Comparing Notes
Author: Barbie Girl aka Becca
Email:
Rating: PG
Timeline: Future
Spoilers: 'Chosen'
CharactersPairings: XanderOther (XanderBuffy implied)
Summary: Xander compares notes
Beta: TuesdayAllWeek

She stands in front of the open fridge, its light bathing her as she reaches in and pulls out the milk. "Want any?" She asks him as he sits on the couch flipping channels.

Xander smiles. "Only if you plan to put something in it." He doesn't look back at her but he can guess she is probably rolling her eyes as he hears her open the cupboard looking for the canister of Nestle Quick. And that's what life is now, normal, quiet. Friday nights are spent renting movies, not fighting demons. It's different.

I just think you could find somebody more...better.

Everyday he is told he is lucky. Anne is a real catch. He knows it without being told. She has long dark hair, and a bit of a chip on her shoulder from a tough childhood. However, she still manages to make jokes that cause milk to come shooting out of his nose. She is a MBA, so he can add smart to her list of attributes...but that's not why Xander started talking to her in a small coffee shop nine months ago. It was because she has green eyes, that was all. He noticed her eyes, and told her she reminded him of someone.

He doesn't talk of that someone, doesn't talk about any of them. Xander used to believe you could get used to anything if you had to live with it long enough. After all, he got used to vampires, he figured anyone could adapt over time. But he hasn't. Even though he tells himself everyday that things are different. Sometimes when a movie comes on, something stupid and funny, his hand still reaches for the phone. Once in awhile he will even start dialing a number before he remembers that they aren't there anymore. He can't get used to them being gone.

It's not all of them, Giles, Dawn, Andrew, Angel, and the thousands of newly-made Slayers still there, fighting the good fight. He can't. He has nothing to fight for. Giles has obligation, Dawn her little girl, and Andrew and Angel have their redemption, Xander lost his purpose. He wishes he could be strong, but it just doesn't work without them.

Willow went first, and Faith only seconds after. The power too strong, a snap-crackle-pop, a ball of red energy, and they were gone, leaving only hollow scorched shells. If it hadn't been for Buffy he never would have survived those first few weeks. She needed a guiding hand, a friend to hold her up. She hadn't had the practice Xander had about burying friends, he had been taught those lessons five years earlier when they had laid her in the ground. Buffy needed him and it saved Xander, she was his purpose.

You're my strength, Xander.

But now she too was gone, and had been gone for a year. It was cancer, the only monster she couldn't defeat. It didn't seem right, it wasn't fitting, not the way a hero should die, but she still held her head up, and faced death. She was the single bravest person he had ever met.

Some might think Anne was brave, surviving an unhappy childhood, but he knows she isn't. She is sweet but would never put herself in harm's way to protect someone else. And that's okay with him. If Anne ever changed and became brave he would leave her. He knows far too well how easy it is to fall for the brave girl with green eyes.

"Here ya go." She says, handing him the glass, and for a moment he can pretend it is her instead, that her dark hair is actually golden. But it's just for a moment. "I would tell you for the millionth time that that stuff is like poison for your body, and again remind you that processed food will kill you, but you wouldn't listen anyway so why waste my breath?"

He pulls Anne down next to him on the sofa, a grim smile on his face. "That's what I am going for, a slow suicide."

I love you. You know that, right?

Anne turns to him, concerned, but by then he is already engrossed in the movie, so she shrugs it off. After all she has no way of knowing what he doesn't tell her. She rests her head on his arm, and doesn't notice that the glass is already empty. Just like him.

The End