Chapter 10(xoxox)

When a child reaches a certain age, all sorts of things come to light. Toys and games, once the pinnacle of childhood delight, fall to the wayside as other things take their place. Mother and father, once faultless in their child's eyes were now seen as mere hindrances, getting in the way of the truly important things.

"So are you going to Janice's birthday party?"

Artie blinked. "Yeah, if I'm not patrolling that night, but that's a ways away, isn't it?"

The two preteens were in the Summers' kitchen, having just finished gorging themselves on Joyce's brownies.

"Yeah, but she's turning thirteen," Dawn gushed. "So it's never too early to start planning gifts, and what you're gonna wear-"

Artie cut her off. "We hang out with awesome teenagers all the time though."

"Yeah, but they're family. They don't count."

There was a crash as the front door as Faith and Buffy came exploding into the house and darted upstairs.

"Artie, Tara says to stay here!" Buffy shouted from the top of the stairs.

"Not a problem!" the younger Slayer shouted back jovially. Tara said, Artie did. "Are you guys killing stuff tonight?"

"Hopefully!" Joyce stepped out of her bedroom wondering what the shouting was about. "Hi mom! Bye mom!" Buffy kissed her mother's cheek and pivoted around her, hiding the battleax behind her back.

Faith was far less sneaky, smiling at the older woman as she pulled the modified shoulder holster on, black ninjatō strapped to the back. "Heya Mrs. S!"

Joyce smiled. "Hello dear," then she turned serious. "Be careful now, understand? Both you. Especially you, Faith."

"What am I?" Buffy teased from the end of the hall. "Chopped liver?"

"I said both of you didn't I?" The blonde waved her mother off as she and Faith jogged down the stairs. Rather than go out the front door and round to Tara's house, they decided to go out the back door and hop the fence. It was the same distance, but the fence hopping made their teenaged minds feel like it was a shortcut.

"Sup half-pints?" Buffy shoved a brownie in her mouth, grabbing another in her free hand. Faith followed suit, having both arms free she scooped up a decent amount and darted out the door after her blonde counterpart. Artie and Dawn craned their necks to see them literally hop the fence.

"You're not upset that they're doing this without you?" Dawn asked.

"Nah," the young Slayer lied. "We slay in shifts all the time."

"But this wasn't 'Getting Ready for Patrol' Faith and Buffy," she pointed out. "That's the 'We're Going Hunting' Fuffy power hour."

"It's not a big deal. Tara said to stay here, so I listen."

Dawn stared at her friend as if she had sprouted another head, which was actually a specific facial expression she had developed since moving to Sunnydale. "Geez, you sure listen to your Watcher a lot."

"Z'at a problem?"

"Nope. Not at all," Dawn smirked. "It's just that if I had those powers? I'd be kicking butt right in the middle of it."

"Well that's your perog, pergo, pregative."

Dawn wrinkled her nose. "What does that even mean?"

Artie frowned. "Dunno. Tara always used that term when I'm about to do something stupid and she doesn't stop me and wants me to learn from it."

"I just think Buffy is lucky, that's all."

Artie swallowed another brownie whole. "Why?"

"She gets something to keep her mind off of things," the girl got a faraway look in her eyes. "I've been thinking about my dad a lot lately."

"Uhrm?" Artie said around her brownie.

"I mean, I don't like thinking about him…he gave Buffy and I up without a fight, you know? Just ran off with his secretary."

"..that sucks, man."

"Buffy and Mommy don't think I know he didn't want us, but I do." She sniffled slightly, and had the sudden need to busy herself. "Do you want milk with those brownies?" she asked, changing the subject abruptly.

"Hfsh."

Dawn took that as an 'okay'.

The Lair of Deliciously Hot Watcher-Witch

Willow followed Tara upstairs, keeping a respectful distance even though all she wanted to do was hold the other witch. Surprisingly enough, Tara led her not to the master bedroom, but a much smaller one across the hall which shared a conjoined bathroom with the other room next to it.

"Artie's a bit of a claustrophobe," she explained as she ushered Willow inside. "So she got the bigger room, and I got the other two."

The redhead quirked her brow at Tara's other room, visible because of the bathroom's two open doors. "That's actually kinda awesome."

The room they were currently in had a desk pushed against the wall, the other three lined with bookshelves only partially filled. Several opened boxes filled with books lay on the floor, and Willow realized why it had taken so long for Tara to bring down the books.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Oh yeah," Tara grinned. "At first it was kinda tough carrying all these boxes around, but then I remembered that Artie was a Slayer." She paused. "That wasn't what you were talking about, was it?"

"That demon, Halfrek..she said-"

"Oh bugger what she said!" Tara scoffed, suddenly sounding very British.

"Are you sure? Because I can run downstairs and grab you some tea, or coffee? Well, actually ignore the coffee, it never helps you relax. Unless it's what you want, then yay! Go coffee!"

The sandy haired witch chuckled and placed a hand on Willow's shoulder to calm her. "It's okay. It was a long time ago."

"Are you sure?" Willow still in 'I can fix it!' mode. "My parents are psychologists and I've read their books and they say-"

Tara placed her finger over Willow's lips. "Shush now," she turned and began to pull books off of the shelves and from the boxes. "I can barely remember it," she continued. "I know for a lot of people it's hard to move on from something like that, but me? It's happened, I'm not proud of it, and yeah it hurts," she set down a particularly heavy book on the desk with a grunt. "But it happened. I've learned that the easier it is to accept things, the easier you can move on."

"You just accept it?"

Tara pursed her lips. "Yeah, that's an awful way to put it, innit?" She shrugged. "I mean to say, I recognize the fact that it happened, and now I'm moving forward with my life. Whatever our mystery demon is, all it brought up was memories of the 'ow' sort. I'm not gonna collapse like Faith."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," she smiled. "It helps that I had an awesome step-dad to raise me right."

"He was a Watcher too?"

"Yup!" Despite her lack of angst concerning her early childhood, Tara was grateful for the subject change all the same. "You said your parents were psychologists?"

"Yep," Willow nodded. "I find it ironic that they work in child psychology and parenting, but they're never home."

"Surely you're exaggerating," Tara frowned. Neglect was one thing Tara could never stand.

"Nope. They'll be gone for months at a time on tours and stuff. I mean, they take care of me, always make sure I have money and everything, but I hardly ever see them. But it's really no big deal, they've done that since I was a kid. Once they were gone for a full eight months!"

Tara's heart broke. It was one thing to have demons bring up the worst memories of your parents one could have, but it was another thing entirely to have any memories with your parents. She reached out and wordlessly pulled Willow into a hug.

It wasn't a crappy hug either. It was one of real hugs, the kind where ones hands were pressed firmly on the other's back and you both kinda inhale at the same time.

With a cough, Tara stepped back a turned back to the books. "So, where shall we start, Miss Rosenburg?"

Willow brought her hand up to absentmindedly scratch at the back of her neck, wondering what she needed to do for Tara to hold her like that again. "I dunno. What's the diagnosis, Miss Tiler?"

"We're gonna need a shielding spell, or maybe just a magical alarm, to let us know when it's around." She bit lip lower lip as she flipped through the pages. "Maybe a small Blithe Charm?"

Willow's eyes snapped up from Tara's chest. "Oh um, why would we need that?"

"To keep everyone happy," she explained. "Whatever this thing is, it's bringing up some awful feelings and memories."

"Like a Dementor?"

Tara froze.

"You know," the redhead said nervously. "From Harry Potter?"

And stared.

'Way to scare her off with your dweebish ways, Willster!'

Oh.

"Yeah, really nerdy, huh?"

My.

"It's just, I can really relate, what with all the scary things they deal with while they're at school."

God.

And that was when the sandy haired witch pulled her into a kiss.

Looking back on it, Willow had to say it was a very chaste kiss, not like the open mouthed tongue lickings you saw in movies. Rather, it was merely a touching of lips to lips that lasted for about two seconds.

It happened fairly quickly, no sparks, no soaring orchestra or over-hype. In fact, when Tara finally pulled away, it was more of a 'What the hell?' moment.

"W-willow..I-"

This time it was Willow who initiated the lip-touching this time, and now that her brain finally caught up to what was going on she realized that she could do this over and over again and it would never get old. Like in the old 'Sylvester and Tweetie' cartoons, where Granny caught the cat trying to eat the little canary, and so he covered the little bird in tiny kisses pretending to be nice, but soon the taste just got to him and he went crazy and tried to eat the poor bird again.

All in all, not quite what normal people thought while kissing hotties, but Willow decided that Tara would find the analogy cute if she told her.

They finally pulled away and giggled at each other, both blushing, not out of embarrassment but from excitement.

"U-um, we should," Tara gestured to the books.

"Oh yeah. What with the spell finding-ness.." the redhead bit her lip, suddenly unsure of what to do now, and she looked down and scuffed her shoes on the hardwood floor.

"…"

"…"

"..can we just skip it?"

Tara did not initiate the third kiss, and neither did Willow. Somehow, they met in the middle. Willow's arms wrapped around Tara's neck, and Tara's hands rested on Willow's hips, and when they tried to use tongue their noses bumped awkwardly and they couldn't stop giggling, so they just stood there holding each other, leaning on the desk.

'Huh,' Tara thought. 'Guess we don't need that Blithe Charm.'

And then she felt Willow's lips press sweetly to the corner of her mouth, and she tilted her head to capture the hacker's lips with her own, tongue sweeping along her lower lip.

Time to work on an entirely different type of charm.