Willow came to a stop outside the Espresso Pump, and stood, transfixed, watching Tara ordering her drink at the counter.

She was moving stiffly, like her back hurt. Must be from when the door hit her…. Willow hoped she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.

Willow pressed her hand against the glass, moving her fingertips so they appeared to be stroking Tara’s face. Are they taking care of you, baby?

------------------------------------------

Tara stared down at her tea, her stomach so full of butterflies she was a little afraid to drink. Her bag held everything she needed to perform the spell Giles wanted her to cast on Willow. She hadn’t decided yet if she would do it – or what she’d tell Willow about it.

She crushed the teabag against the cup with her spoon, watching the cloud of dark reddish-brown send its tendrils out into the clear water.

When she looked up, Willow was at the counter, ordering.

Their eyes met, and Willow smiled at her. It was tender and hopeful and loving and everything Tara had hoped for. But also everything she feared. Does Willow think this means everything’s okay again?

Willow picked up her order – Tara was glad to see it was hot chocolate and not coffee – and meandered through the other tables to reach Tara’s.

“Hey,” Willow said softly, coming to a stop. There were two other chairs at the table, one right next to Tara and one almost opposite her.

“Hey,” Tara said, even softer.

After a long and awkward pause, Willow sat down in the farther chair. Tara’s hair hung over her ears – ready for her to hide behind – and it made Willow’s heart break a little.

“How’s your back?” Willow asked suddenly, forcing herself to sound normal.

Tara felt tears prick at her eyes, but her smile was glowing. This was the real Willow – always hyper-aware of her comfort. “The b-bruises were pretty b-bad,” she said. “Healing, though.”

Every stutter was like a blow to Willow’s heart. There had been a time when Tara never stuttered around her. “Do you have arnica?” she asked. “I, um,” Willow faltered. “I took mine with me.”

Tara smiled. “Yeah. It was kinda hard using it, b-but I got there eventually.”

Willow opened her mouth, about to offer a healing spell, but then she thought better of it. “So, um, have you thought about what you wanna do for your birthday?” she asked carefully.

Tara smiled, relaxing a little. She could do small talk. And it’s not like anyone else is asking. “I know I want to buy my first legal drink somewhere. But I hadn’t really gone beyond that.”

“You’ve got that nine o’clock seminar Wednesdays, so I guess it can’t get too crazy.”

Tara shook her head. “Mid-terms are the week after; seminar’s cancelled.”

“So, um Bronze-ing Tuesday?” Willow smiled wistfully. “It would be good to have a Scooby party.”

Tara frowned, thinking of how the noise from the TV had made Buffy flinch earlier. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea….”

Willow bristled. “If you don’t want me there—”

“No!” Tara said, flushing. “I just … I don’t think Buffy’s Bronze-ready yet.”

Willow pressed her lips together. Intellectually, she really did get that Buffy was not so interested in talking to her right now. But it still hurt that Tara – who had never been close to Buffy – was now her confidant.

Tara shrugged awkwardly. “It’s not really a Scooby party without Buffy, is it?”

“But I would be invited?” Willow asked in a small voice.

Tara looked at her. “If I w-wanted you out of my life, I w-w-wouldn’t have asked you to meet me today.”

They smiled shyly at each other, both relaxing a little more.

Tara thought about who else she’d invite to a birthday party if it wasn’t just the Scoobies. But she came up blank. All of her closer friends from freshman year had fallen by the wayside after she’d started hanging out with Willow. Some of that was just natural being-in-a-relationship, but most it was being part of such an insular group. She couldn’t even invite a third couple to one of the depressingly regular “double dates” she and Anya still pretended to enjoy. Although that was entirely Anya’s fault – when her conversation wasn’t supernatural, it was pornographic. It had only gotten worse after the lost months: all Tara’s normal friends thought she’d been out with mono.

“Oh!” Willow said, suddenly straightening up. “Did you know Xander and Anya split up?” Gossip was safe.

“No,” Tara said thoughtfully. “That explains what’s up with Anya, though.”

“You’ve seen Anya?” Willow asked sharply.

Tara nodded. “She came over for dinner last night.”

Willow frowned. “Who else was there?”

“Oh, just the people living in the house. I d-don’t think Anya meant to stay. She had stuff for Buffy to sign.”

Willow forced herself to remain silent on the subject of Anya and the paying of Buffy’s bills. She didn’t want to start an argument this soon. “Did Spike cook?”

Tara nodded. “Spaghetti.” She grinned. “And he ate a whole helping, too!”

Willow’s jaw dropped. “But it’s so garlicky!”

“It made his mouth bleed.”

Willow shook her head. “He’s so weird.”

Tara paused, thinking. “You used to kinda like him, didn’t you?”

Willow frowned, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “He tried to kill me. A lot.”

Tara shrugged. “Yeah, but … I remember you talking about that time he tried to bite you right after he was chipped. You really felt sorry for him.”

Willow grinned wickedly. “It was kinda….” She held up her index finger, flexed, then let it droop into a crook. “He was practically crying. And … actually kinda flirty, now that I think about it. In a really ooky I-totally-want-to-kill-you sort of way.”

“How flirty?” Tara asked guardedly intrigued.

Willow shrugged. “He described the underwear I was wearing the last time he saw me.”

Tara looked completely freaked out. “And this made you like him?”

“He meant it nicely,” Willow said defensively.

“What changed?”

Willow’s face went stony. “Buffy died.”

Tara gave her a quizzical look. They’d all agreed an immediate and absolute embargo on the blame-game last May.

“If he’d just done what I told him, Buffy never would’ve had to go up there.”

------------------------------------------

“Bimmers are for stockbrokers having a midlife crisis,” Spike said petulantly.

“But it’s pretty,” Dawn whined, lounging against the car in a disturbingly adult fashion. “And you said I could pick!”

“It’s a penis-mobile!”

Dawn sniggered. “Fine. How about that one?” She jerked her chin towards the left.

“The minivan?”

Dawn’s doubled over giggling uncontrollably, her temporary cloak of maturity slipping off like water. “Your face!” she squealed. “I wish I had a camera.”

Spike groaned in frustration. “‘S nothin’ but cars for housewives or … Giles.”

Dawn sighed out the last of her giggles, still clutching at her stomach. “This is a suburb, doofus. What did you expect?”

“It’s also a soddin’ Hellmouth!” Spike shouted. Pouting, he grumbled, “Should be at least a … I dunno … a GTX, or somethin’.”

Dawn didn’t understand why he seemed to half-cringe just saying ‘GTX’. “You want vintage, you’re gonna have to go to LA,” she said, in that high-and-mighty voice of hers Spike thought sounded like an eerie blend of his snark and Buffy’s quips.

Spike growled, shaking off the discomfort. “Sod this. ‘M getting a motorcycle.”

“Yeah,” Dawn snorted. “‘Cause that’s real practical for daytime driving.”

------------------------------------------

“So I haven’t seen you on campus at all,” Tara blurted out, breaking several minutes worth of awkward but not entirely uncomfortable silence.

“No,” Willow said slowly. “I’ve arranged to do ‘independent study’ this semester – for which read submitting some of the totally unnecessary spaz-work I did last year.”

Tara made ostentatious shocked-face. “A slacker option?”

Willow smiled and ducked her head. “Yeah, weird, huh? With everything that’s happened the last few weeks, I’ve … I’ve been re-thinking my program, what I want to do.”

Tara felt one of the bands around her heart loosen. “That’s really great, Willow,” she said, smiling and meaning it.

Willow grinned. “All the modelling software stuff I’ve been working on just doesn’t seem so important anymore.”

“Oh,” Tara said, her hope fading with her smile. “That’s, um, interesting.”

“I mean, it’s hardly in the world-save-age category, is it?” Willow laughed, too consciously self-deprecating.

Tara cocked her head. “W-would you study magic if you could? Formally, I mean.”

Willow frowned. “I’m not sure,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ve done so much … I think I’d struggle to find someone who could really teach me anything.”

Tara pulled back as if stung. “You used to think I had a lot to teach you.”

Willow’s smile faltered. “You kinda stopped wanting to.”

That stung worse. “Y-you noticed?”

Willow nodded cautiously. “Noticed when your altar got dumped in the closet, too.” Willow stared down at her hands. “And how you’re not taking any classes in your major anymore.”

Tara was dumbfounded. She’d convinced herself Willow was oblivious. “I’m sorry, I—”

“It’s okay,” Willow said quickly, smiling nervously. “I … I always figured you’d tell me when you were ready. I guess I just … I didn’t think it would take so long.”

Tara stared down into her tea, letting her hair obscure her face.

Willow reached out to take hold of Tara’s hand, but stopped half-way, letting her arm rest awkwardly on the table for a second before pulling it back and picking up her mug like that was what she’d intended all along. “You, um, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Willow said, not daring to look at Tara as she said it.

“I never – I didn’t not want to talk to you about it. It just … everything with Buffy always seemed more important.”

Willow’s face crumpled. “Nothing’s more important to me than you.” Why don’t you know that?

Tara peeked out from behind her hair. “You were grieving. And it was … I think I wanted to b-be the strong one for a while. I think I needed to know I could.” It was only as she said it that she realised how true it was.

What Willow really wanted to do was grab on to Tara and wrap her up in cotton wool or bubble wrap or something and make it so nothing bad could ever happen to her again. Instead, she tentatively stretched out towards Tara’s hands with both of hers and grabbed onto them. Tara accepted the gesture, but after a quick return squeeze, she let got and pulled her hands into her lap.

“You’ve always been the strong one,” Willow said, firmly and sincerely.

A squeak of laughter bubbled up and out of Tara’s mouth. “Yeah, right!”

“Will you tell me now?” Willow asked cautiously.

Tara searched Willow’s face, but saw only sympathy. “It’s to do with Glory,” she said softly.

Slowly, Tara started talking through all the things she’d been holding back for months. How practising the religion her mother had taught her made her skin crawl and her stomach roil because it felt too much like the mindless devotion that had been forcibly imprinted on her. And how her psychology degree – once so satisfying – was now a minefield of too-close-to-home-ness.

Willow didn’t ask any questions except those she needed to understand, and she didn’t interrupt to tell Tara how she felt about any of it. Nor did she insist the conversation become about her remorse or Tara’s forgiveness.

It gave Tara the courage to finally tell her the biggest part, about how uncomfortable she felt now about opening herself up to magic. How she hadn’t dared look at an aura in months, even though she’d used auras as a social crutch her whole life. How terrified she was of getting lost again, of drowning in power if she let it touch her again.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” Willow asked, no longer sounding quite so sympathetic. “It’s … it’s pretty major.”

Tara flushed. “I told you … I d-didn’t want to b-bother you.”

“Bother me?” Willow looked stricken. “So you … you pretended like you were totally on board with everything I was doing all summer, when really you were terrified of connecting to any kind of magic? I would never—”

“Never what? Never resurrect Buffy? Don’t lie to yourself, Willow. You … my opinions have never changed your decisions.”

“What are you talking about?” Willow’s heart hurt from going too fast. “Were you lying to me all this time? Did you not want to rescue Buffy from Hell?”

Tara stopped. “N-no.”

“If you tell me you think something’s right – or wrong – I always listen!”

“Give me an example.”

“Spike! I never wanted to involve him with Dawn. Or for him to move in.”

“Oh,” Tara said. She was right.

“I hate it when you do this!” Willow sagged back in her chair. “I suggest something you don’t like and you go, ‘sure, Willow, we’ll do whatever you think is best,’ and then afterwards you’re all ‘well, of course you made a big mistake’ and …  I’m sorry but I’m just not perfect like you.”

“That’s not fair.”

“But it’s what you do!”

“I … I d-d-don’t….”

“You do! You have this calmness, this clarity about who you are and what you want and what’s right that I’ve never had. I’m always struggling. Always. But you never share. You just … you wait until after and then you judge when it goes wrong.”

“I … I’ve had so many people in my life try to choose for me. I never wanted that for you.”

Willow gave a sad half-laugh. “No one notices the choices I make.” Willow’ lower lip started to tremble. “I’ve always been the sensible one. The one no one needs to worry about because I’ll just naturally do the right thing, even though I never feel like I know what that is. I thought … I thought you cared. I thought you would tell me if I was wrong – that you were my safe space. You knew that. Why didn’t you say something?”

“I’m sorry,” Tara said. “I was wrong not to.”

“Yeah,” Willow said. “You were.”

“Only … only what happened when I did, Will?” Tara’s voice was suddenly getting loud enough to attract a few stares from surrounding tables. “You used Lethe’s b-b-bramble on me. Twice. And you … we….” Her bravery deserted her.

Willow looked like she’d been hit. “I love you.”

Tara hunched into herself.

Willow stared at her, waiting for an ‘I love you, too’ that never came.

Long seconds later, Tara said quietly, “Giles wanted to b-bind your p-p-powers.”

For the first time since they’d sat down, Willow’s eyes sparked with anger. “I know.”

Tara straightened up and her eyes widened in shock. “How?”

“I overheard him on the phone.”

“Well, they can’t d-do it,” Tara sighed, hunching back into herself. “You’re too strong.” She hated the look of smugness she could see stealing over Willow’s face. “Sometimes you scare me, Willow.”

Willow’s face crumpled. She hated this fight. It always felt like she was someone else when they had this fight. “I never wanted you to be afraid of me.”

“I want to have faith in you. B-but it’ll take time. And … and you need to make some changes.”

Willow looked up at her. “I don’t know how we got to here.”

Tara pulled her bag up onto the table. “The coven suggested a different spell.”

“And you agreed?” Willow started to look angry again, but when Tara flinched away from her, she regained control of herself. Resigned, Willow asked dully, “What does it do?”

“I-it’s like a safety valve for really big magicks, so one person is always unaffected and can, um, keep an eye on things.”

“And Giles wants that to be you.” Willow felt the bottom of her stomach drop. “He thinks I’d hurt you.” He’s making you afraid of me.

Tara stared down at her bag. “He has reason,” she whispered.

“I’m not a bad person, Tara.”

Tara looked up. “I never said you were. Just … some of the stuff you’ve d-done lately has been, um, not-good.”

------------------------------------------

Spike lit another cigarette. “What happened to your m— Joyce’s car?”

Dawn hunched her shoulders a little, the smile she’d been sporting throughout slipping for the first time. “It paid for the funeral.”

Spike frowned. “But I remember seeing it—”

“Buffy’s funeral,” Dawn corrected quietly.

Spike stared down at his feet. “How come?”

“I’m not – they weren’t exactly telling me stuff then.”

Spike gave her a dark look.

Dawn shrugged. “I think it was ‘cause she never got declared dead officially. The caretaker at Sunnydale Memorial … um, I forget his name.”

“Bert,” Spike mumbled.

“Bert. He got the gravestone, dug the grave. All that. No paper trail.”

Spike sighed out a plume of smoke. It could be just another thing he bought for the house – like the telly. Not really his at all.

Spike stalked over to where the salesman stood, still cowering slightly from their last less-than-polite conversation. “Oi, mate!” Spike glanced back at Dawn, watching him with her too-wide eyes. “Got any Cherokees?” he asked, grimacing a smile.

Dawn rolled her eyes. “You’re gonna have to replace her sometime,” she called after him.

“Shut it, you!”

------------------------------------------

Tara quickly and quietly performed the spell. No one at any of the adjoining tables noticed anything. There were a few minutes when they both felt a little fuzzy – like parts of each other were interchanging in a way that wasn’t quite ticklish and wasn’t quite headache-y but definitely was uncomfortable. But after that, nothing.

Tara leaned back in her chair, pushing her hair behind her ears and making Willow feel hopeful in a way she hadn’t since she’d first seen her through the window. It felt, for a moment, like they were back to where they’d been before Glory.

“D-does this mean we’re okay again?” Willow asked haltingly.

Tara’s heart sank into her boots. One hand gripped the table so hard it hurt.

One look at her face, and Willow was saying, “That’s a big fat ‘no’, then, huh?”

Tara raised one eyebrow. “What d-did you expect Willow? You … you took away my choices. You….” She thought about saying the r-word, but it stuck in her throat. Saying it would make it more real than she wanted it to be.

“I’m sorry,” Willow whispered.

“I know,” Tara said. “B-b-but sorry isn’t the point.”

Buffy said that. Willow looked beseechingly into Tara’s eyes. “I tried to kill Glory, you know, after she….” Willow shivered. She still hadn’t fully processed the way rage had taken her over. “I hurt her.”

“When I was lost, you found me and b-brought me home,” Tara said. “That’s what matters.”

Willow gave her a watery smile. She could see that, for Tara, that really was what mattered. Suddenly, Willow had a totally unexpected but completely heartfelt wish for Anya to be there. She would understand about Glory: it was vengeance! For the first time since Oz had left for good, Willow felt unsure about Tara. There was no darkness in her – so much so that she couldn’t comprehend it in others at a really basic level.

Willow knew she had a dark side – D’Hoffryn had tried to recruit for Cripes’ sake! But she also knew she never wanted to give in to it. She needed someone in her life who would help her with that. She wasn’t convinced that Tara could.