Yes it is she that has not written fic in over a year. Never thought I would again but here we are, I don't even know if people read buffy fics, but I am in love with the show and with Willow/Tara so why not. This is gonna be part of a small series of just like cute au/oneshots so look forward (?) to that? Anyway, here is the fic (title still being decided)
She was back again. The girl in row fifteen, long blonde hair tucked delicately behind one ear, eyes glancing over the books. Fantasy. The sign read above her, moving towards Science Fiction. It wasn't as if Willow came here just to look for her, just to stare at her. She came here the same as she had most nights for the past year and a half. It gave her perspective after a busy day at the office. The rush and the push and the hectic nature of papers and ink and printers and coffee left her jittery. And here she felt calm, amongst books. The smell of the pages and the colours that seemed to fade one into the next into the next. Her final stop on her way home, the corners rounded out, warm; a shelter. The rain lashing against the window pane, the paper birds shaking on their strings, their paper wings flapping with each opening of the door, a tiny bell, a flutter. The sound of the rain on the roof was a like a blanket, and reminded Willow of home, somewhere far from there. A small girl in a big city. She needed a small piece of home. She moved her feet around the shop with a deliberate nature, always clockwise (a movement the blonde girl echoed.)
The girl had started coming in autumn, when the frost would cling to the front window, a small silver cobweb in the upper corner. Her red scarf wrapped around her neck, covering her lower face and tucking into her brown trench coat. Her hair was usually in a bun, but as the cold winter evenings had started to mellow out (and the girl was still coming) she had started letting her hair down, the soft strands falling against her face (not that these were the kind of details Willow should be noticing.)
That day the sun was out, for what seemed like the first time all year, forming a small pool of light in the front window, the dust dancing along the shelves. Its touch seemed delicate, tentative, but hopeful. The air outside was cold but there was an edge that hadn't been there last week, a kind of promise for something to come. Willow pulled her woollen hat over her ears as she entered the shop, the wind nipping at the tops of her ears. The girl was already here. That was new. Her face looked thoughtful as she perused over the books. Willow knew the routine (and only felt slightly guilty about it.) She would look for fifteen minutes, settle on one, then pull out her notebook, make a note of the title and leave. Unless it was Friday, on a Friday she would get out her notebook scratch a title off the list and buy it, her hands twitching with the strings on her hand-stitched bag, her hair falling across her face. For not the first time Willow felt aware that her knowledge of this routine, and the comfort it brought her in seeing it day in day out was probably more than a little odd. But just like the light pooling in the front window it spoke of hope, of some-day, and Willow had decided that she could allow herself that. Sometimes she needed it.
She settled on a book, nudging her tote bag back on to her shoulder, aware of the blonde girl's presence on row fifteen, beneath the hand-painted sign. Fantasy.
"Settled on one today did we?" Abigail smiled at her, scanning the book, her charmed bracelet tinkling against the till.
"Yeah, finally" Willow blushed, "sometimes it feels like it's going to take all day" she blushed.
"I know the feeling, still sometimes it's just nice to look, take your time you know." Abigail said, placing the book into a bag, inscribed with the quote Words cannot do justice to the pleasure of a good bookshop. Ironically.
"I know the feeling, I use this place as an escape way too often." Willow smiled, taking her change and the receipt.
"As good a place as any," Abby paused, her head turning around as she subtly checked no one else was about. All seemed clear as she leant her forearms against the counter, her voice lowering an octave "how's work been recently, George still being a pain?"
Willow shifted her bag into the other hand, "same old, same old you know, deadlines," Willow paused, "March is a bit of a quieter period though"
"Complete opposite in here," Abby said, "winter seems to bring people in, maybe the warmth more than anything"
"It certainly is cosy" Willow smiled, "otherwise why would I be here so often?"
Abby laughed, "Oh I don't know I was thinking a certain blonde haired girl might have something to do with it" she said, gesturing towards the row 15, under the hand-painted sign. Fantasy.
Willow blushed bright red, quickly turning to see if the girl had noticed. "Abby!"
"What just saying what's on everyone's mind"
Willow rolled her eyes, "Abby there's only you here"
"Still, gotta make a move one day."
"Safe to say that day is firmly in the future" Willow said with a stern look.
"Tomorrow's always a day away"
"Exactly." Willow shook her head, "And that's when I'll see you, tomorrow."
"I'm here nine till five" Abby laughed,
"Don't I know it, see you." Willow said, the red still not quite faded from her cheeks.
"See you."
The cars rushed past as Willow walked home, the pavement not quite as icy as it had been in weeks past, the sun pushing through causing those trusty sun visors to be pulled down, the de-icing spray lying redundant on the passenger seat, or rolling around the boot that you've been meaning to clean out. Willow shifted her bag so it was firmly on her shoulder. Sometimes she couldn't believe Abby, to talk about the girl when she was right there. Her relationship with Abby was confined strictly to the walls of that bookshop, the warmth of the shelves and a smile (and occasionally a mug of coffee when the boss was away). Still it was a relationship Willow cherished, and relied upon. Part of her routine.
Up at 6, let the cat out, a bowl of cereal and a piece of toast, water for the plant that lived on the windowsill, a mug of coffee with the weather report and a coat, hands in pockets and earphones in ears, 3.5 songs in the walk to the office, then the office radio, lunch at twelve, sometimes with Sandy sometimes with just the view from the office window, more papers, more work and then the clock hand on four, then the coat again and the bookshop and Abby with the smile (and the blonde girl in row fifteen under the hand-painted sign. Fantasy. (Edging into Science Fiction.) then home, let the cat out again, a blanket and a mug of green tea, a book or a tv show, the cat on her lap. And then bed.
When you lived alone you need routine (or maybe Willow did). But she couldn't help but notice how routine grew old, she sometimes missed the old days of university, and the difference of every day. When the same routine comes day in and day out, the days pass slow but the weeks pass fast. And before she had even had time to notice, she was sat on the patio at her parent's house talking about how she'd been at the job a year and eating cheese-and-onion sandwiches, squinting at the first rays of sun. An adult. Willow moved her hand subconsciously to pull down her hat, the wind was nipping at the tops of her ears. But her hands fell short, a ghost step.
"Hey."
Willow turned around, noticing the absence of earphones in her ears, as well as the lack of a hat on her head. A break in the routine.
"Hey" the voice shouted again, and Willow made out a figure in the distance. "Willow is it?"
It was the blonde girl, her pace slightly faster, a bag in one hand (she guessed it must be Friday already) and a familiar-looking hat in the other.
"You left your hat" the girl said, a noticeable blush in her cheeks "Abby s-said it was yours anyway" Willow was slightly surprised to hear her say Abby's name, though she supposed the girl spent as much time there as she did. She could see the figure of Abby in the shop window just behind the girl; raising her hand in a small wave and a smirk. Of course it was Abby's doing. She guessed tomorrow had to come someday.
"It's mine yeah thank you" Willow said, taking the hat from the girl's outstretched hand. There was a minute of silence with only the cars and the receding frost on the pavement. "I'm sorry I don't know your name" Willow said, hoping to God her cheeks were not starting to match her red hair.
"It's Tara" The girl said.
Tara. It suited her. It felt fairy-like and soft, but with enough earth to ground it. Maybe Willow was over-thinking it. On second thoughts she was definitely over-thinking it.
"Hi Tara, I'm Willow" Willow said outstretching her hand, dropping the hat again in the process, "Oh shit sorry"
"No worries" Tara said, picking the hat off the floor again, "Here why don't I just put it on your head" she said, gesturing towards Willow. Willow bent down allowing Tara to place the hat on her head, in a way that felt far more intimate in some sort of way, and Willow tried hard not to make some kind of metaphor about warmth in the cold air.
Willow smiled, lit up slightly by the grin on Tara's face, her blonde hair flowing in the wind in unison with her tiny little snowflake earrings. "Thanks again,"
"I see you in the shop a lot." Tara said, and Willow saw her head tilt slightly towards her bag, a splash of a blush across her cheeks (though it could be the cold, Willow told herself, it didn't mean anything)
"I see you too. I come here most days, I work around the corner." Willow said with a vague gesture.
"Really where?" Tara said, shifting her bag onto her arm, as if staking her position in the pavement, deepening her foot a little more. She intends to stay, Willow thought, she's settled in for a conversation.
"Umm at the editorial firm, on the top two floors of the office buildings."
"You're an editor?"
"Of sorts" Willow blushed, "and you?"
"I work at the coffee shop down the street, for now I guess." (What Willow wouldn't find out for some time was that 'for now' had been two years, which was approximately 23 months longer than Tara had intended, what Willow also wouldn't learn till later was that Tara wasn't a barista but a writer, that was too personal for a casual pavement-encounter).
"Oh that's cool, I've always wanted to know how to make cappuccino." Willow smiled (and Tara was taken back by how her face could light up)
"It grows old," Tara laughed, wrapping her scarf a little tighter around her neck. The pair shifted on their feet. "Which way are you walking?" Tara asked (her eyes only slightly giving away the absence of a casual-ness.)
"That way, down Rose Lane," Willow said,
"Me too! Mind if I walk with?" Tara smiled.
"Not at all."
"So this is me." Willow said gesturing towards her (falling-down-in-need-of-a-good-paint) gate, feeling her arm brush against Tara's sleeve, suddenly aware of how close she and Tara had been walking, how close her hand had been to brushing Tara's.
"Wow already, I guess t-time flies huh?" Tara said, looking down towards the floor.
"Yeah" Willow said, meaning it, the glowing light of the-potential-first-day-of-spring reflecting of her front window, and a similar spark of hope starting to form for Willow. She liked Tara, she really liked Tara, in fact… she started to feel her face moving closer towards Tara's a small smile forming on her lips.
A bang.
Willow turned around to see her cat, knocking her vase off the windowsill, staring her down as if in a cowboy showdown. He tilted his head slightly to the side, banging his paw against the window.
"And that's my cue" Willow laughed, turning to open the gate, "I'll see you around?" she said, her voice faltering a little.
"Of course." Tara said, smiling, waiting till Willow was firmly in the house, before turning on her heel and heading back home in the other direction (which Willow wouldn't find out was another way for some weeks, at which point she would fine it cute.)
At which point the rain started to fall, splashing heavily against the pavement. Tara laughed. So maybe it wasn't the first day of spring, but it was the first day of something.
Thanks for reading! And please feel free to leave a comment!