Title: Written In The Stars, Part 18 - Epiphanies
Author: Xanfan
Rating: R/NC-17 for future chapters
Pairing: m/m
Summary: SLASH. Xander and Spike become friends after Spike gets the chip, they are both hurt and
Dru rescues them and brings them to Angel to heal.
Spoilers: BtVS up through season 4 and Ats 1st season. I may however take some liberties with the
exact timeline, so, any season from either show is fair game.
Warnings: SLASH
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective
owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way
associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is
intended.
Original Challenge: Spike has been chipped and taken in by the Scoobies. Just as he and
Xander are beginning to become friends something their both hurt and it’s up
to Angel to save and care for them. The twist is its Dru that saves them
and brings them to Daddy.
A/N: I may make take some liberties with timelines from both shows. And Anya was just a onetime thing.
Also, Cordy has a spare room. And the Hyperion thing happened earlier than the blowing up thing,
because I need a place to house all these people, so I can pull them out to play with them at my will.
_________________________________________
Giles looked down at the brown-haired boy lying in the hospital bed and held back a gasp.
Despite the warnings from Angel and Joyce about Xander’s injuries, they hadn’t seemed real until Giles
saw the damage for himself. Observing the young man surrounded by machines and tubes and various
hospital paraphernalia, Giles was struck by the harsh reality of how close they had come to losing him.
In the scheme of things, maybe they had already lost the boy.
Certainly, if Cordelia and Angel had their way, Xander and Spike would not be returning to Sunnydale.
Giles had to wonder how they had come to this point. How had he and the girls turned into such
unfeeling arses? Had it always been this way? Giles struggled to remember a time when he treated
Xander with dignity and respect. He was disheartened to find that those instances were few and far
between. Even when Xander had proven to be an inspired strategist and had come up with some
ingenious ideas for defeating the demon of the week, the boy was very rarely thanked or praised for his
contributions, while Willow and Buffy received accolades for much less.
And Giles got it; for the first time, he really understood. Buffy and Willow expected praise and
recognition as their due for their contributions, Xander didn’t. Giles was used to Buffy defeating a demon
and looking to him for admiration of her strength and skill. Willow, similarly, seemed to flaunt her
intelligence and witchcraft skills and Giles often gave her the acknowledgements she sought for them.
Xander came up with off-the-wall ideas that inevitably worked beautifully; he threw himself into the fray,
uncaring of his own safety, and he never turned around to see who was watching. Never stepped back
and waited for the ‘good job’ or ‘brilliant thinking’ or any other praise to come rolling in. He just did it and
moved on to the next thing.
Maybe never wasn’t a good word. Giles could remember, a few times in the beginning, when Xander’s
eyes had sought him for thanks for his contributions. His hopes had been met with disdain and ridicule.
Not necessarily from Giles, but Giles hadn’t stopped it either. It hadn’t been long before Xander had
stopped looking for even a simple “thank you”.
At the same time, Xander learned to accept the ridicule and disdain as his due, instead of praise or
thanks.
Giles wondered if he hadn’t learned a little more from Ethan about selfishness and cruelty than he had
originally thought.
*****
Willow looked at her oldest friend lying in the hospital bed and saw, in the face of the young man, the
little boy who had been the first person to ever befriend her.
He was still the boy who had taken the blame for her when she had broken the yellow crayon in
kindergarten. Over a decade later, he had taken the sole blame for a kiss she had badgered him into
giving her.
And she wondered when she had stopped being the girl who deserved to be loved the way he loved his
friends. Oh, Xander hadn’t stopped loving her, she knew that, but somewhere along the line she had lost
the part of herself that was worthy of that love.
She knew she had been selfish and self-centered. And occasionally Oz- or Tara-centered. In an effort
to be accepted and loved, to be ‘worthy’ of Buffy, Giles, Oz, and Tara’s affection and friendship and
respect, she had pushed aside the one person who had never stopped giving those things to her. All
because he hadn’t wanted her the way she’d wanted him.
And even that hadn’t been enough. When ‘the Fluke’ happened, instead of standing by him and
accepting her share of the blame, she had distanced herself from him in an effort to keep her boyfriend.
She had been just as much at fault and she had gotten off easy. No matter what it had cost Xander, he
hadn’t stopped acting like her friend in the face of the fallout.
When Buffy had suggested they push him aside because he was ‘the normal one’, Willow had agreed;
not because she thought it was right, but because she didn’t want to go against Buffy. It wasn’t the first
or last time something similar had happened. When Giles had torn into Xander over the Valentine’s Day
love spell gone wrong, Willow hadn’t defended him, she had thrown her own anger into the mix.
As intelligent as she always thought she was, Willow wondered when she had last thought for herself. Or
at least had an original thought that wasn’t about her own wants and needs.
******
Buffy looked down at the battered boy lying on the hospital bed and wondered why everyone was mad
at her. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Maybe she hadn’t noticed that Xander and Spike were missing,
but neither had Willow or Giles. And yeah, it was a little weird for her that Tara and Riley and even Mom
knew something was up before she did. But she was the Slayer and she had stuff going on and….
And then Buffy had an epiphany.
It wasn’t about her. Not everything is about me. They were here for Xander. Not me.
The thought stopped her cold.
Mostly, she was shocked by the fact that she was surprised that something wasn’t about her.
When had she become that girl?
She was pretty sure she hadn’t always been this selfish and self-absorbed. Well, okay, back before she
had become the Slayer, she was that girl. She had been Miss Popularity: the head cheerleader, the
head of the prom committee, the princess of her peers and the leader of her clique. And she had
believed, with the vapidity of a classic Valley Girl, that the world should cater to her.
Then she had become the Slayer and the world had become a big and scary place and she had felt
alone.
But she hadn’t been, not really. The only time she had ever really been alone was before she had met
her Slayerettes and when she had run away from Sunnydale after the Acathla thing. She had run away
from the people who refused to let her fight the evil alone.
She wasn’t sure when she had made being the Slayer and being Head Cheerleader the same thing in
her mind, but she had. She had believed that being the Slayer made her better than everyone else, just
like she’d secretly felt she was better than her classmates in LA. But she wasn’t then, and she wasn’t
now.
She wasn’t the one girl who stood alone to fight the monsters. She was the first girl who had friends who
stood by her to fight the monsters. That’s what made her special. Without them, she would have been a
statistic in the Watcher’s Journal.
Wow. Epiphanies are exhausting.
Buffy wasn’t quite sure what these flashes of insight meant, but she knew one thing.
Xander needed her; not Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but Buffy the friend. And she really hoped she could
remember how to be that girl.
Part 19
Back to WITS Home
Back to Fiction Index
Reviews? Email Me