Title: Between the Rooms
Author: Bree
Category: Angst, Buffy/Stargate crossover
Episodes referenced: Seeing Red, the Body, Meridian
Rating: PG
Summary: In the minutes after her death, Tara is introduced to Daniel Jackson and offered the chance to ascend to a higher plane of existence.
Notes: I got the title from an Emily Dickinson poem, but I decided not to include it. It Didn’t quite fit.
Disclaimer: Tara is owned by that meanie Joss Whedon who killed her. But I still like him. Daniel is owned by a bunch of meanies who killed him. But I guess they’re okay still, too.
“Was it sudden?”
No. Not at all, really. The bullet came through the window in slow motion, and she thought she could recall the sound of the glass as each crack slowly formed before it shattered. The wind shifted ever so slightly. Then the little bullet hit her, not hard, but bluntly, like a rock embedding itself in soft dough. She could feel it sinking deeper into her heart. It wasn’t painful. It was a curious feeling. She could almost see the veins separating, and the scorched, red hole it made. Then she remembered to look on the outside instead of the inside, and the sight of Willow’s shirt, once white but now scarlet, registered.
“Was it sudden?” the voice in her ear repeated its question.
Suddenly she was back in the hospital lobby after Joyce died, simmering in her nervousness, alone with Buffy. She had tried to comfort her by quietly and vaguely mentioning her own mother’s death. The Slayer’s eyes were vacant, as if her soul only half-remained in her tiny body. “Was it sudden?” she had said.
Tara answered now as she had then. “It’s always sudden.”
The man next to her nodded gravely. Her own soul was entirely gone from her body now, and what remained was the wax dummy that used to be her, cradled now in Willow’s arms. Tara could only see from the outside now. There was no inside anymore.
“Will,” she whispered softly.
“Was she . . . was she a friend?” The man next to her had gentle, imploring blue eyes. He wore wrinkled gray slacks and a black sweater. His face was full of kindness and empathy.
“I love her,” she answered, “more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life. And I never got the chance to tell her that.”
He nodded, and she knew she would not have to explain further. “I know what it’s like to lose the people who matter most to you. To have to say goodbye. Especially if you don’t get to really say it.”
She was thinking of Willow, and yet she wasn’t paying attention to her. The red-haired witch’s eyes had glowed crimson, and she was summoning something . . . someone. Tara got a chill. She didn’t think that dead people could get chills. Thought maybe they just caused them.
“God! My mind is wandering! It’s like I can’t think correctly!” she said, putting her hand to her forehead and sighing with relief that it felt solid, even if it wasn’t. “What is she doing?”
“I don’t know,” said the man, who was watching Willow intently. “Is she some kind of psychic or sorceress or something?”
“We’re Wiccans.”
The ceiling was shrouded with the angry, massive face of a demon. “Osiris,” Tara identified. “She’s trying to bring me back. Stop, Willow, you’re not supposed to be doing this, it’s too dangerous! We have to stop her!”
“You can’t. And I can’t. We’re not supposed to interfere. She has her own path to walk, be it good or evil.”
“Willow is not evil!” Tara snapped, and the harshness of her words surprised her. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want her to hurt herself.”
The man was staring at the demon intently, as if he had no idea a creature like that could exist. “So that’s Osiris, huh. Where I come from . . . he looks different.” He smiled sadly to himself.
“Haven’t you ever seen a demon before?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Did you say demon?”
“Who are you anyway?”
“I’m Daniel,” he answered, then struggled for something to add. “I used to be an archeologist.”
“When you were alive?”
He grinned. “When I walked in this world, is more appropriate.”
“So you went on digs and . . . dug for things?”
To her surprise, he actually laughed. “No. I worked for the air force.”
“Doing what?”
He tilted his head. “All right. Why not? You know aliens? They exist. Some of them look like snakes, and they can go into your head and take over your body. I used to fight them. And explore other planets by walking through a big round gate that generates wormholes between worlds.”
“Wormholes? Like on Farscape?”
“Exactly. Only . . . with a gate . . . and less leather, but--it doesn’t matter. Nevermind.”
“Neat. I’m Tara,” she volunteered.
“It’s nice to meet you, Tara.”
Osiris had gone, and Willow had managed to get to her feet. She was shaking so violently, but a soon as she stood up a strange calmness overtook her, and she descended the stairs to go find Buffy and Xander. Tara and Daniel walked to the broken window and looked out onto the lawn below. Paramedics were loading Buffy into an ambulance, and several of the neighbors had rushed out their front doors, some barefoot or covered in flour.
“Is Buffy going to die, too? Again?”
“The future’s never certain. At least that’s what I’m told. And you’re not dead, by the way. At least not yet.”
The sunlight poured through the opening where the windowpane had once been. She could feel its warmth. It shone completely through Daniel, who was no more solid than she was. Tara lifted her arm and marveled at the light illuminating her. “Of course I am. There’s my body.”
“It’s not really. Usually, for those like us, the body is transformed into pure energy, and it is no longer tangible in their world. But your friends don’t really understand Ascension, so I had to make a copy, something they could see so that they aren’t left wondering where you have gone.”
“So it’s a wax dummy after all,” she said.
He nodded. “In a way. But it’s real enough.”
All right, did you say the word ascension? Cause I heard about a man here who did that, and he became a big snake. You don‘t look like a snake demon to me.”
“Ascension is just a change,” Daniel regarded her with a sort of off-putting seriousness. “It can be a change for the better or for the worse. It’s why I’m here. To offer you a choice. Since your death was so sudden, we don’t have much time. Your mind is already open to distraction, to worry and curiosity. Soon you will have no choice but to accept your mortal death.”
“So I am dead?”
Daniel shook his head. “No. They’re the closest thing to dead that you can be,” he gestured out the window to Xander and Willow. “Even the Dead aren’t really dead. It all depends on your point of view.”
“Thanks, Obi-Wan,” Tara snickered, more confused than ever. “So what’s your point of view?”
“I’m energy. My consciousness is very much present and alive. It’s hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it, but I can tell you for certain that a universe of knowledge is waiting for you. Your journey can take you wherever you want. You’ll see more than other worlds, other races . . . you’ll see other dimensions of thought. Other realms of believing. Other planes of existence.”
“You’re confusing me in a good way now,” Tara smiled. “So it’s a quest, kind of?”
“Yes!” said Daniel, and his eyes lit up with childlike excitement. Tara giggled. If anyone could convince her that all of this was real, this man could. “A quest. Well said. It‘s like people who die go into one room, and people who live as you and I once did stay in another. But we‘re in the hallway. Between the rooms. And we can open the door to both, or neither, or others that we never saw before. And we can look into them all. ”
She thought of her spells, her blossoming inner power. Maybe out there, in Daniel’s world, there was a magic that she had only guessed at. A white light she had never even dreamt of touching. And a thousand different ways of being that no one realized. Oh, to be able to explore the secrets of life as we know it, and as we don’t know it . . . If only Willow could--
“Willow!” she tore herself away from her thoughts and looked out to her beloved again. But the lawn was empty. “What if she starts using magic again? What if she goes after whoever did this? I can’t let her.”
“You will let her. I told you. The only rule of our quest is that you may not interfere. Even for those you love.” Daniel turned back toward the interior of the room, glanced up at the ceiling. “That was really a-a-a-demon?”
Tara shrugged. “All right. Why not? You know demons? They’re real. Some of them can bring the dead back to life when it suits them. And vampires are real, too. I used to fight them. With Willow, Xander, Anya and Buffy, who’s the actual, real-deal, vampire Slayer.”
“Neat,” said Daniel.
Tara frowned. “So that’s it? I mean, that’s all? One little bullet from whoever, through the window, and it’s all over. Willow and I will never adopt three Russian babies and start a magic school. I’ll never see Dawn grow up, go to college, and become brilliant. I’ll never graduate college myself. I’ll never be thirty. I’ll never be forty or fifty. And neither will you. It’s too--”
“Sudden?” Daniel asked gently.
Tara nodded wordlessly, and she reached out her hand without looking at him. He took it.
“It doesn’t have to be an end, Tara.”
She could feel the tears stinging her eyes, but she wasn’t supposed to be able to cry anymore.
“You have to release your burden,” he whispered.
The silence seemed to stretch on forever. At last, she spoke.
“I’m ready. I’ve chosen. Let’s go.”
Daniel closed his eyes and sighed gratefully. She could feel an odd pressure emanating from him, and it spread to her through their linked hands. Then their hands melted away, and their forms were no longer human in appearance. Two beautiful, undulating white balls of light floated together above the Summers’ house. They lingered for a moment, their wispy arms reaching towards nothing, before they into the sunlight.
In the stale calm of that deserted lawn, a pair of birds were singing.
end.
