Lorelai arrived in Sunnydale at about midday, and instantly headed out to find the headquarters of the various constructions firms in Sunnydale to see if they employed anyone who matched Xander's description. At that point, she began to think that having her daughter crying over some guy that neither of them actually knew the surname of was a really bad thing. Well, even worse than Rory crying over someone was in any case.
At the third firm she tried, she found him, and got directions to the site he was working on. At that point, she got the shovel out of her luggage (it had in fact been the only luggage that Lorelai had packed) because, if she was going to beat Xander to death with a shovel, then she needed to bring an actual shovel.
When Lorelai got there (and ignored the customary wolf-whistle all the builders gave) she yelled "Xander! Xander! Where are you?"
She was gratified to see someone up on the scaffolding nearly drop a saw on his foot. Although, with everyone wearing the same neon jackets and hard hats it was difficult to tell who anyone was unless they were close, Lorelai was willing to bet that that was Xander.
This assumption was proved correct when Saw Dropping Guy turned around and called down "Lorelai? What are you doing here?"
Lorelai thought about shouting about how much of a pig Xander was, so that the entire workforce would hear her, but she decided against that. If only because, if Xander stayed up there, she wouldn't be able to beat him to death. "Come down!"
"Just hold on a moment!" Xander replied, as he made his way down.
"Come on, Lorelai. Let's talk." Xander said, gesturing to somewhere away from all the curious builders. Lorelai followed - she didn't want any witnesses.
"Okay. What's wrong?" Xander asked.
"What's wrong?" Lorelai snapped indignantly. "What's not wrong? Rory came home crying after that phone call of yours!"
"Really? I-I didn't mean for that." Xander said, absently rubbing his chest.
"Of course you did. Didn't you understand why I told you to leave? I did that so that you wouldn't hurt her, you - you big idiot!" Lorelai yelled.
"I know that! Do you think I don't that? That's why I left! But then, about a week ago, I called to see if we could have a normal conversation like normal people. She didn't have to reply. She was the one who called me yesterday." Xander said defensively.
"Have you not even met Rory?" Lorelai said, poking him in the chest with a shovel. Xander didn't seem to notice. "Of course she called! But you're the one who said you missed her!" She poked him again. He still didn't notice.
"Yes, and I'm sorry about that. I shouldn't have said it. But I'm not the one who kept going on about how great my date with some frog was!"
Lorelai frowned. "Wait, what? Rory's dating a Frenchman?"
"No, some guy called Trevor. You know, like... oh, never mind. I was happy to have a normal conversation, but then she started bringing that up and I - I got jealous. I'm not proud of that."
"I told her to go on that date! So she wouldn't be thinking about you! And, for the record, it was a disaster!" Lorelai shouted, punctuating each sentence with a poke to Xander's chest.
Xander didn't so much as flinch. "It was? Then why did she tell me that it went well?"
"Because she likes you, and you hurt her, and she wanted to hurt you! God, men are so dense!"
"But - but what about the wedding? Didn't she ask me to that to make Dean jealous?" said a thoroughly confused Xander.
"What? No! I told you, if Rory asks you to go somewhere, it's just because she wants you to be there!" Lorelai said angrily.
"Really?" Xander said thoughtfully.
Lorelai realised that she might, possibly, have given Xander hope that Rory didn't actually hate him. She didn't want that. She didn't want him contacting her. "Anyway. Don't. Call. Rory. Again!" she shouted, punctuating each sentence with a chest poke.
Xander threw up his hands. "Fine! I won't! I wasn't going to anyway, after that last call."
Lorelai, however, had stopped listening. She was staring at Xander's chest.
It was bleeding.
She hadn't hit him that hard, had she?
Xander followed her gaze and let out a sigh. "Oh, not again."
Lorelai looked at the tip of her shovel, and then back to Xander's chest. "Did I do that?"
"Hmm?" Xander said, preoccupied. "Oh, no. It's just an old wound."
"An old... wound? What are you involved with, Xander?"
Xander gave a wan smile. "I told Rory that Sunnydale wasn't the nicest town to live in. Anyway, I've got to go and find a bandage, so if you want to continue this somewhere else...?"
"Oh, sure, sure." Lorelai said, dazed.
They went back to the main site, and Xander retrieved a first aid kit. "Uh, if you wouldn't mind looking away?" Xander said shyly, lifting the hem of his shirt.
"What? Oh, no. If you're some scarred guy with gang tattoos, I want to see. I want to warn Rory."
Xander raised an eyebrow. "Well, if you're sure..."
He lifted his shirt. As it turned out, he wasn't some heavily scarred gang member. He did, however, have a large black burn on the centre of his chest that was gently oozing blood.
Ew.
"What happened?"
I got in the way of a grief stricken witch who wanted to end the world. Xander thought. What he actually said was "Gas explosion."
"Marsh gas?"
Xander flashed a smile while he wound the bandage around his chest. "You could say that."
"Xander, what's going on here?"
The smile fell from Xander's face. "So, so many things. I don't want Rory involved in this. I don't want you involved in this."
"Involved in what?"
"I can't tell you. Don't look at me like that. I can't." Xander said, putting his shirt back on.
"Why not?"
Xander struggled for the words. "I just... I just can't, okay? Please accept that. I'm not trying to be mysterious. I just can't tell you."
Lorelai looked at him for a long moment. "Okay. But, seriously, stay away from Rory. Whatever... business... you're involved in, leave her out of it. Or I will beat you to death with this shovel."
Xander nodded. "Gladly."
Then he realised something. "Oh. You're in Sunnydale."
"Yes. I have been for several hours now." Lorelai said wryly. "Why, have you only just realised that?"
Xander ignored that. "Tell me that you're flying back to Connecticut before sundown. Please."
"What? Don't be ridiculous. It's nearly a ten hour flight, I'm not turning right around and going straight back. I'm flying tomorrow."
Xander rubbed his face tiredly. "Okay, at least tell me that you haven't checked into a motel."
"Where else was I meant to check into?"
Oh, how could he explain vampires and why they liked places of temporary residence to someone who had no clue about the supernatural?
Well, it had worked for the Mayor...
"Don't go to a motel. They're filled with gangs on PCP, it's like a war zone after dark."
"You're joking."
"I wish I were." Xander said earnestly.
"Where am I meant to say, then?" Lorelai said dubiously.
"Do you trust me?"
"No, not really."
"Ouch. Let me rephrase: do you trust me with anything not related to Rory?"
Lorelai hesitated for a moment. "Yes. Yes, I do, although God knows why, you're some secretive guy with mysterious injuries living in a town filled with drug addled gangs."
Xander couldn't help smiling at that. "Stay with me. At my apartment. Just for the night."
Lorelai cocked her head. "Okay, that was sudden."
"Well, they say turnaround is fair play. You're the one who suddenly invited me to your place first."
"True."
Xander nudged her. "I'm sure we can come to some kind of arrangement."
Lorelai felt as though she could be knocked over with a feather. "You're really keen on this whole turnaround thing, aren't you?"
"I can't take credit for it, I'm afraid. I stole it from someone."
Lorelai nodded, smiling. "Yes, I thought I'd heard it somewhere before." Then she remembered that she had come here to beat Xander to death with a shovel. Damn him and his distracting chest injuries! She shouldn't be joking with him!
Xander seemed to notice that something along those lines was going through her head. "I was serious about the PCP gangs, you know. This isn't just some ploy to worm my way into your affections or anything. I just want to keep you safe."
"That hadn't even crossed my mind."
"Yeah, well, whatever. I've got to get back to work now. I've already taken enough time off. Look, I'll give you directions to my apartment. Here's my key. Just be there by sundown, alright?"
"Alright."
Xander watched Lorelai walk away.
One of the other construction workers came up to Xander. "Pretty girl you've there, Harris."
With a great effort of will, Xander refrained from doing something drastic, like attacking him with a saw or sticking him head first in a cement mixer, and limited himself to telling him to shut up.
~*~
Dawn normally walked home by herself, as long as it wasn't after sundown. So she was mildly surprised when Xander showed up in his car to give her a lift.
"Hey, Xan. What's up?" she said cheerfully.
"Hmm?" Xander said distractedly. "Oh, nothing."
Dawn looked at him curiously as she got into the car. "No, something's definitely up. Has something happened? Is Buffy okay?"
"Hm? Yeah, she's fine. Everything's fine."
"Look, Xan, you don't normally pick me up. But you're here and acting all distracted-y. Something's bothering you. Spill."
Xander thought about not saying anything for a moment, but he was here because he wanted to talk to someone. There wouldn't be much point in him not saying anything then, would there? "You know that road trip I went on?"
"I'm a teenager, not a goldfish. I can remember things that happened more than three seconds ago, Xander." Dawn said sarcastically.
"Well, um, I kind of met someone while I was on it, in Connecticut."
"I knew it!" Dawn crowed. "I knew you couldn't do something like that without meeting anyone! Is she a demon? Or a vampire? Who is she? Did she follow you here?"
"Whoa, hold on there, Dawnie. She's human."
"Seriously? When was the last time you got involved with a human?"
"Um, unless Faith counts, that would be Cordelia. But, anyway, that's not the point. The point is, I liked her, and she seemed to like me, and I called her a while ago, and we got into this big fight, and now her mother's here threatening to beat me to death with a shovel."
"Her... mother? Just how old is this girl?" Dawn asked incredulously.
"She's in college." Xander answered defensively.
"You can go to college when you're sixteen. Are you cradle snatching?"
"Hey! I'm not Angel! She's eighteen, okay! And that is so not the point."
"Seems like a pretty big point to me." Dawn grumbled.
"No, the point is, her mother's here, in Sunnydale, and she doesn't know about vampires."
"Oh. Oh!"
"Precisely. I don't really know what to do about this whole thing."
"Well, if I were you, I'd try and not propose and then leave her at the altar."
"Thanks. Very helpful." Xander said acidly.
"Maybe you should just tell her. The mother, I mean, and see if she wants to tell... what's her name, anyway?"
"Rory."
Dawn's eyes went wide. "OhmyGodyou'regay!"
Xander nearly crashed the car. "What?"
"You're gay! That's why you broke up with Anya, because you realised and she isn't, you know, a guy!"
"I am not gay! Rory's short for Lorelai, okay! She's not a boy! Anyway, didn't you notice that I've been calling her her all this time?"
"Sorry." Dawn blushed. "But Rory is a boy's name."
"Can we get back to the issue at hand? What am I meant to do about Lorelai?"
Dawn frowned. "I thought it was her mother that was in town."
"It is. She's called Lorelai too."
"Wow. Was there some kind of name shortage going on or something?"
"That's what I said! Anyway, what should I do?"
"Tell her."
"I can't tell her!"
"Then don't tell her. I don't know, do I? Why are you asking me, anyway? I'm the only Scooby that's never been in a relationship, in case you haven't noticed. I'm not exactly the most qualified to give advice here."
"Well, I can't really ask anyone else now, can I? We've all made train wrecks of our relationships. And that vampire you were snogging last Halloween might beg to differ."
Dawn groaned. "I thought we agreed not to talk about that."
"That's what you get for thinking I'm gay."
"Well, what else was I meant to think when you say you've fallen for someone with a guy's name?" Dawn muttered. Then, louder, she said "So, what are you going to do?"
"I can't tell her. She's leaving in the morning, I'll just keep her inside until sunrise and then see her on her way. Tell Buffy I won't be going on patrol with her tonight." Xander replied.
"Okay."
They drove on in silence for another couple of minutes. Then Dawn asked "So, what exactly did you do with Rory that made her mom fly across the country to beat you to death with a shovel?"
"I am not having this conversation with you."
~*~
Xander got back to his apartment with about ten minutes to go before sunset.
Lorelai wasn't there. A quick glance out of the window showed that she wasn't coming down the street, either.
A pretty woman wondering around Sunnydale after dark? She wouldn't last five minutes.
Unfortunately, Xander couldn't contact her. He didn't know her number.
He did, however, know Rory's. Which meant that he would have to call her, hope that she was willing to pick up the phone and talk to him and give him her mom's number so that he could call Lorelai to find out where she was and get her back here before some vampire ate her.
Great. Just great.