The Cost of Butterfly Kisses

[lit_gal]

The  Cost of Butterfly Kisses, Part 49
Fandom/Pairing: BtVS, Spike/Xander
Rated: ADULT

A short little moment of aftermath.

( Chapter One... )  ( Chapter Two... ) ( Chapter 14 . )

49

Xander sat by the edge of the crater, flowers in hand. "I wish you would have talked to me," he told the ground. Buffy had explained in her letter, but it wasn't the same as talking to her. Honestly, he was a little angry with her for not giving him a chance to talk to her, and a whole lot guilty for feeling a little angry.

"I thought I'd find you out here." Xander looked up to see Riley ducking under the yellow caution tape. "Spike is chain smoking and snarling at anyone who comes near him, so I figured you were out sitting in the sun where he couldn't follow."

Xander turned back to the crater. "I had to say goodbye."

Riley walked to Xander's side and looked down. "Buffy," he said solemnly, "you are the greatest soldier I've ever fought next to and the greatest leader I ever had the pleasure of following." He stiffened and saluted the hole that would be Buffy's grave forever. The state inspector was calling it a sinkhole and calling for it to be filled in as soon as they could find any of the city employees, so there would be no recovering her body. Riley put his hand back down to his side. "And when I get to heaven, I'm going to kick your ass for not giving us the chance to say our goodbyes."

A snort of laughter slipped out of Xander before he could stop it. Riley got a crooked smile on his face. "Or I can try anyway. My guess is she'll be able to kick my ass, even in heaven."

Xander reached up to wipe away a tear. "I'm turning into a girl. I just can't stop crying."

"Crying over a lost friend is the healthiest reaction you could have, Xander. I'd cry over her myself, only I lost her a long time ago." Riley carefully settled in next to Xander, pulling his legs up under him as he stared at the hole in the ground. "Vovka says that the window to the First is truly closed. The evil is still there, but it can't invade our universe again, not until it finds another opening."

Xander nodded. "Buffy always was right once she came up with a plan. It was annoying," Xander admitted. More than once he hadn't liked her plans, but they always managed to turn out for the best once all the dust settled. He just wished that there'd been any other way to end the war with the First. Buffy had brought up activating all the potentials. Maybe Xander should have really listened to her plan before calling it crazy. "Did you find Giles?"

"He took a redeye flight to New York, where he got thrown off for being drunk and disorderly. He was trying to fly to England."

"Oh." Xander frowned. He had trouble thinking of Giles as disorderly, even when drunk, but it wasn't like any of them were doing well. They were all just muddling through, trying to not get sucked under by the grief of losing Buffy again.

"The military offered him a ride on a C-130 cargo plane. It won't be comfortable, but no one will care if he gets drunk and curses them all out."

Xander fingered the pedals of the daisies he'd brought to Buffy's grave. "I wish he'd stay."

"He needs time, Xander."

Xander nodded. He didn't say that Giles wasn't going to be back again. Buffy had been the sun that he orbited, and now he was lost and either unwilling or unable to find a new center to his personal universe. Giles had always been more about mentoring Buffy and Willow than him, so he hoped that Willow wouldn't suffer too much, losing someone else so soon after losing Buffy.

"Xander," Riley said, his voice carefully neutral. Xander turned and looked at him. "Vovka would like your permission to stick close and make sure that Willow's grief doesn't lead to any more problems. When she pulled Buffy out of heaven, she almost ended the world, and there are certain people, including me, who are a little nervous about what she could do this time around."

"And you're asking me?"

"I asked for Spike's permission, but his answer was profane enough that I really don't want to repeat it. He then said it was up to you."

Xander sighed, wondering if this was more of Spike's 'who's in charge' weirdness or just his grief showing through. "I wish I could say Willow wasn't dangerous."

"We're all dangerous under the right conditions," Riley pointed out. "I just want to make sure these conditions don't push her past her breaking point."

Xander nodded, understanding the reason why some people might worry. "I think Tara will help her keep her balance this time, but Vovka is welcome to hang around. Just… just not too close. Spike isn't exactly his most reasonable right now."

"I noticed." Riley reached up and rubbed his shoulder, a weary look on his face. Xander turned back to the crater.

"In her letter, she didn't even mention what I'd said to her, about her life holding a door open."

"She probably hoped you wouldn't remember," Riley said. Spike had said almost the exact same thing, but Xander believed it more coming from Riley. When it came to guilt, Spike was trying too hard to take all of it on himself.

"I should have stopped Willow when she talked about the first spell to bring Buffy back. I had lots of bad feelings, but I just kept my mouth closed."

"Would she have listened to you? Would she have stopped?" Riley asked.

"We'll never know."

Riley nodded. "In battle, you never have the pleasure of knowing how things would have turned out if you'd made another choice. So, you take your losses and you celebrate your victories and you remember that as a soldier, you have a job you need to keep doing."

"I'm not a soldier, Riley."

"Sure you are, Xander. You always have been, since you were fifteen. I doubt there's a man in my unit who wouldn't be willing to walk a border with you, and that says something about what kind of soldier you are because my men are the elite soldiers from three different branches. They don't respect just anyone, but you were outgunned and still fighting to cover the wounded, even when wounded yourself. You are a soldier. You just haven't signed up for the medical plan." Riley stood up and brushed his pants off so that gray dust swirled in the gentle breeze. "I'll tell Vovka he can stay, and I'll leave three or four men with him. If you have trouble show up, they should be able to help you handle it." He turned to leave.

"Riley?" Xander called. Riley turned and looked at him. "Thanks for coming."

Riley smiled. "Thank you for trusting me enough to call me." With that, Riley turned and headed back toward his jeep. A few cars were out on the road, driving slowly past the crater as if checking to see if it was real. Not all the faces were human, so Xander was guessing word of the hellmouth closing would get out to the demon population faster than the human one.

Untangling the stems and leaves of the daisies, Xander laid them out side by side. "I miss you Buffy. I promised myself that I wouldn't spend all my time thinking about how much I hurt, because I think that will hurt you. I have to think you're up there watching, after all." He blinked back tears. "So instead, I'm going to think about all the good times we had."

He picked up the first daisy. "The first time I saw you, you were so beautiful that I rode my skateboard into a rail and had bruises the size of dinner plates, and it was so worth it because you looked at me." Xander smiled as he remembered her looking so young on the steps of their first school. Then he tossed the daisy toward the center of the crater. I remember that day when nightmares came true and you stood by the hospital bed of that little boy, and I could see that you had this huge heart. That, and I learned that you carried all these fears, like the fear of getting turned into a vampire. You'd be a scary vamp, Buff. But you know, you're heart would be too pure for you to ever give in to a demon." Xander tossed the second daisy. Sitting at the edge of the crater, he felt a little stupid remember all this stuff, but it was like if he didn't hold onto the good parts, all this pain was just going to swallow him whole.

"The first time you died, you know, with the Master? I remember seeing you in that water, and I think my heart broke. Just like now." Xander could feel the tightness in his chest as he tossed the next daisy. He'd saved her that time, and there was this little voice that told him that he should be able to save her again. The only difference was that this time, he knew he couldn't.

Xander sniffed and pulled himself away from that memory. "Hey, how about the time we dirty danced? I know you were just trying to torture Angel, but…" Xander cleared his throat. "You can't kill me now, so I'll confess that I had… um… yeah, you know what I did. Sorry, Buff, but you can't do that to a teenage boy without him doing that. A lot. A whole lot." Xander smiled as he let the next flower follow its mates. "And the first time Spike came to town, I remember the two of you facing off. It was like watching an episode of Wild Kingdom with the leopard and the lion trying to eat each other. I think that's the first moment when I realized that you were so totally out of my league. Actually, Spike is out of my league, too, so I'm not sure how that works. But you were so strong, and I'll never forget your strength." Xander tossed the next flower. A car pulled up, and Xander glanced over at a family of Monda demons gazing over the hole. They looked familiar. Xander was pretty sure the father was one of the electricians at the site. The other man half raised his hand like he was going to wave, but Xander just turned back to the crater.

"So, where was I?" Xander asked. "Oh yeah. Halloween. I remember seeing you in that noblewoman's dress, and honestly, that's when I really, really started to hate Angel as an individual instead of just hating him as a vampire in general. You were willing to make yourself into something smaller just to fit into his life, and I think that's the day I realized that you were too big to ever fit into anyone's life. You weren't just out of my league, you were pretty much out of everyone's. But then the spell broke and you did your quip-fight dance with Spike, and that was really beautiful. Because that's you, Buff. Beautiful.

"And when you were under that love spell and you came after me, I realized that any man who could have you for even a moment-that was the luckiest man in the world because you are so very perfect. I know you never saw yourself that way. I remember when Riley left, and you were all self-blame, but Buffy, you should know that you were always perfect. You were just a little too perfect for the rest of us." Xander let the next flower go. He had three left and he thought about all their years together.

"I know," he said suddenly. "Do you remember that stupid trial thing Giles had you go through? You were back to being normal-girl, and you were so scared, and I remember thinking that you were helpless, and I wanted to protect you because I was finally going to be the strong one, and then that vamp took Joyce, and it turned out that you didn't need your slayer powers at all. Buff, you taught me that having heart meant more than all the big muscles in the world. And that's good, because that's the lesson I needed when I went up against O'Toole and his zombie boys. I don't know who I would have turned out to be if you hadn't been one of my best friends." Xander tossed one flower and was left with two.

Xander fingered the soft pedals. It hurt to let go of the flowers, and yeah, he wasn't stupid. He was really hurting because he wanted to hold onto Buffy. But that was the sort of thing that led to pulling her out of heaven, and Xander wasn't going to repeat that mistake. It was time for him to let her rest.

"I remember finding out that we'd pulled you out of heaven, and Buffy, I don't think I ever apologized to you for that. We were stupid and scared, and really, that was extra special dumb because you'd taught us everything we needed to know about doing the right thing, and we ignored it all. You taught us to care more about others than ourselves, and to always fight the right way for the right reason, and we pretty much turned our backs on all that. The bad that happened? None of it was your fault. I should have apologized for it. A lot. I should have engraved an apology in gold and delivered it in person. I should have known better, and I'm so sorry that I didn't listen to all the things you taught me."

Xander let one daisy go and held the other, unwilling to part with it. Not yet. He put the daisy on the ground in front of him. Footsteps moved slowly behind him, and Xander checked over his shoulder just to make sure the Monda wasn't about to stab him or something. The Monda father was standing with his hat in his hand, his family still standing by their car.

"Did the slayer-?" He stopped and looked at the crater.

"She sacrificed herself," Xander said.

"If… I don't want to intrude." He glanced back toward his family. "I just recognized you from the site, and I thought maybe you know something."

"I do." Xander put the flower down in front of him. "Take a seat," he invited the man. A breeze swept through and caught Xander's last daisy. He grabbed for it, but the flower twirled up and out of reach before the wind took it over the crater and the flower slowly settled down, floating and dancing like a leaf in the wind before it settled in the crater. Xander smiled and looked up toward the clouds. She was watching.

"Did you know Buffy?" Xander asked.

The man shook his head.

"Well, she was the oldest slayer ever. This is the third time she died, and about the tenth time she saved the world. It all started about seven years ago…."