Scent Drabble

[persephone-20.livejournal.com]

Title: Always be waiting for you.
Rating: G
Word Count: 100, 200, 500 words each.
Setting: Season 7, Episode 4, as Willow is standing by Tara's grave before Kennedy. References to Season 3, 4 and 6
Notes: I'm assuming this will pass as it is to do with scent and does have reference to a f/f ship.


He could follow her by smell. While others might think it… odd, disgusting, depraved… it was a simple matter of balance for him. He could find his way in a crowded, noisy room of lost souls with little more than the sweet scent of her. It hadn’t always been thus, but even after all this time apart, it always came back to her.

She’d said to him once, ‘I feel like some part of me will always be waiting for you.’ Well, it wasn’t Instanbul, and as he watched, she wasn’t old or blue-haired either.

It was finally ‘that time’.


She looked so unhappy, standing there alone. He walked towards her, and as he did so, wondered whose grave she stood at.

She heard him and turned to face him before he actually made a sound. Years of living on a Hellmouth would do that to a person, he thought. In that moment, he drunk in her image as though it were the only thing left to him to keep him alive. Her hair was lighter than he remembered it, and longer, but thinner as well. It suited her; blonde highlights bringing out colors that he had never imagined on her. Her eyes were full and beautiful, although haunted and pained at the same time. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her head into his chest and murmur to her softly that everything would be alright.

Instead, breaking the silence between them, he said only, “Hi.”

Willow smiled, only a half smile, but it was enough.

“Hi,” she answered softly.

They stared at each other a while, and time passed between them, answering all the questions they’d silently put there. Oz stepped forward a step or two more so that his arm lightly touched against hers.


“So, I heard you were expecting trouble.”

There was a moment between Oz’s question and Willow’s reply. “Yeah. New year brings a new big bad. From beneath you it devours, blah blah blah.” Willow’s eyes stayed on the gravestone as she said the words, and Oz could tell that her heart just wasn’t behind the words.

“Already casualties of war?” he asked mildly, gently indicating towards the grave.

“Yeah…” Then Willow shook her head, “I mean no. Not of this war. An old one…” Again she shook her head. “I couldn’t save her, and then… things got a little crazy.”

Oz just nodded silently. He knew all about crazy. Instead of talking, he waited for her to speak again.

“I didn’t think I could come back from this one,” Willow muttered, still not looking at Oz. “It was a dark place… a really dark time. I didn’t mention the badness, but it was pretty bad. Giles was the one who brought me back.

“But she’s still dead,” Willow continued, her voice growing thick. “And all the things in the world that Giles could do for me would never hand her back.”

Oz’s heart clenched. It was the blonde girl, Tara, who lay under that six feet of grass and dirt. He knew that now.

Then Willow looked up again, and seemed to realise again that there was Oz, standing right beside of her again.

“But now you’re here. And of course you are, right? I always knew you’d be back. I just didn’t know… didn’t know that it would be now.”

“Willow, I…” Oz opened his mouth and then closed it again, quickly rethinking over what he wanted to say to her. “I was told that something was going to happen here. Something bad. I didn’t want to… couldn’t let you face that alone. Not without trying to come back and see you. I swear I didn’t know…”

Now it was his turn to look down at the stationary grave. “I know that you feel for her.”

“I do,” Willow replied honestly. “She was my everything.”

“And I was the one who left you,” Oz returned, without pity, only simple fact.

“No,” Willow denied. “No! You were so much more than that.” She touched him lightly on the arm. “You were my first love.”

Oz’s eyes locked into hers, and again, as had happened since that moment in the room where he had offered her canape, Willow felt herself being drawn back into the protective bubble that Oz built around her with only a look. It wasn’t Tara, but for the first time since her lover’s death, she felt that cold part of her begin to thaw and start to feel something again.

“I’ll always be here for you, Will. I’m only sorry that I can’t ease your pain.”

“I think that it’s a pain that I need to feel,” Willow answered. “But it’s good to know that you’re here… that you can be here to make me feel again.”