He asked for just one thing. One measly thing: don't die.
The smell of damp soil, burning wicks, the forest at night, and fear wafts unbeckoned.
One. Thing.
It isn't snakes and slices of flesh this time, but pulsing waves and glowing eyes. Not earth, but wind. And fire.
The result is the same, though. Willow goes away. The magic always takes Willow away.
He was one of the Slayerettes, before they became the Scoobies. And then he was...just Xander. Willow hadn't needed him in years; she was always leagues ahead of him. He'd known that in the third grade when she arranged all the crayons by order of wavelength (Sure, it had ended up being a rainbow all the same, but not the way she described it, with invisible science and a beaming smile he didn't understand but looked perfect on her face.)
But when Buffy came along, they were both similarly ordinary. For a while, at least, they were on the same level. And then Angelus happened and Willow got all witchy, and kept getting witchier until Xander was just a spot in the distance where they used to be. Where he still was and would always be.
The magic took Willow away. First from Xander, and then from herself.
Buffy and Willow glow and his stomach churns. 'Trust me,' Willow had said to Buffy. To Tara too, but not to him.
A secret bubbles up. He was ashamed to think of it, but part of him had been relieved, that day, after Willow had cried herself out on the bluff, that maybe that was the end of the magic. That she could just be Willow again, and they could go back to the way things were. But one look at the broken bundle in the backseat and blood that stained his hands reminded him that things would never, ever be the same. But the Willow curled tightly against the window, at least, he understood and knew how to help. He didn't know magic or science, but he knew Willows. It was always the two of them.
Three of them, he corrects. It had always been the three of them. How easy it was to not talk about Jesse, because to talk about him at all would have been admitting his death their fault and that was just another unbearable truth.
The scene in front of him now almost seems to pass in slow motion - Tara practically clawing at Buffy and Willow, the tense way Giles is holding himself, even Spike's jaw grinding as he seems to barely keep himself back- and Xander feels so helplessly lost. He hears gunshots and squeezes his eyes shut. He's going to lose them both this time; it's all going to fall apart again. The earth might not be ending on a global scale this time, but everything he cares about - his whole world- is right here in this room.
He can't bear the weight of more deaths on his hands.
Don't die. Please don't die. He prays.
Honestly, for a while there, what Anya was most frustrated by was the lack of inventiveness of mortal life. A thousand years of endless and limitless creativity made being human incredibly boring. Only a handful of moments really stacked up in comparison to her life as a vengeance demon. That thing with the mayor being a giant snake was a pretty good one, if ultimately a failure. But he got extra points for style.
Evil military Frankenstein was child's play. Honestly, I mean who did people think gave Mary Shelley the idea in the first place, anyway? But Buffy and the others had really stepped up their game, what with the hellgods, and vengeance that made her previous clients seem like petulant children. Heroes becoming the villains, even Anya could admit that was a good one.
But even Anya has her limits. And this is getting to be a little ridiculous. The world can't end every year almost on schedule without getting predictable. And people coming back from the dead or dying every few months is beginning to give Anya a headache. And heartache, if she's being honest. And she's had quite enough of that, thankyouverymuch. Being alive for centuries doesn't make it easier to deal with death when it happens to people you . . . care about. Fact is, she's learned, it only makes it harder. It was difficult enough losing Tara the first time. And not just because of all the murder and rampage afterwards.
It started because they were the only two Scooby-adjacent significant others, having locked themselves in Giles' bathroom to escape the Scooby core infighting. Xander had been trying to teach Anya about 'small talk' and though she thought it pointless and inane, determined that since a) it was important to Xander and b) she and Tara clearly weren't leaving the bathroom anytime soon, decided to use the opportunity to practice. "I like the tile," she'd mused pleasantly. Much to Anya's surprise, she found she didn't mind talking about things with Tara, even if they were pointless and inane. She found herself spending time with her often; between after her shifts at the Magic Box, before Xander came home from work, even when there wasn't a particular reason to go, Anya would find herself on the UCSD campus more times than she thought.
The 'Scrappy Club' became official after Tara had tried to explain the reference. "Because Scrappy is Scooby's sidekick, get it?"
Anya shook her head. "How can Scrappy be a sidekick when Scooby Doo is also a sidekick? Velma, Daphne, and Fred solve the crimes while Scooby and Shaggy hide, eat, or smoke marijuana in that disgusting van."
Tara giggled. "I don't think they were, um, allowed to show them smoking pot in the Mystery Machine."
"Well of course not, humans can be so prudish, but they definitely were. They were clearly stoned."
Even though she'd been more than comfortable with the idea of those nerds dying, she decided to help Willow for Tara, who could no longer do so herself. It was the last gift Anya would ever been able to give her best friend.
Tara was the only one who didn't treat her like an idiot or a child. She was patient and kind and took the time to understand Anya instead of Anya having to try so hard to understand everyone else. Human beings were exhausting, but aside from Xander, Tara was the only one who had made her feel normal. She treated her like a person.
Even Willow, with whom she has a contentious yet relatively cordial, growing on genuine relationship. They've all had practice mourning Buffy, and even Tara. But Anya doesn't want to lose another friend. Even one as often annoying and self-centered as Willow.
As Anya watches the energies surround and consume Willow and Buffy, part of her regrets not picking a different group of misfits to latch onto. Or not packing up to leave Sunnydale ages ago. All she keeps sowing here is death and pain.
And not for the first time, despite her best judgement, she finds herself gravitating toward Xander and holding his arm tight.