CHAPTER NINE
The Body Politic
Buffy leaned over and kissed Angel's cheek as he idled outside the Spirit Square. "Thanks again for the ride."
"No problem," Angel said with a smile. "I just hope Willow and Oz don't mind the company … you've been here early every morning this week."
"Since Willow's kinda my de facto campaign manager, I sure hope not," Buffy replied as she opened the door. "Speaking of company, I've been meaning to ask how it's going with Faith crashing at Xander's. Emmy ready to strangle her yet?
Angel chuckled. "I'll ask, but it seems to be working out fine."
Buffy hmphed in surprise. "Now what I would have expected to hear." She extricated herself from the car seat and hesitated before closing the door. "Pick me up on your way home?"
"You got it."
Buffy waved once, then closed the door and headed for Willow and Oz's increasingly familiar-feeling shop.
"Morning, Buff," Oz called out from where he was unpacking books from a shipping crate.
"Good morning," Buffy replied. "How's it going?"
"Busy," Oz replied as he continued shelving. "But that's good."
"Awesome," Buffy replied. She studiously avoided mentioning the lingering issue of the offer to buy the Spirit Square.
Willow peeked her head out of the backroom and waved. "Come on in."
Buffy head into the windowless storage area that was beginning to feel like her home away from home. They'd rearranged some of the backstock to free up space, added some lights and a couple of fans, and even sprung for a minifridge that was currently tucked away in a corner and kept stocked with everything a thirsty ex-slayer and pregnant witch might want.
Buffy retrieved from the fridge a small apple juice box that was eerily reminiscent of her barely-remembered days in elementary school and sat down. "What's on the agenda for today? Setting up some flier drop-spots? Answering creepy voter mail?"
"We'll work on some radio ads," Willow said absentmindedly as she looked up from her laptop. Buffy watched as Willow rubbed the small of her back and hunched over in the chair. Her friend's pregnancy had begun to show … just a tiny bit … and Willow seemed to be rubbing at her back, or her neck, or her legs, more and more frequently as the days passed.
"Radio ads, sounds great," Buffy said between sips of the apple juice.
Willow peered over at her. "Buff, there's something else I wanted to chat about."
Oh no.
"Oh?" Buffy squeaked. "What?"
Don't you think it's a bit weird that Faith hasn't brought Colleen, Dana, or Jess over to meet you?"
Thank the Powers. I thought she was about to tell me she was selling.
Buffy shrugged and tried to keep her tone nonchalant as she replied, "We haven't time to meet up yet."
"Time?" Willow asked skeptically. "I'd have thought it might be the first thing they make time to do."
Buffy quickly shook her head. "Faith, the new slayers in town, and Giles are busy with patrols and all the slaying, and Angel and Xander are tearing apart all the old Investigations files trying to find a lead on whoever killed Mayor Ritter … everyone's just busy … that's all it is."
"Sure, we all do get busy," Willow admitted. "Still, you'd think Giles's would have asked his Buffy to track down the new slayers and bring them by to say hello."
"Hey!" Buffy protested. "I'm just as much Giles's Buffy as she is!"
Willow and Buffy looked at each other for a moment, then both erupted into giggling.
"Sorry," Willow replied. "You're right."
"If you and I can keep Wilkins from winning the election," Buffy pointed out, "maybe a lot of other problems will start to leave town."
Speaking of Wilkins," Willow said as she turned her laptop around. Buffy watched as a series of symbols, letters, and numbers, cascaded down the screen. "This is what I've been dealing with when I'm not fielding phone calls from voters asking for your opinion on the, and I quote, 'out of control motorcycle noise every night.'"
Buffy squinted her eyes at the waterfall of symbols on Willow's laptop screen. "Is that the Matrix?"
Willow frowned as she rotated the laptop screen back towards her. "That's just a taste of what I've been trying to decipher for months now. Wilkins has layered spells upon spells and embedded them in half a dozen programming languages … every time I peel back a layer, another two pop up."
"Giles could maybe …"
Willow cut her off, "Giles can't help. Not with computers." Willow took a deep breath before she continued. "I was thinking maybe, just maybe, you could talk to Angel about ringing a few of the apocalytes?"
Buffy immediately shook her head. "As he puts it, he 'doesn't want to have a working relationship with them,' and besides, I thought you and Oz were the ones who were all about chatting with our internet fandorks online. Can't you just … blog some questions?"
"I would, except Oz and I stepped back from that entire scene," Willow explained.
Buffy blinked in surprise. "Why? When?"
"A few months ago," Willow replied. "The apocalytes had gotten more active, become a little too good at tracking down the location of message board users, and the hubby and I decided to log off for good."
"Active how?"
"In-person meetings and team-ups, and there have been some messages that sounded suspiciously like 'post victory' chatter." Willow toyed with a pencil on the table. "Then something else happened."
"What?" Buffy asked.
Willow glanced up. "There were rumors that a Moonridge apocalyte was killed … murdered, actually. That really spooked Oz."
"That's true," Buffy informed her. "It was that murder Angel mentioned to us, the one by that same killer that offed Mayor Ritter."
Willow blinked in surprise. "So that's the apocalyte that got killed … wow, how horrible." She eyed Buffy. "They have any leads yet?"
"Not yet," Buffy said. "Angel thinks it's a man … a human … but the evidence points to something else."
"Vamp?" Willow asked.
Buffy shook her head. "He doesn't think so."
Willow used the table to leverage herself upright. She walked over to the minifridge, opened it, and grabbed a bottle of water. After a long swallow, she glanced back over at Buffy.
"We shouldn't assume websites are safe."
Buffy's nose wrinkled as she thought back to her high school days. "I seem to remember some after-school special lessons on that front."
"I'm serious, Buff," Willow replied as she sat back down at the table. "With the level of sophistication I'm seeing on Wilkins's webpages, who knows if they're monitoring us." Willow stared resignedly at her laptop screen. "I need to crack his code."
"No magic," Buffy replied immediately.
Willow rolled her eyes and gulped another swig of water. "Yeah, I got it."
"What we really need to figure out is a way to show the people of Moonridge who, and what, Richard Wilkins really is," Buffy mused. "Somehow."
Willow finished the bottle of water and tossed it into a nearby trash can. "It's almost like people don't want to hear the truth … it's like they'd prefer to believe that some politician will just swoop in and solve all their problems."
"And they don't realize that he's the reason for a lot of their problems," Buffy said with a sigh.
Willow nodded and began typing. In a suspiciously nonchalant tone, she asked Buffy, "Any word from Spike yet?"
"Spike," Buffy replied with a dismissive snort. "Apparently, he took out a nest of vamps and saved some nubile sorority gals. Other than that, nobody's heard of him, or from him, in weeks."
"Doing good deeds doesn't sound like Spike, but him being interested in hot college students definitely does," Willow replied. When she realized what she said, she winced and looked up. "Sorry, Buff."
Buffy waved her off. "Spike and I have been history a long, long time, so feel free to speculate on his love life all you want. I promise you it won't bother me."
My blond asshole ex can still pass for a grad student. Life isn't fair.
Willow kept her gaze fixed steadily on her laptop as she spoke. "It's kind of hard to believe that he's been in town all these months without you, or Angel, getting into some sort of ruckus with him."
"Well, I mean, nobody has seen him," Buffy reminded Willow. "That makes it easier to avoid ruckus-ing."
"Even before he vanished," Willow said. "Spike's usually clingy-stalker-y towards you, and
you always get irritated by it, and then it enrages Angel, and then Giles has to pretend to not notice … well .. you know how it goes. We've been through this cycle quite a few times."
Buffy thought back over the past half a year. "You know what, Will, you're right. Maybe
Spike has finally started to grow up."
"Or finally started to get over you?" Willow suggested gently.
Buffy wanted to voice 'I sure hope so,' but, surprisingly, she found that she couldn't voice the words.
. . . . . . . . .
Giles hadn't mentioned how goddamned slimy these Bitumites, or whatever they're called, would be.
She was covered nearly head to toe in green goo and pungent viscera; the jacket, jeans, and hi-tops she were wearing would be history as soon as this patrol was done. Stake in hand, she cautiously pulled back a bundle of branches and peered into the hedge in which she was fairly certain the last of the Bitumites was hiding.
Behind her, the corpses of a half dozen of the green, leprous looking creatures were strewn on the grass. They had six eyes, even more limbs, and tails that, she had discovered through hard-earned experience, had a nasty habit of swinging a venom tipped barb in the direction of any slayer in the vicinity. She noticed a furtive, shadowy movement out of the corner of her eye.
There you are …
She was about to spring forward when a voice called out from behind her.
"Howdy, Cleveland."
Buffy jumped about four feet into the air while peals of laughter rang out in the night. The diminutive Bitumite, no more than two and a half feet tall, took advantage of the distraction and with a flurry of appendages scrambled away.
A knife whistled through the air, neatly embedded itself in the creature's ear, and the Bitumite fell in a heap and spasmed in its death throes.
"Nice toss," Buffy said as she turned around. A lean, hawk-faced woman with skin the color of cinnamon and an iron-grey ponytail did not acknowledge the compliment as she walked over and stooped to collect her knife. She wiped the blade on a pant leg, tucked the weapon away, then walked over to join them.
Buffy recognized Faith, but the knife-thrower, the redhead sporting close-cropped hair, and a brunette with soft, kind eyes were new to her.
Let me guess … the new slayers in town?
Faith glanced at the moonlight-illuminated carcasses. "Cleveland, I thought you were going to wait for me to get back before you went out on patrol?"
"Got bored," Buffy said with a shrug as she tucked her stake back into her sheath. "And don't call me Cleveland."
The older, grey-haired slayer frowned as she looked Buffy over. "She not only looks like the original Buffy, she's got the same attitude."
"That did sound very … Buffy-esque," the brunette agreed.
The redhead just snorted dismissively.
Buffy crossed her arms and looked them over. "Colleen, Jess, and Dana … right?" she pointed at each in turn.
"Guilty as charged," Colleen said as she smiled.
"Nice of you to finally drop into town and say hello," Buffy continued. I've only been out here patrolling with Faith for weeks now."
"Wanted to get the lay of the land," Dana said unapologetically.
"How's that working out, anyway?" Buffy asked.
"Doing just fine on that front," Jess interjected.
Dana frowned at Jess with an expression that seemed oddly intimate.
Oh, that's right, those two are an item.
"The lay of the land appears to be as follows: 'this town is going to hell,'" Dana said matter-of-factly. "I've never heard of anything this bad since your boyfriend … the other Buffy's boyfriend … started that war in L.A."
"Dana's right," Colleen agreed. "This place is absolutely swarming with vamps and demons."
"It's the Hellspots," Buffy explained. "They're like catnip for monsters."
Jess rubbed at her forehead. "Sounds simple enough. Kill everyone who doesn't belong in this universe."
Hopefully she doesn't include me on that list.
Buffy snapped her fingers and feigned a look of surprise. "Great idea. I'm not sure why we didn't think of that."
Jess ignored her sarcasm. "Where's your Watcher?" she asked.
I can tell you and I are going to be fast friends, Jess.
"Not my Watcher," Buffy corrected her. "Giles is a teacher … and a friend. Unless there's something magic afoot, Faith and I usually handle the patrols ourselves."
Jess's only reply was to snort again.
Yup, I definitely hate her.
Buffy turned her gaze to Faith. "This has been fun, but I'd like to get a few hours of sleep before class. Finals are coming up."
She moved to leave, and Jess moved to block her path.
"We're not done here," Jess said.
Buffy bristled, Colleen looked nervous, and Dana fixed Jess with an expression of irritation. Buffy instinctively reaching for her sheathed stake, then quickly moved to lower her hand down to her side when she realized what she was doing.
All of the slayers caught the gesture.
"What the hell was that?" Jess asked angrily as she stared down at Buffy's hand.
Faith quickly moved to intervene. "Hey, she's on patrol! We all get a bit jumpy. That's all it was, right Cleveland?"
Buffy scowled at Faith.
"Buffy?" Faith said gently. "That was just nerves, right?"
"Yeah, sorry," Buffy finally said. "Bit on edge tonight. Been a long week."
Jess did not appear particularly mollified.
"Look, believe it or not, we're here to help," Dana informed Buffy. "Give us a shot, and we'll give you a shot."
"Sure," Buffy said in what she hoped was a genuine-sounding tone. "The more the merrier."
"We're new here," Colleen said. "Maybe we could just all relax and chat for a bit?"
Just what I don't want to do.
"Fine," Buffy said as she forced herself to calm down. "What did you want to chat about?"
"Let's start with Spike," Dana said in an oddly intense manner. "Do you know where he is?"
Buffy tried to hide her surprise at the question. "I haven't spoken to him in weeks. Maybe months now. Why? You two know each other, or something?"
"Dana cut off his hands once," Colleen said. "They were able to reattach them, though."
… what!?
"You cut off Spike's hands?" Buffy spluttered. "I know he's impossible, but still, that seems a little extreme."
Dana shrugged, but her expression didn't otherwise change. "It was a very bad time for me, it was a long time ago, and I was hoping to apologize … and also confirm he isn't a vampire anymore. Him or Angel."
"Dana, I told you Angel and Spike aren't vampires anymore," Faith interrupted. "Several times, in fact."
Dana kept staring at Buffy. "I just wanted to be sure. Spike was a really rough customer, one of the worst vamps ever, before he got his soul back. Rupert Giles, or anyone else, fill you in on all of that?"
"Yeah, I know his history," Buffy said heatedly. "And Faith's right. Angel and Spike walk in the sunlight, breathe, the whole kit and caboodle. They're alive."
"You and Spike close?" Colleen asked with a sly, knowing smirk.
Buffy ignored Colleen's suggestive tone. "Like I said, I haven't seen him in a while."
"I'm surprised Spike could leave Buffy Summers … any Buffy Summers … alone. I mean, he did die for her," Colleen said.
What did she just say?
"What a second," Buffy said as she held up a hand. "Spike died for Buffy? How? When?"
"You didn't know?" Faith asked. "I would have thought Spike might have mentioned it right off. He does love to brag about how he sacrificed himself to save the world."
Buffy looked around in shocked silence.
"Well, it goes like this," Colleen said. "The Hellmouth, the first one, was about to fully open and spill its gooey Hell contents all over Sunnydale, and Buffy was going to use this magic talisman, or something, to destroy it, and that would kill her, but Spike took the talisman and used it himself, instead. That's when Sunnydale got destroyed, and Spike along with it." When Colleen finished, she was somewhat out of breath.
"But he's alive and very much not destroyed," Buffy pointed out.
Faith nodded. "He came back. What can I say, Spike is like a cat … he has nine lives."
Buffy rubbed her eyes a moment. "Nobody stays effin' dead in this world."
"What Spike did for Buffy," Colleen continued, "us slayers who made it out of Sunnydale, we never forgot it. It was kind of incredible."
"He didn't get the girl though," Dana said harshly. "Get burnt down to your atoms for someone, and then she chooses the other vampire with a soul? That's a raw deal."
"Tough break," Jess agreed.
Buffy and Faith's cell phones buzzed at the same time. Both reached into their pockets, retrieved the devices and checked the screens.
"Dawn," Faith said with a sigh. "I'm glad Giles reminded us to check out her neighborhood … I'd forgotten entirely."
"We're not welcome to use the bathroom," Buffy muttered, "but we can try to keep her safe."
"Isn't Dawn Summers your sister?" Dana asked. "In this world, I mean."
Buffy nodded.
My sister … who won't speak to me.
Dana looked at Buffy, then at Faith. "Is she in danger? Should we all go?"
Buffy quickly shook her head. "No, Dawn is just worried someone is stalking her. From what I've seen of her, she's probably paranoid."
"I'll swing by Dawn's house," Faith promised her. "You finish up this patrol."
"You sure?" Buffy asked.
Faith nodded. "I'll take care of it."
"I've got a great idea," Colleen suggested to Buffy, "how about you tell us about Moonridge while we patrol together?"
Groan.
. . . . . . . . .
Joshua's hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that, if blood still pumped in his veins, his knuckles would be white from the strain. He peered through the tinted windshield at the house just a few hundred feet away. The demon within gnawed and writhed in mindless anger; it was all he could do to keep it at bay, to keep from transforming and rushing inside and trying to kill the person for his mother's death.
Soon.
The roar of a motorcycle, a surprising sound at this late hour, broke him from his reverie. He glanced at the rearview mirror and watched as a headlight rapidly approached.
. . . . . . . . .
Faith felt a certain amount of grim satisfaction as she considered how many blissful suburban dreams she was interrupting as she roared past Dawn's house. She slowed down as she neared the end of the block, gave a cursory glance in both directions for signs of suspicious activity, then upon seeing none she reversed course and slowly proceeded back the opposite direction.
Once again satisfied there was nothing amiss, she was about to shift the motorcycle into a higher gear when some niggling instinct tickled her brain for a moment. She decelerated the motorcycle to a near-crawl, considered whether she was imagining things, then parked. Faith stepped away from the bike and surveyed the street.
Something is wrong.
Nothing seemed overtly suspicious … no lights blinked on and off, no vehicles started up, no skulking figures darted into the shadows in the hopes of avoiding slayer-attuned vision. Yet, every fiber in Faith's body screamed out that something on that street did not belong there. Her eyes settled on a dark SUV parked a couple dozen yards away from Dawn's house … a spot that would afford anyone inside a clear view of the home.
Why are the windows tinted?
Faith reached into her jacket and pulled out a stake. She could see herself, hair wild and tousled from the wind, frayed jeans, and a white tank top beneath the black leather of the jacket, in the rear window of the SUV as she approached.
She extended the stake and slowly, grimly, scratched a line from the rear of the SUV all the way to the front bumper. A screeching noise reverberated as the hard tip ground against the paint of the vehicle.
When she reached the end, she turned around, swapped the stake to her other hand, and once again pressed the tip against the SUV. The door of the vehicle opened, and Joshua stepped out. He stared at her balefully, the muscles of his shoulders and arms knotted and tensed, and with the moon at his back, Faith couldn't make out his face. He had to be a foot taller than her.
"I figured that would get you off your ass," Faith said with a satisfied grin. "Nobody likes it when people mess with their ride, even if they're a freakshow raised by a mommy freakshow."
Joshua glanced down at the gouge carved into the side of the vehicle. "You're lucky there's a truce."
Faith spread her arms wide and glanced around the street. "I don't see any witnesses, do you? Maybe you and me can settle a few things right now?"
Joshua fists clenched and unclenched reflexively.
"I mean why not?" Faith continued as she tapped the stake against the palm of her other hand. "The way I see it, neither of us have much to lose. Do you really think your boss will give a shit if something happens to you? He probably fills your head with crap, make you think he cares, but he doesn't care about anyone except himself. He'll throw you away when he's done."
"Don't call me kid," Joshua growled at her.
Faith idly picked flecks of paint off the point of the stake. "This is getting boring. Not to mention creepy, it's fucking creepy you're here. She pointed at Dawn's house. "Those are civilians, remember? They have nothing to do with any of this, and besides, your boss is the one who didn't want any killing."
"I haven't killed anybody … yet."
Faith rolled her eyes. "Give me a break with the oh-so-ominous implied threats, I've been hearing 'em for decades." She gestured towards him with the stake. "Get the fuck out of here before someone calls your boss, or worse, his lawyers, and tells them that you're threatening to muck up his oh-so-precious truce and peaceful election." Faith tightened her grip on the wooden hilt in her hand. "Or, like I said, maybe things could get very real, right here, right now, just you and me."
Joshua frowned at her. "You have no idea what's actually going on in Moonridge, do you?"
"This is getting boring." Faith mimed a yawn. "Are you leaving, or are we going to start trying to kill each other?"
For a moment the contours of his face writhed and shifted oddly, then without a word Joshua slid back into the SUV, slammed the door closed, and turned the key. The metal of the door panel brushed against Faith as Joshua pulled away and accelerated into the darkness.
I have a feeling I'll be seeing him again.
For a moment she considered warning Dawn, then she remembered Buffy's repeated reminders that Dawn wouldn't welcome any slaying-related visits. Instead, she walked back to her motorcycle, waited a few minutes to make sure Wilkins's pet psycho didn't return, then headed back the way she had come.
. . . . . . . . .
"Buffy had an interesting question this morning," Angel said between bites of a cherry-filled pastry he'd bought while filling the Angelmobile with gas. "How's it going with Faith crashing at your place? She and Emmy on each other's last nerves yet?"
Xander watched in disgust as Angel polished off the snack and wiped his hands on his coat.
"You should watch your sweet tooth," he warned Angel. "Calories count for you now."
Angel batted Xander's hand away as he reached over to poke at his waistline. "Hey! Hands off!"
"I'm just saying," Xander said with a chuckle.
Angel shot him an angry glance, then resumed staring out the windshield at the trash strewn street lined with darkened businesses. "Don't change the subject. Faith still settling in okay at the Harris residence?"
"You seem really fascinated by this topic," Xander admonished him. "Everything is still going fine. Faith's been a perfect, albeit usually absent, houseguest."
"Faith still looks good," Angel said with a grin.
"Slayers do age well," Xander admitted. "Truthfully, there isn't much to tell about Faith crashing at my place. She makes herself scarce most nights, and when she isn't patrolling, she's either at the office not helping us go through old files, she's at a bar, or she's asleep."
"Which bar? Or bars?"
Xander shrugged. "Who knows. A lot of the time when she goes out, she doesn't come back at all. I feel like I'm a teenager's dad. Thank heavens for the downstairs bedroom or I'd be waiting up and listening for her footsteps on the stairs."
"Faith hasn't changed," Angel observed wryly.
"Have any of us?"
Angel considered the question for a moment. "Well, I can tell you that once upon a time I couldn't have sat around for weeks on end reviewing old files, I'd have gone stir crazy."
"Yeah, and what a productive use of time that trip down Angel Investigations memory lane was," Xander complained. "We managed to identify at least a thousand demons, vampires, and just plain nutsos who definitely didn't kill Mayor Ritter."
"I still think I'm missing something," Angel said in exasperation. "Like, the answer should be obvious as to who the serial killer is, and I'm just not seeing it."
"At least looking through old cases stopped you from continuing to play around with those maps," Xander said. "Watching you play pin the X on last night's vamp attack every morning was getting really depressing. Not to mention boring."
"What, do you need more action?" Angel asked. "Didn't we clear out a nest a few days ago?"
Xander snorted contemptuously. "Two half-starved vamps in a toolshed? That barely counted as a nest; I felt embarrassed helping you dust them."
"There were those kobolds we ran out of town last week," Angel reminded him.
"You told them you'd sic the slayers on them and they just up and left town!"
Angel affected a wounded expression. "They're not a problem anymore, right? Why fight if we don't have to?"
Xander stared at him in disbelief. "You actually have changed."
"Well, maybe it was about time for that."
"Speaking of time, we've been sitting here for hours and haven't spotted shit," Xander observed. "When you mentioned stakeout, I was thinking it would be like Lethal Weapon or Dirty Harry, not like we're peeping toms."
"You never know," Angel admonished him. "Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes the entire case breaks in a matter of seconds."
"Or maybe this guy Willy is just full of it?" Xander mused as he considered the stretch of Old Town road that they were parked on. Amber streetlamps cast a dim yellow light over the cracked and worn pavement, and a steady stream of customers both human and demon passed in and out of the door of a neon-lit bar that sported thick curtains hung within every window. Xander took a grim amusement in watching each of the customers struggle to open the door … the hinges appeared to have been recently broken and haphazardly repaired.
Angel gave a curt shake of his head. "Willy and I have history; he wouldn't dare lie to me. If he says a purple, scaly skinned demon has been coming by a couple times a week, then one is."
"But there's no guarantee it's the right purple demon," Xande pointed out.
"No," Angel admitted. "Also, I'm still not convinced the killer we're looking for is a demon."
"Xander lowered his seat a few notches and craned his neck back and forth until a loud popping sound could be heard. "You run into any of the new slayers yet?"
"Nope," Angel said. "And it's starting to feel more than a little insulting." He glanced at Xander. "How about you?"
"I've seen Dana and Jess a few times, Jess is a real bitch, by the way, when they've come by to pick up Faith." He glanced over at Angel. "You know Dana, right?"
Angel nodded. "Yeah, but I haven't seen her for a long time. Does she act … normal."
"For a slayer, sure. Why?" Xander asked curiously. "Were you expecting her to be nuts?"
"She was in a bad place when I met her the first time."
"How so?"
Angel chuckled at a particular memory. "She cut off Spike's hands, for one."
Xander startled in his seat and stared slack-jawed at Angel. "You're not serious."
"Oh, I'm serious," Angel confirmed with a grin.
"Good for her," Xander said as he smacked his palm against his leg. "I wish I was there to see it."
They both shared a hearty laugh.
"Too bad you haven't run into Colleen," Angel remarked. "It sounds like you used to have a bit of a thing for her."
"I missed that window by decades," Xander said ruefully. "Still, I wonder how she looks."
"Like you said," Angel reminded him, "slayers age well."
"Yeah, they do," Xander agreed with a sigh. He fidgeted in the seat for a few moments before he continued, "Angel, I wanted to discuss something with you, but it's got to be the strictest confidence. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can hear about this."
"What, do you want me to cross my heart and hope to die?" Angel asked. "Spill it."
"I mean it," Xander said. "Not Buffy, not Giles, not Willow, not even your kid … where is he, by the way?"
"Connor got delayed, but he'll be here in a week or two."
Xander nodded and looked over at him. "What I'm about to tell you has to be between us. Do I have your word?"
Angel demonstratively placed his hand over his now-beating heart. "You have my word."
Xander breathed deeply, then continued, "That visit to Dr. Hu, a few weeks ago, the news wasn't just about the new eye. He found something else."
"What?"
"A memory spell," Xander said quietly. "Apparently a big one … a whole chunk of my memories got rewritten with something new. It's the reason why my transplant went all haywire."
"A memory spell?" Angel said in surprise. A thought occurred to him, "Well, it has to be Dawn, right? Or maybe something Willow did back when she was breaking bad?"
Xander shook his head. "That's what I thought, but the doc says it's more recent, within the last few years."
"He's sure?" Angel said.
"He seemed sure."
Angel gazed at Xander. "Why haven't you told anyone? This is serious."
"Honestly … I don't know. It's my memories, it's me. What if what happened was for my own good. What if it was …"
"Willow? Or Giles?" Angel prompted him. "They wouldn't mess with your memories without talking to you."
"Maybe they did talk to me," Xander explained, "Maybe I'm the one who wanted this? I've been thinking there might have been something so bad, so unbearable, that I asked for this. And maybe …" his voice grew grave … "maybe the last thing I would ever want is for them to remove it."
Angel blinked a few times as he considered what Xander had said. "You've really been thinking about this a lot, haven't you?"
Xander nodded sheepishly. "Maybe too much."
Angel resumed staring ahead at Willy's tavern. "I still think it's Dawn. That spell affected the entire world; who knows how deep it went into all our brains?" Something occurred to Angel as he pondered Xander's disclosure. "You know, there's something else you haven't considered."
"What?" Xander asked.
"You're the only one who's had a doctor poking around in his brain looking for something like this, so you're assuming that you're the only one who is affected," Angel explained. "What if we all were?"
Xander looked over in surprise. "I hadn't thought of that."
"I think you should get a second opinion," Angel recommended.
"Yeah, I should," Xander agreed. In response to a muted buzzing sound, he fished his cellphone out of his pocket and checked for messages. He glanced over at Angel. "That was Emmy. She wants to know if I'm still up for a movie night, and as fun as it's been to be parked here for three hours, a movie with the girlfriend sounds a lot more appealing."
Angel checked his watch. "We're still two hours from Willy closing for the night … and that's official closing, he might stay open until morning if people are paying."
Xander just stared at him.
"What?" Angel finally asked.
"You've got this, right?"
Angel glared at Xander in irritation. "C'mon, partner, you're the one that can spot demons coming from a mile away."
"Thought you said the killer was a human," Xander replied insolently.
Angel's annoyed glare intensified.
Xander gestured towards Willy's. "Everyone is walking down a public sidewalk into a bar; you don't need me for this."
"Fine," Angel replied tersely as he turned away. "But I'm not going to drive you back to the office."
The passenger door swung open as Xander unclipped his seatbelt. "I'll Uber a ride, you can keep all of this excitement for yourself."
Xander slammed the door shut and disappeared into the night.
Angel sat back and contemplated the decidedly unappealing prospect of watching Willy's door for who knows how many more hours. Meanwhile, Buffy was probably curled up in her pajamas, half asleep, watching television.
Sometimes, this job really sucks.
