Author: MissKittys Ball O Yarn
Rating: PG-13 for now... cause with the main characters being too young for anything more than shy glances and feelings of smittenness... but prepare for a rating change.
Feedback: Please let me know what you think... cause I love feedback. I hope you enjoy. Please leave feedback on the Catching Sunflowers in Bloom thread on the Kitten Board.
Disclaimer: We all know the drill... but I guess it must be said. I don't own anything even remotely related to Willow and Tara nor do I plan to get anything that resembles monetary gain for such creative musing. The great and powerful Joss owns all and I am not but an unimportant bug to be crushed (now that that's been said...)
Summary: The starting point is simple, beginning innocently enough with a road trip between father and daughter. Let the seeds take root as we are brought forth into a journey of epic proportions. I dare not say more...

Willow sat staring gloomily out the window of her parents black Lexis. This road-trip sure hadn't been her idea, It was her father's way of dealing with his guilt over the lack of time he had spent with her over the course of her life. As a last ditch effort at quality family time Mr Rosenberg had packed up his fourteen year old daughter and insisted she join him on an adventurous jaunt into destinations unknown, a joyous cross country road-trip that, to Willow's way of thinking bordered on a form of torture she'd read about once in a book..she thought she recalled an excerpt in which ancient peoples would torture prisoners by taking them for long canoe rides down the amazon river..okay..so that wasn't exactly what it had said, but it was close enough... her fifteenth birthday was a turning point, in a couple of years she would be in college, and his baby would be swallowed up in society's ravenous hunger to feed on the younger generation. That's what her father had said a few weeks ago, when he'd first started mentioning this trip.

They had been on the road since yesterday morning and already the heat of summer had effectively cut through the car's interior shield of air-conditioning and was more than prepared to bake any part of Willow's skin that got near enough to the heat of the glass. They drove across the desert, eastern bound, the destination still unknown, to Willow anyway, but her father seemed to know where he was going, which was probably a good thing, seeing as how Willow really didn't want to be driving aimlessly around without an end point of some kind. She had asked him about where they were going but he had refused to answer her, stating that the fun was in the getting there not in the destination itself. This didn't sit well with Willow though, she'd much rather know before-hand. If she had to guess though she would say that they were probably heading to New York for her fathers business meeting. <Wouldn't that be convenient? Dragging me along on a business trip and calling it "quality time"?> Willow smirked at the thought. It would be just like her father to do something like that.

Willow's cell phone began to ring. She picked it up and saw her mother's name light across the display screen. Now, her mother was another story all together. At least her father was making an effort; Sheila had simply refused to go with them, saying she had to be in Seattle for an important conference But then again that hadn't been a surprise, her mother was always gone on some business trip. It was a well known fact that Sheila Rosenberg preferred work to raising her child.

"It's Mom, Dad." Willow said, her voice reflecting no emotion to speak of.

"Let it ring... If she asks about it, we'll just say we were out of range." Willow's father chuckled at the thought of getting "one over" on Sheila Rosenberg.

"How about some music kiddo?" He said glancing back at Willow through the rear-view mirror. Without waiting for an answer, Ira flipped the switch on the radio and some band from the decade before songs had actual lyrics began to play. Mr Rosenberg seemed to be enjoying himself and Willow didn't want to begrudge him his fun so she smiled and pretended to get into it, that was until he started in with the polka music. In a matter of minutes she was once again staring forlorn out the steaming window.