*Archivist's Note: This is a companion piece to "Wisdom of the Fool, Folly of the wise."
"It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?” Willow started, turning to face the voice that came out of the darkness. Xander’s Uncle Rory was standing on the porch of Xander’s house, giving her a smile.
“Y..yeah.”
“Ah.” He nodded and pulled a cross from his pocket, holding it out in her direction.
“No offense,” she insisted, moving toward him.
“None taken.” He handed the cross to her, smiling when she took it willingly. “And right back atcha.”
“Ditto.” She sat on the porch step and stared out at the street. “You guys still cleaning things up?”
“Yeah. Xander’s at work, but I told him I’d stick around and finish some stuff up.”
“No…liquor?”
“Nope. The kid locked it all up in a cupboard and I don’t have the energy to bust it down. And I don’t exactly want to have to explain to him the shattered bits of cabinet tomorrow morning. So I’m out here enjoying the night air.”
“And resisting temptation?”
Rory nodded, smiling at the playful tone in Willow’s voice. “It’s something we Harris men work at a lot.” When Willow’s smile faded, he sighed. “Did I hit a nerve?”
“No,” she shook her head then nodded. “A little.”
“I remember when you two were kids. Xander doted on you. Followed you around like a puppy-dog. At least, whenever you weren’t following him around.” He laughed softly. “You guys were like Siamese twins.”
“Things change.”
“Yeah. He hurts you, you hurt him. And then there’s all those misunderstandings. Get in the way of every good relationship.” Rory looked up at the stars. “Which is a lot better than having your fiancee turn into a blood-sucking lamia.”
“You have pretty rotten luck with women.”
“Runs in the family. ‘Cept Brig, of course.”
“Mrs. Harris?”
“Well she’s about the best woman any one of us has ended up with. Present company excluded, of course.”
Willow blushed, running her palms over her knees. “Is Xander okay, do you think?”
“Xander’s always going to be okay.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Rory pursed his lips, reaching down to pluck a blade of grass. He fiddled with the green strand; his eyes lost somewhere else. “He’s got some strong feelings that he doesn’t know what do to with. He’s sort of between a rock and a hard place, Kid. He’s in love with someone that loves him back. He’s in love with someone who’s in love with someone else. He’s caught up in the middle of a nightmare between his parents and he just lost his girlfriend to some bohunk on the Cape who supposedly looks like him. He’s living platonically with three beautiful women and spending his nights dancing around in a strip club.”
“Is that a no?”
“Xander’s a survivor. Runs in the Harris genes. He’s not the brightest in the class, he’s not the bravest in the tribe. But he’s the most loyal idiot you’ll ever meet.” Rory stood up. “It’s getting cold out. You wanna come inside?”
Willow stood as well, following him into the house. A shiver ran through her as she remembered the last time she’d been here. The look on Xander’s face a look she never wanted to see again, a complete absence of everything that made him Xander. Rory didn’t look her way, having already heard the story from his nephew and knowing that it was something Willow would have to deal with on her own. Finally, she moved from the kitchen to the living room and sank onto a dilapidated sofa. “Do you believe that places can…retain things?”
“Like a presence?”
“No. Like a…like a smell? This house, when we were kids, always smelled perfect. Mrs. Harris would always have food in the kitchen…not that she made it, but it was there. And it smelled like Xander, you know? Kind of boyish and goofy? I never noticed that it smelled malevolent until the other night. All I could smell was hate and frustration and fury.”
“And booze?”
“I think here that’s the same thing.” She surveyed the room, full of boxes and suitcases and trash bags. “Am I a bad friend for not noticing it had gotten this bad?”
“No.” Rory sat across from her on the floor, leaning back against the wall. His hands were draped over his knees and, for a fleeting moment, he reminded Willow of Xander. “You helped him get out when he needed to. No one wants to believe that things have gone so far. But a true friend is there when it’s time. And you were. More than once.”
“I used to have a huge crush on you when I was younger,” the words slipped out before Willow could stop them. She blushed crimson, darting a look at Rory to see how he might have taken her words. His smile was brilliant. “Hell, Kid.”
“Sorry.”
“Nah, it’s flattering. If you were half my age and I was a hell of a lot drunker…” He gave her a wink, forcing her blush to deepen. “You just liked me because I reminded you of Xander. Only I paid more attention to you when there were other girls around.”
“You’d swing me around outside, make me feel like I was flying.”
“Xander used to watch you when I’d do that. He’d have the strangest look on his face.” Rory shrugged. “He likes you a lot, kid.”
“I like him too.”
Rory nodded and got off the floor, moving over to sit on one of the chairs. He didn’t look at Willow for a long time, instead watching the clock slowly tick away the minutes on the wall. “It’s a tough thing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Have any idea what you’re going to do?”
“In the long run? No. In the short run? No.” Willow shrugged, copying his avoidance. “Love them both until I know what’s right?”
“Love’s never right, kid. Love is messy and wrong and stupid and painful and…worth every second.”
“You ever been in love?” She watched his face now, wondering at the emotions that lurked behind his eyes. “I mean real love, not lamia induced obsession.”
“Once.”
“And was it…was it all those things?”
“All those and more.”
“You still love her?”
Rory eyes, dark and chocolate brown, met Willow’s. They were raw with something she didn’t understand, but had seen reflected in Xander’s eyes and in her own, looking back at her from the mirror.
“I think about her every waking moment, dream about her when I sleep. And I’ll do whatever it takes to stay the hell out of her life.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s not in love with me.”
“And if she was?”
“Then, kid? I sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting here talking with you.” He grinned at her, pretending that the exposed nerve they were picking at wasn’t in the room with them. “You only get so many shots at real love, kid.”
“Is that a warning?”
“A friendly one. Maybe this girl is your true love. Maybe it was the other guy you were with. Maybe it’s my nephew. You don’t know until it’s too late. You can’t know until it’s too late. That’s the way it works, as screwed up as it is.”
“So you just guess?”
Rory leaned in, his expression serious. “How did you know to be with that other guy?”
“I didn’t. I followed my heart. And…and my guilt.”
“And how did you know to be with Tara?”
“My heart.”
“You see a pattern?”
Willow shook her head. “But what if your heart tells you conflicting things?” Rory got off the chair and moved over to the sofa to sit next to Willow. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and gave her a comforting hug.
“That’s when you have to be a grown up and figure out what you want. Who you want. Who’s best for you. Who you love.”
“Is that what you did?”
“Kid, if I’d done that, I wouldn’t be the world’s most eligible bachelor. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have an ex-vengeance demon remembering my name.”
“I love them both.”
“And they both love you.”
Willow laughed, barely masking her sob. “Is that supposed to help?”
“Nope. But you should know by now that nothing’s easy. Hell, in a world full of love and friendship, vampires, demons and drunken fathers are the easy part.”
“That’s not very comforting.”
Rory stood up and helped Willow to her feet. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”
“You’re supposed to say something like ‘it wasn’t meant to be comforting, kid.’”
Rory led the way out the door, locking the house behind him. He pocketed the keys and took the stake Willow offered him. “I would say that.”
“But?”
“But…well, it was meant to be comforting.”
“You really suck at this, Uncle Rory.”
He laughed good-naturedly. “I know, kid. That’s why I’m an uncle, not a father.”
*********
Could be right before your very eyes
Just beyond a door that's open wide
Could be far away or in your own backyard
There are those who say, you can look too hard
For your place in the world
--Mary Chapin Carpenter