The Heart Rules the Mind
By
DarkWiccan
Disclaimers: Willow and Tara and other characters borrowed from the television show “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer” are the property of their creator, Joss Whedon, and his affiliates, Mutant Enemy, Fox, and UPN.
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG-13
Coupling: C’mon, guys, this is me writing, who do you think?
Summary: In a very different Sunnydale, a very different Willow and Tara struggle with their own inner demons to find themselves and each other.
READ ME! Notes: This is my first AU fic. Where you can very easily argue that all fics that diverge from the existing plotline of the show are AU, this is the first fic I have written that departs from show canon almost entirely. This Sunnydale is in “the real world”. The mask-wearing monsters of the week do not exist here.
However, this world is influenced heavily by my own belief system on demons and supernatural entities. The Scooby Gang does live in this world, but there is no such thing as a slayer or a chosen one and end-of-the-world prophecies do not lie in wait around every plot device. Rather, the Scooby Gang, made up of its familiar members, is a group of friends with varying belief systems, but similar experiences with the supernatural that have brought them together. But the relationships established on the show have been, for the most part, completely abandoned.
This story is really more of a character study than anything else. The plot (what there is of it) centers largely on W/T (of course, this is me after all) and as of right now there is no real end. I don’t know where this is going or if it will ever be done. I consider this fic to be a sort of writing exercise for me, and the closest thing to “stream-of-consciousness” that I will ever come to.
Because this fic has no true outline, I apologize in advance for the plot being at best vague. I also warn all of you lovely readers that updates will be few and far between as I plan only on returning to this story as inspiration strikes me, or when I become “blocked” on another fic and use this one to jog my creative muscles.
Right, all that nonsense being said, let’s get on with it.
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Willow Rosenberg sat at her computer typing away, trying to focus on the work in front of her, but finding it increasingly difficult to focus as her thoughts continually strayed to that of her new friend. Well not so much new friend as old-friend/new-crush. She had known Tara Maclay for going on three years now, but only recently had found herself growing more and more fond of the woman, and increasingly attracted. There was just one problem. Willow was gay and Tara was not.
Or at least, Willow didn’t think Tara was gay. It wasn’t as if she had ever seen the golden blonde with another woman. But she had never seen her with a man either. In fact, for as long as Willow had known her, Tara had never even spoken of being interested in anyone, male or female. It was all very confusing for Willow, who now quickly ran her fingers through her red hair in frustration. She had tried everything she could think of to get Tara to divulge the nature of her sexuality, short of bluntly asking her, which is something she could never bring herself to do, and as a result, the redhead continued to live in a state of total bewilderment.
Worse, she felt herself slowly falling in love with the other woman. Which only leant itself to even more catastrophic possibilities of rejection should it turn out that Tara was not gay or, the even more painful alternative, that Tara was gay and simply not interested in Willow.
Willow let out another sigh of frustration and achingly returned her tired brain to the task at hand. She’d figure it out eventually, or at least she could hope.
***
Tara Maclay was scared. Her mother was sick and dying of cancer. Her father was gone, having divorced her mom not a year before. Her younger sister was off in her own teenage world, using the natural teenage mentality of self-importance to protect her from the realities of her mother’s suffering and their broken home. Tara, in her mind, was alone, surviving only on the sense of duty to her family that had been ingrained in her by her mother her entire life.
She diligently carried a small wastebasket with a fresh bag to her mother’s room, removing the soiled one, filled with chemotherapy-induced vomit. Offering her mother a cool drink of water, kissing her forehead, holding her hand. Talking for a little bit of her day, telling her mother lies and embellishments so that she wouldn’t worry that her daughter wasn’t getting out enough and then excusing herself downstairs to clean up, or make dinner, or help her younger sibling with homework.
Tara blinked and found herself sitting halfway downstairs, unaware of how she had stopped there. Merely knowing that she had. The full little trashcan sat next to her, the odorous stench of its contents kept slightly at bay by the bag’s handles being tied tightly in a knot. She was unaware of it for a moment, rubbing her fingers in her tired eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose as she tried to summon up the energy and the courage to get on with the rest of the day.
She was almost content to just stay there on the steps and she probably would have if it had not been for the sudden jarring sound of the phone ringing. Tara leapt a mile into the air, so startled was she by the noise, her mom was trying to sleep and the phone would wake her. Tara grabbed the small waste receptacle and bounded down the stairs and into the kitchen, grasping frantically for the phone as she answered it with a rushed, “Hello?”
“Uh, Tara?” asked the soft voice on the line, the tone unsure.
“Oh, yeah it’s me”, said Tara, catching her breath, “Hi, Will.”
“Is it a bad time?” the redhead asked quickly, more than sensitive to Tara’s current home situation.
“No, no it’s fine”, the blonde assured her, setting down the small can and moving to sit on one of the bar stools at the island in the kitchen. “Mom just laid down to sleep and I was worried about the phone bothering her.”
“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry”, apologized Willow, “I always call at the worst times.”
“Will, it’s fine”, Tara reiterated, “I’m glad you called. I was just thinking I needed to hear your voice.”
“You needed to hear my voice?” Willow inquired, working overly hard to disguise the glee the other woman’s statement brought her.
“Yeah”, Tara replied, the smile evident in her voice, “Whenever you talk to me I always feel so much better. Like everything is going to be all right. You know?”
In the quietude of her room, Willow did a silent happy dance. “Hey, anything I can do”, she said, meaning every word, “you know that.”
“I know”, Tara answered, then decided to switch gears. She knew that Willow had a crush on her, and truth to tell she honestly didn’t know how she felt about that fact. A few months prior, Willow had come right out and told her of her feelings. Or at least, Willow did Willow’s version of coming right out and telling her, which meant the redhead had babbled incoherently for a good fifteen minutes before finally running out of oxygen and collapsing in a nervous heap without really having said anything at all.
But Tara had gotten the message, however she didn’t let Willow know whether she had or not. It was something that Tara still felt guilty about, but not knowing her own position on the matter, she had decided to let the subject stay enigmatical. She was confused enough with her current life as it was and she wasn’t prepared to bring any sort of… thing… into the chaos.
“So, um”, she began, “what’s up?”
“Oh I’d just thought I’d call and see if we were still on for the movie thing”, Willow explained, “you know, me coming over and all.”
Shit, Tara scolded herself. She had forgotten. She ran the possibility over in her head and quickly determined that, given her mother’s present state, having visitors over to the house was probably not a good idea. But she wanted company so badly, and the idea of Willow as company felt so calming and… yet still there was mom.
“Tara?” asked Willow’s voice after a long pause.
“Oh”, said Tara, snapping out of her thoughts, “Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“About how nice you coming over would be”, the blonde answered honestly. Unknown to Tara, Willow’s heart skipped a beat at the revelation. “But…” Willow’s heart now fell into her stomach. “Mom’s not doing very well today, and I don’t think… I’m sorry…”
“Tara”, the redhead replied, quickly setting her own feelings aside out of concern for her friend, “Please don’t apologize. I totally understand. It’s not like we’re running on a schedule and this is an appointment we have to keep.”
“I know”, Tara sighed, leaning her head in her hand, “I just… I keep asking you to come over and then telling you that you can’t. I’m a terrible friend.”
“NO!” Willow barked. Quickly realizing the overkill of her vehemence, she re-stated more calmly, “No. Not at all. Tara, you are going through something… Well, I can’t even begin to imagine… It’s perfectly understandable… I mean, a lot of people go through this… Not to say that your own experience isn’t unique and important, because it is… I don’t want you to think that I think that what you’re going through is common, because it’s not. Even though a lot of people have had to and are dealing with what you are, it doesn’t make you or the situation typical… I…”
“Will”, Tara interrupted her mid-babble, trying to stifle her laugh. Willow-babble always made her feel better because she knew that whenever Willow babbled she was simply trying to put into words how much she cared, and by the number of words she used, it was obvious she cared a lot. “I get it”, Tara finished.
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Good”, said Willow, “because for a moment there I wasn’t even sure I got it.”
Tara couldn’t help but laugh at the cuteness of her friend’s statement. “I just… I feel so cut off from the world sometimes. Like everything is going on without me, which it is… But you always make me feel so much better and a movie with Willow just sounded so good.”
“It’s okay”, Willow soothed, “and we’ll get to it when we get to it.”
“How do you do that?” Tara asked suddenly.
“Uh, do what?”
“Here I was all ‘doom and gloom’ and five minutes on the phone with you and I feel like I can face life again. It’s so hard to stay optimistic these days. I mean, I want to be, I try to be”, Tara explained. Then asked again, “How do you do it?”
“It’s hard work”, Willow admitted, “There’s a lot of negativity out there. But I think I’ve got enough positivism in me that I can be optimistic for the both of us.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Somehow her friend’s simple declaration seemed to lift a thousand pound weight from off of Tara’s shoulders. “Thank you”, she said after moment.
“Like I said”, said Willow, “Anything I can do.”
“Yeah”, Tara smiled softly. “Listen, Will, I’m tired of blowing you off and I really want to do this movie thing. Only not tonight and not here. Maybe sometime this week we could go out? I really need to get away from this house and I want to spend some time with you, so I was thinking, have you heard about the new film of ‘Tuck Everlasting’?”
It was all Willow could do to not squeal with glee. “Tuck Everlasting” was one of her favorite books growing up. “Oh my God!” she said, not even attempting to hide the excitement in her voice, “I so want to see that! It was one of my favorite stories as a kid!”
“Really? I’ve never read it”, said Tara, “I mean, I sort of know the story behind it, but I’ve never read the book. The movie previews just looked really nice.”
“Yeah”, Willow agreed, “They really do. I was hoping I could find someone who would want to go see it. Disney made a movie of it in the mid-eighties and it was pretty good, but now with all the new effects and stuff that they can do, it should be really neat.”
“There’s another movie?” questioned the blonde. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, I’ve got it on tape somewhere”, Willow commented dismissively. “Hey, Tara, I’ll tell you what. I’m going to clear my evening schedule for the rest of the week, so that you can call any time you’re available and we can go.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“Of course! Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well, it’s just, I know that you’ve been really busy with work and running your own business and everything”, stated Tara, “are you sure you can spare the time?”
“Absolutely”, Willow replied, impressing as much into the word as she could. “Don’t even worry about it. Just call me when you want to go, okay?”
“Okay”, Tara agreed, “Thanks, Willow.” Then, for some inexplicable reason, the blonde felt compelled to add, albeit in a silly almost childish voice, “I love you!”
On the other end of the line, Willow swallowed a near-audible gulp. “I…” she began, trying to sound nonchalant, “I love you too.”
Tara paused, as she suddenly realized the depth of the redhead’s response to her sentiment, and it scared her a little. “Yeah, well”, she said, attempting to recover, “I’ll call you.”
“Sure”, Willow answered, “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
“Bye”, said Willow, letting the word drift off as she heard the phone click off on the other end of the line. She held the silent phone in her hand, staring at it, not sure what to think about what had just happened. Had she said the wrong thing? Or was it that she had said the right thing, but the wrong way. She knew that when Tara had said, “I love you”, she didn’t mean it as, well… “I love you”. Did she? And now Willow was even more confused.
Oh well, she would go to the movie with her and see. Though a lot of people didn’t give her credit for it, Willow was preternaturally patient. Or at least she was when it came to matters of the heart. So she would wait, and bide her time and see if anything came of anything.
And if it didn’t, well, that was fine too.
That was the point that Willow had the hardest time convincing herself was true.
***
To Be Continued... eventually...
Edited by: DarkWiccan at: 10/22/02 12:16:11 pm
Well done. Wouldn't know it was your first AU!
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nice twist of Willow being the one pining for Tara and Tara not sure yet of her feelings 
at: 10/24/02 2:31:30 am