Blocker
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Chapter One
Tara put down the last of her boxes and looked around the dorm room. It was empty and cold. There was no warmth here, no comfort.
No Willow.
But she couldn't go back. She'd been right to leave.
Hadn't she?
Willow had promised - Willow had lied. The very next day after saying she was sorry for violating my mind, she did it again. And not just to me. All of us. All of our… Willow's friends. My friends aren't really mine - I got them when I got Willow. Will they see my side? Even Dawn didn't understand -
She couldn't finish the thought. She needed to think, needed to cry. Need to scream, needed to - talk. Who could she talk to?
Maria, the RA who'd given her this empty room had been sympathetic, but she'd never understand what Tara needed to talk about. There was no one here at the campus who knew that magic was real; that it was something that you could use to help - or destroy. And Willow had used it against her. After promising her love, after promising not to use magic for only seven days, she hadn't even made it through one. Had she ever intended to keep to her promise - or was she only telling Tara what she knew Tara wanted to hear? And had she lied before?
Tara was so upset and confused and she needed to get things straight in her mind. Her thoughts went to her mother. Her mother had been the one to teach her to talk things out - to keep at it until you understood the situation fully and knew what the right thing to do was. She hadn't done that tonight. Tonight she'd just acted - packed and left because Willow's betrayal was too much for her to wrap her mind around.
She needed to talk to her mother. She knew she couldn't have a conversation with a ghost, but maybe her mother's spirit might give her some sign…
She pulled some white candles and a copper bowl out of one of her boxes. She had no salt or sand for a circle but she was sure the goddess would understand that this was a unique situation. She lit the candles at the four corners and gave thanks to the goddess. She placed aloe, pepper and saffron into the bowl and lit them. She closed her eyes and recited:
"Guardians of the Spirit realm, hear and guide my plea.
When the midnight hour rings true, bring my mother to me.
Other souls who hear my call are not welcome in this place.
Only the one known as my earthly mother may enter this sacred space."
She looked at her watch and waited. Sixteen minutes to twelve. Sixteen minutes until she could look into her mother's face and know what to do. Her mother had always been a calm, pure soul. She would know; she would tell her.
As she waited, she tried not to think about all that had happened tonight. None of them knowing who they were, none of them having any idea what had happened or what had brought about their amnesia. But she had instinctively felt safe with them. Knew, somehow, that none of them would do her harm. It wasn't until she got her memory back that she had been hurt. They all had. Willow had betrayed them - her most of all, because of her promise - but all of them nonetheless. Did they feel as betrayed as she did? Did they feel confused? How did they feel about Willow? Were they even now gathered and criticizing and deriding her for what she had done? Or were they, like her, leaving Willow to herself, unsure of what to say or do? How were the others handling it?
She looked at her watch again. One minute to midnight. Soon she would see her mother. Soon she would feel comforted and hopefully be on her way to the answers she sought.
Midnight came, but her mother's image didn't appear. She thought she heard some vague whispering and tried to concentrate on it to hear it better. She closed her eyes and listened, really listened - and soon her mother's voice came to her.
"I can't help you, my daughter" the voice said, "but you should seek the one who is also on the outside looking in. Someone else who has been deceived this night and has need of your comfort as much as you have need of his."
Spike's image flashed in her mind. Spike - he was on the outside too, not really a Scooby. Willow wasn't his friend; he wouldn't hate Tara for leaving. He had been deceived by Willow as well, but she had a feeling that her mother had meant something else. Why would he need comforting as much as she did? Not because of Willow surely? Had someone else done something to Spike tonight?
But would he just throw her out? Could she trust him? She thought about how she had instinctively known tonight that none of them would hurt her. None. When they didn't know who they all were, when the only thing you could count on was your innate intuition, hers had said that she could trust Spike.
She would listen to her mother and go seek Spike's counsel. She stood but then remembered the hour. It would have to wait. In the morning, she would go in the morning, when it was safe once again to be on the streets of Sunnydale. When all the things that went bump in the night were once again asleep and out of sight.
Spike was something that went bump in the night. Spike would be asleep in the morning. But her nerves were shattered and she was in no fit shape to defend herself now and calling Buffy to come escort her was definitely out of the question. So she would wait.
It was going to be a long, sleepless night. She thought about Willow. A long, sleepless night filled with tears. She pulled her stuffed black cat out of her box and sat down to wait for the sunrise. And the tears came.
Tara had cried herself out as the sky outside her window turned pink with the dawn. She should wait; Spike would just be going to sleep now. He'd had a long night too. But maybe he'd gone to bed early last night. Maybe the chaos and confusion of losing their memories and fighting off those vampires had made him tired and he'd gone back to his crypt early and went to sleep. So he'd be waking up soon. Maybe?
She decided to walk over to his place and see. She didn't want to wait until dark again when normal vampires would be waking up. She was by herself this time with no one to help or protect her - going at dusk might be dangerous alone. She stood and changed into fresh clothes. She brushed her teeth and brushed her hair. She looked around her new room but there was no one here and nothing she wanted to take with her, so she grabbed her wallet and was out the door before any of the other residents were even stirring into the hallways.
It seemed odd to see the sun rising and hear birds chirping and dogs barking. Hadn't the world stopped turning? Hadn't everything changed when Willow had invaded her mind and tried to transform things into the way Willow wanted them to be? Had the rest of the world somehow gone on like always while she and her friends - Willow's friends - the others - had forgotten who they were?
As she felt the cool, fresh air on her face and felt the dew soaking into her canvas sneakers, she supposed it had. Everything was just as it had been before - except that it wasn't. Not for her. Maybe not for any of them.
But the others would forgive Willow quickly, she was sure. Maybe not Buffy, Buffy was still upset about being pulled out of Heaven - but Xander and Anya and Dawn certainly would. Dawn seemed to have forgiven her already last night as Tara had packed and left. Dawn blamed Tara - not Willow - for Tara's need to get away.
But this was the first time Willow had used that spell on them. They didn't know Willow had used it before, used it on Tara to make Tara forget that Willow had done something she didn't like. You couldn't just adjust the world - assault people's minds - whenever things weren't working out to suit your liking. That wasn't what magic was for. No one had a right to control people like that. To manipulate people into what you wanted them to be.
She'd had that with her family and Willow knew that. Knew that her father, her brother, her uncles and all the rest of the men in her family had dominated and controlled their women by perpetuating a lie to keep them in line - to keep them at home and under the authoritarian power of the men. Willow knew that; knew how hurt Tara had been when she found out the truth: That her life had been a manipulation. That they had used her and controlled her. Yet Willow had thought nothing of messing with her mind once again to make Tara as Willow wanted her to be.
She ran to try to escape her thoughts and she was breathless when she entered the cemetery.
Spike had helped her to see the truth then, with her father; maybe he would help her again now. He didn't seem like he would forgive Willow quite as easily as the others probably had. She made herself walk slowly to his crypt; forced her breathing to get back under control.
She knocked on his crypt door but there was no answer. He could be asleep - or out. She pushed open the door and looked through the dim interior but saw no sign of anyone. She went in and whispered his name, not wanting to wake him if he was asleep. He didn't seem to be there. She looked around, impressed by the ingenuity Spike had used to make the place more comfortable. There was a small refrigerator, to hold blood, she supposed. There was a chair and a table and a dust outline that looked like maybe a television had sat atop it until recently. There was even a lamp and dozens of unlit candles everywhere. At night this place would probably be very spooky - or very romantic, in a very goth way.
She noticed a hole in the floor and there was a ladder leading down. Was there more downstairs or did it just lead to the sewers? The only way to find out was to go down.
She crept down silently, still mindful that Spike might be asleep here somewhere. It was even dustier and gloomier down here, with cobwebs and caskets and even some bones lying around on the floor. She saw a flickering light and followed a stone corridor around to where another room had been hollowed out of the bedrock. This room was bigger and she saw Spike asleep on a large four-poster bed. The dim light showed her that the floor was covered with rugs that Spike must have scrounged from somewhere and there was more furniture down here; two chairs, a couple of lamps, and a few tables with remnants of melted candles on them. There was even a bar, and a casket. There were some clothes scattered on the floor and Tara saw for the first time that Spike had clothes other than his customary black t-shirt and jeans.
It was damp and dusty and could really do with a cleaning. But that wasn't why she was here, was it?
She saw Spike sleeping soundly and wondered if worries kept vampires awake or if they could sleep even when they were troubled. Maybe last night hadn't bothered him. Maybe coming here had been a mistake.
Her mother's voice had been very clear, though, that she should be talking to a man. Someone else who'd been deceived, she'd said. That meant either Mr. Giles or Xander or Spike. Mr. Giles had taken a plane to London last night and Xander had Anya to talk to. And her mother had said it would be someone on the outside, so that only left the male someone who was sleeping here in this room.
She wondered if she should stay or go. Should she stay here or wait upstairs? Should she be here at all? Should she have left Willow like that? Maybe this whole thing had been a big mistake and she'd dreamed it. Willow loved her; Willow would never do that to her.
But she had. And more than once.
Her head ached and the tears were coming again and Tara sank down to the floor and tried to will them to stop. Tried to make everything go away, make it not have happened. But it had and the person she trusted most in this world had betrayed her and no one, not even Dawn, seemed to understand why that hurt Tara so much.
She needed a friend - someone who would listen. Someone who would try to see her side and tell her if what she was doing was right. Even though she knew that it was. But she needed confirmation from someone else; she didn't know why she needed it, but she did. Maybe Spike could be that someone.
And according to her mother, someone other than Willow had hurt Spike last night. Being used twice in one night would make anyone upset, even someone as tough - and so used to being alone - as Spike. Maybe she could help him even if he couldn't help her. So she wrapped her arms around her knees and let the tears quietly fall as she waited for Spike to wake up. She could wait; she had nowhere else to go.
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