Set in Cleveland about six months after the events of Chosen. A scene from a coming "Eyeless" sequel.
"Hey." Buffy stood in the door, waiting. "Movie starts at 8:15. Better get moving on."
Xander held the door open. "Hey, tan girl. I just need to change my shirt and grab a coat." He looked again at her tan. "Looks like you've been tracking the rare diurnal vampire. You have been on the job, right? You haven't just been using WC money to keep you on permanent vacation?"
Buffy walks in. "I cannot tell a lie." She fails to suppress a smirk. "Next question, please."
"Still dodges like a pro. How long are you in town?"
"Tomorrow, Dawn and I travel to snow-covered lands -- well, mountainous snow-covered lands -- for a week of hurtling down slopes on wood planks by day and shameless flirtation by the fire by night."
"You'll have to explain it to me sometime."
"The shameless flirtation? Easy. You find someone you want talk to, and you...."
"More the other, Buff. Recreation that occurs when water is in a solid state seems against the laws of God and man."
"There are rules. Man rules. Not so much the God ones, I think. In skating, for example, the judging is highly subjective. The joke is always the Russian judges, but I think, if you go back to the tapes of the 2002 Olympics. you'll find the French judge ...."
"Thank you, Miss Harding."
"Sorry." She looked around the place as Xander walked back to his bedroom. She felt the need to check her hair and lipstick. "Can I use your bathroom?"
The answer came through the door. "Have at it."
She walked in, looked around, and stopped, startled. No mirror. That's of the oddness. "What happened to your mirror?"
"I put it away. Top drawer, to the right of the stove. Be sure to put it back when you're done."
That's odd. The old Xander was color-blind and fashion-avoidant, but still he was pretty vain. A no-mirror apartment? When they're so of the good for undead detection?
She walked out to the kitchen and started opening cupboards, looking for the mirror. She found it in a drawer with a bottle of saline, three small bottles of artificial tears and some pieces of hardware she didn't recognize. His eye stuff. She closed the drawer, trying to not have a wiggins. The rear-view in the rental should be fine.
"Y'know, you could come along. I'll explain the rules, and maybe you can try. Ice is for more than cooling drinks and demolishing the Titanic."
"I hear it's good for making cars into sleds on the highways."
"How about snowmen and snowball fights and snow ang -- um, did I mention the snowball fights?"
"I'm scheduled to work. Sorry." He stepped out of the bedroom. "I'd love to, though."
"So, how you liking life on the other Hellmouth?"
"Not my favorite place to live." He reached for his pea coat, hanging from a hook on the wall. "Why?"
"Well, Dawn's applying at Northwestern next year, and I'm guessing that after a year of being the Road Slayer, I could back off, be the SWAT Slayer, getting called in to help when needed and going back to school when, y'know, I'm not needed for an apocalypse."
She turns toward him. "I'll pick up Dawn and we'll do the 'howdy, Slayer' thing on Spring Break and over summer, then we'll move to Evanston in August. I stopped by in June. We can get an apartment and you could make .furnature and open a shop. We'd be glad to come by and watch the till between classes, and ...."
"Hold on. Wait up here. Let me catch up. You guys are planning on living in Chicago."
"Evanston ."
"That's what? Six hours away?"
"Seven. Eight if the Bulls are playing."
"What's up with that? Don't you love us anymore?" Xander brought up his most innocent smile.
"No!" Buffy looked at him with a deer-in-headlights look. "No. It's not that. It's never that. You have to believe me."
"I get it. You'll always be worried about the job here, right?"
"I'm eight years into this, and it's cost so much. I'm tired, Xander. I want to sleep at night and wake up rested in the morning. I want out. If I'm needed back in, cool. If a Chosen girl needs a hand or a word of encouragement, give me a map and I'll go. But I don't want to carry the hellmouth beeper anymore. I shouldn't have to."
"I can't think of anyone I'd trust more with it, but yeah, you deserve a break. You know I do."
"Yeah." She looked at his face. "I'm not the only one."
"Maybe, Buffy." He started pacing, ran his hand through his hair. "But, if something happened, if one of 'em went down or went south without me being there and I wasn't there ...." He ended his thought with sweeping arm movements. He couldn't form the words.
"Thank you." Buffy reached for his arm, squeezing it gently. "You have that cool 'Lean Here' thing, and I know I've loved taking advantage whenever I was down." She looked down sheepishly. "Not that ... advantage ... was ever taken."
"Perish the thought."
"No. Don't." Her green eyes went right back to his. Her other hand went up, grabbing his hand. "Stop ... with the ... perishing."
"Buffy." His heart lept to his throat. "Um. Um. Well, ah, I ... Buffy." He stared at the wall, focusing on the wallpaper. Patterns are comforting because they are understandable and predictable.
"You do remember how to breathe, right? Xander?"
"Wait." He shook his arms out of her hands. "Just ... just wait, ok."
He stepped back and clapped, swinging his arms to get started and keep focus. "Remember when I started supervising drywall, back in Sunnydale? First time I walked in, there were a room full of eyes, looking at me. Waiting on me. Listening to me. You've known the feeling before, but it hit me for the first time. I, Xander Harris, was the most important person in the room. It was ... wow.
"Now, with Anya, it wasn't that things changed as much as I started recognizing what was there. That, in her eyes, I could tell she thought of me the same way. Now, I knew she was wrong, that when she was there, she was the one, not me, but to know that she thought that ... Buff, I don't have words for it.
"With you, I know where things lie. Fate of the world? The top. Dawn? Above that. That's fine. That's part of why I love you, and why, if you tell me you need help, I'll come running. But I know, whenever we're in the room, there are others."
"Xander, what are you trying to say?"
"Let's play pretend, just for a second. Pretend that we get together, we move in together, the whole deal, and you get a call, and someone says they've dug a hole and found Spike. Is there a way you won't be on the first plane, train or unicycle to that hole? Or if a telegram comes, saying Angel has had his soul sewed in or becomes a sunbather or any number of things. Is there any force on this earth that would keep you from him? I wouldn't want a world without that Buffy. I'd rather have a world without shrimp. No matter what I think of, or thought of, either of them. But I think watching you run out and hoping that you'll walk back, well I don't know if I can take that."
Tears welled up in Buffy's eyes. "So, I should be looking for a two-bedroom place?"
"No. Three-bedroom, so you have a den that can double as a spare bedroom whenever Willow or I show up. Giles, even."
"So, you're decided?"
"Yeah." He smirked. "I could bend you over the table right quick before we head out, though."
"Nah. I wanna see the previews."
"We're into holiday movie and Oscar-bait season for previews, so there's nothing worth paying attention to, but as you wish." He opened the front door. "After you, milady, and on to yon chariot. It *does* have side air bags, does it not?"
"And leather seats, too. And a pretty good -- that's my 'hey!', right?"
"Oh Buffy, my Buffy." He locked the door behind him.