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This wasn't going to go away. Not that he had thought it would, exactly, but not seeing her had brought with it a certain amount of … distance. He could put off thinking about what would happen next. Now, now that he'd seen her …

Oz tuned the guitar in silence, listening to his bandmates chatter around him, trying to pay attention, although it was the same thing they always talked about—girls, beer, girls, cars, girls. Not that he minded; he liked all those things. But today it just brought his head back over and over again to the same place, standing in that hallway simultaneously sad for her, angry at her, and wanting nothing more than to hold her and know that she was his.

But that was the problem, wasn't it, he thought. She wasn't his. She never could be.

The band was getting set to rehearse the first song, and he automatically brought the guitar into position.

Leaving aside the tricky proposition of ever truly laying a claim on another human being … parts of Willow already had been claimed. By Buffy, by her parents, by herself—by Xander.

"Dude!" Dylan stopped playing to stare at him. "What is that?"

"What? Sorry."

"No, it rocked. It just wasn't the right song."

If it had rocked, he kind of wished he knew what he had been playing. "Sorry," he said again. "I'm a little …"

"Yeah. We heard. Sucks, dude."

He appreciated their genuine sympathy, even if it only lasted a moment before they restarted the song. That moment seemed to be more than Cordelia had gotten. Xander, man. That kid seemed to have a charmed life. No matter who he hurt, he walked away smiling, with the love of two women whose love was really worth something. Oz wanted to punch him.

But that wouldn't help; it wouldn't turn back the clock or bring things back to where they had been or take them anywhere new. It wouldn't tell him how to be with Willow and accept the reality of Xander in her life. Oz had never been stupid, and it would have been stupid to think he could ask Willow to give up her friendship with Xander. She might even have agreed, in desperation, but it wouldn't last, and he wouldn't put any of them in that position.

He woke up to the fact that the band had moved on to a different song and tried to follow it. They were mostly ignoring him now, letting him play what came to him, and he appreciated it. The music was helping, the presence of others was helping. His thoughts were straightening out a little.

Seeing Willow today … He wanted her back. That wasn't even a question. He wanted to believe that whatever she and Xander had been up to was a momentary aberration and was as over as she promised it was.

As the music slowed a bit, Oz thought back to the first few times he had seen her, the elaborate fantasies he had constructed about her before he knew who she was. He had put her on a pedestal, imagined that she was … perfect. But she wasn't perfect: She was Willow, which was better. She was unlike anyone in the world. And if he was going to accept that she was Willow, to treasure that she was Willow, he had to accept that Willow made mistakes, and give her the room to atone for them.

Rehearsal wound down for the day, and he put the guitar down with a sigh of relief.

"That was pretty awesome," Dylan said. "You should get dumped all the time."

Oz smiled. "Thanks, man. I appreciate the candor."

As he left, he heard Dylan behind him. "Candy? Did someone give him candy? Can I have some?"