Author: mangled_monkey
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing but a rather nice computer. Suing will only make me unable to write. I don't own the Midnight Players either. That is a salute to my high school drama troupe.

There was a soft knock on her door, and Tara answered it quickly to see her date standing on the other side.

Willow wore a soft green dress, her long red hair up in a bun a few inches above her neck. She looked more radiant than Tara had ever seen her, and all the blonde wanted to do was touch her forever. But she couldn't yet. They were going to prom together without her father or brother knowing that they were together. That would be the most difficult part... hiding it. Tara stepped over the threshold and onto the porch as she pulled the door shut behind her. She herself was wearing a dark blue dress with light blue accents bordering most of her curves. She was sure that she didn't look very good in that dress... she never looked good in her own eyes, but the look in Willow's eyes as she looked at her made her believe that she actually was somewhat pretty.

Willow smiled at her as they moved toward the redhead's car. When did Willow get a car? Tara wondered silently. But she didn't mind. She rather liked the idea of riding with only Willow to their senior prom. They seemed to get to the dance in no time at all, which surprised Tara, but it also didn't seem odd in the least. It seemed like the ride was supposed to take five seconds. Funny, it had always seemed longer before.

They danced for hours, enjoying the feel of eachother, and also, to a much lesser extent, the looks they were being given by some of the envious boys of the school.

Tara had never been this happy. She wanted the elated feel in her stomach to stay there forever. And her heart swelled when she heard Willow whisper in her ear "I love you."

She could barely believe that she heard her say that. "I love you, Willow." Tara kissed Willow carefully, knowing that if she didn't do it now, she'd lose the nerve. This was her prom, after all, and she had hoped that Willow would want to kiss her for the first time tonight. A confession of love before the first kiss wasn't something she wanted to dwell on, as long as the words were true. They had to be... she trusted Willow implicitly, and she knew exactly where her own feelings stood.

It was towards the end of the night, she could tell by the dwindling crowd on the dance floor. She didn't care. All she cared about in this moment was the redhead's lips on her's and Willow's body pressed against her own. She felt her deepen the kiss as they swayed slowly to the music. Right now all that mattered was them. They didn't even notice the looks people were giving them, and soon there were no looks at all because they weren't in the gym, or even the school, anymore.

The music was gone and the room they were in was silent. They didn't seem to notice the change in environment or the bed in the center of the room, though they were aware in some strange intuitive way that it existed and they knew exactly where in the room it was. They fell upon it silently, seeming to have not moved at all from where they were, even though the bed was on the other side of the room from where they had been only a moment before. The only sounds in the room were soft moans as the kiss they were sharing continued to escalate.

Tara ran her tongue over Willow's lips, begging entrance to what lay beyond. Once it was granted, they moaned together at the pleasure it gave them. Suddenly they were no longer wearing their dresses, and skin moved against skin as they touched and licked and kissed everywhere available to them. They came together, in the same breath...

Tara awoke with a start. She was breathing heavily and she found that there was a throbbing between her legs that she was mostly unaccustomed to. She knew exactly what it meant, she wasn't naïve, but she was scared of the implications that this feeling, coupled with the dream, held about her feelings for Willow.

"I love you, Willow"

Did that really mean...?

How could I love someone so soon after meeting her? Doesn't that mean that it's just a crush, or a fixation? Real love doesn't happen that way, Tara reasoned. But it felt so real... Like I was actually there with her, in her arms, touching her and kissing her... I could feel it.

Tara knew sleep would not come for her tonight.