To Prove a Point

"This tunnel just keeps on going, Xander," Anya complained. She was right Xander agreed silently. They had been walking for at least an hour and the tunnel had yet to do anything but go straight. Xander wondered again where they could have possibly been taken. "My feet are killing me. We can take a break now."

"That's probably a good idea. We do seem to be going nowhere fast," he looked around and picked out a random spot, "This place looks about as good as any." They sat down next to each other in silence. After a minute Xander broke first, "Well, you could just cut this awkwardness with a knife."

"Well, what are supposed to be doing? Talking about what we have been up to the last week or so. It's not like we anything to talk about to each other," Anya said matter of factly. She was right. While Xander wanted to talk with her as they used to, that was impossible now. The silence just increased. It weighed heavy on Xander for he believed it to be all his fault. He did love Anya, that fact had never changed. But his fear had overcome him, and he had left her at the alter. He was a coward. Xander smirked at that. He had never thought twice about going into an uncertain battle with a demon, but loving Anya was the scariest thing he had ever done. He didn't trust himself enough not to become the vision he was shown at the wedding. The fact that he had hurt Anya simply by leaving proved to him, that the vision wasn't too far from the truth.

He looked over at Anya as she sat there. Anya was trying to massage her feet but doing a very poor job of it. She gave up after another attempt, condemned to painful feet. She didn't know what she was doing. Being alone with Xander, even after all this time was hard. She knew that he still loved her, but the pain she felt was too great to act upon her wishes. She didn't understand why Xander had left her in the first place. How could someone who loved her do that. Yes he had told her why, but it didn't make sense. If she was able to put her trust in him, so should he. This whole relationship problem just confused her. She didn't know what she was supposed to do, or how she should act. She had become a Vengeance Demon again simply because it was familiar. But of course, it really wasn't what she wanted.

She didn't know what she wanted, or who she should be. She hung around with Buffy and everyone else simply because that was familiar too. They were all sort of her friends. After all Willow did help her out after her last wish. But they never hung out alone together. As far as Anya was concerned. When she and Xander were together, Xander was enough for her. She didn't even have her one actual friend anymore.

Halfrek was there for her whenever she needed it. They were friends, what some might consider best friends. But she was gone now. Anya had not meant for that to happen. When she asked D'Hoffran to take back the wish, she meant for him to kill her. Why hadn't he? Her life would be so much simpler if it had gone the way she wanted it to. She would be dead and wouldn't have to deal with any of these confusing and painful emotions right now. But no, D'Hoffran hadn't killed her. Anya closed her eyes and was about to cry. The only reason she didn't was because something grabbed her foot.

She opened her eyes to see Xander, beginning to massage her feet. He looked up and smiled, "It's always easier to have someone else do this for you." She became upset. She wasn't sure why, she just was. She jumped up surprising Xander making him fall back.

"No, Xander," she yelled at him, "You lost the right to massage my feet or touch any part of my body a long time ago. But obviously you didn't love me enough to go through with it, so you have no right to touch me."

"I'm sorry for leaving you Anya, but how can you think I don't love you anymore."

"Well, we aren't married right now! Look at my finger. Do you see a ring on it! Well, except for this one." Anya ripped off one of her rings and threw it at Xander, "Well is there a ring there?"

Xander paused not sure what he should be saying to make this right. If there was anything he could say that is, "No....there,"

"That's right. No ring means you don't love me. And now I have all these sad feelings in me, and I don't know what to do Xander. How could anything be good right now? How? And now we are in this cave. And obviously you have no idea where we are going. So you can just stay there Xander Harris!" she pushed Xander back down as he was attempting to get up. She turned around and took off running down the cave. She rounded a corner and didn't stop. There were tears in her eyes again. She couldn't believe she had just blown up like that. She stopped, almost collapsing onto the ground. She used the wall for support and tried to let the tears come. But once again they were stopped. When she opened her eyes, she wasn't in the tunnel anymore.

Anya suddenly found herself in a house.

She looked around, the sudden change jarred her tears away. What had happened? Where was she. She found that she recognized this place. But how could she? Anya had never seen this building before.

"Hey there Ahn," she turned around and was immediately hugged by Xander. She was about to struggle against the hold, but something in her told her not to. He kissed her on the cheek and went over to the table. "You're home early hon, what happened?" He looked different. Older somehow. She wasn't quite sure what it was though.

Puzzled, Anya was about to ask what was going on. But what she actually said was even stranger, "Well, a Polgara demon attacked the shop. Luckily Willow was able to drive it back. After cleaning up the shop, I figured I would call it a day and come home to see my wonderful husband." She smiled walking over to Xander. She sat on his lap and kissed him.

* ~ * ~ *

Xander jumped up and started chasing after her. He couldn't believe Anya had blown up like that. A lot of what she said hurt, but it was nothing more than what he deserved after what he did to her. Xander stopped running after a little bit. He knew that he had seen Anya round a corner in the cave, but there was none here. As before it went straight for what looked to be forever. Xander started feeling the walls hoping that there was a secret passage somewhere. He started to panic, "Anya! Where are you?" He yelled. All he heard was his echoing voice.

After a while Xander stopped feeling the wall. He collapsed against it in defeat. Closing his eyes he cursed himself for hurting Anya, and now losing her. If there was any justice in the world, Anya had stumbled across the escape to this horrible place.

"I'm home Xander! Where the hell are you?" Xander opened his eyes. He wasn't in the tunnel anymore. He was lying back on the couch watching TV. He looked over to where the voice had come from. There was Anya. She looked terrible. Well, as terrible as she could look.

"What do you want woman?" Xanders words shocked him. He would never have spoken to Anya like that.

"Nothing from you ya lazy bum. I see that you haven't left the couch all day, she turned around walking into the kitchen, "or all week for that matter."

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"Next one please," Willow asked Giles. He handed her another book as he went even further into the one he had at the moment. Buffy looked up from her book to watch Giles. Research was definitely not her strong point. Just give her a stake and show her where to point it. Which was usually the heart. All pretty standard. Luckily Giles was around. While Buffy had become very good at dealing with problems herself, it was always nice to have him around. She sometimes thought of him as a father, although he does try and distance himself from her every once in a while. At the moment he was reading a colossal book. It made the Lord of the Rings set look like one her Cosmo's.

"Earth to Giles. How is the book reading."

"Well, to be quite blunt, it reads like a bloody text book," Giles said matter of factly taking off his glasses to clean them.

"Now there is something I've never fought," Buffy said to Willow. "A bleeding book. I wonder how I could defeat that."

"Sunnydale hasn't had a good book burning in a while. We could always try that," Willow answered.

"Yeah but the blood. I get enough blood on my clothes from every day baddies. The amount of blood from something that only bleeds would be a lot."

Willow thought for a moment, "Rubber gloves" Buffy and Willow smiled each other.

"I am pleased that you two can still find time to joke about while I slave away at these books."

"Well, we do aim to please Giles," Buffy laughed, "So I am assuming the book reading isn't going to well."

"Actually I am finding out all sorts of information on Vengeance Demons. There rules are very strict and numerous as you can see by the size of this book. Unfortunately I have found nothing about dead ones," he put his glasses back on, "yet."

"Well, I am sure you will. You always come through in a clutch." Giles smiled at Willows remark. Just then he heard Dawn's yelling from upstairs.

"BUFFY! I think you need to see this."

Buffy and Willow looked at each other. They jumped up and ran for the stairs. "Giles keep up the research. We need answers and fast." They made it to Willow's room and were quite shocked at what greeted them when they had arrived.

Neither of them were expecting what they saw. On the bed were Anya and Xander. Sort of anyways. Anya was now dressed in jeans and a red blouse. Xander was in a bathrobe. Buffy was puzzled.

"Dawn? Why are you switching their clothes?"

"What? No it isn't me it's them. I was just sitting here when they suddenly...changed." Dawn answered. "It's more than their clothes too. Look at them. Buffy did. Dawn was right. Anya looked as if she had aged 20 years. Buffy didn't know why she didn't see it before. Xander was different also. He was considerably overweight and looked pretty dingy. He did not look any older though. At least that ruled out a hyper aging spell.

"So... what do we do know."

"Well, whatever is happening to them they are most likely together. And their clothing probably changes to what they are experiencing at the time," Willow answered trying to think of something else, she said "Also, that that is the best haircut I have ever seen on Anya."

Buffy laughed a little. This really wasn't funny though.

"You're right Willow," answered Dawn, "It looks really cute on her. We should probably take pictures of it."

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Another week another chapter. Yeah it isn't my original planned schedule, but what are you going to do. I had to completely rewrite what is happening to Anya because I read what I did write, and it sucked. So here you guys go. Hope you like it and thanks for the reviews.

On a small side note I just want to mention my titles. They aren't always a blunt short description of the following chapter. For example, the title has everything to do with this chapter. But you have to really think about how. Sometimes it is the characters reference. Sometimes it is mine as the writers. Not really that big of a deal. Just in case some of you thought my titles were absurd.

History:

- Of course it referenced the wedding episode, "Hell's Bells." The vision that Xander saw was that he was a deadbeat and beat up Anya.