DR2 - The Cross of Changes by Nick Midian, Book II, part 8 of 8

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 II


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, Broderick Egoyan
Sebastian Spence as Damon Frost
Avery Brooks as Mr. Smith

Mercedes MacNab as Harmony Kendall
Armin Shimerman as Principal Snyder
Amy Chance as Aphrodesia
Persia White as Aura

Alan Rickman as Conrad Swann
Wesley Snipes as Talon Pantera
Dennis Rodman as Rush Pantera
Tom Berenger as Colonel Cabbot Ashe
Michael Ironside as the Sergeant
Trevor Goddard as Backlash
Shaquille O'Neal as Beast
Jet Li as Bushido

with

Kevin Spacey as Robert Coltrane
Nicholas Lea as Jonah Whalls
and
Catherine Zeta-Jones as the Lady in Red

~~~~~~

If the bulky engine floating in the middle of the air, enveloped in a blue glow,
looked like something strange to the two persons inside the garage of the
Archangels' warehouse, neither of them showed any sign to indicate that.

Far from it; Crystal, who was responsible for the levitation spell, guided the
engine using the point of her index finger as if it was a baton, looked bored no
end.

And, when Kyle made an indication towards her to lower the engine on the naked
chassis of Cordelia's VW Beetle as if he was helping her to park a car, the
red-haired witch couldn't help but grunt at him in annoyance.

"Come on, come on," he said, his bright blue eyes fixed on the floating engine
and a strange smile on his lips, "just a little more to the right... a little
more... not so much!"

Cris looked at him, through half-closed eyes. "Don't they make some kind of tool
for this sort of thing?" she asked him, feeling her patience reaching its
limits.

"Sure," he answered with a twisted smile, "but it still turns me on to see you
doing this."

Just raising a cool red eyebrow, the witch made a sharp gesture with her finger
and the engine fell freely the last couple of inches with a suddenness and a
sound of clashing metal that made the tall Texan jump in surprise. "Hey! Watch
out!"

"I should have let it fall on one of your feet," she told him, with a faked
sweet smile. "That would have taught you a lesson."

"Come on, Cris," he practically whispered to her with one of his patented
1000-watt smiles. "You know you can't teach an old dog new tricks."

"You consider yourself old?" she asked him as the Texan rolled up the sleeves of
his faded and dirty jumpsuit, uncovering the two wide leather wrist-bands he
always seemed to wear, and knelt down by the engine, beginning to adjust it to
the different systems of the car.

"I guess so," he said, shrugging and not raising his eyes to look at her. "I'm
32 years old, after all."

She arched her brow, crossing her arms over her chest and getting close enough
to him to make Kyle feel her presence without risking getting her gauzy white
robes dirty with the grease of the dismounted car. "And I'm sixty-one. What's
your point?"

Kyle stopped his work for a brief moment, long enough to give her a look over
his shoulder before resuming his labor. "Don't even try to compare our
situations, Cris. You don't look a day over twenty."

"Well," she smiled widely, a strange happening for her, "that's because I try to
carry on with a healthy life, and you should do the same."

He snorted, shaking his head and then grimacing with effort when he tried to
screw two joints together with his bare hands, an action that was benumbed by
the fact that they were slippery with oil and grease.

Shaking her head and smiling with amusement, Cris finally forgot about her
clothes and knelt down beside him.

"Here," she told him with a smile, "let me help you."

Arching his brow in wonder, Kyle let her take one of the tubes and hold it as he
screwed the joints at the end tightly together.

"You know," she finally said in a intimate tone, without looking straight at
him, "I often think that the only reason I stay young is because I still haven't
found someone to grow old with."

His head turned around to look at her so fast, that Kyle thought he had heard
some of the bones in his neck breaking with the effort and he was definitely
sure that his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets.

But, he didn't find inside himself the strength enough to do anything more than
to let his greasy hands slide over hers. She didn't seem to mind his touch at
all and, when she smiled again at him, he decided that it was a good place to
leave them; at least for a while.

"And, um, do you have any idea of what Mr. Right looks like?" he asked trying to
sound nonchalant, but feeling that the trembling of his voice was betraying his
lame attempt at coolness.

She shrugged. "No, but I'm open to any kind of suggestion."

"Suggestions, huh?" he nodded slowly. "I'll have to keep that in mind."

Almost at the edge of his consciousness, the tall Texan felt his mouth beginning
a slow and doubtful travel towards hers and, much to his own surprise and
wonder, he didn't feel her trying to back off or stop him.

Far from it, he thought he noticed a little spark in her deep jade-green eyes.
He just wished it was the same excitement he was feeling right then.

But, much to the dismay of both of them, the hydraulic hissing sound of the
armored iris that closed the entrance by the sewers opening interrupted them
when there was still a whole world between their faces.

It made them jump apart, as if they had been a couple of kids getting caught
while playing doctor.

Looking at the sudden black hole in the middle of the floor with amazed wide
eyes, the witch and the Texan disentangled their linked hands, feeling suddenly
guilty without really knowing why.

They did so, only to see Spike come out of the hole, taking a hold on the edge
of it to push himself up and then standing on his feet a little unsteadily.

"Hey," he simply acknowledged Crystal's presence, before fixing his cold blue
eyes on the tall Texan's figure. "Cowboy."

"Look, it's the prodigal vampire," he smiled widely, before blinking in
confusion as he stood up to his feet and grabbed a dirty rug to wipe his dirty
hands clean. "Hey, where's your car?"

The bleached-hair vampire smiled sideways and walked closer to Kyle on unsure
feet. "Me car?" he slurred with difficulty. "I'll tell you where's me car,
mate."

Spike brought his right fist back, and swung a wild punch at him that Kyle
eluded with little effort. Nevertheless, the momentum of the failed swing made
the bleached-hair vampire stagger on his feet and he practically fell into the
tall Texan's arms.

Kyle couldn't help but grimace at noticing how much he reeked of Jack Daniel's,
to the point it seemed that Spike had taken a bath in it, instead of drinking
it.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, holding him so he wouldn't fall to the floor, "what do you
think you're-"

His question was cut short when Spike brought his fist back again and, this
time, punched him squarely in the gut, making Kyle double over and grunt in
pain.

Reacting merely on instinct, Kyle returned the blow, punching him in the stomach
and then with and uppercut to his chin that made the bleached-hair vampire
backpedal and almost fall down to the dirty floor.

Shaking his head, Spike felt the unmistakable metallic taste of blood inside his
mouth and stuck his tongue out to test the wound where Kyle's Quantico Naval
Academy ring had broken his lower lip.

"Oooh," he growled, "now you've finally done it, Cowboy."

"Come on, buddy," the raven-haired man said, raising his fists to a defensive
boxing posture, "let's see what you've got."

With a new growl, Spike charged forward like an enraged bull and Kyle brought
his right fist back to receive him with a welcoming hard strike to his face;
but, before there was real contact, Crystal did two things.

The first one was to generate a thin energy field between the two opponents.
Nothing really dangerous, just an electric field thin as a hair that, when they
touched it, produced an explosion of golden sparks. It made both Kyle and Spike
jump back, repelled by the energy and painfully land on the floor right on their
butts.

The second one was to launch a telepathic shout of alert; nothing defined as she
was only able to fully communicate that way with another witch, just a sensation
of danger that would warn whoever was close enough to hear her.

"Stop it, the two of you, right now!" she shouted, when she saw the
bleached-hair vampire and the tall Texan beginning to stand up to their feet.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Hey!" Kyle protested with a frown. "He hit me first!"

"And the only thing that you can think to do is hit him back?" she turned around
to look at Spike, who didn't looked too aware of himself and whose face was
beginning to have a very unhealthy green tone. "And you? You... you're... you're
drunk! What's up with you? Kyle's supposed to be your friend!"

"That's a nice-" Kyle began, before shutting his mouth at the furious glare that
the red-haired witch directed at him.

Ignoring him, Spike staggered back until his back collided against one of the
pillars that supported the whole structure of the warehouse. Then he leaned his
hands on his slightly bent knees, taking long and cleansing breaths through his
nose to control the sudden urge to vomit that engulfed his body.

Spitting out a mix of saliva and blood from his mouth, he shook his head weakly.
"We're not friends," he said, more to himself than to them. "I'm just..." he
shook his head again, laughing almost maniacally, "...a pet with fangs."

Kyle and Cris looked at each other, not knowing what to make of that. "What
the..." Kyle began, before he was interrupted by the rumble of the upcoming
elevator.

"...hell is going on!?" Xander's voice completed for him. The foursome stepped
out of the dark interior of the elevator, the three Immortals with their swords
up and ready as they covered the young brunette woman behind them almost without
thinking on what they were doing.

At seeing that there was nobody other than the three members of their group in
the garage, Xander frowned and lowered the dark blade of his katana, slow and
carefully sheathing it in its scabbard as he walked closer to them.

Elvis came out trotting behind them and padded closer to Spike, taking a sniff
at him from a distance of security and then sneezing with a growl.

The vampire looked at the big German shepherd with hostility and the dog whined,
trotting to Cris' side and them sitting down on his rear legs with an expression
of disgust on his furry face. The red-haired witch silently petted him between
the ears, making him whine in delight.

"Can someone tell me what's going on?" Xander asked warily, looking at them one
by one. "And Cris, please, next time try to lower the volume of your telepathic
screams. You've given all of us a major headache."

"Yeah," Cordelia agreed, hiding behind her back the small gun that nobody seemed
to have noticed in her hands, "I almost fell to the floor."

"These two got into a fight," the red-haired witch said, shaking her finger at
them in a motherly way, "just like two high school bullies."

"He hit me first," the Texan insisted once more, childishly pouting and
scratching the back of his head.

Xander sighed and shook his head tiredly, gave a questioning look to Rachel and
Michael, who silently looked at each other before shrugging helplessly. He then
finally turned to face Spike, who was still leaning on his knees and with his
blue eyes lost on the dirty floor of the garage.

"Cor, baby," he told his girlfriend, offering his sheathed sword to her, "could
you put this in my room, please? And the rest of you, why don't you go upstairs
and do..." he shrugged, "I dunno, do whatever it is you do at this time of day."

"Sure," Cordelia said, accepting the katana. "I'll grab a shower and change, I
have classes in an hour."

Nodding, Xander kissed her tenderly on the lips and the young brunette woman
walked back to the elevator after throwing a last worried look to the
bleached-hair vampire, accompanied by Michael, Rachel, Crystal and Elvis.

"Do you need any help, frère?" the French Immortal asked him in a whisper when
he passed by the young vampire.

"No," Xander whispered back to him, "but Kyle, I would like you to stay here."

The tall Texan opened his mouth to protest, but his action was cut dead by
Xander's severe look and he closed his lips tightly shut, rolling his bright
blue eyes.

Once the rest of their friends had finally gone away, Xander knelt down beside
his blood-brother so he could look straight at his eyes and tilted his head
slightly to one side.

Not for the first time, Spike looked into his young friend's eyes and felt
something there – something unnatural, something that was beyond anything he had
ever known in his unnaturally long existence.

And, not for the first time, he wondered if Xander Harris was really from this
world. The intensity, the warmth, the affection in his dark but gentle brown
eyes was so overwhelming that the bleached-hair vampire felt himself almost
drowning in them.

Xander had something – he had known that since the very first days of their
strange friendship. It was the way in which he could bore right into him and see
what was already there, in which he could cut through the layers of his being
and read directly from his soul, if he still had something inside him that
resembled that.

He wasn't sure if he did. And Spike wasn't sure if he really wanted to have it.

Finally breaking the lock of their stares, Xander took out a half-consumed pack
of cigarettes and offered one to him, bringing another one to his lips after
Spike had accepted it and the lighting them with his golden Zippo.

"Does Cordy know you're smokin' again?" Spike asked, with a half-smile.

"What Cordy doesn't know can't hurt her," Xander said simply, with an
accomplished smile. "Do you wanna tell me what happened?"

Spike simply shrugged, avoiding the look of his eyes. "Why don't ya ask the
Cowboy over there?"

Without uttering a word, Xander turned his head around to look at the tall
Texan. "Care to fill in the gaps, Kyle?"

Crossing his arms over his broad chest, Kyle rolled his eyes. "I don't know what
you're talking about."

The bleached-hair vampire snorted gruffly, and stabbed him with his blood-shot
eyes. "My car. La cucaracha. Ring any bloody bells?"

The tall Texan looked away, and Xander turned his head to look at him seriously.
"Kyle?"

"Well, um, I..." he mumbled a little guiltily, "I may have put some... hydraulic
devices in his car, and a couple of neon lights..."

At Xander's annoyed look, he shrugged helplessly. "Come on, Xand, it was just a
joke, nothing worse that what we've done to each other a hundred times before. I
didn't even activate it, it must've been a short-circuit or something..."

Xander closed his eyes, and shook his head tiredly. "Kyle, I thought we had
reached an agreement, no more practical jokes. You promised."

The tall Texan rolled his eyes. "Well, I also promised not to steal Michael's
Cuban cigars and his reserve of Remy Martin again..."

The two vampires raised their eyes to him and Kyle chuckled nervously, crossing
his arms over his chest. "And... I've never done it again, I swear."

Shaking his head and raising his hand in an 'I-just-don't-want-to-know-it'
gesture, Xander turned around to look back at Spike. "Don't tell me this is all
because you didn't like a joke from the guys, Spike. What's going on?"

The bleached-hair vampire sent a silent look towards Kyle, and Xander signaled
to him to now leave them alone.

"OK, OK, I know when I'm not needed," Kyle sighed, patting his stomach. "You
have a good night, Blondie."

Xander waited till the Texan was out of sight to speak to his blood-brother and
crushed the butt of his cigarette on the floor, letting a cloud of blue-gray
smoke escape from his lungs through his nose. "OK, spit it out."

Letting his back slide down the pillar, Spike sat down on the floor, surrounding
his bent knees with his arms, and looked straight at his younger friend with
tired, almost worn-out, eyes.

"Have you ever felt that your life 'as no bloody point to it, that anythin' ya
do has no real purpose, that... you're not really in control of yer own
actions?" he asked.

Xander arched his brow, and let a soft smile cross his generous lips. "Yeah, for
a long time in my life. It was called adolescence, if I remember it correctly.
But I thought that you passed that stage long ago, like over a century or so."

Spike chuckled good-naturedly and, for the first time that day, the dark-haired
vampire saw in his eyes that spark of unconformity and almost malice that was so
his and smiled along with him. "Well, ya know me, always been a little immature
for me own good."

The younger vampire shrugged. "Nobody said that was a bad thing. Now, tell me,
what's happened that's put you in such an introspective mood? It's not like you
at all."

The bleached-hair vamp observed him from under his dark eyebrows, and finally
shook his head. "It doesn't matter, it's personal, but it's made me think," he
gave a warning look at him, "and I don't wanna hear any comment about that. Do
ya think I've turned into a joke?"

This time, it was Xander's time to frown. "What do you mean?"

"A joke," he shrugged, "a parody of meself. I dunno, I look back, I remember
myself as the big bad Master vampire that was feared all throughout Europe. And
I can't help but think that bein' the target of a redneck's joke, is definitely
a step down from that."

"You really think so?" Xander inquired gently, knowing that they were headed
into really troubled waters. The bleached-hair vampire passed a tired hand
through his peroxide-blonde hair, and shook his head.

"Once, a long time ago, we had a conversation very similar to this one, William.
And that time you told me that one of the things you missed the most, the thing
that Dru had taken with her when she abandoned you, was the respect. Your
self-respect, and the one that others felt for you. Do you remember what I told
you then?"

Spike nodded, not able to hide the smile that came to his face at the
remembrance of that particular moment in his life. Of that tiny room in Seattle,
of the warm bed, the bedside table and the window without bars facing the bay.

Of the long hours spent there, talking, laughing, learning to live again,
rediscovering himself away from the boundaries of Angelus, Drusilla and all the
relationships that he had thought defined himself without hope of recovery or
salvation.

Then, a young and lost boy, with soulful brown eyes and a power he wasn't
completely able to control, had taught him a lesson he hadn't forgotten. There
was still hope for him, there was still the possibility that there would be
space for the man beyond the demon.

But now he wasn't so sure of that. Now, he was beginning to think that it had
all been an illusion, that it had been just another notch on the list of jokes
his unlife was turning out to be.

But he had told him that. Xander had told him that.

"Yeah," he admitted, "that it hadn't been respect, that it had been fear and
that I shouldn't mistake one thing for the other."

"Exactly," Xander almost whispered to him, "and there's only one thing that's
changed since then."

The younger vampire waited for his friend to raise his eyes and look straight at
him, before continuing. "I respect you, Spike. You're my friend and my
blood-brother, you've saved my life more than once and I've done the same for
you."

Silently, Xander offered his hand to him. "I won't let you fall."

Looking at the offered hand almost as if it was enchanted, once again thinking
back to the past, Spike finally reached out and took it in his own, holding onto
it as if it was his lifesaver.

"I won't let you fall," he repeated, looking into his dark brown eyes and,
finally, sharing Xander's warm smile.

=How strange is this bloody world,= Spike thought, as a myriad of feelings,
sensations and faces crossed his mind with perfect clarity. The faces of those
he had killed, of those he had loved, of those he had considered friends or
enemies.

The faces of those who, by definition, had mattered to him.

How strange it was, indeed.

"Oh, no," the older vampire growled, closed his eyes tightly shut.

"What?" Xander asked with a frown.

Spike shook his head, an amused smile on his thin lips. "I've just let the
Cowboy hit me twice. Mate, I'm definitely gettin' old!"

Xander laughed out loud, a dry and amused bark that was soon joined by his
friend's deeper but also clean laughter.

He was about to begin crying when the 'buzz' rocked his stomach unpleasantly,
and he became suddenly silent and cold. Spike noticed immediately the change in
the younger man's expression and quickly jumped to his feet, yanking at Xander's
hand, which was still in his, and dragging him up.

"Hey!" Xander protested. "You're going to rip my arm off, buddy. Don't worry,"
he calmed the bleached-hair vampire, "it's just..."

At that very moment, the sewer entrance opened with a hiss and Buffy stuck her
blonde head out of the hole in the floor, an annoyed expression on her otherwise
beautiful face.

"The Slayer," Spike growled, watching how she crawled out of the hole and stood
up, patting the dirt and the dust from her black pants, "and that means that the
poofy bastard ain't far away too."

As if on cue, Angel came out, following his girlfriend and sending an strange
look towards his two blood-brothers.

"You know?" he asked with a growl. "Either you get my parameters on that bloody
computer or you change the password, because I'm not going to do that damn dance
ever again."

Looking at Spike sideways and exchanging an amused smile with him, Xander got
closer to his friends and reached out with his hand to help the Irish-born
vampire to get completely out of the sewer.

"Oh, come on, Angie, you look so cute doing it. I bet Buffy is agreement with me
on that, aren't you, Buffs?" he asked.

The Slayer just looked at him in silence and, for the first time, Xander noticed
the thick manila file she was carrying under her arm and the severe and nervous
look in her face.

"Something wrong, Buffy?" he asked her gently, half-closing his eyes.

Buffy shifted uncomfortably on her feet, looking away from his tall and dark
figure. "I, uh, I would like to have a word with you," he said, giving Spike a
wary look, "in private if that's possible."

Raising a questioning eyebrow, Xander nodded slowly. "Sure, no problem," he
said, showing her the way to the elevator with his hand. "Let's go to my
office."

Nodding slowly and holding the file tightly against her chest, Buffy got into
the elevator and waited for the rest to join her, never daring to look straight
at Xander's eyes.

Worried, the younger man looked at Angel questioningly and in silence, but the
souled vampire limited himself to a shrug and follow the blonde Slayer, hiding
his hands into the pockets of his coat.

Frowning with puzzlement, Xander and Spike exchanged one last look and, seeing
that they couldn't do anything else, got into the lift behind them.

~~~~~~

Sitting down on the floor, right beside the fireplace, Faith shook her head in
wonder and couldn't help but smile sweetly at her interlocutor.

"Immortals," she whispered almost to herself, tasting the texture of the word on
her lips as if it had gained a new meaning to her. "Who would've thought it
possible?"

Egoyan had said the truth when he had spoken of fairy tales; the words, now
deeply carved into her mind, had mystical shades to her. The Quickening. The
Game. The Prize. Unbelievable. Precious. Unique. Like her Xander.

Broderick Egoyan shared her smile and rolled closer to the seated vampiress,
looking at her carefully. "Now you know why your dear Xander is so special. Is
there something you want to ask?"

"How many of them are there around?" she wondered without looking at him, still
turning the new concept over inside her head. Xander, Immortal and vampire at
the same time. =Wow, absolutely incredible.=

"Between five and ten thousand. It's difficult to calculate their number
exactly, because many of them try to pass unnoticed, and they never really spend
much time in any one place."

"That's a lot of them," she mumbled, biting her lower lip thoughtfully.

The old man shrugged weakly. "Not if you consider that there are more than six
billion men and women walking the Earth, among which they can hide. Compared to
the rest of us, they're like a drop in the ocean."

"And why is it they don't get together and..." she arched her brow and shrugged
helplessly, "I don't know, conquer the world or something?"

"Why don't vampires do the same thing?" he asked her in retaliation.

Faith just sighed. "I still haven't found another vampire I like enough to spend
the rest of the eternity with, ruling the world or otherwise."

"There, then, you have your answer. Half the time they're too busy trying to
kill each other, to even think about that." Egoyan chuckled softly.

After a few seconds to control the cough into which his laughter had turned
into, he sighed deeply and made a silent sign towards Mr. Smith who, as usual,
was waiting for his cue near them in the shadows.

The tall black man walked to him, and left a little square package on his lap.
"How are the rest of the preparations going?" the old man asked him in a low
tone.

"Mr. Frost has already gone out to fulfill his mission," he told Egoyan
efficiently. "Colonel Ashe's group has its instructions and I've recommended to
him to choose some of his best men to accompany Mr. Swann on his quest. Also,
the Pantera brothers are in charge of covering them in case there's any
problem."

"Very well then, we're moving along nicely. Anyway, I'd like you to accompany
the main group, just be sure that everything is taken care of in the correct
way," the crippled man said with a twisted smile, making a new dismissive
gesture towards him.

He then centered his attention back on the former Slayer, when the tall black
man nodded and retreated back into the shadows. "I have a present for you, my
dear."

"Really?" she asked, smiling and raising her brow in childish wonder. "Have you
bought me something pretty?" Taking the package, a narrow box about twenty-five
centimeters long, Faith shook it by her ear.

Something heavy made a loud sound inside it, and the former Slayer almost
squeaked in pleasant delight.

"I guess I'm like an old uncle," Egoyan told her with a sour smile, "I prefer to
give you something useful."

Arching her dark brow, and practically jumping on the spot with impatience,
Faith opened the small box, uncovering what was guarded inside it. When she
finally saw it, the former Slayer frowned with puzzlement.

"What's this?" she asked, turning the box around so the old man could see its
content.

It was a knife, forged from a single block of bronze-like metal; with a
twenty-centimeter long and twisted blade that resembled a flame, that left the
rest of its length to be used as a crude handle.

The manufacture was simple to say the least and, although the blade seemed sharp
as a sheet of paper, its whole appearance was more the work of an amateur than
the one of real craftsmanship.

The only special sign that the weapon seemed to have was a strange writing all
along the flaming blade, deeply carved in the metal and in a language she wasn't
able to read or understand.

They were like hieroglyphics to her, not the ones she had seen in old movies
like 'The Mummy'; but as crude as the rest of the knife, as if they had been
made by a child.

Egoyan looked at her intently, with that vulture-like smile again on his lips
and motioned for her to take the weapon in her hands. "Take it out of the box,
my dear. Feel its weight in your hands."

A little doubtfully at first, Faith held the box in her left hand and touched
the metallic surface of the knife with the fingertips of her right one.

And then she yanked them away, as if it was burning her.

"What have you felt?" the old man asked, in a haunting tone.

"It-it..." she shook her head in amazement, her brown eyes fixed on the golden
knife with magnetic intensity. "It was vibrating, almost as if it was..." she
shook her head in wonder and closed her eyes, trying to find the right words,
"...singing to me."

"Take it," he insisted. "Take it and hold it, Faith."

Licking her lips with nervousness, Faith reached out for the knife once more and
this time took it into her right hand by its handle, taking it out of the box
and holding it as carefully as if it was alive.

She felt again what she had felt the first time, the shaking as if it was alive
and wanted to get free from her grasp. The tickling in her hand that was quickly
transmitted to her arm and the rest of her body, and the music... a haunting
melody of Oriental tones, sounding almost at the edge of her consciousness like
an illusion, making her understand somehow that she was the only one hearing it.

The tickling sensation faded away, replaced by a beating one as if that
inanimate object had a heart of its own and it would be coming back to life in
her hands. And then, in front of her own brown eyes, the writings on the blade
of the knife seemed to melt, as if the hard metallic surface had the consistency
of a pool of water.

Then they rearranged by themselves into something she was able to read. Simple
and ordinary English.

"You who hold this sacred blade," she read in loud voice, turning the knife to
finish the legend on the other side, "know that you are the Chosen One."

She raised her brown eyes to Egoyan's icy blue ones in wonder and question.
"What does this mean?"

The old man in wheelchair smiled with predatory delight. "That means that the
sacred dagger of Adjanti, the demon killer, recognizes you as its true bearer,"
he said, reciting the words as if he was directly quoting them from a book, "for
it can only be borne by a true Slayer."

She smiled, her eyes still captivated by the reflection of the fire in the
polished surface of the dagger's blade. "And what can it do, exactly?"

"What its name says," he explained to her, "it kills demons and, my dear, that's
the only way you can get your Xander back."

"What are you talking about?" she practically exclaimed, turning her head around
to look at him at the mere sound of her childe's name.

The old man sighed once more and turned his chair around, wheeling himself away
from her and making the brunette Slayer stand up to follow him. "Xander Harris
is an abomination, a mistake of nature," he said, quickly raising his hand to
stop her obvious protest at his offensive words.

"Don't misunderstand me, please – what I mean is that he shouldn't be as
powerful as he is. The combination of his vampire and Immortal abilities makes
him almost a demi-god, a being too powerful to be allowed to even exist."

The old Chess Player paused. "I doubt he understands it, but..." he stopped by
the chess-board to look at the small figures on it with an absent expression,
and for a short second he seemed to be a thousand miles away, "...his fate
wasn't meant to be that one."

Faith looked at him with intrigued expression; she knew with absolute, almost
maniacal, certainty that there was something that the old man was hiding from
her. Something that he didn't want her to know. But, there was no way she was
able to figure what it was.

"As long as he's so powerful you won't have a chance to bring him back to your
side. That why I've given you that present, darling. Use it," he looked at her
from under his ivory-white brow, "but do so wisely."

"And," Faith shook the dagger, "what am I supposed to do with this?"

Egoyan seemed sincerely surprised. "Really, dear! I thought that was pretty
obvious," he explained with a smile that was like a razor, thin, cold and
dangerous. "You'll have to plunge it into his heart."

~~~~~~

Michael took a short second to check his entire appearance in the vanity mirror
of his room and found, much to the boost of his own ego, that he liked what he
saw there.

The black Armani suit and the deep blue shirt looked damn good on his slightly
lanky and athletic body. His Italian leather shoes and his expensive gold Rolex
identified him as a wealthy man with elegant taste, and even his neatly combed
light-brown hair had each one of its little members into their right places.

In his modest opinion, he just rocked.

"And now," he said while opening the closet to choose an adequate tie, "la piéce
de résistancé."

Brushing her teeth and covering her beautiful body with a fluffy pink bathrobe,
a large towel rolled up on top of her head to help her long and wet mane of hair
to dry, Rachel had to make a deep effort not to burst out in laughter when she
came out of the bathroom.

Because her lover was going through his seeming endless collection of ties, as
he tonelessly hummed James Brown's 'Sex Machine' and swayed his hips at the
rhythm of the song.

"You know," she said to his back, "if you were just a little more full of
yourself, I think you would explode. Is that a French-only quality or
something?"

"Who, moi?" he offered her a wicked smile over his shoulder. "Non, you're
mistaking me for Spike. He is the one full of himself, I'm just conscious of my
enormous physical charm, chèrie."

She limited her response to the rising of an incredulous eyebrow, and got close
enough to him to lay a hand possessively on his right ass-cheek. "You just don't
forget that all that enormous... charm is for me only, OK loverboy?"

Michael's wicked smile just grew wider. "Are you going to go all jealous and
possessive on me, Rach? Because I may even enjoy that, you know I love to see
you..." he wiggled his eyebrows, "...unleashed."

Rachel looked at him seriously. "Remember that there is Latin blood running
through my veins, and that we Spanish women don't like to play some games."

The French Immortal rolled his dark blue eyes. "Yes, you don't have to tell me,
I was there in 1808 during the Spanish War of Independence," he whistled in
admiration "Boy, those women knew how to make a French guy run!"

Chuckling in amusement, Rachel took the tie he had chosen and put it around the
collar of his shirt, careful and lovingly lacing the knot around his neck. "You
know I love you, don't you?"

He arched his brow, surprised and not knowing where that had come from. "Of
course I do, mon amour."

He tilted his head to one side and raised his hands to take her wrist and,
caressing the soft skin of her arms, gently took her hands away from his tie,
placing a soft and loving kiss first on her left palm and then on her right one.
"And I've always loved you, right from the beginning."

She looked at him with her soulful brown eyes filled with emotion and, for a
short instant, it seemed to the French Immortal that she was going to start
crying. "So then why did we have to wait seventy long years to act on it?"

He shrugged and shook his head, sighing. "I guess we're not as smart as we'd
like to believe," he told her with a soft smile. Then he grimaced, and kissed
her on the forehead. "And now, my love, I have to go out."

"Wait a second," Rachel asked him, finishing up lacing the knot of his tie and
smoothing carefully its silk surface. Then she noticed the small drawings on it,
and frowned with a quirky smile.

"Marvin the Martian?" she recognized the Loony Tunes' character.

"What can I say?" he shrugged helplessly, with that wicked and playful smile
that was so his. "I'm a child at heart, chèrie."

The brunette Immortal just shook her head with a resigned look and kissed him
slowly and lovingly on the lips, allowing herself the pleasure of merging her
body with his for a short moment.

"Come on," she slapped him on the ass playfully, "you're going to be late."

Michael just groaned and took his heavy black coat, checking that his rapier was
hidden in its place and putting it on. Then, exiting his bedroom and walking out
of the private area, he knocked on Xander's door, calling the name of his
friend's girlfriend. "Cordelia? I'm going out, do you want me to take you to the
college?"

"Sure!" the young brunette said as she opened the door, still putting on her
jacket. "Thank you, Michael. I'm already late."

With a welcoming nod, the French Immortal helped her to put on her coat and,
after grabbing her purse, the two of them walked out into the warehouse's main
area, crossing paths with Spike as the bleached-hair vampire walked to his own
bedroom.

"Hey, Spike," Michael called his attention. "Are you alright?"

Spike just looked at him darkly and, for a moment, none of them was very sure if
he was going to smile or rip Michael's throat out with his bare hands.

"I know you 'ad somethin' to do with my little automotive problem, Frenchie," he
finally told the French Immortal.

Michael just chuckled nervously, rolling his eyes as if he didn't know what the
bleached-hair vampire was talking about, and failing miserably in his intent.

"I just want ya to know that I plan on gettin' back at ya for this, mate. The
Cowboy and you should begin lookin' over your shoulders from now on," Spike
said.

"Geez, Spike, I so don't know what you're talking about..." Michael shrugged
with an innocent expression.

The British vampire just raised a cool and dark eyebrow. "Consider yourself
warned, mate. By the way," he added as he began to walk towards his own bedroom,
"the Slayer and the wanker are 'ere."

"I already know that," he said, "I felt the 'buzz' a couple of minutes ago."

"Really?" he asked with an incredulous expression. "And 'as your gut also told
ya that she's dragged Xander into the bleedin' lab, to 'ave a private
conversation?"

The French Immortal frowned at hearing this, and his bleached-hair friend just
shrugged before disappearing into the interior of his room. "If you want to know
my opinion, there's some very black clouds on the 'orizon, mate."

Cordelia looked at the light-brown haired man with a worried expression. "What
is that supposed to mean?"

Michael half-closed his eyes, giving her a dark look. "Let's go see."

Not waiting for the young woman to follow him, Michael quickly walked the
distance to the lab with long and decided steps finding that, effectively,
Xander was already in deep conversation with Buffy and Angel.

"Hey guys," he saluted them, almost immediately feeling the tense air between
them; and the worried and almost severe expression on the blonde Slayer's
beautiful face, when she returned his salute with a sharp nod.

"I heard that you were here and, as I was going to take Cordy to class I was
wondering if you wanted me to take you with us," he said.

"No, thanks Michael," Buffy replied a little sternly. "We have something to talk
about with Xander."

Michael looked at his friend and the young vampire just shrugged at him and,
although his smile was wide and sincere, the French Immortal didn't miss the
look of worry in his brown eyes.

"Hi, Buffy," Cordelia finally greeted her friend. "Aren't you going to go to
class now?"

The Slayer rolled her eyes. "I guess I'll pass today."

"Really?" Xander exchanged a short yet meaningful look with Michael out of the
corner of his eye. As the French Immortal motioned Xander to join him away from
them, the brunette young woman engaged her other two friends in meaningless
chat.

"How was your night?" she smiled sweetly at them.

Elsewhere in the room, the French Immortal started to get worried. "What's going
on, mon frère?" Michael asked his friend and pupil in a low voice

Xander took a short look at Buffy out of the corner of his eye and sighed,
shaking his head. "I had a word yesterday with Robert, and it seems that someone
leaked the facts of Sunday's operation to the Watcher's Council."

"I'll be damned..." Michael growled succinctly, passing a hand over his face.
"OK, I guess we still can control this – but what are we going to tell them?"

Xander smiled sadly and shook his head in denial. "The truth I guess, I just
hope she can accept it. But I thought you had a date with Joyce."

"Nothing that can't be cancelled," he said. "And you need my help more right
now."

"No," Xander told him. "I have to do this myself, Michael. It's my
responsibility."

The French Immortal shook his head in wonder and laid his hands on Xander's
shoulders, looking intensely at his deep eyes. "I've always said that there was
something really tough inside you, little chicken."

The young vampire groaned and rolled his eyes in annoyance, before looking
around to see if anyone had heard his friend. "Please don't call me that,
Michael. I know it's a Japanese legend – Momotaro, the peach-boy and all that –
but it's embarrassing."

Michael couldn't help but chuckle. "Well, mon frère, he was a demon slayer."

"Still, it's a ridiculous name."

Sharing warm smiles, they looked at each other in silence for a short moment
until, finally, Michael sighed and shook his head in wonder, knowing when he had
to let his pupil fly under his own power. "I just hope you know what you're
doing, Xander."

The young vampire just shrugged, taking a sideways look at the blonde Slayer;
and, even when it seemed that both Buffy and Angel were deeply engrossed in
Cordelia's endless and pointless ranting, she returned it in silence, their eyes
locked for an tense moment. "I hope so too, Michael. I really hope so too."

~~~~~~

A few moments later, after Michael had finally gone away alone as Cordelia
decided to stay, Xander returned to his friends' side and propped himself onto
one of the desks, crossing his legs.

"Well, Buffy, you wanna tell me what's on your mind, or do you prefer to wait
for Giles?" he asked her.

"How do you know he's going to come?" the blonde Slayer asked, with a suddenly
suspicious tone.

Xander shrugged, removing importance to the matter. "Just an educated guess," he
said, looking straight at Buffy with his calm eyes. "Well, what's it gonna be?"

Buffy finally sighed, shaking her blonde head, and turned to face Cordelia. "I
would like to talk with Xander alone."

The brunette just raised an eyebrow coolly, crossing her arms over her chest and
leaning back against one of the desks, stating very clearly with her body
language that she didn't have any intention of going anywhere.

"I guess all of us can have hopes," she said simply.

Arching her brow, the blonde Slayer looked at her boyfriend in search for help
but found, much to her own surprise, that Angel limited his supporting actions
to a lopsided half-smile as he watched the whole scene with his hands crossed in
front of his lap. He shrugged and tilted his head to one side, motioning for her
to continue.

"Buffy?" Xander called her attention.

The Slayer finally shook her head and, after a short moment to gather her errant
thoughts, offered the manila file to the young vampire. "Can you explain this to
me?"

Raising an eyebrow, Xander took the offered item and flipped slowly through the
pages and pictures there, until he closed it with a tired sigh. He shut his eyes
and massaged the bridge of his nose, finding that the images, the blood, the
bodies, were carved inside his eyelids, the same way that they were in his soul
and in his nightmares.

For a second, the metallic and lustful taste of the blood came back to his mouth
as if it was still fresh on his lips. He felt as if he were drowning in it.

"What do you want me to say, Buffy?" the vampire asked in a ragged growl, not
bothering in trying to feign surprise.

"That you didn't do it," she told him almost in a whisper. "That you didn't have
anything to do with that."

Xander lowered his eyes for a second, letting them run over the rough surface of
the file, before fixing them back on his friend's figure with magnetic
intensity. "Do you want me to lie?"

Buffy shook her head. "No... I..." She hid her face in her hands and took a long
and silent breath, trying to calm her confused feelings. Fear. Angst. Worry.
Pain. Anger... she just couldn't file them under one single category.

"Why?" she simply asked after a moment of silence.

"What is she talking about?" Cordelia asked him softly, a trembling note of
worry in her voice. When Xander didn't answer her and his eyes wandered away
from hers after sending a doubtful, almost afraid, look at her, Cordelia reached
out for the file, taking it from the young vampire's hands before he could do
anything to prevent it.

"Cordy, no!" he exclaimed, jumping off the desk to retrieve the file. "Give me
that!"

"Xander!" she practically shouted, keeping the file out of his reach. "Is this
about what happened last Sunday? What you told me about?"

Buffy looked at the couple's exchange with surprise and got even more surprised
when he saw the expression in the young vampire's eyes. They was centered on
Cordelia, incredibly large and sad, scared, desperate.

He nodded slowly and looked at the floor, as if he was accepting some horrible
fate. "Please, Cordy," he begged her, "give me those pictures back."

Cordelia looked at him for a short moment, then at his extended hand and then at
the closed file in her hands.

"If I open this," she said slowly and in a low tone, "what will I see?"

The young vampire looked at her, and licked his own lips. Then, with the
saddest, most heart-breaking expression she had ever seen in a man, he shook his
head and lowered his eyes to the floor once more, unable to see the expression
of her hazel eyes. "You'll see me. What I do. What I am."

Cordelia opened the file and looked at it. Xander closed his eyes, letting
himself fall back against the desk as his shoulders sank down in defeat. He had
been ready to face Buffy, Giles, Angel, whoever – but with Cordelia... he wasn't
sure he could make it.

He knew that, at this very moment, his whole life was in her slender hands.

The brunette's face went pale, the breath was cut short on her lips and she had
to cover her mouth with her hand to choke down a sob.

So much blood. So much death. The open wounds called to her like obscene mouths,
the torn flesh turned into swollen labia, the insides of the bodies exposed to
the air and the objective of the camera.

It was the coldness of the pictures that affected her the most, the way they had
been captured by the coroner's eye as if they were nothing more than pieces of
meat, impersonal objects to be examined, cataloged and studied.

They had been real people, and now they were nothing more than corpses. Without
names. Without pasts. Without futures.

And the man she loved most in all the world had made them that way. He had
killed them.

Closing the file with trembling hands, she raised her eyes to him, seeing his
figure blurred by the tears threatening to come out of them.

The dichotomy between the man she knew, the one that held her naked body at
night, that filled her with so much tenderness and love, and the one that was
responsible for these killings, the ruthless vampire, the merciless warrior, was
so strong that she wasn't able to reconcile those two parts together as she
thought she had been able to do before.

Maybe it was that she had never really seen the real evidence of his work, that
she had never had to face the crude results of his job, maybe it was that she
wasn't as strong or hard as she had believed herself to be...

She didn't know, but, just for a second, she felt the need to, as Buffy had done
mere minutes ago, ask him why. To know the reasons. The know the truth.

She felt that she didn't really know him. Was he the killer that the photos
showed, or the lover that had melted her heart? Was he the man or the vampire?
The human or the monster?

Maybe both. Maybe neither.

Leaving the file on the desk as if its mere contact burned her skin, fighting
down the tears as if they were poisoning her, Cordelia looked straight at him,
at his soulful and now darkened brown eyes.

At the fighter behind them, at the demon, at the man and, beyond all of them, at
the lost and lonely boy he had once been, that still lived in a hidden, dark
part of himself.

And, as if she could see straight into his soul, she knew and she understood. It
frightened her as much as it surprised her. But the ease with which she was able
to submerge herself into his being, the lack of barriers that appeared in front
of her as she dived into the most twisted and inaccessible nooks of his heart
and soul was practically absolute.

She saw the pain and the resolve. The shame and the strength. The glory of the
vampire and the man linked one to the other into an endless, indissoluble single
being. As if she was able to see all that had happened that night through his
eyes, to feel what he had felt, to see it all as he had seen it, she understood.

The fear of his own impulses, the hate and the horror towards the monsters he
had faced, the exhilarating sensation of the hunt, the worry for the lives of
the innocents at stake...

It was dark, it was overwhelming, it was more than what she was able to bear.
And finally, Cordelia felt her own mind slipping away engulfed by a fog that
obscured all her senses, making her knees go weak and beginning to fall down to
the floor, while a moan escaped her lips.

Almost immediately, her three friends moved to help her, but it was Xander's
unnatural speed that gave him the edge and he was able to take the falling
brunette into his arms before she actually hit the ground.

"Cordy?" he called her, his heart beating fast and furious with worry as he
checked her pulse. It was as fast as his was, but strong and steady and,
although she was ghastly pale and her breathing was ragged and elaborated, she
seemed to be all right otherwise.

"What's happened to her?" Buffy asked him, leaning over his shoulder as the
young vampire kneeled softly to take Cordelia fully into his arms and carry her
to a more comfortable place.

"I don't know," Xander told the Slayer without looking at her. It was a lie, of
course, but a mild one.

The truth was that he had felt something strange, something that he couldn't
define or explain, as if he had been suddenly able to see himself through her
eyes. As if he was inside her and she inside him, the two of them mixed into
one, not knowing when their separate beings ended or began.

It was strange, wonderful and scary at the same time, and he didn't know what to
think of it.

"She seems to have fainted," Angel said, checking the young brunette's pulse
again when Xander gently laid her on the larger couch of the rest area, "but I
think she's alright now."

The older vampire looked at his blood-brother and noticed with worry that, as he
looked down at his fallen love, he seemed to be completely lost and understood
that what was about to happen was going to mark an important difference in their
relationship.

There was something at the back of his mind, a name, a definition – something
that explained what he had just seen happening between his two friends, but that
he wasn't able to correctly point out.

A word popped into his mind then but, shaking his head, Angel dismissed it. It
was just impossible.

"Buffy," he called his own girlfriend, coming back to the present, "we should
postpone this for later."

The blonde Slayer nodded slowly, her hazel eyes fixed with worry on Cordelia's
pale face. "Yeah, I guess we..."

"No," Xander cut her off with a ragged voice, his eyes never leaving his lover's
closed ones as he softly caressed her hair as if she was a resting child.
"Whatever you need to know, just ask it now, Buffy."

Buffy looked at him in silence for a short moment, trying to find any sign of
her dear old friend in the man that, in front of her, tried to not show how
worried he was for the woman he loved.

There were signs of the old Xander in him, and sometimes she was able to see
them; the way he cared, the way he smiled, the way he laughed and loved and made
them all better people just with his presence.

But at the same time, she wasn't able to figure where the other part of him had
come from. She knew it wasn't due to the demon inside him – the fighter, the
leader of that team of ruthless hunters that the Archangels seemed to be, had
been born after the horrible happenings of nearly four years before.

Or maybe it had been there all the time, and she had been the one who hadn't
been able to see it previously. Buffy wasn't sure about anything anymore.

Xander was her friend. Michael and the rest were her friends, she wanted to
believe that. God help her, she was even beginning to like Spike.

But what she had seen in those pictures, the cold description of the wounds in
the coroner's report, were deeply etched into her mind as if they had been
carved with fire onto her brain.

Entry bullet-hole... massive blood loss... tearing of the inner tissue...

So much... too much... it wasn't right.

"Why?" she asked him again, as if that single word summarized all her confused
feelings.

Xander sighed deeply, like a balloon losing all its air and, after a short
moment to gather all his thoughts, got up from the couch, gently and amorously
covering Cordelia with a blanket and then placing a soft kiss on her forehead.

"What do you want me to say, Buffy?" he said as he walked back to the lab
without waiting to see if his friends followed him or not. "Do you want to hear
something that eases your pain, or do you prefer the truth?"

Like a spectator at a tennis match, Angel sat in a chair, following the exchange
between his girlfriend and his blood-brother with his eyes. He didn't like how
things looked, and had the heartfelt suspicion that nothing good would come out
of this conversation.

Nevertheless, he also knew that it wasn't his call, it was Buffy's and Xander's.
And, no matter how much he hated it, he couldn't do anything more than to watch
and pray for them.

"I want the truth," Buffy stated, with less sureness than what she intended. "I
think I deserve it."

Xander didn't answer her immediately; he just sent a curious look at her over
his shoulder and grabbed of one of the phones, quickly dialing the number of
Kyle's private extension.

After a short moment, the tall Texan took it in his room and answered the call
with a lazy, "Whassup?"

"Kyle?" Xander said. "I'm in the lab, could you come here for a moment?"

The young vampire placed the phone carefully on its cradle, and turned around to
face the Slayer. "The truth?" he shook his head. "The truth is plain and simple,
Buffy: we did what had to be done."

"Oh, yeah?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against
one of the desks. "And who decided what had to be done, Xander? You?"

Nodding slowly, Xander fixed his dark brown eyes on her. "Yes, Buffy. I did it,
it was my responsibility and duty as the leader of this team, and I accept it
with all charges and consequences. There were innocent lives at stake and our
job was to save them, period. And that's what we did."

"For God's sake, Xander," Buffy said, finding herself unable to hold the intense
stare of his eyes. "They were human beings! You killed them, and you sound as if
you're proud of it! Don't tell me you are, please."

"Of killing them?" he shook his head in denial. "No, I'm not proud of that, but
you won't hear me asking excuses for it, either."

He walked close to her, looking down at her with the advantage that his superior
height gave him. "What I'm proud of is my friends, the members of my team, of
what we did and the lives we saved. Yes, Buffy, they were human beings and we
killed them."

Buffy turned around, not really wanting to hear what he was saying, but Xander
didn't stop, knowing that he had to state it clearly, for better or worse. "We
did it with swords and bullets, with fangs and claws, with technology and magic,
but I guess that the exact mechanics of it don't really matter right now. It's
the intentions that count, and you have to believe that ours were the right
ones."

Buffy shook her head, passing a tired hand through her blonde mane. "And that's
all? They were the bad guys, you were the good guys – they died, you won, and
that's it?"

Xander arched his brow, considering it. "As a résumé, I've heard worse."

She just sent him an annoyed look. "This is serious, Xander."

"Are you hearing me laughing, by any chance?" he answered her with a sour look.

"You want to make it look simple," Buffy insisted passionately, turning around
to look straight at his eyes, "but it's not simple at all. There are some rules
and I know they're hazy and complicated, and yes, sometimes very hard to follow,
but we have to follow them. And if there's one rule I have clear, it's the one
that says that we're the good guys and that we don't kill human beings, unless
it is absolutely and impossibly unavoidable."

Xander half-closed his eyes, boring with his gaze into her. "They had guns,
Buffy, what were we supposed to..."

"Oh, please," she protested, "don't you even try to play the self-defense card
with me, Xander! I've seen you fight, I've seen what your team's able to do –
you and I know that a bunch of guys with Uzis are no match for the Archangels.
That... brotherhood, or whatever they were, never had a chance against you."

The young vampire remained silent and finally leaned back against one of the
desks. "What do you really want me to say then, Buffy? What do you want to
hear?"

"A justification, Xander. The real reason why you and your group killed
thirty-seven human beings last Sunday," she told him.

Her hazel eyes were clear and sincere; she wanted him to give it to her, to hear
something from him that allowed her to rest peacefully at night, knowing that
everything was in place and that there was a place for everything.

But Xander Harris knew that the world didn't work that way, and it hurt his
heart and soul to be the one to make her understand it.

"It had to be done," he stated, not wanting to raise the tone of his voice, but
feeling the need to defend his beliefs and actions.

He continued, "You may not want to hear or believe it, Buffy, but that's how
things are. Those people were scum – they were going to sacrifice twenty
children, do you hear me? Twenty children! And for what? So they could be some
goddamn liege-lords in a new creation, while the rest of us rotted in Hell."

He looked at her with all the intensity of his brown eyes, pinning her to the
floor with his gaze. "We. Did. What. Had. To. Be. Done."

"No!" Buffy shouted, not believing her ears. "That's not how we do things,
Xander. We're not God, we don't have the right to decide who lives and who
dies!"

"Then who?" he asked with a snort. "The police? The courts?"

She nodded eagerly. "Well, that's supposed to be the American way."

"Great," he shook his head in amazement, "twelve people so stupid that they
aren't able to get out of jury duty, manipulated by legal snakes without ethics
that do anything for money."

Xander snorted. "Yeah, try explaining to them that a group of psychos was trying
to bring forth a demon from the pits of Hell. How much time do you think the
lawyers would have needed to put them back on the street?"

Buffy massaged her temples tiredly, trying to erase some of the tension
accumulated there without having any success at all. "There's a word for the
kind of action you're suggesting, Xander."

"Yes," he agreed. "Justice."

"No," she shook her head, the hazel eyes bright with passion, "it's vigilante."

"Who's a vigilante?" Kyle asked while walking into the lab, his right hand full
with a little mountain of peanuts that he was putting into his mouth one by one.
The tall Texan looked at each one of his friends clueless, as he munched the
peanuts like a happy elephant.

"Kyle," Xander ignored his question and signaled to the main computer, "please,
boot this up and load last Sunday's operation files."

The raven-haired man blinked repeatedly as if he hadn't heard right and, after
giving a short look at Buffy and Angel, looked at Xander as if he had gone
completely crazy. "Are you sure you wanna do that? I mean, I thought that-"

"Just do it," the young vampire practically growled at him, turning the
operator's chair around so Kyle could sit on it.

The tall Texan shook his head once more and sighed, slapping his hands clean
over a paper basket. "OK, Xand, you're the boss."

Sitting down in front of the computer, clearing his throat and cracking his
knuckles, Kyle introduced the password to disable the running screensaver and,
making his fingers fly over the keyboard, quickly called up the requested files
until they appeared on the screen.

"It's a case closed, so they're encrypted," he warned Xander, "I'll need a
minute to make them readable."

"What are you doing?" Buffy asked, getting close so she could see the screen
over Kyle's shoulder, followed in silence by Angel's dark figure.

Xander sat on the edge of the desk, right beside the computer, and looked at her
patiently. "It's obvious that I'm not succeeding in making you understand my
point of view, so I'm going to show you how we, how I saw it, Buffy. I can't
guarantee you'll like or even understand it, but I swear it's the truth. It's
all I can give you, Buff."

She nodded slowly. "It's the only thing I ask."

"OK then," he said, looking at the screen to see it the data was finally
appearing on it. As the first documents and pictures began to fill the large
screen, Xander closed his eyes for a moment.

Trying to find the strength inside himself to fight that battle, the most
difficult one he had faced in the last few years, the one that he wasn't sure he
would be able to win.

He knew what he had done, and he knew why he had done it. But although he knew
that under the same circumstances, he would do it again – in his innermost core,
the doubts flooded into the nooks and corners of his soul as they used to do in
the darkest hours of the night.

He questioned himself, the sincerity of his acts, the real reasons between them.
Had he done the right thing? Was Buffy right? Had there been another way to do
it that he had ignored, one he hadn't seen or that he hadn't wanted to see?

As he raised his eyes to look at Buffy and saw the hard stares of her hazel orbs
fixed on him, he felt the cold ball of icy uncertainty establishing in his
belly. He just didn't know.

~~~~~~

"Are you alright?" Carol Prestwick asked Joyce, introducing her head into the
small bathroom of the middle-aged woman's office through the narrow crack of the
opening.

"I heard some noises," the younger brown-haired woman said with a grimace that
was half-worry and half-loathing, "and you sounded pretty sick."

Joyce shut her eyes and counted slowly from one to ten to calm down, and avoid
herself the embarrassment of making a scene. She was wondering all the while,
why she had chosen Carol to replace the late Harold Moyer as her assistant at
the art gallery where she worked.

Not that she wasn't efficient at her work; the problem was that she was also
annoying, restless and wouldn't close her mouth even if someone dunked her head
into a bucket of water. Which was an idea she was playing with more and more
often, recently.

"I'm alright, Carol," she said in a barely controlled voice, "something I had
for breakfast must have disagreed with my stomach."

"OK," the younger woman nodded, "I'm out here if you need me for anything. By
the way!" she added as an afterthought, smiling with a strange expression of
complicity, "There's a man asking for you. A real dish, if you wanna know my
opinion."

=As if saying anything to the contrary would make any difference,= Joyce thought
to herself, managing to give her a tight smile. "Thanks, Carol. I'll be out in a
minute."

When the younger woman finally took her head out and closed the door, Joyce
groaned, rolling her eyes before taking a good look at her reflection in the
mirror. She'd been feeling sick the whole morning and, although she'd had just a
very light breakfast, it seemed to be on bad terms with her stomach and she had
just lost it all into the lavatory.

The last time vomiting had been a fun activity was in her college years, and it
had involved too much booze and disco music, not food poisoning.

=Or maybe it's just the flu,= she thought, feeling her entire body aching as it
hadn't done in years.

Anyway, she was a grown woman and she wasn't going to let a little morning
sea-sickness overcome her. So she just freshened herself up and, after checking
her general appearance in the mirror, came out the bathroom in search for
Carol's tasty dish, retrieving her purse and coat in the process.

She found Michael Deveraux in the exposition gallery, attentively examining one
of the pictures with a small frown on his handsome face, now and then tilting
his head to one side.

"It's titled 'Portrait of Angst, Three'," she told him with a soft smile. "It's
the work of one of our more talented local patrons. Do you like it?"

With a tight smile on his lips, Michael just arched his brow and shrugged
softly. "I don't know what to say," he told the middle-aged woman with a
chuckle, turning around to look back at the painting.

It was composed of a series of black and white spots on a crimson surface and,
as a conclusion, someone had glued a used fork right in the middle of it.

If he got close enough, Michael thought he was able to see some traces of
spaghetti still on it. He shook his head in wonder. "I guess I'm still trapped
in the Impressionist era, I just can't understand this modern art. If you can
call this art."

Joyce smiled softly, and shook her head. "The artist is the niece of the
gallery's owner," she confessed to him in a secretive tone. "But don't tell that
to anyone."

"Well, nepotism is universal," he said with a smile, before stopping to take a
good look at his interlocutor. "Are you alright, Mrs. Summers? You look a little
pale."

"I'm alright, thanks for your concern. And it's Joyce, Mr. Deveraux."

The French Immortal nodded slowly, taking her hand in his to shake it. "Très
bien, it's Michael then."

"Why Michael?" she asked as they began to walk to the gallery's exit. "I mean,
why not use your real name?"

He shrugged, raising an eyebrow. "I don't know, someone began to call me that a
long time ago. During the Civil War, if I remember correctly. And I guess I've
just grown accustomed to it."

"The Civil War? The American Civil War?" she asked in amazement. At the French
Immortal's nod of affirmation she smiled with wonder, shaking her blonde head.
"Even after all the things I've seen here, all the things Buffy and Rupert have
told me, I still find it hard to believe this kind of thing. You look so...
young."

Michael chuckled softly. "You can believe me, when I say that these old bones of
mine... they have all the weight of my 300-plus years on them."

He shrugged, taking a short look around himself. "Sometimes I don't know if this
thing, this immortality is a gift or a curse, Joyce. This world changes so fast,
and it seems to change faster and faster with each passing century. I..."

He paused. "Sometimes I feel that it has all just passed me by, I..." he shook
his head once more, cutting himself off and chuckling self-consciously as they
resumed their walk. "Well, I do not want to get introspective and bore you."

"No, please," she told him with an understanding smile, "I want to know all
these things. Buffy will have to go through them all, and I want to help her as
long as I can. She won't talk to me about them, she doesn't like to do so, but I
need to know. Please, continue."

The French Immortal looked at the blonde woman in amazement and, although he
guessed Joyce had the same flaws as any other normal human being, he thought
that Buffy was lucky to have her as her mother. She was lucky...

He blinked a few moments, closing his dark blue eyes; so much time had passed,
that he sometimes had problems remembering his own mother's name.

"Do you still want to eat something?" he asked her. "If you're not feeling well,
we can leave it for later."

"No, it's OK," Joyce nodded. "Truth is, I'm beginning to feel a little hungry.
There's a restaurant near here, we could go there and get something light to
eat."

"Sounds good to me," Michael agreed as they crossed the street to the mentioned
restaurant.

It looked like a nice place, with some metallic tables and chairs outside so the
customers could enjoy the usually nice Californian weather while they consumed
their meals, and a large window so the ones in the interior would have, at
least, a good view of the street.

There was a park nearby and, as it was a clear day in contrast with clouded last
few ones, it was full of life and laughter with young mothers, little children
and working people enjoying the weak December sun during their lunch hour.

As said, a very nice place.

Michael was about to put his foot on the tarmac to cross the street, when Joyce
grabbed him by the shoulder. She yanked him back, just in time to stop him from
being run over by a shiny and brand new silver Aston Martin, that seemed to
emerge out of nowhere.

The British sports car stopped with a screech of punished tires a mere two
inches from Michael's knees, its whole frame shaken by the kinetic of its
movement.

Startled by the suddenness of it all, for a short moment Michael wasn't able to
do anything more than stare at the deeply tinted glass of the windshield, trying
to discern something through its pitch black surface without success.

Still, the French Immortal felt strangely drawn to it, feeling his heart beating
at a fast and wild pace, as if something or somebody was calling him from the
other side.

The driver, whoever he was, made the engine roar twice in a menacingly way, as
if he was trying to warn him. 'Get outta my way, or I'll turn you into an
omelet.'

Strange.

Michael stepped back to the walkway and the Aston Martin resumed its way,
quickly gaining speed and disappearing around the nearest corner. "Are you
alright?" Joyce asked him. "You seemed a little out of it."

The French Immortal shook his head in absent-minded denial. "No, I was just... a
friend of mine liked that kind of car. He..." Michael's expression went from a
spooked one to a softer one, as he remembered warmly. "He was always saying that
he would get one, one day."

They finally made it to the restaurant and took a table outside, calling the
attention of one of the waiters before sitting down.

"Well," Michael said while they waited for their orders, "what do you want to
know?"

With a thoughtful expression, Joyce looked at him for a brief moment before
actually answering. "Which side did you fight on?" she asked him. "During the
Civil War, I mean."

Letting out a wicked smile, Michael shook his head amusedly. "For the one that
lost, my dear," he told her, barely containing his laughter, "the one that
lost!"

~~~~~~

Damon parked his car around the corner and, from the safe sanctuary of its
interior, observed the couple sit down to eat through half-closed eyes.

He was cold inside. It was difficult for him to put his feelings into words at
that very moment, as they were so opposed that they seemed to belong to two
completely different people.

He was excited and scared at the same time, he was hooked on the sensation of
the adrenaline pumping into his whole system like the purest of drugs and
trembling with a fear that he didn't know where was coming from. He wanted to be
any other place but this one, and he didn't want to be anywhere else.

Swallowing a thick knot that had formed in his throat, almost choking with it,
he took a look to his only companion, who was on the passenger's side, patiently
waiting for his call.

A modified HK MP5A5 submachine-gun with a short M203 PI grenade launcher
attached to it under its barrel. An instrument of death shining in all its dark
glory, hard metal and warm plastic tantalizing him, calling him like a siren's
song.

He had heard of the erotica of weapons before, and he had always found that idea
plainly laughable till now. But then, this situation was one he hadn't ever,
ever before been in.

He was going to show his face to Michael Deveraux. He was going to kill Michael
Deveraux.

He took the submachine-gun and leaned it against his lap as he closed his black
eyes. He let his head fall backwards and allowed his fingers to trace all the
hard edges, the cold corners and the dark features of the gun, memorizing all of
them as if the weapon was a beautiful lover.

He could taste it on his lips. The moment had finally arrived.

God help him. He was going to kill Michael Deveraux.

He was going to kill his own father.

Opening his eyes, Damon didn't need to see their reflection in the rear-view
mirror to know the expression they held. They were dead eyes. Cold. Emotionless.
The moment had come.

The young hit man brought back the gun's slide, feeding a round into the chamber
with a noise that rumbled in the narrow interior of the sports car like thunder.
Yet, he didn't flinch and his face didn't show any expression at all, as if he
was detaching from himself.

Getting out of the car, hiding the gun from any external viewer under his large
cashmere coat, Damon began to cross the street; his black eyes fixed on the
couple talking on the other side of the road and his finger curved around the
trigger, aching to pull it.

The moment had come.

~~~~~~

To be continued in DR2 - The Cross of Changes, Book III: Game of survival