An Unbreakable Yellow Crayon
By Bailey
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…" the god damned man wouldn't stop talking. Couldn't he tell that they were all in pain, all wanted to be left alone? He kept rambling, and Willow couldn't stand it anymore. She couldn't stand being here, looking down into the hole in which her best friend would be laying in for eternity.
She assumed some time had passed, since the sky around her was growing darker. Buffy appeared at her side, grasping her hand and interlocking fingers. "Wil, we should go home. It's about to rain."
Willow looked at her, bewildered. "Go home? You're telling me to go home?! He's all alone, now! I…I can't leave him," she began to cry, for the first time since his death. "Buffy, I can't leave him. I've never left him. Buffy…he's my best friend. I can't live without him. I just can't do it!"
With that, she fell to her knees and began clawing at the piled dirt. She sobbed, harder and harder. "Willow, stop it," Buffy said, grabbing hold of Willow's hands.
Willow collapsed into Buffy's arms, the tears still pouring. "Oh, Buffy…make it stop!"
Buffy couldn't say anything. Seeing Willow this distraught was agonizing, the feeling was tearing at her heart in a million different directions. Her heart was in constant pain since Xander's death…she shouldn't have called him. She knew it was raining cats and dogs outside, but she still called him.
His car. Oh, that mangled lump of metal that Buffy witnessed being pulled from the accident. She saw the stretcher, with the black body bag on top.
She never cried. It was impossible, her feelings were all mushed up and residing in the back of her head. All she could think of was Xander, how she hadn't seen him in nearly two years. How she had inadvertently killed him. Slayers were supposed to kill evil, not her best friend.
Willow continued to sob in her arms. Before long, it started to rain and Buffy helped Willow stand up. "Let's go, Wil. We'll come back tomorrow, if you want."
Willow nodded in agreement, and the women clasped hands as the walked from the grave. "Do…do you think he's with Anya now?" Willow spoke up, remembering how despondent Xander was after losing her.
"I'm sure he is. Anya wouldn't let him be with anyone else," Buffy replied.
By the time the two had gotten home, Willow ran straight to her room, shutting her door, and stripped the god awful black from her body. She lay down in bed, pulled the covers to her chin, and attempted to fall asleep.
Buffy had stayed in the kitchen, drinking a glass of wine. It was awfully bitter, but she kept sipping on it. Before long, the feeling had overwhelmed her. She fell to the floor, and broke down. The tears burned, the longing became greater, and the need for a kill that night became stronger.
Willow was crying. She didn't know what to do. She needed to color in the rest of the sun, but the tip of her yellow crayon had broken. She couldn't color it in with orange, because the sun wasn't orange, it was yellow.
Too shy for her own good, she didn't ask the teacher for one. She didn't ask the boy to her left, or the girl to her right. Behind her, Cordelia Chase was bragging about how she colored the frog not just regular green, but lime green. What a stupid girl, Willow thought.
Willow continued to stare at the picture in front of her. A smiley faced sun, a tree, and an abnormal looking squirrel. That's all it consisted of, but she couldn't finish. Not without that yellow crayon.
The boy next to her, Xander, had pulled a piece of paper from his desk and was writing with a yellow crayon. He wrapped the paper around the crayon, and put it on Willow's desk. She gave him an odd look, and unwrapped the gift.
Inside was a hardly used yellow crayon, and written on the paper was, "I'm Xander. Wana be best frends?" Willow giggled at his spelling errors.
She looked to him, and smiled.
"I'm Willow."
fin