"Hello Willow, Buffy," Giles said, stamping one last book and then standing up. He walked over to the front of the counter. "Um, how is Xander?"
"That's what we came to talk about." Buffy and Willow sat down at the table, Buffy with a still, solemn face, and Willow wringing her hands nervously and eyebrows that practically shot up to the heavens. Giles was instantly on alert and stood on the other side of the table, trying to read their expressions.
"Is Xander . . . n-not well?" Giles had never liked the Harris boy too much, but he never wished for anything too serious to happen to him. And the last thing Giles wanted was another victim racked up on Angel's scale.
"He is. He's out of the coma." The two girls watched Giles sigh in relief. "But . . ." Buffy paused here, not really wanting to go on. She herself didn't quite believe that Willow had truly seen what she said she had seen. Xander was not the type to do that sort of thing. If anything, he hated vampires more than the Slayer, especially since her ex-boyfriend was Evil Vampire #1. Xander would never intentionally do anything like that . . .
"We, I, didn't tell you everything," Willow said, her voice breaking. "And it might be important that, that you know so in case anything can go really bad, you can, like, tell us it's going to happen."
Giles was drawing a blank on what was happening to the girls. Still slightly uneasy about looking at Buffy, he turned instead to Willow. "If I can help, Willow, I will. But you have to tell me first."
Buffy noticed that Giles was shying away from her, and she gave a quick blush. She knew that it would not be as easy as Giles forgiving her just like that, but it still felt so odd. Giles was the father figure that her real father was missing out on being, and Buffy was feeling the way she had when her parents had done the "we need some time off for a little while" thing.
"Xander, he . . . he drank. I mean, Angel's blood." Willow looked down at her lap. "Angel drained him and then gave Xander a few drops of blood before I, uh, saved him I guess."
Giles sat still and quiet for a moment, contemplating this information. Then, slowly, he said, "Is Xander a vampire?"
"No!" both Willow and Buffy shouted, leaning forward. Giles took a step or two back, and then the girls sat back in their seats, blushing red.
"Well, than, there's nothing to worry about," Giles said matter-of-factly. "It seems as though Xander has not had enough of Angelus' vampire blood to be turned into a demon himself. And," he moved towards the bookcases, "with that said, Buffy, there is something interesting that I'd like you to see in the Middle Age's." "Yeah, ok," Buffy said up and gave Willow a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Will, Xander isn't going to go all wacky on us." She then went to bury herself in the stacks with Giles, when she felt a strong hand on her shoulder.
Giles was holding her back. "Now wait a minute," he said softy. "I think that you'd better rethink what you just said." He sighed. "Buffy, you remember how you were when you came back to Sunnydale a year ago after you had been almost killed. You were-well, I don't have to get into details, but you weren't in the best of moods, exactly. And that may possibly-probably-be how Xander is going to react. He's going to be changed, and you are going to have to take it in stride." He looked back down the stairs. "That goes for you too, Willow." Willow nodded. "Well, that said, let's go look at what I have to show you." Giles and Buffy disappeared into the bookshelves.
Willow got a sudden shiver up her spine, though she didn't know why. Lately, she had begun to somewhat sense things-well, not really sense, but just a quiet little something in the back of her mind that spoke up at certain times. And now was one of them.
"Hey!"
Willow whirled around, not knowing what to expect, but surely not what she saw. Xander stood there, books under his arm, still looking very pale and weak. He had a little smile on his face, and he leaned on the counter for support. His eyes seemed too large and round for his face, which had gone surprisingly gaunt, and his lips much too red. He was still sick, but he was here.
"Xander!" Willow squealed, and ran into his arms. For a second Xander almost lost his balance, but steadied himself and hugged his best friend back. "You know, Will, I'm still a little bit sick, so give me a warning when you're going to tackle me," he joked as Willow pulled away from him. She looked sheepish.
"Sorry," Willow said. Then she yelled back at the stacks. "Buffy, Giles, it's Xander!"
Xander looked off into the stacks, and then back at Willow. "Where's Cordelia?" he asked. His voice was hoarse, and rasped in a sexy sort of way. Huskily.
"She's sick with the flu," Willow reported. "She finally caught it. Guess that mean's she normal like the rest of us."
"Doubt that," Xander chuckled. "Um, what's up with them?" he asked, gesturing with his hand to the bookshelves in which Buffy and Giles had yet to appear from. Willow shrugged.
Just then Giles appeared, a very large and very old book in his hands. He gave Xander a smile, although he seemed to be occupied with something else. "Xander," Giles said, as if to affirm his presence. "I hope you're feeling better."
"I'm not," Xander answered truthfully, wincing at a sudden pain in his chest. "Snyder called my mother at the hospital and demanded that I come back to school. For some reason, my mother agreed."
"I smell a lawsuit," Willow said cheerfully, hands clasped in front of her. She smiled at Xander, who smiled back at her.
"Oh," Giles said, and then he awkwardly stood there until scurrying back into his safe shadows. Xander looked at Willow quizzically.
"What happened to him while I was gone?"
"Nothing much happened to anybody, really," Willow said, shrugging the question off. "Oh, but Buffy did get the flu. She was on the floor above you, right over your room. But she was never in there, I mean, in her room. She was outside yours, like, guarding in case anything else came to visit."
Xander nodded. He didn't really care what had happened or what was going to happen to Buffy. He did care, though, that he was going to be late for first period. "Almost time to go," he said, looking at his watch.
Willow gave him a humorous look. "Since when do you care about being on time for class?" she asked, raising her eyebrows at him.
"Since I can't wait to fall asleep. We have Mr. Brodie for first hour." Willow rolled her eyes. "I know," Xander said. "See, even you hate his class."
"I don't hate his class," Willow said, going back to the table and gathering her things, shoving them into her backpack. "I just don't like the way he teaches it. He's so dull. Really, you know, if I wasn't teaching Computer Science, I would take over that job so that kids could have fun and learn at the same time."
"Willow," Xander warned as they left the room, "you just used 'fun' and 'learn' in the same sentence. I hate to break it to you, but they don't go together at all."
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"And so, by the time I got to Math just now, I was like 'Thank you for the sympathy, but enough's enough.' Teachers that I thought would just love to see me wiped off the face of the Earth were telling me how sorry they were and, get this, Mrs. Jacobson said she 'felt for me.' I almost keeled over laughing there."
Willow let out a light laugh as Xander continued the narrative of his morning back at school. It seemed as if all the teacher's had been informed that Xander had been a victim caught innocently in a fight between two warring gangs. He could not get over the look on one particular teacher's face.
"So Gabowski turns towards me, goes white as a sheet, starts praying to God and saying 'Xander, is that really you?' 'Yes, Mr. Gabowski, live, in the flesh, and ready to earn my D-minuses!'"
Willow giggled as she sat down, plopping her brown lunch bag before her. Xander rubbed her arm gently and said, "I'll be right back." He went off to buy his lunch, leaving his books and stuff in the seat next to her.
Willow sat there for a while just staring at her bag, then sighing happily, she began to open it. She peeked in and instantly frowned. Yet again another peanut butter sandwich. That was all her mother, Tara Rosenberg, ever ate, so she figured Willow would have to follow in her footsteps.
"Willow?"
Oz slid into the seat next his girlfriend, dropping his backpack next to Xander's books. He scooted his chair a comfortably close distance to her and asked what was going on.
"Oh! Xander came to school today," Willow said brightly. "He's getting lunch right now." She lowered her voice and head nearer to Oz. "He doesn't look that well, ok? So don't really say anything, ok? Even though I know you would never."
"'K," Oz agreed, nodding. He picked up his backpack and moved so that he was in front of Willow instead by her side. She leaned over her peanut butter sandwich and began a heated conversation about a hacking web site she had found just yesterday on the Internet.
"And I was just like, 'Wow! The CIA code!' and then I realized that I was like, doing heavy-duty trouble-stuff so I click the little button to the right, and then-"
She was interrupted by a sharp, loud cry of pain that came from the lunch line. Oz and Willow both turned around to see; it was easy because everybody was backing away to make space. So Willow and Oz got quite a clear view of Xander bending over his lunch tray in pain, clutching his chest like an old man in cardiac arrest.
"Ohmigod!" Willow said, jumping out of her chair to run towards Xander as her best friend fell to the floor. Oz followed right after her, trying to keep up with the frightened redhead.
Willow dropped to the floor next to Xander, and the first thing she did was check his pulse. It was weak-very weak-but it was there. "Get help!" she told Oz breathlessly, and he nodded, running off to tell the nearest authority figure.
Meanwhile, Willow held on to Xander's wrist, and the same chill as those countless times before creeped up her spine. The other seniors in the lunchroom were creeping closer now. "Don't go Xander, ok?" she pleaded to him, as if he could hear. "Don't go."