A Doomed Existence

by Anime-Ronin

Xander went as a soldier on Halloween … but this soldier has left more than a few things behind, and he’s used to dealing with demons. FINISHED.

10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

AN: Before we get too far, I'd like to firstly apologize for the previous incarnation of this chapter – quite frankly, I'm embarrassed I ever convinced myself to actually write down and post that piece of crap. Okay, now I doubt that anyone'll read this one, but here's another go at it … the right way … God help us all.

(Sunnydale High – Library – First Day of School)

"Hey, Xander." "Kiddo." "Al." "Stud-muffin." "Xander." "Xander!" "Good Lord, Xander." He'd been in the room for less than ten seconds and already he could feel the migraine starting to form – for the past few weeks he'd been going over the worst case scenarios that could come up in his mind, ranging from Buffy demanding to be put in charge of an army to his older girls showing up to tease him, and the latter had happened. Someone in the front offices was going to die for this one.

"LT, Lilly, Grace, don't call me that Spots, Buffy, Willow, Giles." Ohhhh, yeah, someone was going to die for this.

Willow stormed up to him even as he put his book bag down, "Mister, WHOareTHEYandWHYisSHEcallingYOUstudmuffin?"

He sank down into chair and smiled slightly, "Willow-babble and yelling – I'm impressed. Last time you tried that you almost passed out into your tapioca pudding." She glared at him fiercely even as both Buffy and Grace giggled, Lilly and Marcia laughed and Theresa snorted.

"I did that because you and Jessie were doing your best to sneak into the girl's locker room!" In the past a statement like that would have made him blush and stutter out a weak defense – now, though, it made him only raise a single eyebrow.

"That was Jessie, not me, Willow – you caught him trying to talk me into his grand scheme to see you and the other girls in your underwear. Trust me, I've seen women in their underwear and it's …" He trailed off as he thought about what he was saying and sighed as Willow glared at him anew, "Crap."

Lilly looked over at Spots, who smiled as they both half-walked, half-sauntered over towards the sitting Xander and took up positions either side of him. Lilly then hooked a single finger inside of her pants and pulled out a band of white cotton, Spots doing the same but pulling out emerald green silk, "Why, Xander, last time you saw us in our underwear you didn't think we looked like crap."

As Willow and Xander both went into having en tandem strokes, Grace huffed slightly, "Leave Al alone! It is dishonorable to act in such a manner!"

Buffy growled slightly even as the woman standing next to her coughed slightly, blushing as she spoke, "Ladies, remember, we ARE in a school? Put them away and tease him later." Buffy stopped growling at this slightly even as the little one whom had spoken up in defense of Xander fished out a piece of blue lace from her pants and winked at Xander before putting it away. Xander's response was to merely whimper in place even as Giles cleared his throat and polished his glasses.

Several minutes later, Xander was able to ask, "Where's Sonja?" Willow glared at him as if he had committed some kind of inexcusable crime and he ignored it while he looked at Marcia.

Marcia shrugged, "Pregnant."

He sighed, "Wonderful. Now, why are you guys out here? Not that I don't mind the fantasy fuel," he went on, idly running his eyes up and down both Lilly and Theresa before going on to Grace, who blushed, and Marcia, "but I doubt your being here is a coincidence."

Lilly chuckled to herself even as she sat into the chair next to Xander, "C'mon, kid, don't get your hopes up about us leaving – we're teachers now."

Theresa copied her and dropped into the seat on the other side of the kid, "It has to do with you-know-what, and we'll talk about it later. Now, though," she went on, leaning over and whispering into the kid's ear, an act that brought a smile to Lilly's face as they all loved to tease the kid, "we find ourselves in need of a guide. You've been elected, kid."

Buffy finally snapped, "Xander, who in the HELL are these hussies and WHY are they all over you?" She got glared at immediately by all of the new women but then noticed that Xander wasn't whimpering anymore, or looking rather sorry – he was looking up at her, his eyes boring into hers, and immediately she wanted to find another desk. The look he gave her wasn't a look she wanted to be on the other end on – it was a cold, malicious glare and even as he stood up and walked over she knew this wasn't going to be fun.

"They are some of the women who made my summer bearable, Buffy, and I will NOT allow you to speak to them in that tone. As for your second question, they are playing – trust me, I'm not that lucky to have four overly gorgeous women fawning over me, and I've never taken advantage of them."

"Not that I would have minded," he heard Theresa says quietly to Lilly, who chuckled softly, both of whom he ignored.

"Now, I expect you to apologize when we get back, Buffy, and if you don't, trust me, if you think I was a real piece of work last semester, you haven't seen anything yet." With that, he turned around and walked out of the Library, the women not far behind him – it struck her odd, though, that they all had a matching step pattern, almost in a cadence, as the doors swung shut and Giles removed his glasses.

"I find myself deeply ashamed of you, Buffy." Those eight words rocked her to the core as he polished his glasses, put them back on and continued, "Here you have verbally attacked four TEACHERS here in less than five minutes, not the least of which is that Xander seems to have befriended them all, and I can't help but wonder what would have happened had Xander NOT been here."

"They were all OVER him, Giles!" Willow's face was beet red even as she stalked in a small pattern, "They're all at least five years older than him, maybe ten, and they're … they're …." Willow let out a slight screech of anger before she dropped into the first chair there and began to sniff, "He's hiding something, and he hasn't told me, and he always tells me…"

"Willow," Giles ventured in carefully, as to not set off the petite redhead, "I do realize that Xander has told you very little of what he did over the summer, but do realize that if he hasn't he probably has a reason not to."

She looked up at him and immediately he could see both her insecurity and her sorrow, "But … I'm Willow – he tells me everything."

"Nobody tells everyone everything, Willow," he told her as gently as he could, knowing exactly what Xander had been doing over most of the summer and almost wanting to tell both girls of what had happened. "As much as you may wish it to be so, it is not in this case." It was at this point that Oz walked into the library and over to Willow, as if sensing her distress and making to comfort her, which she allowed.

He turned back to Buffy, "Now, Buffy, when they return this afternoon, you will apologize to the ladies and to Xander. Is that understood?" She nodded at him and he went on, "Also, I've been informed by the Council that Kendra was killed and a new Slayer has been called…"

(Science Lab)

"I don't believe the balls on that bleached-blonde little…" Theresa growled even as she stalked around the room with her teacher partner Grace, who appeared to be at peace with what had just happened in the Library. When they had been detailed out to keep an eye on Xander, it had been a good thing, with as much as they all liked him, but if they had to deal with that little …

"Calm yourself, Spots," Grace said to her even as a she began to look around the room expectantly. "Al said that he'd talk to us and give us the entire story later on, and you and I both know he will."

This didn't calm her down, "Damn it, Grace, I got out of high school and hoped to never come back, but now I'm TEACHING it! Where is the justice in that?"

Grace gave her a slightly amused look, "Perhaps God has a twisted sense of humor? Besides, if you had bothered to look, Al is in our first class."

She stopped and suddenly smiled, a smile that made Grace begin to worry a little as Spots nodded, "You're right – let's see how much we can tease him." To this, Grace could only sigh.

(English Room)

"So, LT, why is it that the kid is in HIGH SCHOOL, doing what he's doing, without any kind of real backup? Pardon my language, but that's shit and we both know it." If there was one thing one could say about Lilly Wood, it was that she was blunt-spoken and to-the-point and Marcia knew it.

"That's part of what he's going to tell us later on today, Sarge, so for the time being, we're to act like he's just another student, nothing else, and for God's sake, make sure Spots leaves him the hell alone!"

Lilly smirked slightly, "Yeah, she does seem to have a major yin for underage meat. She DOES know he's only 17, right?"

She nodded, "Yeah, she knows – she'll tease him to no end, but she'll keep her hands to herself." Marcia then blinked, shrugged, and amended, "Okay, she'll try."

Anything else that was to be said was shelved as the bell rang to begin school – a new front of their lives was opening up, and it was a front where they could not shoot back with bullets, only bad grades.

(Lunch)

"God, compared to this slop, Benning's food was gourmet," he muttered to himself as he looked at what could have been beef stroganoff or a possum that had been unfortunate enough to step on a landmine and get tossed in with some noodles – it wasn't that it was bad food, it just looked horrible.

"And where's that, Xander?" He looked over and saw Cordelia Chase sitting down next to him, dressed in a nice silk blouse and a skirt, pulling a prepared salad out of her purse and looking at his lunch, "Benning, that is."

"Fort Benning, Georgia, home of the US Army Rangers – my dad's a Colonel there." He opened up a packet of salt and poured it on the 'food', "Stayed with him for a few weeks this summer and I ate at the chow hall on base – can't say I was overly impressed with what was there, but given that they have to feed that many mouths, that often, you can't expect much better. Here, though," he shook his head, "well, I can't say I'm overly impressed."

Cordelia looked at him, surprised, "Thinking of going into the military?"

He shook his head, "Nah – up at 0520 every morning, PT out the yang, eat…" he took up a wistful tone and shook his head, "nope, not for me."

She looked down at Xander's arm, which was exposed by his t-shirt, and saw hard muscle there, more so than when he had left school the previous May, "Working out, much?"

He looked up at her, shrugging, "Sat in on a few morning workouts – running 3 miles a day, every day, on top of the rest of your morning Cals and you harden up, fast." He looked almost as if he were secretly amused by something as he asked, "Why? You thinking of joining up?"

She snorted at him, "As if! Those drab colors, that material, ewww, no!" She heard him chuckle and realized that she'd walked right into one of his verbal traps, something that the pair of them had been baiting one another with for years now, "So, how do you know the new teachers in Science? They seemed to take some kind of perverse pleasure in teasing you."

Xander snorted, remembering the teasing looks that Spots had sent his way and the very apologetic ones that Grace had followed up with, "Yeah, I know them both from Georgia – how and why, I can't tell you, it's part of something I promised to keep quiet about."

Cordelia nodded at this, knowing that when he gave his word to be quiet about something, he kept quiet, "Okay, then what about those two new English teachers?"

He groaned at this and almost slammed his head down into the stroganoff, but given how that stuff stuck to the fork he'd never get it out of his hair, "Yeah, met them down there too – Marcia worked with my father, and why she's here … God alone only knows." He hated lying to people like this, but it was necessary.

Cordelia prepared her salad slightly as she heard her Sheep coming through the line, "You may want to get out of here, fast – according to Harmony, she's going to try and make you her 'boyfriend', soon, so make sure you've had all your shots."

"I suppose it's too much as ask, but has she had all of her shots?" Cordelia snorted out at this jab at Harmony even as he got up, "Thanks for the head's up, Cor."

"No problem, Harris, now go away – we have important things to discuss."

He smiled, "Yeah, I'm sure you do." He walked away even as the Sheep began to call out to him, ignoring them as he put the food in the trash and walking to the Library to meet with Giles.

"Ah, Xander, good, you're here." He walked over as the young man entered the library, handing him several dozen file folders that he had been compiling over the past few months, "These are for your people, sources, and commanding officers." Inside were lists of books, contacts, dates and such that would be most helpful for the fledgling government-funded demon hunting group to make sure they got off the ground well, "Also, I must ask how your … compatriots are fairing?"

"With the school? They're cool. With Buffy … that's another story." Xander walked with him to his office and sat down across from him at the desk, "Marcia, Grace and Lilly, they're good women and they'll probably forgive Buffy, but Spots … Theresa, is the one I'm worried about. She's … well, she's Irish, by blood, and Buffy insulted her."

He sighed, "Oh, good Lord, that's the last thing I need. Is there anything you can do to calm her?"

Xander nodded at Giles' question, "Probably, but don't expect miracles. So, do you know why they are here?"

Giles nodded, "Presumably to get a front-line view of what it is that the group will be dealing with on a regular basis, which is why we will be introducing them to the others later on tonight as both Rangers and military." Xander felt his gut clench and, apparently, it showed on his face as Giles held up his hands, "Don't worry, Xander, Buffy won't challenge any of them, nor will she do anything ill-advised, and most certainly she will NOT know about the project."

It was several minutes later that he spoke again, this time to something pertaining more towards business, "How long do you think it will be before Buffy figures things out?" It hurt him to keep things from his Slayer, bug he also knew that Buffy would be most put out to know that not only was she doing things in an almost archaic manner, but that the rest of the world was using a better group of 'toys' to do the same job and he did NOT want her to get her hands on an automatic weapon of any kind.

"Few weeks, a month at the most, I'd think," Xander replied to him in an almost resigned tone of voice. "What did the Council say about us actually training her?"

He snorted, "Bloody gits, the lot of them, said that under no circumstances would Buffy be allowed to work with these people, let alone be trained by them, as the Slayer is the sovereign property of the Council."

Xander gave him a rather chilled grin, "Oh, is that so? I wonder how well they'd stand up to scrutiny? I wonder what would happen if an unofficial inquiry were launched into some of the Council's financial records – would many of the top officials stay out of jail?"

There were times that he was absolutely proud of the young man, how absolutely devilish he could be, and there were other times he was struck cold by the same trait – in this instances, he was proud, "I doubt many would, Xander – whom do you wish to inform?"

(That afternoon – Library)

In the end, both he and Giles agreed that telling the girls what was going on was for the best – they knew it would be dangerous, but with the non-disclosure agreements they had the pair sign first, once the girls had been made painfully aware of what would happen to them if said agreement was breeched, they told them. Buffy and Willow both sank back into their seats after he finished telling them the truth about the four women that stood behind him, in an at ease position, and for an instant Xander felt like a total heel with the look of betrayal in the eyes of both girls, but he steeled himself and continued on, "They are here as first-hand observers to what we do, girls, and they will be reporting back to their superiors about what it is that we do here – no, there will be no mentioning of either of your … special gifts," he assured them, referring to Willow's own new magical potential and Buffy's Slayer abilities, "and by the same token they will not be subject to any interrogation on your part about what they can and cannot do."

Buffy glared up at him, "And since when are YOU in charge, Xander?"

"Since he's the project leader's son, Buffy," Marcia chipped in from behind him. "Colonel Harris is currently in charge of the development phase of our project, and as a liaison between your group and ours, he's appointed Xander." She stepped up to his shoulder and placed a hand there, "More to that, he's my friend, Buffy."

Willow took this point to mutter darkly, "Oh, I'm sure he is." She blushed a bright red when all eyes turned to her, but she did not shrink back, instead she went on, "I'm sure that you're 'just friends' with the Colonel's son, Lieutenant – what better way to enhance your career?" As soon as she said those words, though, she knew she had made a mistake – sure, all of the women looked mortified and outraged, or even outright pissed off, but the one person her attention was on was totally blank, and she knew that when Xander went totally blank, it wasn't a good thing.

Xander shook off Marcia's hand and marched over to where Willow was sitting, grabbed her by the upper arm in a steel-vice-like grip and physically dragged her out of her chair and to the back of the Library, her protests of pain and being unhanded growing the entire way until he finally let her and pinned her with a glare, "What in the FUCK do you think you're doing, Willow? I know you can be petty when you put your mind to it, but I didn't think you could be a total bitch like Cordy used to be."

Willow jerked back as if he'd hit her, "Wha-"

He didn't let her finish, "What you said in there was COMPLETLEY inappropriate!" He let that sink in for a few seconds before he went on to something he knew would make him feel like a complete son of a bitch, "Contrary to whatever your little dream world says to you, Willow, I am NOT your property – I do what I want to do, see whom I want to see, and fuck who I want to fuck, though that's not relevant seeing as I am not doing that to anyone. You have your relationship with Oz – stop acting like whatever friendships I have with any other female that is not you or Buffy is an affront to your very existence because, personally, I don't mind that you have Oz."

By this point Willow was about to burst into tears, "But … it's true! She's just using you!"

"Prove it." If the question had come from him, he would have delivered it with a little less heat than the question had been delivered with, but as it was Marcia, with Buffy right behind her, who asked the question, there was more than a little anger in the question. "Prove to be beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am USING Xander to further my career, little girl."

Willow stopped crying instantly – Xander could talk to her that way when she really needed to have it done to her, but not THIS … hussy, "I saw how you were hanging all over him, missy, and I KNOW that if anyone doesn't meet my standards they won't be good for Xander … and you DON'T."

Marcia sneered at Willow, "Are you THAT insecure and possessive of him? Do you really think that I care about any 'standards' you have for someone who you think should be with him? Let's get one thing straight right now, little girl, I have no intentions of seducing or otherwise manipulating Xander to further my career – he's my friend, ONLY, and I will not let some flat-chested, manipulative, insecure little know-it-all dictate just whom he can and cannot be friends with."

Willow lashed out and slapped Marcia quicker than anyone could react – Marcia didn't even flinch as she returned the slap in kind, one that knocked Willow to the ground; he was hard-pressed to keep Buffy from attacking Marcia, but when you lock a chokehold on around someone's neck as they launch themselves at another person, they tend to get the point. Buffy, however, did not qualify as most people and she continued struggling against his grip, which he tightened.

Willow was soon on her feet and glaring at Marcia through the tears that were welling in her eyes, "Xander would never want someone like you as a friend! He only wants people who are smarter than him and his age!"

Marcia, fully aware that the rest of the detail was on their way back towards them, decided to pull a trump card, "Why not let him decide? Or do you think he's incapable of making his own decisions?"

Willow opened her mouth to say that she was right but her rational mind screamed at her over a few dozen megaphones to stop and THINK about what she was going to say – Yes, Xander had relied on her in the past, but no less than she on him, and he WAS his own person. This created a quandary in her mind as some of the things he had said came to the forefront – she had Oz, yet she seemed to think that she and Xander would one day get together. That wasn't fair to her or to Oz, and especially not to Xander … and she began to see that they were right, mostly – she wasn't acting like Cordelia, but she WAS acting like Harmony and she WAS insecure, but even though she liked to pick Xander's life apart and rebuild it, she wasn't manipulative (and she wasn't flat-chested thankyouverymuch).

"Let. Me. Go!" Buffy was still struggling in his choke hold even as the other ladies got there and Willow's face scrunched up in the way that told him she was about to admit that at least some of what he and Marcia said was right, but given that Buffy was in a bit of a mood at that point and not getting into a better one, he let her go and skipped back as she turned and snarled at him, "Give me a reason I shouldn't gut you, Xander! She slapped Willow."

"Only after Willow slapped her first," he shot back instinctively, hoping to calm the Slayer.

It didn't work, "She called her a manipulative, flat-chested know-it-all!"

"You forgot insecure, Buffy," Willow chipped in slightly, her shoulders dropping a little, "and I'll only concede to the insecure part." Buffy turned to Willow and wanted to object, but Willow held her off with a single raised hand, "And I have to admit she's right – he's shielded me from a lot in my life, and I try to do the same for him … but this isn't something I can do without looking like a HUGE hypocrite."

He felt a presence over his right shoulder and heard Spots whisper to him, "Is it always so cloyingly melodramatic around here?"

He shook his head, "Nah, sometimes we do this when the cameras are on and really pour it on thick."

Grace spoke from his other side, "So, you're not just doing this for us, Al?"

He looked down at her slightly, a grin on his face, "Would it make you feel better if I said yes?"

She smirked at him slightly, "Actually … no, but thanks for asking." Grace then walked forwards and stood not far from Buffy, "How is it that you couldn't get out of his chokehold? From what Mr. Giles has told us about you, you're an accomplished fighter."

Buffy scowled at the shorter (by two inches) woman, "He fought dirty and he's bigger than I am, and add that I didn't want to break both of his arms and I didn't get out."

Grace arched a single eyebrow at her and looked back at Al, saying nothing – he complied and put her into the same chokehold that he had kept Buffy in, "Observe." With a quick jab of an elbow back into his gut and a stomp of her foot, he hissed and flinched, giving her all the chance she needed as she moved, twisted and pivoted herself into a position behind Al, his arm locked behind his body in a solid hold, "This is how you could have done it – every orange belt with even half a brain knows how to do this."

Buffy growled slightly as Grace let go of his arm and jumped onto his back – he knew this wasn't going to be fun, "How did you do that?"

Grace, from his upper back, probably had an imperious look on her face as she said, "Simply put, I trained." He felt like she had this idea to keep his body between hers and Buffy's, and unfortunately for him it was working with her perched on his back. She suddenly thumped her heels into his sides, "Away with us, Al – we have sparring to do."

Buffy growled, "NOT without me you aren't!" She whipped Xander, with Grace on his back, around and glared up at the petite Asian woman, "Not until you teach me how you did that!"

Grace smirked down at her, "How well you learn will decide what I teach you, Buffy – now, follow me." She thumped Xander in the sides again, "Move!"

"Hnnnngh," Xander grunted out like a donkey, turning and walking away, leaving Willow and the others in the back of the library.

(Washington D.C.)

The man standing in the doorway was a giant among men, and for a second Linda felt both intimidated and more than a little aroused as he peered down at her, as if assessing her before speaking, "Yes?"

She cleared her throat, "Yes, my name is Linda Price, and I'm here to speak with Dana Tasker about her nightmares?" The man's eyes narrowed and she knew that she had said the wrong thing – why did things always have to be done the hard way?

(2 months later – Sunnydale Library)

It had taken a few weeks, but finally things had begun to settle down between the group – Willow and Buffy both accepted that Xander and the women had many secrets that they could not and would not tell them, Buffy accepted that even though she was the Slayer, Grace Ryu (or 'Dragon Lady', as Xander insisted on calling the petite Asian woman due to her surname and VILE temperament, a name that often got him glared at) was by far the more competent martial artist and fighter (barring Slayer abilities), Xander accepted that Willow was NEVER going to approve of anyone he happened to go out on a date with, nor would Buffy or Cordelia (though he had suspicions as to why on the latter two), and Giles had resigned himself to being tortured by four more Americans than normal.

He HAD, though, been the first to recognize Lilly Wood, though, the youngest sister of a now-deceased Slayer, one reputedly having been killed by Spike; he'd learned that the sergeant had no idea as to how her sister had died, only that she had, and he was debating on whether or not to tell her the truth when she found out for herself when he left one of his texts open. She'd grilled him for several hours over who and what 'Spike' was, and he had told her, ending it with the fact that Xander had killed him the previous school year. She had gone to Xander for conformation of this and, at his nod, she wept silent tears and went back to her shared home to get blindingly drunk. He wasn't sure what else happened on that night, as neither Xander nor any of the women would comment on it, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Outside of that, though, it had been blessedly silent as far as the demonic side of the year went … and Giles was more than a little lonely at that – Jenny had been sent to another city by her Romany Elders to do something or other and, while they did communicate by letter and telephone, Giles found that he missed her greatly. Still, they both had jobs to do … and there was a certain aspect of his job that he did NOT want to do coming up rather quickly – Buffy's 'rite of passage', a barbaric ritual that had been resurrected by Quinton Travers recently after it had been tucked away in the blessedly-forgotten realms of memory for well over a four hundred years, and he would be giving her that test very soon, sadly … or so he was thinking until he was confronted by 'Spots'.

Theresa Maloney was many things to many people, but one thing she was to all was a nosey little so and so who liked to read whatever books she could get her hands on … and one of those books had been his Watcher's Diary; she'd apparently read about Buffy's upcoming 'test', then went into the history books and read about the test it self, and confronted him about it. Needless to say, the confrontation was not what one could call cordial.

(Flashback)

"You do this and I'll be there when Xander guts you, my promise to God." Spots slammed the book down on the desk and glared at the librarian through her jade eyes, "It's criminal, it's STUPID, and it's out and out ILLEGAL as all HELL!"

The librarian, Giles, merely looked up at her with a look that said 'tell me something I do not know', "I have my orders, Theresa …"

"Then disobey them! Be a man for once and disobey orders – you KNOW what's going to happen, Giles, and you KNOW how Buffy's going to feel after that." She slid the book to him, "Don't make me tell Xander – if he gets involved … I can't say that you or anyone else involved with survive." With that, she left the Library and headed towards the house, where Xander and the others were compiling a list of things needed for a base in Sunnydale – she needed a cuddle, badly.

(End flashback)

This had lead to him, against his better judgment, advising both Xander and Buffy, alone, of what was supposed to happen with the Rite in a few months – Buffy had not taken the entire affair well and was now, a week later, only just starting to speak to him again, but Xander had been distressingly calm about the entire affair. He knew the young man rather well, or at least he thought he did, and he much preferred it when Xander was openly raging rather than silent – this did not bode well for anyone involved, it never did.

As Xander entered the room, dressed in a business suit and holding several folders in his hands, Giles felt that this fear was well-founded.

"I'd quit the Watchers Council if I were you, Giles – quickly." Xander saw the blank look on Giles' face and handed over the folders, "Several inquiries are going to be starting soon, and these are the lists of people, places and events that are going to be looked into – quit. Now." Ever since he had been told about the tests and all, he'd been thinking on just how dangerous of an ally the Council was and had conveyed those thoughts to his father, whom had sent them up the chain of command, and apparently Command thought so as well after conferring with several outside sources.

Giles read over the files quickly, paling further with each one, and when he was finished looked up with a glare at him, "Are you bloody insane? You intend to GUT the oldest and most prestigious hunting organization in the world's history."

Xander glared back at him, "An organization that has no less than a dozen political assassinations in the past century to its name, almost TWO HUNDRED Slayers in that time, dubious ties to several terrorist organizations and enough money squirreled away to take a good chunk out of the US trade debt. Giles, they are DIRTY and they are going to be taken out by a multi-national investigation. Quit while you can." With that, Xander turned away and walked out of the Library, leaving Giles with the information – he had class in several minutes and couldn't be late, or Lilly would gut him.

(Three days later)

"I'm afraid I have some troubling news to report," Giles said, cleaning his glasses. "The Slayer called after Kendra's rather unpleasant demise has gone into hiding."

Buffy frowned even as he and Willow looked at one another, "Why?"

Giles sighed, "A Master Vampire, reportedly named Kakistos, turned both of her parents and now both she and her Watcher have gone under. I have been told she is on her way here, so we must be prepared."

Willow spoke up next, "What did her parents do?"

"I am not sure, Willow – they both worked for a place called 'Micro Consulting'-"

"Black ops," Xander interrupted, the name triggering a bell in his mind. "I'm not sure who they work for or what they do, but it's a cover for a black ops unit called Omega. Supposedly they had something to do with that nuke that went off in the Keys a few years ago." He was given a few odd looks, "What? Can't I read the newspaper on occasion?"

Willow gave him a look, "They would have been in the paper?"

He shrugged, "Okay, so it was a newspaper from a conspiracy theorist, but still!"

Giles spoke up again, but this time coughing to get their attention, "If I may? With her parents both turned … I fear she will not be in the best of mental stability if or when she gets here. We must be prepared to deal with her as well as possible, which is why I am asking you to make sure that if she does get here to be ready for any kind of attack." Everyone was quiet as he went on, "I must absolutely stress that from what very little was able to learn of her parents, they will most likely be highly trained and proficient with firearms – Xander, is your shotgun still working?"

Xander nodded, "Ready to go at all times, Giles – do you know when they'll be here?"

Giles shook his head, "No, I don't – Linda is very smart, and very cautious, so it could be a day, or it could be a week. I want you and Marcia's team to be ready if it comes down to it." Xander nodded at him and he turned to Buffy, "Buffy, Kakistos is now considered the oldest of all vampires with the Master gone – I want you to start reading on him immediately. He's very smart, and very dangerous." For once Buffy didn't give him any grief about studying and that let him turn to Willow, "Willow … I do realize that you're starting to learn magic on your own, but now is not to the time for you to be experimenting. You are to stop all of your studies and practice only on what we've gone over and that is NOT negotiable."

Willow nodded meekly, but her mind was already thinking of ways to counteract Giles' order – she knew what she was doing! "Okay, Giles – when is Jenny supposed to get back?"

"I honestly don't know, Willow," he said in a tired voice, "but do not think for a moment that her being here will change my order." He looked at her and took off his glasses, "Do not think for a second I won't know, Willow – if you are going to learn magic, you will do so properly and going behind my back won't make things any easier. He did NOT want Willow going down the same road he had gone down as a teenager – he still had nightmares about some of the things he had done …

She quivered slightly, partly out of fear but also out of anger, "I promise, Giles." What right did he have to tell her about learning magic? Hypocrite.

He didn't believe her for a second, and if the man had a brain in his head, neither would Giles, "Can we go now, G-man?" The Briton nodded and he was heading towards the door – he had a phone call to make.

(Ohio Bus Station)

"Honey, how many times have I told you to not play with your food?" If there was one habit that her husband had kept from life into undeath, it was that he liked to play with his kills, even if his 'kills' in life had been a steak or a hamburger.

Harry gave her an almost innocent look, almost being because his face was still 'game on', "But he likes my impressions of the man who played Conan, dear!"

Helen rolled her eyes, "You HATED that movie in life, Harry, and now you love it? Drain him and get on with it – Dana's trail isn't getting any warmer."

Harry just shrugged and looked down at the man who was now crying, "Well, like an old friend of mine said a few years before I ate him, 'Women – can't live with them, can't kill them'." With that, he sank his fangs into the man's neck and began to drink greedily.

She just rolled his eyes – yes, Gib had tasted rather nicely, but sometimes she thought her husband took Gib's brain with him into death.

(Chicago Bus Station)

A hand was placed on her shoulder and a question was asked, the same question that had been asked several dozen times over in the past week, "Are you alright, Dana?"

She slapped the woman's hand away and glared at her, "How many damned times do I have to tell you to NOT use that name? I'm Faith now – Dana Tasker is dead."

Kakistos had found them quickly, according to Linda, and she watched him turn her father first before her mother was turned, and by that point the sun was coming up – it still hurt her to think that her parents were those … things … but she reasoned that Harry and Helen Tasker, or Boris and Doris, depending on whom you asked, were dead and these demons were only wearing their bodies. It wasn't much comfort, but it was enough.

(2 weeks later – Sunnydale)

Marcia watched in abject horror as the scene played out before her – the girl whom had sought out Xander and the 'Scoobies', calling herself Faith, was now locked in a battle for her very soul with a vampire who, reputedly, had been her mother. Not ten feet away, Xander was in the same fight with a vampire which had been Faith's father, and while Faith seemed to be getting the better of her vampire, Xander was doing his damnedest to stay alive.

A week before Faith and her Watcher, Linda, had showed up in Sunnydale and, not long after that, both vampires which had been Faith's parents had showed up – sadly, things took a turn for the worse when Linda was captured that very same evening and her mutilated body was left at the Library the next morning. Faith had been inconsolable, regardless of who tried, and over the next week she had begun to slip further and further away from the group and from her sanity – both Grace and Spots had tried to reach her with kindness, Lilly by toughness and she herself had tried with friendliness, but Faith … Faith wasn't responding to anyone.

The battle kicked up another notch as Faith was thrown into the side of a car, and Marcia would have helped, any of them would have, but Willow, in her infinite wisdom, had miss-cast a spell that had been designed to repel all undead creatures – as hard as it was to get her mind around the fact that magic existed, let alone Willow could use it, it wasn't hard to see the results. The spell now kept THEM away from Xander and Faith, who were trapped within the confines of the spell and Mr. Giles was furiously berating Willow for her mistake.

"I bloody-well told you to NOT bloody learn spells YOU CAN'T CONTROL! Which part of that did you NOT understand, Willow?" His temper had finally gotten the best of him – after two weeks of suspecting that she was blatantly ignoring his order to NOT learn magic she couldn't control, he now had his proof and it was only most-probably going to cost a Slayer and Willow's own best friend their lives.

Willow was in tears by now, "I'm SORRY! How many times do I have to SAY it?"

Pulling a move right out of Ripper's playbook, he sneered at her, "Say it to their corpses, Willow, because they probably won't survive this bollocks-up spell of yours."

"STOP IT!" Buffy ripped him away from Willow and glared at him, "Hey, yeah, she screwed – we deal with it LATER! Cancel the spell, Willow."

Willow was silent for a moment so he answered for her, "She can't Buffy, because she doesn't know which spell she cast and can't counter it." He glared at his young student, "If we all survive this, be warned I WILL bind your powers, Willow – I won't let this happen again." That said, he turned back to the fights in time to see the large vampire Xander was fighting roar in agony.

Even as he clutched his nose, Harry hissed at the boy, "I've taken down tough pieces of shit before, boy, but I have to be honest and say you're one of the tougher ones."

Xander limped slightly, feeling the adrenaline flush through his systems, "Well, as long as we're being honest, I think you're one ugly motherfucker."

Harry, remembering when he had said those very same words to that THING in South America, only snarled back at the boy and dashed forwards, clawing at the boy's armored chest – he had to admit that the kid came prepared. Kevlar body armor, an assault shotgun that had taken out his Master's minions on the hop, even had a blessed machete, but even with all that hardware the kid wouldn't beat him – the kid COULDN'T beat him.

Xander knew he was in serious trouble as he jerked back at the Terminator-look-alike slashed away at the last of his body armor – he made a mental note that, if he survived this fight, he'd start looking into getting body armor blessed; Faith was having all the trouble that a Slayer with a family-member-for-a-vamp vampire could have, and he was stuck with daddy dearest – lucky him, he thought as he lashed out a kick that caught the vampire in the knee, causing it to CRUNCH sickeningly and the vampire to roar as it dropped to it's other knee. Not looking a gift-horse in the mouth, he pulled the machete he'd dropped earlier off of the ground and swung down at the neck of the vampire.

"HARRY!" Faith watched as the vampire that had been her father turned to dust and her mother … the vampire that had been her mother shrieked in rage and went after Xander – she KNEW how tough her dad was, so she figured that the guy'd gotten in a lucky hit of some kind, and she also knew that the guy would pay the price if that vamp got to him.

"Watch your nine, X!" He caught the warning just in time to turn and get broadsided by the vampire that Faith had been fighting, a vampire who looked MAJORLY pissed off at him as she held him by the throat and snarled at him, her red eyes blazing.

"Thanks, Faith," she heard him gasp out even as she squeezed his throat – the boy would PAY for killing her husband. She squeezed harder and reveled in the way his eyes bulged, but not for too long as she felt a sudden inrushing of air and looked over in time to see the shimmering wall of light that had been keeping the rest of the boy's group in check. Said group was now rushing forwards, one of them bearing a pistol and, choosing survival over revenge, Helen dropped the boy and ran away.

Faith watched X gag a little even as Red and B both went up to check on him – G came over and squatted down in front of her, "Faith? Are you well?"

She shook her head at him, "No." He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder, one she shook away instantly, "Don't touch me."

"Faith, what's wrong?"

"I'm alone, that's what's wrong, G – dad's dust now, mom's on the run, Linda's …" she couldn't bring herself to say 'dead', "and X almost bought it because your witch over there can't tell her hand from her ass, apparently."

"HEY!" Red got up and stormed towards her, "It worked, that's all that counts."

"You almost got your boy killed there, Red," she snapped back at Willow, standing up and glaring, "so tell me HOW that means you know your shit?"

"She's right, Wills," X chipped in as he got to his feet with Marcia's help, "and I KNOW you didn't know the spell – why'd you agree to Giles' terms if you're going to ignore them?" She could see he was about to blow his stack at Red, and this surprised her – X and Red were like two pages in a book most of the time, but as close as they acted, she could tell this was going to get ugly as Red opened her mouth but X cut her off, "DON'T lie to me, Willow, because you suck at it. You knew exactly what you were doing, and you almost got me and Faith killed – I hope that whatever experience you got out of it lasts, because when Giles binds your powers, I'm making sure they stay that way."

"No! You … youcan'tlethimbindmymagics!" Willow felt her heart stop in her chest as Xander just stood there, his face flat – this did not bode well.

"She made a mistake, Xand," Buffy said, coming to her rescue. "Yeah, it almost got you and Faith killed, but it was just a mistake!"

"And if it had been you, Buffy?" Xander's still-flat voice shook her to the core even as he turned to Buffy, "She's not ready, Buffy – from what I've read and have been told, magic isn't just about smarts, which Willow has plenty of. It's also about WISDOM, and I am not seeing too much of that here." His words hurt her more than she realized they would because, deep down, she knew he was right – she was smart, VERY smart, but when it came to using that smartness responsibly she wasn't very good at it.

Buffy, however, kept pressing on even as both Marcia and Giles helped Faith us, "But if you and Giles bind her forever she won't learn!"

She had Xander there and she knew it – as a Watcher hated it when they were right, so he responded, "Buffy, we shall deal with this later – Xander, help Marcia with Faith." He had a great deal of reading to do in hopes that, if he made Willow sweat enough, she'd come to realize just how badly she had bollocksed up the entire night.

(Elsewhere)

"So, your husband is dead at the hands of the young man," her sire grumbled slightly as his hooves clicked against the concrete floor. "Interesting, so say the least – tell me, Helen, how is your daughter fairing?"

"Not well, sire," she responded quietly, but quickly. "The death of her Watcher has had … unforeseen results. She is on the edge, ready to crack, and all I … we … would have to do is to apply the right amount of pressure n the right point and she would be ours."

Kakistos smiled at the thought of having a Slayer under his control, "Hmm, yes, that will do nicely – Helen, take Trick and show him where your daughter is staying tomorrow evening; we need to ensure that she's … taken care of. What of the other Watcher?"

Trick slid forwards at this, a smile pulling at his lips, "According to what I've read, he is to give the girl her Cruciamentum tomorrow evening – Faith will be alone."

Kakistos chuckled at this, "Ah, yes, THAT piece of barbarism – it's amazing what those humans can come up with all on their own."

(LA – Warehouse district)

He loathed staying in places like this, as it reminded him far too much of his early days with the Council, but after what he had done in order to make SURE that Slayer Summers would go through the Cruciamentum, he could endure it for one more night. After all, he was Quinton Travers, and his word was law within the Council.

It was at that point precisely that the doors of the warehouse they had been shoveled into were blown open and men in black combat gear came rushing in, weapons drawn and trained on him and his wet works team, "What is the meaning of this? Do you know who I am?"

One man strode forwards, dressed in US Army green and wearing the rank of Brigadier General, "We surely do, Mr. Travers, and by order of both the President of the United States and in the stead of officers of her Royal Majesty, I hereby place you under arrest, charged with illegally possessing automatic weapons, intent to kidnap an American citizen, four counts of murder and two counts of indecency with a child." Every weapon that was not expressly trained on a member of his wet works team suddenly turned to face his chest, "Please, I'm begging you – resist."

His wrists were bound as he glared at the general, "I have diplomatic immunity, General, and I WILL see to it that you are reduced in rank over this."

He smiled as the Briton 'stumbled' a little, a stumble aided by a shove to the back, "Well, Mr. Travers, I have some bad news for you." He fished out some papers from his pocket and opened them for Travers to read, "Consider your Diplomatic Immunity … revoked. Get him out of here … and don't make the ride enjoyable."

One of the men looked at him, a grin evident under his full mask, "Gen pop with general notice, sir?"

"No, officer, we need him alive." Never, in his born days, had he ever seen a SWAT officer pout, but he was sure that's what the guy was doing.

Even as Travers was being lead away, demanding to speak to his consulate and for a lawyer, General Hastings made a phone call, "Mr. Secretary? Mission complete – the ass is in the barn…"

(Two weeks later)

She struggled against her bonds even as the thing that had been her mother smiled at her – it had been two weeks since the Council had been taken down, and ever since then things had been going down hill for the group; Xander's friends, the Ranger chicks, had been taken away from the school for 'proper debriefing', G was in jail, and X was kinda in charge of them all while his pops pulled some strings to get G out of jail.

That's when they struck – Kakistos had struck a week after her dad had been dusted and she had been taken, but the last thing she saw was X, on the ground, bleeding heavily as she was knocked out and she KNEW that she was fucked. They'd spent some time together and she was starting to actually like the guy, but now he was leaving her too … just like they had all left her.

"Dana? Honey? All you have to do is say 'yes' and the pain stops." Helen had to admit that seeing her daughter trussed up like a turkey, albeit bent back over a curved surface with her stomach and chest in the air, naked as the day she was born, and bleeding from he repeated lashings she had taken from both Trick and herself, made her feel bad … but only for a second. Her sire had given her permission to turn her daughter, but first Dana had to agree to be turned, and to do that it would take a lot of time to break her – she had her father's iron will and her own streak of pure pig-headedness, and that had lasted the entire two days that she had been working Dana over.

Dana looked up at her, tears having long-since been cried out, and her eyes swollen and red, and she spit out, "Go to hell, bitch!"

"I keep telling you we just need to rape her and that'll break her," Trick chipped in from his spot near Dana's head, his eyes roving her daughter's exposed, raw and bleeding flesh. "I've done it before and trust me, it works."

She glared at the elder vampire, "Touch her and I'll castrate you with a blessed butter knife." He cowed back and disappeared into the shadows, allowing her to turn back to her daughter and trace a finger from Dana's pubes to her breastbone, trailing it through the blood and then bringing it up to her lips to suckle on, "Come now, Dana, don't you want to be back with Family? To have your mother back? To not be all alone?" She could see the faintest glimmer of hope enter her daughter's eyes and Helen smiled – this was going to be fun.

(Sunnydale Hospital)

"Colonel Harris, if you do not tell your son to STOP doing sit ups in bed, I will be forced to sedate him," the resident doctor told him in a very tired tone that made Adam want to both smile and cringe at – Alex was many things, but when you cooped him up where he did not want to be, he was so annoying that you let him to go just to keep your sanity.

"I'll try, doctor, but he wants to be let go – nothing short of that will keep him from annoying you to no end."

The diminutive doctor, one that he was sure had a twin over in Cheyenne Mountain NORAD, glared up at him and set her lips in a thin line, "Tell him to stop or I break out the BIG needles that he's so scared of." With that, she turned and walked away, the staff in the hallways getting out of her way quickly as she did.

He shook his head and walked into his son's room, seeing that the bandages had come off and that Alex had a nicely-healing wound on his upper chest, where a knife had cut him across the upper left rib, "You know she's going to knock you out, right?"

Alex didn't even bother stopping, "I need to get out of here, Adam – I can tell something bad is going to happen and it's going to happen soon."

"I can sign you out AMA, son, but you and I both know that won't change anything – Dana … Faith is missing, and she isn't going to turn up any time soon. Buffy and Willow have both been released already and they are looking for her, but they haven't turned up anything."

"What about Giles?"

Adam sighed, "Being released as we speak, son – he's lucky that he has as many friends in low places as he did, otherwise he'd be in jail for the rest of his life for his crimes as a teen." Alex got out of his bed and Adam could see that any stiffness that his son had, that it was hidden as he walked towards the closet, "How is he going to be of any help, son?"

"I doubt he'd be able to help at all, dad, but he'll be able to help Buffy and Willow focus on their work, which will let ME do my work easier." Xander pulled on a pair of pants and then his shoes, "You asked me how I got information in this town, right?"

"Yes …" came the slow and unsure answer, as if Adam didn't want to hear what else was about to be said.

Xander didn't disappoint, "Well, come with me tonight and you'll find out." He pulled on a shirt and turned to Adam, "Oh, and don't wear anything nice – vamp dust ruins everything."

(Later – Unknown Location)

"You have done well, my childe," he purred to his childe as she watched her daughter's body die, a body that would be reborn into a vampire. "No vampire has ever managed to survive siring a Slayer, let alone one who was her own child in life."

Helen smiled as her sire droned on – if things went right, she wouldn't have to listen to either him or Trick EVER again in the very near future.

(Willy's)

The rat-like bartender shivered in fear as the roar of the shotgun rang in the rafters and yet another vampire turned to dust before the kid and his father – ever since Harris had come back to town in the fall, he'd made sure that none of the vamps or demons in town made him out to be the Slayer's bitch or lackey, that HE was the one they needed to be scared of, and tonight he was reinforcing that point while looking for answers.

"This is NOT a question of IF I am going to get the information I want, boys and girls and things, it's a question of how many of you are going to DIE before you tell me." Harris paced in front of the bar and glared over at him, "WHERE. IS. KAKISTOS?"

"Look, kid, it ain't that I don't want to tell you, it's just the Greek Freak scares me more than you … do…" Willy trailed off as the assault weapon was leveled at his chest and the kid's finger tightened on the trigger slightly, "Kid … I'm … I'm human."

"You seem to be mistaking me for the Slayer, Willy," Adam heard his son say in a dead voice, sending a shiver up his spine as he heard a liquid sound hitting the floor from behind the bar. "I kill things, ALL things, human and demonic, it's the Slayer who leaves you alive."

Adam could literally see the man's will literally break as he scrunched up his face and wailed, "Alright! He's down on the docks, number 13! Don't kill me!"

Nothing in the room so much as twitched or made a motion to breathe as the bartender quivered in fear, but finally Alex put the gun away eyed the man coolly, "Willy, I don't know how many times I have to tell you this, but do NOT make me wait for information – next time you do, I'll string you up by what passes for your genitalia and use your for target practice." With that, his son stalked out of the bar and he wasn't far behind him as the demons let out a collected sigh of relief.

"Alex …" he paused in his question as his son reached into his pocket and pulled out tri-colored grenade of some kind and pulled the pin before hurling it through one of the windows of the bar. Seconds later said grenade exploded and billows of smoke filled the bar … as did screams from some of the patrons, "What the hell was that?"

"Don't you ever watch Monty Python, dad?" He gave his father the most beatific look he could muster at that point but it didn't fool his father at all, "Well, I modified a CS grenade to spit out holy water – it worked."

"I thought I told you to leave the gadgets up to the geeks in R and D, son?"

"And let them have all the fun? Perish the thought," Xander quipped slightly as he and Adam went towards the car his dad had driven them there in. "To dock 13, Batman!"

Adam snorted at his son as they got into the car, "I'm Adam Harris, not Adam West."

(Dock 13)

"Traitorous bitch," Trick managed to get out as his body turned to dust even as Dana / Faith, her newest Childe, tore bloody chunks from Kakistos with a berserker rage that would have made her father proud.

"That's Queen Bitch," she muttered even as he finished turning to dust. She then turned to her daughter, who had Kakistos by the throat, and smiled, "Dana, do be a dear and go put some clothes on – while you DO have a very nice body, we will be going out into public soon."

"Yes, mother," Dana said in a sing-song kind of voice before she proceeded to skip over towards a darkened area.

Helen turned back to Kakistos, who was glaring at her, and she smiled, "I know that this seems a little quick, SIRE, but please tell me you did see this coming from the second I asked to turn my own daughter – if you didn't, then males truly are the inferior of any species."

All she got in reply was a gurgled growl.

She sighed and broke off a piece of the wooden crate that had been used weeks ago to hold the implements of torture the Watcher Dana had hooked up with to, "Oh well – goodbye, Master." With that, she slammed the makeshift stake into the old vampire's chest and watched as his body turned to dust, leaving his skeleton there.

"Not bad – a little overly-dramatic, but not bad." She spun and found herself looking down the barrel of a large-bore weapon and looked over that bore to see the dead eyes of Alexander, her childe's former friend, "Gotta say, Mrs. Tasker, I'm impressed – not many vamps can get over the Sire – Childe bond to dust their sires."

She smiled at the boy even as she noticed the older man over his shoulder covering the darkness of the area with a pistol, "What can I say, save that she's my daughter and women will fight to the death for their kids. How did you manage to sneak up on me?"

He gave her a humorless grin, "I've noticed that most vamps tend to get so far into their work and play that they forget things like remembering to check their six. Good for me, bad for you."

"Bad for you, X," Dana said as she stepped out of the shadows, now dressed in some leather pants and a red halter top, her body still stained with her own blood, though. "Why not join us? We'd make a killer team."

To his credit, his eyes never left her, nor did his weapon, "Sorry, Faith, but I kinda like walking in the sun." Helen smiled at this and he asked, "What're you smiling at?"

"She's right – you'd make a great addition to our little family, Alexander." She raised both of her hands then and smiled, "Of course I would still have much to teach you."

His finger tightened on the trigger just a fraction of a hair, "Like?"

"This." She depressed the stone in her ring and immediately all of the windows and doors of the warehouse on the dock exploded out, but she also immediately moved out of the way as he unloaded four rounds from his weapon in roughly one second, rounds that would have taken off everything from her breasts up, and she dodged out of the way even as Dana kicked his father in the groin and followed her.

Once she and Dana were into the sewers, though, they ran at a double-clip until they reached the fall-back point she and Harry had come up with just after coming to town – it was then that she noticed the disturbed look on Dana's face, "What is it?"

"Something's not right – X shoulda blown your head off when you dusted Kak, but he talked with you; not his style, mom." She thought about it for a second and then looked at her mom, "He's up to something – question is, is what's he up to?"

"We'll figure it out later, honey, but now we have a meeting with a bath for you, and then with the guy behind the scenes here in town." They started away to a low-rent room she and Harry had kept and talked as they did, "He's been around for a few decades now, a century at the most…"

(Sunnydale Library – next day)

"… and that's how it went down." Adam finished telling what had happened the night before, up to and including the fact that Faith / Dana was working with the enemy – the reactions were mixed in that Buffy looked ready to throw up, Willow was shocked, Mr. Giles looked oddly blank and his son, Alex, was furious, but that had been the case since the night before, "Alex?"

"I had the fucking shot and I was too busy jaw-jacking to take it!" Alex was out of his seat and pacing, swearing under his breath in Italian until he came to a stop, "We need to find them before they get out of town, dad – from what Faith told me about Helen, she's smart and doesn't like taking orders." Alex continued to pace and stopped once more, "How soon can you get Marcia and the ladies back here?"

Adam shook his head, "No can do, Alex – Command, in their infinite wisdom, has them sitting desks for a few months while they write up protocol. I can have you a team of Rangers by the end of the week, though, full kit and ready to go."

Xander snorted, "Why not let us blow our head off now? I don't want green-as-their-uniforms Rangers, dad, I want people with field experience and for that I need the ladies back."

His father gave him a sour look, "It's not my call, Alex, and it's the best I can do."

Buffy spoke up at this point, "What are you two planning?" When neither of them looked at her, she began to get angry, "What are you two going to do?"

It was Giles who spoke up next, "I do believe they are going to start open warfare upon the demons, Buffy, in a way that will most likely be rather volatile." He took off his glasses and polished them slightly, "In fact, if Sunnydale is not under martial law within a week, I will be very impressed."

Adam looked up at this point and smiled slightly, "I had hoped to keep that as a last resort, Mr. Giles, but provided I can come up with a convincing cover story it can happen within two days."

Xander looked over at Willow and Buffy, both of whom nodded, and he turned back to his dad, "Gang members on PCP, major drug trafficking in the area, lots of unexplained deaths and the PD is on the take – you've got your reasoning now, and as the investigation goes, we'll get a lot more stuff on the who and what is behind Sunnydale."

Adam smiled and got up, "I knew you got something from me other than your dashing good looks." With that, he walked over to Giles' office and began to place phone calls.

Willow scrunched up her nose, "Doesn't he know you look just like your mother's uncle Sal?"

"Leave him to his dreams, Wills – it's all he has left."

(One week later)

It had gone down better than anyone could have hoped – the Sunnydale PD, to a man, had been stripped of their duty and were being completely investigated by the Federal authorities who were in charge of the city now, and the City Council were also under investigation. Enough evidence had been turned up by this point to bury the entire city government, save for the Mayor, Richard Wilkins the Third, and that is what worried them most of all. He was clean, too clean, and the fact that he was completely unfazed by anything that was found made the group believe that he was the man behind the curtains.

One of the things that had not gone as well was that both Helen and Dana Tasker were both still under the radar, under everyone's radar – aside from shaking the trees and Xander berating himself, there wasn't a thing they could do save to keep looking.

Another thing that had happened was dubious as to how good it was, at least if you were Buffy, Cordelia or Willow – with Xander having just celebrated his eighteenth birthday, one of 'his older girls', Theresa 'Spots' Maloney, had made enough of a nuisance of herself that she was deployed to the 'front lines' in Sunnydale. Not long after that Grace Ryu had also showed up, and the pair had immediately begun to bicker over this and that about Xander, leaving the object of their bickering to often be doing everything he could to always be out on patrol.

Days turned into nights, nights turned into weeks, weeks into months and it was nearly January before anything of significance began to break in their search – Richard Wilkins the Third, before he assumed the office of mayor, had not existed before 1975; this had raised all kinds of alarm bells within the group, enough so that a photo comparison was done by Willow to old pictures of the Mayor, which were few and far between, and soon it became known why.

"That son of a bitch, it's him!" Everyone looked over at Willow, who colored a dark red as she realized what she had said, "Uh, um, that's … oh, boy."

Buffy smirked at the once-hacker-turned-witch-turned-hacker again as Willow's boyfriend, Oz, sat next to the hacker, "What's up? Aside from your temper, that is."

Willow shot her a glare and she smiled back as if nothing had happened, "I found pictures of Mayor Wilkins and his father and his grandfather – they're all the same, visually." She brought the three pictures up side-by-side-by-side and let them all see that, indeed, all three were the same, "He's at least one hundred years old and he founded the city … why didn't we see this earlier?"

Xander looked over from Buffy's shoulder even as Spots and Grace both looked at the screen, "We're idiots?"

Buffy chipped in, "Sunnydale Syndrome?"

Grace chipped in, "You're only civilians?"

Spots looked at Buffy and snarked, "Bleached brain cells?"

It was not a secret that neither Spots nor Buffy got along, and though they often took shots at one another as often as they could, so Xander nipped the brewing argument in the ass, "Either way, we know now. Question is, is what we do about it."

"How about you do nothing about it?" As one they all turned and saw Faith standing in the doorway, smiling slightly and looking a touch pale, dressed in leather and a halter top again, "Well, that's actually supposed to be there's not anything you can do about it."

Buffy pulled the stake she kept in the back of her pants out, eyeing her sister Slayer, "Faith, where have you been? We've been worried."

"Sure ya have, B," the dark-haired young man shot back with a nasty smile before looking at Xander. "Still kicking yourself, X?"

"Let me get to my weapon and I won't be." Xander was moving in the opposite direction of Buffy, but he wasn't looking at Faith – he was looking in every other direction BUT Faith's, "Where's that bitch you call a mother?"

Faith narrowed her eyes and did what came naturally – she vamped out, causing Buffy to drop her stake and Giles to utter, 'oh, dear God in heaven', "Don't talk about my mom that way, X – trust me, she's a real pill when she's pissed."

"Where is she, Faith?" He made his way over to the book counter and reached under it, pulling out his assault shotgun and racking the slide back, chambering a round into the bulky weapon, "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."

"Mmmmm, I like it hard, X, REALLY hard," Faith purred at him, taking her eyes off of Buffy to favor him, "and mom really wants you to join our little family. She says that the brains you have and the balls you've shown would make us GODS among vampires … and I'd get to sire you. How does that sound?" Without waiting for an answer, she spun around and intercepted the stake B had thrown at her, smiling as she did, "How typical – I saw that coming a mile … away, … B."

Time slowed to a crawl as she realized the mistake she had made and as several things happened at once – B dove off to one side, the others took cover and she moved instinctively as a roar sounded behind her, quickly followed by another, and another, and another. As she dove, she twisted in time to see a slug fly through the air where she had been, and then saw another, and another and another, all of them following her flight path even as she hit the ground and rolled away to her feet.

Time seemed to speed up as she began to run, the roars of the shotgun getting closer together as she ducked, wove and spun out of the way of the slugs that were doing their best to destroy everything they came in contact with, and she was doing it – after all, she was the Slayer … and that's when she felt it.

It hit her low in the back, just above the back of her pants, and she was hit again and again even as her legs cut out from under her, the hits stitching up her back even as she fell. The last thing she heard before the blackness consumed her was a male voice saying, "Forget someone, little girl?"

Xander let off of the trigger even as he saw Faith go down in a heap, his father standing behind her with a suppressed weapon in his hand, a smoking one, "What the …"

Adam looked at his son and smiled slightly, "I wasn't always a Ranger, son."

Silence reigned in the room for several seconds before a very irate British voice, a male one, spoke in a Cockney accent, "BLOODY Effen' 'Ell! Wot've I told ya about firin' off tha' bloody f'ing in me library?" Oh, yeah, THIS was going to be fun.

(Later – Wilkins Manor)

He watched her pace the floors even as he sipped his evening tea, something he had taken to doing ever since the American Military had decided that NOW was the time to poke it's nose into his city and to interrupt his plans – he'd been working for well over a century to ascend into a demon, and he was not going to let a few … MORTALS … derail that plan. "Really, Ms. Taker, must you wear a hole in that rug? It was given to me by my great grandmother."

She stopped and shot him a look that, were he able to be hurt, would have left him with only a few pieces of his torso left – he'd been forced to move his plans up quiet a bit already, and he was now within his one hundred days of invulnerability, which was good as she had tried to kill him four times in the past five hours, "Do NOT presume you can tell me what to do, Wilkins – Dana and I were out of this town when you and your goons stopped us, and it's because of YOU that she's not back yet."

He opened his mouth to retort, but that was cut off by his butler opening the door and looking at him, "Sir, there is a young man with Miss Tasker to see you – he says that it is … urgent."

"Send him in, Alfred, and take the rest of the night off." He put his tea off to the side and stood up, straightening his jacket as he did, plastering a false smile on his face as the door opened a little more to admit both a lose-pants-wearing Dana and a young man dressed in a long black coat that seemed to be all the rage now days, "Hello, Dana, you've had your mother VERY worried."

She snorted at the guy who her mom was working with and looked at her sire, "Sorry, but I had my legs taken out from under me, mom."

She heard X chuckle from behind her, "Yeah, a .45 to the base of the spine will do that, Faith." He walked them in a little further and she stopped a few feet in, X doing the same and turning to the Mayor, "So … who's your surgeon? You're … what, 120 years old, and you don't look a day over 40."

The mayor smiled at him slightly, "I'll get you his name, young man – thank you for returning young Dana here, I'll see that you are … duly rewarded for it."

"Oh, she's not going anywhere, Mr. Mayor – she's my insurance policy that I'm getting out of here alive." He pulled his right hand out of his pocket to reveal the triggering device that he held there and then slowly turned Faith around to show the pair the multiple charges of C-4 he had strapped to her back, and then spun her back around, "There's more strapped to her legs, shaped charges, and I've made sure there's MORE than enough to put his entire wing of the house into orbit." He mentally thanked Fly's Gunny for teaching the troops of Light Drop that, when you DID handle explosives, to be careful, and if the situation allows for it, to blow the target or targets to hell and back several times – this was why he had raided the troops' supply of C-4 and had the pants rigged.

His smile faded quickly even as he saw Helen's face break into a huge grin, "Boy, you do NOT have any leverage to bargain here."

"On the contrary, Richard, he does," Helen fired back at him, "and it's in the form of my daughter. Tell me, boy, what is it that you want?"

"I want to know just what's going on – what are you planning, Mr. Mayor?"

Richard thought of lying for only a moment before he sighed, "Well, really, it's rather simple, young man…"

(Harris Household – later that evening)

"I still don't understand why you don't go to the hospital, Alex," she muttered even as she and Adam patched their son up under the intense scrutiny of Alex's friends and teachers.

"How would I explain fragments of wood, concrete, dirt, necrotic human flesh and C-4 residue embedded in my wounds, mom? That I tripped and fell in a military facility?" She shot him a glare at his sarcastic and flip comment even as someone behind her giggled and he stopped being silly, "Add to that the Mayor probably has people working for him in the hospital and I'd be toast."

Adam looked at Alex, "Can you confirm that Faith's dead?"

Alex shook his head, getting up from where he had been sitting, "No – your team showed up early, didn't follow proper procedure and fucked my count up. For all I know they're all still alive or undead." Alex then turned and glared at the young man in the corner, still dressed in his black clothes and armor, and who looked VERY uncomfortable at that point, "I recognize you, Finn – what the FUCK were you thinking, soldier?"

He could tell Harris senior was angry, but Harris junior … well, Finn remembered the last time he was on the kid's bad side and he was glad that there were witnesses to a potential murder, "We heard what sounded like a scuffle and went in – it was a good call."

Harris junior was visibly shaking as he stalked towards him – this wasn't going to be fun at all, Riley was able to think as he was pulled in close, "If you EVER pull a silly-ass stunt like that again I will not hesitate to shoot you myself." The words were spoken in a level, clear tone, but one that promised worlds of pain if ignored as he was let loose, "Am I understood?"

Finn nodded at him, "Yes, I do, but I still say it was a good call."

"I had a count to take out two of the three biggest threats we have in this town, Captain, and you and your corn-fed cowboys fucked it up – can you GIVE me a reason why I should not be pissed at you?" He was hurt, tired, dirty and hungry and he did NOT want to have to deal with some half-coked, green officer who didn't know procedure well enough to lead a troop of Cub Scouts, let alone Rangers – add this to his admittedly volatile temper and, for a moment, he almost felt bad for Finn … almost.

Adam had to admit he was surprised when Finn spoke up, especially with Alex in the mood he was in, "I can't, but be advised that you are NOT an officer and cannot order me around, civilian, and you can't verbally abuse my troops for something that was MY call."

"He can't Lieutenant, but I can," Adam chipped in, making the young man back down before turning to Alex, "and don't hold anything against Finn's men – it's not their fault they are all from Kansas." Alex snorted at this and went into the kitchen, where his mother had retreated to, leaving Adam alone with Finn, "I do want to know why you went in, Lieutenant – your orders were to wait until Alex was out of the building, to secure him, and to get back to the fall-back point PDQ."

"I'm sorry, sir, but I jumped the gun and went on my gut – it won't happen again."

"See that it doesn't – we're not dealing with humans here, Finn, and my son's group has more experience than we do at this, so for now we're taking their lead and their suggestions to heart. Understood?"

Finn straightened, "Hoo-ah, sir."

"Good, now get back to barracks and write up the report – we'll deal with Alex's mother." He wasn't sure, but he was sure he saw Finn both wince and hold back a grin as he went out of the door to the waiting car outside.

In the kitchen Jessica watched as Alex stood against the wall, his head back and eyes, closed, and for an instant she could see both her son and a very tired, very worn old man – she would admit to anyone that she wasn't sure what it was, exactly, that her husband and son and her son's friends fought here in Sunnydale, but if it did THIS to her son … she wasn't sure if she wanted anyone else to deal with it. "Alex?"

"I'm fine, mom … I'm just tired." There was a tone of pure exhaustion in his voice even as he opened his eyes up, allowing her to see the old, tired soul in there, "Faith's been turned, maybe be dust, the Mayor's up to some freaky shit … and I'm not sure if we can stop it."

Jessica fought her instincts to go and hug her son into tiny little pieces, but she was stopped by Adam entering the room and pulling a cold soda out of the ice box, speaking, "We'll find a way, son – it may take a while, but we'll find a way." He took a drink of the soda and looked at her son again, his eyes narrowing, "You took a big risk going in there without any backup, son – if you were enlisted or an officer, you'd be up on charges … if you were lucky to not get a Section 8."

"Only viable option, dad, and you know it."

Adam shook his head at the almost fatalistic tone in his son's voice, "I'm not hearing this, Alex – tomorrow, you're seeing the head shrinker and that is not negotiable." The front door opened at this point and he turned to see both Chen and Maloney enter uninvited – this worried him until he remembered what Alex had told him about the new 'doorknobs' he's put on the door not long after they had dealt with Tony, ones with little crosses etched into them. "Ladies – may I ask what you're doing here?"

While Maloney didn't respond, other than zeroing in on Alex and making slight clucking sounds as she did, Chen at least remembered that his birds bucked their stripes, "We heard about Al being injured, sir, and when he didn't go to the hospital, Spots decided to check here for him – I came along to make sure SHE didn't kill him, though."

"Yes, is that so?" Xander whimpered at the sound in his mother's voice, knowing that no good could come from it as she pulled Spots off of him and pinned her with a glare and a thick Italian accent, "And what is my son to you, little girl?"

Grace watched Spots turn to Ms. Harris with a glare and open up with a spout of thickly-accented English as she approached Al, "Come on – let's get you to bed so you can rest."

He gave her a weak smile even as Ms. Harris returned fire, "You know, Grace, I'd make a comment about my virtue being in trouble … but I'm too tired and hurt right now." She smiled at him slightly as they left the kitchen and proceeded up the stairs to his room.

"Just be glad it's me and not Spots, Al – she may try and join you in bed, even without your mother's permission," Grace pointed out to him even as they entered his room and she eyed it – it was up to specs and actually clean, something she didn't expect from a civilian.

Al gave her a snort tinged with a groan of pain as he sat on the edge of his bed and took off his boots, "Trust me, Grace, I thank you – she might have killed me."

She graced him with a slight smile as his boots came off and his shirt followed, letting her see the white gauze patches on his arms and torso, patches that would need to be changed by morning her mind chipped in slightly, "What did you learn from this episode, Al?"

He didn't even bother taking off his pants, he just gently flopped back onto his bed, an action he instantly regretted as his ribs and arms protested greatly – he was able to speak again a moment later, "We're totally fucked, Grace – I don't care how you slice it, we're all better off bending over or getting on all fours to take it."

Grace walked over and sat next to him on the bed, looking over to where her face was above his and quirked an eyebrow at him as a grin came to her face, "You're very lucky I'm here and not my sister or Spots, Al – a comment like that would have had you in traction for MONTHS."

His response was a very grown-up one – he stuck his tongue out at her.

They sat there for a few minutes, the voices from the kitchen below coming up through the floor boards of his room and, from the sounds of things, Spots was giving as good as she got, and Xander finally asked, "Why do you egg on Spots like you do, Grace?"

"Hmm?"

He rolled his eyes at her innocent 'hmm', "You can't fool me, Grace – we're friendly, but not that friendly."

She snickered slightly, "Well, Al, you got it in one – I like teasing Spots because she was crushing on jail bait, hell, she even had you down to your boxers in our game of strip poker, all of us in almost less, and you come up with a pair of threes. Trust me, if the LT hadn't been there, your virtue would have been lost that night … several times over."

Any comment he was about to make was cut off as they heard someone walking up the stairs – they looked at one another and grinned, a truly evil plan forming in the blink of an eye.

Spots, completely unaware of what was going on in the room she was headed to, simmered at some of the things that Alex's mother had said about her – she was not some kind of a cradle-robbing witch who couldn't cook to save her life, thus making her 'unable' to marry Alex; she damned well could cook! All of this fled her mind, though, as she found the one door that was closed, squared her shoulders and flung it open … only to stop dead in her tracks at what she saw.

"Full house," Alex said to Grace, who pouted and sighed. What was remarkable about this was that Alex was already out of his boots and shirt, revealing his bandaged wounds, while Grace was only missing her shoes.

She opened her mouth to speak, but what she was going to say was cut off as Grace pulled her top off to reveal that she had gone with a bikini top that evening, making Alex's eyes bug out slightly. What made his eyes bug out was just how very little the top covered – it was the kind of bikini you saw in Brazil, which covered very little of the breast, and while Spots felt her own mouth go dry for a second, she saw Grace's lips turn up into a grin.

"Like what you see, Al?" He nodded dumbly and she made up her mind right there.

"Deal me in," she said, flopping on the bed as well, determined to win.

(Next Afternoon)

"Your son is borderline PTSD, Colonel, with a surprisingly large case of trauma-induced depression."

Adam sighed and grumbled under his breath, "I think that may have more to do with last night's card game than anything."

"Excuse me, Colonel? What was that?"

He looked up and shook his head, "Nothing, doctor – now, about Alex … is there anything we can do?"

The doctor, a short, balding man of almost sixty years old, was dressed in a bad cotton suit and looked rather disturbed about being where he was, "Colonel, to be absolutely honest with you, no." Adam gave him an alarmed look and he went on, "Only time can really help him, Colonel – from everything he told me, he's had a lot done to him, more so than what he's done, and I've also played that game. If HALF of what's on there is true …" The doctor shivered slightly before wiping his brow, "There is no quick cure for your son's condition, as much as you'd like it to be." He scribbled a few things down onto a notepad and signed it, "I don't like doing this, but take this to the pharmacy and have them fill it, Colonel – it's going to knock him out for a few days, but it'll let his body recover a little more before we start his treatments. I'll have a report on your deck in a few hours, so just get him down and rested, Colonel."

Adam took the prescription and nodded, putting it in his pocket, "Thanks Doc." The old man left and Adam sighed – he hated having to give his soldiers, let alone his son, drugs, but this time he had to defer to the expert on the matter.

Forty minutes later he was back at his house in time to see Jessica patching up Alex again, but this time he was complaining, "No, mom, I DON'T need some methyl … methyl … damn it, no Monkey Blood! Has Granny been visiting again?" Adam winced for his son – that shit HURT, but it worked.

Jessica, glass applicator in hand, didn't listen as she dabbed one of the cuts on his arm with it and ignored his howls if indignation and pain, "I don't want you getting an infection, Alex, and that's the end of the discussion." Once she was done, she turned to him and leveled a glare at him, "Where have you been? That Irish trollop brought him back here and wanted to get him back into bed!"

Adam rolled his eyes, remembering the previous night when he had gone in to check on his son and found him, Maloney and Chen on his bed, all half-naked and playing strip poker – he had made the mistake of mentioning something along the lines of 'Chen and Maloney are taking care of him in his room', which had sent Jessica storming up the stairs. Once the two ladies were dressed and gone, she had torn into Alex, whom had torn right back into her saying he'd had a full house, king-high, but that had not deterred his mother, hence him now being home-bound for the duration of the weekend. "Alex, the doc wants you to take these and get some rest – you start your treatments on Monday."

Xander caught the bottle his father threw at him and saw what he didn't want to see – psych drugs, ones to knock him on his ass and keep him there, and instantly he felt like throwing them down the toilet; he didn't NEED drugs, "Do I have to?"

Adam nodded, "Yeah, you do – doc says PTSD and depression can be worked out in time, but you need to rest first, hence the drugs. Don't make be bring Spots and Grace here, Alex – you and I both know they'd have them down your throat without any kind of resistance." Alex tried to give him an indignant look, as if to say, 'no they wouldn't!', but that look faded as Adam just continued to look at his son until said son's head fell in acceptance and he went to get some water.

"I want you to know I do this under duress," Alex told him as he shook out a pill and downed it with a half of a mouthful of water.

Adam nodded, "Duly noted, son, now go to bed, and pleasant dreams." Alex left the room, snorting something about, 'bull, like that'll happen', pill bottle on the counter, and he turned to Jessica, "Jessie … we have a problem."

Ten minutes and one explanation later, both he and Jessica were upstairs and looking in on Alex, who was out cold on his bed, snoring slightly.

Jessica looked up at him, "Do you think this is the right thing?"

Adam hesitated in answering, "I've seen soldiers crack when, if they had gotten help, they wouldn't have, and I'll be damned if I let my son crack because I was afraid to give him drugs, Jess – I don't like it, but I'll learn to deal with it."

(Journal – X. Harris)

Visited the Psych doc today and he said that I'm coming along well – I've been in treatment for almost a month now and I'm actually starting to deal with my problems instead of repressing them, which turns out is the root of the problem … well, one of them.

Apparently not only have I been suffering from PTSD for a while now (ever since Fly's memories started floating around in my head), we all have to some extent, but while the others seem to have found ways to have normal or semi-normal lives outside of Slaying, I haven't, hence my problem. I haven't found a way to release my frustrations in a constructive or a non-destructive way, well, I hadn't, but now it seems that I have – believe it or not, I sing.

…

…

Okay, you can stop laughing now – yes, I, Alexander LaVelle Harris, sing, though I admit I don't sing very well. I pull out a few of mom's old records, ones she kept Tony from destroying, listen to the old Italian opera and try and sing along in the old Italian – when I do, though, I hear dogs howling and do my best to ignore them. Still, when I do sing, it feels like I'm being lifted out of a hole, one I've dug with my own two hands, apparently, and my ability to shunt things away. … God, I've been such an asshole – yeah, I accuse Buffy of not being able to share the load, but here, I am, doing all of this without really relying on anyone else, and I look like a fucking hypocrite because of it.

Uh-oh, Spots and Grace are here – apparently they want a re-match from the impromptu game we had a month ago. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky?

(March 12)

Things have been a little hectic around here as of late – no word yet on if Helen and or Faith were destroyed in the blast, and the newly-returned Mayor isn't talking. Dad's had all kinds of people on Wilkins' ass, but nothing has turned up yet as far as how the guy has survived for so damned long – the troops are starting to get restless and I'm still stuck talking with the head shrinker.

Good news – I won the last card game I had with Grace and Spots … boy, did I win. Won't go into the details as I'm sure my mother reads this, hi mom, but I had fun.

Bad news – Giles has found out just what the Mayor is doing, or is at least planning to do, and if it does come to pass we are so VERY screwed.

More good news – Riley Finn isn't a total jackass or complete incompetent. He's learning, through working with Buffy, that in this town there are certain ways to do certain things and that working with people who know what they are doing, let alone admitting that they know more than you do, has let him grow as a person. Only bad part about this is that he's been making eyes at Buffy as of late – note to self: hurt Captain Cornbread badly.

More bad news – Prom is coming up in two weeks and neither Grace nor Spots are letting me miss it; I've tried going to dad and asking him to order them to leave me alone, but he just gave me this little grin and a pat on the shoulder before leaving. I fear my fate is sealed – oh well, at least I'll die happy, as Cordy will most likely kill me for not asking her to the prom. Mom hasn't been any help either as she's been teaching me in the 'marital arts' and making vague references to either the Irish or Asian cultures – she must be punished. My one big worry is Harmony, though – she's been … persistent, to say the least, and she and Spots get along like Bloods and Crypts.

… Hmm, maybe I should volunteer Adam and Mom to chaperone the prom?

(End Journal Entries)

He closed the book and dropped it onto his desk before reaching over and grabbing his tuxedo jacket – he'd been in therapy for almost three months now and he felt better than he had in a long, long time. According to Doctor Paige, his psychologist, he was clinically 'cured' of his depression, though most of that had come from stress-less human bonding and just thinking happy thoughts, which had gotten the obligatory question for fairy dust use from him, but the PTSD was something he was going to be with for a while longer. Yes, he still jumped at loud, sudden noises, and while he had learned to curb his instincts to attack when spooked or snuck up on (and the bruise on Riley's jaw was almost gone now at that), he was getting better … slowly.

"Yeah, and tonight that may all change," he muttered to himself as he looked himself over one last time in the mirror. He had been told, not asked, that he was taking Miss Theresa Maloney to the Prom by one Theresa Maloney, and after hearing that Grace had invited herself along simply because she wanted to keep the potential for violence down – no good could come of this night … well, that wasn't strictly true. One good thing could come out of it, but he wasn't that lucky.

"Alex? Are you ready?" He grinned as his mother, a chaperone for the night, stick her head into his room, a neutral look on her face, "We need to leave, honey – I have to open the doors."

"Yes, thank you OH so much for volunteering us for this, Alex," Adam said from the hallway behind her, his voice laden with sarcasm.

Xander just gave him a smile that, according to Giles, was 'full of cheek', "Well, as the old saying goes, what goes around, comes around. You volunteered me for a lot of stuff at Benning, so consider this payback."

Adam gave him an offended look even as his mom giggled slightly and gave him a corsage, "Now, now, boys, no fighting."

He took the corsage, "Nothing that'll leave a mark, mom, that's all I can promise." In the back of his mind, though, he was praying 'God? Don't let this turn into a brawl, please?'

(Sunnydale High – two hours later)

Okay, so it had been only a short slap-fight, at best, so Xander wasn't entirely unhappy with everything that had gone down so far – Harmony had come up and tried to claim him as her date, but both Spots and Grace had taken exception to this and had … 'convinced' Harmony to leave him alone; outside of that, though, things had gone well.

"Hey, Xand." He turned and saw Faith and Helen both standing in not ten feet away from him, both dressed up for Prom – damn it, he'd spoken too soon.

"Faith. Helen."

Helen Tasker arched her eyebrow at him, "You don't seem surprised to see us here."

He just shrugged even as both Spots and Grace made their way towards him, a journey he aborted with a simple hand gesture, "Not really surprised by anything these days, actually – how'd you two survive, though?"

Faith gave him a dark look, "Almost didn't, Xand – you cooked me medium-well with that blast and it's taken me this long to heal up."

He gave her a bland look, "Aw, I do believe I shall shed a tear over that." He wiped away the imaginary tear, repressing a grin as Helen was forced to restrain her daughter in both life and undeath, "So, I don't suppose that you two are here to say that you're either giving yourselves up or that you're leaving Sunnydale for good, are you?"

Helen gave him an almost-innocent look, "And if we choose the second you'll let us go? That WAS my intent before we were shanghaied by Dick."

He shrugged, "Not really my call, Doris." She blinked at him in shock and he smiled, "You know, I would have expected you to ask for the name 'Natasha', but apparently it was already taken, according to the files we have now."

Helen growled, "Believe me, I tried for that name." She schooled her features into a mask even as he noticed a group of civvie-wearing Rangers began to get into position, "So, are your men gong to escort us out of here, or are you going to try and destroy us now?"

"They aren't HIS men, Ms. Tasker," Adam said as he melted out of the growing crowd of kids that had started to gather. "They are mine, and I'd prefer to take this somewhere less public."

Helen glared at Adam, "My daughter and I only want safe passage out of Sunnydale and we can bargain for it – we're privy to some of the Mayor's plans, after all."

Adam arched his eyebrow, "And even if I were to entertain this idea, which I'm not, we'd still deal with it outside – let the children have their prom."

Helen nodded, "Very well – come on, Faith, we're leaving."

Faith pouted for a moment, "But I didn't get to dance with Xand."

"Only way you and I dance is if it's me in your ashes, Faith," Xander said to her in a dead tone even as the other Rangers began to disperse the crowd.

Anything else he was going to say was cut off as he was pulled away and Spots stepped forwards. "One side, kiddo – listen, slut, stay away from him."

Xander winced as Faith's eyes hardened, Grace stepping up next to him, "No good can come from this."

Before Grace could respond, Helen stalked over, "Dana!"

Faith looked over at her mother, "But mom!"

Helen, however, just folded one arm over the other and glared until Faith / Dana wilted – this proved to him that, undead or alive, a mother was STILL the scariest thing on the planet.

Grace pulled him away, "Let's go dance, Al – this could get ugly."

Not wanting to be in the area, Xander only nodded and followed her away even as Helen and Faith were lead away.

(Later)

"Sergeant Maloney, what in the hell were you thinking?" She cringed back at her CO's tone even as the dance continued to go on, but then again, so did he, "You almost got into a fight with a KNOWN HST in a public venue – why shouldn't I bust you down to a private and be done with it?"

She gulped, "Sir, respectfully, I was just-" she trailed off and he glared at her some more, but she finally said, "Sir, I was angry that she was trying to take my date from me."

He arched his eyebrow at her, "I realize that you and my son have some kind of agreement, Sergeant, but do NOT think that just because you somehow managed to talk my ex into letting you take him to the prom that you're absolved of your duties. Besides that fact, Chen's gotten in more dances with him than you have, so I'd say SHE was his date."

Theresa growled slightly as he finished, "Bloody tramp."

"I think Sergeant Chen may have an issue with you calling her that, Sergeant," Adam said to the fuming woman.

"Not her, sir, that bloody tramp, Faith!" He looked at her oddly, "I didn't get to go to my own prom because of a girl like her, sir."

"And my son was, what, convenient?"

She shook her head, not paying attention to the young brunette that sudden appeared out of nowhere, "No, sir, he's a sweet kid, kinda fun, too." She then sighed, "I just don't know, sir – I … I just wish that … that none of this had ever happened. I mean, things like Xander losing his marbles, the HST situation, hell, even Faith being turned."

Anyanka smiled nastily – she had been told to stick around the prom tonight and to wait for an opportunity like this, and here was her big chance to truly cement herself into D'Hoffryn's good graces. According to D'Hoffryn's sources, a great many things had been changed because of this guy, Xander Harris, and now things were going to be set back to the way things SHOULD have been, "Don-"

"Finish that word, young lady, I and fear that it will be the last word you EVER try and say." The words were quiet, if not polite, but the knife she felt suddenly laid across her throat, and the burn she was feeling from its edge on her throat, made her not finish the pronouncement of fate.

Slowly, she nodded and she was led away from the pair of soldiers, nobody looking at them until she was out of the building and pushed away, at which point she turned around, "Who the hell are you and why did you interrupt me?"

Rupert 'Ripper' Giles glared back at her coldly and, suddenly, she wasn't so sure about what she was going to do as he put away the knife into his jacket, "Did you honestly think that someone like you could fly under MY radar, Anyanka? Perhaps in another world, maybe even another time, but as of late I've … well, let's just say that I've learned that the sins of the past aren't always so bad to repeat as one grows older."

She shivered, "I've heard of you, Ripper – didn't you-"

"Yes, I most certainly did," he cut her off, his voice now devoid of all politeness and filled with a vast expanse of chilled promise of violence in his voice. For some reason, this made Anyanka all hot and bothered as he took off his glasses and was joined by a dark-haired woman who wore a black, slinky dress, "Be gone from here or suffer."

"Rupert, do tell me that you aren't seriously considering wasting magic upon her? Granted, she's a Vengeance Demon, but why waste the effort?" The woman's voice was sultry, even a touch frosty, and instantly Anyanka hated her.

"Hey! First of all we're Justice Demons, and secondly I am not a waste of effort for anyone!"

Janna Kalderash grinned coldly at her, "Child, if there is one thing that a Kalderash knows, that one thing is vengeance. Leave. Now."

Feeling D'Hoffryn's call, she scowled and then huffed, "Fine." With a gout of flame, she vanished into the other realm, "Yes, Lord D'Hoffryn?"

He glared at her, "You have failed, Anyanka – tell me why I should allow you to live?"

She rolled her eyes, "I was about to complete the wish, but I was stopped by-"

He cut her off with a snarl, "Two lowly mortals who happen to have a touch of power." He came around his desk and grabbed her by the throat, "Such things are not welcomed from my favored agent – perhaps it's time for you to … retire?"

Anyanka, Patron Saint of Scorned Women, began to sweat at this.

(Sunnydale High – moments later)

"Remind me to never piss off another librarian again, okay?"

"Sure thing, Spots." Xander had been relieved of his dance partner of the night, Grace, by Spots just moment before after she had been let go by his father – Grace was now dancing with one of the older soldiers that mingled in the crowd and were not dealing with both Helen and Faith, and so far all seemed well.

(Later that evening)

Buffy looked down at her Class Protector award and then over at Xander, who was being used as a rope in a mini-tug-o-war between Grace and Theresa, and then looked over at Willow, who was hugging on Oz, before she started to miss Angel all that much more.

"Something wrong, Buffy?" She looked over at her date, Riley Finn, and smiled slightly – it was nice to have a date who was normal, even if he had been threatened with death-by-shovel by Xander, demotion by his CO, had been glared at by her mother and 'talked to' by Giles before the dance had started. Needless to say, he had been nervous all night.

She shook her head, "Not really, just thinking on how all of this could have been different, that's all."

He smiled at her even as the King and Queen of the Prom, Larry and Cordelia, danced – oh well, at least she'd had a semi-normal night.

(Next Day)

"You. What?"

"They gave us the information and we let them go when it checked out, son." His son didn't look very good this morning – Adam didn't have the brass or the lack of survival instincts to ask how his night had gone after he'd left the dance with both Chen and Maloney, but given the disheveled look his son was sporting that morning, let alone that he had not returned home that night, told Adam all he needed to know.

Now, though, Alex looked ready to bite off a good chuck of armor from an APC and spit out rivets, "You LET them go? All because their intel checked out?"

Adam's eyes narrowed, "And just what was I supposed to do with them, son? Destroy them?"

Alex nodded, "Absolutely."

"They were American citizens."

Alex snapped at him frigidly, "They're fucking VAMPIRES, Adam! Demonically reanimated corpses."

Adam gave him a cool stare, "I'm sorry if I didn't do things the way you would have, son, but I have other things to consider when I make a decision, none of which involve Grace Chen or Theresa Maloney."

Xander lashed out and grabbed Adam by his uniform tie, hauling him across the desk until they were face-to-face, "Leave them out of this, DAD, and fucking THINK about what you did for about two seconds. You let two vampires go, vampires who drink blood from living humans in order to survive, because their intel on the Mayor checked out? How in the hell do you know they aren't telling him stuff they know about us?"

Adam glared at him, "Do you think I'm stupid? We implanted trackers in them the second they were out of town and they're both in LA right now."

This note, though, didn't appear to appease Alex in his mind at all, as Alex released him and gave him a scathing, yet mocking, reply, "Oh, well let's just think about this, okay? How fast to vampires heal again? Would it even be possible for them to remove these trackers and plant them elsewhere?"

"Not when they are rigged to blow if they ever encounter light again, son," Adam shot back, trying to reign in his own temper. After a few more deep breaths, though, and straightening his tie and uniform, "The Mayor intends to Ascend on Graduation day, son, and we're going to be ready."

Xander arched an eyebrow at his father, "Oh? And how are you going to beat him?"

Adam gave him a smile, "Haven't you heard the old expression, son? 'Peace through superior firepower'."

Xander felt his gut lurch slightly at these words – Sunnydale might not survive this.

(Journal of X. Harris)

Okay, so maybe Adam did know what he was doing – surveillance shows both Faith and Helen are in Seattle now, where the trackers show them to be, and their information on the Mayor has panned out to be true. My only real worry is going to be how Sunnydale is going to survive this – Dad's called in just about everything he can get his hands on, ranging from the new Paladin artie, to Specter gunships, down to a few hundred assault troops that have been brought up to speed on what the world is really like.

Casualty projections show that, if everything goes smoothly, only ten percent casualties, but knowing what I know could happen, I'm preparing for the worst and have sent mom away, Buffy having done the same, and the others have done the same with their families.

Graduation is tomorrow … God, I hope I survive this…

AN: Okay, here's my second try at this chapter – epilogue to come … eventually. R&R, please, AR.