Answering Darkness by Sassette

Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. I'm just borrowing them because Season 6 angst is running high, and I want my happy ending now, dammit! So I'm writing it – but it'll be a while until I get to that part, so bear with me (or "bare" with me if you're naughty).
Distribution: The Mystic Muse http://mysticmuse.net
Please ask.
Feedback: Thank you..
Spoilers: Up to and including Once More With Feeling.
Pairing: Willow/Tara

Summary: AU story about the source of Willow's black magick powers and how she, Tara, and the rest of the gang help save the world from the Trickster.

"She said she didn't need any help," Giles said patiently, not looking up from the book in his hands.

"Well, yeah," Willow hedged, "but she's been up there for a long time, and with the helpfulness, she could be back down here, where all the research action is. We don't want Tara to feel all left out or anything right?"

"Willow," Buffy said, a little smile crossing her face at Willow's agitation. Nobody, Buffy knew, could get worked up over nothing quite like Willow could. "She's looking through her mother's things. Give her another ten minutes or so before you go barging in, okay?"

"But ..." Willow started to protest, only to trail off. "Stupid, Rosenberg," she muttered, looking back at the little bar marking the progress of her file download. She had insisted that Tara needed to look at her mother's things alone. Willow shifted uncomfortably in her chair, tapping a pencil on the table. It had seemed to Willow like a very private thing, for a mother and daughter to share, and so she had opted to stay downstairs. Now, with Tara having been upstairs for three hours, she wanted to stand up and kick herself in the head for being an idiot.

"Go upstairs," Giles said, his voice full of exasperation as he rolled his eyes at Willow's fidgeting.

"Right," Willow said eagerly, immediately standing up and bolting up the stairs. Once she reached the door she hesitated. She didn't want to intrude, and she knew that Tara's mother had meant the world to Tara. Still, she was getting kind of worried. Her respect for Tara's privacy and her unease at Tara's absence warred within her. She knew that whatever Tara found, she would eventually share with her, no matter own private it was, but ... it just seemed right to let Tara look everything over first by herself. Then again, what if Tara needed her? What if Tara was feeling lost and alone and needed Willow Hugs?

"Come in," she heard Tara's voice call. Because it was muffled by the door, Willow found she couldn't get a read on what Tara was feeling from the tone. She turned the knob, easing the door open and poking her head in, worried eyes finding Tara, sitting in front of a trunk with her back to the doorway, her legs crossed under her in her usual manner.

"Was worried? And kicking yourself for telling me to do this alone?" Tara asked mildly, turning her head to look at Willow, a sad sweet smile on her face.

"Are you okay, Baby?" Willow asked, entering the room and closing the door softly behind her. "You've been up here for awhile, and I thought that maybe you'd ..."

"Need a hug?" Tara finished the sentence for her, her eyes falling to her lap and her shoulders dropping. "Because I do," she said quietly.

"Awww, honey," Willow said, crossing the room with a few long strides and dropping to the floor behind Tara, and tucking one leg under her, the other resting next to Tara, bent at the knee, her foot resting flat on the floor.

Slowly, Willow pulled Tara back against her chest, her arms wrapping around her middle. Tara let her head fall back on Willow's shoulder with a sigh, one arm resting on Willow's bent knee, and the other stroking the smooth skin of the forearms hugging her close.

"Wanna talk about it?" Willow murmured into her hair, turning her head a fraction to place a light kiss on her temple.

"She kept a journal," Tara said, her voice tired. "I never knew," she went on, shaking her head a little in wonder. "She wrote in it every single day, and I never knew. She – she starts each entry 'Dear Tara', like she knew I'd see it someday. Like it's full of things she wanted me to know, but didn't think she'd never tell me."

"No, never," Tara said. "Except that once ... I got into her trunk, and there was a little compartment in it. I managed to get it open, but it was really tricky. That's when I found grandmother's doll's eye crystal. At least, I think it was grandmother's," she said, a wistful look on her face. "But Mom was ... she was so ... sad ..." she went on, her eyes filling with confusion, "when I found it, I never looked through her things again. I tried to give it back, but she told me to keep it. And I did, until I gave it to you."

"I ... I found it, in the dresser yesterday," Willow said slowly. "I...I thought we lost it?"

"Dawn must have found it," Tara said. "I found it in her room last week. I ... I want you to have it."

"If ... if it's too much for you – I mean, if it will make you want to cast ..." she said hesitantly.

"No," Willow said, a thoughtful look on her face. "It – it doesn't. I must have sat with it for an hour, and I just ... I felt really clear."

"Very nice," Willow said with a smile, nuzzling Tara's neck, making Tara wonder if they were still talking about the same thing. "What did you find in your mom's journal?" she asked after placing several delicate kisses up Tara's neck to her ear.

"She was ... very sad," Tara said slowly. "I remember being really little, and catching my mother looking at me, and her eyes were so loving and sad, I ... I just walked up to her and crawled into her lap and hugged her."

"Why do you think she was so sad?" Willow asked after a moment, feeling like this was something Tara had to share.

"I found the entry she wrote when she found out she was having a girl," Tara said, her hand drifting down to hover over the cover of the journal in her lap. "She ... she cried. She wrote that she was so happy to be pregnant, and that from the moment she knew she was pregnant, she loved me. But she cried because it broke her heart to know that my family would have to hurt me to keep me safe." Tara paused, taking a deep breath. "She really believed in the demon. I ... I always, somewhere inside, wondered why she never just took me away from Dad and Donnie. Why we didn't just go somewhere we could be happy."

"That... that must have been so hard for her," Willow mused aloud, her gaze distant as she tried to put herself in Tara's mother's place. What would she do if she were sure she was a demon? What would she do if she were sure she'd hurt people if she left?

"It... I sometimes thought that... a mother is supposed to love you more than anything," Tara said on a whisper, her voice so faint Willow could barely make it out. "And... I'd get so mad at her," she confessed, her voice lost. "I was so angry that... that she put the world first. That she chose keeping other people safe over keeping me safe. Stupid, huh?"

"No... not stupid," Willow disagreed, shifting her wait to put her other leg alongside Tara and pulling her as close as she could given their respective positions. "I... It makes perfect sense, baby, and you didn't do anything wrong. You were really young, weren't you? You stopped being mad when you got older and understood, didn't you?"

Tara nodded her confirmation of Willow's words. "But I... I got so mad at her again when she died. It was like – she got out and she left me there with them. I wanted to go, too. I wanted to follow her wherever it was she went, and I – I remember running out into the woods and just... screaming into the sky because she left me behind."

"Oh, Honey..." Willow said, murmuring comforting nonsense words into her hair and rocking her gently.

"She... she wrote in here, why she didn't leave," Tara said quietly, a look of aching peace on her face. "I... I finally understand. I thought I did when I got older – that she couldn't leave because she was afraid she'd hurt someone. But I was wrong. She didn't choose the world over me. She was afraid that if she took me away she would hurt me. She w-wrote that she... she wanted me to know what it was like to have a parent who loved me and would never hurt me. Someone I could trust."

"Why? My mother loved me, more than anything in the whole world," Tara said simply, a small smile crossing her face. "She... God, I'm so tired of crying," Tara said with a mirthless laugh, wiping at the tears spilling over onto her face before putting her hands back on Willow's arms and relaxing into the comfort of the warm body behind her. "The last entry in there is... it's just before she died. She was really sick, and she knew it, but – she decided not to fight it. To just let it take her, because she prayed to the Goddess that without her, I wouldn't have a reason to stay. That I'd get out and make a life for myself."

"And you did," Willow said, her heart swelling with pride at Tara's strength. She had come by it honestly, though, if her mother's words were any indication. Willow marveled at the selflessness of Tara's mother, but then realized it wasn't all that surprising. Tara was her mother's daughter.

"I did," Tara agreed, nodding. "And I think... I think she's watching me, and that she knows. She... she asked about you, y'know."

"MmmHmm," Tara said, murmuring her agreement. "She wondered if I was ever going to meet that redheaded girl, and if I was ever going to figure out that I was gay and in love with her," Tara said with a little laugh. "She wondered if you name was really 'Rose'."

"You called me 'Rose'?" Willow asked, wondering if she should be horrified by the name or impressed by how close it was.

"And we lived in a little thatch-roofed cottage surrounded by flowers and a white-picket fence. Mom had her own room, because she was a grown-up, so we had to share," Tara murmured, smiling gently at the childhood memory.

"And how old were you when you decided you were going to sleep with me?" Willow asked, arching an eyebrow and smirking.

"Oh, seven? Eight?" Tara said with a giggle. "We had slumber parties every night."

"Still sounds kinda' racy for an eight-year-old," Willow replied, kissing Tara's neck again.

"Honest, all we did was eat junk food and watch movies," Tara said, letting her head loll back to give Willow more room. "Well," she said with a sly smile. "Until I was about fifteen or sixteen. Then they were lesbian slumber parties."

"I knew it!" Willow said triumphantly, then reaching over to nibble on Tara's ear. Tara murmured appreciatively, lifting her hand and running it through Willow's hair.

"No, I'll nip you in the bud later," Willow said huskily. "I don't even know what that means," she went on in her normal tone of voice. "But it sounded naughty."

"Yes, yes it did," Tara agreed with a laugh as she sat forward, allowing Willow to stand.

"I'd... I'd actually like to finish looking at this stuff alone," Tara said, her eyes pleading for understanding, hoping Willow wouldn't be offended.

"Of course, Baby," Willow said easily, bending to place a light kiss on Tara's tempting lips. "I know you haven't had any time alone with your mom in a long while."

"Thank you," Tara said gratefully. "It... it really is like she's here," she mused aloud. "And I promise to introduce you two later, okay?"

"Absolutely," Willow agreed with a nod. "But, umm... could you give me a little warning? 'Cuz I think I should dress up. Don't want to meet your mom in jeans. I... kinda' wanna' make a good impression."

"She won't care what you're wearing, silly," Tara said, her eyes dancing. "She'll just care how much you love me."

"With everything I am or could hope to be," Willow said seriously. "I should... get back downstairs," she went on, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious by her bold declaration. "I'll, umm... I'll be downstairs, unless I go on a food run, or something," she went on, gesturing towards the door and backing away, part of her wishing she could just stay and sit and simply look at Tara.

"I'll be fine," Tara said with a smile. "I'll be down in another few hours, I think."

"Okay," Willow said. "I love you," she added right before she slipped out the door, smiling as she heard Tara's answering 'I love you, too' follow her down the hall.

Tara's mother had been... a remarkable woman, Willow realized. She knew that Tara had always had a lot of pain and anger mixed in with her love for her mother, and now she hoped that reading those journals had allowed her to come to a place where she could be at peace with her memory. She thought it would, and remembered the kinda'... serene look on Tara's face when she had spoken of her mother and the sacrifices she had made.

"Everything all right with Tara?" Giles asked, looking up as Willow entered the room.

"Yeah, she's fine," Willow said. "She found some of her mom's journals and was kind of reading them. She said she should have the books sorted and down here within a few hours or so."

"I'm gonna' make some cocoa," Buffy said suddenly, nodding emphatically and standing. "Do you two want any?" It was... just a little thing, but Buffy's mom had always made cocoa, and something about knowing that Tara was upstairs reading her mother's journal made Buffy ache for her own mom. She was sure that her cocoa wouldn't be as good – her mom had made the best cocoa – but she hoped that in the making of it, she would somehow feel closer to her.

"No, thank you," Willow said, looking at her computer and frowning as her mind raced.

Buffy went into the kitchen, wondering if that was why women grew up to be like their mothers – that they hoped they would feel closer to them by doing the same things in the same ways.

"I think... I think I'm going to take a little walk," Willow said slowly, standing up and stretching. "I'll be back in a bit."

"But – there's the Construct to consider," Giles said, frowning at Willow. "Wait for Buffy and take her with you."

"I... Giles, I... I kind of feel like being alone right now. I'll be really really careful, I promise. Like, someone who's always extra-careful times ten," Willow promised.

"I... I think this is an extremely poor idea," Giles protested. "Did something happen with Tara? Did you two have a fight, or -?"

"No, nothing like that," Willow said quickly. "Tara and I are... we're good," she said, a smile lighting up her face. "But I ... I kinda' ... I need to think about some things. Lots of things to think about."

"All right," Giles said with a sigh, trying to remember if he had ever been able to forbid the Scoobies to do anything. Even if he had, they were all adults now, and though he was concerned, he doubted the Construct would be able to find Willow. "But you will be extremely careful? Extra-careful times ten?"

"Times a hundred, even," Willow said with a nod. Giles nodded his ascent, and Willow grabbed a jacket, heading out the door and down the drive, pausing on the sidewalk and looking up and down the street. She turned right, then started walking, the day clear and bright with little fluffy clouds dotting the sky. She found the sneaky kitty cloud, seeing that it had turned into a snake.

"At least it's not a frog," she said aloud, shuffling her feet as she walked. She had a vague plan forming in her mind, and she had no idea if it was a good one or not. Tara's discovery of her mother's journals had struck a chord within her, and she had been thinking about it ever since. Tara had loved her mother with all her heart, but... she hadn't really known her, not really. She had been surprised by what she had found in those journals, and it made Willow wonder.

Her mother, Willow had always believed, didn't understand her at all. Was it maybe possible, that it was she, Willow, who didn't understand her mother?

Her head raced as her feet carried her at a more sedate pace along the sunny sidewalk, eventually leading her to the door of her parents' house. Willow looked up in surprise at the familiar dark wood, her hand lifting to trace the grains. With a glance over her shoulder, she confirmed that her mother's car was in the drive.

Was this even worth it? What did she hope to accomplish? Tying up lose ends, just in case?

Before she could answer those questions to her own satisfaction, she found herself opening the door and stepping inside. "Mom?"

"Willow," Sheila called out, stepping into the room. "Now, this is a surprise. What brings you here?"

"I just... though I'd stop by and visit. Since I was in the neighborhood and all," Willow said slowly.

"Well, come on in," Sheila said. "I was just fixing myself some lunch. Would you like anything?" she asked politely as Willow seated herself on the couch in the living room.

"No, thank you," Willow said, clasping her hands and resting her forearms on her knees, looking around the room and nodding her head, blowing out a puff of air as her mother puttered in the kitchen.

"Is anything wrong?" Willow's mom asked without preamble when she seated herself opposite Willow with a mug of coffee in her hand.

"Wrong?" Willow asked, looking up sharply with a look of startlement on her face. What could she possibly tell her mother? Hell God? Witchcraft? Dying? "No, nothing's wrong," Willow said slowly. "Everything's fine, in fact." Willow noticed a look of hurt flash across her mother's face, then disappear just as quickly.

"No," Willow insisted. "Why would there be something wrong?" she asked, letting some of her confusion show.

"Well, you normally don't stop by. And I know you stayed here a few nights, because Alexander came by to pick up some of your things you had left," Sheila said. "So I assumed something was wrong. Did you have a fight with that friend you're living with? Bunny?"

"It's Buffy," Willow corrected automatically, rolling her eyes and wondering if it would finally sink in this time.

"Buffy. Right," Sheila said with a scowl. "I'm always getting that wrong," she observed, surprising Willow with the admission. "How is Buffy doing? I was very sorry to hear about her mother," Sheila went on, honest interest on her face.

"She's... it's tough," Willow said carefully. "But she's holding up pretty well, all things considered."

"You were always quite the student," Sheila said, a fond smile crossing her face.

"I noticed," Sheila said, frowning at her daughter. "And you seem to have not noticed that my hearing is unusually sharp."

"Well, you never said anything," Willow said defensively, leaning back on the couch and crossing her arms.

"Is this what this visit is about?" Sheila asked after a moment. "Whether or not I noticed that you're incredibly bright, ambitious, and organized?"

"No, I..." Willow said, shaking her head. "I... I guess it is," she finally said, her brow furrowed as if she had just come to that realization. "I mean, you... you and Dad never said... anything. I figured none of it mattered to you."

"Didn't matter?" Sheila asked, her eyebrows flying into her hairline. "Willow, do you have any idea how proud we are of you? Don't you know that your father has been bragging about your SAT scores and your scholarships for years now?"

"How could I?" Willow demanded. "It's not like you said anything. And you never noticed... well, anything. I... how many times did I stay out all night in high school without a call home? How long did it take you to notice every time I got a haircut? How many mysterious bruises and cuts did I come home with? For all you knew, I was in a gang, doing drugs, and having sex all the time, and you didn't even notice!"

"I -" Sheila began, then stopped, flummoxed by Willow's outburst. "Now, Willow," she started again. "I realize that your father and I didn't -"

"Stop it!" Willow shouted, standing up. "Stop it with the condescension and the analysis and the touchy-feely psychobabble! Just tell me why you never did anything!"

"When I was a girl," Sheila said after a long moment, "times were very different. My mother... she -" Sheila stopped, taking a long breath. "She watched me like a hawk. I felt very... trapped. And untrusted. I felt like she was always waiting for me to fail, or to falter. I was a good child. I did everything I was supposed to. I studied hard, I got good grades. My friends were all good children, too. But every infraction of the rules, imagined or real, no matter how minor, resulted in very strict discipline. I promised myself I would never do that when I had a child."

"So you let me do whatever I wanted because your mother didn't let you do anything?" Willow asked, raising an eyebrow at her mother and staring at her with a look of disbelief.

"My mother picked out what I would wear to school each day. She took me to get my hair cut and told the stylist how to cut it. She chose my food. She chose my college. I wanted you to have the freedom to be your own person, and I wanted you to come to me if you ever needed guidance, but I didn't want to impose my guidance on you if it wasn't wanted or needed," Sheila said, trying to explain. "I... I think... I think I overdid it, didn't I?" she asked quietly.

"Just a little," Willow said, holding up her forefinger and her thumb very close together.

"I'm sorry, Willow. Neither your father or I ever meant to hurt you," Sheila said. "It certainly wasn't disinterest on our part. We just... we thought that if we trusted you, and if we gave you room to grow, you would do the right thing and grow into your own person. You've always been incredibly self-reliant. Even when you were very small. I remember you imperiously demanding that we teach you to read, because you wanted to do it yourself. You didn't want us reading to you," Sheila said, a strange mixture of pride and hurt on her face.

"I... I don't really remember that," Willow said slowly, understanding beginning to dawn on her.

"I do," Sheila said, a bittersweet smile on her face. "You thought we were teaching you too slowly, so you ended up teaching yourself. I'll never forget the day you came into the room with 'The Cat in The Hat' tucked under your chubby little arm, and you crawled onto your father's lap, and you read it to him."

"You did. He just about popped the buttons of his shirt, he was so proud of you," Sheila remembered. "And then there was the time he taught you to use a calculator. I think you were... four? Five? You already had basic arithmetic down pat, but you were so impressed with the 'toy' that did it for you."

"No. The fruit," Sheila said. "He'd push the buttons for you and say, 'two apples plus two apples equals four apples.' And then you'd copy what he did, and he'd use another apple example. You must have played with the thing for hours, and your father went back to his work. Eventually, you went and found him and tugged on his pants leg, the little calculator in your hand, and you looked up at him and very seriously asked if it worked with oranges," Sheila said, laughing at the memory.

"Between that and teaching yourself to read, your father and I realized just how gifted you were. We almost enrolled you in special schools, but you were so set on going to school with Alexander."

"Now that, I remember," Willow said, sitting back down and smiling softly. "I was so excited about getting to go to school, and that I already knew someone there."

"We had such a hard time trying to decide. You have an incredible mind, but we didn't want your social development to be stunted by those schools," Sheila said slowly. "I... I think, I hope, we did the right thing in letting you choose for yourself."

"I used to wonder what my life would be like if I'd gone to a special school," Willow said slowly. "I got teased a lot for being so smart. I used to wonder if I'd... I don't know... fit in better, someplace else."

"Now I'm glad I went to good old Sunnydale High," Willow said with a smile. "I... my friends. Buffy, and Xander, and all the things we did in high school. I wouldn't trade that for anything."

"I'm... that's been the best thing in the whole world," Willow said, her face glowing as she thought of Tara. "I would have missed so much going anywhere else."

"I somehow doubt that," Sheila said with a smile. "You're an exceptionally gifted young woman, and I can't imagine you wouldn't have made the most of any opportunities presented to you, no matter where you went."

"She's... everything," Willow said, not having any other way of explaining her bond with the other woman, her eyes lighting up and a broad grin crossing her face.

"Yes, I am," Willow said, raising her chin defiantly, as if daring her mother's disapproval.

Sheila blinked twice, her lips twitching. "Then I expect you to bring her by for dinner."

"It's not what I would've chosen for you, but you've always known your own mind," Sheila said slowly. "And I'm not going to suddenly give up my policy of 'non-interference' now."

Willow blinked, absorbing her mother's response with a sense of surrealism. "Are you sure?" she finally asked.

"Isn't that what I'm supposed to ask?" Sheila responded. "It's a phase, or it's not. This is forever, or it's not. Either way, she makes you happy, doesn't she?" Willow nodded enthusiastically in response, finding she didn't have any words. "Then bring her by for dinner."

"I... okay. I'll ask her, and we'll see what we can arrange," Willow said, a shy smile crossing her face. "I... I really hope you like her."

"I think we probably will," Sheila said. "I can't imagine you dating anyone unpleasant."

"No. Definitely not unpleasant," Willow agreed, her thoughts turning to Tara once again. "And I should probably go. She's waiting for me."

"Don't be a stranger," Sheila said, rising to her feet when Willow stood and walking her to the door. "I know your father would love to see you."

"I'll stop by," Willow said, opening the door and stepping onto the porch. "And Mom? I love you."

"Even though I never noticed the six times you stayed out all night without calling, the three mysterious slings, two head wounds, four cuts requiring stitches, countless bruises and scrapes, and one hospital stay?" Sheila inquired innocently.

Willow stood there, stunned for a moment, before breaking into a smile. "It still took you five months to notice a major hair change," she said.

"You're right," Sheila went on. "I'm a terrible mother," she said, shaking her head in mock despair. "Willow," she went on, her expression serious. "I may not have always done the right thing, but I always did what I thought was right. I'm sorry if I was wrong."

"I love you, too," Sheila called, waving at her daughter, and standing in the open doorway, watching until Willow walked out of sight.

"'... and she will be tricked into Hell, caught between the darkness without, and the darkness within, and only the darkness can save her,'" Giles read aloud, a frown etching his features.

"Now what was that you were mumbling?" Buffy asked, sitting down and grabbing a book.

"It's... a think I have a partial on this prophecy. 'The Devil, reborn to her line – The Devil and The Devil's descendant, as one. The power of that soul shall be hated by Him, and she will be tricked into Hell, caught between the darkness without, and the darkness within, and only the darkness can save her'," Giles repeated. "Clearly, the Devil and the Devil reborn are Margaret and Willow," he postulated.

"Frankly, I have no idea," Giles admitted, a look of frustration crossing his face. "It... hmm..." he said, ordering his thoughts. "It... a different bit of text has this to say: 'He who is formless and nameless, who delights in shadowed trickery cannot be commanded by any but one, descended from the line that kept him from Earth and Sky. His wrath shall be known to those so descended, and he will cause them great harm from the shadows, turning them against themselves, until such a one is too weak to defeat him.' I think they're actually from the same prophecy."

"The text the Watcher's Council has, and a few we have here, are excerpts from an older text, written down by the descendants of Celtic Druids during the 9th century. Much of it had been passed down in their oral tradition, and finally transcribed by a very powerful sorcerer, along with his personal notes and observations. Visions. That sort of thing. That particular text has been lost, and -"

"As much as I appreciate these random history lessons, I was asking about that bit you just read. What's it mean?" Buffy tried again.

"I'm not sure, but it seems to say that, The Trickster is attempting to weaken Willow. That somehow, she... she has the power to command him," Giles said. "If he's feeding her Dark Magicks, getting her addicted to them, and now overloading her body with them, who's to say that she isn't able to command those same magicks without his permission? Usually, a Source can deny a spellcaster's entreaty, unless the caster is more powerful than the Source, in which case the Source can be commanded. But The Trickster is... well; he's a God. For Willow to be able to command him, she would have to be... more powerful."

"Yes, well, not to say she is a God, exactly," Giles said. "But in arcane battles, defeating an enemy gives one a certain power over them. Pitting yourself magickally against a magick foe, it's... it's like a duel, of sorts. And the loser of the duel is... I guess you could say 'indebted'... to the winner."

"So Willow unloaded some major witchy power on a God in a past life, and so that God owes her some favors?" Buffy asked. "Then how come he can mess with her?"

"I'm not sure," Giles said, frowning. "I suppose Willow either hasn't come into her power, or she hasn't actually tried to command him. But it's as if... it's like her birthright, Buffy. Her destiny lies in defeating the Trickster. Or, at least in facing him."

"So what happens if Willow gets all large with the butch on this guy?" Buffy went on, suddenly feeling like they were playing twenty questions. Couldn't Giles ever explain everything all at once?

"'Large with the butch?'" Giles responded, confusion written all over his face. "I'm not even going to try to decipher that one. I assume you mean to ask what would happen if Willow attempted to command The Trickster. Unfortunately, that would require active casting, which would be a very dangerous thing for Willow."

"Actually, it's a good thing," Buffy said earnestly. "It would get the yucky stuff out of her system, and she'd probably be okay."

"No, she would not," Giles said, a note of finality in his tone. "She could very well be one spell away from being so addicted, that she won't stop casting until she kills herself, likely taking half of Sunnydale with her."

"It could get that bad?" Buffy asked. "I mean... this is Willow. Responsible. Level-headed. Smart."

"Yes, it's Willow," Giles snapped. "And Willow has a problem. One spell could be all it takes to... to send her down a spiral of destruction."

"Good," Giles said, turning back to the prophecy in his lap. "I'm glad we've got that settled."

"Anything you need me to look at?" Buffy asked, pushing the top book on the stack with her forefinger, seeing how far she could move it without toppling it over the edge.

"What? Oh, yes," Giles said, grabbing a book seemingly at random from the pile. "Read that one."

"Gotcha," Buffy said, taking a fortifying breath and diving into the world of research.

They read in silence, only the occasional sound of a turning page interrupting the tableau.

"Where is Willow, anyway?" Buffy finally asked, looking around the room. "She go back upstairs to be with her honey?"

"She did what?" Buffy asked incredulously. "She... how could you let her go for a walk with that Construct thing after her?"

"Buffy," Giles said patiently, looking up at the Slayer. "I cannot even begin to imagine the things going on in Willow's mind and heart right now. She said she needed some air, and she needed to be alone, and I respect her wishes. She also promised to be extra-careful times ten," he added wryly. "I didn't like it, either, but... she's an adult and has to make her own decisions. I certainly have no authority over her. Now get back to your reading, and leave Willow alone. She needs this time."

"Fine," Buffy said, sitting back with a huff. "But don't come crying to me when the Construct walks up with a ransom note from The Trickster saying, 'Give Me the World, or the Redhead Gets It'."

"Most definitely," Giles agreed, turning back to his book, immediately frowning as he attempted to puzzle out the meaning.

Buffy subsided, going back to her book, reading about the Hell God Triumvirate as Giles continued to unravel the ravings of a madman.

"Hey," Tara said later, wandering into the room, her eyes on the floor and her arms full of books. "I... I have some, umm... things. These books are... pretty old."

"Well, let's see what you have," Giles said, closing his book and putting it on the table, rubbing his tired eyes and trying to stop the frustration flowing through him. He felt like he was getting nowhere fast, the scraps of text having multiple meanings without the full context.

"Here," Tara said simply, unloading the pile of books into Giles' arms as he stood. He cradled the books carefully, sifting through the stack. Most had no titles, just a plain leather binding, and a feeling of oldness to them.

"Did you read through any of these?" he asked curiously, opening the first book.

"No, I... I just found them. There were some little compartments in the trunk, like where I found a crystal when I was a little girl? They were kind of hard to open. Where's Willow?" she asked, looking up and immediately noting Willow's absence.

"This is... this seems to be a spell book of some sort, but it's... there's some writing here at the front that seems newer," Giles said, flipping a few pages and comparing how faded the ink was towards the beginning compared to later in the text. "That's odd. Usually newer writing would be in the back," he continued, frowning a little.

"Oh, she went for a walk," Giles said absently, sitting back down and placing the stack of books on the table. "She's... hmm," he said, losing his train of thought as he fell into his research.

"Hey – I was in the kitchen making cocoa," Buffy said defensively, holding up her hands in a placating gesture. "If you want to yell at someone, look at Mr. You-Can-Call-Me-Books."

"Giles?" Tara said again, concern welling up inside of her. Willow could be... anywhere. Or she could be hurt. Or she could get attacked. She could be in the process of being attacked right at that very moment. Concern gave way to panic. "Giles? How long has she been gone?"

"Hmm? What?" Giles said, looking up from his book. "Oh, Willow. About... and hour or so. I suppose she'll be back any minute."

"She's been gone a whole hour?" Tara said, heading towards the door, her agitation clear in her movements. "Anything could have happened in an hour."

"I forgot to mention the Wrath of Tara in my reasons why letting Willow go on a walk was a bad idea," Buffy told Giles seriously. "I'll help you look," Buffy said, jumping to her feet and heading towards the door.

"I don't think that's necessary," Giles objected. "And Willow specifically said she wanted to be alone."

"Willow doesn't get to be alone right now," Tara said heatedly. "Or if she wants to be alone, she gets to do it in a room by herself in the house that has the Slayer in it. She does not get to go waltzing out the door like there isn't a Hell God after her."

"Hi guys," Willow said with a smile, waltzing in the door like there wasn't a Hell God after her. "I just -"

"Where the hell have you been?" Tara demanded, grabbing Willow around the waist and pulling her close, making it impossible for Willow to answer when her lips were greeted by Tara's in a fiery kiss.

"I guess I won't help you look," Buffy said, spinning on her heel and walking back into the living room.

Willow gasped in surprise at Tara's rather... uncharacteristic greeting. Not that Tara never kissed her like this... no, she had very fond memories of similar smoochies, but certainly not with Buffy standing there and Giles in the next room. Of course, Buffy had just left, and Willow found herself pinned against the front door and unable to consider the matter further as her brain stopped functioning and all she could do was hang on to Tara as she was kissed thoroughly.

"Wha -?" Willow managed to utter, blinking slowly when Tara slowly broke away from the kiss.

"Don't you ever do that again," Tara said sternly, looking into Willow's eyes, her fear draining away as she let her head drop down against Willow's shoulder and felt her warm and alive body pressed close.

"I, uhhh," Willow said, her hand drifting up to rest gently on the back of Tara's head, holding her gently. "I think that was extremely bad negative reinforcement. Not that I'm complaining – no nothing of the complainty variety here."

Tara let out a weak laugh, then lifted her head and regarded Willow seriously. "I was extremely worried when I came downstairs and found out you were walking all by yourself."

"I'm perfectly capable of taking a walk," Willow protested, torn between feeling insulted that Tara seemed to think she needed a keeper and warmed that by her concern. Warmed won out, and Willow's expression softened. "I'm sorry I worried you, Baby," she said, kissing Tara lightly. "And, umm... could we kinda' ...move? The doorknob is digging into my back."

"Oh, Honey," Tara said immediately, backing off and giving Willow room to step away from the door. Willow immediately stepped back into her arms, holding her. "Did I hurt you?" Tara asked worriedly.

"I'm fine," Willow said with a happy little sigh, snuggling up against Tara. "But my back is kinda'... owie."

"Where? Here?" Tara asked, her hand finding what she thought would be a close approximation of where the doorknob would have hit Willow's back and rubbing gently.

"Honey... that's not your back," Tara protested with a laugh, even as her hand squeezed the firm flesh.

"It's not?" Willow asked innocently, lifting her head and looking at Tara with wide eyes.

"All right, you two," Buffy called from the other room. "We can hear every word you're saying, and I do not need these visuals. We get it. You're both minxes. No need to demonstrate further."

"Sorry," Willow called contritely, even as Tara started laughing, a light blush covering her features.

"I... I'll tell you about it upstairs," Willow said, tugging on Tara's hand and moving her towards the stairway.

"I don't think there's anything in the Mrmmmfr report about The Trickster," Buffy called out again.

"Buffy," Willow said, managing to mix both innocence and exasperation into her tone. "I just have some things to tell Tara."

"Fine. Abandon the Slayer to the books and go have your snugglies," Buffy pouted, picking up another book and sighing.

"Definitely no snugglies," Willow said, poking her head into the room and nodding. "Just talking. Of the non-spicy variety," she said emphatically, then started up the stairs.

"No snugglies? None at all?" Tara asked in a whisper, following Willow and getting her mouth right next to her ear.

"Maybe a few," Willow whispered back, a smug smile crossing her face as she pushed open their bedroom door. "What the Watcher doesn't know, won't hurt him."

"Cool," Tara said, the single word bringing a smile to Willow's face, as any use of slang by this woman did. There was just something... endearing about the way Tara said some words.

"I went to my mom's," Willow said without preamble when Tara shut the door, moving to the bed and sitting down, bouncing a little when she landed.

"Really?" Tara asked, then realized that it made perfect sense. Of course Willow would want to go see her mother. "And? How was it?" she went on warily, hoping that the visit had somehow managed to be a good one.

"Y'know," Willow said thoughtfully as Tara sat down next to her, taking her hand. She fell back onto the bed, letting her breath leave his in a whoosh of air. "It's like my whole childhood now makes sense," she went on in a wondering tone as Tara also fell back, entwining their fingers together. "Y'know, in a sort of 60's hippie what-the-hell-kind-of-child-rearing-philosophy-is-THAT kind of way," she said, turning her head and looking at Tara.

"Yeah?" Tara said, a slow smile spreading across her face. "So it was a good visit?"

"It was. Really good. It's like... I kinda of... I get it now," Willow went on. "I finally understand that... she's just a person. A woman. Becoming a mom didn't make her some kind of super-person who always knew the right thing to do. She just muddled on as best she could, just like the rest of us."

"That's a pretty big discovery," Tara said with a nod, rolling over and resting her head on Willow's shoulder, putting her leg across Willow's and her hand lightly on Willow's chest, resting above her heart.

"Yeah," Willow said, nodding. "And I don't know if she's changed, or if I have. Probably me. But I – I know why she did things the way she did. And I know that she... she and Dad are proud of me."

"How could they not be?" Tara said. "You're Willow," she remarked, as if the fact of being Willow should be a source of pride to anyone who came in contact with the young woman.

"Yeah, I am," Willow said, a small smile crossing her face. "I... I've spent so much time trying to figure out what that really meant, y'know? It's like... there's this person that I am, and this person that I'm supposed to be, and I... I couldn't make them match up."

"And?" Tara prompted, enjoying the closeness and the sound of Willow's voice, and the way her breath played against her hair.

"Talking with my mom helped me to figure it out. I've always tried to live up to their expectations – doing well in school, being responsible. But today I found out that the only expectation they ever really had was that I go my own way. That I be me," Willow said.

"So they don't care if you drop out of college or join a cult or dye your hair green?" Tara asked with a smirk, knowing Willow would never do any of those things.

"They'd probably be okay with the college thing, because I could get a job tomorrow. The cult thing would throw them a little, what with the Jewish thing. And dye my hair green?" Willow wondered aloud. "How 'Anne of Green Gables' would that be? 'But the peddler man told me it would dye my hair a beautiful raven black'," Willow said grandly.

"You've read those books?" Tara asked, lifting her head to look at Willow. Willow merely raised an eyebrow at her. "Sorry, silly question," Tara conceded with a roll of her eyes. "You've read everything."

"I wanted to be Anne of Green Gables so bad when I was little," Willow said with a chuckle.

"You are Anne of Green Gable," Tara said dryly, letting her head back down to rest on Willow's shoulder. "Y'know, it took me years to figure out why the part where Diana married Fred pissed me off. Like she was cheating on Anne or something," Tara said with a giggle.

"That always pissed me off, too," Willow said with a puzzled frown. "Will you be my 'bosom friend'?" she added wickedly, waggling her eyebrows even though Tara couldn't see.

"I better be your only bosom friend," Tara responded, letting her hand trail down to cup Willow's breast.

"Definitely my only bosom friend," Willow said with a nod and a smile, arching into Tara's touch. "My mom wants to meet you," she mumbled with heavy-lidded eyes.

"What?" Tara squeaked, pushing herself up to look down at Willow, pressing down on her breast.

"Oh, sorry," Tara said moving her hand quickly off of Willow's chest and onto the bed. "You okay? That kind of... surprised me."

"Awww, honey, I'm really sorry," Tara apologized, her brow furrowed. "Want me to kiss it and make it better?"

"Yes, please," Willow said immediately, moving her hand out of the way. Tara dipped her head, letting her lips drift all over Willow's breast through the fabric of her shirt, slowly covering every inch. With a final kiss, she lifted her head again, looking into Willow's eyes and seeing love and desire there.

"Now what was this about your mom?" Tara asked, gulping audibly and trying to keep in mind that Giles and Buffy were right downstairs.

"She wants to meet you. She invited us to have dinner over there sometime," Willow said slowly, taking a deep breath and trying to compose herself.

"MmmHmm," Willow confirmed, raising her hand up to lazily brush her fingers against Tara's cheek.

"I thought... you were waiting for the right time?" Tara said, processing the idea that Willow had actually told her parents about her.

"It was the right time," Willow said firmly. "In fact, it was long overdue. You're the most important person in my life, and I'd like them to know you."

"I... then I guess we're going to dinner," Tara said faintly. "What... I mean... what should I wear? Or say?"

"Wear whatever you're comfortable in, and say whatever pops into your head," Willow said with a smile. "And don't you dare be nervous. They're going to love you."

"I... I'd settle for them just liking me," Tara said, a quirky smile drifting across her lips. "And they were okay with it? I mean... the whole gay thing?"

"Well, Dad wasn't there, but Mom was fine," Willow said. "She pretty much said that I needed to find my own way. That I had to be me. And being me means loving you."

A delighted smile crossed Tara's face, her eyes lighting up with love for Willow Rosenberg.

"It... you," Willow said, composing her thoughts. "The way you look at me sometimes... I mean, you look at me all the time, which I know, 'cuz I'm looking at you too, but sometimes it's... I can see in your eyes just how much you love me, and I... I can't breathe. Like, no matter what I've done or will do sometime in the future, I'll never be worth that, 'cuz – hello? What good could anyone possibly do that would be worth that? 'Cuz it's like the big life prize. It's like, I'm the winner at the Game of Life because you love me, and I... I don't understand... how, or why... I'm just... really grateful. Like big-time grateful. Like 'hey – look at me... counting my lucky stars – and hey – there's like, millions of them up there, and I haven't even made a dent in how many there are.'"

"You say the sweetest things," Tara said with a laugh, her eyes twinkling and her features softening into a look of total adoration. "But you do deserve -"

"There it is again!" Willow said. "It's the 'I Love Willow' look, and it's... wow. It's like somebody... you... have your hand around my heart and you're just holding it gently and keeping it all safe-like, and I know there will never be a place that safe for it, and I wonder how I lucked out and got it? Because there has to be, like, billions of people on this planet who would want it and -"

"Sweetie," Tara said with a quirky grin. "There are only six billion people on the planet."

"Exactly my point! And they all would wanna' be me, if they could just see the way you look at me," Willow said with a helpless little smile, as Tara's quirky grin broadened to the point where it could only be called 'goofy'. "And I'm not even that lovable," Willow went on. "I mean, I have to be somewhat lovable, or you wouldn't, y'know? But it's like nobody is that lovable. Except you... because you're that lovable and more, and I just -"

"As much as I'm enjoying the random Tara Worship," Tara said, an embarrassed flush crawling up her neck as she pressed a finger to Willow's lips to silence her. "I feel like I have to butt in here and point out that you're the most lovable person I know... or could ever know. There's nobody like you, and I wouldn't want anyone else."

"Do... do you really think you... I mean, that – that you don't... deserve me?" Tara asked seriously.

"Well, I... I don't think anybody is good enough to deserve you," Willow answered in kind.

"I'm just a person, Willow," Tara said slowly, covering Willow's mouth again when she opened it to protest. "I have flaws, and I make mistakes. Bad qualities. Lots of those," she pressed on. "I... I always thought that... that it was me who didn't deserve you. "I mean... you're so smart and pretty, and you're this courageous Cool Monster Fighter, and you're funny and sweet... and I was this shy frumpy nobody with a bad stutter and no friends. I just... I can't imagine what you saw in me."

"I'm just the one who got the chance to see what was always there," Willow said gently, kissing Tara's finger again.

"You're the only one who wanted to try," Tara whispered. "Being chased down by Silent Grinning Demonic Surgeons was the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Ahh, romance on the Hellmouth," Willow said with a giggle, earning a smile from Tara. And it felt like that – like every smile bestowed upon her by this woman was something to strive for. To earn. To be rewarded with. "But still – I'm just... I'm lucky no one saw. I'm lucky that you didn't find someone else first."

"Well... somebody. A hypothetical somebody who's smarter and cuter than me... and maybe... has a nice car. A house. A job," Willow listed.

"If there were a hypothetical somebody, I still would have searched for you. I've been looking for you as long as I can remember," Tara said, her eyes twinkling, knowing that Willow couldn't argue with that.

"Oh, yeah," Willow said with a soft smile. "Drawings and slumber parties." The thought ran around in her mind for a moment. "You really would have looked for me? Even with the perfect hypothetical somebody around?"

"If they weren't you, then they weren't perfect," Tara said, kissing Willow on the nose. "And yeah," she added seriously. "I really would have looked for you."

"Do you think... I mean... is Giles right? That kind of 'past lives' thing?" Willow asked skeptically.

"Yeah, because y'know, 'past lives' are so much less believable than demons and spells," Tara said dryly, a fond yet exasperated look crossing her face.

"Well, it's just that... if the whole 'past life' thing kind of pans out, it's like fated. For us to meet and all," Willow said, trying to explain. "And that's kinda..." she trailed off, a puzzled look crossing her face.

"Oh, no," Willow said hurriedly, seeing the expression on Tara's face. "Not that it's a bad thing. 'Cuz it's a good thing. Lucky thing. Lucky star-counting winner at The Game of Life Willow here, who is definitely not thinking it's a bad thing."

"Well, it's like, what if it is Fated? And you and me are all pre-destinedy and so there's like, no choice," Willow said, her brow furrowing as her mind raced along all the various implications of the idea. "So, what if we got together because of some cosmic plan, and not because we wanted to?"

"But we do," Tara said, still not seeing the problem. Was there a problem? "I mean... at least – I do," she added uncertainly.

"Me too!" Willow blurted out. "Don't think I don't, 'cuz I do, and I've never this much, and I don't think I ever could... y'know, with someone else or anything. I just... my brain is going, and you know how I get. Because if this was Fated, what else is? Like... maybe I was always just 'Fated' to get A's on everything, and maybe every paper I ever wrote was total crap, and the teacher's just kinda'... 'oh, Willow Rosenberg, she gets an A and I don't have to read it, but I just can't seem to figure out why'. Because there weren't ever any marks on them, except that one time in third grade when the teacher underlined one of my sentences and said I ended a sentence with a preposition. But it was only that one time! So what if they didn't read them, and they just kinda' stuck and A on it, and I've been academically inferior this whole time, skating by on Fate instead of brainy-type things?"

"Oh, Willow," Tara said, letting her forehead fall against Willow's shoulder, her whole body shaking with laughter. It was a strange sensation. There was something about the twists and turns that Willow mind made that... aroused her, really, if she were honest with herself. And when Willow's brain was doing its thing, she inevitably babbled, which made her heart smile. That strange combination of joy and desire stole over her, and she couldn't help the laughter that escaped her. "You're absolutely right. The idea that we were destined to meet and fall in love logically proves that you're an academic fraud," she added with mock seriousness, looking solemnly into Willow's face.

"Well, I don't think it's funny," Willow said in a huff, a pout firmly in place.

"Oh, Baby, I'm not laughing at you," Tara said, hurting her case by continuing to chuckle.

"Yes, it is possible," Tara agreed with a nod. "And you're just the only person on the face of the earth who would have thought of it. I love the way your mind works," she went on tenderly, tracing Willow's brow reverently. It was both a blessing and a curse, she had long since realized, having a mind like Willow's. She could see possibilities and angles that no one else would consider, and made connections out of thin air that, when explained, made perfect sense. "You amaze me."

"No, you're just... your brain is always moving. It's... really cute," Tara said with a smile.

"And sexy," Tara said, dipping her head and kissing Willow slowly. "Do you have any idea what just watching you read does to me?" she asked after a long moment.

"Umm... no?" Willow offered tentatively, her voice cracking like a teenaged boy's when Tara shifted her weight, lying more fully on top of her.

"Mmm," Tara murmured, lightly brushing her lips around the curve of Willow's jaw, following it up to a tasty ear. Once there, she couldn't help but nip lightly at the tempting lobe, then trace it with her tongue, earning a little sigh from Willow. "When you get that concentrating look," Tara confessed on a whisper, pausing to continue her attentions. "After the first five minutes, I find myself wondering how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Willow pop," she said wickedly, fastening her lips to that spot just below and behind Willow ear that she loved so much, sucking on it gently.

"Just trying a little spicy talk," Tara giggled, going back to her task and slipping her leg between Willow's, pressing lightly against the juncture of her thighs.

"Ummm... not that I don't like that," Willow said, her eyes drifting shut again. "'Cuz I do. You know I do," she added, her voice lowering. "But umm... Giles and Buffy are downstairs."

"Then you'll have to be quiet," Tara said, trailing her lips down Willow's neck and sneaking a hand under her shirt.

"Umm... honey?" Willow said, arching into the touch, Tara's warm fingers blazing across her skin. "I, uhh... God," she said, her brain skipping like an old record when Tara's hand cupped her breast. "Where was I?" she squeaked.

"You were just about to let me strip you naked and do naughty things to you with my tongue," Tara murmured against Willow's neck, her fingers slipping around the edges of Willow's bra and finding a tight nipple, stroking it lightly.

Willow groaned softly, at both the warm wetness settling between her legs and the knowledge that they certainly couldn't continue what they were doing. "Giles," Willow murmured.

"Honey," Tara said, raising her head and smirking. "I know you had a crush on him in high school and all, but now is not the time."

"I mean Giles... he's downstairs," Willow said piteously, her eyes begging Tara to stop and begging her to continue.

"Yes. No," Willow said, her brow furrowing and her breath catching as the natural rise of her chest brushed her nipple against Tara's fingers. "Yes. But no. I don't know?"

"We really don't have time, do we?" Tara asked sadly, a pout forming on her lips.

"Mmm...so we get to do the responsible thing and go back downstairs?" Tara asked, her pout melting into a rueful smile.

"Yeah, 'cuz, they're kind of expecting us. And they're right downstairs," Willow said.

"And I want hours and hours," Tara said firmly, nodding her head and placing a light kiss on Willow's lips.

"Hours are good," Willow agreed, nodding as Tara removed her hand from its happy place and sat up, pulling Willow into a sitting position. "Hours are very good. Tonight?"

"I'm here," Anya announced, entering the Summers house with a few hefty tomes under her arm. "I have closed the shop and have made myself available for research."

"I... you closed the shop?" Buffy asked, blinking at Anya owlishly as the words from the page of the book she had been reading swam before her eyes.

"And why did you close the shop?" Giles asked, removing his glasses and blinking his tired eyes.

"I sold enough merchandise to make up for any losses I might sustain by my early closure. And, in fact, each day that I'm open this week is pure profit, because I was planning on being out on the road with Tara longer," Anya said earnestly. "Besides. I might have found something."

"What did you find?" Giles asked, putting his glasses back on hurriedly and reaching for the books in Anya's hands. Anya handed them over with an excited little bounce.

"I mean, it's not really good news," Anya said seriously. "But I found it. I did the research thing in between customers instead of counting the money again, and I found it."

"What, exactly, did you find?" Giles asked, opening the first book and turning to the helpfully marked page.

"Please tell me it's something about Tara's ancestor – that Betrayer chick, so I don't have to read this whole thing?" Buffy said piteously, flipping through the book in her lap.

"Yes," Giles confirmed. "It would appear that Tara had an ancestor in the same place and time as Willow's and the defeat of The Trickster," he explained.

"Did someone say our names?" Willow asked, entering the room, fingers entwined with Tara's.

Anya looked over at Tara knowingly, mouthing the words 'Fate Was Here' and pointing at her ass.

"What was that?" Willow asked Tara in an undertone, casting a suspicious look at Anya.

"So what did you find?" Giles asked again, frowning at the page. "Oh, yes, I see," he mumbled, reading the words carefully.

"So what's that?" Willow asked, moving to stand behind Giles and looking over his shoulder, smiling when she felt Tara stay next to her, their shoulders brushing.

"Hmm? What?" he said distractedly, then looked up at Willow. "It seems to be a prophecy of some kind," he mused.

"Oh, no," Anya corrected him instantly. "It's an accounting. It's already happened."

"The tipping of the scales in Hell," Anya explained. "That passage tells about how Glory came to earth and what that did to Hell."

"It threw it all out of whack," Anya said. "It made the whole thing unbalanced, because without The Beast to act as a counterweight to The Trickster, The Scales is all lopsided."

"Then why did they boot her out?" Buffy asked. "I mean, I kinda' get it. I certainly woulda' booted her out of anywhere I was. But if the unbalancey thing is bad, why?"

"From what I can tell, it's all part of The Trickster's master plan," Anya started to explain.

"She's right," Giles said slowly, quickly re-reading the passage. "It would seem that The Trickster somehow managed to deceive The Scales and make it believe that Hell could remain in balance without Glory. With their combined powers, they cast her out of Hell, but The Scales was worried about the balance here on earth with a force such as Glory around, and so it combined her with a human – Ben – to sort of... even the scales," Giles finished weakly.

"That bastard," Willow ground out. As Giles had explained, Willow felt a deep-seated anger take hold of her. The Trickster had done all of this? . Tara's insanity was his fault. Glory trying to kill Dawn was his fault. Buffy's death – his fault as well. Her own magick addiction. How many people had Glory killed outright because The Trickster had her tossed out of Hell? How much suffering had he caused?

"Hey, honey?" Tara said gently, squeezing Willow's hand when she felt the body next to her start to shake.

"I just... I hate him," Willow said on a hoarse whisper, her body shaking as she shut her eyes and swallowed hard, trying to fight the bile rising up. "He... I. Hate. Him."

"Baby, no," Tara said, turning to Willow and hugging her close with one arm, her other hand still holding tight to Willow's. "Don't give in to that," she whispered into Willow's ear, rubbing her back gently. "The whole Glory thing is behind us," she soothed, pushing down her own dark remembrances of that time.

"I'm sorry, but I'm with Willow on this one," Buffy said, her voice a growl. "Pretty much hating him. Can I kill him?" she asked, looking over at Giles.

"He's... a very bad man," Anya said emphatically. "And he's extremely smart, so we need to be thinking straight. Or, thinking 'clearly' if you're gay. Because that would preclude the whole 'straight' thing. My point is, he's obviously been planning this whole thing for a very long time."

"W-what does Glory have to do with his plans?" Tara asked slowly, turning her eyes to Anya.

"Don't you see? He was planning on Glory being a one-way trip. That she would throw Hell out of balance, and that The Scales would eventually try to kick him out of Hell, too, so the balance would be restored," Anya explained.

"Well, yes and no," Anya said. "I mean, definitely yes, because... well, we like having you around. Xander and Tara would be very depressed without you, and I wouldn't get orgasms or girl-talk for months."

"You're welcome," Anya said politely before continuing. "But the bad part is, that an unbalanced Hell is bad."

"How bad is 'bad'?" Buffy piped in. "Like, 'shoes not matching purse' bad, or 'buckle up for the Apocalypse' bad?"

"I'm afraid it's rather bad," Giles said, looking back at the book. "It's... Hell has to be balanced, or it throws the whole universe out of balance."

"It's like... The Scales balances The Trickster and The Beast, the way that the earth balances what we would call 'Heaven' and 'Hell'," Tara said slowly, clearly understanding the concept and trying to articulate what she saw in her mind. "It's like two sets of scales balanced on another set of scales. Only, the two mini-scales can completely throw off the big scale."

"Cosmic light and order. Cosmic dark and chaos," Willow murmured, letting go of Tara's hand and practically running to the couch, turning her laptop towards her and running her hands lightly over the keys before striking a series in rapid succession, her brow furrowing.

"What is it, Baby?" Tara asked softly, moving to sit next to Willow. Willow scooted closer when Tara sat, so that they remained in contact from their shoulders to their knees, and Tara smiled softly, a blush crawling up her neck at the subconscious gesture. Willow's eyes remained on the screen, as if she were only aware of Tara's presence on the physical level, instinctive and instant.

"It's, umm..." Willow said distractedly, frowning as she clicked through several screens. "Something I read. A cosmological treatise."

"Oh. Rachel Jones?" Giles asked, looking over at Willow. "Her paper on the balance of good and evil forces?"

"Right," Willow affirmed with a nod. "Only she postulates that good and evil are merely one duality in a whole slew of cosmic dualities. Like... Order and Chaos. Light and Dark. Male and Female. Love and Hate. It's... I ran across it awhile back," she continued absently, still searching for the file.

"It's an extremely interesting piece," Giles said defensively on Willow's behalf. "Dr. Jones is one of the premiere minds in cosmological studies."

"Dr. Jones?" Buffy asked with a smirk. "Does she have a hat and a whip and a gun?"

"And that strange boy who follows her around proclaiming that she doesn't have time for orgasms?" Anya added.

"So she does have time for orgasms," Anya concluded. "That's good. I know I'm much happier when I've had -"

"Well, maybe not directly," Willow affirmed. "But it does go over some of the consequences of things being out of balance. And they give out PhD's in cosmology?" she asked as an afterthought, looking over at Giles.

"Well, the Watcher's Council does run a mystical university of sorts," Giles confessed. "It's just... not very applicable to anything outside being a member of the council."

"And I'm just now hearing about it?" Willow wondered aloud. Not that she would have gone. No, she would have stayed in Sunnydale. But for Giles not to mention it? Did he think she was a fraud? An academic fraud fated to get A's? "It's a school! With learning! Scooby-type learning!"

"Except for a few notable exceptions, you already know more than the instructors at that school," Giles said gently, a small smile crossing his usually stoic features. "And while you would be an asset to the Council, they don't deserve you," he added frankly.

"See? No academic fraud," Tara whispered in her ear, having read exactly what Willow was thinking on her expressive face and earning a happy sidelong glance with a bonus smile. "My little Willow Pop," she added, unable to help herself. Willow had that 'study' look, and some decidedly non-studious thoughts were racing their way across Tara's brain.

"You're thinking that now?" Willow asked in an undertone, looking over at Tara with wide eyes, praying that Buffy's slayer hearing wasn't picking up the exchange.

"Oh, yes," Tara confirmed with a happy little nod and a decidedly naughty twinkle in her eye. Willow's eyes were drawn to the movement as Tara's teeth worried her lower lip, and a little self-conscious half-smile crossed her face.

"I know you two want to go have sex now, but we're all waiting to find out what happens when the cosmic scales are out of whack," Anya protested. While she certainly approved of quality orgasm-time, she didn't like it when people kept her waiting. Even if those people were her friends. Besides, Xander wouldn't be there for hours, and if Willow and Tara were going to have an orgasm break, she wanted one, too.

"We were talking about studying," Willow protested half-heartedly, skimming through the paper, her attention divided between the words on the screen, Anya's comments, and Tara's silently supportive form sitting next to her. And Tara's hands. And Tara's body, so close to her own. And Tara's...

Shaking herself out of her Tara-full reverie, Willow tuned out the conversation buzzing around her, reading over the paper and gleaning from it all the useful facts and speculations she could find.

"So this means I have to read this whole thing, huh?" Buffy asked dejectedly, looking over the ancient book.

"Fine," she said with a huff, curling up to read the section Giles had said was the newest, even though it was at the front.

"I think... I think I have this all figured out," Willow said carefully, quickly scrolling through the document and going over the salient points again.

"Well, it's like... everything is in balance, right? But good and evil are made up of all these other dualities. Light and Dark. Order and Chaos. Love and Hate. None of those are good or evil in and of themselves," Willow explained.

"'Nothing is either good or evil, but thinking makes it so,'" Giles quoted softly. "Hate isn't evil, when it is truly righteous. Hating injustice. Intolerance. Evil itself. How can hating those things be evil?"

"Right," Willow said with a nod. "And evil loves pain and anger... that kind of thing," Willow illustrated. "So good and evil need to be in balance, each having an equal amount of those dualities within them."

"That's what the paper isn't clear on," Willow admitted sheepishly. "The author theorizes that a lack of balance throws the cosmos into whatever extreme is doing the throwing." Willow frowned. "Did that make sense, or am I all non-sensey?"

"No, that made sense," Tara assured her. "It's just kinda'... didn't answer the question."

"Sorry," Willow said with a helpless shrug. "It's like... The Trickster is order, right? So if Hell is out of balance because Glory is gone, the order side of evil is stronger. Because it's stronger, it basically wins out against a balanced 'heaven'. Which means that your kind of a fascist martial-law type things gain power here on earth."

"Not exactly," Giles answered. "We had concluded that The Trickster coming to earth – passing through the Hellmouth – would have that effect. However, it appears as though that is the inevitable conclusion whether he makes it out of Hell or not."

"It speeds up his timeline," Anya said wisely. "And it gives him a stepping stone to take over the heavens, if he wants to. He could basically end up ruling the entire cosmos. And this would be very, very bad."

"So he wins at least a partial victory no matter what," Giles said slowly, his face paling. "Because Glory is... gone."

"But if that skank bitch were still here, we'd all be dead by now," Buffy said, looking up from her book. "And can I say this is just weird? Tara, does your family have a history of smoking bad monkey crack?"

"One of your ancestors was on some kind of bad acid trip here," Buffy explained.

"Still not getting anything here," Willow piped in, her own questioning look on her face.

"This beginning part is this whole huge kinda' diary like thing for stuff that never happened," Buffy said with a pout. "Like she had some weird dream thing, and wrote it all down."

"I... we kinda'... we see things, in our dreams," Tara said hesitantly. "All the women in my family. Well, all of them on my mom's side."

"It talks about her life after her mom got burned at the stake and her dad died. It says she got sent away to an orphanage, then moved west and made a life in Oregon, raising her children to be good little Wiccans," Buffy explained.

"My family isn't from Oregon," Tara said with a frown. "None of us have ever lived there."

"Yeah. Then the last bit talks about how none of the rest of it ever happened, and that she hid away all the family secrets in a trunk, until the day the 'one who needed them' came and opened it up," Buffy said.

"Buffy, just spit it out," Tara said, her eyes growing wide as she realized where Anya was going with this line of question.

"He got gutted," Buffy admitted. "There's a pretty detailed description in here."

"Yeah, that's the word she used," Buffy said with a nod, and a sick look on her face. She certainly shouldn't have a problem with gory deaths, what with being the Slayer and all, but vampires just went 'poof' and all the other demons she killed she tended to do without blood. The description of the evisceration had really been... kinda' squicky.

"She saw. She saw what her life would have been with the wish," Tara said slowly.

"What wish?" Willow asked, taking her girlfriend's hand and giving it a little squeeze.

"Anya granted a wish to an ancestor of mine," Tara said. "She wished... I mean, she was being burned... at the stake," she related haltingly.

"She wished her husband couldn't hurt her daughter anymore, so I killed him," Anya said, cutting to the chase.

"Good," Willow said with a tight-lipped smile. "He... he did what... what your dad did, right?"

Tara nodded her confirmation, glancing down at the floor, her hair falling into her face.

"Hey, sweetie," Willow whispered, hugging her girl and putting her mouth by her ear. "None of that can hurt you anymore."

"If... I mean, she saw. She saw what would have happened, and she was happy. She lived her life without being the MaClay Demon. Her... her children would have been... happy. I – I w-would have been happy," Tara managed to get out.

"Except my talisman was destroyed," Anya said, glaring at Giles, even though this Giles had had nothing to do with it, and, in fact, Anya was pretty happy herself with the whole being human thing. It was a force of habit to be angry about losing her talisman more than anything else.

"Oh, honey," Willow said, her eyes full of sadness as she looked at her girlfriend.

"And Willow and Xander would be vampires, and Giles and I would probably be dead," Buffy said. "And Anya would still be a demon, Dawn would never have existed, and the world would have ended in a million horrible ways."

"I know," Tara said quickly. "And I wouldn't want that other world... even if... I mean, the way I grew up... it was... it's worth it. It's worth having you all here."

"No one would have ever thought you'd feel differently," Buffy said gently. "I'm just pointing it out, in case anyone forgot."

"Like anyone could forget Big Ol' Skank Vampy Me," Willow said bitterly, scowling. Tara stifled a chuckle at the expression on Willow's face. She looked like a three-year-old who had been told 'no' one too many times.

"You look so cute like that," Tara whispered in her ear, earning a giggle from Willow.

"Hey – no private spicy talk," Buffy complained good-naturedly, mock-glaring at the two women.

"I guess Tara's getting better at the spicy talk," Buffy said to no one in particular.

"No. Well, yes, but that's not what I'm... I mean," Willow stammered. "I... I figured something out. I mean... it kind of... came to me. It's... The Trickster can use me because I'm human. I have a soul. I'm all soul-y. I'm soul-girl. And that soul is the same one that stopped him last time. Vampire Skanky Leathery Cleavagey Slutbomb Me wasn't... I mean – no soul. No kids."

"The Trickster let the other Giles break Anya's talisman," Tara said in a wondering tone, realizing what Willow's ramble meant.

"Anya said that the other you didn't do anything special to break her thingy," Willow said.

"Ummm... yeah," Willow said slowly, looking at Anya funny before continuing. "So, the... the thing got broken, but you can't just get all smashy with it... you have to do spells, or use something special to do the smashy goodness, so it... It shouldn't have worked. But it did work, because we're here now, and Anya isn't a demon. So, The Trickster must have done something."

"He couldn't have used a Vampire Willow for his plans. He needed human Willow. Or he needed Willow to have daughters, and for Willow's soul to be reborn back into her line," Tara finished up.

"They're finishing each other's explanations," Buffy said to the room at large again, a small smile crossing her face. "That's so cute."

"That's... extraordinary," Giles said slowly. "He must have put a great deal of planning into this whole thing. We've unwittingly fallen in line with his plan several times, and probably countless others that we'll never figure out," he mused, wondering for the first time if he had done the right thing killing Glory. He had not doubted his actions before, though he had sincerely regretted the necessity of killing Ben as well, secure in the knowledge that Glory had been a clear and immediate threat to everyone he loved, as well as the world at large. Still, had he opened the way for something worse? Or did The Trickster have countless contingency plans for every action they could possibly take?

"It's like... it's like he knows what we're going to do before we do it," Tara said with a frown.

"Temporal singularities," Willow said softly, a twinkle in her eye despite the seriousness of the situation.

"What?" Tara said carefully, guessing that a wildly technical explanation was soon to follow.

"Oh, it's... it's this really new theory. I looked up all kinds of alternative universe theories after that whole thing with Big Skank Me. And it's kind of... well, it's all weird and stuff, but it's interesting," Willow said earnestly.

"I like this stuff," Willow defended, tossing a throw pillow at the Slayer and pouting when she neatly knocked it out of the air and to the floor.

"But what does it have to do with The Trickster?" Giles asked slowly, knowing deep in his gut he was going to regret the question.

"Well, it's this theory that's based on fractal mapping and chaos theory," Willow started to explain, earning groans and rolled eyes around the room. "No, no," Willow said quickly. "It's really really interesting."

"I want to hear about it," Tara encouraged, smiling lazily at Willow. She loved the way Willow got excited about new scientific discoveries – It was almost as good as watching her read.

"It's basically like... there's an infinite number of possible realities. Like, when I wake up tomorrow, I could go out for bagels, or everyone in Sunnydale could. But maybe we don't," Willow began to explain.

"Oh, well... that clears everything up," Giles said dryly. "A Sunnydale bagel shortage. That makes perfect sense."

"Right. Bagel-y goodness. So, there are all these different possible realities made up of everyone's choices. But in some cases, once a series of choices are made, there's only one inevitable outcome, regardless of what choices are made afterwards," Willow went on.

"Well," Willow said slowly. "Assuming Buffy and Angel and Miss Calendar and I were all met while Buffy and I were still in high school, me casting the soul restoration spell could have been a singularity," Willow offered up.

"But lots of things could have prevented that," Buffy said with a frown. "I mean... Angel and I could have not ended up in bed together."

"Right. Now, when Angel lost his soul could have changed, but not the fact that he did, and that my reaction would be to try to cast that spell," Willow said. "Because there was no way I was going to not try."

"So you're saying that The Trickster isn't predicting events... he's arranging them?" Tara asked slowly.

"Exactly," Willow said, beaming at Tara, making Tara smile back automatically. "Well, according to this theory. It's certainly not set in stone."

"It does make a certain amount of sense," Giles said, his brow furrowing as he concentrated on the new concept. "Like, with you and Tara in a relationship, and Glory in Sunnydale, Tara being hurt by Glory and your subsequent dark magick use could have been a certainty."

"Destroying my talisman. I mean, not only did he get Willow un-vamped, but he got Tara to Sunnydale. Because what are the chances Tara would have ended up on a Hellmouth if her home life had been happy?" Anya wondered aloud. "Because a soulless Willow certainly wouldn't have called to her."

"What's up with that, anyway?" Buffy asked curiously. "This whole 'past life' thing?"

"I think... I think that, ummm... Willow and I were .. . kinda'... meant to find each other," Tara said with a blush.

"Yeah. You two should get 'temporal singularity' tattooed to your asses," Anya said seriously.

"No," Willow said immediately, raising both eyebrows at Tara. Tara's eyes widened, her lower lip moving into pout position, and Willow's face softened. "We can talk about it later," she said with a sigh, squeezing Tara's hand. Tara smiled happily. "But we'll just discuss it," Willow said quickly. "I'm not saying 'yes' now, okay?"

"Like you won't say yes later," Anya scoffed. "We all know Tara has you completely whipped."

"Honey," Tara said softly, trying to stop a fight before it started and squeezing Willow's hand, giving her a pleading look.

Anya raised her hand in the air, making a whipping motion and subsequent sound effect.

"Oh, fine," Anya said, a childish scowl to match Willow's crossing her face. "Just play the 'friend' card. That's not fair! You know I don't have very many of them."

"As fascinating as it is to watch Tara actually keep you two in line, could we get back on topic?" Giles asked tentatively.

"What was the topic again?" Anya asked innocently. "Oh, right... we were talking about how whipped Willow is."

"Guys," Buffy broke in. "I swear I'm going to bust some serious slayer action on both of you if you don't cut it out right now."

"But this is how I interact with Willow," Anya protested earnestly. "I enjoy my interactions with Willow. I want to have as many interactions with Willow as I can before she dies."

"Willow is not going to die," Tara shot back, harsher than she had intended. She knew Anya meant well, and that in her own way she was being complimentary, but the idea that Willow's death was a foregone conclusion hurt.

"Hello?" Anya said. "Temporal Singularities? Megalomaniacal Hellgod who's even smarter than Willow? Even if Willow lets him out, Willow's the only one who can defeat him. What are the chances he's going to let her live? And even if she faces him, what are the chances he doesn't have a plan for that?" Anya pressed on. "Not that I want it to happen," she said defensively, backing away from all the angry faces in the room.

A wave of protests rose up from Tara, Buffy and Giles as they all spoke over each other. Willow sat silently, a thoughtful look on her face as she seriously considered Anya's words.

Willow liked puzzled. No, that wasn't quite right. Willow loved puzzles. She adored them. They made her brain do an excited little dance at another chance to excel and break through all expectations of her ability to solve them. Or anyone else's ability to solve them.

Her life depended on figuring this one out. Not only that, but possibly the Fate of the World.

And Willow hated pressure. She voted a Big 'No' on pressure. There was no waffling on the Pressure Issue. She was even ready to run for Mayor on a No Pressure platform if the idea of giving a speech in public didn't completely contradict what she would be campaigning for.

Hence the tummy rumblings. In fact, now that she was thinking about exactly what hinged on figuring all of this out, and how much of that counted on her, she was feeling decidedly nauseous. She could feel a bead of sweat make its way down the back of her neck, and a warm flush crawl up her face and her breathing quicken.

This was a Hell God with a plan. A plan they had unwittingly fallen in line with more times than Willow really cared to think about, her mind reeling with the idea that they had probably fallen in line more times than they would ever know.

How could they possibly stop that? What kind of bizarre strange move would they have to make to completely disrupt his plans and keep the world safe, at least for a little while as they tried to figure out how to stop him completely?

And what would that really take? Balancing Hell? But Glory was gone, and so there could be no balance, unless they got rid of the Trickster altogether. But how did someone fight a Hell God? At least Glory had been in Ben's body, and they had a few aces up their sleeves – but the Trickster himself had, as it turned out, been one of those aces. And how had she, or her ancestor, or however she should refer to someone who was her in a past life, but also a great-great-great and a few more "greats" grandmother, defeated him in the first place?

"Honey?" she heard Tara call, worry evident in her voice even though it sounded like it came from a great distance. "Willow?" she heard again, barely making out the words through the great whooshing noise in her ears.

"I, uhh..." Willow stammered, rising unsteadily to her feet. "I gotta..." She stumbled where she stood, wondering idly what the hell she had tripped on, since she hadn't actually moved, sinking down to one knee. Laboriously, she clambered back to her feet, waving off the sea of swimming hands reaching out to her to help.

"Willow," Tara said again, outright alarm ripping through the haze and pulling Willow's attention.

"Urg," Willow uttered, pushing past her concerned friends and falling into Tara's arms. "Dizzy. Bathroom," she mumbled, her mouth watering as her stomach roiled.

"Oh, Baby," Tara uttered miserably, her gaze taking in the glassy look to Willow's eyes, the pale complexion, and the beads of sweat gathering on her face. She got on of Willow's arms around her shoulder, and looked over with a grateful expression as Buffy quickly stepped up and grabbed the other side, the two women hurrying Willow towards the bathroom.

"Seasick. Hate boats," Willow muttered, the floor pitching and roiling under her. "Stupid whales."

"Is she gonna' be okay?" Dawn asked nervously, looking over at the assembled Scoobies. She wasn't allowed to help with the actual research until she finished up her homework for the day, but she found it comforting to be in the room with all the people she loved. "And, umm... whales?"

"We went on a whale-watching trip in the third grade," Xander explained, her brow furrowed with concern. "Willow was really excited, but once we got on the boat, she spent the whole time being really sick."

"Oh, eww," Dawn said, trying to block out the sounds of Willow being conspicuously sick filtering out of the bathroom, along with the extra-disturbing crackling noise of the dark magick yuckiness. It wasn't so much knowing that Willow was being sick that set her teeth on edge and gave her a major tummy rumblings – it was knowing deep in her gut just how close Willow was to not making it. Sure, she had faith in the Scoobies. They had certainly saved the world often enough. Still, she had had faith in the doctors as well when they had said her mom would be all right, and... she hadn't.

"Hey, Dawnie," Xander said quietly, seeing the distressed look on the teenager's face. "Everything's going to be all right. We've got the Evil Fighting Dream Team here, and we're going to make sure it's all right, okay?"

"Xander is quite right," Giles said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, holding his place in his book with a forefinger. "We're not going to let anything happen to Willow. Now that we're aware that something out there is attempting to hurt her, we can stop it."

"Just because we don't know yet, doesn't mean we'll fail," Giles said, his eyes shining with determination.

"But he's already won. Glory's dead," Dawn protested. "Doesn't that destroy the whole cosmic balance thingy?"

Buffy wandered back into the room, her face pale. "I'll never get used to that," she said slowly, flopping down onto the couch and pulling the old book back into her lap.

"Just wait until she starts vomiting blood. Then it'll be really disturbing," Anya piped up helpfully.

"Okay, eww," Buffy said slowly, her face pulling into her frown. "Could we not have those kinds of visuals, please?"

"...right back," Tara was saying as she came back into the room. "Baking soda?" she asked, looking around. Xander grabbed the box, tossing it to Tara, who caught it awkwardly but successfully. "Thanks," she said, meeting Xander's eyes, then turning to the rest of the group. "H-has it been this bad the w-whole time?" she asked, her face scrunching up as she forced the words past the worry and guilt.

"Pretty much," Buffy said gently. "But... it's been better since you've been back."

"I mean... not that you going was a bad thing," Buffy quickly backpedaled. "I mean, not that we didn't miss you. So, it was bad in that respect, but... muchly with the okay. It's, I mean...it's not your fault, Tara. You couldn't have stopped this, and..."

"I know what you mean," Tara said with a small nod, a frown pulling at her face as she hurried out of the room, wanting to get back to Willow.

"Magicky baking soda?" Willow asked quietly, still kneeling in front of the toilet.

"Yeah," Tara said, brandishing the box and kneeling next to Willow. She sprinkled some into the bowl, hearing the soft hiss as the opposing magicks mixed.

"I wonder what kind of reaction that is?" Willow mused, peering into the bowl and watching the bubbles. "I mean, is it kind of a magicky chemistry thing where they're passing little enchanted electrons around?"

"I have no idea," Tara said with a soft smile, brushing Willow's hair back behind her ear.

"I think I need more of the witchy pain coffee," Willow said glumly, sitting back and looking decidedly miserable.

"Can't," Willow said with a helpless little shrug. "We need to know more stuff, and it's... it's like... my brain is going all Energizer Bunny, and if I go upstairs and lie down, I'm just going to be thinking about all the stuff I could be doing, and then I wouldn't be doing it, so it would really be all time waste-y for me to just sit there, when I wouldn't be sleeping anyway, see?"

"Could you at least try?" Tara asked, a sigh escaping her as she regarded Willow. On one hand, she agreed. Willow's brain was probably the best equipped to be figuring out what the Trickster was up to and how to stop it, but on the other she could see how sick and hurting Willow already was, and she wanted her to rest. It hurt her heart to see Willow in such pain, and she wanted it to stop. But really, what was the best way? Let Willow stay up, or make her rest?

"Can I take a notebook with me if I lie down?" Willow countered, a hopeful expression on her face. She felt driven to keep working, but somehow she couldn't deny Tara anything.

"I suppose that will work," Tara said. "But no sitting upright. And you're not getting coffee. I'll bring up some food, and you'll eat every bit of it. You're still way too thin."

"Can I sit up kinda' almost upright? Like all reclined like Cleopatra?" Willow questioned, trying to work out all the rules before she inadvertently broke one and incurred the wrath of Tara. "Ooh!" she added, a gleam in her eye. "Will you sit with me and feed me grapes?"

"Sure," Tara said with a smile, kissing Willow lightly on the cheek, then standing up. She pulled Willow to her feet, laughing at her question, only to have the laughter die away when Willow swayed unsteadily. "Hey, no fainting," Tara demanded, her eyes widening.

"I think... I'm... okay?" Willow said unconvincingly, leaning heavily against the sink to avoid falling over and pulling Tara with her. Not that being on the floor with Tara was a bad thing in and of itself, but falling there could get her baby bruised, and she couldn't have that, no matter how dizzy she was.

"You're not okay," Tara said. "Buffy!" she called out, leaning her head out the door as she kept Willow upright.

"What?" Buffy asked breathlessly, scrambling into the room just a few scant moments later. She had heard the worry in Tara's voice and immediately leapt to her feet, dashing for the room.

"She's dizzy," Tara explained, not taking her eyes off of Willow, who was still leaning heavily on the counter, her knees bent as if her legs couldn't support her wait.

"Oh, no you're not," Buffy said immediately, scooping Willow up into her arms and carefully maneuvering her out of the cramped space of the half-bath.

"No, you need to lie down," Buffy said sternly, carrying Willow to the stairs with an agitated Tara right behind her.

"Not from me, you don't," Buffy said. "Does she always have a one-track mind like this?" she asked Tara over her shoulder as she reached the top of the stairs.

"I demand a toothbrush! I know my rights," Willow declared in a wavering voice as Tara hurried to open the bedroom door and keep out of Buffy's way at the same time.

"I'll get your toothbrush, baby," Tara said in a mollifying voice. "Just... lie down for now," she went on. "You got her?" she asked Buffy, looking over at the Slayer.

"Is that a serious question?" Buffy countered with a half-smile. "I'll settle her in, you get her toothbrush before she tosses all the toothpaste in the house into Boston Harbor."

"Need a sink," Willow protested, trying to sit up as soon as Buffy placed her on the bed.

"Willow, you can't stand up," Buffy said slowly, watching Willow waver as soon as her shoulders left the mattress.

"I can stand," Willow protested with a frown, trying to swing her legs over the side of the bed, only to have her efforts dashed by that dastardly Slayer. She looked up at her best friend and her frown deepened.

"The frown won't work," Buffy said, folding her arms across her chest. "It's the Wrath of Tara, or deal with the frown, and frankly? I prefer the frown," she confided, grabbing Willow's legs at the ankles and swinging them back onto the bed. "Now lie down before she gets back in here and we both get into trouble."

"You're pancake-whipped," Willow muttered. "Where's Anya when you need her? Sure, she's right there when I fold like a house of cards stacked by a three-year-old, but now? Oh, no," Willow complained, lying back down and continuing. "Here you are, all... you're like pancake batter. All gooey and beaten down and pancake-whipped."

"She makes great pancakes," Buffy said defensively. "Can I help it if she makes great pancakes?"

"Mrrrow?" Miss Kitty warbled, slinking out from under the bed and blinking curiously at Buffy. Soundlessly, she jumped onto the bed and padded over to Willow awkwardly on the uneven surface, sniffing her delicately and sneezing.

"Even Miss Kitty thinks I need to brush my teeth," Willow said, her voice heavy with fatigue. The room was spinning around her and she couldn't seem to make things stay in the right place. She closed her eyes with a huff, letting her head fall back against the pillows.

"I'm back," Tara said, bustling into the room, her hands full. "Here, sit her up," Tara requested.

"See?" Willow said accusatorily, opening her eyes to glare at Buffy as Buffy complied. Tara slid in behind her and Willow scootched back, forgetting her fit of pique once she was comfortably nestled against Tara's body, a lazy smile crossing her face.

"Here," Tara said, getting a leg on either side of Willow's body and holding her hands out to display their contents. "Toothbrush, toothpaste, glass of water, and spitting cup," she said.

"You really think of everything, don't you?" Buffy said, a smirk crossing her face.

"Thanks, baby," Willow said, trying to focus on the items swimming in front of her eyes, making a wild guess as to the location of the toothbrush and trying to grab it. She missed.

"Honey?" Tara asked worriedly. "Can you... I mean, umm...do you need... some help?"

"No, I can," Willow said, her brow furrowing in concentration as she tried to get the toothbrush again.

"Here," Buffy said, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking the two glasses from Tara's hands. Wordlessly, Tara uncapped the toothpaste, squirting a bit onto the toothbrush and then dipping it into the water quickly.

"Tara, I can," Willow started to protest, only to stop when Tara nudged her into silence. Buffy looked away but continued her cup-holding duties.

"Open," Tara said again, and Willow opened her mouth, feeling completely absurd yet relieved at the same time. Her arms didn't seem to want to follow her instructions, and she was having a little difficulty finding the toothbrush. Carefully, Tara brushed Willow's teeth, the odd angle hard to manage, but she eventually got the hang of it.

"Spit," Tara ordered, and Buffy helpfully held out the cup. Thankfully, Willow's aim was better here, or else Buffy was just a world-class spit-cup holder, as she managed to get the foamy toothpaste into the cup.

"Rinse," Tara said, and Buffy held up the water glass to Willow's lips. Willow sucked in a mouthful of water, then swished it around in her cheeks, leaning her head back on Tara's shoulder.

"Spit," Tara said again after a moment, studying Willow's pale face and letting her fear at this new development show on her features. Willow was clearly as weak as a newborn, and dizzy as well as nauseous and Tara felt somewhat helpless in the face of this.

Wearily, Willow lifted her head, spitting into the cup Buffy held up and then inhaling a deep breath through her mouth, satisfied with the minty freshness she found.

"Now, you're going to sleep," Tara ordered, moving to shift out from under Willow.

"No, stay," Willow protested, turning onto her side and resting her cheek against Tara's shoulder.

"Looks like you're on pillow-duty," Buffy observed, setting the glass of water on the nightstand. "I'll just, uhh... take these," she said, grabbing the toothpaste and shifting it into the hand with the spit-cup, then gingerly taking the toothbrush between two fingers and holding it away from her body.

"But I need to do some reading," Tara protested. "And Willow needs food." Willow snuggled closer, her eyes drifting shut and Tara's arms automatically closed around her.

"I think you're stuck," Buffy said dryly. "We'll handle the research and the food. Willow's not well, and you've got to be pretty tired, too," she went on. "Seriously, just take a nap. We'll wake you guys in a couple of hours so you can eat and check on Willow, okay?"

"But -" Tara protested, even as she shifted Willow into a more comfortable position.

"No buts," Buffy said. "Besides – how much work are you going to get done down there while you're worrying about Willow up here?"

"You're right," Tara said, a self-deprecating smile crossing her face. Buffy nodded, satisfied with her win, and left the room, managing to shut the door behind her. "Willow, honey? You'll get a crick in your neck like that," Tara said, rolling Willow onto her side despite her sleepy protests and getting her leg out from under her.

"Tara," Willow murmured, immediately rolling back and settling herself on Tara's prone body. Tara felt Willow relax against her bonelessly, and something about the movement worried her.

"Get some rest, baby," Tara said softly, kissing the red hair tucked under her chin. "I'm here."

"Yeah, sweetie?" Tara asked, caressing Willow's hair, her arm tightening across her back as Willow snuggled closer.

"I've got you, baby," Tara said, inserting as much reassurance into her shaky voice as she could. "You just rest."

Tara's eyes stayed open and she stared at the ceiling as she felt Willow's breathing even out against her. She stroked Willow's back soothingly, as much to comfort herself as to comfort the woman sleeping so trustingly in her arms, her mind turning over everything that had happened so far.

Willow felt herself slipping into slumber, and was surprised when that wasn't where she ended up. Instead of the blackness of sleep, or more accurately, the waking up again part – because she couldn't remember actually sleeping, right? – she found herself at her parents kitchen table.

Her parents were nowhere to be found, but the room was just as it always was. It had not, in fact, changed for as long as she could remember. A cleared plate sat in front of her, and a glass of orange juice that was, she decided, neither half empty, nor half full. The glass, clearly, was twice as big as it needed to be to hold that amount of liquid.

She looked around, then down, surprised to see the blue footy pajamas she knew she had grown out of long ago. Except... her feet were dangling high off the floor, suspended from her legs that appeared to be way too short. Frowning, she regarded the table. It certainly seemed a lot higher, too. Was she in some weird alternate dimension where her parents were giants? Or was this even her parents' house?

With a shiver, she looked around, her head whipping from side to side, half-expecting to see a goose waddle onto the table and lay a golden egg right in front of her. But there were no egg-laying geese to be seen, golden eggs or otherwise. In fact, there were no geese at all, and she frowned harder.

Shouldn't there be geese? It was Sunday, after all. And how come she couldn't remember milking the cow that morning?

That's right. She had sold it. To the old man for the magic beans. No, that wasn't right. To the young man, in the black hat. For the crossword puzzle. She had sold the cow for a puzzle.

The crossword puzzle and a pencil appeared on the table before her, and she shifted excitedly in her chair. She loved crossword puzzles. They were much harder than logic puzzles or math puzzles. With those, she could just close her eyes real tight, and the answer would jump into her brain, or she'd know just how to figure it out like she had heard them all before. But crossword puzzles were different – they were words, and words were harder than numbers. She liked numbers, but she liked words, too, so she was happy to do the crossword puzzle.

She picked up the pencil awkwardly, and scrambled in the chair until she was kneeling on the seat and leaning over the table, peering at the puzzle before her, the white and black squares staring back, waiting for her to fill them in and reveal their secrets.

She smiled, and looked up, her dimpled cherub's face smiling back at her from the mirror across the way. She waved happily at herself, the pencil still clutched in her hand, and giggled, her wild and scraggly red hair sticking out in all directions. Mommy would insist she brush it before she left for school, and Daddy would laugh. But only if they made it past the giants.

The first one was easy, and Willow filled in the word 'HELLMOUTH' to describe 'the portal where you live'. That was clear. She knew that much, at least – she had always known that. The next one was harder, and she stared at the paper, regarding the clue. "Sunrise?" she muttered aloud, looking at the three empty squares waiting for her. "Three letters for sunrise?"

She skipped that one, moving to the next. "Who wants you dead?" the clue read, with six squares available. Willow frowned, her brow furrowing. 'TRICKSTER' didn't fit, and neither did 'CONSTRUCT.' Xander? Xander wanted her dead!?

She went on, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw the next clue. "In love with Willow forever" it read, and she grinned. "TARA" she wrote in, adding an extra little smiley face after the last 'A' and grinning with satisfaction. The letters fit the available spaces perfectly, as if that name were meant to go in that spot for all time.

"Oh!" she said, quickly filling in 'CONSTRUCT' and beaming at the paper. The Construct had been released from Hell. She filled in the next few quickly, putting in "BESTFRIEND" for the clue "Buffy" and "GILES" for the clue "English father-figure who liked to wear tweed". Those were certainly simple enough.

The next one made her scrunch up her face in concentration, her tongue poking out as she tried to fill in the blanks. A demon but not a demon? 'ANGEL' didn't fit.

"Darn those six-letter clues anyway," she muttered, boldly using language she had heard her mother use in hushed tones. "And three-letter clues," she amended, frowning as she recalled the 'Sunrise' thing. "Multiples of three. I'm clearly having trouble with multiples of three. What's wrong with three? I like three," she added petulantly, her lower lip poking out. Maybe she was too young to be doing the crossword puzzle all by herself. But she certainly didn't have anyone else here. "I guess three doesn't like me," she said, her eyes full of sorrow as she gazed at the crossword puzzle.

"But I can help you with that one," Wesley said, peering over her shoulder, then looking at her with a kind smile.

"Then think, Willow," Wesley encouraged. "You've got to think. A demon, but not a demon," he added.

"I know it's hard, but that's because you don't think of this person as a demon. You never have, and you never could," Wesley said gently. "But others have."

"But 'Tara' doesn't fit," Willow said slowly, seeing what Wesley was trying to tell her.

"Do you know her real name?" Wesley asked with a frown, peering closer at the crossword as if he expected the number of letters needed to fit the clue to change from six to four.

"Oh, I know that," Willow assured him seriously. "Oh!" she said, gently pushing Wesley away and writing in "MACLAY".

"Very good, Willow," Wesley said with a beaming smile before fading. "Well done!"

"I guess that wasn't so hard after all," Willow mused, then turned to the next clue. "Now... 'He Was There'. Who was where? Five letter," she said aloud, chewing on the end of the pencil. "Oh, 'ANGEL'", she said, writing the name in. "Maybe I need to talk to Angel?" she wondered.

She moved on to the next one, dismissing the notion with a shrug. Crosswords weren't so hard. Maybe she was better at them than she thought. She frowned when she saw the next clue. 'The World' But what about The World? She looked over at the boxes, a perturbed look crossing her face when she saw the number of spaces available shifting from five to eight.

"Well, that's not fair," she grumbled, peering closer at the boxes, and seeing that an interconnected clue on the 'down' side was also shifting. When 'The World' was five spaces, 'Willow' was five, but when 'The World' was eight spaces, 'Willow' was four. That was clearly a hard one. She moved on.

'LOSANGELES' she filled in, writing in the city where 26 across lived. That one was easy enough. Everyone knew that. He had a website.

'Prevents the Trickster's Visions' was the next clue, and Willow chewed on her lip. Magick Rock? No, that didn't fit. She quickly counted the spaces. Fifteen.

"Darn," she muttered, realizing it was a multiple of three. So it had to be a tough one. "I need another hint," she complained, glaring at the clue. The letters shifted and changed, rearranging themselves into different shapes, and she reread the clue. "Tara gave it to me? Tara gave me lots of things. Everything. 'Everything' doesn't fit. And it doesn't stop the Trickster's visions, either."

She was on the 'down' column now, so she looked at the page again, noting that the 'L' in 'LOSANGELES' was the last letter of the word. "Oh, well, that's helpful," she grumbled, moving on.

"Let 14 across out. Same as 11 across," she read slowly. "But if it's the same, how come this one has four letters and 11 across has three?" she said, her features twisting. "Sunrise. Let the construct out. Same as 11 across, which is three. But this one's four." She frowned again, tapping the paper in front of her. "That doesn't make mathematical sense," she said, voicing her displeasure with the stupid crossword puzzle. "It doesn't add up."

"Oh, but it does add up," Glory said from her seat across from Willow. "It does when you think about it."

"I'm still mad at you," Willow scowled. "In fact, I pretty much hate you. You should go away. You're a bad woman."

"No, I'm a dead woman," Glory said. "And you can't bring me back like you did your 'BESTFRIEND', even though that would fix everything, wouldn't it? Those clues are easy, but it's not important. Who cares how the Construct got out? You need to know something else."

"Something else?" Willow asked, peering down at the paper and frowning. "I still don't like you. Why are you helping me?"

"I don't like you either. You're so... uppity. Where's the fawning? Where's the attention, and my cute little minions? You don't understand that I'm a God, not really. You never did get that. So why are you listening to me?" Glory raved, then smiled and stretched lazily, squeaking and shifting in her blood red dress. "You're a real drag, you know that? Next clue, come on," she said, snapping her fingers.

"Fine," Willow sulked, looking at the next clue. "Five letters. Defeated the Trickster," she read dully, glancing up to glare at Glory again. "It was Margaret McDonald," Willow said. "Or me. But those don't fit."

"Honey, maybe she went by 'Marge'," Glory supplied helpfully, smirking when Willow wrote in the name. But Willow was careful to write the letters in lightly, in case she needed to erase them later. She still didn't trust Glory.

"That's a bad word," Willow said with a frown, looking around anxiously. "Mom might hear you."

"Oh, fine. Have it your way," Glory said, glaring at Willow. "I'll just go back to the non-existent limbo nothingness I came from." Suiting actions to words, she disappeared, and Willow glared at the empty seat.

Willow subsided, then looked back at the crossword. She didn't like 'MARGE' as an answer, so she erased the letters, thinking harder. "Maybe... yeah," she said, writing in "DEVIL". The Devil defeated The Trickster. She knew that... she just needed Glory to be gone so she could remember.

"What a bitch," she muttered, then looked up sharply, expecting her mother to walk in. She sighed with relief when the room remained empty. "Stupid Glory, making me use naughty words and naughty spells. I'm very seldom naughty, but Glory made me naughty," she went on in a low grumbly tone, looking for the next clue.

"Don't 'blank', it makes an ass out of you and Xander," she read, a frown crossing her face.

"Oh, come on. You have to remember that one," Jesse admonished, clambering up onto the chair next to hers, his own footy pajamas in place. Still, the footy pajamas, and Jesse himself, were much bigger than her. He looked as he did when he died, a tall and thin teenager, a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his lips. "Don't you remember?" he asked quietly.

"I remember," Willow said softly, reaching out and grabbing Jesse's hand in her own. "How could I forget?" she asked, looking at her old friend. "How could I ever forget you?" she wondered aloud, a heavy sense of guilt settling in her gut. They had been the best of friends, the three of them. Jesse and Xander and herself. How could she let a day go by without at least sparing a thought to this person she had shared so many childhood adventures with?

"Because you're an adult now," Jesse said kindly. "You don't have to think of me every day, you know. I want you and Xander to have your own lives."

"But you were... you were our best friend. The very best," Willow protested miserably. "And I... I wish Tara could meet you. That you could meet Tara. She's..."

"I know," Jesse said with a grin and a waggle of his eyebrows. "She's hot. I mean, if you weren't going to go for me, at least you picked a good one, y'know?"

"Of course I do," Jesse reassured her. "Who couldn't like Tara? She's the purest, kindest, most loving soul. I didn't think I'd ever consider anybody good enough for my Willow," he said with cocky grin. "Not Xander, not Oz... but Tara? She's... she fits you, Willster."

"Besides," Jesse continued, a wicked gleam in his eye. "The whole girl/girl thing is hot."

"You sound like Xander," Willow said with a laugh, a broad grin crossing her face.

"Yeah, but you get pissed off when Xander says it," Jesse said with an answering laugh.

"You could always do that," Willow said in a wondering tone. "Xander was always so jealous that you could get away with so much."

"All part of my charm," Jesse said with a little shrug. "It just... never really worked with the cheerleaders, y'know? But the teachers and the rest of the girls loved me."

"I remember," Willow said fondly. "I'm sorry that I... I mean, I didn't... I didn't know that -"

"Hey – I didn't want you to know," Jesse said. "I had it all planned out. We were going to grow up and move away, then meet each other again here in Sunnydale where I'd profess my undying love for you and we'd live happily ever after. I didn't want to date you in high school. I wanted to marry you when we got older."

"I'm sorry you never had the chance to get older, Jesse," Willow said sincerely.

"Me too," Jesse said with a sad little smile. "But I get to watch you and Xander grow up, and it's nice. I'm... I'm so proud of you both."

"Hey," Willow said suddenly, her face pulling into a frown. "Are you really here?" she said, poking him gently in his side.

"Well, I'm in there, aren't I?" he said, tapping Willow's chest lightly over her heart. "And in there," he went on, tapping her forehead.

"And you and Xander know me so well, you always knew what I was thinking and feeling. So, you know what I think and feel about you, and Tara, and about you and Tara, and all that other stuff," he said reasonably.

"In your dream? No, I'm in the dream. Don't you see me? That's all anybody is, Willow. We're just what you perceive us to be," Jesse said.

"Have you been reading 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' again?" Willow asked in an accusatory tone. "Is this where you tell me that reality is the meeting of the objective world and the subjective experience of the observer?"

"Hey – you loved that book and you know it," Jesse said with a laugh. "It was Xander who's brain just about blew a fuse over it."

"I'm still surprised you talked him into even giving it a try," Willow said. "He never liked to read ahead like we did. It's a senior year book. Or college."

"I've enjoyed our chat, but you're forgetting your puzzle," Jesse said with a sad smile. "You need to concentrate on the puzzle. Don't let outside thinks distract you. It's too easy to get distracted right now."

"It's 'ASSUME', isn't it?" Willow asked with a fond smile as a shimmering image of the three young friends standing around appeared over the table.

"Don't assume. It makes an ass out of you and me," Shimmery Xander said seriously to Shimmery Willow.

"Right," Shimmery Jesse said, nodding sagely and trying to keep a straight face. "When you assume, it makes an ass out of you and Xander."

The three shimmery friends dissolved into laughter – even Xander, and they continued their discussion.

"I don't even remember what it was I said in the first place," Willow said with a nostalgic look on her face as the shimmering image disappeared. She looked over at Jesse, only to see an empty chair where her friend had sat. "Thanks, Jesse," she said on a whisper. "I'll try not to make an ass out of Xander, okay? He does fine on his own," she finished with a sad smile before turning back to the next clue. Jesse had said to not be distracted. So she'd concentrate. She could do this.

"I'm assuming things. I'm assuming things," she chanted, moving on to the next clue. "Your light. My light?" Willow frowned. She was so full of darkness right now, did she even have a light? At least, a light that was nine letters? "What does light do?" she asked aloud, looking up and staring at the mirror across from her.

The features of herself as a six-year-old gave way, shifting into her current face. In the mirror, she saw Tara walk up behind her and wrap her arms around her, but she couldn't feel it. It was as if she were watching her future self.

"Light chases away the Darkness," Tara whispered. "And Darkness swallows the Light."

"Could that be any more cryptic?" she and her future self both asked, their words echoing around the room.

Tara laughed gently, a sparkling happy sound that tickled its way into Willow's ears and to her heart, making it feel all warm and full. Yes, that was it. Her heart was full with Tara's laughter – with her joy.

"But you're my monkey," Tara said with a smile. "And I'll chase off that nasty old weasel for you," she promised.

"But that just makes him angry," Willow said with a scared frown. "Then he... he gets mad and comes back. Angrier and angrier. I don't want to piss off the weasel."

"I... I think that... this would be okay," Tara said hesitantly, her brow furrowing in confusion. "I mean... if it was just to keep away the angry weasel."

"But that's... I mean, the angry weasel wants me to play with walls. So I shouldn't. I wish I could. Then I could stay in the yard and chase you around the mulberry bush instead," Willow said sadly.

"I like it when you chase me around the mulberry bush," Tara said with a sigh, resting her chin on Willow's shoulder, her arms wrapped around her waist from behind. "We have to get that weasel out of our yard. He has to stay out."

"But... how do you keep an angry weasel out of the yard without building walls?" Willow said on a whisper, her voice bleak.

"A wall is made of bricks. Or concrete," Willow said with a thoughtful frown, her face scrunching up tight. "A fence is made of wood. Is wood okay?"

"I think... I think that if it's... if you grew it yourself. In your own trees. That should... be okay," Tara said hesitantly, turning the idea over in her mind. "I mean... trees are natural, not like bricks. People make bricks. Nature makes trees. Like you. You're a Willow tree."

"Could we... I mean – if we chased away the weasel, and made a fence out of the nature-tree... would it work?" Willow asked uncertainly. Yet another puzzle. Walls and trees, and what was the difference, really? Was there? Did the man-made bricks and the nature-made trees have so little in common?

"You wouldn't really be building the fence," Tara said, a slow smile spreading across her face. "You'd be helping the fence grow. We could do it together. A fence of trees."

"I... I'd like to stay with you," Willow said, her eyes shining with love for her girl. "I don't want to leave our yard. Not so soon. Not when we haven't had all our chasings."

"But you'll never chase a weasel again, right?" Tara asked, needing to be certain – to be sure that Willow wouldn't repeat the same mistakes.

"Never," Willow vowed, her voice fierce. "No more weasels in the yard. And no chasing them."

"All right," Tara said, kissing her softly on the cheek, and the young Willow felt it, like the ghost of a caress against her face. She smiled when Tara stood and walked away from the other her, deeper into the mirror, knowing that Tara would be there when she awoke.

"Oh, the puzzle!" Willow exclaimed with a little squeak. "That didn't help with the actual puzzle," she muttered, frowning as her eyes traced over the paper and found her spot. But she felt like she and Tara had worked out a different puzzle. Together. She liked that.

No, not shake. Shift. Like, she was being jostled, only there wasn't anyone there to do the jostling. She heard a sleepy groan, and it made her smile. She recognized that noise.

She shifted again, and her eyes flickered open, as Tara stretched lazily under her. Their usual sleeping position was reversed, with her head, arm and leg draped over Tara's body, snuggling into her. She smiled into Tara's shirt when she heard and felt her yawn.

"'sokay," Willow mumbled happily, hugging Tara closer with her arm and her leg. "You'd really chase away the weasel?" she asked tiredly.

"Of course," Tara said, scooching down so she was closer to Willow and could press sleepy soft kisses onto her face, making the redhead's eyes flutter shut and a contented smile cross her face. "We don't want him in our yard."

"What?" she squeaked, coming fully awake. Tara's body stiffened and she pulled away from Willow, a worried look in her eye.

"I didn't cast," Willow said quickly, sitting up. "I mean, you were here the whole time, and we didn't cast anything, 'cuz you would have known if we did, and I certainly didn't do that by myself, because I wouldn't even know how. I mean, there might be a way to, but if there is, I don't know it."

"Shhh," Tara said, sitting up and hugging Willow. "I'm sure there's an explanation," she soothed, stroking Willow's hair as the redhead's body shook.

"I didn't cast... I didn't cast," Willow muttered over and over, her face buried in Tara's neck. "I swear it. I swear."

"I know, baby," Tara said, rocking her gently. "I know. How are you feeling?" she asked, cradling Willow's head with one hand, her other arm wrapped firmly around her shoulders.

"Better," Willow said in a small voice. "But scared. How did we -?" They had shared dreams before on a few occasions, but it had required that they cast a spell together to find themselves on the same path when they made their dream journeys.

"Huh?" Willow said, pulling back to look at Tara. "Tara, honey. I know we had the same dream, and that I followed the conversation at the time, but baby? It didn't make any sense."

"It's... it's like, there's a difference between 'casting' magick and 'being' magick. Do you understand? Like... we don't cast when we're making love, but we... we kinda' float anyway?" Tara explained.

"At least one of us knows what's going on," Willow said with a sigh, letting her head rest on Tara's shoulder again.

But Willow had this odd feeling that she already knew what she had to do to trick the Trickster, and that Tara wouldn't like it one bit.

"Well, that's really quite... beautiful," Giles murmured, tracing the line of text with his fingers. He held the book reverently, honored by the trust Tara had placed in him when he had placed it into his hands. It was a book she had been keeping in its place in its trunk, intending to read it herself. There were three such books, each one handwritten by one of the MaClay women – the summation of their endless search to rid themselves of a Demon that had never existed.

Tara had emerged from her room briefly, carrying three books with her and explaining that she and Willow had just shared a dream. At first he had been shocked, then angry at the gross irresponsibility inherent in casting spells together, only to be calmed and chagrined when Tara had explained that their dream-sharing had been an accident.

Still, she needed to know how they had done it, and she hoped the answers would lie within this text, or one of the two others sitting on the table waiting for him.

She had insisted on staying to help with the research, only to be voted down unanimously by the rest of the Scoobies who told her that her place was upstairs. Buffy had reaffirmed her promise to wake them later and bring them food, but for now, Tara's place was with Willow, she had said. After a few token arguments, Tara had acquiesced, and now Giles was reading the gentle flowing script of Tara's mother.

It seemed to be a large assortment of things. Spells, passages from other texts, rituals and prayers, all put together in one place. All spoke of light defeating the darkness, filled with hope and longing and warnings against folly. Each was beautiful in its own way, but the passage he was currently on struck a chord within him, for he recognized its truth in the two young women who were resting together upstairs.

"Woe to the Child who embraces the Darkness in the name of Love, for Love will be smothered by that Darkness," he murmured, reading the words aloud. "And the Darkness will grow and fester, cursing her existence and her Love until it is faced with Love's Light. For the Two shall become as One, and the Song of the Heart will be heard, Resonating through the fabric of all Creation. No Darkness can face this Light. No Darkness can face this Love. Its Beauty will make the Good-hearted weep, and the Evil cower. The Darkness may swallow the Light, but the Light will dispel the Dark, drive it from the soul, for where Love is given and accepted freely, no Evil may flourish."

"That's... kinda' nice," Buffy said softly, having stopped her own reading to listen to Giles' words. "I mean, the whole bit with the growing and the festering isn't of the good, but the rest of it is... I like it."

"Me too," Dawn said with a smile. "Does that mean Willow's gonna' be okay?" she asked hopefully.

"I'm not sure," Giles said, gingerly turning the page, being extremely careful with what was both an heirloom and a rather impressive text. "There's an accompanying spell..." he said, trailing off as he read the words.

He snapped the book shut and removed his glasses, pulling out a handkerchief and cleaning them industriously.

"Well? Will it help?" Dawn asked, confused by Giles' actions. Didn't he want to read the spell and figure out if it would help Willow?

"The spell seems to be... of a somewhat... personal nature," Giles hedged, coughing lightly. "I think it's best that Tara read it for herself."

"It doesn't matter," Spike said with a frown, looking up from his book briefly, then going back to reading. That Hell God may be a blighter who was picking on the wrong group of people, but Spike had to admit – he had style. Sure, he preferred the whole 'maiming and killing' angle himself, but that didn't mean he couldn't appreciate a well-thought-out plan. Especially one that got results like this. He chuckled softly, then turned the page.

"And what do you mean by that, ol' Spikey-boy?" Xander asked in a deceptively mild tone, his features hard and cold as he regarded the vampire.

Spike looked up and stared back at Xander. "All I'm saying is, you got two witches, one who is off the mojo. They can't cast a spell together. Willow casts, the dark magick takes over, ruins the effect of the spell anyway because it can't be cast with dark magicks, and then Boom! Evil Willow runs off and opens the Hellmouth."

"Spike," Giles said, returning his glasses to his face and leveling a glare at the vampire. "I'm not going to pretend to have any idea why you're here and ostensibly helping. However, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I would as soon drive a stake through your heart as look at you. If you have something constructive to add, do so. Otherwise, do shut up."

"You think it isn't constructive to point out why Willow casting magick is a bad idea?" Spike asked incredulously. "Am I the only one in this room who realizes that magick has a price? That when you send that stuff out to the universe, it comes back for you?"

"And what I'm saying," Giles said carefully, "is that this will be Tara and Willow's decision, not ours."

"So you're going to just let them do something to destroy the world as you know it?" Spike shot back.

"I trust them, Spike," Giles said, stressing the 'them' in his statement. "They'll do the right thing, and as far as we've been able to tell, they're the only two who can do anything."

"And can I just point out how much that sucks?" Buffy said, a full-fledged Slayer-frown crossing her face. "Who made it 'Pick on the Wiccans' month, anyway?" she demanded to no one in particular. "Hello? I'm the Slayer. I get to be in danger. It's my job. Would the Universe please stop messing with my friends?"

"I'm not even sure which part of that statement to start disagreeing with first," Giles said, a look of ultimate annoyance crossing his face. Buffy had to smile a little at that look. Was it weird that she missed that look? "But all signs seem to indicate that Willow and Tara's involvement in this issue would have happened no matter what other outside influences arose," Giles continued. "Perhaps they would have met earlier, or later, but they would have met. And together, they might be able to stop him."

"I'm back," Anya announced, a wide grin on her face as she entered the room. "I grabbed everything I could find on reincarnation and the human soul," she said proudly, moving to go sit next to Xander. "Though I could probably tell you most of what's in there," she tacked on, frowning at Giles.

"Oh, yes, thank you, Anya," Giles said, looking up at the ex-demon before turning back to his books.

"So anything new?" Anya asked. "Do we know why Willow could cast a spell without casting a spell yet?"

"No, we don't," Xander said, patting her knee and kissing her lightly in greeting.

"How she got past the dark magick," Anya repeated as if speaking to a small child. She sighed when she saw the blank look on Giles' face. "Dark magick and light magick don't mix. They're like oil and water," Anya explained. "That's in its pure form. When it's mixed in something, they react badly, each on destroying the other. Like the crackly yuck stuff and the baking soda. Someone like Willow is naturally light with a little bit of darkness. When more darkness gets piled on top of that, it covers up the light magick, like a shell. Light magick has to punch through that shell to be cast. The dark magick basically won't let her cast any light magick without some serious power output on her part," Anya explained.

"How about involuntary casting?" Giles questioned, his sharp gaze fixed on Anya, making her fidget in her seat like she had when she got stuck in high school and hadn't done her homework. What kind of idiot tried to assign geometry to an ex-vengeance demon?

"That's even harder to do. Involuntary casting is all about emotion – it's pretty much nature drawing on your energy instead of the other way around. So things happen that you don't really mean to have happen, but there's no way light stuff would get through a dark magick shell," she said.

"But why not?" Giles pressed further. "If it's based on emotion, and the person is experiencing positive emotions... ?"

"Doesn't matter. The negative energy in the dark magick stuff counteracts it. It's like... involuntary magick is extraordinarily powerful," Anya said slowly, her eyes narrowing as she tried to order her thoughts in her mind. "It's... it isn't cast. It just IS. Someone who is free of all opposite influences, like free from light magick if you're a dark practitioner, or vice versa if you're the opposite – they don't say some words and toss some ingredients – the underlying forces of magick just kind of... move themselves through these pure conduits and do things."

"' For the Two shall become as One, and the Song of the Heart will be heard, Resonating through the fabric of all Creation. No Darkness can face this Light,'" Giles quoted softly, a thoughtful look on his face. "Tell me, Anya," Giles requested. "Can the dark magick shell be temporarily dispelled? Through light magick?" he asked.

"Well, yeah," Anya said. "In fact, it can be destroyed altogether if its not being rebuilt. That's basically what Mary Ellen's baking soda is doing. It's breaking up the dark magick barrier, but the Trickster keeps sending more, so it replaces itself."

"Then that still brings us back to stopping the Trickster outright," Giles said with a sigh.

"But that's my job," Buffy piped in. "I fight Evil. I go out, I hit it really hard, it goes away. That's how it's done," she insisted.

"Yes, well, not in this case," Giles said, pulling another of Tara's family books towards him and opening the cover. He frowned, recognizing the first passage immediately. "Though I'm loathe to think it, it's likely that only Willow and Tara can stop him."

"But – I'm Action Buffy. Well, I should be Action Buffy. Now I'm Sit Here And Wait Buffy. I hate that," she groused.

"By all means, go out and patrol," Giles said absently, grabbing another text and opening it to cross-reference the passage. "The Evil Dead certainly aren't going to sit around while we do our research."

"Patrol?" Buffy asked, perking up and looking longingly at the door. Her gaze fell back on the books. She looked back at the door. Willow needed her. Willow needed this research to get done so that she'd be all right. But hadn't she done a lot already?

"You could maybe check out Willie's," Xander offered slowly, seeing how antsy his friend was. "You know, see if you can get the skinny on this Trickster guy from the local demons. Maybe find out where the Construct is, or if there's anybody else working for him we need to worry about it."

"Great idea, Xander," Buffy said, her eyes lighting up. "Dawn, don't stay up too late," she said, standing and kissing her sister briefly on the forehead. Dawn got the long-suffering look on her face only a teenager could pull off, but leaned towards the contact, rolling her eyes even as she stifled a smile. "I'll be back after a few sweeps and a run by Willie's. You guys gonna' handle dinner?"

"I'll be fine, Spike," Buffy said absently, missing the look of hurt that crossed his face as she grabbed a coat and some weapons.

"Yes, I dare say you should remain here," Giles said with a frown. He certainly didn't like having Spike around, but he liked the idea of Spike tagging after Buffy even less. "We're already losing one pair of eyes. If you're going to be useful, get back to reading."

"Fine," Spike said stiffly, sitting down and picking his book up as Buffy left the house.

Buffy jogged lightly to the street, warming up her stiff limbs, then kicking up to a faster pace. She felt all weird after sitting still for so long, pouring over books and attempting to get some meaning out of cryptic words that hadn't even made sense when they had been written down hundreds of years ago.

But this was. She took a deep breath, feeling the cool night air enter her lungs, crisp and clean. She dodged the glow of the streetlamps, instinctually keeping to the shadows. It had been something of a revelation when she had first noticed doing that. After returning from... heaven?... she had stayed away from bright lights, keeping to the darkness as much as possible.

It had been disturbing at first, when she had noticed it, but now it was just kind of... comforting. Like a security blanket, in a way. She hated the violence and the pain that fighting brought, but there was this strange quality to the darkness that made her feel safe. It struck a chord in her being that vibrated through her and told her that this was where she was needed, where she was in control, and where she belonged. The night was her time.

The day was filled with bills and chores and responsibilities she had never been adequately prepared for. The night, however, was something she had lived in for the past six years, and it was an old friend in comparison. A friend with violent tendencies, sure, but a friend nonetheless.

Had she felt this way Before? She couldn't remember. She knew that she had felt very differently about a lot of things Before, and since coming back, she wasn't always clear on where the lines were drawn. Or maybe there were no lines. Maybe there were squiggly dashes in random patterns that only made sense from way up high, and if you tilted your head to one side and kind of squinted.

Still, she felt at peace here, in the graveyard. She walked along the pathway between the stones that jutted from the earth, some new and clean, standing straight, the others old and worn and askew. There were many graveyards in Sunnydale, of course. Between the high daily body count and the walking dead, there was a pretty big demand for them. But since she had been back, this one called to her. Like she belonged here, walking among the dead.

In a way, she herself was the walking dead. Buffy shivered, then felt a strange but familiar tightening in her stomach. She found a stake in her hand before she had time to even process the signals her senses were sending to her, and then she was rolling away as a dark form went sailing over her head.

She came to her feet in a flash, the sharp piece of wood in her hand finding the heart of her victim and dispersing it in a shower of ash. The tingling, however, didn't stop.

Before she could puzzle out the full ramifications of that, an orderly group of vampires stood before her, lined up three by two and standing at attention.

"You see the price of disorder?" a vampire said, stepping from the shadows. "The rash one is naught but dust, and even the Slayer is given pause as she looks upon us."

"Oh, I'm just deciding which one of you to introduce to Mr. Pointy first," Buffy said, getting into a fighting stance and eyeing them speculatively.

The front three reached her as she held her ground, swiveling to and fro to keep each in her sights. A well-coordinated attack followed, each moving in simultaneously instead of watching like idiots, only to find an empty space where Buffy had been as she rolled backwards out of the way.

They continued advancing slowly, gauging their opponent. They had heard of the Slayer. Who hadn't? But they had also heard that she had been gone that summer, and had been different upon her return. And their newfound tactics gave them an air of cool confidence as their stolen blood sang in their veins, calling for the kill. And for the blood of the Slayer.

"Y'know, as fascinating as this is," Buffy said casually, backing up a step for each step they advanced. "I have a bartender to interrogate," she finished, hopping onto the gravestone she knew was behind her. A quick underhanded stab slipped right by one vamps defenses as the other two tackled her off her perch. She fell heavily to the ground, but her arm was free, having been swung away from her body when the two vamps had connected.

She brought her arm back around swiftly, finding one vamps heart through his back and blinking and grimacing in the subsequent shower of dust. The third vamp pinned her arm, moving his head to her neck. Buffy struggled, trying to flip the vamp over, but found herself unable to move her arms. In a last ditch effort, she partially sat up, effectively pressing her neck into the vampire's face.

He tried to latch on, just barely breaking the skin when Buffy rocked back suddenly, using her knees to send the vampire flying over her head. She rolled to her feet once again and saw the other three vampires moving carefully around the gravestone.

"Okay, four to one," she muttered, pulling another stake from her jacket, twirling them in her hands and turning her body and backing away so that all four vampires were in her line of sight.

She paused a moment, sizing them up, her thoughts drifting away from her and into the night. This was what she lived for. Fights in the dark with undead creatures she couldn't help but feel a strange kinship for. They crawled from their graves, even as she had, and were thrown into an existence of fierce violence, fighting to survive in the dark. They didn't know peace, as she had known it. Could they ever? Were their souls set free when she dusted them, or were their souls already free from the excruciating process that had made them nothing but blood and flesh?

She had never feared the dark as a child. There were no monsters, no hidden dangers. Just a comfortable stillness she had always enjoyed. But now she was older, and she knew better. And she had been thrown to this new darkness, strange and terrifying, with the understanding that she would not survive it. That one day, the darkness would take her.

A swift kick, and one was knocked back, but two more jumped in, trying to use their greater weight to take Buffy to the ground. It didn't help as Buffy got a stake in front of her, letting one vamp impale itself as she stepped into the dust, letting the other fly past her.

The first one she had kicked away came back, and the other grabbed her from behind, his supernatural strength pinning her arms to her sides. The last – the one she had sent sprawling before the next three stepped up – regained his feet, moving towards her.

"You never learn, do you?" she muttered, ducking down and bending over, sending the vampire holding onto her flying into the one directly ahead of her, breaking its hold and taking her stance.

Then the last was upon her, a right cross sending her reeling back and making her head spin. A flash of light seared across her vision as the fist connected with her face, and a ringing in her ears drowned out all sound.

Time seemed to slow as the snarling vampire moved in. Reflexively, her hands came up, blocking his blows, then slipping through his defenses, her stake driving through his chest – crushing through his ribs with the force behind it – and rupturing its unbeating heart.

Her eyes drifted shut as the shower of dust spread around her, and a small smile drifted across her features. It was clear, now. She had been Chosen – not to be a victim of the dark, but to be its champion.

The last two advanced, and she let them, grinning broadly as they attacked her, blocking their blows and returning them. No, she was not a victim of the dark, but its savior. She would make it what it had been for her when she was young – safe and warm and monster-free.

The vampires had no chance under the renewed vigor and strength of the Slayer, the two to one odds giving them no advantage as she bore up under the brunt of their blows, pushing them back, gaining ground, and finally, ending their existence in a fantastic shower of dust.

They were invaders – interlopers – into the night. It was a part of her, and she was a part of it, and they couldn't touch her here – not unless she let them.

"You work for him, right?" Buffy said without preamble, recognizing that the newly organized vamps were likely influenced by the Trickster, at the very least indirectly.

"Well, you tell him from me that the nighttime is mine, and I've never been one for following rules," she said.

The vampire slipped into the shadows, but Buffy wasn't worried. She would stake him later, after he had delivered her message. He couldn't hide from her – not in the dark.

"You follow his rule without knowing," came the voice of the vampire as it left the area.

With a scowl, Buffy started off. She'd run by Willie's, then head back and make sure everyone was all right. She didn't expect any trouble at the house, but even if there was, between Giles, Xander and Spike, they could handle it.

As usual, the room when silent when Buffy walked in. She stifled a giggle. There was something so ... Old Cheesy Western about walking into Willie's with a couple of stakes in her pockets. Maybe she should make little holsters for them?

"I don't want no trouble," Willie said quickly, immediately noticing the quiet that had come over the bar.

"I don't either," Buffy said, seating herself on a stool. "And I'd really rather not punch you this time, too."

"Oh, yeah, okay," Willie said with a nod. "You gonna' ... I dunno, pull me over the bar? Maybe kick me a little?"

"Look, I just want you to talk. Without the display, okay? I'm kinda' in a hurry," Buffy said. "I'd rather not have to get all She-Ra Princess of Power on you."

"Look – organized vamps. Some guy named The Trickster. Big trouble brewing. Just talk before I have to remove some of your teeth in the not-so-nice-and-gentle-way."

"F-fine," Willie stammered, looking around uneasily and hoping his peculiar clientele wasn't going to turn on him for talking to the Slayer. "Word is, he's a real bastard, but fair. They say he's gonna' show up within the next few days, y'know? And that he's gonna band everyone together and make the whole world a safe place for his chosen people. Not that he's referring to people, mind you – all the demons."

"That's the word," Willie said, backing up and holding up the bar towel in his hand defensively. "I'm just repeating what I'm hearing, y'know?"

"Yeah, kind of," Willie said slowly, her brow furrowing as he thought. "They say it's like ... well, there are a lot of new demons in town. The Hellmouth kinda' calls 'em, y'know? But it's like right now the Hellmouth is getting some kind of signal boost, like suddenly it's an FM radio instead of AM, right?"

"Well, could you kinda' ... pretend to be pissed off, like I didn't tell you anything?" he asked uncertainly.

"Fine," Buffy said with a sigh, then continued, raising her voice a little. "Willie, you little weasel," she yelled, grabbing his shirt and shaking him. "You're the boil on the butt of humanity! You're the scum between the toes of all mankind! I can't believe you would betray your people with your silence!" She released him with a little push, then stormed out of the bar.

Buffy immediately broke into a run as soon as she was out the door, heading back to her house. If what Willie had heard was right, their timetable had just been upped. Whatever the Trickster had planned, he expected it to work within the next few days, and that meant Willow was in danger.

It felt good, though, to be running. To let her legs and arms carry her through the night, the whipping against her face. It felt good to feel.

And she was, she noted, actually feeling. A smile crossed her face, and she ran faster.

The familiar street, then the house, loomed before her. She gained the steps with one bound, then opened the door, walking into the light and warmth of her home and her friends.

It was nice, she realized, to be welcome in the light. So many slayers before her had existed solely in the night, their lives nothing but the darkness they couldn't understand even as they tried to save it. But that's what they didn't understand – they weren't fighting the dark – they were cleansing it. Making it good again.

But she was lucky. She had these people who reminded her why it was worth it. Because it was worth it. Any price was worth making the world, light or dark, safe for these people.

"Six organized vamps in some kind of fighting unit," Buffy related. "Willie says the Hellmouth is attracting even more big ugly friends than usual, and that the word on the street is, The Trickster expects the Hellmouth to let him out in a few days."

"They're fine," Xander said. "Well, we think. I mean, they're not making any noise, so they're probably fine."

Buffy rolled her eyes, then headed to the stairs. "I'm just gonna' check on 'em real quick," she said, taking the stairs two at a time. She knocked lightly on the door, mindful of the one embarrassing incident when she hadn't knocked first and the eyeful she had gotten.

Slowly, Buffy opened the door, peeking her head in. "How are you two doing?" she asked softly, seeing Tara blinking blearily at her.

"Is it time for us to get up?" Tara questioned, craning her head to look at the clock.

"You two are fine where you are," she said, a small smile crossing her face. A Willow-sized lump was sprawled over Tara under the covers, the top of Willow's red head peeking out from the blankets.

Buffy's hearing picked up a squeak, and the Willow-Lump shifted, and a voice murmured, "no frogs in the bathtub." Stifling a laugh, Buffy left the room.

"No ... no frogs," Willow said again, her face pulling into a frown and her voice growing more insistent.

"Honey, there are no frogs in the bathtub," Tara assured her, slipping her hands under the blanket to rub Willow's back soothingly.

"Y'damn right," Willow said emphatically, her head nodding against Tara's shoulder.

Tara giggled, unable to stop herself. Sleepy Willow was so incredibly endearing. And perfect. And wonderful. And sweet. She could go on and on.

Willow grumbled a protest as her personal mattress bounced beneath her, shaking her with the giggles. She raised her head and blinked twice, her gaze unfocused, but still finding Tara's face.

"Hey," she said softly, a slow sweet smile crossing her face as her vision cleared and she saw Tara. Now that was the perfect way to wake up.

"Hey yourself," Tara said, smiling back and brushing a bit of Willow's hair from her face. "How are you feeling?" she asked on a whisper, something about the moment keeping her from speaking at a normal level.

"Mmm... I'm feeling all ramfeezled," Willow said with a sigh, letting her head drop back down to Tara's chest.

"Ramfeezled?" Tara asked with a laugh, wrapping her arms around Willow and hugging her tightly. "What in the world does 'ramfeezled' mean?"

"Look it up," Willow said impishly, returning the hug as best she could from her half-across-Tara's-body position.

"Why?" Tara asked innocently, rolling Willow onto her side and turning to face her, kissing her lightly. "I have a walking talking dictionary right here."

"Because you learn it better if you look it up," Willow said stubbornly, reaching up a hand and stroking Tara's cheek. Tara's eyes drift shut and she hummed happily, pulling Willow into a snuggle and sighing.

"Oh, well, we can't have that," Willow said, hugging Tara around the shoulders as Tara moved slightly and nuzzled her collarbone. "It means tired, but y'know? Tired gets used too much, and it's not even that good of a word. Poor 'ramfeezled' is a great word, but nobody ever uses it. And it sounds like it means 'tired' more than 'tired' does, kinda' like 'fizzled'. Because that's how I kinda' feel ... all fizzled out and ramfeezled."

Tara laughed and kissed the conveniently located collarbone, grinning at Willow. She kissed her softly, pressing gently against those lips that she knew could go on about the merits of 'tired' versus 'ramfeezled' for a good ten minutes.

Willow smiled against Tara's mouth, feeling all ramfeezled, but happy. Definitely happy. Though, she needed a better word for 'happy' if she objected to using 'tired'. Jocund, maybe. Yeah ... ramfeezled, but jocund. She was chock full of ramfeezley jocundity, because Tara was here and they were together, and all snuggly and kissing, and that was oh so nice.

"You're babbling right now, aren't you?" Tara asked, moving back just a fraction, her breath playing across Willow's lips.

"Uh-huh," Willow said, her hand moving from Tara's shoulder to play happily with her hair. "Ramfeezley jocundity," she said with a smile, her mind still playing with the idea as Tara laughed softly and trailed little kisses all over her face.

"Honey?" she said in between kisses. "I'm pretty sure 'jocundity' is right, but I'm almost positive there is no such word as 'ramfeezley'."

"Fine," Willow said with a mock frown. "Just spoil the breadth and depth of my jocundity with your infernal logic."

"I'd rather get rid of your ramfeezley-ness," Tara said seriously, placing a last lingering kiss on Willow's mouth. "Are you okay? Do you need water, or food, or maybe more napping?"

"Mmm," Willow murmured, stretching her tired and aching body. "Other than the tired, I'm feeling kinda' good," she said, a hint of wonder in her tone. "We should probably get with the researchy stuff," she went on, a hint of regret and a kind of childish 'but I don't wanna'!' tone in her voice.

"I just want to spend the rest of my life using chocolate to fingerpaint the entire works of Sappho in the original Greek on your back and licking it off. Is that too much to ask?" Willow asked plaintively.

"What? You have something against chocolate?" Willow asked innocently, a wide smile crossing her face as she caressed the body part she wanted to use as a plate. "I could use whipped cream instead."

"No, chocolate is fine," Tara squeaked as Willow pressed her close and started kissing her neck.

"O'course," Willow's muffled voice came to her ears. "You're tasty without it," she said, licking the soft skin over Tara's pulse point lightly.

"Oh, wow," Tara said again, her breath quickening and her pulse picking up under Willow's mouth.

A knock sounded at the door. "Hey, guys, I brought dinner," a soft voice came through the wood.

"You should really eat something," Tara said seriously, her concern for Willow warring with that desire that was always smoldering just under the surface. "And you're all ramfeezley. You should rest."

"I don't want to eat ... food," Willow said wickedly, sucking lightly on Tara's pulse point.

The door started to open, and Willow jumped back, glaring crankily at the door. Buffy entered backwards, balancing a tray in her hands. She turned, and spotted a disgruntled and rumpled Willow sitting up in bed.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Buffy said with a chagrined smile. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"She was just starting to wake up anyway," Tara said quickly, sitting up and leaning against the headboard. She quickly arranged a couple of pillows behind Willow and settled her there.

"Thanks, honey," Willow said, unable to stay cranky when her best girl – the best girl – was showing such automatic tender care for her, like it was impossible for Tara to do anything else. Which, she mused, was probably true. She scootched aside to give Tara room to lean against the pillows, too. She didn't want her girl getting a crick in her back.

"Okay, kids," Buffy said, placing the tray across their laps. "Dinner a la' Anya, so ... be nice," she said with a smirk.

"We'll go over it when you two are up and around," Buffy said pointedly. "No research talk in here. You two eat, then nap again, or come downstairs, but for now, just ... stay here," she went on, then left as quickly as she had entered.

"Oookay," Tara said, drawing out the word and raising her eyebrows as she looked over at Willow.

"Yeah, that was ... weird," Willow agreed. "Though, she's probably just worried. Y'know."

"Nuh-uh," Willow said, shaking her head. "No talking about it – Dr. Buffy's orders."

"Right," Tara said, her features softening as she looked back over at Willow. "Dr. Buffy's orders."

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Answering Darkess

by Sassette

Copyright © 2003

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