Chapter 7

Tara raised her eyebrows at Willow's unusual behavior, but took a seat in the kitchen and waited patiently. The clank of dishes and cutlery emerged from the kitchen for a few moments, and then Willow came out carrying a couple of loaded plates. "I couldn't carry the drinks at the same time, is milk okay, or we have juice and water, and I think we have some soda too. And before you say anything, I know it doesn't really look like macaroni and cheese. I think there must have been some kind of accident in transit and all the noodles got broken." Finally pausing for breath, she looked apprehensively at Tara.

In response, the blonde girl grinned widely. "Willow, this is amazing. Don't worry, I'm sure everything is going to be perfect, and I'm so proud of you for cooking! And yes, milk is fine."

The smaller girl beamed, then promptly dashed back into the kitchen, coming back out with two glasses of milk. She took a seat next to Tara and smiled excitedly. "I've never cooked for anyone before! I know it probably isn't what you're used to for Christmas Eve, but I didn't think I'd be able to pull off anything else. And I'm actually kinda worried if I was able to pull off this, so…."

Tara gave Willow a reassuring look and gently touched her forearm. "I said not to worry, I'm sure you did everything perfectly. And for your information, this is the nicest Christmas Eve dinner I've had in quite a while."

Those are the eyes, I know those are the eyes, Tara's eyes, from my dreams. Those dreams were about Tara, Willow thought, looking again into those clear blue eyes again. She'd noticed it the instant she'd opened the door, as soon as she saw Tara she knew it, she remembered her dreams. Tara's eyes. And she could feel the heat of Tara's hand slowly warming her forearm where it rested.

Her hand moved seemingly of its own volition to see if Tara's skin was really as soft as it had been in the dreams, when Tara abruptly moved her hand away to pick up her fork. Willow quickly picked her own fork up as well.

Throughout the meal, Tara was pleased to catch Willow's gaze often, though the hazel-green eyes were always quick to dart away. It was kind of cute, she thought, how Willow kept looking at her, then away, always returning to Tara in the end. And incredibly sweet that she had made dinner, which was really very good, despite the broken noodles. The texture was actually interesting. Not something she was sure she would enjoy every night, but the effort and thoughts behind the gesture were appreciated.

They did the dishes together afterwards, their hands shyly making contact as the dishes were passed from one girl to the other. Willow was certainly acting strangely tonight, varying from being extremely quiet to babbling on uncontrollably. And unlike her normal attitude, she seemed embarrassed when she rambled on, as though she wanted to stop talking but couldn't control herself. Finishing the dishes, they moved to the living room onto a comfortably large sofa, sitting close together but without touching.

Tara broke the silence. "So, um, what's going on with you tonight? Not to say that I'm not, you know, having a good time. I am, so much; it's really great. The dinner, and … everything. Wonderful." She scooted a little closer to Willow, who glanced happily up at Tara, then studied the carpet intently, her hair falling down to cover part of her pixie-ish face for a moment before she tucked it back behind her ears.

"I'm glad you are, I mean, cooking and everything … it was kinda a big adventure. I'm really glad you liked it." Her eyes darted again to Tara's blue ones, held there for a while, then flicked away again.

"But you're acting like ... different. Like something's up," Tara concluded. "You aren't looking at me like you usually do."

There's a way that I look at her? Willow wondered. "Um, well you know when you have a dream, a-and there's someone in the dream, and then you see them in real life, when you're awake, and it's like they'll somehow know, and you can't really deal?"

Unable to censor the thought, as it sped directly from its formation to her mouth, Tara blurted out, "You dreamed about me?" Then her brain caught up with her mouth and she sat back a little, giving Willow a little more space. "No, no, you don't have to say anything … just, just forget I said that, okay? If you want to tell me, you can, but you don't have to. And … yeah, I know what you mean, a-about the dream thing." Boy, do I ever….

Willow smiled and became visibly more relaxed, reclining with a sigh closer to Tara. "Okay, whew. I thought I was the only one that happened to for some reason. I mean … it can be pretty weird sometimes, when you have kind of unusual dreams and then you can't look at people in the same way again." She tilted her head back and regarded Tara for a moment before breaking into a grin. "So you have a present for me, I remember you told me that. Not that I only invited you over for a present, because I just wanted to hang out with you and it's vacation and my folks are away, and it's your first Christmas away from your family too. So we can keep each other company and stuff."

She cringed a bit. "I actually got you something too … can I go get it? I hope you like it 'cause I don't really have that much money and I know how thoughtful you are so I'm not sure it'll be good enough. And I'm definitely not sure that the dinner counts as a present because I did it wrong. Oops, babbling again. Sorry."

Willow stood and quickly excused herself to her room and came out with a brightly wrapped box, haphazardly bedecked in ribbons. Handing the gift to Tara, she sat down practically on top of her and pointed out things. "See, I got blue paper but they didn't have the blue I wanted to get, so I had to go a little darker. Plus it's shiny and the other side is silver, which I thought was so cool. A-and the ribbons weren't very cooperative, so I had to use a lot of tape. I guess I'm better at the theory than the practice."

Tara accepted the box and tried not to giggle at Willow's explanation of everything. "It's a nice color," she agreed, and carefully turned the box over, slowly peeling the tape off to keep the ribbons and wrapping paper in one piece. Ever so cautiously, the paper was removed then neatly folded with the ribbons placed on top. "Sorry, it's just so nice. I w-wanted to keep it." Tara then set the paper aside and opened the plain box and pushed aside the tissue paper to reveal a delicate white peasant top.

The squared off collar was richly embroidered in several shades of blue, and two vertical lines of light blue ran down the front and back. The sleeves were long and slightly flared, edged in the same light blue that ran down the front and back, and the bottom hem was finished the same way. "Oh my gosh, Willow! It's beautiful! Thank you so much!" She held the shirt up in one hand and wrapped Willow into a hug with the other.

Willow returned the hug, wholeheartedly pleased that Tara liked the top. But now she was bombarded with a hundred different questions: how long should she hold the hug before she let go? Would Tara be able to tell she was wondering about it? Was her heart beating too loudly, and would Tara notice? What would happen next?

The first question, anyway, was answered by just letting go when Tara did. That was pretty simple. And little did Willow know that Tara was asking herself the same things. But she did know what to do next. After all, she had a gift for Willow, too.