Disclaimer: I do not own any characters relating to either Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Stargate SG-1. This story is intended for entertainment purposes only and does not provide any financial compensation.
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Return To Normal
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Chapter Three
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The house was finally in sight, at the end of a long dirt road, deep in the green woods of an isolated area in New Hampshire. For this particular meeting she hadn't wanted any company, so she'd left Andrew back at the Coven, and felt guilty as hell about it. Those poor witches had no idea what they were in for. But he was very 'high-maintenance' and Dawn knew she would need to be able to devote her full attention to the person she would soon be meeting. Reaching the parking area, she noted several out-building, one obviously a workshop, with stacked wood visible in bins beside another. The house itself was small but extraordinarily well built, by a master carpenter. A battered jeep was visible through the open doors of a sturdy garage, and a not-so-beat-up cargo trailer parked under a covered concrete pad. On the side of the trailer she could read the professionally-drawn label 'Alexander Harris Fine Woodwork.'
She hadn't seen Xander in years. There had never been a final break, or a big argument. But looking back, Dawn could see how he had been shunted aside, his merely-human powers dismissed, his contributions to the effort denigrated. For awhile he had been useful, helping the youngest of the new Slayers adjust to their new situation, but he wasn't part of the inner circle and soon got the message that his presence was no longer required. As time passed Dawn realized that even she had emailed him less and less often, and that he asked fewer and fewer personal questions, until they were just sort of keeping in touch for the sake of keeping in touch. He didn't ask about Buffy, or Willow, or any of the other Slayers or their activities. He seemed to have put that part of his life behind him, concentrating on setting up his new business, living a life of peace and quiet, free from monsters or fighting or dying. When she'd bothered to think of him at all, Dawn had envied him that new life, and never given any thought to wondering if it was the life he wanted or the one he had been forced to accept.
Apparently hearing the car drive up –or more likely having been warned by more sophisticated sensors and closed-circuit television cameras- Xander stepped out from the work shop just as Dawn pulled in to a convenient parking area. Even a quick glance showed that he'd aged well. Physically he'd never been able to compete with the devastating looks of Angel or Spike, and for a time he'd seemed to deliberately put on weight just to prove that he wasn't even trying to compete with them. But without the two vampires around to overshadow him, he'd come into his own. Years of working with hand tools and heavy wood had added muscle to his shoulders and arms; he looked lean and fit, although his dark hair was as shaggy and unkempt as ever. His face might not have Spike's chiseled cheekbones, but was pleasantly open and guileless. Without knowing he'd lost an eye back in Sunnydale she'd never have been able to tell that one of them was a glass replica. His smile was warm and welcoming when he saw who had just arrived.
"Hi Dawnie!" He opened the car door, and ever the gentleman held out a hand to assist her from the low seat, frowning slightly at her high heels, but obviously enjoying the view of her legs as she got out of the low riding sports car. Realizing she wasn't exactly dressed for such a rustic setting in her designer blouse and skirt, Dawn took care to be sure she could stand on the gravel before reaching over to pull him into a big hug. "Hey, Xand." They hadn't seen each other in more than two years. It didn't matter. In their own dysfunctional way, they were family, and no matter how long the separation, they always would be.
She didn't say what had brought her to his neck of the woods, and he didn't ask. Ever polite, he showed her around, smiling openly when she quickly got tired of the high heels and returned to her vehicle only long enough to pull on a pair of sneakers. There was obvious pride in his voice and demeanor as he showed her around the shop, as the bunk beds he was building for a client, hand-carved details, more a work of art than a piece of furniture. He had reason to be proud. When he'd left Slayers Inc Xander had found it difficult to adjust to the corporate world. Engineering grads weren't exactly lining up to work in Sunnydale, so employers had promoted people based on their abilities, rather than their paper qualifications. Without those certificates Xander hadn't been able to get a job anywhere close to his capabilities or experience in the non-Sunnydale job market.
When he did finally find employment, he didn't understand the way the corporate game was played. Rather than mindlessly going along with whatever idiotic idea his superiors came up with, Xander told the truth. He didn't suck up to the boss. He didn't come in early or stay late, naively assuming people would realize that he accomplished more before morning break than his counterparts did during their fourteen hour days of back-stabbing and ass-kissing. Or that instead of surfing the 'Net at his desk, he was down at the job site ensuring that actual work got done. Somehow, nobody ever noticed any of this. Jobs completed ahead of time and under budget simply 'proved' that his jobs were easier than everyone else's. Figuring that playing such a game would be more soul-destroying than being bitten by a vampire, Xander gave his notice, and went to work for himself.
Returning to his first love, carpentry, Xander had no compunctions about using his minor degree of fame to attract business. The entire world knew that Xander Harris was an 'original Scooby' and connected to the Slayers; but people didn't just buy his stuff because of his connections to the famous and infamous. Even charging as much as he did for hand-crafted furniture, his clients definitely got value for their money. Enough so that Dawn got the impression that Xander was beginning to get a bit frustrated by having too much work to do, and not enough time to add the extra details he felt would be required to make each item 'perfect' according to his own exacting standards.
It was quite a change from Dawn's memories of Xander, of him being more of a buffoon and a 'butt-monkey' rather than this quietly confident, mature man. It shouldn't have surprised her. She had gone through her own transition, from being the center of attention to being one of the support staff, someone without the mystical power to actually personally challenge the Forces of Evil, but providing a valuable service through research and planning. In his own quiet way Xander had been just as valuable to the cause, providing a voice of perspective, the thoughts of 'the common man' rather than letting everyone immediately follow the Slayer's own 'divinely inspired' I-Am-The-Law impulses. It was no wonder he had been forced out. Had Dawn not been Buffy's sister, she would have been as well, Watcher training or not. Had she been paying more attention, Dawn would have noticed the 'elitist' aura coming to the forefront of Slayer attitudes back when Xander had been pushed aside, and realized the implications of that sort of behavior a lot sooner.
After the tour they entered Xander's house, a small two-bedroom bungalow, still smelling of sawn wood, piles of dirty laundry tossed at random, dirty dishes stacked in the sink indicating pretty clearly that this place was inhabited by a bachelor. "What happened to… Katrin? Weren't you living with someone the last time I heard from you?" It hadn't been that long before, had it? No more than a few… months –damn, had it really been months since her last email?—and he had happily noted that his relationship with a local girl had been proceeding swimmingly.
Giving her his patented, shy, self-deprecating smile, Xander tried to look abashed, but she could see the pain and lingering bitterness behind the façade. "It turns out she thought I'd be taking her to all the fancy dress balls you people have in Cincinnati for the 'movers and shakers' of the world. When I told her there wasn't any fancy soirée's like that, and even if there were I wouldn't have been invited to them, she decided to go elsewhere in her unending effort to climb the social ladder and finally be welcomed among the elite society to which she was unfairly denied at birth. Uhh… that came out a little bit more bitter than I thought it would. No psych issues here. Nope, not a one."
Smiling sympathetically, Dawn forced herself not to think of how many guys she had met who wanted to use her connections for their own attempt at clawing their way to the top. She was a Hot Babe, dammit, and it really sucked that most of the guys who interested her only saw her as a means to an end. And who then got offended when she called them on it, and tried to twist it into a problem with her 'feelings of inferiority.' Yes, Dawn could match Xander in bitterness any day of the week. One of the problem with being attracted to ambitious, driven men was the fact that they too often demanded her own needs take a back seat to their ambition and drive. The whole thing got real old, real fast. "You should have broke it off when the tests came back saying she was 100 human. Face it Xan, you're a demon magnet."
She was going to commiserate when she noticed that, unlike the main bedroom, the guest bedroom was perfectly clean, the sheets freshly washed, even fresh flowers on the bedside table. Frowning, she looked over at Xander, who didn't need the question to answer her unvoiced accusation. "They called me yesterday to tell me you were coming. Buffy said you were a bit upset over her new relationship. I, uh… hadn't heard about that. Nothing in the paper about it, and I don't watch tv anymore. Soooooo…. The Buff-ster and Willow,' eh? Damn, if you only knew how many fantasies I had in high school about just that…. Okay, definitely entering the 'Too Much Information' zone here…"
For a second or three Dawn stood silent, open-mouthed in shock, his reaction the last thing she had expected, but oh-so-Xander. Finally she couldn't help herself, and started laughing, a full-throated and genuine amusement only partially tinged with underlying hysteria. Of course they'd know where she was going. Where else could she have gone? It wasn't like there were a lot of options, when everyone she knew was either in league with- or terrified of- her sister. Her only options were Xander or Faith, and Dawn wasn't quite desperate enough to go looking for Faith. "Are they sending someone to take me back?"
Taking a seat in one of the massive, and apparently hand made, chairs in the living area, in front of a forced-air fireplace where ashes suggested frequent use, Xander shook his head. "Naw, they understand you need some time alone. I told them there's nothing out here more dangerous than the occasional deer. Something about this place repels vampires, which is why I settled here. If you just want some space to get your head together, you're more than welcome to stay. Nothing around here but miles and miles of miles and miles in every direction. Peace, quiet, and a lack of Hellmouth-y goodness. Buffy agreed with me that this is probably as safe a place as you could find to run away to."
Nodding, Dawn scowled at the idea of her 'running away' –she was almost 22 years old, dammit!—and silently thanked her sister –her real sister, not the psycho bitch—for the suggestion of using Buffy and Willow's relationship as an excuse for wanting to get away from Cleveland. She'd set the stage pretty carefully. Nobody had the slightest idea she was now certain that the woman wearing Buffy's skin, answering to Buffy's name, wasn't really Buffy. She hadn't told her closest friends about Buffy's visit, and she'd been extremely careful when investigating the claims her real sister had made in order to ensure that she wasn't trusting the wrong Buffy. Even here, with Xander, she intended to proceed cautiously, despite her sister saying she could trust him with the truth. The idea of freaking out over Buffy having an affair with her best friend provided such a perfect cover story she didn't intend to give it up until she was absolutely certain he could be trusted. "Thanks, I'm going to take you up on that offer. If you don't mind, I'll go get my luggage. I need to change out of these clothes…"
One problem quickly reared its ugly head; she didn't really have any clothing suitable for Xander's place. The least 'sophisticated' clothing she had brought was a pair of designer jeans which cost more than some cars. Given how fabulous they made her ass look their exorbitant cost was more than justified…but they really didn't fit in with Xander's Levi's and lumberjack shirt. But, she knew Xander, and Buffy's kid sister or not, knew he'd enjoy the view. More importantly, once she changed out of her dress and into her jeans it would distract him while she checked for bugs and other monitoring devices around the premises. Buffy had an army of slayers at her command, an international organization devoted to supporting their activities, and a ton of money to indulge her paranoia. Even if Xander was no longer an insider, she suspected the First would want to keep an eye on him, just in case. And if she wanted to do some research, she knew she have to go up against Willow. Dawn knew how good she was with computers, but didn't delude herself into thinking she was a better hacker than the person she had recently infuriated by calling 'my new mommy.' Willow had taught her everything she knew about computers, but not everything Willow knew, and Dawn could not allow herself to forget that for a minute. Her very survival depended on it.
Fortunately Xander was a Scooby, and said nothing about the extremely sophisticated detection equipment Dawn started using as soon as she emerged from her bedroom, merely raising his eyebrows, and the only words he spoke were to casually complement the way her jeans fit. He rolled his eyes in annoyance when the detector quickly spotted multiple bugs, not surprised but clearly irritated by the confirmation that he had been under observation by people he had considered his friends. Muttering that he would give her some time to settle in and would be in the shop, he left the house soon afterwards. Dawn didn't remove the bugs, but marked them, then returned to her car to remove the satellite equipment she'd need for her internet link. She knew that Willow would be able to monitor that link –even thought the provider was private, the NSA monitored such traffic and co-operated with Slayers Inc—but she had a plan that she hoped would permit her to get the data she needed without Willow tumbling on to her objective. Or at least, to make is difficult enough that it would take Willow some time to figure out her true objective among all the random noise.
It took a couple of hours to set up the small dish, bore-sight it on the satellite, and get a working connection. Dawn then took more time to set up a wireless network, suspecting that Xander didn't stay up too late and wouldn't appreciate having her use the main computer in the living area at all hours. There was the proper software on her laptop to monitor the traffic on the main PC. It would take days, and gigabytes of downloaded information, before she could proceed with her real tasks. Until then, everything would just be a smoke-screen designed to convince Willow that she was simply angry about their relationship, and was off sulking. Given her history, Dawn knew it wasn't an unwarranted assumption, and intended to support that idea as much as possible for as long as possible. But, despite doing everything in her power to ensure everyone leapt to the conclusion she wanted them to reach, she was a bit miffed about how easy it had been. She'd spent years living down her reputation as a spoiled whiney brat. All it took was a few days of bitching and everyone decided she had reverted to type.
After setting up a few random bittorrent downloads just to test the stability of the connection, and hopefully freak out Willow by grabbing some truly bizarre Slovak man-on-goat porn vids --had it been anyone else she would have tried tentacle-rape hentai, but she knew Willow got kind of turned on by it-- she left the house to check out Xander's workshop. He was doing something with a planer, shaving off wood to perfect smoothness, the shrill noise of the motor making conversation difficult, and voice surveillance impossible. When Dawn came up to him, Xander didn't turn off the machine, barely even glanced at her. "I can't believe she'd bug my home. Well, actually I can, I just didn't want to know. I've got one of those bug detector gizmos somewhere. Never used it. Didn't want to know that either she didn't trust me, or if she thought I was so useless it didn't matter a damn if she trusted me or not."
"She didn't trust you."
That earned her a glare. "Not helping here, Dawnie. I love your sister, well, like a sister, but the girl does obsess. Took her five years to tell me she was pissed off that I lied to her once. Hell, I'd forgotten all about it by that point! But she just couldn't let it go…"
Dawn had to think a bit before recalling the incident he was mumbling about, since she hadn't been present for it. From what she remembered, Buffy hadn't been 'obsessing' over the matter, had only brought it up to put the situation they were in at the time in context. "When Buffy had to kill Angelus, Willow told you to let her know she would try to return his soul. You didn't tell her… because you figured that it would slow her down, prevent her from doing what she had to do. She understood, 'Xand. She never brought it up because it wasn't worth arguing about. You made a judgment call, and even though she disagreed with it, there was no point in arguing about it after it no longer mattered when there was a good chance you might have been right. She only brought it up later because you were suddenly arguing the other way, saying that Anya deserved some slack when she got back in the vengeance business, after you had denied it to Angel. That's hardly 'obsessing!' Newsflash, Xand; people bend over backwards to support those they love. That doesn't make them hypocrites. It makes them human."
For a second it looked like he wanted to argue, before Xander sighed and returned to his woodwork. "Then explain why she's bugging my house."
To that, Dawn waved it aside. "Different issue completely. She doesn't trust you. She doesn't trust me. She doesn't trust anyone. For good reason. You hear about that big weapons shipment the Turkish navy found heading for Lebanon? Guess who paid for it?"
For a second he just stood there, expression blank, before returning to his planer. "So you really got a hate on for her because of this Willow thing, 'eh Dawnie?"
Dawn sighed. She'd moved too quickly. "Yeah, whatever. Don't give me any crap about this, Harris. I saw the report you sent in for the last job you did for Slayers, Inc. The real report, the one you sent 'Eyes Only' to Buffy, not that white-wash job you did for the masses. So don't try to bullshit me about not knowing what was happening even back then. It's only gotten worse since you bailed."
For a few years after Sunnydale went under they had searched the world for newly-Called slayers. Many of them were just kids, some as young as eleven, who didn't understand the changes they were undergoing and couldn't handle the slayer enhancements on top of their natural hormonal changes involved in starting their periods. They sent almost all of the younger girls to Xander. He just had a way of dealing with kids that made him a natural babysitter. Other, older, slayers came out to train the kids… but until they got a handle on the changes they were undergoing they belonged to Xander, and he loved them. They, in turn, worshipped the ground he walked on. It took a lot for them to alienate Xander enough to make him leave his kids…but Buffy had managed to do it. She had made a deal with a local shaman to take out a particularly obnoxious group of demons. But the price he had demanded was unacceptable to Xander's conscience. Dozens of lives had been saved by the deal Buffy worked out… but at the cost of losing a part of his soul. There were other ways they might have resolved the problem --granted they might have gotten more people killed, and it would have taken more time-- but in the long run they would have been better off both morally and strategically. Buffy had needed a quick victory for political reasons, which had not been a good enough excuse for a man who had once looked to Buffy as the hero who would always make an ethical judgment. He had done what she asked… and then he had resigned, left Cleveland, and never looked back.
It had taken some time and hard work, but his business was finally taking off, his life seemed to be getting back on track. It would only figure that Dawn would suddenly show up demanding he take another look at moral descent of the girl he had once respected as the epitome of ethical righteousness. One of the reasons he no longer watched the news or read any magazines advertising stories about the slayers was because he didn't want to know how many other 'questionable' decisions they had made, how quick they were to justify making ethically-dubious choices in the interest of expediency. He didn't know how Buffy could have morphed into Travers from almost the moment she gained control of the Council, and didn't really want to know. But he couldn't deny that he was trying to pretend Dawn was whining about trivial issues when he knew damned well there were far more serious underlying problems. Problems he couldn't do anything about anyway. "Maybe hooking up with Willow will help her out, stop her from thinking she has to handle everything herself…"
Snorting in contempt at his tentative suggestion, Dawn looked at him pityingly, her eyes meeting his without flinching. "Willow is doing magic again. The deep stuff, I think. They have been bringing animals down to her lab, and it sure as hell ain't because she's testing cosmetics. Rats and chickens mostly, but some young deer as well. No people sacrificed so far, so far as I know, but she's dyed her hair black, and wears sunglasses all the time now. I tried talking to her a dozen times, and she dismissed me like I was the scum under her shoe. You're suggesting that Willow is going to stop Buffy from going off the deep end?! You're dreaming in Technicolor, Xand. That's where Willow lives now."
Returning his attention to the hardwood plank, Xander didn't look at Dawn as he contemplated the situation. In truth, he'd known this day would eventually come. When he first met Buffy he'd put her on a mental pedestal no human being could live up to, and she hadn't. He'd done his best to 'forgive' her for being merely human, and not the heroic goddess he'd wanted her to be. When she made a decision based on emotion, or took a stand he disagreed with, he tried to put aside his resentment that his opinion didn't seem to matter. In truth, it didn't, nor should it have. She was the Slayer. The final decision was hers to make, since she was the one who usually had to pay the price for failure. And he certainly couldn't argue with her success rate. But over time her decisions started getting closer and closer to an ethical edge he never would have guessed she might cross. So he'd left the Scoobies rather than watch his childhood hero fall from grace, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it. And as for Willow… he could only sigh with regret. "Willow is a big girl, Dawnie. Too big for us to tell her what to do any more. There are what, nearly a thousand slayers now? If they can't handle Willow, we sure as hell aren't going to be able to."
The young woman simply grunted. "Yeah, there's a lot of slayers; but the ones who don't worship Buffy are afraid of pissing her off. And even more terrified of crossing Willow. Buffy is real good at spotting the leaders, the ones who might challenge her, and either co-opting them or putting them in harms way until they suffer a fatal case of death. Ever since Faith was kicked out, Kennedy has been pretty much senior, and she's even crazier than Buffy. It would take something pretty spectacular to make the rank-and-file slayers turn on them."
It was then Xander's turn to grunt. "It would take something pretty spectacular to may you turn on them. So I guess this is where you tell me what made you decide your sister has gone over the deep end."
There was a long pause as Dawn considered her options. She wasn't going to just blurt it all out. Dropping the full story on him cold would be too much for him to accept. But she knew Xander well enough to know that feeding it to him piecemeal wouldn't go over well either. So, swallowing nervously, she let him have it. "I've been thinking about this for a long time. It took me a long time to see it, but I've come to the conclusion that the person in charge of the slayers is not Buffy. I know Buffy, and that isn't her. No way she'd do some of the things I see happening at Slayers Inc. No way she'd manipulate Willow like she is. No way she'd screw with the world like we're seeing. Buffy is a lot of things, but she is not a manipulator out to amass personal power. I don't know who it is… no, that's a lie. I do know who it is, and that is not Buffy."
To her surprise her old friend just sighed, assessing the grain in his wooden plank, never once looking up at her. "Faith showed up here a couple of months ago. She had this ludicrous idea that Buffy had died in the Hellmouth cavern under Sunnydale, and what we are dealing with now is actually the First, made corporeal somehow. She told me this ridiculous story about seeing the Torak-han stabbing Buffy in the back, and that the little cut she had when she got to the bus was about a tenth as big as it was when she saw it happen. I told her she was crazy. Even if she saw what she thought she saw, Buffy has slayer healing and it just got better real fast. I told Faith she was just being jealous again.
"But Faith knows a thing or two about slayer healing herself. And I keep remembering that smile Buffy made when you asked her what we were going to do after we got out of the bus to look at the crater. There was just something… wrong… with that smile. It bothered me so much I volunteered for the Africa thing, tried to stay away from Slayer HQ so I wouldn't have to see what I didn't want to see. But ever since Sunnydale I've known that something wasn't right with her."
For long seconds Dawn just stared at him, jaw dropped open in shock. "Shit. A big part of me wanted you to tell me I was crazy. Uh… you didn't talk about this anywhere you could be overheard, did you?"
"No. Surprisingly enough, Faith didn't trust my palatial abode to be bug-free either. We talked about it out here, with a lot of machinery turned on, just like we're doing now. I guess she wasn't as paranoid as I thought she was."
"Do you know where she is now? Neither of us were down in that cavern. I'd love to know what Faith saw. Maybe if we can figure out how it happened, we can reverse it. Or something."
They both fell silent, Dawn having a pretty good idea as to what Xander was thinking. If Faith was right, then Buffy had died in that cavern under Sunnydale. Until then he hadn't really allowed the possibility of it being true to sunk in. Dawn, at least, was comforted with the knowledge that her sister had been revived in an alternate universe. But Xander was confronting the likely confirmation of what had previously only been suspicion; that one of his best friends, his childhood hero, was dead. And in her place was a monster, manipulating his other best friend, turning her into someone he didn't even want to know any more.
That night, he got out a bottle of something and proceeded to get drunk. He'd loved Buffy since he was sixteen. The certain knowledge that their relationship would never go in the direction he'd once not-so-secretly hoped it would transformed him into a friend. A friend for life. One who would be there long after the occasional 'boyfriend' had disappeared into history. They were, in fact, closer than most married couples. He'd run away because he couldn't bear to watch his friend turn into a monster. Finally being unable to hide from the knowledge that she was dead was even worse than just suspecting it. But in a way it was also cathartic, because at least he was reassured that his childhood hero hadn't turned into a monster, but had been turned into one. So he drank, to remember his friend. His childhood hero. And once he was drunk enough, he turned to his childhood hero's sister, and asked her what she wanted him to do.
