AN: This is a nice one-shot I wrote four years ago. I'm sure I had plans for it, but I don't remember what they were. I know there's this whole secret Willow keeps referring to, but I'm leaving it up to you to make your own secret. I don't own Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, nor the characters within.

Willow had never told anyone. It was easy at first, scared at the fact that suddenly there were people around who could find out. But as the years went by, her fear dimmed to a dull pulse, only flaring up when Faith and Kendra had rolled into town. Then again, the two other Slayers had been too busy with other things they couldn't possibly have noticed. So Willow had never told. Never felt like she needed to. It didn't hurt anyone – specially not herself, but if Spike sniffed around her once again, she didn't know what she'd do. Especially since he had that chip.

She'd been lucky the first time Spike had tried to attack her in her dorm room. The chip had been fooled for the first few minutes, and even then, the bleached vampire had been introduced to the harder side of a lamp. But now… Willow knew the chip wasn't fooled anymore, and it was only a matter of time before Spike accidentally bumped into her or something.

When Anya had shown up for good, Willow had had to pull the blonde aside, telling her in no uncertain terms that there were things Anya was never going to ask her. Puzzled, and not remembering that there was ever anything off with the redhead except for trying to steal her future boyfriend, Anya had nodded, patted her cheek carefully, and asked her if it was as rough as she always heard it was between a werewolf and a human.

No, it wasn't hard to tell. Usually. But now there was a new girl in her life. A beautiful blonde woman who was making it hard not to tell her everything. Because she offered to listen to whatever Willow wanted to talk about. Listen, and not judge. It was hard not to lean against the strong shoulder, drown into the blue eyes, and tell. Tell everything. Reveal.

She knew that Tara herself was hiding something, but she didn't know what it was, and even if Willow offered to listen to everything the blonde wanted to tell her, she didn't offer. She didn't offer because she knew that she and Tara weren't ready yet for that level of bareness. There were things that they both kept secret. So Willow smiled and laughed, cried sometimes, in the arms of the girl who was threatening to set her free, even if the urge was getting harder and harder to ignore.

But Willow didn't want to tell. And Tara wouldn't tell, either, so they were even. Even if… Even if Willow knew that Tara's secret was going to come out one day, she hoped that hers never would. Because Willow couldn't deal with the expression on Tara's face if she ever found out. Couldn't bear seeing those deep blue eyes ever look at her differently than they did now, just darkening with love she didn't even know about yet.

Yes. Willow was falling in love with the temptation. The woman who tempted her. And the woman, the temptation was falling for her, too. They were on the threshold of falling, but Willow was holding them back. Feeling Tara's trembling hand hold hers, but Willow was stopping her – them both – from taking the steps over the edge.

Because Willow knew. She knew that when they stepped into love together, Willow's secret would come out. Tara would be the catalyst, and she couldn't do anything to stop it.

But she didn't want to stop it either. Even as she knew what would happen, Willow would knock on the shy Wicca's door day after day, night after night, and they'd shuffle just a bit forward, dancing. Tara's eyes would hold hers so brightly, Willow's control would slip just a bit, and the other woman would slip inside her defenses, and learn more and more. Soon enough, Willow knew, her body would be filled with more Tara than Willow, and, something whispered inside, 'That was the way it should be.'