Smartly stepping aside, Xander waited until Angel was doubled over as far as he could go, his head nearly down to thigh level, swaying on his feet, and then the man put his palm on the top of Angel's head (grimacing at the feel of hair gel), and shoved back. The formerly-handsome vampire toppled onto his side.

"XANDER!"

This named person looked up to see a female fist coming right at his face, delivered with Slayer power. Xander had no time to dodge the furious punch from Buffy Summers. However, he didn't need to.

Smack! The blonde Slayer's fist was caught just a few inches from Xander's face in the palm of the other Slayer there. For an instant, both Buffy and Faith stood frozen, until the California native wrenched her hand free and screamed at the dark Slayer, "Get out of my way, Faith! I'm gonna tear him to pieces!"

"YOU CALL YOURSELF A SLAYER!?" This was delivered by Faith with all the power of her lungs. She urgently continued, "Buffy, look and listen at Angel, with everythin' you have!"

A startled Buffy was taken aback by the only thing that might have stopped her. Bewildered, she looked down at the person curled up on the cavern floor, at the exact moment when Angel turned his head on the ground and started puking.

From the crowd came an unanimous feminine "Ewwwww!", along with a comment from Amanda, one of the Potentials there, loud enough to carry to everyone, "That's the guy she picked to be her first?"

Shooting a searing glance at the young girl that promised serious consequences for that, Buffy knelt down besides Angel (on the other side from his mouth) and tried to find somewhere to hold him where it didn't hurt. She noted his gasping for breath during his emptying his stomach, the flush in his cheeks, the---

Buffy Summers stiffened in shock. As directed by Faith, she now used all of her Slayer senses. She heard the breath moving through Angel's lungs, she listened to the rapid heartbeat of her former lover, and as she cradled Angel's head in her cupped hands, she felt the warmth of his skin. Her head snapped up to look directly into Xander's eyes as he leaned on his shovel, a genuinely caring smile on his face. He nodded.

"Yep, Buffy, he's human. Totally. No more Angel or Angelus again, ever. Meet Liam Ryan." At that, Xander moved forward, lifting up his shovel as he went. Buffy's face tightened, as she shifted her body to shield Angel (no, Liam) from her friend, who stopped and rolled his eye.

"Relax, Buffy. I'm not gonna hurt him any more." At that, Xander snickered. "Actually, all he had to do was to touch the shovel to become human again. Me hitting him right in the face was just payback for the setup with Faith, when he clobbered me and left me in the street for hours at night. In Sunnydale. Why didn't he just put a buffet sign on me?"

The American glowered down at the man looking up with astonishment at him, and growled, "As for the knee in the 'nads, I figure that settles everything else, as long as he remembers I can kick his ass anytime he wants to bring it on. Me, seven years going up against vampires and other demons. Him, he's just a pretty-boy human, now."

"Are you still going to insult me forever?" came the rasping voice of the man lying in Buffy's arms. He painfully got up on his feet, with the Slayer's help.

Xander grinned. "Oh, you betcha. Now, hold still." As he said this, the man slid his right hand down the shaft of the shovel to lift it up to point the blade directly at Liam's face, who recoiled.

Again, Xander looked exasperated and held up his left hand in a peculiar salute while reciting, "I swear by the Junior Woodchucks' Oath, as an Exalted Hightail, Chevalier of the Honor Guard, Rear Admiral of the Arctic Snows and fellow Commandant of the Hightails' Hall of Heroes, that I won't hurt him in any way during the next three minutes. After that, I'm getting cranky."

From where Willow was standing, came her advice, interspersed between fits of giggles, "Go ahead, Buffy, Ang---, I mean, Liam. He won't break the Junior Woodchucks' Oath."

Two identical bewildered glances were sent towards the redhead grinning at the pair, and then they both looked at the waiting man. Hesitant nods of acceptance were made, and Xander carefully brought the point of the shovel against the forehead of the nervous Liam. Barely touching the skin, Xander skillfully drew a cross, while murmuring, "In nomine patri."

A soft light appeared over the Irishman's features, as all there watched in astonishment as his face healed perfectly, looking once again as handsome as before, as the light faded again. Liam stared in amazement at a satisfied-looking Xander, unconsciously taking Buffy's hand in his own, as his face paled nearly to what it had been as a vampire, repeating, "'In the name of the father….' Xander, where did you get that shovel?"

Xander sighed, and opened his mouth to start talking.

********************************************************************************

"….and so, I figured what was different for the third object. Oh, the gun and the sword could have been used as a crude hammer and a knife and axe, but they were really weapons. Only the shovel was a real tool, to be used to build things, not to destroy them." Xander finished his story, beaming around at the fascinated crowd.

A quiet voice came from Giles' position. "They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks."

Xander's grin widened, pushing up the eyepatch covering his missing eye. "Right, G-man. See, while the gun and the sword could have beaten the First Evil, no question about that, then what? Was I supposed to use them again and again and again, going on and on against evil, without any kind of break? Like the Slayers?" His gaze passed over the two women standing quietly in the crowd, one at the side of a dark-haired man and one by herself who winked at Xander. With a grin, Xander winked back, and continued.

"No, the only thing that made sense was to think about the future. So, well, I picked this," he shifted the shovel over his shoulder, "and I left the portal to see what the Big Kahuna thought about it."

A disbelieving question came from Robin Wood. "He still looked like George Burns? A white guy?"

A shrug came from Xander. "Hey, if it makes you feel better, He did say he could look like Morgan Freeman if I wanted."

A look of pain flashed over the high school principal's face, as he muttered, "Great, a Jim Carrey movie…."

Xander and a lot of the crowd snickered at this. However, Xander soon sobered and looked around at all of those in the cavern. A serious expression on his face, he spoke, "Guys, after that, I had a last…. discussion with, well, you know who. And now, it's time for the future. All of you, pay attention."

The crowd stirred, made a bit nervous by these words, and carefully watched as Xander lifted the shovel head to his face. Numerous mouths dropped open as the man did something no-one there thought would happen. He brought up his left hand to the strap of his eyepatch, and digging a thumbnail under this strap, he pulled off that covering.

A lot of people winced and looked away at what was revealed, the still raw wound and the crater in Xander's face vivid in its awfulness. Keeping an even expression, Xander brought the edge of the shovel blade to over his missing eye, and tapped it once against his face. Again, a soft light appeared for a few moments before disappearing, with Xander giving a deep sigh of relief.

Willow pushed forward to look anxiously at the man's injury. She gasped, "Xander, it's still gone!"

"I know, Wils," said the man, carefully rubbing around his missing eye. "But it feels a lot better now."

Willow blinked at this, and she looked more carefully at his wound, just before Xander replaced the eyepatch. Wondering, she realized that instead of raw flesh barely healing, there was inside his eye-socket faded scar tissue that looked as if it had been there for years.

Xander cleared his throat, and a blushing Willow stepped back, allowing him to look around the fascinated crowd. "What happened is a kinda symbol. Things are gonna be different, a lot for the better, but there are things that can't change." He pointed his left index finger at his covered left eye and went on, "I lost an eye in the vineyard. There's no way that can be changed. Not even by Him." No one in the crowd was ignorant of who Xander was talking about.

"However, I can heal it right now, and it doesn't mean that in the future I can't see again, in some way. Magic, a cyborg eye, cloning, whatever. It all comes down to what's now and what will be. The future, like I said."

As the crowd somberly considered this, Xander looked around, total compassion shining out of his remaining eye. "I got from Him a lot of power, in part from the changes coming from fixing the Pricks that Bumbled's mistakes. Like, Buffy, from what happened to you after we fought Glory."

Standing there in the crowd now craning their heads to look at the Slayer, Buffy Summers gaped at her friend and stuttered, "I….I was in heaven…."

Xander slowly shook his head and said kindly, "You were in a good place, I'll grant that, but only because those total assholes put you there, just because they didn't like one of their toys getting away. Sorry, Buffy, but do you really think that Willow could drag someone out of heaven? There's no way a simple human, no matter their magic level, could do that. No offense, Wils."

"None taken," croaked Willow Rosenberg, looking a bit ashen. A concerned look on her own face, Kennedy stepped up beside the witch and hesitantly offered her hand, smiling in delight as the redhead grasped it for comfort. The two women continued listening to Xander going on, still holding hands.

"Not to mention just how all of us acted after that. Just how did we ever think Buffy was in a hell dimension, and not even check? Or not bothering to consider what she might be like if we succeeded? Or even just going to where she was buried and doing the spell there? It's like we were total idiots then….or maybe, something else was there, who were totally arrogant and unthinking of any misuse of their powers….Yeah, them." Xander turned his head away from the crowd, and noisily spat at the ground.

Buffy found herself shivering, as she went over in her mind all that had happened to her the last several years, and found too much unexplainable, unless someone or something had been manipulating her. No, not just her, but virtually everyone around her.

Strong male arms closed around her, and she went into them, embracing hard the hugger until she heard a muffled sound of pain. Buffy looked up to see Liam struggling for breath and wincing. The Slayer hastily let go, only to have the Irishman's face change into a wide smile as his own grip tightened and he bent down to whisper, "Think of me as a piece of Irish china, lassie."

Buffy stifled a laugh, and hugged him once more, this time a bit more gently and carefully. They started to listen to Xander again.

"If the kids in back have stopped groping---" The entire crowd roared, looking at a blushing Buffy and Liam. With a wide grin on his face, Xander said, "Like I said, I was given power, though there are limits."

As the crowd watched, Xander lifted the shovel and gently tapped his left wrist once with the blade. An instant later, something appeared around that part of his body. It resembled a piece of strange jewelry the width of a watchband, where a miniature human hand with a wrist was clasping the wrist of another hand before it, with this going on again and again, in an interlocking chain of hands completely around his left wrist. As Xander brought his left hand up to eye level, a single tear trickled from his right eye, as he whispered, "Hey, bro."

Nobody in the crowd noticed this. They were all reacting to what had appeared on their wrists. Everybody.

Buffy and Dawn: "Mom!"

Willow: "Tara!"

Liam: "Kathy!"

Andrew: "Jonathan!"

Anya: "Edda!"

Giles: "Jenny!"

And so it went, as everyone in the crowd spoke the name of those they loved and who had loved them, before they had gone to the undiscovered country. Finally, an awe-stricken crowd looked at Xander, who quietly looked back. Before anyone could speak, it was the man who opened his mouth.

"This is a gift. The dead can't be summoned from their side of eternity, but they watch and wait until we too cross over, and this is a reminder to never forget they still love us, with all their spirit. As you've felt."

Willow looked up from Kennedy's band, to stare at her Xander-shaped friend. "They're not really here, are they?"

The man looked calmly at the witch. "You've still got Tara's pillowcase on your bed. She picked it, she chose to put it on your bed, she slept on it, cried on it, laughed on it, dreamed on it. Does the fact that she's no longer here change anything about that, or that she loved you, whatever happened?" He lifted up his own band, staring at it with an intense expression. "I can remember now how Jesse and I shared a crib. That'll do, 'til we meet again."

"Remembrance," quietly said Giles, running a finger over the feminine hands holding tight to his wrist.

"Got it in one, Giles." Startled, the Englishman looked up at Xander smiling at him. After a moment, the Sunnydale native cleared his throat, saying to the crowd, "There's more. Willow, Buffy, Faith, could you come up here?"

Exchanging wondering looks, the three women stepped forward, as the others let go or made way for them. They stood a bit nervously before Xander, watching as he flipped the shovel to a horizontal position, holding it just above the blade, leaving nearly all of the wooden shaft in front of the trio. He spoke again, watching the women who'd affected his life the most over the last seven years.

"Ladies, we had a plan to create more Slayers. I have to tell you, someone else thought that was a good idea. Just not the way we were gonna do it. Now that the First Evil's gone, there's no need to turn all of the Potentials here into Slayers, much less all of them worldwide, at the exact same moment. Which I'm really glad about. Not only would we have wrecked a lot of people's lives --- think about your asylum stay, for example, Buffy --- but the bad guys would have sensed it and targeted a lot of the new Slayers before we could get to them, if we ever did."

The three women before him had various expressions of horror, embarrassment and dismay. Xander nodded and resumed, "So, what we're gonna do is to take it slow. Touch the handle, please." When nobody's arms moved, Xander rolled his eye, and said in irritation, "It won't hurt you!"

Naturally, Faith was the first to reach out and grasp the handle, smirking at the others when nothing happened to her. Buffy was next, and finally Willow, with all of them now looking at Xander, who just shrugged, "It's done."

As the three women looked in shock at the man, yells and shouts of surprise came from the crowd, all of these from a lot of the Potentials. Kennedy was one of these and with a disbelieving look on her face, she reached out for Andrew, who was next to her. Before the young man could do anything, a female hand had wrapped around his throat and proceeded to lift him at arm's length up in the air, totally without effort.

Xander shouted, "Kennedy, put him down! He's breakable!"

Her head snapping around to look at Xander, Kennedy thoughtlessly relaxed her grip, and winced at hearing the thump! of Andrew hitting the ground with her newly-sensitive hearing. She looked down, feeling sheepishness mixed with her feelings of elation, at the young man now splayed out on the cavern floor and staring up at her with awe. "You're a Slayer now," he whispered. "A real hero!"

Feeling her face heat up, Kennedy smiled at the geek, who despite his shown fear had come along with them to fight against monsters, and told him, "So are you." She laughed at his stunned expression and carefully extended a hand for him to pull himself up. She felt only the faintest strain doing this, and whooped aloud, letting go once Andrew was up to dash away from the crowd, as others also did this, running at full speed throughout the cavern.

Xander grinned at the newly-created Slayers' antics, also enjoying the bemused expressions of the three women with him. His grin grew wider as he heard Faith's comment to Buffy, "Looks like we're not the two and only anymore, B."

Buffy shook her head, saying, "You can say that again….F."

"F? What kinda name is that, anyways?"

"I've got a name, a full one. Call me Buffy….Faith."

"Fair 'nuff….Buffy."