AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is my first fanfic, and as the title might suggest, it focuses mainly on Xander. Please let me know what you think of it, else my poor, battered ego might just give up the ghost. RATING: Mostly PG-13 for language and adult themes. A couple of parts will be R.DISCLAIMER: I don't own jack. Correction--jack's probably the only thing I do own. The rest belongs to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and the Frog Network. SPOILERS: Everything up to "Becoming".

All in all, it was pretty pathetic. Looking it over, he found himself sliding once more toward sullen self-pity. He glanced around at his room, the walls covered in posters and the floor in clothes; he had spent most of his life surrounded by these four walls, so why didn't he feel anything at all in leaving them?

His parents were out of town--as usual--so there wouldn't be any explanations, any big scene. Not that there would have been anyway. The elder Harrises were notorious in ignoring anything that didn't fit their world-view, and their precious Alexander running off across the country in search of a missing vampire slayer certainly didn't qualify.

To clear his head of the lingering doubts and get back on track, he mentally reviewed the events of the last day--god, had it only been one day? It seemed much longer...

"Xander, you're not going anywhere, and that's final." Giles finished his ten-minute-long rant, a record-setter for even the notoriously argumentative Brit. The object of this rant sat passively at the end of the library's conference table, having been both silent *and* conscious for the past ten minutes--a record-setter for him as well.

"Are you done?" asked Xander, his voice small and somehow dull, as though all of his emotions had been bled out of him. His tone was so bleak and pitiful that even Giles, furious as he was, paused for a moment. By the time he recovered his wits, Xander had spoken again.

"You do realize that you can't actually stop me, don't you? I mean, sure, you can yell at me a lot and talk about what I can and can't do, but in the end, it comes down to what I'm going to do anyway. Doesn't it?" Giles recognized the tone in his voice from any number of similar conversations with Buffy and almost gave up right then, recalling how those particular arguments had gone.

"I... I..." Giles stuttered for a moment, before continuing, "I can call your parents. Yes, that's exactly what I'll do. I shall call your parents, and-"

"And what?" If Xander's tone had seemed detached before, now it was downright cold. It was a voice Giles recognized as his own, the voice he used when describing how the world would end, a voice he had used to tell Buffy that she was going to die. "My parents are gone for the week. By the time they come back, I'll be long gone. Short of physical restraints, you can't do anything to stop me."

Willow trembled slightly, seeing a Xander that was as unknown to her as the most distant stranger, a Xander devoid of life, of love, of light. Oz, sensing her discomfort with an almost animal accuracy but not discerning the cause, moved closer to her to comfort her. Giles was confused now; where were Xander's wisecracks, his jokes? Where was the mocking child he had known for almost two years? Gone, as though he had never been.

Gone, like Buffy.

Giles narrowed his brows in thought; somehow, Buffy's disappearance was the key to all of this--this Whistler person, Xander's changes, everything. And Xander? How could he be acting like this, going after Buffy like some knight cavalier, giving them the cold shoulder, unless... unless... unless what? Buffy's disappearance was the key, Giles was sure. But Xander's behavior was that of a man condemned; how did that track? Unless...

Giles stood up straight, suddenly struck with an idea so crystalline that he knew it had to be the truth. Xander's actions weren't those of a man condemned--they were the actions of a man who had condemned himself, a man eaten by guilt and remorse until only a shell is left, a man so sure that he had committed a crime that he was ready to sentence himself todeath and enforce that sentence by means of slow apathy. And Giles knew the crime Xander held himself responsible for: he believed it was his fault that Buffy had disappeared.

The older man sighed and removed his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. As adult as Xander often seemed, as calm as he was battling the forces of darkness, Giles often forgot that he was actually little more than a child. And as often as Giles was annoyed with Xander, as angry at his juvenile humor and "slacker" attitude, the British Watcher was just as often glad at the young man's presence for aid and perspective. Where Giles would ignore practical concerns in favor of the otherworldly, Xander was there to remind him that people still needed to eat, to have fun, to live life.

For just a moment, Giles pictured himself as Xander must see him, and he was shocked at the image he got: stodgy, rigid, inflexible, old. And he was saddened to realize that, much of the time, that picture was correct; he *was* inflexible on many issues, he didn't have a personal life, and he was decidedly older than Xander--to whom anyone over twenty-five must seem ancient. The sad thing was, he could also see himself at Xander's age and was more than capable of sympathizing; hell, at that age, he was worse than Xander ever could be, and he had grown up with far more advantages.

Giles sat down, knowing that the time for the closed fist had passed; there was no way that he could get through to Xander with argument and blunt trauma. The time for the open hand had arrived; Xander needed someone to listen to him, to understand him, and since no one else was readily available, the job apparently fell to one Rupert Giles, Assigned Watcher and Sunnydale High School librarian. Giles opened his mouth and began to speak, letting the words come naturally.

"Xander," he began, "I know you think that you did something to drive Buffy away." Seeing the shocked look cross Xander's previously impassive face, he knew he had hit the mark and continued before Xander had a chance to interrupt. "I also know that you have already tried, convicted, and sentenced yourself. I can see from the look on your face, hear in the tone of your voice, that you consider yourself guilty of a crime so severe that you deserve to die for it, that in your mind, you are already walking down death row. All these things I know. Before you begin to tell me that I can't know how you feel, that I don't understand you, that that's not it at all, let me say this: I do know how you feel, because I feel the same way.

"How many times do you think I've asked myself in the last few minutes, 'What could I have done differently? Could I have changed her mind?' Do you think you have a monopoly on guilt just because you've dealt with this particular guilt longer than me? I am her Watcher--I should have seen it coming, should have known that she was hurting inside. But I didn't..." Giles slowed, realizing that he wasn't just talking about Xander's guilt anymore--he was talking about his own. Before his rational mind could assert itself again and stop him from his confession, he blazed forward. "But I didn't, and now I am left with this guilt, this pain, the knowledge that I could have done something to protect her from distress and did not. I am guilty of allowing someone I care about deeply to be hurt, and for that crime-"

"For that crime," Willow interrupted, "for *my* crime, for the crime of causing pain to my friend, for the crime that is ours to bear together, we deserve to be punished." Her eyes were slightly teary as she continued. "In a just and fair world, we would be punished. But the world isn't fair, is it? Because if we were punished, we would be able to move on, to accept the pain and begin to deal with it. But we aren't, and we can't, and the pain-"

"The pain just keeps growing until I think I'll have to scream or I'll burst," Xander said quietly, the suffering in his voice like a jagged knife as he recited the words from his journal. "But I don't burst... If I could, it would be so much simpler. I wouldn't have to live with this pain, wouldn't have to live my life knowing that I had hurt my friend... knowing... knowing..." Xander's voice broke off in harsh sobs that echoed through the quiet library, swallowed up by the emptiness around the table.

The friends looked at each other for a moment, only a moment, before they moved. Willow let go of Oz's hand and walked to the other side of the table, where she put her arms around her friend. Cordelia followed, not really understanding everything that had been said, but knowing in her secret heart that Xander needed her at that moment more than he had ever needed her before in their entire relationship. Giles' sensibilities wrestled with his emotions before deciding in favor of sentiment and embracing the three teenagers as though they were his last anchor on sanity and reality. Oz felt out of place, knowing that he was Willow's companion but feeling uncomfortable with her friends; finally he walked around the table and awkwardly joined the hug.

After several minutes, Xander's sobs subsided and the hug reluctantly broke. He wiped away his tears and looked around thankfully at his friends. He touched Willow's hand for a moment before turning and giving Cordelia a small kiss on the cheek. He briefly lamented that he and Oz had never become friends, knowing that if it hadn't been for his own feelings for Willow, they could have been close buds. He even managed to give Giles a lackluster smile before he started to apologize.

"There are no apologies necessary, Xander," Giles informed him. "I believe that all of us needed to release some of our guilt. Good for the psyche and all that." Xander was amazed; in mere moments, Giles had gone from snobby Brit to caring friend to psychoanalyst and back to snobby Brit again. Sometimes Xander wondered if he would ever really understand the man. Giles' face was serious again, though its craggy features seemed somehow softer now. "Xander, you don't have to tell us what happened to make you feel so terrible, but if you want to, you can."

"Yeah," chimed in Willow, "we all have problems, but sometimes sharing them with our friends can make us feel better." All the others looked at her, amazed that such a profound cliché could come from someone so smart. Looking slightly sheepish, Willow shrugged. Xander smiled again, a slightly more genuine smile this time; things were finally getting back to a semblance of normality.

"No," he said, his voice regaining a little of its usual warmth and good humor. "No, I think I want to tell you." He looked around at them all, his friends, knowing that no matter how he chose to say what he needed to say, he would not be judged, would not be reviled, would not be hated.

"No matter how much I disliked Angel," he began, "it wasn't until he lost his soul and became Angelus that I really started to hate him..."

Back in his room, remembering his friends' forgiveness of him, Xander's self-pity was broken. He smiled broadly, for no one's benefit except his own, and walked out, closing the door tightly behind him. He rechecked the velcro straps on his new cast--one of those easy-remove space-age deals made out of plastic and stainless steel; the old plaster cast he had before went the way of the dodo thanks to comprehensive health insurance--and tightened it slightly, making sure he wouldn't lose it in the hours ahead.

Walking down the steps, he began to go over his plan to get to Bakersfield, the first stop of the Greyhound bus that Buffy had left town on. He figured that he would have to be out of Sunnydale by nightfall--Sunnydale's streets weren't safe to walk at night, and he wasn't thinking of muggers either--but he should be able to thumb a ride within a mile of the city limits. If he got lucky, maybe he wouldn't have to walk more than a couple of hours total.

All in all, his glad mood had only one dark blemish--Cordelia. After his confession, but before he had returned home, they had gone off for some quiet time together. It was only a few minutes, but in that short time, they had somehow managed to get in yet another fight...

How it started, Xander had no idea whatsoever, but for some reason Cordelia had decided to go off on him. Being completely clueless on women in general and Cordelia in particular, Xander chose (probably correctly) not to actually argue with her, instead just looking serious and nodding his head in the appropriate places. Every now and again he would catch the words "Buffy," "relationship," "us," and the phrase "chasing across the country." At one point, Cordelia said something that Xander didn't quite catch but seemed quite important to him.

"What did you just say?" he asked.

"Which part? The bit were I call you a dunderhead for chasing across the country after Buffy, who is more than capable of taking care of herself, no matter what some greasy little guy in a bad hat says..." Sensing that the conversation was about to get away from him again, Xander stated that it was the other thing she had said. "Oh, you mean the part where I ask you *how* you intend to chase off across the country after Buffy, who-"

"You know," he interrupted seamlessly, "that's a good question. My parents have the car--they're gone for the week, you know; some sort of convention or something. How am I going to follow that Greyhound? It's not like I can afford to bus it all over the state, let alone the country, if that becomes necessary..." At this point, Xander was pretty much talking to himself; sensing this, Cordelia butted in on his spoken thoughts.

"You could take my car," she said, her voice dripping venom.

"Really?" Xander asked, so far gone into his own private world that he didn't hear her tone.

"No! Puh-lease! Don't you know sarcasm when you hear it? You'll get my car over my dead body. Every time you're in it, it seems like we get attacked by werewolves, or vampires, or werewolf vampires, or some other icky thing!"

"Oh, okay," Xander muttered, the wheels in his head too busy turning to do more than acknowledge Cordelia's existence, and that only peripherally.

Cordelia voiced a small roar of outrage and stalked away from her boyfriend, leaving him to stew in his own thoughts. Now that the others understood his reasons and wouldn't stand in his way, he'd be damned before he allowed Cordelia's insane jealousy to stop him. He broke out of his contemplation, wanting to say something placating to his girlfriend, but she was already down the hallway and out of sight.

Xander sighed heavily; if it wasn't one thing, it was another. He still didn't understand why Cordelia had decided to go out with him, why she stayed with him despite his obviously strong feelings for Buffy. Some time before, he had begun to get a sinking feeling that she actually loved him; he had looked inside himself and found that while he wasn't "in love" with Cordelia, he did love her, and for now that was apparently enough for both of them. He realized that their angry passion wasn't enough to keep them together forever--it was barely enough to keep them together through each day--but both of them were satisfied with the arrangement. For now.

If Xander could have gotten inside Cordelia's head--and not immediately shot out the other side--he would have found her reasons much the same as his: an animalistic physical attraction; short-term security; a sense of being in a war with only a few people to choose from for companionship; a need to be accepted by someone. Underneath that, however, was something else, something that would have surprised Xander greatly: Cordelia did love Xander, and was gradually falling in love with him as well. If asked why, she couldn't have given any specific reasons, only that it was so.

And that, in a nutshell, explained why it hurt so much when Xander fawned over Buffy like a puppy and ignored her. Cordelia hadn't understood everything that Giles and Willow were talking about in the library, but she understood the idea of pain: pain was her boyfriend being in love with another girl; pain was the idea of losing someone who was so sweet and kind and generous, all the things she herself was not; pain was seeing Xander's longing gazes after Buffy and never seeing the same kind of look for her. Pain was Xander going off on some fool quest that would probably get him killed--all for Buffy--and then Buffy coming back, so that it would be like losing the person she cared most about in the world twice.

Yes, Cordelia knew about pain. And to cover it up, like a she would cover a blemish if her perfect skin ever had one, she layered on the disdain, the cruel face she showed the world; she would put up the shield she had long used to protect herself--a shield called pride. To hide the pain, all she needed was a shopping spree at Neiman-Marcus; the simple joy she felt in shopping was almost always enough to balm any wound, but not now. In the time she had been dating Xander, Cordelia had acquired about three thousand dollars worth of new dresses--almost none of which he had noticed--and it cheered her up barely any at all.

So while Xander was planning out his hitchhiking route to Bakersfield in the hallway outside the library, Cordelia was restraining tears in the girls' room--and not doing much of a job.

The next day, early in the morning, Xander ate a large breakfast--leftovers, yummy--packed, and prepared to leave the house. Purged of almost all of his negativity, Xander was amazed at how light and free he felt. He didn't like it at all and put on his headphones to drown out such happy thoughts. He made very sure that everything in the house was turned off, left a note for his parents--a completely made-up story that they'd never bother to check anyway--and left the house, locking the door behind him. As the bolt slid home, he was gripped with a sense of his own mortality, the idea that this might be the last time he ever laid eyes on his home.

He paused. His home? Was it really? Sure, he slept here, but could he say that he had any real emotional connection to the place? Searching deep inside himself, Xander found that the answer was "No." One of his favorite writers had once said, "Home is the place that, when you have to go there, they have to let you in." If anyplace he knew of fit that description, he couldn't think of it at the moment. His thoughts as dark as the sky overhead, Xander walked away from the house, slipping the key easily and casually into his pocket.

As Xander walked, the sky above became darker, more violent, and his thoughts turned from such heavy topics as the nature of home and family to what he was going to do if the storm broke while he was still walking. He was so caught up in his own worries that he barely noticed when lightning began to flash across the clouds and thunder rolled across the low hills around town. So wrapped up in himself he was, that he didn't even see the car until it was almost right on top of him.

Speeding up from a street ahead and to the right, the car's driver displayed a disregard for the speed limit and the law so blatant that Xander instantly knew who was behind the wheel despite the tinted windows. Screeching to a halt less than two feet from him, the car's window rolled down and Cordelia's head popped out.

"Are you going to stand there all day, or just until it starts raining? Get in already!"

The passenger's side door opened, and Xander jumped over the front end of the car and slid easily into the seat next to Cordelia. He looked over at her, smiled, and touched her hand. Smiling back, Cordelia told him to take off his headphones.

Still smiling, Xander told her that he would take off his headphones if she promised not to play any of that dance music she liked so much. Cordelia began to drive out of town, asking what was the matter with dance music. Xander tossed back that there was absolutely nothing wrong with dance music, except that it sucked; in his opinion, people like Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots were real music. Cordelia made a disparaging remark and asked that, if that was the case, why was he listening to Pink Floyd? And was that Patsy Cline she saw poking out of the backpack? Xander returned that there was nothing wrong with Pink Floyd, and country music is the music of pain, and furthermore...

And so it continued all the way to Bakersfield, both of them loving every minute they argued.