Four-Letter Words Part 5 of the "Words" Series By Lori Bush

~**~ Feedback: lwbush@charter.net

Disclaimer: Joss Whedon, etc. owns Buffy. You know the routine.

Summary: Xander's starting to lose track of where he belongs.

Pairing: B/S, but hey - this is set in Hell, after all.

Rated: PG-13

Continuity: Through "Once More, With Feeling" plus slight spoilers of what's next.

Author's Notes: I went to put out the last story, and realized I hadn't put this one out, yet. See what happens when my life gets hectic? I forget stuff.

This follows "Famous Last Words," "Word To The Wise," and "Truer Words Never Spoken," and "The Words We Never Said." It might not make a lot of sense if you haven't read them, since some things that aren't exactly fleshed out here are explained there. The next story will be the last.

Nobody bashed, and everybody bashed. Make sense out of *that*.

Dedication: To Jen (Saturn Girl) at the Dead Xander list, 'cos she got me thinking about it in the first place. And of course, the Harem always gets recognition.

~**~

When we were in third grade, Jesse and I made up a list of all the four- letter words we could think of that were bad. We tried a few of them out on Mrs. Smitherman in the lunchroom, and found out about two we'd left off - Note, and Home. Jesse's parents grounded him until he could drive, later to be reduced to two weeks. My dad beat me with his belt so hard, I couldn't sit all the way back in my chair for quite a while. Kinda funny, too, that he said pretty much every word on our list while doing it, plus a few I hadn't thought of. True, some of them had more than four letters. Like "bastard." I had to peel my shirt off the scabs every night for at least a week, and I still have faint scars. We sort of avoided those words for a while after that.

I should have known, from my experiences with Buffy, that "dead" was one of those kinds of words. One you don't want to say and don't want to hear, for fear someone who can hurt you will overhear it and use it against you. I knew it was bad from the moment I met my first vampire up close - Jesse, oddly enough. Ironic, huh?

It got worse with Joyce - that was the moment everything started to fall apart in a serious way. Buffy began to pull away. Dawn lost her faith in what she was and where she belonged. Not long after, Tara got brain-sucked and Willow started trusting magic more than any of us. Maybe that was even when Giles decided he had to get away, before it got him, too. I dunno. And then Buffy died, again. All I know is that, although Mrs. Smitherman wouldn't have written a note to our parents for saying it, I think "dead" is a worse word than any of the ones Jesse and I thought of.

Maybe 'cos I am, now. Me. I'm dead. And all the times I thought I might end up this way, all the horrible anticipation, couldn't hold a candle to the real experience. It's far worse than I ever imagined it would be, and I have a very vivid imagination.

Sometimes, if I concentrate real hard, I seem to remember that I don't really belong here. There's another world somewhere, another Sunnydale, where my friends are happy, I have a good life, accent on the "life" part, and hope still lives. But the longer I'm like this - all ghostly and dead and watching my friends implode while I'm helpless to do anything - the harder it gets to think about that. Sometimes I'm sure it was all a dream, and it never really happened that way. And because it was a dream, the longer I'm like this, the more it will slip away, since I don't sleep anymore, so there's no escaping to that better world.

They're all so hard to watch. Hope is another four-letter word, although here, it's not a bad one, just one that doesn't apply. Willow is wild with her power. She's de-ratted Amy, and the two of them are out of control. They do what they want, when they want, and no one had better get in their way. I know of at least three people she's killed, one purposely, the other two accidentally. And I'm pretty sure she's at least peripherally responsible for my own death at Anyanka's hands. Even Amy's a little scared of her. I know I would be, if she could still kill me.

Tara hasn't looked up from the ground in a long time. I have the top of her head memorized. Willow doesn't even seem to love her or care about her anymore, but she refuses to let her go. The power trip thing again. Tara's a mere shell of herself, and she was never a strong personality to begin with. She used to argue with Willow once in a while, but after Wills lured back Oz just so she could torture and kill him, Tara's watched her words pretty carefully. He was the one on purpose. I'm not totally sure the other two were just accidents, but I'd like to give her the benefit of our long friendship and the doubt. Even if I could talk to her so she could hear, I don't think I could reach her anymore.

But poor Tara is no more than a glorified servant girl. Her free will is pretty much gone now. Any time she shows the slightest rebellion, Willow magics it out of her. I've seen puppets allowed more freedom. And she's scared. She knows her days are numbered, I think. And if I could, I'd try to save her. I'd at least give her someone to talk to, someone who loved the Willow that used to be as much as she did. But I can't even offer that cold comfort.

Dawnie is descending into a pit of delinquency, trying desperately to do something bad enough to catch Buffy's attention again. But Buffy is, by far, the worst of a bad lot.

God, I hate Spike. But even he's worried about her. When he isn't gloating over the fact that he's turning the Slayer to his side, that is. I think he's worried because he knows he isn't - she'd have to respond to him for that, and outside of sleeping with him, she doesn't react to anything in any way anymore. She's still slaying, fervently but without emotion. I'm surprised Dawn can't see me - if you took Buffy's example, you'd think the poor girl was a ghost like I am, for all she notices her. Spike says Buffy responds to him physically, but she won't even fight with him these days. And trust me, the last thing I want to do is talk with Spike about his sex life with Buffy, but he is the only person I know that can hear me, so I don't have a lot of choice, unless I want to exist in total silence. He knows how much it bugs me, though, and never fails to rub it in.

I remember having hope before, that somehow she'd gotten out of here and gone to that good-place Sunnydale - the one I guess I dreamed. But then she showed back up, and she was cold and dead like the creatures she goes after. Like the one she's making it with. And that was when my hope died. It was true after all, what I'd said to her in anger all those years ago - you had to be dead to make it with her. First Angel, now Spike. Finally, now that I'm dead too and qualified to make Buffy's Top Ten list, she can't see me or hear me or touch me. Sometimes, I hate her, too.

All this thinking about hopelessness is making me feel physically ill. Honestly, my body, or shade, or whatever, feels like it's being pressed all around - inside and out. The world is spinning, and this is way more than emotional upset, or even a total breakdown. Something really weird is going on.

I must have passed out. I know I can do that - I have before. But what I can't do is feel warm, and right now I do. I've felt cold since I died, but I'm not. I shiver anyway, and a cool draft hits me afterwards, just to prove my point. I feel arms around me. I feel. I FEEL!

"Shhh. It's okay. You're home," Buffy's voice is cooing into my ear. Buffy? Buffy doesn't coo. Not to me - not even when I was alive and she occasionally noticed me. Somebody's sitting behind me, propping me up and stroking my hair from my forehead, and I'm not just warm, I'm soaked in sweat. Ghosts don't sweat.

I must be dreaming. Warm, and Buffy - both are things that I can't ever know again. Another voice speaks, and it's somebody else that can't possibly be here. "Xander," Giles says, "You may be a bit disoriented, but it will be fine. Just relax."

I refuse to open my eyes. This is a dream, and I haven't had one for so long, I don't want it to end. Buffy is cooing to me, I'm warm, and Giles isn't in England leaving us all to flounder. I can feel someone touching me, and even if it's in a dream, I'm not going to even hope it's Buffy. And - oh, God, I just realized I'm naked. Starting to take on slightly nightmare-ish qualities, here. Although, Buffy touching me, me naked - I haven't had one of *those* dreams in a really long time. And Giles hasn't ever been in them before. I'm afraid I've gotta open my eyes now.

Somebody's screaming like a girl, and I just became coherent enough to realize it's me. I've turned around and, yes, I can see it's Buffy holding me, and I am indeed naked, but I don't give a crap since I'm clutching her and trying to crawl inside her skin before it gets me. "Get it away. It hurts," I'm screaming, and I can feel in surroundsound every torture, every pain, and I can almost smell the blood. It may *look* like Anya again, but it did last time, too, at first. And if I can feel again, it can do it all to me again. I don't want to die, even if I'm not really alive, and that didn't make any sense.

Can't think, can't breathe. Wait, I don't need to breathe, do I? Doesn't matter - it's gonna get me, and

"Anya, I think you'd better leave for a while. You seem to be upsetting him."

Giles voice is so calm. Doesn't he know she's a killer? She's not Anya! He needs to be careful - I thought I saw Willow, too, before I lost it. They're even more dangerous together. "She's Anyanka," I whisper pitifully into Buffy's shoulder. I've given up trying to hide inside of her, and she's still holding me in her lap, patting and stroking my back, making soothing noises, and this is all so weird.

"Xander," Buffy says softly once she thinks I've calmed down enough, "You're back home. You've been in Hell."

Well, yeah. I'm dead, and my own girlfriend-turned-demon killed me painfully, and the people I love are all self-destructing, and the only person I can talk to is an evil vampire who's sleeping with the girl I've secretly adored forever, and.

Oh, wait, I think she means literally. She's going on.

"Don't you remember? You went there to save me, to tell me that Willow was doing a spell and to help bring me back. You never got to me, and we lost you there. She brought me back, but we lost you. But we finally found you again. It's okay, you're home."

Home.

If I can really believe that, it's one four-letter word that may have redeemed its reputation.

~**~