3. Five Months

"So. You and Wes. What's the story?"

Willow smiled without turning her head to look at Xander. The Bronze was
packed, packed with wall-to-wall bodies, music pounding through them like
the tide. From her vantage point on the balcony, she could see Buffy dancing
with Anya, Molly, and Vi, the four of them shooting c'mere-big-boy looks at
a clutch of guys holding up one wall. Two of the guys had the obviously
impaired vamp fashion sense, but the three others might have been
prospective meals or innocent bystanders. Luring them out onto the dance
floor, Anya and the potential slayers would separate the live ones from the
vamps, leaving Buffy to take out the dead-- or assign them to a
Slayer-in-Training for practice. They worked as a team now, as they hadn't
before; Willow was only up in the gallery for a breather, and then she'd be
back down there again, playing bait and snare at the same time.

"No story. We're friends."

"Friends. Uhhh-hunh. Friends who had - smooooochies." Xander pulled the word
out into a wet, sloppy kissy sound, drawing closer to his friend. "Are you
sure you don't want to get more specific, Miss Rosenberg? Maybe define your
terms a little more clearly?"

"Friends covers it."

Xander shot her a disbelieving look, then leaned against the railing. "I
don't get it. I didn't get it when Cordy was macking on him, and I don't get
what you see in him now. He's a geek. A leather geek, maybe, but still a
geek. A book-loving, tea-drinking, myth-hunting freak of nature with a
stupid accent. And if you have to go back to batting for the straight team,
couldn't you at least pick a pitcher who deserves to play?" Willow tilted
her head at him, a tiny smile playing around her mouth. "And yes, I know, I
killed that metaphor with a lacrosse racket."

"I'm not playing games, Xander. *Any* games."

"If that's true, then what happened to you and Kennedy?"

"Nothing happened to me and Kennedy. Me and Kennedy is what it always was. A
nice place to visit on the Imagination Trolley, but a line without stops."
She met his stare with a larger smile, loving the way he rolled his eyes
at her. "Okay, leaving Metaphor Island... Wes and I ---"

"Aaagh. Must you *say* that?"

"Wes and I have nothing to do with why there's no Kennedy-and-me. Separate,
totally different non-things."

"Ah. Which means the kissing was-- experimental? Accidental? Social?
Political? Totally and completely non-sexual?"

She let her hair fall forward into her face a little, hunching her shoulders
like she was sixteen again. "I wouldn't go that far...."

"Ah-HA! I knew it! I knew it I knew it! The slimey Limey strikes again!"

Willow giggled and brushed her hair out of her face, letting her expression
soften as she looked at Xander. "It's... we're friends. We have things in
common. That's all I know. And... he's a really good kisser. End of story."

"If that's the end of the story, then I'm dyslexic." Xander frowned. "Wait.
No, never mind, being slow at total reading comprehension doesn't count.
You're dreaming if you think it's that simple, Will."

"Nothing's ever simple." She turned away from him to watch Buffy twirl in
the gold lights, and saw that Anya was spinning away from one of the live
guys, laughing over her shoulder at him. He took a step forward, totally
smitten, and bumped into a few other dancers, then had to apologize before
trying to follow Anya across the floor again.

"Does it hurt? To see her, like this?" Willow asked softly.

"Strangely, no." She glanced at him, watching him as he watched Anya. "I
can't explain it. But just seeing her, seeing her laugh, even if she's not
over everything we did to each other, or the way it ended, but knowing that
she's getting better... It's good. I want... I want her to be happy. I
always wanted that."

Why did it hurt her to know what Xander had lost, more than it hurt him?
Willow thought she would never understand that about loving someone. Or
about watching them lose someone else. "You're not going to leave, right?"

Xander looked away from the floor, his mouth quirking up in a half-grin.
"I'm staying. As long as someone wants me here."

"I do," she whispered. He'd kept her from falling off a cliff a second time,
and she wasn't sure enough of her grip to let go of his hand yet. Even
though she knew she had to. Someday.

His eyes suddenly turned serious, even though his mouth was still smiling.

"Hey, you. Whatcha doing up here?"

Willow kept her eyes on Xander, and didn't turn to look at Buffy. "Watching
you guys. Scoping out the floor. I think there's a few more shooting pool in
the corner, but they're not hungry, they're just playing the game."

The Slayer joined her at the railing, leaning forward to watch the dancers
writhing in patterns beneath them. Faith came back into the bar brushing
dust out of her cleavage. She greeted Vi and Molly with a wide grin of
triumph as Dawn slipped onto the dance floor with Rona, the younger girls
zeroing in on two boys their age leaning against the cappuchino bar, trying
to look cool. The taller of the two finally got up the nerve to join Dawn,
and she shot him a bright grin as they swayed to the beat.

"God, I can't believe she hasn't stopped growing yet," Buffy muttered,
shaking her head. "I had to get her new shoes again on Friday."

"The Dawnster's going to be the size of a redwood before she stops," Xander
agreed with her.

"She'll be an Amazon. And that's a good thing," Willow murmured. "You want
her to be strong."

"Yeah." Buffy stayed quiet a second, then sighed. "I wish Xander and Spike
were here. They should be able to see this, all that we won."

Willow met Xander's eyes over Buffy's shoulder. She spoke to Buffy, but
didn't look away from him. "He is. They both are." She put her hand on
Buffy's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "People who love you never actually
leave."

"Do you really believe that? After everything? Everyone that died, everyone
we didn't save...."

"I know it." She finally looked Buffy in the face, seeing the pain that
wasn't ever discussed, that she wasn't even sure her friend had a name for.
Wouldn't admit to, since she hadn't said it while Spike was alive. "It
doesn't make it stop hurting," she took a breath, forced her voice steady,
"but they're not gone forever, Buffy. You were where they are -- you know.
Just try to believe, okay?" She draped an arm around her friend, and hugged
her close. "C'mon. Let's go save that guy Anya has cornered, he's looking
nervous."

Buffy snorted, but let Willow steer her toward the stairs. "Sometimes I
think the only one who could ever handle her was Xander. And even he never
got it totally right either."

"Oh, I don't know." Willow glanced back, saw Xander lean forward to watch
Dawn and Anya again, a grin lighting his face. "Maybe he did."

~*~

Christina
kikimariposa@prodigy.net