Thunk! A quivering arrow landed in the bull's eye of a target.

  "Woo-hoo!" Xander shouted and did an odd victory dance. "Who da man?
  That's
  the sixth one in a row. Do you finally admit defeat?" he crowed triumphantly.

  "You were so lucky." Buffy could only give Xander a disgusted look.

  Giles had been pleasantly surprised by his latest protégé. Xander had done
  better than his word and applied himself wholeheartedly to training. While
  his marital arts skills were only so-so, Xander had taken up the cross bow
  with a vengeance. Giles had felt that it should naturally be Xander's
  weapon of choice since he didn't have the slayer's strength for hand to
  hand combat. And as it turned out, Xander was actually a better shot with
  the cross bow than Buffy.

  He was constantly bragging and teasing her about his superior skill to the
  point that Buffy had challenged him to prove it this afternoon. Now she was
  really never going to hear the end of it.

  "Ha! You so can't stand to lose," Xander gloated knowingly.

  "I do not." Buffy huffed.

  Xander rolled his eyes. "Do too."

  "Do not!" Buffy protested.

  "Do too." "Do not." "Do too." "Do not." "Do not."

  "Do t-…Oh that's just it." Buffy tackled a laughing Xander to the ground.

  "You just can't say it can you." Xander laid flat on his back still chuckling.

  "Alright, I'll say it. You win," Buffy said graciously looking down from on
  top of him. "But I'd say when it comes to a . . .tickle-fest, I win." With
  that she started tickling him mercilessly.

  "Arghh!" Xander howled with laughter under her onslaught. "No fair," he
  gasped. "I give. I give!"

  Buffy stopped and looked down at a now thoroughly tousled Xander. She gave

  one last smirk before rolling off of him and onto her back. For a timeless
  moment she just lay in the grass beside him looking up at the sky, the
  perfect blueness unbroken to the edge of the horizon. It was a glorious
  summer day. Buffy felt a sense of contentment that she hadn't felt in a
  long time.

  She glanced over at Xander and smiled at her best friend. Although she knew
  that she could never take Willow's place in his life, they had become
  inseparable. She and Xander had built a strong, deep friendship based on
  trust and affection. It was a friendship that only strengthen as time went
  by and she knew she was lucky to have him. Gloating not withstanding.

  Xander rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow to look at
  her. "So what are we going to do tonight?"

  "We're going to do what we do every night Xander."

  "What? Take over the world?" he teased.

  Buffy rolled her eyes exaggeratingly. "No silly. Just the Bronze. We leave
  world conquest stuff to vampires and other assorted baddies, remember?"

  "Oh yah! Talking about vamps, do we want to go patrol before we go out
  tonight or after?" he asked.

  "Oh. I thought we might skip the slayage thing for tonight. Pickings have
  been slim. I figure Giles can give us the night off."

  With school out, Buffy and Xander had the opportunity to train every
  afternoon and hunt every evening. Working as a team with the will to do
  major damage, they were pretty fierce. So there hadn't been too much action
  in Sunnydale lately. In fact, the last couple months the local vamp
  population had been decidedly low-key.

  "I wish it were always like this," Buffy said almost absently looking back
  up at the sky.

  "Almost like what?"

  "Daylight," Buffy sighed now wistfully. "That it would never be night."

  *~*~*~*

  Pounding music and the swaying bodies of teens filled the Bronze. As always

  the Bronze was packed and in the center of the dance floor was Buffy and
  Xander. Buffy was dancing and Xander - well, Xander was doing what Buffy
  could only describe as goofing around.

  Sometimes Buffy felt like she was any other normal teen girl. Not the
  chosen one. Not the Slayer. And certainly not the person who stood against
  the powers of darkness. Tonight, hanging out with her best pal, she was
  just Buffy. Closing her eyes, she lost herself to the music.

  Suddenly the music changed and a slow song came on. Xander was about
  the
  head back to their table when Buffy tugged on his arm.

  "Hey, come on. Dance this one with me?" she smiled and batted her
  eyelashes
  outrageously.

  Shrugging his shoulders, Xander pulled her into his arms and started to do
  an impersonation of a tango to the totally inappropriate music. Giggling
  Buffy followed his lead. They weaved in and out of the slowly swaying
  couples. They were getting a lot of odd looks, but Xander only exaggerated
  the tango theme more and at the end of the song, he made a move to dip her.

  Pulling her up a little too hard, Buffy came up stumbling against his body.

  Breathless she looked up at him to say something witty about his dancing
  technique, but she lost whatever she was going to say as she stared into
  his eyes. Suddenly neither of them were goofing around any longer.

  Buffy felt the immediate tension and held her breath, not sure what was
  going on. Not wanting to ruin the moment, but also not wanting to change
  things past the point of no return, she merely put her arms around his neck
  and her head on his shoulder as another slow song came on. This time
  Xander
  followed her lead as they did little more than sway to the music.

  Across the room, a pair of eyes were intently watching Buffy and Xander.
  Not wanting them to see him just yet he made his way out of the Bronze. He
  decided to wait for the right moment to reveal himself. This was certainly
  not it.

  After the song ended there was an awkward pause between Xander and Buffy.

  Clearing his throat Xander asked oh so casually, "Uhm, do you want
  something to drink?"

  Grateful Buffy nodded, "Yah, just water though is good." She made her way
  back to their table and sat down, resisting the urge to bury her face in
  her hands. < That just so did not happen. >

  < Yes it did. And you like it! > a taunting voice in her head replied.

  < But it's Xander! > < So what's wrong with exploring a relationship with
  Xander? > < EVERYTHING! > she screamed back at herself. < We're friends,

  and... >

  Any further debate in her head was cut short when Xander returned with her
  drink.

  "Thanks." She drank her water quickly.

  "It's getting kinda late," he said tentatively.

  "Oh, definitely," Buffy rushed to agree. "Since we didn't patrol tonight,
  Giles will want us to do some training tomorrow morning. You know, early.
  So maybe we should call it a night."

  "Come on then, I'll let you walk me home," Xander said as if bestowing some
  great honor.

  Buffy was never more thankful than now for Xander's way of diffusing a
  situation with humor. "Oh, please! May I? Pretty please?"

  Smiling broadly now, Xander crooked his elbow and she linked her arm with
  his as they left the Bronze all awkwardness temporarily put out of their
  minds.

  It wasn't until Buffy had left Xander's place that she once more confronted
  what had happened between them at the Bronze. She wasn't too sure what
  exactly it was, but it was a little scary.

  As the Slayer, Buffy didn't get her strength to keep on fighting from anger
  or duty or the knowledge that she was fighting the righteous fight,
  although that helped. But rather she got her true strength from the people
  who believed in her, the ones who counted on her. They were also the people
  she knew she could count on. Her
  victory over the Master wouldn't have been possible without her friends. If
  she was a successful slayer it was because of the incredible people in her
  life.

  Buffy pitied past slayers who didn't have the kind of friends that she had.
  But she also understood now why friends could be a vulnerability. When she
  lost Willow and Angel, her confidence, her very strength felt diminished.
  But Xander had gotten her through that loss. Xander - who would go to the
  mouth of hell and back for her. In the last year he had gain some
  indeterminable quality, some inner fortitude that hadn't been there before.
  And whereas she had been the one who was strong initially after finding out
  about Willow, Xander became the emotional stabilizer for her now when
  things looked bad. He was her rock, the one person whom she counted on
  above all others. She needed him.

  To pursue anything more with him meant maybe messing up what they
  already
  had. So the fact that dancing in his arms had felt wonderfully right was
  downright disturbing. And the one thing she would never allow herself to do
  was jepordize her friendship with Xander.

  So Buffy handled it the only way she could. She rationalized it away. < I'm
  sure it doesn't really mean anything. Maybe its an entirely normal feeling
  best friends have with each other. >

  Deep in these thoughts, she was almost home before she had the odd
  sensation she was being followed. The sensation grew until Buffy's 'spider'
  sense told her she was not definitely not being paranoid. And whoever was
  following her wasn't of the human variety stalker either. She whipped
  around to face the vamp.

  As the shadows revealed the figure before her, she gasped.

  "Angel!"