Disclaimer: See Chapter One
Sunnydale, California, the Rosenberg residence
"Mom, Dad, I'm home! Oh that's right, isn't it? You're not home. Typical…"
Willow sighed as she stepped across the threshold of her parents' house. Since the possession she had noted a difference in the way she carried herself, as though the memory of being dead once, and a spirit, had instilled in her the new spirit of boldness she had displayed since last night. It was as though she had felt new life by reason of having been dead; there was nothing to gain by being shy and withdrawn anymore, so why waste time with it? What more could be done to her, having already been dead once? Could she die again? Perhaps, but she was alive now, so she would henceforth put as much into her life as she could, for the only way, she now realized with her new sense of urgency, the only way to get anything out of life was to put as much into it. No more mousy sweaters and skirts for her, she was a woman, damn it!
And she was tired now of not being noticed as a woman…
Willow thought back to that moment aboard the Watcher when Xander had asked, in his capacity now as Grand Moff, for her to learn the Aurebesh alphabet, so she could help him with reprogramming the station's core computer systems to recognize standard English for the crew that they would soon have. She had felt so good at being asked by Xander to do something for him that she had decided to act on her next impulse and suggest that they find a way to live together. She wanted her Xander-shaped friend with her always, and she would be damned if she were made to share him with another. A moment's reflection then found Willow surprised at the jealousy she suddenly felt, a sense of propriety and protectiveness that made her wish to shout to the universe that Xander was hers alone. It was as though the future of the entire human race depended on the two of them. She felt that it could not be left to others of the species, who would surely fail to preserve humankind for the future. If Willow could not have Xander with her, then the whole of humankind would go extinct, such was the primal sense that accompanied her feelings for the goofy boy who always seemed to see through to the heart of a matter, or to know precisely the words to say to bring comfort in a moment of pain.
Stepping through into her house and closing the door behind her, she resolved herself to carry out her will. She stepped towards the computer terminal in her bedroom and opened up her internet browser, and with a few strokes of the keyboard, she set the search engine to find "Aurebesh". An hour later, Willow's eyes were opened…
Her next task was to find the procedure by which to submit such evidence to the state of California as Xander would require of the long record of abuse by his parents, and thus to make his case for emancipation. She had realized that she would also have to make the same case for herself, and so she set about looking for the specific forms to file and learning just how to collect the evidence they would require. It registered only to Willow as a mild surprise how she felt no trepidation at this; the next moment's contemplation brought to light that it had been the influence of the Halloween event that had stripped her of her fear of parental retribution. She had been dead at that time, a shade of her actual self, so what more could her erstwhile parents do to her? They were hardly ever there to be much of a positive influence to her, so it mattered little. It was the reason she cared so little about raiding their first aid kit to bandage Carlos' blaster wound, the reason she was able, during her incorporeal state, to be so assertive with Cordelia in getting her to board the Lambda shuttle for the Death Star. Willow then broke free of her musings with a mental shake of her head and set herself to the task of freeing herself and Xander from the negative influence that was their respective families.
The evidence of their parents' crimes, Willow surmised, would have to cover nearly their entire lives, or at least in Xander's case it would. She only remembered their beginning to neglect her from the age of eight or so, therefore from that point in her childhood she would begin to collect her own evidence. Another hour's searching through the State of California's Child Services website showed her the forms she needed to fill, and a moment's command through the mouse and graphic user interface sent the forms, in triplicate for each of them, to the printer. She then rummaged around for several manila envelopes that she had deigned to use for the containment and security of those same documents, and she had found four to her liking. They were blank, new, ideal for her purposes. She carefully placed hers and Xander's copies of the abuse reporting forms in separate envelopes, and then she paperclipped an empty envelope to each. The immediate task done, she set about getting ready to sleep, for the next several days would be trying in the extreme…
Xander's POV
"It would appear I am dead…" came a calm, contemplative voice in Xander's mind.
"Who is this?"
A 'tsk-tsk' immediately followed Xander's question. "My dear boy, you should know by now who I am, or was before all this…" came the suddenly-very familiar Scottish brogue, though for the owner of the voice, it may have been Eriaduan. "Though I must confess I had not imagined my afterlife would resemble anything remotely similar. Remarkable…"
A cold worm wriggled its way up Xander's spine…or it would have, if Xander had been awake. He recognized at once that he was dreaming, for there was no way that he could have heard that voice aloud in any wakeful state.
"Tarkin…."
"Let me guess…" said the Grand Moff in reply, "you 'recognized my foul stench' as soon as you heard my voice, yes? I imagine you've been waiting your entire life to say something like that to someone like myself," he added with a slight chuckle.
Xander raised an eyebrow at the irony of it. "Something like that…"
"It is rather ironic, isn't it, my dear Xander? You view a holovid…excuse me, a movie, and you figure you'll never encounter a sufficiently monstrous being to which you could repeat that dialogue, and then on Halloween in your year of 1997, you costume as the man you regard as nearly as monstrous as Lord Vader himself. And now, here I am, in your mind." Tarkin looked about, now that Xander could see him, having turned his gaze to meet the voice of the Eriadu nobleman. "Yet outside of your mind I am nothing more than a fiction, a figment of a screenwriter's overworked yet successful imagination. It is indeed rather ironic for both of us, yes?"
"I totally get," responded Xander to the ruminative Moff. "All that power you cultivated throughout your career, from the Outer Rim to the Death Star, and then some Rebel goes and blows up your battle station…"
"A fact that still haunts me even in this existence that I must endure," interjected the increasingly red-faced Tarkin. "I had thought the Death Star to be the ultimate deterrent in the galaxy, and for it to be laid low by one Rebel pilot in a snubfighter…"
"Was supposed to be impossible, yes, I totally get you, Wilhuff." Xander finished for him. Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Your precious Empire started work on another Death Star not long after they started building the first one. They already had worked out the bugs that had been delaying the construction of your pet project, and it was still being built when the Rebellion destroyed your baby. They considered that particular vulnerability when they redesigned the thermal exhaust system, but your beloved Emperor saw the potential instead to lure the Rebellion out of hiding and get them all together in one spot, so he had it emphasized that the superlaser was to be finished and operational at all costs, even before the rest of the station itself could be finished. They covered the skin of the finished portion of the second Death Star with a mesh of millimeter-wide exhaust pores so that no-one could stuff a proton torpedo up its tailpipe. It was way bigger than your own Death Star, Wilhuff, but it fell to the Rebels also, and Darth Vader and your beloved Emperor Lord Sidious fell with it…"
As Xander spoke, Wilhuff Tarkin found himself growing increasingly pale. Another Death Star, destroyed by the Rebels before it was even finished?! The Emperor, dead?! Just how much power did the Rebels have? And could their cause indeed have been just if they were able to muster sufficient force to lay the Empire itself low?
"Dead...The Empire, the Emperor, dead even as I am dead…."
Xander slowly nodded his head as Tarkin began to accept his situation. Having shared his brain with the Grand Moff, Xander knew him more intimately than even his lover Natasi had – eww, Xander mused, homo alert, evasive maneuvers….
But he did understand that Tarkin was nothing if not pragmatic and a realist. Tarkin would come around…
"It's a new world for you, Tarkin, sharing headspace with me. There might not be an Empire to rebuild, but there are enemies for you to fight," offered Xander, "and maybe you might even take it as an opportunity to rebuild your reputation, to build a legacy, as it were."
"Ah, yes," Tarkin nodded, "your Goa'uld…this Stargate Command you have been in contact with should prove intriguing…."
"For both of us, as long as you don't go trying to take over my mind, of course. Share and share alike, is the old saying here on Earth. Remember, I know you as much as you now know me. So, any thoughts on how to deal with a pair of abominably abusive parents? While still remaining within the law, of course…"
The eyes of the Grand Moff suddenly lit up as he remembered his own harsh upbringing on Eriadu. There at least was purpose behind it, that of raising a young child to deal with a harsh world and an even harder galaxy, whereas he had seen, having been introduced to the inner thoughts of this young Xander, that the boy's parents treatment of him had been entirely without purpose, and thus most abusive.
"Of course," he smiled…
Deck 69, Sector N-1, The Hard Heart Cantina
The menu selection, like everything else on the station, regrettably, was written in Aurebesh, so only Teal'C could read it, and therefore it fell to him to make everyone's selections for food and drink. Even he, however, had some trouble identifying each of the food choices and coming up with Earth recipes to which he could compare them, and everyone eventually settled on nerf steak and vegetables, to include imported vaporator-grown mushrooms from Tatooine, and Corellian ale to drink. Suprisingly, everyone enjoyed the food rather immensely, and it took each of them nearly all their willpower (aside from Teal'C himself, who seemed to have willpower to spare and then some…) to resist gorging themselves on the immensely sweet meat and mushrooms. Lobster simply could not compare with what the Watcher's replicators could produce. As well, a single glass of Corellian ale was strong enough to equate with a six-pack of the strongest German import beer, so everyone had decided to forgo finishing their portion in favor of keeping their wits about them. Kinsey, naturally, refused to touch the stuff, whereas the men in SG-2 took it in stride, several of their number having been culled from the ranks of the notorious 82nd Airborne Division, whose infantrymen were famous for holding their liquor.
At some point, Hammond decided, they needed to figure out how to add Earth cuisine to the Watcher's food selections…