Renee85
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Disclaimer: Characters are not mine.
Rating: I’m not sure yet but there will be no more sap like C.C. and S.W.
Premise: This is completely AU so bear with the differences, because there are A LOT.
-Tara is kicked out of her house when her parents find out that she’s gay. She finds an apartment, and is looking for love.
-Tara is an interior designer.
-Willow is a medical student; you’ll see later how she is introduced.
-Donnie is a cop, married, and has a baby. Oh, he is also Tara’s twin brother, and a nice brother at that.
-Tara’s mom is alive but is very submissive, and Steve is here too…he isn’t abusive but an asshole in all respect.
-The rest of the cast will be introduced later in the fic, for now it's just going to be Tara.
I’m writing another fic! I’m obsessed, I know I shouldn’t be writing this because I have two other unfinished ones but this popped into my head last night and I NEEDED to write it. If it does well, I’m continuing, if it doesn’t then I’m stopping it. Anyone can delete it, and I’m back to finish the Christmas Carols ending and the rest Spreading Wings.
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PROLOGUE
It was an unusually gray day in Sunnydale; the large puffy clouds that littered the darkening sky looked as if it were ready to engulf the entire town, as if it were to – at anytime- literally entrap the traipsing people as they rushed into their homes or into local coffee shops and grocery stores that stood nearby.
Small droplets of rain trickled its way from the heavens, dampening countless streets and sidewalks, while small children had to tightly clasp their hands into their mother’s as they attempted to safely walk through the slippery roads.
If you looked from far away or even from a moderate distance you would see banana colored figures from every corner, trying to get home. Nearly most of the pedestrians were either holding an umbrella or wearing bright yellow raincoats to shield away the raindrops, which were dropping itself harder and faster towards the earth.
The droplets of rain poured itself onto concrete the concrete buildings that scattered the ground, the wooden homes that laid side by side for miles, the large willow trees that grew tall and firm around the many cemetery plot lines that were strewn across the town, and onto the moist green grass that made up the majority of Sunnydale's ground floor.
Ordinarily, it would have been sunny. If any Sunnydale citizen was to look up into the sky, they would find that there was little to no cloud covering.
During the early weeks of December, the sun would peek behind well-formed white particles of mass while the cool breeze would occasionally sweep through leaving a somewhat chilly environment, an arctic coolness you’d feel when you would stand in a room with the air conditioner on the lowest notch. Pleasant weather was just expected and seemingly- always there.
But today was different. It was different in the way the almost non-existent sun appeared as if it were to set an hour and a half to two hours earlier than it usually did, it was different in the way that everything around the town including the consistently noisy birds, were a lot quieter than it usually was, and it was different in the way that there seemed to be no breeze at all.
The only thing that you could sense was an eerie stillness that was encompassing the small town of Redbook. It was a strange and unpleasant combination and it had concerned most of the people who lived there, while others didn’t really seem to notice.
Maybe there wasn’t anything to notice at all. It was, after all, Sunnydale…
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PART ONE (Living on your own, memories that kill)
Tara Maclay’s blue eyes looked briefly out into the dreary afternoon as the desolate black darkness was preparing to fall upon the town.
The slender blonde, who was busy arranging the many disheveled articles of food that tumbled across her countertop, had glanced out her kitchen window as she passed to put a newly bought large bottle of Italian mustard dressing into her refrigerator.
She smiled giddily as she took a last look at the large piece of plastic that contained her favorite flavored vegetable dressing, before she placed it into a cool rack near two bottles of icehouse beer, her favorite beverage.
Tara closed the crimson colored door of her newly bought fridge, took a long moment to appreciate her surprisingly flawless decorating abilities, and proceeded to finish stocking the rest of her grocery items into there rightful place.
After her housekeeping task was accomplished, Tara took the time to glance around her new apartment and its contents- her face beaming- as she did so.
The smile that graced Tara’s face was a slightly bittersweet one as she remembered the circumstances of her departure from home. She could still see the repulsed faces of her mother and father as they continuously berated her lifestyle choice.
One day, after a long and heated argument between the three Maclay’s, her father made an ultimatum that said ‘either his daughter straighten up and be cured’ or ‘she leave’.
Tara, in the end, decided to leave. It really wasn’t a difficult choice because she was utterly miserable with the constant put downs and repelled looks that her mother would give her, and there was no way she was going to stop being who she was.
And she was intent on doing just that.
Tara wiped away the bitter memories of the past with one shake of the head, and plopped herself onto her plush couch to enjoy a movie. She sat for a moment and realized that she needed popcorn, and maybe some icehouse.
The combination of beer and popcorn may seem- according to other people’s point of view- as revolting, but Tara came to value her unique sense of taste.
Getting up from her seated position on the ebony colored couch, she effortlessly made her way to her kitchen in search of some microwave popcorn, extra butter preferred.
Forgetting to turn on the light in the kitchen, she searched blindly into her cupboards for something plasticy and flat, hoping against hope that she could find it.
But the fact that she had bought way too many can foods and other such edibles that were likely to fatten her to a plump-sized pig, top the fact that she dumbly decided to cram them all into the small-sized shelf, Tara was having a hard time.
She could have sworn she bought some popcorn. After what seemed like a lifetime, she hit jackpot and let out a relived breath.
Knowing her, if Tara hadn’t found the popcorn she’d have to drive down to the closest grocery store and purchase the best brand, and if there wasn’t a nearby market or the store she entered didn’t have what she wanted, she would probably drive the mile way and spend her hours in search-mode until the buttery mademoiselle brand popcorn was safely in her comforting hands.
It’s just the kind of person she was. Wanting so much to just rest for the day, and watch her DVD movie she recently purchased, she was ecstatic that she did, indeed, find it.
“Bingo!” Tara let out a sigh of breathy relief as the packaged corn came into her possession. “I knew I had you somewhere.” She muttered to herself as she made her way to the microwave, which stood near the fridge.
As she was just about to hit the popcorn button, the phone rang.
“This better be important.” She demanded roughly through clenched teeth, before tightly grasping the phone receiver into her hands. “Hello?” she spat, none too nicely. Her tone of voice softened slightly as she realized who was on the other line, it was her twin brother.
He was the only member of her family who truly supported her and loved her unconditionally. She couldn’t help but smile.
“Whoa, Tara…” came a defensive but jovial voice on the other end. “I guess I know who woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” He joked. Her brother loved to joke around and he seemed to have the same sense of humor as her sister.
Ever since he had found out that Tara had been kicked out of their parents’ house, he made it a ritual of checking up in her. Not because he was nosy, but because he cared.
He at one time tried pursuing the career of stand-up comic but after years of failure he, or father as he called him, had demanded that Donnie should have something to fall back on.
Thus the reason he followed a different path, the path of police officer. Still on his second year, Donnie had taken a habit of telling jokes on occasion, if not only to lighten up the mood and hear his sister laugh.
“Sorry, Donnie.” Tara responded sheepishly, her slim finger twirling the curled cord of her phone. “I’ve been kind of crabby lately…thinking about stuff and stuff.” She quickly babbled, before she could stop herself. She cringed internally and mentally, chastises herself repeatedly; she didn’t mean to do that.
Tara knew that Donnie would see that jabber as what it really was.
“Stuff and stuff?” Tara could almost see him smirk on the other end. “What kind of stuff? Anything specific?” he enquired jokingly, hoping that it wasn’t what he thought.
“You know what stuff.” Tara replied quietly, not wanting to say the words aloud. “The stuff that-“
“Mom and dad?” he questioned sympathetically, knowing the answer and hating it at the same time. “They’re still bothering you?”
“You really hit the nail on the head there, Donnie.” Tara smiled into the receiver which lay just beneath her upturned mouth, always amazed at her brother’s abilities on reading minds as if it was an open book.
Particularly her mind seemed to be the easiest to study, but she guessed that it had to be some kind of twin centric ability that Donnie had locked away.
If she put some substantial effort towards her brothers issues and life instead of her own, she might have the same privilege in sharing the special and unique gift. “How in the world do you do that?” she asked after her inner musings had subsided.
“I minored in psyche, remember? That was before I became a cop.” Donnie reminded his sister, his voice considerably more light. Almost immediately he made his way to change the subject to the more important one, his sister’s well being. “Are you all right? I mean…I can always…”
“No, I’m fine.” Tara interrupted her brother quickly, her issues weren’t that important to have her working brother, a deputy cop no doubt, to come traipsing into Tara’s little problem centric life, sorting her oats needed to be a solitary effort, and she needed to do it alone. Besides, she was probably making a big deal out of nothing. “Very, very, very, fine.” She then said after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence.
“Are you sure, Tara?” Donnie asks again, not fully believing his sister’s words, they were twins after all, and he could sense a tension in Tara’s voice. “Me here for you, me not go anywhere.” He said in a caveman-like voice, trying to his sister’s unique giggle echo through the phone receiver and into his well-tuned ears.
“I know, and I appreciate it.” She says, genuinely treasuring these phonetically light moments with her twin brother. “I just wish they change their minds about all this, its not like I did anything wrong and they’re treating me like I committed murder or something. Not to mention I still want to be able to see Davie. How is he by the way? ”
“He’s great. I can talk to them, it’s what I do best.” Donnie’s voice kept up its usual and loving banter. “And you could always see Davie, they have no right to keep him away from you. I can bring him along tomorrow if you want.” Donnie suggested eagerly, rubbing his neck in little circles while trying to keep a hold of the telephone in his hands. “It’ll be like a big sibling reunion.”
“Sounds awesome. What are you going to tell them?”
“The truth.” Donnie voiced simply, his usual confidence filled voice shining through the receiver and hitting his sister on the face with a solid smack. “It’s not like I have to tell them anything anyway. Davie’s not their son.”
“But they’ll…”
“They’ll what?” Donnie’s voice held its firm stance, questioning. “They need to come to terms with all this and realize that one, ‘you are not going to change’, two ‘there is absolutely no way they’ll be able to change you’ and three ‘there’s nothing to change anyway’. So you like girls? So what? I do too, and they don’t seem to have a problem with it.” He joked again, very much pleased with him.
“That’s because you’re a guy and you’re supposed to like girls.” Tara pointed out, as if it was the most obvious and painstakingly simple fact in the world, and of course, it was.
Donnie continued to listen.
“At least that’s their philosophy, not to mention the philosophy of almost everyone else in Sunnydale. Maybe there is something wrong with me.” Tara told herself in a soft whisper, but it wasn’t soft enough that Donnie wouldn’t be able to hear it.
“Don’t ever think like that, Tara.” Donnie adamantly stated. “Besides its better like this because now I have someone in the family I can talk to about girls and stuff, I don’t have to wait until little Davie is old enough…I can come to you.” Another wisecrack made its way out of his mouth; Tara sometimes thought that the words left his lips automatically, without much thought process being involved.
He would have been a great stand-up comedian.
“Ha, ha, ha.” Tara mocking voice echoed through the phone speakers. “Really funny, and don’t be talking about girls deputy, you’re a married man.”
“Yup, that’s me. I’m a funny guy, and yes you’re right, I’m a happily married man.” He pauses momentarily. “Look I have to go. I’ll see you later okay? I’ll come by tomorrow around noon-time, it’s my day off.”
“Sure, bye Donnie.”
“Bye kiddo.”
Dial tone.
“Bye.” Tara heard herself say into her empty apartment, still looking at the now hung up phone. She loved her brother dearly but there was no way he would be able to comprehend the depths of her innermost pain. From first glance, she looked like a happy twenty two-year old, but if you searched a little harder, you’d find a lost and unhappy soul.
Tara still had a lot of personal demons to conquer before she legitimately had her life in order, and moving out of a tortuous home was just the first step. The second step was trying to reconcile with her parents, no matter how atrocious they were to her when they found out she was, in their words, ‘degrading’.
Tara let out a loud yawn as she went back to her popcorn, pressed the popcorn button above the one labeled defrost, and haphazardly threw herself onto comfort and into a world of fiction. Sometimes- she came to find- that watching movies tended to let her mind wander to a different world, a world other than her own. And sometimes, it was her only release.
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To Be Continued
Feedback is encouraged, tell me if I'm insane for writing yet another story. I already have two others that are doing fairly well, Christmas Carols is nearing its end thus the reason I wrote this, kind of like a replacement.
But, if you ask me, this one is my favorite. A slow process for Willow to meet Tara, a little more angst, and a genuine try at being original.
Please with the feedback, if its crap then I'll stop with this fic and continue to work on the other.
-Renee-
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"They're tiny and chubby and so sweet to touch. But soon they'll grow up to resent you so much. Now they're yelling at you and you don't know why. You cry and you cry and you cry." -Phoebe ep.123
"Jingle bitch screwed me over, go to hell jingle whore, go to hell, go to hell, go to hell, go to hell." -Phoebe ep.314
. And it's nice to see Donnie being her twin brother and nice. Love sammi xx 
Pax! -Bev 
i like this fic! keep up the good work hun! 
. I can't wait to read more soon. Please update soon....pretty please??? Anyway, I love it 
lol 
please 
. update soon pwease? *puppy dog eyes*
Needless to say, I am totally enjoying the story and looking very forward to some W/T time. Willow is always at her best when she tries to comfort and console Tara.