Xander hurried into his house, bypassing his parents in the kitchen, eating their famous Chinese take-out with his sat by the microwave, and went straight to his room. He dropped his bag of dirty overalls in his bed and headed into the bathroom. He sang to himself, sometimes throwing in the odd dance move, as he started the water spray from the shower. He quickly took off his clothes, throwing them in a heap on the floor, thinking that if his mom found them lying there again she was sure to yell at him, but he reasoned to himself that he'd pick them up later. He jumped into the stream of water, a small sigh of contentment escaping him as the heat took care of the knots and strains of tension in his back and neck, and grabbed the soap, washing himself before moving onto his hair. He was busy singing to himself loudly, his head soaped up, and yelped when the water suddenly turned to freezing. He jumped out of the water and yanked the shower curtain back, only to find his father stood at the door, one hand on the handle of the toilet. Xander knew that the cold stream was the result of said toilet handle being flushed. "Dad!" he yelled. "What are you doing?"

"Get dressed," Tony Harris said sternly. "I want to talk to you."

Xander walked into his bedroom, where his father was already waiting, with a pale blue towel wrapped around his waist and his hair still slightly soapy.

"Something you wanna tell me?" Tony asked as he leant himself against the wall.

"Dad…"

"Made any trips to the bank lately?"

"How did you find out?"

"The bank called. They wanted to know if you wanted to close your account seeing as how you emptied it. Where's the money, Alexander?"

"The money's gone, dad," Xander told him.

"Well, it's going back," Tony told him, his tone rising. "Do you hear me?"

"No, it's not."

"What did you spend it on, huh?" Tony asked. "Something to impress the girls? You don't spend all that time saving your money and working at that gas station to throw it all away. You're putting it back!"

"It's not going back, because I don't have it. I spent it."

"Well, whatever you bought, you can take it back. And you are taking it back."

"I can't," Xander told him. "I don't want to."

"I don't care what you want. The money's going back in the bank, and that's final. You had no right spending that money."

"I had every right!" Xander yelled at him suddenly and angrily. "That money was mine. I worked for it."

"Are you trying to piss me off?"

"Dad, calm down. This isn't about the money. Will you just listen to me for once? Whatever the big plan you had in mind for me and that money – whatever the hell that was – is over. I earned that money for me. For me, dad." He took a breath, claming himself down. "Dad, look, I'm going out with a girl tonight, and she's beautiful and smart and all the guys at school are in love with her, and she's going out with me. See, to most people, I'm a nothing. But I wanna show this girl, and myself, that I'm just as good as everyone else."

"And you think flashing money around is the solution?"

"Didn't you ever have guys at your school that didn't fit in?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Well, I'm one of those guys."

"What? I thought things were going okay for you."

"Yeah," Xander said. "My two best friends – and might I add only – friends are girls, I spend most of my time at school, hanging out with them and the old in the library and spend my nights – well, that doesn't really matter. My point is that those things don't exactly go down well in an all-American High School like Sunnydale High."

"But how could you blow all that money?" Hank asked, exasperated. "I don't understand."

"Look, the money is irrelevant here, okay? I'll put the money back. I still have my job at the gas station. I know what I'm doing."

"Well, you'd better," Tony said eventually as he headed for the door. "Have a good night."

The turquoise and cream convertible pulled up outside of the modest-looking house a few blocks away from the Summers house on Rovello Drive, and Xander took a deep breath, hoping it would give him more confidence as he got out of the car and smoothed down his pale blue shirt and navy pants. He grabbed his jacket and the other item from the back of the car and checked his hair in the side-view mirror. He stood up straight as he opened the wooden gate at the entrance of the path and headed for the door, a bunch of red roses in his hand. Before he could knock, the door was already open, with Amanda standing in a sleek black dress with matching shoes and purse. "Oh, hey," he said, looking up at her.

"Hi," she said nervously.

"These are for you," he told her, handing over the flowers.

"Uh, thanks," she said, taken aback. "They're beautiful." She ducked back inside of the house for a moment before reappearing without the flowers. "You look different," she told him, looking him up and down, seeing he had out his jacket on.

"Then what?" he asked, his tone short and with an edge to it.

"Then before," she said.

"I'm wearing a suit," he pointed out. "So, are you ready or what?"

"Well, I'm standing in an open doorway, fully dressed, so yeah, I'd say I was about ready to go."

"Good," he told her, standing aside as she passed him.

Amanda looked ahead and saw the impressive-looking convertible and looked back at him with s stunned open mouth. "Wow, did you steal it?"

"Yep," he told her. When she looked at him, almost afraid, he jingled the keys in front of her. "I'm kidding. It's on loan from my Uncle Rory. I figured your ass was too precious to walk."

"You figured right," she told him, the same sharp tone in her voice that he seemed to have.

Xander opened the passenger door of the car for her and waited for her to get in, before getting in himself. "I hope you're ready for a fun night!" he said sarcastically.

Two crystal glasses were placed down on the table, one in front of both Xander and Amanda, as they sat in awkward silence at the dimly-lit, expensive restaurant.

Xander smiled at the waiter as the five-piece orchestra played quietly in the background. He looked down at his entrée and glanced at Amanda, who was looking confused. "Is it moving?" he asked.

"What is it?" she whispered.

"It's Beluga Caviar," he told her. "It's the most expensive thing on the menu. I thought an up-town girl like you would know that."

Amanda's face reddened as she looked around the restaurant, narrowing her eyes at him. "Look, why don't you stop giving me attitude?" she hissed through gritted teeth.

"Oh, I'm giving you attitude?" as asked, annoyed, in the same tone. "When did I give you attitude?"

"Oh, uh, let me think, right now?" she spat at him. "And the other day, pulling that crap about me asking my friends for permission to go out. I didn't appreciate that."

"Well, it's true, isn't it?"

"At least I have friends."

"Do you?" he asked. "I have all the friends I need."

She grabbed the napkin from her lap and threw it on the table, getting to her feet. "Look, if you wanna end this thing right now-"

"Hey, look, I'm sorry," he said hurriedly as she grabbed her purse from the back of her chair. "We've already ordered. I don't wanna end this. Enjoy the atmosphere, pretend I'm dead."

She grudgingly sat back down and took a sip from her soda. "I wish…" she said, breaking the tension with a small smile to indicate she was joking.

Xander watched her. "You know, you have a great smile," he told her sincerely.

"Thank you," she said, trying not to smile. "Whenever I try not to smile, I end up smiling more."

Xander laughed, slightly grazing her hand on the table with his. "You should smile more often."

"Tell me again why what I'm doing here," Willow complained as she, Buffy and Angel walked into the Sunnydale Movie Theatre.

"Because, I need you here to keep me company," Buffy told her, hooking her arm in Willow's. "Okay," she said to Angel, "which screen is it?"

"Willy said his contact worked in screen three," Angel told them, making his way to the door straight ahead. "Here it is," he said, holding the door open for the girls.

"Wow," Buffy said as they walked into the screening room that was reserved for only the most special of occasions. The ceiling stood high above them, cream in colour, with intricate red roses detailed throughout that ran down the walls, accentuated by the lighting. Each chair was covered in red velvet, each row standing slightly higher than the one in front. "This is nice!" she said, impressed.

"Yeah," Willow said, trying to sound more positive than she felt. "It is…"

They followed Angel up the few stairs at the back of the theatre to reach the projection room, where a horned, green demon looked startled to see them.

"Willy said you'd be expecting us," Angel told him, barging into the room without waiting for an invitation.

"Oh…yeah…" the demon said nervously, backing away from the vampire. "You must be Angel. Willy, uh, told me what you needed. I didn't know you were actually coming down in person, though. He said I should just wait for this couple to come in."

"Yeah, well, Willy and his associates aren't that well known for keeping their end of deals," Angel told him. "We're just here to make sure everything goes to plan."

"They're here," Buffy said suddenly, dodging behind the wall she couldn't be seen.

"Wow!" Amanda said as she followed Xander down the aisle to a row of seats in the middle of the theatre. "This is pretty…wow!" she looked at him, full of admiration. "How did you swing this?"

"I have friends," he told her simply as he indicated to two seats, sitting on one, waiting until she sat next to him. He gave a signal to the projectionist whom he couldn't see, and the curtains pulled back and the beginning credits of 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' rolled onto screen as the lights went out.

Amanda looked at Xander with wide eyes and an open mouth. "This is my all-time favourite movie!" she exclaimed.

"I know," he whispered.

"How did you-"

"I told you, I have friends. The particular friend in question was able to gain access to all your academic files with just a click of a button – well, maybe not just a click, but you know what I mean."

"Yeah," she said, looking at him with new, impressed eyes. "I think I do."

Buffy watched Willow out of the corner of her eye, seeing it was taking all that the redhead was worth to keep herself from running at the sight of the couple seated in the theatre, and touched her arm reassuringly. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly.

Willow nodded.

"Are you sure?"

Willow shook her head. "I'm really trying to be okay with this, for Xander's sake, but I just can't." Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears and she edged closer to Buffy, not wanting Angel to hear.

"I'm sorry," Buffy told her, "for making you come here."

"Don't be," Willow told her. "I needed to see this." She watched Xander and Amanda down in the theatre. "You know, I don't think Amanda had anything to do with this Mitch thing. I mean, she looks like she's having a really good time."

"She does," Buffy observed.

"I have to stop putting myself through this, Buffy," Willow said with a sigh. "There are plenty of other guys out there. Maybe it'll take me a while to find someone who might actually contemplate liking me, but it's what I have to do. I have to accept that this love that I have for Xander is never going to be reciprocated, not the way I want it to be. I was kidding myself to think he'd ever want me."

"Hey, don't say stuff like that," Buffy told her sternly. "You are great."

"I know," Willow said, managing a genuine smile. "But it was just never meant to be, I guess. Seeing him here tonight, it's opened my eyes to that. It's time for me to move on."

Amanda dabbed her eyes with a tissue as the end credits of the movie rolled onto the screen and the dim lights came back up. And she looked at Xander. "God, I love that movie," she told him. "I mean, Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard…what a couple."

"Yeah, she was pretty much a hottie," Xander commented. He caught her glare and shrugged. "What do you want me to say, what a great actress she was? I'm a guy. A seventeen year old guy, in point of fact."

"Have you ever sent the movie before?"

"Yeah, once," he told her. "A couple of years ago at Willow's house."

"You two are pretty good friends, aren't you?"

"The best," Xander said proudly. "She's been a part of my life since before I can remember."

"Can I ask you something?" Amanda asked nervously. "What do you see in me?"

"What do you see in me?" he asked back. "You first."

"Well, you're nice and sweet and funny," she said with a smile. "But I don't think anyone looks at me and sees past my looks. I always went along with that because I'd rather be next to someone for the wrong reasons, then be alone for the right ones."

"I'd rather be right," Xander told her. "Nobody can stand being alone. The minute you stop thinking that there's someone out there for you its over, isn't it?"

"I don't know…"

"Here's what I don't get, though," he told her. "I don't understand why you did this."

"Did what?" she asked, confused.

"Stop pretending, okay? I know that this whole thing is a set-up. You're using me to get back at Mitch Holden."

"You think I'm using you?"

"Aren't you?"

"I don't know," she said honestly. "In a way-"

"'In a way'?" he asked. "Amanda, there's only one way you use someone. You either do or you don't."

"You hypocrite." She spat at him. "You're not using me?" she asked. "You're using me to pay back every guy with more money, more power than you. You can paint it any way you like, it's still you using me."

"You're right," he said shamefully. "I did you use you, and I'm sorry."

She nudged his arm with her shoulder and smiled. "Can we call it even?"

"We're even," he told her. He smiled as he took her hand in his, carefully placing the small, navy, velvet box in her palm and closing her fingers around it. "This is for you." He told her.

"What is this?"

"My future," he told her. "In this box is every cent I've earned, plus some I had before that, all for you."

She opened the box and saw the beautiful locket glinting in the pale light of the theatre, and her eyes filled with tears. "I can't take this," she told him, handing the box back.

"Why not?" he asked. "I know you like stuff like this. I saw the one you were wearing earlier in the week."

"But you don't even know me," she argued. "This doesn't make any sense."

"You shouldn't have to borrow from other people. You're too good for that." He watched as she put her head down and a tear rolled down her cheek. "Why are you crying?"

"Because I'm a terrible person," she told him. "All my life, I've been surrounded by people who have more than me, and over the years, I became one of them. My parents scraped by for years so I could have the best possible education at Kent Preparatory. Then Mitch comes along, filling my head with all these empty promises, and I turned my back on my family because I didn't want to be rejected. I'm ashamed of myself."

"Don't be," Xander told her gently. "You know now what's important. You can live your whole life on regrets and maybes, but it doesn't change anything. If you do the right thing now, that's great, but you can't punish yourself for the past. That's gone. You can't change it."

"You're right," she told him, coming to a realisation. She turned and looked him in the eyes. "You're a great guy, Xander Harris."

"Well, I try," he said with an embarrassed shrug.

She placed a hand on his face and leaned in, meeting his lips with hers.

Willow watched the scene below and felt tears roll down her cheeks.

Buffy tapped her on the shoulder. "We have to go," she said gently.

"I know," Willow said. "I was just saying goodbye."