Willow sat on the floor beside her French windows watching the rain stream down the glass. She had always found that she thought better like this, although right now the thoughts just ran around her head in a never ending circle. She loved Tara, but she loved Buffy, and she would hurt one of them no matter what she did. So who should she choose? With Oz, in the end, the decision had been taken out of her hands. Choosing Tara had been easy because, realistically, she could not choose Oz and it had been the choice that her heart wanted to make anyway.
Deep down she knew what her heart's choice was, but she hated to hurt people.
The ringing of the telephone startled her out of her thoughts and she stood stiffly, rubbing her back as she walked over to the telephone.
"Hello?" she said, not really sure whether she wanted to answer or not.
"H-hi, uh, is that Willow?" Tara asked hesitantly.
"Yeah, hi," Willow replied, sitting down on her bed.
"Hi. How are you?"
"I'm good. And you?"
"I'm good too." There was a brief silence. "I'm sorry I haven't called. I've been kind of busy and I don't know where the time goes. My folks are keeping me pretty busy here; I think they want to cram in as much time with me as they can."
"It's ok. I've been pretty busy myself, what with being trapped in a cave-in and all."
"You got trapped? Are you ok?"
Willow shrugged even though Tara could not see it through the telephone. "I had a headache where I got hit by a rock but other than that . . . we were pretty lucky. I remembered that force field spell you taught me and Buffy took care of me when the rock fell."
"You were trapped with Buffy?"
Willow was immediately swamped with guilt. "Yeah. I was unconscious most of the time though."
"Oh." There was a pause and Willow could imagine the blonde girl playing with the cuff of her shirt while she worked up the courage to say something. "So you, uh, didn't have time to talk . . . maybe? About . . . stuff?"
"Not really. I was mostly out of it."
"Oh." Tara sounded almost disappointed.
"What did you want us to talk about?"
"I don't know. Things. Maybe you, uh, there were . . . feelings?"
"Feelings?" The guilt became stronger.
"Uh, yeah . . . uh, heart-to-heart, maybe talking about, uh, feelings? B-between you?"
"Tara, what are you tying to ask?" Now the guilt was almost like a physical presence in the room.
"I-I-I . . . d-did Buffy mention anything about, uh, kind of, loving you?"
Willow felt as though her heart had stopped. She could not breathe and she stared wildly at the telephone for a moment.
"H-hello? Willow? Are you still there?"
Tara's voice shook her out of her shock. "Yeah, I'm still here. I'm just a little surprised."
"Oh. So she didn't . . . Willow, I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry. She did mention . . . something. And it's been all I can think about for the past week."
There was silence at the other end of the line.
"I'm just so confused right now," Willow said. "This is worse than when Oz came back! I don't want to hurt anyone - I never wanted to hurt anyone - but no matter what I do I'll be hurting two people that I love. I kind of had my decision made for me with Oz, and I was really happy about it, but now nothing is going to make my decision for me and I'm terrible at deciding. I have to have rocky road and toffee fudge ice-cream at the same time because I can't even decide about that!"
"So, you love her?"
"You see, there's my problem. I love her but I'm not sure whether she's going to let me love her. And you're . . . well, you're you and that just makes it all harder."
She was not even aware of the tears streaming down her face now. "I don't want to lose you, but I know that I'll lose someone whatever I do."
"Willow, I'll always be here," Tara said softly. "No matter what happens, I could never hate you and if you want to be with Buffy you should. I'll always want to be your friend."
The redheaded witch wiped away a tear. "Thanks. It's just so hard to know what to do. Normally I'd go and talk to Buffy but she isn't really the right person to talk to right now."
"She's your best friend; it's only natural that you'd want to talk to her."
"But it kind of leaves me with no one."
"There's me. I'm always here."
Somehow, through her tears, Willow managed to smile. "I think you'd be biased."
"I wasn't with Oz. I mean, sure, I hoped but you needed someone to talk to and I tried to be that person." Tara paused. "You have to follow your heart, Willow."
"That would be good advice if I knew what my heart wanted."
"You do, but you're fighting it."
Willow thought for a moment. "Maybe I am," she allowed eventually, "but is following my heart going to be the best plan? It will hurt people-"
"It will hurt you more if you don't," cut in Tara. "I've always known that if it came down to a choice between me and Buffy you'd chose her. It's ok; all I ever wanted is for you to be happy. You deserve the best and I think that when she loves it's with all her heart.
"You . . . don't mind?"
"I-It's not like that, but I think you deserve to be with the one you love most. And I know that's B-Buffy."
"Tara," Willow whispered sadly.
"Don't feel sorry - I'll get over it. We're still friends though, right?"
"We'll always be friends."
"Good."
Willow paused awkwardly. "I'm not really sure what to say now."
"Do you know what you're going to say to Buffy?"
"Not really. Knowing her I'll have to talk her out of her huge bout of guilt and self-pity before I can even start trying to talk her into believing a relationship can work."
"You'll do it."
"You think?"
"I know."
"Tara, I'm sorry-"
"You have nothing to be sorry for." Willow heard a distant shout through the telephone. "I have to go. Let me know how things go with Buffy?"
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I'll, uh, maybe see you at college?"
"I'd like that. Bye Tara."
"Good bye."
The line went dead and Willow carefully turned the telephone off before lying back on her bed with the receiver of her stomach. Somehow, she had known she was going to make that decision all the time. It just took Tara to prod her in the right direction. And that was probably the strangest part of all.
The telephone rang and Willow almost jumped off the bed. Taking a deep breath to calm herself she shakily lifted the telephone and answered it.
"Hello? Oh, hi Mrs Summers."
*finis*