Xander had just opened his eyes to see he was in a white room, lying on a white hospital bed and with Willow sitting next to him. The first that came to his mind was that again, he was visiting good ol' Sunnydale General.
"Nope," Willow said, looking up from the book she was reading. Xander twisted his neck around to see the title of the book on the bind.
"You're still at school, in the clinic. They were gonna cart you to the hospital, but you woke up and started mumbling about Chinese food. You slept until what, 8:00? They gave me a key to lock the door behind me once you were able to be up and a-walkin' again." She looked to see Xander contorting his neck in that strange direction. "Ew, stop doing that! You're going to snap something."
"Doesn't hurt," Xander mumbled good-naturedly, but he straightened his neck away. Then he gave Willow a Look, the one that her father had perfected so long ago. "'WiccaCraft', Willow? Is that a book your father would approve of if he knew you were bringing it to school?"
Willow's eyes widened, well, widely. "No, no! You wouldn't dare tell him!" Then her face got a haughty little expression on her face that Xander's mother had perfected so long ago. "I'll have you know, Alexander, that WitchCraft is a recognized religion in the United States and if Stacey Carson can lug her bible around I can carry a harmless little book of magick. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Willow Algeria Rosenberg."
"Ah!" Willow swatted Xander lightly on the arm when he spoke her middle name. "Don't say it aloud! You promised you'd keep it a secret!" Around the time they were in sixth grade geography, Xander found out her middle name was a country in Africa, and he teased her mercilessly about it as only sixth grade boys could. So even after Xander stopped with the teasing, she was forever horrified of her middle name.
"Who's to stop me?" Xander asked, his mouth twisting into a little evil smile.
"I don't know, Xander LaVerne Harris. Remind me again?" Willow knew she'd won when Xander groaned loudly and bounced his head against the pillow. For some reason, that reminded her of her responsibilities.
"Do you feel up to walking out of here yet?" Willow asked, looking at Xander's watch. "It's 8:05 and I want to get home so that I can watch Charmed."
"That show? About the witch sisters? Doesn't that come on at 9:00?" Xander asked.
Willow shrugged. "I want to be early. Last time, I missed a whole 5 minutes. The entire teaser! I was, like, devastated,"
"I know," Xander laughed. "You wouldn't stop complaining about it for days."
"Five," Willow corrected him. "Five days. And I wasn't complaining-I was whining. They're a little bit different from each other."
Xander was silent for a while, just staring at the ceiling. "You know, you better move," Willow told him, putting her book away. "If Principal Snyder comes back and sees us not gone who knows what he's gonna do. I don't even know why he gave me the key in the first place."
"Maybe he's growing feelings in a container somewhere," Xander suggested, and with the ease of a young, healthy eighteen-year-old boy, rose off the bed with no apparent difficulty and stood up.
Willow just looked at him, completely shocked. "Wow, power-sleep," she said aloud, and the creases in her forehead deepening. Nobody healed like this after being totally knocked out. Besides, although Xander had gotten a rosy-hue to his skin, he didn't look completely recovered. But he sure did act it.
"Well, I guess I learned something new about myself today," Xander said, shrugging and adjusting his shirt.
"What's that?" Willow asked. Xander gave her another Look.
"It's private."
"Fine," Willow said in a mock-hurt voice. She crossed her arms and pouted like she used to when they were seven and he kept stealing her collection of My Little Ponies. "Don't tell me. I just," she sniffed, "thought we were friends."
Xander grinned. "C'mon," he said, looking around to find his books. "Let's go the Bronze."
"No way, Xander," Willow said, picking up his books, which had been lying next to hers, and handed them over. They walked side-by-side out of the clinic. "No matter what your miracle recovery, you are in no way up to Bronzing. You go home to your Mom, if she's there, and rest s'more, so that you can be at full strength for the test in Language Arts tomorrow."
"You make too much sense, Will!" Xander said. They stopped by the school's front doors to wait while Willow pulled out the key. "I wish sometimes you would just be normal."
"Normal on the Hellmouth?" Willow asked, unlocking the doors and shoving the keys into her overall's front pocket. "You're dreaming, Xander. Wake up."
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"Mom? Mom! I'm home!"
Xander had taken off his shoes in the foyer and now his bare feet attracted the cold from the cool tile floor, sending it shivering up his spine. Strangely, he did not feel that cold. Instead, he felt hungry, and he wasn't about to get in trouble for using his mother's credit card for food again. Nope, that Mexican Villa deliveryman had taught him a lesson, but his mother had also taught him a lesson, a 5,000-dollar lesson for harassing his female customers.
His mother wasn't answering, so that meant one of two things. The first option was most likely, and although Xander disliked it, Lynda Harris did it regularly. She would go out for dinner with a "client", not come back to the house until 7 AM in the morning when Xander was getting ready for school, and then making up a little excuse as to why she was late. Xander already knew the truth: both he and Willow. Gosh, they knew everything about each other.
The second thing was that his mother was upstairs with a cigarette and a bottle of wine, two things Xander always dreaded she would go back to sooner or later. And if indeed it were the second choice, Xander would be going through a hell of a night.
"Mom?" Xander wandered into the kitchen, and found it a mess as usual. Opened cartons of food from the local German restaurant told him all he needed to know. His mother was upstairs, passed out on the bed. Honestly, she said repeatedly she would kick the habit, but she had a thing for German food, and it always got her good.
"Oh well, a growing boy's got to eat too," Xander said, going around the kitchen table, He glanced to see if there were any messages on the refrigerator door, and then yanked it open. It didn't open, so he looked down to see the obstacle.
The obstacle was his mother's body.
Lynda lay on the ground much like a doll that had been carelessly thrown away by an angry toddler. Her face was white as a sheet and contorted into an expression of pure horror and shock. Her neck was twisted sideways and the flesh was ripped at the base, but the two, fresh bite-marks were still visible, dripping with unsucked blood.
Oh god no. I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming!
But no, he was awake, and his mother was dead. And he knew deep down inside who had done it.
"Angel," he hissed through gritted teeth. His hands balled up into fists, and he visibly shook with anger. "I'll kill him."
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"Five vampires tonight I killed-can I go home already?"
Buffy was perched atop a large headstone, and nearby Giles was making himself and tools very comfortable on a bench. Buffy was sharpening her stake against the rough edge of the tombstone, and slowly the stake was disappearing. Giles looked on disapprovingly, and started to rifle through his bag for more stakes.
"First of all," Giles said, pulling out about five stakes and tossing one to Buffy, "the correct way to phrase your sentence is 'I killed five vampires tonight-may I go home?' and to answer your question, no you cannot. I will not launch into another lecture on how this is your fate, duty, and likewise, because I have repeated it so much that the mere thought of saying it once again brings a sour taste to my mouth."
"Bitter much?" Buffy asked.
"Quite a long story."
"Oh. Well, it's a long night." Buffy waited for him to explain himself, and when he didn't, she sighed. She started to sharpen the stakes that Giles had thrown to her. "I'm so bored."
Something ran up from behind, and before Buffy could turn around and stake it in the heart, in knocked her to the ground. Buffy, angry, did a double kick and sent her assailant flying into the nearest tombstone. She got up quickly and ran over to her attacker, stake held up high, ready to plunge into the vampire's heart.
She paused, though, and looked down confused. "Xander??" she asked, her eyes widening. "What-?"
She didn't have time to ask it, and Xander to answer it, because he was again flew upon her in a rage, knocking her to the ground and this time around, knocking the wind out of her. She looked up into his face, and she saw hardened eyes full of hatred. Was he really this upset about what Angel had done?
"Xander, please, don't make me hurt you!" She held him a good ways above her, but he grew angrier by the moment.
"Don't make you hurt me? Don't make you hurt me! You already did, you b-h!" He spit the last word out with anger and then punched her hard on the face, with strength she didn't know he had.
Then he was pulled off of her, and when the world came back into focus she stood up and saw Xander thrashing wildly, held back only by Giles' strong grip.
"He did it! He did it!" Xander was screaming loudly, repeatedly. "Angel came and killed my mother! You b-h! He's doing this to f-k with your mind, and instead he's hurting me!" Xander stopped thrashing and his entire frame of mind collapsed, leaving him sobbing like a baby into his hands. "He killed my mother because you couldn't kill him. You lost someone you love and now you're making it happen to everybody."
Xander's words were like a slap in the face to her, although the punch was significant imagery also. He looked up from sobbing into his hands and all the anger and hatred were gone from his tear-filled eyes. All that was left was a deep, infinite sadness that cut deeper into Buffy's soul than his previous rage.
Meanwhile, Giles stood there, in shock. Angel had claimed another victim. "Did you call the police yet?" he asked quietly, looking at the ground.
"No." Xander's eyes turned hard and accusing. "I came right here-blind with rage." His voice choked up. "I had to punish the person responsible."
"No, Xander, Buffy was not the one responsible. It was Angel. Remember that."
Xander glared at the oblivious Watcher. "Keep imagining that if it makes you sleep better, Giles. That doesn't cut it for me."
Meanwhile, the accused just stood there, rubbing her swollen cheek. When had Xander gotten so strong? "You should call the police," Buffy advised quietly.
A single tear ran down Xander's already soaked cheek, but he cried no more. "I'm going to. Right now. Even if it's just to get away from you." And with that he stormed off, hands deep in pockets and with such an air around him that not even mosquitoes would dare venture near him.
Buffy watched him go, and then turned to Giles, who was still busy with the ground. "You don't . . ." Buffy didn't know how quite to ask this question. "You don't . . . think it's my fault too, do you?"
Giles was silent, and the air around the two grew heavier. Then Giles turned away from her and walked back to his bag, packing up all his things that he had left lying around.
"You can go home now," he told her quietly.