Chapter 2: The problem
He felt the cold of the crystal inside his eyesocket and closed the lid of his still functional eye. Sometimes it was just better not to see what was being done to you. Much like when you are in a hospital being operated on by surgeons. He felt the warmth of Willow's small hands hovering above the crystal. The hands smelt after sage and a few other magical ingredients, most of which Xander couldn't put a name on. Then he felt the crystal in his socket become warmer and changing shape.
"What's happening?" He asked nervously.
Willow reasured him that everything was still going as planned. The crystal kept expanding until it touched the edges of his eyesocket. Its temperature rose and Xander felt a dizzyness developing in his head. The dizzyness increased and soon it was difficult to think at all. Fortunately it wasn't long before it faded away, but it seemed to have left something behind: a strange feeling in his head.
"Are you finished yet?" He asked. "This feels weird."
"Yup, it's done."
Xander sat up and looked at Willow. As he did so, the feeling in his head changed. She send him one of her rare smiles and for a moment he forgot about the spell and the feeling. Her smiles didn't use to be rare. He returned the smile, an encouragment that hopefully lead to more smiles in the future.
Then he looked around to see if anything else had changed. The feeling in his head(or was it really coming from the crystal eye?) shifted again. It seemed different and less intense.
"This is realy weird. It's like ... well, actually I don't have a clue what it's like cause I've never felt anything like it. What is it?" He asked her.
"It allows you to sense Aura's."
"Aura's? I always thought they were some sort of glowy thingies around people?"
"Those aren't aura's. Well ok, they are Aura's, but they're not. Aura's are...well... Aura's. Some people use spells that allows you to see an Aura with your eyes or in a picture, but they aren't supposed to be seen. Aura's don't reflect any light, they don't really reflect anything, they sort of... radiate. But then a lightsource radiates photons, so perhaps it's not that dissimilar, except for the reflecting part."
"When I look at you it just...feels different then when I look at something else. Is there a verb for this? I came, I saw, I Auraded?"
"Not that I know of. I think you should just use 'sense'."
"Yeah, but people already use 'sense' when they have that gut feeling. And Buffy can sense vampires. It's just not original. I guess it's up to me to invent a verb then. What you think of...'dwerble'."
"I dwerble thee. We dwerble them. Dwerbling... No, that sounds like it was invented by Jar Jar Binks."
Willow cringed at the sound of the made-up verb.
"Let's just stick with 'sense' for now."
Grudingly Xander let the matter rest.
"So, how would we go about destroying the crystal, without me getting a killer migrane?" He asked promptly.
"You want to destroy it?" Willow asked eyes wide.
"No! of course not." He assured her. "Just, you know, if there is somekind of side-effect like...remember when Buffy had that empathy thing going? I'd like to know how to reverse this if I get all crazy, headachy or if the people I look at become crazy and try to kill me."
Willow observed him for a moment.
"You don't like it, do you?"
He definately hadn't expected that question.
"I do like it!" Xander blurted out just a tad bit too loud. He saw Willow's sceptic look and realized she didn't buy it. "Alright, I don't. I'm sorry Will, but I just don't need a replacement for my eye. I'm doing fine without it. Sure, my aim with the crossbow isn't what it could be and estimating distances or heights can be a pain sometimes, but aside from that I can still do what I could before."
He immediately regretted his honesty when he saw Willow's dissapointed expression.
"You can just take it out." Willow explained, detached as if she didn't really care either way. "But don't destroy it!" she added hastely. "I'll just do the reversal spell. Those crystals aren't easy to come by, you know."
Another pang of guilt went through Xander. Willow had obviously put a lot of effort in this spell only to have to undo it now. He fervently wished he could have just taken his words back and pretended that he liked it, but the damage was already done so he remained silent. He carefully felt the crystal with the tips of his fingers. It didn't sting, he didn't even feel it except for the pressure on his eyesocket, so he gripped the crystal and pulled.
"I can't take it out."
"What?" Willow looked up at him.
"I can't take it out. It's attached to the skin!" He started to panic.
Willow swallowed hard.
"well, m-maybe you're not doing it right." She suggested weakly.
"I'm pulling at it and it's not coming out. What can I possibly be doing wrong?" He retorted.
After several more attempts to dislodge it he gave up.
"That's just great!" Xander grumbled to no one in particular. "'Nothing bad is going to happen' she says. 'I'm fairly sure' she says. 'All we have to do is destroy the crystal and it'll be as if nothing happened' she says. Well, we can't destroy it when it's lodged inside my head, can we?"
He sighed at a guiltily looking Willow.
"I'm so sorry! W-we'll fix this. This shouldn't have happened. Besides, i-it's not that bad. I-it could have been worse. I mean you didn't lose your other eye, your head is still attached to your shoulders a-and everything else still seems to be attached and working..." She looked at him desperately for confirmation. "Right?"
Even thinking about the possibility that such things could have happened sent a shiver through him. Xander quickly felt his body parts, did a few stretching exercises and nodded in relief.
"tha-that's good." Willow stammered.
Xander just glowered at her.
