Title: Finding Faith (One-Shot)
Rating: PG
Author: quirked_out
Disclaimer: Don’t’ own anything… Which kinda sucks. I do have $2.65. I’m a poor student don’t have anything you can sue me for. Uhmm, be kind, it’s my first posted fic.
Summary: Willow doesn’t have the strength for faith anymore.
When Willow was young she would go to temple, she would say her payers and perform the rituals that were several millennia old. It gave her peace.
She was part of a race that had survived relentless persecution for thousands of years, a race that had worshipped their faith in the face of torture and death. To be that connected to something so much bigger had given Willow a sense of security.
She had faith in its constant familiarity.
When she was thirteen she went to high school, she was younger than all of the other kids, but it had always been that way. Willow didn’t mind so much, she had Xander and Jesse, her brave knights.
Xander had never been cool; being in love with him was easy. He was funny, kind, and he loved her back even if it wasn’t the same way. Jesse had always been just a little bit smitten with her… She had loved him too, but not in the way he wanted. It had really been a sordid young-teen love triangle.
She had faith in their friendship.
When she was fourteen she, Jesse, and Xander became sophomores and the world as she knew it changed. The things that weren’t supposed to exist suddenly did. The nightmares that couldn’t hurt you were nothing compared to reality. When Willow was fourteen Buffy Summers crash-landed into her life and opened her eyes to a new world.
Xander was love-struck and Jesse was hopeful, maybe now Willow could find a way to love him back. But then, Jesse died. One of her brave knights had fallen and she had been left grasping for something solid. But there was nothing solid to grasp to, for Willow’s old world had fallen away.
Jesse was dead. Good Jewish boys weren’t supposed to die. The only thing Willow had left was her faith in Xander.
Her faith in the constant died with Jesse.
Willow had to find faith in other things. So, she built her faith on her new bonds of friendship. She entered Buffy’s world of uncertainty willingly. In her new world she found that letting go of some of the old things made it easier. She let go of her old love for Xander. She took hold of a new love with Oz.
Even when she and Xander spent a few stolen kisses remembering a love that could have been, it wasn’t real. It wasn’t how it had been with Oz. Oz was the first bit of calm she had ever had in her life. Where her mind had always been a mass of incoming and outgoing data, Oz had been a cool, still lake to refresh herself in.
But her cool lake turned into a stormy sea when Oz betrayed their love. Once again Willow was left with nothing.
Her faith in love had been packed away with the shirts in Oz’s bag.
And so Willow had lost faith in everything. Even Xander. Because unlike the time she had fallen from the tree in the park, his hugs couldn’t make it better. Couldn’t bring back her faith.
On the day she met Tara, Willow hadn’t been looking for faith in magic so much as she had been looking for a distraction from her emptiness. But Tara had been a bright spot in the crowd of pretentious wannabes. Her stutter and soft eyes had hit a chord in Willow that first day; her strength in that silent night was what awed Willow.
As she got to know Tara better Willow became even more fascinated by her. The thing that fascinated her most was Tara’s unwavering faith. Tara had faith in the Goddess, the earth, the sun, and the sky.
What Willow found the day Oz came back, was that she wanted Tara to have faith in her.
So when Willow woke to the soft stroking of her face she was amazed to find after all her losses and tragedies she had found more faith than she believed possible. Because the morning after the black-out Willow turned into a warm embrace and opened her eyes to find the most beautiful shade of blue watching her. Willow gave a sleepy grin and got an irresistible half-smile in return.
That morning Willow found that she had faith in Tara. She had faith in them.
