17619 White Oak Drive Sunnydale, November 4th 1997

Xander Harris was not a happy camper.

Over the past two days, his friends (and Cordelia) had been looking at him funny all the time. They denied it, of course, but since he was neither blind nor an idiot (despite Cordelia's opinion on the subject), Xander *knew* they'd been keeping an eye on him that way. It was as if they were worried he'd explode or something!

Well, okay, Cordelia was being her normal self and worry for him wasn't part of her job description, but still. How weird was it that he was currently feeling more comfortable around the Queen of Mean, than his bestest buds?

Something was wrong with this picture. It simply didn't compute.

Xander also wasn't too happy that he had to do a book report for English class. The teacher had assigned them to read Stephen King's IT, and he hated clowns! He didn't want to read about a normal one, let alone a demon variety that ate kids!

Sighing, Xander went to the nearby video store to rent the movie so he didn't have to read the whole book. Sure, his grade might suffer, but it was better to fast forward through the movie rather than skip book chapters!

The worst part was that he'd planned on seeing IT with Buffy and Willow, but they were too busy doing something else. What, exactly, he didn't know. Which was painful, but not entirely unexpected. And there was no way he would ever willingly spend time with Cordelia doing something like this, so Xander went home alone to watch the movie in his bedroom.

His parents weren't home for some reason, which he could care less about anyway. Xander went upstairs to his room before he closed the door and locked it with the deadbolt he'd installed himself. Turning on the TV and then the VCR, he put in the movie videotape and pushed Play.

As the credits began, Xander tried to psych himself up and pay attention in order to write his book report - but he already knew this whole thing was a lost cause. He really hated clowns and, after what had happened last year during the Day of the Living Nightmare, everyone who mattered knew he was scared of them too.

{ Come on, focus! } Xander wriggled around on the bed to get comfortable, and started to watch the movie.

A few minutes later, he was already bored - so far, no scary evil clown. Xander sighed to himself. { Maybe I was a bit too hasty in not inviting Cordy to watch the movie with me? Sure, I'd want to kill her within five minutes and then kill *myself* within ten, but any sort of company would be better than this! }

He watched the scene where Bill Denbrough made a paper boat for his younger brother, George. Afterwards, George went out into the pouring rain with his paper boat. The kid sailed the paper boat down the flooded street. And then, of course, the paper boat sailed down into a sewer drain.

"NO!" George Denbrough yelled out, causing Xander to wince and lower the volume of the TV. { Parents aren't home, I know, but still. }

Xander watched as George looked down the sewer drain for his boat. Then Pennywise the clown appeared from the darkness under the sewer drain. { Here it comes... }

"Hello Georgie, want a balloon?" Pennywise said, with a evil smile on his face.

{ I HATE CLOWNS! } Xander almost screamed when he got a closer look at the actor playing Pennywise. Something... there was something about the image on the videotape...

Something loud tapped at the window, which instantly made Xander jump out of bed. "What the frack?!"

Then he heard another tap. One which almost cracked the glass of the window. { Who the hell could be tapping on my second floor bedroom window, at this time of night? }

Harris went to the window and saw Angel nearby, the undead guy having climbed a tree. { What the heck is the friendly neighborhood vampire doing here?! }

Shrugging, he opened the window. "Angel? Dude, what are you doing here?"

"We need to talk. I'm assuming no one's told you what happened last week, during Halloween?"

Xander felt a cold shiver run down his spine. He definitely hadn't been expecting to hear this on a Tuesday night! "Uh, not sure what you mean. Unless - you know what it is everyone's been hiding from me?"

"Yeah." Angel paused. "I'm pretty sure your friends are just trying to protect you from the truth, Xander, but... the truth has a nasty habit of revealing itself at precisely the wrong time, what with the Hellmouth tainting everything around here at least to some extent. So. Do you want to know the truth?"

"I get the feeling that Jack Nicholson was absolutely right when he said, "You can't handle the truth!" in the movie, but what the hell - you've got a good point about the timing thing as well," Xander sighed. "Okay, lay it on me."

Angel never hesitated. "You were possessed by a killer robot, the same way Buffy was possessed by that noblewoman and Willow ended up a ghost. Apparently, you killed some demons and wounded some vampires. You also wounded and even killed some possessed people in costume. I personally saw you kill a guy dressed as a cowboy in a shootout on the street."

Xander felt like he was just punched into orbit by Superman. "What? Excuse me, I meant, WHAT THE HELL?"

"Yeah, well. Now you know why Buffy and the others thought it'd be better for you not to know," Angel shrugged, almost losing his balance in the nearby tree before he steadied himself.

"I - yeah. But, but I can't remember... I mean, I believe ya, it totally explains why everyone's been tiptoeing on eggshells around me lately, but still..." Xander trailed off, feeling totally freaked.

There was a short period of silence, as Xander tried to pull himself together. Eventually he succeeded, and then he asked his undead acquaintance, "So, why'd you 'fess up? I mean, why not convince someone else to do it? We're not exactly best buds or anything."

"I know, but - well, I guess it's because if you need to talk someone who can understand what it's like to take a human life, I alone qualify. I did more than my fair share of killing and hurting people after I was turned, as I'm sure you know."

"Yeah. Yeah, that I do. I just wish -"

"What?"

"I wish the others had told me, I wish - well...I wish they had the same faith in me that *you* do. And isn't that something I never thought I'd hear myself say?" He sighed sadly. "Any idea who this cowboy robot was?" He subsequently asked Angel, wanting to know more.

"No. Although there have been rumors since last year..." Angel trailed off. "They're just that, though, rumors."

Xander shrugged. "What the hell, tell me anyway."

"According to the demon gossip - last year at the DELOS corporation's android amusement park, there was a computer virus that affected all the robots there. The machines went rogue in all the theme parks, killing the guests. One of the robots from the Westworld theme park was a gunslinger that killed more people than all the other androids put together," Angel shrugged again.

"Are you saying - I was possessed by a robot cowboy killing machine?!" Xander instantly had a shocked look on his face.

"I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. The only other thing I heard is that the human workers were locked into the control room. They ran out of air and died," Angel shook his head.

"If all this is true - then why didn't DELOS close down?" Xander asked.

"Again, I don't know if it's true. But if it is...well, there must have been a cover-up. A Big Bad must have been behind cleaning up the mess, so that no one ever found out," Angel frowned.

Xander, not liking where this was heading towards, remained silent. Then he blurted out, "We already have enough trouble with Spike, we don't need *another* Big Bad around here!"

Angel couldn't help but silently agree.