'Unrelated' - a Tara centric story

[Millerchip77]

So after the first fic I wrote some people askedif I was gonna write anything from Tara'a POV. Below is the start of what I hope will become a longer fic ending with the S5 ep. 'Family'. So I wonder if you think that I've found Tara's voice - and not just the stammer, I've tried to write as I imagine she would. I also wanted to give her a bit more of a back story than we get on the show.

Anyway - if anyone would be kind enough to let me know what they think, I'd be chuffed.

Ta

Unrelated.

You learn a lot when you’re young. Small stuff at first, like holding your head up, or how to sit up and walk, and how to communicate through grunts and later words. There’s big stuff too, recognising your parents, learning how to behave, what love feels like, what makes you laugh or cry and how to tell the difference between those things. There’s official stuff like reading, writing, math and phys. ed. and unofficial stuff like knowing when dad’s angry or when mom’s in the mood to show you secret things. You are taught by teachers and your parents and you teach yourself things, like how to hide when dad’s angry, that your hair can act as a shield and how to avoid words that make you, words that, that make you, to avoid saying things that make you s-st…s…st-st-stammer. These are the things I have learned.

My mom is special. I mean all moms are special, most of them anyway. But my mom could do special things, secret things. I was really young when she first told me this, maybe five or six. We lived in the country, and like most of the kids in my neighbourhood, I learned to ride. I felt so free on a horse, confident in a way that my stammer and otherwise awkwardness didn’t allow me to be. I could focus; become one with the animal, the wind, the trees. Mom would watch me and always she would tell me how good I was at riding and how proud she was of me. Mom knew I wanted a horse of my own, though I knew better than to ask for one. One night, as I was getting into bed, she came in to my room. She helped me into my pyjamas and into bed. “Tara you are a special girl, not just because you’re my girl, but because of what’s inside you”.
“Y-Y-You mean like my h-h-heart, mommy?” She laughed her gentle laugh then, and took my hand in hers. “Tara I have a special gift that I want to pass on to you. But it must be our secret, do you understand? You can’t tell your father or your brother, it’s a special, mommy and Tara thing. Do you understand?” I nodded my eyes widening with wonder. “Tara everything in this world is connected. The trees, the sky, the grass, the moon, the clouds, the sun, the soil, and us. We’re all joined together, knotted together like rope”. I noticed then that she had with her a bag, and from the bag she took a candle, like a church candle, and a shiny stone like a crystal. “Tara we can make thinks happen by feeling our way along that rope, learning where things join together, by learning how we fit into the weave.” She taught me then how if I carved a picture of something I desired, then held the stone and thought very hard about that thing, and then if she lit the candle and I looked into the flame, the thing that I wanted should happen. We did this every night and though I never got my horse, it taught me how to focus and was my first step into a larger and more colourful world.

While mom saw the world with open eyes, my father was angry and intolerant; my shyness maddened him, and my stammer seemed to encapsulate all of his disappointment in me. Dad ruled the house with an iron fist, a literal iron fist. He had a bad temper which often boiled over at me when I dropped something or took too long to tell him about my day. Mom would try to stop him but this meant that he took his rage out on her too. My brother is my father’s son and liked to bully me to show dad how much of a man he is, how like his father he is. The outward respectability made me sick; sitting in church, praying to God, whilst they made my mom’s and my life a misery, where was our salvation? We found it within each other, and in the magic she taught me when dad was out.

I was never popular at school. I was too shy, wanting to blend into the background rather than push myself forward. By junior high I was among the last to be picked for teams (“You have fat Sera, I’ll take tuh-tuh-Tara”), and by high school I had become a blending expert. I had few friends, finding comfort in two; Gary (“Gary you are such a lame homo”) and Sera. We found comfort in each other and there is power in three, though if I’m honest, my coven was, well, a bit lacklustre. The others passed me by. See I learned to filter out their noise and to find peace in my head, through music and books and magic.

A lot happened in my seventeenth year. I learned something big about myself, that the reason I didn’t like boys in the way I should was that I liked girls in the way I shouldn’t. That was big. Huge in fact. Dale came to our school from Texas; her dad was a miner and followed the work. No-one wanted to hang with her at recess ‘cause she wore plaid or something. I noticed her though; I noticed her like I’d never noticed another person before in my life. I thought she was beautiful, her black hair bringing out her blue eyes. I loved the way she said my name and besides, there’s nothing wrong with plaid. She sat next to me in math by default at first; it was as much as I could do to look at her when she was in such close proximity. See, you get used to not being part of the noise around you, and besides, I was s-s-so b-b-bad at m-m…so b-bad at m….at m-m-m-meeting new p…p-people.

But we did become friends. She seemed not to notice my stammer and was the first person I ever spoke with, apart from my mom, who didn’t try to finish my sentences for me. We were ‘study buddies’ and sometimes I would go over to her place after school and eat with her family. We became close. See, apart from mom, I’d never opened up to anyone; I didn’t have anyone special enough to tell my secrets to until Dale. I don’t know, there was something about her that made me feel safe in a way I had never felt, even with mom, you see time spent with mom was always fraught with Dad Coming Back. Dale and I could talk about anything, I told her about my parents, about dad’s anger and mom, well okay I didn’t tell her everything, I left out the magic part; I instinctively knew that this was something I should keep to myself.

[ophelia11]

Hey there!

I've been very interested to see how you would tackle the inner-thoughts of Tara and I think you've succeeded.

Tara always struck me as someone that would be a storyteller so it makes sense that her thoughts would be organized in that sort of fashion.

The opening when she was describing childhood lessons was probably the most striking. Abuse can take so many forms and while it was only alluded to in the show, I think we can assume that Tara was a victim. That her mother's lessons were the overarching guide for her life instead of the regiment of an angry father is a blessing.

Your description of Tara's mother and their relationship made it very apparent why her spirit stayed gentle and balanced. You also gave her depth as a person and as a woman that existed long before Willow entered her life.

I'm looking forward to see how this fills out to a larger story.

[Millerchip77]

Okay so I posted this fic on Pens and I got some really great feedback. Most people liked it but a couple of people thought it was rushed. So I've been thinking a lot about it and have done some tinkering so see what you think - I will re-post this story on Pens I think - I like this version better and now I feel better equipped to finish it.

It's the second part of what will probably be three parts.

Not sure if you need to out ratings up here but if I do it's NC-17.

Unrelated Part 2: Willow

I noticed her hair first. Autumn coloured it caught the light and held onto it for dear life. She shone. She shone in that terrible Wicca group meeting, standing her ground and speaking with a quirky kind of authority that’s uniquely hers. She excited me. Though the first time I saw her, at the meeting, I could barley look at her. She was too beautiful, and I was too shy. College wasn’t what I thought it would be. I was having trouble making friends, and the long discussions after class I’d hoped for didn’t take place as people rushed off to meet friends. I missed mom. I was lonely. So when I saw the posted advertising the Wicca group, I was excited. Maybe there would be another witch there and I might have people, friends to practice magic with. But when I got there it was all ‘womyn power shrines’, blessings and bake sales, and no sign of spells. Until Willow. I had wanted to talk to her after the meeting, to ask if maybe she’d like to meet up sometimes, I could show her my magic books. But she rushed out and I missed my chance.

And then there was silence. For so long I’d lived in silence. At high school I had barely spoken, in fact fir most of my life I had barely spoken. My stammer drove my dad crazy so the less I said to him the better. I had only really talked with mom. And Dale. But this enforced silence was deafening, menacing. Something dark had made this happen, I could feel it. I felt it the night the boy died at Stevenson Hall and I felt it the following night. And that’s why I scoured the directory for Willow’s room number. I thought maybe we could try a locator spell, do something to help.

And then they were after me, their empty, grinning faces seeming to mock me. I ran and ran, I was so scared. And then she found me, or I found her, or we found each other. We were cornered, and terrified, but when I saw her make the soda machine shake I knew, I was calmed. And when our hands met, I fell. I felt her power. It surged through her hand, into me; it hit me with such a force. I felt it in my heart, the pit of my stomach, in my head. I felt it in my groin, it pulsated inside me. Mom had told me how hard it was to find synchronicity, someone with whom you could merge, magically speaking. But that night we made the soda machine fly and though I wasn’t touching it I felt my hand against its cold metal side and shove. We looked at each other afterwards, still unable to speak. She stroked my hand with her thumb; I felt the arousal gathering between my legs like a storm cloud, realising that, for me, the connection was about more than magic.

She broke into a smile, a grin; it was the happiest sight I had seen in a long time. “Wow…I mean wow! Oh…oh!…I…can you speak? It’s Tara, right?”
“I-I…yes…I-I can talk”. She let go of my hand, I felt the loss of the connection everywhere in my body. She got to her feet, “Wow…I mean how did we..?”
“Y-You’re powerful, we m-managed to connect, t-to join our powers”.
“No, Tara, you’re powerful….That was amazing, I mean I’ve never done much more than floating of pencils, well…I mean there was the one time I reversed the curse on Angel, but I mean wow! I didn’t do more then than read the spell and stuff, which was totally nifty but what we just did, wow…and wow!...Oh! Buffy! I gotta go…I mean I need to…Buffy’s my…we have to do this again soon; I mean not the nearly-getting-our-hearts-ripped-out part but the joiny-hands soda machine flying part. I-I really have to go though …nowish. I’ll call you…” I remained sitting on the floor. I was being completely won over by this quirky, red-haired, babbling witch (but who was Angel? And what curse? I would come to learn to just accept that when Willow got excited there was, in her words, ‘blurtage’). She hurried over to the door, and then remembered the soda machine. “Oh…do you think we can..?” I got to my feet, walked over to where she was and took her hand. We grinned at one another, then faced the machine. I felt her again, less powerful this time but still as vivid. The machine not so much flew as glided away from the door. She turned to me and then and smiled, letting my hand fall away from hers as she did, “Thanks”. She continued, “I’ll call you. Tomorrow. Morning. I mean, that is, if you…”
“I-I’d like that. To s-see you again. I mean to do m-magic”.
“Good. Oh wait; I don’t have your number. Or a pen or any other writing-type device. And I don’t want to forget it if you tell me. Not that I’m forgetful, I mean hello? Never forgotten a birthday or Christmas and I’m Jewish so that would be my excuse if I ever needed one which I don’t ‘cause I never forget stuff it’s just that I’m really psyched about what just happened and I have to find Buffy so it might be some time before I can get to a pen or another writing-type device and by then I might have forgotten though I am good with numbers...What’s your surname? I’ll find you in the book.” I snapped out of trying to follow Willow’s most adorable stream of consciousness, and replied, “Maclay”. My father’s name stuck in my throat. She walked out of the room but I could still feel her as she walked along the corridor and through the door.

My nineteenth year was shaping up to be the happiest of my life. I was at college, I was studying English lit and I was doing well. And the most wonderful and surprising thing is that I was in love. When I was a child I had the love of my mother but my father’s emotional distance made me crave his love. He hurt me, he always hurt me. And then when mom died the absence of love tore at me. I mean I had a brief thing with Dale. She said she loved me but I never really felt it. I couldn’t, see, I was numbed by the loss of my mother.

Mom once told me that I deserved love, that it would find me; I thought I would be waiting a long time. But we found each other. She completes me, binds me to the world and keeps me safe from it. And love is a wonderful, overwhelming, frightening beautiful thing.

Our courtship was slow. I’ve always been shy see, and I was so very attracted to her. I would st-st-start st-st-stammering the moment I s-saw her. I also thought she was straight so I spent a lot of time trying (unsuccessfully) to hide my attraction to her. I didn’t know then that love can sometimes see beyond the physical form, that she had felt, as I did, the magical connection each time we touched during a spell. And magical it was and it was there from the beginning of us, from the soda machine.

She brought us a rose to float. I was so pleased when she’d called that day and I had spent all afternoon tidying me and my room, I wanted to make a good impression, to look nice for her. See since the soda machine I had thought of little else but her, of the way our hands had met, of the power I had felt radiating from her when we touched, of her Autumn coloured hair, of her smile, her quirky way of talking. The spell she wanted to try involved floating something light and she brought a rose.

It’s hard to explain what happens. It starts before we touch, a warmth that both flows from me and into me through my fingertips. Then there’s like a spark, an intensity when our hands meet, like my hand is and is not my own, her own. And then the warmth starts to spread, I feel it everywhere but it is most intense in my groin, I feel her there, inside me. She comforts me, makes me safe, I never felt safe before. And then I open my eyes and the rose is floating, and she’s smiling, her face is flushed and her eyes have a hazy look in them and I’ve fallen for her but I shouldn’t, she had a boyfriend, he broke her heart and it wasn’t my place to mend it.

But I did, somehow I did. And the magic between us grew and she would come to me, stay with me and I would lie next to her in bed and try to think of something, anything to stop my body aching for her. And then she would leave and I’d go to class or study in my room. But everything seemed more colourful when I was with her; she made me feel light, childish. I could be silly with her and we’d laugh, I could be honest with her and she’d listen. She told me about her vivid, vibrant world, about the several apocalypses she’d helped to prevent, “So that’s three apocalypses and counting. What is the plural of apocalypse? Apocali, apocalsims, alottaclypses? Who knows, do you know? I mean I guess technically there’s only supposed to be one and then poof! World over, horsemen riding in…b-but then plans get foiled and the horses are put back into their stables but, y’know, there’s always some big bad planning Armageddon-type fun. But then would it count as the same one even though the first one didn’t happen?...A-And if a tree falls in the forest and there’s no-one there to hear it does it still make a sound?”

I’d never met anyone like Willow. But though I was so pleased that she was in my life I was also really lonely. I missed mom every day. And though Willow told me a lot about her life she didn’t show it to me. She kept me and her friends separate. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt a little. I thought she might be embarrassed to take me to meet them, that my stammer would make them feel awkward. Though she had never seemed to notice it maybe she was just being polite. I thought maybe that she didn’t take me to meet them because of the whole gay thing, that she didn’t want them getting the wrong idea, I mean sure; we touched but only in order to do magic. I was wrong about all of it though.

She told me in the sweetest way, the most Willow-y type way. There was big trouble, someone called Faith had broken out of her coma and was coming after Buffy and her friends. Willow hid out with me ‘cause Faith would, in Willow’s words, “Tear my face off as soon as look at me and I am quite fond of my face thank you very much”. So my room became her hideout. I was glad to have her with me, glad to help even though her constant pacing was wearing a hole in my rug. She had been popping pepto-bismol caplets all morning, complaining that Faith made her ‘stomach all acidy’. I tried to reassure her that it would all be okay but I guess some of my own insecurities bubbled to the surface. I said to her, “Well, you should be safe; nobody knows you’re here…I-I mean…they don’t even know I exist, right? I know all about them, but…” She whispered to me, “Hey”, and I felt her hand on my knee. Looking at her was staring to hurt. I said, “I mean …Th…that’s totally cool…I mean…it…its good. It’s…its better.”
She looked at me then, her eyes took on a darker shade than I had ever seen them, I felt her gaze as she spoke, “Tara, it’s not like I don’t want my friends to know you …It’s just…Well, Buffy’s like my best friend, and she’s really special. And…there’s this whole bunch of us, and…and we sort of have this group thing that revolves around the slaying, and…and, I…I really want you to meet them. But, I…I just kinda, like having something that’s just…you know…mine…And I…I usually don’t use so many words to say stuff that little…But...Do you get it at all?” Her words made her suddenly shy, like she’d revealed too much and she snapped back into Scooby mode sating, “I should check in with Giles, get a situation update.”

I couldn’t take anymore, I had been next to her but far away for too long, I needed to tell her how I felt, that I wanted her, that she had made my life better than it had ever been in the short time that we’d known each other, that I wanted to be a permanent fixture in her life. Of course I didn’t say all of that but I did tell her in my own way. She stood up; I had my back to her as I remained sitting on the bed and said to her, “I am y’know”.
“What?” I turned my head to face her and breathed out with all my might, with all my unspoken love for her, “Yours”. She grinned then, and I saw my desire reflected back at me. She moved towards me, slowly sitting down next to me and taking my hands in hers. I felt the sum total of all the spells we’d done so far crackling through our hands, binding us together. She let go with one hand and brought it up to my face, cupping my cheek. I felt her thumb stroke me there, like it had done after the soda machine, when our hands had remained joined long after the spell was done. I realised then that she must have always felt the connection too, that she had been with me all along. I heard myself gently moan, giving voice to my longing. She leant in then, looking at me with an intensity I’d never seen in another person. Our lips met and the heat I felt through her mouth almost burned me. She made love to me with that kiss, told me all I needed to know; that she was mine as I was hers.

I revealed more of myself to Willow more than I had to anyone in my life, I felt attuned to her, that I knew what she wanted, what she needed. That’s how I could tell that Buffy wasn’t Buffy when Faith had switched their bodies, see I knew that ‘Buffy’ wasn’t relating to Willow, that not only Buffy’s energy but the energy between Willow and Buffy was grating, that they didn’t fit. And when we decided to do the Passage to the Nether Realms spell so that Willow could find Buffy, I held onto her. I was supposed to keep her safe but actually she kept me safe; it was my fear of losing her that kept her anchored to me and that’s why the spell was so intense for both of us, my desire for her was her anchor. We made love for the fist time that night. With limbs, our hands, our fingers, our mouths we explored each other. I had always wanted to hide my body, it was awkward and ungainly (‘Stand up straight, Tara’; ‘you’re so damn clumsy child!’). But Willow made me feel like a Goddess that night, and every other night (and morning, and afternoon, and in the twenty minutes we have between class). She seemed mesmerised by my body, spending hours on a spot here, a place there. In return she was so open for me, so needful of me.

But I also kept a lot from her. I was so scared of losing her you see. I had just found her and I was terrified that if she knew the truth about me, if she knew where I came from she would leave me. I was also scared that if Oz ever came back that she could go back to him, that her love for him had been spoken and her feelings for me not. Plus I had purposefully messed up the spell we had done to locate demonic energy. I hadn’t believed my dad until I met Willow, my love for her blinded me, terrified me because it made me so happy and though at the time we were only friends, I couldn’t take the risk that he was right, I just couldn’t. So I messed up the spell and she was disappointed and I felt like I’d failed her, that I’d let her down.

And then Oz did come back. I guess by then Willow and I were what you might call an ‘unofficial item’. We spent every spare second together. We couldn’t get enough of each other. My lips actually started to dry up if I wasn’t kissing her and we saw each other naked more than clothed. I had met Buffy and Xander and Anya and Giles and Riley and a harmless blonde vampire called Spike (that was weird) but none of them knew about us. Willow had said, “I will tell them…y’know, about us. That we’re…that I’m, well y’know, I’m…that I’m with you which I guess makes me…makes me kinda…”
“Willow don’t worry sweetie. Y-You’ll tell them about us when you’re ready”.
“I guess. I just feel bad because I’m so happy with you and you just called me sweetie and I think it was about the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard and you’d better kiss me right now or I’ll explode…”

And suddenly he was there, standing in the doorway and I felt my strangerhood hit me like a hammer to the heart. They were rallying, grouping together around Willow to soften the blow of seeing him and I wasn’t there, I wasn’t part of this. I had to get out. I didn’t even hear what he said to her, I just had to get out. And I ran till I was breathless and sat in the park near Giles’ and wept, wept out of humiliation and sorrow. What if she left me?

I walked around campus all afternoon and when I got home I saw my answerphone winking at me. I had five messages. The first: “Tara? Are you there? It’s me…er Willow. I um…I’m sorry about…well about…(sigh) call me back. Please?” The last: “Tara I just came up to your room and you’re still not back, please call me. I’m seeing Oz tonight but you can call me. Please let me know you’re okay. I…I don’t know what’s going on. Um…bye”. It was dark by the time I went to her room and before I knocked I knew there’d be no answer; there wasn’t. And when I went there in the morning he was still there and I thought my heart would break.

But she came to me, she tried to explain but I couldn’t listen. I heard her speak but I couldn’t process her words. They had talked, that’s all but they had a lot to talk about. I told her I would always be her friend; I meant it, I couldn’t not have her in my life. But how would it be to see her with him? What would my lips do if they couldn’t kiss her? She said, “I don't know, I just …Life was starting to get so good again, an’ you’re a big part of that. And here comes the thing I wanted most of all and…I don't know what to do, I-I wanna know…but I don't”. She cried then and my heart broke all over again. I said all I could, “Do w-what m-makes you h-hap-happy”. She fell into my arms and we held on to each other for dear life. It felt like goodbye. I told her, “W-Willow, shh sweetie, p-please d-don’t cry”
“I-I’m sorry Tara…Oh God I’m so sorry”,
“You have n-nothing to be s-sorry for”,
“I do. I do…I…you…I can’t breathe…I’m so sorry”. I pulled away from her so that I could wipe her tears but when I looked at her face, her eyes aqua-marine with tears, I wanted her. I kissed her with an urgency I’d never felt before. It felt like goodbye.

Our coupling was quick, desperate. She bit my lips; I dragged off her top and pushed up her skirt. She pulled me down on top of her, took my hand and pressed my fingers into her. Wordlessly I pumped my hand in and out of her, wanting her to come quickly, to feel my need for her. Afterwards we dressed quickly, feeling shy of each other in a way that we never had before. She was at the door and I noticed she had left her sweater; she told me to keep it but she couldn’t look at me. It felt like goodbye.

And then he found me, Oz. He could smell her on me, could sense what we had just done. He asked me if she loved me and I told him that I couldn’t talk about it and the truth is that I couldn’t, I didn’t know if she loved me or not. I thought he would kill me, I was so scared and I thought that I would die never knowing for sure that she loved me.

But she did love me and told me after Oz left for good, she brought me a candle that was ‘extra-flamey’ and told me that she loved me. I’d never wanted anyone so much in my life. She completes me. When she’s away from me I feel abandoned, lost, adrift. And then she’ll come back to me and I’m whole again. She handed her candle to me and told me, “I feel horrible about everything I put you through, a-and I'm gonna make it up to you, starting right now”. I couldn’t stop the smile that was spreading across my face as I asked her, to be sure, “Right now?” She nodded her response and I blew out the candle and set it down.

She pulled me into her arms and said, “I love you, Tara; I love you, only you and always you”. I felt her words in every part of me, from the tips of my toes to the hairs on my head. All I could do was to speak my love for her, “Oh I love you too my Willow, f-from the moment our h-hands met that night I knew that I loved you”. She pulled me closer to her, I wanted to melt into her, to fill her and be filled by her. I was still wearing her sweater. “Goddess Tara, it was always you. I-I mean I loved Oz and everything but he’s not…” She pulled back and looked into my eyes. All that she was and all that she saw in me shone through those eyes, “He’s not you”. I leant towards her and cupped her face in my hands. I heard her breathing deepen and barely audibly, she moaned. I felt my desire for her course through my body, gathering between my legs. Our lips met and still standing, we explored each other, mouth upon mouth. I loved the taste of her, the feel of her tongue against mine, the promises she made to me with it. Our kisses increased in their urgency. I needed her, wanted her. I ached for her; my desire for her was almost unbearable. I need to show my love for her in this way, the greatest act of intimacy between two people. It wouldn’t be urgent like the afternoon had been but slow, patient. I wanted to unfold her.

I lifted up her shirt, kissing every inch of the flesh it exposed on its journey over her body and over her head. I heard her breath quicken. I guided her down to the bed and lay above her, looking at her in the moonlight. “Tara…please…I can’t…you’re…too, too sexy…” I kissed her lips, lifting her bra with my hands to expose her breasts. She moaned as I sucked a nipple into my mouth, flicking my tongue over it as I did. The contours of her body are the most thrilling, at the same time so soft, so hard, so wet. I reached around her back and undid her skirt; she lifted her hips so that I could drag it down over her legs. I left her underpants until last, torturing myself before looking upon her most private part, the part that invites me in and welcomes me. Slowly I eased her underpants down. I moaned as I saw her damp copper curls. Quickly I removed my own clothes; I couldn’t wait to feel her skin against mine.

She loves me and I love her, this was my only coherent thought that night. I lay over her again, looking down upon her, feeling her velvet skin against mine at last. I pushed one of my legs between hers and felt her wetness on my thigh, moaning out “Oh goddess Willow, I w-want you so much. Please, t-tell me what you want baby, t-tell me what you want”.
“Oh Tara I…you…I want you inside me, I need to feel you inside me”, she whispered. I felt her words jolt through my body, sending a spasm of pleasure straight to my groin. I pushed two of my fingers into her; she was so wet, like touching liquid silk. Slowly, the way I knew she liked, I eased myself in and out and out and inside of her. Her moans grew louder. “Oh baby that’s…ungh…so good…so fucking good…oh my god I…can’t believe…that I…just…said fucking out…loud…oh…” I grinned at her, kissing her mouth then quickening my movements in and out and out an inside of her. I looked down at her in the moonlight. Her body glistened with sweat and shone with desire and she whispered to me, “Harder. Please baby, harder”.

I knew what she wanted; I always do as she knows what I want. We had held back before, the unspoken love between us acting as a barrier. That gone she could opene herself up to me. I pushed three and then four of my fingers into her, probing her until I found her secret spot, the place I and I alone could go. I pumped harder, wanting her to feel me, wanting to fill her. Her hips moved to my rhythm, her moans became wordless, and I knew she was close. I felt my own wetness flow out of me, coating my thighs. Only she can make me feel this way. She reached underneath me and began stroking me; the sweet pressure she used was perfect, I was close the minute she touched me, only she can make me feel this way. I thrusted into her urgently, our movements perfectly synchronised. It felt so right, like I was where I belong, home at last. I felt her muscles tighten around my hand, her moans silenced and for a moment her hand on me stilled, her body stiffened, the movement lifting her off the bed. I looked into her eyes and saw her surrender to me, her love for me, the beautiful heart of her. Her eyes closed and she fell backwards with a last cry and just as she did I felt my own wave begin. I felt it in my hair, in my toenails, my face, my knees, my stomach and my thighs. It met in the middle and sent me over the edge, “Willow”, was all I could say, it came out like a sob. I fell down to the side of her and took her in my arms. We both cried then, the emotion we’d pent up over the last weeks and days at last spilling out. She pulled away from me, wiped the tears from my face, and whispered, “I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you”. I smiled at her and said, “I love you, Will. And you w-were right”,
“About what baby?”
“That was so f-fucking good”. We looked at each other and laughed, tears still glistening on our faces in the silvery half-light.

I had come so far. I had lost my mother, left my father’s house and come home, home to where she is. Mom once told me that I deserved love and Willow made me believe it. She had taken me out of the shade and made me walk with her in the sun; she showed me darkness but taught me not to fear it. She let me in to her world, her kooky, crazy world populated with the most unlikely characters, a tiny blonde girl with the strength of a bear and a demon-fighting soldier boyfriend, a boy with an ex-demon for a girlfriend, an unemployed English librarian and, perhaps the strangest of them all, another Englishman, a dead one in fact, an undead neutered vampire. I was home at last.

I thought that I had left my old life behind. That I was a new person, that I was brave. Dad’s words about my demon lineage still played on my mind though, I had spoiled a spell with Willow because I was scared, scared that he was telling the truth and that his disgust towards me was justified, that I was worthless, dirty and wrong. I was too ashamed to tell Willow this fear. She loved who she thought I was, who I thought I could be. All that was about to change.

[Hemiola]

Excellent characterization--I think you have perfectly captured Tara's voice. By all means please continue.

By the way, what does "chuffed" mean?

[Millerchip77]

Thanks for comment - finally gonna post it. Glad you liked it

BTW 'Chuffed' is an English expression for 'pleased'.