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Author's notes for part four: This part is dedicated to Gloria Vance and her writing aspirations.

Other info in Part One

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Touch
Part Four

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He stood still by the door, confused by her actions. Was she inviting him to stay, or was she simply too indifferent to care if he left?

"I think about it sometimes," she said, breaking into his thoughts. "I wonder if I made a mistake."

It was stay then. He made his way to her and sat down, careful not to touch her.

"Being with me those few times. That was the mistake, right?" bitterness crept into his voice uninvited.

"I wonder if I made a mistake by deciding I never wanted to be with you again."

Her admission sent him reeling. There were all these things he needed to tell her, about the guilt, and the emptiness and the overwhelming need he had to pull her into his arms. But at the moment his tongue was tied and he sat staring dumbly at his hands.

"It's not too late to change that," he said, eons later. Clasping her hand in his own, he began massaging circles over her palm with his thumb. She shuddered in response and tried to pull away; he held her tight.

"It's not that simple, Xander. I chose somebody else. I chose to let him believe in me again. I can't just forget that."

"And I suppose letting him fall even harder for you is the more humanitarian thing to do?"

He was crushing her fingers in his grip, but she hardly felt the pain. It was nothing next to the confusion swirling about in her head. He was so close that her body hummed with recognition. Part of her wanted him to overpower her, taking all the decisions out of her hands. But she knew he wouldn't do that. Not for all the world would he force her.

"Please, Xander, don't make this harder than it is." Without thinking she brushed her free hand across his cheek. Before she could move away he held it tight and leaned into her, letting his eyes slip closed.

"What could be harder than this?" he murmured, opening his dark eyes to meet hers.

She saw everything in that moment. He was frightened of losing her. They had lost so much since they met the slayer, and their friendship was the dearest casualty. He missed being near her. Necessity had dictated that they loosen their grip on each other. And he loved her. It was shining through everything else, and she had no choice but to question what kind of love it was.

"Which is harder, Xander? Not being with me, or knowing I'm with someone else?" This was not a conversation Willow had ever thought she would be having. Not with Xander, nor with any other boy. She simply was not the type of girl men longed for. Not that she knew of, anyway.

He didn't answer her immediately. Instead, he took to rubbing his cheek against the hand he still held captive. Back and forth. His skin was slightly stubbled and raked across her sensitive palm. She marveled at how small her hand looked in his large one. Back and forth. He scrutinized her face carefully. Taking in the wondrous eyes, the high cheekbones, her window's peak, pointy chin, slightly parted lips. He wanted to touch them. So he did.

She inhaled sharply when he brought his thumb to her lower lip and began tracing it.

"I've wanted to kiss you since your twelfth birthday, did you know that?" She slowly shook her head no, not hard enough to move his finger from her mouth. "You refused to have a birthday party, because you were scared no one would come. So we spent the day together instead. But when you thought I wasn't looking, you started to cry. They were these huge tears…I didn't know what to do. But I had an urge to kiss you then."

"That was six years ago, Xander."

"Well, yeah, but you know how slow I can be on the uptake." His comment was designed to make her smile, but it touched a pain, deep inside. She pushed his hand away from her face.

"I waited for all those years, dreaming about this perfect first kiss. Our first kiss. I mean, it's not like anyone else wanted me. And you were my whole life. It's taken me all this time to find out there's more out there."

"So you're saying our first kiss wasn't perfect?"

"No, it's not that, it was…"

"A sanction," he finished for her. "Willow, when I kissed you the whole world stopped spinning. And I didn't care if it ever started again."

"You can't gloss this over or soften me up, Xander!"

"What do you want me to say, then? I'm sorry, Willow, for being typical stupid me and hurting your feelings. I'm sorry for not kissing you six years ago. I'm sorry I put all my dumb urges ahead of you, thinking you would always be there. I'm sorry it took someone else falling in love with you to knock me on my ass. What else can I possibly say?"

Somewhere during his rant he had gripped her biceps tightly and began shaking her. She countered by placing her hands on his forearms and bracing herself, biting her lower lip to hold in the tears that now choked her. When he realized what he was doing he abruptly released her, catching her off-guard and sending her tumbling to the floor.

"Oh, god, Will, I'm so sorry," he said, kneeling down to where she had leaned against the bed, knees pulled tight into her chest. Large tears rolled down her cheeks as she held herself, rocking softly. Back and forth.

"I knew I loved you the day we met, and you teased me about my hair," she whispered. "But I've never told you. Why have I never told you?"

"Because it would jinx it," he replied, scooting her forward so he could move behind her. When he had her safely wrapped up in his arms she spoke again.

"Oz was the first person to tell me he loved me. Well, the first one who wasn't related."

"I'm sorry that it wasn't me. It should have been me. I guess I thought you knew," his words were muffled against her hair.

"Contrary to popular belief, I don't know everything, Xander."

"That's right, you don't. You can't possibly know how many hours of sleep I've lost missing you, for instance."

She relaxed into his chest, marveling at the way she fit inside him. So perfectly.

"You never answered my question"

"Which question?" he asked, pushing her hair back to reveal her small left ear. He bent to nuzzle it with his nose. She shivered and he tightened his arms around her.

"Is this a case of you wanting what you can't have?" Does it really matter, part of her asked. Of course it does, answered another part, this could change everything.

"If you don't know that by now, do you really think I'm gonna be able to say anything to convince you? My promises, Will…well, I don't exactly have the best track record."

She wiggled out of his arms and turned to face him, still kneeling between his legs. She scoured his face for the sign that something was wrong. Nothing ever worked this way in her life. There had to be a catch. There just had to be.

"How about, I just show you?" he said, trying not to sound like a big sleaze, therefore suppressing the eyebrow that threatened to rise. She couldn't believe he would say something so unbelievably corny to her, and smiled in spite of herself. She swayed toward him, bracing her hands against his shoulders. When he reached up to gently cup her face he saw fear creep slowly into her eyes.

"It's not going to be like last time," he assured her.

"But…Oz?"

"If you feel even half of what I'm feeling right now, Willow, he's gonna know something's wrong. You're not being fair to him by staying."

"And who's going to be fair to me?" she wondered aloud, just as his lips closed over hers.

It had been two months since the day they were discovered pressed together on a bed in the warehouse basement. Since then, they had both wished it ended in a way that would have allowed them to savor the moment. Instead, they had been forced apart by guilt, tainting everything before it. This was different.

They moved against each other slowly, his arms coming behind her to hold her to him, her hands reaching up to stroke his face. His tongue entered her mouth tentatively, but the curling of her hands against his face, the soft scratching of her fingernails urged him to continue.

He was touching her. She was responding to him in a way she had only in his dreams, pressing herself against him and whimpering ever so softly against his mouth. He slowly moved his hands down her back, over her hips and thighs, pulling her tighter against his chest as something broke lose in him.

His kisses became hard and needy, until she was gasping for air. Each time she pulled away from his mouth he burned a trail across her jaw and down her neck, licking and nibbling at her sensitive flesh. His hands moved beneath her sweater and now roamed freely over her back and stomach. Her body was shaking with…was this passion?

"Xander?"

"Hmm?" he mumbled against the skin of her throat.

"Xander…Xander, please," her voice was unnaturally low as she pushed against his chest.

"I knew we could fix this," he continued to plant kisses along her collarbone. "I just had to touch you."

"Xander, STOP!"

Her words chilled him. Oh no. He had made another mistake, pushed her too far. He pulled away from her and lowered his head, raking his fingers through his thick, dark hair.

"When did it happen that everything I do or say to you is wrong?" he asked her, staring somewhere in the vicinity of her knees.

"Probably around the time everything else started going wrong," she replied. "Only this isn't wrong, Xander. It's just…just…so weird. And different. And it's going to take me some time to get used to it. And you have to promise me something, Xander."

Anything. He would do anything to keep from hurting her more. Anything to keep her next to him.

"Promise me that you're not doing this to me on some misguided whim. Promise me you're not chasing after some dream me, Xander, because this is who I am."

"I used to know exactly who you were, Willow. Isn't that strange?"

"Alexander Harris, promise me."

"I promise."

She offered him a brilliant smile and snuggled back into his chest, sighing deeply as his arms closed back around her. "I promise," she felt him whisper against her head. She closed her eyes and felt herself drifting, safely inside him.

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They didn't even notice it when they began to fall in love.

Over time emotions slid into one another. It was sometimes hard to separate the pain from the want, the love from the jealously, the fear from the need.

As children they assumed they would always be together. By the time anyone even bothered to try and separate them it was too late. They were pieces of the same whole. But like anything they were fragile. They didn't even notice. He told her once they were immortal. She believed him, even though she knew she was the smart one.

And then they were torn apart. But even then they did not notice. Until one day they woke up to find the other one missing.

She grieved for him and he yearned for her. But there were obstacles they could not have foreseen, so many years ago, so young.

"I just wanted to touch you," he told her, trying desperately to mend them. Put them back together again.

Her heart believed him and they sank into each other. And they remembered.

END

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