Xander had gone everywhere but Buffy's. He went to see Joyce, the cemeteries, even the park.

He was even debating on whether to go to the psycho ward in the hospital.

8 hours later he decided they needed to finish with this looming evil, then he could go meet the guy who talked to his hand he named 'Steve' in the loony bin. How else was he to live without Buffy in his life? Bogarting the last Twinkie, smacking him for being Xander, and that.... that smile.

And now all of it was gone, because he saved the world.

If he could change things, would he do the same thing again? Hell yes. Buffy would still hate him, but she would be alive. So would the rest of the people he loved; and that outweighed Buffy's good opinion. Strike that, it outweighed Buffy hating him for the rest of his life.

She did forgive him for Angel, could she in time forgive him for Spike?

He couldn't hope that far ahead, all he could do was wallow in his misery. He was good at that, he had practice.

He knew where the key was; he opened the door and went straight to the basement, not wanting to hear a word from anyone.

Any type of normalcy would be unbearable; having to pretend everything was ok when his world was slowly collapsing in on itself would be torture.

He lay down on the stone cold floor and finally fell asleep.

******

Xander was making himself a sandwich. He finally got up out of the basement once he heard the Fang Gang and the remaining Scoobies leaving. Leaving for what he didn't care, as long as he didn't have to face them.

He started to slice the tomato, not really paying attention to what he was doing. Of course having a knife and not really paying attention to what you are doing with it was not the best of ideas. The knife sliced right through his finger.

Xander was fully ready to scream his head off, but he didn't.

There was no blood; and more importantly, especially to Xander, there was no pain.

"Huh.... That's weird."