Disclaimer: None of the characters in this story belong to me. They belong solely to Joss Whedon. I just borrow them, and toy with them a bit...

Characters: Willow and Tara.

Other: Femmeslash soon to come, not for da little kiddies.

Willow was walking down the street alone, at a quarter to midnight. Normally, she wouldn't be doing that, but there were forces at work that finally allowed her to do it. Number one, she was the Earth Goddess, or so everybody presumed. So almost no one wanted to mess with her right now. Number two, the First was dead, so demons and vampires alike wouldn't be messing with the Scoobies any time soon. That last spell that the gang had used to destroy the First took a lot of power. So much, that Willow was almost certain that most of it wasn't even hers. She knew it sounded odd, but she couldn't get that idea out of her head. And it was someone she shared a deep connection with, that is to say,an intimate connection. But that's pretty much impossible. Willow was only deeply involved with three people in her life, or at least felt deeply for someone. One was Xander, but Xander Harris hadn't felt the same way until she had found intimate person number two. That would be Daniel 'Oz' Osbourne, and got over Xander. But Oz was long gone... He left to find a cure to the wolf within. While Oz was gone, Willow ran into Tara over him, and fell deeply in love. Oz had come back briefly at that time, in hopes that Willow would be waiting for him, but she chose Tara. So Willow knew that it couldn't be Oz that had given her the power. She didn't feel that way for him, and he wasn't into all this 'silly magicy stuff'. And it couldn't be Tara, because she was...

Willow couldn't even think it without wanting to break out in loud desperate sobs. It's been over a year, and it still pained her more than anything else in the world. She didn't let anyone else know this though. She had them all believeing that she had fallen for Kennedy. And that they were in desperate love with eachother, with plans to grow into little old lady's together. For all Kennedy knew, and felt, they were going to old together, forget to take their pills together, and play chess for excitement when they were too old and tired to have sex. But Willow didn't feel the same way. She stayed with Kennedy, only because the person that she truely loved wasn't alive any longer...

She sat on a nearby bench, put her head down in her hands, and sighed. It's been almost a week since it happened, but she couldn't shake the memory of feeling someone elses power. There's no way it was Kennedy. The attraction to her was purely physical, and Willow hadn't even thought about her at all. But Tara definately came to mind. In fact, Tara never left her mind. She was all Willow could think about, day in, and day out. She was the only one that Willow could think of, that she had a connection with that was that strong.

"Damnit!!" Willow yelled aloud, punching the bench out of anger and frustration. Unfortunately, her powers were linked with her emotions, so she accidentally smashed the bench into sandy rubble, as blue sparks shot out of her knuckles. She fell as the bench crumble. Some sparks still lingered as she stood up, mumbling silent obscenities, and brushed away any sand that was on her clothes.

"Wanna talk?" said a voice behind Willow. She turned to see her best friend, Buffy Summers, standing there with her hands in her hoodie pocket, and looking at Willow with concern.

"Oh, hey Buff. What's up?" Willow said, looking at the bench.

"That's what I was wondering. Obviously you're angry, or that innocent little bench would still have life in it. Well, that is to say if a bench had life in the first pla- You know what I mean." Buffy said, as Willow started to giggle at the Buffy-babble. "I'd ask you if you wanted to sit down, but that seems to be out of the question, huh?"

Willow smiled meekly, and waved her hand at the sand. Red sparks flew at it, and the bench reassembled itself in front of their eyes. "Yeah, we can sit."

Buffy followed suit as Willow sat down, and placed her arm around Willow. "Talk to me. And no leaving anything out. I don't want you all avoidy with me. That's not how our friendship works."

Willow looked at Buffy, and decided that she could never keep anything from her. "Well, when I did that spell to call all the other slayers, it took a lot of magic. And I mean a lot more than I could ever even dream of having..." Willow paused and looked at Buffy. She just looked at her encouragingly. "And in order to complete it, someone had to have lent me their powers. And that's why I'm getting all upset, because I just can't figure out who."

"Well, maybe it was a Watcher, or someone from the counsel." Buffy said, thinking as hard as she could.

"No, I could feel that it was someone that I have a deep, and intimate connection with."

"How do you know?"

"Because I felt it. It felt... Sort of, familiar, you know, it felt right. And I even yearned for it. Worse than when I was addicted to magic. It was like I needed it to survive, and if it ever ended, nothing would be left. No world, no friends, no family, just emptiness. And I've been trying to think of what it could've been." Willow said, looking down, playing with the zipper of her hoodie.

"Well, maybe Kennedy has a little Wicca in her."

Willow stiffened a little. "It wasn't Kennedy."

"Well, then who would it be. I can't think of anyone else..." She trailed off, and Willow glanced at her. "Oh Will. No, Tara is dead, it couldn't have been her. You have to stop doing this to yourself. She's gone, and she's been gone for over a year."

"I know, Buff, I know... But, it felt like her. It felt like she was inside me. Like, it felt like her soul was caressing mine, and giving her power to me. And it's not possible for just a soul to do something like that, it needs an anchor, or else her soul would just be trapped in my body forever, or until I died, and the feeling left when the spell ended. It had to be her, Buffy, it had to. I know it, I can feel it. I think Tara's alive somewhere, and I have to find her." Willow pleaded, taking Buffy's hands in hers. "Please help me." The tears that threatened to escape earlier started to fall down Willow's cheeks.

Buffy wiped away the wetness. "Will, no. I'm not going to help you chase after something you'll never catch up to. You need to stop kidding yourself, and get back to reality. You know what happened to Tara, you did it to Warren when you went all, evil veiny Willow on us. And you know that you don't come back from that. And even Osirus said it was a natural death, not magic or supernatural related what-so-ever, so he couldn't bring her back. And he's the keeper of the dead, I think he knows his stuff. Please don't do this, Will. What about Kennedy?"

Willow was hurt by Buffy's words. She yanked her hands out of Buffy's, and stood up angrily. "What about her, huh!? What, you think I'm in love with her!? That she's my one and only, and that we're going to be together forever?" She rounded on Buffy angrily awaiting her reply.

"Will, I... no, that's not what I-" Willow cut her off.

"What? That's not what you meant. Ofcourse not. Eventually she'll get bitten by a werewolf, or die, because Willow can't have love. No, that's not how life is. Everyone else can love except silly little witchy Willow. You know, I'm not so sure I want to move on. What if I just wanna sit inside, curled on the my couch in my silly little P.J.s, and watch silly little love movies, as I cry my silly little eyes out, and mourn the death of silly little Tara!? Huh? What if I want to do that?"

"You know that's not what you want to do, and I know that you love Kennedy."

"You don't know anything, Buffy. You're so busy worrying about Angel, and about Spike, to even notice me or my feelings anymore. I'm sorry to burst the perfect picture you have of Kennedy and I, but I don't love her. Yeah, I definately have some feelings for her, but our relationship is based purely on sex. I mean, the only thing we have in common is the hunting and killing evil. And now that that's coming to an end, soon we won't have anything in common, and the only thing that'll be left is sex, and awkward silences. Not exactly the way I went to spend the rest of my life..."

"Will, I... didn't know..."

"Ofcourse you didn't. No one did, not even me at first." Willow plopped back down on the bench next to Buffy and sighed. She felt a little better, with that load off of her chest. It had been threatening to burst out for the passed week. "Buff, I'm sorry I freaked out on you. It's just that life has gotten so much more complicated since the the whole goddess thing... And I don't know how to deal. It's getting bad." Willow ran her hands through her hair, and sighed again.

Buffy placed a comforting hand on Willow's arm. "That's what I'm here for. You're welcome to explode on me whenever you want, as long as it doesn't turn out to be an admission of hatred." Buffy smiled. "So... You really think Tara's back from the dead?"

"No, I don't think it, I can feel it. I know, I know, it sounds completely insane. And I've been fighting with myself about it the whole time, but it's just a feeling that I can't shake. Tara and I have always had our ways to find eachother when we're lost, and to sense eachother, whether we're near or far. And if her soul was in the other realm, I wouldn't be able to feel her as strongly as this. It feels like she's just around the corner. Buffy, I need to find out if she's really out there. And if she is, I have to find her. She's my life." Willow said, and she looked at Buffy pleadingly once again.

Buffy smiled. "Alright. Let's go talk to Giles. We'll call him, and if he thinks it's important enough, we'll fly to England first thing in the morning. But we need to see if he thinks it's a big deal first."

"Thanks Buff. I can always count on you." Willow said, hugging the blonde tightly.

The two girls got up, and started walking towards Buffy's new apartment, chatteringly lightly about everything that had happened just one week ago. But around the corner, on an entirely different street, another blonde sat on another bench, listening in, with the help of magic, on the two girls with tears streaming down her own face.

(To be continued...)