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The Continuously Evolving Relationship of Xander Harris and the Vampire Known as 'Spike'
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Part Five—Spring, 2001
Ohmigod! What have I done?It was just too much—the stress of the whole wedding thing and then the family and guests arriving and the constant picking and arguing and Dad was acting like a total asshole and everyone knew. I mean, sure, the gang had an idea that my family had left 'functional' about three exits back, but that was different from actually getting the visual in sense-surround. I just cannot believe that my father hit on Buffy and threw up in her purse! I thought I had seen everything—that there was nothing my family could do to surprise me, but I was wrong. Looking at my own father turned my stomach. What kind of a person does that make me?
I tried to keep things under control, make with the quippiness, pretend it didn't bother me—but it did. And the worst part was, I looked at Anya's 'guests' and deep inside, I knew the drunken bum was right. They were freaks and weirdos and demons.
The males of my family may be nasty, alcoholic losers, but they're human—with human failings and problems. The females may be ineffective, dithering, too-stuck-in-old-habits-to-even-think-of-standing-up-for-themselves or their kids, but at least they don't have any goddamn tentacles! I just had to get out of there. So I ran.
How am I ever gonna make this right?
I do love Anya—I do. She's the first real, important, girlfriend I ever had. And she makes me feel special. Okay, sometimes she makes me feel like a work-in-progress, but she makes me fell like I can progress. That I can make something of myself. And that's a good feeling, even if I'm not always sure if the something I can make of my life is what I want to make of it, or if it's what Anya wants to make of it, and I'm just going along because I don't have any real goals of my own.
Now I'm all confused again. Back to the basics.
I love Anya. Do I want to marry her? I don't know. I don't want to hurt her, but will I hurt her more if I marry her or if I don't marry her? Can I imagine my life without Anya? No. Can I imagine being married to Anya ten years down the road? No. Can I imagine being a parent? No.
How do I get myself into these things?
I can't just keep running. I've got to go back and talk to her—work something out. Maybe we can just cancel the whole wedding and go on the way we were?
Maybe not.
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It's over.
Anya just didn't understand. It wasn't the false vision that demon showed methat was the problem. The problem was me. It's always been me.
Not fear of the future, not fear of repeating the past, not my family, not her demons—just me.
If I really, truly loved her, I'd have married her in spite of it all. So, I guess I just didn't love her enough. I thought I did. I wanted to. But I just can't imagine spending the rest of my life with one woman. Not with any woman. Not Buffy, not Cordelia, not Anya. I felt closer to Oz than to Cordelia. I felt more relaxed hanging out with Riley than with Buffy. Buffy's all special and Chosen and all, but I never wanted to be Buffy, although I would have given anything to grow up to be Riley. And all the time I lived with Anya?
I was sort of wishing I was still living with Spike.
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Part Six—Fall, 2002
I must be the world's biggest pushover!I can't believe that I let Buffy talk me into moving Spike back into my apartment. And not just regular Spike, either, but crazy, insane Spike — oh joy! That girl has the biggest cojones of anyone I've ever seen to even consider asking me that, after all that's happened! My jaw sort of hit the floor and I just stared at her — I couldn't believe she was serious. I flat out asked her why she would even consider wanting to help someone who tried to rape her and she hemmed and hawed and looked away and mumbled that she may have made a mistake about all that.
A mistake?
Trying to rape someone isn't a mistake! Forgetting to buy milk is a mistake. Machine washing dry-clean-only stuff is a mistake. Cutting a board ¼ inch too short is a mistake. Raping someone is so far out of the category of 'mistake' that . . . I have no words.
She said she guessed it was more of a communication misunderstanding, and then she got mad at me and said it was my fault because I burst into her bathroom and jumped to conclusions. I didn't jump! She was hurt and bruised and she's the one that said Spike tried . . .
Of course, she hadn't bothered to tell us that she'd been sleeping with Spike for months, and okay, if they'd had a lovers' spat or a 'communication misunderstanding' or whatever, and she didn't want to talk about it right then and there, that would be one thing . . . but she never said another word all summer long! She let me and Dawn and everybody think that Spike intentionally tried to hurt her—to rape her—for the entire summer. She never said that they'd had an on-going relationship and that maybe he'd misunderstood her when this time she actually meant 'no' instead of wanting him to take the responsibility of convincing her so she could pretend she wasn't voluntarily sleeping with Spike.
This time? Which means there were other times, and now I just don't know what to think! I guess it showed on my face, 'cause she yelled at me and said that's exactly why she didn't tell me—because I couldn't understand. Of course I couldn't 'understand'! She didn't give me anything to understand.
Then she started saying that he'd lied to her—he'd promised that he'd never leave her, and even though she kept telling him to move on, she never actually thought he'd do it. She never thought he'd actually sleep with someone else. That he'd promised he'd be there for her, but he couldn't wait until she figured things out. And then she admitted that Spike hadn't hurt her—the injuries came from a fight on patrol when she'd crashed into a tombstone.
I was actually starting to feel sorry for the guy by the time she finished 'explaining'.
And then we discovered he was killing again. But it wasn't really 'him'—he was just a sleeper agent programmed by The First. Buffy knew there was the possibility he was killing and not remembering it, yet she left him in my apartment and told me to watch him. She didn't seem to care if Spike snapped and killed me at all.
I had to go to work, so I got Anya to Spike-sit. I know that seems like the same thing, but it's not. Somehow, I just knew he'd never hurt Anya. Like he'd never hurt Willow or Dawn. He's just chivalrous that way, deep inside. I guess what it comes down to, is I trust Spike's instincts more than Buffy's. And I just can't deal with that right now. Not when everything else is so weird and confusing, and Buffy and Willow and Giles are acting even more not-normal than Spike.
Sometimes my life really sucks.
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Part Seven, Fall 2003
This is the first time I've ever been completely on my own in my entire life, and I'm not sure yet how I feel about that. Ever since I was a little kid, there'd always been Willow—it was like she was the other half of me. And then there was high school, and a force of nature named Buffy Anne Summers came into our lives and changed things forever.People came into, and then left, the group—Angel and Cordelia and Oz and Riley and Tara and Anya and Spike—but the essence of groupness never changed. The formation may have changed from year to year, but the idea of the group was always there. Buffy and Willow and Giles and me—the Core Four—plus the temporary Scoobies. We'd been through so much together, I thought we'd always be there for each other. The Unit was greater than the sum of its parts.
Angel and Cordelia and Oz moved on, but Riley and Tara and Anya came in, and the group reformed, but was still the group. Then Riley and Tara were gone, and we somehow added Spike, although we all denied he was part of the group. In looking back, he was just as much a member as anyone else, even though we didn't treat him as one. Dawn fitted in as though she'd always been there, even though she really hadn't.
And then there were the others—the non-Scoobies that never actually became a part of the group: Miss Calendar and Wesley and Faith and Buffy's Mom and, later, Kennedy and even Andrew.
So many of them are dead now. So very many. The Core group still lives, but the group itself is dead. And that's the most shocking thing of all—that there is no more Unit.
And now, without the Unit—without any friends and family around—there's just me. I never did know how many of my thoughts, values and perceptions were actually mine, and how many were formed by the input of the others.
Growing up in my family, I got the idea that I was a loser—that I'd never amount to anything. With Willow as your best friend, feeling stupid and inadequate is kind of a given, even when you're not aware that it's happening. That may be why I liked hanging with Jesse so much. No one would ever call him a 'brain' and he wasn't a good student and had no ambition, so he didn't put any demands on me. He never pushed me to excel or to study or go to class. Jesse and I could have happily drifted through high school into some dead-end job together.
But then Jesse died, and there was Willow and the Scoobies, and I guess I started to buy into their ideas, rather than my parents'. Buffy could have been a slacker, too, but instead, she had this destiny, and if she could do it, I started to believe I could help. I could become someone, too.
It took Toth splitting me into two people to make me realize how far I'd come, though. I still thought of myself as Goofy!Xander and saw Suave!Xander as an alien entity—not as another aspect of me. It took my friends to make me realize that I have layers. Me! Xander Harris with facets and layers. Who'd'a thought it?
But now the group is fractured. Many dead; the rest flung far and wide, and it's time for me to find out who I am and what I think and believe on my own.
Wow. And also . . . meep!
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