Willow doesn’t know exactly what she believes in most days. She had a friend go to heaven and come back, she’s Jewish, but also occasionally wiccan. Death is kind of a complicated thing, not even factoring in the fact that a few of her friends are the living dead. The wiccan part of her says that the people who are gone are wherever she is, she can still hear Jenny chuckling about the jokes Willow writes into her code to keep herself from getting too tired or bored when she’s working. She can hear Anya making fun of Xander when he comes home after failed dates. She can hear Tara in just about everything.
She doesn’t need Sunnydale to know that they’re still somewhere. But, Sunnydale was her home. Or, it was the only place where she ever knew her home. Tara was a Sunnydale only experience, one time only, try not to still think about her but will always think about her thing. Kennedy had pointed out as much in one of their more explosive arguments. The point is, Willow always misses Tara and she knows she always will, but on days like today when the date is a reminder of a life that isn’t there anymore, the missing isn’t really soothed by much.
It’s not like it’s a secret where she’s going, Xander guesses it in one when she passes him in the living room and offers her nothing but understanding and one question, “Do you want me to come with you?”
At Willow’s no he just smiles and nods. “Tell her happy birthday from me?”
Willow smiles sadly and nods back. “Sure.”
Teleporting never gets easier, her pounding head reminds her. But staring at the giant hole ahead of her, and feeling a familiar belonging that nowhere else ever seems to offer, she concludes that it’s worth it. Along the edge of the crater are markers to prevent people from sitting on the edge and falling in. But Willow’s been here before, and she looks for the familiar ledge that is sturdier than the rest, focusing for a moment to make sure it’s still sturdy, she smiles to herself and sits down. Letting her legs dangle lightly over the ledge, she lets herself relax and says, “Hey, baby, happy birthday. I don’t know if you celebrate those wherever you are, or even if you can hear this, but I am going to think you can, because, well, we both have magic, and our friends consist of many different types of magical beings, so, you being able to hear me even though you’re not, y’know, alive anymore, isn’t that unlikely.”
Willow takes a deep breath to recover and snorts. “Don’t exactly have you to smile at me when my babble gets too much, but that’s okay. Xander says happy birthday, by the way. Buffy probably would’ve as well but she wasn’t home when I took off.”
She plays with the edges of the sleeves on the sweater she’s wearing, the fraying threads proving interesting enough to keep her from thinking too much and breaking down. Willow smiles. “Speaking of the Summers girls, Dawnie has a girlfriend, which I know you had your theories about, so, congrats on being right again. She seems nice enough, but I’m also a harsh judge since she’s dating Dawn and Dawn is Dawn, y’know. Buffy likes her. Definitely, took Dawn’s girlfriend substantially better than she took the fact that I was dating you, which is good.”
She sighs. “I’m trying to keep this positive, I swear. I miss you. I have a lot of mixed feelings on whether I want you to miss me too. But, life keeps doing these things that I wish you got to experience with me. Some good news though, the government is slowly deciding maybe us gays should be allowed to get married, which is nice. Definitely lead to me and Kenn breaking up, but that’s probably good news for you.”
Willow shakes her head. “That was a joke, I don’t know where you are but I still know you just want me to be happy. I’ve almost figured out that sun spell that we worked on forever. Andrew actually helped with it a lot, realizing that making a mini-sun ball thing is pretty impossible helped, but we’re looking into transferring sunlight into these like sun-beam strikes. It’s cool.”
And she talks for probably too long, the way you do when it feels like if you stop talking the world might end. But, eventually she stops, and the world is still fine. Or, as fine as it can be when there is a certain blonde witch decidedly missing from it. She could probably find more things to talk about, aside from her literal magic, talking is kind of her super power. But a familiar sun is setting and the Hellmouth here is closed but Willow wouldn’t call it impossible that there’s still a few creepies around.
So, Willow pushes herself up from her seated position and smiles as she feels a familiar warmth tingling along one of her hands pause her movements, “I love you, too.”