by: Dacia
BtVS | Willow | G
WARNING : Will wonders never cease? This one doesn’t really need a warning. Although, at least in my head, there’s a definite whiff of girl/girl type attraction happening in here.
DISCLAIMER : Willow does not belong to me, but it sure would be handy if she could do a locator spell on my car keys. Instead, Willow and the entire Buffy-verse remain the property of Fox/UPN, Mutant Enemy, Joss Whedon, Kuzui and anyone else I’ve missed. I have no intention of ever making any money off this story, and doubt I could even throttle a nickel out of someone for it if I tried.
SPOILERS : Mild spoilers for ‘Villains’, ‘Two to Go’ and 'Grave'. Also, some itsy-bitsy mention of the situation up to ‘Potential’ in Season 7. Of course, this story won’t make a lot of sense if you haven’t at least seen ‘Bring On the Night’.
The soft snick of the door heralds her entrance.
“I’m home,” she calls up the stairs. No answer.
Bumping the door with her hip, she swings across the threshold with several heavily laden brown paper bags, two in each arm. Manoeuvring around the wooden barrier, she hooks it shut with her foot. One bag slips dangerously in her grasp, but firming her grip, she holds onto her prize, while wincing at the possibility of broken eggs and squished produce. She glances left at the living room. Empty.
“Anybody here?” she tries again, turning to the side hall that leads to her destination regardless. Her voice falls flat with no response to bolster it. She lurches somewhat drunkenly down the hallway, one bag lower than the others. Hitching the paper sack against her thigh to forestall its downward progress, she enters the kitchen. With a calculated upward swing, she lands the wayward bag on the counter, followed shortly by its peers. Rummaging briefly through the sack, she is satisfied nothing was broken by her moderately rough treatment, and begins to sort the items to be put away. A mild furrow mars her brow as she contemplates the inordinately large pile of junk food, representing the majority of her purchases. She never should have followed the ‘short’ grocery list the others had compiled. It seems both slayers and potential slayers have an undue fondness for the fifth and sixth food groups-- chips and ice cream.
As she is calculating how to bend the laws of physics in order to accommodate the assortment of ice cream in the freezer, a square of pale blue note paper catches her eye.
Willow,
Buffy et al. are doing some daylight recon/training at the cemetery. Anya, Dawn and me are at the hardware store-- have to replace the windows, doors, etc. -- again.
X.
After the ‘X’ is a crude, but elaborate drawing of a stick-Xander, complete with construction helmet, a goofy grin, and a speech balloon that declares, “Catch ya later.” Willow smiles at this rendering, and any disquiet she’d felt eases with the knowledge that everyone is seemingly okay.
Humming the chorus of ‘Kung Fu Fighting’, which has been in her head most of the morning, she continues clearing away the groceries until the countertop is bare. Her last task is to fold the paper bags and place them in a cupboard underneath the utensil drawer to be reused at a later date.
With her only real chore of the day completed, she considers what to do next. Resolving to take advantage of the empty house, an increasingly rare circumstance with the Slayer Con in town, she decides to meditate. Yet, the deceptively quiet confines are imprinted with the inherent unruliness of multiple houseguests, and finding a spot not already occupied by leftover pizza boxes, freshly carved stakes, and the recent explosion of laundry that the Summers’ house has seen, proves itself to be a Herculean task.
Giving up on the main floor, Willow retreats to the comparatively serene surroundings of her bedroom, a label that the space no longer truly warrants, as she has been sharing it for several weeks now.
A shadow passes over her expression, as she reflects on the various shifts in identity that this room has experienced-- becoming hers in part, because she could not bear to remain in the other room-- not her room either, that one, but-- ours. Notions of meditating fly from her head, as her thoughts scatter wildly. Her legs buckle beneath her, and she falls into the fortunate embrace of the soft bed beside her.
It will be a year soon, too soon. Time flies when you’re having fun, and even, apparently, when you’re not. Her tears well with memories unbidden, and both sting, the pain as fresh as any cut, any broken bone or heart. Once, her undoing was magick, but now, it seems, her addiction is regret. She struggles, one day at a time, to control her feelings of loss, of regret, at times shaking with the effort. Part of her longs to release control again, to give over to that sorrow, but she resists, she knows that glorying in that state failed to restore what was lost, and nearly cost her that which remained. She clings to her only victory: that she failed in her endeavour to bring about an apocalypse, and even that success may be a transient one, as yet another uber-monster is questing to bring about the end of the world.
She stubbornly reins in her tears; she will not give in today. She smoothes the lines at her forehead, and dabs self-consciously at her eyes though there is no one to observe her. Meditation, it seems, is out for now. Instead, she moves to straighten up the room, but finds little that needs tidying; both she and her roommate are maintaining a level of polite neatness that time and familiarity will likely weaken, given the chance.
Her face adopts a moderately terrified expression as she contemplates the girl sharing her accommodations, Kennedy. Her mind skirts around any physical details, unwilling to allow that she has noticed the other girl’s rich brown eyes, caramel skin, or unique musky scent that no amount of politeness can mask. Kennedy is-- interesting, and that’s all Willow is willing to admit at this point. Not even the looming end of the world can pry further comment from her; the world has ended before.
Yet the petite potential slayer seems determined to get a reaction out of her, waging a subtle war against the witch’s defenses with humour, intelligence, and sincerity; three attributes that Willow has always found particularly disarming. Despite herself, Willow is flattered, but that fleeting realization propels her fear to the forefront once again.
Willow has always been discomfited by anyone’s sexual interest in her, but now, even more so. She is terrified of the possibility of reciprocation on her part, even unintentional. That the tingling in her fingers, the pleasant lurch in her stomach, or the unconscious hooding of her eyes constitutes a betrayal of her lost love, of Tara. On a conscious, intellectual level, she knows that this is unreasonable and beyond her control, and that Tara would want her to be happy again. She knows this.
Even so, she is not ready, perhaps she never will be, and yet-- the possibility flits at the borders of her conscious mind. It tantalizes her with chocolate eyes and caramel skin-- and for a moment-- just a moment; Willow lies back on the bed, and allows herself to consider the potential-- of another.
THE END
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Cuz she's "... always depended on the kindness of strangers..."