“Curtain Call” [Buffyverse drabble]

[aadler]

Curtain Call
Copyright December 2024

Setting: Buffy, Season 7
Spoiler(s): “Chosen” (Buffy S7-22)

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The morning after Sunnydale falls into a crater, Xander rises in the early hours, creeps out of the motel where the (non-hospitalized) survivors bedded down, walks past the commandeered school bus to stand at the edge of the desert.

He’s not ready yet to mourn Anya. Soon, but not now.

As the sun steals over the horizon, he thinks of … of Willow, passed through awful darkness but recovered now, healing. Of Cordelia, safe (he hopes) in L.A. the last few years. Even of himself, albeit one-eyed.

“We made it, Jesse,” he whispers to the new day. “We made it.”


– end –
 

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And there you are. Don’t hesitate to offer commentary.

Comments

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

I always felt Jesse got too little acknowledgement in canon. I mean, this was one of Xander and Willow's best friends for years and he's never mention again? I always relish a little fanfic nod.

[aadler]

I probably saw the different comments/complaints about Jesse’s seeming retroactive non-existence before I started developing any such sense myself, but it stuck. Besides this drabble, in at least four other stories —“An’ Foolish Notion”, “How Wide the Gate”, “Curious Poses”, “Reality Check” — I’ve touched directly or inferentially on the fact that he was there and that the memory mattered.

The most entertaining and intelligent use I’ve seen made of the character came in “Familiar Faces”, the seventh installment in phouka’s “Evolve or Die” series. Worth checking out.