What I Am
by sailor80
Four
[reviews]
As Tara hoped, Buffy didn't see her sitting in the common room at Stevenson Hall's entrance. Once Buffy passed, Tara got up and scurried toward the stairs. She knocked on the door to Willow and Buffy's room.
Willow opened the door and stepped back, gesturing for Tara to enter. She passed Willow and sat tentatively on Buffy's bed. Willow sat across from her.
"We n-need to t-talk," Tara said.
Willow nodded. For once, she waited for Tara to begin.
"What happened last night?" Tara asked slowly so she wouldn't stutter.
''I want to tell you, Tara, but I can't."
"You said they were d-demons."
"Yeah well," Willow waffled, "I may have been a bit overzealous with my description."
"Okay," Tara said slowly frowning at Willow. "What about Bu-Buffy? I thought w-w-we w-w-w-were," Tara's stutter brought her to a frustrated stop. She drew a deep breath and tried to begin again, but choked on the words. She knew what was coming next.
Willow surprised her. "It just happened, Tara. I didn't have any idea Buffy felt that way about me. She was the unrequited love I told you about. I think you're the reason she told me how she feels. I wasn't messing around or trying to hurt you. Everything happened so fast and I was going to tell you next time we saw each other but last night was so weird and I couldn't think of a way to say it. I want us to be friends, but if you can't I understand."
"How can we be friends if you k-keep everything a big se-se-se-secret?"
"It's not a big secret, just a lot of little ones," Willow pleaded. "They aren't mine to share. I know it sounds stupid but I promise I'll tell you when I can."
"One week," Tara said deliberately.
"Okay," Willow agreed.
Tara stood up and moved to the door. "S-see you l-later," she said and let herself out.
Willow stayed where she was. Her mind worked furiously to find a way to keep Tara's friendship.
• • • • •
Riley was waiting outside Stevenson Hall. He called, "Buffy," when he saw the petite blonde come out the door.
She approached him warily. "Hi."
"Hi. Um I thought we could talk about last night."
"Nothing to talk about." She turned to leave.
Riley put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. Before he knew what happened he was on the ground, visibly wincing. In the few moments it took him to sit up she was gone.
He was waiting again when she returned from class. "I'm sorry," he began. "I'm not trying to upset you or anything but I really think we need to talk."
"Fine," she said grudgingly and gestured for him to follow her.
The common room was empty but she led him to a corner seat anyway. "So talk," she ordered when they were seated.
"Last night," he began, "you didn't have any weapons. You took out way more of those things than I did. Today you're walking around like nothing happened and I can barely move."
"You should have stayed out of the way instead of playing soldier or whatever you were doing.''
"You don't even have a bruise."
"If you have a point, get to it." Buffy was tired of the conversation. She had a paper due the next day, and the Gentlemen had taken up the time she had planned for research.
"What are you?"
Buffy looked at Riley like he was mentally deficient. "I'm a lot of things, Riley, and none of them are your concern." She stood up and walked away quickly.
Riley wanted to follow her, but knew he couldn't keep up. As he watched her move away, he decided to try once more to talk to Buffy. Despite her rudeness, he was still awed by how easily she handled the HSTs. He hadn't given a truthful account of that night to his superiors. He, too, had been covered in demon guts, but reported it as a random encounter.
The next day, he had limped back to the clock tower. Except for shards of glass and wood, and the damage done in the fight, it was clean. Riley wondered whether it was the work of scavenging demons or the tiny blonde or the National Guard patrolmen who had pulled out at dawn.
* * * * * *
Buffy was glad to find Willow in their room. The missing window pane was covered with cardboard, and Xander had promised to fix it over the weekend. Willow stood to greet her, and they held each other in the center of the room. Buffy buried her face in Willow's neck and inhaled deeply. Riley was wrong; there were bruises, and her back ached from being smashed into the door jamb, but all that was forgotten in Willow's presence.
Willow was worried about the conversation they had to have. She tried to put that aside and asked, "Nap?"
"Wish I could, but my paper's due tomorrow."
"It's on your desk."
"Thank you." Buffy raised her head to kiss Willow's cheek, then kissed her again, closer to her coral lips.
Willow's features relaxed a little under Buffy's reassurance. She stepped back toward her bed, pulling Buffy along. Buffy didn't resist, and soon they were face to face on one pillow on Wllow's bed.
"Riley's been bothering me," Buffy told Willow.
Her brows came together again. "How?"
Buffy smoothed her thumb across Willow's eyebrows. "He wants to talk about the demons. I told you he was all in camo, right?"
"Mmm hmm."
"Those guys were everywhere. And they all couldn't be with the Guard, because they left," Buffy thought aloud.
"What exactly did he want to talk about?" Willow shifted against Buffy and worked her hands onto the bare skin of her lover's waist.
"Why he's all achy and I don't have a mark."
"Tara wanted to know the same thing."
Buffy's brow furrowed this time, and Willow leaned forward to kiss it away. "I want to tell her, Buffy. She's really powerful. She wants to help. She"
"She wants you," Buffy interrupted.
"She knows I'm yours." Willow stretched against Buffy and bared her throat.
Buffy rolled Willow onto her back while she began a garland of small nips at one collarbone. It was the beginning of a wanton afternoon that continued into the evening. They fell asleep in the dark, Willow lying mostly on Buffy. Buffy made certain Willow was near the wall. Buffy pulled the blanket up over them and released a contented sigh before falling into sleep.
∑ * * * * * *
As they prepared for the following day, both realized that nothing had been decided. There wasn't really time to talk in the morning, and they would be apart until that afternoon, when Psych was again on their schedules. They shared a kiss before leaving their room, and held hands until the last second when Buffy left Willow in front of a lecture hall.
They day was uneventful, and Buffy was glad to take the seat next to Willow. Riley was absent, she noticed as she settled in for Dr. Maggie Walsh's lecture. Buffy relaxed a little and took notes. The class went by as usual, but before they could leave, Dr. Walsh called, "Miss Summers, a word, please?"
Buffy recognized the tone and rolled her eyes before turning back. "Ma'am?"
Willow waited, even after Dr. Walsh looked at her pointedly and said, "Alone, please."
Buffy nodded, and Willow reluctantly headed for the nearest exit. She waited in the hall, marking the time on her watch. After five minutes, she pulled the door open enough to see that the classroom was empty. She was pushed aside by incoming students, and stood, puzzled, just to the right of one door. When the influx of students slowed, she returned to the hallway, and walked completely around the amphitheatre twice before heading back to their room.
Buffy wasn't there, and Willow wondered where she had gone. As dinner time passed, the phone remained silent, and Willow waited in their room. She knew calling the police was futile; despite the new administration, Buffy's old files remained in their cabinets. Willow had erased Buffy from their computer systems long ago, and had since deleted all reference to the Scoobies, replacing their names with John and Jane Doe and their personal information with unknown. She had also scrambled the file reference numbers. To make it harder to find the paper records, which would soon be archived for storage.
She called Giles, who thought it was too soon to worry. Buffy, he said, was quite capable of taking care of herself. Willow waited on Buffy's bed, wrapped around her pillow. She fell asleep early the next morning, and woke just before dawn, but Buffy still had not appeared. Willow called Giles again, and again he said Buffy could take care of herself.
Willow forced herself to go to classes. They could not distract her from worrying about Buffy, and at the end of the day, twenty-four hours since she had last seen the Slayer, Willow called Tara for help.
When Tara arrived, Willow had nervously told Tara about Buffy from the day they first met. She controlled her emotions until the end, and betrayed her worry for her lover with tears that fell unnoticed while she told Tara how Buffy had simply disappeared.
Tara comforted Willow and offered a location spell when she was calmer. They discussed the spell in detail. Tara went through a picnic basket of small bottles and tins looking for ingredients while Willow turned back the sheets looking for a few castoff hairs from Buffy.
The spell seemed to work and that confounded both of them. It showed Buffy exactly where Willow had last seen her. Tara apologized to Willow, who shrugged it off and thanked Tara for her time.
"Wh-what about the T A?" Tara asked while helping Willow clear up the remains of their spell.
"Riley?"
"You s-s-said B-Buffy wa-was w-w-worried ab-bout him."
"I don't know," Willow mused. "I guess it can't hurt to ask." She looked in her notebook for the syllabus. Riley's number was listed at the bottom. She called it, and was surprised when he answered.
Willow identified herself and professed the need for additional tutoring. Riley agreed to meet her at the library after dinner.