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The One Who Sees
By Vinya

"I'm gonna do what any man would do about it. Something damn manly."
Xander to Larry

Chapter 5
"Explain again how this is supposed to work?"Willow was having a bit of a hard time trying to understand all that was going on- she was used to science. Nice, hard science that wouldn't come back and bite her in the butt on it's way out. Nice, hard science that would always be useful- and nobody could make fun of her for it. Not for knowing the facts. Science and facts had won her what few school friends she had made over her life, as well as parental interest.

Magick was… new. Special. Interesting, different, and even a little scary. It was something she hadn't studied before, and because of that she wanted to know every single little thing.

"It's simple," Jonathan said from his place in the circle, his back turned from her as he began to light the candles. "Brown candle because we're asking for a special favour from the goddess, then the silver candle to mean that we want the favour to come in the form as a dream- waking in this case. Then purple for spiritual wisdom, and for wisdom in how we use the information, blue to open the lines of communication between us and the future- also helped by the silver candle. Red for it to be a fast acting spell, and yellow for mental blocks to come down, and for memory. Six candles in all- the number representing ability to get past difficulties, new thoughts, and new attitudes."

Willow blinked once, and smiled. "Really?" She asked, excited, "It sounds pretty exact."

He turned to her, and smiled back shyly. "I guess it is- the way I do it. It's mostly just karma and belief when it all comes down to it."

"Still," she replied, "You have to have been studying this stuff for a while-"

She was cut off when the doors to the library swung open, Buffy standing between them as she survaed the room; Angel standing behind her. Neither said a word until Xander looked up from the library book he had been reading and gave them both a long look. "About time," he muttered, "What took you guys?"

Angel frowned at his attitude- he didn't have to be here after all, and the only reason he was, was because Buffy would have given him that horrible hurt puppy expression otherwise. Instead of saying anything he just pointed out the window where the sun was still high enough to create a gorgeous sky of reds and purples.

Buffy wasn't so polite, she walked right up to Xander and decided that Angel needed defending- much to the older mans displeasure. "He got here as soon as he could," she said angrily, "And it wasn't like he had to come-"

Angel nodded.

"-He's here as a favour to you! Unless you want to turn evil?"

The last part was sarcastic. She could see his eyes flash silently, and knew that he really didn't want Angel to be there at all. Xander hated to seem any weaker then he was, and having one of his enemies here to help him with a problem that he wasn't totally convinced of certainly wasn't helping his mental state at all. For a moment she thought her friend might rise and challenge her- at least with words, but instead he turned to Jonathan.

"Can we get this over with then?"

Jonathan smiled at the thought of being useful, and quickly hustled Willow away from his circle and away from the candles. He pulled Xander into the circle and sat him on one far side, then pulled Angel over as well. (completely oblivious to the size or species of said Vampire, what with having been beat up by far more dangerous looking people in his time)

"You sit here," he explain to Xander, "and you… um, Angel, right? You sit here, across from him. Then, when you're both ready, you both close your eyes. Xander has to clear his mind as much as possible, and leave it open so that you can get in… kind of. While he's doing that you're going to focus on something we know is going to happen in the future. We'll do something simple at first- Halloween is coming up, so all you have to do is think about Halloween and what Xander would be doing.

"I'll be chanting the incantation while you're doing this. So Xander, hearing the incantation with a clear mind, will be influenced by the… well, the time frame that you're setting up. He'll be there, for all intents and purposes, doing whatever it is in the future that he's doing, and you'll be able to see it in your minds eye. Since he's the one seeing it, he won't be able to really explain it to us. He won't really know he's not really there. You're going to have to tell us what's going on for him, okay?"

Everybody blinked at the sight of Jonathan and his many words- they had maybe heard him say a grand total of twenty words during the course of any conversation they had ever gotten into with him, and the fact that he seemed to know so much of what he was doing wasn't so much shocking as unexpected.

Giles came around a book stack then, a number of reference lists in his hands. "Is there anything that could go wrong?" He asked, "There won't be any side effects I trust?"

"They'll both know a lot more then they know now," Jonathan replied calmly, "But then, that's the point, isn't it?"

With a bit of a sigh, Giles took off his glasses and began to silently clean them- everybody watched as Xander sat back and began to relax, as Angel put his hands on the sides of the younger boys head, and Jon began to chant.

This was the moment their lives would be changed forever.

To be Continued