Here is the next installment, 10 points to those who can figure out who Methos is quoting =]
Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much,
The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion,
The leas insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love,
The first step I say awed me and pleas'd me so much,
I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.
W.W 1871
Coming out of his reverie Xander puts the book he is holding down. It felt as if it was so long ago, but it wasn't so long in the whole scheme of things. Looking at his watch he sees that it is almost time to meet Adam and Cassandra for his next session.
Driving to Adam and Cassandra's home he thought of his past and the events that led him to where he is now. The events that shaped the man he is today. He remembered the weeks that had followed his first training session with the ancient pair.
…
Breathing hard, Xander could barely catch his breath. He wasn't able to keep up with them. They were still on the gym floor going through the movements. What did they call them, Xander asked himself, katas? They looked graceful, balanced, and confident in what they were doing. In a way it reminded him of the times he had seen Buffy and Faith train. He was pretty sure that these two could give them a run for their money.
The problem was, he wasn't Adam or Elizabeth, or Buffy or Faith. He was Xander, the zeppo, research boy, the one in constant need of saving. How could he possibly be more than that? How could he learn to use a sword if he could barely walk down the street without bumping into things? It would be impossible for him to survive.
"Xander!" Adam calls across the gym. "You've had enough rest, lets continue with your training."
Begrudgingly he got to his feet and made his way over to the couple. Adam tosses a practice sword at Xander, which he promptly drops. At least I can't kill myself with this he ruefully thought. Picking up the sword he walks over to the training mats waiting for his next instructions.
"Ok Xander, lets start from the top. Ready position." Xander mirrors Adam's postures. "Good, good, now high guard, good low guard, now parry, parry, lunge, parry. Ok again. Ready position." Xander followed through with every move, copying them as closely as possible. "Good Xander, now face me."
Xander is confused, "Why? Aren't you going to show me the next movements?"
"No, there are one hundred and eight of them in this particular exercise. I want to focus on the first few that you learned this week. Now face me. Ready position. Try to anticipate my moves. Go."
Xander comes to position, but this time his body language is completely different. His confidence is visibly missing and his posture is unsteady. Xander had always feared failing. He was always afraid of being a failure. He would always, always no matter what he did, or tried to do, screw up somewhere. He had just decided to accept that was the way things are, and he couldn't do anything about it. When the pressure is on, Xander would screw up. He was a screw up in school, in life, and now he was a screw up with a sword. He is barely seeing the sword movements in his mind. Gone is the structure that was there only moments ago and all that is left is Xander waving the sword back and forth in front of himself to fend of his teacher's attack.
The attack suddenly stops and Adam asks, "Xander what happened? You were doing fine a minute ago."
Xander, his head hanging low mumbles something.
"What was that?"
The wooden practice sword clatters on the floor. "I can't do it."
"Yes you can you were doing fine when I was walking you through the movements."
"Don't you get it? I'm a screw up! I couldn't even save my own life! How can you expect me to defend it with that!" He angrily points to the wooden sword on the floor.
Adam looks at Cassandra and sighs. Cassandra nods and walks over to Xander.
" Xander, Adam is impressed by the progress you are making. Your form is a little crude, but with practice he could be quite formidable with a blade. He told me himself." Xander looks at Adam who nods the affirmative. "I have agreed that the majority of the swordplay and strength training would come from Adam. You two are about the same height and have the same build. The endurance training and your sense of spirituality would come from me. Since I have had training in various forms of yoga, meditation, as well as aerobics. But we have both agreed to train you mentally." After a slight pause she continues, "However we have found early on that you have a very self-depreciating and self-destructive demeanor, something that cannot be present in a new immortal, at least one that wants to live. Do you understand what I'm getting at?"
"But this is who I am, or at least who I was." He says quietly. "Everything in my life has made me who I am, I can't go back and change it now can I? I'll be like this forever."
"A friend of mine once said 'Where does the difference between past and present come from? The laws of science do not distinguish between the past and the future. Yet there is a big difference in ordinary life. You may see a cup of tea fall off a table and break into pieces on the floor. But you will never see the cup gather together and jump back onto the table."
A look of confusion appears on Xander's face. "I'm not sure that I follow."
Adam replies, "Xander the past is different from the present only because of the amount of chaos that emerges from the structure that was the past. The cup of tea may break and shatter into a million little pieces, but that doesn't mean you have to as well."
Cassandra picks up on this line of thought, "You have time on your side now Xander. It is up to you to make the most of it now. Are you willing to pick up the pieces of you life and make something out of it? You can be anything you want to be. The chaos of the present can easily become the structure that your new life is built upon. You just have to be able to overcome your own limitations, it takes time, but then again you have a lot of it now don't you?"
Xander just stands there and nods. Adam seeing that the young man needs a little time says, "We'll take another break, just say when you are ready." Cassandra and Adam begin to walk towards the water cooler for some water, when a sound stops them. The sound is that of wood against wood, scraping against each other.
Looking back they see Xander standing there, sword in hand. A slight grin is on his face. "I'm ready."
Cassandra looks at Adam, who has a grin on his face as well, and then back to Xander, "Are you sure?"
"Yes, like you said I have a lot of time on my hands now."
Adam walks back to the mat and says, "Good then lets begin again. Ready position."
Xander plants his feet and brings his sword in the ready position. He is ready, ready to let go of the zeppo, ready to grow out of the awkward stage that lasted his entire life. He was ready to show all those around him what he was really worth. He was ready to be come Alexander Harris, the man he had always wanted to be.
…
Xander often wonders what his life would have been like if he had not died that night. Most likely he would have been living in his parents' basement alone, looking for jobs and not being able to hold any single one for long. He wondered what it would have been like to be around his friends after they started going to school. Would they still be around? Would he have been able to see them as often as before in high school now that they no longer had classes together? Most likely not. Xander had a lot of "what ifs" in his life and he had begun to focus more and more on those pivotal points in his life where an inch in either direction would have changed his life dramatically. It had reminded him of the movie Mr. Destiny. Where one moment in time dictated the direction of his entire life.
Adam had warned him about dwelling over the past, so had Cassandra, but he wasn't dwelling so much any longer. It was more of a wistful memory. Although most people had wistful memories of prom, sports, things like that. He on the other hand had wistful memories of defeating the Master, his run-in with O'Toole and his undead gang, and nearly being eaten by a giant praying mantis. Not so bad now that his only means of survival was dependant on his killing his opponent by beheading.
He thought of his old friends back in Sunnydale everyday. How they were, what they were doing, school, love life, all of it. He had toyed with the thought of hiring a private eye to find out how they were doing, but he had quickly dismissed that. He remembers how they all wanted a private life away from prying eyes. Away from all those who would find their actions questionable.
Surprisingly though he found that the one person he thought about the most was Faith. The dark eyed, dark haired slayer had left quite an imprint on him. In retrospect he saw that Faith had never treated him as the zeppo. As if she thought more of him than the others did. She had never tried to exclude him from any plan or action she had planned to take. Maybe it was her brash attitude, maybe it was because she didn't see him as a threat, or maybe it was because she saw in him something the other didn't see. They had both been outcasts and they both shared the same knowledge of all the things the go bump in the night. Maybe that was why he thought of her so much. Or maybe it was the one night of passion they had shared. A night where they had shared each other for one intimate moment of time, maybe that was the reason why he thought of her so often. Even though right after that moment she had kicked him out of her motel room, he still thought about it. The days following he would barely catch a glimpse of her staring at him before looking away, and he could swear that when she caught him staring at her as she walked away she would look over her shoulder and give him a coy smile. Coy might have been a bad word to use, sly maybe. However he had never moved on any of the signs, he had dismissed them as the heat of the moment, hormone driven madness. But the moment would never leave his mind. He would think back and remember her showing him around the curves with a smile. Yet another what if in his Mr. Destiny life, what if indeed. Maybe he could have helped her stay on their side, he would have been a good influence on her. She would have never gotten into a coma, and he would have never left Sunnydale and all would have been well and good.
Xander sighs and says to himself, "What if?"
Sunnydale
Inside of the hospital there is a bed in the ICU. At the foot of the bed there is a chart that reads Wilkins, Faith. It has her vitals for the week, the medications and treatments that are being used to keep her condition steady while she is in a coma. However that is all for naught because the bed is empty.
A bus heading northbound passes a sign saying "Thank You for Visiting Sunnydale!" The bus is full of nondescript passengers, but towards the back there is a young woman sitting by herself staring outside of her window. On the seat next to her is a bag that says Sunnydale Memorial Hospital. Faith looks out of the bus, at the town she had called home. The town would never be home for her again, all because of her bad decisions. All she could do now was get a way and start over somewhere else, she was a big girl, she could take care of herself, but friends were hard to come by.
When she had woken up she stopped by the mayor's office only to find that he was dead. Anger had flashed through her mind, but without the mayor fueling her anger it quickly dissipated. She knew now that the mayor had been using her own anger to control her. Cursing herself she quietly leaves the office.
Who would she go to now? She couldn't go to Buffy or Giles, they wouldn't trust her. Willow would probably be scared to death of her. Who else? Oz? No, she barely knew him at all. Then it hit her. Xander! Of all of them he wouldn't judge her, he would hear her out at least wouldn't he? She frantically searched her mind trying to remember how to get to Xander's house, if her memory wasn't totally off his parent's house wasn't that far from where she was now. When she patrolled she would frequently pass by his house, hoping that he would be awake. She saw Xander as the only real friend she had in the group. He never judged her, or tried to compare her to Buffy. In the heat of the moment they had slept together but they had both avoided that subject afterwards. Not that she didn't like it, or even thought of a possible relationship. But she didn't act on the opportunity and neither did he. But through it all Xander was a friend.
Reaching her destination what she found dismayed her. The house looked empty and unkempt. Weeds were growing in the yard and had a "For Sale" sign hanging on a single hinge on its post. What had happened? Did they move? There was only one way to find out. She went in search of a phone book, the place she thought there would be one was a phone booth. Remembering that there was a park close by she thought she would try there first.
She decided to cut through one of the cemeteries in order to get there faster. She running as fast as she could, she needed to find him. She needed someone to forgive her for what she did, and the only one that could was Xander. As she came over a hill she saw Willow standing with her back to her.
"Shit!" She said quietly to herself. She could let Willow see her, not yet. She needed Xander to be with her, to vouch for her. So she quietly moved around and stood behind a mausoleum waiting for her to leave. She could just make out what she was saying.
"…and I passed my last midterm, got an A on it. Aren't you proud? Buffy, Tara and me went to the Bronze to celebrate, actually we all got hammered," She said with a slight giggle, "we're are twenty-one now you know."
Things must have really changed around here Faith thought to herself. Willow drinking? Well now that was a surprise in itself. Listening closer she saw that her conversation was coming to an end. Who was she talking to?
"…well that's about it. I got to get going Giles needs me to help him with a spell and some research so I'm meeting him at his shop. I'll talk to you later." With that Willow kisses her hand and touches the headstone. Faith ducks around the corner to make sure that Willow doesn't see her. Willow gets into her car and drives off. Faith slowly backs towards to the grave making sure that Willow wasn't going to turn around unexpectantly. Assured that she wouldn't be returning she quickly turns around to look at the gravestone. What she sees makes her fall to her knees.
Alexander L. Harris
Friend, Protector
Hero
In a single moment all her hopes of redemption and acceptance are gone. Tears flow down her cheeks as she realizes her only option now is to leave. Which brings her to where she is now, on a bus, leaving the only place she had ever called home. Thinking about her life and saying to herself, "What if?"
