'He looks so different' Buffy thought to herself as she ran to claim and give a 'happy to see you' hug.
"Buffy! " he said wrapping his arms around her.
"Hi Xander, thanks for picking me up."
She pulled back slightly to get a better look at him. Fitter, a tan, and slightly older. Oh and a new scar, a small one, on his chin.
"Of course Buffy we watchers live to escort our slayers, it's actually in the secret vows somewhere, although it's in latin and the substance of it might be closer to "move our slayer around the world as we might a chess piece on a board". But that's really six of one, half a dozen of the other, right?"
"Yeah... those old-timey watchers really were heartwarming. It's great to see you Xand, despite the circumstances ."
"Ah yes, you would have to allude to my impending demise. Slayers have absolutely no sympathy or sensitivity when it comes to these types of things."
"You know there's no way we're going to let it happen, right?"
"That's exactly, to the word, what Willow said. I picked up the phone and that was what I heard. No greeting or anything, just dead-serious-Willow-voice saying 'You know there's no way we're going to let it happen, right?'"
"Great minds think alike." said Buffy with a grin
"And fools seldom differ." replied Xander with a smile; Buffy punched him in the arm.
"Oh yeah, that's the stuff." Xander said rubbing his shoulder. "No one abuses me quite like you, Buff. Oh sure, there have been others who've hit my shoulder, some even hit harder, but somehow it wasn't quite right. It just left me feeling cheap and dirty."
"I'm going to tell Willow that you said that." said Buffy with a smirk. A panicked look crossed his face.
"I meant aside from Willow. You're like my shoulder-hitting-mistress."
"That would make Willow your wife?"
"Only in all the non-fun ways. I visited her in Brazil six months ago; I get off the plane and she's there to pick me up, much as yours truly came here to pick you up, we hug and say how happy we are to see each other and all that, then she pokes me in the stomach and says that I need to go on a diet. I'm like, 'What do you care?' and She says 'A fat guy is still a fat guy, even to a lesbian.' Classic Willow fake-out...you think she's going left with the 'I want you to be healthy and happy' but really she's going right with the insult. You can't help but admire the skill. Anyway, that's the old ball and chain: likes women, lives thousands of miles away, and she still controls my life." Buffy gave him an appraising glance as they walked toward the parking lot with her luggage in tow.
"She's tough, I'd say you look pretty fit."
"I wasn't then. My trip to Brazil was a well deserved vacation after three months of researching the Vilarch Death-Cloud Cult. I was both pasty and pudgy."
"Too many donuts?"
"I can't research without them. I've tried and it doesn't work."
"It must have paid off though, I didn't see a Death-Cloud anywhere. Nor did I read about one in the papers, and that's the kind of thing that'd get coverage."
"Well, we managed to turn it into a Death-Foam, which we then gathered into plastic bags; the Death-Bags. We sent those down to Willow to be de-Deathed."
"And the world was safe again."
"Well safer, anyway. I brought the van," he said gesturing. "because I thought we'd be dealing with some serious baggage. You're traveling much lighter than I thought you would."
Buffy took a deep breath and exhaled it. He wasn't going to like this.
"Traveling light seemed like a good idea, because we're going to be moving around quite a bit and I don't want my bags slowing us down."
Xander was about to close the back of the van when what Buffy had said entered his conscious mind. He halted.
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"How long are we going to keep doing this? Can you ballpark it?"
"You're not coming with me Buffy. Giles sent you here to Seattle to sub for me. Not to come with me. The House here is going to need leadership and you're it."
"Yeah, that's a bit awkward. Giles did say that I was coming here to sub for you...and when he did that, he was lying."
"...Oh."
"Faith is actually on her way here to do that. I, on the other hand, am here for you. I don't know why you thought you had to go it alone, but you don't, and you're not gonna."
"The curse..."
"No. Giles has been researching non-stop for two weeks, ever since we heard. My going with you is totally kosher as far as the curse is concerned. As long as you present the items yourself when we get back, it doesn't matter how you got them. In fact, Willow has a line on one of them down in South America, otherwise, there would be a third member to the party."
His head bowed, his eye closed and his shoulders relaxed as he felt relief course through his body. For the first time since it happened he felt like maybe he wouldn't die horribly in less than a year.
Buffy wrapped her arms around him from the side, startling him for a second.
"Thank you." He said simply, wrapping an arm around her.
"No problem." she replied.
"Buffy?" he asked, into her hair.
"Yeah?"
"Have you gotten shorter? I don't seem to remember you being this short."
She laughed and punched his arm again.
"Ow! Too much of a good thing Buff. I think I've lost the feeling in my arm."
"You are such a baby. That was barely a tap."
--
'This is a well run house.' thought Buffy. Xander had given her a brief tour, everyone seemed really nice, underneath the excitement they clearly felt about having her with them, even if it was only going to be overnight.
'They have a good cook too.' she thought as she took another bite of pasta. Excellent.
"This is really good." she said to Xander. He didn't seem to hear her, a look of nearly glassy-eyed pleasure indicated that he agreed with her though.
"Xander?" she said a little louder.
"Hm?"
"You have a really good cook here."
"Yeah, it's Jean François. He's one of the watchers. I brought him in about a year and a half ago. There was a tussle in the alley outside of the restaurant where he used to work. He saw me dust a vamp and he wasn't one of those people who shove their heads in the sand."
"He's a professional chef?"
"He used to be, now he's half chef, half watcher."
Buffy thought about that for a minute.
"Xander?"
"Hm?" he looked up from his food again with reluctance.
"You didn't bring him into the supernatural fold for his food did you?"
"...Of course not Buffy. Hypothetically speaking, it would have been wrong to do that because...?"
"You would have been getting him to risk his life for personal and selfish reasons."
"Of course. It's good that I brought him in for other reasons. Reasons that don't involve eclairs in any way."
"He makes eclairs?" Buffy brightened.
"Like you won't believe." Xander promised.
"In all seriousness Buffy, I try to make the training as difficult as I can for them," he gestured toward some of the other slayers who were also enjoying their dinners "and I try to make everything else as easy and enjoyable as possible. Jean François is a part of that. I've let him know that that part of what he does is as important to me and everyone here as his watcherly duties. Not that he needs me to tell him, all he has to do is look around." Buffy looked around. He had a point, the atmosphere around here was much better than other houses she'd visited.
"What's up with the name though? His name isn't actually Jean François is it? That's such a cliche. Good cook, surprise surprise he's french. So predictable."
"How did you guess? His real name is Tim Johnson. He took the name 'Jean François' to fit in at cooking school...it was difficult at first to get the others to accept him, but he persevered..."
"Stop."
"It's actually kind of a tragic story, you see, he comes from a long line of carpenters, going all the way back to colonial times. But despite family tradition, young Tim longed to cook. He practiced his whisking and braising in secret, but when his father found the cooking magazines under his bed he disowned him..."
"Shut up Xander."
"I will if you will Buff. I'm a dying man here...this could be my three-hundredth last meal or something."
"Don't joke about it Xand. Tim Johnson if you must. The other...no."
He looked at her. She was serious.
"Alright, consider the gallows humor buried." He said. "For now." he added seriously looking her in the eye. She nodded, understanding that he thought there might be a time when that's all that would be left. An understanding reached, Xander dove back into his dinner with gusto.
--
It was great to see Buffy again, and he was glad that she seemed to approve of his managing of the Seattle House. That meant a great deal. He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. He was tired and he looked it. It was definitely time for bed. He removed his eye-patch and rubbed his eyes. Both of them.
'I'm really glad she's coming' he admitted to himself.