DISCLAIMER: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and a whole bunch of other people who aren't me. This story, in my mind at least, deals with the idea of romantic love between women. Special thanks as always to my beta Rebs, cheers.
NOTE: Willow's thoughts mid-latter part of season six.
PAIRING: Willow/Tara

Colours
By ralst

I'm drowning. Drowning in a tidal wave of boredom and indifference. My whole life lies before me in an endless pattern of similarity and blandness. The only speck on the horizon is the time of my demise. Whenever that might be. All the rest is merely a muted pastel backdrop to the brightness and excitement reflected from those around me. Those who are not just letting life happen to them.

I used to be one of them. My life filled with sparks of colour so dazzling you'd have to shade your eyes for fear of being blinded. But then the colours turned to differing shades of grey, all warmth and excitement lost to the coming blackness. It's strange but in a way, the absolute certainty of black seemed welcome after months of half light and drained colour. It was real. Strong. Vibrant. Seductive.

Evil.

I still miss it. Miss the feeling of something bigger and brighter than the nothingness that surrounds me now. If only I could find the colours that I remember from before. The brilliant reds and yellows that would bring not only light but a sense of warmth and joy. Then there were the blues. The luscious, intoxicating blues. They would seep into your pores, giving comfort and purpose. Then just when you thought they had fulfilled you, they'd sparkle in the most direct of ways and suddenly everything else has faded and you're consumed with love. It is all around you. Comforting. Healing. Making you so glad that you're you and no one else, because no one else has been given the special gift of seeing that blue. Having it surround them and love them.

The only blue I see now is the muted pastel. It isn't enough to fill me with even the glimmer of love. Yet it is just enough to make me once again realise what I've lost. What I threw away with my idiocy. Enough to torture me into renewed heartache.

I search out that memory of blue and for a moment I almost wish I could banish it entirely from the spectrum of my view. If there were no blue, there could be no longing for the blue. No emptiness that chokes you in the middle of the night with its all-encompassing vacuum. It's then that the greys appear. Vague and tugging at the very corners of my mind. Waiting for a slip. For the moment when I give in and welcome it back.

I don't.

For now.

I like to think that I'll always be able to dispel the greys, turn away from the enticing darkness. But I don't know. One day the absence of the other colours might send me crashing back to where I know I don't want to go. It is something I watch out for. Gauging my responses for any sign of weakening, any sign that I might fall off the wagon and head back to dark oblivion.

Blue.

Just a hint of blue.

It sparkles for a moment and I'm left reeling in surprised delight. I would speak, beg for it to return but my breath has been stolen, any words I might have uttered lost to the overwhelming ecstasy of that one moment. One touch of blue and my life is suddenly filled with a new horizon, new possibilities. Just one look from those blue eyes and I'm alive again. I have hope again.

One day. One day she might look at me again with that all encompassing love. That blue gaze of devotion and acceptance. The look that tells me she loves me as much as I love her.

So I sit in my pastel world and wait for the hint of blue on the horizon. As if waiting for a new day to dawn on my future. I'm no longer bored. Now I'm simply waiting. Waiting for my life to start again and the colours to return.

The End

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