Xander was back from moving the van within ten minutes. Ten minutes in which Wesley had elegantly shut down yet another irritated spat between Big Mike, Emmett, and himself. Wesley didn't scare easily, and neither of them had it in them to manage it. Maybe if Wesley had really been the Wyndam-Price he'd been ten years before, but not when he was faking it, as he was.

The one-eyed carpenter-turned-store manager came back in through the front door, a few steps behind the also-arriving John Casey, apparently returning from lunch. Or something along those lines. Xander's eye narrowed again, his brow thoughtful, as he arrowed his way through the store to the assistant manager's office.

"Wes, we have a potential issue," Xander said, as he closed the door behind him.

Wesley looked up, then shifted his glance towards the security camera high in the corner. He shook his head ever-so-slightly, then popped open his attache case. He grabbed a small bag and from it and tossed it to the younger man, who caught it, only bobbling it for a moment. Lack of depth perception, you know.

Xander opened the ties on the bag and emptied its contents onto his hand. He nodded silently to Wesley and then moved into the corner of the office, under the immobile camera, where he crouched down. Dumping the rest of the contents into the bag, Xander took one piece, inspected it, and then placed it on the ground, at the corner where the two walls met. With his thumb, he pressed the marked piece of wood flush with the wall, and then, with a modicum of effort, into the wall. He kept pushing it in deeper until it would go in no further.

Xander rocked back on his heels and looked at where he'd been working. If you didn't know to look for it, you'd never see it, but right there in the corner, at the base of the wall, a simple design seemed to be etched into the wood. Xander stood back up and walked to the front of the office, to the corner that the door was attached to. He shook another piece from the small bag and repeated what he'd done in the first corner.

* * * *

In the store's security room, the screen showing the assistant manager's office blipped, shifting to white noise, then shut down, replaced with a blinking 'NO SIGNAL' on the screen.

Under the Orange Orange Yogurt Shop, the screen showing the same location did likewise. Which made sense, since it was tied into the store's security system anyway.

* * * *

Xander repeated the process twice more, in the remaining two corners of the room, then stood up and looked at Wesley. Wesley closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating, then nodded. "Sanctum is active. So long as that door is closed, noone should be able to see or hear us."

The one who did the work let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Good. Wasn't sure I got that right."

Wesley smiled, but shook his head. "Xander, you might keep trying to make people think you're incompetent so they'll underestimate you, and that's a good idea, but you keep forgetting that I've known you for along the lines of ten years, and know at least some of what you're capable of. Now, what is it you wanted to talk about?"

Xander had the good graces to look a bit sheepish, but just smiled and shrugged. He pulled the laptop out of the bag he'd carried in earlier and powered it up, calling up some files. "It's about this guy." He turned the computer so Wesley could see it.

"Oh, dear lord!" Wesley responded, pulling his glasses from his face and a cloth from his pocket to wipe them with.

Xander snorted. Wesley looked at him, his eyebrows raised.

"Channel your Inner Watcher much, Wes?" His eyes glanced down at the glasses. Wesley's eyes followed, he blinked, and chuckled. This time he was the one with the good graces to appear embarrassed.

"Sorry, sorry. I was just surprised. You see, there was this fellow... well, actually, he wasn't human... it was after Sunnydale collapsed and while you were in London and then Africa." He shook his head and put his thoughts in order. "There was someone in a shape of a man - Illyria called him a 'creature' - who looked exactly like this. He acted as liaison to the Senior Partners. Very, very evil. But Angel drained and then killed him, so this can't be him. It just surprised me."

Xander paused for a long moment, digesting this. "Do Buff and the guys know that Deadboy killed someone who looked like a human? If not, I'd keep it that way. I don't think they'd take it very well."

"As far as I know, they don't," Wesley replied with a shrug. "It needed to be done, he did it. You and I both understand about doing things that need to be done, and I suspect that you might not be quite correct that the others don't understand that as well." He replaced his (now freshly cleaned) glasses back on his nose. "Now, what was this about?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. This guy, John Casey, working in the appliance department? I think he's active military."

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"After all the Slayers I've met and trained, I can recognize people who have unarmed combat experience without too much difficulty. They just move differently than others do. And with Soldier-Boy's memories, I recognize the US unarmed styles almost automatically. This guy knows 'em. But there's no reference to him being in the Armed Forces on his personnel record, and it doesn't feel like it's just something he picked up all slapdash and all. That makes me suspicious."

Wesley eyed Xander disbelievingly, but then realized that he had just said he knew some of what Xander could do, so it would probably be best to take him at his word. "Then I suggest you keep an eye on him. Not much else you can do at this juncture."

Xander shrugged again, and straightened up, closing the computer but leaving it there on the desk. He looked around. "I'm gonna need some more chairs in here. That one is okay, but I like the Executive chairs better. Can I leave you be for now?"

"Yes," Wesley answered. "I need to look over the sales receipts from last week anyway. It appears that what happened did so while the store manager was out on vacation."

Xander snorted again. "I'm not sure I want to know."

"Yes, well, when you accepted this manager position as part of your cover story, you let yourself in for this," Wesley replied, his British upper-lip coming into play.

Xander rolled his eye and headed for the door. "I'm going to get a few more chairs. Maybe see if they have a sofa. And I'm charging it to the Council."

As the door opened, Wes riposted, "You talk like I should care. I'm not a member of the damned thing anymore, as you'll recall."

Xander shook his head and left the room, leaving the door open.

* * * *

It was a few minutes later when Xander approached a shorter man with a beard. "Aha, there you are. Mister Grimes, right? How would you like to make some money?"

"Morgan," Morgan replied. "And always. What do I need to do?"

"Well, I need to pick up a few more chairs for my office, and I need someone to set them up. Those standard chairs are all right, but I like the executive ones better. I'll pay for them myself, of course, and you won't even need to leave the store. How's that sound?"

"Fine by me," Morgan replied. He didn't like to work, but he knew how to do it, at least. Especially if he was gonna make money on it.

"That one and that one, then," the one-eyed man said, pointing to a standard chair and an executive chair. "Can you bring them up to the register?"

Morgan could, and said so. He followed words with actions, and soon enough, both chairs were rung up on Xander's credit card. Then he followed all the way back to the Assistant Manager's office, and blinked, "You're the new manager, then?" He sounded a little irritated about it, but that was to be expected. He'd been hoping that Chuck would have gotten the position.

"Yeah, sent by Corporate to look into things," Xander replied with a nod.

"Then why are you buying these with your own money?" Morgan asked.

"It's easier to get reimbursed than having to go through the process of requisitioning it," Xander said, snagging a folding chair on the way in. Wesley had looked up when they arrived, nodded, and went back to what he was working on. "The easier my life is, the better I like it."

Morgan felt a full-body shiver as he entered the small office, and looked around to see if he could find the source, apparently unsuccessfully. With the door closed behind him, he settled down to setting up the first chair, doing it quickly and efficiently. The faster he was, the quicker he got his money and could get out of here, where it felt like he was betraying his best friend.

Xander, in the meantime, set up the folding chair next to Wesley's chair and looked over his shoulder, saying nothing. It took less than ten minutes for the Buy More worker to set up the chair, and he got up and sat in it to test it. "Feels solid enough," he said, beginning to stand up to get to the other chair.

Wesley glanced up and lifted his hand, "Corpus Corporis, Somnus."

Morgan slumped forward, asleep, and Xander bolted out of his chair to grab him by the back of the shirt, and then glared at Wesley. "Geez, Wes. A little warning, maybe? He could have cracked his head open on the desk."

Turning to look back at the slumped man, Xander added, "Well, this is a bit creepy." Wes, for his part, just smirked and went back to what he'd been working on, as if turning a body off like flipping a light switch was commonplace.

"How do you think I feel about it, huh?" came a voice that didn't match either of the other two men. "Heya, Xander. What happened to your eye?"

While holding Morgan's shirt, it looked like Xander had stuck his hand through some other person's head, his hand entering through the back and exiting the mouth. But if the fact the dark-haired one was speaking was any indication, he was fine. Slowly, he stood up and drifted to one side, even as Xander pulled Morgan Grimes' sleeping body backwards to rest on the chair.

"Oh yeah, you weren't actually there for that, were you?" Xander said. "The First Evil's top dog, a misogynistic..." Willow would crow if she ever heard that Xander had used a word like that. "... priest poked it out with his thumb. No worries. It's an old injury. Still hurts occasionally, but I'm used to it."

Then he grinned and added, "And hello to you, Jono. Or, should I say, 'yo, supah-star!'?"

The ghost of Jonathan Levinson rolled his eyes and put his hands on his hips. "I'm never gonna live that down, am I?"

Xander continued to grin. "No, not so much. I'm just teasing you, man. If I'd known about it, I probably would have ended up doing something like that myself. Heck, I did worse myself, even. But it's good seeing you, man. I'd offer to shake hands, but I don't think it'd work out."

A dubious look popped up on Jonathan's face when Xander mentioned having done worse, but he waved it off. "So, from your complete lack of surprise plus the fact that you had a spell ready to put Morgan to sleep, I'm guessing you knew I was here? And what's with the magic I felt as I-- as we passed over the threshold into the room?"

"Well, it was a fair guess," Xander said. "One of the Slayers spotted you. Not in the 'seeing' sense, of course, but they felt your presence, and, after all, the guy is your cousin. At first we all thought you were just missing Andrew, so found the nearest geeky guy who matched up with him."

This time, Jonathan glared, and Xander laughed. "Kidding, kidding. But yeah, we made a fairly educated guess. Wills said that she thought it was likely you hadn't moved on, because you hadn't completed your goals in this life. That you were a... wait a second, I remember. A dogtag?" He shook his head and took a pad out of his pocket, to open it. "Oh, here it is. A dybbuk? She said you'd know what it was."

Jonathan looked thoughtful, and then nodded, "I do, and she's probably right. I have been feeling a bit... empty." He looked down at his translucent body. "No pun intended."

Xander just grinned again. Though he'd never had much to do with the shorter man (now ghost), it was incredibly good to see people from Sunnydale no matter how it happened. And, for a ghost, Jonathan was a lot more confident than he had been before, which was, in Xander's opinion, of the good. "Oh, and the magic - well, that one, at least - is a sanctum spell. So long as the door is closed, such that there is an unbroken line on all of the walls, no matter how small, no signal - video or audio - can escape. It's the same spell we use on most of the Slayer houses, some kind of... Wes?"

"It's a type of rune magic," Wesley said, without looking up. "The source is Old Norse, originally, a way to make a place 'safe.' As an aside, so long as the door is closed, noone outside will be able to hear us talking either." He paused. "And, considering that..." He looked at the door, and intoned, "Obfirmo." Then he went back to his work.

"Elegant," Jonathan said, approvingly. "And I'm guessing your cellular phones and the like are enchanted to work through it." While the other two nodded, he blinked, and said, "Wait, you said 'slayers'? One of the Slayers felt me? Someone killed Buffy?" He seemed saddened, thinking the class protector was gone... even though he'd tried to kill her a time or two himself. "Or was it the other one, what was her name... Faith?"

Xander shook his head immediately, "No, no. Both Buffy and Faith are alive and well. See, there's been a bit of a change. In order to survive fighting the First Evil - which would be the creature that convinced Andrew to kill you - we got desperate. Willow used the Scythe, a weapon connected to the Slayer line, to turn every potential Slayer actually into a Slayer. There are nearly 2,000 Slayers now."

Jonathan's jaw hung open, looking awed. "Two thousand Slayers? You're friggin' kidding me."

"Just the truth, man. Scout's honor," Xander replied. It probably would have helped if he'd ever actually been a Boy Scout, but that's neither here nor there. "And, in any case, it was Colleen that felt your presence, and she was here long enough to determine that it was you. Or that it was Morgan, that is. Research did the rest."

"Colleen?" Jonathan thought for a moment. "I don't remember anyone by that name around here much."

"You probably know her by her first name," Xander said. "Louise."

Jonathan blinked and, once again, his mouth dropped open. "Lou... as in Chuck's Lou?"

"I guess," Xander said, with a shrug. "She didn't talk much about it, other than not being particular happy, but wanting to be sure to report what she felt anyway."

"Wow," Jonathan muttered to himself. "Lou's a Slayer. I couldn't tell at all."

"I'm sure you would have if you'd known," Xander said, though he wasn't actually sure about that at all.

Jonathan waved it off, and shifted topics again, "So, you had a fairly good guess I was here, and came looking for me. Was it just to tell me I was a dybbuk?"

Xander smiled uneasily, and lifted one finger to scratch under his nose. He glanced over at Wesley, and then looked back, took a deep breath, and replied.

"We came to ask for your help."

Author's Notes: With thanks to my reviewers (I love reviews!), I was reminded that Adam Baldwin (John Casey) also played a role on Angel, that of Marcus Hamilton. Also, John Casey has given indications on the show that he is a former Air Force pilot.

Rachel Bilson (.com/name/nm1377375/), who portrayed Lou, also portrayed Colleen in BtVS. Colleen only appeared once, in the episode Dirty Girls (7x18) and, in fact, only appeared in one scene - Xander's semi-erotic dream where she and Caridad (Dania Ramirez, who plays Maya on Heroes) tried to seduce him.

I don't speak Latin. I used to get the translations: Corpus Corporis is 'Body', Somnus is 'Sleep,' and 'Obfirmo' is 'lock.' If there's anyone out there who'd like to help me with my Latin in the future, please feel free to review (in private or not).

A dybbuk (.org/wiki/Dybbuk) is a possessing spirit in Jewish folklore, one that usually sticks around because the soul has not completed their role in life. Even though the Wikipedia article listed here says so, not all dybbuks are malicious. Jonathan certainly isn't. Also, both Jonathan and Willow are (at least originally) Jewish, so it's quite likely that both know what that word means, especially since both of them likely have done a lot of reading related to the supernatural.

The 'nearly 2000' number for the number of Slayers comes from the Buffy Season 8 comic books. I'm not using them complete, but I'll probably pick-and-choose other little details from them at other times.

And yes, Jonathan is one my favorite Buffy characters. Specifically, my second-favorite relatively-normal one (after Xander). So when I started writing this, I knew I was going to have to find a way to bring him into things.