Spoilers: "The Gift"
Distribution: Just ask. I'll probably say yes.
Disclaimer: The usual stuff about Joss, Mutant Enemy, yada yada.
Feedback: This is another "on my lunch hour, breaks, and when I'm subbing for the operator" magnum opus. But I have appreciated the feedback I've gotten so far.
Notes: Okay, this is definitely a sequel to "Break Down," which I have decided is a sequel to "Unfinished Business." I've also decided that I am a self-promoting whore.
Rating: PG-13 (at most). Mostly just the sort of "spicy talk" that the WB let 'em get away with.
****
Just after dark, Xander pulled up the house on Revello Drive. In the last few weeks, his view of the house had changed. It used to be a sanctuary of sorts for him, a place to go when things got too heavy at home, which usually happened after his parents' so-called Happy Hour, which usually was any day of the week with a 'y' in it. He could come over here, knowing that Buffy would be here to welcome him with a smile, that Dawn would rush downstairs at the sound of his voice, that Willow, if she wasn't tagging along with him in the first place, would be there or dropping by soon, and if all else failed Joyce would let him hang out with a cup of hot chocolate at his elbow and a sympathetic ear to listen to his gripes.
Joyce. He still remembered the dream instigated by the spirit of the First Slayer after they had defeated Adam. Joyce had been in that dream, enticing and seductive, showing him pretty much where Buffy had gotten her considerable charm, only overlaid with years of experience. Tales of older, divorced women had not been lost on the young man with perpetual libido, and more than once in the last few years he had wondered what would have happened if the circumstances had been right. In some ways, it was an even more powerful fantasy than his many imaginary trysts with Buffy.
Joyce's death had hit him hard, not merely because of the loss of one of his fantasy women, because he realized that she had become a friend to him, meant far more to him than any trivial romp in the sheets. For the older, wiser friend he lost, Xander Harris grieved.
For Buffy, however…
****
"Honey, I'm home," Xander called out in his sitcom-dad voice, simultaneously knocking on the front door and pushing it open, which was a little tricky with the paper bag in his hand. Tara and Willow came out of the living room into the foyer. "Hi, kids!" he said brightly. They were of course wearing the same clothes he saw them in this morning when he went to work, but he noticed a subtle change in their bearing. Tara looked a little drawn and had less of the "Take-Charge Tara" aspect that he had bumped into earlier. Willow, by contrast, seemed a little more relaxed and less irritable.
"Hi!" Tara said, smiling slightly and somewhat ruefully. Willow settled for a one-armed hug.
"Everything five-by-five?" Xander asked, then winced when he realized who he sounded like. "Not to worry…I haven't been possessed by Faith or anything."
Tara turned to Willow, a mock-serious look on her face. "How can we sure that's really Xander?"
"Hmmm…I dunno," Willow replied, rolling her eyes. "This could have intriguing possibilities, you know – a woman trapped in a man's body…" She and Tara tried, and failed miserably, to keep from giggling.
"You guys – picking on a poor heterosexual. Shame on you." The girls laughed at his woebegone expression. "So, where's Giles? Is he here, or am I the sole member of the Testosterone Brigade?"
"He went over to the, uh, y'know, parlor," Tara said, her manner indicating that she did not refer to the beauty parlor.
"Right," Xander said. "I'm surprised that you didn't jog over there yourself." The jibe, gentle as it was, definitely zinged across Tara's radar. Willow sheepishly grinned, made a sotto voce comment about something burning in the kitchen, and excused herself.
Tara looked at the foyer linoleum, took a deep breath, and plunged in. "I'm really s-sorry about, uh, this morning, when I was being…uh…um…"
"Short? Brisk? Do I hear a bid from the floor for 'rude'?"
"I was going to say 'a bitch,' but I think you covered the ground pretty well," she replied.
Now it was Xander's turn to raise a mocking eyebrow. "Ooh…the spicy talk I hear coming from you these days. You kiss Willow with that mouth?"
Tara grinned. "As often as I can." She sobered quickly. "Anyway, I'm just…sorry. I've been…trying to…" Xander cut her off with a pursing of his lips and wrapped his arms around her, absently noting to himself that Tara was very huggable. Lucky Willow. Down, boy, down!
"You give great Hug," Tara whispered near the base of his throat.
"Lots of practice," Xander said, while trying to get naughty thoughts out of his head. Wicked, evil, sinful man! He extricated himself from the embrace as quickly as appropriately feasible, and smiled down at her.
"How did everything go at work?" Tara asked. She had been concerned that the time he had missed would cause him trouble. The last thing anyone needed, especially Xander, would be for him to lose the one job that he seemed to be excelling in.
He grinned. "Not too bad. Terry, my foreman, did call me in and had a little talk about my AWOL days. But then, when he heard about my unfortunate involvement with what the Sunnydale PD termed the 'drug-cult' and the 'escaped lunatics,' he was most forgiving. He even offered me additional time-off to visit my poor fiancé in the hospital, who was injured during their 'rampant riot-orgy.'" Xander chuckled. "Nice to know that in Sunnydale, 'PD' stands for 'Pathetic Denial.'"
Tara rolled her eyes. "'Rampant riot-orgy.' Sounds like I missed out on all the fun while I was in La-La Land."
Xander had a sudden flash of a bright ball of otherdimensional energy, of bolts of eldritch lightning shooting out at random intervals, and of a young woman doing a suicidal swan-dive into the heart of madness. He shook it off and quipped, "That's what you get for missing staff meetings, Dr. McCoy."
He lifted the paper sack stilled clenched his left fist. "Gotta go feed the beast," he said, pointing in the general direction of the basement. "I take it he's in."
Tara frowned for a second, then got Xander's meaning. "Oh, right, right. Yeah, he's down there."
*******************
"Goodness Gracious, it's Meals on Wheels," Spike quipped when Xander came down to the basement and handed him the paper bag containing the styrofoam tub of blood. "Chicken or pork?"
Xander shook his head. "Beef. 'It's what's for dinner!'" he added, doing his best Robert Mitchum impression, which admittedly wasn't great.
"Oooh, blood from a cow. Quick, honey, get out the good china!"
"Y'know how hard it is to get human blood? Especially in this town? Sunnydale must be getting blacklisted by the Red Cross."
"And people aren't dying to contribute for a good cause? Shocker." The vampire paused, took a somewhat ostentatious breath. "Anyway...thanks."
Xander almost raised his eyebrows at the uncharacteristic expression of gratitude. But, with an effort, he covered his surprise because he didn't feel like getting into a pissing match with Spike tonight. "No problem. Enjoy." He noticed Spike looking for something on the desk beside the old couch that he was spawled on when Xander came down. "Lose something there?"
"Gotta be somewhere," Spike muttered, "don't have that much stuff here." Since the unfortunate conclusion of the Glory battle, Spike had been living, so to speak, in the basement of the Summers' house. Dawn had insisted that Spike stay there as his injuries precluded being able to defend himself against any demons looking for revenge on Glory's behalf. Even Tara, in full Take-Charge mode, had been rather diffident about encroaching on Dawn's wishes, considering the various recent traumas she had suffered. Willow and Giles had half-heartedly brought up the subject and had gotten slammed with a patented Summers Dirty Look (TM). "He stays here," Dawn had hissed, and the subject was dropped.
"Got it!" Spike held up a thin transparent tube with curves and loops, inserting it through a hole in the plastic lid. He sucked at the blood through the tube, causing the plastic to change color.
"A Krazy Straw?" Xander stared at the incongruous sight, right up there with Bozo the Clown packing an AK-47. "Where in the name of George Carlin did you get that?"
"Dawn gimme it. I think it was the first time I seen her smile since..." Spike bit off the rest of the sentence. Xander nodded. Spike took another sip. "Gotta say, it gives the blood a bit of a kick. Must be those wonderful petrochemicals you Yanks put in everything."
"Ah, where would we be without carcinogens? They won't do anything to you, right, like...turn you into a bat?"
Spike gave his usual smirk and downed more corpuscles. "How's Demon Girl? They lettin' her out of the hospital, or are they just transferring her to the Sexual Addiction Wing?"
Xander sighed. He was not going to let Spike score points by losing his temper...but this was getting ridiculous. "Anya's getting out tomorrow morning, if you must know. She doesn't want the hospital making any more money off of her than absolutely necessary. I think she was keeping a running count of the IV's and the bandages. Look, I'll let you finish din-din. Seeya." He started back up the stairs.
"I hear you popped the question to her, before we headed off to Glory." Xander stopped on the third riser and looked back at the vampire.
"Yeah."
"She say yes?"
"Yeah."
Spike nodded. "Good for you. If the two of you haven't gotten sick of each other by now, you might last out the long haul." A look of sadness passed over Spike's face, a phenomenon akin to a rainstorm in the Mojave Desert. "If you get to live for the long haul. None of us have a signed-and-sealed contract, do we?"
Xander shrugged. "Yeah, but it's the fine print that worries me. But, uh, thanks."
****
"I'm worried about Xander," Tara said as she and Willow made dinner in the kitchen.
"You mentioned that this morning. You think he's in denial?" Willow asked, stirring soup with a wooden spoon. Behind her on the island, Tara chopped carrots and celery.
"I know he's been preoccupied with Anya being hurt. I mean, thank God it wasn't worse than it was; broken leg, c-cracked ribs." Tara drew a shaky breath; she was still in the midst of dealing with the aftermath of what Glory had done to her. Her right hand was still bandaged, forcing her to use the cleaver with her left. "B-but, he's, like, not really acknowledged Buffy's..."she paused, then plunged in: "...death."
The wooden spoon slowed, as Willow's breath hitched in her chest and throat. She swallowed hard before turning around to look at Tara, with as neutral an expression as she could manage.
Tara couldn't help but notice the pallor of her girlfriend's face. "Darling, I'm sorry, but don't you think Xander is not dealing with this?"
"Well, I understand you asking Willow about my 'not dealing' as opposed to flat-out asking me," Xander said from the doorway of the kitchen, making both women jump slightly, "since everybody knows I gave Willow exclusive rights to discuss my mental and emotional state at all times!" He glared.
Willow perked up, trying to defuse the tense situation. "We weren't talking behind your back, Xander. I mean, yes, we were talking about you while you technically weren't in the room, so we thought, but, I mean, we were planning on talking to you about you, so you could say, we weren't talking about you behind your back, we just hadn't talked to your front yet." She beamed, as if she had just successfully sold the latest Killer App to Microsoft.
Xander was so bemused by this chain of psuedo-logic that he forgot about being mad. "Y'know," he remarked to Tara, "I think I understand why she's the only one who gets your jokes."
Tara huffed and crossed her arms. "Xander..."she began, then stopped, a confused expression on her face. She turned to Willow, "What were we talking about?" Willow chuckled. "Hey, you get your brain sucked by a crazy bitch of a hellgod who dresses like a hooker, and see how good your memory is."
Willow sobered at that and muttered, "Denial."
"Yeah, yeah. Look, Xander, I-I've been thinking, you're really not dealing..."
"With Buffy having died," Xander finished in the uncomfortable pause. The girls nodded. "You think I'm in denial or something?"
Willow took a deep breath. "We kinda talked to Anya, when you weren't in the room, and when she was coherent, not easy, believe me, with all the painkillers she's taken...she says you haven't cried." Willow swallowed again, trying to keep herself under control, feeling the large hot bubble of grief threatening to burst out again. "I mean, I know I've cried enough for three of us, but Xander," her eyes wide, something in them pleading to him, "she was our best friend for five years, and now she's gone, and I don't feel like...you and me and Giles...I don't know if we can go on without her...I mean, Tara, I love you," reaching out to touch the blonde's arm, feeling an answering squeeze on her hand, "but Buffy...she was the first person who ever...believed in me, really..." a sob escaping her, swiftly supressed, "...and now she's gone, and you're all just business as usual, and it makes me think you don't care, but I know you care, I don't know, you're hurting and not realizing it, I worry about you because I can't lose you too!" The last came out almost a scream, tears spilling down her cheeks, as Tara put her arms around her.
Xander reached out his hand and lifted Willow's chin, looking straight into her eyes as if through the deep end of the pool. "Hey, hey, hey. I'm not goin' anywhere. Okay? I'm good. I know she's dead, I know we can't do anything about that," he saw a look on Tara's face, a tightening of the chin, but he couldn't interpret it and chose not to comment. "Tomorrow, we gotta say good-bye to her. I know that. I'm not looking forward to that. Maybe then, I'll...cry. Okay?" Willow nodded. "It's just...somewhere, in the back of my head, or in my heart," tapping his chest, "I don't believe that this is it."
Tara blinked a couple of times. "Huh?"
Xander shook his head, a look of bewilderment on his face. "I know, it's crazy. But some part of me says that somehow, someway, that this is not the end of the world. I mean, yeah, we just prevented the end of the world, minus a flying dragon and the ALIENS Rejects Halfway House, but..." He paused as he tried to articulate what he had been feeling ever since he saw Buffy's broken body, since he heard the paramedic pronounce her dead, since the ambulance took her away with a sheet over her face. "I can't believe this is the end of the story."
Willow looked up, incredulous. "Xander, this isn't a story. It's our lives. It's real life."
Xander almost chuckled, but Willow's expression stopped him. "Will...five years ago, vampires and demons were just stories that our folks told us to get us to go to sleep. Hell, Will, the nearest you ever got to magic before that was that magician that scared the crap outta you at your sixth birthday party. I mean, what the hell is 'real' life anymore?"
Tara turned to Willow. "A magician scared you?"
"He was one of those clown-magicians," Willow countered. "I've got, y'know, issues with clowns."
"Oh. Okay."
"The point is," Xander said, "it's like someone told me once: there are no happy endings...because nothing ever ends."
