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Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter Twenty-Eight
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Absolutely, yes please. That’s why I write for this place, to engage in the discussion about the story.
Spoiler warning: Not sure why I am bothering, really, but Season 4 and Season 5 of BTVS.
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please. No conversion to eBook or other formats please. Enjoy it here.
Summary: During the time and events of ‘A New Man’ Willow is out at Buffy’s birthday and Tara receives a visitor.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc. I am making no money from this series of stories however all original characters and situations remain my property. As this is a missing scenes and alternate reality fiction lots of scenes are new versions of those seen in the show, as such dialogue and situations are taken from the show. I’m sure you can tell which. All credit for those aspects goes to the original writers.
Rating: Occasional, tasteful, adult situations and contextual bad language. However by and large equivalent to the show.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever, that’s all I’m bothered about.
Text convention: Use of italics denotes either special emphasis if used for a single or a few words in a sentence OR first person thoughts if used for a whole sentence.
Notes: Now some of you may be wondering why Tara and Willow aren’t doing spells yet. What’s that? You were too caught up in smoochies? Yeah, so were they. See, look… You have this hot girlfriend, you’re able to take things as fast or slow as you want and you can make it all text. None of this subtext nonsense. Seems to me that you don’t need spells as a surrogate for sex.
At the time it was fun enough, but would you rather say ‘Tara and Willow are together because they’re falling in love’ or ‘Tara and Willow are together because spells feel really good?’ Hmm. Thought so. Besides, seriously, what would you be doing? Be honest now…Yeah, you wouldn’t have waited as long as either of them either!
Just for fun, there’s a Sidestep reference in this section, but you can blink and you’ll miss it. More obviously though, Willow’s slip of the tongue about girls and Buffy’s assumptions… all late additions.
Finally, I switched the order of the Tara and Willow PoV around in this part at a very late stage. Hopefully it doesn’t affect anything I missed, but it seemed better to end on Tara’s. Be curious to see if anyone (dis)agrees.
Music: Today’s first draft writing music was Prodigy and… that had not a lot of influence on the part! Can you ever get too old for the music you enjoyed when you were young enough to be, you know, current? I think that’s a question for future Willow to worry about. Though she starts out on a similar topic…
“Is it me?” Willow asked. “Or… are we the old people that we always thought should just get on, move on and stop coming here once they went to college?”
The barman shrugged and didn’t bother answering her, not including himself in her deliberations or the definition of ‘we’.
Willow took their drinks and headed back towards the table where Buffy and the others were waiting. Giles wasn’t here, the whole place would – and did - fill him with abhorrence and dread, but he’d said happy birthday earlier and there’d been a present for Buffy too.
Seemed like he was in a strange mood though… Maybe it was just that he was getting older too?
Which brought her back round to thinking about the fact that, once upon a time, she’d thought college freshmen that hung out here were older and sophisticated and now that she was one she didn’t feel all that sophisticated - except when she was with Tara.
Somehow… She’d spent a good chunk of the night missing her new girlfriend and regretting her choice in trying to keep the young woman all to herself. At te time it’d felt like she had good reasons – including not wanting the night to be about her and Scooby suspicions when it should’ve been about Buffy but… still.
Another chunk of her time had – naturally enough – really been enjoying the togetherness of the group, even if Anya was here with them.
After all, this was them. This was their place. There might be a new bunch of high-schoolers sitting in their booth and enjoying a new band and… looking at them like they were aliens or something. They didn’t get it, until they let it go this would stay as their place. And they had the only Slayer too so bonus points there.
Yeah, they’d earned their places. The Bronze was… theirs, won in a few battles - actually. From the marks on the tables where Buffy had beaten her urge to bite her nails by digging them into the wood to the spot where an experiment with a little magic had singed a stool with an almost perfect image of her butt.
A butt Tara had admired in very delicious ways just last night.
The rest of the time though… Yeah, she could understand what Giles might be feeling. Around all these… youngsters.
Maybe.
It wasn’t like she’d asked him, but she could see what he might be seeing. He’d spent the last few years hanging out with a bunch of teenagers, Olivia wasn’t around enough to call her ‘part of his life’ and he was practically unemployed now that the school had blown up.
Another consequence of their snakey demolitions.
Willow could see his point… She was hanging out with her old friends, not much had changed there since they’d been at the Bronze nearly every night. New faces, Anya, Eddie… Some old ones had fallen by the wayside and… well, she didn’t feel bad about that anymore. Not in the slightest. But basically they were all expecting each other to be the same people they had been back in high school, but things were definitely changing.
There was Tara for a start and she wasn’t part of this gang. Wasn’t a part of this history. She was something brand new.
And she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Tara was at the centre of her thoughts now and her older friends inevitably were a little more on the periphery because of it. So while she did feel guilty for keeping Tara from the others, there was also something that just felt like…
I’m growing up and she’s part of that grown up world.
But so, she hoped, would everyone else be.
With the possible – or probable – exception of Anya. Her hopes there were… different.
“Here you go,” she said, delivering the drinks. Anya still wasn’t happy about the fact that she couldn’t get herself a drink with actual alcohol in – getting carded hadn’t been her favourite experience – but she’d made up for the lack of booze through sheer ostentation. The neon pink drink with the huge curly straw, umbrella and most of a portion of exotic fruit salad had kept her at the bar for about ten minutes and earned her the smouldering wath of the guy behind the bar.
Embarrassing to order, obviously, so she’d made sure to point out that it wasn’t for her. She’d tried to show sympathy too.
“Thanks, Will,” Buffy said brightly, raising her glass to her.
“Happy birthday, again!”
“Yeah, Buff, nineteen years old and in college, bet you never saw that coming.”
Willow winced as Xander said it. It was the sort of thing even she wouldn’t have blundered into. But no-one had ever said he was oblivious and he followed it up.
“I mean, like, because of the whole life expectancy thing – you weren’t expected to survive this long so… Happy birthday?”
Anya pulled on his arm, as if about to tell him a secret that everyone could hear. “I don’t think you’re helping.”
“And with that, I think I’ll just go…” he pointed and left the table.
“Wait for me!” Anya called and hurried after him.
“Why’s she going with him?” Buffy asked.
“With those two it’s usually better not to ask,” she replied.
Or think about it too carefully.
“It’s nice to see him happy though,” Buffy said.
“Uhuh, you too - ”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Willow said, “You and Eddie seem to be doing great. So long as you don’t give him too much sugar. He doesn’t take it too well, does he?”
“There is no ‘me and Eddie’, he’s just a friend.”
“Uhuh.” That was what the air quotes had been for. Just friends.
“He’s just a friend.”
“Uhuh.”
“Willow! Can you really see me and Eddie… I mean…?”
“Actually,” Willow said, suddenly asked to put into words what she’d been thinking for a while. “I can. I mean… Not what you might have meant, I don’t see that because I don’t think about that but the two of you? Together in a relationship way? Come on, why not? Every boyfriend you’ve ever had has – at some point – either betrayed you or tried to kill you. Sometimes both at the same time.”
“Not every boyfriend,” Buffy said, but she didn’t sound like she was expecting to fool anyone and couldn’t offer up examples. Why? Because sometimes sweeping statements were right.
“Uh-uh,” Willow replied. “Unless you’ve been a secret slutty-slut-slut then I have to say that, actually, it is every single boyfriend. One even followed you across the state to get turned into a vampire.”
“That was different, he was really hurting.”
“I know, and I’m sorry about that but… Eddie won’t hurt you Buffy. He won’t betray you. He won’t try to bite you except, you know, in ways that some people – not saying that’d be me or you - might find kind of a turn on. I mean, he looks like he’d faint at the sight of blood, that’s got to be a positive. Including his own - ”
“Especially his own,” said the girl who didn’t think a night was going well unless she got into a fight to the death at the end of it.
“There you go. You know what you need? I’ll tell you. You need you some normal, girl. You need no pressure, no grand drama, no sweeping romance, no blood red roses, no men climbing in through your windows – which, I have to remind you is also my window now so keep that one in mind – but you know what I mean? All you wanted for so long was to be a normal girl. Doesn’t a normal girl need a normal partner?”
“Partner?”
“Guy, you know or girl… but you’re not into that, so I come back to guy. I meant guy.”
“Are you okay?” Buffy asked, looking at her as if she was a little strange. It was hardly a new expression. She usually saw it once or twice a day.
“I’m good, I’m fine and I’m prone to babble – this you already know.”
“It’s not the babble I’m wondering about – Willow, do you think… are you worried that I’m pushing Eddie away because I’m a lesbian?”
“No!” It was almost laughable. Buffy? Into girls? No one would’ve thought that.
“I don’t know… what are you talking about then?”
“Nothing – look, can’t a person be inclusive without having any ulterior motive for it? All I said was that, if you were into girls, then that would be totally normal too and normal’s what you need. It’s avoiding the supernatural, evil and general bastards that you should be worried about. Not what’s in their pants.”
“Okay… though, for the record, I think it’d be a little odd – for me.”
“So the evidence would suggest…” Willow said quietly.
“Cos, you know I like the boys. I want something in the pants.”
There’s something in girl’s pants too. She wanted to say it, but she didn’t. That might’ve been a bit too on the nose. A little too much.
“What is wrong with you, Will?”
Frustrated in her half-hearted attempt to make things a little more obvious and yes, on the nose, she turned her attention to the other thing. “I’m just… Look, you and Eddie get on. Until he had that virgin cocktail and hit the sugar high, you were finishing each other’s sentences… why did you wince when I said… Oh! I get it… He’s a… Well, he’s not very experienced is he?”
“He thinks ‘hide the sausage’ is something to do with breakfast.”
“Oh.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just, you know, oh. Nothing but ‘oh’. You’re worried he’s not going to make you go ‘oh’ aren’t you?” Tara had already made her go ‘oh’, just not… a much prolonged ‘ohhh’.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Buffy said again, seeming to think that would do as an answer.
“Just because you had a vampire boyfriend who, even before he became a vampire, had slept with probably hundreds of women – good thing the bugs don’t get to live on vampires huh?”
“Willow!”
“Umm, I mean, just because you had Angel as a boyfriend… I mean, look, he probably knew what he was doing but as soon as he slept with you… What’s up with sex equalling ‘perfect happiness’ for him anyway?” Didn’t say much for the idea that he’d loved her, did it?
“Will, I’m so not going there. Eddie’s not my boyfriend and that has nothing to do with Angel or whether he… whether he knows where to hide the sausage. We’re just friends.”
“You two,” Willow said, “would be great together. Your Mom would love him too.”
“Compared to a vampire? Yeah, probably. She’d probably think anyone was better for me than Angel.”
“Anyone but the one we don’t mention,” Willow said. “But… we’re not talking about him because you did a really good job of kicking him in the crotch and that’s the only history that matters there. Bygones. But look, Buff, give Eddie a shot. I mean, even if you have to throw yourself at him, we can all see how he looks at you…”
“Yeah, like he’s petrified,” Buffy pointed out.
“Petrified but really, really attracted. Who hangs around a girl that they’re terrified of unless she’s really into her?”
“She?”
“Slip of the, umm, tongue.”
“I’m not a lesbian, Willow. I’m not even bi-sexual.”
“I said slip of the tongue.”
“It’s where you think I’m planning on slipping my tongue that seems skewed,” Buffy said. “Where did you get this from?”
Your tongue? No. Not yours.
“I really don’t think you’re gay,” Willow said. “Cross my heart. But Eddie, please, Buffy.”
“You can’t force something that just won’t work,” Buffy said, making it sound like a quote.
“You can’t rule something out until you try it,” Willow said, just as quotey.
“Is this about me and girls again?” Buffy wondered. “Look, is someone at that Wicca Group you went to saying something about me?”
“Why would you say…?”
“Is it that Tara girl? Does she like me?”
“No! I mean, no, she’s not said anything about you – and like that and what makes you think she’s into girls?” Willow asked, flustered beyond all capacity to analyse it. Getting Tara to look up was hard enough until you got to know her, there was no way in all the hells that she’d looked at Buffy that way, or probably any other.
“She’s at the Wicca Group,” Buffy said with a shrug.
“So? I’ve gone and I’m probably going again.”
“But you’re undercover,” Buffy pointed out.
“Does that mean everyone should assume I’m a lesbian?” she wondered. As long as the news was hers to give then… why was there any reason to care? But having people just assume, even when they were right about Tara, didn’t feel quite right… What was up with that?
They might assume other things. That was probably it. You couldn’t just go around making assumptions – right or wrong – left and right. Where would that sort of behaviour end up? In wrong, mistaken assumptions, judging a book by its cover, not looking under the hood and… and…
People shouldn’t just think they knew Tara.
Period.
Because none of what they’d assume bore any relation to the woman herself and that, maybe, was why she had some sympathy for Eddie. He was a quiet guy, not very confident. He’d come to college and not had too many friends and…
Well, okay, he wasn’t hot like Tara. But… why couldn’t Buffy give it a shot? It wasn’t even a question of giving him a chance because how patronising was that? What sort of basis for a relationship? She hadn’t given Tara a chance. If anything Tara had taken a chance on her and thank God she had because…
Would I ever have realised who I was, who she was, if she hadn’t smiled at me just like that?
Eddie wasn’t Tara but… couldn’t he have his charms, things to wonder at? Couldn’t he be the nice guy Buffy needed? Couldn’t he smile in just the right away?
Why not? Did they have to be dark, broody, bad boys who’d hurt her? They did it better than any vampire or demon she fought.
Maybe… attraction could be strange like that. Look at what it’d surprised her with.
“Okay, obviously a touchy subject,” Buffy said.
“No, no, it’s not. I just… I don’t like it when people think they know someone when they really don’t and if they did take the time to know someone, gave them a chance, then they really would be glad to know them because there are some wonderful people out there… Umm, once you get to know them?”
Buffy looked confused, perhaps understandably. “Wait now. Are we talking about me, Eddie or you now?”
“None of the above,” Willow said, all ready to put Tara’s name out there but then Anya appeared again. Curses.
“Yes, Eddie. He would be an excellent mate for you, Buffy.”
They both looked at the other girl, questions – differing questions – in mind. Not that they probably wanted the answers.
“Is this anything to do with not being single, so I’m not going to come after Xander?” Buffy asked.
“Oh, you do understand,” Anya clapped her hands happily.
“Well, thank you both for your concern about my romantic life,” Buffy said. “But between the two of you I can pretty much promise that the next time I do start seeing someone, I’ll just keep it to myself for a while.”
Testify, sister.
“But we already know about Eddie.”
“I’m not dating Eddie!”
“So are you just using him for random sex?” Xander asked when he came back to the table, handed a wet wipe by Anya before she put her hand back in his.
“No, I’m not and what was that?”
“Wet wipe, you want one?”
“Couldn’t you just wash your hands?” Willow asked. “Like a regular person.”
“I don’t like the chemical smell of the soap,” Anya said. “And it dries his hands out. I like them to be soft when Xander - ”
“Okay! Enough of that thought,” Buffy interrupted, saving her the trouble. “Whatever it is.”
Let the bickering commence. They all knew how to do that. It didn’t mean much, no one really meant anything that was said, but… it just seemed a little pointless. It seemed like they – all of them – needed to grow up.
And maybe she’d started to do that. When she’d used to come here to watch Oz she’d been a girl, caught up in girlish things and dreaming of college and…
Now, with Tara, she was feeling a bit more like a woman. Dreaming of… Tara. That was the thing, she wasn’t looking to the future and other things, she was looking to the now, what she had. That was new.
And it sucked that she sometimes didn’t feel like she wanted these people, her friends, to be a part of that.
But before the wet wipe incident had interrupted them, hadn’t Buffy just said something that was very, very true? That she’d just keep her next date to herself for a while?
And if she thought that… If she’d do it?
After all, what would Tara think if she saw them now? Sitting here, surrounded by younger people – but obviously not Sunnydale High students since they’d blown the school up – and holding onto their misspent youth?
Did she have to feel bad about keeping her girlfriend a secret?
One day she’d introduce her but… not today.
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Tara nearly jumped out of her skin when a wet nose pushed at her bare thigh, just inside the flap of her robe.
Jumped and shouted, “Ah!”
“Ah, Tara.”
She pushed at the big, soft furred head. “Callisto! Stop - ”
Diana made a soft whistling nose through her teeth and the bitch ceased her attempts to sniff around her and returned the Goddesses side. She looked just a little disappointed. Callisto. Not the Goddess.
Wait… The Goddess was here. In her dorm room…
What was she doing here?
Thoughts of Willow had been in her head all day, nothing new there, but she’d had cause to wonder just how right the time needed to be for them to fulfil the promise of their passion and growing… love.
Amongst her books, her classes and ultimately when she’d been running on the treadmill down at the gym – figuring if she was going to be here she better learn how to run away more convincingly – she’d determined that ‘love’ was the key.
When they were admitting that to each other, out loud and not just saying the word without appreciating the full meaning of it… that was the point when there was no better time for what, by now, seemed inevitable.
And did she love Willow? Unquestionably.
Did Willow love her? Even though she’d been left behind while her girlfriend – she was saying that much freely enough – went to a birthday party without her? Yes, she rather thought she did but it was a big, huge[/] step to say so and mean everything that lay behind the word.
More because there was a huge pressure that went with it. To live up to it. For the other person to feel the same way and to say it to. And, in their case, maybe to take things to the next [i]physical level too.
“Diana.”
“Apologies for the hound, Tara,” Diana said.
“Her nose is just cold.”
“And you’ve declined to dress after your cleansing.”
Tara tightened the robe around herself, even though she wasn’t anything like indecent beneath it. “I was about to,” she said. So she’d been to the gym. So it was the first time and so – with Willow not being expected – she’d thought a lazy evening of reading was okay. She didn’t have to get dressed for that and if Willow came around later… It’d be efficient.
“The woman that you took to your bed?” Diana asked, looking around as if expecting Willow to leap from the closet.
“How - ?” Stupid question. This was a Goddess.
“Her scent is mixed with yours,” Diana said. “Even after you cleanse and the bed itself too.”
“She’s not here,” Tara said. “She has – an event, with friends. Other friends. It’s just – it’s complicated.” Somehow she felt she should defend Willow even though no accusation had been made and – actually – she thought that she’d have liked to have been there.
After all, Willow probably didn’t make friends with people she wouldn’t have liked and that Buffy had seemed… She seemed nice enough. Even though they’d met in more of a professional capacity, with the ring and all.
But, all the same, she understood why she wasn’t there. Willow had explained it and… the nervous part of her agreed with the logic. Friends who would’ve been another pressure on their budding relationship. Burgeoning, maybe. Maybe they were ‘burgeoning’ now?
She felt like they should be burgeoning.
Was it any coincidence she’d run faster and longer than ever before – which wasn’t to say very fast or very long – while Willow was elsewhere? Maybe not… One day though, given everything that was happening, being able to run away really quickly or for a really long time might come in really handy.
And it’d felt good too, which had surprised her. Not good like making out with Willow good. But good all the same.
Good for the times when she couldn’t make out with Willow and was feeling a little tense.
“Hmm.”
Tara ignored the implied criticism, this was a Goddess, here in her dorm room and that wasn’t someone you really argued with. At least not when you weren’t dressed. She liked to think that clothes gave you more authority to be who you should be. “Was there something you wanted me to do?”
“It is past time.”
“T-time for what?” Had she forgotten something?
“Your responsibilities, it is past time that you accepted them,” Diana said.
“R-responsibilities?” She hadn’t agreed to any responsibilities and though Diana had vaguely hinted at their existence, asking her to be prepared to lead the Wicca Group, she didn’t think that merited turning up here this evening.
“It is your nature, Tara, to protect and to nurture. Another life would’ve seen you a hunter, much as I am, but here, in this one? You need to protect those who cannot protect themselves, you need to keep evil from dominating.”
“There’s evil afoot?” she wondered. Knowing where Willow – and her friends that included a Slayer – were meant she could always go get some help if she needed it but… Goddess? Maybe she didn’t need them and they were having a party. A night off for Buffy.
And what did Diana mean, that she’d have been a hunter in a different life?
“Not evil. There is… indifference.”
Now what did that mean?
“What is it you want me to do?” she asked.
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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.
Chance in *Chance*
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This was such a cute little update, plus it really did a great job of moving the along in their relationship. I got to say I just adored this "“I mean… I don’t want them to look at you and worry about you. Worry whether you’re on our side or what our side is. I want them to look at you and say ‘there’s the girl Willow’s with.’”" It really does make sense and it's sweet. Willow does want her friends to understand that they are into each other, not finding out about the super beings that they each happen to associate with.
Ready for more!
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