Chapter 12—Unladened

Unladened, empty and turned to stone—Pink Floyd, "Learning to Fly"

Buffy returned to a quiet house.

Tara sat in a chair, sipping herbal tea. Her face was swollen and eyes rimmed with red, and she was breathing the steam off the tea. Dawn's eyes were red as well, but she was resolutely refraining from crying, immersed in a book. Dawn, reading? Buffy would investigate that later.

Spike was in the kitchen, a tumbler of something amber and potent in his hand. Giles sat on the tall stool across the island from Spike, with less in his glass.

She didn’t expect to see Giles, but afterthought made it make sense. Her house had been Slayer central, most of the time. Her house and the Magic Box. It seemed only right that he was here.

It also highlighted the glaring holes in their lives. Their missing members, weighing heavy on all their minds.

Giles turned to Buffy. “I think that we need to recover what actually happened that night, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Somehow, she interpreted the Giles-speak to mean the thing that had preyed on her mind since the meeting. “We need to get the whole story. From two of them, at least.” She shot a look at Spike, then went into the living room to Tara's side. “We need to talk.”

Tara followed her silently to the kitchen. She climbed on one of the stools, placing her tea gently on the countertop, and turned bloodshot orbs on those gathered.

“I did this to her.”

Buffy leaned her chin on her hand, and sighed. “What happened?”

Tara took a sip of tea, then cleared her throat. “She was becoming…obsessive. Really intent on bringing you back. She wouldn’t listen to anyone. She pushed and bullied and argued that you were in hell, and if she had the power, why not use it? She kept saying that it was what you would’ve wanted, Buffy. She…may have even used a spell, because it was suddenly our plan. Use magic to bring Buffy back, and don’t tell anyone.”

“Why do you think that magic was involved?” Giles removed his glasses, and laid them on the counter. “Perhaps it was just a compulsion.”

“It’s the same thing, Giles. It’s just a nicer word. Spell, compulsion. She did something to bring us all to the same side. She was researching night and day. She started hiding her research from everyone, including me. She created a magical room in our closet, Giles, and hid everything in there under a spell-lock. I couldn’t even touch the books.”

“What did you do?” Buffy asked.

“I stole her magic.”

Tara's blunt statement fell into the silent room, flat and uncompromising. They stared at her, then looked quietly at each other, before Giles cleared his throat. “How did you do that?”

Tara dropped her head, shielding her face with her hair. She cringed to tell them, but she had to. Her guilt was muddying her aura and threatening her magical control. She couldn’t stand it any longer.

“I—it got to the point I couldn’t sleep in the same bed with her. Her aura was so dark and it felt…malignant. Not bright with good intentions, but selfish reasons. Evil. So one night, we…we made love…and I drained some of her power into a crystal on the table. Pulled off just enough to clear her aura a little, then stopped.”

“What did you do with the crystal?” Giles prodded.

“She brought it to me.” They turned to look at Spike, who mumbled under his breath while looking at Tara, “Can’t let you take all the blame, Glinda.”

Tara smiled gratefully, and Spike continued. “Glinda here brought me a rock. Didn’t look like a crystal at all. Nothing to show it was ever one. Black and brown and muddied with swirling patterns, it was, and the bad just radiated from it. She gave it to me for safekeeping.”

Giles picked up his glasses, and started cleaning them. He could almost…but no, he needed to hear the rest from them. “What happened to the crystal, Spike?”

“I took it with me to the cemetery that night. Couldn’t see leaving it here, too chancy. Put it in my duster when I left, almost forgot it.”

“So you had it with you when you went to the cemetery. Then what?” Buffy's voice took on a flat tone, inquisitive but completely void of emotion. She was trying hard to control her feelings.

“I stopped them right before they started, made the Whelp help me dig out the coffin. The spell started, and then it seemed to stall.”

“Stall?”

“There wasn’t enough power to continue. She called out to me for help. There was static in the air, and it seemed like it was dragging the breath right out of my lungs.” Tara's eyes were distant with memory, when Spike picked up the story again.

“I don’t know what happened to the damn stone, but it fell out of my pocket.”

Tara looked at him. “I thought you dropped it.”

Spike shook his head. “Didn’t even think about it, Glinda. It was almost like it jumped out of my pocket. Before I knew it, my leg was up and down, and the thing turned to powder, and the magic was released. I could feel it swirling around, the spell worked, and then all the magic was gone.”

“Tara?”

“Yeah, that was about the way it went, Giles. It went through me, and right into Will. When it did, it just stopped.”

Giles picked up his glass and drank the whiskey remaining in the bottom, then held the glass out to Spike, who refilled it wordlessly, adding a hefty splash to his own cup.

They were shocked to see Tara holding her cup out as well. Spike poured her a tiny bit, and she gulped it down, grateful for the searing in her gullet to override the pain in her heart.

“So that’s what burned her magic out. Her own magic. It must have been too much released at one time.” Buffy nodded, pleased with her grasp of the mystical, and looked at her companions around the table.

“Willow was turning to the dark. She deserves to be stripped of her powers. Now there is balance.”

They all turned to see Dawn standing in the doorway, her eyes blank as she moved mechanically into the room. “Balance is the judgement of the Powers, and balance has been achieved.”

Awareness filled the teenager’s eyes, and she fell to the floor.