7/29/05

Kitten

Tara looked down as Willow rubbed against her sleepily, short strands of burgundy hair trailing over her thigh, the redhead's head nestled against her leg. Smiling, Tara dropped her hand from the open book in front of her and gently began to stroke the side of Willow's face. Purring in her sleep, the redhead made a little mewing noise and snuggled deeper, burrowing into her side.

"Oh Willow…" the blonde woman murmured, feeling the softness of her girl under her hand, drawing her fingers away to scratch softly between her ears, "You're so adorable…"

Mewing and blinking sleepy eyes open, the rare-colored cat shifted and offered Tara her belly, a rumbling purr shaking her small body. She pressed eagerly into her touch.

Giggling, Tara put her homework down off to the side and turned over, belly to the sheets. Reaching out both of her long hands, she proceeded to massage Willow into a bigger mass of purring nerves. Staring lovingly into the brilliant green eyes that stared back at her, Tara shook her head and got onto her knees, scooping the kitten up into her arms.

Batting at the blonde hair that hung over Tara's shoulder, Willow mewed up at her owner, not at all concerned that she was on her back. She loved being held in her Tara's arms, feeling an almost imperceptible answering purr radiating from the human's body as she herself rumbled happily on.

Tara made her happy.

"Time for food, isn't it, girl?" Tara asked, sliding off of the bed. Setting Willow onto the ground with a gentle pat, the blonde opened up the bag of dry cat food she kept in her closet away from prying eyes – her dorm was animal free after all – and poured a small helping into the waiting bowl.

With an excited squeak, the red kitten pounced.

Blinking back tears at the almost overwhelming feel of love she felt for her little Willow, Tara went about finding her own food.

***

"I swear," she mumbled, taking a long sip of her milkshake, "It's like we can understand each other."

The other blonde, a smaller girl with lighter hair, happily snacked on the french fries in front of her. Chewing for a second, she smiled, placing her head on her hand so she could lean closer to ask, "Tara? Are we talking about the adorable ball of fur again?"

Tara blushed for a second, but nodded. "Yeah," she smiled sheepishly, snagging a french fry for herself.

Buffy gazed at her for a second, finally shaking her head. "You know," she started, teasing, "If Willow wasn't a cat, I'd swear you were in love with her, you talk about her so much."

"I can't help it! I… She's just what I needed."

Buffy nodded. "Unconditional love, I know."

Tara stared wistfully off to the side. "Yeah," she murmured.

Deciding that she didn't like the tone the conversation was going towards, Buffy shook her head and sat up straight, trying to put some perkiness back into the best friend catch up time, "Tara, I know. 'Sides, you're lucky. Mom won't let Dawn and me have a cat. Dog neither, pooh." She pouted, shaking her head again. Not seeing the smile she wanted to see grace her friend's mouth, she sighed and reached out a hand to cover the one the other woman had pressed against the plastic of the table they sat at.

"Tara?" she started, squeezing her hand slightly, "Have I ever told you about the Willow I know – or knew, actually?"

The dirty blonde looked up, surprised. Buffy had never mentioned that fact when Tara had brought over the kitten the day after she had gotten her. "No," she offered, using her other hand to pick up her milkshake and take another sip.

"Well, when I moved here in 10th grade… I told you about how I met Xander, right? Good. Well, anyway, I, uh, didn't mention the fact that Xander had been best friends with Willow, not just Jesse."

Tara winced. "Did she have to get dusted, too?"

"No." Buffy shook her head, a strange expression settling onto her face. "That was the strange part. Willow actually became part of the Scoobies, just like Xander and Cordelia did. In fact, before you came along, we were just a regular bunch of high school nerds fighting demons and vampires."

Tara let one side of her lips curl up into a smile. "So, what happened?" she asked gently when no more seemed to be coming from her companion.

Buffy tensed slightly, until a sad smile eased over her face. She dropped Tara's hand and sat back against the booth seat. "It's funny, huh, when you brought over Willow to show me. I was shocked. Willow, my Willow, Willow Rosenberg – that was her name – had the same color hair as your kitten had fur. She had long red hair and the most sparkling green eyes… So sweet and eager, Willow was. Willing to do whatever research she could, always happy and bouncy." The blonde took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly. "I thought, I thought for a second that she was my Willow turned into a kitten."

"Buffy…" Tara slid over next to her friend, who was obviously struggling with the memories, "Why didn't you tell me before? I could have named her something completely different."

"No," Buffy snuffled, shaking her head, her voice deepening with emotion, "That wouldn't be right. Willow would have liked it, I think."

Tara opened her arms, and Buffy slid into them thankfully. She rocked her silently for a while, looking over the restaurant and murmuring softly into the other woman's ear, waiting until she calmed down. She was dying to know what had happened to the girl to make Buffy and the others never talk about her again, but she knew she could wait.

"She disappeared," the smaller blonde answered her suddenly, as if Tara had spoken aloud. Her body against Tara's was tense, but the Wicca could feel relief already seeping into her bones, relaxing her. "We went out patrolling one night, nothing out of the ordinary. We decided to end early that night, and even though I offered to walk her back to her house, Willow refused. She knew that I had a date with Angel that evening, and didn't want to cause me to be late. Eager to see him myself…" Buffy choked slightly, her words beginning to be muffled by tears, "it wasn't too hard to let her walk home by herself.

"The next morning, she didn't show up to school. The next day either. No one picked up her phone – her parents were off somewhere, god knows where. She just disappeared off the face of the planet. At first, I was petrified that a vampire or demon had gotten to her, but her body never turned up, and I never encountered her to dust her. Everyone tried to tell me that it wasn't my fault, but!" The Slayer suddenly wrenched herself away and punched the seat roughly, her face wet with tears, "If I wasn't so eager to see Angel that night, she would still be here, wouldn't she?"

Hazel eyes begged Tara to comfort her, and the blonde did. Lowering her voice, she gently brushed the tears away from her friend's eyes, "Buffy. It wasn't your fault. You can't live with the what ifs. You said she was a Scooby, right? Then she knew how to take care of herself. If you didn't believe in her, then you wouldn't have let her walk home alone. You said it yourself, you don't know what happened to her. She could still be alive, somewhere."

"Really? Xander and I thought so, going over everything we could remember about how she had acted the weeks before, wondering if she had run away or something. I used to keep the phone by my bed, hoping that she would call me…" Buffy's eyes watered again, and she dropped her chin to her chest, hiding behind the bangs that fell over her eyes, "I miss her, sometimes…"

***

Stepping into her dark dorm room and flipping the switch that would bathe it with light, Tara sighed deeply. Slipping off her jacket and bag, she let them drop to the ground, her mind filled with thoughts of what Buffy had revealed to her earlier that day. How had she kept that bottled up inside of her for so long?

Shaking her head, she made her way over to her bed to where her kitten was nestled into her pillow, curled up into a small bundle. "Oh girl…" she murmured, reaching out a hand to caress her soft side, not wanting to wake her up, "You don't realize the day I've had…"

But Willow did know. Stretching out her legs to get the kinks out of them, she rolled over slightly, not wanting to let her Tara know that she was awake. Her human had the smell of the Outside on her, and – and something else. Flexing her nose for a second to get a deeper smell, she realized what it was. Tara had the smell of the Other on her. The other human who had yellow fur on her head.

She sighed, feeling sleep call to her again, Tara's strokes lulling her into a state of relaxation. She was good at that, Willow realized. Tara was good at calming. Perhaps that's what she had been doing to Yellow – she had that smell around her. Like she had used her magik to make another feel good.

She smiled to herself. That was good. Something about Yellow always made her feel safe, even if Tara made her feel even safer. But there was so much sadness in Yellow, and Willow tried to purr even louder when Yellow was around, reacting to her touch to let her know Willow was happy.

Something was familiar about Yellow, too. But Willow couldn't put her paw on it. It was the same feeling she felt whenever she thought about the fact that she was still a kitten. Even if it was fun being so young and carefree, Willow was a bit confused. Shouldn't she have grown by now? She had been a kitten for three human years, but she still hadn't grown.

Ah well. She snuggled into the warmth of her Tara's side as her human decided to succumb to the calling of sleep herself. Purring slightly, she pushed all non-sleep thoughts away. Whenever Tara smelled like she had used her magik, she always had to sleep deeply for a while.

Willow liked that. It meant that her human was kind and sweet, so full of pure magik, helping out whenever she could. That was one of the reasons Willow had picked her to be her human. Her Tara was her Tara, and she didn't want anyone else having her.