"Yeah." Xander replied, "The Magic Box closed half an hour ago, Anya should be dropping her off any minute now."

"Try right this very second." Dawn said as she opened the door. "Hey guys, you miss me?"

Anya and Oz had entered the house right behind Dawn and were waiting for the others to notice them. The wait was not long. Simultaneously, Buffy cried out "Oz!" when Xander said, "Anya!"

Jumping off the couch, Buffy pulled Oz into a hug and said, "My God, where have you been? We missed you so much." The two of them started a rapid-fire catch up session and he gave her the situation with Willow.

The actions of Buffy allowed Xander to hide the pain in his eyes. It was too late to do anything about that pain filled cry but maybe Anya didn't notice how he was bleeding for her. He could not find his voice as he looked at her. Even after what he did to her, what she did to him, he still loved her madly. If only she hadn't pushed me into this whole marriage thing so soon, we would be good. Neither of us would feel like this.

Anya, too, was looking at Xander, drinking in the first sight of him that she had had in weeks. He looked more tired, thinner, as if he was a piece of wire that had been stretched too thin, almost to the point of breaking. She found herself praying, for the first time in a very long time, and only for his sake, something she had never done. Gods, just let him get through this please. He does not deserve this torment. Very slowly, she walked over to his side and reached out for his hand. Giving it a gently squeeze, she released it and sat down on the couch, to listen to what Buffy was telling Oz.

"So you don't know where she is?" Buffy asked gently, she could see how this was tearing Oz up.

He rubbed his hand through his hair, "No. Her scent, her essence, is gone. But she's not dead. I would know it if she was dead."

Quickly, Buffy clicked onto the conversation she had with the two vampires and filled Oz in on those details, "You know, I am having a thought." She paused for a second, trying to organize the information whirling around in her head. "What if he meant Willow is coming back here?" The group paused as a whole to think about what that would mean, what the warnings meant. "God, why do I have a feeling that this is going to majorly suck?"

Dawn came over to her sister's side and put her arm around her waist. "We will deal with that when the time comes. Right now, you guys need to get some sleep before you all pass out."

"Right. Sleep." Buffy said with a faraway expression in her eyes, "Oz, you want to crash on the couch?"

He shrugged and said, "I'd be as content with a corner of the hardwood floor, I am that tired. I haven't had a chance to do much of anything since I got in, let alone check into a hotel."

Buffy gave him a tender look, "Stay here with us, Oz. You know you are always welcome in my house."

Anya was getting her car keys when Xander's hand closed over hers. "Can I please talk to you?" He asked quietly, more serious than she had ever seen him. She agreed and followed him upstairs to what used to be Tara and Willow's bedroom. She sat down on the edge of the bed and he pulled up a chair. "Do you," he paused then changed what he was going to ask. "Do you want something to drink or something?"

Lacking the resources, she merely nodded and waited for him to return with two sodas. He set them down on the table and sat down. "This is," he paused to take a drink, "This is not going to be easy for me, or for you." He said as he looked down at the floor. "Promise me that you will just bear with me and listen to what I have to say, without interruption, otherwise," he slanted a look at her, full of boyish charm, "I don't think I will have the courage to tell you what I need to tell you. Can you do that for me An?"

Willing down the tears that were perilously close to the surface, she took a sip of her soda to hide her emotions, "I promise, Xander, but only if I get to talk when you are done."

"Fair enough." He flashed a smile at her, "And I promise to listen to you. If you want to call me names and fling things at my head when I am done, please feel free." He stood up out of the chair and wandered over to the window, pushing aside the curtain to look out at the night, "If you are willing to listen to me, I will tell you things I have never told anyone before, not even Willow or Buffy." He said bleakly. "You saw what my parents were like at the wedding, you have seen and heard them in their house. You know what the demon told me at the wedding."

He glanced up at Anya; she was surprised to see the fear and the agony etched into the lines on his face. Every part of her longed to go to him, to touch him, to wipe away the pain, but she refrained, knowing that this was not the right time for that. "My father," he swallowed hard and closed his eyes, the better to press on. "My father used to get drunk. Well, he still does. But he used to get drunk and hit my mother. So she started to drink too, you know, to dull the pain. They would fight about money and he would hit her, sometimes knocking her unconscious." He clenched his hands tight, as he remembered the pain, "The first memory I have of my parents is of them fighting. That is a terrible thing to remember, terrible to realize that you were only four years old."

Spinning around, he slammed himself down in the chair, gripped the arms, and looked at Anya before looking at the floor. "It wasn't to much later before my father," he sneered the word, "started hitting me. I was only five years old and I was being beat with a belt, a switch, his fists, a beer bottle, whatever was handy. At first, it was only once a month or so, usually when I had done something bad. Then it got more and more frequent. Later I found out that my mother," this time he hissed the word, "would tell my father lies about stuff I supposedly did to avoid getting beat herself. This went on for years and years." Xander was crying now, tears slowly trickling down his cheeks to splash on the carpet, unnoticed. "Finally, one day, I had enough. The day before I snapped, Dad had beaten me to the point where I couldn't walk very well and had to miss school. So Dad hit me on the old bruises for missing school and I lost it. I knocked him into the fireplace and I picked up his gun. I hit him with it a couple of times. Blood was coming from all over the place, I was so numb, I didn't care anymore. I cocked the trigger, intending on ending his life, and was squeezing the trigger when my mom stopped me. She broke a lamp over my head. I guess dad beat me some more when he came to because I woke up three days later in the basement, feeling like a mac truck ran me over."

He smiled gamely at Anya before continuing, "I tried to run away then but the state brought me back. Since there were no visible bruises and my parents called the school to tell them that I was going to be out of school for a few days, the state didn't care. My father never touched me again physically after that but mentally," Xander actually shuddered, "he became the master at torturing me without ever laying a finger on me." He paused, took a deep breath, and looked Anya straight in her eyes, "I don't EVER want to be like that. Ever. No child should have to suffer what I did. And I was afraid, I still am afraid, that I will end up like my father. My father loves my mother, loves her deeply, as much as I love you. But he treats her like shit, beats her, and puts her in the hospital occasionally. I don't want to be like that but I am afraid that I will become that. Anya, I ran away because I could see me doing it one day. You know, getting mad at you and hitting you. Part of me would hate myself for doing it but there is a sick sad little monster in me that would do the happy dance when I hurt you. I don't know if it's nature or nurture or if I am really twisted but part of me would feel like I was getting back at my father and mother for hitting me by hitting you. But I think I would kill you, An, with no one there to break a lamp over my head."

Xander fell silent and stared at the floor, tears flowing freely down his face. Anya removed her hands from her mouth and looked at him for a long time, trying to absorb what he told her, trying to make sense of it all. Finally, unable to see him in pain without offering some comfort, she scooted over closer to him and took one of his hands in hers. She was shocked to see how cold they felt in hers and she cradled the hand in an attempt to warm it. "Xander." She started to say and fell silent for a moment. "Xander, you are not your father." The tears started to flow down her cheeks, "You are incapable of inflicting that kind of pain on the people that you love." When Xander opened his mouth to interrupt, she put one hand over his mouth, "Not now, it's my turn to talk."

She rubbed her hands over his, trying to bring warmth back into them. "Yes, you hurt me when you left me at the altar. Yes, you have hurt me by not confiding this to me sooner although I understand why you did it. Why you did both of them. That does not mean that I love you any less or that I think you will turn into the depraved monster that your father was." She sighed and continued, "I love you...and I forgive you. You need to see a shrink but I still love you."

He looked at her, shock and the tentative beginnings of hope lighting his eyes, "Do you mean that?"

"Of course I do." She kissed him on the lips softly, "When you love someone as I love you, you can't just walk away. You can't pretend like the life that you shared didn't happen, as much as you may desperately want to deny its existence. I have spent years with you and I am not willing to throw that all away without a fight. But only if you promise me, you swear to me, that you will get help, you will see a shrink, and we will get married, someday, whenever you are comfortable with the idea."

"It may take years." Xander said as Anya pulled him closer to her. "I can't promise that this healing will be quick, Anya, but I am willing to work through it if you are there to help me."

Anya kissed him again, pulling him close to her body, "I love you. I will always be here for you, as long as you want me."

"I want you." Xander moaned, "I love you so much. God please don't let me be stupid anymore."

"God has nothing to do with it," Anya said, pulling him down onto the bed with her, "I do."

Anemone - Chapter 7 - Flashbacks