AUTHOR: the kat whisperer
EMAIL: the_kat_whisperer@yahoo.co.uk
FEEDBACK: Would be appreciated.
RATING: PG (no sex or smut, sorry)
DATE: 17 November 2002
DISCLAIMER: The characters do not belong to me (if they were they would've been treated at lot better than they have been, believe me), they belong to some other folks - Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox, etc.
SPOILERS: Wild at Heart and Hush (sort of), Family (definitely)
NOTES: This is my first solely W/T fic (I have done a crossover story with them in it), so I thought I'd start at the beginning - the very beginning, before 'Hush', before everything. It's set around about the time of 'Wild at Heart' when Willow first talks about joining a Wicca group. My apologies if someone has already come up with this idea and written about it, but I haven't read a great deal of W/T fic, so I probably just missed it. Anyway, this is my take on it.
I'm not ashamed to admit that this story was influenced, in part, by Sarah Waters' novel 'Tipping the Velvet'. I love that book and recommend that everyone who hasn't already read it, to go buy it.
Thanks to Word Spellchecker, as I wrote the opening paragraphs with my eyes closed - I don't mean that in an egotistical-way, but in an imagining-myself-in-the-middle-of-the-situation-way (and that statement probably only makes sense to me).
SUMMARY: No summary, it's too short, just read it.
Do you believe in love at first sight? Do you believe that you can look across a crowded room, or even an empty hallway, a busy street, or a deserted park and see your soul mate? Pick her out from among all the other people you meet in your life every day? See at once, that one person in all the world with whom you will fall in love, and know in that one, single moment that you will spend the rest of eternity with her? And what's more, know it without question?
Maybe, before today, I would have said you were crazy to believe in such things. How could it be true? How could you know without a doubt that a person you have never met could ultimately be the other half of your soul? Oh, I've always been a romantic, don't get me wrong, but the experiences in my life have taught me to be cautious. To guard my feelings against heartache, and certainly always to look before I leap (so to speak). I never judge others by their looks alone, because if you are attracted to someone at first, I believe you must then get to know them before making a decision about their true character. Simplistic perhaps, some would say, idealistic definitely. But I had known nothing else. I knew nothing else.
Or I should say, I knew it until today, when, armed with all that knowledge and logic, and my naïve belief that my head always ruled over my heart, that I needed to hold back my feelings until absolutely, positively I was sure I was in love with a person. Even believing all that, I saw her today...I saw my soul mate, and knew instantly that I was in love.
And no one was more surprised than me, let me tell you. The circumstance was simple, an every day situation, usually so ordinary and unremarkable. But my feelings leapt out at me, because most of all, they were so unexpected. And that is perhaps why I did see her, because I really wasn't looking.
It happened at the monthly meeting of my Wicca group. Yes, the same Wicca group I have been attending since the beginning of the school year. The same Wicca group that, I discovered early on, is filled with pretenders who come together in the name of girl power instead of truly believing in the existence of magicks and spells. In fact, if they actually did learn that I was a real-life honest-to-goodness practising witch, I'm afraid they would run screaming for the hills. I think I only put up with them because, despite their naivety, they are still the closest people I know to witches, and that thought still fills me with a painful sadness.
Anyway, I was already in my usual place at the meeting, kneeling on the floor in between two chairs occupied by other group members. I was studying the lecture notes that I had taken down in the class before, when something forced me to look up and so I did, just in time to see her step into the doorway. I took a breath and gasped internally; I know for certain that my jaw dropped. I saw her standing there and saw that she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. You may think me strange, or perhaps exaggerating, or whimsical, but she was quite simply beautiful. No other word could describe her, and that word may not even do her justice.
She had subtly reddish hair, and it shone with reflected sunlight from the window as she moved into the room. As she drew closer, I saw that her green eyes seemed to sparkle with a gentle radiance, yet I saw a distinctive fierceness within them. Her nervous smile betrayed her understandable apprehension of joining our little bunch of outspoken women. But despite this, I could see that she was filled with a complete sense of wonder, of adventure and understanding, and I knew then that I must know her.
I have always been able to see people's auras; it began when I was a child, but here my ability seemed to be enhanced, as I saw a force of light surrounding her. It shone with the brightest and yet softest light I'd ever seen. Even brighter than I remembered my mother's to be, and she'd had the most spectacular aura about her. She'd made me feel all at once welcomed and safe, calm and loved, as all mothers do, but with her I could actually see it in her as well as feel it. And now the new girl that stood nervously in front of the Wicca group made me feel the same as my mother had many years before.
She asked if this was where the Wiccans met, someone answered that it was and so she said great and introduced herself as Willow and my heart leapt at the sound of her name. Someone brought an extra chair for her from across the room and she pushed it into the circle and sat down. There was an awkward silence as the group checked her out before she was welcomed at last and she smiled gratefully.
As the meeting continued then, I couldn't help but watch her. She remained initially quiet, just listening to the others; she seemed to be getting a feel of what went on, trying to get a sense of the group etiquette. After a few minutes, she began to glance around. I quickly hid myself among the others, behind my hair, away from her gaze and felt strangely glad when her eyes moved past me and I knew that she hadn't noticed me. For at the same time that I knew I must know her, I knew she must not know me.
I have a past, as all people do, but mine contains a terrible secret that I have inherited from my family. A secret that no one must know, not even her--especially not her. You see the one thing in my life that I cannot allow anyone to find out is that I have a demon within me. It has always been there, my father says that it is this part of me that the magicks come from. I don't want to believe him, as my power doesn't feel evil to me, but it's difficult to disregard something that I have been told all of my life. Worse, on my twentieth birthday, I am destined to turn into a full demon. I so hope that it isn't true but until I know for certain, this, it seems, is my fate and my greatest fear.
Yet as I watched her again, sitting listening to our Wicca group as they talked about bake-sales and womanpower shrines, of bringing the wonder of the Wiccan-lifestyle to the masses, I was still drawn to her, and despite my secret and myself, I couldn't and wouldn't let her go. After the meeting had finished and people stood and moved to talk individually to clarify certain matters of interest with each other, I saw my opportunity and walked up next to her as she spoke to someone else. I shakily brushed back my hair behind my ears, and nervously leaned to talk to her.
Before I was able to speak, however, she was distracted. Another girl demanded her attention and she turned toward her, and away from me. I knew she still hadn't noticed me, but this time my disappointment stung me. I quickly took a step back, as if I hadn't meant to disturb her, and waited.
As I stood and pretended to look again at my lecture notes, I continued to watch her out the corner of my eye while her back was turned. I couldn't help it; I studied her hair as it curled wistfully down to her shoulders. I could see the pale skin at her neck just beneath her hair, and the sight made me shiver unexpectedly. Her small, slender back was within touching distance, and I almost reached my hand out to touch her and delicately stroke her back, to feel her warm skin under my fingers.
Then before I knew it, and before I had plucked up the courage again to talk to her, it was over. Girls drifted away, individually and in small groups of two or three, and I watched helplessly as Willow said her goodbyes too. I opened my mouth to call after her, may even have reached out to catch her arm before she had gone too far, but it was too late. I felt my heart lurch, as she, all unknowingly, turned away from me, for what now seemed the hundredth time that day, and finally left the room. I did go after her, but saw her meet with a blonde girl in the corridor, and I felt a weird sense of jealousy that this girl could know her and I couldn't, and in the moment that I thought this, she was gone.
My shoulders slumped and my legs felt suddenly weak and I went back and sat down quickly in one of the now empty chairs. I had just experienced the most profound experience of my life, and I felt both elated and drained at the same time. Although she never saw me, I felt that she had spoken to me, not in words, of course, but in her bearing. She was special; I felt it from the moment I first saw her. Perhaps it was that very specialness that had drawn me to her.
But even though I knew I had missed my opportunity, I knew I would see her again, I was sure of it. The Wicca group would bring her back into my life, because in the short time that she was there she had shown a definite interest in becoming a permanent member of the oblivious gathering of so-called 'witches'. I had also sensed--beneath her outward appearance of innocence--that she knew more than she was letting on. Perhaps she knew more about magicks and spells and demons than even I could imagine, and sooner or later I would find out.
A wonderful anticipation filled me at the thought of seeing Willow again. More than that, I knew, in the moment after she had disappeared with her friend around the corner, that I had fallen completely in love with her, and I felt in my heart that I would spend the rest of my life with her.
End
Oh miss, what a thing to do!
Edited by: the kat whisperer at: 11/19/02 9:23:41 pm
but with tara i think she always knew this will was special. thanks for reminding me how beautiful it used to be. 
I loved it. Infact, if you write a next part, I would read it. 
That's why I personally like first-time fics more than any other, the anticipation.
I LOVED it!! Fantastically brillianto!! I love fics where they first meet, and don't see many from a certain person's point of view either... a second part!! YIPPEE!! Sorry, all with the hyper here. 
Thanks for that...no pressure at all!