The Dark Rose

By darkmagickwillow

Copyright © May 2003

Chapter 11 (Awakenings)

Willow awoke with the dawn, filled with a sense of anticipation that wouldn't let her sleep any longer. Today she was going out for coffee with Tara. It was their first daytime date. Or at least it was close enough to a date for her.

It was like waking early for Christmas. She'd always celebrated Christmas with Xander and later Buffy even though her parents had disapproved. There wouldn't be any unwrapping though. It was definitely too early for unwrapping. Actually, in some ways it felt like Halloween. The clothes that she had ordered yesterday would arrive this morning. After so long in black leathers, anything else felt like a costume.

Years of staying up long past dusk made the early morning light feel odd to Willow. The night was the time of sorcery. It was when the creatures of the night came out, when dark miracles became possible. Her memories belonged to the night, seeking such miracles in the shadows.

There was one dawn that stood out in her memory. She wouldn't have sought out Spike of her own accord. But there had been rumors of a vampire with a soul, one who wasn't Angel. She had tried adapting the spell that she had used to restore Angel's soul, but it hadn't worked for her with Tara. Nothing had. But she had to keep trying.

It had taken time to track down the rumors and to find to her surprise that they referred to Spike. It had taken more time to track him down to the catacombs near Rome. The eternal city had forbidden the burial of the dead inside its walls in ancient times so the early Christians had dug deep chambers outside the walls for their dead. She found the idea of a vampire lurking in the resting place of so many popes and saints ironic.

Hours passed as she walked through the narrow passageways past thousands of small niches in the wall, which carried the remains of the ancient dead. Little more than dust remained of most of them. The ceilings rose high above her, making space for more rows of grave niches high on the walls. It was an efficient use of limited space, but it also provided spaces for evil creatures to lurk.

She felt the presence of many vampires lurking in the safety of the eternal darkness, but none of them were Spike. She knew him though, and her magic would guide her to him through the maze of branching and twisting tunnels, no matter how deeply he buried himself.

Finally, she emerged into a small irregular chamber that was the junction of five tunnels. There he knelt in the darkness at a small shrine of broken white stones, murmuring to himself. Willow looked closer, her eyes able to pierce even this darkness where the sun had never shone. This wasn't the Spike she remembered. The black leather duster he always wore was gone, and he was dishevled, his clothes dirty and torn.

"Spike," she said sharply.

He looked up directly at her, but it was as if he didn't see her. He continued mumbling something repetitious under his breath. As she listened closer, she realized that the words were Latin. It sounded like a monastic chant. This definitely wasn't the Spike she remembered.

"Spike," she said again, more loudly this time. When he didn't respond, she slapped him with enough force to knock him to the floor.

Finally, his eyes focused on her. "Red," he croaked.

"How did you get your soul back?" Willow asked, speaking slowly and enunciating clearly. She had no desire to exchange pleasantries with the vampire. She just wanted to get her answer and get out of here.

"My soul?" Spike asked, then began cackling madly. The cackling turned into spasms of broken coughing. "You don't want my soul," he said once the spasms ceased. "I don't want my soul."

"I don't want your filthy soul, Spike," she said in an exasperated tone of voice, beginning to lose her patience with him. "Just tell me how you got it back."

"Ah," he said, understanding momentarily entering his mad eyes. "You want her soul."

"Yes," Willow said. "Now tell me."

"It won't help you, you know," he said in the high voice of a child. "You're like me now, all lost in the dark." He paused a moment, staring at her with blank eyes. "I can see, you know," he said in a more normal voice.

"Just - tell - me," Willow said, her fingers beginning to curl in the gestures that would compel the truth from him.

Spike threw back his head and laughed in response. Losing her temper, Willow reached forward to touch his forehead, her hand curled into a claw. Spike jerked convulsively at the contact, and she fell into the swirling chaos of his nightmare of guilt and pain. She saw Spike bite and kill victim after victim in an unending sequence, killing for the joy of it. Then she saw him go further, torturing for the fun of it when killing was no longer enough. She tried to avert her gaze, but the images and sensations of pain and death, the pleasure and guilt of inflicting both, were everywhere.

Gathering her strength, Willow thrust the nightmares away forcefully. Using the freedom that brought her, she burrowed through his mind single-mindedly seeking the knowledge of soul restoration. She saw his journey to Africa, and understood that he hadn't gone looking for his soul. He had intended to get rid of the chip that made him harmless, having chosen to be evil once again. Then she saw the cavern where he had endured tests of courage and fortitude, and at last what she sought--the dark creature who had given back his soul.

She had it.

On her way out of his mind, Willow fought through the black storm of guilt and fear. The dark currents of emotion tugged at her to focus on them, but as if through the corner of her eye, she saw the glint of something different. The storm raged harder, actively opposing her, as she pushed towards her discovery.

Her curiousity grew as she realized that Spike was trying to conceal this when evidence of innumerable terrible crimes was free to see everywhere around her. She forced her way through his barriers, and reached for the bubble of memory that he was attempting to hide, then opened it.

She saw Spike grabbing at Buffy, pushing her down, forcing her down to the floor where he straddled her, holding her arms down as she pleaded with him to stop. Her heart pounded as her blood surged with fear, anger, then finally relief as Buffy threw him off of her.

Her hand clenched into a fist as she pulled her fingers away from Spike's forehead and yanked herself out of his mind. After all they had done for him, he had betrayed the one he claimed to love in such an intimate way. Why had they ever refrained from staking him? He was a monster. He could never change.

Spike cowered away from her, feeling her fury even though he couldn't see her face. Then his attitude abruptly changed, and he struggled to his feet to stare at her defiantly. "You lost your heart, I lost my soul," he said. "It's all the same."

"We're nothing alike," Willow answered coldly. "I would never-"

"It won't do you any good to get her back," he taunted her with the mocking smile that she had always despised. "You've already fallen. It's too late."

"Spike," she said warningly, dark energies beginning to crackle at her fingertips. She had endured too much torment from him to meekly accept these accusations from him now. She had changed, and he would do well to recognize that.

"You're falling deeper even as we speak," he continued in a cocksure manner, ignoring her warning. "At least, I'm trying to reach the light with my soul."

Spike attempting to act noble after all he had done to her, to Buffy, was too much for Willow to accept. Her anger raged brightly within her, demanding retribution for all that he had done. He had to pay for his sins, and she was the very person to grant him justice.

"If it's light you want," Willow intoned. "Then it's light you'll receive." She extended one hand to the ceiling high above and cracked the ancient stone. The light of dawn shone down through the opening into a place that had never been so blessed before.

Spike burst into flames, screaming as the unexpected sunlight ate into his cold, undead flesh. He tried to flee from its brightness. Before he could escape death once more, she plunged a stake into his unbeating heart. The vampire collapsed into ashes and dust, truly dead at last.

Even as she destroyed the undead thing, she wondered if he had been right, if she had fallen too deep into the dark to ever get Tara back. She had buried the person Tara had fallen in love with so deep within herself. She couldn't be the sweet, kind girl who babbled and loved kittens and visit the places she had to go to. Had she buried that person too deep to ever find her again?

Could that girl have killed Spike without a second thought? He was a monster who had tried to kill them more than once, but he was also a person whom she had relied on and fought beside. Perhaps Spike wasn't a good example, but what about the Council of Watchers?

It had been self defence, but if she admitted the truth to herself there had been an element of revenge. Perhaps conjuring the true demon had been overkill. The Watchers' defences weren't of the same caliber of more modern institutions like Wolfram & Hart. She had experienced enough hurt when their wet works team had surprised her though so she hadn't taken any chances.

As she pulled herself out of her memories, Willow kept thinking about those same issues. Now she knew the old Willow was still within her, safely enshrouded within layers of protections as deep as the enchantments that protected her flesh. She could feel parts of her old self resurfacing, venturing beyond the security of her barriers, as she spent time with Tara. Old patterns of thought. Feelings and emotions. Dormant memories stored in skin and muscle.

Still, she wondered if she had lost any part of herself in the darkness. She had buried herself to protect and preserve herself from the pain outside, but had she pushed that self too far down to find all of what she had once been again? She worried too about what Tara would think when she learned about her past. Their past too. Tara didn't even know who she herself was. Willow had to tell her soon. But not today. Today was their first real date.

It was time for her to emerge from the shadows of night and see the world of the light again. She had spent too long there in the dark. She didn't feel ready, but it was time to resume her life, the life that she had buried so deep while she looked for the one whom she had lost. She didn't feel ready, but she was already making the choice that would return her to that path.

Today she chose Tara again.

Tara heard a knocking on her door. She didn't feel like answering it. She didn't feel like doing anything. One thought filled her waking moments: she was losing Willow. He had come back and Willow was going back to him.

She had gone to Willow's room to try to fight for her, to remind her of what they had shared together, but he had been there instead. She had already lost before she had begun. Tara sighed and got up to open the door.

Willow was standing outside, beautiful as always with her short red hair and shining green eyes. She said simply, "Hi."

"Hi." Tara moved back so Willow could enter the room, then closed the door behind them. She knew that Willow would come, to let her know that she had lost. Willow was a good person. She wouldn't leave Tara without telling her, but Tara wished she had because she couldn't bear to hear those words.

"I can only stay for a minute," Willow said. "I have class."

"Me too, I-I-I have class too," she stammered. She wished that she could just get through this one conversation without stammering.

"I just want you to know that what you saw this morning, it wasn't-"

"No, it's okay," she interrupted. "I-I always knew that if he came back-"

"We were just talking," Willow said. "Nothing happened."

"Oh," Tara smiled. Hope rose within her. There was a still a chance for her, for them. "Really?" she asked, unable to keep the eagerness out of her voice.

Willow nodded. "But, you know, it was intense. Just talking. We have a lot to talk about." She frowned and turned away from Tara. "I kinda feel like my head's gonna explode."

Tara struggled with her feelings, her new hope fighting with the despair that Willow's words brought crashing back to her. "Whatever, you know, happens ... I'll still be here. I'll still be your friend," she said, trying to reassure the woman she loved even as she felt her slipping away.

Willow turned back to face Tara. "Of course we'll be friends," she said, her voice full of turmoil, love, doubt, and fear all fighting to come out at once. "That's not even a question."

Tara wanted to be friends forever, but it would be so hard seeing them together. Even as she had said the words, she understood that while she would do anything for Willow, she couldn't stay here and watch them. "But I'm saying, I know what Oz means to you."

"How can you, when I'm not even sure?" Willow said. Her mouth was tight with stress, and her voice was sad and worried. "I mean, I know what he meant to me. But he left, and... everything changed. I changed, and... then we--"

"What?" Tara asked.

Tears welled up in Willow's eyes. "I don't know. I just", she said, then paused a moment. "Life was starting to get so good again, and --" Sighing, she moved closer to Tara, "You're a big part of that." The tears started to fall down her cheeks, "And here comes the thing I wanted most of all, and... I don't know what to do, I ... I wanna know, but I don't."

Tara looked sympathetically into Willow's face. She tenderly brushed the tears off Willow's cheeks. She knew the right thing to do even if it broke her heart. "Do what makes you ... h-h-happy." She almost couldn't get the last word out, knowing that she couldn't be happy without Willow.

Willow's face twisted, and she gave a little shake of her head as she entered Tara's embrace like a woman grasping for salvation in savage seas. Tara wrapped her arms around Willow, and held her as if it was the last time she would do so, gently stroking her beautiful red hair.

Then Willow was gone and Tara was left alone in her room, prey to all her doubts and fears. The light that emerged through her window gradually dimmed, the sun setting as she sat despondent in the chair by the bed, her arms folded over her knees as she looked out the window as if watching her last sunset. She didn't bother to get up and turn the lights on when the sun was finally down. Instead, she stared blindly into the empty darkness.

It didn't matter. All the light was being sucked out of her world. Why had she told Willow to do what made her happy? She should have told her that she could make Willow happy, that she would do anything to make her happy as long as she stayed with her.

Time passed with glacial slowness in the darkness.

Again, there was a knock on the door. Tara's heart leaped up fiercely. She chose me!, she chose me!, its triphammer beat pounded into her head. Tara told her heart to be quiet. Willow was just here to tell her that it was over and to get the few things she had left in Tara's room.

She got up to answer the door. Willow stood outside, the soft light of the candle she held illuminating the gentle beauty of her face. Tara could have wept to see such beauty, knowing that it was passing forever from her life, but she had run out of tears.

"No candles?" Willow said tentatively. "Well, I brought one. It's extra flamey."

Tara couldn't find any words and instead just stared at Willow, trying to burn her image into her memory before Willow left her life forever. Willow stepped forward and gave her the candle, closing the door behind herself.

"Tara, I have to tell you..."

Tara stopped her before she could say those terrible words Tara knew were coming. "No, I-I understand. You have to be with the person you l-love." Her voice was shaky with hurt and loss.

"I am," Willow smiled.

Tara couldn't believe that the love shining forth from Willow's eyes was for her. Her heart pounded rapidly again. Did Willow really mean what she thought she meant? Could she dare to hope? "You mean...", she asked.

"I mean," Willow said. "Okay?"

"Oh, yes," Tara breathed.

"I feel horrible about everything I put you through," Willow said. Her smile was brilliant as she looked at Tara; every word and every feeling was written on her face for Tara to read. "A-and I'm gonna make it up to you. Starting right now."

Tara started to smile, "Right now?"

Willow smiled and nodded.

Tara blew out the candle.

Tara woke up smiling, her heart still beating with the thrill and joy of her dream. She chose me! Willow chose me! It was the most wonderful feeling in the world. Then she shook her head, wrinkling her nose as the puzzlement hit her. Chose me over who? What was that name again? She couldn't remember. The details of the dream were slipping away from her as she returned to the waking world, but she held the most important part close to her heart.

Willow had chosen her.

It was just a dream, but it felt so real. It had to mean something that she saw Willow so vividly in her dreams. They shared a connection that was unlike anything she had ever experienced. She had never been in love before so she couldn't be sure what it felt like, but she had a feeling in her heart that she had never had before. She missed Willow when she wasn't with her, thinking about her all the time when she was awake and dreaming about her when she was asleep.

Did Willow feel the same way about her? That was the scary question. Willow had opened up to her in a way that she didn't think Willow had to anyone else. She wondered if Willow shared her dreams with her, if she experienced the same feelings and events that Tara did at night.

How could she ask Willow that though? They both knew about magic and monsters and the scariness of the night, but this was different. Despite her power, Willow felt fragile to Tara when it came to people and relationships. She might scare Willow away if she told her about her dreams.

Tara wondered about the source of her dreams. She'd had the first one before Willow had come to Sunnydale. Were they prophetic? The dreams had shown her what Willow looked like before she had seen that for herself, but the events in the dreams didn't match up with what had happened. Perhaps those events were things that would happen to them in the future, but that didn't make complete sense either because in the first dream it had felt like she didn't know Willow yet.

The dreams seemed more allegorical than prophetic. They hadn't met in a dormitory corridor while being chased by monsters, but they had been attacked by vampires in a cemetery that first time. While they hadn't cast the particular spells of her dreams together, they had worked together to cast other spells to break the darkness and defeat the Master. Were the dreams the reason she had felt a connection with Willow that first night? Was her heart able to recognize Willow in that moment even if her eyes could not?

Maybe Mr. Giles would know about this type of thing. Then she recalled his reaction to Willow's name and wondered again what that meant. Had they met before? Willow had talked about patrolling in Sunnydale and Tara knew that Mr. Giles had been in Sunnydale before but that was years ago. Mr. Giles never mentioned any personal details about his prior life in Sunnydale. Was Willow the reason or was it simply because he had lost his previous slayer?

She shrugged away her doubts. Today wasn't a day for doubts. It was a happy day, the day of their first real date. A day when she would see Willow in the light, a day in which they could be together without needing to worry about vampires or demons lurking in the shadows of night.

Today Willow chose her.

Giles woke up suddenly, raising his head from the pile of books on which it had been resting. He had it! He knew why Willow was here. He got up, absentmindedly massaging the back of his neck with one hand where it ached from sleeping in the wrong position, and walked to the bookcase.

Giles immediately began pulling down books on Indian religions and mythology from the middle shelf, getting both classics like the Bhagavad Gita and modern commentaries. Then from a lower shelf he took books on the cult of Pythagoras and Origen's On First Principles.

Pushing the papers on his desk to one side, he dropped the tall pile of books he was carrying on the desktop. He pulled the top book off the stack and began quickly searching quickly through it. Hours later, he pulled himself away from the books for a few minutes for a fast lunch, having already skipped breakfast. Just as quickly, he returned to immerse himself in the books again, pausing only to find more relevant texts on the shelves of his office.

The reddened rays of the setting sun found him still at his desk, skimming the last pages of a text. Giles closed the book firmly and took off his glasses to polish them. He had verified his hypothesis from this morning to the best of his ability. Everything he had read pointed him in the same direction.

Tara Lucas was Tara Maclay.

More precisely, she was the reincarnation of Tara Maclay.

He should have seen it before. It was so obvious. Perhaps he really had been hit on the head too many times, as Spirit had suggested to him in jest last night.

She shared so much with Tara Maclay in her quiet and calm personality, in her essential goodness, and she looked so much the same that they could be sisters which he had discovered to his surprise was not uncommon in cases of reincarnation. She even had the same first name as if fate were calling out to Willow to find her.

There were spells which would prove his case definitively, but he was convinced. If nothing else, Willow's interest in Tara was enough to make him certain. She had surely divined the truth of Tara's reincarnation and come here to Sunnydale to find her past love. But what had taken her so long? No matter, perhaps she was simply as surprised by the idea as he was and he had had Tara in front of his eyes for months without ever suspecting the truth.

What should he do though? He didn't doubt that Willow loved Tara more than anything in the world and would never willingly harm her, but she could hurt Tara deeply without intending to. This wasn't the Willow Rosenberg that Tara Maclay had met and fallen in love with.

This Willow had been the darkest of dark witches for nineteen years. She had abandoned her friends and everything else in her life for her dark quest. That she had originally been driven by devotion and love, he had no doubt, but he had firsthand experience with how much she had changed.

Yet couldn't Tara offer Willow a chance at redemption? If Willow could be a dangerous influence on Tara, then it also followed that Tara could be a positive influence on Willow. If anyone could bring Willow back to the light, it was Tara. Perhaps fate had brought them together for that very reason.

His first responsibility had to be Tara though. He had to protect her, but what exactly was it that he should do? Should he let her know about her past life or not? Telling her could create an expectation that she should have a relationship with Willow, that fate had brought them together in another life. But not telling her could let her fall in love with a woman who she should avoid, who would love her only for her past if she could still love at all.

Would telling her of the past free her from it or would it instead bind her more closely to it? Whatever he did would change her perception of her relationship with Willow, but would it change it in the right direction? Could he even be certain of what the right direction was?

Could he instead just tell her what he knew about Willow? He would have to leave out her name from Willow's life which would be difficult but not impossible. But what parts should he tell her? Just the dark times after Tara's death or should he be evenhanded and let her know how wonderful and sweet Willow had been in earlier times? She had truly been the best of them until she lost herself in dark magic and grief.

He still worried that some of Willow's darkness was his fault. He should have been more strict with her, but she had been so bright and talented and her heart was so good that he thought she could bear the burden of magic. She had surpassed him while still a schoolgirl.

He had relied on her too much though in the fight against Glory, but what choice had he? She had been the only thing between them and the end of the world so many times that he had forgotten that she was still so young and so fragile emotionally. When Glory had sucked Tara's mind, he should have known that she would go after Glory. Hadn't he done the same when Angelus had killed Jenny?

He should have stayed in Sunnydale that next year to guide her as he had guided Buffy. She had needed him and he should have realized that after their discussion about Buffy's resurrection, but he had been so focused on Buffy and her problems that he had ignored the more important issue of Willow's use of dark magic. He had thought that after Glory, Buffy and Willow could handle whatever evil the Hellmouth threw at them. He hadn't realized that with Joyce gone and Tara and he leaving for their different reasons that the group had lost its emotional core of stability.

He couldn't change what had happened. He had to decide what to do about Tara and Willow and he still had no idea what the right choice was.

Continued...