Xander heard the distant sound of the front door opening, heard voices that he couldn't distinguish but didn't try too hard to listen to, and the ball that had been bouncing sat still in his palm. He heard the door clicking closed, and then footsteps. He didn't pay too much attention to it, not really caring right now if his parents had invited the friendly neighbourhood gang of vampires into their home and happily pointed the way to their burden-of-a-son's room for the price of a bottle of peppermint schnapps.

There was a tap on his bedroom door that he could barely hear over the music that was playing, even though the volume had been on low since his mother had come up and asked him to turn it down about an hour ago. He looked at the door thoughtfully, wondering who it could be. His mom would be yelling at him to let her in by now. His father wouldn't have bothered knocking at all, usually favouring barging in, telling him that knocking was for women and that it was his house so he'd do what he'd like.

The tap came again, low and hardly audible.

"Yeah?" he called.

He struggled to think who it could be. There was hardly a multitude of people who wanted to see him lately. Buffy - who hadn't been in his room since that incident when he had accidentally let slip about a certain dream he had once. Cordelia – like that would ever happen, unless this was some Bizarro alternate universe. And the only other person who had ever been in his room willingly was…

The door opened, and he couldn't have been more surprised to see the person standing behind it.

…Willow.

She stood there, one hand still on the door handle and one hand on the doorjamb. She wore an old pair of jeans that he had spilt blue paint on about a year or so ago when they had been painting his room. And by spilt, he meant that he had thrown it at her and a paint fight had ensued. He could still see the stain on her right thigh, even though the jeans had probably been washed about a million times since then, and she wore an old, too-big white shirt of her fathers that she usually just wore around the house.

He could feel his fist clenching around the tennis ball, squeezing it so hard it made his fingers hurt. Her face was flushed, like she had been running. Or possibly making out with someone, because he remembered that was how she looked after he'd kissed her and how it had made him feel so unbelievably…

Okay, that was probably not what he should be focusing on right now.

Her hair was pulled behind her ears, the red hue looking darker in the dim light of his room, but her eyes were wide and kind of different to what they usually were, and for some reason he was a little afraid of her.

He had a feeling this wasn't going to go well.

"Hey," she said with a strangely agitated look on her face, her hand twisting the door handle nervously.

"Hey," he said back, propping himself up on his elbows.

"Your, uh, your parents let me in on their way out," she explained.

"Yeah, their weekly 'getting drunk with Rory' thing," he nodded, reaching for the lamp at the side of the bed and flicking it on, leaving the tennis ball there, low lighting filling the darkening room and making him blink against it while his eyes got used to the change.

"They told me to just come up," she said. "Can I come in?" she asked, nervously biting down on her bottom lip, and looking like it was a very real possibility that he would maybe say no.

"Yeah, sure," he said quickly, sitting up, watching as she closed the door behind her. He had expected her to maybe sit at the desk because she was the only person who had ever sat there since his parents had bought it from a second-hand store when he had started high school, and it wasn't like it ever got used for homework. Or, if he was pushing his luck, maybe she'd sit on the bed, if she could get to it through the miles of distance he felt there was between them. Then again, after the thoughts that had been running through his head lately – a lot of them including him, her and a nice, comfy bed - it was probably a good thing that she didn't.

She walked over to the window, peeking out of the curtains a little, before she went over to the stereo, her finger tracing the smooth surface of the display, before she lifted her finger to her face to inspect the dust particles gathered there.

"Is, uh, everything okay?" he asked suspiciously.

"Yeah," she said as she walked back to the door, her finger wiping itself clean on her shirt, then back to the stereo, and he already knew what she was doing. Pacing. A time-honoured tradition among the thoughtful and frustrated. "I just feel kinda—"

"Wound up like a tightly coiled spring and you're about to pop at someone or you might explode?"

"Something like that," she told him. "How did you know?"

"Recognise the signs," he said with a shrug. "You look tired."

"That's because I am," she answered.

"I guess I don't blame you."

"You look confused," she told him.

"I always look confused," he said.

"Well…yeah," she allowed. "But…more so."

"It's just…" he said quietly, "I guess I'm—"

"Wondering why I'm here?" she finished for him.

"Well, yeah," he told her. "I mean, we haven't really—"

"What are we doing?" she asked suddenly, stopping the pacing and turning to look at him with more than a little confusion on her face and her hands on her hips.

"I don't know about you, but right now, I feel like you're about to ground me or something," he said suspiciously. "You have Mom-Face."

"I mean what's happening with us," she told him. "And, by the way, I wouldn't say something like that to someone who's kinda pissed off and in the process of developing witchcraft skills. Not really a compliment."

"You're pissed off?" he asked, confused. "At me?"

"Yes," she said. "At you."

"What did I do?" he asked, confused.

"It's more what you haven't done," she said.

"And that would be?"

"You've barely been able to look at me since all of this…stuff…happened," she told him, her hands waving around in the air. "I know you've been trying to act normal, Xander, but it's me, and I know you. I know it was tough for you with Cordelia in the hospital, and I feel bad about that, too, but the only person who knows how I'm feeling is you, and you won't talk to me."

"I have been talking to you," he argued.

"Asking me if it's 'tears of a clown' or 'grins of a sad person' doesn't really count," she informed him.

"You're the one who said you had to show Oz he was the one you wanted to be with," he told her. "I thought us keeping our distance would do that."

"I said that last night, Xander," she said sharply. "That doesn't explain the past week of non-verbalness between us. Besides," she muttered, "I don't think anything is going to do that."

"He's angry now, Will," he said. "But he'll come around. He cares about you too much."

"And what about you?" she asked, her head tilted and eyes accusing.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Willow," he said, standing up from the bed to stand near the window, concentrating his focus on the way the curtains had fallen apart so he could see just a little of the overgrown back yard because it was easier than looking at her. "Why are you acting like this?"

"Why shouldn't I act like this?" she asked.

"Because I'm about to get Giles on the phone and get him to come over here to perform an exorcism on my recently-crazy best friend."

"Best friend, huh?" she said bitterly, shaking her head. "I guess now I know how you feel about me. And, by the way, how am I acting crazy?" she said. "Because I'm standing up for myself and actually saying what's on my mind?"

"Well…yeah…" he said feebly, turning so he could look at her, not in the eye because that would be too hard, but just so she knew he was paying attention. "This isn't you, Will."

"Well, it's amazing what getting caught kissing my 'best friend' can do for you," she told him, air-quoting her words in a way that seemed to make him feel like she'd just stabbed him through the heart with a particularly blunt pair of scissors, the looks she was aiming at him twisting it over and over. "We need to talk."

"About what?" he snapped, still recoiling from her previous blow.

"Did you need a recap?" she asked him angrily. "I realise what happened between us didn't mean much to you, but I really didn't think that you would forget as quickly as this. That has to be a record, even for you."

"I didn't forget, okay?" he replied. "I just get why you want to pick this apart. I don't think there's anything to say."

"Why am I not surprised?" she said sarcastically.

"Do you want to explain to me where everything became my fault?" he asked. "Because I'm a little slow at catching on."

"You are a lot of things," she told him, her piercing green eyes seemingly accusing him of something, "But you're not as stupid as you make yourself out to be."

"You think?" he asked. "Because I have the report cards to prove otherwise."

"I do think," she said adamantly. "You can be thoughtless at times, and you can be immature, and you can say the wrong things at the wrong times…"

"But not stupid, huh?" he asked dryly, fixing her with a glare. "It's a shame. I could have had the set."

"Can you be quiet for just a minute?"

"I don't know," he said thoughtfully. "Let's try it."

"Xander, would you quit playing around?" she said suddenly, her voice sharp and stern. "This is our lives we're talking about here. What the hell happened to us?"

"Momentary lust?" he offered.

"And then…?" she asked.

"After effects?" he offered with a shrug. "Repeat performances?"

"You just can't quit with the joking, can you?"

"I think you've known me long enough to know the answer to that," he said with a bitter laugh.

"I'm trying to have a mature conversation here," she told him angrily, her tone steadily getting louder with each word she said. "I'm trying to figure out our problem in a civilised, grown-up way."

"And that involves raised voices?" he asked her.

"Apparently it does!" she told him.

"You're the only one who seems to think we have a problem here," he told her. "Doesn't that tell you anything?

"Yes, it tells me you're a moron!" she yelled. "You and I both know there's a problem with us, and there has been ever since…" she railed off, her cheeks red and a vein pulsing above her eye that made her close her lids against it before the anger seeped back into her. "I'm just trying to talk to you!" she shouted at him.

"Then will you quit with the yelling?" he shouted back. "Because I'm not deaf."

"But you are blind, right?" she accused, her finger pointing at him. "Or was the whole 'us' thing that 'want what you can't have' problem you've had since you we were kids?"

"Oh, so that's what we're discussing?" he asked, his temper rising. "I thought you wanted a conversation, Willow, not an analysis of our past."

"I think it's time we did a little analysing, don't you?"

"Why?" he asked, his arms in the air. "What good is that going to do the situation we're in now?"

"It might make me feel a little better," she spat.

"Yeah, it'll make you feel better," he said accusingly. "And to hell with what I want, right?"

"You just don't wanna do this because you know you're the bad guy."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he asked, eyes wide in disbelief.

"It means that for years you didn't want me, but as soon as Oz came on the scene, there you were, with the snide comments and jealous looks."

"Yeah, because you were so receptive to my relationship with Cordelia," he accused back. "Do the words 'ancient history' mean anything to you?"

"Well, it's kind of hard to understand you making out with someone you've claimed to hate since we were five years old," she told him. "And you know why I was so upset about that."

"Oh, so you can date Oz and move on from you thought you felt for me, but I was supposed to stay single until I realised what an oblivious idiot I'd been all those years and then I was supposed to, what, make with the wistful looks and cry myself to sleep every night because you were with someone else?"

"Yes!" she yelled at him. "That's exactly what you were supposed to do. It would have been justice."

"Well, you'll be happy to know that's exactly what I have been doing," he told her quietly, his head lowering, suddenly unable to look at her.

"Don't lie to me," she told him, shaking her head.

"You're right," he said, a dangerous smirk on his face. "That's all I ever do. Lie to you. Hurt you. I'm the worst friend ever. That's great. It was so nice of you to come all the way over here to point out all of my faults. Are we done? The door's just behind you."

"No way," she told him. "I'm just getting started on you. This is years of frustration being released, Xander. Weren't you the one who was always telling me to stand up for myself when we were kids? Looks like I'm getting the hang of it, what do you think?"

"Well, can we hurry it up a little?" he asked. "Because I think I'm gonna book myself in for a prostate exam so the fun can just keep on coming."

"You don't even care, do you?" she asked him angrily.

"About what, Willow?" he asked, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling and sounding more than a little weary. "If you're pondering my feelings on Spike and Drusilla's recent break-up, no, I don't care about that. If you're asking me if I care about what we did to Cordelia and Oz, the answer is yes. I care a lot. I didn't want to hurt them. I love Cordelia."

"No, you don't," she said matter-of-factly.

"Well…okay, no, I don't," he admitted. "But that's not the point."

"Oh, so you have one?"

"You know, you'd think I would," he said, confusing even himself. "But hey, since you seem to be the expert, you tell me what happened."

"I don't know!" she yelled at him. "That's what I'm trying to understand! We kissed, Xander. More than once. I'm not blaming you for everything that happened, because I was there, too. But I saw the way you looked at me in those few weeks. I felt like I was the most important person in the world to you. You made me feel like you wanted me. Like you had to kiss me or you'd go insane."

"That is how I feel…" he told her, but instantly catching himself with wide eyes and a panicked expression. "…T," he added quickly. "Felt."

"So, what, now that everyone knows you don't?" she asked. "You just suddenly stopped wanting me? In the blink of an eye, you don't have any feelings of that nature towards me whatsoever? You made me want you again, and then you make me feel like I imagined the whole thing. You haven't even tried to talk to me about what happened, what you're feeling."

"You haven't tried to talk to me either," he pointed out. "When we had that picnic with Buffy at the weekend in the park, when I said it was something that wouldn't happen again, you didn't argue, you agreed."

"What did you want me to do?" she asked, throwing her arms up. "Air our dirty laundry in front of our friend?"

"That night in the factory, you took one look at Oz, and I knew that you regretted everything that had happened between us. Why would I want to put myself through the torment of having you spell that out for me?"

"I care about Oz," she told him. "More than I ever thought I could. He makes me laugh, and he makes me feel special and safe, and I love that about him. He's made me stronger in the short time I've known him. He's given me confidence, he's supported me through everything, and he understands me."

"Wow, Will, he sounds like a great guy," Xander said dryly, forcing the words out through clenched teeth.

"He is," Willow agreed.

"Well, if he's such a great guy, why did you kiss me in the first place?"

"Because something was telling me to take that chance with you, because it might never happen again," she told him sadly. "Because that could have been my only chance to know what it was like to kiss you, and to have you kiss me back."

"It happened more than once," he pointed out. "It wasn't some random event that only happened one time."

"I know," she said. "But I've loved you for so long…" Her eyes widened, and she recovered quickly, even with the furious red that she knew was occupying her cheeks. "…Did," she added quickly. "I did love you for so long - as in before, and definitely not now – and I had to see what it was like."

"And?"

"I've had better," she said with a smirk. "And it wasn't like I was the only one feeling guilty about what we'd done. You called Cordy, like, a million times since then. You were at the hospital, you took her flowers, called her constantly, tried to make her jealous at the Bronze. Was I imagining all of that?"

"No," he said desperately. "Cordelia got hurt, because of us. I was trying to make that up to her, to let her know how sorry I was because of it. I'm not really sure where the jealousy part comes into it. Probably a pride thing."

"But you don't love her?" she asked sceptically.

"No," he told her. "I don't."

"Well, then, who do you love, Xander?" she demanded from him desperately. "Because I think it's time you figured it out."

"You still haven't worked it out?" he yelled suddenly, the words out before he could tell himself not to do this, regretting it even as it left his mouth. "It's you, Miss Brainiac! I love you!"

And then there was a moment of complete silence, just the two of them standing there, looking at one another with the words still hanging in the air between them.

Xander's eyes widened, his mouth still open and his face a mask of panic, looking like he had just given away a part of his soul.

Willow stared at him, speechless with surprise on her face, looking like she had gotten her biggest wish.

But only for a split second.

She quickly recovered, her eyes narrowed, and her face hardened. "Yeah, well, payback's a bitch," she said bitterly. "Now you know how you made me feel all those years."

"What?" he asked, taken aback.

"You heard," she bit out. "All those years I spent pining after you…you knew the whole time and you never said a word."

"I—"

"Don't even dare deny it," she told him with wide eyes.

He put his hands on his hips, his mouth half open and face concentrated on her. "Okay," he told her. "All those things Buffy and Jesse have said about me," he said. "About me being blind and oblivious and ignorant of you…I never was," he said. "I couldn't not know."

"You just didn't feel the same way," she said, her tone sharp.

"It wasn't like that," he told her, shaking his head.

"It was," she snapped at him. "Come on, admit it. I heard you in the library with Buffy that time when you were talking about the dance. You told her I'm not the kind of girl whose lips you think about."

"My god," he said to himself, shaking his head to himself. "If you're going to bring all of this stuff up, you better at least get it right," he told her. "That day in the library that was, like, years ago—"

"Don't be dramatic, Xander," she said condescendingly.

"Yes, because you're being so easy-going," he retorted. "And I think you'll find the direct quote was 'She's not the kind of girl whose lips I think about too much', emphasis on the 'too much' part. Meaning that I do think about your lips, but I try not to let it happen 'too much'. I know that you were hurt when I got involved with Cordelia," he told her. "But what you don't know is that I spent most of my time with her talking about you. So much in fact that she threatened to hit me upside the head if I didn't quit it. So much so that she asked me if I was sure it was her I wanted to be with.

"Oh, and while we're dragging up the past," he said, "There's that time with the love spell that went very wrong," he continued. "You know, you, me, and a very thin shirt you were wearing as you asked me to be your first. Do you even know how tempted I was? You heard what I said, 'it's not that I don't find you sexy', because I very obviously do, as the past few weeks will attest to. But no, you were my best friend and I couldn't take advantage of you while you were under a spell. And don't even get me started on when you were in the hospital…"

"What about when I was in the hospital?" she asked suspiciously.

His face paled, eyes wide in regret, "Let's try to stay on topic here!" he yelled.

"You're the one taking a detour into Random Land," she said.

"What I'm saying is," he told her, taking a deep breath to calm himself down, his breathing shallow. "What happened between us…? I regret a lot of things, but that? Not one of them."

"You had a crush," she said. "It wasn't love, Xander. I'm not even sure you know what that means. You've felt something for pretty much every other girl in the world so, statistically speaking, I guess it was my turn."

"It was more than that!" he argued.

"Please! You change your crushes more often than you change your underwear," she told him. "And I should know, I've seen your underwear."

"Hey! The last time you saw my underwear was when we were ten, and you'd pee your pants too if that clown had chased you around the circus!" he said defensively. "And Cordelia was hardly a passing phase."

"Didn't stop you from checking out every other girl, though, did it? You've barely been broken up a week and I've already seen you looking at that new girl Cordy's been hanging around with," she huffed loudly. "She's probably a demon, you know…"

"I haven't been…" he started defensively before he trailed off, looking at her thoughtfully. "You really think she's a demon?"

"If we're playing statistical probabilities…"

He shook his head, back to the matter at hand. "I told you I love you, and you're still yelling at me?"

"And what did you want me to do, Xander?" she asked of him. "Did you want me to tell you I'm still in love with you and just melt into your arms like nothing ever happened?"

"That's probably not an offer, is it?" he asked quietly.

Her narrowed eyes was his only response. "I don't," she said coldly. "Loving you was nothing but pain for me. It was heartbreak and tears and pity, and I got over that a long time ago. I had to, because it was killing me. I finally got to a place where I was happy with Oz, and you ruined it."

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said sarcastically, walking around the bed tensely with fire in his eyes. "Was I the only one there all of those times? Was I forcing you to kiss me? You know, for someone who was so happy with Perfect Werewolf Guy, you sure looked pretty comfortable grabbing me in the library. You came here tonight to yell at me, and I get that, but you didn't even consider what would happen after, did you? You said you don't blame me for what happened, but that's exactly why you're here. You're bringing up all of this stuff from the past that's been pissing you off, just because you want me to feel bad and say that it's all my fault so you can walk out of here and beg Wolf Boy to take you back guilt-free, and I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to let you make yourself into a martyr. Admit it, you still have feelings for me, and that's why this has been bugging you so much. You won't even consider what we could have because you're just afraid now that you know there's nothing to hide behind!"

"Sorry to pop your balloon of delusion," she snapped. "But I don't have feelings for you. I can't believe I ever did."

"Liar, liar, broomstick's on fire!"

"Oh, that's mature!" she said, looking at him with narrowed eyes. "I can't believe how much of my life I've wasted on you, how much sleep I've lost…" She looked at him, folding her arms across her chest. "And what if I hadn't come here tonight, Xander?" she asked him. "You'd still be laying there, listening to your country music and hiding away from everything, pretending it never happened. Would you have come over to my house and declared these supposed feelings?" She watched him lower his head, the answer obvious. "No, I didn't think so… And I'm the one who's afraid?" she said sadly, shaking her head. "We're friends, and that's all we're ever going to be. That's all I ever want to be."

"Are you kidding?" he said indignantly. "After tonight, I'm not sure I even want to be your friend anymore."

"Fine!" she yelled at him, fists clenched at her sides.

"Fine!" he shouted back, eyes wide with rage.

"Idiot!" she hollered as she turned to the door.

"Coward!" he yelled after her.

"Cheater!" she bawled as she opened the door.

"Right back at'cha!" he called back with a smug grin on his face.

"Demon-lover!" she screamed as she disappeared through the doorway.

"Rhymes with witch!" he yelled as the door slammed closed after her.

He could hear her stomping away in fury, the heavy clunking of her sneakers rhythmically hitting the floorboards and reverberating around the house, and probably the neighbours too.

"Damn it!" he said to himself, turning to kick the bed with his bare foot and wincing in pain straight after, quietly cursing as he ran his hands through his hair in sheer frustration, his face contorted in anger.

A second later, the door was thrown open again, and all he saw was a flurry of red hair.

"Screw it!" she said, throwing her arms around him and kissing him so hard that they both fell back onto the bed.

"But…" he started when she finally released his lips. "You said…"

"I lied," she told him simply.