Title: Broken Dancer

Author: Caliadragon

Category: AU

Fandom: Buffy

Spoilers: Current Season

Warnings: Angst, Mentions of Character Death

Archive: Any list I send it to, those with prior permission and BC

Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be. If they were Xander wouldn't have lost his eye. BASTARDS!!

Series: Pt. 3 of the Dancer series

Xander from Willow's POV.

Rating PG

Thanks to Edi for the Beta

Broken Dancer
By Caliadragon

He's broken, I can see it. Xander was always the best of us. Our light when things got dark. Even when things were at their worst he was there. He was the one to stop me from destroying the world when I was mad with grief. His love was what pulled me from the brink and gave me the strength to go on. I think I would have been lost to the First and to magic if it weren't for him. I heard about what Caleb said to him when he tried to blind Xander. He said Xander was the one to see things. It's why the First wanted him blinded. It was the reason that she didn't send a dead person to talk to him. He saw through the First.

Xander was the one to bring Buffy back from the brink. When things reached the breaking point between Buffy and Spike and she saw what she was doing, he was the one to stand by her and bring her back. He stood by Spike and pulled him back from the edge of insanity right after Buffy ended things. She could have been kinder about it. Instead she ripped him to shreds and threw herself into Riley's arms. Xander just packed Spike up and took him home. Nearly losing his eye changed him. He forgave Spike and the two became very close.

Then Andrew gave him Anya back and became a part of their lives. The three of them were like magic. Bright, beautiful and powerful. Sometimes it hurt to look at them. As much as I like and even lust after Kennedy, we don't have the spark that Xander and his lovers had. The day that Anya and Xander got married we had a private ceremony later that night that bound Andrew to the two of them as well.

There were candles and music and laughter, Buffy's back yard glowed with light. The light came from their love. Even Giles was caught up in the emotions for a little while. Then he went back to being grim and distant. Now that light is gone and I helped cause it to disappear.

We hurt him when we turned him away. I couldn't bear to be near him, for fear of seeing hatred in his eyes. I killed Anya. I killed the woman he loved. How can he not hate me. Goddess I didn't mean for it to happen. It was Caleb. I threw a spell at the priest from hell, but he grabbed Anya from where she was fighting nearby. He hurled her into the path of my spell. The only good thing that I can say about Anya's death is that it was immediate.

Last night I saw just how wrong I was. Xander didn't hate me, he needed me. I wasn't there for him. My Xander is dead. I can see it now as I look in his eyes. The life and love that shone in his eyes is gone. I think maybe Xander was right to want to leave. He needs to be somewhere that doesn't remind him of their deaths, and everything else that he's suffered in this town.

I miss Xander and he's gone nowhere. I miss him and I miss the magic that he spread.

The End