CHAP 3: Xander
Xander buries his head. That's what he does when things go wrong. He remembers how she put it, that time, in the song. Hides behind his Buffy.
Not his Buffy. Never his Buffy, not that he really minds that now. Not because of the thing, before that even. He always knew she was out of his league. Over time he realized that she was out of his orbit. Not a judgment call on him, or her. Just truth. She's far away, locked up inside herself. And he's spilling out all over the place. So it's okay, that she was never his Buffy in that way.
If she had ever been, she'd probably be dead now.
Time is a funny thing. Xander can't think of an example of where he had enough time, or the right time. Or even when time flew by when he needed it to. Like now.
He wonders how many times he can grieve before it stops hurting. Before he's immune. And when that happens, he doesn't know if that would be better or worse.
He saw it happen. Of course he did. He missed Anya's blaze of glory. And Cordelia's big goodbye. Makes sense that Renee's would be horrible and brutal and so fast but so agonizingly slow and he would be there to count off the seconds as she died.
Tick. Tick. Tick. She's already impaled, and falling. Eyes closing. He's yelling and running but it's too late. Time won't go back so he can save her.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Fluttering eyelids and he can see there's something behind them still so he takes her in his arms and she hurts so much so he prays that she goes quickly. Time stands still.
Tick. Tick. Tick. She's gone. He can't move. Clinging to her body as everything erupts around him. Time moves on without him.
Xander doesn't know what he did to make time hate him.
Xander pours her ashes away, drunk on sake and delirium and pain like nothing he's felt. Not more, just different.
Anya had been more than hard. Impossible. She had been so giddy with the joy of being alive. Always feeling out of place, always grateful that Xander loved her. And him, too stupid to hold on for dear life to the only thing that had ever made sense. Anya, his crazy lovely brave human girl. He still sometimes expects to see her walk through the door, and it still kills him that she won't, ever again.
Cordy was a creeping hurt. It was easy to just imagine that she was still in L.A., fighting the good fight. He had been proud of his little part in that, proud of her. And it stung knowing she'd never know that. In the moments where he remembered that she died long before her body gave out, that he wasn't there to say goodbye. That he never told her that she had mattered to him; that he had treated her badly and maybe it didn't really matter anymore and anyway they were just kids but still. He had cared. She deserved to know that.
This moment, scattering Renee's ashes, feels like tipping away a chance at happiness. A kiss. One single kiss is all he has to remember her by. Other days, the awkward dancing around and feeling out for reciprocation, doesn't count. It all really started with that kiss. And ended. He shouldn't have, not before a battle. He knows better than to hope, and because he was stupid again he robbed her of everything. Of her life, of her promise, even of a meaningful death. Because of him, she got stabbed in the back before she could even draw her weapon.
And it didn't save the world.
Buffy comes to him. He's not ready to talk, but he lets her in. She understands about this stuff. It's different for her, the badness, but same enough. Love and possibilities and death and turning evil and betrayal and hope and all the stuff that seems to always happen to them. It's the same. Even if it's not.
She sits beside him. She looks different. She shouldn't but she does. Smaller, Xander thinks. She's always been bigger than life to him. She was his purpose and without that he doesn't know anything anymore. He doesn't know where he belongs, or what he should be doing.
Buffy falls against his chest, wrapping her arms around him. Calls him her Xander and it cuts through him and he can't stop the tears.
They cry together, and neither one feels better.
Xander was always afraid of the monster under his bed. It was mean and ugly and grabbed at his legs and tried to pull him under. He decided to outsmart it, so he jumped in and out of bed, as far out as he could. He always landed hard. Not a graceful boy.
His dad would come in because of the thump that made the china cabinet shudder, and Xander would try to explain. But his dad would just tell him to stop being such a baby. Maybe cuff his ear if he was in that kind of mood.
And he was mostly always in that kind of mood.
So Xander tried a different way. He pulled over the desk chair, and used that as a bridge to his bed. It worked for a while, but the chair was old and cheap and one morning it broke and he thumped on the floor and the china cabinet shuddered and his dad came in and screamed and threw him across the room and into the dresser.
His dad went out and Xander snuck into the garage and tried to fix the chair. He hammered and glued and sanded and it looked alright except for the bent nails that wouldn't come out so he just hammered them deeper into the wood.
When his dad came home with red eyes and smelling sweet and sickly, Xander was waiting to show him that he'd fixed the chair and his dad laughed at him and smashed it on the floor and told him he couldn't do anything right. Made him hold his palms out as he took off his belt. He never said Xander could use his tools.
That night, Xander lay on the floor beside his bed and waited for the monster to take him.
Willow. Xander's been thinking about her. About where she's been and what she's done and maybe what she's turning into. And he's been remembering a million little Willow moments that made him love her in all her Willow-ness. Her kindness and her generosity and her little shy smile. How she always let him hang out and didn't ask why he was never home. He never told her the truth about that. Never told anyone. Secretly afraid if he did, they would know he deserved it. That he was worthless and stupid, like they said.
Willow never acted like she noticed. She listened when he talked. She cared when he was hurt. She told him off when he was thoughtless, because she believed he could learn and change and be better. She even thought he was cute, way before he noticed her and way longer than he deserved. He never got why she thought he was so special. But he was always grateful for it. Grateful for her.
Willow says she's on her way back. That the deed is done. Xander's not sure what that means, but it sounds like more death, more loss. He's not having it. He's can't lose anything or anyone else. Not Dawn, not Buffy.
And especially not Willow.
