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Banner by Alissa.


Author's Chapter Notes:
Whoa-look a chapter of Promised. I know, I'm almost as shocked as you. *shakes head* This one got really hard for me for a long time, but it's flowing out again and will be coming to an end soon. Which should clear up some time for me to work on other WIPs and a few new ideas that are dancing around in my head. I kind of wish they'd stop the dancing as I have a major headache. ;) Anyway-thanks for reading and please let me know what you are thinking.
Sunnydale, California 1998

Buffy bounced up the ladder and out of the pool. Without bothering to grab a towel, she ran across the yard and plopped herself down on the chaise beside William.
The boy had to act quickly to save his papers from her dripping hair, but it didn’t occur to him to mind. As always, Buffy made him smile. He gifted her with a particularly big one while he waited for her to start talking. She almost always started their conversations.

“Is that homework?” Buffy gave the thick volume in his hand a pointed glance and sighed heavily. She knew he had a lot more work to do than she did and she knew that it was selfish to expect him to play with her the whole weekend, but she couldn’t help wishing that he could.

“My book?”

She nodded and scowled at the offensive item.

William shrugged. “It is and it isn’t. That is, I will be doing a report on it, but I was allowed to choose it for myself so it doesn’t really feel like work.” He smiled. “It is a very exciting story. I think that you would like it too.”

Buffy’s expression was dubious at best. “What’s it called?”

“The Three Musketeers.”

She rolled her eyes and glared with the kind of certainty that only a ten year old can have. “That’s a candy bar.” Her foot tapped with excessive energy.

He chuckled and ducked his head, his light brown curls brushing across his eyes as he did. His cheeks were flushed as he held up the book to her. “It was a book first. See?”

Buffy read the book’s title with a slight pout. “What’s it about?”

William’s expression grew serious as he considered the question. “It’s…it is about a lot of things, but mainly I think that it is about being a good friend. There are men in this book who the very best sort of friends. They know that they can count on each other to support the rest no matter what happens.”

Nodding, Buffy gave him a grin. “Like us.”

He beamed back at her. “Yes, and they have sword fights.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Swords are way cool.”

“I think you would be very good in a sword fight.”

She smiled in agreement and swung her still wet arm over his shoulder. “Yeah, we could totally kick baddie butt!”

He shivered as the cold water dripped down his back and blushed as her scent filled his nose. It had been three weeks since she’d demanded that he kiss her. She hadn’t said anything about it since, but William found himself thinking about it with alarming frequency. “Hmmm…Which bad guys should we start with?”

“Anyone who tries to get in our way.” She declared with a dramatic waving of her arm.

“Get in our way while we do what exactly?” He asked with an amused smirk. He assumed she would say something about world domination; he liked the answer she gave even better.

“Be best friends forever.”

Oxford, England July 2008

“So she got scared and ran, so what? You’re not gonna just let her go, are you?” Liam looked almost disgusted at the thought. “I thought you said you loved her.”

William’s temper flared. “Of course I love her, she’s all I bloody think about, but she made her feelings quite clear. She didn’t even want to stay in the same country as me, had to go and switch her flight just to escape.”

Liam shook his head. “She got scared.” He repeated with a shrug. “You’re the one acting like it’s over.”

The blonde’s look was incredulous. “What the bleedin’ hell do you think I was supposed to do? Race to the airport and wrestle her into my car? And then what? Chain her up until she decides to give me a chance?” The thought had occurred to him, though he was far too ashamed to admit it.

Liam chuckled. “Probably not the likeliest plan.”

“Then what?” William slumped desolately into a chair in Liam’s office. It was, he felt certain, hopeless. “I don’t think she’s even talking to me.”

Liam shook his head. “Give her a couple of days to calm down and when you do call on her again try to avoid telling her the names you’ve picked out for the many daughters you no doubt hope she’ll bear you.”

William glared for a moment but was simply too miserable to hold the expression. “Just can’t believe she left like that.” He sighed.

“Maybe it’s time for you to go home.” Liam gave the younger man a thoughtful glance.

A single dark eyebrow arched on William’s face. “It’s eleven in morning. I think it’s generally preferred if we put in more than a two hour work day.”

Liam grinned. “What I mean is: what the hell are you still doing in Britain when your girl is in the states? Go home, mate.”

Sunnydale, California, December 2008

Buffy giggled as she raced Willow to the nearest computer. It was 12:01. The grades for her first semester were posted and she felt certain that she’d burst if she had to wait another moment before seeing them. It wasn’t that she was worried. She knew that she had done well, she’d put in the work and had gotten excellent marks all term; she just needed to see the final numbers.

Ignoring Willow’s pout, she scrambled into the chair as she logged in at record speed. She bit her lip and whimpered as she waited for the page to load. She was sure that the world was conspiring to drive her mad. Certainly, it had never taken this long before. She gasped when the page finally appeared and stared at the screen in a stunned silence.

“Buffy!” Willow hugged her excitedly. “3.8!”

It was true; she had gotten an A in almost every course. Only the dreaded Chemistry Lab had broken her streak. Since she had started the term certain that she’d fail that one she couldn’t bring herself to feel bad about the B.
She returned Willow’s hug and graciously offered over the chair. Her good mood held strong through the discovery that Willow had indeed pulled off a perfect 4.0 semester. “This,” she announced, “calls for some celebrating. Do you want to come out with me and my mom tonight? I’m thinking that we’ve earned some alfredo and maybe some tiramisu from Luigi’s.”

Willow shook her head and blushed. “I kind of—I have a date.”

Buffy’s eye widened and she grinned. “Willow! How did you not tell me? Who is it? Oh!” Her eyes twinkled knowingly. “The bass player. Right? The one you’ve been mooning over. I told you he was interested. It’s him right?”

The redhead nodded gamely. “Oz. I sort of ran in to him. Well, I actually literally ran into him in the café yesterday.” She grimaced. “But he was really nice about it and—”

“And he asked you out! Willow, that’s great!”

Willow laughed at her friend’s exuberance. Buffy always seemed far more interested in Willow’s romantic life than she did in her own. Willow tried to remember the name of the last guy Buffy had gone on a date with. She’d only gone out with a couple of guys all term and never a second time. Afterwards, when Willow asked her about them she would simply shrug and tell her that there just wasn’t any spark. Buffy seemed completely unconcerned with the situation, but Willow suspected that there was more at play there than a couple of lukewarm kisses. She wished that Buffy would talk with her about it, but the blonde had been pretty quiet about such things since she had returned from England the previous summer. In many ways Willow thought, she had come back a different girl. She was still playful in a lot of ways, but always now there was an underlying cautiousness in her actions. Willow supposed that Buffy’s new found focus on school and her increased ability to consider the big picture were really good things, she just wanted to know what had brought them about.
Willow knew that something had happened between Buffy and William. She knew that whatever had happened had been big, but she still didn’t know what that something was. It wasn’t that she hadn’t asked; Willow had broken her own rule and flat out asked Buffy about her visit. Buffy wasn’t sharing. Willow knew that Buffy hadn’t spoken with William since she’d left England, but she also knew that Buffy had nothing bad to say about him and that she still had his picture up in their dorm room. Since it seemed so clear to her that Buffy stilled cared deeply about him, Willow supposed that William must have drifted away from Buffy. Her gut told her that was wrong too. Every memory she had of the man in question reinforced her belief that he had always and would always adore Buffy.

Buffy was sure that she should be walking on clouds. She’d never gotten such good marks in high school, though her teachers had frequently pointed out that she could if she’d have “buckled down”. A part of her wanted to dance for joy, but she wouldn’t, just as she was once again unable to follow her first instinct and call Will. She’d lost her best friend. It was her nightmare, the very one that had made dating him seem so impossible. She hadn’t needed the semester of college to see the horrid irony that she’d lost him because she had been afraid that she would lose him. But it hadn’t been just that, she reminded herself. She really hadn’t wanted to hurt him anymore and she’d been so worried that she would. It was better this way; she reassured herself, it was better for him. She imagined that he’d moved on with his life in Oxford by now and wondered if he had a new girlfriend. Buffy supposed she could ask his mother, she still saw her almost weekly, but decided that not knowing was easier for her.

She still wanted to call him. She imagined how happy he would sound when she told him about her grades and how he would tease that she could have been doing that well all along. She quickly found herself losing interest in going out that evening. It wasn’t a unusual occurrence. Her suddenly undependable appetite had caused her to lose several pounds since school started. Buffy blamed the cafeteria food, but suspected that her mother wasn’t buying it.

They were walking out of the campus library a couple of moments later when she saw him. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She was almost certain he was a mirage. Only his hair was darker and she couldn’t figure out why her subconscious would do that. She froze and gasped. “Will?”

The man in question looked up at her in clear surprise. He hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. He wasn’t ready. His heart raced, but William quickly adopted an unreadable expression and gave her a single solemn nod. “Hello, Buffy.”


Chapter End Notes:
Review please. :)

Also- thanks to the lovely person(s) who nominated this fic over at the Spark and Burn Awards



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