***************************Chapter Two***************************
Buffy once asked me why I believed Cordelia enough to load a gun and pack a sword.
Truth? You had to be there. It's not like we're cut off from Dead Boy and his gang of flunkies down in L.A. We do know what goes on down there, maybe a little more than some of us would like to. And the Cordy having visions thing ... well, I wasn't surprised by it, let's put it that way.
Cordelia said that she'd never had visions as strong as the ones that had been assaulting her for the past few nights, waking her out of a dead sleep. Images of innocent young men and women being slaughtered. Chanting racists stringing up some defenseless kid who couldn't even fight back.
Tara, hiding out on some tropical island, broken down, feeling all of the pain on earth coursing through her as the rest of the world tore itself apart.
Cordelia said she'd broken down herself because she knew what Tara would go through. I was going to take her word for it.
Usually, the visions were for Angel. Get the image, feed the information to the bloodsucker, sit back and wait for him to save the day. Yeah ... usually.
This time, when the visions were coming on the fastest and the strongest, Cordelia knew they'd been meant for me. And somehow, she'd known why. Which was why I was suddenly the guns blazing type.
*"Protect her, Xander. They want you to protect her. Always."*
Okay. Fine. Whatever.
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I'm better with a sword than Buffy. Isn't that weird?
It was all I could think about as I walked towards the Magic Box, sword in coat and gun in pocket, people staring at me all the way. How I'd had more practice with a sword than she had.
Looking for a resume? Walter Jeffries, 407 years old. Currently interred at Pine Hills Memorial Cemetery. Matthew Avalon, something like fifteen hundred years old. Currently in a big golden urn in his wife's law office. I saw it there myself. But, yadda, yadda, yadda. You get the idea.
I watched her once, training with a blade against Giles in the back of the Magic Box. Too short for her arms, too heavy to be wielded with any accuracy. I know she didn't notice me, take in the intense way I studied her footwork, her reach, the fluid dance of the sword through the air. She has to know how to handle every weapon Giles has on hand -- if she specialized, she'd be a hell of a lot better at it.
As it is, I could take her in a heartbeat.
Giles is right -- she drops her shoulders for certain moves. Does this little half-dance before striking. Cocks her head slightly to the left before going for a head shot. And that's just the ones I could have pointed out off the bat.
Teach once said I was a natural. I was the best he'd seen with a blade in the hundred and fifty years he'd been alive. I memorized other people's moves and tells without even thinking about it. I was strong, I'd stay strong, and I was smarter than I let on.
There aren't a lot of twenty-year-old Immortals who've managed to kill four men. There's a reason for that. So if I walked into that store pointing a gun at Tara and Buff came at me with a sword, I could take her down. The problem came if she tried to attack me with anything else in existence.
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The day before I faced down Jack and the bomb in the basement of Sunnydale High, my teacher said he had taken one look into my eyes and known that I was this close to coming out to my friends and admitting I was an Immortal. That for a split second, I just wanted ... I don't know. To fit in. To be, for lack of a better word, normal.
But then I faced down that bomb, and that cocky, bragging toddler of an Immortal was taken over by a mature adult. After all, what would Willow and Buffy think if I were sent home in a body bag, and then popped back up again, all better?
Well, probably "Eww." But I digress.
I tried to summon up that responsible straight-thinking adult from deep down inside as I entered the magic shop. On any other day, I would have swept Dawn up in a big bear hug or tickled her into fits, instead of watching her touching idols she wasn't supposed to be touching and hoping she'd turn away before I did this. If it had been a normal day, I would have teased Giles on his lack of customers instead of being grateful he was on the other side of the store and couldn't stop me. And Buffy ...
Let's just say I would have been more interested in the highlights in her hair than the stake on the table next to the book she studying from.
I tuned everything else out but Tara, standing behind the counter, her head bent over a history book.
So I didn't hear Buffy offer up a hello, and I didn't notice Giles as he saw me take the gun from my pocket.
I just walked right up to the counter, and fired.
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"Oh, God ... oh, God ..."
"You s-shot me ..."
"Xander! What'd you go and do a bloody stupid thing like that for?"
"Tara! Tara, please don't die."
"Calm down, Dawn. Do me a favor and go get a blanket out of my car."
"Mr. Giles --"
"And turn over the "Closed" sign!"
"Mr. Giles, it hurts."
"Don't worry, Tara. It won't hurt for much longer."
Everything was all muffled, coming at me as though I had a pillow over my head. I couldn't see anything past Buffy, whose elbow was jammed firmly against my neck as her knee dug into a very uncomfortable place. She sat on my chest and stared down at me with fire in her eyes, her elbow burrowing deeper as she spoke.
"All right, monkey boy," she said. "What are you, what did you do with the real Xander, and how many pieces would you like to end up in?"
The real Xander? Which Xander did she want, the one she knew or the cold-blooded killer?
"Buffy, that is the real Xander."
"Mr. Giles, aren't you going to call an ambulance?"
"No. It'll be fine in a moment."
So, he had known. Why was I not surprised?
Buffy's loose blond hair hung down around her face as she leaned down closer to me. Funny, I'd had dreams where she'd been in that exact same position ... which you won't be hearing about.
"The real Xander wouldn't hurt a fly, Giles."
Oh, really? I seem to remember eating a spider and dating a praying mantis.
"Whatever it is, it can't be Xander."
I've got DNA that would have proven her wrong, you know.
"Something's not right here."
Something hasn't been right in my life for a long time. Suddenly, the ridiculousness of the situation hit me. What the hell would Willow have thought if she had walked in at that precise moment?
And I just ... I just started laughing.
I couldn't help it. It was that hysterical laughter that bubbles out of your system when everything in your life has just turned into a real-life nightmare, the kind you can't stop no matter what you do.
And past my laughter, Tara's nervous tears got louder as the bell over the door sounded.
"I-I got the blanket."
Dawn's scared face drifted past my field of view, staring at me as I were the beloved family pet and I'd just bit the baby.
I kept laughing, and Buffy punched me. Again. And again.
I knew I was bruising up something fierce, and even as I realized that, I also realized from the expression on Buffy's face -- amazement and confusion and something like fear swarming into one -- that the bruises were vanishing as fast as she was putting them there.
I stopped laughing the instant I felt Buffy's weight being yanked from on top of me. As I felt my head start to clear and whatever bruises were left finished vanishing, I could have sworn I heard what sounded like the crackle of a static electrical charge, the fuzzy white noise of a snowy TV station. I rubbed at my face as I stared up at Giles, who had Buffy's wrist in a firm grip. Her fist was still balled up, ready to strike.
"Not to ruin your obvious enjoyment," Giles said, glancing at me quickly, "but that is the real Xander. And if you haven't yet noticed, beating the life out of him isn't going to work."
"Well, it might," I started, then froze at Giles's glare. "Right. Shutting up."
Dawn's pained voice came from the other side of the counter. "Uh, guys --"
"No, it can't be," Buffy said, her eyes starting to well with tears. Aw, man ... "He just ... it can't be Xander. He can't be --"
"Uh, guys --"
Buffy froze. "What are you doing over here? Shouldn't you be over there with Tara? Oh, God, she's not dead, is she?"
"Where's Tara?"
All eyes turned to Dawn, who was barely holding herself together. She kept looking down at the floor, and then back at us, and even as Giles and Buffy moved slowly towards the counter, I knew what they were going to find on the other side.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Damn. And here I'd been hoping they'd find Tara dead. Now, that I could have handled.
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At that point, there were three things I didn't know.
I didn't know about the big bottle of headache medicine Cordelia was keeping on hand or the continuing wave of painful visions she was having about me and Tara, not to mention the future of humanity.
I didn't know about the Immortal headed my way with his adopted infant daughter in tow.
And I didn't know that in an unmapped tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific, a guy not much older than myself named Adam Newman was about to find Tara's lifeless body floating in the ocean.
All I did know was that I had a lot of explaining to do.
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