"Can I come over?"

Willow stares at the four-word text in utter awe. Mostly because of who'd sent it. Mostly because of what she was asking.

Never before had Tara been so bold as to ask to come to Willow's dorm in the weeks the two have been growing closer since the "Gentlemen" thing.

"Sure. Everything okay?" Willow texts back just barely side-stepping out of the way of a hurrying string of other college students either late for or just leaving a class.

Even over text message, Willow can practically hear Tara's grateful sigh of relief in her answering "Thanks, Willow."

With that Willow rushes back to her shard dorm with Buffy grateful the Slayer had said she'd be back late. now Willow was quietly hoping whatever it was keeping her Slayer bestie away lasted all night.

"Please have monsters, Please have monsters." The hurrying young Wicca chants as she takes the stairs three at a time.

It wasn't quick enough it seemed considering as soon as she turned the last corner leading to her and Buffy's dorm she spots the now-familiar figure sitting hunched beside the locked room door. Her bowed head rested against her knees. Her shoulders shaking in quiet sobs.

Willow was slightly more than a little ashamed when it wasn't Tara's upset demeanor or the fact she seemed to have been sitting outside Willow's room for longer than her text made it seem. It was the fact the upset blonde was wearing blue jeans rather than one of her more customary skirts that had first gotten most of the late arrivals' attention.

"Tara?" Willow whispered remediate dropping to her knees beside her upset friend.

"I d...d-d-didn't know...w...where else to...g-go." Tara sniffed her upset only adding to that cute stammer Willow adored about the shy blonde.

Willow's arms immediately move to wrap around Tara's shaking shoulders in a small attempt at a comforting hug. "Let's go inside, okay?" Willow suggests as soon as those expressive blue eyes meet her own nervous green ones.

She waits for Tara's agreeing node before she moves just enough to fish her room key from her pocket and unlock the door.

"Inside with you my sad Amazon." Willow coaxes already holding out her hand to the still hunched blonde outside her room. The redhead hoped the reference to one of Tara's favored tv shows ( Xena: Warrior Princess) might lift her mood. If anything it only seemed to darken it more as Tara clapped face-first onto Willow's untidy bed. Willow opted to sit gingerly on the edge of Buffy's own but Tara wasn't about to let her if she whispered "closer" was any clue although what sounded like a following whispered half sob of "need my crash position." Did puzzle her a little as her legs now basically jelly Willow stands and half walks half falls across the separating space between the beds to join Tara on her own.

"So what's wrong?" Willow asks mostly to stop from either hyperventilating out of pure delight at being chosen as Tara's preferred snuggle buddy over say the plushy dog Willow herself normally uses after a bad day or combusting in shock at Tara's current closeness. Snuggled as she was along Willow's side. Her breath was warm against the redhead's throat as her quiet sobs dulled into more saddened little hiccups. As she took in even more breaths of Willow's scent.

Willow herself having been unable to put into words these last months even to herself just yet her tangled feelings growing as they were for her equally magic-using crush of a friend.

She just couldn't stomach the idea of Tara not wanting her back in that way if she admitted even to herself that she'd fallen in love with the shy blonde-haired Goddess of a fellow Wicca.

"No talking just snuggles." Tara denies making the arm Willow had already gingerly wrapped around the other woman's middle tighten in reflexes to the new layer of the pain in her crush of a friend's tone as she asks this.

"Okay." Willow agrees already pressing a reassuring kiss to the top of Tara's bowed head as they lay together.

That's how Buffy found them a few hours later Tara's head still tucked under Willow's chin as both women slept. The tired Slayer only stopped long enough to tug a blanket over the sleeping couple before slipping off to the showers to wash away the rimance of another night's patrol from her skin.