CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: BREAKING
Willow Rosenberg slipped out of bed, sliding her slippers onto her feet and wrapping her dressing gown around her body. She shivered in the morning coolness and stretched her muscles. She rubbed her eyes tiredly and made her way out of the room, wandering into the bathroom on her way. The clock that they'd had to install in the bathroom, on account of the fact that four women trying to share a bathroom had been incredibly difficult to try and schedule, told Willow that it was still too early to be up.
Unfortunately, Willow had an unfortunate habit of being unable to get back to sleep once she woke up.
She went through her morning routine, brushing her teeth and running a comb through her hair. She washed and moisturised her face and wiped down the sink after she was finished. Hanging her towel back up on its hook, she wandered back out into the corridor.
Willow silently moved to her best friend's door. Living with the Slayer as a roommate at college had taught Willow a lot about the Slayer's propensity towards injuries, and she knew that Buffy often went to bed without having treated herself. It had become a habit of Willow's to check on her friend in the mornings, and even five months of Buffy being…gone, Willow still hadn't been able to rid herself of the habit.
She carefully opened Buffy's door and glanced inside.
Her heart stopped. Or, she could have sworn it did.
She closed the door and backed away, retreating to the safety of her own bedroom and shutting the door behind her. She leaned her forehead against the cool wooden door, trying to calm her breathing.
Tears slipped down her cheeks and she closed her eyes, trying to expel the image of her ex-lover curled up in bed beside her best friend. They'd been fully clothed, but Willow wasn't blind. She'd seen the way that they'd clung to each other in sleep. She'd seen the way Tara's hand had cradled Buffy's hip, and the easy trust that the two blondes had held each other with.
She'd known on one level that Tara would never be hers again. The only problem was, she'd never really consciously thought about what would happen the day that she had to admit that Tara belonged to someone else.
Willow couldn't decide what would have been worse. Seeing Tara with Buffy, her best friend and someone that Willow trusted with her life, and, more importantly, with Tara's life. Or seeing Tara with a complete stranger that Willow had no clue about.
And while it hurt to think about Tara with anyone else, Willow was mature enough to acknowledge that if Tara had to move on to anyone, it may as well be someone that Willow knew would never do anything to hurt the fragile blonde.
Biting back a sob, Willow pulled herself together and prepared herself for the inevitable. She knew her best friend and her ex-girlfriend well enough to know that neither of them would sneak around behind her back without telling her within at least the first week of their relationship. So, unless Willow was completely off base about her friends, she knew that whatever was happening between Tara and Buffy was fairly new.
If she was going to get through Buffy and/or Tara telling her about this new relationship, she would need far more than her resolve face.
She wandered downstairs and made espressos.