Chapter 16: A Little Time

It was nearing sunset. Buffy looked at the note in her hand then back up at the building in front of her. Squaring her shoulders, she entered and walked up the stairs. Wandering the halls, she finally found the door she'd been searching for.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and knocked.

Anya opened the door. "We were about to leave for the school, for your plan - which everyone thinks is doomed."

"I just wanted to talked to Xander . . . before everything."

Anya held the door open wider. "Xander, the kinky slayer is here."

Buffy blushed but waited quietly for Xander to appear. The apartment was large so she didn't know which door to look for him in. He came out of the one on the left with a duffle. "We were just about to head over and help set up."

She shrugged. "There's not a lot to set up."Buffy smiled tentatively. "We have a little time."

He frowned. "Okay . . ."

"Can we talk?"

Warily he replied, "Sure."

The three of them sat down awkwardly.

After a moment of silence, Anya was the first to speak. "If you don't have anything to say, you could have not said things somewhere else - somewhere not here."

Buffy smiled nervously. "True." She looked at Xander. "But I really don't have something to say. I thought you might."

Xander's expression was definitely unsmiling. "Nope."

She looked at her hands. "Okay then; I'll say it for you." She took another deep breath. "You wish I would have leaned on you guys for support back then instead of leaving. At the very least, I should have made contact at some point before now to let you know I wasn't dead."

She watched him nod as she continued, "Running away was immature, selfish, and total idiocy. It hurt my mom, my watcher, my friends - not to mention the people who were hurt or killed because I wasn't here to fight for them. Boy troubles isn't a good enough reason for ditching town - especially when that boy is a demon. And it really isn't a good reason to stay away."

Offended by the demon comment, Anya scowled. "Hey!"

Buffy ignored her and kept her eyes locked on Xander.

"My leaving hurt you. Staying gone made you angry. And me being back right now? You've no clue how to feel about that." Her voice lowered and softened, "What you do know is if you keep your distance and pretend it doesn't matter then there's a chance it won't hurt like hell when I leave again."

Xander wore a distinctly blank expression.

Buffy sighed. "That's what I came here to hear even if you're not ready to talk."

Anya patted Xander's knee. "I think you did a good job talking for him." She smiled. "That sounded very like what he would say."

Buffy smiled faintly. "It's been a long time, but I know my friend."

When he spoke, Xander's voice sounded flat, "We're not friends . . . not anymore."

She looked at her hands again. "I understand." She slowly stood up and walked to the door. Holding the doorknob, she heard him speak.

"Your plan is stupid, but we'll help."

She squeezed the handle before opening it. "Thank you." She walked out and he let her. Apparently, those were all the words they could bear to each other.

Walking down the hallway, Buffy felt like peace itself rained down on her. Sprinklings of contentment, acceptance, and joy touched her heart. She remembered this feeling. She'd felt it after leaving her ring in the mansion. It had been a few years, but closure still felt the same. Searing at first, the pain eventually dulled to an ache she could live with.

Leaning against the door frame, Buffy looked at the mansion's garden. Bathed in the light of sunset, even dead plans looked beautiful.

Angel stood back - careful of the sun rays streaming in. "Anne?"

"The last moments anywhere feel slower . . . or bigger."

He wished he could hold her, but sunlight enforced the isolation she'd established. He stayed in the shadows with her just out of reach. "How did the visits go?"

Her face remained expressionless. "As expected." She turned her face towards him. "Willow and Xander deserved a chance to express their pain at its source before it's too late." She turned back to the garden. "But they have more stored than can be released in one day."

Angel would have wished her a different kind of reunion . . . with more focus on present joys than past hurts. Her youthful friends were not yet capable of that.

He reached out to hold her hand. The sound of burning flesh accompanying his touch startled her. "Angel," she gasped, "You're hurting yourself."

"I don't care."

She stepped back out of the light and immediately he approached her. Finally, he could see directly into her eyes. She captured so much of his focus, he was glad to capture this much of hers.

He caressed her face like she often caressed his.

Nuzzling into his touch, she sighed, "Liam."

"You have me." He took her in his arms so her back leaned against his chest and they both faced the withered flowers. "Let me carry some of the pain."

She leaned her whole weight against him -letting him hold her up. "Okay."

He loved the easy way she said it - like the concession didn't take much thought. She'd come to trust him long ago, so giving in wasn't hard. In fact, it was the easiest thing she'd done in a while.

Together they watched the garden of death move through the colors of sunset before finally fading into night.

She glanced around the hallway lined with lockers. "It looks different."

"It is different, Will." Xander placed the satchel filled with herbs behind one of the lockers. "We didn't level the place, but we did take the rebuild as an opportunity to change some things."

"You think it's weird for Giles to be in a library over a hellmouth again?"

Xander sighed. "Everything about this is weird for everyone here." He grabbed another satchel from the duffel and counted his steps a certain distance before placing it down. "Giles is setting up a spell in the library. Buffy's somewhere beneath us, and you and I are wandering the halls of our old high school."

Willow stayed quiet a few minutes.

Together they placed a few more protection satchels.

"I saw her today. . ."

Xander stated quiet.

"She didn't seem sorry." Willow murmured, "It's like it was easy for her to move on."

"She hasn't been pining for us that's for sure."

They walked back towards the library.

"She said her only regret was including us in her slay-stuff to begin with."

He shook his head. "In her warped thinking, shutting us out was like her gift to us."

Pouting, she grumbled, "Didn't feel like a gift."

Xander looked at her and got a momentary flashback -Willow in the hospital, with a swollen head, and eyelids too heavy to lift. He put an arm around her. "A lot of bad went down back then . . . this was the only way she could think of to make up for it."

When she looked up at him, Xander saw her healthy and innocence. England had been good to her. Resigning himself to speaking the truth, he sighed. "I don't agree with what she did, but I don't doubt she cared about us."

Putting her arm around him too, Willow gave him a side-hug. "I've missed you."

"I've been here the whole time. I'm the only one who hasn't left."

She lay her head on his shoulder. "Why'd you stay in Sunnydale?"

Xander shrugged. "I don't know."

"Yeah, you do." She poked his side.

"Guess there wasn't a reason for me to leave."

" . . . But there was a reason to stay?"

Xander frowned at the ground. "Somewhere deep down maybe I was hopin' if I hung around long enough, things might go back to the way they were . . . Buffy would come home and so you and Giles being the watchers would have to come back, and we'd pick up where we left off - taking on evil as a team." He shook his head at himself. "What a stupid-head, huh?"

She looked up at him and shook her head. "Not stupid." She glanced at the familiar sight of classroom and school bells. "I wanted to be a watcher for a lot of reasons but maybe one of them was because I thought if I joined the council I'd have a better chance of meeting up with her someday."

Xander wore a thoughtful expression. "She looked old and really, really pale."

Willow nodded. "She looks tired."

"Guess staying gone wasn't the easy way out."

Willow merely "hmmed" by his side resting her head back on his shoulder.

He mused, "I haven't thought about demons or death in a while, but I'm bettin' she hasn't stopped - no matter what she says."

Willow shook her head sadly. "She wanted to but never could."

Xander nodded and together they entered the library doors.

Giles looked up from arranging the ritual's objects. "Finish making the circle?"

Xander nodded. "Circle made. Protection encouraged if never guaranteed."

Spike rolled his eyes "You don't need potpourri pouches with the likes of us around."

Faith huffed, "What kind of dangers are you expecting that we can't handle?"

Xander and Willow exchanged a look of shared memory. Performing a spell in this room is what caused their troubles to begins with.

Giles' eyes gave them his sympathy. All three were haunted by the tragedies this room symbolized. Giles cleared his throat. "Well, in the little time we've had to prepare, we've tried to anticipate a variety of scenarios."

Spike smirked. "Watcher, we're way past anticipating. We're changing the rules of the whole bloody dimension." Feeling Faith step closer to his side, Spike shrugged, "Herbs, panic -makes no difference at this point."

Anya hopped on the table. "Course it won't. Humans can't change their dimensions. They can make new ones or accept theirs the way it is." Anya picked up the weird looking gourd-thing. "Your Buffy is in for death or disappointment." She looked at Xander. "Which one are we rooting for again?"