Summary: Xander dies. Xander lives. Xander cops a lot of flak.
Crossover: AD&D Forgotten Realms
Disclaimer: I own all! sounds of painful torture and lawyers barking itaiiiiii.... I own nothing!
Feedback: Coin o' the Realm!
Pre-Fic Comments:
I've figured out why Giles takes his glasses off to clean sometimes. He does it for the same reason as me -- minimizing visual distractions so that the brain can work uninterrupted on something.
"Er, quite," Giles nodded. Both the British and the Drow were averse to public displays of affection, one more than the other. "Buffy and Willow will be most happy that your ah, death was not quite as final as they had thought."
"When do they get back here?," Xander asked, voice possessing an otherworldly lilt to it's accent. He pulled his hood back over his head, feeling exposed in the middle of the Library.
"They should be back within a quarter of an hour, assuming that they are not distracted," Giles said.
"I've taken Drusilla away from Spike," Xander said casually, as if it were a small thing.
"Really? Records of his behaviour indicate that he wouuld take that poorly," Giles blinked.
Without taking his eyes away from the table, Xander placed a black cloth mask across his face. It dissolved into a black shadow that hid the contents of the hood very effectively.
"Come out, Angel," he said, voice possessing even more of that strange accent.
"How did you hear me?," the undead Irishman asked. All he could see of the figure sitting with Giles was an all encompassing black cloak, face hidden.
"The hinges of your trapdoor squeak. And the stench of your demon can be smelt even from here."
A look of anger flashed across Angel's face for half a second. "Giles, who is this?"
"An old friend of ours," the Watcher said easily. "I can only assume that he is waiting until Buffy and Willow return to explain."
The figure wordlessly nodded.
"Good," Angel smiled hesitantly. "We could use help. I just heard that Drusilla has been kidnapped by the Drow."
A smirk appeared on Giles' face for a moment, disappearing before it could register fully. "Really? It would appear that he is not, then, aligning himself with William the Bloody."
"He'd have to be rather dim to do that, yes," the figure said. "While some must kill to live, he lives to murder."
This stranger was rapidly unsettling Angel for some reason that he could not verbalise. He turned, relieved, as the Slayer and the budding witch burst through the doors. While the Quietus spell was still in effect upon the hinges, Buffy banged one of them against the wall quite loudly.
"Hey, Giles, I forgot my...," she began, trailing off as she spotted the newcomer. "Who's the new guy?"
"Hello, Buffy," the figure said, taking off the hood and the shadowy mask. It changed back to a small fragment of fabric as he took it in hand. "Remember me?"
"Uh, no, we'd kinda know anyone with such a hardcore tan," Buffy wisecracked. "Uh... oh crap. You're that Drow, aren't you?"
"You're half right, Buffy," Giles said. "Do you want the other half of the story?"
"Shoot," the Slayer said.
"Xander was murdered by Spike while possessed by a soldier, that Halloween night. When one dies, the mind is wiped and the spirit is sent on to another life."
"Oh!," Willow realised. "So the Soldier got erased, and Xander got his self back!"
"Quite," Giles nodded, taking off his glasses and cleaning them. "However, he was reincarnated in another dimension, where time does not move in the same fashion as it does in ours."
"Say hello to the nice young forty year old Drow," Xander smirked.
"XANDER!," Willow sobbed, flying into his arms.
He tensed for a moment, almost grabbing two knives in a reflexive action that he cancelled at the last mooment, before hugging her back hesitantly. "It's been forty years since I've seen you, Wills."
"So, what've you been up to?," Buffy asked, turning a chair around and leaning on the backrest while she sat on it.
"Killing evil wizards, priestesses and other Drow, you know how it is," he smiled.
"Killing?!," Buffy shrieked, getting up and pacing. "They had souls!"
"Some of them were pure evil through and through," Alak growled back. "My last kill liked to rape surface elves and cook his enemies from the inside out with his magic! By the Abyss, that place would give Spike wet dreams for years!"
The Slayer was torn between her morals, and her indoctrination by Giles to not kill the living.
"He was in quite different circumstances, Buffy," Giles said, putting his glasses back on. "A Slayer and a non-Slayer have a world of difference between them."
"Why didn't you try and live with the good people, Xander?," Willow asked.
"I tried that when I was... twenty, I think it was," Xander reminisced. "I think I've still got a scar I got from an arrow trying to get away from wood elves after trying to explain."
Post-fic Comments:
Short and sweet.