Chapter 4: Apologies
Summary: Xander explains his reasons for not telling the others.

"Um..."

"Well?" Willow prompted, now on solid footing. This was the big thing, the major no-no. Not telling all to my best buds...especially her.

"Um..." I stalled, "Do you want the truth, or the much better sounding roundabout story?"

"The truth..." Buffy injected ever so helpfully. I mean, I hadn't expected anything else, but still...

I looked down, knowing that meeting eyes with any of the people around me would have been painful at this point.

"Well," I repeated with a sigh, "The truth is...well...not any specific reason. It was just sort of the way things went."

"What the bloody hell do you mean by that?" Spike asked, obviously curious, "Just tell us, whelp..."

Oh God, I felt like dying right then. I mean, when William the Bloody, Scourge of Europe starts questioning your reasons, things have not gone right. I breathed in and out for a moment to calm myself.

"At first," I began, feeling as if a huge weight was lying on my shoulders, "It was just easier. I mean, I was still adjusting to the whole 'vampires and demons and ghouls, oh my' thing, and I just couldn't deal with anything else.

"Then, once all that finally calmed down again, I got worried that you would all think I was crazy. I mean, I never really made all that much of a fuss when Jesse died, so I figured you'd all think I was just 'expressing repressed emotions' or something like that. So I didn't tell you. Then it sort of became personal."

"Personal?" Anya asked, obviously a little upset, "I'm your girlfriend! You're supposed to share all things personal with me, and-"

"And I'm your best friend!" cried Willow.

"And I'm-"

"I know..." I told her, cutting off the rest of the rant, "But...it was my thing. It was my thing apart from the Scoobie Gang, something that made me feel important all by myself. Something I was actually good at."

"But why, Xander?" Buffy asked, her voice a mix of sadness and confusion, "Why did you feel like you needed something apart from us? And why did you think that you were bad at-"

"At what? Saving the world?" I finished for her, "Buffy, I'm human. That's it. I can't do magic, I can't fly faster then a speeding bullet. Hell, I barely graduated high school. This is one of the only things I'm good at that makes me happy."

"But if it made you happy, Xander, and if it had possible applications for our use, why didn't you tell us?" Giles questioned, speaking up for the first time in a while. For some reason, he looked very sad...as if I had hurt his feelings. Then I found out that I had. "I've always thought that we were like a family..."

"Hey!" protested Spike.

"With one cousin that no one in particularly likes who mooches all the food" the Watcher amended.

"Well," I explained, speaking very carefully, "How would you have reacted if you'd known that I got to speak to Jenny after she died?"

I turned to Buffy.

"Or Joyce?"

I looked at the room in general.

"Or any of the other people who we've lost over the years? What would you have done? Do you really think you'd have done the right thing and let them go, let them move on to where they belonged?"

Now none of them looked at me.

"It's hard enough for me to do it..." I told them, putting every ounce of the pain I'd known for years into my voice, "I didn't want to make it any worse for you..."

"But you could have had us to support you, Xander..." Willow told me sadly, "We could have helped you deal with it."

I shook my head. They still didn't understand.

"No, you couldn't. And I didn't want you to have to. You guys have much more important things to worry about then me. You save the world. You needed to be able to focus on that as much as possible. I wasn't about to distract you from that."

"But-"

"But nothing," I cut her off, now starting to get angry, "It's done. I've lived with it, I've dealt with it, the past is past, now you know..."

"Because you saved me..."Buffy said, now realizing just how important this all was to me. It wasn't just a power, it was a job. An often painful, but very important and meaningful job that was a major part of who I was.

"Yes, Buffster," I replied, "Because I saved you..."

"But," Willow began to ask, looking at me with startled eyes, "You would have told us eventually, right?"

I glanced over to her, then shrugged. "I don't know," I admitted honestly, "I really don't know."

Jesse and Lily, who had remained quiet during the entire discussion, walked over to me. Jesse put his spectral arm around my shoulder in a way which, despite the tingle of flesh not actually there, made me feel a little better. Lily took my hand into her own.

"You told them..." she said quietly, "That's the important part. You can't change the past, and you shouldn't dwell on it either..."

"Besides," Jesse pointed out with the beginnings of a grin on his face, "You start brooding, I'm gonna call you 'Deadboy' for a week..."

I laughed at that, even as Lily reached through me to give my deceased best friend a smack in the head. Everyone stared at me.

"Don't ask..." I answered the confused stares, "I'll just say that people in Sunnydale, alive or dead, are totally bonkers..."

Then the group closed in for a hug, and I knew that while I did still have some explaining to do, especially to Anya, that they finally understood me as I'd thought only Willow might. And this thought brought a wide grin to my face.

"Aw, you guys..."