Title: Her Wings

Author: C.C.

Pairing(s): Xander/Andrew friendship, Xander/Andrew pre-slash

Rating: PG-13 (for language and upcoming sexual subtext)

Feedback: Pwease?

Distribution: Want, take, have with my blessings.

Disclaimer: ***Serious*** spoilers for ?Chosen? (series finale of 'Buffy').

Summary: Answer to the 'Survivor's Guilt' challenge seen on the 'Your Mission' list as well as on the 'Xandrew' list. Why did Xander seem so calm at the end of 'Chosen' when Andrew was heartbroken? I got off on a tangent and decided to tell the story of what happened after that moment by the crater and the bus. I'll still be following the requirements of the challenge, though; just in my own inimitable fashion. <g>

Disclaimer #2: OK, I lied. Part of the challenge is to reference Star Trek. I know *nothing* about Star Trek ::hides::. Instead, I’m going with what I know. Anyone Who’s read 'The Sandman' graphic novels will be able to tell where I’m going with this. I hope others will enjoy this as well.

And without further ado...

Her Wings
By C.C

The bus doesn’t make it *that* far outside of Sunnydale... well, the place where Sunnydale used to be... before the engine burns itself out. Big Yellows aren’t meant to be pushed like Giles has done, not even spanking new ones courtesy of Hellmouthian tax dollars. He suspects that Willow did a little mojo on the thing to get it to go fast enough for them to make their escape from the devouring crater that swallowed his home of twenty-mumble years. Still, not even magick stops entropy, and just outside the small city the bus declared that it had Had Enough.

If he could still laugh Xander would laugh himself sick when he sees the sign they’ve come to a stop near: Welcome to Oxnard. it’s fitting, he thinks: life really does go full circle.

No one bothers to ask how he has any knowledge of the town or why he knows there’s a motel close enough to walk to. As he recalls, it’s pretty decent on the flophouse-o-meter and likely to have plenty of vacancies for all the new Slayers, Buffy, Faith, Giles, Robin, Andrew, himself, and a partridge in a pear tree. They can stay the night before recouping and going on.

No one really asks where they’ll be going next. The busload of refugees seem to have a common bond that gives them a jaunty resignation to go where the wind blows. Will all of them go to Cleveland, he wonders, or will they do a Johnny Appleseed across the country, dropping off a mint vampire killer here and there wherever there seems to be a need?

He wonders... where will he fit into their plan, when it forms in their heads?

Because it won’t be his plan. He won’t be one of those that comes up with ideas. He never was. And he doesn’t feel like one of the hard-core any more. Maybe it’s for the same reasons as always. Xander doesn’t save, he gets saved. Primo example: what did he do that counted ? really counted - during their closest brush yet with the end of the world? He couldn’t even drag Dawn to safety without getting his ass tazered.

that’s just shit-pitiful, he thinks. He should be disgusted with himself. But -

Huh. He realizes, as they shoulder meager packs with the pitiful few possessions some had thought ahead to bring (including, thank god, credit cards in his, Giles?, and Robin's pockets) - he realizes that he doesn’t really feel much of anything at all. Not belonging. Not not-belonging. No
excitement over winning. No grief over what he’s... they’ve... all lost. Just... empty.

he’d think it was funny if he could think like that anymore. that’s exactly how he felt the first time he hit Oxnard.

Full circle. Walking down a highway, headed for a small town, with nothing but the sound of birds circling overhead, their wings loud in the weary air.

* * *

He and Andrew end up straggling at the end of what feels like a parade. Buffy's in the lead, of course, together with Giles, Willow, and Kennedy. Robin's doing the tough-man act, pretending he’s not one good cough away from knocking on heaven’s door so he can keep up with Faith. Xander considers she’s doing a damn good job of going slow for his sake but not making it *look* like that’s what she’s doing. Wood doesn’t know her well enough yet to see it.

Xander figures that if he’s worth that kind of consideration in Faith's eyes, he’ll be getting to know her a lot better. Idly, he wonders exactly what kind of strings the ex-principal can pull in the tough Slayer to rate that sort of treatment. Maybe if he’d known, way back when... but no.

Then there would have been no Anya.

And right there, his brain stops. There won’t be any thinking along those lines. he’s just not ready yet. Like he wasn’t ready to marry her. Like.... no, no, not now. it’s bad enough to walk alongside Andrew and deliberately keep his bad side to the boy so he won’t see the steady, silent flow of tears dripping down the youthful face.

Bad enough to know that he lived and...

No, no thinking for Xander. Better to be comfortably numb. He lived. So, he can live with the empty feeling.

And the birds circle above the quiet tail of the parade, filling the air with the sound of their wings.

* * *

No one really questions them at the motel that Xander leads them to. The place earns a curled lip from Buffy, a nod of approval from Faith, and a shrug of resignation from Giles and Willow. that’s good enough. they’ll stay for the night.

He supposes he should feel glad that his Xander-brain had enough power to remember the place, and how to get there. He doesn’t. he’s in his blank spot, and it’s better there. No new Slayers in there, all starting to get giggly and over-loud from exhaustion and excitement. No increasingly grim looks as they remember how much they all lost. No silent Andrew-tears. Fuck, is he ever going to stop? he’ll get dehydrated; it’s hot out.

Xander shakes these thoughts off easily.

Much easier to stand back and idly gaze through the fly-specked plate glass window of the motel lobby while Giles, British blush firmly in place, negotiates with the dirty-shirted, stubble-faced managed for nearly half the vacant rooms for a night. On some vague level it registers just how
ludicrous this is, but he can’t bring himself to be bothered.

he’s OK just to stand and look out the window at the birds circling above. He can’t hear them, but he knows that they’re filling the air with the sound of their wings.

* * *

they’re settled in for the night, and Xander uses that term loosely. He surrendered his credit card to the forces of Willow not long after they checked in. So far, pizzas have been ordered, the Quik-Stop nearby has been pillaged for its stock of sodas and candy bars and who-knows-what-else, all
racked up to his account. He doesn’t care. they’re all being aggressively normal, and he figures they’ve earned that. After all, no one else on earth can say they’ve had the kind of day these girls have. They deserve a little 'normal'.

But it gets under his skin after a while. He can tell the other men in their group are feeling the same way, and that eases him a little. Andrew books out early, not crying now, but his eyes still full of misery. Xander doesn’t blame him. He went from hating the kid to feeling sorry for him a
good while ago. And he tells himself it’s just inadequate testosterone crumbling beneath a tidal wave of whatever-it-is that women put off.

Lord knows he felt that way with...

Nope, no thinking, no, no, no.

So they go on, pretending that they can celebrate. Robin gets into the groove after a while, once he’s been bandaged up. Giles even smiles once or twice before fading into the background with a newspaper he managed to buy for himself.

Xander grins once, a death’s-head-grin, at the headlines as Giles unfolds the thing. So normal. He wonders what the media will make of the crater that used to be a seafront town. Probably the same kind of bullshit they used every time something happened in Sunnydale. Nah, it’s not
heart-stealing, floating demons that stole everyone’s voices; it’s an epidemic of laryngitis.

It amazes him how facile lies can be, and how believable.

Spike always got that.

Funny how it doesn’t hurt to think of Spike. Not that he ever liked the vampire. Besides, he went down a hero, by his own will, and he still managed to stick a middle finger up at fate while he did it. That 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign toppling into the hole... that was perfect, pure Spike.

He almost laughs.

Then he sighs. Whatever else has happened that day, no matter how much he’d like to crawl between the (clean?) sheets and shut his good eye and fall asleep, he knows he can’t rest until he’s patrolled the place. No one else seems interested. Too busy scarfing pizza and painting each other’s nails with a bottle of silver gloss that Dawn had in her jeans hip pocket. Only Dawn. Aggressively normal.

And he gets that.

But he’s not getting any sleep until he’s at least done a circuit of the place. He needs it. He needs that normalcy. He needs to feel like he’s contributed something.

And so he gets up, makes a few jokes about needing to go 'see' about a few things, and makes his escape.

Outside, the birds are still circling. He sees for the first time that they’re an odd mixture of seagulls, ravens, and.... doves... and as he watches them soar above, though they’re too high he imagines that he can hear the beating of their mighty wings like the sound of the sea.

* * *

Once around, twice around, and he misses him. The kid’s good at hiding. Not so good at being quiet. that’s why he catches him, cached away behind the motel dumpster, sobbing like his heart’s broken, on his third circuit.

Above the sound of wings, he asks: "Andrew?"