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“I’m worried, Giles. He’s been gone an hour. It’s not like Xander to...”
“Act so impulsively?” the librarian finished. Willow smiled wryly.
“Okay. Point taken. But he should have come back by now. I just wish I'd gone with him. Actually I wish he’d never gone, which means I wish Buffy hadn’t left like that. What’s wrong with her, Giles?” The redheaded hacker was becoming extremely worked up. “It’s not enough that she has to make him love her; she has to make him risk his life, too? Doesn’t she *care*?” The girl stopped, ashamed at her angry outburst.
But she couldn’t deny she’d been feeling a slight negativity towards Buffy ever since... Willow admonished herself, but it was too late. The thought was there.
Willow knew she was being unfair to the Slayer, but the righteous anger coursing through her system gave her a sense of power, and she revelled in her jealousy and hatred. The normally calm girl was allowing her anger to build to a dangerous point, where it overtook her rationality. She stood up, surprising Giles into dropping his book.
“I’m going to find him,” she announced. “And when I do I’m gonna get Xander back. He’s mine; *she* doesn’t deserve him.”
She picked up a crossbow, and imagined aiming the deadly bolt at Buffy’s heart, then pulling the trigger. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“What have I become, Giles?” she asked, horrified. The crossbow dropped from her suddenly lifeless hands, and she backed away, mouth open, eyes revealing all too clearly the conflict within. He was immediately at her side.
“Jealousy twists everyone, Willow. My advice is: leave them to it. Xander is happy and Buffy isn’t so suicidal in her hunts anymore. She’s more cautious. He’s a good influence, and I know she isn’t just using him. Trust me, you and he belong together. It will take a while for him to realise it, but I can see how inevitable your love is. Wait for him, but until that day comes, let him be. Be patient Willow.”
Willow smiled, her sanity reinstated. “Thank you Giles. You always seem to know what to say.”
At that moment they were startled by the crash of the library doors. The force of the blow that opened them sent them swinging shut violently after rebounding off the walls, but by the time they slammed shut the issuer of the blow that had opened them was well out of range.
Willow looked at the figure, and her eyes were inexorably drawn to the bundle in the Slayer’s arms.
“Xander?”
Wordlessly Buffy carried the motionless form of her boyfriend to the desk, gently positioning him on the wooden surface.
Willow ran to the body - she thought, numbly. “Xander?” she repeated, falling back on the time-old response when confronted with the body of a loved one: disbelief. “Xander, quit it! It’s not funny! C’mon, STOP IT! NOW!”
She was fast becoming hysterical, and Buffy pulled her roughly away, yanking Willow around until they were facing each other.
“He’s not faking it, Willow,” Buffy said quietly, and Willow peered desperately into her eyes, hoping to see some proof that it was only a joke. What she saw in the cold blue eyes of the Slayer caused her to release a heartrending howl of despair. Buffy’s eyes were completely devoid of emotion. Willow had only seen them like that once before - when she had realised Angel had lost his soul, and reverted back to his demonic persona.
Willow took refuge from her grief the only way she could - rage. She flew at Buffy, screaming, punching, kicking, slapping. There was no technique, no method to her attack. It was blind rage, pure and simple. The Slayer made no move to prevent the attack, merely submitting to Willow’s anger. Willow drew back for a moment, then launched herself at Buffy, barrelling into her waist and bringing them both to the ground. She lifted Buffy’s unresisting head and slammed it hard into the floor, drawing blood.
Abruptly Willow pulled back, and the rage left her, causing her to slump to the floor. Giles pulled her off Buffy’s motionless form.
“Now I’ve lost them both,” she whispered, appalled at her violence.
Giles ignored her and rushed to Buffy’s side, as she slowly regained consciousness. She sat up with difficulty, fighting dizziness and nausea that threatened to overwhelm her body.
Willow was torn between running to help Buffy, and leaving her. She fought the urge to help Buffy up, and left Giles to it.
“Uh, I need to sit down,” Buffy said, groggily. Silently Giles helped her to a chair, while Willow looked on impassively. After checking that she was okay, Giles moved on to Xander.
Willow thought, contemptuously.
Giles turned to Buffy, barely able to contain his confusion and curiosity. “He’s not dead,” the befuddled librarian and Watcher stated, looking to Buffy for an explanation.
Willow’s hand flew to her mouth, and she ran to Xander's side. She pushed that thought away immediately.
Buffy stood up, and came over to Willow, placing her hand on her friend’s shoulder
Willow flinched away, but Buffy was insistent. She turned Willow around to face her, as she had done only moments earlier.
“He’s not alive, as such. They, uh, got him.” She turned his head to the side to expose the familiar puncture wounds, two jagged round holes, bloody and bruised.
“I don’t understand.” Willow sounded like a tiny child.
“I’m sorry, Will. There was nothing I could do.” There was an immense weariness in her words. Willow ignored it.
“Yes there WAS!” she yelled. “You knew he’d go looking for you when you left like that, you *knew*! You could have stayed, and saved his LIFE! But, oh no. Not the Slayer. She is *special*! She has to do her little storming out routine! And lead him into the damn mouth of hell!” Willow thought, surprised at the depth of her anger, but she ignored the confusion, swept away by her need to hurt Buffy, to make her pay somehow.
“He’d follow you anywhere, even into death! But you wouldn’t die for him, would you? You don’t care about him as much as he did about you. You let him die, just like Jenny. Just like Teresa! And all the other nameless faces who die every night at the hands of the man - the vampire! - that you still love more than the man who *died* for you!
“Shit, Buffy, contemplate getting over yourself. It’s not about you, it’s about the people you’re meant to protect. And right now, you aren’t doing your job very well. The death rates just keep rising.” Willow could feel at the back of her mind that this wasn’t right, she shouldn’t be taking out her anger on Buffy. She shouldn’t be using the Slayer’s weaknesses against her in such a brutal, manipulative way. But she didn’t care.
She broke off, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “You couldn’t give him love, why not at least grant him life? Why couldn’t you even do that?”
Buffy backed away, the hurt unmistakable in her eyes.
“How could you?” she whispered. “How could you ever say that? I *loved* him. He knows that. I loved him so much it hurt. Know why I turned him down when he asked me to the Spring Fling? Do you know *why* I hurt him so badly?”
“I don’t care,” Willow mumbled.
“*I* do!” Buffy said, forcefully. “I turned him down for you. I wanted to give you your chance. But you *never* took it. All those times when you came crying to me about how blind he was, and all I could think was, What about your blindness? You couldn’t see that he would have said yes. He loved you too, but then you took so long, and he found someone else. We loved each other, Willow. We made each other happy. I lost everything, and I needed him. How could you say that to me?”
Willow glanced at her. But Willow could sense the truth in Buffy’s words.
“I’m sorry,” she said, tears falling freely down her cheeks.
Buffy allowed herself to be drawn into a hug of apology by Willow, but the image of her friend’s tears was strong in her mind. < I can’t allow myself to start crying now, or I’ll never stop >
She extricated herself from the hug, and grinned weakly at Willow. “Friends?”
“Friends,” Willow affirmed.
“Why didn’t you just... stake him?” Willow asked, painfully.
“I can’t,” Buffy admitted. “I tried to, but... I can’t. I love him too much to do it.”
“What do we do, then?” Giles asked. “We can’t just let him, uh, wake up. Live, as it were.” He coughed, uncomfortably aware that it was one of the ‘Slayerettes’ he was talking about.
Willow held out her hand. “I’ll do it,” she said. “Xander would’ve wanted me to.”
Buffy slipped a stake into her open palm, and she stared at it, fascinated. Then she gently brushed his hair back from his face. Tenderly, she brushed her lips against his in a feather-light kiss. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” she confided.
Xander opened his eyes. His amber coloured eyes. “Willow?” he asked. His smile of recognition revealed razor sharp fangs.
“Goodbye, Xander,” she said, plunging the stake deep into his flesh with one hand, while she stroked his cheek with the other.
“I love you,” she told him, as he turned to dust.
She felt a tentative touch on her shoulder. “I’m sorry-”
“Don’t be” Willow said, cutting her off. “I forgive you.”
Buffy watched sadly as Willow left the library.
She cast a last look back at the thin layer of golden dust that was all that remained of her life-long friend. She turned back quickly, and, wiping a tear from her cheek, ran from the room.
Buffy thought, as her own tears came. < I will kill you, Angelus, if I die doing it. I will live to see your dust > She left the library without a word to the shell-shocked Giles.
The poor Watcher was left to clean up the remains of the cheerful friendly boy who’d become almost a son to him. It was not until he was sweeping the dust into a small vase, deciding to keep it safe in remembrance, that he knew Xander was gone.
Until that instant, as he watched the golden dust descend into the vessel, he hadn’t truly believed the boy was never coming back. That he’d never crack his childish jokes, or show off to the girls by stuffing eight twinkies into his mouth at once. That he’d never show another flash of brilliance, like his plan for disposing of the Judge. That his cheerful smile would no longer be there to lighten the day for all of them, including Giles although he tried to hide it.
“You were like a son to me, Xander,” he said softly. “I don’t know how any of us will cope without you; you were such an integral part of the group.”
Jenny’s death had hurt more than he’d thought possible, but what hurt most about the death of Xander was the possible future he could imagine.
Xander’s death would be the ultimate test; he’d already seen proof of how it could tear the group apart. And he prayed that the two girls would be made stronger by this, because if they lost the battle against their emotions, he was certain they would not survive. Buffy would be killed by some creature or other, and he had visions of Willow being admitted to a mental hospital after a nervous breakdown, or depression or some such.
Xander was the glue that held them all together, and God help them to live without him.
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