope nodded. "She wanted you to have it."

It was the friendship ring that Buffy had given her in high school, the one she and Tara had used to access the nether realms to discover that Faith had switched bodies with Buffy. She had left it behind when she had departed Sunnydale long years ago, never thinking to see it or her friends again.

"Thank you," Willow murmured softly. Her hands trembled as she took the ring from the box. It meant so much to her that Buffy had kept this ring for her, never giving up hope that she would return some day.

Once Dawn and Hope left, Xander appeared and handed her a present wrapped in bright red paper. When Willow tore open the wrapping paper and saw what was inside, she paused a moment. Then she removed the familiar picture in its hand-carved wooden frame from its wrapping and held it up to regard it closely. She used to keep this picture in her room when she lived here before.

The three of them - Buffy, Xander, and herself - looked so young and so happy together. She remembered the day when they had taken the picture. It had just been an ordinary Saturday, no school and no apocalypse looming over them. They'd gone to the mall, seen a movie, had lunch, window shopped. It hadn't seemed like anything special at the time, but as she held this frozen moment of time captured on film, it felt like one of the most important days of her life.

"I hope you like it, Will," Xander said. "I carved the frame myself ... and well, I've always kept the picture in the hope that it would be like that again. I know it can't be, though. It's just ..."

"It can be, Xander," Willow said suddenly, looking away from the picture of her past and taking Xander's hand in hers. "I mean," she hesitated for a moment, "we've both changed and we can't go back to the past, but that doesn't mean we can't be happy as friends again. I'd like to try, at least." She looked up at him with hope in her eyes.

"I would too," Xander said. This time there was no hesitation when he embraced her.

Willow smiled as she saw Tara, resplendent in her gold and green dress, approaching them. Xander followed her gaze and smiled too. "I'll leave you to your lady, Will. We'll talk tomorrow, okay?" She squeezed his hand in promise of their friendship, then her eyes were only for her beloved.

"My dance?" Tara asked softly.

Willow let Tara take her hand and lead her out to the dance floor as a slow song started. Tara had her hands on Willow's waist, while Willow's hands were on Tara's shoulders as they began to dance.

"Good birthday?" Tara asked.

"Best birthday," Willow said. Her smile was so bright that it dazzled Tara.

"I still can't believe you didn't tell me that your name was Sarah," Tara said. She whispered the last word discreetly in Willow's ear.

"Sorry," Willow said, tenderly tucking a strand of blonde hair behind Tara's ear. "I didn't think it would ever be so important as it was that night."

"I'm just glad we got through everything," Tara said with a sigh of relief.

"We didn't." Willow shook her head. When Tara gave her a look of confusion, she continued, "All that was the past. Everything's just beginning for us."

"I'm so proud of you," Tara said. "Everything you've been through ... and you came out of it with such hope and love."

"It's you," Willow said. "You always make me feel special. How do you do that?" She cocked her head as she looked into the love and clarity of Tara's eyes.

"Magic," Tara said, her smile starting crookedly at one side of her mouth before blooming into the fullness of her joy.

They embraced, putting their heads on each other's shoulders as they moved to the music. Blissfully unaware of the other couples on the dance floor, Willow and Tara floated slowly up until they were several feet above the floor, gently swaying in each others' arms.

The night air was cool and crisp on Willow's cheeks as Tara pulled her through the back door of the mansion and into the garden. In the quiet darkness, it felt like the two of them were the only people in the world as they walked hand in hand through the small labyrinth of hedge-lined paths. They had just begun reclaiming the backyard, its myriad of plants tangled and unkempt after years of neglect.

Willow had always felt so alone in this hour before the faint glimmering of dawn would appear on the horizon, but tonight felt different, a time reserved for the two of them. She let Tara lead her by the hand until they reached the center of the garden, where layers of blankets and two sleeping bags were set out in the middle of a circle of grass enclosed by neatly trimmed hedges. She looked inquiringly at Tara, wondering when she'd done all this.

"You were telling me you missed the stars," Tara said, sitting down on top of one of the sleeping bags. Her face was faintly luminous in the darkness.

"I do," Willow smiled, taking the other sleeping bag for herself. She lay on her back to better watch the stars. "You know, I used to love to look up at them when I was little. They're supposed to make you feel all insignificant, but ... they made me feel like ... like I was in space ... part of the stars." She pointed up at the starry sky. "There's ... the Big Pineapple."

"You know, I'm not sure I remember that one," Tara said with a slight frown.

"Oh, it's, it's a major one," Willow said with a knowing smile. She pointed more carefully this time. "See those three bright stars right over there?"

Tara wriggled across the plush sleeping bags to put her head on Willow's shoulder so she could look along her pointing arm. "Yeah."

"And see those stars along there?" Willow said, sweeping her finger across the sky while she wrapped her other arm around Tara. "That's the bottom of the pineapple."

"It's big." Tara pressed her hip into Willow's.

"Hence the name," Willow said in a mock pedantic tone of voice. She dropped her arm and looked at Tara, her face suddenly serious. "They're your constellations, you know? The ..." She hesitated for a moment before continuing. "The past Tara said that the real ones never made sense to her, so she created her own and taught them to me. Ever since, I've looked for them in the night sky instead of the ancient ones."

"Teach me," Tara said, her lips slightly parted as she turned her head to see the love and tenderness in Willow's eyes. There was no searching in those eyes, looking for someone else wearing her features, but only a small worry that she might hurt the one she loved by mentioning the past.

Willow traced the outline of Tara's cheek with her fingers, as if trying to memorize her features in the darkness. "I love you," she whispered, bringing her lips to Tara's in a sweet, short kiss.

"Always," Tara promised with a soft sigh.

After a long moment of looking into each others' eyes, Willow resumed the conversation. "See those stars over there?" she said, pointing at another loose grouping of stars. "That's 'Short Man Looking Uncomfortable.'"

They both giggled.

"Uh," Willow said, pausing a moment as she searched the night sky. "There's 'Moose Getting a Sponge Bath,' and over there's the 'Little Pile o'Crackers.'"

"Tha-that was a bit of a stretch," Tara said with a hint of a laugh in her voice.

"You do it," Willow said. "What would you call ... mm, that one?" She pointed at a sheaf of stars almost directly above them.

"Hmm, let's see," Tara said, gazing into the vault of heaven for a long moment. Then she smiled with certainty in her eyes, as she turned to Willow and said, "Two Roses Intertwined."

Willow looked up into the heavens and smiled, finding two roses made of faint tracings of starlight nestled together in the heavens. As she brought her gaze down from the stars, she saw the faint pink glimmering of dawn.

Tara sat up to better see the horizon, her eyes following Willow's gaze. Willow pulled herself up to join her, scooting back between Tara's knees. Tara wrapped her arms around Willow, bringing her close to her chest, and rested her head on Willow's shoulder, as they watched the beginning of a new day together.

The End