ok, first:
shootingstar: i like bunnyanya, too, heh: *What? bunnies are scary!* she's hilarious.
but, now, the point of this message, here's an update:
Tara sat at the small, two-seated lunch table waiting for Willow to arrive. Getting bored, she glanced at the clock on the opposite wall: 1:12.
Where is she? Surely she isn’t still embarrassed about the syrup, The blond looked down at her cheeseburger and started to pick at the little brown sesame seeds covering it. She could hear laughter and chatting all around her. Everyone, it seemed, was having a good time but her.
Maybe she’s ditched me. she thought glumly.
A few painfully slow minutes and a small pile of sesame seeds later she heard a plate coming in contact with the table and the scraping of a chair against the floor as someone sat down opposite her.
“Hey, Tara.” said a familiar voice, Tara looked up immediately when she realised who it was.
“Hi, Will. I thought you weren’t coming…” she said, taking in Willow’s striking features, the green eyes, the short crimson hair, the scent that belonged only to this woman.
“Well, I’m here. I mean, why wouldn’t I be here? It’s not like I have any other place to be, or like I would be by myself pining away over Oz or any other guy for that matter. Because I wouldn’t, I have no reason to…”
Will, now would be a very good time to shut your big fat hairy mouth! she told herself, unable to stop the babble as she tried to explain to Tara that she wouldn’t be anywhere else.
Tara couldn’t help but giggle slightly at the cute babble coming from the hacker’s mouth, it was just funny, and sweet, and it suited her.
Willow found herself smiling, too. “Hey, you’re laughing at me, now I’m all offended.” she announced, a look of mock hurt on her face.
“I *snort* I can’t help it, *snort*” Tara regained her composure as she realised she was only laughing for the sake of laughing. It felt good to laugh. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t so much laughing at you as…well…”
“Giggling?” Willow offered, wishing she had ex-ray vision to see
anything underneath Tara’s baggy, too-big sweater.
“Exactly. Purely innocent.” Tara agreed, smiling. By some coincidence, when she described herself as ‘innocent’, the clouds chose that second to move from the sun’s path and a golden ray of light shined through the window, engulfing the gentle-hearted Wicca.
The sight warmed Willow’s heart and gave her a tingle. She changed the subject to one which gave her the opportunity to look away, saving her secret before it became obvious as to just how the blond affected her.
“Nice little collection,” the redhead commented, pointing to the sesame seeds on Tara’s plate, before a worrying thought hit her: “Are you one of those people who collect stuff that looks like things?” she asked, looking a little anxious.
“I’m pretty sure I’m not. What did you say?” Tara answered, her face giving away her confusion, her eyebrows creasing together slightly, not quite understanding the hacker’s question.
“Hey, Tara?” Willow asked, changing the subject and lowering her face from the blonde’s view, a few strands of red effectively hiding her eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to go out for coffee sometime? I know we’ve already gone places together and we already know each other and all that. It’s just I would really like coffee. With you.” came the hacker’s nervous question.
“Sure, I’d really like that, too. But you still want to do that spell tonight, right?” the blond answered, majorly impressed with Willow’s suggestion.
That would make it a coffee date, wouldn’t it? Then we would be on a kind of date? “Definitely. It sounds like fun and you said it was pretty. How about we go for coffee tomorrow lunchtime?” the hacker assured her, remembering it was Saturday tomorrow.
She said yes! She wasn’t freaked out by a coffee date at all! “Ok, I’ll see you at the Espresso Pump?” Tara asked, knowing this was one of Willow’s favourite coffee places.
“Yeah, ‘bout two?”
“That’s fine.” now the blond was getting pretty damn hopeful. It was obvious to her Willow had been thinking about her sexuality and she just hoped her decision had come down on the side of girls, well, her, to be more precise,
Now that sounded bad,.
Just as she had to suppress a grin, she saw the Slayer striding towards them with a plate full of French Fries and it happened automatically.
“Hi Will. Hi…er…Will’s friend.” she greeted them brightly, sitting on one corner of the table, not bothering to get herself a chair.
“I-it’s T-Tara.” The blond Wicca told her, intimidated by her for some reason,
Huh, possibly the SUPER STRENGTH that could totally kick your ass?! she asked herself, annoyed that her stutter returned when talking to Buffy.
“Hi Tara,” she corrected herself, offering the shy Wicca a French Fry as she stuffed her own face.
“N-no, thank you,” the shy Wicca declined.
“What’s with all the pep, Miss Beaming?” Willow asked her friend, seeing Tara’s discomfort and suspecting that the Slayer had been making out with Riley.
“Nothing. Just in a great mood,” she answered.
“What?” she asked when the redhead raised an eyebrow at her.
She can read me like a book she thought, suddenly thankful for a friend like Willow.
“Oh, nothing,” the hacker said irritatingly breezily. “What happened earlier by the way, with the beepers?”
“Oh, false alarm. No big,” Buffy reassured. “Sorry for ditching you,” she added, truly apologetic.
“It’s ok, I didn’t mind,” the hacker lied, finding the plain, cream-coloured table top to be an interesting thing to look at at that particular moment in time.
“Hey, do you want to go to The Bronze tonight? You, me, Xander, maybe Anya?” she posed the question to Willow, seeing her friend was lying and trying to make up for hurting her. Then realised she was being rude to Tara and turned to Willow’s friend,
uh oh, that didn’t go down too well she thought, seeing the Wicca’s head was down, her face hidden by dark blond hair. Adding that to her exceedingly unrevealing clothing, you could see practically no human at all. “Are you free, Tara, you could come, meet the gang,”
Tara looked to Willow for support in declining Buffy’s offer.
I hope she doesn’t change her mind about tonight… “Um, we are kind of doing something tonight. A spell.” Willow intervened.
“Oh,” the Slayer was obviously hurt but her pout only lasted a few seconds before she perked up again. “Ok, then I guess I’ll just
have to stay with Riley tonight...”
Heh, not that I mind too much… “Ok, sorry.”
Ok, I felt bad when she ditched me earlier, now I’m doing the same to her. Oh well, I’ll just have to make it up to her sometime.“Um, W-Will? I h-have some work to do. I-I’ll see you later?” Tara interrupted, feeling guilty for being the reason Willow couldn’t see her friends tonight and flat out pissed off with herself for stuttering so badly.
“Ok, see you later, bye!” the redhead called, watching Tara hurry away. Looking forward to that evening.
“Bye, Tara,” Buffy yelled after the retreating blond. whilst hungrily eyeing the burger the Wicca had left behind, having finished her French Fries.
"Dr. Becker, have you seen the skeleton?" "What do you think I am, a skeleton thief? You want to search me?!"
"Who sponsered career day this year, The Brittish Soccer Fan Association?!" - Xander - What's My Line?
"We'll all be a lot happier without the constant whining....Mom, Buffy, Tara, Waah" - DMW to Dawn
...) 
to do it... makes me a very happy camper!!! 
at: 6/12/02 8:33:33 am
Ok think back to english class...oh yeah, good characterisation! Thats the word!
the coffee thing, though, i'm afraid you're gonna have to wait a while for that, you'll see why though, i've written up quite a bit, i just have to get it betad.