Author's Rambling Pre-Fic Mumbo-Jumbo: This is set just after Demons finishes, so read that one first if you haven't yet, or you will be like "What is going on here?" In the Buffyverse timeline, Closer takes place completely during Amends in Season 3. We are now completely in AU territory, no looking back! This one's quite a bit shorter than the others in this series, so I apologize for that. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Chapter 1

The early morning sun filtered in through the blinds, forming lines of light and shadow across Tara's face as she slept. Willow tried her hardest not to move from the position she had awoken in, just watching how peaceful the witch's face looked. It was a nice change from the previous night's sadness. Tara looked incredibly soft, not like Oz and Xander's rougher, more angular features. Plus, no scratchy stubble. A gentle smile curved her mouth slightly upwards at the corners. Her eyelashes were fascinating - long, dark, and delicate. Her hair shone white-gold where ever the sun's light touched it. And her slender neck curved gracefully down to her clavicles in a smooth, soft line.

In short, Tara was incredibly beautiful. She was prettier than Buffy was, and even prettier than Cordelia, who was not really nice at all but was undeniably good looking. And Tara was so nice! Nicer than pretty much everyone Willow had ever met. Not to mention really brave. And from what Buffy and Xander and Faith said, she was pretty good with the magic stuff, too. Maybe today they could try something together, since they hadn't even been able to do that warding spell to protect the apartment last night, with everything happening so fast. She continued to study the Wiccan's face as she thought, completely unaware of the passage of time.

As Willow watched, Tara's eyebrows shifted slightly, and she inhaled deeply. She stretched, tightly closing her eyes before relaxing and letting her eyes flutter open to meet Willow's brown-green ones. "Mmm. Hey, you're up already." She rolled her shoulders, sitting partway up in the bed. "Did, did you sleep okay?"

"Mm hmm, perfect. You?"

There was that sweet half-smile again. "Never better. Did - did you want some pancakes, maybe? Weekend breakfasts are kind of my specialty."

Willow grinned and sat up beside Tara. "Wow, and you cook too! Me, I could make cold cereal wrong. Not that there's really a way to make it wrong, just it's kind of a hyperbole for me being no good in the kitchen. I guess I take after my mom there, so yes, pancakes would be great! Maybe I could watch and learn."

The fair-haired witch giggled. "I'm sure you aren't that bad. But if you want me to show you how to, um, make pancakes … I could."

~~

About an hour later, the girls sat at the rather unconventional kitchen table eating the last of the pancakes. "I still can't believe how you did that flip thing, with the pancake way up in the air like that!" Willow said, gleefully sopping up syrup with a square of pancake.

Tara laughed. "I was just showing off! I never really do that when I'm making them for myself, so I'm kind of surprised it actually worked. I'm not used to having an audience." She looked a bit shy when she said the last part, sort of hiding behind her hair for a moment before tucking it back behind her ears again.

"It was amazing, it was just like those cooking shows my dad watches sometimes. He gets all excited when they do showy stuff like that. And when they set stuff on fire." A quick grin came to Willow's face. "I kinda like that, too."

Tara began to clean up the table and counter, taking the dishes to the sink to soak in hot water. "I can't say I've ever set anything on fire. At least, not on purpose, and it's still been a really long time since that happened." She spoke over her shoulder as she washed the dishes, and Willow came up on her right, picking up a cloth and drying the dishes as Tara finished rinsing them. "You, you don't have to do that, Willow," the Wiccan said quietly.

The redhead smiled and continued drying the plate she was working on. "I know. I just want to help." She grinned and continued, "Once, I was at Xander's house and I was heating up some broccoli in the microwave, and it caught on fire! It looked really neat, because the flame was all blue and it went off in bursts and made this sound like BZZTTT, but then it was bad because, you know, it wasn't even my microwave! So I just shut it off really quick before anyone noticed, and I never told anyone about it, not even Xander, and I think the microwave was still fine. And to this day I have no idea what happened, because it was only broccoli and I've done it a hundred times and it's never ever caught on fire before or since. Maybe it was faulty or something." She looked over at Tara, reaching for the last plate, and saw the blonde struggling to hold in laughter.

Unable to contain it any more, Tara burst out laughing, the plate splashing from her hands into the bottom of the sink. "You set broccoli on fire! In the microwave! That is priceless! I wish I could have been there to see it!" She reached in for the plate, still giggling, and re-rinsed it before handing it to Willow and draining the sink. "Maybe I should just cook for you all the time, that way you'd avoid blowing up appliances."

"Hey! I've never blown up any appliances!" she laughed, setting the plate on top of the other one she had already dried. "But if everything else you make is that good, you can cook for me any time!"

"Oh, I wouldn't want your dad's talents to go to waste…" she teased, drying her hands on a light blue towel hanging below the sink on her left. "But really, you're welcome any time. I can't guarantee there won't be ramen involved, though. But I can do a lot with it, other than the traditional soupy way." Suddenly realizing she had Willow over, and all she was talking about was food, she grimaced and mentally smacked a hand to her forehead.

Willow giggled. "What's with the face? You look like you just remembered you have a chem test and forgot to study, and the bell's about to ring."

The witch smiled apologetically. "Oh, it's just that, well, you're here and we have all day and I've spent the last hour and a half talking about food. I mean, we should do something," she blurted out. "M-maybe, like, I could show you some of my books, or we could, um, you know, m-m-maybe practice a spell or two together? We could probably both learn something." Agh, could I sound any stupider?

But to Tara's surprised pleasure, Willow beamed. "That would be great."