Title– Turned – part 17
Author– JustSkipit - Debra
E-mail –
debraser@yahoo.com Feedback – Yes please.
Spoilers–Season 6 through Seeing Red.
Rating– Part 17 – P for Pedantic Disclaimer – Willow and Tara and any other character that appeared in the syndicated television show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is property of Joss and Mutant Enemy, I’m only borrowing them and am not making any money off them Thanks.
Summary – This story goes from the moment that Tara is shot at the end of Seeing Red with three changes to Buffy details. 1. Tara is shot through the spleen rather than the Heart. 2. Buffy is shot in the arm. 3. Spike
did not leave town after the events of Seeing Red.
Thanks and notes to Grimlock72 for asking great questions and reacting with your heart.
Willow walked back to Aunt April’s house with her lover’s family. Tara was carrying Tabitha who had fallen asleep on her shoulder. Timmy followed the three women, shuffling quietly down the sidewalk. None of them had noticed the two figures who watched until they left the park, then got into a car and drove the opposite direction.
“Tara? Timmy?” Aunt April called out at they entered the house.
Entering the room still carrying the little girl, Tara spoke quietly to her aunt: “She fell asleep on the way home. Let me go and put her to bed and then we can talk ok?” Turning to Willow, she continued, “do you want to come with?”
As Willow followed, she noticed Timmy waiting a moment before kissing his mother on the cheek, saying, “good night mom,” and moving to a room on the other side of the living room.
Watching Tara put her daughter to bed Willow was overwhelmed by the strength of emotion. All at once she realized the depth of Tara’s love not only for Tabitha but for Willow. Also, her fear that she would lose Willow if she found out and how hard it must have been for her for all these years. As Tara turned from the bed after kissing her daughter on the forehead, Willow took her hand tightly, pulling her into the hall.
Tara felt distressed and confused about what was upsetting Willow so badly: “Sweetie, what’s wrong?”
“Oh God baby, it must be so hard for you. I mean you love her so much and you love me so much and you always thought you would have to choose.” Willow looked deeply into Tara’s eyes before stressing, “You will never have to choose baby. I promise. I love you.” She sealed her promise with a tender kiss. When she pulled back, she noted the tears pooling in Tara’s eyes and pulled her into a hug.
When the two women joined April downstairs, she handed Tara a cup of tea and Willow a mug of coffee. “Hey, two sugars, just like I like,” Willow commented.
April smiled, “I’ve been hearing about you for two years Willow. I think I know how you like your coffee by now.”
Turning to Tara she asked, “How does Timmy seem to you?”
“Q-q-quieter.”
“I thought so too,” April agreed. “He’ll have to go back home soon. Actually that’s what I wanted to talk to you girls about.”
Willow interjected, “Timmy going home?”
“What? Oh, no,” April quickly answered. “Tara darling, what are your plans now?”
Looking to Willow, Tara began, “Well, I’m not sure. Right now I’m staying in a crypt of a friend. But…”
Taking Tara and Willow’s hands April interrupted, “Look, I don’t mean to be nosy and maybe it’s none of my business. But will the two of you live together again?”
This time Willow answered before Tara could speak, “that’s what I want.”
“It’s c-c-complicated,” Tara said.
“Yes. I expect that it is. But it may be getting less complicated,” her aunt said cryptically.
“What? Why? What are you talking about Aunt April?”
Taking a deep breath April answered, “I have loved having Tabitha with me Tara. You know that. It’s like seeing you or your mother every day, a beacon of light and love. But she needs to be with her mother. She’s having visions Tara.”
“V-v-visions?”
“She says two men are coming for her. She says that only you and Willow can keep her safe and that it’s time.”
Both girls gasped at this revelation: “What? I mean how long? What else does she say?”
“Ok, calm down girls. I’m having them too. I don’t get a vision about the men but I do have an overwhelming sense that if she’s with the two of you she will be fine.” Turning to Tara she softly spoke: “Tara, sweetie, I know you are scared but she’s your daughter and she belongs with you.”
Pulling back suddenly Tara narrowed her eyes at her aunt, “and you don’t have much longer? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Rather than speaking, April pulled Tara into a tight hug as the younger woman was overtaken by tears. Feeling like she was intruding on an intimate scene, Willow eventually got up and quietly ascended the stairs to the room in which they would spend the night.
After quite a while, Tara joined Willow, closing the door softly behind her. Willow crossed the room to take her lover in her arms before speaking, “I’m so sorry baby.” Holding her on the bed, she continued, “What do you want to do?”
Tara looked at the redhead, “I’d like for the three of us to live together. I mean if you want that. I love you and I love her and we need to protect her.”
Brushing a lock of hair from Tara’s forehead to place it behind her ear, she answered, “Yes baby. I do want that. Let me talk to Buffy but if we can’t stay there. I’ll find us an apartment ok? I love you Tara Maclay,” she concluded kissing the blonde tenderly.
Releasing her lover, she asked the quietly probed, “Timmy?”
Tara took a deep unnecessary breath before answering, “He used to be Timothy.”
Allowing her anger to show, Willow responded, “I gathered that. Why is he here? Why is he anywhere? Why is he near you or Tabitha?”
Holding Willow’s hands in her own, Tara tried to explain: “I’m not sure that I can e-e-explain. When he, well…, you know. That was not totally out of his character. I mean it should have been p-p-predictable and I knew as soon as I saw him that day that he shouldn’t be there-that he was dangerous. Also, he had been growing more and more obsessed with me.”
“Anyway, that was the only time that anything like that happened. As you know, my father kicked me out and I went to live with April and he. He was different from that day. Not totally meek but somewhat tamed. He looked at me with sadness and longing but never hunger like that one time. As my p-p-pregnancy progressed, he became more and more reserved until he would rarely speak unless someone asked him a question.”
“The day that I had Tabitha, April was with me at the hospital. Donnie actually came to the hospital looking for Timothy. He hadn’t shown up to work that morning. We of course didn’t know where he was. So Donnie went looking. He found him in the barn, nestled in the straw. He was cold, naked, and obviously t-t-terrified of something. Donnie tried to approach him but he shied from his touch. It was as if he couldn’t hear anything that my b-b-brother said. Donnie kept calling to him but he wouldn’t listen. Eventually, Donnie got on the floor with him and crawled toward him, calling him Timmy instead of Timothy from when we were little kids. And he responded and he’s been Timmy ever since.”
“Donnie took him to Father’s house and cleaned him up and put him to bed but he still wouldn’t speak. This, I mean, how you saw him today, well, this is a medium day. There are good ones and bad ones. On the bad ones, if father gets frustrated, he puts him on a bus here. After a week or two, Timmy misses the horses and Aunt April calls and Donnie convinces Father to take him back and he goes back. It’s totally a coincidence that he was here now baby but I didn’t mean to shock you and I’m s-s-sorry.”
Willow stood and began to pace the room, “ok, that sounds bad and I’m sorry and everything but well, good he deserves it. I mean, what he did was wrong and terrible and bad and he deserves to be punished.”
Tara answered quietly, “he is.”
“He is what? Punished? By who? Probably not enough. And you I don’t get. I mean how can you sit and have dinner with him or let him around Tabitha? How can you not want to kill him?” Willow ranted.
Motioning to Willow to come sit by her on the bed, Tara answered carefully: “That’s a lot of different questions. First, he is punished. I don’t know by who but I know that it’s not my role to punish him and I would not want to. Second, I let him be around Tabitha because he is not a danger to her and he loves her as her cousin. Third, I can have dinner with him and not want to kill him because I forgive him.”
Again Willow jumped up from the bed, “you forgive him? How can you forgive him? He doesn’t deserve it. I don’t forgive him.”
In contrast to Willow’s agitation and anger, Tara spoke calmly and evenly, “No one ever deserves it. I don’t believe that forgiveness is about deserving it. It’s about grace. To forgive is an act of grace.”
“What in the Hell are you talking about? Grace? You can’t forgive this. He doesn’t deserve it,” Willow shouted.
“Sweetie, please talk more quietly or we will need to go for a walk ok?” Tara waited for Willow to nod before continuing: “I can and do forgive him. Life is too short for me to walk around with hatred and poison in my body. Actually I guess life was too short. Now I have eternity to walk around with any poison I choose but I don’t choose that one.”
“Can I tell you a story?” Tara asked quietly. As Willow nodded Tara started to explain: “A few years ago I was listening to NPR one morning. It was one of the first days of the trial for the Oklahoma City bomber. They were interviewing people out front of the court house in Denver. The interviewer was a woman and she was interviewing a man who lost his fiancé in the blast. He had turned on the TV and saw a big hole where her office used to be. She was gone and he was angry and devastated. He stayed angry and devastated for a long time. Then one day he started to think about his faith.”
“He believed that everyone gets forgiveness from God/Jesus. Now you know that’s not my belief structure but I wanted to hear what he had to say. He sat and thought about it and he realized that if God could forgive the bomber, so could he. So he did.”
Tara waited a minute before continuing: “The interviewer was stunned. She asked how that works for him and he said some days better than others. She asked what happens on the days when it doesn’t work well. Do you know what he said?” Tara looked to Willow for answer before continuing. “He said, ‘then I forgive him again.’”
Tara crossed the room to brush a tear from Willow’s cheek. She spoke quietly, “On the days that it’s hard, I forgive him again.”
Willow looked stricken as she made a connection, “Other days you forgive me again?”
Kissing the redhead softly, Tara whispered, “I forgave you immediately and every day since then my love.”
“But you stayed away?”
“There’s a difference in forgiving someone and putting yourself in danger. I forgive my father but I don’t go to his house or let him see Tabitha. I forgave you but I had to let you heal before I could open myself up to you again. Timmy is not a danger to anyone.”
As she spoke, Tara took Willow’s hands in hers, pulling her to the bed. She softly kissed her lover, first with soft tentative pecks. As Willow began to open to her caresses, Tara deepened the kiss, probing lightly with her tongue, hugging her body to her own. “Make love with me,” she whispered and Willow’s anger melted away.
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"I think this line's mostly filler."
by Ten10239 » Tue Nov 19, 2002 9:11 pm 
That was quite an update. You sure know how to write 'em. Ha, sorry that was corny.
Thanks for the rocking update.
fast updates....weeee 
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