I woke up to a warm ray of sunshine reaching its friendly hand across my face. The feeling of it was so foreign to me it caused me to jerk upright and nearly fall out of the bed. It took another second to realize that it wasn't even my bed. My mind filled with questions as soon as I opened my eyes.
Why weren't the curtains drawn? Why was I still in my clothes? Since when did I get girly looking wallpaper?
Oh...
Right.
I wasn't in my house.
I should have realized it the second I felt the sheets. Mine weren't this comfortable. I knew the bed was empty, but I still reached my hand to the side where she slept next to me. For a second I already missed the warmth she created. Throwing my feet over the side I rubbed the remaining sleep from my eyes. I wondered where she went. My stomach wrenched painfully when I remembered my promise. I had to tell her. But she wasn't there. Sleep had nearly erased my desire to set the truth free and her absence nearly... Well, I didn't want to think any more about that.
I put my hands back on the bed to push myself up and found a piece of paper resting on the comforter. It was a note from Buffy. I felt the smile threatening to cover my face.
It said:
---
Dear Xander,
Sorry I didn't wake you when I got up, but you look so peaceful lying there. It's the calmest I've seen you in weeks. You always... Well you always seem like you're somewhere else lately. Like you've got an appointment you just can't get to? I don't know how to explain it to you... I know something is wrong Xander. You wouldn't have shown up at my window last night like that if there weren't. Is it your father? Are you two fighting again now that he's back? Are you still sad about your mom? I wish you could tell me. I think you want to. I don't know why I think that but I do. I just want to help you. I just want you to want me to help you...
You look so peaceful sleeping there...
By the time you read this I should be at the Espresso Pump with Willow and Oz. Sorry to just kind of leave you here. I hope it doesn't bother you too much. Mom's at work already, so I don't think you have to worry about any kind of awkward confrontation with her. You should show. Willow would be happy to see you. I know I would...
Love,
Buffy
---
I folded up the letter and put it in my pocket. For a second I couldn't move. I took the letter out and reread it. She was watching me sleep. She sat at her desk and watched me sleep. My mind wouldn't bend around the thought of that. I shook my head thinking it would help. It didn't. I looked at the alarm clock next to her bed. It was eleven o'clock. I guess I was more tired than I thought. I never let myself sleep this late anymore. I put on my soggy shoes and made my way downstairs. I double-checked for any sign of Joyce. I didn't want to have to explain what I was doing in her daughter's room when she wasn't there.
I was sure to lock her front door when I left. I looked back at the house briefly, and stopped dead when I reached the end of the walkway. I had no idea where to go. The options weren't exactly glowing with optimism. I could go back to my house and earn a lecture on discipline and self-control from my father, or I could go to the Espresso Pump and tell Buffy and everyone why I've been acting so weird lately.
The dragons tail or the tiger's head.
Decisions, decisions.
I picked a direction and started walking.
***
When I reached the front door of my house I prayed that my father wasn't there. I knew he was, but that still didn't keep the small shimmer of hope in my mind from forming. I kept telling myself that I was just here for a change of clothes. I wasn't chickening out. I was just going to get a clean pair of jeans and a shirt that didn't smell like rained on, slept in, mildew. And some shoes that didn't make that annoying squish sound when I walked.
I opened the door as quietly as I could and shot toward the stairs. I was about halfway up when my father called after me. I hung my head in defeat and slowly turned to go toward the kitchen. I could already imagine him in his crisp suit (I'm still not used to seeing that), sitting at the kitchen table with the paper in hand about ready to tear me down for being so weak last night. I should have gone for coffee.
I stepped into the kitchen, my shoes making a louder squish against the hardwood floor. My father's eyebrows raised at the sound but he didn't say anything about it. Sure enough, he sat at the table in a freshly ironed black suit with the newspaper in hand. We stared at each other in a face off straight out of a Clint Eastwood movie. Any second I expected someone to shout "draw" and we'd see who finally chose to speak first. My father did. If this were the old west I'd have been dead.
"One of your little friends came by earlier," he said, his voice devoid of any emotion.
"Really?" I asked, trying to keep my voice the same.
"Amy I believe her name was," he told me. "She wanted to know if everything was okay. That you've been 'really out of it' lately. Care to tell me what she meant?"
"I don't know," I replied.
"Don't take me for a fool son," he reprimanded. "It's bad enough you're still fraternizing with these...these..."
"These what?"
"These humans," he spit out.
I thought you wanted me to "infiltrate" the slayer and her friends you contradicting bastard.
"Well," I began lamely. "When you harbor a secret as big as the one you laid on me this summer, the people around him are going to notice something is bothering him."
"Are you telling me what you are bothers you?"
Yes. Are you that goddamn blind?
"No."
"Then would you like to explain to me what you mean?"
He was too damn calm. I couldn't talk to him when he was like this. I needed him to slur, to stumble around in shambles. To be drunk beyond even remembering my name. I needed him to yell at me so I could yell back. It was the only way we'd ever really communicated. This... Well I don't know what the fuck this was. But it wasn't anything I liked.
"I..."
"No," he interrupted lifting a hand to silence me. "I think I understand."
Well that was fast Sherlock.
"You do?"
"It's my own fault," he said shaking his head. "I let the charade go on to long."
He stood up from the table and wandered over to one of the cabinets. He pulled out a barrage of liquor bottles and arranged them on the counter in a line. Not so fond memories of those bottles permanently attached to his and my mother's mouths filled my mind. Good. Maybe if he took the damn tie off and had a shot I could talk to him.
"These," he said pointing at the bottles. "Were a learning tool."
Now that's the last description of alcohol I ever expected to hear in my life. A learning tool for what?
"I had to show you how disgusting and horrendous the human race could be," he said. "So that you found out what you truly were you'd despise them as much as me. We're above them son. So far above them yet they infest this planet like locusts. No one really sees how useless they can be. Not unless they have uncontrolled dependencies on substances such as these."
He pointed back to the bottles again.
"Anyone can turn his or her noses at a drunk, son. Even humans themselves find it disgusting. I spent years trying to show you how bad they could be. How low they could sink. So you could see that they didn't deserve this world."
Oh, and we do?
"I let you believe you were one of them too long and it's hard to let go. I understand that. But you see..."
I tuned him out after that. I didn't want to hear that the worst years of my life were meant to be good for me. It was like getting punched in the face and being told it was medicine. So I was supposed to hate all humans because of the horrible monsters they *could* be? Not even Vegas would give you decent odds on how a person was going to turn out. It wasn't your place to judge. It's not my place to hate everyone. I hate only specific things and all of them have to do with me on a personal level.
The size of his arrogance amazed me.
He couldn't even see what a miserable failure his plan was.
His pretending to be a drunken louse all of my life didn't make me hate the human race.
It just made me hate him.
***
I could only stare at their smiling faces from a distance.
I thought that this was the last place I'd end up. Nearly every instinct called for me to run. But there I stood. Watching Buffy, Willow, and Oz laugh it up inside the Espresso Pump. I knew I didn't belong there. I had no place in laughter anymore. Still, I was trying to find the words for what I would say to them. But my mind was so full of spite for my father I wasn't exactly thinking straight. I would have done anything to piss him off at this point. I know telling my friends all about him would have done the trick but I didn't want it to be like that. I wanted to tell them because *I* was ready to. Because *I* felt that they would understand. Because *I* promised myself I would.
Me. Me. Me.
I didn't want my father anywhere near this.
I better move soon. The pains in my stomach were threatening to turn into an ulcer. I stepped out into the street and had about half second to see the car. I never even heard it before...
Wham!
This would teach you to look both ways before crossing the street.
Wham!
The car sliding underneath my legs so quickly, flipping my body helplessly into the air.
Wham!
The sound of my shoulder sending the windshield into a hailstorm of broken glass.
Wham!
The metal folding underneath my weight as I continued my roll onto the roof, my arms and legs still flailing helplessly in mockery of a back flip.
Wham!
The hard, unforgiving asphalt of the road taking the crash of my body with unrelenting harshness.
Wham!
My hands and feet smacking the ground with a reverbing slap as I rolled once, twice more, before coming to a stop in the middle of the street.
I heard someone shout for an ambulance and the rush of other people running up to me, their voices all a mix of shock and concern.
"Are you all right?" "Don't move!" "Help is on the way."
I groaned and tried to push myself onto my knees, a surprised gasp escaped from the crowd with the fact that I could move at all. More people shouted that I should lie still. I felt no pain. Nothing on me hurt. No scrapes, no bruises, no broken bones. I was fine. The only real damage was to my clothes, and that was really no big loss. You see, my father forgot to mention something else to me back in Wyoming when I was learning all about my heritage. A major detail about my anatomy I know he left out for some reason that only made sense to him. Only a member of the tribe could hurt us. Well, more accurately, hurt me. The royal bloodline gave us a one up on the other tribesman, and that made my father damn near impenetrable. The only thing that could hurt him was...
Well of course he didn't tell me that.
And while we're at it here's yet another fun fact about the mind and body. Not knowing this fact throughout my life resulted in a few injuries and broken bones. Because you simply can't use something if you don't know it exists. The only real damage that could be done to me was my own power. Had I known this that night in the woods I wouldn't have used so much and saved myself a headache.
I pushed myself to my feet and shrugged off the would-be helpers. The rest of the crowd backed away and gave me room, but the next thing I knew arms were throwing themselves around my neck followed by a chorus of "omigods." I looked down to a mess of red hair crushing itself into my chest.
"Willow" I managed to squeeze out as he arms wound tighter. "Need air..."
"Sorry," she said loosening her grip a little.
Another set of arms rushed at me from the side as Buffy pressed herself as close against me as she could get.
*Oh.*
*God.*
It didn't take a genius to figure out they'd seen everything from their window seat in the coffee shop. I bet there wasn't a soul on that street that didn't see what happened. I knew that all their assumptions about me were answered in that the one flash of an instant where I was mowed down and came up unharmed. While all summer long they could only be suspicious about what *could* be wrong with me. They'd now seen something to flat out say that there *was* something wrong with me.
Willow and Buffy escorted me to a bench nearby on the sidewalk to wait until an ambulance would come. The urge to bail was strong. So much so that my legs actually shook with anticipation for the run.
Flee, flee, flee. My mind was yelling at me. You can't stay here. Not when they've just seen what they've seen. Not when they *knew* something was definitely up.
I couldn't run with a witch and a slayer flanking each side of me. I was trapped.
"I'm okay;" I tried to assure them. "I'm okay."
They both hugged me tighter as we sat down on the bench and I couldn't seem to get either one of them to let go.
"Hate to be the one to spoil the moment," Oz finally spoke up. "But why is it that you are okay? That car was going pretty fast and it looked like a pretty gnarly hit. Even I know milk doesn't make bones that strong."
Crap.
"Uh..." I mumbled. "Well you see..."
I'm really a near invulnerable half-demon hybrid destined and well capable for the mass destruction of Earth. I'm supposed to help my father send it back into the olden times of fire and brimstone and chaos. Something that sounds like a whole lot of fun and includes killing all of you in the process. Does that about sum it up? Did I leave anything out?
All three of them were eagerly awaiting my answer and my stomach clenched overtime.
"Listen," I gasped out quietly. "Listen carefully. Because I don't think any one of you is going to believe me..."
Why weren't the curtains drawn? Why was I still in my clothes? Since when did I get girly looking wallpaper?
Oh...
Right.
I wasn't in my house.
I should have realized it the second I felt the sheets. Mine weren't this comfortable. I knew the bed was empty, but I still reached my hand to the side where she slept next to me. For a second I already missed the warmth she created. Throwing my feet over the side I rubbed the remaining sleep from my eyes. I wondered where she went. My stomach wrenched painfully when I remembered my promise. I had to tell her. But she wasn't there. Sleep had nearly erased my desire to set the truth free and her absence nearly... Well, I didn't want to think any more about that.
I put my hands back on the bed to push myself up and found a piece of paper resting on the comforter. It was a note from Buffy. I felt the smile threatening to cover my face.
It said:
---
Dear Xander,
Sorry I didn't wake you when I got up, but you look so peaceful lying there. It's the calmest I've seen you in weeks. You always... Well you always seem like you're somewhere else lately. Like you've got an appointment you just can't get to? I don't know how to explain it to you... I know something is wrong Xander. You wouldn't have shown up at my window last night like that if there weren't. Is it your father? Are you two fighting again now that he's back? Are you still sad about your mom? I wish you could tell me. I think you want to. I don't know why I think that but I do. I just want to help you. I just want you to want me to help you...
You look so peaceful sleeping there...
By the time you read this I should be at the Espresso Pump with Willow and Oz. Sorry to just kind of leave you here. I hope it doesn't bother you too much. Mom's at work already, so I don't think you have to worry about any kind of awkward confrontation with her. You should show. Willow would be happy to see you. I know I would...
Love,
Buffy
---
I folded up the letter and put it in my pocket. For a second I couldn't move. I took the letter out and reread it. She was watching me sleep. She sat at her desk and watched me sleep. My mind wouldn't bend around the thought of that. I shook my head thinking it would help. It didn't. I looked at the alarm clock next to her bed. It was eleven o'clock. I guess I was more tired than I thought. I never let myself sleep this late anymore. I put on my soggy shoes and made my way downstairs. I double-checked for any sign of Joyce. I didn't want to have to explain what I was doing in her daughter's room when she wasn't there.
I was sure to lock her front door when I left. I looked back at the house briefly, and stopped dead when I reached the end of the walkway. I had no idea where to go. The options weren't exactly glowing with optimism. I could go back to my house and earn a lecture on discipline and self-control from my father, or I could go to the Espresso Pump and tell Buffy and everyone why I've been acting so weird lately.
The dragons tail or the tiger's head.
Decisions, decisions.
I picked a direction and started walking.
***
When I reached the front door of my house I prayed that my father wasn't there. I knew he was, but that still didn't keep the small shimmer of hope in my mind from forming. I kept telling myself that I was just here for a change of clothes. I wasn't chickening out. I was just going to get a clean pair of jeans and a shirt that didn't smell like rained on, slept in, mildew. And some shoes that didn't make that annoying squish sound when I walked.
I opened the door as quietly as I could and shot toward the stairs. I was about halfway up when my father called after me. I hung my head in defeat and slowly turned to go toward the kitchen. I could already imagine him in his crisp suit (I'm still not used to seeing that), sitting at the kitchen table with the paper in hand about ready to tear me down for being so weak last night. I should have gone for coffee.
I stepped into the kitchen, my shoes making a louder squish against the hardwood floor. My father's eyebrows raised at the sound but he didn't say anything about it. Sure enough, he sat at the table in a freshly ironed black suit with the newspaper in hand. We stared at each other in a face off straight out of a Clint Eastwood movie. Any second I expected someone to shout "draw" and we'd see who finally chose to speak first. My father did. If this were the old west I'd have been dead.
"One of your little friends came by earlier," he said, his voice devoid of any emotion.
"Really?" I asked, trying to keep my voice the same.
"Amy I believe her name was," he told me. "She wanted to know if everything was okay. That you've been 'really out of it' lately. Care to tell me what she meant?"
"I don't know," I replied.
"Don't take me for a fool son," he reprimanded. "It's bad enough you're still fraternizing with these...these..."
"These what?"
"These humans," he spit out.
I thought you wanted me to "infiltrate" the slayer and her friends you contradicting bastard.
"Well," I began lamely. "When you harbor a secret as big as the one you laid on me this summer, the people around him are going to notice something is bothering him."
"Are you telling me what you are bothers you?"
Yes. Are you that goddamn blind?
"No."
"Then would you like to explain to me what you mean?"
He was too damn calm. I couldn't talk to him when he was like this. I needed him to slur, to stumble around in shambles. To be drunk beyond even remembering my name. I needed him to yell at me so I could yell back. It was the only way we'd ever really communicated. This... Well I don't know what the fuck this was. But it wasn't anything I liked.
"I..."
"No," he interrupted lifting a hand to silence me. "I think I understand."
Well that was fast Sherlock.
"You do?"
"It's my own fault," he said shaking his head. "I let the charade go on to long."
He stood up from the table and wandered over to one of the cabinets. He pulled out a barrage of liquor bottles and arranged them on the counter in a line. Not so fond memories of those bottles permanently attached to his and my mother's mouths filled my mind. Good. Maybe if he took the damn tie off and had a shot I could talk to him.
"These," he said pointing at the bottles. "Were a learning tool."
Now that's the last description of alcohol I ever expected to hear in my life. A learning tool for what?
"I had to show you how disgusting and horrendous the human race could be," he said. "So that you found out what you truly were you'd despise them as much as me. We're above them son. So far above them yet they infest this planet like locusts. No one really sees how useless they can be. Not unless they have uncontrolled dependencies on substances such as these."
He pointed back to the bottles again.
"Anyone can turn his or her noses at a drunk, son. Even humans themselves find it disgusting. I spent years trying to show you how bad they could be. How low they could sink. So you could see that they didn't deserve this world."
Oh, and we do?
"I let you believe you were one of them too long and it's hard to let go. I understand that. But you see..."
I tuned him out after that. I didn't want to hear that the worst years of my life were meant to be good for me. It was like getting punched in the face and being told it was medicine. So I was supposed to hate all humans because of the horrible monsters they *could* be? Not even Vegas would give you decent odds on how a person was going to turn out. It wasn't your place to judge. It's not my place to hate everyone. I hate only specific things and all of them have to do with me on a personal level.
The size of his arrogance amazed me.
He couldn't even see what a miserable failure his plan was.
His pretending to be a drunken louse all of my life didn't make me hate the human race.
It just made me hate him.
***
I could only stare at their smiling faces from a distance.
I thought that this was the last place I'd end up. Nearly every instinct called for me to run. But there I stood. Watching Buffy, Willow, and Oz laugh it up inside the Espresso Pump. I knew I didn't belong there. I had no place in laughter anymore. Still, I was trying to find the words for what I would say to them. But my mind was so full of spite for my father I wasn't exactly thinking straight. I would have done anything to piss him off at this point. I know telling my friends all about him would have done the trick but I didn't want it to be like that. I wanted to tell them because *I* was ready to. Because *I* felt that they would understand. Because *I* promised myself I would.
Me. Me. Me.
I didn't want my father anywhere near this.
I better move soon. The pains in my stomach were threatening to turn into an ulcer. I stepped out into the street and had about half second to see the car. I never even heard it before...
Wham!
This would teach you to look both ways before crossing the street.
Wham!
The car sliding underneath my legs so quickly, flipping my body helplessly into the air.
Wham!
The sound of my shoulder sending the windshield into a hailstorm of broken glass.
Wham!
The metal folding underneath my weight as I continued my roll onto the roof, my arms and legs still flailing helplessly in mockery of a back flip.
Wham!
The hard, unforgiving asphalt of the road taking the crash of my body with unrelenting harshness.
Wham!
My hands and feet smacking the ground with a reverbing slap as I rolled once, twice more, before coming to a stop in the middle of the street.
I heard someone shout for an ambulance and the rush of other people running up to me, their voices all a mix of shock and concern.
"Are you all right?" "Don't move!" "Help is on the way."
I groaned and tried to push myself onto my knees, a surprised gasp escaped from the crowd with the fact that I could move at all. More people shouted that I should lie still. I felt no pain. Nothing on me hurt. No scrapes, no bruises, no broken bones. I was fine. The only real damage was to my clothes, and that was really no big loss. You see, my father forgot to mention something else to me back in Wyoming when I was learning all about my heritage. A major detail about my anatomy I know he left out for some reason that only made sense to him. Only a member of the tribe could hurt us. Well, more accurately, hurt me. The royal bloodline gave us a one up on the other tribesman, and that made my father damn near impenetrable. The only thing that could hurt him was...
Well of course he didn't tell me that.
And while we're at it here's yet another fun fact about the mind and body. Not knowing this fact throughout my life resulted in a few injuries and broken bones. Because you simply can't use something if you don't know it exists. The only real damage that could be done to me was my own power. Had I known this that night in the woods I wouldn't have used so much and saved myself a headache.
I pushed myself to my feet and shrugged off the would-be helpers. The rest of the crowd backed away and gave me room, but the next thing I knew arms were throwing themselves around my neck followed by a chorus of "omigods." I looked down to a mess of red hair crushing itself into my chest.
"Willow" I managed to squeeze out as he arms wound tighter. "Need air..."
"Sorry," she said loosening her grip a little.
Another set of arms rushed at me from the side as Buffy pressed herself as close against me as she could get.
*Oh.*
*God.*
It didn't take a genius to figure out they'd seen everything from their window seat in the coffee shop. I bet there wasn't a soul on that street that didn't see what happened. I knew that all their assumptions about me were answered in that the one flash of an instant where I was mowed down and came up unharmed. While all summer long they could only be suspicious about what *could* be wrong with me. They'd now seen something to flat out say that there *was* something wrong with me.
Willow and Buffy escorted me to a bench nearby on the sidewalk to wait until an ambulance would come. The urge to bail was strong. So much so that my legs actually shook with anticipation for the run.
Flee, flee, flee. My mind was yelling at me. You can't stay here. Not when they've just seen what they've seen. Not when they *knew* something was definitely up.
I couldn't run with a witch and a slayer flanking each side of me. I was trapped.
"I'm okay;" I tried to assure them. "I'm okay."
They both hugged me tighter as we sat down on the bench and I couldn't seem to get either one of them to let go.
"Hate to be the one to spoil the moment," Oz finally spoke up. "But why is it that you are okay? That car was going pretty fast and it looked like a pretty gnarly hit. Even I know milk doesn't make bones that strong."
Crap.
"Uh..." I mumbled. "Well you see..."
I'm really a near invulnerable half-demon hybrid destined and well capable for the mass destruction of Earth. I'm supposed to help my father send it back into the olden times of fire and brimstone and chaos. Something that sounds like a whole lot of fun and includes killing all of you in the process. Does that about sum it up? Did I leave anything out?
All three of them were eagerly awaiting my answer and my stomach clenched overtime.
"Listen," I gasped out quietly. "Listen carefully. Because I don't think any one of you is going to believe me..."