Broken by nemo

Broken
by nemo_gravis

***

In the beginning...

In the beginning, there is the void. It extends in every conceivable direction, a warm nothingness where thought does not exist and there is at last true peace.

And then a flash...

... Several flashes....

Explosions, loud as gunshots.

Bright, jagged and painful.

Red and angry.

Standing, blinking in the sunlight atop a ridge overlooking the stark beauty of a barren desert running off into the horizon below, a young blonde girl in a flowery red and white dress frowns. Cocks her head to one side.

For a minute that draws out into eternity, all is still and quiet.

And then, as if coming from an immeasurable distance, thunder begins to rumble through the sky.

The desert shudders.

///

Chapter the First - Shot

5 Years post-Chosen. Somewhere, Angola...

Xander's gonna go out on a limb here and say that bullets are not good. Especially when they're inside you.

"Stay with me, Xander!" a voice is yelling in the background.

Stay with her. Who does she think he is, Superman?

She...?

Dawn. That's right, he remembers now. He was out on a job with a team sent by the Council and Dawnie was one of them. No one bothered to tell him she'd be coming out here. No one even told him that she'd joined up. But there she was with the others, probably fresh from Oxford with her shiny new diploma in ancient languages and her spiffy Council training.

And there was a scuffle at the meeting with... someone. A scuffle. Guns were pulled out. Most of the team was quite shocked at that. They learned to fight with stakes and swords and crossbows, cutting edge technology like that. Guns were just plain tacky!

Someone should have thought to tell the kids down here then, shouldn't they? Negotiating to get past a road block of ten year old paramilitary troops is no less serious because the troops in question don't need to shave yet. Their guns were real enough. So were their bullets.

His chest feels funny. On fire one moment, about to implode the next. And there's liquid in his throat. Some kind of metal taste.

"Xander!"

He shies away from the shrill voice.

::Sheesh! I'm dying, not deaf!::

When he tries to say as much, the words just don't want to come out. Instead, all he can manage is a wet gargle.

Shit.

There's so much he wants to say too. About what happened and that Dawn shouldn't blame herself. That he'd have done the same for anyone, that's just how he's wired. Jumping in front of a gun. He's dumb that way. Giles is going to get all British over this, he can tell. The old man is going to need new glasses what with all the polishing in his future.

And Willow.

God, he hopes she won't go all black-eyed again. Maybe he should remember to tell the doorman wherever it is he's going to expect some trouble after he passes through. Then again, assuming this doorman is the same guy who let Buffy in back in the day, he knows about the Scoobs and is already in the loop.

Xander doesn't want to think about Buffy.

Not now.

It's instinctive though. He's in a dark place and growing colder by the minute. And scared suddenly. Feeling more and more detached from the world around him. Adrift on a dark river that's carrying him away.

And whenever he's scared, he thinks of her. That has never changed. It's not about crushes or romance or true love. Just instinct.

::What would Buffy do?::

What did Buffy do? She was very brave.

He loses himself in thoughts of his friends. Of Giles in his tweed, of Willow on the beach somewhere, of Dawnie crying next to him. The last coherent thought he can recall is a flash of blonde hair and a resolute expression.

Xander clings to that.

***

The waking world...

If only they'd turn off that annoying beeping sound.

Oh.

Xander tries to force his eye open and almost cries out in pain. Too bright!

It takes what seems like ages for some focus to return to the world. An age of pain and annoyance. An age during which he realizes that he's not dead, that the beeping is a mirror of his own heartbeat and that there's a tube shoved down his throat. The instinct to rip it out is almost unbearable and he thinks he's doing a damn good job not reaching up to do just that.

But... The funny thing is... He is trying.

He is.

And nothing is moving.

... Why is nothing moving?

When the spinny black spots stop zipping across his vision and the world dries up a bit, he can at least see where he is. A hospital, of course.

Huh.

They were too far away from help when he got shot up. The nearest medical support was almost a hundred miles away. Dumb idea to go into the field without some medical back up, but there hadn't really been much of a choice at the time. So either he's stronger than he thought he was or someone did the flashy thing and teleported him to safety.

Willow.

Sure enough, there's a mass of red hair in the chair beside his bed. Red hair attached to an even redder face. She's been crying a lot, he can tell. She hates that. Turns the color of ripe tomatoes every time. Her face almost clashes with her hair at the moment.

She's sleeping in the chair next to his bed in a rather uncomfortable position. Half-curled up in the plastic monstrosity they apparently give visitors here, half-falling out at the same time. But he must have made a noise because all of a sudden, she's awake. Eyes open, she blinks the sleep from them and looks a bit lost before her gaze moves to him.

And then her face lights up.

"Xander...?" she breathes cautiously, like she doesn't believe his eye is really open.

He tries to reply but with the tube, he can't. So he tries to nod his head but still nothing happens. All he can do is blink dumbly at her. It's enough though. She's up in a flash, face close to his, half-crying, half-bouncing.

"You're awake!" she informs him in a high-pitched squeal.

::Thanks Will,:: he thinks wryly. ::If you hadn't told me, I might have missed that.::

But he's relieved really. Relieved that there's someone here with him when he wakes up. A thought strikes him. Wakes up from what? How long has he been under? Because it suddenly occurs to him that Willow had much shorter hair the last time he saw her. And that was only a couple of weeks before the shooting.

Willow could always read him very well. Back in school, they hardly even needed words. And she must be reading the questions starting to bubble in his gaze at the moment. Her elation dims slightly, not the relief but the bouncy behavior that's so purely Willowesque. She's nervous now. Eyes unable to meet his.

"Maybe... Maybe I should get a doctor," she says softly, as if speaking to herself.

::What's going on, Wills?:: he asks in his mind.

Her eyes are filling back up with tears.

"I'll... I'll... Just go and get someone, okay, Xand? I'll just be a second."

::Willow!::

But she practically runs out the door.

***

The Gates of Hell...

So there really is a Hell. Who knew?

What with the job he's done for the last few years, Xander sort of stopped believing in all of that. Sure, Buffy claims she went to Heaven, but big, blank nothingness isn't really his idea of Paradise. All in all, he simply avoided thinking about it. Brushed the notion of life after death to one side.

Now he's in Hell. And he's alive to really enjoy it. Yay.

The doctor came back, Willow-less, to check up on him. Apparently, Xander's been in a coma for the last two months. Faith's still the record-holder on that score. He died too many times to count on the operating table, so he did beat Buffy at least. Oh, and he's paralyzed.

Completely paralyzed.

Not just the legs, no, only the best for Zeppo Harris. He gets the deluxe body-numbing paralysis. Due to pesky oxygen deprivation issues, they're not sure if he'll ever recover any movement at all.

Can't move anymore. Not his legs, not his arms, not his head... He's breathing with a machine. He's a prisoner of a dead body, but with none of Angel or Spike's advantages. Pretty sure no nubile teen-aged Slayers will be popping by to give him a happy any time soon. He couldn't get it up if they did.

He really wants to cry right now.

To die.

Why couldn't they simply let him die? Let him go out on top of his game? He saved Dawn, he got shot up in the process, and he was fine with that. But not with this. Not with a future of nothingness stretched out in front of him. Dead he was somebody. Alive...

Willow did come back eventually. An hour or so after the doctor left, she crept back into the room quietly, as if he was sleeping instead of permanently frozen. He wanted to yell at her. She was the one who brought him here after all. She saved his life. The desire to spit and curse at her at the time was almost mind-numbing. This was all her fault.

::Thanks for nothing, Wills.::

He didn't yell though. Couldn't, of course, but also didn't. What was the point? If things were reversed, he's honest enough to admit he'd have done the same thing. Well, he'd have wanted to do the same thing. Doughnut boy never did have the powers to back up his good intentions, did he?

Heh. Doughnut boy. It's been a long time since he thought about that. Longer than he can believe. After the way things played out in Sunnydale, he's pretty amazed he forgot the old nickname so soon after High School.

But he's not even that anymore.

Doughnut boy no longer.

Now he's the doughnut. Just lying here, unmoving. Waiting. He really wants to snort all of a sudden.

Waiting for what? There is nothing more to wait for.

And worst of all, he can't do the mind-speaky thing anymore.

That's something he only just realized. There was this background buzzing in his mind and he thought it was simply the head problems. Turns out it was Willow trying to speak to him telepathically. She got all panicked when he didn't answer back. And he couldn't do a darn thing to tell her he was still all here. That it was really him behind his eye, looking out.

Oxygen deprivation. Brain damage. Joy.

Angel spent a hundred years being tortured in a Hell dimension, but at least he could move. Right now, Xander really envies him that.

***

After the Apocalypse...

It's been three weeks now. How inconvenient that this had to happen during Apocalypse season. What bad timing. Next time he gets himself shot, he'll make sure everyone has some free time in their appointment books.

Willow's gone. After a while, it was beginning to upset even him to see her just sit there, the silence drawing out between them. He can't talk, can't telepathize, can't give her any indication that he understands what she's saying except by blinking his eye and she's too distraught to figure that out. So she's essentially just been sitting there, keeping a vegetable company.

She's the only one who even came to see him though.

Giles called, they told him that much. Rupert Giles called a paralyzed man on the telephone. A man who needs a machine to do his breathing for him and who the doctors are still thinking of as brain-damaged beyond the extent of understanding anything. Such thoughtfulness.

Bitter? Hell yes, Xander's bitter. If he could he'd be screaming and yelling his rage at the people he thought were his friends. Damn them! Damn them all to Hell.

No. Not Hell. Not this. Just... He's all alone.

The nurses come in, they check his charts and talk about him like he's not even here anymore.

"It's a damn shame," one of them says to another, looking down at him.

"What is?" the other asks.

"That they didn't let this poor fella die."

As much as he's thought the same thing to himself over and over, it's not exactly comforting hearing that from the people supposed to be taking care of him. He's still in here, inside this dead body. Still just as conscious of the world around him and still just as utterly helpless.

With all the means at their disposal, why haven't the Council helped him by now? Why is there no magic solution to the problem? No one to just sit with him, even?

Apocalypse season.

It sounds like a joke, but it's not. You learn to push things away when you're up to your eyeballs in a fight. Can't waste time on emotions. Got to get hard. Get cold.

He never thought he'd be on the receiving end though. Not after that final year in Sunnydale. He ran as far away as he could, left to clear his head and get some perspective, to forget how warped everyone had become. A free man, a new man. Someone who wasn't beholden to his friends. Who didn't need Buffy as a security blanket or Willow or Giles or anyone.

Someone who couldn't even stand to look at them so soon after Sunnydale fell and only Anya paid the price.

He never expected to be gone for so long. Or that his friends wouldn't be there when he came back.

Three weeks and counting as a vegetable.

He's tried to will himself to move, tried to force his body to respond in some way, however small. But nothing.

At least Dawn and the others got out okay. He wants to regret doing what he did, but he can't. Not really. Dawnie's safe. Will has told him some stuff. Obviously more to comfort herself than anything, she's talked herself hoarse telling him what he had missed. Without his voice, without his thoughts to go on, she still couldn't know how much he understood but she chattered away regardless.

More to break the awful silence than anything, he thinks now.

Apparently, she called the others as soon as he woke up but no one could dump what they were doing to come see him at the moment. Everyone made an appearance ASAP after the shooting, but now it was two months later and the good fight waits for no one. Will had done what she could to fill in for them.

From her, he learned that Dawnie is still in Africa, this time with some professional back-up. The guys Xander himself turns to on occasion for support whenever he's going someplace seriously nasty and that they hadn't had time to call in before the shooting. Mercenaries really, but less bad than most. Demon fighters. Dawn's reportedly ecstatic at the news of his waking up, Willow said with enough false cheer to set his teeth on edge, ecstatic and heart-broken that she can't come to see him right now. Business first though, huh?

In the land of Tweed, Giles is all tied up in Council problems. The old guard is apparently trying to power play their way back to take over the RWC again and Giles is sticking around to fight off the coup.

No news from Buffy.

Willow's face closed up when she got around to mentioning their third Musketeer. Buffy is... somewhere. Doing something. Unreachable, supposedly. Nothing else was said on the matter. Willow told him that she herself spent most of the last months at the hospital for all of them. The nature of her witchy work doesn't require her to be anywhere specific, so she stayed with him until a sitch came up that called her away.

His friends. His family. All of them not here.

He's staring up at the ceiling, listening to the steady beep of the monitors and trying not to care.

***

Bereft...

How long has he spent as a prisoner of his own body?

What feels like an eternity as a vegetable. No need to move to feed himself or to clean himself or even to breathe for himself.

Slacker Harris should be overjoyed, shouldn't he?

Snyder's favorite loser.

But he's not. How can he be? This is worse than torture.

It's been... he's lost count. Early spring has moved into late summer. The others have all been to visit by now, Giles hemming and hawing awkwardly by the bedside, Dawnie all teared up and apologizing over and over again. Faith came too, which was a real surprise at the time. She drove Giles. That's how Xander found out he's in a clinic a few miles outside of London. Not that far at all from Council HQ.

So maybe he was right to be bitter where Giles was concerned.

Still, the old Brit came and despite being visibly uncomfortable, he sat beside him for a while and attempted some form of conversation. He comes back two or three times a month now.

But Faith was hardly behaving any differently, for which he'll be eternally grateful. She talked with him exactly as she did before this all happened. Telling him about the kids she was supervising in Cleveland and their adventures. Swearing loudly. Apparently unfazed by his lack of responsiveness. She managed to make Giles flinch with a joke about Xander's attitude reminding her of those seven minutes they had together so long ago.

He'd have been pissed if he wasn't so pathetically happy that someone was treating him like a human being. No one does anymore. Not the nurses, not the doctors, not even Willow. They all talk at him if they talk at all. And when no one else is around, the doctors and nurses don't even bother to do that.

No Buffy though.

No one has said anything about that but Willow's tight face isn't the only indication that the gang is annoyed about something. Dawn won't even talk about her and Giles looks drawn and pale. Faith, open, chatty Faith, closes up and changes the subject whenever she gets too near something that would lead naturally to talking about Buffy.

Should he be worried?

She hasn't come to see him. Hasn't even bothered with a 'Get Well' card... Sounds dumb come to think of it, but at least it would be something.

Not that she was exactly Miss Bedside Manner '03 back in Sunnydale. He hates himself for thinking it, but he can't help but feel angry with her for that as much as for this.

Buffy just doesn't do hospitals. He already knew that, didn't he?

That's not the problem though. He's not pissed because she's sucky at being around whenever hospital stays are concerned. He's pissed because she's not here period.

Where the heck is she? Why is no one telling him anything? What's going on?

A moment comes to mind, a little time spent with her after the Hellmouth went boom. The gang had somehow managed to check into a cheap motel in Oxnard without raising much suspicion and were all too beat to do much more than fall flat with exhaustion for a couple of days. He'd still been too amped to do the same though. Jittery. Thinking about Anya and trying as hard as possible not to think about her at the same time. So he went for a walk and wound up at the diner.

Buffy had been there, sitting alone. Eyes lost.

It felt like pulling teeth every step of the way, but he forced himself to go and check on her. Instinct. The inescapable "Make sure Buffy's okay" instinct that's followed him ever since High School.

When did she become the center of his world? How sad is that?

Anyway, he slid into the booth beside her. And the two of them just sat in silence for what seemed like hours. Eventually, he reached out and covered her hand with his. She shuddered and he realized that she'd been fighting not to break down the entire time.

That's just how she is now. The final year spent in Sunnydale, she put on a mask that she hasn't managed to take off ever since.

What made him think about that, about Buffy and her cold mask and her fear of hospitals, he doesn't know.

He now has the perfect poker face himself, doesn't he? No expression except in the eyes and he only has one of those.

It would be nice to have someone come and sit with him like that. Just sit down and hold his hand.

Where is Buffy?

***

In Dreams...

Xander had a dream last night.

He hasn't had one of those in so long, it kinda shocked him.

When you're lying still all day, everyday, and have been for months on end, it becomes sort of hard to tell when you're sleeping or not. Well, no. Actually it's not hard.

You don't sleep. You drift.

All day and night, you drift, your mind going to strange and scary places.

This was different though. This wasn't a waking dream or a memory revisited. He saw a fight. A big fight. Desperate. Angry and violent. He couldn't quite make out the faces of the things doing the fighting, but he did recognize the tiny blonde in their midst.

Buffy.

No one has told him what's up with her. The visits from the gang are slowing down again now, so it's not like he's in the loop anyway. He wants to hate them for forgetting him, he really does, but knows it's not their fault. The world needs saving. And he's still locked inside his own head with no way of telling them his mind is intact.

That's not important right now.

He just dreamed that Buffy was in trouble.

In a place he can't quite make out, against things he can't quite see, she's fighting a losing battle.

::Perfect timing,:: he thinks sarcastically.

Now that he's a frikking draft excluder, he gets the flashy visions.

Is it a vision though?

Before everything went south in LA, the Scoobs kept up to date with Angel and his posse. With Cordy. She was Vision Girl, relaying stuff the higher powers downloaded into her brain to warn Angel when the crap was about to smack the ventilator. Of course, the warnings generally came with a side-order of splitting migraines.

Was this like that? It certainly felt real.

But seriously, why would he of all people be getting PTB approved visions? And why now? It's not like a gorgeous brunette materialized in his room to kiss him senseless and relay her gift to him, is it? He would most probably remember something like that. He's a vegetable, but he's still a guy, darn it!

No, it was probably just a dream caused by his worrying about Buffy. He still hasn't heard any news. Sure, the others aren't dropping by as often now, but it's still just as painfully clear that they're deliberately avoiding the subject. It's driving him nuts. Where is she?

He spends his days revisiting the past, all but walking his way through the memories.

That first day outside Flutie's office.

Can I have you?

Her look of bemusement is crystal clear in his mind.

Why most of the memories are Buffy-centric, he doesn't want to know. Perhaps it's because he's worried and can't do anything about it, perhaps it's because she was a larger part of his life than he realized. He doesn't spend all his time with her though. Willow's there too. And Giles and Dawnie, Cordy and Oz. A few times back in the old High School library. Back at Casa Summers with Mrs. Summers and the others. The Magic Box. Ahn. Spike.

Xander knows he's gone insane as soon as he starts recalling times spent with Spike with any degree of fondness. Crazy. It was bound to happen eventually, right?

Naked push-ups.

If that damn vampire is still around somewhere and by some miracle Xander gets all super-powered or something, he is so not going to enjoy any future get-togethers now that Xander has had the time to put all those scary pieces together.

There's no reason Xander should be the only one to suffer for it, after all, is there?

Ew. Just... Just ew.

He doesn't care though. He should, he knows this. He should be furious now that he knows about that time in the crypt, but he isn't. All he can think of is how worried he is. Really, really worried for Buffy. Because maybe it was a vision, not a dream. And maybe she is in trouble. And he can't do anything to help her.

***

Molehills and mountains...

It happens all of a sudden.

Three days after the dream, his finger twitches.

Not such a big thing normally but after so long he feels like the world just spun around.

He tries again, but nothing. Bites down on the need to scream, for what good it would do him. He can want to scream all he likes, he still can't move his mouth on his own. Just like he can't move that finger again.

But it has to be real. It has to. He saw it move, damn it!

Three days since the dream. Three days of seeing Buffy in trouble. Of having the nagging certainty that something was up with her. He hasn't slept. Well, he hasn't drifted. For the first time in weeks, in months in fact, he's remained focused on the real. Focused on the world around him. He can't afford to slip back. He simply can't.

Strange really. He's been like this for more than half a year. Why he should be so desperate now of all times, he doesn't know. You lose the need to fight back after a while. Lose even the memory of wanting your life back like it was. It's easier to just stop trying to get better because you know you can't. Chances are you're gonna be stuck like this 'til the very end and there's nothing you can do to change that.

So either you go crazy, or you accept. Shut down. Drift.

And yeah, the drifting was very much his thing. Until that damn dream. But it's not the dream, even. It's the not knowing. Everyone else has been and gone. Unless something bad happened since their last visit, they're all still fine. But Buffy is a no-show and he's got this bad feeling he just can't shake.

No, Xander's not scared anymore.

Not tired of trying either.

He's simply furious. A pure, white hot rage that burns in him like a furnace in his chest.

::Useless!::

He can't ask anyone, can't do anything and he's almost ready to explode in anger.

The finger twitches again. A slight tremor, but visible. Focusing everything on that, he tries to reproduce that same impulse again. To tweak the nerve that his mind brushed just now.

You can't quite put into words how it feels to be locked away inside yourself. It's like some kind of full-body sprain without the pain. Your mind is almost disjointed from your body, isolated by several miles of mental candy floss. But you're not completely insensate. There is some residual sensation. Cold air, friction, moisture. All things he can still feel, if not acutely then with enough desperation to render them almost unbearable.

Being hyper-aware, you could call it. There's so very much of nothing to take his mind off things, he's focused on the smallest details.

He's paralyzed. Doctors have come and gone, tests have been run and re-run at the request of Giles and the others and always, they give same results. There should be no improvement. But the sensations are real, he knows this much. And they're getting stronger every day.

Maybe if he...

The finger twitches.

Again.

Again.

Again.

He's moving!... One finger.

::Oh that's great, genius,:: he snarks mentally. ::That's really gonna help. Buffy could be in danger, demons tearing off her head but don't worry! It's Twitchy McHarris to the rescue, ready to give all evil-doers the finger. Or to finger the evil-doers.::

Ew. Scary visual right there.

He hates the uncertainty of it all. Knows it was only some freakish nightmare, that Buffy's fine and that all of this is nothing but a molehill made into a mountain. But what if it isn't? What if?

And until he can know for sure, until someone tells him something or he sees her for himself, he just can't ignore that question. Won't ignore it. Buffy could be in trouble and long standing tradition, in-bred stupidity and some disturbing hormonal remnants demand that he do whatever he can to help out.

Never mind that for all intents and purposes, he's now a living statue. A pudgy, pallid husk lying in a bed. That's not important. None of that matters now.

::Move that damn finger. Good. Now try for the hand...::

***

Chapter the Second - Return to Tweed

Pull yourself together...

The Reformed Council has its headquarters in a large, imposing building in a very exclusive area of the English capital. In a manor house that is not the ancestral home of some hypothetical family of aristocrats, no matter how old and impressive it looks. Nor is it some stately residence or privately owned mansion despite what a casual observer might be led to believe.

RWC headquarters was built less than a decade ago, purposely constructed to give the illusion of belonging to the National Heritage. But the state-of-the-art security system discreetly protecting the five acre estate and the almost solid wall of wards and miscellaneous magical defenses buzzing in the air around it tell a different story, for those with the eyes to see them. The successors of Quentin Travers learned their lesson well at the hands of Caleb the mad preacher and his non-corporeal patron.

All operations of the RWC are centralized here, from the training facilities to the research laboratories. Extensive vaults underneath are already filling up with potentially dangerous artifacts and the library, under the care of Rupert Giles, is being slowly rebuilt.

None of this really registers as Xander pulls himself clumsily out of the taxi. It's his first time here, his first time anywhere outside of Africa since Sunnydale, except the hospital of course, and he should be admiring the novelty of it all.

But he's not.

Can't.

How can he when every single step is an effort of will and he has nothing else to spare?

Eleven months after waking up from his coma, more than a year since the shooting, and he's back. Partially. No amount of willpower could make him back into the man he was before all this happened. He's still a broken vessel. More so than after Caleb had done with him. Less so too.

Expressions are almost impossible for him still, his face mostly a dumb mask, and he can't say much beyond "bleeaah" and "meh" even if he concentrates, but the fact that he's up at all is a shock to those who forgot about him. No, he's not talking about the Scoobs anymore. Just the doctors. Every single one of the white-coats considered him to be nothing so much as a living paperweight. And that first day, when the nurse came in and he grabbed her wrist, the looks on their faces!

He's a medical miracle, apparently. Shouldn't be able to breathe under his own power, let alone walk. But he is. He is.

The physiotherapy almost killed him. How do you teach yourself to breathe again, especially when you're almost certain it's impossible?

He fought back, though. Mindlessly, perhaps, but he didn't give in. And sometimes, the guys were there with him.

Willow was there the mostest.

He thought she might explode when she came to visit and he waved at her. She went tomato-red again before going scary-pale. Her eyes grew so big, they nearly didn't fit in her head anymore. And then she was bouncing and fizzing with energy. Babbling almost. None of the doctors had told the Council about his progress. For whatever reason, Willow didn't know anything was different when she came to see him.

She was certainly shocked, that's for sure.

Dawnie, Giles and Faith came back again after that. Dropped their various apocalypses to come and see for themselves.

It blew them all away to see him moving again.

The waving soon moved on to writing and question-asking and a bunch of other things and the realization that despite what everyone had feared, his mind was still completely intact hit all of them pretty hard. It was visible in the slump of Giles shoulders and the tears in Dawn's eyes. Even Faith looked uncomfortable at the idea of having left him alone to his prison, but then she probably thought she had some idea what he was going through.

Didn't matter. He got to ask his questions. About Buffy and what the hell was going on. And they eventually told him.

She was fine. Is fine.

Buffy just didn't want to visit him, that's all.

What to say to that? Well, what to write to that? His fingers grew numb again and he almost dropped the pen. But Willow was crying and Dawnie was crying and Giles was... well, doing the Tweed-man equivalent with a handkerchief and his glasses. Faith's face was blank.

Buffy had simply turned her back on him, but they didn't. He always hates seeing them like that. In his memories or in front of him, he just hates it.

So he picked up the pen again as if nothing was wrong.

Willow did her best to fix him, they informed him. But magic applied to brain tissue isn't exactly recommended. So she got him to the hospital faster than any ambulance and sat with him. Well, a lot of this he already knew but to them it feels like they're telling him for the first time. He's responsive now, after all. A day and more is spent catching up. And then, it's time to see just how much he can recover.

Physiotherapy was a bitca. But the guys were there as much as they could be. Willow was there all the time. And to make him feel better when he started to flag, she conjured up a new eye for him.

On the outside now he looks almost the same as he did that last year in Sunnydale. Except for his arms, corded with sinewy muscle and his legs, slightly withered. Still, if you don't look at his face for too long, don't pay attention to the lack of movement in his expression, the glass eye Willow magicked makes him feel almost human, as opposed to something out of The Mummy Returns. It looks spooky if he takes it out, like a living thing. A piece of him, removed. Luckily, part of the magic makes it possible to keep it in all the time and impossible to take out involuntarily.

He's as human as he's gonna get. Now that it's mostly over, the therapy has taken him as far as it could and he's standing in front of the RWC headquarters, focusing on standing upright.

After more than a year, he's back.

Now what?

***

In the land of Tweed...

Xander's a curiosity to most other Watchers at RWC headquarters.

A curiosity of the freak show variety.

When he's feeling whimsical, which is hardly ever these days, he can almost imagine Watcher families, the parents pointing him out to their children and saying things like "If you don't pay attention in Watcher class, you could end up like him."

It's not funny though. To be singled out. To be avoided or courted because of your difference. To be the freak. Part of him feels like he's back in High School again, but with a much lower coolness factor. And considering the Flugelhorn lying somewhere at the bottom of Sunnydale crater, he was never that cool to begin with.

Now he's so uncool, he's anti-cool.

::Does that make me warm?:: he wonders. ::Or hot?::

He can snort now.

No. Not hot. Of course. Never that.

What with his clunky metallic brace on one leg scraping the floor with every step like some less-deformed Igor out of an old Frankenstein movie and his cow-dull face still devoid of most forms of expression. And his speech-patterns are non-existent too. He's tried and tried but he can't string two coherent words together. The oxygen deprivation did cause some irreparable damage inside him and the words-into-sentence-making bit just seems to be part of that.

He can write though. Thank God for small mercies, right? Whichever god. Preferably not one of the ones the RWC is fighting with at the moment.

Apparently, it's rare to be able to write understandably if you can't speak straight. Well, maybe it's not, but that's what the doctor told him. After his miracle cure, he's not so sure how much to believe anymore, but he can pretty much get by as he is.

Giles hired him back as soon as he could move under his own power.

He's now officially the Reformed Watcher's Council librarian.

How ironic is that?

Xander Harris, anti-book person extraordinaire, is now the one responsible for cataloguing some of the most precious and rare occult research texts in the world. That caused a stir when Giles proposed his name for the position. The old guard might not have succeeded in forcing their way back to power but they were still a reality to be dealt with. They still had some influence.

Such a job should have gone to someone with the proper training, they pointed out virulently.

And were surprised to be out-virulized by Xander himself who whole-heartedly agreed with them. That kind of thing cuts your legs right out from under you when you're all banked up on self-righteous rage.

Giles brushed them all aside though, especially Xander's own objections, and so here he is now. Shuffling through the aisles, checking the titles. Caring for the leather-bound tomes. Reading the ones he can and farming out the others.

Sumerian for Dawnie, Aramaic for Giles and Wills.

He's surprised to find that he does read smatterings of both of these languages though. And that he can pretty much get by in Latin and Greek. His time in Sunnydale and researching on his own in the field taught him all manner of weird skills to survive and dead languages seem to have crept up on him unaware.

How freaky is it though that he is now exactly what he poked fun at Giles for being all those years ago?

The worst part?

He wears tweed now too.

Don't laugh.

Yes, that's right. Xander Harris is a Tweed-man. Giles bought him the jacket as a joke and so he wears it. It makes him feel more connected to the others maybe.

Because most of the time, he's alone at HQ. Well, not alone, but Scooby-less. Faith works out of Cleveland, Dawnie returned to Africa to pick up his old beat and Willow is all over the place. Giles is here sometimes, but he's not really a desk person. Right now, he's in Kuala Lumpur on a fact-finding mission.

And Buffy is still...

No, he won't think of her. She's dead to him now. Just as dead as he is to her.

Nothing. No visits, no letters, no frikking postcards. Willow's the only one who even talks about her anymore with him. Buffy's doing the lone wolf thing right now, somewhere in Russia. Volunteered for the job soon after he got shot. Talks only with Giles and that's only on business.

So his 'vision' of her was not the PTB approved variety after all, just a normal dream and nothing more.

What pisses him off, what really makes him angry, is that he's also grateful to her. Without his Xanderific need to protect her, without his concern, he would still be in that hospital bed right now, Dying piece by piece.

His days as a librarian are boring, but so much less so than his time in the hospital. Old Xander would be tearing his hair out by now, but not the new improved version. This is just about as much excitement as he can handle so quickly. He's working his way up to the mad care-free behavior of his youth, like going out to the cinema or getting a take out.

Eventually, his craving for pizza and all things holy will push him to expand his horizons to beyond the Watcher's complex, but this is enough.

For now.

***

Beyond expectations...

Damn it!

He knows he's seen something about this somewhere but for the life of him, Xander can't remember where. A paragraph in one of the larger reference texts dealing with the summoning rituals of True demons... He's still as impassive, facial muscles disconnected from the rest of him, but he feels on the verge of exploding with nervous energy as he paces through the stacks, searching for the text he's looking for.

Buffy's in trouble.

Really, really bad trouble this time. Up to her neck and sinking.

She made a call to Giles yesterday about some weird cult in the back of beyond stumbling across a ritual of some kind for which they needed willing sacrifices. Personally, if someone is willing to give up their lives in order to summon a demon, Xander's all for letting them off themselves and saving the Council the work. But this time, it's serious. Another Ascension situation, only sped up to crazy speeds. Hence the sacrifices.

And Buffy volunteered to be one.

To get into the cult and see what the heck was going on, she volunteered to be a sacrifice. They have less than... He looks down at his Snoopy watch. Less than eight hours to figure out what's happening and how to save he... stop it.

Eight hours and counting. For the last twenty-six, it's been a research-a-palooza.

Giles is here and so's Willow. Dawnie is in Africa and no one wants to call her until this problem is all sorted out.

The two sisters haven't spoken in two years or more, but this is too huge. And no way do they want to upset Dawn unless they have to. Besides, she's got her own worries right now. She's taken over Xander's beat. His route from North Africa down. She's not alone like he was, but she's the local boss. Finding Slayers, tracking demons and generally keeping an eye on things down there all mean that she's too busy to call at the moment anyway.

Seven hours and fifty-six minutes.

Where did he put it?! He's sure he saw that text somewhere... The number seven keeps repeating in his mind. Seven sacrifices. Seven. Where is it?

He's got to get a grip. He has to. Buffy's going to die if he can't.

The anger is forgotten for now. His resentment for her abandoning him is muted by the worry. Nothing matters any more and instinct takes over again. That same dumb instinct that got him into this mess in the first place all those years ago. He could have walked away, he could have had a normal life but nooo! He had to chase after the cute blonde, didn't he?

Crazy thoughts.

::Focus!::

And then he sees it. Not even one of the oldest texts, just a simple collection of parchments. France. 14th century. An Ascension in a place called Chateau Mansour. There were willing sacrifices there too. Now he remembers!

Giles looks up wildly as Xander's metallic thump-clonk pace warns the Head Watcher of his approach. With a shaky hand, Xander holds out the parchments.

"What's this, Xander?" the old Brit asks tiredly.

None of them have slept over the last day and a half.

Biting down his frustration, Xander pulls open the bundle of papers and sifts through them feverishly. Finds the one he wants, finds the passage he's looking for and shoves it under Giles' nose imperiously. From the other end of the table, Willow looks up from whatever she's studying.

"I think he wants you to take a look, Giles," she states dumbly.

::What's that, Lassie? Timmy's down the well? Again?!::

Fighting back the need to slap Giles upside the head, Xander rolls his eyes and nods emphatically.

Reluctantly, Giles pulls the parchment to him. It takes him all of two seconds to see what it's about and his eyes light up.

"That's it!" he exclaims loudly.

Surprised by his outburst, Willow looks up and sees his face.

"You found something?" she asks.

Giles waves a hand at her, impatient to read the rest before he replies. Eventually, he too looks up and beams at Xander.

"This is just what we were looking for! How did you...?"

Xander can't string two words together to save his life anymore, but he can growl. Annoyed, he pulls his notepad out of his pocket and scrawls his reply across the top page.

*I READ IT BEFORE!*

Giles blinks.

"You...? This is in Old French, Xander."

*THANKS FOR TELLING ME. I WAS WONDERING WHY THE "LEARN TO SPEAK FRENCH FOR DUMMIES" BOOK I BOUGHT LAST WEEK DIDN'T HELP ME WITH THE TRANSLATION*

Dumb-struck, Giles realizes he's being rather condescending because his surprise dims, replaced with embarrassment.

"I'm sorry, Xander. I forget you're not..."

But Xander cuts him off with a wave.

::No time. Go save Buffy!::

Understanding, Giles nods briefly and gets up, all but running out of the room to phone in the information to the team on-site. Trailing behind him, Willow stops to squeeze Xander's arm and beam proudly up at him. He waves his hand again, in a way he perfected to be his new equivalent of a dismissive grin, and she simply nods. Gives him a quick peck on the cheek and disappears after Giles.

After they're gone, Xander finally allows his legs to give out from under him and slumps down into the chair Giles just vacated. True, twenty-six hours on the go is a lot for anyone, but with his problem, every step was an effort even before the research marathon. He was ready to fall flat last night, but only now has the time for it.

He's done all he can.

Hopefully, the team will save Buffy and everything should work out fine. Hopefully.

Sighing, he leans forward and rests his forehead against the cool surface of the table.

Giles' condescending attitude is annoying. Especially given that he pushed so hard to get Xander the librarian job. Of course, in his own mind, Giles will always be the true caretaker of the books and Xander just his assistant. He doesn't mean anything by it. He's still going by what he knows of Xander from their time back in Sunnydale on that score. And even after a couple of years in the field, Xander Harris was never known for his love of demonic literature.

No, Giles gave him a shot at this job because in the old Brit's eyes, it's a safe environment that will allow Xander to still work with his friends and family and not make him feel cut out.

Truth be told, it's both a blessing and a curse.

A curse because of the low expectations attached to it. A blessing because Giles really does care about Xander's welfare and shows it now.

Still, the Old French reading skills surprised him, didn't they? If he still could, Xander would allow himself a satisfied smile about that.

Buffy's gonna be fine. Something tells him she will. And Giles might just have to begin taking him seriously now too.

All in all, a good day's wor...

He's asleep before he can finish that last thought.

***

Chapter the Third - Life changes

Academia...

"No, no, that can't be right!" the white-haired man says with a shake of his head. "You're adding the syllable at the end. It's 'Khal'. The Huntress. Meaning the Slayer, of course."

Xander waves a hand in denial and writes something in his notepad.

*IT'S KHAL-EPH, PERRIN* he informs his colleague, pointing out the offending rune carefully.

Morris Aloysius Perrin, a professor at London University and the Council's leading expert on certain demonic languages, adjusts his glasses and peers closely at the tome in front of him.

"Well, bugger me!" he mutters in surprise.

Xander appears to consider his reply for a moment, raises one finger to tell the old man to wait and scribbles his answer.

*THANKS FOR THE OFFER, BUT I DON'T SWING THAT WAY*

Blinking, it takes Perrin a few seconds to understand Xander's meaning and he bursts out laughing. That's when Giles enters the room.

They're in the library, of course. Xander's reserved domain. Perrin is one of the few scholars to come here regularly to complete his research and he and Xander have become rather unusual friends. Xander's surprised to find that he actually likes the old Watcher. They share much the same sense of humor and Perrin is easy to talk with because he's mostly deaf anyway so the fact that Xander has to write down his side of the conversation is a plus as far as he's concerned.

Giles is visibly surprised to find Xander in deep conversation with one of the Council scholars.

Not that Buffy's ex-Watcher underestimates him much anymore. The Old French tipped him off to the fact that there was more that could be expected from ex-Zeppo Harris than simply shelving books and he soon took to consulting with Xander on several of the research tomes whenever he's in town.

No, it's probably the sight of Perrin laughing that shocks him, Xander knows. The old boy has something of a curmudgeonly reputation at the RWC and people tend to tread softly around him, even the newly appointed Head Watcher.

"Hoi, Rupert!" Perrin yells gruffly, "Young Harris here has just shown me something I think you should see."

Brow furrowing, Giles comes over to the table.

"Oh?"

Perrin takes the book both he and Xander have been examining for the last few hours and shows it to him.

"There," he says, plunking an ink-stained digit onto the paragraph in question. "One of the eight prophecies of Roger the Truly Mad. It apparently refers to Slayers, plural, rather than simply to 'The' Slayer as we previously thought."

Losing all inhibitions, Giles succumbs to the allure of shiny new ancient prophecies with the two of them.

Xander's amazed how much he's enjoying himself. Who knew he'd discover a knack for some of the older languages? It's not that he can suddenly read them now or anything. There was no miracle genius-making brain-transplant after his accident or any hitherto untapped resources that he has now been forced to exploit. He's still the same bumbling boob he's always been, that hasn't changed. It's just that he has the time on his hands now to figure out the mysteries that these ancient texts provide.

It feels like doing some mega crossword puzzle. In funky languages never meant to be pronounced by human tongues. Written in blood.

But it's the same with all the languages really. As soon as he can finagle himself a handle on the general meaning of a text, he can start to see the structure behind the words. So it's less about deciphering ancient dead languages and more about recognizing the structure and finding the useful bits within it.

This doesn't seem all that special to him, but Perrin was quite interested when they first talked about it. And to have the attention of someone like the old scholar, someone so obviously super-qualified with more diplomas on his wall than Xander has comic books, that's... Well, it's an ego boost, frankly. Now Xander can understand why Giles always got that slightly high look in his eyes after working out a complex puzzle in those old texts of his back in Sunnydale.

They all spend the rest of the day sifting through the prophecies together.

Roger the Truly Mad. It sounds like a name pulled straight from Monty Python, doesn't it? But he was only a village idiot, some time during the sixth century. They didn't go in for non-descriptive names back then. There weren't that many to go around after all. There might have been ten Rogers in a given two-mile radius but only one of them was drooling on his shoes and screaming about ferrets all the time.

Old Roger (The Truly Mad one) was like that. Basically a nut job. And then, sometime a few months before he died, he sobered up. Well, got less crazy anyway. And instead of his usual diatribe about rodents, he began to prophesize.

He was the only seer on record to have foreseen a future with hundreds of Slayers in it. Of course, that only made his nickname seem more appropriate to the Watchers of the time and his ramblings be considered quaint little fables at best.

Xander was the one who rediscovered the prophecies he'd made while taking inventory. Prophecies written down as hear-say by a Cistercian monk during the dark ages almost six hundred years later.

Eventually, it's time to close for the day. Looking up at the clock, Xander realizes with a start that he's been discussing the prophecies with Perrin and Giles for more than eight hours now. His notebook is practically empty and he's been relying on loose bits of paper and mad hand gestures to convey his points.

Perrin seems more than pleased with the results and Giles is still all glazed-eyed about the implications.

"You've got a good head on you, young Harris," Perrin informs him as he gets to his feet.

Xander waves a hand dismissively, but Perrin won't let him get away with it.

"I mean it! An eye for detail. And good at deducing a context. What kind of training do you have?" he asks, shooting Xander an assessing look.

Giles blinks at this.

"Xander is entirely self-taught, Morris," he says proudly.

For once, Xander's glad of his paralyzed facial muscles that mean he has no need to do anything to hide his embarrassment.

Giles is looking proud of him for some reason.

But Perrin is irritated now.

"Self-taught?!" he says disbelievingly. "You mean no one has taken the time to get you any qualifications?" he asks Xander.

Frowning internally at the implication that he's not qualified and needs someone else to help him become so, Xander nods his reply nevertheless.

"I'm sure you'll find that he is amply qualified as it is, Morris," Giles defends him tersely.

Perrin nods dismissively.

"Oh, I know that, Rupert. I'm just thinking how much more he could accomplish if... Well, I haven't got much on my plate at the University at the moment. What say you come and work with me for a bit?"

::Why?::

For once, the blank look on Xander's face fits the feelings behind it. Him, at University? So not a good idea.

Turning to Giles, he wants to get him to point this out to the old man, but finds instead that his old mentor is looking at him speculatively.

"As a research assistant?" he asks Perrin.

"Could do with someone as bright as he is for my work with those scrolls Miss Summers uncovered in Eritrea," Perrin informs the Head Watcher.

Miss Summers. Dawn. So she's being all Indiana Dawn-ish, is she? Or is that Dawn Croft-ish? A sudden mental image of little Dawnie in a tight-fitting tank and hip-hugging micro-shorts makes Xander really wish he could wince. He so doesn't need to think of the girl he still considers to be his baby sister in that kind of get-up.

Giles isn't encumbered by the mental imagery though.

"Yes..." he says pensively. "How about it, Xander?"

::How about what?:: Xander wonders, snapped back from the scary place.

Then he notes both Perrin's inquisitive expression and Giles thoughtful face and he understands.

He wants to tell them that this is nuts. That he and University have restraining orders against one another. That, especially given his physical condition, a second job in the city is a really bad idea on several different levels.

But Giles is looking all proud of him again. And Perrin seems to think it's something Xander would be good at...

As he nods his acceptance, he can't help wondering what he's just let himself in for though.

***

Taking The Plunge...

Dr. Alexander L. ("Don't ask") Harris, PhD.

Has a nice ring to it, huh?

Xander's allowing himself to dream a little bit.

He checks that thought.

Dream? About getting a doctorate? When did he become a pod-person?

But however out of character it seems to him, he can't deny that he likes the idea. Perrin has been nagging him, trying to get him to sign up. That kinda makes it sound like the military, come to think of it. He might have to wear camouflage tweed if he does go for it.

If he does go to University. As a student.

He shudders.

The only experience he's ever had of University before is through Buffy and Wills and neither one of them seemed to know what the heck they were doing from one moment to the next. Parties, hanging out, boyfriends, sure. Coursework? Well, he knows that they were both attending their classes but that's about all.

And if Buffy's amazing career at the Doublemeat and Willow's irregular temping at the Magic Box were anything to go by, the courses weren't exactly helpful when it came to joining the ranks of the gainfully employed.

That uncertainty was one of the reasons he didn't go to University in the first place. Sure, he claimed that he didn't have the grades and that he didn't have the money, but seriously!

Sunnydale U?

Shave a gorilla, stuff him in a suit, make him sit the test and he's in. We're not talking Harvard standards here after all. Considering the Hellmouthy location of the place and the demonic room-mate in Buffy's first year, a shaven gorilla would have been considered prime alumnus material.

And as for the fees, if he could afford an apartment and a car and the life he threw away through his own stupidity, then he could easily afford whatever it cost to go back to school.

No, if he never went to University with the girls it was because he didn't see the need. And because a part of him sensed that something had died between them when the High School did. His girls just didn't seem to need him anymore. If they ever had.

At the time, he was riding the wave of self-pity as far away from them as he could. Which turned out to be down the street, but the intention was pure enough. He wanted to be his own man, to do his own thing and eventually he almost managed it. A good job with a good salary and benefits. His ticket out of that basement.

It was harder work that he expected. He had to take crazy over-time, work his ass of every darn day and learn faster than he thought possible. But he made it. Became one of the few regulars on the Sunnydale construction circuit. A foreman at the improbable age of twenty-two.

Looking back, it wasn't so bad in fact.

He's thinking of all this now as he sits staring down at the registration form Perrin gave him.

They've been working together on those scrolls for the last three months now. At first glance, the language looked like Aramaic but didn't translate properly. Turns out it's way older. And not human in origin. Neither, surprisingly, does it seem demonic. Xander's the first to have pointed out a third option. One that neither man is willing to consider seriously right now. If not demons and if not humans then who did write the scrolls? And what are they about?

It's more than interesting, it's captivating. Better than Tetris. More engaging. A huge puzzle to solve.

So Xander's been hanging around the University for a while. Working with Perrin and becoming his de-facto teacher's aide. He's even sat in on a few of the old man's classes and his responsiveness was what got him into this mess.

With no qualifications whatsoever and his only proof of passing High School swallowed by a giant Mayor-snake, he'd be starting completely from scratch.

Xander's pushing thirty.

He's a cripple. Well, no. He has some health concerns, as Willow orders him to think of it all the time. If she ever sees him use the "C" word again, she'll turn him into a toad. She promised. There was resolve-face involved so he's not inclined to see if she was bluffing.

Still, he has big problems getting around and worse problems simply communicating. The metal brace makes him limp something fierce and his incoherent bleating has now progressed to even worse incoherent bleating. No visible signs of improvement on either front. How's he supposed to participate in a class? Or get to one for that matter? And what of his job in the Library?

Excuses.

Giles is all for it. Willow's pushing him to go for it. Dawnie even heard about it and she's down in Johannesburg this month. All of them want him to go and believe he can do it.

His only problem is believing it himself. He's still Xander Harris, after all.

Doughnut boy again.

Zeppo Harris some days.

He's a klutz and a dummy and the class clown. That much is recorded fact. What would he do at University?

But Dawnie's no dummy. Neither is Giles a klutz or a clown. And Willow is so scary-smart she could traumatize Stephen Hawking on a bad day.

And they say he should try.

Who is he to go against that?

He stares down at the registration form. And reaches for his pen.

***

Back in the game...

Women smell good.

Xander can't help but be reminded of this, sitting as he is next to the rather attractive young woman that is his research partner. She's a leggy brunette with a wide smile and laughing eyes. Kind of reminds him of someone come to think of it. Together at the table in the University library, this is the closest he's been to a female of the opposite sex in... Since before the shooting in fact.

Before the shooting.

Huh.

Weird. It occurs to him now that he was pretty much becoming a monk long before those kids opened fire on him.

At first because of Ahn, of course. The mourning period. And then because... well, there was nobody interesting. He doesn't want a bed partner anymore. Um... Allow him to re-phrase that. He doesn't want just a bed partner.

Sex is great, sure but it's everything... It's not everything. And who could he have talked to in his sooper-secret James Bondey field Watcher job? Other Watchers? Hyeah right. Tweed is such a turn-on. Besides most of the others at the time were old guard men with a few years on Giles. Like he joked with Perrin, he doesn't really swing that way, thank you very much.

So the Slayers? Well, sure the Slayers were hot and legal in some of the countries he'd worked in while in Africa, but all school-boy fantasies aside, they were babies. The thought of them in any other way than a Watcherly 'taking care of' capacity was just icky.

So it was an involuntarily celibate Xander Harris that got shot in Africa.

And now, it's been more than a couple of years and because of his health problems, he's avoided even thinking about wu... wu... women.

But he knows that could never last. It's got so bad, he caught himself having lusty thoughts about Ms. Bridgecombe the other day. The fifty-six year old secretary who runs Giles' office when he's away. Steel gray hair, wire-framed spectacles and a cardigan.

And when you're that desperate, it's either time to pull out the sock puppet of love again or you open your eyes to the outside world.

His research partner, Susan Daily, is a nice girl. She seems to like his company, can laugh at his jokes and isn't put off by the expresionlessness. He wants to ask her out.

This comes as a shock and a half.

He's a cripp... ::Sorry Wills!::... He's still damaged. Won't ever get better from that. His legs work slowly, his face not at all. Other parts of his anatomy are fully operational however and they're currently demanding to be heard. And maybe taken out for a bit of exercise.

He's been at University for six months now and doing well, according to Giles. The gang is all very proud of him. And once he got over the feeling of being the creepy old guy in a kindergarten, he realized that he's quite proud of himself too. Six months of hard work are producing results and he's starting to think that this academic kick he's been on recently could be good for him.

But most of that time has been spent in the books. And now he's got a hankering to get out and about a bit more. Meet new people. Have se... Meet new people.

"I've had enough for today," Susan says eventually, slamming her book shut and yawning widely.

Startled from his thoughts, Xander can only nod.

"I have no idea how you put up with all this, Xander," she continues, turning to him. "We've been at the books for the last three hours and my eyes feel like they're about to fall out."

He waves a grin and goes for the notepad.

*PRACTICE. I SPENT A FEW YEARS HELPING OUT AT THE LOCAL LIBRARY BACK HOME WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL.*

"Oh?"

*YUP. IT WASN'T REALLY MY THING BUT MY FRIENDS USED TO HANG OUT THERE SO IT SORT OF STUCK.*

Her lips quirk slightly.

"They spent time at the library? Willingly? You have some very strange friends, Xander."

*YOU HAVE NO IDEA.*

They both collect their notes and textbooks and tuck all of that away into their bags. This done, Xander picks up an armful of reference books and Susan takes the others and they proceed to return them to the stacks.

*SAME TIME TOMORROW?* he asks when they're finished.

She stops to look at him for a minute, head tilted to one side.

"You have something you should be doing right now?"

He blinks. Scribbles something quickly.

*A WHOLE LOTTA NOTHING, WHY?*

From what he knows of her, Susan has been having trouble with certain aspects of European history. Maybe she wants his hel...

"How about coffee?"

::Huh?::

He holds up one finger to tell her to wait, shuffles through his notepad to find a clean page, makes a show of carefully writing out his answer and shows it to her.

*HUH?*

She giggles. He just made a girl giggle. Shame about the lack of muscle movement in his face because he's sure he'd be beaming his head off right now otherwise.

"Coffee? You and me? I know a place not far from here. What do you say?"

Stopping and starting to write his answer several times and crossing it out furiously, he finally gives up and tosses the notepad over his shoulder in mock-anger, choosing instead to go with the universal sign of the two thumbs up.

Her smile widens and her eyes are shining.

Things are looking up.

***

Her return...

"You had coffee?" Willow asks excitedly.

He waves a smile and nods.

"But was it, you know, just coffee? Or really coffee?" She gestures to emphasize the distinction.

*THERE'S A DIFFERENCE?* he scribbles.

She rolls her eyes.

"Of course there is, you big doofus! There's the friendly 'Hey, we work together, let's get to know each other a little bit' kinda coffee. And then there's the 'I like you. How 'bout we go out and see what happens?' kinda coffee."

*WHAT ABOUT THE "I'M SEXING YOU UP WITH MY MIND" KINDA COFFEE?*

Willow shook her head.

"Mind-sexing is for the third coffee date."

The two of them are back at the Council library. Willow beamed in for a meeting and ditched it halfway through to catch up with him. She was really happy to hear about his classes and her flabber was utterly ghasted when he mentioned Susan.

Not that she has anything against it, quite the reverse.

But she's been trying to match-make for the last six months and he's always refused to let her. Now, when she's minding her own business, he gets himself a date on his own.

Because the coffee didn't just stop at coffee. That's what's got Wills all squeaky-happy, but there's more to tell. He went out with Susan and a drink turned into two and then a bite to eat - thank god he has at least enough control not to dribble half chewed food down himself now - and before either of them knew it, they'd spent most of the day together.

Now, Xander's in a bind because Sue asked him out on a real date. With the restaurant-going and the movie-watching and perhaps a bit of light kissage to wrap things off.

It's been so long, he's not sure he can remember how to do this kind of thing any more. Did anything change while he was gone from the dating scene? It's not like he can use his old pick up lines any more, for what little good those did him.

So he's talking to Wills and asking her advice.

*IT WAS THE SECOND KIND OF COFFEE, WILLS. THE ONE THAT LEADS TO MORENESS.*

"Moreness?"

Scribble, scribble, scribble.

*THE DATING KIND OF MORENESS. TOMORROW NIGHT.*

For a second, he thinks she's going to burst but she merely starts to bounce a bit.

"A date? You're going out with... what's her name?"

*SUSAN DAILY. SHE'S IN MY CLASS AND WE'RE WORKING TOGETHER.*

"And is she evil?"

*WHAT?!*

"You know. Evil. Is she a demon or a psychopath or a sicko who wants to sacrifice you or something?"

*HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW? YOU DON'T JUST ASK SOMETHING LIKE THAT.*

"Considering your track record, maybe you should."

He makes a noise in the back of his throat.

*FUNNY, WILLS. I'M LAUGHING MY HEAD OFF. MY TRACK RECORD IS NOT THAT BAD!*

"Oh? Let's review, shall we? Miss French, Ampata, that cow Heidi when you were possesed by hyenas, Cordelia..."

He raises a hand to cut her off and scrawls something in his notepad.

*CORDY WAS HUMAN!*

Willow just cocks an eyebrow.

He shuffles his feet.

*WELL SHE WAS. WHEN I DATED HER.*

"Cordy, Faith, Anya, the cat-woman from Hell. And all of those were just in Sunnydale. How many after that?"

He looks down at his shoes.

"Xanderrrr...!"

Sighing, he reluctantly writes out an answer.

*THERE MIGHT HAVE BEEN THIS ONE SUCCUBUS IN MADAGASCAR.*

"See? You my friend are a demon-magnet."

*MUST HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH MY DEVILISH CHARM.* he retorts, beginning to feel vaguely worried.

She laughs and swats him on the arm.

"I'm just kidding, I swear. I'm sure Susan is a nice girl."

::God I hope she's not too nice,:: Xander thinks to himself, a few enjoyable mental images flitting across his mind's eye at the speed of thought.

Before he can ask Willow for her advice though, the doors swing open and Giles comes striding in, visibly angry.

"What's up, Giles?" Willow asks, cheerfully oblivious.

Giles opens his mouth to reply but no words come out. He muffles a curse and tries again.

"That... She... I cannot believe the... How she could simply..."

Worried now, both Willow and Xander get up from where they're sprawled on Xander's desk and exchange a glance.

"Giles?" Willow asks again, slightly less perkily, "You're scaring me. What's the problem?"

Realizing he's not making any sense, Giles takes a few deep breaths to calm himself. Whatever he wants to say, the doors swing again before he can get it out and someone else comes in behind him.

"That would be me, Wills," the stranger says gruffly.

At first, Xander thinks it's a boy. A young goth. Then he notices the swell of the hips and realizes whoever it is, she's female. Spiky-short brown hair, raccoon-eye make-up and too much dark lipstick. The girl looks almost like a mini-Faith from the bad old days. A choker around her throat and enough skin-tight leather to give a cow a complex under a grubby jacket she's clutching around herself.

She looks tired and dirty and emaciated and oh my god, it's Buffy!

***

Chapter the Fourth - Returned.

Reunion...

Xander would be lying if he says he ever stopped thinking about Buffy.

For nearly a year, half spent in a hospital bed, half in grueling pain as he forced himself to climb out of it, he thought of almost nothing but her. She was the first thing in his mind in the morning and the last he saw at night. At first because he was mad with worry about her and then just because he was mad with her.

Going back over his memories when he had nothing else to do, it became clear to him how very much his existence completely revolved around her. Like she was the lead in the TV show that was his life and he was nothing but the comic relief or a trusty side-kick.

Even without romantic entanglements she had somehow become one of the most important women in his world.

She was supposed to be there with him. Supposed to come and help him. She's Buffy! She's a hero. Why didn't she come to see him?

He hates her.

No he doesn't.

Yes he does.

Part of him dies when he recognizes the woman he grew up with under all the make-up. And part of him comes back to life. He's not sure which hurts the most.

She hasn't seen him yet though. He's standing right here next to Will and Giles but he's wearing the tweed and in a library and she's all but relegated him to the background as another of the faceless suits that fill the RWC nowadays. At the moment, Buffy's completely focused on Willow, eyes searching Will's face.

"B... Buffy?" Willow asks incredulously.

The punkette nods.

She's got a stud in her nose now, Xander notes idly. A shiny silver stud in her nose, a ring in her brow and six piercings in her ear. Is this Buffy? Can it be under all that leather? When did Joyce Summers' daughter become the Mistress of Pain?

"Hey Will," she says softly.

In a second, Willow's face has hardened and she's slapped her.

Willow just slapped Buffy.

For a long moment, the world holds its breath.

Beside her, Giles looks shocked. Part of Xander is too. Buffy doesn't flinch though. With her Slayer strength, she's been hit a hundred times harder by things way scarier than a pissed off witch, but there is a flash in her eyes, a fleeting emotion that Xander really doesn't want to pay attention to but can't help but identify as anguish. Pain, just not physical. Something he saw in her in that diner in Oxnard.

It's gone as soon as it came though and she's impassive again. Raises her head up to look Willow in the eyes blankly.

And it's Willow who looks the worse for wear of the two of them. Xander can't help but feel the anger and hurt she's fighting down. Always was one for the violent emotions, was Willow. When she hurts, she hurts and that has nothing to do with black or white magic. That's just Wills being Wills.

The silence draws out for a short eternity before Giles finds his voice.

"As I was about to tell you, Buffy has returned unexpectedly," he informs Willow and Xander tersely.

Neither woman looks away, engaged in a staring contest that speaks more than a thousand insults and an ocean of sadness.

"Why did you leave?" Willow finally grinds out in a hiss.

Buffy looks like she might reply but the desire fades almost before it was born. Just shrugs instead.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time?" she retorts dryly.

Xander hears the growl before he sees Willow move and reaches out to catch her arm before she can strike Buffy again.

"You bitch!" she screams. "You ran away when we needed you the most! You left us! Xander was hurt and we were all so scared and you ran away!" Willow's crying now, tears streaking down her face.

One thing Xander's time behind his mask has taught him is to watch the eyes. Everyone does it, sure. It's the first thing you really notice about someone in fact. But he's had time to become good at reading the thoughts behind them. It's not telepathy, of course, just emotion.

Buffy was always the most self-contained in their little gang. Angry at the world and resentful of her calling at the same time as thoughtlessly giving and brave. And equal parts ashamed of all these feelings. A weird mix, and one he got used to over the years. Now there's nothing. Not a blankness either. No, what he sees in Buffy is a void. An ache. She's holding something inside, hurt by something big. But she's keeping it to herself. Because of her guilt and her resentment and her pride, there is no way she's gonna explain why she did what she did. Not now. Maybe not ever.

God he hates her.

Hates seeing her like this almost as much.

"Your return was completely unplanned, Buffy," Giles is saying.

Xander realizes he's been talking for some time.

"I felt it was important to warn Willow and Xander that..."

"Xa... Wait! What?!" Buffy waves a hand to silence him. "Xander?" she asks in surprise.

Giles' brow furrows and he cocks his head to one side. Points at Xander wordlessly.

And now she sees him. Now. For the first time in... years.

Is it possible to strike someone so that their entire body flinches at once? If so then that's what the sight of him does to Buffy. Her impassive mask slips and it's pure shock for a couple of seconds. For those seconds there is nothing else. Her shock. His anger.

He's learned to deal by now. Most days he can make do with the notepad and the hand gestures. But sometimes... sometimes he might just sell his soul to be able to say something. The last few years demand it. It's a need so powerful he does try to speak but mercifully perhaps, nothing comes out.

So they stare at each other. One behind a mask he never wanted, the other with her self-imposed restraint. The curtain falls again and she's back to the studied nonchalance she projected on her arrival.

"Hey Xand."

He's still holding Willow's arm tightly, so he feels her try to jerk free and shoots her a look to calm her.

To Buffy, he merely nods.

She reaches out, almost despite herself. Mask still firmly in place, her hand rises nonetheless to reach for his face. But she catches herself and changes the movement into a tired sweep of her hand through her short, short hair. He knows though. And she knows that he does.

Dropping Willow's arm, he pulls out his notepad and starts to scribble.

"What...?"

Willow silences Buffy with a glare.

*WHY ARE YOU HERE?* he asks.

Frowning, Buffy glances at Giles to understand why Xander is writing his question instead of simply asking it but Giles won't dignify her with an explanation.

"He's got a point, Buffy," the old Brit says instead. "Why exactly are you here?"

Buffy looks as if she might push the issue, but her shoulders slump again.

::Too much effort involved probably,:: Xander thinks bitterly.

"I guess that I thought..." Buffy begins before shaking her head and looking at each of them in turn. She shrugs. "Whatever. Not important now. Truth is, I'm here to retire."

***

Blanking her...

So Buffy's back.

It's been three weeks now since she came back. And Xander's really beginning to get angry.

Not with her.

Well, yes, of course with her, but not just her.

With himself too.

His life is looking brighter now. He's got a job he enjoys, classes are going well and he's got a girlfriend. A sort of girlfriend. A girl who is his friend and who might become more than that very soon. Susan. After so long in the dark, he should have everything he needs to be happy, right?

But he still doesn't understand why Buffy acted like she did, why she turned her back on him so coldly. And it's eating him up inside. Until he knows, until she tells him why she wasn't there when he needed her, he can't move on. He can't. And it's souring everything else.

His date with Susan went well. It went really well, if the kissing on the doorstep at the end of the night was anything to go by. He and Susan finished their project together a week ago but are still spending just as much time together, which is a good thing.

::No a great thing,:: he corrects himself angrily. ::A really wonderful, special, potentially nookie-inducing thing of greatness.::

All that night though and most of the time since then has been wasted thinking about someone else. Oh, not romantically. Just... He wants to throttle her.

Such an expressive verb, isn't it? Xander wants to throttle Buffy until she says she's sorry. Until she cries and begs his...

No. Not that either. Violence like that is just not in him, however much he wants it to be right now. What he really wants, what he needs, is simply for her to tell him why.

Just why.

It's a compulsion so strong, it's also affecting his work at the RWC, where Buffy seems to be spending a lot of time for a retired operative. She has meetings with Giles and the other Council members. Debriefings. Helps with aspects of strategy and training. Is everywhere Xander turns.

Right now, he's attempting to classify a few old books recovered from a burned down monastery near Prague. A simple task, breaking them down into the various languages used, the subject matter and the period they were written in. Simple. Except Buffy is sitting at one of the tables staring at him.

She's just sitting there, having claimed that she needs to research something, and she's staring at him from over the top of her upside down book.

This entire situation is now officially beyond surreal and out the other side. Xander has no idea how to deal with this. With her.

She just turned up out of the blue, announced she was retiring and that was that. Giles is completely torn of course. She's Buffy after all. Her Watcher's little girl. As much as Giles never says it, he does think of himself as the father to all the Scoobs, a sentiment that has only grown sharper as he grows older, and the old Brit missed Buffy while she was gone. Even if he is as angry with her betrayal as Willow, of course.

Well, almost as angry.

Willow's taking all of this as a personal attack. Xander has never stopped to think how very scared she must have been when he was in that coma. And how distraught she was not to be able to help him after he woke up. It was tearing her up and she had no one to talk to about it. No one as close as Buffy, at least. This is like the time Buffy ran away all over again as far as Wills is concerned. Only a gazillion times worse. She refuses to even be in the same room with her ex-best friend any more.

And Buffy's apparent indifference to Willow's feelings isn't helping matters.

When did he become the fence-mender, dammit?! Why is he the one who has to keep his mouth shut?

It takes him a minute to get the irony of that last question but it just pisses him off all the more.

Everyone's telling him to say something. To show Buffy how pissed he is. But that would only be adding another voice to an already deafening chorus. He's pissed alright. So pissed it's a private thing. Something he will not give Buffy the satisfaction of releasing until she comes up with an explanation for leaving him to rot in his hospital bed. She screwed him over and that's between the two of them. Let her deal with the fallout of her actions where the others are concerned. She's burned all her bridges with him.

He doesn't talk to her. Blanks her from his life. He completely ignores her but doesn't go out of his way to antagonize her either because that would be admitting that she's there. She does not exist anymore. Xander lives his life as if she's still far away and hopes she'll get the hint. And he's completely disgusted with himself for his weakness.

What a wuss.

Even Faith was surprised when she turned up a couple of weeks ago for her monthly meeting with Giles and bumped into Buffy. Surprised Xander's keeping it together so well and surprised by Buffy's new S&M wardrobe.

New look, new care-free attitude. "Hey, Xand," tossed out casually whenever the ex-bottle blonde sees him. No explanations and no apologies.

He's actually had to physically restrain Willow from cursing her a couple of times already.

But none of this seems to register with Buffy.

She's too busy reading that darn book.

Stuck on the same frikking page for the last hour.

Upside down.

She's not here for the books, he knows that much. Although what she is here for, he has no idea.

***

On the wrong side of the tracks...

Knock, knock.

"Who's there?"

... ::Damn.::

Knock, knock. Again.

A sigh from inside the apartment. Shuffling feet. The door creaks open and Buffy's eyes go wide when she sees Xander on her doorstep.

This just can't go on. Since she's been back, they haven't exchanged more than a few words at a time. Usually something along the lines of "Hey, Xand. Know where I can find such-and-such a book by so-and-so an old guy?" and he's shown her the books she's been looking for impassively. That's it. But she stares at him all the time. Watches him from behind the pages. And it's driving him nuts.

Tonight could have been the night. The one where he finally got to see if the old Viking skills were still operational. Well, he knows the equipment is operational, that's for sure. He knew that the very first time Susan's hand brushed against his own. But the skills... Oh, that's right, make fun of the broken guy! Thinks he ever had skills does he?

It's strange how you get to thinking like that though. Thinking of things you used to take for granted as having been special. So maybe he was never such an incredible lay before, but it was still a whole lot better than what he feels capable of now. And what with the nerves and the fear-induced butterflies and the willing woman beside him, tonight could have gone either way.

Except Buffy was sitting in his head and just refused to leave, damn her!

All night, he was with Susan. Talking about coursework and professors and inconsequential but important coupley things. He was with her. Focused on her. Then came the time to go back to her place and on the doorstep, he couldn't help but think about her inviting him in. And that got him thinking about vamps. Which in turn led him to thinking about the vamps he's known and how they tricked their way into an invite. Which led him to Buffy. And by then all bets were off.

So he's pissed right now. Pissed enough that he came straight here from Sue's doorstep and is damn well gonna yell at the non-blonde bane of his existence at last.

As he was striding purposefully to her place - or limping purposefully if you want to be precise - he couldn't help notice she's not exactly living at the Ritz. And he's even more pissed to find that this still matters to him. It's not much of a place, her building. Run-down in fact. Grubby walls, rabbit-hutch apartments and broken lights in the stairwell. Six stories with no elevator and crappy legs. Joy.

But he's here and he's fired up and he'll have his say, dammit! Well, have his write anyway. He's brought a spare notepad along just in case he gets really vocal.

Behind her door, Buffy's still blinking owlishly at him.

"Xander?" she croaks.

It's past three in the morning, but he isn't going to let a little thing like a god-awful time of day get in his way. He nods violently in response and gestures for her to let him in.

Behind her door, Buffy looks torn. Hesitant. He doesn't care. Doesn't wait for her to step aside, just pushes the door and walks in.

As steamed as he is, it takes him a moment to realize the place is a hovel. Garbage strewn across the floor, layers of dust and grime over everything in sight and hardly any furniture. No lights except for those in the street streaming through the curtain-less windows.

::What the hell?!::

Spinning on his heel, he turns to look at Buffy. She's still by the door, hugging herself defensively with an angry scowl on her face.

"What are you doing here, Xand?" she asks coldly.

Momentarily stunned from his righteous ire, her tone reminds him of the reasons for his presence. He's here to yell. Right. Focus on the yelling. Holding up a hand to get her to wait, he pulls out his notepad and starts scribbling.

He means to ask her why she ran away. Why she ignored her friends and deliberately cut him and the others from her life. He really does. And in a sense, that is his question. But there's more to it than that. More to the first thing he asks her than simply a desire to know.

*WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?*

It takes Buffy a moment to decipher what he's written in the semi-darkness but when she does, her face closes up again.

"You came here at this time of night to ask me that?"

He nods and stabs at the paper again and again with a shaky finger.

She shrugs.

"You had the others, right? You didn't need me too."

His breath catches in his throat. He actually does attempt to yell now, forgetting he can't do more than grunt comprehensibly. He bleats something that sounds like "Awergfargl" and catches himself. Screws up the page in his hand instead of reaching out to squeeze her head off and tosses it over his shoulder.

"Giles told me a little bit about your problems," she says into the silence.

He doesn't respond. He's still shaking too much with anger to respond. She continues.

"I'm... I'm glad you came back from all that, Xand. You were very strong. And I'm sorry you can't... I'm just sorry." For a minute, it almost looks like she'll say more. Like she'll tell him why she left. But she pulls on the indifference again and grabs his arm roughly. "It's late, I'm tired and I don't want to deal with this now. Sorry, Xand, but it's way past my bed time."

This said she hauls him back out into the corridor, nearly knocking him off his feet in the rush. He's screaming in his head. Yelling and screaming and railing at her cowardice.

And then suddenly he isn't.

Because as she pulls back inside her apartment to close the door, he catches sight of her arm. Of the ugly black tracks running down her arm.

And he's too shocked to be really angry when the door slams in his face.

***

Party Girl...

It's been a long while since Xander was last in this position.

With a vampire's hand around his throat and the flashy black spots in front of his eyes.

Gotta love field work, huh?

There's a dull thud and the vamp dissolves into dust. Buffy's standing there in her S&M get-up, a familiar pissed look on her face as she glares at him.

"What the HELL are you doing here, Xander?!" she yells angrily.

::Following you,:: he thinks to himself, rubbing his throat cautiously.

She rolls her eyes.

"I meant why are you here, Xand, not how!"

He blinks.

Before he can even attempt to reply though, more vamps join the fight and she's gone.

Why the heck is he here anyway? Because... Those tracks on her arm. He sees them whenever he closes his eyes now. Those tracks and Buffy living in that hovel of an apartment. It just doesn't mesh with the girl he used to hang out with back in the day. The shiny, smiley, bright girl he went to school with. The funny, caring young woman he claimed as a friend. Even the empty shell of a woman she became near the end. All aspects of a person he thought he knew like the back of his hand.

Glancing down at the back of his hand, he notices a new bruise. Huh. How did that get there?

But that's beside the point! He thought he knew Buffy. And then she runs away, doesn't call or write or do anything for years, leaves him to wallow in his own misery before swanning back into his life as if none of that ever happened. Dressed like the spiritual daughter of Marilyn Manson and Courtney Love on acid.

He shouldn't care, he doesn't care, he shouldn't care, he doesn't care.

A mantra that he keeps repeating to himself over and over again in the hope that it will get the girl out of his head.

Fat chance.

Buffy's in trouble, Xander to the rescue. It's that simple.

Sure, there's the hate and the anger and the hurt and a thousand other emotions he has to deal with whenever it comes to thinking about how she left him alone in that hospital bed, but none of those matter do they?

Buffy's in trouble, Xander to the rescue.

He blames the Hellmouth. All that ambient magic growing up obviously screwed up his hormones and part of the stupid sixteen year old he was when he first met her just refuses to die as a result.

But he saw the tracks in her arm. Isn't dumb enough not to know what they mean. And has spent the last few days obsessing about that. Torn between knowing that it's none of his business and feeling that it is. And eventually, as always, he went with his gut. Staked out Buffy's place after dark. Watched her leave to check the local vamp haunts and demon bars.

So close to Council HQ, it's practically vampire suicide to hang around, but this is still London. The capital. One of the best known and visited places in the world. So there are vamps and demons, that's just a fact of life.

The facts of life are the furthest thing from his mind as he watches Buffy though.

::Tootie would probably go blind, if she ever had to watch stuff like this.:: he thinks dryly.

So he follows Buffy all night and soon comes to realize that she's not out Slaying as he believed at first. In fact, it looks like she's out partying. With vamps.

First she goes to a night club where she spends an hour or two dancing up a storm in ways that would make even Faith blush. She picks up a couple of guys there, vamps, and instead of dusting them, he sees her talking with them for over ten minutes.

Then she goes with them to this bar, somewhere down near the Thames. It's more of a vampire's crack house than a bar, actually. Dirty, smelly, sweaty bodies lying all over the floor, both human and vamp. All entwined together.

This is frankly disgusting.

But Buffy's not in it for the sex.

God he hopes that's not it!

No, from what he's seen, Buffy came here for the drugs. He watched as she injected herself with something and... and let the vampires feed off her.

Frankly, he'd have preferred the sex.

Images of Spike's nude backside going up and down in that crypt of his back in the day spring to mind and how bad is this situation that those memories almost seem happy and innocent?

But Xander's no field agent anymore. Hasn't got the legs for it, for one. His big, metallic-brace encased leg most of all. It's hardly designed for stealth. And one of the vamps, one of the lesser stoned ones, found him creeping away to get help.

Now Buffy seems to be back in full force as she slices and dices everything that comes near him and he's still too wrapped up in what he saw to process the fact that they're outnumbered seven to one and completely surrounded.

Drawn back to the fight raging around him, Xander has just enough time to duck and slam the stake in his hand into the chest of a vampire as it buzzes his head.

Great.

The druggie Slayer and the crippled Watcher are about to get their asses handed to them by undead stoners who are so wasted they think that getting high can translate into an effective ambush technique. Perfect.

::Dumb idea, Harris! This was so very much a dumb idea!::

He bleats out a warning as another vamp tries to grab Buffy from behind. She spins instinctively and nails the sucker.

Surprisingly, there are less vamps all of a sudden. Buffy is actually doing a good job. Ten vamps down by his count, plus the one he got himself. Only a handful left who are coherent enough to try and fight them. Maybe they can survive this after all...

He fails to notice the fist sailing towards the side of his head until it's too late.

GLOMP!

Blackness.

***

The morning after...

Man, waking up from unconsciousness never gets old, does it?

When you're a Watcher, it tends to become a regular thing. But Xander didn't think he'd be waking up from this one though.

It takes him a moment to get his bearings and he understands that he's back at Buffy's place. Sunrise is just beginning to tint the morning sky outside and in the pale morning light, he can see more of what he missed the last time he was here.

The place is a tip.

But maybe better kept then it was last week. There's almost no dust anymore, for one thing. And all the garbage has been cleared up as best as possible. The floor is bare, he notices now. No carpet, just rough wooden floorboards. And there's only the one couch, which he's currently lying on.

There are a couple of packing crates near-by that might be some grungy designer's idea of trendy coffee tables, with a few Styrofoam cups and take out bags lying on them.

And then there's Buffy, hugging her knees at the end of the couch and staring at him again through red-rimmed eyes. She's not in her Elvira get-up this time. Dressed in a cardigan, tank and jeans, she's looking almost like the girl he thought he knew.

"Hey there," she says calmly, when he turns his eyes to look at her.

He waves once.

"How're you feeling?"

He blinks. Checks the big bump of the back of his head to make sure nothing's broken. Eventually, he jiggles his hand up and down in response to her question. So-so.

Buffy snorts and gets up from her uncomfortable perch.

"Want something to drink?" she asks over her shoulder.

::Depends,:: he thinks. ::Is there anything here that won't give me Cholera?::

"The coffee is fresh," she informs him reproachfully.

He rolls his eyes and reluctantly nods. Satisfied, she busies herself near one of the packing crates, upon which the take out bags and Styrofoam mugs do look much more recent.

"You scared the hell out of me last night, Xander," she says gently as she sifts through the packets, not looking back at him. "You could have got yourself killed."

Annoyed, he makes a noise in the back of his throat and works his way upright. The legs are always troublesome in the morning and more so after waking up from unconsciousness, it appears. By the time he's managed to swing both legs off the couch and pull himself into a decent facsimile of a sitting position, she's done with the food and turns back to hand him a cup of steaming coffee and a doughnut on a paper plate.

Taking the same for herself, she flops down onto the couch beside him.

They munch in silence for a while.

Eventually, his questions become too important. Putting down the plate and the cup, he casts around for something to write on. For something to write with, for that matter. But there really is nothing else in the room. Just the crates, the take out and the couch. Oh, and Buffy's duffel bag in one corner. She seems to realize what he's looking for because she gets up and rummages through it until she finds a notebook and pen.

Doesn't meet his surprised gaze when she hands them to him.

*WHAT WAS LAST NIGHT ABOUT, BUFFY?* he asks.

She reads the paper but still won't meet his eyes. Fidgets.

"How much did you see?"

*ENOUGH TO KNOW YOU'D MAKE A KILLING WORKING AT THAT STRIP JOINT IN OXNARD.*

Her face goes crimson.

"I can't believe you followed me... What were you doing, Xander? I mean, you could... Could have got hurt."

This time, he doesn't scribble an answer. Just reaches out and taps her arm where the black tracks are hidden under her clothes.

She flinches at his touch. And her shoulders shudder slightly.

"Oh."

::Oh.::

"You saw... the marks? That night when you came to talk with me?"

He nods.

"It's not... I'm not... God!" She sighs in frustration and runs a hand through her bristly hair. "I'm no junkie, Xan," she says finally. "I don't do drugs for fun."

He snorts and scribbles something.

*SURE, BUFF. YOU JUST HAVE A REEEEAAAALLY BAD HMO.*

She stares at the first part of that pithy sentence.

"Buff," she says softly, as if to herself. "It's been a while since anyone called me that."

Frustrated, he pulls out the first piece of paper again and adds a few words.

*WHAT THE HELL WAS LAST NIGHT ABOUT, BUFFY?*

Her indifferent mask puts in an appearance, but she doesn't look away. And her knuckles go white as she balls her hands into fists.

"I was looking for someone."

Annoyed now, he stifles a growl. Getting her to tell him anything is like pulling teeth!

*NO OFFENSE, BUFF, BUT THERE ARE BETTER PLACES TO PICK UP MEN. EVEN FOR YOU.*

Her indifference shatters from shock and the hurt in her eyes is almost painful to behold.

"Why the hell am I even bothering to explain this to you?" she asks angrily, getting to her feet. "It's none of your business what I do with my life. Get out."

He'd be happy to oblige, really he would. If only he could make his heart go where his head wanted to... His gut. Make his gut go with his head, not his heart. And ew.

Still, Buffy's standing there in her less skanky clothes and she's hugging herself tightly, looking a bit more like the girl he remembers and he just can't. He knows it's beyond him to simply get up and leave. Everything else is secondary. His own pain, his anger, his confusion. Doesn't matter. He simply wants to know what has her looking so sad.

And why she was doing... what she was doing last night.

So he bites the bullet.

*I'M SORRY, BUFF. I'M AN IDIOT.*

She doesn't want to talk with him anymore, actively tries to dismiss him even by turning away but he hauls himself to his feet and all but shoves the paper under her nose until she can do nothing but read it.

And then the anger fades.

She looks up at him, questions filling her eyes, and she opens her mouth to say something, but no words come out.

He pulls out that first page again, re-scribbles on it and shows her the result.

*PLEASE TELL ME WHAT WAS LAST NIGHT ABOUT, BUFFY? PLEASE?*

And when she looks up at him again, she's smiling and there are tears in her eyes.

"Okay."

***

Chapter the Fifth - Rock-bottom

Pushing it...

As bad ideas go, this one rates right up there with the time Xander's uncle Rory decided to fool the traffic cops into thinking he wasn't drunk-driving by sitting in the passenger seat and pulling strings attached to the pedals. They might not have noticed a car swerving a bit from left to right but they sure as heck noticed his chauffeur-less "Driving Miss Daisy" moment.

Why is Xander even here? Why not simply go to Giles for help, huh?

Because Buffy forced his hand, there was no time to call in the cavalry and he needed to keep her safe, that's why. Perched up on the balcony over-looking the dance floor, he watches her gyrate feverishly to the music and reflexively licks his lips.

Her "Showgirls" impersonation and everything that came afterward was apparently all a part of her devious scheme to track down a particular vamp she'd had some trouble with in Moscow. Well, that was putting it mildly. And for devious plan, read insane.

It might sound whacked but this wasn't just some grudge match gone wrong. No, Buffy never actually met the guy she was looking for. But some of the baby Slayers she was supervising did. Three in total.

This vamp seduced them and made them into vamp-crack whores with a drug derived from Orpheus. Strained through a human bloodstream it's one of the most powerful supernatural narcotics on the market. Not as lethal as its big daddy, but still too potent for normal human physiology. And that's where the excess of Slayers in the world moves from being an inconvenience for most vampires to a business opportunity for this particular one.

This drug, called O, is highly addictive to both Slayer and Vampire and keeps the Slayer in a state of near-orgasmic bliss while the vamps drain her. The look in Buffy's eyes when she got round to describing that particular tidbit was all kinds of disturbing.

And as it's so potent, vamps generally fall into a stupor long before finishing the girl off, leaving her as a re-usable resource for her pimp. Buffy's girls had fallen prey to this guy in Moscow. A vamp called Tarik. Last she heard, they all ended up on the demon brothel circuit, touring the local hotspots of Europe as the main attraction to several vampire orgies. And that was bad enough in itself, right?

But the thing is, some vamps don't quite fall into the stupor straight away. Some vamps drink enough to kill the Slayer they're draining.

And Tarik is on the prowl for more flesh for his little business.

That's where Buffy comes in.

She wants to get to Tarik before he can get to another Slayer. The only problem with that plan is that the guy is too cagey to come out into the open that easily. So Buffy's brainwave was to try and force him out of hiding instead. And to do that, she's started to run herself as an O outlet, competing with his girls to catch his attention. She's been chasing him for months now, and finally tracked him to London.

Xander sat beside her as she explained all this in a completely rational voice and he thought he might be sick. How had she come this far? Why had no one seen how bad things were getting for her? For the first time in what felt like forever, he wasn't thinking about his own anger anymore. He was angry on her behalf. Angry that she considered this plan to be a good one and didn't even realize the price she was paying for it.

His feelings were beside the point though.

Giles had to be kept in the loop, he told her. This was more than serious. If Tarik started to branch out, became a supplier instead of a dealer, then they were looking at dozens more Slayers taken and used like this by his minions.

It was time for the avengers to assemble and all that.

Buffy's face closed down again when he said this though. And she shook her head violently. Angrily.

No. NO! She'd come too far and sacrificed too much to get where she was. She was this close to a bust. The vamps last night had told her of a club where Tarik and his cronies liked to hang out. So she was going in tonight for something she genteelly referred to as an "audition". And she was going alone.

His good resolutions to listen to her and be understanding had mostly flown out the window when she said that.

Words had been exchanged. Words such as skank and gimp and slut and dead-weight. Xander now knew that it was possible to have a screaming match even with no voice.

It all boiled down to the fact that she wanted to do things her way and there was no way in hell he was going to let her.

So she clocked him one.

For the second time in a few hours, he'd been slapped unconscious. And when he woke up, he found Buffy gone, a note on one of the packing crates and her leatherette gear missing from where she had dumped it this morning.

*THIS SHOULD ALL BE OVER BY MORNING, XAND* she wrote.

That's what he's afraid of.

Seeing how late it was by then, he'd realized that there was no time to do anything but make his way to the place Tarik was supposed to be tonight and hope he got lucky. Sometimes having no voice really sucked for making phone calls. Press #1 for the police, #2 for the fire department and so on, fine. Which button do you press for the super-powered teeny boppers and their geriatric watchdogs, eh?

How he stealthed his way inside is as close to a miracle as he'll ever experience on this mortal plane, but here he is. And there's Buffy, putting on a show worthy of the Playboy Channel. He shifts uncomfortably as his eyes follow her movements.

::Should have worn looser clothes tonight,:: he thinks while he watches her. ::For stealth purposes, of course... God, she's bendy!::

A big vamp in one corner is watching her. Eyes unwavering, he's looking at Buffy like she's a delicious piece of meat and he hasn't had a bite in years.

::Mental note: watch the imagery when on a stake out with no back up.::

The vamp gestures to one of the guys next to him and whispers in his ear. The guy gets up and makes his way through the crowd to Buffy. This far away, with the music blaring and the press of bodies, it's impossible for Xander to understand what he says, but there's that sick little light in Buffy's eyes again, the one she got when talking about her trips on O. And she nods eagerly and follows the guy back to the corner.

This is getting dangerous. He has to get down there.

Eyes never leaving the corner table as he limps across the balcony, he watches as the big vamp leans forward to kiss Buffy's hand. And as the vamp's men enclose Buffy on all sides. And as the group all gets up to leave through the back door.

::Shit!::

Xander's hurting now, every step is sheer agony, but he pushes himself even faster. Bulls his way through the crowd, his arms at least strong enough to shove most of them away. At the door, he checks his back pocket. One stake and a cross. Against five vamps all bigger than Mike Tyson after a couple of weeks on a Bowflex. How come James Bond got Q while the Watchers made do with a wood-working shop?

::No time for goofing around.::

He slips through the door as quietly as possible, the loud music covering his metallic clunk/thump pace.

And there's Buffy.

In the alley outside, she's lying against a dumpster as the big vamp watches his men feed off her, eyes spun back in her head and shuddering sickly with every gulp of red blood they take from her veins.

***

Her. Mine...

Xander knows that people have a certain image of him now.

Giles and Willow and Dawnie, all they see today is the guy in the tweed jacket with the metallic brace on his leg. If they think about it, they remember the loveable geek they all knew back in Sunnydale. Only Dawnie ever met him as a field Watcher and she's mostly blotted that from her memory because of how it ended.

He's been in the field, on his own, up against bad things before. Spent a few years on the line.

Okay, so most times he lost. But he did limp away to speak about it later, which counts as a win in his book.

Now though, losing is not an option. Those vamps don't look like they're gonna stop sucking Buffy's blood any time soon and she's so far gone, she doesn't look like she even wants them to. Plus, the big guy, who Xander is guessing is Tarik, is watching all this with an air of twisted anticipation that's got Xander's teeth on edge.

So it's pull-a-plan-out-of-his-ass time again.

Something big.

Something daring.

Something, quickly!

How the hell is he supposed to do anything? He's practically dead on his feet, couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag to save his own life let alone Buffy's and is still recovering from two successive dings to the head.

Every second he hesitates though, they take more blood from her. Her shuddering is getting less and less violent and her lips are growing paler by the minute, but the sick joy on her face is still almost blinding.

::Fuck it.::

Strangely enough, it's one of the henchmen who notices Xander first. Looking up from his position by Buffy's neck, his mouth dripping with the red he stole from her body, he tosses a puzzled look at the strange man coming toward them.

"Who's the gimp?"

Tarik's eyes leave Buffy's body as he turns to see for himself.

This is so dumb, it's suicidal. Xander's gonna get himself very, very killed and then Willow's gonna resurrect him just so she can kill him again.

Doesn't matter.

Buffy's in danger, Xander to the rescue.

Or to the comic relief, at least. Maybe he can provide some kind of distraction while she gets a hold of herself?

Tarik cocks his head to one side.

"And who are you?" he asks in heavily accented English.

Quelling all fear ruthlessly before it's even born, a trick he learned to keep Vampires from smelling it on him and thus worry them a little bit, Xander just shrugs. Playing on his un-naturally still face, he just points at the prone form of Buffy that the four goons have temporarily stopped draining and then back to himself.

Her. Mine.

"Huh?"

Again with the pointing.

Her. Mine.

"Are you brain-dead or something?" one of the henchmen asks with a grin spreading across his face.

::Only partially,:: Xander quips wryly.

But the moment of levity passes and he turns to stare at the vamp. Just stare, nothing threatening. It's amazing how uncomfortable his lack of expression makes people and when he empties the feelings from his eyes too, then that's just plain creepy.

Apparently creepy enough to cow a vamp because the big guy shies away.

"You're here for the girl?" Tarik asks slowly.

Xander turns back to him and nods.

"Then you will have to wait until we're done," he sneers. "We're still having a little fun together, aren't we, Darling?" he asks Buffy over his shoulder.

Her eyes are beginning to focus again but she's still too out of things to really understand what's going on. Her Slayer healing is working over-time and her lips are growing pink again though.

Xander pulls out his stake and lets his hand hang loosely, plainly visible by his hip.

One of the goons giggles.

"Oh watch out! The man's got wood!"

Everyone stops to stare incredulously at him, even Xander.

"What?" the druggie vamp asks plaintively.

"You should avoid words when you're flying, man," one of his acolytes informs him gravely.

Xander can't help but nod his agreement. Even Tarik seems to have gone to a scary visual place. It's all good though. Xander has no plan, no idea of what to do next and no hope of surviving anyway. This is all for Buffy. To give her time to come back from... from wherever she is right now. And it is working. Her eyes are clearer now, almost back to full consciousness. Just a few more minutes. Keep them talking.

::That's right, Marcel Marceau, keep 'em talking. Why don't you wow them with your mime-stand up routine. A priest a Rabbi and a Wicca go into a bar... ::

But it's past delay tactics now. One of the goons has bent his head back to Buffy's wrist and is lapping loudly at the wound and Tarik just got rid of the traumatic imagery.

"Walk away, whoever you are," he growls softly.

Xander shrugs again. Points to Buffy, then to his chest.

Her. Mine.

Tarik snarls in irritation.

"You're getting to be very annoying. Now I'm going to have to kill you to feel better again."

Xander's face can't show fear. He's quelling the panic inside him as strongly as he ever has and his body is motionless. There is nothing to give Tarik the slightest indication that the vamp has got to him. And with most of these leather pants-wearing greaseballs, appearance is everything. So if Xander's glad he can't move his face even if he wanted to, it's not because he wants to grimace in fear.

It's because he wants to smile.

He saw the flash of uncertainty in Tarik's eyes, after all.

Of course, the outcome of what's coming is not even a question. Xander will end up as vamp food faster than he can breathe. But for just that split second, he won something.

So he raises his free hand steadily and shoots Tarik the finger.

The vamp growls, leaps forward faster than the eye can follow and all is lost to him.

///

The desert is dark now. Almost silent. The storm broke a long time ago, leaving nothing but a fossil silence in its wake.

Atop the ridge, the young girl looks almost sad. A small form against the deep blue sky, she is alone.

But...

There is a sound. A gristly wet sound. Something familiar and ancient. She frowns. Cocks her head to one side and listens. Thunder rumbles in the distance once more and her eyes open wide. This time it sounds like a Vampire snarling.

///

Xander struggles as much as he can, kicking feebly and punching less so, but he's no match for a vamp one on one. As the teeth tear into his own throat though, through the pain and the loss and his fear, he thinks he can hear someone screaming his name.

That's weird. It sounds like Buffy.

But she's not here, is she?

***

Hospital, part two...

"What happened to your neck?"

*CUT MYSELF SHAVING*

"Xander!"

He rolls his eyes. Susan is great, but how can he possibly tell her the real reason for the mega band-aid on his throat?

::What is she doing here anyway?::

He checks himself, slightly shocked at his annoyance which he knows is completely unfair. So he scribbles a vague reply that is half-true to appease both her and his conscience.

*I GOT MUGGED. A GUY PUT A KNIFE TO MY NECK. I NEEDED A FEW STITCHES AND A BLOOD TRANSFUSION.* he scrawls on the paper napkin he's been using to write his replies.

Wills has gone in search of a proper notepad.

Beside him, Susan's eyes soften in sympathy. It's been a few days since the date from Hell. The one that should have ended with the two of them in bed and which ended instead with a midnight visit to Buffy's place. Not so long at all. It feels like the world has shifted again though. Like everything is just a little bit different. And foreign.

He has to force himself to make conversation with Sue. Not that he doesn't love that she came to see him at the hospital, because he does. But his mind is so full of other concerns right now that he simply doesn't have the energy to discuss anything else.

Eventually, she realizes he's not all there. Obviously, she thinks he's tired out or something because she nods understandingly and drops a kiss on the corner of his mouth, saying she'll come back tomorrow. He's pathetically grateful to see her leave and hates himself for it.

But he has got a lot of things to think about.

For the third time in as many days, he woke up from unconsciousness. Only this time, it was to find everyone there. Giles, Willow and Dawnie and Faith. All of them were clustered around the bed, looking very worried.

Their faces brightened up when they saw him, Willow jumping up to grab his hand and give it a squeeze.

"Xander! You're awake!"

Blinking to clear the fuzziness from his eyes, he remembers thinking that she's starting to make a habit of that. Next time he opens his eyes in a hospital, he might not know he's woken up unless Willow tells him about it.

"Xander!" Dawnie was on his other side and leaned down to give him a hug.

Both Faith and Giles were standing at the bottom of the bed, both relieved and both smiling.

"It's good to have you back, Xander," Giles said warmly.

And so, instead of an awful reminder of the last time he came to in hospital, this time was much like a homecoming. But still, it was familiar too. Because, hey! No Buffy.

After Susan's gone, Willow comes back with a notepad.

"Here you go," she says cheerfully.

He thanks her with a smile-wave and starts scribbling.

*WHERE'S BUFFY?*

Xander hasn't asked before because, strangely enough for a man who has to write his questions down, he couldn't get a word in edgewise.

Over the years, he's seen Willow's face go most of the colors in the rainbow to mirror her emotions, from pale white to flame red to the veiny darkness he never wants to see again. He does though. He sees all of that and more pass through her expression as she reads what he's written.

"Buffy's okay, Xand," she tells him.

He waves the paper again.

*WHERE'S BUFFY?*

Her fury fades slightly and her eyes soften.

"She told us that you came to help her, Xand."

He nods.

"She beat the Vampires and called us with one of their cell phones."

::Vamps have cell phones? Good to know. Could save the mediums of the world a lot of trouble calling the dead. Wonder if the phone companies have got the guts to slam THEM with overages.::

*WHERE'S BUFFY?*

Willow sighs.

"She's not doing so good, Xand. I... We didn't take it too well when we found out what was going on. Kinda badly in fact. There was screaming and hitting and kicking involved, Giles told me. I can't remember any of that, though. Buffy was... is a bit shook up."

*YOU DECKED A SLAYER?*

Willow snorts.

"I wish," her grin fades slightly as she hears her words. "That didn't come out right. No, Buffy was still standing when I'd finished yelling. And luckily I somehow didn't go all cursey either. Buffy stayed with you the whole time until we all got back here. She wouldn't leave, even fought us off if we tried to make her. So she waited with us until the doctors said you'd make it and then she..."

Stopping and starting in the middle of a sentence is a cruel thing to do at the best of times. It's worse when the person you're doing it to can't show his frustration, in Xander's opinion. And when he can't say anything to urge the speaker to continue. He settles for waving the first page at her again.

Called back from wherever her thoughts have taken her, Willow sobers.

"She kinda collapsed, Xand. Like badly. She's in a room here."

It doesn't take him much time at all to scribble down his next message.

*TAKE ME TO HER.*

***

Bedside manner...

She looks so peaceful when she's asleep.

Sitting beside her, Xander can't help but be struck by the difference.

Awake, Buffy is a tormented force of nature. Violent, self-destructive, tortured and darkly attractive. But like this... She's so tiny. Her face lights up almost as the anger leaves her. She's calm, at peace and so truly beautiful.

No, this is not sixteen year old Skater boy having an attack of the hormones, thank you very much! This is the man who thought he was her friend and who surprisingly enough wants to become that once more, hurting for someone he cares about.

She collapsed alright. There are bruises on her face, maybe where Willow thumped her, and there are also wounds all over her body. The Slayer healing has repaired most of the damage done by Tarik's goons though. She's fixed now. Whole.

A re-usable resource.

God, he hates this. Hates that she did this to herself. But he no longer hates her. Can't find it in him what with Buffy still in pain.

The image of her last night, all but willingly giving in at the end. Her great plan to get to Tarik, all for nothing as she could no longer control the impulse to give herself over to the drug. The dancing, the lewd behavior, the strange things leeching her body. The sex too, for he can't imagine she went through the demon brothels of Europe without having to blend in.

Does it make him petty if that last thought is the one that gets him really angry?

He sits beside her, lost in thought, and almost doesn't notice when her eyes flutter open.

"... Xander?" she asks in confusion.

He nods.

"You're... What am I doing here?" Alarmed, she tries to sit up.

Little Buffy and her fear of hospitals.

He reaches out and grabs her shoulder as gently as possible. Holds her still. Eases her back into the pillows.

"Let me go!" she says, struggling against him.

That she can't throw him off speaks of how weak she is. Or of how much she doesn't really want him to let go. He hopes it's the second choice.

He shakes his head in response, reaching with his other hand to cup her cheek.

Startled, she stops fighting instantly. Eyes wide as she turns to look at him.

When he's sure he has her attention, he lets go and reaches for his notepad.

*YOU GOT PRETTY BEAT UP LAST NIGHT, BUFF.*

She snorts.

"Yeah. Most of that was Willow's fault."

He looks at her. Cocks his impassive head to one side. Eventually she starts to get uncomfortable.

"Don't, Xander."

::The looking is still happening, Buff.::

"Don't!"

::What's the matter?::

She takes a shuddering breath. Tries to look away but keeps coming back to him.

"I'm sorry, Xand."

::You seem to be saying that a lot recently, Buff,:: he thinks wryly.

"I seem to be saying that a lot recently, don't I?"

He blinks. Nods.

"It's just... You shouldn't have followed me, Xand. You should have stayed back. I would have been fine."

A lot of thought goes into his scribbled reply.

*ON WHAT PLANET?*

She glares.

"I would have!"

*YOU WERE LOST, BUFF. YOU KNOW THAT. AND WHAT PISSES YOU OFF IS THAT I KNOW IT TOO.*

Buffy scoffs at this. Shakes her head in disbelief. But doesn't close down.

"I was fine, Xander."

*YOU WERE WILLING VAMP FOOD, BUFF. AND YOU STILL COULD BE.*

She bristles.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?!"

He shrugs. Reaches out to brush his finger tips over her arm softly before writing.

*TARIK IS DEAD, BUFF. IT'S OVER. SO YOU'RE GONNA STOP USING NOW, RIGHT?*

She hesitates. Looks down at her hand gripping the sheet.

Another piece of paper slides under her nose.

*YOU HAVE A PROBLEM, BUFF. AND I'M NOT GONNA LET YOU HURT YOURSELF ANYMORE.*

She looks up, raising an eyebrow archly.

"Oh? You're not going to let me, huh? Think you could stop me if I wanted to?"

Xander pauses to consider what he can reply to that. Scribbles a bit.

*AND WHAT DO YOU WANT, BUFF?*

Now it's her turn to blink. And look honestly blank. She's obviously never thought about the answer to that.

"When I saw Tarik go down on you..."

His hacking cough forces her to think about what she just said and she rolls her eyes.

"Bear down on you then. When he was going for your throat, I could almost feel it myself. Almost. The fear and the pain and the hopelessness. That's how I've been living for... since... that's how I live. And I just want that to stop."

Writing furiously, Xander raises a finger to tell her to wait. Scribbles something else. Stops to look at what he's written. Writes some more. Moments become minutes as he scribbles away. Finally he looks at the finished product. Shakes his head, tears the page out and throws it away. Starts again.

*OK.*

Buffy muffles a laugh that sounds like a sob.

"Okay? All that writing, just for an 'okay'? And not even the syllables, just the letters."

He wants to grin.

*YOU WANT THE PAIN TO GO AWAY? THE FEAR? YOU WANT NOT TO FEEL HOPELESS ANYMORE? OKAY. I GET THAT.*

"You do?" she asks dumbly.

::Well, duh!::

"Hey! Go easy on the sick girl!" she retorts.

He has the weird feeling she's reading his mind but pushes that aside as it's not possible and writes some more.

*I'LL MAKE YOU A DEAL, BUFF.*

"A deal?" Suspicious, her eyes narrow. "What kind of deal?"

*YOU QUIT USING.*

"... yes, and?"

*AND WHAT?*

"You said you were making a deal. What do I get out of it?" she asks facetiously.

*MY FRIENDSHIP.*

That brings her up short. Friends. She's been back a while now and avoided all of them pretty thoroughly. Apparently indifferent to Willow's resentment or Giles' bemusement. Not even trying to call Dawnie. She has spent a lot of time at the library with him though. It doesn't make him special, of course. She was only there to watch him because of his injuries, not because there's any kind of deeper connection.

But he was her first, back in Sunnydale. Oh, Angel got to be her first love and Spike her first dark passion but Xander's her first and longest friend. Always has been.

And he can admit to himself now that he always will be, no matter what.

The bitterness over her abandoning him is still there, of course. The anger. But it lacks the same white-hot edge that it had just a few days ago. The mind-numbing rage.

If he tried, he could most probably recapture that. He knows it and so does she. And he's offering to never try again. To let it go.

She's trying to say something, but the words just don't come out. She blinks, coughs and turns away. Starts talking to her pillow because she can't bring herself to look at him.

"I thought I was going to scream when I saw you get taken," she says, her voice a low growl. "I was still half out of things and I saw Tarik jump and then I saw blood on your neck. And it was like my mind just cleared up, you know. The world came back into focus. I don't remember how I killed them all, just that I did. Giles says I called him, but I don't remember that either. I remember Wills..." she reached up to touch a fading bruise under one eye. "I remember Will's face. And the look in Giles' eyes. I even saw Dawnie, did you know? She flew in yesterday for a Council thing and came down with the others. It was like I was the outsider now. The bad guy. And the worst thing? I really am, aren't I?"

Annoyed with his own weakness, he can't help but reach out instinctively and grab her hand. Or stop himself entwining his fingers with hers.

She looks down, a small smile on her lips.

"Friends?"

He nods twice.

"Okay then."

***

Chapter the Sixth - Comeback

Recovery...

Buffy's glaring at him but he shrugs it off.

She's more than pissed, but there is no way in hell he's letting her out of this.

The two of them are sitting in the back row of a support group he tracked down for recovering drug addicts.

Talk about flaming rows! She actually set fire to his notepad. Although that was probably an accident, if he's fair. Telling her about this while she was reheating Chinese food in the kitchen wasn't the best of ideas.

Still, however she felt about coming, she is here now. Pissed and angry and worse, scowling at him with every second glance, but she's here and that's all that counts.

::She really didn't know what the heck she was letting herself in for, did she?:: he thinks smugly, remembering their deal.

Buffy's an honest woman, most of the time. Quite straight-forward with people when she's dealing with them. Well, straight-forward like a sledgehammer when it suits her to be, at least.

She probably meant it when she promised him that she would stop using the Orpheus derivative.

Probably.

That didn't mean he was going to let it go at that though.

And she was quite shocked when he came home with her after the hospital, walked right over to the duffel bag she kept in one corner, threw it over his shoulder and marched out again, leaving her to trail behind in confusion.

Even more shocked when he hailed another cab and had the driver take them to his place.

She is now his flat-mate, living in the spare bedroom and doing the cooking and cleaning to pay her rent, much to her annoyance.

Xander wisely decided not to tell her that it was him making the bigger sacrifice by sitting down to eat her food every night. After six cases of minor food poisoning, he thinks his stomach has developed a tolerance for her cooking by now.

They mostly have take out since she set fire to the kettle anyway.

Moving into his place was in itself a big step for her. One she was really happy about, although she'd rather have her nails pulled out than admit it. He didn't stop there though. He pestered her all the time. Talked with her. Joked around and spent time with her. Anything to keep her mind off her problem.

And despite all this, despite her good resolutions, it was more than hard for both of them.

While he was in Africa, he'd seen a few drug addicts in the larger cities. They tended to congregate in the shadowy places where the vamps spent the day. He'd seen them, sprawled out on the ground, their eyes vacant as they flew through whatever hallucinatory landscape their latest fix had taken them to. A lot like those vamps in the crack house place he'd trailed Buffy to on that first night.

He also came into contact, from a distance, with withdrawal. People craving their next dose and all but willing to cut out their own innards and hand them to you if you'd give them what they wanted. Willing to cut out other people's guts too, in fact. For money, or jewelry or shoes or... For anything. Anything that they could use to get the money for the drugs.

Now imagine a Slayer getting like that.

Buffy was driving herself up the wall with need for her fix. Clawing at her arms subconsciously. Talking crazy, sweating and feverish. She tried to wheedle her way out of the apartment a few times, ostensibly to go on patrol, but he knew the real reason. She tried to plead her case, but he ignored her.

Not once did she get violent with him though.

Oh, she threw a few memorable fits, broke quite a bit of furniture and insulted him and his ancestors back several generations, but she never laid a finger on him. And he sat with her and held her hand as she shook and bit down on the gnawing pain and on her need and she squeezed his hand gently in response.

A month was spent like this. More than a month. A month during which the others were completely shocked by his apparent change of heart. None of them knew about the drug problem. Buffy didn't want him to tell them and he didn't want them to see her like this anyway. Instead, he told them that Buffy was so distraught by what happened with the vamps behind that club that she had apologized for everything and that he had missed hanging out with her so much they were simply catching up.

He took days off from work, he missed classes and told Susan over coffee that he was helping a friend with a problem and wouldn't be around for a while. All to stay with Buffy while she was sick.

And then one morning when he got up, she was in the kitchen burning breakfast to surprise him, humming cheerfully to herself. He was surprised alright. She was cooking cornflakes. But hey! At least she was feeling perky again.

She wasn't cured.

There was no miracle cure to such a problem as it fed into a need that would never really go away.

But she was better. Saner. Felt cleaner, as she put it.

So he'd gone back to work and caught up with his classes and talked to Sue and apologized and life was now back on track. But he wasn't moving away again. Not pulling away. He was still here for Buffy and he knew she still had to fight the impulse to... Whatever the impulse was that had driven her to the drugs in the first place.

That's where his idea for the support group came in.

Buffy's angry because she hates to let people see her hurting. He's the only one she'll let in when she's like that and even then, only reluctantly. Now here they are, with about forty other people, sitting in uncomfortable plastic chairs and listening to strangers relate their own problems with addiction. Their very presence is a recognition of the fact she has a problem and she really doesn't like that.

He knows he can't expect her to do the "Hello, my name is Buffy and I am a drug addict" thing. That's not the point. He just wants her to get some perspective and to understand that she's not alone.

That's always been a major problem for Buffy. She always felt she was alone even back in Sunnydale. And maybe, sometimes, she was.

It's hard for him to admit as someone who prided himself on being the only one to never run away but Buffy did have some pretty terrible things to face alone back then.

And she's faced as much alone since then too. But what she never really understood was that all she had to do was let someone in, let the gang in, and everything would have been so much easier for her. She pushed them all away to protect them and in the process hurt herself every time.

He reaches out to grab her hand and she startles beside him.

Looks down and almost smiles.

Then she leans in to bump his shoulder companionably and together, they turn back to listen as another person begins to speak.

***

Friends, past and present...

*BE NICE, WILLS* Xander cautions his best friend for the hundredth time.

She growls at him.

"I just don't see how either of you can be so forgive-and-forgetful after what she did to us," she says, scowling into her herbal tea.

He sighs.

How to explain?

*BUFFY SCREWED UP. I'M STILL PISSED ABOUT THAT. BUT SHE'S OUR FRIEND.*

"Was!" Willow corrects him, outraged. "She was our friend. And then she ran away to be Miss Avoidey and left us to..." she peters off sadly. "She didn't come, Xand. I called her myself on the emergency Council line and all I got was the answer machine. Then Dawnie tried and she got the same. I even tried magic and nothing. It was three days before Giles heard from her. Three days! And she didn't even apologize! How can you ignore that?"

It does piss him off, even now. More than that. He'd be lying if he says that the memory of those months in the hospital doesn't still burn inside him to this day. And he will confront Buffy about that soon enough.

When he can be rational about it and not jump down her throat.

Yes, call him a chicken if you want but he's not going to cheapen it by using his pain as a weapon. Why should he? She already feels guilty for avoiding him these last few years, he knows that much. Guilty for avoiding all of them, in fact.

He only really still blames her for the hospital and the weeks and months that followed that. The time while he was still finding his feet, almost literally, and when he could have done with her being there for him. The weeks when he'd wanted to die and he needed her there as much as the others.

That was only a part of the time she'd been gone, though. She stayed away long after he settled in. Stayed away and didn't even know he was out of the hospital in fact. As far as she was concerned, he had still been in his sickbed when she turned up at RWC headquarters. Were it not for the fact that her life alone had been so uber-sucky, in both the vampire and the normal sense of the term, he would probably have strangled her when she talked about that.

She's sorry. She told him so and he believes her, for what good it does him.

Buffy claims that she ran away because she didn't want to see him that way, mostly dead in a sterile white room. It's a piss-poor excuse and probably only the slightest fraction of her reasons but he managed to let it go with an effort. To let it go for now.

She's still recovering, she's here now and she is trying to be a friend again.

For now, he'll leave the past in the past.

Suddenly, he feels the urge to smile as the memory of Buffy getting up to speak to the support group flashes across his mind. She did it. After six meetings, she surprised both him and herself by walking up to the dais and talking for half an hour.

That was a couple of weeks ago now and things are getting better for her. She's a lot calmer and hopefully happier with herself than she has been in a long time and the effect is visible. Gone is the Mistress of Pain, although she likes most of her new piercings too much to give those up. She wears simple tanks and jeans now and the Slayer healing has got rid of the tracks on her arm. She's less anxious, less drawn-out and much healthier. She's slowly becoming someone he recognizes again and that's both a painful and a good thing.

Things are still more than rocky with the rest of the gang though.

Well, most of them.

Faith was in town for her meeting with Giles last Wednesday and Buffy was hanging out in the library as per usual. When Faith dropped by to catch up with him, she reluctantly got to talking with Buffy.

And much to her surprise, Buffy asked her if she'd like to go out for a beer.

Since then, Faith's done a 175 degree turn on her attitude toward the elder Slayer. Not quite back to good but then things between them have always been tense. He wonders if maybe Buffy told her about some of the stuff she's still too nervous to tell the others. Hopes she did. Faith would be a good person to talk to about all that.

Whatever the reasons behind it, it's Faith's change of heart that's got Willow riled as she sits with him in the Council cafeteria. The united anti-Buffy front is crumbling on all sides and it's got her confused.

He tries to explain. Bites his pen and takes time to organize his thoughts before writing.

*NOTHING IS EVER GOING TO MAKE WHAT SHE DID RIGHT, WILLS.*

She nods, gesturing at him to agree with what he just wrote.

"Exactly. So why let her get away with it?"

*I REMEMBER WHEN YOU WANTED TO USE FAITH'S GUTS IN ONE OF YOUR POTIONS ONE TIME.* he retorts, glad that she can't read the sneaky expression his mind is wearing right now.

Willow blushes.

"It said the mixture needed harpy gizzards to work!" she protests half-heartedly.

He waves a grin.

*DIDN'T I SEE YOU AND FAITH GOING OUT TO CATCH A MOVIE, LAST TIME SHE WAS IN TOWN?*

Willow fidgets.

"So what?"

*NOTHING. PEOPLE CHANGE, THAT'S ALL.*

Willow's face hardens again.

"Buffy turned her back on us, Xander!"

He shrugs and scribbles something.

*AND NOW SHE'S BACK. AND SHE'S TRYING TO MAKE AMENDS FOR SCREWING UP.*

Willow scowls, visibly unsatisfied.

"She's got a lot to make amends for, Xand. Too much. She ran away, ignored us when we tried to call her and..."

But Xander starts throwing his reply down into the notepad before she's even finished.

*REMEMBER THAT TIME WE ALL WATCHED BOLLYWOOD FLICKS TOGETHER? OR THE TIME WE HUNG OUT WITH HER AND RILEY AT THE BEACH? OR ANY OF THOSE NIGHTS WHEN WE WERE ALL RESEARCHING STUFF AND MAKING GILES GO NUTS GOOFING AROUND?*

Willow can't help it, her mouth twitches at the memories.

"That was years ago, Xand," she says softly. Sadly. "We've all grown up since then."

*THAT WAS THE SAME GIRL, WILLS.*

She frowns. It's hard to think about it in those terms. When someone does something terrible to you, you see only that. Willow's always been one for long-held grudges, which is kinda funny given that she's also the most forgiving of the bunch if you know her well. She's been thinking no further back than the hospital, he can tell. Focusing on Buffy and her miraculous disappearing act and forgetting the seven years that came before it, both bad and sometimes very good.

But when you stop to think about the rest, about everything that was still between all of them literally the day before the shooting, Buffy's attitude makes no sense.

*JUST TALK TO HER, WILLS. NOT YELL. TALK. THE GIRL WE GREW UP WITH IS STILL IN THERE SOMEWHERE AND SHE EARNED THAT MUCH. IT'S UP TO YOU TO DECIDE IF YOU LIKE WHO SHE IS NOW OR NOT* he writes finally, tearing out the page from the notepad and leaving it on the table.

Then he gets up and leaves Willow to her thoughts.

It's unfair of him to ask her to do it, he knows, but the anger is eating Willow up. She needs some kind of closure to feel better. And Buffy could do with some Willow-time, good or bad. He's hoping that by getting the two of them into the same room together, something might give and if not snap them back to instant friends, then at least soften Willow's bitterness enough for it not to hurt her so much anymore.

She's still staring thoughtfully into space as he pushes the cafeteria door.

***

Of teasing and tattoos...

When did having female roommates ever seem like a good idea?

As he staggers backwards with his hand over his eyes, Xander can't quite remember. He just walked in on Dawnie in the shower, much to Buffy's apparent hilarity.

He shoots her a glare that makes her laugh all the harder.

She's been doing that a lot lately.

Laughing.

It suits her.

She's on her way out to pick up some breakfast for them, but the sight of his embarrassment is apparently too good to miss.

Dawnie's in his shower because she came to stay for a few days. And she came to stay for a few days because she and Buffy are officially reconciled.

That was a lot less difficult than getting Willow to accept Buffy's return, no question. Because sure Buffy had hurt all of them by running away like she did, but even before the shooting, the two sisters weren't talking to each other anymore.

It says something about how scared Dawn was that she tried to call Buffy at all.

Buffy had hated that Dawn chose to work for the Council. Hated that Dawn turned her back on the normal life she could have had instead. Dawn on the other hand couldn't stand that her sister was trying to micro-manage every aspect of her existence, right down to who she could date or not, and this well after the youngest Summers had enrolled in University. And so there was a row before Dawn officially signed up as a Watcher.

Well, row was one word for it.

Xander was in Burkina Faso at the time and he'd heard the echoes from there.

Rabid cat-fight might be a better term. Bitter, scary, hair-pulling screamfest of doom could work too.

But however you look at it, the net result was almost two years of complete radio silence long before someone used him for target practice.

Then Buffy disappeared. And Dawnie was all alone, blaming herself for what happened to Xander with no one to turn to for advice.

That was rough. He only found out about that later when he sat down to talk with her. From what she said, he got the feeling that Dawn had been lost and scared and very guilty and she might have needed Buffy to be there for her at the time.

But Buffy wasn't there.

And she didn't want her there anyway, of course she didn't, Dawn clarified, contradicting herself effortlessly. She was still too pissed with her pig-headed dictator of a sister to waste time thinking about her. Sure she was.

Dawn told him all this several times. Repeatedly. And she never quite managed to believe it herself so his own vague disbelief was perhaps understandable.

Anyway, when she flew in for a briefing with Perrin about those scrolls he and Xander were still wrestling with, Xander invited her out to a bar near the University for lunch and over a pint and a soggy sandwich, they talked. As it got late and she hadn't had time to make sleeping arrangements yet, he offered her his couch, conveniently forgetting to tell her that Buffy was living with him at the moment.

Yes, that was his evil sneaky plan, he'll admit it. Still, this was less a problem with Buffy's running away and more a problem about two strong-willed women who loved each other very much but had no idea how to relate to one another, wasn't it? Family business. It had to be less serious than some of the stuff Wills was keeping in reserve.

Easy, right?

Oh give him a break! He was drunk as a skunk when he came up with that particular brainwave. People should not be blamed for any mad ideas they come up with while under the influence.

So it turned out that his great plan was in fact not such a good idea. Oh boy was that the understatement of the year. After about three to four hours of yelling, screaming and insults during which what little remained of his original furniture was smashed to bits, the sisters eventually got tired and settled down enough to talk a few things through.

Not about Tarik.

Dawnie is probably the only person Buffy could never talk to about that. But she still told her about some of the darker things in her life while she was gone. Dawn's anger faded then. And they were off for another couple of hours of tearful catching up with mucho handkerchiefs and ice-cream.

Now somehow, Xander's apartment has become Dawn's second home whenever she's in town. And thank God that's only a few nights per year, because he's not sure his heart could stand the strain otherwise.

"Sorry, Xand! Forgot to lock the door!" Dawnie yells from the bathroom.

::Again!:: he thinks angrily.

This is not good. All in all, he's seen too much of the Summers women for his own comfort.

Dawn in his shower.

Buffy in the kitchen in a t-shirt and panties, rooting through the bottom drawer of the fridge.

She has a tattoo now, by the way. In what looks like a very painful place.

Part of him can't help but think of that tattoo and he shudders.

"Pervert," Buffy says behind him, causing him to spin around, eyes wide.

She's smirking at him all too knowledgeably.

::Oh my god, she CAN read my mind!:: comes the terrified thought, the subject in question still unclear to him before now.

Images of the tattoo flit across his mind all the faster for his attempts to get rid of them.

He is going to die.

"Trying to sneak a peek at my baby sister like that, really Xander!" She shakes her head mock-sadly. "I know you're a bit... tense at the moment, but cheap thrills like that...."

Her sister! Oh, that's alright. Buffy only thinks he's lusting after her baby sister.... Wait a minute... His wave of relief turns to amused annoyance. Fingers itching to wrap themselves around her neck, he reaches for his pen instead.

*TENSE?* he asks, knowing full well what Buffy's referring to.

"How long is Susan going to be in France, again? With that guy... what's his name?"

*HIS NAME IS JEAN-PAUL AND HE'S ONLY HER PEN PAL.*

Buffy leans in closer and he takes an involuntary breath of her fragrance.

"Pen pal, huh?" she asks, glancing significantly down to the pen in his own hand. "I thought she already had one of those."

The words could have been biting or hurtful, but she delivers the line with an honest grin and a laughing spark in her eye and her tone tells him how much she's only kidding.

It's her way of trying to relate to him now. The bad jokes. She doesn't want him to think she pities him, can't even abide the thought. So in her usual not-at-all subtle way, she's trying to put him at his ease. At first, it was uncomfortable, then merely annoying, but now he knows it's just Buffy being her normal clumsy self and that there is absolutely no bite behind her words, he can pretty much zing her back without any problems.

*MY PEN IS WAY BIGGER THAN HIS, BUFF* he scribbles, trying to waggle his eyebrows.

She rolls her eyes.

"I'm not even gonna ask you how you know that," she informs him, stepping back.

He refrains from giving any sign that he's happy to have won the latest bout in their jousting. Which is a good thing as she delivers her parting shot on the way out the door.

"You know... It's not the pen that counts, Xan," she tosses over her shoulder with a wink. "It's the person holding it."

He watches her go, mouth hanging open in shock.

::Agh!::

One Summers girl naked in his shower, another naked in his thou... Messing with his thoughts! Messing with his thoughts. There are no naked thoughts, nuh uh. None. He was not thinking about naked Buff... Hmmm...

Eyes wide with panic, he all but runs to the kitchen to pour himself a nice cold drink of water.

***

Car pooling...

From the safety of post-world save-age euphoria, Xander reflects that the hardest part of stopping an Apocalypse is the party afterward.

That's not true, of course. It's just comforting bravado. But it helps.

Six hours.

Six hours waiting for the gang to come back and tell him if they stopped the end of the world or not.

But he's okay about that part. About being left behind. He's a hindrance more than a help most days and knows as much.

His foul mood while he waited didn't really come from that. And it sounded weird to say that it wasn't the possibility of the world ending that scared him either. Or rather it was, but only the chance that his world might end. If one of the guys got hurt and he wasn't there to...

He's a big dummy.

Giles is nearing retirement but he could still kick the ass of any ten action heroes in Hollywood and their stunt doubles. And Willow's got her mad witchy skilz and can take a legion of bad guys with her pinky finger.

A legion is what they were up against though. That biblical one that was reputed to be another name for the Beast, as it were.

Legion. The demons in question had no other name, nothing pronounceable anyway, but the description was fitting. Several thousand of them were pouring out of a dimensional rift near Stonehenge. Why all the whack jobs of the world choose Stonehenge as their vacation spot is a question for another time. These demons were slowly crawling out of the rift and people were starting to die.

So Giles raised the Slayer signal and with Willow and Buffy and a half a dozen others went haring down there as fast as Willow's magic and the beaten up Volkswagen minivans could take them.

It was the first time that Buffy had been out on a mission since her return, the badness with Tarik notwithstanding.

Sitting in the Library waiting for news, he was worried for all his friends of course. But with the others, it was only the threat of death to deal with and they'd pissed off the afterlife so much by now that the Scoobs would most probably be kicked back into the mortal world just to avoid the hassle. Last he heard, the ancient Egyptian god of the underworld still has a restraining order out against Willow.

With Buffy, he was scared that even if she did come back, she'd be all closed up inside again.

Then the guys did return.

Sweaty, dirty and half-dead from exhaustion.

So of course there was a party. Booze aplenty, magically produced music and nervous chatter to relieve the pent-up nerves. Xander couldn't eat or drink, too busy checking the others for injuries as discreetly as possible.

Giles looked like he'd been dragged through several bushes backwards at high speed but was otherwise unharmed. Willow had a big bump on her forehead that he fussed over for a while until she had enough, rolled her eyes good-naturedly and magicked it away. Buffy had a big gash across her forehead and a few purple bruises around her neck and knuckles, but nothing else.

Her eyes were a bit lost though, he did notice that. And that's what has him still worried hours later, as he ferries the gang home in his car.

Willow was half-drunk, half-hyper about all that happened and it was an effort to corral her into the car, strap her in and deposit her back at her place. He'd even insisted on walking her inside, waiting for her to clean up a bit and then tucking her into bed against her incoherent protests.

She's safe now.

Giles is in the passenger seat beside him, giving directions to get to his place from wherever Xander's managed to get them lost and Buffy's napping, sprawled out like a cat across the back seat.

"Is there something I should know about Buffy?" Giles asks him suddenly, voice pitched low so as not to wake her up.

Xander goes cold. Turns to look at Giles and quirks his head to one side briefly.

The old Brit is too tired to remember how redundant that question is right now. Xander's got his hands full driving and his notepad is in the pocket of his coat which Buffy is using as a pillow. But that doesn't register with Giles, his eyes are fixed on some private memory.

"She seemed... lost tonight," he decides eventually, finding the word he was looking for.

::Oh?::

It feels like someone just poured molten lead into the pit of Xander's stomach. He waves for Giles to go on.

Blinking, Giles takes the time to think about it.

"Yes. She was nearly killed at one point, a rather impressive demon got the better of her, in fact. But when the other demons nearly submerged the rest of us, she appeared to lose control. It was... mindless. She killed the demon attacking her and went after the others mechanically. She wouldn't stop for anyone, simply attacked the creatures with her bare fists and teeth. We wouldn't have won without her, that much is true. But it was... out of character?"

That last part is not a statement.

They drive in silence for a while. Partly because Xander still can't talk and partly because he wouldn't be if he could. Eventually, he jerks a thumb over his shoulder.

::Ask her about it.::

Giles isn't normally very good at reading Xander's improvised sign language, but this time it's pretty clear. He nods and they ride the rest of the way to his place without another word said on the matter.

"Well, good night, Xander," Giles smiles at him as he gets out. "Thank you for the lift."

::No problem,:: Xander waves with false cheer.

And then he's alone with Buffy. The drive home seems to draw out for hours.

"I was okay, Xan," Buffy's voice informs him as they pull up outside the apartment.

He doesn't jump, doesn't even feel surprised she's awake. With her Slayer-hearing, she probably woke up to listen to Giles' one-sided conversation. Why she hasn't moved or said anything since then is another question.

Calmly, he gets out and moves around to her door. She's hauling herself out, staggering slightly. The dried blood on her forehead looks all the worse in the dim light of the street, a shock set against the pale skin of her face. The bruises on her neck have moved from purple hints to fully visible black monsters and her gaze is a bit unfocused.

Without thinking about it, he picks her up.

Eyes wide open now, she's a bit shocked to find herself against him.

"Xander!"

He ignores her protests, kicks the car door closed and carries her inside.

She watches him as they go. Reaches up to touch his face.

"I'm fine now, Xand."

He nods.

::Now you are.::

"I..." she tries to say something but yawns hugely instead.

He shoulders open the front door.

"Thanks, Xand," she breathes gratefully as he carries her over the threshold.

***

Chapter the Seventh - Building bridges

Being reasonable in Buffyworld...

*YOU CAN DO THIS, BUFFY.*

"How do you know I can?" she asks belligerently. "And why should I? It's none of his business!"

She's pacing up and down in the Library in front of Xander, sitting on the table to rest his legs. It's been a few days since the world was saved and Giles has been asking questions. Buffy came in with Xander today to help him with a new arrival of books and talk about what to do.

*HE'S WORRIED ABOUT YOU.*

She sighs.

"I know. And I don't want to... But it's over now, Xand. It's done. There's nothing more to say about what happened. So why dump that on Giles? What good could it do?"

He scribbles industriously.

*YOU SHOULD TELL HIM. HE SHOULD HEAR ABOUT IT. IT'LL BE GOOD FOR BOTH OF YOU.*

She stops to read his reply and scowls. Starts pacing again.

"And what do I say to him, Xan?" she asks. "'Oh by the way, I was a vamp-whore for a while. Got hooked on supernatural smack and nearly got Xander killed.' Hyeah, that's a good idea."

He growls in annoyance.

*GILES KNOWS THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG. AND HE'LL KEEP ON ASKING ABOUT IT UNTIL YOU TELL HIM. YOU HAVE TO TELL HIM SOMETIME. AND I HAD THAT VAMP RIGHT WHERE I WANTED HIM.*

She rolls her eyes.

"Oh, sure you did. You were about to end him with your lethal throat-to-fang style of unarmed combat."

He waves a grin and scrawls a quick reply.

*DARN STRAIGHT. THE CHOLESTEROL OVERDOSE WOULD'VE KILLED HIM BEFORE HE TOOK THREE SIPS.*

Buffy snorts before frowning again.

"Why should I tell Giles anything?"

This is something Xander's been thinking a lot about.

*BECAUSE OTHERWISE HE COULD FIND OUT FOR HIMSELF AND THAT WOULD HURT HIM EVEN MORE.*

She blinks.

"Find out? How? You'd tell him...?"

::Of course not!:: He's oddly hurt by her doubting him like that.

She has the grace to look embarrassed.

"Sorry, that was low. But how could he find out? I don't tell him, he never knows and he doesn't get hurt."

This appears to be the height of logic in Buffyworld. He almost feels sorry to disillusion her.

*HE'S THE HEAD OF THE COUNCIL, BUFF. AND VAMPS TALK. NEWS WILL GET AROUND SOON ENOUGH.*

Buffy pales. Stops dead to think about the implications.

"People are talking?!" she squeaks.

He rolls his eyes.

*NOT YET. MAYBE NOT EVER. BUT YOU WEREN'T EXACTLY TRYING TO FLY UNDER THE RADAR, WERE YOU?*

This is evidently something she never stopped to consider.

On her own for so long, Buffy's lone wolf streak grew to freakish proportions but she still cares about what the others think of her. Her indifferent mask is just that, a mask, and Willow's barely lessening bitterness toward her is starting to hurt. Giles is another story. Buffy wants to have him back again. Wants to have her Giles to turn to when she needs advice.

Not that she's had enough of Xander.

They spend a lot of time together, just hanging out. When he's not in class or with Susan or too wrapped up in work, he's with her. And things are starting to feel good between them again. Days at a time can go by without him thinking about her disappearing act anymore. It's almost like it's that final summer in Sunnydale all over again, the last time he ever really got to hang out with his best friend.

The problem is just that Buffy's going stir-crazy and needs more people around her. She always was a social person. Well, she thinks of herself as a social person. After meeting her for the first time, others tend to think of her as vaguely deranged, but she's mostly too upbeat to let that get her down.

The thing is that she just hasn't got much to fill her days at the moment. Still recovering from the badness, still a bit too raw for normal Slaying duties. Every month when Faith flies in for her meeting with Giles, they go out together and the two of them have some fun in the clubs. He'd be worried about that if Faith wasn't the good girl of the duo.

Still, monthly partying with Faith and hanging with him just aren't enough. Buffy wants a Giles again. Xander can tell by the clumsy way she talks with the old Brit. Almost shy.

And Giles doesn't push her away, which is good. He's mostly too conflicted to know what to do one way or the other, angry at her for leaving but glad she's now back, and the mixed signals are getting on her nerves. Nerves that she then takes out on Xander and he's had enough.

So it's time for the Slayer and her Watcher to have a little heart to heart and there is no way she's going to get out of it. Last night, Buffy's bitching on the subject made him miss the only episode of Babylon 5 he never got to see the first time around and there will be consequences, dammit! If he has to, he'll even resort to reasoning with her.

"It just hurts to think of...." she looks very small all of a sudden. "Him knowing about..." she waves her hand suggestively. "Seeing that in his eyes whenever he looks at me. It's just too hard, Xan."

He pulls himself off the table painfully, careful not to gouge the wood with the leg brace, and grabs her shoulder to stop her from making him dizzy with her pacing.

He wants to tell her that he knows and he doesn't think any less of her. Wants to tell her she's becoming the girl who was one of his closest friends again day by day. Wants to tell her that she needs to tell Giles for herself to finally put everything behind her. Instead, he just stares down at her.

Her eyes search his for a long moment and her frown fades.

"You think I should?" she asks in a small voice.

He nods gravely.

She looks down at her feet for a minute.

"'kay," she agrees eventually. "But if he goes nuts or blind or his brain melts out of his ears, it's your fault."

He winks at her and her lips quirk in a melancholy smile.

***

Why...

The door slams loudly.

Buffy's home.

Hauling himself clumsily out of the bath, Xander hurriedly towels off the water and throws on his pants as fast as he can.

She's back quickly. Curious as to why, he goes to see where she is.

After their talk in the Library, she decided not to put things off any longer and left to see Giles alone.

This was their thing, she said, back when she and Giles were close. Before the shooting. Before the First and Buffy's death and subsequent resurrection. They used to be able to talk to each other without the pain getting in the way, but they were on the outs long before Buffy ran away. She wants her Giles back now though, so she decided to do her best to talk to him again.

So Xander came back to the apartment and left her to deal with things on her own as she asked him.

That was less than two hours ago.

He finds Buffy sitting on the couch, staring vacantly at the blank TV screen. Her eyes are slightly red, but then, so's her face.

"I think I broke him," she says in a detached tone of voice as soon as Xander walks in.

Images of Giles' beaten body lying lifeless in an expanding pool of congealing blood spring to mind immediately. Xander swallows nervously.

"He... He didn't take the news very well," she continues, still in the same overly cool, careful voice.

He picks up a pad and pen from the coffee table and scribbles something.

*WHAT HAPPENED?*

She swallows a big gulping breath, but otherwise remains spooky-calm.

"I told him about... about Tarik and the drugs and..." Her eyes flicker up to him briefly. "And the other things."

Other things. She's been careful to spare Xander those details. Oh, he knows most of what happened. She talks freely about the drugs and her single-minded quest to kill the vamp who took her girls from her. But there are details she avoids. The brothels and clubs and whatever happened there. Buffy doesn't like to think he knows about any of that.

*IT'S OKAY, BUFF. WHAT DID HE SAY?*

She mutters something, seemingly repeating snippets of their conversation under her breath, before clearing her throat.

"He was angry at first. Because it was this big Slayer crisis, apparently. Tarik was a big problem and I should have informed the Council. But... He wasn't angry angry, you know. Not really pissed. Just upset. Then when I told him about the... the clubs and how I got into O, he was just listening to me. He had that empty expression, you know?" she turns to him to make sure he knows what she's talking about.

He nods. That's an expression he's quite familiar with, having seen it several days a month at the hospital.

"He was all empty. And then he wasn't. He asked questions about it all and about why I didn't call him for help. About how I could have done that to myself. He was... Xan, I think he was crying a bit." She sounds surprised at the discovery.

He nods, wanting her to go on.

"So things were not good but they weren't bad, either. We were just talking, like we used to. And it was really... But then he..." She takes a big breath. "He asked why I didn't come to see you at the hospital."

Xander freezes.

She turns to watch his reaction and seems surprised to find he's half-naked. No shirt, just a towel around his neck. Her eyes follow the towel to his chest and stop on the seven ugly marks that are dotted across his torso. The bullet wounds. The doctors could have done a better job with the scars after the fact but what was the point of plastic surgery for a brain-dead husk? And once he began to get up and around again, there just never seemed to be any time to take care of it.

The first time Susan saw the marks, she was slightly intimidated. As if the scars hammered home the fact that he was damaged in a way that his frozen face and gammy legs did not.

Buffy has never seen the scars before. He's been living with her for months but until now, he's always made sure to cover up all the time. Always fully dressed before he leaves his bedroom in the morning or in a t-shirt and sweat pants if he gets up at night.

She looks almost hypnotized. Reaches out unthinkingly and runs her finger over the old wounds softly.

He shudders and she catches herself and blushes crimson before looking up at him again.

"I never..."

She can't find the words and Xander's not too sure what he would do if she could. Hit her, maybe. Or kiss her.

He looks away. Focuses on the notepad in his hand. It takes him a while to write his next question.

*DID YOU TELL GILES WHY YOU LEFT?*

Her eyes go wide and her face rigid and he knows that she's hurt by the question for some reason.

"Of course not!"

The knot in his chest tightens painfully.

"I mean, I haven't even told you yet! How could I tell him before I even told you?"

He blinks.

::Huh?::

Her eyes soften.

"I know that I'm being..." she breaks off and shakes her head. "I do know how unfair I am, Xan. I know. I hurt you so much..." She looks away and takes a deep breath. "I was at the hospital when they brought you out of surgery."

::... What?!::

Hands shaking almost uncontrollably now, he forces the words onto the page.

*THEY TOLD ME YOU WEREN'T THERE.*

She turns back with unshed tears glistening in her eyelashes.

"No one saw me. But I... I was there. And I heard the doctor telling Giles that you were... That you would probably never wake up. And that if you did, they didn't know if... So I ran away."

He feels numb.

Slack fingers drop the pen.

The notepad falls into his lap.

Xander just sits there.

She was at the hospital. She was. And she only ran after she thought he was gone. Could it be that simple? Could it? But she didn't call the others. She never bothered to find out how he was doing. And she was told. She must have known he did wake up at least. So...

But she says that was at the hospital.

Fighting to keep steady, Buffy leans down and picks up the pen at his feet. Reaches for the notepad.

*I'M SORRY, XAN.* she writes slowly.

He stares at the words. Burns them into his mind.

Part of him is screaming now. Yelling at her so loud. Words of hate and anger and pain.

But another part, a piece of him that he thought had died with the gun shots is waking up again. A small voice somewhere in the back of his mind. That conscious voice he always tried to listen to when he was feeling down back in Sunnydale and up until he was shot in Africa. The one that helped him whenever he was depressed or hurting or scared. A voice he's missed for years now.

She grabs one of his hands and her fingers entwine with his.

"I'm sorry, Xander. I was a coward."

He looks up at her.

::You were at the hospital?::

She squeezes his hand.

***

Food for thought...

It takes him a while to calm down.

Buffy's been back for months now. Heck, he's been living with her for months. But somehow she only just returned. It's almost like the moment he recognized her in that alley the night after the resurrection ceremony all over again.

Xander doesn't really know what he feels about her explanation. She ran because she heard he wasn't going to wake up. He could buy that.

But the guys had to have told her that he did wake up eventually, right?

It wasn't as if no one knew where she was. Giles talked to her whenever there was a sitch coming her way and she was the official Council operative in Moscow.

Buffy had to have known he was awake at least.

Maybe she felt too guilty?

Well, he knows she feels like that now, doesn't he? He can see it in the way she reacts to him. She's just being more openly affectionate to compensate for her guilt over ignoring him for so long. That will probably soon pass.

But maybe she also feels guilty for giving up on him so soon? That could be it, right? Maybe she didn't want to face him.

He knows that no one informed her he was responsive again because that much Willow has told him herself. They pretty much stopped talking to Buffy about non-Council related issues altogether a few weeks before he 'woke up' as Willow calls it.

Giles could have at least mentioned it to her but he didn't.

So Buffy would only have expected to find a vegetable if she came back, right?

He's thinking about all this as he makes himself a sandwich. As always with uncomfortable emotions, all this has made him hungry. The counter-top is laden with foodstuffs and he's using his culinary mastery of the bread and butter to a hopefully devastating effect.

Buffy's watching him from her perch on the kitchen counter behind him, he can feel her eyes on him. Curious eyes.

He really doesn't know how to react.

So he spoons the mayo onto the bread and concentrates on something he can understand.

"Giles was really pissed about me not wanting to tell him, Xan," she says out of the blue.

He looks at her over his shoulder, quirking his head to one side slightly in a question.

::He was?::

That feels kinda good to know.

She nods.

"Yup. He just couldn't understand why I left and I kept telling him that until I explained it to you, I didn't want to get into that. And he said that you told him and Wills that I already had. That you were okay with it now and that I would tell them when I felt ready."

His hand stops in the process of spreading the mayo.

He hears her skip down from the counter and feels her move up beside him.

"You said that? To explain why I was here with you?"

He hesitates for a second before nodding.

Buffy's breath on the skin of his arm makes him flinch.

"Thanks, Xan."

Not sure why she's thanking him, he nods and waves a hand.

::No problem. Please don't mention it again.::

She backs off, pacing once more.

"It screwed me and Giles up a bit though. Because I kept telling him I wasn't gonna talk with him about it until I talked with you and he kept saying that I already had and was just avoiding the issue. And then I said you were probably just covering for me because I didn't want anyone to know about the drugs, but it came out wrong and before I could tell him what I meant he thought I meant you were lying and that got all kinds of ugly. And there were Words."

Words. He can hear the capital Wuh on those words.

Turning slightly, he looks at her and gestures for her to go on.

She leans back against the fridge and crosses her arms.

"It got petty," she explains defensively. "He thought I was insulting you and because I also wouldn't tell him why I left, he got really angry and said how I was cowardly and had abandoned all of you when you needed me the most. And, by that time, I wasn't thinking too clearly and I just laughed at him and said something like 'Gee, I wonder where I learned that from?' and he went red and..."

She trails off, face going dark.

::And?::

Another wave of encouragement, but she doesn't notice.

"He didn't hit me," she says finally.

Xander blinks. Tries to understand what she's talking about.

"Giles didn't hit me but he wanted to. After I said that, I think it was just too much, you know? And he nearly... I didn't stop him, wouldn't have stopped him if he had hit me. But he caught himself. He looked like he was going to be sick when he realized that he'd started to raise his hand and just went all icy-cold. He asked me to leave and wouldn't listen to me anymore. And I was just going around in circles anyway, nothing new to add, so I came back here."

Damn.

How did things ever get so complicated between all of them?

Xander remembers the days back in High School, with Willow on her 'infernal machine' and he and Buffy goofing around with the books and Giles doing his glasses-polishing thing. It was all so much easier then.

Giles was the man he wanted to grow up to become, although he never said it out loud. And yeah, Giles did run away too. It's easy to forget that Buffy isn't the only one with things on her conscience in their little gang.

Rupert Giles, mentor and father-figure to all of them, simply up and ran away when they all needed him the most. Xander himself got so wrapped up in his own life he failed to notice when both his best friends were drowning. And Willow! Buffy might have been a bit cold and closed off, but at least she's never tried to blow up the world. No, Buffy has done nothing worse than the rest of them at some point or another. And she has as much of a right to be angry with Giles as Giles has to be angry with her.

::Does that make them even?:: Xander thinks flippantly.

More confusing emotions. A lot to think about. His stomach rumbles and Buffy's lips quirk up in a wry smile.

This requires food.

So he finishes making the sandwich and cuts it into quarters. Drops one chunk onto a plate that he hands to her and takes another chunk for himself. They both sit down at the table to ponder the vagaries of existence in silence, chewing thoughtfully.

And of course, the doorbell rings.

Xander gets up, waving for Buffy to continue eating.

It's Giles, standing sheepishly on his doorstep.

"Um... I was wondering if Buffy might..."

Somehow not surprised, Xander gestures for him to come in and leads the old Brit back to the kitchen.

Looking up from her plate, Buffy's eyes widen and she glares at her Watcher. Giles manages the feat of returning the glare while looking sheepish at the same time. Xander watches for a moment with interest before taking another plate, putting another chunk of the sandwich onto it and plunking it down in front of an empty chair at the kitchen table.

The other two look at him briefly and he waves for Giles to sit down.

Buffy's Watcher hesitates for a second, but Xander does make good sandwiches and it is rather late.

"Is there any onion in this?" Giles asks thoughtfully, after taking a bite.

Xander shakes his head.

"Oh. Good..." Another bite. He casts around hopefully. "You wouldn't happen to have any..."

Wordlessly, Buffy hands him a paper towel.

"Thank you."

They chew in silence for a while.

"S'rry," Buffy mutters a few minutes later.

Giles nods, focused on his food. Mumbles an apology too.

"S'okay," she says grandly, shoulders straightening slightly.

Xander just sits quietly watching the two of them and is sad he can't smile anymore.

***

Not liking the quiet...

It's too quiet.

Has it really been so long that he's forgotten the silence? Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and now Buffy's gone and the lack of noise in his apartment is so loud it's almost deafening.

After patching things up with Giles, the old Brit mentioned a run-down building he'd just bought to her during one of their conversations. It's not much but it has a store on the ground floor that he wants to set up as another magic shop. Far enough away from Council HQ so as not to arouse too much suspicion and quite near a neighborhood with a couple of other shops catering to the occult as camouflage.

Because of course, a Council-backed magic shop could only ever be a front. An officious way to supply operatives who for one reason or another can't allow themselves to be seen as connected to the Watchers and an ear to the ground in London's occult community.

Giles was wondering, as Buffy didn't have much on her plate at the moment and as she had worked a few times for Anya, if setting up the shop might interest her. Not so much. But she agreed anyway because of the two floors above the shop. And so she spent the last three weeks repainting and furnishing the place.

She was fine with going to sleep there even before it was livable-inable but Xander flat out refused. Not that he can ever hope to stop her from doing whatever she wants, but he just could not stand to think of her in a place as grubby as the hovel she used to live in. Condescending, it might be, but he just... not that.

Buffy rolled her eyes, gave him a warm hug and agreed to stay until the renovations were over.

And that was a couple of days ago. So last night, they celebrated by going out to a swanky restaurant and sharing a bottle of champagne.

To a new life.

Not, she hastened to assure him, that she hated living with him. Moving out was simply a sign for her. A step to show that she's a new person. That she can become a new person. Living with him, she's been relying on his strength to help her get better. On her own, it will become her own choice. When she does stay clean, it'll be because she feels that she owes it to herself.

A lot of psychobabble. He still doesn't understand it but nodded anyway when she said it and proceeded to down his glass in one gulp.

Now she's gone and he's sitting in the silence.

He forgot about that. Sure, there's the TV. And the blender and the shower and a thousand other things to make noise with. He's had them all on at some time in the last few hours, just to feel less lonely.

But none of those are other people. They're not Buffy humming something unrecognizable as she wrecks his kitchen trying to cook a meal. Or snoring so loudly he has to get up and pound on her door. Or sitting with him to watch bad movies and laughing hysterically. He misses those sounds.

Blinking, he curses his sentimentality. It was never a permanent arrangement. He never planned that Buffy's coming to live with him during her problems should extend so far after she was on the mend. But he also never wanted to think about her leaving either. Just selfishness, of course. And perhaps the sixteen year old skater boy in the back of his head going 'yay!' whenever he came home and saw her here.

Stupid Hellmouthy hormones.

Anyhoo, Buffy's gone now. They'll be seeing each other at the RWC, of course, and he'll be helping with the books she needs in her shop too. And there will still be some hanging out from time to time, that's a given. But that's about it. Time to move on. Yes indeedy. Time to move on. Time to be a-movin'. Yup. Any minute now.

The doorbell rings and he's on his feet in a flash.

It's Susan.

"Hello, Xander," she says cheerfully.

He waves a smile and steps back to let her in.

"I heard that Buffy moved out finally," she continues as she crosses the threshold.

He nods. As good as Susan has been about him helping Buffy, she has never understood why he's been spending so much time with her so long after all of that apparently blew over.

What can he say? Oh, well I work for a secret organization of world-saving librarians and cheerleaders and she's already in the know so I can talk to her about some of that stuff? However true that is, it's not the whole truth anyway.

And completely unfair.

Sure, he and Buffy spend a lot of time together pre and post-Apocalypses, working to find out what the bad guys are up to and then working to ride out the adrenaline rush of surviving another day after the gang comes back from a job. But the fact he can talk about all that with Buffy and not with Sue isn't the reason he spent so much time with her.

*IT'S GOOD TO SEE YOU* he scribbles when he's finally found his notepad.

Sue's smile widens almost cautiously.

"It's good to be seen," she retorts wryly.

How long has it been since the last time they were together?

A week.

No, six days. He spent the night at her place six days ago.

But until now, she's never wanted to come home with him. Could that be because of...?

No. Sue always seemed so fine with the idea of Buffy living with him. He's surprised that his second best friend's presence could be the explanation for her avoiding his place. Avoiding most discussion about him and his life, in fact. Sue avoids conflict whenever she can but that doesn't mean she's not pissed.

Is he really that oblivious?

He pauses to think about the answer to that question. And is sorry none of the guys are here to slap him upside the head. Of course he is. He's Xander Harris after all. The king of see-no-e-ville. The guy who didn't see Buffy was killing herself slowly back in Sunnydale. Who didn't see Willow was going dark side of the force with her magic. Who turned his back on Anya in the end.

Yup, he can be that oblivious. Is more than that oblivious. And Sue is paying for it.

Scribble, scribble, scribble.

*BUFFY'S GONE NOW. ALONE AT LAST*

A light passes in Susan's gaze and her smile becomes less brittle. More genuine.

"Alone? We'll have to see about that, won't we?"

He's glad she's here.

He never liked the quiet.

***

Chapter the Eighth - Battle of the Sexes

Breaking up...

"So what happened?" Willow asks.

*I THINK WE BROKE UP* Xander scribbles quickly.

"Oh, Xand!"

She's disappointed in him, he can tell. At least this time, he was man enough to call things off before they got too serious. He got slapped for saying so and intimately acquainted with the contents of the glass of wine in Sue's hand in the process, but all in all, he can deal.

It's probably for the best anyway. And he isn't too cut up about it. Not after Susan told him about her little slip with Jean-Paul when she was in France.

Even so, he admits that a lot of the blame can be laid at his door. He messed things up just as much. Well, almost as much. He was so pathetically grateful to Susan for giving him a second glance that he somehow convinced himself they were a couple rather than just having some fun together.

That's why she chose him, he thinks now. Because of his gratefulness. It was a chain more binding than guilt, even though at the end, she did try to lay that one on him too.

Since Buffy left, he'd been spending more and more time with Sue to compensate, which was twisted in itself. Whatever. He spent more time with her and gradually came to the realization that they had nothing in common. Strange that it should take so long to notice that.

And to notice that quite to the contrary of what he's thought, Sue was never fine with his helping Buffy. That in itself, he could deal with. What pisses him off is the fact that she smiled and nodded and even urged him to take the time to be there for his friend, all the while biding her time so that she could throw all that back in his face when things weren't going her way and she needed some ammo in the battle of the sexes.

Last night, he hadn't set out to break up with her though.

Truth be told, however little they have in common, she is a nice person to be with most of the time and he simply hates the idea of being alone. It's not his natural state. Back in Sunnydale, Xander never enjoyed being the anchor-less one. Always did his level best to not be alone for any prolonged stretch of time. And now, with his dead face and weak legs, he knows he's not the type of guy who can go out to a bar and pick up a lady whenever he feels down. Not that he was...

::Oh shit, am I really that shallow?::

The sudden realization makes him almost queasy.

For whatever reasons, he had no intention of breaking up with Susan last night. The evening started out quite peacefully in fact, with the two of them simply watching a movie and sharing a bottle of red wine. How the subject of his job came up, he can't recall, but it did. And Sue was annoyed with him for being vague about it.

He was responsible for a large private collection of ancient books and writings, she complained, and he never told her anything about his work.

Well, he couldn't, he replied. The owners of the collection didn't want anyone to know the extent of it. Competition was huge in their field.

Last night though, she wasn't buying. Got all huffy and bit out that she wasn't just anyone, she was his girlfriend, for god's sake! That he shouldn't keep secrets from her.

*WHAT THE HECK IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?* he'd asked.

And that's when the guilt-trip came out. Maybe it was the wine or his resistance to telling her about his secrets that was driving her wild, but whatever the reason, she let him have it with both barrels. In a carefully modulated voice designed to convey her victim status, she began to rant.

Apparently, Xander is the relationshippy Antichrist and never knew it. Accusations galore. He never told Susan anything about his work. He kept her at arms length from his life. He ignored her and pushed her away sometimes even. And he'd evidently been carrying on with that slutty brunette Buffy that he was living with behind Susan's back.

How that last part came into the equation, he still doesn't know.

But Sue was on a roll. Everything she'd been keeping back, she threw at him. How selfish he was, how self-serving. How little he truly cared about her.

True, true and increasingly true, but it wasn't a one way street damn it! Why hadn't she talked to him, huh? Why keep all this to herself to fester in the dark?

The yelling-slash-angry writing match had gone on for quite a while. And then Sue told him about her pen pal back in France and one night when they'd got a bit drunk and wound up in bed and it had all suddenly been too much and Xander finally just asked her to get the hell out. Simple as that.

Now it's the morning after and he's sitting with Wills at his desk and the two of them are reviewing the night.

*SHE CHEATED ON ME, WILL* he writes savagely.

Willow nods, her eyes darkening slightly, before sighing and shaking her head.

"She was wrong to do that, Xander. But she's right that you pushed her away."

He slashes the pen across the page.

*HOW CAN YOU DEFEND HER?!*

"I'm not!" she retorts briskly. "Just saying you weren't around much anyway."

*AND THAT MAKES IT RIGHT?*

Annoyed face.

"Stop twisting what I mean and making it all.... twisty! I'm just saying that you never took the time to really commit to the relationship, did you?"

She's been reading Cosmo again. She always gets all misplaced in her reasonable-ness after a dose of that.

*COMMIT TO THE RELATIONSHIP?*

She waves a hand.

"You know what I mean."

He stops to look at her for a moment.

*THIS IS ABOUT BUFFY AGAIN, ISN'T IT?*

Willow looks away.

"Not everything is about her, Xander."

He taps her arm and she turns back to find him waving the page at her.

"This is about you and Susan. Not Buffy!"

"What's not about me?"

Xander looks up to find the girl in question standing in the door with a pile of papers in her hand.

"Nothing," Willow scowls angrily.

Xander sifts through the pages of the notepad to find the first one again.

*SUSAN AND ME ARE THROUGH.*

Buffy's face falls.

"Over me? I thought she was okay with..."

Xander waves his hand in denial, although it is partly true. He takes his time to scribble an explanation, still so angry the pen nearly cracks under the pressure he's putting on it.

*IT WAS A QUESTION OF PENMANSHIP.*

Buffy blinks. It takes her a moment to understand what he's talking about. And then her eyes flash dangerously.

"That bitch!"

Xander turns back to Will and points approvingly at Buffy.

::See? That's what you're supposed to say!::

But Willow's face has closed up and she's glaring poisonously.

"Xander spent more time with you than with his own girlfriend, Buffy. Of course this is about you!"

And before Xander can point out she just completely contradicted herself, she gets up and storms out of the room.

***

Giraffes and frog gods...

"This is ridiculous!" Perrin snaps angrily. "'The eighteen giraffes of Megilla will rain fire upon your custard?' That doesn't mean anything! And custard wasn't even invented when this scroll was written."

Xander waves a grin. The old man's raging is just too funny for words.

They've been trying to crack the language the scrolls are written in for almost a year now and still no luck. In the process, Xander has picked up quite a lot of Sumerian, Aramaic, Hieratic and proto-Bantu. No joy. Perrin is all but tearing his hair out in frustration. The construction of the text is obviously closely inspired by Aramaic. A comparison with the Dead Sea scrolls revealed that much. But the verbs! And the pronouns! And the... well everything!

However much it might look like something familiar, it's not. And whenever they begin to get a handle on things, the text seems to shift somehow, without changing. The chain of logic they had followed to arrive at a certain result is no longer quite so logical when they come back the next day.

Fire-raining giraffes are only the latest example. There have been versions of the translation that claim the return of 'the almighty frog God and his trained baboons' - which Xander has been very careful to never mention to Willow, of course - and versions that predict who will win the 2:30 at Sandown.

When that happened, Xander actually drove down to the track and placed a small bet on the race in question to see what might happen.

But of course that translation was wrong too.

The horse named by the scroll came last.

He and Perrin are stumped. It's sad to say but they might never manage to decipher what the scrolls truly mean. Spread out over the library table, the eight antique texts are just collecting dust as Perrin stares at them over the top of his latest attempt at a translation.

"I seriously doubt that giraffes are going to take over the world," he mutters to himself, flitting back through the papers in his hand. "And frog gods are right out. The last of those got himself killed a thousand years ago. So where does that leave us, eh?"

*BACK WHERE WE STARTED. AGAIN.*

Glancing up, Perrin reads Xander's reply and snorts.

"I'm sorry to say it, but I think you're right. Whenever I think we're getting somewhere, we suddenly end up with fire-juggling herbivores or a cult to frog spawn somewhere in East Anglia. It's nonsensical."

"That's an interesting place to walk into a conversation," Buffy says cheerfully, nudging the library doors open with her shoulder as her arms are too full of leather-bound books at the moment.

Xander rushes over to help her with them, more for the sake of the books than Buffy herself, as she could carry twice as many in one hand if she wasn't so small. The last time she tried, though, she couldn't see where she was going and tripped and sent a precious collection of prophecies slamming through the window. Giles was not a happy camper that day.

"And who might you be, young lady?" Perrin asks, peering over his half-moon spectacles.

Having made sure the books are safely stashed away under his desk for now, Xander grabs his notepad and scribbles quickly.

*THIS IS BUFFY SUMMERS, PERRIN*

The old man looks puzzled.

"Summers? Nonsense. Summers is a leggy brunette. All bosoms and hair and eyes."

Buffy makes a choking sound and Xander has to turn away to avoid looking at her face and breaking out into silent laughter.

"That's my sister you're talking about!" she snaps.

But Perrin is unfazed by the Summers' glare of death.

"Sister, you say? That means you must be that new slayer of Rupert's, yes?"

She blinks. It's been a long time since anyone called her Giles' new anything.

Xander jumps in.

*SHE'S BUFFY, PERRIN, REMEMBER? I TOLD YOU ALL ABOUT HER.*

Perrin's face lights up.

"Oh! She's THAT girl, is she? The one you can't stop gabbling about?"

One good thing about a paralyzed face? You'll never show your embarrassment again. Xander's cheeks do feel suspiciously warm however. And Buffy is looking at him with one raised eyebrow and a sardonic smirk on her lips.

"He talks about me, huh?"

Oblivious to Xander's embarrassment, Perrin nods and waves a hand.

"All the time. Can't get him to shut up about you. It's always Buffy this and Buffy that. Quite tiring in fact."

::How did that speck of mud get there?:: Xander's just noticed that shoes are very interesting all of a sudden and noticing this requires him to not pay attention to this embarrassing conversation anymore.

Perhaps sensing his uneasiness and taking pity on him, Buffy comes over to the table to look at the scrolls laid out on the table.

"What'cha doing?" she asks, a small grin on her lips as she studiously ignores Xander to talk with Perrin.

"Translating the scrolls your sister brought back from a dig a year ago," the old man growls, reminded of his earlier frustration.

Interested despite herself at the mention of Dawn, she cranes her neck to take a peek. Looks down at the translation in front of Perrin and back at the scroll.

"Well, that bit's wrong," she informs him pointing innocently at a word in the first line.

Xander looks at her. Perrin blinks.

"Say what?"

"That bit. You've missed the twisty thingy in front of it."

Xander frowns.

*TWISTY THINGY?*

"Right there, see?"

She points to a blank spot in front of the first line of the first scroll.

Perrin peers closely and leans back with a snort.

"That's the margin."

Xander looks for himself but can't see anything either.

Buffy seems surprised.

"You can't see it? It's a weird doohickey with three strings wrapped around each other that look sorta like a pretzel."

::A pretzel?!::

"We examined these with all the scientific and magical apparatus at the Council's disposal," Perrin says dryly. "And no one found any hidden food stuffs."

"But it's right there! And then here, see? There's a little guy who looks like he's having a really bad hair day. And a big loopy thing over there and..." She trots out a series of 'thingies' that neither of them can see and slowly, Xander begins to understand something that's been glaring them in the face.

Perrin's arguing with Buffy about the presence of the word iPod in one of the later scrolls when Xander raps his knuckles on the table to get their attention.

*COULD YOU DRAW THOSE INVISIBLE SYMBOLS FOR US, BUFF? IT WOULD REALLY HELP.*

She shrugs.

"Sure."

"Oh really, Alexander!"

Xander waves Perrin's protests aside.

*REMEMBER THE THIRD POSSIBILITY, PERRIN! IF NOT DEMONIC OR HUMAN, THEN THAT ONLY LEAVES ONE OPTION.*

It takes a moment for the old guy to get it.

"You can't be saying what I think you are!"

Xander just waves the page at him again a few times.

The old man turns to look speculatively at Buffy again. "I suppose she might be..." he mutters to himself, trailing off thoughtfully.

Buffy just looks puzzled.

"What?"

***

Let's make a date...

Xander should be wincing in pain, but his shoulders are shaking as he giggles silently.

"Oh shut up!"

The shoulders shake all the faster.

"It's not funny!"

The other diners are staring at Buffy as if she's gone mad, yelling at a man who is clearly being very serious, but she's watching him and knows he's cracking up.

"So help me, Xander, if you don't...!"

"Ma'am?"

She looks up, startled to find a puzzled waiter beside her.

"Yes?"

"The gentleman who was here before, will he be coming back?"

"No!" she blurts in relief before she can catch herself.

The waiter just nods, as if this is normal behavior, which is either a silent comment on Buffy's allure or simply what to expect in a four star restaurant. Either way, Xander's giggles subside briefly and he tries to get a hold of himself.

"Will you be maintaining your order?" the man in the pressed white shirt asks.

Buffy's embarrassment cranks up a couple of notches as she realizes that the guy who bolted was the one who picked this place and insisted she order a good meal, that she doesn't have the money to pay for her own food at these prices and that she suddenly feels out of place. Xander watches as all of this flies through her eyes in the space of a second and pre-empts her telling the waiter that she'll leave by catching the man's attention and nodding quickly.

"Very good then. We will bring in the first course momentarily."

This said, the waiter leaves.

Buffy's glaring even harder at him now.

"Xander! We don't have the money for all this!" she hisses through clenched teeth.

She's wearing an elegant silk dress and her short brown hair is glowing in the warm light of the dining room and he's liking this too much to let the night end so quickly. She called him to her rescue after all.

It's rare these days for him to get phone calls. He had a line installed at home so the guys could leave him messages but at the RWC it's well known he can't respond and there are plenty of people around to take a message any way. So it was pretty odd when Giles interrupted another all-night research session with Perrin to inform him that Buffy was on the line, growling impatiently and claiming she needed to speak to him in person.

Save me, Xand.

Has a nice little ego-boosting ring to it, huh? Turns out that Derrick, the guy she met a couple of days ago through the magic shop, is a grade-A grease ball. A for Asshole. He invited Buffy out to an excessively swanky French restaurant and promptly started acting as if that gave him the right to treat her like his paid escort girl for the night. Making loud, obnoxious and one-sided conversation, asking her questions and ignoring her answers, even trying to order for her which really pissed her off.

She figured that the least she was due for this disaster of a date was some good food.

Then Derrick began trying to fondle her under the table. Rather than smack him into next week, which would have been the normal reasoned response of any self-respecting Slayer, she bit back on her impulse and put in a desperate call to HQ. Derrick had been met through the magic shop and she didn't want to blow her cover there over something this stupid.

She called and asked Xander to come down and bail her out.

That's what is making him so happy at this point. Buffy could have called any number of young male Watchers who he knows have all expressed an interest, but she called him. Part of him knows it's because they're so close friends now, but it still makes his inner caveman glad to be here.

Derrick didn't take well to the hubbie's arrival. Neither had Buffy, staring open-eyed at Xander's means of helping her.

*SO YOU'RE THE MAN WHO'S BEEN SLEEPING WITH MY WIFE!*

Sadly for him, the grease ball was looking in Buffy's direction when she spewed her glass of wine everywhere upon seeing that.

Words were then exchanged. Insults about Xander's visible impairments and Buffy's light behavior. It was because of the second that Xander thumped Derrick. And got thumped back. But luckily, the scene had still been contained enough that Derrick's getting up and leaving in a huff negated the need for a call to the police. It was all over before any of the restaurant personnel could see anything and the guests were all too rich to notice something so potentially uncouth as a marital scene in their midst.

Xander had plunked down in the chair Buffy's ex-date had vacated and spent the next couple of minutes getting berated while giggling insanely.

He waves off Buffy's protests and writes out his reply.

*MY TREAT.*

The confusion in her eyes leads him to break the news to her now instead of waiting for everyone to be together tomorrow.

*JUST GOT MY EXAM RESULTS BACK. I PASSED*

The confusion turns to warmth and light.

"You did? Oh, I knew it! I knew it! And you told me you thought you were gonna mess up that last test!"

He can't smile but does hope his eyes at least are telling her how much her excitement means to him. Through force of having lived with him, she's the only one who knows how worried he was when the finals came around. He can't tell Giles because he likes the proud expression too much to mess with that and Willow's been in a sulk recently. Buffy knew he was worried and did her best to reassure him and now that he's passed it feels like a lead weight has been lifted from his shoulders.

"Dr. Harris," she says grandly, with an accompanying sweeping gesture. "Has a nice ring to it. I'm friends with a doctor."

He rolls his eyes.

*I ONLY PASSED MY FIRST YEAR, BUFF. STILL A FEW MORE TO GO BEFORE I REACH THAT LEVEL*

"But you will! You know you will, right?"

He hesitates and finds to his surprise that he does think he might. Buffy's beaming proudly now, the previous debacle forgotten.

And so they both sit and enjoy a four star French meal to celebrate. Buffy talks animatedly about the magic shop and her new life, about his being on his way to Gilesishness as she calls it, about a funny thing that happened the last time Faith was in town. A steady stream of conversation that is neither reluctant nor forced. And it's only now that he realizes how rare that is.

Sure, Giles can relate to him as a Watcher and he does talk a bit outside of that, but he has trouble just hanging out with the silent man. Willow makes an effort to not be thrown, but that's just it, for her it is an effort. Neither are uncomfortable or trying to hurt him by being stand-offey. It's just that after all this time, they have learned to treat him differently.

Buffy really doesn't.

To be fair, the others saw him at his worst and they have to move past that every time they're with him. Buffy wasn't there, so there's simply less baggage to deal with on that point.

His blank face and written replies just don't register for her. She's talking to the Xand-man, not Xander post-shooting.

His mind-reading suspicions tickle him again. She's done it often enough, after all. Answered his thoughts before he could give her an indication of just what those thoughts actually were. She doesn't appear to even notice that she's doing it and he hasn't pressed the matter. Willow's tried and tried and tried and it's just not possible any more. So he nurses the illusion that he and Buffy might just share some sort of link and doesn't mention it so as not to burst the bubble.

"How's Aloysius doing with those scrolls?" she asks eventually, when the meal is done and they're sipping dark, dark coffee from tiny cups.

Xander groans.

Ever since she learned Perrin's full name, Buffy's been calling him by his middle name. Aloysius. The old boy hates it. Almost as much as Xander hates Lavelle. But for some reason, Buffy was smitten with it when she heard it. And however many times Perrin tells her not to, she just keeps on using it.

He pulls out his notepad again.

*WE THINK WE'VE FINALLY GOT A HANDLE ON THEM NOW, THANKS TO YOU* he informs her.

She nods, watching him curiously.

"Any idea why I can see the invisible writing and no one else can?"

Poker face is all she's getting in reply to that one.

*CAN'T SAY YET, BUFF. DON'T WANNA SPECULATE UNTIL WE'RE DONE.*

She rolls her eyes, the old quarrel somehow not so important tonight and the rest of the evening passes quickly. As he escorts her back to her doorstep, she stands up on tiptoes to place a brief kiss on the corner of his mouth.

"I had a great time tonight, Xander," she says, avoiding his eyes before going inside and closing the door.

Paralyzed face or not, it feels like he's smiling as he walks away.

***

Chapter the Ninth - Prophecy Girl

Angels and Demons...

"Eureka!" Perrin yells excitedly, checking back through their notes. "We've cracked it!"

And Xander watches in shock as the old man gets up and does a little jig. Giles, who came running when he heard all the yelling, can only watch in slack-jawed incredulity. And Willow's having a very suspicious coughing fit.

"Good lord!"

"We've done it, Rupert!" Perrin informs him, jigging up and down and waving at the scrolls.

Giles' shock turns to barely contained impatience as he dashes to the table to see for himself.

Buffy's invisible writing was exactly what they needed to finally make some progress, exactly as Xander suspected. The pretzel, bad-hair-day man, the iPod and the loopy thing were all part of one of the oldest demonic sets of glyphs in the Council records. If not the oldest. So old, none of the reference texts anywhere could help with the translation and they had to resort to photographs of some of the crypts of the Deeper Well.

Then again, if their guess is correct, the language isn't demonic at all.

Xander glances at Willow and both share a moment of nostalgia at the sight of Giles' face when he sees the papers. With them all in the Library and him up to his elbows in the books, they're almost back in High School again.

Buffy pushes the door, trailing after Giles who left their counseling session because of all the racket Perrin was making.

"What's the problem?" she asks Xander.

He pulls out his notepad and writes a quick reply.

*WE FINALLY TRANSLATED THE SCROLLS*

She blinks.

"Oh? And what are they?"

Her personal theory that Steve Whatshisface, the Founder of Apple computers, is actually the last surviving True Demon on Earth and that the invention of personal computers was his latest devious scheme to rule the world had appealed to Giles so much that Xander was almost sad to point out that the iPod she was so sure was the fourth symbol was in fact a glyph representing ultimate truth.

"These are all that remains of the last race of angels on Earth," Perrin says gleefully, still bouncing rather embarrassingly.

"Angel?"

Xander rolls his eyes.

*ANGELS, BUFF. PLURAL. YOU KNOW, HARPS, WINGS, GLOWY HEADS?*

She flushes and glares at him good-naturedly.

He waves her over.

Willow has stopped coughing. She's stopped everything really. Her face closed down again when Buffy came through the door but he's had enough of coddling her. She can deal or not, he can't force her to like Buffy. That doesn't mean he has to follow her example.

All of them gather around the table as Giles reads through the translation, muttering the occasional "Oh my god" and "Good lord!" for good measure. When he gets to the end of it all, he looks up, his face a picture of shock.

"This is amazing."

Perrin nods enthusiastically.

"It is, isn't it?"

"If this is true then..."

"Then all that has happened was foreseen before the final battle with the Old Ones was even joined!"

Forgetting their hostility for a moment in the face of so much bookworm joy, Willow and Buffy exchange a puzzled glance.

"And... um... How is that different exactly from any other prophecies we've ever found?" Willow asks for both of them.

Giles looks up, appearing to notice the others for the first time, and leans back to think of how to answer. All three Scoobs stifle groans as they recognize his 'lecture' face.

"Ever since Sunnydale, we have encountered only one type of prophecy or vision. I have long suspected that 'prophecy' isn't really an adequate term for such things. There was the codex proclaiming Buffy would die at the hands of the Master..."

A shadow passes in Buffy's eyes.

"... That business with Angelus and Whistler, the books of the Ascension, your visions about your gift to Dawn, Buffy..."

Sensing her growing uneasiness, Xander reaches out to grab Buffy's hand. Her face gives no sign that she's noticed but she squeezes back softly before letting go.

"And of course all that happened with the Guardian and the First. Most of these times, there have been prophecies claiming how the Slayer will die or the beast will rise or any other variation in between. But at the same time, we've somehow managed to overcome everything that was thrown at us despite the dire predictions. Sometimes we have even encountered conflicting prophecies, in fact, supporting our efforts."

"That's a bad thing?" Buffy asks tightly.

Her Watcher's eyes come back from whatever private landscape he was looking at and he realizes how painful this trip down memory lane really is. His eyes soften.

"No, of course not! I will be forever grateful that all of you came through the terrors in Sunnydale so well."

Xander can't help it, he straightens up slightly and feels quite proud all of a sudden. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees that both Willow and Buffy are looking a little more perky and that they too are now standing taller. Giles smiles at all of them in turn before going on.

"The point I'm making is that there have always been two conflicting sides in play for any given prophecy we have had to face."

"Yeah. The bad guys and us," Willow agrees.

The old Brit looks at her fondly.

"True. But if you dig deeper then you could also say that this was just another sign of the battle between balance and chaos."

"That too."

Buffy's frowning.

"Balance? As in balance demons?"

Mildly impressed, Giles nods.

"Exactly! It always seemed odd to me that both sides would employ demons to do their dirty work, so to speak."

Xander points at his notepad.

*ANGELS, BUFF.*

"Precisely. If demons exist, it stands to reason that angels should too."

Willow's looking militant.

"So you're saying the Catholic faith is the only one that's valid?"

::Asks the self-proclaimed Jewish Wicca,:: Xander thinks wryly.

"By no means. Just as the demons as we know them have little, if nothing, to do with the horned monsters portrayed in the bible, angels are not harp-playing hippies with wings."

She blinks, surprised at his easy reply.

But however easy it is, something seems to be bothering Buffy.

"They 'are' not? Not were not, are not?"

"Hmm? Oh. Are not, yes. These scrolls tell the tale of the last tribe of angels to walk the Earth. Long before the war with the Old Ones. At the time, there were indeed two sides to the conflict. Nothing so clear as Good or Evil, simply two warring castes, both native to this planet and both antithetical. And the demons won."

Even Xander needs a moment to ingest that piece of information. He only worked with the linguistic systems used in the text, leaving Perrin the task of stringing the actual words together coherently, so a lot of this is news to him as well.

"The... They won?" Willow asks softly.

"Yes. Apparently the, well, I'm calling them angels but they themselves had another name... No, for clarity's sake, we'll use that analogy. The angels were slaughtered wholesale by the Old Ones. The demons were simply more powerful by several orders of magnitude. But the angels were more skilled. Much, much more advanced as a society. While the demons warred amongst themselves as feudal lords, the angels were a united nation. They had a... a science of magic that is lost to us now. An appreciation for the supernatural we cannot begin to understand. And they could live in several extra dimensions within this plane of existence."

The Scoobs consult each other with a look. Buffy raises her hand sheepishly.

"Huh?"

"All demons are bound to the dimensions of this plane while they are here. Their powers sometimes permit them to escape such constraints but it does require a manifestation of their power. To the angels, time was simply another dimension. Like up or down or... You get the idea."

"And they saw everything!" Perrin cuts in happily.

"Everything?"

Giles pulls off his glasses and gives them a quick polish.

"Er... yes. They foresaw everything that would happen. The demon war, the Hellmouth that would inevitably result from the banishing spells used to seal away the demons, the calling of the first Slayer... They foresaw Sunnydale. All of it."

Both girls go pale. Xander's getting queasy himself.

"All... They knew what was going to happen...?"

"Yes."

"About the Master and Angel and... About Dawnie and me dying?"

"About the Activation Spell too?" Willow adds uneasily.

"Yes. It appears that... Well, that everything that happened was part of their plan."

***

You gotta have soul...

Ever had one of those days when you realize that you're nothing more than a character on some lame TV show written by a crazy person and all you ever thought was real turns out to be an elaborate plot?

No?

Xander wishes he could say the same. Buffy's gripping his hand again and Willow's gone white as a sheet. Perrin is still bent over the scrolls, his cheerful glee taking on much more sinister overtones now that they know what has him so happy. But Giles doesn't seem too upset. Best to focus on that. If things were really bad, Giles would be getting more Gilsey at the moment, wouldn't he? And he's still at normal tweed levels, so things can't be that bad, right?

"A plan? Someone actually sat down and... and planned for all that to happen?! Angels planned for...?"

Giles nods.

"Yes. Apparently, they knew from the very moment they were created that they would lose the fight against the demons. And so they planned for a means to defeat them once they were gone."

"Where can I find these punks and how much can I kill them?" she asks viciously.

Willow nods her agreement and waves her fingers in a show of witchy support for Buffy's plan.

"You can't. Or, rather, you already did."

Everyone stops to think about that.

"Huh?" Both Willow and Buffy ask at the same time.

Xander raises a finger to get everyone's attention and scribbles industriously for a minute in his notepad.

*WHAT THEY SAID*

Perrin rolls his eyes and taps Giles on the shoulder.

"Get to the point, Rupert. You always were one for fannying about. Remember that business with the dissertation on the battle of Cliumagh that lasted so long you sent Professor Scrot into a coma?"

Giles glares at the old man and pushes up his glasses indignantly.

"He was hypoglycemic, Perrin!"

But Perrin just snaps his fingers and gestures to the Scoobs.

"Get to the point!" he orders, suddenly very much Giles' ancient languages teacher once more.

Giles all but snaps to attention before glowering and turning back.

"I have been calling them angels for expediency's sake but in truth, these beings had a different name for themselves. Even here, it cannot be fully translated properly. But an approximation would be 'The people of the soul'."

"Damn right!" Perrin nods, pointing at the papers strewn across the tabletop.

"The..."

"... soul?"

"Yes. They knew they would be crushed, had known from the very beginning that the Demons would win the war between the two castes. So they devised a plan to wrestle a victory from the arms of their demise. That's the expression in the text, at least. The Old Ones warring amongst themselves, the rise of Humanity, the eventual retreat of the demons... All of it was merely the first step. That war is not over yet. Because, the rituals used to seal the portals to all Hell dimensions required a balance, you see. A means of self-regulating the pressure. And that's where the Hellmouth comes from. It is that security valve."

With the face of someone exploring a very nasty idea, Willow raises a shaky hand.

"I'm guessing that our blowing it up wasn't a good idea, then?"

For the first time, Giles frowns.

"Not as such, no. But that was not our doing. Remember the Guardian who somehow managed to live in a cemetery we patrolled every night for seven years without our knowledge and only revealed herself at the very end. And the strangely convenient amulet Angel gave us at the eleventh hour. We had no means of knowing what it would do precisely."

"It all seemed so logical at the time," Buffy mumbles sadly.

Giles reaches out and pats her shoulder.

"Oh it was! That's the point. The... the angels devised it to be. Logical, I mean. There was some form of a glamor clouding our minds so that we wouldn't question things too much, I believe, but that isn't mentioned in these texts. And it's beside the point. The destruction of the active Hellmouth was part of a much wider scheme set in place by our side."

"Our side? Our side!?! How can you possibly think of those bastards as being on our side?" Buffy yells suddenly, taking a step back and shaking his hand off.

Giles isn't fazed.

"They are the people of the soul, Buffy. But they gave up their mortal bodies long ago. And joined with a lesser species that was much more resilient than they were."

Sensing a need for some levity, Xander scribbles the evident next question.

*JOINED? IN A SEXY WAY?*

Both Buffy and Willow turn to glare at him.

"No, Xander," Giles replies patiently. "In a mystical way. All of this took place tens of thousands of years ago. The angels joined with our cave-dwelling ancestors of the time. And we are now as much descendants of their people, albeit in a more metaphysical way, as we are related to Neanderthal man."

"Souls, children!" Perrin snaps impatiently. "Our souls. Those souls are the descendants of the angels."

***

Good for the soul...

Buffy crosses her arms and quirks an eyebrow.

"You're saying that my soul was out to kill me?" she asks dryly.

"Yes," Giles nods before catching himself. "Well, no. I mean..."

Perrin has had enough of letting the Head Watcher have all the expository fun.

"These scrolls are quite fascinating, you know. Apparently, the plan was to set things up so that the demons would do all the ground work, so to speak, and almost over-throw themselves as a result. The angels knew they hadn't got the strength to go up against them at the time, you see. So they destroyed their physical bodies and merged their essence with humanity. That's the point in our history when we moved from banging rocks together because it made pretty sparks to banging them together to set people on fire."

"Yes, quite. Thank you Perrin," Giles cuts him off. "The demons, left to their own devices, would have no one to war against but one another and thus spark the demon wars. During this time, new humanity was growing stronger and wiser. We were starting to understand the world around us on a whole new level. And, by the time the demons' in-fighting had weakened their side enough, we had developed magic to help us fight the ones who remained."

He stops to weigh his next words carefully.

"You have to understand, humans were never anything more than a transitory nuisance to the Old Ones. We were short lived and self-destructive. Granted, our magic held them at bay, but they reasoned it would not be long before we killed ourselves off and they could return. A grace period during which they could each marshal their forces to resume their in-fighting when they returned. So in point of fact, the only reason we were able to chase them out of this dimension was because they were mostly willing to go anyway. They considered it almost like going on holiday."

Xander's getting annoyed.

*WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SUNNYDALE?* he asks.

"It has everything to do with Sunnydale. The angels knew that magic would only hold the demons at bay, that it would not destroy them. And the balance of the spells used to seal the demons out of this dimension required an outlet in the Hellmouth that would lead to a slow contamination of humanity by demonic influences, anyway. Eventually, the demon taint was bound to seep back whatever they did. The banishment was merely a stop-gap measure. The angels simply wanted to give themselves, us, the time to develop a means of fighting these demons efficiently. And so the Slayer was created."

Buffy snorts.

"Unless I missed something, Giles, none of those hedge wizards who demonized the first Slayer was James Brown."

Visibly confused, Giles frowns and Willow rolls her eyes.

"She means a soul man," she translates for him.

He looks startled and Buffy shoots an unreadable look at the red head, but Willow is concentrating on Giles, hanging on his words.

"Oh. Yes, of course. The creators of the Slayer line were part of a human tribe with demon problems a few thousand years ago, somewhere in Africa. They were exactly what they appeared to be. None of what we have seen or done thus far is contradicted by this new information..." he waves at the scrolls.

"Most if not all we have been through has been of our own doing. The plans were set in place of course, but we implemented them of our own free will, albeit without our knowledge. Or rather, without our conscious knowledge. The same can be said for those wizards. And for some if not all Watchers. Everyone involved in the fight against the darkness is involved through their own choice. But the part of them that was making that choice is not their conscious mind. It is the soul."

Buffy's glare is back. And it's got bigger.

"You're saying I chose to have all that happen to me?" she growls dangerously.

An affirmative answer at this point might possibly involve some unpleasantness for Giles, so he has to think carefully about his reply.

"No. Not as such. But a part of you recognized the necessity behind it all. You always did the right thing in the end, no matter what the cost."

"Her Slayerness?" Willow suggests.

He hesitates before shaking his head.

"Not as such, no. The Slayer essence is demonic in nature, as we learned in Sunnydale. A necessary evil as neither we nor the angels have the strength to fight the demons. Humanity is resilient but not all-powerful, so a vessel was created. A fusion. Demon, human and soul. The Slayer isn't what makes Buffy a hero. It's her own strength, her own humanity and soul that do that. The demon assets are merely a means to an end."

This is all crazy-sounding now. And Buffy's had enough. Without looking at anyone, she turns and storms out the door. Startled, the others exchange a glance. For a moment, Xander is gratified to see that Willow is wavering about going after her, but he knows this is a job for the comfortador.

*I'LL GO* he scribbles quickly and follows briskly.

It takes a while but he finally finds Buffy smoking a cigarette outside, sitting on a garden bench. That's new. Or maybe not. Maybe smoking is just another habit she picked up on her own and that she's done without until now. He makes a show of ambling up to her slowly, seemingly unconcerned.

"It's all my fault," she says as soon as he gets to her.

He cocks his head to one side. She looks up, eyes unreadable.

"If what Giles is saying is true, if those scrolls aren't just some crack job's idea of a bad joke, then everything that happened in Sunnydale is all my fault."

Sitting down next to her, he doesn't react. Merely reaches out and plucks the cigarette from her unresisting fingers and stabs it out.

"I chose to be a Slayer," she continues, as if talking to herself. "That's what Giles was saying. That I chose this. To fight vampires and demons and god knows what else every day. To give up my life over and over again just so the world could survive an extra hour. What happened with Angel and Faith and Glory and... and Spike... It's all my fault."

Xander nods understandingly. Pats her hand. And then very considerately proceeds to slap her upside the head.

Thwap!

::Oh boy, that felt good!::

"Hey!" she exclaims, rubbing her scalp and looking theatrically hurt.

He didn't do more than touch her but it's the spirit of the thing. With a roll of his eyes he pulls out his notepad.

*BACK FROM THE EGO TRIP YET?*

She reads what he's written and glares.

"You heard what he said! You heard..."

He waves at her to shut up and scribbles something else.

*HE SAID THAT A PART OF YOU RECOGNIZED THE NECESSITY. NOT THAT YOU CHOSE ANYTHING.*

"Like that makes it better?" she scoffs.

::Sometimes, you can be a very dumb person, you know that?::

"Again with the hey!"

Deciding against questioning the mind-reading thing at the moment, he pushes on.

*THOSE SCROLLS SAY SOMEONE PLANNED EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED TO ALL OF US, BUFF, NOT JUST TO YOU. AND THAT A PART OF EACH OF US FOLLOWED ALONG. BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN WE DIDN'T TRY TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE AS WE WENT.*

For some reason, it's really important to him that she get what he's trying to say, but Buffy visibly doesn't understand yet. He sighs.

*REMEMBER THAT NIGHT AT THE BRONZE? I JUST GOT BACK FROM OXNARD AND YOU WERE BEING BETTY LOUISE FOR THE EVENING?*

Her face softens at the memory. They don't ever talk about it anymore, not that they ever really did in Sunnydale, but that night is still a connection between them.

"Yeah," she replies. "That was a good night."

*REMEMBER WHAT I TOLD YOU ABOUT YOU BEING MY HERO? I WASN'T TALKING ABOUT THE SLAYER. I WAS TALKING ABOUT THE BUFFY.*

Images of all the things she's done over the years flash through his mind. All the lives she saved and all the monsters she fought. All the times she felt like she couldn't win but fought on anyway. And the difference that made in his life.

She's watching him, eyes unreadable again. But her hand squeezes his arm and she's breathing more steadily.

"Thanks, Xan."

He waves a hand, half a grin, half a dismissive 'Don't mention it'.

*GILES WAS ONLY SAYING WHAT I ALREADY TOLD YOU. YOU'RE BUFFY. YOU'RE SPECIAL BECAUSE A PART OF YOU DECIDED TO HELP OUT, THAT'S ALL, NOT CHOSE TO DIE OR WHATEVER. WELL, BECAUSE OF THAT AND BECAUSE OF THE TATTOO ON YOUR...*

"Xander!"

He shrugs and tries to waggle his eyebrows to get her to laugh. He can't explain himself. There is no other word to convey his meaning, really. She's Buffy. His hero. And she's special just because she is. They sit in silence for a long time on their bench, watching the world go by. Eventually, she sighs and straightens up.

"I guess we better go back," she says reluctantly. "There's still a lot of stuff to talk about, isn't there?"

***

Template...

"Are you okay?" Willow asks dryly as Buffy re-enters the library.

Buffy nods briefly and Xander waves a grin from behind her.

"I'm sorry if..." Giles begins but Buffy shakes her head.

"I just spazzed out for a moment. Needed some time to clear my head."

Perrin's still immersed in the translation and it's debatable whether he even noticed the interruption.

"If any of this is true, then we may just have to re-evaluate a lot of what happened in recent years," he says to himself.

"Oh? How so?" Buffy asks.

He looks up and frowns.

"If everything that happened in Sunnydale was part of an over-all scheme, then we have not yet come to the end game."

Everyone stops to consider this.

"You said..." Willow starts but cuts herself off, waiting for Giles to nod for her to go on before continuing. "You said Buffy had already met these people. You were just kidding, right? Or talking about all of us. Not..."

Her eyes are haunted.

Xander frowns but Giles seems to understand what she's getting at.

"I was referring to Buffy's death, in fact. The scrolls say that was the beginning of the final phase of their plan."

Steeling herself, Buffy leans against the wall with studied nonchalance.

"And how was that supposed to work?"

Giles fidgets a bit. Willow looks increasingly sad. And it clicks in Xander's mind. Of course, he'd half suspected something like it before. Especially since Buffy could see the writing. He sifts through his notepad to find a clean page.

*BUFFY'S AN ANGEL, ISN'T SHE?*

She stares at him after seeing this, eyes wide as saucers. But Perrin just laughs.

"Lord, no! An angel? That's a laugh. She's as human as they come. Entirely human."

"Then what..."

"Entirely human, I said. 100% human. There is nothing of the demon inside her anymore. She is the first of a new breed of Slayers. All this time, all these trials sent to humanity, everything was to build a racial strength of spirit that the soul people simply did not possess. And Miss Summers was the prototype. She died and spent three months in... Wherever she was. During that time, something happened to her essence."

Xander can't help but notice Buffy's gone vaguely green at the thought.

Nodding along as Perrin talks, Giles jumps in when the old man takes a break.

"Exactly. Buffy is... was unique. The first demon-less Slayer. That is why she was so lost after returning. A part of her did not, in fact, come back."

Willow's now greener than Buffy. The two girls exchange a look.

"So I... She..." Willow can't bring herself to ask.

"You did what you were supposed to do. Resurrected Buffy. And any apparent 'mistakes' in how she came back were in fact deliberate."

As much as Xander hates thinking about that time in their lives, he can't help but remember the look in Buffy's eyes in that alley. When they found her fresh from her tomb. The lost look in her eyes that never truly faded. Her anger and her bitterness and her coldness. Of course, it was because they tore her from Heaven and that would have been enough to screw with anyone's mind several times over. There was something missing though. An emptiness inside her. For a long time, she had felt almost china-fragile to him. Like the slightest move could break her.

She didn't break though. And despite the badness, despite everything, she was still fighting.

That summer, after everyone had gone and the Hellmouthy vibes took a vacation again, Buffy had been... calmer. Less tormented. In a very real sense, he had noticed that the nervous energy she always seemed to give off before was more muted. Less desperate. With Dawnie, they hung out together for most of the summer and she slowly began to show more signs of the cheerful girl he used to know so long ago.

As if whatever was missing upon her return had slowly been found again. Or replaced. What little she'd regained come fall though was soon lost in the whirlwind after the freak show drove into town for the final battle.

"I don't understand," Buffy says, searching Giles' face. "What are you saying?"

He takes a breath and runs a hand through his hair.

"All of this is still unconfirmed, Buffy. We have no other means of cross-referencing what is written in these scrolls. But they state that your death was pre-destined. Falling through the dimensional nexus bestowed some of that energy upon you at the time of your passing. That energy was what allowed... whoever was waiting on the other side to excise the demon in you and compensate for its loss."

"So all the time I felt hollow, it's because..."

"Because you were, yes."

"But... Spike could hit me. That must mean I still had a demon, mustn't it?"

"He hit you?" Giles asks angrily, eyes flashing.

Briefly, Xander thinks back to the sight of Buffy in that bathroom after Spike tried to rape her. Another secret he's keeping for her, another hurt she's too ashamed to show the others.

Paling at Giles' repressed anger, she nods sheepishly.

"Yeah. We got in a fight and he could fight back. That's why... I thought I came back wrong but you're saying I didn't have any demon left in me. So how could he?"

It takes an effort for Giles to bite down on his urge to say something more on the issue and focus on her question.

"I have no idea. Do we even know anything about that chip of his? How it worked? Because it was built by a secret governmental organization who apparently had no knowledge of the supernatural before setting up shop in Sunnydale. So how would they develop such technology so quickly? I suspect there was some psychosomatic component to it all. That rather than implanting a control device, they implanted a suggestion device instead. Standard brainwashing techniques as applied to the undead."

Xander flits through the pages of his notepad until he finds the right one.

*WHAT THEY SAID*

Everyone looks at him questioningly. He rolls his eyes and gestures impatiently to Buffy.

Realization dawns in her eyes.

"Oh! Sorry."

She nudges Willow and they turn back to Giles. "Huh?"

Giles' lips twitch.

"The chip would 'suggest' somehow to Spike that humans were off limits. And it was his own demon that decided what constituted humanity, not some computer program. Spike thought of you as human before you died, so he could not hurt you. Afterward, when you came back changed, his demon sensed it and the parameters pertaining specifically to you were changed. You were no longer the same as when you left, therefore to Spike, you were free game."

Xander muffles a suspicious cough.

Buffy glares at him and Willow giggles slightly.

"All of this is very interesting," Perrin says loudly, "But could we please get to the important part? I'm very old and my bladder is very small."

They all could have done without knowing that particular tidbit.

"Thank you for that wonderfully scary thought, Perrin," Giles retorts drily.

Turning back to the scrolls, he picks through them to find what he's looking for.

"You asked me what these scrolls had to do with what happened in Sunnydale. Well, they detail Buffy's death and her return, talk about how the process was designed to filter out the demonic influence once and for all and how she thus became the first Slayer to be truly human."

As she listens to him talk, the look on Buffy's face is so bright that it's almost painful. Xander knows how much the idea of demonification was scaring her in Sunnydale because she told him eventually. When she returned from the land of the breathing-impaired and everything was so wonky, when Spike could hurt her without getting zapped and she could hardly relate to her own feelings, she convinced herself that she came back wrong. Even Tara's reassurances had done little to help her.

Over time, she buried the idea, though. But only buried it. Buffy never actually stopped believing she was somehow less than she had been. And now Giles is telling her that she's was both right and completely wrong. And the relief hitting her is almost a physical force inside Xander's mind.

"Buffy was the template for all that came after her," Perrin declares. "The first Slayer all over again. And then the others got the Call, the ones affected by Miss Rosenberg's spell in Sunnydale. Using the only weapon ever forged by the soul people, she duplicated Miss Summers' new Slayer essence and gave it to all the potentials. And now, the Slayers as we know them are fully human at last."

Blinding. Buffy's so shiny at the moment, Xander might just have to go find his sunglasses.

***

Chapter the Tenth - Misgivings and explanations

Chosen...

"You have got to be shitting me!" Faith exclaims.

Scribble, scribble, scribble.

*I SHIT YOU NOT*

"You're saying that there ain't no demon inside B anymore?"

::......::

"What? Why are you lookin' at me like... Oh, come on! I didn't mean anything like that!"

Xander huffs and scribbles some more.

*THE SCROLLS SAY SHE'S DEMON-FREE AS FAR AS THE SLAYERNESS GOES.*

"And Giles believes this shit?"

Xander shrugs and nods.

The two of them are sharing a drink in a bar near the University. Faith flew in early for her monthly meeting and was annoyed to find that Buffy had already made plans to hang out with Willow. So she hunted him down at the University and hijacked him instead. They haven't really talked that much in the last couple of years. Not that they did even before then in fact.

Back in Sunnydale, even during the time she spent in the gang, Xander never got the impression Faith was all that interested in getting to know him. And the extent of the conversation during those infamous seven minutes they'd shared together had been something along the line of "Wham, Bam, thank you Xand" only without the thank you.

Or much 'Whamming' or 'Bamming', come to think of it.

Give him a break! It was his first time!

Still, up until then, there was little to no conversation between them and afterward, even less. Then, after Faith went all psycho-gal, moved over to the dark side or whatever you want to call it, they never really hung out in the same social circles any more.

He never stopped to wonder why she avoided him when she returned during that final year back home. Or why she was so chatty when he wound up in his hospital bed. A part of the latter was due to her empathizing with his problem, of course, but as to the former, he had no clue.

Then he remembered the strangling.

Odd that he could almost forget something like that. Sad too. But the fact of the matter is that the only Scoob who hasn't tried to off him at one time or the other is Dawn, and Xander's not too sure about that one anymore given the number of times she forgot to lock the bathroom door when she was visiting with Buffy. Jail-bait turned walking heart attack, that girl.

Anyhoo, Faith tried to strangle him. Big whoop. He's been whacked about the head, gored, lashed to a post to be fed to a demon and a thousand other things in the course of his life, most of the time by the people he considers his family. So he really doesn't have a problem with Faith being back in his life.

She does though.

He can still see it in her. The guilt. He'd feel flattered but he knows she carries the same feelings for absolutely everything she did way back when. He's just the only real walking, not-so-talking reminder.

Still, they've been good since then. Good friends. She talks 'with' him rather than 'at' him and she doesn't seem to mind the fact he can't give any indication of what he's feeling other than with his waves and his notepad.

Speaking of friends. Buffy and Willow out on the town together. He's glad about that.

They haven't patched things up yet. Despite his hopes, things will never be the same between them. Buffy ran away and Willow still feels all kinds of cut up over that. He wants to point out how selfish that is, that if he can forgive and sort of forget, Willow should too. But it's not selfish really. It's Willow dealing. She needed someone to be there and in her own way, has always looked up to Buffy in much the same way he does. So Buffy's running away hurt more than was reasonable. Because it also broke something much more important than a friendship. It broke Willow's world a little bit.

Now the girls are both working to try and get past all of that. To at least be able to tolerate one another's presence again. Since the translation of the scrolls, since finding out everything that was in the cards for them in Sunnydale, Willow's been seeing Buffy differently. Less like her image of the perfect friend and more like the girl Buffy truly is. Not a bad thing in the long run.

Buffy herself just wants to make things right again. Of course, she can't. Not really. But trying is enough right now. So tonight, she and Willow have gone out with a few others for a few drinks, nothing big. But it is big. A big step. And he's hoping it will lead to many more of them.

Be that as it may, they're off together and that's one of the reasons he's here with Faith. When she got here to find her clubbing partner was out for the evening with the girl she thought hated Buffy's guts, she all but abducted Xander from his lecture to get the skinny. And that's how the scrolls eventually came up.

*WE STILL DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH TO BELIEVE. WE'RE BEING CAREFUL THIS TIME. BUT THE SCROLLS ARE OLD. LIKE, OLDER THAN THE MOUNTAINS TYPE OLD. AND THEY MENTION US BY NAME.*

Faith blinks.

"Fuck. They talk about me too?"

He nods.

She glares at him suddenly, her hands clenching into fists.

"And what did these guys have to say 'bout me?"

He takes a long moment to write a reply.

*THAT YOU'VE GOT SOME KIND OF PURPOSE TOO. BUFFY WAS THE PROTOTYPE FOR THE NEW BREED OF SLAYERS AND THEY THREW A BUNCH OF STUFF AT US TO SORT OF PROGRAM HER TO BE READY FOR THAT. LIKE THE MICE IN THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.*

She looks at him like he's lost it. Reaches over to pick up his coffee and sniff it suspiciously.

"What's in this drink of yours, Harris?"

He waves a hand dismissively and scribbles some more.

*NOT IMPORTANT. BUFFY WAS PROGRAMMED. AND EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED, THESE GUYS ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE WANTED TO HAPPEN. AND THAT MEANS THEY WANTED YOU TOO.*

Her lips quirk in an ironic smirk.

"Them and most of the guys who ever met me."

He can't resist a little jab.

*SOME GIRLS TOO. WILLOW SEEMS VERY...*

"Don't go there, Speedy," she cuts him off before he can finish writing his sentence, reading as he writes.

He chuffs softly.

Around them, the ebb and flow of customers makes their table very private. No one's listening to this outlandish one-sided conversation because there's too much hustle and bustle going on. Students nipping in for a coffee between lectures, punters enjoying a late lunch. Suits and casuals, everyone just living their normal every day lives, while he and Faith talk about millennial prophecies and the hidden life of Slayers and demons.

"What else do those freaks have to say?" she pushes, her eyes shining curiously.

There's an edge there. She's more than interested. Wants to know something specific but... Oh. Guilt tripping again.

He scribbles furiously.

*IT'S ALL BULL, FAITH. THEY WANTED THINGS TO HAPPEN. AND WE'RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE AGREED TO IT IN SOME KIND OF SUPER-SECRET DEATH PACT WE DON"T EVEN REMEMBER OR SOMETHING. COMPLETE CRAP. THIS IS JUST A BUNCH OF PEOPLE WHO SAW WHAT WAS GONNA HAPPEN AND DIDN'T HAVE THE GUTS TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. THEY DIDN'T PLAN FOR ANY OF THAT TO HAPPEN, DIDN'T RIG THE GAME OR ANYTHING. JUST SAW AN OPPORTUNITY AND JUMPED ON IT. YOU'RE THE LAST TRUE SLAYER NOW.*

She reads his words carefully, weighing what he has to say. And her eyes widen when she gets to the end.

"What?!"

He points at her and back at the last words on the page.

"You can't be serious!"

He scribbles again.

*THERE ARE STILL OTHER PROPHECIES ABOUT THE SLAYER, FAITH. AND THOSE PROPHECIES ARE STILL IN PLACE. NOTHING IS CHANGED. ALL OF THOSE APPLY TO YOU NOW.*

Her face is a picture. Frozen stiff at the same time as falling apart. Shock and fear warring with wonder in her eyes.

"Fuck!"

He nods.

"You're telling me I'm the Chosen One now? You expect me to believe that shit?"

He cocks his head to one side and watches her. It isn't a rhetorical question, but she's not expecting him to answer either. This is huge. Giles called her in a couple of days early when they realized. All prophecies referring to the Slayer are talking about the original version, not the 2.0, and Faith is the only one of those left.

A sacrificial lamb, almost.

So Giles is pulling her in. She's moving back to England with the rest of them and he's setting up a special group to help. Field watchers and baby Slayers. She's not alone and they've never bothered much with prophecies any way. Faith will be fine. None of them are going to let her face anything alone, that's for sure.

He spends the next hour and a half talking about all of this with her. Over and over again. Going over the details and the broad lines.

It's all craziness, he knows. They're going so fast now, jumping on this band-wagon at mad speeds. It's as if the translation of the scrolls has sparked the beginning of something huge that they can't quite make out yet. They're all feeling the changes and they're scrambling to prepare but no one has any means of knowing, of really knowing that all of this isn't some big hoax.

Another glamor, maybe? Like the one Giles thinks zombified all of them when they fought the First? But if that's the case, then that means that the scrolls are true anyway, doesn't it?

All Xander knows is that he wants them to be. As cold as it sounds, thinking of all the crap they went through, it would help to believe it all served some higher purpose. That it helped to upgrade the new Slayers. Helped to win the war in the end.

But a voice in the back of his mind can't help but remind him of all the pain. Of Willow hurting on that Bluff. Of Buffy so empty and lost. Of Dawnie with blood running down her arm. Of Anya.

There are some demons that aren't so bad, right? He's met some himself. Played poker with a few. Lived with one or two, if he counts Spike as well.

And if there are not-so-bad demons, then it stands to reason that there were not-so-good angels. Hell, they keep calling these things angels but that's only because they're supposed to have been the anti-demons. No one really knows anything about them and they're all flying by the seat of their pants as the rush to prepare for whatever is coming, but what else can they do?

He just hopes that they're not heading for a crash on the landing.

***

Girls night out...

"Are you sleeping with Xander?" Willow asks shrewdly.

Buffy's eyes go wide and she chokes on her beer. Splutters and coughs repeatedly until someone hits her a few times on the back in passing.

"Thanks," she gasps to the girl who helped her as she moves by.

Buffy's with Willow for the evening. They're nowhere Xander recognizes but then, he's not really here at the moment, is he? That thought troubles him a moment but he doesn't dwell on it. Just sits back to watch. Well, he thinks of sitting back, at least. It's kind of hard to sit anywhere when you don't have an ass to do the sitting with.

"What?!" Buffy muffles an indignant screech and glares poisonously at Willow. "Me and Xander? Is that what you wanted to...? I thought we were gonna talk about our stuff."

Willow looks down at her own drink.

"Yeah. Well, you and me don't have that much else in common anymore, do we? Xander is our stuff, Buffy."

A flash of something sad in Buffy's eyes. She buries it quickly though and Xander winces to see her cold mask put in an appearance. Or he would wince, if he could move his face. Or if he even had a face. He's still not sure what the heck is going on. Somehow he's watching all of this unfold without really being in the bar with the others.

There seem to be a lot of ladies in here tonight, he realizes suddenly.

::Oh, Will! You didn't!::

"What's between Xander and me is our business, Willow," Buffy informs the red-head dryly, turning away to take another gulp of her drink.

The two of them are standing at the bar. The very gay bar. A lesbian bar, actually. Willow has evidently selected the place to try and make Buffy uncomfortable but, so far, it doesn't seem to be working.

Supremely unconcerned by the appraising looks she's getting from time to time from a few of the other ladies, the surroundings aren't even registering for Buffy. Another change from the girl who blushed crimson at even the thought of Willow and Kennedy going at it back in Sunnydale.

For some reason, Xander's pleased that she didn't deny sleeping with him straight away.

Willow doesn't seem quite so pleased. She's frowning rather darkly. At least it's not a veiny-black haired-"I'm going to end you painfully" kind of darkly.

"I was there with him, Buffy. When they brought him in and when they wheeled him out of surgery."

Buffy sighs, closing her eyes not from frustration but from remembered pain.

"I know. I saw you there, Will."

Willow's face closes down. She's always been the most expressive of the bunch, so this is quite an event. She just looks really blank. No anger, no hurt, nothing.

"Xander told me about that. That you were there. And that you ran because..."

Buffy's indifference slips and she tries to reach for Willow's hand, but Willow pulls it away.

"I'm... I'm sorry, Will," Buffy says softly.

Willow-face is still a font of achey nothingness.

"I wish I could have run away sometimes. Run away to not see Xander... To not see him like that. But I couldn't. I had to be there. Because you weren't!"

Buffy bites her lip. Xander really wants to hug Willow right now but a) they don't know he's here and b) he's still not quite sure where his arms are at the moment.

"I had to stay there, at the hospital, because I didn't want Xander to die alone and there was no one else at first," Willow continues, ignoring Buffy's wince and Xander's muffled protests. "Giles came as soon as he could and Dawnie was there too and even Faith visited for a while, but you... You were there and you ran away."

A thought occurs to Xander. Buffy was in Rome. At the time he got shot, Buffy was in Rome. Willow did her witchy thing and snapped him back to England, but how the heck did Buffy get there so soon? How did she even know? Wills had only calmed down enough to think to call her three hours after he went into surgery, she told him that. And the surgery lasted seven hours. So Buffy pretty much had to have hopped a plane before anyone even contacted her, didn't she?

He doesn't think she's lying about it though. Buffy's always had her secrets but somehow, he feels he can tell when she's telling the truth on this. Call it wishful thinking, call it the dregs of puppy love, call it what you want. Buffy isn't lying about being at the hospital, he knows that bone-deep. So how did she get there so fast?

Buffy's still watching Willow.

"Remember when you got beat up by Angel's goons?" she asks softly.

Willow blinks. Surprised.

"Huh?"

"When Angel sent Dru and his goons to stop you re-ensouling him?"

"Angelus you mean?"

Buffy waves her hand. Same difference.

"Yeah. When you were in a coma, I couldn't go and see you either. I mean, I really couldn't because of the cops and everything, but I also just couldn't. It was... I hate seeing any of you guys hurt because of me. Hate it so darn much. And that's just one thing that I'm not... I'm just not strong enough to deal with it, I guess."

There is no apology in her voice. Just painful remembrance and a desire to explain. Willow's looking at her again, her face slightly softer.

"You still weren't there though," she says, less coldly. "Xand could have... I would have been alone with him when he..."

"He didn't though," Buffy says firmly. "He didn't."

She repeats this a couple of times under her breath, like some kind of mantra. Both women turn back to their drinks for a while.

"So are you two sleeping together then?"

Buffy tenses but there's less bite to Willow's question this time.

"Where is this coming from?" she wonders aloud.

Willow shrugs.

"I see how the two of you act when you're together now."

"He's my friend, Wills. We lived together for months! And he..."

She trails off uncertainly. Xander's still not sure if Willow knows the extent of Buffy's problems when she got back.

"He what?"

Buffy shrugs.

"He helped me. When I got back."

Willow's brow furrows and she cocks her head to one side.

"Giles said something about some kind of problems but... Was it those vamps who nearly killed you both?"

Buffy's making indifferent-face again. He's going to have to tell her to be careful about that. If the wind changes when you're pulling faces, you could get stuck like that. It's something his grandma told him when he was a kid. He's living proof of that, isn't he? The wind sure changed alright when he got himself shot and look at him now. Or rather, look at him later, when he tracks down his body again.

He should really be worried about that, shouldn't he?

"Not the vamps," Buffy says eventually. "Not just the vamps. I... There were other things. Drugs."

"Drugs? They drugged you?"

Buffy shakes her head violently. A sight all the more disturbing as she doesn't look particularly upset right now. Xander knows better though. He's reading her body language, not her face.

"I drugged me. I drugged me a lot. And Xander helped me to... He was there and he stayed with me and I... Well, I'm not doing that anymore."

Willow blinks. She frowns, trying to understand what Buffy's saying. And then she sort of quirks her head to one side.

"Drugs? As in drugs drugs? Not aspirin or that funky stomach medicine you bought all the time in Sunnydale?"

Buffy snorts tiredly.

"No. Not the stomach medicine, Will. Other stuff. Bad stuff."

"... Well, that medicine was no picnic, Buffy," Willow says uncertainly, still not quite sure.

"Drugs, Will! I was taking illegal, no good, evil drugs. I told myself there were reasons for doing it. Maybe there were, I don't know. But in the end, the drugs became my only reason and I was... Well, it wasn't good. Xand helped me with all that."

Now he really wants to hug Buffy. In some indefinable way, he thinks he might be because he somehow gets the impression she's feeling a bit better all of a sudden. Leaning into his... thoughts?

Willow's not feeling any better though. Her face is sickly pale.

"You...? How? What happened? When? Why did no one tell me?!"

A light dances in Buffy's eyes at the sight of Willow's compassionate outrage. She nods to a table that just freed up and they move there to talk about it all. Around them, the patrons of the lesbian bar go about their lesbian business. Xander can't help but spare a quick thought as to what kind of business that might be.

The conversation seems to last forever and be over in a heartbeat. Buffy just tells Willow everything. Finally gets it all out. Xander floats beside her as she talks, reaching out to touch her in some way whenever she starts to falter. And finally, she's done speaking.

In the process of listening to her, Willow has gone through outrage, compassion, shock, pity and nausea long ago. Now she's reached her processing phase.

He knows that she gets like that sometimes with shiny new knowledge. Doesn't matter if the knowledge is magic spells, computer science or just plain gossip. Willow fills up to a certain point and needs some time to file it all away correctly.

She and Buffy finish their drinks and just sit for a while in silence before Buffy suggests that it's getting late. Willow nods and they both get up to leave. Shuck on their coats.

"You still haven't answered my question though, Buff," she says as they make their way to the door.

"What question?" Buffy asks over her shoulder.

"You and Xander."

Buffy rolls her eyes.

"We're not sleeping together, Will," Buffy replies with a tired smile.

"Yet," Willow mutters under her breath.

And if Xander can pick up what she just muttered with his normal-person hearing, then Buffy sure as heck just heard Willow too. He's suddenly very, very interested in whatever Buffy might respond to that.

So he's also very, very angry to feel himself being pushed away.

The last thing he sees before the scene fades is a small smile floating on Buffy's lips. And the next morning, when he wakes up, he probably won't remember any of this.

***

Missing Xand-man...

"I do realize that all of this comes as something of a shock," Giles says patiently.

"A shock!" Faith exclaims, parodying Giles voice viciously. "That's the fucking understatement of the year!"

The old Brit looks torn between annoyance and understanding.

"I assure you, Faith, that no resources will be spared in our efforts to..."

"To what? Send me off to die?"

Ah. Xander recognizes that expression. Annoyance just won out after all.

"Now there's no call to say things like that. You are in no more danger now than you were two weeks ago."

"Only because I didn't fucking know about it, Giles!"

Xander's not intervening in this one. Faith and Giles are yelling at each other in the library, which has somehow become scroll-central. There are teams of researchers here now, carrying on oblivious to the muffled shouting match. A frantic rush to correlate the facts in the scrolls with the thousands of tomes the RWC saved from Caleb's bomb and all the others they have collected since then.

From time to time, Perrin shuttles through, his arms overflowing with transcripts and paperwork and a fiercely concentrated look on his face.

And Xander is supposed to be helping out. He is the librarian after all. He tells the people where to find the books and is one of the hundreds of translators involved in this huge project, but right now, he's sitting behind his desk and watching Faith tear into Giles.

It's not the first time this has happened. It's happening more and more as the days go by in fact. As they find out more about the scrolls, about the reasons behind certain events, all of them are on edge.

Buffy's off working with Willow, checking to find out the extent of the Slayerly transformation. They're mostly with the coven at the moment and he knows she's bored out of her skull because she's taken to borrowing from the stash of comics he keeps in his office whenever she visits and not returning them.

All in all, things are moving lightning fast right now, everyone rushing to find the deeper meaning behind the scrolls and discern the end game Perrin was talking about, which, unlike the rest of the text is as fuzzy as you would expect normal prophecy to be.

The rest is now crystal clear though. That's the problem really.

Xander's sitting and watching Giles and Faith and he's making a conscious effort not to butt into their fight. There is nothing he could say anyway. Or rather, he could probably say something to calm tempers down but he doesn't want to. Because he's not so sure if he agrees with what's been happening recently. And Faith's objections aren't all unreasonable. Increasingly, as days go by and he thinks about the scrolls, he can't help but feel that somehow something is off. Wrong.

Faith is now the only official Chosen One, and he really has no problem with that. It's not as if, like she seems to think, they're going to throw her to the wolves on her own. She will have back up.

Hell, it'll still be business as usual for the RWC operatives around the world anyway.

The only difference is the mass of prophecy still lying around referring to the Slayer and the epic battles to come. Big and small, obscure or painfully clear, they talk of a life of pain and misery and they're all talking about her. That's what's got Faith so antsy.

Antsy. Xander Harris, master of the genteel metaphor.

After some time to think about what he told her when they were out together, Faith is coming to realize the weight of the responsibilities on her shoulders. And she's understandably freaked out. Strangely enough, for the people who don't know her, what she's freaked out about is not the fact that there's pain and strife in her future, or that she just had a huge bull's-eye pinned to the middle of her back. No, Faith is just scared of not being up to the challenge. And that's something that no amount of soothing words can fix.

He knows because he's been doing nothing but try in the last few days, along with all the others. She spends a lot of time after work with Willow and Buffy. They talk. Or get drunk. Or hit up a few clubs. Just empty their heads together, really. And every morning after she comes in, it's taking less and less time for her to get worked up. So yeah, maybe he should go over there and talk to her and Giles. Tell her that they're all here for her, that she's got back up and friends around her now. Until she believes that for herself, it won't change anything.

Hopefully, the frayed nerves won't cause too much damage in the mean time.

Xander has his own doubts to deal with at the moment and they have nothing to do with whether she's capable of saving the world a lot or not. His doubts are for all his friends. To put it bluntly, something doesn't smell right.

The scrolls are all finished now. The translation is done and there are clear references to absolutely everything that happened in Sunnydale. Tests and trials to build the fortitude of the spirit that would become the vessel of the new Slayer essence. It sounds good in theory.

Then Xander's thoughts get in the way.

Buffy's thing with Angel was meant to be? Well, it says so in the scrolls. To teach her about abnegation and sacrifice was the terminology. From the outside looking in at the time, it just seemed like a bad case of hormones gone wrong to Xander though. The ultimate sex-is-bad first time. Sure there was world endage and Angel gutting involved in the end, but the whole thing kinda relied on Buffy giving Angel the ultimate happy. Not really the hallmark of the most reliable of plans.

Willow's problems with magic are another issue. She's supposed to have been "tempered in the fires of darkness to something something something". The words escape him because he was too busy trying to fit the concept into his brain. Her addiction was meant to happen? And all that world-endy stuff? Did that make Warren the instrument of destiny? And if it did, was it really such a good idea to put so much faith into the plans of people who would choose such a dipstick as an instrument?

Two things. Two factoids amongst a sea of little niggles Xander is trying to come to terms with.

And then of course, there's the big one. At least where he's concerned. They've been through the scrolls several times by now but still no mention of the Xand-man anywhere. Buffy's described in loving detail, Willow is portrayed as a fire-haired nymph and Giles as the very definition of wisdom. Heck, these soul people have even captured Angel and Spike's hair care issues in their clinical descriptions of the two "dark champions".

He'd had to leave the room for a few minutes after reading that one. Buffy was glaring at him again because he couldn't stop giggling silently.

Whatever. Doesn't change the fact there is no Xander Harris in the angel scrolls. No Zeppo or Doughnut boy or even, when he's feeling overly optimistic, any White Knights. Nothing. He wouldn't be making such a thing of it if Cordy's Sunnydale cheerleader years were not featured in the scrolls too. And Oz. And Anya, Riley, Tara, Dawnie, Spike and gods forbid even Andrew! Everyone's popped by the tale told by the scrolls at some point. But no Xander. No third musketeer. And no one else seems to have noticed that.

Correction, it hasn't popped out to any of the others like it has to him, understandably. They don't know about the hospital or the zombies. Buffy has pointed it out too, though, but Giles remarked that there were references to other people who helped out from time to time, people who weren't named or even truly described, so it was impossible to say for sure if Xander was in the scrolls or not.

And the references to Willow's apocalypse only talk about her "seeing the light of truth that love cast in her darkest hour", not about some big lug babbling about crayons.

Oh, it's poetic, sure enough, but that's no credit in the title sequence, is it?

So Xander's mulling all of this over in his head at the moment and in no mood to jump into Giles and Faith's discussion about her future in the RWC.

Because as much as he does know she's gonna be great for the job, he can't shake the feeling that there's something that doesn't fit in all of this. Something is missing or broken or just put together badly. An element of all this isn't what it looks like and he doesn't want to do anything that could tip the scales one way or another before he knows just what it is.

At least Willow and Buffy have sort of patched things up now. He can't help the smile that comes to mind at the thought.

When he came in for work the day after his meeting with Faith at the bar near the University, both Buffy and Willow had been acting almost civilized to one another. They were in the same room for one thing, Willow researching some esoteric Wicca ritual and Buffy just waiting for him as had become her habit. And they were actually talking!

Granted, the talking had been more sort of barbed jibes, but it was something. Still, it was weird how things seemed to tense up slightly when he came in.

Whatever's going on there, he has no idea and doesn't want to dig too deep for fear of what he might discover. At least they're talking now, right? That's gotta be some major yay-ness. One less worry off his mind.

If only he could just jump on to the soul-scroll train like the others. Just get enthusiastic about all they've discovered and buckle down to help out with the research.

However much Xander wants to, he really can't though. Because he's worried.

So he's just sitting here brooding and thinking about what he can do to find out one way or another.

***

Chapter the Eleventh - In dreams

Bad dreams...

It's past one in the morning and he has a test tomorrow at eight in the morning but someone thought it would be a good time to call the reluctant mute on the telephone. Having just dozed off on the couch, Xander's head is right next to it and he startles awake with a groan. Shoves his head under a cushion and lets the machine pick up instead.

Through the obstruction, he hears Buffy's cheerful voice - which of course he still hasn't got 'round to removing from the tape yet - telling whoever is calling to wait for the beep. Then he hears the beep. Then blissful silence. For all of ten seconds.

"Xand?"

The cushion comes down and he sits up. It's Buffy.

"I don't know if you can hear me.... it's... god! It's past one o'clock! Sorry, I didn't realize. I just..."

Buffy's voice sounds slightly freaked. Without knowing why, he reaches over and picks up the phone.

The silence on the other end draws out a bit longer then...

"Xand? Are you there?"

He rolls his eyes and hits a button on the phone to make a beeping sound.

"Is that you or are my ears ringing because I have a brain tumor or something?"

Beep. Beep.

::That's it, wake up the not-talking guy to have him make like Road Runner on the telephone, why don'tcha?::

"It's you? I'm sorry, I... Go back to sleep, I'm just being weird tonight. Sorry."

And she hangs up.

He sits there, staring at the phone in his hand. What the hell was that? Blinking several times, he peers at the clock above the TV and needs a couple of minutes to recognize that yes, that is the time and that yes, he is awake. This process finished, he decides that observational evidence can be trusted for once and that Buffy did in fact just call him.

Well, if she's gonna wake him up at some ungodly hour for no other reason than to freak out on the phone, there's no reason she should have all the fun, is there? So he gets up, grabs his keys and goes to return the favor.

Ten minutes later, he's on her doorstep.

Knock, knock.

"Who's there?"

::This wasn't funny the first time, Buff!::

"Xander?"

The door opens and she's standing there in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt with the words "Sex Kitten" written on it. Dawn's been in town recently.

"Xander? What are you...? I told you to go back to sleep, I was just..."

He cocks his head to one side and she shakes hers, backing away to let him pass. Unlike the last time he visited her this late, her place isn't a tip. In fact, it's pretty wonderful if he does say so himself. Half the wooden furniture was custom built by a very good artisan, a guy Xander found for her by looking in the mirror. The other half was assembled or carried up here by a team of reluctant baby Slayers and the occasional Scooby. It's nothing like the derelict building it was when Giles bought it anymore.

Warm colors, lots of wood and light. Pictures everywhere. Books. He blinks as he realizes that there really is a lot of light. As in all the lights. For some reason, Buffy's got them all on. And from the steaming cup of hot chocolate on the coffee table and the blankets on the couch, she's been camped out in here all night.

Looking back at her, he notices she does look very tired. Her face is drawn. Her eyes are even slightly bloodshot in a sexy way.

::A sexy way? Bloodshot in a... Lame, Harris. Really lame.::

"I'm sorry for calling like that, Xan," she says with a huge yawn. "I just... Well, I'm sorry. Why did you drive over here so late?"

He rolls his eyes and pulls out his notepad.

*FOR A NIGHT OF PASSIONATE SEX OF COURSE.*

She reads what he's written and blinks several times in quick succession.

"Uh... What?"

He huffs.

*JUST SARCASM, BUFF. DOESN'T WORK WRITTEN DOWN, I KNOW. SORRY. YOU CALLED, I GOT WORRIED. I CAME TO SEE YOU.*

Her expression clears.

"Oh. I didn't explain or... God, I'm all over the place tonight. It's nothing, Xan, I promise. There was no need to freak."

Scribble, scribble, scribble.

*YOU WERE DOING ENOUGH FREAKING FOR THE BOTH OF US, BUFF. SPILL.*

She sighs, running a hand through her bristly short hair. That's one more thing she's kept. The piercings are still mostly there, the hair is still very brown and very short but she looks like a kid at the moment, not the fetish-queen who returned almost a year ago. Her expression is lost and a bit confused.

Without waiting for a reply, Xander turns away and plunks down on the couch. It's late and he's tired.

"Hey! That's my chocolate!"

He waves a grin as he takes a gulp. She glares at him as she sits down in her nook with the blankets.

"That's just mean, Xan."

*SO'S WAKING UP A POOR SCHLUB WHO JUST SPENT THE LAST TEN HOURS CRAMMING FOR A TEST WHEN HE'S GOT TO SIT THE TEST IN LESS THAN SEVEN HOURS TIME.*

Her eyes widen and she reaches out to pat his arm.

"Oh my gosh. I'm... I keep saying I'm sorry, I know. I shouldn't have called. It was really silly and you..."

He waves impatiently and turns back to the last page. Points at one word.

*SPILL.*

She looks away, very small all of a sudden.

"I had a bad dream."

He blinks.

::Excuse me?::

"It's dumb, I told you."

Scribble, scribble, scribble.

*A BAD SLAYER DREAM?*

"I don't... Maybe? I don't think so. I didn't feel like that, but how can I know?"

He takes another sip of chocolate as he scribbles some more.

*WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL GILES?*

She fidgets.

"I called you."

He points at the page.

*WHY?*

She shrugs, looking away.

"Because."

It takes him a moment to understand that that's the only explanation he's going to get on the subject. Not sure if he's disappointed or relieved, he decides to put it aside for the moment.

*THE DREAM. WHAT WAS IT ABOUT?*

She looks up at him.

"I told you, it's probably nothing. I'll... I'll talk to Giles in the morning, okay?"

He shakes his head.

*I'M A WATCHER TOO, YOU KNOW. I'VE TOOK THE SECRET OATH OF TWEED, STOOD WATCH OVER A PILE OF OLD BOOKS FOR A FULL DAY AND NIGHT AND IT SAYS SO ON MY PAYCHECK EVEN. HIT ME WITH IT.*

She looks reluctant.

"It wasn't as surreal as a normal Slayer dream. I was in a field. Everyone was there and there was this big black cloud coming straight at us. A cloud of bat-things. And we were all getting ready to fight and..."

He waves for her to continue.

"It just felt like something was missing, you know? And I couldn't see what it was. There was Wills and Giles and Faith and Dawnie and everyone. Even Spike. But then I noticed you didn't look like you."

He pauses to think about this and delivers the fruit of his highly qualified Watcherly considerations.

*HUH?*

She muffles a cough and closes her eyes to think about how to explain.

"You didn't look Xandery. You were there with me... With us. But you weren't. It was a replacement. And then it was like a big hole opened up if front of me and... I woke up."

What to say? He's done the dream-analysis before of course. He had a few Slayers under his care before sending them off to the RWC for training and he's spent more than a few nights hitting the books trying to work out the symbolism of flying monkeys and Pavarotti in a tutu.

This isn't like that though. Because he's in it and he's not so sure how objective he can be.

Scribble... scribble... scribble.

*THAT'S FREAKY.*

She blinks.

"That's it? The sum total of your input on the matter is gonna be two lousy words? About something I already knew?"

He rolls his eyes.

*IT RAISES A LOT OF QUESTIONS, THAT'S FOR SURE. OR MAYBE YOU JUST WANT ME AND ARE TOO SCREWED UP TO KNOW IT YET.*

Her eyes bug out.

"What is it with you and the sex jokes tonight?!"

He laughs silently and her face softens. She leans into him a bit.

"I got freaked and so I called because I just wanted to know you were still... you. I am sorry about waking you up."

He shakes his head.

*NO PROBLEM.YOU SHOULD TALK WITH GILES ABOUT THIS TOMORROW, IT COULD BE IMPORTANT.*

"'kay. You gonna go home now that you know I'm just..?"

She gestures to indicate crazy/freaked/hyped up on adrenaline.

He sits back and writes his reply.

*I COULDN'T GET BACK TO SLEEP NOW. HOW 'BOUT WATCHING SOMETHING CHEESY ON PAY-PER-VIEW TO EMPTY OUR HEADS?*

She smiles.

"Sounds like a plan."

***

Watching out for your friend...

The prophecy in the scrolls is driving people wild.

Xander can't help but wonder about that.

Right now, he's pouring through some Etruscan texts for Giles in the hopes of tracking down a specific reference to the place where the last tribe of angels is supposed to have sacrificed themselves so long ago. It's not like there are road maps to find places like that. And all of this was so very many thousands of years ago that the continents weren't even entirely in the same place they are today. This text, one of the most ancient in the reference library, is a compendium of all the mystical hotspots going back three thousand years. Hopefully, the sacrificial ground will turn out to be among them.

"Whatcha doing?" a perky voice asks from behind him.

Willow.

His thoughts go all smiley and he turns around to greet her. She's been working a lot with Buffy recently and he hardly ever gets to see either of them anymore, they spend so much time with the Coven.

*HEY, WILLS!* he writes quickly.

Her smile widens and she pulls out a chair near by to sit down.

"Howdy stranger."

He acknowledges the point with a wave and a nod.

"Still working on the location of the sacrifice?"

He looks back at the mass of papers in front of him.

*YUP. NO LUCK SO FAR. WHAT ABOUT YOU?*

She sighs and leans back in her chair.

"Not so bad. We've got Faith as a comparison and we're kinda sifting through the Slayer essence of both her and Buffy to check for differences. I just came in today to keep Giles posted."

*AND ARE THERE ANY DIFFERENCES?*

She nods.

"Oh yeah. Faith's Slayer essence is kinda dark and swirly. Full of movement and strong emotions. Buffy's all swirly and emotiony too but there isn't the darkness. Well, there is, but that seems to be coming all from her. And it's not as swirly or..."

*REAL TECHNICAL TERMS YOU WITCHES USE, HUH?*

She glares good-naturedly.

"Basically, Faith's slayer essence is a dark fire and Buffy is more of a tornado."

He thinks of the comparison and is forced to agree. Even before they found out about all of this, the two Slayers had radically different approaches to a situation. Or, maybe not. Just a different way of being. Faith is like a predator, tearing into its prey because that's what predators do. Buffy's a fighter because she has to be and when she gets up and running, there's not much that can stand in her way.

*SO THESE SOUL GUYS AREN'T JUST MESSING WITH US THEN?*

Willow rolls her eyes.

"You're still not convinced? We've double-checked everything in the scrolls by now Xand. Sent people to go and see with their own eyes. Everything they talk about happened. The stuff in Sunnydale and the stuff we never saw. All of that is recorded fact. So I really don't think the angels are playing us here."

He hates that. Everyone has taken to calling them angels. He's even caught himself a few times. But really, the only claim to the title that the mysterious race has is from claiming to be of an entirely difference caste to the Old Ones. Anti-demons would be more exact.

Xander is mostly anti-demonic himself, it doesn't mean he could get more than a discordant note or two out of a harp, does it? Now if the celestial chorus had a flugelhorn section, that would be another matter.

These 'People of the Soul' are no angels.

But even knowing that, everyone keeps calling them angels anyway. It doesn't seem like it's a serious thing at first glance, but to name a thing is to define a thing according to Watcher 101. And in their minds, he can almost see his friends begin to really think of their mysterious patrons as the winged guys in nightshirts you saw in most Christian mythology.

He doesn't comment though. No one gets why he's still doubtful on the issue and he doesn't want to rock the boat yet. Not yet. These guys could be on the level after all. The real deal. And if they are and he's just freaking over an ego trip, he doesn't want to look petty.

*WE STILL DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT LAST PART THOUGH. THE PROPHECY IN THE SCROLLS* he says instead.

Willow pulls on her pensive face.

"Yeah. Giles is thinking about asking the spirit guides for help with that one."

It takes a moment for Xander to understand what she's talking about.

*YOU MEAN THAT GLOWY CLOUD THING HE WAS TALKING TO BACK IN SUNNYDALE, THAT TIME?*

She blinks.

"You know about that?"

He nods, forgoing any further explanations.

"Yeah," she confirms eventually. "Giles thinks that those are the guys the prophecy is talking about when it says that 'the guides hold the key to the gate'."

*IT MIGHT HELP IF WE EVEN KNEW WHAT GATE IT WAS REFERRING TO.*

"Giles says that it's probably a metaphor for the whole riddle. The gate to the knowledge denied us."

Xander realizes something.

*YOU AND GILES SEEM TO BE TALKING A HELLUVA LOT RECENTLY*

Willow looks defensive.

"So? I keep him posted on the Coven's findings and he does the same for me."

A dark suspicion unfolds in the back of his mind.

*HE'S TELLING YOU A WHOLE LOT MORE THAN HE TELLS ME, WILLS*

She looks down.

::Damn it!::

*YOU'RE DOING IT AGAIN, AREN'T YOU? KEEPING ME OUT OF THE LOOP FOR MY OWN SAFETY?*

She tries to laugh him off unconvincingly.

"No! Why would you think that? Just because Buffy has some dream where you aren't you and... No. We're not keeping you out. Just... Just dealing with the unimportant stuff."

He glowers at her. Well, in his mind, much glowering is going on. She's less good at reading his mind-expressions than Buffy is, strangely enough. Then again, he knows that even today, his impassive face throws her pretty badly. Willow wants to see him as good old Xand, the guy she grew up with and her erstwhile crush, but she can't get pass the stone-face to see him there. At least, for her it requires an effort it doesn't for Buffy or Dawn or even Faith.

She still sees him as wounded, he knows. She was there when he was lying in his bed every minute until he woke up. She was the one who spent so much time with him after that despite being half sure he was practically a vegetable. And that will always hang in the air between them now. It's not something he can hate her for, but it does piss him off to no end. They have to get past it with every conversation.

Buffy's dream must have worried Giles and Wills enough to go all protecty again and that's not something Xander can put up with anymore.

*I'M A BIG BOY NOW, WILL. YEARS IN THE FIELD, ON MY WAY TO A DEGREE AND FULLY WATCHER-QUALIFIED. YOU DON'T KEEP ME OUT OF ANYTHING, UNDERSTAND? THIS IS NOT SUNNYDALE ANYMORE. I'M AS COMPETENT NOW AS GILES WAS THEN, AS TRAINED AS GILES WAS AND A HELLUVA LOT BETTER LOOKING THAN GILES WAS IN THE TWEED.*

She swallows and looks away. As hard as it is for her to admit it, he is a Watcher now. Not just a stop-gap to hold the fort until the qualified personnel can be found to replace him in the field. Not just the jokey side-kick from back in the day. And unless people begin to treat him with the respect he's earned, they're gonna have a problem.

"Sorry," she mutters eventually. "I just... We just didn't want to get you too involved in case of badness, that's all."

*BADNESS HAPPENS WILLOW. THERE ARE BUMPER STICKERS ABOUT THAT, BUT LESS POLITE. IT'S NOT ABOUT IGNORING THE PROBLEM, IT'S ABOUT FIXING IT. AND IF THIS IS A XANDER THING, THEN XANDER WILL DAMN WELL BE INVOLVED IN THE SOLUTION.*

Her shoulders slump a little bit.

He reaches out to pat her arm to show that although he's pissed, he's not angry with her. A strange distinction but one that makes sense in their friendship now. She smiles wanly and nods.

"Okay. I'll... We'll work on that, Xand. I promise."

It's the best he's gonna get and he knows she means it. Time will tell how much it turns out to be true.

***

Frenching Smurfs...

Xander's whole.

For one brilliant moment, Xander Harris is cured. He can feel his face move with his expression and his legs are as strong as they used to be. A couple of tries reveal that his voice is back too. He's cured!

But wait a minute... Wasn't he in the Library just a couple of minutes ago? After Wills left, he worked on those texts for a few more hours and then... then he woke up here.

Woke up? Huh. It's a dream. Just a dream. He's only dreaming that he's cured.

He had thought those kind of dreams were long gone.

You get them a lot in the beginning, after being hurt like he was. And during the dark time in that hospital bed they'd almost become his constant companions. Now? Not so much. He's getting his life back on track, is closer to Wills, Giles and Buffy and is starting to feel whole again despite the face and the legs and the lack of voice. So he's a bit surprised to catch himself dreaming of being fixed now, when things are going better then they have been in a long while.

Also surprised that he can feel the warmth of the sunlight on his face.

Sunlight.

Dressed in a black silk shirt and slacks, he's in a desert somewhere. Craggy rocks to one side, a vast expanse of nothing much to the other. And Tara? What the heck is Tara doing here? It's been years since she... Why is Willow's girlfriend popping up now, so after she was killed?

"She's empty, Xander," Tara says quietly, her eyes rising to meet his as soon as he notices her.

Against the eerie silence of this place, her voice echoes all the louder.

"Hey Tara!" he greets her cheerfully. "It's been a while. How's... uh... How's death?"

There's a ripple in the dreamscape but Tara's face remains impassive.

"She's empty," she repeats.

Okay... Xander nods for the crazy girl so as not to annoy her.

"Who's empty? And why doesn't she just find a gas station or something?"

There's a sense of amused annoyance from all around them and Tara rolls her eyes.

"You really don't know how these things are supposed to go, do you?"

He looks blank.

"What things?"

"Slayer dreams."

Now he's confused.

"Okay, either I just had a sex change and no one told me or there's been a mix up somewhere. Slayer dreams? I thought I was a bit too over-endowed in the penis-having department to qualify for those."

Tara stifles a suspicious cough.

"You always did have a way with words, Xand."

He smiles, happy to have got a reaction. It might seem fanciful, but it feels like the landscape is giggling. A small voice in the back of his mind is yelling at him to wise up and pay attention to what's going on, that all of this could be important, but it feels like he's thinking through treacle.

"She wants me to tell you the things she can't say for herself," Tara informs him eventually.

This is completely surreal. A living desert-scape, Tara standing in front of him... Why does that feel familiar?

"Who? Who wants you to speak for her?" asks the man who hasn't had a voice of his own in years.

Tara nods at someone over his shoulder. Turning, he has to force himself not to yelp in surprise.

It's Buffy. Well, sort of Buffy. She's wearing a red and white flowery dress and no shoes. Her face is painted blue. Long blonde hair, just like he remembers her back in... Come to think of it, she doesn't look any different than she did back then either, under all that muddy painty stuff. As if she's somehow still barely in her twenties while the rest of the world has moved on. Her eyes are watching him, her face devoid of expression.

"Buffy?" he breathes in confusion, reaching out for her.

Before he knows what's hit him, he's flat on his back. And it only takes a moment for his brain to catch up with the rest of him and for him to realize that what hit him was in fact Buffy. Looking up, he sees that she's not exactly Buffy though. There's something else with her. Inside her and around her. A darker shadow. Another young girl, with her face painted white and skins for clothes. The figure in front of him flickers between the two a few times.

"You can't touch her, Xander," Tara informs him softly.

"Story of my life," he mutters, the world spinning slightly.

The landscape seems to contract and expand like an enormous heart beating.

"You can't touch her physically. Only with your words."

Staggering slightly, he gets back to his feet, still half-dazed, still not quite sure what the heck is going on. He works his jaw a few times, pleased to find it just as responsive as before. The figure is Buffy again now. Wholly Buffy in her flowery dress and her blue face paint.

"That's some funky facial, Buff." He points at the mud-pack on her face. "Smurfette giving you beauty tips?"

::Not that you need them.::

He staggers again as his thoughts echo across the desert for all to hear.

Tara's lips quirk but she doesn't say anything. Buffy tilts her head to look at him appraisingly, face still blank.

"She's empty, Xander."

"Yeah, you said that already," he notes, eyes unable to leave Buffy to glance at Tara. "Empty?"

"Hollow. Something is gone. Something was removed. And now there is nothing in its place."

Recent training kicks in and Xander's a Watcher again. Looking down, he's surprised to find himself suddenly wearing his tweed jacket but dismisses that for now.

"Removed? Someone hurt Buffy?"

The heat in the desert flares for a moment. Blue-faced Buff almost smiles at the protective growl in his voice, he can see it in her gaze.

"Not hurt," Tara says. "She was broken but not hurt. Something is gone. But something else is coming to fill the void. Something she cannot understand."

"Why are you... is she telling me about it? Why here? Why not just call me or go out for coffee? I could really do with some coffee right now."

"You are the only one who sees her. Even she doesn't see herself as she is. Only as she fears to be."

::That's true enough.::

He scowls.

"Could someone please turn off the echo in here?!"

Tara coughs.

"Something is coming?" he asks, forcing himself to focus. "What? There wouldn't happen to be any bats involved would there?"

Both Tara and Buffy look at him as if he's gone nuts. He waves a hand dismissively.

"Never mind. It's just a thing. You were saying?"

Tara clears her throat.

"She can feel something approaching. Something she has never experienced before. Power. Raw power unfelt by her or her predecessors since the Slayer's creation."

And now Buffy is not just Buffy again. She's the first Slayer and a Chinese girl and a black woman in Spike's leather duster and a girl who looks suspiciously like Buffy wearing a wig and a medieval bar maid's clothes and a thousand other girls all at once.

"What am I supposed to... What can I do?" he corrects himself decisively.

She's Buffy again and her eyes are smiling.

"You are a Watcher. Watch. Open your eyes and find what is happening. Find what is coming. And help her to stop it."

He grins.

"So basically, you brought me here and got all smurfed up to tell me to keep my eyes open for trouble?"

Blue-faced Buffy's lips really do lift into a smile now and Tara's voice is lighter.

"Yes. That's a very Xanderific way of putting things."

"I do my best," he retorts, turning to grin at Willow's dead girlfriend.

But she's not there anymore. And turning back, he's dismayed to see that neither is Smurfette.

All alone now, he looks around vaguely, trying to understand what to do. With no clear indication, all he can do is stand there. Time passes. He's still standing there. More time. The standing is still happening.

"Uh... Excuse me?" he asks aloud.

The landscape feels more attentive.

"Could someone please point me to the exit of this dream? This is my first time after all and..."

A hand on his shoulder.

Turning, he finds Buffy behind him, her face still young, still painted blue. Eyes dancing with light, she leans forward and kisses him hungrily. Deeply. Searchingly. And he kisses back almost on instinct.

Then he's awake.

Hope flares and he tries to say something.

"Awistflargl."

Hope collapses faster than one of Buffy's toxic soufflays. What a dream! One of the better ones, he feels obscurely. Well, he thinks it must have been a good one. He can't quite remember what it was about though... Oh well.

Getting up, he runs a hand through his hair. It's past late. No wonder he fell asleep at the table. Time to pack up and go home. Collecting the papers, he spends the next few minutes filing them away, sorting the reference texts into the proper folders and taking the folders back to the stacks. This done, he goes into his office to collect his coat and effects.

And stops dead in front of the mirror hanging on the wall that was hung there to make the place seem a little bigger.

His reflection has blue lips.

Unthinkingly, he reaches up to touch them. And then he remembers.

***

Dream interpretation...

"You have a penis, Xander."

He points at Buffy in agreement and proceeds to scribble furiously in his notepad.

*THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I SAID.*

"I fail to see what Xander having a... What Xander being male has to do with this situation, Buffy," Giles interjects with a visible shudder at the imagery.

Buffy's lips twitch but she doesn't push the advantage. It's become a game again to see if they can get Giles all riled up like they used to. So far, she's up on points, but Xander did pick up a bonus round with the inducement of glasses-polishing a while back. Willow's having a hard time keeping a straight face too.

Still, there are important things to discuss. So they might as well do that while Xander thinks up his next serve.

*A SLAYER DREAM, GILES. DON'T YOU TECHNICALLY HAVE TO BE A SLAYER TO HAVE ONE OF THOSE?*

"Under normal circumstances, yes, I would imagine so. Still, there have been precedents. Remember the enjoining ceremony and the nightmares we all shared afterward."

True. For weeks afterward, Xander had trouble getting to sleep in his basement. But only Buffy can really remember her dream from that night in any kind of detail now though. He and the others were already reduced to hazy recollections just a few months later. Still, the Slayerness about all their dreams that night remains undeniable. They all fell unconscious as soon as they got back to Mrs. Summer's place and... Something happened, something involving the first Slayer, but for the life of him, Xander has no idea how he knows that. All he can remember is something about Buffy and tweed. That and he sometimes gets aroused when he hears the music of an ice-cream truck going by.

For some reason he looks over at Willow and shifts uncomfortably at the thought.

Other than that it's all mostly a blur for Xander however. Giles is worse and Willow just babbles about class work and performance issues whenever the subject comes up which is rare so long after the fact. So they've mostly blotted out that night.

Except the cheese man.

One thing they can all remember with crystal clarity is the cheese man. Which is scary in itself.

*THIS WAS NOT LIKE THAT* Xander informs Giles with helpful vagueness, unsure of the claim himself.

Willow's frowning.

"What happened?"

Ah. He'd hoped she wouldn't be here when he got to this part but apparently his Jedi mind powers of suggestion aren't working today.

Since the adrenaline wore off and Sunnydale's dust cleared, Will has been mostly single. A couple of dates here and there, the odd mention of a couple of girls that stayed on for more than a month, but nothing Oz or Tara-esque. And that's precisely the problem.

scritch, scribble, scritch, scribble, scribble.

*NOTHING BAD, WILL. I JUST WOKE UP IN THIS ROCKY-DESERT KIND OF PLACE AND TARA WAS THERE.*

Her eyes go wide and she starts to shake a little bit.

"Tara? You saw Tara?"

He nods.

"How is she?" Small, pathetic Willow voice.

Xander cocks his head to one side, eyes very sad. Buffy looks a bit pale too and Giles a bit uncomfortable. Emotions. How un-British.

Reaching out, Xander grabs Willow's hand and give it a squeeze.

*SHE LOOKED FINE, WILL.* he tells her, feeling slightly strange for saying that about the dear departed.

"You were in a desert? With Tara? Was... Was there anyone else there?" Buffy asks tentatively.

He nods.

"That's like my dream!" she exclaims.

Giles eyes widen in recognition and it finally hits both Willow and Xander at the same time. Of course. He knew it felt familiar. He heard Buffy talking about it with Wills. There was the Cheese man and there was Buffy's dream of Tara. At the time, he got the wrong end of the stick and that led to some very interesting speculation when the nights grew cold on patrol.

"The first Slayer? Was she in your dream too, Xander?" Giles asks impatiently.

Xander frowns. Well, his thoughts do. And he takes a moment to consider his reply. Then he raises a hand and see-saws it up and down. So-so. Yes and no. He scribbles something on the notepad.

*IF BY FIRST SLAYER, YOU MEAN A YOUNG GIRL IN ANIMAL SKINS, HAVING A VERY BAD HAIR DAY AND WITH WAAAY TOO MUCH GOTH MAKE-UP, THEN YEAH. IF YOU MEAN A STUNNING YOUNG BLONDE IN A RED AND WHITE DRESS WITH SMURFETTE'S SKIN CARE PRODUCTS ON HER FACE, THEN YES TOO.*

They all take a moment to ingest this information.

"Stunning?" Buffy asks softly.

He looks at her and winks. She flushes slightly.

"Buffy was there too?"

He scribbles a bit.

*BUFFY WAS THERE MOST. TARA WAS SPEAKING FOR BUFFY. BUT IT WASN'T OUR BUFFY, YOU KNOW? NOT QUITE. SHE WAS ACTING LIKE THE BORG MOST OF THE TIME.*

"Lord save us from the Star Trek references," Giles mutters under his breath, almost to himself.

"Don't think that's gonna work, Giles," Willow informs him mock-seriously, taking the Scooby refuge for strong emotion by turning to bad jokes. "When dealing with Star Trek, you have to pray to Shatner."

But Giles is thinking too hard to really pay attention.

"So this was basically a recreation of Buffy's dream after the enjoining spell?"

Xander cocks his head to one side and thinks about it.

*I GUESS. I DON'T REMEMBER WHERE BUFFY'S DREAM TOOK PLACE, BUT THE REST SEEMS THE SAME. EXCEPT, YOU KNOW, BUFFY IN WAR PAINTS INSTEAD OF PSYCHO GIRL.*

"And she was talking to you through Tara?"

Xander nods.

Willow looks sad again so he pats her hand and tosses an arm around her shoulders comfortingly.

"What did she say?" she asks.

Xander drops his notepad onto the table to scribble in it one-handedly.

*TARA STARTED BY BEING ALL DISTANT AND COLD TOO. BUT I MANAGED TO MAKE HER SMILE.*

Buffy and Willow can't help but exchange a warm glance upon reading this.

*AND THEN SHE TOLD ME ABOUT HOW SHE WAS EMPTY.*

Giles blinked.

"Who was empty? Tara?"

Xander shakes his head and points to Buffy. She looks affronted.

"Are you implying something?"

He rolls his eyes and scribbles some more.

*TARA SAID THAT BUFFY WAS EMPTY. SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT THE BUFFY IN THE DREAM. THE ONE WITH THE FACE-PAINT WHO SOMETIMES CHANGED INTO THE FIRST SLAYER AND OTHER SLAYERS TOO. IT'S A METAPHOR.*

"And that's all she had to say?"

Xander shakes his head.

*NO. SHE SAID THAT BUFFY WAS EMPTY BUT THAT SHE COULD FEEL SOMETHING POWERFUL WAS COMING TO FILL HER UP.*

Buffy's eyes go wide when she reads this and she glares at him. Willow has to muffle a suspicious hacking cough against his shoulder and Giles actually takes his glasses off for a polish. Huh. Xander scored a point without even trying this time.

*MINDS OUT OF THE GUTTER, PEOPLE. THERE WAS SOMETHING MISSING IN THAT BUFFY. TARA SAID SHE WAS BROKEN. AND THAT SOMETHING POWERFUL IS COMING TO FILL THE GAP. SOMETHING SO POWERFUL NO SLAYER HAS EVER FELT ANYTHING LIKE IT BEFORE. BUFFY'S SCARED. WELL, THE BUFFY OF MY DREAMS IS SCARED. AND SHE WANTED TO GIVE ME A HEADS UP.*

"The Buffy of your dreams?" Willow quirks an eyebrow.

Xander shrugs but decides he's clumsy enough to somehow push his foot even further into his mouth if he does try to defend himself, which is quite a feat for someone with his problems. Already having to tell the guys about any of his Buffy-related dreams is seriously embarrassing. He's just lucky it's not the one with the whipped cream in it. So he'll let that one slip on by, thank you very much Wills. Before he really... Why is Buffy looking at him like that?

Giles is reading his words intently though, thinking so loud you don't need telepathy to hear him mulling, and eventually they all turn to see what he's come up with.

"Broken, you say? That could be a reference to the transformation that took place while Buffy was dead. The first Slayer is of course a remnant of the original Slayer essence and thus senses that something has changed inside Buffy. The notion is scaring her and she reaches out to contact..."

And that's where the neat little theory crumbles into dust. Because the first Smurfette chose to mind-meld with Xander and for one thing, Xander is a guy - he checked after he remembered what had happened in case Willow pulled a fast one - and for another, he's not really been known for his connection to the mystical. Frankly, you want to get a message across from another metaphysical plane of existence, you try for Buffy, Faith, Willow or Giles. Hell, you could even try the pizza delivery guy, you'd be more likely to find a reliable medium.

Xander's the first to admit it: the Xand-man and magic do not mix.

Someone should have told the first Slayer though, because she really doesn't seem to have got the memo.

"We should try the ritual, Giles," Willow mumbles suddenly.

::Ritual?::

Looking over to Buffy, Xander sees that she's just as confused as he is.

"Ritual?" she asks.

Giles looks a bit flustered but nods.

"Yes, the spirit guides were unusually cooperative for once. Apparently, translating the scrolls unlocked certain doors in the higher planes that were sealed to them before and they were grateful enough to give me some indications. It's simple enough in design: a gate behind which lie the answers to our questions about what happened to you and a... Well, supposedly, these answers would also provide a means to regulate and potentially remove the need for Hellmouths in the long run, thus rendering dimensional separation definitive. No more demonic access to this plane be it through the Hellmouth or any other means, essentially ending the fight."

They all pause to consider this. And end to the fight. Nearly two decades of fighting at an end. It doesn't seem possible.

But suddenly, with the warnings of something bad and powerful approaching, impossible things are looking a whole lot more appealing right now.

***

Chapter the Twelfth - Too good to be true

Research time...

Keep your eyes open.

That was the gist of not-a-Buffy's warning and that's just about all he's good for at the moment.

Xander is running himself ragged trying to track down the location of the ritual. Co-incidentally, it's supposed to take place in the same spot as the final sacrifice. Why the soul people killed themselves is still hazy, but the fact remains that they did and that he's got to find the slaughterhouse so the gang can get this whole ritual dealie up and running as soon as possible.

Thoughts of this powerful thing that's coming and that has Smurf-Buffy running scared are driving him a little up the wall. Of course, it doesn't help that his doubts are still bouncing around in the back of his mind.

"What's eating you?" Faith asks over his shoulder.

He looks up, having been too immersed in the old texts to notice her arrival. She's calmed down a bit now. Since the news came in about her Chosen One-edness, Faith has gone through all the phases from disbelief to anger to denial to fear to acceptance in super-high speed. Of course, she already knew she was a Slayer, just not the Slayer. Through Faith, he's developed an idea for what Buffy went through before he met her. Alone with Merrick, she had to deal with all of that herself and without the benefit of knowing she had a whole team of people backing her up.

He waves at the papers in front of him.

*GILES HAS GOT ME BACK TO LOOKING FOR THE SOUL SACRIFICE PLACE AGAIN.*

Faith bobs her head understandingly.

The RWC is fairly buzzing with energy now. Barely contained impatience and something else, almost intangible and impossible to explain. Everyone's feeling it though.

"Any luck?"

He shakes his head.

*IT'S LIKE THERE'S A BLOCK SOMEWHERE THAT'S STOPPING ME FROM MAKING THE CONNECTION. IT'S A SACRED SITE, THERE'S SUPPOSED TO BE A TEMPLE THAT'S OLDER THAN OLD AND A BURIAL MOUND WHERE THE SOUL PEOPLE WERE LAID TO REST. AND STILL, NO IDEA WHAT THE HECK I'M LOOKING FOR.*

"Don't beat yourself up, it's vague enough to be anywhere. Shit, in this gig we deal with temples and graveyards every damn day of the week."

He gestures his agreement.

*I'VE MANAGED TO NARROW IN DOWN TO EUROPE, DON'T ASK HOW, AND NOW I'M JUST GOING THROUGH EVERY SINGLE SITE WITH ANYTHING EVEN SLIGHTLY MYSTICAL NEAR BY.*

She flops down in the chair beside him.

"Wish I could help," she says in a voice that tells him she really doesn't, "But I've got a thing goin' myself. A wipe-out-the-world kinda sitch that needs some serious researching."

He sighs and drops his head to the table in mute despair, waving a hand to urge her to hit him with it.

"It's nothing we haven't seen before. Demon. Dimensional clusterfuck. Hell on Earth. The usual. Here are the specs."

She shoves a couple of crumpled bits of paper under his nose and he reads them instinctively.

*SO WHAT DO YOU NEED, EXACTLY?* he scrawls tiredly in his notepad.

She shrugs.

"Says in the small print that this demon's got himself a weak spot. But no one knows what the heck it is. I asked Giles and he told me he thought he remembered somethin' about it in some old book or other. Wrote that out for me to show to you."

Of course. With everyone busy on the Ritual and the scrolls, that leaves only Xander for the non-essential stuff.

Waitaminnit. Since when did world-endage become non-essential?

Three hours and eighty two books later, he's found what Faith needs and she sits back to look at him.

"Sorry 'bout the..." she waves at the other papers still strewn across the tabletop.

He shrugs. Scribbles something.

*NO PROBLEM. I'M RESEARCH BOY NOW.*

She flashes him a smile and gets up.

"Thanks, Xand."

He nods and waves a grin.

And then she's gone and he's on his own again. Was it like this for Giles back in Sunnydale? Always torn in several different directions at once and never having the time to really deal with a problem before something else came up?

Maybe they should have cut him a little slack at the time.

Xander's doubts are probably what are bugging him the most at the moment. A sense that there's something wrong about all of this. But he doesn't have the time to look into that. Right now he's got to hit the books again.

Something big is coming and Buffy is worried.

***

Crash...

When something looks too good to be true, that's generally because it's about to rip your head off. Or because you're having the Buffy-covered-in-whipped-cream dream again.

Xander knows this. His life on the line has taught him this the hard way, generally through painful personal experience. So why the heck is it only now that he finally understands what the bloody hell is going on?!!

"Fuck!" Faith yelps from the passenger seat him as they finally hit the motorway.

They finally found the sacrificial ground somewhere in Wales. With the ritual transcribed, the ingredients and people to perform it gathered, the gang set out a couple of hours ago. And he was left back at RWC to hold the fort, as per usual. Then Faith comes in, fresh from her own world-saveage situation, and she gets her first look at the scrolls themselves.

"What the fuck is that?" she'd asked, looking like someone had just thrown up on her shoes.

Xander was understandably puzzled.

*THE SCROLLS WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT FOR THE LAST YEAR AND A HALF.*

She paled then. Faith, the girl who gets off on slaying vampires like there's no tomorrow paled. White as a sheet. This was probably not a good sign.

"That... You're telling me that those... those things are what you've all been raving about?"

*WHAT? WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?*

She'd looked at him like he'd gone crazy.

"The problem?"

Turns out the problem is that Faith doesn't see the cheerful mystical text that everyone else does. She doesn't see the story of her life and the meaning behind it. She doesn't see anything but runes scribed in blood on something that looks very much like peeled human skin.

After the first few times she tried to show him and her growing impatience at the fact that he just couldn't see what she did, she pulled out a pen and filched his notepad. And when he did read the runes, he knew what had been nagging him this whole time.

Too darn good to be true. The simplest lesson of all, dammit!

An end to the Hellmouth? To the fight? Then why do they need all these extra Slayers? If everything since Sunnydale was some big plot, then why the fuck are there so many darn plot holes? Why did he not see it?

The scrolls showed them what they wanted to find. Buffy wanted not to be part of the darkness anymore, Willow wanted a magical way to save the world instead of burning it and Giles just wanted everything to make sense. And so it showed that to each of them in turn.

The runes Faith scrawled in Xander's notepad are simple enough. An old illusion spell in fact. It reads the mind of the person it's dealing with and projects what they most want to see. Of course, with Xander's problem, it couldn't read him and so he was the only one to not be specifically mentioned by name. All that's really real are a few lines at the end. Telling them how to open a gate between this world and the next. Telling them how to...

Fighting down another wave of sick panic at the thought of that gate opening, at the thought of his friends being killed and the world sucked into hell, he focuses on the wheel and pumps the gas a little more. He's got to warn them! Faith tried to phone but it's dead and Willow's already gone with the others so there's no magical means to teleport. They're on their own and the guys are about to summon god knows what from god knows where and die in the process.

It's no Batmobile, but the old car is all they've got and Xander and Faith are currently trying to break the sound barrier driving from London to the unpronounceable place where the guys have gone in under three hours.

"Can't this thing go any faster?!" Faith spits from the passenger seat, her concern for the others over-riding her fear of his erratic driving.

Foot already hard on the pedal, he forces even more pressure from his ruined leg, but they're doing 120 already.

He should have known. He should have felt it. How the hell did this happen? What the hell is happening?

It all moved so fast. A year or more staring at meaningless paper and then Buffy comes in, tips them off to the 'invisible writing' and they're rolling. Why it never worked for Perrin or Giles or Dawn or any of the others who had stared at the scrolls, he can only speculate. The illusion spell is clear enough. Standard gobbledegook from your basic occult 101. Old but no way near as old as it made out. Somehow, it's Buffy who triggered it. And after that, everyone else was swept up.

He has to get there on time. Knows there's not enough time to get there and ignores the distraction of leaning on the gas pedal with his bad leg screaming sheer agony at him.

The pain doesn't matter right now. The guys are gonna die and it's all his fault.

He was blinded by the thought that Buffy was in danger, like the hormonal skater boy a part of him will always be. He pushed aside his doubts, pushed aside his questions and didn't wait to think things through and now the others are...

Giles is probably doing his Giles thing right now, double-checking all the ingredients of the ritual.

Willow's got to be all bouncy at the prospect of new mojo to sling.

And Buffy...

"Xander! Look out!" Faith screams grabbing the wheel and startling him from his thoughts.

She's too late.

They're going too fast and he wasn't watching the road.

Almost in slow motion, they hit the railing at 138 mph. And everything goes black.

***

Grave considerations...

Darkness.

Now why does this feel so familiar? Oh, right. Unconscious again.

Waitaminnit.

The speed they were going when they hit that railing, how does he know he's just unconscious? Is he dead?

Darkness.

Buffy talked about that, didn't she? Where she was, it was dark. But she also said she felt warm. Warm and loved and complete in some way. He doesn't. The guys are gonna die because he dropped the ball and he couldn't feel complete if he wanted to.

Doesn't feel warm either.

Well, that's probably because it's such a cold night, isn't it?

::Huh?::

Blinking, he realizes that the darkness is in fact night-time. That he is in fact apparently alive. And that he's standing in a graveyard. His mind does the quick double-check all Watchers and Slayers are prone to at this point. Pulse, breathing, reflection.

The reflection will have to wait 'til later, but he is breathing at least, that's a relief. And yes, he does have a pulse. So not a vamp, then. That leaves only... No idea. However the heck he comes to be here, Xander has no idea.

But the guys are still gonna die and he still needs to get to them so this is no time to think about that. He needs a phone. A taxi. A miracle.

What he gets is the sound of a scuffle in the distance.

It's beyond instinct now. Ingrained after so long in fighting shadows.

Fighting + graveyard = undead martial artist exhibitions.

And despite his need to get out of here, to reach the guys before badness happens, he's moving toward the ruckus instead. Beyond the tombs up ahead, it's drawing nearer. He should find a stake or something, should at least have a cross, but a quick search of his pockets reveals nothing. He still can't stop.

And then, he does.

Whatever the hell is happening, he knows he's not in Kansas anymore. Not gonna find the guys any time soon. Because up ahead, a very young Buffy is scrabbling ineffectually with a vamp while some old guy in a trench coat is yelling at her to go for the heart.

::What the...?::

She's freaking out, her eyes huge as the thing writhes on top of her. Without thinking about it, he starts to run.

"Buffy!"

She doesn't seem to have heard him. Neither does freaky-coat guy or the vamp bearing down on her. He lunges at the bastard but passes right through him like a ghost and lands in an ineffectual heap on the other side.

"She can't hear you," a voice informs him.

Xander almost jumps out of his skin. And looks up to find Angel standing above him, watching the spectacle dispassionately.

"Angel?"

The ensouled vamp glances down at him before his eyes return to the fight.

"Xander."

"What the hell is going on here?!"

Buffy's dusted the vamp now. She's sitting there, a vaguely bemused look on her face and tears in her eyes. And Trench coat guy is talking at her. Talking AT her. The Watcher in Xander observes the piss-poor and supremely callous attitude with contempt. This guy is old School. And it doesn't look like he even went to Watcher class that much in the first place.

Another piece of Xander's mind informs him that all of this, the graveyard, Buffy, Angel and the rest, all of it is just a fake-out. He's walking and talking again, just like with Smurf-Buffy and Tara. This is a dream. A nightmare. A memory he's reliving.

Not his own though. This belongs to Buffy.

"She can't hear you, Xander," Angel tells him sadly.

Getting up, Xander bites down on his anger and brushes the grass stains from his pants.

"Mind telling me what you're doing here?" he grinds out, finding Angel's presence here more disturbing than anything else at the moment.

Angel shrugs.

"Don't ask me, I just work here."

Xander nods like this actually makes sense in sane-ville and runs a hand through his hair, still watching the scene between a dumb-struck little girl and her Watcher unfold in front of them.

"And where is here exactly?"

"Her memories."

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Xander can feel a Giles moment coming on. His friends are in deep shit, Faith could be lying in a pool of her own blood at the moment for all he knows and dream-Angel is being cryptic guy. Again.

"I've had just about enough of this crap," he mutters through clenched teeth. "Willow and the gang are about to blow up the world if someone doesn't get to them on time and I'm stuck here with Tonto the wonder vamp playing twenty questions."

"So what else is new?" Angel asks him wryly.

Xander opens his eyes.

"Huh?"

"Willow ending the world. It's sort of becoming a habit, isn't it?"

He scowls indignantly.

"It's an accident!"

Angel levels an impassive stare at him.

"This time" Xander amends reluctantly.

Angel shrugs, a sad smile floating on his lips.

"Doesn't matter about the why of it. Never has and never will. The result will be the same, won't it?"

This is all too freaky.

"As much as I've really enjoyed spending some quality time together, Angie, it's past late and the gang is gonna die. So if you could just tell me whatever it is you want to tell me and let me the hell out of wherever we are, I might still be able to get to them in time."

Angel's smile dims and he shakes his head.

"You're already too late, Xander."

Xander blinks.

"It's over," Angel says gently. "You're dead."

And in front of them, an old Brit Xander suddenly knows must be Merrick begins to inform a very young, very frightened Buffy Anne Summers that the world is older than she believes.

***

Memory Lane...

When you wake up in a graveyard several thousand miles from where you were just involved in a high-speed car crash, it's pretty much a given that you didn't make it. It's not big news, even. Xander finds he's okay with the whole death thing. What he's not okay with is the time-traveling ghost thing.

"I'm dead?"

Angel nods solemnly.

"As in not of this world, dearly departed, late and never to be early again, dead dead?"

Another nod.

"Oh. Shoulda realized. Makes sense. One question. If I'm dead, and this is Heaven or wherever.... what the hell are you doing here?" He blinks, what he just said giving rise to a horrible suspicion. "Is this Hell?"

The scene has changed around them again and now, young Buffy is at home while her parents are yelling at each other.

Still beside him, Angel shakes his head.

"I've seen Hell. This isn't it. Less fire and brimstone, for one thing. No red-hot pokers or knives either. That's a definite tip off."

"And that was a terrible pun, even for you. If this isn't Hell, where the heck are we? Sorry to say this, but you aren't exactly my idea of Heaven, Angel."

Angel shrugs. He's got the whole unflappable enigmatic thing down pat.

"This is your life flashing in front of your eyes."

It takes a moment for that to register. A moment during which Buffy's face fades from the mirror and the scenery changes once again to cheerleader practice, probably the next day.

Xander can't help but watch the pom-poms bounce. Yeah, that's right. Pom-poms. Always has been a big fan of... pom-poms.

"My life?" he asks eventually, riveted by the spectacle.

Angel seems pretty distracted too but he nods.

"Well, that's a laugh. First Buffy-Smurf and now you. I'll tell you what I told her. I'm a guy. With the guy parts and... "

He stops short because Angel's making Ew face.

"My point is, I'm Xander Harris, okay? The Xand-man. This..." he gestures to the scene that has changed yet again to Buffy talking to a scruffy guy who reminds him of Dylan from 90210. "This is not my life, this belongs to Buffy!"

Angel is watching the Dylan-wannabe and scowling, but he turns back to frown at Xander.

"And you don't?"

::What?!::

His confusion must have shown on his face because Angel smiles darkly and turns away.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Xander asks indignantly. Angel just waves at the scene in front of them.

It's changed yet again and things are picking up speed.

Flashes of moments pass in front of them. Buffy and Dylan fighting a weirdo in evening wear, Merrick dying, Buffy's face... Then another fight, in a gym this time. This must be the gym. Big fight, big flames and Buffy and Dylan ride off into the night... Seems almost like a movie.

Then it's not.

There's the consequences to deal with. Yelling, tears and... A psych ward? They locked Buffy up in a psych ward. She did tell him about this but it never seemed so... The look in her eyes through all of this, growing steadily colder, more contained. Something dying inside.

Then the divorce. Freedom. Pulling on the normal girl act. Buffy's cured now, after all. She's bouncy and teenagerish again for her Mom's benefit. And completely dead inside whenever Mrs. Summers is not around.

Next comes the move. No friends to say goodbye to because everyone's scared of the pyro freak.

Now he's starting to recognize things. Buffy's old bedroom back in Sunnydale, filled with boxes. And Mrs. Summers calling for Buffy to wake up because she's gonna be late for school.

All of this has passed in a flash of breath. From Buffy's Calling to her arrival in Sunnydale. A year of her life, zipped by so fast he would have missed it if he blinked.

But he didn't blink.

Couldn't blink.

Everything felt real to him, like it was he who lived it. Why couldn't he have relived Buffy's bathing moments, huh? Why get the whole ugly story in one impossible to swallow package of pain and sorrow?

Angel didn't seem too bothered by any of it, surprisingly. He would glare at Dylan whenever the guy appeared but that's about all. Now they're in Sunnydale and Buffy's coming out of Flutie's office.

Thump!

Xander winces in sympathy. Then smiles as he remembers that day for himself.

::Can I have you?::

"You're telling me you don't belong to Buffy?" Angel bites out bitterly, watching as young Xander lamely attempts to get a smile from her.

More flashes.

Of life in High School. Of hanging out with Buffy and Wills. Of a spark returning to Buffy's eyes now that she has friends again, people who know and care for her.

Angel appears.

A dark, tormented guy with way too much hair gel. Young Buffy sees a romantic figure, an old and wise soul. Xander sees a dead man walking with an unhealthy crush on a child. Doesn't matter. His own feelings on this were never devoid of self-interest anyway.

More flickers. More flashes of stuff as seen by Buffy.

Demons, vampires, Faith. Cordy, Oz and Ahn, looking so very much alive. The Mayor-snake. ADAM. Riley and Tara.

Spike.

If Angel was darkness and torment, Spike is passion and fury. A maelstrom of so many conflicting emotions, Xander now knows even Buffy never knew what to make of the blond vamp.

Then she throws herself off Glory's tower almost in relief and Xander goes with her. Death. A void that somehow fills him up at the same time. The warmth is there, the satisfaction. An end to the pain. And something else...

But the world is thrown back in their faces before he can truly pay attention to whatever was going on there and Xander almost cries for the pain of it. Nothing even feels the same. Life itself seemed all jagged and wrong and off-balance in some way.

He has to watch as Buffy claws her way out of the grave. Watches as she stumbles and falls, burying her rage, her anger and her hurt that the people she had trusted could do this to her. Loathes them for it and hates herself for that. Buries the anger in... with Spike and Slayage.

Buffy's life and death and second life all pass in front of him in a blur, so fast it all runs together, so fierce, it tears him apart.

And then, like some kind of oasis of calm, the summer after Willow went to England.

A night spent with Dawnie, curled up watching a silly movie like they used to do with their Mom. Xander sees a younger version of himself use the key to come in, arms laden with junk food fresh from the convenience store. And they all dig in, just lazing around together for a few hours.

It's not perfect, no way near as blissful as those months in the void, but he can feel that Buffy has found something in that moment. A connection to her life, through Dawn and just spending time with her friends.

Respite, almost.

He watches her face then, her eyes. She's even smiling for once.

"So what if I do belong to her?" Xander asks finally, almost despite himself.

As soon as he does, everything fades. There is no more Angel, no more anything. Nothingness.

But Xander is not alone.

***

Seventh Heaven...

He's not alone. There's another scene playing out in front of him now, suspending against the blackness like it was playing on the screen of some big TV of the afterlife. This isn't a flashback though. It's what's going down right now in the real world. It's his friends as they realize the ritual is going screwy.

Xander can only watch helplessly through the window hanging against the void as everything goes south big time. Buffy's standing in the center of a circle of salt, with funky symbols he can't quite make out written on her face and on the floor around her. The light surrounding her seems to be shuddering, expanding and contracting like a heart beat.

Except, it's not light it's something else. He recognizes it immediately.

A nexus, like the flashy pyrotechnic display Glory put on by bleeding Dawnie.

And it's not contracting so much as stopping and starting again.

Outside the circle, Giles, Willow and their teams are all watching in wide mouthed shock. This was evidently not what they had hoped would happen. From his vantage point in the nowhere, Xander's railing against the stupidity of it all, against his own shortcomings, trying to find some way to get to them and help out.

But he can't.

Because he's dead, right? There's the whole pesky ghost thing that's getting in the way.

Come to think of it, where's Faith? Did she die too?

He wants to move though, to at least be there with the others as the nexus they thought was a gate opens around Buffy and whatever is gonna pop out eventually wipes out the world. But his body's not moving no matter how hard he tries.

Well, whatever he thinks of as his body can't move.

::When you're dead, you're nothing more than the sum of all your thoughts after all.::

How does he know this?

"Because I do," says a voice behind him.

Able to move again at last, he turns quickly to find himself face to face with... Huh?

Looking back over his shoulder, Xander can see Buffy still hanging there in the TV-window thing, caught in her nexus of light and shadow. So why is she also standing in front of him as well?

Confusion warring with, well, even more confusion and a whole lot of despair, he resorts to the old standards.

"Hey Buff," he greets the girl standing in front of him airily.

Her lips twitch, but her eyes are colder than ice.

"Hey, Xand. Long time no see."

"Actually..." Xander gestures to her doppelganger in the window.

"Oh, I'm not her," Buffy waves dismissively. "Well, I am, but I'm really not."

He blinks.

"Have you been speaking to Angel recently?" he asks suspiciously.

Cold-eyed Buffy morphs into the ensouled vamp in question.

"We've talked a lot over the years, Xander," he informs him with a hard smile.

First reliving Buffy's life, now this. What is this anyway?

"You're not supposed to be here, Xander," Angel says dryly. "You were never supposed to be here. You're just a guy who's too dumb to know when he's not needed."

Having told himself much the same thing over the years, Xander's lack of visible indignation seems to rile Angel more than anything.

"I'm still not sure what the hell is going on, Tonto," he retorts instead. "Where is the 'here' that I'm not supposed to be?"

"You don't know?" the thing asks, changing into Merrick. "You can't guess? And you consider yourself a Watcher."

"I'm more of a Watcher than you ever were, fish eyes," Xander shoots back.

"Then why didn't you watch out, Xander?" Cold-eyed Buffy is back again. "Why did you let things go this far?"

Behind him, the light show is getting worse. Willow's doing something to hold in the flow, to cordon off the nexus, but his Buffy is still trapped inside and the strain is visible in both their faces. Now is not the time to play the questions game.

"Will somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on?!" he yells angrily.

The face-changing thing disappears and the vision of the church and the gang's plight fades too. He's alone again.

"YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE!" a new voice screams, like thunder from the sky.

He wants to yell back that he has no idea where here is anyway, but he doesn't. Because for some reason, this place does sort of feel familiar to him somehow. No, not familiar. Remembered.

"I've been here before," he says, almost to himself.

Looking around, he searches for something he can't quite recall but that he knows, suddenly knows with crystal clarity, is right there waiting for him.

And there it is. A flash of blonde hair and a resolute expression.

He's been here before alright. This is where he was after he got shot. Where he was never supposed to be.

Buffy's Heaven.

"You had no right to break in here, Xander," Buffy says. She's herself now. This is Buffy, the girl he's known all his life, not a thing wearing her image.

"I had no right...?" he asks almost incredulously. "Sorry, Buff, but I didn't exactly choose whatever this place is for an afterlife, you know. Given the choice, Hugh Heffner would probably have a new lodger in the Playboy Mansion in the sky."

She shakes her head, not listening.

"You called to me, when you were dying," she accuses him. "So loud! Why did you...? You always put me so high above anything else, so far away. Nothing ever changed that and it was always so darn heavy. Too much. I'm not a hero, Xand. I'm just me. And I'm finally free from all that. Leave me alone."

He listens to her, still not really understanding how she can be here and in the church at the same time but not really caring.

"Sorry to break the news to ya, Buff, but you kinda got down from that pedestal of mine a long time ago," he says sarcastically.

"You called to me, Xander," she growls, pointing a finger at him. "I heard you dying, I felt the pain in your chest and the blood in your lungs. You were drowning and you needed me and so I HAD to do something. I had to wake up again."

He's about topped off on the weird-o-meter right now. May as well go with the flow and see where it leads.

So Xander just shrugs.

"Why?"

Blinking, she actually has to stop to think about that one.

"Because you were dying," she replies eventually.

Ah. The Buffy-logic has landed.

"Are you pissed because you had to 'wake up' when you felt me die? Or because I called to you?"

She doesn't respond. Crosses her arms defensively and scowls.

"So you wouldn't have minded me dying if I'd kept my mind shut then?"

Buffy's scowl fades with the sudden surge of indignation.

"Of course I would!"

"Why?" he snaps, jumping on the opening.

"Because you're my friend!"

He quirks an eyebrow and just stares at her.

Realizing she's making absolutely no sense, she draws back into herself.

"I'm fine here, Xander. Things are better here. Peaceful. I'm safe at last and... Just... Just GO AWAY!"

He feels her words like a physical push but doesn't budge. You are the sum of your thoughts here, that's what he was told. Probably by some other part of Buffy for all he knows. If thoughts are all that they have left in this void-place then he's at least as strong as she is, right? Thoughts are everything here and belief in those thoughts is the only power.

And one thing he's always known bone-deep is that he's the one who stayed. In Sunnydale, on the line, in Buffy's life, whatever. He stayed. Strip everything else away and you hit that bedrock. Nothing can shift him if he doesn't want it to.

Buffy's pushing him away with all her mind-strength but Xander is confused, angry and also apparently dead. So he's understandably feeling contrary at the moment.

"I'm not going anywhere, Buffy."

Her eyes plead with him.

"Please, Xan. Please?"

He just shakes his head.

"Sorry, Buff. No can do. I'm still the guy who was too dumb to run away, remember?"

A storm of nothingness rises around them, pelting him with blows, scraping and clawing at his body. Howling like a banshee, the wind picks up, battering his body like a madman whaling punches on him. He curls into a ball, the pain almost overwhelming. Biting down on a scream of his own, he fights to say lucid.

"LEAVE!"

::What are you gonna do?:: he thinks rebelliously. ::Kill me even deader?::

The rage-storm truly does last forever. And then he's on the ground, lying cradled in her lap and looking up at her.

"Why do you have to be so darn pig-headed?" Buffy asks almost affectionately, eyes soft.

"Learned... from... the best," he gasps, trying to smile against the ache of the abrupt end of the blows.

A hand brushes at his hair.

"You got older," she says almost to herself, looking at the faint gray streaking his normal brown.

"S'called life, Buff. Happens to everyone. You should try it some time."

Her eyes smile sadly.

"I can't go back, Xander. I'm dead."

He forces himself up again.

"Well, for a dead girl, you felt pretty hot to me when I last saw you."

"Hot?" Her smile turns into a smug grin and he rolls his eyes.

"Warm then. As in pulse-having, air-breathing kinda warm. What gives?"

She shrugs.

"No idea. I feel like me. I feel like I've been here forever. I fell off Glory's Tower and..."

"Dived off," he corrects her.

"Same thing."

He shakes his head.

"Dying doesn't have to be esthetically pleasing, Buff. Swan dives are pretty much reserved for the Olympics."

She looks uneasy and glances away.

"Dead is dead."

"That's for sure. Except, you're not, are you? Only a part of you is."

"Huh?"

"Very good, Mr. Harris!"

Hands start to clap from the shadows. Steps draw closer.

"I can see we're going to have to deal with you before you cause much more disturbance," Mayor Wilkins says genially, stepping out of the shadows.

***

Chapter the Thirteenth - Let there be...

Trouble in Paradise...

"Okay, now you're just messing with me," Xander mutters under his breath.

Buffy moves protectively closer to him, her eyes guarded.

The Mayor is now standing right in front of them, large as life and twice as ugly. It's been years since either Xander or Buffy laid eyes on the man but the hatred is still there, just as fresh as ever. Perhaps it helps that Faith's plight is still a question in the back of his mind, but Xander can finally see just how twisted the guy truly was.

"Oh, I think you'll find it is you who is messing with me, Mr. Harris. Yes indeed, a fly in my ointment."

Xander quirks an eyebrow.

"Ointment? If you're having problems, some preparation H could probably help with that."

Buffy's tension wavers slightly, the only indication he ever gets that she's amused by one of his bad jokes when she's on the prowl.

The Mayor's pleasant expression doesn't waver but there's a sense that Xander has just done the equivalent of wave a red rag to a bull and that the bull is only holding back from squashing him flat because it wants to play with him a little first.

The window opens up again behind them, a picture hanging in full Technicolor against the void. And Xander's with the others all of a sudden...

///

"Do it, Will!" Buffy's screaming. Begging almost.

Outside the circle, Willow's shaking with tension, her face pale as death and her eyes pitch black just like that time on the Bluff. The only difference is the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"No! We can do this! Giles is gonna...!"

"Please! I can't hold this thing back much longer!"

Behind the two girls, Giles and his team are feverishly searching through the ancient texts they brought with them, desperate to understand what the hell is going on.

"End this, Willow!" Buffy all but screams.

Willow's got her resolve face on though.

"NO! WE ARE NOT GONNA LOSE YOU AGAIN!"

///

The Mayor laughs pleasantly as Xander and the Buffy beside him watch in impotent rage.

"Miss Rosenberg is truly delightful, isn't she? Unwilling to face the inevitable and give up on her friend. Of course, she cannot win. She's simply too stubborn to realize that yet. I'm pleased to see that despite your... interference, my plan is still on track."

"Plan?" Void-Buffy asks, her voice cold.

She's moved in front of Xander now, eyes watching Wilkins intently. Like a lion watching its prey.

The Mayor turns to look at her, his benevolent smile darkening slightly before returning.

"Nothing to concern yourself with, my dear. No, nothing at all. Just a little paper chase I set up for your friends... Maybe you should go back to sleep. You do look terribly tired."

"Like hell I will," Buffy bites out, one hand reaching for Xander's arm and gripping it painfully.

Grinding his teeth, Xander leans in to support her. He can feel she's suddenly having trouble even standing up anymore. Whatever this thing wearing Wilkins' face is, it's doing something to her. Fighting to control her in some way.

Buffy's eyes are dim, her shoulders slack and she looks asleep on her feet.

However she looks though, the fact is that she is still on her feet, despite the mind-whammy the Mayor creature is apparently laying on her. Her grip on Xander's arm is tight enough to break bones but he wouldn't shake her off if he could. She's taking something from him, something she needs to resist the onslaught. How he knows this is a mystery but he does.

There's something going on he just can't make out, a private exchange between her and the thing in front of them, and Buffy should not be winning. Everything about the creature's surprised expression tells him that this is not how the story is supposed to go. And Buffy's not winning, that's for sure, but somehow she's managing not to lose either.

"This is getting tedious," the creature spits in irritation, turning away.

Freed from whatever mojo it was slinging at her, Buffy staggers and falls into Xander for a second.

"This is all your fault, you know," the Wilkins thing snarls, turning back to face Xander.

Lost as to what just happened, Xander cocks his head to one side quizzically.

"Uh... Thanks?"

"If you hadn't come here, if your whining hadn't somehow got through to her..."

"Whining?!" Xander protests indignantly. "I got shot! Did the whole Kevin Costner/Bodyguard thing for Dawnie. I was damn manly!"

Contrary to evil tradition though, the thing isn't in the mood for banter. It doesn't even seem to hear him as it rants.

"And you had to call for her as you went, didn't you? Couldn't just DIE in silence like a good little pawn. No, you had to somehow find a way to call the other pieces back, didn't you? You sniveling little..."

"What are you anyway?" Buffy butts in, having caught her breath. She's rubbing at her temple, still woozy, and glaring. "I'm damned if you're Wilkins. He had a certain sense of style at least."

The figure morphs into ADAM, then flickers through Glory and settles on Angel again. No, with a smirk like that, he's probably Angelus.

"You really don't know?" he asks smugly.

"I'm guessing not Odo," Xander says, backing away instinctively.

Buffy's unfazed.

"You're not Angel either."

"Leather pants, Buff," Xander hisses out of the corner of his mouth. "Whoever he is, he's wearing leather pants."

Both Angelus and Buffy turn to look at him like he's some kind of crazy person.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Leather pants equals evil," Xander explains patiently.

The looking is still happening. Even Angelus seems confused.

"Hey, I don't make the rules, okay?" Xander says testily. "Bad guys wear leather pants. It's like some natural law or something."

Buffy and Angel swap a glance of silent communion and decide to ignore the weirdo and get back to their staring match.

"You were always easy, Buffy. I could play with you all day long and still waltz away to boast about it afterward. The number of people you let me..."

"Yadda, yadda, yadda," she interrupts, her glare hardening. "You're no more Angelus than you were the Mayor. Xander's right. The leather pants just aren't working for you, beefcake."

Xander gestures his agreement.

That was probably one bad quip too many. The Angelus-thing rounds on them and snarls. It lunges forward to smack Xander senseless but finds Buffy in the way. She parries the punch and leads in with one of her own and the fight is on.

In the course of the years he's known her, however he felt about her at any given time, Xander has always enjoyed watching Buffy fight. Sure, it's arousing in a way - a very specialized way that he will never ever talk about under any circumstances - but it's also just a sight to see. She's a force of nature when she gets up and running. Almost poetry in motion. She fights with fluid grace akin to a dancer and she moves to a rhythm only she seems to hear.

The Angel-thing isn't too bad either though, truth be told. No, it's better than that. Like watching Keanu Reeves do his one armed shtick against Buffy-bullets. Every punch is blocked, every kick avoided and Buffy's running out of steam.

Then it lands a punch that knocks her head so far back, Xander's sure the bastard just broke her neck. She staggers and slumps down to the floor. The Angel-creature isn't even breathing hard.

"The other piece of you gave me more trouble than that, kid," it laughs at her, morphing again into Warren this time.

Everything clicks into place and Xander's eyes go wide.

"I thought we'd killed you!" Xander exclaims despite himself.

***

Seeing. Knowing...

The First Evil turns and smirks at Xander.

"Killed me? How? I was incorporeal in your world at the time, you idiot."

Hearing this causes Xander to turn back to the window behind him, eyes focused on his friends once more. Time seems to be passing differently on the other side because Buffy is still urging Willow to just let her go and save the world instead.

"At the time?"

It's not a question. Somehow, Xander knows what all of this is about now. Knows what's going to come out through that nexus and into Buffy.

Warren walks up beside him and nods approvingly.

"Good! You're starting to get it. For a moment there, I really thought I was gonna have to spell things out, Harris."

And everything clicks into place. Glory. Buffy's new-found multiple personality disorder. The emptiness inside her ever since they brought her back. And the scrolls, just a means to get Buffy into that ritual, to set everything up to open a door and... And then what?

"It was all so easy," the Warren-First crows boastfully. "An end to the Slayer line. Ha! Ever heard of self-fulfilling prophecies? You people did it for me." It giggles and puts on a fake British accent. "Why that's a bloody brilliant idea!" More nerdy giggles. "Did none of you notice you were all but reading from a damn script? A compulsion spell or two, a couple of minions to prod you in the right direction and all I had to do was sit back and let you losers do all the work!"

Still numb with shock, Xander glances over to the Buffy behind him, lying in a heap on the ground and unmoving.

The fake Warren follows his gaze.

"Yes, you get the idea. Who do you think gave me a toe-hold in your dimension again after she killed my Bringers the first time? I brought her here and tore out everything I couldn't use," it gestures to the girl on the floor, "And sent a piece of myself back with what was left when you and your friends did that black magic you do so well. Didn't expect so much resistance, I'll give her that. In the end, I had to use the vampire she was boning to set things up instead. Of course, it took me a while to get my strength back and by that time, the pieces of her that I let come back had somehow healed themselves enough to put up a fight."

"We killed you..." Xander mutters under his breath, still unable to believe what it is he's talking to.

"You blew up the Hellmouth, that's true. And you did delay my plans a bit, sure. But everything was back on track and going smoothly. She..." Warren nods to the window and the Buffy caught in the nexus, "... was almost to the point where I could move in again and you had to go and get yourself shot."

It feels like a piece of Xander's heart just died. Was just torn from his body. Everything was part of some huge scam? Buffy was some kind of unwitting Trojan horse? How...

Things are moving as if through treacle inside the window now. Buffy's screams are dulling, her eyes going blank. And the window is slowly growing taller. More door-shaped.

The Warren-thing is watching the show with something akin to eager anticipation in its eyes.

"The scrolls were a God-send, weren't they? Came along at just the right time to put her back on track and I get the rest of your little band thrown in the mix for good measure. Won't be long now. When she gives in, I will have my body and an army of ex-Slayers at my beck and call."

The ashes in Xander's mouth turn to bile. The First, coming back and seizing the power they thought they had kept from it. Seizing Buffy and turning her into the real Mistress of Pain. Tearing out her soul like some vamp and pulling her strings like a satanic puppeteer.

Everything they had worked for, everything that had happened since Sunnydale, all of that for nothing.

An end to the Slayer line.

If Buffy's Slayerness was what was used when Willow did her Activation Spell, then whatever 'modifications' took place during those three months of death have been passed on to the other girls too. And if the First did what it says it did, then that certainly wasn't to help them.

So the First moves into Buffy. Takes her over. And... Takes the others too? Not just a vamp-like Buffy but all the new girls raped and broken.

World domination or destruction at the hands of a legion of soul-drained teens.

In his mind, Xander can still see Buffy's face that first year in High School. When she dug herself out of her first grave.

No.

Looking over his shoulder, he sees that the girl, the assembly of the pieces of Buffy trapped here for so long, is still out of things. She can't be dead, because it would be difficult to kill her more than she already has been, but apparently, she is completely unconscious.

"Don't even bother," the fake Warren says. "She's back where she never should have woken up from. Your precious Slayer can't help anyone now, Harris," It's all but reading Xander's thoughts and crushing his hopes without turning from the scene in the window.

::Thoughts.::

A voice whispers in the back of his mind.

A plan then.

::Come on, Genius, think!::

This guy beat Buffy without a problem, right? This is its domain, its lair somewhere beyond death where it's the big kahuna, the boss, the undisputed champ. Here, this thing is like Tyson and Ali rolled into one and everyone else is Woody Allen with food poisoning.

It has power. But what does that mean? Here of all places, what is power? Belief in something, that much is true. What does he believe in? What does he know for a fact?

::We're back to the bedrock again,:: he thinks desperately to himself. ::What do I know best? The complete run of Babylon 5? Carpentry? Latin, Greek and a few other dead languages? How to make a killer BLT?::

"No," Xander says decisively under his breath. Time to cut the crap.

Beside him, First Warren blinks.

"Excuse me?" it asks incredulously.

::Think! I'm the one who never left, and I'm not gonna...::

"No."

What does that have to do with anything? Just misplaced pride and ego-tripping at a time when he does not have that option.

Warren's looking bemused now.

::Damn it, Harris. What do you know? What is the one thing that is written in stone?::

Something sparks somewhere in the back of his mind and a faint smile grows on his face.

Spooked despite itself, the Warren-thing looks slightly uncertain.

"You are not going to do this," Xander informs it, as if discussing the weather.

It takes a moment for the First to process what he just said and its uncertainty turns to amusement.

"And who are you to stop me?" the fake Warren asks, visibly amused.

Xander's smile widens.

"Me? I'm no one. But she's Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

A blinding light fills the void and the First Evil suddenly looks worried.

***

The One Who Sees...

The light flares with painful intensity and dies away in an instant.

"Fuck!" Warren-First spits, clawing at its eyes.

Xander isn't having any trouble. The warm light on his face, the breeze blowing aimlessly around them. Now this is Heaven.

The void is not a void anymore.

They're in the living desert.

Standing together in the sunlight, the First almost looks small. A pathetic, twisted little thing. Completely lost. It's still Warren-shaped, but somehow it's also every other form it can take at the same time. And a nebulous hairy creature that looks like a squid on acid hanging above them all like a cloud.

Beside it, in his black shirt and slacks, Xander's smiling up at the sun. It feels safe here. This desert is the closest thing to a Paradise he can think of after all.

"What did you do?" the fake Warren asks incredulously.

Xander shrugs.

It grabs him by the neck and shakes him.

"What did you do?!" the First yells angrily.

And then, suddenly, two hands seize it by the shoulders and twist, jerking it off him sharply.

"Well, whaddya know?" a voice snarls. "Sleeping Beauty just woke up."

And the First doesn't even have time to say anything before a fist slams into the side of its face.

Massaging his throat cautiously, Xander watches the fight unfold while around him, the landscape seems to crackle with energy. Oh yeah. Buffy's back.

///

"Giles, what's happening?" Willow asks, her arms shaking with strain but her eyes suddenly clear.

From somewhere to her left, the old Brit looks up and notices something is different too.

The dimensional nexus surrounding Buffy is still there, still pulsing angrily and still tearing at her from the inside out, but she's not screaming any more.

For a second, the fear she might have given in is plain on his face, but that soon passes. She's not dead yet. In fact, she's almost calm now. Focused. The expression in her eyes is no longer so desperate that it's painful to look at.

In fact, she almost seems to be distracted. As if listening to something only she can hear.

There is a sudden flare of light and Willow staggers back, the sudden disappearance of the energies she's been fighting to contain almost a physical blow.

The nexus isn't trying to grow any more. In fact, it's...

This is very odd.

///

Xander Harris was always the normal guy of the Scooby gang. Buffy was the hero, Willow her witchy back-up and Giles their mentor. Xander was the 'heart' of the gang, whatever that meant. For a long time, he had trouble finding a place for himself. A problem defining who he was. He has no powers, not much special knowledge even now and magic put out a restraining order on him long ago. No, what really defines him is what he believes in. Xander has always been very simple when it comes to that.

He believes in his friends.

He believes that vampires are not good.

He believes that Hawaiian shirts are the height of fashion.

And he believes, despite any and all evidence to the contrary, that Buffy will somehow always save the day.

The two opponents are both moving so fast, he shouldn't be able to follow their movements but he can't tear his eyes away.

Buffy's a petite girl, five foot nothing much when she's not wearing heels. And she's facing the First Evil in all of its forms at the same time, so she should be dwarfed in size, speed and endurance. Theoretically, no contest as soon as the First starts to fight back.

But there's something different about Buffy too. The fact that she has not been so easily dealt with is visibly having more of an effect on the First than her punches, formidable as those are in their own right. She is no more 'just' herself than Warren-First is 'just' Warren. The first Slayer is there with her. And the black woman with Spike's coat. And the bar maid, the Chinese girl, Kendra and a thousand and more faces all in one. Buffy's fighting with uncountable Slayers along side her, all lending her their strength.

Kicking, punching, gouging and maiming, they're breaking down everything the First Evil has to throw at them because Xander knows they will. Nothing the First can come up with, no physical attacks or influence that it brings to bear can touch them because Xander knows nothing can.

Here, thoughts have power. Belief is power. And he's a very simple believer.

Watching from the sidelines, it's all zipping by in a flash. Buffy Summers and the First Evil. They're moving so fast, they're almost blurs of light as strike meets counter-strike like something out of a Jackie Chan flick.

Buffy's blocking the blows this time. Blocking the First's mad Matrix-fu with effortless grace. Until one of her moves, a nasty back-handed chop to its throat causes it to stagger back and fall to its knees. Pushing her advantage, she spins and slams the heel of her shoe into the side of its head with a gruesome crunch.

The world holds its breath.

And Buffy is standing alone. Not even breathing hard. Looking out at the desert as it shudders intensely.

For a California boy, shaking scenery is generally a sign to duck under a table but Xander doesn't feel threatened. He walks down from the ridge to stand beside her and they watch quietly as the shudders subside. After a while, she turns and smiles at him. A smile he hasn't seen in a very long while. Almost a lifetime, it feels.

"Thanks, Xan," she says with a wave.

And then she's gone too.

Now he's alone in the desert again.

Time passes.

He's still standing there.

More time.

The standing is still happening.

This is getting old.

Xander sighs and raises a hand.

"Er... Excuse me? I'm not hip to the being dead thing yet," he says loudly. "Could someone please tell me what happens next?"

Can a landscape roll its eyes?

***

Chapter the Fourteenth - Aftershocks

What happens next...

If only they'd turn off that annoying beeping sound...

Oh.

This again.

Xander tries to force his eyes open and almost cries out in pain. Too bright!

It takes what seems like ages for some focus to return to the world, something of a habit he could do without.

An age during which he realizes that he's either tripping down his own memory lane this time or else, contrary to popular belief, he's actually not dead. This feels real enough. If he was really dead, would his head be hurting so badly?

So maybe...

Is it wishful thinking to allow for the hope that he might actually still be alive? The familiar beeping tells him he apparently does have a heart beat, after all. And... Oh no.

He tries to lift his arm and nothing. Tries to move his leg and no response. He can't move his head to see what's going on but it feels like his body is buried in cement.

Oh no.

Fighting down hysteria he didn't even feel in the afterlife, Xander tries to focus on his surroundings. Another hospital, of course.

His eyes start to burn.

A noise from beside him makes him try to look at where it's coming from, straining his eye as he can't actually turn his head. Willow's next to him, slumped in her chair just like last time. But there's also Giles too. And Faith, all beaten up and bruised and bandaged. The three of them are folded up in chairs around the bed, sleeping fitfully or just staring into space.

"Xander...?" Giles asks cautiously, having noticed the scrutiny.

"Awistflargl," Xander replies.

No voice anymore either. His eyes feel hot and itchy now.

Both Willow and Faith, leaning into each other and dozing, are jolted awake as Giles leaps up. Willow's face lights up and Faith grins slightly.

"Glad to see you're awake," Giles says in relief.

Xander's too lost to even think up an appropriate sarcastic reply to that one. He tries to move again. Can't.

"We were very worried for you, I must say," the old Brit continues regardless. "It's a miracle you survived the crash in fact. Had Faith not possessed the presence of mind to haul you out of the wreckage as soon as she did, both of you would have died in the fire."

Xander's not listening. Doesn't want to listen. He's paralyzed again, he knows it. No matter how much he tries to move, even just his head, nothing. He's back in the hospital bed he took so long getting out of and everything is right back where...

Wait. If he's alive and the guys are here and not...

What's going on?

"Hey, Xander," Faith says cheerfully. "So you didn't die, huh? You owe me a beer."

::What's going on?::

"We were so worried," Willow says from the other side of the bed, eyes wet. "You could have... Well, died again. But Faith was there and you... Well, you just got really lucky, I guess."

Xander fights down the hysterical thoughts of the last time he got lucky with Faith, his uncontrollable giggles a knife wound with every twitch. Torn in a thousand different directions, he has no idea what's happening and try as he might, he just cannot seem to move.

::Could somebody please just tell me what is going on?!:: he pleads mentally. ::I can't move! And where's...?::

Behind them, the curtain pulls back to reveal the other bed in the room and its occupant. Buffy. She looks awful, like she has somehow just had her insides scooped out and shoved back upside down or something. But she also looks wonderful. Less... Less something. Less wrong, perhaps. She's smiling cheerfully.

"Hey, Xan," she says hoarsely, her hands rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "How are you feeling?"

And what is there to reply to a question like that? If he even could, that is?

On one hand, it looks like everyone survived this time, despite what he expected. And his friends are all here with him and he didn't wake up alone. And yeah, he did wake up, which a part of him knows is a good thing.

But he's paralyzed. No arm movement, no leg movement, no reactions whatsoever.

So the relief and the happy warmth are buried under the wave of fear and sorrow in his mind.

Swinging her legs out of bed, Buffy pulls herself upright and Giles moves to grab her shoulder. With a grateful smile, she eases herself into a chair next to Xander's bed.

"I'm getting used to being here for your unconscious moments now, Xand," she grumbles warmly.

Willow's smile is bittersweet but just as warm.

"Well, he is a Watcher now, after all," Giles comments from behind her, with a hand on both Buffy and Willow's shoulders.

Faith snorts from somewhere just out of eye-sight. From the way his bed shifted, Xander realizes she must have somehow managed to flop herself across the end of it.

"We called Dawnie," Buffy informs him. "Told her what happened and that we all made it, so not to worry. She's gonna come back for a while."

::Not to worry?! Not to...::

"She'll be here in time to sign the cast before they cut it off."

He blinks.

::What cast?::

She reaches out and raps her knuckles against his cement-covered chest. It makes a hollow noise.

"A full-body cast. For the guy who never got hurt in Sunnydale, you had a helluva lot to catch up with, I guess," she smiles.

::A full...? I'm not...? Huh?::

"You're gonna be fine, Xand," Willow says, finally catching on and trying to reassure him. "Just a few broken bones. Well, just over a hundred, in fact. Ooh! And your organs were all smushed too!"

The others turn to look at her.

"What?"

"His organs were smushed?" Faith repeats dryly.

Willow looks indignant.

"Well, they were, weren't they?"

"Could you possibly sound any more cheerful when you say it, Will?"

"I like smushed," she protests. "It's a good word. Very descriptive."

Everyone just looks at her.

"Oh shut up," she mumbles, her face doing its tomato impersonation again.

Buffy shakes her head with a grin and turns back.

"You lucked out. Lotsa bruises and broken bits but nothing unfixable. You're gonna make a full recovery."

Then she leans down and drops a light kiss at the corner of his lips.

"Everything's gonna be fine, Xan. I promise."

And then the dark wave that was numbing his mind finally breaks and the relief overwhelms him.

He's not paralyzed.

Just beat up. Very beat up. An 'in pieces' kind of beat up.

But the guys are all here and Buffy's smiling.

He can deal.

***

Progress...?

The fallout is hell for everyone. The guys told him about it whenever they came to visit him in the hospital, which was all the time.

For one thing, the Slayer problem had them all tied up in knots for weeks. Because, even though the changes to the Slayer essence were made by the First, they're still in place. The fight only stopped badness from going global, but that doesn't mean that prior badness was completely erased.

The upshot of this is that Faith really is the one true Slayer. In that respect, the scrolls helped. The RWC is already geared up to deal with that now and Faith is done freaking.

Of course, this leaves several hundred young girls with Slayer powers but no Calling.

And the Council was in no way ready to deal with that. Much fun was not had sorting out that little metaphysical problem.

Still, it hasn't changed much.

Instead of being Chosen for a deeper Angelic purpose, the girls are Chosen simply because they are. Hell, there could be some cosmic geek upstairs who's looking down and singling out the hotties because he has a thing for the Xena warrior princess types for all Xander knows. Best to leave the mystical justifications to the experts and concentrate on the results.

A single Chosen One backed up by several hundred Slayers. However you look at it, survival-wise, that's still a good thing, right?

It's taken forever for Xander to tell the guys what happened. In his full-body cast, it's not like he was able to mime it to them. And without a voice or access to Willow's telepathy, he was worse off than Lassie on a bad day.

::What's that, Xander? Timmy's downed some Bells?::

Try explaining a complex metaphysical adventure through someone else's afterlife with nothing to help you do it but one blink for 'yes' and two blinks for 'no'. At least he hasn't been bored during his hospital stay, there is that to say for it. Madly frustrated, sure, but not bored.

Buffy's helped of course. Throughout his convalescence, she's been there for him. She visited almost every day, helped with the physiotherapy, stayed around to have rambling one-sided conversations to keep him distracted. A complete 180 to her up-until-now avoidey stance of hospitals.

He doesn't blame her for that anymore though. Well, he doesn't think about that anymore. It's just been too long now and so much has happened. Besides, Buffy's had some pretty harsh experiences in hospital. Her cousin dying in front of her eyes as a kid, the straight-jacket treatment after the Slayer stuff got too much and no one would believe her, her mom's illness and then death.

Hospitals and Buffy don't really mix. He's almost touched that she made such a point of visiting so much. It must be mostly guilt over leaving him alone the last time, he knows that, but still, he's touched. She didn't have to come so often. Barely a day went by without her, in fact.

She told the guys her side of the story, about watching from within the nexus as the First Slayer and the First evil threw down.

Even though she couldn't move from where the dimensional energies were frying her from the inside out, she was also in the living desert with him. For her though, it feels so much more like a dream. There are details she missed or simply cannot remember and she knows nothing of what had happened before he turned up in that desert.

Doesn't remember the stuff in the void or know about Angel's guided tour of her life and Xander is pretty glad to have had the time to think of several ways to minimize the impact of all of that by the time he was physically able to give his version of events.

Now the gang knows most of what happened, what Xander feels is important for them to know and is comfortable with them knowing, and the theories, they are a-bounding.

Theories are 'bounding all over the darn place, that's the problem with working at the RWC.

But Giles thinks that the scrolls were in fact partially true. The Slayerness was tampered with, of course, but also Buffy herself in some way. The pieces of her that were able to connect to the others, her capacity to hope, the emotions that made her so much more stable than before were all messed up. Buffy was glaring at her Watcher when he added that last part and Giles had a severe fit of glasses-polishing while Willow cackled in the background.

Anyway, Giles had finished diplomatically, the First Evil's changes to the Slayer essence also explained Buffy herself being 'out of sorts' after she came back.

Out of sorts.

Even Buffy had to choke down a suspicious cough at the genteel phrasing.

Now, Xander's waiting to be picked up from hospital. There are still dozens of questions unanswered; things he feels are too private to get into with the gang. He's waiting for Buffy to come fetch him so he can talk about all that with her.

"Xander?" a voice behind him calls.

Turning, he sees Willow coming through the doors.

He waves.

::Hey, Wills.::

She looks a bit sad but not tragically so. Annoyed-sad. Miffed, Perrin would call it.

"Got your things ready?" she asks.

He nods, pulling his notepad from his pocket.

*EVERYTHING'S PACKED AND READY TO GO. WHERE'S BUFFY?*

Her annoyance flares slightly before regaining its sorta-sad part too.

"Buffy's... Well, Buffy's taken some time off. She's on vacation."

He blinks.

Waves a hand to encourage her to continue.

She sighs.

"She said she needed some time to process stuff. I don't know. So she took a plane to go see Dawnie down in Cairo."

He blinks again.

Willow tries to smile.

"Hey, at least she waited until after you got out of the hospital to run away this time. That's progress, right?"

He tries to think of something to respond to that, but there is nothing there. No defensive sarcasm, no easy quip.

It doesn't matter. Will is right. At least Buffy made sure he was okay before running this time.

"Let's get out of here," she says gently, taking his hand.

Brought back from wherever his mind had wandered, he tries to smile at her, remembers his dead face muscles and waves a grin instead. Nods.

::Yeah. Let's go.::

***

Tea and biscuits...

It's been three weeks and Xander's back at the library, sorting books.

Perrin is starting to calm down about the scrolls fiasco, especially as the real text of the scrolls is in fact rather interesting, from an academic point of view. The old boy is much less harried now at any rate and is back to spending most of his time with Roger the Truly Mad. With the changes the First Evil made to the Slayer Line, the rogue Seer's predictions might even begin to make sense now in fact.

Life has... well, it's impossible to say that life at the RWC has calmed down. Just yesterday, there was another world-ending crisis in Montreal of all places and Xander was up with the rest of the team sifting through several books of old French prophecies.

It's fun to think that he can read old French well enough but could not understand a word the local Slayer had to say when she was on the speaker phone to Giles last night.

Buffy's still not here.

Willow's back to coming by almost every day to talk again, something he's rather ashamed to think he hadn't noticed her not doing as much when Buffy was here. Willow isn't as militant against their third musketeer anymore though. Or as overly concerned for him, which is a good thing.

After the car crash, the one upside of his long hospital stay was that she was able to come to terms with the fact that he wasn't as 'broken' as she had been seeing him these last few years. It might have had something to do with not being alone to deal with it this time, but Willow took the whole situation in stride and was able to finally get back to hanging with him because he's Xander-the-bestest-best-friend rather than Xander-the-guy-who-needs-comforting.

She tells him about Buffy from time to time. What she's doing in Cairo with Dawnie, the stuff she's seen. Chatty things. His girls talk now on the phone almost every week. Giles too knows most of what's up in Buffy-world at the moment, as she's been hanging out with Dawnie's team on a few missions down there.

Xander still hasn't heard anything though.

Sure, phone calls would be mostly one-sided anyway, unless he beeped his replies in Morse code or something, but she could still leave a message on the answer phone, couldn't she? Just a 'Hey, Xand. Having a blast. Wish you were here' kinda message. Or a postcard even. They make postcards in Cairo, right?

But nothing.

And he's trying to ignore how weird that makes him feel. It hits at odd times, whenever something comes up on the job that he knows she'd get a laugh from or whenever he gets Giles to polish those glasses again.

He misses her.

Sometimes.

He's even caught himself dialing his own phone number to hear her voice on the answering machine, pathetic as that sounds.

Still, she's not running this time. Buffy is with Dawnie and cutting no one out of her life. Well, no one but him. At least... No. There is no at least. It sucks. He misses her.

Life goes on though, right? So he's back on the job and running himself ragged to catch up on the back log of work at the RWC. The place is a mess.

Giles did the stand-in thing while Xander was in hospital but, truth be told, he's not that good at indexing. Of course, telling him that to his face would probably be the librarian equivalent of pulling off a glove and smacking him in the face with it Bugs Bunny style, so Xander just waved his thanks to the old Brit for standing in for him while he was away and discreetly began to reorganize the mess he left behind once he was gone.

Oh the thrilling lives of the tweed-men, eh?

He's just finished with "Occult Persian Lit. XIIth to XVIth Cent." and is taking a breather with Wills who came in to help Perrin with the illusion spell on the scrolls.

Having been only briefly exposed to him before now, she was mildly shocked to have the old boy ask her if it was true that she was a flaming lesbo and Xander only narrowly stopped her from hexing him into next week before it became clear that Perrin was making a rather poor attempt at wit by referring to Willow's newly dyed fire-hydrant red-red hair.

Of course, time has shown her that Perrin, while capable of saying some truly horrible stuff, never really means a word of it. So she's affectionately dubbed him the "boring old fart" and the two of them get along quite well, barring the odd homicidal twinge.

She's resting in Xander's office now, waiting for her herbal tea to stew. Xander comes in and waves as he shucks off his jacket and she smiles.

He's taken to wearing Hawaiian shirts again for some reason. After Africa, and even before that to be honest, it just didn't feel like his style anymore. Now, he likes cheerful, bright colors again. Giles was of course mildly appalled. Especially as Xander still wears the tweed jacket on top.

"That man is like a machine," she grumbles, dropping her head back onto the leather couch.

Xander tilts his head to one side and looks at her. The silence draws out.

"What?" she asks after a moment.

Scribble, scribble, scribble.

*I'M HOLDING BACK FROM ZINGING YOU ON WHAT YOU JUST SAID.*

She reads his words and thinks back... Her eyes widen.

"Ew! I'm talking about Perrin and the researching! Honestly, you have such a sick mind."

Xander's shoulders bounce as he laughs silently and she glares at him.

"Pervert."

He waves a grin and fetches her tea for her, along with the coffee waiting for him and a packet of digestive biscuits.

There was a time when the scene of a thirty-something Xander Harris working as a librarian, sitting in his office having tea and biscuits to unwind from a hard day classifying books would have had him in fits of hysterical laughter. Now, with the benefit of a few years, it's just relaxing.

Yes, he's turning into a mini-Giles, but at least he's better at indexing, dammit!

And he's got the Hawaiian shirt. Don't forget the Hawaiian shirt.

They sit in companionable silence as they sip their drinks and scarf down a few biscuits.

"How's it working out?" Willow asks eventually.

He waves a hand up and down. So-so. Pulling out his notepad, he throws it on the coffee table in front of them to scribble a reply.

*I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT GILES WAS DOING IN THE STACKS NEAR THE BACK.*

She frowns in embarrassed confusion and he rolls his eyes.

*HE MANAGED TO COMPLETELY MESS UP THE ABYSSINIAN REFERENCE TEXTS, MIX THE HIERATIC SCROLLS IN WITH THE SANSKRIT AND I THINK HE STOLE MY FAVORITE SPIDER-MAN COMICS*

She laughs at that and filches another biscuit.

"I was actually asking about Buffy and..." She waves a hand eloquently.

His face closes up. Well, in his mind, his face just closed up. In the real world, it was already pretty much closed for business anyway. He shrugs.

Willow's watching him.

"She told me about a guy she met in Dawnie's team. They've been out a few times."

He shrugs again. Her face tells him she's not buying, so he sighs and scribbles something.

*GOOD FOR HER.*

The terse reply just makes his witchy friend shake her head.

"She didn't... This isn't to punish you or anything, you know that, right? This is just her letting off steam."

He shrugs for a third time and she rolls her eyes.

"Xander!"

Glad she can't mind-read him at the moment for the cursing, he reluctantly scrawls a reply.

*WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY, WILLS?*

Her face falls and she looks away.

"I just... Don't get all bitter, okay? Don't..."

*WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING HER?*

"I'm not!" Willow shoots back indignantly. "I'm worried about you!"

His resentment dims slightly and he takes his time to respond.

*I'LL BE FINE, WILL.*

She tries to search his face, despite how futile that is now, and huffs in annoyance.

"She's not running away, Xand. Seriously. A vacation is not running away."

If only Willow didn't sound like she was trying to convince herself of that. True, Buffy's still in contact, generally speaking. This isn't like Moscow. And although she's given no indication of when she's coming back, she hasn't said she never will either.

Let her have her vacation. She's earned it after all.

He hopes she'll have fun with her summer fling and relax for once.

Xander really does hope she will.

Sure he does.

Well, he wants to, so that's just as good, right?

***

Murder on the dance floor...

So Xander now has a degree. It's all shiny fresh off the presses and the ink just dried on his signature. All neat and official.

It's not a big thing, though. He still has a way to go before tagging that PhD at the end of his name, but hey, it's a degree and he's got it so that's good enough for some partying.

Xander Harris is now officially a thinker. Who'da thunk it?

The gang is all here for the celebration. Faith and Giles and Dawnie and Wills. Still no Buffy. Dawnie said a sitch came up and Buff had to deal with it, so it's not that she doesn't want to come this time, just that she can't make it.

It's been four months since she left on holiday.

Giles has found someone to run the magic shop "in her absence" and everyone seems to be slowly accepting she's gone again.

As Xander watches Faith grab Giles by the arm and pull him out to the dance floor, he wishes he could say the same. If even the sight of the librarian-lambada can't give him a happy tonight, he knows nothing will.

And that's sad and really pathetic. He does have a life of his own after all. Xander Harris is his own man now, not a back up Scoob. He's got the library, he's got the University and he's even had a couple of dates in the last few weeks. No one with who he's felt much of a connection but nice times were had by all parties involved.

He's not pining.

He's not.

Pining would imply feelings of the romantic, crushy type for a girl who treated him at best like a sister with a penis since the first time she met him. Pining would imply that he has a thing for Buffy. That his feelings for her have changed to...

No, not changed.

He's honest enough now to admit that he always has had a small measure of lust for her, even when he's pissed. It's not a conscious choice, just alchemy. And waaaaay back in the day, that lustful alchemy could have really sparked if he let it. If she'd been interested.

But he's older now. Less naive. Less innocent. More manky, Perrin calls it.

Almost a confirmed bachelor.

What really pisses Xander off though is that it does feel like he's pining. He's done it before, after all. He is something of an expert.

At least the others are having fun. And so is he, dammit! He's got a degree, didn't he? That's big. So what if Buffy's not here to celebrate with him and the guys?

They're all at a club near the University. A rather up-market nightclub with snappy dressers and tasteful music. It's a place to show off your money more than your ass-ets, but Faith is attracting quite a lot of attention despite the fact her own outfit didn't come from some designer in Paris.

Of course, that might not be true.

For all he knows, her dress could be one of those uber-expensive creations by one of the top designers. There's hardly any material in it after all, so that has to make even the most fashionable clothes affordable, right? Stands to reason.

For once though, even with the sex-tacular dress, Faith isn't slutting it up. She is in fact simply enjoying herself, laughing openly at Giles' attempts to dance with her. She likes Giles. Not in a kissy way, luckily. Xander's not sure the old Brit could stand the strain if she was ever interested in him like that. It's more just friendly, really.

Faith was never as close to Giles as the rest of the guys. She never really got to know him in fact. But the two of them work together so much now that she's starting to consider him almost as much the mentor-slash-father figure that Xander and the others do and it's having a visible influence. She's much less intense about everything now. More smiley. It's nice to see, anyway.

And the dress helps of course.

Damn it, he is pining. Faith's bouncing enticingly on the dance floor, so are several other women in fact, and all he can do is think of her in terms of brotherly affection and how hard it must be for her to breathe in something that tight.

With a sigh, he knows it's time to call it a night.

Besides, it's past two in the morning and he will probably have to get up soon to help research the next apocalypse or something.

Finding Willow chatting a bit drunkenly with Dawnie by the bar, he waves at the two of them and scribbles a few excuses.

They're sad to see him go, of course, but it is late and he has had fun. Despite everything, it's more because he knows he's partied out now than because he's depressed that he's gonna head on home.

*IF GILES AND FAITH COME OUT OF THAT ALIVE, TELL THEM I SAID BYE. AND THANKS. GOTTA TELL THEM HOW MUCH I SAID THANKS.*

Willow's too far gone to really read the words but Dawn's not. She smiles, shooting a look to where Giles is wowing Faith with a rather unorthodox dance move Xander recognizes as coming from Watcher martial arts training 101.

"If they do make it out, I'll tell 'em, don't worry," she laughs.

He hugs her and Willow, waves to Giles and Faith and leaves the club.

It's not far home from here. A long walk should help to clear his head.

Things are just so confusing for him right now.

When she came back, he hated Buffy so intensely it almost scared him. Oh, he didn't want to admit it, even to himself, but it was still true. Hate. Then she somehow managed to creep back in under all that, not making him hate her any less but also forcing him to like her more at the same time. And the liking just... took over.

At what time was there sparkage? None.

Sure, there was some teasing. A few close calls where it could have become less platonic between them if either one had made a move, but that was just the usual hottie-factor, wasn't it? Just hormones. You get used to sexual tension with two girls for your best friends.

He's lost in thought about Buffy. It's not the first time this has happened, but the last one was probably during the girls' first year of University, just before Ahn turned up.

If he was thinking straight, he'd probably notice the shadow near the alley mouth, a couple of blocks from his place. The glint of teeth and eyes that betray the presence of an undead lurker of the not-good variety. He'd notice how the street is so much emptier than if it simply had no people in it. A 'Sunnydale at night' kind of empty. And he'd have the time to seize the cross and stake in his back pocket before the thing pounced on him.

But Xander is not noticing any of this.

And so the pouncing comes as a bit of a surprise.

***

Therapy...

Okay, now this is plain silly.

First he gets shot, then he has his throat torn out, then he's nearly squished into puree and now this?

Must be Fate. Must be the old 'Butt-monkey of the Universe' syndrome. The writing was on the wall from his first day at High School and whichever bastard is making the script now is no less evil.

The vamp is a newbie, fresh from the grave. A big, ugly guy with a grubby goatee and clotted blood at the corner of his mouth. A vampire with feral eyes and the dirt still on its clothes. This far from the cemetery, it's a shock to see one, even so late at night. This is London after all, not Oblivious-ville, California.

It grabs Xander by the throat and hauls him into the alley, probably expecting an easy kill or something. But Xander's had just about enough.

Way more than enough, in fact.

He's feeling down, his knees are hurting and the thing just tore his favorite shirt. The occult in his life has taken a lot from him these last few years. His face. His voice. His amazing dancing abilities.

And Buffy didn't come back today.

Enough is enough!

Xander's just about had it and this vamp is not going to enjoy his snack.

"Fresh meat," the fledge hisses gleefully.

::Sorry. I don't swing that way.::

Reaching up, Xander digs his nails into the joint between the finger and thumb of the hand around his throat. It's not an impressive Kung-Fu move, that's for sure. Nothing you'd learn in Watcher's Ed. No, Xander got this one straight from the playground, back when Jimmy Millon was picking on Willow and it was up to him to make the bully cry in retaliation.

Done right, the move can be very painful. And if Xander's disability has done one thing for him, it's to give him strong hands from all the physiotherapy he went through before he could walk.

"Shit!"

The vamp pulls its hand back with a snarl, shaking it a few times before making a fist to knock Xander senseless. It might actually have stood a chance of working if Xander was interested in fighting fair tonight.

But this guy chose a very bad time to try his luck.

Tonight, Xander is not in the mood for fair. Or reasonable.

The metallic crunch of his brace-clad knee slamming into the vamp's groin brings water to both their eyes.

Sure, it's damn painful for Xander. His legs aren't much fun at the best of times and it's a ten minute walk back to his place from the club.

The vamp on the other hand is suddenly in its own private world of sharp white-hot agony. Eyes huge, it pales even more than its undead complexion should allow and lets out a small strangled "meep" before keeling over.

Xander takes a second to massage some of the pain from his knee and watches it writhe on the ground with interest. The leg-brace is lethal at close range. Good to know.

Vampire healing is rat-quick, that's true. But careful observation and the instinctive knowledge shared by all males everywhere tells Xander this thing isn't getting up any time soon.

Still, best not to give it a chance, right? He's still frustrated and this is therapy.

The next few minutes are a bit of a blur.

"Not the eyes! Not the eyes! Agggh!... Please don't... Ack!... Just kill me already!... Mummy!"

Eventually, the vamp is just dust in the wind and Xander's feeling a bit better.

It takes a while for the adrenaline to wear off and the numbing shock to set in, but that soon passes too. After all, fledgling vamps one-on-one are something you learn to deal with. Rig the odds, cheat where you can and their supernatural fighting skills don't really give them that much of an advantage.

Sure. He almost believes that.

Trying not to think in terms of dumb luck and suicidal stupidity, he brushes the dust from his ruined shirt and begins the short walk back to his place.

At least this helped take his mind off things for a while. Why does he not feel better about that?

A couple of minutes walking as briskly as his legs will allow and he's home. Minutes that feel like long, lonely hours. At the door, he fumbles a bit for his keys, hands suspiciously unsteady, and lets himself in with a sigh of relief. Safe now.

The small blonde head that pokes up over the side of the couch and grins tiredly causes him to nearly jump out of his skin, his heart in his throat.

"Hey, Xand. How was the party?" Buffy asks tiredly, rubbing sleep from her eyes and yawning hugely.

***

Chapter the Last - Welcome home.

Back again...

"Are you okay?" Buffy asks dumbly, noticing something wrong in his stance.

He glares at her incredulously, feeling slightly sick. So soon after the adrenaline burst, with his knuckles still bruised and bloody and his legs almost sheer agony, now was not the time for Buffy to pop out unexpectedly in front of him and shout "Surprise!"

Well, she didn't do that, but the effect is still the same, dammit!

Torn in a hundred different directions, scared, angry, surprised and overwhelmed with an odd feeling of relief, he doesn't know how to react.

She sits up, turning to rest both arms on the back of the couch to look at him.

"I shoulda called," she says, almost to herself. "I knew this wasn't the best idea..."

::Ya think?!::

When he's sure he can stagger again without dissolving into shaky fits, Xander throws his keys onto the side table and makes his way to the kitchen.

A situation such as this one requires alcohol in large quantities and he's far too sober for his own liking at the moment. Buffy hauls herself up and follows him wordlessly. He takes the whisky and two glasses, sets them down on the counter and pours them both some liquid comfort. Not a word more is said for several minutes. Then, nerves fully settled and legs squealing for relief, he flops down at the table before gravity can win the day.

She sits herself in the chair opposite and pulls her knees up to her chin. Just perches there uncomfortably, watching him until he finds his notepad and scribbles something in a shaky hand.

*WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?*

She cocks her head to one side.

"Little birdie told me you had something to celebrate. I wasn't gonna miss that."

He bites down on a snort and shakes his head.

*YOU MISSED EVERYTHING ELSE. IT'S BEEN FOUR MONTHS, BUFF.*

Her watchful expression doesn't change but her eyes go soft. She opens her mouth to reply and can't find her voice straight away.

"I... I needed some time, Xan. Just to clear my head, you know?"

Scritch, scratch, scribble.

*NO, I REALLY DON'T. THE REASON BEING, YOU NEVER TALKED TO ME ABOUT IT. OR TALKED TO ME AT ALL, IN FACT.*

She looks down at her hands.

"Sorry 'bout that. I had to get away and... And I couldn't have left if you tried to stop me."

::Huh?::

She looks back. By doing that uncanny mind-ready, face watching thing she does so well, she knows he's angry and confused. Hell, you don't even need the mind-reading to know that. She doesn't say anything though. Just looks at him gently, clearly not sure what to do to make this better.

Screw that.

He's past caring. He's not gonna be her emotional punching bag any more. Shaking his head, he gets up and hauls himself out of the kitchen.

"Xan?" she calls behind him, a hint of pleading in her voice. "Don't..."

Whatever she says next is cut off by him slamming his bedroom door.

It's late, he's tired and still completely burned from the fight and the scare and he just doesn't care about anything right now. Buffy can save whatever she has to say for someone who wants to know. Mindlessly, he pulls off his shirt and throws it somewhere. Kicks off his shoes. He doesn't have the strength to deal with the leg brace right now.

The knock on his door doesn't even make him turn his head. Screw it, he's going to sleep.

"Xan?" she says softly, a fragile silhouette against the light from the hall as she pushes his door.

He doesn't spare her a glance.

She mutters something under her breath and comes in.

"I'm sorry, Xan. Really. This wasn't... God, I didn't want to hurt you, I promise."

He shrugs and turns his back to her.

::Well, you completely screwed up on that one, didn't you?::

She moves around him, eyes watching his, and sits on the corner of his bed.

"Do you know how weird it is to blame yourself for something you can't remember?" she asks eventually.

Coming out of left field like that, it's hard to understand what she's talking about and the confusion gives her an in. He doesn't reply, but he's listening.

"I woke up that day... Musta been a couple of minutes after you got shot. And I... Well, I told you all about that, right? No?" She actually seems surprised to realize that she never has gone into detail about what happened back then. "No. No, I really didn't, did I?" Her eyes seem to wander back to some other place and time.

"It was weird. Scary-weird. Big time darkness. I woke up from a nightmare I couldn't remember and I just knew that something bad had happened. So I took a plane. I have no idea why, except that it seemed logical at the time. I was still in Rome and I took a plane and somehow wound up at the hospital."

His legs too tired to carry him anymore, he sits down next to her almost against his will.

"The guys were all there by then," she continues. "Well, Willow and Giles and Dawnie were there. The Coven had to fly Dawnie in because Willow was too... Anyway, the guys were all sitting there and I just couldn't make myself go in. I didn't know what had happened but I knew it was bad and I just couldn't. I went to the Chapel instead. Sat there for hours, just thinking. Then... When they wheeled you out, I... I heard the doctor talking to Giles and it was like I was falling, you know?"

Her eyes are shining and she shakes her head impatiently.

"I ran. It felt like I was drowning or something, it really did. I took the first flight I could find and wound up in Moscow. And when I managed to... When everything settled down a bit, there was suddenly a wall between me and the rest of the world. A big wall I couldn't break. So I stayed. I called Giles a few days later and told him where I was and we had the fighting and the insults and none of that mattered. I honestly didn't care. Nothing mattered. And for the longest time, I felt so guilty."

Xander's surprised to find he's holding her hand now. Their fingers are entwined and he didn't even notice that happen.

"Not about running away," she breathes with a huge gulp. A knife-sharp pain in his chest makes it hard to breath and she looks up at him. "Of course, I felt horrible about that, but I was guilty because... I didn't know why. I felt guilty and I didn't know what for. I just buried everything. Buried you and Wills and Giles and everything. Myself. I was just another Slayer, doing the job. I wouldn't... I'd never even have come back if I knew you were better."

That gets her a painful laugh.

::Better?::

She reaches up to cup his cheek.

"Everything is so screwy right now. I love you, you know that?"

He doesn't reply. Well, he doesn't nod or shake his head or move in any way. Just watches her intently. She runs a hand through her still-short but now blonde hair and sighs in frustration. Gets up and starts to pace.

"I had no idea about the First. No idea. My time in Hea... Dead. My time dead felt so nice and pure. So good. I never thought that it could be a lie."

Partial understanding dawns. Of course. Buffy's always cherished the memory of her Heaven. It's almost like a talisman she carried with her in those final years in Sunnydale. The proof of peace at the end of the road. And what happened with the scrolls has shattered all of that for her. Robbed her of something she had come to rely on. He can see how that might sort of mess with her head again.

Irrationally, he wants to get up and hold her or something despite the still-sharp anger inside him, but his legs won't carry him any further tonight and she's still lost in her thoughts.

"It was though," she continues almost inaudibly. "A lie. And when whatever happened happened in that church, I somehow knew that again."

It takes him a minute to understand what she's talking about. The missing pieces. The part of Buffy that was locked away in the void for so long. He's wondered about that for so long and it was driving him wild to think Buffy might stay...

She looks down at him.

"I remember now."

He blinks.

"I remember why I was so guilty," she clarifies. "Because it's my fault you're... It's my fault. You got shot and a part of me somehow heard you dying and... I held onto you. You would have died. You should have died and I didn't want to let you go. Not you. So I held on and then there was Willow doing her witchy stuff and the doctors managed to resuscitate and I held on until you pulled through. And I really thought that you were gonna be in a coma or whatever for the rest of your life. That you would hate me for not being able to let go. I really thought that. You were gonna be a vegetable, trapped in your head with no way out for years and years and it was my fault for being too scared to let go and... I ran."

And the tears in her eyes are now on her cheeks.

She's not crying. Not making a sound. Just watching him intensely, apparently completely unaware of the water running from her eyes.

Why can he never just feel something simple for Buffy Summers? Simple friendship, simple contempt or anything in between. Why do such violent emotions always get in the way?

She held onto him. That's what's been eating her? Even in the void, he never knew about that. She didn't want him to know. Still blamed herself, maybe. But she did come back from Moscow and she did see him get himself a life.

And the guilt she carried with her for so long faded.

Knowing her like he does, he can imagine how messed up she was over all that now. The guilt isn't there but the pain remains and she doesn't know what to do about it. Neither does he. All of this is just too much to handle. Big revelations be damned, his brain isn't up to this kinda thing at the best of times and he's far from that at the moment.

He wants to tell her how grateful he is. Wants to claw her eyes out for running away again. Wants to thank her.

What he does instead, and he'll never understand why, is grab her by the hand, pull her close and kiss her.

She goes completely still in his arms for so long he knows he just queered their friendship completely. The exhaustion and the relief and the anger and the passion of the moment just got the better of him and contributed to take his mind away for a while and let the hormonal remnant of sixteen year old Skater Boy take over his body and it's wrong and awkward and terrible. So he's about to pull away when...

When Buffy kisses him back.

***

Ever after. Sorta...

They didn't talk about it afterward.

About sleeping together.

They didn't really talk about much in fact.

The next day he had to get up to go into the library and Buffy had to go back to her place to check and make sure everything had been okay while she was gone. They dressed awkwardly and spent an uncomfortable few minutes making small talk as the coffee brewed and then she borrowed the bathroom and he watched the early morning news and god! It was embarrassing.

But somehow, it was also kinda magical. There are moments now when they touch. For no reason, just because. His hand brushing against hers. Buffy moving in close to him and bumping his shoulder gently.

The rest of that first day is kind of a blur. He knows he must have gone in to work because he distinctly remembers talking to Giles about a new delivery of books they were expecting. He remembers helping Willow and Faith with a secret project they've got going on detecting future Slayers or something. He remembers helping Perrin with a few idioms of ol' Roger the Truly Mad and his prophecies.

Still, it's mostly a blur.

He and Buffy haven't discussed what they are to each other now, either. A one night stand? Friends with benefits? Lovers?

Xander suspects that neither he nor Buffy wants to find out. He's just too scared of what she might say if he asks and she's... He doesn't know. Doesn't want to hope too hard because that's generally a bad idea in their business.

Whatever they are, at least he knows it has to be more than just one night. Because she was waiting for him when he got home the next day.

She'd talked with Giles and told everyone that she's back. Back to stay. Willow's less grouchy now and Giles less stressed. Faith has someone to talk Slayer stuff with. Buffy slipped back into all their lives much more easily than last time. Willow was a bit of a hard sell at first, but she soon came around. Now they're a team again. Hanging in the library most of the time. Working together.

Buffy's back to stay.

She's also back in his apartment right now. In his bed.

Without discussing if there would be a repeat performance of that first night, there has been. Several repeat performances in fact.

And now it's days later and they're lazing in bed together. No one knows about the two of them yet. Hell, they don't even know what's going on themselves. It's not passion. Doesn't feel like that. But it is something. Something that could be much more special.

*WILLOW TOLD ME THERE WAS A GUY IN CAIRO.*

It's late morning and they're both still naked. Buffy called him in late for work, much to Willow's surprise, and made some tea and toast and breakfasty things. Then she brought the whole mess back to bed on a tray and they're doing the crossword together as they munch on the lesser burnt bits.

She stops, mid-chew and re-reads what he just wrote. Blushes slightly.

"Oh. Yeah, I went out with a guy a couple of times but it wasn't anything big. Just dancing and a movie one time, that's all. I just needed to know if... I needed to know something. And now I do."

Xander purposefully doesn't think of Buffy's dancing for Tarik and his cronies all those months ago. She's all but sitting in his lap, leaning back against his chest and he can smell the sweet scent of her shampoo with every breath. It's calm and safe here with her.

Peaceful.

She ran away again and didn't call for so long and he's still worked up about that, but one of his arms is wrapped around her waist and she just fits so well against him that he can't bring himself to feel as pissed anymore.

That's no reason for her to not explain though.

*WHY DID YOU LEAVE AGAIN? WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL?*

She tenses slightly but doesn't pull away. One of her hands moves down to rub his arm gently and she sighs.

"Mostly you."

He blinks.

::Could you possibly vague that up a little more, Buff?::

Her sigh turns to a brief laugh and she shakes her head.

"I didn't want to talk to you, Xan, because I was scared. Very scared."

He thinks about what he can possibly reply to that. Scared of him?

*SCARED?*

Her hair strokes his skin as she nods.

"I'm not proud of it. I just freaked. When the dimensional portal thing faded and I was back in the church with Will and Giles, I knew... Well, I knew a whole helluva lot, in fact. Why I felt so bad after what happened. Why I felt so hollow. And... You're important to me, did you know that?"

He wishes he could laugh out loud at that one.

"Oh, not just like this. I mean... There was Sunnydale and that summer near the end with you and Dawnie. I don't know. It didn't make me feel all better or anything, but I was happy for the first time in a long while. I guess I let things get way out of control to protect that, come to think of it. And to pay back whatever was messing with us. Anyway, there was the summer. And then, I thought back and there were all these other things before that too. And afterward. Remember the vineyard?"

He stiffens against her and she realizes she's just said something very dumb, because she turns her head to look up at him apologetically and kiss his shoulder.

"Sorry. I meant about that time you talked to the SiTs. We were all so closed off by then. I thought for sure you'd hate me or something. But you didn't... You never really did, did you? Never hated me, I mean?"

Sure he did. He's loathed the very ground she walks on at times. Then again, at others, he's followed her around like a little puppy on a leash. Neither of those extremes is rational though. It defies logical thought the hold she has on him. So what he told Angel was true, wasn't it? He does belong to her.

He drops his pen and raises his other hand to cup her cheek and loses himself in a long, slow kiss and that seems to answer her question for her.

"So there was all that," she says, snuggling back against him and sighing contentedly. "I was thinking about it while we came back from the church and when we got back, we heard you were in hospital again and it all kinda crystallized in my head. Things got very sharp and clear. And I wasn't gonna run this time, I really wasn't. I wanted to be there for you. For everyone. For Wills and Giles and Dawnie and even Faith. I was there with all of them and I was there for you. But..."

She stops to collect her thoughts. Takes another sip of her tea, balanced precariously on the tray beside them.

"It was all so sharp, you know? And... And I am... Well, I was still all kinds of cut up about what happened when you were shot and I just thought, all of a sudden, that maybe it was pity or something that made me think I was... I didn't want to stay just because I felt guilty. I didn't want to insult you by staying like that, without being sure... It wouldn't have been fair to you. So I left. I needed some time to see if I was really..."

She trails off again and doesn't say anything for several minutes.

"Love is scary."

He blinks.

Writing something to reply to that would mean taking at least one arm away from her to use the pen and that's just not an option. So he leans down and presses his forehead gently against her hair, breathing her in as he does.

::Love?::

"I had a dream too, did you know?" she asks to him then.

::Oh?::

"It was weird. At first there was Angel and he was talking to someone I couldn't see. Then whoever it was disappeared and Angel turned to look at me. It was one of those sexy-broody looks he does, you know?"

His snort tells her how silly that question is and he can feel her rolling her eyes.

"Right. Sorry. Just broody. Nothing sexy at all."

::Damn straight.::

"Anyway, he was there and we were standing in my living room back in Sunnydale watching you and Dawnie and me goof around. I think there was pop corn and cheesy movies involved. And Angel looked so sad. I asked him what was going on and he just shrugged and nodded at the couch. Really weird."

::Maybe he was jonesing for some pop corn?::

"It felt strange because there was no... Whenever I'm in a room with Angel, it's like there's electricity everywhere. This time, there was sparkage and it could have been like before but... But I didn't feel the connection. It was just empty. Then he said 'You don't belong to me anymore' and everything flashed."

Xander blinks.

She pulls away slightly and turns to look at him. Cocks her head to one side and narrows her eyes quizzically.

"Any idea what he meant by that?"

Reluctantly letting go of her with one arm, he scribbles a quick reply.

*NOT YET.*

She takes a very long time to read his words. And smiles.

"Not yet?"

*NOPE.*

"How 'bout we find out together?"

His eyes are smiling.

*SOUNDS GOOD TO ME.*

***
The End...

... The living desert hums.

Standing on the ridge, eyes lost in the distance, a young girl with long blonde hair and a flowery red and white dress is grinning widely.

And across the desert, plants spring up to fill the emptiness. Red and white and yellow and green and blue, an explosion of color.

From above, they almost look like they make up a pattern... Like a Hawaiian shirt.

The living landscape smiles.

***

Thanks for reading!

And thanks to my wonderful Flist for inspiring this story!

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