Author: Magrat
Ratings: PG-13 but this will become a NC-17
Disclaimer: The characters don't belong to me; I'm just having fun with them. It keeps me off the streets.
Summary: Willow and Buffy have been best friends since university and live in New York. Willow is a successful civil engineer and Buffy's career took a different direction after a terrible occurrence at college. Tara is a member of NYPD and loves it.

"Willow, you will be there won't you? You can't let me down buddy. It's my big day" squawked Willow's answering machine. The redhead smiled fondly at the voice of her best friend Buffy Summers.

Willow kicked of her shoes and padded across her living room. She knew that it looked liked it had just came out if a magazine spread; thick cream carpet, couple of low slung white leather sofas. An alcove cut into one of the walls was beautifully back-lit, the 2 glass shelves held a black marble bust of a woman's torso, every muscle gleaming under the light and a single stem vase with a white lily. A plasma screen TV and dvd unit was the only other thing in the room apart from the small glass table that held her phone and answering machine. Minimalist yes, a stamp of the redhead's fiery personality no.

She walked into her kitchen which was just as modern and expensive. The chrome and stainless steel of the appliances complemented the maple wall units and the deep charcoal granite work surfaces. She grabbed a Perrier from the fridge.

Willow went back into the living room and curled up on one of the sofas. A pair of big blue eyes blinked at her from the other sofa. She smiled at her lovingly. "Come here baby." She looked down her long beautiful nose, before stretching out her well muscled, perfect body. She jumped from the sofa and strutted towards Willow before sitting gracefully on her lap and rubbing her nose against Willow's. "Have you had a good day?" A loud purr answered her. "I'll take that as a yes."

Neko was Willow's blue point Siamese cat. It might have seemed that she was picked to blend in with her beautifully designed life style, but this was the one thing that Willow had truly wanted. There something about this imperious and demanding breed that she loved and the slate blue colour of the blue point attracted her the most.

The phone ran again and Willow let answering machine pick it up. "Will, you must be home by now so answer this and why is your cell switched off. C'mon Will I need you."

Willow gave a good natured chuckle. She knew Buffy far to well to be panicked by her message. Willow allowed her mind to drift back 14 years in time. Willow had been a geeky student starting her first year at Columbia. It had been her dream to study there and she had majored in civil engineering. It had felt like liberation to escape California, only to find that her room mate looked like the typical cheerleading blonde that she had fought so hard to get away from; the vacuous bitches that had made her high school life a misery. At first Buffy seemed to be just like them with her air kisses and legions of muscle headed football playing boyfriends. Willow hadn't taken time to notice that Buffy's major was architecture or that she studied almost as much as Willow.

All that changed when Willow had walked in to their room and found one of Buffy's boyfriends zipping up his jeans and running past her. Willow had ran to Buffy's bed to find her bruised and her clothes ripped. Between sobs Buffy had explained to her that she had been kissing with him when he decided that the price of the movie they had went to early meant that he was expecting Buffy to put out for him. When the answer came back as a resounding no, he tried to take what he wanted. Buffy had fought against him, but he was starting to get the upper hand when Willow had come in, so she had saved her from an almost certain rape. "It won't happen again," Buffy had said to her through gritted teeth. That moment had galvanised a friendship that had stood the test of time. Buffy had supported Willow when she finally had the courage to come out and Willow had been there for Buffy when she decided not to go ahead with the big society wedding that her parents had dreamed of for her.

The next day Buffy had persuaded Willow to join the campus Wado-Ryu karate club and from that moment her blonde friend had been hooked. She still worked hard and passed her degree with flying colours, but karate was her obsession.

That took her back to today, where Buffy after 14 years of studying karate had given up her successful job with a fashionable architecture firm to follow her dreams and open her own dojo.