Kayleen: Hey Kittens! Happy to see me? Yeah, today it’s just me here, Dae will be kinda busy for a time, so it will be just little ol’ me writing and updating here. Peace, at last. *sigh*
Sorry for taking so long, but I had a hard time feeling some blank spaces in this chapter, I hope I did it right.
I can’t answer each feedback right now, but I’d like to thank you for bothering and writing for us little low self-esteemed writers. Luv ya Kittens!
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Title: What Only The Heart Can See
Authors Kayleen and Dae
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nothing really important
Pairings: Willow/Tara as major couple, you’ll see the others.
Summary: Tara McClay is a typical happy High School student, she has great friends, good grades, a nice apartment and a nifty little nightly hobbie of dusting the undead. Until a new mystery comes to Sunnydale in the form of a beautiful redhead.
N/A: This chapter is from Willow’s POV. I’m not really experienced in writing a blind person’s POV (and that sounded just weird), so go easy on me, ‘k?
Chapter 4 – A Different Kind Of Seeing~*~ Willow’s POV ~*~“You’re blind…”
I hear her gasped conclusion and suddenly I’m feeling very cold. There, now she knows.
“Not quite what you were expecting, eh?”
I wish it hadn’t sounded so sardonic, but I for some reason I can’t control my emotions when I’m with this girl. I’ve been trying to explain this for quite some time and all I got were inconclusive theories. She doesn’t even realize that she’s more a mystery to me than I am to her.
The fact that I can’t hide behind my shades anymore is starting to bother me, I’ve always counted on them to mask my feelings, to protect me from the world outside and now I’m without them in front of someone for the first time in many years. In front of this girl, no less. She confuses me and I never felt this vulnerable.
I reach for my sunglasses, which are still on her hands but stop in my tracks when her voice, her beautiful voice, reaches my ears.
“No, don’t. Your eyes are so beautiful.”
Ok, now that I wasn’t expecting. My eyes are beautiful? I concentrate on her energy and feel that she’s being sincere. I blink in confusion.
“My eyes are dead, Tara.”
I shake my head sadly. How can she think that? I know my eyes are an unusual shade of green. Papa used to call me Jade because of them. But now they’re dead and useless. Have been for so long. Too long, I guess. But I’ve stopped feeling sorry for myself, no use when so many people do that for me.
“No, they’re not.” I can hear her taking a deep breath, as if she were bracing herself. “You have the most beautiful eyes that I’ve ever seen. I wondered why you were always wearing these sunglasses.”
“Because I don’t want looks of pity!” I snap angrily. “’Look at the little blind girl, poor thing!’ I’ve had enough of those!”
I try to reach for my shades again but she won’t let me take them, putting them away from my grasp stubbornly.
“No, I don’t think it’s just that.” I can almost feel her gazing deep into my eyes and I don’t this feeling of vulnerability that takes over. “You can mask your aura and control your expressions, but you can’t keep your emotions from your eyes. Your eyes show your soul, that’s why you’re so intent in hiding them.”
She says all this like it was a practiced speech and I want to be furious with her, to scream or hit her, anything to prove her wrong but I can’t. I can’t because she hit right on the bullseye.
Damn, why this girl affect me so much? Why is this connection I feel with her so fucking strong? Why do I feel so protective of her? Why the fuckin’ hell did I have to share the conjuring spell with her? I could’ve just conjured the rose, quick and simple, but no, I had to share that with her and now I can’t ignore this damn bond anymore. Why did I let her get so close?
I stop my inner rambling when I feel her warm palms on my cheeks, wiping away my tears. Tears? How long have I been crying? Gods, Rosenberg, you’re so damn weak.
I want to run, I want to slap her hands away, I want to say something rude and stupid to make her flee, but I just can’t. And when she wraps her arms around my shoulders I realize just how lonely I’ve been all my life.
I can’t help it anymore, so I just let go, sinking into her warm embrace. My tears flow freely as I rest my read on the crook of her neck. She’s running her hands up and down my back, her cheek pressed against the top of my head and I suddenly don’t feel ashamed of my weakness anymore. It’s like with her I don’t need to mask my feelings, like she would keep me safe and never judge me. I never felt like this with anyone, not even my family. It scares me but at the same time I never felt safer.
I stop crying and just bask in this closeness for a moment, directing all my senses at this girl that makes me feel so much. I feel her aura embrace me the same way her arms do. Her smell reached my nostrils; it was intoxicating, a mix of honeysuckle, sandalwood and what could only be her own smell, pure Tara. The steady beat of her heart, the rising and fall of the chest and the pressure of her breasts against mine have an incredibly soothing effect in me. I sigh contently.
I reluctantly pull away from her arms, guiltily enjoying the little disappointed sigh that came from Tara. I look down, a little embarrassed about my outburst, that wasn’t quite planned.
“Sorry about the… me breaking down on you.”
“That’s ok.”
We stay in silence for a moment and I think about my next move, but it’s Tara that breaks the silence.
“Why me?” She asks and I can hear the hesitance in her voice. “I mean, why have you been protecting me? Why show me your secret?”
Her question takes me aback and I don’t quite know what to say. I mean, how can I answer a question if I’m not really sure of the answer myself? I take a deep breath and try to respond the best way I can.
“I’m not really sure… I feel some sort of connection with you. A strong bond. A-and… I l-like you. I wanted you to know about me.”
I close my eyes tightly, hoping that she didn’t see the depth of my emotions. Again I’m wishing I had my sunglasses on. Luckily, she doesn’t comment, choosing to stay in silence for a moment.
“Do you… want to talk about it?” she asks carefully, like she is expecting me to bolt any minute.
No, I don’t want to talk about it. It hurts too much. But I know I need to. I need her to know me, to understand me. I want her in my life and I’m not quite sure why.
I walk to my bed and sit down, motioning for her to follow suit, making sure there’s a safe distance between us, her closeness is a bit distracting and I want to concentrate in this.
“It happened when I was twelve.” I start, swallowing the lump that suddenly appears in my throat. “It was in a car crash. My parents died in the accident, I barely escaped alive, spent two months in a coma. When I woke up I couldn’t see anymore, the accident had completely destroyed my optic nerves.” I reach out to trace the faint little scar on the corner of my right eye and I know she’s watching my every move.
“Oh, Willow-“
“Just let me finish ok?” I interrupt hastily, I don’t want her to start pitying me yet.
“O-ok…”
Her stammered response makes me feel a little guilty, but I can’t help it, I hate it when someone feels sorry for me. I don’t need pity or sympathy.
I try to reassure her by squeezing her arm briefly before continuing my tale.
“I… I had a hard time dealing with my parents’ death and being blind didn’t help much. I was pretty depressed for a while. I was lucky I wasn’t separated from my brothers, they helped me a lot through… the whole situation. My older brother was a legal adult at the time, so he kept our guard.”
I explain vaguely, I’m not quite ready to get to the details of this dark part of my past yet and Tara didn’t seem to mind, staying silent as I keep going.
“Liam, my oldest brother, got me to practice Tai Chi with him, to gain focus, he said. It worked pretty well and with time and William and Liam’s help I was able to get myself back together. I started living again.” I smile thinking about my older brothers, my family.
Tara doesn’t say anything, but I get the strange feeling that she’s smiling back at me.
“Then there was the witchcraft. I had started getting interest in it when I was ten. Then I was able to do some basic spells, you know, floating a pencil, setting my bed on fire…” I smirk thinking about this particular episode. “After… the accident, my other senses were heightened, specially the magical ones, I started sensing things I hadn’t before. I couldn’t see anyone anymore, but I could feel their energies, their auras. I learned that everything has energy, being it a living being or an object. So I trained my other senses to make up for my lost vision. After some time I was able to do almost everything I did before I got blind, I could walk around without worrying about banging on anything ‘cause I could sense everything around me. I could feel the power and the emotions of the people by the flow of their energy. My senses of hearing, smell and tact were much more enhanced too.”
I pause and stare at where I know she is intently.
“I got more powerful and not only magically. I and my brothers are trained in various fighting styles, I guess you can say we had a lot of free time in our hands.” I smile slightly. “I bet you noticed that I favor the hand-to-hand combat. With my heightened senses it’s easier for me to fight; I can hear a person’s heartbeat and muscle movement, so I’m a step ahead of my adversaries. That and I don’t like weapons very much.”
I can tell she’s impressed and I blush slightly, a little uncomfortable with talking so much about myself.
“Then one night we bump into a vampire, that wasn’t much of a surprise with the witchcraft and all so that’s when we started going out at night hunting down the ‘night population’.”
“Why you decided to come here, then?”
“Things were a little boring in merry old Ireland. That and I was fed up with everyone trying to help me around, asking me if I wanted anything. Here no one even knows I’m blind, without counting my family and now you, of course. I can do almost everything you can.”
“How do you… you know, read and take notes? We don’t have books in Braille, right?” she’s nervous when she asks that.
“That’s a nifty little trick of mine. Here.” I go to my bookcase and take one of my books and show it to her.
I take her hand and make her feel the pages, trying to ignore the shock of energy that ran up my arm.
“Oh! I c-can feel the words!”
“Exactly. I put a spell on all my books so I can read them, like Braille.”
I drop her hand reluctantly and put the book back on its place, willing myself not to think how good her hand felt on mine.
“And for the notes thing, I only take notes of what is said out loud or I just cast a little spell to let me see the teacher’s thoughts, nothing dangerous or permanent.”
“But… I never felt you cast any spells on class.” I can feel her confusion and disapprobation of the use of such spell.
“Oh, you wouldn’t.” I say casually and I can almost imagine her questioning glance. “One of the things I noticed after I lost my eyesight was that every mystical place has an energy field on it’s surrounding, like a dome of energy, you could say. The Hellmouth is no different, of course. When I cast this spell on class I use the energy of this ‘mystical dome’, not my own or Nature’s. You’re so used with living here that you don’t even notice the slightly exchange of energy.”
“Oh. This sounds a bit complicated to do.”
“It is, more or less. It’s more difficult than a normal spell using the spellcaster’s energy or the elements, but I don’t do this kind of spell often, so there’s no real risk.”
I can her the proverbial wheels turning on her head as she process all the information that I just gave her. I feel somewhat relieved to get that all out and for some reason I know that I can trust her with this.
But there’s still something I want to do. Something that’s on my mind since day one. I know I’m setting myself up for a fall I’m not ready to take, but the strange thing is that I don’t care that much anymore.
Ok, deep breaths Rosenberg, you can do this.
“Tara? Can I ask you something?”
“Uh, sure.”
Is she as nervous as I am? Can she feel my nervousness? C’mon, dumbass, say something!
“Can I… see your face?”
There, it wasn’t so difficult, eh?
“See me? H-How-“
“I can’t see with my eyes, but I can see with my fingers.” Yes, that’s it, you’re doing well, keep it up. “O-Of course, if you don’t want to I’ll totally understand, ‘cause maybe you think it’s too soon or you’re not comfortable with it.”
Hell’s Bells, Rosenberg, you’re babbling!!
“So I have no problem if you don’t want me to… you know, I was just asking ‘cause-“
My stupid babble was cut short when she grabbed my hands and placed them on either side of her face.
I closed my eyes and stayed very still for a moment, reveling in the softness of the skin under my hands. Slowly I started to explore, caressing and discovery the beauty of this fascinating girl. As my fingertips touched high cheekbones, closed eyelids and relaxed brows I pictured her on my mind, branding this image in my memory. I deliberately skipped her lips and buried my hands in soft, long hair and lightly massaging her scalp, delighted when she let out a sound of contentment. Then I put my hands on her neck, sliding them up to trace her jawline and chin and finally reach my main goal.
Her lips.
Soft, full, smiling, pouty lips. I traced them slowly and carefully, afraid that I would wake up any moment and discover it was just a dream. I bit back a little moan when she sighed and her hot breath caressed my sensible fingertips. I felt the sudden urge to replace my fingers with my lips, to map her lips and mouth with my tongue.
My mind was flooded with visions of us kissing. Our lips meshed together, our tongues locked in a battle older than time itself, her arms wrapped tightly around me and my hands buried deep in her silky hair. I could almost feel it happening.
Before I knew it I was leaning into her, my lips tingling at the mere thought of kissing this beauty with angelic features.
Closer.
Closer.
Our lips were millimeters apart, our breaths mingling together and I could hear her heart thumping fast on her ribcage. I could feel my own heart beating so fast that I was almost afraid it would break my chest.
Any coherent thought flew right out of the window as our lips grazed each other. The touch was so faint that if it wasn’t for the shock that passed between us I wouldn’t even notice it.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
To Be Continued…
Kayleen: I know, that was bad, evil even, but I couldn’t help it! I’ll try to update real soon to make up for it, ok?
I want opinions on how I made Willow, I'm kinda nervous about that, never worked with a blind character, so I kinda based myself on other blind characters I know (the Daredevil being my favorite *grin*).
Leave feedback, please!! *puppy dog eyes*
Kayleen Lee
by cutie pie » Sat Jan 24, 2004 10:34 am 
Very good chapter. I'm agreeing with some other kittens on the whole Willo's POV thing, would be very interesting. And with the whole instead of seeing she feels thing. I think that you two could write a scene like that really well. Lots of intimacy, and tenderness. Anywhoo i 
LOVE
were coming from Willow but, I didn;t see the whole blind thing coming.
did I miss this fic??? AMAZING!!! To simply put it!!! WOW, I love it. I wan more!!! Okay, please, can I have more??? Great story/fic. Okay, enough of me 
'ing around. Great work, hope to see more soon. =) 
.
Oh my goddess!! This fic is soooo great! I love it, it's a great idea too. 
"What Only The Heart Can See", that's what caught my attention in the first place. 
is it soonish? 
at: 1/31/04 6:30 pm
I'm kinda wishing now that I would have thought of it but I think you guys are doing way better than I would have, don't really know much about being blind. So, keep up the GREAT work and I can't wait to read more. 
hi kayleen.
