Hi kittens - I'm updating a little earlier than I expected last night. I had the time before work and it's ready, so why not?
Rating - PG13
Disclaimer - I'm twisting canon a little here, or maybe I'm just twisting a perception. Let me know what you think...
Itty Bitty Hint:
Remember: "I'll tell you later" (Willow to Tara) in "River in Me" and after the conversation with Spike? Well, it's later...
Hope you all enjoy this...
******
Willow felt stretched, almost hyperaware, as she tried to focus on Buffy and Tara and dinner all at the same time. She had a feeling that it made her look almost manic. In spite of having only a banana for breakfast and then missing lunch, she wasn’t hungry. Her tummy had no room for food with all the butterflies swooping around in there. At least she wasn’t nauseous – yet.
She’d been desperate to get Buffy out of Tara’s room – where she sooo didn’t belong – and away from her dorm and her oh-so-helpful neighbors. It had been awfully close with Steve. Thank god they’d released the silence spell in time to hear Buffy arrive!
All she wanted was to sit and have a nice quiet dinner with just Tara. Crowds could swarm around the two of them and it would make no difference. But they were stuck with good old Buffy. Two was perfect, three sucked. Amazing what the addition of one could do.
As her eyes darted from Buffy to Tara and back again, she pushed the food around with her fork, arranging it in sets and subsets. Something Chinese tonight – she wasn’t exactly certain what, and really didn’t think the cooks did either. The only thing good about it was that it was easy to separate into its component parts.
“Hey, Willow, I thought you were starved. You’ve barely eaten any of your stir fry.” Buffy reached over and tapped her fork on the plate of Chinese bits.
“Oh, is that what it’s supposed to be?” Willow took a bite, then pushed the plate away. “I’m going to grab something else.” She slid her chair back from the table. “Anyone want anything?”
“Fine here.” Buffy stabbed some more salad.
“N-No.” Tara shook her head and smiled up at her.
Willow felt her heart skip a beat, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. “Okay.” She stood and walked rapidly to the dessert bar. Avoid-y Willow running away, she sneered.
It was just – when Tara looked at her like that, she thought she was going to explode: the Willow she thought she was blasting off in one direction; the Willow she wanted to be headed in another.
With shaking hands she picked up a bowl and began spooning vanilla ice cream into it. She needed chocolate. Chocolate made all things better. She ladled three dips of hot fudge over the mountain of ice cream.
“Good grief, Willow! How do you stay so little and skinny?”
“Oh, for god’s sake, Riley!” It came out an aggrieved moan. She looked up at the man standing at her right elbow and then glanced over at her table. At least Buffy’s back was to them. “What are you doing here?”
“Hoping I’d bump into h … you.”
“I heard that. Bump into her. Not me.” Willow confronted him. “Besides, if you were big with the bumping, you wouldn’t be trying to hide behind me, which is sooo not going to work, since you’re, what, a foot and a half taller than me? And she’s not ready yet for any bumping by you anyhow. So just Go Away.” Willow put on her best Resolve Face. “Do I have to get my shovel?” One eyebrow rose menacingly.
Riley had opened his mouth, but apparently remembered all those sayings about discretion being the better part of valor and living to fight another day, and beat a hasty retreat of his own.
Willow turned and stalked back to the table.
*******
Tara followed Willow with her eyes, a smile of pleasure playing on her lips. Reluctantly she pulled them away from her lover, who had, as she’d expected, gravitated to the dessert bar. She looked across the table at Buffy, who was eating her second chicken Caesar salad with single-minded intensity.
She looked at the hands wielding the fork and knife. As small as Willow’s, nothing revealed their strength. They’d be interesting hands to read – if she hadn’t known Buffy was the Slayer. But she did, so she wouldn’t. There was no reason to subject either of them to the likely pain of the possible futures.
Such a small woman to shoulder such a huge responsibility!
“What?”
Tara ducked her head, then glanced up into Buffy’s eyes. “J-Just – y-you’re so s-small to do what you d-do.”
“Oh. Mighty-mite, that’s me.” Buffy relaxed and set her fork and knife down beside the empty platter. “I thought maybe I had something caught in my teeth or something. You’d tell me if I did, wouldn’t you? Willow and Xander wouldn’t. Willow, ‘cause she wouldn’t know how, and Xander, well, he’s such a dork, he’d think it was funny.”
Tara listened to Buffy, suddenly aware that the Slayer really didn’t expect an answer. She wanted someone who was content to listen and occasionally nod or smile. That fit with what she’d expect of such a mythic figure as a Slayer: intense, powerful, arrogant, and yet totally unselfish – for how else could you describe someone who risked her life every night?
“I’m so happy that she met you.” Buffy rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward, touching the back of her right hand. “She’s been so lonely.”
And perhaps incredibly observant, Tara realized, in spite of what Willow had said. Out of force of habit, she caught up Buffy’s fingers in her own. Her heart thudded against her ribs. It really wasn’t her place to tell Willow’s friend of their love, but …. She steeled her resolve and opened her mouth.
“Except for Xander, I’ve been her only friend, and I think it’s wonderful that she now has another girlfriend. It’s just so great that you’re a witch too,” Buffy continued, giving her fingers a squeeze before withdrawing her hand.
Tara closed her mouth.
Willow returned with a huge bowl of ice cream dripping with hot fudge. She plopped it on the table as she slipped into her chair, and quickly spooned up a bite.
“B-Buffy was j-just t-telling me how h-happy she is that you met me,” Tara stammered, fully realizing what that particular phrasing would do to her lover – the same thing it had done to her. It was cruel in a way that made her stomach churn, but Willow
had to tell Buffy – soon – for the sake of their sanity.
Willow’s spoon clattered off the rim of the bowl and onto the table. Her green eyes darted frantically between her and Buffy.
Tara lost her resolve in the face of her lover’s panic and lifted an eyebrow minutely as she continued, “Th-That you have s-someone to do w-witch stuff with.”
“Oh.” Willow retrieved her spoon and rapidly ate three bites of ice cream.
“Are you okay, Will? You seem awfully nervous.” Buffy rested a hand on her best friend’s arm.
“Fine – I’m fine. Three hours of sleep, early-morning classes, not much in the way of breakfast or lunch – but I’m fine. And you know, this …,” she indicated the ice cream, a bit defensively, “… is just what I want right now. Dinner be damned.” She suddenly seemed to remember her manners. “Uh – want some?” The offer sounded a little reluctant, at least to Tara’s ears.
Buffy just looked at her empty platter and shook her head. “Nah, don’t think I can eat another bite.”
Tara shook her head as well. “M-Me neither – too full of vegetarian lasagna.”
“Your loss,” Willow muttered, turning her concentration on her sundae.
“Willow! Chocolate goodness here.” Buffy tapped the bowl. “So what’s with the crankiness?”
“Nothing,” the redhead replied without looking up. She continued to eat.
Tara gazed concernedly at her lover, wanting to just reach out and hold her hand. However, she suspected
that wouldn’t get a positive reaction, not after the verbal nudge she’d just given her – and especially not if she did it here, in public and in front of Buffy. She bit her lip in frustration.
Buffy suddenly snickered. The snicker mutated into a snort as Willow looked up at her best friend.
Tara pressed her lips together tightly and cringed inwardly. Her lover looked almost as annoyed as she had been with Spike.
“Buffy. What?” Willow spaced the words evenly as she stared across the table at the Slayer.
Buffy shook her head in amusement, smiling gently at the redhead. “You know and I know that sometimes you get cranky, and you get that way over the smallest things. I think it’s gotta be something with the red hair,” she mused, almost to herself, then smiled mischievously at her best friend. “But I was thinking that I’ve only seen you this cranky once before, my old reliable friend.”
Tara watched their interaction with conflicted feelings. She didn’t want her lover to be upset in any way, but maybe this teasing would push Willow out of her safe space, or at least improve her mood. She wasn’t quite sure what was going on with her lover now. The playful Willow from her dorm room was nowhere in evidence.
“Oh, god, Buffy.” Willow dropped her spoon into the bowl, a look of shock and rising horror on her face as the smirk on Buffy’s face intensified. “Don’t …”
“Tara, has Willow told you about her evil twin?” The Slayer grinned
Tara saw Willow give her a momentary look of dismay – and was that disappointment? – before slumping back into her chair in resignation. She took a moment to consider things: Buffy’s chattiness, Willow’s defensiveness, and her own curiosity. Besides, after Spike had run off, Willow had said she’d tell her about it … later.
This was later, except Willow wouldn’t be doing the telling here.
“N-No.” She said just the one word, and gave Buffy no encouragement, verbal or nonverbal.
Willow slid even lower in her chair and whispered almost inaudibly, “This is like a nightmare.”
But the Slayer apparently needed no additional encouragement, and launched into the story with enthusiasm.
“This one time, in high school, she was having this really bad day. And Anya, … Uh, she’s Xander’s girlfriend, now, you know?”
Tara nodded her understanding.
Buffy gave her a quick smile and continued, “Although I don’t know how that happened exactly.” She frowned, momentarily distracted.
“Me, neither,” Willow muttered from her chair.
“Anyway,” Buffy started up again, “Anya asked Will, here, for help in this spell …”
“Bad spell, reeeeeaaally baaad spell.” Willow sat up a little.
Buffy shot her friend a look, “This spell to get something back that was hers. A necklace thingy …”
“Her power center, actually,” Willow supplied.
“P-Power c-center. Th-Those aren’t g-good,” Tara interjected, shocked.
“No kidding. But I didn’t know that at the time.” Her lover defended herself with a wave of her hands. “I just had a chance to work some magic, and well, I didn’t know she was a demon ….”
“Anya’s a demon?” Tara sat bolt upright. “Xander’s d-dating a d-demon?”
“Ex-demon, actually,” Buffy corrected. “Ex-vengeance demon, right, Will?”
“Uh-huh. One of D’Hoffryn’s minions,” Willow expounded. “She’d somehow lost her power center in a dimension parallel to this one, and decided I was her ticket to getting it back. Otherwise she was going to be stuck being human.”
Tara looked wide-eyed from the Slayer to her lover and back again, unable to quite believe what she was hearing. One of Willow’s friends was dating a demon!
“…. wrong and the spell didn’t bring back the necklace. It brought over Willow’s evil twin,” Buffy continued her story. “This skanky, slut-bomb, …”
“Hey, I resent that!” Willow sat up. “She wasn’t a slut-bomb. Faith’s a slut-bomb.” She subsided. “But I’ll give you the skanky part.”
“This skanky,” Buffy looked pointedly at her best friend, “evil vampire version of Willow came into the Bronze where Xander and I were meeting up. She was Willow, only evil, but really not, since Will’s not evil. She totally kicked Percy’s ass – he was this basketball player she had to tutor, well. Real Willow, not the vampire Willow – but really that’s not important, although Xander said it was sure fun to watch. Anyway, then she vamped out, and we thought Will was dead.” The Slayer paused. “It was horrible. I felt all numb, like I had no arms or legs. We – Xander and me – went and told Giles the bad news at the library. We couldn’t figure out what to do. I mean, I couldn’t even think about staking her. Then in walked Willow. The real one.”
The words sank slowly in. “So d-did the two of you meet up at all?” Tara asked her lover, intrigued – and beginning to realize why Willow had wanted to tell her this story.
“Oh yeah …”
“Buffy, at least let me tell part of this.” Willow sat forward in the chair. “Besides, the first time you weren’t even there.”
“Whatever.” Buffy shrugged and waved for Willow to go ahead.
“She was supposed to be at the Bronze with some minions. See, she was really strong – only a few hours in Sunnydale and she already had minions!” There was a perverse note of pride in Willow’s voice. “We were headed there to rescue everyone, but we didn’t know what we were going to do with her. Like Buffy said, the whole idea of the staking was just sort of creepy, ‘cause it was like she was me, only not. So I went back to the library to get the tranquilizer gun and she was there waiting.” Willow swallowed and took a deep breath.
“She must have been watching us the whole time,” Buffy added.
“Oh.” Tara was uncertain what more to say. She sort of wondered what they were doing with a tranquilizer gun in the library, but decided not to pursue that for the moment. She rather thought she wouldn’t like the answer.
“She grabbed me and took a look at me, and, and, spun me around so that she was behind me.” Willow looked down at the table and her melted ice cream, visibly distressed.
“Hey Will, I can tell this, if it really upsets you so much,” Buffy offered.
Tara looked at her lover discreetly. If she was reading her correctly, then Willow’s distress was for a very different reason than what Buffy suspected. She couldn’t help but wonder how Willow would have told this story if they’d been alone.
“If y-you’re upset, y-you don’t have to t-tell me any more.” She caught up Willow’s hand and gave it a squeeze – just for comfort, she told herself.
Willow shook her head. “No, it’s my story.”
Suddenly it was as if Buffy wasn’t even there. Her lover looked directly into her eyes. “She tipped my head back and licked my neck. I think she really wanted me, but, um, not in the food way ….”
Tara felt her knees go weak, and she shivered as a wave of desire swept through her. With her head turned away from Buffy, she was the only one to see the hunger in the green eyes.
“Yeah, Willow said she thought her vampire version was kinda gay.” Buffy sounded vastly amused.
Tara tore her eyes off her lover’s face and dropped them to the table. She had images, of Willow, and, well – Willow. Oh goddess!
Willow released her hand with a little squeeze and glared at her best friend. “Are you all right, Tara? That didn’t scare you, did it?”
Tara looked up, her face composed, although a little flushed. “Oh, I’m f-fine.”
“Good.” Willow smiled at her with slightly narrowed eyes.
“H-How did you get away?” Tara asked, knowing there was more to the story.
“She asked me if I wanted to be bad and then growled – which if I’d been g… a guy, would probably have sounded sexy – and that was really disturbing. I twisted away and shoved a cross in her face, which maybe wasn’t such a good idea, ‘cause it made her mad, and she threw me right over the circulation desk. Which was actually okay, in a Bre’r Rabbit – Tar Baby kind of way, ‘cause that’s where the tranquilizer gun was. When she came around the corner, I shot her and she keeled right over. I got the others and we stashed her in the library cage.” Willow seemed to run down, and finished up with, “It was kinda scary.”
She reached out again and squeezed her lover’s hand in understanding. Scary, yes, but not in the normal way, at least normal scary for Sunnydale. Suddenly coming face to face with the possibility of having unconventional feelings was never easy. Doing it while in a vampire’s embrace had to be downright terrifying.
It did, however, explain Willow’s neck thing.
“Willow was pretty weirded out by the whole thing, but I told her a vamp’s personality doesn’t have anything to do with what they were like as a human,” Buffy continued, “as if Willow would ever be evil, or skanky, or gay.” The Slayer snorted.
Willow withdrew her hand with a jerk.
Tara shut her eyes a moment in resignation. “S-So wh-what h-happened?”
“I had this idea that Willow disguise herself as her evil twin. We swapped their clothes ….” Buffy picked up the story.
“She didn’t have any underwear on,” Willow said softly.
“Euww, I forgot that part – and you had to put on those skin-tight pants. Euwww!” As Buffy shuddered, Tara fought back the impulse to laugh
Willow sat up and poked Buffy. “Hey, vampire – at least the leathers she had on weren’t warm. That would have been even more disturbing. It was bad enough that we had to dress her in my favorite tights. Remember how hard it was to get her pants off and the tights on .…” Willow seemed to suddenly realize that she was perhaps sharing too much information, and closed her mouth with an audible snap.
Tara grabbed for her glass of water, and took several quick swallows to keep from laughing out loud. Buffy definitely looked like she remembered.
“S-So she was l-locked up while you went to the B-Bronze?”
“Well, sort of. Or at least she was, until Cordelia released her – accidentally, but that’s really a whole other story and we only have Cordy’s version, and Queen C has this tendency to …” Buffy hunted for a word. “… embezzle.” She crinkled her brow, obviously not sure that was right.
“Embellish. She embellishes,” Willow corrected her friend. “So, we went over to the Bronze. Oh, Tara, it was sooo embarrassing walking around in public in that outfit. I looked like …”
“A dominatrix,” Buffy supplied with a chuckle. “Willow actually had a bosom, with cleavage and everything. And I still think slut-bomb is accurate.”
“Buffy, I have cleavage!” The redhead defended her body. Buffy merely raised an eyebrow. “Well, I do. I just don’t show it to everyone is all – just certain people.” She blushed, and Tara remembered that one of those certain people was Buffy, who’d apparently helped her swap clothes with her vampire self – and that she herself was another. She decided to “rescue” her lover.
“Y-You had on leather?”
Willow looked at her with one eyebrow arched. “Yessiree, black leather – from my shoulders to my toes.”
“Oh.” Tara tried to wrap her mind around the image of her lover in skin-tight black leather. She was apparently successful, given the feeling she was getting right below her stomach. She wondered if she could get away with fanning herself. “Wh-What h-happened n-next?”
“Willow went into the Bronze alone and tried to convince her evil twin’s minions that she was their boss. She was able to get two or three of them to step outside so the rest of us could kill them. But, um, Anya kinda caught on when she suggested giving everyone a head start, and we had to come busting in to rescue Will.” Buffy continued the story.
“W-Wait, Anya was helping the vampires?” Tara asked, confused again.
“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that part. Sorry.” Buffy apologized. “Anya was at the Bronze when vampire Willow showed up with her minions.”
“She apparently figured out what had happened, that vampire me was there because the spell didn’t work right. So she told my evil twin what we’d done and where to find me,” Willow explained. “That’s how evil-me found me in the library.”
“So, …” Buffy went back to the action part of the story. “… We’re having this big old fight in the Bronze …”
“I clocked Anya good!” Willow inserted.
“… and in dashes Will’s evil twin, only of course she’s in Willow’s fuzzy pink sweater and tights – which didn’t look nearly as scary as the leather – and goes for Willow.” The Slayer picked up the story again, oblivious to the potential double meaning of her statement.
“Buffy almost staked her right then, but instead we re-captured her. After we dusted all the other vamps and got things figured out, we took evil-me back to where she first materialized. The two of us swapped clothes again, and we sent her back to her own world.”
“I’m still not sure that was the right thing to do,” Buffy said. “I mean, Slayer, vampire – the vampire should always d…” She stopped. “Never mind.” Her voice shook a little, but then her jaw firmed. “What I still can’t believe is that you actually gave her a hug. Euww. And she groped you! Double euwwww.”
Willow shrugged. “I just wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to be bad, and that seemed the best way.”
Tara gazed back and forth between the two friends. “And th-that’s the story?”
“Yep.” Buffy slid her chair back from the table and Willow did likewise.
Tara wasn’t quite ready to leave. “And th-this Anya, she’s y-your friend?”
“Um ...,” Willow hesitated and sat back down, followed by Buffy.
“Not precisely,” the Slayer clarified, then added charitably, “But she’s working on it.”
“I was just gonna say no, Buffy,” Willow objected. “Tare, what she is, is an ex-vengeance demon who happens to be Xander’s girlfriend. She’s rude, and abrasive, and says pretty much anything that pops into her head – and what pops into her head can be pretty bizarre, believe me! But I think Xander loves her. I’ve asked him why – and how – he can love a demon, or even an ex-demon, but he doesn’t really know. And she’s also a Scooby ally now, although she’s not nearly as obnoxious about it as Spike is.”
“Oh.” Tara felt her hopes crumble.
“Wait – Spike? Tara knows about Spike?” Buffy leaned forward.
“Uh, I didn’t tell you? Well, of course I didn’t, duh, why else would you be asking if I’d told you ...,” the redhead babbled.
“Will? Spike, when and where?” Buffy queried.
“Last night, on campus, while we were walking back to Tara’s dorm. Before we bumped into you.” Willow supplied the requested information.
“He was on campus? Is he
trying to get re-captured? What a moron.” Buffy banged her forehead on the table. “And why exactly do I care?”
“Because he’s good in a fight?” Willow offered.
“Well, yeah, if you pay him enough.” Buffy stood up from the table again. “That’s one vamp I’m gonna give a piece of my mind the next time I see him.” She turned to Tara. “So, Tara, do you want to come back to Stevenson with us, or do you have other stuff to do?”
“I sh-should go. I didn’t get m-much studying done over the w-weekend.” Tara stood, smiling sheepishly. She suspected Willow wasn’t too happy about Buffy’s assumption that Willow would be returning to their shared room.
“You and Willow. Study, study, study. If it’s not books, it’s magic.” Buffy paused. “I have a late class tomorrow, but how about Thursday after dinner the three of us go to the Espresso Pump for mochas?”
“S-Sounds kind of nice.” Tara jumped in before Willow had a chance to say no and watched her lover give a reluctant nod. She wanted to know Willow’s best friend.
“Cool. We have a date.” The Slayer bounced. “So, why don’t Willow and I walk you back to your dorm?” She turned away without waiting for them to follow.
Tara sidled up to her lover, and since the Slayer’s back was turned, they very briefly entwined their fingers. It was going to be another long night apart.
“T-Tomorrow?” she whispered.
“Uh-huh,” Willow agreed.
Dropping their hands, they followed Buffy out of the cafeteria.
Edited by: Triscuit7 at: 8/7/02 3:45:01 am
Hope it's okay.
Great update!
Very sweet.
Great stuff and i'll be waiting here for more 
