Title: Emerald Spark (19/21)
Author: Cyclone
Feedback: Please be gentle.
Distribution: Gimme credit and a link.
Rating: Just a little bad language.
Spoilers: Anything and everything.
Disclaimer: The characters depicted herein belong to other people. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Summary: After Halloween, everything changes. Sequel to Blackest Night. Part one of Emerald Flame.
Author's Note: Tsk. Xander simply has too many things to do and not enough time to do them.
Aside from that pesky gunshot wound, Faith was having a pretty good month. She'd fought some crime, gotten serious proof that Xander really cared about her (albeit in the form of a scathing-yet-boring-ass lecture on the values of discretion), and now had her own power battery. Right now, she was working with Willow and Tara, trying to synchronize her power ring with Willow's -- or Oracle's -- communications network.
"T?" Faith said hesitantly. The witch was so shy, it was hard for Faith to figure out how to bring up what she'd noticed while she was still convalescing.
"Y-yeah?" Tara turned to look at the Green Lantern.
"I think he likes you," Faith said. "The X-man, I mean."
Tara flushed, "Y-you really think so?"
"Yeah," Faith nodded.
Willow tapped the last command to send out a frequency sweep designed to initiate a "handshake" protocol with Faith's power ring, then spun on her chair away from the multi-monitor command center she had created, "What makes you say that?" She had been a little put out when she found out about Faith's power ring, but it had explained the lightsaber antics she had witnessed that one night. There was something that still bothered her about the whole thing, but she couldn't exactly pin down why just yet.
"You didn't see the way he looked at her the night he got back," Faith explained. "And, um, I think that last time around, you two hooked up. The way he looked at T when he talked about your taste in women, Red, is what tipped me off. With B and C, he was joking. With T... he was serious."
The two other girls stared at Faith. Almost in synchronization, they blinked at her several times, looked at each other, then looked back at Faith.
"I'm gay?" two incredulous voices echoed in stereo.
"Don't be stupid," Faith snorted. "Only guys are gay. Get it right. You'd be lesbians. Which you're not, or you wouldn't both be drooling over the X-man's hot bod all the time."
Both blushed. Faith smirked, "Hey, nothing to be ashamed about. That's a fine piece of man there. Any chance of you sharing, T? My vote's still for staging a lesbian orgy and inviting him to join in."
Faith's power ring suddenly chirped, breaking the blush-a-thon. Faith looked down at the power ring as Willow spun to face her command center again.
"Communication link established," Willow grinned triumphantly. She shot Faith a look over her shoulder, "Welcome to the Birds of Prey."
"I worry about you, Xander," she said, arms crossed. "You do too much. You're not Superman, you know."
Xander chuckled from where he sat at the kitchen table, "Believe me, Mrs. Summers, I know. I met Superman, and he's... well, he'd leave some pretty big boots to fill." He frowned, "And how did you just quote a movie that won't be out for another two or three years?"
"Excuse me?"
"Never mind," he shook his head dismissively.
"Don't you take that tone with me, young man," she said, stepping toward him and waving a reprimanding finger at him. "You're fighting demons, aliens, and criminals, and you expect me to just let you go gallivanting off across the galaxy whenever you feel like it? You may have a lot of memories, but you're still a seventeen-year-old boy, and you are still my responsibility now, Xander. Don't you forget that."
Xander flinched. He felt like a scolded puppy that had wet on the carpet. Hell, he probably looked like it. Well, except for having his nose rubbed in it.
He held up a finger of argument, "I'd like to point out, it was Faith who went off crimefighting, against my instructions."
"Yes, about Faith," Joyce took the point and ran with it, sitting down across the table from him. "How could you give something that powerful to someone so irresponsible?"
"'Irresponsible'?" Xander repeated, his chair scraping back as he rose to his feet. "She wasn't ready yet, but after all I've seen, with what I know, that can be fixed. She did what she thought was right. You can't train someone to have the will for that. Especially not someone like Faith. She made it her responsibility, and you have the gall to call that irresponsible?"
It was her turn to flinch. The unspoken message was clear. This was one topic she had better not cross him on. She rallied herself. Somehow, she knew that this conversation would be crucial to their future relationship. Either he would accept her authority -- her help -- by the end of this discussion... or he never would.
"She wasn't ready, and yet, you still left," she pointed out firmly.
"What would you have had me do?" he retorted. "Ignore a device that can wipe out all life in the galaxy?"
"'Can' and 'will' are two different things, Xander," she said. "You're the one with future memories. Did that device go off in that future you remember?"
He froze for a very long moment. Slowly, reluctantly, he sat back down and answered, "No."
"And what have you done that could have changed that?" she asked reasonably, taking his hands in hers. She shook her head gently, "Like I said, you're doing too much. You're not giving yourself time to think things through properly."
Xander said nothing, but relief coursed through Joyce's veins as his shoulders slumped in acquiescence. She had won.
"Flying away on a wing and a prayer, whooo could it beee?" he sang as he lazily flew through the upper atmosphere. "Believe it or not, it's just meee..."
"X?" Faith goggled.
Xander spun in surprise, "Faith? What the hell are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing, sensei," she said, crossing her arms. "You're supposed to be relaxing."
"I am relaxing," he shot back, clasping his hands behind his head. "What's the emergency?"
"Duh," she snorted. "You forget what the moms planned today?"
He looked back at her blankly.
"Miniature golf, remember?"
He blinked, "That was today?"
"Yeah," she said darkly. After a moment, she pulled out a newspaper, "By the way, thought you should take a look at this."
Xander paled at the front page headline: "Phoenix Acquitted, Sent to Pescadero." He caught the newspaper as she tossed it to him, then opened it, quickly scanning the article.
"'Simon Phoenix was officially declared criminally insane due in large part to his insistence that he was apprehended by Batman'?" he sputtered, looking up. He held up the paper, "You have anything to do with this?"
"Well," she hesitated, "there was this guy I ran into down there, called himself Jarod. He was infiltrating Phoenix's group, and... I... may have made a comparison to Batman."
Xander groaned. It can't be him. My luck isn't that bad, is it?
LAPD Detective Mike Harrigan was on his way to his office with some paperwork he had to deal with when he heard an odd sound.
Clack, clack, clack. Clack, clack, clack.
"John? What are you doing?" he asked his partner, who was seated at his desk.
Clack clack clack. Clack clack clack.
"Knitting."
"Knitting?" Harrigan frowned. "You?"
"Head-shrinker's orders," John Spartan scowled. "'It's a soothing, non-violent activity'... so I don't go gunning for Phoenix while he's at Pescadero."
Clack-clack-clack-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!
Somehow, somewhere along the line, Xander had managed to forget the universe's worth of responsibility that rested on his shoulders.
Of course, he was now cursing with a passion -- quietly, as his ears were still hurting from when Mrs. Summers overheard him earlier -- while contemplating the morality of using a power ring to cheat at miniature golf. One had to take the good with the bad.
Right now, he was confronted by the damn windmill, and he suddenly felt like Don Coyote (not Don Quixote; Xander's grasp of literature without pictures still wasn't very extensive) as he tried to figure out the right timing.
"Xander?" Tara's voice tentatively broke in.
"Hmm?"
She took a deep breath and steeled herself for what she was about to say. There was no way she'd have the nerve if he was actually focusing on her, which was why she decided to do this now. She took another deep breath... and artfully avoided what she had actually intended to say, "You do know I'm single, right? That I'm not married or engaged or dating anyone? That I currently don't have any romantic prospects at all?"
Xander looked up, confused, "Yeees?"
"So why do you look at me like I'm another man's wife?"
"Huh?" he blinked.
"You're attracted to me, Xander," she said, plowing ahead and not letting herself think about what she was saying. If she did, she'd freeze up or crumple into a stuttering mess and slink away blushing (she had had lots of time to consider her likely reaction). "I can see it in your eyes."
"I'm attracted to most of the girls I know," he pointed out dumbly. "I'm easy to attract."
"But I'm the only one you try to pretend not to be attracted to." Okay, that wasn't exactly true. It was more like she was the only one he didn't aggressively leer at when he was making an inappropriate joke.
"Uhm...?"
Tara took another deep breath, "I guess what I'm trying to say, Xander, is... w-will you go to the Sadie Hawkins dance with me?"
"You're... asking me?" he blinked, clearly more confused than ever.
"Yes!" she snapped (possibly in more ways than one) in exasperation.
"Wait, who's asking who out now?" Buffy asked, an amused look on her face. The two spun and glared at her. "Isn't it supposed to be the ask-ee saying yes or no?"
They both flushed as they acknowledged her point... and remembered they weren't alone. The moms (Joyce Summers and Rebecca Baxter) both looked equally amused, while Faith was grinning lasciviously, and Willow had a wistful longing on her face.
Faith leaned over and draped an arm around Willow's shoulders. "Hey, don't sweat it, Red," she consoled the redhead. "We've always got Plan B."
Willow's blush outshone both Xander's and Tara's, earning chuckles all around as Xander turned back to his putt. The tension faded, and the rest of the day was spent in comfortable companionship.
The group had parted for the night before Tara realized she never got an answer.
She frowned, Did he do that on purpose? Her frown turned into a scowl, If he did...
At the Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Center, Dr. Darrel Lindenmeyer closed Simon Phoenix's psychological profile and leaned back, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "He's perfect."
Author's Postscript:
Only Xander could get a sweetie like Tara that annoyed. Bit of a slower chapter. I'm trying not to go too fast with the plot, but it's proving difficult.