"This isn't working," Faith said.
Xander looked up from his television, startled.
"Um... hi," he said, motioning to the couch. "What isn't? And... how did you get in here?"
"I stole Dawn's key."
"Ah. So what's not working?"
"This... thing. Living at the hotel. It doesn't fit me. I need space."
Xander arched an eyebrow. "You don't have enough space at a hotel that houses like seven people, so you come to my ratty one-bedroom apartment?"
Faith looked around, her eyebrows creased. "It's not that ratty."
"Okay... um... still a lot smaller than a hotel."
Faith shook her head. "I didn't mean actual space, I meant space from Angel."
Xander looked surprised. "I thought you guys were good buds."
"We are. I mean, Angel's great, and he's helped me through a lot... but goddamn, I can take a break from the redemption for an hour."
"Overbearing?" Xander asked.
"He's like a fucking mother. Got a beer?"
Xander pointed to his fridge.
"Thanks."
Faith grabbed a drink from Xander's fridge and joined him on the couch, where he turned to face her.
"So... what, then?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said. "I just had to split, you know? Get out for a bit."
"So you came here," he said.
"Yeah... well, I don't really know anybody else in the city. I just... I had to get out of that fucking hotel."
"Oh," Xander said, looking around the apartment for a minute. "Well... I don't have a LOT of room here, but I guess we could figure out, um..."
Faith looked at him, surprised. "Oh," she said. "Oh, I just... for like a few hours."
"OhthankGod," Xander said, the sentence coming as a sigh of relief.
Faith looked at him with a hint of pain on her face.
"Not," Xander rushed out, "that it would be bad having you around. I just... um... space."
"It's cool, X. I get it. I wouldn't want a murderer living with me either." Faith stood and put her beer down on the end table by the couch. "Thanks for the drink."
Faith started walking to the door.
"Faith, wait," Xander said. "I'm sorry, I just... I'm a dick, okay?"
Faith stood in front of the door.
"Please?"
Faith stood there, then slowly turned around and walked back to the couch.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I was just kind of... I don't know. I'm sorry. You're welcome here as long as you like."
"Thanks," she said.
They sat in silence, looking at, but not really watching, the TV.
"When did you and Angel become such good buds?"
Xander laughed. "We're not really 'good' buds... but we have a healthy respect for each other, and a good working relationship, you know and we get along..." he paused, "huh. I guess we are friends. I never really thought about it." He shook his head. "I think once we both got away from Buffy, we kind of realized we had a lot in common."
"You got over the vamp thing?" Faith asked.
Xander shrugged. "No... I still hate vampires. I will never not hate vampires, but... I don't know, I guess I got to know Angel in a setting other than me constantly being afraid of what he'd do to Buffy, and he's not a bad guy."
Faith nodded. "He never gave up on me."
"He's not the only one."
Faith looked at Xander, confusion evident in her eyes.
Xander sighed. "Faith, I may not have come to visit you... well, ever, after you turned yourself in to Detective Lockley. But I never gave up on you. I always thought you had it in you to be a great person."
Faith sat there, surprised. Xander was making an intense study of his hands. "Surprise, huh?" he said.
Faith's eyebrows creased. "How come you never—"
"I was scared," Xander said. Faith turned her head away, ashamed.
"Not of what you might do," he said. "Angel told me you were really trying in there, really making progress, and I believed him. I was scared of what you might say. Or think. The last time I tried..."
"Xander," she said, turning back to him, "I am so incredibly sorry. You reached out to me, and... and I tried to kill you. And I would have, if not for Angel. I can't ever make that up to you... attempted murder isn't really something that goes away, but if I could, I would. In any way."
Xander turned and looked at her, then smiled softly before looking back down at his hands. "The part where you tried to kill me wasn't the worst," he said. "People, things, tried to kill me all the time back in high school. It was when you assumed I was just there for another... roll."
Faith, too, began to study her hands.
"I thought that... that you had seen something. In me. You know, that was special. Buffy even told me, but I was too stubborn to listen. I thought.... But, I was wrong."
"Yeah," Faith said. "You were. But, so was I. Just because I didn't see it doesn't mean it wasn't there."
"Um... huh?"
Faith sighed. "Xander, you're a pretty okay guy, you know? And just cuz some slut back a few years ago didn't see somethin' special in ya doesn't mean shit. I mean, you stood up for me when that guy wanted to take me in, and you've helped Angel and them a hell of a lot, you're a respected cop with a... not too shabby apartment. And hell, the Brat's got a crush on you a mile wide."
Xander laughed. "Oh, god," he said. "That's just what I need, an underage girlfriend whose big sister will rip my throat out, and that's only if Giles doesn't beat me to a bloody pulp first. And anyway, I never thought of you as a slut."
"Why not?" she asked. "Shoe fits, and all that."
"Maybe," Xander said. "Like you said, we don't always see things as they are. I never saw you as a slut, Faith. To me, you were just a girl with some problems who didn't know how to deal with them."
"You really can delude yourself sometimes."
"I pride myself on it, actually."
Faith laughed. "So that's why you were there? To help me deal?"
"Believe it or not, Faith, my life hasn't always been lived in the luxurious splendor you see before you. I had family problems, dealing with the Slaying wasn't always the easiest thing. Which is not to say my problems were on a level with yours, or even that I would have understood what you were going through, but... sometimes, to be a friend, you don't need to say anything. Sometimes you just need to listen."
Faith looked at him. "Is that what we are?" she said after a minute. "Are we friends?"
"If that's what you want," he said.
Faith let out a wry chuckle. "You'd be the only person with a heartbeat in this time zone who actually likes me."
"Hey, my mom always said I was special. Actually, that's a lie, but you get the idea."
"You're not worried about what your friends will think?" she asked.
"Faith, I don't know if you've noticed, but Buffy and I aren't exactly on the best terms right now. And Willow? Well, trust me, being your friend isn't nearly enough to break that bond. Hell, I dated Cordelia."
"Queen C never held a knife to her throat."
"Yeah, okay, that's a good point. Look, Willow doesn't like you. She holds a grudge. I get that, I can't even say I entirely disagree with it, but I'm not Willow. I dropped my grudge against you a long time ago."
Faith turned up her beer and downed the rest of it, the shook her head. "Friends with a Scooby. No fuckin' way I'd have believed that."
"Friends with Faith," Xander said. "And not even afraid for my life."
"Hey!"
Xander just grinned and turned back to the TV.
"Faith, hi," Angel said when she and Xander walked into the Hyperion later that night. "I was worried."
"Slayer, here, bub. Can take care of myself."
"I know that, I just –"
"It's nice you care, though," Faith said.
Angel smiled at her.
"How's the lawyer-life treating you, Deadboy?" Xander asked, waving to Gunn, Fred and Wesley as they came down from upstairs.
"That depends. How's the cop life treating you, Stripperboy?"
Everybody came to a dead stop.
Xander sighed. "I should never have told you that."
"You were drunk, it's not my fault."
"Wait a second, what?" Faith asked. "You were a stripper?"
Xander groaned. "I really hate you, Angel."
"It's because of my charm, isn't it?"
"Something like that."
"I gotta hear this story," Gunn said.
"No," Xander said. "None of you have to hear this story."
"What story?" Dawn asked, coming in from the kitchen.
Xander checked his watch. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"
Dawn rolled her eyes. "I'm seventeen, not twelve, and it's not like I have school. What story?"
"Xan bein' a stripper," Faith said.
Dawn's jaw dropped. She walked over, took a seat on a couch, crossed her legs and looked on expectantly.
"Dammit," Xander said. "Now I'll never get away."
"Angel, I believe you were about to enlighten us," Wes said.
"Well, I don't have the full story," said Angel. "There are parts he wouldn't even talk about drunk. But it's like this. The summer after graduation, Xander was going to go on a road trip across the country. He got to LA before his car died, and he needed money to get a new one.
"So he gets a job working the kitchen at this strip club, and everything was going fine until one night when one of the male strippers called in sick. He won't tell me what happened next."
"Despite his years of questioning," Xander said, doing his best to ignore the highly amused faces on his friends.
"But I haven't told you the best part," Angel said. "The strip club? It was in West Hollywood."
Gunn, Faith and Dawn burst out laughing, while Wesley and Fred did their best to keep their composure, and Angel stood by, arms crossed and looking very smug.
"I swear, one day I'm going to find your most embarrassing secret and tell everyone. You are going to die of embarrassment," Xander said. "I give you my word as a Sicilian."
"You're not a Sicilian," Dawn said.
"No, but I can pretend!" said Xander.
"That's okay, man," Gunn said, clapping his friend on the back. "We've all had rough times in our lives, where we had to do things we didn't want to, just to get by."
"Thank you, Gunn," Xander said.
Gunn smirked. "I ain't never worked at no gay strip club though."
"All right," Xander said. "Keep up the gay jokes, just wait until I talk to Willow, she'll curse you all."
"If she's not too busy laughing at your ass," Faith said.
"You all are hopeless," Xander said.
The phone rang, and Wesley headed over to answer it.
"Does anybody else know about this, Xander?" Dawn asked.
"I uh... might have let it slip to Buffy," he said. Faith and Dawn broke out laughing at this again, and Angel's smile just got bigger.
"Angel," Wesley said, tearing a sheet of paper off of a pad as he hung up the phone. "We're on."
"You guys need help?" Xander asked.
Wesley looked down at the piece of paper. "It might be best if Los Angeles did not have an official representative at this particular juncture," he said.
Xander looked at him for a second. "You couldn't just say 'No thanks'?"
Wesley smiled at him. "No, thank you."
Xander nodded, then watched as the AI crew geared up. "I'm gonna eat you out of house and home while you're gone!" he yelled as they left the hotel.
"Tell me something I don't know," Angel muttered.
Xander checked his watch, then the clock on the wall, then his watch again.
"They should be back by now," he said.
"Would you chill? They can handle themselves," Faith said.
"I know," he said. "But it's been hours."
Faith rolled her eyes. "Look, just sit down, and –"
The sound of tires screeching interrupted her. The two stood and waited. And waited. Then sat. And waited. Then the door opened, and Angel, Gunn, Fred and Wes strode in, followed by a young man in a suit and a woman holding lots of forms.
"I told you," Angel said. "Go away. I don't want you here."
"Sir, I don't understand. You have to fill out the requisite forms before we can properly log—"
"Listen!" he yelled. "I don't care about your forms, I don't care about your logs. I do my job, you leave me alone, I'll deal with Wolfram & Hart when I get around to it, understand?"
"But, sir, we can't—"
Xander smirked. "Is there a problem here?" he asked, approaching the two newcomers.
"Oh... Officer Harris... no, I was just informing Mr. Angel that—"
"I believe Mr. Angel asked you to leave, did he not?"
"Yes, but you see he hasn't—"
"And you are aware that this is his private property?"
"Well, yes, but I work—"
"So, he has asked you to leave his private property, and you refuse. That sounds to me suspiciously like trespassing," Xander said.
"But, I work for Mr. Angel," the man pleaded.
"And if you worked for Microsoft, would you follow Bill Gates home and annoy him, and tell him he had to do things?"
"Well, no, but..."
"Come on," Xander said, taking the man by the arm. "Let's go, before 'Mr. Angel' decides to press charges."
The man wrested his arm from Xander's hands. "I can see myself out, thank you," he said, motioning for the woman to follow him. "Mr. Angel, I will bring you these forms at the office," he said, before turning on his heel and walking out of the room.
"Thank you," Angel said to Xander, as he collapsed on one of the couches in the lobby. "And now I really am glad I don't go to the office."
"I still think we should look into transferring our operations," Wesley said.
"Not now, Wes, okay? Just... not now. I'm still wiped from dealing with just the one lawyer."
"Nothing like the law to put fear into some lawyers," Xander said. "Who was that guy?"
Angel shook his head. "He's been following us since before the fight was even over. Wanted me to stop, just so I could fill out his forms for termination of clientele assets. What the hell does that even mean?"
"Those demons worked for one of Wolfram & Hart's clients," Wesley said. "Did you know we had an assault team backing us up?"
"You guys have an assault team?" Xander asked. "And you didn't make me head of security? I'm offended!"
"No you're not," Gunn said.
Xander shrugged. "I can play at it, though."
"Anyway," Angel said, "we just found out about the assault team tonight. The leader seems kind of..."
"Evil?" Fred asked.
"That's a good word for it, yeah," Angel said. "Besides, Xander, I'm sure the job only pays about ten times what you're making."
"Well, then I'm really glad you didn't ask me," Xander said sarcastically. "Since everybody knows how much I hate money."
"You'd be working for Wolfram & Hart," Angel pointed out.
"Point taken," Xander said, checking his watch again. "I should head out then."
The group waved to him tiredly. Xander left the hotel and hopped in his truck.
"Xan!" came a yell. He turned to see Faith approaching his truck.
"Yeah, Faith?"
"Thanks... for the friend thing earlier."
Xander smiled. "My pleasure."
Faith backed away from the truck, and watched as Xander drove off.
In the cab, Xander shook his head. "How come they always have a reason to come out to my truck?" he pondered.
The next few weeks flew by for all involved. The annual summer lull that Xander remembered from Sunnydale seemed to apply for the SWAT teams as well, and that was a change from more normal police activity. Although certainly less frequent than it was during his first couple of weeks, Xander was still pulled out about once a week for emergencies, in addition to the rigorous schedule of constant training the SWAT team put itself through.
Xander, Faith and Dawn spent a lot of time together, mostly watching movies and staying up late solving the problems of the world. Faith got more involved in the demonic side of things with Angel's gang, and Buffy flew out to get Dawn registered for school. She and Xander even managed to not yell at each other while she was in town, and actually shared a nice evening together. Buffy left with a good feeling that, while certainly there was still work to be done to repair their friendship, if they did work at it, she and Xander might someday be good friends again.
"It is too damn early," Xander muttered, putting his coffee down for a moment to check his helmet.
"Late night?" Deke asked as he strapped on his body armor.
"Uber-late," Xander said.
"Was it demons?" Deke whispered.
Xander chuckled. "Yeah, Deke, it was. Angel, Faith and the gang had some business to take care of so I watched over the hotel for a bit."
"You?" Deke asked. "What about all those little girls?"
Xander shook his head as he yawned. "They left like a month ago for Cleveland. Or their homes."
"Why the hell would that many people willingly go to Cleveland?"
Xander shrugged. "Hellmouth," he said, strapping his armor on.
That brought Deke up short. "A what now?"
"Oh, we didn't cover that? Yeah, back in Sunnydale we had a Hellmouth, which is just what it sounds like. So, anyway, they closed that one, but there's another in Cleveland. It shouldn't pose as much trouble, though. Scoobs patrolled the Sunnydale Hellmouth for six and a half years with just the one, or occasionally two, Slayers. Now there's a lot more, so it shouldn't be a problem."
Deke looked at him for a minute. "How does this shit not weird you out?"
Xander shrugged as he sipped his coffee. "Used to it."
Deke shook his head. "So why didn't you go all demon hunter last night?"
"Well, they're pretty wary of asking for my help, for a couple reasons. First, I'm a cop. If somebody saw me out fighting demons, it would raise a lot of unnecessary questions. Second, they all really know how to handle themselves. I mean, I do too, but... well, they prefer not to involve me unless it's really big. Not because I'm that, you know, vital, just because there are legality issues. Easier for everyone if I'm sidelined most of the time."
"How well can you handle yourself?" Street asked, walking up to the two men.
Xander shrugged. "Well enough, I suppose. A single vamp isn't really a problem for me at all, anymore, as long as I have a handy stake."
"You said vamps are stronger and faster than humans, though, right?" Deke asked.
"Sure," Xander said, sipping his coffee again as Sanchez and Boxer walked up to the group. "But they're also usually pretty damn stupid."
"You fight hand to hand?" Street asked.
"Well, guns don't kill them."
"Think you could take me?" Deke asked.
Xander nodded matter-of-factly. "Yeah."
Deke flexed his right arm. "With all this goin' on? Boy you're deluding yourself."
Xander grinned. "Tell you what. You train with one of the most vicious vampires the world has ever seen for the next four years, and then we'll see if you can take me."
"All right, all right, all right, kids," Hondo said, coming up. "Enough with the fairy tales. We got ourselves a situation."
"What's the what, Sarge?" Xander asked.
"What's the what?" Hondo said, incredulously. "Christ, you are a native, aren't you?"
"Born and bred," Xander said, grinning.
"Okay, boys and girls, we got ourselves a real live hostage crisis. Eight men have taken control of an airplane that just came in from uh..." Hondo checked his papers. "Tibet, via Tokyo. They're demanding fuel, clearance for take-off, and say they're gonna start killing people if they don't get what they want."
"Who are they?" Street asked.
"Montanans," Hondo said. "They think they're being held in the US against their will, and have refused to apply for passports. Why the fuck they didn't just walk into Canada is anybody's guess at this point, but it's our problem now."
"Bastards couldn't have held up SeaTac?" Sanchez asked.
"I guess they wanted more frequent flyer miles," Street said. "Weapons?"
"We're not certain," said Hondo. "We've seen two guys, both of them have AR-15's. Other than that, we're in the dark."
"Explosives?" Deke asked.
"No clue, but a safe bet. Probably homemade and not too stable."
Xander chuckled. Everybody looked at him.
"Sorry," he said. "Memory. It's a cake thing."
This got him even weirder looks. He shook his head. "Some other time."
"Okay," Hondo said. "We're moving out, look over the layout en route."
The group hopped in the van, Hondo behind the wheel.
"Okay," Street said. "It's fairly standard, as far as airplanes go. Unfortunately we don't have an elevator entrance, so we're going to have the normal entry points. There's a former Army Ranger on board, so if something starts to go down, we have to assume he'll try to step in. We need to make sure that doesn't happen, he could get himself, or us, or innocents, killed."
The group listened intently as Street mapped out the plan.
Fear on the plane was so thick you could smell it.
"Oh God, oh God, oh God, we're gonna die, we're gonna die. I know it, we're gonna die," cried the young girl in seat 18E.
"We're not going to die, just stay calm," said the man next to her. "Trust me. Help is on the way." The young man flagged down one of the Montanans.
"What the hell do you want?" the man asked, gruffly.
"I don't want any trouble," he said. "And I'm no hero, but this little girl is very scared, and I was wondering if somebody could get her a glass of water."
The man with the imposing gun curled his lip in a snarl, then grunted.
"I'll have a stewardess bring her something."
"Thank you," said the young man. He sniffed the air for a second, before turning back to the little girl. "I need you to do me a favor, okay?"
The girl nodded.
"I need you to close your eyes and plug your ears, okay? Everything is going to be fine."
The girl nodded again, then hugged her knees to her chest and did as the young man asked.
Ten seconds later, the screaming started. Five people suddenly appeared in the cabin, from various directions, all wielding machine guns. The firing erupted. Three of the Montanans went down in the first four seconds, quickly followed by two more. Another two were quickly eliminated as the five people swept through the plane.
As they walked through the plane, the young man slipped from his seat, working his way towards the back slowly and quietly. The passengers, huddling in their seats, took no notice of him, and he threatened nobody.
"That's seven," one of the armed people whispered. "Where's the last?"
Creeping ever farther back, the young man felt his muscles begin to stretch and strain painfully. He paused, tensed, and leaped. A man, six and a half feet high, slammed out of one of the bathrooms and was immediately sorry he did.
Drawn by the noise, two of the armed men rushed toward the back of the plane. Both stood there slack-jawed, albeit for different reasons.
"Plane is clear," the first said into his radio.
Removing his helmet, the other knelt down.
"Don't touch it, man. Looks like it has rabies or some shit."
"Nope," said the second. "Find me a blanket, huh? By the way, how'd we miss this bathroom?"
"No idea. Talk to Street," said the first, turning to go find a blanket.
The second man turned back to the form that was crouching on the floor. "So," he said, scratching the form behind its ears. "Tibet, huh?"
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End Chapter 8