Retrospect : Xander - Far Away Horizon
Title: Far Away Horizon
Series: Retrospect
Pairing: N/A
Rating: PG for offhanded references to violence and sex
Setting: Shortly post-Chosen, well before Season 8.
Word Count: 1,743 words
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. All characters, places, and events are the property of the aforementioned and Twentieth Centurty Fox.
Summary: They saved the world, and now they have to find their places in it. Xander sees and is seen.
Willow had cried.
While that alone had not really surprised Xander, the reason she had been crying had. This was different from her summer in England, even though that had been expected to be an indefinite stay. And it was certainly different from his summer in Oxnard, because he had left with smiles and optimism.
In England, she had had Giles. When he was at Oxnard, she had had Oz.
And yes, there was also the whole Africa thing, but he was worried enough about that for the both of them. She was, too, of course, but that was just Willow being Willow.
But it wasn’t about the distance, although that was a factor. And it wasn’t about the time, although that was a factor, too.
“You’ll be all alone,” she had said, barely intelligible, muffled as it was by her sobbing and his sweater.
Alone meant something different nowadays. Alone didn’t mean that Anya wanted nothing to do with him, because of that whole jilting thing. It didn’t mean his best friend was recovering from a magical journey of self-destruction he had no way of understanding. It didn’t mean his other best friend felt so cut off from the rest of the world that she had to find purpose in the arms of a dead man.
Alone the way his right eye was alone. Missing that other part, that other half.
Alone in a way that couldn’t be rectified by the company of loved ones, because the company of loved ones would be one short.
The last time he had seen Willow cry, she had stifled it quickly enough, because he had begged her to. In that moment, distance and darkness and dead girlfriends were forgotten, and she had been the Willow to his Xander again. Sure, he had had to lose an eye to get there, but the way she had clutched his hand and bitten her lip reminded him of the gawky teenager he had thought long gone.
Not gone. Just grown.
She had wanted to fix his eye. Told him as much, on the bus weeks ago, but before he could muster a terrified response, she had told him the rest. She was scared to try. For a long time, throughout all the preparations of the past few weeks and his decision to take a sabbatical-slash-slayer-search-siesta, he had wondered why. She had tapped into the world and drawn out something incredible, and as much as he wanted to understand it, he didn’t know if the good of her spell came from the earth, or if it came from her.
For an instant, maybe even now, she had been the most powerful being on the planet. Connected to everything, everyone, in a way that wasn’t dark and horrible. He had felt her, fighting for his life in that hallway beside Dawn, felt her warmth. Felt her power.
She had touched all of them, every potential slayer, and awakened something in each one. Nudged destiny out of the way and rearranged the natural order. With all that, why was she afraid of trying to fix his eye?
Sitting in his seat, her expression as she said goodbye lodged in his thoughts, he understood. He wasn’t an unknown child that would awaken to strength and purpose. He wasn’t a superhero for whom magic had always been a benign sidekick.
He was Xander. With three little scars on his left cheek and a patch over his left eye. And this new Willow, or rather the new new Willow, who was more like the old Willow and the new Willow all rolled into one, wouldn’t chance it.
With no small amount of warmth, he smiled. Hundreds of girls all over the world, she’d chance it. Her best friend, she wouldn’t.
“You’ll be all alone,” she had said.
“Then you’ll have a good reason to write me,” he had retorted. No one could accuse him of being suave. Still, she had laughed in a way that had sounded a lot like sobbing before letting him go. Red-haired, bloodshot-eyed, shiny-cheeked Willow.
Saying he would miss her wasn’t enough.
Buffy had cried, too, in that way she did when she was trying very hard not to. She couldn’t look at him sometimes, but that was okay. As much as he hated to admit, after those last months, he could barely look at her, either. He could say he wasn’t mad at her, but that would be a lie.
Not for his eye. Not even for her failure in the hospital.
Even though that last year was better, and he had been closer to her than he had been in the longest time, she cut everyone off at the drop of a hat. Anya, Spike, Caleb-okay, maybe a little for his eye. She was the Slayer. All those other girls were slayers. She had dibs on ‘the’ and capital letters.
And that meant jack crap in the end. She would never admit it, and the others probably didn’t see it the way he did. Maybe Angel, but that was very much something Xander didn’t want to credit the man with.
Fallible.
Being the Slayer or a slayer made her strong. It gave her supernatural muscles and the know-how to use them. Giles had proven years ago, though, that if you take away the muscles, you’re left with a person. A human. Just a girl.
Buffy had at one time wanted that. Somewhere along the line, she had forgotten what she was. It may have been at the prodding of others-Giles, Spike before that whole soul thing-but she had willingly and knowingly stepped back from her humanity. Just like every other Slayer before her.
And she wondered how they ended up dead.
But then she had to go and cry when she came to see him off, her face warped in a manner that reminded him of too-tight cummerbunds and disagreeable bowties. She had to give him that lucky stake, even though vampires were a negligible concern in the DESERT. She had to stand up on her tiptoes and kiss him on the cheek and hug him with that patented Supergirl hug that made his ribs creak and his breath escape him.
She had to go and make him promise that he’d come back to her-to them, she had quickly corrected. As much as her distance hurt, as much as her willingness to cut herself off hurt, as much as he had trouble remembering that beautiful girl with that California smile-
“Sure thing, Buff,” he had said with all sincerity. Wrapped her in a hug and kissed the top of her head. Discretely wiped the moisture collecting at his right eye.
Dawn had been easier, because Dawn had never let him down. Okay, yes, she had numerous times made hurtful comparisons between him and Spike in a manner that, were he a high-strung man who was actually a woman, he would angrily answer with a bitch-slap. But that had been her lack of understanding, not any real disdain she had felt toward him.
Bawling her eyes out and trying to be an adult-which was weird, since few people would ever suspect him of trying the same thing-she had thrown a speech at him.
“Make sure you use your sunscreen. Don’t poke anything that could probably eat you. Try not to-” It went on for a little while, during which time she cited sources from research and became increasingly misty-eyed.
“Thanks, Mom,” he had muttered, rolling his eye. There was a twinge of pain. Muscles trying to move something that wasn’t there anymore. Dawn had stamped her foot and hit his arm and stepped into him and clung to him all in the same motion. It had only been the last call from the Council contact that made her let go.
With a hurried gait and a lingering smile, he had waved his girls goodbye and disappeared into the connecting tunnel.
Willow sobbing, Buffy sobbing, Dawn sobbing.
Three things he hated to see, but three things that warmed him so much that he forgot the phantom aches in his head. Lugging his carry-on, painfully full of everything he was taking with him, he had ignored the worried look from the flight attendant as she waved him on.
Eye-patches were for bad guys.
His seat was on the left, which meant he would have to crane his neck to get a good look out the window. All that had been there when first sitting down had been another jet. Now, open sky.
It wasn’t long before there was nothing but water, a sparkling ocean so shiny that it may as well have not been there. Only when he looked all the way out, where the sea and sky met, could he tell the difference.
Willow had told him something once, back when they were little and she was explaining the drive that made people invent things. The Wright brothers had wanted to touch the sky, so they had built a machine to allow them to do that. Humans had wanted to touch the moon, so they had built a machine to do that.
And all those things were far away. Grinning dejectedly, he scratched his cheek and looked from the sky to the sea. With one eye, he could only tell that something was far away, not how far away. Willow was the most powerful witch on the planet. Buffy was now the most experienced person in a calling that was no longer singular. Dawn was smart and compassionate and had the strength to do anything. The sky was theirs.
He was just a carpenter. He was a carpenter with an empty seat next to him. Africa wasn’t something he had been expecting. Picket fences and two and a half children were what he had been expecting. And yes, the woman he could still see in that dream had lived fifty of his lifetimes, but that was just detail.
The most fantastical thing about him was that he had managed to not die while lumbering after stronger, smarter, more graceful people. Heroes.
The sky belonged to them.
But when he stopped trying to find the horizon, when he ignored the cloudless sky that was a rich blue and nothing else, he looked at the sea. The shiny sea, the bottom of the sky.
From where he was sitting, the sea seemed prettier by far.
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This is something I've had in my head and hard drive for a while now. A short piece detailing the start of Xander's trip to Africa as he is seen off by the girls. One of a few character studies I've been working on, which will also include Willow, Buffy, probably Dawn, and maybe Faith and Giles.
Hope you liked it.
All the best.
Only those who have dared to let go can dare to reenter.
-Meister Eckhart