After all, he didn't have to be at Buffy's house, he wasn't wanted there, and he couldn't help the others. Unlike any of them, he wasn't a Slayer, a witch, a Watcher, a Potential, a Key, a vampire, a former vengeance demon, or an ordinary human that still wanted to fight against the First Evil despite losing an eye. Andrew sniffled again, as he mentally ran down the long list of his shortcomings: scared out of his skin, hopeless in any kind of fight, totally unable to tone down the geek references, and irritating everyone with his presence and his ever-ready video camera. Even his former magical ability to summon and control demons was now completely gone, the result of a permanent mental block caused by learning of Warren's torturous death and the resulting months on the run in Mexico, utterly terrified during every second of this that a crazed Willow Rosenberg would find Andrew and do the exact same thing to him.
Frankly, all of them back there would be much better off without him. For one, there'd be some more room in that crowded house, with people there currently living on top of each other. Andrew sighed, and he hugged himself as if for warmth. The odd part was, he'd actually thought about suggesting that the entire household move somewhere else in the city. Yes, he knew Buffy felt safer in her home, and Willow's protective wards actually made this pretty much accurate, but honestly, it just made more sense to relocate to a bigger and more defensible place with the witch again putting up her wards around that location. It wasn't like they couldn't find somewhere like that in a now-empty Sunnydale if they only went out and looked! Not to mention that maybe they could, um, kind of help themselves to some more varied food supplies from deserted stores and warehouses. He was really tired of living on just mac and cheese.
Andrew sighed again. Those ideas might be good ones, but he'd simply never had a chance to present them to anybody. The diverse emotional currents running throughout the entire house and the resulting dramatics made him too confused on exactly who to confide his suggestions. Plus, there were so many people he didn't even dare to approach. Such as Willow. Even though she now tolerated (barely) his presence, the young man sitting on the sidewalk shivered for several moments, as he again thought about what that red-haired witch had done to Warren, deserved or not.
Faith and Anya scared him almost as much. It had also been incredibly difficult to speak to Buffy in the first place, considering what he'd helped the other pair of their villain group do to her over the years. Too, the Prime Slayer simply awed Andrew, making him really nervous concerning talking to that superheroine about leaving her home. If she'd maybe have been a bit more receptive to his speech earlier tonight, he might have risked slipping in his suggestions about improving their current living situation.
A glum Andrew finished off in his mind the rest of their forces. Mr. Giles and Mr. Wood were the only real adults in the house, with their own responsibilities and burdens that had no time for him. The Potentials clearly regarded him as a total dork, and they'd have just laughed in his face if he'd even dared to come near them. (Well, considering how crowded the house was, 'nearer' them would have expressed it better.) Spike the vampire obviously held Andrew well below contempt; that demon had made it evident long ago that he never bothered to even notice that human, much less listen to him.
That left the only two persons in the house that he might have had a chance to present his cautious proposals to and have those people actually think about them. Unfortunately, Dawn was mostly around the Potentials now, and there was the likelihood she'd share their condescending opinion about him. And finally, Xander was still recovering from the loss of his eye to Caleb, something that made Andrew truly reluctant to bother him. Which was in itself a rare show of good manners from the usually thoughtless geek.
Andrew slowly got up from his seat on the sidewalk, and he wondered what to do now. The fact was, he simply didn't have any money, clothes, or transportation that might allow him to flee the city, which made his recent plan to leave Sunnydale totally pointless. So…in the end, he'd just have to return to Buffy's house, where the young man was morosely sure nobody had even noticed he'd been gone. Giving the Mears house one last glance, Andrew turned and started heading down the sidewalk, until he abruptly stopped in his tracks after a few steps. Frowning, Andrew slowly turned back around and he eyed the dark, empty home again.
Why had he come here in the first place?