eretria

Glastonbury. Of all the places they’ve visited, Xander couldn’t have picked a more clichéd one.

Then again, he did have Stonehenge on his schedule, so maybe she shouldn't be surprised.

They park the car at the bottom of the hill and walk up the winding path slowly. Xander is talking; a calm ripple of words she doesn’t even try to follow. The sound of his voice is steady and reassuring.

This is the fifth mystical place on their little journey and Willow remembers how in the beginning, she thought she was being tested.

But that had been in the beginning. A week in, she has begun to wonder if it isn’t the other way around, if he’s trying to make amends by taking her places he thinks she wants to see or might be good for her.

She doesn’t have the heart to explain that he doesn't have to do any of it, and that she's not really interested in the places, but just in being with him. It doesn't matter, anyway. The outcome is the same.

So she just goes along and soaks up the quiet joy that always comes from spending time with Xander. No matter how much time has passed, no matter what happens between them; through all the ups and downs of their friendship, this part has always survived.

She’s happy with him, she realises. Not in-love or in-lust happy, just simply happy in a way she hasn't been in far too long. He knows her and accepts her and she does the same. They don't need anything in between.

The climb is slow and steady, the path winds around the Tor. Just like it was during their visit at Wayland's Smithy, the sun is beginning to set. As she looks out over the landscape surrounding them, she sees mist pooling in the little valleys. No, not mist, clouds. Fast-forming clouds that herald a coming storm. Gentle evening light makes them appear like lakes of tangerine and laburnum-like yellow, spilling over and growing until they’re combined into a sea of fire and gold that hides all the signs of civilisation.

Xander has fallen silent and has stopped walking; together they watch the sun paint the clouds in even more vibrant colours by the minute in one last attempt to show its strength before it succumbs to the night. A flock of birds rises up from a tree that still pokes its head out over the cloud-cover; their cries are eerie in the silence of this sacred hill.

He reaches for her hand when the colours have faded and they walk up the rest of the path up to the tower atop the Tor in comfortable silence.

All alone up there, the medieval tower is austere in its beauty; it reminds her of an oversized version of the tower in Giles' chess set. Her admiration turns into a slight hollow feeling in her stomach when she remembers reading that there used to be a church attached to it and the tower is now all that is left. The church was scrapped for stones. She's not overly religious, and never was Christian to begin with, but it used to be a holy place and damaging it reeks of sacrilege. With the thought of the church in mind, the tower looks a bit like a statue of which only the torso is left, no head, no arms, no legs. She wonders if the tower feels the loss of the church like phantom pain.

The tower's outside walls, made of limestone that is tinted in a cool, forbidding grey now the sun has set, are covered in lichen. A narrow gate allows the visitor a gothic frame for view of the landscape behind it. She spots a flash of white and lets go of Xander's hand to investigate. When she has rounded the tower, she sees a woman dressed all in new-age, flowing white disappear down the winding path they had climbed up. The mist swallows her within seconds.

They're alone up here now, Willow realises. No other soul in sight and a potential rainstorm approaching. It should make her nervous, she thinks, but it doesn't. She knows she's safe up here. Safe now that she's made her peace with both the magic and herself. She's just pretty sure that Xander won't feel the same, so she turns back to find him.

He's sitting on the narrow bench inside the tower, a shadow among shadows. “I think it’s already raining down there,” Xander says, looking out the doorway. His voice echoes in the height of the tower. “Nice to know that some clichés still hold true. Doesn’t all that rain make you miss California?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she looks at the mist covering the landscape around her, hears the earth whisper to her in a dark but warm welcome and she embraces a knowledge she's carried inside her for some time now but never dared to face.

"So, when you're back, I think we should –"

Willow stops him in mid-sentence by placing both her hands on his cheeks and rising up to kiss him. It's sweet, his lips soft, they're immobile but warming under hers. She doesn't taste him, the kiss isn't about that. It is supposed to be nothing more than a quick, tender peck, but she lingers, revelling in the simple warm touch of their lips, wanting to relive the memory of every connection they once shared, including this one, and wanting to make a new one she can lock away inside of her when it's all over. When she has done what she will do next.

"I'm not coming back, Xander," she murmurs when she pulls back. Her words are nearly drowned by the sound of the rain that's beginning to fall outside of the tower.

Xander goes perfectly still and even stops breathing for what feels like a small eternity. Then he covers her hands with his, holds her in place. "What?" he asks, his voice uneven and disbelieving. His eyes, slipped shut during their kiss, stay closed.

"I'm not coming back," she repeats and runs the pad of her thumb over his chin and to his mouth where his lower lip trembles the way it always does when he's confused and upset. A raw wave of pain rolls over her when she realises once more just how well she knows him, every single bit of him.

"I heard you the first time, I'm just having trouble comprehending." He opens his eyes and searches her face, her eyes. "How do you mean you're not coming back? Not now? Not ever?" His voice breaks on the last syllable.

Willow squares her shoulders and meets his gaze. It's a gargantuan effort. "Not ever."

Xander drops his hands and takes a step back so her hands fall from his face as well. He opens and closes his mouth a few times but no sound comes out. His eyes are wide, shocked and so hurt that Willow wants to take her words back even as she knows she can't.

"You said that before," he rasps eventually and she's propelled back to the Highway, to Buffy and Xander trying to hold her back from killing Warren. She tastes the dust on the back of her tongue, the thirst for revenge and it takes all her willpower to push back the craving for the dark magic that still lingers inside of her.

That memory gives her the strength to stand her ground. She's not ready to return. She might never be. Oddly enough, the knowledge doesn't hurt. "I mean it this time."

"Why?" Xander asks. His voice is small.

"I belong here." Willow is surprised how easy those words come over her lips, and how she knows they're the truth even if she has never acknowledged it before.

"Bullshit." The word is like the crack of a whip. It moves the hair that has fallen into her face but she remains still, ready to let whatever is coming next wash over her.

She smells the rain and the damp earth and feels grounded. "I do. I belong here."

"You belong here as much as a snowman belongs in a furnace." Xander's smile is forced, desperate. It's a mask for the anger that is swirling just under the surface and that he's holding back on. "Will, this is crazy. You can't be serious."

"I am."

"How? How can you be serious? There is nothing here for you. This land tried to kill you earlier this week, remember?" He gestures toward the archway beyond which the rain is now falling steadily, obscuring the landscape around them. "Or is this some rain-related amnesia?"

"Xander, don't." She knows what's to come but she's too at peace with her decision to want a big emotional blow out about it. It's all right. She just needs him to see that it's all right. It's the best choice for her, the best for all of them.

"Don't what?"

"Just don't."

"Don't what, Will?" he demands and there it is, the spark of anger she'd been hoping to avoid. "Don't speak my mind? Why, are you suddenly afraid of it?"

"I'm not afraid of you, Xander." She isn't. This is her choice, and no matter what he says, it won't change her mind. The earth's energy on the Tor bolsters her confidence and shields her from the negativity that's beginning to seep from Xander toward her.

Wind comes up outside and buffets the rain against the tower.

"Maybe you should be."

She cocks her head to the side, narrowing her eyes. The sun has set outside and it's getting harder to see his face in the shadows. "Is that really what you want? Is that where you want this conversation to go?"

Xander shoves both hands into his hair and fists them there. Willow winces when he pulls several hairs out by the root. "No, I don't. But I'm tired of shutting up and going with the flow."

He waits for her to reply. When she doesn't, it only appears to fuel his anger. "I’ve shut up too much in the past, I’ve just looked on and bit my tongue because I didn't want to hurt your feelings, but you know what? I'm over that. I'm so done with watching out for everyone's delicate sensibilites while they trample on mine." He removes his hands from his head and thumps his fist against the wall next to him.

Willow listens but doesn't reply, partly because she knows it's better to let him rant when he's in rant-mode and partly because she feels he's reached a point where it just needs to get out.

"I know, I know," he continues with big, sweeping gestures toward himself, "big, broad-shouldered Xander can take it, the weight of everyone's problems and being left behind and the odd insult, right, he's the funny guy, he will make a joke about it and just take it in stride and it won't hurt him because he's just a dumb carpenter and bricklayer who won't understand the insult you just threw at him anyway, right? Just the village idiot you can treat like crap and he'll laugh it away and be your friend and your stepping stone and all will be good because, look, Xander's always there."

Some of his words echo in the high ceiling of the tower, others are ripped away by the tempest getting stronger outside. The sky has decided to join Xander's dark mood and throw a storm at them.

Willow is surprised to find that his words don't make her angry. None of the defensiveness she still would have felt a year or so ago rises up. Instead, she just feels helpless, has no idea how to help him. She wants to make it better so badly it's a physical pull, a knot in her stomach.

"Have you ever wondered if this is really all that easy for me?" He turns around to face her. "Have you ever thought about me? How this is affecting me? Have you ever wondered if I might get all the veiled insults and the jokes on my expense and if they hurt me? Because they do, Willow. They do. I bleed when you prick me."

It's not fair and she knows he's better than that and that he's smarter than he lets on, but she's still surprised that he quotes the Merchant of Venice. Of all the things. She tries to hide her reaction, is ashamed of herself for being just as snobbish as everyone else is, so ashamed, but it's too late.

"Surprises you, doesn't it?" His tone cuts like a knife, bitter and angry. Her cheeks begin to burn in embarrassment. She wants to look away from him but forces herself not to. He gives her a look of disgust mingled with hurt and resignation, then steps outside the tower and raises his face up to the rain. "God, why did I kid myself. Of all people, I thought that at least you wouldn't take it for granted that I'm just a dumb oaf, but hey. Look at that. You do. You probably always did."

Willow can't breathe, she’s reeling from the truth. His words are like needles. Precise, poisoned needles cutting into her heart and she deserves every single one of them. She reaches out a hand and steps out of the tower that protected them both from the lashing rain. The sudden bitter cold wetness soaking her cardigan is a shock she registers but ignores. "Xander –"

"Don't try," he snarls. "Don't make this any cheaper by telling me that you care about me and that it all just came out wrong."

Willow tries to unlock her jaw to reply but can’t find the strength to. Her scalp prickles despite the rain matting her hair to her skull and her heart races, fast enough to make her nauseous. A gust of wind rocks her against the rough stones of the tower and rips the warmth from her body. He's right. He is. She slings her arms around herself against the cold. He's right in his accusations, no matter how much they hurt her and no matter how over the top they might be because of his anger. She didn't know how much he missed her, most of all because she didn't think he would miss her at all after everything that had happened. She has thought of it, of what would happen if she lost their friendship. But always in selfish terms, how it would affect her, not how it would affect Xander.

His pain and his angry words are based on truth and that truth hurts her as much as it hurts him because it shows her just how much she has neglected their friendship. She cares about him. She cares about him so much more than she can ever put into words. Now everything she thought they rebuilt in the last week is falling away from her and she feels like the dancer on a wire when the wire disappears beneath her feet. She's falling, plummeting.

Xander wipes wet hair from his eyes. "I know my problems are small compared to yours. I'm neither a Slayer nor a witch nor a demon nor a chosen one nor a Key nor a frigging Vampire." The cynicism rolls off him in waves, just like the scent of wet wool from his soaked jacket. "I don't know the deep emotions. I haven't lost the love of my life, I don't know what it feels like, right?' He angles his body away from her and opens his arms in a mock-inviting gesture. "I'm just good old Xander, the butt of everyone's jokes. You need to have suffered true loss before you become part of the gang and, hey, what have I lost, right?"

Willow sucks in a sharp breath to fight an instinctive snarl and squares her shoulders. If there is one thing Xander has always been good at that no one ever told him, it is finding the right words to salt the earth around him in a big way when he's angry and hurt. He could inflict major damage without intending to. Subconsciously going for the jugular. This time, she wonders if he did intend to. The reminder of Tara in this hurts like a knife to the chest and Willow has a hard time accepting that Xander is just angry and just lashing out and that he isn't trying to cheapen her loss. "Anya is alive," she replies, as calm as she can manage.

"Alive?" Xander echoes and whips around to face her. She can barely make out his eyes in the falling darkness, but she can feel the heat of his gaze. "Newsflash for you, sweetheart: I have lost just as much as you have. The love of my life may not be dead, but she's lost to me. She doesn't know if she prefers me dead or alive so she can inflict major damage on me. And you know what? I can't even blame anyone for losing her. I have no one to kill for the pain this is causing, I can't seek revenge, because it's all my own fault." He deflates a little and runs a hand through his hair, making it cling to his skull. "I know that none of you ever believed in us. You all just saw the odd couple consisting of the uneducated clown who finally got a steady job and the strange-talking ex-demon, and look, aren't they adorable? But you know what? I love her. With every fibre of my being."

"I know." Willow does. She never really understood it, never got Xander and Anya's relationship, but it was clear even to a blind and deaf person that Xander loved her. That knowledge and the admission of how much Xander still hurts mellows some of her earlier anger.

"You know," Xander repeats, his tone derisive. "Because you know me so well."

"After all those years, I'd like to think so, yes," she answers carefully because all of a sudden, what she believes she knows stands on feet of very fragile clay. The rain has soaked her clothes right down to her skin by now and she shivers but she tries to get close to him anyway, disregarding her own discomfort. "Xander, what's –"

He crosses his arms over his chest, physically blocking her attempt at getting through to him. "If you know me so well, would you like to tell me why you telling me you're not coming back makes me angry?"

"No more free downloads of cable TV shows?" she jokes, trying to lighten the mood. Her fingers curl into fists tight enough to make her knuckles crack. Jokes have always worked before, right? Pulled Xander out of his funks? It's going to work again. It has to work again.

The attempt fails; Xander doesn't even crack a smile. "I saved your life, Willow. I saved the world by stopping you from going over that edge. And I stand by it, I don't want a thank you for that. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Not because it would save the world. Because it would save you."

Willow lets her hands fall to her side, limp. He would. It's not just an empty phrase. Xander will always be there for her, no holds barred, no regard for his own safety. Even when she leaves him behind, he'll never stop loving her. He's not going to leave her, her fears are entirely unfounded, she begins to realise. It makes his resignation and his next words feel like an all the harsher kick to the gut.

"This bombshell you delivered today just makes one thing very clear to me: no matter what I do, no matter how hard I work and what I offer, it's never enough, is it?" He raises his hands and looks at them as if he's seeing them for the first time and finds them severely lacking strength. The fight has gone out of him. The fuel his anger ran on is depleted and he's faltering now.

Willow doesn't know what's worse, his anger or his resignation. Seeing it makes her throat tighten and feel like it's filled with hot lead.

"It's just never enough. In the end, my life's just not as important as all of yours are."

Willow wants to stop him, tell him he's wrong, so very, very wrong, that she went over the edge when Tara died but that no one, not even Tara, could have stopped her from destroying the world if it had been Xander who'd died in her arms, but she's rooted to the spot with too many words in her mind for her tongue to form and her mouth to spill. Words that rip her chest and throat apart wanting to get out. Words of comfort. Apologies.

When she doesn't speak up, Xander's face undergoes a contortion that ends with bitter cynicism. "I know that my feelings don't matter," he says, calm in a way he hadn't been before. It's worse than his rage. It's acceptance and Willow hates every second of it. "I'm just a means to an end, to be discarded when used."

"Xander, no." She hears how pleading her own voice sounds and doesn't care. She wants to plead. She needs to plead, to make him understand that he couldn't be more wrong. But the words once again don't come. In her despair, she reaches out to touch him to make him understand but he shies away from her hand again.

It feels like a slap to the face. Her hand drops, useless. A gust of wind hits her and leeches what warmth is left from her body. Willow has never felt so cold in her entire life. A scream is building in her throat, but it's selfish to think about how much seeing Xander hurt is hurting her. She can't – He doesn't need – She wraps her arms around herself, trying to quell the pain radiating from her middle. Tears burn in her eyes.

Xander looks at her, then away and shakes his head as though he wants to clear it. He sways on the spot, rocked by the buffeting wind.

"I'm tired of it, Willow," he says. His voice is no more than a whisper now; she has to strain her ears to hear what he's saying. "So tired." He takes a few steps around the tower and into the shadow of the wind where he sits down with his knees against his chest and his back against the ancient, lichen and moss-spotted stones. Rain runs from his hair into his eyes. He shivers but doesn't move away from her when she crouches next to him into the squelching mud and rests a shaking hand on his knee. "Just for once, I want to be the one who is cared about for himself. Not because I'm the clown who makes everyone laugh, not because of the money I bring home, or the stupid stamina I have in bed, or the help I offer, no matter how little it is. Just for me."

He doesn't know. It hits her with the force of a cartoon anvil: he doesn't know that she still loves him. He thinks that somewhere along the way, she stopped.

It takes her three tries to press sounds through the tightness of her throat. "I'm sorry, Xander," she says. Tears threaten to choke her. "I'm so, so sorry."

When he doesn't react, Willow nudges Xander's knees aside and kneels just at his side, close enough so she can shield him from the elements. Close enough to pull him against her, away from the cold stone wall and against her. She smells wet wool from his jacket, folds her arms around his stiffening shoulders and stays that way until she feels him exhale and melt against her, boneless.

She doesn't want to have to put into words what she's feeling, but she knows that he needs it. "I never stopped, Xander. I may not be in love with you anymore, but I still love you. Maybe now more than ever. I'm so proud of all you have accomplished, all on your own." She rubs her hand up and down his back.

"I don't love you because you were my anchor on Kingman's Bluff, Xander," she murmurs against his wet hair. "Not because you make me laugh. Not because of your skills or your big heart. You've always been my anchor because of who and what you are. Always will be."

She guides his face against her chest with a gentle nudge then. His breath comes in uneven hitches and she closes her eyes and wills him to breathe with her, calm and steady.

"You matter to me, Xander," she whispers against his hair. Her throat is tight, she has to force the words out. "Your feelings matter. I’m sorry I didn’t listen, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you when you were in pain. Never again, okay? "

Willow strokes his hair for what seems like hours long after the rain ends, just like he did on Kingman's Bluff, does nothing but hold him and comb her fingers through the dark mess of curls, feeling it dry and go warm at the scalp and cool toward the tips.

The darkness grows lighter, the air warmer.

Confused by the sudden change in temperature, Willow looks up and her eyes widen. Around them is a bubble of gentle fluorescence, like a soap bubble made of light. Inside is gentle warmth and steady comfort, like the earth under their feet.

After the near-complete darkness during the deluge, the light feels foreign. Nevertheless, she's glad that when she untangles herself from him, she can see Xander now.

"Do you trust me?" she asks eventually and looks back up so she can meet his eyes. It surprises her how steady her voice is.

He shouldn't trust her. With everything that happened in the past year, he should run screaming, she thinks. She should, too.

He doesn't. He opens his eyes and holds her gaze when he answers, "Always."

With her eyes stinging, Willow takes one more deep breath for courage and leans into him, rests her forehead against his. "Then trust me to know what's right for me. Just like I trust you to know what's right for you."

Xander doesn't move, doesn't even breathe and for a panicked second, Willow wonders if he'll refuse, but then she sees the smile smoothing out the frown lines on his face. It's a slow, knowing smile.

Around them, the light fades; the warmth sinks into her bones.

It feels too easy, somehow, but she'll be damned if she'll second-guess it. It's time to embrace absolution.

She embraces Xander instead and finds herself engulfed in the world’s most bone-crushing hug in return.

The moon peeks from behind a cloud.

***

"We're not kids anymore now, are we?" he asks her as they walk down from the Tor. It sounds melancholy.

"No, we're not."

He stops walking, raises his face toward the sky and takes a deep breath that sounds like a relieved sigh. Willow sees the moonlight reflect off his teeth when he smiles. "Good."

"Good?"

"Yeah. I can't wait to grow old with you. You know, two funny old people sitting on their porch in their rocking chairs, talking about their glory days with the Slayer."

"The porch of the house you built."

She can feel him beam next to her. "Yeah." He reaches for her hand in mid-stride. "Depends on whether or not they'll let me work here in England, of course. But I figure a good carpenter can find a job anywhere, right?"

Her heart feels too big for her chest suddenly. "Xander – "

"Couple of years down the road, who knows, maybe there'll be a demand for good old American handiwork over here."

"But you – "

He raises his index finger to silence her. "Yeah. But I realised something. Call it an epiphany. If I want you to love me as I am, then I have to do the same, right? I can't expect you to always be where I am. If you need to be here, then you should be here. And, you know, if a couple of years down the road the prophet won't come to the mountain …" He trails off into an awkward silence. "You know?"

Her heart feels ready to burst, and she doesn't know what to do with all the emotions, so she hugs him to her, hard enough to make him squeak. "I do."

"What do you say we get out of these wet clothes?" she asks into the wet wool of his jacket after a while. He smells of wet sheep, soap and something that's comfortingly warm Xander.

"Get naked and have hot, sweaty monkey sex back in the B&B?" he teases in a suggestive tone, tickling his fingers against her ribcage.

"Still several years too late and the wrong gender, sweetie," she laughs and squirms away from his hands. "What do you say to hot chocolate, pyjamas and fuzzy socks instead?" She offers her arm to him.

He links his arm with hers. "Perfect."

***