Title: Finally Seeing the Light 1/7

Author: Lysa-uk

Rating: PG-13

Distribution: If you want it, ask me first

Feedback: Yes, please

Pairing: Willow/Xander slight Buffy/Angel

Spoilers: Early Season 2

Summary: Xander has a new crush on another girl who isn't Willow. Will he see the light? (You can probably guess the answer from the title.)

Disclaimer: As usual, I don't own any of the characters mentioned in this piece of fiction. They belong to Joss Whedon and Co. The new characters are mine, even though I kinda stole one name from John Hughes. The basic plotline and some of the dialogue is also stolen from John Hughes and his movie. I don't have anything so don't sue me. No copyright is intended on either the show or movie.

Notes: A couple of months ago I wrote a fiction piece based on a scene I saw from a movie, and I was asked if I had any more plot bunnies. This is one that I came up with from a movie called Some Kind of Wonderful. This is basically set in season 2, between the episodes The Dark Age and What's My Line Part 1, and sort of set AU. Everything else is more or less explained.

Alexander Harris looked up at the clear blue sky and squinted at the bright morning sun, stumbling over the first step of the concrete staircase that led up to the school building. He smiled as the sounds of birds chirping in the nearby trees filled the air, and he looked at his best friend, Willow Rosenberg, grinning broadly. However, the grin soon turned into a grimace when he concentrated on what was ahead, seeing the students milling around the entrance of Sunnydale High School, waiting for the inevitable bell to ring. "Another day in Hell," he said with a sigh.

"Literally," Willow said with a laugh.

Xander looked at her with an impressed smirk. "She joked!" he said loudly. "You know, they should give us days off when the sun's out like this. It would give us more of an incentive to get up in a morning." He said as he slung his sliding backpack back onto his shoulder.

"Xander," Willow began, "when you don't have to be at school you don't move out of your bed until lunch time. Besides, if they did that, we'd never actually be at school at all." She explained to him as she juggled the school books she was carrying from one arm to another.

"Explain to me why that's a bad thing?"

"Because, then we wouldn't learn anything."

"Still not getting the badness of that."

"Xander, this is just another Tuesday," she said with a roll of her eyes. "That means that you'll only go to your first two classes because I'll make you, and then you'll sit in the library for the rest of the day, annoying Giles."

"Yeah, it's a tough job," he said with a sigh. "You're probably right." He grinned at her again as they got to the school doors, and he opened them for her while he followed. Suddenly, his eyes widened and he looked panicked. "Wait a minute, did you just say that today's Tuesday?"

Willow nodded, taking an apple from her book bag.

"As in Teen Health Tuesday?"

She nodded again, rubbing the red apple on her shirt.

"Didn't we have an assignment for that?" he asked. "I can't even remember what the hell we've been doing. God, I'm going to get into so much-"

Willow stopped his ramble as she pulled out the plastic-covered, typed assignment from between her books and handed it to him. "We were supposed to work in pairs," she told him. "'The Everyday Demons Faced by Adolescents'." She told him. "Remember, we started laughing at the irony cos Buffy was off helping Giles clear up after that Eyghon thing?"

"Willow, you're a god!" he exclaimed loudly, taking her apple from her before she could take a bite and sunk his teeth into it. "Well, I could have done this," he told her as he quickly looked through it. "But somehow I don't think my descriptions of being possessed by animal spirits and helping to stake vampires would have gotten us an A."

"Well, then, it's a good thing I just stuck to the traditional and predictable demons of alcohol, sex and drugs."

"Yeah, probably," he said, handing the apple back to her, half-eaten. "Wait, how do you know about that stuff?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she said mischievously as they got to the balcony.

"What would I do without you?" he asked.

"Um, flunk every class?"

Cordelia Chase, who was stood a group of friends next to the staircase leading down to the quad, cast a disparaging look at them as they approached her direction. "…Of course," she said loudly to Harmony and another girl, the recently-enrolled Amanda Jones, "If I looked like that…" she gave a pointed look at Willow, "I wouldn't even leave the house. It's bad enough just having to look at it."

Willow quickly walked past the group of now-giggling girls, throwing her apple in the bin as she whisked by, suddenly feeling sick, heading for the bathroom before her eyes filled with tears.

Xander watched Willow leave, irritation getting the better of him as he came to a casual stop by Cordelia, watching as her face turned to stone, as it always did when her superiority complex came to the fore. "What's with the frown, Cordy?" he asked. "Been chewing on those sour grapes again?"

"Who said you could stand near us, dweeb?" she bit at him.

"Aw, poor Cordelia," he said with a fake sad expression. "What's wrong, are they closing 'Hookers-R-Us'?" She opened her mouth to retort and he quickly cut her off. "Shame. Still, I hope you stocked up on all those Lycra and spandex pants," he said. "I mean, how else are you gonna get through the entire football and swim teams? It's not like you can really rely on your sparkling wit and dazzling personality, since, you know, you don't have either. Anyway, enjoy your day, ladies," he bowed his head to them and left, heading for the girl's bathroom to wait for Willow with a self-satisfied grin.

Cordelia watched him, speechless for a moment. "Can you believe the nerve of that guy?" she asked the two girls. "I mean, here we are, innocently having a private conversation, and he gets all insulting for no reason. How rude is that?"

"I know," Harmony agreed, nodding her head.

Cordelia looked at Amanda, who was seemingly staring down the hall where Xander had disappeared through the doors into the school building. "Hello?" she said loudly.

"Oh, sorry," Amanda said, drifting back to reality. "I…agree…?" she said, not even sure of what the question had been.

"Exactly!" Cordelia said. "One day that geek is going to get his comeuppance."

Buffy exited the library, her eyes hurting from reading, and headed for the soda machine in the lounge. She saw Xander, flopping animatedly down onto one of the sofas, and headed for him, suspicious at the grin playing on his face. "Come on, spill," she said as she sat opposite him.

"Morning, my little Slayer friend," he told her with a wink.

"Okay, I'm guessing you just got the upper hand in one of your little verbal matches with Cordelia."

"What makes you say that?"

"You've got that 'I'm better than Cordelia' grin about you," she told him.

"Yeah, well, she deserved it."

"So where's Willow?" Buffy asked, looking around.

"Uh, the reason for the little 'verbal match' between me and Cordy. She made some nasty comment about Will."

"In that case I'm glad you won."

"Hey," Willow said as she came out of the bathroom and saw them waiting for her. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," Xander told her. "What about you?"

"Oh, you know me," she said with a smile. "So, Buffy, where were you this morning? I thought we were gonna walk to school together."

"Yeah, we were," Buffy told them. "But I had an early morning wake-up call from Giles. He found some ancient prophecy or something. I've been here since six this morning. My eyes feel like they're gonna burst out of my head."

"Did you find anything?"

"Turns out Giles interpreted the text wrong in all of his haste to have the world end. He was about a hundred years out. So, it's just the usual vampires and demons and their hi-jinx. No big."

"You need some help?" Xander asked enthusiastically. "You know, the kind that involves us having to be in the library all day."

"Xander, you're going to classes," Willow told him in a warning tone as the bell rang. "You heard what Snyder said about you cutting your classes. Detention for a week."

"I'm not afraid of him," Xander said confidently.

"People, the bell just rang," Snyder said threateningly as he passed the lounge. "In case you're unclear on what happens after, it means you have to go to class. Now."

"Yes, sir," Xander said quickly, standing up.

"Not afraid of him, huh?" Buffy asked with an amused smile once the principal was gone.

"I'm working on it!" he said defensively.

"So, are we going to the Bronze tonight?" Willow asked as they started down the hall.

"Can't," Buffy told her. "Giles has me in Super Slayer mode. I have to patrol. But you guys can come with if you want."

"Sounds like a plan," Xander said. "Willow can meet me at work and we'll see you at the Restfield Cemetery. B.Y.O. stakes."

"Great," Buffy said as she headed back to the library. "I'll see you guys at lunch."

Giles came out of his office in the library as Xander closed his comic book and sighed. "You know, Xander," he began, "if you must insist on spending the majority of the day in my library you could maybe help instead of reading that pile of nonsense."

"Nonsense?" Xander said incredulously. "Okay, we spend evenings fighting vampires, demons and other creatures because we live on a Hellmouth and you're telling me that comic books are nonsense? How do you know none of this stuff is real?"

"Because I have a brain."

"You'll see," Xander told him. "One day Spiderman's gonna walk through those doors and ask for our help. How are you gonna feel when that happens?"

"Probably very ill, considering I'll be in some hallucinogenic state brought on by one of the many blows to my head which I seem to keep sustaining."

Xander opened his mouth to argue his point further, but was stopped by the young girl nervously entering through the double doors. "Uh…hi…" Xander said.

"Hi," she said back. "Um, my name's Amanda Jones. I'm new here. I was told by some of my teachers to come by and pick up some text books. History, Math, that kind of thing. Um, do you know where they are?"

Xander shot a quick look at Giles and desperately tried to think of where they were, looking around the library furiously.

"For God's sake," Giles said under his breath, rolling his eyes. "I'm Mr. Giles, the librarian," he told her pleasantly. "The books that you require are up in the stacks, third row along."

"Thanks," she said gratefully, heading for the stairs.

Xander watched her, his eyes fixed on her and mouth open.

"You know," Giles told him as he approached the boy, "considering that you've spent the majority of the past eighteen months or so in this library, you don't seem to know an awful lot about where things are kept."

"That's usually Willow's job," Xander told him. "Besides, why would I want to know that stuff? I have a life." He looked quickly at Giles pursed lips. "No offence."

"Well, I won't take any offence if you'll help me to catalogue some of the new stock that was delivered a short while ago."

"But Giles…"

"Or perhaps you'd prefer me to go and see the lovely Principal Snyder and inform him just how you spend your days."

"I really don't have a choice here, do I?" Xander asked.

"No."

"Well, cataloguing sounds Super Fun."

"Good," Giles said with a pleased smile. "They're up in the stacks. Have fun."

Xander rolled his eyes in frustration as Giles went back into his office, and he headed for the cardboard boxes piled against the back shelves. As he reached them, he slumped down onto the floor, grabbing the box from the top, and tore it open. "Great," he said to himself. "More books. Just what we need." He took a few from the pile and set them down on the floor. A humming sound caught his attention and he looked to where it was coming from, seeing the new girl, Amanda Jones, browsing the shelves. He watched her, enthralled, as she absently twisted her sleek blond hair that had been pulled back into a ponytail that accentuated her petite features, concentrating her clear blue eyes on the book spines in front of her, occasionally pulling one out to flick through the pages. Once she had found one she was interested in, she hugged it tight to her slim figure, continuing to read, totally unaware she was being watched.

"Xander!" Giles called loudly from inside his office, startling Xander back into reality.

"Yeah?" Xander called back, standing up and heading for the man's office. "What's up, G-Man?"

"I have asked you to refrain from calling me that. Would you be able to run down to the students lounge and pick up some cold drinks from the vending machine? I'd go myself, but seeing as we have our first actual student who isn't related to us in terms of demonic activity who actually wants to check books, I'd rather not scare her off by leaving a young man with a crush who seemingly loses the ability to form sentences in charge of my library."

"Okay, I don't know what you just said, so just give me the money and I'll go. But if Snyder sees me I'm telling him to come to you."

Xander stood at the vending machine in the student's lounge, his finger hovering over the buttons. "Pepsi, Coke…Coke, Pepsi…" he closed his eyes and allowed his finger to press forward, and opened them again when he was rewarded with the loud bang of the two cans of soda hitting the bottom. "Ah, beverage…" he said to himself as his change clattered into the change tray. "I'm sure Mr. Giles, the kindly librarian, won't mind me using his change to subsidise my need for candy." He fished the money out of the small metal hole and began to feed it back into the machine.

"…Trust is the basis of any relationship…"

Xander turned as inconspicuously as possible to see Mitch Holden, one of the school's star football players, talking very intimately with one of the freshman girls, and leaned in closer, listening to what he was saying with curiosity.

"Now, I want you to stay close," Mitch told the pretty young girl with whom he was sat with on the sofa, facing the window. He reached up and gently held her chin between his thumb and forefinger, with his other arm around her back, looking intensely into her eyes. "But not too close, okay? When I tell you to back off, you back off." He leaned into her, ready to kiss her, when he heard footsteps. He looked around quickly to see Amanda exiting the library, and he motioned for the younger girl to leave as quickly as possible. As she did as she was told, he smiled at Amanda, standing up to greet her. "Amanda, baby," he said huskily. "I was just coming to find you."

Amanda looked at him with a furious glare in her eyes. "I'll bet!" she bit at him as she began to march away.

"Hey, wait," Mitch said, heading after her.

Xander watched the tall, muscular, broad-shouldered, blond-haired, blue-eyed jock go after her, jumping over the sofa he had previously been sat on in the process. "Hey," he said as he caught her. "What's wrong?"

She rolled her eyes at him, amazed at him thinking she was so stupid.

"She's a friend of Kelly's, you know, my sister? Her brother was hurt a couple of nights ago by some weird guys and she was a little upset. You don't think I was…?" he laughed gently. "Come on, Amanda. Why would I be trying to get with some other girl when I know you're meeting me at any minute?" he cupped her face gently in his hands. "Trust is the basis of any relationship…"

"Fine," she said quietly, although still slightly suspicious. "Whatever you say."

"Okay," he told her. "I'm going to go and get the car. I'll meet you out front."

She nodded wearily as he left, knowing that what he had told her had probably been a lie, and looked around to make sure no one had witnessed her humiliation. As she did, she saw Xander standing by the vending machine and smiled awkwardly at him.

Xander smiled back, a genuine smile, as he collected the sodas from the machine and quickly selected a candy bar before heading back to the library.