DR2 - The Cross of Changes by Nick Midian, Book I, part 5 of 5

Written by Nick Midian

Content beta-reading and storyline suggestions by Duncan
English grammar, spelling, slang, Highlander continuity and general corrections
by Theo
French slang, content beta-reading and storyline suggestions by Mash
French slang by Alan


EMAIL: jcaballero@euskalnet.net

WEBSITE: http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/thedarkages

SPOILERS: For Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 3rd season, BUT no Xander/Willow kissing
and no Lover's Walk (welcome to the wonderful State of Denial, Land of
'Shippiness). Hmmm, I've messed with the third season's timeline to accommodate
it to my necessities. Let's just say that 'Band Candy' happened a lot later than
it did, around the first days of February, OK?
For Highlander: None really, the characters of the TV series and films are only
tangentially mentioned. You just need to know the basics of Highlander-style
immortality, BUT I've always thought that whole 'Immortals have no parents and
are found in a little basket' is a... um, the Spanish word for it is 'chorrada',
so let's just ignore it, OK?
KEYWORDS: Romance, Angst, Action-adventure, Violence, Alternate Universe,
Crossover.
RATING: PG-13 with some mild R parts for violence and sexual innuendo.
DISCLAIMER: This story has been written with no intention of profit, merely for
the pleasure of writing and sharing it.
The concept and characters of BTVS (Buffy, Angel, Cordelia, Xander, Willow, Oz,
Giles, Joyce, Spike, Drusilla, Snyder, Faith, Harmony, Lyle Gorch, Quentin
Travers and the rest) are intellectual and legal property of Joss Whedon, Warner
Brothers, Mutant Enemy, etc. Also, the concept of Highlander and the characters
mentioned here (Duncan MacLeod, Amanda Darieux, Richie Ryan, Joe Dawson and the
Society of Watchers) are the property of Panzer-Davis and Rysher Entertainment.
Michael Deveraux, Rachel Curran, Crystal Parker, Kyle White Owl, Robert
Coltrane, Elvis the Dog, Broderick Egoyan, Damon Frost, Mr. Smith, the World
Committee for Civil Defense and the rest are my own creation.
All the songs and lyrics here are used without permission, they are copyright of
their respective rights owners.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Please, understand that English is not my native language, so
any grammatical or spelling errors are my fault, not of any one of my wonderful
beta-readers. If you're thinking of sending any flames, please be kind with me.
I'm a grown man, but I still can cry like a child, believe me.
Additional Author's Note: The songs performed by Oz's band are 'Loli Jackson'
and 'Serenade' by Dover. It appears courtesy of Subterfuge records. All rights
reserved, yadda, yadda, yadda...
SUMMARY: After the events in 'Dark Reflection' a new threat menaces both the
Slayerettes and the Archangels as new and old enemies come to Sunnydale, merging
past and present. This time, it's something personal - ta-da-da-dam!!! (sorry,
but I just had to say that)

And now, on with the show. Fasten your seat belts ladies and gentlemen, because
it's going to be a long, hard and jumpy ride...

~~~~~~

The cast for Book I:

Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
David Boreanaz as Angel
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
Seth Green as Daniel 'Oz' Osborne
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles
Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers

Matthew Perry as Michael Deveraux
Paula Trickey as Rachel Curran
James Marsters as Spike
Nikki Cox as Crystal Parker
David James Elliott as Kyle White Owl
Elvis the Dog as Himself

Eliza Dushku as Faith Adams
Donald Sutherland as The Old Chess Player
Sebastian Spence as Damon Frost
Avery Brooks as Mr. Smith

Harris Yulin as Quentin Travers
John Heard as Officer Mark Hastings, SPD
Nicholle Tom as Myriam Archer
Brian Bosworth as Cecil
Denniz Franz as Det. Edward Kowalsky, LAPD

and

Nicholas Lea as Jonah Whalls

~~~~~~

CHAPTER FOUR: Hit and run
Sunnydale, California. December 2, 2002. 10:35 p.m.

Quiero verla bailar entre los muertos
La cintura morena que me volvió loco
Llevo un velo de sangre en la mirada
Y un deseo en el alma que jamás la encuentre

[I want to see her dancing between the dead
The tanned waist that drove me crazy
I carry a veil of blood in front of my eyes
And a wanting in my soul to never found her]

Solo quiero que una vez
Algo la haga conmover
Que no la encuentre jamás
O sé que la mataré

[I just want for once
That something touch her
I wish I never find her
Or I know I'll kill her]

Por favor
Solo quiero matarla
A punta de navaja
Besándola una vez más

[Please
I just want to kill her
At blade point
Kissing her once more]

"La Mataré", Loquillo y los Trogloditas


Michael sighed with boredom as he rummaged through the contents of the small box
with his chopsticks, trapping a few noodles with them and bringing them to his
mouth.

As always, Kyle's turn to cook had meant a quick trip to the closest restaurant
to order take-out.

But, at least, he could be grateful that it wasn't pizza again. If he ate one
more, the French Immortal was sure he would start having pepperoni-face.

"I should've gotten pizza," Kyle said, absent-mindedly feeding a portion of
chicken lo-mein to Elvis, who sniffed it with suspicion before actually eating
it.

"Again?" Rachel observed, gaining an appreciative look of agreement from her
mentor. "Kyle, we're always eating pizza. I'm from New York, I love Italian
food; but one more portion of four-seasons, and I would have killed you." The
brunette raised her box, full of rice, and shook it. "Open your mind, buddy,
this tastes really good."

Making a pout that looked utterly ridiculous on his face, Kyle leaned his head
on his hand, idly pushing a paper ball with his fingers and making it roll over
the table.

"But I want pizza," he insisted stubbornly.

"Well," Michael said, leaning back in his chair and winking at Rachel in
complicity, "maybe this would taste better if you asked Cris to feed it to you."

As both Immortals and Cordelia (who was sharing their dinner), comfortably
sitting on couches and seats around the coffee table of the rest area chuckled
softly, the tall Texan sent them all a hostile look. "Ha, ha, very funny,
Michael."

"Seriously, mon ami," the French Immortal insisted, this time in a more
conspiratorial voice, "when are you going to ask her out? We all know that
you've had it bad for her since... well, practically since we first met her."

Kyle rolled his bright blue eyes and carefully looked over Rachel's shoulder,
checking that neither the aforementioned witch nor Angel, who were still
researching not very far from them, had heard them. "Could you say it louder,
please? I don't think she heard you!"

Cordelia shook her head in amazement, after taking a sip from her soda. "Kyle,
I've barely known you for a few weeks, but even I've noticed that you like her.
Come on, why won't you ask her out on a date?"

The tall Texan sighed, shaking his head. "And expose myself to the shame of
rejection? No, thanks."

He looked once more towards the red-haired witch. "Not to mention the
uncomfortable 'getting-turned-into-a-toad' thing, and it's not like I hadn't
insinuated it to her more than once. No," he said with resignation, "even though
I'd love for her to be my next ex-wife, I don't think I'm going to risk losing
our friendship in the process."

Michael arched his brow in amazement. "First of all, mon ami, telling her 'hey,
baby, do ya wanna have someone to scrub your back in the shower?'... it's not
considered a good opening line to start a relationship, anywhere I know. And
about the friendship thing, well..."

"Yeah, look at us," Rachel agreed, waving between Michael and herself to signal
their connection. "Seventy years of friendship was more than what I could stand.
If we hadn't decided to take the next step, I think we would've ended up in a
padded cell wearing shirts without sleeves, if you know what I mean."

"You were that desperate?" Michael practically snorted, taking a sip from his
can of soda and then looking at Cordelia with an innocent shrug of his
shoulders. "I was quite cool about – ouch!!"

His sarcastic commentary turned into a grunt of pain, when Rachel's elbow
collided with his lower ribs with a little more strength that what was necessary
to cut off his tirade.

"You OK over there?" Angel asked over the rim of his book, startled by Michael's
yelp. Crystal looked at them over her shoulder, but said nothing.

"Yeah," Cordelia told them with a radiant smile, "just a big-mouthy French guy
that's been put in his place."

Sharing her smile, Rachel high-fived her while Michael rubbed the sore spot
under his ribs. "That was totally uncalled for," he pouted, wounded in his ego.
"And you know I was just joking, ma chèrie."

"Some jokes aren't funny at all," she crossed her arms over her chest, adamant.
And looked away from him. "But if you want to consider our relationship a
joke... go ahead, I don't mind."

Michael sighed and left his box of noodles on the table, crawling over the couch
until he was on his knees. Then he put his palms together and stuck out his
lower lip, looking at his lover too much like a lost puppy.

"I'm sorry, mon amour. I've been mean and cruel, and I don't think our
relationship is a joke." He took her hand between his. "Je t'aime, ma Raquel."

Rachel looked at him sideways and from under her long dark eyelashes, then,
letting the shadow of a smile curve the corner of her lips, she yanked her hand
from him.

"Nice try, Michael," she observed between Cordelia and Kyle's barely suppressed
giggles, "but you'll have to do better."

Rolling his eyes and making a gesture as if to say, 'what have I done to deserve
this?', Michael took her hand again. "D'accord, d'accord," he gave her a wide
and sincere smile full of French charm, "seriously Rachel, I love you... and,"
he added when he noticed her look, "I will wash the dishes for you tonight and
your next two turns, oui?"

She observed him through half-closed eyelids for a second. "Three turns."

Michael was shocked. "Trois? That's abusive!"

Rachel weighed his options in her hands, as they were a set of scales. "Three
turns. No sex for a month. Three turns. No sex..."

"OK, OK, you win, Rach!" he fell down on the sofa, shaking his head in defeat.
"I think I'm losing my touch in my old age."

Smiling at her new friends' antics, Cordelia looked at her watch, checking the
hour. "It's getting a little late. Do you think Xander and Buffy will be OK?"

Kyle shrugged. "Why would they be any another way? You worry too much, Cordy.
They're both professionals, and they know their jobs."

The brunette young woman hugged herself, feeling suddenly cold. Something was
nagging at her at the back of her mind, making her heart beat faster than what
was usual. "Yeah," she said, avoiding the gazes of the others, "what could go
wrong?"

~~~~~~

How do you define total and absolute fear? How do you define that sensation that
seems to overwhelm your whole being, paralyzing your limbs, stopping the beating
of your heart inside your chest and even the breathing movements of your lungs?

What words, what name would you give to it?

For Xander Harris, the name of that fear was Faith.

Almost as if he was immersed in the middle of a surrealistic dream, he watched
the exchange of words between Buffy and the former vampire Slayer. Not really
understanding the meaning of their dialogue, because his mind was filled with a
buzz that was like the static that comes out from a broken radio.

And the only thing that made sense to him, was the strangest part of it all.

He felt drawn to her, attracted to Faith like a sailor by a siren's chant. He
tried to gulp down the knot that had formed in his throat but found it
impossible, because his dry mouth couldn't form enough saliva to do the
swallowing motion.

He was cold. He was scared.

For years he had wasted endless days and nights, thinking on what he would do if
he ever faced her again. He had plotted a thousand different revenges in a
thousand different scenarios, each one more brutal and savage than the one
before.

He had taken delight in the most bloody and gruesome details of the things he
would do to her, to the point of being ashamed not of thinking them, but because
of his own lack of shame.

She had taken everything away from him. His life, his love, his family. In
retaliation, he would take everything from her.

Everything.

But now, now that she was so close that he was able to smell her perfume, so
close that, when she laid her hand on his chest, he felt the electric contact of
her cold skin separated from his own only by the thin black silk layer of his
shirt, now he could only think of how powerful she was, how right it would feel
to pledge loyalty to her as her faithful servant.

He felt compelled to do it. To be her slave.

She was his sire. He was her childe.

Everything he was, everything he would ever be, he owed it to her.

He was frozen in place as the vampires began to come out from the darkness of
the cemetery, surrounding them. He knew intellectually that he had to move, help
Buffy, fight them as he had done so many times before. But still, his body
seemed to ignore the orders of his brain, and his eyes returned once more to
Faith's smiling face.

She was beautiful. How was it that he had never noticed it before?

Maybe he had, but he had been confused, obscured by other ideas, other images,
other people. By that girl... Cordelia.

Cordelia.

His Cordy.

Suddenly, it was difficult to remember what her face looked like.

It was like being in a cinema, watching a movie, he could see and hear what was
going on in front of him, but the rest was oddly circumscribed into a deep
miasma of darkness and the only thing he could focus on was the former Slayer's
face.

=Beautiful. She's... beautiful.=

"Tell me, B," he heard his sire saying to the blonde Slayer, "which exact part
of your body do you want me to send to your Watcher as a memento? Because I was
thinking that your heart wrapped in gift paper and with a pretty red bow on top
would be very nice," she shrugged, giving her a smile. "Or maybe your eyes
inside a flask, what about that?"

Buffy grimaced with loathing. "Could you be more disgusting?"

The brunette let out a dry laugh, that resembled a bark. "Sure I can! Believe
me, Buffy, I've been practicing a lot these last few years. It's been long, it's
been gruesome and sometimes a little tiring, but trust me," she offered her a
saccharine smile full of perfect white teeth, "it's always been funny."

"Please, forgive me for all this... scum," Faith said, turning to the rest of
the vampires and pointing at them with a lazy wave of her hand. The truth was
that none of them seemed to be the greatest thinkers of their time, they were
more like cannon fodder. "But I haven't had enough time in these last few weeks
to form a proper gang, so I guess these guys will have to do."

"So, what?" Buffy raised one of her eyebrows smugly, taking a second stake from
the interior of her jacket. "You've been busy sucking necks, turning all these
people into soulless bloodsuckers just to come here and say hello? Wow, I'm
honored, but I would've liked one of those fancy cards with the picture of a
puppy more."

The former Slayer looked at her sideways for a second, before centering her
attention once more on Xander's handsome face. "That animosity is gonna cause
you to have an ulcer, Buffy. When are you going to learn to relax and just enjoy
living?"

"I'll be very relaxed the moment you're nothing more than a pile of dust at my
feet." Buffy craned her neck to one side and the other, loosening the knots
formed in her backbone. The truth was, that she was getting tired of this
conversation.

"I'm sorry the soul restoration ritual didn't work with you, Faith, but I'm not
going to allow you to harm any more innocent people. Especially if they're
friends of mine."

Faith blinked, confused for a second, and then let a delighted grin cross her
face as she looked at her paralyzed childe.

"You didn't tell them, did you, Xander?" She laughed out loud, shaking her head
in amazement.

"Am I missing some joke here?" Buffy inquired, not taking her eyes away from the
circle of vampires.

"You know, B? This is really, really funny..." the two Slayers locked eyes for a
minute, and then Faith smiled once more. This time, her twisted, sick grin made
Buffy shiver. "But it did work. I got my soul back."

The blonde Slayer's mouth open wide as her brain processed that information, too
slowly for her own good. "You what?" she squeaked.

Faith nodded, and turned to her minions. "Now, could any of you do me the favor
of killing her?"

Buffy hadn't the chance of saying this mouth is mine before the first of the
vampires fell over her with a roar, slashing the air with his elongated claws.
Buffy just sidestepped him and hit the male undead guy on his chest with a high
kick, making him fall backwards on the nearest one, the two of them ending up in
a groaning shapeless pile on the ground.

If there was something that Buffy liked about vampires it was that, no matter
how many times she fought them, they never learnt the lesson and always attacked
her one by one.

Well, not that she was complaining about it.

The next vamp received a roundhouse kick in the face and a stake to the heart as
a salute, turning into a puff of dust. But the next one, who seemed a little
smarter or luckier than the rest, managed to grab her by the arm and press her
back, trying to pin her to the ground.

Far from letting him do so, Buffy used his own momentum and made him spin around
with a judo lock, making him land hard on his back and using his momentary
dizziness to plunge one of her stakes deep into his chest.

Out of the corner of her eye, as she kicked and punched the attacking vampires
away, making them stand back, Buffy observed aghast how an oblivious Faith,
completely ignoring her, was getting more and more intimate with a stilled
Xander.

The young vampire was as pale as she had ever seen him, and his forehead was
shiny with a thin layer of sweat. She also thought that she had noticed some
movement in his eyes, as if he was trapped inside his own body and they were the
only means he had to send out a cry for help.

Faith was now practically hugging him, the ankle of her stiletto-clad foot
running up and down the back of his calf. And they were so engrossed in each
other, that it seemed that the rest of the word was nothing more than a fantasy
around them.

"Xander!" the blonde Slayer called her friend, landing a devastating blow with
her elbow on the throat of a vampire. "What are you doing?!"

It was a good question, for which he hadn't a clear response. It was as if
nothing in the world mattered to him more than the woman embracing him, as if he
couldn't remember anything else anymore.

His mind wasn't working. His senses weren't telling him the truth. Everything
was confusing and dark. He was trapped inside the brown pools of her eyes,
trapped in her love spell.

She was beautiful. She was perfect. She was...

Buffy managed to dust a couple of vampires more, before one of them grabbed her
by the waist with a bear hug; it choked the air out of her lungs, and he lifted
her shorter frame off the ground.

Swallowing a curse and a grunt of pain, the blonde Slayer leaned into the
vampire's grasp and kicked another vamp in the chest with both legs. Then using
the back of her head to smash her captor's face twice, she felt the thin bones
and cartilage of his nose yielding under the force of the impacts.

With a growl, the vampire finally fell down, but his grasp on her didn't weaken
and the Slayer found herself carried to the ground in the falling vampire's
embrace and colliding against it with a grunt of pain.

She barely had the time to extricate herself from his thick arms (Faith may not
have had enough time to properly instruct them, but at least she had turned some
very thoughtful guys) and struggle to her feet before another thug jumped on
her, tackling her again to the cold grass of the cemetery.

Finding that she couldn't free her legs from her attacker, Buffy decided that,
seeing how she was outnumbered and that her only ally seemed more interested in
having a roll in the hay with his sire, she could let all her inhibitions be
thrown out the proverbial window.

As it used to be said: the greater the problem, the greater the remedy.

With a cringe of distaste, Buffy plunged the stake down into the vampire's ear,
producing a thick spray of dark red blood and gray brain tissue.

She watched as her weapon stabbed him across the thin bones of his upper jaw and
lower skull and the soft tissue, until the point of the wooden stake was deeply
embedded into his brain.

The vampire immediately released her as he let out a high-pitched scream of
pain, yanking at the wooden weapon protruding from his head.

"That's for you to keep your ears open!" she exclaimed, kicking him away, still
lying on the ground, and beginning to feel more and more pissed off with each
passing moment. "Xander! I need your help!"

"He can't hear you," Faith informed her, her brown eyes still fixed on Xander's.
"He's just mommy's little boy, aren't you, Xander?"

She softly kissed him on his chin, and Xander didn't react to the contact. "What
did they do to you, my love?" she asked him, nuzzling his jaw and the crook of
his neck with her nose, placing slow and sensual kisses on his skin now and
then.

"I waited for you for so long, too long... did they do the same horrible thing
to you that they did to me? Did they restore your soul?" she inquired, almost
spitting the word 'soul' out with distaste.

She continued, "Those goddamned saints, they don't understand how it is, they
don't understand how it feels... but you do, don't you, my Xander?"

She trapped his carotid between her lips and sucked at his slow pulse. "Mmm,"
she moaned in delight, smiling at him, "a pulse... the more I know you, the
better you are, Xander."

Then, yanking at the lapels of his coat, she brought his lips to hers, kissing
him hungrily, slipping her cold tongue into his mouth.

Moments later, Xander began to respond, returning the kiss with almost with the
same strength and passion.

She was beautiful. She was his sire. He was hers.

Forever.

~~~~~~

For a second it was as if the whole world was spinning around, completely out of
control, and flying out of her grasp. As if something was ripping the most
important part of her being from the very core of her soul, only leaving an
empty, cold and bleeding wound in its place.

It was as if she were dying from the inside.

The dish slipped from Cordelia's soapy hands and fell to the floor, splintering
into a hundred pieces of flying china. They scattered over the linoleum-covered
floor of the kitchen, as the brunette young woman leaned on the counter to
maintain her equilibrium.

Michael, who had been beside her washing the dishes, quickly left what he was
doing and placed one of his hands on the small of her back, supporting her.

"Are you bien, ma chèrie?" he asked with concern, seeing the sudden paleness of
her slightly tanned skin, her closed eyes and her general expression of
dizziness.

The French Immortal helped his way younger friend to the closest kitchen chair,
letting her sit down and kneeling down in front of her when Cordelia hid her
face between her hands, her elbows resting on her knees.

"I-I'm alright," her muttered voice came from behind the shield of her hands.
"I'm just feeling a little lightheaded, and my stomach is upset and..." she
sighed, passing hand over her suddenly sick features. "I guess that I'm not that
good."

Still looking at her with concern, Michael pulled away some loose strands of
dark hair, clearing her beautiful face and gently placing the palm of his hand
on her forehead.

"You don't seem to be feverish," he observed. "Have you felt this bad before?"

She shook her head, and the French Immortal arched his brow. "Je ne sais pas,
maybe you're coming down with the flu. Do you want me to ask Kyle to check on
you?"

"I don't think it'll be necessary," she politely dismissed Michael's offering
with a soft wave of her hand. "It's nothing, probably something that I ate or
just tiredness getting to me."

Michael allowed himself a small smile, tilting his head to one side. "Xander is
not letting you have enough hours of sleep, n'est-ce-pas?"

Cordelia looked at him with a serious expression for a second and then the two
of them burst into soft giggles, until the brunette young woman was able to
compose herself, shaking her head. "I gotta admit that last night, we didn't...
get a lot of sleep."

She sighed and closed her hazel eyes, rubbing her forehead tiredly. "And my
mind's been spinning like mad all day, turning over the same thing."

Taking a chair so they were at eye-level, Michael sat down in front of her, his
concern and worry clearly reflected in his dark blue eyes. "Something you want
to share?"

Frowning a little, Cordelia observed the French Immortal in silence, her eyes
wandering over his attractive features for a moment. If there was one thing she
was grateful for it was the fact that, in his painful exit from Sunnydale,
Xander had had the luck to stumble upon Michael Deveraux and no other Immortal.

"Thank you," she whispered to him, bending forward to place an unexpected kiss
on his cheek.

Michael arched his brow in surprise, and then let a goofy grin cross his lips.
"What for? Not that I'm complaining, though..."

"For helping Xander, for taking him under your wing and protecting him," she
took Michael's hand in her slenderer one and squeezed it gently. "Thanks for
saving my love, Michael."

He squeezed her hand back but avoided her gaze and, for a second, he seemed
about to blush. "Well, ma chèrie, I was just in the right place at the right
time, and it's not as if I haven't gotten anything out of it in the process."

His intense eyes warmed, and his dark blue gaze settled on her with affection.
"I won a real friend, and trust me on this, petite, that's something that's
really hard to find these days."

"I know," she agreed, nodding swiftly in assurance. "I know better than most
people, Michael."

Squeezing her hand one last time, the French Immortal let her go and leaned back
in his chair. "Now, ma chèrie, do you want to tell me what's going on inside
that pretty head of yours?"

She chuckled, and shook her head in wonder. "It's... well, it's Xander."

"Oh, really?" he mocked surprise, making her giggle.

"Yesterday he was..." she frowned, trying to find the words, "so depressed...
what happened yesterday, Michael? What did you do that made him feel that way?"

The French Immortal observed her with weariness, tapping on the hard surface of
the table with his fingertips. "I'm not sure if I'm free to tell you..."

"Oh, for God's sake, Michael!" she exclaimed, slamming the palm of her hand on
the table to stop the annoying sound produced by his tapping fingers and
startling him.

Not far from where they were, Angel and Cris in the research area and Kyle and
Rachel in the rest area raised their heads with surprise, looking at the couple.


Michael just sent a hard look to all of them and they, including the soul-filled
vampire, promptly returned to their tasks.

"Stop acting as if you worked for the CIA or something like that!" Cordelia
insisted. If she noticed the expression of surprise that flashed across the
French Immortal's face at hearing this, she didn't say anything at all.

"Bien, uh, ah, wha-what did he tell you?" he asked, trying to regain his
composure and uncomfortably shifting in his chair.

"I know that somebody died, that he had to kill some people," she explained in a
gentler way, the two of them regaining their hushed tones. "What happened,
Michael?"

Shaking his head, the French Immortal leaned closer to her. "There's not really
much more than that to say. Some lives, innocent lives, were at stake and we had
to take a decision. We considered the pros and the cons, and we did what we had
to be done."

"That sounds like crap to me, Michael," she said, her hazel eyes boring into his
dark blue ones. "I think you're trying to avoid the main question."

"Which is?"

Cordelia swallowed a knot that had formed in her throat, and closed her hands
into fists to prevent them from shaking. "Was it really necessary? Could you
have done something else to avoid those deaths?"

Sighing deeply, Michael scratched his head, messing with his light brown hair.
"What do you want me to say, chèrie? A categorical denial? A 'no we couldn't',
period?"

Cordy's eyes reflected only deep sadness when she answered. "I would love to
hear that."

He shook his head. "But you know that I can't tell you that, don't you?"

The former cheerleader hid a tired sigh in her hands, avoiding his gaze. "I
don't know how to help him, Michael. There's something eating him up from the
inside, and I don't know what to do prevent him from falling. I'm scared, I
don't want him to be hurt, and I don't want to lose him again."

Biting his lower lip, the French Immortal observed the younger woman through
half-closed eyes. No matter how many years he lived, no matter how much he
thought he had seen, he always marveled at the wonder of true young love.

=Was I ever that young?= he asked to himself. =Did I ever love with so much
faith, so much strength that I would do anything, even change myself and
question my beliefs just for the other person? Do I love Rachel that way?=

He would love to have the answer to that question, but he couldn't say so.

"Listen, Cordelia," he softly spoke to her, covering her hand with his
comforting one. "I can't tell you that we're the most perfect people on the face
of the earth, but I can assure you that there's nothing we would love more than
to be able to do our work without harming anybody in the process. Well, I can't
put my hand up for Spike," he added with a playful frown, managing to provoke a
small smile from her. "It's just that..."

"Some things are inevitable," she finished for him.

The French Immortal nodded his agreement very slowly. Suddenly, he felt
uncomfortable under the younger woman's scrutiny but, finally, managed to look
back at her, shaking his head sadly.

"Some things are just out of our control, Cordelia." He locked his dark blue
eyes on her hazel ones. "Some things are just fated to happen."

~~~~~~

=Well,= Buffy thought to herself, observing Xander playing tonsil hockey with
the vamped Faith out of the corner of her eye while she sidestepped a large
vampire and violently kicked him in the gut, =now I can say, that I've truly
seen everything.=

"Xander!!" she shouted once more, trying to gain the attention of her friend.
The Slayer jumped to a nearby tree and, leaning upon its trunk with her leg,
pushed herself back, executing a roundhouse kick against the nearest vampire's
chin and making his head spin around with a disgusting sound of broken
vertebrae.

Buffy let herself fall to the ground and rolled over her shoulder, stopping on
her knees beside the fallen vampire. With a fluid motion she staked him, making
him explode into dust and then jumped to her feet, ready to engage her next
opponent.

"I don't know what you think you're doing," she shouted to him, getting more and
more angry at his apparent lack of attention, "but I would be very glad if you
stopped licking the back of that bitch's neck from the front and help me!!"

Even when her words carried the unmistakable tone of a deeply pissed-off Slayer,
Xander chose to completely ignore them.

Preferring instead to submerge himself into the dark cold taste of Faith's
mouth, and the erotic sensation of her lips ravishing his with fierce passion
and burning need, almost bruising them.

Taking her into his arms, one hand placed on the small of her back to bring her
closer to him and the other one on the back of her neck, cradling her head, he
began to growl like a big, menacing feline without really noticing he was doing
so.

His fangs began to grow under his lips, as hers did, and their tongues entangled
like wet snakes fighting for dominion. Xander's sharp canines cut the smooth
surface of Faith's tongue, and her undead blood mixed with his when she did the
same thing, its coppery and sweet flavor burning his taste-buds.

The notion of the fact that vampire blood was more powerful than human, although
less fresh and rich, and that vampires only exchanged them as a symbol of
bonding or during a sexual game, passed through Xander's mind, almost walking on
tiptoes.

He was only able to feel his sire's blood burning his tongue and throat as it
passed by them and got lost down his esophagus and then into his own veins,
fueling him as nothing else had done before.

Furthermore, Faith's blood also carried the unmistakable and strong scent of her
Slayer powers that, although dormant in her actual vampire state, were still
trapped inside her undead being.

It was like being high on coke.

As the young vampire's hands began to wander on her back, their mutual human
masks disappearing as the demons inside them came to show, Xander felt himself
growing more and more powerful. More and more strong, the same way he knew Faith
was feeling right now.

He was growing so hard, it was almost painful.

It was perfect. It was right.

The sire and her favorite childe, sharing their mutual life-force, becoming one.

Faith let out a moan that was half-pain, half-pleasure when he yanked at her
mane of brown hair, making her head fold back and exposing her soft neck. With a
growl of deep arousal, Xander sank his game face into her neck, his cold lips
running along her skin, his pointed fangs tracing and finally piercing her skin.

His actions allowed drops of red blood, that under the light of the almost full
moon seemed completely black, to run over her marble skin.

Kneeling down on the fresh and cold grass, bringing her with him and placing
himself between her spread legs into a more than intimate position, Xander
licked the traces of blood from her skin with his tongue, hooked now on her
taste, drowning in her essence.

Faith moaned and held his head against her neck, embracing her childe into her
willing arms.

Xander's hands trailed along her sides until they reached the hem of her short
spandex dress and slipped under it, searching and finding the sides of her
panties and yanking at them, trying to free her from the offending garment.

"Oh no," Buffy whispered, twisting the arm of a vampire until she heard the
bones breaking and kicking another one at the same time, "that's enough."

Kicking the vampire she was still grasping and making him fold over, the blonde
Slayer jumped over him, taking hold of his back and spinning in the air until
she landed smoothly in a small area clear of the undead, taking all of them by
surprise.

Clenching her teeth together, Buffy ran like mad to the almost mating couple,
dodging the few vampires that dared to step into her path and feeling a
non-small amount of anger boiling inside her stomach, fueling her short frame.

She wasn't very sure of what exactly was going on, but she was sure that she
wasn't going to allow Xander to cheat on Cordy right in front of her, and
especially not with that slut Faith.

When she reached them, and taking advantage of the fact that they didn't seem to
even notice her presence, the blonde Slayer just kicked Xander, who was still on
top, in his side and with all her strength.

It made him abandon the brunette vampiress' lustful embrace and fly a short
distance away, spinning around on his vertical axis until he landed again on the
grass with a loud 'thud'.

Faith just moaned in disappointment, when she felt her childe abandoning her
arms.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Xander?!" the angry Slayer shouted at
him, jumping over Faith and bending over his fallen form. "What do you think
that Cordy will say when-?"

Xander rose with a roar of pure rage, his game face twisted with a expression of
pure evil that would've put Angelus to shame. Catching her by surprise, he hit
the blonde Slayer with a backhand punch that sent her flying backwards to the
ground.

Still growling, Xander rose to his feet at the same time that a very confused
Buffy did, still a little unstable on her feet.

"Xander?" she asked, her mind fogged and confused by the pain and the whole
situation. "What the-"

Once more, the young vampire's only response was a deep animal-like roar, as he
charged against her like an angry bull. Grabbing her by the waist like a
football player, he lifted her short frame off the grass and pushed her back
until the Slayer's back collided painfully against the trunk of the nearest
tree, ripping a yelp of pain from her lips.

She couldn't decide what hurt more; the hit against the rough wood, or the fact
that it was her friend who had caused it.

Almost at the edge of unconsciousness, Buffy interlaced her fingers together and
hit him with her two combined fists on his leather-covered back with her
remaining strength.

It was like punching a concrete wall.

Freeing her but still keeping her body against the tree, Xander punched her in
the gut, making her fold up and fall to her knees as a wave of nausea engulfed
her whole being, shaking her.

If another feeling apart from rage crossed his game face when he hit her, she
wasn't able to notice it.

Rising from the grass and smoothing her wrinkled short dress, Faith let out a
sigh of resignation and waved to a pair of her larger minions.

"Catch her," she told them in a commanding voice, "and don't let her move."

Nodding sharply, the two vampires quickly went to the fallen Slayer and, each
one grabbing her by one of her arms, brought her to her feet, pinning her to the
tree.

Faith strolled to them as the rest of the surviving vampires formed a tight
circle around them, watching in amazement and expectancy. The former vampire
Slayer grabbed her old teammate by the loose golden strands of her hair and
yanked back at them, making her almost-unconscious face look up at them.

Buffy's fogged hazel eyes wandered from her game face to Xander's one, not able
to decide on which one to settle on or what to make out of anything at all.
Tilting her head to one side, Faith wiped a trace of blood from the corner of
Buffy's mouth with her thumb and sucked it with a smack of her full lips.

"Well, B," she said, almost with contentment, "it's cost me almost four years,
but at last I have what I want."

"Xander..." Buffy moaned, looking at her friend's golden eyes, "you have to
fight it. Whatever she's doing to your mind – you have to fight it, don't let
her win. Please, Xander, fight it..."

"Save your breath, Buffy," Faith advised her, a swift smile crossing her
vampiric features. "I'm not doing anything to him, he's just doing what his true
nature tells him to do. He's just being himself, acting without the boundaries
of that... thing you gave him."

She shook her head, almost laughing. "He's mine, Buffy. And there's nothing you
can do about it."

The blonde Slayer felt the bitter sting of tears in her eyes and looked at him,
his face blurred with those same tears. "Please, Xander," she insisted with a
sob, "say that's not true! You have to fight it – think about Cordelia, think
about that picture you showed me. Do you remember it? Do you think your
grandmother would like to see you like this?"

Faith rolled her red-gold eyes with boredom, freeing Buffy's hair. "Oh, please,
spare me this pathetic show, Xander. Kill her."

Xander grabbed the blonde Slayer by the neck, easily lifting her shorter frame
from the ground with his preternatural strength and choking the words in her
throat. He just locked his gold eyes with her hazel ones, and growled
menacingly.

But, just when she was going to abandon all hope and surrender to the darkness
that the lack of oxygen offered to her brain – hoping that Xander would be
confused enough to forget what was the only way to kill an Immortal – Buffy saw
something in his eyes.

What exactly, she wasn't able to define.

A spark of humanity. The starting flame of an inner rebellion.

Hope.

And then she knew, that Xander wasn't going to fail her.

~~~~~~

Inside Xander's mind, it was like being submerged in a jar of jam. He was almost
blind, deaf and mute. He couldn't think straight, he was being swept away by a
wave of purely primal instincts.

'Obey your sire. Follow your sire. Obey her. Follow her. Obey. Follow.
Obeyfollowobeyfollowobeyfollowobeyfollowobeyfollowobeyfollow...'

She was in his mind, she was his mind, and she wasn't leaving space for anything
else. She wanted his loyalty, she wanted his love, she wanted his heart and his
blood. She wanted everything from him. Everything...

But, she didn't want his soul. He felt it, deep inside, a part of himself that
Faith's will hadn't still conquered; her repugnance, her loathing for that part
of him. She didn't want his humanity.

And, even if she had wanted it, the very little of Xander Harris that was still
hanging onto sanity wouldn't, couldn't have given it to her.

It just wasn't his to do so.

That part of himself that really defined him, that bright light of humanity that
was his core, had other owners.

A brunette girl that was his love.

A blonde girl that was his friend.

A red-haired girl that was his sister.

A middle-aged man that he had looked up to as a father.

A haunted vampire that he had learnt to consider a friend.

An Immortal that was his brother... friends, brothers, sisters... family.

He was theirs, as they were his.

And at that very moment, the tiny piece of Xander that was barely holding on by
its fingertips, fighting against the maelstrom of exhilarating dark power that
threatened to swallow him, managed to hold onto that feeling, that idea with all
his might.

And, very slowly, bring himself to safe ground.

He regained his sight first and, as the dark red veil vanished from his eyes,
the first thing he saw was Buffy's silver cross hanging from her smooth neck.

Fighting against Faith's control over him, that still had a good grasp on his
being like a web of vicious tentacles, he focused all his unstable will on that
cross, slowly reaching out for it.

The demon inside him rebelled against touching the sacred icon, shaking,
groaning and trying to break away and, at the same time, freeing him from his
sire's control.

Xander, a low growl escaping from his throat, kept on pushing himself, bringing
the hand that wasn't holding the blonde Slayer against the tree, closer and
closer to her neck.

Near them, Faith looked at him with a frown, feeling his inner rebellion and
tightening her hold on him.

But it was too late.

Xander's hand closed around the tiny cross, its cold surface burning his skin at
the contact and its arms digging into the flesh of the palm of his hand. The
young vampire roared his pain, as the hissing sound and smell of burnt flesh
rose from his hand – but still he kept his hold on it, tightening it even more
if that was possible.

As the physical pain engulfed his body, Xander felt his mind clearing up,
breaking the ties that bound him to Faith. And a flow of images inundated his
brain, washing over him like the cold yet invigorating wave of the ocean at
night.

Books scattered on the floor. A blonde girl looking at him in confusion. "Can I
have you?"

Trapped in a basement. Fear, anger and excitement mixed in the air. "I hate
you!"

An hospital room. His heart breaking in two. "And who am I gonna call every
night... and talk about everything we did all day?"

Watching his two best friends walking off, a wave of embarrassment sweeping him
away. And then a nod, and a smile of complicity. "Shoot me, stuff me, mount me."

A dark corridor. Once more, fear and excitement mixed in the air, this time of a
very different kind. "I told you to eat before we left..."

And more, many more. Too many even to count them.

A dirty alley. Dirty clothes, dirty face, wanting Death to come and take him
away but not having the strength to summon it himself. And then an avenging
angel in a black trenchcoat, holding a shining rapier.

A nightclub full of demons. Techno music blasting from the speakers. Letting go,
feeling his inner demon roam free for the first time, reveling in the freedom
and the blood.

So much, so much, so much...

And then silence. And darkness. And peace.

Xander let go of the cross, which fell back on Buffy's heaving chest, and opened
his eyes. For a second, an unnatural silence filled that corner of the cemetery,
broken only by the blonde Slayer's ragged and forced breathing.

The vampires looked at each other, wondering what was going on.

The young vampiric Immortal looked at the palm of his own hand almost in
amazement, examining closely the crimson-red burn mark that the Slayer's cross
had imprinted on his pale skin.

"Free her," Xander simply ordered the two vampires that were still grabbing
Buffy's arms.

The two large vampires looked at Faith questioningly, and the former Slayer
watched her childe's back with a small frown.

"What do you intend on doing, Xander?" she asked him.

Without turning to her, Xander tilted his head slightly to one side, examining
Buffy's face, which was a deep crimson red because of the lack of oxygen.

"I can't rip her arms off if they're still holding them," he explained, passing
a clawed finger slowly over the side of Buffy's face, from her temple to her
chin. "Furthermore, killing a fly is no fun if you can't feel it struggling."

Smiling widely, Faith made a sign to the two vampires, who promptly released the
blonde Slayer into Xander's grasp. Once they had done so, the young vampire
allowed Buffy to stand on her feet and loosened his grasp on her neck, allowing
her to breathe freely.

Buffy filled her lungs greedily, with long and deep breaths until her face
recovered her usual color. Then, still very shaken, she raised her hazel gaze to
Xander's almost expressionless demonic face.

"If you're going to do something," she challenged him in spite of the fear she
was feeling, "do it right now. I'm getting bored."

Xander leaned close to her, to the point that her breath tickled his lips. "Are
you ready?" he asked her in a hushed, deeply intimate tone.

Like the one between a victim and her executioner.

Buffy's eyes were hard and resolute. "I've never been more ready."

Xander nodded only once. "Then move!" he exclaimed.

Just a twist of his right wrist, and a thin but long stake emerged from the
interior of his leather coat's sleeve. For an endless moment, the stake seemed
to float in the middle of the air between Buffy and Xander, almost suspended
from an invisible wire.

Until, with a nimble and graceful movement, Buffy caught it and fell down,
opening her legs spread wide like a ballerina and rolling between Xander's
separated legs.

At the same time that the blonde Slayer jumped back to her feet, taking a
bewildered Faith by surprise, Xander grabbed the two vampires that had been
holding Buffy by the collars of their shirts and violently smashed their heads
together, with a sickening sound of crushed bones.

Buffy attacked the former vampire Slayer with a kick to her hip that Faith was
barely able to dodge, and followed with a series of quick kicks and punches,
pressing her back and away from Xander and the rest of the vampires.

Executing a flying roundhouse kick that hit Faith across her face and landing
smoothly on slightly flexed legs, Buffy couldn't help but smile at her former
teammate. "Do you know what your problem is, Faith?"

Using the back of her hand, the brunette vampiress wiped a trace of blood from
the corner of her generous mouth, sending an hostile look at the blonde Slayer.
"Why don't you tell me?"

"You're always selling the bear's skin before actually killing him, Faith."
Buffy shook her head, in mock resignation. "And you always underestimate other
people."

Faith rolled her golden eyes. "Spare me the pain of one of your holier-than-thou
little speeches, B. I have a better idea – let's play a game. The first one to
die loses!"

The blonde Slayer just raised one cool eyebrow. "Works for me."

And with that, the two Slayers jumped forward, their legs tracing devastating
kicks in the air of the night until they collided against each other.

Xander was feeling nauseous, and this feeling wasn't due to the fact that his
fist had just smashed a vampire's head. With so much force that his whole hand
had disappeared into the undead being's skull, and he was trying to free it from
the sucking grasp of his brain tissue and bloody gore.

No, it was due to the images that were carved into his brain with fire.

Him kissing Faith. Him wanting to fuck her senseless right then and there. Him
hitting Buffy.

For God's sake, he had been about to kill her! He had even desired above all
else to do so, to demonstrate to his sire to what extremes he would go for
her...

For those few brief moments, he had been Faith's. He had forgotten all about
Cordelia. He had forgotten all about himself.

He had been dead.

And, when the wave of nausea passed away, this idea carried new feelings, new
sensations, none of them beautiful or nice.

Anger. Rage. Hatred.

A vampire came to him and Xander punched him straight on his chin, smashing his
lower jaw and sinking it into his brain. Spinning like a whirlwind, the second
of his sleeve-hidden stakes emerged to his left hand and he embedded it deeply
into the vamp's chest, as he kicked another one without bothering to look at
him.

Still spinning inside the cloud of dust produced by the slain vampire, Xander
just let himself go, submerging himself into the fight. Thinking was too
exhausting – it led to memories, and memories led to shame and pain.

No, it was better to let the demon roam free of his own control and his sire's,
just revel in the thrill of the hunt and the bloodlust.

His roar was like the one of a jungle predator, when his inner demon was
completely unleashed. The point of his stake stabbed one of his upcoming
blood-brothers in the throat, opening a wound that sprayed undead blood
everywhere, on his face, his chest, his hair... Xander opened his mouth and
licked his lips, tasting the overwhelming flavor of the vital liquid.

He let go. He just totally let go.

Grabbing the wounded vampire's head with his two hands Xander brutally twisted
it, splintering the bones in his neck and ripping it from his shoulders.

He felt only hate. He hated Faith. And he hated himself.

Spinning once more at the same time that he kneeled down, the young vampire
unsheathed the katana he had under his coat, just in time to avoid an attacking
vamp's long claws.

His dark sword slashed through the air – and the vampire's head was suddenly cut
off, and it exploded into dust even before actually hitting the ground.

Xander rose like a rocket, smashing another attacker's face with a head-butt
that made him backpedal before the Akani-Kawa beheaded him.

He danced, he cut, he killed. He was a deadly and roaring blur of movement, as
the dark blade flowed like quicksilver in his right hand, severing heads,
stabbing and slashing without end.

A vampire managed to slip under his guard while he was fighting one of her
comrades, and her razor-sharp talons slashed his face, ripping his skin and
drawing his blood.

Xander didn't even feel it. He just grabbed the vamp's arm as she ended her
slashing attack and yanked at it, ripping it from the shoulder-joint.

The vampire looked aghast at the horrible wound produced by her missing limb,
too shocked even to scream in pain as a thick flow of blood poured from the open
wound, spraying around. Xander mercifully ended her existence, with a powerful
stroke that beheaded her.

Out of the corner of his eye, Xander caught a glimpse of movement as he saw the
two Slayers engaged in a fight that seemed taken from the pages of a
martial-arts comic book, and the sight of his friend fighting for her life
helped him to calm his bloodlust.

It didn't matter how much vengeance he wanted. It didn't matter how much he
wanted to stop feeling that sensation of self-loathing. Buffy needed him
focused. She needed him to cover her back, as he had always done.

The two Slayers were quite equal, almost as if one were the dark reflection of
the other. Where Buffy was all grace and light, Faith was pure darkness and
chaos. Buffy was dancing, Faith was swimming. One kicked, the other blocked; one
punched, the other one dodged... Buffy was alive and immortal, Faith was dead
and equally immortal.

The brunette's claws slashed the blonde's cheek. The Immortal Slayer smashed the
nose of the vampiric one with her fist.

It was a draw.

And then, as he almost absent-mindedly finished off what he thought was the last
of Faith's minions, pure cannon fodder, the young Immortal vampire saw something
moving behind Buffy.

Go figure, one of the undead assholes had finally had the great idea of
attacking the Slayer at her back while she was distracted.

"Buffy!" he shouted, while beginning a 360 degree spin. "Duck!"

The movement served to cut off the head of the last of the vampires he was
facing and, at the same time, make the blade fly when he completed the spin and
freed his grasp on the handle, sending it like an arrow towards the fighting
Slayers.

Both Buffy and Faith let themselves fall to the cold grass, as the sword passed
over their heads in a blur of dark metal. It stabbed the vampire in the chest
with so much force that the impact dragged him backwards and made him collide
against a nearby tree, impaling him on one of the lower branches.

After he turned to dust, the only thing that remained was Xander's sword nailed
to the tree, vibrating slightly like a tuning fork.

Lifting her face from the ground and, after looking at the exploding vampire in
wonder, Buffy send a bright smile to her friend. "Nice work, Xandman," she
thanked him, jumping to her feet.

Xander managed to give her a dry and twisted smile. "I aim to please."

Groaning, Faith remained on the cold ground, her arms leaned on her bent knees
as she looked around herself and checked that all her minions were nothing more
than dust in the cold air of the night.

"What now?" she asked, allowing her human mask to appear over her true face. "Is
this where we have the final confrontation, and you finish me off in a burst of
righteous anger?"

She blew away a lock of brown hair that had fallen over her eyes. "Please, spare
me the theatrics."

Letting his human mask cover his game face and calmly walking towards her to
join Buffy, Xander looked down at the vamped Slayer for a silent second. Then,
taking a deep breath, he raised his eyes to the winter night sky.

The clouds were quickly coming back, covering the almost-full moon, and the
slight breeze that had blown all night had suddenly died. He could feel the
energy of the storm crackling in the clouds above him, waiting for the right
moment to discharge its rage on the surface of the earth.

"It's going to rain," Xander said simply. As if on cue, a low rumble shook the
heavens above, making them tremble.

With an expression of puzzlement, Buffy looked at his friend's face, which was
matted with drying dark-red blood that stood out against his pale skin and his
dark brown hair, equally sticky with the defeated vampires' blood. "Do you think
this is the right moment to play weatherman, Xander?"

He looked at her sideways for a second, before centering his attention again on
the vampire almost at his feet. When he looked at Faith, his enigmatic dark eyes
had turned so cold and hard that were like two pieces of crystal – emotionless,
expressionless.

"Run," the vampiric Immortal simply told her.

"What?" both Faith and Buffy asked at the same time.

Xander began to take off his coat slowly, his eyes nailed to his sire as if she
was the only other thing on earth. "I said run, Faith. You gave me one chance
over three years ago, and now I'm repaying the debt."

He left his leather coat in Buffy's hands, who almost let it fall in her
surprise at Xander's antics. He then unbuttoned the wrists of his black silk
shirt, rolling up the sleeves to his elbows.

"So run, Faith. Run as fast as you can, 'cause in thirty seconds I'm gonna begin
chasing you. And if I catch you..." he left his threat unfinished, "...well,
let's just say it's not gonna be pretty."

Allowing the smug, almost challenging smile that usually filled her lips to
return, Faith stood up, cleaning the dirt and the grass from her dress and legs.
"I knew you had a thing for me, Xand – you want me just for yourself, don't
you?"

She got closer to him, licking her lips in a sensual gesture. "I like this new
you, toyboy. Very perverse and... exciting."

Xander only raised one of his eyebrows. "One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three
Mississippi..."

"Nice to see you again, B," she told Buffy, winking an eye to her and beginning
to stroll backwards. "Call me one of these days, OK Buffy? We'll hang out and
talk about the old days, huh?" She turned around and began to run away, losing
herself in the darkness and the sea of headstones of the cemetery.

High above them, the first real thunderhead crashed and a lightning bolt
illuminated the skies for a second, with beautiful blue fury.

"What's in God's name is going on with you, Xander?" an angry Buffy demanded,
making him turn around to face her, only to find herself lost in the gaze of his
golden eyes. "Xander..."

"I'm sorry about what happened before, Buffy," he told her, a sad look on his
edged face, "but this is something that doesn't concern you. Stay here."

"Are you joking?" She was feeling more and more confused, and more and more
angry with each passing second and with each one of Xander's apparent
unreasonable actions.

"Do you really expect me to step back while you carry out this madness? Xander,"
Buffy pleaded with him, grabbing him by his shirt, "I know you're confused right
now, and absolutely pissed, but you can't do this. You can't hunt her down as if
she were some kind of animal. This is not what you are!"

Xander's cold expression froze her heart. "You have no idea of what I really am,
Buffy."

He gently made her loosen her grasp on his shirt and, bringing her hand to his
mouth, kissed her fingertips with his cold vampire lips. "Tell Cordy I love her,
just in case."

Then the vampire turned around and, with an animalistic growl, began chasing his
sire.

~~~~~~

Watching her friend's back vanishing into the night, Buffy stifled a curse
between her clenched teeth and rummaged in the pockets of Xander's leather coat
until she found the young vampire's cell phone, and quickly dialed the
warehouse's phone number.

"Come on, come on," she whispered to the phone, as the calling tone beeped in
her ear.

"Joe's Crematorium," Kyle's voice came, "send us your stiff and we'll return you
the ashes."

"Kyle?" Buffy felt better when she heard the Texan's accented voice at the other
end of the line, but it didn't help to mitigate her anxiety. "Xander... Faith...
vampires... help ... now!!"

"Whoa-whoa!" Kyle exclaimed, confused. "Calm down, Buffy, and explain to me
what's going on!"

The blonde Slayer took a long and deep breath and closed her eyes for a second,
trying to gain some resemblance of tranquility. "We were on a patrol, when we
found Faith and a group of vampires – we've taken care of the bloodsuckers, but
Xander is chasing Faith, and I'm afraid he gonna do something stupid! Like
getting himself killed!!"

At the end of the phrase her voice had risen to a higher, almost hysterical tone
that were answered by Kyle's silence. "Kyle? Are you there?"

The Texan's voice came again, it was colder and calmer than what she had ever
heard it. "Where are you?"

Buffy looked around herself, rubbing her forehead. "Hmmm, Parker Street
cemetery, near the main entrance. And Xander is chasing Faith towards..." Then,
the realization of where she was and where her friend was going, hit the blonde
Slayer like a ton of bricks.

"Oh my God..." she whispered, starting to run, following Xander's path. "Tell
Angel we're heading towards the stone!" she shouted to Kyle. "He knows where it
is!"

Feeling her heart thundering with dread inside her chest in tune with the storm
above her, Buffy took Xander's sword from the tree it was nailed to and started
to run like mad, hoping she wouldn't be too late.

~~~~~~

Inside the Archangels' warehouse, the ring of the phone had surprised almost all
those present in their peaceful and calm state of rest.

Angel and Crystal were continuing with their research, reading in silence and
comparing notes now and then in hushed tones. Kyle was in the near laboratory,
in front of one of the computers settled there and sipping from a bottle of
beer, while chatting on-line with some of his pals all over the world.

Michael and Rachel were sharing a long couch, the brunette woman reading a book
comfortably nestled in her lover's arms while he gently caressed her hair. Idly
playing with the long strands of the dark mahogany mane, and weaving them into
thin braids as he absent-mindedly hummed the tune of the music that came softly
out of the speakers of the entertainment system.

Loreena McKennit's haunted tones seemed to inundate the interior of the
warehouse in a comfortable cloud of almost relaxing lethargy, and the small
group of hunters of the supernatural thanked the opportunity to enjoy a night of
rest in the middle of their usually-so-unstable lives.

Cordelia was lying on another sofa, taking a light nap while she awaited for
Xander and Buffy's return. Her first intention had been to stay awake, and she
had submerged herself in the reading of a cheesy romance novel she had found in
the stacks of the guys' library.

But the tiredness she had been feeling during the last few hours and the general
ambience of peacefulness had finally gotten to her; and, before finally falling
asleep, she had felt the tall Texan taking the book from her already falling
hands and covering her with a blanket.

She also had felt Elvis' hairy body padding softly beside her and lying to sleep
at her feet, as if the large dog wanted to guard her during her sleep. This
idea, at least, had served to bring a smile to her lips as she was carried away
into slumber.

But after that, she'd had few reasons to smile.

The nightmares began, almost at the same moment that her eyes were completely
closed. It wasn't one of those almost-living dreams where you can recollect all
the tiny and seemingly unimportant details, like the smell of somebody's hair or
the feeling of a pair of hands on your skin.

It was more like swimming in a sea of emotions, experiencing the feelings but
not being able to clearly see the actions that provoked them. And they weren't
nice emotions.

They were cold and dark. There was fear and anger. And passion, dark,
luxuriating, consuming and almost overwhelming. There was hate, and there was
rage.

There was lust, not produced by the desire of another's body but by the control
of his soul and spirit. Somebody wanted to kill. Somebody wanted to die.

And Cordelia felt herself in the middle of it all, almost suffocated by the
depth of those feelings. She was shaken and swept away by a maelstrom that
seemed almost alive, almost wanting to drown her and make her body disappear
into a dark, bottomless ocean of oblivion.

The ring of the phone woke her up, startling her. She would have yelped but her
lungs were practically out of oxygen and she had to breathe deeply, almost
choking in her haste to fill her chest with the precious fresh air.

After that, the only thing she could do was to look around herself, her forehead
covered by a thin layer of perspiration and her chest heaving with the effort of
her breathing, searching for something but not being able to explain what it
was.

All that she knew, and she was sure of it, was that it had something to do with
Xander. Something was going wrong with him. She couldn't explain how she knew
it, or what it was. But she knew it.

Sitting up on the couch and looking over its back, she saw Kyle in the wall-less
laboratory, picking up the phone and, holding the phone between his head and his
shoulder, answering with an absent-minded expression, his whole attention
centered on the monitor of his computer.

Then she saw him suddenly jerking up, stiffening and turning around to look at
her and she understood that she was right. Something was definitely wrong.

She turned around, wanting to cry and she found herself looking straight at
Michael and Rachel's inquisitive faces. They didn't need to share any words and,
as she practically jumped from the couch, they did the same.

Cordelia searched frantically for her coat and, after finding it neatly hanging
on the same hook where she had left it on the rest area's wardrobe, quickly put
it on. She found her purse too, and checked that her gun was inside it.

Then, she turned around to find that the rest of the group, already dressed and
equipped, was walking to the elevator.

"What's going on with Xander?" she asked, fearful to know the answer.

Kyle shared a look of confusion with Michael, before looking back at her. "How
did you know-?"

"It doesn't matter!" she shouted, a little more harshly than what she intended,
but beginning to feel the grasp of fear in her heart. "I just know."

"It's Faith," the tall Texan simply said, punching the elevator's call button.
"They stumbled upon her, and Xander is chasing her."

Cordelia felt the air choke out of her lungs, when the information hit her
almost with a physical impact. Angel, who was automatically beside her, had to
grab her to prevent the young brunette from falling to the floor.

"Are you alright?" the dark-haired vampire asked her, with a note of concern in
his voice.

The young woman shook her head, both in denial and to clear up her
suddenly-fogged brain. Faith, in town, facing Xander.

It was just too much.

"No, I'm not," she managed to tell her friend almost with a whisper, that barely
registered in Angel's sharp vampire ears.

"Where are we going?" he asked Kyle, one of his arms still around Cordelia's
shoulders, supporting her unstable frame.

Seeing that the elevator had finally arrived at their level, the tall Texan
opened the wooden door and the compact group of friends got into it. "Buffy said
that they were going to someplace called 'the rock', or something like that, I
didn't have time to get it completely."

At the vampire's worried expression, he managed a placating nod. "She seemed all
right, but she was very nervous."

"'The rock', 'the rock'," Cordelia mumbled to herself while they stepped out of
the elevator and quickly walked to the vehicles. Then her hazel eyes lit up with
the spark of an idea. "Could it be 'the stone'?"

"Yes!" Kyle exclaimed, snapping his fingers. "That's what she said!"

Cordelia and Angel shared a short, yet meaningful look. "Oh, shit," the vampire
whispered.

"I gather that's not a good piece of news," Michael said with a grimace, opening
the trunk of his black Cadillac to take out his emergency weapons.

"No," Angel practically whispered with a hard expression. "It's not good at
all."

~~~~~~

The trees and the headstones were nothing more than a confused blur of movement
as they passed by in his peripheral vision, disappearing behind him as his
undead legs carried him faster and farther than what would be possible for any
human.

Xander felt the temptation to take off and launch himself into the dark air of
the night and chase her as a bird of prey, but he remembered what he had told
her and decided to stick to his first idea.

She had given him a second opportunity, even when she hadn't intended to do so.
In her haste to hurt Buffy and the rest of the Scooby Gang nearly four years
ago, Faith had left his body for them to find instead of hiding it until his
transformation was complete, and he rose from the realms of the dead.

Unbeknownst to her, that had given him the chance to run away.

Run away from her, from his friends, from his hometown and all that he had held
dear in his life...

It had always seemed to him like the most painful thing he'd done in his entire
existence – but now, seeing the effect of the sire-childe bond between them,
Xander knew that he'd been wrong.

What would have happened if Faith had established that link in those very first,
confused hours after his comeback?

How different would his existence have turned out to be?

How different a place would the world be now?

How many people would have paid the price?

Above him, thunder rumbled, lighting crashed and rain began to fall down in a
thick curtain, sweeping the surface of the earth with the force of a tropical
storm. The earth turned to mud at his feet and his boots sunk into the watery
ground, with each one of the long steps he took in his mad run.

As the rain drenched his shirt, plastering it to his torso and back with a cold
and wet embrace, the air carried a thousand smells and sounds to his heightened
vampire senses. The wet grass and mud below his booted feet, the rumbling of the
storm in the skies above and, above them all, superimposed onto the falling,
cleansing rain, his sire's scent.

Faith's rough and husky perfume, deeply attractive and sexual, inflamed his
nostrils, burning his animated lungs as he followed her trail like a bloodhound,
restlessly chasing her.

What he would do when he got his claws on her, he hadn't decided yet.

All Xander knew was that he was going to kill her, he was going to take an
unholy bath in her blood. He was going to have his revenge on her.

The intensity of his hate towards her surprised him, because he knew that, for
once, he couldn't put the blame on his inner demon. It was the man inside
himself, the human being, who wanted payback, who wanted blood, who wanted her
to die.

It was he who desired Faith's death, above everything else in the world.

It was Xander Harris who was going to become a killer that night.

His golden eyes bored into the darkness of the cemetery and through the thick
curtain of the rain, catching his first glimpse of Faith's silhouette as he
closed the distance that separated them.

One, two, three fast steps more and he was practically above her; smoothly
jumping on a headstone with nothing more than an elongated step, he launched
himself with a roar onto the former vampire Slayer.

Faith turned around at the last second, alerted by Xander's animalistic roar;
only to see with a deep expression of surprise in her face, how her childe fell
on her like the wrath of God itself, tackling her and pushing her body onto the
wet, swamp-like grass.

Losing his grasp on her when they collided painfully against the ground, Xander
rolled on his shoulder, drenching his already wet clothes in mud and water. He
quickly jumped to his feet, in time to see Faith doing the same on her
stiletto-clad ones.

=How can she walk on those heels?= an inner voice asked inside his head.

As if on cue, the brunette vampiress kicked her shoes off, her golden eyes fixed
on him and blazing with fury. "Don't you know that it isn't nice to hit your own
mother?" she asked.

"You're not my mother, you bitch!" he stated furiously, beginning to feel once
again the tentacles of their bond worming through his will and fighting them off
with all the strength of his soul.

Shaking her head, making her dark brown and wet locks swim around her game face,
Faith snorted, looking at him in distaste. "You're such a disappointment,
Xander."

"That's the first nice thing I've heard you say tonight," he spat, already
beginning to move towards her.

Faith received him with a right high kick to his head that Xander blocked with
his left elbow, sending his right arm straight like an arrow and hitting her
with the flat palm of his hand in the middle of her chest.

For the former Slayer, it was as if she had been hit by a sledgehammer; her body
received the impact of Xander's powerful blow and flew backwards until she
landed on a headstone, making it explode under the force of the collision.

Nevertheless, she managed to roll on her back between the remnants of the
tombstone. And, although dazed and surprised by her childe's strength, she stood
up in time to block Xander's next hit.

An arched blow that would have ended with her throat being ripped open by the
young vampire's claws, if she hadn't captured his wrist in her hand.

"I see that you've been taking lessons," she grunted, turning to smash her free
elbow in Xander's face.

The young vampire's nose exploded with a sound of breaking cartilage and the
blood began to run free immediately over his upper lip and down the corners of
his mouth, but not a grunt of pain came from him as he just freed his arm from
his sire's grip.

In a second, both of them were face to face, struggling with each other's
bodies, trying to break free and gain enough space to connect a new blow.

Being surprisingly quicker than her childe, Faith managed to slash his chest
with her razor-sharp claws, ripping his black silk shirt and the smooth, pale
skin under it, drawing his blood.

Backpedaling in pain, Xander ripped away the torn remains of his shirt, being
now completely bare-chested, dressed only in his black jeans and boots and the
tattoo that, in the shape of a Chinese green dragon, covered his left arm from
the wrist to his shoulder-blade.

"I'm going to kill you," he menacingly growled at her, throwing away the torn
clothes.

Faith couldn't help but to raise a smug eyebrow. "A few minutes ago, that wasn't
exactly what you would've loved to do to me... wouldn't you say, toyboy?"

She was quick, he had to give her that, her Slayer abilities and experience
still clearly noticeable in her movements and strikes.

Xander tried to calm down, to think straight. He was way stronger than her, he
knew that, and pushed to its limits, the combination of his vampire and Immortal
capacities had no rival.

But it seemed that his whole being was dominated by the rage; that all he was
able to think of was killing her, but not on how do it. If he didn't focus and
manage to make the red veil of anger that was covering his eyes vanish, she
would have the upper hand.

And furthermore, there was that sensation again, that feeling, uninvited,
unwelcome, but oddly familiar.

That she was his sire. He was hers. That was how things had to be.

With a new roar, Xander pushed her back and kicked her legs off the ground with
a roundhouse sweep, that made her fall to the ground on her back.

Jumping on her, Xander kept the brunette vampiress pinned to the ground pressing
one knee on her flat belly, one hand tightly closed around her neck and the
other reaching out to the nearest tree, searching, finding and finally yanking
at a low branch.

Breaking it and raising the makeshift stake, Xander got ready to plunge it down,
to finish his sire's unnatural existence.

A new lightning bolt stabbed the night sky, burning the darkness above them with
blue electric fire; and then thunder rumbled, like the explosion of some god's
rage, shaking the earth.

His longish dark hair, completely drenched by the rain, was plastered to his
scalp and forehead, almost covering his eyes. The rain, falling on them with the
strength and fury that only a divine cataclysm could have, slid down over the
smooth marble white surface of his bare and broad back and along his vamped
features.

It mixed with the blood-red tears coming down his golden eyes, turning them a
light pink flow that rolled down his edged cheeks and neck.

His chest rose and fell with heaviness as his breathing became ragged first, and
then too painful to even be worth doing it. His heart, like the erratic roll of
a weak drum, staggered inside him – doubtful as to whether keep on beating, or
stop completely.

The coldness of the storm was like a freezing embrace that, added to the inner
turmoil, made him tremble like a leaf about to fall. A sob escaped his mouth and
he had to bite his lips close with his pointed fangs, until it was too painful
even for him not to start crying like a child.

His right hand, still holding the broken branch high above his head wavered
doubtfully, refusing to move down with the final, devastating strike. He just
couldn't do it.

He couldn't kill his sire.

When Faith finally took his left wrist into her slender hand, loosening Xander's
grasp on her neck and pushing his hand away from her, he didn't make any effort
to stop her.

Placing a hand on his chest, the brunette vampiress pushed him gently back and
Xander broke away from her, clumsily falling on his ass with a wet thud from the
mud underneath them.

Taking her attention away from him completely, the former Slayer rose to her
feet, examining her dirtied clothes and skin.

"For God's sake, Xander," she cursed between clenched teeth, allowing the human
mask to appear once more over her vampiric features and removing her drenched
hair away from her once-more dark eyes, squeezing her brown mane behind her head
to drain it off, "look at how you've left me."

With a snort of disdain, Faith kicked him brutally on the side of his head,
making it violently spin around and him fall, as large as he was, on the
swamp-like grass.

"You know?" she continued, calmly pacing around him as the young vampire slowly
tried to get to his feet, scrambling to his hands and knees. "I'm beginning to
wonder what it is I see in you, why I still bother in trying to make you see
things my way."

Again, with all the strength of her undead body and all the rage stored inside
her, Faith kicked her fallen childe, this time in his unprotected midriff.
Xander, feeling his ribs splintering like thin straws of hay under the force of
the blow, grunted in pain, coughing up blood.

He still wanted to kill her. He knew he could kill her.

But it was as if something inside was stopping him, from going the whole nine
yards.

=You can defy her. You can despise her. You can fight her. You can hate her.=

=But you're still hers.=

=Forever.=

"I keep on telling myself," Faith continued her monologue, looking at the stormy
night sky as if it could answer her, "he'll come to his senses, he'll accept the
inevitable, he..." she kicked him again, hard, "...will..." she stomped on his
hand, smashing his bones, breaking his fingers, "...love you!"

With a final roar, she kicked him once more in the face and his head jerked
violently at an odd angle as a thick spurt of dark-red blood flowed from his
mouth, splattering the wet, muddy grass of the cemetery.

"But nooo!! Righteous Xander still believes himself too good for poor, crazy
Faith!" Madder and more furious with each passing second, the brunette vampiress
grabbed his fallen head by the dark locks of hair at the top of his scalp,
forcefully yanking at them until he was looking at her face.

"What is it you need, Xander? Do I have to sire you again to make you understand
that you're mine? Do I have to kill all your so-called friends? Do I have to
grab Cordelia, and rip out her entrails in front of your eyes?"

Feeling his broken bones starting to painfully heal by themselves, rearranging
and popping into their sockets, Xander cut off her tirade by slamming his elbow
into her face with a roar of pure rage, making her backpedal away from him.

With a fluid, smooth movement, the young vampire jumped to his feet and charged
against her like a enraged bull, his nostrils flaring with fury and his eyes
turned into two golden blazes of light.

=I may not be able to kill her. But I'm going to make her pay for this!=

Well, if there was one thing he had learnt to do in the last few years, it was
to adapt himself to almost every situation.

Moving as only he was able to do, his fist connected with Faith's stomach with
so much force that the blow made her double over and raised her frame some
inches off the ground.

His jeans-clad knee rose, hitting her lowered face squarely on her chin, making
her stand up straight. A flying roundhouse kick, and she was soaring backwards
away from him.

Moving faster than the eye could follow, Xander landed and grasped her by the
low and ample neckline of her spandex dress, his fingers sinking down between
her cold breasts and preventing her from going further away.

"Oh please, don't go away so soon, mommy," he spat with acid-dripping sarcasm.

With a savage yank, Xander brought her back to him, hitting her face with a
powerful punch that fractured her cheekbone.

Still grasping her by the fabric of her dress, practically holding her on her
feet, Xander brought her again up against her fist. "I'm not going to repeat it
to you again, Faith," he told her, almost spitting the words into her face.

"Don't you..." another punch, making the blood flow, "... dare touch her..."
grabbing her with his two hands, he brutally kneed her in the gut, "... ever!!"

Xander was about to take her head between her hands to twist her neck, when she
suddenly seemed to come back to life in his arms, kneeing him in his crotch with
all her remaining strength.

It was enough to make him lose his grip on her and practically fall to the
ground, as he moved his hands to hold his pained area with a reflex gesture,
moaning in deep male pain.

"Bitch," he grunted, falling to his knees.

"Oh please," she protested, leaning on a headstone for support while cleaning
her face of blood and dirt with the back of her hand, "try to think of something
more original to say, will you?"

He just looked at her sideways and moaned once more, carefully protecting his
most tender area.

Buffy's lungs were on fire and she had to stop to take a short rest, leaning her
hands on slightly flexed knees to support her body and taking long and deep
breaths.

Rolling slightly up the sleeves of Xander's coat, which she had put on to
protect herself from the falling rain but seemed huge on her shorter frame, the
blonde Slayer took a long and careful look around herself, trying to place
herself and locate her friend at the same time.

But the rain falling down on her was so thick that her range of visibility was
practically reduced to just a few yards. Stifling an unladylike curse, Buffy
quickly climbed up a near statue, thinking that from a higher vantage point she
would have a clearer impression of her location.

Nimbly straddling the winged shoulders of the marble angel, the blonde Slayer
wiped her forehead dry and covered her eyes, looking around.

"Come on," she whispered to herself, "where are you, Xander?"

A new lightning bolt, quickly followed by an earth-shattering explosion of
thunder, lit the sky in blue flames and illuminating her surroundings for a
short second. Enough to allow her to place herself, and to locate the young
vampire.

Unfortunately for both of them, neither of those two facts were really good
news.

Because she was still way too far away from her friend and his sire.

And because they were in the last place she wanted them to be.

Scrambling down the statue, Buffy started to run to them as fast as her legs
allowed her. She knew that she had barely any time left.

~~~~~~

As Michael's black Cadillac sped along the road, following the path cleared on
the wet asphalt by Kyle's cherry-red Pathfinder, the tension inside the huge
coupe could be cut with a knife.

The French Immortal was behind the steering wheel, tapping its curved surface
with his fingers while nervously munching his lower lip. Beside him, in the
passenger's seat, Angel's dark gaze was lost in the night outside, with his arms
crossed over his broad chest.

If there was one thing that Michael found unnerving about the souled vampire, it
was his ease in hiding his feelings. He knew Angel loved Buffy, that he was
worried for her, but nobody would be able to say so from looking at his stoic
face.

Taking his attention away from the road for just a second, the French Immortal
looked at Rachel, who was sat in the back seat, through the rear-view mirror and
their gazes locked for a second.

She was also worried, he could tell just by the way her brown eyes returned his
look, but still he was able to find comfort in just her mere presence.

Still, his fear for the safety of his pupil and friend was like a ball of ice
inside his belly.

"He'll be alright," she said aloud from the back seat, reaching out to
comfortingly squeeze his shoulder. "You've taught him very well."

Sighing, Michael shook his head, his dark blue eyes returning once more to the
wet concrete passing beneath the wheels of his car and the off-road vehicle in
front of them.

"I don't know, Rachel," he said, looking then at the dark-haired vampire beside
him out of the corner of his eye, "we weren't expecting this."

Angel looked at the Immortal, with his eyebrows slightly raised. "We weren't
either," he said simply, his face turning around to look out of the car's
interior once more. "None of us has had any news about Faith's whereabouts
since... well, since Xander's death. At first, we thought that they had gone
away together..."

The vampire turned again, to look at him through half-closed eyes. "You know
what happened, don't you?"

Michael shrugged slightly as he took a curve, following Kyle's tail-lights.
"Xander's not exactly open to talk about that part of his past, he... it's still
a bleeding wound, je suppose." The brown-haired Immortal frowned, shifting
uncomfortably in his seat.

Leaning forward between the two front seats, Rachel looked at Angel. "Faith was
a Slayer, right?" At the vampire's nod, she continued, "She was vamped, got
obsessed with Xander and ended up turning him, that's all we know. Care to fill
in the gaps?"

Sighing in his best brooding style, the tall vampire looked at the brunette
Immortal and then at her lover, carefully examining them with inquisitive eyes,
before finally turning back to the darkness outside.

He didn't want to think back, he didn't want to remember that part of the
painful past; but he guessed that, as the friends they seemed to be, they had
the right to know.

"Faith always was different," Angel began to tell them without looking directly
at either of the two Immortals, "even by Slayer standards. Orphan, runaway,
street-wise, she already had an unstable life to be saddled with the weight of
such a big responsibility."

"Some people grow stronger under the pressure of a challenge," Rachel observed,
sending a quick glance to Michael through the rear-view mirror before centering
her attention back in Angel's face.

The dark-haired vampire shrugged slightly. "And others just crumble under it.
Faith liked to put on a hard-as-nails façade, but you didn't need to look too
deep inside her to find a broken spirit."

He continued, "When she came to Sunnydale the first time, she was like a
frightened bunny trying to hide herself under the skin of a wolf. Her Watcher
had been killed, she was being chased by a powerful vampire..."

Angel's dark eyes took on a lost and introverted expression as he was speaking,
more and more to himself with each passing moment. "I often wonder what would've
happened if she had trusted in Buffy and the rest from the very beginning, if
their relationship hadn't begun with a lie..."

He then looked at Rachel, as if he was really looking at her for the very first
time. "A lie is all you need to destroy a relationship," the vampire whispered,
"no matter how strong you think it is."

Rachel shivered, even though the interior of the car was far from being cold.

"Ahem," Michael coughed politely, bringing both hers and Angel's attention to
the present. "not that I don't like a good brood, but could you finish the
story, please?"

The souled vampire blinked his eyes repeatedly, as if he was coming out of a
trance. "Sorry, it's just force of habit. Hmmm, where was I?"

"You were on the 'poor Faith, alone and scared' part," Michael mumbled
sarcastically.

"You seem to have pity for her," Rachel observed softly.

"I do, in a way," the vampire nodded. "She didn't ask to be turned, and what
happened after that wasn't entirely her fault. Even when she was alive, she
wasn't very..." Angel made a face, "well, very centered."

~~~~~~

"She was a crazy bitch," Cordelia stated, leaning between the front seats of
Kyle's Pathfinder. "Always going around gung-ho, dressing like a slut, risking
our lives needlessly and laying her hands on my Xander."

The tall Texan and Crystal, who were on those same seats, shared a quick and
meaningful glance.

"Jealous much?" Kyle asked with an eyebrow slightly risen.

"Who? Me?" Cordelia squeaked, deeply offended. "Of that... skanky ho? Ha!"

She leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest and looking away,
practically fuming. "So what, she appears outta nowhere, shaking her ass like a
cheap whore and saying, 'Oooh look at me, I'm a Slayer, I'm the Chosen One'?"

Cordy continued, "And then suddenly all the guys are going like hormone-oozing,
salivating at the sight of her. Well, all of them except Oz who, being around
Willow, wouldn't notice a troop of nude cheerleaders even if they began jumping
around right in front of him..."

"I would notice that," Kyle murmured, his eyes suddenly very far away.

Behind all of them, in the cargo area, Elvis whined, leaning his furry head on
the back of Cordelia's seat and covering his brown eyes with a paw as if in
pain.

"...which, by the way, reminds me that I've never known such a-"

"Cordelia!" Crystal cut her off, managing a tight smile. "You are babbling, my
dear."

The brunette opened and closed her mouth for a few moments, before letting out a
sigh and passing a hand over her tired face. "I'm sorry," she excused herself,
"I'm nervous, and worried, and a lot of other things I don't want to think about
right now."

She let out a dry, almost sarcastic laugh. "It's funny if you think about it, I
didn't used to be this way."

"You were telling us about Xander and Faith," the red-haired witch told her,
trying to distract her so the brunette young woman didn't sink into a depressed
mood, wanting to take her mind away from the trouble in which her boyfriend
could be. "What happened? How did she get obsessed with Xander?"

Cordy's hazel eyes looked at Crystal for a second before smiling sadly, shaking
her head. "They did have a lot in common, I gotta admit that," she said, her
voice stressed, hurt as the girl recalled what was probably the most painful
part of her past.

"She had no family, she was alone and in need of a helping hand. Xander... well,
he didn't have much of a family, either. His father was a drunk, his mother was
missing in action half the time... God," she said, wiping the tears that were
coming to her eyes with her hand, not minding at all if her make-up was ruined
or not. "Sometimes I wonder how I could've been so stupid, so blind..."

In an odd gesture from Crystal, the redhead reached out for her, taking her hand
in hers and squeezing it supportively. Cordelia managed to give her a grateful
smile.

"You know how Xander is," the brunette continued with a smile that this time was
warm as she talked about him, the boy he had once been, the man that he was now.
"There was a damsel in distress, and a Slayer, furthermore. How wasn't he going
to go to her rescue, try to be her white knight?"

She shook her head, looking at the darkness outside. "I always used to say that
one day, it would be the death of him."

Cordelia sobbed and her face grimaced, almost painfully twisted by her latest
effort to control the tears. "Oh God, how I wish I was wrong..."

~~~~~~

"Mr. Trick was the Master vampire of Sunnydale back then," Angel kept on
explaining to Michael and Rachel, as they shortened the distance to their
destination.

"He was a modern vampire, very fond of technology and such things. And he'd made
an alliance with the Mayor, only that we didn't know it back then, of course.
Have we got much longer to go?"

"Ten minutes," Michael calculated, looking at the needle on his speedometer.

"Well, uh, Trick had this plan to kidnap and sacrifice all the town's babies to
a demon that Buffy and the guys stopped. Don't ask me the exact details, because
I wasn't at my strongest then," he explained with an inner shiver. "But Buffy
got very pissed off at the whole thing, and decided to bring him down no matter
what."

"Comprehensively, knowing Buffy," Rachel gave the vampire an affectionate smile.
"She's a little bombshell."

"Yeah, she is, isn't she?" Angel smiled back at her. "The thing is that they
argued about how to do it – Faith wanted to do a frontal attack, Giles said that
they had to be more subtle than that, and Buffy was divided between her faith in
her Watcher and her friendship with Faith. And her own desire to end it all, as
quick and directly as possible."

"Let me guess," Michael said, "in the end, Rupert got his own way."

"Yeah, when he gets into Watcher mode he can be a very tough guy," Angel
commented with a soft nod. "The problem was that it didn't sit too well with
Faith – she felt betrayed by Buffy and the rest of the gang, who had supported
Giles' opinion. While they searched for a better way to bring Trick down, Faith
went to Willy's bar, hit him until she got Trick's location and then went out
after him."

"Alone?" Rachel asked, incredulous. "Was she suicidal or what?"

The dark-haired vampire shrugged. "Maybe she was, maybe she wanted to
demonstrate something to the others or even herself, I don't know. All I know is
that she failed, the word that Trick had gotten her was on the streets like
wildfire. I alerted Buffy and we went to her rescue, but..."

With a sigh, Michael finished the sentence for him. "It was too late."

"She was still alive when we got there, she..." Angel shook his head sadly. "She
died in Xander's arms. I should have understood then that it wasn't the end of
it, when I saw her eyes."

"What do you mean?"

Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, not used to explaining his feelings, Angel
tried to put them into words. "Xander was crying while he held her in her last
moments, he was... he is," he corrected himself, "a decent man who has very deep
feelings. For me, it was obvious that he was feeling sorrow and pain for Faith's
death. All of us were feeling like that – Buffy was practically torn apart and
Giles looked twenty years older, but for Faith it was something new. As sad as
it sounds, I don't think anybody had ever cried for her before."

Seeing the direction Angel was going, Rachel sighed with sadness. "She
misunderstood Xander's feelings and actions."

Angel nodded. "In her last living moments, she believed that he loved her as
much, I guess, as she thought she loved him. She died thinking that Xander was
in love with her."

"And when she came back..." Michael let the idea trail off.

"That idea, that feeling, was implanted in her like dogma," Angel finished.

The interior of the Cadillac remained in a deep silence for a few moments, until
the French Immortal broke it with a soft whistle. "Allons, it's not strange that
she went for him after that. The kid didn't have a chance."

~~~~~~

"I will never forget the night she came back," Cordelia said with a haunted
voice, a little recovered from her outburst. "We had everything ready to do the
soul restoration ritual, in the cemetery when she rose from her grave. And while
she fought Buffy, we tried to perform it."

"But it didn't work," the red-haired witch observed, "for the curse to work, the
vampire Faith became would have had to be responsible for a great evil."

Cordelia nodded slowly. "We didn't know that back then. When the damn
paperweight didn't begin to shine, we thought that it was because we'd done
something wrong."

With his eyes fixed on the road, Kyle frowned with confusion. "Paperweight?"

"The Orb of Thesulah," Crystal explained to him matter-of-factly, "it's used to
summon-"

"I know what an Orb of Thesulah is used for, Cris," he cut her off, a little too
petulantly. "My grandfather had one back on the reservation. Although he used it
as a fancy cue ball..." the Texan paused with a shrug, "he won a lot of money
with it playing pool."

Ignoring him, Crystal turned back to the brunette in the back seat. "Please
continue Cordelia, what happened then?"

"There's not much more to tell; Faith escaped and we weren't able to find her,
but after a few days the town morgue started to get majorly filled up with
corpses."

Cordelia shook her head. "She had, like, a voracious appetite. But, I gotta say
that she also found Trick – and, well, the rumor mill had it that there was very
little skin remaining on his body, when she finally staked him," she said with a
grimace of loathing.

"Didn't you try to do the ritual again?"

"Yeah, one day she began to get personal and passed from killing for food, to
her doing it just for the fun of it. She killed Willow's favorite teacher, one
of the guys in Oz's band, all the people who worked at my favorite clothing
store..." she sobbed, getting slightly emotional for a short moment.

"When she attacked Buffy's mom, we pulled out all the stops and went after her.
As they fought again, we tried the ritual and this time it seemed to work. The
orb did the cool glowy thing, Willow did that scary possessed act and Buffy told
us that before running away, Faith's eyes had glowed like Angel's had, so we
thought it had worked."

Letting her head lean onto the back of her seat for a moment, Cordelia's gaze
was lost on the roof of the car. "But then she took Xander and... she...
everything changed. Everything..."

Feeling her already-swollen and reddened eyes getting wet again, Cordelia
covered her face with her hands. Not for the first time, she wondered if there
would be a time where she didn't need to cry anymore.

"We're already there," Kyle alerted them, pointing through the rain-swept
windshield to the cemetery's main gate. Instead of slowing the vehicle's pace,
the tall Texan stepped down the gas pedal, accelerating to the Pathfinder's top
speed.

"Hold on ladies, because we're coming in without knocking!" he shouted.

When the front bumpers of the Pathfinder crashed across the closed metallic
fence of the gate, it flew away, ripped from its hinges as if a transatlantic
train had hit it.

The cherry-red off-road car then rushed onto the cemetery's walkway, closely
followed by Michael's black Cadillac.

~~~~~~

When the lightning illuminated the haunted scenario around them, Xander began to
rise from the ground and faced Faith, who was sitting on a headstone nor far
away from him.

They were both a complete mess, covered in mud and dried blood, barely wearing
torn clothes and with sticky and disheveled hair.

"You know what the funniest part of all this is?" the former Slayer asked him, a
sarcastic smile crossing her lips.

Xander didn't answer and just held the stare of her cold dark eyes, resolved not
to be bent again.

"In the end, it doesn't matter how much you fight against it, Xander," she
explained, jumping off the headstone. "This is inevitable. This thing, this us
is just meant to be!"

Finally closing his eyes, Xander shook his head tiredly. "You just don't get it,
do you?" Clenching his fists tightly closed, he came nearer to her, towering
over the former Slayer thanks to his superior height. "There's no us, you stupid
bitch!! There never has been, and there will never be!!"

She practically leaned onto him, placing her cold hands on his bare chest. "If
that's what you want to believe..."

With a grunt, Xander took her wrists in a harsh grasp, removing her hands from
his skin, trying to ignore the flaming sensation of her touch. "Don't you touch
me," he growled at her.

"Xander," she insisted, closing again the space between them when he
backpedaled, "You have to understand it-"

"I said," he shouted, bringing his fist back, "don't touch me!!"

His knuckles connected with her face once more, making her fall to the ground
flat on her back.

"Why can't you just let me be, Faith?" the vampiric Immortal shouted raggedly.
"Why is it I can't have any semblance of peace, ever?!?" He began to pace
nervously, back and forth. "Why can't you just let me live my life!?!"

With a roar, Faith stood up, backhand punching him. "Live your life?" she asked
with an angry voice, pressing him back with punches and kicks so fast that he
almost wasn't able to block them all.

"You're not alive, Xander! You think I haven't noticed it? Your heart beats,
your chest rises and falls with your breathing – so what?"

Before he was able to recover from her attack, Faith kicked his feet off the
ground with a roundhouse sweep, and Xander had to lean on a nearby headstone not
to fall.

"You're a demon, Xander. You're dead!! And all that remains of you, any
existence you want to call life, every tiny bit of feeling, every goddamn second
of every goddamn minute – you owe it to me!!" she screamed.

The dark-haired vampire was barely able to dodge her next blow, full of rage and
fury, and the next of Faith's kicks hit him squarely in the gut, making him fold
over.

Kicking him in the back of his head, Faith managed to throw his already unstable
frame to the ground, making him fall face-first on the swamp-like earth, the
impact of his semi-naked body against it causing to splatter mud and dirty water
everywhere.

"Go to Hell," he cursed her between clenched teeth.

Pressing his struggling body against the wet ground with her knee and his face
into a pool of water and mud with one of her hands, Faith smiled smugly. "Don't
you believe me, Xander? Well, I'll have to show it to you then."

Raising the hand that wasn't holding her childe against the ground, the former
Slayer closed her fingers into a fist. "You know what they say, toyboy, you
gotta be cruel to be kind."

Faith's fist fell brutally on his spine, about four inches above the small of
his back and with the force of a pile-driver; it crushed and broke his lower
vertebrae, severing his spinal cord and sinking his whole being into a deep sea
of blinding pain.

Nevertheless, Xander's scream of pain was drowned in the pool of mud into which
his face was submerged and, when the white-hot pain passed away, all that
remained was a cold numbness below the line of his waist and, suddenly, he
couldn't feel his legs anymore.

Yanking at his dark hair, Faith dragged him away over the swamp-like grass,
making him moan in pain. "Do you want evidence of it, Xander? Do you wanna see
it with your own eyes? Well, don't worry sweetheart, it's right here."

Faith dragged him to a nearest headstone and, painfully yanking at his hair,
lifted his head from the ground. " Here it is, Xander, it's what remains of the
old you!"

Faith slammed his face violently against the cold and hard surface of the
headstone, crushing his face against it again and again until his handsome
features were bloody and almost unrecognizable.

Then, bringing his head back once more with a painful yank, she planted a long,
hard kiss on his torn lips, greedily and lustfully sucking the blood that flowed
from them.

When she broke away from him a lightning bolt stabbed the dark skies, and she
made him face the carved stone.

"This is all that remains of you, Xander," Faith repeated coldly, his blood
matting her lips.

And, through his dazed eyes, feeling his strength slipping away, Xander looked,
saw and felt his soul screaming with all the strength and the pain that his
tired and broken lungs couldn't voice.

On the stone – carved onto the marble and covered with his own blood, which was
being quickly washed away by the falling rain – he saw his own name.

There was no description, like 'Beloved Son' or 'In Loving Memory' – just the
cold name and dates.

Alexander Lavelle Harris
1981-1999

=Dead. Dead and buried.=

He was dead. Dead. Deaddeaddeaddeadeadeadeadeadead...

"Nooo!!" a voice screamed as a dark and small bulk flew over the headstone,
tackling Faith down and away from Xander's prone figure.

"Get the hell away from him!!" Buffy shouted, tracing out an arc in the air with
Xander's katana when the two Slayers finally scrambled to their feet.

Faith did a backflip, dodging Buffy's slash and growling at the blonde Slayer
between her fangs as she landed on her bare feet.

Tilting her head to one side and holding the long sword into both hands, Buffy
shook her head in a serious and menacing warning. "Don't even think it."

Snorting through her game face, Faith looked past her at the fallen form of her
childe for a moment, before looking back at her former teammate. "Now he knows
how my blood tastes, Buffy. And I know how his tastes. That's a bond that no one
can destroy, not you, and not that brunette bitch of his. He... is... mine."

She chuckled almost maniacally, licked her childe's blood from her lips and sent
an air kiss to the blonde Slayer, winking a golden eye to her. "See ya later, B
– and give my regards to the rest of the gang!"

~~~~~~

Seeing Faith vanish into the darkness of the cemetery, running away from her,
Buffy let the dark blade of the sword fall down until it was finally pointing to
the muddy ground, letting the air come out of her lungs in a slow and deep sigh.

For a second, the blonde Slayer rested her forehead on the handle of the katana,
closing her eyes. She didn't know how to feel.

Happy because they were still alive?

Frightened because they had almost been killed?

Broken because Faith had made them bleed, both literally and figuratively
speaking?

She just didn't know.

Turning around to her fallen friend, Buffy let the sword fall to the wet ground
beside her, noticing almost at the edge of her awareness that the force of the
storm was weakening – the rain falling with less and less fury, and the wind
blowing slower with each passing second.

She didn't, she couldn't care less about it.

In the darkness of the cemetery, the only thing that got her whole attention,
the only thing that was capturing her heart, mind and soul, tying them into a
freezing grip, making them sink down, was the broken body of her old friend.

He crawled over the muddy grass with only the use of his arms, his useless legs
dead and spread in odd angles.

Moaning and grunting in pain and sorrow through his torn lips, Xander extended
one of his arms, reaching out to the headstone, slowly tracing the nooks of the
carved name on the marble surface.

Then, like a wounded animal, he rolled into a fetal posture, whining a
high-pitched and broken moan that pierced through the night, stabbing Buffy's
heart. It was the sound of a soul dying.

It was a scream of pain, that could only come from a man that felt his hopes
dying and fading away.

Feeling her own tears coming to her hazel eyes, mixing with the rain coating her
skin, Buffy fell to her knees beside the wounded young vampire and reached out
for him, trying to take his shaken body into a comforting embrace.

"Don't touch me!!" he suddenly exclaimed in rage, roaring at her and violently
pushing her away.

Startled, the blonde Slayer fell on her behind, her puzzled gaze locked onto her
friend's golden and furious one. "Xander, what-?"

The voice died in her throat as she looked at his face, and recognized the
tell-tale signs on his already-healing vampiric features. The lack of humanity
in his almost- glowing golden eyes, the fangs bared at her and the low, menacing
growl that escaped from his throat.

The hunger.

Gulping down a gasp of alarm, Buffy slowly crawled back on her elbows and away
from him. As she slowly stood to her feet, she couldn't help but make a face
when she heard the sickening sound produced by the bones in his back healing,
thanks to his Immortal capacities; rearranging themselves, mending together and
popping into their sockets.

It had to be awfully painful for him, but his face didn't seem to register any
of that. When she was at a prudent distance away from him, the menacing
expression just fell away from his face, replaced by a heart-wrenching, almost
infinite sadness.

Then, seemingly losing all interest in her, the young vampire turned once more
to the marble stone that indicated his last resting place. And, nestling like an
agonized animal waiting for his death, remained rolled in a fetal posture, his
body only animated by the soft shudders of the too-human sobs that escaped from
his lips.

Just a few steps away from him, Buffy could only wait for the help to come,
feeling the bitter sting of tears coming to her own eyes.

~~~~~~

Faith was far from happy. In fact, as she ran away with fast and long steps and
felt her bare feet sinking into the muddy ground of the cemetery, with the wet
locks of her brown hair swinging wildly around her head, she was practically
fuming.

Even though it could be said that she was the honorary winner of the fight, the
truth was that her plans for it could not exactly be considered successful.

All her minions, all the effort during the last few weeks – hiding herself,
trying to pass unnoticed, feeding only from the scum of the docks and the
homeless – all of it had now been for nothing.

Xander was still resisting her.

=Why?= She couldn't understand. =Why can't he see it? Why he is being so damn
stubborn?=

It had to be that filthy soul. And God-almighty Buffy. And holier-than-thou
Willow. And the bitch, Cordelia.

As always, Faith abstained from pronouncing their names aloud, knowing that they
would leave a foul taste in her mouth. And right now, she felt too good with the
sweet ambrosia of her childe's blood sparkling on her tongue and lips.

The first time she had tasted it, so long ago, the vamped Slayer had known for
sure what she had suspected all along. Xander was special, unique and so was his
blood.

Electrical, alive, full of energy and life. It burned her taste-buds, inflaming
all her senses, fueling her – it made her feel like nothing else had done,
before or since.

And now she was hooked on him. She needed him, almost with desperation.

And she would make him need her, even if she had to kill the rest of the
goddamned town to do so.

Reaching the end of the graveyard, Faith jumped smoothly over the short wall
that defined the cemetery's borders, starting a more relaxed run, feeling the
roughness of the wet asphalt on the soles of her bare feet as she leisurely
jogged along the middle of the street.

As usual, the streets of Sunnydale were almost deserted at night – the citizens
taking shelter in their homes from the living, or more precisely un-living,
nightmares that roamed the town's dark alleys and empty avenues.

Still, even though she had come out of the fight with her skin intact, Faith was
feeling a curious mix of disappointment and wonder. She had marveled at feeling
Xander's dark potential, not expecting such great power as she had felt coming
out of his tall frame, hitting her almost in physical waves.

But she'd felt disappointed as well, because she had found him still bound to
that bunch of losers and self-righteous saints.

And the former Slayer was also furious, because deep inside him, Faith had felt
her mark.

She would kill that bitch slowly and painfully, and enjoy every minute of her
agony.

So engrossed was Faith on planning what she would do, she never noticed when the
car came out of a dark alley barely moments after she had passed it, and began
to slowly follow her with its front headlamps switched off.

Her thoughts tumbled along, =I'm gonna rip out her lungs. I'll eat her heart
raw! And then suck the marrow from her bones. I will...=

The roar of an accelerating engine brought her out of her reverie, and the
former Slayer turned around to the source of said sound. Only to be completely
blinded when the headlamps of the huge car switched on without warning, bathing
her in an explosion of almost pure white-yellow light.

Instinctively, Faith raised her hand to cover her eyes, when she understood what
was about to happen; and when she began to move away from the car's trajectory,
it was too late.

The car launched itself towards her, its nose hitting her with the whole force
of its massive body. Too surprised even to let out a grunt of pain, Faith felt
herself rolling over the hood until her body collided with the windshield, which
imploded into a spider-like web of cracks when she impacted against it.

Then she was flying again, crossing the air in the opposite direction for a
short length of time until she hit the ground and rolled once again, this time
over the rough asphalt.

As she slightly leaned on her elbow, trying to stand up, the car skidded over
the road with a screech of protesting tires and brakes, its speed going down too
slowly for Faith's comfort.

In fact, when it finally stopped, there was barely an inch of air separating her
forehead from the car's front bumper.

=Stupid son of a bitch.= Whoever was driving that car, he was going to turn into
her next meal.

Leaning on the bumper and taking a good look at the car for the first time,
noticing that it was a luxury car and huge black Lincoln, Faith let her game
face come to show. Both the driver's and the passenger's doors opened, and two
men came out of the car.

That was even better for her. Two guys meant twice the fun, and twice the joy.

The driver was an incredibly tall and handsome African-American man, obviously
older that his companion – a shorter young man with sandy hair, and the most
impressive black eyes she had ever seen in a man.

Letting a lewd smile come to her lips, Faith jumped nimbly onto the hood of the
car, ready to throw herself over the bigger and probably more dangerous driver.
She was thinking that if she turned them, they could be even more fun than-

But something was definitely wrong with that mental picture.

She understood it the moment her feet abandoned the car, and her jump towards
the black man began. He didn't looked the least bit surprised, and he didn't
even try to move aside.

He wasn't scared, and that couldn't mean anything good for her.

As she reached the apogee of her jump, she noticed some movement out of the
corner of her eye as the younger man silently, and as quick as a snake, drew out
a strange-looking gun and aimed at her, firing it.

Faith just felt a deep sting as the black man smoothly took himself out of her
path and she landed painfully on her shoulder, suddenly feeling all her body
turning numb and weak. Rolling until she was on her back, she tried to sit up,
only to find that her muscles suddenly didn't want to obey to her.

And, much to her amazement, she discovered the white feather of a dart sticking
out of her chest.

"Oh, shit," was the only thing she was able to articulate, before the world
turned dark and her head fell hard against the asphalt.

Walking around the nose of the Lincoln, Damon Frost slowly holstered the
tranquilizer gun under his cashmere coat, hiding it from view. Looking down at
the prone form of the fallen vampire, he raised one of his sandy eyebrows
slightly.

"She's a babe," he observed with a lewd smile. "I'm beginning to see the old
man's point of view."

Mr. Smith just looked at him sideways, before centering his attention back on
Faith's body. Without articulating a word, he reached down and took her, his
huge hands practically surrounding her thin waist, and effortlessly lifted her,
throwing the former Slayer's limp form over his shoulder.

"Open the trunk," he commanded the younger man.

With a sigh of boredom, Damon did as he was told and the enigmatic black man
carefully placed her into the spacious trunk of the car. For a second, the two
men just looked down at her in silence.

"Do you have any idea of what he's going to do with her?" Damon asked his
companion, without looking at him.

Smith's features changed for barely a moment, when the corners of his mouth
enlarged into a grimace of disinterest.

"It's not my business," he said. "But whatever it is, we'll soon find out."

Then, seemingly losing all interest in both the captured vampire and his
companion, Smith just closed the trunk.

~~~~~~

She heard the upcoming cars first and, when she turned her head around, alerted
by the roar of their engines, Buffy saw the light of their headlamps boring into
the darkness as their speeded along the near walkway, closing the distance to
them.

Standing up, the blonde Slayer waved energetically at them, trying to get their
attention.

On cue, the red Pathfinder suddenly turned around to her, getting off the main
walkway and onto the wet grass, closely followed by the black Cadillac, both
vehicles carefully eluding the vertical headstones.

Finally, with their tires throwing mud and water all around, the two cars braked
at a short distance from her, their doors opening wildly even before their
frames had stopped completely.

As their occupants got out of the vehicles in a hurry, Buffy noticed that the
Archangels barely took a look at her or Xander's prone form before scattering
around, forming an open circle around them, their eyes wandering around in
search of any possible threat.

Both Michael and Rachel carried what seemed like hi-tech crossbows, while Kyle
expertly bore a giant semiautomatic shotgun; and, as usual, Cris seem unarmed
while Elvis trotted around them, sniffing and growling in a menacing low tone.

Nevertheless, her attention was quickly drawn away when she saw Angel on the
trail of a bewildered Cordelia, barely keeping up with the brunette's pace as
they ran towards them.

The former cheerleader was on the verge of tears, but the expression on her face
seemed resolute and hard.

"Xander!" she cried, seeing her lover's trembling form on the ground.

Steeping into her path, Buffy tried to stop her. "Cordy, no!" she exclaimed,
raising her hands to grab Cordelia's forearms. "You don't know what-"

The look that her friend sent her made Buffy's blood freeze, inside her veins.
She had never seen so much determination in Cordelia's eyes before, or anybody
else's for that matter.

"Don't you ever dare to step between us, Buffy," Cordy practically hissed at
her.

Astonished at her friend's reaction, the blonde Slayer looked back at her with
her mouth wide open as Angel gently took her by her shoulder and gently made her
step aside, allowing Cordelia to walk to where Xander was lying.

"What are you doing?" Buffy finally asked her boyfriend in an almost indignant
low tone, fighting with the words. "Xander... the hunger... he might hurt her!"

Shaking his head in denial, Angel indicated towards them with his chin. "Look at
them, Buffy. That could never happen."

Still completely bewildered, the blonde Slayer turned into the tall vampire's
arms to face her two friends. Cordelia walked slowly to her lover's prone and
trembling form and, very slowly, sank to her knees, seemingly not worried at all
about the effect that the muddy ground would have on her miniskirt.

Still silent and as carefully as if she was trying to capture a butterfly alive
without damaging it, she took out her coat and gently used it to cover Xander's
semi-nude form.

At the first touch, the young vampire flinched in surprise and fear; but when he
turned around to face her, his already healed face was completely human, and his
expression of rage and hunger had been replaced by infinite pain and sadness.

"Oh my God," Buffy whispered, leaning back on Angel's broad chest for support
and feeling her heart breaking in two at the image of her friend. Tears came to
her eyes and she didn't make any effort to stop them, allowing the salty drops
to freely run in silence down her dirty cheeks.

Quickly wrapping her lover's body into her coat, Cordelia helped Xander to lean
his head on her lap.

Gently caressing his wet hair, she cleaned his face of the dried blood and mud
with her fingers, rocking him like a baby while softly speaking to him in
hushed, comforting tones. "I'm here, baby... I love you, Xander... everything's
gonna be alright, sweetheart..."

The young vampire just looked at her with his deep brown eyes and cried silent
tears of blood, allowing himself to be protected by his lover's embrace.

"Come on," Angel whispered at Buffy's ear, "let's give them some privacy."

Nodding and wiping her tears with the back of her hand, smearing the mix of mud
and the little make-up she still wore over her cheeks, Buffy allowed the souled
vampire to gently take her away from the couple on the ground and to the refuge
of the parked vehicles.

Here she found Michael and Rachel, who were also looking at Xander and Cordelia
over the hood of the red Pathfinder. And now that she noticed it, neither Kyle
nor Crystal seemed to be around.

"The area seems secure," Michael said, leaning the butt of his crossbow on his
waist. "How is he?"

Buffy shrugged helplessly. "Truth is... I have no idea. This has all been just
so... weird," she shook her head. "I think I need a little time to digest it
all."

The French Immortal just raised one eyebrow, looking beyond them at the young
vampire and the young woman that was his love, wondering how it was that good
people always seemed to be the ones that had to suffer the most.

His pondering, and other worries for that matter, had to be put aside when he
noticed the reflection of Crystal's white robe out of the corner of his eye and
he saw both the red-haired witch and Kyle coming out of the darkness, a
low-headed Elvis trotting between them.

"Elvis caught a fresh vampire trace," the tall Texan explained even before any
question was made, while he carefully engaged the safety of his Benelli M3 SWAT
shotgun and hung it over his shoulder.

"But it ended on the street. We found this." Reaching into his brown bomber
leather jacket, Kyle took out a carefully wrapped up nylon handkerchief and
showed them what he had protected inside it. Some glass fragments.

"What's that?" Angel asked in the same secretive tone they were using, not
wanting to disturb neither Xander or Cordelia.

"Fragments of a car's broken headlamp," Michael told him, carefully examining
them in the light of their own cars' headlamps.

"Exactly," Kyle confirmed. "My take on it: Faith stopped a car, killed whoever
was driving and used it to get away."

With a frown, Michael took one of the larger fragments and examined it closely.
It was tinted in red, and he didn't have to take a great leap of faith to assume
that it was probably blood.

"Will you be able to make something out of this in the laboratory?" Rachel
asked, taking another of the fragments.

The tall Texan shrugged. "Working hard for the rest of the night... make, model
and year. Probably the police will have found it, and the body, by then."

"Do it anyway," Michael practically ordered him. Even when his voice had sounded
a little harsh, Kyle just nodded.

"Now what?" Rachel asked her mentor and lover, her chocolate-brown eyes
reflecting her worry too.

The French Immortal just sighed, passing a tired hand over his handsome
features. "There's not much more we can do here," he said. "Kyle, why don't you
and Cris take Buffy and Angel home? Rachel and myself will stay here until
they're... ready to go."

"I'd like to stay," Buffy said even when, looking at her face, it was obvious
that her tiredness was finally getting to her. "They're my friends."

"I know, Buffy," Michael told her warmly, offering her an understanding smile.
"But sadly, there is very little we can do for them right now. Go home and get
some rest, ma petite, God knows we'll probably need to be at our peak during the
next few days."

Nodding silently, Buffy hugged him short but strongly and took a last look at
their friends, before allowing Angel to practically carry her to Kyle's off-road
vehicle.

When she hid her hands inside the deep pockets of her coat, her fingers stumbled
upon something hard and cold. Xander's keys.

"What about Xander's bike?" she asked, taking out the keys.

Helping her into the car's back seat, Angel took the keys. "I'll take it to the
warehouse, I gather we're going there," he said, looking at the tall Texan.

"Wouldn't you prefer me to take you to your apartment or the girls' one?" Kyle
asked.

"No," Buffy said with conviction, "I wanna be there when they come back."

Nodding, Kyle turned back to Angel. "I'll lead the way."

Kissing Buffy warmly on her temple one last time, the souled vampire rushed to
the place where Xander's bike was parked. Meanwhile, Elvis jumped into the back
seat of the Pathfinder and, whining meekly, laid his furry head on the blonde
Slayer's lap.

Buffy caressed his scalp and let her fingers lose themselves in the animal's
soft hair, finding an odd comfort in the warmth of his large body beside hers.

As the cherry-red vehicle drove away, Michael and Rachel got into the black
Cadillac and, without sharing words, sat down to wait for their friends. They
held hands in silence, their fingers entangled together, finding comfort in each
other's presence.

Looking at Xander and Cordelia, the young woman still holding her lover in her
arms while the young vampire cried quietly in her protective embrace, the two
Immortals could only pray for the night to end – and the next day to be warmer
and easier, on their already overloaded spirits.

~~~~~~

To be continued in DR2 - The Cross of Changes, Book II: Games people play