Author's Note: Setting: In between Innocence and Phases. Oz and Willow are going out.
* Friday afternoon * (after school)
“Willow!” Xander cried from down the hall of Sunnydale High. The red head turned from her locker to face her best friend.
“Hey Xander.” She closed her locker and headed for the library. For the longest time, Willow had a crush on Xander, but ever since she met Oz, the love she felt towards him was more ... brotherly. Like what he felt towards her. “What’s wrong?”
“Well,” he began,” I’ve been having some trouble with the math lately and my teacher said if I don’t pull up my grades soon I’ll havetogoto......summ..er...scho.. ol.” He cringed at the thought and Willow laughed.
“Oh really.” She smiled at the brunette. [he.... does....n’t try at all.] That thought made her smile broaden and almost crack up.
“Yeah! I was hoping you’d help.” He pushed the library door open for them. “PLEEAASE!!!! I’m begging you. I’m giving you my pathetic puppy face. Please!!!!” He looked at her with a ‘lost, cold puppy who’s unloved and needs to be cared for.’ face.
“Pathetic is right.” She laughed. “Okay,” Right then Xander’s arms flew around Willow in a big hug. “Ome ver o y ose hat even. k?” Her words were muffled by his shoulder but Xander understood.
“Okay! Great! Thanks Will! Tonight seven o-clock your place. Got it! Thank u again!!” They embraced again and than Xander gave Will a peck on the cheek. To anyone that may have been standing at the door it might have looked like a little more than that. Not even relising some one was watching they went into reasearch mode. [he’d be lost without me.] Willow thought as she sat down at the computer.
* Same day, same time, almost same place * (the halls)
Oz was looking for Willow after school. He needed to see her smile at him. [okay, lets see when i find willow I’ll tell her... ‘Hi Will! I love you, but I know you don’t love me. I know you still have feelings for Xander so I can wait. Really. Although right now I really need to kiss you.’] “Yeah, I’ll say that.” Oz ran his hand through his redish-blondish hair. Then he opened the library door, hearing 2 voices.[willow.] Then he heard another voice. The voice was obviously very happy.[xander.] He wasn’t sure why but this made Oz uncomfortable. [am i jealous? of xander?] He peeked in at them and saw that Xander had Willow wrapped up in a kiss.[she looks so happy.] Oz suddenly felt a wave of sadness. He closed the door and walked to his van to rethink what he was going to tell Willow.
**
Oz got into his van but just sat there and thought without even thinking about turning it on.[okay.] Then he started thinking out loud to himself. “Let’s just calm down.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Will and Xander are best friends. They were being friendly. But why did he seem so happy? And why is he going to her house? WHY THE FREAK DO I CARE??!?!?!?!?!?!?? I love her that’s why.” He turned the key and started to head home. “I’m screwed.”
When he got home, Oz went strait to his room and feel sleep with tears in his eyes. Dreaming of his red-haired goddess.
*that night*
It was 7:12pm and Xander was just walking out the door to go to Willow’s house.[time to go to willow’s. am i ready? i’ve got my stake, my cross, my books. she’ll be proud.] He walked out the door and started walking.[willow is the best. i love that girl.] He stopped. That thought made him think of Willow as someone other than his best frien. He thought of her for the first time as a “girl.” [like a sister. i love her like a beautiful sister.] He decided that was it. Smiled and kept walking.
Willow was sitting on her couch with a math book, a note book and a pencil ready to teach Xander when he arrived. Her mind, on the other hand, was on a different subject though. The subject of Oz.[oz. oz and me. me and oz.] A smile spread across her face.[oz, he is soooo cute, and sweet. and he always know just what to s...] Her thought was interrupted by the doorbell.[damn!]
She got up and answered the door. Xander was there, waiting with his nap-sack swung lazily over one shoulder. He looked at his best friend and walked in saying, “Hey there study body! I’m ready to learn. You are my teacher. Teach.”
Still looking at the street, pretending he hadn’t walked in yet, she said, “Hi Xander! Are you ready to study? That’s good, come on in.” Then she rolled her eyes and closed the door. Willow hadn’t noticed the person in a zebra striped van watching her.
Willow and Xander had been studying for four hours straight and he was just now starting to get ‘the math.’ “Well Xander, I’m very happy that you finally understand what the class keeps talking about, but it’s getting very late and I still have to take a shower. You know where the door is so you can let yourself out. Since you let yourself in.” Willow got up and went upstairs.
Xander put everything but his math book, stake, and cross away and headed to the door. [okay. so if train A leaves the town going 40km/h and train B leaves the town at the same time as train A going in the opposite direction at 55km/h how long till the trains are 200km apart?] “I don’t plan on riding any trains anytime soon so I’ll skip that one.” Xander was just about to leave when the door bell rang. He looked at the door with wide eyes. He held a stake tight and raised it so he was ready to kill what ever it was out there. Xander grabbed the door knob ready to open the door when Willow ran down the stairs in a silky bath robe. She tripped on the last step and landed in Xander’s arms. This caused the door to open and reveal a very angry looking Oz.
*about ten minutes later*
“OZ!?!?!?!? What are you doing here?” Xander had gone home to leave the young couple to do whatever they wanted to do. [he doesn’t look very happy. which is weird cause normally i can’t tell what he’s feeling by looking at his face.] “Oz? Are you okay? Do you want to come in?” Oz didn’t say a word. He stepped through the door and went to sit on the couch. Ever since Xander had left his eyes hadn’t even touched her.
Willow closed the door and went to sit down next to him. When she did sit next to Oz, he moved to a chair. “Oz, I don’t know if you’re thinking that maybe there was something going on here with me and Xander. But if you are, there wasn’t! He asked me today if he could come over and study because he’s failing math so I said yes and we studied...”
“For four hours!!!” Those words shocked her. “Will, I have been waiting for him to leave since seven o-clock. It is now eleven. I decided to find out what was going on in here and I find you two ..... and you ... in a robe! Why was he holding you that way?”
“I ....”
“WAIT! I don’t want to know! I think I know already! You were using me to get Xander! WEREN’T YOU!!!! Did you actually think that I was that stupid? That oblivious? That I wouldn’t figure it out? HA!” Tears were running down his face. Oz didn’t want to be saying these things. He wanted to grab Willow and kiss her and hold her and never let her go. But he couldn’t. All this anger had been building up inside of him ever since Willow had mentioned that she had once had a ‘thing’ for Xander. Now that he had seen them together, them holding onto each other, his anger took over. Oz was pushed aside and anger took over his body and he couldn’t stop it. Oz could see that Willow was crying and he knew that he had caused her to do it. Only he couldn’t stop it. He kept yelling. “I love you Willow Rosenburg!”
“Oz.. I could never do that to you! I...” She tried to explain but Oz wouldn’t listen.
“DON’T!” He put his hands up in the air. “I don’t care anymore!”
“NO! Oz don’t say that! I love you! I can’t live with out you!” Willow couldn’t even see, she was crying so hard.
“Willow! I. DON’T. CARE. I’m no longer your boyfriend!” With that Oz left. Willow tried to run after him but all she could do was collapse against the door.
Oz stood out side for a moment and listened to the one thing that brought joy to his life cry. Than, instead of comforting her, instead of telling her that he loved her, he ran. He ran to the van and drove as fast as he could without getting a ticket. When he got home he ran to his room and cried himself to sleep.
*later that night*
“Willow! Will, calm down. It’ll be okay! We’ll get through this. I promise.” Buffy had spent the past hour and a half listening to Willow sob over her fight with Oz.
“He misunderstood the whole thing Buffy! Then he just blew up and ... Buffy he said he didn’t care any more. I told him I loved him and he said he didn’t care!” After about another hour of concealing on Buffy’s part, Willow had calmed down enough to go to sleep.
*3 weeks later*
Oz had kept his distance from Willow. Every time that he saw her he would run the other way and every time that she saw him she had to look down at her feet to keep him from seeing her cry.
It was Friday and avoiding Willow kept getting harder and harder for Oz. He had just closed his locker when Buffy appeared. “Not now. It’s the end of the day. Week actually. And I’m very tired.” Oz had begun to walk away when Buffy’s extremely strong hand grabbed his neck and slammed him into the lockers. [what is it about her hand, my neck, and lockers?]
“You’re tired?” She obviously was very angry. That was defiantly something Oz didn’t want to deal with at this moment. “For the past three weeks. For the past twenty-one days. I have listened to Willow cry over you. Ever since you dumped her she cries herself to sleep. Every night! And you know what the dumbest thing is? SHE STILL LOVES YOU!” When Buffy saw the expression on his face she let Oz go. “Yeah. That was my first reaction too. You wont even listen to her. GOD!! You’re being such a b@$t@rd!”
Oz didn’t know what to say or do. He wanted to find Willow and tell her that he never stopped loving her either, but his legs wouldn’t move. His mind was racing.[she still loves me? but how?] “Buffy, I know what I saw. She isn’t over Xan...”
She cut him off with a hard slap to the face. “Open your eyes! If you would have listened to her in the first place you’d know the truth! GO! Go talk to her. NOW!”
“And if I don’t?”
“Well, I need a new practice dummy. You would do very nicely. Perfect size...”
“FINE!” He headed toward his van.
“She’s in the library. No ones there but her and I’ll keep them away.” He headed back passing her without eye contact and went to the library. Buffy skipped jauntily behind him.
**
Willow sat silently at the study table in the library staring into space. She was snapped out of her trance when she heard the doors open. Willow looked up and saw that it was Oz. Who hadn’t set foot in that library since the break up. “Oh, hi.” She looked down at her hands, blinking away tears.[don’t you dare cry willow! you can get through this without crying. you’ve faced stuff a whole lot worse than this..... yeah but non of that hurt so much.] By than she realized that he had sat down across from her on the other side of the table.
“Hi....” There was a long pause. Willow wouldn’t look up from her hands and Oz couldn’t remove his eyes from her.[okay. so i haven’t been able to get near her for three weeks but now i can’t take my eyes off her. this makes sense.] “Um... Buffy told me to...”
“Oz, Xander was at my house to study and that’s all we did study. I know it must have looked bad when the door opened and all but maybe if you had listened to me in the first place non of this would’ve happened. The robe, after we were done studying I realized how late it was and I still needed to take a shower so he was gonna leave and than you showed up and rang the door bell. I quickly put on a robe that was to big and as I ran down the stairs I tripped and Xander caught me. That’s what you saw and than you jumped to your own conclusion. That’s what happened and I’m not sure if you believe me or not.” She looked up with tears running down her cheeks to see him staring at her. She didn’t know if he was still mad but that’s what it looked like through the tears welling up in her eyes. Looking right into his eyes she told him, “All I know right now is that I STILL LOVE YOU!! And I have a feeling that I always will.” He just sat there with the same look on his face. Willow didn’t know what else to do so she ran out of the library so fast that she nearly knocked Buffy to the ground.
“Willow? What happened?” Buffy screamed after her friend than ran to her to find the answers.
**
Oz had practice that day so when he got home it was very late. He went home to think about his ‘talk’ with Willow and to try to think of a way to make everything okay again and tell her how sorry he is. By the time he thought of something it was eleven o-clock. But Oz had to do this now, so he grabbed his guitar, his cross, and his stake, and WALKED to Willow’s .
**
Willow had been crying, again. And her parents were out of town, again. It was nearly midnight, she couldn’t get to sleep so she decided to play dress up. As she went through her closet Willow heard the most beautiful music in the world. She found the most perfect dark blue, very low V-neck, thin strapped, skin tight, slip dress. It went all the way down to the floor. By then it had started to ran but she went out on the balcony anyway. When Willow stepped out onto her balcony she heard the words to the song and immediately recognized the voice. And she ran to Oz as fast as she could and stood in the rain with him.
*song* He ended the song and set his guitar down on the wet grass. Than he looked up, through the rain he saw the most beautiful woman in the world standing there wearing the most beautiful dress that complimented every curve she had.
Lying in your arms
so close together
didn’t know just what i had
now i toss and turn
cause i’m without you
how i’m missing you so bad
where was my head
where was my heart
now i lie
alone in the dark.
*chorus*
i was such a fool
i couldn’t see it
just how good you were to me
you confessed your love
undying devotion
i confessed my need to be free
and now i’m left
with all this pain
i’ve only got
myself to blame
*chorus*
why didn’t i know it
(how much i loved you baby)
Why couldn’t i show it
(if i had only told you)
when i had the chance
oh i had the chance
(chorus) i lie awake
i drive myself crazy
and i drive myself crazy
drive myself crazy
thinking of you
made a mistake when i let you go baby
i drive myself crazy
wanting you the way that i do
wanting you the way that i do.
She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to kiss him like she had never kissed anyone before. But she wasn’t sure if he wanted her to do that. Even if he had just sung to her, Willow wasn’t sure.
He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her lips to his. Willow’s arms automatically went around his neck and his hands explored her bare back. The kiss lasted forever and left them both gasping for breath. Oz handed Willow his guitar than picked her up and carried her into the house and shut the door.
Oz carried her all the way up stairs to her room. Than he laid her down on the bed and took the guitar and laid it down on the floor. They were both soaking wet. Oz decided to take off his shirt. He wasn’t just going to tell Willow how much he loved her, he was going to show her as well. “Willow, I’m so sorry for the way I’ve been acting and for what I’ve put you through. There is no one that I’d rather be with than you. I love you so much. I can’t say it enough and I’m never going to jump to conclusions about you and anyone. I’ll ask you first.”
Willow just laid on the bed as Oz talked. She just stared at his bare chest. She wasn’t quite sure where this was going. “Oz, I love you too....”
Oz moved over to her and laid down on the bed next to her. He began kissing her neck. Making his way to her shoulder. Pushing the strap of her dress down her arm.[oh my god! what is going on here? not that i don’t like it... but am i ready for this? i mean i do love him but...... no i’m not ready for this and i’m gonna tell him.] “Oz,” She pushed him just enough so that she could see his eyes. “I love you. And I want to be with you. But ...right now I don’t think I’m ready. But, when I am you’ll defiantly be the first person I tell. Don’t get me wrong, ...”
“Shhh.” Oz put his finger up to her lips. “It’s okay baby. We don’t have to. I told you I'd wait and that is exactly what I'm gonna do. Wait. Okay?” Oz placed a deep, passionate kiss on her lips. Finally, they both went to sleep. Everything was back to normal, even things Oz and Willow didn’t know.
*when oz and willow had goon inside*
“ANGEL!!!! Tell me what’s happening! She’s my best friend and I’m just looking out for her.” Buffy and Angel had been sitting in a tree spying on the hacker-witch and werewolf-guitarrist.
“No my sweet, you are a snoop. And I won’t tell.” She began to pout. “But I’ll show you if you want?”
“Now you’re talkin!” Angel grabbed Buffy and jumped down from the tree branch than carried her all the way to his apartment. When they got there he ‘showed’ her what had happened, and more.
The End.
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