AUTHOR’S NOTE: So I was watching “The Killer In Me” and Willow mentioned to Kennedy that Tara had barely met Willow’s parents. The word ‘barely’ in that sentence implied (to me, anyway) that Tara met Willow’s parents at least once. So that’s where this first scene came from. I generally don't put incomplete fics on my site, but I don't think this one is going to go any further.

Part 1: Meet the Folks

They walked up the front walk and Tara gripped Willow’s hand tight, nervous about what they were about to do. She had been worried all day about what lay ahead that evening. Willow had told her not to worry, that everything would be fine. But Tara felt like she was one giant ball of nerves. Her stomach was doing somersaults and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get a single word out. She knew she always stuttered horribly when she was nervous. She couldn’t help it.

When they arrived at the door Willow squeezed Tara’s hand and gave her a reassuring smile before she turned the doorknob. They entered the house and headed for the living room.

“Willow, sweetheart, hello,” Willow’s mom said as she stood. She gave her daughter a quick hug and stepped back. Willow shot a quick wave toward her father, who was sitting in an armchair across the room with a newspaper in one hand and a scotch in the other. He smiled and nodded his head.

“Mom. Dad,” she began, exhaling to release her own nervousness. “This is my girlfriend, Tara. Tara, these are my parents, Ira and Sheila Rosenberg.”

Tara extended her hand to Willow’s mom shakily. “It-it’s nice to meet you, M-Mr. and Mrs. Rosenberg.”

“Please, sit down,” Sheila said. Willow led Tara to the sofa. “Would you girls like something to drink?”

“I’ll get it,” Willow said with a smile. Tara looked up at her, panic starting to appear in her eyes. She had asked Willow not to leave her alone with her parents. Willow looked to Tara. “Water?”

“Uh, y-yes,” Tara stuttered as she watched Willow retreat to the kitchen. She turned back and looked timidly at Willow’s parents. They were both examining her carefully, trying to get a feel for what she was like just by looking at her.

“So, are you Jewish?” Ira asked. Tara looked at him, confused as to why he would ask that question.

“W-what?”

“Are you Jewish?” he repeated.

“Oh, n-no,” she replied. She hoped they weren’t about to get into a theological discussion.

“Christian?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“No, we’re…I mean, I-I’m Wicca,” she replied. She watched him, waiting for his reaction. Her mouth was suddenly very dry.

“Now this is what I find interesting,” Sheila began. Tara could feel that theological discussion rearing its ugly head. She wished she had said she was atheist or agnostic. “Wicca has been more and more prevalent in recent years. Young people are identifying with it. It fascinates me to know why that is. Have you always been Wicca?”

“My mom was,” Tara replied. “So, yeah, I h-have.”

Willow returned with two glasses of water. “What’d I miss?” she asked. Tara took her water and gulped it down. Willow watched curiously as she drained the glass. “Thirsty?”

Tara looked over and smiled sheepishly. Her mouth still felt dry as the Sahara. She knew it wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. All she could hope for was to drink enough water to spend most of the evening in the bathroom.

“We were just discussing Wicca,” Sheila said.

“Wicca? Really?” Willow asked, realizing why Tara had been so thirsty. Now her mouth was dry too. Theology was not a fun subject with her parents, especially her father.

“She’s not Jewish,” Ira said, shooting a disapproving look toward Willow. “Of course, she’s not a man either, so I’m not really getting anything I expected here.”

“Dad,” Willow said, not wanting to get into an argument. Her parents had promised to be open-minded and civil with Tara there.

“Ira, don’t be so stubborn,” Sheila said. “Willow’s an adult now, and she can make her own decisions. I think it’s refreshing that she would make such a confident statement in this day and age.”

“It’s not a statement, mom,” Willow said. “It’s not even really a sentence. It’s just us.”

“Oh, you should be proud, honey,” Sheila said.

“We’re proud,” Willow said defensively. She took Tara’s hand in hers. Tara just looked down at the floor, not sure what to say. “We’re very…proud. We’re just not walking around with signs saying, ‘Hey, we’re gay!’ just to make people notice us.”

“People should notice you. You’re part of a minority group,” Sheila said. “You should stand up and be noticed.”

“I don’t really like to be noticed,” Tara said, finally finding her own voice, as quiet as it may be. She smiled at Willow, who returned her smile. “At least, not by everybody.”

“Have you two had sex?” Ira asked suddenly.

Tara felt all the blood drain from her face. Suddenly the theology discussion was extremely appealing. She didn’t even notice Willow coughing and choking on the water she had just taken a drink of. Willow was attempting to catch her breath so she could tell her father how completely inappropriate that question was, but a bell sounded from the kitchen. Willow looked to her mom and was surprised to see for the first time that she could ever remember that Sheila Rosenberg was uncomfortable in a conversation.

“Dinner’s ready,” she said with a smile as she left the room. Ira shot a look at Willow and followed her. Once they were gone, she had a chance to finally turn to Tara. She’d never seen Tara so pale.

“Are you okay?” she asked, wrapping her arm around Tara. “You look like you’re going to pass out.”

“If I did, would they let me leave?” Tara asked. “We could say I’m diabetic and have low blood sugar.”

“It’s not that bad,” Willow said, not quite convincing herself of that statement.

“Your dad just asked us if we’ve had sex,” Tara said, not believing what Willow was saying. “Not that bad?”

“It can’t get any worse then?”

Tara sighed and she and Willow stood to go to dinner. “All I know is if either of your parents says the word sex again in any context other than talking about gender, you will see me run faster than you’ve ever seen me run before. And your parents will have to buy a new front door because I’ll be running too fast to open it.”

Willow took her hand and smiled. “Fair enough.” 

Part 2: A Special Place

They made their way up the path, Tara pushing back branches and holding them for Willow. It had become overgrown since the last time Tara had been there. She made a mental note to do something about that later. They came to a clearing and Willow gasped. They stood at the top of a drop off overlooking the forest below. The sun was setting on the horizon. Willow felt like it was right out of a movie or a fairytale. It was breathtaking.

"Wow," she said. Tara just turned to her and smiled. "I was getting kind of upset with all the hiking, but this was so worth it. It's beautiful. How did you find it?"

"Uh, I didn't," Tara replied. She looked to her left. At the base of a tree there was a small rock formation. She moved over and rested her hand on the tree, looking up to Willow. "My mom found it a long time ago."

Willow looked at the rock formation and realized something. It wasn't just a random formation. It was a memorial.

"Oh. That's…"

"No, it's not really," Tara said. "Dad had her buried in a cemetery of course. He didn't even know about this place. It was our special place. I-I hated that he had her buried in a cemetery with all those other people. I always felt she was better than that. And this place…"

She knelt down and brushed some dust off the stones. Willow knelt next to her and rested her hand on her shoulder.

"We would come here whenever we could. She brought me for the first time when I was six," Tara explained. "She told me that this location is a mystical…um, hot spot. It's like the good version of the Hellmouth in Sunnydale. Very powerful."

"I thought I felt something about it here," Willow said. "It's a center of power for good magic."

Tara nodded her head and paused, looking at the memorial she had created for her mother.

"When she died I spent a lot of time here. Being around my dad and Donny was just stifling. I never saw them cry. They looked sad, but they never cried. That just seemed so…wrong," she said. Then she made eye contact with Willow. "I saw her here."

"Saw her?"

"The energy here, things can happen that can't happen anywhere else. The night that she died I didn't know where else to go. I had to get away from everybody. This was the only place I could think of, and when I got here, she was waiting."

"I don't understand," Willow said. She actually thought she did, but she wasn't sure she believed it.

"This place allowed her to…hang on, at least for a little while," Tara explained. "She stayed to say goodbye. Because before she…we didn't get to say goodbye. It seems like that's always the way that it happens."

Willow could feel how apprehensive Tara was. She had planned all this. It had been important to her.

"I'm telling you this because…just in-in case…"

"Nothing's going to happen to you," Willow said, realizing what Tara was getting at. "Or to me. You can't think like that."

"It's too hard not to, especially with Glory around," she said. She looked down. "We've both come so close too many times."

"And we're still here, still alive and kicking," Willow said with a reassuring smile. Tara returned the smile. "I would never let anything happen to you."

"I know," Tara said. "Just…don't forget this place."

"I don't think I could if I tried." She wrapped her arm around Tara's shoulders. "Thanks for bringing me here, for letting me in on your secret."

"I want you to know all my secrets," Tara said.

"But then they wouldn't be secrets," Willow said with a smirk.

"Not to you," Tara said. She snuggled against Willow and they sat together, watching the sunset in their special place.

Part 3: Miss Kitty Fantastico the Escape Artist

Willow opened the door to Tara's dorm room and stepped through. Aside from the campus housing office, most people who knew the two witches knew the room was really home to both of them more than just Tara. It was the same way with Willow's room. They tended to vary from night to night where they stayed. Lately they had spent a lot of time in Tara's room.

She knew Tara wasn't there. If her memory served her correctly, Tara would be trying to stay awake during Introduction to Earth Science at that very moment. It certainly wasn't Tara's favorite class, but she needed an introductory level science for her general education requirement. Willow smiled when she recalled how Tara had described the first week of the class.

"Day one, rocks. Day two, more rocks. Day three, bigger rocks," Tara had said with a mock-serious scowl on her face. Then she sighed. "You know I'm an earthy person, but there's only so much rock talk I can take before I go into a coma."

Science was not Tara's forte, even though Willow considered the mixing of potions very similar to chemistry. Tara refused to acknowledge that similarity. Unlike Willow, she wasn't inclined to excel in every course she enrolled in.

Willow reached into her school bag and pulled out a brown paper sack. She had just come from the pet store where she had been in search of more food pellets for her friend-turned-rat, Amy. At the counter she had made an impulse buy—a gray catnip mouse for Miss Kitty Fantastico. It had a pink bow and a little bell. She held it by the tail and shook it in order to make the bell jingle.

"Miss Kitty," she called with an eager smile. Miss Kitty wasn't in her usual spot, which was the chair by the window. At this time of day the sun streamed in and gave the kitten a perfect, warm napping spot. "I've got a present for you."

She walked toward the desk and peered underneath, not noticing as the black and white kitten crept toward the door that she had carelessly left ajar.

"Miss Kitty. Here kitty, kitty."

The kitten looked over toward Willow briefly when she reached the door. Then she snuck through with the stealth of a jungle cat, ready to explore the world outside the room.

Willow knelt down and looked under the bed. She looked in the corner by the bookshelf. She looked under chairs and under the sheets. She looked under Tara's pajamas, which had fallen on the floor in a small pile.

"Miss Kitty?" Willow said. She was now confused. Tara had mentioned taking Miss Kitty to the vet for a flea dip, but she hadn't mentioned it being this day. And Tara was in class. Then Willow saw the door. Her expression changed to one of guilt and fear. "Uh oh."

Few people noticed her. Those that did ignored her. She was small and stealthy. She was a jungle cat in a big unknown world, the humans moving past her like a living forest. Someone went into the stairwell and she quickly snuck through the door with them, hopping down the stairs and following them out into the lobby area on the ground floor.

She skittered over to a potted ficus tree and squeezed between it and the wall. There were couches lining the wall and she moved behind them so as not to be detected by the living forest around her. She waited and watched the main door to the dorms. Finally they opened and she made a dash for it.

Willow moved frantically down the halls of the dorm on Tara's floor. She figured Miss Kitty couldn't go far. It's not like she could open doors or anything.

"Miss Kitty," she called. A boy that passed her gave her a confused look and then kept walking. She ignored him. She saw a group of people sitting in the study lounge at the end of the hall and she approached them. They were all sitting and just chatting, their ignored class notes sitting around them.

"Uh, hi," Willow said nervously to them with a smile. "I was wondering if any of you have seen a kitten around? She's black with white paws and she goes by Miss Kitty Fantastico and she's the cutest thing you've ever seen." Some of them shot her confused looks, while the others shook their heads.

"We're not supposed to have cats in the dorm," one very studious, rule-abiding girl said with a scowl.

"Yeah, I know, but I was just...watching her...for a friend...who lives off-campus," Willow lied. They all stared at her, waiting to see if she wanted anything else. "Okay, so no Miss Kitty here. Thanks anyway."

She spent a good half hour roaming the halls on that floor, but she had no success. She feared Miss Kitty had escaped that floor or had been catnapped. She didn't know what to do. How could she tell Tara that she had lost Miss Kitty? She would be back from class soon. She would get to her room and wonder where Miss Kitty had gone. Willow dejectedly made her way back to the room, wondering what she would say when Tara got there.

"Hey, Tara, funny thing happened when I got back from the pet store..."

"You know Miss Kitty? You didn't like her that much, did you?"

"Amy's a good pet, and she's a good witch project with the whole trying to make her human again..."

Willow shook her head and paced at the foot of the bed. She looked up when the door opened. Tara walked in, her messenger bag slung over one shoulder. She smiled when she saw Willow, who could only offer a nervous smile.

"Hey, how was class?" she asked, trying to conceal her anxiety. Tara shrugged her shoulders.

"You know how I feel about earth science," Tara said with a smirk. "So how's your day going?"

"Okay! You twisted my arm," Willow said, not able to contain herself anymore. Tara was taken aback by this sudden exclamation. "I lost Miss Kitty. I'm so, so sorry. Please don't hate me."

"You what?" Tara asked, shocked and worried by this news. Then an angered scowl creased her brow. "You lost Miss Kitty? How?"

"Turns out we should've named her Houdini because she snuck right past me and I got her this catnip mouse from the pet store and I was looking for her. I guess I accidentally left the door open and she must've snuck out. I looked all over the floor but I couldn't find her and I don't know where she went and...why is your bag moving?"

Tara looked down at her bag, and her scowl changed to a mischievous smirk as she lifted the flap to reveal Miss Kitty Fantastico the Escape Artist squirming around inside. Willow looked at the kitten in shock.

"You found her?" Willow asked. Then she looked at Tara in annoyance. "You found her and you let me babble like an idiot? Why did you torture me like that?"

"Because I love to watch you squirm," Tara said with a playful smile. Willow reached forward and pulled Miss Kitty out of Tara's bag. "I caught her making a break for it out of the building on my way back from class."

Willow held Miss Kitty up at eye level in both hands and scowled at her. "You're one sneaky kitty."

"We'll have to call her The Amazing Miss Kitty Fantastico," Tara said with a giggle, lightly rubbing Miss Kitty's head. Willow set the kitten on the bed and gave her the catnip mouse. Then she turned back to Tara.

"How long were you going to let me feel all guilty before you told me you found her?" Willow asked with a pout. Tara moved forward and wrapped her arms around Willow's waist.

"As long as I could get away with it," she said. "I figured it would at least last till I put my bag down and she found her own way out."

"Because you know she would find her way," Willow said.

"I had to get you for letting her out," Tara admitted with a laugh. Willow offered an apologetic puppy dog look.

"Forgive me?"

Tara smiled coyly and leaned forward. "I think you're going to have to make it up to me."

Willow returned the smile and led Tara back to the bed. Miss Kitty took her mouse and jumped off the bed, moving to her favorite spot on the chair by the window while Willow "apologized" to Tara.

Part 4: Call Your Bluff

“You know, the benefit of all my friends being girls and playing strip poker is supposed to be that I get to see a bunch of girls remove their clothes,” Xander griped as he removed his pants, leaving only his boxer shorts as his remaining clothing.

Buffy shuffled the cards and smiled at Xander. She was barefoot and lacking pants, but otherwise doing fairly well.  “It might have been a good idea to brush up on your poker playing before you agreed to play with us.”

“I find this game very enjoyable,” Anya said, staring at Xander. She was in the same boat as Buffy, pants and shoes deprived. “This would be a very good lead-in to sex, Xander. Can we play with just two people?”

Xander smiled, ignored the question and turned to his red-headed best bud. Willow was the smartest of the group. She had arrived for the evening in layers. She was fairly warm at first, but now, having removed a jacket, sweater and her shoes, she was left in jeans and a tank top.

“Will, why didn’t you tell me your girlfriend was so good at this game? Totally not fair,” Xander complained.

“I didn’t know,” Willow said. She shot a glance at Tara, who simply smiled smugly. All she had removed so far was her shoes, and she hadn’t even dressed in layers. “Believe me, I’m disappointed.”

“One of the few times I could actually tolerate my dad and brother was when we played cards once a week,” Tara said. She looked at Willow with a raised eyebrow. “And did you honestly believe I would actually agree to strip poker if I didn’t know I was good at the game?”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Willow said, feigning ignorance. Then she gave Tara a coy smile. “Wishful thinking, I guess.”

“We don’t have to play poker for that,” Tara said with a smirk. Then she remembered they weren’t alone and blushed slightly.

“Okay, so one more hand,” Buffy said, noticing Tara’s embarrassment. “Well, one more hand if Xander loses.”

“I feel good about this one,” Xander said as Buffy dealt the cards.

“That’s what you said last time, sweetie,” Anya said, patting Xander on the leg. “Then you tried to bluff against Tara’s royal flush with a pair of sixes, and you lost your pants.”

“Thank you for the recap,” Xander said dejectedly while the others laughed. He picked up his cards and looked to Tara questioningly. “How could you tell I was bluffing?”

“Your left eye does this little twitchy thing when you’re bluffing,” Tara said, examining her own cards. “And you lick your lips.”

“No, I don’t,” he said defensively. He looked to the others. “Do I?”

“Yeah, you do,” Buffy said with an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

“Everybody has a ‘tell’ when they bluff,” Tara said. “Buffy twists her hair around her finger. Anya plays with her necklace. Willow shuffles her cards and avoids eye contact with anybody.”

“And you scratch behind your right ear,” Anya said as she sorted the cards in her hand. Tara looked surprised.

“Wh-what?”

“You scratch behind your right ear,” Anya repeated. “During the first hand, when Xander folded and all you had was a pair of fours, you scratched behind your right ear. And later when Willow folded and you had absolutely nothing, you scratched behind your right ear.”

“I love having an observant fiance,” Xander said with a grin. He pointed at Tara. “Prepare to lose your shirt, Tara.” He noticed the glares he was getting from Willow and Anya. “And I’m excited about that purely in a competitive way.”

The hand progressed and everybody was very self-conscious about their ‘tells’ that had been revealed. Finally, Willow, Buffy and Anya had all folded. It was left between Xander and Tara, yet again. Xander watched Tara as she looked at her cards. He watched her scratch behind her right ear and smiled.

“Ha! I saw that!” he said excitedly, pointing at her and then laying his cards face up on the table. He had two tens, two nines and an ace. “I call. Two pair.”

Tara smiled as she spread her hand on the table, and the others chuckled while Xander gaped. “Full house. Aces over kings.”

“Dammit!”

“I knew you would think I was bluffing,” she said. “Sorry, Xander.”

“Poker is just not your game,” Buffy said, patting Xander’s hand. He sighed as Tara cleaned up the cards. He moved to put his pants back on.

“Well-played, Tara,” he said. “You should go pro or something.”

“Ooh, I hear you can make lots of money in poker tournaments,” Anya said. “You should play professionally. I could help you. You could get famous enough to do endorsements and I could be your business manager and earn a ludicrous percentage of your winnings.”

“Just because I can out-bluff Xander doesn’t mean I can do that to the pros,” she commented, smiling at Anya’s proposition. “It’s a little different than strip poker.”

“Next time we should play something easier,” Willow said, giving Xander a sympathetic grin. “Like strip go fish.”

“Oh, I heard about something called naked Twister,” Anya said. “That sounds like a lot of fun.”

The others smiled and Buffy stood. “I think that’s more of a two-player game for you and Xander, Anya.”

Xander had reclaimed all of his clothing and looked at the clock. “Well, we should get going. I have to be at the site early tomorrow.”

“Goodnight,” the others said as Anya and Xander headed for the front door.

“Can we practice strip poker when we get home?” Anya asked as they walked to the car. Buffy turned back to the living room.

“Okay, I have pants around here somewhere,” she said. Willow and Tara smiled. They headed for the front door together. “Goodnight you guys.”

“Goodnight,” they called. They left Buffy in search of her pants and started walking back toward campus.

“You really surprised us all with the poker playing,” Willow commented. “You’re really good.”

“That’s not the only game I’m good at,” Tara replied, a mischievous grin curling her mouth.

“Oh? What else?” Willow asked.

Tara winked at her as she answered, “Naked Twister.”

Part 5: Still a Little Broken

Willow and Tara returned to Buffy’s house with Buffy-bot. It was late and the house was dark. They were certain that Dawn was asleep. The two witches started to make their way up the stairs when they realized Buffy-bot was just standing in the foyer, watching them. She was waiting for some kind of instruction. Willow sighed. They were both so tired sometimes they forgot the specific things they needed to do to deal with Buffy-bot.

“It’s time for bed, Buffy,” Willow said. The robot smiled at her in her usual perky way.

“Okay,” she said cheerfully. “Goodnight, Willow. Goodnight, Tara.”

“Goodnight,” Tara said quietly, still a little disturbed that she was saying goodnight to a robot.

“Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” Buffy-bot said. She walked up the stairs past them and turned at the top. “Early to bed and early to rise…”

“Okay, Buffy, we get it,” Willow interrupted. The robot had a long spiel she always said before bed each night. They had been putting up with it until Willow got a chance to work out some kinks in the programming. But tonight Willow couldn’t deal with it. They had just finished a long and tiring patrol with the robot and the rest of the gang. No time for platitudes. The robot that looked like her best friend seemed confused for a moment. Then she smiled.

“Goodnight,” she said again. Then she turned and went to her bedroom. She sat on the bed and looked straight ahead.

When they got to the bedroom that used to belong to Joyce Summers, Willow and Tara began to change for bed.

“Are you going to be able to work on her tomorrow?” Tara asked as she slipped on her nightgown. “That goodnight speech she makes every night is getting old. And the stuff she said on patrol tonight…”

“I know,” Willow said in frustration. “And I don’t know. Classes start tomorrow. I’ll try to squeeze it in somewhere I guess.”

“Good,” Tara replied. She got under the covers and Willow joined her shortly. She was about to switch off the bedside lamp when she noticed how tired Tara really was. It wasn’t from that night. It was from everything.

Tara was the only blonde in the group, and they had found the one feature about the slayer that most vampires knew even if they didn’t specifically know it was Buffy was that the slayer was a blonde. They had been wary about Buffy-bot at first, mostly because she tended to act nothing like the real Buffy. So with a lot of protest from Willow and some doubts from the rest of the group, Tara had volunteered herself as a decoy. It also gave Willow more time to get the robot’s head re-attached from when Glory had knocked it off. Pretending to be the slayer, Tara lured the vampires into carefully planned traps. Once they had more confidence in Buffy-bot, her decoy duties had tapered off some, but she still served that purpose on occasion, including this night.

Willow never understood why Tara had volunteered for such a dangerous task as playing decoy, and she had never asked Tara for a reason. She knew that Tara had tended to feel like an outsider at times, even after the others had accepted her. She felt like an outsider and sometimes useless. The decoy idea, she assumed, stemmed from that. She wanted to feel useful.

Tara noticed Willow staring at her and looked confused. “What?”

That shook Willow out of her daze and she decided it was time to ask a question she had avoided for a while.

“Why did you volunteer to be the decoy?”

Tara looked down and shrugged her shoulders. “I’m the only blonde.”

“Yeah, but it was your idea. We were all ready to use Buffy-bot right away no matter how weird she acted,” Willow said. “We didn’t think of the decoy thing.”

“I wanted to do my part,” Tara said. “If the vamps find out the slayer’s dead, they’ll turn Sunnydale into Undead Disneyland, remember?”

“There’s more than that,” Willow said. She could see in Tara’s eyes that she was concealing something. “I can tell there’s more. Please talk to me. I feel like we haven’t taken the time to really talk to each other at all. It’s all about patrol and taking care of Dawn and fixing Buffy-bot. We don’t just talk to each other.”

They looked each other in the eyes and Tara hesitated. When she finally spoke she looked away. “Ever since…I mean, when Glory…did what she did to me, everything fell apart in my head. It all scattered and broke. When you brought me back, you picked up the pieces and put them together. But it’s all still cracked, still a little broken.”

Willow just waited silently for her to explain. Tara sat up and looked down at her hands.

“Sometimes I don’t know who I am or why I’m here. I don’t know why I keep living life like nothing happened. I tried to turn around and be who I was before when that’s impossible. So I needed to do something different, to prove that there’s a reason I’m still here, why I’m here even if I’m kind of cracked inside.” She saw the sympathetic and worried look on Willow’s face and she chuckled lightly. “And that makes absolutely no sense.”

“It does,” Willow said quietly. She reached over and gently caressed Tara’s face. “What happened to you was horrible and of course it’s going to change some things. Traumatic events do that to people. It doesn’t mean you have to put yourself in danger. You shouldn’t feel bad about trying to live a normal life.”

“That’s just it,” Tara said. “I don’t feel normal. Nothing feels normal. I keep thinking that this is all just an illusion, part of me being crazy from the brain sucking. The only thing that feels normal is you.”

“I promised I would bring you back, and I did,” Willow said. “This is normal. Scary as it is, this is life.”

They sat in silence, simply looking into each other. Tears were welling in Tara’s eyes. The experience with Glory haunted her more than she would let Willow know. As irrational as it sounded, she feared that it would happen again.

“Don’t lose me again,” she said in a trembling whisper. Willow brushed Tara’s hair away from her face and watched as a few tears spilled down her cheeks. She leaned forward and took Tara in her arms, doing anything she could to comfort her.

“Never,” she whispered. “I promise.”

THE END