Author: Rabid Squirrel
Title: "Murphy's Law"
Disclaimer: If I actually owned BTVS, would I bother to write fanfiction? Seriously, Buffy and co. are owned by Joss Whedon, Kazui Productions, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox, UPN, and quite possibly the U.N., sick bastards all of them.
Summary: I have no idea where this is going. I just write what the Rice Krispies tell me to.
Spoilers: Thru season 6, though my selective memory allows me to edit out or rewrite certain unsavory aspects.
Rating: R, for violence, strong language, and limited sexual content.
Feedback: Constructive criticism, advice, and words of encouragement are all accepted, as are bribes, tributes, and human sacrifices. Flames will be used to light my cigarettes.
Dedication: To Lou, the poor bastard, on the occasion of his wedding day. It was nice knowing you these past 23 years, my friend.
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Words of Wisdom:
I worked hard, I stayed the course, and I finally beat the odds. Unfortunately, the little bastards regrouped, formed a coalition and came back to kick my ass – Rabid Squirrel
Chapter 14: "A Lighter Shade of Gray"
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Xander's Apartment
Monday Morning
0900 Hrs
Willow Rosenberg had entertained a number of doubts her life. At varying times she'd doubted her intrinsic worth as a human being; doubted the durability of her friendships; doubted her ability to overcome her addiction to magic; and ultimately, doubted her resilience in the aftermath of the events of last spring. But never before had she doubted the purity of the intentions of one Alexander Lavelle Harris.
To say that she was disturbed by the recent turn of events was a gross understatement. The revelations of the previous night, though vague in their own right, had nonetheless succeeded in shaking her to the very core, leading her to question the loyalty of the one person she had grown to trust implicitly. And as much as she'd tried to rationalize what she'd heard, to convince herself not to rush to judgment before she knew the whole story, she found it impossible to give her friend the benefit of the doubt.
As it turned out, Willow was familiar with the name, if not the individual it belonged to. Over the years she and Buffy had spent many a night commiserating over Rocky Road ice cream and [eventually] a bottle of Chardonnay, bemoaning their mutual failures at both life and love, and anything else they might have managed to screw up. During one such session – not long after the whole situation with Angel/Angelus had played itself out – Buffy had related to Willow the role the balance demon had played in the whole affair, tossing in a few colorful epithets to express her patent dislike for Whistler. And while Willow knew what it was like to be misunderstood and prematurely judged, something told her that knowing the complete story would do very little to attenuate her growing concerns about Xander's apparent involvement with the mysterious Whistler.
That she even knew of Xander's alleged duplicity was somewhat of an accident. She'd been sleeping in the spare bedroom Sunday night, awakened sometime after midnight by the sound of the front door opening. Assuming that it was just Xander, she'd laid her head back down, intending to fall asleep. It was only after hearing the door open a second time that her curiosity got the best of her.
Slipping from her bed, she'd crept quietly to the door, straining to hear what was being said on the other side. In retrospect, she wished she hadn't.
Eavesdropping on the conversation outside the door, she'd immediately recognized one voice as belonging to Xander; the other was heretofore unknown to her. As luck would have it, Xander had unwittingly provided that bit of information, calling the other man by name. Evidently, like Buffy, Xander obviously had no love lost for the infamous balance demon. Of course, there was still the little matter of a certain promise that Whistler had mentioned, the root cause of Willow's current predicament:
"Until then you keep your promise. You keep an eye on her; you prepare her for what's to come."
The first part of Whistler's statement was fairly innocuous, even typical of Xander, if late night rendezvous with questionable demons could be considered typical. It was the latter part of the statement that left a foul taste in Willow's mouth, and left her wondering just what her best friend had gotten himself into: Exactly what was coming, and how was Xander supposed to prepare her for it? She needed answers to those questions.
It wasn't easy for her to consider the possibility that Xander was playing both sides, or even to entertain the notion that Xander could possibly have ulterior motives. After everything they'd been through, after all the hardships they'd faced, Xander had apparently done the one thing they'd all sworn never again to do – to keep secrets from the others. And to make matters worse, this one evidently involved Buffy.
Of course, it was all relative.
To judge Xander for keeping secrets could be construed as hypocrisy on her part, given the magnitude of the secret she'd been keeping for the past several months. Though, in her own defense, the secret she carried didn't involve any overt treachery or secret liaisons on her part. It was more a secret of omission than one of commission. That still didn't make it any easier to hide from her friends.
She hadn't wanted to believe it at first. The very fact that Buffy was again among the living had been a testament to her own powers and abilities as a Wicca. But the doubt had always been there, that little nagging voice inside her head telling Willow that it wasn't her – that she hadn't been the one who brought the Slayer back. There was ample evidence to support that version, after all. During the ritual, the sacred circle had been prematurely broken, due in no small part to their uninvited guests. There was also the incontrovertible fact that the Urn of Osiris had been destroyed before she had time to complete the spell. Both of these things had militated against the apparent likelihood of her success.
But still…
Buffy had risen from the grave, and the timing of her resurrection was far too convenient to be interpreted as mere coincidence. The fact that Spike could hurt Buffy even seemed to bolster the pro-Willow version of events, suggesting that Buffy had come back wrong, a logical side effect stemming from the complications that had arisen during the performing of the ritual. That explanation would have sufficed for most people. But then again, Willow wasn't most people.
Willow was by nature a creature of habit, the foremost of which was her insatiable, if sometimes reckless, thirst for knowledge. One way or another, Willow had to know the truth. And so with a lot of determination, a little research, and just a smidgeon of magic, she'd set out to find it.
And find the truth she had, in the process confirming her own worst fears. As it turned out, she hadn't brought Buffy back, at least not all of her. What Willow had failed to realize in her single-minded pursuit to bring back her friend was that that no power on earth, either natural or otherwise, had dominion over the soul once it had passed beyond the ethereal plane. It was well within her power to bring Buffy's mortal body back to life, but what came back wouldn't have been Buffy; only a hollow shell, a walking corpse devoid of the essence of the person who had once occupied it. And though that fact had clearly delineated the outer limit of her abilities, it also had one positive, if unintended, effect. It showed her that somewhere out there, there was someone – or something – that held sway even over the power of death. And if that power had brought Buffy back, then it couldn't possibly be evil.
Or could it?
She needed to talk to someone. That much was obvious. The question was who. She couldn't exactly approach Buffy with what she knew – or in this case didn't know. Throwing gasoline on the fire probably wasn't a wise approach at this point and time. Likewise, directly confronting Xander was unlikely to yield the desired results. Which left her with Giles; that was a can of worms she wasn't sure she was ready to open. But then again, what choice did she really have?
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Sunnydale Memorial Hospital
0930 HrsIf there was a hell, Xander Harris had decided during the course of the last half hour, it most likely bore a strong resemblance to the SMH Emergency Room.
As waiting rooms went, it was pretty much standard issue: Run-of-the-mill late eighties utilitarian decor capped off with a touch of Department-of-Motor-Vehicle ambience. The walls had probably once been white, but they'd long since faded to a dingy aged yellow, save for those areas covered with garage sale castoffs and cheap Norman-Rockwell prints. Where the wall met the floor, ranks of uniformly uncomfortable plastic chairs ringed the reception area, one of which Xander had planted himself in while he filled out the endless array of insurance forms. He wasn't quite sure, but he thought the chair might have been blue at some point in time.
And while the comforts of the waiting room were decidedly sub par, the smell was something else entirely. An overpowering antiseptic odor permeated the air, mixing with the unmistakable thick scent of blood. Both were currently doing quite a number on his digestive tract, threatening to introduce the contents of his stomach to the crudely polished tile floor.
It went without saying that he'd always hated the place, and not without good reason. At one point or another in his life, every woman he'd cared about had ended up here, a list that included Willow, Buffy, Cordelia, Anya, Joyce, and now Dawn, the latest addition to the undesirable club. And while he knew he wasn't directly to blame for any of them, it didn't make the reality of the situation any easier to accept.
Xander didn't know why Dawn had left the purse in his car. He didn't believe it was even physically possible for the female persuasion to ever part with such a crucial accessory. But left it here she had, and for that reason she was still alive.
At least, he prayed she still was.
40 Minutes Earlier:
The front door had been a dead giveaway. As he pulled up to the driveway, he almost failed to notice the indisputable fact that it was standing ajar, but in Sunnydale, some signs are just too obvious to miss, especially in broad daylight. It was possible that someone had accidentally left it open, but Xander was a man who dealt in what he knew, and right now he knew only that he had a bad feeling about this.
Alert to the possible danger, he plunged his hand into the oversized pocket of his flannel shirt, frenziedly searching for a weapon that wasn't there. In desperation, he turned to the purse lying on the passenger seat, leery of what he might find inside, but willing to take that chance for Dawn's sake. Rooting around inside the leather handbag, he hastily curled his fingers around a small cylindrical object, only to release it just as quickly when he realized what he actually held in his grasp. As a general rule, tampons didn't make for effective weapons, at least not against demons, and generally, though not always, against humans.
Resuming his tactile search, Xander felt the reassuring sensation of wood grain brush against his fingertips. He snatched the undersized wooden weapon from its hiding place, tucking it into his shirt pocket as he slammed the truck door shut and dashed toward the house.
He slowed his approach as he neared the door, resisting the urge to charge in, much in the style of John Wayne. That method tended to work only in the movies; it still didn't stop him from packing heat. And so, with one hand resting on the butt of "Smokey" – Xander's nickname for his trusty .45 – and the other fingering the stake concealed inside his pocket, he cautiously crept up the doorstep, leaning slightly to the right in order to peer through the gap between the partially open door and the frame. Seeing nothing of interest, he proceeded to nudge the door slightly with his foot, sidestepping to the left and out of the line-of-sight of whomever or whatever might be waiting for him inside.
The door swung inward, followed in due course by the rays of the mid-morning sun, clearing a vampire-free zone for his safe passage. Xander slowly stepped inside, the stake now clenched firmly in his left hand, both residing in his pocket. He glanced around the room anxiously, straining to pick up any stray sounds, but he could scarcely hear a thing over the pounding of his heart.
Relax, Xandman. Take a deep breath. It's not like you haven't done this before.
Despite his frequent protestations to the contrary, Xander wasn't beneath arguing with himself. Actually, it is like I haven't done this before, because I haven't. Sometimes his inner self could be quite unreasonable.
But not always. Ah, c'mon. Buck up X-man. You're the White Knight. This is what you do.
No it's not! I'm not the hero – I'm the sidekick. The one who always seems to end up with the magic syphilis.
Ahhh – the magic syphilis; you've got me there. But even sidekicks get to kick a little ass every now and then. And at least you don't have to wear those gay tights.
Xander couldn't argue with himself on that point: Tights were gay; really, really gay. Unfortunately, his lingering doubts were not assuaged by that simplistic argument.
This is crazy. I don't even know who or what is in here. I have no idea what I'm up against, or what I'm walking in to.
His inner self remained firm in his resolve. You're blowin' this way out of proportion buddy. For all you know, it could just be the UPS man. And if it's not, then you've got mister Sam Colt and his little wooden friend to even the odds. So get your ass in gear, saddle up the white horse, put on your shining armor, and ride in and save the day.
In the end, it was just that simple. Emboldened, Xander stepped into the living room, at first hesitantly, but his confidence and determination building with each step. Drawing the .45, he held it out in front of him, treating the firearm as a natural extension or his body.
One step. Then two. Then another. His heart rate was still elevated, but he'd managed to bring it under control, through his breathing and by sheer force of will. He was focused now; he had a mission. Not quite a soldier, yet not just a feeble sidekick. The White Knight rode again. Yippie-ki-yay.
Onward to the kitchen he crept. He inspected the room methodically, his every move an example of ergonomic efficiency, always leading with the colt. Here he found nothing. Xander inched through the kitchen, moving toward the back of the house. Slowly yet steadily he made his way, turning around every few steps to check behind him, ever cognizant of the danger. Now the stake came out, still gripped firmly in his left hand. Two to the head, stake to the heart, he reassured himself. That's all it takes.
Finally he heard them, the muffled voices drifting down from the upper floor, their words unintelligible to him. Both were female; one voice Dawn's, the other familiar, possibly Stacey's. He reached the stairs, ascending them now one at a time, careful to place his footfalls on the outer edge of each step, lest he betray his presence with an ill-timed creak.
He hadn't forgotten it all…the training that is. Whatever knowledge and ability he'd gleaned from Ethan's little Halloween escapade years before had largely stuck with him, collecting dust somewhere in the reaches of his underutilized mind. He'd only tapped into that knowledge sporadically, ambivalent about using a power that originated in darkness, mindful of Willow's lessons. But lately that had all changed. He found himself remembering more and more of his "training", the tactics and ingrained instincts slipping unobtrusively into his everyday life. At first it had scared him, but he'd gradually come to accept it with a level of serenity that would have at one time disturbed him. But not now. Not anymore.
He reached the top of the staircase. The sounds were louder now, the voices more defined…and someone was crying, someone who sounded remarkably like Dawn. Xander moved closer, focused intently on the closed door directly ahead. As he approached the room, his grip on the Colt tightened involuntarily, his index finger reflexively seeking out the trigger. Easy Xander. Don't lose your cool now.
Finally, he was at the door, his left hand hovering above the handle when the realization set in. The voice on the other side of the door was Stacey's, but it was wrong, unnaturally guttural, devoid of humanity:
"If it makes you feel any better, Dawnie, this hurts me as much as it's about to hurt you."
His hand came down on the handle, unlatching the door and allowing it to swing wide, confirming for Xander's eyes what his ears had already told him: Stacey was a vampire, and Dawn her intended meal. But Xander was already moving, his body acting on instinct, quickly closing the gap between him and Stacey. The Colt came up, its gleaming steel barrel leveled at the vampire's head, sizing up a shot that would never come.
Caught amidst the throes of the thirst, Stacey almost hadn't noticed him. It was only through her enhanced hearing that she was alerted to his presence. Disengaging from her meal, she dropped Dawn's listless body to the floor, turning with a preternatural speed to meet the unknown threat. As she spun around to engage her attacker, the glint of polished metal caught her eye, drawing her attention away from the more lethal threat. She continued to pivot, her left hand striking out at the assailant's weapon, easily batting away the gun. For good measure, she followed up with her right hand, delivering a lightning-quick palm-thrust to the assailant's unprotected temple, sending Dawn's would-be savior reeling to the floor.
In Xander's defense, he had never intended to fire a shot. The risk was simply too great, given the close proximity of Dawn to his intended target. Collateral damage simply wasn't a term in the White Knight's vocabulary. The gun had succeeded, however, in drawing Stacey's attention away from the true threat. As Stacey lashed out at his gun hand, Xander countered with a left-handed thrust, delivering one decisive blow before he was knocked senseless by her counterattack. From Xander's vantage point on the floor, and through slightly hazy eyes – the bitch did pack quite a punch – her could clearly see the small wooden stake neatly protruding from the center of the vampire's chest, at least for the two seconds before she collapsed into a pile of dust.
Present Time:
He had to call Buffy. Instinctively he knew that; it's what civilized people did in a situation like this. But how do you tell someone that the one person they love most in all the world was either dead, or very nearly so, and that you hadn't been there to prevent it? He couldn't do it, at lest not until he knew, one way or another. And so he'd waited, putting off calling Buffy in the hopes that everything would turn out okay. That was largely up to the doctors, who were with her at this moment, doing their best to help her. He just hoped that their best would be enough.
Xander wanted to be in there with her, to hold her hand and tell her everything would be okay, even if it was only a well-intentioned lie. But even as he hoped for the best, he feared the worst. By the time he'd finally gotten to her, she had stopped breathing, her skin turning a deathly shade of white. He'd tried CPR; done the chest compressions, performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, just as he'd learned in school, but he wasn't sure it had been in time.
So now he sat here in the waiting room, with only his thoughts and the ticking of the oversized analog wall clock to keep him company. It was strange how time could seem to move so slowly, a realization that had first occurred to him on the ride over, and was now reinforced with the passage of each agonizing second. He glanced at the clock again, not surprised to find only five minutes had passed since he'd last checked.
Tick…Tock. Another second, another thought.
He remembered what Buffy had once told them about her vision quest. And it occurred to him that while death may indeed have been Buffy's gift to the world, it was his burden to bear, his constant companion in life. He'd lost so much – Jesse, Joyce, Buffy, and now, quite possibly Dawn. And thanks to his little deal with Whistler, he knew there was more to come, and whom it was coming to.
If only I'd never taken that goddamned road trip to Oxnard.
It was a question he'd asked himself time and again, ever since that fateful summer years before: Would he have done things differently, had he not known? Would he have had the strength to sacrifice Dawn's life to save the world, knowing what Buffy would have done to him if he had? Thoughts like these plagued his waking moments, and more often than not, intruded upon his dreams as well. It was enough to drive a person mad, though at this point that would have been a relatively short trip, given his current state of mind.
Xander looked up again, occasioning yet another pointless glance at the clock. His gaze, however, fell elsewhere.
At that precise moment the doors to the operating room swung open, dispatching the ER doctor who'd been attending to Dawn. Xander caught the man's eye, tracking him as he walked down the hall, approaching the waiting room at an agonizingly slow pace. He couldn't get a read on the man, as the doc's face was largely covered with a sanitary mask.
Xander stood slowly, taking a few halting steps toward the approaching M.D., steeling himself for the inevitable.
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SoCal Industrial ParkOutskirts of Sunnydale
As it turned out, not everybody in Sunnydale was having a bad day.
Lilah Morgan reclined in the custom-made leather chair, her outstretched legs crossed atop the polished oak desk as she puffed triumphantly on a cigar. It was uncharacteristically ostentatious of her, and likely more than a little presumptuous on her part, but she just couldn't help herself.
So far everything had gone off without a hitch. Sure, there may have been a slight hiccup or two along the way, most notably the little incident at W&H that had taken the lives of more than a few of her colleagues, but Lilah was focused on the larger picture, and though problematic, such tactical setbacks were to be expected. And if it took a few human lives for the overall plan to succeed, then who was she to object? It wasn't as if she had a soul to torment her.
Actually, that wasn't entirely true. There was a soul plaguing her, dogging her every move. It just didn't happen to be hers. Somewhere out there, undoubtedly closer than she would like, the world's oldest do-gooder was lurking in the shadows, waiting for just the right moment to jump in and royally fuck up her plans. He'd made it his passion in life to do just that, and Lilah had no doubt that the souled vampire would be making a guest appearance sometime soon.
And then of course, there was the Slayer.
Buffy Ann Summers – one hundred and six pounds of pure pain-in-the-ass vampire Slayer. At only 22 years of age, the diminutive champion had managed to forestall the end of the world on no fewer than six occasions, at least according to Wolfram & Hart's sources. Of course, it went without saying that Lilah fully intended to prevent a seventh such occurrence. The question was how to go about it.
Her orders had been perfectly clear in their intent, while still allowing her a wide degree of latitude in her course of action: Eliminate the Slayer, whatever the cost. Not surprisingly, while the Senior Partners at W&H still entertained fantasies about bringing Angel over to their side, they had never held any such illusions regarding the Slayer. And so Donofrio had relayed their wishes to his most trusted subordinate, supremely confident in her ability to execute them forthwith. Which is just what she intended to do, albeit in a style and manner all her own.
The solution had, quite literally, prevented itself to her, escorted by no fewer than a half dozen of her most trusted security agents. It was an inspired plan, simple yet bold, with just a dash of irony thrown in for her own personal amusement. That the scheme was also patently cruel was not by any intelligent design, but instead merely a happy coincidence born out of the practicality of its nature.
No one had ever accused Lilah of incompetence, at least no one currently among the ranks of the living. The one lesson she had learned early on, the lesson she had lived by for the past eight years, was to always have a contingency plan. Always cover your ass, her first supervisor at W&H had told her, and Lilah had taken that lesson to heart. Which lead her to this point.
The first part of the plan was predictable, if ultimately futile. But then, that was what she was counting on. It was the follow-up to the initial phase, the counterstroke to her maskirovka that was pure genius in its audacity. In the simplest terms, it was the magician's special: A textbook case of misdirection. Lilah would present an obvious threat to the Slayer, albeit one miss Summers couldn't afford to ignore. While Buffy was busy looking in the wrong direction, countering what she perceived as the primary threat, the real sleight of hand would occur. As the Slayer was preoccupied with countering the initial attack, the follow-on assault would be unleashed, utilizing a threat axis inconceivable to Buffy and her friends. The Slayer would be caught looking to the outside in search of danger, when in reality the true danger would be coming from within.
And of course, Lilah knew just the man for the job.
It was a simple choice, to be honest. The assassin had to be someone with access to the Slayer, someone whose presence wouldn't be questioned, at least not for the right reasons. Ideally, he would also be someone with a strong emotional or physical bond to Buffy Summers, someone who she at once both hated and loved. In Lilah's experience, people were at their most vulnerable when emotionally unbalanced, especially the women. All available data on the Slayer only confirmed that belief, and so Lilah intended to play that card for all it was worth.
The nature of the chosen individual's relationship to the Slayer had given Lilah momentary pause. After all, the man had been an integral part of the Slayer's life for a number of years, exerting considerable influence over her. Undoubtedly, he still entertained feelings for her, even if the two were currently estranged. Not surprisingly, all of this had led the ethically challenged lawyer to question whether the man could be counted on to complete the task when the time came. But Lilah, as always, had an ace in the hole. She knew which strings to pull and which threats to employ in order to make him come around to her way of thinking. And though it had taken quite a bit of "persuasion" on her end, Lilah was eminently confident that he would do as he was told.
At which point his usefulness to her would cease, and with it, his life.
With that thought, Lilah looked up to her visitor, who'd been waiting quietly up until this point.
"So you're William the Bloody?"
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The Home of Rupert Giles
That Same TimeIt was kind of like doing a jigsaw puzzle, albeit upside down, blindfolded, and with half of the pieces missing.
The problem, as always, was that Rupert Giles didn't see the big picture. At present he only had disjointed bits of information, pieces of a puzzle whose parts didn't readily fit together. But Rupert wasn't a man given to believe in coincidence, or surrender for that matter. He was by nature both paranoid and relentlessly thorough, qualities befitting a man of his station in life. He had no choice but to make the pieces fit.
He didn't have a lot to go on at this point. The bulk of the information he did have had come in the form of an ancient text, a mythical book alleged to contain startling truths about the origins of mankind, as well as predictions regarding its future. It wasn't even supposed to exist, if you believed the historians and academicians; but then again, vampires weren't supposed to exist either.
He'd read the book – whose name translated loosely into "where everything becomes visible" – from cover to cover, skimming briefly over the history of mankind as he sought to unearth its future, or its possible lack thereof. There were sections he could not translate, passages transcribed in some dialect of Attic Greek unknown to him. But that wasn't what bothered him the most.
Mark Twain had once written: "It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts that I do understand." Knowing what he now knew, Giles could sympathize with the man. Since the book had first come into his possession, he'd spent every waking moment poring over its pages, laboriously copying the translated text into his own journals. Those relatively few parts he could decipher had given him pause, though not enough to keep him from completing the task, with the exception of one particular passage.
For maybe the thousandth time that morning, Giles rechecked what he had written, hoping against hope that he'd made an error somewhere in the translation. But as many times as he read the words, they always came out the same:
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It will come to pass in the age of man. The opening days of the third millennia will bring forth the union of humanity with the ethereal host. At the sounding of the trumpet, they will stand as one, wielding the sword of righteousness, arrayed against the multitude of the Fallen at the coming of the second Great War.
And in this time, the many races of man will come together to oppose the accursed horde, unleashing their terrible devices of war in the West of the known world, setting the heavens aflame, and turning the great waters to blood. The world shall fall into eternal darkness, and the shadows will hold sway over all.
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Okay, so it wasn't exactly Charles Dickens, but few real prophecies ever were. As Buffy would no doubt have said, it was a bit heavy on the "dire", as apocalyptic predictions often tended to be. Of course, absent the dire, prophecies were really little more than glorified horoscopes – big on generalization, lacking in useful specifics. That's where being a Watcher came in handy.
Giles skimmed ahead a bit, thumbing impatiently through the faded manuscript, unable to make heads or tails of the passages that followed, though he had succeeded in deciphering the occasional odd phrase. There was some mention of a "catalyst" in the more obscure passages, a trigger of some sort that would either precipitate or facilitate the arrival of what the text referred to as the "fallen", depending on how you interpreted the context of the passage. Just who or what these fallen were was open to interpretation, though to Giles it seemed altogether likely that they were demonic in nature, quite possibly some sub-species of vampire, or something even worse.
There were other references as well, equally obscure in nature, if disproportionate in their relevance. Along with the "catalyst", the text also made fleeting reference to one known as "the Unforgiven", presumably someone (or something) who had fallen from favor. From whose favor, Giles wasn't sure, but the pseudo-religious undertones of the text were evident, even to the most ardent atheist. The style of writing, though slightly less elegant and marginally more direct, bore a strong resemblance to ancient Hebrew and Aramaic religious texts, providing an indirect answer to a few of the more obvious questions, but raising even more in the process.
Giles did have some background in religious studies; it had been a requirement at the Watcher's Academy that all students have at least a basic indoctrination in religious studies. And so he had some idea of what was inferred by the "Second Great War". That wasn't necessarily a good thing, but neither was the revelation that followed next.
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When the day is upon us, the hope of all mankind shall lie with the chosen one; for the twice-blessed champion shall lead the charge against the enemy of man, engaging his armies at the mouth of hell. And before the plains of Elysium the champion will fall, betrayed by those she would call friend, struck down by agents of the First True Evil.
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Those several sentences had occasioned more than a few "Dear Gods" on Giles' part, as well as an overly vigorous cleaning of his glasses. He'd been here before, on more than one occasion. That still didn't make it any easier this time around. The truth was right in front of him, as clear as anything written in ancient Greek could be.
After all, how many "twice-blessed" champions did he know?
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But at the hour when all seems lost, from the ashes of the fallen warrior shall spring forth new hope; out of the funereal pyre a new champion shall be born unto this world, one conceived of man, graced with divine favor, and resurrected as flesh. She will be called Elisheba, the protector of man, and with her, the line of the chosen shall pass into the new age.
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"My God…" Giles uttered, stunned by the revelation contained within the last line. I take back everything I've ever said about prophecies being ambiguous. He'd seen prophecies that referred to the "Slayer" in his time, but never this explicitly, calling one out by name: Elisheba, the Greek forerunner of the English Elisabeta, or Elizabeth. As in Elizabeth Ann Summers.
This is what Antonio had tried to warn him about. Remember your Religion, Rupert. It will serve you well. The answers were right in front of him: The First True Evil; the Fallen; the Ethereal Host; the Second Great War; the resurrection of a champion. The big picture was beginning to come together, and Rupert W. Giles didn't like what he saw. Not one damn bit.
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Sunnydale Memorial Hospital
Xander counted three rings, then a fourth as he strummed his fingers nervously on the bedside table. All things considered, he'd rather be the one lying in the hospital bed right about now. At least he'd get some jell-o.
"Hello, Summers' residence" answered the familiar voice on the opposite end of the line.
Time to reach out and touch someone. "Buffy….it's Xander."
Either she wasn't expecting to hear from him, or she was and she didn't want to. Either way, his words were met with dead silence.
"Look, Buff, there's kinda been an emergency. I'm at the hospital…"
So much for the silent treatment. "The hospital? Why-why are you…? Are you hurt?" Xander could almost swear he sensed a note of alarm in the Slayer's voice.
"No. It…it's not me; it's Dawn," he tried to reassure her, instantly regretting his choice of words.
The Slayer's alarm grew into panic, bordering on hysteria. "Dawn? Omigod! Is she…?"
Xander interrupted before she could complete the thought. "Oh, no, no. It's Okay, Buff. She's gonna be fine. The doctor gave her a clean bill of health." He didn't add that said doctor was completely mystified as to how a girl on death's doorstep had achieved a seemingly miraculous recovery in a span of less than an hour. Xander wasn't exactly clear on that matter himself, though he had his suspicions.
"A clean bill of health for what? What the hell happened to her, Xander?"
"She was attacked."
"Attacked? Attacked by whom…or what?"
"It was a vampire."
"A vampire?" The tone of her voice rightfully suggested some degree of skepticism.
"Yes, a vampire."
"In broad daylight?"
"No, not exactly. It happened indoors…at Stacey's."
"Stacey let a vampire into her house?"
"In a manner of speaking; Stacey was the vampire."
"Oh God. Poor Stacey."
Xander shook his head. "Don't think he had anything to do with it, Buff."
Buffy ignored Xander's attempt at humor. "But somehow a vamp got to Stacey…"
Xander nodded, wasting another gesture. "Looks like. I'm guessing it was someone she knew."
"And Stacey? Did you…?"
"It's taken care of. She won't hurt anyone else."
"And Dawn's all right? I mean, the doctors are sure there's nothing wrong?"
"Yes, and yes. She's fine, Buffy. I promise; they ran blood tests and everything. It's like I said – clean bill of health."
"I should be there with her, Xander."
"That's not necessary, Buff. They're gonna let me take her home, just as soon as the results of the blood test are in. Why don't you give Willow a call and meet us at Giles' place in an hour. I think we've got a lot to talk about."
Buffy considered arguing, but wisely decided against it. "Okay – I'll see you in an hour. Tell Dawn I love her."
"I will," promised Xander. "I'll see you in a few."
Xander thumbed the end button and stuffed the cell phone back his shirt pocket, turning to face the girl lying on the bed. She was awake now, in obvious discomfort, eying him silently through somber blue eyes.
"So is she mad at me?" As weak as Dawn was, her voice sounded even weaker.
"She's worried about you."
Dawn nodded meekly, raising her bed to the upright position. To Xander, she suddenly looked a lot older than her sixteen years. "I kinda got that part."
Xander reached out to the girl, covering Dawn's trembling hand with his own. "You shouldn't push yourself, Dawn. You've lost a lot of blood."
"Still looking out for me, huh?" Dawn was more than a little touched by the thought.
Xander almost blushed. "In case you hadn't noticed, I was a little worried, too."
"I guess that makes three of us then."
"The doc says you're gonna be okay," Xander offered, giving her hand a gentle squeeze as he deftly changed the subject.
"And I have you to thank for that," Dawn replied, smiling weakly. "This is getting to be a habit with you."
"I do seem to have a weak spot for the Summers women, don't I," Xander admitted, "but I don't suppose there's a 12-step program for that."
"I guess not." Dawn curled her fingers around Xander's, grasping his hand firmly in her own. "Thank you…for everything."
Now it was Xander's turn to smile. "Anytime, Dawn. Anytime."
The room lapsed into a comfortable silence, neither of them sure what to say, neither in any particular hurry to say it. A minute later, Xander was the first to speak.
"I'm sorry...about Stacey. I know what it's like to lose a friend."
Dawn closed her eyes, trying valiantly to hold back the tears. She didn't have time for this now. "You did what you had to," she assured him, her voice barely rising above a whisper. "Just promise me one thing.
Xander happily obliged. "Name it."
"Promise me it gets better?"
It didn't, and Xander knew it, but that wasn't something you shared at a time like this. "It does, Dawn. I promise…it's just going to take some time." Sometimes a well-intentioned lie was more appropriate than the truth.
Dawn accepted his words without comment, silently grieving for her lost friend as she composed herself. After a minute, she reopened her eyes, the apparent change in her demeanor nothing less than remarkable. The haunted look that had resided there only moments before was gone, replaced with a look of determination that Xander had seen many times before, in another girl bearing the same last name.
"I need you to promise me something else, Xander."
Xander gazed at her warily, searching her eyes for some sign of what she was thinking. "What's that, Dawn?"
"I need to tell you something, and I want you to swear to me that I tell you will stay between us."
Xander was instantly on guard, and rightly so. "Why do I get the distinct impression that I'm not going to like what you're about to tell me?"
Dawn had anticipated just that response. "Probably because you won't. I don't expect you to like what I have to say, Xander. I just expect you to keep it between you and me, at least for the time being."
That did little to persuade an otherwise reluctant Xander. "In case you'd forgotten, Dawn, keeping secrets tends to create problems in our little extended family."
"This isn't about honesty or trust, Xander. It's about doing what has to be done."
Actually, that's what it was precisely about, even if Dawn couldn't see it at the time. Of course, she could be excused for her shortsightedness, given what she'd just been through.
"It isn't that simple, Dawn. You're asking me to take an awful lot on faith."
Patience was not a quality Dawn had in good supply. "Look Xander, you either trust me or you don't. But we both know that if it was Buffy asking and not me, it wouldn't even be an issue."
"Is that what this is all about – Buffy?"
It was always about Buffy, whether or not anyone – the Slayer included – wanted it to be. "It only has to involve Buffy if we tell her. But I'd rather it didn't come to that."
"So it is about Buffy then. You're afraid of what she might do."
As usual, Xander had things half-right. "No, Xander. I'm not afraid of what she might do; I'm afraid of what she might not do."
"I'm not sure I follow you." And he wasn't sure he wanted to.
"I've told you all I'm going to, at least until you give me your word."
Xander considered his options, of which he presently had only one. If he didn't get the girl to confide in him, she was liable to go and do something reckless, even more so than usual. "All right," he conceded. "If that's the only way you're going to tell me, I promise: Whatever you say here stays between us."
"Scout's honor?"
"I got kicked out of the Boy Scouts, Dawn." Unjustly kicked out, he might have added. The fire had been entirely Jesse's fault. "But I swear not to tell anyone."
Dawn hesitated momentarily, unsure if she could trust him with what she was planning, but lacking in viable alternatives. "I know who turned Stacy."
That got Xander's attention. "She told you?"
"Not in so many words, but the message came across pretty clearly."
"How so?"
"Does the nickname "Niblet" ring any bells?"
Xander's eyes grew wide at the implication of what she had said. "Wait a second. You're telling me that Spike…"
The expression on Dawn's face answered his question. "Are we all on the same page now?"
He shook his head in disbelief. "That ungrateful son-of-a-bitch! We should have staked his ass a long time ago! When Buffy finds out about this…"
"Dammit Xander! You promised me," she reminded him.
"Dawn," he attempted to reason with the girl, "Your sister needs to know about this."
Dawn folder her arms defiantly, daring Xander to contradict her. "No. She doesn't."
"Dawn…please. Be reasonable here. Buffy needs to stop him. She needs to put an end this."
Dawn wasn't convinced. "Do you really think she would? After all this time, after everything Spike did to her, to you and Willow, do you honestly believe that she'll do now what she couldn't do before?"
"Look, I know Buffy has some unresolved issues when it comes to Spike, but we can't afford to ignore this. He has to be stopped, once and for all."
The young girl looked him squarely in the eyes, the resolve in her own quite apparent. "He will be," she stated calmly.
Xander didn't like where this was going. "And how exactly is that going to happen?"
"You and I are going to put him in the ground, once and for all." With a little help from our friends, she didn't add.
Nope, he didn't like it one bit. "I don't think I have to tell you that's a really bad idea."
"I know you, Xander. I know you want this just as much as I do. You need this, to pay him back for what he's done to Buffy…for what he's done to me."
"It doesn't matter what I want, Dawn. What matter's is that you're about to make a colossal mistake, and I can't sit by and allow that to happen. I won't allow that to happen "
"You're either with me or you're not, Xander. Make no mistake: I'm going after him, with or without your help. You can't stop me from doing that. If you want to protect me, to keep me safe, then help me get rid of that bastard once and for all."
"Dawn, I…" Xander started, only to be cut off by his younger friend.
"I know this isn't easy for you, Xander. I know how you feel about my sister, and I know that you don't want to keep anything from her, not anymore. But you have to believe that I'm doing what's best for her. I love her and I will always believe in her, but at the end of the day, I know her better than anyone. I know without a doubt that she won't be able to do what needs to be done. Spike has some kind of power over her. He knows how to get under her skin, how to fuck with her head. When the time comes, she'll hesitate, and he'll use that to his advantage. And I'll be damned if I let that monster kill anyone else I care about."
Xander bit his tongue, wanting to argue against this lunacy, but knowing that deep down, the younger girl was right. From Xander's vantage point, he had little choice in the matter. When Dawn Summers set her mind to something, there was no stopping her. It was either climb aboard the bandwagon, or get run over by it. Xander opted for the former approach; for in addition to being a sometime White Knight, the charter member of the Buffy Anne Summers fan club, and one hell of a glorified bricklayer, Alexander Harris was also a survivor, one schooled in the subtle nuances of good old-fashioned eye-for-an-eye vengeance. Especially when it came to Spike.
"So where do I sign up?"
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End Chapter 14.
As always, feedback is both requested and appreciated. Sorry about the delay in posting – I'm still in mourning about the impending series finale of BTVS. It's hard to believe there are only three episodes left.
Anyway, drop me a line and let me know what you think.
Until next time,
Rabid Squirrel.