1 Warrior of the Heart
2
3 Author: JimboS
Disclaimer: I own nothing at all.
Summary: Xander finally finds out that he is good at something. Takes Place after season one after that anything goes.
E-mail: RaistlinM1@aol.com
Feedback: Hey why not. In fact let me change that to "please, please, please I beg you please." Even if you don't like it please tell me why I need to know if I'm going to try and fix it. Grade me. Evaluate me. Just tell me anything as long as it's honest. I can take it really you can even e-mail me if it make you more comfortable.
Author's note 1: This is a shorter chapter than I normally put out, but I got into a flow and I was pretty proud of it. Of course half way through my flow I accidentally deleted part of it. I think I did a pretty good job of rewriting it, but I can tell that somethings got lost in the rewrite.
Author's note 2: I had to skip quite a bit of time from one chapter to another because I wanted to get more plot involved and because writing a chapter for every episode is too much for me. I hope you like it.
4 Enjoy!
5 Chapter 8
6
7 The Journal of Xander Harris
What makes humanity so special? Is it because we all are human? I guess that makes sense; human beings have the need to feel special, so we tell ourselves that we are the chosen ones of a greater power and proclaim ourselves lord and master over all that we survey. I don't believe a word of it. I find it hard to believe that the human race is special strictly based on the recommendation of humanity itself.
What really puts man above anything else living upon the planet? I think humanity's real strength lies in its ability to risk death to achieve its goals and, in man's sheer stubbornness in the face of adversity.
How does that place man above anything else? A mother bear will defend her cub against any predator regardless of size or numbers; how is that any different than what a human being will do? It is really quite simple in that a human being understands his own mortality and can look into the future, so a man knows what is at stake at all times. A soldier going into battle knows that a stray bullet could claim his life at any moment leaving his daughter without her father to walk her down the aisle, and he still marches into battle with that knowledge. If you wanted to be poetic I guess you could say that a man's fragility is what gives him his strength.
What if it's true? What about the superheroes that children look up to as they read their comic books and watch television? Is Superman with all of his strength and power really a super-man? I don't think so. When you give up your human frailties you give up a portion of your humanity as well.
So what does that make me? Do my abilities make me sub-human or do they make me super-human? I face the night just like any normal man knowing that I'm gambling with my life just waiting for the house to finally win the big hand. But I also face the creatures of the night with more power than a normal person my odds are not as overwhelming. Yet if feeling fear and emotions and facing them is the true source of power maybe I really am super human.
I guess I think about this because I always ask myself the same question when I look at myself in the mirror, "Do I still have my humanity?" I don't know why the question bothers me, but I still lie awake at night wondering what I have become. Am I a hero or a monster? Has my humanity been sacrificed on an altar of power?
Sometimes I get scared that I will lose everything in my quest to have it all. Can I really live two lives without destroying both of them? Will I lose my friends when they learn that I've lied or will I lose my life when I'm not quick enough or not smart enough?
It is when all of the questions surround me washing over me like a tsunami that I remember why I made the choice. I remember the faces of the people that I save, and I watch the lives of my friends as they pass through time. I watch these people receive the gift of life and I ask myself the one question that calms my heart and comforts my soul, "Does it really matter?"
Xander Harris
* * *
It has been close to three months since the encounter with the anointed one and it is once again a sunny day in the dale as Xander Harris walks toward Sunnydale High School to begin another day inside the confines of the California educational system. The thin cloud cover speckles the young man's path with shadows offering a brief respite from the heat of the sun.
Xander does not notice the changes in scenery as he passes from shadow to shadow on his way to school. Instead his head is firmly pointed downward shutting out the world as he looks at his life and wonders at the events that have turned his already askew life all the way upside down.
First a new master vampire named Spiked rolled onto the scene filling the power vacuum left behind by the death of the anointed one. At first everyone thought that the vampire would not be much more of a threat compare to the Master himself, but in reality Spike has increased the amount of vampire activity drawing in strong non-fledglings from across California making the young man's patrols more dangerous.
Secondly after a strange Halloween night in which everyone became the thing they dressed up as Xander, who dressed up as a soldier in the United States military, received a large mental archive of military knowledge including weaponry and tactics. It took some meditation, but Xander was finally able to bring the vast amount of knowledge out from his subconscious allowing him to draw from it on patrol.
And if having an entire lifetime of memories suddenly dumped into his brain was not enough to deal with on top of school, training, and patrol his life became more convoluted than ever as his best friend in the world is now being pursued by a senior musician named Oz. Which would have been fine if Willow would only accept and be happy, but she has only seemed mildly interested as she still holds on to her crush for him. On top of that Cordelia Chase, who is the charter member of the 'Xander Harris is a loser club', has joined the gang making his life less than pleasant.
With the last problem taking center stage in Xander's mind the young man decides that Buffy's birthday party tomorrow is the perfect excuse for Xander to get Willow to go out with Oz. The young man suddenly stops dead in his tracks as he enters a larger than normal shadow and looks up to find the clean edifice of knowledge also known as Sunnydale High blocking the warming rays of sunshine and realizes that he has no idea how he is going to tell his best friend that it is okay to move on.
As luck would have it Xander spots Buffy making her way toward the library, and she does not look entirely calm. Xander quick times it after Buffy hoping to catch up with her before she reaches the library and he loses his chance to talk with her until she finishes her slayer watcher time.
"Hey Buff," says Xander as he falls into step beside her, "do you got a minute or are you we having apocalypse time?"
Buffy smiles half-heartedly before she responds, "No, no end of the world right now, just a little wigged about a strange dream I had."
Xander nods his head seriously, but his smile remains firmly in place, "are we talking walking into class in your underwear strange? Or prophetic something big is about to happen strange?"
Buffy lets out a frustrated sigh, "I don't know; I mean there was plenty of underwear type strangeness, but some of it felt so real, and Drusilla was in it alive and staking, well sort of alive."
"Well I think you should get along with the watcher time," Xander says making a shooing motion with his hands.
Buffy smiles her thanks and heads off toward the library leaving Xander behind alone once again with his thoughts. Okay Xander think hard on this. Willow is probably around here I could go and talk to her right now and get this over with. In fact I should do it right now. Okay I'm doing it now. Why aren't my feet moving?
Xander just stood there not moving until he felt a hand touch his shoulder and a familiar voice say, "hey Xand, what." Willow never got to finish her thought because with the sudden contact from the object of his thoughts the young man leapt into the air spinning around to face his friends with a wild look in his eyes speaking of his need for flight instead of fight.
"Xander what's wrong," asks the red head concerned by her friend's behavior.
"Wrong," croaks Xander still disoriented at seeing his friend. "Nothing's wrong Wills. You just gave me a mild heart attack, and for future reference sneaking up on people isn't such a good idea when you live on a hellmouth."
"Oh, yeah, sorry I sort of forgot," responded the red head, who had the decency to not smile too big at her friend's reaction. "You just looked like you were thinking really hard and I was wondering what you were thinking about."
Xander couldn't help thinking to himself, Okay Xandman that was probably the best lead in you are going to get, so I think now would be an opportune time to tell the truth.
"Oh, I was thinking about Buffy's surprise party. I was wondering if you were taking a date," says Xander hoping that Willow does not get the wrong idea about the question.
But luck is not with Xander at the moment, as Willow's eyes grow wide in anticipation and she can only shake her head in response. Oh great Xander, you had to say the wrong thing. Xander tries to correct his mistake, but he can not come up with the right words, and he begins to feel like a fool causing him to realize where he is. Suddenly the quiet halls of Sunnydale High are too open and public for Xander's taste and he can feel the eyes of a thousand students fixed on to the back of his neck.
Xander takes a look around and checks his watch. "Willow we have some time before classes start do you want to get out of the hall," asks the young man pointedly, "because I think the rest of this talk may require some place more private."
Willow looks around as well trying to find a suitable place while trying to figure out why Xander is acting so strange. After a quick look around Willow's eyes fall upon a darkened classroom, "sure I think that Mrs. White's classroom is open until second period. We can go in there."
Xander pulls his friend into the darkened room flipping on the light switch causing the florescent bulbs to begin their soft hum as they bath the room in their artificial white light. Xander closes the door and leads his friend over to the teacher's desk where he takes a seat upon the polished wooden surface letting out a sigh of relief feeling alone and secluded once again away from the imagined prying eyes.
Xander's feeling of security is short lived when he feels Willow sit down next to him and grab his left hand in the two of hers. The gesture, which was meant to comfort her distraught friend only serves to shatter his calm once again, as Xander finds that not only is he not alone but also reminds him as to why he sought privacy in the first place.
"Xander what's wrong," asks Willow, whose head plunges downward, as she is suddenly unsure of the topic of discussion. "What do you need to tell me? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Of course you dragged me into a deserted room away from everyone else, so I'm guessing that it isn't entirely good, but I'm not sure if you did that to save yourself from embarrassment or me, which means that somebody is going to get embarrassed."
Willow's rambles are well known to her friends. The young girl achieves a state of consciousness in which her words pass through her mouth in a direct flow in which all other thoughts given to the coherence or order of the words. Normally it is brought upon by great stress and is almost impossible to stop when in mid-flow, but when Willow pauses to breathe she looks up and is stunned into silence.
Xander has a knowing smile spread across his face as he enjoys the familiar ramblings of his best friend, but it is his eyes not his mouth that cause the red head's speechlessness. It is said that the eyes are windows to the soul and Xander's eyes no exception as the chocolate orbs are near bursting trying hold all of the conflicting emotion held within.
His eyes seem to twinkle with an inner light as the babble reminds the young man of all of the times he had heard the sounds that are decidedly Willow. Every time the young girl lectured him when he did something stupid, every time he listened to her try and lie to him only to be exposed by the uncontainable flow of words that poured forth, and every time he watched her confront something that she was scared of.
All of this filled Xander with an all-encompassing joy that could only deepen the sadness as he sees how wonderful of a person the young girl before him really is and how badly he is going to hurt her when he tells her to be wonderful for someone else. Xander can make no predictions about them still being friends deep down he knows that he will probably never be s close to his friend any more, but he can not go one slowly breaking her heart just so that he can keep his friend.
The combination of emotions is truly disarming as the unshed tears pooling before his eyes distorts the light of happiness that dances across the cold hardness achieved from the knowledge that the young man is finally going to face the inevitable. Willow is still speechless, but her eyes scream for the answer to what has made the person before her look so different than the boy she has known and yet look more real than she can ever recall.
Willow's body language begs for the answer, but a small voice inside of her head call for her to run, to run as far away as possible and pretend that none of this has happened. The voice tells her that this will not end well, but neither Xander nor she can run away, she is trapped until the end, the bomb has been armed, and the explosion is inevitable. There are no wires to cut and no codes to enter there is no escape, and the two can do nothing but wait and hope that they both survive.
"I guess I should start by apologizing for being an idiot," says Xander who abandons his perch on the desk to pace before the red head. "Wait I guess I should start by saying that I know that you have liked me for a while now. And now I can apologize to you for being too stupid to see it sooner and for being too scared to tell you sooner. I was too scared that if I told you, you would never want to see me again and I would lose the best thing that ever happened to me. But I can't be who you need me to be. I can't be the type of person you deserve. That's why I think that you should give Oz a chance. I think that he can be who you need him to be."
Xander finally finishes and takes in a steadying breath. He is too afraid to look at his friend afraid to see the hurt he has caused in her eyes, but he can not stop himself from looking. After a few more beats of his heart to make sure that it had not stopped he finally is able to look at his friend.
Through out the speech Willow had not taken her eyes off of the young man as her heart began to split in two, but it wasn't until she saw the look in the young man's eyes that her heart truly broke in half. When Xander turned around the look of defeat in his eyes and the slump of his shoulder was just too much for Willow to bear.
Xander almost flinched when he saw his friend's eyes begin to water, but his surprise was complete when Willow flung herself toward him and wrapped her arms around him tightly burying her face into his chest. The soft cotton shirt rubbed against her cheek drying her eyes and offering a quiet comfort, and Willow realized in that moment that she had long since gotten over her crush she just never realized it. The idea of having someone to love and someone to be with was just too alluring to let go, so she held on to her infatuation because having a prospective love was better than having no love at all.
"This isn't how I expected you to react at all," Xander says with a small chuckle still not sure what just happened. "I sort of anticipated the crying, but the rest of this is completely foreign to me. Not that I'm complaining, but shouldn't you be scratching my eyes out or throwing darts at a picture of me in effigy?"
Willow could not help laughing letting the cotton shirt absorb the joy along with her sadness until the laughter overpowered the tears. Willow is finally able to let go of her crush leaving her soul lighter and her love for her friend even stronger. Willow pulls away from the embrace keeping her hands on Xander's arms and looks into his eyes seeing a mix of amusement and confusion.
"I want you to know that I still love you," Willow hurries onward seeing the fear cross her friend's face. "In fact I think I may love you even more now, but I don't think I've been in love with you for a while. I want you to know that I will always be your friend no matter what happens, and that you don't have to become someone else to earn someone's love you are the greatest guy I know just the way you are."
The look of fear that crossed Xander's is replaced entirely by happiness, and once again Willow is struck by the genuineness of her friend's face. She begins to wonder what Xander has been hiding behind his many masks, but her thoughts are interrupted by Xander, who pulls her into a fierce hug letting his happiness flow from him not caring about control only caring about feeling as his joy surrounds the two like a cocoon.
The first bell rings signaling the beginning of classes, but the moment will not be broken, as neither one moves to leave and go to class. The moment is too sweet to let go. The world can begin again later with its prophecies and parties; right now the only thing that matters is the moment, their friendship, and their happiness.
End of Chapter 8
2
3 Author: JimboS
Disclaimer: I own nothing at all.
Summary: Xander finally finds out that he is good at something. Takes Place after season one after that anything goes.
E-mail: RaistlinM1@aol.com
Feedback: Hey why not. In fact let me change that to "please, please, please I beg you please." Even if you don't like it please tell me why I need to know if I'm going to try and fix it. Grade me. Evaluate me. Just tell me anything as long as it's honest. I can take it really you can even e-mail me if it make you more comfortable.
Author's note 1: This is a shorter chapter than I normally put out, but I got into a flow and I was pretty proud of it. Of course half way through my flow I accidentally deleted part of it. I think I did a pretty good job of rewriting it, but I can tell that somethings got lost in the rewrite.
Author's note 2: I had to skip quite a bit of time from one chapter to another because I wanted to get more plot involved and because writing a chapter for every episode is too much for me. I hope you like it.
4 Enjoy!
5 Chapter 8
6
7 The Journal of Xander Harris
What makes humanity so special? Is it because we all are human? I guess that makes sense; human beings have the need to feel special, so we tell ourselves that we are the chosen ones of a greater power and proclaim ourselves lord and master over all that we survey. I don't believe a word of it. I find it hard to believe that the human race is special strictly based on the recommendation of humanity itself.
What really puts man above anything else living upon the planet? I think humanity's real strength lies in its ability to risk death to achieve its goals and, in man's sheer stubbornness in the face of adversity.
How does that place man above anything else? A mother bear will defend her cub against any predator regardless of size or numbers; how is that any different than what a human being will do? It is really quite simple in that a human being understands his own mortality and can look into the future, so a man knows what is at stake at all times. A soldier going into battle knows that a stray bullet could claim his life at any moment leaving his daughter without her father to walk her down the aisle, and he still marches into battle with that knowledge. If you wanted to be poetic I guess you could say that a man's fragility is what gives him his strength.
What if it's true? What about the superheroes that children look up to as they read their comic books and watch television? Is Superman with all of his strength and power really a super-man? I don't think so. When you give up your human frailties you give up a portion of your humanity as well.
So what does that make me? Do my abilities make me sub-human or do they make me super-human? I face the night just like any normal man knowing that I'm gambling with my life just waiting for the house to finally win the big hand. But I also face the creatures of the night with more power than a normal person my odds are not as overwhelming. Yet if feeling fear and emotions and facing them is the true source of power maybe I really am super human.
I guess I think about this because I always ask myself the same question when I look at myself in the mirror, "Do I still have my humanity?" I don't know why the question bothers me, but I still lie awake at night wondering what I have become. Am I a hero or a monster? Has my humanity been sacrificed on an altar of power?
Sometimes I get scared that I will lose everything in my quest to have it all. Can I really live two lives without destroying both of them? Will I lose my friends when they learn that I've lied or will I lose my life when I'm not quick enough or not smart enough?
It is when all of the questions surround me washing over me like a tsunami that I remember why I made the choice. I remember the faces of the people that I save, and I watch the lives of my friends as they pass through time. I watch these people receive the gift of life and I ask myself the one question that calms my heart and comforts my soul, "Does it really matter?"
Xander Harris
* * *
It has been close to three months since the encounter with the anointed one and it is once again a sunny day in the dale as Xander Harris walks toward Sunnydale High School to begin another day inside the confines of the California educational system. The thin cloud cover speckles the young man's path with shadows offering a brief respite from the heat of the sun.
Xander does not notice the changes in scenery as he passes from shadow to shadow on his way to school. Instead his head is firmly pointed downward shutting out the world as he looks at his life and wonders at the events that have turned his already askew life all the way upside down.
First a new master vampire named Spiked rolled onto the scene filling the power vacuum left behind by the death of the anointed one. At first everyone thought that the vampire would not be much more of a threat compare to the Master himself, but in reality Spike has increased the amount of vampire activity drawing in strong non-fledglings from across California making the young man's patrols more dangerous.
Secondly after a strange Halloween night in which everyone became the thing they dressed up as Xander, who dressed up as a soldier in the United States military, received a large mental archive of military knowledge including weaponry and tactics. It took some meditation, but Xander was finally able to bring the vast amount of knowledge out from his subconscious allowing him to draw from it on patrol.
And if having an entire lifetime of memories suddenly dumped into his brain was not enough to deal with on top of school, training, and patrol his life became more convoluted than ever as his best friend in the world is now being pursued by a senior musician named Oz. Which would have been fine if Willow would only accept and be happy, but she has only seemed mildly interested as she still holds on to her crush for him. On top of that Cordelia Chase, who is the charter member of the 'Xander Harris is a loser club', has joined the gang making his life less than pleasant.
With the last problem taking center stage in Xander's mind the young man decides that Buffy's birthday party tomorrow is the perfect excuse for Xander to get Willow to go out with Oz. The young man suddenly stops dead in his tracks as he enters a larger than normal shadow and looks up to find the clean edifice of knowledge also known as Sunnydale High blocking the warming rays of sunshine and realizes that he has no idea how he is going to tell his best friend that it is okay to move on.
As luck would have it Xander spots Buffy making her way toward the library, and she does not look entirely calm. Xander quick times it after Buffy hoping to catch up with her before she reaches the library and he loses his chance to talk with her until she finishes her slayer watcher time.
"Hey Buff," says Xander as he falls into step beside her, "do you got a minute or are you we having apocalypse time?"
Buffy smiles half-heartedly before she responds, "No, no end of the world right now, just a little wigged about a strange dream I had."
Xander nods his head seriously, but his smile remains firmly in place, "are we talking walking into class in your underwear strange? Or prophetic something big is about to happen strange?"
Buffy lets out a frustrated sigh, "I don't know; I mean there was plenty of underwear type strangeness, but some of it felt so real, and Drusilla was in it alive and staking, well sort of alive."
"Well I think you should get along with the watcher time," Xander says making a shooing motion with his hands.
Buffy smiles her thanks and heads off toward the library leaving Xander behind alone once again with his thoughts. Okay Xander think hard on this. Willow is probably around here I could go and talk to her right now and get this over with. In fact I should do it right now. Okay I'm doing it now. Why aren't my feet moving?
Xander just stood there not moving until he felt a hand touch his shoulder and a familiar voice say, "hey Xand, what." Willow never got to finish her thought because with the sudden contact from the object of his thoughts the young man leapt into the air spinning around to face his friends with a wild look in his eyes speaking of his need for flight instead of fight.
"Xander what's wrong," asks the red head concerned by her friend's behavior.
"Wrong," croaks Xander still disoriented at seeing his friend. "Nothing's wrong Wills. You just gave me a mild heart attack, and for future reference sneaking up on people isn't such a good idea when you live on a hellmouth."
"Oh, yeah, sorry I sort of forgot," responded the red head, who had the decency to not smile too big at her friend's reaction. "You just looked like you were thinking really hard and I was wondering what you were thinking about."
Xander couldn't help thinking to himself, Okay Xandman that was probably the best lead in you are going to get, so I think now would be an opportune time to tell the truth.
"Oh, I was thinking about Buffy's surprise party. I was wondering if you were taking a date," says Xander hoping that Willow does not get the wrong idea about the question.
But luck is not with Xander at the moment, as Willow's eyes grow wide in anticipation and she can only shake her head in response. Oh great Xander, you had to say the wrong thing. Xander tries to correct his mistake, but he can not come up with the right words, and he begins to feel like a fool causing him to realize where he is. Suddenly the quiet halls of Sunnydale High are too open and public for Xander's taste and he can feel the eyes of a thousand students fixed on to the back of his neck.
Xander takes a look around and checks his watch. "Willow we have some time before classes start do you want to get out of the hall," asks the young man pointedly, "because I think the rest of this talk may require some place more private."
Willow looks around as well trying to find a suitable place while trying to figure out why Xander is acting so strange. After a quick look around Willow's eyes fall upon a darkened classroom, "sure I think that Mrs. White's classroom is open until second period. We can go in there."
Xander pulls his friend into the darkened room flipping on the light switch causing the florescent bulbs to begin their soft hum as they bath the room in their artificial white light. Xander closes the door and leads his friend over to the teacher's desk where he takes a seat upon the polished wooden surface letting out a sigh of relief feeling alone and secluded once again away from the imagined prying eyes.
Xander's feeling of security is short lived when he feels Willow sit down next to him and grab his left hand in the two of hers. The gesture, which was meant to comfort her distraught friend only serves to shatter his calm once again, as Xander finds that not only is he not alone but also reminds him as to why he sought privacy in the first place.
"Xander what's wrong," asks Willow, whose head plunges downward, as she is suddenly unsure of the topic of discussion. "What do you need to tell me? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Of course you dragged me into a deserted room away from everyone else, so I'm guessing that it isn't entirely good, but I'm not sure if you did that to save yourself from embarrassment or me, which means that somebody is going to get embarrassed."
Willow's rambles are well known to her friends. The young girl achieves a state of consciousness in which her words pass through her mouth in a direct flow in which all other thoughts given to the coherence or order of the words. Normally it is brought upon by great stress and is almost impossible to stop when in mid-flow, but when Willow pauses to breathe she looks up and is stunned into silence.
Xander has a knowing smile spread across his face as he enjoys the familiar ramblings of his best friend, but it is his eyes not his mouth that cause the red head's speechlessness. It is said that the eyes are windows to the soul and Xander's eyes no exception as the chocolate orbs are near bursting trying hold all of the conflicting emotion held within.
His eyes seem to twinkle with an inner light as the babble reminds the young man of all of the times he had heard the sounds that are decidedly Willow. Every time the young girl lectured him when he did something stupid, every time he listened to her try and lie to him only to be exposed by the uncontainable flow of words that poured forth, and every time he watched her confront something that she was scared of.
All of this filled Xander with an all-encompassing joy that could only deepen the sadness as he sees how wonderful of a person the young girl before him really is and how badly he is going to hurt her when he tells her to be wonderful for someone else. Xander can make no predictions about them still being friends deep down he knows that he will probably never be s close to his friend any more, but he can not go one slowly breaking her heart just so that he can keep his friend.
The combination of emotions is truly disarming as the unshed tears pooling before his eyes distorts the light of happiness that dances across the cold hardness achieved from the knowledge that the young man is finally going to face the inevitable. Willow is still speechless, but her eyes scream for the answer to what has made the person before her look so different than the boy she has known and yet look more real than she can ever recall.
Willow's body language begs for the answer, but a small voice inside of her head call for her to run, to run as far away as possible and pretend that none of this has happened. The voice tells her that this will not end well, but neither Xander nor she can run away, she is trapped until the end, the bomb has been armed, and the explosion is inevitable. There are no wires to cut and no codes to enter there is no escape, and the two can do nothing but wait and hope that they both survive.
"I guess I should start by apologizing for being an idiot," says Xander who abandons his perch on the desk to pace before the red head. "Wait I guess I should start by saying that I know that you have liked me for a while now. And now I can apologize to you for being too stupid to see it sooner and for being too scared to tell you sooner. I was too scared that if I told you, you would never want to see me again and I would lose the best thing that ever happened to me. But I can't be who you need me to be. I can't be the type of person you deserve. That's why I think that you should give Oz a chance. I think that he can be who you need him to be."
Xander finally finishes and takes in a steadying breath. He is too afraid to look at his friend afraid to see the hurt he has caused in her eyes, but he can not stop himself from looking. After a few more beats of his heart to make sure that it had not stopped he finally is able to look at his friend.
Through out the speech Willow had not taken her eyes off of the young man as her heart began to split in two, but it wasn't until she saw the look in the young man's eyes that her heart truly broke in half. When Xander turned around the look of defeat in his eyes and the slump of his shoulder was just too much for Willow to bear.
Xander almost flinched when he saw his friend's eyes begin to water, but his surprise was complete when Willow flung herself toward him and wrapped her arms around him tightly burying her face into his chest. The soft cotton shirt rubbed against her cheek drying her eyes and offering a quiet comfort, and Willow realized in that moment that she had long since gotten over her crush she just never realized it. The idea of having someone to love and someone to be with was just too alluring to let go, so she held on to her infatuation because having a prospective love was better than having no love at all.
"This isn't how I expected you to react at all," Xander says with a small chuckle still not sure what just happened. "I sort of anticipated the crying, but the rest of this is completely foreign to me. Not that I'm complaining, but shouldn't you be scratching my eyes out or throwing darts at a picture of me in effigy?"
Willow could not help laughing letting the cotton shirt absorb the joy along with her sadness until the laughter overpowered the tears. Willow is finally able to let go of her crush leaving her soul lighter and her love for her friend even stronger. Willow pulls away from the embrace keeping her hands on Xander's arms and looks into his eyes seeing a mix of amusement and confusion.
"I want you to know that I still love you," Willow hurries onward seeing the fear cross her friend's face. "In fact I think I may love you even more now, but I don't think I've been in love with you for a while. I want you to know that I will always be your friend no matter what happens, and that you don't have to become someone else to earn someone's love you are the greatest guy I know just the way you are."
The look of fear that crossed Xander's is replaced entirely by happiness, and once again Willow is struck by the genuineness of her friend's face. She begins to wonder what Xander has been hiding behind his many masks, but her thoughts are interrupted by Xander, who pulls her into a fierce hug letting his happiness flow from him not caring about control only caring about feeling as his joy surrounds the two like a cocoon.
The first bell rings signaling the beginning of classes, but the moment will not be broken, as neither one moves to leave and go to class. The moment is too sweet to let go. The world can begin again later with its prophecies and parties; right now the only thing that matters is the moment, their friendship, and their happiness.
End of Chapter 8