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Tara Maclay takes a mostly-empty bus to UC Sunnydale. It’s a long ride, but compared to the planes and the trains that brought her halfway across the country to the West Coast, it passes by in the blink of an eye. She watches the scenery go by with a tired feeling in her chest; much as she’s happy to have put a good distance between herself and her family, she misses the greenery of her small Southern home, and the whole desert-and-palm-trees thing really isn’t her cup of tea, metaphorically speaking.
One stop before UC Sunnydale, a group of suntanned, messy individuals clamber onto the bus, finding seats a few rows away from Tara. The two adults in the group are sitting with the intimate closeness of a long-married couple, but none of the kids look anything like each other. Or, for that matter, like either of the adults.
Tara feels a strange kind of envy. Sometimes she wishes she didn’t have her father’s nose or her brother’s chin.
“Get your feet off the seat, Xander, we are practicing decent manners,” says the man long-sufferingly in a surprisingly British accent, swatting at one of the boys until he moves. “And Buffy, I told you to put sunblock on at the beach, you’re going to get burned and I won’t have you getting skin cancer—” The woman says something in his ear, and he scowls. “I am not a mother hen!”
“She means it in a nice way,” says a dark-haired girl, rummaging in the woman’s purse until she pulls out an energy bar. “Aha!”
“Faith, you’ll spoil your dinner,” says the woman without much conviction.
Xander has busied himself with teasing one of the other girls, who’s wearing a floppy sun hat that hides most of her face. There’s something about that girl in particular that catches Tara’s eye, and she can’t quite place it, can’t quite figure it out—
“Hey, Ms. Calendar, our stop’s next stop, right?” asks the blonde girl (Buffy?), pressing her nose up against the window. “UC Sunnydale?”
“I’m not going yet,” says Faith through the energy bar, sounding pleased with herself, “I’m in remedial math.”
“That you are,” says Ms. Calendar, holding up her hand for a high-five. Faith takes the offer without hesitation, something that strikes Tara as a little unusual; a girl who holds herself that carefully doesn’t seem like the one to buy into high-fives and easy smiles. “Rupert, you signed me up for that job thing, right?”
“The professorial position, yes,” says Rupert, but he turns, kissing Ms. Calendar’s nose, and murmurs something soft and adoring that Tara doesn’t quite catch. Ms. Calendar gets all blushy and tucks her head into his shoulder.
“Gross,” says Buffy. “You two are gross.”
“We caught you and Willow making out in a shrub the day after graduation,” says Ms. Calendar without moving her head. “Don’t talk to me about gross, Summers, I’ve seen it all.”
“Jenny,” says Rupert, sounding genuinely horrified. Buffy looks like she can’t decide whether to be mortified or start laughing really hard.
The sun-hat girl raises her head, pushing soft red hair out of her eyes, and oh—
Tara’s soulmate mark burns white-hot, just like all the stories say it always will. Almost unconsciously, she claps her hand to the inside of her right arm, biting down a gasp as the sun-hat girl’s eyes connect with hers.
“Everything okay, Will?” asks one of the kids, but their voice comes from far away. All of Tara’s world seems to have distilled to this one stunningly beautiful girl.
“Oh,” says the sun-hat girl, and smiles a little uncomfortably. Her hand is pressed to her arm in the exact same way, but Tara can still make out a hint of blue-grey under the sun-hat girl’s fingers that exactly matches her favorite color. “Um—”
Tara is suddenly afraid. Something about this moment doesn’t seem right or immediate. She’s seen soulmates meet each other—it happened once at her high school, with a cheerleader everyone wanted to be and a gorgeous transfer student everyone wanted to date. Their eyes met, and their marks burned, and they ran across the hallway to collide into a passionate kiss. Now, Tara isn’t silly: she knows that the chances of her and her soulmate kissing like that as soon as they meet are second to none, particularly since she’s not all that sure how two girls kissing in public would play out for the people around her. But she at least thought that there would be some kind of rush, some kind of elated smile on her soulmate’s face.
The sun-hat girl looks down and away, then back up again, almost ashamed. “Hi,” she says to Tara.
Tara can see the understanding dawning on the faces of the people surrounding her soulmate, but it’s not a good kind. More a mixture of sadness and pity, and she doesn’t—she doesn’t understand, this is her moment, this is what her life was supposed to be leading up to. “I-I’m Tara,” she says, “Tara Maclay,” because her mom always said when in doubt, keep your chin up and good things will come your way.
The sun-hat girl nods. “Willow,” she says softly, like she wishes her name were something else for Tara’s sake, “Willow Danielle Rosenberg. And I know.”
Tara’s parents weren’t soulmates. A kind young man who baked pies and sang songs had Tara’s mom’s initials on his shoulder, and Tara’s mom had his initials on her wrist, curving around like a bracelet. But Tara’s father was persistent, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and he told Tara’s mother that she needed someone who could support her and keep her safe, not some baker who couldn’t hold down a steady job, because what kind of life would she want for herself and for her children, living with someone who couldn’t pay the bills on time?
Tara’s mom never told this story. Tara found out because when her mark appeared, her father told her that she wasn’t to make a fool of herself the way her mother did, and that if Tara ended up knocked up or running off with some boy because his name matched her mark, he’d drag her home by her hair and teach her her place.
Tara would have cried all night if her mom hadn’t slipped in with two cups of tea, settling herself onto the bed.
“Listen,” her mom had said softly. “I don’t regret any part of my life, because I have a beautiful little girl in it who brightens my world every day.” Most of this seemed to Tara like a bit of an exaggeration for her sake, but she’d always been aware of the fact that she was her mom’s favorite. Donny was too much like his father to treat his mother with anything but contempt, and Tara was too much like her mom to view her father with anything but fear. “But I want you to remember one thing, Tara: soulmates are something to be treasured if you find them. They come along once in a lifetime, so don’t let them slip away. No one else will be able to make you quite as happy.”
Tara is thinking about this moment as Willow Danielle Rosenberg introduces her to Buffy.
“I’m sorry,” Willow keeps saying, “I really am,” but though there’s guilt in her voice, there isn’t an ounce of regret in her eyes, and her hand still rests half-possessively over Buffy’s. Buffy looks sheepish and sad and apologetic, and Tara wants to be angry but she’s too much her mom’s daughter to remember how. “It really is great to meet you, Tara, I mean that.”
Tara tries to look away from Willow, focusing on something else.
Over Willow’s shoulder, Tara notices Faith looking at her with a strange, unreadable expression, nothing like the easy-going girl with the energy bar that she’d first noticed. When their eyes meet, Faith immediately looks away, turning hurriedly to Jenny and Rupert and saying something with a too-easy smile.
Willow follows Tara’s line of sight and suddenly brightens. “Hey, you should talk to Faith!” she says, sounding almost relieved. “Faith’ll know how to handle this kind of thing, she’s Buffy’s soulmate and we had this whole conversation with her when she showed up. Except, um, kind of more angry and hurt and stuff. But, I, I guess—”
Tara sort of wishes that she hadn’t gotten swept up into this group, because now there’s really no polite way of leaving without attracting attention, and besides which she doesn’t want to leave her soulmate. She isn’t really listening to what Willow’s saying. “Maybe,” she says quietly. “I-I think the next stop’s UC Sunnydale, is that where you’re headed too?”
Willow smiles awkwardly. “Yeah,” she says, sounding half-disappointed. Tara thinks that Willow’s a little scared, maybe, about having a soulmate who isn’t just passing through, which makes sense. Tara’s mom was always so proud of how empathetic Tara was, but Tara’s kind of hating that part of herself right now. She wants to be angry at Willow. She thinks she has that right.
Buffy’s been hovering nervously by Rupert (who Tara’s quickly learned is called Giles by the kids) and his…soulmate? Tara squints, but Ms. Calendar’s wrists are obscured by bangles and bracelets and her shoulders are bare of any mark, so it’s hard to make any clear conclusion. Something finally registers with her. “Faith is Buffy’s soulmate?” she echoes.
Willow looks somewhat relieved that Tara’s not limiting herself to one-word answers anymore. “She is,” she agrees. “But—Buffy and I got together sophomore year, we’ve got a dorm room together, we’re talking about getting an apartment after college—” She exhales. “Tara, I—honestly don’t think I’m sorry,” she says, “but I wish I was. For your sake.”
There’s something more honest about that answer, and that’s comforting to Tara. She smiles, or tries to, and says, “Th-thank you.”
Willow nods awkwardly, then reaches out, squeezing Tara’s shoulder. Tara catches sight of her own initials on Willow’s arm, written in the faded blue sparkle pen her mom had given her when she was little. She remembers all the bad romance novels she’s read over the years, all the daydreams about true love and the worries it might be a boy and the tentative happiness she’d felt when her eyes had met Willow’s. She is hopelessly lost and hopelessly alone.
“Hey,” says a voice, and Tara sees Faith, standing and looking at her with calculating eyes. “You staying anywhere tonight?”
“Th-the motel, probably,” says Tara haltingly. Truthfully, she doesn’t really know. The dorms don’t open for another two weeks, and her shifts at the diner back home had only racked up enough cash to get her here.
“Motels are a fuckin’ death trap in this town,” says Faith matter-of-factly, “they don’t count as home to vamps. You’re staying with me and Jen and Giles.”
Giles clears his throat very loudly and says, “Faith, we can’t just go around inviting strangers—”
Faith rolls her eyes. “It’s Willow’s soulmate,” she says sharply. “This girl’s gotta be the fluffiest bunny rabbit there is. She’s not a stranger.” Her eyes lock with Ms. Calendar’s, and a look passes between them that Tara doesn’t understand. “She’s not a stranger,” Faith says again.
Ms. Calendar nods. “All right,” she says. To Tara, “Tara, you’re welcome to stay with us—”
“Not welcome,” says Faith, “that makes it sound like we’re gonna let her choose between us and the motel. She’s staying with us.”
“Faith,” says Ms. Calendar a little reprovingly.
Truthfully, Tara just wants to get out and hide somewhere, away from these well-meaning people who seem perfectly fine with the fact that her life’s been turned upside down. “I-I think I’m entitled to a choice, thanks,” she says, short and clipped.
Faith looks at her for a long time, then says, “Your fuckin’ funeral, T, but here’s my address,” and takes out a black ballpoint pen, grabbing Tara’s arm and scrawling a nearly incomprehensible address underneath the WDR. The ink smudges.
“Faith,” says Ms. Calendar. “That’s completely illegible.”
“A-and it’s on my arm?” Tara means for her words to come out as annoyed, but they end up sounding like more of a frightened question. “It’s on my arm,” she says again, frustrated with the sound of her voice.
“Then come to our place,” says Faith. “You can trust us or whatever.” She sounds like she’s trying to be cool and isn’t really pulling it off—all halfway-earnest halfway-aloof. Tara wonders how old this girl is; she thinks all the makeup makes Faith look older than she is.
Tara considers her options and comes to the not-exactly-pleasant conclusion that she doesn’t have any at all. She can’t exactly stay at a motel and run the risk of being drained by a vampire, especially since she doesn’t have the money to pay for a room in the first place. “Fine,” she says thinly, and tugs at the sleeve of her sweater. There’s a thread unraveling.
The house is a small, cramped place, full of mystical-looking books and boxes full of computer parts and pictures tacked haphazardly to a bulletin board in the living room. Tara crosses the room to look at the pictures, wanting to see if there’s any trace of her soulmate Willow in this house but not wanting to admit that desire to herself.
Faith and Giles are featured in most of these pictures, though there are quite a few of Giles and Ms. Calendar looking wind-swept and breathless on beaches and in jungles and stuff. They travel a lot, Tara guesses, that or they traveled a lot this summer, which would make sense with Ms. Calendar’s tan and Giles’s lingering sunburn.
She pauses on a picture of Faith and Ms. Calendar, startled by Faith’s bright smile. It’s hard to imagine hard, guarded Faith smiling at a camera that easily. It makes her sort of curious to know more, to be honest.
“Cookie?”
Tara jumps, turning. Faith sort of shoves a cookie at her and then leaves.
“She likes you,” says Ms. Calendar, coming out of the kitchen with a larger plate of cookies and placing them down on the table. “At least, that’s what I think is going on—”
“SHUT UP, JEN,” comes Faith’s voice from the hallway.
Ms. Calendar holds up her hands like why me, but she’s smiling affectionately. “Come on out here and socialize,” she calls down the hallway. “You brought Tara here, didn’t you?”
“A-are you her mom?” Tara asks shyly, a little hopefully. She likes being around good parents, ones who match their kids, and Ms. Calendar seems the kind of abrasive that fits really well with Faith.
Ms. Calendar blinks, then makes a face. “Do I look that old?”
“Yes,” says Faith with a straight face, leaning against the doorway to the living room. “You’re fuckin’ ancient.”
“Faith’s a Vampire Slayer,” Ms. Calendar explains, “and I’m, uh,” she frowns a little, “well, I’m dating Faith’s soulmate’s Watcher.”
Faith flinches almost imperceptibly at the word soulmate. Tara catches this again and feels a strange, shy bubble rise in her chest; for all of Faith’s bravado, maybe they do have a very specific kind of hurt in common. “That’s, um, what’s a vampire slayer?” she asks, changing the subject gently but still deftly. She thinks Faith looks a little relieved.
Tara isn’t really sure how she feels about her new living situation. She’s definitely glad she’s not out on the street, but she also wasn’t expecting to meet her soulmate, get her heart broken, and end up living with her soulmate’s girlfriend’s soulmate and two adults who are kind of everyone’s parents. She sleeps on the fold-out couch, which is actually a really nice couch, all things considered (according to Giles, the kids usually stay over a lot, so he and Ms. Calendar spent the extra money on an actually comfortable couch), and she has breakfast with Faith and Giles and Ms. Calendar. It’s quiet and awkward, most of the time, but it’s still better than having to deal with the whole Willow situation.
When Tara’s mom died, she didn’t cry for a very long time. Most of it was because her dad cried, and her brother got angry, and Tara had to be the one to hold everyone together all of a sudden, so there wasn’t a lot of room for her to cry too. She ended up breaking down in the middle of biology four months after the fact, and her brother got called in and yelled at her for being dramatic. Tara doesn’t know how to hurt properly anymore, she thinks.
Tara thinks that she and Willow would have gotten along. Willow’s soft, sweet, with big eyes and hair the color of a sunset, and the universe believed in them. She just doesn’t get why, even to her soulmate, she’s not someone worth knowing.
Faith isn’t around all that often, or Tara would want to talk to her about the whole soulmate thing. She thinks that that would really help—make both of them feel a little better, maybe. But Faith is always off Slaying or taking remedial math or going out for ice cream with Ms. Calendar, and Giles is either job-hunting or Watchering (what’s the adjective form of being a Watcher, Tara wonders), and Ms. Calendar is just all-around busy, so Tara ends up by herself a lot.
She thinks she’s okay with that. It gives her a lot of time to think and reflect and yeah, cry a little, but most of the time she cooks. She loves cooking, just like she loves magic and chemistry and anything that’s about procedure on the surface but skill at the core. She can’t make perfect pancakes but she’s damn good at omelets.
It’s the day that Tara wakes up early when something definitively changes.
She opens her eyes, and it’s dark, but she’s awake and she’s not going back to sleep anytime soon, so she pads quietly to the kitchen, shuts the door behind her so that the light won’t bother anyone, and turns on the light, blinking at the sudden brightness. There’s something strange and comforting about being wide awake early in the morning, particularly when she’s the only one, and it’s then that it occurs to her that she can make everyone breakfast—sort of a thank-you-for-not-letting-me-live-at-a-motel-I-couldn’t-have-paid-for-anyway kind of thing—so she turns on the stove and starts a pot of tea.
Tara’s the sort of person who notices things about other people, almost entirely because she’s too shy to outright interact with them. Giles likes his tea strong; he always makes a little face when Faith makes it, and Faith never puts enough of the tea leaves in. Ms. Calendar doesn’t distinguish between poorly made coffee and expensive coffee bought on vacation, even when Giles very visibly does. Faith eats anything, and in large quantities, so Tara makes an extra omelet for her and plates it smoothly.
Tara finishes eating her own breakfast just as she hears Ms. Calendar’s alarm go off, and that’s when the sleep deprivation finally catches up to her; apparently, this was not one of those times when she was actually well rested at four in the morning. Yawning softly, Tara pads back to bed, stepping around a confused Faith to enter the living room and half-collapse on the fold-out couch.
She gets about five minutes of half-napping before she hears the creak of springs that means someone just sat down on the fold-out couch. Then she feels a hand in her hair and hears Ms. Calendar say softly, “Poor kid’s tuckered out.”
“She got my tea right,” Giles says from a little bit farther away, sounding surprised and pleased. “Even you don’t do that all the time, Jenny, and this was her first go-round—”
“The two omelets are mine, right?” says Faith, and it’s funny how her voice sounds a little softer when she thinks Tara isn’t listening. Then, “Jen, I, I wanna do something nice for her too. All out-of-the-blue and shit. I mean—fuck, I remember how much it hurt to meet B for the first time, and I wouldn’t shut up about it. She hasn’t said a word.”
“We-we shouldn’t press her,” says Giles hesitantly. “She barely knows us—”
“Maybe we’ve been giving her too much space,” says Ms. Calendar thoughtfully. Tara is beginning to understand why the house has been empty a lot of the time. “She’s a sweet girl. We should definitely thank her for the meal, at the very least—”
“Yeah, but we don’t know shit about her,” Faith points out, “even though she picked up on all this stuff about us. What are we supposed to do that’s, like, nice or whatever?”
“You could show her around Sunnydale,” Giles suggests.
There’s a silence that Tara isn’t sure how to read. Then Faith says, “She’s—Willow’s soulmate.”
“What does that mean?” Ms. Calendar sounds amused.
“I didn’t really like Willow,” says Faith awkwardly. “Lot of it had to do with her dating my dream girl, but—this Tara chick, she wanted to be with Willow and she’s clearly cut up about it. I don’t want to play second fiddle all over again and end up going evil or whatever.”
“Rupert, can you go make me some coffee?” says Ms. Calendar in a quiet way that makes it very clear she’s not actually asking for coffee. Tara hears Giles’s footsteps go away, and then Ms. Calendar stands up from the fold-up bed (another creak) and tells Faith, “You, kid, are my very first fiddle, all right?”
“Giles is your first fiddle,” Faith objects.
“Giles is my clarinet,” Ms. Calendar volleys back. “I can have a whole damn orchestra if I want, Faith.”
Faith lets out this shaky breath that sounds almost like a laugh, and then the room is quiet. Tara’s too tired to really think about what she’s heard just yet, so she lets herself fall back into a dreamless sleep.
When Tara wakes up, Faith is sitting on the fold-out couch with one of the omelets still on her plate. “I saved you some,” she says awkwardly.
Tara blinks, remembers the conversation she’d half-heard, and finds herself smiling. “Thanks,” she says softly, even though she’s not all that hungry, and sits up, untangling herself from the nest of blankets to scoot closer to Faith. Hesitantly, she adds, “Um, c-can I talk to you?”
Faith smiles tentatively, almost unconsciously. “Sure.”
Tara hesitates. Then she says, “Y-you’re—Buffy’s soulmate.” It isn’t really a question.
Faith’s smile fades a little. “Yeah,” she says.
“Does it—” Tara fumbles to find the words she needs. “Does it g-get easier?”
Faith hands Tara the plate. “I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe. It definitely doesn’t hurt as much as it used to, but—it still stings, I guess. Especially since I’m glad she’s happy.” She smiles a little bitterly. “That might be the worst part,” she says. “I wouldn’t change any of it, not even to have her with me—knowing that she’s happy is enough.”
“I get that,” says Tara quietly.
Faith takes a forkful of omelet without really noticing she’s doing it, taking a small, meditative bite, and then says, “You wanna go out?”
Tara smiles slightly. “Where?”
Faith isn’t really one to ask lots of needling questions, which is something Tara wasn’t expecting. Someone as effortlessly cool as Faith—Tara had sort of been anticipating a line of questions before Faith decided whether or not Tara was worth her time. But Faith just slings a bag over her shoulder and gives Tara a follow-me gesture and suddenly they’re driving around Sunnydale while Faith points out graveyards.
“I killed, like, seven vamps there one night,” Faith informs Tara proudly, gesturing towards a graveyard that looks pretty much like all the other graveyards. “Buffy got three, and she was bitter as fuck about it.”
“You and Buffy—fight v-vampires together?” Tara’s surprised by this too. “So—”
“We’re both Slayers,” Faith explains. “There was supposed to be only one, but B went and fucked that up, and—” She smiles a little. “Can’t say I’m not grateful,” she says finally. “Lots of good things came from me coming here.”
Tara thinks, again, of that picture of Faith and Ms. Calendar. “Are—y-your parents around?” she asks hesitantly. “I’d think—I-I mean, you moved to a-a new town—”
Faith’s smile twists. “They’re out of the picture,” she says.
Tara feels a strange, warm flutter. “Mine too,” she says. “Sort of. But—not really.”
“Yeah?” Faith’s eyes remain on the road.
Tara hesitates, then says, “My—mom—died, recently.”
“Shit.” Faith exhales. “That’s fucked, T, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” says Tara reflexively.
“But it’s not, though,” says Faith matter-of-factly.
“Wh-what—”
“T, if your mom’s dead, and you’re up here goin’ to college away from home—” Faith has a strange frown on her face, like she’s just now figuring something out. “What about your dad?”
Tara flinches slightly. She hasn’t quite perfected the art of talking about her father to people who don’t know him. She’s gotten used to people who already respect him, people who don’t look hard enough because they don’t really want to.
“Huh,” says Faith. Then, “Mine too.”
That makes Tara laugh a little, half-surprised. Faith grins at the road, making a careful left turn, and Tara suddenly wants to say more. “He’s—he wasn’t my mom’s soulmate,” she says, “and he didn’t like that she was a witch, and he doesn’t like that I’m going to college, he wanted me to stay home and take care of the family, but—I don’t like it there. They always talk about me like I’m—a dishwasher, or, or a maid, and I’m family but they say I belong in the house—”
Faith double-parks next to a red sedan and turns to Tara, looking absolutely lost. “Your parents sound kinda like mine,” she says finally. “I mean—better, but also worse. You know?”
“A little,” says Tara. Then, “My mom loved me a lot, though.”
“In a good way, right?” Faith’s voice has something of an edge to it. “Or in a guilt-trippy I-only-do-this-because-I-love-you way?”
“A good way,” says Tara, half-wistfully. “But—my father loved me in that other kind of way, I think, and he was the man of the house.”
“That’s such bullshit,” says Faith.
“It really is,” says Tara.
Faith bites her lip. Then she says, “My mom died too, but she loved me in the guilt-trippy way.”
“Did you love her back?” Tara asks, more out of a desire to hear the answer than anything.
Faith smiles a little sadly, like she gets it. “Course,” she says. “Just like you love your dad, right?”
Tara exhales and moves a little closer to Faith in the car. “I thought soulmates meant something,” she says. “I wanted them to mean something.”
Faith blinks slowly, then gets this funny look on her face. “You should talk to Jen,” she says.
“What?”
Faith’s smiling slightly. “Jen went through this whole crisis about soulmates about a year before I showed up,” she says. “Like, mystical, magical, the whole shebang. You should talk to her.”
Tara frowns. “But—Giles is her soulmate, isn’t he?”
“You should talk to Jen,” says Faith again. She frowns. “Maybe later, though. I think Jen’s got some other stuff on her plate right now.” Playfully, she adds, “So, hey, anywhere you really want to hit up on our grand tour?”
Tara considers the question. Shyly, she says, “Is there anywhere with decent coffee?”
Faith and Tara go out for coffee about three more times before the day that Ms. Calendar and Giles throw an end-of-summer house party. Tara’s not really sure who’s coming, and doesn’t know how to ask; she hasn’t seen Willow since the bus ride. But Faith has a look on her face that suggests Buffy, and Buffy probably means Willow, and Willow definitely means a nervous, shy feeling in Tara’s chest that makes it difficult to help Ms. Calendar tidy up the living room.
“You look stressed,” Ms. Calendar observes, moving a stack of books off the couch and over to what she’s named the “to-file pile.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” says Tara uneasily. The truth of the matter is that she doesn’t like the idea of seeing Willow again, particularly not in front of Faith, and she’s not exactly sure why. She should like Willow, right? Except all Willow does is make her feel anxious and sad, like there’s another door in her life that slammed shut in her face, and, and—
“Hey,” says Ms. Calendar. “Can I show you something?”
“What?” Tara looks up. “Oh—um—I guess so,” she says, even though she hadn’t really been listening.
Ms. Calendar hesitates, then puts down another stack of books, slipping off her bracelets and placing them on the coffee table. Turning her wrist out, she shows it wordlessly to Tara.
Tara blinks. She’d been expecting something like Giles’s initials or maybe even someone else’s, because someone like Ms. Calendar seems the type to know what she wants. But Ms. Calendar’s wrist is completely blank, free of anything save for a barely-there scar.
“What—” Tara begins, not wanting to be rude.
“I have my own story about soulmate marks,” says Ms. Calendar, and smiles in a soft, content kind of way that doesn’t seem to fit with her mark-free wrist. “Faith’s told you that Rupert is Buffy’s Watcher, right?”
Tara nods slowly.
“Well,” says Ms. Calendar, “that’s his mark.”
Tara blinks, then cocks her head. “I don’t—”
“Rupert’s soulmate is his destiny,” says Ms. Calendar. She says it nonchalantly, matter-of-factly, like it doesn’t bother her at all that her boyfriend’s destiny doesn’t have anything to do with her. Tara gets the sense that Ms. Calendar’s had a lot of practice telling people that. “And as a matter of fact, mine was too.”
“Was?” says Tara.
Ms. Calendar smiles a little wistfully. “I was sent here to watch a vampire,” she says. “Angelus.”
That’s when Tara realizes that the scar isn’t actually a scar. “Wait,” she says disbelievingly, stepping closer, and sees the last of what could have once been a letter A, curving across Ms. Calendar’s wrist. “So—”
Ms. Calendar’s still got this soft little smile on her face, but it looks a little sad. “About a year after we met,” she says, “we moved in together, because—you know, you meet someone else who doesn’t have a soulmate, you want to stay together forever, all that jazz. And one day, my mark just—faded away. Gone.”
“Then why—”
“Hold on, Tara, I’m not done,” says Ms. Calendar, but it’s not in an irritated way. “I showed it to Rupert, eventually, and it was all very dramatic because I was kind of afraid that the only reason he loved me so much was thanks to that Angelus mark. But then he took out a pen from his desk, and he just—scrawled my initials on his arm.”
Ms. Calendar’s told this story before, Tara thinks, even though she tells it hesitantly; this seems like something that Faith would need to hear too.
“And I said it’d come off,” Ms. Calendar says, eyes far-away and distant, “and he said then you’ll write it all over again tomorrow, Jenny.” She looks back at Tara with a small smile. “You choose who you love,” she says. “We all choose each other, every day.”
This isn’t a message that Tara has heard before. Her father has said don’t choose love and her mother told her always choose love but no one’s ever said that you can find love with someone who isn’t your soulmate. And Tara’s seen Giles and Ms. Calendar, the way they always stand close together even when they don’t have to, and they’re nothing like her messy-hurting family. They chose each other.
“Like how Willow chose Buffy,” she says softly, and she thinks she might finally understand.
Ms. Calendar’s smile flickers and fades a little. “Tara, I’m sorry,” she says. “I really am.”
“I think I’m okay,” says Tara, and means it. Smiling encouragingly at Ms. Calendar, she steps out of the living room and into the kitchen.
“Thank heavens,” says Giles as soon as she enters, “this cake isn’t rising and I don’t know what to do,” and suddenly Tara’s teaching Giles how to bake her mom’s upside-down pineapple surprise cake while Faith sneaks chocolate chips from a half-open bag. She feels light, fluffy, like cake dough, which makes her laugh a little.
By the time the cake is finished, the house is decorated and the guests are beginning to arrive. Xander from the bus gets there first, giving Tara an awkward, apologetic smile, and she can tell he’s going to say something about Willow so she deflects by offering him the first slice of cake.
“You’re the hostess with the mostest, T,” Faith teases, punching her gently on the arm as she passes. Tara grins, doing a graceful twirl with the cake platter—
—and there’s Willow, stepping awkwardly into the living room with Buffy nowhere in sight. Tara feels that half-painful rush of butterflies that she thinks might be more than a little mystical in nature, managing, somehow, to smile. “W-Willow,” she says, and wishes she wasn’t stuttering.
“Tara.” Willow smiles too, nervous and shy but without sadness. “I—told Buffy to wait outside, I thought it’d be good if we—talked.” She casts a nervous glance over Tara’s shoulder, and it’s then that Tara realizes that Faith hasn’t left the room.
“What’s up?” says Faith lightly, taking a step forward to stand next to Tara.
“It’s okay,” says Tara softly to Faith. “You can—” She hesitates, then places the cake down on the coffee table so that she can squeeze Faith’s shoulder. “I’m good,” she says, and means it. She keeps on thinking about Ms. Calendar and Giles and Willow and Buffy and all these people who are happier than anyone she’s ever met. Maybe the trick isn’t believing in soulmates; maybe it’s that you don’t need to.
“Okay,” says Faith, but throws a death glare over her shoulder at Willow as she steps backwards into the kitchen, shutting the door halfway. She’s very clearly visible behind it. Tara has to bite back a smile.
Willow seems to understand that this is the best she’ll get. “I really would like to be your friend,” she says, soft and earnest. “It’s just—”
“I get it,” says Tara, and she does. “But I need—time, I think. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“Burned in one, though,” says Willow, and smiles nervously.
“We’re not talking about burning, though,” says Tara softly. “I don’t think we are, at least.”
For the first time, Willow does look almost sad. “Buffy was right,” she says. “You’re a nice person, Tara. I—I’m not sorry for my sake, but, but I’m really sorry that I hurt you.”
Tara shakes her head. “You shouldn’t be sorry,” she says—god, it’s so strange to mean what she says without stuttering. “Really. You fell in love and you stuck with it. That’s brave.”
Willow smiles nervously. “Can I give you a hug?” she asks.
Tara shakes her head again. “Maybe later,” she says, and she means that too. Not now, but someday. Maybe.
They’re all clustered around the table eating Tara’s pineapple upside-down cake when Giles gets up from the table, dusts off his hands, and gently pulls Ms. Calendar out of her seat. “Faith, if you will,” he says, and a grinning Faith flips the switch on a boom box that’s been sitting on the table for like two weeks (Ms. Calendar keeps on moving it, but Giles has been consistently moving it back without explanation).
“Rupert?” Ms. Calendar looks genuinely surprised.
Giles fumbles in his pocket, and then says in a genuinely panicked voice, “Jenny, I may have baked your engagement ring into the cake.”
There’s a very long silence. Then Ms. Calendar starts laughing really hard.
“Shh—hang on, that is not—” Giles grabs a wheezing Ms. Calendar’s hands until she looks at him. “I, I have a speech,” he says helplessly.
“I think I may have baked your engagement ring into the cake tops all speeches, honestly,” says Buffy from the table. Tara and Faith both laugh, then look at each other, both a little surprised.
“Oh my god,” Ms. Calendar’s saying.
“Jenny,” says Giles, and gets awkwardly down on one knee, “I baked your engagement ring into the cake, but I promise that if you marry me—”
“Stick to the script, Giles,” Faith calls, “this thing’s falling apart.” To Tara, she adds, “Is it okay if I start taking apart this cake?”
“Oh, that’s what that was?” says Xander, rummaging in his pocket. “I thought it was, like, a prize or something.” Pulling a slightly buttery, crumb-covered ring out of his pocket, he hands it over to a mortified Giles. “Take better care of your things, Giles,” he adds helpfully.
“Rupert,” begins Ms. Calendar, who looks positively delighted.
“Shh,” says Giles, “I rehearsed this seven to ten times and Faith proofread it, please give me the courtesy of finishing—”
“Rupert, you baked my engagement ring,” says Ms. Calendar. “I don’t have to give you any courtesies.” She plucks the ring out of Giles’s hand, grabbing a napkin from the table and wiping it off.
“Jenny,” says Giles softly, “you make me happy in a way I never dreamed I would be.” The ring sort of slips from Ms. Calendar’s hand (she’ll later blame the butter) and Giles very deftly catches it, eyes never wavering from her face. “You challenge me, you tell me when I’m wrong, you don’t let me forget that I am not only a Watcher. I want you in my life for as long as I live, and I know you’re not one for proposals—”
“Oh, I knew I was gonna say yes when you baked my engagement ring,” says Ms. Calendar a little tearfully (to be fair, everyone looks a little teary after Giles’s speech) and kind of flings herself onto Giles, who falls back onto the kitchen floor with a yelp. Buffy and Faith start up a round of cheers.
Tara sits in her chair, smiling a little, and then she stands up, quietly slipping out of the kitchen, down the hall, through the living room, and out of the house. Stepping onto the front porch, she leans against the rail, feeling almost weightless in her strange, vicarious happiness.
“You’re missing out on some quality making out,” comes a voice, and Tara smiles as Faith steps up next to her. “I think Buffy’s taking pictures for the family album.”
“That’s nice,” says Tara, and steps a little bit closer to Faith, even though she doesn’t have to. “Anything else I need to be briefed on?”
Faith smiles down at her toes. Then she says, “Did Jen give you that speech about us all choosing each other?”
Tara giggles. “It was sweet,” she says.
“That speech got me to stop crying over Buffy,” says Faith thoughtfully. “What’d it do for you?”
Tara looks up at Faith, Faith who she’s never once stuttered around, and says softly, “Soulmates choose each other, I think.”
Faith blinks. Her eyelashes flutter, gaze dropping, and she looks unusually shy for a moment before she says, “Do you want to go back inside?”
“No,” says Tara, and places her hand tentatively on Faith’s elbow, turning them towards each other. “Do you?”
Faith shakes her head. Then she says, “Hey, just to check—”
Tara waits.
“This isn’t destiny, is it?” says Faith, and her voice comes out laughing but her eyes aren’t. “You’re not just hitting on me ‘cause your soulmate’s in love with mine?”
Tara smiles a little. “I’m hitting on you because you bought me coffee,” she says simply, “and because you have a really nice smile.”
“Good,” says Faith. “Just to check.”
They hover awkwardly, both of them smiling nervously, and then Faith takes Tara’s other hand and Tara’s hand on Faith’s elbow slides up to her shoulder and Tara’s scared, a little, she’s been waiting all this time, saving up her kisses for her soulmate; kissing Faith might mean letting go of everything she’s ever counted on.
But then Tara thinks again about all the people she’s met in Sunnydale, messy and smiling even in a town with more graves than residents. Sunnydale is, in itself, a paradox; it’s surrounded by death, yet the people keep coming, keep smiling, keep living.
Tara takes her first risk.
Exactly one week later, Tara and Faith drive to the dorms. Tara’s got a room of her own, according to the guy she spoke to on the phone, something nice and decorative with lots of room for things like fairy lights and decorative comforters and a mini bulletin board to tack pictures on. Giles and Ms. Calendar are going to help her move some furniture in over the weekend, but Tara wants Faith to be the first one to see the place as is.
“I like it,” says Faith as soon as they enter the room.
“It’s empty,” says Tara, laughing.
“Empty doesn’t mean blah,” says Faith, and looks up at Tara with exaggeratedly moony eyes. “All I see is possibility.”
Tara starts laughing harder and kisses Faith, feeling a rush of butterflies that doesn’t have anything to do with soulmates and writ-in-stone destiny. This is all them, and they’re the ones who get to decide what comes next.