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The One Thing He Couldn't See
"I knew it! I knew it! Not knew it like I had the slightest idea what was going on, but I knew you were hiding something! You and Cordelia were fighting way too much, it wasn't natural!" Willow cried out at Xander. All the anger and hurt and disappointment welled up inside of her as she shouted at her best friend.
"I know it's weird," Xander started.
"Weird?" Willow interrupted. "It's against all laws of god and man! It's Cordelia! Of the We Hate Cordelia Club, of which you are treasurer!"
"I was gonna tell you," Xander interjected.
"Gee, what stopped you? Could it be shame?" Willow spat at him.
"Okay, let's overreact, shall we?!" Xander threw back at her. "It's just kissing. It doesn't mean much."
Willow paused a moment. "No. It just means you'd rather be with someone you hate than be with me." Then she turned and fled.
"Will!" She heard Xander call after her but she kept walking.
~*~
Later that day she returned to Sunnydale High School. She walked down the hall, heading for the library. Behind her she heard a door open, and then Xander's voice. "Willow!"
She turned to face him.
"Where'd you go?" Xander asked after a moment.
"Home," she replied.
"Willow, I - " Xander started. She interrupted him.
"Look. I don't understand it. I don't want to understand it. You have gross emotional problems. And things are not okay between us," she said. Xander looked at her silently. "But what's going on right now is more important." Xander nodded. "Where do we stand on the Judge?"
"On a pile of really boring books," Xander replied. "And they all say the same thing. No weapon forged . . "
"It took an army," Willow supplied."Where's an army when you need one?"
"Whoa!" Xander said out of nowhere. He paused a moment. "I'm having a thought. Whoa, whoa, now I'm having a plan . . "
Suddenly the lights went out.
"Now I'm having a wiggins," Xander finished.
~*~
That night, Xander sat at his desk, idly tapping a pencil to a tuneless melody in his head. He hadn't been able to get the image of Angelus holding Willow captive out of his head. She'd looked so terrified, and he'd never felt so scared. Yet at the same time he'd been overcome with a strong desire to protect Willow and keep her safe, and that drove him to attack Angelus with the cross. He'd been so relieved when Angelus flung Willow aside and
went after Buffy. He knew Buffy could hold her own, but Willow needed someone to take care of her. And no matter what happened between him and Cordelia, he wanted to be the one to take care of her. Those thoughts, as well as what Willow had said to him before she first ran away, had been turning over and over in his head all day.
"No, it just means you'd rather be with someone you hate than be with me," she'd said. Why did those words bother him so much? Those words had just cut like a knife through his heart.
"But I do want to be with you Willow," Xander thought aloud. "I'm just not sure how to be with you." Willow was the person he told everything to, and that he trusted with his innermost feelings. She made him laugh when he got rejected by the umpteenth girl and helped him barely pass math. They understood each other. He needed her. She was his other half.
The realization came down on Xander like a bucket of cold water.
~*~
Willow sat cross-legged on her bed, turning through a photo album of pictures of her and Xander. There they were at three, Xander with a baseball bat and Willow with the ball. But instead of playing baseball, Xander was chasing Willow with the bat and she was throwing the ball at him in defense. Another picture, three years later, Xander's sixth birthday party. There was that clown that had terrified Xander to death. Willow couldn't help but smile. She turned the pages through the years of their friendship. Where along the line had she fallen in love? She turned another page. There. There was where she fell in love. The picture was of her, Xander, and Buffy at the Bronze. Hurricane Buffy had blown into town and Xander was immediately taken victim. That's when Willow had realized it. Xander wasn't hers. Somehow all along, she'd always thought she'd always have Xander. They were both the misfits, all they'd had were each other. She never imagined Xander being interested in another girl. Xander and Willow, Willow and Xander, like they were two parts of the same entity. She felt lost without him.
A sudden knock at her door caused Willow to jump. "Come in," she called out, expecting her mother or father to be there. The door opened. It was Xander.
"Hey," he said hesitantly.
"Hey," she replied. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, I was digging around through some old stuff of mine, and look what I found." He held up a battered Barbie doll. "Your Barbie. I thought I'd come over and you know, return it."
"Xander, you stole that doll eleven years ago," Willow said. "Why are you returning it now?"
"Will, do you remember what doll this is?" Xander said.
Willow smiled in spite of her anger at Xander. "Yeah. We were five years old and we decided to get married. That Barbie was our first daughter. And then you stole it, and I wrote "I HATE XANDER" on a piece of paper and declared us divorced."
Xander grinned. "Yeah. And all those years I didn't pay child support," he cracked. "Well, I thought maybe if I returned our child, you'd take me back."
"Xander, that was a pretend marriage. We were five years old," Willow said.
"It would mean a lot to me, " Xander said.
Willow wasn't quite sure what Xander was getting at. "Okayyy," she said slowly. "I take you back. In fact," she said, getting up and crossing the room to her dresser. She opened a drawer and removed a piece of paper. "I still have our divorce papers," she said, smiling. Xander grinned. Willow ripped the paper in half.
"So, we're back together?" Xander asked.
"I guess," Willow said. "Xander, why did you do this?"
Xander stepped closer to Willow. "Do you really take me back? Even after everything . . " he trailed off.
Willow didn't answer.
"Will, please. I, I don't know how to say this. But you mean so much to me," he started. "What you said to me today, it just made me think. Because I don't ever want you to hate me."
"Xander, I don't hate you," Willow said, turning away.
"Because I love you," Xander said very quickly.
Willow froze and turned around slowly. "What?" she whispered.
"I've been so stupid, so blind," the words tumbled out of his mouth. "Willow, I'm so sorry never saw it before." His mouth opened and closed as he searched for the right words. "Willow . . "
Before Willow even knew what was happening, Xander had stepped forward and taken her into his arms and kissed her. Willow was so shocked she couldn't even react. Xander seemed to sense her resistance and pulled away.
"Willow, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have --"
Willow cut him off. "I love you too." And then she kissed him.
They stood entwined in each others arms, and the kiss seemed to go on for days. When they finally broke apart, still in each other's arms, Willow whispered to him, "What about Cordelia?"
"I'll take care of Cordelia," Xander whispered back. "I want to be with you." He stepped back and held Willow at arm's distance. "First, you aren't some sort of bug lady are you? You know me and bug ladies."
Willow grinned. "And you aren't some demon who spends his time lurking in the internet?"
"Nope, I'm just the King of Cretins. May all lesser cretins bow before me."
Willow couldn't help but smile. "Well, I guess life on the hellmouth doesn't always mean we're doomed."
Xander grinned. "Hey, nothing better than a happy ending for my Willow. Say, you got any good food in the house?"
Willow sighed in happiness. It really was a happy ending. She took Xander's hand and started down towards the kitchen in search of Ho-Ho's.
THE END
