The Kitten, the Witches and the Bad Wardrobe Willow & Tara Forever

by **Forrister** » Fri Nov 16, 2001 12:23 am

I knew this would be great, I've been waiting so long for this moment and its here and it's, it's, ... effulgent!

[I love it when I'm right, but when I have to quote Spike to find the right word? Well!]

Thanks Katharyn

Aequabit nigras candida una dies.
(One single bright day will equal the black ones.)

by **mollyig** » Fri Nov 16, 2001 2:26 am

Katharyn,

Great addition to the Cycle. That scene always makes me all misty-eyed when I watch it, and your fic did too!

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Willow: And I happen to think mine is the level head, and yours is the one things would roll off of.

by **wizpup** » Fri Nov 16, 2001 6:21 am

oooh... you posted it early! Didn't you know I was looking forward to sweet little friday evening treat to break up the long hours of Children in Need?

I know, I could have saved it for later, but I've got that patience deficiency thing going on again.

I liked the switch in perspectives through the course of events, like changing camera angle or something - that kind of thing helps me with the visualisation of the story; makes it more real, you know?

Can't believe it's nearly over. The long wait for season 6 continues...

by **tommo** » Fri Nov 16, 2001 11:19 am

Dammit! I'm missing Children In Need? That was like, the highlight of my November viewing too...sigh...

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"Welcome to the nancy tribe."

by **Katharyn** » Fri Nov 16, 2001 12:09 pm

quote:
Originally posted by Sassette:
As for 'What Next': I'd love to see the dance as part of the Beginning Cycle, though I certainly wouldn't complain if you left it for the "Middle That Dare Not Speak Its Name", or went off to merrily play in your Side Step Universe... that has me intrigued.
-Sassette

The dance is DEFINITELY part of part 45 which is definitely next... as is everything up to the return to their room that night. Actually this is more a question of whether I let the cycle end there and sum up their feelings, or stick a Spike/Tara story that has to occur the next day in as well. If I do the lighthearted Spike piece then I am forced to leave the "end" summing up until part 47... which just doesn't feel right... and why I might bump Spike/Tara to the start of the Middle Bit.
As for what is next... well Kerry and I have something sticking it's head into the pipeline for Xmas (starting that next week Kerry) and Sidestep's planning and early drafts are well underway (getting going properly on that next week too.) The "Middle Bit" well as it will work the same way as this cycle I shall just do each episode as it comes to me. Once I get far enough in to build up a decent cushion (and know some details of S6 to give me an end point which I will not spoil myself for) then I will start to post that...

Gosh sounds like alot...

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She's my alwaysquote:

by **Katharyn** » Fri Nov 16, 2001 12:09 pm

Edited to add that for some reason the headers on page 17 are totally scrambled but if you let it load the rest is totally readable, just lacks a background.

It weren't me! I didn't break it.

quote:
Originally posted by Sassette:
As for 'What Next': I'd love to see the dance as part of the Beginning Cycle, though I certainly wouldn't complain if you left it for the "Middle That Dare Not Speak Its Name", or went off to merrily play in your Side Step Universe... that has me intrigued.
-Sassette

The dance is DEFINITELY part of part 45 which is definitely next... as is everything up to the return to their room that night. Actually this is more a question of whether I let the cycle end there and sum up their feelings, or stick a Spike/Tara story that has to occur the next day in as well. If I do the lighthearted Spike piece then I am forced to leave the "end" summing up until part 47... which just doesn't feel right... and why I might bump Spike/Tara to the start of the Middle Bit.
As for what is next... well Kerry and I have something sticking it's head into the pipeline for Xmas (starting that next week Kerry) and Sidestep's planning and early drafts are well underway (getting going properly on that next week too.) Since it was raised though I am pleased to announce the totally unofficial theme song of the Sidestep. I shall not post the lyrics here but if you are the tiniest bit interested then I refer you to "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie... particulary the second half... and ignoring the "bah,bah,bah" and the "under pressure," itself. Those lyrics pretty much sum up the Sidestep.
The "Middle Bit" well... as it will work the same way as this cycle (and continue it's work and assumptions) I shall just do each episode as it comes to me. Once I get far enough in to build up a decent cushion (and know some details of S6 to give me an end point which I will not spoil myself for) then I will start to post that...

Gosh sounds like alot...

Katharyn

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She's my always

[This message has been edited by Katharyn (edited November 16, 2001).]quote:

by **kpmuse** » Fri Nov 16, 2001 12:49 pm

Your instincts have always been right on Katharyn, so whatever you decide to do, I am sure we will all love it!

Thanks for all of your imagination and this wonderful fic!

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kris

I am you know.
What?
Yours.

[This message has been edited by kpmuse (edited November 16, 2001).]

by **Forrister** » Fri Nov 16, 2001 12:53 pm

"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way!"

[ Wearing elf ears and a silly santa hat. hehehe]

Velle est posse.
(To be willing is to be able.)

by **Katharyn** » Sat Nov 17, 2001 12:57 am

quote:
Originally posted by Forrister:
[ Wearing elf ears and a silly santa hat. hehehe]

She isn't kidding about those you know... freaky aren't we?

Katharyn

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She's my always

[This message has been edited by Katharyn (edited November 17, 2001).]quote:

by **wizpup** » Sat Nov 17, 2001 4:07 am

quote:
Originally posted by Katharyn:
freaky aren't we?

What's wrong with freaky?
Freaky can be good!
I'm sure I read it somewhere that freaky can be good... damn where did I read that...quote:

by **Puff** » Sat Nov 17, 2001 10:23 am

My gf calls me a freak all the time, it's ok because she means it affectionatly and because I am her freak

Great part Katharyn, I especially liked how you captured Willow's feelings during this time. Ok now I am looking forward to part 45.

by **Katharyn** » Sat Nov 17, 2001 11:59 am

Okay so freaky is a good thing I admit it...

Part 45 will be the last part of The Beginning Cycle. I am rewriting it as such right now. I think it would be stretching believability to avoid the inevitable discussions and expression of feelings for a whole day just to stick another fic in there. So integrity triumphs over indulgence. But on the plus side that means I have Part 1 of the sequel already done*S* It will emerge. Just don;t ask for it anytime soon.

Katharyn

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She's my always

by **delany** » Sun Nov 18, 2001 3:36 am

the last part?? *sigh* the end of an era is nigh..
even though i came in relatively late to this particular fic i've read it all now and lemme just stand and raise my glass for a job well done!!!

del

by **Katharyn** » Sun Nov 18, 2001 10:13 am

Okay Kittens this is it. Now I am all sad. Lump in the throat time...

K
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Title: The Beginnings Cycle – Birthday Presents (Part 45 and last.)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome. katharynrosser@hotmail.com
Spoiler Warning: Limited spoilers for events up to and including Family, pretty major spoilers for that episode.
Summary: During and following Tara’s birthday party as shown in the 5th Season Episode “Family.”
Disclaimer: I still don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories.
Rating: PG13.
Couples: W/T
Notes: Last stop for now Kittens. This, after much agonising, is the final part of The Beginnings Cycle. 45 Parts, and it all started with one little episode adaptation that I never dreamt of posting anywhere.
Though this will gradually sink into the depths of the unread here on Pens I do intend to pass it for archiving on the some of the usual sites when I get round to it.
As usual the transcript at http://www.psyche.kn-bremen.de/ was invaluable and all praise and credit to the transcribers who do a great job and the original writers without whom we would all be terribly bored and probably fixated on something else entirely though I can’t for the life of me think what could replace Willow and Tara in that part of my mind.
The narrative below may not be strictly in line with canon in relation to Tara’s party. As the episode made a number of short cuts during the party I have focussed on one or two scenes that may be assumed never to have existed in that form. But hey… it’s my party too.
Thanks To: This is going to ramble a bit… but it is the last time for a while. Thanks to, well just about blooming everyone who posted feedback, made suggestions, wished publicly for things or influenced me in any way - or just read the thing. Vanessa for being the first of the beta-readers and liking those early parts enough to prompt me to both post and do more. Vanessa again for the artwork that she did related to this story (buried somewhere in the thread.) As usual it was breathlessly good. Those other beta-readers who came and went in the early parts. You were all too nice. All the mods here on the boards who have quite rightly corrected me when I was in the wrong and protected me when I was flamed for this thing of mine – I hope you all realise just how much people value what you do – thanks for it all anyway. L who has been my constant through this thing and my life in general. We’re back on track babe…
Finally as I promised I would wait till the end - dear Kerry (AKA Forrister.) Frankly without her support at times you would not have seen the end of this fic. She will deny it of course… modesty is her watchword… but whilst she only rarely did the usual things like Beta (as I rarely asked) reading her comments, private feedback, support and general stroking of my ego were vital. If you liked this then you should all thank her, then go read “Little Miss Nobody” and “House of Cards” and stroke her ego a little bit. If you didn’t then that’s down to her too… kidding. There is such a thing as too much modesty dear…
What follows would have been an endnote but I don’t want to spoil the effect. This story will continue, from this point – the aftermath of Family, in a few months – I am already gradually working on it, but as I intend to venture into S6 with that then I need to know what happens in S6. So you have to wait. You all know where it is going… but that doesn’t seem to have stopped you reading this one. I hope to cash in on the nostalgia once more… course nothing much is going to match the beginning of their journey. And in the meantime, in a shameless plug, look out for the Sidestep coming soon… and an Xmas special from Kerry and myself.

Birthday Presents

By

Katharyn Rosser

‘Cake and present time,’ Willow told the assembled gang and out of nowhere came Xander and Anya with a cake. A big cake, burning bright with twenty candles atop it. Carefully placing it in the centre of the table Anya seemed excited. Anyone would think, Tara thought, that it was her birthday. Still, even if it was not her own, it was her first here with her friends.

Snap.

And oh goddess… presents. By the bucket full… in fact including a bucket. Smiling faces, bearing gifts.

A bucket.

With a ribbon.

Anya seemed eager that her bucket was the first to be opened. But it was already opened. It was a bucket. With a ribbon. She accepted the quickly thrusted gift from Anya and thanked her appropriately. She left it to Willow to wonder what the bucket was actually for.

‘It’s a gift. I am assured that the anniversary of birth is a present occasion. Look they all have presents for Tara,’ Anya explained as if Willow was slightly stupid for even asking.

‘But a bucket?’ Willow pressed.

Tara didn’t care. And as buckets went it was a fine one. Well made, crafted out of wood, the sort of thing that might not hold water very well but could definitely make a good place to put flowers.

‘It is for domestic chores,’ Anya told them. ‘You put water in it, hot or cold, and you can wash things.’ The hot or cold was obviously a virtue of the design.

‘You got Tara a bucket? To do cleaning? For her birthday?’ Willow wasn't getting over that anytime soon, staring at Xander as if he should have done something about it.

‘Yes. With a festive ribbon. That can be saved and used again. Very economical. Though for my birthday I would like a new ribbon. And a car tied up within it.’

Tara, unaffected by Willow’s unimpressed expression, just laughed as Xander explained to Willow ‘Well she didn’t know what to get and then she saw what Dawn had bought…’

‘Well. It’s a gift. It is the thought that counts. That is what Xander said. He also enjoyed the ribbon.’ Anya proclaimed to the critical few. Meaning Willow.

‘Did you think?’ Willow asked and fortunately for everyone… missed the ribbon comment. Equally fortunately Giles stepped in quickly to avert a shooting war and Tara laid a hand on Willow’s knee under the table. Stroking gently and the anger melted away leaving Tara to thank Anya again as she place the bucket carefully by her side on the floor.

‘Mine next – it’s heavy,’ Mr Giles warned as he presented his gift hurriedly. Tara looked at it. Willow looked at it. Everyone looked at it wrapped in the tissue paper.

‘Yes, yes alright it is a crystal ball,’ he admitted before the wrapping was disturbed in any way.

‘You don’t say,’ Xander offered.

‘Giles, couldn’t you have concealed that just a little bit?’ Buffy asked him in her “He’s so British” voice.

‘What was I supposed to do? Make it look like an elephant?’ the giver asked as Tara unwrapped it and looked deeply into the image presented to her. Without a fate to fulfil she was free to look into it and see what was really out there for her… and she had a pretty good idea at who would be looking back at her.

‘It’s wonderful, thank you,’ she saw him look doubtful and promised him she was serious at which point his doubts evaporated and he too was beaming. Pleased for her. Pleased with himself. Who cared as long as everyone was happy – just like she was. She had friends. She had another family to replace the one she had just lost.

Brothers, sisters, another father figure… well okay maybe a favourite eccentric uncle. Her love and… a little sister too. Dawnie came running over with the promised domestic tool. A broom, presented it with a big grin – which Tara returned as she took it.

‘See… a sweeping brush. Also for domestic chores. Now what do you think of my bucket? And my ribbon is longer and a nicer colour too.’

‘Blow out the candles honey,’ Willow instructed not rising to the bait.

‘And don’t forget to make a wish,’ Dawn added, excited.

Tara looked directly over the cake, not closing her eyes as she blew on the candles snuffing them in one huge rush of air. And someone looked right back at her. Someone who shared in the wish – whatever it was specifically, it belonged to both of them.

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She might have being willing to believe that she would have been able to stay here in Sunnydale. She might have been willing to believe that people would come to her party. But you couldn’t have persuaded Tara that she would truly feel to be a part of this circle of friends on this birthday. But she did.

Till she creamed them at pool anyway. Now she felt guilty.

But not so guilty that she couldn’t win again.

‘Black ball, corner pocket,’ she told Xander and Anya and sunk the ball with a self-satisfied smile. She was a winner today… just look at what she had won, and hugged Willow in celebration.

Even so her love couldn’t resist a dig at the ex-demon. ‘See a broom, that is a joke. Ironic even… but you wouldn’t get irony because you’re so literal that-’ Guess there were two of those now… ex-demons. Anya was as human as she was. Witness the fact that she got hurt feelings as much as the next person who was no longer a demon and stormed off to a table of her own.

Tara accepted another drink off Xander but held him back and went after Anya herself, giving just the tiniest look of disapproval to Willow. But she knew what was going on with her love. She just had to make Anya realise it wasn't her fault. Well not all her's.

She plonked herself on the stool next to Anya and pushed a party hat onto the other woman’s head, looping the elastic under her chin.

‘Are birthday’s always like this? Does someone have to be made unhappy to make someone else feel good?’ Anya asked her, feeling sorry for herself. ‘Is ita transfer of happiness thing?’

‘I used to think so. But no. Willow… Willow’s just letting off steam. She was so close to losing me… well and you have to admit that a bucket was a pretty strange idea – though I really, really like it.’ She added the last quickly – though it was true. ‘I can carry my crystal ball home it.’

‘I know. I thought it would be “kooky.” Xander said you were Kooky and so I thought that would be good… And I know that Willow is just… I know how I would feel if Xander was being going to be taken away from me.’ It was perhaps the most grace that Tara had ever seen in Anya.

‘There you go,’ Tara told her. ‘And she just wanted this to be perfect for me. Pefect night. Perfect friends. Perfect presents.’

‘She’s like that… little miss perfect.’ Anya might be showing grace but she didn’t intend that as a compliment.

‘Yup. She is,’ Tara reflected on that perfection and they both knew what the other meant.

‘Tell me that joke again,’ Anya asked her getting back to having fun.

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‘So what's an eagle reflection?’ Anya asked, clearly hoping that there was something funnier in that part of the mythos.

‘Umm...’ Tara wasn't about to spill those beans. Even for Anya the implications of the Eagle Reflection… for the Taglarin’s who hadn’t even had mirrors when they first explored the mythos… well it was crude and rude. Too crude and rude. And there was absolutely no way that Anya wouldn’t spread it…. Then where would I be, Tara wondered. My friends would think I was naughty…

Well I can be, she realised as Willow stepped up to them. With her… I can be.

‘My dance?’ Willow suggested, holding out her hand which Tara gladly took and allowed herself to be led out onto the dance floor… and now they would talk. For the first time. About what had happened.

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The music was slow… it was as beautiful as the woman who Willow held in her arms and it was as easy to imagine losing yourself in. But they would not lose each other. They had come through that. They had survived that peril… Tara was truly hers. There was nothing left to get in the way of that.

And I’m Tara’s. She placed her hands around her lover’s waist, holding her close and felt Tara’s hands on her shoulders, also bringing them together.

‘Good birthday?’ Willow wanted to ask. She wanted to reassure. She wanted to tell Tara that she understood. That it was okay. But what was the point? Tara knew all that. All her friends… their friends, had accepted what had happened without further explanation. They all knew what it was to make mistakes.

‘Best birthday,’ Tara replied and Willow liked to think that it was just a little bit down to her.

‘I still can't believe you didn't tell me about your family and all that.’ And that was the truth… it was easy to guess about concealing the lies that had told Tara she was a demon. Some evil thing that she could never be… but her family. Her kin… Willow would have liked to have known. Then she could have been her love’s rock.

‘I was just afraid if you saw the kind of people I came from, you wouldn't wanna be anywhere near me,’ Tara told her.

‘See ... that's where you're a dummy. I think about ... what you grew up with, and ... then I look at what you are ... it makes me proud. It makes me love you more.’ That sounded a little patronising as she spoke the words… but it was only patronising if it wasn't true, and every word was, or the intent wasn't pure. And she was purity itself. Least until they got home. She had no right to be proud of her love. But she did have every reason. Tara had overcome the death of her mother. She had cared for her family. Not even realising their mental cruelties and living with them. Yet she had the strength to break away. To become something more than what her “fate” had decreed she could be. Who could aspire to more than that?

‘Every time I-’ Tara sucked in her breath, reconsidering her words if not the sentiment behind them. ‘Even when I'm at my worst ... you always make me feel special.’

Willow smiled. There was no trick to that.

‘How do you do that?’ the birthday girl asked.

‘Magic.’ There was no trick at all to making someone feel what they already were.

The music continued and words were unnecessary at that moment. Words were a distraction as they rested on each other, moved with each other, were the other. Were one with each other.

Did they know what was happening? They would ask themselves that later; wonder whether they should have been so openly… magical. But they just didn’t care.

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‘Thank you love’ Tara placed her bucket of presents on the floor and leaned in to kiss Willow firmly on the lips as they stood in the doorway of her dorm room. Willow responded by dropping the broom and closing her arms around her woman’s back in response and held her there - the light pressure an invitation and an unnecessary, but welcome, assurance of her love.

‘You had a good birthday?’ Willow asked once more, finally breaking the kiss. Birthday’s in Sunnydale never seemed to go quite right – not when she was planning them at least, but this time the party, if not the prior events, had better than she had dreamed of. And that dance…my god…not exactly subtle, but hey this was a mystical convergence after all and what did people expect living on a hell mouth? Dancing on air. It was a poetic description for their love.

Tara nodded. ‘The best ever,’ she repeated. ‘In spite of it all.’ To Tara birthdays before had simply been a countdown to this night. They had been celebrated and her family had tried to make them as special as possible for her – but every one she could remember the subtext had been 16 years to go, 10 years to go. All counting down to this night – the 20th anniversary of her birth and the night she was supposed to reveal her true self. Perhaps it was a little true after all, that there was something to be revealed – but it was not a hereditary demon revealing itself to the outside world. It was her emergence from the shell of fear and doubt that her ancestry had created as a person in her own right.

‘And you liked the cake? A good cake is very important. Everyone always remembers the cake.’ Strange but true. They might forget the present they brought, or even one day who’s birthday it had been – but in a dozen years they would all remember the cake. Describe it to each other whilst they searched their memory for the occasion being celebrated.

Tara nodded again ‘It was all wonderful, but that is not what I am thanking you for love. Not for the cake or the party or the presents and not even for your love – wonderful though it is.’ It had been a true coming of age for Tara these last few days. All that had tied her to the past and the bad things in her life had been severed. Her past had dominated her. Dominated them. Though Willow had never known it, she had never let her love know it, it was what had held her back. Just the tiniest bit perhaps. But now… she had nothing left to hide. Nothing to hold her back at all. Only the future remained…and perhaps the now.

Their future and their now.

Willow gave her a questioning look. ‘Then what?’

‘I’m thanking you for pushing me; making me into the person that I am today. You have changed me beyond what I ever imagined I could be.’ Tara saw Willow’s face shift into a frown, uncomfortable at those words.

‘I don’t want you to change – or to change you Tar. I love you just the way you are’ Willow replied, bothered that Tara might feel that she had been changed by her or made to change to stay with her.

‘Oh no. That came out wrong. All wrong. What I meant was that you allowed me to change myself. You gave me the support to find out who Tara Maclay really is – you were the strength that let me stand up to my family but it was what you did long before that that really mattered.’ Tara breathed. Thinking of the best way to put it all. All that she owed to her beautiful woman. ‘You let me become who I had to be. Who I needed to be able to be - with you. You revealed the true me. The me that has been hidden for all these years beneath scared Tara, shy Tara, ‘you will become a demon and evil’ Tara. You made me into a person with friends – part of your family even - not the Rosenberg’s - the Scoobies.’ Tara said. ‘I finally feel I belong to something that I want to be a part of, rather than something I was forced into, or was born into.’

‘Tara Scooby…I like that’ Willow joked not sure that she had really had anything to do with that, having always regarded Tara as her own strength rather than what was now suggested – that she had supported Tara? She liked to think that she had been what Tara needed. But she had missed it all… everything that was hurting her love. How could she have been what Tara needed then?

Tara smiled. ‘Not sure I like that name really – I was never really able to be a Scooby-Do fan – kind of taboo in our house what with the ghosts and witches and everything – even though they were never real, but it is all so true – what you said I mean. Not Scooby-do. Though actually…’ She smiled. ‘You kept telling me that they would – the Scoobies I mean – they would like me, accept me and I could never really believe you, not really because it wasn’t how people were with me. I always knew that they would find out. That even if they came to like me then I would hurt them. So I couldn’t let myself be as close to them as a friend should be.’

‘You doubted me? I’m hurt honey,’ the tone of Willow’s voice suggested that she was anything but hurt – actually happy to have been right and delighted that Tara had come to realise that truth.

‘I thought perhaps you were telling me what you were hoping for – rather than what you believed. Still the truth… but maybe only one truth. The one I couldn’t believe myself.’ Tara said as Willow looked at her, still caught in the low embrace of Willow’s arms. ‘But when they all stood up to my Dad and the others – they all put themselves between him and me to protect me… to give me what I had always wanted. A choice…and when you forced me take that choice…’ A tear came to Tara’s eye as she thought of that once more.

Willow reached up, wiped that tear away with her sleeve and lovingly admonished Tara. ‘Don’t cry, not now. There’s no need to be afraid or sad or anything but loved…not anymore.’

‘I’m happy – I’m happy.’ Tara reassured her. ‘It’s because I’m happy,’ though the tears still came.

Willow leaned in and kissed Tara on the nose.

‘Oww!’ the blonde woman cried as Willow connected with her bruised nose.

‘Oh, oh, sorry honey…sorry.’ More tenderly this time, Willow kissed it again, careful just to kiss Spike’s ‘birthday gift’ better, looping her arms around Tara’s back again and spinning them into the room, and as Tara bent and snagged the bucket of goodies and kicked the door shut behind them, one of their feet catching the catnip impregnated ball that lay by the doorframe.

Immediately a small bundle of fur leapt from a watchfully alert sleep and pounced on the moving target. Willow released Tara and bent to pick Miss Kitty up, nuzzling her small nose with her own.

Tara smiling, wiped her tears away and saw them there. ‘You know I don’t know which of you is cuter love.’

Miss Kitty looked up from the ball of wool still on the floor and acknowledged those words as if they had been directed at her ‘Miaaaoww,’ but then returned her attention the ball, moving again as Willow caught it with her foot.

Willow held the cat, disgruntled and straining to get back to the ball, up along side her own face for Tara to judge, raising her eyebrows questioning, ‘Mmmmn, me of Miss Kitty? Make your choice and live with it sweetie.’

With the young cat also eyeing Tara it was almost as if she understood and challenged her right along with Willow. ‘Oooh, tough choice – one of you I love to stroke till she purrs….’ Tara smiled. ‘And the other is a soft, cuddly, cute kitty.’ Tara came over and kissed her choice on the lips again taking Miss Kitty from Willow and holding her up against her shoulder where the feline stuck her ungrateful claws out, not enough to hurt, but enough to snag the fabric and anchor the position. Perhaps it was revenge fro her rejection.

Tara backed off, sat down on the end of the bed placing Miss Kitty on her knee after disengaging those claws, hopefully without ruining her clothes. Thus freed the kitten sprang to pursue her favourite toy once more. Now that she had figured out how to bat the ball across the floor herself there was rarely a moment that the little cat was not eating, sleeping or stalking some target.

With Miss Kitty amused Tara turned her attention back to what they had been talking about. ‘I really got it. That they, the gang I mean, they actually value me not as a witch, not as your girlfriend but for me. And apart from you I don’t think that anyone has really seen me like that – stood up for me, or done anything for me, that they didn’t have to. I mean, Donny would stop some of the bullying I received at school, but only because I was his sister – and you saw how he really felt.’ Donny and her father. They were lost causes. Lost to her now. She knew that she couldn’t go home because it no longer was a home. This was home. Where the heart was.

And where the beautiful red-headed witch who held it for her was.

‘He just bought into everything your Dad told him, just as your Dad did what he was told. Everyone else that treated you bad is stupid, Tara. Everyone - but in a way I’m glad they were.’ Willow saw Tara look at her questioning. It was a dumb thing to say but Tara seemed curious rather than bothered by it. ‘Because it made you who you are. You fought so hard to get far enough away from your family, the people you went to school with – all those stupid, selfish people to have your own life that it brought you all the way here. To Sunnydale. To me.’ Willow was fiercely proud of her partner’s achievement in just making it here – to her that the rest of it didn’t matter. If she had to stand up to vampires, demons, Tara’s family or her own this woman was more than worth it and always would be.

‘I know,’ Tara said, ‘your right. I’ve been dragging this fear of myself – or what I was told I was – for so long that I let it drive me here, guess I should thank Daddy for that.’ But not for taking my family from me. Never that.

‘I like him better already.’ Willow replied. ‘I mean I know he’s your father but-’

Tara interrupted her, surprising herself by defending him so soon after he had tried to take her away from the woman she loved. ‘He was a good father; he worked hard to provide for us all – the whole extended family. He gave us a good home. But in return he demanded that we work just as hard for him - all except her…. he really loved her but when she…went…it was all the reason he needed to take it out on me – the fear of the magic I mean. He believed it – he really did. My mother’s father and his dad told it to him and that was just the way things were – the demon stuff I mean. It never stopped him loving me – or my mother but it was a different kind of love. He used it to keep my mother close and she didn’t mind that because she loved him too. But I was raised my whole life by a mother who taught me magic and that there was a bigger world out there for me and by a father who told me it was evil and that being able to do magic or to risk being in that world – well it was down to being part demon.’ Tara reflected on her early life and what it had meant. ‘I couldn’t stay there like that and I won’t go back to it.’ Spike’s demonstration with her nose had been painful but would never prove anything to her family. They did not know, and would not believe, about Spike and his chip. It was no explanation. No proof. Not to them. But it was to me. Thank you Spike she thought to herself. That was a weird thing to feel.

‘Well all I can say to that is good. I don’t want you going anywhere’ Willow told her then realised how similar to Mr Maclay that sounded. ‘Not without me anyway. Not unless we go together.’

‘No intention of going anywhere lover.’ Tara returned the assurance. ‘Definitely stay at home Tara.’ She picked up the bag, pulled out the crystal ball and saw herself in the distorted reflection with in it – no longer seeing what had previously bothered her in the reflections. Before the demon had taken form. It had been there for as long as she could remember looking over her shoulder every time she looked in a mirror. A demon with her face. That demon was gone now banished to whence it came – the small minded and ignorant world of her kin.

Seeing Tara happily reflecting on herself within the crystal Willow guessed at what was going through her mind but there was still one present left to give. ‘You never asked where my present was…’ Willow reminded Tara with a sly grin on her face.

‘You got me that beautiful picture of us and organised the party and aside from that I just kinda figured that it was you in my life – that’s all I want from you – all I’ll ever want.’ Tara told her letting her smile shine through again.

‘You already got that…what do you get has-everything girl I asked myself?’ A less material person than Tara it was hard to imagine and with Giles opening the magic store it had been kinda obvious what theme the others would stick to. So…

Tara shook her head not knowing but guessing – quite accurately as it happened – as Willow began to unwrap the present.

‘My love - because I don’t just want us to be in each other’s lives. My soul - because I already lost it to you – in a non-demony sort of way at least. And my body, because it’s kind of a package deal.’ Willow offered it all and the gift was happily received more than once that night until even Miss Kitty tired and fell asleep beneath their bed.

It was just the end of their beginning.

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She's my always

[This message has been edited by Katharyn (edited November 18, 2001).]

The Kitten, the Witches and the Bad Wardrobe Willow & Tara Forever

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