Fic: Taps

Author: norgco

Rating: PG15, for adult concepts

Type: Character death warning, sadfic, songfic

Summary: Funeral for a friend

Disclaimer: I do not own and am not making any money our of any of these characters or situations. Joss owns the people and `He ain't heavy, he's my brother' goes back to The Hollies as far as I know, plus whoever wrote it.


Taps
By norgco

"Xander Harris was the most heroic individual I've ever met, and given what we all do that is saying a lot." Riley Finn said. There was crying in the audience, the core Scooby's of course, plus those of the new slayers who had known and cared for him. And some of the old Initiative members who had known him and, after gaining much needed experience, looked back and wondered.

'The road is long
with many a winding turn
that leads us to who know where
who know when
But I'm strong
Strong enough to carry him
He ain't heavy, he's my brother'

"The people he thought of as family kept telling him to stop fighting the darkness, to quit." This was potentially going to hurt some people, especially Buffy and Willow, but it needed to be said. Giles had been angry at first when they had discussed this requiem, but finally agreed and selected the tune now playing gently in the background as a suitable summing up of the fallen. "They were afraid that they would wind up here doing what we are doing now, and didn't understand that he wasn't."

'So on we go
his welfare is my concern
no burden is he to bear
we'll get there'

"Alexander Lavelle Harris couldn't NOT try to help, he couldn't just turn away from someone who in trouble. Because of that inability I have a live wife and daughter instead of a dead pregnant wife." Alexandra was sleeping quietly, a good-natured baby that he loved desperately.

'For I know
He would not encumber me
He ain't heavy, he's my brother.'

"There is a quote from a philosopher, `he who would fight monsters must take care to avoid becoming one himself." A pause while people who had never really know the man wondered where this was going. "Xander grew up among monsters, battered and threatened by them, terrified of becoming such a creature, which was his one great fear."

There was a pause as he looked around the room. Angel and Spike were in the shadows, looking sombre, Buffy, Faith, and the still mildly tranquillised Willow in the front row with Giles. The deceased's parents were nowhere to be seen.

'If I'm laden at all
I'm laden with sadness
That everyone's heart
Isn't filled with the gladness
Of love for one another'

"Then came the day when a real life superhero walked into his life, and he found out that monsters come in non-human form too." Buffy looked miserable, having blamed herself for his death, in the `if only he had never met me…' line of thinking. "I had a chance to talk to him for a long time the day he died, and he was totally convinced that if Buffy Summers had never become part of his life he would have turned out like his father. `She gave me a chance to be someone people run TO screaming for help, instead of running AWAY FROM me screaming for help' is how he described it."

'It's a long long road
From which there is no return
While we're on the way to there
Why not share'

"Xander was my only real friend with the Scooby's, Buffy was my girlfriend but I felt a kinship with him because of a shared motivation. I joined the military to help protect people, I thought and still think that protecting the weak is a privilege not an imposed duty to suffer through, an honour and not a burden. I said it to him that way an hour before the demon attacked us, and he thanked me for putting his feelings into words."

'And the load
Doesn't weigh me down at all
He ain't heavy, he's my brother'

"No one gets out of here alive, I think that's a Jim Morrison quote. Fortunately we know that there is a heaven, because we have someone who was actually there for months before returning here. I refuse to believe a loving god would send my friend anywhere else, and I look forward to meeting him there some day, along with all our other lost friends."

'He ain't heavy
He's my brother'

"He's not gone, he's just gone on ahead a little way. I would say `Vaya con Dios', Go With God, but I know he always did. I look forward to seeing him again and know that I will. Amen."



END