Chapter 14

Facing a mirror

Xander didn't know what to say, he had expected a lot when he faced the last room. He didn't expect to see himself. And he didn't know what to do, was he supposed to come in ? Should he talk to himself  ? He was lost. He looked at himself again and noticed that the other Xander was younger than he was himself. The younger Xander stepped aside, letting him into the room. Xander decided he needed to say something.

'Ehhh, hi...me, listen, do you think I could...I mean... you could tell me where I am, what I'm doing here ?'

The boy looked at him and smiled. Pointing to a big wall. 'Look', he said. Xander looked a the wall and he saw himself, again. Picking up a book.. He remembered this day, it was the day he met Buffy. He turned around to ask his younger self why he got to see this but the kid was nowhere to be seen. Instead a chair had appeared and he figured that he was supposed to watch this. He sat down, reluctantly. He saw Buffy walking in the hall when somebody chrashed into her, not stopping to help her pick up her books. He saw how he rushed over there and helped her. Smiling at her while he did that. The second he did that he felt the pespective on the screen change, he wasn't looking at both of them anymore. He was looking at himself, through Buffy's eyes. He looked at himself the way she saw him, and he could only feel her feelings...

Buffy looked at the boy infront of her, who smiled nervously. He then asked her if he could have her, realising his mistake he quickly changed that into help her. But the damage had already been done, she thought that he was cute. Not in a 'I wanna have you too' way, but still cute.

Xander watched the screen, feeling that Buffy had found him cute. It kinda hurt. He had found her amazing, while she found him 'cute'. The image on the wall changed and he saw himself giving her a bracelet, feeling that Buffy had been flattered, but not really moved. Simply not thinking of him like that. Next he saw himself asking her out, he still remembered that day vividly, and the pain it had caused. This time he felt her pain, pain for the knowledge that she was hurting her best friend. But she was also angry at herself, because she couldn't love him while she knew that he would be good for her. Xander was suprised by her anger, suprised by the fact that her head had wanted to be with him, while her heart had belonged to Angel at that time. The scene faded away, replaced by a black screen...

Buffy was drifting away, going into infinity when she suddenly felt air being pumped into her lungs. She also heard a voice, still very distant, but she could hear him call out her name. Begging her to come back to him. Another breath of air entered her body, it warmed her. Made her feel alive again, and suddenly she saw the Master. How he had killed her, how he walked among the living now. She had to stop him. Slowly she opened her eyes, blinking when she made out Xander's face right in front of her. Thoughts of the Master left her mind for a couple of seconds, she was intriged by this boy before her. By the love she saw in his eyes and the peace she felt while looking at him. She said his name. 'Xander.' He saved her, gave her life again. Right that moment she knew that something had changed, she pushed that thought out of her head. She had more important things to worry about, than she saw Angel. And the peaceful feeling she had felt while looking at Xander dissapeared, replaced by the dangerous feelings of excitement she always felt when she saw Angel.

Xander was suprised again, she had felt something when he brought her back to life. Feelings not strong enough to take her heart away from Angel. But feelings too strong for friendship. He wanted to think about it some more when another image appeared on the wall. The day he still dreamed about some times, wondering about what could have happened. They were in the mortuarium, he slowly pulled her up. He could feel her desperation, her disappointment in herself, her longing for the Angel she had known and the hatred she felt for the demon he had become. It was all there while she hugged him, clinging to him desperately. He felt her feelings change when she looked at him, she had a sudden urge to kiss him, to take comfort in him. And while she knew that her feelings came from the pain she was feeling, a part of her really wanted him. Lusted for him. It shocked her to the bone and she pulled herself away from him. Blocking her feelings for him yet again.

Xander watched in his chair and just smiled, he had known that she felt something for him that day and now he finally knew that he had been right. It hadn't been his imagination. He now saw a lot of images, flashing before his eyes. Them walking down the hall while he made her laugh. Them talking in the cemetry. Them sitting on the couch at Giles his place, talking about Belgium. The fight they had at her welcome home party. Him cheering her up after leaving Willy's when she realised that it was going to be hard to find the First Evil and save Angel from it. The faith she had in him in the battle against the mayer. He saw it all and he felt what she felt for him. Her trust in him, her loyalty to him, her love for him. All in a friendly way, but still mixed with the lust she had felt before. It wasn't on the surface and she had blocked it very well, but it was there. And he felt it...

He was sitting there, grinning like a fool. He still had now idea where he was and how he was going to get out of here, but he was starting to understand Buffy better. He knew her fears, and for the first time he realised that she wasn't as tough as he always thought she had been. She was the slayer and his hero, but most of all... she was human. She wasn't somebody out of his reach, she was just like him. He turned his attention to the screen again. He saw the Bronze...

Buffy had never felt so down in her life. She had such high expectations of college, but so far it sucked. She found it too big, too scary. She missed her old life, she had been scared plenty in that life too, but everything had been a bit easier. Willow hadn't been so busy, she didn't have a roommate who liked Celine Dion and Giles had been in the liberary, nearby. She had had her friends, her Scooby gang. And now it all felt different. The Scooby gang wasn't even complet..., She missed Xander, wondering when he would be coming home. She was taken away from her thoughts when she heard a familiar voice behind her. Xander ! He was back. She turned around, hugging him. After talking for a bit he sensed that something was wrong. She smiled, he always knew. He really was a lot smarter than everybody, including her, gave him credit for. During his peptalk she looked at him. Realising again how much she had missed him, that smile, his eyes and his ability to talk nonsense and make her smile. When he called her his 'hero', she wanted to cry. She had needed this, she had needed him. To feel like Buffy again. That somehow always felt easier around him.

Xander was touched by the influence he had on her. For the first time in his life he began to see that Buffy needed her friends just as much as he needed them. He watched the next images, them finding out that Spike had been made harmless, the fight against Adam. He saw a lot of it, but he felt the distance between them. The lonelyness, they had been drifting apart. Life had come between them, love had come between them. Riley, Anya. And he felt that she had missed him just as much as he had missed her. In the end the connection between them had gotten stronger because of it.

He saw himself talking to her about Riley leaving. At that time he had wanted her to be happy, and he believed that Riley was the one to do that for her. He could feel her suprise at the way he was talking to her, the doubt he was casting in her. But he also felt saddness, she was sad because he wanted her to be with Riley, she felt a bit betrayed. Like she really lost him now. But, like the other times, she quickly dismissed the feelings.

Before Xander could comprehend what this meant he saw the site where Buffy had died. For real this time. He heard her talk to Dawn. Saw her jump into the portal...

Buffy needed to do this. For Dawn, she was her blood, her sister. Her only family after her mother died. Diving into the portal she knew that she was going to die too. She would miss Dawn so much. She wanted to see her grow up, but she wouldn't see that. She had another destiny. She had to die in order to let everyone live. She did this for Willow,Tara,Giles, Anya, Angel. She loved them all so much. Hell, she even did it for Spike. She panicked when her body hit the portal. This was it. Images flashed before her eyes. Her mother, her sister, her friends, Xander... Before she could understand why she hadn't thought of him before, it was over. His image was the last one on her mind, then her body hit the ground.

Xander couldn't move, he couldn't do anything at all. He just sat there. He had often wondered what had gone through her mind those last couple of seconds. And he had found comfort in the fact that he knew that he had been in her thoughts. Just like Willow and Giles were. Now he had to deal with the fact that he had been the last thing on her mind. Not Angel, not Spike, not even Dawn. Him. It was too much, he needed to think about this. Clear his head, get out of here. But when he tried to get up he couldn't. There was still one more thing he had to see...

He saw Buffy talk to his green demon friend. Wishing that Spike never loved her. He saw her wishing that he had never met Anya. He felt her confusion the next morning. Her fear while they drove to LA. He wasn't talking to her, and she feared that he would stay mad at her forever. He saw her talk with Lorne, he heared her deny she was in love with him several times. Then he felt understanding wash over her. Like she had been living in denial for too long and she just couldn't lie any longer. He saw himself on stage in Lorne's club, singing. And now he understood why he had felt so strange watching her watching him. She had been struggling with her new feelings. Feeling love take over while looking at him, but still not believing it.

He smiled when he felt her desperation after she found out she had to share a room with him. Felt how hard it had been to control these new feelings of wanting him. He saw how she woke up and just watched him, touching him. Wishing that she could wake up like this every morning.

It overwelmed him. He wasn't used to people thinking much of him. And he couldn't understand the intensity of the love she felt for him. He did regonize the feeling, he felt the same way about her. But he would have never thought that anybody was capable of feeling the same thing.

He saw them fighting infront of her door, after he found out she had slept with Spike. She had been devastated by the look in his eyes, by his words. He really had broken her world, and he never really knew that until now.

He tried to get up again, this time the chair let him go. He needed to get out of here. Needed to go to her, to take away that overwelming pain she was feeling. When he turned around his younger self was there again. He spoke to him.

'Do you understand now ? Do you see what you are to her ?'

He just nodded. The younger Xander gave him his trademark grin.

'It's time for you to go. You must remember what you were learned here.'

Xander grinned at the somewhat formal way his younger self was talking to him. Then his world went black again...

Morlakeka's crypt. (3.25 PM)

Xander woke up, finding himself in the crypt of the demon. When he looked up he saw Angel and Morlakeka standing right infront of him. Angel was the first one to speak.

'Are you oke ?'

Xander got up. Looking at his watch,  he realized that he had been gone for only ten minutes.

'What the hell happened here ?'

Angel sighed.

'I better explain... Right ?'

Xander just looked at him.

'Duh', he said.

'Oke, this demon here is an old...friend from my Angelus days. He has the power to kinda enter people's essence.'

Xander was already lost.

'Enter people's essence ?'

'You could say he can enter somebody's brain. He can find out what makes people who they are. Experiences that were important to them, people that are important to them. He also has the power to share what he feels with human beings.'

'So, I just been in Buffy's brain. I've seen what's important to her. What made her who she is today ?'

'Yes.'

Xander laughed.

'Oke, so you say that. How do I know that I really saw her. How can you prove that I really saw Buffy's essence ?'

Angel looked at him.

'I can't prove that. But I think you don't need prove. I think you know I'm telling you the truth.'

Xander took the time to let that sink in. Thinking about all that he had seen. And all the things he had seen that Angel and this demon couldn't possibly know. Things even he didn't  know about.Things only Buffy could know.

Angel saw that Xander was slowly accepting that he was telling the truth. He just hoped that this had been enough to convince Xander that he needed to be with Buffy. Again he smiled at the irony of it all. Never in a million years would he have thought that he would come up with ways to get Buffy and Xander together.

Xander suddenly thought of something.

'I don't get this power. Why did he show me this ? And in what way is this a helpfull power for a demon ?'

'He owed me a favor. I saved his life once. As to answer your last question. He uses his power to get to know his victims. Then he kills all that are important to this person. He breaks them. By killing there loved ones, he takes the soul of his victim. Little piece by piece.'

'Really Angel, you have charming friends.'

'I know.'

Suddenly Xander got mad.

'Wait a minute, you idiot !! You let a demon take a look into the essence of the slayer ? Are you crazy, he knows what will kill her now !'

Angel nodded. 'I know', he said. Before Xander could say anything more Angel made a sudden move at the demon. Kicking him to the ground. He took his head between his hands and broke his neck.

'Done.'

Xander just shook his head.

'You scare me sometimes.'

Angel smiled when he told him that.

'Are you ready to go Xander ?'

'Yeah.'

Once outside, the vampire looked at the boy.

'What did you see ?'

'Her family, friends, her old lovers, her battles, me.'

Angel knew by the look in Xander's eyes that he had seen some pretty earthshattering stuff. But he wanted to ask anyway.

'Did you...Was..Did...'

Xander interrupted.

'Yeah, I saw you too.'

'So, what are you going to do now ?'

Xander didn't need to think about it.

'I'm going to see her.'

He walked away. But stopped to wait for the vampire. A huge smile on his face.

'She loves me you know.'

Tbc...