Xander walked through the graveyard as quickly as he dared, hands shoved into his pockets so hard he was pretty sure he heard a couple of stitches pop. He didn't care. He just wanted to get this over with. This was all so stupid. But he was the one who had made the big fuss, so now here he was walking through a bunch of dead people until he could face one particular dead person. What was the point of all this? He wasn't sure he believed in any kind of afterlife, so what was the point of talking to the dead. Some people said the dead were looking down on their loved ones, but if that was true, that sounded like hellish afterlife to him, but if that wasn't true, then it was still pointless. Yet, here he was with Alec following behind him with a small bouquet of flowers. Daisies and little yellow sunflowers and a couple of sprigs of tiny flowers he didn't know the name of. He stopped in front of the small, drab-looking headstone. It had been so long since they'd last been here. The cemetery kept things tidy, but her headstone looked particularly drab thanks to the larger, shinier headstones covered in flowers and trinkets on either side. Xander stopped and stood staring at the engraved stone, pushing his fists in harder.
Tara Aven Cunningham: Loving Mother
That was all it said other than her birth and death dates. That's all the insurance would pay for, not that a pair of 15-year-old boys would really know what to put on their mother's headstone, anyway. Simple and to the point. Cold, even. Then again, what wasn't cold in a graveyard? At least, a graveyard that wasn't given the love and care from people like Daizi who weren't afraid of death.
"Hi, Mum," Alec said, laying the flowers down gently on the headstone. "I'm sorry it's been so long since we've come to see you. A lot's happened." He paused and opened an umbrella Xander hadn't even realized he was carrying and held it so Xander stood in the shade. "Tomorrow is going to be a special day, but I think you know about that. We're going to ask Dark and Daizi to adopt us. Officially. You'd really like them. I wish you could meet them. You'd have so much fun together!"
"If they could meet, then we wouldn't be in this situation," Xander growled. He shifted his weight, wishing he could pace. "Why do you talk like that, anyway? You don't believe in an afterlife."
"No," Alec agreed, "but on the off chance I'm wrong, and on the off chance that the afterlife allows messages of some kind to loved ones, I like to do this. Plus, more than that, afterlives aside, this makes me feel better. It makes me feel like I'm staying connected to her. Why don't you give it a try?"
"Because it's stupid!" Xander snapped. He paced in a tiny circle, never leaving the shade of the umbrella. "This whole thing is stupid! We wouldn't be here if it weren't for her and her stupid mistakes, but you only ever focus on the good things. The happy things."
Alec thought about that for a moment. "True. We wouldn't be here," he lingered on the words, "if not for her mistakes. We wouldn't exist at all."
"Yeah, I got that with the pause," Xander huffed, still pacing. "Yeah, fine, we owe our existence to her mistakes, whoopy, but that doesn't change the fact that she could have done a hell of a lot better! She made mistakes, sure, everyone makes mistakes, and we live with the consequences, but it's like she never learned! She could have tried to make up with her mom or her sister to try to have a better life. Probably wouldn't have worked, but she could have tried! She could have worked harder on herself rather than trying to find a guy to fix her problems. Guy after guy after guy, and they just kept getting worse! It was always, 'this is the one,' and then, Bam! Definitely not the one! And we were usually the ones to pay for it! It was selfish! So incredibly selfish!"
Alec waited until Xander stopped pacing to catch his breath. "It was pretty selfish," he agreed softly. "Do you remember that one guy we called Atomic Toilet because he made the place reek like a sewer? He never once touched us, but he did give her an almighty smack one night when he was drunk. We moved out three days later. Then there was Buddy Boy because that's what he always called us. He never once touched her, but then there was time when she was out he got mad. Do you remember what happened after that?"
Xander shoved his hands into his pockets, this time definitely hearing something rip. "Yeah," he mumbled at the ground. "She saw the scratches on your arm, heard the stories, and let him explain himself."
"We thought she was going to take his side," Alec nodded.
"Then she walloped him up alongside the head with a lamp," Xander said, almost smiling at the memory.
"She did drive him to the hospital and paid for his bill before informing every nurse in the ER that she'd caught him laying hands on her kids. I don't think they treated him with much sympathy after that," Alec said with a little smile. "And do you remember when the neighbor kid broke your new toy? The one you'd saved all your pocket change to buy?"
"I think I might have broken his nose," Xander admitted.
"His parents were furious, and Mum told them off."
After a moment, Xander said quietly, "Then she sat there with me trying to fix it. She didn't get mad at me. She did tell me I shouldn't hurt people, but it was kind of more like an add on than something she meant." He swallowed hard. "She smelled like perfume because she worked next to the perfume counter and sometimes covered for them. That stupid Celtic Thunder band was playing in the background. When she got Mr. Thunders fixed, she sat on the floor with me and played for a bit until she had to go back to work."
"Her favorite color was yellow. Bright, happy, and sunshiny," Alec said.
"But she didn't like it paired with black because it made her think of bees, and she was allergic to bees. Or maybe just scared and lied to make it seem more logical," Xander said with a weak chuckle.
"She tried to help me with my hair with I said I wanted to dye it for school spirit day," Alec smiled, looking at the headstone. "When it came out looking like someone had electrified an avocado instead of blue, she made me feel better by saying it was her second favorite color and gave me one of her favorite hats to wear. She didn't even get mad at me when I lost her hat."
Xander nodded slightly. "You did look like an idiot. Sometimes she'd let me help her in the kitchen even when we were low on food. She tried not to show that it bugged her, but I know it did. And she wouldn't talk about certain things. And she wouldn't listen when I said you were getting bullied. And she let us sleep in bed with her when we had nightmares as long as she didn't have a guy over."
"Mum wasn't perfect. I know that," Alec told Xander, "but I focus on the good things because I want to. I still have a lot of scars and things I need to overcome because of her, we both do, but she also showed us as much love as she could. She showed us she loved us, and even when life really sucked, she'd refuse to let it get her down. Random dance parties when she wasn't exhausted. Picking up yellow things at the thrift store. Letting us make fun shapes in hardtack so we wouldn't think about how hungry we were. She tired."
"Yeah. She tried." Xander hiccuped suddenly and gave a little sob. He sank down to the grass and hugged his knees. "I miss her," he admitted wetly. "I'm so angry at her for leaving us! She wasn't even supposed to be out that night. She left us and never came back. But I want her back! But if she hadn't left us, then we wouldn't have our current life, and I love it so much, and that makes me feel guilty!"
Alec sat next to Xander and put his arm around his brother as he broke down and cried.
"I miss my Mum," Xander admitted, snuffling, "and I love Daizi like my own Mama, and I don't want to lose her, but I wish we could still have our Mum. I want both. And I can't. Now who's selfish?"
"Not you," Alec said gently, hugging him, fighting his own tears. "Not you. It's okay. I miss her, too, and I wish she'd never gone out that night, but she did. She did because she was going to get bandaids for you and report Dax to the police."
"I don't remember that," Xander admitted.
Alec leaned against him. "You were hurting pretty bad, and she couldn't say anything where he might hear, but I saw her taking pictures. For once, she was actually going to do an actual police report and make certain we were safe. I wasn't supposed to tell, and after what happened and we ran away, I forgot and just didn't think it mattered."
"She died... because she was going to take care of us," Xander said softly.
"She died because some a*****e thought four drinks were fine and he could still drive," Alec stated firmly.
Xander bit his lip and leaned into Alec. "She would like Daizi."
"She would love Daizi," Alec agreed.
"She wouldn't get along with Dark."
"No, probably not."
"But she'd respect him."
"Definitely."
Xander took a shuddering breath. "I miss her. I'll always miss her. Maybe I'll stay a little angry. But... I think... I think we can move on." He lowered his head and cried harder while Alec just held him.