Dark Rose

By darkmagickwillow

Copyright © May 2003

Chapter 12 (Once More)

Willow scrutinized her image in the mirror, making sure that everything was perfect for her date with Tara that evening. Sunglasses hid the darkness of her eyes and red hair fell in loose waves to the middle of her back. She wore a thin, bright red long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans.

This was the thirtieth outfit she'd tried on and it still felt wrong. It wasn't black. All this color was a new thing for her. So was exposing her face to so many people. She wasn't accustomed to that.

She looked over her shoulder at the heap of clothes where her bed used to be and sighed. She had panicked, ordering almost everything in her size from an online store. It had all arrived this morning, and she had been trying on clothes ever since. She shouldn't have to go through this. She had thought her dating days were over when she had first met Tara. She hadn't counted on meeting her all over again.

It had to be just right for Tara. She had to look good but casual because it was coffee and not a date. Coffee was simple; dates were complicated. At least that was her original thinking, but now she wasn't so sure. Good but casual was difficult.

She hadn't been on a date for nineteen years. What if they had changed the rules? Had she even known the rules in the first place? Wait, she was thinking of it as a date again and it was just coffee. Of course, there was probably a proper protocol for coffee too of which she was just as unaware.

This would have to do. She'd already tried on everything else, and she felt least uncomfortable in this. At least she was becoming accustomed to the sunglasses, though her loose hair still felt odd. She was used to wearing it in a tightly coiled braid under her hood. Unbraided, it kept getting in her way, but she wasn't ready to cut it. She hadn't cut it since Tara had died.

It reminded her of how she had once been before everything had turned out so dark. She wasn't that Willow any longer, and she wasn't sure that she could be that Willow again. Even with regular apocalypses, vampires, and demons, it had been a good life. She hadn't thought at the time that she would ever look back on those years as a time of youthful innocence and happiness, but in comparison to her life since leaving Sunnydale it had been.

She would give anything to have her old life back, but getting it back wasn't a simple matter of wishing. She had see too much of the darkness to believe life was that easy. Changes had to happen inside her. It would be a slow process, happening a step at a time. You had to plant in the cold darkness of winter for roses to bloom in the Spring.

Willow looked down at the heap of sunglasses on the dresser. She had liked the little round ones, but they just didn't hide enough of her eyes, so she'd gone with larger lenses that completely obscured the blackness. Her eyes drifted over to the two pieces of jewelry that she had also rejected. It was too soon to wear the doll's eye crystal on its chain, and she didn't need the soul gem to find Tara any longer.

That was it then. She must be ready.

She looked over at the particle-board shelf that she had moved into her bedroom after her last nightmare. There were many heavy tomes on magic that she knew she wouldn't be able to concentrate on. She ignored them and looked at the pile on top of the bookshelf. She really should read the Tacitus. She'd found the complete histories last year and kept meaning to read them, but instead she picked up her well-worn copy of The Fellowship of the Ring. It was a book she read every few years and was always good company if she had to wait.

Willow made it to the Espresso Pump half an hour early. She had given herself plenty of time because you never knew what might happen on a walk in Sunnydale. She was nervous about the whole date, or rather coffee thing, too. She wondered if it was too early to go inside.

The world was so different this evening. No one had taken a second look at her. Normally people hurried to get out of her way. She wasn't sure if it was her clothes or if people could somehow sense the darkness inside her. She shifted her book from hand to hand nervously and glanced at her watch. Less than a minute had passed since she had arrived.

Willow paced up and down the storefront of the Espresso Pump. She worried again if Tara would like how she looked, then she wondered why she was so nervous. It wasn't like they hadn't spent time alone before, but that had been in the darkness of her world. The daylight world around her now was no longer her place. It made her uncomfortable. She suddenly wanted to take Tara away with her into the darkness to be alone there together. Forever.

The tender embrace of the night would shelter them from the garish light of day. Together they would walk into the dark, sharing its secrets and wonders. There was so much Willow could show Tara, the midnight hatching of dragon's eggs in a mountaintop eyrie, the gossamer castles of faerie floating like a mirage in the mist, even the other side of the sky.

They would be together in the night. Everything terrible that had happened to her had happened in the light of day. Discovering Oz's betrayal. Glory taking Tara. And Tara's death. In the dark, she had grown strong. She could teach Tara all she had learned of the night. They wouldn't need the world of the day, would they?

No, Tara had a light within her that was meant for the brightness of day. It wouldn't survive the darkness of winter's night. She had to learn again how to deal with the world of day with its people and everyday happenings. The time of darkness had passed, though it would be long before its shadows left her.

She shook her head. She should be thinking about tonight. She had built deep conversation trees in her head like a chess player looking ahead at all the possible moves her opponent might make, trying to be prepared for everything that might happen on her date.

There she was again, thinking of it as a date. She told herself to relax, that it was just coffee; then again, coffee didn't help her relax. In fact, it was pretty much the opposite of relaxation. All the sugar and caffeine made her hyper. Maybe they should have gone for a relaxing cup of tea instead, but she didn't know if Tara liked tea. She probably thought of tea as foreign and British, associating it with Giles and stuffiness instead of dating and snuggles. Okay, it was good that they were going for coffee instead of tea. That was settled.

Willow looked at her watch again and decided that it was finally late enough to find a table inside. She quickly found a small round table for two by a window so she could watch for Tara. She let the waitress know that she was meeting a friend and that she didn't need anything yet. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the window, warming her face and making her glad for the sunglasses.

She took out her book and let it open to a familiar chapter. It was the beginning of book two where Frodo awakened in the haven of Rivendell. She had read this part many times over the last years as she searched for a way to return to her own haven, but her haven was a person, not a place. Her worries drifted away, taken from her by the familiar reassuring words.

Tara walked up to the door of the Espresso Pump and almost entered before spotting a familiar figure reading in the corner of the window, her back to the wall. She almost hadn't recognized Willow without her usual black leather, but she looked lovely in her red shirt with the light of the afternoon sun glinting off the cascade of fiery tresses that fell to the middle of her back. Fascinated, Tara took a moment to admire Willow from outside the coffee shop.

Willow was so lost in thought that she didn't notice Tara watching her. Her expression was softer than it usually was as she focused intently on the book before her. As Tara watched, Willow's lips quirked as she almost smiled at something she read. Then Willow reached up to push an errant lock of red hair out of the way and turned the page.

As she watched Willow read, Tara thought that the combination of the classic beauty of her features and the sunglasses made Willow look like a movie star. She was so beautiful and almost calm in this moment, though she still looked up from time to time to survey the room.

With a smile and a soft sigh, Tara turned away from the vision in the window and entered the coffeeshop. She walked over to Willow's table and sat down across from her. After waiting a few moments to be recognized, she realized that Willow was too lost in her thoughts to look up. She watched her friend read for a few more moments before speaking. "Hi."

"Tara!" Willow exclaimed, surprised by the sudden appearance of her friend. She had been so lost in the book that she hadn't noticed Tara's arrival. It had been years since someone had been able to get that close to her without her noticing them. Even now only Tara could have approached her this closely without setting off alarms.

"Have you been here long?" Tara asked.

"No," Willow answered. "Are you feeling better today?"

"The doctor said everything was okay and I'm feeling fine," Tara said. She looked at Willow's outfit and smiled lopsidedly as she said teasingly, "So you do have something that's not black in your closet."

"Well," Willow said slowly, looking directly at Tara then quickly looking away. "Since this morning I do."

"You bought that for me?" Tara said, her blue eyes sparkling.

"I didn't buy it for the vampires," Willow answered with a little half-smile, a little uncomfortable with letting Tara know just how much she had prepared for this date. It was just coffee after all. She didn't want to frighten Tara away by showing her the full depth of her feelings this early in their relationship. The waitress interrupted them, saving Willow from further embarrassment. She asked if they knew they wanted to order. Willow simply ordered a mocha, while Tara ordered a tall one-shot skinny velvet hammer with extra whipped cream and cinnamon. The waitress took both of their orders, then checked whether they wanted anything else before departing.

After the waitress left, Willow looked at Tara, impressed with her ordering skills. "Where did you learn to speak java?" she asked.

"I grew up near Seattle so I'm a native speaker," Tara answered, trying to sound cool.

"I'll have to have you order for me next time," Willow said with a short, slightly awkward laugh. "Do you speak any other languages?"

"Just French and a little Latin for spells," she said and smiled. She couldn't seem to stop smiling. This felt so different, sweet and intimate yet awkward, than their nighttime meetings.

"I wish you'd been with me in Paris last year," Willow said, trying to hold herself under a little better control. "I only know a few French phrases." As she finished, she found herself smiling again. She couldn't seem to stop it.

"What was Paris like?" Tara asked eagerly, her lips slightly parted in anticipation. "I always wanted to go there." Tara had always wanted to go to Europe, especially France. She had planned to spend a quarter abroad next year, but recently she'd found herself wanting to stay in Sunnydale, more because of Willow than anything else.

"Dark, lots of bones," Willow answered, looking down distractedly as she recalled her time in Paris. "I mean," she said, catching herself and suddenly looking back up at Tara.

Tara looked perplexedly at Willow. She knew Willow was different from most people and wasn't likely to go for the common touristy sights but that wasn't the type of answer she had been expecting. "Are we talking about the same city?" Tara interrupted.

"Did I mention I went there to find a very old vampire so I spent most of my time underground in the catacombs?" Willow answered, cocking her head and raising her eyebrows in an awkward, appealing look.

It had taken weeks in the maze of underground tunnels walled with carefully arranged bones to find the old one she sought. Some of the places had been beautiful in a bizarre way. The walls of bones were sometimes broken up by hearts and crosses made of skulls. When she had finally found the one she sought, she had discovered that he had gone insane from centuries in the dark alone but he had remembered where the dark monks had gone after their banishment from Rome and that had led her to discovery of the Soul Gem and eventually Tara.

"Would you want to go back and see some of Paris that is above ground?" Tara said, arching an eyebrow ironically as she looked at Willow out of the sides of her eyes. "I've heard that is the best part."

Willow gave Tara a look of pure delight, her thoughts of the past forgotten. "Are you volunteering to be my guide?"

Tara grinned at Willow with her familiar lopsided smile and replied, "Yes"

Before Willow could say anything in reply, the waitress arrived with their drinks, giving Willow the mocha and handing Tara her more complicated order. Both drinks came with straws, and she also brought Tara a long spoon for her drink.

Tara took a sip of her coffee drink through the straw then scooped out a bit of the whipped cream with her spoon. She extended the spoon across the table, offering the spoonful of whipped cream to Willow. Instead of taking the spoon from her hand like Tara expected, Willow leaned forward and ate the whipped cream from the spoon while Tara held it, gazing into Tara's eyes as she did so. Tara felt a surge of warmth through her body as she watched. Once she finished, Willow sat back up, her tongue flicking out to remove the last bit of whipped cream from her lips. She gave Tara a sultry smile.

Tara's mind was still busy contemplating what had just happened as she asked dazedly, "Um...what were we talking about?"

Willow smiled wickedly, happy in her ability to distract Tara. "Whipped cream?" she asked in an innocent tone of voice.

Tara blushed at the unneeded reminder. The whipped cream incident was firmly fixed in her mind. It had only been a few moments ago, after all. Of course, their conversation hadn't been that long ago either. She knew that wasn't what they were talking about but she couldn't think back to what they were talking about before their coffee arrived. It felt hazy, like the conversation had been weeks ago instead of only minutes before. Then suddenly she remembered their discussion, exclaiming "Paris!"

Willow regarded Tara like a cat watching the cream. "Oh, yes, that was it," she said insincerely. "I forgot."

Tara mock glared at Willow and looked about as if searching for something to throw at her date. "You did not!" she accused.

"I did," Willow said, trying to sound innocent once more. "You distracted me."

"I distracted you?" Tara said in an outraged tone, "I was not the one who was doing the distracting if you'll remember, Miss Rosenberg." She was enjoying the teasing, but she wasn't going to let Willow get out of this by acting all cute and innocent.

Willow finally had mercy on Tara. "It was me," she admitted, but she couldn't resist adding, "But you did offer the whipped cream to me."

Tara thought back to their evening together as Willow walked her home. They had continued flirting and teasing until their coffees were gone. They had talked about traveling, and Tara had been impressed at all the places Willow had visited. She wondered how old Willow was to have seen so much. However, most of her journeys were similar to her Paris trip so she had missed many of the monuments and museums that Tara wanted to see.

That had changed the topic to art. They had gotten into a friendly argument about that as Willow preferred the more representational art of the classical era and the Renaissance, while Tara liked the Impressionists and modern abstract art. The discussion had gone on for a couple of hours after they finished their coffee.

Then, feeling hungry, they had gone to eat at Tara's favorite Indian place. Tara was happy to find that Willow enjoyed interesting ethnic foods as much as she did. She ordered aloo gobi which they made perfectly as usual, and she had tried some of Willow's karahai chicken but had found it too spicy for her taste. Willow had enjoyed it though, saying the spicier the better and giving Tara another one of those smiles that made her feel so warm inside.

That brought her back to the subject she was trying to avoid worrying about. They were almost to her dormitory, and Tara knew how she wanted the evening to end, but she wasn't sure if Willow wanted the same thing. She thought she did after the whipped cream incident and the flirting that followed, but she wasn't certain.

They reached her dorm. Tara fumbled with her keys, trying to unlock the door as her mind raced. Finally, she got the door open, but she still wasn't brave enough to do what she wanted to do and the moment was quickly passing. Willow usually left her here when she walked her home.

She stepped inside, holding the door open with one arm as she turned back to Willow, trying to think of the right thing to say to her to stop her from leaving. As her mind raced, Willow asked, "Why don't I walk you to your room?"

It turned out Tara didn't have to think of anything.

Tara's throat was too dry to answer so she simply nodded and let Willow into the dormitory. They walked quietly together up to Tara's room on the second floor of the building, each lost in their own thoughts. Tara's heart was racing with anxiety and anticipation, each beat telling her that she had to do this.

She had always been shy in the past, waiting for other people to ask her, but she had never felt this way about anyone else. She couldn't let the moment escape her simply because she was afraid. If she was brave enough to stalk vampires in the night, surely she was brave enough to kiss a girl.

As they approached her door, Tara turned around to look at Willow and found her face only inches away from her own. Willow's eyes were still hidden behind sunglasses even though it had been dark for hours. Tara tentatively reached up to remove the sunglasses, hoping that she would be allowed to do this.

Willow started to raise her hands to stop her, then she dropped them and let Tara pull off the sunglasses, revealing her dark eyes. Tara looked deeply into them, trying to build up the courage to kiss Willow, and as she gazed into those eyes she noticed a glimmer of green beneath the darkness.

That was confirmation enough for her. She tilted her head and leaned forward to brush Willow's lips with her own. They were so soft, softer than she had imagined. She parted her lips, pressing against the wet softness of Willow's mouth then felt Willow kissing her back.

She had done it!

A joyful warmth filled her, but at the same time she felt weak in the knees. Willow's arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer. She brought her own arms around Willow's head, running her hands through the silken softness of her red tresses.

Her passion building, Tara teased Willow's lips with her tongue. Willow accepted the invitation, letting Tara explore her warm mouth for a few moments before questing for her with her own tongue. Their tongues danced together for a moment as she pressed herself more tightly into their embrace. Willow's hands ran up and down her spine causing her to shiver delightfully. Finally, oxygen becoming an issue, they had to break the kiss. They kept their arms wrapped closely around each other as they looked into each other's eyes.

"You know I'm never going to leave you at the door downstairs now?" Willow said with a broad smile.

Tara's heart was still pounding. Everything had turned out so right. All her worries had left her unprepared for success. She found the suddenness of it all disorienting. It was as if she had been building up the nerve to push with all her strength a seemingly unbreakable wall only to find that it had collapsed at her first attempt.

Finally Tara regained the ability to speak. "I know," she answered, her smile matching Willow's. "But you know, I'm not sure if I did that right," she said, cocking her head to look appealingly at Willow. "Can I try once more?"

"Once more," Willow agreed, her expression full of joy as she brought her lips to Tara's.

Continued...