Title: Healing 

Author: Sweetness

Rating: G 

Pairing: No Paring

Disclaimer: It all belongs to Joss Whedon and Co.

Distribution: My site (http://fanfiction.angel-buffy.com), if you already have permission, just let me know. Otherwise, ask. 

Notes: Set after “Chosen”

In response to Inspiration Challenge #68: Drabble in which someone helps someone to heal.

Feedback: Yes please :)



Tomorrow was the big day, we were all leaving for the four corners of the globe, well at least that is what it feels like. Buffy and I are going to Rome, Giles is staying England with Andrew, Willow and Kennedy are going to Rio de Janeiro, and poor Xander is going by himself to Africa. Faith and Principal Wood had stayed behind in the States to keep an eye on any new Slayers that they found there. I personally thought it was because Faith was afraid that she would get arrested again. I probably shouldn’t think this about my sister but she seems to be happy about starting over again in Rome. Personally I think it sucks. I miss Sunnydale, and I know I am going to miss my friends. Xander and Willow, especially, because they are all I have left from that summer after Buffy died. Anya, Tara, and Spike are all dead, and no one seems to care. 

Xander finds me outside sitting on the swing, I don’t know where Giles found this place, but apparently he had brought Willow here to recover from her addiction to magick. He comes up to me and doesn’t say a word. I like that about Xander, he always knows when words won’t work. Buffy and Willow always seem to need to fill the silence with pointless words, but not Xander. He watches me swing and finally he clears his throat and starts to speak.

“He wouldn’t want you to be like this, Dawnie.”
”But he’s gone, just like Anya.”
”And neither of them would want us to be sad and angry all the time. They both knew just like you and I did, that none of us might make it out of there.”
”But it’s not fair, why did we and not them?” 
”I don’t know, Dawnie, I just know that we did, and that life is all the more precious because we did.”
”But I need them.”

“I need them too, so does Buffy, and Willow, and Giles. But they aren’t here. We are.”
”Why?” 

“I don’t, I just know that we are.”
”It’s not fair.”
”Dawnie, very few things in this life are. But I am going to tell you something. But you have to promise not to tell anyone.”
”Okay.”

“Promise?”
”Yeah.”
”The last thing Spike, ever told me, was that he was going in, and he knew that he was probably going to die, but he had to save the world to protect people like you.”

I start to cry, and Xander opens his arms up for me. I go into them and I cry even more. It’s the first time I have cried since I really realized that they are both gone and they are never going to come back. And in Xander’s arms I start to feel better and I start to heal. Life is never going to be the same without them, but at least I had them for the short time that I did. 


** END **