The Borders of Night Start to Give, Chapter 5/26

[punch_kicker15]

Title: The Borders of Night Start to Give
Author: punch_kicker15
Rating: R
Characters/Relationships: Willow/Giles
Summary: A prophecy leads Giles to practice dark magic once again. This sets him down a dark path, and Willow may be the only one who can help. AU in which Willow’s magic training started earlier than in canon.
Word count: 47,533
Notes: Thanks to scratchingpost1 for generously offering a plot bunny that ate my brain, gilescandy and dragonyphoenix for looking over a very rough first draft and offering helpful suggestions and encouragement. Thanks also to the mods (red_b_rackham and traycer_ and other participants at het_bigbang for all of the help and hand-holding throughout. And special thanks to angelus2hot for some amazing art she created for this story.

Chapter Five

The Gift

Willow

Willow wiped sweaty palms on her pants as she watched Tara amble around the construction site. She'd only get one shot at Glory, one chance to save Tara's mind. The waiting was the hardest--but then Glory grabbed Tara by the shoulder.

Willow ran up, touched both Glory's and Tara's heads, and started the spell.

Glory's head was a twisty three dimensional labyrinth, pulsing with screaming creatures that drove through Willow's body like an electric shock. She saw colors that couldn't possibly exist in the real world, heard what must be thousands of people thinking, talking, wailing at once. Willow gritted her teeth and hung on long enough to hear a voice that she knew was Tara's.

She grabbed it, dug deep for enough magic to free Tara's mind and put it back in her body. Sweat broke out on her forehead, her legs started to tremble, and just when she thought she was going to collapse, the magic crackled in a huge explosion, and she hit the ground hard. The world blinked out.

When she came to, Tara was sitting beside her. Willow sat up, looked in Tara's eyes and knew that Tara was back in her body.

"I got so lost," Tara said.

"I found you," Willow said. “I’ll always find you.” She touched Tara's cheek.

Tara recoiled from her touch.

There was no time for hurt feelings, because they were still on a battlefield. Willow needed to get Spike up to the tower. She'd saved Tara, and now they needed to save Dawn and the world.

***
Tara

She'd felt utterly lost and trapped with no way out, screaming incoherently because she'd forgotten all words. It felt like she'd been lost there for years, until Willow finally set her free. When Willow touched Tara's cheek, Tara felt a chill all over. Willow's magic felt stronger, wilder. It wasn’t exactly like Glory, but it was close enough to make Tara shudder.

Willow started running towards a huge tower, and Tara tried to follow, dodging confused-looking people all around her. They’d been trapped the same way that she had been. But Willow didn't know them, couldn't find them the way she found Tara.

She passed a headless robot body, watched as a bulldozer swung around to hit Glory. A crowd of Glory’s victims blocked the path to the tower. Willow stood with an expression of concentration on her face. She was talking to Spike telepathically. That was--impossible. Every text Tara had ever read on telepathy said that telepathy with vampires couldn't happen. Willow must have tinkered with some telepathy spell, or made up her own. The chill burrowed deeper, down to Tara's bones.

Then Willow raised a hand, and pushed aside the crowd with magic to let Spike through to the tower. Tara had seen Willow use magic against demons before, but never human beings. Especially not human beings who had no idea what they were doing.

Spike fell from the tower, and Tara could feel energy crackling in the air. It was from Glory’s dimension. Everything seemed to happen at once: strange-looking demons crawled out a building, a huge ball of energy appeared, a rift opened up and a dragon flew out.

She tried to scream to Willow, but the din was too loud. They were too late: the portal had opened.

Then Tara saw someone else fall off the tower

It was Buffy.

***

Tara waited until Spike and Giles had picked up Buffy’s body and started to carry her home, and Willow had finally stopped crying.

Then she asked, “What should we do next?”

Willow gestured in the general direction of the surviving brainsuck victims, who were wandering around the site. A grey-haired man was running in circles, shouting incoherently. A young woman stood over Ben’s body, keening and tearing at her hair. A couple of older men were piling debris up into wobbly towers, then kicking them down.

If it hadn’t been for Willow, that would have been her fate. Or she would have died.

Willow said, “I think they need a little magic push to get them back to the mental ward.”

Tara shivered, both for Willow and the brainsuck. “Are you sure? I mean, you just did an awful lot of magic back there.”

Willow tilted her head towards a young man who was swinging a wooden beam around in a wide circle. “Any better ideas for getting them back there with everyone in one piece?"

Tara shook her head.

Willow said, “Can you help with the casting?”

Tara looked over to the tower. A few pieces of debris dangled precariously from the top. “No, I--I think I need a day or two to regroup.”

It was cowardly and dishonest, but if she and Willow did magic together, Willow would realize that there was something wrong. Willow had loved her enough to find her in chaos of Glory's mind. How could she break Willow's heart after that?

Tara clung to a small fragment of hope. Maybe the wildness she’d seen in Willow’s magic was some remnant of the trip into Glory’s mind that would fade with time. Maybe if she just gave Willow time, things would get back to normal.

***

Tara spent the next few days at Willow’s side, as they buried Buffy, as Willow fixed the Buffybot, as they tracked down the demons that came in from Glory’s dimension, as they moved into the Summers’ house to take care of Dawn.

But as the days passed, Tara began to see the wildness in Willow’s aura as well. Her hope dwindled. Whether it came from Glory or from Willow itself, it was part of Willow now, and maybe forever. And it frightened her.

Worry and guilt ate away at her. She couldn't bear the thought of hurting Willow. It felt terribly wrong. But staying with Willow out of a sense of obligation felt far worse. Willow deserved better than that.

She’d have to tell Willow the truth soon.

***

Willow

Willow took Tara’s hand as they stood by Buffy’s grave. As they chanted the words of the spell to hide Buffy’s body from predators (supernatural or otherwise), something was just a little bit off. The way their energies intertwined was different. It used to feel like two puzzle pieces locking together. Now it felt more forced. But it had been a long time since they'd done spells together.

Tara gave her a strange look when the spell was over. She’d been giving Willow strange looks ever since Willow had brought her back. Willow had been trying to give Tara time, but she was tired of wondering. “Tara, did I do something wrong?"

Tara said, “I'll tell you when we get back to the house.”

Willow said, “I can’t wait that long for bad news. I don’t want to worry all the way back home. You know I'm gonna think of something much worse than whatever it is.”

Tara ran her hands through her hair. “It’s about me. And your magic. It’s way bigger and darker than I remember it. And it scares me.”

Willow’s breath caught in her throat. This was starting to sound like the fight they had right before Glory got to Tara, “It is?”

She tried to ignore the little voice that said that Tara might be right.

Tara said, “You’ve been doing all sorts of dark spells since I got lost.”

“Well, yeah. I had to protect us all from a bunch of people who were trying to murder Dawn, and then I had to give a telepathic pep talk to Buffy, and then I had to help kill Glory and get you back! I’m sorry that the spells didn’t bear the Perfect Wiccan Seal of Purity.”

Tara looked down at Buffy’s tombstone. “I know I owe you everything. I feel really ungrateful. But your magic frightens me, and I can’t be with someone if I don’t feel safe.”

Willow asked, “Isn’t there something I could do to fix this?

“No. We just don’t feel right together anymore.”

“Oh,” was all Willow managed to say. This should feel monumental. But her life had been a blur of feeding and tending to Tara after the brainsuck, casting spells to stay alive, watching the knights wound Giles, watching Glory send Buffy into catatonia, casting more spells to stay alive, fighting Glory with even bigger spells and then losing Buffy. Willow had used up all of her tears and frustration. This just felt like the hundredth awful thing that had happened in just the last week.

Was this what it was like to be Buffy?

Tara said, “I’ll move back into the dorms. You should stay with Dawn. She’s known you longer.” She added, “I hope we can still be friends.”

Willow kicked a clod of dirt. “You go on ahead. I’ve got a couple more things to take care of.”

If she just kept burying herself in tasks, maybe she could outlast the hurt feelings.

Chapter 6