I don't own the characters of Buffy, Xander, Cordelia, ect...Joss, Mutant Enemy, Fox, the WB...all of those people do. If you seriously think I own them, let's just say I'm not the one that needs to be put in the pretty white jacket.
***
Buffy Summers watched as the sun set one cold, November evening. A light breeze sent a chill through her, causing her to snuggle deeply into her jacket. Another night of patrolling. The same as every other night. She stood up from her vantage point of the street corner and strolled into Sunnydale cemetery.
The cemetery was as lonely as ever. Now Buffy wished she had accepted Xander's offer to come. Xander could always distract her from her troubles, despite his own shortcomings. She shivered again as the breeze turned into a light wind. What a blustery day. She walked to her usual place of sitting, a headstone labeled "Antone McFonter". She patted the headstone as she sat upon it, talking to it as if it were an old friend.
"Hey, Tone, how has your day been?"
The headstone, as expected, didn't give her an answer. She rubbed her hand over the engraved letters. Antone McFonter. March 15, 1974-August 31, 1995. Beloved son and brother. Buffy saddened again at the thought of him dying. Sure, she didn't know him, but she felt kinda close to him after a year of sitting on his grave. No doubt he was a casualty of the vampires of Sunnydale.
She whistled into the darkness of the night, silently hoping that Angel, Xander or anyone would come to keep her company. Vampires wouldn't come out for another half hour, unless they were really, really hungry. She watched the last rays of sunlight bounce off the clouds before disappearing altogether. She sighed. Being the slayer was no piece of cake. The nights were long, and the occasional break never lasted more than an hour. She was worried. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but a wave of worriedness washed over her. She got these feelings sometimes, and they usually meant something.
Buffy gazed around the deserted graveyard. The night was totally silent, save the wind rustling the leaves of the trees. She again wished for a companion, but her hopes were not answered. Instead she got an enemy.
She heard the approaching vampire. He must of been young, being that he made alot of access noise in his approach. She whirled around to face him. The young vampire sneered. The slayer smiled at him, tilting her head a bit.
"You really don't have the sneaking-up-on-someone thing down, do you?"
The vampire didn't answer, just lunging. Buffy stepped out of his way, and kicked him in the back, sending him sprawling on the grass. The vampire scrambled to get up, but Buffy swiftly put a stake in his back. As the vampire turned to dust, she squinted, not wanting any remains to get in her eye. It was an easy kill.
She walked back to Antone's headstone and sat upon it once more. The night was young.
* * *
Xander Harris looked around the crowded dance floor of the Bronze. He could see Willow out there, dancing with Oz. He didn't like Willow having a boyfriend. Something about it just bothered him. But maybe he was just too protective. She was as old as he was, and she could take care of herself. His eyes wandered once again to the entrance. Cordelia had told him she was coming tonight. He sighed as, once again, she was nowhere to be found. * Probably had a tangle or something.* His eyes again fell upon Willow and Oz. Xander shook his head and started to head out the door, giving up all hope that Cordelia would show. He stepped out into the night. He thought of Buffy, probably out there hunting, probably out there with Angel. His hatred of Angel knew no bounds. Just thinking of Buffy kissing that vampire sent chills up his spine.
So he decided to head for the cemetery. He knew Buffy was patrolling that night, he had checked as a back-up in case Cordelia didn't show up. The night wind bit at him as he walked towards the cemetery. He crossed his arms over his chest, hugging himself to keep warm. His brown sweater didn't do much to keep out the frosty wind.
He arrived shortly at the cemetery. It was dark, as most graveyards go, but the occasional moonlight would light up the place. As the moon went from brightly shining to darkness, brought on by the moving clouds, it would bathe the graveyard in eerie light accordingly. Xander caught his breath when he recognized Buffy, kneeling over a vampire, driving a stake through it's back. The scene was still surprising to him, even after a year. He shook his surprise off, scolding himself for jumping. He watched as Buffy resumed her post on the tombstone before walking up.
He was directly behind her before he spoke.
"Buffy?"
She whirled around, positioning the stake at his chest before recognizing his voice. Xander gasped. Buffy gave him a wide-eyed stare.
"Xander! How many times do I have to tell you!"
Xander shrugged. It wasn't the first time this had happened, and it surely wasn't the last. "Sorry, Buff, I just forgot."
Buffy slumped her shoulders and looked into the night sky. "I thought you were at the Bronze." She hesitated. "With Cordelia." The thought of Xander, the school dork, dating the popular girl still did not sit right with her.
Xander shrugged once again. "She didn't show. So I thought I'd have a nice night of killing the undead. Or at least watching you kill the undead."
Buffy gave him a funny look. "Cordelia not undead enough for you?"
The wind blew again, this time harder. The leaves didn't just rustle this time. The whole tree shook. Buffy looked around. The graveyard was more than eerie, with the trees making strange shadows and the wind whistling. Xander shivered.
"Buffy, would you consider coming to the Bronze?" he asked meekly, looking up at the speeding clouds. "I mean, it looks like it's going to rain, and..."
He stopped when he noticed Buffy giving him a look. "Xander, do you really think you need to post an argument to get me to come to the Bronze?"
Xander shrugged for the millionth time that night. "Well, I know how much you cherish your duties as slayer and everything...."
She hit him lightly on the arm (which wasn't that light to Xander), and moved out of the graveyard. As she passed Antone's grave, she patted it saying, "See you tomorrow, Antone."
Xander looked at the grave and back to Buffy. "New friends? Are you abandoning us, Buff?"
"It gets lonely out here."
"So you talk to the headstones?"
Buffy ignored him and quickened her pace. She was so ready to get out of the cold and into the warmth of the Bronze. Xander struggled to keep up with her without breaking into a jog.
"Buffy, come on, slow..."
Angel. Appearing out of nowhere, as was custom with him, stood Angel. Xander could feel himself tense. Just like every other time Angel came around. Buffy didn't mind a bit though.
"Angel!" She said in surprise. "Hey, um, if you don't have a end-of-the-world message tonight, do you want to come to the Bronze?"
"Well, I have a message, but I'll come anyway." Angel told her.
Xander hated this. Every time Angel came around, Buffy treated Xander like he wasn't there. And golly-gee-whiz, now he was coming to the Bronze. For a glorious night of cold shouldering from Buffy. Whoop-dee-doo.
"Xander?"
Xander shook his head. "Sorry, I was just kinda lost in thought....great! I have enough thought to get lost in it! Will'll be proud."
He was surprised when Angel sorta laughed at that. All he could do was be pessimistic, though. *Probably finds it funny that I don't have many thoughts.*
Buffy put her arm around Angel. "Come on, the Bronze'll probably be closed by the time we get there if we keep this up."
Xander trailed behind as Buffy and Angel got all snugly ahead of him. The Bronze was still a riot, just the way Buffy liked it. Willow and Oz were sitting at their usual table, and Buffy rushed over to join them, leaving Angel with Xander. Xander and Angel stood there for a minute, staring at each other, not talking. It was almost like some animal stare-down thing. But Xander couldn't keep it up; Angel's stare was piercing. Xander broke away and his gaze rested on Cordelia, who had apparently decided to show up. Xander felt bad for leaving now. He looked back at Angel, planing on saying something smart, but Angel had disappeared. Xander looked over to Willow's table, and there Angel was, sitting next to Buffy. He shook his head and mumbled, "Oh, well, you're more of an animal than me anyway." With that he headed towards Cordelia.
* * *
Cordelia huffed as she saw Xander approach. "So you decided to show up. I was about to leave. Where were you?"
Xander groped for an answer, but couldn't find one. So he told the truth. "I thought you weren't gonna show, so I left to find Buffy..."
"Buffy?" Cordelia interrupted. "God, Xander, who's your girlfriend anyway?"
Xander looked over to the group's table with contempt. "Obviously not Buffy."
Cordelia tensed even more. "Xander, do you want to go out with me or not? Cause I can arrange a quick breakup."
"No, no. I'm just having a bad night." he put his arms around Cordelia's waist. "I can't seem to..."
Cordelia wiggled out of his grip and went into full jealous bitch mode. "What am I? Your girlfriend-in-case-Buffy-didn't-show-up? Xander, I'm not going to take this from you anymore! I deserve better. If you're going to spend all of your pitiful days longing after Ms. I'm-a-Superhero over there, don't do it telling everyone I'm you're girlfriend. Cause I'm just a security blanket to you. You like Buffy more than me, just admit it! It doesn't matter how long we're together, I'll always be second best!"
Xander couldn't believe his ears. Cordelia was blowing up...in front of everyone.
"Cordy..."
"If Buffy asked you out right now, tell me you wouldn't dump me in a second!" Cordelia cried. "Tell me!!!"
Xander stood silent. He knew he had feelings for Cordelia, but was she right? He examined his motives. He didn't want to think it was true, but, it was. So he stood silent. And Cordelia left in a huff of tears.
Buffy came around when she heard the unmistakable sound of Cordelia bitching. She was surprised when she pushed her way through the crowd and saw her attacking Xander. She came right in time to hear the "Tell me" line. Her eyes grew wide when Xander didn't say anything. Then Cordelia left. Buffy rushed over to Xander, who was still in shock.
"Xander?"
Xander looked up at her, and she could see tears forming in his eyes.
"Leave me alone."
He turned towards the exit of the Bronze. Buffy tried to stop him. She pulled on his arm, but he threw her off, not really throwing of course, but, you know.
"Xander, come on, stay, please..."
Xander stopped and faced her. "Don't you get it? My life is full of crap because of you, and your stupid little secret. So just leave me alone." In a couple of seconds, he, too, was out the door. Buffy stood there, trying to figure out what to do. Xander didn't want her around, but she wanted to do something. Angel soon came up from behind her.
"Buffy, there's nothing you can do."
Buffy turned to him and shook her head. "I have to do something. I'm the reason he's so upset. Maybe I could apologize or something..."
"Apologize for what?" Angel reasoned. "For being so beautiful and such a great friend that he has a crush on you? It's not your fault. He's the one with the problem. He has to deal with it. You can't deal with it for him, it's his burden."
Buffy gave Angel a curious look. "How do you know so much about this stuff?"
"You have to ask?"
Buffy grabbed her head and sighed. "I forgot. Again. What is with today?"
* * *
Xander collapsed onto his bed as soon as he got home. Today had to be, hands down, the worst day of his life. Cordelia would never forgive him, and he had blamed Buffy for it all when he knew very well that it was his problem. He wondered if she would forgive him. Maybe, but he doubted if she would forget it. Good thing Buffy hadn't sent Willow to check on him. He would probably blow up on her too. He silently wondered what was wrong with him. Then his head started to throb. He picked himself up off his bed and moved to the bathroom. Yeah for Tylenol. After swallowing that, he went to the kitchen. Digging in the fridge, he came up with some leftover Chinese take-out. He put it in the microwave and waited. His headache seemed to get worse. He rubbed his hair and flipped on the TV. X-Files was on. *Too much thinking involved.* he thought. But he was too lazy to flip the channel so he went with it. He heard the microwave buzz, and he got his chicken lo-mein out of the oven. He sat down in front of the TV. He moaned when he saw the monster-of-the-week on X-Files was a vampire.
"Please, give me a break!" he yelled to no one in fallsicular. "If he even resembles Angel this TV is going out the window."
Luckily it was a sheriff with an overbite and a curly red-haired fat kid. Xander slurped up his lo-mein and actually got into the show, forgetting, if just for an hour, the problems of his life. When the episode was over, the problems came back through a knock at his door. He looked down at his now empty plate and went by the sink on his way to the door. He looked through the peephole at Willow. He sighed and unlocked the heavy door.
"Will, I really don't know if you want to be around me right now," he said before Willow could get a word in. "I'm having murderous tendencies." Willow looked scared for a minute. Xander sighed again. "Not really, Will. But if you don't mind a potential blow-up, come in."
Willow stepped nervously inside. "Xander, you look sick, are you okay?"
"Besides my leaving my maybe-not-anymore girlfriend in tears and blowing up at one of my best friends, sure, never better."
"Have you taken your temp?" Willow asked, ever the concerned friend. "You could have a virus or something. Maybe that's why you're so...." she stopped when Xander gave her a look that said 'so what?' "so moody."
"Or maybe I'm turning into some kind of 'mean' monster." he said sarcastically. "It wouldn't be so odd, being that we live in a hellmouth."
Willow backed away from him. "Xander, you're really starting to scare me. Do you think we should call Giles?"
"Why?" Xander asked angrily. "He'll no doubt think I'm turning into some monster and then he'll continue to insult my non-existent intelligence with stupid British jokes that only he understands."
She moved towards the door. "I'm going to go now. I'll see you at school, okay?"
"Sure. Fine. Whatever."
Willow quickly exited. Her eyes were full of fear. She had never seen Xander act like that, not even on the worst day of their whole lives. Of course, there were lots of worst days. She made up her mind to call Buffy when she got home.
She got home-she called.
"Hello?"
"Buffy? This is Willow."
"Will, hey. Are you okay?"
"Yes. Well, no. It's Xander. He's acting really weird."
"Tell me about it. But Angel said to let him work it off himself. We can't do anything about it."
"I don't think it's just him, Buffy."
"What?"
"I went over to his house just now. He wasn't himself at all. It's like he's possessed or something. He was pessimistic about everything."
"Call Giles?"
"That's what I was thinking, but Xander just started talking bad about Giles. It scared me so much, Buffy."
"I'll call Giles."
"Okay, bye."
"Bye."
When Buffy hung up, she pondered for a second. How could Xander have gotten possessed? He would never have the opportunity. *Of course he would, he's MY friend.* Buffy realized. She called Giles.
"Hello?"
"Giles? This is Buffy. We have a situation."
"Buffy? What? What is it?"
"It's Xander. Something creepy is going on with him. Will's really wigged out. She thinks he's possessed."
"What are his symptoms?"
"Way moody; he's blowing up at everyone and everything. Even Willow. Scared her to death."
"Buffy, you're talking about normal teenage boy behavior. Don't worry. He'll be fine."
"But Giles, you didn't see him."
"He'll be fine, Buffy."
"But..."
*Click*
"Great." Buffy said, hanging up the phone. "Guess we'll just have to wait till tomorrow."
* * *
When Xander arrived at school the next day, he made a point of avoiding Buffy and Willow. He had no trouble avoiding Cordelia, as Cordelia avoided him. She did such a good job of avoiding him that he didn't even see him the whole day. He saw Willow and Buffy on occasion, and as soon as they saw him, they went the other direction. Xander couldn't blame them. He finally headed to the library. He couldn't stand it anymore. When he entered, there was no one in sight.
"Giles?" he called out. "Buffy? Will?"
Xander put his hand on the table and leaned on it. Come time to face his demons, and no one was there. Until Giles popped up.
"Xander. Hello."
Xander jumped a little, then calmed back down. "Giles, where's Buffy and Will?"
"In class. Where you should be," came Giles' reply.
"Oh." Xander paused for a second. "I just wanted to apologize for being so...so...I don't know, whatever I was last night."
"Well, don't apologize to me," Giles told him. "I wasn't there, although Buffy did call me." He set the stack of books he was carrying in the bookcage. "They thought you were possessed."
Xander shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. I was just having a really rough night."
Giles nodded towards the door. "Well, here's your chance to apologize."
Xander glanced over as Buffy entered the library. Seeing him, she turned and walked out. He rushed out into the hall and grabbed her arm. "Buffy...I am sorry. I really am."
She turned around and looked him in the eye. "Did you mean what you said? About how your life sucked because of me?"
"No. No." he assured her. "I was just having a really bad day, and, and I had to take it out on someone."
"So you took it out on me?"
"No, I mean, I didn't mean to, you were just the first person to come around." he said. "If it were Angel or someone else, I would have yelled at him too."
Buffy looked skeptical. "You would have taken it out on Angel? Are you sure?"
"Well, pretty sure."
The bell rang, interrupting their conversation.
"Okay, I forgive you." Buffy said. "But I think you need to apologize to someone else. And soon."
Xander watched as Buffy walked away. He sighed. She was right. He had to find Cordelia. He roamed the halls of Sunnydale High, searching for her in vain. He did find Willow, however, and apologized to her. After an hour of fruitless searching, he saw her. He rounded a corner, and there she was. Cordelia noticed him, and made a mad dash for the girls restroom. But he caught up with her, and latched onto her arm.
"Let go, Xander," she said, shaking free of his grip. "It's over."
"Cordy, please, just hear me out," he pleaded, grabbing her arm again. "I am so sorry. I was so wrong."
"No, no, no." Cordelia said. "You were right. You are in love with Buffy. We are through."
"I was in love with Buffy, Cordy." Xander told her, his eyes pleading for forgiveness. "But it was hopeless. All it was was a dream. Not real. If I would just get my head out of the clouds and back to reality. Back to what's right in front of me. You're a reality, Cordy. You're right in front of me. I was just too obsessed over Buffy to realize it. I...I love you, Cordy."
"So why didn't you tell me that before?"
"Because my little brain couldn't work that fast." he said, tears starting to form. "And I wasn't going to lie to you. I had to take some time to organize my thoughts and examine my motives. Please, Cordy. Please forgive me."
By this time, Cordelia's eyes were getting teary. "What about Buffy?"
"It's something that I'll have to work on." Xander whispered, pulling her into a hug that she wasn't sure she wanted. "And you'll have to help me, cause I can't get over this by myself."
She stood in his arms for a bit, and then began to hug him back. She squeezed him tight, and got his shirt soggy. Soon they let go, and Xander planted a soft kiss on her cheek. He brushed her cheek lightly with the back of his hand, wiping away the tears. She looked to the ground, and back up at him.
"Xander, I love you, too."
Xander smiled, and pulled her back into a hug. They stayed that way for a couple of minutes, until rudely interrupted.
"We don't allow that type of PDA here."
They both looked up, or rather down, at Principal Snyder. They let go, slightly embarrassed, and nodded to him. Snyder left, no doubt going to pray on some other unsuspecting student.
Xander looked after him, and then at Cordelia. He smiled. "Leave it to Snyder to screw up a beautiful moment."
Cordelia smiled as well, with a playful look in her eye. "Well, he won't screw up this moment." And with that she pulled Xander into the most passionate kiss either of them had ever shared.
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