Disclaimers; Everybody sing along now!  Joss owns them.  He makes them sing, dance, run through hoops, and have sex with people who are not good for them. No money is being made here, just the poetic justice that comes with knowing that I will never let an unrepentant killer have his way with Buffy (excuse me, this soapbox is giving my feet splinters)!

Pairing; Uh, we’ve been going with Buffy/Willow for the first nine chapters, why stop a good thing now?

Rating; NC-17, but this one has a little more plot.

Spoilers; Dopplegangland

Feedback; Oh puh-leeze!  JDMeans@aol.com

Archives; If you’ve got On Occasion already, go for it.

Summary; Buffy reflects on the night when she finally realized what Willow means to her.

On Occasion; In the Heart

By The Triumvirate

“I was alone, I took a ride,
I didn’t know what I would find there—
Another road and maybe I
Could see another kind of life there—

Ooh, and I suddenly see you,
Ooh, did I tell you I need you
Every single day of my life?

Got to get you into my life!”
—John Lennon and Paul McCartney

“Got To Get You Into My Life”

“I’m sorry to be taking up your time, Buffy, Willow,” Shelly, our Resident Advisor drones on.  “The campus has had some problems with, shall we say, overnight guests.”

“Oh my,” I gasp for effect, as Willow briefly chuckles.  “You think I’m doing something here?”

“Not necessarily, this inspection is just a formality,” Shelly quips.  “I’m not here to play morals monitor, but we do need to have consideration for the other residents.  If you are, uh, entertaining gentleman callers in your dorm, I must ask you to cease.”

“Ah,” I turn to look at Willow, who sits on her bed, her face an artist’s study of innocence.  We had very little warning about the dorm inspection, just barely enough time to hide Willow’s ‘toy’ collection, and separate the twin beds that we had moved together.  “Will, you haven’t been bringing your boyfriends up here while I was visiting Mom, were you?”

“Me?” she shrugs her shoulders.  “What boyfriends?  I’m too busy pursuing my diploma to consider having a boyfriend.”

“We’re not accusing anyone,” Shelly says blankly, as she sticks her head in Willow’s closet and sniffs.  “We’ve just had reports of strange men hanging around the dorm.  As I said, it’s not a matter of morality, it’s a matter of security.  There have been incidents in the past of women being attacked by strange men near the dorms, and some of those attacks were traced to men who were invited into the dorms by their girlfriends.”

“Ah,” I nod, understandingly.  I know more about these attacks than the campus does, way too much more.  And Willow and I have enough sense not to invite a strange man, especially one we would have to ‘invite’ inside. 

“Well,” Willow asserts calmly, “you don’t have to worry about that with us.  We don’t bring guys up here at night.”  She gives me a brief wink when she thinks the RA isn’t looking at us.  Oh yeah, truer words were never spoken.

“Well,” Shelly nods at us, “I’m satisfied that you’re not doing anything against the rules here.  I’ll leave the two of you alone.”

“See ya around, Shelly,” Willow waves at her.

Before she leaves, Shelly turns her head and adds, “Oh, you can put your beds together now.”  I see Willow’s jaw drop almost to the floor, kinda like in those freaky cartoons where the wolf sees a ravishing redhead on the stage and goes completely nuts.  Shelly gives us a crooked smile.  “Hey, it’s not like you’re keeping it a secret.  Just keep the volume down, ‘kay?  Take care, lovebirds.” She chuckles softly as she leaves.

Willow and I just look at each other for about five seconds, before we start laughing.  We wind up in each others arms, a frequent occurrence for the two of us, and simply enjoy the closeness we share for a short while.  I reluctantly pry myself out of her arms, rushing to my bed.  Without either of us speaking, Willow picks up my meaning, and scampers to the side of her bed.  “One, two, three,” I announce as we push the beds together.

“Okay, Willow,” I ask her.  “Now that that’s over, what do you wanna do?”

“Oh, I dunno,” she sighs, “how about some of…this?”  She flashes me a wicked smile as she casually peels out of her tee-shirt.  I stand there, enjoying the sight, expecting to see her in a white lace bra.

She isn’t wearing a white lace bra.

Or a white cotton bra.

Or any bra.

“You came prepared, didn’t you, Wills?” I chuckle as a radiant, half-naked wiccan bridges the distance between her and me, pressing her body up against mine.  She starts tugging at the bottom of my shirt, lifting upward.

“You,” she commands.  “Naked.  Now.”

“Hey, just a sec,” I reluctantly pry myself from her grasp, her hands lovingly following my body as I head for the door.  Somehow the prospect of a total stranger walking in on us right now just doesn’t have that much appeal at the moment.  Especially after Shelly’s little surprise inspection.  I close the door, make sure it’s locked, and then turn toward Willow.

I almost don’t have time to brace myself before I’m suddenly attacked by a warm, clinging body.  Her arms wrap around my neck, her lips insistently seek out mine, her tongue explores my mouth.  I have to literally twist my head around to free my mouth long enough to talk; “Uh, Willow, bed, testing, remember?”

She cranes her head around, reclaiming my mouth with soft, pliant kisses.  Without speaking, she backs away from me, making me follow her to maintain the delicious lip-to-lip contact.  “Arms up,” she whispers between kisses, and I comply.  She pulls my tank-top off slowly, and I feel the drag of cotton against my nipples, stimulating them further.  Yeah, no bra.  I came prepared too.

She directs me to the bed, turning us around so that my back is toward the bed.  She then pushes me slightly, just enough to make me lose my footing, landing hard on the bed.  Before I can catch my breath, one-hundred-and-five pounds of sexy redhead land on top of me, kissing and sucking at my bare skin.  “Hey, wait up, lover,” I wink at her.  “We’re still overdressed.”  Willow gives me that wicked grin of hers, and soon we’re in a heated competition to see who can tear off the other’s jeans and panties first.  I don’t know who won.  No, I do know.  We both did.  Now, the main event starts.  Live from the campus of U. C. Sunnydale, it’s the Buffy and Willow Show, the unedited version, with full orchestration, not for ages 18 and under.  In fact, not for anyone other than Buffy and Willow.  It’s always a private performance.

I start with Willow’s breasts, making tiny indentations with my teeth.  When she pretends to complain, I answer, “If you call them nipples, then I should be able to nip them.” I start lapping around her aureoles with my tongue, savoring their taste and textures.  Willow, on the other hand, takes a more direct approach, inserting her fingers in my well-lubricated vagina, stroking my clitoris in practiced circles.  She starts slowly at first, then builds up the tempo, using my moans and cries as her guide.  Suddenly Willow backs off, removing her hand, taking her boob out of my mouth.  Hey, who said you could do that?  Put that hand back now, Will---OH! 

She suddenly pushes me onto my back and starts to feast.  Her mouth is clamped down on my nipple, and I feel her tongue and teeth working at it, at me…ooohhh, YES!  Right there! 

Now she’s squirming against my body, lower, ever lower…her tongue brushing the lower edge of my breast, my ribs, my bellybutton…she puffs air into it, knowing that it tickles.  She lifts her eyes, giving me the look of a precocious child, wondering how much she can get away with, but intent on being naughty.

“You want me, don’t you?” she asks me, her eyes glazed over with lust.

“Yes, oh yessssssss,” I hiss through clenched teeth.  I gaze at her, amazed that how this sweet, innocent Jewish girl could transform into a sexual dynamo.

“Well,” she coos as her eyes lock on my vagina, now soaked with my arousal.  “Is that all for me?”

“Yes—oh, yeah!” I’m pretty much reduced to single syllables at this point, only the most base of thoughts running through my head at this point.  Fire bad, tree pretty, Willow make Buffy orgasm.

“Well then,” she flashes her elfin grin up to me, then lowered her head down. “In that case, I’d better claim it.”  Before I can even gasp, she dives down, affixing her lips to my groin, her tongue lapping me like a cat at a bowl of cream.  After all the times we’ve made love, she’s become an expert in my body, knowing where to apply her tongue and fingers, which areas on my body are most sensitive.  Her tongue homes in on the tip of my clitoral hood, slowly licking a straight line down the nether lips.  Oh yeah!  Right--- right there, oh God!  I’m grabbing at the mattress with my hands to keep my body from thrashing, every nerve from the waist down singing within me.  I feel her mouth on me, her tongue in me, her teeth nipping at me—then I don’t feel her.

“Willow,” I complain, “where’d you go?”

“Right here,” she answers, as she crawls around on all fours, climbing on my body as she maneuvers herself, so that she is on top of me and her head is pointed toward my feet.  “Open wide.”  I open my eyes, in time to see her groin lowering itself onto me.  I just have enough time to breathe in before my tongue is touching her pussy.  I grab her thighs with my hands and scarf her down like she’s ice cream.  I can’t get enough of her.  Sweet, salty, with a flavor that’s uniquely Willow.  I feel her body on top of mine with my hands, reading the way she bucks and writhes as I work her center with my tongue. 

As I’m eating her out, she’s returning the favor, lapping and prodding my deepest folds with her tongue and teeth, even burrowing inside me with her nose at one point.  I’m gonna have to remember that one.  When she senses that I’m on the edge, she levels off, drawing out my shudders, prolonging my arousal.  As much as I want to feel that final explosive orgasm that I know Willow will deliver, I want the experience to last as long as we can hold out.  I hold back, until I hear Willow groan in protest, then I dive back into her.  We make a circuit together, our passion feeding each other, spurring us on to greater levels of ecstasy.  “Buffy!” she moans into me, “I can’t..ungh!..can’t hold out any longer!”

“L--let go, baby,” I answer, feeling my climax building within me.  “I’m right with you!”  We’re no longer slow with our attacks on each other.  We lick, stroke and nip each other with a passion.  Three long licks from Willow’s tongue are all it takes to send me crashing over the edge, but I still manage to clamp down on her vagina, sucking the hard nubbin of her clitoris until I feel her spasming against me in her own orgasm.  As my climax winds down, she manages to take a few more licks at me, stretching out my final shudders into smaller orgasms.

I don’t know where she picked that move up, but I gotta try it on her next time.

Willow slowly rolls off of me, but still manages to snuggle next to my leg as she lies on the bed.  “Oh my,” Willow smiles wickedly as I look at her sated body.  I can never get enough of looking at her, and seeing her after she reaches orgasm is especially satisfying.  Not just because she just looks too cute for words, but the knowledge that I’m the one responsible for her current condition. “I think I broke her.”

“I’ll recover,” I answer.  “Don’t worry about that.  Slayer strength and all that.”

“I know,” she grins knowingly.  She’s not the cat who swallowed the canary, she just ate an entire aviary. 

I smile lustily, lifting my body so I can see her face better.  She raises to a sitting position so we can now hug and kiss each other.  Our faces press against each other, and I taste both her arousal and my own.  As soon as I get my second wind I’m going back for seconds. “You amaze me, Willow,” I whisper into her mouth.  “You always know how to play me.”

“That’s me, Buffy,” she grins, “old Reliable.  Just a geyser of sexual lust that goes off at regular intervals, as long as we’re alone together.”

She meant that as a joke, but somehow I find myself getting a lump in my throat at the words.  She senses my sudden mood and her face suddenly loses that wicked grin.  “Buffy?  Did I say something wrong?”

“What?” I shake my head, clearing away the cobwebs of a bittersweet moment.  “Uh, no.  Just remembering something, remembering the last time someone said something like that.”

She pauses for a second, then her lips purse in a thoughtful ‘O’.  “Yeah,” she nods.  “That day.”

“That day.”  That’s all I say.  That’s all I need to say, as she and I tighten our embrace, not so much from mutual lust, although that will return later, but for mutual comfort. 

As I hold onto the love of my life, feeling her breath on my ear, I go back in my mind, and remember ‘that day’.

The absolute worst day of my life.  And in a strange way, one of the best…

========

I saw her in the courtyard at Sunnydale High.  The first thing I noticed was her posture.  She seemed depressed about something.  So I decided to do something about that.  This is Willow we’re talking about, here.  Best friend, lover, girlfriend, whatever else you want to call her.  If she’s in pain, so am I.

As Xander and I came near her, I saw her about to peel a banana, as she said, “I'm eating this now.  It's not lunch-time, I don't even care.”

“Hey,” I greeted her, keeping my voice light.  Hopefully she’d cheer up at the sight of me.

“Willow,” Xander asked, “did you remember to tape Biography last Friday?”  She absently muttered an “Uh-huh.”

“See, I told you,” I beamed proudly at my girl.  “Old Reliable.”

That was my first mistake. “Oh, thanks,” she answered sourly.  Okay, something war wrong with her, and I didn’t know what. “’Old Reliable’? Yeah, great.  There’s a sexy nickname.”

“Well, I-I didn't mean it as...” I felt like I was in quicksand, struggling to get back to my original footing with Willow.  Something was setting her off, and I didn’t want to make her madder, especially at me.

“No, it's fine,” she murmured sullenly,  “I'm ‘Old Reliable’.”

Leave it to Xander to make it worse;  “She just means, you know, the geyser. You're like a geyser of fun that goes off at regular intervals.”  Oh yeah, that made sense!

“That's Old Faithful.”  Willow wasn’t buying it.

“Isn't that the dog that, that the guy had to shoot...”

“That's Old Yeller.”

This was getting bad.  I finally had to intervene, or Willow would stop speaking to me altogether.  “Xander, I beg you not to help me.” I turned to the woman I love, seeing her disturbed features.  I tried to comfort her, but I didn’t know what to say.  “Will, I-I didn't mean it as a bad thing. I-I think it's good to be reliable.”  As I said the words, I knew they were the wrong ones.

She stood up and glared at us, getting more annoyed by the second.  “Well, maybe I don't wanna be reliable all the time. Maybe I'm not just some doormat person. Homework Gal.”

“I'm thinking nerve strike,” diagnosed Dr. Harris.  I desperately wanted him to shut up.

Willow huffed at him and started to leave, but then she thought of something else that she wanted to say. “Maybe I'll change my look! Or cut class. You don't know.” She held up the banana that she’d been struggling with, pointing it at me like a lethal weapon.  “And I'm eating this banana. Lunchtime be damned!”

She walked off in huge strides, and I tried to follow her. “Will, wait. I'm really sorry...”

“Buff,” she said gently, but with just a hint of sarcasm, “I'm storming off. It doesn't really work if you come with me.”  She turned around and charged away from me.

As she left, I just stood there, wondering what had happened to her, who stuck that hornet up her behind.  It wasn’t until after the fact that I found out the truth, that Mr. Snyder had corralled her into tutoring someone on the football team, I think his name was Percy, who translated ‘tutoring’ into ‘doing his homework for him’.  I wanted to stake them when I found that out.  Both the jock and Snyder.

Bottom line; my love was hurting.  Which, according to the Book of Love, chapter six, verse twenty-three, meant that I was hurting as well. 

She needed to be alone.  I got that, I feel that way sometimes myself.  Alone can be theraputic, as long as it’s not overdone.  I’d see her later that day, probably at the Bronze after school or on patrol, we’d hash it out, we’d laugh, we’d cry, we’d kiss, and in all likelihood we’d end up looking for a nice private place where we could get naked and sweaty. 

Part of me hoped that she didn’t eat that banana, or that she had another one with her.  I started thinking of some interesting uses for a banana, none of which had to do with insuring we got our recommended amount of potassium. 

Jeez, Buffy, nymphomaniac much?

Around Willow, oh yeah!

I left for my next class with that familiar tingle between my legs, anticipating seeing Willow at night.  Once she simmered down and I found out what was wrong with her, everything would be all right.

At least I thought she’d be all right.

========

That night, I made a quick patrol before converging on the Bronze.  I was hoping to see Willow there, and maybe talk to her about her unhappiness.  I had prepared and rehearsed what I wanted to say to her, knowing that I’d probably forget the script and end up adlibbing something.  I wanted to tell her that I didn’t think of her as being predictable, that I had no intention of taking her for granted. That she didn’t have to let douche bags like Snyder and Percy walk all over her.  And of course, that I was hopelessly in love with her.

Yeah, that sounded good.  It would have made a great speech.

Too bad I never got the chance to use it.

When I got to the Bronze, the first thing that caught my attention was a ruckus at the pool table.  My first thought was that a vamp had gotten inside and was doing the usual mayhem and terror thing with the Bronze regulars.  Leave it to vamps to ruin a social life.  Sorry, Will, but our lover’s spat was gonna have to wait.

I ventured slowly toward the pool table, not wanting to alert any vamps to my presence, and also to scope out the scene.  No immediate sign of vamps.  Someone was saying something about a barroom brawl, but it was cleared up quickly when a scruffy looking guy knocked a jock away from a small red-haired girl.

Xander.  Willow.  Had to be.

I started to tense up when I saw Xander.  It looked like he was being mauled by someone in a black leather bustier with red trim.  Blood red.  I could hear her moan, “You’re alive.”  She almost sounded disappointed.

“You mentioned that before. Will,” Xander quipped, “are you okay?”

“No!” the stranger wailed.  “Everything's different.”

Here’s where I came in. “Oh. There you are.”  Okay, not the best intro, but direct and to the point.

Xander didn’t even look away from me, as he greeted me; “Hey, Buff.”

“Aren't you gonna introduce me to your...” I started, when I took a look at her.  The red hair I enjoyed running my hands through.  The green eyes I loved to gaze into.  The lips I ached to kiss constantly.  The dominatrix garb…Okay, that was new. “Holy GOD, you're Willow.”

“You.”

That’s all she said to me.  The one word, spoken with all the vitriol and anger I ever heard in Willow’s voice.  Directed at me.  What was wrong, Willow?  How could I make it right?

I tried to keep things light.  “You know what?” I went into Support-O-Gal mode, “I, I like the look.  It's, um... it's, it's extreme, but it, it, it looks good, you know, it's leather thing, and, uh...” I turned to Xander.  “I said extreme already, right?”

Willow stepped up to me.  Her eyes were narrowed into dark, hateful slits.  She gave me a stare that could freeze boiling water at ten paces.

But it’s what she said that caused my heart to nearly falter.

“I don't like you.”

The one sentence I would never expect Willow, MY Willow to say.  Oh my God!  What happened?  Why was my best friend, my lover, my everything, suddenly turning on me?  I had to know.  I had to make it right.

“Will, I'm sorry about today,” I started.  Feeble gambit, but I had to say something.  “You know how my foot likes to live in my mouth.  But you know... y-you really didn't have to prove anything.”

She glared at me with eyes that contained nothing but contempt.  I felt my life, my sanity, my reason for existence slowly slipping away from me.

“Leaving now,” she said in a strangely sing-song voice as she turned away from us.  Its tone, its sense of disconnection, it almost reminded me of Dru.

Dru.

My Slayer sense started to kick in, but I ignored it.  It couldn’t be.  No, dear merciful God in Heaven, no.  Not…

“Will,” Xander called after her, “gotta say, not lovin' the new you.”

I feared what I’d see, but I had to see it.  I had to disprove what I feared.  I had to go after her.  “Will, wait...” I grabbed her arm, desperate to find out what was going on.

She turned around, hissing, “Get off me!” 

That’s when I saw it.

The face.

Her face.

Her sweet, lovely, Willow face.

But it wasn’t her face, not Willow’s face.  It was a face I prayed that I would never see in my lifetime.  It was the face of a vampire, who had once been Willow Rosenberg.

My Willow…

And now, Willow, my Willow, was…

She was…

She was…

========

I was vaguely aware of my surroundings.  I felt hands guiding me out of the Bronze, out to the street, into a car, into the passenger’s seat.  I felt a sensation of movement as the car drove off.  I heard a faint, distant voice, which I later identified as Xander’s, tell me that we had to tell Giles.

The first thing I was fully aware of was me standing outside the library door, Xander at my side.  I was waiting, praying to awaken from the most horrible nightmare I had ever known. 

But there would be no awakening.

There would be no last-minute rescue.

There would be no celebration after this victory.

Of that much I was certain, for one real reason.

Willow Rosenberg, the one true love of my life, was one of the enemy now.

She hadn’t been fast enough.  The bastards got her.

And even if we won this battle, there was no point in it anymore.

Willow was gone.  And nothing would ever be right again.