Chapter 3

Buffy grabbed Xander by the arm and pulled him out of the diner.

"What are you doing here? How did you find me?" She asked, pushing him against a brick wall.

"I missed you too." Xander quipped, and she glared at him.

"Right. Probably not the time for quips."

"Try definitely not. Now answer the question. Why are you here Xander?"

"I'm here for you Buffy. I'm here to bring you home." He said gently.

"I can't go home Xander. There's nothing left for me there." Buffy replied, her voice cold and hollow. She sounded like she was dead inside, and Xander couldn't blame her. She had been forced to kill the man she loved, and her mother had kicked her out. That kind of pain would make most anyone break. But he had never thought that she would. This was Buffy Summers, the Slayer, all around badass. Able to kill vampires, go to school and hang out with her friends without breaking a sweat. She was invincible, unbreakable, a living, breathing superhero. She was Xander's hero.

And she always would be. But as he looked at her now, he remembered what so many people, himself included, seemed to forget. Buffy Summers was only seventeen years old. She was a seventeen year old girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders. A weight that she had been carrying for so long, and a weight that, coupled with recent events had finally begun to take its toll. Her eyes had dark shadows underneath them, telling Xander that she hadn't slept well in days. She had the look of a soldier too long at war.

"Willow, Oz, Giles...Me. We're still here."

"Really? Cause I think we're in La, so technically it's just you." She replied, and he smiled.

"Very funny. But you are right about one thing...I'm here for you. I'll be here for you." He replied, and she smiled sadly, but shook her head.

"No. What you'll do is forget you found me and go home. I can't risk anyone else getting hurt because of me." She said, her last words barely a whisper.

Xander wasn't sure whether she was talking about Kendra's death or Angel's.

"I can't do that Buffy. I can't walk away from you. I will do anything you ask, but never that. Never that." He said quietly, voice barely above a whisper. He couldn't leave her here, couldn't leave her alone to suffer. Not only did he love her more than anything in this world, but it was his fault that she was here in the first place.

"Xander, how exactly is my being here your fault?" Buffy asked, and Xander winced. He hadn't realized that he had been speaking out loud. This situation was not going the way he planned. He opened his mouth to try and change the subject or at least fix the way he had said what he did, but then he shut his mouth as he saw the look on Buffy's face. There was no way she was going to drop this. Not until she got a satisfactory answer.

For her part, Buffy's mind was reeling. She hadn't been expecting anyone to show up and find her in LA, especially not Xander. As if that wasn't enough, he refused to leave her be. He refused to see what she saw. Kendra, Ms. Calendar...Angel. Those death's were her fault. Her friends and family got hurt because they followed her. Or because she killed them. She could still see the shock on Angel's face as she plunged her sword into his chest. For a moment she thought that she had seen him as he was, not as the monster that he had become.

Then he had gone through the portal, and she was alone. Alone with her grief and her guilt. Kicked out of her own home. So she had done the only thing she could. She had left a note for her mother, and she had disappeared. It was better this way, safer. Buffy Summers had vanished, leaving Anne in her place. She had been content with that, until Xander had shown up. Xander. The last person she had expected to come for her, and he had said that her being in LA was his fault. He had said that he loved her, that he couldn't leave her.

She ignored the part of her that felt lighter when he said that he loved her and grabbed onto the thing that she felt able to process.

"Xander, how exactly is my being here your fault?"

"Before I answer that, and I promise you I will, I need you to promise me that you won't storm off right away. Promise me that you will hear me out." Xander said, and Buffy nodded. He was the only one of her friends or family that seemed to care about her, so she would give him that much.

"I promise Xander."

He nodded, and then he spoke. He told Buffy everything. He spoke for nearly ten minutes, and Buffy didn't say a word. She just stared at him, her face an expressionless mask.

"So let me see if I get this straight...You knew that Willow was planning a ritual that could give Angel back his soul, and you didn't tell me. You claim to love me, but you let me go and kill the person I'm in love with. So you're just a jealous boy. If you can't have me, no one could huh?"

"That's not true! I was jealous of Angel, I won't deny that! But what I did I did because I love you. Think about it logically Buffy! If you were told that Angel could come back, that there was a chance that he wouldn't be Angelus, can you look me in the eye and tell me that you would fight with everything you had? That you would do whatever it took to survive?!" He asked angrily, and she glared.

"You're not the Slayer! It's not your decision to make! It's not your war!" She yelled, and he glared. When he spoke, his voice was soft.

"Maybe it's not. But I've already watched you die once. I'm sorry if I don't want to go through that again."

A/N: So here is the next chapter! I know it's been a while, but I hope you all enjoyed it! I will be taking tomorrow off for my birthday, but I hope to have another chapter up by the end of the week!