The first thing she became aware of was the unmistakable sound of Tara's laughter. Beautiful and musical and unrestrained as it rolled through the room.
Then Tara's room lit by the soft glow of the lamps the blonde preferred to the harsh overhead lights. It was warm in the room and the window was open, a small fan pulling a slight breeze into the room. And Tara was still laughing
I made her laugh. Yay me! I wonder what I said?
"Um, I said something funny?" the redhead asked tentatively and was surprised when Tara laughed harder. Willow felt a grin creep across her face at the sight of the blonde's obvious pleasure. As Tara tried fought to control herself, the redhead realized that her field of focus was widening to find that she and Tara were sitting on Tara's bed dressed only in tanks and boxers. Books and papers covered the comforter and they were both sitting in a sort of reclining Hanged Man' pose mirroring each other, their bare feet dangerously close to each other.
"You are s-so amazing!" the blonde finally exclaimed through an earth-shattering smile.
I'm amazing
And that was familiar. It had to be a couple of weeks ago during the heat wave. Becauseshe said I was amazing.
Oh! I know when this is! I'm studying for my History exam and we just did that firefly spell andoh my god I spend the night. We sleep togetherin the same bed with the heat and the tank top with all theskin and theoh God, she's not wearing a bra.
The redhead swallowed hard and found her eyes running over Tara's perfectly sculpted legs.
How did I do this before? How did I sit here and study with her so close and with the heatmaybe I should take a shower.
Okay, focus. You've shifted time and space twice. You need to get a handle on this. You could be making things worse.
Willow looked quickly down at her notes to avoid the blonde's eyes, certain that her guilt was written all over her face.
"Sorry," the blonde whispered loudly. "S-studying now." The redhead smiled into her notes, but didn't look up afraid of what she would see. "but if you start talking to Galileo again about radio telescopes" the blonde mumbled stifling a laugh.
And she remembered what Tara was laughing at – Willow's habit since childhood of talking to her books while she read. Well, it wasn't like she had anyone else to talk with over the years.
"Well, I happen to think that the man who invented the optical telescope would like to know about radio telescopes. I mean, is that so wrong?"
"No." the blonde said stifling a laugh. "makes perfect sense, in a Willow sense k-kind of way. Really."
Willow didn't bother with a comeback, just returned to her books with an enormous smile.
Okay, mind off the girl. Time to get to work. Full research mode.
She turned a new page in her notebook and began to make a list of everything she knew:
1. It was definitely the machine that activated the time shift. But why am I not staying in place? Is it malfunctioning?
2. I shift in both space and time, but only backward and only into my past self. Never into the future as I know it.
3. So far it seems random.
4. The device, when I checked was gone. Still in the present?
5. The past is the same one I experienced so it's not an alternate reality. Or if it is, it closely parallels the one I know.
Willow sat tapping her pen on the page. Usually, this process helped her to clarify the facts but so far nothing was clicking into place. But there was that familiar feeling of something working its way out of her subconscious.
6. The stars on the device. Maybe they have to be in the right alignment?
Great. That could mean I'm stuck in this time loop for a thousand years. Well, at least I seem to be looping around Tara.
Suddenly, without any warning, she had a crystal clear image of a striking brunette in goggles and a lab coat.
"Oh! Aly's the girl with the armband tattoo of the waves" but she stopped abruptly at the look of utter astonishment on the blonde's face.
"Aly?"
"Yeah. Your ex-girlfriend" she cut herself off abruptly as the blonde's face transitioned instantly to embarrassed hurt. Any trace of humor and laughter that was left in the room evaporated immediately.
"Sh-sh-she t-told you?"
"Um"
"I-I can't b-believe she" the blonde mumbled and pulled her leg in to sit in a cross-legged pose. "I mean, I told her I w-wanted to"
"No she didn't." Willow said a little too loudly in an attempt to stop the downward spiral she had somehow triggered with her outburst. "You did. Remember?"
The blonde was now shaking her head at the comforter, her hair falling in a golden wall in front of her face. "I-I think I w-would remember that conversation Willow."
The redhead sat in confused silence for several moments watching Tara's body language change rapidly from confident pleasure to absolute devastation.
"Yeah. You would" she mumbled under her breath and then leaned down write a quick note on the pad.
7. Changes I made in the last time jump don't seem to have affected this time.
She stared at her notes for long moments trying to see some pattern, but there was nothing. It didn't seem consistent with quantum mechanics or relativity. Okay, have to find a different system, a new way of looking at this because I'm getting nowhere. And I have to find that device and research what it is and how it works.
The redhead felt herself yawn suddenly and finally noticed that she was exhausted. Her body was barely awake. She checked her watch to find that it was three o'clock in the morning and looked up to find Tara almost in tears.
Oh God I hurt her again! What is this, some kind of torture device? I get to go back and hurt Tara's feelings in every conceivable past?
"Willow wh-what's going on?" Willow's mind raced through the possible excuses, the near-lies and half-truths she could give to Tara. But then she raised her eyes to finally meet deep blue and knew she couldn't lie.
"This is gonna sound crazy, but, um, see a month from now, Buffy's gonna bring me this cute little metal thingy with stars on it that she got off some demon. And I'm all out of it because of some stuff that happened that's not really important right now so I accidentally set it off and it's a time machine." She looked up from her monologue to find the blonde studying her. "So, um, I'm kinda stuck. I keep shifting around to these different times and I don't know how to get back. Cause the metal thingy is gone"
Tara bit her lip and looked to her right, "So, you're you from the f-future? You're sh-shifting into your old b-body? Without thethingy?"
"Yeah, that's the weird partor one of the weird parts. Well, that and the fact that you don't remember the things I changed in the last jump so maybe these are, like, little independent time bubbles"
The blonde's eyes went wide. "You changed things?"
"I know, I know." Willow jumped in excited, "I tried not to, but I didn't do a very good job because, you know, I just couldn't cry to you about Oz again. So, I sorta started a different conversation and you told me about Aly, which, by the way, I didn't know a month from now so I'm starting to think you think I'm some kind of jerk cause you obviously didn't think you could tell me."
"I d-don't think you're a j-jerk. It's j-just hard, I didn't w-want to" Tara trailed off and raised her eyes to meet the redhead's. "S-so you're not freaked?"
"Nope. No freak here," Willow said with a yawn and a smile.
"Why are you smiling?" The blonde asked, a slight smile forming in response.
"'Cause you ask me that every time," the redhead responded with a chuckle. Her eyes began to droop as she studied the blonde, finally falling on to the page of notes in front of her and her mind made the leap back to her predicament. "So, I guess the plan is I need to get that time machine and find some way to turn it back," she mumbled through a fog of sleepiness.
She heard a soft chuckle from the blonde and then the unmistakable sounds of papers and books being cleared to the floor.
"I think the plan is, you go to sleep now and figure it out in the morning," the blonde said softly pulling back the comforter.
"But I could be gone by then," the redhead whined, but moved to lie down in the bed.
"Wil, you've been yawning and nodding off f-for two hours" the blonde began, her voice thick with amusement.
Willow snuggled into a pillow that smelled like jasmine and almonds andTara. She sighed quietly. "That's just silly. Why didn't I just go to sleep? I'm such a dummy sometimes," she finished sleepily and heard Tara chuckle as she climbed into bed next to her.
"Yes, y-you are the first genius dummy in r-recorded history."
"Idiot savant," Willow mumbled absently.
"Minus the idiot part," Tara corrected sweetly. "Good night Willow."
The redhead managed to mumble something that faintly resembled good night as a cool sheet settled over her. Her mind drifted through different sensations as she drifted toward sleep. The comforting smells of Tara's room, the soft strains of music that were barely audible through the open window. And the heat. Body heat, from Tara. Who was lying inches away with barely any clothes on. Under the same sheet. And the unmistakable ache that was beginning between her own legs, her body reacting to the blonde's presence.
Willow's eyes were wide open in a nanosecond, her body taught with arousal and terror.
Oh God! What if I roll over in my sleep and touch her? If my bare skin touches her bare skin I will certainly die a wonderfully horrible flamey death on the spot. Yep spontaneous human combustion. That will be me all with the flames and the no wonder the other me didn't want to go to bed.
"Willow? Are you asleep?"
Oh no she can tell. She can sense it with that Tara witchiness or, oh god, maybe she can smell me and
"Um,no," she offered weakly. Tara turned onto her side facing Willow, propping herself onto one elbow.
"I was th-thinking about your t-time problem" she began softly and Willow held her breath. The blonde was so close. So close I can see down the front of her
"Oh?" the redhead squeaked and then winced at the sound of her own voice.
"Wh-what if it's a spell," the blonde began and then looked down at the sheet between them. "Not a t-time machine."
And that turned on the rational part of her brain. Not a time machine? Willow raised herself up onto her elbow mirroring Tara's position, her brow lined as her mind ran through the implications of the blonde's simple statement.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, how did you s-set it off?"
"There were these two words in Latin on the back and when I said them out loudeverything shifted for the first time" she said and looked down at the sheet. "So, duh, Rosenburg, of course it's a spell!" she admonished herself harshly. She had known that all along on some level, but had been so caught up in the physical implications of time travel and the Scoobies' typical research and remove' methods that she had overlooked the obvious.
She looked up to meet Tara's eyes, "But I still need the thingy to get back, right?"
The blonde bit her lip in concentration and Willow found that she was mesmerized once again by the perfect shape of those lips.
"Well, a spell has a p-purpose, you knowmaybe the th-thingy just activates the s-spell like h-herbs or an a-athame."
Willow's brain had finally caught up with the blonde. "So I have to figure out the purpose of the spell and I'll be back. Without the thingy!" she smiled happy with her conclusion. And then frowned, "Maybe. But what if the point is to end the world or change something in the past so Buffy gets killed?"
Tara placed a hand on Willow's shoulder. "I'm s-sure you'll figure it out. Remember? You know" she squeezed the redhead's shoulder. "S-special," and smiled.
"I'm not that special." The redhead whispered and reached without thinking to cup the blonde's cheek. "You, on the other handI mean, every time I think I've seen the end of how special you are, you surprise me with a whole new world ofum, specialness."
Tara blushed and automatically began to duck her head in embarrassment, inadvertently bringing her lips into contact with Willow's fingers. Both girls froze.
Willow could feel Tara's breath on her fingers, the impossible soft swell of her bottom lip. And she could see the look of open astonishment on the blonde's face as their eyes locked.
Don't move. Don't.
But she couldn't help herself, her index finger slowly beginning to trace the outline she had studied a million times with her eyes. She felt as much as heard Tara's quiet sigh, against her fingers. The blonde's eyes studied her carefully and Willow searched the blue for some sign of disgust or disapproval, but all she saw was a question. And light blue growing dark.
What was the question?
"Willow?"
Willow blinked once slowly at the sound of her own name. The way Tara said it with so much meaning. The blonde put everything into that one word, a novel of soft syllables and sighs.
But she doesn't want you. You know that already.
But
The f-word. It's a spell remember. This is just a distraction.
But
What's the point of the spell?
Tara's features began to blur and stretch again and Willow reached out toward the blonde with both hands.
Butno.
And she felt it, on her fingertips then like a sigh – a kiss. Bigger than any spell, any word spoken.
Tara.
