Fred and Tara Save the World
Title: Fred and Tara Save the World
Pairing: Fred and Tara
Length: 'Bout 2000
Summary: Something I wrote years ago, as part one of a theoretical multiparter about, well Fred and Tara saving the world. But after I wrote this part, I realized none of the rest of what I had planned made sense, and I abandoned it. But I like this bit I DID have written, and decided to post it finally, even if the title doesn't make much sense anymore. Fun title, tho.
FRED AND TARA SAVE THE WORLD
It happened years ago. They were alone in her room, fumbling nervously with buttons and hands, not sure what to do, how far to go. Tara had never been this close to anyone before. Boys had never been interested in her. She had never been interested in boys. She had always thought that meant something was wrong with her, the way her Father would glare at her so sternly when she would skip school dances. He didn’t like that she was so shy, but he never said anything about it. He probably suspected that something would happen someday, something like what was starting to happen right now in her room in the dim light of the moon, and that maybe it would happen sooner if he gave a voice to his fears. People thought strange things like that a lot. That’s what Winnie told her sometimes, when they talked.
Tara liked talking with Winnie...more listening to her, really. Winnie was older than her by a few years, but she didn’t talk like a know-it-all, even though she did seem to know, if not it all, then most of it. Tara liked the patter of her voice, the curious quilt of phrases that she would spin with her mouth. Winnie was with her right now, in her room. She was still doing wonderful things with her mouth. But she wasn’t talking.
**********
Winnie had never done this before either. Not like this...not with a girl. They were each so nervous it made them giggle, and they bumped their heads a few times by accident in the darkened room, and then they would fuss over each other like mothers. Then they would end up holding hands, like they’d done a hundred times over the summer, in secret. A hundred times Tara had quietly wished they would do more. Tonight in her room, they were.
They were old friends of Tara’s Mother, Winnie’s parents were. Her Father had agreed to let them stay at the house for the summer as a sort of vacation for them while their house was being worked on, and Winnie was home from school. Which seemed strange to Tara at the time. It wasn’t like her Father to do nice things for people. Tara was glad he’d done this nice thing, though.
She had liked Winnie right away, with her twitches and her grins, and long rambles about things Tara didn’t understand. Tara had twitches and grins of her own, but she didn’t ramble very much. She didn’t talk much at all, something her brother picked on her all the time for. That just made her talk less and less, to the point where the other kids at school started to think she was slow. She didn’t mind. She had her magic to keep her from being too alone, and she had never been interested in boys. The girls in her school were not much better. They were all so predictable, so self-absorbed. They called Tara names, and she really didn’t care for them at all.
Winnie was not like the girls at school, however, and Tara cared a great deal for her.
Winnie was already in University when Tara met her, and was on her way to becoming a great success. She was so smart, and Tara admired her right off. It surprised her when Winnie would spend so much time talking to her. No one talked much to her, except her Mother. Her Mother was gone now, for a whole year, and Tara hadn’t talked much to anyone in that time. Until Winnie came, and then Tara talked. Just a little.
Tara came up with the name Winnie. She thought it fit, although everyone else called her Fred, or Winifred, her full name. Tara liked Winnie, though, and Winnie said she liked it too, as long as Tara was the only one who called her that. That made Tara smile, the first time Winnie told her that. Then Winnie told Tara that she had a very pretty smile. And that made Tara just a little bit afraid, although she didn’t know why at the time. Later, in her room in the moonlight, she knew why.
They spent almost every day with each other that summer, Tara and Winnie, although Tara could tell her Father did not approve. He disapproved of pretty much everything that was Tara, Tara noticed, and she tried not to think about it very much. That summer, it was easy not to think about her Father. She just thought about Winnie instead. She thought about her sweet southern drawl, and her delicate fingers, and how they felt so strange and new when they would weave into her own whenever they were alone. As the summer wore on, she found herself alone with Winnie more and more. It was the happiest Tara had been since her Mother went away, and every day with Winnie she got happier. Sometimes she got scared again, when Winnie did something or said something that would make Tara feel something that she didn’t think she was supposed to. That happened quite a lot, but after a while Tara didn’t mind being scared like that. No, she didn’t mind being scared by Winnie one bit.
Not that Winnie didn’t have her scared moments, too, no sir. Winnie had never seen anyone do real magic before, and when Tara showed her what she could do, it scared the bejeesus out of her, it sure did. She let out a short, high little shriek that made Tara smile for days. Tara had never done magic for anyone besides family, ever. But that summer she made magic for Winnie, because that summer there was nothing she wouldn’t have done for Winnie. After a while, Tara started to wonder if this was what falling in love felt like. She hoped so very much.
But there was so much wrong. Winnie was only staying the summer, for one. By the time Tara started to think she was falling in love, there was not much summer left. And Winnie was older than her, by several years. One more thing for other people to disapprove of.
And Winnie liked boys. She had told Tara, early on, about boys she had known and liked and dated even. One or two times, early on that summer, the two of them had gone out together, and Winnie had looked around at some of the boys and smiled shyly at them.
But that was early on. After a while, after the summer had some age to it and after Tara had held Winnie’s hand when no one else was looking and she had made magic for her...after then, Winnie didn’t talk about boys so much anymore. And when they went out together? Winnie didn’t look at the boys or try to catch their eyes. After a while, her shy smiles were just for Tara, and Tara liked them very much.
**********
One afternoon, just a day before the night when they would both be alone in Tara’s room with just the moonlight to see, Tara and Winnie were walking through a tall field, near the river. The grass was moist with dew, and it was high enough that no one could see that they were holding hands even if anyone had been around. But they were all alone.
It had been bright out when they went walking, but when they were deep into the tall grass a shower started falling down, and the two of them squealed with awkward joy and ran for the cover of the trees by the edge of the river. They laughed all the way and when they reached the trees they fell to the ground and laughed some more. Tara was breathing heavy from the running, and so was Winnie. Winnie was wearing a little sun dress like she always wore, and it was wet now from the dew and the rain and was sticking to her curves and her skin was sparkling in the emerging sun, and Tara couldn’t stop staring at her no matter how hard she tried.
“Y-you’re so...so b-beautiful.”
Tara couldn’t believe she had said it. She had felt so calm when she started saying it, and it seemed somehow like a natural thing to say. Until the first sound of it escaped her throat, then her heart began to protest, and her mouth did its stuttering best to force the words back down before they could hurt anyone. It didn’t do any good, and somehow Tara found herself telling Winnie that she was beautiful, and not just any beautiful. She could hear the tone she had said it in, and it wasn’t the kind of ‘you’re so beautiful’ that you could just respond to with ‘oh, thank you’, no sir.
She hadn’t really said ‘you’re so beautiful’, you see, not really. If you listened really hard, you could tell that what Tara had actually said to Winnie was, ‘I’m in love with you’.
Winnie seemed to have been listening hard that strange, wet afternoon, because as soon as the words touched her ears her whole face changed. She stared at Tara in a way that Tara couldn’t quite make out, and it scared her to death. Not in the good scared she’d gotten so used to over the summer. This was bad. She started to tremble underneath Winnie’s stare, and her stomach started to jump and quiver so much she thought she might barf. She wanted to get up and run away into her room and cry , and look deep into her crystals and try and find her Mother in them and get her to hold her tight and make everything okay. Tara didn’t realize she had started to cry already until the salty taste hit her lips.
“Don’t cry” was what Winnie finally said, and she shifted her body and started to lean forward towards Tara. Tara was as scared as she figured she had ever been, until Winnie came in closer and she saw that Winnie was shaking, too. She kept on moving closer, slower, until she was so close that Tara could see her reflection in Winnie’s eyes. Tara felt Winnie’s nose bump against her own. She felt her breath on her lips, it was hot and smelled like sugar. Then Winnie put her lips against Tara’s. And they didn’t kiss, not at first. They just pressed their lips the one against the others, and you might think that’s kissing, but it wasn’t, not exactly.
They stayed like that, pressing their lips together underneath the returned sunlight and the drip-drip from the leaves of the trees, waiting for their trembles to subside, savouring the saltiness of a nervous tear. They stayed just like that for what seemed like a long time to Tara. Until they stopped trembling, and Tara couldn’t hear the dripping anymore. And suddenly just pressing her lips to Winnie wasn’t anywhere near enough, and she kissed her. Winnie, well, she kissed back. They kissed like that for a moment of time, for a river streaming over the roots of shady trees, for the dew and the rain rolling off of the blades of the tall grass, for the minute that a whole summer had been building up to.
When they stopped kissing one of them, Tara honestly doesn’t remember which of them anymore said, ‘we should probably get back’, and they picked themselves up and straightened out their hair and their dresses, and walked back out into the tall grass of the fields, back to home. The grass was all the wetter for the rain and it drooped some under the weight of the water. But it was still plenty high enough to hide the holding of hands.
...END...
Pairing: Fred and Tara
Length: 'Bout 2000
Summary: Something I wrote years ago, as part one of a theoretical multiparter about, well Fred and Tara saving the world. But after I wrote this part, I realized none of the rest of what I had planned made sense, and I abandoned it. But I like this bit I DID have written, and decided to post it finally, even if the title doesn't make much sense anymore. Fun title, tho.
FRED AND TARA SAVE THE WORLD
It happened years ago. They were alone in her room, fumbling nervously with buttons and hands, not sure what to do, how far to go. Tara had never been this close to anyone before. Boys had never been interested in her. She had never been interested in boys. She had always thought that meant something was wrong with her, the way her Father would glare at her so sternly when she would skip school dances. He didn’t like that she was so shy, but he never said anything about it. He probably suspected that something would happen someday, something like what was starting to happen right now in her room in the dim light of the moon, and that maybe it would happen sooner if he gave a voice to his fears. People thought strange things like that a lot. That’s what Winnie told her sometimes, when they talked.
Tara liked talking with Winnie...more listening to her, really. Winnie was older than her by a few years, but she didn’t talk like a know-it-all, even though she did seem to know, if not it all, then most of it. Tara liked the patter of her voice, the curious quilt of phrases that she would spin with her mouth. Winnie was with her right now, in her room. She was still doing wonderful things with her mouth. But she wasn’t talking.
**********
Winnie had never done this before either. Not like this...not with a girl. They were each so nervous it made them giggle, and they bumped their heads a few times by accident in the darkened room, and then they would fuss over each other like mothers. Then they would end up holding hands, like they’d done a hundred times over the summer, in secret. A hundred times Tara had quietly wished they would do more. Tonight in her room, they were.
They were old friends of Tara’s Mother, Winnie’s parents were. Her Father had agreed to let them stay at the house for the summer as a sort of vacation for them while their house was being worked on, and Winnie was home from school. Which seemed strange to Tara at the time. It wasn’t like her Father to do nice things for people. Tara was glad he’d done this nice thing, though.
She had liked Winnie right away, with her twitches and her grins, and long rambles about things Tara didn’t understand. Tara had twitches and grins of her own, but she didn’t ramble very much. She didn’t talk much at all, something her brother picked on her all the time for. That just made her talk less and less, to the point where the other kids at school started to think she was slow. She didn’t mind. She had her magic to keep her from being too alone, and she had never been interested in boys. The girls in her school were not much better. They were all so predictable, so self-absorbed. They called Tara names, and she really didn’t care for them at all.
Winnie was not like the girls at school, however, and Tara cared a great deal for her.
Winnie was already in University when Tara met her, and was on her way to becoming a great success. She was so smart, and Tara admired her right off. It surprised her when Winnie would spend so much time talking to her. No one talked much to her, except her Mother. Her Mother was gone now, for a whole year, and Tara hadn’t talked much to anyone in that time. Until Winnie came, and then Tara talked. Just a little.
Tara came up with the name Winnie. She thought it fit, although everyone else called her Fred, or Winifred, her full name. Tara liked Winnie, though, and Winnie said she liked it too, as long as Tara was the only one who called her that. That made Tara smile, the first time Winnie told her that. Then Winnie told Tara that she had a very pretty smile. And that made Tara just a little bit afraid, although she didn’t know why at the time. Later, in her room in the moonlight, she knew why.
They spent almost every day with each other that summer, Tara and Winnie, although Tara could tell her Father did not approve. He disapproved of pretty much everything that was Tara, Tara noticed, and she tried not to think about it very much. That summer, it was easy not to think about her Father. She just thought about Winnie instead. She thought about her sweet southern drawl, and her delicate fingers, and how they felt so strange and new when they would weave into her own whenever they were alone. As the summer wore on, she found herself alone with Winnie more and more. It was the happiest Tara had been since her Mother went away, and every day with Winnie she got happier. Sometimes she got scared again, when Winnie did something or said something that would make Tara feel something that she didn’t think she was supposed to. That happened quite a lot, but after a while Tara didn’t mind being scared like that. No, she didn’t mind being scared by Winnie one bit.
Not that Winnie didn’t have her scared moments, too, no sir. Winnie had never seen anyone do real magic before, and when Tara showed her what she could do, it scared the bejeesus out of her, it sure did. She let out a short, high little shriek that made Tara smile for days. Tara had never done magic for anyone besides family, ever. But that summer she made magic for Winnie, because that summer there was nothing she wouldn’t have done for Winnie. After a while, Tara started to wonder if this was what falling in love felt like. She hoped so very much.
But there was so much wrong. Winnie was only staying the summer, for one. By the time Tara started to think she was falling in love, there was not much summer left. And Winnie was older than her, by several years. One more thing for other people to disapprove of.
And Winnie liked boys. She had told Tara, early on, about boys she had known and liked and dated even. One or two times, early on that summer, the two of them had gone out together, and Winnie had looked around at some of the boys and smiled shyly at them.
But that was early on. After a while, after the summer had some age to it and after Tara had held Winnie’s hand when no one else was looking and she had made magic for her...after then, Winnie didn’t talk about boys so much anymore. And when they went out together? Winnie didn’t look at the boys or try to catch their eyes. After a while, her shy smiles were just for Tara, and Tara liked them very much.
**********
One afternoon, just a day before the night when they would both be alone in Tara’s room with just the moonlight to see, Tara and Winnie were walking through a tall field, near the river. The grass was moist with dew, and it was high enough that no one could see that they were holding hands even if anyone had been around. But they were all alone.
It had been bright out when they went walking, but when they were deep into the tall grass a shower started falling down, and the two of them squealed with awkward joy and ran for the cover of the trees by the edge of the river. They laughed all the way and when they reached the trees they fell to the ground and laughed some more. Tara was breathing heavy from the running, and so was Winnie. Winnie was wearing a little sun dress like she always wore, and it was wet now from the dew and the rain and was sticking to her curves and her skin was sparkling in the emerging sun, and Tara couldn’t stop staring at her no matter how hard she tried.
“Y-you’re so...so b-beautiful.”
Tara couldn’t believe she had said it. She had felt so calm when she started saying it, and it seemed somehow like a natural thing to say. Until the first sound of it escaped her throat, then her heart began to protest, and her mouth did its stuttering best to force the words back down before they could hurt anyone. It didn’t do any good, and somehow Tara found herself telling Winnie that she was beautiful, and not just any beautiful. She could hear the tone she had said it in, and it wasn’t the kind of ‘you’re so beautiful’ that you could just respond to with ‘oh, thank you’, no sir.
She hadn’t really said ‘you’re so beautiful’, you see, not really. If you listened really hard, you could tell that what Tara had actually said to Winnie was, ‘I’m in love with you’.
Winnie seemed to have been listening hard that strange, wet afternoon, because as soon as the words touched her ears her whole face changed. She stared at Tara in a way that Tara couldn’t quite make out, and it scared her to death. Not in the good scared she’d gotten so used to over the summer. This was bad. She started to tremble underneath Winnie’s stare, and her stomach started to jump and quiver so much she thought she might barf. She wanted to get up and run away into her room and cry , and look deep into her crystals and try and find her Mother in them and get her to hold her tight and make everything okay. Tara didn’t realize she had started to cry already until the salty taste hit her lips.
“Don’t cry” was what Winnie finally said, and she shifted her body and started to lean forward towards Tara. Tara was as scared as she figured she had ever been, until Winnie came in closer and she saw that Winnie was shaking, too. She kept on moving closer, slower, until she was so close that Tara could see her reflection in Winnie’s eyes. Tara felt Winnie’s nose bump against her own. She felt her breath on her lips, it was hot and smelled like sugar. Then Winnie put her lips against Tara’s. And they didn’t kiss, not at first. They just pressed their lips the one against the others, and you might think that’s kissing, but it wasn’t, not exactly.
They stayed like that, pressing their lips together underneath the returned sunlight and the drip-drip from the leaves of the trees, waiting for their trembles to subside, savouring the saltiness of a nervous tear. They stayed just like that for what seemed like a long time to Tara. Until they stopped trembling, and Tara couldn’t hear the dripping anymore. And suddenly just pressing her lips to Winnie wasn’t anywhere near enough, and she kissed her. Winnie, well, she kissed back. They kissed like that for a moment of time, for a river streaming over the roots of shady trees, for the dew and the rain rolling off of the blades of the tall grass, for the minute that a whole summer had been building up to.
When they stopped kissing one of them, Tara honestly doesn’t remember which of them anymore said, ‘we should probably get back’, and they picked themselves up and straightened out their hair and their dresses, and walked back out into the tall grass of the fields, back to home. The grass was all the wetter for the rain and it drooped some under the weight of the water. But it was still plenty high enough to hide the holding of hands.
...END...