TITLE: The White Mouse 2/7
AUTHOR: Tony McD
DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to Joss Whendon, Mutant Enemy, WB and
others. This is for fun, not profit.
SUMMARY: In an effort to save Buffy (again), Buffy and Xander find themselves fighting the greatest evil ever while trying to find a way home.
SPOILERS: Season 5 but set before The Gift.
RATING: PG 13 (for now)
The White Mouse 2/7
Xander was power freaking. He was beginning to attract stares from the few people on the street. Buffy dragged him back into the alley way they had arrived. She had to calm him down so they could work on getting back from where ever the hell they were. She gently grabbed hold of his shoulders and shook him.
"Xander, calm down. It's OK. Please listen to me." she said to little effect.
Xander was in his own little world of fear. Buffy had to think of why he was so freaked and how she could calm him down enough to try to get home. Then she remembered the time when everyone's nightmares came true back in high school.
=========================
Xander: Oh, the spiders! Willow's been kind of, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Insane about what happened yesterday.
Willow: I don't like spiders, okay? Their furry bodies, and their sticky webs, and what do they need all those legs for anyway? I'll tell you: for crawling across your face in the middle of the night. Ewww! How do they not ruffle you?
Xander: I'm sorry! I'm unruffled by spiders. Now, if a bunch of Nazis crawled all over my face...
Buffy: Mm, it was pretty intense.
Willow: Thank you.
Xander: Well, the Hellmouth, the centre of mystical convergence, supernatural monsters: been there.
Buffy: Little blase' there, aren't you?
Xander: I'm not worried. If there's something bad out there we'll find, you'll slay, we'll party!
Buffy: Thanks for having confidence in me.
==============================
That explained why he was power freaking, being stuck in a world where Nazis rule is one of Xander's worst nightmares. But she needed Xander. She doubted she could get home by herself. Not that she had any intension for leaving Xander here. She needed him to overcome his fear. How could she help Xander find the courage to face their problem?
A memory of their conversation back when Buffy first went to college gave her the answer.
=======================
Xander: Buffy, this is all about fear. It's understandable, but you can't let it control you. 'Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to anger.' No wait, hold on. 'Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to the dark side.' Hold on, no, umm, 'First you get the women, then you get the money, then you...' okay, can we forget that?
Buffy: Thanks for the Dadaist pep talk, I feel much more abstract now.
Xander: The point is, you're Buffy.
Buffy: Yeah, maybe in high school I was Buffy.
Xander: And now in college you're Betty Louise?
Buffy: Yeah, I'm Betty Louise Plotnick of East Cupcake, Illinois. Or I might as well be.
Xander: Buffy, I've gone through some fairly dark times in my life, faced some scary things, among them the kitchen at 'The Fabulous Ladies Night Club.' Let me tell you something, when it's dark and I'm all alone and I'm scared or freaked out or whatever, I always think, 'What would Buffy do?' You're my hero. Ok, sometimes when it's dark and I'm all alone I think, 'What is Buffy wearing?'
Buffy: Can that be one of those things you never, ever, tell me about?
Xander: It's a deal. Let's put this bitch in the ground! What do you say?
Buffy: I think I say thank you.
Xander: And nothing says thank you like dollars in the waistband. Ok, what do we do first?
===============================
Caressing his cheek gently Buffy looked him directly in his madly darting eyes.
"Xander, I'm here, OK? I need you to calm down. We're going to get through this. I promise. But I need you. I need my Xander."
He calmed down, his eyes met hers. For a moment there was a connection. They could see a deeper feeling between them, something forbidden. The moment passed.
Buffy took a step back from Xander as he rubbed his eyes.
"Thanks Buff." he said. "I was kind of hoping this was just a nightmare, but I guess it's real."
"OK, we're agreed that it's real. But the question is where are we? Are we in some kind of alternate reality? Or have we travelled back through time?" Buffy asked.
"If that demon sent us to an alternate world then all I can say is why couldn't he have sent us to the world without shrimp?" He implored the heavens. Buffy couldn't help but laugh. Xander looked at her and smiled. Where ever he was, he was OK. He had Buffy with him.
"Come on Buff, let's go and find out where we are so we can get home."
They went out onto the street again to try and get an idea of exactly where they were. Buffy looked around but there was little to go on.
"I'm pretty sure we're in France." Xander said from behind her.
"How can you tell?" Buffy said as she looked the other way.
"With legs like those, we got to be in France." Xander told Buffy as she turned around.
A young woman was riding past on a bicycle and her dress rode high enough to reveal the nicest legs Xander had ever seen. Well, the nicest legs that weren't attached to a certain blond Slayer.
Buffy slapped Xander on his arm.
"God! Xander, you can be such a pig at times!" Xander rubbed the sole spot on his arm then broke into a big grin as he waved to the young woman on the bicycle.
"Bon jour!" Xander called out to her. With a lilting laugh, the young woman replied "Bon jour!" and rode off into the distance. Xander turned to Buffy with a little self satisfied grin.
"See? Told you so." he said. Buffy rolled her eyes. Then a thought hit her.
"Newspaper!" she said and hurried back down the alley they came from. She started to scramble through the garbage they had landed in.
"What are we looking for?" Xander asked.
"This!" Buffy said pulling out a newspaper. She started to scan it, looking for some clue.
"Well? What's it say?" Xander asked her.
"Xander, it's written in French." she told him.
"So? You took French in high school."
"That was back in high school. You took algebra back in high school. How much of that do you remember?" she asked a little sarcastically. Xander shut up.
"I can't really make much sense of it, but they keep talking about some operation called BARBAROSSA." she told Xander. Xander groaned.
"What?" Buffy asked.
"I remember this from high school. BARBAROSSA was the German invasion of Russia. That demon has blasted us back into the middle of World War 2."
AUTHOR: Tony McD
DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to Joss Whendon, Mutant Enemy, WB and
others. This is for fun, not profit.
SUMMARY: In an effort to save Buffy (again), Buffy and Xander find themselves fighting the greatest evil ever while trying to find a way home.
SPOILERS: Season 5 but set before The Gift.
RATING: PG 13 (for now)
The White Mouse 2/7
Xander was power freaking. He was beginning to attract stares from the few people on the street. Buffy dragged him back into the alley way they had arrived. She had to calm him down so they could work on getting back from where ever the hell they were. She gently grabbed hold of his shoulders and shook him.
"Xander, calm down. It's OK. Please listen to me." she said to little effect.
Xander was in his own little world of fear. Buffy had to think of why he was so freaked and how she could calm him down enough to try to get home. Then she remembered the time when everyone's nightmares came true back in high school.
=========================
Xander: Oh, the spiders! Willow's been kind of, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Insane about what happened yesterday.
Willow: I don't like spiders, okay? Their furry bodies, and their sticky webs, and what do they need all those legs for anyway? I'll tell you: for crawling across your face in the middle of the night. Ewww! How do they not ruffle you?
Xander: I'm sorry! I'm unruffled by spiders. Now, if a bunch of Nazis crawled all over my face...
Buffy: Mm, it was pretty intense.
Willow: Thank you.
Xander: Well, the Hellmouth, the centre of mystical convergence, supernatural monsters: been there.
Buffy: Little blase' there, aren't you?
Xander: I'm not worried. If there's something bad out there we'll find, you'll slay, we'll party!
Buffy: Thanks for having confidence in me.
==============================
That explained why he was power freaking, being stuck in a world where Nazis rule is one of Xander's worst nightmares. But she needed Xander. She doubted she could get home by herself. Not that she had any intension for leaving Xander here. She needed him to overcome his fear. How could she help Xander find the courage to face their problem?
A memory of their conversation back when Buffy first went to college gave her the answer.
=======================
Xander: Buffy, this is all about fear. It's understandable, but you can't let it control you. 'Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to anger.' No wait, hold on. 'Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to the dark side.' Hold on, no, umm, 'First you get the women, then you get the money, then you...' okay, can we forget that?
Buffy: Thanks for the Dadaist pep talk, I feel much more abstract now.
Xander: The point is, you're Buffy.
Buffy: Yeah, maybe in high school I was Buffy.
Xander: And now in college you're Betty Louise?
Buffy: Yeah, I'm Betty Louise Plotnick of East Cupcake, Illinois. Or I might as well be.
Xander: Buffy, I've gone through some fairly dark times in my life, faced some scary things, among them the kitchen at 'The Fabulous Ladies Night Club.' Let me tell you something, when it's dark and I'm all alone and I'm scared or freaked out or whatever, I always think, 'What would Buffy do?' You're my hero. Ok, sometimes when it's dark and I'm all alone I think, 'What is Buffy wearing?'
Buffy: Can that be one of those things you never, ever, tell me about?
Xander: It's a deal. Let's put this bitch in the ground! What do you say?
Buffy: I think I say thank you.
Xander: And nothing says thank you like dollars in the waistband. Ok, what do we do first?
===============================
Caressing his cheek gently Buffy looked him directly in his madly darting eyes.
"Xander, I'm here, OK? I need you to calm down. We're going to get through this. I promise. But I need you. I need my Xander."
He calmed down, his eyes met hers. For a moment there was a connection. They could see a deeper feeling between them, something forbidden. The moment passed.
Buffy took a step back from Xander as he rubbed his eyes.
"Thanks Buff." he said. "I was kind of hoping this was just a nightmare, but I guess it's real."
"OK, we're agreed that it's real. But the question is where are we? Are we in some kind of alternate reality? Or have we travelled back through time?" Buffy asked.
"If that demon sent us to an alternate world then all I can say is why couldn't he have sent us to the world without shrimp?" He implored the heavens. Buffy couldn't help but laugh. Xander looked at her and smiled. Where ever he was, he was OK. He had Buffy with him.
"Come on Buff, let's go and find out where we are so we can get home."
They went out onto the street again to try and get an idea of exactly where they were. Buffy looked around but there was little to go on.
"I'm pretty sure we're in France." Xander said from behind her.
"How can you tell?" Buffy said as she looked the other way.
"With legs like those, we got to be in France." Xander told Buffy as she turned around.
A young woman was riding past on a bicycle and her dress rode high enough to reveal the nicest legs Xander had ever seen. Well, the nicest legs that weren't attached to a certain blond Slayer.
Buffy slapped Xander on his arm.
"God! Xander, you can be such a pig at times!" Xander rubbed the sole spot on his arm then broke into a big grin as he waved to the young woman on the bicycle.
"Bon jour!" Xander called out to her. With a lilting laugh, the young woman replied "Bon jour!" and rode off into the distance. Xander turned to Buffy with a little self satisfied grin.
"See? Told you so." he said. Buffy rolled her eyes. Then a thought hit her.
"Newspaper!" she said and hurried back down the alley they came from. She started to scramble through the garbage they had landed in.
"What are we looking for?" Xander asked.
"This!" Buffy said pulling out a newspaper. She started to scan it, looking for some clue.
"Well? What's it say?" Xander asked her.
"Xander, it's written in French." she told him.
"So? You took French in high school."
"That was back in high school. You took algebra back in high school. How much of that do you remember?" she asked a little sarcastically. Xander shut up.
"I can't really make much sense of it, but they keep talking about some operation called BARBAROSSA." she told Xander. Xander groaned.
"What?" Buffy asked.
"I remember this from high school. BARBAROSSA was the German invasion of Russia. That demon has blasted us back into the middle of World War 2."