TITLE: Yellow Crayon
AUTHOR: Pilla Jeffrey
EMAIL:
CATEGORY: Missing Scene/Epilogue
PAIRING: Willow/Xander
SPOILERS: Two To Go; Grave
SEASON / SEQUEL: 6/7
RATING: PG-13
CONTENT WARNINGS: language, violence
SUMMARY: Faced with welcoming Willow back from England, Xander remembers how their friendship started.
STATUS:Complete
ARCHIVE: anywhere else, ask.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All original characters and ideas are mine, though, so don't archive without my permission!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I wrote this several years ago, but never uploaded it because I was busy working on other things. But I always found it sorta sweet and cute, and I couldn't part with it without giving it a chance to get someone else to read it other than me.

Yellow Crayon

He looked at the poster board in front of him. The glare off the white surface was blinding, the blank, unblemished surface slick with a yearning to be more. To be made into a poster to announce a school bake sale or a sign to draw attention to a church blood drive….or to make a brilliant "Welcome Back Willow" banner.

Dawn claimed that Mr. Higgins had given her too much homework (she'd reached the Geometry stages of her existence involving detailed proofs proving the congruency of two triangles) and Buffy had the typical Slayer duties to do. Anya didn't really like Willow that much to begin with, and Spike was….what was the word…..oh yeah, INSANE. That left one completely talentless Alexander Harris to make this nothing into a bright, welcoming design.

He eyed the box of art supplies Buffy had set out for him. He reached in for a pink marker to draw a flower in the upper right hand corner, his hand brushing against a used 64-colors box of Crayola crayons. A quirky smile crossed his face as he opened the abnormally large crayon box. He let his finger hover over every color until he found the one he was looking for. He lifted it up.

Buffy had obviously used it a lot as a kid. It was worn and cracked awkwardly in half. His smile broadened. He tuned it to the side, letting the name, Sunshine Yellow, appear cheerily on the torn wrapper. Rubbing the crayon, almost as if for luck, he started drawing on the poster board.

"Alex, hurry up and get into the car. You're making me late for work." Alex heard his father shout angrily. His daddy was always shouting at him and at Mommy. Alex just figured it was normal. It didn't make him feel any better, but it was normal.

He colored harder and quicker. This pretty picture would make Daddy feel better.

Alex grabbed his blue crayon and put the finishing touches on the picture. Running down the stairs, he bounded toward his dad. "Daddy, Daddy, look what I made for you." He held up the self portrait of himself and his father fishing. It was something his father always made references to, but for some reason they never went.

The volatile man peered down and examined the picture briefly. "It's beautiful, Alex, but we're late. Grab your backpack and meet me in the car." The door shut loudly.

Alexander blinked back the onslaught of tears as he put on his Sesame Street backpack. He held the picture for a minute, then opened the basement door and threw it down into the darkness. The five-year-old then ran out the door, letting his raggedly long hair cover his tears.

"Hey, Xand!" Alex looked at Jesse, his best friend since preschool who was carrying a Big Bird lunch box snugly in one hand. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Nothin'." He looked around for more people he knew. Someone bumped into him, sending him into the mud. He got up, dripping, and glaring at the brunette who had pushed him in. "Cordelia." His eyes narrowed.

The girl threw her long brown hair over her shoulder, a devilish smile crossing her lips. "You should've watched where you were going." With that, she walked into the school building, her best friend Harmony sticking her tongue out at Alex and then following Queen Cordelia.

Alex wrinkled his nose and pouted. "Why did she have to throw me in the mud?"

"She's Cordelia." Jesse shrugged with a slightly dreamy expression, as if that were reason enough. Xander rolled his eyes. How Jessie had ever fallen for Cordy was beyond him. "Come on, we're going to be late for art and I wanna finish my picture."

Alex nodded, looking at his muddy shirt again. His mom and dad were going to be so angry at him. He could hear their raised voices, their angry faces, their drunken fists. The best thing to do would be to clean up. He began walking fast so he could get to the bathroom and wash it off before the teacher got angry at him. Suddenly, he heard crying. Looking around, he saw that it was coming from the girls' bathroom. Ew, he thought, cringing. Cooties. But Alex had always been one to reach out to those who cried; he did it a lot himself. He followed the sniffles until he saw a girl, crumpled on the floor, her long red hair covering her face. Even with the hair covering her face, though, he could tell who it was. " Willow. What're you doing? Miss Kelly is gonna be mad at you for missing class."

Willow sniffed again, lifting her head to see Alex. "She's going to be mad at me anyway," Willow whispered, tears splashing on the tile floor.

"Why?" Alex sat down next to Willow, looking at her, meeting her crying eyes.

"I-I—" Willow couldn't stop crying as she pulled out a small object, smaller than her fist. As she opened her hand, she moaned softly, "I broke the crayon. I just wanted to make a pretty picture for my mommy's birthday with a sun and I picked up the crayon and tried to make it really, really yellow, and then it broke and Miss Kelly is going to be so angry at me." Her voice had finally reached a level of panic. "What if she makes me leave school? Then Mommy and Daddy will be so disappointed! T-they won't love me and they'll send me to live with that scary frog in the zoo and—" Willow broke down, wailing.

Alex had known Willow since preschool. He'd hung out with her on occasion, but she was his total opposite. She was really, really smart and always used words he didn't know. Like disappointed. What kind of word was that?

He took the crayon from her hand, examining it. He couldn't read the name on the peeling paper, but knew from experience that it was Sunshine Yellow. It was cracked in half, the paper wrapping barely holding it together. He'd used the same color for his family portrait to color his shirt. He looked at Willow. "It's okay. Miss Kelly wouldn't be mean. She likes you."

"How do you know?" Willow said, he crying temporarily stopped.

"You know big words. I can't even read." Xander smiled, feeling a little inferior.

Willow sniffed, but smiled. "Thank you, Alexander."

Alex's nose winkled in distaste. "Don't call me Alexander. I really don't like my name."

"Oh, okay." Willow said, thinking. "I'll call you Xander then, for short."

"You could just call me Alex like everybody else," Alex said, wondering where she'd get such a weird nickname.

"But you're not an Alex. Alex is like Alex Nelson," she said, referring to the bully in the third grade. "No, you are Xander Harris."

He looked at her, those brown eyes of hers sparkling, not with tears but with joy. He'd never considered Xander as a nickname before, but suddenly it was growing on him. He smiled. "Okay, Willow, but only if I can call you a nickname."

She gave him an odd look, but nodded. "Okay."

He thought. And thought. "Well, um…Maybe I could call you….I don't know, Will—"

"Okay."

"Okay? I didn't come up with one yet."

"You did, though," the redhead insisted. "Will. I like it. No one has ever offered to give me a nickname before, or even hung out with me out of his own free will," she gushed, grinning. Before Alex—now Xander—realized it, Willow had thrown her arms around him in a humongous hug.

Xander instinctually wanted to push her away (how would Jesse ever take him seriously if he knew that Xander had girl cooties?), but the way she affectionately clung to him made him resist his instincts. He was completely comfortable with this girl. Will wasn't superior like Queen C or groupie material like Harmony but was just Will. Your average, Sunnydale raised girl. He smiled. "Come on, Miss Kelly is probably worried about us."

"Yes, I guess so," she said, standing up. As they were leaving, she turned to him. "Xander?"

"Yeah, Will?"

"Will you always be here for me when I'm sad like today and just hang out with me?"

Xander looked at her and her smiling eyes. Yeah, he was friends with Jessie, but this was different. Jessie could be annoying at times, especially with his crush on Cordelia. Willow Rosenberg shined with something he couldn't put his finger on, something that just told him that they'd be best friends forever. "Always, Will. Always."

So many years, so many memories, and yet still best friends. Glancing at the poster, he was ready. This time the picture would be appreciated. It would radiate with friendship. Content with himself, Xander looked once more at the crayon and began.

Finis

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