Delicate

By Eurydice

WILLOW

This is something new to her. This being tired. Not even three consecutive all-nighters for finals in high school had ever made her this tired. And it's not like she isn't sleeping. She is. Just too much. Because in her dreams is the only place she can still see him.

She doesn't think about him standing outside his van the day he left. And she doesn't dwell on the way his naked body was curled around that bitch Veruca. Not much, anyway. Instead, Willow likes to remember the other times, the not-so-unpleasant, I'm-not-going-to-break-your-heart kind of times. In high school. When things were simpler. When she wasn't always alone. When it was her and Oz, and the world had order again, and the sun when it rose didn't laugh in mockery at pain that belonged in deep, dark corners.

So when she overhears Devon talking about driving up the coast to see him at some club he's playing at---filling in for a friend, he says, which makes her want to laugh and scream what about me, I was his friend too, and so much more---she does something she's never done before. She buys a bus ticket to the town Oz is in, and then lies to Buffy and the others and all her teachers, telling them she has to go to a funeral out of town and will be gone for a few days.

Nobody questions her. Nobody ever does. Goody goody Willow tell a fib? Unheard of. Willow doesn't ever do anything wrong. Willow is always the good girl. Shares her toys. Plays nice with others. Turns her homework in on time with all the extra credit, and prays that at least her elders will like her for something. Except she usually likes doing the extra credit, so maybe that last isn't such an anomaly. Just weird. That's her. Weird girl Willow.

Oddly enough, she doesn't sleep on the bus, although it leaves Sunnydale at an obscene hour of the morning. Too excited. She just wants to see him, to make sure he's OK, to be able to fill some of the holes in her heart that his leaving created. Just a look. That's all she wants.

And if he decides after seeing her that he made the biggest mistake of his life by leaving, then all the better.

She goes to the club first, and sees the poster for the band that's playing, and imagines Oz's face over the blurred image of the guitarist that's plastered there. For a moment, she's tempted to just camp out in front of the building and wait for it to open, but then decides that that seems stalkery. Better to be casual.

Oh, I just happened to be in town...

You're playing here? What a coinky-dink! I was just passing through...

Hi, I miss you. Please come home.

The hours are passed wandering along streets she doesn't recognize, looking into shop windows selling cheap plastic toys and overpriced souvenirs, listening to what sounds like the hundredth motorcycle roar past on the street. The air is salty, and it leaves her skin tingling as the minutes tick closer to the time when she can go back to the club. At one point, she actually tilts her head back, closes her eyes, and gulps at the sensations, drinking down the fortitude she imagines it's giving her, before realizing that people are staring at her, leaving her to scurry along the sidewalk with her chin tucked back into her chest.

Staring is not good. Staring means they see her. And seeing her means they're judging, and she already knows how that turns out. Because it always turns out the same. Not good.

There is already a crowd outside waiting to get in when she gets there, and like a good little Willow, she waits at the end of the line, smiling even when the Goth girl in front of her allows three of her friends to cut in. It only pushes her further back in waiting, but she doesn't care. She can be patient. After all, she's going to see Oz again. That is really all that matters.

Except something happens before she can make it to the doors. The crowd is starting to break apart, and she can hear grumbling about fickle musicians and something about a guitarist. Only then does she push her way to the front, and waits patiently as the bouncer laughs at some joke a busty blonde is making, waving her past without a stamp when it's obvious she's not even eighteen.

"Did something happen with the band?" she asks breathlessly.

"Not playing," is his brusque reply. He's back to business now, barely flicking a glance over her, the knit cap pulled down low over her cropped hair, long sweater over Oz's favorite skirt.

"How come?" She has to fight to keep his attention.

"The sub they got for the guitarists bolted," he explains. "Packed everything into his van and took off. Something about a girl."

Her faint thank you isn't even heard as she stumbles away, the hot rush of tears prickling her eyes. Something about a girl. A girl meaning her. Obviously, Oz had run because he'd seen her. Walking around the town all day like she owned the place. How stupid was she? Of course, she'd been seen, and her surprise had been blown out of the water. Except if he'd run at the mere possibility that she might show up in the club, who would the surprise really have been for?

She walks and walks and walks, and when she finally looks up, she realizes for the first time that it's dark outside and she has absolutely no idea where she is. Shadows of long buildings stripe the concrete before her, alternating in shades of grey and black, encasing her in rising fear as her head jerks around to try and get her bearings. Buffy would kill her if she knew she'd wandered off alone at night, she thinks. And then Giles would be right there to do his own kind of killing, and then Xander would try and make her laugh about how stupid she was by cracking some dumb joke. And they would be right.

Because foolish doesn't even begin to describe how she is feeling at the moment. Foolish for thinking Oz would take one look at her and decide he'd made a huge mistake and come home. Foolish for wishing she could go back to the way things were, even if she only actually admitted that somewhere deep inside her heart. And foolish for being in a strange place at nighttime.

Without a weapon.

And what looked like to be a vampire coming out of an alley in front of her.

She can't even scream. Somehow the connection that vampires really did exist outside of Sunnydale never made it through her head, leaving her rooted to her spot as the demon approaches, golden eyes glinting, closely cropped red hair making him look like some ghoulish Richie Cunningham. It's only when he smiles, baring his fangs, that she can turn and flee, but the pounding of her feet ceases almost immediately when he tackles her to the sidewalk, ripping her tights and scraping her knees so that life returns with a vengeance to her stunned body.

Even she can smell her blood as she struggles against his strength. It's a losing battle, she knows, and the irony that she's going to die in some unknown place, at the hands of a vamp that Buffy could've easily dusted back in Sunnydale if she'd only done the sensible thing and stayed, doesn't escape her. She is bracing herself for the bite when she hears the motorcycle roar out of nowhere, the swift gait of boots across cement whispering in welcome as they approach.

The weight on her back is suddenly gone, and Willow sneezes as the dust settles around her head, blinking once, then twice as it clings to her lashes. Before she can roll over, gentle hands are under her armpits, pulling her into a sitting position and helping her to lean against the nearby building. Gentle but strong, she notes, and looks up to see the black of his leathers darker than the sky as he crouches at her side.

"Are you all right?" he asks.

It strikes her immediately that she knows his voice, and frowns, reaching up to tap at the helmet visor that still hides his face. He pushes it up, disclosing the bright blue eyes that look upon her with worry, and she wonders where his glasses are.

"OK, Wesley and leather? Not a combination I would've thought I'd live to see," she jokes.

His smile tells her he understands she's fine, and he straightens, holding out his hand to help her to her feet. "You're a long way from home," he says.

"So are you. And on a motorcycle."

He glances back at the bike and she swears he's blushing under his helmet. "It's easier for transportation," he explains. "It allows me my freedom."

"To do what?"

His chest swells in assumed pride. "I'm a rogue demon hunter now."

"You hunt rogue demons?"

"No, I'm the rogue."

Wesley and rogue, another word combination she never thought she'd hear.

When she takes a step, Willow winces at the pain in her knees, feeling the scrabble of tiny rocks and sediment imbedded into her flesh.

"You should get cleaned up," Wesley says. "Where are you staying?"

She hasn't thought that far ahead. Somehow, in the fantasy she'd created, Oz was going to see her and take her back to wherever he was spending the night. And that realization sends the events of the night crashing back into her shoulders, making the tears return to blind her eyes.

He notices and nods as if he understands. "I have a hotel room. You can get cleaned up there. Get some rest before going back to Sunnydale in the morning."

She can only reciprocate his nod. As she follows behind him, she sees the awkward gait of his step, the cautious way he throws his leg over the seat. Maybe he was hurt, she thinks. Out loud, she says, "Maybe I should be the one to ask if you're all right," and points to his legs when he looks confused.

"Ah. No. It's...the trousers. They...chafe." He shakes his head as he flips his visor back down. "My apologies for not having an extra helmet. I don't normally carry passengers."

"It's no big," she says, climbing on behind him. There is a moment of hesitation as she wonders what's she's supposed to do, but the scent of leather as it hits her nose is comforting, reminding her of Buffy and of home and of all things safe. Willow sighs as she puts her arms around his waist. "Thank you for the save-age," she murmurs, and closes her eyes against the dark as the bike roars to life beneath her legs, whisking them away from the vampire dust that is now scattering on the ocean breeze.

And she's tired again.

WESLEY

Another town, another demon, and did he ever think he'd end up in this part of California again? Part of him debates whether he should ride the few extra miles down the motorway to Sunnydale and drop in to say hello to Rupert, but somehow, he fancies his presence would not be a welcome one. No, better to just find the Jwa'hra demon and be done with it. He has a job to do. That is what's important.

So, when he sees her strolling along the streets downtown, Wesley's first thought is that it was his musings about the Hellmouth that had forced his brain to conjure the image of one of its inhabitants. It's only when she stops on one particularly sun-laden corner and tilts her head back, opening and closing her mouth as if she is swallowing down the very sky, that he knows he isn't seeing things. It really is Willow. But why she is here and not there remains a mystery.

She seems older than he remembers, but then realizes the shadows under her eyes make it appear so. She must be studying too hard, he thinks, and feels an unexpected swell of pride at her scholarship. He's always appreciated that about her. The only one of her group to understand the value of the written word, and the power of knowledge when it came to the battle between good and evil. Plus, fearless. He remembers the fray at graduation, and smiles at the memory.

When his contact tells him the Jwa'hra has left town already, he knows he should follow the trail as quickly as possible. Trails have a tendency to vanish if you ignore them, and this particular demon is one he's been hunting for quite a while. He has a score to settle. But as he's heading back to his hotel to gather his few things, he spots that knit cap again, only this time it is standing outside a club, waiting in some line to go in.

Ah. Now he understands. She is there to have fun. That would explain her earlier mood. It must be some sort of vacation.

What he doesn't understand is why is she alone. Back in Sunnydale, she was never alone. There was always the Slayer, or Rupert, or young Xander Harris. It is obvious that she isn't even waiting for someone to arrive, allowing a group of raucous young people to push her farther back from the entrance, and his decision to stay and watch her---just to make sure she's all right, he tells himself---seems ordained. It's only a matter of minutes, he reasons. Just until she goes inside to safety, or someone comes up to join her.

Except it doesn't happen. She grows confused when the queue starts to break apart, skirting the crowds to approach the bouncer. Wesley can't hear the words that are exchanged, but the slumping of her shoulders, the crooked turn of her body as she walks away from the building and all the people, tells him enough. Behind his visor, he frowns, eyes following her hunched form. She is headed toward the darker part of town. Alone. And she isn't watching where she's going. He really has no choice but to follow.

More than once, he asks why he just doesn't stop and let her know he's there, convince her to go back to civilization and the warm bosom of her friends. But he already knows what will happen. She will laugh. Scorn him as ridiculous, just as the Slayer did. Just as Faith did. Hell, just as Rupert did. She won't do it with words, of course. Not gentle Willow. No, her contempt would be in the expression of her eyes, and though he considers himself stronger now, not the same Wesley Wyndam-Pryce who first descended upon the Hellmouth all bluster and vinegar, he is still not certain that it won't break him in two. Or more. Most likely, more.

Only when the vamp appears from nowhere, tackling her to the ground, does he gun the engine to close the gap. He can't even see her slight form under the hulk of the demon, and a suddenly anxious Wesley rushes forward, stake in hand, to plunge it directly into the creature's back.

She stops moving immediately, lying there amidst the dust until it makes her sneeze in a high-pitched squeak, and only then can he bring himself to touch her, scooping her under the arms to help her lean against the brick wall.

"Are you all right?" he asks, eyes searching the tender slope of her neck for any puncture wounds. His relief is palpable when he sees it is blemish-free. Except for the freckles. Did he know she had freckles before?

Willow frowns. Instead of answering, she reached up and taps on his visor with her index finger, almost as if she is asking entrance. When he pushes it up, he is surprised when she smiles. It looks genuine. Beaming, even in the midnight. And she makes a joke about him and leather being an unlikely combination, but it doesn't sound in the slightest bit mean.

"You're a long way from home," he says as he helps her to her feet. If she's smiling like that, she must be all right, he decides.

"So are you. And on a motorcycle."

He swears she's laughing at him now---perhaps my estimation was correct after all---and squirms in discomfort as he looks back at his bike, mumbling something about transportation and his freedom.

"To do what?" she asks.

Now this he can be proud of. "I'm a rogue demon hunter," he boasts with pleasure.

"You hunt rogue demons?"

His pride deflates. "No, I'm the rogue," he emphasizes. Why does no one ever understand that? He is distracted when he hears her wince, and notices for the first time the blood oozing from her scraped knees. "You should get cleaned up. Where are you staying?"

And then there it is again, that slumping, only now Wes is close enough to see the tears shining in her eyes. Something must have gone terribly wrong, he thinks, and makes the offer to allow her the use of his hotel room before he can even consider otherwise. Though her tears didn't disappear, it is obvious that she is grateful when she nods and follows him to the bike. And perhaps again, he is wrong about her. Maybe she won't be derisive. Even her comment about his soreness seems to be tinged in concern.

"Ah. No. It's...the trousers." How he must sound like an absolute prat having to admit this. "They...chafe."

But she doesn't laugh. She accepts him at face value and climbs on, hesitating only a moment before sliding slender arms around his waist. He is surprised at how good it feels to not be alone on the bike, and mentally berates himself for not having a spare helmet to ensure her safety. Just have to be more careful, he thinks. It wouldn't do to save the girl and then have her get hurt as I'm getting her away.

He almost misses her thank you. Wes doesn't reply, concentrating instead on coaxing the motorcycle back to life and guiding it back onto the street. Behind the visor, he smiles unseen.

And for the first time in weeks, feels awake again.

WILLOW

She is numb by the time they arrive at the Holiday Inn, and not just on the outside. He left because of me. He couldn't bear to see me again. He'd asked for time. He'd sworn he'd never loved anyone like he loved her. And yet he still ran, not willing to face the pain that he'd caused while he sought to control his own.

No more crying though, she vows. Giving it up for Lent. If she actually celebrated Lent, that is. The tears she's already shed have long been dried by the gentle wind along the ride, so by the time the engine dies beneath her, Willow's eyes are clear, her face somber. For all intents and purposes, she looks like she's feeling better.

But she doesn't move. She can't. Her arms are still locked around Wesley's waist, almost frightened to let go and more than a little shocked at how surprisingly solid he is before her. Does she want to consider the good luck in running into him, right then, just in time to save her? Not really. She just wants to not let go of the one person who's not turned away from her today. That doesn't seem so much to ask, considering.

His fingers are firm where they grasp her wrists, gently prising her free. He astonishes her by not letting them go, encircling them effortlessly within his gloved grip as he rises from his seat. Looking up, she is met with the blank expression of the visor and without thinking, Willow reaches up to tap at it again. It's too easy to think of him as a stranger like this; she needs to be able to see at least his eyes to know that all of this isn't some weird sort of Hellmouth nightmare.

He does so without speaking, seemingly waiting for whatever missive to part her lips. She just smiles---well, it's almost a smile. Her mouth has moved even if it hasn't met her eyes. But it's enough, for both of them, and he releases his hold to move to the rear of the bike.

Wesley is silent until he has stepped into the room after her, setting aside his helmet and the satchel he'd removed as she hovers expectantly near the door. "You should go clean up," he says, gesturing toward the bathroom. "Take those off so that your...injuries can be adequately cleaned."

He seems reluctant to look at her for some reason, and she frowns when he crosses to the clothes rail, removing one of only three shirts hanging there. "You'll probably wish to wear those when you leave in the morning," he says, and she realizes he's referring to her clothes and the fact that he's offering her one of his shirts to sleep in and I'm sure Buffy would have something clever to say about right now, but I'm just so tired.

So, she just thanks him and takes the shirt, disappearing into the bathroom to peel away the cotton that has dried to her skin. She winces as the tights come away, seeing her skin stretch along with them, reluctant to part company, only to tear open again with fresh vigor, the scarlet beads trickling down her kneecaps as she starts to bleed again. He shouldn't have given me a white one, she thinks, as she changes the rest of her clothes. But, though it hangs on her in a size comfortably large, and she has to roll the sleeves up quite a few times in order to have use of her hands, its length stops at the middle of her thighs, leaving its hem stainfree as she steps back into the main room.

He has changed in the time she's been gone, from the black leather to a navy tee and similarly shaded sweats, but this still isn't the Wes she remembers. This is someone looking frightfully young, maybe a graduate student she would see roaming around on campus. His glasses are back on his face, though, and with the first aid kit spread out on the nearest of the beds, his position of concern is unmistakable.

Willow pulls the white cotton tight around her thighs as she sits on the edge of the mattress, keeping her eyes down as he kneels before her to minister to her wounds. His touch is light, and the antiseptic stings where the cotton wool catches on the broken skin, but her face remains stoic, all her discomfort registering instead in Wesley's furrowed brow.

"So what are you doing so far away from Sunnydale?" he finally asks quietly. He's still not looking at her, and she's beginning to wonder if she's grown a huge wart on the end of her nose or something that he doesn't want to be forced to see for extended periods of time, but she answers him anyway.

"Oz was playing." Thinking his name was hard enough; it ached even more to have to say it out loud.

"Oh." Silence. Then, tentatively, "Did you decide against seeing the show?"

"It was cancelled."

"Oh." More quiet. The only sound in the room was the plastic rattle of the antiseptic bottle as he twisted the cap back into place. "So, why---?"

And she's tired of the questions, and because he's been so nice to her, she tells him, tells him all of it, the words jerky and halting at first about how she'd come hoping to see her old boyfriend, lying to her friends so that they wouldn't try to stop her or tell her she was hanging onto pipe dreams when she knew exactly all along that that was what she was doing. Then, faster, smoother, streaming forth as she relayed the excitement of wandering around the town, and how it had backfired on her because that was obviously how Oz had seen she was there and run off before the show could even start, leaving her to go heedlessly off to the point where Wesley had seen her.

He remains mute throughout her confession, sitting back on his heels as he listens. And this time, those bright blue eyes bore into hers, never wavering, never judging, just watching and accepting and it almost looks like understanding. It's so different from spilling it all out to the gang at home. Oh sure, they'd been great at first, but with every look Anya gave her watch, and with every offer from Xander to make a food run, and with Buffy's incessant need to patrol, it had been obvious they were tired of listening to her. She wasn't dumb. She was just sad.

He did have something to say, though, and he looks thoughtful as she stops to gulp in large mouthfuls of air. Somehow, she must've forgotten to keep breathing while she was telling him, she thinks.

"Oz is a werewolf," he says simply. "With a highly attuned sense of smell. He probably didn't see you at all. You did nothing wrong by enjoying your day in the sunshine. And frankly, if he ran without even deigning to give you an explanation why, I'd say he's a coward and hardly worthy of any more of your tears, Willow."

The simplicity of his observation makes her stop, lips parting, almost smiling as she gazes at him in wonder. She hadn't thought of the smelling thing, which she really should've since he'd done it more than once back in Sunnydale. But it was the other, the part that sounded vaguely like a compliment, that took her the most aback. Watcher Wesley wasn't concerned in how things made you feel. Watcher Wesley was only interested in careful translations of archaic texts, and doing things by the book, and trying to convince everyone that he was the only right one in the room.

Of course, Watcher Wesley didn't wear leather or tool around the countryside on a motorcycle calling himself a "rogue demon hunter," either.

"You weren't on the prowl for a werewolf, were you?" she jokes, trying to shift the conversation away from her. "Is that why you're coasting the sunny California streets?"

His lips thin, and she wonders for a moment if he's going to answer her at all, but he only shakes his head. "A Jwa'hra demon. Unfortunately, I...missed it. It's left town already." He straightens, and she is forced to bend her neck backward in order to look up at him. I don't remember him being so tall. "You should rest," he says. "I'll set the alarm so that you don't miss your bus in the morning."

Her voice stops him as he heads for the bathroom. "Maybe you should come to Sunnydale, too," Willow suggests. He wants to find a demon; it certainly seems like the most natural thing in the world to offer the Scooby services, especially since he's hardly a stranger.

This time he actually smiles at her before hesitating at the door. "Not all demons end up at the Hellmouth," he says, and she can't tell if he's kidding or not because it sounds so drastically different than anything Watcher Wesley would've said. "But I do appreciate the offer."

The door is shut before she finds her voice again, but it comes out a whisper, pensive and lost and tremulous in the barren atmosphere of the hotel room. "Thank you for listening to me."

WESLEY

Even going slowly, the ride is too short, and Wesley chides himself for enjoying the added weight having her behind him gives to the motorcycle. He's fooled himself into forgetting what it felt like to be lonely, and the sudden onslaught of familiar, especially in the shape of Willow Rosenberg, strips the delusions away. Dallying to further the false sense of camaraderie is foolhardy to his survival, but even when she doesn't pull away once they've arrived, it is impossible to let his irritation linger.

She is in need of a friend right now. He is determined to give that to her.

So he doesn't let go when he gets off, the question of whether she is still crying turning his head to look at her. In what seems to be becoming a characteristic gesture, Willow reaches up to tap at his helmet, and he bares his gaze to her, wondering just what it is she wants, what it is she is going to say.

Confirmation perhaps. A request to get her a different room in spite of the fact that there are two perfectly good beds in his. It would hardly be uncalled for; of course, the gentlemanly thing for him to do would be to offer first, but somehow, Wes can't bring himself to do it. He's gone too long hearing only the sound of his own voice or the various snarls and grunts of demons to casually toss aside an opportunity for adult, human conversation.

When she smiles, though, he is startled by the sad resignation in her eyes, as if she's already decided to catalog her evening escapades as yet another unfortunate occurrence in the life of a Sunnydale citizen. Like she doesn't have a choice but to bear the pain. And the pang of empathy slicing in his chest takes him by such surprise that he releases his hold, returning to the semblance of rote work---retrieving his few possessions at the rear of the bike, removing his helmet---in an attempt to regain control.

Too much, and too little, tumbles around inside his brain, searching for order as he leads her to his room, every step anticipatory of her request for someplace else. It never comes, which only makes his thinking even more confused when he finally pushes the door open for her.

She speaks like Willow Rosenberg, she dresses like Willow Rosenberg, and she smiles like Willow Rosenberg.

So why does she seem like only half the Willow Rosenberg I once knew?

Why does she seem like more?

So many possible answers. Her mood throwing him off, his mood throwing him off. She's older, granted only six months or so, but still...

He is distracted for a moment when he sees that she is waiting for him. "You should go clean up." Yes, her encounter. Focus on her...

And he rips his eyes away when his gaze slides along the curve of her calf instead of staying on her hidden knees, suddenly embarrassed at his obvious behavior. "Take those off so that your..." Don't say legs. Don't let her think you're looking at her legs, you prat. "...injuries can be adequately cleaned."

The offer of his own shirt for her to sleep in is out of his mouth before he can stop it, though, and Wesley wishes desperately that she will merely construe it as a concern for her clothing and not as anything more. More would be unseemly, and most definitely not his primary intention, though for some reason his body is arguing otherwise.

When she accepts and disappears into the sanctuary of the bathroom, he exhales loudly, frantically grabbing his own clothing to change from the bindings that are now constricting his skin. Just need to breathe, he tells himself. Wash away the detritus of demon hunting. Get Willow sorted, brush my teeth, then a good night's sleep. It's been a long day.

Yet his resolve is shattered when she steps from the bathroom and sets her carefully folded clothes by the sink, pale fingers twisting and knotting with each other once they are bereft of something to keep them occupied. She looks both younger and older in his white shirt, short hair burning incandescent in the artificial light, green eyes luminous. It is far too big on her, hiding every hint of femininity beneath its crisp waves. But as she fusses with the cuffs that are miles too long, there is an echo of a breast, a casual promise of maturity that roots him to his spot, and he is frozen as she sits on the edge of the bed, waiting for him to tend to the bleeding knees she exposes for him.

"So what are you doing so far away from Sunnydale?" he finally manages to ask, searching for that normal conversation he'd been dreaming about on the ride to the hotel.

"Oz was playing."

Oz. The boyfriend. Of course. The other questions come more awkwardly as her replies don't truly clarify the picture. When she launches into the story of why she's in town, he sits back and just listens, judging by the raggedness of her voice that tears would be flowing if not for an amazing amount of control on her part and knowing without having been told that these are words she desperately needs to unleash.

He gives her the only rational explanation he can afterward and then hesitates, his heart thumping in his chest as he tentatively rests a hand on her knee. Barely there really. Doesn't even count as a touch.

"...frankly," he says, and prays she sees that he means this, that she'd be a fool not to believe him, "if he ran without even deigning to give you an explanation why, I'd say he's a coward and hardly worthy of any more of your tears, Willow."

His words act as if he's switched a light on inside her. The green of her eyes become brighter. She almost smiles. And then there is the Willow he remembers, the cheerful, optimistic one who tackled her problems in a quiet desperation unnoticed by her friends, and he relaxes for the first time since she's stepped inside his room. He did the right thing. Sharing a few hours of companionship is exactly what both of them needed.

And she certainly doesn't need to know he probably lost the trail of his prey just to tend to her, so he carefully sidesteps her joking questions before suggesting she sleep. Her eyes are weary, more so than he thinks he's seen outside of his own mirror lately, and he doesn't want to be the one to add to her aches.

His heart jumps into his throat, however, when her quiet offer to go to Sunnydale stops him at the bathroom door. Searching her face, he sees no guile and can't help but wonder if mind-reading has become de rigueur for her campus Wicca group. How else to explain her tacit understanding of his very thoughts only hours earlier? Smiling, he replies, "Not all demons end up at the Hellmouth, but I do appreciate the offer." Hopefully, she'll think he's joking about his hunt and not see that he is in fact referring to himself, disappearing into the bathroom before giving her the opportunity to say anything more.

When he emerges again, she has already crawled under the blankets and fallen asleep, lashes so delicate against her cheeks that they appear as cobwebs in the shadows they create along her cheek. He stands between the beds and gazes down at her in the darkness, fighting the urge to push back the hair that has fallen across her brow.

"Thank you for talking to me," he murmurs, before sliding between the sanctuary of his own sheets.

WILLOW

Not surprisingly, she dreams of Oz.

She knows right away it's prom. Everyone is there. Buffy and Angel, acting as if he isn't a vampire but merely an older-type boyfriend. Xander and Cordelia, smiling and laughing like the whole incident with him being caught with Willow never even happened. And she and Oz, his arm casually tossed over the back of her chair as she looks around her friends at the table. In the distance, she can see a dapperly trim Giles standing by the punch bowl, and is reminded yet again of why she had such a crush on him sophomore year.

And even without having to see Jenny chatting with the librarian as if she had never died, Willow knows this is a dream.

Because she's happy.

It's enough to just sit back and enjoy everything.

The cacophony of voices and laughter and glasses clinking and forks scraping along china, all melding together in a heartening melange.

The floral scents that waft from too many corsages to mingle with the perfumes and colognes of all the bodies pressed into the crowded room.

Warmth. From those same bodies, heating and rising and wrapping around her bare arms to cocoon her in safety.

She smiles at a joke from Xander, and feels a gurgle rise in her stomach as a waiter with food passes behind her. Food. Oh, she's hungry. She waits for a reasonable break in the conversation, and then turns to Oz, her mouth opening to ask him to get her something to eat.

Except nothing comes out.

Her lips are moving, and she's thinking the words, but Oz doesn't even turn his head, doesn't even notice that she's trying to speak. She pulls on his sleeve, but not even that is enough to get his attention. The gurgles come back, louder and more insistent, and she realizes she's not just hungry, she's ravenous, like she hasn't eaten in days.

That's OK. I'll just get food for myself.

So she pushes her chair back and rises, opening her mouth to automatically excuse herself and then laughing silently at her own forgetfulness. Nobody else notices. They don't glance up when she walks away, and she wonders if they ever even realized that she was there.

Halfway across the room, she hears the music start up from the stage, and looks up automatically to see what band is playing. Her feet stop, forcing her to stare at the idle form of Veruca before the microphone, and slowly, her head swivels to see Oz transfixed by the sight of the singer, his hands lengthening into claws as they curl around the back of his chair.

Willow's eyes grow wide. Salty, fire-tinged panic curls its lethal fingers around her heart and squeezes, savaging rational thoughts and questions of how she could've gotten the moon wrong, and instead propelling her back to stumble like a madwoman through the throng, pushing aside the bodies that seem to have multiplied as she tries to return to the table and her friends.

They don't see. He'll hurt them and he'll hate himself. I have to stop this.

It becomes obliterated from her view as people rise from their seats to move to the dance floor, and she is trying to tell them to get out of her way, to clear a path, but no one can hear her. There is no sound but that of Veruca's voice, and they are in thrall to the song she sings for them, ignoring the clumsy redhead pushing and falling against their eveningwear, loose petals from the corsages she knocks fluttering to the ground to be crushed under their feet.

He is gone by the time she gets there, as are the others, and Willow's head whips around to see him approaching the stage. Look at me, she wants to shout, but of course, cannot. So she runs instead, toward him, trying to reach Oz before it's too late. And the questions of where Buffy is, and why isn't Buffy dealing with this, and shouldn't Giles be going for a weapon or something are lost in her dread.

Even when she's on the stage, and Veruca is turning to look at her, a gleam of satisfaction in those eyes---god, I hate those eyes---it's only then that she sees that the room is empty. All that is left is her, and Veruca, and the growing realization that the singer is changing right in front of her, the music from the band still playing as if they are there.

Run. Run. Gotta run.

But she can't. Veruca springs before the synapses that have fired can speak to her feet. And she is pinned to the stage, the werewolf's claws pincering into her shoulders, its jaws still working as the words of the song continue to fill the air.

She tries to call for help, over and over and over again. I have no mouth and I must scream, only this isn't AM even if high school can feel like one big machine, and wouldn't Giles be proud of me for having a literary reference as my last dying thought, even if it is Ellison, but still that should count for something...

The song quits in a strangled rasp, Veruca's back arching as she howls in pain. Willow freezes, drowning in the coppery smell of her own blood, and watches as the werewolf explodes in a cloud of dust---But she's not a vampire, that's not how she should die---showering her in a fine mist that makes her cough and sputter as she fights now for air.

The demon's claws are replaced by strong hands pressing compresses into her wounds. When she opens her lids, she is immediately greeted by bright blue eyes, concerned behind his glasses. Blink once. Blink twice. It can't be. He's long gone. And...

"Oh, god," she sobs, the relief at seeing Wesley melting away the adrenaline that had leadened her muscles. And she's crying, not because of the pain, and not because it wasn't Oz that rescued her although why he isn't there she can't help but wonder. She cries because she heard her voice again, just hers, saying what she wanted it to say.

He's cradling her against his chest, the soothe of his words a whisper into her hair. She can't discern them, but their actuality is not what matters. What matters is their intent, and Wesley only wishes to make her feel better, to make the pain go away. She knows this, can feel it with every fiber of her being, and as the minutes tick away, her cries lessen, slipping away until the velvet blanket of unconsciousness descends.

She's not afraid this time. This is good sleep. This is safe sleep. Because Wesley is there to contest any demon that might wish to attack her again. She heard him give her his word.

WESLEY

Surprisingly, he dreams of Willow.

What surprises him is that it's so vivid, every sensation so vibrant and pulsing in life that he would swear he was actually awake. Because Wesley doesn't often remember his dreams, though he knows he does have them. Only the ones that feel so real make it into his conscious thoughts. And he knows without having to question why, that this one will effortlessly join those ranks.

He's back in Sunnydale, the bane of his profound failure. More specifically, he's back in that damn school library, though he knows with his rational brain that he aided in destroying it just several months earlier. In his head, though, it glistens from newness, the fresh aroma of papyrus combining with the dust of tomes long-forgotten to prickle at his nose, making him smile in spite of the bitter taste of memories the archives contain.

The room is empty and a quick glance into the office tells him that Giles isn't about either. "Hello?" he calls out, and hears an echo from among the stacks. He frowns, taking a cautious step forward, and repeats his greeting.

"Hi!"

Her exuberance takes him by surprise, and Wesley stumbles back against the checkout desk, all long arms and long legs that never seem to balance correctly when he's caught off-guard. When Willow bounces from the upper stacks, a heavy leather-bound book in her arms, to settle in a comfortable heap into one of the chairs, he straightens his glasses on his nose and relaxes.

"I didn't think you were going to come," she says with a smile, and lifts her legs to sit Indian-style in the seat. Her thighs become the bridge upon which she rests her reading material, and he watches as she opens it up to the middle. Only then does he notice that she's wearing his shirt, untucked from whatever skirt lies hidden underneath it, and her feet are bare. He realizes that's it probably a good thing she's set the book in her lap because otherwise his vantage point would allow him to see more than the smooth expanse of curved calf and ankle she has exposed already. What shocks him, though, is when he realizes that he's disappointed he can't.

"You invited me," he replies, as if that is the only explanation necessary.

Willow giggles. "You wore the leather pants. Buffy is so not going to believe me until she sees you."

He looks down then and sees that her observation is indeed right. He is dressed in his motorcycle gear, minus his helmet, and when he steps forward, he feels the unmistakable burn along the inner seams. "Is Buffy here?" he asks, easing himself into the chair next to her.

She shakes her head. "Just you and me." Her smile fades slightly. "That's all right, isn't it? After everything you said, I figured you might want a little downtime before the gang pops around. Get used to the place again. Once you take a look around, I'm sure you'll see it's not so bad."

After everything I said...? He wonders how much he actually revealed but lets it go, focusing instead on her insecurity about her arrangements. "That's fine. I'd rather thought I wouldn't be staying long, though."

Her face falls. "But...you came all this way. Why would...I don't understand. Is it me? Have I messed up already? Is that why you're running away?"

"It's not you," he tries to assure. "It's me. I just...this place." How can he explain that his distaste for the Hellmouth has nothing to do with the beautiful creature before him and everything to do with the ugly one inside? His hand runs through his hair, tugging at the roots as if the tiny pinpricks of pain will sharpen his reasoning.

Her hand is on his shoulder then, fluttering and hovering with the weightless effort of a small bird, and when Wesley lifts his head again, the book is gone, her legs are down, and he can see that she isn't actually wearing anything under his shirt. His unexpected arousal makes the leather trousers all that much tighter, and he shifts uncomfortably in his chair, embarrassed at his own audacity and wishing desperately that it would go away.

"Don't run," she says. "Please don't run. Everybody does that."

"You did," he can't help but retort.

"I was running to something. That's different."

"So am I."

"To what?"

Only, he doesn't know the answer to that question. She is leaning into him now, eyes luminous and thoughtful, but all he can see are the freckles that are scattered along her neck. "How long have you had those?" he asks, and lifts a hand to brush cautious fingers over the pale dots. Definitely a dream. I'd never have the nerve to do this while I'm awake.

She tilts her head so that he can more readily touch them. "All my life. I hate them."

"You shouldn't. They're lovely. They're...real." Without even realizing he's doing it, Wesley leans forward and runs his lips along the line of her neck, down into the curve of her shoulder, tasting the salt of her skin with the very tip of his tongue. Her sigh makes his flesh warm, and when he feels her hand cradle the side of his face, he can't help but lift his gaze to see her.

"Thank you," she says softly. As he begins to smile, though, the seeds of contentment brewing deep inside his gut, her eyes well with tears, flooding and shining and spilling down her cheeks until the sobs get sucked from her throat.

"Don't cry," he rushes in a panic, and straightens to take her by the shoulders, trying to comfort her. "Don't cry." Why is she crying? But all he can hear is her pain.

When his lids shoot open to see the hotel room ceiling staring down at him, it doesn't surprise him that the same noises in his dream are coming from the bed at his side. He rises like a shot, and mimics his dream consolation, pushing a writhing Willow back into her mattress by her shoulders, all the while a stream of what he hopes are comforting words issuing from his mouth.

Her eyes open, staring blankly in front of her as the cries of pain quiet in her chest. For some reason, he can't tell if she's awake or asleep.

She blinks once.

Then, again.

And just when he thinks that maybe she's still slumbering, her face crumples, a breathy "oh god" evaporating from her lips.

He goes on instinct then, and cradles her against his chest, feeling the sobs wrack her thin body as her tears wet his tee. "It's all right," he tries to soothe, repeating and repeating, in every way he's ever heard and every way he's ever wished to hear. "Nothing's going to hurt you. It's only a dream. It's all right. I won't let anything hurt you. I promise." Over and over again until it finally seems as if she's beginning to hear.

The tremors in her shoulders lessen, softening into the faintest of ripples until they are gone. When he finally looks down, he sees her lashes against her cheeks, the gentle rise of her chest. She is sleeping again. Not deeply, though, not yet, because as he tries to rise, she whimpers and clings to his waist.

He can't remember the last time someone did that.

Wesley smiles in the darkness. He'll just wait until she doesn't need him anymore. It isn't as if he requires a lot of sleep. And there will be plenty of time for sleep after she is gone.

WILLOW

The first thing she notices is how warm she is. Cuddly, pressed against another body kind of warm. The kind of warm she'd been hoping for when she started out on this crazy trip.

Except Oz is little. And the body her arms are wrapped around is...not so little.

Slowly, her eyes blink open and she sees the blurry expanse of navy spreading out before her, feels the cotton soft against her cheek. She has a crick in her neck from the awkward half-sitting position in which she spent the latter half of the night, and carefully eases herself away from the other slumbering form, not horribly surprised when she lifts her gaze to see Wesley leaning against the headboard bolted to the wall.

Not so much a dream then, she thinks, and remembers the flashes of the nightmare as its serrated fingers crawl along beneath her skin, congealing her stomach in its familiar ice before the flush of how it ended swathes her back in heat. Just a dream. Not real.

Wesley mumbles in his sleep and shifts, his head slumping as his body readjusts to her absence.

Willow smiles. But this is real.

Carefully, she rolls off the far end of the bed, staying as silent as she can as she carries her clothes into the bathroom. No reason to wake him. Daylight is already obvious through the crack of the curtains, and she has plenty of time to walk to the bus station herself. Wes has done more than enough in her little adventure, she reasons; he deserves his rest. Time to put it all behind her and go back to Sunnydale and pretend the little debacle never happened.

She won't forget, though. She doesn't think she'll ever forget.

Dropping her ruined tights in the garbage, she goes to the desk and looks for something to write him a note, to let him know she's all right and not to worry. Nothing on top, which means opening the lone drawer, but as it squeaks in protest, her muscles freeze, her head jerking around to see if the amplified sound is enough to rouse Wesley.

It's not. He doesn't even move. He must really need his sleep, she thinks.

Sitting then, and scribbling her note, the pen scratching across the paper in her haste. It feels odd to thank someone for saving her life with just a few written words. Odd and remotely unfulfilling, considering how much he's already done for her, even if he doesn't really know it. Crying on his shoulder---OK, against his chest really, but it's all just words anyway, isn't it?---had been more cathartic than weeks of venting at her friends, and she doesn't really understand the why of it.

Maybe because he had no vested interest in cheering her up and was there anyway.

Maybe because he listened to her without judging, comprehending the need to just spill the emotions onto the floor and watch them run around the edges and seep into the cracks.

Maybe because it had come on the tail of both knowing Oz was really gone and getting attacked.

Maybe because of all of it.

She only has to sign her name now, and the urge to merely put a W is strong, lending an intimacy more conducive than the awkwardness of her full appellation. Her pen hovers over the paper, though, lethargic in its power to finish the missive, and she wonders why it is that goodbyes are always so hard for her.

"You're already dressed."

His voice startles her into dropping the pen, and she swivels in her seat as she leans over to pick it up, her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. He hasn't really moved except to straighten where he's leaning against the headboard, eyes open and bare of his glasses. His hair is mussed, and one side is flattened with the ends sticking straight up, but he is oblivious to his disarray.

"I didn't want to wake you," she says. "I was just writing a note."

He nods as if he expected nothing less. "You'll be hungry, I expect. If you wait, we can have breakfast before you go."

"I'm fine." She's not. Her stomach is growling so loud, she's sure he can tell that she's lying. "Really."

She doesn't know what else to say because suddenly, the air is awkward and thick and she is feeling very much like a one-night stand sneaking out of the house before the guy can wake up and remind her that it really was just a one-night stand. Silly. It's just Wesley. And he saved your life, remember?

Oh, she remembers. All too clearly. She remembers leather and dust and motorcycles and crying and nightmares about boyfriends who disappear and unexpected allies lending their support in the form of strong arms and capable shoulders. It's just like Sunnydale, except not, and it's the not that's creating the k brand of that word in her stomach. Because she doesn't really know what to think right now. Her next step was much easier before she had to look him in the eye and tell him she was leaving.

The knock at the door takes them both by surprise, and Wesley frowns when he rises from the bed to answer it. The lines in his brow deepen when the squirrelly man slips inside, babbling away so quickly that even Willow has problems keeping up with him.

Something about a demon, and doubling back, and a burial ground under the docks, and Wes doesn't happen to know any really good Maluschna counterspells, does he?

And he's changed yet again before her eyes, straightening and squaring and he even looks taller, how does he look taller, and as Willow watches, Wesley marches to one of the bags he'd brought in from the motorcycle the previous night, extracting an ancient book to begin thumbing through its pages. He's not the Watcher from the rescue, and he's not the Comforter from her dreams. This is the Demon Hunter he is striving to become, and she can't help but feel a swell of wow creep up her neck, unexpected awe and envy at how he is trying to redefine himself, at how well he is succeeding, forcing her lips to curl into a smile.

"There's nothing here," she hears him mutter, and he closes the book with a solid thump that relays his displeasure. "Perhaps a different---."

"But it's gotta be Maluschna," the visitor rushes. "You know that's the only thing that works against his kind. And if you don't stop it, there'll be no telling how far he's going to go."

She knows that name, and the energy that's now buzzing around the room is contagious, thrusting her back into the middle of the most heated Scooby meeting except with a plus because here there is no Buffy to drive the fists over thinking method that Willow often finds so frustrating. Her mouth is opening before she can even stop it, the words tumbling out almost as quickly as the new arrival's.

"I know some Maluschna counterspells," she says.

WESLEY

The first thing he notices is how cold he feels. Somehow, his mind registers that he had been warm, and that that warmth was now missing, and a grimace of irritation crosses his features as his eyelids flutter open.

Alone. He's alone. And sitting in the most godforsaken position imaginable.

He remembers then, spying her hunched over form at the desk before glancing at the unmade bed to his side. Willow. Following her through the streets before saving her from the vampire attack, and then bringing her back here to tend to. Then...her nightmare. Now it all makes sense.

She has changed into her other clothes, that knit cap pulled low over her head, shoulders rounded as he listens to her writing away at something. Most likely, a note of departure, he reasons, especially since she is clearly dressed and ready to leave. He is oddly saddened at the thought of her sneaking out without saying goodbye, and feels slightly sullied at the thought of being used so.

Can't truly be used if I offered, though. To think otherwise is hardly fair to her.

So, he watches her write in silence, heeding the stopping and starting and stopping again, the soft click of her teeth against the pen when she bites at the end of it to aid in her thinking. Watches, because that's what he does. That's what he's always done. Or rather, that's what he always did. It still surprises him that he manages to forget that sometimes.

It's her last hesitation, the one that stretches into a minute, and then two, and then four nearing five, that prompts him to finally speak.

"You're already dressed." Stating the obvious because anything else could lead down paths he's not sure she wishes to traverse.

He pulls himself into a straighter position against the headboard, wincing slightly at the ache across his shoulder blades but registering nothing on his face when his voice startles her into dropping her pen. She scrabbles to pick it up, and he sees the flush creep up her neck, shining her eyes, before she turns to look at him.

"I didn't want to wake you. I was just writing a note."

Polite and considerate Willow. It's nice to know his instincts haven't been wrong about her. He nods because he's unsure what to say next, hoping it makes him appear wiser and more confident than he feels. He'd known all along how this was going to end, and the fact that it comes so abruptly shouldn't leave him feeling so disappointed, but that's what it is, a hard lump in the back of his throat as the realization that he will be on the road again today, alone, without the comfortable weight of a partner behind him, grips him in silence.

Food, he suddenly thinks. She has to eat.

And he's like a drowning man desperate for a preserver as he makes the observation, suggesting she waits so that they can have breakfast together. It would only delay the inevitable, he knows. He'd gain an hour, two at best. But those would be minutes where he didn't have to rely upon the voices of his memory to entertain him, the call of another demon down the road to distract him from the disquiet of his own failures.

Her quiet refusal shatters his hope, and his mind scrambles to find another reason for her not to just walk out of his hotel room. His desperation for her company annoys him, the neediness and desire for companionship countering everything he thought he'd been working for since leaving Sunnydale, but his brain doesn't seem to want to listen to him, searching and refusing and searching some more to find an excuse for just a few more minutes.

The knock at the door jars him from his hunt, though. He frowns as he rises automatically to answer it, questioning just who it could be since only his local contact knows of his whereabouts, and surely that avenue was closed when he deliberately opted to aid Willow instead of pursuing the trail the previous evening.

But it is his contact, and he pushes his way inside the room without an invitation, babbling away about how it was all just a set-up, that the Jwa'hra circled back and was at that very moment staking out his altar underneath the dock so that he could cast the spell that would resurrect his slain brethren.

"We gotta do something," Manny says. "I don't suppose you have any good Maluschna counterspells hanging around here, do you?"

Everything else is forgotten as the opportunity to refocus his energies is presented. Wesley straightens and marches to his bag, extracting the one book that might actually be useful and thumbing through its pages. "There's nothing here," he mutters with disappointment, and closes the book with a sigh. He mustn't give up, though, and says, "Perhaps there's a different---."

But Manny is cutting him off, reminding him unnecessarily that Maluschna spells are their only option before things get out of hand. He mustn't let that happen. He's worked too hard to stop this revivification from occurring, and he's not about to---.

"I know some Maluschna counterspells," he hears Willow say unexpectedly behind him.

Manny shuts immediately up, and Wesley turns to look at her with a frown, his momentary forgetting of her presence erased by her few words. She blushes under their scrutiny and explains, "I did a bunch of work for Giles over the summer, and memorized some to keep myself from falling asleep on the job. I could probably write them down for you."

The tension bracing his back lessens, and his eyes lock on hers, searching the guileless green for answers...deceit...anything, any reason for him to deny her. It's a fruitless search, and instead, he wonders on just how much growing up she's done since he left Sunnydale. Not Willow, and more, he muses.

Manny's on the offer like a shot. "No time, no time," he says. "You rogue demon hunters can just do it all up close and personal. Slap some clothes on, and let's get rolling, English. Your girlfriend's got you beat already."

Wesley colors at his contact's casual bandying of the term "girlfriend" and is about to argue otherwise when he notes the amused crinkle of Willow's mouth. She is fighting back the laughter, and the shine in her eyes tells him that she's all right with this, with getting lumped together with him like a prepaid package.

"You'll need a weapon," he says carefully. Am I reading you right? Please tell me that I am.

Willow rises to her feet. "Got any good crossbows handy?" she asks brightly.

WILLOW

In the end, they leave the motorcycle at the hotel.

"Don't think I'm not going with you," the new arrival says. "And if we're doing the three Musketeers gig, no way can we take your bike. We'll just toss everything in the back of my pick-up. Not your girlfriend, of course," he adds, grinning at Willow. She smiles back, but not before flushing, her gaze darting to Wes and then to the mussed beds. OK, funny the first time, she thinks. Not so funny the second. At least we're both dressed, though, and why doesn't Wesley correct him?

He just nods, only cursorily meeting her eyes as he grabs his clothes and disappears into the bathroom, leaving her alone to smile too wide and to fidget too noticeably. "I'm Willow, by the way," she offers.

"Manny. You must have some serious mojo if English is working with you. I thought he was pretty much the lone wolf."

"Oh, my mojo's more of a mo than a full jo," she rushes to assure. She's beginning to regret mentioning the counterspells. Memorizing them and actually being able to do them are two entirely different things, and what if she can't do it? Or what if she remembers them wrong? She could end up getting Wesley killed, which would hardly be fair since he did the exact opposite for her just the previous night.

So, OK, don't let it happen that way. Just be extra careful. Say the words and help him out. Balance the score sheet, and everything will be hunky-dory.

Except it's more than just the words, and her regret blossoms into terror as she remembers the other, wishing fervently that her mouth would listen to her brain just once and not get her in over her head when there's no way she can swim to safety, let alone take anyone along with her. She is hovering outside the bathroom, rigid and red and clawing her chewed-down nails into her palms, when he emerges, his hair damp from having wet it in the shower.

He immediately stiffens. "What's wrong?" he asks, and he steps so close to her that she irrationally wonders if he's going to touch her.

"Ingredients," she blurts. "I forgot about the ingredients for the spells." She gnaws at her lip, disappointment quivering her thin frame. Nothing ever goes right, she realizes. Nothing she ever wants to work goes in her favor.

He asks her if she knows the list, and when she nods in the affirmative, the tension in his body eases, a small smile canting his lips. He looks to Manny. "Get my weapons bag out to the truck. We'll be right out."

She hovers and waits until they're alone, not understanding why he suddenly seems so confident again. He pays her no heed, running a comb quickly through his hair, not speaking again until he has picked up his shoes from the corner and is perched on the edge of the bed.

"The leather satchel," he instructs. "My supplies are in there."

And even before she reaches it, Willow is chastising herself for doubting. Taking away his title doesn't change who he is. Of course he's prepared. Would I expect any less from Giles? Except Giles would've taken charge more, and been the first to remember such an important thing as ingredients, reminding her in his indirect way that she was still young and inexperienced and maybe should consider leaving off the really important work until she was better equipped. Perhaps even Wesley would've done the same thing, once upon a time. But not now.

Now, he only sits in silence, nodding in agreement as she pulls the items she will need from his bag, letting her take the reins as if it is something she was always meant to do.

And it shocks her how good it feels to be trusted so.

Her back is to him, her hand only just emerging with the last of what they'll need when she feels him standing behind her. He is warm, and solid, and the fresh, clean smell of him evokes vague memories of crying against his chest that make her tongue prickle. When she realizes she is waiting for him to reach out to her, the prospect of being wrapped in the sanctuary he extends tempering the contagion of wanting to do something about the demon, her face screws up in embarrassment at her own expectancy.

It's Wesley, she reminds herself. And he was only interested in making you feel better. Didn't Oz running teach you anything?

The shattering thoughts distract her, her hope ebbing further when no touch is forthcoming.

See? Told you so.

"I...appreciate your help in this," he says, and she can feel his words like a warm breath on the back of her neck as she looks down at the items before her. "It truly wasn't necessary."

"That's what friends do, right?" she replies as perky as she can manage. She slaps on her widest smile and steps to the side so that she can see him. And distance. Mustn't forget distance.

His response is merely to smile and nod, but his eyes seem darker, further away than if they'd been masked by his spectacles. She watches for a moment while he begins placing the items into the plastic bag he has brought over for the job, and then takes a hesitant step forward, her hand fluttering to a rest on his forearm.

"I know you're probably going to get sick of me saying it," she says. She doesn't wait for him to look at her; she'll lose her nerve if she doesn't keep going. Somehow, things seem different by the light of day, although oddly enough, he doesn't. "Last night...you didn't have to...but, it was so nice, and I just wanted to say thank you."

He smiles, and she wonders if he's going to pull away, if her touch is too forward. She still hasn't figured out what exactly is enough with him, without being too pushy or too American. But he doesn't move, even goes so far as to lightly brush his fingertips against the back of her hand. "You said that last night on the motorcycle," he says gently, "so it's hardly necessary to repeat it here."

Last night? But she didn't... "Oh! No. I meant...my dream." She colors at his misunderstanding. "The...holding, when I was all sobby from the nightmare. Thank you for that." And the next is asked before she can stop herself. "It wasn't weird for you, was it?"

"Weird?" He shakes his head. "No. Definitely not...weird."

Her relief surprises her, and it takes her a full minute to realize that her hand is still on his arm, though neither of them is speaking. With the flash of a smile, she pulls away and finishes gathering the ingredients for the spell, comfortable now in the bloom of his presence. All's well that ends well, she thinks.

Now, let's just hope I don't act accidentally blow us all up with my spell.

Even on their way to the docks, Willow isn't flustered, squeezed into the seat between the two men, with Wesley's thigh pressing against hers. Manny has country music blaring from the truck's speakers, and every time he shifts, his hand manages to brush against her skirt-covered knee where it gets in the way of the gearstick, but not even that can shake her mood.

In a way, she has what she came for. It was supposed to be about getting some answers, finding a path for her future, and though her first assumption had been that that path would be one for two---her and Oz walking into the sunset, as corny as that sounded---what she has gained is just as powerful.

She has closure. By running, Oz made his choice perfectly clear, and while she wishes that it didn't have to be that way, it gives her the answers she needs to put it behind her. It hurts---holy moly, does it ever hurt---but the pain seems different now. More...manageable. And she has no doubts that it is completely due to Wesley's influence.

Well, and one heck of a nightmare. That pretty much makes her want to slam the door on the whole mess.

So she pays him back as best she can, following his instructions to the letter when they get to the dock, fumbling with the crossbow as he and Manny take the lead. Even when the Jwa'hra turns on them in the middle of its preparations, and her feet are trying to convince her to run in the opposite direction, Willow does exactly as Wesley tells her, chanting the spell that will dissolve its power while Manny sprinkles it with the necessary powders.

She only falters once, when it manages to snag Wes' shirt sleeve with one of its horns, leaving a jagged crimson line in its wake. Panic for the Englishman chokes the words in her throat, but as she sees him fight back, his face even more grim as he lunges with the dagger he holds expertly in his hand, she trundles on, finishing the incantation and then stepping back when the demon seems to implode upon itself.

Manny is awash with grins, his laughter ringing along the sands, as he wades from the shallows back onto the beach. His congratulations roll over her, but Willow only half-hears, focusing instead on the sleeve Wesley is ripping from its seam in order to expose his injury. Before she can even reach him, he has knotted it around his arm, staunching the blood flow in a makeshift tourniquet and then turning to her with a smile that explodes into the blue of his eyes.

"Well done," he says.

It's only two words, but for some reason, they make her beam, forgetting the dismay at seeing him hurt. "Not so bad yourself, mister," she replies. Her stomach growls, and she realizes she hasn't eaten anything in almost twenty-four hours. "Now, who wants pancakes?"

WESLEY

He disappears into the bathroom with his clothes as quickly as he dares. Out in the other room, he can hear Willow and Manny talking, but their words escape him. No matter. His head is awhirl with words of his own, questions without answers and images that are bewildering at best.

She didn't have to offer to help. She could've just kept mute, and he would've attempted to stop the Jwa'hra using more mundane methods, and they would've parted ways as had been the original intention. Instead, she volunteered her assistance, with a girlish smile and a twinkle in her eye that made him feel his actual age rather than decades older, and all Wesley can wonder is why he'd gone alone on it for so long.

His body isn't helping the matter, either. There'd been a respite, when business had distracted him from her presence, but all too quickly, he is back in the sticky strands of the web she is unwittingly weaving, sinking into the emerald while her proximity leant a growing familiarity of fervor somewhere in the pit of his stomach. He is just lonely, he tries to reason, but suspects it's more than that, that it's the knowing and the not knowing combining to fascinate him, to baffle him really.

And he would be lying if he dared to deny the fact that for the first time in months, he is excited beyond belief.

He's grabbed his lone pair of jeans---one advantage to not taking the bike, can't handle the leather today---and a quick dunk of his head under the shower cools the flickers that are agitating his muscles. Deep breath. Control. You have a demon to stop. A job to do. Focus.

Right. Much better.

Until he opens the door.

And sees her standing there, red-faced and twitchy, eyes too large for her face. And he immediately stiffens.

"What's wrong?" Before he realizes what he's doing, he crosses the distance between them, glancing at Manny out of the corner of his eye. What did he say to her? What could he have done?

As he listens to her stutter over her fears regarding the spell, he can practically feel her quivering, his own body picking up her rhythms until he understands that she's merely fallen victim to her insecurities again, relinquishing what control she'd regained. So he relaxes, dismissing Manny, and sets about to finish getting ready, allowing her the purview to compose herself.

"The leather satchel," he says as he puts on his shoes. "My supplies are in there."

He bites the inside of his cheek to refrain from smiling when she literally changes before him. Gone is irresolute Willow, and back is the woman who'd requested a crossbow. Or almost. She just lacks confidence, he muses, which is hardly surprising given her circumstances. And I'd be a fool to allow her not to see just how much stronger than that she is.

Her back is to him, and he has no more excuses, not for himself and not for her, and he rises, his feet carrying him to within inches of her frame, stopping before touching is possible. And his fingers are itching to reach out and trace the pale line of her neck again---too much time obsessing about vampires, I imagine---but he doesn't, though it's killing him to stay his hand.

"I..." What? Am glad you're here? Wish you'd stay? "...appreciate your help in this." Chicken. "It truly wasn't necessary."

"That's what friends do, right?"

And then she's moving away from him, taking away the temptation, and he doesn't know if he's grateful or disappointed. So he smiles, and nods---is this all I do around her? Where's that expensive education when one needs it?---turning to the work at hand, placing the spell's ingredients into the carrier bag he has brought over. When she touches his arm, it takes all his control not to jump, and why is she thanking me again?

He doesn't care. He just looks down at her and risks lifting his own hand, stroking the fine bones along the back of hers as he says gently, "You said that last night on the motorcycle, so it's hardly necessary to repeat it here."

He feels foolish when she clarifies her gratitude, about to speak up and try to cover his ineptitude when she queries, "It wasn't weird for you, was it?"

"Weird?" Hardly the word he'd use to describe it, so he shakes his head. "No. Definitely not...weird." His mind is searching for another word to explain it, one that is safe to share without revealing too much of the havoc that is his head currently, when he feels her grip tighten for a second, a reminder that they are still touching. When he looks down, she gives him the most brilliant smile yet, beaming and genuine and he's certain designed to break his heart, and pulls away, setting back to the work at hand.

Work. Yes. He has a demon to stop.

It's his mantra as they take the rest of the supplies out to the truck, tossing them into the back as she slides into the cab. The fit is tight when he squeezes in, and she is pressed against him, leg to leg, thigh to thigh, bouncing into his shoulder every time Manny takes a turn too wide or hits a bump in the road. More than once, he sees the casual brush of his contact's hand against her knee when he shifts gears, and files away a note to have words with him about it later, his mouth tight in determination.

That disgust actually makes it easier to concentrate. When they reach the docks, he barks orders to the other two, ensuring that Willow stays behind so that she can be protected from the worst of the fray. He is absorbed by the fight, listening to her voice begin the chanting, redoubling his efforts when the Jwa'hra turns against him.

This is one of the parts of demon hunting that he adores. Research and magic were all well and good when fighting against evil, but Wesley had learned at graduation, during the battle against the Mayor, just what a sense of power could be obtained by tackling the demons head on. Not that it is easy. Each prey offers a different challenge, and there is always the possibility that he won't come out of it alive. And then there are the times when it goes horribly wrong, and he is left feeling weaker than when he started.

But the rush, the power, the sense of control. He loses himself in it with the Jwa'hra, ignoring the slice across his arm to fight back harder, listening to Willow continue behind him until it is done and the demon disappears.

His breathing is rushed, adrenaline crisping through his veins as he listens to Manny splash to the shore. Through the other man's raucous banter, he becomes aware of the blood dripping down his arm, and the sting prompts Wes to tend to the wound quickly, all efficiency and business as he staunches the flow. When he looks up, he realizes that Willow is watching him intently, her eyes jumping from his face to his arm with what looks remarkably like worry. For me? His smile is frank, automatic, and he says the first thing he feels surging within his pride.

"Well done."

The reward of her answering smile is all he needs, so hearing her light-hearted teasing in return makes him want to duck his head in an embarrassment of riches. He looks back up at her when she suggests breakfast, though, and meets her gaze.

"Pancakes sound lovely."

WILLOW

She stands by the locked truck, waiting for them to finish whatever it is Wesley was so insistent they discuss. She can see them at the edge of the sand, Manny shuffling in his place as the other man towers over him, Wes wearing that I'm-in-charge-and-you'll-do-exactly-as-I-say face that always used to infuriate Buffy and Faith. Whatever is being said is lost to her, only the occasional word filtering back to her ears on the ocean breeze.

...inappropriate... respect...won't tolerate...skewer...

Manny becomes more and more agitated, and she frowns because though it's obvious something is going on between them, Wesley's body is straight and still and deadly, the dagger still hanging dangerously from his hand. She wonders for a brief moment if he plans on using it on the smaller man, and then shakes her head for being silly. Don't be a dunderhead. Manny's not a demony threat.

It's only then that she notices the line of scarlet trailing down Wesley's arm, dripping from his fingertips to soak into the sand. He's bleeding again, she realizes, though he seems oblivious to his wound as he continues talking. Hesitating, she debates whether it's worth it or not to interrupt their discussion---OK, maybe not the most apt description as Manny isn't really saying anything in response so probably more of a lecture---and then decides that nothing Wes could be saying merits his passing out from blood loss. So she marches over to their sides, even if it is more like slipping and sliding because of the gritty boardwalk, and reminds herself to yell at him later when Wesley stops talking at her approach.

"You're bleeding again," she says.

He looks down then, and frowns. "Oh," is all he says, and is about to adjust the makeshift tourniquet when Willow's hands are on him, daubing the drips with a cloth she grabbed from the first aid kit in the back of the truck.

The cut looks worse up close, angry and oozing as the scored edges of the skin outlining it refuse to meet, and she wonders both if he's going to need stitches and just how much pain he can tolerate because he isn't making a sound and it looks to her as if it should hurt like heckfire. She doesn't look up as she presses the cloth into the wound, wincing when he doesn't, and wishing she didn't have to be the one to hurt him like this. It's for his own good, she thinks. The idiot would've bled to death by the time he noticed.

"I guess we're going to have to wait on the pancakes," she jokes, and is oddly OK with that. It was selfish of her to put her stomach first when he's been hurt.

"Don't think I'm letting you sit in the front now," Manny says. "I just had it detailed. No way do I want you bleeding all over my upholstery."

"That's OK," Willow hears herself saying. "Wesley and I will just sit in the back." Because being alone with Manny? A huge pile of yuck.

Both men seem surprised at her announcement but neither question it, staying silent as she waits for Wes to take the cloth from her hand. His fingers linger on hers in the transfer, and only then does she look up, scanning the inscrutable of the sapphire and finding only more questions inside her head. She doesn't understand why he looks at her that way, as if she isn't real and might disappear at any given moment, and wants to ask, stopping from doing so only when Manny clears his throat behind them.

"C'mon, Romeo," he says. "I'll get you back to your hotel. I'm sure you want me to take care of that bank transfer anyway. Make all your bleeding worth it."

So they walk back to the truck, each voiceless as internal words maintain rule of their minds, and it isn't until Manny is easing out of the parking lot that Wesley speaks again.

"Thank you," he says, and she looks across the truck bed at him, noting how long his legs seem stretched out parallel to hers. He isn't smiling but she suspects that he wants to, his mouth soft, his eyes kind, and so she encourages him by smiling herself.

"We're all even steven now," she replies. "You save me from a demon, I help you with yours. You take care of my cuts..." She gestures toward his arm and the blood-soaked cloth he is pressing to his wound. "...and I take care of yours."

"Ah. Yes. That...rather balances the books, doesn't it?"

And for some reason, the awkwardness between them has returned, settling over them like cotton wool, and Willow wonders what she did now, why he has vanished inside his head again. After everything, after all the tears and the talking and the back watching, Wesley was seeming more and more like a friend and not an acquaintance from her no-so-long-ago past, and she liked it. Likes. Present tense. Did I make him mad?

"You will have missed your bus," he is saying. "Of course, I'll pay for your new ticket. If you'd like anything else, just say the word. Manny's employers are paying me very handsomely for this particular job."

Her bus. She hadn't even thought of that. Thinking about it stabs somewhere deep inside her chest, and her eyes drop to her hands in her lap, watching them as she bounces along. Sunnydale. Oz-less. Getting back to the mundane and living with the reality of being unextraordinary. Which would be just ordinary if she wanted to be grammatically correct about it. But somehow that sounds even worse.

She doesn't want to talk about it, so she changes the subject, quizzing him on his demon hunting and clarifying his purposes in doing it. It's not about the money, he is quick to say, not that she really thought it was but better to have him talking about that than dwelling in the cacophony of her thoughts. And she listens to him regale some of his exploits since leaving the Hellmouth, a few of them surprisingly droll, relaxing and smiling until the laughter comes naturally.

"I can't wait to tell Buffy about this," she says.

His face immediately closes at the Slayer's name. "I'd rather you didn't."

She doesn't understand and it shows in her eyes. "Why?"

Wesley shrugs, his gaze turning to see the hotel looming before them as Manny pulls into the parking lot. "Isn't it enough to ask you not to say anything?"

Of course it is, but she doesn't get why he wouldn't want them to hear about how well he's doing. She says so, but he doesn't answer her, only begins gathering his things as the engine is turned off. Before he can climb from the truck, though, she takes the bags from him, shouldering the burden in the face of his injury, and ignoring Manny's questioning look as she marches for the hotel doors. Stupid, stubborn Englishmen, she grouses. Guess it's a cultural thing, being all stiff upper lippy. Can't he see that I mean well?

Of course, meaning well and executing well are two entirely different things in Willow's experience, and she has the history to prove it. She listens at the door of the room as the two men say their good-byes, maintaining her silence until she and Wesley are inside.

"It's only Friday," she says as she drops the bags on the table. She takes a deep breath before her nerve fails her. "And since I don't have class again until Monday and I don't have a ride back to Sunnydale anyway, what with the whole missing my bus thing, I was thinking that maybe, if you didn't have something else you had to do or some other demon to go hunting for, because that would be more than understandable if you did...I mean, that's your job and everything..." She's babbling now, lost in her train of thought, and she realizes that he is just staring at her like she's grown a second head, and she wants nothing more than to just have the floor open up and swallow her down whole. If we were in Sunnydale, that could actually happen.

But she's not in Sunnydale. She's in Wesley's hotel room, and she's making a mess of what she had thought was really a simple proposal.

"What I meant to say was..." Geez, needy much, Willow? But she knows she is, reluctant to give up the camaraderie that she had thought was growing between them, and plunders onward. "...maybe you could give me a ride back. On the motorcycle. You know, maybe give ourselves a mini-vacation after our successful slayage this morning by taking our time getting there."

And she's holding her breath, but she doesn't know why, standing there watching him watch her, feeling the seconds tick away as she waits for him to say something. Anything really. Because if he doesn't, she's going to start babbling again to fill the silence and divert some of the attention away from her hugely miscalculated request.

"You don't have any other clothes."

He's not saying no, she realizes, and grins in the face of the lightening weight inside her chest. "Nope, but I do have a credit card I keep for emergencies."

"Why?"

At first she thinks he means why does she have a credit card, but all too quickly, Willow understands that he is questioning her reason for staying. What do I say? How do I tell him that I've felt better about myself in the past twelve hours in his presence than I have in the past six weeks?

So she says the only thing that makes sense to her at the moment. The only thing that she thinks he will believe.

"Because I'd like to have the chance to talk some more. Because...I like the company."

WESLEY

He can see her out of the corner of his eye, waiting for them to join her at the truck so that they can go get some breakfast, but this has to be done first, these words have to be said. Regardless of how Wes might personally feel, he simply cannot allow Manny to continue treating Willow in the manner he has been.

"That type of behavior is completely inappropriate," he says. He keeps his voice low, his words even, refusing to show Manny just how disgusted with him he actually is. "Willow deserves every measure of respect that you can offer, and fondling her knee while you're shifting gears is about as low as you can go without becoming even more blatantly obscene. Now. She might be the type of person who's willing to overlook such acts, but I assure you, I am not. I will not tolerate you treating her in such a way, either in or out of my presence. And if I learn or see that you've done or said something to offend her, I will personally skewer you to the nearest Fyarl demon I find. Do you understand?"

Manny doesn't speak, only nods vehemently as he shifts back and forth in the sand. His eyes are jumping from Wesley's face, to the dagger that is twisting in his fingers, his fear shining brightly in their depths.

For a moment, he feels a twinge of guilt but then remembers the lascivious sidle of the man's hand against Willow's skirt and steels his resolve. "Good. I trust we won't have to have this discussion again---."

He hears her footsteps then, and stops speaking, turning to look at the redhead approach them with a cloth from the supplies dangling from her fingers. I certainly don't need her to overhear me upbraid him. She would never understand why I had to do it. "You're bleeding again," she says.

He hadn't noticed. When he looks down at his arm, he sees as if for the first time the sticky fluid running in rivulets down his arm. Odd, that. It looks like enough blood for him to have been aware it was seeping from his body.

"Oh," Wesley says, and reaches up to adjust the tourniquet on his arm, thinking he will just tear another strip from it to clean up the mess he appears to be making.

Her touch stops him, one hand grasping the back of his bicep to hold him steady while she uses the other---the one with the cloth---to wipe away the blood. It is firmer than he would've expected, the touch of one who knows what must be done and is set to do it, and he is transfixed as he watches her bowed head, oblivious to the sting of the cut even when she presses the cloth into the wound. Is she wincing for me? he wonders, and then shakes the thought away as whimsical, delusions of more thrust to the wayside.

But then she is joking about missing breakfast, and when Manny comments on not wanting blood stains on his upholstery, Willow's next words shock him into even more silence.

"That's OK. Wesley and I will just sit in the back."

He would've suggested it anyway, or insisted on riding in front, but hearing the offer come from her lips makes him stop, his skin warming but not from the morning sun. When he reaches to take the blood-soaked cloth from her hand, he can't resist allowing his fingers to remain on hers for that extra fraction of a second, feeling the fine bones beneath the skin, wishing he dared to do more than share a feather touch and wondering just what in hell he thought he was doing by wanting it. She looks up at him, and he is stricken by the clarity of her gaze, the emerald and amber reflecting back at him with an otherworldliness that can only be described as beautiful.

And for some inexplicable reason, he is choked with the desire to kiss her.

Manny's voice yanks him from the brink of taking that step too far, though, and they walk to the truck in silence, reloading it and situating themselves in the bed on opposite sides, their legs stretched out in front of them in parallel. He watches her through his lashes, questioning his own body's responses.

It's not as if he's lacked the company of pretty girls. If he wants, all he has to do is walk into a bar and begin talking to whoever catches his eye. Invariably, the accent is enough to seduce even the most reticent of women. Not that he has---well, twice maybe, but that was only when the loneliness got too unbearable and the solace of a warm body pressed into his was worth the revulsion he would feel the following morning.

So what is it about Willow? He doesn't know. He only knows that he's grateful for her presence, for the concern she is exhibiting for him, and so he thanks her before he can stop himself.

When she comments on the score being even, Wesley is frozen inside, the crash to reality her words bring jolting him from the luxurious reverie of his mood.

"Ah. Yes. That...rather balances the books, doesn't it?"

And it's better this way, at least that's what he tells himself, and he hides within the wounds of his bruised ego, chastising himself for considering anything otherwise and wondering how he can make it up to her.

"You will have missed your bus," he says. "Of course, I'll pay for your new ticket. If you'd like anything else, just say the word. Manny's employers are paying me very handsomely for this particular job."

There. That should make things better.

Only...he's not sure it has when a flicker of what looks like distress clouds her eyes, tearing them from looking at him to being absorbed by her hands in her lap. When she speaks again, her voice is low, questioning his motives for the demon hunting.

"Oh, it's not about the money," he hastens to explain. "It's about doing the right thing." And atoning for all my mistakes in Sunnydale, he adds silently, but there is no way he wants her to know about his incredible sense of failure.

So he distracts her with some of his more colorful stories, watching as his words slowly draw her back from whatever abyss she'd slipped into, taking pride as she smiles and then laughs out loud at his adventures.

"I can't wait to tell Buffy about this," she says, and he immediately feels the world drop out from beneath his feet.

"I'd rather you didn't," he replies, but when she questions him, he can't bring himself to tell her the truth. How is it possible to explain the sense of idiocy that overwhelms him when either of the Slayers are mentioned? That he knows he cocked things up in Sunnydale, but that he's trying to better himself and would rather they not continue to perceive him as the jester in their court of heroes?

But all he can say is..."Isn't it enough to ask you not to say anything?"

He is deaf to any more of her words, even when she takes the bags from him and marches toward his room. He watches the skirt swirl around her legs, the strong set of her shoulders, and feels Manny's eyes on him but doesn't care. Their goodbyes are perfunctory, repeating the details of the transfer for the job, and it isn't until he has unlocked the door, allowing Willow to go inside and relieve herself of her load, that he hears her again.

"...maybe give ourselves a mini-vacation after our successful slayage this morning by taking our time getting there."

He's staring at her, and he knows that, but her words have shocked him to his boots. Because...did she really just suggest they spend even more time together? Not that he was averse to the proposition. On the contrary, the same possibility had lurked beneath each and every one of his words since waking this morning. But why?

Does it matter?

Yes.

Maybe she's just being nice.

"You don't have any other clothes." There. That gives her the opportunity to back out of it, to realize that he understands the grander implications and will not hold it against her for being practical.

"Nope, but I do have a credit card I keep for emergencies."

And she's smiling---smiling!---as she speaks, not taking it back but making it even more real by overcoming his proffered hurdle with ease, and because he has to know---how can he accept such a proposal otherwise---the question tumbles from his mouth just as he's thought of it.

"Why?"

There is a moment of silence, but her grin doesn't go away, only softens as she looks at him, unwavering.

"Because I'd like to have the chance to talk some more. Because...I like the company."

He replies before his brain can talk him out of it. "I'd like that as well. Having you around has been, by far, the highlight of this particular trip."

When her eyes duck, the faint stain of a blush on her cheeks, he lowers his head, suddenly shocked at his own forwardness. Not that she hadn't initiated it, but it isn't normally like him to be so upfront about his wishes. Perhaps it's time for me to reassess such formality around Willow, he thinks. And it's a good thought, one that warms him as he settles with the first aid kit on the bed.

Yes. Perhaps she really will understand. Stranger things have been known to happen.

WILLOW

She has him drop her off at the tiny mall before they do anything else.

"Are you certain you don't wish me to join you?" he asks from his perch on the motorcycle.

"Are you certain you want to be with me when I pick out new underwear?" she replies, mimicking his accent playfully. "Besides, I'll only be an hour or so. You can pick me up back here and we can finally go get those pancakes." Her grin widens, her good mood spreading. "They're not just for breakfast any more, you know."

She waves to him as he pulls away from the walk, and then turns to step jauntily through the mall doors. Considering where she'd been just a few hours earlier, it doesn't seem right that her head is currently in such a shiny, happy place, but she doesn't question it. Too much time has been wasted languishing in the dark, and for the next two days, she is going to do everything in her power to forget about it, to live a life where smiles are her primary facial function and the company she keeps makes her feel good about herself instead of an empty shell unworthy of feeling anything real beyond pain.

Who'd've thought that company would be Wesley Wyndam-Pryce? Will wonders never cease...

So she bounces around the shops, picking and choosing what she's going to need with a careless abandon. A pair of jeans here, a sweater there. She splurges and buys a bra and panties set at Victoria's Secret instead of hitting the lingerie department at JCPenney's, only because she can. Not like anyone can call her on it, and though it will hardly get the play it might've if Oz had still been around---stop that! Oz thoughts bad!---she likes the decadence, adores the sense of freedom it gives her.

She lingers at Victoria's Secret longer than necessary, fingers caressing the various silks and satins of the sleepwear, looking over the tamer cotton items before leaving with her purchases. Splurging is one thing. Being downright extravagant is another. No reason she can't just sleep in her t-shirt for the next two nights. Although maybe I should buy some shorts. Just to be on the safe side.

All too soon, she is done, but when she glances at her watch, it betrays her by announcing just how little time she has taken. Fifteen minutes before Wesley shows up. What can I possibly do for another fifteen minutes?

When she passes the small caf on her way to the exit, though, the scent of coffee makes her pause, and Willow turns her head to glance through the glass at the menu posted on the wall.

Mmmmm...mochacchino...

And she knows she shouldn't, but Buffy isn't there to stop her, and Xander isn't there to nag her, and isn't this weekend supposed to be about a break from my life? So she goes inside, hesitates, and then steps boldly up to the counter, the order slipping from her lips with surprising ease, her mouth salivating in anticipation even before she has the paper cup in her hands. She sips, then swallows, then gulps, and before she realizes it, it's gone, and all she is left with is the long green straw with the whipped cream clinging to its plastic rim as she pulls it out of the cup to suck at its bottom.

Caffeinated goodness. And she sighs, because life doesn't have to be all doom and gloom, especially when icy chocolatey coffee is coursing through your veins.

She waits in the sunshine, her feet swinging beneath her on the bench, peering up and down the parking lot as she waits for Wesley to arrive. He's late, and this surprises her because he seems like the last person to suffer from chronic tardiness. In fact, he seems like someone who'd be the exact opposite, and begins to worry that something might be dreadfully wrong, that maybe he's gotten attacked or something in the time they've been separated---oh, it could be vampires! Except that would be ridiculous because hello, daytime, and enough sunshine to make George Hamilton think it was too much---but it could be something else, something just as dangerous, and wouldn't that be awful because---.

Oh. Nope. There he is. Worrying for nothing. Gotta stop that.

Her smile is huge as the motorcycle pulls up to the curb, but as she approaches the bike with her few bags, it falters when he flips up his visor and she sees the bleak expression in his eyes. "What's wrong?" she blurts out before she can even think not to.

He pauses. "How would you feel if we didn't do pancakes?" he queries as he reaches for her bags.

"Why?" Her arms seem too light without her purchases, and her eyes widen as the possible answer springs to mind. "Is the demon back?"

He visibly starts, and then shakes his head. "No, no, just...I thought...Perhaps it might be nice to..."

He is obviously having difficulty in trying to explain himself, unable to meet her eyes, and she rests a hand on his arm when he is done stowing her bags, assuring him that whatever he wants is fine by her. This seems to satisfy him, if only momentarily, but before she can swing her leg over to join him on the motorcycle, he is reaching for something unseen, straightening and holding out a brightly colored helmet.

"Yours," he explains. "Because your safety is paramount, of course."

Her eyes gleam in delight as she traces the rainbow decoration. Safety is good. And pretty is better. "Thanks." Smiling as widely as she can. She wants him to know how much she likes it. Is he actually blushing?

"You needed one, and it...reminded me of you."

Quickly, she slips it on, but as she struggles with the chinstrap, he reaches up and helps her, lean fingers strong and capable, eyes looking everywhere but into hers. Her head feels heavy when it's done, which is weird because just seconds earlier it had felt way too floaty, and she bobbles it back and forth in experiment as she tests the weight. Catching his amused smile, she returns his grin before throwing her arms around him impulsively in a hug.

"Thanks," she repeats.

He has twisted in his seat to help her so when she embraces Wesley, she finds herself pressed against his chest, lean and hard and wow, demon hunting must be a really good workout. The helmets make it kind of awkward, but she compensates by turning her head to rest it on his shoulder, her breath rapid, her heartbeat thumping inside her ribcage. Must be the caffeine, she rationalizes. It can't be the fact that he smells amazing, or feels like...

But then she feels him wince and realizes she is squeezing him too hard, yanking away in apology as she looks guiltily at his injured arm.

"It's quite all right. But...we should really be going."

So she slides onto the motorcycle behind him, wrapping her arms carefully around his waist, feeling the muscles flex as he turns the bike into the parking lot. Within seconds, her body is humming along to the rhythm of the road, vibrating with the engine and forcing her to tighten her hold every time he takes a corner. Gotta tell Buffy about the wonders of riding a motorcycle, she thinks, and then chastises herself because of course she can't, not after having promised Wesley she wouldn't say anything about him to the gang back in Sunnydale, though why she still has no idea. Maybe he'll tell her before the weekend is out because with as much as she's shared with him, she can't imagine that his reason could be any worse.

It takes ten minutes of winding through the city streets for her to realize that things are looking familiar, landmarks popping into her vision through her visor that seem like she should know them. And she wonders just what it is he has in mind instead of pancakes, especially when the bike seems to be slowing, pondering its next move like a hunter on the prowl.

Only then does she see the club in the distance.

Only then does the shaking begin to overtake her body, eyes too wide as she stares at the building, as if it houses some unseen terror. Which, of course, it does, in the shape of an Oz-like spectre, looming around her in her failure, but explaining that to her rational mind? Not going to happen.

"No, no, no, no, no, no," she finds herself chanting, breathing almost, as if the repetition of the single word will ward away the inevitable. Because inevitable it seems, especially when the bike slows even more, almost crawling up to the entrance of the club. She doesn't want to be so quiet in her refutation. She wants to scream, and shout, and damn it, I had my closure, I don't need this right now, please don't do this to me, though why she would think that this is any deliberate action on Wesley's part, she has no idea.

So when they turn off before the club, away from the edifice and the memories and the pain of rejection, it is all Willow can do not to cry in relief, tightening her hold around his waist as her head rests in the hollow between his shoulder blades. Thumping and thudding and crashing inside her chest, her heart slowly returns to its more normal beat, and silently she vows to lay off the mochacchinos forever---stupid caffeine, it's all the coffee's fault---ignoring the passing scenery as it blurs into oblivion around her.

When he finally stops at a small diner on the outskirts of town, her body has returned to normal, though peeling herself away from him is the last thing she wants to do. "Willow," she hears him say, and his voice is quiet and gentle, stroking away the last of the nerves running rife along her skin. She waits for more, but it doesn't come. Only the true tempo of his touch, his leather-covered hands tucking hers into his in a tender reassurance that shouldn't rock her sense of stability so profoundly, making her question and forget all in the same breath.

"I thought...you didn't want pancakes," she manages to say.

He rises then, pulling her with him, and works the straps of her helmet without answering. It's when their heads are both uncovered, blue eyes boring into hers, that he finally responds. "I changed my mind," he says, and twining his fingers with hers, leads her into the restaurant.

WESLEY

Her insistence on getting the shopping out of the way is the last thing Wesley expects. "Are you certain you don't wish me to join you?" he asks for what seems like the hundredth time since leaving the hotel.

His body is ready to get off the bike and follow her inside, watching her stand there with that huge smile on her face, the one that has been ever-present since their mutual admissions about wishing to spend more time together, the one that makes him want to smile back as if he didn't have a care in the world.

"Are you certain you want to be with me when I pick out new underwear?" she jokes with him, and he is grateful that the visor hides his fast flush from her gaze, images of a semi-clad Willow modelling potential purchases parading before his mind's eye and waking his body yet again to her presence. Her next words are almost lost, something about meeting up in an hour and pancakes and she's beautiful when she smiles, and he's pulling away from the curb before he completely loses it, grinning unseen when he catches her wave out of the corner of his eye.

It's going to be a good weekend. Most definitely.

An hour gives him plenty of time to accomplish what he wishes, so he takes his time riding through the town's streets, angling himself closer and closer to the motorcycle shop as he appreciates the sunshine beating down on him. Without realizing it, he finds himself on the same road he'd seen Willow waiting for Oz the previous evening, and is about to turn away when he spots a familiar van parked in front of the club.

He frowns. It can't be.

But then there's the diminutive form coming around from the rear of the vehicle, hair dyed a venomous black now but unmistakably still him, keys jangling from his hand as he approaches the passenger side door.

And he knows he shouldn't, that it's not his place, but he pulls over anyway, parking right in front of the van and climbing off the motorcycle with a grim determination...though what he's determined to do, Wesley really has no idea.

Oz frowns, freezing in his place as he watches the other man approach, relaxing only when the helmet comes off and reveals the Englishman's face. "Small world," he comments.

"Yes. Quite." When he stops on the walk, he maintains a cool composure as he silently appraises the teenager, not even flinching when Oz's demeanor changes, his head tilting as he sniffs at the air, his frown returning.

"You smell like Willow."

Of course, I smell like Willow, he wants to shout. Someone had to be there when you shattered her hope.

And then...

"She's hurt. Is she OK?"

The last is asked like rapidfire, and there is no denying the concern that is now clouding Oz's face, his feet closing the gap between them in his worry. "She's all right," Wes quickly assures. In spite of what has transpired between them, he always rather liked the young man. A sharp mind, intuitive, unflappable. All redeeming qualities, he's always thought, even if it did come wrapped up in a werewolf package. It's only the recent events that have changed his perspective. He has learned that cowardice infuriates him, and the type that Oz exhibited the previous night ranks among the worst possible kinds.

"There was a vampire attack last night," he further explains. "After..." You broke her heart, you spineless prat. "...she left the club."

"Oh." He relaxes. "But she's OK now."

If you can call what you've done to her, OK.

"Yes." He stands there awkwardly, wondering yet again what he thought might accomplish by stopping. It is hardly his place to intervene more than he already has, and yet the urge to thrash the smaller man curls his muscles in tension. He shouldn't, though. Violence is not the answer to everything. "She's still in town," he says instead. "I think...she deserves an explanation for last night, don't you?"

Oz visibly deflates, turning away and shuffling back to his van. Wesley follows after, both afraid that he is going to leave again and hoping that he will. "Yeah," Oz concedes. "Probably. But I...can't." The keys jingle as he slides them into the lock, opening the door and pulling out a box of paraphernalia.

"Can't, or won't?"

The challenge doesn't stop him from heading toward the club. "I can't be around Willow right now. Not until I get some answers. Some control." He stops at the door and looks back. "I can't risk hurting her even more than I have. I love her too much for that." His eyes are cheerless as they lock with Wesley's. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell her you saw me. As soon as I get this gear taken care of, I'm leaving anyway. It's...better this way."

And he doesn't know what to say to that, except to exchange polite goodbyes and walk back to his bike, returning to the road with a rote in his muscles that does nothing to attenuate his mind. She should know. She deserves to know. Over, and over, and over again, even as he's buying the helmet for her, and even as he's scolding himself on the way back to the mall for not standing up to Oz when he had the chance. Take responsibility for your actions, he should've said. Be a man. Men don't run from their responsibilities. They face them.

Which is ironic because isn't that what he's doing by refusing to go back to Sunnydale?

No. Not the same thing. He's atoning for his mistakes as a Watcher. He's proving that he is a man by taking on the mantle of demon hunter. There's a difference between him and Oz.

There has to be.

It is these thoughts that are rolling around inside his brain as he pulls up to the curb, her broad smile only cementing his decision. When he flips the visor on his helmet, though, it cuts into his chest when he sees her pleasure fade, her worried query as to what is wrong guilting him into silence.

She deserves to know, he repeats to himself. "How would you feel if we didn't do pancakes?" Take her bags. Don't look at her eyes. Don't let her see what you know.

"Why? Is the demon back?"

He is shocked at what seems to be the eerie appropriateness of her question---how can she tell?---and then realizes she's referring to the Jwa'hra and not to Oz. "No, no," he says, and relaxes slightly. "Just..." But he can't bring himself to say the words. "I thought..." And that's not really any better. "Perhaps it might be nice to..."

He hates himself for being so inept at this, for not having the fortitude to just say it like he sees it. When she touches him, saying, "Whatever you want is fine," he is grateful for the momentary respite, even if he can't fully appreciate how lovely her fingers feel on his arm.

Pulling out the helmet he's bought for her, he holds it out in offering, smiling when she is so obviously pleased and surprised by it, stammering some inanity about her needing one, and then watching as she struggles to get it strapped on. His fingers are on hers in a flash, guiding and finishing the job, and when it's done and she's testing its feel, he can't help but smile at the delighted innocence radiating from her, his pleasure expounding when she astonishes him with a hug.

And it takes all his control not to let that satisfaction bleed through when he hugs her back, his resolve weakening when she drops her head to his shoulder and sighs, even more so when he imagines he can feel her pulse racing against him. It would be so simple to turn it into something more, he realizes, and savors the sensation of her small breasts pressing into his chest, the tiny breaths fluttering down his back. Only the sharp stab of pain in his arm keeps him rooted in the moment, but his wince does the last thing he actually wants at the moment. It makes her pull away.

"Sorry," she apologizes, but he is quick to assure her he is fine.

The mood for him is crushed, though, and he turns away with the sad determination to do what he knows he must. Even with her arms around his waist, even with the promise of freedom from the bike beneath him, Wesley understands that he owes it to her to see the truth, to force Oz to confront what he doesn't wish to, and so he plans his trajectory toward the club, his route circuitous as he more than once changes his mind and then back again, slower and slower, until they're on the proper street and his target looms in the distance.

She deserves to know.

Except...he can feel her trembling, her arms practically vibrating around his waist, tightening and clinging as if that will quell the quivering. She's scared; he can practically smell it coming off of her, but it's not until he hears her tiny voice, like a whisper in his ear, that he makes his decision.

"No, no, no, no, no, no..."

And he's not going to do that to her, he refuses to be the reason she cries any more, he can't, not when she so obviously doesn't want what going to the club will provide. So he turns before she can spot the van he knows is still parked there, and wends his way out of town, gaining as much distance and buying as much time for her as he can manage before stopping at what looks like a reasonable place to eat.

Sustenance. That's what she needs.

She isn't moving, not even when he parks the motorcycle. Not even when his hands drop to hers at his waist, just holding them as he understands she needs to be held at the moment. "Willow," he breathes, and fears that his voice gives too much away, that just uttering her name is enough to betray just how reliant on her he has become. It's not natural, and these are extenuating circumstances---he'd be a fool not to see that---but it's still there, it's still real, and he is both exhilarated and terrified at the possibility it presents. Run, he wants to tell her. Run before it's too late. Before I fail you, too.

But she doesn't. She stays. And she says, "I thought you didn't want pancakes."

He doesn't care about the pancakes. He only cares that she's still there, and more than ever, he realizes that he has to relish every moment of this weekend they have together before she really is gone. Pulling her to her feet, he frees her from her helmet before seeing to his own. "I changed my mind," Wesley says when he can finally see her eyes, and taking a deep breath, risks what only hours ago he would never have dared.

He takes her hand, lacing her fingers through his, and as he starts walking for the restaurant, his heart quickens when she tightens the grip instead of pulling away.

WILLOW

Nothing has ever tasted as good as the stack of pancakes she devours without even thinking. Hot and fluffy with the syrupy weight soaking it down, it's all Willow can do not to groan out loud from the sheer pleasure of the explosion of taste within her mouth, her teeth barely having to work to chew as each bite almost dissolves on her tongue, leaving behind the hint of maple that begs her for even more.

Wesley seems amused by watching her eat, managing only one bite to every five of hers. His eyes follow the path of her fork as it reaches her mouth, then lingers there to see the ecstasy flush her cheeks as she savors her food. "When was the last time you ate?" he asks her at one point.

"Too long ago," she replies with a grin, and just takes an extra-big bite next, satisfying herself with his responding smile.

Then all too quickly, they're gone, and she's sitting there with an empty plate, a freshly refilled glass of orange juice---because coffee is definitely of the bad, no way am I going to tell Wesley how nutso it made me on the bike---and a smile, waiting for him to finish his own lunch before swallowing her nerve and asking if it would be all right to get dessert, too.

She hasn't forgotten his hand on hers. OK, so maybe he'd been wearing gloves and really, it was only to lead her into the diner, but the memory of the firm command of his fingers around hers still makes her head swirl in delighted confusion. Why hadn't she pulled away? Easy peasy. She didn't want to. There is something infinitely safe about Wesley, an edge that he projects now that he never used to, and it both makes her want to tuck herself into his side and stand up straight next to him, hiding from and facing whatever might come all at the same time. Which just makes all this that much more weirder.

He would probably think she's a basket case for freaking out on the motorcycle too, she reasons. Oz is long gone and just the sight of the club is enough to turn her into that scared little girl she so despises, the one who falls apart at hearing the truth in a bouncer's words, the one who runs and runs and ends up almost getting killed as a result. She can't but help wonder if Oz would've even cared if something had happened to her. And the little voice inside her scolds her for forgetting his last words, how he'd never loved anything like he loved her. Oz is a good person, just a little...confused.

It didn't stop him from leaving, though.

So she talks about anything but, focusing her attention away from friends who seem like more and lovers who seem like less, prattling on about commandos who go lurking in the night and how her classes are going and Spike's inefficacy at being a vampire anymore. All things about Sunnydale---because really, that's all she knows---but superficial, avoiding the more intimate aspects of her life that she's not so sure he wants to hear anyway.

And why is that? Why does the issue of Sunnydale spook him so badly?

"Oh, and Cordelia moved to Los Angeles," she offers as he sets down his fork and wipes his mouth. "Working for Angel, if you can believe that."

He seems perplexed by her announcement. "I'd thought she'd said she wanted to be an actress," he muses.

"Oh, she's says that's still happening. She's just doing the crime fighting with Angel thing in order to pay the bills." And then Willow stops, the implication of his few words sinking in. "How did you know about her wanting to be an actress?" she asks without even considering the consequences of her question. "I mean, not that it's all that surprising to me considering, hello, drama queen, but...that just doesn't seem like Watcher Wesley need-to-know information there."

The light that has been gleaming in his eyes throughout her babbling dims, and he turns his head to get the attention of the waitress. "I'm no longer a Watcher, remember," he chides gently. "And I know about the acting because Cordelia told me."

She bites at her lip, her inner gossip dying to ask for details, but the look on his face stops her. Instead, she steers the conversation toward his first statement and waits for him to respond.

"Apparently, I'm somewhat of an embarrassment to the Council," he finally says. He's unable to meet her eyes, his spoon swirling inside his coffee cup, clinking musically in the quiet din of the restaurant. "I wouldn't dream of asking to be reinstated at this point."

"You're too hard on yourself." She waits until he looks up at her and feels her insides twist at the disbelief shining back. "I saw you today, remember? Manny was totally in awe of you, and the way you fought with that Jwa'hra demon? Even Buffy would be impressed." She means the last as a compliment, and maybe if she'd used anyone other than the Slayer as an example, it might've worked. But his delight at her sentiment quickly vanishes as she finishes speaking, and he is back to unnecessarily stirring his coffee again. It must be cold by now.

"And here I'd hoped to impress you," he jokes offhandedly.

Except it's not so offhanded, and the ache behind his choice of words makes her eyes go wide. "But you did that," she says automatically, because she doesn't understand why he thinks otherwise. "I thought I made that clear. You were amazing this morning, Wesley."

"Didja need something?"

She wants to yell at the waitress for her really sucky timing, but Wesley seems grateful for the distraction so instead she puts forward her brightest smile. Smiling when she feels like screaming is an old standby for her. "How about some pie?" she posits and though the waitress is the one who nods, it isn't for her ears that Willow intends the query.

And now he's looking at her, and his eyes are solemn---so blue, god, glasses are wasted on this man---and she is so lost in those bright depths that she doesn't even hear his response, or see the waitress move away, or feel his hand as it settles over hers on the table. "Huh?" she finally manages, and has to literally shake her head from her daze, because what the hell? Just Wesley, remember. "What was that?"

"I said it's too gorgeous of a day to be wasting it inside," he repeats. "I'd like to take you for a ride, if you don't mind. On the motorcycle. It would be a nice distraction, don't you think?"

She does think, and she says so, smiling but meaning it this time. When the pie shows up at the table, carefully wrapped and ready for the excursion, he tosses some bills onto the table without even looking at the check---big tipper, yet another surprise---and slides from the booth, standing and pulling out his gloves from his pocket as he waits.

Then it's outside, and on the bike, her arms back around his waist as if they'd never left, and the road is singing beneath the wheels as he veritably flies from the parking lot. No more hesitancy as he maneuvers the motorcycle onto the freeway, their speed growing and growing until the wind is wrapping itself around her arms, raising gooseflesh as it thrums her muscles into exhilarating pulses. And she would swear on a stack of Bibles that she is flying, that if she opens her eyes, the world will be far below her, hiding behind a wash of clouds. But she doesn't dare. She doesn't want to destroy the sense of freedom riding behind Wesley brings.

And why it's there in the first place, she has no idea.

All too quickly, he is pulling off the road, weaving the bike around the steep curves of a mountain before coming to a stop at its apex. "We're here," he says as he pulls his helmet off.

"And where's here?" she counters, mimicking his actions, shaking her hair free once the helmet is gone.

He doesn't answer, only takes the pie from the back of the bike and walks to the barricaded edge of the green, climbing over the safety it provides to begin a descent that makes her choke. She scrambles up to the fence, her fingers clutching at its metallic promise, and then relaxes when she sees the wide shelf of grass just below.

"I've heard about going over the wall, but this is ridiculous," she jokes.

"I often come up here just to think," he says, settling himself with his back against the face of the mountain and his legs bent in front of him. His eyes are locked on the cloudless horizon. "There's really no equivalent of this in England, you know."

"What? You don't have mountains in England?" She is still kidding as she sits down next to him, but the solid feel of his arm against hers, the heat radiating from his body matching that of the sun beaming down on both of them, solemnifies the occasion.

"Not the mountain. The sky." One hand stretches out to trace the line of blue meeting green in the distance. "Even on a clear day, in England there will always be clouds ringing around you, no matter which direction you look. Overhead will be blue, while in front of you...cloudy." The corner of his mouth lifts. "It's rather liberating not being bound by those same restrictions any longer."

She's not sure he's talking about the clouds any more, but holds her tongue, picking at the pie that he hands to her. As she places a delicate flake of crust in her mouth, he begins to speak again, but this time, he isn't talking about the weather, and he isn't talking about England.

He is talking about Sunnydale.

And every word that falls from his tongue is soaked in regret.

He never looks at her. The entire time he speaks, his gaze remains riveted to the distance in front of them. He tells of how proud he'd been at being selected among so many candidates to take over for Giles, how diligently he'd prepared, and how staunchly he'd vowed not to fail them.

And then landing in California, a world he'd only seen on television or celluloid, and how jubilant its beauty had made him feel, how confident he'd been that he would be successful. Doing his part to protect their American Dream by shaping and molding the Slayer. Except...she'd refused to listen, they had all refused to hear that, yes, he actually knew what he was talking about, and it had only served to drive him harder, to fight to make them understand. To make them see he could be just as valuable as they perceived Giles to be.

That he was good enough.

But he never was.

And he had failed again. Been weak and ineffective.

"Which is why I'd rather you not say anything to anyone about seeing me," he finishes. Only now does he look at her, and she wonders why she's surprised that his eyes are so clear. It's the gaze of a man who is comfortable with his decisions. "I haven't earned that right yet."

"Are we really that bad?" Willow says. "Do you really think we'd be that shallow?"

"I did," he confesses. "But you have been...surprising."

"Surprising good, or surprising bad?"

She wonders if he's going to even answer her. He just sits there, looking at her as if she's the only real thing in the world, and she is beginning to feel just a little awkward.

"Surprising very, very good," Wesley finally murmurs.

She rushes to reiterate what she said at the diner. He needs to hear it again, she knows this more than anything now. "And last night, what you did with that vamp, and then afterward..." Her voice is shaking before she can finish, and she doesn't know why. Because it wasn't anything she hadn't been thinking about all day; it was just her saying it out loud this time. It shouldn't be that big of a deal. Should it? "Everything about you has been surprising to me, too," she finishes.

When he tosses her earlier question back at her, Willow doesn't take nearly as long to answer as he did.

"Surprising very, very good."

WESLEY

It's not as if he isn't hungry, but watching Willow eat is somehow infinitely more fulfilling than doing it himself. Never before has he wished so fervently to be an inanimate object, his gaze riveted by the path of her fork as it travels from her plate to her mouth, and then tarrying on her lips as they wrap around the silver tines, sliding down their length while she takes the bite of pastry onto her tongue. He's embarrassed at his own obsessive staring, but he can't stop, not even when he tries to shatter the mood by joking about the last time she's eaten. The extra-vigorous bite she responds with only serves to make him hard, and it takes all his concentration to shift his weight in the booth so that sitting isn't quite so uncomfortable.

Pillock. She's just a...

But he can't finish the sentence, because the instinct is to add child and that would be wrong and not only inaccurate but horribly unfair. It wasn't a child who had uttered the counterspell under the dock, and it wasn't a child who had stepped from his bathroom wearing only his shirt. Child-like, maybe, but that is as far as he is willing to go. Willow is very much a woman, a young one granted, but there is no denying that the past year has seen her grow up far more than he could ever imagine.

Was it his fault that he was responding to her in such a manner?

No fault. But perhaps not entirely appropriate.

So he only half-hears her stories, fantasies about commandos sneaking around Sunnydale and the return of William the Bloody---oh, I must remember to ask her more in detail later, this would be fascinating to discover more about---and her tales of university. Nothing of any substance, which is just as well because if she is to question him on it later, he will be hard-pressed to intelligently answer her. His primary focus is on regaining control of the body that seems determined to betray him.

Just as he finishes his meal, she mentions Cordelia, a name he hasn't considered in quite some time, and a bemused smile curves his lips. "I'd thought she'd said she wanted to be an actress," he says out loud.

Her automatic explanation is followed even more rapidly by the question of how he would know such a thing, an intimate detail of the prom queen's life that shouldn't have been known by "Watcher Wesley."

Perhaps it's the appellation she assigns him that strikes so deeply. It hasn't occurred to him until now that this is how she perceives him, that he hasn't left behind that image as cleanly as he would like, and the desire to prove otherwise to her is suffocating. "I'm no longer a Watcher, remember," he prompts, and turns to get the waitress' attention. Dessert would be nice.

"Do you wish you could go back?"

It isn't the question he expects her to ask. Surely, she'd rather pry into his ill-fated relationship with Miss Chase, but no, what seems to be holding her attention is his unfortunate association. So he tells her the truth, curbing his choice of words slightly even as the memory of his father's voice on the phone---really, Wesley, your deportment is disappointing to say the least---and finishes, "I wouldn't dream of asking to be reinstated at this point." Because he wouldn't. He doesn't deserve it.

"You're too hard on yourself," she is saying. And then she is praising him, praising his skills that morning, and Wes can feel his insides beginning to warm again---maybe I was wrong---only to chill when she mentions the Slayer's name.

"And here I'd hoped to impress you." Hoped? Ha. More like prayed and where in the world did that ever come from?

"But you did that. I thought I made that clear. You were amazing this morning, Wesley."

Amazing. She'd called him amazing. He doesn't want to believe it---well, he does, he just doesn't believe he should---and yet there is no denying the truth of her words. Not even the sudden presence of the waitress can distract him from mulling over her words, so when she asks for pie, he wonders if she's reading his mind because dessert is exactly why he'd called the waitress over in the first place.

He can't resist reaching out and setting his hand over hers, hovering and only exerting the slightest of pressures. "It's too gorgeous of a day to be wasting it inside," he says.

She shakes her head as if she's waking herself from a stupor. "Huh?"

So he repeats his statement, adding, "I'd like to take you for a ride, if you don't mind." Oh, dear Lord, did I just say that out loud? Clarify, clarify. "On the motorcycle." She must think I'm a complete idiot. "It would be a nice distraction, don't you think?"

Her yes and her smile are all it takes to melt any further fears. Before he can lose his renewed resolve, he's paying for the check---probably too much but who cares, it's only money, not important at all when compared to other things---and waiting for her to follow him out to the bike. He won't tell her where they're going; he'll just take her and surprise her, as it surprises him each and every time, and hope that she'll understand. She has to. That's what Willow does.

Their speed on the road mirrors the ricocheting of his nerves along his skin. All he wants is to get there quickly, even though it will mean losing the tenor of her arms around his waist, the sound of those little squeaks she makes when he takes a curve a little too sharply. Then there it is, beckoning to him with the comforting call of an old friend, and he stops the bike, disembarking and taking off his helmet even as he says, "We're here."

"And where's here?"

There is no way words can describe it, so he leaves it to the view to speak for him. Taking their dessert from the rear of the motorcycle, he walks over to the fence and carefully climbs over, dropping to the shelf below with a practiced ease. When she lowers herself to join him, joking along the way, he waits until he feels the calming effect of her arm against his before continuing.

"I often come up here just to think," he confesses. Not that he needs to tell her how often that happens, but its siren call is too alluring to resist.

So is the need to explain it all to her.

And he does. He talks of Sunnydale, and England, and Buffy, and Faith, and it all comes out with an effortlessness that surprises him, the words flowing faster and faster until he feels breathless from it all.

And not once does she laugh. And not once does she judge. She just sits there, and listens, and eats the pie in small delicate nibbles while the crumbs fall to her lap, watching him though he's looking ahead, focusing on the perfection of the view to keep him guided. Not even when he admits to his own inadequacy, finishing with the repeat of his rather plaintive request not to be a bedtime sorority story when she returns to the Hellmouth, does she rebuke his weakness.

"Are we really that bad?" she asks instead. Why does it look like she's going to cry? I didn't tell her this to make her cry. "Do you really think we'd be that shallow?"

He has no choice but to own up to that very thought. "But you have been..." Can I really do this? "...surprising."

"Surprising good, or surprising bad?"

How could it be surprising bad? he wants to ask her. Can you not see yourself? Can you not see how amazing should be the word for you and not me?

So he affirms his declaration, warming further when she gushes yet again about his prowess that morning. Then her voice is shaking, and her cheeks are pink, and she is stammering over her words in such a way that he can't help but question what could be affecting her so---surely it isn't me, I haven't done anything---and he can't help returning her query.

"Surprising good, or surprising bad?"

She is much faster to respond. "Surprising very, very good."

And he's likely to regret it as soon as it happens---because that's the way of the world for him, isn't it?---but Wesley can no longer deny the urges spurring his body, feeling his head lower, his eyes locked by her mouth, closer and closer until he can smell the sugar on her breath, feel it fan against his lips.

The kiss is almost chaste, and she tastes so pure that it makes him ache, but their heads turn as if they'd planned it, tilting to allow the kiss to glide fluidly, no more awkwardness than if he'd actually asked her for the privilege. This is Willow, his mind is yelling at him, you really should stop, even as his heart is whispering, this is Willow, don't you dare even think of stopping.

For the first time in forever, he ignores the arguments of his head.

WILLOW

The kiss is both the last thing she expects, and the most natural thing in the world.

She could've pulled away. She should've pulled away. Why didn't she pull away?

Because his scent is pungent, and intoxicating, like soap fading in a breeze of fresh air, with an underlying muskiness that makes her nose prickle, her toes curl. And the lips that are way too soft for a man's are surprisingly firm yet conciliatory, taking what they want with only a hint of an apology, as if not even Wesley can believe that he's really kissing her.

And...because she wants it. She needs it. How long has it been since someone has asked such of her? Oz doesn't count; he stopped counting the day he left, though admitting such a thing still stabs even if she is content with her closure. She has spent so much of her life unimportant, unnecessary, watching from the sidelines when just once she yearns to be the center of attention, and so kissing him back is natural, tender and oh so innocent, because really, she deserves this. What's so bad about being kissed by Wesley?

Oh sweet heaven, I'm being kissed by Wesley!

Her eyes fly open as she jerks back, gaping at him as he looks down at her, the blue of his aspect almost swallowed by ebony. "What...? Huh...? Why?" Her palms are suddenly slick with sweat, and her heart is thudding a mile a minute inside her ribcage, but the only thing Willow is cognizant of at the moment is the flicker of hurt that seems to waver behind Wesley's eyes.

The distance between them is all too quickly greater, and he is staring not at the horizon this time, but at his own hands, clenching them together as if he's afraid they'll run away without him. "I'm...sorry," he mumbles, shaking his head. "I...forgot myself for a moment. Please. Just...don't be angry. It won't happen again."

Now, this is a statement she wants to quiz as to why, but as soon as she reaches out a tremulous hand to touch him, he is on his feet, stepping over her to pull himself back up on to the other side of the fence. His hand is outstretched, waiting for her to step up so that he can help her clamber back to the surface, but she can only bring herself to rise to her feet. There is no room inside her traitorous head for anything else.

He's running. Ohmigod, he's running and I pushed him away and I don't even know what I did, except, OK, maybe asking him why he kissed me was not of the good, and why did he kiss me? I'm not pretty, and I'm not strong, and I'm not Cordelia or Buffy or Faith, and it makes no sense because I'm just me and he's just Wesley and way too old for me, and...how old is he anyway? Definitely not Giles old and I had a daydream or three about him sophomore year, that's for sure, so maybe not too old. But still, I don't get it, and oh god, he's running...

"Do you not need my help?" he asks.

The fact that he is still standing there does nothing to lessen the confusion inside her. "Where are we going?" she asks. She has to. She has no idea what just happened here.

He takes a long time to answer, just looking down at her, his hand never wavering in its extended position. "Perhaps it's best if we start for Sunnydale this afternoon," he finally says cautiously.

"Why? I thought I was staying the weekend." Again with the why. Is that the only thing I can say?

"You...still wish to?"

And she'd almost say he sounds hopeful, but nothing in his face has changed, still closed and reserved and hurt---of course he's hurt, you just pushed him away, sillyhead---and she has the sudden desire to rewind the clock just a few seconds, to go back to the point before she pulled away from his kiss. Anything to get back the Wesley who'd spilled his heart out to her, who'd confessed all his aches and fears without any request for consolation. The one she'd been enjoying so much to be around.

Maybe a distraction. Make him forget the kiss. Make her forget the kiss. Maybe that will work.

So the suggestion tumbles from her mouth, though she doesn't know why it's occurred to her to propose such a thing.

He doesn't seem to understand, either. "A...movie?"

It sounds even lamer coming from him, but she doesn't want to look more foolish by backing out on it now. So, she slaps on her widest smile and begins to climb back up to his side without his help, saying, "Sure, it would be fun. You, me, extra buttery popcorn that makes our fingers all sticky. And jujubes! We can get jujubes, too, because, you know, sugar makes everything all better, right?"

"I'm not sure...where---."

Letting him finish anything that sounds remotely like a no is out of the question, she decides. "Then we find one. We're two intelligent, grounded adults. We should be able to scare up a movie theatre if we want one." And she's at the top now, standing right before him, and the smell that had been so sweltery while she was kissing him---he was kissing me, keep it straight now---is back, only fainter because there is too much space between them now for her to fully appreciate it. She'd have to bury her face in his neck if she really wanted---OK, bad place. No necks, no smelling. Concentrate on cinematic goodness.

His mouth opens and closes as if he wants to talk but doesn't know what to say, and for a moment snatched from time, Willow feels like she's watching the Wesley of last year before her after taking a particularly vicious verbal attack from both Buffy and Giles and maybe even a little bit of Faith on the side. It doesn't make her feel good. In fact, it makes her feel downright lousy because she doesn't want to be that person, not after everything he's done for her, not after how nice he's been. All she seems to be doing these days is screwing things up. Maybe he's right. Maybe she should go back to Sunnydale---.

"I know a place," he is saying, and he walks back to the motorcycle, taking off the helmets and handing hers over before she can say otherwise. "Is there anything in particular you'd like to see?"

"No action," she affirms. She doesn't want to question this tenuous change of mood lest it evaporate as quickly as it has arrived. This is better. This is normal. "And no horror. Too real life."

"Yes. Something more...escapist, I would imagine is what's called for currently."

And then they're back on the bike, and they're back to flying down the concrete, only now Willow feels funny putting her arms around Wesley's waist, wondering how he is construing it, how it makes him feel. Except she can't very well let go because, falling off? Not an option she wants to entertain. So she tightrope-walks the balance between holding and hugging, grimacing behind her helmet every time he takes a curve so fast that she instinctively clings to him even harder. Once, she even squeaks out loud, and hastily prays that he hasn't heard her. He'll think she's an even bigger baby than she's already proving herself.

He's right. He does know a place. He leads her in with barely a look back at her, and purchases two tickets to some foreign film that is playing since it's the only thing on the bill that doesn't involve explosions, magic, monsters, or romance. Oh yes, she notices the last. Because he very deliberately avoided the romantic comedy that is playing, and never even considered the one with the girl who has to take care of her dying lover. She's not completely sure why he does it, if it's a conscious attempt to shield her from memories of Oz.

Or if it's a try to make her forget about Wes.

She follows him around the lobby, waiting with him in the concession line, occasionally offering some inanity that makes her think maybe she should be blonde instead of a redhead. He never laughs, although the odd remark does make him smile, and he's still the very model of a perfect major gentleman when they reach the counter, purchasing the jujubes, and the extra buttery popcorn, and even the water for which she asks---no soda, because nothing here is caffeine-free and if I was skittery-ish before, we won't even go to the place I'd be after thirty-ounces of Coke.

Then, dark. Or dim, rather, because the movie hasn't started yet and they still have those funny half-globe lights on along the walls. And a completely empty theatre. He allows her to pick out their seats, and she opts for two near the back, not really in the mood for neck ache. That's Xander's gig. And if I have to read my movie, I'll get my headache the old-fashioned way, from eyestrain.

As they sit there in silence waiting for the movie to start, she wonders why exactly he's agreed to this if he isn't going to talk to her, why bother with the pretence of nothing happened/the world is a perfectly normal place where college co-eds don't kiss their best friend's former Watcher turned rogue demon-hunter, and OK, that sounds weird even for the Hellmouth. She hates it---too quiet, too many bad things happen when it's quiet---even after all the time she spent with Oz, so she blurts out the first thing that pops into her head.

"How old are you?"

He looks at her, startled, before answering. "Twenty-seven."

There is no follow-up, no why from him she realizes, the number just hanging there between them, woven with the magic of a secret shared. "I'm only eighteen, you know," she says, though she's fully aware that he knows her age. "Almost nineteen." Does that make it sound better?

Something hides behind the blue, something even she can't miss in the dim light. "My apology was sincere, Willow," he says. "I was out of line. It won't happen again."

"Why?" My brain is shorting out or something, that's got to be it. I have a much bigger vocabulary than this, honest. I'm just stuck on this one word.

He is as nonplussed as she, frowning and staring at her as if she's speaking another language, which maybe she is because that's the only reason she can come up with for what keeps coming out of her mouth. "You...what?"

The lights start dimming then, and helplessly, she points to the screen, eyes ingenuous and pleading with him not to press her, and says, "Movie. Doing that starting thing."

"There'll be adverts. And trailers. What did you mean?"

He couldn't have been Chatty Cathy before we got here? she wonders desperately. Because now she's trapped, and he's looking at her with fathomless eyes because it's too dark to see properly. "I don't know," she confesses. "It was...nice. Very nice. Just..." Do I really want to admit this? Does this make me look like a slut? "I don't get the why. Why you did it, why me, and...why you don't want to do it again."

There. She's said it, and her throat feels like a sliver of a channel that won't allow any air to pass, her eyes fixed to his face even if she can't really see what he's thinking. Step right up. See the silly redhead get humiliated yet again, because having one man vamoose on her in a weekend isn't nearly enough. Oh, no. She's a glutton for punishment, this one is. Get your money's worth and see the freak show.

"Who would ever have considered a single word capable of encompassing so many different queries, all in a single breath..." Wesley muses. His voice is soft, as if he's keeping it lowered to protect their conversation from other patrons, and she is spellbound as she waits. The arm that he has been careful of keeping clearly on his side of the armrest comes up, a long finger stroking the outline of invisible veins along the back of her hand where it is curled around the water bottle in the drink holder.

Each stroke sends electric shocks up her arm, down her spine, into places she thought would never feel anything ever again, and she still doesn't have any answers but she knows one thing for certain... "You're going to kiss me again, aren't you?" she breathes.

Except he's already leaning forward, and his hand---the other one, the one not doing the touching thing that's making her skin flame---is already cupping the side of her face, pulling her closer so that she will meet him halfway.

Halfway doesn't describe the kiss, though.

Probing. Hungry. Strong but not too forceful. Those are better words to describe it. And her lips are parting, not only at his insistence but also of their own volition, allowing his tongue to sweep in and taste and search and make all those little explosions happen on the inside of her eyes, the ones that make her dizzy if she doesn't squeeze her lids shut really tight, to keep her whole head from bursting from just too much.

It is an explosion from the screen that jerks her away this time, both of them looking up in synchronicity to see Bruce Willis walking away from some conflagration of fire and smoke before disappearing in a field of black as the film's title flashes across the screen. She realizes his hand is still curved around her cheek, his thumb gently stroking her cheekbone, but she doesn't pull away as she turns back to look at him.

"Someone better tell them that maybe people who are willing to sit through a movie reading it instead of watching it, might not be your target audience for a mindless violence sort of trailer," she jokes with a grin. She waits until he smiles back at her, then swivels in her seat so that she is facing the front again. It means his hand is gone, but she angles her body so that her shoulder is nestled in the hollow of his, waiting in anticipation for him to slip his arm around her.

It takes only seconds for the warm weight to come down, hesitate before lifting up a fraction of an inch, and then settle again. She still doesn't know the why, not the why of any of it, but as the heat that had been rampant inside her begins to slowly ease into a steady simmer, Willow decides that those kinds of questions can wait a few hours.

Escape. That's what they were doing. Wesley has said so himself.

She is just glad she isn't the only one is doing the escaping here.

WESLEY

He's not entirely certain why he waited so long to kiss her. Not when she's responding so. Not when they fit like yin and yang, none of that dreadful awkwardness and groping that had so characterized his unfortunate encounter with Cordelia.

His fears of being rebuffed are quickly being flayed by his triumphant heart as she almost seems to lean even further into the caress, following his lead with minimal prompting, and he is about to brave the next step when she suddenly yanks herself away, her eyes wide as saucers, staring at him as if he's just forced her to drink some sort of poison.

"What...? Huh...? Why?" And she is stuttering as she searches for her words, and he can see her pulse pounding in the hollow of her throat, the sprinkling of freckles there standing out in bas relief. Oh dear lord, what have I done? Fool. I'm a fool. Just made what was a perfectly wonderful arrangement, a right bloody mess.

Quickly, he shifts back to his position against the wall, his hands knotting together in his lap in a valiant attempt to hide the shaking that is threatening to overwhelm him. I can face a Jwa'hra demon without showing fear, and yet here I am, trembling like a schoolgirl. "I'm...sorry." As if that will make any of this better. "I...forgot myself for a moment. Please. Just..." Don't run. Don't hate me. Don't run. "...don't be angry. It won't happen again."

He means it. He's never meant anything more, he believes. He's not so blind or foolish not to see that he's made a tremendous mistake, misgauged her responses egregiously, and the only thing for him to do now is get her back to Sunnydale as soon as possible, to cease this farce he's managed to create with whatever shred of dignity he can cling to. So he stands, and steps over her, climbing back to the summit with a lithe grace he certainly doesn't feel. But he can't just leave her there, and though he battles his embarrassment and would rather not have to face her again, he would never allow himself to fail her, and extends his hand in wait for Willow to take it.

She doesn't. She just stands there, every emotion he could possibly imagine rippling like a chorus of showgirls behind her eyes, kicking and marching and causing her pain with every step. And it looks like she's going to cry---was it that bad? why should she cry?---and all he wants to do is take her in his arms and tell her he's sorry, that he never wanted to be the one to make her cry, not after Oz, not after all the pain she's already gone through. But he can't. He only asks if she needs his help. They are the only words that seem to be able to find their ways to his lips.

"Where are we going?"

What does she mean? The way she speaks, he almost believes that she's talking about them, about Willow and Wesley as a pair, a we. When was the last time I was part of a 'we'? So he chooses the tactical position of ignorance, and refers to Sunnydale, because truly, that seems the only possible course at this juncture, but he is not prepared when she asks him why, when she reiterates her desire to stay the weekend. With him.

When she ignores his question, instead suggesting they go to the cinema, his confusion deepens, only able to stammer back at her while she makes her own way to his side, waiting expectantly for him to respond. Only...he doesn't know what to say, though he attempts to more than once, his mouth opening and closing of its own will as the words fail him yet again.

"I'm not sure..." Of anything. Of what the hell I'm doing, what the hell you're trying to prove. "...where---."

"Then we find one," she says. "We're two intelligent, grounded adults. We should be able to scare up a movie theatre if we want one."

And he has no clue as to why she is pressing on this, or why she seems so willing to stand so close to him when just seconds ago she couldn't get far enough away, and when she is standing this close, the shine that he'd mistaken for tears looks more like---no, mustn't think that, focus elsewhere. Except his eyes fall to the small swell of her breasts, which is just as bad because she doesn't want this, she's not interested.

Is she?

Why would she wish to spend the weekend with me if she is upset with what happened?

He's already taken one risk, and the kiss had been wonderful for the too few seconds before she stopped it, so he goes out on a limb and reverses his decision to take her directly to Sunnydale, letting it be known that he does actually know where they can go. "Is there anything in particular you'd like to see?" he asks, as he pulls the helmets from the bike. A movie. It seems rather...normal. Normal is good. Normal allows them to move on from the debacle he's created. He owes it to her.

"No action. And no horror. Too real life."

"Yes." His lips quirk in amusement at her earnest disavowal, but he hastily hides it behind his helmet. "Something more...escapist, I would imagine is what's called for currently." Understatement.

But when they're back on the bike, and they're flying down the roads toward the cinema he hopes he can remember how to get to, and Willow's arms are back around his waist, those little squeaks she makes when he turns drifting up to him on the wind, Wesley can almost forget that anything wrong actually happened. Stop. Rewind. She's willing to move on, so I should be, too. Because it feels so safe, and reassuring, her body weighing the back of the motorcycle so that maneuvering is actually simpler. Balance. She gives him balance. How did I not see that before?

He's not ready to upset that balance, however, so as they stand in the queue, he scans over their options. Explosions? Nixed. Monsters trying to take over the world? Too close to the real world. He lingers for a moment on the one comedy on the bill, but with "love" in the title, he knows he is only inviting disaster, or another crying jag, if he selects it. So, he opts for the foreign film, a German feature he's heard good things about, something more intellectual that will surely be more thought-provoking than anything else that is showing.

Her chattering as they stand in line for the food she's already expressed the desire for relaxes him, takes him back to their comfortable lunch, and all the moments they've managed to share that didn't involve tears or heartfelt confessions, which in fact, are not that many. He even fights the instinct to laugh out loud more than once, but only because he's still not certain what exactly is going on. For all attempts and purposes, it appears that she is trying to pretend everything is fine.

He can do that. He's had years of practice.

"...and a large diet Coke---."

"Oh, no." He glances down and her eyes seem stricken. At Coke? "Can I have water instead, please? A small one. Anything bigger and I'll be all squirmy for the last half of the movie and if you think I'm fidgety now..." She laughs at her silliness, coaxing another smile from Wesley.

"Water, it is."

For a moment after they step into the theatre, he regrets his choice. No one else there. All alone with Willow. He quickly shakes himself free of the thought, though. They're here to watch a movie. She wouldn't have suggested it if she wanted anything else.

He is secretly pleased with her choice of seats, though he doesn't say so out loud. Not too close and not too far. Centered. Balanced. But the silence is deafening, a din within his ears as they wait for the film to begin, his arm carefully tucked against his side when he realizes she's taken control of the armrest, watching her slim fingers drum silently along the ridges of the bottle she cradles in the holder. It lends itself to reflection, driving him to bury himself in his head instead of elsewhere, and he is about to bring up the Jwa'hra again---anything, really, just to get some sort of conversation going---when she speaks.

"How old are you?"

She certainly has a knack for taking me by surprise, he thinks as he looks at her. And why on earth does she want to know such a thing? "Twenty-seven."

"I'm only eighteen, you know," she blurts. "Almost nineteen."

And like the proverbial light bulb, he understands. Or thinks he does. It's about the age difference. She sees me as an old man, which is hardly surprising considering I was an authority figure only last year. It's why she's constantly referring to me as a Watcher, regardless of my current status. I've crossed an imaginary barrier inside her head by attempting to alter our relationship.

"My apology was sincere, Willow. I was out of line. It won't happen again." Please believe me. I'd rather have you as a friend than---.

"Why?"

Even more disconcerting than the age query. Because it carries with it the implication that she wants it to happen again. "You...what?" He knows he sounds like a fool, but really, this makes absolutely no sense. And he has to know.

She grabs on to the dimming of the lights like a preserver, gesturing vaguely toward the screen. "Movie. Doing that starting thing."

She doesn't want to answer. I can't let that happen this time. So he reminds her of the previews, and the advertisements that have become de rigeur. "What did you mean?"

He refuses to look away, watching her fight with herself and marveling at how expressive her face is. And when she starts out by saying she doesn't know, he momentarily feels deflated.

"It was...nice. Very nice. Just..."

She liked it. I wasn't wrong.

She is breathless as she barrels forward. "I don't get the why. Why you did it, why me, and...why you don't want to do it again."

The light bulb becomes a beacon, searing his head in understanding. Because this was never about him. Her distance. Her fear. This is about her, about Willow's blindness to her own appeal, about her panic in being hurt again. I won't hurt you, he wants to say. I'll do whatever I can to make sure you never hurt again.

But that will send her running even further, so he murmurs soothing words that he hopes will show that he comprehends what she is going through while at the same time telling her that she doesn't have to be afraid of him. He reaches up to touch the back of her hand to emphasize his point, but the audible hitch in her breath, the way she captures her bottom lip between her teeth, hypnotize him as surely as if she'd used her magic.

He doesn't even hear her as his other hand reaches up to cup her face---can't stop, I have to touch her, so soft, so delicate---and he pulls her closer, eyes fixed on the tremble of her mouth. They both want this, he knows, and if she pulls away again, he's going to demand to take her back to Sunnydale because this yoyo-ing isn't good for either of them, not with her emotions so fragile after Oz and not with his own heart so determined not to get broken.

But she doesn't pull away. She sinks into his desire like molten lava seeping into his skin, lips parting without his insistence so that he can taste and search and god, she's so sweet, and as his fingers tangle in her hair, he feels his heart running out of control, skittering out of his reach, ready to give itself over to her even if she doesn't wish it.

And she's kissing him back, leaning in further, and Wesley curses the armrest that divides them, debating if he's willing to break contact with her long enough to push it up and out of the way---.

The explosion on the screen is what startles both of them into breaking apart, looking up at the screen simultaneously, though he refuses to release his hold on her cheek. When she jokes about the inappropriateness of the trailer, he realizes she didn't pull away, and she didn't tell him no, and she isn't asking him why. She is waiting; for what though, he's unsure, so he smiles and hopes that's enough.

The feel of her in the hollow of his arm smoothes the warmth burning in his pelvis throughout his flesh, and he momentarily battles his uncertainty in settling his arm over her shoulder, tucking her even closer against him so that the perfume of her skin, her hair, become all he's aware of. How he will be able to concentrate on the movie now, he has no idea.

But it doesn't matter.

He's not alone now.

WILLOW

She is crying when the movie finishes.

Not sad tears. The happy kind. The kind that just start falling of their own accord because she is so startled by the unexpected ending. German movies aren't supposed to be so positive.

She doesn't make a sound, staying still in the darkness as the credits roll by on the screen before them, names with lots of hard consonants that make her think of Amazon-sized women sporting breast armor and horned helmets. Jarvinia, Leopold, Uta, Geert...suddenly having the name of a tree doesn't seem so bad.

Wesley doesn't move, his gaze remaining on the screen, and she is somehow not surprised that he's the kind of person who stays and reads the credits. Oz had been like that...

"People work hard," he'd said. "Other people should care."

Care. Like she had.

Like she did.

Crap.

Oz thoughts bad. Oz thoughts make crying worse. Where before they had been silent trespassers stealing down her cheeks, now they are accompanied by the squeezing of her eyes and the strangled whimpers in her throat that she wishes she could swallow and pretend never happened. Weird how close sad and happy are in their choice of manifestation, she thinks through the muddle of her brain.

The first sound captures Wesley's attention, diverting him from the celluloid ghosts that linger in the periphery of her vision, watery blurs of black and white and grey she absorbs in the infinitesimal seconds her lashes part. "Willow..." she hears him murmur, and the arm around her shoulders tighten, its mate reaching up and pushing away the armrest and curving to pull her gently into the soothing wall of his chest. Fingers trail at the nape of her neck, and his other hand slips beneath the hem of her sweater to seek out the small of her back.

Maybe it's the warmth of his touch. Maybe it's the hypnotic vibrations of his shirt against her cheek as he calms her with those same strings of words he shared during her nightmare. Maybe it's just that she's tired of crying, tired of the energy it saps from her, tired of feeling so out-of-control.

Whatever it is, her sobs return to their silence, and the tears turn into a trickle, until she is pushing herself away---I really want to stay there, honest, but it wouldn't be right, would it?---smiling at him through the revenants of the memories scuttling to the corners of her mind, tincture of rouge high on her cheeks. "Sorry," she says, and means it. "Betcha didn't know Waterworks is my favorite Monopoly property, huh?"

It's a lame joke, but it does what she wants it to accomplish, relaxing the rimples in his brow and lifting the corner of his mouth. "I wouldn't have selected it if I thought---."

"It wasn't the movie," she rushes to assure him. The last thing she wishes is to jeopardize the nebulous footing they've regained, the kiss be damned. "Well, it was the movie, in the way that they were happy tears because that ending was the last thing I expected. I mean, happy and German existentialism? Kind of unmixy, don't you think? But then the credits were rolling, and you were reading them, and it was so like Oz, and..." She swallows when the threat returns at the mention of his name, wiping away the remaining tracks down her face in a valorous attempt to ward them back. It works, and she smiles again. "See? All better already."

She can barely make out his features in the still-dark theatre, the shadows from the screen oscillating over his face, alternately baring him and hiding him and she's not one hundred percent certain which one is the true Wesley looking back at her. And she doesn't flinch when his arms move, when they return to the lean house of his frame, even though she suddenly feels naked without the propitious shelter he offers, and though his mouth is moving and she knows that he is talking to her, she doesn't hear the words.

It's too hard to hear beyond the roaring within her ears.

"What?" she asks as soon as she realizes she's missed what's he's said to her. He makes me forget about everything else. Does it make me look stupid?

"I asked, what shall we do next?"

She smiles, because she can see his temerity caged within his fears, worries of shredding the gossamer threads of their newfound accord dancing across his face in a wicked two-step that shocks her at its clarity. She's usually not good at the reading thing, well at least not of the non-word variety, yet she's convinced that she's right about this, that he's just as scared as she is, and for some inexplicable reason, this fills her with a sense of power.

"Well," she says, her teeth gleaming white in spite of the darkness, "we've already done the first date thing, kind of. I mean, lunch and a movie matinee count as the same thing as dinner and a movie, right? It's food and it's film on both sides of the equation, so same thing, I think. So what do people do on second dates? `Cause me on the vast dating experience end of the spectrum? Not so much."

And she's babbling, her joy at how right the world seems at the moment spilling over into her words, lighting her face and banishing the last of the tears, as she looks up at him expectantly. She's not even completely aware of what she's said. How many times has her mouth run away without waiting for her brain to catch up? Like the dish and the spoon all rolled up into one, and does that make her the cow or the moon?

Only then does she notice that he still hasn't spoken, that he's regarding her with the same intense manner he does when she's said something he can't fathom. What did I say now? Except she can't remember, which, surprisingly enough, isn't that surprising.

"Was this a...date?" he asks.

Holy mother of Minnie Pearl. I called this a date. Am I crazy? Delusional to the nth degree, because one kiss does not a date make.

Even when it's a kiss that made her both forget the world around her and remind her of just what a beautiful place it is, all in the same hungry, hot, seductive breath.

A kiss neither one of them has mentioned since it happened.

Crap.

Maybe it was only important to me.

She swallows down the gigantic lump that seems to have formed in her throat from nowhere, her glee diminished. "That's just me being silly," she tries, but her voice squeaks and sounds tinny and foreign even to her ears. Try again. "It's just...the similarity kind of struck me, and you should've seen me zip through the whole this is like that part of my SAT's..."

Like nothing else she has ever wanted before, she wants to bury her face in her hands and hide her shame at how foolish she sounds.

Especially when he comments that dates usually involve one person asking another. Traditionally, the guy asking the girl.

The sudden barrage of the lights coming up makes her blink, and she feels like a deer caught in headlights, staring at him and wishing the seat would just fold up and swallow her down and take her to whatever dimension things that disappeared between seat cushions went to. A world of pennies and old chewing gum? Or the world where Wesley laughs at me for being a silly teenager who thinks that a kiss actually means something?

Frankly, she's beginning to think that it's a real toss-up.

And the sound of the staff entering the theatre, laughing and chattering and clattering the wheels of the garbage bin they push, pushes him to his feet, her neck craning back to follow his upward movement. "We should probably go," he says.

But before she can do anything, or say anything, or think anything, or anything anything, he is bending, his hand taking hers and tugging, pulling her up to join him, his other returning to the small of her back to guide her down the row of seats into the aisle. Though he releases her fingers once they are free, he doesn't remove his hand from her back, and together they stroll past the oversized posters as if she hasn't just made one of the biggest mistakes of her life---bigger than following Oz? Not by a long shot...maybe...---out into the sunshine in quiet.

Only then does she find her voice again.

"So back to the real world now?" she says. Of course. No more hiding in the dark. No more pretending.

"I was rather thinking...technically, you chose pancakes and the movie, so really, I should be the one to select now. I've something in mind, but..."

"Wait." She grabs his arm, and stops him from stepping off the curb, forcing him to look at her. "What are you saying?"

When he looks down at her, a flush creeps up her neck in agonizing lethargy, burning and flaring and flaming in her memory the imprint of his hand when he'd cupped her face. "I believe I'm attempting to ask you out," he says. "I thought that was obvious."

She feels like a fool. Because he hasn't been anything but nice and sweet and honest with her from the start, and yet she doubted him, doubted the kiss---both of them---and questioned everything, all because of her own insecurities and refusal to believe that he could be real because she was still stuck in the shadows of thinking the worst.

No more. I don't have to be like that. I can believe.

So, the words don't even stick in her mouth. And she doesn't allow herself to think. She just smiles.

"That sounds wonderful."

WESLEY

He surprises himself by becoming engrossed in the film, Willow's presence lulling him into a sense of familiar that has been long missing from the monochrome of his life, hunting and watching and bloodshed aside. None of the previous sparks the same tangibility that she does, tenders the requiescence of his defenses like her slow, even breathing, and so he's able to lose himself in the story, oddly unsettled at the uncharacteristic ending.

Then it's the credits, and time to mull over what he's just seen, not really seeing the screen as he twists and bends and shapes the themes of the film over in his head. It's been a long time since he's been able to luxuriate in unnecessary ruminations. He'd forgotten how delicious it could feel to analyze that which wasn't life or death. That didn't hold within it the power to kill or destroy. It was liberating.

All of it is shattered the second he hears the sobs arise from Willow, feels the trembling wracking through the body leaning into his side. When he looks down, all he can see are the silvery tracks her tears are leaving on her cheeks and wonders what possibly could've been in the movie to provoke such a reaction.

"Willow..." he murmurs, but it's not enough, he has to hold her, to assuage her grief and bring back the smile that lights him so brightly within. So he gathers her into his arms---so soft, so delicate, and yet so strong---and hopes that he can soothe away her demons just as he did in the previous night, banishing them to whatever dark corners they insist on lurking. He'd fight them hand-to-hand if it was possible. It destroys him to hear her sobbing so.

And just as before, the words come.

"Ssshhh...don't cry...it's all right...whatever it is, it'll be all right...ssshhh...I'm here...please, don't cry..."

And on, and on, and on, until the litany has tattooed itself on his brain, his fingertips on fire from the constant feathering across the bare skin of her back. He'd thought they were past this. The kiss had seemed to make everything better. I thought she understood.

But clearly she didn't, and though her tears quiet, and her shoulders stop the up and down rubbing against his chest---is it really any wonder how stimulating such a motion can be, regardless of the circumstances?---his worry over her doesn't ease. Not even when she pulls away and wipes at the wet stains she has left on his shirt, fingers shaking, apologizing and making a silly joke about Monopoly.

She's trying though, which means he has to try too. My turn. "I wouldn't have selected it if I thought---."

"It wasn't the movie," she interrupts. And then she's babbling again, just as she always does when she's either nervous or happy---how I wish it was the happy this time that was provoking it---and some of the coils around his heart loosen when he begins to understand the source of her tears. But when she mentions his name, and he sees the small man appear in his mind's eye, guilt at his own cowardice in mentioning Oz's presence in town, Wesley chills and wonders how long they will be living with the werewolf's specter.

As if the two of us actually have some sort of future past this weekend.

But he can exile the ex-boyfriend for at least the next day and a half, he reasons. All he needs to do is keep her occupied, keep her smiling. Show her that she's worthy of better treatment. Show her that she matters to someone. To him.

He has to let her go, but releasing her from his arms now that she is no longer crying is the last thing he wishes to do. Still, it's not about what he wants. It's about what's best for her. I mustn't be so selfish.

"What shall we do next?" he asks, and already regrets not being able to feel her against him. How he would love to share in her strength, to sink into her---. No. Not right. One kiss does not a lover make.

"What?" she queries.

Her eyes shimmer in the shadows from the screen, and he is sinking, though it's not exactly how he'd envisioned. It's the quicksand of her countenance that draws him in, makes him hope that he doesn't misstep yet again and crush the foundation of what they're building. Are we building something? I can't be imagining that this will be anything more.

So he repeats his question, and waits for her to answer, reining in his enthusiasm until he's heard what she would like. All her words are lost, though, as soon as she utters those fateful four letters.

A date? Does she see this as a date?

Is it?

Does she want it to be?

He already knows the answer for himself---yes, more than anything---but surely such a connection hasn't suggested itself to her. She was the one with all the questions, the whys and the hows and everything else. It doesn't make sense that she would change her mind about it so quickly. Nothing has happened that should do so.

Except for the kiss.

That mind-numbing, exhilarating, beauteous kiss.

"Was this a..." God, how could she say it so casually? "...date?"

And why he's holding his breath for her answer, he has no idea. Because part of him is desperately hoping for her to say yes, and another is even more frightened that if she does, he'll find some way to fail her, too.

A date. When was the last time I was on a proper date?

But the smile she'd been wearing has faded like a winter's frost on a blooming rose, and she is trying to speak, to make light of her choice of words and the way her mind works. Except he can see. Her. And he wonders when he will be able to convince her she doesn't need to be scared around him.

Best to make light of it. Levity is the answer. Xander is her best friend; surely that's an indication that she responds to humor as a method of emotional release.

"And here I thought dating required an exchange of asking and accepting," he jokes, remembering her fervent requests for pancakes and the movie.

It elicits no response. Her eyes remain wide in the seconds before the lights come up, and then she's blinking away, trying to refocus and looking unbearably darling in spite of the slight swelling around her eyes. Wesley fights the urge to reach up and touch her cheek, but when the cleaning crew loudly announces their arrival into the theatre with their bright chatter and noisy gum-popping, it's just as valid an opportunity.

So, he rises to his feet, prompting her with the reminder that it's time to go, and leans to take her hand and help her stand. He doesn't have to, but he can't help himself from returning his touch to the small of her back, that small hollow at the base of her spine lending the promise of the upper swell of her bottom that has already filled his fantasies with more than should really be proper.

He could already feel the faint tickling of the tiny hairs that he'd encounter when he ran his tongue along the length of her spine, his mouth watering at the unexpected tang her skin would offer. She'd probably giggle, and say it tickles, which would only prompt him to continue his laving, letting his fingers join in to explore all the hollows and curves and swells that her clothes hid so well.

All too soon, they're on the sidewalk, and he doesn't even remember walking out. The only thing etched in his mind is that he is still touching her, and that she hasn't argued with him about it. So when she speaks up and comments about returning to the real world, he is jolted back to the reality of the d-word.

"I was rather thinking..." he muses out loud, contemplating his actions verbally so that she can extend her own ideas. "Technically, you chose pancakes and the movie, so really, I should be the one to select now." Oh, but I do think she'd love that... "I've something in mind, but..."

Her tiny hand cuts him off, her single command of "wait" followed by her confused "what." And when he looks down at her, he has to fight back the smile, to hold back the pleasure he is experiencing at seeing the innocence shining from her eyes again. It's not fear, though he knows that is what drives her bewilderment, and he states the obvious, because it's only the clear that will convince her.

"I believe I'm attempting to ask you out," he says. "I thought that was obvious."

It takes a moment, but then there it is. The smile that he's convinced could fuel an entire city if they could harness its power. And she says three words that make his heart leap, because they mean she's finally beginning to understand.

"That sounds wonderful."

WILLOW

The date/not-a-date begins with a bang.

Literally.

One minute, the bike is racing back to the hotel, thundering and cogent as he pushes its limits in his haste, both of them eager to clean up and change before setting to the plans Wesley has formulated for the evening---plans he has become oddly secretive about, she muses as she loses herself to the liberty tearing down the road offers. Jack Kerouac, eat your heart out.

The next, a sharp crack from the right makes her helmet reverberate around her ears, her alarmed squeal driving Willow to tighten her grip around Wes while he struggles not to lose control of the handlebars.

She squeezes her eyes shut---because, really, watching the world tilt upside down and sideways isn't exactly conducive to not panicking and I'm not going to panic, I'm not---but the urge to throw up doesn't recede, her stomach deciding for her that maybe the motorcycle isn't such a great thing to have between her legs after all. That shake, rattle, and roll effect it has is only fun when there's no danger of becoming the highway's next Rorschach. Nix on filling Buffy in on the details of her Easy Rider weekend.

All she can think is she doesn't want to die, not today, not now after finally figuring out that it's OK to believe again, and wow, does she have that kind of thought every day? It was just last night that she was wishing the same with the vampire, though it feels like a lifetime ago. That was a different Willow. A Wes-less Willow. Not that he's hers now. She can't think that. She shouldn't think that.

Even if she really, really wants to.

It's while these thoughts are going through her head that Willow realizes the world has stopped moving. Slowly, she lets her eyes open and she's no longer looking at Wesley's back, but his front, and he has his hands on her shoulders, steadying her as if she's going to topple from the bike though the visor is still down and obscuring her sight of him.

"Are you all right?" he is asking, but his voice sounds so far away, like he's talking through water, that it spurs her to shake her head in denial.

Immediately, she is moving again, and all her attempts to keep the world at bay are for naught as he scoops her up, off, onto the ground, strong hands stretching her out and cradling her head as the helmet strap is undone from beneath her chin. As soon as it is gone, though, all the fuzziness vanishes, and Willow feels foolish for not thinking about the effects of having the inches of plastic and foam wrapped around her head in answering his question.

"I'm OK," she says, repeating ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

But Wesley isn't listening. Wesley is too busy checking her over for injuries, and she has to close her eyes again because the sun is beating down and blinding and making those little spots dance before her, the ones she can never seem to catch directly in front but only out of the corner of her eye. She can hear his voice clearly now, that odd blend of crisp and halcyon that will forever swathe her with the promise of sanctuary, but when she tries to tell him this, he seems not to hear.

Only when she catches the word "hospital" does Willow set aside the harborage his touch seems to bring, pushing him away to prop herself up on her elbows.

"I'm fine," she says. Sometime in the last few minutes, he's lifted his visor so now she can see the worry darkening his aspect. Her fingers catch the hand that is reaching for his cell phone.

"I'm fine," she repeats.

For a moment, Wesley's hand tremors, stills, curls around hers, before tugging her gently upward to sit straight at the side of the road.

"I'm sorry," he says, and his voice bleeds with it. "I lost control. Are you certain you're not injured?"

"More than certain. The certainest." She doesn't want to admit to being scared. That would show she didn't trust him and his driving. So she latches on to the other excuse to explain it away. "It was the helmet. It made you sound funny, and I sort of forgot I was wearing it. It's actually kind of comfy once you get used to it."

The words make her cringe. She hates admitting to stupidity. Her smarts is the one thing she should be able to count on.

He only nods. Stands. He's going away? Now what did I do?

But it's the bike that currently garners his attention, and he is crouching by the front wheel, a dark bow of power administering to the vehicle's intricacies with a fervency that avows to his concern for their circumstances. That makes sense. Wesley isn't running again---and she really has to stop thinking that every time he takes a step away from her---but administering to the problem at hand. Scratch Willow from the to do list. Move on to the next.

His deep sigh is followed by Wesley sitting back on his heels. "I can't fix it." Why does he sound so bleak? "We'll have to ring for roadside assistance."

"What happened?"

"The tire blew. I would imagine I probably hit something, but...we're just fortunate that we didn't go off the road."

"Maybe I can---."

"No." And it's the firmness of his tone that stops her, shocks her into plopping back down onto her bottom from where she's started to rise. "No," he repeats. Softer. No less firm. "I shall ring. You rest. It shan't be long."

His estimation of long is right on the money when a tow truck shows up in less than ten minutes. Whatever insurance plan Wesley has, she figures, is worth every penny for that kind of service, except he looks less than pleased as he talks in the distance with the broken-toothed mechanic, and downright pissed when the man begins hooking the bike onto the back of his truck.

She doesn't act on the urge to ask him what's wrong, though. Somehow, she thinks that might make it worse.

So, they ride with the man in his truck back to their hotel, all silence except for the driver's off-key humming of "Achy Breaky Heart." And when Wesley merely takes her shopping bags in one hand and hers in the other to lead her to their room, she follows just as quietly, because she has no idea what is going on. Have I ever? Is all this just some psychedelic hallucination and I'm really bleeding out in the dark on the sidewalk from the vamp attack?

As soon as they're alone, as soon as the door is closed between them and the rest of the world, Wesley disappears into the bathroom, leaving Willow standing amidst her purchases and debating whether she should just give up on the whole idea of her and Wesley after all. The prospect of their potential date has faded in the aftermath of the not-quite-an-accident. Even the euphoria from his kisses has lost its bloom, and it's the loss of those gossamer whispers that stings most of all.

"What's going on?" she demands when he finally emerges. She has to know. She can't stomach the way he's shut himself off any longer.

"What do you mean?"

"Have you changed your mind?" Please don't have changed your mind. "Aren't we going out now?"

He shakes his head. "We can't. The motorcycle won't be fixed until tomorrow morning."

"So?"

This throws him, and the eyes that had been so dark seem to search hers for hidden meaning. No hidden meaning! she wants to scream. Open book here! Not like Wesley. See Wes. See Wes run. Run, Wes, run. Except please don't, she doesn't quite beseech.

"My plans...required transportation," he finally says. "What I had in mind isn't exactly within walking distance of the hotel."

"So why can't we change them?"

"I'd rather hoped it would be more...special."

She forsakes the distance he's been keeping between them, and crosses the room to stand in front of Wes, her hand small and shaky as she sets it on his arm. "I wasn't looking for special." She realizes the error in her words as soon as they are uttered, and hastens to fix them even as she watches his eyes shutter. "I just want to spend time with you. It doesn't matter what we're doing. We could even go patrolling if that was what you wanted. Only, maybe if I could not be the bait? Last night kind of took the fun out of the damsel in distress for me for awhile."

Slowly---very slowly, so slowly she's not even sure it's happening at first---the corners of his mouth lift, his eyes soften. Hey, at least I make him laugh. Looks like I learned something from Xander after all. And when he agrees, she exhales as quietly as she can.

Because she doesn't want him to know how scared she got for a minute there. Like she'd lost Wesley.

She can't lose him.

She's only just found him.

WESLEY

He should've watched where he was going.

After, he would rationalize it as distraction. It was impossible to think clearly with Willow clinging so tenaciously to his midsection, not with the memory of her lips on his so fresh in his recollection. It was a deadly combination.

But during...

He doesn't remember seeing the road.

He doesn't remember feeling the wind sneaking beneath his helmet.

All he remembers is the brilliance of a beautiful smile, and those lovely words, That sounds wonderful, ringing in his ears.

So when the tire blows, and the motorcycle jerks within his grasp, threatening to send both of them to an abrasive collision with the concrete, Wesley is startled back into the real world. A world of blood and screams, where poor judgment means someone can die, and where he has to struggle to merely be adequate.

He decelerates as carefully as he can, all the while feeling Willow's grip tighten around him, her face pressed so fiercely to his back that he imagines he can even feel her eyelashes through his leather jacket. But he can't allow himself to enjoy the need she has for him right now. Her life hangs in the balance, and this is a scale where his culpability must not be questioned.

Concentrate.

Focus.

Failure is not an option.

And his mind has shut itself off by the time he skids to a stop at the side of the road, his fury at his poor choices---too fast, too careless---banishing the romantic who had ruled his head to the far recesses of his awareness. All that is left is Wesley, Rogue Demonhunter, Purveyor of Punishment to Those Who Do Wrong.

But Willow did nothing wrong.

Perhaps befriending him is wrong.

No.

He pushes the tiny voices aside, twisting to face his passenger. Her face is wan, eyes squeezed shut as if she is frightened of what her vision might betray. As soon as he removes himself as her anchor, Willow starts to sway, prompting him to take hold of her shoulders, root her in her seat, and silently pray that she doesn't hold this against him.

The instant her lashes flutter open, he asks of her wellbeing, but the small shake of her head is the death knoll for any remaining vestiges of hope he might have that this day can somehow be salvaged.

Please don't need hospital. Please let the wounds be superficial.

But when he stretches her out on the loose grit beside the road, Wesley can find no evidence of her injuries, though he searches for what feels like an eternity. His hands grace expertly over her arms, skips past her hips, tremble when they examine her legs. Even such innocence makes him hard, and though he fights to occupy his mind elsewhere by offering as much verbal cheer as he can, he still hates that he lacks even the smallest iota of self-control in containing his growing attraction to Willow.

I must stop touching her. I'm only making it worse.

"I'll have to get you to hospital," he says, and starts to reach for his mobile phone. "Your injuries must be internal---."

Her assurances that she's fine are accompanied by her hand on his, and she pushes herself partially upright to prove it. He's trembling---can she feel what she does to me?---but Wesley can't resist twining his fingers with hers, even if he can't feel her skin through the gloves. He holds her for a second.

Two.

Three.

And then realizes he's staring. Perhaps he should've kept the visor down.

He hides by ducking his head when he pulls her more into a sitting position.

"I'm sorry." So very, very sorry. You have no idea. "I lost control." Of the bike. Of myself. Of the situation. "Are you certain you're not injured?"

"More than certain. The certainest."

He doesn't hear the rest of her babbling, nodding only when he notices the silence when she stops. Rising to his feet, he crosses to the motorcycle to examine the damage. If he can fix it, perhaps the evening can be saved. She isn't hurt, and they can continue on with their plans---his plans, a date, it's a date---as if nothing untoward has happened.

Except he can't. The tire is in need of more than a simple path

"I can't fix it," he says with a sigh. He doesn't even know if she's listening. Will she be disappointed? "We'll have to ring for roadside assistance."

"What happened?"

I failed. Again.

He doesn't say so, but when she starts to suggest that she can be of service, Wes can't stop himself from snapping.

She looks hurt at his refusal, and more than a little confused. How does he explain that it's not her? How can he tell her that he can't allow her to try to mend what is his fault?

"No." He can't. "I shall ring. You rest. It shan't be long."

He buries himself in his task, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she pretends not to listen to him speak on the phone, wishing he hadn't muddled this so badly. There is no way they can keep their date now. The night will end without the something special he was hoping would light her so, and she will return to Sunnydale with memories of how Wesley had disappointed the both of them. All he can do at this point is pray that he doesn't harm her further.

Why had he thought this would work?

Oh, yes. Because she smiled at me.

Her smile has been the impetus for much of this weekend.

At least he doesn't have to wait long for the tow truck. When he spots the broken-toothed grin of the driver, Wesley pulls himself straighter, reverts to his staunchest demeanor. He can at least endure this with pride. But that word---

"Tomorrow."

---only sours his mood, and no matter what Wes argues---

"Tomorrow."

---the driver is firm on the earliest he's going to be able to fix the motorcycle.

"Tomorrow."

Behind him, Wesley senses Willow coming up as he watches the driver work to affix the bike to the truck. She is silent, and he almost wishes she would offer some sort of sympathy regarding their situation. Almost. It's likely her words, however well meaning, would either exacerbate his sense of defeat or ignite the short fuse of his temper and he desires neither. She deserves better than that.

He is able to contain himself throughout their journey back to the hotel, and by the time they pull up in front of the lobby, Wesley has relaxed a little from his earlier agitation. Having Willow pressed up against him in such close quarters is remarkably calming, though the slight touch of her thigh along his means his erection never quite goes away. She leans into him, away from the driver, as if it is the pair of them against everyone else, and Wes begins to relive their day prior to the accident.

It doesn't have to end badly. Though their date may not be what he originally intended, perhaps something quieter will suffice. They've done the unorthodox all day; he rationalizes that continuing the trend into the evening isn't necessary. He is already planning when he automatically picks up her bags and takes her hand, and when they get to their room, he disappears into the bathroom so that he can compose himself before approaching the new idea with Willow.

She doesn't give him the opportunity.

"What's going on?"

Her eyes are sparking, her body bow-tight as she waits for him to respond. Folding her arms over her chest only draws his attention to the swell of her breasts and he stumbles over his next words as he silently berates himself for indulging in his attraction when he should be attempting to mend what he has broken.

"Have you changed your mind?" she asks. Beneath the query is a hint of desperation, and Wesley's attention is torn when he labors to understand which it could be she means. "Aren't we going out now?"

Ah. The date. Thank god she clarified.

"We can't," he confirms, shaking his head. "The motorcycle won't be fixed until tomorrow morning."

"So?"

And he remembers then that this is a young woman accustomed to overcoming obstacles. It's not just a symptom of working with the Slayer, though three years of averting apocalypses and hurdling demons has verged her methodology---or was it that way before? She sees life as a series of problems to be solved, a product of her analytical mind, and though her attempts to unravel sometimes leave her shattered and sobbing in the arms of a near-stranger, it is not in Willow to give up without putting forth her solution. Does she see me as a problem? How do I show her that I was hoping to be part of the answer?

"My plans..." he starts, and then wonders how much he should reveal. "...required transportation. What I had in mind isn't exactly within walking distance of the hotel."

The planetarium is actually quite a distance away, impossible to reach without a mode of transportation of some sort. If American public transit weren't so appalling, he still might consider taking her, but that is quite impossible under their current circumstances. So when she suggests changing the plans, he admits to the one thing he hopes she will understand, and prays she doesn't think him weak for it.

"I'd rather hoped it would be more...special."

These words more than any other he has uttered draws her to him, but when she reaches out, all Wesley can see is the slight tremor in her hand. Afraid. Nervous. He has frightened her.

"I wasn't looking for special," Willow says.

It makes his throat constrict, air precious. She's changed her mind. He's lost his opportunity.

Then, her grip tightens, forcing him to meet her eyes again. "I just want to spend time with you. It doesn't matter what we're doing."

And she means it. Wes can see that now. There is no guile in the green. There is no guile in her.

"Yes," he breathes. "I suppose I can amend my intentions."

"Your intentions?" she teases, and her smile is brilliant. "You make it sound like your plans were of the naughty variety."

He swallows. He knows she is only kidding, that her gentle gibes are meant to draw him out of his funk, but hearing that word---Naughty? Do not tempt me so, Willow. I am not the font of self-restraint as I might appear.---makes him want to forego propriety and plunge into the sanctuary of her skin.

As he is already plunging into the sanctuary of her friendship.

WILLOW

Where the teasing comes from, she has no idea. Perhaps it's the relief in seeing him return to the Wesley who walked out of the movie theater that sparks the allusion to innuendo she knows is completely unintentional. But seeing him respond so acutely to her comment, all red-faced self-consciousness while his gaze strays noticeably to her mouth, makes her brave.

Makes her reckless.

Eat your heart out.

"Were they naughty?" she asks, deliberately affecting her best Precious Moments impression. It doesn't matter. He's not looking at her eyes anyway. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

Wesley clears his throat, but there is nowhere for him to run, the edge of the counter already pressing into the back of his legs. "It was a planetarium," he manages. "Outside of town. I'd thought...you would appreciate the astronomy."

The innocence of his aspiration throws her, though she'd known somewhere inside that it would be so, and she immediately drops the femme fatale act that doesn't really suit her anyway. "Stars?" she chirps. She sounds way too perky, even to her ears, and hopes that it doesn't turn him off. "That would've been wonderful."

"But we can't go now. It's too far."

"But we can." And she explains it to him, because obviously the possibility hasn't occurred to Wesley, and even as she begins the preparations, talking all the while, Wes just stands there, like he can't completely believe that it's unfolding so rapidly around him. It's only when she's got the stuff piled up on the bed that he steps forward.

"There's a caf around the corner," he says, and it's the fact that he's finally participating again that has her warming when he nears, not the fact that he still smells so good, honest. "It won't be haute cuisine, but it should suffice for our purposes."

"I'm a college student," she jokes. "I consider any chef whose last name isn't Boyardee, haute cuisine."

It's a small joke, but for the way Wesley smiles, she could've been Whoopi Goldberg, and it's infinitely easier to start chattering away like they had at lunch time and after, like none of the apprehension and fear had ever become manifest in their stutters and silences. They talk of nothing, and everything, and there is unadulterated relief when they both realize at the same time that their new plans don't involve changing their clothes, as if the time to shed new costumes would alter the simplicity of just being together.

Being together. She likes the way that sounds.

Does Wes?

Somehow, she thinks he does.

When it comes time to go get the food, he gives Willow the option of accompanying him, but she shakes her head and declines. Part of her wants it to be a surprise, and she suspects that he needs this small task to make their date/not-a-date really his.

"I shan't be long," he says, and leaves the room.

But when the door re-opens immediately, and Wesley comes back in, her joke about his being even faster than Superman is cut off when he brings his lips to hers in a quick, hard kiss. His hands hold her head still---as if I would turn away, ha!---and then just as swiftly he is gone again, leaving her mouth tingling, her mind whirling, and Willow almost wishing they didn't have the food thing coming up to get in the way of more kissage.

Because he is surprisingly good at it. He's even better at taking her by surprise. Not the kind of surprise where her heart ends up ruptured from the intensity, but the kind that ignites a slow burn for more.

She wonders what it is he will surprise her with tonight.

While he's away, she busies herself with putting her things away, unpacking the few clothes she's bought and placing them in the empty drawer she finds. She knows she shouldn't but her hands go back to the one that holds his, her fingers sliding over the soft cotton of his shirts, tracing the hard line of the collars. Other than the leather, all of his clothes are baby-bottom soft, like he needs that extra cushion to act as armor in the hard world he now traverses.

Soft against hard, good against evil, right against wrong.

Willow thinks that it's actually quite appropriate for Wes.

The shirt she wore to sleep in the night before hangs slightly separate from the rest in the small closet, and she picks up the sleeve and drapes it over her shoulder. A whiff of his cologne, or his skin or his soap or whatever it is that makes him smell like that, wafts to her nostrils, and before she can stop herself, she's lifted the fabric to her face, inhaling the aroma as if that will merge it with her body's natural rhythms.

It smells safe.

It smells like a warm fireplace in an old study, where she is wrapped in him before the flame as they read over a book together, each taking turns waiting for the other to finish a page before turning it.

It smells---.

The click of the front door makes her jump, whirl, slam the closet shut to face a bemused Wesley in the entrance with red cheeks and a racing heart and oh god, he just caught me sniffing his clothes. I'm not a date, I'm a stalker.

"Is everything all right?" he asks. His eyes dart to the closet door.

"Mice," she blurts. "Mouse. I thought I heard one."

"Really? Perhaps we should---."

As he starts to approach, her arm shoots out to stop him from opening the closet because Willow knows that the shirt will still be swinging inside and there's no way he's going to believe her mouse story because, hello, not true and the man is far from stupid. So she stammers out a story about not finding the rodent, and how hungry she is, and grabs their supplies from the bed in one hand while taking his in her other, leading him from the scene of her fib as quickly as she can without running, all the while wondering just how silly little girl he must find her. Because she certainly thinks she's being silly so there's no telling how it must look from the outside.

Quickly, they are ensconced in the small patch of lawn next to the outdoor pool. With the weather bordering on winter, nobody is in the mood for a swim so they have a world of privacy in its solitude as Wesley lays out the blanket they have filched from the spare bedding. Willow takes care of the food, silently musing on the peculiarity of having a picnic with Buffy's ex-Watcher in the middle of a nowhere town, but as she unwraps the sandwiches and pastries he has purchased, she decides it's too fragile to dwell upon. Just like her closure with Oz, this is a tenuous web she is weaving, and too close scrutiny will only make the strands dissolve.

They eat, and while they eat, they talk, but not once does Wesley mention the kiss before he left, and not once does Willow bring up the kisses from earlier. They both know they're there---forgetting is impossible---but in their need to just be, discussion of anything specific is superfluous. More than once, Willow smiles as she realizes what she's doing, but she hides them behind reactions to his stories, or punctuations to her own.

By the time they're done, the sun is gone, and the stars have taken its place in the heavens above. Why don't the stars in Sunnydale look like this? She suspects they probably do, but in her current state of mind---Hawaii, that's where I am, all warm and sunny and I wonder what Wesley looks like in a bathing suit?---these seem extra specially twinkly, all in abundance as if someone more powerful than either of them knew they were going to be staring at the stars that night.

"So, how do we do this?" she asks brightly.

Wesley has grown pensive in the aftermath of ham sandwiches and sugar cookies. "There's something...I believe we should talk about," he says. "Before we...before...I think it's best if we're both..."

Maybe it's the way he can't quite meet her eyes that makes the thought pop into Willow's head. Is this the safe sex talk? Does he think we're going to have sex tonight? It's not as if the thought hasn't occurred to her, but that was mostly when they were kissing, or when she was smelling his shirt, and I'm not a stalker, I'm a slut, and this is just a little too surreal in the Dali landscape of her weekend.

But before she can sputter out that nothing has to happen, and boy, does she really hate that she's going to say it, Wesley has taken her hand in his---I'm shaking, can he feel me shaking? I'm my own little earthquake---and is stroking the back of her fingers.

"Something...happened today," he says. He finally lifts his eyes, and the blue is so dark in the poor illumination from the poolside that she gets lost looking in them. "Something...of which you should be aware."

"What?" You're starting to scare me because this doesn't sound like any other sex talk I've had before.

"It's about..." He clears his throat, looks down again. "I saw Oz earlier."

WESLEY

She's flirting with him.

He can't believe she's flirting with him.

It's not the innocent banter that they'd shared at lunch, and it's not the heady conversation that had occurred at the cinema. This is plainspoken, I-am-woman-hear-me-know-you-want-me flirting that Willow is affecting. Quite effectively, he might add.

Dear Lord, I want to kiss her again.

"Were they naughty?" she asks, and he is mesmerized by the way her mouth is moving, how she can switch to the coquette so quickly after his dunderheaded foolishness. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

His throat is dry, and he clears it, but that does little to re-orient him to the issues at hand, something he believes Willow is more than aware of. "It was a planetarium." Perhaps some distance...but no, the counter is already cutting into his legs. There is nowhere to go, nothing for him to do but face his desire and hope she doesn't think him ridiculous. "Outside of town," Wes continues. "I'd thought..." It was supposed to be magical. "...you would appreciate the astronomy."

"Stars?" Though he'd been hoping for magic with the planetarium notion, seeing her light up like a child at Christmas is almost more so. "That would've been wonderful."

Would've been. If he hadn't blown the tire on the motorcycle.

His face closes again and he sighs. "But we can't go now. It's too far."

"But we can."

She is babbling now, going on about how they have all the stars in the world so who needs to worry about entrance fees and schedules and out-of-the-way museums when all they have to do is go outside. It's not an option that has occurred to him, frankly, and he's rather annoyed that he was so focused on his final goal that he overlooked the obvious. Willow, on the other hand, has already proven that she is problem solver extraordinaire, and pulls out a blanket from the closet as if to prove her point.

"I don't know what you had in mind foodwise," she continues, and the excitement about their prospects makes her glow. "But I'm sure we can figure something out."

Wesley is no longer willing to be the passive stander-by, and steps forward until he's next to her at the bed. "There's a caf around the corner," he says. "It won't be haute cuisine, but it should suffice for our purposes."

Her joke about her lowered tastes eclipses the unexpected reminder of the difference in their ages, and he relaxes enough to offer the most genuine smile he's felt since leaving the cinema.

After that, it seems almost normal to resume their conversation, to pretend that his irresolution doesn't linger like a ghost between them. He doesn't know how she does it, how she can make the world seem easier with something as simple as a smile, but he's not throwing it again, not this time, not when she's given it back to him with hardly an expectation.

"Is that it?"

"Other than changing..."

They look at each other at the same time, then at their clothing. When Wesley lifts his gaze again, Willow is chewing her lip in anticipation. Does she draw my attention to her mouth on purpose?

"That doesn't seem necessary at this point, does it?" He's stating the obvious, but her relief stops the diversionary tactics.

"Just the food, then."

His eyes stray to the door. "Do you wish to come with me?" Wes asks. This is no longer his arrangement; everything else about this evening is again Willow's doing so it's only natural that she pick out the food as well. He should just consider himself lucky that he is getting anything from his time with her at all.

"That's OK," she replies. "I'll just stay here. I trust whatever you decide to get."

His heart is hammering inside his chest. He doesn't think he'll ever grow tired of hearing that word---trust, she trusts me---and it takes all his control not to allow the weakness of what hearing it does to him from showing in his voice. "I shan't be long," he says, and leaves.

The instant the door closes behind him is an instant too long away from her, and Wesley whirls on his heel to push it open again, to stride inside, to cup her surprised face between his hands and feel the delicate bones twitch beneath his touch, and to press his mouth to hers in a hard kiss. He just needs her to know how grateful he is, how much her presence in this weekend means to him, and disregards the fact that he's been dying to kiss her again ever since tasting her response to him before the movie. He doesn't give her the opportunity to respond. It's only important that she has that moment of clarity.

He rushes as quickly as he can, ordering an assortment of sandwiches before noticing the sugar cookies and getting some of those as well. The memory of how Willow tasted after the pie makes his mouth water. Will she let me kiss her again? It's a silly thought, especially since he took their last kiss without her permission, but he's not certain he can be so bold as to repeat the action, as much as he may want to.

Back to the hotel, juggling the bags of food, and his mouth is already open to speak when he pushes open the door. He doesn't, though, because he is greeted by a wide-eyed Willow, standing in front of the closet, looking very much like a deer caught in headlights.

"Is everything all right?" he asks. When he glances at the door, he swears her breathing takes butterfly wings. What is she hiding?

"Mice." She's hiding mice? "Mouse. I thought I heard one."

Well, that certainly makes more sense.

But when he tries to help, she blocks the door and sputters an explanation that is more Pratchett than Hemingway, but if she's not bothered, then he's not bothered. Besides, she's adorable when she babbles.

Taking her by the hand, he leads Willow to the patch by the pool they've deemed worthy of their purpose, the meal a balm to the bruised egos of the afternoon, their conversation solace for the transgressions of the past year. Every once in a while, Wesley catches one of her whimsical grins, but they're so fleeting that he wonders if he's imagining them. Ethereal motes that offer individual embraces, the smiles are often lost within her tales of school, of Sunnydale, of slaying and Buffy.

It surprises him that it doesn't hurt as much to hear of them. Not when they are such an integral part of who she is.

"None of them know, though."

Wesley frowns as he realizes he's missed what has led to this revelation of hers.

"Oh?" Perhaps she won't notice. "Why is that?"

She shrugs, her shoulders thin though the weight they can bear amazes him. "It's kind of pathetic, don't you think? I mean, he said it was over, and I didn't want to believe him. I didn't want my friends to think I'm such a baby just because I thought I could convince Oz we should get back together."

Oz. She's talking about Oz again. At least she isn't crying any more.

The rest of what she says is lost to him as guilt begins tracing black patterns atop the golden tapestry of their date/not-a-date. He is here under false pretenses. He carries with him knowledge about her weekend that Willow isn't privy to, and if she were to know the truth, that she could've had her confrontation and potentially swayed the man she loved to return with her to the Hellmouth---for Wesley doesn't doubt that she could've been very persuasive if she'd needed to be, how could any man in his right mind resist such a lovely combination?---she would hate him for withholding what was rightfully hers.

So, when the meal is done, and all that is left to them are the stars overhead, Willow turns that open face of hers to him and poses the one question he wishes she wouldn't.

"So, how do we do this?"

With honesty.

But honesty is much harder when the woman you desire is staring at you with the expectation of a child.

"There's something..." He has no idea how to approach this, even though he knows he must. "...I believe we should talk about." I'm lying. I very much don't want to. "Before we..." Have a future? Do we? Can we? I think the answer to that is no but I must do this anyway. "...before..." He's making a mess of this. Better to start over. "I think it's best if we're both..."

The words are choked in his throat when she shifts where she is sitting, her calf brushing against his. He hears her breathe in to speak, but he mustn't let that happen or he will never find the nerve to tell her what he knows.

"Something..." Wes takes her hand in his, hoping that it will give him the strength, and when he feels her tremble at his touch, castigates himself for frightening even more. "...happened today," he finishes. I must soothe her. She mustn't cry.

When he looks up, he almost loses his resolve again. She has granules of sugar clinging to her lips that sparkle in the moonlight.

"Something...of which you should be aware."

"What?"

"It's about..." Just say it. But he can't while she is gazing at him so anxiously, and returns his gaze to their hands. "I saw Oz earlier."

The name is a whispered assassin of her good mood, and Wesley's heart fails him when she jerks back. Away. Away from him. But I'm doing the right thing. Why must I be punished as well?

"What?" Another whisper. Just as deadly, though this one is aimed at him. "When?"

Haltingly, he tells the tale of the encounter in front of the club, and ends by repeating Oz's wish that she not be told. "But, I couldn't do that," he says, and risks looking at her again. Mistake. Though she isn't crying, she seems so forlorn that it suffocates him. "I didn't wish you to find out later and think less of me for being less than honest." Please believe me. I. Am not. Him.

"Did he..." But she stops, swallows, shakes her head. "You were taking me there, weren't you?" she asks instead. "On the bike. But you changed your mind."

There is no point in denying it. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I thought he was being cowardly in not telling you himself."

"No. Why'd you change your mind?"

Oh. That was what she meant.

"Because...you deserved better than to be subjected to such pain again. Because...I couldn't bear the thought of seeing you hurt so."

Her mouth makes a silent O, but Wesley is unable to move, unable to breathe, waiting for the other shoe to at least get taken off if not dropped to the ground. I only did what I thought best. I'm sorry if my best isn't good enough.

He still can't move when she leans forward and presses her lips to his in a delicate kiss.

WILLOW

She understands.

About his mood when he picked her up from the mall, about the Twilight Zone ride through town---guess the mochacchino's off the hook now---about the sudden shift away from the nightclub and the subsequent pancake lunch that opened up their whole afternoon.

She understands it all.

And she thinks she finally understands Wesley.

His eyes are wide open when she pulls away from kissing him, like he never closed them in the first place, and she reaches up to remove the glasses that keep them shielded from her. He blinks, more than once, and then squints a little as if to see her better. But you saw me already, she wants to say.

What comes out instead is, "Thank you."

He seems flummoxed by her gratitude, and starts stumbling over words like deserve to know and nothing anyone else wouldn't have done, but before he can get too far, Willow silences him by placing her fingertips against his moving lips.

A few words still slip through, but only a few, and then Wes is silent again, watching and waiting for whatever it is she has to say.

"He's not coming back. I know that now. And yeah, it hurts. A lot. But it hurt a lot more this morning, and I think it'll hurt less tomorrow morning. And that's because of you. Because you reminded me that this isn't about me. I didn't do anything wrong, even if..."

It's there that her bravado fails. Because saying it aloud makes it all too real, reminds her all too vividly that it really is over. He's not coming back. Her eyes sting, and she can't look at him any more. It doesn't matter that she was the one that made him stop talking so that she could say her piece because as it turns out, her piece is broken. The shards aren't quite as small and dangerous as they had been before, but they can still cut and they can still make her bleed and she just can't look at Wesley's benign blue eyes any more.

"I'm sorry," he whispers when she ducks her gaze, but then he doesn't speak any more. He only reaches around her to pull Willow close against his chest, and rests his cheek on the top of her head as he rubs her back. His hand is warm through her top, reminding her of the bite in the air, and she allows herself to return the embrace, even as her tears begin to wet his shirtfront again.

"You're chilled," he says. "We should go back."

And then he's tugging her to her feet, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders and gathering their trash while she watches in confusion. "But...what about the stars?" she asks when he puts his glasses back on. I don't want this to end. Why does he want it to end now? "We haven't even looked for the Big Dipper yet."

"The stars will be there tomorrow night."

But you won't be.

"You're chilled," he repeats, softer, as if he is speaking to a child. Is she acting so petulantly?

The fear doesn't stop her from asking, though. "Is our date over?"

Wesley smiles, and holds out his free hand to her. "Only if you wish it to be."

No more words as they return to his room and as they stand before the closed door, shivers begin to make Willow's teeth chatter. So maybe she was a little cold. They could've snuggled to keep warm. They could've wrapped themselves in the blanket as they gazed up at the stars. They could've done any number of things that didn't involve going back to the antiseptic hotel. She wonders if Wesley regrets his decision to spend time with her.

That doubt takes deeper root when he suggests she take a shower. Willow has to subdue the instinct to sniff at her clothes---I'd know if I was stinky, right?---and just nods silently, too distracted about the aborted date to notice when he walks to the closet. Going to the dresser is rote, taking out the clean underwear that she's purchased. She is about to grab the tee and shorts when Wesley is back, and she glances up to see the shirt she wore the previous night dangling from his hands.

His eyes dart to the pale green bra and panties set she holds and she swears that his color deepens. "I...I thought...I didn't know..." He clears his throat. "...did you obtain something to sleep in?" he finally manages.

She explains about her solution, but then he suggests that she not dirty her clothes unnecessarily and holds out his own shirt in trade. I don't get it.

"There's nothing to get."

Oops. I said that out loud. I have to stop doing that.

"It was just..." Wesley was still talking. "...it looks better on you than me. And..." Is he staring at my underwear again? "...you...you looked lovely in it."

That catches her attention, more so than anything else he's said or done since announcing he saw Oz. "You don't think I'm stinky?" she blurts, and then reddens at his small chuckle.

"No." His bent knuckle brushes across her cheek. "No, I don't."

She doesn't know what to say to this, and hurries to the bathroom with her nightclothes in hand before her mouth runs away from her brain again. The shower---hot, but not as hot as her skin is, especially in the spot Wesley has just touched---is one of the quickest she has ever taken, because as confused as she is, she's even more eager to get back out to Wes and to the rest of the date she is convinced is going to happen now.

I think too much. He's been telling me all day that he likes me, and hello, not really the kind of guy to kiss and tell, at least I don't think so, and he said I was lovely. Guys don't just say that kind of thing. Unless English guys do, and it's just a euphemism that's meant to make me feel better---.

I'm thinking too much again.

No more thinking.

Her fingers are shaking when she does up the buttons on the shirt, and when she emerges from the steam-filled bathroom, she isn't even aware that she's holding her breath. Can't breathe, afraid to exhale, any more air and she's going to explode. So when she spots a shirtless Wesley sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to her as he fumbles with the bandage on his arm, she freezes as every wrong thought and every right image that has gone through her head that day makes a return appearance in the space of a single second. Holy moley, guess I was right about the demon hunting workout.

The escaping steam is choking her, and when Willow takes a step into the room to break free of its hold, she sees the small trickle of blood seeping from the edge of the anesthetic tape holding the gauze to his wound. "Let me," she says without even thinking, and is at his side, nimble fingers taking over the administration of the injury, before he can protest.

She is aware of his gaze on her face as she works, but she concentrates on her task, taking care not to pull the fair skin more than is absolutely necessary. It's nothing different than what she did that morning when he first got the injury---was it only this morning? Does time go wonky in this town or something?---but the definition of his biceps seems sharper, the scent of his skin more piquant, and Willow's mouth is dry by the time she has adhered the new bandage.

"Thank you," he murmurs.

And she can only nod because speech is impossible. Her body is humming with desire for this man, for this man who watches when he believes he can't, who runs and runs and fights because he's so frightened of stopping long enough to realize that he's only alone because he chooses to be, and she doesn't know how to tell him that without ruining the gentle bridges they've been building all day.

Kissing Wesley is one thing.

Wanting to make love to him is completely different.

WESLEY

She still tastes sweet.

And she pulls away far too quickly.

Where is she going?

The caress is so swift that he never has the opportunity to close his eyes, which means he's gawping like a schoolboy when she pulls away, trying desperately not to look like he's eager for another. When she takes his glasses off, he has to squint slightly to refocus, but the prospect that she's doing so to continue their physical interaction without hindrance makes his body vibrate in anticipation.

Until she says, "Thank you."

Thank you? Was it merely gratitude? But...I thought we'd gone past that. I told her the truth about what happened. Was it too much?

"I...I just thought you...deserved to know," he stumbles. Though I'm beginning to wish that I'd never said a word. "It's really nothing anyone else wouldn't have done." Except Oz. Coward. "It was nothing."

There is more, but it is lost in the soft feel of her fingers on his lips. He has to fight the urge to take them into his mouth and instead steals a few extra moments of contact by continuing to speak, though what comes out of his mouth is nonsense. He stops. Waits. Watches. There must be more.

The more is a pained confession, so much like the disclosure the previous night, though this time it wears a brave face and uses words like isn't about me and didn't do anything wrong. But not even those are powerful enough to stave away the inevitable tears. It is still too fresh a wound, and Wesley chastises himself for believing that anything he has said or done in the past twenty-hours has been anything but a temporary balm to a greater grief. Especially when Willow can't even look at him now.

"I'm sorry." So sorry. And all that is left for him to do is take her into his arms and try to soothe away the tears that are now his fault. His fault. Odd how that still hurts even if it is the clarion call of his adulthood.

When she slips her arms around him, it's impossible to enjoy the feel of her pressed against him. She is icy, the night cutting through her clothing, and not even contact with him seems to be warming her.

So, though it pains him to curtail their improvised date, Wesley suggests getting back to the warmth of the room, where they can put this behind both of them and pursue the pretending that seems to be the purpose of this weekend. He doesn't stop to see her response. Stopping always leads to doubt, and he is filled with enough to fuel self-recriminations for the next century. He gathers their rubbish and scorns the lack of receptacles, picks up the blanket and folds it into careful squares. It isn't until he is slipping his glasses back onto his nose that he realizes Willow hasn't moved from the spot in which she stands.

Her eyes are luminous. "But...what about the stars? We haven't even looked for the Big Dipper yet."

There is a hitch in her voice, and his first instinct is to credit it to her tears. But why would she ask about our stargazing? It's hardly anything special. And he says as much, but it doesn't erase the confusion crinkling her brow.

"You're chilled," he says. I only want you to be well.

"Is our date over?"

He smiles in reassurance, though reassuring is the last thing he feels at the moment. "Only if you wish it to be," Wesley murmurs, and holds out his free hand to her in hopes that she won't refuse him this last contact.

She is shivering by the time they get back to the room, and all he can think of is how to get her warm again. "You should take a hot shower," he says as soon as they're inside.

Willow looks at him bleakly, and nods. Her lips are pinched and he imagines it's from the cold, but at least he's been able to convince her to do something about it. A shower will warm her through, and then perhaps, they can settle into some more of the conversation that they'd enjoyed earlier. He has no hopes of being able to continue the more physical aspects of their relationship; even if she is suffering, he refuses to capitalize on her pain, no matter how much he wants her.

But he will comfort her, and he will offer her whatever body parts she wishes to cry upon, and he will try not to think about the young woman he has shattered by bringing up the source of her pain again.

If she's showering, she will need something to wear afterward, he reasons, and remembers the shirt she wore the previous night. It is still hanging in the closet, and he crosses to retrieve it for her. The long sleeves will help to warm her, and if she curls up with the blanket as well, Willow will be feeling better in no time.

He realizes after he's pulled it out that she's gone to the dresser, as if she had clothing already put away there. Only then does he notice that the bags she'd had at the mall are now gone. She unpacked. As if she was staying.

But he goes to her anyway, to offer the only thing he thinks he can, and is struck dumb when he spots the delicate garments she already holds.

The palest of green lace. They float in her hands, the tags that prove she has only just purchased them dangling from the gossamer strands that hold them together. And he can see her wearing them, the gentle swell of a breast above the low cup of the bra. How translucent her skin would be. How inviting her arms could be.

How beautiful she is.

"I...I thought..." He is stammering, and he knows it's because of the images. Look away, look away. "I didn't know..." She watches him in expectation. She knows. She must know. He coughs and clears his throat as if that will do the same with his head. "Did you obtain something to sleep in?"

At last, a question that is coherent, though he suspects that he must appear a proper tom for staring at her undergarments so.

"I figured a t-shirt and shorts." Willow points to the items that are still in the drawer, but it only drags his gaze back across the green snippets of lace in her hands.

"Those won't do," he says, and holds out his shirt again. It takes a moment for him to realize she doesn't understand. "I see no need for you to create more laundry for yourself unnecessarily. Not when you've already worn this."

It sounds weak even to his ears.

It sounds even weaker when she says, "I don't get it."

"There's nothing to get." Just take it.

But she doesn't. And he is feeling more foolish by the second.

"It was just..." Perhaps he can tell her without really telling. "...it looks better on you than me." Surely a compliment will appease some of her hesitation. "And..." His eyes stray to the green lace, and he is overwhelmed with the memory of seeing her in the shirt the night before. "...you..." Just say it, you prat. "...you looked lovely in it."

A weight has been lifted, and he finds it easier to breathe now, though when his lungs had failed him, Wesley has no idea. Laughing at the ridiculousness of her hygiene question is automatic, but at least he now understands why she was so quiet when he first suggested the shower.

"No," he says. He can't help but brush a knuckle across her heated cheek, for his trembling fingers would betray how much he wants her. "No, I don't."

For a long moment, Willow gazes up at him. Shadows of the woman she can be, the woman she wants to be, the woman she is, flicker behind her eyes, and then slowly, she reaches forward and takes the shirt from his grasp. It doesn't matter that she rushes away at that point without saying a word. The wonder reflected in her aspect is all he needs to feel like perhaps, they're back on the right track.

Her absence means he can change his clothes, so as soon as he hears the shower start, Wesley grabs his sweats and t-shirt. The sweats are first, but when he removes his shirt, the bandage pulls where it has adhered to the dried blood, and he feels the scab tear, the finest trickle of blood start to drip down his arm. He grabs the first aid kit and sets to changing it before he finishes getting dressed. One of the things he hates the most about being a warrior for good is the stickiness of healing injuries against his clothes.

It gives him something to focus on. Something that isn't Willow. Something that isn't completely himself.

So intent on his task, he doesn't even hear the shower stop.

Or the bathroom door open.

Or the footsteps across the thin carpet.

He hears, "Let me," and he is startled into looking up and seeing a pink and glowing Willow taking the adhesive he's been struggling with from his hands.

She sits at his side, her weight barely making a dent in the mattress, and Wes feels the heat of her body through the cotton of his shirt that she now wears. Her hair is wet, though she's combed her fingers hastily through it, and tiny droplets of water cling to her skin where she wasn't very thorough with her toweling. He notices mostly the way her mouth looks swollen, damp and dewy in the aftermath of a hot shower, and debates as to the appropriateness of kissing her again.

"Thank you," he murmurs when she finishes with the bandage, and before she can pull away, he leans down and presses his lips to hers.

WILLOW

She'd say third time's a charm except this is their fourth kiss, and she went all squiggly on the inside just from the first one, so the saying's not so appropriate any more. Now, her insides are jello, the green finger kind that's firm enough to poke but doesn't fall apart when it's handled, and her head is like the whipped cream that the lunch ladies used to put on their portions in first grade, all whipped and light and ready to float away if she blew on it too hard. Which makes no kind of sense, but then neither does kissing Wesley, and she's doing that now, too.

She uses his chest to hold herself steady during the kiss, and the tips of her fingers scorch from just the feather contact they maintain. It leeches down into her hands, softening her control, so that by the time he reaches up to hold the back of her neck, deepening the caress, Willow is living up to the tremulous nature of her namesake.

Not just on the outside, though it feels like her skin would shimmy right off her body the way it's fluttering.

It's her heart that balances so precariously. On a ledge she hadn't realized she'd been walking. Wesley on one side. A black void on the other.

His other hand has dropped to her knee, and slowly skates up the outer side of her thigh, hesitating where it reaches the hem of his shirt she wears. How long has it been since someone touched her so resolutely? Oz doesn't count. Oz was always gentle, considerate, too considerate maybe because of his whole fear of hurting her, but he'd stopped being as ardent about their lovemaking weeks before she'd learned the truth about---her. She isn't even going to think the bitch's name.

While Wesley is being tender, there is a need in his touch that she hasn't experienced in a partner in months.

He needs me.

The thought makes her gasp.

He pulls away at the sound, and Willow opens her eyes to see him gazing down at her with that faint worry that seems to saturate his every blink. "I'm---," he starts to say, but she silences him by kissing him again.

She doesn't want to talk.

There are better things they could be doing with their mouths.

Leaning forward, she presses herself into his side, encouraging the contact of their upper bodies, and hears him moan when the movement makes his hand disappear beneath the cotton of the shirt tail he's been so carefully skirting up to now. Strong fingers trace the lacy edge of her panties, around the side of her hip to the lower curve of her bottom, then take hold around her upper thigh to tug her onto his lap.

She gasps again, but this time, Wesley doesn't break away.

If she doubted his desire before, now there is no mistaking it. Seven? Eight? And then her inner mathematician is banished to the farthest corner of her head, with a muzzle around her measuring mouth and an order to stop interfering with the best thing that's happened to Willow in weeks. She wriggles just enough to get comfortable, and then the world goes wonky.

And soft.

Oh.

Wesley has pressed her back to lie down on the mattress.

And he did it without breaking his kiss. It seems very worldly to Willow. She has to admit to feeling impressed.

"Willow," he breathes. He makes her name sound like the cry of wind, ethereal and timeworn and magical and seductive all at the same time. Maybe it's the accent. She's always had a soft spot for English accents.

She's waiting for more, though why she would think he is a talky type in bed when he's been so recalcitrant about other details throughout the day, she has no idea. It doesn't come. In fact, his mouth is no longer near hers, and she can no longer feel his chest either.

"Is something...wrong?" she whispers. She asks without even opening her eyes. She's afraid of what she's going to see.

"Willow...look at me."

No way can she refuse such a gentle request.

He's not as far away as she thought, inches as opposed to miles. His eyes don't even seem blue this close up, but then again, the only light in the room is now behind him.

"Before we...take this further," he says, "I need to know if...this is what you want."

She stammers through her assent, but when he asks about birth control, she freezes.

Of course she's been on the pill since way before she was sexually active, courtesy of the joy of having a feminist mother insisting her daughter be the one in control of her body and not a randy teenaged boy. And of course, she's been taking it regularly, even after Oz left. She even brought her pills with her---not because she had any real expectation that she and Oz would make love, but out of habit---but in the hullabaloo and hurry of the morning, she's forgotten to take it today.

Can I get pregnant if I forget once? is quickly followed by memories of her mother's strident voice, reminding a younger Willow that nothing is completely effective and the only answer to not getting pregnant is not to have sex in the first place. But I want this.

What is this?

Wesley takes her silence for a no, and pulls back, away, up and off the bed, over to the dresser where his toiletries rest. When he pulls out a silver packet, her eyes widen.

"It's not what you think," he says, and rushes back. Almost too casually, he tosses the condom onto the nightstand before pulling her flush against him again. "I had no idea this would happen. I didn't plan to...Please don't think..."

He's so earnest, she has no choice but to believe him. But then she asks the question that has been lurking in the back of her mind, and it's his turn to be silent.

"Not that it has to be anything," she rushes to say, desperate to fill the void that seems to have settled between them. "It's just...well, I don't know. And I go back to Sunnydale tomorrow, and...I wanted to know what you think."

When he starts speaking again, there is a quiet ferocity in his voice that makes her start quivering again. Because he speaks of how having her around the past twenty-four hours has made him start feeling like a man again, how she makes him forget his failures.

He ends with, "And what's so absolutely compelling about all of it is that you truly have no idea how lovely you really are."

"Lovely? Me?"

It makes her smile, which she thinks was his intention, and her heart is teetering even more precariously on that ledge when his fingers reach to ghost over her cheek.

"I won't deny I want to make love to you," Wesley says softly. "But I only want whatever you're willing to share with me. And I know there is nothing more for us after I take you back to Sunnydale tomorrow. You have your life to live, and I have mine. If, because of that, you wish me to stop right now, all you have to do is say the word. I'll honor whatever it is you wish."

He is giving her the power to put a stop to this now. To prevent her heart from getting hurt if this isn't what she wants. All she has to do is say the word.

WESLEY

Perhaps his haste to surrender to the desire to kiss Willow so frequently is a portent of some fashion. A test of his fortitude. An assessment to prove his inability to escape the wrongs of his past.

If it is, he's already failed. In for a penny, in for a pound.

He doesn't remember the twinge in his arm when she touches him, brings those tiny, powerful hands to his chest and just holds him, like he's an anchor, like he can support her, but how can he, when kissing her like this proves to him that he can't even support himself? So he does what he can to make himself stronger. He cups his hand around the base of her neck and commands the kiss to deepen, forces her mouth to open wider, to allow him entrance, to seek and search the honeyed secrets she holds and pray they don't make him crumble when he finds them.

The world is trembling.

He is certain he will fall off its edge.

The soft brush of her collar against his clavicle reminds him of the delight in seeing her in his shirt again, the promises that she hid beneath the crisp cotton. Wesley drops his hand to her knee, and though the feverish sinew is tempting, his fingers drift up the line of her thigh. I just wish to touch her. I just need to feel the power of this woman for a single moment, and then I can let her go.

Her strength sizzles. Though he's convinced he's going to burn for this, he cannot stop.

And then the back of his hand brushes against the hem of the shirt, and the determination of what he'd been about to take falters. What if she doesn't want this? Except she's kissing him back, she's touching him like a woman does when she's willing. He vaguely remembers what that is like. But the niggle remains. It tempers his ardor. And when she gasps out loud, he can't help but think that his conclusion is correct, and breaks away.

Except for the twin flushes high on her cheeks, she is pale, frighteningly so, and his throat is too dry, too tight as he flashes on his attempts to re-animate her. "I'm---," sorry, he's going to say, but then she's kissing him again, harder, faster, hungrier, and he'd been right, she does want this, she wants him, she wants them.

And, oh, it feels like the heavens themselves have opened.

Because she is leaning into him, all soft and pliable and ready and willing. So hot, and smooth, and Wesley swears he can feel her heart pounding inside her chest when her breasts flatten against his skin. Or is that my heart? He'd forgotten that it could still beat, let alone trumpet so.

The shift has changed the fall of her shirt, billowing so that the hand that had hesitated on the threshold of its hem is now enclosed within its shelter, inviting him to advance, to explore what he's been dreaming of since the previous night. He moans---he can't help it---and finds the lacy edge of the pants she'd held---the pair she bought after deciding to stay---following its path with resolution.

Tomorrow may bring the need for penance, but tonight, Willow wants this, just as much as he wants her, and he grabs her ass to tug her onto his lap.

Wesley knows she can feel the hard line of his arousal pressing into the hot cleft between her legs; he'd placed her there on purpose. Do you see what you do to me? Do you feel how desirable I find you? He wants to smile when he hears her gasp, because this time, he knows it isn't fear that prompts the exhalation. She knows, as well.

But then she does the unthinkable.

Unthinkable to him, at least.

For he's never considered that the passion that drives him could be reciprocated quite so bluntly.

She squirms. Against his erection. Placing it very deliberately between the heated cheeks of her bottom, with only the cotton of his sweats and the flimsy lace of her panties separating them.

Wesley growls. He's never growled before. This is something new.

Hopefully, she didn't hear him.

All he wants is to feel her completely against him, around him, below him, and he moves without thought, tumbling her to the bed so that he doesn't have to worry about physics any longer in exploring her. The pillow bunches around them, but it's not enough to distract him from kissing her. She still tastes like sugar, and the irrational desire to know what the rest of Willow tastes like suddenly consumes him.

He murmurs her name when their mouths part, his tongue bent on memorizing every angle of her jaw. He must touch as well, and his hand mirrors his oral attention, finding the taut line of her abdomen, delivering tiny lines of fire from his fingertips to the nerves of her trembling skin. As if it knows for itself what is so near, his hard cock strains to be freed from his sweats, and it's only when he brushes against her pelvis that the humdrum of reality comes throttling back into the forefront.

He stops before he can't, and pulls away, trying to steady the erratic rhythm of his breathing. The sight of her swollen lips transfixes him. I did that. But when she asks what's wrong without even opening her eyes, Wesley realizes he is going to be the necessary voice of reason, and the flash of glee at being thrust into that role surprises him.

"Willow...look at me."

She does so automatically, and for a moment, he forgets what he was going to say. It takes the parting of her lips to speak again to prompt his own speech.

"Before we...take this further..." Before I lose all control. "...I need to know if...this is what you want."

Her eyes widen. Apparently, this is not what she expected him to say.

"Of course," and she's stammering in her haste in assure him, so adorably honest and sincere that he can't help but smile. It doesn't, however, make his next question any easier.

"Are you...prepared?" Well, that sounded foolish. That could mean anything. "I don't know what...precautions you normally take."

He almost says you and Oz, but checks himself in time. The last thing he wishes is to bring the name of the other man into their bed; they must already battle with his specter with every nuance of their every word. And when she stills beneath him, when even the flutter of her pulse calms in the hollow of her throat, Wesley has the answer he needs.

Rising from the bed, he crosses to his overnight bag and takes out one of the three condoms he has in it, halfway back to the bed before he spies Willow's perplexed aspect. "It's not what you think," he blurts. She believes I arranged all this. Dear Lord, what was I thinking? He has to fix this. He can't lose her. He can't lose this.

First, he gets rid of the condom, tossing it to the side so that he can take her back into his arms.

Then, he just begins babbling, hoping that some of his words will make sense, that she'll understand that he isn't a cad, that the condoms are months old and the bastion of a single man with dreams that often exceed his capabilities. He thinks she believes him, but when she finally speaks, he is struck dumb.

"What is this?" Willow asks. There is no artifice in her; she asks from the font of curiosity, though it's likely she's also seeking to protect her own interests by forcing him to declare his first.

But his silence stretches for too long, because he doesn't know what to share with her. And it's her turn to babble, to tell him it doesn't matter, she's just unsure, she only seeks to understand.

To understand.

Seeking.

Understanding.

He finally does.

"Willow," he begins, and he pushes back a lock of hair that clings stubbornly to her cheek. To be said tress. But he doesn't allow it to distract him from what he must say. He meets her eyes, and though the urge to drown in the strength that shines there is acute, he goes on.

"I've spent the last four months of my life trying to atone for my failures with Buffy and Faith." How it hurts just saying the names. "In the last twenty-four hours, you've managed to achieve what all that other time couldn't. I see you, and I see the power that you wield to hold your world together, and I start to believe in the good again. I...start to believe that it's possible to win again. To be...a man worthy of respect. Whether anyone else recognizes it or not, you have this gift to make those around you want to be better. To see the world as you do. To believe in it. To believe in themselves. This, with you, right now, is the single best thing to happen to me since I first set foot in this country. Because I can begin to forget. And I can begin to forgive. And what's so absolutely compelling about all of it is that you truly have no idea how lovely you really are."

Her blush of pleasure and her smile of delight at his choice of words are the only confirmations he needs to know he did the right thing. So, he continues, though she doesn't seem to need to hear the rest of it. Wes, however, needs to say it.

"I won't deny I want to make love to you," he whispers. How could he? His body is aching to return to touching her so freely, but he can't, not until it's all said. "But I only want whatever you're willing to share with me. And I know there is nothing more for us after I take you back to Sunnydale tomorrow. You have your life to live, and I have mine. If, because of that, you wish me to stop right now, all you have to do is say the word. I'll honor whatever it is you wish."

With nothing more to bare, he waits. Because it rests with Willow now.

Funny how fates could be decided so definitively just with the utterance of a single word.

WILLOW

In the beginning, there was the Word.

And Wesley is now asking her to utter it. Not that she thinks he's God in any way, though the swooping in to save the day on his motorcycle was kind of on the hunky hero side, and boy oh boy Willow is glad that her mom doesn't have access to her thought processes because random Biblical quotes from a testament she wasn't supposed to have ever read would likely rate high on the what were you thinking meter. At least being in college meant she didn't get punished for her so-called rebellion any more. The worst she'd have to worry about is having her laundry privileges cut off.

He's still staring at her, waiting for her to answer. What was the question again? Oh. Yeah. I can stop him if I want to. Is he kidding?

"I wish..." Oh, crap, nothing ever good comes from those words. I wonder if he would think my vamp self is still lovely. "I mean, no, don't stop. I don't want this to ever---."

But he isn't waiting for her to finish, his mouth back on hers, leaning her back to the pillow that swaddles her so closely. Apparently, that is all he needed to hear, because he has resumed to swallowing her down, his mouth everywhere at once, his hands back beneath the hem of the shirt, burning, though she thinks that perhaps part of that is her fault.

He is touching her stomach, and Willow can feel her muscles go wonky, fluttering like a gossamer sheet in a frantic wind, a-tremble and awakened to dance at the request of his fingers. Then up, and up, and though she is kissing him back just as vigorously as he, she holds her breath because she knows what's coming next, knows what he wants. Is it wrong to want it back just as badly?

When the first brush against the lace comes, she decides she hates Victoria's Secret. The bra she'd thought so pretty is now in the way, and she starts to squirm beneath Wesley as her hand leaves his back to twist behind her.

"What are you doing?" he murmurs, pulling just far enough away for her to melt into the blue.

She tells him, but then his hand is encircling her wrist, so strong, stopping her.

"Please," Wesley whispers. "Let me?"

It's a question. Not a statement. A request. He's got to be the most polite lover she's ever had, which, OK, is officially two, but it's indicative of so much more than how he is in bed, will be, could be. It's indicative of the sort of man he really is.

Her assent means the absence of the heat of his body when he shifts his weight to leave her exposed and accessible. With his eyes never leaving hers, Wesley sets her hand gently to her side before coming to her throat and the topmost button. She shivers. She licks her lips. She waits.

She can't even feel the pressure of his touch as he undoes the buttons. All of a sudden, there is a quick rush of cooler air against her skin, and then another, and before she can count, they are all freed from their holdings, the fabric slipping down her sides to pool on the bed.

He looks away then, to consider the swells and valleys of her flesh, and in a moment of self-consciousness, Willow lifts her arm to cover herself.

"Don't." He refuses to allow her the simple modesty, and sits up so that each of his hands rests on her shoulders, tugging her up to join him. "You have nothing to hide," Wesley says. "Please don't think you have to hide from me."

Nudging the shirt from her torso, he lets it fall unnecessary to the mattress, his hands following its path to the hook of her bra at the back. She half-expects him to fumble with it, and is pleasantly surprised when the tension around her ribcage is suddenly gone before he even has to lean forward to look at what he's doing. Rogue demon hunting has unexpected bonuses.

But she doesn't want to think of how he could possibly be so good with women's underwear. She only wants to concentrate on the sensations of the here and now, and the slight tremble in his hand as he cups her breast. He'd called it making love, not sex, which had surprised her when she heard it, but as Wesley palms the swell, lowers his mouth to her shoulder, that is what it feels like.

It feels like healing.

That's when she realizes he's talking to her. Talking through his caresses. Murmuring endearments that only half make sense to her, words that are swallowed by her skin when he doesn't stop before tasting her again. Feeling bold, she begins answering him with her own encouragements, tentative at first and clumsy beyond belief, but when his body becomes more insistent, and she finds them entwined on top of the blanket with his leg jammed between hers rubbing against her sex, it's clear that he still likes it. He enjoys it, getting off on it just as surely as she is.

And her hands have to join the dance, massaging and kneading his back as he and she float from kiss to caress and back to kiss again. Willow wonders if all of Wesley is like this, so long, so lean, so hungry, and decides she must know, breaking from where she holds him to slip a limb between their sweating torsos. Down, down, down, just as he'd gone up, up, up, and she feels the wet proof, pushes past the cotton barrier, and takes his rigid length into her grip.

When she squeezes, he groans, so she squeezes again. He lifts his head then, and his eyes are black, and they're ever so hungry, and she thinks she has never seen such a beautiful sight as this man who so obviously wants her.

"Do you know what you do to me?" His voice is husky with wonder.

"I think you might've mentioned something," she replied. Her arm stretches sideways, fumbling at the nightstand until the sharp corners of the aluminum packet poke into her palm. "Is this the only one you have?" she asks, and holds the condom up between them.

His brow furrows. "Why?"

Her explanation is met with a widening smile, open and joyful and it makes him look so young. The answer she seeks prompts her to release her grip on his arousal, reaching up to tear the silver foil and to have the lubricated rubber slip into her palm.

Wesley's hand guides her back down, two sets of fingers working in tandem to slip the condom over his cock, all sticky and soft and hard at the same time. He stops when he's sheathed, but Willow doesn't, continuing downward to brush against the coarse curls and feel his heavy balls nestled between his thighs.

"We've got things in the way," she murmurs.

He stumbles for a moment, and then understanding dawns. She is floating when he rolls to the side to allow himself the room to shed the remainder of his clothing, but his touch quickly brings her back.

On her hip.

Inside the waistband of the green lace.

Across her pelvis.

Hesitating before slipping around to her bottom, driving its way between her and the garment still barring his path.

She claws at the sheets when he suddenly dips his mouth to the inside of her thigh, biting at the tender flesh before pulling away to remove the panties. But then he's back, and she is moaning his name because this has always been one of her favorite parts about sex. She's thought before that her oral fixation was way too reflective on how much time she's spent around vampires, but if she liked it before, she loves it now.

Because Wesley is good.

With a whole lot of extra o's thrown into that word. That's the only way to really give it justice.

Oh god.

Her head explodes in thousands of twinkling lights when she feels teeth on her clit, and she's writhing on the bed, but he holds her down, keeps his arm across her waist as he seems so intent to devour her, and maybe Wes has been too long around vampires, too. But she doesn't care, can't care, can't think. All she can do is let him carry her along.

WESLEY

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.

But he is teeming with ideas, and he has the words, but he must wait for Willow's because it is hers that will decide which idea gets acted upon.

He very much doubts Goethe ever found himself in the situation in which Wesley currently hovers.

"I wish..."

So ready to hear what she wishes, all he can understand is the pounding in his ears.

"I mean..." She's started over. Can that be good? "...no, don't stop. I don't want this to ever---."

But he stopped listening at don't stop. It rings and echoes inside his skull with the giddy explosion of a schoolboy bursting from the halls on the last day of classes, two little words that have opened far greater passages than he imagines Willow is even aware of.

It is his permission to resume kissing her, because he never wanted to stop, is fairly certain that he still doesn't want to and is entirely convinced that when the time comes to say good bye to her for real, he will regret ever allowing her to leave his bed. But that's not for now. Now is for tasting the confection of her skin, to memorize every square inch with every sense he possesses.

For he doesn't know when---or if---he'll be permitted such largesse again.

His hands steal beneath the hem of the shirt she still wears and finds the taut expanse of her stomach. He is about to seek further when the faintest of trembles beneath his fingers makes him hesitate. Her body is bowing beneath his touch, rippling in graceful waves unseen but not unfelt, and it cries out to him for more with a siren call he'd thought himself immune to, heady and intoxicating and sure to be his downfall. Or his salvation. He wants to believe the latter.

The temptation of more prompts him higher, to that scrap of fabric that had so transfixed him before her shower. How he wished he could see it on her now, but it seems much more imperative to get it off since it now stands in his way.

And apparently itches, because Willow is now squirming uncomfortably beneath him.

Wesley pulls back. "What are you doing?"

Her cheeks that are already so flushed from their kissing redden even more. "It's in the way," she says. "I'm taking it off."

He sees the hand reaching behind her body now, and stops it from going further.

"Please?" Show me I'm not mistaken about the trust. Permit me to savor this by having you burned into my skin. "Let me?"

For a moment, he thinks she doesn't understand his request. He just wishes to be the one to display her loveliness, to unwrap the beauty of the gift he's been granted for this one wonderful weekend. And then, she smiles, and his heart takes up the pledge yet again.

"OK."

He needs her to know she's right in giving him this, and never breaks eye contact as he rolls to the side to get out of the way of the buttons. Can she see me trembling? I won't hurt you, Willow. I don't have it in me.

One.

Two.

She shivers. He's accidentally brushed the inner curve of her breast.

Three.

Four.

Five.

She licks her lips. I could devour her. She must do that on purpose. Though he knows she doesn't.

And the rest fall away, just as the shirt does, and he has to look, he has to see, he has this inexplicable urge to count all her freckles.

Just as he's about to touch, Willow's arm lifts and bends, like she wishes to hide behind the slim protection it provides.

"Don't," but it comes out too quickly, too insistently. I must sound desperate. I must make her see.

So he sits up, and pulls her with him so that she can directly meet his eyes and believe what he is about to say. "You have nothing to hide." You're beautiful. What did he do to you? "Please don't think you have to hide from me." I see you. It's too late to hide. I see the loveliness that is you. I just wish you did as well.

He pushes off the shirt as he speaks, exposing her pale skin, and lets his hand follow. He who hesitates is lost. And he's no longer lost. She's found him. He must not hesitate again.

Though his agility often leaves something to be desired, Wesley has always been good with his hands. Pens, fine weapons, women's lingerie. None of it has bested him yet. It's one of two skills he prides himself on when it comes to the fairer sex. He can only imagine how poor his love life would be if he fumbled with bra hooks like other men.

But when the green scrap of lace falls, his trembling returns. He feels like he's back in sixth form, and he's dreaming of Helen Rhodes' breasts and the way she used to wear a flower tucked in her hair when she wasn't in classes. If he just touches Willow, it will make it real, all of it, the morning, the night before, the now.

"Sweet," he murmurs when he tastes her shoulder. Her breasts fits perfectly into his palm, just enough and oh so soft and hard, and his thumb brushes over the puckered nipple. "So sweet, like rhubarbs and custards..." And he goes on, more confident now because she's here, and she wants him, she said so, and she feels absolutely glorious in his hands, in his mouth.

They twist and turn, with words and groping hands, wrapping themselves in endearments neither fully comprehends. His body is buzzing from the tang of her, her breasts flattened against his chest as she tries to melt into his flesh, and at some point, Wesley manages to position his leg between hers, feeling the dampness of her pants even through his sweats.

When she starts riding him, it's almost more than he can stand, and he has to fight not to come right then. How long has it been since somebody wanted him so? Too long. Not ever, perhaps. She claws at him like she's desperate to find some sort of hold that will allow her to cling for longer than the few seconds their sweaty skin is allowing, and when he feels her small hand slip inside the waistband of his sweats, down the flat of his stomach to grasp his dripping cock in a firm squeeze, he imagines she's finally found what she is looking for. Or rather, what he could be looking for.

His groan incites another squeeze, almost a pulse, and he has to look at her, to prove to himself that this is really happening, that he's wrapped in the soft wash of Willow's skin and that she's right there with him, for all of this.

"Do you know what you do to me?" he whispers, though he thinks his voice sounds rough from disuse.

She smiles with the burgeoning acumen of a woman aware of her own appeal, and he thinks, I did that. "I think you might've mentioned something," she says. There is a pause, and then her free hand is stretching to the side, reaching for the condom on the nightstand and holding it up between them. "Is this the only one you have?"

He doesn't understand why she's concerned about the number of condoms he might own---isn't one enough?---and questions the reason for her query.

"Because I didn't know if I had to make this last," she says softly. "If this is our only shot, then that's OK, but if you have more...I don't have to wait. To feel you inside me."

If there were any remaining vestiges of doubt, her answer has now burned them away with the brilliance of a thousand suns. "No," Wesley replies. "I have more." The only disappointment his reply to her brings is the release of her hot little hand on his erection when she tears open the silver foil, but before she can reach back down to slip it on, he takes her fingers in his and guides her path to his cock. He wants her to know they're in this together, that this isn't about her giving him what he wants, or him giving her what she wants.

This is about giving to the other what they both need.

Her comment about things in the way when he's encased in the rubber confuses him for a moment, until he realizes she's talking about the remainder of their clothes. Yes. Mustn't be animals about this. This needs to be flesh to flesh, skin to skin, with nothing tawdry about semi-nakedness to tarnish it.

So, he quickly strips the rest of the way, tossing his sweats carelessly to the floor, and then turns to face the scrap of lace that is barely covering her hips. It takes even less time for him to divest her of the garment, but when her body is freed from its confines, the scent of her arousal assaults him with a ferocity that was only matched by her kisses, and he can't resist its pull.

Dimly, Wesley is aware of the sheet being clawed around them. That is only secondary to his focus, though. She lies open and waiting for him, glistening and delicate and ready, drawing him in to chase the juices that are escaping down the curves of her bottom. His ardor is agitated further when he hears her moaning his name. Is there anything more erotic than a woman who vocalizes her wants so basically?

He thinks not. At heart, he knows he is a man of simple pleasures, and it's the invisibility of Willow's allure that beguiles him so.

Her writhing beneath his tongue forces him to clamp his forearm across her waist, to keep her still while his teeth finds the sensitive tip of her clit. It's fascinating how the more excited human beings get, the more vigorously they fight back against the one providing the pleasure, though he knows the fight is more mock than genuine. Yet, she tries to buck him off even as she begs him for more, and it is Wesley's satisfaction to provide the response to both, a loosening of something primal in his gut as she allows him the space to unleash his instincts.

"Wesley," she pants, and her voice has taken on a more commanding tone, not the breathless mews of her rising desire but the cadence of someone who wants his attention.

Reluctantly, he lifts his head, sees her propped up on her elbows, her cheeks flushed with wonder. She doesn't say anything more, just crooks her finger like a wicked little girl, and he has no choice but to obey, to crawl up her body with his mouth taking minor detours along the way.

Her unabashed attack when their mouths are level makes him tighten his grip around her, hips lifting to meet, the tip of his cock poised at her entrance. Even through the rubber, he can feel her slick heat, and they both groan into their kiss as he sinks into her.

Oh my oh my oh my...

But beyond that, rational thought is lost.

They move in tandem, bodies rubbing together as if the contact will spark even more than already has. Every drive of his cock into her wetness has her clit forced against his pubic bone, eliciting louder and louder groans from her, soft whispers of more more more, frenzied clawing at his back that both stings and stirs. And he can't stop, won't stop, his murmured endearments that ached when they were trapped by his reticence to overstep the boundaries they'd placed now flowing as freely as water, pouring over both of them with the drowning need to get them out there.

He feels her come first, her mouth tearing from his as her back arches away from the mattress, and he can feel her lovely quim quivering around his shaft, undulating with the power of a velvet glove to draw him with her. Something inside him unravels at the notion that she is beckoning him to join her, that Willow wants Wesley not just as a temporary lover but at her side, that he's worthy of that place.

And he is lost again.

The world vanishes around him as he stiffens, his release coming over and over and over again. The only things that get through to his awareness are Willow's voice as she whispers in his ear and the soft glide of her hand over the nape of his neck as she coaxes him to finish.

Lost and found.

Yin and yang.

He shudders as the last tremble wanes.

His mouth drops to her shoulder, follows a damp path up the side of her neck, and he breathes in the scent of her before lifting his head. She gazes at him with wide-eyed wonder, as if she doesn't completely believe that they did what they just did. That's all right. Part of him can't believe that it has happened, either.

Tremulous fingers reach up to stroke the contours of his face, finally settling on Wesley's mouth. Her eyes are shiny when she asks, "Can I sleep here with you tonight?"

"Of course." He hadn't considered otherwise, but what concerns him now are the tears that are forming in the corners of her eyes. "Is something wrong?"

She shakes her head wordlessly, and stretches her leg to escape the weight of him. Embarrassed, Wesley pulls out, suddenly cold from the lack of her heat, and sits up to take care of the used condom.

"Thank you." She whispers it so softly that he thinks he's misheard her, but by the time he has turned to confirm what she's said, Willow has wrapped her arms around his waist and is resting her chin on his shoulder. Her slim fingers trace lacy patterns on his stomach that makes it flutter, and her warm breath tickles at his ear.

"I think I'm going to dream about you tonight," she says. "Are you going to dream about me?"

He captures her hand and lifts it to his mouth, turning it so that he can press his lips to her palm. "Always," he murmurs. And means it.

WILLOW

All it takes are whispers.

Whispers for more.

Whispers for words.

Whispers for arms, and lips, and hands.

What is so extraordinary is that the whispers are not all hers.

He gives, and he holds, and he makes her feel powerful and pliant all at the same time, all with the tenor of his touch, the vibrance of his voice. If he had this gift all along, Willow wonders why he failed so miserably as a Watcher. She thinks she could very well follow this Wesley wherever he might choose to lead.

They sleep little, by choice rather than design. It's not that she dreads the idea of unconsciousness any more; even with the confession regarding Oz, potential nightmares no longer haunt her. She can return to Sunnydale knowing she has done what she can, and that that's OK. Wesley has shown her that.

No, in all honesty, she fears losing what remaining time she has with Wes, and clings to the seconds as tenaciously as she fights for grades. He's made it clear that he won't be returning to Sunnydale with her, and though she understands that this weekend will likely be the only time they have together, a part of her wishes that he would change his mind. This isn't the same man who left after graduation. This is a man who is more than capable of holding his own on the Hellmouth. There is no more reason for him to be ashamed of who or what he is.

But she won't think about that now. Now is about something other than regret.

He explores every inch of her, and more than once sends her into a giggling fit when his travels across her skin tickle. It feels so good to be laughing again, free and alive, shimmering in the air like the sound of wind chimes on a spring day. He laughs, too, and Willow decides that sound is even better. He'd forgotten how, but now, he can at least have a recent memory to help him the next time. And the I gave him that is almost smug when she rolls on top of him, resting her head on his chest while his hands linger on her spine.

"Aren't you tired?" he murmurs.

She loves the slickness of him. When Wesley works, she can see the result in his skin, and she loves the way she slides against him as she snuggles in more comfortably.

"Maybe a little," she admits, even though she'd rather not to. And when he coaxes her to attempt rest, she does so reluctantly, the hypnotic thump-thump of his heartbeat under her cheek drawing her around the impasse she'd erected inside her head.

She dreams of riding down the highway on his motorcycle, the bike vibrating between her legs and wow, that's fuel for future fantasies, and neither of them are wearing helmets as the wind whips razor fingers around them but neither of them care. It's safe as only dreams can be, and they're both free. Free. But what if I don't want to be? What if I like the chains?

Just as quickly as she thinks it, Willow feels her hands bound to the front of Wesley's stomach, heavy with manacles that cleave into her flesh. She cannot leave him, cannot get off the bike if it stops. Oh god, if we crash, I'll kill him because I can't let go. I have to let go. But when she starts struggling, he only laughs, a high-pitched giggle that sounds more manic than happy, and the motorcycle starts careening even faster down the highway.

A shrill ring yanks her from the dream, and Willow feels the world flex and tilt beneath her cheek. She blinks her eyes open in time to see Wesley pick up the phone on the nightstand, his other arm still firmly around her, but half of his words are lost as she struggles to release the bonds of her sleep.

"I'm sorry," he says when he sets the receiver back down. His lips brush against the top of her head. "You should go back to sleep."

She murmurs her assent, her eyes fluttering closed again, but when he rolls her off him to settle her gently into the blanket, they open again to watch him rise, grab his sweats from where they were tossed to the floor, go to the desk and sit down. Did I miss something? This isn't his version of afterglow, is it?

But when she asks, he doesn't even look back at her. He just picks up his pen and starts scribbling in his notebook as he replies, and she feels a vague sense of discontent somewhere in the pit of her stomach start to swell again.

"Are you...disappointed that we...you know...?" After Oz, she has to know. She can't go through this again. She can't go back to thinking that she's not good enough. She thought Wesley was different.

He swivels immediately, though he doesn't rise. "Of course not. Far from it. This is just...work. That was Manny. He needs me to be in Sacramento tomorrow morning. Another job."

Sacramento isn't Sunnydale. Don't go.

"We have demons on the Hellmouth, you know," she says instead, and sits up, dragging the blanket with her to cover her bare breasts because being naked in front of him now seems awkward and not quite right when he doesn't seem interested in it any more. Or in me.

His eyes sadden, and he turns away, back to his work, back to his real life. And when he starts to talk about how he can't return there, how he has things he needs to accomplish, amends to make, she knows she's strained the fragile bonds they'd been building and immediately backpedals. She can't destroy it further. She needs to be able to walk away from this weekend with as much pride as she can muster, though it feels like her mustering muscle is so far out of shape as to be nonexistent.

So she lies down, and she watches him look through his books, and she drifts in and out of slumber while she convinces herself that this is for the best. It would weird Buffy out anyway. And Xander. And I'm not sure Giles would look at me in the same way again, either.

But a small part of her wonders if that really matters to her any more.

WESLEY

She makes him feel like shouting.

It has been far too long since Wesley felt so unfettered. Free of his fears. Free of reproval. Free to take pleasure where he wants it, and free to give it in kind.

Every time he feels her whispered breath in his ear, along his skin, it spurs him to show her just how magical she really is, that the power she is learning to wield is not merely that which can manipulate physics, though his physics is most definitely beguiled.

"Come for me," he coaxes. He is buried inside her from behind, his fingers flicking across her clit as his tongue sups at the skin of her neck. And as simply as that, she does, squeezing around his cock and moaning his name so breathlessly that he has no choice but to follow, shooting deep inside her for the third time that night.

Well, into the condom, that is. He smiles when he remembers her query regarding how many he had. My Willow is always prepared.

And he knows it's wrong to think of her that way, because she isn't his, not really, she's merely on loan. Because when the dawn comes, he must return her to her shelf back in Sunnydale and hope that someone there remembers to tend to her, that she doesn't get left there, unappreciated and unread when what she has to share is so sublime. It's why he chooses not to sleep. If I close my eyes, will she vanish like some kind of dream? He'd rather not risk it.

Besides, listening to her laughter as he discovers those tender spots of her flesh that are most ticklish delights him in measures that exceed millennia. Wesley tries to catch the sight of her face when another paroxysm takes her over, but most often, his face is buried in her skin, and he settles for joining in with her. He adores how she thrashes at him to stop, and then grabs him in entreaty when he backs off. Perhaps this need for him is what he will miss the most when they have to part.

Willow tries to turn the tables, but her search for his tickle spots is fruitless, much to her chagrin. He could tell her that he's long ago learned how to protect those vulnerable parts of him, but he doesn't. It will likely prompt her to try harder. And he can't risk that. Though they are safe now, when she is gone, those vulnerable parts will need to be shielded again. Better to keep them hidden, even if he does wish he could open that last door for her.

She rolls onto him with the exhaustion of a sated woman---I gave her that---and sighs when he starts stroking the length of her spine. She admits to being tired when he asks her, but there is reluctance in her tone. Could she be as afraid of slumber as I am? But that's a fantasy he can't entertain.

"Sleep," he whispers, and smiles when she snuggles even closer into him. Grabbing the edge of the blanket, he pulls it up, swaddling them as tight as he can without losing his hold on her. I won't let go. Get your rest.

Because he doesn't plan to sleep. Over the course of his demon-hunting, he's mastered going long nights without rest, and those were for far more insignificant reasons than the one that lies atop him now. As long as he's awake, he has proof that this really happened, that she really is there with them, and those memories will warm him as surely as her flesh does now long after he has to leave her behind.

The phone rings just as the digital clock ticks over to six a.m., and Wesley grabs it as close to the first ring as he can. Willow has finally fallen asleep, and he doesn't wish to disturb any sooner than he has to.

"Hey there, English!"

He cringes at the incessant good humor in the other man's voice and inquires to the purpose of the call as quietly as he can. Willow is stirring against him, and he suspects she has woken, but he only tightens his arm around her, hoping that will be enough to impel her to rest again.

"You're never going to believe this, but we've got another one out in Sacramento. The boss says that if you get this one by the end of tomorrow, he'll pay you double. You can even bring along your girlfriend, if you want, but he's only paying you. Just want to make that clear."

"No, I understand." A job. I should've known. And as he gathers what little information he needs, he is already slipping his rogue demon hunter mantle back on. The time for his escape is past.

When he sets the receiver back down, he becomes aware of her fingers tracing along his bare chest. He has to bite back the smile when he realizes she's writing the Greek alphabet out on his skin, and muses as to whether she knows what she does.

"I'm sorry," he says and can't resist kissing the top of her coppery hair. "You should go back to sleep." So that one of us may rest.

"OK," she replies, and barely stifles a yawn before burrowing back into his body.

His cock is starting to harden again, but this is neither the time nor place for more of their activities, and Wesley knows he must get as far from her as possible or he will never let her go. Carefully, he rolls her to the side, tucking the blanket around her before sliding out into the cold. As he slips into his sweats, he wonders if maybe he's made things worse by allowing himself these few hours of abandon. Now, he knows what he could have, and though he doesn't fear his own sense of failure any longer, he does fear the empty Willow-shaped place in his life that she has carved for herself.

Work. I must work. If I concentrate, I shan't have the luxury of time to think of it. To think of her. I must remember that this was always meant to be just about this weekend.

"Is something wrong?"

She sounds so forlorn, and it takes all Wesley's resolve not to return to her side, and bundle her close, and tell her that there is absolutely nothing wrong, it's all about him, it's all about his failing. As it is now and will be until he's atoned for his errors in judgment. "Nothing's wrong." With you. Believe me. Work, Wesley.

"Are you...disappointed that we...you know...?"

How can she think that?

So, he turns and she is watching him with such wide eyes, that his stomach clenches and he has to struggle not to cross to the bed to her. The bed in which he'd made love to her not an hour before, and which he has now abandoned because he can't be strong enough to leave it when she needs him to and not when he needs it.

Damn it.

"Of course not." Not enough. "Far from it." Explain it to her, you prat. "This is just..." But he can't find the word. Diversion? An excuse? So, he latches on to the one that has been rolling around inside his brain and hopes it will suffice. "...work. That was Manny. He needs me to be in Sacramento tomorrow morning. Another job."

As he watches, she sits up, baring her lovely breasts for the most fleeting of moments before covering herself up with the blanket. It's that almost more than her blithe declaration about demons on the Hellmouth as well that saddens him. Because she feels she has to hide again. And he is the cause of it.

"You know that's not possible," he says as he turns his back on her---please accept my apologies for that, Willow---and picks up his pen again. "Sunnydale is..." Still too painful. "...not my home." I have no home any longer, though for a moment, I found one in you. "If I wish to prove that my presence on the Hellmouth last year wasn't a complete waste, I must continue with my demon hunting. It's the only way for me to make amends. I thought..." I explained this. I'd hoped not to have to do so again. "I told you I couldn't."

When she concedes to his statements with no more fight, Wesley discovers that it disappoints him. Is it not worth arguing about? She's been more than direct in her wishes prior to this. Have I broken what I was trying so desperately to mend?

Returning to the task of organizing what he will need for his venture to Sacramento, Wesley debates the wisdom in leaving the topic of their trip to Sunnydale untouched any longer. She is only half-sleeping, and though he knows the reason for her disquiet is his doing, he cannot bring himself to cross the breech he has created. The chasm is too wide. But is it? Is it really?

The answer eludes him.

WILLOW

She is not good at pretending. She never has been. Her face is every mother's wet dream because it's impossible not to tell what Willow is thinking when you look into her eyes.

So, when she decides that sleep is no longer an option, she makes her excuses and runs to hide in the bathroom, praying that the steam and scalding water will help her shake the disappointment she feels. They would understand, she wants to tell Wesley. Tell them like you've told me. They're not the ogres you think they are.

But she won't. He's made himself perfectly clear; he's never claimed that there was any hope that he would be staying in Sunnydale after he took her home. Any discouragement that may now drag down her spirits with leaden weights is her own creation, and Willow just has to deal with it.

Still. It would be nice if maybe he didn't have to go to Sacramento right away. She decides that Manny is a poophead for making that infeasible.

So quick to disappear from Wesley's gaze, Willow realizes when she steps out of the shower that she has forgotten to get her clothes for the day, and has no choice but to try and wrap one of the too-small hotel towels around her slim form so that she can walk out of the bathroom with what little dignity she still has left. They make these for midgets. Not even Buffy is this skinny.

Her hopes that she can get dressed without notice are dashed as soon as she opens the door and sees him standing in front of the closet surveying his own apparel. He is reflected in the mirror behind him, and when she steps out, two Wesleys turn their heads to regard her.

Two Wesleys smile when they see her.

Two Wesleys become aware of her near nudity. Two sets of eyes darken when they sweep over her.

The mirror is only half-length, however. Willow only sees one cock harden within his sweats.

Which is probably a good thing because that gives the whole beast-with-two-backs nickname a really scary connotation.

"How do you feel?" he asks. From a distance. Though his voice is as rough as it sounded during the night and their physical escapades, he makes no move to close the gap between them. "Did the shower...help?"

"All squeaky clean," she chirps, far more brightly than she feels, but if this is how he needs it to be, she is not going to be the one to tarnish what they shared by telling him the truth about what she wants. She holds out an arm before she can think not to. "Go ahead. Rub me. I'll bet you I really do squeak."

As soon as the words escape her mouth, Willow wishes she can take them back. For Wesley looks like he's about ready to cry, which is surprising considering the fact that he hasn't looked like that even in his most vulnerable moments over the weekend.

"Except, you know, that would be silly," she is quick to add, yanking her arm back to fold it along with its mate across her breasts. She is desperate to change the subject and glances pointedly past him at the closet. "Can I have my clothes, please?"

He doesn't say another word as he hands over the jeans and sweater, but she can feel his eyes on her as she goes to fetch the underwear that was discarded during the night, feels him watching her as she picks up the scraps of lace and holds them close. Her cheeks flame as their gazes meet, and she stumbles out a query about his use of the bathroom, all the time wondering why it is he seems so close and still so far away.

"Take as long as you need," he says. "I'll be ready when you come out."

Willow only nods. Anything more and she will lose the Pollyanna.

But then he touches her arm when she passes by. And she turns to look up at him, and he's oh so near and she can't breathe. Does she even want to?

"Last night..." he starts, stops, takes a deep breath before shaking his head and lowering it to press his lips to hers.

The kiss surprises her---the happening of it, that is. He is not searching for anything that remotely touches the passion from their encounters, but it's not the caress of just a friend, or of someone who doesn't care. It begs her to listen with more than her ears, and as she leans into it, into him, Willow understands what it is he's been trying to tell her. Finally.

She is breathless when they part, and can't help but smile when his murmured, "Thank you," floats to her ears.

"I won't be long," she promises, vanishing back into the bathroom to finish getting dressed.

When she emerges, she is not surprised to find him fully dressed, complete with leather pants and hair combed ever so precisely. His glasses seem a bit innocuous in comparison, but she doesn't say anything as she helps him finish gathering their belongings, volunteering to be the one to get down on her hands and knees to look under the beds when she sees his wincing hesitation. And she chatters about what little she knows about Sacramento, and how much she wishes she could be there to help him take out the demon again because I haven't had that much fun slaying with Buffy in ages and Magic kicks studying for statistics to the curb any day of the week.

Slowly, gradually, even Wesley begins to realize what she's doing and yields to her lead, smiling and joking just as he did with her yesterday, just as he did before, and I get it, I really get it, and it's OK, honest.

Because this trip away from Sunnydale, and these two days in the company of a man she never expected to find, isn't about trying to retrieve someone she's lost. It's about realizing she's strong enough to go on when she can't have it.

These are the thoughts she clings to as they load the bike, as they begin the long trek down the highway, as the sun slides across the sky overhead. When they stop for lunch, she even goes so far as to write down the spell she used under the dock, just in case Wesley is going to need it, and she hands it over without any expectation of being the one to cast it.

His eyes are quizzical when he takes it, but she just jokes, "Don't want to be caught with your Maluschna down around your knees, now do you?" See? She's still helping. Just from a distance.

She's good at that.

He insists on taking her all the way to her dorm, though she tells him at lunch that he doesn't have to if it'll weird him out. She stops him from getting off, though, and just taps on his visor to speak with him that way.

"Thank you," Willow says, and means it this time. "I think it's going to be a long time before I forget this weekend. And I mean that in the best possible way."

The corner of his mouth lifts, his smile bittersweet. "I shall never forget it," he says. "But I do believe, I should be the one thanking you."

When she wishes him good luck and holds out her helmet for him to take, he hesitates just long enough for her to wonder if he's going to refuse it. Please, Wesley. Don't forget.

"I don't think I'll be able to see a rainbow again without thinking of you," he says when he finally takes it.

"Good thing this is California and it doesn't really rain here that much then," she jokes. "I'd hate to distract you in the middle of hunting your rogue demons."

His mouth opens to correct her before he realizes she's teasing him. "Yes," he says, his smile wider. "Those rogue demons could prove especially difficult if I'm imagining a beautiful redhead in my arms instead of a crossbow."

His flattery makes her blush, and she rushes through the rest of their goodbyes, standing and waving at the curb as he pulls away.

It didn't turn out as she had expected, but Willow is pleased with the results of her weekend. Walking the curved path up to the dorm's front doors, she indulges in reliving her favorite moments.

She is smiling by the time she reaches her room.

WESLEY

He abhors trying to pretend she's not tossing and turning behind him.

Every rustle of the sheet, every whisper of her breath that is too quick to be slumber, reminds him that he is the reason she is so unrested. It's his fault she cannot find her peace again, and he detests his weakness.

So, when she practically runs for the bathroom on the pretense of showering, Wesley decides enough is enough and sets to getting ready to leave. There is much to do before they can check out, and if he wishes to be on the road for Sacramento before dark, they will need to start out early.

He makes the bed, though he knows there is a maid service to do so, but as he straightens the sheets that got so tangled in the night, two scraps of green flutter to the floor and arrest his movements. And he remembers how lovely she looked wearing them, and how lovely she looked not wearing them, and how lovely she looked when he didn't even know she'd bought them yet.

And he smiles at the memories.

It's the truth of the smiles that makes him stop. Bending to pick up the underwear, he lets it fall between and around his fingers as he listens again to all the words Willow has shared with him over the past thirty-six hours.

Her whispered confessions about dreaming about him.

Her trust in him to hear her tale.

"Everything about you has been surprising to me, too. Surprising very, very good."

She never stopped accepting him. She never questioned his capability. She gave without asking for anything in return.

And he is the better man for it.

He is angry again, but this time at himself as he sets her underwear aside and returns to the task of getting dressed. She deserves to know. If nothing else, I have to convince her that I've heard every word she's said this weekend. That I shall treasure it always. She deserves that.

These are his thoughts when the bathroom door opens and a wall of steam precedes a nearly naked Willow from its interior. He smiles at her, ready to tell, but the moment he sees the cheap white towel straining to be tucked around her breasts, his thoughts betray him. Or his body, rather. His thoughts merely followed his cock's lead.

All the words he'd been rehearsing are gone, and Wesley's mouth is dry as he attempts to say something, anything, that isn't completely gibberish.

"How do you feel?" Well, that was bloody ridiculous. "Did the shower..." Make you wish I was in there with you? "...help?"

He doesn't dare get any closer to her. If he does, his resolution to get on the road to Sunnydale will be tossed aside in favor of taking her back to his bed, and though that certainly has its own merit, it is not the best plan for either of them at this moment.

When she jokes about how clean she is, even thrusting out an arm within touching distance to prove it to him, Wesley fears the worst will happen to his design. Lead us not into temptation, Willow. I am only a man who wishes more than anything he could be strong enough not to let you go. The worst is when he realizes she must see it in his face, and she quickly backpedals to get rid of the sudden awkwardness.

"Except, you know, that would be silly."

Not as silly as I must seem to you.

Her quick request for her clothes is met with an automatic response, but he can't take his eyes from her when she goes over to fetch her underwear. It's seeing the scraps of lace in her hands, and then the corresponding flush on her cheeks as she must've remembered how they'd been removed from supple skin that drive him back to his earlier surety.

I will tell her.

"Do you need the bathroom?" She is stammering over her words, and it only serves to remind Wesley that she is just as unsure about things as he is. "I mean, if you need to shower, I don't want to---."

"Take as long as you need. I'll be ready when you come out."

And then she's coming toward him, his opportunity nearing, then passing. Now, you nit. So, he touches her arm. He hopes it's enough. Perhaps a step.

His fingers itch to do more than this simple touch when she turns those bright eyes back to him, so expectant, so eager for anything he might have to say. This is his chance. This is his moment.

"Last night..."

And he chokes. Words, which seemed so plentiful when he reached the decision, have fled. How do I possibly convey to this amazing creature what she has done for me? I'll only bungle anything I might try.

No, you won't.

It's her voice that reassures him, her voice that he hears.

So, he takes a deep breath, and opts for something other than words.

He will always think kissing her is like tasting spun sugar.

His throat is locked when he finally pulls away, and he can barely say the "Thank you" that is far too inadequate to encompass all of his feelings. But when he sees her smile, and when he sees the joy light up her eyes---the real kind, not the put-upon kind she adopted when she came out of her shower---he realizes that she understood. That his meaning wasn't missed. And he finishes getting dressed with a freedom of spirit that hasn't been his since he first boarded a plane for the United States a year ago.

He can do this. He can succeed. Willow has shown him that it's all too possible.

The rest of it is a blur when he really wishes it wouldn't be because these moments with Willow, as they return to their easy camaraderie of the day before, with no lingering awkwardness about their intimacy of the night, are tiny jewels that he wishes to treasure, to hold onto when his doubts start to plague him again. Because they will. Not even a hastily scribbled spell that she hands over to him in the middle of lunch right out of the blue will be enough to ward away those dark moments when Wesley's insecurities threaten to overwhelm him again.

There will be a difference, however.

This time, when the moments rear their ugly heads, he will have the power of her to help beat them back. They may come again, but perhaps they need not win.

Though the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign makes his stomach twist in anticipation, he is adamant in his avowal to return her to her doorstep, and he navigates the so familiar streets wondering if anyone would recognize them should he be spotted. He even debates doing a drive-by of Rupert's flat, but decides against it. He may be ready to cross the Sunnydale border, but any more would verge on masochistic.

All too soon, they're at her dorm, and he pulls up along the curb to help her get her things. When she slides off, he immediately misses the weight of her on the back of the motorcycle, and muses when he begins to follow her about how long it will take him to adjust to riding alone again.

He is stopped from climbing off by the gentle tap of her finger on his visor.

"Thank you," she says, when it is lifted. She has already removed her helmet and holds it awkwardly in her hands. "I think it's going to be a long time before I forget this weekend. And I mean that in the best possible way."

She does. He can see it in her face.

"I shall never forget it," he replies. Never. "But I do believe, I should be the one thanking you."

A smile. That lovely smile that shall forever be etched in his memory. He is glad he can associate something so warming to the bane of his career.

"Well...good luck." And she holds out the helmet to him.

But I bought it for you. Who else could possibly wear it?

He doesn't want to, but he can see it on her face that she wants him to take it. So he does, but not without making sure she is aware of how it will always be hers, regardless of the circumstances. And even when she makes a joke about rain in California, and teases him about his unfortunate nomenclature, he can't refrain from offering her one last compliment, to assure her just how much he has valued their weekend.

"Those rogue demons could prove especially difficult if I'm imagining a beautiful redhead in my arms instead of a crossbow," Wesley says. He is pleased when she blushes, though maybe not so pleased when she hurries to get her things off the back of the bike. She doesn't even stand still long enough for him to kiss goodbye, even though he's fairly certain that would be an extremely bad idea in the long run.

Instead, she stands on the curb and does that little finger wave thing she does. And when he pulls away, she is still standing there, waiting until the last possible minute to walk away. As if she doesn't want to lose any second in seeing him that she doesn't have to.

Unseen beneath his visor, he smiles.

WILLOW

Nobody asks questions. Willow is the kind of person that says something and people automatically believe her, because they look at that open face and those guileless eyes and they think it's impossible for her to deceive them. If only they knew. If only they'd seen what she'd seen. If only.

But they don't. Because nobody questions her story about the funeral. It's as she expected, as she'd wanted, but now, she almost wishes that somebody would think, "Hey! This seems like a brand new Willow! I wonder what happened at that funeral." But they don't.

So, nobody knows.

Except, she does. Willow knows. Willow will always know. And she's prepared to treasure the gift of that weekend that she's been granted, to remember how a man she'd thought one thing turned out to be another, and how he showed her how she didn't need to be chasing after something that wasn't really there because she was stronger than that. He held her close and coaxed her to open her eyes and showed her how good she could be all on her own.

She will always be grateful to Wesley for that.

There are times when she's walking through town or going to a class when she hears the dull roar of a motorcycle in the background. It never fails to make her head snap toward the sound, sometimes so hard that she thinks it just might be possible to give herself whiplash without ever being in a car accident, but it's never him. Occasionally, they look like him. It's amazing how many bikers wear black leather, a detail she'd never really processed before. But it's never him.

And it gets easier, just like he told her it would. She goes to her classes, and she aces her tests, and she wears her Scooby hat with pride even when sometimes the sight of a demon will thrust her back onto a beach and she'll see Wesley swinging his sword instead of Buffy swinging her fists. At those times, she has to force herself to step back from the fray, to take a deep breath, and remember where she is, before anybody can notice that she's gone pale or that her hands are shaking.

I miss you, Wesley.

It's a good kind of missing, though, not like with Oz. She wonders where his demon hunting is taking him, and once, she even hears Giles mention that Wesley showed up in LA at Angel's. She's so tempted to call Angel then and find out how Wes was, but she stomps on the urge with her best tennis shoes and instead says, "Oh?" Like it is a big surprise that the Watcher is even in the state.

Not everything is easy. The first night Xander drags her back to the Bronze, Willow has one of her old nightmares about Veruca and Oz, but this time when she wakes, there are no strong arms or soothing words to bring her down from it. There isn't even best friend Buffy to ask what's wrong, because she's recently discovered a certain Riley Finn and has left Willow to her own devices again. For a split second, she debates calling Giles, just to hear the accent because maybe that will help, but then decides that that's too much like a junkie saying they only need a little hit and puts the phone back down.

So, she turns down the occasional date, though she does agree to double with Buffy and Riley once---only once, never again, and geez, are all frat boys so shallow?---and focuses on her studies. Focuses on herself. It's hard and sometimes it hurts to see the other couples walking arm in arm, hand in hand, hip to hip, but ultimately, it's like the kind of hurt that happens with peeling off a bandage. One quick rip---which doesn't hurt, not really, more like a little sting---and then it's gone, and it's back to Willow's world of college and magic and grades and pushing herself too hard but understanding that now she's doing it for better reasons.

She breezes through all her finals. It's expected and almost a little disappointing, but she smiles anyway when Xander jokes about her giant brain and Buffy grouses about her own tiny one. She even agrees to go out with them for a celebratory semester's over night at the Bronze. I can do that now. It's just a place.

But that place is packed and though she is wearing her dancing shoes and the come-hither sweater Buffy made her put on, Willow's heart isn't in it. Her smiles feel forced, and everywhere she looks, people look happy, and in that particular moment, she's not.

"I'm tired," she excuses after an hour. "I'm just going to go home."

"You want me to come with?" Buffy asks, but the way she is leaning back against Riley says even louder, "Please don't make me leave right now."

A shake of her head and a quick reminder of how she has her mother's car so she'll be safe is all it takes for Willow to break free from those who seem so eager to celebrate. It's not that she begrudges them their liberty to do so, she thinks as she heads out to the parking lot. It's just that she doesn't have something of her own to celebrate.

She is halfway to the car when the distant roar of a motorcycle vibrates down her spine, and she turns her head automatically in its direction, fully expecting the sound to fade away as it always does. This time, however, is different, and it comes to life as it approaches the Bronze, a black shadow rolling into the lot. When it passes beneath a streetlight, she can see that its rider is long and lean, in blue jeans and boots, and she halts in her steps as a sense of dj vu constricts her throat.

It only worsens when the motorcycle slows to a stop in front of her, and the driver turns off the engine before lifting the visor on his helmet.

"Hello, Willow," Wesley says.

And his smile is exactly the same.

WESLEY

It's surprising how quickly he settles back into his old routine. Perhaps it's the life and death nature of the business. He must stay focused on his task at hand, or risk not having a hand at all, or an eye, or even a life. After his weekend with Willow, that is no longer an acceptable option.

It doesn't mean he doesn't think of her. Every time he gets a moment to breathe---and isn't it ironic that just when he starts contemplating his future as a rogue demon hunter, he gains a bit of notoriety and gets inundated with work?---he allows himself a few stolen minutes to remember her laugh, how she tasted beneath his tongue, how she felt clinging to him on the back of his motorcycle. The recollections are stiff shots of the finest whiskey, sharp on the palette and then soothing in their fiery warmth, and he knows he could easily get intoxicated by them if he indulged in the reminiscences too often or too long. So, he savors them for the treats they are, and goes about his daily business with growing confidence.

One curious side effect from his encounter with Willow is the ease with which he talks to the opposite sex now. He does it rarely, but when he has the time and the desire for companionship is too strong to ignore, Wesley finds a bar that doesn't seem as seedy as the others and seeks out someone to converse with. The encounters are quite pleasant---and one or two continue beyond the walls of the establishment and back at whatever hotel he happens to be inhabiting at the time---but after the fourth in a northern Arizona town, he realizes that none of the women he speaks with have red hair. Somehow, to do so would seem like...betrayal. And the newfound understanding tarnishes his future endeavors slightly.

When his demon hunting returns him to California soil, specifically to Angel's new haunts in Los Angeles, Wesley debates passing on the job to avoid contact with any of the Sunnydale crew.

Stop being a sillyhead, he can hear Willow say. And it's enough for him to turn his front wheel in LA's direction, smiling all the way.

When he sees Cordelia, he is momentarily thrust back into the library, and his nearly adolescent infatuation with her beauty and enthusiasm. Her kiss startles him---Can she see the differences in me? Does it make me appear more worthy to her?---and has to admit being disappointed when her true purpose becomes known. I'd thought such an effect would be visible.

But the meeting goes much better than he expected, and the memories of Sunnydale are few and far between as they are too busy to really take note of anything nostalgic. There is only one incident that gets beneath his skin, when Angel goes into Wesley's bag for a weapon.

The vampire's hand hesitates, his heavy brow lowering even further as he imperceptibly leans forward and sniffs at the interior.

"You've been to Sunnydale?" he asks. Wesley's denial doesn't satisfy him, and he takes a deeper inhalation as if to prove him wrong. "Then why do I smell Willow?"

"I..." Damn it. I should've anticipated this. "...saw her." He doesn't know why he's so reluctant to talk about it. Perhaps it's because it feels like a gift that should only belong to him; if he shares, it will take away some of its specialness.

"But not in Sunnydale." Angel isn't going to let this go.

"No." So he briefly explains about running into her, leaving out as many details as he can and adhering to the story about Willow's family funeral. And though Angel doesn't ask any more questions, Wesley gets the distinct impression that he is more than aware of the full story, especially when he changes the subject to the reason he left Sunnydale.

"I thought it was for the best. For Buffy. But I miss her, every single day."

Angel isn't looking at anything but the way his short sword slices through the air, but Wesley doesn't have to see his eyes to know what the demon is implying. The question is past his lips before he can stop it.

"Yeah," Angel says softly. "If it was possible for me and Buffy to have a real future, I'd go back. I never would've left."

Those are the words Wesley takes with him when he leaves. There is an opportunity for him to stay on in Los Angeles, and it would mean continuing his work with positive results, but he can't bring himself to do it. Because there is something more compelling calling to him than the need to prove his worth. And it compels him all the way past the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign.

He goes to her dorm first, but the silence of the campus speaks of its emptiness. Classes must be concluded for the term. If she's not there, then she must be home, but he has no idea where that might be. It was a detail that was never necessary for him to know before now. There is always Rupert's, but the hour is late and their first meeting will be awkward enough without having to introduce the discourtesy of such an unfortunate appointment.

He is almost at the hotel when the idea occurs to him, and he swings the motorcycle around, hearing the slight squeal of the tires against the road as the bike protests the sudden reversal. She's likely not there anyway, but if I don't look, I'll never know.

The prospect of going into such a youth-oriented establishment is not a pleasing one, but he steels himself for what he's going to have to do in order to find her. Closer, and closer, and closer still, and his pulse is racing with greyhound efficiency through his veins by the time he turns the corner to the Bronze's parking lot. It's just as much the potential of seeing her as it is...the dread that she will not be happy when she does.

It is purely by chance that he looks up as he turns into the lot, and he sees the lone figure crossing the cement toward a vehicle on the far end. Light from the streetlamps gives him a quick glimpse of the fiery hair---it's longer now, it suits her---and Wesley's heart jumps into his throat as he angles the motorcycle in her direction. He knows his luck in finding her so easily---fortune favors the brave, but that is not me, is it?---but he doesn't care, he just needs to see her, just needs to know if she does as he does, if she still carries the memory of that weekend inside her breast.

When he realizes she has stopped, that she's watching him approach---does she know? How could she know?---he can't help the smile reaching his lips. And he stops, and he takes his time to turn off the engine before lifting his visor to look at her unfettered.

"Hello, Willow." I've missed you. Have you missed me?

The coat she is hugging tight around her body falls open and he sees the swell of a breast above the sweater she wears beneath. Her breathing is rapid, her cheeks pink, and Wesley thinks she has never looked lovelier.

"Hi." Breathless. Hopeful. Inquisitive.

"You're alone?"

She gestures abstractly to the club behind her. "Big finals are over celebration inside, but I wasn't really in the mood. I was just going to go home."

"Oh." He can see the car keys dangling from her fingers so at least he is reassured that she wasn't doing something foolish. But my Willow is a smart one, and unless another musician has broken her heart---.

But she doesn't look broken.

She looks amazing.

"What're you doing here?" she asks, and he wishes that he'd chosen to do this during the day so he could better see her face.

"I came to see you." No point in lying. No point in lying to anyone any more.

"Oh." Now, it's disappointment. "So...you're just passing through town?"

"No." No more passing for me. I'm planting my feet and standing my ground. "I'd thought...I'd hoped...is Sunnydale in need of a rogue demon hunter these days?"

And she laughs. Laughs. Like she hasn't laughed in months, or at least since he last saw her. Relief and joy and hope all rolled up in one. And it unlocks the last door he'd been holding shut inside his heart.

"No more leather," she comments, more freely now, a step closer.

Yes, come closer, Willow. Let me touch you so that you'll know I'm real.

"I still have the bike, though." He reaches behind him and pulls the other from the hold he's kept it in since it was last worn. "And I still have your helmet."

When he holds it out, she takes it without hesitation, her fingers stroking the arc of the rainbow, making him undeniably jealous---likely for the first time---of a piece of headwear.

"Are you expected somewhere?" he asks.

She shakes her head, eyes luminous in the moonlight as she regards him now.

Looking pointedly up at the clear sky, Wes says, "It's probably the same view back at my hotel. And I do believe I owe you a night of star-gazing, don't I?"

"Just a night?" But she is teasing, and she is already slipping the helmet on over her head, and stepping closer to him so that he can feel her breath on his cheek for the first time in weeks. She tilts her chin, her eyes expectant, and Wesley fastens the straps into place as she wishes, letting his fingers drift over her cheek when he is done.

"I've missed you." It amazes him how good saying the words out loud makes him feel. It amazes him even more when he sees the smile curl her mouth, the shine come to her eyes. Could it be this simple? Do I merit such a response?

Yes.

"I've missed you, too," she says. Her lips brush across his, and then she's hopped onto the bike and pressed into his back, returning his balance when he hadn't even realized it was missing, just as if she'd never left. "Now let's go see some stars."


~Fin~