She Wasn't Weak

Chloe was an idiot. Chloe was stupid. She was weak. The words swirled around in his head. She was weak.

Willow was downstairs, trying to open a portal. Buffy had vanished God-knows-where, and Spike was off chasing a demon. Xander slowly climbed the stairs. He looked around at what had once been Dawn's bedroom, now overtaken by sleeping bags and knapsacks. He carefully made his way through the mess, gingerly stepping over a loaded crossbow (he would really need to speak to the girls about that), until he found the small duffel bag shoved under Dawn's desk with the tag reading: CHLOE HOPKINS. He pulled it out and hesitated for a moment before slowly opening the bag.

Buffy sat on her bed, rubbing her eyes. The image of the Turok-Han army was still fresh in her mind. She groaned at the knock on her door. "It's not a good time, Xander," she said as Xander pushed the door open.

"She wasn't weak."

Buffy looked up at him, frowning. "Come again?"

"She wasn't weak." Xander tossed something at her. Buffy caught it automatically, and saw that it was a pill bottle. Chloe's name was on the label.

"What is it?" Buffy asked.

"Antidepressants. Strong ones." Xander's voice was calm, but there was a note of anger underneath.

Buffy raised her eyebrows at him. "It's been a rough day, Xander. What exactly are you trying to say?"

"I just got off the phone with Chloe's parents. This wasn't her first suicide attempt." Xander slowly sat down on the chair opposite Buffy. His fists clenched in his lap, and he took several deep breaths before speaking again. "She had a pretty rough time in school, and four years ago, her sister Emily died from leukemia. Chloe downed a bottle of sleeping pills a month after the funeral."

Buffy stared at him, shocked. "I didn't –"

"Her mom said she'd been making real progress lately. Until, of course, she ran away from home. To come here."

Buffy's head sank into her hands. "Why didn't she say something? We could have –"

"Done what? Told her to tough it out? None of us even noticed. She was falling to pieces, and we didn't know." Xander shook his head, and stood up.

"Look, I get why you said what you did. Maybe we have been holding back. So I'm not gonna say anything to the others, but I thought you should know. Chloe wasn't an idiot. She wasn't stupid, and she wasn't weak. She dreamed of being a vet, ever since she was a kid. She liked Winnie the Pooh, and had a stuffed rabbit named Flopsy. She sat by her sister's bed for months, and held her hand when she cried. She kept it together for so long, and –"

Xander broke off, and ran his hand through his hair. "She deserved better than that."

Buffy said nothing, just stared down at her bedspread like it held the answers to the universe.

"When all this is over, you and me, we're gonna go talk to them. There's a lot of families out there whose daughters are Potentials who are never coming home. We are going to make sure they know how brave their daughters were. Starting with Chloe. She wasn't weak."

Buffy didn't respond as Xander left, but after the door closed, the teardrops fell onto the bedspread.