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TITLE: Lessons In Love
AUTHOR: Laragh
CHAPTER RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: Joss, UPN, FOX, ME and anyone else associated with the television show Buffy The Vampire Slayer own the characters of Willow and Tara and anyone else who may appear, I am simply a lowly viewer, trying to write some happier situations for, who I consider, the greatest TV couple ever.
SUMMARY: Highschool fic! You guys know I'm bad at summaries, so I’m gonna go with my standard 'happy, light reading.'
SPOILERS: Completely AU, so I doubt any. At most, the odd reference or piece of dialogue. Not supernatural, no way am I smart enough to write a magic fic
FEEDBACK: I love it.
Chapter 14 ********
Previously: Looking to her side, her eyes widened in horror and she yelped as she quickly stood up, running away in terror. In her frantic attempts to get away, she crashed straight into Tara, who had started towards her when she heard the yelp, crashing them both to the ground.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” Tara asked concerned when she saw the frightened look on her girl.
To her surprise, the smaller girl burst into tears and buried her head in Tara’s neck. The brunette held Willow to her, turning them so they were both on their sides and whispered in her ear.
“Shush, sweetie. It’s okay, I got you…”
Willow’s tears stopped a minute later, and Tara just continued holding her and giving words of comfort, until she felt the redhead relax slightly in the embrace.
“Open those beautiful green eyes for me, Will.”
Willow just sniffled and kept her head in Tara’s neck.
“Please, love,” Tara said, getting worried.
Willow heard the worried tone and brought her head up, letting their lips meet first. After a second, she opened her eyes and wasn’t surprised to see Tara’s eyes open as well as they continued to kiss. They stayed staring at each other, communicating through their mouths and eyes until Willow pulled back after a couple of minutes.
“Are you okay?” Tara asked, stroking her cheek.
“Yea,” Willow said, then cleared her throat to stop her voice from breaking, “I, um, it’s stupid.”
“You never have to tell me something you don’t want to…but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried.”
Willow looked into the baby blue eyes and when she saw nothing but love and concern reflected back, she knew she could tell Tara anything.
“There was a frog. I’m afraid of frogs,” she said, clearing her throat clearly having no effect as her voice began to break again, “I know, huge baby.”
“I’m afraid of trucks,” Tara whispered quietly.
“What?”
“Trucks. Whenever our car passes one on the freeway I freak out and think it’s gonna crash down on top of us.”
“So…you’re telling me…that you’re a lesbian afraid of U-Hauls?”
Tara giggled and pulled Willow in for a chaste kiss.
“I guess I am. Are you okay now?”
“Yea. I just saw the green and the croaking and my fight or flight response kicked it. Which around frogs is definitely flight. I’m sorry for jumping on you.”
“Would you think it was super cheesy if I said I’ll always catch you when you fall?”
“Yep. But I’d love you even more for it.”
“Rosenberg…Maclay! Why are you on the ground?
The girls scrambled to get up as they heard Mr. Bellows voice and saw him walking towards them. He stopped in front of them, giving them a curious look.
“Getting a closer look at the plants down there,” Tara said, saying the first thing that sprang into her mind.
“That’s grass, ladies.”
“Which is what we discovered,” Willow piped up, brushing some errant stands of said grass off her shirt.
“Very well,” Mr. Bellows said, knowing he wasn’t getting the whole truth, but decided to let it go. Willow and Tara were his two best students, and had gotten even better since they became lab partners, so he trusted them to get the work done, “How’re you getting on?”
“Uh…twenty-seven identifications,” Willow replied, scanning the list in her hand.
“Good. You two should get the extra credit with no problems. Can I help with anything?”
“I think we’re managing, sir,” Tara replied cordially.
“Okay then. Keep up the good work,” the teacher replied before moving off again.
“We have got to stop almost getting caught,” Willow giggled when he was out of their eye-line.
“I dunno. Makes it kind of…exciting,” Tara smirked, before reaching around to cup Willow’s ass with both hands and pulling the girl to her.
“Ooh, frisky,” Willow said happily before leaning up for a quick kiss, “Wanna break for lunch?”
“Definitely.”
Willow walked them over to a particularly grassy area of land that was shaded by dreams and sat down, pulling Tara down beside her.
Tara reached into her pocket, pulling out a small candle and a lighter. She cupped the candle with one hand to try and light it without the wind causing problems and smiled when the little flame sprang into life. She placed it between their two bodies and took one of Willow’s hands.
“Happy sneaky anniversary lunch,” she said, giving the hand in hers a squeeze.
“Happy sneaky anniversary lunch to you too,” Willow replied, grinning from ear to ear, “Candles, food I didn’t make, surrounded by flowers…you know, this is exactly how I imagined it.”
“See? Things have a habit of working themselves out.”
Willow stuck her tongue out playfully before opening the brown paper bag that their lunches were in. She pulled out a bottled water, cookie and what she assumed was supposed to be a turkey sandwich, but was completely crushed and had little pieces of mayonnaise coming out against the sides of the bread. She glanced over at saw Tara looking at her contents, identical to Willows, replacing the cookie with an apple, with a similar look of disinterest.
“Wanna share the apple and cookie?” she asked, dropping her mangled sandwich back in the bag.
“You bet I do,” Tara replied, copying the redhead’s motions of getting the bread out of sight.
Willow broke the cookie in half, handing one half over to her girlfriend. They ate in silence for a minute before Tara picked up the apple.
“We’re gonna have to be more creative sharing this,” the brunette said, twirling it in her hands.
“Oh that’s easy. You take a bite, then I take a bite. Then when it’s just the core, we can throw it into the trees, thus helping with the ‘decay and replenish’, helping the environment thing. Or an animal can find it and use it for nutrients.”
Tara chucked and took a small bite of the fruit, before handing it over to Willow, who copied her motions. They handed it back and forth, giggling sporadically in between until just the core was left and Willow threw it over her shoulder.
Tara picked up the candle and lay down on her back, indicating for Willow to do the same. The redhead complied, lying beside her girlfriend and the taller girl placed the still-lighting candle above their heads.
Willow moved in closer, resting her head on Tara’s shoulder as they both looked up at the sky.
“Look,” Willow said, pointing up at a cloud, “It looks like a puppy. See the little ears sticking out?”
“Hey, you’re right…and that one there…kind of like… a chicken leg.”
“A chicken leg? No way. It’s clearly Santa with his hat going crazy on a windy day.”
“Santa? Honey, you’re Jewish.”
“Yea…but that doesn’t stop the cloud looking like the guy…or that one over there looking like Buddha.”
Tara glanced at the cloud her girlfriend was now pointing at and had to admit it did look like Buddha.
“Okay, okay, I relent, oh master of cloud-spotting. What’s that one?”
“Duck with a top hat.”
“Duck with a…god, I love you,” Tara said, dropping a kiss on top of the smaller girl’s head.
“I love you too,” Willow smiled, resting one of her hands on the brunette’s stomach.
They stayed like that for a while, looking at shapes in the clouds, sometimes just enjoying the silence of being with each other, sharing the occasional kiss until a sudden gush of wind blew out the candle above them.
“I think that’s the universe’s way of saying we slacked off enough,” Tara chuckled.
“Yea,” Willow replied lazily, not making any effort to move from her spot,
“We should get back to work. But we’re not hanging out near the water anymore. I can’t handle another frog.”
Tara agreed and they reluctantly stood up from their cosy embrace, going back to studying their surroundings.
Later that evening when forty species had been documented, the twenty-five standard ones and ten extra credit ones, as well as five that Willow had insisted on trying to find ‘just for fun’, everyone had gathered back to eat the barbequed food that was being prepared for them again and chatting before getting ready for bed. There was going to be a talk on the wildlife of the park in the morning before they were departing back for Sunnydale, arriving home that Sunday afternoon. The walking around and early morning meant almost everyone was exhausted and headed to bed promptly.
Tara was already lying in the sleeping bag, idly tracing circles on the spot where her girlfriend would be lying when Willow re-entered the tent, having been in the bathroom for longer than the brunette.
Willow was delighted to see Tara was wearing the same sleeping attire and that she had the same delicious view of her girlfriend’s breasts.
Oh I am never going to get tired of looking at those…or touching them… We’re taking it slow, remember…but I already touched them, so I can touch them again, right? Well, I touched one…beautiful right breast…But Tara was totally in control…maybe I should let her know it’s okay to touch too…she touched my butt…is that different? That still falls under the naughty touching category, right? “You getting in, sweetheart?” Tara asked when she saw the smaller girl just kneeling on the ground.
“Oh right,” Willow smiled sheepishly, having been snapped out of her reverie by the brunette’s voice.
She slid down into the sleeping bag, facing the taller girl and realised just how chilly she had been before, the warm fabric and Tara’s body heat contrasting almost harshly with her cold hands and feet, the rest of her body covered by the same puppy pyjamas from the night before.
“Hey, looks like I actually get to warm you up,” Tara smirked when she felt Willow’s cold feet touch her own.
She trapped the redhead’s feet between her shins and moved them slightly, creating some friction for warmth.
Willow smiled in appreciation at the affectionate gesture and entwined their hands beneath the sleeping bag.
“Good Anniversary?” Tara asked quietly.
“Best Anniversary,” Willow confirmed, stroking the brunette’s knuckles with her thumb, “Um, Tara?”
“Yea?”
“I, uh… well, it’s just I wasn’t sure if you thought or, or…”
“What is it love?”
Willow brought their combined hands up and let Tara’s hand rest over her right breast, through her pyjamas before taking her own hand away, copying what the brunette had done earlier that morning for her.
“I just wanted to let you know it was okay for you to touch, too. I wasn’t sure if you knew. I know I’m not as, um, endowed, but-”
“You’re perfect,” Tara interrupted, in awe of having this intimate contact with her girlfriend. It was so different and so much better than the times she had touched herself, different from when Willow had touched her earlier, but just as pleasurable. A different kind of pleasure, but pleasure nonetheless, “You’re absolutely perfect.”
She squeezed the flesh and heard a soft sigh from the other girl.
“That feels really good, baby,” Willow said shyly.
“I like this new discovery,” Tara replied, equally as shy.
They locked eyes for a second and Willow bit her lip.
“Um…can I…?”
Tara nodded her understanding and agreement and Willow brought one of her hands across to cup Tara’s breast. Both girls were instantly flooded by the intense feeling of touching and being touched and Tara let out a soft moan.
They met for a chaste kiss before both pulled their hands away, knowing if they kept up the contact it could lead to more, and a small tent in the middle of the woods with twenty classmates and two teachers just feet away was not how either girl wanted to have their first time.
Both rested their heads on the small pillow, their legs now wrapped around each other, faces just inches apart.
“‘Night Tare. I love you.”
“I love you too, Will. I love you too.”
by JustSkipIt » Mon Sep 07, 2009 6:04 pm 
"I really don’t want the last person who knows that I love Tara to be Tara" Aww this made me smile 
breaks the next day and that they write a kickass report...
sleeping together..umm...with actual sleeping in the tent..so many 
but I know you wouldn't do the later 
Yay for the awesome 
Hope Tara will kiss it all better 
what a damn fine way to wake up, hmm? My girl and I have been together for a while now, but it still amazes me how amazing it is to wake up next to her... usually cuz her hand finds interesting places to settle while we sleep LOL For example... her hand was up my sleeve this morning, with her fingers sticking out of my collar... it's weird...