Mutant Enemy Television, Inc. owns pretty much everything within the Angel/Buffy universe. My use is in no way meant to challenge any established copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned or any other copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons, either real or fictional, is unintended.

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VIII – Addressing Concerns

"We're getting him now," Giles' voice announced over the speakerphone. Xander waited a couple of moments as a series of clicks connected the last member of the conference call.

"Hey," the gruff voice muttered, as unassuming as ever.

"Good to hear from you, Oz," Xander replied happily, fighting to hold off the rush of memories that came unbidden. Oz's voice meant happier times back in high school and just after. Years spent in Sunnydale, constantly overwrought by the challenges he faced on a daily basis. As a teenager, Xander had always felt so much more mature than his peers. While they all played at dating, school, part-time jobs, and fell into every stereotypical pitfall of youth, he was out fighting to save the world. His parents occasionally made comments about how his perspective would change when he grew up and saw what it was like to be an adult, and he always shrugged in reply, confident that he already knew. It all seemed so comical now; his parents had been right… for once… and he'd been proven to be as immature and overconfident as anyone else he'd known while growing up. Though he'd never have believed it back in Sunnydale High, there were worse things than the Master, and Angelus, and even the Mayor. It could get more horrifying than losing a friend and teacher. In the past decade, so many people Xander had known and loved had died. And now Oz – good old Oz who'd hardly ever said a hurtful word to anyone – was inadvertently bringing it all back.

"Thank you for getting in touch with us, Oz," Giles added. "I know you've been very busy."

"You asked about werewolves," he replied. "I happen to know a little."

Understated as always, Xander thought. Keeping his opinions to himself, Xander got right down to business, just as he figured Giles would have if he were the Watcher with a question. "My Slayer was attacked by a pair of wolves a few nights ago," he began. "Big wolves, Oz. We're not entirely sure what they are, but they certainly weren't natural."

"Direwolves," Oz commented, referring to a long-extinct species of wolf that had grown to the size of ponies. Though recent research on the topic theorized that the large beasts were scavengers rather than simply overgrown versions of the modern, aggressive hunters modern wolves were known to be, Xander's Slayer had assured him that the wolves did not appear very interested in scavenging.

"From what she says, yes," Xander confirmed, knowing that concluding the beasts were direwolves would go a long way toward clarifying the issue.

"There haven't been natural direwolves for millennia," Giles put in, "so if that's what she saw, they would have almost had to have been the loups-garou vrai."

"That's a little more reasonable, since they allegedly went extinct only about a century ago," Oz admitted.

"You hear anything that would indicate otherwise?" Xander asked, noting the use of the word 'allegedly.'

"I heard a rumor recently," Oz admitted, "though it seems fantastical, even given what you're saying now. I heard that there's a direwolf-like beast hunting in the area around Grenoble, but it really sounds more to me like some people have seen 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' a few too many times. It's not like anyone's been killed or anything, so the only thing we have to go on is the reports of a few drunken villagers."

"It still may be something we want to look into," Giles decided. "I'll send a couple of our girls to check it out."

"And I'm going to have to have Janna go back out there, too," Xander responded, uncomfortable with the thought of sending his young charge into danger. That moment taught him a great deal about the anxiety Giles had faced for years.

"Make sure she stays on her toes," Oz advised. "You guys know what I was like when I made my change, and though I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, I'm far from one of the more powerful lines of werewolves. Some are far larger, stronger, and faster."

"Make sure she won't be careless," Giles warned, echoing Oz's advice. "We have a great deal riding on that Slayer of yours, Xander. I hardly think I need to remind you of that."

"I know," Xander admitted, "but to be perfectly honest, I think we may want to re-evaluate our conclusions. This town isn't what we expected."

"What do you mean?" Giles asked.

"In the past few months, my Slayer has found and dusted a grand total of seven vamps," Xander explained. "We also found a couple of demons skulking about a few doors down from the Magic Box, but nothing big-time. With the exception of these two wolves in the woods, there's been nothing in this town that's incredibly strange. The supernatural and paranormal activity in this town would be considered surprisingly low before the ley lines flared, given that we're sitting on a node. But considering that it's been months now since the flare… I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned."

"You're concerned because nothing out of the ordinary is going on?" Oz asked. "That's new and different."

"It is unusual, though," Giles admitted. "By all rights, that town should be starting to resemble Sunnydale by now. Sunnydale before Buffy's arrival, that is." Sunnydale in the alternate dimension Anya created, actually, Xander corrected silently, remembering the particular bedtime story his fiancée had told him to explain how she'd ended up in Sunnydale in the first place.

"If there's anything going on right now, Giles, it's all safely hidden away," Xander assured his mentor. "In fact, it doesn't even have that air of a town that's about to erupt with nastiness, like Sunnydale near the end of the summer after we killed the Master, or right before the town was destroyed. This place is like something out of a Capra film."

"I thought you said it wasn't scary," Oz joked, bringing a welcome grin to Xander's face.

"You've checked the birth and death rates?" Giles asked. "There aren't a large number of people dying young?"

"The average life expectancy in the town is slightly below the national average, but it's not crazy-low," Xander answered. "I definitely don't think it's a statistically significant difference, anyway."

"Why don't you send me the figures for the past few generations?" Oz suggested. "I'll run the numbers again and see if there's any kind of pattern we're missing."

"It'll take time to assemble all the data," Xander warned. "Most of it's still in hard copy down at the town hall. The town actually got some state funding a few years ago to start putting their records on computer, but the work's been progressing slowly. I'm gonna have to hire someone to do the work."

"Do that," Giles told him. "I'll take care of the funding. Just get it done as soon as you can. That town – and your Slayer – are two of our highest priorities right now."

Giles hung up, taking the connection with Oz with him, leaving Xander alone with his concerns. I can't even imagine how Giles managed to deal with this stuff for as long as he did. Every unknown challenge signaled the possibility that his Slayer had reached the end of her road. He remembered Giles' last words of advice, just before Xander had left to return to the States after his very abbreviated crash course in Watcher-ology. "The hardest thing you'll have to learn is how to walk the line between helping your Slayer and doing too much for her," the Englishman had said almost sadly. "Not only can you get killed if you try too much too soon – and you won't be doing her any good from six feet underground – but you'll deprive her of the chance to learn to think for herself. You've been in the field, so you'll know every time you send her out there what she's getting into, and that you might never see her alive again. You have to learn to trust her resourcefulness; maybe even more than she needs to learn to be resourceful." The words had been so simple, but putting them into practice had quickly become all but impossible.

"She has to learn to be all that she can be, and she has to learn it fast," Xander muttered to himself. "Like Giles said, we have an awful lot riding on this Slayer."

To be continued………………………………………