Before the Pain

Chapter 4 You can Never go Home Again...Right?

Angel sat with Tara as she waited for her bus. “You…here before with the vamp…how the hell did you do that it was like watching a slayer.”

“I moved a lot had to learn how to not let this happen again.” She pointed to the scar on her neck from the vampire. “Learning and moving around also got me this, this and these.” She pointed to the scar on her face, the cut on her shoulder and a few cuts on her back. She looked at her watch, and she starts to fidget. 

He knew that the closer the time came for her to leave, the more nervous she became. “Do you need to talk about what you’re going to say to them when you get there?”



“No I think I can do this. Besides, I can tell them nursery rhymes right?” Tara was starting to relax when her bus pulled up. She turned to Angel. “Can I call you? I thought if you were going to be here then I could come and visit.”



“Cool, I’ll be here. Doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere soon,” he told her as she climbed onto the bus. “Call when you get there, someone will be at the hotel!” he called to her and waved as the bus drove off.



Tara sat looking out the window thinking about how scared she was when she left. She couldn’t tell what she feared more, going home or having her family turn their backs telling her to leave. Tara opened a new notebook and started to write in it. This was something she started right after she regained her mind she wanted to remember everything from that point on. She had at least fifty books filled with her feeling, thing the Scoobies did on and off the call of duty. She started at the inside cover like she did with all of her books. She would write the same thing in all of them. <i>If anything happens to me then I wish this book and all the others to be taken to Sunnydale, California and given to Buffy Ann Summers.</i>  It hurt every time she thought of Buffy and Willow together but she knew that if these books get into the wrong hands that the slayer could be in grave danger and now that Faith was back the danger was doubled.

*****

Back in Sunnydale, Willow and Buffy are talking in their room about Tara’s return. “Buffy, you know I love you and I don’t want to hurt you, but….” She trails off as she searches for the right way to tell her girlfriend how she feels.



“I told you I would step aside if it came to that, Will.” The blonde looks at the floor in fear that her love life has just came to an end.



“Buffy, stop. Quit acting like you’re on a soap opera. This isn’t ‘All My Children’ for hell sake, besides I never said I was leaving you but I can’t turn my back on Tara either so come out of Pine Valley and get to the real world!” Willow stood in front of her lover like she was going to ground her for kicking the dog.



Buffy slowly looked into her lover’s eyes. “I couldn’t turn my back on Tara any more now than I could before. I’m not scared of her coming home, I’m scared that when she gets here…”



“Stop right there. I don’t want to hear it. If you think I could just say, ‘No, I don’t want to be with you’ and run to Tara then you don’t really know me!” Willow yelled at the slayer.



Buffy stood up and looked deep into Willow’s eyes, taking a fighting stance. “Isn’t that what you did to Oz?” she spat at her.



“Buffy, you have no idea what that was all about.” Willow drew herself up, standing strong and ready for whatever Buffy had to throw at her.



“Oh, I don’t? So it wasn’t me you were crying to about Oz and Tara?” Buffy rolled her eyes.



“I can’t believe you thought I would pick her over you…” the hacker was cut off.



“You did it before. Hell, first it was Xander then Oz and then Tara. So was I just convenient hell you picked a fucking robot over me?” the blonde spat at her.



“What about you there was a dead guy a frat guy then the military guy before me… you got some nerve how can you say that when I was with you before Tara even left? What I was trying to tell you was…” Willow was interrupted by Dawn yelling for Buffy.



“Buffy, I’m going with Faith to pick up Tara, okay?” Dawn called up to her.



“Wait, I’ll go with you, I have nothing else to do!” Buffy called back to her sister.



“Buffy, if I could finish what I was telling you before you got all mean. I was going to say I don’t want to hurt you, but I think we should be less of a couple around Tara…until she get used to the idea of us together,” Willow told her as Buffy was about to leave the bedroom.



“Less of a couple…okay Will, whatever you want…in fact we don’t have to be a couple at all. Would that help you feel better about Tara coming home? Would that help you face her knowing that you cheated on her…with me.” Buffy yelled her answer.



“I can’t believe you Buffy how can you stand there and say these things to me? I don’t want to loss you but you’re making it really hard to love you.” Willow started to cry.



As Buffy walked out of the room she stopped and looked back at the woman she had fallen in love with. “You know loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.” Then she backed out of the door and disappeared down the hall.



Willow was left by herself she cried harder as she thought of the words Buffy said to her. “I do love you how could I not? But I hate you all the same.

Tara sat by the window of the bus she wanted to see if anyone was waiting for her. <i>‘I’ll just get right back on the bus and leave if there isn’t anyone here for me. That will just show I made a mistake coming back here.’</i> Tara wrote in her notebook. Then the bus pulled into the station and there stood Dawn, Faith, and Buffy.  ‘I didn’t think that anyone would show for two reasons.  One because of the way I left and two it seemed that Xander didn’t tell anyone I was coming home.’  She said to herself as she stood to leave the bus.

“Tara” hearing her name she turned to see Dawn running up to her. She dropped her bag and took the teen into a tight embrace.  “Oh Tara I’m so glad you’re back…you are back right?” Dawn asked into her shoulder.

Buffy walked up to the two girls “I didn’t know it was you. You changed your hair it looks good.” Buffy frowned when she seen the scar on the girl’s face.

“Thanks…don’t worry I killed what did this.” Tara points to her face. “So where’s Willow?”

“She’s at home getting things ready for you.” Buffy took Tara’s bag and turned to the jeep.

“Faith right?” Tara asked

“In the flesh…the right flesh…the better flesh.” Faith smiled and turned to the jeep as well.

***

Back at the house, Willow was working on getting everything put away that would give away that she and Buffy were together. She then sat on the couch and waited for the girls to come home.

She didn’t have to wait long.  Buffy let Faith drive the front door opened and Tara walked in the house with Dawn right behind her.

“Where is Buffy and Faith?” Willow asked as she got up from the couch.

“They’re outside…and for a shock, they’re fighting,” Dawn told her.  “I’m going to make myself a snack.”  Dawn headed for the kitchen.

“Tara, how have you been?” Willow didn’t know what to say and was scared she would say the wrong thing. She also found herself staring at her scar.

Tara saw that the hacker was nervous. “I’ve been good…sounds like you and Buffy are good too,” she couldn’t help herself from adding.

Willow flinched slightly.  “Yes, we are good.  Vampires are at an all-time low with two slayers patrolling every night; demons aren’t doing too much evil either.  No big bad on the extended forecast either.   But that’s not what you meant.  Tara...” Willow looked down to her hands.  “I treated you badly.  I’m so sorry.  I shouldn’t have...”

Then with a crash, a rock sailed through the window.  Buffy’s voice could be heard from the yard.  “Goddammit, Faith!  Throwing rocks now… What are you, six…and you throw like a girl!”  An inarticulate howl of rage came from Faith and the sound of punches landing was quite clear.

“Perhaps we should talk later?  We’ve got some slayers to stop from killing one another,” Tara commented with a look of bemused shock on her face.

Willow, Tara, and Dawn all hurried out front. Where Buffy and Faith were rolling around on the lawn, throwing punches and trying to strangle one another.  A car idled in the street, and a few guys were whistling. 

“Get out of here!” screamed Tara, pulling her boot knife and showing it to them as she strutted towards the car. 

The car sped off, with calls of freak and what the hell’s coming from the window.

Buffy now was on top of Faith, shaking her hard enough that Willow thought there might be a whiplash concern. 

Tara called out to the girls, “Stop this now!”  When Buffy and Faith kept struggling, she stomped over and kicked first Buffy then Faith in the ribs.  They turned and stared at Tara.  “What the hell are you two idiots doing a rock through the window fighting like you’re in the schoolyard?  By the gods, children, knock this shit off before the neighbors call the cops!”

Buffy stood up, looking slightly ashamed but defiant at the same time.  “Faith started it.”  She brushed past her friends and stormed into the house.

Faith jumped to her feet, starting to follow Buffy, a look of murder in her eyes.  “I started it that bitch, I’ll...” Her rant was forcibly stopped when Tara snapped out her hand and grabbed her hair, wrenching her head back. “I don’t care who started it, Faith, I’ll fucking finish it.  I could throw you and Buffy into the Antarctic and freeze the bitchiness out of you.  Now what was that about?” 

The fire in the slim Wiccan’s eyes made Faith stop, take a deep breath, and grimace.  “Buffy said that I ran two stop signs and was grinding the gears on her car.  I told her she was full of shit.  She punched me and we had a little throw-down…now can I go slap her silly?”

“No, Faith, my magic can fix the window, but it couldn’t rebuild the whole damn house.  Get in your room and wait for me to come talk to you.” Willow yelled from behind Tara. “Slacker” Tara whispered with a smile to Willow.

Faith started with a whine of “But Willow...!” and the Wiccan growled with a gesture that caused a sparkle of light to dance around her fingers.  Faith went inside and the three girls outside could hear her stomp down the stairs to her basement “lair.”

“Is this an everyday thing or just on the weekends?” Tara asked with a smile.

“No pretty much every day and listening to Faith bitch about Buffy when I’m trying to sleep is getting old!” Dawn said as she picked up her girlfriends thing and walked past the other girls.

Tara looks at Willow with a surprised look. “Okay that’s new.”  And with that she turns and walks into the house. Leaving Willow to herself in the front yard.