Title: Somewhere (1/?)
Author: rae.
Rating: G for now.
Pairing: Willow/Tara, eventually. Tara and Doyle friendship.
Disclaimer: characters are Joss’. But he sucks.
Author’s Note: I wanted to write a story with Doyle, feeling all horribly, creatively inspired by the death of Glenn Quinn. *sigh* This is for Glenn, despite it's he's-never-going-to-read-itness, because he was so awesome. Oh, and for Kenda because she didn't laugh at me when I cried over the news of his death and then told me that she thought I wasn't lame (she's such a sweet little lieface).
Summary: Tara and Doyle, friends in the whole After-Life Deal, decide to try and stop being dead. (No, really, I'm hoping it turns out better than that summary sounds) Because you know what? Death, real and fictional, f--king SUCKS.
FEEDBACK: please please please. I don't know wether (yes, I know it's spelled wrong) or not to continue the story without it. So, once again, PLEASE.
***
“You miss her?”
Tara looked back at the Irish half-demon, a wistful smile on her face. “More than anything,” she said.
He nodded and sat down next to her, under the apple tree that overlooked a small stream, the stream that was used as a way to get everywhere else. Distances travelled by water.
Still facing him, he saw her eyes. Blue, so blue. And he knew everything that had made them so blue, both literally and metaphorically. He knew about her parents, about her life before Sunnydale, about her life in Sunnydale. Good thing about this place? Wherever it was, whoever ran it, at least all them dead-folk had instant access to one another. He’d known Tara as soon as they’d met, she’d known him. And, with one look, they had become friends.
She was shy, weary of everyone else and he just didn’t always feel up to being social. She had lost the girl she was in love with, he had too. Both of them before their proper times. They were both good listeners and she was an amazing storyteller, he’d always feel like he’d been there, that he knew these people, that he knew their smells and tastes and the jokes they told. He just loved listening to her soft, candy-coated voice.
“Tell me about her.”
Tara rolled her eyes, laughed at him. “You know everything. You’ve known everything since the moment we met.”
“True,” he agreed. “But tell me anyway.” His brown eyes were pleading, interested. How could she turn him down? He urged, “C’mon, you know my favorite. Once upon a time in a Wicca group...”
Tara reached down with both hands, gripped at the green grass beneath her. Not enough to rip it out, just enough to hold it in her fingers, feel the dirt slip inside her nails. “She was annoyed and vocal about it. It made me pay attention.”
He knew the story by heart, even though each time Tara would tell it, she changed what she emphasized. “But...”
She sighed. “But, I had paid attention long before. As she’d sat down I noticed her because of her hair. It was firey, short and red like a pixie might have. She had an aura I recognized- like she’d been ignored many times and was only getting used to having her own voice, relishing it. I had yet to find my own voice but seeing her, just listening and watching I knew that I would one day. She would help me.” As she spoke, her voice grew sad and heavy, her eyes dropped from Doyle’s face to the ground beneath them. “Such a beautiful girl...” Tara breathed.
They were quiet, Doyle unsure of what to say. Cordelia’s calling him weasel-like always repeated in his head, reminding him that he was no Prince Charming. He stared at the blond girl, so young and so sweet, her sunshine-colored hair falling in her face, A barrier between them, reminding him that they weren’t just two friends having any old chat.
Around them, everything continued. Birds flew above them, Doyle could hear their calls. Trees swayed, leaves attached to branches dancing in the wind. The gurgling little sounds the stream made, the fishes that swam in it’s waters. The green grass and dirt he was currently sitting on, the pink blue red yellow purple white green flowers that he could see by the water’s edge, roses and gardenias, violets, lilies, hibiscus. And the smells, so many of them, mixing together and embracing in one lovely fragrance.
Finally, voice barely above a whisper; “And you? What did you love about her?”
He ran a hand through his already- messy brown hair and shut his eyes, bent his head and rested his chin against his jean-clad knees. He didn’t like to talk about Cordelia much, reminded him of all his missed chances. But Tara always was willing to share, it was only right for him to do the same when she specifically asked. “What I could see about her, deep down under the hair and the clothes and the attitude. Her kindness, her insecurity. I thought she was my soulmate.”
Tara looked at him again, pained. It was a constant problem with Doyle, he was always putting down love. His ex wife, old high school girlfriends, Cordelia. He seemed unwilling to believe in it now. “Maybe she was. You don’t know-”
He shook his head. “C’mon, we both know that I barely knew her. It doesn’t take much to think that you’re in love with someone, but how do you know whether they’re your one and true love?”
“You know this. Who’s the first girl I thought that I-”
“Imogen Fletcher.”
She nodded and repeated, “Imogen Fletcher.” Then she reached out and put a hand on his knee, curling her arm through his to get there. “I thought that I loved her for years. Later I met Willow, and I knew I loved her and that she was my one and true. Because when I met Willow, I didn’t just get a butterflies or sweaty palms, I felt it everywhere. From the first time I saw Willow, I knew that she smelled like vanilla and fabric softner, I knew that she would taste like cherry lip balm. Every bit of me knew that Willow Rosenberg was my thoughts, my breath, my heart beat, my soul. It feels different.”
He understood what she was saying, although he wasn’t sure how to respond. “But I’m not so good with words, Tara.”
She rested her head against his shoulder, thinking. “Doyle, what if there was a way out of here?”
“Sweetie, I’ve been here for a long while. Years, I’m sure. I have yet to be approached with the get-out-of-heaven-free! card.”
She raised her head, looked at him seriously. “Maybe because it isn’t free. You have to, like, earn it somehow. Do something other than sit in the grass.”
Doyle pouted, half-jokingly. “But I like sitting in the grass.” At his refusal, her lips turned downwards, her brow furrowed, and she looked like a balloon that had been deflated. Except, he though, she wasn’t round or plastic. Or anything like a balloon, actually. Doyle couldn’t help but to give in. “We could give it a go, I suppose,” he said with a sigh. He hadn’t a clue where to start with this.
Tara smiled.
.end part one.
Edited by: starlitefaeriegrrrl at: 12/6/02 11:01:51 pm
So Doyle and Tara are going to have their own little adventures, cool.
! 
