Buffy held vigilance over the glowing kitchen clock in the dark room, as she drowned
her sorrows in a piece of chocolate cake. The kitchen door creaked loudly, but she
didn't turn to see who had intruded on her silence and her darkness…she already knew
who it was. He stood beside her, and poured a cup of warm coffee from the decanter
on the counter.
"You, okay?" he said quietly, cradling the steaming mug of brown, sugary liquid.
She glanced at Xander and sighed, "What do you think?"
"Sorry…stupid question," he replied, delicately lifting a loose wisp of her blonde hair away from her face, and his hand held the side of her face gently.
Buffy's hand fell over her husband's before he could pull away and she closed her eyes as she felt his tender touch against her skin, "Oh, Xander, what are we going to do?"
He embraced her and felt her body shake from uncontrollable sobs and felt tears in his eyes as well, "I wish I knew, Buffy, but how can you tell your daughter that she is destined to walk down this path. This path where you know she's going to stumble, fall, and quite possibly…die before she could live a real life? And how can you *let* your daughter walk down this path with the knowledge that you may lose her forever?"
"I've fought these demons for so long, and all these years I thought I had finally stepped away from it all, but no…no, I couldn't," she said bitterly, "they wouldn't let me. If it was just me they were hurting, I could possibly handle this, but they've taken my daughter…my life."
"You have to remember Buffy that when you were a slayer, all of us were endangered and there are some days that I didn't think we would have ever made it, but we did make it," Xander replied. "And I guess that's what we have to think about when we tell her and when we actually accept the fact ourselves that if we made it, then maybe she will too."
"But *maybe* she'll live isn't enough," she said shaking her head in animosity at the very word, "I don't want to have a supposition to rely on, I want to know, not just hope that Moria will live through this. Y'know, I'm glad that I knew I was a slayer before Mom found out because she didn't have to go through all of this."
"But she still had to worry, Buffy," sighed Xander kissing her softly on the forehead before looking into her eyes, "Just like we're worrying now."
Cordelia stepped away from the kitchen door and felt guilty for eavesdropping on such a private conversation. She hadn't meant to listen in, but she ended up doing so when she stopped by the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. She had begun to hear them talk, and had meant to step away, but she didn't…couldn't.
Thoughts of her past romance with Xander so long ago came back to her when she first saw him earlier that day. She had never really gotten use to the idea that he and Buffy was married and had a child not even after 20 years, at least…until now. As she had watched them holding and comforting each other, she knew that everything had turned out, as it should be, perhaps even as it was destined to be.
Except destiny had played a poor role in their lives when it chose Moira to be the new slayer. It would be a task, Cordelia understood, to watch over and to teach Moira, and it was especially difficult when she could see Xander and Buffy in her ways and her manner. Every time she saw Moira, she would immediately think of them, and know that they were depending on her…to help their daughter survive.