Willow had her favorite crying bathroom and Xander had his favorite thinking spot. He was currently holed up in there and deep in thought. Both Buffy and Willow had accused him of jealousy in regards to Angel, but he wasn't jealous. When Buffy mentioned she kissed Angel, Xander felt disgust, not jealousy. So why wasn't he jealous? Last week Buffy had been a cute girl he'd been crushing on. She was still a cute girl, so why wasn't he crushing anymore? And he was sure he wasn't crushing anymore. She didn't look the same to him anymore. Something had changed. But when? He realized it was when she defended Angel. She now knew he was a vampire, but she still wanted him. The idea twisted his gut with revulsion. She wanted a demonically animated corpse. Regardless of the soul, the rest was still a fact. One she was ignoring. She didn't care about the presence of the demon or the fact that it occupied a dead body, she still wanted him. And that disgusted Xander on a deep, instinctual level. They were unnatural! They didn't belong in their territory. They destroyed his best friend, the closest thing to a brother he ever had. Giles had told him to remember, 'you're not looking at your friend, you're looking at what killed him.' He'd been right, it wasn't Jesse anymore. And because of that he hated vampires. All vampires. But something in him also, just plain hated the fact that they were in his town. If he and Giles had been on better speaking terms right then, he might have gone to him with these thoughts. But because of his weak attitude and lack of care for those they were responsible for, Xander didn't. Consequently, it would be a long time before anyone, including himself, knew just how deeply he'd been affected by a ritual he didn't even know he'd been affected by. And how that was influencing his thinking. Or if Giles had even realized he should have been affected, given he was there, in the circle, with the other kids when the ritual activated.

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Wow, so demons can live in cyber space and build themselves robot bodies. Who knew they could adapt so quickly to modern life? And going after Willow, oh no, not happening on his watch! No one messed with his little Willow tree. Didn't matter that she was older then him by two months, he'd been looking out for her like a big brother since they were five, that wasn't going to change. Now that Malcolm/Moloch had been taken care of, Xander needed to make sure Willow was okay, so he sought her out.

"Hey, little Willow tree. Sorry the guy you were getting to know and like turned out to be a demon. Kinda like Ms. French. Not a lot I can say to make it better. Except maybe the fact that I took the body to the junk yard and crushed it, just in case there's anything of the demon still in there. Don't want to make it easy for the thing to get around and cause damage, you know."

"You haven't called me little Willow tree in a long time."

"Yeah well, I nearly lost you today. We're family, Willow. Real family, the kind that really cares and looks out for each other. We lost Jesse, I don't know what I'd do if I lost you too. He was my brother and you're my sister. I'll always look out for you."

"You think of me as your sister?"

"Yep, since we were kids. I know you're older then me, but you were always so small, it made me feel like a big brother. Jesse felt the same way. We talked about it sometimes. We agreed, no one messes with our little Willow tree. You don't have to worry, Willow. I'll always look out for you."

"You really think of me as your sister, of us as family?"

"Well, neither of us have great families, Willow. Tony's a drunk, mom's vacant. Your parents are never home. Jesse had a good mom, but she worked two jobs to take care of him after his jackass father ran off. After what happened to him, she moved out of Sunnydale. Needed to get away. So it's just us left."

"Thanks for looking out for me, Xander. I'll talk to later, okay?"

"Sure, no problem. If you want to talk, I'm here."

Willow smiled weakly and left to find Buffy.

"Buffy, Xander just told me thinks of me as a little sister. He's never going to see me as a girlfriend. This sucks. Although, it is nice that he feels protective of me."

"It's his fault if he can't see the hottie in front of him and is determined to chase me, a girl who definitely isn't interested. His jealousy over Angel even has Giles questioning Angel's motives. It's annoying. He's trying to help, why do they insist on making it harder?"

"Because they're guys and have no concept of romance? Or maybe they think the little women have bad judgement? I could go on. My mother would have a whole list of patriarchal reasons why they think their judgement is better then ours."

"No, that's okay. Hopefully, once they see that he really is just trying to help and isn't doing anything wrong, they'll ease up on him and accept him. In the meantime, I feel like an ice cream. How about you?"

"I could go for some chocolate chip mint. Time for the drown my sorrows portion of breaking up with my cyber boyfriend turned demon."

"That's the spirit! Come on, we'll get you feeling better in no time." As they headed off to the ice cream shop.