She ran to the front door. "And if you ever come here or near any of my friends again, I'll stake you myself!"

Angel stood up, took one look back at her, and ran off into the distance.

"What do you mean, it's just cinnamon?" Willow asked.

"The love potion. It's just cinnamon," Xander clarified. "No witchcraft, no black magic." He smiled hopefully at her. "Just me and you."

"So, so this was all an act?" Willow tried reasoning things out, but for some reason, she couldn't think too clearly. "Hi, Will, I love you, no wait, I don't, hope you appreciate my little joke?!"

"Will, it's nothing like that. I --" Xander began.

"I'll bet! I really have to hand it to you, you really had my heart on a string there. I mean --" She held her head in her hands. It was starting to hurt. "I don't know what I mean." She pointed to the door. "Just get out of here."

"Will, you can't mean that," Xander said, stunned.

"Go!" She pointed to the door.

He left quietfly enough.

Xander stood in front of Willow's house only for a small eternity.

< Well, Harris, looks like you've really messed up things this time, > he said to himself. < You'll be lucky if she even speaks to you after this, much less loves you. > He tried to look on the bright side of things. < After all, how bad is it, really? Ten years from now, we'll look back on this and laugh. Yeah, laugh. I'll have ditched this burg for fame and fortune, and she'll have married some cool, classy guy, and when I see her she'll laugh in my face, and say, 'Xander! What did I ever see in you? I mean, sure, you're rich and famous, but deep down you're the same loser you've always been. A desperate, clingy loser. I'm so glad we never got together.' Then she'll laugh some more, and I'll go home to my big, empty Malibu beach house, get dead drunk,  and hang myself from the chandelier. >

"Gee, that's not too depressing," he muttered. He looked up into someone's face.

"I really don't have time for you," he said.

Willow collapsed in her couch. "It doesn't make sense," she muttered. "Why would Xander go through this elaborate act to convince me that he loves me?" Her head still hurt. "I mean, he's played some jokes on me before, but nothing like this. This, this is _evil_." She perked up a bit at that thought. "Maybe he's possessed again. I mean, it's not like he could ever really love me, not like that." A really, really twisted thought occurred to her. "I mean, if he did, what would he have done, really? Probably something stupid and sweet and --" Realization dawned on her like a hangover. "Oh no. Nonononono." She bolted for the door. < He's been gone less than a minute, > she thought. < What can happen in less than a minute? >

A lot can happen in less than a minute.

Angel ran through the streets of Sunnydale. He had to get away from Buffy. But more importantly, he had to get away from himself.

< What was I thinking, getting close to her? > he thought. < She could never love me and know who I am. What I am. >

He spotted a familiar figure standing on the sidewalk some distance away.

< I know exactly who to blame, > he thought as he approached at a dead run.

Xander was lying on the sidewalk, unmoving. A figure in a dark coat was kneeling over him.

"Angel?" Willow asked, puzzled. He turned, and his face was a vampire's face.

She ducked inside and grabbed a cross from the endtable. < Xander's cross, > she thought with shock. < He forgot it because of me. >

She slammed the cross into Angel's face, burning him. "Get AWAY from him, you monster!" she yelled. Angel stumbled back, face smoking from the wrath of the cross, then ran off.

Xander was still lying there. Blood was pouring out of a bite mark on his throat.

"Oh god, oh god," said Willow. Automatically, she jammed her hand to his throat in an effort to stop the bleeding. "Xander?" she asked. "Xander, you gotta keep pressure on the wound." He wasn't responding. "I can't hold the cross, drag you inside, and keep you from bleeding to death."

"No," he replied groggily, "because that'd require three hands. And you'd be a freakish mutant if you had three hands." He put one hand to his throat, stanching the blood flow. "Will -- I'm cold. So cold."

"You're going into shock," she replied with as much medical authority as she could muster. "You gotta stay awake, okay?" He looked like he could drift off any second. "STAY AWAKE!"

"Yeah, yeah, stay awake," he said. "No need to yell at me again."

Guilt hit her like a sixteen-ton weight, but she had to get him inside. She grabbed one of his arms, brandished the cross in the other, and began to drag him up the front steps of her house.

"Ouch!" cried Xander.

"What? What's wrong?" she asked.

"Watch the steps," he said. "My head."

"Oh. Sorry!" she said, trying very hard _not_ to panic. The last thing he needed was a concussion. < Although that would be just a perfect cap to this whole affair, wouldn't it? > she thought cynically.

She dragged him inside and lay him on the couch. "Okay, this'll just take a second," she said. "I'm going to get some bandages, don't, don't -- " She couldn't say it. She couldn't even think it.

"No prob, Will," said Xander. "I'll just lie here and look cool."

She smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring manner, then bolted upstairs to the bathroom. Ransacking the medicine cabinet, she rushed back down with the first aid kit, and a bottle of alcohol. Rapidly and precisely, she dressed the wound, halting the bleeding.

Then she remembered the shock. Without thinking, she hauled off her fuzzy sweater and pulled it on him.

"There," she asked. "Warmer?"

Xander looked more out of it than ever. "Yeah, a little," he said.

"Ambulance!" she cried, remembering that she had forgotten to call 911. She lunged over to the phone on the endtable and called.

She was greeted by a bored-sounding operator. "Gang-related thoat wound?" came the operator's voice. "We get a lot of those. We'll send somebody down in a few minutes." Then the operator yawned.

Willow went ballistic. "No, you'll send somebody down NOW, or I swear, I'll make your life a living hell! I'll ruin your credit, find out all your dirty little secrets and publish them, and make sure your name is number one on the FBI's terrorist database!"

"You can do all that?" the operator said, a bit awed.

"I'm a hacker," she said. "I have arcane skills."

"The light!" cried Xander suddenly, groggily. "So beautiful."

Willow eeped and dropped the reciever. She shook Xander. "You can't go into the light!" she said. "You have too much to live for! Don't go, don't -- " She started crying.

"Shh Will," Xander said. He raised a finger to her lips to shush her. "I just meant," he shook his head, clearing it by force of will. "I just noticed how beautiful you look, with the den lights behind you and all."

"Oh." She blinked away tears. "So no dying?"

"No dying," he said, managing a patented Xander-grin.

"That's good," she said. "Because I want you to be there when we capture Angel, and cut him into little pieces, and -- "

"Will, stop. You're talking crazy talk."

"But I haven't even gotten to the part where we put the pieces on sticks and roast them over an open fire and sing happy campfire tunes!"

"What is it with you and Angel? I mean, the guy's shady, and suspicious, and stuff like that, but it's not like he's a vampire," Xander explained. "We can't just _kill_ him."

"Xander, he _is_ a vampire, and he attacked you," Willow pointed out.

"No, he's not, and he saved me," Xander replied.

Willow gave him the Perplexed Face.

"I got attacked by a vampire. A really big, mean one," he said. "And Angel chased her, er him, off."

"Her?" Willow asked. "Are you leaving out something?" She looked at him pointedly.

"Alright," Xander grumbled. "I got my butt kicked and my blood drained by a Catholic schoolgirl. But don't tell Buffy. I'll never live it down."

"Wouldn't dream of it," she smirked. "So you just hang on, the ambulance ought to be here in a few minutes." She paused to worry. "Are you still cold?"

"Actually, yeah," he said. "I think we'll have to share body heat."

"Xander!" she cried, shocked. He couldn't be _that_ cold, and still cogent.

"Well, you're halfway out of your c