This is a relatively short bit, but it was a fairly good stopping place. Nothing terribly exciting happens.
**Jennpurr: Oh, good ... I don't feel as pressured now
**Yuri: Heh ... yes, I know. And I think it's more that you like Spike. He's a vampire - it's not like being beaten within an inch of his unlife is really going to have any lasting damage. Besides - for Spike, that's like third base. Though I will be easing up on Spike, as he's been almost nice in the SassVerse. Though I still haven't decided whether or not I think he's a good guy.
**Spottie Dottie: Heh ... thank you *G* I'm glad you enjoyed the Spike-Mugging. God knows I enjoyed writing it.
Title: Lingering Darkness Part 3 - Drifting
Author: Sassette
Feedback: Can be sent to
pink_overalls@yahoo.com Summary: Willow and Tara wake up. And it's actually morning this time!
Spoiler Warning: Up to and including "Tabula Rasa" in Season 6 and for the previous story, 'Answering Darkness'. For anyone who has NOT read Answering Darkness (or, come to think of it, people who are nuts enough to reread that monster), it's in the Completed Fics Archive here on the Kitten.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. The stories all mine, though.
Rating: PG-13
Notes: For the purpose of this story, all events of Tabula Rasa took place exactly as shown in the series; however, all subsequent events appear in the story 'Answering Darkness'. This story picks up where the previous one left off.
Lingering Darkness Part 3
Drifting
By Sassette
Willow drifted halfway between sleep and wakefulness, the wan light of early morning washing over her. It was comfy there, all warm and snuggly, Tara's solid weight anchoring her to the bed, and to the world - and to the knowledge that they were safe and together.
There was no lingering panic from her dream earlier, and for that she was thankful. Everything was just warm and peaceful, and as she came closer to waking, her hands lifted almost of their own accord, stroking the smooth planes of Tara's back.
"Mmm…" Tara said, and Willow could feel those full lips curving against the skin of her neck. Tara shifted slightly, snuggling closer, and Willow couldn't help her arms tightening around the warm body against her, a slow sweet smile spreading across her face.
"Morning," Willow whispered.
"Mmm…" Tara said again, nuzzling Willow's neck softly. "Morning," she said, a happy sigh escaping her.
"We're up early … way before anyone else," Willow murmured, her voice still heavy with sleep. "Whatever shall we do?"
"Oh, I know what I want to do," Tara said, on hand trailing down to rest lightly on Willow's stomach and trace slow circles there.
"Ooooh, someone has a brilliant idea," Willow said, her eyes drifting shut.
"I know," Tara said, kissing Willow lightly on the cheek then moving to get off the bed.
"Hey - hey!" Willow said, protesting Tara's retreat, reaching out an arm and wrapping it around her middle and pulling her back. "Just where do you think you're going?" Willow asked.
"To make pancakes," Tara said innocently. "That was my brilliant idea - you said it was brilliant."
"But I thought -" Willow said, her brow furrowing as she pouted.
"Thought what?" Tara asked, her eyes twinkling.
"I thought I was going to get snugglies. Snugglies are brilliant. Pancakes are just … mildly bright," Willow said.
"Mildly bright?" Tara asked with a happy laugh, snuggling into Willow again. "I should really make breakfast for everyone," she said, settling against Willow and making no sigh that she actually planned on moving again anytime soon.
"That would be very nice of you," Willow agreed mildly. "But I think you should be mean. You can be mean to the Scoobies, and they still love you - that's the beauty of it. If you don't make them breakfast, they'll never realize that you were going to, and you can selfishly indulge in snuggle and smoochie-time. Besides, the sun's just coming up. It's still really early."
"Smoochie-time?" Tara asked, lifting her head and looking at Willow in mock surprise. "You didn't say anything about smoochie-time. In fact, I distinctly remember a snugglies request, but no mention was made of the kissy-face."
"Oh, did I forget to mention that part?" Willow asked, her eyes widening. "Well, of course I mean kissy-face. Kissy-face is required first thing in the morning in order to have a good day. Kissy-face is the foundation upon which the day is built - and if the foundation isn't solid, the day just sort of falls over. Very of the bad."
"Well, we wouldn't want the whole day to collapse," Tara said slowly, leaning in and brushing her lips lightly against Willow's.
"Right," Willow said, smiling lazily and lifting her head to press her lips more firmly to Tara's. "Because a bad Tuesday always means a bad week. Mondays are supposed to be bad, because, hello - Monday. But Tuesday should be just fine, and if it isn't, that's two bad days in a row, which just throws off the rest of the week. So, really, a good Tuesday is essential."
"Very essential," Tara agreed with a giggle, kissing Willow again.
"Oh, and a bad week means a bad month - 'cuz one day is only one-seventh of a week, so if one day can throw off a whole week, then a bad week, which is one-fourth of a month, would totally throw off the whole thing," Willow said solemnly. "So, kissage instead of pancakes, or else the whole month is shot."
Tara couldn't help giggling again, placing her lips against Willow's happily, and kissing her slowly and thoroughly in the name of saving the whole month from being bad. Slowly, Tara pulled back, a little grin quirking her lips.
"More kissy-face," Willow demanded imperiously.
"That should be plenty to save the month from going up in a ball of flames," Tara said dryly.
"Oh, but we have to save the year, too," Willow said quickly.
"The year?" Tara asked, raising an eyebrow at Willow.
"Oh, yeah," Willow said, nodding eagerly. "Because if the one day throws off the whole week, and the week throws off the whole month, and a month is one-twelfth of a year, then it would only take two days to throw off two months, which would be one-sixth of a year, and is more than one-seventh. See?"
"Umm …" Tara went over Willow's words again in her head, finding that they followed logically.
"Oh, oh!" Willow said, shaking Tara's shoulder lightly as she thought of something else, her brow furrowed in concentration. "So that's just two days out of 365.25 to make all of them bad, but if you expand that out, that's one year out of a decade. So if two years go bad, that's one-fifth of a decade - and that's more than one-sixth AND one-seventh - then the whole decade is just wrong. And we're just talking four little days out of 3,652.5 days. We'd only have to slip up and not do the morning kissage four times out of 3,652.5!"
"Oh, the pressure," Tara said softly. "As much as I like the math stuff - can we just skip it? Can you just be kissing me now?" she asked, an adoring expression taking over her features as she looked down at Willow.
"Yes, ma'am," Willow said happily, reaching a hand up to Tara's hair and gently guiding her closer, their lips brushing together repeatedly in feather-light touches before settling more firmly, moving against each other slowly.
"Wait," Tara said, pulling back and frowning. "Wouldn't it just be Tuesdays?"
"Huh?" Willow asked, breaking out of her Tara-haze to try to figure out what Tara had just asked her.
"Oh, God … now I'm doing it," Tara groaned, letting her forehead drop to rest against Willow's collarbone. "Okay," she said, gathering herself. "The four days that make the whole decade bad? Wouldn't they have to be Tuesdays?"
"Oh, yeah," Willow said, nodding. "So that's four bad days out of 521.9, because there are about 521.9 Tuesdays in every decade."
"Why do you know that?" Tara asked slowly, a soft smile crossing her face. "Why would anyone know how many Tuesdays there are in a decade?"
"I didn't," Willow said with a little shrug. "I just did the math."
"In your head? Just now?" Tara asked, her smile growing.
"It's just 3,652.5 divided by seven. It's not like it's hard math," Willow said defensively.
"What's the square root of five?" Tara asked quickly.
"Two point two three six," Willow said, frowning in puzzlement. "Why?"
"What's, umm …" Tara began, searching her brain for any kind of math term she could remember. "Twelve with the little exclamation point after it?"
"Twelve factorial? 479,001,600," Willow answered automatically, though still clearly confused why Tara was asking these things.
"How about
i to the fourteenth power?" Tara asked.
"Negative one," Willow said. "Please, ask me something hard," she said with an impish grin.
"You know," Tara said, a wide smile crossing her face. "I have no idea if you're giving me the right answers, or are just stating your answer very confidently."
"Oh, well, you could know this stuff, too," Willow said with a little shrug. "It's not hard - most people just don't find it interesting."
"No, most people just aren't as smart as you," Tara said with a soft smile. "I'm not as smart as you."
"What?" Willow asked, her eyebrows raising. "Yes, you are," she disagreed vehemently.
"Willow, sweetie," Tara said, laughing a little and shaking her head. "There are probably two thousand people in the world as smart as you … out of six billion. I don't have to be a math genius to realize, statistically, I'm probably not one of them."
"I'm not that smart," Willow protested, her brain turning over the math. "That would put me well within the top one percent of the top one percent. That's, like, Stephen Hawking kind of smart. That would be, like, two people in the United States. That's not me and Stephen."
"At any rate," Tara said lightly. "You're smarter than I am. Not that I'm not smart," she added quickly. "I'm plenty smart for anything I'd ever want to do. You're just extra-smart. You're WillowSmart."
"You say that like it's a good thing," Willow said grumpily, sighing lightly.
"It is a good thing," Tara said, eyebrows drawing together as she looked at Willow with concern. "It's a very good thing, baby. I love how smart you are. I love how you can just rattle off the square root of five, or how you refused to watch Star Trek after you figured out >why< travel at the speed of light is impossible and they never explained why they did it."
"Well, it was very upsetting," Willow said defensively, a pout forming on her face. "Approaching the speed of light increases the mass of an object, requiring that the energy to propel that object increase in direct proportion to the increase of mass, so no object that has mass can travel at the speed of light. I just wanted them to say, just once, how they did it," she said.
"It's a TV show, sweetie," Tara said gently. "If scientists can't figure out how to travel at the speed of light, how could a bunch of TV writers?"
"Well, Scotty was always going on about how he couldn't defy the laws of physics, but they did it every time they went to warp," Willow complained.
"TV writers," Tara said simply.
"Bad TV writers," Willow grumbled. "Is a little internal consistency too much to ask?"
Tara giggled again, clapping a hand over her mouth to hide her mirth from Willow.
"Are you laughing at me?" Willow asked, her eyes widening and a hurt look crossing her face.
"No, no!" Tara said quickly, shaking her head as her laughter continued. "I just … how did we get to the internal consistency of Star Trek from morning smoochies?" she asked, another burst of laughter escaping her, Willow joining in as she saw Tara's point. "We have the most meandering conversations ever. It's like, they sort of drift along from point to point, never staying anywhere for very long at all."
"As long as I'm drifting with you," Willow said with a little shrug and a smile.
"You better not be drifting with anyone else," Tara said with mock sternness before breaking into more giggles.
"Never," Willow said, her smile growing. "There's no one else I'd rather drift with."
"Good," Tara said, rewarding Willow with a kiss. She checked the clock, seeing that people would start getting up soon. "Time for pancakes," she said simply, kissing Willow again, then reluctantly disentangling herself and standing, trying to resist the full-on pout Willow had adopted to try to guilt her into staying in bed.
"Stay," Willow said, batting her eyelashes outrageously and pouting for all she was worth, letting Tara know it wasn't a serious request.
"We have to feed the Scoobies. You know what they're like when they haven't eaten," Tara said with a mock grimace as she got dressed. "And You and Dawn and I have school today, and Xander and Anya have work, and Mr. Giles and Buffy have whatever it is they do when the rest of us are at school and work."
"Oh, God … school," Willow groaned, grabbing a pillow and pulling it over her head. "Don't wanna'" she said, her voice small and childlike.
"Willow? Sweetie?" Tara said, sitting on the edge of the bed and tugging the pillow away form Willow's resisting hands. "We decided we'd give it a try today," she said softly. "Do you, umm … do you want to skip it? We could go see the counselors and just … drop our classes," she went on, biting her lip softly. She was truly torn - part of her wanted to just get back into her normal life, and part of her wanted to go somewhere and hide from the world for awhile. In the end, she wanted to be doing what Willow was doing - it was that simple.
"I don't want to let you out of my sight," Willow admitted, her voice low and serious, her expression troubled. "Not even to make pancakes."
"Then get dressed and make pancakes with me," Tara said, rubbing Willow's arm softly. "I'll even teach you how to do the funny shapes."
"Yeah?" Willow asked, her eyes brightening. Tara had maintained that the funny shapes were hers and hers alone, and not to be taught, while Willow had argued that all knowledge and skill should be shared. It had been a silly fight, and Willow hadn't actually wanted to make funny-shaped pancakes, because if she had, Tara would have relented. Even so, it was something they could do together - and it gave Willow an excuse to stay right next to Tara, which is where she needed to be.
"Yes," Tara said with a nod. "But this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, so get dressed."
"Will there be triangles?" Willow asked, sitting up and getting out of bed.
"Definitely triangles," Tara said with a nod.
"And will there be squares?" Willow went on, tugging open a drawer and grabbing some clothes, not even bothering to see if they match.
"We could do squares. I've never tried squared, but they shouldn't be too hard," Tara answered.
"Trapezoids?" Willow asked, pulling on her clothes quickly.
"Many zoids will fall prey to your trapping skills," Tara agreed, nodding again, standing up and moving in front of Willow. Silently, she buttoned up Willow's shirt for her, patting the top button lightly when she was done. "There," she said. "All set?"
"Thanks," Willow said with a little smile, kissing Tara lightly and taking her hand, pulling her towards the door. "Come on," she said, as she dragged Tara along. "Pancakes won't make themselves."
Hey, to me if it has more than two parts, it's a series. 
at: 7/9/02 9:25:43 pm
at: 7/9/02 9:57:51 pm
They're so... Tara. 
yea! always good to work that in.
Anyway, it was wonderful and you really write Willow and Tara perfectly. 