FIC: The Chemicals Between Us

["jbstories _"]

The Chemicals Between Us

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By Janine (jbstories@xxxxxxxxxxx)

Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine, they belong to Joss Whedon
and Mutant Enemy. I will not be making any money etc, yadda, yadda.

Rating: PG-13

Synopsis: This is a continuation to my story "Not So Bad Beer".
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A girl was walking along one of the many dark pathways of UC: Sunny Dale.
She was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, and she had her hands shoved
into the pockets of her jacket. Her head was tilted down and she was
walking quickly. She was depression personified, but in good shoes. Coming
opposite her on the path was a young man, who actually wasn't a man at all.
If one happened to be looking closely at his face they would have seen
horribly distorted features, and yellow eyes. The girl didn't even look up
as he approached her.

They continued towards each other, one seemingly unaware and the other
completely focused. Once they were close enough to each other the man
growled and started to reach out for her, while the girl took one of her
hands out of her pocket and slammed a stake into his chest.

By the time the man had finished combusting, the girl was halfway to the end
of the path. She had a person to see and things to do, none of which
involved the now permanently deceased, deceased back there.

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Willow was depressed, but not severely depressed, not even as depressed as
she was letting on. That's what she was thinking about as she lay alone in
the room she shared with Buffy. It had been a few days since Oz had taken
off and left her after cheating on her with Veruca. She had been so angry
with him at first, angry, hurt and truly surprised. She just never expected
anything like that from him. From his reaction to his own actions, it
seemed to her that he didn't expect anything like that from him either.

She had been doing a lot of thinking since he left, and now a few days later
she was even more grateful that she hadn't gone through with the curse she
had almost set upon him. As much as she wanted to hate him and be angry
with him, she finally had to admit that she understood what had happened
between him and Veruca. What she was familiar with may not have been the
exact same thing, but it was close enough, because either way it was looked
at it came down to one thing. The chemicals between them. There had been a
powerful, chemical, animal attraction between Oz and Veruca, and he simply
wasn't strong enough to deny it.

She was beginning to understand a lot more about that. When there was a
pull inside of you dragging you towards another person it could only be
denied for so long. In many ways it was like an elemental force, and you
can't deny nature. Sooner or later the pull would become too strong, and
you would finally allow yourself to be pulled. Oz had given in sooner, and
Willow, well she was now starting to allow herself to be pulled.

It took Oz's exit from her life for her to finally admit who was pulling
her. Without guilt, without responsibility to another, she was finally able
to take stock of her emotions and admit to what she was feeling, and had
been feeling for a while. She finally understood the chemicals between
them, between her and Buffy.

The only problem was she had no idea what to do about it. In her mind she
kept going back to the night a few weeks before when Buffy had drunken the
bad beer. She could remember the passion in Buffy's eyes, the desire oozing
out of her every pore, but she didn't know if it was real, or if it was just
a side effect of the change Buffy had gone through.

When the whole thing with Oz had erupted Buffy had told Willow that she
loved her, and Willow believed her. She just wished she knew what kind of
'love' Buffy had meant.

"Stop depression Buffy has entered the building," the Slayer said entering
the room and snapping Willow out of her haze.

"Stop 'depression'…like 'the presses'," Willow said looking up. "That's
funny." But she wasn't laughing.

Buffy regarded the red-head for a moment, then walked over to Willow's bed
and sat down.

"I hate seeing you like this," Buffy said softly raising her hand to brush a
stray strand of hair off of Willow's face.

Willow looked over at her with a strange expression on her face, but she
didn't say anything. Willow always complained about how enigmatic Buffy
could be at times but the hacker was plenty capable of being a little
ambiguous herself.

"Come on," Buffy said grasping Willow's arm and pulling her up. "I'm going
to make you have fun if I have to kill you."

"That doesn't sound like fun," Willow responded letting Buffy drag her up.

"That's why it would be in your best interest to just come with me," Buffy
said wrapping her arm around Willow's waist once the hacker was standing.

"This is like kidnapping," Willow muttered as Buffy led her out of their
room.

"Kidnapping is so harsh a word Will," Buffy responded as they headed down
the hallway. "Let's think of it as kid-borrowing."

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Buffy glanced past Riley again to get a look at Willow. She didn't look
like she was having fun. Buffy had been planning on heading over to Willow
when Riley had sidled up to her and started some inane conversation. Riley
was a nice guy, a little strange, but nice. She just didn't have time for
this at the moment.

"So…do you like cheese?" Riley asked. Buffy looked up at him with an
disbelieving look on her face. Yeah, this conversation definitely had to
end. Definitely.

Once Buffy finally managed to get away from Riley she headed out in search
of Willow. She finally found her standing in front of a window in one of
the back rooms looking out.

"What are you doing back here?" Willow asked seeing Buffy's reflection in
the window.

"Looking for you," Buffy responded walking over to Willow.

"How'd things go with Riley?" Willow asked. He'd come to her earlier that
day to ask for advice on how to 'court' Buffy. '…and, well, so far you're
the only thing I know she likes,' he had said to her. It was after he'd
said that that she'd decided to give him a little help. Buffy deserved a
chance to be happy, even if it wasn't with her.

"Is that why you came back here?" Buffy asked surprised.

"Maybe," Willow responded.

"Well you could have saved yourself the trouble," Buffy responded making a
face.

"Things didn't go so well?"

"And the understatement of the year award goes to Willow Rosenberg," Buffy
responded in a cheesy TV announcers voice.

"I'll take that as a yes," Willow said.

"Good call," Buffy told her. "We both like cheese apparently," Buffy added.
Willow smiled, and gave a little laugh. After that Buffy was glad she had
talked to Riley if for no other reason then her little story had put a smile
on Willow's face.

"What do you say," Buffy said. "Should we shut her down?"

"That's the best idea you've had all day," Willow responded. "Let's blow
this joint."

"Best idea?" Buffy asked in a wounded voice. "What about my water-melon
idea?"

"Buffy, watermelon's are not the cure to world hunger," Willow said as they
headed onto the path.

"But Will, it's water and melon all in one delicious package. You get food
and water all in one fruit," Buffy said linking their arms together. "It's
a great idea."

"You need water to grow watermelon's," Willow responded. "If they had
water, they wouldn't need the watermelon to get water."

"Willow, Willow, Willow," Buffy said shaking her head. "Let me show you the
light…"

With that Buffy launched into a long winded explanation of why watermelons
could indeed be the cure to world hunger, as she and Willow walked arm and
arm back to their dorm room. After she finished with her explanation Buffy
looked over at Willow and the hacker smiled back at her and shook her head
in mock disbelieve. It was a small, little gesture that would have seemed
almost inconsequential at any other time, but at that time and that moment
Buffy found it to be immensely reassuring. She couldn't really explain it
but after seeing that smile she was sure that Willow would be alright, and
that the depression which had been haunting her since Oz left town would
dissipate. And that in turn made her smile. Willow's happiness meant
everything to her, and while she might not have been able to fill the void
in Willow's life that she wanted to, she could be there for her. She could
make her smile.

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That night they both lay on their beds staring at ceiling, thinking. Both
of them were confident that the other was asleep, and that even if they
weren't asleep that they couldn't possibly be contemplating what they were,
even though they desperately wanted it to be so. That night, two girls lay
in bed mourning the absence of a kind of love they thought they could never
have, with a person who could never be theirs, but whom they wanted more
than anything else in the world. Once again, they tried to ignore the
chemicals between them, while both knowing that they could only be denied
for so long. They could feel something building, and growing inside of
them. Something special, and scared, and as they drifted off to sleep, they
both wondered what it would mean to them, to their relationship when the
truth came out of the closet-so to speak.

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THE END of "The Chemicals Between us"
To be continued in "Home, sweet, home"

By: Janine