What Might Have Been
Author: Clarity
Category: Angst/Action/Adventure
Disclaimer: Sunnydale and the Scooby Gang and associates (even the dead ones) belong to Joss Whedon. This particular AU is all mine.
Summary: After the finale of Season 6, Buffy, Xander, and Dawn relive old, bad memories and wish that things were different. Anya makes it so. Little do they know that change isn't always good.
Rating: PG-13 at the moment, just for language content, possibly stronger later on.
Spoilers: Pretty much everything major in the series. If it happened, chances are I'll mention it, and probably change it.
Relationships: Giles/Jenny, Xander/Willow, Buffy/Jesse, Buffy/Angel (slight), Cordelia/Riley, Tara/Patsy (OFC). Also, the gang in LA, which is mentioned but gets no camera time, is all paired off except for Angel: Amy/Doyle, Fred/Gunn, Wesley/Darla. Yes, I said Darla. I swear, it's not as strange as it sounds. Oh, just read it.
Feedback: Please?
Author's notes: Really sorry about the wait; school started up again, and RL decided to intrude. Full force. Those of you who've ever heard of the IB program can empathize. Those who haven't...are lucky. Heavy angst in this chapter, as Xan comes to terms with the fact that the world is not as he knows it. Next chapter will hopefully be up before X-mass break is over and I have to go back to the hell that is IB Biology.
Also-Dawn's opinion of Willow, as stated farther down, is more than a little out of character for the Dawn at the end of season six, but it's taken almost directly from something Dawn said at the beginning of season five. It's how I think teenage Dawn might have continued to feel about her 'surrogate sister' in a happier life.
Willow got to the house faster, though not so much because she'd been called first, seeing as how her commute was a good few minutes farther. Quite simply, Dawn's 'two minutes' were more like ten, and the red-haired Wiccan drove like a bat out of hell-no pun intended. Meanwhile, Giles was at his wit's end with the young man now seated in his living room. He just hoped Willow could do something to fix that.
Xander wasn't really acting any more annoying than usual, but he was slowly driving Giles crazy with his flat-out refusal to believe in anything the older man said. He hadn't threatened any more violence since the Watcher had gotten him to sit down, at least. He just calmly refused to listen, claiming that none of this was real and he must be under some kind of demonic, perception-altering spell. Which of course was more than likely, in Giles' opinion, but not in the way Xander seemed to think.
Willow burst in through the front door not three minutes after Jenny hung up with Jesse, spotting Xander in an instant and rushing directly for the young man, completely ignoring the sword he held in one hand. "Oh, Xander," she murmured as she enveloped him in a crushing hug that, in Giles' opinion, probably quite knocked the wind out of the young man. "I was so worried when Jenny called, you snuck out in the middle of the night again, you know how I hate it when you do that, and I didn't even wake up this time, and you could have gotten yourself _killed_, and I know you can take care of yourself, you always say that, but even you need backup, and what the hell were you doing wandering around at five in the morning anyway?" she babbled, hardly pausing to breath, let alone for Xander to answer. "You know, I don't know whether to be happy you weren't hurt or to hurt you myself for making me worry about you like that, you idiot, and-"
"That's _enough_," Xander snapped, his voice low and gravelly. Looking surprised, Willow stopped long enough for him to detatch her from where she held him tightly. What no one expected, however, was for the young man to shove her roughly away and stand, tears glistening in the corners of his eyes. "That's enough, damnit! God, weren't things bad enough before you started messing around, whatever the hell you are? If you wanted us dead...well, all you had to frickin do was walk in the front door and finish us off where we sat, d'you really think any one of us were in any condition to stop you? Where do you demons get off being so sadistic? What, we weren't in enough pain already? You just had to throw it all back in our faces? God...you know, after the fucking HELL I've been through in the last twenty-four hours, you'd think...you'd think it would be enough. You'd think stopping _another_ apocalypse would be enough. But no, someone, some_thing_ thinks it's funny to shove everything that's gone wrong in the past seven years right in front of us again. As though we didn't know already! As though I don't hate myself every day for what happened to Jesse. As though any of us could ever forget Miss Calendar. As though..."
His voice caught for a moment. "As though we're not all going to have nightmares about yesterday until the day we die. One of my friends died yesterday morning. Do you get that, you demon bastards? Do you know what it's like, to see one of your best friends shot before your very eyes, and not be able to do anything about it? Do you _understand_ how it feels when she comes out of it okay, only to find out that another one of your friends...the love of your other best friend's life, no less...is dead? Do you know what it's like to watch that friend torture and murder the man who did it?"
Xander dropped back down into the chair, spent, as Willow and Giles gazed at him mutely. "Go ahead, kill me. Not...not an hour ago, I had to stand in front of someone I've known for... for seventeen years, easy, someone I've been _best_ _friends_ with for seventeen years, and try to talk her out of ending the whole goddamn world. I...between the past two days, and Buffy, and Ahn, and Spike, and Tara...and you know the thing? The thing is, I was dealing. My ex-fiancee slept with a vampire who then tried to rape Buffy, and Tara died, and the real Giles came back, and the real Willow tried to destroy the world, but you know what? I was kinda coping, in the way you cope when you just collapse and hold on to the people you care about as tightly as you can, and God alone knows what we were going to do next, but...but there was hope, you know? Our lives were crap, but once you've seen rock-bottom, you figure it can only get better. So I was coping. And then...and then whatever it is that just happened happens, and...you know, I probably could have dealt with Miss Calendar. I miss her, and I have this vague feeling that her dying was probably at least a little bit my fault, but I could have dealt with that. And Jesse...well, he is my fault. I killed him, I staked him, five and a half years ago, but I haven't seen him yet...maybe I could deal with that. But Willow...you throw her in my face, and...you know, I just can't do it any more. I give up. I can't...I can't do it. Go ahead, kill me. Buffy said it was nice there, maybe I'll finally get out of this hell that my life has become."
Maybe he really did see something funny in his words all of the sudden, maybe he was just hysterical from grief and flat-out exhaustion, but for whatever reason, Xander began to laugh-not a laugh of amusement, or even a crazy man's laugh, but a sound of pure despair. "Hell. You know, with my luck, I'll end up there. Don't care what Deadboy said, it's gotta be better than this place. The real one, I mean, not this illusion or hallucination or whatever-the-hell it is you got set up here. So congratulations, Mr. and Ms. Figment-of-the-Imagination, you've defeated the Zeppo." He lifted his hands, then let them fall in a defeated gesture. "Go ahead. Do your demony mojo thing, finish whatever it is you brought me here to do, I give. I've been through more in the past couple of days than I used to think was possible. I'm done."
Giles stared at the young man as he slumped in his chair, moved with compassion. Good lord; if these were Xander's most recent memories, no wonder he was unwilling to listen to reason. Even if whatever had happened to affect him like this hadn't put Xander under enough stress to begin with, then certainly, believing that so much he cared about had gone so horribly wrong in such a short time would have. Tara, dead? Certainly, Giles didn't know her as well as the four (once five) young people he had worked with so closely since Buffy had moved to Sunnydale, or consider her a surrogate daughter as much as he did the members of the Scooby gang. But he well remembered how long it had taken for everyone to recover after Cordelia's death a year and a half ago at the hand of Glory. With his girlfriend dead, Riley hadn't been able to cope with staying in Sunnydale at all, and nearly jumped at the chance to rejoin the army fighting demons when it was offered him. To think, no one had ever thought that the relationship was based on anything deeper than affection and a mutual physical attraction. Back to the topic at hand, however, if Xander believed Tara had died, and so recently as within the last day, no wonder he was a wreck.
And that wasn't even considering what Xander had said about Willow. Trying to destroy the world, indeed...Giles didn't know where such an idea could have come from, but it didn't bear considering in any manner. Especially since Jenny had once given him the impression that Willow might, theoretically speaking, have the power to do it. That had been years ago, though, not long after Jenny had to call up every witch or warlock she knew that was still speaking to her after she'd abandoned the Kalderash in order to break Amy's rat transformation. A month and a half trapped in a cage had given Amy a newfound appreciation for freedom, which had in turn brought about a taste for the wilder side of life, including an excessive use of magic bordering on addiction. Worse, Amy had nearly dragged Willow down with her, hence the worry over the redhead's power. But Xander had known something was wrong with his girlfriend right away, and Jenny had been able to put a stop to it.
At least, that was the way _Giles_ knew it had happened. By Xander's rant, the young man probably remembered events quite differently. Finding that the entire world around you was at odds with your memories must have been taxing enough, both mentally and emotionally. If he truly believed that reality had taken such a horrible turn...well, it was a wonder the young man hadn't collapsed.
By the horrified look on Willow's face, though, she wasn't thinking in terms of the strain this-this spell, or amnesia, or whatever it was-had put Xander under. Likely she was still caught up in the part where her husband had declared that he'd had to talk her out of trying to end the world. Poor sweet, gentle Willow. She'd grown in self-confidence since high school, largely due to Xander's faith, support, and unquestioning love for her, but part of her still held on to the schoolgirl kindness and innocence that made her Willow. Her experience with Amy and the darker side of her own magicks had taught her a strong sense of caution when it came to her powers. To be told by the one person that meant the most to her that he thought she'd lapsed so fully over to the dark side must be devastating, Giles figured, especially since there was a chance Xander had simply imagined it all as some kind of potent nightmare, had himself thought her capable of such a thing. He needed to fix this, and fast.
"Xander," Giles began hesitantly, not at all sure what to say to the young man who he looked to as a son, but knowing he had to try. Luckily, he was interrupted as the front door opened yet again.
"Hey, G-man, I'm here. Where's-" Jesse cut off suddenly. Giles figured he'd seen the expression on his best friend's face. "Xander?"
The young man looked up and made a strangled sound that could have been either sob or laugh, possibly both. "Jesse. And with Dawn, no less. Hi. Figures you'd be here too, although bringing her with, I didn't expect that. After all, it's 'torture Xander with all his past screw-ups' day. I suppose you're going to try to tell me this is all real, too?"
Jesse looked stricken. "Jesus, Xan...what happened to you? You look like Hell." He winced-bad choice of words in Sunnydale-and put out a hand to stop Dawn from commenting. Looking slightly disgruntled, the teenager submitted.
Apparantly Xander caught the irony, too, because he snorted. "Hell? Y'mean I'm not already there? Being confronted with someone who looks just like my dead best friend would have if I didn't stake him seven years ago, that's not Hell? Cuz it sure feels like it to me."
"Oh, Xander...look, you didn't stake me. I'm not a vamp, I never was. I'm alive, understand? I'm-"
"Stop it!" Xander snarled, sounding almost animal in his pain. "Stop lying to me! Stop trying to convince me that this is all real! I already told you, it hurts enough just to know what really happened, you don't have to pretend like it didn't!" So that's why Willow was sitting there, silent, frozen, and with an expression of complete horror and misery written across her face. "For God's sake, just leave me alone!"
"No!" Jesse shot back, crossing the room in two quick steps and pulling his best friend roughly to his feet by his shoulders. "Not until you snap out of this and I know you're okay. Not until you listen to me. Look at me, damnit!"
Nice hadn't worked, and Jesse was pretty sure, with Xander in this state, it wasn't going to. Roughly stubborn was going to have to. Reluctantly, Xander raised his anguished eyes to meet Jesse's.
"Now, I don't know what you know or think you know, and I don't know what happened to you, but let me tell you one thing. Me? I'm real. Willow over there, remember her? Your _wife_? Who's now sitting on the floor crying because of you? She's real, and so's the fact that she's in love with you. This, all of this, this room, these people, the ones who care about you? We're as real as you are, do you understand me? As real as...as the scar across your right calf. Understand?"
"As the...I don't...I don't have a scar on my-" Xander pulled the pant leg up, determined to prove his point, then trailed off as he revealed the aforementioned mark. "Why do I have a scar on my right leg?"
"You got that saving my butt from a Polgara demon, remember?" Jesse coaxed. "You dove to push me out of the way, very ballerina-esque, by the way, and just caught the spike. What, you don't remember? You made me wait on you hand and foot for three weeks, complaining that it was my fault you couldn't walk. How about this one?" Jesse pulled up Xander's left sleeve to reveal the jagged mark running diagonally across his lower arm nearly down to his wrist.
Xander stared at the scar blankly. "I don't...I don't have a scar there," he finally mannaged. "Why do I have a scar there?"
This was really bad if Xander didn't remember _that_ night, the one that produced the very worst of his few non-demonic scars. "You've had that scar for over three years, Xan. Just before graduation, you got home just a little bit too early one night, and the bastard hadn't passed out yet? The day before Buffy finally put her foot down and made you get out of there? Remember?"
"The day before..." Xander was shaking his head in denial. "No... No, that never happened. Buffy never knew. Hell, _you_ never...I don't have a scar there."
"She never knew until you got that scar. The one you're looking at right now. And then you slept on Giles' couch until the Great Road Trip, and then you moved right into the dorms."
"No. No, you don't understand. Buffy never knew. I would never want Buffy to know. If you're trying to create this perfect-world thing to throw all that went wrong in my life back at me, then why would Buffy know?" He sounded desperate, trying to make sense of something that didn't. Jesse grabbed Xander's chin, forcing him to stop shaking his head and look at him again.
"Because we're not. We're not making it up. This is real." Tears were finally falling, silently, from those pained and pleading eyes. "C'mon, buddy. Why would you ever think it wasn't?"
"Because..." He hesitated, then plunged on. "Because it can't be real. It's too good to be real. My life doesn't get to be this good. I don't get to have you and Jenny Calendar still be alive. I don't get to have Willow in love with me. It's too good."
"Shit, Xander..." Jesse mannaged, before pulling his all-but-brother into a tight bear hug. "I promise you, it's real. Okay?" He caught Dawn's eye where she was trying to shake Willow out of her stunned state, motioned for her to bring the red-haired witch over. "Willow, tell him it's real and you love him, okay?"
"Xander?" Willow asked, tears in her voice. "Xander, it's me, I swear it is, and I didn't try to end the world, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry about whatever happened to you, but I love you, I really do, and we're going to make it all better, I promise, we'll get your memory back, and when we do you'll remember that you love me and that I do love you, I promise, okay?" She didn't take a single breath the whole time. Jesse backed off, allowing her in to hug her husband, returning to Giles.
"Thank you," the older man said. "I was beginning to worry I wouldn't be able to get through to him. He sounded so...so lost."
"What happened to him?" Dawn asked softly, ignoring the look Giles shot her as she chose to perch on the arm of his chair. "How could he forget us? We just saw him last night for weekly potluck. And Willow, how could he forget her?"
"Don't know, Dawnie. As soon as he's calmed down, I'll see if I can find any traces of magickal influence on him, but in this town...you know as well as I do that it could be anything." Jesse shrugged helplessly. "We'll start research right away, see if we can find a spell to fix it, but I seriously don't know what we're going to do next."
"Well, he'd better get better. He's not hurting Willow any more." The teenager was fiercely protective of her adoptive 'family', but especially the girl she considered almost as close as her own sister. Willow still understood her better than anyone; she was the only person Dawn knew that liked school as much as she did, and they still continued their never-ending chess tournament in the Magic Box daily. No one was giong to hurt the older witch while she was around, not even one of her older 'brothers'.
Jesse and Giles exchanged grins as ther listened to Dawn defend her idol. "He will, Dawn," Giles promised. "For now, the best thing we can do is just to remind him how much he belongs here with us."
The couple near the sofa, who had been embracing and talking quietly, looked over at their friends. "So...this is really real, huh?" Xander asked, small smile on his slightly tear-streaked face. "All of it? Even-" He cut off suddenly with a wince. "Miss Calender. Oh, God, I thought she was a demon..."
"She's fine, Xander," Giles assured him. "Worried about you, but fine. Sit down, you look about ready to collapse, and I'll go get her. And some coffee, we could probably all use a cup." He disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Dawn to slide into his vacated chair, and Willow to lower her husband onto the sofa, still holding him tightly. Jesse claimed the edge of the table; Giles could throw as big a fit as he wanted if he brought coffee.
"So...what _do_ you remember?" Dawn asked bluntly, since no one else seemed to know what to say in the sudden silence. "That made you go all crazy and try to kill Jenny and think we were trying to torture you?" Xander closed his eyes tightly and took a deep, calming breath. Willow patted his arm gently.
"It...God, it's so real. So real...I can still remember how Warren screamed...and the look in Buffy's eyes after Spike..." He shivered.
"Shhh, shhh, it's okay," Willow soothed softly. "It's not real. None of it's real. We're all alive, nobody died or killed anybody or tried to destroy the world or..." She trailed off, not really sure where to go.
Xander opened his eyes, smiling gently at her. "Yeah. I know, I'm okay. It just...the past six and a half years, ever since we met Buffy, I feel like some of the times have been burned into my memory. And it didn't...it never even happened." His eyes swept over the room. "I never...I never had to stake you." To Jesse. "Or watch Buffy throw herself off a tower to save you." Dawn. "Or...wait, did that part really happen?"
"Nooooo..." Dawn said slowly. "Why would Buffy-"
"Xander?" All four young people looked up towards Jenny, standing tentatively in the doorway. "Are you...is everything all right?"
"Um...no? Not really?" the young man admitted. "This is a lot to take in. But I'm...I think I'm coping. It's better than the way I thought the world was, anyway." He hesitated, then, all at once, "I'mreallysorryforholdingaswordatyourthroatandcallingyouademonandalmostkillingyou."
The technopagan smiled sympathetically. "It's okay, Xander. You know the rule, in the great tradition of all the posessions we've had to deal with: no blaming each other for what we may or may not do under the influence of a spell. I promise, we'll figure out how to fix your memory soon."
"Um...thanks...Jenny." He tried her first name tentatively, as though unused to it. Come to think of it, he'd been calling her Miss Calendar the whole time, hadn't he? Jesse supposed that made sense, if she'd 'died' before she ever even married Giles. "So...what now? I don't...I don't even remember where I live," he admitted sheepishly. "Let alone where I work. Did you say something about dorms?"
"We live in the dorms at UC Sunnydale," Willow informed him. "In fact, you should go home and get some sleep."
"Not yet." Jesse held up a hand. "I'm going to have some of that coffee I know Giles is making, and then I want to see what kind of magickal reading I can get off of you. If we're lucky, I can fix this right now with just a few words." Of course, that was about as likely as a sudden attack of giant, feathered pigs-but then again, this _was_ Sunnydale.
"Jess? You do magick? Since when?"
"Since Sophomore year, when we went up against Amy's mom and you pointed out that there was actually more in those old books than the woodcuts." Jesse grinned at the memory. Goddess, they'd been a couple of troublemakers at fifteen...and sixteen...and through the rest of highschool...oh, hells, they still drove Giles and the girls crazy, so long as there wasn't a crisis situation. "We dragged Willow into it, then Jenny found out and decided to give us some actual training before we hurt someone. But we made you stop doing spells because you kept accidentally setting the books on fire."
"I _what_?"
"You kept setting the spellbooks on fire," Jenny sighed. "You seem to have quite the talent for pyrokinesis, actually. Pity it seems to dominate your entire spellcasting ability."
"No...no, it's not that." Xander looked confused. "I think...I think I remember that. Sort of. I mean, I'm absolutely sure that at some point in my life, I set a spellbook on fire by speaking Latin out of it, but I don't actually remember it. Just...that it happened."
"Maybe your memory's coming back!" Dawn offered hopefully. "You know, not all the whole thing, just sort of...in bits and pieces."
"Maybe," Willow agreed. "Jenny?"
The Wiccan shrugged helpelessly. "I couldn't say without at least scanning. You and Jesse will have to figure it out yourselves. It could be. It could be anything."
"Hey...Jenny, why can't you help? I mean, not that I doubt your abilities or anything, I know Wills is super-Wicca, and I'm sure Jesse's great and all, but the more the merrier, you know?" Everyone stared at Xander like he had three heads.
"Xander, she's pregnant! She can't do magick now! All her life-force is going towards the baby, it wouldn't work even if she tried to channel it into a spell," Willow explained. Xander blinked.
"Why did I not know that?" Shrugs all around.
"They messed around with your memory, Xander. It's not like we know why," Dawn pointed out.
"Which is why we need to do this spell," Jesse reminded everyone. "What's taking G-man so long with that coffee?"
Jenny smirked. "He's hiding. As Americanized as he is, overlarge outpourings of emotion still clash with that staid Brit upbringing."
Xander actually mannaged a grin at that. "Yeah...G-man still has tweed under the skin. Err...that's not completely out of character for me or Giles, is it?"
Jesse chuckled. "Nah, man, that's the both of you. See? Things haven't really changed all that much. You're still family."
Family...
Xander looked at the people surrounding him; the playful teenager sitting across from him, the beautiful redhead nestled into his side, the motherly-looking woman standing near the door, his long-lost best friend and _brother_ perched on the table. All of them were watching him, and their expressions spoke of nothing but care, of concern, of love. For him. His grin broadened into a true, heartfelt smile, and it felt like the first real smile to cross his face in a long time.
"Yeah," Xander echoed. "Family."
To Be Continued...
Next time, the life and times of Angel's gang revealed, and out Big Bad makes his first appearance. Also: Tara, Tara's girlfriend, and what's Anya up to these days, anyway?
Questions? Comments? Whether you want to beg for more or threaten my life if I ever again set finger to keyboard, there's a nifty little feedback button I beg of you to use. Note that I rarely check the e-mail listed, ever since the addy got onto the list of about three thousand 'net mailers, but I will respond to questions asked through fanfiction.net if you leave yours. Constructive criticism is much appreciated, but anything is welcome. Flames are cheerfully used to light my Yule log. Merry Christmas!
Author: Clarity
Category: Angst/Action/Adventure
Disclaimer: Sunnydale and the Scooby Gang and associates (even the dead ones) belong to Joss Whedon. This particular AU is all mine.
Summary: After the finale of Season 6, Buffy, Xander, and Dawn relive old, bad memories and wish that things were different. Anya makes it so. Little do they know that change isn't always good.
Rating: PG-13 at the moment, just for language content, possibly stronger later on.
Spoilers: Pretty much everything major in the series. If it happened, chances are I'll mention it, and probably change it.
Relationships: Giles/Jenny, Xander/Willow, Buffy/Jesse, Buffy/Angel (slight), Cordelia/Riley, Tara/Patsy (OFC). Also, the gang in LA, which is mentioned but gets no camera time, is all paired off except for Angel: Amy/Doyle, Fred/Gunn, Wesley/Darla. Yes, I said Darla. I swear, it's not as strange as it sounds. Oh, just read it.
Feedback: Please?
Author's notes: Really sorry about the wait; school started up again, and RL decided to intrude. Full force. Those of you who've ever heard of the IB program can empathize. Those who haven't...are lucky. Heavy angst in this chapter, as Xan comes to terms with the fact that the world is not as he knows it. Next chapter will hopefully be up before X-mass break is over and I have to go back to the hell that is IB Biology.
Also-Dawn's opinion of Willow, as stated farther down, is more than a little out of character for the Dawn at the end of season six, but it's taken almost directly from something Dawn said at the beginning of season five. It's how I think teenage Dawn might have continued to feel about her 'surrogate sister' in a happier life.
Willow got to the house faster, though not so much because she'd been called first, seeing as how her commute was a good few minutes farther. Quite simply, Dawn's 'two minutes' were more like ten, and the red-haired Wiccan drove like a bat out of hell-no pun intended. Meanwhile, Giles was at his wit's end with the young man now seated in his living room. He just hoped Willow could do something to fix that.
Xander wasn't really acting any more annoying than usual, but he was slowly driving Giles crazy with his flat-out refusal to believe in anything the older man said. He hadn't threatened any more violence since the Watcher had gotten him to sit down, at least. He just calmly refused to listen, claiming that none of this was real and he must be under some kind of demonic, perception-altering spell. Which of course was more than likely, in Giles' opinion, but not in the way Xander seemed to think.
Willow burst in through the front door not three minutes after Jenny hung up with Jesse, spotting Xander in an instant and rushing directly for the young man, completely ignoring the sword he held in one hand. "Oh, Xander," she murmured as she enveloped him in a crushing hug that, in Giles' opinion, probably quite knocked the wind out of the young man. "I was so worried when Jenny called, you snuck out in the middle of the night again, you know how I hate it when you do that, and I didn't even wake up this time, and you could have gotten yourself _killed_, and I know you can take care of yourself, you always say that, but even you need backup, and what the hell were you doing wandering around at five in the morning anyway?" she babbled, hardly pausing to breath, let alone for Xander to answer. "You know, I don't know whether to be happy you weren't hurt or to hurt you myself for making me worry about you like that, you idiot, and-"
"That's _enough_," Xander snapped, his voice low and gravelly. Looking surprised, Willow stopped long enough for him to detatch her from where she held him tightly. What no one expected, however, was for the young man to shove her roughly away and stand, tears glistening in the corners of his eyes. "That's enough, damnit! God, weren't things bad enough before you started messing around, whatever the hell you are? If you wanted us dead...well, all you had to frickin do was walk in the front door and finish us off where we sat, d'you really think any one of us were in any condition to stop you? Where do you demons get off being so sadistic? What, we weren't in enough pain already? You just had to throw it all back in our faces? God...you know, after the fucking HELL I've been through in the last twenty-four hours, you'd think...you'd think it would be enough. You'd think stopping _another_ apocalypse would be enough. But no, someone, some_thing_ thinks it's funny to shove everything that's gone wrong in the past seven years right in front of us again. As though we didn't know already! As though I don't hate myself every day for what happened to Jesse. As though any of us could ever forget Miss Calendar. As though..."
His voice caught for a moment. "As though we're not all going to have nightmares about yesterday until the day we die. One of my friends died yesterday morning. Do you get that, you demon bastards? Do you know what it's like, to see one of your best friends shot before your very eyes, and not be able to do anything about it? Do you _understand_ how it feels when she comes out of it okay, only to find out that another one of your friends...the love of your other best friend's life, no less...is dead? Do you know what it's like to watch that friend torture and murder the man who did it?"
Xander dropped back down into the chair, spent, as Willow and Giles gazed at him mutely. "Go ahead, kill me. Not...not an hour ago, I had to stand in front of someone I've known for... for seventeen years, easy, someone I've been _best_ _friends_ with for seventeen years, and try to talk her out of ending the whole goddamn world. I...between the past two days, and Buffy, and Ahn, and Spike, and Tara...and you know the thing? The thing is, I was dealing. My ex-fiancee slept with a vampire who then tried to rape Buffy, and Tara died, and the real Giles came back, and the real Willow tried to destroy the world, but you know what? I was kinda coping, in the way you cope when you just collapse and hold on to the people you care about as tightly as you can, and God alone knows what we were going to do next, but...but there was hope, you know? Our lives were crap, but once you've seen rock-bottom, you figure it can only get better. So I was coping. And then...and then whatever it is that just happened happens, and...you know, I probably could have dealt with Miss Calendar. I miss her, and I have this vague feeling that her dying was probably at least a little bit my fault, but I could have dealt with that. And Jesse...well, he is my fault. I killed him, I staked him, five and a half years ago, but I haven't seen him yet...maybe I could deal with that. But Willow...you throw her in my face, and...you know, I just can't do it any more. I give up. I can't...I can't do it. Go ahead, kill me. Buffy said it was nice there, maybe I'll finally get out of this hell that my life has become."
Maybe he really did see something funny in his words all of the sudden, maybe he was just hysterical from grief and flat-out exhaustion, but for whatever reason, Xander began to laugh-not a laugh of amusement, or even a crazy man's laugh, but a sound of pure despair. "Hell. You know, with my luck, I'll end up there. Don't care what Deadboy said, it's gotta be better than this place. The real one, I mean, not this illusion or hallucination or whatever-the-hell it is you got set up here. So congratulations, Mr. and Ms. Figment-of-the-Imagination, you've defeated the Zeppo." He lifted his hands, then let them fall in a defeated gesture. "Go ahead. Do your demony mojo thing, finish whatever it is you brought me here to do, I give. I've been through more in the past couple of days than I used to think was possible. I'm done."
Giles stared at the young man as he slumped in his chair, moved with compassion. Good lord; if these were Xander's most recent memories, no wonder he was unwilling to listen to reason. Even if whatever had happened to affect him like this hadn't put Xander under enough stress to begin with, then certainly, believing that so much he cared about had gone so horribly wrong in such a short time would have. Tara, dead? Certainly, Giles didn't know her as well as the four (once five) young people he had worked with so closely since Buffy had moved to Sunnydale, or consider her a surrogate daughter as much as he did the members of the Scooby gang. But he well remembered how long it had taken for everyone to recover after Cordelia's death a year and a half ago at the hand of Glory. With his girlfriend dead, Riley hadn't been able to cope with staying in Sunnydale at all, and nearly jumped at the chance to rejoin the army fighting demons when it was offered him. To think, no one had ever thought that the relationship was based on anything deeper than affection and a mutual physical attraction. Back to the topic at hand, however, if Xander believed Tara had died, and so recently as within the last day, no wonder he was a wreck.
And that wasn't even considering what Xander had said about Willow. Trying to destroy the world, indeed...Giles didn't know where such an idea could have come from, but it didn't bear considering in any manner. Especially since Jenny had once given him the impression that Willow might, theoretically speaking, have the power to do it. That had been years ago, though, not long after Jenny had to call up every witch or warlock she knew that was still speaking to her after she'd abandoned the Kalderash in order to break Amy's rat transformation. A month and a half trapped in a cage had given Amy a newfound appreciation for freedom, which had in turn brought about a taste for the wilder side of life, including an excessive use of magic bordering on addiction. Worse, Amy had nearly dragged Willow down with her, hence the worry over the redhead's power. But Xander had known something was wrong with his girlfriend right away, and Jenny had been able to put a stop to it.
At least, that was the way _Giles_ knew it had happened. By Xander's rant, the young man probably remembered events quite differently. Finding that the entire world around you was at odds with your memories must have been taxing enough, both mentally and emotionally. If he truly believed that reality had taken such a horrible turn...well, it was a wonder the young man hadn't collapsed.
By the horrified look on Willow's face, though, she wasn't thinking in terms of the strain this-this spell, or amnesia, or whatever it was-had put Xander under. Likely she was still caught up in the part where her husband had declared that he'd had to talk her out of trying to end the world. Poor sweet, gentle Willow. She'd grown in self-confidence since high school, largely due to Xander's faith, support, and unquestioning love for her, but part of her still held on to the schoolgirl kindness and innocence that made her Willow. Her experience with Amy and the darker side of her own magicks had taught her a strong sense of caution when it came to her powers. To be told by the one person that meant the most to her that he thought she'd lapsed so fully over to the dark side must be devastating, Giles figured, especially since there was a chance Xander had simply imagined it all as some kind of potent nightmare, had himself thought her capable of such a thing. He needed to fix this, and fast.
"Xander," Giles began hesitantly, not at all sure what to say to the young man who he looked to as a son, but knowing he had to try. Luckily, he was interrupted as the front door opened yet again.
"Hey, G-man, I'm here. Where's-" Jesse cut off suddenly. Giles figured he'd seen the expression on his best friend's face. "Xander?"
The young man looked up and made a strangled sound that could have been either sob or laugh, possibly both. "Jesse. And with Dawn, no less. Hi. Figures you'd be here too, although bringing her with, I didn't expect that. After all, it's 'torture Xander with all his past screw-ups' day. I suppose you're going to try to tell me this is all real, too?"
Jesse looked stricken. "Jesus, Xan...what happened to you? You look like Hell." He winced-bad choice of words in Sunnydale-and put out a hand to stop Dawn from commenting. Looking slightly disgruntled, the teenager submitted.
Apparantly Xander caught the irony, too, because he snorted. "Hell? Y'mean I'm not already there? Being confronted with someone who looks just like my dead best friend would have if I didn't stake him seven years ago, that's not Hell? Cuz it sure feels like it to me."
"Oh, Xander...look, you didn't stake me. I'm not a vamp, I never was. I'm alive, understand? I'm-"
"Stop it!" Xander snarled, sounding almost animal in his pain. "Stop lying to me! Stop trying to convince me that this is all real! I already told you, it hurts enough just to know what really happened, you don't have to pretend like it didn't!" So that's why Willow was sitting there, silent, frozen, and with an expression of complete horror and misery written across her face. "For God's sake, just leave me alone!"
"No!" Jesse shot back, crossing the room in two quick steps and pulling his best friend roughly to his feet by his shoulders. "Not until you snap out of this and I know you're okay. Not until you listen to me. Look at me, damnit!"
Nice hadn't worked, and Jesse was pretty sure, with Xander in this state, it wasn't going to. Roughly stubborn was going to have to. Reluctantly, Xander raised his anguished eyes to meet Jesse's.
"Now, I don't know what you know or think you know, and I don't know what happened to you, but let me tell you one thing. Me? I'm real. Willow over there, remember her? Your _wife_? Who's now sitting on the floor crying because of you? She's real, and so's the fact that she's in love with you. This, all of this, this room, these people, the ones who care about you? We're as real as you are, do you understand me? As real as...as the scar across your right calf. Understand?"
"As the...I don't...I don't have a scar on my-" Xander pulled the pant leg up, determined to prove his point, then trailed off as he revealed the aforementioned mark. "Why do I have a scar on my right leg?"
"You got that saving my butt from a Polgara demon, remember?" Jesse coaxed. "You dove to push me out of the way, very ballerina-esque, by the way, and just caught the spike. What, you don't remember? You made me wait on you hand and foot for three weeks, complaining that it was my fault you couldn't walk. How about this one?" Jesse pulled up Xander's left sleeve to reveal the jagged mark running diagonally across his lower arm nearly down to his wrist.
Xander stared at the scar blankly. "I don't...I don't have a scar there," he finally mannaged. "Why do I have a scar there?"
This was really bad if Xander didn't remember _that_ night, the one that produced the very worst of his few non-demonic scars. "You've had that scar for over three years, Xan. Just before graduation, you got home just a little bit too early one night, and the bastard hadn't passed out yet? The day before Buffy finally put her foot down and made you get out of there? Remember?"
"The day before..." Xander was shaking his head in denial. "No... No, that never happened. Buffy never knew. Hell, _you_ never...I don't have a scar there."
"She never knew until you got that scar. The one you're looking at right now. And then you slept on Giles' couch until the Great Road Trip, and then you moved right into the dorms."
"No. No, you don't understand. Buffy never knew. I would never want Buffy to know. If you're trying to create this perfect-world thing to throw all that went wrong in my life back at me, then why would Buffy know?" He sounded desperate, trying to make sense of something that didn't. Jesse grabbed Xander's chin, forcing him to stop shaking his head and look at him again.
"Because we're not. We're not making it up. This is real." Tears were finally falling, silently, from those pained and pleading eyes. "C'mon, buddy. Why would you ever think it wasn't?"
"Because..." He hesitated, then plunged on. "Because it can't be real. It's too good to be real. My life doesn't get to be this good. I don't get to have you and Jenny Calendar still be alive. I don't get to have Willow in love with me. It's too good."
"Shit, Xander..." Jesse mannaged, before pulling his all-but-brother into a tight bear hug. "I promise you, it's real. Okay?" He caught Dawn's eye where she was trying to shake Willow out of her stunned state, motioned for her to bring the red-haired witch over. "Willow, tell him it's real and you love him, okay?"
"Xander?" Willow asked, tears in her voice. "Xander, it's me, I swear it is, and I didn't try to end the world, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry about whatever happened to you, but I love you, I really do, and we're going to make it all better, I promise, we'll get your memory back, and when we do you'll remember that you love me and that I do love you, I promise, okay?" She didn't take a single breath the whole time. Jesse backed off, allowing her in to hug her husband, returning to Giles.
"Thank you," the older man said. "I was beginning to worry I wouldn't be able to get through to him. He sounded so...so lost."
"What happened to him?" Dawn asked softly, ignoring the look Giles shot her as she chose to perch on the arm of his chair. "How could he forget us? We just saw him last night for weekly potluck. And Willow, how could he forget her?"
"Don't know, Dawnie. As soon as he's calmed down, I'll see if I can find any traces of magickal influence on him, but in this town...you know as well as I do that it could be anything." Jesse shrugged helplessly. "We'll start research right away, see if we can find a spell to fix it, but I seriously don't know what we're going to do next."
"Well, he'd better get better. He's not hurting Willow any more." The teenager was fiercely protective of her adoptive 'family', but especially the girl she considered almost as close as her own sister. Willow still understood her better than anyone; she was the only person Dawn knew that liked school as much as she did, and they still continued their never-ending chess tournament in the Magic Box daily. No one was giong to hurt the older witch while she was around, not even one of her older 'brothers'.
Jesse and Giles exchanged grins as ther listened to Dawn defend her idol. "He will, Dawn," Giles promised. "For now, the best thing we can do is just to remind him how much he belongs here with us."
The couple near the sofa, who had been embracing and talking quietly, looked over at their friends. "So...this is really real, huh?" Xander asked, small smile on his slightly tear-streaked face. "All of it? Even-" He cut off suddenly with a wince. "Miss Calender. Oh, God, I thought she was a demon..."
"She's fine, Xander," Giles assured him. "Worried about you, but fine. Sit down, you look about ready to collapse, and I'll go get her. And some coffee, we could probably all use a cup." He disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Dawn to slide into his vacated chair, and Willow to lower her husband onto the sofa, still holding him tightly. Jesse claimed the edge of the table; Giles could throw as big a fit as he wanted if he brought coffee.
"So...what _do_ you remember?" Dawn asked bluntly, since no one else seemed to know what to say in the sudden silence. "That made you go all crazy and try to kill Jenny and think we were trying to torture you?" Xander closed his eyes tightly and took a deep, calming breath. Willow patted his arm gently.
"It...God, it's so real. So real...I can still remember how Warren screamed...and the look in Buffy's eyes after Spike..." He shivered.
"Shhh, shhh, it's okay," Willow soothed softly. "It's not real. None of it's real. We're all alive, nobody died or killed anybody or tried to destroy the world or..." She trailed off, not really sure where to go.
Xander opened his eyes, smiling gently at her. "Yeah. I know, I'm okay. It just...the past six and a half years, ever since we met Buffy, I feel like some of the times have been burned into my memory. And it didn't...it never even happened." His eyes swept over the room. "I never...I never had to stake you." To Jesse. "Or watch Buffy throw herself off a tower to save you." Dawn. "Or...wait, did that part really happen?"
"Nooooo..." Dawn said slowly. "Why would Buffy-"
"Xander?" All four young people looked up towards Jenny, standing tentatively in the doorway. "Are you...is everything all right?"
"Um...no? Not really?" the young man admitted. "This is a lot to take in. But I'm...I think I'm coping. It's better than the way I thought the world was, anyway." He hesitated, then, all at once, "I'mreallysorryforholdingaswordatyourthroatandcallingyouademonandalmostkillingyou."
The technopagan smiled sympathetically. "It's okay, Xander. You know the rule, in the great tradition of all the posessions we've had to deal with: no blaming each other for what we may or may not do under the influence of a spell. I promise, we'll figure out how to fix your memory soon."
"Um...thanks...Jenny." He tried her first name tentatively, as though unused to it. Come to think of it, he'd been calling her Miss Calendar the whole time, hadn't he? Jesse supposed that made sense, if she'd 'died' before she ever even married Giles. "So...what now? I don't...I don't even remember where I live," he admitted sheepishly. "Let alone where I work. Did you say something about dorms?"
"We live in the dorms at UC Sunnydale," Willow informed him. "In fact, you should go home and get some sleep."
"Not yet." Jesse held up a hand. "I'm going to have some of that coffee I know Giles is making, and then I want to see what kind of magickal reading I can get off of you. If we're lucky, I can fix this right now with just a few words." Of course, that was about as likely as a sudden attack of giant, feathered pigs-but then again, this _was_ Sunnydale.
"Jess? You do magick? Since when?"
"Since Sophomore year, when we went up against Amy's mom and you pointed out that there was actually more in those old books than the woodcuts." Jesse grinned at the memory. Goddess, they'd been a couple of troublemakers at fifteen...and sixteen...and through the rest of highschool...oh, hells, they still drove Giles and the girls crazy, so long as there wasn't a crisis situation. "We dragged Willow into it, then Jenny found out and decided to give us some actual training before we hurt someone. But we made you stop doing spells because you kept accidentally setting the books on fire."
"I _what_?"
"You kept setting the spellbooks on fire," Jenny sighed. "You seem to have quite the talent for pyrokinesis, actually. Pity it seems to dominate your entire spellcasting ability."
"No...no, it's not that." Xander looked confused. "I think...I think I remember that. Sort of. I mean, I'm absolutely sure that at some point in my life, I set a spellbook on fire by speaking Latin out of it, but I don't actually remember it. Just...that it happened."
"Maybe your memory's coming back!" Dawn offered hopefully. "You know, not all the whole thing, just sort of...in bits and pieces."
"Maybe," Willow agreed. "Jenny?"
The Wiccan shrugged helpelessly. "I couldn't say without at least scanning. You and Jesse will have to figure it out yourselves. It could be. It could be anything."
"Hey...Jenny, why can't you help? I mean, not that I doubt your abilities or anything, I know Wills is super-Wicca, and I'm sure Jesse's great and all, but the more the merrier, you know?" Everyone stared at Xander like he had three heads.
"Xander, she's pregnant! She can't do magick now! All her life-force is going towards the baby, it wouldn't work even if she tried to channel it into a spell," Willow explained. Xander blinked.
"Why did I not know that?" Shrugs all around.
"They messed around with your memory, Xander. It's not like we know why," Dawn pointed out.
"Which is why we need to do this spell," Jesse reminded everyone. "What's taking G-man so long with that coffee?"
Jenny smirked. "He's hiding. As Americanized as he is, overlarge outpourings of emotion still clash with that staid Brit upbringing."
Xander actually mannaged a grin at that. "Yeah...G-man still has tweed under the skin. Err...that's not completely out of character for me or Giles, is it?"
Jesse chuckled. "Nah, man, that's the both of you. See? Things haven't really changed all that much. You're still family."
Family...
Xander looked at the people surrounding him; the playful teenager sitting across from him, the beautiful redhead nestled into his side, the motherly-looking woman standing near the door, his long-lost best friend and _brother_ perched on the table. All of them were watching him, and their expressions spoke of nothing but care, of concern, of love. For him. His grin broadened into a true, heartfelt smile, and it felt like the first real smile to cross his face in a long time.
"Yeah," Xander echoed. "Family."
To Be Continued...
Next time, the life and times of Angel's gang revealed, and out Big Bad makes his first appearance. Also: Tara, Tara's girlfriend, and what's Anya up to these days, anyway?
Questions? Comments? Whether you want to beg for more or threaten my life if I ever again set finger to keyboard, there's a nifty little feedback button I beg of you to use. Note that I rarely check the e-mail listed, ever since the addy got onto the list of about three thousand 'net mailers, but I will respond to questions asked through fanfiction.net if you leave yours. Constructive criticism is much appreciated, but anything is welcome. Flames are cheerfully used to light my Yule log. Merry Christmas!