Those They Left Behind: Chapter 1
Author: Clarity
Disclaimer: Joss. Is. GOD. I just try to interpret his works.
Summary: What if Xander and Dawn didn't make it back to Sunnydale in time for the series finale? What would happen to them next?
Rating: PG-13/R, for some extremely angry language
Spoilers: Everything that's ever happened in the entire series is fair game. Plus the end of S4 of Angel.
Author’s Notes: So, I redid the prologue. I got halfway through this part and decided I liked Spike too much to just 'disappear' him for fifty years. Besides, it feeds the parallelism. And Robin Wood's going to be fun in 2053.
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May 23, 2003
I don’t know how to start this, or why I’m even writing it, except that I’m camped out in
my living room with three people and we’re all that’s left. Someone should record this.
Someone has to, and the Watchers Council is gone, and Giles...Giles is dead. He’s dead,
so no more tweedy Brits to keep diaries and train the Slayers, sorry, Slayer. Singular.
One Slayer, one Key, and Andrew, and Spike, and me.
So I’m going to write this because someone has to and there’s so much, so much,
I don’t know where to start.
They’re dead. That’s what it all comes back to, they’re all dead. And we’re not.
Buffy sent me out of town with Dawnie, and we’re alive because of it. And they fought
their final battle in this hell of a ghost-town, and they died and I haven’t got a clue what
to do now.
Dawn’s asleep in my bed with Amanda, they’re so tired. They’re so young. They’re as
old as Buffy and I and Willow were when we started, but they’re so young. They
need someone to take care of them. Which I guess elects me, because I’m the only one
left to do it. Suddenly I’m the only one left to raise a pair of teenage girls and one of
them’s a Slayer.
I should start at the beginning. We left on the nineteenth and it was a Monday and now
it’s the middle of Friday afternoon. We got back on Wednesday night because we spent
all of Tuesday driving, me and Dawn, away, back, away again, and finally on Wednesday
she shouted me into coming home. And the whole place was deserted.
Wednesday night we pulled up in front of the Summers house and it was empty except
for Andrew knocked out and tied up in the basement just like Spike was. Once, before he
almost died. He’s back in his bed in the spare closet because even though I really can’t
stand him, he’s pretty much all I have left of my family. They were family. They were
my family, and now I have Andrew that Buffy punched out to keep him safe and out of
her way when she went and fought her final battle, and I have a pair of 16-year-old girls,
and I have a snarky souled British vampire. And aside from Cordy in LA, and Oz and
Riley off God-knows-where, that’s all that’s left of the people I loved. Love. Will love,
forever. All of you, Buffy, Willow, dear, dear Anya, and Giles and Faith I love
you. Joyce, Tara, take care of them? There’s a whole long list of people in Heaven I can
beg to take care of you, stretching back to when I was Dawn’s age. Kendra, keep an eye
on your sister Slayers? Jess, buddy, take care of Wills for me? I tried, but I wasn’t good
enough, so now it’s your turn. Miss Calendar, help G-man loosen up a little; it’s Heaven,
he can let his hair down, right?
I don’t know what to do. I grabbed a pile of weapons and Dawn and I ran to the vineyard
and there was no point because it was a bloodbath. Dead Bringers and dead Slayers and
Turok’ahn dust. We found Anya’s body, but not Buffy’s or Willow’s or Faith’s or Giles’.
We found Spike, too, bloody and silent and Amanda with a broken arm and a hole in her
stomach but Slayer healing and we couldn’t bear to go back to Buffy’s so we crashed
here.
If I’m playing Watcher I should write about the final battle. The one I survived only
because I missed it. I should have been there. It’s what I do, I’m there when it
all goes to Hell. I should have been with you. You sent me away but I should have been
there. Dawn blames me. I blame me. Andrew’s curled up on the sofa whimpering in his
sleep, I think he blames himself, which is stupid. I know Spike blames himself. I don’t
know who Amanda blames because she hasn’t spoken in two days. But I blame me.
If I had been here maybe I could have done something. I probably would have died, too,
but maybe one of you, just one of you, would have lived, so that would have been
enough. If I had been strong enough fast enough smart enough good enough to avoid
Caleb I would have been okay, you wouldn’t have told me to go, if I had been stubborn
enough good enough strong enough I wouldn’t have left anyway I could have fought
anyway I can still fight if I have to. At the vineyard, when we found Amanda and Spike,
there were still vampires. Not a lot, but enough. I’m not helpless. I should have been
here.
I should have been here!
Angel showed up with this little trinket necklace that was supposed to do something but
God alone knows what because it didn’t work. Spike made Buffy give it to him, it was
supposed to work for a champion with a soul and superhuman strength. Fat lot of good
that did, he couldn’t save her. He couldn’t save any of you. Buffy figured you’d mount
an attack from the school basement. You all, they all, they opened up the seal and then
they all went down to fight, but it wasn’t enough. They were loosing and the vamps were
getting through and that couldn’t happen so they retreated, Buffy and Faith and Giles and
Robin Wood and Willow, figured at least they could shut off the seal and trap the vamps
inside, that’s what Spike said when we found him. He was trying to get the
Slayers-in-training out through the vinyard, but the five of them had some kind of
brilliant plan, he said something about a second front, and Spike couldn’t figure out how
to make his necklace thing work, so the five of them went out that way after the Turok’an
and the seal closed and he doesn’t know what happened after that. The girls, there were
maybe thirty of them, against an army, along with one vamp, and one ex-vengance demon
oh God Anya. Only they were all Slayers at one point or another, for just a minute or
two, before they died and passed it on, because apparently up top Buffy and Faith both
died, except we can’t even get into the school to find their bodies. I don’t want to go
anywhere near that school, ever.
He got Amanda out and trapped the rest down there with no food and no escape forever,
because Buffy and Faith and Giles and Willow and Principal Wood sealed off the seal
before they died when they left all the girls down there how could you just abandon them
like that? Spike said Buffy looked like she had some kind of epiphany, like how to fix it
or whatever, but she just left them and they all died all the girls and even everyone who
wasn’t a Slayer-in-training oh God Anya I love you. Why didn’t you just go? Why
couldn’t you just save yourself? Come on, if I was a big enough coward to run off and let
them all die, couldn’t you have had the sense to save your own life? You’re not stupid,
you never were, so why couldn’t you just leave?
I hate you all for dying like this. For letting yourselves die. You let each other die. You
were supposed to save each other! Buffy, God, you were supposed to protect them, you
were supposed to watch out for your girls and my girl and Giles you were supposed to
keep your Slayer safe and damnit, Kennedy, I trusted you to take care of my Willow!
What am I going to do? I don’t know how to be in charge. Suddenly Dawn is looking at
me to tell her what to do even though she blames me, there’s no one else, she’s screaming
and crying all at once and she wants me to take responsibility for it all and make it all
better and be the adult and I don’t know how. I don’t know how to take care of Amanda,
here parents were from Sunnydale but they left their daughter and fled months ago I can’t
let them have her and there’s no Council I’m the only one. How am I supposed to take
care of a Slayer? Train a Slayer? Teach her to fight vampires and kill demons and stop
apocalypses when I can’t even aim a crossbow anymore? When I’m too much on the
‘casualties’ list to even be allowed to the apocalypse myself?
Of course there’s Spike, only he’s regressed to the way he was last October without the
killing people part, crying and talking to himself, and he really did love Buffy. I know he
did, I can see it in his eyes, and it’s the only reason I didn’t stake him when I found him
because he lived and he got out and she didn’t. But he regrets that even more than I do,
and it’s the only thing that’s stopped me from killing him. He’s all we have left, part of
all we have left, so...yeah. I’ve got to tolerate him, take care of him, so I will, because at
least he knows how to take care of Dawnie. I don’t. I don’t know.
And Andrew. I think I hate him. What gave him the right to sit this one out? Buffy
decided he was useless and in the way and made him stay out of it and God do I know
that tune, or am I the only one who remembers Jack O’Toole? Except that time I saved
the day because I refused to stay out of it, and this time I left. I left, and she tied Andrew
up, and yeah we both stayed out of it and saved ourselves and we weren’t needed to save
the world but it ended anyway because all of you are dead and what gave him the right to
survive? How dare he survive? You didn’t. Anya’s never going to mutter about money
or sex or be ridiculously adorably blunt again, Willow’s never going to sit around and get
nostalgic about fifth grade or watch ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ with me, Giles will
never play father-figure and clean his glasses and roll his eyes at us and say “the Earth is
doomed” again, so what gives Andrew the right to still be here wasting air and space and
life being annoying and useless when they’re gone?
And here comes the blatant hypocrisy, because what gives me the right to still be here
wasting air and space and life being useless, either? How dare I survive? What gives me
the right? I should have been there. I should have died rather than let them give their
lives for this. I have to keep going because I’m the only one here who can I have to be
Giles now and play father-figure to a couple of sixteen year old girls and a useless geek,
try and be Watcher to a Slayer and mentor to a budding researcher net-girl and tolerate a
Zeppo and deal with a souled vampire I don’t know if I can. Amanda is never going to be
Buffy. I should be there for her, but she’s not Buffy she’s not my slayer and she never
will be. Dawn I love her like a little sister but she’ll never, never be my Wills. Andrew
can try and play comic relief and sure why not he’s easy to laugh at, and that’s all
Zeppo-boy was ever good for anyway, certainly not trustable with an apocalypse or
anything, but can he be White Knight when he has to be? When his slayer needs him to
love her and risk his life to save hers, can he? If Spike ever turns into Angel, if he ever
tries to date my Slayer I swear to God I don’t care how bad he feels I will kill him. And I
can’t be Giles. I can’t. I don’t know how. I’m not book-guy or smart guy I never was. I
was Research Boy because I was no good at the slaying or the witchcraft, and Dawn’s
even better at it than I am. I can’t do it but I have to because I’m the only one which
brings me back to the point of this paragraph, I don’t have the right to be here to keep
going in the first place. I’m not here because I’m good enough to take the job I’m not.
I’m here because I was stupid and weak and lucky enough to survive when everyone who
was good and brave and strong and who I loved died. I shouldn’t be here.
Tell me what to do, damnit! Giles, I know you’re sitting up there shaking your head or
rolling your eyes or whatever at my total and complete ineptitude, but forgive me, please,
I’m not you, so tell me what I’m supposed to do now. Tell me how to live this. Tell me,
Willow, because I’m not as smart as you, how do I solve this one? I know I promised you
I’d bring you back, Buffy, and I’d give my life to do it if I could but I don’t know how, so
tell me how? Tell me what to do. I’m your Zeppo doughnut-boy, remember? I do what
Buffy and Giles and Willow tell me to do and I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t
know how to do this. I can’t. I can’t. God, help me. I don’t know what to do.
-Xander
May 24, 2003
It’s Saturday night. Sevenish, I guess. The girls and Andrew and Spike just went to bed,
but I can’t. I can’t. My brain just won’t turn off, and this is why I don’t think too much.
It just gets you into trouble.
So everyone woke up around midnight yesterday after about ten straight hours of sleep,
except for me because again, even exhausted, I couldn’t fall to sleep until about five. I
think our sleep patterns are pretty much all shot to hell, but what isn’t around here? Oh,
and you’ll love this. We spent the day graverobbing.
Not literally, but God it felt that way. See, God knows we can’t stay here. Not like this.
I feel like running as far and as fast as I can and moving to...I don’t know, Zimbabwe?
That’s pretty far. Or maybe Tibet. I guess those Tibetan monks are pretty good at
teaching the calm, cause Oz, when he came back wolf-less. But I never want to think
about Hellmouths or apocalypses or Slayers or vampires ever again.
So, compromise, we’re moving out of Sunnydale, me and my Key and my Slayer and my
Zeppo and my vampire and myself. Pretty much a no-brainer, considering that there’s no
heat or electricity or running water or even people here anymore. The thing is, in my
apartment? Pretty much all I’ve got here are a fridge full of warm beer and bad milk and
moldy cheese, and a cabinet of unpoppable popcorn and canned soup and cookies.
Breakfast, which we ate around one in the morning, was cold cream of tomato. Spike
went out hunting, I think he found a few rats in the sewers, and I’d have stopped him if he
had any choice but he doesn’t, does he? My only clothing is, well, my clothing, which
might fit Andrew or even Spike but not the girls. And my credit card’s not unlimited,
plus I no longer have a job to pay it off. So we needed stuff.
So this morning, at one in the morning because none of us could sleep and at least the
flashlight batteries still work, and Spike’s no good in daylight, we began our career as
professional burglars. First stop was Buffy’s house, and yeah, that’s where the
grave-robbing comes in. Dawn only wanted to pick up hers and Amanda’s stuff, and
Amanda got the weapons and Andrew packed all the old books, but...well, you’re not
going to need it anymore. So we took Willow’s laptop, and the new microwave and
whatever other decent pawnable electric appliances we could carry, and we went through
all the drawers and the wallets and the everything for spare cash. And some of Joyce’s
artwork, the expensive sculpture and stuff, we took it, and once we get out of this hellhole
of a ghost town we’re going to have to sell it because we have no money. And Buffy’s
jewelry, and Willow’s jewelry, and all of the stuff from any of the Slayers that might have
been worth anything, and some of Tara’s stuff that Willow kept because she couldn’t bear
to get rid of it, yeah, we’re probably going to sell all of it. We’re pawning Joyce’s
wedding ring, which would probably make me feel sicker if she was still married when
she died, but hey, no need, because I already feel bad enough.
Especially since, once we were done and had everything we could scavenge from Revello
Drive back in my apartment, we started on the rest of the town. I lost count of the
number of windows I ended up breaking today. It’s a small town, but not that small.
After a while we just gave up on the private residences and started robbing stores and
stuff, because the cash registers were usually abandoned full. Yeah. We made quite a bit.
Lunch was peanut butter and jelly eaten on the floor of the bread aisle in the supermarket.
Dawn almost smiled.
She doesn’t smile anymore. None of us do, although Andrew keeps trying to lighten the
mood. He’s got to work on his technique. Normally I’d be helping him, but nothing
really seems funny anymore. Spike’s all quiet, I keep remembering early-crazy-souled
Spike, but at least he’s stopped talking to the voices in his head. Amanda still hasn’t said
anything. She just does what I tell her to do. Dawn’s stopped bursting into tears, but she
hasn’t stopped hating me. She looked like she wanted to rip my throat out with her bare
hands when we were playing tomb raider in her mother’s house and her sister’s house and
her house. Trust me, Dawnie, I’d tear my own heart out if it could fix this.
We need to leave. This place is killing us. Robbing the bank helped a lot, the bank
hadn’t been cleared out at all, we must have gotten a couple of hundred thousand at least.
Which, yeah, will definitely keep us for a while, except that we’re homeless and jobless
and teenage girls are expensive. Teenage slayers are even more expensive, cause property
damage? And all I know how to do...no, not true. I know how to do a lot, from fast food
to ice cream man to washing dishes at a strip club. All I’ve ever been good at that paid
enough for me to feed myself was construction. And who’s going to hire a guy with only
one eye? How am I supposed to take care of these girls, and, y’know, Andrew, or Spike,
like this? I’m helpless. I’ve always been helpless, except I sort of got better, and
sometimes it was enough, but now what can I do? ‘Welcome to Doublemeat Palace, can
I take your order?’
I need to get these girls out of here before Amanda stops responding, period, and just goes
catatonic like Buffy did when Dawn was taken by Glory and she died the second time and
God, Buffy, why aren’t you here? Why aren’t you here with us? I need you. Dawn
needs you. Amanda needs you. I need you. Where do we go? I’ve left this
town by myself exactly three times in my whole life, Buffy, the summer after high school,
and when Glory was chasing us, and this past Monday. I’ve never even been out of
California, and I don’t know where to go. I need help. I need another adult-type-person,
a real adult, one who knows what they’re doing. Somewhere elsewhere than Sunnydale.
And the only people I know outside of Sunnydale, aside from my relatives who we are
not going to visit, are Oz and Riley and everyone in LA. And I don’t know
where Oz or Riley are. Which means we’ve got to go to LA unless I want to just flee
straight to Tibet, but I don’t speak Tibetan. And God knows I hate Angel, I hate him for
not being able to save you, but he’s the only person that can help us, isn’t he? He
definitely fits the ‘real adult’ thing, anyway, and I need help. I don’t know what I’m
doing. I don’t know why I’m suddenly the one everybody’s looking at for answers, and
God Buffy I’m sorry. I never realized how impossible it is to be in charge when you
don’t know what you’re doing and have no idea what happens next. I never knew. God
help me.
So, yeah, we’re going to LA tomorrow, and I’ve known for a while that we had to, I just
didn’t want to admit it to myself, because...I don’t know. I don’t want to go to LA, but
it’s the only option. Just for a few days, to get on our feet, and find someplace that isn’t
Sunnydale and isn’t California and isn’t the Hellmouth and we can stake normal,
non-souled, non-chipped, non-ubervamp vampires and kill normal, non-Bringer,
non-First demons. And find me a job and Andrew a job and the girls a school where they
can be sophomores again because if we thought the second half of our sophomore year
was weird, Wills? We had nothing on what they just went through.
And we’ll survive. I guess. It feels like I’m dying inside, and it’s got to be the same for
Dawnie or Spike, and I can only imagine what Amanda and Andrew are thinking. But
we’ll survive because it’s what we do it’s what we have to do. Which is why we spent
the day playing graverobber and bank robber and now have a bunch of pillowcases
stuffed full with cash. And why I made everyone eat a hot dinner because I figured out
how to start a campfire on the roof. We’ve got to survive, because we’re all that’s left to
remember them. And we’re all that’s left to save the world the way you were supposed to
and did before you died. And we have to keep going. Even if it feels like we’re already
dead.
-Xander
May 26, 2003
Monday night, almost midnight. Angel put us up in this big giant hotel of his, so I’ve got
a comfortable bed for the first time in a week. At least it’s better than the floor, and
finally I don’t have to listen to Andrew snore. I was going to give the girls separate
rooms, but Amanda finally said something for the first time in I don’t know how many
days, so they’ve got twin beds in the same suite. I’m glad. Maybe they’ll help each
other.
So we got here around noon yesterday, with Amanda driving Dawn and Andrew in my
car, and me and Spike in some SUV we hot-wired, because we couldn’t fit all the stuff
along with Spike in the trunk. We talked a little, me and Spike on the way. He was
underneath a blanket in the back seat the whole time because of the sun, but he’s the only
other adult-type person around, and I was pretty desperate for someone to talk to, and
how sad is it that all I’ve got left to turn to is Spike? But we talked. About Angel, and
about what we were going to do after Angel. Major thing we agreed on was, the girls are
ours, and we aren’t giving them up to anyone. But he’s so quiet. He’s lost his assertive
cocky snarky Spikishness. I guess I was looking for him to start taking charge, pointing
out what needed to get done, taking care of Dawn in his pushy way that always ticks me
off, but he’s not. He’s leaving it all to me. So much for Spike.
Anyway, Angel’s place was pretty much deserted. Big note on the door: ‘Angel
Investigations has moved!’ and a new address. Would’ve been nice for Angel to tell us a
week ago. We only found this place because Willow still had the address written down
from when she came here two years ago to tell him about...God. Never anything happy,
is there? It’s all just...damn.
So Spike ducked under his blanket and dashed into this huge, snazzy skyscraper office
building where the five of us were almost arrested by building security for tripping their
‘vamp detector’ before Wesley rescued us. Yeah, mini-Giles, only he’s got this
dangerous look to him now. He’s not quite so totally pathetic anymore. Actually, he
kind of reminds me of Ripper, with the whole ‘don’t mess with me’ Britishness. I barely
recognized him as the same guy. He’s all hard around the eyes. Kind of what I look like
in the mirror, I guess, except for he’s still got both of them. I almost wonder what
happened to him to make him like this. Except that you know what? I’ve got enough
dead people to deal with. I don’t care.
He brought us up to Angel’s office, which is about as big as my entire apartment, and
there he was, Mr. Deadboy himself, standing in the sunlight. Yeah, I nearly had a heart
attack, too. Apparently all the windows in his big law office building have this special,
vamp-proof glass that lets them in the sunlight. Which let Spike drop the blanket like we
found out he could have in the lobby, but...damn him. Damn him! She was supposed to
be the fucking love of his fucking life, and here he is in his multi-million-dollar law firm
standing in the sunlight. Buffy’s never going to stand in the sunlight again, or Willow, or
Anya, or Giles, or Faith...doesn’t he even care? Doesn’t he even fucking care?
So there we are the six of us, because Wesley’s left and gone off to do I don’t know what
and I don’t care. Angel looks kind of surprised to see us. Dawn’s standing next to me,
and if my eyes are starting to look kind of hard in the mirror, well, she’s pure stone.
Spike’s over in the corner, just amazed by the sunlight, and Amanda’s sort of behind her
all shrunk into herself, and Andrew’s hanging back cowering. I almost want to hit him
and tell him to stop being such a wimp, but these are the people I have to work with and
have to take care of, so like him or not, he’s mine now, and I’m not about to let Angel see
us against each other. I need his help, but he’s not one of us.
“Spike! Xander. Dawn.” He’s surprised to see us. His eyes flicker over Amanda and
Andrew, but I don’t think he remembers their names. Bastard.
“Deadboy.” I never knew my voice could sound so icy. He flinched.
“What can I do for you?” He moved to sit at this big, fancy desk of his. Dawn almost
took a step forward, but I put my hand out and stepped around her until I’m standing
directly in front of the desk. We agreed before we left that I’d do the talking. See, I
know exactly what I want from that bastard of a vampire that was sitting in front of me,
and it’s exactly, exactly, exactly what I’m going to get. Dawn’s doing the same thing she
did when Buffy came back, she’s turning all her emotions into anger and destructiveness.
She smashed more windows than I did the other day, and more than we needed to.
Andrew didn’t tell me until yesterday that he found her in front of one house, just pelting
it with rocks while she cried. I don’t know what to do. But I’m just going all icy, and I
know I’m freezing over, but I don’t really fucking care. Number one priority is Dawn and
Amanda. Nothing else matters except that I take care of them.
“We need a place to stay for a couple of days.” And yeah, he looked surprised, probably
less at what I’m saying than how I’m saying it, because he nodded immediately. He’s
used to babble-Xander, the one who joked all the time. Remember him? I haven’t seen
him in a while.
“Of course. You’re welcome to stay--” and I cut him off, because I have no desire to
listen to him telling us we can stay as fucking long in this city as we want. I want to get
out of here as soon as humanly possible.
“We’re leaving California as soon as we can. We just need a few days.” So that damned,
helpful-concerned-compassionate look on his face flickered a little. Good.
“Is there anything we--”
“Andrew? Do you want to take the girls for lunch?” Because they don’t need to hear
this. We need Angel’s help, but I don’t fucking trust him, and he and Spike and I all
know it. But the girls don’t need to deal with this. So I gave Andrew a few twenties and
told him to keep them busy for a while, and yeah Dawnie glared at me and started to
object, but I glared right back at her and mouthed ‘Later’, so they left. I sat down in one
of the chairs in front of Angel’s desk, and motioned for Spike to do the same. Angel
looked even more surprised when he realized that Spike was pretty much doing what I
told him to.
“Spike, what is this?” he demands. “What’s really going on?”
And Spike, bless him or damn him, just shrugs and tilts his head at me. “Ask Harris.
He’s the bloke in charge. I don’t give a damn.”
Yeah. Spike just gave me control of everything. And no, I don’t want Spike to be in
charge, I don’t like him don’t trust him with my girls, but God. I don’t want to be in
charge. I don’t know how to be. But Spike just gave it to me, so I am, now, whether
Angel believes it or not. Which he didn’t, by the way.
“Oh, come on, Spike, what’s your angle?” he scoffed. “I know you. What’s in this for
you? What’re you up to?”
And no I don’t like Spike, but him putting me in charge means I’m responsible for him,
so I broke in. “He’s up to nothing, Angel. The girl he loved just died. Fuck off. We
need your help, but we don’t need your crap. Now Buffy’s gone, and us? We’re all
Dawn has. And we’re all Amanda has. There’s no Watcher’s Council anymore, there’s
just us. So are you going to help us or not?”
He gave me this long, measuring look, and then he just nodded once. “What do you
need?”
“Legal custody of Dawn and Amanda. Passports, birth certificates, paperwork, whatever.
Bank accounts, because we’ve got just over a million in cash and we’re going to need
every cent of it. I won’t know where we’re going for another couple of days, but it won’t
be in California. I need for you to get me every last legal speck that will make sure
nobody gives us a second glance wherever it is.” Sure, I hadn’t expected the thirty-story
.law firm, but I knew Angel had connections. ‘Wolfram and Hart’ are just going to make
it easier for him.
And again he looked kinda taken aback, you know? Sort of shocked that me, the Zeppo,
had thought ahead, let alone demanded all this stuff of him. “Xander, the girls would be
safer here. If the Watcher’s Council really is gone, then we’ve got the last living Watcher
in the world here, plus--”
“No way in Hell, Deadboy.”
“But Dawn--”
“Dawn is mine. She is my responsibility, my little sister in all but the legal part and as
soon as you get that paperwork done, she’s going to be my little sister for real. And
Amanda came to us. In the past six months, her entire life and her entire world’s been
turned upside down, and Dawn and Andrew and Spike and me are the only things left
from Sunnydale that she even recognizes. Buffy told me to protect Dawn, and she told
me to take care of whatever was left, so that’s what I’m doing. My Slayer, my Dawn.
Period.”
So he went all ‘reasonable’. Bastard. “Xander, you can’t train a Slayer. Do you even
know the first thing about--”
“Yeah. Teach her to fight, give her plenty of backup support, and don’t strangle her.
Look at that, I know the first three things. Angel, I’m doing this, okay? I’m doing this. I
don’t have a choice.”
“That’s what I’m offering you, Xander, a choice. You don’t have to have anything to do
with this anymore. You could...you could go live a normal life. Settle down, get married,
raise a family. I could talk to Lilah and Fred, see if Wolfram and Hart was still running
the evil spare parts lab, see what we can do about your...” And apparently he can’t say
‘eye’ anymore, because he just sort of indicated his own eye, and yeah that’s pretty much
what did it. Yeah, I’m standing here, twenty-two and missing an eye, with barely passing
knowledge of half a dozen languages and very few martial arts skills. I am nowhere near
Watcher material. But I admit it. I have the courage to say it. And if Angel can’t even
straight-out say to one of his old enemies that he’s missing an eye, well, how dare he even
try to tell me what to do?
“Eye, Angel. The thing you see with. Yeah. It’s gone. In a fight, just like a thousand
other fights I’ve gotten into with demons on Buffy’s behalf in the past six and a half
years, because I chose to. I picked this. I decided to get into this, and no I will not just
leave to go live a ‘normal life’. I don’t think I could if I tried. Dawn and Amanda are my
responsibility. And you’re not going to talk me out of this, and to stop me you’d probably
have to kill me, and I don’t think either of us want to do that to Dawn, so are you going to
help me or are you going to get out of my way?”
There was a long, long moment of silence. Angel glanced at Spike, who’s been quieter in
the past week than I think I’ve ever seen him since I’ve known him, who just shrugged in
the corner of my eye. Angel broke first. He sighed.
“Fine. If this is really what you want, fine. I’ll get you the paperwork. You can stay at
the Hyperion for as long as you want.”
After that was pretty much small talk. You know, ‘how’ve your apocalypses been going,’
‘why didn’t you burst into flames,’ ‘so how’s the new soul working out for you,’ ‘how’s
Cordelia doing?’ The last one was pretty much a shocker. She’s in a coma. Damn,
Cordy. The Scooby gang’s dropping like flies. No one’s left.
Not true. I’m left, and we’ll rebuild our Scooby gang. We have to. So we will.
Anyway. Turns out Andrew took the girls to pawn the microwave and the jewelry and
everything after lunch to give me and Spike more time with Angel. So Broodboy told
one of his employees to take us in the company limo over to the bank so we could open
an account. Yeah, the company limo. This is ridiculous. But we got in and went to the
bank and opened an account that contains about one and a half million dollars, and never
let it be said that bank robbing isn’t profitable. Especially when the bank’s been
abandoned. And then we went back to the hotel and set up Willow’s laptop that’s now
Dawn’s laptop, and I asked Dawnie to track something down for me.
See, we need somewhere to go. Somewhere with a big enough demon population that a
Slayer is going to matter. But I have never been out of California in my life, and I don’t
want to ask Angel. So Dawn is tracking down Riley for us. Buffy had some contact
numbers that she used when Spike’s chip went crazy, and I told Dawn to basically hack
into every file on the laptop to find them if she had to. She’s getting to be quite the little
net-girl. And Andrew helped, because you don’t get to be that big of a geek without
some kind of computer know-how. She found his e-mail address after a bunch of hours,
so we sent him a letter to tell him Buffy’s dead. Poor guy.
And Spike and Amanda and I practiced. It was just us at the hotel, so we brought out
some of the weapons and sparred. Amanda still wasn’t talking, but she still fought pretty
well. Spike only opened his mouth to give me a few pointers on fixing my aim with the
big battle-ax. Damnit, I can’t stand this feeling helpless. I keep misjudging and
completely screwing up. I got better, but still. Spike insisted on patrolling, though God
knows where, it’s not like LA is one big graveyard like Sunnydale. I made him take
Amanda to watch his back. If Spike’s got to be one of ours, then he’s going to take care
of himself. I’m not letting Dawn and Amanda loose someone else like that.
Today wasn’t much of anything. After these past couple of days of just surviving, it was
kind of weird not to have anything that needed doing. It helps to keep busy, but...we
trained a lot. A lot of a lot. So we didn’t have to think about everyone dead and I won’t
think about that. What’s important is us surviving. I’m making plans, see. Wherever
we’re going, we’ll buy a house. Give Spike the basement. I’ve been running down a list
of jobs I could conceivably do and I’m going with bartender. It pays better than waiter
and you can do it with one eye. We’ll train Amanda. We’ll put the girls through school.
Maybe Andrew can waiter. After dinner Spike and Amanda went out to patrol again, and
Dawn and Andrew and I played checkers. Spike didn’t eat dinner last night either, but he
said he ate on patrol. He didn’t say any more, and Amanda’s still not talking, but I didn’t
ask. I don’t care any more.
I’m just waiting for them to come back. I don’t like them out there without me. I worry.
I need my family to be safe. They’re all I’ve got left.
-Xander
TO BE CONTINUED
INDEX
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