[Buffy the Vampire Slayer] Second Chance
Title: Second Chance
Author: telepathicpixie
Rating: PG
Characters: Willow Rosenberg & Tara Maclay
Word Count: 944
Notes: 100_women prompt #14 - hope. Post-series; AU.
Summary: It had been two years, six months, and twenty-four days since Tara left Sunnydale.


It had been two years, six months, and twenty-four days since Tara left Sunnydale. One year and seventeen days since Sunnydale had been destroyed. Two months and eight days since Willow had found a phone number for Tara’s current residence.

She still hadn’t gotten up the courage to call.

She’d only thought of trying to find phone numbers when she realized it had been over two years since Tara had left. It had hurt, at first, when Tara had gone, a heart-sore, soul-searing ache that seemed like it would never abate, because Tara was gone and Willow had driven her away and even the magic had lost its flavor. There would have been spells to find her, to call her back, but Willow had at least possessed enough presence of mind to realize that would have only made things worse. Somewhere around the time the pain started to lessen, the First Evil and a busload of Potentials arrived and they were all fighting for their lives and the safety of the world, and then Sunnydale was gone and they were struggling to assemble an updated version of a Council that hadn’t worked terribly well in the first place.

Two months and eight days ago, Willow realized she had forgotten about Tara, about her heartache, in the bustle and confusion. That had hurt, too, in an absent, regretful way. She’d looked up the phone number mostly to see if she could, to see if there was even a phone number to find. Actually having it had been the hard part, because then there were ten digits mocking her with the thing she’d lost, but could possibly regain.

While Tara leaving had made her seriously reevaluate her priorities, it hadn’t been until Warren nearly killed Buffy that Willow found herself confronting the edge and realizing how far she could fall. She hadn’t given up magic, because it wasn’t practical in their situation, but she was getting better. She was being responsible. She had learned her lesson and maybe Tara could forgive her and they could be friends again, at least.

Willow missed Tara, in all the obvious girlfriendy ways, but she missed her friendship, too.

Taking a deep breath, Willow picked up the phone.

~*~

“Hey, uh, Tara? This is, uhm, this is Willow. Rosenberg. Which—okay, I guess you could have guessed that. That it was me. I mean, how many other Willows do you know? A lot, maybe. Or, uhm—well. I hope you don’t mind me calling. I found your number the other day and—and—I wanted you to know we’re all all right. Well, not all, but—all of us that made it out. Anyway, I thought—I thought I should call you. To say hi. I hope you’re doing okay. I hope you’re… okay. If you want to talk—if you want to call back—you don’t have to, of course, I’ll totally understand if you don’t, but if you do…”

~*~

A series of numbers followed, numbers Tara had automatically written down the first time she had listened to the message. They sat innocently on the little white pad next to the phone, absent of even a name, since Tara didn’t need a reminder of who they belonged to. The message itself had appeared on her answering machine about a week earlier and Tara had lost count of how many times she had listened to it. The first time, after she’d written down the phone number in a daze, she had seriously considered just deleting it—and possibly throwing away the number, too, for good measure—but refrained at the last minute. Instead, she just walked away. In the days that followed, she found herself listening to it whenever she happened to pass by the machine.

Tara had done her very best to forget about Sunnydale after leaving. She had liked the friends she had made there; she really, really had. They were, without a doubt, the best friends she’d ever had and they’d given her the courage to go north instead of back southeast when she’d left Sunnydale. But she’d intended to move on and, in order to do that, she had to stop thinking about all that she was leaving behind, particularly since leaving Willow was the best thing she could have done in the situation.

Some Sunnydale lessons did stay with her. She carried a stake and holy water in her purse; she never invited anyone inside her apartment; she was always careful going around after dark. Still, Tara had gotten a job in a bookstore and she’d even started taking classes at the local college and, except for the occasional, innocent bit of spell casting, Tara thought she was doing a fine job of creating a normal life for herself.

The call from Willow had unsettled her more than she liked to think. Tara knew, if she returned the call, she would be swiftly drawn back into all the terror and danger and monsters she had left behind in Sunnydale, whether or not Willow intended it. She had heard enough—felt enough—to know that the balance of power had shifted drastically and that something major had happened in Sunnydale before it collapsed into a crater.

The part of her that wanted to stay safe told her to just delete the message and continue forgetting; the part of her that missed Willow, that kept coming back to listen to the stuttering, awkward message, wanted to reconnect.

The light continued to blink on the machine, reminding her of the saved recording. Tara looked down at the phone number on the memo pad and reached for the receiver.


Table here.