"Xander."

"You know, it's not fair." He sank down beside her on the merry-go-round, letting his legs dangle over the side, his feet dragging in the sand.

"What's that?"

"You guys all have this extra…sense. Slayer sense. Vampire sense. Ex-demon sense. Glowy green blob of energy sense. Watcher sense. Witch sense. I not only have I no sense, and I'll thank you not to comment on that, but I've lost half of one of the five I started out with."

"If it helps, it probably means you're important in the fight against the First."

"Surprisingly? Doesn't help at all." He turned, smiling at her as she giggled. "Why are you all melancholy baby?"

"I was thinking about Tara."

"Oh."

"And Oz."

"Ooooh."

She smiled and shook her head. "What do you think he's doing now?"

Xander pointed to the horizon, the full moon shining despite the sun's presence. "Wishing he wasn't so intimately acquainted with the phrase 'that time of the month'?"

"Xander!"

"Hey, I lost my eye, not my very witty, slightly bitter sense of humor." He leaned back, stretching out on the sun-warmed metal. "He's probably a studio musician in New York. Or LA."

"Nashville," Willow giggled.

"Oz is the next Elvis."

"Oh," she laughed harder. "Oz. In sequins."

"Jumpsuits."

"Vegas." She lay down, her body shaking with laughter. "Oz as Liberace."

"Ah, but you're the gay one."

She turned on her side, looking at him, watching him not look at her. "Does it bother you?"

"That you're gay?" He asked the question knowing the answer. "Doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

"It doesn't bother me." He turned his head to the right so that she was completely out of his field of vision. "It makes me wonder."

"Wonder what?" When he didn't answer, she sat up and looked him in the eye. "Wonder what?"

"If you ever really loved me. Or how you could have."

"Xander!" She reared back, obviously hurt. "How can you say that?"

"How can I not, Will? Oz and I. Were we just…trial runs? Just tests to get boys out of your system?"

"Xander, no." She shook her head, freeing the tears that threatened in her emerald eyes. "No."

"Then explain it to me, Will. Because I could buy you loving Tara. I could buy it being about her and who she was, not what she was. But Kennedy…"

"Haven't you ever just wanted to be with someone, Xander? Something not about love? Something that, when it ends, you can walk away from?" She shrugged, turning her back to him. "Oz leaving destroyed me. Tara's death…well, I think we can avoid the conversation of what that did to me. I just needed someone, Xan."

"You ever wonder why it's never me? Or you, for me?"

"You I couldn't walk away from."

"You did before."

"You think so?" She turned back and cocked an eyebrow. "You think that my reaction when Oz left was all about Oz?"

"I kind of assumed."

"He hurt me. And I thought he'd never hurt me. I chose him because I thought he'd never hurt me." She paused, letting her words sink in. "I didn't want to be hurt again, Xander."

"And I kept hurting you, that's what you're saying?"

"I thought that you would." She shrugged and got off the merry-go-round, moving over to the swings. She twisted one then let it spin. "You and I don't have the best track record."

"So that's a reason to stop trying to get it right?"

She shrugged again and sat on the swing, kicking her feet slowly, rhythmically. "Everything changes, Xan."

"I thought we didn't." He got to his feet and walked slowly toward her. She watched him, her lower lip quivering with the threat of another tearful onslaught. "I mean, you and me, Will. We're the two musketeers, right? We stand up for each other through everything."

"I got tired of getting hurt."

"I got tired of hurting you." He walked behind her and grabbed the chains of the swing just above her hands. "I could have fought for you, you know."

She nodded, closing her eyes as he pulled her back against him, his body warm against hers. "I know."

He released her and she moved forward. "I didn't."

She nodded as he caught her again. "I know."

"My whole life, I've been scared of losing you, Will. Afraid you'd realize what a loser you were hanging out with, realize you had so much more than anyone ever gave you credit for. Realize you could do better than me."

"Xander."

"And I'm not going to lie to you. I knew in junior high and high school that you had a thing for me. And I knew you were a girl. But I never felt that way about you. I loved you, yeah, but I couldn't see you outside of the spot I'd put you in."

"Until I wore that dress?"

"No." He smiled and released her again. "I mean, the dress was probably part of it. I mean, I'm only human."

"No mean feat in this town."

"But you were all grown up. You were a woman, Will, where this little girl had always been. Suddenly the difference between five and seventeen became very, very real to me."

"I had boobs."

He pushed her, his hands gentle on the small of her back. "Well, they didn't hurt."

"This is old ground, Xander."

"Ground we've never covered." He moved to the swing beside her and sat down, turning to watch her as she continued to swing.

"You hurt me when you fell for Cordelia. Now, in retrospect, I get it. I think. Sort of. And you slept with Faith. That, in retrospect, I can totally understand."

"Okay, I didn't need to hear that."

Willow giggled. "I loved Oz. I loved Tara."

"And you're fucking Kennedy."

"Yeah. Mostly."

"Why her?"

She stopped swinging and moved over to him, standing in front of him, looking down at him, her eyes soft and sad. "Because, Xander, she's not you."

He stayed in the swing as she walked away, knowing he should follow her, if not for a sense of closure then because it was almost dark and he was in no shape to walk around at night. His voice echoed in the empty park. "What if you could have me?"

"I can't have you, Xander." She stopped and waited for him, watching him move toward her, the man in place of the boy she'd always loved. "I've never been able to."

"I give you permission."

She glanced up at the sky, the clouds coalescing above them, darkness bringing with it something more, just as it did every night. "We're the best of friends, Xander."

"It wasn't Oz in the hospital room back in high school."

She smiled through her tears. "I know." He stopped, his heart clutching in his chest. "I've always known."

"Then why?"

She reached out, touching his cheek, closing her eyes as he mimicked her gesture. She opened her eyes, staring into his, seeing the deep brown depths as they had always been. "Because I've always known."

"What if I don't accept that?" He gave her a sad smile when she didn't respond. He shrugged and fell into step with her.

"You know, a little magic and I could probably fix that whole eye thing."

He considered it for a moment. "Nah. I think the whole eye patch thing makes me seem jaunty."

"Jaunty, huh?"

"Yeah."

"And that's the look you're going for?"

"Oh yeah." He looped his arm around her shoulders. "It's the big thing this year. All the kids are doing it."

"You told me that when you tried to get me to play doctor."

He waggled his eyebrows at her. "Was I wrong?"