A Kiss of Love
By RuggerChica
Summary: Willow and Tara have just meet (The story picks up shortly after the episode "Hush"). It is a first time / puppy love story that, as all things Buffy, turns into another tale of impending apocalypse.
Rating: NC-17
Genres: Action/Adventure, Drama, Romance
Writen by: RuggerChica
email: jfayem@gmail.com
Feedback: yes please!
Chapter 1
The bright afternoon sun bore down on the University of California at Sunnydale. The campus was alive with movement. The rhythmic thumping of music could be heard, or better yet felt, down the halls of the dormitory where Willow lay on her bed, wearing a pair of relaxed fitting jeans and an oversized orange sweatshirt, attempting unsuccessfully to complete some homework.
The petite redhead had gone through the day in a daze, trying to get a grip on the events of the previous evening. In doing so, she succeeded in paying no attention in classes, and exited each lecture with little more than multi-colored doodles that only vaguely resembled the day’s notes. Uncharacteristically, at this moment, Willow did not care.
Willow furrowed her brow and felt her heart skip a beat when she recalled the moment when a mere touch amplified their powers in a way she had never imagined possible.
Shaking her head, Willow decided to attribute the intensity of the moment to the magic that they had conjured. Never the less, she did allow herself to feel a certain level of urgency when it came to seeing Tara - to learn more of the craft, of course.
After looking one more time at the problem statement in the book and back at her blank page, Willow quietly resigned and closed the book. She rolled over on her back and gazed up at the ceiling. Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted by Buffy charging through the door.
"Ready to go to dinner?" Buffy asked as she threw her backpack on her bed and turned with a smile to face Willow. Her expression dropped though as she eyed the oddly distracted redhead. "What's wrong, Will? Are you ok? Your cheeks seem kind of pinkish."
"Um, yeah, no I'm fine, must be warm or something in here, you know with the sun’s thermal radiation and all and stuff…” She felt her face flush slightly and tried to remember if slayers could read minds.
Buffy gave Willow one last suspicious glance and started for the door. "Come on Will, we don't want to miss the slop they try to pass off as food around here."
-----
After Buffy and Willow had piled their trays high with warm dorm food they joined Xander and Anya who were already in the process of eating.
"Ah, isn't it great?" Xander offered, to no one in particular. In response he got raised eyebrows all around the table.
"Freshmen girls," he said, in answer to their unspoken question.
"See, the thing with freshmen girls is, as I get older, they stay the same age." He ended his sentence with sense of self-satisfaction just in time to feel Anya’s palm hit the back of his head.
"What?" Xander asked innocently as he looked past the tables with a grin.
"OK, Xander, you’ve seen “Dazed and Confused” one too many times. I mean have you ever..." Willow trailed off as her attention was diverted to a shy blonde, dressed in a tan peasant shirt and a brown skirt, who was casually walking with a full tray of food toward to back of the dinning hall.
"Ta-ra!" Willow blushed as her voice cracked like a pre-pubescent boy’s. She cleared her throat and, having not succeeded at getting the witch’s attention, tried her Tara-call again. This time she was successful and caught the blonde’s eye from across the room.
Tara looked around to see who was calling her. "It's probably a different Tara," she thought to herself.
Finally, her eyes came to rest on the figure across the dining room that was trying to flag her down. The smiling hazel eyes that were looking straight at her caught Tara off guard and she froze for a second.
Willow gestured to Tara to come sit by her at the table. As Tara started to walk towards the group Willow let out a breath she did not know she was holding and started poking a suspicious looking meatball with her fork.
"H-Hi," Tara said, trying her best to gain control of her nervous stutter.
There was a round of greetings from the gang that quickly transitioned to the usual discussion of deadly creatures as well as fashionable, yet affordable apparel. All the while, no one seemed to notice how unusually quiet Willow was being.
Breaking her silence, Willow turned to Tara. "Kind of crazy out of the ordinary day yesterday no? Unless that stuff happens to you everyday, because if it did then it be a normal day…" Willow finished weakly, mentally scorning her self for babbling.
Tara pulled her hair back from her face and neatly tucked it behind her ears before answering. "It-Its-it was a most unusual day for me. It was very exciting".
Tara cringed and played back her words. “’It was very exciting.’ Come on Tara you’re much more eloquent than that. Show it.”
Willow, who had been making sure that the alleged meatball was destroyed, looked up and saw that Tara's hair was now out of her face, and, for what might have been the first time, she noticed how soft Tara's face was. Willow found herself tracing Tara's jaw line with her eyes, up to two perfectly sculpted cheekbones and examining Tara's full lips.
Willow mentally slapped herself hard. "What are you doing? Willow Rosenberg! Why are you looking a woman's lips?!"
Tara, out of the corner of her eye, saw the emotions flash across Willow’s face. Tara's heart jumped and sank in sync with the redhead’s facial expressions so fast that no one else noticed anything.
"Willow w-w-would you l-like to try some spells tonight?" Tara asked, mustering her best casual voice.
"Sure, oh, well you know what, I have a research paper to write for tomorrow so I'm going to need to be doing some research at the library, but you could come with me and we could research some good spells and stuff." Willow amazingly finished in one breath.
With dinner over, the gang started getting up to leave. Xander and Anya said their goodbyes and headed out, while Buffy stood and looked at Willow "You ready, Will?".
Willow looked up at Buffy then down at her plate and nodded. "I think the meatball has had all it can take."
Willow looked back at Tara who was also packing up to leave.
"I'll call you when I'm heading down to the library," Willow said and she smiled at Tara.
Tara gave Willow a shy smile in return that could almost have been mistaken for sensual and nodded in agreement.
Willow dumped her tray at the exit of the dining hall and stopped in her tracks with a thoughtful look on her face. Buffy looked back when she noticed that the witch wasn’t walking with her anymore. "What's wrong, did you forget something?" she asked, now looking back.
Willow turned around and bumped into Tara whose face was now inches from her own. Tara looked down at her own hand and offered up a napkin with a phone number on it and Willow smiled as she attempted to conceal a blush.
"S-sorry," Tara apologized and tried not to smile at the freckled faced red head with matching red cheeks.
"Um, thanks," was all Willow could get out as she neatly folded the recently acquired napkin and took a somewhat reluctant step backwards and turned to rejoin Buffy to head back to their room.
Chapter 2
Later that day, a very flustered Willow lay on her bed, frowning and alternately transferring her attention to the phone in one hand and lightly creased napkin in the other. Sure, Tara had given her a phone number, but maybe it wasn’t really hers or she didn’t really want Willow to call. Nearly a half hour of her morning passed, nervously debating, before Willow found the courage and dialed. After one ring, she was greeted by the pleasant voice and with surprising ease she arranged to meet Tara by the "New Age" stacks in the school’s library within the hour.
Willow walked briskly, a stern look on her face, while her mind tried to make sense of what her heart was communicating. She was always fond of clocking some quality library time, but she was especially excited today. It wasn’t just the pace at which she was moving that was causing her pulse to quicken.
In one of the nearby dormitories, Tara stood with her hands firmly on her hips glaring at the pile of clothing on her bed. She had spent nearly twenty minutes destroying her room, searching for something appropriate to wear.
"Silly Tara Maclay, give it up, its probably nothing ... again," Tara thought. She let out a sigh as she grabbed a pair of jeans out of a drawer and a light blue peasant top from her closet. She quickly dressed and headed out the door with one last look at the mess she had made.
At the library, Tara found Willow already submerged in her studies. The blonde, careful to not make any noise, placed her bag of school supplies across from Willow on the long wooden table, so as not to crowd the redhead. Willow looked up, startled, and smiled.
"Hi, Tara," was Willow’s cheerful greeting, as she moved some of her homework clutter so Tara would have more room. Tara responded with a shy smile and sat down.
"Are your professors torturing you they way they are me?" Willow asked with a lightly frustrated tone as she looked back down at the paper in front of her and punched some numbers into her massive calculator.
Tara pulled out a sketchpad as she responded, "W-well, I wouldn’t consider it torture, although the history of art is getting to be quite challenging. W-we have a test next Tuesday, multiple choice, fifty questions, covering f-from ancient roman art to the renaissance. H-how are we expected to s-study for that?"
Willow smiled and nodded in agreement and Tara could not help but smile back.
"I-I'm going into the labyrinth of stacks to see what I-I can find on this enabling spell w-w-we've been talking about," the blonde said as she walked into the forest of bookshelves.
Willow sat staring at her half finished problem, trying to slow down the rate at which her heart was beating. She propped her head up with her fist, further trying to make clear the exciting and awkward feelings she was having - feelings she was having when she was around Tara.
Tara reappeared into view and broke Willow’s daze. "Are you ok?" Tara asked with a slight bit of concern in her voice.
"You know, I've been getting that question a lot recently," Willow answered and she shook the thoughts out of her head and tried to concentrate of the homework problem in front of her.
Tara sat down, plopped a large ancient looking book on the table and opened it. After realizing that she had been reading the same sentence for a while and remember nothing of what it said, she peered up from beneath the long blonde hair that hung down in front of her face like silk curtains. Willow looked deeply submerged in her homework so Tara tried again at her own book.
The red head was not having any luck with her assignment. She could care less what the first law of thermodynamics was or how fast some piece of metal cooled. Willow glanced in Tara's direction noticing how her long locks fell perfectly straight giving the blond a mysterious look. Willow quickly shot her eyes back down at her notebook, not wanting to be caught gawking, and mentally checked herself. "Why am I staring in the first place? Maybe it was the magic, or maybe..." she tried to stop the thoughts from coming, but couldn’t switch Willow babble off until she had run through every possible scenario in a single stream of words.
They both sat in the library unproductively, stealing glances at each other for most of an hour. When finally her babbling got the best of her and she decided to find out what the source of these feeling was.
"Hey, uhh, Tara. The other night, when we moved that vending machine, did you feel something, umm, peculiar?" Willow asked, using her best nonchalant voice.
"A-actually, I h-h-had never done that before, the joining of power like that." Tara responded, trying to avoid answering the question.
Willow nodded. She didn’t want to seem pushy so she didn’t question further and merely looked back down at her homework.
A moment later, the blonde cleared her throat and said, in what was almost a whisper, "I did feel something." She managed to get the words out without a stutter and returned her attention to her book, trying to look busy.
Willow, who was still facing her notebook, felt her face break into a sly smile.
"Tara Maclay?" the voice of an older man called out from across the room.
Tara looked over and smiled at Mr. Miller, her studio art instructor. She stood up and, flashing a timid grin in Willow’s direction, went to visit with her well-esteemed mentor.
As soon as Tara walked away from the table Willow quickly tore out a piece of notebook paper, scribbled something on it, and quickly placed the note in a pocket of Tara's bag.
Willow could not believe what she had done, but before she had time to undo it, Tara came back. Now there was no turning back.
Willows heart pounded loudly in her ears for the remainder of the rather unfruitful study session. She had gotten three out of nine of her problems done and Tara had managed to locate only one spell in the dusty volume that they could attempt together.
They packed up their supplies and agreed to meet the next night to cast the spell. Each woman walked back to her respective dorm room with a head full of questions and a belly full of butterflies.
Chapter 3
Willow lay sleeplessly in bed most of the night reviewing her earlier actions. She both scorned and applauded her hasty decision, but with nothing to be done except to wait, she attempted to sleep. She tossed and turned so restlessly that at one point Buffy woke up and questioned her again about her well-being. After the brief interrogation, Willow lay still replaying in her mind the possible outcome of her rash decision.
The next morning Willow continued to fall prey to daydreams during her classes. Everything the professors wrote on the board seemed Greek to the redhead. It didn’t help that some of the symbols on display were actual Greek letters and for the better part of the day the hazel-eyed girl was notably disinterested.
Later that afternoon as Willow, Buffy, Xander and Anya walked to the campus coffee shop the redhead spotted the blonde, who had just recently become a very active part of her inner babbling. Tara was seated in the courtyard and appeared to be absorbed in the book she was holding. Willow took this opportunity to uninhibitedly observe the young woman.
"I got a cell phone," Buffy proudly announced.
"Finally," the rest of the group spoke in pleased unison.
Xander, rather frantically, started to search his pockets for a writing utensil, wanting to be the first to have the Buffy-911 number.
"Does anyone have a pen or pencil?" Xander asked the group when his pockets came up empty.
When the group came up empty handed at Xander’s request he spotted Tara sitting in the courtyard and rather loudly called to her over the crowd of passing students.
Tara looked up from her book and recognized the individual calling her. She carefully placed her book back in her bag and walked over to the group.
"Hi, Tara. How are you? Do you have a pen?" Xander asked in his direct, ‘I’m in dire need of assistance,’ sort of way.
Tara shuffled through her bag to the usual location of named item and made a puzzled look. "I seem to have lost all my.... Oh, no, wait. I usually keep a spare in here,” Tara said as she reached into the same pocket in which Willow had placed the note the night before.
Willow could hear her blood pumping in her ears again and Tara rummaged through the pocket of her bag. The redhead was frantically trying to think of a disappearance spell, more for her than for the parchment. Tara pulled out a pen and handed it to Xander who eagerly proceeded to scribble down the new help line number.
Willow watched Tara out of the corner of her eye, hoping that the blonde had missed the note in her searching.
Tara was about to close the pocket when she noticed a scrap of notebook paper and pulled it out curiously. Willow could have sworn that time froze. All she could see was Tara slowly opening the note; everything else had fallen out of her sight.
The redhead held her breath, felt her checks flush and looked down at the ground.
Tara opened the note and read it to herself:
Have we been flirting?
yes no
-Willow
Tara's mind began to race. "Oh no, can she tell? Have I been obvious? Does she think I'm coming on to her? Maybe she's been flirting back? Oh, boy." Tara fumbled with the note and lowered her head slightly to shield her face from Willow’s sight with her hair.
The rest of the group, completely oblivious to the duo’s strange dynamic, continued on to the coffee shop.
"Xander!" Tara called after them, "Could I have my pen back?"
"Oh yeah, sorry, here you go," Xander replied, handing Tara her pen.
Willow started to walk toward the coffee shop after her friends as Tara scribbled something on the note. "W-w-w-willow," Tara said, as she moved to walk beside her redheaded friend.
Tara reached down as they were walking and gently placed the note into Willow’s hand. Willow almost tripped as she felt the blonde woman's hands touch hers. Tara gave Willow’s hand a gentle, barely noticeable squeeze and announced, "I have to go to class. See you later tonight?"
Willow simply nodded, still dazed by the flash of emotion the touch had caused.
At the coffee shop, Willow ordered her usual Mocha and sat staring at the folded piece of paper in her hand. She could not resist any longer so she opened it and looked at her note smiling brightly at the carefully drawn circle indicating ‘yes’. She felt less alone with her confusing feelings and was tremendously glad that her gut had not been wrong. Her thoughts drifted toward the next step. What was the next step supposed to be, anyway? She had been in a relationship before, but now she felt as if she were entering a totally new field of play and she didn't know what sort of rules she was dealing with.
"What do you guys think about gay people?" Willow inquired casually, interrupting the chattering group.
Startled by such a random question, all eyes turned to Willow.
"Well, the idea of two women together does not bother me one bit," Xander shared with a smirk. “As a matter of fact, I was at my uncle’s one time and he showed me some of his vid…”
The heat of Anya’s glare from across the table stopped Xander mid-sentence. Dismissing her boyfriend, Anya turned her attention to Willow. "I don't see a problem with it. Gay couples are often very successful and have lots of money. Not to mention good taste. I think that’s something that humans needs more of," sending Xander an accusative glance.
"What brought up that question?" Buffy asked.
Willow mind-babbled for a second and decided not to let her friends in just yet.
"Oh nothing. I just have this friend and she thinks she's gay, and well, I just wanted to see what the general consensus was about it," Willow finished.
The group dismissed the discussion as a random insignificant occurrence and continued chatting about alternative ways of slaying vampires with wooden bullets or cross-covered nets.
Chapter 4
Tara felt panic and excitement threatening to overpower her rational mind. She was overwhelmed with the feeling of joy and terror that the note had caused. In class she sat staring blankly at the canvas in front of her struggling to focus. The blonde's mind raced as she attempted to draw the assortment of fruits piled on a table in the middle of the classroom. She contemplated what to do next, how to act around Willow or even if she should do anything.
Tara had not dated a woman before. In fact, she had not dated anyone before. With her controlling father and brother along with the burden of an ill mother, Tara had not had much time for socializing.
Tara hurried back to her dorm room after her classes to clean up and further contemplate the events that were unfolding.
In the nearby dormitory Buffy and Willow sat in front of Willow’s laptop.
"Are you sure that is a language?" Buffy asked Willow pointing to at the screen.
"Yeah, it's a language, but not a language you would find in an old book or spoken in other countries, it's a language to talk to computers, you know, tell them what to do" Willow answered and added something to her code.
"So there is an entire language to talk to computers. hmmmm" Buffy spoke to herself.
"Yeah, its really cleaver actually, but I can't find the error in my program and I need to be at Tara's in a half hour" Willows voice started to sound frustrated.
"Computer, be nice and work for Willow" Buffy directed towards the monitor. Willow looked back at her good friend and smiled then rapidly returned her attention to the computer screen.
It took Willow, a frustrating, twenty-nine minutes to find the error in her program. She quickly closed her laptop and looked at the time. "Grumble I'm going to be late" she said and she pulled a hooded sweatshirt over her head and ran out the door.
----
Willow stud in front of Tara's door attempting to fix her hair. She took a few moments to mentally remind herself not to say or do anything stupid. She knocked gently on the door. On the other side of the door, Tara froze and attempted to slow her breathing down. She crossed the room and opened the door.
"H-hi Willow, come in" Tara spoke avoiding eye contact as she backed up out of the redhead’s way.
Willow entered the room and noticed it looking different. The rooms felt darker, yet cozier, with the only light being a nightstand light and several large candles.
"I-I'm af-fraid I have bad news" Tara said as she crossed the room to close her closet door "The magic shop was out of the root we need to complete the spell, I put in a special order but It will take a few days"
"That's ok, what would you like to do then? Unless you have other stuff to do, like homework or reading, cause I could completely understand if your busy and need to do stuff.." Willow babbled and she put her hands in the pocket of her sweatshirt and swayed nervously.
"N-no, I w-would like to do something with y-y-you" Tara hastily responded.
"Ok, so what shall we do?" Willow asked.
Both girls feel silent trying to think of something to do in Sunnydale.
Willow finally broke the silence "Other than killing evil monsters, there isn't much to do in this town". Tara smiled and nodded in agreement.
"I think the gang is going to the Bronze tonight, would you like to go?" Willow asked Tara.
Tara was not particularly fond of crowded rooms full of drunken strangers, but for this freckled face girl in front of her she convinced herself she could do it.
"S-sure" Tara responded.
"Ok, do you want to come with me to my room so I can whip you up a face ID?" Willow asked getting a raised-eyebrow in response.
"Don't worry Sunnydale police have much bigger things to worry about that a few underage partiers" Willow said wondering why she was making herself come off as a party girl when indeed she was a big time nerdy girl.
"Ok" Tara responded, standing up and going to her closet. "W-what should I wear?" Tara asked.
"You look great in what you have on now" Willow responded before she had a change to sensor herself.
"I mean, you can wear what you have on now, I mean you can wear whatever you want..." she corrected herself and looked nervously down at her boots. Tara was glad that Willow was not looking up at her to notice the flush in her face and the smile she could not repress.
Willow and Tara walked back to the redhead's dorm room making small talk along the way. Willow produced an authentic looking ID for Tara and they both headed of to the Bonze, each girl avoiding direct eye contact but stealing glances at each other along the way.
---
The Bronze was packed when they arrived. Willow casually grabbed Tara's hand to lead her thru the crowd, secretly enjoying the brief contact. They made their way to the table were Xander, Anya and Buffy were sitting.
Willow purchased several rounds of Margaritas for herself and Tara. The effects of the alcohol were well on their way when Xander suggested dancing and all but Tara easily complied. Tara, restrained by feeling of self-consciousness, released control as soon as she felt Willow leading her by the hand out onto the crowded and smoky dance floor.
On the dance floor Xander looked very pleased with himself, after all he did have four good-looking women dancing around him, and had no complaints.
After several songs, Riley appeared and took Buffy away from the dance floor. Anya seemed to have grown jealous of all the ladies and started to hog Xander for herself leaving Tara and Willow bashfully dancing in front of each other.
By now, the full effect of the alcohol was kicking in and both women started to drop their guard. Willow took a few hesitant steps toward Tara, putting her inched from the shy girls face. Willow gave Tara a mischievous smile and started to dance more loosely.
Tara, spellbound by the redhead's attention inched forward and looked up at Willow making direct eye contact. Willow felt her kneed become week and held her breath. Tara swallowed hard as she felt the room heat up around them. Both women stopped dancing in unison and stud staring into each other's eyes.
The moment was rudely interrupted by Buffy "Guys, Giles called, another apocalypse, meeting at his house now!" Buffy stated as she grabbed Willows arm and started pulling her thru the crowd. Tara followed feeling light headed either from the alcohol or from the moment.
The gang pilled into Xander's car. Tara and Willow both crammed into the back seat with Buffy. As the rest of the gang discussed the new impending apocalypse Tara hesitated making, what for her was, a bold move. She looked out the car window as she let the outside of her hand touch Willow’s hand. Willow noticing the gesture opened her hand palm up. With all the courage Tara could muster, she lifted her hand and placed her palm on Willows. Willow intertwined her finger with Tara's long thin fingers and gently squeezed.
Willow looked over Xanders shoulder at the road ahead imploring her heart to stop beating so fast.
Tara looking out the driver side window basked in the feeling of Willows soft finger that had absentmindedly started gently rubbing her own.
For the rest of the world, that short and un-eventful ride was nothing to note, but to these girls it was a pivoting moment in their lives.
Dibs hello my friend welcome to the board love your story as always refreshing and sweet. The love you have let us wittness is wonderful can't wait for more so get your but to 
missy I need my 
or I won't be able to live hehe 
a long story?
I do know what is coimng up but Im reading it as if its new to me coz its that good.
(Please!)
not one but TWO chapters!!!
