In the interests of teasing you all, I've been working on the final fraft of part 168 or 169 this week (not sure which it was) and shall we say that when Louise came to it she liked it. She liked it in an all new way for her liking my writing. She liked it as much as she disliked typing this for me.
Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle - The Zinger (Part 165)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome.
katslady@hotmail.co.uk. Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe as set up in “The Wish” though reference is made to events that occur in both realities. Nothing is referenced that occurs after S5 though. Guess why? Most “spoilers” would be for the first chronicle of this fic rather than the show and if you haven’t read that then much of this will make no sense but you can try and get round it by reading the preface to Part 104 which summarises most of what went before.
Distribution This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens (This applies to all of the Sidestep Chronicle)
Summary: This scene continues from the prior parts and brings in a little something that we all should recognise. More on that later.
Disclaimer: I 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. You know the drill.
Rating: R – a general rating for occasional content. Individual parts might be less than this level.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever – others couples as necessary but nothing unconventional.
Notes: This part lifts directly from a S4 episode in places – all credit for those lines belongs to the writers involved.
Thanks To: My own special woman Louise who helps me so much with this on top of everything else. Those other friends and family who’ve also helped us overcome everything that was put in my way. Celia and Kerry who shaped this story and continue to do so when I think back to what they told me in the past. Xita for keeping the story hanging around and continuing to give us TKTWATBW. Kerry beta read this a long time ago and we’ve made use of that file now – thanks for that!
The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle
The Zinger
By
Katharyn Rosser
“Should we really be sitting down here on the floor after just eating?” Tara asked her, looking around as if someone was going to chastise them.
Willow thought about it for a moment, dragging her mind away from how beautiful Tara was, how much she loved her and the answer Tara had given her about the big possibility… But just for a moment. “I’m pretty sure it’s lying down that’s a no-no right now,” she concluded. That was what her Mom had always told her. Nix that. Mom had instructed and lectured rather than simply told. She’d learned her lessons well though. She’d learned them, and if it came to it she would pass them on too. Somehow that idea was bound up in thoughts of love as well.
Everything that mattered came back to loving Tara.
Everything.
“So love,” Tara wondered, “if we can’t lie down then can we still do the spell?”
Willow grinned, that wasn’t exactly how her logic was working. There were plenty of more or less vertical things they had to occupy them until they
could lie down together to see where it took them. They didn't even
need to lie down to do anything. But they’d probably have ended up that way and an upset tummy didn’t appeal to her. The spell, on the other hand, most certainly did appeal to her. It would show them the love. “Don’t I just think of everything?” she asked as if claiming credit for the idea.
She and Tara saw right through each other – most of the time anyway – so she wasn't fooling her baby. She didn’t need to though, not now, because she’d surprised Tara! She loved to surprise Tara – it was just that she more than sucked at the whole secret thing. She was really, really bad at secrets – so this whole evening was a major success. Pulling the wool over the eyes of the woman she loved. She’d managed it this time – perhaps because she hadn’t actually seen Tara since she left this morning and the idea had only come to her when she’d seen the roses on sale. She hadn’t had chance to blurt out the secret.
Actually it had come to her when she’d had the rose in her hand. It was then that the surprise had come to her mind and everything Tara-like had become so much more important. She’d gone in there firmly intending to get a single rose for the spell. Instead… she had a dozen, plus this one, and a spare… just in case. And she’d surprised Tara. That was worth five bucks all on its own. It was worth more than that. It was priceless, but not as priceless as their love.
She loved Tara… so much. She couldn’t stop thinking about how much.
It would have surprised Tara that she had managed to surprise her – so there had really been two surprises! Tara…
“You do think of everything,” Tara admitted looking at her across the symbol on the floor between them. A symbol which would unite them in magic just as they were united in love.
She
was usually so the planning girl – and now she was spontaneous, surprise, no flow-chart planning girl – which was shiny, new and something she could live with. It made her seem – at least to herself – less obsessive.
“When was the last time we tried a ritual together?” Tara went on to ask her.
Willow thought about it. There hadn’t really been any
need to do any ritual magic
together for such a long time. Ritual magic wasn’t what they were really about anymore – for Willow it never had been. She knew the basics, but it had never needed to be a major part of her life as it had been or Tara. There had just been the enduring spells, like the ones which protected this apartment, their dorm room, Ira’s and the Giles’ home. Apart from those though? “Too long ago,” Willow guessed.
And hence the spell they’d wanted to do.
Just because there hadn’t been a
need didn’t mean there wasn't a reason. Love was always a good enough reason. For practically anything.
Tara smiled at her reply and Willow knew her feelings were shared. All of her feelings… Except, well, Ow! She was sitting awkwardly on her own leg and it had gone to sleep on her already. Time to move a little. She hoped Tara wasn’t sharing that feeling because it really did sting.
“Where did you find this spell anyway?” Tara asked.
“I was going through some of your Mom’s old books,” Willow told her. She wanted to shake her foot around, the pins and needles were so bad, but that wouldn’t have been very romantic now would it? “It just popped out at me.”
Tara looked at her speculatively. “My Mom’s books?” she asked. “You don’t think – well they might be a little beneath us at our current level?”
Willow smiled. Tara wasn’t being superior, it was just a magic they’d left behind in favour of something that was at once more individual and yet more a part of both of them. Besides, she knew Tara didn't mean it. She was just fishing for a reaction – she could always tell. Tara was as bad at causing ‘trouble’ as Willow was at keeping secrets.
“Never beneath us,” she replied. “You grounded me in that kind of magic all too well.” Tara had taught her respect for the magic and what it could take from you with her Mom’s old books. They’d never made it to this book though – the pretty one. Why had they never got to this?
“I really did a good job with you,” Tara said, looking her over as if weighing that job up and deciding it had come out more than okay.
“Pretty much the best job ever,” Willow confirmed. “Of all the jobs in the world.”
Tara blew her a kiss across the space between them. “Modesty becomes you. You were a joy to work with too though.”
“Thank you – I always felt you were appreciative of the effort I put into your lessons,” Willow continued to tease.
“Oh yes,” her lover replied, “I was, I was very, very appreciative. I think I showed that.”
“And not just about the magical effort?” Willow checked unnecessarily.
“No, not just about the magic,” Tara promised. “There was the whole being head over heels in love thing going on too.” She winked, as if Willow didn’t already know she was kidding. “So remind me, just what is this going to do? And why couldn’t we do it on the kitchen floor which we decided is always easier to clean up than carpet?”
But how unromantic was that? Not to mention hard and uncomfortable to sit on.
Okay, so there was a lot of magic dust in the carpet but as long as Miss Kitty didn’t come traipsing through here, then they should really be able to clean it all up. This was one thing about rituals, all the cleaning up. Willow really didn’t want to think what would happen if you kept performing rituals on the same patch of carpet
without cleaning up properly. They could probably open a new Hellmouth by accident. Or bring all the penguins in the world right here into their home.
Penguins were better than a Hellmouth but still not a good thing when there were too many of them. Penguins on the roof. Penguins bursting out of the door. Penguins doing backstroke in the bathtub and dancing on the ceiling. Eeep!
Cleanliness was always important – but ritually speaking it was crucial. “Well,” she replied to Tara, “do you think the kitchen floor is really the place for us to be playing with rose petals?” She gave Tara a knowing look, just to emphasise the point. “Unless you… well, you never said anything about the kitchen floor,” she teased.
Tara blushed.
Maybe, in her joke, had she actually found something Tara had thought about? Never mind. It didn’t matter. They really weren’t a kitchen floor kind of couple – and never would be while there was a bed, a carpet or any other room in the house. Okay, that was apart from the time they
had been a kitchen floor kind of couple. But it had just been the wonderful once and part of a much larger canvas of loving. They really weren’t those kind of girls anymore.
Absolutely not.
Okay… so they might be when the mood took them – but they didn’t see themselves that way and that was the important thing.
At least she knew what Tara had been blushing about. Her lover had never quite got over passion taking them to Mrs Maclay’s kitchen floor. Making love… Oh my, just see what a happy memory could do for a girl.
“No,” Tara told her. “Once was enough when we have nice comfy beds. We can spend the extra time to clean up.”
Willow looked at her, wondering just what Tara did and didn’t know – or at least remember – about the spell. She was pretty sure her girlfriend had been all through her Mom’s spell books – either when she was growing up and receiving her foundation in magic, or later. If Tara didn’t know what the rose she carried was actually for then…
Might she not know?
If not then something a little strange was going on – but strange was something that was other than love and love was where Willow was right now. Just in the love. It was all she was worried about. There would probably be days where there would be room for something else as well as love, but she wasn’t sure she could think when that might be. “You do know what the spell is for don’t you?” she asked.
Tara smiled. “There’s no fooling you sweetie,” she admitted. “I know, but I just want to hear you get all excited about it. I love to hear your voice when you’re getting all excited.”
“I think you just like to have me all excited,” Willow countered cheekily.
“Guilty as charged.”
“That’s right,” Willow said, “You’re definitely not the innocent you seem to be, baby.” For some reason everyone they knew pretty much assumed that Tara was all grown up and serious while she was the one who was a little more flighty and prone to making practical jokes. Even Faith saw Tara as an authority figure, while the little girl regarded her more as a contemporary and playmate.
She liked that. She loved it.
But she was the one who loved the Tara that only she really knew. The one who was only shown in flashes to the rest of the world – even their closest friends and family.
Her Tara. That was who she loved.
“Well, you know me better than anyone ever did. Or will, Will.”
“Or does?” Willow checked. “Present tense is important too.” Was she really saying that? Did people really have problems with tenses? Checking Tara was thinking in the present as well as the future? There was irony for them after what they’d been talking about over dinner. Irony… No, it was just another aspect of love. Goddess be praised… she was so in love with this beautiful woman.
Whatever makes her happy…Whatever makes it alright. The song went round in her head. Tara gave her music inside… It might not be a Saturday Night but it was close enough for thoughts of song, if not actual performance.
“And present tense too,” Tara promised. “You know me better than anyone.”
“Inside and out love,” Willow told her. She didn’t need to ask, she just had to confirm it.
“Inside and out,” Tara confirmed. “So the spell?”
“Well, being as you want to see, and hear me, get excited about it,” Willow said. “It’s the rose.”
“I knew that bit,” Tara told her. “Because of all the roses you have.”
“The rose,” Willow repeated with mock impatience pressing a finger to her lips in ‘shush.’ This was what she wanted. She wanted to do this ritual with Tara. Really with her. Together. It was, aside from when they were making love, as close as she could possibly be to Tara. It would be something special. And she intended to test the difference tonight too…
When they made love or were just lying together, sometimes they were so perfectly connected that they were almost… within each other. And not physically – though they could be – it was… an almost spiritual thing. Their connection – always there – was heightened by the love, the desire and the intimacy of just being so close together. She knew all that very well – but the spell in the book had sung to her. She wanted to see how close they could be when they weren’t in that sort of situation.
Magically Tara had been right – this wouldn’t have strained them. Not to do alone. But… She didn’t want just to pluck petals from roses. She wanted to pluck petals from roses with Tara in perfect synchronicity with each other. Working together. Touching each other’s intentions and thoughts. Close to the woman she loved before she loved the woman she was close to.
And she fully intended to. No excuses.
“It should be really pretty,” she said thinking about it. Except for what was left of the poor, petalless rose. No. She couldn’t have rose guilt. It was a fine end for a rose, a wonderful end. The rose would be very happy… Poor little rose.
“What will be really pretty?” Tara asked. “Which spell are we doing?”
“You really don’t know?” Willow asked. She’d been sure that Tara knew. Tara had suggested she knew – and just wanted to hear her say it.
Tara blushed, “Well when I think about it there are a few spells with roses in my Mom’s books. So if you could remind me please?”
“Well,” Willow started as she laid the rose in the circle they’d been so worried about cleaning up, “We just have to take it all slow.” She was just being deliberately teasing now. She really did just want to get to the spell – but there was mileage in drawing it out and teasing Tara. Teasing Tara was always fun – in every respect. It was all part of the anticipation of what was to come. She extended her hands towards Tara and waited for her love to take them.
She wasn't going to say anything more until Tara took her hands.
Besides, as usual, at the instant their skin came into contact a tiny thrilling sensation ran through her. Sometimes it was masked by other things, talking, thoughts… But not this time though. Willow was ready for it; ready it to filter through her hands and to centre of her love for Tara.
But she hadn’t been ready for the intensity of it tonight. She hadn’t been ready for that at all. It had almost rocked her backwards and she could see the same was true for Tara.
“Okay,” Tara said a few moments later as they absorbed the sensations and found a thumb rubbing each other’s palm. She was breathing faster, just as Willow herself was. “Do we want to do the spell or skip to the bed of rose petals?”
Willow closed her eyes but had the definite impression Tara hadn’t done the same. She felt like Tara’s eyes were on her, watching her. She coughed, a little reminder that her lover was supposed to be following her lead. And then… she didn’t think Tara was watching her anymore.
“Sorry,” the other woman murmured but not really sounding it.
Willow absorbed that. Tara was… being playful. Playful was good – but she needed to concentrate for this. She really did, they both had to otherwise it wouldn’t be more than a flower in a circle between two girls holding hands. Okay, so they could both do it another way, or alone, with relative ease but the result wasn’t the point at all. It was the process that she wanted so much, which would bring their love even more to the fore.
“So?” Tara asked after a few moments.
“Alright, I’ll tell you. We’re going to float the rose, then we’re going to use the magic to pluck the petals off, one at a time. It’s a test of synchronicity. Our minds have to be perfectly attuned to work as a single delicate implement,” she explained. The words were paraphrased from the magic book, but they were hers too. She was making them her own. Tara would never know, she didn't even remember the spell.
It seemed best not to babble, and she was looking forward to this so much that she probably would have babbled.
“Cool…” Tara said.
“And it should be very pretty,” Willow repeated. She wanted to stress the prettiness here. There were other ways to test synchronicity but none of them involved something that said ‘love’ so clearly as a rose did.
“Will?” Tara asked.
“Hmm?”
“You got that from the book didn’t you? I mean ‘single delicate implement’? Couldn’t you have said we just ‘work together on it?’”
Busted. “Okay, so I got it from the book, lover,” she joked, “now, can we focus on being that ‘single delicate instrument’ please?”
“Sure,” Tara promised.
“And no cheating,” Willow insisted. They could both cheat. After years of flinging stakes by the power of the mind, there wasn’t going to be much of a problem levitating a rose by a couple of feet. Or even plucking its petals.
“Cross my heart,” Tara said without making the gesture as their hands were maintaining their connection. “Do you know just how much I love you?”
“I know you know. You know too. I know you know. You know?”
“Just say it,” Tara said.
“Then you’ll do the spell with me?” Willow asked.
“I’d have done the spell anyway. Just say it.”
*I love you.* Willow signed, breaking their hands apart just for that.
“Say the words,” Tara insisted.
“I love you.” She didn’t need coaxing. Who’d been the one with the whole surprise going on here? Now Tara was the one making
her say it to her?
“And I feel it all the time,” Tara told her. “I see you, I hear you.”
“You taste me – the love…” Willow teased.
Tara didn’t rise to the teasing though – she just took it as another true statement. Which was fine – because it was hardly inaccurate.
“I feel you all the time.”
“Do you smell the love?” Willow wondered.
Tara frowned, thinking. “I’m not sure about that one. I mean, I guess… It
is an all sense surround-love we have going on here. And there are times when you have a quite delicately lovely scent.”
Willow liked that. Love was what this evening was all about – and it was why they were here, together, neither of them out hunting vampires or anything like that. They, their love, deserved some time to themselves. “I’ll surround you with something,” she promised.
“Spell,” Tara reminded her.
Willow came out of wanting to fulfil that promise immediately and back to the place she
really wanted to be. “Yes, spell now.” Loving later.
“So it only works if you’re in love?” Tara wondered, finding the point faster than Willow would have been able to.
Well… Willow had to consider the question for a moment. The book didn’t say anything about love – it didn’t even mention it. But… If she thought about it then what was it really saying? “It only works if we are perfectly in synch with each other. Knowing the other’s thoughts and feelings. What the other person is going to do next, anticipating it, working with them through that knowledge.”
“Sounds like a big part of love to me,” Tara said and blew her another kiss.
”I think so,” Willow replied. Or perhaps what Tara meant was that, once you were in love with someone – in that way – then you developed the kind of understanding that this spell required. Perhaps there really wasn't another way to develop it. Perhaps this spell was really
all about love even if the word wasn’t mentioned in the book.
It was a rose after all and the engraving appeared in the book with it suggested that rose was a red one. How many centuries had that flower, the one in the circle before them, been the symbol of love for?
And how much did she love Tara?
“Show me how in love you are then,” Tara told her.
See?! That was just it… They’d got to the point where they were anticipating, or feeling each other’s thoughts. That was how much she loved Tara, and more.
Willow smiled and adjusted her grasp on Tara’s hands as they stretched out towards each other. This was harder than she’d thought it was going to be. There was no problem with the synchronicity, it was more a matter of the technique. It was just that they really hadn’t been anywhere near this kind of magic for such a long time – except for the rituals of protection – that she wasn't so used to finding those paths in her mind anymore. It wanted to go the easier, quicker and more solitary route.
Though their elemental magic seemed to be reliant on their being a matched pair the magic itself was a solitary thing in that it didn’t need anyone else, and the presence of anyone else didn’t help. No one could help them – and they couldn’t really help each other either. They worked for the magic and it worked for them… And the benefit was that there was, with pure intention in their hearts, no risk of the darkness.
But this spell wasn't in any way dark, or risking it. Maybe Tara would find this easier – she’d worked with the ‘dark,’ or else ritual magics for much, much longer than she. Willow barely had an introduction when Tara had come to her with a better, safer, way. Willow wasn’t finding it easy at all though. She couldn’t even just rely on the love. She still had to work this through.
Eventually though pathways, long dormant or never before used, opened in her mind and the magic – like water through a hose – surged through them. She could feel the raw attraction of the magic and pushed it aside easily. There was no attraction to ritual magic that their love wasn't superior to. All she wanted to feel was Tara. Until she felt Tara this spell wasn’t going anywhere… and there – the bright flare of consciousness at the edge of her perceptions – she was…
No… they were at the edge of
each other’s perceptions, welcoming and encouraging each other to come closer… Until finally they met in that space between them and they were together. Dimly Willow was aware of a bright light suddenly flaring somewhere within line of sight of her closed eyes and at the same time there was a slight wind around them – even though all the windows were closed.
The power of love… wasn’t there a song about that?
It wasn’t wonderful enough, she was sure of that, no matter who might have written it.
Though neither of them was seeing it, they were both aware of the rose. They were that close. Willow knew that Tara knew it was rising from the centre of the circled star into the air between them because they both wanted it to – and they used each other to make that happen. A simple way to explain it might have been that Tara was guiding her mental actions, and she Tara’s. But both were also self-aware and revelling in the sensations.
She knew the rose was staying there too. She knew when Tara was about to open her eyes – knew that she had to open her own because they were a part of each other’s perceptions. Tara knew what she did. They were entwined, interlinked in a way that even their love-making could never bring to them. So when Willow opened her eyes she knew Tara was seeing through her eyes and vice versa.
It was… miraculous.
For a moment there she’d even been looking at herself until she recovered enough of herself to speak and know the words would come in her own voice rather than Tara’s. They were so close… Tara had been in her thoughts before – literally – and she in Tara’s. They’d been able to sense things but this was… They were each other at the same time as they were themselves.
No.
Perhaps they were themselves – but they were some strange combination called ‘Tara and Willow’ too. Both of them were in every part of the other until they pulled back just a little and regained sole control of themselves. Then they were just with each other, passengers in each other’s thoughts and feelings. Drivers of each others desires and actions.
And Willow had… She’d never ever dreamed that anyone could love like she could. She’d thought that her love for Tara was so pure, so unique… but it was absolutely matched by Tara’s own love for her, or even surpassed. That discovery alone made this spell so perfect. She’d never, ever, doubted Tara’s love for her – once professed – but she’d never thought it could possibly match that with which she reciprocated it.
Were there really
two such perfect loves in the universe? But of course there were. It was obvious really. It was the basis of everything.
Slowly she shifted her focus from Tara to the rose that hovered between them and slowly allowed Tara’s hands to slip from hers.
“It worked,” Tara breathed – but she wasn’t really talking about the rose. There was next to no trick to the rose. Tara was talking about the synchronicity and it was so perfect…
“The petals,” Willow said softly, “are supposed to be the hard part of this.”
“I don’t think that the petals will be hard at all,” Tara said equally as quietly.
Willow didn’t doubt her. The way they were attuned to each other this shouldn’t take much at all. Perhaps this spell
was beneath them but only because they didn’t
need to practice being in synchronicity with each other. Doing the magic was one thing, but the ability to be perfectly matched – perfectly together – they were old hands at that. Their natural affinity for each other was more than the person who’d thought up this spell could have imagined – spiritually they were absolutely attuned.
They could –
As they started to concentrate on the rose once more, ready to gently pluck the petals without damaging the substance of them in any way, after all they had plans for the petals, it started to move. And it didn’t start out slowly either. Instead it zipped from within their grasp and flew off across the room. Willow
knew that it wasn’t her and she knew it wasn’t anything to do with Tara either. They both would have felt it anyway, but connected like this then she couldn’t have missed it. There were the two of them – as one – and there had been the rose in between.
Now there was still them and a very hyper-active flower flying around the room only being between them for a split second at a time.
She’d never heard of a hyper-active flower before, and couldn’t think it was a big problem in the natural world, but this was… She loved Tara. Okay, so there was a flower zipping round the room like a mad… flower… but it was okay. Tara was here and Tara was good at this sort of thing. She was good at it too, but Tara was better than she was.
Tara was best for her…
She really loved Tara. Even now Tara wasn’t at all afraid, Willow could feel the fascination. Tara was watching the rose shoot around them, zinging off the wall – without an actual ‘zing’ as such but still pretty much zinging anyway. It was easy to imagine the sound effects. No fear, there was just an expression of wonder on her face as Tara stood up to carry on watching and she didn’t even flinch as the rose took an upward trajectory past her ear. Surely it must have brushed it being so close?
Tara was so brave… lovely and brave.
Brave and lovely.
She loved Tara… she really did, and the best thing of all was that Tara loved her. With roses whizzing round her and bouncing off the wall and ceiling – or
a rose anyway – they still loved each other. The rose made no difference, nothing external to them did. She didn’t even need the rose for Tara to know. What was between them was a given, but never taken for granted.
Willow looked up into her lover’s adoring eyes and caught the movement of them as the rose must have been coming back towards her. She couldn’t see anything herself but she knew, right then, that she had to ‘duck’ or get hit by a high-speed rose. She could feel it. She bent her head and felt something part her hair as is whipped by and crashed into the floor in front of her – right in the circle… in the centre of the four point star which they’d been using to do… well, nothing to do with zinging roses.
Willow looked at the fallen flower and it was devoid of petals. Something had faded too.
She loved Tara but…
She didn’t feel – in that instant – the overwhelming need to tell her that again and again. Her needs… Her needs felt like her own again. With the demise of the rose had come the end of the spell of synchronicity. Her feelings and senses were her own again. They were back to normal – in love. If she wanted to tell Tara that, or wanted to lavish kisses all over her lovely neck then she could do…
But she didn’t
need to do it now.
It was more than just the end of the spell though… She didn’t feel… love wasn't swamping her now. Love wasn't
all that she could think about.
She didn’t
need to do the spell which should have been so pretty any more. She’d wanted to – she still wanted to – but right now she was more interested in what in the frilly heck had just happened? To the rose. To her… Why had she been so overwhelmingly in love with Tara nothing else in the world had mattered?
Love was love, but love was part of life too. It hadn’t been this afternoon and this evening. It had been the only thing that mattered to the exclusion of everything else. Right up to the rose hitting the floor and exploding.
“What the heck was that?” she murmured looking at the gently steaming flower. Or what was left of it anyway.
“I don’t know hun, but… the petals are off,” Tara told her touching it with her foot. “Will,” she started to say.
“Tara,” Willow said at the same time.
“You know,” they chorused and then stopped as they heard each other. Perhaps there was still a connection – but it was the one they’d always shared, and always would. Nothing more or less.
“I love you? Willow suggested.
“And you love me?” Tara countered.
It was what she had been about to say and it seemed Tara knew it too – needed to say it too. And both of them had one other word on their lips.
“But,” they both said.
“I know how much you love me and how much I love you,” Tara continued, “but…”
“We were getting carried away?” Willow guessed. Not much of a guess, it was definitely how she felt – at least how she felt now. In the middle of the carrying away there hadn’t been anything but the love there. Okay, she’d been thinking other things but everything came right back to the love and attractive as that was…
It wasn't quite right. It had been too much. Not more than she felt, but certainly more than she thought about – at least all the time.
“Yeah,” Tara said slowly, “I think so.”
Willow thought that maybe she’d better explain – better see if Tara was feeling the same thing exactly… or just generally. It was starting to seem more and more important to her, because it was starting to seem less and less like their own choices. “I couldn’t get you, being with you and doing everything we had tonight – this perfect matching of minds – out of my head today,” she revealed.
Tara nodded. “Once I arrived home and saw you I felt just the same.”
Okay, from important this was becoming slightly worrying. Maybe more than ‘slightly.’ “You’re always there, with me, in me,” Willow assured her love.
“But you couldn’t keep anything else in there as well,” Tara suggested. “Alongside the love… you couldn’t stay focused on anything else.” Willow nodded. “I felt the same,” Tara confirmed.
“Exactly the same,” Willow observed. “And now?”
“Now I still love you just as much but I can think about why the spell failed, why we really should wash some dishes, other stuff is allowed in again when it was excluded before.”
That was just what Willow was feeling and it wasn't the affinity they had for each other that was doing that. “I know. It was like you filled every part of me, in a way that is usually only when we are…”
“Snuggling,” Tara completed for her.
“That’s it. It was so intense. We were so close that there was really nothing else that could be in there, my mind, while you were and now…” Willow searched for the words. How could she explain it?
“The rest of the world is back,” Tara said.
“If we keep finishing each other’s thoughts then I might have to believe there is still something wrong,” Willow teased. “But again I say ‘yeah.’ It was like turning on a light.”
“Or perhaps dimming it a little, if the light was like our obsession with one another?” Tara suggested.
Willow considered what her love had just said – the analogy did seem to fit better. Their love was undimmed, it was just how much they filled each other’s head which was a little ‘less.’ “Something was definitely wrong with us just then.”
“But in a kind of good way,” Tara suggested.
She couldn’t deny it. “Oh yeah, cos romantic meals and doing spells together are good things,” Willow confirmed. She had no problems with how she’d been feeling at all. Or what they’d done about those feelings. She didn’t have any problem at all with where it had seemed to be inevitably leading. Nope. No problems with that. It was just that there had been a lack of… choice.
“And the roses were a lovely touch,” Tara reassured her. “Not to mention what you wanted to do with the petals. On the petals.”
“And you look so sexy…” Willow loved it when Tara gave her a smile like that. One that promised so much. She appreciated promises too. Just because the strange, overwhelming, love had passed and they were back at their own perfect love didn't mean that couldn’t still come to pass.
“Did you feel the surge?” Tara asked.
“Uh huh,” she replied.
“Did it feel like it was the rose to you?” Tara gingerly prodded the potential culprit with her finger.
“There was definitely magic involved. Magic that wasn’t ours,” Willow replied thinking back to the sensations which had rushed through her consciousness whilst she’d been so overwhelmingly focused on Tara. “But I didn’t sense it in the rose when I first held it.”
“It could have been masked,” Tara suggested.
Had she missed it? Had she been so focused on their love that she’d missed something in the nature of the rose? “It could be coincidence,” she suggested but didn’t even believe it herself. The timing was just too suspicious for it to be anything
other than the rose.
There had been the rose.
Then there had been the overwhelming love.
Tara hadn’t felt it until she’d come home – to the roses.
When the rose had done its kamikaze thing then the
obsession with all things to do with loving Tara had faded. And it had in Tara too. Now they were just back to being in love as they always had been. Perfectly. Her thoughts weren’t so over the top anymore though – so all consuming.
Tara knew she didn’t believe it either, which was why she just shook her head. “The surge came as we did our spell,” she said. “I think our magic intersected with the magic in the rose and well, you know.” Tara pantomimed her finger zipping around with a “whhhhooosh” sound. “Whhhoosh.”
Willow just looked at her and Tara, eventually, stopped. Obviously embarrassed. “Good, right – we’re okay again now though.” Demonstrations weren’t her love’s strong point. Not that kind of demonstration anyway. Tara was much better at demonstrating other things than whooshing roses – or zinging ones. It had been more of a zinger. “You definitely think it was magic in the rose though?” she checked. Masking spells wasn't easy – and it wasn't something anyone would usually bother with because only another…
Oh… Only a person who used magic would have been able to detect it anyway. To most people a rose was a rose was a rose. They wouldn’t recognise a magic rose.
And they were the only people in town, that they knew of, who were likely to detect any magic immediately – though Rupert and Jenny might have been able to test for it if they had a clue. Mainly though it was just them. So had this been deliberately hidden from them then? Had they been targeted? Could be… She’d been the one who’d gotten the rose. But who would have known she’d spot the shop and want one? Not even Tara had known – hence the surprise.
“I don’t see it could be anything else,” Tara mused. “I mean if there had been a powerful spell underway in town then okay, maybe… maybe the background level of magic could have gone up and made the rose uncontrollable once we floated it. I could see that happening. But the timing and the ‘love’ thing which was going on with us…” Tara trailed off.
Willow knew what she meant. She couldn’t believe it was anything but the rose either. She felt quite sorry for it. Okay, so they’d been about to pluck the petals in a medieval kind of flower torture – but it would have been pretty and for a good cause. Now… It was all spent and burnt out. Already petalless and there had been no good cause in its zinging – except to warn them.
On the other hand it might be the only rose to achieve escape velocity under its own power.
It had made history for roses everywhere.
“Where did it come from?” Tara asked.
“The new florist in town, the one in the old empty unit near the pet store,” Willow replied. Tara shook her head to show she didn’t know it. That wasn't surprising; it seemed to have sprung up overnight. “Is a florist a florist if he only has one kind of flower? Is that more a singular flower store? Or maybe just a rose store?” That was a tricky one – what was the definition of a florist then? Or was the florist the job rather than the store itself? Something else to think about when she woke up in the night. She had too many of those things to think about already.
“Whatever you call it, I never saw a florist with just one kind of flower,” Tara said.
“Perhaps he’s a specialist. He was certainly cheap though, and offering quality merchandise. More roses than you could shake a fist at,” Willow recalled. There had been so many roses there, in the shop, and she’d seen so many more in the back room and a stack of shipping papers too.
Lots of roses. Surely more than he’d ever be able to sell – even cheap – before they died.
“Do you mean cheap like ‘I really want you to have these and you won’t believe me and take them if they’re free’ cheap?” Tara asked her.
Willow thought about it. He could have charged twice what he’d charged her and still have been the cheapest roses in the state by a long way. “Erm… something like that yeah,” Willow admitted. At the time… Well, she’d gone in there just to be able to do the spell with Tara and she’d come out with over a dozen roses she hadn’t wanted before. But she
had wanted them when she’d left. Aside from the spell she’d had all sorts of ideas about pleasing Tara.
Good ideas, but all of them at the same time?
She had been obsessed with their love from when she went into that store.
“And you said, before, he was English?” Tara asked.
He’d had an accent that suggested English so… “Yeah.” Things started to fall into place.
“Like the guy I met in the street, who was following me and knew magic? The one with the bad shirt” Tara asked.
Willow hadn’t even thought about that possibility and he hadn’t exactly done anything very wrong even if it had been the same guy. It could just as easily have been another English guy and the first English guy could have done it to his flowers without him knowing – or on the other hand she might truly have been suckered in by pretty flowers and a cheap price. “He hardly needs to make us fall in love,” she commented.
“We didn’t though – fall in love,” Tara told her.
Willow nodded. “We got caught up in it, nothing mattered except being with you – in love with you – I kind of liked it too. Not that I want to go back to it or anything. Maybe he’s a good fairy?” she wondered.
It wouldn’t work out that way – these things never did – but it was nice to hope.
“Are fairies real?” Tara asked, looking at Willow as if she might know something.
“Well….” Willow thought about what she’d suggested. She didn’t know any more about fairies than Tara obviously did but… “They could be real, when you think about all the demons and stuff that are out there. They could be a counterbalance to the bad demons. They’re like mythical in a way – where myths come from.”
“So you think there are fairies?”
“Maybe not with wings and wands and stuff – but sure, why not?” Willow replied. Though, knowing their luck and the way the unnatural world seemed to work – fairies would probably be ‘vicious little buggers’ as Rupert would put it – like the obsessively jealous leprechauns who were convinced you were after their pot of gold. Fairies could be flitting around causing mischief and shoving their wands where the sun didn’t shine.
That was just how things went on a Hellmouth.
There were demons that were bad – everyone knew about them. And there were breeds of demon who were… well, just like people. Good or bad as a lifestyle choice rather than a natural state. So where were the ‘good’ demons? The ones who had no choice but to be good?
If you could have things like vampires which had to kill – at the very least – or wanted to destroy the world then where was the other extreme? There really should have been a balance, but if they ever met them… probably not fairies. Not as they knew fairies anyway.
Plus… you could have a bad fairy as well? At least in the fairy tales.
And how conceited was that? Naming tales after yourself?
She was really having a hard time liking fairies now – with their bad sides, conceited natures and the pointy wands they waved around. They could take someone’s eye out with those. Or….
She could get back to the present and talk to the woman she loved about the problem they were
really having here. “I think we should focus on the matter at hand,” she said, trying to sound very focused and sensible. No more fairies.
Rupert would be so proud.
Tara just gave her a look which said ‘Me?’
So Willow smiled.
“Maybe he wants us out of the way?” Tara suggested, clearly thinking hard. “Look at us, did we think for a moment about hunting?”
Willow had to shake her head, but there was a problem. “But he couldn’t know that I’d go in there,” Willow replied. That was the problem. There really was no way he could know she would go it – or even if he was trying to attract her with pretty flowers or low prices that she would walk past. “And even if he did then – a whole shop? He could have just sold me one in the street…?” Oh, she was having a thought now. A supposition based on the facts.
“So maybe it’s not just us,” Tara surmised for her.
“Maybe it was actually
never us?” Willow suggested in turn.
“So what’s he doing then?”
If it was even him.
Neither of them waited for an answer. The rose lay where it had fallen. The bed wasn’t showered with rose petals and they weren’t heading to it anyway. They headed for the door, gathering their coats as they went.
Willow didn’t even think about how they were dressed until they’d shut the door behind them.
“Do you think this is a little fancy for the occasion?” she asked looking at Tara and knowing how dressed up she was.
Tara sighed.
Evil was afoot – well, not ‘very’ evil… apparently more evil than good though. Well, making people get caught up in their love…
If that was all it had done to anyone else then was it a bad thing? Really?
If anyone else was affected…
Maybe it got worse than that though.
************************
-------------------------
If I want a little pussy, I got my own to play with.
Chance in
Chance.------------------------
Lou. 
(though I could try 
).