Title: The Hellmouth is Not Enough (Chapter Four)

Author: Randall Stone

Disclaimer: All characters are belong to someone else.

Summary: England's newest secret agent draws Sunnydale duty.

Notes:
Spoilers: S1-3

Changes: Hopefully everything will be explained in the text. Bug
me if anything is confusing.

Continuity notes:
- S3 proceeded as written (I'm assuming a 'self-healing' view of
history, rather than a 'step on a butterfly and change
everything' view)
- Bond notes: The Connery movies happened, and all the events
from the book happened. None of the Moore, Dalton, or Brosnan
movies have happened. Instead, Bond moved into gradually less
physically demanding roles, finally winding up in an advisory
position for a decade or so before retiring. Think of him as
being physically the way Connery was in Entrapment.

This is a fun fic, so I'll be playing a little fast and loose with
the characters. They should be recognizable, but I'm not making
any effort to match up with S4 canon.

Category: B/X
Rating: PG-14- nothing worse than what's on the show.
Feedback: Yes please.

*****

Xander held the door open for Buffy as she entered La Fontana,
Sunnydale's closest approximation to an upscale Italian restaurant.
Buffy was decked out in a little black dress complemented by a
simple silver necklace and matching earrings. She looked stunning,
and Xander discreetly followed her form with his eyes as she walked
past.

Xander had not had a chance to change, so he was wearing the same
grey suit and white shirt that he had been wearing earlier. He had
added a blue tie to the ensemble for dinner. The suit jacket that
he was wearing was double vented, in the British fashion. This
allowed the jacket to drape more naturally while he was standing and
prevented it from bunching up when he sat.

Buffy was unaware of this fact, as Giles was the only man she knew
who wore suits regularly. Her analysis of Xander's clothes began
and ended with the fact that they were far more flattering than the
more colourful outfits he had favored in high school.

And his body certainly did seem more flatter-worthy than it had in
years past. Certainly more so than Buffy remembered. Although,
when she thought about it, she had never paid that much attention to
Xander's appearance while Angel was around. She had been Angel free
for the last few months now, and seeing Xander was reawakening
Buffy's desire to be in a relationship. She wondered briefly if
Xander still had a thing for her, before catching herself.

"Bad Buffy." She mentally scolded herself. "This is a friend that
you haven't seen in almost two years, and this is no time to
complicate things."

Buffy managed to rouse herself from her thoughts for long enough to
ask Xander what sort of business brought him back to Sunnydale.
Xander launched into the topic with some gusto.

"Well, it's a bit of a funny story actually. I don't know if you
know this, but in England the mandatory schooling ends at age
sixteen. After that you have to decide whether to go to a trade
school or a university- and then try to get accepted to the school
of your choice.

"My parents were no help, of course, and I could have been in some
trouble, if I hadn't caught the eye of our neighbor. Turned out
he's retired, but still had some connections into his old firm. He
got me in the door, and now, well..." Xander reached into the
inside of his suit and withdrew a business card holder, from which
he retrieved a card that he handed to Buffy.

"Now I'm a sales associate. The great thing about being in sales is
that they don't care about grades or test scores, just results. And
it turns out that I have a bit of a knack for the business. That's
why they gave me our first overseas assignment."

"So what are you selling Xand? I can only hope that it's not
aluminium siding." Buffy smiled at him.

"Not exactly. Crowne Consulting is a software outsourcing firm. We
take software projects outsource them to India, where our local..."

It was at about this point that Buffy began to tune out Xander's
explanation and retreat back to her own thoughts. Xander sure was
looking good. And not just that- he had a good job and had lived in
exotic locales. She felt very... drab in comparison. He probably
wouldn't be interested in her anymore. Assuming he wasn't already
seeing somebody. Oh God, he must be seeing somebody-

"Buffy? Hello?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm sorry." Buffy reacted to Xander's question.

"No, I'm sorry, I tend to go on for far too long once I get started
talking about my job. Why don't you fill me in on what happened
while I was gone. Willow kept me up to date, but she only gave me
the Cliff's Notes version."

Xander laughed at himself internally as he listened to Buffy
recounting the events of the past year. It had been three years
since he fell for Buffy, two years since she had rejected him, and
a year and a half since he had even seen her. And yet he still felt
like a schoolboy in the throes of his first crush. Maybe he hadn't
changed as much as he had thought.

Xander just hoped that Buffy's feelings had changed since he had
last seen her.

---

Xander and Buffy exited the restaurant walking in a much more
familiar manner than they had entered. Their hands had clasped
together of their own accord, and they were standing well within
each other's personal space.

They had traveled about half the distance to Xander's car when Buffy
turned to him and spoke hesitantly.

"Xander?"

"Yeah?"

"You know how things can change over time?"

"Yes."

"Things like people, and feelings. What I'm getting at is, do you
still- I mean, like when we first met, you felt-"

Xander chose to answer Buffy's unasked question by leaning
forwarding and capturing her lips in a kiss. She reacted with
surprise at first, but was responding with enthusiasm when the two
of them were suddenly interrupted by the sound of somebody clearing
their throat.

Buffy and Xander sprang apart and turned to see a short Asian man
standing about ten feet away. He looked them up and down, and then
spoke.

"Buffy Summers, I presume?"

"Yeah." Buffy answered, suspicious.

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Darius, and I am here to
kill you."

As he finished speaking, his features morphed into a demonic visage.

"How many times am I going to have to explain this 'you vampire, me
slayer' thing?" Buffy was not impressed.

"Of course you are the Slayer. I have spent the last twenty years
perfecting my mastery of the martial arts. Killing you represents
the ultimate test."

Even through his 'game face' it was clear that Darius was
disappointed with their reaction as Buffy and Xander burst into a
fit of giggles.

"Did you see too many kung fu movies before you were turned or
something?" Buffy asked.

"No kidding." Xander interjected. "I'm surprised his lips even
sync up with his voice."

"Choose your next witticism carefully, young man." Darius snapped
at Xander. "It may be your last."

Not giving Xander a chance to respond, Darius made a signal with his
hands. Three vampires emerged from the shadows and attacked. Two
went for Buffy, while one of them attacked Xander.

Xander had almost no time to react before the vampire was on him.
He snapped out a quick jab to its face to try to keep it away from
him. The vampire just walked through the punch, completely
unaffected. When it was close enough it grabbed Xander and lowered
its head to drink. While there were numerous faster ways that the
vampire could have killed Xander, it seemed intent on demonstrating
its total contempt for him by simply draining his lifeblood.

Xander managed to get both of his hands on the vampire's throat,
holding it off. A human attacker would have been forced to pull
back, as Xander was gripping it strongly enough to cut off any air
flow. The vampire, of course, was unaffected by this and continued
its slow progress towards Xander's neck.

Xander was pretty angry. Here he was, a highly trained secret
agent, and he was about to get killed by some two bit vampire that
managed to get the drop on him. His rage provided added strength to
his arms and slowed the vampire's progress. But it was still
getting ever closer to Xander's neck. That's when Xander had an
idea.

Keeping his hands on the vampire's throat, Xander slid his right
hand over to his left and quickly unscrewed his watch fob while
maintaining as much pressure as he could on the vampire. When the
fob finally came loose, Xander grasped the fob firmly and spread
both of his hands out wide, releasing the vampire.

The sudden release of pressure meant that the vampire's head
crashed forward, straight into the wire attached to Xander's watch.
It decapitated him neatly, the vampire's head turning to dust before
it could hit Xander's suit.

Xander looked up just in time to see Buffy dispatch the second of
her two attackers and engage Darius in combat. Darius quickly
demonstrated that he did have some grasp of the martial arts and the
two of them locked in a superhuman battle that Xander could hardly
follow, let alone hope to match.

It soon became apparent to Xander, as he brushed himself off and
straightened out his suit, that Buffy was the superior of the two
combatants. Her victory was far from assured, however, as they were
evenly enough matched that some small misfortune could turn the tide
of the battle.

Xander briefly considered taking a shot at Darius with his pistol,
but elected against it. In addition to the risk of drawing unwanted
police attention, the two of them were moving quickly enough that
there was too much of a risk of him hitting Buffy. Xander moved
closer to the two of them and waited for his opportunity.

Xander's patience was rewarded a half minute later when Darius and
Buffy separated for a moment. Darius was about to taunt Buffy when
Xander tapped him on the shoulder from behind. The vampire spun
around in a fighting stance to find Xander standing casually a few
feet away.

Once he had his attention, Xander simply pointed back over Darius'
shoulder at Buffy. Darius' eyes widened as he realized his
mistake, and he spun back around to face the slayer just in time to
see a stake enter his heart. The vampire was so disgusted with this
turn of events that he didn't even say anything before he burst into
dust.

"I see you haven't slowed down any since I left. Are you hurt
anywhere?"

"Thanks, and I don't think so. That guy did come complete with kung
fu grip." Buffy stretched out and checked herself over. "Say, what
happened to the one that was after you?"

"Oh, he picked a bad time to lose his head." Xander stepped closer
to Buffy. "Now, where were we?"

-----

Graham lowered his binoculars in disgust.

"The vampire has failed."

"Never send a vampire to do a man's job, Mr. Grant." Forrest
grinned.

Graham didn't respond as he was still fuming over the vampire's
failure.

"Hey, buck up, big guy. Remember, if at first you don't succeed..."

"Try, try again, Mr. Miller." A smile returned to Graham's face.
Like all of his smiles, it didn't touch his eyes.

* * * * *

Finally finished with part 4.

--Randy