~Xander~



I looked up from my book, leaning into Cordelia and asking quietly, "So she's
going to see Angel?"

"Looks that way," she murmured.

I sat back, thinking. I had spent so much of my time just hating that guy
for being better than me in every single way, when really I hated myself
because I wasn't as good as him. ....No, I didn't hate myself. I hated
Angel. I really, really hated him.

But, maybe it was time to let go of that feeling. Willow, eternal optimist
that she is, once told me that a smile takes thirteen muscles and a frown
takes sixty-four. So I was wasting sixty-four of my face muscles on hating a
vampire who had never really done anything to me? Granted, he hurt my
friends, and I didn't like that. And he made Buffy cry more than once, which
I could have killed him for. But if I was honest, I hated him long before
that. I was simply jealous, for so many years.

And I was getting pretty sick of it.

I wasn't in love with Buffy anymore. Maybe I had been at one time, the kind
of crush that hurts deeply when you realize it's never going to work out the
way you hoped, but I got over that. I love Buffy now in a way that I can't
even describe on most days. She's one of my best friends and my little
sister and big sister all at once. I feel protective of her and she watches
out for me. I spent the first fifteen years of my life wishing for a family,
and now I had one. And she's an important part of it.

It wasn't even about Ms. Calendar anymore, even though no one could have seen
that I took her death hard, too. I think my hating him was just a habit.
One that I was going to have to break. I sighed. There was one thing that I
had done that I knew I should apologize for.

I didn't let myself think about it very often. Whenever the memory came to
me, it hurt for a long time. Once the thought was in my head, I would lose
at least a few nights of sleep. One of those horrible, dull aches would fill
my stomach.

I'd done some things in my life that I'd regretted; everyone has. Like
ignoring Willow for so many years, hurting her with every word I spoke about
another girl. Or cheating on Cordelia, seeing the look in her eyes when she
realized that she should have stayed away from me after all. ...Most of my
mistakes had to do with women, yeah. But this one was the worst. The three
simple little words I had spoken hurt so many more people for so much longer
than I could have imagined.

The funny thing was, I didn't mean to hurt anyone in the first place.

And maybe now I shouldn't apologize. But I knew with a severe epiphany-- the
kind that comes when you're eighty years old and realize that you wanted to
do something entirely different with your life-- that I was going to.

Cordelia smoothed back my hair, looking seriously into my eyes. "Are you
okay?"

"Yeah." I smiled, stroking her thigh lightly. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just got to
thinking."

"Can't do that too often." God, that impish smile should be sold as a
technique for winning men over. She leaned over and kissed me gently.
"Hungry?"

I paused, thinking. "Yeah." Like I really needed to think.

"Okay. I was just about to order a pizza," she laughed, getting up and
walking over to the phone. From across the room, she winked at me, letting
me know that she had known what I was going to say before I said it.

I grinned, knowing it wasn't that big of an intuitive leap for her. The way
to my heart has always been through my stomach.
* * * * * * *

After Giles woke up and the pizza was delivered, no one really knew what to
do. It was obvious that we had exhausted our research materials. Giles
insisted that we eat and wait for Buffy to arrive, as he had some news to
tell us. Which, of course, isn't something that you can say without having
people balk and demand to know right away.

But Giles just glared at us as he chewed on his slice of pizza and shook his
head.

Finally, Buffy and Angel walked in.

Willow gasped. "Did you get in a fight?" I understood her shock at seeing
blood on the corner of Buffy's mouth. It had been about six months since any
of us had *seen* a vampire, let alone fought one. But Buffy shook her head
with a smile.

"No. Is it still bleeding? I bit my tongue, that's all." She glanced at
Angel and then to Giles, her eyes twinkling. "Um, sorry for not waking you,
too, Giles."

"No matter. There wasn't much I could have done awake, anyway." Giles
gestured for them to sit down, which they promptly did. "I've been waiting
for you all to be here, so that I could... Tell you something." This was his
dramatic pause moment, which he utilized pretty well, I have to admit. We
all leaned forward in our seats as Giles took a deep breath. "Someone in
this room is going to die."

The room fell silent. Even our breathing was barely audible. Finally
Cordelia, in a very Cordelia-esque fashion, blurted out, "WHAT?"

Gotta love how straightforward she is.

Giles sighed. "At least that's what I've been able to make of the broken
prophesy so far. Perhaps I'm translating it wrong. I pray that I am, as a
matter of fact. But the fact remains that I've gone over it two dozen times
with no change in the results. Angel has been seeing portents. I'm hoping
that the books that we'll be getting tomorrow might have a different
translation in them, or at least be able to help us with the coming battle.
But I need to know right now... I don't want to put any of you in danger if
you don't know how dangerous it is. Even if you do, actually. So I wanted
to give any of you who wish-- even you, Buffy-- the opportunity to back out
of this. We can all turn our backs and wait for this to play out in whatever
way it will if that's how you so choose."

"Right," Buffy smirked, "Because I'm so in the habit of giving the bad guys
free reign in my territory. I've always known what could happen, Giles. I'm
still in."

"Me too," Angel said quietly.

"I'm in," I finally spoke up. "I don't think that any one of us has been
going around for the last ten years with our eyes closed. We've all known
that each day could be our last. But we did it anyway. I'm not backing out
just because of a threat that we've heard at least a hundred times before."

"I'm not either," Cordelia said, her voice clear and strong.

"Me neither," Willow said with a smile. Oz just shrugged, looking as laid
back as ever.

Now, I know that this is probably sexist of me, but as soon as I heard
Cordelia's voice, I wanted to tell her that she couldn't be a part of it.
And then Willow spoke up, and I wanted to stand and shout it from the
rooftops that *niether* of them were going to put themselves in any danger.
My girlfriend and my best friend since birth, wanting to go against a
prophecy that one of the seven of us would die. There was a one in seven
chance that it would be one of them.

I must have been squeezing Cordelia's hand pretty hard because she looked
down at me and smiled gently. "What, you get to go but you don't want me
to?" she asked, reading my thoughts.

"I just..." I didn't recognize my own voice.

"I know," she said quietly before turning back to Giles.

I found my gaze wandering to Willow, who I found looking at me. We stared at
each other for a long moment. ~I love you, Will. I don't want you to die.
You're one of the biggest parts of me. God, please don't do this. Please
don't be as brave as you are, just this once,~ a small voice in my mind
whispered.

A small smile lifted the corner of her mouth. And then the weirdest thing
happened.

I heard *her* voice inside my head.

~I don't want you to die either. But if you're going, then I'm going to be a
part of it. Do you really think that I'd let my best friend since childhood
risk his life alone? What about Oz? What about Buffy? I love you too,
Xander. But you have to remember that we've always been better together than
we have been apart.~

I didn't know what had happened, whether it was just what I thought she would
have been saying to me in that moment, or if I actually read her thoughts
there for a second, but I guess overall it doesn't matter. Whether or not it
was really her voice in my head, I was now resigned for what was to come.

"Do you know who it is?" Oz asked calmly, but I saw that his grip on Willow's
hand had turned white.

"Ah, no." Giles actually smiled then. "I don't know if I've ever mentioned
it, but this group has been written of. The ones who came together before
the end days. The chosen six sent to help the Slayer. It speaks of the one
with visions, the wolf and the witch. The vampire and the heart of loyalty
and laughter. The Slayer, of course, and her Watcher. We were..." His
voice was soft. "We were destined, you see."

I saw. I saw exactly what he was talking about. I had always felt like... I
don't know. Like our little group, our little family, was meant to be. Like
everything had finally fallen into place. I smiled, suddenly feeling like
nothing in the world could stop us.

"Is that it?" Buffy said, hiding a grin. "Because, you know, we're all in it
seems and... Well, now I'm going to eat pizza."

Willow laughed and began talking to Buffy as Cordelia started grilling Giles
on all he knew about what was going to come. Over the conversations, I
caught Angel's eyes, nodding towards the door. He looked confused for a
minute, like why was I talking to him but shrugged and headed outside. I
followed.

We didn't talk for long, but when it was over, I felt better than I had in a
long time. Even with the fear that I as going to die-- or worse, one of my
friends-- I felt good. Of course, the fear was no picnic, but I had been
through it before.

I wanted this, I reminded myself. If this was the way to be with them, I
wanted it.

And looking around at the smiling faces, I knew it was true.