"It's all right, I've never tried to kid myself about how much power I have. I--I just want you to be careful."
"I am! I do, I always am. Tara, it's just ..." She shrugged helplessly. "There's so much I want to learn."
Tara nodded again. "I know." She took a deep breath. "You said you needed to call Buffy. I'll-- meet you at the fair, if you have a chance to make it later." She slipped away.
"Tara!"
Willow saw the customer with the Palm Pilot glance up with carefully disguised curiosity, then look back at the book. Muttering nasty words under her breath, Willow went to the table in the rear of the shop and plopped unhappily into a chair. After a moment, Xander took the chair next to her.
"Sorry about that," she said softly. "Shouldn't have done that in public."
Xander chuckled and glanced at Anya. "I don't think you get to choose when you have a fight."
"But we shouldn't have fights! I love her, she loves me, we shouldn't have anything to fight about! We even agree on toothpaste!"
Xander took her hand in both of his. "Willow, loving someone does not mean you'll always agree. You and I don't always agree on everything, but you know I love you. Um, but not that way, you know."
Anya waved from the counter. "I'm not worried. She's gay now, and it's a purely male fantasy that lesbians are anxious to have threesomes with a man."
Willow gave Xander a sympathetic grin. Once he stopped blushing quite so hard and was able to meet Willow's eyes again, Xander scooted closer. "I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but I heard a little of what she said. You're, uh, not planning on going into the demon raising biz, are you?"
"Of course not!" She blinked a few moments. "I mean, not anytime soon--and I wouldn't do something stupid, like Giles did with Eyghon. But don't you want to know what other dimensions are like?"
He pointed over his shoulder at Anya. "You want to know about other dimensions, there's a lady over there who would be happy to give you the blood-soaked travelogue of several. Willow, hell dimensions, not of the good here. That's why they call them hell." He took her hand. "I don't like the idea of you anywhere near that kind of stuff."
Willow made herself look away from the concern and love in her oldest friend's eyes. "Someday we may not have a choice, Xander. The bad guys don't care what kind of stuff they throw at us. There's going to come a point where we can't care either. And I'd better know what could happen before I have to learn in the middle of a fight. We don't have Giles for the not-so-nice magic anymore."
Xander bit back an obscenity. He looked around the store, at the lollygagging customer, at everything but Willow. Finally he took a deep breath and just said it. "I'd rather deal with him than have anything happen to you, Will. I'd rather do anything than that."
She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, fighting silly sniffles. "Sometimes I wish you were a girl, Xander Harris." She bounced up from her chair before he finished processing that.
"What? What's that supposed to mean?"
She beamed at him as she picked up the phone and dialed Buffy's number. "Because I like the girls now."
"Hey!" Anya protested. "You just leave his male bits alone, missy! Go play with your own kind!"
Xander buried his head in his arms on the table.