“ She blames me... she blames me not... she blames me...” Xander muttered as he passed row after row of necklaces in the display cases. Finally, he caught sight of the glittering piece on the end, stunning, gleeming silver with a few blood red stones set in the front. “ She blames me not!” he exclaimed excitedly.
“ Hey Xander, holiday shopping?” Buffy asked in greeting.
“ Oh yeah, hi Buffy. Hi Mrs. Summers,” the startled boy replied, nodding to Buffy and her mother.
“ Shopping for someone special?” Joyce Summers asked, noticing the necklace he was eyeing.
“ Yeah, typical present occompanied by a little groveling,” he explained giving his geeky Xander-grin. “ She will be mine again, oh yes, she will be mine again.”
The Slayer chuckled. “ Good luck Xander, we gotta book,” she said, hugging him and then leaving the store with her mother. Xander watched them disappear into the mall.
As he paid for the necklace, using up the very last of his money (and more than half of what he originally possessed), an idea struck. Xander nodded to himself as he left the mall and whispered, “ This time I’ll make it work...”
“ Oh, you think you can get away that easy boy?” Cirrus laughed as she grabbed Oz by the shoulder.
“ Um, I was kind of hoping I could get away that easy,” the musician remarked, trying to run from the stronger werewolf.
But Cirrus was too fast for him. She grabbed Oz quickly and picked him up, positioning him on her shoulders. “ You really shouldn’t challenge me like that cowboy,” she said mock-menacingly as she ran back and forth with Oz clinging for dear life to her neck. Willow had collapsed on a nearby lawn, laughing so hard the tears began to streak down her face.
“ Yeehaw! Trigger, take me to the Bronze!” Oz ordered, relaxing and getting into it.
“ I find you strange Oswald! A wolf who wants to mix with dingoes!” Willow shouted, deepening her voice.
“ I do not find that at all funny Willow Rosenburg!!” Cirrus shouted back at her mocker, putting Oz back on the ground and diving onto the grass just millimeters away from where Willow lay. She surged up, putting them in a nose to nose position, and grinned at the redhead’s slightly frightened ‘Eeekk!’. The female werewolf pecked Willow quickly on the lips before getting up and helping her to her feet as well. “ We really should go,” she said. “ Wouldn’t want to keep Oswald’s mangy old dingoes waiting!”
Willow, sweaty and tired from spending the evening at the smokey and crowded Bronze, had just flopped down on her big soft bed when the phone rang.
“ Will, I need a favor,” Xander said on the end of the line.
“ Uh, hello to you too,” Willow replied. “ What kind of favor?”
“ Well, I bought this necklace as a Christmas-slash-I’m-so-sorry present for Cordy and I was wondering...”
The redhead knew where he was headed and cut him off before he could reach his destination. “ No way! Didn’t you learn your lesson from Amy’s spell?!”
“ Well, I mean you’re just so much better at the witchy stuff than she is, you have to admit, you do have a certain knack for it. I heard about what you did to Cirrus in the library. Please Will?” he whined.
“ No! I don’t really want to end up brandishing an axe in your face again Xander, I mean, you called me. Things just got cool between us again... I’m assuming.”
“ C’mon, you owe me!”
“ What? What? What?” cried Willow into the phone, unable to think of another response for several minutes. Finally she asked, “ How do you figure that I owe you?”
“ Well ya know, that whole us thing that ruined my relationship was just as much your fault as it was mine,” he replied in the no-nonsense tone that he rarely used.
“ Excuse me?! I don’t think I ever asked to kiss your ear!”
“ You didn’t need to! You did it back when you were under that spell! Oz socked me for that one if I recall correctly, so you owe me double!” His serious tone hastily changed into one of selfish child-like desire.
“ I! I!” Willow stuttered, once again at a loss for words. There was silence on both ends for exactly eight minutes. “ Okay...” Willow said at last, defeated.
“ Boo!” Faith said playfully, jumping on the black werewolf’s broad furry back and covering her eyes.
“ Grr,” Cirrus replied half-heartedly. She reached around and pulled Faith off her and around to her front. Lip-lock wasn’t possible with her enlongated snout, but Cirrus gave her Slayer many sloppy puppy kisses instead.
Faith was sent into a fit of adorable giggles by the tickling sensation caused by the wolf tongue with it’s tiny bone-stripping barbs against her smoothe skin. Then using only the very tips of her sharp front fangs, Cirrus began to nip at Faith’s earlobes and neck. She shivered under the feather-light bites, but then suddenly tensed and bolted into her fighting stance.
“ What is it?” Cirrus asked in a whisper.
“ I thought you would have heard that really loud snap over there in the bushes with them big ears baby,” Faith whispered back, snatching her stake from her left jean pocket.
Then the girl emerged. Blonde hair dirty and tangled, deeply tanned flesh stratched and bleeding in more than one place, and already too revealing clothing ripped and merely hanging on her body. Her pale blues looked from Slayer to werewolf and back again several times. Faith’s own eyes darted to her side only once when she noticed that Cirrus was shifting back into her human form. When the transformation was complete, the stranger’s expression suddenly turned from dim to glowing, and she rushed as fast as she could with her limp to Cirrus and threw her arms around her neck.
“ Oh Cirri! I’ve been looking so long for you! I missed you!” the girl cried out as she hugged Cirrus tightly and planted a long lover’s kiss on the stunned werewolf’s lips.
“ Uh, er, yeah, hi Kerri...” Cirrus stammered weakly, patting her lightly on the back and pulling out of the hug.
“ Oh, who’s the babe C?” Faith asked dryly. Cirrus grimaced at the tone; she knew Faith was definately not happy.
“ Faith, Kerri. Kerri, Faith,” she introduced with a mumble.
“ Hi!” Kerri greeted Faith with all the perkiness of a cheerleader.
And that was all it took, Faith knew that if she had to hear another word spoken in that cheery tone, there would be no stopping her fist. “ I’ll just leave you two, you look like you have some catching up to do,” she said. And then she ran off. Cirrus didn’t need to look to know there would soon be tears streaking down her lover’s face.
“ Mmm... now that you’re friend is gone I can really greet you honey,” Kerri said with a devilish smile. She began to kiss Cirrus’ lips and cheeks.
Cirrus again pulled away from her. “ You’re dirty, hurt, and probably tired. We need to take care of that, then you can, um, ‘greet’ me. C’mon,” she said, hastily making up an excuse not to be kissed.
The distressed werewolf led her to the only place where she knew that Kerri would be welcomed with no problem. Oz’s house. His mother was never around, which turned out more often than not to be an advantage, and his father hadn’t been around for more than a few months after he was born. Kerri could stay there until the mess was sorted out. Oz, dressed in nightly attire of boxers and a tank top, answered the door a few minutes after Cirrus knocked.
“ Hey Oswald,” she said. “ I’ve got someone here who needs to stay with you for awhile. This is Kerri... my fiancé...”
“ Okay, um, sit there inside the pentagram,” Willow directed, pointing at the chalk pentagram on her floor, as she lit the remaining candles.
“ Magic or Satanic rituals Will?” Xander asked, joking only slightly.
“ The pentagram is a powerful magical symbol Xander,” she explained seriously. “ Just sit there and think about exactly what you want this spell to do. This is classified as a love spell, right?” the witch asked to make certain her components were correct.
“ Yeah, love spell,” he answered, closing his eyes and beginning to concentrate.
Willow took a vial of the blessed oil and poured a single drop onto each of the six red candles. The flames rose and she quickly read off the spell from her spellbook. As she finished, all candles but the six, which didn’t even flicker, blew out simultaneously. Slowly, Willow picked up the silver necklace and passed it through the candle flames, tracing the star shape in which they where arranged. She then poured the remaining oil into a shotglass and dropped the necklace into it.
“ Xander, the picture,” she ordered.
Xander fished the wallet sized glamour shot of Cordelia out of his pocket and handed it to Willow. She took the oil-slick jewelry out of the glass and wrapped it around the picture tightly, then handed it to Xander.
“ Keep that for twelve hours, then burn the picture and rub the necklace in its ashes. Then you can wash it off and give it to her,” Willow stated matter-of-factly.
Xander took it as though it were a sacred thing, and to him it honestly was. “ Thanks Will,’ he said as he left her bedroom.
Kerri, showered and wearing Oz’s mother’s lime green bathrobe, sat on the couch opposite Cirrus and Oz, who occupied the living room’s two massive armchairs. Cirrus sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slow before speaking.
“ What are you doing here in Sunnydale?” she asked.
“ I followed you,” the blonde replied simply. “ The old man told me where you had gone, and I followed. I would have been here sooner, but I had no money. I had walk and hitch the whole way.” She explained it as though there was nothing unusual about walking from San Francisco to Sunnydale.
“ When did you leave? I’ve only been gone for two weeks,” Cirrus inquired.
“ One, maybe two days after you left. I couldn’t go that long, the first day I didn’t see you I started aching for you.”
There’s a new one, Cirrus thought, she never used the word ‘aching’ before, not even during sex. It had always seemed too sensual for the sweet, bubbly girl to use. Indeed, when Cirrus thought about it, there was something different about her altogether. Her aura was askew. “ Kerri,” she said, “ Oswald has agreed to let you stay here until we can figure something else out. I’ll see you in morning, alright?”
“ Okay...” Kerri replied, obviously not liking the fact that Cirrus was leaving.
Oz walked Cirrus to the door. “ So you’re going to marry her?” he asked casually.
“ I was... but... oh Jesus H. Christ! I don’t know!! Just take care of her for me Oswald,” Cirrus pleaded giving her fellow werewolf a hug and then rushing off in the direction of Sunnydale’s only motel.
“ I never thought you’d be the type to chase preps,” Faith remarked coldly when Cirrus snuck into the pitch black room.
“ Faith, I didn’t think you were still awake...” Cirrus mumbled, trying to dodge the issue.
“ No, I just thought I’d stay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering what in the world you could possibly be doing out so long with someone who greeted you that warmly,” she replied, her tone then sarcastic and hurtful.
“ I didn’t do anything with her Faith! I took her to Oswald’s, she needed a place to stay!” Cirrus cried, pained by the accusation.
“ Who is she Cirrus? Was she your lover in SF? Is she still? ‘Cause she sure doesn’t seem to know it’s over between you two!” Faith began to raise her voice. She got up off the bed and into the werewolf’s face, screaming as the tears began to form and flow. “ Is she the reason you were gonna leave after you took care of Oz?!”
Cirrus, confused and angry, didn’t know exactly what she said until she heard it. Then it was too late. One simple word, the word that can’t be taken back.
“ Yes!”
“ So then you two never split.” Faith laughed. She laughed herself. How stupid, she thought, getting into that situation.
“ I asked her to marry me... she said yes... I... I... thought I loved her. I didn’t really expect to meet you, you know.”
“ You still love her don’t you! Don’t you dare tell me no, if you didn’t than you wouldn’t have sent her off to Oz’s! You would have had her stay with us!”
“ What the hell is your logic here?!” Cirrus asked, yelling as well at that point.
“ You don’t trust yourself around her! You’re trying to keep her away from me, and people don’t do that unless there’s something there to hide!” Faith began to sob with those words. For Cirrus, the world froze for a moment. She was just as upset as she had been in the graveyard the first time they had kissed. Tears of someone frightened. Frightened by her ability to love.
Unfortunately, it was Cirrus and not the world that really froze, because if it had been the world, then maybe Cirrus could have stopped Faith before she took off out the door.
Faith had been gone all day. Cirrus sat in silence, Buffy at her side being able to do nothing but keep a warm hand on her shoulder, hoping it did some small amount of good. Oz played the gig with his band as scheduled and Willow stared dreamily from the sidelines. Cordelia waited alone at a table, looking at the door every five seconds for a date that seemed to be late.
So naturally, Cordelia was the first to spot Xander when he walked in. He made a beeline for her, whipping out the necklace that he just couldn’t wait until Christmas to give her. “ Cordy, put it on, I’m not taking no for an answer.”
Cordelia snatched the necklace from his hand, forgetting for a minute that she was supposed to be cool and bitchy, and looked joyfully at it. Then her eyes wandered up, seeking Xander’s, but he stood just the slightest bit off to her side, and Angel smiled at her from the doorway. Tossing the present on the floor to her side, the crippled beauty rolled over her ex’s foot and to the vampire. Cordelia pulled him down and delivered a searing kiss.
Xander took a seat next to Buffy and Cirrus in the background. The three watched the kiss together, and only one thing was uttered by Xander for the rest of the night.
“ Magic sucks...”