Chapter 2.

They were walking back. The Lady Buffy refused to let go of him despite his protests that he could protect her better without her clinging to him. They were heading to a library where the ghost known as Willow promised them answers.

When the spell ended Xander and Buffy both stumbled. That she didn't immediately release her grip on him was one of the happiest moments of his life. In fact, if anything her grip got stronger. But when she released him and called out for "Angel!" it nearly ripped his heart out.

Angel had been walking behind them pretending to listen to Cordy prattle on, but lost all pretense and ran to Buffy too.

"I missed you." he said as they broke their kiss.

"I missed you." she replied. "Spike!" she opened her eyes wide as she remembered.

"Huh?" Xander tried to nock an arrow even as he looked around for the blonde vampire. Then he realized that his bow was a toy again. "Oh yeah. We killed him."

"You killed him." Buffy insisted. Then she turned back to Angel. "It was nice of you to let Angel finish him off though."

"It was my responsibility." Angel agreed.

"Hey, where's Willow?" Xander asked, noticing that she wasn't around.

Xander had a horrible revelation as he and Cordy walked back to the school. Five kids! He'd shot five kids! He ran back towards Buffy's house with Cordy in tow. Angel was leaving as they approached. Xander had an horrible thought that Buffy wouldn't understand that he had shot five innocent children. Possession or no possession. But there was someone right in front of him who understood what it was like to feel the guilt of crimes you didn't actually commit. Dear God in heaven. He was understanding what Angel felt!

"I need your help." Xander said as softly as possible.

"Mine?" it was almost a statement rather than a question.

"I wasn't in control of my body. The person who was hurt some people. I know you understand that. If we leave them, they'll die. But if you can help me, we might just save them." Xander begged.

Angel, to his credit, just nodded. "Lead the way."

Xander led them back to where he'd first changed. There were five kids nearby with toy arrows sticking out of them.

"Start checking if they're alive. I'll call 911. I know the code words to let them know it's safe to come. Don't remove the arrows." Angel ran off.

Xander wondered if it was possible that an ambulance was already on its way. It had been quite a while since they had been shot and they were lying in a fairly well lit residential area. Then he realized that this was Sunnydale and the odds of something like that we slim. He started the gruesome business of checking for survivors. The first one they found was still alive!

Xander hadn't felt so relieved since Buffy came back to life. "Hang in there, kid. Help's on the way." he promised. He checked the next three, his spirits lifting as he found each one alive. He was wondering how it was possible. Oliver had been shooting to kill and the man just didn't miss. Had he affected things enough to let the kids live? He might never know, but it was enough that they were all alive.

All except the last one. He was dead. There wasn't even any point in trying CPR. The boy was already cold. Xander swallowed hard and felt tears start to well in his eyes. The boy got a little fuzzy around the edges. He had killed him. The kid didn't look to be older than 14 and Xander didn't even know his name. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

"It's their own fault for dressing like monsters on the Hellmouth." Cordy said softly. (for her) "They should have known better. That's just, like, asking for trouble. Who knows how many people you saved by putting these guys out of commission? Do you think Buffy stays awake at night thinking about the monsters she's killed? Not likely."

"That's because the monsters she kills don't turn into kids at the end of the night." Xander replied. They sat in silence for a while.

"What's going on?" Angel broke the silence.

"The others are okay but this one died." Cordelia explained.

"That's lucky. Stop moping over the dead one though. Everyone pick a living one and start comforting him. Keep them awake and hopeful so that they have the strength to pull through this." the vampire ordered.

Having something to do seemed to have a wonderful effect on him. Or perhaps the tears he shed were cathartic enough that he now had the strength to help those still alive. Or maybe it was the irony of Angel telling him to stop moping. They stayed with the kids until they were loaded in the ambulance and were well away.

"Thank you." Xander said to Angel, but he was looking at the spot where the dead kid had been.

Xander did not remember walking home but that wasn't surprising. He had been completely exhausted in every way possible.

Early the next morning Xander went for a run. He was embarrassed just how easily he tired out compared to his memories of Oliver Queen. Apparently running from vampires didn't get you in as good of shape as running for your next meal. Maybe it was the frequency. Ollie had been forced to run every day while Xander ran as little as possible. He shook his head to clear those thoughts and slowed to a walk as he neared downtown.

Downtown was quite the mess. He heard mutterings about 'gangs' and 'darn kids' as people cleaned. He entered the hardware store.

"Good morning, son. What can I do for you?" the clerk asked.

"Wood. Two boards of hickory suitable for bow making. Some wooden dowels. At least an inch in diameter and 6 feet long or more. Oak if you have it or another hardwood if you don't. And some smaller dowels suitable for arrows if you have them too."

"I got the first two things easy enough. But the archery dowels you'll find at the sporting goods store two doors down." the clerk jerked his thumb towards the wall behind him.

"Thanks."

Xander ended up getting everything he needed for under $100. The large dowels were walnut instead of oak but that was fine. Walnut was probably stronger anyway, but more expensive. He ended up buying completed arrows and a small quiver at the sporting goods store instead of arrow supplies for now. He just didn't have the time or the tools to make good arrows yet. The manufactured ones weren't great but they'd be good enough until he could make better. Xander counted himself lucky that Tony had plenty of woodworking tools in the garage. Buying tools would have cut a lot more heavily into his Road Trip fund.

The first thing Xander did was clean the safety goggles he wasn't sure Tony ever used but still had. A blind bowman would just be the height of irony on the Hellmouth. Safety of his eyes assured, he turned the table saw on and went to work on the eight long, wooden dowels he'd bought. He was finished quickly and inspected his handiwork.

Xander Harris was a comic book fan. And he obviously liked the Green Arrow or he wouldn't have dressed up as him. But now that he had the real memories of Oliver Queen, he saw there were a lot of errors in the comics. For instance, they forgot to mention that when he was washed up on that island that the first weapon he made wasn't a bow at all. It was a spear. He made his first kills with it. And it saved his life when a wild boar tried to skewer him. It was the wild boar incident that made him decide that he wanted to hunt things from a distance from then on. That was the impetus behind the first bow he'd ever made. And he became very, very good with bows too. But for as long as he was on that island he never went anywhere without at least one good spear.

And now he had eight. With less than fifteen minutes worth of work he'd made eight serviceable spears. An hour or so of sanding and then a few seconds each under the blowtorch to fire-harden the points and they were done. Xander couldn't help but draw comparisons to Oliver's first spear on the island and the hours it had taken him to make. And now in an hour he had made eight.

Now, he was properly armed.

No matter how poorly his first attempt at making a bow went this time, he would be armed tonight. He shuddered at the thought of his own... err, Oliver's first own attempts at making a bow. It had snapped in his hands on the first attempt to draw it. He glanced up at the clock and decided that it was time to head to the library.

"Xander, good to see you," Giles said. "May I ask why you are carrying a spear, though?"

"Huh?" Xander looked at his hand. Sure enough, he had carried a spear from his house to the library. He hadn't even thought about it. No one had said anything or even given him a weird glance. Thank the Hellmouth. "Wow. I guess it was a leftover habit from my costume. No one said anything on the way over, though. No one even gave me a second look."

"A habit of carrying weapons?" Buffy stopped pummeling a training dummy. "I'll trade you. My new habits include crocheting, needlework, and playing the harpsichord. I'm not even sure if harpsichords still exist." she gave the dummy one last, frustrated punch.

Giles looked like he was about to weigh in on that, but changed his mind. "I take in you retained a few memories from whatever it was you went as last night?" Giles glanced at Buffy. "I must say that I expect Buffy's French grades to improve."

"Giles est un grand maître, dit-on, le malheur est qu'il tue ses élèves." Buffy confirmed that she did, indeed, speak French.

"Very funny, Buffy." Giles gave a small smile at the fact that his Slayer had, indeed, learned something despite her best efforts not to. He turned back to Xander. "So, who did you go as?"

"Green Arrow." Xander said. At the blank look from Giles, he continued. "Think Batman crossed with Robin Hood."

"Well, I'm at least familiar with both of those. An interesting combination to say the least. I would venture to guess that you have some skill with a bow and arrow now?" Giles reasoned.

Xander shrugged. "Don't know yet. Got some wood this morning but spears are faster and easier to make. Didn't want to be unarmed tonight."

Buffy came over, toweling sweat from her neck. "You're not going hunting tonight, are you?"

"Nooo," he assured her. "I just feel naked without a spear nearby. Oliver spent some time marooned on an island. Made him even jumpier than living on the Hellmouth. But you're right, they would be good for hunting vampires. Better than a stake, I'd think."

Buffy laughed him off. "Yeah right."

But Xander was deep in thought. His eyes were unfocused as he looked into space. "No. Think about it. In order to stake a vampire, you have to get inside his reach. Right? But with a spear like this, they couldn't lay a hand on you. I mean, why do you use stakes anyway?"

Giles began, "Well, it's tradition for one-"

"Concealment." Buffy cut him off. "There is no way I'm taking a spear on patrol much less into the Bronze."

"I'm not saying don't carry stakes too." Xander produced a stake from his shirtsleeve and tucked it back. "But I just walked across Sunnydale in broad daylight with this thing and nobody looked at me twice. And fine, maybe you leave it outside the Bronze but... you know, maybe we can make this Sunnydale Syndrome work for us for a change?"

Giles seemed to be in deep thought then. "It's... never been tried. Not that I'm aware of anyway." He chewed on the end of his glasses before deciding something and putting them back on. "Right. Never let it be said that Rupert Giles didn't arm his Slayer with the best weapons for the job. Xander, would you assist me in testing your spear?" He stepped into his office and came back with a chest protector and a bow-staff. "Now, since I do not wish to be stabbed to death, we will use the staff instead of the spear for practice. I will try to attack you as a vampire would and you will try to stab me with the staff. Understood?"

Giles and Xander faced off on opposite sides of the training mat. Suddenly Giles attacked, his hands open like a bear's paw. Xander jumped back and jabbed his staff forward. Giles was forced to abandon his attack and spend his time countering the jabs as Xander forced him backwards. They went back and forth twice before Xander started to get frustrated that he couldn't land a killing blow. Giles was an excellent fighter. Instead of drawing the staff back the next time, he drew it up and then back down, right on Giles' head. The automatic response to grab his head cost him a staff thrust to his padded chest. That blow physically hurt less thanks to the padding. It really only hurt his pride.

"Hey! That was cheating!" Buffy called from the table.

"No, Buffy." Giles said, though he was still rubbing his head. "That was a perfectly... smashing blow he used. And good technique. Also it confirmed what I wanted to test. That the added reach of the spear would be an advantage against the denizens of the night. I can honestly say I didn't expect you to win, Xander. I was just hoping the added reach would give you a defensive advantage and I think it has. Buffy, I'd like you to use a spear on your next few patrols."

"But-"

Giles held up a hand. "Just take one with you. Try it out. All I ask is that you give it a fair shot." He gave a slight grin at her defeated slump. "Wonderful. Now Xander, you said that you had made more than one of these spears?"

"Yeah, I made eight."

"Do you think I could buy that one from you so Buffy can get a feel for it now before patrol?" Giles asked.

"Sure. The dowels were $5 apiece. I made eight in an hour and a half and most of that was smoothing and sanding the tips."

"Well, it is a fine spear. How does $20 sound then?" Giles handed over the money.

"Sounds good." Xander handed over the spear. Making money through slaying, who'd have thought?

A/N: I don't speak French. "Le temps est un grand maître, dit-on, le malheur est qu'il tue ses élèves." is a famous quote: "We say that time is a great teacher. It's too bad that it also kills all its students." I replaced Time with Giles (I think). It probably screwed up the French grammar so I apologize to those of you who actually speak French. Leave a review correcting my French and receive credit here for your efforts!