DISCLAIMER: Characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and co.
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The sun was setting behind the trees in the park when I came into
Sunnydale. I walked slowly, but with purpose, my shoulders squared and
thrown back. It had been years since I had been in Sunnydale and I wasn't
the same person I had been in high school. I wasn't the gangly, scared boy
I had been. Years of fighting demons, my own demons and the ones that
walked the earth, had changed me.
The soft, laughing look that had once lived on my face hadn't touched it
in years. The joking that had been revealed in my everyday talk was gone
and it would never come back. Because I would never get the closure I
needed to find it.
I found my way to the high school and looked up at the three story
building. Memories of past events flooded my mind, one figure particularly
prominent. The slayer. She had done this to me, changed me.
I turned, looking at the now empty parking lots and the dark shops across
the street. The sun finally dipped behind the horizon, darkness settling
over the entire city. The streetlights flickered on above me and I stared
up at the tall, humming lamps. So much was the same, yet everything had
changed.
My next stop was the Sunnydale cemetery. One of the many. It was
overcrowded, many of the coffins and tomb stones had been removed years
earlier to make way for the new deaths. My own was still there, I had only
died ten years before.
The stone was cracked and faded but I didn't need to see the words to know
what they said. I had been there so many times before I left. My hand
passed over the cool stone, my fingers finding the small ridges of the
words that were left.
"Alexander LaVelle Harris
1980 - 2004
He's laughing in our hearts"
That was all. My parents never knew me, they hadn't known what to write. I
didn't hold it against them, it was as much my fault as it was their's.
Willow had picked the words to place upon my stone.
I left Sunnydale three months after my death and killed most of my way
across the country. Until someone, Willow, had returned my soul. It had
taken her seven years to do it but she had, she needed to.
Two years before I died, Spike had turned Buffy. The slayer, who was
feared by vampires in life, was now loved by them in death. She was the
most powerful ally they ever had.
When Buffy had turned me, Giles and the others had tried to stop us both.
Instead, I left Sunnydale and left Buffy behind. Until three years ago when
Willow had finally returned my soul.
It was then I heard about the deaths. Buffy had tracked down every person
we had once loved and killed them.
Giles, Cordelia, Willow, Angel and Joyce. She had killed them each in a
row, it had taken her five days. One day for each.
I hadn't been around when most of their deaths took place. Giles' was
ruled 'accidental'. He had slipped down his apartment stairs and broken his
neck. Yeah, right.
Cordelia died in a car crash. The woman who I had once loved so much had
died driving her new car in Los Angeles. The brakes had failed, at least
that's what the report said. That was all. They didn't mention her broken
neck.
Angel had also died by Buffy's hands. A stake through the heart, simple
and clean. She hadn't lost her slayer abilities in death, they had only
become stronger.
Her mother had suffered the worst pain of all. Finding out her daughter
was a slayer and struggling to accept that, just to have her turned into a
vampire herself and stalk her own family. It must have hurt her
tremendously, knowing her daughter was now what she had once been trying to
kill. A broken neck was Joyce Summers' punishment for having a slayer born
to her. It wasn't something she could have controlled but it was the only
reason her life was brought to an end.
And then was Willow. She killed Willow exactly one month after the
successful witch had returned my soul to me. I owed her my life, my very
existence and I never had my chance to thank her. Buffy heard about what
she did and had tracked her down and killed her.
It was her that I was now fighting for. Angel once called me Buffy's white
knight. I'm certainly not crusading for her anymore. I'm trying to keep the
memory of Willow alive and maybe even the spirit of what Buffy had once
been. But if this trip had been for anyone, it was Willow.
I turned out of the cemetery, thinking of passing by my parents' home
before I confronted the former slayer. I could never see them again, that I
understood, but just to know that they were still alive would be enough.
I turned left down the street that ran in front of the graveyard to find
myself staring at the very person I had come to see.
She looked the same as she had in high school. Her hair was longer now,
gleaming almost silver under the full moon. She drew herself up to her full
height which wasn't much, but I knew not to underestimate her.
Her small body was strong and lithe, as it always had been and I knew the
power she held behind those tiny hands.
"Xander." Her voice floated through the air toward me, taunting me with
what I had always wanted but could never have. Her single word seemed to
whirl around my head before disappearing into the night.
I nodded, "Buffy." That one word, a name that I had once loved now felt
like poison in my mouth. My tongue suddenly dried and my teeth clacked
against each other as I shut my mouth. Her very name killed people.
"Glad to know you remember me." She said softly.
"I always will," came my reply.
She stood only five feet away from me in the deserted street, like an old
Western showdown. Except this fight wouldn't be as simple as taking ten
paces, then whirling on your heel and shooting at your enemy. It could
never be that easy.
"What are you doing here?" Her green eyes stared out at me like hard rocks
in her head. "You know you can never win."
I chuckled, "You'd be surprised at what I know." The words and my laugh
came out forced and dry. Nothing like the satire tone I had once cherished.
"And what do you know?" She asked, taking a step toward me. I know she
expected me to back away but I remained where I was, feet rooted to the
spot. "You know that I killed Willow?" She asked. "And all the others?"
I scratched my eyebrow in a casual way that I knew enraged her. "Yeah, I
know all that. I also know only one of us is going to walk away tonight."
"Good call." She said with a touch of sarcasm. "You know you're not going
to make it to tomorrow."
"To hell with tomorrow." I spat, my eyes narrowing at her. "It's not what
I came for."
"What does that mean?"
"I didn't come here to make sure I see tomorrow. I came to make sure you
wouldn't."
She laughed at that, threw her head back and laughed hard. "Oh Xander,
that's priceless."
"Don't call me that." I growled.
"But it's your name."
It's Willow's name for me." I sneered at her. "You have no right to say
it."
She shrugged. "If that's the way you feel."
"It is."
"Look, you can turn around and walk away." She said. "I'm offering you a
chance to get out of here and stay alive."
"It's something I don't care for." I answered.
She shrugged once again. "All right then. Don't say I never did anything
for you Xander, because I have."
I nodded. "Sure Buffy. You've done a whole bunch."
She was there suddenly, her hands around my throat ready to tear my head
off if she had to. She hadn't expected me to fight back. She hadn't seen me
in ten years, I didn't expect her to know my movements anymore.
She didn't.
My hands came up between hers and threw them off my neck. She looked
surprised and stumbled back a step. I entangled my hands into her hair and
slammed her face down onto my knee. I could feel her blood seep through my
jeans.
Her hand shot up, slamming into my stomach and I let go of her hair and
doubled over. I saw the fist coming toward my face much too late. It
cracked my jaw and shattered much of the left side of my face. She was much
more powerful than the last time I had come up against her.
I stood up, my face throbbing, to catch another fist with my jaw. It sent
slivers up pain through my face if I moved it. The third swing, I dodged
easily and retaliated by bringing my hand up and across her face. Her head
slammed to one side and blood sprayed from her nose.
"Goddamn it Xander, that hurt." Buffy moaned.
"It was supposed to." I answered, then grabbed her by the shoulders. I
flung her as hard as I could and she stumbled, then hitting the wrought
iron fence that surrounded the cemetery. Her back clanged against it and
she fell to the ground.
I pulled a stake out of my jacket.
She was just getting to her feet when I reached her. I punched her in the
face the moment she looked up and the fence clanged noisily once more as
she fell against it.
Buffy looked up at me, her nose bloodied and her face bruised and I
suddenly remembered the girl she had been. It wasn't supposed to be like
this. She had been bright and cheerful and so full of hope for the future.
The future hadn't looked this bleak. It had never looked like this from where I had always sat by her side. It had been so hopeful for her. It had looked to hopeful for all of us. This was the girl who had saved my life so many time and who I been attracted to for so long. Here I was, killing what I had once
loved so deeply. It was then I realized tears were rolling down my cheeks.
"Don't cry for me Xander." She spoke softly, her hand placed so lightly on
my arm it felt like nothing more than the breeze.
"I'm not crying for you." I said. "I'm crying for Buffy Summers."
Then my stake slammed forward and it met it's mark. She smiled lightly at
me before she burst into ash. I had released her and doing so, released
myself.
I stepped back, my hand relaxing and the stake dropping to the street.
Something fell into the grass and I bent down to pick it up.
It was the ring Angel had given her. She still wore it. I felt my mouth
curve up into a smile I hadn't known for ages and I dropped the ring to the
ground.
I smiled again. Tomorrow was going to be a good day.
The End