Part 17
"Try again!"
"I can't!"
"Sure you can. Just move your fingers a bit faster."
"I'm trying!"
"Well, try flexing them more."
"Ah... you're right. It's better now."
"Of course it is. I'm pro when it comes to this."
"Oh no... I lost it. Now we have to start all over again!"
"Relax... you're too tense for this now. And don't forget to move your foot."
"Lorie, I'm not sure I can do this." The blonde girl looked up to the black haired girl, devastated. "I try and I try but I'm never gonna be good at it. And I wanna be good. For Willow."
Lorie smiled warmly at the younger girl "Tara, you so can do it. I've seen you doing it when you're not thinking so much about it. All you need is practice. I believe there is no thing in the world I can't do if I try hard enough and don't give up."
Tara relaxed a little and smiled " I see that. You're just like Faith. Always aiming high and getting up as soon as you fall. Something like that requires great strength and courage. I don't have that."
The black haired girl got up and looked out of the window. "It's just piano ara... one song. That just takes a bit of practice."
The blonde cast a sad look at the piano and sighed. Lorie was right, in the end, it was Tara that had asked Lorie to teach her to play I Would Do Anything For Love. She couldn't just give up. It was their six months anniversary, and she wanted
to do something special for Willow, but her fingers weren't cooperating. It was Emily who had suggested to her to nag Lorie into this. Apparently Lorie had played piano since she was a kid, and it turned out she was really good at it.
"So... I heard you write songs." she tried to change the subject.
Lorie nodded smiling "Yeah. Through all this shit that was happening to me over the years, I had to let it out somehow, and playing piano was perfect. Emma loved it. She would
sit and listen to me play for hours. That's how we kissed, you know. I was playing something and she sat next to me and played it with me and our hands touched, eyes met... and
we kissed. And it's how I got a scholarship to Harvard."
She looked sad, Tara thought, like she was remembering a time when she thought her future would be lighter. Truth be told, Tara liked Lorie very much. Under the tough act, there was a sweet and thoughtful girl who just wanted to be happy, something Tara could relate to.
"Come on Lorie- Let's give it one more shot."
* * *
"What are you doing?"
The redhead jumped up, a little frightened by the voice from the door.
"Emily! Goddess, you scared me." She eased up a little once she realized who was at the door. "I thought it was Tara"
The brunette entered the room, and looked at the mess Willow made on the bed.
"Yeah I figured I
quote d scared you, but what the hell are you doing?"
Willow looked at the papers on the bed and shrugged. "I was trying to come up with a perfect idea for our six months anniversary. But as you can see I have no idea what to do."
Emily smiled softly at the younger girl. Boy could she relate to that! Lorie was always very thoughtful and surprised her for every anniversary and birthday. Which only made things harder for Emily. It was difficult trying to top that, but then she realized it was even worse for Lorie, cause she felt
she needed to top last year's present.
"Hmm... what did you have in mind?" She decided since she'd already helped Tara, she could even the score by helping Willow too. "Presents, dinner...?"
Willow sat on the bed and looked at her, glad of some kind of help. " Well, I wanted to draw something... her mother. But I can't get a hold of her picture without Tara noticing. And even with a picture... well I can't quite catch the soul of the person just by looking at some picture."
"You can draw?" Emily asked, surprised. Then a thought formed in her head. "Do you need to look at something while you draw or is one good look enough?"
Thinking about it for a while, the redhead replied, "No I have to look at it."
"Are you fast?" Emily smiled. "How long would it take you to draw something like that?"
Looking confused, Willow replied "An hour for rough outlines. I could work on the details without looking at the picture later."
"Good. I can help you, but it will take some sucking up to Lorie."
* * *
Faith dusted the last vampire and high fived Buffy.
"We're done for tonight" the blonde slayer said, and smiled. Slaying was much more fun now Faith was around. "So, how are the twins? I haven't seen them in a while. Been busy with school and slaying."
Faith, the official bodyguard and babysitter grimaced " I'm not really good with kids so they're killing me"
Buffy laughed. They'd chosen Faith to baby-sit, cause she was the one with the most free time on her hands, and super strength.
"They can't be that bad. I know Evan's a bit spirited but Jessie is such a cutie."
Faith whined and threw her hands to the sky " Jessie is the problem. I can connect with Evan. I know what's she's up to before she does. But Jessie... I'm not good with stories and songs and all that crap."
"I think you're great with kids. One day you'll be a good mother." The blonde slayer started walking, leaving a stunned Faith behind.
The brunette opened her mouth, then closed it, and opened it again "Why would I wanna be a mother? That last vamp must have hit you on the head. We should probably go to the hospital and see what's wrong with it."
Buffy laughed, and half turned towards Faith, her smile so bright the whole graveyard could see it. "Oh come on Faithy... you know you wanna have babies. Lots and lots of babies!" She had to duck when a stake flew above her
head, but by now she was laughing so hard even Faith had to join in.
"Yeah right. Fuck, B, you really have some wild ideas in that pretty head." she whispered, catching her breath. She knew the other slayer could hear her, but she still cast a quick glance to be sure.
Buffy was fully turned round now "You think I'm pretty?"
Shrugging, Faith walked right past her. "I only said your head was pretty. The rest... well, you're too skinny."
"Am not!"
"Are too."
"Fine. You win." Buffy gave up, and jogged over to join Faith "You wanna go to the Bronze?"
For a moment, it looked like Faith was going to say no, but then she shrugged once again "Why not? I sure am hungry and horny and I could find something to eat at the Bronze."
"What about Astra? Don't you usually eat... er, her?" Buffy asked, horrified at thinking about Tara's little sister like that, but unable to stop the words escaping her mouth.
Looking annoyed, Faith smiled "Remind me again which slayer has a one track mind?"
Buffy smiled apologetically, and nearly missed the haunted expression on Faith's face. Nearly. "What's wrong?"
She could read dark slayer pretty well by now. If Faith looked like nothing was bothering her and made sex references just twice in an hour something was up. Faith gave her best "I'm not gonna tell you" face, but something told Buffy she would actually tell her what's wrong if she only pushed a bit.
"Come on. Everyone needs a friend they could talk to. I know you have this big bad attitude around everyone, but if you actually admit to me that something's bothering you I'm not gonna tell anybody."
"I really don't want to talk about it," was all she got before Faith stormed off.
"Great Buffy" she mumbled to herself "Just great."
* * *
"Emma... you must have lost all of your marbles while I was away! How did you get that kind of idea? You know I don't use my power for something like that! I mean teaching Tara to play piano is one thing but this... this is abuse of my power!"
Lorie was storming through the house, waving her hands and shouting, while Emily followed her around, trying to get Lorie to listen to her.
"Now listen to me Lorelai Karlstein! Using your power to make someone happy is always a good use of your power." she shouted, making sure Lorie wouldn't interrupt her. "And this is an image calling. It's something Evan could do and just about as dangerous as Jessie is."
The black haired girl shook her head "You make it all sound soooo simple. Well life ain't simple! It's hard and complicated, and sometimes there are things you have to do, even if you don't want to do them. And I can't do this."
She started to walk past Emily, but the brunette grabbed her hand, and pulled her closer, making eye contact. After gazing into her eyes for a moment, Emily pulled away.
"I should have known. How long's it been? Six months? A year? Why?"
Lorie pulled away and sat on the stairs, pulling her fingers through black tresses "A bit over 5 months. I'm sorry, I should have told you."
Fighting between being mad and being curious, Emily sat next to her girlfriend "Why?" her curiosity got better of her "Why would you do something like that? After all that was sacrificed why would you stop using your powers 5 months ago?"
"I met this girl, Em she was only 5 years old, just a child. Her name was Ella. She lost her parents when she was only 3 and lived in different foster care over the next two years. I met her when she moved in to my building after she finally got
a family. Ella reminded me of you. She had the same carefree spirit you did when you were 5. And she was such a lovely kid." Lorie was crying by now, and Emily gently hugged her, sensing that the ending of this story wasn't nice.
"What happened?" she asked carefully.
The black haired girl looked at her with teary eyes "Life happened. She had this accident, she was playing with other kids in the park and fell over something, right onto this pointy fence. They got her to hospital and into the surgery and everything seemed to be ok, but then... she lost a lot of blood so they gave her a transfusion. The blood she got... the blood was infected, with HIV. She died 2 years later. I tried... I really tried to get her back but... I couldn't. My power wasn't good enough to make her solid and healthy. All I could do was pull her shade out, make her a soulless being. And I didn't want to do that."
Emily kissed her best friend, and hugged her as hard as she could "My sweet Lorelai, life is just that. It takes things away from you so you can appreciate the things you still have."
Lorie looked hard at Emily "It tried to take you away from me. Twice by death, and once by circumstances. But you still found me. And I still found you."
Smiling softly, Emily stood up and pulled Lorie into her arms. "Come on girl. Lets go to bed. And tomorrow... tomorrow the world will change."
* * *
A soft knock brought her out of her daydreaming. "Come in Tara." she responded lightly, and watched as the door opened and the blonde girl walked in, confused.
"How did you know it was me?" Tara wondered, amused.
Shrugging, Willow got off her bed, and pulled Tara into an embrace "I just knew."
Wrapping her arms tighter around the smaller girl Tara sighed. It felt so nice just being with Willow, hugging her, kissing her. "I went to bed and missed you so much I couldn't sleep."
Burying her face into blonde tresses, Willow inhaled the scent she'd come to know as Tara's, and a new emotion flooded over
her. Most of the time Willow adored Tara, she always loved her and sometimes she just got this sudden urge to ravish her, but tonight, for the first time, she felt endeared. Everything about Tara made her smile.
"When were you planning on telling me about this?" The redhead reached behind Tara, and took a letter off her desk. "I found it in your room and just couldn't leave it there."
Pulling slightly out of the embrace to see what Willow was showing her, Tara grinned "Miss detective now?"
"Well, with my special skill of reading I found out that someone applied to art program in Europe. Wanna explain?" Even though redhead knew Tara not confiding in her should hurt, she also knew that this was something Tara had had to do alone. "I mean, this is a great opportunity."
But Tara just pulled the letter out of her hand, and threw it behind them "Talk later. Have sex now."
"You spend way too much time with Anya! And don't think you're getting out of this missy." Willow put on her best serious look, and Tara chuckled.
"Don't you understand Willow? Everything I do... I do it for you. Anything that might be special in me... is you." Tara grinned, and Willow smacked her playfully on the arm.
"Great Expectations. I see you've done some reading miss Maclay. Was that before of after you spent some time with Anya?"
"Before I applied BOTH of us for the Europe Art and Literature program."
For a moment, Willow just stood there, and then she collapsed right into Tara's arms. The blonde witch chuckled softly at Willow's reaction, and pulled her to the bed. Leaving soft kisses all over the redhead's face while she was
waking up, Tara's smile never left her face "We're going to Europe sweetie."
____________________________________________
"They say true friend knows song in your heart.
You're my song when I'm torn apart."
Lifetime, Me
by Still Waters T » Sat Jul 26, 2003 4:45 pm 
Willow has two twin sisters? I really didn't see this coming.
Hehe, this should be interesting.
And Tara's gonna help her take care of them, aww, it'll be like they're their parents.
Oh, I'm looking forward to seeing them handle not one but two six year olds.
but they have Willow and Tara....
.
helped 
calm down and Evan and Jessie are sooo cute! I love the way that 
more! 
Now I'm just to curious....
Update soon, please? 
stoping there! I have to know what happens next. What is up with Evan and does it have something to do with Jesse too? What is up with Lorei and Emily? 
and update more often!