Summery: Xander goes to one more funeral.
Author: had attended far too many funerals over the past ten years. Jesse, Jenny Calendar, Kendra, Larry, Joyce Summers, Buffy, Tara, Anya, Cordelia, Wesley and now another. What had he done to deserve a world where the people he loved kept losing their lives? Would he soon be so lucky as them to be ripped from the mortal coil, Or would he be doomed to remain on the sidelines, watching the people he loved dissapear one by one?
He hadn't thought much of death before Buffy came. It was always something far off, like college, or marriage. Not something that had any sort of effect on his small little world. Then she showed up. She showed up, and not two days later his best friend was dead. Jesse's death had turned his life upside down.
Now, starring at the sleak black coffin without seeing it, he placed a single white rose on the grave of his other best friend. Willow. His Willow. The one who'd stuck by him since the begining, even When he'd dated Cordelia, when he'd forgone college, even when he'd abandoned the woman he loved at the alter. She'd always been there, by his side.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Jesse, Anya, Cordelia...the people he loved. They were supposed to be here. iShe/i was supposed to be here. Where was his family going? What did he have left?
A small smooth hand slipped into his and he squeezed it unconiously, a tether to his drifting thoughts.
"What are we gonna do?" He whispered, the all too familiar tears stinging his eyes like acid.
"Live. Remember. Love." Buffy replied softly. lying her rose down next to his, her eyes as empty as he felt. "It's what she would have wanted."
And as they walked away later that afternoon, hand in hand, he couldn't force himself to look back. To see the marble headstone gleaming in the sunlight that seemed to be too bright, too happy for such a terrible day. He couldn't force himself to say good bye.