Disclaimer in part one.
Text in italics represents thoughts

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Cordelia turned and ran. Oz stared on in fascinated horror, not quite believing that Willow was letting this go on. He tried to blink back the tears that were filling his eyes. Save the last bit of your pride, man

He watched to see what would happen.

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The kiss went on forever. It was everything I had ever dreamed and fantasized about. The taste of him, the warmth. He took a bit of my hair in his fingers and rubbed it. I melted against him some more, him having lifted me out of my wheelchair to sit on his lap some time ago. I don't know how long it went on, days, seconds, it all blurred together. And it didn't matter, anyway. All that mattered was that I was in his arms, feeling the pressure of his mouth against mine.

That was all that mattered until I felt it. We were being watched. We were hurting somebody. The knowledge slipped into my consciousness, unwanted. Something... It persisted, making me break the kiss and look around. Nobody was there.

"Willow? What's going on?" Xander looked at me quizzically and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. I shook my head at him.

"I don't know, Xand." I realized just what we had been doing all of the sudden. My eyes filled with moistness. Cheating. "Xander, we can't be doing this, it isn't right." I tried to wiggle my way off his lap. He held me closer.

"Willow, don't you feel how right this is? How perfect we fit?" I started wiggling harder, not holding my tears back any longer.

"Yes! Don't ask me that, that's why I came back in the first place! But I *do* love Oz. And you love Cordelia." It hurt me to say the words, and my throat tried to close over them. "This isn't how it should be. Not now."

He lifted his head up to mine for a last kiss, and I let him, realizing that it would be a long time for us before we kissed again. He pulled back after a second. "Okay. But the way your tears taste, I can tell that I'm the one you want."

"Xander, you are. I'm not lying. To anybody. But I love Oz, and can't hurt him this way. You don't want to hurt Cordy, do you?" He slowly shook his head.

"All right. You win. But I love you. I want you to remember that."

"I will. I love you, too, Xander. " He lifted me off his lap to place me back into my wheelchair. It felt like a million pounds had been lifted off of my heart knowing that we loved each other. I heard the door swish open and turned to look.

It was Oz, followed by Cordelia. His eyes were rimmed in red. She looked like she had been crying. "What's going on? Are you guys okay?"

Oz nodded at me, exchanging a look with Cordelia. "Yeah. What's up? Found anything about Buffy? Been doing research?" His words held a somewhat sarcastic edge to them, and I flinched involuntarily. I'm not a good liar.

I stared up at him, and knew that somehow I would have to tell him. Lying is so unfair to everyone. "Oz, could I talk to you alone a minute?"

He looked at me steadily and gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. I gestured towards the doors of the library, and he pushed my wheelchair. I looked at Xander quickly and he smiled sadly at me, as though he knew what I was going to do. I wasn't sure, but I think he was going to do the same.

We got to the hallway and headed to the utility closet so that, should a teacher come along, we wouldn't get in any trouble for being out of class. I had given up in getting the perfect attendance award a few years ago.

He pinned me with his eyes. "Well?"

At first I didn't know what to say. He had never sounded mad at me before. It was a weird experience. "Um, Oz, I don't know how to say this." I felt my tears gather again. His look softened slightly.

"Just tell me, Willow."

"Xander and I kissed," I blurted. I couldn't meet his eyes. "We just... It just sort of happened. " I decided not to tell him about what the letters said, about our confessions to each other. "I was upset about Buffy, so was he, and it just happened. I'm so sorry! I love y--"

"Don't say that!" Oz looked like he was holding back his own tears. I stared up at him, shocked. "Don't say you love me! Because I love you, and if you said that right now, I wouldn't be mad anymore. I would just be hurt, and I don't know if I can take the hurt..." He turned around so that his back was to me.

"Oz, I am sorry. It won't happen again. It was a quirk, something that none of us expected. I'm so hurt that I hurt you. I can't even believe that I did this." I pulled on his hand, silently asking him to turn around. "And I *do* love you." He looked at me, and finally he let his tears go. My heart broke as I watched my boyfriend get on his knees and circle my waist with his arms, kneeling in front of me.

We cried together and he finally looked up at me, something not so heavy in his eyes anymore. "He loves you, you know."

"I know."

"And you love him."

"I love *you*." I wasn't lying when I said that. I loved Oz so much.

"Good. Let's keep it that way." He gave me a lopsided grin and stood. "We had all better get moving."

"Oz?" I needed to know if we were together, if he still loved me.

"Willow, let's not bring this up anymore. I love you and forgive you and trust you that this won't happen again. I saw you from outside the library, and my biggest fear was that you would pretend that it hadn't happened. That you would lie to me. But now that you didn't, I believe every word you say. And I still love you. Let's not bring this up, ever again, okay?"

"Okay," I whispered. He leaned down to give me a kiss on top of my head.

"Let's go." He took hold of my chair and pushed me out of the closet. I wondered what would be happening in the library right now.

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Xander digested her cold stance, so similar to the one she used to carry. Haughty and strong. "Cordy--"

"The name is Cordelia," She interrupted harshly.

The tears in her eyes belied the edge to her words. "Cordelia," he amended. "I need to talk to you abou--"

She cut in again, this time her voice wavering. "Did you think that I wanted to fall in love with you?!" His mouth dropped open at the angry admission of her feelings. She didn't notice and went on. "I didn't. I wanted to go on not caring about any one of you guys. But, somehow, I couldn't do that. It wasn't an option for me anymore. I came to care for you all." Xander sat perfectly still, not interrupting. She was spilling her heart onto the table, and he needed to know what was in there.

Her tears overflowed and spilled out from her eyes. "You all think that I don't have a heart. You all think that I don't feel pain, and that it doesn't hurt my feelings when none of you confide in me, when you treat me like an outsider. *You* act like it's nothing when I don't want to hear about how much you love Buffy or how much you're concerned for Willow.

"Well, guess what, Xander? I'm a good actress. It does hurt me. You're my boyfriend, and, believe it or not, I've come to love you. In case you haven't noticed, I've all but given up my other friends for you guys. They were my whole world, but now you guys are. I didn't ever expect my life to turn out like this. So it *does* hurt me when everyone acts like I'm not part of this. You know what? Other than Buffy, I think I'm the one who has given up the most. Maybe that's a selfish statement, but it's true. You and Willow wanted to become part of her scary life. I didn't. But I did, because you guys became my friends. I thought you guys cared about me more than anyone ever had before, even though we fought. It was mostly a game to me. I've given up *everything* to fall in love with you, Xander." Cordelia's voice shuddered to a stop and she wept noisily, sinking into a chair.

The noise brought Giles and Joyce to the window of the office, looking out. Xander treated them both to a look. Please. Don't come out. Please. Giles nodded in understanding, leading Joyce to his desk where there were sure to be some books about Buffy. Xander's own eyes filled with tears as he surveyed his strong, beautiful girlfriend reduced to tears over what he had done. With three longs strides he was over where she was.

He scooped her in his arms, cradling her wet face against his chest. He rubbed her hair soothingly. He never realized before that moment how strong she wasn't.

"Shhh. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Not knowing how, he knew that she had found out about him kissing Willow. "I love you, too, Cordy. I love you, it's okay. I'm sorry, I''m sorry. It wasn't meant to happen. It won't happen again. I love you." He kept his voice lilting and soft, almost melodic as to comfort her. His shirt was growing wet. "I love you."

She finally lifted her head and stared searchingly into his eyes. "Xander don't say that unless you mean it, because I can't take a lie right now. Not even to stop me from hurting, because I'm going to do that anyway. I'll forgive you, but I'll still hurt for a while, so what I want to know is, do you mean that?"

He looked at her. When did Cordelia become so mature, so remarkable? With three words, Xander succeeded in not only picking up her bruised heart, but healing it as well. "I love you."

She gave him a tremulous smile and kissed him softly on the mouth. It was like none of their kisses ever before. While it still held the hint of passion, it also contained the promise of love, of friendship, and of forgiveness. A knowledge passed between them silently. Their love was not one that would keep them together forever. But it was one that would last, in their hearts, long after they moved on. She pulled back with the sound of the library door.

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Oz wheeled me into the library, and I caught the sense of smeared happiness on Xander's face. And lipstick. Cordelia smiled at me, the first real smile I had ever seen from her. I couldn't help but smile back, though it cast me part of my heart knowing that Xander and I couldn't be together for a long time. But I did smile, somehow reacting to a new light that was shining from Cordelia. She looked happy to be around us for the first time.

Oz smiled at her, and she returned it. Everything was okay. Time for me to get down to business. "Oz, in front of the computer." He rolled me there. The thing had been waiting for I don't know how long. Joyce and Giles came out of the office, to stand behind me with the others as my fingers whizzed over the keys. I was in full research mode. I was going to find Buffy, I could feel it.

I typed in "Petite blond, strong, might have been involved in fights." The computer beeped, and one of my contacts came on the screen, saying that, not far from here, someone like that had been seen. It was a mere hundred miles away, but I cursed myself anyway for letting myself get so distracted. A hundred miles, an hour ago. Deep inside, I felt that she was farther away... Getting farther every second. I turned my chair around to where everyone was waiting for what I was going to say.

Suddenly, without any warning, my mind was seized by something foreign. My heart was, too. I cried out against the pain and felt Xander start to rush to my side, only to stop when he saw that Oz would do it. I vaguely felt Oz grip my hand, but I was to blinded by the emotional pain that was being inflicted on my spirit. I dug my other hand into the arm of my wheelchair and waiting, praying that the pain would subside.

Images were tossed into my mind, like a blender, all tossing over each other, the next tearing the last apart. I steadied myself and paid careful attention to what I was seeing. A statue. Glowing eyes. A raised sword. A last kiss.... I didn't even realize it when I started crying for her pain. For the horrible fate handed to her. Unfair! My heart screamed as I saw what came next.

A last look at her love. A last look at her sleeping mother. A last look at her friends and at her life. A cold, lonely bus leading her nowhere, somewhere that didn't exist. That would take her to a place as empty as her heart.

I came dazedly out of my trance, looking at everyone. I was weeping. Everyone looked worried, though Joyce's face had a slightly hysterical edge to it. When Oz saw that I was part of this world again, he half hugged me. Xander handed me some Kleenex. I wiped my tear streaked face and blew my nose. I didn't know how I was going to begin to tell them what I had just seen, had just felt. It was too much.

I started slowly and stilted. Everyone's eyes grew rounder and rounder at each word that I spoke. I spoke of pain, indescribable, until Joyce put up her hand, indicating that she could take no more. She ran into the office, and shock of all shocks, Cordelia murmured that she would go after her. I realized that Cordelia had also been changed a lot by this, more that Xander and I, way more than Oz. She would probably help in explaining such changes to Buffy's mom. Of how to deal with the shock, how to keep the faith up. Somehow I felt that this was a different Cordelia, a softer version of the old. I let her go.

Giles wrinkled his brow. "Did you see where she would be going?"

"No, but it's likely to be a large city. Where nobody knows anybody else. She doesn't want to know anybody." I trained my eyes on him. "Giles, have you ever heard the phrase 'The weight of the world resting on shoulders'?" I pinned him with my gaze, and he squirmed, seemingly uncomfortable.

"Well, uh, uh, yes. It originates from Atlantis, who supposedly carried the sky upon his BA--"

"Giles, shut up. That's not what I was asking. It was a rhetorical question. I meant that I felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. She's seventeen, Giles. That's horrible." I was barely able to suppress the sobs that were rising in my throat. Xander looked at me compassionately. He loved Buffy as much as I did.

I gripped Oz's hand, taking all of the support he was offering. "We have to get to her soon, Giles." I let the worry and fear I was feeling shine through my eyes at him. He nodded quickly. His voice was solemn and contained more silent emotion that I had ever heard from him before.

"I know, Willow. Believe me, I know."

CONTINUES