Between Shadows VI: The Art of War

"You dumb son of a bitch!"

The massive oak doors shattered against the walls, yet neither Mason, who sat calmly behind his desk, his stoic imaged framed by a semi-circular wall of windows, nor DeMontagne, who sat his back to Faith's fury, flinched even for an instant. Mason's injured guards trailed and limped behind the Slayer as she stomped through the office, past the marble columns and the Greek statues.

"Faith, I understand we might…"

Mason's apologetic speech was interrupted as Faith seized the priceless antique chair next to DeMontagne and shattered it on the desk, provoking the mercenary to jolt back slightly, reaching for his pistol as he did. Mason who was as always cool and collected quickly waved him to desist; an order the Frenchmen reluctantly accepted. With another gesture, the guards disappeared back, closing what remained of the doors behind them.

"Which one of you two retards am I gonna beat into oblivion?" yelled Faith as she paced angrily.

"Faith, if you'll calm down, I think I might be able to offer you an answer to that. Of course, I'd offer you to sit down, but that's no longer an option."

"I don't want to sit down, I want to know whose bright idea it was to try to driveby Xander?"

"It was my idea," answered DeMontagne, showing no fear at what she might do once she heard his confession. The mercenary knew little fear, and always felt a great disdain at being forced to work with a woman, even one like Faith. He thought of himself as the thing to be feared, and despised any mention of caution when it came to dealing with Xander.

"DeMontagne acted without my knowledge in this," added Mason. Faith quickly reached for a knife and advanced toward the Frenchman.

"Fab. I'll just skin him alive then."

"Wait!" yelled Mason, as both Slayer and mercenary were about to go at it, punctuating his order with the cocking of his pistol. "I think this is hardly the time to reduce our ranks, Faith. I assure you, Mr. DeMontagne will receive the appropriate pay cut for his insubordination."

"Paycut! This idiot kills one of Xander's friends and you're just giving him a paycut!"

"Yes, I bet you are really broken up about his friends…" exclaimed DeMontagne, "… it is not at all your lover's life you are worried about. Well, don't worry salope, he somehow moved out of my shot. Le conard is euh…fane… I mean fine."

"And that is the only reason you are alive, DeMontagne," responded Mason, "I clearly expressed to you the change in our plans. I want Xander alive, I want him working for us and until now, I believed Faith's rekindled liaison with Mr. Harris was doing a nice job of nudging him in our direction."

"How did you know about that?" spat Faith, angry that Mason obviously had her followed. She suddenly felt used again, just like she had felt so many times growing up.

"Faith you are very valuable to me and I always protect my investment. Part of that requires that I be aware of your whereabouts at all times. How else could I help you if you ran into trouble?" He was as smooth as a snake, and shared his counterpart cold heartedness as well.

"This is all bullshit," interrupted DeMontagne, his thick accent massacring every word he uttered. "You wanted Xander taken care of, that's what I tried to do. At least I got some of his friends, now he might actually take us seriously for a change."

"Well what's done is done. Now we have to choose how to deal with this. Faith what are your thoughts on this? How extensively will this damage our chances of him joining us?"

Faith slowly burst into a soundless nervous laughter. She covered her face a moment, and then glared at DeMontagne; her voice took on a somberness that it had seldom taken before.

"How extensive? We're dead, that's how extensive."

"Exaggerations! See, this is what I keep telling you abo…"

"You shot his friends! You killed one of them and the other one's still a maybe. You have no fucking idea what you just unleashed here! Attack him, slaughter innocent people, release the four fucking horsemen on the world, and Xander still Xander. Sweet, predictable, white knight wannabe Xander. But you fucked with his friends. Now he's coming after us and it's no more Mr. Nice Guy. You might as well have shot a dummy nuke at the Kremlin."

"How bad can it be, Faith? We've been able to handle Mr. Harris in the past, and with very little casualties I might add."

"Well Mason, you ever seen a pissed of Bear defending her cubs? How they're twice as dangerous, how they'll go to any length? Picture the same scenario except the only thing Yogi cares about is eating you alive, no matter what happens to it. When you fuck with his friends, Xander gets that kind of focus and ferocity. I mean, when he was sixteen, he was a total coward, couldn't stand up for himself to the high school bully."

"Now, that I believe," interrupted DeMontagne with a chuckle. Faith glared at him and continued almost seamlessly.

"But the second some vampire or demon attacked one of his friends, he was always the first one to charge into battle. No matter what. Picture that, Mason, picture that attitude when it's fueled by revenge. I don't even want to think of what horrible plan he's working on right now."

The Fear was terrible. It was a deep anguish that would not subside. He whished he could pinch himself and make it all disappear. However, the bad dream would not go away, no matter how many pricks he gave himself. He took a deep breath and a sigh followed. He shook his head one time and raised his chin like a man trying to look proud for his execution, and finally, Xander read the course description one more time. As he did, Xander sat almost trembling in anger in the fifth row of the small amphitheatre, staring to his right at Katrina, who smiled sheepishly.

"Why is the world against me?" he asked, his jaw shifting in the process.

"C'mon, Xander, it's not that bad."

"Communication Seminar: Sharing Together?" he said, the words dripping with venom as he flashed the sheet of paper, the title in bold letters for emphasis.

"Well you know, we live in an age of school shootings as a form of expression. Paranoia is rampant. After the whole loosing it in front of Professor Barnum, and more or less admitting to maybe having been the hand behind the most famous assassination in this decade, you sort of qualified for the high risk category of the student body," answered Katrina as the last of the students filed into the classroom.

"Yeah, but they can't seriously be convinced that I was telling the truth…"

"Who cares if you were serious, just a hint of impropriety is enough these days. So you have to take an anger management/support group. Big deal, most people fight to get the free seats in this class. No homework, almost guaranteed full credit. Anyways, you should be glad you got admitted back at all, I don't know how you managed to get Barnum to vouch for you."

"Everybody has their weaknesses," he answered enigmatically, a grin on his lips.

"Please tell me you didn't use violence."

"Don't worry. I wouldn't want to say I bribed him… but that's sort of exactly what I did.."

"With money?"

"No… I just… I helped him plan his summer vacation."

"Vacation? Vacation where?"

"Well… you know… he's a big conspiracy theorist. What else could a conspiracy theorist want better than your everyday military top clearance to use for restricted access to Los Alamos Bombing range. Better known as Area 51."

"You are so kidding me."

"No, made a phone call to a bud of mine, got him the pass. It's not like it makes that much difference, nobody will ever believe his story."

"Well that's it; you are so planning my next vacation. So aliens are real? UFO's, the Roswell crash, everything? C'mon you can tell me."

"Sorry," he answered grinning one last time, "but telling would kind of go against the mystery man façade that I'm desperately trying to keep up."

Xander's body tensed up as the teacher walked into the class, kicking the doorstop on her way to the foldable table that had been placed on the stage as a makeshift desk. The sound of the metal door closing behind her reminded Xander of that of prison gates, and with that image cemented in his mind, his anxiety resumed.

Doctor Page had the kind of gentle intensity of a priest. A simple stare from her large bespectacled eyes and one couldn't help but confess one's sins. Her round forms and warm smile only added to the image of a thirtyish granny. Everyone felt comfortable in her presence, everyone except Xander who hated her for all the same reasons.

"Alright, why don't we begin to get to know each other by discussing one of life's most important emotion: pain. I want to know about painful experiences you lived through, I want you to come down here and discuss it one by one in front of everyone. I think it's a great way to actually get to know one another. Who wants to go first, now c'mon don't be shy."

"I loved her so much… it's just… like I said, we were always fighting… what I don't understand was why it was always about the dumbest things," whimpered a young man almost on the verge of tears. The whole class looked down sympathetically at Bill as he went over his recent breakup with longtime girlfriend Monica. Xander paid little attention though, concentrating more on the anger he felt boiling inside his belly over last night's events. Katrina had seemed to retreat in a stage of denial, trying to bury her pain in the routine of a school day, but Xander's guilt would have none of that for him. He replayed the events over and over again, cursing his name along with the blurred slideshow of memories flashing before his eyes. "If onlys" were rolling in like thunder.

"Like that damned picture of her aunt. She hated it even more than I did, but she refused to move it. 'Put it in the closet, just bring it out when she comes to visit. She lives in Arizona, she's not fucking likely to show up unannounced for a surprised visit'… oh sorry, I said the F-word."

"That's alright William, you can say 'fucking' in here. This is a place to share, not censor."

"Well, anyway, she just wouldn't have it. And we were always fighting over the remote control and what we were going to watch. That kind of stuff. Half the time I didn't even care all that much but I just got so enflamed on the spot… I just don't get it."

"Well, if you permit me to make an analysis of sort, though you have to understand it's still somewhat premature to do so. I think it's possible that the trouble in your relationship was that you and Monica were caught in a power struggle that was never resolved. See, one of the most important part of any relationship is in it's beginning when the roles of dominant and subservient mates are clearly defined. Sometime that struggle take many subtle form, like who calls whom, who hangs up first; sometime it can even take the form of an object that both parties may fight over its possession, like an apartment or even something like a gift or a toy. You two seemed to have never resolved that issue, you were both still fighting to be the dominant one, and perhaps that is the very reason your relationship was so passionate. Friction equals passion. Those romance were the two lovers are either as much in love of each other, or both possess strong personalities, are always the most powerful and intense relationship imaginable. Unfortunately, they are highly volatile, and very few people believe it's actually possible to find the required balance for the couple to survive."

"Maybe that's it… I dunno… I just feel like god hates me or something. Like everybody all around me has the right to be happy, but I can't, I'm not allowed. I mean, why can't I find somebody you know…. I feel like I'm repulsive, like I'm some evil foul thing, that nobody can touch… I mean, I hurt everybody around me, my parents, my friends. Maybe the women I fall in love just see something in me that makes them runaway."

Xander sighed and rolled his eyed, unknowingly attracting the attention of the entire room as he did the first. He looked up form his desk to witness angry eyes staring at him from all around.

"Maybe there's something you'd like to say Mr…Harris, is it?" asked Doctor Page, almost squinting at him.

"No, no… it's quite alright…you don't want to know what I think, the part of my brain that's supposed to be sensitive usually gets pushed around by the one that thrives on red meat. I better keep my thoughts to me good old wacky self… proceed with the brooding."

"Mr.Harris this is a class about sharing, if you have an opinion, even an negative one, I urge you to put it forward."

"Well…" hesitated Xander for an instant before folding, his self-control being mostly diverted toward containing his ever growing murderous rage. "Alright. Well… Bill… Billy... you need to loosen up. I think you just need to understand that the moment you start to love something is the moment it starts to die on you. Maybe it's her feelings for you, maybe it's yours, maybe it's literally one of you two, but something's dying, something's numbered. Sorry to tell you but there's never a happy ever after, so you should just quit whining and get rollin' with the dealing. Life sucks. Shit happens."

"Hey, what do you know, man. I had something special, something unique. Dealing? You think I can just brush this away? Me and her had the kind of love most people only dream about."

"What do I know?" responded Xander flaring up. "I know pain, buddy. I've tasted pain the like you never heard of. So don't sit there and think your special, that you got something on me. Because I've been enga… " Xander suddenly stopped, looking down at his table for a moment as he was overwhelmed with emotion. He couldn't face it, not today, not right now, he couldn't bring himself to voice this old wound especially with Katrina right next to him. Xander finally resumed more calmly, retracting his earlier line of thought. "I've got a friend of mine in the emergency room right now, fighting for his life and another cooling down in the morgue because they caught bullets that were meant for me yesterday. You think you're a monster? I'm sitting here with my friend Katrina there, and she's pretending the best she can that it didn't happen, because she has to, because that's the normal human thing to do. But I know it happened. And the worst part of is not the survivor guilt or the fact that it's my fault, the worst part is that it really doesn't feel all that bad. Sure I'm angry, but anger is the wrong emotion. I should feel sad, I should feel despair, instead all I got is this thirst for blood. I've buried so many friends that I think I've lost my ability to grieve, and that's scary… I've finally grown so cold that I'm wondering if I can still call myself human… but you know what? I got my pain and you got yours, maybe I really shouldn't judge. Maybe in the end, pain is really what defines us, makes us unique… like a snowflake." Xander's voice had grown faint and filled with uncharacteristic emotion. Tears were nowhere to be seen, but their presence could almost be felt by Katrina who herself tried hard to swallow the lump that had formed in her throat.

"Xander…" said Katrina as she reached out for his shoulder. The whole room had grown quiet, and Bill had a somber look of shame on his face. Down in the front row, a young woman had turned around with a sad smile on her lips. Life was full of coincidences, as if dramatic irony was the PTB's sick way of making jokes. She brushed back a strand of her long red head as she pondered how she should make her presence known, but her intentions were cut short.

"You know what, I'm getting out of here," said Xander as he rose to his feet. "I can't deal with this talking stuff. I'm getting drunk and then I'm gonna do something actually constructive and feed my appetite for destruction."

He stared through the wired glass at the respirator machine pumping air into Gabe's lungs. The myriad of tubes and wires that pierced his friends skin created a dreadful tableau, a white bandaged mummy who was one with the machine. Xander's reflection crept in on the glass and he couldn't help but gaze back into his glassy stare. Was he really becoming like Faith? Or had his baseness grown far past hers already? Why was it that hate was the only thing he could feel anymore? None of that mattered, because blood called out for blood, and personal feelings were therefore irrelevant. Xander's identity was irrelevant, because soon he would let himself become the instrument of vengeance, the avatar of death itself.

"I met him, you know?" said a familiar voice from behind him. He spun to meet a face he could never forget. Though time had changed her features ever so slightly and the hair was all wrong, there was no mistaking it. The gorgeous young woman in front of him was Dawn Summers. Shock and a vague sensation of excitation coursed through Xander, but the happiness drained from his face as he realized what was going on. He spun back around leaving a confused Dawn behind; his face turning back to stone.

"You got the hair wrong Skoll. And if you're here to tell me to be careful, I could have use that yesterday."

"Sk-who? Did somebody hit you on the head again, Xander?"

"Dawn? Dawnster?"

Dawn's shook her head in the manner of someone pointing out the obvious and was suddenly jolted back as Xander near tackled her with a gigantic hug. She let out a small, relieved laugh as he finally set her down.

"Good. I was starting to think you'd forgotten me. And who's Sk-who?"

"Long story. What happened to your hair?"

"It's call dye, stupid. Get with the century and it's multiple innovations in the world of cosmetics. Plus, it's not my hair you seem to be staring at."

"That's it young lady," exploded a bright red Xander, his gaze retreating to the floor. "I thought I told you to stop with the inappropriate innuendos."

"Hey, you can't tell me what to do anymore, you're not the guardian of me. I'm a grown woman."

"No, you're not!"

"Yes, I am!"

"No, you're not!"

"Yes, I am!"

A short stare contest ensued before they both burst into laughter.

"Seems we're back where we left off," said Dawn with a smile.

"Yeah, well almost," answered Xander looking back at the respirator. Suddenly, a twinge of fear crawled into Xander's mind. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to be here to exact some form of terrible revenge upon me by any chance? Because this is not a good time, I'm kinda booked for the week. Next week would be good though."

"Vengeance? What's your major malfunction, Xan? Well, here," she said as she placed a quick kiss on his cheek. "Suffer the terrible redness of the lipstick mark."

"Alright make fun of me, but the "let's kill Xander's for his past misdeeds" hobby has been going around lately."

"Oh, you and Faith are back together again?" she asked mischievously. Xander simply glared at her. Suddenly her joke seemed less funny. "Oh. Sorry…"

"It's ok. How did you find me anyways? Giles?"

"No, pure randomness. I haven't talk to Giles in months and I just transferred to NYU. I wanted to come up here to work on a singing career, ran into you in Dr.Page's class."

"You followed me here?" asked Xander incredulously as he knew very well he had taken great care to see if he was being tailed.

"Katrina," answered Dawn, relieving Xander of any remaining fear, "and don't worry I was appropriately cryptic. You would have been proud."

"Well, the world's a big box of chocolaty surprise, huh? Sorry I can't be more cheery at our reunion, I just have a lot on my mind."

"Care to share?"

"No, but maybe we can do the catching up thing later. If I'm still alive."

"Still alive? What's going Xander, I know Faith was mad at you for bailing on her but it can't be that bad."

"Things escalate."

"Yeah, but violence is like you guys' equivalent of foreplay! C'mon why don't you tell me what's going on? Maybe I can talk to her."

"Sorry Dawn, it's way past talking. I'll see you later." Xander tried to move past her but the young woman would not have it, defying him chin high by stepping in his way and gripping tightly onto his jacket sleeve.

"Wait. No! You're not leaving. Now I know you're upset because you're friend's hurt but I'm not gonna let you rush off to kill Faith. Not before you at least justify yourself to me."

"Well I guess I see how you might feel."

Tucked away in the booth of a crummy New York coffee shop, Xander had just finished summing up the last two years of his life to a very attentive Dawn. He looked at her once more, with her long red hair and the same smile he remembered, and he felt proud to have had some hand in her rearing. In a way it was still painful, her very presence reminding him of Sunnydale and her sister, but he had decided months ago not to run from his past anymore and he wasn't about to start again now. He looked back down into his near empty coffee cup, sliding his thumb alongside the white Styrofoam.

"Gabe is such a nice guy too, he doesn't deserve to be lying in that bed. Then again they never do, do they?"

"No they don't, and I know what you mean. I met him, you know."

"What?"

"Him and your friend Garrett, I met them at registration. They were both sweet."

"I see…" answered Xander as he took another sip of his coffee. He thought back on Garrett and Gabe's word before the incident and was suddenly filled with a familiar emotion. "I see I'm gonna need to murder Garrett and send Gabe right back in the hospital once he recovers."

"Stop it Xander. If I can survive Glory and being the Slayer sister, I can handle a couple of boys."

"Yeah well I recall a certain Zack and a certain Justin."

"Don't make me bring up the She-Mantis lady… which of course I just did, but you should still consider yourself warned mister." Silence quickly set in as they both found their cups of coffee increasingly interesting. They'd been in this place for hours now, the sun had since set over the Big Apple, and outside entropy pulled another surprise. Xander couldn't believe Dawn was actually back in his life. One moment he had felt completely alone in this grim world of his, unable to relate to his friends who were just beginning to experience it, and suddenly there was Dawn. It felt reassuring, like coming home. Xander scanned the young woman up and down; she was no longer the little munchkin he'd left back in Sunnydale a few days after her eighteen birthday. She was a beautiful strong woman, whom he noticed, attracted the stares of most of the male gender. Suddenly, he felt like breaking the silence.

"The coffee's grown cold."

"Yeah," answered Dawn looking straight into his eyes. "This feels weird, I mean running into you, learning Faith has turned to the darkside… again, and that I might very well loose one of you before the end of the day. It's kind of a little much."

"I know, my life feels like a series of jump-cuts lately. It does give me some perspective on what you're sister went through though. Having the world revolve around you, contrary to Cordy's opinion, isn't what it's cracked up to be."

"I still can't believe there isn't a way around this."

"Dawn, I don't have a choice. I've let her push me around too long. If I hadn't waited, maybe Sanaz' boyfriend would still be alive, and maybe Gabe would be having coffee with you instead… which as much as I hate the idea of, I prefer to having him hooked up on life support."

"So what's the plan, and how can I help?"

"Well to quote your sister 'You can help by staying out of it.' I'm sorry but you came at a bad time to make an application for the job of sidekick. I'm flying this one solo. As for the plan, you ever read "Johnny Mnemonic' by William Gibson?"

"No, sorry, my Sci-fi nerdiness does not rival yours."

"Hey! Lay off the Sci-Fi will you? Anyway, there's this great line in it 'If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude.' Well, I'm a very sneaky technical boy, and Faith knows that, so I'm going to do the one thing she wouldn't expect."

"Oh my god, you're just gonna walk right in there and start shooting."

"A plan worthy of the Buffster seal of approval, but don't worry, this is a three step plan."

"And what do you call step one, "Suicide at the Tower of Doom'?"

"No, Dawn," he answered with one of his trademark grin, "Step one is 'Baiting the trap.'"