Katharyn, It’s been ages since I’ve watched Airplane. I love that goofy flick! Anya explaining what a phone is to Willow was hilarious. I can’t imagine her wanting to get down and dirty in the woods if she’d known the possibility Artemis was around. But.. Xander knew. Geez dude, stop thinking with your tiny head.

Glad Willow was interrupted. I hope she drops that whole dumb idea. If Oz can’t figure it out on his own, then he never deserved to be with her in the first place!

I’m still not convinced Diana will turn into the Big Bad. There’s a very good reason she may want the group to “be all they can be”. Like, maybe she wants to go home, wherever and whenever that is, but needs a powerful spell to get her there. Or, she’s there hunting a God, Goddess or Demon known to coz harm to the kind of people she protects. Anyhoo.. I just feel like, even though Tara is wary of the Huntress.. she’s still spending a lot of time with her so there’s isn’t a strong sense of impending doom coming from Diana. When it comes to sensing the good the bad and/or the scary, it’s easier to read it in others than recognize that in yourself, otherwise, Tara would know she (herself) is in no way evil. And.. I believe Tara has a strong intuitive gift of “sight”.

Hmm.. I think that kinda makes Tara a Grimm.

Great job here.. I’m so excited for the next part!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

You make me laugh!

I loved the line when Artemis said she saw Anyanka " under some mortal"....

I'm glad Willow didn't get to the spell. I hope her distraction is not just temporary. Something Blue was good for a laugh. But, I didn't enjoy Willow's suffering.

That was a nice take on the D’Hoffryn recruitment.....kudos. Is Diana not aware of Willow yet? When Tara asked who the person of power was, I was curious to know if Diana has before hand knowledge of a Willow and Tara future pairing ? I guess I'm kinda like Tara. As a Goddess, Shouldn't she be all knowing ?

I can't wait until they finally meet!!!!!!

Update Thursday ?

Can't blame a girl for trying....

Kajun, Tara as a Grimm? Me love you long time....

Sorry I've been kinda lax with my usual gushing over your work. Damn college for interfering with my fangirling! ><

It's nice to see Tara rather apprehensive about the responsibility Diana wants to give her. It's understandable, because first of all, a goddess giving you that kind of responsibility? Scary shit. Also, because Tara is, when you get down to it, not only and introvert, but also just a kid. I love that she tries to back out of being the the teacher, the nurturer, the guide...because aren't those things that come Tara naturally, eventually?

Loving that all the old ones seem to know one another, too.

_________________
"If I can't be a good example, might as well be a horrible warning."

"Friendship is obviously magic. Love is a sorta super strong friendship. We gay people love so hard we broke 'Social Norm'. Ergo, we gay people are ultra-strong wizards."

Kajun - the Airplane gag was a very late addition when I accidentally found myself putting the line in there. And yes, it still may be the flat out funniest movie ever, even if I've liked others more for other reasons.
I think you may be bring a little harsh on Xander, he didn't know! 
Be reassured, this chapter fits as awkwardly in this fic as Something Blue did in canon, really should have been earlier in both. But I did want D'hoffryn in there so it stayed.
So little I can say re your Diana speculation as it will take a long time to play out yet! 
I've not seen that show about Grimm yet, but I could still chuckle at the double meaning! 
Thanks

Grimm - I do like to make you laugh and with the girls comedy is so much easier! 'Under some mortal' was also a late addition. I needed to make Diana less pervy! 
Willow suffering... All over. At least until NMR. 
What Diana knows, in detail, is kind of nebulous. I've not gone there because I don't need to. Maybe later in redraft I will need to, but not yet.
All knowing is one thing, but I very deliberately try to avoid any hint that anyone/thing puts them together. No. It's all the girls. 
Update... Probably Friday, sorry. But I'm away this weekend so I need to balance posts over that and also I've just started 'Raiders of the Lost Vagina' for NaNoWriMo. (not the real name!) So I'm pacing my update prep to let me write that for the next few weeks. Still at least every three days though.

Thanks!
Katharyn

_________________
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------

Oh, Faolan too!

No worries about posting. I know you're there!

Yeah, Tara is reluctant mostly because she doesn't want to be forward, in the spotlight etc. She probably knows she could do it though.

Old Ones knowing each other seemed rather like networking for demon middle management! Also nice to have those touches in there, it's fun for me to play with that sort of thing and I think fun for readers too.

Thanks so much, hope college going well

Katharyn

_________________
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------

Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter Nineteen
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: Tara and Willow see each other for the first time… We’re at the start of a number of chapters that take place over the period of Hush.
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: I feel a little ‘uncomfortable’ with the changes I have necessarily made in this part in order to work within the revised world that the girls are in here. Because we all love it so much, I’ve tried to keep the circumstances of their first meeting as close as possible and yet… it’s had to change slightly. It’s because this is one of my most treasured parts of the W&T journey I don’t know how I feel about what I’ve done to it.
Needless to say we’re going to spend a little time with the girls now and a little less on the on-going story plot. I figure after 50K words to get here you all deserve that! Basically this entire chapter spans the few moments that Tara smiles at Willow, pushing her hair back. Don’t worry, we’ll get a little faster than that.
Also, the ‘Hello Kitty’ reference. I have known this girl… names have been changed to protect the tragic.
Thanks to: It’s a musical thanks again and next in my occasional reference this was written to is Rob Dougan’s ‘One and the Same’ which is absolutely beautiful and I’ve snuck in a reference to it in the story. I’d go further and recommend the whole album ‘Furious Angels’ (a Kitten recommended it to me once upon a time so I’m spreading the love.) Not sure where you can get it as its a few years old, but if you do… you won’t be disappointed.




Willow hadn’t told any of her friends that she was coming here tonight.

It wasn’t so much that she was being sneaky about it. No, it was more that… she didn’t want everyone getting their hopes up.

Things – indeterminate things – would’ve been expected from her if they’d known about this and she wasn’t sure she was ready to deal with that. Not after what she’d nearly done or nearly tried to do… A spell? To get back at Oz? Fate had intervened and snatched her chance away for long enough that the moment had passed and she’d realised what she was doing.

Or not doing, actually.

Fortunately.

They all thought she was already doing okay, but that had proved – at least to her – that wasn’t the case. And so… coming here? It was a cautious step. Hopefully in the right direction.

It’d all been part of the big plan, of course. Back when they thought they might need a big plan to deal with the Goddess that was in town. Anyway, a part of that plan was for her to come here and find out what was happening. Undercover, as it were. The one girl who could.

But now that she was actually here, she’d found that it was much more ‘happening’ than she’d ever expected it to be.

The Wicca Group that ran here on campus, she’d seen it listed in the Fresher Directory when she arrived and… Well, honestly, it’d sounded kind of lame then. There had been other things to do. Helping Buffy. The boyfriend thing.

But it looked like this might have been time better spent, definitely than the boyfried thing anyway. No matter how lame it had looked in print, now it just… buzzed.

There must’ve been more than fifty people in the room. Two or three were men – yay for inclusiveness – but otherwise they were all women. Uhuh. Yeah, we know what you mean with all your stereotypes. But since she wasn’t here to find a new boyfriend that was okay. It was… comfy too. She wasn’t ready for a new boyfriend to appear anyway.

Most of those people – men and women - were students, but here and there actually seemed to be some real life faculty members and TA’s. This group was appealing to a much bigger crowd than she’d ever thought. Who’d ever heard of the faculty attending student societies?

Now she had. But never before.

And…

There was power here. A different kind of buzz… She could feel it behind the bridge of her nose. And it wasn’t just one person either it was… Well, probably not ‘lots’. But this gathering had attracted more than a few people with magical talent even if some of them might not even know it. She could just tell.

Were any of them able to spin a pencil with the power of her mind? She didn’t know yet, but… maybe she wasn’t the magically special person in the room. Which was both disappointing and cool at the same time.

She thought that a few of them had met gzaes, shared a knowing look in recognising each other. It was like they were forming an elite. Which was where the cool came in. Yeah, it was kind of cool to be rolling with the powerful crowd. Like…

Yeah… I’m bad.

Once the meeting had come to order though she’d gotten her first sight of the so called Goddess. No matter what Anya said, she wasn’t quite prepared to accept her word for what the woman at the front of the room was. It was a long way from ‘recognition’ to ‘deity.’

No matter how you cut it, Diana didn’t look like a Goddess. She didn’t look like much of anything. Not a hunter, not a mother, nor an animal trainer. She didn’t look like much you could put your finger on. But when she spoke… yeah… then you knew there was something about her.

Certainly there was this ‘tomboyish’ vibe to her. Perhaps. But what was the equivalent of a tomboy when you were talking about someone who was plainly a woman as well? It was the best single word she could think of though. Like she didn’t quite… fit.

Diana’s age could’ve been anything between fifteen and thirty and her dress was simplistic, functional as a covering without getting in her way. Also, though no one was, you had the feeling that anyone sat up right up front, would get an eyeful if only they took a look upwards.

The hair you could say the same about as the clothes. It could’ve been coiffed at a very expense salon to look that way, or she could just have run her fingers through it after rolling out of bed and achieved the very same effect.

And there was a question, did a Goddess sleep? Did the Goddess of Virgins have any use for a bed?

As for that other thing, about the lesbians Wicca was supposed to attract?

Well, rather fewer than the often quoted one in ten struck her that way about this crowd, but what would she know about it?

She had to admit that she really wouldn’t know if someone was gay, straight or going both ways if she fell over them, let alone seeing them across the room. You know, unless there were some obvious clues. Like, maybe, a pin that said ‘I dig girls. Ask me how.’

She hadn’t seen one of those.

Most likely there were four or five lesbians and bi women here, just based on population demographics. A few more maybe, if there was any truth to what the others had been claiming about the Wiccan movement. But generally, there were a cross section of everyone here. Ethnic groups, sexualities, disabilities… pretty much a representative sample, apart from the limited number of men. And yeah, it was skewed to college students in age terms.

Perhaps Diana was the Goddess of Feminine Inclusiveness too? The idea made her smile, though maybe that was only because it was tough to take the room seriously as a threat.

Even though she’d been in a coven of her own and almost burned at the stake by an angry mob led by her mother – not something you forgot very quickly – this had none of the feeling of a crowd that was being whipped up to action that they wouldn’t take alone.

Also if, let’s say, ten percent of the room had magical talent that left ninety percent that didn’t.

So if she didn’t see them as a threat, then her not very covert infiltration – she’d given her real name and dorm room number at the door – had taken on more of an investigative role.

Could these women – with a few men – actually wield any kind of power as a collective? Were they a safer bet than the three nerds in a black mood sort of gathering that had led her to being burned at the stake? Probably.

It wasn’t like her interest in the arcane was in any way faked – hence the stake – but she’d been searching for a long time for an outlet for it. A way to learn and develop herself that was a little more academic than ‘trying to achieve an objective in the middle of a crisis.’ Sure, she’d learned how to spin a pencil but only by practising spinning a pencil.

Maybe what she should’ve been learning was how the magic worked. Maybe she should’ve been figuring how to leave the pencil how it was and spin the world around instead?

After all what could’ve happened if she’d gone through with that spell to bend people to her will? That might’ve been… bad. She’d learned by now, most recently by that aborted attempt, that she needed not do the magic when she was upset.

And this place was definitely… calming. That – so far – seemed to be its main purpose. The best thing that could’ve happened, she tended to think.

She hadn’t felt this at ease since… well, since maybe forever. But certainly since Oz left. It wasn’t yoga, though there was a little movement involved. It wasn’t hypnotism or anything like that either, very little was said and there were no swaying watches. But, all the same, after about an hour here, she felt absolutely at ease.

She might’ve been characterised as a threat and this might’ve been a ploy, something to subdue her and lull her into a sense of security, but she didn’t think so. Being as she still had her suspicions – they just seemed less likely – and she could still think this way about it all, that seemed unlikely too.

Anya hadn’t said that Diana was definitely a threat. She’d just said that Diana could be a threat.

And what the hell was wrong with a room full of people de-stressing? Nothing so far as she could see.

On the other hand, you did have to wonder what a supposed Goddess want with a room full of de-stressed people? That was probably the more important question. Trouble was, she didn’t just want to go up there and ask. She was - after all – kind of undercover.

So she did as was suggested and moved into one of several smaller circles around the room which – without direction – formed a larger circle of their own. There were five of them in their little group. One of them was one of the guys, she thought she actually recognised him from one of her classes.

The other three were girls. Not a one of them felt to have any real power at all. Which was fine, she didn’t mind being the one who did – though if this turned into an exercise about turning princes into frogs – or vice versa – she didn’t want to be doing all the heavy lifting.

She wasn’t transforming them. Or kissing frogs.

No princes either. One of the girls didn’t look like she would’ve minded a little princess action. She was – apart from her cut off Hello Kitty pink t-shirt – your stereotypical butch girl right down to the shaven hair and the piercings. What she thought she was doing with the tee though… Washday? Nothing clean, right?

Or maybe she picked it up from her girlfriend. Willow was dying to ask if she was right, but she didn’t quite dare. It kind of seemed like it could be taken the wrong way. Or lots of wrong ways. The girl was chatty enough, her name was Melanie, and wasn’t scary at all, but it seemed like one of those things you just didn’t ask. It was making a few big assumptions she only had stereotypes to back up.

It wasn’t the girlfriend thing. No, Willow was worried about whether she liked Hello Kitty. Some of those fans could be… kind of rabid.

“Umm – ex-excuse me? Do you think I c-could I join you? You’re one short and I - I’m one… extra.”

“Sure, no problem,” Melanie and the girl next to her shuffled up to create space.

Willow looked up at the newcomer, but the new girl’s nervousness wasn’t confined to the vocal, her manner was to keep her eyes low and when she sat down, long, light brown hair fell around her face and pretty much hid it from them.

All in all, she would’ve been a mystery what with the long skirt and the flowing top that just about hid any semblance of her shape. She would have been a mystery, because Willow had already been told about someone who looked like her and Diana had drawn attention to the girl – much to her obvious embarrassment – earlier in the evening when she was held up as an example of how to undertake the relaxation routine.

This then was Tara – previously known as ‘Lara’ - who’d given Buffy the Gem of Amara.

And there was some accidental rhyming going on there…

When it came to Tara, there was some debate about whether she was a good guy or not. Good girl, even? Giving up the ring to Buffy said ‘yes’ but being trusted with it by the so-called Goddess said that she was close to that ‘being’ and if the Goddess was actually all big-baddy then mightn’t this Tara be like a… minion?

Willow found she had that spidey-sense tingling that told her there was some sort of power to her too… Of course there was, this couldn’t have been simple could it?

Well, if Tara was a minion then she certainly wasn’t acting that way. How many minions were embarrassed to be held up as a shining example? How many hid themselves away even in the midst of just five other people?

Every sense that she had of the girl said that she was on the level but she’d been known to make mistakes before. She’d never even seen her own boyfriend leaving until it was way too late to stop it.

And then Tara looked up and their eyes met across the circle.

For some reason, just a second later, she smiled.

----------------

Talk about embarrassing… Or actually, she’d rather have not talked about it. Tara would’ve just preferred to slip away into a corner and curled up…

Diana had practically told everyone to follow what she was doing even though the exercise in calm was a deeply private and deeply personal thing. Most of it was internalised. How did you demonstrate finding the place inside yourself that allowed you to be at peace, no matter what was happening round you?

And, with more than fifty people – and one Goddess – in the room, there was a lot happening around all of them. Even if everyone was sitting perfectly still and quiet.

Thankfully though, now it was over, she could fade back into the background. Diana wanted her to be her Priestess? Up front all the time? Tara honestly didn’t think that was for her, though the Goddess was insistently giving her more and more time to make her decision. Without actually telling her there was a decision to be made.

It wasn’t patience, exactly, that Diana was showing. More like it was persistence.

She didn’t get picked first. It was like a universal rule and one that had definitely been posted in every locker room she’d ever been in, there for everyone to see before they ran out for phys-ed. Tara Maclay just did not get picked first.

For anything.

Fortunately those locker room notices had never said anything else about them. She’d got to a point, at a certain age, she’d actually kind of liked phys-ed. In some respects… She’d just needed to avoid being caught looking. Interesting memories…

Anyway, she hadn’t actually turned Diana down as yet, just expressed all sorts of reasons why she shouldn’t be the one. And wondered if there had to be one at all.

And yet Diana calmly answered all of her points and some of what she’d said had – actually - come to pass. Tara found that she was getting more comfortable, she was getting a better feel of herself and the techniques that Diana was showing her – all of them actually. She was actually wondering, once she had her next birthday – well, she wondered whether what they’d been practising would serve well enough to soothe the demon.

She still didn’t know whether Diana knew what was within her. Or what her reaction would be when she did, but now she did know that the Goddess actively worked with demons when she needed to, not just hunting them as she did vampires and werewolves. If these techniques would calm the demon… it might change everything.

A genuine hope. Not that Daddy would be happy about where she’d found it but… all the same. Maybe she could stay here a little longer. Maybe she could see out school before going home?

Looking around the room she found a circle that was smaller than the others, slipped between the other ones and asked whether she could join them.

“Umm – ex-excuse me? Do you think I c-could I join you? You’re one short and I - I’m one… extra.”

“Sure, no problem.”

Tara moved into the space that had been created, sitting with her legs crossed before and tried to turn inwards, taking herself back to the place that the mass group had left behind for these smaller, more intimate sessions. Diana hadn’t told her what the point was – yet – but she knew that there surely was one.

On the other hand, she hadn’t asked either. Maybe she needed to be bold -

A tickle of power – not even a trickle – interrupted her thoughts and pricked her awareness. Someone in this circle was… Looking at her. It wasn’t just the power. It was interest too.

She lifted her eyes and met ones of a very different green to Diana’s.

Somehow they were…

Maybe it was the calm, maybe it was the sheer presence of the red-haired girl whose gaze she felt like she was swimming in. Whatever it was, she felt herself start to smile and didn’t even care that just wasn’t something that she did with… anyone she didn’t know.

The girl mouthed to her. ‘Hi.’

Tara felt her smile broaden and she pushed her hair back from her face, back behind her ear. Why do that?

Better question. Why not?

‘Hi,’ she mouthed in return. Not so much mouthed as… just moved her lips a little.

It didn’t seem possible, because when she was making that simple – silent – word with her lips, her heart was beating faster than it had since arriving in the room and… something was going on with her. Something she didn’t recognise.

And she wasn’t so calm anymore. All the concentration just melted away into those eyes.

Maybe it was because the red-haired girl she was looking at was simply… gorgeous. And maybe if she’d been calmer she might’ve found a better description, but looking for any other word just seemed superfluous. ‘Gorgeous’ was perfect, even if her old English teacher would probably have had her come up with something more poetic.

Not much rhymed with ‘gorgeous’ when you came right down to it. At least not the kind of words you’d want to put in close proximity.

And if they were talking about definitions, the one for ‘gorgeous’ suddenly seemed to feature a lot of red hair, fine features and green eyes.

Oh, and yeah… she was guilty of the old wandering eyes, checking the girl out. Not like in the locker room but… Yeah.

Okay, sat on the floor wasn’t the most revealing of poses but… everything about her was just so and she couldn’t help wondering just how pale the girl might be a little further down from her shoulders.

Bad… She was being bad. And somehow it felt good.

After that flicker of checking she re-joined the other girl’s gaze and caught a hint of a smile there. This was all happening so fast, the matter of moments – that had suddenly stretched and elongated - but moments that were filled with so much… experience.

Had she been caught checking her out? Was that what the little smile had been about? It seemed likely and she knew it was making her blush. No, maybe it wasn’t just that – maybe it was the places her mind was racing off to that was giving her the blush response. Her mind was no calmer than her heart now.

That was… There was no end of cute, pretty girls here at UC Sunnydale. From the cheerleader type to the quirky girl who had her own thing going for her. Tara had pretty much managed to stay away from looking too hard at any of them, at least if that required any effort on her part.

Why? She wasn’t sure.

Of course before and when she’d got here she wondered whether there was any likeminded girl who might like a quiet, shy girl with a nervous stammer… But finding out would’ve meant putting herself out there and that was fraught with all sorts of pitfalls. Rejection would’ve been the mildest of them, worse would’ve been getting the girl entirely wrong and making fundamental mistakes over that like-mindedness.

She was well aware that what she’d talked herself into looking for a risk free girlfriend and, yes, she knew just how unlikely that ever was to happen.

Risk free girlfriends weren’t exactly ten-a-penny. But there it was… she was stuck in a rut and then Diana had come along and she’d really been too busy with that and a new friendship with Annie and coursework and – and – Anything but her romantic prospects, really. There was already a Goddess in their midst and now… here was another one?

Even at the Wicca Group which probably featured a disproportionate number of those likeminded girls – she’d never thought or felt this way.

Wait…

Was she being checked out now? But… she hadn’t dressed for it. She wasn’t even sure she had any clothes she could be checked out in. But…

The red-haired girl was still looking at her and those green eyes had wandered downwards too. Just for a moment. Was that…?

There was no doubt that she’d been checked out before, practically every woman walking - but not necessarily talking - had been, but this was the first time she was really conscious of it. Unless she was just dreaming it, which was always possible because… this girl would be easy to dream about.

And if she was being checked out then was this girl interested? Obviously she was interested in something, but in… her? Maybe it was just a competition thing. That was the human condition, rivalry with others. She wasn’t great at it. But – maybe?

Or was it all about the power? There was something about ‘Red’ that just hummed… and Tara wondered whether the girl was feeling the same thing about her?

Then her mind twisted in another direction. Was this ‘risk free’? Was Red? Not entirely but… if this girl had the ability to do spells and the like then there was an easy way to at least talk to her, to engage in conversation and see how things would go. It was… it was an angle. She’d never needed an angle before but this felt like it might be one.

It was definitely safer though. Like, maybe she was wrong… Based on her lack of ‘checking out’ experience as either checker or checkee that was pretty likely.

Or maybe she was right but the girl was pretty much straight, had a boyfriend or whatever. Or a girlfriend… She was determined that she’d never be anyone’s ‘bit on the side’ and wouldn’t even consider harmless flirting with a girl who was involved. Mostly because she wasn’t really sure how to flirt anyway and it didn’t pass the ‘risk free’ test. Not by a longshot.

But just maybe she was right and the girl was either gay or open-minded enough for that not to matter?

And if she was wrong, there was still the magic. There was still a possibility of making another friend here in Sunnydale and that couldn’t be a bad thing. It’d worked out so well with Annie that she was ready for more of that.

But why did she feel that… Why did she feel they were one and the same?

Whatever. All she had to do was smile and push her hair back again so that Red would be sure to notice.

*******************

_________________
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------

Ack! Killing me here! So good. Willow's internal monologue is great, laundry day?

Some reason she smiled? Giggle!

Tara's pov, is so sweet. You did a fantastic job expressing the "are they checking me out?" Internal struggle. It's an in... Awwwww yeaaaaah

_________________
"Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly." -Rose Franken
"I think when I cease to go to the bathroom, then I can call myself famous." -Amber Benson
"I'd rather be a fake lesbian than a sorority girl."- A Rugby Teammate
"The Hammer is my Penis," Captain Hammer, 'Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog.'

asdfghjkl; FIRST CONTACT OF PLANET MACROSENBERG HAS JUST HAPPENED

*claps gleefully* Oh, Tara. If only you knew how many of us sat at our TV screens checking you out.

_________________
"If I can't be a good example, might as well be a horrible warning."

"Friendship is obviously magic. Love is a sorta super strong friendship. We gay people love so hard we broke 'Social Norm'. Ergo, we gay people are ultra-strong wizards."

Hey, thank you Missocki. Yes, I know the butch with the Hello Kitty fetish, though I didn't back in 2001 LOL. Laundry day was my own reaction to that...

The being checked out thing is iCard, but easier with the girls because it's actually obvious to both of them that is the case. What they're really doing is doubting what they already know

Thanks again

Faolan - Thank you too. I like a little gushing And yes, many of us have checked Tara out. True story... The UK got Buffy DVD before the USA and a certain board founder who remained nameless had me doing screen captures of Tara's butt from this episode. One very specific moment after she'd just fallen down when being chased. LOL

Katharyn

_________________
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------

Katharyn, Squeeeeeee! If it helps any, the changes made to Willow and Tara’s very first meeting are, IMHO, even more significant this way. In canon, Tara didn’t take notice of Willow until she expressed interest in real magic. I like this better actually. In a room full of potential friends and romantic hook-ups, most being there for reasons beyond a silly bake sale, Tara was only and immediately drawn to Willow. There’s humming! Really nice job there!

And WOW to Tara questioning if Willow is in fact a Goddess too. But now she has a new problem.. getting her heart rate under control while in Willow’s presence. Diana will, no doubt, notice this change in her protégé. Will she help Tara make necessary adjustments in her exercises or consider Willow a threat and attempt to keep them apart? I don’t see Diana trying to hurt Willow, but she probably wouldn’t like anyone interfering with the progress she has made grooming Tara as her Priestess.

Ahem.. I happen to dig Hello Kitty. I especially love me some Giant Hello Kitty.

I’m wondering if Tara will introduce Willow to Diana or if those two meet under less pleasant circumstances. Tara might want to keep Willow all to herself for a while.

This was AWESOME!!

THIS WAS FRICKING AWESOME !!!!!

Katharyn, why would you doubt that this update would be seen as anything less than FANTASTIC?

I love, love, LOVE the changes you've made. The instant attraction and pull that they feel towards one another is undeniable.

I loved Tara's inner thoughts on using the magic 'angle' to get to know Red better. Again, you made me chuckle when Tara had her mini mind-babble about checking girls out in the locker room. In all my years of gym-class, I never thought to do such a thing ....lol

Please don't let Artemis' plans for Tara be an obstacle to the romance .

Feel free to stretch this out as long as possible because it's AWESOME !!!!!!!

Just goes to show... how a writer sees what they put down and a reader sees the same, exact, thing is always very different. And I think, sometimes, expectation can shape that - either way. So I'm very pleased to get some 'awesomes' in there, thank you!!

Kajun - I would question whether Tara ever saw them as a room full of potential hookups, but I know what you mean. And yeah, I would agree I like that element of this. But I also like to think this may have been how Tara was feeling in the canon. I mean... we didn't have the advantage of her perspective to be able to tell. (Just like no one could prove Sass was wrong to have them on the floor in the laundry room the first time they're alone - LOL)

Tara's heart rate... not slowing any time soon. She's in for a sleepless night. No, that's not quite true. She will dream in interesting ways... I think maybe I knew about you and Hello Kitty. Subconciously, that may be why its there... LOL

Thanks!

Grimm - Instant attraction was definitely the way to go and - I think - you have to have that. Willow's angst free realisation (if you want to call it that) when she's capable of being so analytical means that - to me - it had to be something as simple as flicking a light on. 'Oh... that's what/(who) I'm supposed to be doing.'

Tara, of course, knows what she wants earlier but has less idea how to get there. Hence her 'plans'.

Locker rooms? An endless source of torture and delight to me. Even now I go to the gym and do my very best not to look...

As for your point about an obstacle to romance. Nope. No obstacles.

But like you say, I will be stretching it out and I just know you'll be begging me to let them just get it on already... LOL

Katharyn

The next part will post on Sunday, probably afternoon or evening UK time.

_________________
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------

Needed a little Katharyn fix. So, I'm re-reading Sidestep....casually.

Stumbled across this and it made me smile......

Well… they weren’t now. They weren’t everything that they could have been. Not even… well not even some of what they had been. They were so much more than that even now, but they were also just a touch less. In one area. And most of all they weren’t what Tara had suggested that they should have been.

That was too many ‘shoulds’, ‘coulds’ and ‘woulds’ to keep things straight. But… it seemed to Willow that there was a chance.

_________________
The kitten formerly known as SMGOVAN ~Official Head of Security for the Finey_McFine fan club. Ass whippings will be handed out liberally!

Wow Grimm, I was setting things up even then! No, seriously, you all know what I've written better than I do. I couldn't even tell you where that came from (I'd have to guess!)

_________________
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------

With apologies for the delay... but the board being down isn't my fault!

Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter Twenty
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: Hush continued… The Gentlemen make their appearance but, strangely, at least two girls are distracted by other things. Or, like, each other.
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: Despite this being a short part, this – and other Hush parts – are just so much fun. I think this may have been my favourite canon episode anyway, regardless of the Tara and Willow meeting and getting to play in this sandbox again is just special – especially doing it from their perspective.
I’m trying to keep as much as I can similar to the show in these ‘special’ places, but things inevitably change either because I haven’t seen it since 2002 or because of whats already happened in the story. The last part focused on about 30 seconds of their lives. This one goes over longer but turned out shorter in terms of numbers of words. I really am trying (and often failing) to seek a balance between indulgence in T/W goodness and telling the story.
As I’ve said in feedback to other stories, I also write novels. This isn’t a novel. You’d present, format and pace novels very differently to how fanfic is done, especially when it’s sticking to a known story that the readers know at least the bones of. It’s a different way of reading and of writing. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
Thanks to: My colleagues at work who shut up at the right moment to let me get away and come home to do this redraft. They didn’t know that was what they were doing but all the same.



Willow lay in her bed, listening to the light snores coming from the opposite side of the room. Buffy’s side.

Funny, it’d never bothered her after the travails of her previous roommates and it didn’t really bother her right now. The snoring wasn’t why she was awake. She’d slept well enough actually. The relaxation from the previous night had probably helped and even though there’d been this thing on her mind, not even that had gotten in the way of nodding off.

But now that she’d woken up, refreshed and keen to face a new day, the question was right there. What was she going to do about a girl named Tara?

No, that wasn’t really the question was it?

Giles and Buffy would want to know what they needed to do about this Goddess problem they thought they had. And they might’ve wondered what connection this Tara had to the so-called Goddess.

But right now – at least for her - she couldn’t see past the girl in the circle. Somehow, that girl was disconnected from the ‘Tara’ that Buffy and Giles had been wondering about since she’d handed over the Gem of Amara and revealed herself.

You see, there was this thing. It was one of those things too and the thing was that no one, no one, who smiled like that could be false or evil or any of that stuff that usually cropped up in Sunnydale.

No one.

They’d seen evil, insane vampires. They’d fought off seductive mantis ladies and werewolf hunters and unbalanced, slutty slayers. None of them had smiled that way and none of them could ever have done. Just the idea of Faith trying to be that… sweet? It was ridiculous. Even the old Mayor – who’d spent a lot of time smiling – hadn’t been able to do anything like that.

No… looking past that smile as evidence that the girl -Tara - was actually okay in a non-evil kind of way seemed like it might be impossible. Or should be.

Maybe there was a problem with this Goddess – she wasn’t ruling it out and she wasn’t ruling it in - but there definitely wasn’t one with the girl called Tara. Nor could Willow believe that the girl could be any part of something dangerous or big-baddy. Not if she was smiling like that. You didn’t, you just didn’t. It’d been so…

There was really no way it could’ve been false. It’d hadn’t just been friendly. And it hadn’t been because she was amused. And it definitely wasn’t false, not in any way.

What words could she use? Shy and hopeful and…

What was that third word? Lovely?

She should’ve made sure that she really spoke to the girl when the meeting was over, but they’d had that silent moment and it seemed – at the same time - like enough and nowhere near enough.

But definitely enough to decide she wasn’t bad.

Just not enough to say just how… good she really was.

So, for the last half hour or so she’d been lying here in a happy place. Thinking about how she was going to report that to the others. The Goddess was easy. We went there, we did some vaguely mystical relaxation work – she seemed very big on relaxing us and no, I wasn’t hypnotised. But about the girl, Tara…

‘She’s not bad’ didn’t even begin to cover it. And there was that whole double meaning going on. ‘Not bad’ and ‘Not bad.’

See there was this thing, niggling at her too. Generally she wasn’t a fan of niggling. Niggling was usually bad, like an itch you couldn’t quite scratch. It was something knew you should know but chose to ignore and hoped it went away without anything bad actually happening.

That was pretty much her entire experience of niggling.

But… this niggle was a good niggle. Which made it a ‘giggle’? No, not really funny. Maybe it was more of a wiggle? A wiggle? A cute little wiggle… And why in the world was she imagining a wiggle from Tara? Wiggle, niggle… what was it that was really playing on her mind?

Seemed like it was something that said, ‘your looking at this all wrong.’

No. That wasn’t right either. Maybe more like ‘you’re looking at her all wrong.’

The girl was magically powerful, that much was totally obvious. So she had the ear of a Goddess who might well be big and bad, but so what? Diana might not be bad. She might be a big… good? How could she hold that against Tara without even knowing her or what Diana was really doing?

It wouldn’t be fair at all.

In fact, that might be at the root of the wiggly-niggle. Maybe she just had to get to know the girl. Her ‘infiltration’ of the Wicca Group wasn’t going to be complete unless she found something useful and no one could argue that getting to know the girl who’d made them aware of the Goddess in their midst would be a bad thing. Could they?

And that was just what everyone else would think about it.

Right now, in a calm, happy and warm place; getting to know Tara seemed like… it seemed essential. No. Essential, with a capital Ess. Like nothing that she said or did would be quite right until she did. Like everything would be, well, incomplete.

No one would mind and… so what if they did? It wasn’t everyone else that Tara had smiled at. It wasn’t everyone else who was having niggles and thoughts of wiggles and… Why was she imagining the girl’s bum when she got to wiggles and niggles and... her back and her -

It seemed like she might be on the very cusp of some sort of personal revelation, but then Buffy stopped snoring and sat up in bed. Quiet time was over then…

“Morning, Buffy,” she said brightly.

Or at least she tried to… there was something wrong with her voice? Where was her voice? It wasn’t just her, Buffy too, clutching her throat as if that would help. It wasn’t their ears, she’d been listening to the snores moments earlier, but it took Buffy a minute more to figure that out, tapping her nails on the bedside table to prove it to herself.

‘What happened?’ the other girl mouthed.

They were mouthing things? And why was Tara uppermost in her mind even now?

Tara and her ‘hi’? That’d been mouthed too, not a spoken word between them but she hadn’t thought of much else since she’d woken up. And now she’d lost her voice? Was that suspicious?

Was this everywhere? Was Tara similarly stripped of the voice Willow had never heard but had to think was soft, gentle and… soothing.

Maybe it was those thoughts, maybe it was the previous evenings relaxation, but she just didn’t have it in her to panic just because she’d lost her voice.

Instead of that, she was just wondering what Tara was doing right now.

----------------------

Tara had made an early start, mostly because sleep had been eluding her.

Too many things were going on in her head or, more accurately, one other thing for a long, long time…

When she had managed to fall asleep her dreams had remained on the same topic. And the topic was… red-haired and beautiful.

It was a kind smile. It was… sexy.

Sexy was a conclusion that she’d reached towards the very end of the Wicca Group after another – covert, she hoped – chance to check out of the girl with the red hair.

Sexy. Definitely sexy.

Okay, now she wasn’t dead inside. Like everyone else, she guessed, there were people – women and girls – that she found sexy. What she didn’t generally do was meet them, sit opposite them and check them out while getting the same treatment in return.

That was new territory, or at least it was when you strung ‘sexy’ together with the other elements of attraction.

I’m attracted to her.

And ‘her’ name is Willow Rosenberg. She’s in Stephenson Hall.

She’d dashed from the circle to the lists at the door as soon as the meeting had come to a close. Partly because it’d looked like the – then unnamed – girl had been about to say something to her and she’d been so scared of fumbling her response, of humiliating herself or – worse – of saying something she shouldn’t which would drive her away. Better to leave it on a high note. Right?

And she had glanced back, seen the red haired girl looking surprised, maybe a little disappointed. But definitely looking at her ass as she retreated in a different direction.

But the rest of it was that she’d wanted to get to the list and – through comparison with the names she already knew and some process of elimination – she’d put a name to that face. That gorgeous, kind, sexy-lexy face…

Willow. I want to kiss those lips, I want to smell that hair. I want to – I want -

The name seemed to fit. Not that Willow was particularly tall or… ‘willowy’ in that way, but she seemed Willowy in every other way, the ones that mattered when you were thinking whether someone had the right name or not and… she did.

She was Willow.

And she was…

She smiled at me. She said Hi.

And she… Checked. Me. Out.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that was bad about that.

And look at all the good things that had started to add up as she thought about it more and more. And she’d been thinking about it a lot.

It’d been at Wicca Group, so they shared interests – well, at least one interest – and the smile had been all kinds of genuine. The sense of power from the girl, she was one of the strongest people at the group, for sure. Maybe the ‘checking her out part’ had been wishful thinking, partly motivated by guilt at doing the same thing and being caught at it too but it was more than once and…

She smiled at me.

That Willow had even been in her dream, when she did manage to sleep, was entirely appropriate because thoughts of what had been – not much - and what could be – lots and lots - had been what were filling her head. The dream she didn’t remember but it was probably one that would have embarrassed her to admit. She hadn’t had one of those dreams in a long time but… mmm, it was nice to think maybe she had once again.

Obsession was a word she’d have hated to apply to herself, you couldn’t be obsessive just a few hours after meeting someone and once the day kicked off she had reading to do and papers to write so…

She wasn’t about to spend it all on Willow Rosenberg but…

What if I run into her, what do I say then?

But what if I don’t run into her?

What if she didn’t like the group? What if I never see her again?

Disaster. That definitely seemed like the thing she needed to worry about…

Because yes, there was something they could talk about. The Wicca Group, what magic and spells she knew… ‘Hi, I’m Tara, I saw you at Wicca Group. I was wondering if you’d like to grab a coffee, maybe hang out and talk about magic?’

It worked okay in her head and was probably a safer bet than ‘Hi, I’m Tara, I saw you at Wicca Group. I was just wondering if you’d like to kiss me because I have this thing where I’ve convinced myself that your lips are really soft and I noticed that you trim your nails too and so I couldn’t help wondering – wondering a lot - ’

No. No. No.

No.

No.

But yes.

Important things, where she didn’t want to let her words let her down, she’d been practising them in her head and then out loud in private for years now. It did help her get through stuff. And it seemed like… if she was going to say something in private, that no one but her would ever hear… the kiss thing was the one. Get that rehearsal in there. It’d feel good to say it too.

But the words wouldn’t come out of her mouth.

Not just those words though. Nothing. She couldn’t make a sound with her voice, and her throat wasn’t even sore.

And that was when she heard people running around and banging. It wasn’t just her was it…

**********************

_________________
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------

Dibs......it begins....

Those two are cuter than a box full of kittens .

They both are equally smitten with the other. I loved how Tara carefully analyzed her time with Willow...frame by frame and how Willow has already found a reason to legitimately spend oodles of time with Tara, without raising suspicions from the Scooby Gang.

Now that G.I. Joe is not a potential love interest for Buffy Anne, Will Artemis step in and help the Slayer dispose of the Gentlemen and their minions?

Good stuff, Katharyn

Katharyn, Thank Goddess! I was starting to freak out (aka getting pissed) earlier when the board was down for sooooo long. GRRR. But Hooray for an update! Willow is happy which makes me happy. This is probably the first good night’s sleep she’s had in a long while and, most importantly, waking with positive thoughts. I love that she decides it doesn’t matter if Diana is bad coz Tara is clearly good and.. she needs/wants to see her again!

Tara doesn’t have niggling and wiggling thoughts. Willow is hot and Tara freely admits it! The time spent with Diana and Annie has been very good for her confidence. She meets this beautiful girl with a genuine smile and has all kinds of pleasant thoughts and doesn’t worry that Willow doesn’t like her. No, she worries that Willow doesn’t like the group -- Big difference there. One way or another, she will see her dream girl again. If only she knew what we know. But.. I sure don’t want to rush things. The development of their relationship needs to be slowly savored like a fine wine!

The Awesomeness continues! More please..

The anticipation I feel for the girls' eventual iconic encounter is far beyond mortal comprehension, and I also looks forward to the changes/insights you have on it.

It's alright Willow. You aren't the only one distracted by the thought of Tara wiggles and Tara butt and....ahem.

_________________
"If I can't be a good example, might as well be a horrible warning."

"Friendship is obviously magic. Love is a sorta super strong friendship. We gay people love so hard we broke 'Social Norm'. Ergo, we gay people are ultra-strong wizards."

Oh my goodness! Great update!
This was a great line-
"It wasn’t everyone else who was having niggles and thoughts of wiggles and… Why was she imagining the girl’s bum when she got to wiggles and niggles and... her back and her - " guffaw. And on the verge of a personal revelation ha!
And of course Tara's "t worked okay in her head and was probably a safer bet than ‘Hi, I’m Tara, I saw you at Wicca Group. I was just wondering if you’d like to kiss me because I have this thing where I’ve convinced myself that your lips are really soft and I noticed that you trim your nails too and so I couldn’t help wondering – wondering a lot - ’" so good!
I'm shivering with antisa......pation.

_________________
"Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly." -Rose Franken
"I think when I cease to go to the bathroom, then I can call myself famous." -Amber Benson
"I'd rather be a fake lesbian than a sorority girl."- A Rugby Teammate
"The Hammer is my Penis," Captain Hammer, 'Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog.'

Hi

So, I've been lurking around this story since the beginning, and I think it's time to come out from the shadows. Season four is my favorite, and so I love reading fics set during that time. I really like what you've changed so far - Tara having friends, Diana and no Riley. Awesome. While I love this season, I definitely could care less about Adam and the Initiative, so good riddance there!

Anyway, this is super great and I'm enjoying every minute of it!

Jen

_________________
I wanna do right, but not right now...
~Gillian Welch

Grimm - Cuter than a box of kittens, I like that. Though I could turn it into a joke about kitten... umm... boxes.

The Tara side of this was definitely me when I first got to be a smitten kitten. I turned a short meeting inside out, guessing and figuring and supposing... In fact I wrote it all out and it morphed into something semi-fictional as you might imagine LOL

I'm not going to mention what happens to the Gentlemen, but we get into them in the next, super long, part... (well it felt long when I was prepping it this morning!) Thanks to you

Kajun - Yeah, Willow's pretty much in happy place now. There's one thing that will disturb that, but apart from that one thing she's there and she'll stay there - at least from a relationship PoV - until the very end... This, from me, is not news

On the Tara side... I'm sorry but even if I I concede that Sassette's (Tara and Willow on the floor in the laundry room) version of events is a little far fetched, then I think in canon this is there. The girl has some moxie and look, we all know - and lamented - that 'spells' was the codeword for sex. Seems to me that you set that up right at the start. Tara - in canon - knew what she was doing when she went to Willows I choose to believe it!

And yeah... the savouring can begin but I know you lot. You're going to get tired of savouring and want more than savouring (not going to say swallowing!) LOL Well, remember this part when you said it should be slow...

Thank you too

Faolan - Heya, the iconic encounter is - for me - the one they just had. That smile... I mean, come on, who realy didn't know?! Hee!

Feel free to stay distracted all you like.

And thanks your way as well.

Missocki - I was going to say 'front' but it was a little too on the nose and open to interpretation about which part of her front. Or parts. Or what was she including... LOL

Quoting Rocky Horror, this time of year, always a great way to go.

More thanks to you

Waitnsee - I love it when a lurker comes out to play, thanks so much for doing so. S4's arc (for all it was hidden) is also my favourite and I am struggling with that a little because although in S5 the girls go from strength to strength there's also so much stuff going on around them that is getting dark that it inevitably takes away from the pure pleasure in their relationship. I'm considering S5 a sequel to S4 as this difference is quite profound, even though it will be posted in the same thread and many storylines will play through into S5.

We're not ignoring the Initiative or what they've been doing, just... de-emphasising due to the PoV. We will be touching on it, but much more from the girls side of things.

So happy you've joined us. Please do stop by every once in a while, even if you're not comfy very often.

Thanks.

On a separate note... my collaborative - teased in this thread - Nanowrimo story proceeds well. For those keeping score, it's pretty much a Tara and Willow re-write of Raiders and so I'm doubting the benefit of it (yeah, I was advised by some people here to do something original but there was no time to plan before 1st Nov.) However... I've had another idea for a more original story in the same AU so... could be I put the Raiders one up to establish the relationships and characters etc and then move swiftly to a more original one. However that would be even further down the line because I simply have to do some original fiction in the first half of next year, moving towards submission for publishing so... yeah, scary times but will have to be disciplined. I have plenty of time with CWS being so long though

Katharyn

_________________
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------

I'm really looking forward to where you will take 'Hush'.

I'm a real sucker for Season 4 fics, and I love the slow burn you have given it - yeah, I'm all with getting to the girl on girl parts, but the pain of anticipation makes it all the sweeter when we do get there.

I like the development of Tara - the shy mouse that was introduced to us in cannon is a mouse that roars under your pen-age (is that even a word?).

I think back to Hush, that bit at the end, when Tara and Willow are talking, and Willow says 'I'm nothing special.'

Tara's very pointed reply of 'No, you are,' always told me that she had an inner strength, a confidence that you have already brought out in her.

I really think I like Season 4 fics so much because they are a way of exploring Tara in depth - she is a blank page and good writers give her the flesh that the series writers never did. She is not just an appendage of Willow, a tangent to the Scoobies, she becomes a well rounded character in her own right - something that didn't really happen until Family in Season 5 and then in episodes beyond that.

I'm really enjoying this, Kathryn, thank you!

_________________
People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built. Eleanor Roosevelt

Hi Paint the sky, thank you so much for the fullsome feedback

Once again with the sucker for S4... got me thinking all the readers will walk in S5 LOL

Sure, we all love girl on girl... but we're months away from that... And certainly that is a sloooow burn. Again, don't say you didn't want it this way

Not sure if pen-age is a word or not, but again... this is why I call this a 'missing scenes' as well as AU fic. I really do tend to think that Tara HAD to be much more open behind the scenes than we saw. I don't remember us getting a lot of 'casual' moments between them. It always meant something if we saw Tara and that's not where you get the best view of a character from IMHO. I just think for them to work, there was much more going on we didn't see.

I just like to show it.

I'd agree with you about S4 fics. It's how I started my first KB fic (don't read it, it's not much good as writing) but I also did the same in my very long Sidestep AU fic set in the Wishverse. There, again, they were blank canvases that I was playing with. That's always more fun to write. As is anything T/W centred. So a lot of the stuff that is going on big-bad wise, for example, is still going on. We just don't see it because the girls don't. I actually think there's an interesting version of S4 that is totally from their PoV and pulling the story to them with the rest matching canon. I'm doing that, in part, but it could be done...

You mention Family and, with the benefit of advance knowledge, we're already seeing Tara's thoughts about that subject come out... No surprise about that episode!

Thanks again

Katharyn

_________________
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------

Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter Twenty-One
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: Moving through the events of Hush with both the girls.
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: As mentioned previously I’m trying to keep things somewhat similar to the way it happened in canon because I don’t want to lose those special moments entirely, but there are differences in how this plays out… I figure that there are just some places that there are supposed to be visited though. What it does mean though – since we’re only in Tara and Willow’s viewpoints, is that we lose track of other things going on. We’ll get to hear about them later though and – be honest, they’re the best thing about Hush anyway…
Thanks to: The Gentlemen. Cos you wouldn’t want to tick them off, would you?


Giles, fortunately, had found one of those marker pens that rubbed off. If he’d mistakenly used one of those permanent ones, for what he was doing now then… Well, there’d have been trouble.

The boards – she had a portable one hung around her neck – were their main means of communication. That and charades. Slightly less than strict-observance of Hanukkah traditions in the Rosenberg House came into their own. Way to go, Dad.

At the moment Giles was using the board to put questions out there. “Can we be sure it wasn’t the Wicca Group, summoning?” he’d written.
Willow shook her head and Giles indicated with a shrug that he wasn’t sure whether she was saying she couldn’t be sure or the answer was that it wasn’t the Wicca Group.

“Not Wicca,” she wrote. “Not last night.”

That girl, Tara had said ‘hi’ to her, smiled and there was nothing else going on there. She was sure of that. Certainly nothing that had students being mutilated in their beds. No way and no how was that smile of Tara’s a part of that. Uhuh. And she’d stayed for the whole thing. There’d been no strange rituals at all. Period.

“Goddess?” Buffy asked, tugging the board – and Willow too – towards her to get the question down on her board. She’d have said ‘buy your own’ but she had no voice.

Willow shrugged when she figured out the upside down scrawl. It was always possible that some sort of sacrifice was going on, that was true. They just didn’t know.

Interesting though that they were treating the Wicca Group and the so-called Goddess who was leading it as separate questions.

I’m Willow Rosenberg, and I approve of this distinction.

Pulling her face, she thought about it a little more. She couldn’t be sure it wasn’t Diana or Artemis or whatever her name was, but she didn’t have any reason to think it was either. After all, weird and dangerous stuff had been happening in Sunnydale for years and years before the Goddess got here.

She shook her head, but then shrugged again. Trying to show him she meant ‘Could be, but I don’t think so.’

This non-verbal conversation thing was hard.

That judgement seemed to be enough for Giles though. In fact he seemed to welcome it. “Then I believe I know what it is,” he wrote and then turned to his projector and put some pre-drawn slides onto it, shining them up onto the screen where he’d been writing his words with the fortunate choice of pens.

Clearly he’d had the suspicion long before asking her for her opinion on the alternatives. That was the thing, a supposed Goddess in town – one collaborating with would-be witches – turned all their usual assumptions upside down. Research alone wasn’t enough, not at the moment anyway.

This little performance though, she could tell it was born of research. And she approved of that too. This was how research should be presented, when you had a captive – ignorant – audience. Willow watched with interest as a little music played and Giles recounted the story of something called ‘The Gentlemen’.

Without any reference to Goddesses or sweet, smiling girls, you could see the myth he was referring to unfold. Tall men who cut out hearts just… well, seemingly just because they could. Monsters who took away the ability to scream first so that no one would be warned and – ooh, they were vulnerable to a scream too. That was what it was all about then.

How you got all of the voices in the town into this little box though… that she wasn’t so sure of the scientific basis for. But she’d learned it was best not to probe too deeply into the science behind the legends. Usually because things just didn’t work that way.

And sometimes because it was just better not to ask. Just go with the fact it was magic and… kind of a cool idea. Even if the reason for it was all macabre.

So… what did they do now?

Well, the first thing she wanted suggest was always having a audio-visual element to their briefings because that was way cool. But… what was that Buffy was suggesting…?

Okay…

Well, her roomate seemed to have something rather… umm, obscene in mind. A new strategy, one that they probably wouldn’t have seen coming – no pun intended - but, you know, whatever worked. Giving them that kind of a happy didn’t seem to be the best idea though…

Perhaps Buffy needed a boyfriend?

Oooh, she meant slay them? Yeah, that made a little more sense now.

After that, get the box with the voices. Break the box. Get the voice back and then… scream until they popped like an overripe zit? Obvious really, why hadn’t she thought of that?

After all it seemed… Well, it was a bit derivative. It sounded a little like that movie with the martians. The one with the cute girl as the President’s daughter. But… hey, it was a fairy tale and more often than not those things turned out to have some basis in fact. Except this one was kind of… well, eww too. And a lot of them were. Those Grimm’s, they were just freaks.

Or very well informed.

Maybe both.

“Who hunts for them?” Willow wrote.

Buffy pointed at herself.

“Just you?”

“It’s what I do.” The hand gestures that were supposed to demonstrate the ‘Slayer thing’ were, once again unfortunate, and everyone could read Buffy’s lips when she mouthed, ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

----------------

Diana was apparently the only person who could speak after what the news was saying was an epidemic afflicting the whole town. Of course it wasn’t the news that had revealed Diana’s ability to speak, but rather the sudden use of a voice that Tara found so shocking.

Good job, really. After the deaths of two students Tara had been reluctant to open her door just because someone knocked on it.

That was a strange thing that people like her, who knew some of the reality of the supernatural world, would ever think that a door would really keep out the bad things. But Diana’s voice had been reassuring all the same and not just so she’d open her door.

Just to hear someone talking was a reassurance. Reporters had tried it, anyone who even entered town after the fact – whatever that was - was still losing their voice and so a quarantine zone had been set up around Sunnydale.

It might not have been a bad idea to leave it there all the time, after all this place was… interesting.

But from Diana’s explanation, there was no disease or illness. What was happening was both simpler and more disquieting.

Naturally enough – or supernaturally enough – there was nothing new under the sun as far as the Goddess was concerned. Knowing the symptoms and the events that had occurred Diana had quickly come to her conclusion.

What worried Tara a little was that, having come to that conclusion, Diana came to her.

Hearing the reason though… “It is one of mine that they’ve taken,” the Goddess had said, which explained at least a part of it.

Clearly to take anything from her was an assault on the priveleges that she felt she was owed.

Tara tried to look quizzical while she hunted for a piece of paper and a paper. Did Diana even read English? There was something going on, something not quite normal, when it came to speaking with and understanding her but… reading what was written down?

“I forget that you cannot speak.”

As Diana would’ve said, ‘Ever has it been so’, Tara mused. She was more used to silence than most. Keeping quiet was one of her strongest and most frequently used qualities.

“They took one of mine and I knew it at once,” Diana continued. “Assurance was required that it was not you who had been lost.”

It only took a moment to decide what she must mean. And having heard that one of the butchered students who’d had their heart removed was a fellow member of the Wicca Group, Tara felt a little sick. On the other hand, the Goddess was surely her strongest protector at this moment and had taken special care to come and make sure she was okay.

Which was both nice and… worrying. So she nodded, yes, she was fine.

“It is a grave insult,” Diana said. “From those who once knew better.”

Tara shrugged, trying to show that she didn’t know what they were talking about.

Some words that Tara would’ve found unpronounceable on a good day and embarrassing on a bad one tumbled from Diana’s lips, but then a translation. “The last centuries have mistakenly named them ‘The Gentlemen’ perhaps because of their current visage. Unlike the rest they are not drawn here, they are simply passing through. Next week they will be somewhere else and then somewhere else after that.”

‘Gentlemen’ didn’t sound too bad, but what they’d done… Suddenly her mind turned to Willow Rosenberg, Stevenson Hall. Was she okay? Was she holed up somewhere? She couldn’t have been one of the… victims, could she? No, both of them had been guys. That was what the news had said.

This time.

And there were lots of people in Sunnydale, lots more on the campus. The chance of something happening to Willow was… Well, it was less now that the Goddess considered the whole of the Wicca Group to be under protection.

‘What do we do?’ Tara wanted to ask, but whatever it was that allowed them to understand each other clearly didn’t work with words that hadn’t actually been spoken out loud. Going through the motions of doing that wasn’t the same thing.

“Fear not, Tara. They would depart in days if left alone, but their insult cannot go unanswered. I am the Goddess of the Hunt, and I will have them. But in this I require your assistance.”

Not at all wary, given the fact that people were dying and one of them might be her if she shook her head, Tara nodded immediately. She had to do what she could. Up to now anything Diana had done had been more of a demonstration – albeit ones that made things better for people, killing demons and vampires. But to actually help? That was something new and… the Goddess needed her help.

Nodding again, she hoped she was showing that she was eager to do what was necessary.

----------------------

Being left behind by Buffy wasn’t exactly a new experience. It happened. While they were pretty blasé about vampires these days – easy come easy go – there were other things that went bump in the night which were much harder to deal with.

Or maybe they just had no real idea how to make them go away in a very final manner so research needed to be done.

Or – as in this case – they knew the how, there was just some question about the when and the where… Someone needed to find a box and that someone wasn’t her.

So Buffy was out there and she was back here… keeping the home fires burning. Except there were no fires.

Actually, that wasn’t quite true. There was a fire. A fire inside her… Not the kind that needed indigestion remedies either. This was a fire of… what? She didn’t even know what was combusting. The oxygen though… the oxygen, that was… well, she couldn’t get that girl out of her head.

Tara.

There were too many thoughts that she didn’t really understand.

No, that wasn’t really it. Admitting it to herself was the only way she was going to get it. She understood those thoughts quite well actually. They were just… unusual.

‘Unusual’. Yeah, that was a good way of putting it. If she’d been able to talk then she’d have said it out loud right then. Tested out the sound of the word in this context. ‘Unusual.’ Meaning, of course, ‘not usual.’

Not ‘bad’. Noooo, not bad. Nothing that felt like this was going to be bad. It was just… not usual.

She tried saying it, knowing that she wouldn’t hear herself but feeling the way her tongue moved. ‘Unusual.’ Again, testing how her tongue moved against the front and roof of mouth. No tooth contact.

Which was a strange thing to be focusing on, what with everything else that was happening.

But see, with everything else going on, she was excited about something that wasn’t going to happen for several days. The next Wicca Group she was totally, totally, going to say something. Out loud. And more than ‘Hi.’ To Tara.

‘Hi’ had been good. ‘Hi’ was a good start.

All of this, of course, assumed she got her voice back.

That was something else though.

But while – for once in her life – she felt absolutely no need to rationalise everything, she did have to wonder where these… feelings were coming from.

Feelings. She was feeling feelings. That was what made them feelings. That you could feel them. And yes, she was feeling them.

Serial killers – monster serial killers – were on the loose and she was already anticipating the next meeting with Tara? What was up with that?

The need to say something and for it to be the right thing was high in her mind. The ‘right’ thing was something she’d usually gotten to by sheer volume of words on the basis that – eventually – some combination of them would do the job. ‘Babble’ if you like but… it usually worked. You know, if you could get the words into the right order. The rest was just editing.

And understanding.

So, that was another feeling she was having. Worry.

Worry about not saying the right thing. Worry about saying the wrong thing. Worry about not saying anything much that was intelligible and…

Nothing else.

For a few hours there she had tried to find other reasons behind what she was thinking about. But in the end she’d had to accept a fairly self-evident truth. She – Willow Rosenberg - thought the girl from the Wicca Group – Tara - was beautiful.

Not in the way that Christy Turlington was beautiful (and untouchable). Not like the ‘popular girls’ from high school packaged themselves in expensive clothes, a pound of make-up and shiny hair so they could consider themselves the ‘beautiful people’ deserving of everyone else’s fawning…

No. Beautiful in the sense of being… well, beautiful.

Tara was beautiful like… ‘I want to be close to her because she’s just beautiful.’

And it was the ‘I want to be close to her’ part that was shiny and new and like totally unexpected. That was something she’d never, ever, felt before. Not that way, not for that reason… That it was about a girl hadn’t even stirred her all that much and she’d wondered why that was until she realised it didn’t matter, but...

There it was.

She’d been left alone, with the risk that some evil creature would come to cut out her heart while she couldn’t even scream and all she could actually think about was how she was having… Well, there was really no denying it. She was having a girl crush.

Except it wasn’t just a crush if you were actually planning to do something about it. Wanted to do something about it.

And she was. She did.

The weird thing – and it absolutely wasn’t anything to do with the fact this was a girl she was talking about – the weird thing was that she had absolutely no fear of the ‘doing something about it’ part.

Now that really was weird and totally out of character. Of course, she still had several days to get very, very nervous. But right now… That smile told her everything she needed to know. The girl wouldn’t laugh at her, get offended or start accusing her of anything. If she was making a mistake then Tara would – what? She’d probably smile and be nice about it. The smile would still be lovely and help with the disappointment.

And if she wasn’t making a mistake then Tara was… beautiful.

Beautiful defined.

While that was a new concept, it certainly wasn’t a disturbing one. Because… well, Tara was at the other end of it. The shift was curious, but the anticipated outcome certainly wasn’t…

Which left her with dozens of unanswered questions and one very appealing way to find some of the answers.

Like, what would it be like to kiss a girl?

Scratch that – what would it be like to kiss Tara? Put her lips against those lips and just kiss her?

Didn’t matter what research she could have done, that was a question that could only be answered by, you know, actually doing it. And if Tara was - well, statistically there had to be a bigger chance that she was into girls if she was hanging out in that Wicca group. Not wanting to stereotype and all and it wasn’t true for everyone blah-blah but the important thing to know was whether – well, whether…

Would Tara like to kiss her?

It’d be jumping the gun to imagine that Tara had smiled at her that way because she wanted to kiss her – they’d only just met after all - but… She very much liked to think she’d have smiled the same, shy way if that had been what was in her head at that very moment.

She’d never had cause to believe in love at first sight and she wasn’t going to put that burden on what she was feeling right now either. ‘Love’ was a long, long way to go on the back of one meeting and one smile.

But what I wouldn’t give to have the chance – and the voice – to ask if I could kiss her.

More importantly though…

What I wouldn’t give to see that smile right now. It’d make everything seem better…

-----------------

Bait.

She was bait now?

Apparently these things – these ‘Gentlemen’ - were… Well, ‘cruel’ was one way of putting it. They liked to rub salt into the wound. They liked a chase… they enjoyed the fear as much as whatever they wanted hearts for.

And though Diana had asked her to draw their attention, even though the Goddess was – presumably – protecting her, Tara’s fear was very real.

Where to go? What to do?

Now that she was fleeing from the immaculately dressed creatures, floating along in the wake of their lumbering – but deceptively quick - minions, she had the question of where she was supposed to go. More than once Callisto or Jupiter had leapt and picked off the chain rattling creatures that had been gaining on her but only when they’d already gotten way too close.

The Gentlemen seemed unconcerned about the loss of their helpers though and just kept after her, seeming content to tire her out and wear her down so they could enjoy what they intended to do…

Where to go? She probably wasn’t built for long distance running but maybe now was the time to think about taking the sport up – if she was going to be staying here. More importantly for now she wasn’t dressed for it either.

But maybe the destination had never really been in doubt and that explained it.

After all, she’d been getting ready for it before she came out. If Annie had been surprised to be asked – via pieces of paper – what she should wear for what wasn’t a date but could easily be a proto-date meeting then she hadn’t said much. And not just because neither of them had any voice.

It’d seemed like her dorm mate had actually appreciated the chance for some company – everyone was afraid and most people had no idea what was happening. Eventually Tara had left Annie there, wrapped in her comforter on her bed.

It appeared her locks seemed more secure to Annie… even though she couldn’t promise when she’d be back.

But she had to say that she approved of the choice’s Annie had made, given the limited wardrobe available. See, she’d decided that she did have to go see Willow Rosenberg at Stevenson Hall. And she knew that she wanted to make the right impression when she did that.

It couldn’t be a date and she just didn’t do ‘slutty’ as Annie had put it on paper. So… what to wear? Jeans might’ve been more practical, especially when she’d fallen on her butt, but the skirt was… It was feminine, modest but said ‘yeah, I have curves. Do you like them?’

But without the desperate edge of ‘Please say you like them’.

At least that was what Annie had suggested by way of expressive hand gestures.

The top was designed for the same, didn’t show off her chest that much but when Annie had insisted that she better pick her intimates out carefully, you know, just in case… When she did that… well, it was something Tara hadn’t actually thought about. It wasn’t like she was a regular at Victoria’s Secret and she just didn’t get along with thongs and anything that rode up where it shouldn’t do. But… she had some nice things and had gone along with Annie’s suggestion without being directly guided by her. But the boots were Annie’s final touch.

Yeah, she liked them, she really did. They were comfy and though not built for speed, they were great for protecting the feet running through a rose bush when you had to hike up your skirt or tear it, but they also said ‘Yeah, you know what I like.’

Again, that was Annie’s – written - interpretation. For a straight woman she had remarkable insight into what you might call ‘alternative fashions’…

Or did she? Maybe it wasn’t so good. And maybe this wasn’t the time to be worrying about it. Time and events would tell… Hopefully.

Maybe Willow would like the boots or not, there was more for her to worry about. Like the fact that now she was sweaty, tired, scratched – in spite of the boots – and there was pretty good chance that there was a big dirty mark on her butt.

Best laid plans and all that… Maybe trying to meet Willow tonight and being Diana’s bait should’ve been mutually exclusive. But… in a crisis like this, she had the chance to do some good in both. That Willow was powerful and knew her way around magic had never been in doubt for her, so between them surely they could come up with something that could help, even if Diana didn’t manage to take down the Gentlemen on her own?

When might that kind of urgency be on them again? It was a great excuse.

No, not an excuse. It was a great reason to talk to Willow. A brilliant way not to seem like a creepy stalker for finding her and going to her… Any other time? Well, she could’ve waited for the next Wicca Group, but such a delay didn’t seem very appealing.

But out of breath as she was now, not even daring to look back and having to put her trust in the Goddess and her hounds, the delay was looking like a better and better idea.

She was at Stevenson though, she’d made it and burst through the doors which – even in this emergency – were blessedly unlocked.

It was only a few second before she heard them clatter open and closed again though.

Just once…

Only one of them after her then? That was better than two or three. Diana must’ve really taken a number of them down already.

On the other hand one was likely to be more than enough. Maybe now it was down to her to defend herself. And Willow?

Please, Willow Rosenberg, just be there.

What exactly they’d do about this – together - she wasn’t sure, hopefully Diana would’ve taken care of things by then but… if she didn’t, or if Diana was dealing with those others that had been after her then… She and Willow Rosenberg would have to find a way.

Somehow.

Without words…

Two of them had a better chance than one though and –

I’m putting her in danger but… she’s already in danger.

Up one flight of stairs and then another, Tara pushed ahead and went past a room from which there were no screams but certainly nothing natural was happening beyond the door. Nothing cracked that way except…

She didn’t want to imagine it, but she was.

Be there. Be there. Be there. Be there. I didn’t want to lead them to your door but be there, I need you to be there. Be there, please…

Maybe these things had more trouble with stairs than the flat, because she seemed to have found some more time as she started to bang on the door. She had to keep looking, even though she didn’t want to. Were they there? Were they right there about to grab her? Looking and banging. Banging and looking.

Please…

Yes!

Eventually the door did open and a very shocked Willow Rosenberg was stood there. Shocked? Shocked why? Did she know what was happening? Surprised at the state her visitor was in? Tara knew she must look a mess. Or… had Willow Rosenberg been thinking about her at all?

Why the door opened and why the other girl looked as shocked as she did didn’t really matter though. Not now.

Somehow Willow intuited the need to not just shut the door in her face, or even pull her inside with her but instead to set off and run… That was what they needed to do. It was obvious that the Gentlemen had no trouble at all dealing with doors. But then evil, undead, supernatural surgeons probably wouldn’t find that too complicated.

She’d brought them here and put everyone – but especially Willow Rosenberg – in more immediate danger but Willow didn’t seem to care about that. Maybe she hadn’t thought about it yet. Right now, they were together and they were doing what they had to.

That was running, running, running. Running until they couldn’t run anymore they’d got away from these terrible creatures.

Being with Willow, touching her and holding her hand for the first time came with a rush of power and sameness that she’d barely experienced since Momma passed. That on its own gave her a second wind and even though she’d been running to get here, and up the stairs, she was more than able to keep pace with Willow. She was even able to pull and hurry her along.

Not that the red-haired young woman needed any encouragement once she looked back and saw… horror.

Running down the halls, Tara thought she saw… Was that one of the dogs? She didn’t slow down to look – something large and black though. But she was only sure when the other – Jupiter - stepped out in front of them, dominating the hallway, Willow was the one to slow down, wary of the canine and probably not without reason.

Tara shook her head; telling her it was okay and pulled Willow along, past Jupiter who was so focused on his task – growling softly at what was following them – that he wasn’t even acknowledged.

“Thanks to you, Tara,” Diana said, stepping out beside her hound and turning her attention to Willow Rosenberg, if only briefly. “Take your friend somewhere else. Secure the doors. This one will tell me where the box is.”

Both she and Willow looked back, saw the perpetually grinning creature. But despite the grin it looked shocked, worried and even… apologetic when it looked down the hallway.

It knew who Diana was then? And it was… worried…?

The Goddess, however, wasn’t in a ‘no harm, no foul’ mood and turned her full attention to the creature that was chasing them. The growl of the dogs cut through the silence – they weren’t affected either - and Tara pulled Willow behind her, figuring that one dorm block had to be built like any other at least in so far as there’d be more secure rooms downstairs – or rooms that they could make more secure.

Willow was resisting, obviously interested in watching what was about to happen, but Tara tugged twice on her hand to make the point. It wasn’t safe. Diana, at least for a while, was going to be occupied here and that meant she had to get somewhere safer. Get them somewhere safer.

She met the other girl’s eyes and, rather than getting lost in them which would’ve been really easy, tried to show that there was a place they should be instead. Willow acquiesced and took the lead, taking her down corridors and the stairwell, down into the basement where they almost ran smack into one of the lumbering minions.

It stood there, looking momentarily as surprised as they were, facing them with chains hanging from its straitjacket. Long moments passed while both sides wondered what to do.

They looked at each other and then ran the other way and into what turned out to be the laundry room. Tara looked and found no lock, but one glance at Willow - what she’d found - and they came to some silent agreement over what should happen. The tingle of their connection while they were holding hands flared into life and -

Neither of them had made a ‘decision’ it was just… obvious and necessary to the combined pair that the magic within had made them while they were physically linked. With a flick of their eyes the giant soda machine that had rested in the corner flung itself across the floor, leaving scars in the linoleum and hitting with a resounding thud that said nothing was coming through that door until they decided otherwise.

And so, locked in the laundry together, Tara’s mind didn’t turn to what the Goddess was doing.

She was entirely focused on the girl who’s hand she was holding…

The grip might’ve softened and become less urgent, but neither of them seemed willing to let go.

*****************

_________________
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------

First, dibs? Whoa.
Great googily moogily! I loved these scenes. It all worked really well and still gives us humble readers the feel of our girls laundry room. I adored the thought process of Willow and her feelings towards Tara. Brillant. Tara was a bit crazy to go see Willow while being bait, but why not go see the girl your crushing on when you can't speak when you stutter anyway.

Yay for handing hands

_________________
"Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly." -Rose Franken
"I think when I cease to go to the bathroom, then I can call myself famous." -Amber Benson
"I'd rather be a fake lesbian than a sorority girl."- A Rugby Teammate
"The Hammer is my Penis," Captain Hammer, 'Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog.'

So many good things going on here.

I loved how thoughts of the other are still in the forefront of their minds even with all the danger surrounding them.

I'm feeling this Willow who knows exactly what she wants and exactly who she wants if from. This line said it all: .

That's what I'm talking about, Willow. Go get your girl .

Katharyn, Tara as bait was AWESOME. It was a funny, yet logical way to incorporate her hauling ass across campus like she did in the actual episode.

I knew Diana was gonna be the one to put the boots to the Gentleman.

I really enjoyed your changes in this update. No sprained ankle. But, Tara still managed to sweep Willow off her feet.

Can't wait to read more!!!



ps.......Yes....yes we are

Katharyn, Giles’ macabre stick drawings and Buffy’s obscene hand gestures are still hilarious. I could watch this episode every day and not tire of it! Oh, except the Captain Cardboard parts. Glad Willow is completely convinced Tara had nothing to do with any badness. Buffy has a big clue about Tara as well so that’s not likely going to be much of an issue down the road. Diana, on the other hand? Even if she helps Buffy defeat the scary suit dudes, the Scoobies have rarely encountered someone with great power that was actually a good guy. And if the Goddess won’t reveal her purpose to Tara yet, she’s not about to let the Slayer in on whatever she is up to.

We are learning more about Diana’s power, or in this case, lack of since she had to physically check that Tara wasn’t one of the victims. The guy must have had at least equal magical power or, belief in Artemis, as Tara for the Goddess to worry her protégé was gone. Ordinarily, I’d be nine kinds of mad for using Tara as bait but with Diana, Jupiter and Callisto watching over her, I don’t see much of anything getting past that defensive line. Plus.. Diana wouldn’t put Tara in any real danger unless it was absolutely necessary. Plus, plus.. the plan gives Tara the encouragement she needed to act on her desire to see Willow again.

Funny that both girls worried about saying the wrong thing and when they do finally meet again, that’s not even a possibility. Love these little details.

Kudos to Annie for helping with the wardrobe and being a true friend!

Haha –Willow’s surprise to find Tara at her door is like having a dream fulfilled. She wanted to see Tara sooner rather than later and BAM! there she is! Hmmm.. now what are they going to do while locked away all safe, sound and cozy? It will be a while yet, before they get their voices back. Let me guess: Tic-tac-toe using laundry detergent as a playing field. A different kind of XOXO action.. for now! LOL

More please!!!

Oooh gurls, get it! hahaa, so many things I love about this. Willow knowing what she wants, Tara-bait, nervous and apologetic Gentleman, and nice tidbit about Willow and the dogs. Yeah, anyone would be wary of large, snarling, growling canines, but given her history with werewolves...

_________________
"If I can't be a good example, might as well be a horrible warning."

"Friendship is obviously magic. Love is a sorta super strong friendship. We gay people love so hard we broke 'Social Norm'. Ergo, we gay people are ultra-strong wizards."

Missocki - yeah, you got dibs... I'm just glad there's more than one person here so dibs means a thing

I was worried about the Tara as bait thing, which is why - in part - she ended up being so protected. But I didn't want to lose the fact that they'd be chased or that she'd actually GO OUT during such a crisis, when she could've stayed home. As you may have seen from other feedback, others felt the same way and still others felt differently! Depends what you're looking for I suppose. I just worry about all of it!

Thanks

Grimm - Yeah, I really enjoyed this part (and the next one) as it was being built to for a long time.

I've never wanted any doubt in any of my Willow's about 'the girl thing.' There's enough people who struggle with that in the real world and unless I wanted to write a coming out story, I prefer to make that a non-issue in favour of all the other things they end up having to face. I love the fact that she can just 'be that girl' without thinking. Just as she never thought about her previous assumption of heterosexuality. It was just there based on available information. Now she has Tara information, her decision is updated and simply accepted.

See, you liked Tara as bait... this is the writer's quandary! But it looks like you were looking to the same things I did. That it's because you need a reason for doing what the characters do... And that is behind alot of the changes I do make, to explain away things that just don't stand up if you pay attention to them for even a few seconds!

And yes, I knew what i was saying about the Grimm's.

Kajun - I couldn't lose the Buffy hand gestures. Those just had to stay! Harder to describe (without being graphic) than to show though... There will never be a question - for Willow - of whether Tara is 'bad' period. So I got that in there right away.

See, you're reading between lines I didn't know I had written. I mean, I do things for story reasons (I wanted her to check on Tara) and you turn it into a limit on her power. True, technically, but not what I meant to do!

Also, you're right, nothing was stopping Tara going out anyway. Even if there had been no Diana, we know she'd have been trying to do "A spell" to make things "better" as if orgasm hidden behind euphemism chases bad guys away (I didn't make magic a substitute for sex!!)

The next part is all about what happens in the laundry room. I am thinking you may like it. I hope...

Thanks

Faolan - Thank you so much. It's no use having one good idea in a chapter, there need to be lots of little things that readers can enjoy otherwise, I think I'd be losing people! So I appreciate that you did like so many elements Of course I write for a very specific audience!

Thanks all.

Katharyn

_________________
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------

Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter Twenty-Two
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: Okay, it’s Tara and Willow. In the laundry room. Do I really need to spell it out?
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: Bad luck, kittens. Some of you may know that I’ve long been an advocate of the Sass’ Vignettes school of thinking - that the girls got down to it in the laundry room that first time they were alone. You know, ‘thank the Goddess we’re alive’ sex but… But I’ve told my stories that way plenty of times. So though I like it, even prefer it, this time I’m not going to do it that way. Why? Because there’s other stuff I want to do before we get to that step...
Rest assured though that a) you should enjoy this anyway and b) we’ll get there and it will be covered in full… or uncovered… undressed if you will. Just not yet… Not for a while yet. These girls are going to be looking for the perfect moment and really, that’s not in the laundry room.
Thanks to: This seems an opportune moment to thank Sassette for the notion of what the girls were really doing. This time it’s given me something to rebel against.




Okay, so they were safe. Or safer at least. But now what?

Willow wasn’t about to deny that they should’ve locked themselves in here for safety reasons alone. Call me a wuss if you want to, but I really don’t want my heart cutting out.

A big old soda machine over the door was a really great way of doing the safety thing, there should’ve been PSA’s to tell them how valuable a soda machine could be in the event of monster attack.

So she was sure they should’ve locked themselves in and she was in full agreement about the how too. They’d just known this was what they should do. No discussion had been possible or necessary, she didn’t even think it was either one of them who’d looked at it first.

No, it’d been one of those great mind things. They’d just known, at the same moment. The same… mind? Really? Was that the weirdest thing that had happened tonight?

After all, she’d been thinking of Tara – even through the terror of what was happening on campus – and then both Tara and the terror had arrived at her door. How spooky was that?

But now they were here, together and… presumably safe. There was no sign of anyone trying to get into the room – even though one of those things had been just outside. Also, there was no other way in or out…

So… now what?

Well, if she’d had a voice then she might well have said ‘Hi.’ Like she’d been intending. To talk to the girl who’d saved her life – and kind of put it at risk too. But she was used to that. Buffy saved her life and put it in danger on a regular basis. So long as the arrangement stayed in credit and she was still breathing then she could live with that – literally.

So… ‘Hi’, if she’d had a voice. Maybe she’d have followed that up with something about how she wasn’t a runner, not really. Likely she’d have – casually – turned the subject to the ‘Goddess’, what she was going to do and what this girl, Tara, knew about her…

Because everyone knew she was good at casual.

But… she didn’t have a voice. Neither of them did. So… all of that was out the window. From ‘Hi’ to polite – interested – interrogation. All gone.

They wouldn’t be getting their voices back until Buffy – or Diana she supposed – did something about it. Willow kind of hoped it was Buffy, but she’d settle for having her voice back. Because those weren’t the only things she had to say to Tara.

Oh… no. Not by a long shot. Such a long shot you’d have needed a sniper rifle to even have a chance of pulling it off.

Being silent though, it took away one pressure at the same time as it imposed another. So much of what she did, who she was, was about what she said. She was famous for it, sometimes she said altogether too much.

Without her voice…

What do we do?

Tara’s hand was still in hers and Willow realised she was squeezing it. Smiling, just a little, she relaxed her grip but… Tara didn’t take the opportunity to let her go.

Okay… for whatever reasons, she wants to hold my hand. And I’m okay with that.

Of all the things she’d been thinking, wondering and speculating – but remarkably not worrying – about, one of the foremost was ’what if I’m just plain wrong?’ It had been only equalled in her mind with ’what if I’m not?’

Tara – who didn’t even have a second name yet – was holding her hand. Not dragging her by the hand or clinging to it for reassurance. Not making a physical connection so they could do a spell to move a big, heavy machine neither of them could’ve lifted if they’d been to the gym every day for six months.

No. Tara was holding her hand. When she didn’t have to. And gently.

There wasn’t much more to it than that, no caressing over her palm with her thumb. No movement at all really, but…

It was a sign, right? Tara surely wanted to hold her hand. And was… So if she looked at her, right in the eyes just like…

They weren’t like she remembered them. She’d focused on the smile in the aftermath of Wicca Group and while that had been spectacular. But… Oh… her eyes.

She didn’t think she’d ever seen kinder eyes than those. Somehow she just knew that no matter what anyone else might worry about or suspect, Tara couldn’t hurt anyone. Couldn’t do anything that would, not even really think about it seriously. There was just no way for her, it wasn’t who she was.

And it wasn’t just her eyes.

It was a soft, rather than hard, face. The hair was a bit of a mess though – as if she’d run through a hedge while fleeing the bad guys - there were leaves and seeds caught in it and Willow reached with her free hand to pick at them. She showed Tara what she was doing and there was that smile… more amused and fuller this time. One seed was obstinate, caught and hooked in there and she could probably have done with both hands but…

No.

Tara was moving that hand she was holding now, but probably because she had. Willow realised that – subconsciously – she’d pushed her fingers at Tara’s momentarily, steepling them before pressure slipped them between each other’s.

It was kind of obvious that her unconscious wanted to clear up any lingering doubt about whether she was wrong or not. Fact… you didn’t hold hands this way unless you were a child.

Not unless you were at a level of comfort and intimacy that… we really shouldn’t be at.

We’ve never even said a word to each other. Well, not two.

But somehow this was just right. It wasn’t even the magic, though that was a sensation that she’d never experienced before when they’d levelled energies with each other. It was… Was there a better word than ‘right’ for this?

And it couldn’t have been ‘right’ if they hadn’t both wanted the same thing.

Right?

How long they stayed that way, looking at each other and moving their fingers within each other’s hands she had no idea. It might’ve been minutes; it might’ve been hours. Nothing disturbed them, nothing at all.

Meanwhile her mind found a level of calm that just seemed impossible. Forget what they’d done in that Wicca Group session. Forget the quietest, calmest place you could imagine. Being underwater with dolphins couldn’t have been more peaceful.

Being with Tara was something else. Worry was absent, even though she knew full well that she should’ve been terrified of what was happening inside the room, let alone what was happening out there.

They were on the edge of something here, right on the edge. The cliff was right there and ready to be plunged down. It should’ve concerned her that there was no clue about what was at the bottom. Whether there was a warm, inviting sea or rocks to smash her to pieces…

But it didn’t bother her. It was all a part of the experience. Moving towards the edge wasn’t just okay; it was… where she wanted to be. Nor was it precarious.

Not only was this someone new but there was the added element of… well, Tara was a girl. There was no denying that. Except – there was.

Tara wasn’t a girl, she was a woman and instead of that being something that worried her – she was under-researched and underprepared for something as new as that – it was… She came back to ’right’ as the best possible description.

Maybe, later, she’d worry about labels and what it might mean to like girls. Women. But right here, right now… it was just Tara and that was the important part.

Finally she thought she got that pesky seed loose, pulled it from Tara’s hair but must’ve left at least a strand entwined with it because Tara winced when she pulled it free.

‘Sorry’ she mouthed, distressed at having caused even that momentary pain.

But there was only the smile, their touch and a nagging question of just what it would take to be able to kiss those lips.

--------------

‘Sorry.’

Sorry? Yeah, there’d been a bit of an ouchie, but it felt like the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her. Never mind that she must be a mess, after falling down and crashing through those bushes on the way here.

Tara knew she must look far from date worthy, but Willow Rosenberg didn’t seem to mind and if she didn’t mind then it obviously didn’t matter.

Who needed words? Who needed a voice? They were here, perfectly comfortable. Willow was cleaning seeds and leaves from her hair, they were holding hands and she didn’t think she ever wanted it to end. And maybe Willow felt the same way because even after the last of the detritus seemed to be gone – or at least Willow had stopped picking it free – the hand was still there. Against the side of her head.

Why?

Better question. Why not?

But… to what end? It was barely moving, but she could feel it trailing through her hair so very, very slowly. Matched by the gentle sensation in her other hand, where they were holding onto each other.

It seemed obvious where they had to go, it seemed like Willow felt exactly the same as she did but… She might so easily be wrong. She might be… but who sat like this, happy in silence and touched this way unless you did… want to?

So it was a question of daring against what seemed like a near certainty? That was no dare at all. But… every so often Willow just seemed as if she was about to move, about to lean in. Then she hesitated, maybe wet her lips, the tip of a tongue running over them.

Did she need Chap Stick or did she want to do something with those sift, soft, soft looking lips?

Did Willow dare?

She knew next to nothing about the girl really. There was no ring on her finger, but no one expected that in college. Did you? Did she have a boyfriend? A girlfriend? Did she like girls? Well, it looked like Willow liked her which was more than good enough to go on with until they could actually talk.

Had she ever kissed anyone before? Girl or boy?

Were they both maybe that inexperienced?

What if Willow wasn’t…? Was that a good or a bad thing?

When Willow looked concerned, Tara understood that she must’ve shown some of her self-doubt. Not about the situation, it was – apart from the circumstances that had led to it - about as much as she could’ve hoped for. But…

It was probably very natural to be afraid of this unknown, right?

Letting someone so close they could go beyond holding your hand or picking bits out of your hair when you looked a fright and going right along to –

I have to kiss her.

She knew it was the only way. Whatever Willow’s experience, whatever her desires, there was only one way past this roadblock that she was putting up in her own head. She had to crash right through it and that meant…

She wetted her own lips, just a little, trying not to give herself away. Kissing might be good, but licking lips first… less so.

Sure that Willow was also leaning in and she went forwards, she felt the tiniest pressure on the back of her head as Willow’s hand, still resting there, seemed to do its part in bringing their lips together. It wasn’t pressure, not exactly, but it was definitely encouragement and that was more than enough to give her the courage to move onwards and inwards.

It was why Willow was cradling her head. It was what she wanted.

As she closed her eyes, a little uncertain on what to do next, Tara pressed inwards those last few inches and found… A nose.

Opening her eyes again, she realised that Willow had done just the same thing, shut her eyes and moved – probably to try to help them connect – and instead… The silent, nervous laughter made her flush with embarrassment, had she given herself away as almost totally inexperienced?

If she’d been able to speak she’d have admitted it, but since she couldn’t… she just let things happen. This time she took no chances, she kept her eyes open and touched Willow’s chin, moving her lips upwards just a little. And she was delighted to see those green eyes close once again… just like she was savouring the moment.

When their lips brushed she thought she might die but kept the wits to gently press at Willow’s lips.

Once.

Twice.

The third time Willow’s hand held her, not letting her just brush but instead…

Oh, she was kissing.

She was being kissed.

Without really thinking about it she let Willow’s – presumed – experience dictate the pace, mirroring what the other girl was doing. Kissing. Pulling at lips and – eventually – Willow’s mouth opened. Was it an invitation? Was she just supposed to do the same? She did and the tips of their tongues brushed.

Everything about it was… If she hadn’t already met her Goddess, she’d have been convinced of her existence just by the experience of the kiss.

Her heart was beating wildly, she wanted to breathe more deeply but didn’t want to break the kiss to do that but… but… Was it good? Was it good for Willow? Was she doing this right?

Doubt stopped her. Not about whether she wanted to do this, not that Willow Rosenberg wasn’t into this – she was – but her own skill, or lack of it, made her hesitate. Only as long as it took for them to move their faces away from each other though, to see the pleasure, the nervous laughter and… Goddess be… surely that was ‘hunger’ in Willow’s eyes.

Hunger or not, there was no doubt the other woman wanted this, no doubt at all. But the way they were sitting across this bench, the way that they’d come into the kiss was all wrong to continue it. But could she get up? Would she look like she was ending –

Ending nothing, Willow pulled her up, backed into the wall and stroked her face.

She didn’t need to mouth ‘kiss me’ because it was absolutely obvious what it was that Willow needed and wanted now.

Taking Willow’s face in both her hands, she went right back to where she’d left off, pressing up against the woman feeling her soft and heated against her. The body reflecting the lips. They were more forceful this time, each taking the kiss where they wanted it to go and the other mirroring or accepting that. Certain the lips were going nowhere, and with nothing better to do with them, Tara’s hands dropped to Willow’s side and rested on her hips. She was a little taller, but didn’t need to stoop at all.

And the next time she paused she was overjoyed to feel Willow’s hand on the small of her back, pulling her back into the…

Was it passion?

Partly. But Tara thought it was more than that. Love? She wouldn’t have dared say the word, but she couldn’t speak so she could certainly think it. She could definitely try to show it and perhaps even she could feel it… reflected in Willow.

What would they say when their voices returned? She had no idea… but for now, she was content to kiss in near silence, only the wet movements of their lips and the contact of their clothes making any sounds at all.

---------------

I’m kissing her. I’m really kissing her.

And it was good.

There was little more that Willow was conscious of than that and the sensations associated with it. With Tara…

Her lips were so soft, but insistent and seeking without mauling her and without demanding admittance. When she wanted to simply kiss, Tara knew and respected that. When she wanted it to go further she only had to part her lips and Tara would kiss her more deeply – or if she wanted, allowed her to do the same thing.

With the other woman pressed up against her, the pair of them against the wall, the heat of her and the scent… She had no idea what it was, or what mix of products might be combining, but at the core was surely the simple fragrance of a woman. One that she hadn’t appreciated before and… hell, it wasn’t so simple.

Nor were her feelings. They were complex and jumbled but all of them were positive and appreciative of the experience and the woman.

I want to kiss her.

She wants to kiss me.

So she kissed Tara again, wondering how it would be to spin her round and press her up against the wall to… Well, there were other things she was beginning to feel that she wanted to do but probably not here. Like, she wanted to do them here, but she knew they’d be better somewhere else. Someone more private, somewhere more comfortable. Somewhere after they could talk because she very much wanted to do that.

She wanted to say ‘wow.’

She wanted to say ‘hi’ out loud.

She wanted to ask ‘can we do that again?’

But she knew that she wanted to know this girl before she knew this girl.

Not doubting for a moment that understanding and knowing Tara would be just as unique an experience as kissing her, touching her face and stroking her hair, Willow recognised the need in herself. More than one kind of need.

Yes, definitely, there was no question that this was making her feel very good, physically as well as emotionally. Better than – better than she’d known kissing could be. But it was the full Tara experience that she also needed.

The silent treatment was something that was supposed to happen when you screwed a relationship up, not when you were just making the first, tentative steps into it.

Relationship?

When it felt, smelled and even tasted this good then yes, relationship.

Relationship. Relationship. Relationship.

Doing this again.

And they hadn’t even stopped yet.

Stop?

Don’t wanna…

So she didn’t.

How long it had been didn’t matter, but later on she’d realise she’d never even thought about kissing someone for so long as she kissed Tara without even realising. Not solid, of course, but they’d be in there for a while, until Buffy solved the problem with the Gentlemen and what else did they have to do?

Look into each other’s eyes. Touch each other, but nothing too… frisky.

Kiss.

Kissing was the big thing. Kissing was the great, big, honking thing. Up against the wall, sat on the benches at the centre of the room. Pressing Tara up against the out of order dryer you learned to be wary of as it ate small items of clothing. She’d never kissed anyone for so long and never felt the reason to do so… Kissing had always seemed good but kind of limiting too.

Not so now… Not at all. That they didn’t go further wasn’t about fear or doubt. It wasn’t reluctance as, when her fingers drifted over Tara’s breasts for the first time she was the very definition of ‘unreluctant’ – which was a word she made up just for the occasion and got to define as her prize – but good as that moment felt it just didn’t feel right to go further. Whereas kissing Tara felt very, very right indeed.

In the end it was a moan which stopped them.

Strange really, because it was the kind of moan that meant ‘even though my lips feel bruised by all this, I really want this to go on and on’ but…

She could hear it. They both could. Up to now anything like that had been felt as a low rumble through the sensitive, kissing skin around there. Touching had revealed it, but now they both heard it too.

Who moaned? She couldn’t say… but whoever it was, they both heard it.

And that was important.

“I think, maybe - Hi,” Willow said, finally speaking to the woman she’d been thinking about and then kissing one hundred percent of the time since she’d laid eyes on her. Percentagewise, it was all downhill here from here but, she was willing to live with those statistics for the opportunities that looked – and sounded – like they were being presented.

And all that from a ‘hi.’

“Hi,” Tara breathed, she sounded like she needed that breath.

“Hi… I mean… I guess someone did something about those things and – I feel like – Look, I’m Willow by the way.”

“Nice to kiss – Nice to meet you, I mean, Willow. I did mean - ”

“I know what you meant. You’re Tara right?”

“Y-yes…”

“And what’s your other name, Tara?”

“Maclay. It’s T-tara Maclay.”

“You’re right, Tara Maclay, it’s definitely been nice to kiss you…”

“W-we – I think, if we can talk then things should probably be safe?” Tara said. It did sound more like a question.

Willow realised that she was still encircling the girl, holding her against the dryer. Tara didn’t seem to mind it though. “Seems like a valid hypothesis. Or,” she hedged when she noticed Tara’s reaction to her choice of words, “you’re probably right.”

Tara’s smile assured her that she’d not said or done anything critically wrong. Though… after a kiss like that she wasn’t sure there was much that she could have said that would’ve ruined things other than ‘ugghh girl cooties!’ Which wasn’t exactly likely.

“Quite a kiss, huh?” she asked, stuck for anything else to say. There was a lot that she wanted to say, but so little she was sure she could.

“Y-yeah.”

Tara had stumbled on her words three times now and Willow found herself thinking that it was adorable. But then she was going to have to admit that she was likely to find nearly everything about the young woman she had pinned up against the dryer adorable. ‘Adorable’ was looking like the baseline when it came to Tara Maclay.

Maclay. She looked like a Maclay. She looked like a Tara.

She looked beautiful.

“I’ve never been kissed that way,” she said, fishing for details on just how much Tara might’ve been kissed. Whether there was someone in her past – or even her present? And what then? Well, they’d just have to deal with it.

“I… I’ve never been kissed,” Tara replied, blushing.

In hindsight her next question probably only heaped more pressure onto something that Tara was at least a little embarrassed about. After all, if she’d never been kissed then there wasn’t much chance that she’d done anything more than kissing. “What, never?!”

When Tara’s embarrassment caused her to look away, Willow knew she had to correct her mistake. After all, she’d just been assuming there was nothing she could do or say that would spoil things and then had latched right onto it even if it hadn’t involved cooties.

So, she reached out, used one finger to ease Tara’s face back around to hers.

“What I meant to say,” Willow said, “was that I couldn’t believe you could kiss me like that if you’d never been kissed. It was…” She shrugged, struggling to come up with the words.

“Wow?”

“Yeah, it was wow. ‘Wow’ will do, ‘wow’ will definitely do. Did you think you’d be wow with me tonight?”

Tara paused, looked down at her feet for a moment. “I-I did kind of hope…”

“Wait a minute, you… hoped? You mean…?”

“I’ve been thinking about you.” It was so quiet, that it was barely more than an exhale.

“Really?” Willow asked, not that she was any different, but it was good to hear it.

“R-really.”

“Good,” she said. “Because I’ve been thinking about you too.”


**********************

_________________
-------------------------
If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.

Chance in *Chance*
-------------------------