Hey, Buff

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  Xander didn’t need to spend dozens of day-loops as Sherlock, Achilles, Casanova, Eitri, or the Avalonian elf to recall the knowledge behind their brain pattern; though, he spent a loop as the Navy Seal, simply to reabsorb the elite soldier’s overall tenacity. Like entering a large house with many stylishly colored rooms, Xander could access a sizable majority of their knowledge fairly well by that point, and felt the knowledge that he needed to learn didn’t come from a costume. He had a suspicion that he needed to follow.

  When Buffy said, ‘Wait until I’m thirty,’ Xander had thought, ‘I can do that.’

  Hence, his chief concern for the day-loops was making certain he could always get thousand-dollar scratchers to bribe the girls with. The lotto ticket would convince Willow, Buffy, and—for the fun of it—Cordelia to dress in whatever costume he chose. Xander then took several loops to convince Ethan to create a Sixty-year-old costume for them. Looking at the latest winning scratcher in his hand, he was grateful to Buffy for giving him the idea. Considering what great minds Xander had mimicked for most of his repeating life, it was amazing he hadn’t thought of it much sooner.

  For the thousand-dollar scratcher, the fashion-conscious Slayer happily agreed to wear whatever Xander wanted. Though Buffy was slightly nervous about what he would make her wear, she found the Old Person costume hilarious. The stunning blonde wore a white wig, fake red reading glasses, a brown wool cardigan with her name written on a Bingo Night name tag, and she used a brown cane.

  Having failed at this a few times already, Xander didn’t wear a costume, nor was he near Principle Snyder when he was forcing high school students to chaperone children trick-or-treating. He stayed with Buffy for most of the day, talking about everything she would buy with the thousand dollars as he waited for Ethan’s chaos magic to take hold of the town. The pair of friends were walking around the bustling neighborhood, and Buffy enjoyed playing an old lady when 6 PM finally hit.

  As the chaos began sweeping the town, Xander could easily imagine his-Buffy’s mind falling backward and landing in that invisible chair, aware of the world outside but numb to it and unable to get out. Like many wearing Ethan’s costumes, she would have no control of her body, or speech, nor would she be able to tell where her consciousness ended and the other began. Even though he’d seen it before, Xander was still surprised to see Buffy’s white wig revert to her long, golden-blonde hair and her face matured to no older than twenty-five. Instead of the feeble and hunched over body of a sixty-year-old, she stood with perfect posture; strong-shouldered. Nothing sagged and she certainly didn’t need the cane.

  Buffy looked around at the chaos unfolding in the suburban neighborhood: cars crashing, many monstrous predators chasing frightened innocents, and wanton destruction of property. The sound of screaming, growling, and destruction filled the air. The now-veteran Slayer scanned every foot of the surrounding pandemonium—assessing threat levels—until her beautiful greenish-blue eyes landed on him.

  “Xander?” she called in shocked surprise, focusing on his smiling face. The astounded girl quickly cupped his jaw as she yelled, “Oh my god, Xander! You- You look so young! And- And your eye!” she remarked, caressing his left cheek and brow. “It’s back!”

  “Hey, Buff,” Xander softly said as he held her hands. He squeezed them affectionately before asserting, “I hate to cut this short, but we’re in a bit of a time situation.”

  The legendary warrior didn’t even hesitate to nod and ask, “Back in time, higher plane, or alternate reality?”

  “Back in time and probably alternate reality,” he quickly answered, and her focused face nodded. He elaborated, “Do you remember junior year? Halloween? You dressed up like an 18th-century girl. I dressed as a soldier. Then we got whammied by chaos magic and became the costume we dressed as.”

  Her symmetric face winced and her eyes squinted as she answered, “Uh… Vaguely.”

  “Okay, well, we’re in that time,” he informed her. “And it’s something of a different reality because I’ve been stuck in this time—in a time loop.”

  Her brows knotted in confusion as she repeated, “Time loop. Like Groundhog’s day?”

  “Not exactly, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s go with yes.”

  “Huh,” she hummed, scanning the surrounding mayhem to jog her memory. “Can’t say I’ve been in one of those.”

  “It’s not fun,” he assured her. “And by that, I mean it’s hell.”

  Returning her attention to him, she said, “I just can’t get over how young you look.” Pinching his cheeks with a mischievously broad grin, she added, “You’re like a baby!”

  Xander’s head lazily avoided her pinch-happy hands as he asked with incredulity, “I look like a baby? What about you?” Stepping back, he observed the model-perfect figure and marveled, “You’re supposed to be sixty and you still look twenty-five.”

  With a pose and a smile, she gratefully replied, “Thanks.”

  Unfortunately, the pair were in the thick of a tumultuous situation they couldn’t ignore any longer. Slipping into his assertive guise, a somber Xander stated, “Since I have field awareness, follow my lead until we have more time to talk.”

  “Roger, roger,” she said with a dainty salute.

  The Slayer and Time Looper began running down the neighborhood. From previous loops, Xander knew Buffy couldn’t ignore the threat of danger to an innocent begging for help. Picturing a civilian dying because she ran past them in their time of need had always stopped Buffy before, which forced Xander to adapt. As the pair ran through the chaotic neighborhood, he grabbed rocks from the floor—told her to do the same—and they sniped all the monsters they passed.

  “Go for the head,” Xander told her, as he slung a rock at a gray-skinned monster’s face with perfect accuracy. “Eyes, mouth, and neck will draw their attention to us.”

  With her paranormal strength, Buffy either severely injured the durable monster or knocked it out. When they had six monstrous demons chasing them, she asked, “Now what?”

  Xander stopped running and turned to them. Extending his hand, he concentrated on the only spell his body could do without backfiring horribly. ‘In regno nostro nox sit, et illis qui intra gressum dormiunt,’ he thought with eyes closed, and the magic he typically didn’t feel extended from his hand and put the monsters to sleep. The heavier they were, the harder they hit the floor. As ever, Xander felt sleepy himself and rocked his head violently to fight through it.

  “What did you do?” Buffy asked in disbelief.

  “Sleep spell,” the tired boy replied before continuing to run.

  Running up beside him, the curious Slayer asked, “Since when did you start using magic?”

  “I’ve learned a lot in here,” he simply concluded, looking for more monsters to hit with rocks. Running into the next street, Xander noted the next interaction of the night and explained, “When we see Willow, tell her to look around for Cordelia and meet back at your house for safety.”

  Soon after, the pair saw ghost-Willow and Buffy did as instructed. Willow left in search of Cordelia and Xander and Buffy continued running. Along the way, they would snipe monsters with rocks to the face, helping civilians and beating back monsters all while Xander explained the Time Braid. Entering Buffy’s house, she looked around her old home with tender fondness while the raven-haired teen detailed how he’s been repeating the day, week, month, and year.

  Taking a seat in her clean kitchen, she lamented, “Oh, wow, Xander. That does sound like a nightmare.”

  Xander seated across from her as he expressed, “Most of the time, it feels like you don’t exist. No matter how much fun or peace you get, it’s always taken away. No one ever remembers, and after a hundred years of this, it’s hard to even care about things.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she sympathized. “I can’t even imagine what that’s like.”

  “And I wouldn’t want you to,” he replied. “I got the idea to give this-Buffy your entire life’s memories in hopes I can learn something from older you; maybe get an idea of what to do.”

  With a quirked brow, she proposed, “I’m thinking Willow and her super brain would be a bigger help getting out of this than I would.”

  “She’s next,” he assured her.

  “She’d be first if it were me,” Buffy jovially suggested. “Followed promptly by Giles.”

  Bobbing his head left and right in uncertainty, he half agreed, saying, “Yeah, but… it’s just… I have this feeling you’re the key.”

  Buffy groaned in impatient understanding as she admitted, “That would not surprise me.” Shaking her head with exasperated disbelief, she added, “I’m like a sink drain. All the yucky stuff life has to offer swirls my way, eventually.”

  “That’s why I’m asking you,” Xander pointed out. “You got the most experience getting sucked in the suck. It’s why I thought you’d be my best chance.”

  “Okay,” she replied with a stern nod. “What do you need?”

  “This is going to sound weird,” he began. “But I need your help to convince your younger self… to love me.”

  Tilting her head in confusion, she began to say, “I do love you-” However, at Xander’s raised eyebrows and squinted eyes, Buffy realized what he meant, and restated, “Oh, you mean, love love.” At his nod, she recalled, “But didn’t you turn me down when I thought we could-”

  “If I didn’t have the memory of that,” he interjected. “I never would’ve believed I—me, Xander Harris—ever turned you down! Ever! I’ve loved you since day numero uno. We never once sorted out those feelings, so why would future me turn you down? It makes no sense!”

  “Well, you had started with Dawn by that point,” Buffy reminded him, tilting her head as if recalling the distant past. “And now that I think about it, it’s not like I was putting up much of a fuss when you rejected me. Maybe that version of you saw what was really there. You’ve always been good at that, you know; perspective.”

  “I could use a little perspective right now,” he professed. “How do I convince 16-year-old Buffy—madly-in-love-with-Angel-Buffy—to choose me instead of him? Is it even possible?”

  “You mean without her living on with my memories?”

  “I already tried,” Xander told her. “Every time this version of you keeps the memories, I reset. I don’t know why, exactly, but them’s the rules.”

  Retracing his explanation, Buffy repeated, “You, me, Angel, Willow, Giles, Cordelia, and Spike can’t die… because we all have things to do in the future, right?”

  Nodding, Xander elaborated, “My working theory is, if you know everything, too much will change for them; whether in a good way or not, I don’t know.” Looking up at the clock, the time-looper warned, “Hold on. Angel’s going to be here in a sec-”

  “Angel?” she asked, sitting up and eagerly looking around the kitchen.

  “Yeah, I know,” he grumbled with sagging shoulders. “You’re excited to see him, but please remember, I’m the one stuck in hell.”

  Reclaiming control of herself, she nodded as she assured him, “Okay, okay, okay.”

  “He’s going to come through the kitchen door,” Xander began, pointing lazily with his thumb. “Tell him you think it’s magic and we need to find the source. He’s going to ask if we have any idea. Tell him you and I are going to talk to Giles and that when Willow comes back with Cordelia, they should head to Ethan’s costume shop.” Buffy repeated the instructions while Xander recalled the coming interaction from a previous loop. He then pleaded, “If you two could keep the public display of affection to a minimum, I’d appreciate it.”

  At the insinuation she couldn’t control herself, Buffy rolled her eyes with a smile before saying, “Please. I’m sixty, not some love-sick teenager.”

  Angel arrived a few seconds later—tall, handsome, and deeply concerned for Buffy’s safety. Angel embraced her, petting her silky blonde hair and Buffy could not stop smiling. Xander rolled his eyes when she took a deep inhale while in the embrace of her first love. Xander cleared his throat before Buffy began relaying the information. Determined, Angel endorsed the plan with a nod before caressing the side of Buffy’s face. Staring into his dark, yet loving eyes, Buffy leaned into his cold hand when Xander coughed loudly, interrupting them.

  “We better go,” Xander voiced, exiting the room.

  With a last look at Angel, the Slayer left the kitchen, following her best friend outside. Xander gave Buffy a bat, and the pair walked out of the neighborhood. The time looper drew in the monsters that were harming the innocent by sniping them with well-aimed rocks to the face, and Buffy would beat them with a bat until they ran or were knocked unconscious.

  As they walked, the concerned blonde asked, “You sure we shouldn’t be running?”

  “There’s time,” he casually said, scanning their surroundings for monsters chasing anyone.

  “How can you look at all this and be so calm?” Buffy asked, aghast, as she eyed the burning cars and broken windows. The dutiful Slayer dodged the arm swipe of a tall green monster before batting its knee to bring it down, then elbowing its jaw when it was low enough; knocking it out.

  “In a word, numb,” he voiced, playing with the rock in his hand. While he’d admit saving lives took precedence, Xander couldn’t feel genuine worry for any life in Sunnydale. To him, everyone in town who may die will be alive in the following loop, and he explained as much. “I’ve seen this all thousands of times. None of it surprises me anymore. To tell you the truth, if someone dies, it doesn’t even feel real anymore.”

  “God,” Buffy huffed in fearful amazement. “I’m actively restraining myself from jumping in here.”

  “I’m sure I felt that way in the beginning,” he offered. “But too much has happened. It’s just hard to care… to feel anything,” he sadly finished. Turning to her with more concern in his brown eyes, he pleaded, “I need to get out, Buffy. I need to! Or I really will lose the very little bit of me that’s left.”

  “Alright,” she reassured him with a hand on his shoulder. At his nod, she continued, “Intro to Buffy’s Heart 101. After seeing Angel again, I can tell you it’s not going to be easy. All those feelings just spring right back up.” Xander sighed and Buffy patted his shoulder comfortingly as she voiced, “The thing is… and don’t take this the wrong way, but, it’s you, you know? You’re like… one of the best at being such a caring, fun, and devoted friend. It’s hard to imagine you as anything else.”

  “If that’s not a cautionary tale for being a good friend, I don’t know what is,” Xander grossly remarked. “‘Be the best friend! And by the way, she’ll never love you.’”

  With an exasperated sigh, she reminded him, “I still asked you out!”

  “In our mid-twenties, when there was no one else,” he returned. “And we’ve established that I must’ve been suffering from temporary insanity.”

  “Hey, loving Dawn wasn’t insanity!”

  Xander paused for a moment, thinking about the end of his future self’s marriage, then calmly replied, “It wasn’t love at first sight, either.” Buffy eyed him sadly as he added, “And we both know how it ended between me and Dawn.”

  The somber Slayer nodded, pressing his shoulder to keep them moving. Buffy continued, “You being one of my very best friends was how I survived when I should’ve died. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

  “Is that what it is?” he asked in doubtful wonderment. He used his finger to point between them as he asked, “I saved you as a friend, so… you don’t want to see me as anything else because… I don’t know. You lose your safety net, I guess?”

  “It’s possible,” she hesitated to answer with a half nod. “I mean, the closer someone is to me, the quicker they tend to die.”

  “I survived,” he astutely pointed out.

  “Oh, sweety. You’re, far in a way, the exception. Not the rule,” she said rather lovingly. “I just don’t think I could’ve survived without you. I can save people. Willow can save people, as can Giles, Faith, Angel, and Spike. But we all have abilities. When you save us, it just means so much more.”

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  “Because I don’t have powers?” he asked, pointing at a tall green monster running towards them. “Am I, like, your good luck charm?” Xander threw a rock directly into its yellow eye as he stated, “Like a rabbit’s foot you clip on your keychain?”

  “Oh, come on,” she voiced just before swinging at the head of the distracted monster. “You know you’re more than that!” With a heavy THWACK, the monster hit the ground unconscious.

  “Am I?” He turned to look at her. “All these loops, Buffy—thousands of them—and I’m always treated like it’s fine if I’m not more; like I’m not even capable—Like I’m not even allowed to be more.”

  “Of course you are,” she emphatically proclaimed. Stepping within inches, looking him in his eyes, she asserted, “We always supported you in anything; no matter what.”

  “As long as I stayed the same,” he argued. “When did you ever pull me to the side and force me to train? When did Willow or Giles push me to learn defensive spells? I mean, we all knew how easy it was to die out here. And yet, we played fast and loose with our lives because we were young and dumb. How insane is it I actually survived all those years without any skill or ability to back me up?”

  “A lot of people with abilities didn’t survive,” Buffy heatedly declared. She desperately wanted him to know, “If you wanted to be more, I know we would’ve supported you.”

  Xander stepped away, shaking his head. Then he continued lightly jogging as he lamented, “I guess that’s on me.” Buffy was right beside him as he added, “But I’m trying to be more now. And I need your help.”

  “To make me fall in love with you?” she oddly questioned. “How’s that even a thing?”

  “I don’t know!” Xander called out to the night sky, the frustration clearly getting to him. “I don’t- I’m only guessing that changing your mind—making you see me in a different way—is the key. Because if not that, I really have no idea- I’m all out of ideas, Buff.”

  Buffy asked, “So… then, how are you sure?”

  “I can’t be sure of anything!” he stated. “I’m not Giles or Willow! I’m not smart enough to figure this out on my own.”

  Taking his wrist, they stopped running as she made him look at her before insistently saying, “Hey, come on, breathe. Breathe with me.” Xander calmed his breathing with slow inhales and exhales before Buffy continued. “It’s going to be alright.”

  “…I hope so,” he said to be civil, but he didn’t believe it. “Come on. We have to move,” he said before they crossed the street leading to the shops.

  “Tell me why you think it’s me,” she asked.

  As they jogged, he evenly answered, “From what I’ve gathered, when the way you see me doesn’t change, I reset; admittedly, not just you, but Giles, Willow, or the others. Every time the way any of you see me does change, I keep moving forward. I initially thought all of you were just equal like that. But then… then you said something in the last loop that just stuck with me.”

  “What?”

  “You said keeping me alive is why you’re here.”

  “Well, yeah!” Buffy concurred with an amused snort. “As a Slayer, I should think so! I can’t agree more,” she genuinely said with a warm smile. “That it?”

  “It’s all I got,” Xander said, crossing his fingers.

  “And you think that’s the key?” she repeated with an inquisitive hum. “Like, do you feel it in your gut? Because, I can tell you from experience, sometimes all I have is my intuition, and I trust it every time.”

  “I can’t be certain,” the teen boy admitted. “I mean, it’s either getting you to love me, or world domination.”

  “You can’t be serious,” she voiced.

  “Supreme Emperor Alexander Harris will not tolerate insolence,” he sternly declared, concerning his blonde friend.

  “I don’t think any version of me can love a dictator,” Buffy defended. However, Xander stopped jogging and looked at her with raised eyebrows. He didn’t even need to say Spike’s name. His incredulous brown eyes said, ‘If you could love someone like Spike, no one’s off the table.’ Buffy seemed to understand and returned, “Neither Angel nor Spike were murderers when I was dating them… Can we please stay on topic?”

  With a sigh, he continued jogging as he voiced, “Fortunately for all of mankind, right now, my intuition is leaning toward you.”

  “Okay, good,” the relieved blonde answered. After six seconds of silence, Buffy answered, “Time.”

  “Yes, time,” Xander agreed, before curiously asking, “…What about it?”

  “It’s the only thing I can think of that would do it,” she elaborated. “With everything I know now, if I can completely fall head-over-heels in love with you instead of Spike, Riley, or anyone else for that matter, I know in my soul that would be better… Well, more peaceful, anyway—like coming home to a loving house and a warm meal after a long, terrible day. Just, bliss, you know?”

  “All those decades of fighting… peace sounds like a unicorn on steroids.”

  “I’m going to pretend I get that and say, ‘Yeah,’” she playfully replied. “Sadly, sixteen-year-old me wouldn’t know all of that. She’s never experienced the pain I’ve gone through—the loss I’ve suffered. Losing Angel like that, mom dying, me dying, being ripped out of heaven, the depression, then self-medicating using Spike… it all shaped me into the person I am now. I can’t even picture a life without all that grief and heartache.”

  “That’s a problem,” Xander pointed out. “At most, I have till the end of January ‘99 before I loop back. It’s going to be hard to cram all that pain in that amount of time.”

  “They don’t make it easy on you, do they?” she sympathetically asked. “All I can say is: if we’d gone out when you had the chance to say yes, I could’ve seen us getting married—white picket fence, big house, big dog, the whole nine.”

  “Really?”

  “I already thought of you as family, Xander,” Buffy assured him. “You got a hell of a lot manlier when you packed on the muscle and started commanding units. I mean, if it wasn’t you, there’d be no one else.”

  With sarcasm, Xander asked, “Have I ever told you that being a better option than dying alone is just the kind of high praise that gets me out of bed every morning?”

  “Shut up,” the smiling Slayer said, shoving him a bit. “You know what I mean.”

  “And Spike?”

  “Spike…” she repeated, the humor quickly drying out. “We tried. For a long time, we tried. And even now I still love him… but that just wasn’t enough,” she solemnly conveyed. “I kept noticing how different we were depending on the situation. Like, when it was just me and Spike—quietly at home with no baddie to fight—we just couldn’t function the same, you know? And the quiet times were, like, the majority of our relationship.”

  “Why couldn’t you work during those times?” Xander cautiously asked. “He never told me.”

  Buffy slowly and dismally answered, “When you’re built for war, peace is hard. Spike and I just became restless during the peaceful times, which is different from couples with one person being the calm one, and the other the restless. When you have two restless people, it’s like a feedback loop, and only gets worse with time. We could talk about things, sure. And it was fun most of the time. But after a while, it felt like we were trying to fill the silence—or, at least, it did with me. When we had a big baddie to fight or an apocalypse to stop, that’s when we came alive. The ups and downs of fighting… that’s when I felt our love the most. We clicked then.”

  “So, when there was no one to fight, you were bored?”

  “Worse,” she admitted, “We’d fight each other; fight to feel the love, which in hindsight wasn’t a good sign. Spike’s as alpha as they come. You can’t take that away from him, nor should you. It’s an intrinsic part of loving him as a person.”

  “But you’re an alpha too,” Xander interjected. “As alpha as they come,” he added with a smile.

  Buffy smirked before continuing, “Sometimes, our fights got so bad, even make-up sex couldn’t fix it. Ultimately, we threw in the towel.”

  “I remember he said something like that in San Fran,” Xander finished, recalling his many future hangouts with the souled Spike.

  “Yeah,” she weakly voiced. Turning to him, she conveyed, “If it’s you, Xander, I totally would now.”

  “Because I’m not an alpha?”

  Stopping them from jogging, Buffy looked deeply into his eyes before asserting, “Because you’re my safe harbor, Xander.” He stared into her greenish-blue eyes, and the stunning girl confessed, “Among other things, you brought me peace, whether we were at war or not.”

  “But that was never the problem, was it?”

  “No,” she admitted. “At sixteen/seventeen, I just didn’t see you that way.” She then admitted, “Thinking about it now, I suppose I always felt I could have that safe space without it being anything romantic.”

  “When you finally did see me that way, I turned down the one girl I’ve wanted since the very beginning,” he reminisced.

  “Some might say we make better friends.”

  “Some might say I just didn’t have the balls to break out of my self-inflicted friend zone and actually push for more,” Xander countered with a touch of self-deprecation. “It’s not like you ever dated a geek. Every guy you’ve gone out with were clearly men… and it’s like I refused to ever grow up.”

  “As if you were the only one,” Buffy replied. “Let’s not forget that before I was ‘the Chosen One,’ I was just a girl. An apocalypse for me at fifteen was zit breakouts, getting rejected by boys, and… whether mom and dad would get back together.”

  “I wish Mrs. S was here, by the way,” Xander solemnly mentioned. “So you can see her again.”

  “That’s right,” Buffy suddenly realized. “She went on a business trip, didn’t she?” Xander nodded and Buffy thought lovingly of her deceased mother before voicing, “I knew mom wasn’t happy, back then I mean. I thought if dad just loved her- us, enough, he’d come back. But he was just selfish in the end.” Xander nodded, listening as she continued, “Then, destiny sprinkled their magic dust on me, and WHAM! I stopped being a girl and became a freak-”

  “You are not-”

  “I know, I know,” she assured him. “I don’t mean freak in a bad way, but I’m not like Cordelia or Willow, or you. You guys never had to be a part of this world. I do. As much as I love saving lives—saving the world—there was no choice; No control over my life. So, yeah, I desperately wanted my friends to stay my friends.”

  “Wait… so, it’s not just about your love for Angel?” Xander began to clarify. “But you were also hellbent on keeping me in that friend zone?”

  “I really don’t like that term; as if there’s something wrong with being friends,” she stated.

  “Yes!” he hotly countered. “Yes! The friend zone is not a great place to be. Prison and purgatory might be better.”

  “Well, excuse me for wanting you in my life,” Buffy huffed. “Look, I know now that leaning on you despite knowing how you felt about me was wrong and unfair. But what else could I hope for?”

  “More, Buffy,” he quickly proclaimed, stopping once again. “You could’ve hoped for more.”

  She argued right back, “Not with the average life expectancy of a Slayer, I couldn’t.” He paused a moment before she sadly asserted, “Not with death—actual death—always right around the corner, waiting for me and anyone close to me. I died within the first year I came to Sunnydale. You brought me back, but Kendra died. So many others died within three years of becoming a Slayer. That’s my reality.”

  To emphasize her point, Buffy pointed to all the chaos surrounding them; the burning cars, the running packs of monsters, the busted light poles, and the innocent souls hiding indoors. “Loving a boy—like a human one—who’d grieve me when I was murdered by a demon wasn’t something I wanted to put anyone through, especially you.” Without a reply from a thoughtful Xander, Buffy jabbed his chest with a stern finger as she said, “If you can get sixteen-year-old me to see you as a man in your own right, that’s a step in the right direction, as far as I’m concerned. Brownie points if you can kick ass.”

  With supreme confidence, Xander nodded as he replied, “I think I got that part covered.”

  “I saw,” she happily noted. “You fight even better than when you trained Slayers.”

  Looking around for unique markers, Xander slowly commented, “We’re falling behind. Let’s run for a bit.”

  Walking the Halloween-decorated halls of Sunnydale High toward the library, Buffy asked, “What’s next?”

  While the blonde looked around in fond recollection, Xander answered, “We’re going to tell Giles that we think all this chaos is coming from a British guy called Ethan, who operates a costume shop. Giles won’t let us tag along, but he’ll take care of the rest.”

  Nodding, she then asked, “So, what do we do?”

  Xander informed her, “We can either go back outside and help out, or we can chill in the library and catch up.”

  Staring at him with knitted brows, the mildly offended girl asked, “Is that even an option?”

  “Back outside it is,” Xander lamely responded.

  After the pair met with Giles and reported their encounter with Ethan, they were told by the silently angry Englishman, “I’ll take care of it. You two must return to the streets and help where you can.” Before rushing out of the library, he told them, “Be safe, the both of you.”

  Buffy and Xander are running through the silent school and back outside when the blonde said, “I think I have an idea that could help you.”

  “If it has to do with ice cream, bubblegum, cola, pink lollipops, white-cheddar popcorn, fondue, and/or Ice Capades, I already know.”

  “No… I mean yes, to all those earthly treasures,” she happily corrected. As they engaged a typical vampire, Buffy added, “But I’m thinking outside the box here.”

  “Good! Good,” he voiced, as he dodged the vampire’s obvious punch. No matter how fast the demon was, Xander’s eyes could just tell what he was going to do. He dodged four consecutive attacks as he said, “We’re officially outside the box and it’s cold out.” After a severe miss, Xander roundhouse kicked the vampire straight into Buffy’s stake before asking, “What do ya’ got?”

  They didn’t wait for the vampire to turn to dust before running to the next monster. Buffy answered, “Okay. So, you know how I can be a little controlling-”

  “A little?” he repeated, craning his neck to look at her as if she were crazy. “The only way you’re flexible is when everyone does what you want.”

  “I’m not that bad!” she defended. However, with concern, she asked, “...Am I?”

  “What’s important is you believe that,” he replied with tender care.

  “Look, you just have to be flexible with me,” the Slayer continued. “I don’t really do traditional, so come at me in different and unexpected ways. I never expected Angel or Riley. I certainly never expected Spike, or any of them. Being different gets me to notice you.”

  “So, less Xander, more anyone else. Got it.”

  “No, I still want you to be you,” she bellowed, as they spotted a car swerving to avoid a demon and strike a tree. The couple tried their doors but were stuck in a burning car when fire from under the hood billowed. The pair are sprinting toward the car on fire, however, Buffy gets there first.

  “Just add another side neither of us expected,” she told him. “Something only you can do.”

  With some effort, Buffy ripped the car door off its hinges, bending steel as the metal groaned sharply from the heated friction. Xander helped the couple out of the car as the Herculean girl tossed the driver side door like it was a paper plate.

  When the frightened couple was safely running away, Buffy turned to her best friend and sincerely expressed, “We’ve been together through thick and thin. You’re my absolute best friend, and I love you to death. I’ve always had complete faith in you—powers or no. I know you can do this.”

  His body reacted, hugging her without thought, and the veteran Buffy hugged him right back. “I miss Buffy pep talks,” Xander confessed.

  Rather than going to Ethan’s Costume Shop, Xander and Buffy fought vampires and demons until Giles eventually destroyed the bust of Janus. All the while, the pair were cracking jokes and enjoying their time together. Much too soon, however, Xander’s Old Buffy left, and Young Buffy remained—in her white wig and brown cardigan—though with all the memories of her life intact. Young Buffy couldn’t believe everything that would happen in her future, but Xander was there to comfort the shaken girl.

  They returned to the library, and seated opposite one another at the long table, Xander and Buffy spent hours going through all the deaths, disappointments, losses, heartaches, and the ultimate destruction of Sunnydale. With only a couple of lights on, they enjoyed the calm and cool ambiance as they went back and forth on the details of what happened during the end of their teenage years. It turned out Buffy had a marginally better memory than he did.

  Minutes before the reset, Buffy gave Xander a tip on winning her over. “Not to sound too conceited or anything,” she began. “But stop putting me on a pedestal.”

  “Wha- I don’t-”

  “You do,” she interjected.

  “I did,” he emphasized. “Trust me, that’s over and done with.”

  “Well, good,” she asserted with a nod. “Because you have to see me. All of me. The good and the bad—because there are darker, more shameful sides of me you have to deal with and accept just like I did.”

  In the mostly dark room, Xander leaned forward as he asked, “How do you mean?”

  “I save lives and that’s always good, but that doesn’t mean everything I do is good or worthy of being praised or treated so… tenderly.”

  “Are you saying you want me to be cold towards you?”

  “I’m saying that I’ll look at you differently if you call me out on my crap—just like anyone else—than if you treat me like I’m some delicate princess. Slayers are built tough.”

  “That they are,” he agreed. “I can do that. Anything else?”

  “Uh… well, sarcasm and jokes help distract me from the worst parts of the job.”

  “I know. Same-sies.”

  “Yeah, but…” Buffy squirmed in her chair, and suddenly took an interest in their dim surroundings, inspecting the checkout desk with false interest.

  “Buffy?” he cautiously called.

  Slumping her head, she begrudgingly looked at him, blushing brightly in her cheeks as she continued, “Ugh, this is so embarrassing. You promise I won’t remember any of this?”

  “Sadly, I swear you and everyone else will forget about me and all of this.”

  With a deep sigh, Buffy explained, “S-Sometimes, the things I don’t want to think about… are feelings… of the boom boom kind.”

  With raised eyebrows, the curious teen repeated, “Boom boom?”

  “H-horny,” she answered, looking at her hands on the table.

  “Really?”

  The embarrassed girl quickly explained, “It’s just… And I don’t know why this happens, but, sometimes, fighting the way I do really gets the blood going. And I- I just can’t help but feel… worked up… down there. Ugh! God, this is too embarrassing!”

  “Don’t leave me hanging here, Buff. I’m all ears.”

  Shooting out a threatening finger, she quickly asserted, “You being a horn dog isn’t making this easier! I’m trying to help you here.”

  With peaceful hands up, he replied, “Right. You’re right. Sorry. I may be over a hundred years old, but I’m always stuck with teenage hormones, you know.”

  With a calming exhale, Buffy continued saying, “I… try to keep everything light and fun so, I d-don’t t-touch myself later.”

  Wondering the big question, Xander cautiously asked the blushing blonde, “Aaaaaand you’re telling me this because you want me to…?”

  “If I remember this tomorrow, I’m seriously going to kill you!”

  “You won’t! You won’t! I promise,” he assured her. Quickly checking the clock, he said, “Come on, we don’t have long.”

  Taking in a let out a deep breath, Buffy expressed, “With these memories, I get what every man I was with meant to me. Angel was pure love, Spike was self-loathing and destruction, and Riley was that all-American dream. Then there were a few dumb mistakes or one-night stands. Looking at all that, all the men-”

  “And women,” Xander quickly interjected.

  “Yes, yes, and the very few women,” she painstakingly admitted with a heavy eye roll. “Looking at all the people that left me… you’ve been by my side the longest, and I’ve loved you the longest, if in a different way than them. I’d happily trade all of those momentary loves for something that’s more, like, forever. I want that, Xander. No! After gaining these memories, I really, really need that. I mean, where’s my happily ever after? All that fighting, and I’m alone in the end? Like, really? So, you better do what you have to to win me over. None of this mild-mannered…”

  Everything went black.

  Xander woke up on the morning of Halloween, yet again.