FF: One Morning (1/1)

[Zephyr <winter_herald@xxxxxxxxx>]

Title: One Morning
Author: Zephyr
Summary: Writing a long serial is more work than I thought it would be,
so I'm taking a little break. Consider this a distraction piece.
Just a little one parter, then I'll get back to the longer stuff.
Promise.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns Buffy, the show and its characters. But
the shiny button is mine.
Distribution: Sure, just let me know where so I can go see.

I.

It was morning. Willow pulled the sheets around her neck, feeling them 
slide over her as she snuggled into the mattress. Everything was so soft 
in the morning. She smiled and pressed back into the warm body behind her, 
relishing the feeling of skin on skin.

"What the?" she whimpered, jerking away and spinning around. Who, exactly, 
was in bed with her? She didn't remember going to bed with anyone last 
night. Then again, she didn't remember much of anything from last 
night. "Buffy?" she said, incredulous.

The Slayer beside her snuggled in and pulled the sheets closer, just as she 
herself had done moments before. At the sound of her name, however, Buffy 
awoke, and her eyes popped open. They took in the red-headed vision before 
them with a reasonable confusion.

"Willow?" she said. The two stared at each other for a minute, and Buffy 
continued, "what's going on?"

"Um, well," Willow began. It wasn't much to start with, she knew, but she 
intended to build on it. "We're... in our dorm room!" That was something.

"I can see that Will," said Buffy, with the barest hint of a smirk. "And 
more specifically, we're in a bed." She propped herself to look 
around. "My bed, by the looks of it. But both of us."

"And naked, by the... looks of it," Willow chimed in helpfully, as the 
sheet had now partially slipped off of Buffy's upper torso. Buffy chirped 
softly in dismay and pulled it back up.

"Very naked," she agreed. "Very, very naked. And finding something else 
to talk about now."

"Very else," Willow said. "Very now. When is now?"

Together, the two friends looked at the clock, and in this fashion avoided 
looking at each other for just a little longer. It was not that they found 
each other unattractive; no, it was rather the opposite. Willow spoke first.

"Buffy, it's ten in the morning!" she exclaimed. "We're late for... we're 
late!"

"Will, I think it's Sunday," Buffy said, then reconsidered. "Or maybe 
Saturday. So we don't have classes."

"But, but... what if it isn't? What if there are classes, and we missed 
them?" Willow was working herself into a state of agitation now. She 
realized this, but some part of her brain figured that it was better than 
arousal, which would be very, very inappropriate at this point. Especially 
with Buffy, who, though currently naked, was still her best friend.

"Then we also don't have classes," Buffy reasoned. She also realized that 
arousal would be inappropriate right about now, but was making somewhat 
less practical use of this realization, except to stuff it in a dark corner 
of her brain. Willow was still craning her neck around to look at the 
clock, and it made her body bend in the cutest way. Which was, of course, 
not something she should be thinking about. At all. Because she was not 
in love with Willow. At all.

Willow turned back around, and again they stared at each other in silence.

"Is this comfortable silence?" Willow asked. "Or is it uncomfortable silence?"

"I'm not really sure," Buffy said. "But I'm pretty comfortable right 
now. You?"

"Yeah."

"Well then," the blonde reasoned, "comfortable silence it is."

"But we're not being silency any more," the red-head responded.

"This could be a problem," Buffy said. And at last, the potential 
implications of her statement penetrated both of their brains. "Willow," 
she said, "do you remember last night?"

"Would that be last night as in the night that was last?" Willow said. "Or 
the last night I experienced? Because in that case, the fact that I don't 
remember the most recent last night wouldn't matter, because last night 
would be the last night I remember, and then I would remember it."

Buffy took a few moments to sort this all out.

"I meant the night that was last," she said. "I think."

"Oh," Willow responded. "Then no."

"Then maybe, last afternoon?" Buffy asked. She thought she could remember 
that one.

"Yeah, I think," Willow said. "With the classes, and the Bronzing, and the 
walking back... but not the getting here. Wherever we got. Which is here, 
apparently."

"Yeah," Buffy said. "The getting here."


II.

Two days earlier, the rest of the scooby gang had been talking about 
something quite different.

"So I think we should have a surprise party," Xander finished. He had been 
speaking for about a minute now, listing the virtues of his plan. The 
entire scooby gang would get together and party, with much laughter and 
even cake.

"Uh, Xander," Giles said, "I don't wish to convey the impression that I'm 
attempting to... uh, spoil your fun." He paused for a raised eyebrow from 
Xander. "But what, if I may ask, would be the occasion for this... 
surprise party of yours?"

"There is no occasion!" Xander exclaimed. "That's the beauty of it! See, 
whenever Buffy has a birthday, horrible creatures of evil and darkness 
inevitably intervene. So we're going to fake them out by having a party on 
a day of no other special merits whatsoever."

"So in other words," Giles said, "you're going to, uh, make your own fun?"

"Exactly!" Xander said, pleased that the Brit had actually gotten the idea 
for once.

"I like making fun with you, Xander," said the blonde on his arm. "And sex 
is a better way to do that than partying for other people. Can we go home 
now?"

"Anya, you're scaring Giles," Xander said, and she at least looked somewhat 
contrite.

"So, uh, are you, um, planning to contact Willow and make her a part of 
your, uh, scheme?" Giles asked.

"Oh, Buffy and Willow are pretty much attached at the hip right now," said 
Anya. "Good luck getting them apart."

"Uh, yeah," Xander agreed. "What she said. I guess Willow will have to be 
surprised too. And since Oz, um... left, that means it's just us. You in?"

"Oh, uh, well, I suppose Buffy and Willow could both use some, uh, activity 
other than slaying and college. So, though a surprise party runs somewhat 
counter to my better judgement," Giles said, pausing again for Xander's 
mock hurt look, "yes. I am indeed... in."

"And me?" Anya asked. "If we're not going to have sex now, what can I do?"

Giles rolled his eyes as Xander attempted to explain, once again, the 
little intricacies of typical human communication. Anya just nodded a few 
times, then said, "And what about Spike?"

"Spike?" Xander said.

"Spike?" Giles said.

"Yes, Spike," Anya confirmed. "You know, the vampire? Follows Buffy 
around almost as much as Willow does, except not during the day?"

"Why would we want to invite Spike?" Xander asked.

"He cannot hurt anyone anymore," Anya said. "And he might bring Buffy a 
gift, which would increase her material wealth. If you talked him into it 
he might even bring her two gifts. And if she didn't like them she might 
even be able to exchange them for cash at a suitable money depository."

"All right, An," Xander agreed, mostly because he didn't feel like arguing 
right now. "But you have to ask him. I'm just going along to make sure he 
doesn't get one of his friends to bite you. Now, I've got most of the 
stuff prepped already. We just need to set up a few things. And Giles, 
you can be cake-getting guy."

Giles rolled his eyes as the young couple left.

"Right," he muttered. "Cake-getting guy. My status has decreased 
considerably since I am no longer a Watcher. Considerably, indeed."


III.

"We should probably get up now," Willow said.

"Yeah," Buffy agreed. "Up. As in, not in bed, but... up. And about."

"Can't forget about," Willow said with a nod. "So... who's first?"

"Hmm? First?"

"Yeah," said Willow. "Okay, how about you turn around and I'll dress first."

"Turn arou- oh, right. Around. So we don't see... stuff. But we've 
seen... stuff."

"Yeah, but right now, maybe less with the... stuff."

"Okay," Buffy agreed, and turned around. Willow could see the muscles in 
her back rippling over her shoulder blades, as the sheet only came up to a 
little over her waist. The redhead turned around and began to dress.

There were clothes all over the floor. And they were hers! She never left 
her clothes laying around. It wasn't tidy. She picked them up and tossed 
them in a pile for now; she'd put them in with the rest of the laundry 
later. She turned to pick a new outfit, but something shiny caught her 
eye. It was a little shirt button with a message on it in tiny red type.

"I dated a blood-sucking creature of the night and all I got was this 
crummy pin?" Willow asked. She heard Buffy chuckle behind her.

"Uh, yeah," the blonde said. "Xander got it for me... kind of a condolence 
gift after Angel left at graduation. Can I turn around now?"

"Oh, cute. And no!" Willow said just in time. "Still getting 
dressed." She took some clothes out of her dresser, not particularly 
caring about color coordination at this point, and donned them quickly.

"Okay," she said. "All decent now."

"Good," Buffy muttered. "I was getting tired of laying here all by 
myself. And that's not how I meant that. You know, in case you wondered."

Willow fixed her eyes to the wall, and Buffy dressed behind her. But after 
kicking aside a stray shirt, Buffy found an item of interest as well.

"Hey, Will, what's this?" she asked, not waiting for a response before she 
picked it up. It was a small notebook, open to a page with one sentence 
written on it in glitter ink and underlined three times. "I, Willow 
Rosenberg, am madly in love with my best friend and roommate, Buffy Summers?"

Willow spun around wide-eyed, holding her hands close to her sides and 
trying to gauge Buffy's reaction.

"Um," she said. "Would you possibly believe that's not mine?"


IV.

In a crypt not too far from the dorm room sat a very frustrated man. He 
had pale skin, and bleached hair that might have reminded him of a bird's 
nest if he could see himself in a mirror. It was usually combed, but he 
hadn't gotten much sleep recently and he was tired enough to forgo such things.

He was staring at the yellowed pages of a leather-bound book. In 
old-fashioned scrawls all over the paper, in dark red ink, were Latin 
incantations. It was a spellbook. It even said so on the cover.

"What went wrong?" he muttered, entirely to himself. "I translated it all 
right. You don't take ten years of classes in dead languages and turn all 
the teachers into dead professors without learning a little something."

He banged his hand on the table, making the book jump and causing a cloud 
of dust to roil up around it.

"Says right here what it bloody does. 'Infiltrate the mind,' dah dee dah, 
'forget happier times,' and so on and so forth."

It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. First they put the chip in his head 
so he couldn't hunt, and now his spells were being interpreted by whoever 
translated Zero Wing.

"All your base are belong to us, yeah. Bloody sods! Buffy was supposed to 
belong to me, and now look what happened."

He scoured the text one more time. It wouldn't do any good, he knew, but 
it was something to occupy him besides taking a stroll in the sunlight.

" 'And whilst forgetting, will find passion with the one who professes love 
but is not acknowledged in return.' It's right there in blood and white."

He'd been waiting. For her. For the golden-haired Slayer who was filling 
his world. A bit of her hair, taken when she wasn't looking, a few herbs 
he'd snatched way back when he tried to get Willow to do a love spell for 
him. Buffy should have been his. She should have forgotten all her bloody 
friends and turned to him and finally said she loved him.

But she didn't even look at him twice. Just the once, when she shoved him 
against a wall. And not in a nice, I-want-to-shag-now way, either.

"Bloody sods!"

At that point, a young man and woman of his acquaintance burst into his 
crypt, and he barely avoided being fried by the sunlight. They outlined 
their plan. Oh well, he thought, might as well give it another shot.


V.

"It has your name on it," Buffy was protesting. "See? It says right here."

"Buffy, you shouldn't be looking at that," Willow said. "It's m... it's 
not yours."

"It's on my side of the dorm," Buffy said. "And... hey! Look, it is my 
notebook."

"Well then, that explains it, doesn't it then?" Willow nodded 
defiantly. Buffy blinked and stared for a few moments.

"Actually, it doesn't. Not yet. Willow, do you... do you..." she trailed 
off, trying to make her meaning clear by implication.

"I... Buffy, I don't know how to..." Willow stammered, trying to find the 
words. "I just don't want you to... I mean, we're good friends and I don't 
want to ruin..."

"I won't freak, Will," Buffy said. "Promise. Double Slayer pinky swear, 
even." She held up both her pinky fingers to demonstrate. Then, after 
receiving no response, she took Willow's hands in hers and wrapped their 
fingers together. "See?"

"Yeah," Willow said. "With the fingers. And... yeah. Yes."

"Yes, as in?"

"Yes."

Buffy took a deep breath. She saw Willow starting to pull away with a 
worried look, and held tighter.

"Hey!" she said. "This is me not freaking. Okay?"

"Really?" Willow said. Her voice sounded small, Buffy thought, like it had 
sometimes back in high school. When she was the shy hacker.

"Yeah," Buffy said, trying to instill as much confidence as she 
could. "Really. It'll be okay."

"How?" Willow asked. "I mean, we've been friends for so long, and I want 
to keep that, and this wasn't how I wanted you to find out, because I 
didn't want you to..."

"Why not, Will?" Buffy said gently.

"Because I don't want to lose you," Willow said. Buffy felt the sadness in 
the redhead's voice go straight to her soul. But then she smiled.

"But it's true?" she asked. "You love me? Love love?"

"Yes," Willow said, hanging her head and looking towards the floor. "I do."

"You won't lose me," Buffy assured her, taking one hand momentarily to lift 
Willow's chin back up. "Because I have a super-duper secret 
remedy. Actually, I just have a secret."

"What's that?"

"Well, it goes something like this... but you have to close your eyes first."

Willow closed her eyes, and slowly became aware of... heavy breathing, the 
smell of morning breath. But it didn't matter, because then there was a 
gentle pressure on her lips. Her eyes shot open in shock. But she started 
to kiss back, and soon the two were nuzzling each other's lips 
contentedly. After a time, they broke away and locked eyes.

"Wow," Willow said. "That was... some secret."

"I have more," Buffy managed to say. "That is, if you want me to show you 
sometime?" She meant it half as innuendo, but half as a question. Willow 
hardly hesitated in answering.

"Oh yes," she said. "I'd like that."

They kissed again. It seemed familiar, not just from the one time before, 
but from another. And another.

"Willow?" Buffy asked after breaking away, eliciting a groan from the 
redhead. "Are you starting to remember... last night?"

Willow thought for a moment, trying to pull herself back together. But 
then an elfin smile lit up her face.

"Ohhh, yeah..." she said. The two stared at each other for a moment more, 
seeming to communicate without words. Then, by mutual decision and never 
losing physical contact, they began to migrate sideways towards the bed.

At this most inopportune moment, the phone rang. And rang. With a 
frustrated grunt, Buffy picked it up off the hook midway through the third 
ring. This had better be important, or whoever it was would get a piece of 
a very cranky Slayer.

"Yeah?" she said.

"Uh, yes, uh Buffy," said Giles. It had to be Giles; nobody else could 
talk quite like him. "I, uh, need you to come over here, uh, as soon as 
possible. Okay?"

Even so, he didn't sound quite like himself, Buffy thought. And 
"okay?" Since when was Giles an "okay" person? And that, she thought, 
just came out wrong.

"Sure, Giles. Right over. Pronto presto." She put the phone back without 
saying anything else and tapped her foot three times on the floor.

"Giles," she told Willow. "Wants us over at his place. Like, 
now. Couldn't he have waited? I mean, it's still morning."

"Late morning," Willow said. Buffy looked over at the clock again, 
marveling at just how much the numbers had changed.

"Well, that was a short-seeming hour and a half," she said. "Just how long 
were we kissing for, anyway?"

"Well, if you count last night..." Willow drawled, and Buffy looked at her 
in amazement.

"Who are you," she said. "And what have you done with my Willow-shaped 
friend?"

"Oh, she's right here," Willow said, plopping herself down on the 
bed. "She just thought she might try to be, you know, suave, and 
seductive, and I guess I just don't do that very well, huh?"

"Willow," said Buffy, sitting next to her, "you had me at hello. And... 
several other times. And you're incredibly seductive," she placed a kiss 
on the redhead's neck, "even when you're not trying. And I don't mind you 
trying, either."

Willow whimpered as Buffy trailed more kisses down her collarbone and 
caressed her shoulder and arm.

"Um, ungh... prior commitments?" she groaned. Buffy finally relented.

"Spoil my fun," she said, smiling to show she was just 
teasing. Straightening their clothing just a little, the two left the dorm 
room, trying to give off an air of at least some decorum.


VI.

When they got to Giles' place, nobody answered the door. Buffy tried 
knocking a few times, and then Willow tried, much to Buffy's amusement.

"Um, Willow," she said. "I think the knocking approach is all tapped 
out. Time to try the ever popular barging in."

"But it's polite to knock," Willow said. She wondered why she thought of 
it just now, though; they usually didn't.

"Yeah, well, he called us over here. Right in the middle of something 
really interesting, I might add."

"Oh, all right," Willow agreed, trying to quell the blush that was creeping 
up her cheeks. Buffy tried the door handle, finding it unlocked, and they 
stepped forward into a darkened room. Willow couldn't see much at all, but 
Buffy's Slayer senses pierced the darkness, and she saw an empty 
apartment. No sign of Giles anywhere.

"I don't think he's here," she whispered in Willow's ear, sending chills 
down her spine.

"Well then," Willow whispered back in the same way, causing Buffy to 
shiver, "we'd better find him. But in the meantime..." She left the 
sentence dangling, but Buffy seized the moment.

Several things happened at once. Buffy and Willow's lips met softly, as 
the Slayer ran her hands through the witch's smooth red hair. The lights 
came on. Four human-shaped figures jumped out from behind the couch, 
chairs, and bookshelves, wielding party hats and whistles. Three of them 
yelled "Surprise!"

The last chimed in with, simply, "Bloody hell!"

FIN



Zephyr

"Don't worry, Will, you still wear the smarty-pants in the family."
-Buffy, in "Out of My Mind"


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