I'll make it clear where the update starts in case no one wants to reread.
Spoiler warning: There will be a bit of spoils here and there but unless you have seen the episode and know the season you won’t know, so therefore its ok!
Title—Shall We Meet Again?
Rating—Could be anything, just be warned that most of it won’t be that highly rated but some might sneak in every now and again.
Copyright Disclaimer—These characters belong to Mutant Enemy, Joss Whedon, and all the other networks and or producing companies that aren’t me.
Notes—In this story Willow and Tara meet very young and sort of change the course of each others lives in some ways, although separated for a while true soul mates such as they can’t be apart for too long.
Author’s Note—I’m not a writer, but I love Willow and Tara and the whole Buffy gang so much that I can’t keep the ideas from pouring out and I know the general bits of every story I will write but I just have to get where I need to go in them. I have to see my ideas realized or I will be driven insane!
Alright here’s the story, hope at least one person enjoys the first chapter, it won’t be too long but long enough to stop my brain from babbling.
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Chapter One: The Wonder Years
by SylverMaki
Ira and Sheila Rosenberg awaited downstairs at the door for the cab driver. Willow watched out of an upstairs window while she talked to Xander over the phone about her worries with his summer school performance. She usually helped him with his school work, even though most of the time he put in as little effort as possible--the reason he was in summer school at all.
Her parents looked down at their watches as the driver pulled up and they noted his tardiness. Willow felt bad for him because they won't let him get away with that.
"Willow it's time to go, hurry!" Her mother's voice rung up from the front yard.
On the phone Xander tried to end the conversation, "I'll be fine Willow...I'm not as stupid as people think, I'm just lazy. I'm chuck full of smarty goodness I got from you." Willow rolled her eyes.
"Okay Xander, but if I come back and you failed...and I have to face third grade alone...with no friends that is, I am gonna beat your butt!"
"Okay….okay Will, I know your mom is yelling for you by now, you better get going." Willow knew he was right remembering her mother told her to hurry. She hung up and ran out the door and grabbed her duffel bag on the way.
"Willow, tardiness isn't a virtue you shouldn't make a habit of it." Her father announced within earshot of the cab driver.
“I know but I had to say good-bye to Xander, I won’t see him for a long time and he’ll probably need help with his homework. What will he do without me?” she whined a little.
“Personally, I think that Alec boy is a bad influence on you, he is so slow, you should find smarter friends dear.” Sheila chimed in as the cab pulled off. Willow thought to herself
‘you mean nerds like me’.
Willow sighed and knew she had no leverage with the argument. Time went by slowly in the cab, on the way to the airport. As usual Willow and her parents were taking separate flights, to different locations and wouldn’t see each other for the remainder of the summer. Willow was on the way to summer camp up in the wilderness near Oklahoma. Her parents were off to Europe on yet another business trip.
Arriving at the airport was hectic because of traffic and the fact that so many people seemed to on the way somewhere. Willow never quite understood where everyone was going. There wasn’t anywhere to pull up to the curb and let the Rosenbergs out. The cab driver parked in a lot, not particularly close to entrance.
“It look’s like an anthill, everyone scurrying in all at once like little workers.”
“Yea dad but only certain ants fly” Willow replied to her father’s analogy.
“That’s right honey but if they had brains like ours they could all fly if they wanted.”
Once the Rosenbergs were right inside the entrance of the airport, they said quick, emotionless good-bye’s before they set off in opposite directions. The good-bye was emotionless for her parents but as Willow walked away from them she couldn’t help but start to cry because of the loneliness she felt. Her parents seemed to always be away or busy and she didn’t really know them. To Willow her family was Xander, goofy Xander.
Willow thought of him as she waited near her terminal for the plane to arrive.
No one asked what an eight year old was doing alone in the airport or bothered her at all. She brought a book on computers with her to help her pass the time and another book on beginner witchcraft for the plane. These were her favorite things to read about, the computers because she understood them almost right away and the witchcraft because she always craved more power. Wanted to feel needed for something other than being brainy. She wanted to solve problems, to help people. But she only had Xander to help and she wasn’t doing too good a job at that because he was in summer school while she was off to, in Willow’s opinion, an awful place to pass the summer. Away from her friends and away from her familiar places.
Within an hour the plane arrived and the passengers were allowed to board. The flight attendant absentmindedly took the tickets without even glancing at faces. A few hours later Willow reached her destination and of course her parents had someone waiting for her with her name on one of those poster boards. A cab driver.
“So, Willow, that’s your name right...like the tree.” Willow nodded and the driver saw from the rearview mirror and he chuckled.
“Enjoy your flight, did you eat many of the peanuts?”
“I did munch a few bags, got bored after a while, I read the two books I brought and all I could do was worry about Xander and wonder if he is gonna do okay in school. I mean I am the one who helps him, I’m the one who understands him. But I know he is capable of more than what people think and I sorta know he’ll be ok, you know. On the other hand he is easily distracted and never finds time to study, always doodling and….”
“Whoa, once you get started, it must be hard for you to stop huh?” Willow’s face was flushed and she looked out the window to seem distracted.
“Well here we are Willow, I hope you have a good time at camp, meet some other people besides your boyfriend Xander.”
“He’s not…” she decided not to finish that sentence as it would only prove that she did feel something for him. Willow jumped out of the cab and dragged her duffel bag along. Not able to help it, she turned and smiled at the driver who had shown her more attention and affection than her parents did at the airport and silently thanked him.
When the cab drove off she noticed a large group of girls, being this is a girl’s camp, at the center of the parking lot and walked in that direction. She drew near and could make out what a counselor was saying,
“Alright, we are bunking the cabins in twos, this is a smaller camp and there is only about fifty girls, and excluding the counselor cabins and lunch quarters there are twenty-five cabins. Your bunk partner is your everything partner so I’d advice you become friends quickly because you’ll be seeing a great deal of each other. The list of partners is on the notice board at the right before the cabins, find your last name and then your cabin number is next to it. Good luck and have fun this summer!”
All the girl’s started running toward the notice board, they seemed to know each other already and hoped that they were assigned with whoever they wanted to be with. One other girl, not Willow, wasn’t moving quite so fast. Willow walked up to her and matched her pace,
“I mean when you get there you get there, running over won’t change who your with, you know.”
“I…I..” that’s all the girl can get out before Willow blurts out realizing that girl stutters.
“Don’t worry I can talk enough for the both of us. Unless you don’t want to hear me talk, which is a total possibility. There you go again Rosenberg assuming that people want to hear you go on, I’m doing it now aren’t I. Ok, ok I’ll stop.”
“No ii..t’s o..o..kay.” the girl reassures Willow, despite the difficulty she seems to have with speech. Willow smiles at this response and they continue to walk together toward the board in silence.
At the board Willow ran her fingers up the alphabetically ordered list of last names and found Rosenberg, bunk thirteen.
“Hey, um, by the way what is your name?” she asked the stuttering girl when she realized she didn’t know it.
“Tara…Maclay.” Willow runs her fingers down the names and finds Maclay, and to her surprise and joy she found out they are in the same bunk.
“Neat, we are together! Isn’t that lucky…well let’s go find the cabin and put are stuff away.”
Update Really Starts HERE
Tara didn’t say anything but as Willow walked forward Tara slightly smiled to herself. To her surprise she was a little hopeful that friendship was on the horizon for them. Since she didn’t have any except for her mother, it felt good for her to have a possibility. But her somewhat secretive skills instantly put up a wall between the two girls. How was Tara to know that Willow was interested in witchcraft?
Although Willow just mostly read about the powers and the collective spells she managed to find in regular public libraries or in bookstores, she didn’t practice. Frankly she thought it was kinda silly that anything like that existed, because she was always so logical but she was interested nonetheless.
The cabins were in five rows of five, so the first five in the front went from left to right, one to five, then six to ten and so forth. Willow’s math skills had them walking up the middle back to the third row, right to cabin thirteen. The shortest distance is always a straight line.
“Here we are, it’s weird…we are right in the middle like this. The middle of the middle, in thirteen, known to be unlucky but isn’t really…”
“Yea, I t..think it’s a sign…” Tara stopped mid-sentence frightened that she might too badly stutter but more frightened that she might reveal something that’s would scare Willow off for the summer. Willow on the other hand was glad she was a little more comfortable and started talking more.
“Really, what kind of sign… you mean sort of like a place of mystical convergence? The center of existence in this local space?” Tara starred at her wide-eyed.
“Oh, I read about it in this book I brought along, you can look over it when we un-pack if you want. Unless you think I’m totally weird now…I try not to seem weird when I’m first around someone…but when I get nervous I can hardly help it…how am I supposed to, I think it’s some kinda nervous reaction or me defending against things that you need to be defendy against…”
“Willow! I..I..think i..it’s neat you know about t..that.” A surprised Tara blurted out.
Willow just looked on a little taken aback herself and then opened the door of their cabin.
The room itself wasn’t very large; there were no bathrooms because that cabin happened to be down closer to the lake, for convenience—changing center for the lake as well as showers. The beds were bunked and there were two desks (each with a lamp) each one under a window, a small multi-colored carpet on the floor in the middle of the room and one door that led in and out. A couple dressers stood next to each other on the far wall. Other than the lamps, there was one large light on the ceiling of the room.
When they walked in they were greeted by a sea of dust, this made it clear this camp wasn’t too keen about cleaning up when girl’s weren’t here. She gave Tara a look, which was quickly understood as ‘oh boy, this is going to be an annoying first day of cleaning’. Tara giggled a little and hid under her hair to keep Willow from seeing. But of course Willow caught the smile and giggle.
Tara couldn’t help but think what a charmer Willow was obviously going to be when she started dating.
“Tara, I want you know right now that you don’t have to be at all afraid around me. I like to think of myself as super nice. I don’t plan on making fun of you or anything that’s…just not nice. Okay.” Willow said matter-of-factly and waited for a response from Tara.
“Um, o..okay.” She smiled a little to reassure Willow and to reassure herself on some level.
“Good! Let’s get down to the basics then. Where are you from and have you been to this camp before and if so are the girl’s totally Cordilia-esque?”
“Who’s C..cordilia?” Willow slapped her forehead and laughed. Tara just looked on amused.
“She’s this meanie from my school at home, picked on me since I met her. She does it to my friend Xander too, we don’t like her.”
They spent the next couple hours talking about their lives, also cleaning and unpacking. Tara told Willow that she actually lived in Oklahoma, so the camp wasn’t too far from her home. Whenever she talked about her mother she stuttered less and seemed really happy to talk about her with someone. Willow on the other had didn’t see the big deal about mothers since hers wasn’t as warm as Tara’s seemed to be. But was still happy for Tara. Tara let is slip that her father wasn’t too excited about her leaving for camp but that her mother insisted that she needed the experience. Willow got the idea that he wasn’t a very nice man. In an effort to get off the subject, Willow notices the time, since the camp seemed to have a complimentary battery-powered clock on the wall.
“Wow, it’s been two hours, we better get over the lunch hall and grab some food, maybe look around for something to do…if you want.” Tara just nodded. They headed out of the cabin and saw a group of girls up on a grassed hill kicking around a soccer, some other girl’s swimming in the lake, towards the back of the cabins, past twenty-five. The lunch hall was to the right of their cabin; it was large and hard to miss.
On the walk over, Willow managed to trip over a tree root sticking out of the ground. The event happened so quickly that she was on the ground before realizing she tripped.
“Oh my goodness…are you ok?” Tara knelt down next to her. A few of the others passed by and laughed and pointed at Willow, drawing a mini-crowd. Tara quickly turned to glare at them. They run off barely noticing the look but caught enough of it not to laugh again. Tara helped Willow up.
“Definitely, Cordilia-esque. Don’t worry, just not one of those elegant walkers. Yep just call me clumsy.” Willow smiled. Tara laughed. She was happy to learn that Willow wasn’t too offended and took criticism well. They continued on to the lunch hall with Willow feeling satisfied at making Tara a little more comfortable around her.
Tara and Willow entered and saw some girls making wallets with butterflies and flowers. Tara glanced at another group making friendship bracelets and suddenly liked the idea of making one for Willow, even if she didn’t want to make one for her.
“Hey…” Tara burst out and stopped abruptly. Willow nodded for her to continue. “We could make those.” she pointed at the girl’s making the bracelets.
“Neat… ok we’ll make friendship bracelets. Do you want to before or after eating?” Tara simply replied,
“After.” She seemed to get out one word much easier, preventing the stutter. Tara was making a conscious effort not to do it around Willow, even though she got the feeling from Willow’s earlier little speech that she didn’t mind the stutter.
The two sat down together to eat a late lunch. They continued to talk about each other, of course with Willow doing most of the talking. She was usually very shy around new people but seemed comfortable with Tara and the same was true vice-versa. Willow remembered what Tara said earlier when Willow talked about the convergence and decided it was time to move in that direction in the conversation.
“Hey Tara, do you know a lot about magicks? You seemed to from what you said earlier.” Tara’s eyes widened again but she felt like she could maybe share a few of the things she knew and did with Willow.
“Well, do you believe in it or is it just a game to you?” Willow is surprised by Tara’s assertive question and thinks about it for a minute or so before answering,
“I don’t really know what to believe.”
Tara looks thoughtfully at Willow and her warmth toward her grows a little. She was impressed with Willow’s willingness to learn something new without judgment or preservation.
“M..maybe I could t..teach you about it later.” Tara said and smiled because Willow became a little jumpy with excitement.
“Okay, how about those friendship bracelets then.” They moved to throw out the remainder of their food, what they were too full to eat and get the supplies for the bracelet’s. The activity doesn’t take up too much time and before they knew it, they were done.
Each tied the bracelet they made around the wrist of the other and looked over them before heading back to their cabin. When they walked into thirteen they got a refreshing-job-well-done feeling when they saw the neat condition of the room.
Willow was eager to learn about the magicks and Tara eager to teach her something that she could work on and develop as she grew.
“I can sort of sense power in you. I’m not too good yet at being aware of other people but your power must be really strong for me to be able to feel it like this.” It was the longest Tara had spoken without a stutter and Willow got the idea that Tara and magick was complementary and strengthening of her character.
“Really!” Willow exclaims excited and in awe. “So you mean magick is real.” Tara nodded.
“I always knew it, I knew knew knew it! Oh…sorry.” Willow’s face is flushed and she sits down on her bunk and quietly stares at Tara, who is sitting across the room on a desk chair.
“It’s as real as the chair I’m sitting on.”
“How long have you been practicing?” Willow asks still excited and anticipating.
“Forever…well since I was little. My mom has a lot of power…like you.”
Willow is exasperated, “ I don’t have power, do I? Really?”
Willow couldn’t help but trust this girl from the very first time she saw her. Here she was at a summer camp where she thought it wasn’t going to be the worst summer ever away from Xander. But she learned things about herself she may have never found out.
Through out the next few weeks Tara taught Willow about her power and what she saw in her. They didn’t do any spells but Willow learned more from Tara in those few weeks than any book she had read.
“The source of your power can be represented by two of the elements, I would say fire and water. The fire represents your strength but the less controlled part of your magick. The water represents the control and calm of your magick. What you have to do is find the balance between the two and I bet you could uncover most if not all of your power and help it grow.” Tara eloquently explains for a nine year old. Her stutter is all but gone because her comfort level in Willow’s presence though always good had risen beyond comprehension.
“Yea but how do I find balance and when will I get to see my power.” Since they hadn’t done any spells Willow had come to question whether she really had any power at all and the validity of magick.
“Well patience is important and understanding that there is always two different sides of magick, light and dark.” Tara further explains the difference between light and dark magick and the ways to respect magic and only harness the light. Over the following weeks Tara did her best to instill into Willow the importance of respecting magick and never using darkness to solve her problems. It wasn’t until Tara believed in her heart that Willow understood these things that they tried their first spell. It was merely two week before the end of camp.
“These spells are simple and for younger witches like us. They are based in your powers elements making them easier to do. To manipulate matter, you are a scientist so you’ll understand this. Creating something from nothing but not really.”
“I think I understand?” Willow questioned not really getting it.
“You take apart of yourself, apart of your energy and create your powers base elements. For you that would be fire or water, for me it would earth or water. Since we share the common element water, I thought we’d try that.”
“So create water, right so if we were stuck in the desert dying of thirst this spell would come in handy type of thing?” Tara giggled at Willow’s cute understanding.
“Yes, exactly.” Willow jumped up and yelped with excitement. After some time Tara calmed her down and they created a sacred space to produce the water. Tara held her hand to the center of the space and Willow copied this move as she is sitting opposite Tara. Their hands do not reach each other but left a two-inch space between them. Their fingers curled toward each other. With their eyes shut, Tara spoke quietly.
“Concentrate, remember the techniques I taught you about relaxation and focus. Envision what you want to happen here and just let it happen, believe in me, believe in your magick and repeat these words…
Goddesses who watch us
The light that covers us
Grant us power
Grant us vision…
Aqua!”
Willow repeats Tara verbatim but for several minutes nothing happened. They both continued to keep focus and Tara urged Willow not to give up.
But within a few more seconds water started to form—one drop at a time, slowly but absolute.
Once the spell was complete Willow gave Tara a big but brief hug and thanked her for all she taught her.
“That was pretty close to primal forces, creating something from nothing.”
“It isn’t anything to be afraid of if you respect magick and aren’t using it for serious selfish reasons.”
“I didn’t know you could speak another language.” Willow added.
“Well Latin is the language of magick. Although it isn’t always necessary.” Tara replied and Willow’s impressed by Tara’s worldliness.
“You know it didn’t happen til I believed. The water thing,” a relieved Willow blurts out. Tara just nodded. Willow continued to look on at Tara, she just seemed so wise for a little girl. Deep down Willow was inspired by Tara and her wisdom—inspired to learn more about languages and to learn more about magick.
Tara was also inspired, by Willow’s quick learning and by her strength not just magically but as a person. Willow was a shy girl but underneath it was true confidence waiting to come out and that peaked out more than once here at camp.
With only a couple weeks left the girl’s decided it was time to slow down with the magic talk and join in with the other campers in the lake and just have an outdoors time for the rest of camp. They hiked and swam and even joined in some team-type games like kickball.
But there last day there was the most significant. Willow had only brought two books, one on computers, a hacker-type computer programming book (very technical) and her general witchcraft history book. Yet Tara had an array of magick books passed to her by her mother that she brought along. She had the idea that she would spend the entire time alone in the cabin. Since they were all packed and would be leaving within an hour the girls were sitting on the steps of their cabin thirteen, both looked as if they lost their glasses and when they were just about to find them someone stomped on them deliberately.
“Willow, I’m really glad I met you and I want you to take these three books with you so you can grow as a witch.”
The first book is about calming and focusing techniques. The second is about the use of color in magick. The last is a beginner spell book for the young aspiring witch wishing to harness and fully control her powers.
Willow is floored as she quickly glanced through them.
“Tara how could I take these, don’t you need them?”
“No, I have my mom to teach me, you…you don’t have anyone…” Willow nodded in understanding and consented to taking the three books.
“I don’t have anything to give you, no neat present or major life changy books,” she explained disappointed.
“It’s ok because just being able to share this experience with someone is really cool.”
Tara goes on to explain that her father doesn’t allow calls to their house from anywhere long distance even though the caller is the one charged. But they exchanged addresses in hopes to keep in touch.
Tara gives Willow a quick hug and walks away with her bag because her ride—her father and her spitting brother Donny, arrived to take her away. Willow is a little scared for Tara, not really knowing her entire situation but getting a drift of it—being just a kid she couldn’t do much about it.
Soon Willow’s cab driver showed back up and interestingly it was the same guy.
“I heard you needed a lift to the airport, little tree.”
“You remembered me from all that time ago.”
“It hasn’t been too long…you seem sad. Let me guess, you had such a great time and met so many new friends you can’t bare to leave?”
“I did meet a lot of girls but only one became my friend and I’ll miss her…”
I’m afraid I’ll never see her again and that just wouldn’t be nice, she thought on to herself. The driver could see she was in her own world now.
Willow made it back safely to Sunnydale and to her home where her parents had yet to return. But she was used to it by now having been left home alone for over a year now. She guessed seven was the independent age in her parents’ opinion. Her parents showed up for a few months at a time during that year, but mostly she was alone. She was always a little frightened to be alone but as usual Xander either showed up or she went to stay a his house to keep from being too lonely. Speaking of Xander a knock came just after she walked through the door.
“Willow, you can’t hide from me, I don’t care how many friends you made I’m still your best one right.” Willow smiled and yanked open the door and hugged Xander.
“Hi Xander! Okay…lay it on me are you still a second-grader?”
“Nope, I’m a big and tall third,” he puffed out his chest.
“Woo and hoo Xander, I’m proud and giddy.”
“Yep, me and Wil together again and school just around the corner. I feel like I just left.”
“You did Xander. Summer school, remember.”
“Oh yea, how can I forget the six week torture chamber.” Willow laughed. It was good to be home and even as she laughed and played with Xander, all in her mind was thoughts of the witch who helped her realize her potential and gave her the tools and knowledge to grow with her power.
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At the start of school for Willow and Xander, Willow showed up far less excited than usual. It seemed that she was disappointed.
Xander inquired upon seeing her,
“Hey Wil, what’s wrong?”
“It’s complicated Xander.”
“Just explain it to me, you do it all the time.”
“Well, I met this girl over the summer, we became really close but I’ve written like three hundred letters to her and I haven’t gotten anything back.”
“I think that’s an exaggeration Wil…” he looked to her for the true number.
“Okay…more like four letters but still…”
“Just keep trying, she is probably just caught up.” Willow thought about what he said a second and slightly nods. But for the rest of the school year and on, she never got a letter back from Tara and eventually, though she always stayed in Willow’s mind and Willow continued to practice her magick and focus, moved on with her life through middle school and into the ninth grade.
On the other side, Tara had written to Willow but also never got any letters. It turned out that Donny and her father were keeping the letters she sent and the ones that Willow sent and destroying them in there plan to isolate and control Tara. They seemed to be grooming her for servitude.
TBC
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A little peak into the next part of the story: 
Willow was really disappointed and felt pretty bad about not getting any letters from Tara, and Tara felt like-wise but much worse because she didn’t have any friends. Over the years Tara fell deeper into her shell developing a worse stutter. Willow became somewhat shyer but didn’t get to sucked in because of Xander and somewhat because of Jesse her other friend who is rarely mentioned.
But in this section, it’ll have a brief little stint where Buffy moves to Sunnydale at tenth grade and will skip forward to the reunion of Willow and Tara at UC Sunnydale. But a bit of something different will happen between Willow and Oz so stay tuned please.[hr]
