Why Do I Care?

A/N: This is a little thing I dreamed up. I think I read something similar to this somewhere, but not quite like this. It's all Anya inner-monologue about Tara's death. Meh. It came straight from my brain to this post. Probably sucks. I just felt like writing something to get my muse going.
DISCLAIMER: Characters are owned by Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy Productions. I own nothing. I do this for fun, not for profit.

---

It really does look like the apocalypse in here. Funny how I didn't run away. I stayed and watched Willow destroy my shop and be all veiny and try to kill Giles. And I stayed. I cared. I even cared about Willow. I don't like Willow. Her and her witchier than thou attitude. Always telling me that I should be more human and be less annoying. I just think she was intimidated. That's what I think. She didn't even want my help with the vengeance. How arrogant is that? Thinking she's better at vengeance than me. I'm the queen of vengeance against men. Just because she's a lesbian and doesn't like men, she thinks she can hurt men better than I can. Arrogant.

Truth be told, I didn't want to help her. I didn't want her to do it. I cared again. I cared about her. Or maybe that's not exactly it. I didn't care about Willow. I cared about Tara. The one person out of the lot of us who didn't deserve to die. It's funny how that works. The good people die and the bad people go on living. Either the bad people keep being bad, or they feel all guilty and make everyone else feel like buying a gun like Warren did.

I think Tara was the only one of them that always treated me like a normal person. If I were a lesbian, I think I could have gone for her. Willow certainly didn't deserve her. Willow tromped all over Tara's memory like a big, veiny Godzilla witch. That's another thing about Willow. She was selfish. 'My pain is worse than everyone else's. I'm going to destroy the world.' I don't understand what Tara ever saw in Willow. But they were happy together. Tara deserved that, even if it was with Willow.

I remember when we were all trapped in Buffy's house on her birthday. Tara stood up for Willow, even when we all could've been killed. I thought she was going to hit me. She might have won. I guess we'll never find out though.

We'll never find out a lot of things. Like we'll never find out if anyone can actually have a happy relationship in Sunnydale. Willow and Tara were certainly trying their darnedest to prove the Hellmouth wrong. We'll never find out anything else about Tara because she's dead. Just like Joyce. She'll never laugh or eat or cry or threaten to get butch with me ever again. She'll never kiss or hug anyone. She'll never comfort anyone. Never.

She was good at that. The comforting. Like when Willow screwed up bringing Buffy back from the dead because the Buffy-bot led the demon bikers to us, Tara was very comforting. I was freaking out because Xander wasn't there and he could have been dead somewhere, lying in a ditch as Joyce sometimes said could happen to people. Tara calmed me down, even though I know she thought Willow was in a ditch somewhere with Xander. Dead. Like she is now.

But why do I care? Why am I sitting here caring about this? I'm a demon. I'm not supposed to care. I exact vengeance on men because they're scum and do nothing but hurt women. Women like Tara. I don't know why I care so much, but I do. I wish Tara was here. She would know. She didn't talk much, but when she did, she contributed. She knows all about this human emotion crap. She knew. I guess I'll never get to ask her. She would know why I care.

THE END