WE AND US
They finally decided to bury Buffy in England. Ten years ago, Sunnydale collapsed into a big crater. As a result, there really was no place left that Buffy would have called 'home'. So England as her final resting place made as much sense as anywhere else.
The funeral party was small - in fact, it consisted of Watchers, Slayers, and Xander. It was a clear, cool day. Fall had not yet turned into winter, but the transition was beginning.
Xander thought that Giles looked old and tired. But then, Xander had always known that Buffy's death would hit Giles hard. In a way, Giles was a failure as a Watcher. After all, he had made the biggest mistake that a Watcher could possibly make - he had let himself care about his Slayer.
The priest droned a familiar message about God, resurrection, and eternal life that Xander was half-ignoring. In fact, if circumstances had required it, Xander could have done a passable job of giving the service himself. Although he was only in his thirties, Xander had attended quite a few funerals.
Xander once again looked around at the people that were standing by Buffy's grave. Except for Giles, he didn't really know anyone there.
Seventeen years earlier, Xander found himself eavesdropping on an insane conversation between the new, cute girl and his school's eccentric librarian. That conversation changed Xander's life forever.
Seventeen years.
Despite himself, Xander once again started making the long tally.
Jesse didn't quite count of course; he never really had a chance to become one of the them. In fact, Jesse hadn't lasted a week after Buffy showed up in Sunnydale. But sometimes Xander allowed himself to fantasize about a world where Jesse had survived to become one of them. In all probability, it only would have gained Jesse a few more years, but after all, wouldn't two or three more years have been something worthwhile?
Jenny Calendar only lasted about a year longer than Jesse. She was killed by Angel. Not Angelus - Angel. Xander would never see it any other way. If everyone else wanted to kid themselves on that score, that was their damned problem.
Kendra. Xander remembered the sight of her on the floor of the library, lying in that sickening pool of bright red blood. He never quite forgave himself for the thought that passed through his mind when he first saw Kendra's body: "Thank God, it's her and not Buffy." Drusilla killed Kendra. And, somehow or other - against all odds - Drusilla was still 'alive'. Xander made a mental note to do something about that.
Mrs. Summers. Joyce. She was the one who had proved to Xander that it really was possible for a human being to die of natural causes.
Cordelia died in LA, working for that bastard Angel. Xander didn't know the details because he had never asked Angel for them.
Tara was shot and killed by Warren. The only thing about Warren's death that bothered Xander was what it had done to Willow.
Anya...
Xander closed his eye and took a long, deep breath. Then he let it out. Anya, of course, died in that last battle in Sunnydale.
Angel and Spike and Wesley and some other people that Xander only knew by name were wiped out in Los Angeles in an insane fight with an entire demon army. The authorities hesitantly blamed the resulting damage on "a small, unseasonable, tornado."
Willow and Kennedy bought it in Rio. A pack of witches were using that city's huge population of homeless children for risk-free human sacrifices. After all, who really notices a missing street kid? The final battle between Willow and the mistress of the coven destroyed a sizable section of the Rio docks. Kennedy lost her life fighting off the demons that the coven summoned to kill Willow.
After Xander was told that Willow was gone, he spent a long, sleepless night staring into a mirror. It seemed incredible to him that another part of his soul was gone and yet he still looked whole.
Faith died in Ohio. She was reconnoitering the edge of the area that was under the sway of the Cleveland Hellmouth when she ran into the biggest Vampire pack on record. Faith killed a lot of vampires, but eventually the rest of them dragged her down. It took the combined strength of every known Slayer to wipe out the rest of the Cleveland pack.
Robin essentially committed suicide. After Faith died, he began obsessively hunting vampires night after night until he finally ran out of luck. It took less than a month.
Andrew was picked off by a vampire in London. He hadn't even been on a mission. He simply spent too much time making geek small-talk with the folks at a local comic book shop. And then he tried to walk home after sunset.
They didn't know about Oz for sure. But until about a year ago, they were hearing tales of an American werewolf in Tibet. The last story said that the werewolf died trying to stop a creature that had been feeding on the inhabitants of a remote village.
The word was that Riley and Sam had died in Iraq. There was something bad that Saddam had kept in a crypt deep below Baghdad. Giles seemed to think that the thing in the crypt was the real reason that Iraq was invaded.
Graham was killed in Central America - something about a Hellhound infestation in Guatemala. Nobody outside of the Pentagon seemed to know the details. A year ago, Xander made a point of stopping by Graham's grave. The soldier was buried in a small town in Michigan, his final resting place right next to that of his mother and father. Reading Graham's tombstone, Xander finally learned the soldier's full name.
Dawn was gone. One day she called Giles on the phone and said, "Goodbye. Tell everyone that I love them." Then Giles heard the sound of the phone being dropped. When Giles got to Dawn's apartment, the phone was lying on the floor and Dawn was nowhere to be found. She had vanished so completely that even magic couldn't find her. Xander and Giles didn't talk about it, but they both suspected that the spell that had transformed the Key into a living, breathing, loving, girl had finally worn out.
Xander shook his head to clear away the memories. Then he glanced towards Giles - who was looking right back at Xander.
Giles understood what Xander was thinking.
It had been seventeen years since that unlikely day a Watcher, a Slayer, and two of the most despised bottom-dwellers in the Sunnydale High School social heirarchy came together. In between then and now, many others had wandered into their circle. And now they were almost all gone.
Giles and Xander were the last of their kind.
Growing up in a family permeated with alcoholism had made Xander pretty cautious about drinking. He particularly avoided hard liquor, but Giles had poured a tumbler of scotch for both of them, and it would have been impolite to refuse.
"To absent friends," said Giles as he held his glass out towards Xander.
It was old-fashioned and maybe a bit stuffy, but the gesture was obviously important to Giles and it felt right to Xander. They tapped the rims of their glasses together and both men drank. The scotch was a fine, expensive blend and it went down in a smooth, warm glow.
Giles sat down in a comfortable looking easy chair. Xander eased into the chair facing him. Once again, Xander noticed how tired Giles seemed. For a long moment, there was a companionable silence. Xander took another sip from his drink and waited patiently. He could tell that there was something Giles wanted to get off his chest.
"Xander, there is something I must tell you. Something that I... I have always hesitated to say," Giles began awkwardly.
Cocking an eyebrow upwards, Xander waited for Giles to go on. There was no reason to push. Giles would get it out in his own good time. And the version of Alexander LaVelle Harris who wouldn't have been able to restrain himself from making a wise-ass comment was not present at the moment.
Giles took a breath and then plunged on, "Back at Sunnydale High School, in the years after we first met, did you ever wonder why I ignored you?"
Slightly surprised at Giles's words, Xander shook his head, "What are you talking about Giles? You didn't ignore me."
"Yes, I did," said the older man softly as he gazed into his drink. "I trained constantly with Buffy, of course. And for good or ill, I helped put Willow on the path to being a witch. But you... Well, I did very little with you. No weapons training. No magical training. Nothing in the way of formal education in the occult. Basically, you picked up almost everything you know the hard way - and with almost no help from me."
Xander carefully put his glass on a nearby table, "What are you trying to say, Giles?"
Giles looked up, "Xander, I had to make judgements. I had to set priorities and keep to them. I ignored you because I didn't think you would last very long."
Xander nodded his head and looked back at Giles, meeting Giles' gaze.
"I figured that out a long time ago, Giles. It's not a problem. Don't worry."
Giles examined Xander's face carefully, "Xander, do you understand what I am saying?"
Picking up his glass again, Xander finished the scotch in one long, burning swallow, "Yeah. You wrote me off. You figured that I'd end up like Jesse."
A puzzled expression crossed Giles face - and then vanished. For the first time, Xander felt a flash of anger. Giles didn't remember Jesse. Years after Jesse's death, Xander still had nightmares about it, and Giles wasn't even sure who Jesse was.
Stop it, Xander told himself after taking a deep breath to calm himself. It wasn't really Giles' fault. How could he be expected to remember Jesse as anything other than just another here-today-and-gone-tomorrow face at Sunnydale High? There'd been so many.
"Will you accept my apology, Xander?" Giles asked quietly.
Xander shrugged, "Giles, there's nothing to apologize about."
Giles nodded. And while something in his eyes seemed unsure at Xander's response, a measure of peace seemed to enter him.
"It is a bit late to be driving back to London. Won't you please stay the night?" the Watcher asked.
Xander nodded and said, "Sure. Thanks, Giles."
The next morning, Xander was immediately informed that Giles was gone. A sudden, massive heart attack had taken the Watcher during the night.
It didn't surprise Xander that Giles hadn't survived Buffy by very long. Xander suspected that Giles had known that his time was coming - that was why he felt the need to have his final talk with Xander.
Xander extended his stay in England so he could attend Giles' funeral. Afterwards, he went back to the United States - specifically to Los Angeles.
Xander dropped the wooden stake and spat onto the alley floor. Some of Drusilla had gotten into his mouth. Her dust tasted like that of any other vampire - bitter and acidic.
That was some old business that was finally finished. Xander hurriedly pulled off his whiskey-soaked jacket and tossed it away. He was surprised at how easily Drusilla had fallen for the "I'm a helpless drunk - please suck me dry" trick. Of course, it had been Xander's experience that even the most intelligent, experienced, and wary of predators had a certain contempt for their prey. It was an exploitable weak spot.
Suddenly overcome by exhaustion, Xander half-sat / half-collapsed onto a nearby step and cradled his head in his hands. It had been a two weeks since Buffy's funeral and Giles' death. In those two weeks, Xander had finally learned the meaning of loneliness. It made for a lot of sleepless nights.
Xander knew that he really should be clearing out of the area. It was always possible that Drusilla had created some child-vampires. Yet he somehow couldn't find the energy to get up.
A stray, warm wind whipped past Xander and scattered Drusilla's ashes further along the trash-strewn pavement. Looking up from where he sat, Xander watched the dust swirl and dance across the filthy concrete. He didn't feel triumphant. Mostly, he just felt tired and empty.
A sudden realization hit Xander: Drusilla had been the last of Darla's vampiric 'family'. With Darla, Angel, and Spike also gone, that particular lineage of bloodsuckers was now extinct. Darla's line had been inextricably and violently linked with Buffy and her allies. Now Darla's 'children' were gone - just as Buffy and all of her friends, family, and allies were gone. All except for Xander.
It took an effort, but Xander finally managed to force himself to his feet.
Stepping out of the alley, Xander paused and looked up for a long moment at the brilliant, towering skyscrapers of Los Angeles. Framed against the night sky, they seemed to burn like immense torches. Deep down inside, Xander was still a guy from a 'one Starbucks town' and the skyline was a breath-taking sight.
The Hyperion hotel - Angel's old base of operations - was just around the corner. The alleyway in which Angel and the others had died was only a block away. For some reason, Drusilla had taken to hanging around Angel's last haunt. Xander didn't know why she had developed that habit, but it had made her startlingly easy to track down.
It didn't occur to Xander that maybe Drusilla had also been feeling lonely.
Xander began slowly walking towards downtown. He was pretty sure that no cab would answer his hail until he put some distance between himself and Drusilla's former hunting grounds. That was another odd fact that Xander had picked up over the years: cab-drivers avoided vampire territory. Somehow, without knowing the precise details, cabbies always seemed to understand that some spots were just too dangerous to pick up customers.
He was five blocks away from the Hyperion when he saw her. She was impatiently standing underneath a corner streetlight and was looking right at Xander, obviously waiting for him.
Xander hesitated for a long time, trying to decide if it was some kind of trick or trap. It was the amused smile on her face that eventually convinced him that he should talk to her. Nobody else had ever had a smile like that.
Crossing the street, Xander warily walked into the streetlight's circle of dirty yellow light.
"Hey, Xander. Good to see you," Cordelia said softly.
Cordelia still took her coffee with cream, but no sugar.
They were sitting in an all-night diner a dozen blocks from where Xander had finished Drusilla. The suspicious part of Xander was keeping track of all the characteristics of this Cordelia that agreed or disagreed with his memories of her.
For example: her perfume was the same and the lipstick she was wearing was her favorite shade. Also, her body language and speech mannerisms were right. On the other hand, she was dressed far simpler than had been normal for Cordelia. In fact, all she was wearing was a knee-length cotton dress and a pair of inexpensive-looking sandals.
Cordelia hadn't aged a bit. She still looked like she was in her early-twenties.
And - dear God - she was still heart-stoppingly beautiful.
The last time Xander had seen Cordelia alive was a few days after their High School graduation. The next time he saw her was four years later - at her funeral.
"Wanna tell me what this is about?" Xander asked Cordelia as he tiredly mixed a spoonful of sugar into his coffee.
Cordelia nodded, "Sure. I'm sort of a ghost. Every now and then I get sent back to this world to help deal with something important. The last time, it was to give Angel a hand."
Xander grimaced at the mention of Angel's name, and then took a sip from his coffee.
Cordelia raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow, "Gee, Xander, nothing to say? That's not like you."
Putting down his coffee cup, Xander shrugged and said, "The weirdness dial in our... in my life got turned up to '10' before I was old enough to vote. So you're some kind of a ghost. What's more, you're a ghost with a mission. That's not as crazy as a lot of other things I've seen, but that doesn't mean I'm completely buying into this - so tell me something that only Cordelia and I would know."
"You don't think I'm me?" asked Cordelia in a definitely amused tone of voice.
"I'm not sure what to think. Humor me. Tell me something from when we were together. Something private."
Cordelia frowned thoughtfully. Then she smiled broadly.
"The last time we were together," she began. "It was in my room, during our last year in High School. My parents were at a party and we had the place to ourselves."
Xander nodded his head in wary agreement.
"You got to my place about seven-thirty and we started watching a movie together," continued Cordellia. "It was some dorky thing with spaceships and explosions, but it didn't matter because like always, we stopped paying attention to the movie and started necking. After a while, we began taking off each others clothes. We were very slow and careful about it. We'd kiss for five or ten minutes, and you would take off something I was wearing. Then we would go back to kissing again for a while, and then I would take something off of you."
"Eventually, you were completely naked and I only had my panties left on. I'd already pretty much decided that we would finally make love that night. But you were taking your time about getting my panties off."
Cordelia paused and looked directly into Xander's single, brooding eye. Then she went on.
"It was then that we heard the garage door open. My parents were home way early. You screamed, jumped off of the bed, and started putting on your clothes, but I told you to just grab them and hide under the bed. Then I got under the covers."
"My Dad came upstairs to say hi. He asked me why I was in bed so early and I told him that I wasn't feeling well. Then he got all 'good fatherly' and you were stuck under my bed for at least an hour while we talked. Even worse, after the first few minutes, I noticed that your underwear had gone flying when you were grabbing your clothes. They were half-hidden underneath my dresser, but if my Dad had looked right at them, he would have immediately realized what they were."
Now there was a half-smile on Xander's face.
"After my Dad left, you crawled out from under my bed, got dressed, and kissed me goodnight. Then you used the window to get out."
Xander looked away, shaking his head.
Then Cordelia looked down into her coffee cup, "The next day, the thing with Willow happened."
The smile vanished from Xander's face.
"Xander, I should have given you a second chance," Cordelia said softly as she brushed some hair away from her eyes. "But I was angry and I was never very good at forgiving people."
Xander shook his head, "Thanks for saying that. But I was wrong to put you in that position in the first place. It wasn't your fault, Cordy. It was mine."
Cordelia shrugged, "Afterwards, I didn't know what to say to you or how to act around you. You kept on trying to find a way to at least talk it over, but I never let you. So after I left Sunnydale, we never spoke again. I got over what had happened between us, but wasn't sure how to talk to you about it. I guess I figured that someday, somewhere, we'd accidentally bump into one another. Then I'd tell you that I didn't hate you. And then we could go back to being friends again - which was something I really wanted. But... But someday just never came. And then I ran out of time."
They were both silent for a while.
"Is that why you came back?" asked Xander hesitantly. "I mean, don't get me wrong, it's great to know you still aren't mad at me, but... uh..."
"But talking about a breakup from our teenage years doesn't seem like something that warrants a visit from beyond the grave?" Cordelia finished for him.
"Yeah," said Xander.
Cordelia nodded, "Yeah, you're right. I was sent down here for something more important than that - a lot more important. But I figure I have the right to settle something personal with you before I went on to the other stuff."
"What 'other stuff'?" Xander asked suspiciously.
"I'm here to stop you from making a mistake."
Xander leaned back in his seat and examined Cordelia carefully, "What mistake?"
There was now a very determined expression on Cordelia's face, "You're thinking about killing yourself, Xander. You're the last one of us left - and you've just destroyed the last of Darla's vampire family. That seems like an ending of sorts. So you're thinking that it's time for everything to end."
Xander examined Cordelia's face for a long moment before he responded, "Cordy, Buffy told me about the afterlife. So I know death isn't anything to be scared of. Hell, I'm lucky that way compared to the average guy."
Cordellia nodded, "Yeah, but that doesn't meant that death is something to go looking for either. It isn't your time yet, Xander. You still have some important things to do."
Xander threw his hands up in disgust, "Oh, no! No! You aren't going into 'Dungeons and Dragons Prophesy-Mode' on me! I'm NOT going to go throw some damn ring into a volcano or something like that! There are dozens of Slayers who can handle that sort of thing!"
Cordelia laughed and her laughter was like the first burst of morning light. And Xander suddenly remembered a time long before High School, when he and Cordelia were still children and he had loved more than anything to make her and Willow laugh...
"Sorry," she said after a while. "I didn't mean to give you the wrong idea. No, you aren't supposed to take a hike to Mordor. The most important thing you're supposed to do is pretty simple: stop hunting monsters and get a life. What you do from now on is your business - although personally I suggest you start by going back to carpentry. But like you said, there are plenty of Slayers around to take care of the vampires and other assorted trash. So hang up your stakes."
Xander shook his head, "Cordy, I can't just..."
"Yes, you can," Cordelia interrupted firmly. "Xander, we didn't leave you with some kind of terrible burden that you have to lug around for the sake of our memories. Instead, we left you alive and we all want you to live out a normal number of days before you join us again."
Xander seem to think that over.
"We? Us?" he asked hesitantly.
Cordelia put down her coffee cup, "Yes. We and us. Trust me, you don't want to show up in afterlife early and have to explain why to Willow. And both Buffy and Faith will kick your ass all over the Milky Way if you do. Oh, and Anya says you're cut-off forever if you kill yourself."
Xander looked at Cordelia in stark disbelief. Then he slowly shook his head in wry amazement.
"Pussy-whipped from beyond the grave," Xander muttered half to himself.
"Sucks to be you," Cordelia said with a shrug as she slid out of the booth and stood up. Her sandals made slapping sounds against her heels as she walked towards the diner's front door. A pair of cops taking a coffee break in a nearby table paused in their conversation to admire the view as Cordelia walked past.
The door swung open and a bell tinkled. In the doorway, Cordelia paused, looked over her shoulder at Xander, and smiled. "If you're really good, Anya and Faith and I have something special planned for you when we see you again. Hope you're up to it, lover-boy."
The door swung shut behind Cordelia. And everyone in the diner was now looking at Xander.
Xander looked around at all the inquisitive eyes.
"Women," he said with a shrug.