Re-Touched

Title: Re-Touched
Author: Lysa-uk
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: Does anyone seriously put ‘no’ here? If you feel inspired to tell me how terrible I am, lysaharris@fsmail.net
Distribution: You want it, ask first.
Spoilers: Season 7, especially the latter part, ‘Touched’ mostly.
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing except my cherished DVD’s and signed pictures (thank you to Martin for those), and no one’s having them. The characters and stuff belongs to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy etc. No copyright intended.
Summary: Part of the episode ‘Touched’ re-written with a W/X edge.

---

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” Willow said clearly and resolutely with her best resolve face to her own image in the mirror of the getting-more-cramped-by-the-day bathroom of the Summers house. “How’s that?” she asked the other person. She frowned to herself, “wow,” she muttered, “cliché much?”

She thoughtfully paced across the tiled floor, catching brief glimpses of moonlight out of the window every now and again. “Who came up with that line, anyway?” she asked. “I mean, lame much? Even if you break up with someone, you still have to see them, right? It’s not like by saying those words, they suddenly become invisible…” she trailed off as her brow furrowed pensively. “Ooh, thought,” she said excitedly, “Maybe I could try and pull that whole not seeing each other thing that happened when I first came back to Sunnydale. I didn’t do that on purpose, but it would definitely be a bonus here.” She grimaced, “I know, that wouldn’t work.”

She sat herself on the edge of the bathtub and tucked her hair behind one of her ears. “This sucks,” she complained with a pout. “I mean, this is me, Willow Rosenberg, talking about dumping someone, and we’re not exactly talking Jonathon Levinson in second grade here. Hey, maybe I can get Xander to do it for me, like he did then,” she said, looking up. “No, I know that would just be childish. This sucks!” she repeated. “Sucky, suck, suck, suck, suck!”

She shook her head in defeat. “I can’t do this, can I?” she asked. “I don’t mean literally. I just mean, I can’t do it now. It would just make things really awkward for everyone with us all living in the same house, and with everything else that’s going on…it wouldn’t be right. God,” she berated herself, “I should have thought about this when things first got started up,” she said miserably. “I should have held off on getting involved with Kennedy until things were…well, until they were something that resembled normal.”

She took a deep breath, stood up and quickly brushed her hair in front of the mirror. “Okay,” she said decisively, “so it’s all settled. I’ll just carry on as usual, wait it out until all of this apocalypse stuff is over, and then break up with her.” She looked thoughtful. “Of course, if the world ends, I won’t have to.”

She grabbed the plans Giles had given her earlier from the side of the sink and grinned at the wide-eyed, silent girl who had a toothbrush hanging out of her mouth. “Thanks a lot for the talk, Chao-Ahn,” she said as she made her way out of the bathroom, pulling the door closed. “Oh, and a little advice; I’d keep the door locked when you’re in here if I were you. Anyone could just walk in.”

Chao-Ann watched the strange, redheaded, girl who knew magic walk out of the bathroom in total confusion.

---

“Okay, guys,” Willow said as she crossed the hall from the bathroom to get to her room, talking as she walked, looking at the plans she was holding, concentrating on the information in front of her. “Giles said Faith wants us to start early in the morning, so…” she trailed off as she was surprised to find the room suspiciously empty, except for Kennedy. “What happened to the girls?” she asked, her voice carrying a note of disappointment.

“Looks like there’s only one girl here,” the potential slayer said, laying seductively in Willow’s bed, tousling her hair around her fingers in the dim light of the candles she had lit around the room, not just for the lack of power that was now enveloping Sunnydale, but for romantic effect.

“But what about the other ones?” Willow asked. “With their sleeping bags and their headgear and their snoring?” When Kennedy smiled at her, something clicked in Willow’s head. “They’re not here, are they?” she asked, a light tone of panic in her voice.

“Nope,” Kennedy told her, seemingly not picking up on the other girl’s discomfort, patting the side of the bed next to her in invitation.

“That’s, uh…nice…” Willow stammered out as she made her way over to the bed, via closing the door to the room first.

“Nice,” Kennedy said softly as Willow sat next to her, and seized the opportunity to kiss her girlfriend. “And necessary.” She kissed her again, taking the plans from Willow’s hands and discarding them carelessly, throwing them over the side of the bed. “Come here, you,” she said as she pulled her girlfriend down, laying her head on the pillows and wrapping her arms around her. “Fore play was threatening to turn into twelve play,” she said as she pulled away, kissing her once again, lightly this time.

Willow responded to the kisses, even though she knew it was wrong, after everything she had been thinking over the past few days. So, as tactfully as she could manage, she pulled away from Kennedy, turning on her side, nervousness on her face that she didn’t want the potential slayer to see.

“Something not right?” Kennedy asked, snaking her arm around Willow and taking her hand, looking down at her expectantly.

Willow felt her whole body tense up, and she thought about denying it. She thought about just rolling over and giving the girl what she wanted, doing the easy thing. But then she realised that this was it: this was an out clause she was looking for. This was the opening that was going to force her to make a decision. But could she really do it?

“It’s not, is it…?” Kennedy asked, pulling away from the red head. “Something’s wrong…”

The decision had been taken out of her hands, and, both thanking and cursing the goddess for that, Willow sat herself up and looked at Kennedy. When she did, she was surprised. For all of the bravado the girl used, she got the feeling that the tears that were filling her eyes were more than just a tactic to get what she wanted. “Kennedy…” she started. “I think we need to talk…”

---

“They could show a little respect, you know,” Anya griped as she shovelled another spoonful of the ice cream she and Xander were sharing in the darkened kitchen into her mouth, the moans and groans coming from Faith and Principal Wood upstairs putting her in more of a bad mood than she already was. “I mean, they should at least acknowledge the fact that some people might not wanna listen to an a cappella concert of people, you know, moaning and groaning.”

“Hmm,” Xander said in agreement, not really taking that much notice, as he helped himself to another spoonful of the ice cream.

“Disgusting, is what it is,” Anya complained, her body language betraying her, silently trying to get his attention.

“A little jealous, huh?” he asked her with a smirk.

“Of course I am!” she said, saying it as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m a lot jealous,” she told him. “I mean, if we’re done having sex, then…I think other people should just knock it off.”

“Hey, guys,” Willow said, surprising them as she entered the kitchen from the dining room. “Mind if I join you?”

“Yes!” Anya said loudly, looking very annoyed.

“Of course not,” Xander said, smiling at her as she took a carton of milk from the refrigerator and poured herself a glass.

“What are you doing here?” Anya demanded. “Shouldn’t you be upstairs, sleeping with that girl?”

“Sorry,” Willow said. “If I’m interrupting something I can just—”

“It’s fine,” Xander told her, glaring at Anya with wide eyes. “Isn’t it, Ahn?”

Anya glared back at him, eventually conceding defeat. “Yes,” she said finally, a forced smile on her face. “Xander and I were just eating some delicious ice cream, and I was thinking of asking him to have sex with me, but please, join us so that can’t happen.”

“Aha,” Willow said with a grin and a knowing look at Xander. “Well, I’ll tell you what,” she told them. “I’ll just make myself scarce and you two can get back to…whatever it is that I don’t want to think about you doing.”

“No, it’s fine,” Anya said, annoyed and rolling her eyes as she slipped off the stool she was sitting on at the kitchen counter. “You stay, I’ll go.”

“Go where?” Willow asked.

“I’ll find a floor in some room or another,” Anya said. “All this world-saving and gut-wrenching terror really takes a toll on an ex-demon.”

“My floor’s free,” Willow told her. “I mean, Kennedy’s in there, but if you want somewhere to crash…”

“Okay, thanks,” Anya said as she started for the door. “Oh,” she added, stopping and looking back at them. “Kennedy doesn’t sleepwalk and get all handsy, does she? I mean, I don’t want her trying anything while I’m all asleep and vulnerable.”

Willow couldn’t stop the smirk appearing on her face. “I doubt that would happen,” she told her.

“Okay,” Anya said, satisfied at the answer, turning once again to leave. Then, she looked back at them, hands on hips with the look Xander knew meant a rant was well and truly on its way. “It’s the hair, isn’t it?” she asked, her tone an octave higher than it had been a second ago.

Willow, who was just enjoying a mouthful of ice cream, looked baffled. “What?” she asked, wiping her mouth with the sleeve of the sweater she had pulled on before she had left her room.

“It’s the hair,” Anya said again, grabbing a handful of her own hair and forcing them to look at it.

“Anya, your hair looks fine,” Xander told her.

“There must be some reason why you think Kennedy doesn’t find me attractive,” she demanded from them. “Am I not pretty enough?” she asked. “Would a lesbian not find me attractive? Willow, do you find me attractive?”

Xander looked at his best friend expectantly with raised eyebrows.

Willow gulped down the cold substance in her mouth nervously. “I’m staying well away from this conversation,” she told them. “Let me know when we’re sane again.”

“Am I fat?” Anya demanded from them. “Everyone keeps rejecting my sexual advances!” she complained. “I’m telling you, if I swung that way, Kennedy would be putty in my expensively-manicured hands.”

“Anya,” Willow said patiently, “Kennedy knows you’re not into women. Plus,” she added, a complimentary tone in her voice that Xander knew meant she was trying to diffuse his ex-fiancée’s ramble. “I don’t think she’d be interested in anyone who’s prettier than she is.”

“Oh, okay,” Anya said thoughtfully, satisfied with the reply. “Well that does make an awful lot of sense.”

Willow nodded as she watched Anya leave. “One question, Xand,” she said to her friend, “How did you do it?”

“Cope with Anya?” he asked.

Willow nodded.

“You know, I have no idea,” he told her. “I think I used to give her a pile of money to count every night, used to keep her quiet. Plus, impeccable financial records. Always a bonus when the tax man comes a-calling.”

Willow smiled, trying not to think about the one thing that was occupying her mind. She looked at Xander thoughtfully. “What do you think Buffy’s doing right now?” she asked, wondering. “Do you think she’s okay?”

“I think she’s fine,” Xander said, a part of him still feeling the guilt of Buffy’s ousting. “She’s not exactly Betty Louise Plotnick of East Cupcake, Illinois.”

“Who?” Willow asked.

“It’s a thing,” he told her. “Long story.”

“What do you think will happen now?” she asked. “I mean, I know Faith is a slayer, too, but Buffy’s…well, she’s Buffy. It wouldn’t be the end of the world without her.”

“I know,” he said. “But I think she’ll be back, Will. I mean, the girls needed some time to cool off. They – we – have no idea how hard it is to be her, to have her life. I think that once they figure out that Buffy was trying to do her best, they’ll calm down. I know that we weren’t exactly supportive when it came to that whole confrontation thing, but I hope she understands that maybe this is the break she needed, to get away from us all for a little while.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I hope so, anyway.” Willow took another mouthful of the ice cream and watched him expectantly.

“What?” he asked, eyeing her with suspicion on his face. “Did I just grow another head or something?”

“No,” she told him. “I’m just waiting.”

“For…?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders a little.

“You to ask me about what happened with Kennedy,” she told him. “I know you want to. I mean, this is the first time we’ve really been alone since she got here, I thought you’d ask me why I’m not up there with her.”

“Don’t need to,” he told her, straightening up so he was standing and twisting to ease the ache in his back. “You broke up, right?”

“How did you know?” she asked suspiciously. “Alexander Harris, if you were eavesdropping—”

“Whoa,” he told her, hands up in a defensive position. “No eavesdropping, I promise,” he said. “Well, at least not tonight, anyway…” he added quietly, hoping she wouldn’t catch it. “I just…I guess you could call it intuition. Or something. Hey, maybe that sense thing is kicking in.”

“You don’t sound all that surprised about it,” she said inquisitively.

“Well, I’m not,” he said. “I’ve been kinda expecting it,” he told her. He leaned over and nudged her in the arm with his elbow. “You wanna talk about it?”

Willow took another mouthful of the ice cream and shrugged.

Xander smiled at her, taking the spoon from her hand, and took her hand. “Come with me,” he said.

“Where are we going?” she asked, not at all happy about having to move from her seat and away from the dairy goodness of the ice cream, but happy she wasn’t lactose intolerant like Chao-Ahn. Boy, that had been a fun day for her to be on bathroom duty.

Xander didn’t say anything as he led her outside into the garden, over the lawn to the wooden bench he had helped Joyce to carry from the little furniture store she had bought it from not long after moving to Sunnydale. “Sit down,” he told her.

“What are we doing out here?” she complained, but complying with his words. “Okay, middle of the apocalypse, we’re sitting in a garden with our nice, juicy necks all bared and everything, tempting the nasties out of their hiding places?” she asked. “Are we trying to attract vampires?”

“No,” he told her, “But judging by your ‘nice, juicy neck’ comment I’m beginning to think you are. Besides, we’re having a little best friend time,” he said. “Pretty much every demon and vampire in town has upped sticks somewhere else with all this stuff going on, and I can’t see Mr. Can’t-Touch-Anything-Cos-I’m-Non-Corporeal sending anyone after us for a little while yet.”

When she just sat watching him for a while so intensely it made him shift in his place and look away from her, embarrassed about the exciting new accessory over his eye. “So, Kennedy?” he asked, trying to get her attention away from making him feel uncomfortable. “What happened?”

Willow pulled her hands into the sleeves of her sweater even though the Californian wind was anything but cold. “It just wasn’t right,” she said simply. “I mean, I was just gonna leave things as they were and wait for the world to be obliterated, but then she decides to get all frisky with it.”

Willow looked around the garden, listening to the chirping of the night crickets and watching the stars overhead, looking so far up it was like she was looking at another world, and wondering how it could look so pretty when there were so many bad things happening everywhere. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she confessed quietly, ducking her head so she couldn’t see him anymore.

“You did what was right, Willow,” he told her, his words soothing and blending in with all the quiet little noises around them. “But I hoped you guys would have a chance,” he said. “For your sake.”

“So did I,” Willow told him. “Hope we had a chance, I mean. At first, at least.”

“So what changed?” the brunette asked. “What changed so much since then?”

“Nothing,” Willow told him, standing up from the bench and walking around the bench to the flower bed, kneeling down and inspecting the flowers Mrs Summers had planted so long ago and yet still thrived despite Buffy and Dawn paying little or no attention to them in their hectic lives, even though Willow had seen Xander tending to them regularly when he thought no one was looking. “Nothing changed between us,” she said. “I just realised that I didn’t know her, and she didn’t know me.”

“Isn’t that the fun part of a relationship?” Xander asked. “The getting to know each other, finding out all those little things that make us what we are?”

“It is,” Willow said, “But the more time we spent together, the more I realised that we just didn’t fit together. We’re total opposites.”

“Ever heard the expression ‘opposites attract’?”

“I’m not denying that I was attracted to Kennedy when she first came here, Xander,” Willow told him.

“And, what, now you’re not?” he asked, standing behind her. “Because, when I saw her kissing you, you were kissing back.”

“I know,” Willow told her. “But it was for the wrong reasons.”

“Does there have to be a reason?” Xander asked. “Can’t it just be something that happens?”

“I’m not that girl, Xander,” Willow told him. “We both know that. Especially after everything that’s happened.”

“I do know that,” Xander told her. “But, I’m trying to be objective here, Will. I’m trying to see this from her point of view.”

“Yeah, she wasn’t happy when I told her,” Willow said. “Maybe it’s just me,” she said, wondering aloud. “Maybe it’s cos I’m so screwed up,” she said sadly. “It’s just, we’ve been living together since she first got here, sharing a room, and I haven’t let her in at all. She doesn’t know anything about me, Xander.”

“See,” Xander said. “You’ve been living in the same house, Willow, but that’s not the same as living together, believe me,” he told her as she stood back up and faced him.

Willow walked across to the back porch and sat down on the steps. “I told her that she didn’t know me at all. She knew the getting-ready-for-an-apocalypse me, and, you know, the scared-to-death-of-her-own-power me, but that’s not all there is.”

“I know that, sweetie,” Xander said, following her and sitting next to her, reaching over and placing his hand over hers. “Did you try explaining this to her?”

“She said that she never had a chance get to know the other parts of me,” she told him with a sad smile. “She said that when it hasn’t been about the apocalypse stuff, it was about me being at the hospital with you. She just didn’t understand our relationship, didn’t understand why I had to be with you there.”

“Will,” he said quietly. “I’m…I’m sorry,” he told her. “If I had known that you spending time with me was gonna cause this much of a problem, I wouldn’t have let you do it.”

Willow leaned into him and nudged him playfully with her shoulder. “Xander, come on,” she said. “Out of the two of us here, who’s the boss of me?”

He smiled at her. “I am,” he told her. “Didn’t we establish this a while ago? That I was the boss of you?”

“You wish, mister,” she told him with a grin. “Even if you had told me to stay away, I wouldn’t have done it. She’s never had someone in her life who’s been there through everything,” she told him. “She’s never had someone who she could tell all of her secrets to, no matter how small or stupid, and go to whenever she had any kind of problem and know that they would do anything in their power to make it better.”

Xander smiled at her. “That’s what I am to you?” he asked.

“You’re my best friend, dingbat!” she told him, “and when you were hurt, you needed me, whether you knew it or not, and I needed you too. I needed to know that you were okay.” She took a moment to hold his hand in both of hers. “I know that things were weird since she got here, with the Bringers and the Uber-vamps and the carnage, but the thing with me and Kennedy is…it comes down to the fact that we shouldn’t be together.”

“Okay, I get that you might have doubts about getting hurt again,” Xander said. “But how can you make that decision so quickly?”

“This isn’t a recent thing,” Willow told him sadly. “I wish it was, because then I’d be listening to all of your arguments and thinking that maybe this is the wrong decision and this wouldn’t be so hard. But the fact is, everything you’re saying, it’s nothing that I haven’t already told myself ten times over. Whatever it was between me and Kennedy, it was convenience.”

“And how do you figure that?”

“Because…” Willow said with a sigh. “I know that she lost someone really important in her life. I mean, she didn’t have the same kind of relationship with her Watcher as Buffy did with Giles, but he was a big part of her life. She’s known who she was since she was, like, eight years old, and her Watcher was with her through all of that. She was brought here because this crazy evil power wants to eliminate the slayer line. And from the time she got here, she made it perfectly clear that it was more than just the slayer training you were interested in. And that was nice, if a little scary at first, and it was great to have something else in my life that wasn’t about the supernatural stuff.”

“You’re saying all of this like it’s a bad thing,” Xander told her.

“I know,” Willow said, “and it’s not a bad thing. It’s just…I feel like the relationship only happened because she thought ‘hey, I’m gay and you were in love with a woman, let’s get together’.”

“You have to be willing to take a chance,” Xander said softly.

“I know,” Willow said. “But there’s also the magic stuff. She said once that she thought the magic thing was kinda cool, but when she saw it, she was freaked. I don’t blame her, cos what happened that time with the portal was pretty major, but I can’t handle dealing with all of that if I have to worry whether or not she’s gonna get all avoidy when it happens. And it will happen, Xander, cos this power is inside of me and it always will be, and with everything that’s going on, statistically speaking, I’m gonna need to use magic again soon. I have to concentrate on the magic when that time comes, I can’t worry about whether or not she’ll like the Goth makeover.”

“And you’re not willing to let her get used to all of that stuff?” he asked.

“I don’t need to,” Willow said, looking him in the eye. “It’s just…I know that it’s never going to go any further.”

“But how do you know?”

“I don’t love her, Xander,” Willow told him sadly. “I know we’ve only been together a little while, but I don’t feel like I ever could, no matter how much I want to. That connection that I’ve felt with every single person I’ve loved…Oz, Tara…you…it’s just not there between us.”

“So, that’s it?”

“That’s it,” she said. “I mean, she came here and she was all flirty and sweet, and that attention was flattering. But then, I realised who she was, you know? She may not be one yet, but inside, she’s a slayer. She’s all Pro-Active Girl, and I’m pretty much I-Don’t-Wanna-Kill-Anyone-Else Girl, and we just didn’t mesh. I hated the way she made me takes sides with her and Buffy, and you saw how pushy she was earlier with Faith. She’s not happy unless you’re following her plan. It’s great for her to be that confident in herself and her abilities, but me…that’s not what I’m about,” she told him, somehow knowing that he already knew it,

“At first I thought that was what I needed, you know? To be with someone so completely different to Tara, and I was so tempted just to leave things as they were, because even though I don’t love her, maybe it’s easier that way because if you don’t love someone they can’t hurt you when they go away. But really,” Willow said gently, pulling her legs up under her and trying to get comfortable. “This isn’t about Kennedy, because she’s a great person. After Tara died, I thought I’d be dead inside forever. But she made me realise that, no matter how much I want it to, life doesn’t stop happening because something bad happens, and the world doesn’t stop turning. I’m grateful to her for that,” she whispered, “but…”

“But it’s not enough,” Xander finished for her, not quite knowing if it was a question or a statement.

“No,” she told him. “It’s not. I realised that I loved Tara so much, I can’t close myself off to the possibility of loving someone else, however scared I am, however much I feel like I’m drowning now. Kennedy is just not the person that’s going to happen with.”

“Maybe you should give her a chance,” Xander said slowly. “Maybe you need to give her the chance to save you.”

“What, like you did?” she asked, smiling at him, gripping his hand tightly. “You not only saved me, Xander Harris, you saved the world.”

“Maybe,” he said with a shrug, no hint of the usual proud attitude he had whenever he had discussed it with Buffy and Dawn over the last summer. “But maybe that’s not why I was on the Bluff that day.”

Her brow furrowed as she watched him get up from the steps and stroll across the lawn in a straight line, like he didn’t want to be near her when he was saying this. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Why else would you be up there?”

“Well, I just always liked the view,” he said with a smirk.

“Xander,” she said impatiently. “Come on, be serious.”

Serious was something that Xander was becoming more and more used to. “Will, I know that what you felt after Tara was so strong that you lost yourself in the magic,” he told her, walking a line back to her, concentrating on his steps carefully, watching where he was walking the whole time. “You know, I blamed myself for everything that happened. I thought that if I’d been quicker, or seen the gun sooner, it would’ve made a difference. So, when I heard what you were doing with the temple and all…I went up there to be with you. As far as I was concerned, the world could go to hell – literally – for all I cared. The only thing I wanted to save was you. And if that couldn’t happen, I was willing to die with you.”

Willow knew that her heartstrings had been well and truly tugged. She gulped back the lump forming in her throat but not bothering to wipe away the tears that were forming in her eyes. “Really?” she asked. “You really felt that way?”

“Felt?” he asked her. “Hell, I’ll always feel that way, Will. You know that you’re the most important thing in my life, don’t you?”

“I used to,” she told him. “When we were growing up, I knew that you needed me, just like I needed you. But, when we grew up, somewhere to becoming these people we are now, we lost that,” she said sadly. “When I was in England, I thought about you all the time, you know?” she asked. “Every time I felt that stab in my heart when I thought about Tara, and whenever I felt like I couldn’t handle the power inside of me, and every time I saw that fear in Giles’ eyes when he looked at me…the only thing I wanted was for you to put your arms around me and tell me you loved me again. I was grieving for Tara…but I was grieving for us too, Xander, for our friendship, because I didn’t think you’d ever want to look at me again.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a dummy,” he told her with a smirk. “You always have been, Rosenberg.”

“And look who’s talking, Harris,” she said with a grin.

“If I had been able to,” he began, kneeling in front of her, seriousness back in full force, “I would have come to England with you. I asked Giles if I could. I didn’t want you to go through whatever it was that you were going through without me being there to help you. But he told me I couldn’t, because it was something you had to do alone, and that me being there could distract you. I’m telling you, though; Buffy had to physically stop me, on more than one occasion, from getting in my car to drive to the airport so I could get on a plane and coming over there, despite what Giles said. I didn’t want you to be alone.” He shook his head. “And I do love you,” he told her. “In more ways than you’ll ever know.”

“I love you, too,” she told him. “I know that I haven’t said that much over the past few years, but I do, and I always have,” she said. “And I mean that in more ways than you’ll ever know.”

“No…” he said. “I mean it, Willow,” he told her. “I love you.”

She nodded her head. “I know that,” she told him. “I’ve always known that.”

“But you never…” he trailed off. “I mean, you didn’t say anything.”

She smiled sadly at him. “It never felt like the right time,” she said. “But I think we both know that there’s no such thing. I just…I didn’t want to spoil things between us. I mean, there was Oz…then Anya…then Tara… There was always someone else in our hearts.”

“I still love Anya…”

“I still love Tara…”

“But what about us?” he asked. “Every time another one of these guys comes along with the big ‘I’m gonna end the world’ complex, it feels another day at the office,” he told her. “But this time, and it may be the hole where my eye used to be talking here, I think there’s a real chance that this is it. I don’t think all of us are gonna make it. I don’t want to die without us being okay.”

She placed a finger over his lips. “Shush,” she told him gently. “We don’t need to go over the past, Xander,” she said. “We both know what happened between us, and, whether we want it to or not, talking about it isn’t going to change anything. But, I’m telling you this now, whether we were in first grade or seniors in high school or spending the summer apart because I tried to kill you, you have always been my best friend, and however long we live, be it a few more days or a hundred more years, like it or not, you always will be.”

She put a hand to his face and smiled at him in a way that lit up her whole face. “One thing that has become clear to me through all of this,” she said, “through the whole breaking up with Kennedy thing, and sitting here with you now, is that the future is what counts now. I don’t know what’s going to happen here, Xander. I don’t know how we’ll win over this evil thing, but I can feel that we will.”

“How do you know that?” he asked her.

“Because I’m not ready for us to say goodbye,” she said. “There’s too much we haven’t done, Xander. Too much we haven’t seen, and I want us to do those things together.”

“But what if…?”

“Don’t,” she said.

And then, taking one of the biggest risks of her life, Willow Rosenberg kissed her best friend.

He didn’t know what was happening at first. He wasn’t quite sure whether he had spaced out again, and was having another one of those familiar no-one-exists-but-me moments that had happened on and off for most of his life. He could usually feel them coming on and always tried to avert them, because there’s nothing worse than fantasising about your best friend when you’re happily in a relationship with a vengeance demon. Or, ex-vengeance demon, even though the ‘ex’ thing was something that didn’t usually register with his terrible fear of being eviscerated slowly with a spoon by a scorned woman.

Usually these fantasies happened at the worst possible time, like when he was in the middle of a math test in high school, back when what he felt for Willow was more lust-based. Is it any wonder he flunked just about every test he took? He thought teachers were supposed to be smart. How clever was it to sit a hormonally charged teenage boy behind the hot girl who was his best friend? Or, like when he was in a meeting with some prestigious client, and boy, was his boss pissed about that time he zoned out and spent an entire hour staring at the guy they were supposed to be doing a job for with a grin on his face the Cheshire cat would have been proud of. Or, in the middle of waiting for an apocalypse, like right now.

But, wait, he could actually feel her lips on his, soft and sweet and everything he remembered from before, but he knew this shouldn’t be happening, because, hello, she’s gay and she just broke up with her girlfriend and this is probably just a pity thing and he can’t figure out why Willow is kissing him, but why isn’t this enough to make him pull away?

Eventually, grudgingly, mindlessly, he pulled away, breaking the kiss, and feeling like the stupidest human in the world for willingly giving up one of the things he never thought would happen but always wished would.

Breathing hard, he looked at her, and she was sitting in front of him, her eyes still closed and looking like the girl he grew up with, the girl who had seemed lost to him until now.

Slowly, Willow opened her eyes, the effect of his lips on hers making her feel things she never thought she would again, and she had to lean forward and rest her hands on his shoulders to make sure she wouldn’t fall from the step. “Wow…” she whispered, trying to breathe normally again. When he looked at her, though, there was sadness in his eyes that made her heart sink.

Xander got to his feet, saying nothing, as he turned away from her, running his hand through his hair and letting out a long breath.

She stood up and went to him, touching his shoulder gently and feeling him tense under her grip.

“Don’t do this…” he told her, his voice breaking.

“Don’t do what?” she asked.

“Don’t make me feel like this,” he said. “Don’t confuse things between us, not now. There’s too much going on. Buffy walked out of her own house tonight because we told her to. Anya was trying to get me in the sack less than an hour ago, right around the same time you were breaking up with your girlfriend, emphasis on the word ‘girl’, and my best friend just kissed me. I can’t deal with this right now. I don’t know if I can deal with this ever.”

“Xander,” she told him, using the hand on his shoulder to turn him around to make him look at her, even though he was doing everything he could to avoid eye contact. “We’ve spent too long thinking about other people. Things are screwed up, and we’re screwed up beyond repair, but don’t throw excuses at me.”

“Have you forgotten that I have a penis?” he asked, eyes wide and arms in the air.

“Surprisingly, no,” she told him, rolling her eyes.

“How did we get here?” he asked. “How did we get from your relationship problems to us kissing?” he said. “What are we playing here, ‘How to Screw Up Your Friendship in Five Easy Steps’?”

“We’re not playing anything,” she said softly, taking one of his hands in hers and holding it tightly. “I just know that when something feels right, you should grab it with both hands, and in the middle of all of the wrong stuff, this feels right.” She moved one of his hands to rest on her waist, and the other to her cheek, and as she felt his skin on hers, she closed her eyes and leaned into his palm.

“What are you doing…?” he asked.

She opened her eyes briefly as she took a step forward, their bodies closer than they had been for the longest time, and she placed her hands on his face, her thumbs stroking the skin softly. “You saved me on the Bluff that day, Xander,” she told him softly. “Now it’s time for me to save you…” Her lips were on his before either of them could question the situation.

His kiss was different to how she remembered it, even if it had been so long ago. You know how sometimes, when you look back at something, you sometimes think of it as being better than the real thing? Sometimes you build something up to being this perfect memory, but you realise one day that it just wasn’t like that. It was like that now, only in reverse. All of those years ago when Xander had kissed her that night in her room…she had always tried to remember it as being less than perfect. She remembered it being awkward, uncoordinated, a little drool-heavy.

But it hadn’t been. She liked to think of it that way because then the memory didn’t hurt so much. For months afterwards, she had found herself comparing him to Oz, which hadn’t been fair to either of them. She remembered it being worse than it had been, because it was easier that way.

But his lips were softer than she had allowed herself to think of. They were pressing lightly against hers, not because it wasn’t passionate or because they were unsure, but because this was important and because it wasn’t a momentary thing.

She released him, a temporary action on her part, taking his hand that had been softly stroking her face in hers, kissing his palm, as she led him to the porch. He didn’t ask her why like she had been expecting him to, he just trusted her completely as she sat on the top step of the porch, pulling him down gently to sit next to her.

As he sat, his arm went around her shoulders, and she leaned into him, momentarily closing her eyes and losing herself in the scent of him, just like she always did when he hugged her. There had always been an underlying sense of longing when she was in his arms that she had barely acknowledged before, like she was touching something she could never really have, but now it wasn’t there. Among the many different emotions that were running through her right now, she felt a sense of completion more than anything else.

She looked up at him, finding his stare on her, and she blushed beneath it, hiding her face under a curtain of red hair that made her feel like she sixteen again. She felt the low chuckle he gave at her through the vibration in his body and she laughed with him, the action feeling like something she hadn’t done for a very long time.

When she eventually brought her eyes back to his, the smile was still on his face, but there was uncertainty there, too. He didn’t know what they were doing, whether this was a port in an apocalypse, or if it was something that would devastate their friendship. She wanted more than anything to take away his fears because she knew. She knew that this…that the two of them together…it was everything.

She leant forward, a kiss placed on his lips that lingered and left her feeling dizzy and warm. “Trust me,” she told him, her voice lower than a whisper in the night air.

“I do,” he told her, meaning it more than anything he had ever said before, because he always did. No matter what, he trusted her, it was like something that just came ready prepared in him. Everyone else in his life he held at a distance until they earned his respect, but with her it was always just there, and it always would be.

One of his hands was resting on her shoulders still, with her body turned towards him, but his free hand came up to her face, lifting back the piece of hair that had fallen across her eyes with the lightest of touches, pulling it back so he could look at her. He had spent so much of his life doing it that some people might think he’d grow tired of it. They’d be wrong.

“I honestly don’t remember ever telling you that you’re beautiful,” he said, almost to himself. “Have I?”

She shrugged lightly, her head tilting into his hand as he tucked the hair behind her ear. She knew he never had, because that was something she would most definitely remember. There were words like ‘nice’, and ‘cute’, and there was even that one time when ‘gorgeous’ came into the equation, but never ‘beautiful’.

“I’m sorry,” he told her sincerely. “Because you are. You always were, and I thought it every day but the words just never seemed to—” he was cut off when her finger came to his lips, silencing him.

“It doesn’t matter,” she told him with a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “Nothing does anymore. Except us. Except now.”

“Will…” he began, not sure of how to continue when his head dipped down.

She placed a hand beneath his chin, gently forcing him to look at her again. “What do you want to do, Xander?”

“I want to kiss you again,” he said.

“So what are you waiting for?” she asked, her voice teasing and full of laughter.

“I just don’t think…” Again he was cut off, this time by her lips on his, more urgent than before but still soft and lingering all the same. He could feel her hands at his shoulders, pulling him closer to her as she captured his bottom lip between both of hers, a need being satiated for both of them in the best way possible.

She moved quickly, almost without him realising it, gently pushing him further back onto the porch, his legs bent on the step below as she straddled him without breaking the kiss. He moved his arms around her, encircling her waist, but she felt the reluctance his fingers had to grip her like she knew he wanted to.

She broke the kiss, her mind hardly functioning on a level above ‘kissing Xander nice. Must keep kissing Xander’, with her breath coming hard and thick from her lungs. She reached for the hem of the sweater she was wearing, and pulled it over her head, revealing the pyjama tank top she was wearing underneath as she threw it to one side.

She leant down, her hands on his cheeks as she kissed him again, a brief but intimate kiss. “It’s time to stop thinking, Xander…” she told him.

And in that instant, a decision was made. Good or bad, right or wrong…it didn’t matter either way. Not tonight.

There had been hesitance in his touch before, but not now. Now, when he wrapped his arms around her waist, his hold on her was tight, the strength of him pulling her closer as he drew his legs up. There was a smile on his face as he felt her fingers, light and soft, dancing over the skin of his arms, moving up and up until she reached his biceps.

She leaned down to kiss him because, really, how could she not? One soft kiss on his lips, two more just because she loved the feeling, and a low laugh from him that was like music to her ears after everything he had been through, and she laughed along with him as she pulled his face closer because she wanted more.

Lips pressed together, he opened his mouth to her, her tongue tasting him ever-so-lightly, the sensation old and new all at the same time, but amazing all the same. His hands ran up her back over the smooth material of her vest, his hands clammy but eager to find the base of her neck, holding onto her tightly through the density of her hair.

His tongue found hers in the warmth of their mouths, touching, melting together as they entered a new phase in their relationship, but he was done worrying about that for right now. What was happening was too important to belittle with other thoughts, despite his earlier misgivings. He felt her hands move to his chest, her touch hotter than it logically should have been through his shirt, and she moved to lift it from his form, their kiss breaking only long enough for her to pull the material over his head and arms.

The shirt was dropped to one side as their lips met again, but this time there was more behind it, more force from both of them that made it hard to breathe as their tongues contorted and twisted together, passion that had been building all through their moonlit assignation making its presence known more and more as seconds ticked by.

The kisses were coming harder, faster, wetter and moans were exchanged, their origins hard to pinpoint, as Willow ran her hands over his chest, making his skin goose bump under her touch. Xander responded by letting his hands wander downwards over her back again, his fingers reaching the bottom the tank top that had ridden up ever-so-slightly and finding skin, soft and smooth, as his reward. His fingers inched up underneath the material, the tips stroking and his short fingernails grazing in a way that made her shiver.

He pulled away, his hands stilling in the unfamiliar territory of her bare skin, his eyes concerned as he looked up at her. “Are you cold?” he asked.

She shook her head, “No,” she told him, voice barely above a hoarse whisper. “It’s just the effect you have on me.”

“So I make you cold and shakey?” he asked, a hint of a smile on his face. “So I’m like the flu now?”

“Well, actually, I would have said that hot and trembly is more of an accurate description,” she told him, her arms coming to move around his neck.

“Still sounds like I still make you sick,” he said, his playful tone making his eyes light up.

“Only in a good way,” she said with a smile.

“There’s a good way to make you sick?” he asked.

“Xander…” she said, her voice firm and low.

“Gee, Will, you’re such a romantic.”

“Xander?” she repeated, her eyes firmly on his. “Do me a favour?”

His face lit up into a grin as he read the intention clearly etched in her face. “Let me guess, you want me to shut up and kiss you, right?”

“Well, I was gonna leave off the ‘shut up’ part, but now you come to mention it…”

And what more could he do but comply with her wishes? His hand came up to her face, pulling her down so he could taste her again, the feeling something he’ll never grow used to. His hand stayed on her face, his thumb drawing circular patterns on the surface of her skin while the other, the one that was still in the middle of her back underneath her tank top, pressed hard against her, pushing her further into him so he could feel the roundness of her breasts and the hardening of her nipples against his skin, making the hardness he had been feeling for what seemed like forever strain against the material of the pants he was wearing.

She knew that when she shifted her weight on top of him. She ground herself against him, the sensation of their groins in exactly the right place for what they both needed, so close yet so far away making her breathing hard and fast in between the kisses shared. She sank down further, the stiffness hitting her right where she needed it, and she rolled her hips as she let out a low moan, disengaging their lips from one another for long enough to close her eyes and tilt her head back, a noise escaping him that she’d never heard before. She let herself fall back, her weight resting on his legs that were still bent on the few steps of the porch, her eyes closed as she felt her chest rise and fall heavily.

Seeing her lying in front of him, he could hardly resist touching her. He started at her calves, one at either side of his hips, his fingers caressing and massaging gently over the material of her pyjamas. They moved upwards, tickling behind her knees just enough to elicit a light laugh from her and make her squirm in a way that made her grind herself against him, whether intentional or not he wasn’t quite sure, and he couldn’t quite care enough to figure it out because the feeling was taking away his ability to think.

His hands continued their journey upwards, his fingers dancing obscure patterns over her things, the back, the sides and up to her hips, gripping her there where the waistband of her pants hugged her body. Edging his hands into the loose material just a little, he hesitated, looking at her face for some kind of answer to the question he wanted and didn’t dare to ask.

She opened her eyes, feeling the lack of Xander hands on her body, and she saw it in his eyes. She nodded to him almost imperceptibly, her hands moving to his under the material of her pants, her fingers intertwining with his for a brief moment before she hooked her thumbs on her waistband and pulled lightly. He followed her lead, taking over as her arms fell back to her sides, using them to support her own weight as she lifted so he could guide the pyjama pants over her ass and down, removing them one leg at a time and discarding them a few feet away.

She was wearing lilac panties, the cutest he could ever remember seeing. They weren’t anything spectacular in the traditional sense of the word, they weren’t obviously sexy in the way he remembered of Anya’s tastes. They were practical, if nothing else. On her they were perfect. They rode high on her legs, the tiniest amount of lace edging the cotton material, but the thing that made him laugh out loud was the green cartoon frog on the front.

She lifted her head to look at him, suspicion in her eyes. “Harris, what are you laughing at?” she asked.

“A frog, Will?” he said, laughter in his voice. “Really? What about the ‘kill all the tadpoles’ kick you had me on when we were ten?”

“I was feeling daring,” she told him with a grin. “You don’t like them?”

“I don’t think I have ever been so turned by frogs as I am right now,” he confessed, his hands smoothing over her legs, onward and upward to rest on her hips.

“That’s really sweet,” she laughed, “And also…kind of creepy.”

“Well, maybe it’s not so much the frogs as it is the person wearing them,” he suggested, his hands moving up under her tank top, tickling her sides to make her laugh again.

“Less creepy,” she told him, arching her back and closing her eyes as she felt his hands at the curve of her breasts, his thumbs brushing the undersides as she sucked back a long breath with a happy noise she reserved only for the most special of occasions.

He was using slow movements that were teasing, taunting her as his fingers closed around the mounds of flesh, the tips working gradually to massage the perfect orbs until he reached the tight, hard peaks, rolling them tantalisingly as she moaned loudly and took a breath, letting it out slowly, eyelids fluttering somewhere between open and closed and from Xander’s vantage point of those lilac panties, he was obviously doing something right judging by the damp, dark patch he couldn’t wait to dip into.

His hands moved from her breasts, wrapping around her back as she sat up again, making them face to face, something she took advantage of when she attached her mouth to his, pressing and urgent kisses mixed with a tenderness that only two people who had known each other all of their lives could share. Although his mind was more than a little occupied, his hands seemed to move of their own accord to gently remove the tank top she was still wearing, their kiss breaking as he divested her from the piece of clothing.

But he didn’t look down. His eyes stayed fixed on hers the whole time, because this was more than a physical attraction between them. It was a part of it – a big part – but it wasn’t everything. He wanted to look at her, because he already knew she was perfect and seeing for himself would only confirm that, but the longer he waited, the more the anticipation grew and the tingles he felt would multiply, and that was a feeling he wanted to hold on to until exactly the right moment.

He held her tightly to him, the moonlight shining on her red hair as one of her hands came to his face. She trailed her fingers from his forehead and along his hairline, across his cheek and over his chin before they moved up again to trace the black eye patch that looked harsh in contrast to the rest of his face. It was that moment when he shifted his good eye from her, embarrassment and shame colouring his face in a way that made her angry and bitter and remember why they had sent Buffy away. It had been her fault, Willow remembered. But she had to turn that off now, because if she thought about it, she’d want to call on all of those dark powers she had been worked so hard to control and smite someone down for all they had put him through. It had been Buffy’s choice to go into that vineyard, for Xander to be there with that psycho preacher guy, and as much as she loved and forgave Buffy for her actions, she loved Xander more.

His eye was closed now, his head slowly turning away from her, and she put her hand underneath his chin and gently forced him to look at her. “Don’t,” she whispered to him. “Don’t hide from me, Xander, because I’m the one person who’ll always find you.”

“Do you promise?” he asked her, a serious question asked with a smirk on his face that she always saw when he was feeling awkward. His hand came to the eye patch almost unconsciously. “It just me feels like…less than I was…”

“You have no idea, do you?” she asked in wonder, her eyes thoughtful and full of admiration.

“About what?” he asked, confused.

“Everything,” she said, “About how brave you are…how special you are…how much you mean to Buffy, and Dawn and Giles…and to me. No matter what, you’ve always been there, even when you didn’t have to be. I always knew you were going to be someone special, Xander Harris, but you’re more than I could ever have imagined, and this stupid accessory from Pirates R Us does nothing to change that. Nothing ever could.”

“Are you trying to make me cry?” he asked wryly, his eyebrow rising as he smiled again.

“I was trying to make you hot,” she said with a shrug, “I guess I’m failing miserably there, huh?”

“I’d say you’re doing alright,” he told her, his arms wrapped tightly around her as he carefully turned from where he was sitting to lay her down on the surface of the porch on top of the shirt she had dropped not long before. “In fact, I’d say you’re doing better than alright.”

“Maybe I should check,” she told him, her eyes full of mischief as her hand slid from where it was resting on his shoulder, over his chest to rest at the hardening in his pants. “Just to be sure…”

He laughed lightly, drawing back to take in everything that was lying in wait for him. His eyes travelled from the red hair that was fanned out behind her to the sparkling green eyes, things he had been used to seeing all of his life but had never meant so much until now. Her cheeks were flushed as he sat up, letting out a breath he didn’t remember holding, her mouth open and waiting for him, pink and wet and inviting.

Smooth, elegant neck and the dip of her shoulders, and he was taking his time in memorising every single detail of how she looked right now because he’ll need it in the future when he can’t sleep and can’t remember why they constantly fight for this stupid world. He realised then that she was his reason, even if he never knew it until now.

He leaned forward and touched her arm, his hand running down the smooth, flawless skin as he took in the contours of the way her chest rose and fell, his eyes finally resting on the two mounds that just seemed so…Willowy. As strange as that sounded, it was the only way he could think of to describe something that was so perfect. The pale skin seemed to hum when his hand slipped from her arm to her breasts next to the pinkness of her nipples, and he leant down, bending to kiss one softly, following swiftly by paying equal attention to the other, his lips moving to the dip of her stomach, kissing around her belly button and down to the waistband of her lilac panties that he couldn’t stifle a smile at.

He lifted back up slowly, turning himself around so that he could lie next to her, one arm bent beneath him to support his weight, while the other ran from where it rested on her stomach and over one of her breasts, pausing briefly to give her nipple a little tweak that made him grin widely, and up to her face.

“I was wrong earlier,” he told her, voice low.

“About what?” she asked, one hand idly reaching out to graze the skin of his chest.

“When I said you were beautiful,” he said, instantly seeing her face fall he regretted his words. “What I mean is…beautiful just doesn’t cover it. I don’t think there’s a word for what you are.”

“You’re not too bad yourself, you know,” she said with a grin, using the hand on his chest to push him down onto his back. She bent to kiss him, a soft kiss on his lips, followed by another just underneath his earlobe, another just below that and another further down. She continued along his shoulder and his collarbone, across his chest and around his nipple, down and down to his navel, one hand coming to the fasteners on his pants.

It took only a few seconds to get the zipper and the button undone, and her hand paused just above them, fingers tickling the spot where just a speckling of dark hair began. She moved her face back to his, looming over him while her hand continued its exploration, moving further and further down while one of his hands came to her side, resting on her hip for just a second before it moved up, cupping one of her breasts in his hand, thumb moving over the peak and rubbing hard and slow.

It wasn’t long before her hand finally met with the warm skin of his erection, and she grinned as she watched him suddenly take a deep breath, eyes closing and head tilting back as she took him in her hand. She moved her hand slowly, getting used to the feel of him in her hand, leaning down to kiss him slowly and teasingly, her tongue stroking against his, licking at his lips and making him open his mouth to capture her, but never quite managing it.

She slowly moved away, making him move after her to continue his ministrations, but she wouldn’t let him. She grinned wickedly, making him feel like that was a smile he definitely wanted to see again, and pushed him back to the porch. She removed her hand from his pants, the night air cool compared to the hot skin she had been touching, and wasted no time in pulling the problem pants from him, copping a feel of his backside on the way, just for fun.

Once they were gone, she could finally see what she had fantasised about for all of those years. It wasn’t the first she had seen, not by a long way. After all, she had been a very curious teenager, and those websites were found purely accidentally, not to mention that her relationship with Oz had been a physical one… But this… This was new to her, and only in the best possible way.

Her hand closed around his length tentatively, and she heard him hiss into the night as she felt the pulsating coming from him that was begging to be satiated, and before she knew it her lips were on the shaft of him, kissing and licking lightly. A moan came from him that she took as a positive sign, so she continued, taking him into her mouth as much as she could, sucking gently as he shifted beneath her.

She felt him take her free hand that was resting at his hips, grabbing her attention as he pulled her up, her body falling on top of his with his hardness trailing across her breasts and stomach as she lay on top of him, their eyes on each other the whole time, the same look of want and longing reflected on their faces. Her legs came to either side of him and she lifted herself up, straddling him, feeling his erection pressing against her ass. She rubbed herself against it, closing her eyes and letting out a long breath as he followed her, sitting up with his arms coming around her to steady himself.

One of his hands came over her back, smoothing between her shoulder blades to reach her neck, holding her firmly there so his other hand was free to enjoy. He touched her face, pulling her to him for a kiss that was deep and full before he pulled away, the hand moving down as he kissed her neck, just underneath the chin, his fingers eliciting another shiver from her as he moved his lips to kiss the point where her neck met her chest.

His hand cupped a breast, kneading the softness in his fingers, the tip hard as he brought his mouth down on it. His tongue licked its way around the sensitive spot, flicking gently and making her moan, burying her face in his dark hair so he could feel her breath blowing it, her hands wrapping his neck in a death grip that made his stomach flip.

He continued his suckling of her, his mouth moving to the other breast, just so it wouldn’t feel left out, as his hand slipped down over her stomach, over her navel and down between her legs. He could feel the wetness over her panties, making his hand damp and warm, finger drifting over it lightly but enough so she could feel it, and a soft moan came from her that was muffled by the hair she was still burying herself in.

He used one finger to rub her, a little harder than before, his mouth still on her nipple, but now he wanted more. He moved his hand back up, fingers finding the waistband quickly and easily, and his fingers edged themselves in, seemingly working on their own as he removed himself from her chest, forcing her to look at him. His hand continued down, coming into contact with warmth and wetness with delicate fingertips.

Her eyes were wide, keeping them on his, understanding that he needed to see her because she needed to see him. His fingers began at her opening, the wetness exuding from her making it slippy to the touch, and one tip moved slowly from there upwards, between the nether lips until he reached that pivotal spot.

She cried out when he touched her, loud and quick in his ear as she threw her head onto his shoulder, his finger slowly making circular motions around the swollen nub until she lifted her head back up to him. He touched it again, her eyes closing briefly but this time the moan was lower and she didn’t move her face from his except to throw her head back a little when the sensation overtook her.

His finger ran along the length of her again, wetness covering his hands that made him want to bury himself in her, his cock responding by twitching underneath where it was rubbing against the material of her panties, but he stopped himself. This was going to last as long as possible if he had anything to do with it.

His finger slipped inside her for just a second, but long enough to make her push down on in wanting, and he slipped his finger around her clit again, around and then over, stimulating it with her breathing ragged and short, her eyes nearly closed but not enough so that he couldn’t see the passion raging inside of the greenness. He rubbed at her, once, twice, back and forth, up and down, round and round until she cried out and he felt more warmth covering him, making him pull her to him for a forceful, hard kiss.

Before they had parted, he had her lying down on the porch and he was on top of her, his hands running all over her body. When he was beginning to feel a distinct lack of oxygen, he grudgingly pulled away, his head dizzy and his breathing irregular. He looked down at her, cheeks flushed and hair tangled, and she grinned at him, her hand moving down to the panties, tucking her fingers into the elastic.

“You know,” she said, her voice breaking as she struggled to catch her breath, “I think my frog fear’s back again.”

“Really?” he asked, his eyes travelling down to where her hand was, “Maybe we should get rid of those then, huh?”

“I think it’d help,” she said with a smile, his hand meeting hers under the material of her panties briefly, before he pulled them down, over her ass and down her legs.

“Is that better?” he asked seductively, the red curls catching his attention, making him use run his fingers through it, the fine hair still wet.

“My hero,” she said softly. “Saving me from the frogs. How can I repay you?”

“You mean for saving you now, or for the time I got the flu from wading in the pond at the park to make sure it was safe for you to swim there?”

“I guess I’ll have to repay you twice then,” she told him, pulling him down for a long kiss.

“So,” he asked, moving his body over hers, an arm at either side of her and feeling her quickening heart beat next to his. “I hate to kill the moment, but are you on the pill?”

Her head tilted to one side, amusement on her face as her eyebrows rose. “Are you kidding me?” she asked.

“No,” he said, confused.

“Why would I need to be on the pill, Xander?”

“Well, you know, you’re a healthy girl of a certain age, contraception must be…” he trailed off, watching the expression in her eyes as he suddenly came to a realisation.

“Not really something I’ve needed to worry about for a while,” she informed him.

He nodded, finally getting it. “So I’m guessing a condom’s out of the question, too, right?”

“I’m not even gonna dignify that with a response,” she told him, laughing gently. “What about you?”

“No, I came off the pill,” he said with a grin. “They just had so many side effects, you know?”

“That’s funny,” she said, kissing him. “You don’t have…?”

“No,” he told her, shaking his head and looking regretful. “I could go into the house, see if anyone…”

“Not a great idea,” she said, “You remember what happened with the whole shower incident, right? You go in there, looking like…” her eyes wandered over his body, pausing at the erection that was still raging and she bit her lip nervously, “…and I’m gonna have some serious trouble dragging you back out here.”

“So, then, what?” he asked, hoping that she wasn’t going to tell him that they should leave things where they were, because he was pretty certain he wouldn’t be able to do that.

“Then, this…” she said, kissing him again, long and soft and perfect, a hand moving down to take him into her hand, shifting herself closer to him. “It doesn’t matter, Xander,” she told him. “We don’t need it.”

“Consequences, Will,” he reminded her in a whisper.

“Consequences can belong to another time,” she told him seriously. “They have nothing to do with now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of this more than anything else,” she told him honestly, guiding his body down to hers and feeling the air rushing out of her body that she was sure wasn’t just because of his weight on her.

She wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling him down to her to kiss him because she felt like she had so much time to make up for, her other hand running down his chest to where he was still hard, hard for her, parting her legs for him, letting him nestle there, the feeling so warm and comfortable.

His hand joined hers, their fingers twining together as they both guided his member to where they both wanted it to be. She let go, moving her hand to his back, pulling him ever closer as he rubbed the head of his cock against her, making her moan into his mouth, and he did it again, just to make sure it was having the desired effect. The shaft pressed against her clit and he purposely rubbed it harder, loving the sound she making and the way she was digging her nails into his back.

Running himself up and down her length, coating his dick in her wetness, he found her opening, waiting and inviting him in, and he wanted more than anything to push into it and feel her around him, but he needed to know one thing. Breaking out of the kiss, he looked at her, his eyes asking a silent question that was answered by a nod and another kiss.

She drew her legs up as he gently felt himself sink into her. Warmth surrounded him as they both let out moans, his low and muffled when he buried his head into her shoulder, hers high and loud with their bodies in such close contact.

They began a rhythm, slow and deep, as he brought his face back to hers, their eyes locked together as her hands moved to his ass, cupping and urging him on into a faster rhythm, her nails digging into his butt cheeks as she struggled to breathe, to keep control of herself when all she wanted to do was let go.

He loved her, she knew it, and even if she hadn’t before she would now. She could see it in the way he was looking at her, in the way his mouth quirked up into an adorable smile. She could feel it in the way he was holding her, protectively and tightly, like she was the most important thing in the world to him. She knew all of that, because she felt exactly the same way.

“I’ve wanted this for so long…” she managed to whisper out between the groans and soft kisses shared. “I love you, Xander…”

“I love you, too…” he mumbled out, the warmth surrounding him making him feel like there was nothing else in the world that mattered, because right now it didn’t. He was inside her, the place where he felt like he was supposed to be, the place where he always wanted to be, and it was an incredible feeling.

He felt her lifting her hips to meet his thrusts, their pace increasing together because they both wanted this, because they couldn’t stop themselves, matching each other thrust for thrust as he reached down, his fingers finding her clit between their bodies, pressing down on it and making her cry out in pleasure.

Her hands pushed at his chest, turning him over and straddling him without even breaking their stride, taking control. His hands came up to her breasts, rubbing and kneading and rolling her nipples between his fingers as their joint rhythm continued, their combined moans disappearing into the darkness of the night air.

He pushed into her, again and again, faster and faster, until he heard her cry out again, longer and louder than before, felt her tense up and contract around him with her head thrown back, pushing him over the edge and he let go with a groan as he emptied himself into her.

She collapsed on top of him, his softening member still inside of her, their sweaty bodies sticking to one another, breathing coming hard and ragged from both of them, arms wrapping around each other.

“Well, that was new,” Xander finally said, still struggling with the blurred vision from his one good eye and the light-headed feeling, stroking her hair back from her face.

She lifted her head, just enough to look at him when her whole body was still shaking, trembling from her orgasm, and all it took was his smile to have her laughing, an action he joined her in before kissing her again, this kiss chaste and sweet in comparison to their previous act.

She slipped to his side, sitting up momentarily to grab the blanket they lay on the chair sat on the porch, before she lay beside him and covered them both with the blanket. Her arm moved over his stomach as his wrapped around her shoulders to twist the hair that lay there around his fingers, and they lay in a perfectly still moment.

“Did we just make a huge mistake?” he asked, interrupting the quiet with his thoughts, not looking at her for fear of the answer.

“I don’t think so,” she told him seriously. “Do you wish it hadn’t happened?”

His head turned quickly, his eyes meeting hers and finding her looking worried. “No, of course not,” he said. “No, that’s not it. It’s just…a lot’s happened tonight. A couple of hours ago, you were in a relationship with Kennedy and I was thinking about how I was gonna keep my stash of candy secret in a houseful of girls. Now, I’m lying naked with my best friend, wondering where we go from here.”

“I don’t know, Xander,” she answered.

“Willow?” he asked.

“Yeah?”

“What happens tomorrow?” he asked. “Are things gonna be awkward and weird between us?”

She sat up, shuffling across the porch to sit on the top step. “Come here,” she told him, pulling the blanket from him as he did and wrapping it around the both of them as she leaned into him, his arm moving around her back.

“Look over there,” she said, pointing to a spot in the sky that was beginning to lighten, a beautiful sight any day when you live on a Hellmouth, but something all the more important right now. “What do you see?”

He smiled, glancing at her before looking back at the lightening sky. “I see the sun coming up,” he informed her.

“Which means?” she prompted, her arm around his back to move up and wind her fingers in his hair.

“Which means that it’s already tomorrow,” he said with a grin, his face turning to hers.

“And are things weird and awkward between us?” she asked.

He let out a laugh, that half smile she adored so much lighting up his face. “No,” he told her. “They’re just right.”

She leant forward and kissed him, soft and sweet. “And that’s the way they’re always going to be.”

He grinned at her, shaking his head. “So, I seem to recall you mentioning something about repaying me twice…”

And when he kissed her, she knew everything was going to be alright. She didn’t know why, how, or even when it would work out, she just knew it would. She felt safe, and happy, and loved and she knew that he was the thing that’s always grounded her, the thing that always will ground her, and now she can finally let herself feel all of the things she’s suppressed since high school.

She realised that Kennedy had made her see that the world didn’t stop turning because something bad happened, nothing could stop it, and life went on, no matter what.

And being in Xander’s arms and feeling his lips on hers…she realised that she wanted it to.

---

And in a bedroom in the Summers household, a naked potential slayer lay pleasantly spent, breathing hard, sweat beaded on her forehead as the after-effects of her orgasm washed over her, her body shaking as a naked former vengeance demon lay beside her in the same condition.

“I knew you’d want me,” Anya said smugly, looking over Kennedy with a satisfactory smirk. “I have great hair…”

The End