Floating World
Because they fall
we love them --
the cherry blossoms.
In this floating world,
does anything endure?
- Ariwara no Narihara
She was lost.
She had taken one look at Willow from across the room and she just knew it was all over.
"Can you just be kissing me right now?"
And then she was. And they were. And Tara forgot everything in that instant, Willow's kiss being a more powerful spell than any she had cast.
That whole night was Willow. Red hair, tangled and sweaty limbs, sweet nothings, clothes under the bed and over the lamps. Tara remembered only Willow's taste and Willow's smell and Willow's throaty midnight laugh. When she heard that laugh, she knew she was lost.
Morning came and Tara felt a little drunk, a little like Juliet must have felt. Tis the nightingale, love. Only the nightingale.
But she was still Tara. Level-headed, at least when Willow wasn't. They had to get out of bed sooner or later. The house would stir and there was still Scooby work to do. Theirs was a floating world, one in which everything else sometimes took precedence.
Clothes on and the day ahead of them, she found she still couldn't think straight, and still only wanted Willow. She wanted things to be like they were and not how they become. So she was lost. So what? She was in love. Wasn't it okay to be in love, after everything that had gone wrong in her life?
A gunshot rang out. The thought didn't register completely. It seemed like a part of things, a part of the fabric in this floating world. Tara felt nothing as the bullet slammed into her.
This was all she needed to be happy. Willow in front of her, the sunshine shining behind her.
Lost. As the blood sprayed on Willow's cute little shirt, she knew she was lost.