Um..you may want to go back and review the end of the last one. I know it was short. I'm sorry. But.. just to know why Tara's pissed, you may want to do that. Or not. Whichever.
Oh yeah... Enjoy! *G* There's bare Willow-flesh. *G* That's always fun.
**
“You know, you may just learn something if you kept stopped presuming and started listening!” Tara shouted, slamming the door to Willow’s room and stomping up the stairs. She had stood floundering on the porch, her anger building with each passing second. By the time she had collected herself enough to begin moving towards Willow’s room, she was heading towards irate.
“Huh?” Willow asked, spinning around and frantically pulling the terrycloth bathrobe around her shoulders.
“You are the most stubborn, self deprecating woman I’ve seen in a while! What happened to your ego? Your pizzaz?” Tara ranted, pacing the expanse of the room, her hands flailing as she gestured. She stopped in mid stride, spinning and looking at Willow with a critical eye. “When was the last time you had sex?”
“WHAT?” Willow squacked.
“If I recall correctly,
my Willow was always quite satisfied in that department and wasn’t ever as … pouty as you are. I think you need to get that taken care of.”
Willow clutched at the juncture of her bathrobe. “Um...” she started before realizing exactly what Tara had just said. “Are you offering to help?”
Tara rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because that’ll just solve all of our problems. Let’s just fall into bed together. Good idea.”
“I’m confused, the redhead said, sitting on the edge of her bed and frowning. “Apparently I haven’t been taken care of recently so I have issues which bother the hell out of you but you’re too concerned about forming more issues to help me get rid of the ones I’ve already got?”
“Something like that, yeah,” Tara replied, beginning to pace again. “I just don’t understand this, Willow. I’m so confused and … I don’t know,” she said, sighing and sitting on the edge of the bed next to Willow.
“What don’t you know?”
Tara sighed and ducked her head. “How can you think… how can you even think that I’d be willing to spend all day in the park with my tongue down your throat, but I’d stand on the porch and push you away? I don’t- I don’t know why you’d think that.”
“You had dinner with Dawnie and Buffy and all the girls while Xander and I went out and did ‘guy & non-guy-guy stuff’ and I thought maybe you saw something better while you were out,” Willow shrugged. “Maybe you spent some time with them and remembered what it was like before I went all stupid and out of control and maybe you didn’t want to take that risk again.”
“You think that it would take one night out with Buffy and Dawn to do that but six years of being completely cut off from you all, my family, wouldn’t affect me at all? Will, its going to take more than memories to push me away from you,” she said, her voice low and rich as she finished the sentence.
“But-“
“No buts,” Tara said. She shifted on the bed, tucking one leg under her so she was facing Willow. “I can’t do this alone. I can’t put my heart out there for you and have you push it back because you think you don’t deserve it. But I can offer you all the love I feel in my heart for you and tell you that you’re the only thing I’ve needed in my life for the last five years. There’s more to my family than Hannah and me, baby. You’re missing from all the important stuff; photos, Solstice cards, …our lives.”
Willows eyes were wet and she sniffled, trying to hold back any tears that threatened. “I…I…”
“You’ve got my heart, Willow,” Tara said. Her eyes were smokey and her voice somewhat sultry to Willow’s ears. “Now you just have to believe me about that.”
“But … Buffy’s prettier than me,” Willow said in a very pathetic attempt to dissuade Tara.
“Riiight,” Tara snickered. “Which is why it’s the sound of her voice that makes my heart jump. And that’s why my breath catches when she walks by with her cute butt. And that’s why its her touch that turns me on so much that…” Tara’s voice trailed off as she leaned in and took possession of Willow’s lips, leaving absolutely no more questions.
Except for one. “You think Buffy has a cute butt?”
Willow asked, pulling away from Tara sharply and leaving the blonde looking rather desperate.
“God,” Tara groaned, flopping back on the bed and covering her face with her hand. “Willow,” she sighed. “Its an average butt. A below average butt. You have a much nicer butt.”
“I don’t have a butt,” Willow countered, smirking and shifting her body so she straddled Tara’s hips.
The blonde looked up at her partner, catching a glimpse through the partially opened bathrobe and finding the sight of Willow’s milky skin leaving her mouth incredibly dry. “You’re amazing,” she managed to whisper, some non-hormone-related portion of her brain knowing that it was not related to Willow’s comment at all.
“I am?” the redhead smirked slightly, her hands toying with the collar of Tara’s shirt.
“Oh yeah,” Tara whispered, her own hands having very naughtily found their way under Willow’s bathrobe and were now settling on the waist of the naked woman.
“Hey….hands!” Willow laughed. “I’m not easy!”
Tara flicked her fingers, getting an immediate peal of laughter from Willow’s lips she curled her body, reacting to the tickle. “Liar,” Tara corrected, tickling again and then just pulling Willow closer.
The redhead ducked her head and instinctively matched her lips to Tara’s. As the explored each other with kisses for the second time that day, a soft voice interrupted them.
”Mommy?”
Willow froze in mid motion, her face that of a deer caught in the headlights. Tara rolled her eyes and sighed.
“Yeah, baby?”
Child-sized footfalls could be heard heading up the steps and Willow flung herself off the bed and into the bathroom, moving faster than the flash.
“What are you doing in Willow’s room?”
Tara tilted her head to the side. “What are you doing out of bed?” She countered.
The child looked somewhat guilty. “Um…thirsty?”
“Try again.”
“Hungry?”
“Not buying it,” Tara answered.
Hannah sighed. “I heard yelling. I didn’t want you to yell at Willow.”
A redhead poked out of the bathroom, dressed in her Hello Kitty Pj’s. “I heard my name. What did I do?” Her
hair was braided into two small braids, one on each side of her head.
“Mommy yelled at you.”
“Yes, she did,” Willow agreed, grabbing a bottle of lotion off of the dresser and beginning to rub some into her elbows and legs. She tried in vain to keep from smirking when she noticed Tara’s lusty gaze when Willow rubbed the lotion up and down her legs.
“But mommy doesn’t normally yell.”
Willow shrugged, sitting on the bed. “Sometimes I deserve to be yelled at, Hannah. Tonight I was being stupid.”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t believe your mommy when she told me something.”
The girl frowned. “But mommy doesn’t lie.”
“I know,” Willow replied. She placed a small amount of lotion on her hands before rubbing some into Hannah’s skin to include her into her bedtime ritual. “But sometimes what my head knows and what my heart knows are two different things. Tonight I was listening with my head instead of my heart and I kinda forgot some important stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Hannah, its past your bed time?” Tara interrupted.
The child frowned at her mother.
“Hannah, does mommy tell you she loves you?” Willow asked suddenly.
“Lots of times.”
“And she tells you to go to bed because she loves you and wants what’s best for you, right?”
Red ringlets bounced when Hannah nodded in agreement.
“Tonight mommy was trying to tell me something and I wasn’t listening very well. And mommy had to yell at me to make me remember that she loves me and wants what’s best for me?”
“What’s best for you?” Hannah asked quietly.
A silent glance passed between the two older women, each blushing when their eyes contacted.
“Right now, let’s worry about what’s best for you,” Willow replied. “And that would be to…?”
“Go to bed,” Hannah said, sliding off the bed and walking towards the stairs. “No more yelling, please?”
“No more yelling,” Willow agreed, watching as Tara stood and guided the child back to bed. “Goodnight,” she said to both as they disappeared down her stairs.
Edited by: xita 
at: 8/8/02 10:42:32 pm
I'm looking forward to them, too. I can't wait to see what happens.
And I think you have the characters down just fine, love the dialogue and Hannah is so adorable, I love her.
at: 8/1/02 5:25:59 pm
I hate seeing her so torn.
~Stephie~ 
She's so cute!
