Part 2: Misperceptions (set during BTVS season 3, between 'Bad Girls' and 'Consequences') 

One Week Later

Had Xander stayed in Sunnydale, he would've learned word of him decking Snyder spread like wildfire. He earned the instant respect of some students and the everlasting jealousy of the others, for doing what they'd all wanted to do at some point.

A warrant had been put out for Xander's arrest, of course, but for all intents and purposes it was useless – as he was long gone.

As for Buffy and the other Scoobies, they heard of Xander's exploits from the night of the intended apocalypse and his subsequent expulsion the next day. Needless to say, all of them were speechless.

It was only after they'd all compared notes of that night, did they figure out Xander had been involved in something serious and had been seen several times asking for help. But they had no idea why, and it wasn't as if Snyder would tell them.

In fact, he had been making their lives very difficult after the incident, using association to his attacker as justification.

So, the Scoobies had started believing that maybe they'd been a little too harsh on their friend.

Buffy, Willow and Oz were all in the library after school, for Buffy's usual training regimen. They'd tried to cope with Xander's disappearance as best they could, mostly by trying not to think about it.

It was hard but it was the best they could do, as they couldn't even look for him because they didn't know where he'd gone.

Recent events aside, Buffy was still the Slayer and thus her responsibilities remained unchanged. However, Giles was late, very late, for reasons unknown to them and Buffy refused to listen to Wesley Wyndam-Pryce – her new Watcher, arrived from England – without him there.

The ex-Watcher finally did show up, almost an hour after school had ended. Wesley, assuming he was in charge, wasn't about to let this go without an explanation.

"Mr. Giles, perhaps you could tell us why you arrived just now?"

Rupert Giles walked past him and set his briefcase down on his desk; he then pulled a large manila envelope from it, and showed it to the others.

"I've been with my contact from the police department. Let's just say, I-I've borrowed the police file from Xander's...uh...incident...from last week."

The three teens suddenly dashed over to Giles, they knew any new leads to Xander's whereabouts brought them that much closer to finding him. The Brit then pulled out the videotape and the police report from that night.

Giles grabbed the tape and put it in the VCR, fumbling with the buttons as he tried to get the tape to play. The video footage started, but the frame kept jumping about no matter what he did. It was obvious he was having trouble.

"Giles, you're not one of those guys who can't program the time on his VCR, are you?" Buffy couldn't help but say.

"No...I mean...well...it's not like I ever use the bloody thing, what with me always being here helping you...I just never had the time to learn..."

Willow took pity on him, and got the balance working. It started with Jack setting up the bomb; some time later Xander arrived, and they started fighting.

Oz was reading out the interesting parts from the reports, as the tape played. "According to this, the evidence suggested materials to make a bomb were found at the scene."

Willow was watching the screen, while she got Oz's attention. The tape showed Xander staring down Jack, and forcing him to disable the bomb. She hit rewind, and showed that scene again. "Look at this."

While the others checked it out, Oz scanned farther down the report and found something interesting.

"Says here, from the way Xander acted on the tape, he tried to stop Jack from setting off the bomb. Anyway, that's what the investigators have hypothesized. At the most, the police could've arrested Xander for being an accessory – but they decided against it, due to lack of any evidence besides the video. Jack's gone too, so there's no testimony from him."

The video finished just after Oz did. Giles looked up, and echoed what they were all thinking. "If that bomb had gone off, we, we would all probably be dead – and, and the Hellmouth would have remained permanently open..."

Giles took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. "So, uh, in effect Xander saved us all..."

It wasn't often that the Scoobies were lost for words.

"He saved us. A-and we treated him so badly that night...what if something happens to him?" Willow was fighting off tears.

Buffy looked concerned at Willow. "No. He's all right, he has to be. We have to find Xander, and tell him we know what he did and that we're sorry. There has to be some way of knowing where he went!" she sounded pretty emotional.

Daniel 'Oz' Osborne finished with the report, and tossed it on the table. "His Uncle Rory's car was found abandoned at a gas station, 20 miles outside of Sunnydale six days ago. Ya know Buffy, when you left, Xander said you would show up when you wanted to be found. I think we just gotta hope Xander comes back in one piece."

"I'm afraid that probably won't happen..." Wesley injected.

Buffy shot him a look that could have melted steel. Unfazed, Wes kept on, "...you have to remember – if Mr. Harris does come back, he'll still be charged with assault on Principal Snyder."

Deep down Buffy grudgingly admitted that he had a point, but that wasn't about to stop her. "We'll worry about that after we've found him. All right look, I'm going to look for leads on wherever Xander went. I'll meet back up with you guys at the Bronze, before Oz's band starts tonight. OK?"

"Sure."

"Right."

The Scoobies were fine with that, but Wesley wasn't used to a Slayer making up her own agenda. "Wait a second. What about patrolling tonight?"

"Ya know what? The vampires will still be there tomorrow. Goodbye, Wesley!" With that, she walked out of the library.

Wesley looked dumbfounded; the others just ignored him. Willow slung her backpack over her shoulder, and grabbed a large pile of books on the table, getting ready to leave.

Oz had a puzzled look on his face. "Will, what's with all that?"

"Oh, this? Snyder made me unload Xander's locker today."

Just then, one of the top books fell off; Oz picked it up, and noticed something fell out. It was a photo of Xander; chest puffed out, holding a large stuffed teddy bear in triumph. Oz had a frown on his face and held it up to Willow, with a look asking where it was from.

Willow looked at the photo, "Oh, that...that's from last summer. Xander won it for Cordelia, at the August festival."

"He looks pretty proud."

"Yeah, it cost him $12 before he finally won a game of ring toss."

Oz put the photo on the top of the stack, and looked back at Willow. She still looked upset over Xander. "You gonna be alright?"

"Yeah, I just hafta do something for a little while, then I'll see you tonight."

Willow left out the part about that something being helping Cordelia's friend Anya, cast a spell to recover her mother's heirloom necklace. He'd just get worried over nothing.

Oz had no reason to believe anything was wrong. "Cool, I'll see you then." They kissed, and he left.

***

Sometime later in an empty classroom, Willow and Anya were performing the spell the other girl needed to get her necklace back – and thus unknown to Willow, become the demon Anyanka again. Everything seemed to go all right, until they got to a certain point.

"Eryishon, hear my prayer."

Willow was suddenly flooded with visions from the alternate universe, that Cordelia had unwittingly created.

The Master killing Buffy, Angel being staked, dozens of innocent people held prisoner for food...

It was so intense Willow uncontrollably threw her hands up, and the bottle Anya was holding was knocked out of her hand, turning end over end.

Luckily for Anya, she managed to catch the bottle just before it hit the ground and poured the sand over the representation of the necklace. The spell ended just after that, then Willow jumped to her feet and looked at her spell partner.

"Wh-what was that?"

Anya was too busy sifting through the sand, looking for her necklace. "It's not here!"

Willow tried again, "Okay, that's a little blacker than I like my arts."

They starting arguing over the spell, and Willow refused to help Anya try again. The redhead then gathered her backpack and stack of books to leave.

"Fine, go! Idiot child."

Willow grabbed the chicken feet they'd used with her free hand. "I believe these chicken feet are mine. Look, m-magic is dangerous, Anya, i-it's not to be toyed with. Now if you'll excuse me, I have someone else's books to drop off."

Anya angrily smashed the plate they used for the spell. Since they were too busy fighting, neither of them noticed some of the sand had fallen on the picture of Xander with the teddy bear, when Willow had knocked the bottle out of Anya's hands.

***

In the abandoned warehouse, the vampire Xander from the alternate universe got up and noticed all the people and equipment had gone.

"What the hell?"

***

Later that night, Buffy was at the Bronze waiting for Oz and Willow. She was on her own at their table, in a bummed out mood. As nobody had any clue as to Xander's location.

She was surprised, there were quite a few vamps and demons that hated him and wanted nothing more than to find the young man alone without the Slayer. It made her feel worse, that now many of the things that hated Xander knew he was alone due to her inquires.

"Damn it, Xander! Where are you?" she said to nobody in particular.

Buffy then noticed in the corner of her eye, a senior named Percy West getting thrown halfway across the room onto a pool table. She saw the rear side of some guy in black leather pants and shirt, choking Percy on the pool table.

Buffy instinctively reached for the stake in her purse, grabbed the guy by the shoulder and pulled him around. Her jaw dropped when she saw who it was.

"Xander!"

VampXander stopped for a moment, and then realized the mortal enemy of all vampires was staring at him in shock. With hate in his voice he sneered, "You!"

Then he backhanded Buffy across the face, knocking her away to the ground. He knew by now this world wasn't right, and what he wanted was things to go back to the way they'd been. VampXander then stalked out of the Bronze, determined to find whoever or whatever had brought him here.

Buffy shook off the pain in her head. Why did Xander do that?

It suddenly occurred to her that maybe Xander was still angry with everyone, for being kicked out of the group. She ran out of the Bronze after him, hoping he would listen to her, but she couldn't find him anywhere.

Buffy knew she had to get to Giles; maybe he would know what to do. She ran to the high school, thinking of what she could say to her possibly former male friend.

***

When Buffy got to the library, she was surprised at the sight. VampXander was already there, with both his hands around Giles' throat. The demon had figured that since this White Hat was the source of all his problems back in his own world, he was behind them here as well.

Giles was against the wall; he managed to choke out "Buffy!" in between gasping for breaths.

Buffy ran up to the undead killer, and tried to pull him off without hurting him. She was pleading with him, "Xander, please, stop this!"

VampXander just threw Giles over the counter, and then turned to look at Buffy right in the eyes – with his game face on.

A million thoughts went through Buffy's mind; emotionally she was shocked and horrified, but VampXander didn't care.

He grabbed her neck and was ready to snap it, a sick repeat of what the Master would have done in the alternative universe; but all of a sudden, VampXander felt something pierce his back. He let go of Buffy, and pulled a dart out, leaving a little hole in his shirt.

Giles stood behind the counter, tranq gun at the ready.

"Stupid English bastard, do you know how much this shirt cost!?" VampXander fell to his knees, and passed out as soon as he'd said that.

Buffy and Giles slowly walked over to the unconscious vampire. They had no way of knowing that this wasn't their close friend.

That this creature had been brought here against his will by a spell gone awry, from a universe where they were natural enemies.

All they saw, was someone they'd failed to protect.

The fact it was someone close to them, just made the proverbial knife twist harder in their guts.

"He's...he's a..." Buffy had trouble forming a coherent thought; painful emotions were running rampant through her. It was taking all her willpower not to have a breakdown, right then and there.

Giles hugged her, trying to make her feel better. He wasn't doing much better than her, though.

Buffy was still working on making herself feel worse. "This is all my fault. My fault...if I hadn't pushed him away...if I...oh, God...why does this happen to the people I care about?"

Angel suddenly burst into the library, oblivious as to what had just transpired. "Buffy, we got trouble! Some vampires have taken over the Bronze, Willow and Oz are stuck in there, and..."

He suddenly noticed someone was on the floor. "Xander! Are you-?" Then he realized what he was. "Oh, no..."

Buffy looked at Angel. "Why did I do it? I shouldn't have done it, I can't believe I was *that* stupid...!" Tears were running down Buffy's cheeks.

Angel stood there, trying to figure what they'd done wrong for Xander to end up like this; but he could understand Buffy's pain. He felt this was partially his fault too; after all, he'd sided with Buffy against Xander and pushed him away, just as much as everyone else.

A hundred years of guilt after being cursed with a soul, meant you never felt relief for all the horrors you'd done.

So, right now, he really could sympathize with Buffy and Giles.

But Angel was forced to push the anguish aside for the moment; it was easy actually, after doing it for a century. It wasn't forgotten and never gone, but he had to think clearly for all three of them.

If he didn't get Buffy to shake this off at least temporarily, then two more of her friends could end up like Xander – or worse.

"Buffy, listen to me! Willow and Oz need our help; they can't hide from those vampires forever. We have to go there now!"

"I can't just leave him! What if Xander wakes up? What if..."

"Buffy!" Giles cut her off and pointed toward the book cage, "We can put Xander in the cage for now, and he won't be able to get out from there."

He was thinking along the same lines as Angel now. If they waited any longer, more people at the Bronze could be killed.

Buffy managed to compose herself, and looked at Angel. He knew what he said next was crucial to Buffy's psyche, as she still wasn't totally with it. "Once we save the others, we can do something about Xander, OK?"

She nodded a few times. Giles and Angel helped her out of the school, determined to stop the Mayor's lackeys.

***

Ten minutes later, Cordelia stopped into the library to drop off some books. She found it strange Giles wasn't there. "Hello? Giles?"

"Hey, you." A pause. "Cordelia?"

"Hey me? Who do you..." She turned around, and saw Xander in the cage. "Oh my God! Xander! Where have you been all week?"

She ran over to the cage, trying to open it. Cordelia grabbed Giles' keys and was about to unlock it, when she stopped and looked at him.

"Wait. It occurred to me, we've never had the opportunity to talk. Ya know...with you all locked up." The Queen C attitude was rising to the fore. "Now what could we talk about? Oh, yeah! How about the ethics of cheating on your girlfriend?"

Several minutes later, Cordy was still talking, and VampXander looked totally spaced out. He was thinking, If only I could stake myself...

"And okay, it wasn't even like I was that attracted to you. It was more that we would get put in all these life-or-death situations, and that's all sexy and stuff."

Swallow holy water...

"I mean, I more-or-less knew you were a loser. But that doesn't make it okay for you to go cheat on me with Willow!"

Burn to ashes from sunlight...anything, to stop hearing this...

"Uh...Cordelia, I'm *very* sorry. I realize I was wrong. Now, could you let me outta here?"

"Yeah, yeah. I should just leave you in there, but you're lucky I'm a great humanitarian." With that, she unlocked the cage. VampXander stepped out, and smirked at Cordy.

"What? What's so funny?"

The undead demon put his game face on. "It's just, I never figured I'd get to be able to kill the same girl twice..."

Cordelia ran, screaming, out of the library. She kept looking behind her, and never saw Wesley walking toward her. She crashed into him, and fell to the floor.

VampXander waltzed up to the both of them, still with his game face on. "No more running."

Wesley got up in front of Cordelia, and put a wooden cross in VampXander's face. "Back! Creature of the night! Leave this place..."

VampXander winced at the cross, but he couldn't help but chuckle at this pathetic attempt to hold him off. "Oh, brother..."

He swiped at Wesley's hand, knocking the cross out it. A quick haymaker sent Wesley to the floor. The soulless vampire then pulled him up and pushed him against the locker, punching him in the ribs several times.

Cordelia looked up, and watched the demon beat Wesley to a living pulp. "Ready to die, English boy?" With that, VampXander sank his fangs into Wesley and began to feed.

The strange thing about people is that once you take away emotions like love and the ability to think clearly, only one thing remains. It's the same thing everyone instinctively feels, when threatened with fatal harm: survival.

Standing up, Cordelia felt that Xander would kill them both if she didn't do something. Thus acting on instinct, without thinking about it, she grabbed the cross Wesley had dropped and shoved it into the middle of VampXander's back.

The demon felt the blunt wooden cross pierce his heart. He let go of Wesley and turned to look at his assailant, before he exploded into ash.

"You bitch..." he managed to mutter, just prior to the dust flying.

Now that it was over, Cordelia suddenly realized what she'd done. Though she was upset over Xander being unfaithful to her, deep down he was still someone she'd cared about.

And now, she'd killed him.

All that was left, was a pile of dirty ashes.

Cordelia's face went pale and white. She took a few steps back, leaned against the lockers and slowly slumped to the ground. Her entire body was shaking, and then the teenage girl started staring off into space.

Wesley slowly managed to crawl over to her, and try to comfort and help her.

***

The others were heading back to the library, after rescuing the people at the Bronze. Thankfully, nobody had gotten seriously hurt. One problem down, now they were rushing back to the library to figure out a way of helping Xander.

Giles was going over options with Buffy, as they walked through the hallway. "Buffy, it could take a long time to find another Orb, and I-I don't know how we can keep Xander harmless until..."

He was still talking, as the five of them entered the library.

Problem was, Xander wasn't there in the cage.

Cordelia was in a chair, still catatonic and unchanged from earlier, with Wesley hovering around her helplessly. She looked at the others, and the tears in her eyes said everything they needed to know.

"...oh dear God."

Willow put her hand over mouth, and ran out. Oz went after her. Buffy's eyes started watering as she whispered, "No..."

***

The next day, the Scoobies were still devastated in all aspects of the term. Xander was dead, and they blamed themselves for it. People died in this fight, and everyone knew it, but never before had they been so directly the cause of death.

And with one of their best friends, no less.

There was no way any of them could fight anything, in their current state.

Faith hadn't witnessed the event, but when she learned the score the brunette Slayer was still shaken – for reasons she did not share with the others.

Even Wesley didn't try to prod them about keeping up the good fight, after all that had happened.

He had however, at Giles' urging, gotten the Council to fund the purchase of a headstone for Xander, claiming it was help the 'emotional stability' of the Slayer.

They all gathered by it in one of Sunnydale's cemeteries that night, and scattered VampXander's ashes on the green grass in front of the grave marker. The headstone read:

Alexander Harris

February 14, 1981 – March 19, 1999

He saved the world

***

Later that evening, they all tried to cope in their own way.

Willow and Oz were at the Bronze, sitting on a couch. The young Wicca's head was on Oz's shoulder, and her eyes were watering. The werewolf himself wasn't in much better shape.

Lifehouse was playing "Sick Cycle Carousel" on stage, but they didn't care. Both of them were staring off into space, oblivious to the rest of the world.

Willow then burst into tears, as the song began...

If shame had a face I think it would kinda look like mine
If it had a home would it be my eyes?
Would you believe me if I said I'm tired of this?
Well here we go now one more time

Cordelia was in her room, going through her trash, trying to find a photo of Xander she hadn't cut up or burned. Unfortunately, she couldn't find any, and in a bout of anger the brunette girl kicked the trashcan viciously.

Then she saw it. The giant teddy bear on her bed; the one that Xander had won for her last year at the fair. Cordy grabbed it and held it tight, the only thing she had left of him, crying hopelessly.

'Cause I tried to climb your steps. I tried to chase you down.
I tried to see how low I could get down to the ground
I tried to earn my way. I tried to change this mind
You better believe that I tried to beat this

Giles was in his apartment, with a shot of hard whiskey in his hand. He drained it, put down the glass, and was finally able to pick up the phone to do what he'd tried to do all day.

"Uh, hello, Mrs. Harris? I have some news about your son..."

When will this end it goes on and on?
Over and over and over again
Keep spinning around I know that it won't stop
Till I step down from this for good

Buffy and Angel were at Xander's headstone, and the Slayer looked very upset.

Angel was behind her, with his hands on Buffy's shoulders. Both of them said nothing; they just stared at the marker, still trying to believe what had happened.

I never thought I'd end up here I never
Thought I'd be standing where I am
I guess I kinda thought that it would be easier than this

Buffy couldn't hold it in anymore. She just collapsed into Angel's arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

I guess I was wrong