Chapter 16.

/ Xander's thoughts /

% Jolinar's thoughts %

#"Tok'ra or Goa'uld voice"#

Fridays were a wonderful invention. The last day before the weekend. And a day to get paid. Not that he had a job, but Giles had promised to pay him for the gun he'd given him earlier in the week. Xander found himself whistling a tune. He stopped and had to laugh when he realized what song it was.

% What is so funny? Is the hyena back? % Jolinar seemed a little worried. While Xander had little experience dealing with anger, Jolinar had never been possessed before. The experience had left him wary of it happening again.

/ No. It was just the song that popped into my head was a little ironic. Do you know the song Jolene by Dolly Parton? Here, let me remember the song for you. / And he accessed a memory of listening to the country song on the radio.

/ Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I'm begging of you please don't take my man
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
Please don't take him just because you can
Your beauty is beyond compare
With flaming locks of auburn hair
With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green
Your smile is like a … da da da. /

The memory faded out. He couldn't remember any more lyrics.

% That was very good. I could actually hear her performing the song for a while. Would it be possible to hear it in it's entirety? I'd like to commit it to memory. % Jolinar asked.

/ Not a problem. / Xander answered. Or maybe it was a problem. Police tape and two cruisers surrounding the back door he was planning on using. The chalk outline on the ground told him all he needed to know and he secretly hoped all his friends were okay. They were, after all, the most likely people to use the library's back door.

But it would be some time before they'd usually get here. So he climbed into school through a window and made his way to a computer lab instead. Logging on to his Napster account he quickly downloaded the song Jolene and two remakes for Jolinar to compare. He and Jolinar listened to them for about ten minutes.

% That is a beautiful song. Very sad. % Jolinar stated.

/ Yeah, I think it's the closest thing on Earth to a song with your name in it. Also, pretty much all country songs are sad. It's just kind of the style. / Xander explained.

% There are other styles? % Jolinar inquired.

/ Sure. / Xander and Jolinar spent the next half hour downloading and listening to different types of music.

Jolinar liked everything but rap. % I'm not sure it qualifies as music. There weren't any musical notes. Just talking and swearing. %

Noise in the halls alerted them to the fact that school was about to start. He went searching for Giles and the gang. They definitely weren't in the library. Some cops were in there instead. He finally found the gang by Buffy's locker. He was trying to get Giles out of Ms. Calendar's grasp and alone so he could warn him about the cops in the library, but somehow got a remedial computer class this Saturday for his troubles. The really surprising thing was that Buffy asked him to come along on patrol that night. She wanted to see how the training with Angel was going. He was so flattered, Buffy had never asked him to patrol before, that he completely forgot to ask Giles about the money he was owed. Or warn him about the cops in the library.

Buffy was annoyed but Xander was worried. The cops in the library plus Giles missing didn't add up to anything good in his book. Buffy was about to call Giles when the delivery van pulled up. He and Buffy attacked and were already handling the three vamps pretty easily when Angel showed up. At even odds, the vamps didn't stand a chance. Xander didn't even make a move on his own vamp. Just kept it busy until Buffy stabbed it in the back.

"Not bad Xander. Those were some good moves." Buffy complimented him.

"You were holding back." Angel stated.

Xander shrugged, "Didn't have to attack. I had you two to back me up." Xander saw Buffy make her thinking face as she considered that new information.

Then Buffy's face changed as she made a realization, she turned to Angel, "Wait! How did you know about this?"

Angel inspected the cooler. "It's delivery day. Everybody knows about this. They only ruined one bag."

"Do you guys think you could make sure the hospital gets the rest?" Buffy asked.

Xander nodded. "We got it Buff."

"Thanks. I'm worried about Giles. He was supposed to meet me here." Buffy explained.

Xander agrees, "Yeah, me too. There were some cops in the library earlier today, so check the police station if he's not home."

"The police were there? Why didn't you tell me?" Buffy asked incredulously.

"Well because maybe it was private and none of our business. I was going to ask him about it alone and then decide if there was anything we could do to help or if it should be left alone." Xander explained. "Tell you what. You go see if he's okay. If he's not at home or at the cop shop, give us a call at Angel's and we'll help look for him."

Buffy took off. Xander waited until she was gone before going to the cooler. He opened it, took out the ruined bag and tossed it to Angel. "You want any more?"

Angel caught the bag. He took a sniff and closed his eyes. "I can't."

Xander shut the cooler and started carrying it to the hospital. "Suit yourself. You are a vampire though and it's just going to go to waste if you don't." Xander dropped the cooler off and turned around. The bag was gone, Angel was back in game face, and his lips were a little red. Xander said nothing. "So, we going to train tonight?"

"That depends. I understand that you're not exactly human any more." Angel replied as he morphed back to his regular face. At Xander's look he explained, "Willow let it slip last night."

"Anyone else know?" Xander asked as he knelt in front of the car. He pulled out a plastic baggie and scooped some of the ash into the bag, then zipped it shut.

"That other teacher of yours. Miss Calendar." Angel answered, watching.

That could explain why she was so keen on getting Xander into the Saturday computer class when he was now doing fine in that subject. "Okay." Xander said and let Jolinar take over and introduce himself.

After the meet and greet, Xander took control again. "Fine, you guys have been introduced. Can we train now?" As he climbed into the dead vampires' car.

"What are you doing?" Angel asked.

"They're not using it." Xander reasoned.

"It's probably stolen." Angel retorted but got in.

"Maybe." Xander admitted as he took off. He parked a block away from Angel's place, just in case it really was stolen.

They sparred for only an hour hand to hand. But went at it for two hours with the swords and another hour with staffs to round out the night.

"You didn't ask." Xander stated.

"Ask what?" Angel narrowed his eyes.

"The girls were very keen on finding out what it's like having Jolinar inside me. But you barely said a word." Xander clarified.

"I know what it's like to have someone else in your head. I deal with it every night. I just hope that your friend is nicer than mine." That was the last thing Angel said until he had dropped off Harris at home.

Jeff Gervais made his rounds through the Sunnydale morgue. He was new and his boss had told him that corpses sometimes went missing around here. So he was supposed to check that they were all still here. He had almost laughed in the guy's face. It was certainly an interesting way to jerk around the new guy, but harmless enough he supposed. So he went and did as he was asked. He figured someone would jump out of somewhere to try to scare him as he did this, so he tried to remain ready.

Suddenly, he was tackled from behind and a plastic bag is forced over his head. This was not the surprise he was expecting. He struggled for a bit but was quickly forced into a storage unit.

Jeff quickly removed the bag from his head and took a deep breath of the chilled air. He kicked the door open. The units were equipped with release levers on the inside for just such an occasion. What he expected to see was one of his stupid colleagues grinning stupidly after pulling that stupid stunt. A plastic bag on his head? They could have killed him! Instead what he saw was the clearly still dead body that had been brought in that day walking out of the morgue.

When he tried to explain it to his superior, the man didn't bat an eye.

"So, Mr. Henry left us. Figured as much. Did he attack you?" the supervisor calmly stated.

"Yeah. He put a plastic bag over my head and threw me into a storage unit." Gervais dumbfoundedly explained. He had expected a reaction. Fear, disbelief, mocking laughter that he fell for their prank, anything. His boss being ho-hum about this was the last thing he imagined.

"Well, you survived." his boss waved away any concerns. "Surviving your first encounter and not going crazy is half the battle here." He actually smiled. "The rest of the boys will give you a rundown on the rest of the security measures we have to keep the living alive. And they'll invite you to bet on their pool of 'who will wake up?'. Feel free to play or not as you like. But my advice to you is to never bet against bodies from the high school waking up until you're more experienced. Way too many of the ones from there walk back out under their own power." He paused and took a sip of water. "So, go ahead and take a nap. We have sleeping quarters here if you like. It tends to be safer than going home at night. We also have a large selection of very cheap booze. We find it tends to help calm the nerves after your first experience."

At the briefing the next day, Daniel and Sam had good news. "We found him." Daniel announced. He produced a file folders for Jack, Teal'c and Hammond. "The person you're looking at is Alexander LaVelle Harris. We assume the Z or X sound we heard was short for 'Xander'. An uncommon, though not unheard of, nickname for Alexander. He's a 17 year old junior at Sunnydale High School. A 'C' student since elementary school, his name didn't come up much in school records until last year. When he was involved in several attacks on students."

"He attacked other students?" O'Neill interrupted.

"If he were doing the attacking, would not your police forces apprehend him, O'Neill?" Teal'c questioned.

Sam nodded. "Exactly. His former principal had nothing but good things to say about him. Up until the point were the principal died."

"Died how exactly." O'Neill queried.

Daniel exchanged a look with Sam before answering, "He was eaten by wild animals."

Jack put his head in his hands.

"In his office." Daniel continued.

Jack put his head on the table.

"In broad daylight." Daniel finished.

Jack started banging his head on the table. After a few blows he sat up, "This is giving me a headache."

"Pounding your head against a hard surface will often accomplish that, O'Neill." Teal'c admonished.

Jack gave him a sarcastic grin, "Thanks Teal'c." then he turned back to Daniel. "What does the current principal say about him?"

Daniel and Sam looked at each other again. They had talked long and hard about this. But decided that leaving Buffy's name out would draw more suspicion than leaving it in. They weren't, however, able to warn Teal'c or Jack before hand. "Well, sir. Nothing good." Sam answered. "In fact, there was so much change from one principal to the other that we ran a check on the reports that each principal gave a random sample of children. While the late Principal Flute gave mostly good reports on each student. Principal Snyder didn't give a single positive report in our sample. We even doubled the sample size, but were still unable to come up with a single positive report for a student. Though, that did show us another pattern."

Another shared look and Daniel continued, "Principal Snyder seemed to focus most of his ire on four people. Three students and the librarian, Dr. Rupert Giles."

"The plot thickens." Hammond settled into his chair. "Is our friend Mr. Harris among these three students."

"Yes, sir." Sam took up the thread, "Though interestingly enough, when we searched all the reports for the four of them, neither he nor Dr. Giles was listed as the 'leader' of the 'delinquents' as he called them. He blames the trouble they get in on one Buffy Summers." Looks were exchanged among SG-1. "There's also a Willow Rosenberg rounding out quartet."

"Tell me about this Buffy Summers." Hammond ordered.

"Well, there's not much to tell sir." Carter replied. "There's not much info available except for the school reports, and I don't trust those. We've got a picture of her at least. And if you don't mind me saying, she doesn't look like the leader of a delinquent gang."

O'Neill added, "Sir, Daniel and I both met the principal. He didn't strike either of us as a nice guy. It could just be that this..." he looked at the folder for effect, "Summers girl is simply standing up to a mean and overbearing principal. Just looking at her picture says 'cheerleader' not 'delinquent'."

"I agree." General Hammond nodded. "But her connection to Mr. Harris can't be overlooked. When you get back from your next mission, I would like you to find out all you can on all four of those people."

"Next mission, sir?" O'Neill perked up.

"Yes, SG-2 went on a standard recon of P3X-775. They're overdue by several hours now and we've been unable to raise them by radio." Hammond explained.

"We'll see what we can do sir." O'Neill replied.

"They just handed you SG-2's weapons and remote transmitters? Offered no further explanation?" Hammond asked from the base of the ramp.

"Only that they had been accused of a crime and sent through the Stargate to some sort of prison." O'Neill answered.

"What crime?" Hammond wondered.

"They said it wasn't our concern and sent us straight to the Stargate. I figured that we either needed backup or a different strategy with people who can beam us around at will." O'Neill stated.

"No, you did the right thing returning to base. From what you tell me, this has become a diplomatic problem. That means SG-9." Hammond decided. "Debrief in one hour. Then you'll start looking for more information on our Sunnydale problem."

A/N: "Jolene." Made famous by Dolly Parton. I don't own. Really good song.

Napster. Didn't technically come online until 1999 according to Wikipedia. Also don't own. Just playing with the timeline again.

Jeff Gervais and Ricky Dunham. Took two comedians' names who I was watching and switched them for some misc character names. It's probably easier to see side by side like this.

P3X-775 – Season 2 Episode 3. SG-1 finds a man in the forest and get sent to a penal colony. In cannon, they befriend Linea (The destroyer of worlds) and escape. SG-2 took that mission while SG-1 was meeting with the Tok'ra.