Chapter Text
Tara
“Did I do something wrong?”
“What?” Tara’s startled by the question, not entirely certain that Xander’s talking to her. He hasn’t said anything to her so far, not since they split away from the rest of the group, though he has scolded the couples they’ve broken up. Most notable was the couple they scared out of the laundry room just now, with Xander inventing some story about needing the washer the girl was sitting on for a huge stain on his shirt… which, while very colorful with its goldenrod print, wasn’t exactly stained. She thinks it helps that the couple was much more preoccupied in feeling each other up than paying attention to him. They didn’t leave until he actively started to shove them off the washing machine and started acting as if he was about to remove his shirt for cleaning. Tara tried to help with the ruse by reaching for the detergent, but she’s not sure how convincing she was… but either way, they left, so it seems something worked.
“Me. Did I do something to— to offend you or upset you or something?” Xander asks.
Tara’s insides churn. She hates conflict, hates arguing. It makes her feel sick to her stomach, causing her to freeze up. It reminds her of being a child, of trying to drown out her father’s yells by commencing forth with the wedding between two of her Barbies— she never had any Ken dolls and she never really wanted them, anyway. But now there’s nothing to distract her and Xander’s gaze is fixed on her. “N-no,” stammers out Tara.
“Are you sure?” Xander presses. “Because… It kinda feels like you might be. And while I’m sure I deserve it, I wanna know what it is. To make it right.”
It’s only now, upon seeing the worry in his eyes and the hazy yellow aura surrounding him that Tara realizes that Xander is feeling the exact same thing she is. “N-no! Really, I’m not— I’m not upset with you, Xander.” Then, after taking a second to summon some courage, she asks, “Wh-why would you think that?”
“You just seemed… I don’t know. Really on board with the whole splitting up thing.”
Tara shakes her head. “I just… I thought maybe it would be better for you and Anya if you… if you had some space. It… It looked like it was going to lead to a fight and… I hate fights,” she admits quietly, glad that what she’s saying to him isn’t a complete lie. It might not be the full truth, but at . There’s no way she can explain to him about what was really bothering her, which is that he and Willow… Well, she knew something happened between the two of them, before she ever knew them. She just didn’t know what.
And that’s what makes her feel like her insides are knotting themselves together. She saw how hurt Willow was by Oz leaving, saw how good they were together… and Willow still did something with Xander, something bad enough to summon Anya to help avenge his ex-girlfriend. She doesn’t exactly know what— she only heard bits of the story, but newer the whole thing.
And Xander… He’s Willow’s best friend. He has been for years, ever since they were in kindergarten. She’s heard enough stories to know that the happiest memories of her childhood involve him, in one way or another… but Tara always envisioned it as a pseudo-sibling relationship. It was… sweet. But now… Now she worries she had it all wrong. That maybe it wasn’t so innocent.
Xander, unaware of her inner turmoil, smiles sadly. “Me too. My parents, they…” He trails off.
Tara places a comforting hand on his arm, patting it softly. She doesn’t say anything, but she has a feeling their childhoods were similar. And… Well, she feels the need to make an effort. They’re not super close, but Tara likes Xander. He’s a sweetie. And whatever happened with him and Willow… Well, she wants to make sure she doesn’t take out her mood on him.
But all this talk about fighting reminds her of how they were bickering before they came inside the house, how sweet and innocent it seemed… and while Tara sensed nothing beyond years if friendship, it makes her think of Buffy picking a fight with Spike as soon as she saw him. She’s figured out that vampire’s auras are different than humans; Spike’s is always permanently in a greyscale, moving around. She can’t exactly tell what emotions he’s feeling, not like how she can with people. She figures it might be for the same reason why vampires can’t cast a reflection. The movements of it, though… that gives some indication of what he was feeling. And when he was with Buffy, his gaze was fixed on her, his aura almost… staticky? It’s interesting and Tara isn’t quite sure what it means, but Buffy…
Well, needless to say, Tara thinks that house might be affecting Buffy, too.
“I just don’t understand it,” Xander says, bringing her back to reality. She turns to look at him as they weave through a throng of guys who are raving about some wall. “I mean, if she had a problem with what happened between me and Will, why’d she even bother going out with me in the first place, huh?”
Tara turns to look at him. “You mean Anya?”
“Yeah,” he huffs. “It was wrong, I get it, but… Well, if she can’t even trust me with my own best friend, does she trust me at all?”
“Wh-what happened w-with you and Willow?” Tara hates how her voice shakes as she asks it. It feels like she’s betraying Willow, not only by doubting her but like she’s giving her away somehow. As if Xander will hear her longing to know exactly what transpired so that she can have all the facts, and then he’ll know about them… which feels worse, because Tara doesn’t care if Xander knows. She doesn’t care if the whole world knows. It’s Willow who cares and… and she understands that. Really, she does. When she was in high school, she had to be in the closet, too, and her one and only relationship with Heather Johnson was a clandestine affair, holding hands underneath diner booths and stealing kisses at supposedly innocent slumber parties. She understands that fear, that worry of someone finding out, and she doesn’t want to push Willow into the deep end before she is ready, especially not with Xander…
But Xander doesn’t seem to notice, turning to her, with surprise before nodding in understanding. “Right. Somehow I always forget you weren’t around for a lot of our high school hijinks. I’m guessing nobody got around to telling you this story, huh?”
“I’ve heard parts of it, I think,” Tara tells him, letting out a silent sigh of relief. “Something about it being what summoned Anya to Sunnydale?”
Xander almost looks pained as he admits, “Yeah. It… wasn’t our finest hour.” He clears his throat, tells the story.
And somehow it’s not as bad and worse than Tara imagines it. It sounds like the furthest it went was kissing, but it went on for weeks, while they were dating other people— Oz and Cordelia, the latter of whom Tara met at Buffy’s party. But worst of all… Willow was going to try and use magic to get her and Xander to stop having feelings for one another. It makes it hard to follow the rest of the story, which includes something about Anya creating a world where Xander didn’t exist and Willow was a vampire, because she keeps returning to that part, about Willow trying to use magic on Xander, and without his permission.
“It doesn’t bother you?” asks Tara, surprised when Xander doesn’t seem to mind.
He shrugs. “I mean, yeah, I was ticked off. Trust me, I know magic is not something to be messed with. You ever heard the story about how I accidentally enchanted every woman in Sunnydale to fall in love with me?” When Tara’s eyes widen, he quickly says, “Never mind. We’ve probably gone on way too many tangents. The point is, yeah, I was mad at the time. Especially since I really learned that lesson with that spell… and I thought Willow would’ve too, since she was under that spell. I mean, she wouldn’t even speak to me for a week after I’d cast it… and honestly? I don’t blame her. She was right to. What I did really shitty. And it didn’t help that she already had feelings for me at the time… and then the spell basically forced her to act on them. So yeah. The silent treatment was much deserved.”
Hearing those words is like a dagger in her heart. Tara feels nauseous, light-headed even. There’s a part of her that wishes she never found out about any of this and a part of her that’s relieved to know. She knows Willow hasn’t been practicing magic for long and that Mr. Giles has been trying to help her but… The fact that she knew what it was like to be under the influence of a magical spell like that and then try and perform it on someone without their consent? It bothers her.
More than that, it scares her.
“But… I guess in a roundabout way, I’m grateful,” continues Xander, oblivious to Tara’s inner turmoil. “I mean, I probably never would have met Any and she would kept on torturing men for eternity.” He wears a dopey, lovestruck smile. If she weren’t so rattled by what she’s just heard, she’d think it was sweet, how much he clearly loves Anya. “And yeah, the road getting there kind of sucked but… I wouldn’t trade it for anything, you know?” He grins again. “Oh, and hey, I was talking to Leslie at work yesterday and it sounds like she’s definitely single at the moment, so if you’re at all interested, then— oh hey, are you alright?”
“Huh?” Tara says.
“You just… you look a little pale.” Xander’s eyebrows knit with concern. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine,” Tara insists, just as nausea and vertigo threaten to seize her. She clenches her eyes shut, inhales in deeply, then amends, “Actually… I’m not feeling so great.”
“What’s the matter?” She feels Xander’s hand on her back, right between her shoulder blades. She can’t tell if he’s trying to comfort her or steady her.
“I just… I feel kinda sick,” she admits. Then, almost feeling like a child. “I don’t like it here.”
“Here,” Xander says, gently guiding her forward. Tara stares ahead, vision blurry and stomach rolling. The room feels as if it’s spinning a million miles an hour, like the merry-go-round at the playground back home. When she was seven, Donny spun her around and around until she was dizzy. She begged him to stop, but he didn’t until she threw up all over the pretty pink dress Mama picked out for her that morning. That’s what she feels like now. Like her whole world is spinning around and around and around, and she wants it to slow down, but it just won’t stop.
But Xander’s kind, leading her over to worn leather couch, crouching in front of her. “Better?”
“Not really,” admits Tara. She feels so… so alone. So scared and frightened and… and full of dread. Her heart is breaking. “Everything’s kinda… blurry.”
“You haven’t had anything to drink here, right?” asks Xander, concerned.
She shakes her head, then immediately regrets it. Vertigo again. “Not since before we got here.”
“Right,” says Xander, nodding more to himself than her. Then, “I’m going to go fetch you some water, okay? Straight from the tap? Do you think that will help.”
Tara’s not sure it will, but the idea of a moment alone sounds nice. “Sure.”
Xander nods again, gives her a reassuring smile. “Okay. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She tries to mimic his smile, to reassure him all is well, but the second he disappears through a doorway, Tara lets it fall. She closes her eyes, leans back, and tries to focus on her breathing, all the while wondering how well she really knows the woman she loves.