Title: A Rogue's Heart – Part 14, Chapter 7

Author: Wicked Raygun

Summary: For Xander Harris, the Hero of Ferelden, sacrifice is only the beginning. He ends the Blight, only to return to the home he no longer has a place in. Xander/Leliana.

Disclaimer: Based on characters created by Joss Whedon, and Bioware. I am merely borrowing them to put on a puppet show. Watch them dance.

Notes: This story is mostly a series of character pieces with sporadic action thrown in for variety. There's no real plan for this. I'll post chapters as they come to me. I'll be referring to events in the "Dragon Age: Origins" video game using Interludes. Chapters will actually continue the story forward.

Spoilers: And how! Events take place in the summer after season 3 of BTVS, moving into season 4. And all the events of "Dragon Age: Origins", possibly including the various DLC are up for grabs. If you aren't familiar with Dragon Age, then lower your head in shame. Go on. Lower it.

Distribution: Ask and you shall receive. Just email me and I'll get back to you quickly using new-fangled technology. See, I get email on my phone now. Surely jet packs and flying cars are just around the corner.

A Rogue's Heart

Part 14, Chapter 7 – Never Happy

Xander slowly came out of unconsciousness. His eyes opened and he became aware of being on a soft, warm mattress. There was a heavy temptation to just stay there, but, eventually, he stood up.

He couldn't explain it, but something felt wrong. His senses felt slightly dull, and his movements felt just a bit slower than normal – a sensation not unlike wading through water.

Had he been drugged?

His surroundings felt familiar. He walked out of the room, and then realized where he was – in Giles' apartment, the guest room.

But that was impossible. Wasn't it?

The last thing he remembered was that he was in Ferelden going to— Xander's memory seemed to fail him then. He remembered something about a tower, and then, well, nothing. It was all a blur.

Xander slowly made his way downstairs. Halfway down, he began to hear some voices. They sounded familiar and excited.

"Xander! You're up!" a deep, British voice said. He turned in time to see Giles, sitting up from a table covered in many different books.

"Xander!" two feminine voices said in a simultaneous squeal of excitement. He turned his head again just in time to see Willow and Buffy throw themselves at him and give him a long, powerful hug. He was too shell-shocked to reciprocate at all.

"But – what – how – the hell?" he asked flustered. This was impossible. It just couldn't be real.

"Well it certainly wasn't easy, you know," Giles said, speaking in his lecture voice. "First we had to find you using magic – and that was no mean feat."

"Yeah, Xand, the next time you leave the dimension try to leave a forwarding address," Willow said, teasing him.

"A postcard wouldn't have killed you, either," Buffy said.

That sense of wrong felt stronger than ever. Xander awkwardly distanced himself from his two friends.

"I can't be here. My friends in Ferelden – they, they need me. I was leading them. It was my responsibility."

Giles placed a fatherly arm on his shoulder.

"There, there – no need to worry about all that. I'm sure they're fine. And besides, don't we need you more? Don't you need us?"

Giles smiled at him, but it seemed hollow somehow – fake.

"You don't have to worry about being a leader here, Xander. You're with us, again. We'll take care of everything," Buffy told him in a sweet, loving voice that felt completely insincere.

"No, I – I have to go back. I don't belong here anymore."

His three friends scowled at him.

"Yes, you do!" Willow hissed. And her voice sounded so very wrong, like there was some sort of echo to it.

"You spoiled, ungrateful, pathetic child," Giles said in a voice that was more distorted than even Willow's had been. "Will nothing please you? Can you only be happy when you're miserable?"

Xander backed away from them. Too much was wrong.

"Who are you people?"

"We're your friends," Buffy told him in a distorted voice. And for a second she changed into some sort of demon.

"Like hell! Where am I?" And just like that the world seemed to slip away and he was in some twisted world with gnarly roots, and yellow skies. Was this hell?

Xander reached for the blades on his back, somehow knowing they would be there, and brought them out. He fell into a ready position as the three demons stalked toward.

"If you will not be happy," the demon that had been Willow said, "then we will feast on your soul."

"I hope you get indigestion!"

The three demons attacked him, and Xander did his best to parry and dodge them, but everything felt slower. His reflexes were dulled and it cost him. One hit, and then another. He tried to keep up, to move faster, but it was all pointless.

And then he tasted it – the bitter tang of pennies in his mouth.

He felt this before, back at the tower in Ostagar and then again in Redcliffe. The Taint had done something unique to him – something terrifying, something he didn't want to feel again.

But now, he was so desperate that he didn't care and he just gave in to the feeling.

Suddenly, it was the demons that were too slow. Everything he heard faded away to a high, sharp tinny noise. And the only colors he could see where white and shades of dull purple.

The demons simply stared at him in horror.

"What is that?" one of them asked, while it backed away in fright.

It turned to flee, but Xander would not let it. He pounced upon him, quicker than thought. And his blades drove themselves mercilessly into its spine. Then he lifted his blades from its back and in a single crossing motion he beheaded it.

The other demons did not flee as the other one did. They stood their ground and faced him, albeit reluctantly.

Xander growled. He was angry at himself for making the kill so impulsively fast. They had dared to wear the faces of his family. That was an outrage.

So he took his time, and made sure they suffered.

Xander woke up screaming.

After several moments of terror he found himself against the far wall of the room he used in Angel's mansion, holding the gladius Giles had loaned him. His hand was shaking as he swung the weapon around from one odd noise to another, and sweat dripped off his body in heavy rivulets that made him shiver.

It was nearly a minute before his rational mind was finally able to overcome his fight-or-flight instincts enough for him to begin to relax. He dropped the small sword to the floor with a hollow clang, put his hands on his knees and resisted the urge to cry.

Deep, steady breaths, he reminded himself. Deep, steady, breaths.

The nightmares were starting to become more frequent. Of course, that last one was more of a memory.

Stupid sloth demon.

Xander laughed hollowly to himself, merely a reflex to calm the nerves. After a few moments, he began searching for his watch which was the only time piece in the entire house. He frowned when he saw that it was barely past six in the morning. He had been out until two in the morning on patrol. He only found two vampires.

The first he had killed from a long distance away with an arrow to the heart. But his arrow missed the other's heart, hitting him in the shoulder instead. The vampire fled but didn't get very far before he collapsed in the middle of the street.

Apparently the "Mortuus Interfectorem" – the Killer of the Dead – was fast-acting stuff. Xander finished off the vampire with a swipe from his borrowed sword and vowed to coat the sword and his stakes, when he got a chance.

Except for one particular component, the ingredients were all relatively cheap. And it mixed with a mortar and pestle, very easily. The poison was a game changer as far as hunting vampires went, so much so that he wondered why it was never widely used before. There had to be a reason. And given his Hellmouth twisted luck, he was sure he would find out the hard way. Regardless he vowed to continue researching in the meantime.

And that meant Giles.

Xander gulped. That could also very well mean Buffy and Willow who he had skipped out on, after they had taken out Sunday and her minions.

And by "they", he really meant Buffy. She had really been in a mood to work out her aggressions, so he just hung back and let her tear the vamps apart. Getting in the middle of that just to show off his bow skills was just not a good idea.

And he didn't really want to field the questions about dragons and other worlds that were so definitely coming his way, if that look Buffy kept giving him was any indication.

So he made his exit in a cool, stealthy manner that could in no way be confused with him running away like a yellow-bellied coward.

Xander arrived with a box of doughnuts at Giles house. Hopefully, they would be enough to soothe the savage beast that was Giles without caffeine. The watcher was not a morning person by any definition of the term.

He knocked loudly on the door.

"Giles! Hello! Wakey, wakey!"

After about ten seconds the door was violently opened by Buffy Summers.

To say that she did not look happy would have been an understatement of epic proportions. But that was nothing compared to the withering glare coming from the redhead behind her.

Stupid Hellmouth luck.

Xander held out the doughnut box at arm's length the way a lion tamer might use a chair and whip.

"I bring doughnuts. Please don't kill me."

Buffy took the box in a single, blurry movement. "Get in here!"she said in exasperation.

There was no way they knew about the blood ritual already, was there? Surely Giles wouldn't have betrayed his trust.

The two women stared at him, but said nothing after he had walked in. The effect was eerie, and made him shift uncomfortably from foot-to-foot. It didn't last though.

"Alexander Lavelle Harris!" Willow snapped. "What are you doing performing blood rituals?"

Giles. Traitor. Dead Man.

"Well, first of all, allow me to clarify that I didn't 'perform' a blood ritual so much as I 'participated' in one. Big difference," he said pseudo-haughtily.

The two women folded their arms and glared at him, which pretty much killed even his feigned bravado.

"I'll shut up now."

The three then turned to the opposite side of the apartment where a bleary-eyed Giles was stumbling about and rubbing one of his eyes with the palm of his hand.

"What in blazes is all of this noise?" Giles then put on his glasses and blinked several times for his eyes to adjust to them. When he finally made out Xander, he pointed an angry, shaking, accusing finger at him.

"You! Do you have any idea until what hour they had me researching – Bloody hell! Where's my crossbow? I'm shooting him somewhere painful!"

Xander couldn't help it. He just started laughing.

It was good to be home.

Thankfully, Willow and Buffy's threats were more bluster than anything else. They were miffed to be sure. And he was going to be in the metaphorical doghouse for a couple of days at least for trying to dodge them for so long. But they were going to be fine, in the long run. Mostly they were concerned. The idea that he was involved in a blood ritual that changed him somehow made them worry. The details of his Change freaked them out in particular.

But of course that was nothing compared to the bombshell that he had died – twice. Willow had simply sat there, quietly crying and occasionally shaking. Xander sat next to her on the couch, and pulled her into a hug.

Buffy, on the other hand, quietly excused herself and went to the bathroom. They all pretended not to hear her vomiting. She returned a few minutes later looking pale and shaky. When she came back, she sat on the other side of Xander. He pulled her in for a hug as well.

There was certainly no logical reason for it, but at that moment Xander felt like the biggest heel in the world. The girls cuddled into his arms, clutching him possessively.

And also possibly the luckiest.

A van with darkened windows raced through the night. It took a dip in the road so hard that it became briefly airborne for a moment. Sparks flew where the metal body briefly made contact with the asphalt.

"First day, they come and catch everyone," a lilting voice sang from the passenger side, apparently oblivious to the reckless speed they were traveling at.

From the driver's side, a vampire with platinum blonde hair frowned slightly. As a human he was named William, but now he was simply known by the nom de guerre of Spike. And the babbling, mess in the passenger seat was his undead paramour, Drusilla.

"Second day, they beat us, and eat some for meat."

Drusilla was always known for being barking mad one moment to being stunningly lucid the next. But she rarely repeated herself. Not the way she had been for weeks now.

"Third day, the men are all gnawed on again."

She would be relatively fine and then suddenly she would start singing her little poem. Sometimes it would last for hours.

"Fourth day, we wait and fear our fate."

Not that Spike didn't appreciate a spot of poetry every now and then. He was known to indulge in the hobby himself from time to time.

"Fifth day, they return and it's another girl's turn."

Drusilla's rhyme was a bit rough around the edges, to be sure, but the imagery it evoked was certainly haunting.

"Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams."

The words meant something though. They had to. She was far too obsessed with them to be merely passing flights of fancy. Dru was insane, but she was also powerful. She could see things that were about to happen. And if one knew what to pay attention to, one could get a leg up on destiny.

"Seventh day, they grew as in her mouth they spew."

And in her lucid moments she would say they needed to go back to Sunnydale, back to the Hellmouth.

"Eighth day, we hated as she is violated."

Spike would be perfectly happy if he never set foot back there ever again. But it was what his Dru needed, so he would take her.

"Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin."

Spike sighed. Almost over, he thought.

"Now she does feast, as she's become the beast."

Drusilla smiled happily before saying the final line.

"Now you lay and wait, for their screams will haunt you in your dreams."

She closed her eyes and started absent-mindedly rubbing her lower abdomen. She purred contentedly.

"Spike," she called after nearly a minute of complete silence, during which Spike rocketed down the highway at nearly suicidal speed. Road laws, be damned.

"Yes, love?"

"I'm going to be a mommy, Spike."

"Of course you are, love."

End of Part 14

Author's Note:

You know, I've always been baffled by fics where Xander just suddenly decides that he's not going to take any more "abuse" from Buffy and Willow and then proceeds to rip them to shreds verbally. And then – just for the heck of it, apparently – he'll start listing his own accomplishments like a Klingon announcing his lineage.

Oh, there are a lot of those out there in the fanfiction wilderness.

And I don't see how the authors who write these bash fics seem to think they're doing Xander any kind of a favor, since he more often than not just comes off as petty, childish and/or cruel. And funnily enough I'm finding similar instances of bash whenever I read Harry Potter or Naruto fanfics. And my guess is that it isn't limited to these genres alone.

People will continue to write these stories despite my personal feelings about them. I'm just going out of my way to point out that I don't want this story to become a bash fic. Buffy, Giles, Willow and Xander are flawed people with complicated relationships. They are human in every sense of the word, and sometimes that means taking the bad with the good. But at the end of the day, they do care about one another.