RATING: PG (some mild cussin')
SPOILERS: Through "Becoming, Part 2"
SUMMARY: A sequel to "In the Circle"--Cordelia briefs Xander on Willow's run-in.
DISCLAIMER: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and the characters don't belong to me. I'm not going to profit from them.
NOTES: I've decided to try my hand at a summer series depicting events in the lives of the Slayerettes, eventually leading up to the reintroduction of Buffy. The stories will be chronological and all tie in to one another, but can be read individually. Part one is "In the Circle" (archived on my Web site). This is part two. I'd appreciate any thoughts on a series title--maybe "Cruel Summer" or something? Or I'll stick with "The Summer Series."

"Nightly News"

Years of practice enabled Xander Harris to lunge for the phone before anyone else in the house heard it ring. Until recently, this impressive skill had been cultivated mostly as a curiosity, but lately, it had taken on an aura of self- defense.

Xander had a girlfriend to hide.

"Hello?"

"Hey, you," came the still-surprisingly seductive voice on the other end of the line.

He certainly wasn't ashamed of Cordelia Chase, or really even ashamed of his decidedly undomestic parents ... It was just, Why risk fate? The nightly phone calls since she had left for a summer trip to Manhattan had barely registered on his mother's radar, and he wanted to keep it that way.

"Hey, you," Xander echoed affectionately. He glanced at the clock, which read 9:01 p.m., just after midnight for Cordy. The timing of the East-to-West-Coast phone calls was wreaking havoc on his social life ... but he guessed she had planned on that.

"Miss me?" she asked. It was the same ritual every night.

"Maybe," he answered, on cue. "Bored with New York already?"

"As always," she sighed. "I mean, there are whole other cities out there with whole other stores I haven't shopped in yet. Why can't we go to one of them?!"

"Cordelia, I hate to break it to you ... ," he began, trying fruitlessly to cover his smile, " ... but your parents are aliens from outer space, doing horrible experiments on you to see how much *cruelty* a human teenager can endure."

"It wouldn't surprise me!" she exclaimed, also trying to hide a laugh. "That *would* explain why I don't have my own bathroom!"

"The bastards!" Xander gasped, then dropped the thread. He knew she'd keep going like this for the rest of the night if he let her. "Really, are you doing okay?"

She sighed, and he waited to see how long it would take her to decide how much to share. "Yeah, I'm okay," she said, and he waited some more.

Finally, he asked, "Just okay?"

"No, I'm ... okay," she said flatly. "I've just been thinking a lot lately ... "

Xander knew it was lousy of him to think it, but he thought it anyway: Uh-oh.

"Wait," she interrupted herself, and he snapped to attention. "There was something I needed to tell you first--I talked to Willow tonight. She called right before my dad and I went out to dinner."

"Wait--Willow?!"

"Yeah."

"*My* Willow?" he said, without thinking.

"What?" she said instantly. Cordelia could teach Medea a thing or two about jealousy. "What do you mean, *your* Willow?!"

Uh-oh, he thought again, then said, "You know, the Willow who's been my friend since practically diapers--*that* Willow."

"Oh," she sniffed, only mildly placated. "I *thought* that was the Willow you meant."

Crisis averted, Xander's inner geek cheered. Mission complete.

"Cordelia," he prompted. "What--"

"Oh, yeah," she continued, back on track. "She called me tonight. She ran into Spike in D.C."

"She hasn't called me in ages," Xander semi-whined, hardly listening to either Cordelia or his brain telling him to shut up. "How'd she get your phone-- ... *Spike*?! You said Spike?"

"Yes, you doofus," she snapped. "You never listen to me when I--"

"Is she okay?!" he demanded.

"Yes, she's *fine*," Cordelia said in a voice that would have been soothing if it wasn't so pissed off. "They just talked. She pulled a stake on him. Then she pulled a crucifix on him. Then she left."

"Wait--*my* Willow?!" he said, ignoring his inner geek.

"Yes, you moron--*your* diaper-clad Willow."

Xander mulled it over, trying to conjure up a picture of Willow, fierce and armed with Slayer accoutrements, fending off a vamped and fanged Spike. For some reason, it wouldn't conjure. Instead, he kept seeing her with a Barbie in one hand and an Double Stuf Oreo in the other. No diapers, though.

"Well, what's the deal? What did they talk about?"

"What do you think?" she said unhelpfully. "What are any of us talking about nowadays?"

Xander thought for a minute. "The Seinfeld finale?" Another minute. "The Gap ad with all the swing dancers?"

"Buffy?!" Cordelia reminded him, exasperated. "Angel?!"

"Oh," Xander said, smiling only a little. "You meant 'us' in the local sense, not the national-consciousness sense." He chuckled, letting her in on the joke.

"Yes, you," she said, and he could hear her smile. Sometimes he had to wave the "Xander Is Making a Funny" flag in order for her to get it, but he never minded doing it.

"So," he began, serious again, "Did Spike know anything? About where Buffy is?" Or Angel, he thought, but he wanted to avoid that subject if possible. The longer no one knew where Angel was, the longer Xander could hold on to his fantasy of Angel's painful, humiliating death.

"No," she answered, exhaling loudly. "Actually, Willow said he seemed really surprised that *we* don't know. She practically had to convince him that Buffy wasn't there doing rounds with her."

"Huh," he commented, thoughtful. "So, did Spike try to put the bite on her? What's with the stake?"

"She said she's been carrying it and the crucifix both everywhere she goes, just in case. And she said he seemed pretty content just sitting there talking, but she didn't want to take any chances."

"Well, no one could ever accuse Willow of not being smart," he said admiringly.

"Yeah, well ... ," Cordelia started, and Xander geared himself up for another round of jealous sniping. She changed mid-course, though, and finished with a resigned, "Yeah."

They were silent for a minute, Xander thinking about his best friend and his girlfriend and trying to figure out what his girlfriend was thinking.

"You know, I told you I was thinking a lot before ... ," Cordelia said slowly.

Uh-oh. Xander's stomach tensed. "Yeah? What about?" He didn't like it when she paused. Pausing was bad. Talking a lot was good.

"Us."

Bad. Bad. Bad. "What about us?"

"I've been trying to figure out how this happened. You know, *why* this happened. Why we're together now, of all times." Her words were careful and had the taint of being preplanned.

"Uh-huh." Uh-oh. He stayed carefully neutral--this conversation had begun with such promise. "And why do you think that is?"

"Well, there was only one thing I could come up with," she continued quietly and deliberately. "About why we're together now ... "

"And that is ... "

She breathed a great, considered breath. "I think it's because I finally realized how much I ... "

The tension flowed from Xander's body, and he realized she wasn't going for the jugular--she was going for another blood-carrying organ. Maybe she'd finally be able to say it ...

Cordelia breathed again. " ... How much I really, *really* like you." She sighed deeply, and he suspected she was a little disappointed, too.

"Cordy," he said warmly, to reassure her that he knew what she meant. "I really, really like you, too." The silence that followed was comforting and happy.

"Still miss me?" she asked, and he could almost see her doing that cute wrinkly thing with her nose.

"It almost hurts," he told her, back to the same nightly ritual.

"I'll be back soon."

"I'll be waiting."

"All right," she finished. "I'd better get some sleep. Big sale tomorrow."

"Uh-huh," he commented. "Talk to you tomorrow night?"

"Yep." She came as close to chirping as she ever did. "Sweet dreams."

"You, too."

The line was closed and the phone was in its cradle before Xander finished the conversation, the same way he finished it every night.

"I love you."

THE END

Copyright 1998

"You know if I leave you now
It doesn't mean that I love you any less
It's just the state I'm in ... I'm no good
To anyone else like this ... "
Sarah McLachlan, "Wait"
(Is this a Buffy quote or *what*?! I mean, yay, Sarah!)