Talk About Love

Willow Rosenberg watched a familiar van pull away, heading out of her life, again. She walked slowly up the grassy hill that lay between the road and the parking lot of her faded dorm building, and the cool autumn breeze dried the tears on her face. That was okay; there always seemed to be more.

She reached into her coat pocket for the DiscMan that had been her Christmas present from the man at the wheel of that van, and slipped the headphones over her head as she trudged through the muddy grass. It was time for some serious moping.

There hadn't been much to say to her werewolf lover, as she fumbled for the words to tell him how he'd driven over her heart in that van six months ago, when he lit out of Sunnydale like a bat out of the Hellmouth. There weren't any words to describe how the love she'd thought was the only safe haven in a darkening world...was ripped away in a moment, when she'd walked into the crypt the morning after the full moon to find Oz sleeping in the arms of another woman. Another werewolf. A wild, burning presence who held a knowledge of the beast within Oz that Willow could never hope to touch.

That Oz had killed Veruca for her meant nothing, nothing except another death in Sunnydale as autumn came to the deadest place in California. Another life cut off before it had been lived. Well, fine, the wild werewolf woman got herself killed 'cause she wasn't smart enough, or kind enough, to stay locked in a cage when the full moon was high. She'd tried to kill Willow, first, and in a way, she'd succeeded. Oz had killed her for Willow, but it was too late. Thanks, babe, but flowers and scented candles make less confusing gifts. Also, they smell better.

Then Oz had walked, with his wolfie tail between his legs. Well, metaphorically.... The image of a human Oz skedaddling out of town with his werewolf tail tucked between the legs of his faded jeans threatened to draw Willow out of her righteous depression, but she batted it away with a big angst-stick.

So what was I supposed to say? You broke my heart, Oz, so glad you're back? Only there's this little complication....

Because into the big old empty ache that was Oz' absence had stepped this shy, goofy, sweet, wonderful person who looked at Willow like... like she'd been watching me out the window the night I sneaked up on the roof and hung the stars in the sky...the way I used to watch Xander.

And the problem? Aside from the whole "Wallowing in a huge pit of despair because the man I love has decided I'm safer away from him than with him? He doesn't write, he doesn't call....well aside from that problem, there's the fact that... It was a girl. Beautiful, blonde, funny, loving, but... a girl. And this girl, this Tara, she was like a quiet sunshine just after a storm. There was no doubt about the fire between them, the slow burn that had begun to fill up the Oz-shaped hole in her heart with something completely different, something indescribable. But... a girl? That was something she'd never really considered...expected....

Sure, there'd been Willow's vampire double. But on top of the creepiness of seeing yourself walking around, then seeing yourself walking around *dead*, trying to kill your friends, and being generally as looney as Drusilla, what was a little homoerotic tension here or there? Literally homo-erotic... Language-geek that she was, the linguistic complications of the self-self attraction situation almost drew her out of her funk again.

No, darn it, no distractions...I'm brooding. I'm...deep, dark, and depressed. I'm solemn...I'm Edgar Allan Poe...I'm Angel. How the heck does he keep this up 24/7 when there's so many distractions? Willow stood in the quad between Stevenson and Perlman Halls, and resolutely hit Replay on the CD player. Where was I? Oh yeah, brooding...

Everything had changed. As she and Tara grew closer, there were nights when she fell asleep without once thinking about Oz. Mornings when the sun slicing in through the window illuminated her Dingoes poster, and all she thought was.... I wonder if Tara can sing?....

She could, too. They sat up late one night and sang every song they could think of with "witch" in the lyrics. Two o'clock in the morning, voices hoarse with laughing, talking, singing, they had fallen asleep on top of Tara's blankets, just leaning on each other. This was something she hadn't expected, something that took getting used to....but it was so....so sweet, and good, and true.

Oz had walked, saying it wasn't safe for her to be around him, until he conquered the creature within him. No, that wasn't true; Oz had *run*, and he was afraid of more than the wolf; he was afraid of the wildness of the man. He was afraid of giving up that taste of the wind in the darkness, afraid of being tied to poor, plain little human Willow.

Tara had held her while she cried, other nights, and never told her she should get over it, never gotten tired of hearing her dripping on about the guy who left her behind... Well, she never acted like she was tired of it, anyway, which is more than I can say for Buffy and the gang. I know, where do I get off comparing my angst to Buffy's. I just have relationship problems. She has "can't be with my One True Love or he'll turn into a raving maniac" problems. But she could have understood a little better.

Tara had. Understood. Accepted. Hadn't asked anything of her but friendship. Had offered so much more. And, finally, looking into those honest dark blue eyes, Willow had accepted. Inside herself, she had accepted that she was in love... with a girl, with someone who wasn't Oz....mostly, though, just that I'm in love with Tara. Wow. I kinda said it out loud! Um...as 'out loud' as it gets inside my head.

Then he'd come back. With a miraculous cure and a diffident grin, and they'd talked, and talked.... And she couldn't say what she most wanted to say. How dare you come back to me now, now that I'm almost alive again, now that I've found....something...someone...to make me believe I'm more than nothing. Someone who...I love as much as I loved you, though I don't know if I'll ever be able to love her as much as she loves me.

How dare you ask me to take you back, to try to recreate that world where you held me safe and warm and precious, when it's dead. It's dead, Daniel Osbourne, and if you go again, I can mourn it, and I can try to discover what it is I'm becoming. If you stay...well, haven't we seen enough of the walking dead in our lives?

Well, that was deep and broody, wasn't it now. So, in the van, as Tara waited, perfectly willing to let her go, if that was what she needed... she'd said the words Oz needed to hear, because she was Willow. She was a good girl. A nice girl. She couldn't send him away hurting like he'd left her hurting. He would hurt, yes, but it wouldn't be made worse by her flinging her pain in his face. She wouldn't cheapen Tara's love by using it as a weapon, either.

And Oz, who had heard everything she'd been thinking since his first moment of Willow kissage, Oz, who never needed to ask her what was going on in her head, in her heart... Oz hadn't heard what she was really thinking. He heard only the words that came out of her mouth, as she was...kind to him. And right there, the last of her doubt, the last of her confusion broke like the last of the clouds when the sun shined though. It was done. It was over, and all she could think about was getting out of that van, and back to Tara. Saying goodbye, saying hello.

So there was this sweet, sad, goodbye. So there was Tara, waiting, not knowing whether there was ever going to be a tomorrow morning for the two of them, and Buffy was off hiding Riley in the ruins of Sunnydale High, and the campus was dark, and vampires were probably roaming, and Spike had helped them rescue Oz...she'd really have to thank him for that...maybe cookies?...and Tara was waiting for her. So what the hell was she doing walking around campus brooding to Nanci Griffith at the height of her "I'm a tiny, embittered woman, please respect my verbal genius" phase?

She was being thorough. And Willow Rosenberg was nothing if not thorough. I owed Oz angst, he got his angst. It's not my fault I'm too nice to actually direct it at him. It's not my fault I'm too happy to actually mean any of it now...."

And looking off in the direction Oz' van had taken, Willow said what she should have said, quietly, to the empty quad:

"I still love you, Oz. I'm still mad at you, I'm still hurt by you, and I never want to stop knowing you. But..."

She looked down at the pavement and realized she'd been walking in circles, through about ten repeats of the same song. She pressed the stop button, and looked around. In a clear voice, to no one in particular, or maybe to Oz, or maybe to herself, she said, "I'm in love with Tara." Oh, that felt so good! Let's try it again... "I'm in love with Tara."

Yep. That was it. Maybe in few days I'll actually be able to say that to the gang without stumbling...But I'm darn well gonna say it to Tara tonight.

Willow giggled. Darn well? Look at me, little whitebread lesbian bisexual Jewish witch with a vampire twin.... Damn well! I'm damn well gonna say it to Tara tonight! And from the depths of her great big happy whitebread lesbian bisexual Jewish witch with a vampire twin heart, there rose the final piece of closure, the one thing she hadn't said to Oz, the one thing she'd never said in the six months he'd been gone, the one thing she never would have said to him in his van, or ever. And even though she didn't mean it, even though she hoped he'd be happy, sometime, Willow Rosenberg laughed out loud, and, spinning around in a circle, she shouted at the darkened campus, the darkened sky, the absent van:

"Fuck you, Oz!" Oh, yeah, that was fun...Let's try that again, too, even though I like the "I'm in love with Tara" one better... "Fuck you! Fuck you and everyone who looks like you, and the van you rode out in! Fuck you, Oz!"

She was laughing by the time she got to the end of it. So hard, in fact, that she didn't know anyone was listening until she heard a dry female voice shout down from the third floor of Perlman Hall.

"Whoever Oz is, could you fuck him a little more quietly? Some of us are trying to sleep!"

Willow gasped...torn between shock and hysterical laughter. She ducked into the shadows under a nearby tree. Reasonably sure no one could see her, she shouted back "Nope! Done fucking Oz, bless him. Gotta go visit my girlfriend now!"

And she slipped quietly in the door to Stevenson Hall, and to her room, where she picked up a stake, some extra holy water -- Well, there's vampires out tonight, darn....damn it! -- and a big scented candle -- extra flamey -- then hurried out the door, back across campus to Tara.

*****

Tara stared into her eyes, smiled the best smile Willow had ever seen, and blew the candle out, reaching for her. Their lips touched, softly, easily, then hungrily. When they came up for air, still in each other's arms, Tara said, "Want to talk about it?"

In the dark, Willow smiled. "Nope. Done. Over. Um...supposed to tell you something..." But there was more kissage, then the need for breathing. "Oh yeah... I'm in love with Tara." Tara was silent for a minute, then laughed. "I mean...I'm in love with you." Tara fumbled for her hand, and held it tightly, again silent. Then...

"Me too. I mean... not that I'm in love with me..."

"Oh, but you should be. You're very lovable," Willow teased.

"I mean..." answered Tara, mock-stern, "I'm in love with you, too."

"Oh. That's....really....nice..." Willow answered. Referring more to the way Tara's fingers were tracing a line down the side of her face, down her neck....than anything she'd already known when she walked through the door.

"Mmmm..." Tara replied. "Want to talk about it?"

"No," replied Willow, and pulled her close.

the end