A/N I thought that the story was done, but a question by a reviewer prompted this little scene. Apply the usual disclaimers here

CONVERSATIONS WITH PEOPLE THAT WISH YOU WERE DEAD

'I can't believe I let my guard down this badly' Xander thought as he noticed that the wall was approaching at an extreme rate of speed. He closed his eye just prior to impact; it hurt but the fact that he'd been pummeled on an almost daily basis for the last 15 years meant that the effect wasn't as devastating as it might have been. He opened his eye once he hit the floor but due to the dust and the damage all he could see was a pair of boots headed his way. Actually it didn't matter that all he could see was boots, he knew who was kicking the snot out of him. He'd been expecting this for over a year and hoped that it was just bad luck that they would show up after the craptastic day he'd had. He felt the hands of his assailant grab him by the shirt and throat then he was pulled into a vertical position with his feet at least six inches off the floor.

"Didn't think I'd forget did ya boytoy?"

Xander tried to answer, but the hand at his throat was too tight and all he could do was gurgle.

"Sorry" she said with a smirk "but we wouldn't want to disturb the neighbors with all that screaming now would we."

Xander glared down into Faith's intense brown eyes "sorry" he managed to rasp out.

"For what" Faith began but before she could continue her whole body seized up and she collapsed, releasing Xander.

"That" he said as he stood and put the overcharged stun gun back into his pocket. "Now I know you can't move and that's gonna last for a while, the gun's made for working on demons so it'll keep a slayer down for about fifteen minutes. You can't talk right now, but give it a minute or two and that should be back to normal" he said as he picked her up and deposited her into an overstuffed chair. "Now you may have noticed that I'm not killing you and that's the way I'd like to keep things so if you keep your homicidal inclinations in check I'll tell you everything you wanted to know about what happened to Robin; but if you decide to attack" Xander added, pulling out a large and lethal looking hand-gun "well I won't hesitate to retire you". His eyes grew wide for a second and then he went over to the bed and pulled a small case out from under it while muttering "I can't believe I almost forgot".

Faith was trying to get something, anything to move but her body just wasn't under her control at the moment. She looked up to see Xander headed back towards her with a hypodermic in his hand. Her eyes went wide and she tried to shake her head, or move her arm or resist in some way but the needle slipped easily into her arm and Xander pushed the plunger home. He looked up and saw the question in her eyes.

"Basically you'll be a normal human for about twenty four hours which gives me plenty of time to get away if I need to; it's a variation of the Cruciamentum drugs."

"Bastard" she managed to rasp out; she tried to resist as he secured her to the chair she was in, but her body was still refusing to cooperate.

"I can be" he replied evenly "when it's necessary, you should have remembered that." Then he gave Faith a speculative look "out of curiosity, who told you where to find me?"

Faith debated for a second, then simply told the truth "Angel".

"Deadboy still keeping tabs on me; can't say I'm surprised. Did he know you were coming here to kill me?"

"He knew I wasn't coming to thank you."

"Wow, that humanity thing is still a work in progress; I was kinda hoping he'd be a little further along by now. So is he still living in the desert outside of Kingman Arizona with that werewolf chic?"

Faith's eyes widened in surprise even as she nodded her head "you know where he lives?"

"Of course, it is kinda my job after all; you know, just in case he finally falls completely in love with her and Angelus comes out to play again. What, did he really think he was safely hidden away?"

"Yeah"

"Huh, well in that case I'll be sure and drop by and thank him personally for your visit."

"That's assuming you live past this night."

"Yeah, that's true."

"Not smart."

"I dunno Faith; I'd say it's a pretty safe bet. I mean even if you get out of that chair and decide to attack me, right now I'm stronger than you and probably faster as well, not to mention I'm armed and you're not. But all that aside, I know your impulsive but you do think things through when you're given a chance so I'm betting that once I'm done talking you won't be so hep on killing me."

"That would take some pretty fast talking."

"Well, you know me; talking is one of the things I do best."

"I remember you talking yourself into more shit than you talked yourself out of" she paused "how about I give it a try and you tell me what I get wrong?"

"Fair enough."

"See, the way I figure it, Robbie was just you following your pattern."

"What pattern?"

"Well B ditches your lame ass for Angel, so you arrange for him to go to hell; Robbie gets the nod in front of you from the Council so you arrange for him to be 'retired' or maybe you got pissed cause I picked him over you, either way it's your pattern. You get jealous and take out whoever got what you wanted even if you can't have it."

Xander looked at her for a moment, an incredulous look on his face, then he just started laughing. Not a hysterical or forced laugh, but a deep kind of laugh that comes from the soul. Finally he wound down "man that's good" he wheezed then looked Faith in the eyes, "if you really believe that then you're a lot dumber than I thought because if you're right then I would have killed off Oz, Kennedy and Tara for daring to date Willow."

"Maybe, but so far I haven't you saying anything that makes me think I'm wrong."

Xander looked at her for a second then sighed and sat down "basically I killed Robin and sent Angel to hell for the same reasons, but it wasn't jealousy. Sure, I was jealous of Angel, he got Buffy and I was jealous of Robin for getting the top Council spot but that wasn't the reason I did what I did."

"Yeah, then what was it?"

"You ever talk to anyone about what was going on in the Dale right around when you got called?"

"B mentioned a few things when I first showed up and Fang would go on about that stuff sometimes when he visited."

"Did he ever talk about grabbing Giles right before the whole Acathla thing went down?"

"Nah, never mentioned it, neither did B."

"Figures" Xander said with some bitterness in his voice "well then; let me fill you in. We were all in the Library when Angelus sent us a message. Buffy went all Buffy on us and did a Lone Ranger. While she was gone Dru and a bunch of lackeys hit us. Kendra was killed, Cordy ran, Giles was taken, my arm was broken and Willow was in a coma. Later, when I knew Willow was gonna try and re-soul the bastard; I didn't tell Buffy and she sent him to hell. The point is I didn't do it because of jealousy, I did it because he was responsible for all the pain we'd gone through; Willow in a coma, Giles tortured, Kendra and Ms. Calendar dead; so I figured he should pay for all the pain he caused us. And to tell you the truth it gave me one hell of a happy when I found out that he rotted in a hell dimension for over 100 years."

"Fascinating: really, thanks for the history lesson X, but what does that have to do with Robin?"

"You see Faith, I arranged for Angel to go to hell because he hurt the people I cared about; I killed Robin for the same reason."

"What the hell are you talkin about?"

"He wanted to be the Head Watcher but Giles was still in great health so he helped the matter along by arranging the hit that killed Buffy and Giles, he punished me by arranging the attack that carved up Linda Travers' face and he was working on a scheme to kill off Wills and Dawnie in one shot. He hurt the people I care about so he paid the price."

"That's bullshit" Faith fired back "there's no way he had anything to do with B getting shot."

"He could and he did" Xander replied, unfazed by Faith's anger "I tracked down the trigger men and 'interrogated' them for a couple of weeks. They gave up the contractor and when I 'talked' to him, he gave up Robin."

"Yeah, I'm sure he told you the truth" Faith commented, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Yeah, at first I thought he was full of it too, but the guy taped every meeting he had with anyone that was looking to hire him, kind of an insurance policy, and when I watched em, there was Robin going on about when he wanted it done, precautions the shooters would have to take, everything. Even then I hoped it was faked, or someone that was trying to impersonate Robin, but when I checked the bank records, the withdraws on his account match the payments made to the hitters exactly."

"Assuming for a second that I believe you, why didn't you cap him right then?"

"Because it took me a while to put all the pieces together; I retired him two weeks after I knew for sure that he was guilty. I didn't find out about the other stuff he'd done and tried till after he was dead."

Faith was shaking her head in denial, her eyes battered and devastated at the possibility of Xander telling the truth. He knew she needed more proof, but he also knew the price that would come with that proof. Silently he turned her chair until it faced the television, he turned and retrieved a tape from the same case that the hypodermic was in and put the tape in a VCR, stood back and watched as Faith's world imploded.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Xander could feel some parts of him cramping up, and others that were numb to the touch but he wasn't about to move. He was holding Faith as the slayer cried in his arms. He had never seen her cry before, like himself; she was very private with her emotions, at least the true ones. One thing he had recognized was the look in her eyes right before she broke down, the look of stunned betrayal and loss. Xander had worn that one a few times himself and considering her past he was pretty sure that it was no stranger to Faith as well. So now he held her as the grief and pain poured out; the one thing he was thankful for was that he had remembered to give Faith the shot, otherwise she would have hugged him into a Xander shaped pretzel during to her emotional outburst.

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you" she finally managed to blurt out in between sobs.

"That's OK" he replied "I had trouble believing it at first, I can only imagine how you're feeling right now."

"Bullshit Boytoy, you know exactly how I'm feeling cause you've been where I am a time or two."

Xander blushed a little and marveled at her insight "true enough" he allowed and said no more. Faith's breathing was becoming shallow and regular, and considering the emotional blows that she had endured that day Xander was not surprised to see her eyes closed. He sat there and waited until he was sure that she was sound asleep before he gently moved out from under Faith and tucked her into bed. Then, moving as quietly as possible, he made his way out into the apartment's living room, laid down on the couch and closed his eyes; sleep didn't come easily.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

As is usual with a slayer, Faith went from asleep to wide awake in an instant. Her eyes took in her surroundings as she tried to remember where she was. Faith tensed as she heard movement, but the smell of coffee and the smell of Xander told her all she needed to know about where she was, unfortunately it didn't tell her what to do about the situation she was in. She had come to kill him but had ended up breaking down in his arms. Inadvertently she reddened a bit, she had never broken down like that in front of anyone, ever; and to have done it in front of a man who was a possible enemy just added a bit of insult to the mix. 'The hell with this' Faith thought angrily and got out of bed and headed for the smell of coffee; she paused as she saw Xander sitting at a small table with a mug in front of him, he was reading the paper. She saw his eye flick towards her, then go back to the paper.

"Mornin Faith; coffee's over there" he indicated the direction with a bob of his head "cream and sugar are right there if you want em"; he went back to reading his paper.

Faith was puzzled by Xander's seeming indifference to the events of yesterday, but she went along with the appearance of normality for the moment and fixed herself a cup, just a splash of cream, and sat down across from him. There were about two minutes where the only sounds in the apartment were the sipping of coffee and the rustling of the paper. Finally Xander sighed and got the conversation going again.

"I know you know what I do, but I need to ask you a few things and to do that I need to know everything you know about Blade Runners, like where we came from and what we're supposed to do."

Faith was surprised at this line of questioning, she had figured he'd want to talk about her meltdown last night and had been preparing her defenses accordingly, now she switched gears and started "well, I know you all started up about four years ago and you're supposed to cap off those fake humans. I don't know how the whole thing got started or how you got involved." There was silence for a moment as she watched Xander collect his thoughts.

"Well then, its high time you heard the whole story" and with that he launched into the story of the Senior Partners, Tyrell, Riley and their plans and real purpose; it was a lot for her to take in especially since her world view had been so roughed up yesterday. After Xander finished, Faith sat there and tried to assimilate everything in her head finally she looked up "so let me get this straight, you saw this shit commin and got together with Captain Cardboard and started your own Demon hunting outfit right in plain sight."

"Yep"

"The Council know about what you really do?"

"A couple of the higher ups, Dawnie and Wills, but that's it."

"So there's a bunch of humans out there doing the Slayer's job; cause they went bye-bye, and if anyone sees you take some demon down you just tell em that its some kind of fucked up skin job."

"Yeah, that about covers it."

"Huh" she said after a moment or two "so what did ya need to ask me."

"Before we get to that, I need you to swear to me that what I'm about to talk about stays between us, unless I tell you otherwise; cause if you talk then a lot of people could get hurt and then I'd come and find you."

Faith saw the coldness in Xander's eye when he said this and she knew he would back up his threat no matter what. Back in the day she'd heard of things he'd done when people he'd trusted had crossed him and just the stories had given her nightmares; so she knew that if she swore, she'd have to back it up. "Yeah, my word on it".

He held her gaze for a moment more then nodded "well to start with, you're not the only slayer still on the planet"; and despite her stunned expression he started telling her about how he and a few remaining council members were finding and recruiting new slayers as they were called and keeping them secret, for now."

"So what's your long term plan?"

"Well, when they get old enough and trained enough we're gonna start seeding them into Blade Runner units all over the world. That way we should be able to get a foot up on the demonic threat everywhere and maybe start to push back."

"Sounds good, so what do ya need from me?"

"Huh"

"Well ya said ya wanted to ask me somethin, and I figure ya need me to do somethin with all this Slayer/Blade Runner stuff."

"You're right, I do need to ask you something, but I want you to understand that this is me asking you a favor; not some kind of 'you owe me' situation. If you hear me out then decide to walk out that door, that's cool and I won't think any less of you; but the truth is I could really use your help. Ya see, I've got two problems; the first is training. We've got all these baby slayers and we really need a pro to train em up, but they're all off planet now except for you. The second thing is I need someone to back up the Blade Runners here in LA. Unfortunately one person can't do both but anything you could do would be appreciated."

"Why do ya need me as backup here, what's so different about LA?"

"LA is the home base of the Senior Partners so here's where they're the strongest; if any one from the old days started working here, well they'd know about it and you'd probably be dead pretty soon after that. Unfortunately here you've got to be covert. Then to top it off, the asshole that runs the unit here in LA is one of their plants, so if the regular Blade Runner's get too good they meet with an untimely accident. The death-rate for the LA unit is three times what it is for any other unit."

"Couldn't ya just off the fucker?"

"I wish it were that simple, but he's got the unit stacked with his flunkies so even if he were gone, well it would still be business as usual, plus it would tip off the Senior Partners that someone was on to their game and dealing with em would get twice as hard."

Faith thought about what Xander had told her, finally she came to a decision "I think I can help you with both your problems."

Xander brightened "how could you do that?"

"I figured I would go be the den mother to all these newbies but on my way I'd recruit Fang to help cover LA. He dealt with the Senior Partners for years and knows how they operate; plus you know how stealthy he can be."

Xander leaned back, more than a little surprised at Faith's suggestion but he could understand it, she would want to give others what she never had and at the same time she would pull Angel back into the fight, believing that the vampire was good underneath it all. He nodded "deal, but any info on the baby Slayers stays with you and you only. I get that you trust Angel and think he's a good guy, but I don't trust him the way that you do, so no info to Deadboy on the SIT's and we're cool." He sat back smiling "actually having him in LA makes sense; he started this whole mess, he might as well be here to help clean it up."

Faith looked at him sharply "what is it with you and Fang anyway, and don't say jealousy cause I know that's bullshit; or at least not the whole story."

Xander looked in Faith's direction but she could see that his thoughts were a million miles away, the moment stretched out but finally he gave a little jerk and answered her. "Yeah, there was jealousy at first, but what really kicked it for me was how he was helping out; I mean he pops out of the shadows and gives Buffy a cryptic warning, he wanted the benefits of doing good but he wasn't willing to put himself on the line to do it. Then, when Buffy had to face the master, everyone said she was gonna die but I figured there was some way to help so I went to find him. The bastard was sitting in his room reading a book; now I don't know about you but if the person I loved was facing a life or death challenge then I'd be right there by their side, not sitting around doing nothing cause some damned prophecy said that there's no hope. That's when I really got my mad on for Angel, he said he loved her, but he wasn't willing to risk everything for her; and that's his pattern. He's never been willing to put everything on the line, or at least I've never seen or heard of him doing it. I mean the whole Black Thorne thing that happened down here, everyone dies but him, color me stunned."

Faith started to reply but held her comments back, she had asked Xander for his reasons and he'd given them; she might not agree with him but now at least she knew where he was coming from.

"So, when you taking off?"

"Anxious to get rid of me there, stud?"

"Nah, just wanted to tell people you'd be coming so you don't get shot on sight."

The casual way he said this told Faith all she needed to know about how serious he was taking security. "I figured I'd head over to Arizona this afternoon, talk to Fang and catch a flight from there."

"Sounds good, when you call I'll let you know where you're going."

"Cool, so" she asked, looking around "where's the shower in this place?"

The End