NEW MOON:
Moon is 0-45 degrees ahead of the sun. Sun and moon energies are combined in this phase to give great strength to new projects....

We each have three tests this week, and we don't do anything but study. We even take turns eating - like the peanut butter sandwich she eats can keep me going, or my tenth can of Dr. Pepper will keep her awake.

Sometimes, it actually seems to. That's how close I think - I feel - that's how close we are.  We are. We are.

It's the caffeine that makes me nervous, the stress that makes me doubt her - me - her. Just makes me doubt. Makes me scared, even now, that all of this is too good to be true.

Chemistry, French V, French Lit. I'm tired just thinking about it. I don't know what language I'm thinking in now; I keep lapsing into French when I talk to her about whether to have subs or Chinese delivered. And I can't even read my chemistry notes.

I'm not up to this. I cry sometimes, but only when she's asleep. I'm just so tired, and I'm so worried about my French Lit grade, and I don't know where I'm going to be living when the dorms close for the summer. Sometimes I just want to quit college totally, but what would I do then? I don't exactly have the kind of qualifications you put on a resume. Maybe I'll just fake tuberculosis and let somebody commit me to a spa in the Alps for my health.

Ha ha ha.

I sit cross-legged on the foot of my bed and watch her sleep, and I cry into wadded-up kleenex just as quietly as I can, and I drink the herbal tea that Mr. Giles swears is good for the nerves. I don't know how to tell him that it's way past nerves. It's Sunnydale, and it's being eighteen, and maybe it's hormones, or love, or plain cowardice.

One thing I know is that I don't want to wake her up. She's so brave; she's like a - she's like a superhero.  I don't want to wake her up and tell her that I'm scared of my chem professor and how I'm going to get the money to stay in Sunnydale all summer long, and scared that she'll vanish someday.

Nights are the worst. She thrashes around in her sleep like she's having bad dreams, but she never remembers them in the morning. I can't sleep, and I can't study, because my brain's just snapped like dental floss pulled too tight.

But it's not so bad by morning. She brushes my hair for me, and I read the comics with her in the cafeteria, my chin almost resting on her shoulder, Willow stealing a little of my milk to put in her oatmeal. There's forty-five minutes between when I walk her to Comp II and when my chemistry lab starts, and so I sit and read on the steps of the law library, and it's a little easier to understand when I'm off that all-night hamster wheel, enjoying the spring sunshine on my back.

Everything works itself out, somehow. It's like, for once, I can't be scared enough to make the good things give up on me and go away.

***

CRESCENT MOON:
Moon is 45-90 degrees ahead of the sun. The crescent faces West, the home of the Cailleach and the gates of death and rebirth....

She would never lie to me, but I still don't exactly understand how she could never know, before me...how it felt...how it would feel. With a woman.

I don't want to insult her - would it insult her? - but it seems like she was born to this. She loves to shape her hands in cups and curves, holding my face or my breast so amazingly softly, like I'm a flower floating in a dish of water. She runs her fingers down the roundest part of the inside of my thigh, runs her knuckles back up, and the way her eyes shine and her breath comes in deep, round wheels, in and out all on the same endless spin, I know she loves it. Loves the way I feel in her hands as much as she loves what's in my head, the Tara who was her friend first and forever.

Maybe there's a little tiny bit of something true - this would insult her - to the way that some people think she's rebelling, or being in a phase. The way she smiles that too-sharp, sickle-smart little smile, the one she gets whenever she wins something...or whenever she manages to surprise someone who thought they knew her. Maybe it's not women she loves, but getting something that no one expected her to get.

That's a little cynical.

That's a lot cynical.

And somehow I don't care. I don't care if she's chic or bisexual or bicurious or in denial or if her cup runneth over with rainbow pride. Maybe it matters, or will matter somewhere down the line, but she loves the way we both move in slow, subtle spirals and crescents when she unbuttons my jeans and pushes them down over my hips. If it started out as an experiment, then the experiment was a success. Hypothesis proved: Willow Rosenberg can make love to a girl. Really, really well.

***

WAXING MOON:
Moon is 90-135 degrees ahead of the sun. Now is the time to put on a little extra steam, buck up a few things that are sagging, and push forward toward manifestation....

After one too many peanut butter sandwiches, Willow all of a sudden decides that we're not healthy enough to be witches. It's not all astral planes and conjurings and divination, you know, and all the elements exist in our bodies as well as outside, and how can our will be done in the magical realms if we can't even eat balanced meals? She says all of this in her brightest, most remorseless, I've-thought-it-all-through-so-don't-bother voice.

I just try to look serious when I want to laugh at her. Not at her, but...I just like it when she lectures me about Wicca, even though I've been doing this since before I could walk. It's like when Miss Kitty crouches down on the carpet, thinking it's savannah grass and she can take cover before pouncing out of nowhere.

But that's so mean, such an awful thing to think about Willow. She's right, after all. We live too much in our own little world.

She threw out all our chocolate-chocolate chunk cookie dough and my Dr. Pepper, replaced it with fresh fruit and raspberry Crystal Light. If it was anyone else, I might think that she was trying to make me over, but that's not how Willow is. If anything, it's exactly the other way around; she gets passionate about self-improvement, and I just get brought along for the ride.

It isn't anything very obvious, nothing you notice the first time you meet her, or the second, but by now I can tell that Willow's always looking for the next big project, the next thing she can change. I don't know what it is she's really trying to change. I don't think she does, either. She seems happy...but she's always so cheerfully sure she'll be that much happier, after...whatever. After whatever the new thing is finally happens.

I was the new thing for a while. Now I'm just life, just her ordinary girlfriend, and the new big thing is this business of getting in shape, which of course Willow goes about with crack organization and a notebook full of research notes to back her up.

Should I be sad that I'm not the new miracle cure anymore? That whatever it is she's looking for, my love isn't it?

I'm not sad. I'm just trying not to laugh and laugh, because I'm with her, I'm coming along for the ride, whatever she does, wherever she goes looking. I think I'd much rather be her plain, ordinary girlfriend than Willow's latest project.

This is more real.

And anyway, I like Crystal Light, and going to the student gym in the afternoons is kind of a fun change from watching Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns in the dorm lounge while we wait for the cafeteria to open for dinner. I especially like it when Buffy comes along, and I can stay on the exercise bike and watch her teach Willow how to box. There's something sweet and awfully sexy about the ultra-serious look she gets right before she lays into the heavy bag. And something just so beautiful and big-sisterly about how carefully Buffy shows her how to stand and how to hit, instead of just acting like she's the Slayer and Willow could never possibly keep up.

It's good to know that Willow comes from that, from that place where friends stand together no matter who they are, where someone can go from a total stranger to closer than your own blood family just by loving you and treating you like you counted.

That's what I'm looking for. It's good to know that Willow's had it, has it, has it to give.

***

GIBBOUS MOON:
Moon is 135-180 degrees ahead of the sun. Time to catch loose ends or make any changes necessary. If the working appears to have stalled, don't panic...

Sometimes we just don't have anything to talk about. We'll talk for days and days, barely stopping to sleep and shower, and then...we've said it all. There's nothing left in our heads, and we just stare at each other over pizza and wonder if we haven't totally run out of things we know or think we know that we could make conversation about.

That can last a few hours, or a few days. Everything becomes, I'm doing laundry; do you have anything white you want me to wash? They were out of your brand of toothpaste, I got this instead. How long do eggs last before you have to throw them out, do you know?

Just...stuff. Stuff that neither of us care about, but just gets done somewhere along the line. And even when we have sex, it's like it's a little too easy, like we're both taking what we know is the fast way to get each other off, because there's not much left to say about orgasms, either, except that they're nice to have every so often.

The cat always knows when we get like that, and she moves right in for the kill, playing and posing to get our attention. She never really tries to compete with us when we're in full-on you're-my-everything mode. She just lies on top of the dresser and purrs, letting us chase each other's little conversational balls of string.

I guess even cats can tell that when Willow and I are really wired into each other, nothing comes between us.

Not even the boring days.

They come and go, and Willow and I, we stay together.

***

FULL MOON:
Moon is 180-225 degrees ahead of the sun. Meditations involving prophecy and power in occult skills should be done now. Dream work is at its height....

We don't really celebrate the full moon like we should.

I guess it still hurts a little. It makes her want to get away from things, even though there's nothing really left for her to get away from on the full moon. But a lot of the time we run anyway. Go to the beach or stay up all night watching `80s movies or kick the balanced diet to the curb and go to her parents' house to bake something very bad for us. Just change things, keep Willow's fast, slippery mind from sliding back in time.

The sex is always better, though. Best. We seem to be infused with energy, soft-blinding deep-light energy that makes it so that we're never tired, never dragged out, and we're still all over each other when the sky starts to go morning grey, soaked like mermaids in all those different kinds of sparkling-clear liquids our bodies produce. We lie there in false dawn and just start laughing, so tired all of a sudden but completely unable to keep from giggling like lunatics, because we can both get hurt and scared and stupid over the most unreasonable things, and it never turns out to be as bad as we think it'll be.

We're idiots. Why do fools fall in love? Crazy - crazy for being so - I think that's Patsy Cline; I can hear the tune in my head but I don't know the words. And the words don't matter. So little really does, at the end of the night.

I had a dream under the full moon - but not one of the strange kind, the kind where I hear words come out of my mouth but I know I'm not the one speaking, the kind of dream that makes me exhausted when I wake up, like I've been out walking all night. Just a regular dream.

It started out like a little party, a picnic or a barbeque, and then there was a poetry reading - I don't know why. And then suddenly it became a wedding, Willow's and my wedding, outdoors in the grass. She wore a chic little cocktail dress, and I had the prettiest white bride's dress I could imagine. I was absolutely beautiful, but she looked tired, like she'd been going and doing and fixing for days. She was telling me about all the things that were going wrong with our perfect wedding, only I couldn't see any of them. I just saw people wandering around, drinking lemonade, talking and smiling to each other. Willow was the only one not smiling.

I remember - I remember this so well, it almost feels more real than reality - that I told her to forget everything, that this was for no one but us. I remember gathering her up in my arms, and she suddenly relaxed and just leaned into me like she was too tired to stand up anymore. My arms were around her, and she felt thin and hot like she always does - radiating warmth, I guess because she is so little, and her insides are closer to her outsides than most people's. She put her cheek on my shoulder, and I remember running my fingers through her hair, only it was just the tiniest bit different from real life; her hair was silky-soft, but sparser, pixie-cut and thin like it was just coming back in after chemotherapy. I could feel it soft between my fingers as I stroked, and the warmth of her scalp, too, seeming fragile and unprotected without those layers of rich red hair protecting it.

She's fragile in my dream like she never was in real life, and it made me ache to fix things that aren't even wrong.

I don't think.

Unless there's something about dreams under the full moon that I shouldn't be so quick to dismiss.

***

DISSEMINATING MOON:
Moon is 225-270 degrees ahead of the sun. If you want to get rid of a bad habit, banish illness or negativity, this is the time to begin....

I pick a black candle for him. Not because he was bad or evil, just in a dark place. Alone; I could see in his eyes that he was alone in ways he wasn't ready to confess to yet, still telling himself that if he had Willow it would all magically change. Willow's candle, of course, is white, because I never think of her with any other color.

There's plenty of her hair lying around the room to wrap around the candle, press it into the warmed and softened wax to bind it to her. I don't have anything of his, so I just carve symbols into it with a straight pin. One for male and one for full moon - an unusual combination to start with, going a long way to identify him right there. One for traveling, one for transformations. And one that means Danger - Enemy. I hesitate over that one; I really don't want him to be an enemy. But he is, and dangerous, too. I learned long ago that you can never, ever lie in a spell.

I've been mixing the dressing oil all week long. Dragon's blood and blue vervain, and a few other this and that sort of things, healing things that make you forget pain.

It takes three days of burning the candles a little lower each night, moving them inch by inch further apart. I chant so much that the spell is smoked into me like flavor into cooked meat.

Warm was the passion, cold is now the heart
Let Oz and Willow painlessly part
Friendship remains, but both hearts go free
In Sophia's name, so mote it be

Three days while she's away with Buffy...patrolling, they call it. And I feel so guilty, because I know how bad it would hurt her if she knew I was doing spells on her without telling her. But it has to be done. Willow knows it as well as I do; there's just a part of her that can't bring herself to let those candles burn down to soft, formless lumps of wax.

I love her too much to make her do that to herself.

But it has to be done. It has to end, and it never will like this. She's too loyal. She doesn't fall out of love on her own.

It has to be done. It's wrong, it's like - it's like laying a curse on Willow, somehow, even though I know this is the kind of spell that can only bring peace. But I know that if I can't tell her I'm doing it, it must be wrong.

And I don't hate him. I think - I mean, I didn't know him very well, but I think I liked him. He had nice eyes.

After three days, I let the candles burn themselves out. Then I collect the remains and take them to the seashore. I throw them into the ocean, and I go home, and I don't look back.

***

WANING MOON:
Moon is 270-315 degrees ahead of the sun. The crescent shape here turns eastward, opening Her arms toward the rising sun. Release of any negativity around us....

All the scores on all those exams are finally in. Willow kept her four-point. My cumulative went up from last semester, even though I'm getting a C in chemistry.

We celebrate with a little ritual, and wishing-spells for the class schedules we want in the fall. We go out dancing.

She asks me to slow-dance with her at the Bronze for the first time. I run my fingers through her hair, and it's lush and heavy as ever.

We stay out way later than usual, feeling giddy just like we'd been drinking champagne, even though we haven't at all. We don't go until the Bronze closes, and Buffy and Riley insist on walking us home, because it's at that low point of the night when most of Sunnydale is asleep and it's really, really, really not safe on the streets, instead of just not very safe.

I wonder how long it's been since anyone slept in Stevenson 214. I catch myself smiling, which I almost never used to do in front of strangers.

Except that Buffy and Riley aren't - quite - strangers. They're Willow's, and what's Willow's is mine now. Well, Buffy is Willow's, anyway. Riley's like me, like whatever I am. I smile even deeper, thinking that Riley and Anya and I should start our own little club. We could play Monopoly and talk about boxing and magic and how weird it is to suddenly realize that your heart isn't yours anymore and you don't even know when it happened.

For the moment, I love all of them like they were my brothers and sisters. Good-natured Riley. Bad-tempered Anya. Xander who gives Willow hit-or-miss advice on sex, Mr. Giles who gives her advice so cautious on magic that he's more a father than a teacher, Buffy who's the prettiest girl I ever met, and so real that she stands out like an obelisk in the middle of all the demons and spells and prophecies.

I just love everything and everybody. It sounds ridiculous, but while I'm on my knees by the foot of the bed and kissing Willow as deep as you can kiss somebody, I feel like I'm making love to everyone I've ever met. But not in a...gross way. Just heart-to-heart, like it's okay to be as close as I can think about being to any of them. All of them.

When she comes, her heel digging into my shoulderblade, I know I'm crying, and it feels better than smiling by itself ever could.

***

DARK MOON:
Moon is 315-360 degrees ahead of the sun. Reach within yourself to pull out unwanted thoughts or desires. Examine them and dismiss them....

Her parents are in town, and I've tried on every single piece of clothing I own at least twice, trying to decide what to wear to dinner with the Rosenbergs.

I'm so nervous that I keep shrugging off her hands as she strokes my shoulders, slips her finger under the strap of my bra to straighten it.

Our cat is making some fashion decisions for me, removing a few choice items from the running by rolling over and over on them and covering them with white cat hair. I save some other strong contenders from the floor, in case they're next on Miss Kitty's House of Style hit list.

I finally lose it while accessorizing, and I snap the chain to one of my favorite necklaces, sending little azure beads all over the room. Miss Kitty goes nuts. I want to hit something, but I've never been able to do things like that, so I just stand there, staring at myself in the mirror but not seeing anything.

"Hey," Willow says, coming up behind me and slipping her arms around my waist. "Anything wrong?"

Yes. It's just too easy. I fell in love overnight, and you picked me just like I knew you never, ever would, and I feel like nothing bad has happened to us. Like nothing about this is bad.

Which means it'll be worse, so much worse, when we wake up from this dream.

I've always been afraid of things like this. Of loving someone or something so much that I won't know what to do or say when there's a problem. That's how silly little problems become big ugly problems, you know. When you don't know what to do about them, so you just look down at the floor, turn inside on yourself, go dark, disappear.

"I won't know what to say to them. I won't be able to get a whole sentence out."

"So?" She has a tone kind of like she's teasing me, but I can see her eyes over my shoulder in the mirror, peering out from behind me, and they're nothing but tender.

"So...they'll think.... They might think anything."

"Don't worry about it. They won't be listening to anything you say, anyway. They don't even listen when I talk."

"That's...very comforting. Thanks, sweetheart."

She laughs, and I feel it against my back more than hear it. Her wicked smile is hidden from me, except for the tell-tale crinkle around her eyes. "You always said exactly the right thing to me."

And that makes me sparkle inside like fireworks.

Maybe it wasn't too easy at all. Maybe it wasn't like there were never silly little problems, or moments when everything hung in the balance.

Maybe I just...said exactly the right things.

Author's Notes:
        The moon lore in this story is stolen from the always-entertaining and occasionally even reliable Silver RavenWolf; the unbinding spell is just as shamelessly adapted from Z. Budapest. I have enough trouble keeping my magical shit together without having to do it for Tara, too.
        I wrote this in the summer break between 4th and 5th seasons.  It's interesting to me to look back on it now and see how my reading of it has changed since then.  "Family" brought a whole new resonance to Tara's thoughts about friends who are "closer than your own blood relatives."  And I don't relate in the same way at all to what Tara does in the Disseminating section, after the 6th season plot arc dealing with Willow's magic.  I still don't feel that what Tara does in this story is unethical, but I now feel that Tara would think that it was, and I'm sort of sorry I wrote her doing it.  But anyway.  Live and learn.