Dedication: To the lovely ladies at the batcave ::snirk:: for all the great fb.


Prologue

Cold. So cold. And dark. Not quiet though, there is a radio on and two people are talking. He hates waking up in the morgue. He wonders what time it is? Hopefully he won't have to spend all day in here. As soon as the staff head out for the night he will get out of the drawer and leave. He never should have come here but morbid curiosity compelled him. After thirty years it's still vamp city. Why is he waking up in a morgue you ask? That's simple, he died. Again. Want to hear his story? It's a real doozy.

It all started about thirty-six tears ago. That's the day Buffy Summers came into his life. Not that he thinks this is Buffy's fault, he doesn't. But things changed after she came. He learned about all the nasties, vampire's, demons, giant snake things that used to be Mayor. He lost his best friend Jesse to vampires and had to stake him. Willow, his other best bud...she became a witch. That's where things get interesting.

He became involved with an ex-demon, they were to be married but he left her at the alter, cold feet. Their reluctant vampire friend, Spike was his name, slept with Buffy. After she threw him over he slept with his ex. On the table at her work. While he watched it on streaming video via Willow's laptop. Why was it being broadcast you ask? Warren.

Warren was this creepy robotics specialist, he built himself a girlfriend who went a little nuts after he dumped her with out telling her. Incidentally he also made a 'Buffybot' for Spike. Of course he eventually got the real thing but soo not going there. So Warren and his two creepy little minions, Jonathan and Andrew were watching Buffy. They had cameras everywhere, that was how they managed to catch 'the boinking demon show'. It's not real important to the story, just a bit of a lead in on Warren and what happened next.

Buffy managed to thwart Warrens' every evil scheme so he went after her the old fashioned way, with a gun. Xander was in the yard with the Buffster, they were making nice after the 'my ex the demon slept with your ex the demon' episode. Warren fired the gun, Buffy got shot. What they didn't know at the time was that he fired a bullet at the upstairs window. Willow and Tara were in their room, Tara was at the window. The bullet hit her in the chest, she died right away.

Willow went nuts after that. She drained the magic from all of Giles books. The dark books. The ones that were off limits to everyone but himself. Xander was at the hospital with Buffy, he didn't know about Tara. Willow saved Buffy, she came to the hospital and levitated the bullet right out of buffy's chest and then healed the wound as good as new. Then the three of them went after Warren. He thought they were all on the same page, justice. Willow just wanted revenge.

She killed Warren, skinned him like a cat. Then poof. No more Warren. She went after his minions next. Xander, Anya and Buffy helped them escape. She drained Rack, he was the resident 'evil warlock'. Then she went after Dawn. Dawn was spared thanks to Buffy, but Giles wasn't so fortunate. She drained him of all the magic he had been impowered with. Some coven in England knew what was happening and sent him back to stop it.

By the time Xander caught up with Willow she was in the process of destroying the world. He stopped her. At least he thought it was him. Turned out all he did was stall her long enough for the magic she stole from Giles to take effect. No one knows exactly what happened, whether her magic was lost or just bound so she was unable to use it. It doesn't matter. The point was it was over, Wills would be okay and the world was safe. Tara was still dead though.

Giles stayed in Sunnydale to help Willow overcome her grief and her magic addiction. Buffy and Dawn grew closer because of everything, Spike was missing but no one really cared. Except Dawn, she actually liked him. Anya left afterwards. She decided to embrace her job as a vengence demon again. Giles took over the shop again and everything was returning to normal. Willow was on the road to recovery, or so they thought.

It was three weeks to the day that Tara died. Willow had gone missing the day before, and no one knew where she was. She wasn't in Sunnydale, Giles had cast a locator spell for the town and she wasn't there. They called everywhere they could think of, her parents were in San Fransico for the summer, they tracked them down but they hadn't heard from her. Xander even called deadboy out in L A, there was no answer, he tried several times but nothing. He called Cordy's house. Nothing there either. He figured they were probably on a case. Everyone was gathered at Buffy's, what was left of them anyway. Xander, Giles, Dawn and Buffy. That's when Willow showed up. She had changed.

Everyone assumed after the 'my will be done' fiasco that Willow had gotten rid of the talisman that D'Hoffryn had given her. They assumed wrong. It seemed that Willow had decided that they weren't good friends to her, that Buffy had failed to protect Tara from Warren and that being a vengence demon was a good carrer choice. Anya had the whole 'woman scorned' thing going on and Halfreck was working for ignorned children. So Wills decided to specialize in friendships gone awry. She made a side deal with D'Hoffryn to be able to seek vengence on her own behalf as her final test. And boy did she.

Buffy was stripped of her slayer power, left pretty much defenseless on the mouth of hell. Giles lost the thing he values most, next to Buffy that is. His knowledge. He was no longer the warlock, the watcher, the bearer of knowledge. He didn't even remember that vampires were real. Dawn, God poor Dawn, she was released from the monks spell. What was once a beautiful young girl became a swirling blob of green light, and then slowly disapeared. Since Glory had been destroyed, the spell was the only thing keeping the key in existance. With out the spell she ceased to be. And Xander? He got the worst curse of all.

Willow, his best friend since they were five, the girl who crushed on him all through elementary school and junior high, right up until Oz and even a little afterwards. The girl who knew all his secrets and never told. The only person in the whole world he trusted completely. She cursed him with immortality. He can never die, never forget, never escape the memories of what happened. Always drawn to seek company, to make and keep friends, over and over just to watch them die time and again. That was her curse on him.

He didn't know it at the time. She just smiled at him and then left. He thought he had been spared, that somewhere, deep down inside she was still his best friend, his Wills. That she would never hurt him. He was wrong.

Buffy was a mess after losing Dawn. She insisted on patrolling even without her slayer powers. She didn't know how else to deal with her grief so she threw herself into slaying just like she did after Joyce died. Only this time, she didn't survive it. A goup of fledges got to her the very first night. Xander tried to help her but he wasn't fast enough, wasn't strong enough. They drained her and left her to rot. He was next. He fought them off, went down kicking and screaming. They killed him too. Only thing was, the next morning he woke up on the ground in the cemetary, Buffy's body not twenty feet from him. That's when he knew. He screamed out for Willow, for her to stop this, to make things right.

He crawled over to Buffy and pulled her lifeless corpse into his arms and cried. He cried for a long time. When he opened my eyes, Willow was there. He begged her to fix it, to make everything right. Told her to kill him instead, just let the others live. Give Buffy back her life, her power. Bring Dawnie back. Make Giles whole. She laughed at him. Then she explained the extent of his curse. Never to die, never to forget, never to stand being alone.

He burried Buffy beside Joyce. He had a headstone erected for Dawnie as well. She deserved to be remembered. He stayed in Sunnydale, tried to help Giles, teach him about the scary things that go bump in the night. He wouldn't listen, didn't even know who Xander was. He died later that week. He took a walk through the park after sunset. Xander was contacted to identify his body. His will hadn't been changed since the curse and as the only remaining survivor of our group, Xander inherited everything. The shop, the condo, his bank accounts and life insurance. He had Giles buried next to Buffy.

He sold the shop, the condo, the furniture, and all his possessions. He had all of Buffy and Dawn's things put in storage and sold their house as well. He left Sunnydale as soon as he could. He went to San Diego for a while, and then travelled around aimlessly. He ran into the new slayer one night in Chicago. He was attacked by a couple of vampires walking back to his hotel. This tiny brunette girl, reminded him of Dawn, came flying out of no where and dusted them both. He looked at her, smiled, said 'thanks slayer' and walked away. She followed him back to his room and they talked.

He told her about Buffy, about Sunnydale, the hellmouth, and everything else. She had only been on active duty for a couple months and her watcher was in the hospital after being scewered by a demon. He trained with her, helped her research. He fell in love with her eventually. She was younger than he, she was only seventeen when they met. By her eighteenth birthday they were lovers. She died in her nineteenth year. He had only two years with her, he didn't regret them but he vowed to himself to refrain from getting involved with anymore slayers, they died too damned young. He went back to wandering after that, never stayed in one place too long. He saw the world over the past thirty years. He made a few friends, had a few lovers. He learned at one point that while he was immortal he was still fertile. One of the girls he was with became pregnant. She miscarried but it got him thinking. If he had to watch his own children grow up and die before his very eyes it would kill him.... emotionally at least. He never bedded another woman after that.

Xander had always found men to be somewhat attractive in a 'if I were gay I would go for him' sort of way. He admitted once, to Willow, about being curious about gay sex. He decided that eternity was along time to go without sex so he started to look into that side of himself a little deeper. He's had a few male lovers since then. And at first he was still very nervous and somewhat frightened about the fact that yes, he was attracted to men, and that he was very much enjoying the sex. He got over it. He is now very accepting of the fact that he is a bisexual man who leans heavily to the gay side.

He's died a handfull of times. He was drained by vamps, hit by a car, struck by lightning believe or not, and choked to death on a piece of steak, embarrassing that one. He drowned once, fell asleep in the tub. There have been a few other deaths, who knew how accident prone he really was? He had woken up in the morgue on a few occassions, often enough to learn a little magic, like how to open doors from the inside. It tends to freak people out when you jump naked out of a body bag and run like hell. After the first time he vowed never again, so....magic.

Xander started to wonder what ever happened to Spike. He took off before Tara's death, and no one had seen him by the time Willow cursed them all. He wondered if he ever came back to Sunnydale. After much consideration and soul searching, he decided to look him up. So here he was, back in good old Sunnyhell California. Two hours in town and he was dead already. He didn't even see the vampire until he was biting him. The place really hadn't changed much. As soon as he get out of here, he's headed to Spikes' crypt. Take a look around, see if there's any sign of life, unlife, whatever. He hopes it's almost dusk, it's fucking cold in there!