Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Warnings: mentions of past child abuse.

He was parked and ready to go in at 8:55. Now he was just looking at the clock waiting for it to say 9:00, despite the fact that he knew a watched pot never boiled. Eventually, although it had seemed like forever, the clock said 9:00. He got out of the car, locked it and made his way up the walk. He walked to the door and raised his fist. He wanted to talk to his mother, but at the same time he didn't. She had lied to him all his life about who his dad was, not to mention some other things he had put behind a wall so thick, he didn't have to think about it. Still, she was dying. He knocked and waited until the door opened. The nurse from yesterday was standing there and she opened her mouth. Although Hellmouth creatures usually stayed close to the Hellmouth, there was no rule that said they had to so he had to correct her asap.

"Don't say come in, just open the door enough so I can come in." she looked at him like he was crazy.

"Okay," she said in a I'm-talking-to-a-crazy-person voice. She opened the door wide and held it so that Xander could walk in which he did.

"Thanks," he said softly. Xander didn't wait for her and walked quickly to his mother's room. He sat down next to her.

"Hey mom," he said softly looking at her. She looked even skinnier and frailer than she had yesterday. She opened her eyes and stared into his. Xander's eyes became moist, he looked away for a second and collected himself.

"Xander...are you mad at me?" she looked so weak, so pitiful, and he honestly didn't know how he was feeling so he just said.

"No, mom I'm not."

"I'm so sorry. I know me and Tony's marriage is part of what stopped you from marrying that girl."

"Anya," Xander said quietly his parents had never liked Anya, because well, she was kind of brutally honest. As an ex-vengeance demon, she wasn't very good at censoring herself. He was afraid of turning into them and that was a big part of the reason he hadn't married Anya. He hadn't been ready for marriage. He now knew that he never should have asked Anya if he hadn't been willing to go through with it, but he had thought at the time he would have.

"It's okay." it wasn't and it would never be, but she was dying and Xander felt like was a kid again consoling her after his Dad hit her.

"I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to stop him from hurting you." Xander's heart sunk, he had hoped that either she didn't know or she was too drunk to notice. The fact that she had known and hadn't done anything was so much worse.

"It's okay." he lied.

"No Xander it's not, and it shouldn't have taken me dying to say it to you...I was your mother..I should have protected you...I should have left tony...He wasn't always that way you know. In the beginning he was sweet and kind." she smiled wistfully. "But everything changed when he lost his job when you were 5. He was unemployed for months and he started drinking heavily. At first he only hit me and I should have left, but I couldn't." she started coughing again and the nurse came forwards but his mom waved her off.

"I'm fine, just let me talk to my boy." she barked at Cindy.

"I started getting drunk to drown out the pain and then I couldn't' stop. I'm sorry that I missed your games and your plays because I was too drunk to go. I'm sorry that we were never around for you to ask us questions about life."

"It's okay mom." he lied gently, he wondered what else she wanted to get off her chest since she ...going away she was finally cleaning house.

"Your real father, he was a good man...I wonder what have happened if I had just told him the truth?"

"Did you ever tell him the truth?"

"No, I did look him up when Tony started hitting me, but he was married, baby on the way."

" He went to the marines right?" this time he had brought a pen and paper so he could take down everything she knew about him.

"Yes."

"What high school did you go to together?"

"Lawrence high. I always wanted to get out of Lawrence and Tony wanted to live in California."

"Why'd you move to Sunnydale?" Of all the places in California, they could have moved they had to move there. Of course if they had moved anywhere else he wouldn't be living the life he was now, he would probably be still in the dark.

"It was cheaper than the surrounding area's," of course it was cheaper. Who wanted to live in a town where the high school new paper had it's own obituary section. She started coughing again and this time it took a lot longer for her to stop. The nurse came in, checked her vitals and took a needle and put it in her IV.

"You need to go now." she said.

" Can't I just stay until she wakes up again. I promise I'll be quiet, you won't even know I'm here."

"Alright, but be quiet." Xander nodded and made his way out of the room to the living room where he sat down. There was only one bedroom in the house, he found that out when he had driven his mother back here. It had kind of stung, them getting a house which if he did want to visit he wouldn't have a room to stay in. Although he realized there was little point in paying for more than one bedroom if you only needed one bedroom.

He was wasting his mom's time talking about his dad. Xander had a name, he would go after him later, though if he was the hunter he was already dead. He needed to calm his mom, talk about good memories he had with her and let her get her feelings out about this thing, but he didn't want to at the same time. He didn't want to have to deal with this, not alone. Mind made up he found the back door and went into the backyard. There were no plants, just grass nicely done like the front yard as well, there were trees out here as well. He went the furthest he could away from the house, aware of his promise to be quiet, took out his cell phone, and dialed.

"Hello?" Buffy's groggy voice answered. He looked at the time, it was 9:30 with a 3-hour time difference, which made it 6:30 her time, on a Saturday. Oops.

"Sorry Buffy, I didn't realize how early it was, I'll call you back later."

"No..no..Xander it's okay...what's up?" she yawned and he felt badly.

"No, it's okay. I can talk to you later."

"We're talking now spill." she said in her you-better-do-what-I-say-or-else voice.

"Willow was right. There was something I needed to talk to you about, but I thought I could handle it alone, and I realized that I can't, that I need to talk to someone and that someone is you. Now before I say something if you at any point don't want to talk about it anymore it's fine, we don't have to talk about it at all."

"Xander what are you talking about?" she asked concerned and confused.

"My mom's dying, Cancer." Buffy gasped.

"I'm so sorry."

"Yeah me too."

"She'll be...gone soon."

"What can I do to help?"

"I don't know how to deal with this," Xander said with a shake of his head " What should I be saying to her? What should I do with her? How do I make the best of the time we have left?"

"You know, if I had known that my mom would have died when she did and I couldn't change it, I would have stayed with her all night long, telling her how much I loved her and cared for her and would miss her. How everything she taught me I would carry through my life and teach to my own children, " he could hear the sound of her sniffling and felt bad again "I would tell her how much I appreciated everything she did for me every day of her life. I would apologize for stupid fights with her. I would thank her being there for me even when I didn't want her to be there." she started crying and Xander felt even worse.

"Look, Buffy, I'm sorry this was a bad idea."

"No! Xander, it's not a bad idea, because you should say these things! Your mother should know these things." she said sadly but empathetically.

"She will," Xander said shortly.

"If need anything, I mean anything, don't hesitate to call me at any time," Buffy said.

"I will. I'll talk to you soon. Bye Buffy."

"Bye Xander," he hung up. Half the things Buffy had said were relevant to Joyce and not his Mom. So he had stirred up old emotions in Buffy and he didn't even know if he could used anything she said. He walked back into the house, went to the doorway of his mother's room, leaned against it and saw the nurse messing around with the machines. He looked at his mom. She had never been the mother he had always wanted her to be. There were few memories he could look back on and think that she was a good mother. He shook himself out of his head when the nurse started coming through the doorway, so he moved out of the way. She took a few steps towards the living room and Xander asked.

"What's your name?"

"Cindy."

'You're a hospice nurse aren't you." it was more of a statement than a question, but she answered anyway.

"Yes, I am."

"So you watch people die for a living?" it may have sounded rude but he hadn't meant it that way.

"I help people in their greatest time of need, so they aren't in pain and their comfortable." she said snidely then turned back around.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean it that way." he said hastily, she turned back around.

"It's just, I already lost my Dad and now I've got a new one possibly" if he wasn't dead, which if he was the hunter John Winchester he was. "I know you've heard our drama," he said motioning to the room and to them, she started to look a little embarrassed. "It's okay, it's not like we were being quiet about it. Do you know what I'm supposed to say to her? My friend, she lost her mom," his eyes were tearing up again and he turned away again to gain composure before he continued. "She tried to give me advice on what to say, but her mom she was a good mom, she was a great mom. Mine..." his eyes darted towards the room they were right outside of.

"She's asleep right?'" Cindy nodded.

"My mom wasn't great. It wasn't easy for her to have my dad do that to her...but I don't want her to die unhappy. So what do I say to her?"

"I don't know," Cindy said unhelpfully. "Yes, I watch people die for a living, but it's part of the job. You can't get too attached to your patients because you know eventually they are going to die and you'll have to start watching someone else. I haven't really ever lost anyone, except my rabbit, even then it was sudden and my parents told me he went to go live at a farm. I didn't figure it out until I was a teenager." she said with a small laugh. "But my guess would be to tell you love her...tell her you what you wished it could have been...and tell her you'll miss her, if you would. "

"Thank you Cindy."

"She'll be asleep for a few more hours at least, but if you want you can go in there and practice."

"Thanks." he walked into the room and sat down and grabbed her hand.