How Lily met Willow

A/N Characters meet themselves (CMT), will be a series, somehow characters played by the same actor will meet and have chats stuff like that. Gonna be super fun, look in the crossover section obviously. This one takes place at the end of S1 of HIMYM, when Lily was in San Francisco. Willow gives her some advice. S7 Willow. This might be stupid but still.

San Francisco, California 2005

The heavens had seemingly opened that afternoon in the city, Lily sat alone in her apartment pondering whether painting the rain would be worth it. She missed Marshall, it'd been awful without him. She'd been sitting in this room missing him for almost three months now, and it agony, the summer was over soon and the program would be ending too. But does Marshall still want me? I love him, I love him so much, but I left him, I turned my back and I left, how can I just walk back into his life now? But I have to, I have to go back to New York, it's my home.

Th+is is one of Lily's daily inner monologue chats with herself, as she hadn't made any friends in her class, she was all alone and with no one to talk to. The apartment was now her friend and they had discussions about what she should do with her life, and the walls were very receptive, shame the ceiling didn't want to listen. The out of the blue there was a quiet knock at the door. Lily got up from her paintbrushes and easel to walk towards the door.

The handle was cold, dark wood, feigning brass as she gripped in and pulled open the door, gasping as she was faced with what looked like a twin version of herself. Now, I should backtrack a little here, we all there was a stripper version of Lily called Jasmine and other doppelganger versions of the group; lesbian Robin, Mexican wrestler Ted, mustache Marshall and Doctor Barney. But this Lily was yet to meet any of these, she was living a doppelganger-free life up until this point. And now she was staring at a younger almost identical copy of herself, only except this one still had the trademark red hair they'd both been born with, Lily's having been dyed brown over that summer.

"Can I come in? I here you might need to talk to me." The doppelganger said, when Lily stepped aside and let her in, offering her some coffee and then sitting beside her on the couch. There was a strange moment of silence that passed between the women as they settled into actually realising they were completely identical, face wise.

"I'm Willow." Willow said, outstretching her hand and giving Lily a warm smile, before looking down at her hands. Lily looked evermore conflicted as she shook Willow's hand. It was odd looking yourself in the face. But she guessed she looked kinda hot. Stop it Lil, that's yourself, sort of, she's got a different name and a different life but she's basically you. And Marshall remember.

"Lily." Lily, eventually replied. Little did she know Willow was thinking along similar lines, only she felt like she was allowed, her and Kennedy were technically on a break, (if she was sleeping with Aluwyn it could be called a break) and she was still on a spiritual walkabout, it just so happened to land her here. But this woman did look very much the same as her, although she appeared to be an artist and alone. And probably straight, she had a straight look about her and obviously all the photos of her and some guy around the apartment kinda gave it away.

"So are you like past me? Or future me? Or me at all? No you can't be. Who are you?" Lily shuffled around for words before finally landing on the question. She wondered why this Willow woman was even here in the first place. Willow chuckled a little bit, this one did seem to act like her, they had similar mannerisms and such like qualities.

After a little while of Willow explaining she was here on a mission for some unknown reason, the women got chatting. Chatting about Marshall, about art, about Tara and Kennedy, not quite the vampire/demon stuff, Willow didn't think Lily would be able to handle all that bad, evil stuff.

"So, you wanted to go through a bit of a lesbian phase in college huh?" Willow asked with an eyebrow, after Lily had practically spilled her guts in pure loneliness. She still missed Marshall very much but the appearance of another person who was seemingly allowing her to chat on about her life was well received and she was very grateful to Willow.

Lily looked down at the question, it was just something rebellious that she'd never gotten to do because she'd met Marshall and they were happy, super happy, but there was this part of her that felt like it was losing its essential Lily-ness, and she wanted it back. That's why she'd come to this stupid city in the first place, to see who she really was. "Yeah, I wanted to do something out there, I guess. I just wanted an experience but then I met Marshall and we settled, it wasn't going to be right after that."

Willow nodded along kindly at the other woman's words, tilting her head slightly and smiling, thinking back to her own brain forays when she was in high school. She guessed it'd always been there, in the back of her mind. And when she'd met Tara everything had sort of clicked into place, it was new for her, and completely different but right. "I just knew, right away, when I met Tara that she was always going to be my one, I didn't exactly go looking but I found her. And Lily, this Marshall guy sounds perfect for you, and I think you know deep down in your heart what you want. He's your one Lily, you love him. I lost Tara, and I regret every moment I missed with her, and I know you'd feel the same if you didn't go back Lil." Willow said, with an earnest maturity she'd learnt somewhere along the way battling all the evil in the world.

"I know you're right. Thank you so much Willow." Lily pulled Willow into a tight hug, almost instinctively Willow smelled the other woman's hair, old habit she'd never lost with Tara and now it meant Lily was giving her and odd look. "Do you think maybe-" But Lily's words were cut off, she found the way Willow was looking at her to be a bit unnerving and she thought maybe it wouldn't be cheating if she kissed her? No, of course it would. She's still a different person. But we're on a break, I moved to the other side of the country.

Just as Lily leaned in to kiss this other redhead, she realised she was being stupid and immediately backed off, feeling stupid, and leaving the women in a state of perplexity at the course of events. "Um, no. Let's not go there. Thanks for the advice though Wil, I do really love him. Him and his beautiful calves." She said this last part quietly looking down at the mug she was now holding for comfort and sighed.

"Calves?" Willow replied raising an eyebrow at Lily, her gaze steady and half judging. But she had kind eyes at heart.

"Nothing." Lily said, smirking as she peered out of the window at the still pouring rain.