Janine - The Chemicals Between Us

By Janine (jbstories@hotmail.com)

Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine, they belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I will not be making any money etc, yadda, yadda.

Rating: PG-13

Synopsis: This is a continuation to my story "Not So Bad Beer".

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A girl was walking along one of the many dark pathways of UC: Sunny Dale. She was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, and she had her hands shoved into the pockets of her jacket. Her head was tilted down and she was walking quickly. She was depression personified, but in good shoes. Coming opposite her on the path was a young man, who actually wasn't a man at all.

If one happened to be looking closely at his face they would have seen horribly distorted features, and yellow eyes. The girl didn't even look up as he approached her.

They continued towards each other, one seemingly unaware and the other completely focused. Once they were close enough to each other the man growled and started to reach out for her, while the girl took one of her hands out of her pocket and slammed a stake into his chest.

By the time the man had finished combusting, the girl was halfway to the end of the path. She had a person to see and things to do, none of which involved the now permanently deceased, deceased back there.

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Willow was depressed, but not severely depressed, not even as depressed as she was letting on. That's what she was thinking about as she lay alone in the room she shared with Buffy. It had been a few days since Oz had taken off and left her after cheating on her with Veruca. She had been so angry with him at first, angry, hurt and truly surprised. She just never expected anything like that from him. From his reaction to his own actions, it seemed to her that he didn't expect anything like that from him either.

She had been doing a lot of thinking since he left, and now a few days later she was even more grateful that she hadn't gone through with the curse she had almost set upon him. As much as she wanted to hate him and be angry with him, she finally had to admit that she understood what had happened between him and Veruca. What she was familiar with may not have been the exact same thing, but it was close enough, because either way it was looked at it came down to one thing. The chemicals between them. There had been a powerful, chemical, animal attraction between Oz and Veruca, and he simply wasn't strong enough to deny it.

She was beginning to understand a lot more about that. When there was a pull inside of you dragging you towards another person it could only be denied for so long. In many ways it was like an elemental force, and you can't deny nature. Sooner or later the pull would become too strong, and you would finally allow yourself to be pulled. Oz had given in sooner, and Willow, well she was now starting to allow herself to be pulled.

It took Oz's exit from her life for her to finally admit who was pulling her. Without guilt, without responsibility to another, she was finally able to take stock of her emotions and admit to what she was feeling, and had been feeling for a while. She finally understood the chemicals between them, between her and Buffy.

The only problem was she had no idea what to do about it. In her mind she kept going back to the night a few weeks before when Buffy had drunken the bad beer. She could remember the passion in Buffy's eyes, the desire oozing out of her every pore, but she didn't know if it was real, or if it was just a side effect of the change Buffy had gone through.

When the whole thing with Oz had erupted Buffy had told Willow that she loved her, and Willow believed her. She just wished she knew what kind of 'love' Buffy had meant.

"Stop depression Buffy has entered the building," the Slayer said entering the room and snapping Willow out of her haze.

"Stop 'depression'...like 'the presses'," Willow said looking up. "That's funny." But she wasn't laughing.

Buffy regarded the red-head for a moment, then walked over to Willow's bed and sat down.

"I hate seeing you like this," Buffy said softly raising her hand to brush a stray strand of hair off of Willow's face.

Willow looked over at her with a strange expression on her face, but she didn't say anything. Willow always complained about how enigmatic Buffy could be at times but the hacker was plenty capable of being a little ambiguous herself.

"Come on," Buffy said grasping Willow's arm and pulling her up. "I'm going to make you have fun if I have to kill you."

"That doesn't sound like fun," Willow responded letting Buffy drag her up.

"That's why it would be in your best interest to just come with me," Buffy said wrapping her arm around Willow's waist once the hacker was standing.

"This is like kidnapping," Willow muttered as Buffy led her out of their room.

"Kidnapping is so harsh a word Will," Buffy responded as they headed down the hallway. "Let's think of it as kid-borrowing."

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Buffy glanced past Riley again to get a look at Willow. She didn't look like she was having fun. Buffy had been planning on heading over to Willow when Riley had sidled up to her and started some inane conversation. Riley was a nice guy, a little strange, but nice. She just didn't have time for this at the moment.

"So...do you like cheese?" Riley asked. Buffy looked up at him with an disbelieving look on her face. Yeah, this conversation definitely had to end. Definitely.

Once Buffy finally managed to get away from Riley she headed out in search of Willow. She finally found her standing in front of a window in one of the back rooms looking out.

"What are you doing back here?" Willow asked seeing Buffy's reflection in the window.

"Looking for you," Buffy responded walking over to Willow.

"How'd things go with Riley?" Willow asked. He'd come to her earlier that day to ask for advice on how to 'court' Buffy. '...and, well, so far you're the only thing I know she likes,' he had said to her. It was after he'd said that that she'd decided to give him a little help. Buffy deserved a chance to be happy, even if it wasn't with her.

"Is that why you came back here?" Buffy asked surprised.

"Maybe," Willow responded.

"Well you could have saved yourself the trouble," Buffy responded making a face.

"Things didn't go so well?"

"And the understatement of the year award goes to Willow Rosenberg," Buffy responded in a cheesy TV announcers voice.

"I'll take that as a yes," Willow said.

"Good call," Buffy told her. "We both like cheese apparently," Buffy added. Willow smiled, and gave a little laugh. After that Buffy was glad she had talked to Riley if for no other reason then her little story had put a smile on Willow's face.

"What do you say," Buffy said. "Should we shut her down?"

"That's the best idea you've had all day," Willow responded. "Let's blow this joint."

"Best idea?" Buffy asked in a wounded voice. "What about my water-melon idea?"

"Buffy, watermelon's are not the cure to world hunger," Willow said as they headed onto the path.

"But Will, it's water and melon all in one delicious package. You get food and water all in one fruit," Buffy said linking their arms together. "It's a great idea."

"You need water to grow watermelon's," Willow responded. "If they had water, they wouldn't need the watermelon to get water."

"Willow, Willow, Willow," Buffy said shaking her head. "Let me show you the light..."

With that Buffy launched into a long winded explanation of why watermelons could indeed be the cure to world hunger, as she and Willow walked arm and arm back to their dorm room. After she finished with her explanation Buffy looked over at Willow and the hacker smiled back at her and shook her head in mock disbelieve. It was a small, little gesture that would have seemed almost inconsequential at any other time, but at that time and that moment Buffy found it to be immensely reassuring. She couldn't really explain it but after seeing that smile she was sure that Willow would be alright, and that the depression which had been haunting her since Oz left town would dissipate. And that in turn made her smile. Willow's happiness meant everything to her, and while she might not have been able to fill the void in Willow's life that she wanted to, she could be there for her. She could make her smile.

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That night they both lay on their beds staring at ceiling, thinking. Both of them were confident that the other was asleep, and that even if they weren't asleep that they couldn't possibly be contemplating what they were, even though they desperately wanted it to be so. That night, two girls lay in bed mourning the absence of a kind of love they thought they could never have, with a person who could never be theirs, but whom they wanted more than anything else in the world. Once again, they tried to ignore the chemicals between them, while both knowing that they could only be denied for so long. They could feel something building, and growing inside of them. Something special, and scared, and as they drifted off to sleep, they both wondered what it would mean to them, to their relationship when the truth came out of the closet-so to speak.

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THE END

To be continued in "Home, sweet, home"