This is the longest chapter yet! I finally got to include Willow, a character I love. By the way, a lot of this chapter comes directly from Season Four's episode Hush, which belongs to Joss Whedon/Mutant Entertainment, of course.

Sunnydale was a strange town. Tara could feel it as soon as she walked out of the car towards the Sunnydale UC Campus. It had taken her months to convince her father to consider the idea of paying for Tara to go to college; he hadn't needed to pay much, considering she had earned a partial scholarship, but he wanted her to stay close to him because of her "D-word" problem, as he called it. This was the second time she had been there. A few months earlier, she had arrived with the same ominous feeling.

After about an hour of boring small talk and unenthusiastic goodbyes, Tara was finally in her dormitory, unpacking. A small feeling of happiness washed over her; she was finally out of her father's house. An added plus was the fact that she had her own dorm, which would give her privacy to work magic and finally be by herself. It was a far walk from most of her classes, but she didn't mind.

The next morning, as she ran a brush through her whitish-blonde, shoulder-length hair, a colony of butterflies fluttered around in her stomach. Her first college class (Art History and Appreciation) would be in twenty minutes. She breathed deeply, inhaling and exhaling. Grabbing her book bag, she walked out into the hall and down a flight of stairs to the courtyard.

She hurried past crowds of excited students, all talking and joking around loudly, unlike herself. Looking around at the buildings around her, she nearly tripped and walked into a petite blonde girl talking to a pretty redhead. She mumbled an apology, and made her way to Art History and Appreciation.

A few weeks of college passed, then a month. Tara was doing well, but she felt bored; she wasn't involved in anything extra-curricular besides solitary spell work. She had seen a flyer for the Campus Wicca Group, and was excited to join. Never before had she talked to other witches, besides her mother. She sighed when she thought about her…Anna had died almost two years before, and she missed her deeply.

At around six o'clock, she prepared for the meeting. She was not sure what she would need, but she grabbed a quartz crystal, a chalice, a few charms, and a spell book, shoving them into her bag. She chuckled when she thought about what people would think if she brought her athame.

The meeting dragged on and on…all they talked about was bake sales, flyers, and the stereotypical portrayal of witches in the media. Tara, of course, wanted to try real magic, but she was too scared to say anything. Suddenly, a seemingly familiar redheaded woman spoke up.

"Well, this is good, this is all fun…a bake sale, some baked goods there…but there's also other stuff…that we might show interest in…as a Wicca group, you know?" she said, looking up at the group.

"Like what?" said the other girl, who had done most of the talking up to that point.

"Well, there's the wacky notion of spells…" she said cleverly. Tara laughed, only to be glared at by the other oddly dressed women. "I mean, real spells, like, you know, conjuring, transmutation…" she finished.

The girls glared at her, like they had Tara. "Yeah, and then we can all go for a fly on our broomsticks," she said. "You know, certain stereotypes aren't very empowering…" the woman said rudely.

I…I th-think…" Tara tried to say, catching the eye of the redhead. She lowered back into her seat as she was interrupted.

The rest of the meeting seemed to continue on like that, but Tara didn't mind. She had her eyes focused on the redheaded woman, who seemed to capture Tara from the first time she spoke. Tara knew she would have to talk with this girl.

Tara flipped through the phone book. She, like everyone else in Sunnydale, had been literally rendered speechless, and wanted to do something about it. She figured it was magical, and thought that the woman could help her fix it. She had used a simple identification spell to reveal whom the woman was, and was delighted to find that she, like Tara, was a freshman. Her name was Willow Rosenberg, and she lived in a dorm not too far from Tara. Summoning all the courage she had, she made her way to the Stevenson dormitory to personally meet Willow.

She walked through the courtyard, which seemed so eerie at night. Shivering she clutched her book bag tightly and quickened her pace. She could sense something…something she didn't like. She turned around to see a terrifying monster. A demon, more than one, now that she got a better look. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out of her muted lips.

All memory of defensive magic forgotten, she bolted in panic. The Stevenson dorms were just a few yards away. She hoped she could make it in time.

The whole scene was surreal, and Tara could not tell one moment from the next. Running wildly up the stairs, banging on random doors, she found herself suddenly colliding with Willow. Her eyes screwed in panic, she motioned for her to run. They launched themselves into a small side room with a Coke machine.

Tara slammed the door shut, and Willow locked it. They both knew that it would not hold the demons off for long, so they turned for the Coke machine. It did not budge, and Tara sighed, defeated and scared. She sunk against the back wall in panic.

Willow backed up to Tara, but stared sharply at the Coke machine; it started to shake slightly. Tara realized what she was doing, and knew what she had to do. Sliding her hand into Willow's, she too focused on the Coke machine, which shot like a bullet towards the door. Tara completely forgot what as going on, forgot the danger. She stared into Willow's green eyes, firmly holding her soft, pale hands. She smiled happily.

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