Title: Who You Are

Summary: Really not a lot of plot here. Xander ponders away.

Disclaimer: If the show and it's characters were mine, things would be a liiiittle different. They aren't. Joss, ME, Fox, UPN, and whoever else have the rights to these characters - I don't. I'm just borrowing them.

Distribution: If you ask, you get. But you do have to ask.

Notes: This works best if mentally set in S4, as your reading it, in my opinion. Feel free to set it sometime else. I ignored a lot of rules about grammar and run on sentences and all sorts of things in this one, like in a lot of my stuff, because I don't think in proper English, and neither does my interpretation of Xander. Sincere apologies to anyone who's big on grammatically correct sentences, if it makes you wince. Also, feedback. Feedback! Feedback! Thank you. ;-D

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The worst thing in the world is to have no idea who, or where, or what you are. You're some hopeless thing with no past and no future. And you cling to what you have and you wish for some answers, but none ever come, just more questions and riddles. Like, what do you want? Where are you going? Where should you be?

See, there's a world where you're safe and things sometimes makes sense, but no matter how hard you try, nothing ever feels right. And another where nothing makes sense and the world's way to big and you hate it, but you like who you are when you're there -- you just don't quite belong. So you wait in between for some signal to tell you which world you should pick. And you get a big one and you start for one world but along comes another, just as big as the first, but it's saying something else, so you're back to the middle, where you're average and that's all that there is. Not normal since one foot's in that dangerous world and anyone who has anything to do with it is automatically a 'freak', but not special either, because, unlike your friends, you have ties to that safe place they're trying to ignore.

I mean, how can you know what sort of life you should lead until you know who you are, which you definitely don't, so how do you live?

You try to help out in the world you despise, with the people you love who don't see that you're there, but what can you do when you're just Average Joe, no skills that can help and no powers to lean on? You do what you can, even though it's not much, because there's a world that feels safe and someday you might want to go there, so you'd better be sure it's still there when you decide. And your friends all look down on that opposite world, and you, since you happen to sort of be in it. What can you do? Nothing, they're from the world in which nothing makes sense, so by default, neither do they.

One day you'll know and you'll chose and grow up and find out what you're going to be, and you pray that those friends, even though they're all blind, will accept what you've done and like who you are. But what if they don't?

Even though they don't understand a thing about you and they're all to busy to bother to find out, you need them and what they stand for in your life, you've never been without at least one, and you love them -- well, most of them -- too much to just let them go. But they haven't given you choices before, they just come and they go whenever they decide, so why would they start giving you any say now? You just try and be like them to get them to stay, but you cant since you're average, and you're already doing your best.

Your best isn't good enough in a world where scary is real and it doesn't leave when the lights are flipped on. They need people with skills and powers and talent and what they have is you, and you're pretty much worthless, and as nice as they are, they know and they make sure you do too. So they find other guys to do what you cant and sometimes they're nice, but they tend to embody what you're trying to fight, so once again there's no sense, just hypocrites with weapons, one of whom, you are.

And now you aren't sure that you like who you are in that world all that much, but you know that it's better than who you might be in the world where you're a freak.

So you stay in the middle with all of the questions that you cant seem to answer, and you never grow up and you never get wiser. You do get more scars, not always the kind you can see, and even after you pick those wont go away, you're twisted forever.

Then out of that void a chance shows itself, and you think you know, now, what you should be. You yank up your feet and you turn away from the world your friends all adore and face, instead, the one where you'll make yourself fit, because you've gotten your sign, and you've made up your mind, you're leaving the middle. But you turn, and look back at your friends and the world that is crazy and harsh and cold one last time, and now you're not moving, and your chance is fading away, so you and you sigh and you let it go, and with it the safety that world could provide, because your friends don't make sense and they're sometimes not your friends at all, but you're way too far in to turn on them now. You're moving again, but still out of the middle, just the other direction, and you wont turn around again. The void is gone, and you're there, in the world you hate, but you know you made the right choice.

Nothing changes of course, and your friends still ignore you, and you still aren't sure if you really fit in, but if you don't, you will, you'll force it to happen. It's not what you want, but it is what you need, and you've learned to accept that, and it's not so bad. One day the shadows will clear and life will make sense. Now you know where you are, and you know where you're going.

And you hope for the answers to the questions you brought.

And you learn what you can, and you do what you can.

And you don't know who you are.

But you're learning.