And she came to me at night time...
By spellgal
(spellgal@hotmail.com)
Disclaimer: The characters of Willow, Tara, Buffy and anyone else you recognise are the property of Fox, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar and the irrepressible Mr Joss Whedon. No infringement intended, no money exchanged, much love invested.
Timeline: Set soon after Who Are You?
Rating: PG - F/F smoochies. If this isn't your thing - stop reading now. Smoochies is about as far as it goes though, Willow/Tara were just kind of a PG couple.
Spoilers: Dopplegangland, This Years Girl and Who Are You?
Distribution: Pretty much anywhere, but please ask me first!
Feedback: Yes please. When I do good, Giles gives me a cookie Anything constructive is much appreciated.
Thanks: To DS whose off-hand comment started the whole process in my mind. To Terri for beta-reading, and to all those who offered support in this, my first foray into fanfiction.
Note: This was actually written and completed last year, wow over a year ago now, and it has taken me this long to actually get the courage to post this…so here it goes :+)
The redhead waited silently outside the blonde witch's dorm room. 'Well, this should be fun' she thought, raising her hand and knocking lightly three times. She didn't really know how she'd gotten here. Walked? Ha-ha, yeah, that must have been it! She grinned slightly. With nothing else to do, she glanced down at herself as she waited. The black thigh-high boots that made her legs look much longer than they actually were, the binding black corset with burgundy ruffles barely covering her cleavage, with the matching long burgundy sleeves. She adjusted the bodice slightly, then wiped her hands down the black leather of the form-fitting pants that completed the outfit. Satisfied with her appearance, she looked around the corridor and realised what it was she was about to do. Too late to turn back now though, she thought. She was here and she knew exactly what she wanted to do.
She waited, thinking about the occupant she could now hear stirring on the other side of the door. She'd noticed the pretty blonde almost immediately. It was hard not to. Not only was she beautiful, but she also held a lot of power - power easily recognised by one such as herself. She was sure that that was a part of what had led her here now. It was part of her attraction to the girl.
The girl reminded her a lot of someone she knew, or used to know. She smiled, remembering the shy sweet fuzzy Willow, and thought about how long ago that seemed. Was it only last year? Oh yeah, this girl reminded her a lot of, well...her really. She was cute and sweet and tried to blend into the background. The blonde witch was just her type, if indeed she had a type. She had come here to see if maybe she was the shy Wiccan's type too. She wanted to share snuggles and whatever else with the blonde beauty. Just then, the door opened to reveal the object of her musings, dressed in a long blue skirt with an orange ruffle along the bottom, chunky black boots, and a long sleeved t-shirt. As she surveyed the other girl, her gaze came to rest on her neck, and the two necklaces that lay there - one tight around her neck and the other framing her collar bone, threatening to disappear into the top of the shirt she wore.
"Hi Will, come on in." Tara smiled happily as she stood aside and held the door open for her friend. It wasn't until Willow had crossed the threshold and stood standing just inside the door that Tara really looked at her and noticed what she was wearing.
"Ah, Willow," she began " Um, Willow? Ah, w..w...what are you wearing?"
"Hmm?"
"What are you wearing? You know. The...the…leather?"
"Oh right, that!' she grinned. "I just thought I'd try a new look?" she ventured.
Tara just stared.
Willow smiled at her, and began walking around the room.
Tara continued to watch her.
As she moved silently around the room, Willow examined its contents like she'd never seen them before - running her hands over objects as she passed them, scrutinising the fairy lights strung across the wall. She picked up some papers and glanced briefly at them before returning them to their place on the dresser. Trailing her palms along one of the many throws tossed over a piece of furniture, knocking it askew and trying to readjust it slightly before moving on to the next item. She picked up the phone, noticing its rich, blood red, colour and pulled the cord from the wall with a quick unnoticed jerk of her wrist before she returned it to its resting place on the table beside the bed, almost knocking the lamp over as she did so.
Willow continued her circuit of the room. Tara had never seen her in this mood before. It was not the nervous pacing she had seen her friend do before, particularly when they had first started hanging out together. It was like she was stalking around the room, leaving her mark. It was almost predatory in nature. Willow wasn't acting like herself. And then it dawned on her. The clothes. The way she walked. The way she held herself. Even the way her speech seemed more pronounced.
"Oh my God, you're her."
"Who?" Willow questioned with a smirk.
"Her. W...W...Willow, no, not Willow - not m...m...my Willow. The other Willow. The evil, skanky and kinda...the Willow from the oth...other universe."
"Oh, well, I see she told you about me then. It's good to know that she's telling her new little friends about me. Evil? She said I was evil? And skanky? Well, okay...maybe a little." she smirked at the blonde "I'm Willow...It's so nice to meet you."
Willow started to move towards Tara, the blonde unconsciously taking a step back in response, looking at the redhead wearily - studying her. Tara avoided the other girl - crossing to the other side of the room and sitting on her bed, back against the wall. She hadn't made any move to hurt her, so Tara took this as a good sign, but she was still a little nervous as she continued to study...Willow.
Willow sighed and walked towards the bed, running her hands along the cream lace comforter before sitting on the edge opposite the other girl.
"Okay, look. I'm not going to hurt you, okay?"
Tara looked up to meet Willow's gaze. "Okay" she replied slowly.
"I won’t bite. Well, not unless you want me to" Willow continued grinning.
Tara started and stared at the other girl, and realising that she was in fact joking, allowed herself to relax slightly, letting her eyes wander around her room.
Willow watched the girl noticing again how beautiful she was as she was sitting there - not quite relaxed, but at least not ready to run. Not yet anyway, she thought fleetingly. At least she'd done an okay job putting the blonde at ease. Seeing her there, all nervous energy, Willow realised it was time to make her move.
Tara felt the bed shift beneath her and returned her attention to Willow. The redhead had scooted forward and was now seated next to her. She reached out cupping Tara's cheek softly in her hand, leaning her body towards her.
"W..W..Willow? um, w...w...what are you doing?" Tara stammered, her heart beating faster - from fear or desire, she wasn’t sure. Willow leaned in closer, a seductive smile playing on her lips.
"I thought...I mean..." Willow started, then, composing herself continued "What does it look like I'm doing? You want her, don't you? I can feel it. Well you can have me - you want to...don't you? Just kiss me and it'll be like kissing her. And that's what you really want isn't it? To kiss Willow? Well, that's what I'm offering."
A sight whimper escaped from Tara. Willow backed off slightly to look at the other girl before advancing again.
"Um -but Willow, I..." Tara was cut off as Willow closed the final distance between them and kissed her.
For a heartbeat Tara stopped breathing when she felt the redheads lips touch hers tentatively. She was very still - just letting Willow kiss her - letting the sensation envelop her. Enjoying the feel of Willow's soft warm lips.
"Will..." she tried again.
"Shhh" Willow said, pressing a finger against Tara's lips. "Just kiss me." Willow moved in again, her hands coming up to tangle in blonde hair. This time when Willow kissed her, Tara started to slowly kiss her back.
'Oh' Tara thought 'She wants me as much as I want her.'
With this knowledge, Tara relaxed into the embrace with the other girl. Her kisses, at first slow and tentative, became bolder as she felt Willow's tongue start to press for entrance into her mouth. Reaching behind Willow's head, Tara pulled the other girl even closer, molding her body to Willow's. Willow moaned into the kiss and moved even closer to Tara.
She hadn't expected the blonde to be so willing, or to take the lead so readily. In fact, she hadn't really been quite sure what to expect. She's hoped the girl would be responsive, but she could only have dreamed how responsive Tara was being. 'Yeah, some seductress you turned out to be', she chided herself. 'She starts to kiss you and you start to fall apart' Willow thought, becoming further lost in Tara's touch.
She felt Tara's mouth start to descend down her neck. Tara’s hands move down her back, settling on her hips. Her body moved forward even more, causing Willow to lose her balance and fall backwards on the bed. Tara wasted no time, scooting down to cover Willow's body with her own, and immediately descending again on her lips. Her hands too becoming bolder - one on the bed for balance, but the other sliding down her torso before being content to trace lines up and down Willow's side. Willow returned Tara's touch - her hands wrapping around the other woman to make small circles on Tara's lower back, continuing to kiss her and becoming totally lost in Tara. Tara was so beautiful and she was here - half lying on her - kissing her. She was so soft sweet and warm - she smelled of soap and herbs - and Willow loved it. She loved the feel of Tara in her arms - of kissing her - of holding her. Why had she waited so long? Actually, she knew the answer to that question.
She'd been so afraid of Tara's rejection, and the last thing she'd wanted to do was jeopardise the deep friendship she had formed with the other Wiccan. But she'd started having feelings for Tara not long after they'd met - sure, they were a little confused at first, but they were there, and she couldn't keep them hidden any longer. She'd wanted to tell Tara everything about herself, and learn everything about Tara in return. The main reason she'd told her about her doppelganger was to try and gauge her reaction to the 'kinda gay' bit of the description. But Tara's expression had remained neutral - her reaction mild. She had just listened intently, like she always did when Willow chose to share things with her. She hadn't bolted, so that had been a good sign, but Willow was still unsure if Tara was capable of having feelings for another woman. She had been attentive, and had smiled that shy little smile of hers, but Willow had been no closer to knowing if Tara could possibly have feelings for her, like the ones that she had come to develop for the shy blonde. Feelings for another woman? Willow Rosenberg had certainly changed a lot over the past few years. Until she'd met her doppelganger, it wasn't something she'd ever really considered. Sure, she'd thought about it a lot after that incident - particularly given what Angel had said, or been trying to say when Buffy had shut him up. He'd said that what you became as a vampire was directly related to how you were now. The implication of that statement had been that somewhere inside Willow was the ability to be attracted to other women. So yeah, she'd thought about it. She’d thought about it a lot. But she'd never acted on it. There had been Oz, and they'd been happy, and so...well, the opportunity had never really come up. That had all changed when she'd met Tara. Oz was out of the picture, and the floodgates had just sort of opened up. All of a sudden she'd found herself having evil lusty thoughts about the girl who had become one of her closest friends.
She hadn't known how to go about approaching Tara. Hadn't known how to go about turning their deep friendship into something more - which is why she'd told her about her doppelganger. When that hadn't worked - Willow had come up with a plan. It had seemed like a good idea when she had thought of it. But now, in the middle of acting on it, she realised how unfair she was being to the girl now curled beside her, and at that moment starting to run her tongue along the outside of Willow's left ear. Willow moaned at the contact and lost her train of thought. The plan. Yeah. The plan had been simple enough - dress as evil Willow and show up at Tara's to see if she was willing to be seduced by another girl, and more specifically, a girl who happened to look exactly like Willow - even though she wasn't, but she was - kinda. Now in addition to her thoughts, not to mention her emotions, spinning out of control, Willow was starting to get a headache. This always happened when she thought about the whole alternate universe thingy. She was confused. Actually, she was beyond confused, and Tara, who was now trailing light butterfly kisses down her neck and along her collarbone, was not really helping alleviate that confusion. In fact, she was the main cause of it.
Willow realised that she could not do this - it wasn't fair. Why hadn't she thought about it more before she'd gone through with this whole crazy idea? Tara was going to be hurt, and it was going to be her fault. She couldn't deceive Tara like this - couldn't seduce her - not like this. It was wrong. As much as she was enjoying the contact with the other girl, she knew she had to stop it. What sort of friend was she anyway? How could she have failed to consider Tara and the effect that this would have on her? Sure, she didn't do it to hurt the other girl - but that was beside the point. She had just wanted know what Tara was feeling. Of course, she could have simply asked her - but she'd been too afraid to do that. Even so, she should not have gone about it like this. There was a lot of difference between acting on feelings with a person you cared about, and acting out a fantasy with a person you thought was someone else, albeit someone who happened to look exactly like that person. She had let her guard down and acted on something that she normally wouldn't have acted on - and all because of a lie. Tara couldn't possibly know the ramifications of acting on her feelings, because she didn't know she was acting on them. A line had been crossed and poor Tara didn't even know she had crossed it. Willow could not do this to the girl she loved.
"Tara." Willow breathed, trying to break contact with the girl pressed against her body. "Tara – stop," she tried again, bringing her hands to Tara's shoulders and gently pushing her away.
"Huh?" Tara replied, disoriented from the loss of contact.
"Tara. It's me." Willow said timidly, the edge of shyness creeping back into her voice. She stood up from the bed and walked away slowly before turning to look at her friend, her Tara "It's me" she repeated, stronger this time "Willow, I mean, Willow Willow, your Willow," she hung her head, averting her eyes from Tara's and the hurt she expected to see there as she continued "Oh Tara, I'm so sorry."
"Will..."
"No look, I didn't mean to take it this far, or maybe I did - I don't know - I don't know what I was doing, except, well, I do. But, I didn't do it to hurt you - I didn't mean to deceive you. I just wanted to know if you...To see if you could...If you felt? Oh, I don't know. I just didn't know what you were feeling, and I was scared that you wouldn't feel the same way, and yes, I know I'm babbling, but I'm kinda on a roll now, and I need to say this, so please just let me, okay? I care about you Tara, but I didn't want to screw up our friendship, and I thought if I pretended to be her and you didn't feel the same way, I wouldn't have to deal with the rejection...I could just pretend that it never happened, that it wasn't me and I could just listen to you tell me how she tried to seduce you. But when you kissed me back - it felt so good - the you kissing me part, not the me lying to you part. And I realised that I shouldn't have done it. It wasn't fair to you - you acted differently than you would have if you'd known it was me and not her, and although that was kinda the point, I shouldn't have done it...oh, I'm so sorry Tara.” She buried her head in her hands and began to sob quietly. She started when she felt Tara's hand come to rest lightly on her shoulder. She hadn't even heard her get up from the bed.
"Willow?” Tara began quietly. No response. "Willow," she tried again, more forcefully.
"Hmm?" Willow asked raising her head slightly to almost meet Tara's gaze.
"It's okay Will - I knew."
"Huh?"
"I knew. I mean, I knew it was you - not her."
"You did?"
"Uh huh. Well, not right away, the clothes kind of threw me for a minute," she added looking at Willow from between the curtain of blonde hair that had strayed over her face, and giving her a small smile.
Willow blinked in surprise before returning the smile "You knew? And you still...I mean, you...we...ah, how did you know?" Her eyebrows furrowed, almost meeting in the middle while her lips puckered into a half pout as she concentrated on this new piece of information. Tara thought she look adorable, but continued the conversation quickly.
"Well remember what I told you about a person's energy? How it had a flow? A unity? Well, your energy, it's still...you know, yours. Even though she's still you - kind of you - your energies would be different. Plus, when we were, you know, close, I could feel your heart racing." Tara smiled at her.
"Huh? Oh yeah, I guess I didn't think of that." Willow grinned sheepishly. "But, um, Tara? You knew it was me and you kissed me? I mean, even if you thought it was her, she still looks like me, and she’s a girl, and you still...you kissed me!"
"Um, yeah. I guess I did huh?"
"So what does that mean? Do you like me? Are you attracted to me? To women in general? Wh..."
"Willow, I told you I was yours. What did you think I meant by that?"
"Well, I thought, I mean, I hoped that it meant that you were interested, but well, we hadn't really talked about it, and I didn't want to lose your friendship if you didn't feel the same way."
"Same way? So you do like me? I mean, you are interested in me?"
"Of course I am, that's why I did all of this. I liked you Tara...I do like you...I care about...I want you...I just needed to know if you felt the same way...If you feel the same way?"
"Oh Willow...I do. But Will?"
"Yeah?" Willow replied with a goofy grin spreading across her features as she tried to concentrate on Tara's words.
"We've really got to talk about things more" Tara smiled.
Willow laughed. "Yeah, I guess we do. But not right now 'kay?"
"No?"
"No. There's other stuff I'd rather do now" she grinned wickedly - feeling much more confidant now that everything was out in the open.
"Other stuff?" Tara replied innocently, afffected by Willow's playful tone. "Like what? 'Cause there's a new spell I'd like to try, or perhaps you could help me study, or maybe you'd like to...”
"Shh" Willow interrupted swatting Tara playfully "Just kiss me."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, we could do that" Tara replied, smiling her wonderful full smile. Tara returned to her place of earlier that evening - in the circle of Willow's arms. Willow enveloped her and they continued to snuggle. Tara smiled again, finally secure in the knowledge that as much as she was Willow's, Willow was every bit as much hers.
END
spellgal 2000