FIC: Seven Years of Xander
This was originally written for open_on_sunday
Title: Seven Years of Xander
Author: Sweetness (ficathon@yahoo.com)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: None
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Joss Whedon and Co.
Distribution: My site (http://fanfiction.angel-buffy.com), if you already have permission, just let me know. Otherwise, ask.
Notes: Seven drabbles of Xander through the seven years of BTVS.
Feedback: Yes please :)
Buffy had died, and although it was something that he knew that was going to happen eventually. The reality of her dying so young had shocked him. He never really talked about it with the others, what could he say to them that would make them understand her fragility. He had brought her back by performing CPR but still he could never look at her the same way once he had seen her lying in the pool of water, like a discarded toy. He wondered sometimes how Angel had felt about seeing her there and being helpless to save her.
Angelus had called him Buffy’s white knight and he knew that it had been intended as an insult. But he knew it was true and that it would always be true. From the moment he had laid eyes on Buffy, he had been lost. He knew that she didn’t need him to protect save her, but he would always be there for her, whether she wanted it or not. He knew that he would have to tell her what she had to do with Angelus when no one else would, but right now he wished he could stake Angelus himself.
Xander often wondered what Buffy would have been like if she hadn’t come to Sunnydale. They had seen how Willow would have turned out if Buffy had never arrived, and they knew from what Willow’s vampiric double had said about him. But he wondered how Buffy would have turned out without them. He liked to think that if it wasn’t for her friends, that she would have turned out hard and cold like Faith. But the more he thought it, the less he wanted to think about life without Buffy. A life where he would have turned into a monster.
They had gone on to college without him and he had been lonely. And he had missed seeing them every day at high school and then hanging out with them at night in the library while the researched the monster of the week. When he had suggested the spell to put themselves together to defeat Adam, he had been joking. But it turned out, that it could be done. Once it was over and done with and he was lying in bed beside Anya, he realized that despite the distance, they were as close as they ever had been before.
He didn’t know when he had started feeling more like a potential victim and less like a sidekick. Perhaps it was when Willow’s magical powers started to develop or it was when he found out the truth about Dawn. He didn’t know how he could protect Dawn or Buffy from a hell goddess bent on returning home and destroying Dawn because she was the key. He knew that Buffy relied on him to be there for moral support but he didn’t know how he could support her when he was positive that they were all going to die this time.
When Buffy and Xander saw Giles and Willow off at the airport, he turned to her with a goofy grin on his face and some lame comment about how they had survived another apocalypse. But the words died on his lips when he saw Buffy’s face. He knew just as she did, if they had been less wrapped up in their own problems, they might have been able to prevent this apocalypse and they might have been able to save their friend before she had gone evil. Now nothing would ever be the same between them or even the others.
He didn’t want to kidnap Dawn and take her out of Sunnydale. He didn’t know what good it would do. But Buffy had asked him and whenever she asked him to do something, Xander never really questioned, he just did it. He loved, trusted, and feared her to know that when she wanted something done and she came to him, he had to do it. The First might be successful in destroying the rest of them, but Xander would lay his life down for Buffy and if she was asking him to do that for Dawn instead, then he would.
**END**