Chapter 9: Have a Little Faith

In a bedroom that's dangerously close to looking like Xander's old basement, Willow lays on her lifelong friend's futon with an almost empty bag of Doritos and a deeply troubled look on her face. Xander sits with his legs crossed in a chair across from her, tapping his chin and humoring the idea that they're in a therapy session.

"What brings you in today?" he asks.

"So I have this friend …" Willow begins. "A-And this friend is starting to look at this one girl - a co-worker - differently. Like, in a way that might be a teensy weensy inappropriate."

"... Are you the friend, Will?" Xander questions with a furrowed brow, though he already knows the answer.

"No ..." She looks at her friend, who gives her an 'are you sure about that?" face. "Fine, yes. It's me. So I'm looking at this girl differently, like romantically or sexually or whatever … and she noticed I felt this way and said we should … you know … do it."

Trying to hold his composure, Xander nods slowly and keeps his eyes on her. "Go on."

"I mean, I always thought this girl was attractive in a 'I have eyes' kind of way. But now things are suddenly different between us," Willow whines while looking up at the ceiling.

"Mhm. And how does that make you feel?"

"Well, lately I just feel like ... like I want to ravage her," Willow confesses, covering her face sheepishly with Dorito-dusted hands.

"Wow, that's straight up locker-room talk, Will," Xander says with animated eyes as he abandons his role as a therapist and reverts back to his old self. "Who's the girl?" He asks, hungry for the answer.

"I'm not saying," Willow says sternly.

"Is it the Slayer with the double-braids and the septum piercing? What's her name … Tasha?"

"No."

"So, she's still available then?"

"Yes, Xander," Willow replies with squinted eyes.

"Noted. Oh, oh! Is it the girl who complimented your earlobe that one time?"

Willow relives the strange interaction in her head as she digs through the bag for another handful of chips.

"No, she transferred to the Chicago Headquarters."

"Dodged a bullet there," Xander grins and racks his brain for more bachelorettes. Willow bites down on the inside of her lip when it looks like he has another girl in mind. "Yikes, is it the Slayer who eats crayons?"

"No! What do you think my type is?"

"Quiet beauties and hot-headed brunettes," Xander replies instantly.

"Well … yeah. But you're never gonna guess, Xand, so just -"

"Then just tell me," he pleads. "C'mon, Will. We tell each other everything. The other day, you thought you saw a pigeon with two heads. You told me that. But now, when there's something that's seriously bothering you, you can't tell me who it's about?"

"That pigeon was bothersome," she pouts.

"Please, just … give me a name?"

"Fine ... just don't freak."

"Pinky promise."

"It's Faith."

The room goes still for a few small, torturous seconds. Willow avoids any and all eye contact as she looks down at her orange, dorito-y fingers.

"... Faith Hill?" Xander questions with complete and utter shock on his face.

"No. Faith. Rogue Slayer Faith. Five-By-Five Faith," Willow lets out a soft, reminiscent sigh. "Faith." The name feels warm in her mouth.

"I'm not judging. I'm not judging," he says to himself before turning to face Willow. "Okay, I'm judging. How?! When?! How?!

"I don't know! I think I'm just feeling lonely and a little impulsive." Distressed, Willow rubs over her face and mentually prepares to tell Xander the things she hasn't yet said out loud. "And I … I don't have to carry my guilt around with me whenever we're together. When Faith looks at me, she doesn't see all the horrible things I've done. I just … never have to worry about it with her."

"Do we … make you feel that way?" Xander asks in a crestfallen voice. "Like you should be guilty?"

"It's not your fault. It's mine. After what I did …" Willow takes a deep breath and starts a new thought. "As much as you guys act like everything's okay and it doesn't bother you, the fact that I killed someone ... the things I'm capable of … will always be in the back of your mind, Xander."

"Hey. I'm sorry. Look, Will, we've all done bad things. Now, it's true, I've never flayed someone alive." Willow picks at her fingers habitually out of anxiety as Xander monologues about her past. "But I've also never given over a thousand girls around the world purpose. In fact, I've probably done the opposite, somehow," Xander jokes, resulting in a small chuckle from Willow. "I've never obliterated a demon army with my magic and saved an entire city. You've made mistakes, sure. But there's literally nothing you could ever do to make us love you any less. It's scary how much that's true."

Although they both know that his sentiment can't totally fix the problem, Willow beams at Xander and puts a hand on his as a 'thank you'.

"So, back to the Faith dilemma. Is she the one?"

"No," Willow says almost too fast. "I'm sorry, is this weird? I mean, she did take your virginity and all."

"In my head, Drew Barrymore took my virginity, not Faith," Xander answers plainly.

"Was it that bad?"

"The sex?" He thinks for a moment. "Nah. 'Bad' is what came afterwards when she kicked me out in my underwear, tried to kill me a couple times and then proceeded to never talk to me again."

Willow groans and dumps what's left in the bag of chips directly into her mouth.

"She's non-committal, Will," Xander goes on, prompting his "patient" to bury her face into the couch pillow. "And you're the opposite. I know you. You're gonna end up wanting more and she's just not that kind of person."

"Hey! You don't know what I'm capable of. I can totally have a casual thing!" Willow asserts with food in her mouth.

"Okay, Will. I just don't want to see you get hurt. And I'm sure Buffy would say the same."

"Well, I'm not gonna tell her."

"What? No, no, no. You have to tell Buffy," Xander implores her with praying hands.

"I just … I can't deal with that look of hers. You know the look! She would stare into my soul with those big Buffy eyes and everything would be bad."

"So, you're really gonna do this? You're gonna … do the 'deed' with Faith?"

"Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know."

"Faith? The girl who tried to hibachi us with her knife in high school?" he brings up in an attempt to talk her out of it.

"She's not like that anymore!" Willow bellows, sitting up. "Why is it that you and Buffy are the only ones allowed to date reformed serial killers, huh?"

"Hey, at least Cordelia wasn't evil."

"Unless you count grades one through twelve." Willow smiles gleefully but it slowly devolves into a frown when she remembers that Cordelia is yet another dead friend. "I honestly can't believe ... when Angel told me what happened to her, I couldn't help but wonder if there was something we could've done."

"I know," Xander sighs woefully. "But there wasn't. She chose this life just like we did."

"Do you ever wonder what our lives would've been like i-if we never learned about Slayers and vampires and Hellmouths? Do you ever think about that?"

"I mean … yeah. But I'm pretty sure we'd be dead." Xander chuckles and brings a can of Mountain Dew to his lips, taking a sip. "Allow me to remind you of Graduation Day, a.k.a the famous Sunnydale massacre of 1999."

"Say we weren't dead. Say ... we were just regular high school kids who went to a school where really weird stuff happened." Willow enjoys playing pretend for a moment. "I went to Oxford, you followed your dream of becoming a World-famous wrestler, failed epically but I let you stay in my basement," she sniggers and watches Xander take another sip of his pop.

"Do I pay rent in this scenario?" he questions.

"Hm … no. I let you stay there for free out of pity."

"Sounds about right."

"So yeah. We live the rest of our lives as normal humans who don't know a thing about the demon underground. Would you go back if you could?"

Aside from the faint television static in front of them, it's quiet. Xander taps his finger on the metal can, thinking over her fantasy.

"No," he says, breaking the silence. "Never."

Willow's thin lips grow into a weak smile as she pops open a can of fizzy Coca-cola.

"Yeah. Me neither."

The two clink their sodas and take a long, hard sip of carbonated goodness.