***
“But she’s doing better!” Dawn cried.
“I know she is, you keep telling me but I just…” Tara’s voice answered her down the phone.
“You don’t know if you can trust her,” Dawn realised.
“I’d trust her with my life but I know what magic means to her,” Tara answered.
“When will you be ready?”
”I don’t…” Tara paused, “Soon.”
Dawn smiled, “Well that’s good to hear. So what time are you coming to pick me up tomorrow?”
“I’ll get you straight from school, ok?”
“No! Erm, I mean, you can’t… cuz… cuz I have to drop my stuff off here,” Dawn panicked for a moment, she had a plan but it wouldn’t work if Tara picked her up from school, she needed her to come to Casa del Summers.
Tara laughed, “Ok then, sounds like a plan.”
“Yep, see you then?”
“Uh-huh, love you,” Tara said.
“Love you too,” Dawn replied and hung up, she slumped down onto her bed and thought about her developing plan. If Tara came to pick her up tomorrow she would have to see Willow at the house right? Maybe they’d get talking and Tara would realise how much better Will was doing and they’d get back together. Well that was the theory anyway. Hopefully it would work.
Dawn rummaged around in her bag and found some math homework she should have been doing, she stared at the endless row of numbers on her sheet and decided she needed Willow.
She grabbed a pencil and trooped down the hall to Willow’s room, she knocked on the door before pushing it open, “Will? I need your help with this…”
Dawn took a few steps into the room and her eyes took in the sight before her. Willow was lying on the floor, her entire body was shaking and her breathing seemed difficult.
“Willow?!” Dawn shrieked.
“W-wa-wat-water,” Willow managed to get out from her quivering lips.
Dawn ran to her room and found the bottle of water she had had earlier, she held it to Willow’s lips and helped her take a few sips.
Very slowly the shakes subsided, “Thanks, I don’t know what happened.”
“I do, it was cuz of the magic wasn’t it? Like a side effect or something,” Dawn accused her, all thoughts of math homework forgotten.
Willow sighed and nodded, “Yeah, I suppose it was.”
Dawn still looked concerned, “Are you sure you’re ok now?”
Willow nodded, “Who were you talking to on the phone?”
Dawn thought quickly, “Buffy, she won’t be home till late, patrol or something.”
As if on cue they heard the faint sound of a door opening downstairs and Buffy’s voice calling “Hey!”
Dawn and Willow both chorused greeting back before Willow turned to Dawn suspiciously, “It was Tara wasn’t it?”
Dawn looked down at the floor and nodded slowly, “We’re going out tomorrow.”
Buffy entered the room and her eyes immediately took in Willow and Dawn sitting on the floor and Dawn’s hastily thrown down math, “What happened in here?” she wondered.
“Nothing really,” Willow answered with a smile, “Dawnie got a little upset with her homework, I was helping her,” she added.
“Oh, well it’s good that you’re doing your homework again,” Buffy said with a look of approval at Dawn.
Dawn scowled, “Good for you maybe.”
Buffy just grinned, “I’m gonna take a shower then I’ll fix us something to eat ok? I think it’s my turn.”
Dawn and Willow nodded and watched her go.
“So what am I supposed to be doing with this math?” Dawn asked, handing Willow the sheet.
Willow read the page then began to explain, after a while and a lot of Dawn banging her head against the floor, the math was done and they could smell Buffy’s cooking. It smelled suspiciously like pizza. They went down stairs and saw the back of the retreating delivery boy and the pizza box in Buffy’s hand.
“Busted!” Dawn cried with a laugh, she grabbed the pizza box from Buffy and ran into the kitchen.
Buffy rolled her eyes, “Ok, ok, so I’m lazy,” she said as she followed in Dawn’s wake.
As they sat round the table discussing their plans for the following day, Dawn thought about her ‘Get Them Back Together’ plan, she had it all figured out exactly now, nothing could go wrong, well she thought nothing could go wrong which probably meant that there were huge gaping holes in it somewhere, but hey, nobody’s perfect.
* * *
The next day Dawn hurried home from school as fast as she could, she practically ran all the way. She darted through the front door and ran up the stairs, she through her bag into her room and went to Willow’s room to see if she was there. Willow was sitting in front of her desk, the computer was on and was making noises.
“Come on, come on,” Willow was muttering.
Dawn took a moment to clam down then said “Hey.”
Willow jumped, “Oh, hi Dawn. You have a good day at school?”
“The usual,” Dawn replied, “What are you doing?”
“Trying to get on to the Internet, Buffy called about some demon, they wanted me to have a look online,” Willow explained.
“Oh, nothing too serious?” Dawn asked.
“Nah,” Willow replied.
“Good, good,” Dawn murmured glancing at her watch nervously, any second now…
“So what time is Tara coming to pick you up?” Willow asked casually.
“Any second now hopefully I… wait, how did you know she was coming?” Dawn asked startled.
“You told me you two were going out,” Willow reminded her, her computer had finally connected to the ‘net so she quickly headed to one of her demon related bookmarked sites.
They heard the sound of the front door opening and Tara’s voice called up the stairs, “Dawn?”
“I’m up here,” Dawn yelled back with a quick glance at Willow. Willow’s face had lit up when she heard Tara’s voice but now she was coming up stairs she looked worried.
They heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs and then Tara appeared in the doorway, she saw Willow and took a visible step backwards. “Willow! I-I didn’t know you were here.” She quickly turned to Dawn, “Are you ready now?”
“Hi,” Willow said softly, she couldn’t bare to look at the pain that was clearly visible on Tara’s face.
“I’ll just be one minute, why don’t you wait in here?” Dawn said and left the room. She walked along the hall to her room, she smiled to herself, she was going to give them much more than a minute and she had no intention of going anywhere with Tara, those two were staying in that room until they had sorted out their problems once and for all.
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Hannah's Home -- My Collective Creative Crap
Help me you bastards, I'm drowning not waving!
[This message has been edited by Hanki (edited February 01, 2002).]
