Author's Note: Next up? Buffy. Yay!
Hand Holding: Xander
He's done. After he calls nine-one-one and reports Dawn, Anya, Willow and Buffy dead, he stumbles out of the gates of the construction site and sits on the cement sidewalk, waiting. Mainly because there's nothing else to do but wait.
He's still sitting there when the paramedics come. He tells them a very much abridged version of the truth and the police write down every word. He then allows them to lead him to an ambulance and sits there, wondering about Tara and Giles as he's checked for injuries. Where they were. If they were okay. Alive.
He drops out of the moving ambulance as the sight of a dragon. He sees it through the back window and instantly had a bad feeling. How he managed to get out, he doesn't remember, but he does. He rolls to a stop and painfully climbs to his feet, limping; jumping out of a moving vehicle hadn't been such a good idea.
As he moves closer, he finds half of an answer to his mental question. Giles is unmistakably dead. At this new information, he's only having one thought. And it's of Tara. Giles died to protect Tara, so he concludes that he needs to find her. She's all he has now, and he's not one for living alone. He can't do it. So he has to find Tara. He wants to find her.
He's led back to the ambulance and he goes willingly, climbing in and sitting numbly during the ride to the hospital. Not of the paramedics say a thing to him. They only call in another ambulance to collect Giles; for that he's grateful. He doesn't know if he'd be able to sit and deal. Not if they were trying to get him to talk. He has a one-track mind. All he wants is to find Tara.
He's following the body bags, a mini-parade of death, and he's passing a set of doors, when a voice drifts out to him, waking his senses.
"I don't care! I want her checked out! Get her a…a psychiatrist, a psychologist, something! Help her!"
His pace quickens as he attempts to find the owner of that voice that he knows so well. He bursts through the doors, freezing at the site of her. It's Cordelia, holding a weeping Tara to her, facing off against a nurse who could care less about finding help, and more about a filled-out form. Only Cordelia obviously knows none of Tara's information. Her hair is cut short, shorter than he's ever seen it, and blonde streaks run through it. Her form is tense.
"Cordy?" He calls out, a bit uncertain. He hasn't seen her in two years, and he's appropriately nervous about this unscheduled reunion.
She cranes her head to see him and gently lets go of Tara. She surprises him in the next moment, bounding over to him and wrapping him in a warm, friendly hug. Los Angeles has changed her, is his first thought.
"Xander! God, it's good to see a familiar face!" She then seems to notice the gash on his forehead and the obvious pain he's in from her hug. "Wow, you look like shit. That the hell's going on?"
He looks at her, sadly, as she takes a single step back. "Everyone's gone. In the 'dead and not actually coming back' kinda way. Buffy, Will, Giles, Dawn, Ahn…Spike. What's left is what you see here; me and Tara."
"Spike?" She asks. "Um. Wow."
"In a nutshell." Xander replies. He looks around for a moment before turning back to her. "I'm…I'm supposed to go identify them now."
Cordelia studies him for a moment and then grabs his hand. "I'll go with you."
He notices a tear in her eye and gives her a grateful smile and is glad for the progress. He stands still, waiting as Cordelia takes a deep breath and retries getting the nurse to get Tara a doctor. She's more successful.
When Dr. Schneider arrives and begins to gently guide Tara farther into the psychiatric ward, Cordelia retakes Xander's hand and they both make their way down to the morgue, side by side.
And then there were two, he thinks sadly.
The only upside is that Cordelia is still holding his hand.
