The Dark Rose

By darkmagickwillow

Copyright © May 2003

Chapter 3 (Homecoming)

After 19 years, Willow was going home.

She didn't want to return to Sunnydale, but she had to. When you lost something, it was always in the last place that you looked. She had looked for Tara every place in this world and beyond except for Sunnydale, and that was exactly what the vision had shown her.

Perhaps it was her imagination, but she felt that the warmth coming from the soul gem against her chest was gradually increasing as the plane crossed the Atlantic. She felt restless with hours of flight time ahead of her, but the thought that she was getting closer to Tara calmed her. Tara was her home. She'd been homeless for so long, but she was going home at last.

She had spent thousands of lonely nights doing nothing but remembering what she had lost that terrible afternoon. The time for that was over. Now she had to plan for the future, figuring out who or what held Tara's soul and how to kill it and rescue her love. Afterwards, they wouldn't need memories. They would have each other.

Willow started to smile at the thought, then felt her stomach left behind as the plane dropped through a pocket of air. She hated flying this way, under someone else's control, but it was still the fastest way to Sunnydale, especially when you were a witch and didn't need to worry about ordinary things like reservations or tickets.

At least she had her own row of seats in first class. There'd been someone else in her row, but he got up quickly after she'd pulled her hood back and stared into him with her dark eyes. He had departed for coach and she hadn't seen him since.

She looked out the window at the clouds they were flying above. Once they had been a mystery to her and she had dreamed of walking on them, hand-in-hand with Tara, drenched in sunlight. The clouds looked soft and comforting, a special place where she could be safe and happy. Now she knew better. She had flown through them alone and discovered their true nature. They were cold, wet, and empty.

She turned away from the window, closing it to shut out the sight of the world outside, and pulled her journal out of a pocket in her cloak. Looking around, she saw that everyone else in the dark cabin was asleep. In solitude as always, she began to write in her journal, describing the events that had brought her here.

Willow strode off the plane purposefully without acknowledging the farewells of the flight crew. She hadn't bothered with baggage, not wanting to waste time with anything unnecessary, so she was out of the airport in a few minutes. The heat of the soul gem warmed her as she entered Sunnydale.

Nineteen years of searching were almost over. She was going to find Tara tonight, but there was one place she had to go first.

Tara's grave.

She didn't expect to find Tara's soul there, but she hadn't visited the grave since the day of Tara's funeral. She felt guilty about that, but reminded herself that she had devoted her life to her quest to bring Tara back. Surely that made memorials unnecessary, she thought to herself, but the weight of her guilt could not be lifted so easily.

The cemetery felt familiar as she entered it despite all the years that had passed since her last visit. Even if she hadn't spent too many nights in Sunnydale's cemeteries, this one would be forever burned into her memory.

Her black leathers and cloak let her blend into the shadows as she walked through the cemetery. Her face was hidden in the hood of her dark cloak while her hands and feet were securely encased in black gloves and boots. The soul gem was tucked inside her shirt and she felt its reassuring warmth against her chest as she walked towards Tara's grave. It wasn't far now.

Willow reached the familiar grave site and gazed at the tombstone that she hadn't seen since the day it was erected. The site was undisturbed and the gem did not urge her downwards. Tara's soul might be somewhere in the cemetery, but it was not in her grave.

She sighed. It would have been easy to find but she was not sure if she could have dealt with the knowledge that Tara's soul had been trapped in the grave for all these years. She looked down at the grave, noticing long dead cut roses at her feet. Someone had been here within the past year, remembering Tara, and Willow felt her guilt increase as it hadn't been her.

With her guilt came an upwelling of grief, more than she thought she could bear. Her eyelids closed over eyes sparkling with unshed tears and her throat constricted, making it difficult to breathe, as she remembered how much she had lost. Willow reached out tentatively towards the grave, as if she could pull Tara back with force of will alone.

Then she curled her hand into a fist and jerked it back towards her. For all her knowledge and power, she hadn't been able to regain the one person in this world that mattered to her above all else. Forcing back her tears, she reminded herself that everything would change tonight.

The soul gem suddenly blazed with heat against her chest, causing Willow to look up. Willow spotted a figure moving stealthily towards her through the nearby trees. It was a young woman wearing a black leather jacket and dark blue jeans with black boots. Her blonde hair was tied back in a pony tail and she was holding a wooden stake in her hand. Several more stakes were attached to her belt.

Willow could see from her aura that despite all the accoutrements of a vampire hunter, the blonde was a witch focused on the magicks of light. Then Willow looked into her eyes. They were a brilliant blue that looked too familiar to be real.

Tara?

Could it really be her after all these years?

Her heart swelled with hope in defiance of the doubts that assailed her mind. The woman was too young, no more than 20 years old, but she looked enough like Tara to be her sister. While similarity didn't mean that she was Tara, what about the gem's hot insistence that the woman had Tara's soul?

Tara realized that she had been spotted by the black clad figure she had been stalking and froze. As the figure looked up from the grave, the blonde realized that the black-clad figure was a slender woman. As she looked at the curves revealed by the tight black leather, she thought how beautiful the woman was even though she hadn't seen her face.

Her rational mind woke up, reminding her that the woman was dressed all in black in a cemetery after midnight. In Sunnydale. Tara shifted her stance uneasily, unsure whether to approach or retreat. She didn't usually take on vampires by herself, but the woman didn't appear to be a vampire. And she wasn't doing anything except gazing at her, but she was in a Sunnydale cemetery after midnight.

Willow's mind was racing as she stood motionless, staring at the blonde woman. She didn't look precisely like Tara and she was too young, but the gem said that she was Tara. Even her aura felt similar to Tara's, but it was not the quite the same either. How could she be so much like Tara yet not quite Tara? Could the gem be wrong? What kind of warranty came with millennia-old magical artifacts anyway?

Yet the woman looked and felt so much like Tara. Her heart wanted to believe, but she was scared of risking her heart again. In her dreams Tara was alive, but she never was when Willow awakened. What they once had was a miracle, hot and passionate yet gentle and comforting at the same time. Tara had seen so much in her that she had never been able to see herself. She wanted to see herself like that again, but she was afraid it was too late. They had flown so high, but then she had fallen so fast and hard.

Could she expect another miracle without the dark price that such miracles had always cost her? It had cost her Buffy's life to get Tara's mind back from Glory. Then she had gotten Buffy back at the price of Tara's life. There was always a price.

What should she do? Willow hadn't felt this uncertain in years.

Tara was also thinking rapidly as she watched the other woman. She could feel the dark stranger's aura of tightly bound power, but she couldn't tell whether her source was light or dark without fully opening her senses and exposing herself. Still, she felt more puzzled than threatened.

Tara had so many questions. Who could this person be? Was she just visiting a grave or was she here to raise something evil from the beyond? Whose grave was she visiting anyway and why after midnight? Why was she attracted to her? Something about that last question didn't fit with the others--attracted to her? Tara hadn't even seen her face. They hadn't spoken yet. Then she saw movement behind the mysterious woman. It was a vampire and that she knew how to deal with.

Willow watched the young woman raise her right hand to throw the wooden stake she held. She was puzzled at first, then she heard the stealthy movement of a vampire behind her. The blonde witch threw the stake and as Willow watched, it carefully zigged around her in an impossible trajectory before embedding itself in the heart of the vampire behind her.

Willow was quite impressed as she turned to see the vampire dissolve into a cloud of dust. Unfortunately, there was another vampire behind the one who had just been slain. She sighed silently. Sunnydale hadn't changed.

Tara ran up beside the stranger and spotted the approaching vampire. Her blue eyes widened as she readied another stake, saying to the other witch, "Get behind me."

If this was Tara, she seemed unusually assertive. Willow brought the stake from the clump of vampire dust to her hand with a thought and said, "If you'll accept some help, I'll deal with the other two behind you." She turned around so that they faced their oncoming opponents back-to-back, not quite certain why she felt secure enough to expose her back to the unknown young witch.

Tara spared the two vampires behind her a fleeting glance before returning her focus to the vampire in front of her. She threw another stake, guiding it with her mind towards the heart of the approaching vampire, but this time the stake missed the heart, infuriating the monster rather than killing him. She briefly wondered if she should trust the stranger so soon, but she had no other choice with so many attacking vampires.

Unwilling to scare the blonde, Willow decided to destroy the vampires with the stake rather than spells. As the two vampires closed with her, she quickly staked the one on the left, her hand a blur of movement, while kicking the second vampire away to gain time.

Tara pulled a third stake from her belt as the second vampire closed with her. She heard the sound of one of the vampires behind her being destroyed by her companion then her vampire was upon her. As they traded a few quick blows, she realized that this vampire was a young one, newly risen from the grave with superhuman strength but still not in full control of his supernatural speed and agility. He left his chest exposed for just a moment. She quickly drove the stake into his unbeating heart, reducing him to a small pile of dust.

Willow found her second vampire more of a challenge than the first. He carefully watched her stake and allowed her to score useless wounds on his undead flesh instead of exposing his heart. She heard the destruction of the vampire behind her and realized that the young woman was safe. Subconsciously, she had been listening to the other woman fight in case she needed help. Now with the blonde safe, Willow could bring her full concentration to bear on the foe in front of her.

After the destruction of her opponent, Tara turned to watch the fight between the mysterious stranger and the last remaining vampire. She admired the graceful movement of the dark witch as she dodged and flowed around her opponent, closing until she could quickly thrust her stake into its heart, destroying it.

Willow turned from the remains of the last vampire to find the blonde watching her with admiration in her eyes. She flipped the stake around in her hand and extended it to the other woman, saying "Your stake, I believe."

Tara took the stake from the mysterious woman's hand, her fingers brushing the black-gloved fingers of the other woman as she accepted the stake back. Her fingers tingled with a warm energy at the contact. She brought her hand back to her side and closed her other one around it. "So you've ... uh ... fought vampires before?" she asked, her voice not quite as steady as she wished.

"Yes," Willow answered, forcing her voice to remain calm after the amazing touch. She wanted to reach out and touch her hand again, but at the same time she was afraid to try to. Whether she was more afraid that would feel the same or that it wouldn't she wasn't certain. "It looks like you came here looking for them." She stared at the young witch, wondering if she really could be Tara after all these years. What had happened? Where had she been all these years? Why hadn't Willow known about her? Her stomach churned, upset by the tumultuous thoughts and feelings swirling through her.

Tara looked down at the stake she still held in her hands. "Yes," she said awkwardly. "Someone has to stop them." She was thinking about how to ask the stranger about who she was and what she was doing in Sunnydale when she heard a voice through the trees calling her name: "Tara! Where are you?"

Willow froze as she heard the name called. It had been so long since she had heard that name said by a voice other than her own in tones of deep grief. Years of disappointment had made her cautious so she asked the young woman to be certain, "Your name's Tara?"

"Yes." Tara nodded then asked, "What's your name?"

Willow's mind spun. Tara? It couldn't be a coincidence. Tara's soul. Tara's name. Tara's heart? All in this young woman. This Tara had to be her love but in a new body, a new lifetime.

She had spent all those years searching and failing time after time to bring Tara back. Now she saw the reason for her failures standing in front of her. How could you bring someone back who had already returned to the cycle of life? She would have screamed at her blindness if her frustration wouldn't have terrified the young woman in front of her waiting for the answer to a simple question.

She had so many questions. Had Tara returned for her, to love her? Even if she did, did she remember Willow and their love? Should she tell Tara about them if Tara didn't remember? Should she tell Tara anything about her past life, about herself? Suddenly, her quest was no longer a simple one.

Despite how well her theory seemed to fit the situation, a kernel of doubt remained. She had been disappointed before. This wasn't the first time she had thought that she had found Tara again. She shuddered as she recalled the horror in the mirror. It had looked just like Tara at first. She couldn't trust appearances.

She couldn't stop herself from hoping though. For now there was one decision to make--to say or not say her true name, the name she hadn't used since the day she left Sunnydale.

She decided to trust in life, in love, and simply said, "Willow."

Willow looked intently into Tara's blue eyes and her heart fell as she saw no sign of recognition. Her name didn't mean anything to Tara. How could it have? But she had so hoped that they could just be together now.

Tara noticed Willow's pause before answering and her intent gaze afterwards, but wasn't sure what either meant. Instead of commenting on Willow's reactions, she said, "I'd better answer her. Spirit gets cranky when she can't find me."

Tara turned to the trees to call back to Spirit. "I'm over here," she said. "I'm okay." As she turned back to face Willow, she did a double-take. No one was in sight. Tara wondered for a brief moment whether the mysterious witch had been real. Had she been a ghost?

With that thought in mind, Tara walked over to the grave where she had originally seen the stranger, half-expecting the tombstone to read "Willow." Her heart thumped heavily in her chest as she read the first name on the tombstone, but she relaxed as she finished reading the name. It wasn't her last name.

Continued...