Different Heaven

by ainon

Xander is in a life that is vastly different from anything he might have imagined for himself.

Different Heaven

Summary: Xander is in a life that is vastly different from anything he might have imagined for himself.

Story notes: Post-'Chosen'. AU.

Author's notes: Many grateful thanks to JC, Manty and Ten for the beta aid.

Disclaimer: This story is all made up, based on characters Joss Whedon made up. Don't own them.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There were no flashes of light, nor any sensations that might be described as either 'whoosh' or 'whoa'. There was no blackout either - he was sure of that. He had been talking with Giles, or rather Giles had been talking to him, and there had been Andrew and some Slayers making incessant background noise that kept distracting him. And then suddenly, very much literally suddenly, he was here.

Here, sitting in front of a mirror looking at himself as he sat hunched over the counter of a bar, nursing a drink. No. He blinked a few times as his mouth fell open, too stunned to register that he might want to consider being scared.

No, he couldn't be looking at a reflection, not when what he was looking at was a full side profile of himself. He raised his hand in front of his face, which his reflection did not do, and although he knew that had been unnecessary, he took it as proof. He was having an out of body experience, and perhaps, for all he knew, he was having a time warp experience.

Xander started looking around him to see if he could recognize where he was. He was sitting on a stool at a bar counter inside what appeared to be a ballroom of some sort, where a formal party seemed be in progress. His reflection - himself - glanced at him and raised his eyebrows, in that friendly intimation of, 'Hey, what's up?'

It shook him to see his face expressing itself while he wasn't wearing the face. He quelled the urge to grab the stranger that was his body and throttle him and demand to know what was going on - until he had a better grip on the situation, blind panic wasn't going to help matters. Whoever had his body didn't seem malicious, at least not by the expression that....

Xander froze. He'd turned back to the bar, and right there in front of him was a mirror. A real mirror that reflected him and the party in progress behind him. And him. There were two of him in the mirror, exact doubles. Two Xanders. Both the same age. Both dressed in the same formal wear: wearing exact matching dark coloured jackets and ties. Both with hair carefully combed the same way. Both had drinks on the counter before them. The reflection didn't waver, didn't shimmer or fade off like a hallucinatory mirage. He continued to stare with eyes wide and mouth agape, while beside him, his double sat and stared at his gaping reflection too, but with a bemused expression. Then his double appeared to have had enough of Xander's eccentricity, and swiveled around on his stool to watch the party.

This had happened to him before, but it was bordering on the ridiculous that it should happen again. What were the odds that he would encounter another Toth demon in Cleveland and get hit by a second beam that split him up a second time? But since he couldn't remember any such encounter, he had to consider other possibilities as well. It might have been someone messing up a spell - nothing altogether unusual in that, unfortunately.

He could see. The realization hit him hard and made him clutch the rim of the counter so that he wouldn't fall off his stool. What he was seeing in the mirror he was seeing with both eyes. He winked his right eye shut, and the reflection in the mirror winked its left eye. He could see. Shakily, he reached for his face with his left hand and watched in the mirror as the fingers gently kneaded the area around his eye. He let his fingers hover over his left eyelid as he blinked his eyes rapidly, the eyelashes tickling his finger pads. He pressed down a little and felt the yield of his eyeball as muscles contracted. Oh God. The eye was real. He could see.

He gasped and grabbed his glass - looked to be brandy, from the colour of the liquid - and swallowed the shot in one gulp.

He'd had a prosthesis eye put in; bless Anya for planning all things financial when they'd been together - his medical policy was with a reputable multinational company that covered full costs. His Sunnydale medical reports were lost, of course, and the insurance company had chosen to extend the full coverage for his eye without quibbling about how he could have lost it in the first place. Just the fact that he was a survivor from Sunnydale had been an encouraging point for the company, since they thought that they could benefit from the publicity about how their insurance had stepped in in the hour of need and helped this young man rebuild his life. But Xander had adamantly refused to participate in any publicity run. Nonetheless, the company still honoured their part of the deal, probably because they didn't want to have any incidental bad publicity from not helping the young man who was rebuilding his life after surviving Sunnydale.

So he'd had an eye replaced. He appeared normal enough so that he wouldn't scare old ladies and little children on the streets. But he was still half blind. He had been half blind.

The bartender came by with the bottle of brandy and tipped the bottle slightly, asking without words if Xander wanted a refill. Xander nodded a bit too desperately, and after bartender had poured and moved away, Xander resumed staring at his reflection in the mirror. He was suddenly aware that his brain was processing depth perception again, and appreciated anew how things looked when seen from the left side of his face.

"Xand, what are you winking at?"

Xander's hands jerked and brandy sloshed over his fingers. Oh God. His voice. Exactly his voice. But of course it would be his voice. He grabbed napkins off the counter to dab the spill and dry his fingers, and saw that his hands were shaking. His double had been watching his reflection and reaction in the mirror, and was now clearly perplexed. He turned to look directly at Xander.

"Are you okay?"

Xander met his double's concerned gaze and thought back to that time when he had been split into two: how he himself had not felt any different at all, while his more suave double had truly felt like a totally foreign individual to him. This time he was looking at someone who felt closer to what he himself really was. He wasn't Xander as he felt himself to be, but nor was he totally foreign, and the feeling was confusing.

"Who are you?" he whispered, and his double frowned. Xander remembered standing toe to toe with his split half, making faces at each other and cracking up as every facial expression mirrored identically back. Even when he wasn't the one making faces he could practically feel which muscles were used for every grin and laugh and scowl. Now he could feel his face twitching involuntarily, almost trying to mimic the double's frown.

"What? You want to switch now?"

Xander shook his head. "No, I just want to know. Who are you? Who am I?"

"I'm action guy. You are alibi guy. We agreed we'd take turns. Now, if you want to switch, I'd say it's a bit too late, you know. We're already on the job."

Action. Alibi. Job. Whatever happened, he was in a situation that was remaining fluid despite his sudden variable entry into the scene. He finally grasped the necessary principle of the matter. Wherever he was, this world was real. He understood and he had to quickly accept it. This was not the world he knew; perhaps it was a concurrent existence, or a different timeline. A world where he had this double who was familiar to him. If he were lucky, this world would also have the same cast of individuals that he had always known all his life. If he could find the people he did know, he would find a way back to where he belonged.

For now he should play along, keep things moving in this world as things normally would if he weren't the one here. Except he was here. He needed to know who was here, what he did here, what he was supposed to be doing.

"I'm Alexander Harris, right? You called me Xand. I'm Xander? And you are?"

His double snorted and shook his head.

"Fine, whatever." He broke into a mock grin and cracked out a posh accent. "Hello! I'm Benjamin Harris. Call me Ben. Nice to meet you." He scowled. "Now cut it out."

Ben leaned back from his stool, spying someone or something past Xander's shoulder. "Contract's moving." He gave Xander a stern look. "Stop fooling around."

Xander stared at his double, at Ben. Their identical clothes, identical right down to the cufflinks. Alexander Harris. Benjamin Harris. Ben and Xand.

"We're identical twins," he said, feeling stupid. He should have been able to jump to that conclusion sooner; trust him to fail to connect the obvious dots in any situation that was not carpentry.

Ben feigned shock. "My God! You're right! Our life mystery solved! God, Xand, what is your mental deficiency?"

Xander's brain dredged up the piece of science that would explain this doubling. He rarely felt confident about school-learned knowledge, but on this one he was absolutely sure: this was how there were two. It had happened before both of them were born - they had started as one, and then became two.

"When a fertilized egg splits into two you get identical twins."

"Yeah, Xand, great time for the biology breakthrough. We've got a job. It's time to stop with the funny because we've got to be working together here." Ben glared at him a while more, and then he leaned in. His expression softened from annoyance to genuine concern. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know what...." He stopped. He'd been about to say that he didn't know what Ben was, or why Ben existed, but he knew that wasn't something he should say. "I don't think I'm the Xander you think you know. I'm pretty sure I don't belong here."

Ben stared at him. The expression on his face was likely the one Xander frequently had on his own whenever Giles or Willow had just tried to explain something new that was so unreal that it defied all the other ridiculously unreal experiences they'd had in their lives prior to that. Ben plucked Xander's glass from the countertop, swirled the liquid around in the glass, but didn't drink it or sniff it. He looked thoughtful.

"I don't know what I'm doing here," Xander repeated. "I ... I'm - "

"Never mind," Ben interrupted, pushing Xander's glass away from them. He put his hand on Xander's shoulder and huddled close. "We'll figure out what's happened. Right now we have work to do. We can't delay this one. It has to be now. Can you do it?"

Xander swallowed. "I...." he hesitated, and then asked, "Do what?"

"Be the alibi." Ben straightened up and indicated the room behind them. "Walk around and mingle. That side," he turned and pointed subtly with his chin. "You're Alexander Harris. This side, you're Ben. You're me. Okay? This side. Make sure you mingle both sides. I'm going out through that door."

Ben wasn't pointing at anything, but Xander looked in the same direction and spotted the side door with the Exit sign. He nodded that he'd understood, and Ben gave him a curt nod of approval and made as though to leave. He grabbed Ben's wrist before Ben could get off his stool.

"There might be a demon."

"What?"

"Demons, they - "

Ben interrupted him again. "Not here. The demons are cleared out of Cleveland for the weekend."

Xander was taken aback. Ben knew. He had to factor in the possibility now that this might be a world where demons roamed free, or perhaps he and Ben were affiliated with the vampire slayer and demon hunters of this world.

"Look, Xand," Ben said. "It'll be fine. Anything else?"

"Well...." Xander nodded toward the party. "What am I supposed to say?"

"Right." Ben thought about it, couldn't seem to come up with an easy answer. He studied Xander's face. "You can't remember? You really don't know?"

"No."

"Okay." Ben mulled it over, and Xander saw that that was what he looked like when he was trying very hard to think. "Okay. If they ask about the Mayor, just say that you can't speak for him tonight and you can't make any appointments either. Just tell them to call the Mayor's office directly tomorrow morning. Anything else, just talk about the weather."

"Which is?"

"Kind of cold."

Ben slid off his stool and sauntered off into the party without a backward glance, buttoning his jacket as he went. Xander watched as Ben shook hands with people and stopped to chat with other people, all the while inconspicuously making his way toward the side door with the Exit sign.

Xander turned back to the bar and reached for his glass for a last drink, then stopped himself. He looked at his reflection. He could see. With both eyes.

He stood up and buttoned his jacket, still looking into the mirror. He breathed in, held it, and then let it out with a 'whoosh'. Be the alibi.

He joined the party.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Council gave them a house in Cleveland. A very large bungalow in the suburbs, with ten bedrooms and seven bathrooms, large living room and dining areas, a spacious den, well equipped kitchen, an attic, a basement, and ample grounds around the house. Next-door neighbours were not too close. The Council paid all the bills - even paid for the installation of a secure gate and fence perimeter. The Council arranged for the girls' schooling, even Dawn's. But the Council would not give them cash.

The old Council had hired ingenious lawyers and accountants who had the money tied up so tight that now that the Council seniors were gone, Giles could find no legal loophole to wrangle though. Of course Giles received a stipend for his services as one of the few surviving Watchers, and since he was the most senior survivor, it was quite a generous amount. But Giles had no direct access to his own money. The money could only be freely withdrawn, in person, from a bank account in the Bank of London. Whatever cash Giles needed in Cleveland, he had to request for the amount to be wired over to a local bank.

There were five adults and any number ranging from fifteen to twenty Slayers staying in the house. Everyone needed to eat.

Willow and Buffy were trying to catch up at university, and Xander harboured no ill will toward them for wanting to get their lives pieced together again.

Andrew was studying too, but what he really was was an imbecile Watcher-wannabe who grated on Xander's nerves. Sometimes, as Xander lay alone at night, bone-tired and waiting for sleep to claim him, he would succumb to the dark fantasy that it was Andrew who had died in battle and Anya who had boarded the bus out of Sunnydale. He hated that his thoughts would go that way, but Andrew kept getting in his face, kept trying too hard to endear himself to Xander. All that did was bring out the retaliatory reaction in Xander.

Faith and former Sunnydale High Principal Wood had opted to go to New York for reasons Xander barely cared about; as long as they were gone, it meant there were two fewer mouths to feed.

It drove Giles crazy, how lawyers could thwart him, despite him practically being the head of the Council now. Anya, on the other hand, would have applauded the genius behind the determined efforts to not spend an extra dime of Council money. But the fact of the matter was that while Giles may be the titular head of the Council, he was not based in London, and the lawyers refused to negotiate seriously with a man whom they could not speak to face to face. And Giles didn't want to leave Cleveland. He was worried, he'd confided to Xander, that once in London there might be some clause that would prevent him from coming back to Cleveland. He would not abandon them again.

Realistically, Xander knew it was only a matter of time before Giles would have to give in and return to London. Which might even be for the best, in the long run.

In the meantime, Xander worked to supplement the income. He worked construction by day, at a site where the foreman had already recognized his skills and given hints that he might be able to move up the scale if he kept up the good work. He tended bar at night, at an establishment where the patrons always tipped generously and never got too rowdy, not even on Friday nights. Weekends he worked as a part-time assistant librarian at the public library. Xander was sure that Giles savored the irony. Weekends, and there he would be - Xander the assistant librarian, scanning barcodes and stacking books back onto shelves.

He met a lot of people though, at the library and at the bar, and he kept no secret that he was a carpenter willing to do any job. So far he'd helped with small renovations at three houses, put up a few shelves, and built a vanity chest according to the customer's design. He was proud of that one, especially since his disability had made him fear he could never craft a perfect piece of work again. It brought him 500 bucks, and cost him a month's loss of sleep.

He held down three jobs, threw in the part-time carpentering, and brought home the greenbacks. Everybody lived comfortably, everyone was well fed, and nobody cared to not spend so much money. That was what drove Xander crazy. He worked himself ragged for the money, and the girls would run the green through. Not that they splurged. The girls were aware that things weren't easy, and they were considerate enough not to demand for too much. But they weren't helping. They just assumed that if they needed something urgently, Giles or Xander would automatically fork out the cash. The girls could work too. Not a one of them was an invalid.

And Xander hadn't had sex in a long, long time.

Not because he had sworn himself to celibacy in honour of Anya's memory. Not because he couldn't score - he was a bartender for crissakes. There could never be a shortage of women to lay: sober, giddy, tipsy, depressed, barely legal, way past desirable - just throwing themselves at him. Either because they really wanted him, or because they thought it was a way to escape whatever mundane normal lives they led. He didn't mind what kind of women they were. So long as they were women.

No. He wasn't getting any because he was always too tired. He was 22-freaking-years-old, and he would go to work and work hard, and then he would come home and sleep. Just literally, sleep. He could never get enough sleep. He couldn't even remember the last time he simply sat down to do nothing. If he wasn't sleeping, then he was working. If he was neither sleeping nor working, then he was holding counsel with Giles while Giles pondered this or that, with Andrew as a persistent yapping presence. Or he'd be sitting in during Slayer meetings about strategies and ambushes - his presence necessitated because he was the designated driver of the SUV on away missions. The SUV was a used one that they managed to buy after Xander figured a way to trade in the Sunnydale school bus; the SUV served him well, but it guzzled gas due to some problem that Xander couldn't figure out and that he couldn't afford to go to a mechanic for.

Twenty-two-years-old and life was all about how much money he could earn and how much could be spent before he had to go back out and earn even more. He imagined that this might be some form of penance for what he'd done to Anya. Only fitting.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When he got home tonight he had been drop-dead tired. He'd wanted to head straight to bed, but Giles caught him before he could reach the stairs. There was a demon on the loose, a demon whose guttural name Xander couldn't recall, but Giles had shown him the demon's insignia. The insignia was worn like a badge on some part of the demon's torso - Xander couldn't remember that detail either. What he could remember, in clear, precise outline, was the insignia. He'd trained in a job that required him to build things from two-dimensional plans and layouts. Lines and squiggles that formed into shapes were now things that burned instantaneously into his memory.

He was so close to well-earned rest - if he could just bound up the stairs, into his room, which he shared with no one, thank God - but Giles needed to deliver his exposition and for whatever reason, the Slayers were not his audience. Andrew and the girls were nattering away in the living room while Giles stood with him, blocking his escape up the stairs while elaborating on demon pathology and devising a plan that Xander's addled brain couldn't quite process.

"Imagine! Just imagine!" That had been one of the more excitable girls. Another girl squealed, "Wouldn't you?"

Giles had been trying to emphasize the fact that speed mattered, and Xander was struggling to pay attention, but the girls were getting louder as they grew more and more enthusiastic. "But how? Who gets to? Everyone should get to. It's only fair!"

"What do you think, Xander?" Andrew had called out then. Xander turned to Andrew and the girls. He bit back the urge to snap 'Will you just shut the fuck up?' and instead asked, "What?"

He hadn't wanted an answer. He had hoped that his weary 'What?' would convey a thousand times how much he did not care to think, that much as he liked the girls, sometimes, the girls drove him to the brink of insanity, and tonight, Andrew, was not a good night. Especially if he'd understood Giles correctly and he was expected to drive out there to rendezvous with Buffy at some strategic demon-bashing location.

But Andrew had given him an answer. "Wish that you could wish!"

And for the life of him, Xander could not remember what his response had been. His whole existence had taught him to be so very careful about that word. One should never wish upon a star. One should never wonder if wishes were horses. Or ponies, or ducks, or puppies. One never knew when a wish would drop like an anvil on one's fragile head. One should freaking never say that word and think that they meant it.

Well, someone must have.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The man who was shaking his hand grinned at him as though he were his new best friend. "Such a pleasure, Mr. Harris. Harris?"

Xander wondered about the question mark behind his name, and then he got it. He smiled and shook the man's hand a little more firmly. "Alexander Harris."

"Yes, of course. The two of you are so identical I don't know how anybody tells you apart."

Xander laughed along with him, and thought that if he had to listen to that line one more time tonight he would have to kill somebody. The man made small talk about the finger food, which Xander hadn't tried because now that he was in the middle of the party mingling he'd found that every other person wanted to meet him and shake his hand and make small talk about finger food - Xander hadn't known it'd be possible to be talked out of feeling like eating anything.

He backed up the man's small talk, waiting with far more patience than he ever thought he possessed for the man to get to the point, and when he finally did, he did it with such ham-fisted poise that it almost made Xander want to grab a nearby waiter's tray and smash it into the man's face.

"You know, I don't see the Mayor at all tonight."

"No, he'd cancelled. It was announced yesterday in the papers." This information Xander had learned from the previous ten people who'd accosted him and him being Ben. They all wanted to meet with the Mayor, and they were all so pleasurably sure that either Harris could arrange for an appointment.

"Yes, of course! But I don't suppose he's coming later?"

"No."

The man flashed a bigger grin and was about to launch into what Xander was sure would be the 'would you perhaps be seeing him later and so maybe could ask him if he would' routine, when Xander simply cut him off by saying, "Call his office tomorrow. I'm sure his secretary will be happy to fit you into his schedule."

He didn't give the man time to answer. He smiled politely, and walked away. And was met by another man extending his hand out in greeting, another complete stranger trying to project that fervent, affable air of one who would be willing to prostrate before him to gain his favour, if it had to come to that.

Xander didn't know how this Xander survived doing this for a job. If he had known, he might've taken the risk and argued for the action guy position.

But. Alibi guy. He smiled at this man too and braced himself for talking.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He gave up. There was no way he could work that party crowd and come out of it sane. By the twenty-fifth person he was starting to twitch and feel like he had to either find a gun and shoot himself in the head, or rush to the bar and get himself sloshing drunk.

He couldn't. He just couldn't.

He exited through the door that Ben had indicated and looked left and right. Left that way to the restrooms. He went the other way, down the corridor to the next door. The talking and mingling sounds of the party followed him.

The door was a larger emergency exit, the kind that usually led out to the world beyond. Exactly the escape Xander yearned for. He released the latch and pushed the door open, felt the cold air rush in from outside and guessed that this might lead out into a back alley.

This Xander's brother Ben was standing alone in the alleyway when Xander stepped out. Ben had his back to him, and Xander kept quiet, but then his fingers slipped and he lost his grip on the door. It swung shut with an audible click. Ben reacted instantly, spinning around into ready combat stance. Xander was impressed.

Ben relaxed when he saw Xander, but his voice was sharp. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Came to see if you needed any help."

"Well, yeah, as the alibi. Duh." Then he seemed to remember that Xander wasn't quite the brother he knew. Or whatever he thought was the matter with Xander. He shrugged. "Aww hell. I'm done anyway. Easiest ten grand we ever made, bro."

He was using a handkerchief to wipe at something he was holding in his hand, and then he put the cloth away and raised the item to show it to Xander. Xander stepped closer.

It was a dagger, wickedly sharp, with a handle crusted with what looked like emeralds and gems. It was an interesting piece - he could imagine Giles eagerly and reverentially picking it up from a case, studying it and talking in hushed awed tones about its mystical qualities.

He instinctively looked around for the demon. He could quickly put it together now; whatever this Xander and Ben really did for their day jobs, they also had a side thing going: perhaps demon-hunting, perhaps adjunct patrol missions. They were in Cleveland; perhaps Buffy and Giles were too.

There, he spotted it. A man-shaped demon slumped against a dumpster, dead where it had fallen. It trickled red from a stab wound in its chest. Xander waited for the body to either disintegrate into some slick, vapourous substance or morph back into its true demon shape when he realized that that thing must have already been dead for some time. If anything were to happen, it should have happened already.

Complete comprehension hit him like a swift kick in the gut. He started to back away.

"Oh my God. Oh my God." He was looking at a man. A dead man. His brother had killed a human being. No. This Xander's brother. Ben was the action guy, and he, Xander, was the alibi. "Oh my God."

They had committed murder. They had stolen the dagger. They were mercenaries.

He'd backed into the wall; he couldn't get any further away. "Oh my God." He brought his hands up to his face, started to wheeze in panic as he slid down into a heap of trembling limbs. "Oh God." He was hyperventilating. Ben rushed over and crouched beside him. He tried to scoot away.

Ben yanked his hands from his face and held them down. Xander shook his head and tried to pull his hands out of Ben's strong grip, tried to get back to his feet and flee.

"No, no. Hey. Hey." Ben peered into his face. "Hey."

Xander gave up. He smacked his head backward and the explosive pain from the impact against the wall brought him close to graying out. He welcomed the pain and the haziness. He squeezed his eyes shut. He could see, he could still see. One dead man. Murdered. He'd played a part in that. This Xander did that.

"What's the matter?" Ben asked, in a tone of infinite affection and patience. It made Xander want to cry.

"You killed him," he said. He opened his eyes and looked straight into Ben's eyes, identical to his own. "You killed a human being."

"Well, yeah. He's our contract, Xand. Remember? Ten grand. Five for you and five for me. And," he let go of Xander's hands and reached for the dagger that he had dropped to the ground. He showed it off proudly, as though it were a present that would make Xander's day. "Two grand bonus for retrieving this."

Xander looked at the gem and emerald encrusted dagger, worth twelve grand and a man's life. He shook his head. "We don't kill human beings. We don't."

"Huh," Ben said and sat back on his heels. The expression on his face was a mixture of concern and confused pity. "It's what we do, Xand."

Xander had figured that. This Xander and this Xander's brother were not going to see any wrong in what had happened. No, no remorse. He wondered how it had happened, when this Xander made his first human kill and started off down the road that lurked away from the light that Xander held on to. He couldn't understand how it could have happened in the first place - this Xander was not him, but surely they shared the same basic principles? The same moral grounds?

"How many?" he asked, morbidly curious in spite of himself. He knew, intellectually, that this couldn't be the first. Not when the brothers already had such a well-oiled routine in place.

"This?" Ben turned to look at the dead man, dead - snuffed off this mortal coil. "Fifth contract kill. We can raise our asking price after this."

Xander ignored the joke. His hope that this might have been a fluke was dashed. He felt like throwing up.

"Whoa," Ben said, wrapping an arm around him. They sat together against the wall while Xander fought down the urge to vomit. Ben rubbed his shoulder and rocked with him, and didn't say anything.

The nausea finally passed. Xander wiped the tears from his eyes and quietly said, "We don't kill human beings, Ben. We just don't."

"Xand, why is this an issue now?"

Xander shrugged Ben's arm off his shoulder. "Look. I'm not the Xander you know. I'm not Xand. I'm Xander Harris, born in Sunnydale, California, friends with Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the past seven, I don't know, eight years, and then the First came and Sunnydale was destroyed, and now I'm in Cleveland. Still friends with Buffy. Still trying to help. And I don't know what happened. I don't know why I'm here. I don't know why I'm not your brother, but I'm not. I'm Xander Harris; I'm not your brother."

Ben opened and closed his mouth a few times, plainly struggling to come up with a response. What he came up with finally was a question, which he asked calmly. "Okay, so you're not my brother. Where is my brother?"

Xander was wondering the same thing. If he was here, then it stood to reason that this Xander Harris was where he had been, suddenly trapped in a houseful of Slayers. He wondered how long it would take for Giles to realize that the Xander there was no longer Xander. He wondered if this Xander, once there, would harm anyone. He would like to believe that that would never happen. This Xander was a contract killer, from the looks of it, not a killer who killed for pleasure. He didn't think that offered any consolation, but if he could cling on to the illusion that this Xander killed only for the job then maybe the crimes wouldn't become more despicable.

"I think he might be in my life," he answered finally. "Maybe we switched worlds, switched places in our different worlds. I don't know."

Ben sighed, a shadow of frustration darkening his face. He pulled a clean piece of white cloth from a jacket pocket and used it to wrap the dagger. He refused to look at Xander.

"I think Giles will know the answer," Xander added, and that got Ben's attention.

"Giles?"

"He's a Watcher; in my world he's the...."

"Head of the Watcher's Council," Ben finished for him. "Big Boss Watcher of all the Slayers."

Xander realized he was feeling a little too numb to be either surprised or happy to confirm Giles did indeed exist in this world, in the exact same capacity. He also noted the plural to the word 'Slayers'. But it wasn't the same. This Xander wasn't on Giles' side. This Xander was probably an enemy.

"I remember he was talking to me about a demon," Xander went on. "A new demon had come to Cleveland and I think Buffy had gone to kill it. I don't know, maybe I found the demon or it found me and it did something. It could be the demon's fault that all this happened. Or it could be a wish. Someone might have made a wish that made everything go...."

He had been about to say 'go wrong', but he didn't want to sour things with Ben. He remembered an event from his past, wondered if such things might have been mirrored in this world. He decided to chance it as an example.

"Like Vamp Willow? Did you ever meet her? She was from some other world. Some wish world."

"Vamp Willow, oh yeah, sure. Quite a slut, wasn't she?" Ben smirked, and Xander was relieved to see that Ben knew Willow and had shared that experience, although he could have done without the commentary on her modesty. The lack of it. "We staked her."

Xander managed to keep the horror from showing on his face. Oh God. He hoped they hadn't done that in front of Willow. Hoped desperately that they hadn't made her witness to her other self's dusting.

"Well, anyway," he said, his voice slightly shaky. He drew in a breath. "Anyway, I think we should go talk to Giles."

Ben cleared his throat and had the grace to look a little bit embarrassed. "We're vying for a contract for Giles."

"Well, we don't have the contract yet, do we?"

Ben raised his eyebrows and his lips twitched. He cocked his head to one side as he admitted, "Well, no."

"Giles can help. We just - we just have to go talk to Giles. At least we can start with that demon. I don't remember what it was, but I remember the insignia."

"It had an insignia? Identifiable?"

"Yes, and I can draw it. Giles will see it and he'll know what demon it is."

"Well," Ben began, rolling his eyes and gesturing with his hands. "If you can draw it we can just go get help from the Mayor. He'll have someone look at it. He can fix this."

"No, it's Giles. I have to see Giles."

Ben snorted. "Look, Xand, Giles is on our job list. We don't make social calls to people we're trying to eliminate. It makes us look like - "

"I want to see Giles," Xander interrupted. He didn't want to hear about Giles being on a hit list, didn't want to know about why assassins had a policy against socializing with their victims. "Did we ever know Giles?" he asked.

Xander's abrupt change of topic made Ben stammer a little. "He was Buffy's Watcher. He was, he was always there. And we were always there." Ben gave a sudden harsh laugh. "Of course we did know Giles."

"We were in the Scooby Gang," Xander surmised, and he felt his heart break. He couldn't begin to imagine what could have happened in this world that this Xander would grow up and become this, this killer, this man who would casually bid for a contract to kill someone he actually used to know.

Ben's face brightened up. "Yeah, that's right. You remember the Scooby Gang. You and me and Willow. We grew up in Sunnydale, and we used to patrol with Buffy."

"Yeah," Xander said, softly. "Why did we stop?"

"We're grown up now, Xand. They go their way. We go our way."

"But we're all in Cleveland? Even Buffy? She's alive?"

"Buffy's alive. And yeah, we're all in Cleveland. Okay, so we never seem to get away from the Hellmouths."

"What happened to Sunnydale?"

"It's gone. The battle with the First took it off the map."

"Which side did we fight on?"

"Side?"

"When did we stop being the white hats and start being black hats?"

And just like that, Ben closed off. He now wore the expression of someone who had finally realized that he was talking to a stranger, and an untrustworthy stranger at that. Xander found the change fascinating, but Ben gave no time for any more questions, and offered no answer to the question Xander had asked. He stood up and reached behind him to slip the wrapped-up dagger under the waistband of his slacks.

"Let's go," he said, and proffered a hand to pull Xander up.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They didn't go back to the ballroom. Ben ascertained that Xander had done what he was supposed to have done: covered the hall, made half the people think they were talking to Alexander Harris, while the other half thought they were talking to Benjamin Harris. He left the body lying there without a second glance, and Xander didn't second-guess him.

They walked briskly to where a car was parked behind the hotel, in a gloomy, secluded area away from curious eyes. Ben unlocked the driver's door with his key and indicated that Xander should get in. Once in the car, Ben removed the dagger from its hiding place and handed it to Xander, who although surprised, took it without a word.

Xander studied the landmarks as they drove past and identified most of them. This world's Cleveland was just like his; he wondered if Giles lived in a Council-secured house and if so, would it be the same? Xander might be able to guide them to it.

It was close to 11.00 p.m. by the car's dashboard clock and the roads were quiet. He didn't know what day it was but assumed it was a weekend since Ben had talked about demons being gone for the weekend. They were heading out into the suburbs.

"Where are we going?" he asked, at long last breaking the silence.

"You want to get to Giles, we'll get to Giles," Ben replied. "But I don't know where he is." Xander was about to say that he might know how to find Giles but then Ben continued, "We'll have to ask Faith."

"Faith?" Xander echoed. "The Slayer?"

Ben took his eyes off the road and stared at him for an uncomfortably unsafe beat of time before turning his attention back to the driving. He hesitated a while longer and then replied, "Yeah. The Slayer."

"But do you know where to find her? Where does she live?" Xander didn't want to deal if this world's Faith was in New York too.

This time Ben took an even longer time to answer. "She lives with me."

Xander mouthed a silent 'oh' and went back to watching the landscape pass them by. He thought of the Faith he had known when he was 18, the one he had lost his virginity to. This Faith had chosen Ben over Xander. He wondered what their story was. It wouldn't surprise him in the least if Faith were the reason these two brothers lurked into the dark. Pun fully intended, because it would be a shame to let that pun go.

Hadn't any one of them - Ben, Faith, Xand - ever been touched by redemption?

He spied a portion of his own reflection in the car's side mirror. He stared at it, stared at the fraction of this Xander's face. He didn't want to think, didn't want to keep comparing this world against his world, and coming up short of satisfactory explanations for why this world had gone so wrong.

Then curiosity got the better of him.

"What's Willow doing now?"

Ben made a dismissive sound. "Who knows? Probably gone postal after the stunt she pulled in Sunnydale, the Slayer activation thing. Not that she had far to go to being loony, but hey."

Xander didn't know what to make of that. "But she's ... she's in Cleveland too? 'Coz she made it out of Sunnydale, it sounds like she made it out of Sunnydale."

"Yeah, she's in Cleveland. Last I heard the Mayor was going to have some talking-to with her. He's not going to let her go out of control again, if it's the last thing he does."

Now Xander wondered if this Xander had ever had to avert a Willow-initiated apocalypse, and if Ben had had a hand in the world-saving too. Ben and Xand, doing everything together, regardless of motives and consequences. Why did this Xander, Xand, change so drastically from what Xander fundamentally was, or was Xander the one who was being presumptuous about the moralities of right and wrong?

But no, there could be no doubting the question of morality and human lives. If this Xander had made that choice when he reached the fork in that road then so be it. Xander could mourn, but he didn't have enough facts at hand to judge.

He cast a sidelong glance at Ben - something he couldn't have done if his left eye had still been lost - and studied the profile of a face that he'd known his whole life, but that he had never before seen from this angle. This wasn't just another double. Ben was a whole different individual, with independent thoughts and habits and choices, and yet he was more familiar than any other person could be. He wondered about their souls. Did souls halve in twins? Or was this existence, this world he'd fallen into, accommodating one extra Harris soul?

"Xand?"

"Yeah."

"You remember your wife, don't you?"

"Wife?"

Xander hadn't wanted to ask about her, hadn't wanted to know the answer to that question in this world. Hadn't wanted to know how he would deal with it in this world if the answer were the same as where he had been.

"Your wife. Anya?"

He automatically looked down at his bare left hand, and then at Ben, who must have noticed Xander's reaction.

"Well, you always take it off when we're working. Because I don't have one." Ben lifted his bare left hand and wriggled his fingers in the air, and then he seemed to get what Xander really needed to know. He winced slightly and motioned with his head. "You usually keep it in your shirt pocket."

Xander placed his hand over his chest and through the layers of clothing, felt the ring. He pressed on it, outlined the shape of the ring beneath his palm, and beneath the ring, his heart thumped a little faster. With the fingers of his right hand he fished into the pocket, touched warmed metal, and pulled it out. He looked at it, fixed his eyes on it, ran his fingers over the smoothness of the band, round and round. A simple gold band. The inner ring had something inscribed - it was too dark to read, but from the length of the wordings he guessed that it would be something short and sweet like 'Xander and Anya', or maybe a heart shape instead of 'and'. No poetry - neither he nor Anya wasted words on not being direct when it came to things like love - an irony that he fully appreciated considering how he had managed to botch up his wedding. The wedding in his past, in his world. In this world, this Xander had married her. As he should have.

He blinked hard as tears cast a curtain over his vision. "She's an ex-demon," he said aloud, just so that he could feel the words on his tongue again, and know that he was saying them in present tense, while loving her.

"Yeah, but she doesn't do that vengeance stuff anymore," Ben assured him, and Xander wanted to say that no, it was all right, that wasn't what he'd meant. He slipped the ring onto his finger, and for the briefest selfish moment wished that he could steal this Xander's memory of what it must been like on the day, when Anya slipped this ring onto his finger and with this ring, she wed him.

"Listen, it's gonna be all right," Ben said. "We're going to sort this problem out."

Xander cleared his throat, coughed a couple of times, and did his best to pull himself together. He asked, "You believe what I told you, right? You believe what I said?"

"I believe you believe it," Ben replied, giving him a quick reassuring smile. "I believe something happened - maybe someone spiked your drink or put the charm on you or something. Or ... oh, damn." He slammed his hand on the steering wheel. "That drink. We should have brought a sample back."

"It's the same stuff you had, man. The same brandy."

Ben didn't answer, but Xander could see him work his jaw and guessed that Ben was every bit as distraught and confused as he was. He thought about his own world, and what might be happening there now. This Xander would have suddenly found himself in a half-disabled body - half blind and off-balance. Poor. Overworked. He'd be missing his Anya and he'd be missing his twin.

"Ben, I'm really sorry about all this."

"What? Hell, no, don't apologize. We don't know what's going on."

"I'm sorry, I got your brother into this situation and - "

"No, we'll work it out."

"Even if you don't believe what I'm saying you know something's wrong."

Ben kept his eyes on the road, tapped his fingers on the wheel, and finally agreed. "Yeah." He shot him a glance. "Stuff you said. Stuff Xand wouldn't say."

"I'm not him."

"Maybe," Ben said, with an affirmative nod, followed, interestingly enough, by a shake of the head. "We don't talk about white hats and black hats. We don't take sides."

Xander supposed he should feel a new wave of dismay at this news that the Harrises were proud equal-opportunity freelancers of death, but he really had to disassociate himself from their lives. What their reality was and what he was were so fundamentally different that never the twain should meet.

Ben suddenly reached over and ruffled his hair and boxed his cheek.

"Hey, we'll get you back. Okay? You got me. And I got you."

Xander smiled at Ben. Even through his jumbled emotions he could feel the love for this brother who was not his.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They pulled up into the driveway of a medium-sized double-storey suburban home. By the light of the car's headlights Xander could see a basketball hoop mounted above the closed garage door. Ben killed the lights and the engine and peered up at the upstairs windows. All was dark, save for a night lamp shining through the downstairs front window, and a soft white light bulb illuminating the front door.

"I think Faith's over at your place."

"Where's my place?"

Ben's smile was indulgent and sad. "Right next door. We're neighbours."

They both got out of the car, Xander carrying the packaged dagger gingerly in his hands, trying not to think that he was holding onto a murder weapon. Ben beeped the car lock, and started off across the lawn to the next house. Xander followed his lead.

"Faith keeps Anya company when we're both out late," Ben explained when Xander leveled with him as they walked. "Sometimes she sleeps over. Listen, don't say anything to Faith - let me talk to her and ask her about Giles. And then we'll go see him first thing tomorrow morning."

"Tonight. It should be tonight." It would be wrong to keep waiting any longer before setting things right.

Ben sighed. "Okay. We'll see." They had reached the front door of this Xander's house, which, from what little Xander could see in the night, was exactly identical to his brother's. But that was only logical since they were in a planned suburb.

The lights were bright inside the house. Xander and Ben stood on the welcome mat in front of the door, stamping their feet in the crispy air, and after waiting a while, Ben prompted, "Keys are usually in your back pocket."

"Oh. Right." Xander handed the dagger back to Ben, patted his pockets, and found the keys in his left back pocket. As he went through the keys on the key ring, trying to find the right one to unlock the door, he heard female voices within calling out to each other.

Home was a lovely warmth that welcomed him in. He stepped into a living room that had a complete settee set and wall-lined cabinets filled with shelves of knick-knacks. A large screen TV perched on a solid oak AV-bench at one end of the room and there was a fireside grate over at another corner. The walls were a soft pastel yellow-white, the colour of daisies, which Anya loved.

Faith was coming down the stairs. He grinned at her. She looked exactly like the Faith of his world, with the long, dark, tousled hair and dreamy eyes, but he had never before seen her dressed as a frumpy housewife - she had on a loose t-shirt and faded track pants. She still looked stunningly beautiful though, and he felt his heart lift for how lucky Ben was.

"Hey," she said. She jerked her head back in the direction she'd come. "Anya's upstairs."

Xander wondered how Faith could tell him apart from Ben, who was standing just to his right, but he decided that if Faith could, then Anya must be able to as well. Which was good. He wouldn't want it to ever get weird. In that way.

"You guys are late!" Faith exclaimed, to Ben this time, and Xander slipped away and up the stairs, brushing lightly past Faith. As he climbed he heard Faith's excited, "Holy shit! You got the blade! Holy shit!"

Despite the gravity of the circumstances that led to retrieval of that blade, his lips quirked into a smile. The same Faith.

He was on the upstairs landing. One of the room doors was ajar, and warm light spilled out into the corridor.

"Honey? Is that you?"

Anya's voice. She was in that room. Alive. Xander stepped forward slowly, heart pounding in his chest. Anya, his Anya - right up till the moment he could lay eyes on her he feared that the Anya of this world may not be the same as the Anya from the other; she could be different in a hundred million ways that would not make her his. But of course he had to remember that she wasn't his anyway. Even if she was his Anya, she wasn't his.

He entered the room, looked at this Anya, and though she was turned away from him, he knew her. Knew her as he had always, always known her.

Anya was leaning over a cot, cradling something up into her arms. She turned to beam at him.

"She just woke up," she said, with that in-the-moment unrestrained joy that he'd so achingly missed. She rocked the baby in her arms and in a soft lullaby voice, whispered, "Your daddy's home. See? Daddy's home."

A baby girl. His breath caught in his throat. Anya bounced the baby in her arms and laughed, and waited for Xander to come to them. He couldn't remember bridging the distance between where he'd stood by the doorway and where Anya was, but now he was kissing her, feeling again the soft give of her lips against his. He breathed in her scent - baby talcum powder smell. Or that could be the scent of his baby. His baby girl.

He looked down into the baby's eyes. Her eyes were his, her ears were Anya's, her nose and lips and cheeks were in-between and yet all her own. He looked into those eyes and knew that the metaphoric melting into someone's eyes that he'd always heard about could really happen. His baby girl's eyes.

He raised his hands, palms up, and Anya handed the baby gently over, that wide grin still plastered on her face and her eyes sparkling and so alive, her whole being suffused with joy. She wrapped her arm around his waist and they stood side-by-side, bodies pressed close, as he cradled his baby girl. They made soft parental cooing sounds together.

If he had ever dreamed of heaven, he knew that his heaven would be like this.

"Xand, hey." Ben popped his head into the room. "We want to go get to Giles now."

Xander reluctantly tore his gaze away from his baby's face; at the same time he felt Anya's arm tighten possessively around him. He looked at his brother, at this Xander's brother. Ben waited.

"No. It's okay. I think I'm okay."

Ben's face broke into a relieved smile, and Xander saw that he'd been hoping that reuniting Xander with Anya and his daughter would be just the trick to snap him out of whatever weird mojo that had hit him. "You're sure? You're all okay now. You're all here?"

Xander felt a twinge in his conscience. He dropped his eyes, and was just in time to catch his daughter smile. She gurgled and made a 'pah!' sound that was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. He chuckled and rocked her, and made her gurgle some more.

"Yeah. Got some things I'm still missing, but I think we can work around that." He smiled at his brother. "So yeah. All here."

He could live with his conscience.

- End -