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Remembrance	By : AlysonElizabeth Category: BtVS AU/AR > General Views: 1315 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS), nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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- 1-Remembrance
- 1
Remembrance

Author: Allison Grace

Rating: PG

Summary: Willow remembers Xander

Series: Follows �Used�

Notes: This can be read either as a companion piece to �Used�, or as a stand-alone fic.

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�We gather today to celebrate the life of Alexander LaVelle Harris. We come before the Lord on this morning to thank him for giving Alexander to us, even if it was only for a short time. Our service this morning will begin with a reading from the Prophet-�

And I�m crying. Less than a minute into the service, and I�m just bawling like a baby. I told myself that I wouldn�t cry, that I would stay strong because that�s what Xander would want.

Xander should�ve known that I wouldn�t want this.

My world shattered six days ago, when I heard my name, as well as Buffy�s and Cordelia�s, announced over the intercom. I had already known that Xander hadn�t come to school that day, but I hadn�t really thought anything of it. I was too busy thinking about what Oz and I would do after school.

I think we expected to go to the principal�s office for something Slayer-related, but instead we were directed into the guidance counselor�s office. There we saw Ms. Gangley, our new counselor, who motioned for us to sit.

She didn�t waste any time to console us, and just informed us the hard, horrible truth. �I�m sorry girls,� she told us. �But your friend Xander Harris died last night.�

My world turned on its side right then. Xander isn�t dead, I kept telling myself. I had talked to him the night before. He had been complaining about Anya asking him to the prom, and I had been scrap booking pictures of Oz and me, and Xander isn�t dead ...

Vaguely I could hear Cordelia crying, and Buffy demanding to know what had caused it, if it was natural.

Just then, Giles ran into the office, his face lined with worry and pain as he enveloped Buffy into a hug, just as she was about to break down.

Ms. Gangley left us, and Buffy started to ask what had happened, had a vampire gotten Xander, had some demon been released and Xander had saved the world by sacrificing himself?

Giles shook his head sadly, and looked like he was about to say something when Ms. Gangley re-entered the room, holding several small envelopes, with each of our names on them.

I instantly recognized Xander�s lazy scrawl on the envelope marked with my name, and without even waiting to be told to do so, opened it up.

�Willow,� it said, �I�m so sorry-�

And that�s the first time I cried this week.

__________________________________

They had to pull me out of the church. I�m so embarrassed, yet I cannot stop crying. They�ve set me up in a room with my mother holding me, and a TV in front of me so that I don�t miss Xander�s funeral. Giles is coming up right now, and who knew that he could sing so well?

The tears haven�t stopped.

It took me almost three hours to stop the first time I cried. By that time, I was in the Library, and there were many, many people in there with me. After we had found out about Xander, word spread throughout the school like wildfire, and it was like everyone knew where they needed to go to remember him.

I know that a lot of people hugged me. I remember Larry kissing the top of my head as I cried, and Amy held my hand. Oz was in there briefly, but I think he realized that it just wasn�t his place. I knew of his opinion of Xander, and he just wouldn�t be able to comfort me the way I needed to be comforted.

Grabbing the letter with my name on it again, I retreated into the stacks, willing myself to finish it this time.

Holding my tears at bay, I slid to the floor, my eyes glued to the first sentence.

�I�m so sorry.�

No one had to tell me that Xander hadn�t been killed by a vampire, or that he had died saving the world. Xander had killed himself.

Holding in a sob, I forced myself to move on, to read the rest of my letter.

�I wish that there was a way to fix this, but nothing can. I wish that I could be there for you now, and that I didn�t have to do this to you.

�I�ll be dead when you read this letter Willow. And ... god, there�s not really much left to say after that, is there? It kinda took the suspense out of the entire letter, huh?

�I know, not funny.�

But, despite myself, I smiled a little at Xander�s little joke.

�It�s just ... damn it Willow, I�ve tried so *hard* to do things right, and I just can�t do it anymore. Everything�s messed up, and I just ... it�s better this way, I promise. It doesn�t look that way now, but I hope that one day, you�ll understand what I�ve done.

�I�m not going to explain to you why I did it. Giles knows, and when you�re ready, you can ask him. All I wanted to say was that I love you. I always have, and I always will. You are the only reason I made it as far in life as I did, and without you, nothing would have a purpose. I�m sorry for all of the pain I�ve caused you your entire life. If I could take it all back, I would in a heartbeat.

�I left my photo albums in my closet. You can pick them up sometime. I want you to have them. I haven�t taken too many pictures lately, but there�s a lot in there of me, you, and Jesse, and I know that you would like to have them.

�Please don�t hate me for this. I will always love you.

�Xander.�

I sat the letter down slowly. Everything was going slower, like the world wasn�t spinning anymore.

Xander was dead.

Xander had killed himself.

Xander had loved me.

Xander was dead.

And when Buffy found me an hour later, I was still crying.

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I�ve managed to calm down, and they�re letting me come back to the funeral. I don�t know if I�ll be able to make it the rest of the service without crying, but I�ll try my hardest.

At the family�s request, the entire service is going to be open-casket. So even as I walk down the aisle, people looking at me and occasionally reaching out to comfort me, all I can look at is him.

The mortician did a good job, my mother assured me. He looks just like he�s sleeping, she told me. But now as I look at him, he doesn�t look asleep. He looks like he�s a mannequin, laying in that wooden box, ready to be put on display in some store somewhere.

And suddenly, I remember with a sudden clarity that Xander never slept on his back. He said that if he slept on his back, he would always wake up with a back ache.

Xander�s never going to be on his side when he sleeps again.

The pastor is leading the congregation in a prayer as I retake my seat in front. Buffy squeezes my hand.

In the day following Xander�s death, Buffy became my rock. She held me every time I cried, bought me ice cream when I refused to eat, and was just there for me.

We spent the next day at the morgue. Mrs. Harris was badly shaken, and in a state of confusion, hadn�t been able to choose what clothes she wanted her son to spend an eternity in. Casual or formal? Hair natural or gelled?

So, she called the three of us (Buffy, Cordy, and I) up to the morgue to ask our opinion. Cordelia instantly said that Xander should be dressed formally, with a dark sweater of some kind, khakis, and have his hair done nicely. Buffy disagreed, saying that Xander should be buried in what he wore in life; Hawaiian shirt, baggy pants, with his hair in disarray. And I thought that there should be a combination of the two, something Xander-like yet nice. Like what Xander had worn on the night that Cordelia first broke up with him and he had made all of the girls in town love him.

We all fought for a few minutes before it hit me.

We were fighting about what Xander would wear in the ground. Forever.

I think Cordelia realized it at the same time, and for the first time ever, I heard her back away from an argument, saying, �It doesn�t really matter. Willow, I think your idea is fine.�

That time, Buffy held both of us as we cried.

__________________________________

The service is over, and now I�m in Mrs. Summer�s car, on my way to the cemetery. I think that Joyce is nervous, because she keeps talking and talking about how nice the service was and how good Xander looked in that mahogany sweater and baggy khaki pants we had finally decided on.

Meanwhile, the three of us girls are sitting in the backseat (Giles is in front) just holding each other. I managed to make it through the rest of the funeral without crying, so I�m thinking that I�m doing pretty good.

On the third day after I found out that Xander was gone, I finally got up the nerve to ask Giles what Xander had told him before he had died. Buffy, Cordelia, and Anya were all in the library at the time, just sitting around, not doing anything, when I stormed in and demanded an explanation.

�Willow.� Giles said calmly, motioning for me to sit down. �Xander did not tell me what he was going to do, otherwise I would have stopped it. He wrote me a letter, as he did to all of you.�

�Oh.� was all that I said, but I think Giles got the idea that I still wanted to know.

�Xander didn�t go into great detail, but he did give me an idea of why he did what he did.� Giles said, taking off his glasses to polish them. �He was reacting badly to certain situations in his life that made him feel like he was being used, and made him feel worthless. I believe that he convinced himself that was causing us all a great deal of pain by being here, and that if he was gone, things would be better for us.�

�What situations?� Cordelia asked timidly, and I think at that moment we all thought that it was our faults.

�Xander asked me that I not tell you the exact reasons, but to reassure you that it was not anyone�s fault.� Giles replied, and I could tell that there was a lot more written to him that he would never tell us. I will thank him for that, some day.

�Xander told me to go to the prom with Larry.� Anya said quietly, and I think that�s the first time I had heard her speak since everything had happened.

�Xander wrote you a letter too?� Buffy asked, shocked.

�Yes. He told me that he would have liked to attend the prom with me, but he thought that Larry was more my type. Well, except for the fact that he�s gay, but Xander thought that it would be good for me.�

Cordelia chuckled softly. �He told me to date Jonathon, if I was still into nerds. And then he said, �Not that I�m a nerd. I�m referring to that one Devon guy.��

�Xander just told me to hit Angel in the head with my purse one day.� Buffy said happily. �I don�t think that he had any dating advice for me.�

�Xander was a good guy.� Anya said slowly. �And although I was originally sent here to bring him suffering and death, I am sorry that he is gone. I will think about him a lot.�

I like Anya now.

__________________________________

The loudspeaker out at Restfield cemetery isn�t the best in the state. It keeps crackling, and half of the people in the back of the crowd can�t hear a thing.

There�s a lot of people here. I found out that although we try to keep it secret about the whole Slaying thing, a lot of the high school students know about vampires and demons, and know who helps them out. Most of them are here to say goodbye to Xander because he was the reason that they were still here.

That had to be the most honest thing Harmony Kendall has ever said to anyone.

The fifth day after Xander died, yesterday, was spent completely at Xander�s house. I told Mrs. Harris what Xander had asked for me to do in his letter to me, and she welcomed me into his home with open arms.

I made it up to Xander�s room slowly. I�m glad that his mom didn�t want to come with me. I know that she�s still in shell-shock, but she was never really there for him, and it would just be odd to see her crying over the son she never treated quite properly.

The cops had told me the day before that Xander had gone on his bed, and I could still see the indent of his head on the pillow as I entered the room. It smelled just like him still, and I realized that I would have to spend a lot of time in that room until it went away forever, because once it was gone ...

I moved to the closet quickly, and pulled down the photo albums that Xander had left for me there.

I sat down on the floor of the room, not wanting to sit on the bed where Xander had laid, moments before he died. It didn�t seem appropriate.

Opening the front cover of the first book, I saw Xander�s handwriting once more, in the same color of ink that he had used to write that final note to me.

�Here you go, Wills,� he wrote, and I could just tell that this was going to be lighter than the note he had left. �The Xander years. I hope you like them. I also got some scrap booking stuff downstairs in the basement. Feel free to grab some. I know that�s really your thing, and I�d like for these to look good.

�Love you forever.

�Xander.�

_______________________________

�Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,� the pastor says as they lower Xander into the ground.

�May the Lord bless him and keep him. Let the Lord lift up his countenance for him -�

The cranking stops as the coffin finally makes it to the ground.

�- and grant him peace.�

The pastor shuts the bible softly.

�Amen.�

We all stand there quietly for a second, and then someone, maybe a lot of someone�s, release a bunch of blue, green, and orange balloons into the sky. Some of them have little messages on them, and I see a couple of them with small candy bars tied to the bottoms.

Most of them head to the east, the direction the wind is blowing, but one of them, a small, green balloon, floats off all by itself to the north.

I don�t cry.

Instead, I smile, just the way Xander would want me to.
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Remembrance