Date written: Tue 13 Oct 2009
Author: Starway Man
E-mail: theop at hotkey dot net dot au
Disclaimer: The Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar, Kuzui, Fox, WB and UPN; I don't own 'em, and I never will. I also do not own any other characters from any television shows, movies, comics, videogames or literature that I might use. This work is meant merely for enjoyment, and no profit is being made off of it. Some of the text is from various TV episodes or movies or comics or videogames or literature, and so does not belong to me of course.
Rating: Overall R, with mostly PG-13 parts.
Symbols: " " denotes speech, ( italics ) specifies thoughts, and # # indicates phone voice.
Main characters: Xander, ensemble
Warnings: There is some violence, bad language, character death and mention of sexual situations in these stories.
Author Notes: A couple of years ago Night Hunter MGS (a.k.a. Matt) wrote an awesome series of stories called "31 Days of Xanderween" (http://www. fanfiction .net/s/3813208/1/31_Days_of_Xanderween), where he published one Halloween fic for each day of October. I was inspired enough to want to do my own version of the concept, and he has graciously allowed me to use his idea for this series of fanfic stories.
Author Notes 2: Some of you may know that I'm a big fan of the works of Robert Ludlum, which is what inspired me to write a story some years ago called The Xourne Identity. That's why I always wanted to do this plot bunny, and after the Bruce Willis movie was aired on TV recently, I had to write this one. And before I forget, a big thank you to everyone who's reviewed and sent feedback! Your loyalty is truly awe-inspiring.
Acknowledgments: My thanks of course to Matt for allowing me to dabble with his original idea this way. Also, my deepest gratitude to all my beta readers – Francis Eugene, Greywizard, American Soldier and Nodakskip – for all their help in getting these stories finished on time!
Classification: Alternate Universe, Angst, Crossover, Romance, YAHF
Summary: Thirty-one versions of Halloween, Xander-style. Fic-a-day series.
Title:31 Days of Xanderween Part Deux
***
Story 13: Tinamou
17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale, California
October 30th, 1997
"Mom! What have you DONE!?"
The middle-aged woman looked up tiredly at her son from her position in front of the TV. "Alexander, what is it now?"
Alexander Harris, more commonly known as Xander, held up the shrunken army fatigues. "What did you do to my clothes?"
"I washed them, of course; they were filthy," Jessica said, not seeming to care much about the matter.
"Okay, mom, what did we discuss about you doing laundry after you've had a little too much to drink?" Xander said hopelessly, even as his mother ignored him in order to focus back on Jerry Springer.
( Great, I'm less important than lesbian love triangles where one of the girls actually used to be a man. ) Xander didn't even bother finishing the conversation, since he knew it was pointless. He just stomped off, threw the green clothes into the bin and then walked out the front door to meet up with his friends Willow Rosenberg and Buffy Summers.
He was going to have to come up with a new idea for a Halloween costume in order to take a bunch of little kids trick o' treating tomorrow night.
***
Abandoned warehouse, Sunnydale, California
October 31st, 1997
Things were looking decidedly grim for Xander and his friends.
After most of the gang had been possessed by their Halloween costumes tonight, thanks to a jerk named Ethan Rayne who'd thought it would be amusing to force his customers to turn into whoever or whatever they'd dressed up as, it had been one heck of a roller-coaster ride. Willow had become a ghost, Buffy had become an 18th century noblewoman, Buffy's little sister Dawn had become a giant butterfly, and as for Xander...
Well, he'd become someone from a movie that was going to be released in about two weeks' time.
Declan Joseph Mulqueen, an Irish-born former sniper and prison convict.
Xander hadn't known much about the guy; he'd just read about the movie in the paper, picked up a toy gun at Ethan's shop and told Principal Snyder that that was who he had dressed up as in order to avoid detention. It almost hadn't worked; but he and the school commandant had been right in front of a bunch of parents who were dropping off their little kids for the Halloween safety program, and so Xander had gotten away with it – thanks to the principal deciding not to make a scene in front of the wrong people.
In any case, after the spell had been gone into effect, Mulqueen and the Willow ghost had found the possessed Buffy on the street and taken her home. Declan, who'd thought he had to be dreaming after one-too-many fights with the other convicts in the prison yard, had been tempted to take off afterwards straightaway. But Angel, Buffy's undead boyfriend, and Cordelia Chase, Xander's childhood nemesis, had also shown up and the former IRA operative had thought it would be better to stick to the shadows until the chaos subsided and he could get the hell out of the country.
However this was Sunnydale, home of the Hellmouth, and so things just couldn't work out that simply.
Lady Buffy had run for her life after seeing Angel's demon face at the worst possible moment; the rest of the gang had gone running after her; and the soulless vampire named Spike had eventually chased everyone down and taken them prisoner inside this warehouse.
"Ya know what? I think I'm really gonna enjoy this," Spike, a.k.a. William the Bloody, said as he advanced on Declan. The sniper was being held captive by a number of demons, as was Cordelia, Angel and the possessed Buffy. The Willow ghost was just standing there helplessly, unable to touch or be touched in any way.
"Ya like beatin' up helpless prisoners, do ye? Shows how much courage ya really have, ye filthy coward," Mulqueen said contemptuously in his Irish accent.
Spike gave his prisoner a hard punch to the face, his fist slamming into Mulqueen's mouth. "Keep goin', mate, please. Droopy Boy or not, it's been too long since I've kicked the arse of a bog Irishman like you," the vampire said with a grin.
"Aye, I can tell. And you'll get yers soon enough, ya English pig," Declan spat blood out of his mouth. In his mind, the Irish Troubles weren't all that far back in the past after all.
"Spike! Knock it off!" Angel commanded his grandchilde, struggling with his demon captors. "Leave him alone. I'M the one whose ass you really want to kick, remember?"
"Oh, Peaches. Aren't you a concerned citizen type of bloke these days?" the British vampire smirked. "Still, I've got a better idea. You can get to watch me drain the bloody Slayer before you die..."
Just then, not far away in Ethan's shop, the chaos spell was broken; and Willow, Buffy and Xander became themselves again, as the ghost vanished back into her body. Spike's mini-army also became a bunch of frightened little kids and student escorts.
"I'm scared! I want my mommy!" one of the tykes said, looking around fearfully.
Free at last, Buffy and Angel teamed up against Spike; someone who was smart enough to know that, just as discretion was the better part of valour, concern for one's own hide was also the better part of discretion. So, after Buffy hit him with a pipe William the Bloody ran for it, deciding to continue the battle against his enemies during another night.
"Spike, come back here!" Miss Summers yelled angrily, before her eyes went wide with realization. "Oh my God, Dawn!" Without another word, she raced out of the warehouse to find her little sister, Angel hot on her heels.
"Xander?" Cordelia came over to her classmate, who was looking ill and checking himself out from head to toe. "Are you, uh, you again?"
"Yeah, Cor. And that was just way too creepy; it's like I was there, but I couldn't get out..." Harris told her, exhaling with relief that all of Mulqueen's scars and wounds were gone even if the memories were not.
"Yeah, I know the feeling. This outfit's totally skin-tight," the self-centred cheerleader indicated the leopard-like cat costume she had on. To her annoyance, however, Xander didn't seem to be interested in praising her physical form; and so the young woman stalked off, leaving him behind and heading off towards her own destiny.
A destiny where Miss Chase would die her undeserved death before her 24th birthday...
***
Stateville Correctional Center, Joliet, Illinois
October 31st, 2009
Deep within the maximum security prison just north of the city, the one-eyed Xander Harris sat in solitary confinement and thought about the past; the same way he'd done for the past twelve years, whenever this day rolled around.
The last decade had not been a good one for him, and that was putting it mildly. It seemed that he was cursed where women were concerned. So many of them had died; his ex-girlfriend Cordelia, of course, but she wasn't the only one.
There had been his lesbian friend, Tara Maclay. His first time sex partner, the Slayer named Faith Lehane. Buffy's mother, Joyce. His own mother, Jessica, and his former fiancée, Anya Jenkins. There had also been Buffy and Willow as well; they had died after Sunnydale had gone the way of the dodo, the New Watchers and Slayers Council (NWSC, Inc.) had been set up, and he had been forcibly evicted from the organization in order to 'keep him safe'.
Buffy and Willow had been responsible for that, Xander had learned this almost at once. But in striving so hard to 'save' him, his friends had forgotten just what the normal member of the group had always contributed to the cause. What exactly his accomplishments had been.
Once he wasn't there anymore, they had been killed; just like they would have been killed during high school, if their foolish plans had been put into effect back then.
These days, though, the cynical one-eyed prisoner mostly just found it ironic that he was alive whilst Buffy and Willow were dead. Because almost everyone he'd known during the 1990's was gone now. Even Angel and Spike had vanished off the face of the earth.
Only Dawn, Buffy's little sister, was still around – living under a new name, far away from California.
Suddenly the door to the prison cell opened up. The mean, hulking guard said, "Harris! Get moving. You've got visitors."
Xander did so without speaking. To speak was forbidden, of course: if he did, he risked reprisal from the guard. The wallop of a prison baton or a kick to the groin, for example. But as he walked, Harris couldn't help wondering what was going on, as he wasn't due to be released from solitary for over a week; and any ordinary visitors would have had to wait until then to see him.
"I said move it, jackass. I don't wanna keep these people waiting..." the guard growled menacingly.
***
Prison interview room #1, Stateville Correctional Center
A few minutes later
Xander came into the room, shoved in by the guard. A moment later one of the men present, who was in U.S. military uniform, stood up. He said to the guard in a freezing cold tone of voice, "That'll be all, wait outside. No, better yet take a walk down the corridor: this conversation is strictly private."
The guard obviously didn't like this. "Prison rules state-"
"Mister, I don't give a rat's ass about your rules. If you aren't out of here in five seconds, I will call the warden of this place and tell him that you aren't being cooperative. I don't think he'll be very pleased with you under such circumstances, do you? At the very least, there's gonna be a nasty little black mark that'll end up on your official record..."
Glaring at the military officer, the prison guard nonetheless obeyed orders. The army captain waited until he could no longer hear the footsteps echoing in the corridor, before he took a white noise generator out of his pocket and activated it to play havoc with any electronic listening devices in the room. Then he turned to the prison convict and said, "Hello, Xander."
"Hello, Riley," Xander said to his one-time friend and Buffy's one-time boyfriend, shaking his head. He then nodded to the man's wife, Samantha. "Mrs. Finn. Long time no see."
"Call me Sam," the woman said chidingly. "What the hell are you doing in here, Xander?"
Harris just raised an eyebrow at the familiarity; because he had only ever met this woman once, about a decade ago. "I'm doing life for murder-one, actually. But then you probably already knew that, right?"
"We've read the report, but maybe you could do us a favour and tell us in your own words why you're here?" a man who Xander didn't recognize asked.
"Buffy and Willow died because Andrew got them killed. I didn't see any point in letting him live," Xander said succinctly.
"Ah, yes," said the man who was an Assistant Director in the FBI, easily ignoring the grimaces of both Riley and Sam. "The late Andrew Wells. Formerly of NWSC Inc., just like yourself?"
"Who's the suit?" Xander asked Riley with a sideways look.
"That's irrelevant," the FBI official said before Riley could answer. "What's relevant is that if you cooperate with us, we might be in a position to get your sentence commuted, or get you transferred to a minimum security prison instead of this particular facility."
"Yeah? Guys like you just love to do things like that for guys like me. What's the catch?" Xander asked with a barely-hidden smirk.
"Xander, not helping!" Riley hissed at him.
"It's a fair enough question," the FBI man said coolly. "The thing is, Mr. Harris, you happen to be in a rather unique position: you have information that we want. Information to do with an assassin that we've been after for quite a while now. So you help us, and we'll help you. What do you say?"
Xander shrugged. "I knew a number of men who qualified as an assassin when I was with NWSC. Can you give me a name?"
"No. Only a code name," the FBI official said reluctantly. "Actually, Mr. Harris, we have reason to believe that a fellow employee of yours named Dawn Summers knows the true identity of this man. So if you tell us-"
"If you seriously expect me to give up Dawnie's location to you, mister, then you're even dumber than you look," Xander interrupted, contempt all over the 28-year-old convict's face as the Bureau representative glared at him. Then Harris turned to his former friend and said, "Riley, what the hell made you think I was gonna cooperate with this clown? I thought you knew me better than that!"
"We're talking about the Tinamou, Xander," Sam said, touching her husband gently on the arm. "And we have reason to believe he's been hired by some white supremacists to go after the First Lady-"
"That information is classified, Agent Finn!" the Assistant Director looked pissed at Sam's mention of Michelle Obama.
"Is that right? Well, newsflash, pal. If you want my help, then you need to forget the damn rulebook right now," Xander told him frankly. "Still, having said that, it's your lucky day. Because the Tinamou? You happen to be looking at one of the few people who've met him and lived to tell the tale, someone who knows him – and his real name."
The FBI man was thunderstruck, the angry retort dying on his lips. Mr. and Mrs. Finn also look stunned. You could have knocked all three of them over with a feather, as the old saying went.
"So who is he?" Riley asked thickly.
"The man who killed Buffy and Willow last year," Xander said emotionlessly. "I'm willing to make a deal with you guys. Let me out of here for 48 hours, and I'll give you his name as well as his usual tactics and abilities. I'll even help you hunt him down and catch him. Heck, here's a freebie for you: Andrew knew him too. So you can guess what that probably means, right Riley?"
Finn stiffened. "Are you saying-?"
"Yes, or at least I'm 99.99 percent certain of it. Once upon a time Andrew was part of a trio who planned to get rich and make Buffy their sex slave, did you know that? Later on he killed his best friend, guy named Jonathan Levinson. Andrew could change his allegiance more often than I changed the oil in my car. I remember though how Willow was so sure that he'd reformed, that he wanted to make up for his 'dark past'," Xander sighed, using his fingers to make inverted commas.
"And you think he didn't?" Riley asked the prisoner.
"I think that with past history not exactly being in my favour, neither of my girls would listen to me whenever they thought that they were right and I was wrong about something like that. Goes all the way back to Sunnydale, and how Buffy and Willow believed I was a complete idiot where Angel and Spike were concerned.
"And we both know what happened with those guys, right buddy?" Xander finished up with an annoying smirk.
"We're getting off topic here," the Assistant Director brusquely, as Riley looked disgusted at the mention of the vampires and Sam looked at him in confusion. "Mr. Harris, why do you want out of this prison for 48 hours?"
"Unfinished business," Xander said, looking him in the eye. "Nothing illegal, or even immoral. But I can't do it from in here, and I can't trust you people to do it for me. No offence," Xander shrugged towards Riley and Sam.
The Bureau official hesitated. He knew that the FBI Director, Robert Mueller, had the Secret Service breathing down his neck to get results fast, and so his ultimate superior in the organization would probably forgive him if he conceded to the convict's demands. But it went completely against his grain to make this sort of deal with scum like Harris, who in the FBI man's opinion should have gotten the chair for his crime.
"If I gave you my word to personally carry out whatever task you need done-" he started to say.
"Your word doesn't mean shit to me, quite honestly," Xander closed up like a clam at once. "You think I haven't encountered liars like you before? You'll promise almost anything to get what you want, and then conveniently renege on the deal afterwards.
"Uh-uh, Mr. No-Name," he shook his head 'no'. "Because let's face it, you need me a whole lot more than I need you. Time has gotta be a factor where you're concerned, whereas I ain't got nothing but time in here. Your choice, pal. Either you play ball, or get out your mourning clothes for Mrs. Obama's funeral. 'Cause for my money, you haven't got a prayer of stopping that assassin by yourself."
A number of veins in the Assistant Director's forehead were threatening to burst open, but he managed to keep a lid on his temper long enough to say, "Fine, convict, you got a deal."
He then turned to his two companions, "Agent Finn, you and Captain Finn will be responsible for making sure that the prisoner returns to this correctional facility within 48 hours."
***
Not far from Milwaukee, Wisconsin
November 2nd, 2009
A short distance from Lake Michigan, a twenty-something brunette woman was looking out over one of the Great Lakes of the nation. She appeared cold, despite the heavy clothes she wore. A former native of California, Eve Winters (a.k.a. Dawn Summers) knew it would take a while for her to get used to the weather in this part of the country. But the 23-year-old woman was sure that she would get used to it somehow, eventually.
She had gotten used to worse things over the course of her life.
"Hello, Dawn."
The former Key whirled around, shocked to hear that name. Her eyes went wide as she then recognized the one-eyed man standing in front of her. "Xander? XANDER!" The woman pretty much flew straight into his arms. "How did you get here? I haven't heard anything on the news about you breaking out of jail!!"
"That's 'cause I didn't," Harris shrugged, letting his fellow Sunnydale survivor go. He gestured over his shoulder, "Managed to get a lift with a couple of old...acquaintances."
"Who-?" Eve/Dawn started to say, before she recognized Riley and even Sam, vaguely. "Are you nuts, bringing them here?! What were you think-"
"My God, but you sound just like your big sister when you start ranting that way!" Xander interrupted with a smile. "If I had a dime for every time Buffy and Willow said something like that, I'd be able to buy the new Council itself right now. What's up with them lately, by the way?"
"Don't change the subject," the beautiful young linguist said sternly. "What's the deal with you coming here? Like I said back then..."
"I know, I know. But you can relax, Riley and his wife arranged to get me out of jail for two days, and I made them swear a magic oath not to reveal where you are to anyone. Consequences being if they break said oath, they'll die. And I'm sure you have some sort of contingency plans in place to get out of here in a hurry if you have to, right?" Xander asked with a smirk.
Eve/Dawn tried not to scowl at him. "Why are you here, Xander?"
Harris shrugged. "I wanted to say goodbye to you, basically. You and I are the only ones left, ever since Giles passed away and Roger Wyndham-Pryce took over the Council. So I just wanted to see you one last time," he said with a slightly longing look on his face.
"Xander, what are you talking about? You're starting to scare me," Eve/Dawn said, getting a worried look on her face.
"Dawn, that's the last thing I want to do-" Xander said.
"The name's Eve now," the young woman interrupted. "Eve Winters, not Dawn Summers."
"Really? Looks like you've developed quite the sense of humour. Personally, I gotta blame Tara for that," Xander snorted, scratching his forehead.
She couldn't help it, Eve/Dawn giggled. "God, I've missed you," she said. There were more-than-friendly feelings for this man in her heart, and always had been; and the fact is that a five-year age gap doesn't quite have the same significance at twenty-three that it does at thirteen.
"Oh! I have something for you..." The former Key fished out a key ring, and withdrew one of the keys. "Here. Take this."
"What is it?" Xander asked, making sure Riley and Sam couldn't see what was happening.
Buffy's little sister said simply, "Don't ask me why but I had the weirdest feeling that you'd show up again eventually, somehow. So I took the liberty of preparing an escape hatch for you. This is a key to a locker at Grand Central Station in New York, the number's on it. Inside, you'll find everything you need to get out of the country; money, a fake passport-"
"I can't do that, Dawn," Xander shook his head immediately. "I made a deal with these people, and I have this thing about keeping my promises. I've already laid a wreath at the Sunnydale crater, and paid off some outstanding debts to my old sources. And now that I've said my farewells to you in person? I'm done here. I'll help Riley and his wife catch the bad guy, and then I'm going back to jail for the rest of my life."
"Why? Because you feel guilty about killing Andrew?" Eve/Dawn demanded.
"No," Xander replied calmly. "Because it's the right thing to do. Because I am a murderer. But maybe it won't come to that; it could be that the guy who killed Buffy and Willow will end up shooting me, too-"
The young woman instantly slapped him in the face. "You jerk! You moron! You IDIOT!" she screamed at him, causing Riley and Sam to sit up and take notice. "I don't believe you, Xander!! You're gonna go try to get yourself killed, aren't you? You think I don't know you well enough to have guessed that? You really do think that there's nothing left to live for-"
"You're wrong," Xander interrupted her, the ghost of Declan Mulqueen rising to the surface for a moment. "I do have something to live for – revenge. Taking out that asshole who murdered your sister, and the closest thing I ever had to a sister.
"And you can't tell me that the thought hasn't crossed your mind as well at some point, Dawn," Xander added. "I know YOU well enough to have guessed that."
"Go away. Leave me alone," the former Key muttered stubbornly, turning her face from him. "You said it yourself: you're done here."
With a slight shrug, Xander turned away. But before he left he said, "The guy I'm gonna go after? He's called the Tinamou. You DO remember who that is, I hope..."
Alexander Lavelle Harris never saw the brunette woman's eyes go wide, as he left his female companion behind.
***
Union Station, Washington D.C.
November 10th, 2009
As Xander pointed his gun at the guy who'd killed Buffy and Willow, and who was currently holding a child hostage with a pistol to her head, he was pretty much certain that this was going to end up...messy.
After leaving Dawn, Xander had accompanied the Finn husband and wife team back to the J. Edgar Hoover building to give the FBI a complete briefing on the Tinamou. His real name, his aliases and preferred type of weapons, his tricks and diversions, the lot.
After he was done, Samantha Finn privately pleaded with her Assistant Director not to send Xander back to jail yet; it was obvious Harris had a mental insight on the target that no one else did, and that it might prove invaluable before they finally nailed the bad guy.
Somewhat shaken, the FBI man had agreed to the request but only on the condition that she and her husband be held personally responsible for Xander's conduct. So the manhunt had begun and eventually the good guys had tracked down the Tinamou, just as the First Lady was about to make a speech outside a hospital. Sam had saved the black woman's life from a volley of gunfire on the platform, despite Mrs. Finn getting wounded in the shoulder from a stray round.
Xander and Riley had subsequently chased after the escaping assassin, but in the heat of battle Finn had taken a gunshot wound to the leg, effectively incapacitating him. After being ordered to keep going by the Army captain, Harris had eventually caught up with the target, and now the face-off had begun.
"You DO realize that killing her isn't gonna help you escape this time, right? You're just delaying the inevitable here," Xander told his enemy as coolly as he could.
"Always the same old speeches, Xander? We both know this tune, buddy boy. I'll escape; but you won't, not this time. You should have joined me when you had the chance, way back when," the Tinamou said tauntingly.
"The only thing I should have done different way back when was let Willow kill you that night, Warren," Xander spat out in disgust.
Warren Mears, for he was indeed the man otherwise known as the Tinamou, just grinned.
"Is that Declan Mulqueen I'm hearing in your voice?" he asked. "Either way, it doesn't matter. You can't protect your women, Xander. Never could, never will. Willow is my case in point; Buffy, too, I suppose."
"You're right, I guess, I never was much of a white knight type. But we both know that the Council is gonna catch up with you one day for killing those two, even if I fail to put a bullet in your skull," Xander told him with a smirk, which finally made Warren curl his lips into a snarl.
"That's always been your problem, Warren; you're addicted to hurting women," Harris continued to point out. "Treating them as nothing but creature comforts or a means to an end. You wanna know what the Slayer history books are gonna say about you, once someone finally puts your ass six feet under? 'Warren Mears: a sad, pathetic misogynist who built himself a robot girlfriend because no woman could ever truly lower herself enough to settle for him'.
"Great little epitaph, don't you think?"
Xander's mind games were finally effective, as with a bestial roar Warren tossed aside his hostage and opened fire. Xander did too, but Mears was faster, and was able to duck out of the path of Xander's bullet. Harris wasn't so lucky, however.
"Goodbye, Xander. Give my regards to my old pal Andrew, when you see him again in Hell," Warren smiled at the one-eyed man bleeding like a stuck pig on the ground. He cocked back the hammer – and another gunshot rang out within the train station.
With a look of surprise etched upon his face, Warren collapsed flat on his face, never seeing Eve/Dawn standing behind him and lowering her smoking gun.
"That was for my sister. And every other woman you hurt, you asshole..."
***
Holy Family Parish Cemetery, Hillcrest Heights, Maryland
November 11th, 2009
Xander and Sam walked away side by side after the rushed burial, ostensibly that of an unidentified foreign tourist killed in a hit-and-run car accident, since "Warren Mears" was officially deceased and had been for a number of years.
Personally, Xander thought it was rather fitting for Warren to leave the world this way: no one else had been present except a priest and two grave-diggers, all three of whom had shown not the slightest hint of interest in the proceedings. So much for Warren's plans to forever make his mark in the world.
"I still don't get it. Where did that guy go wrong?" Sam asked in perplexity. "I've seen his record, Xander; Warren Mears was a student prodigy back in high school. Opportunities that 99 percent of the people in this country will never have pretty much just fell into his lap – he could have become a millionaire, or one of the chief industrialists of the nation. Some of the robots we found that he used in his assassinations were so lifelike, they gave me a chill just looking at them! But instead, Mears became the Tinamou, an international killer for hire?"
"That's the thing about people who commit murder. Either they never feel anything in terms of remorse, or their conscience finally catches up with them, or in my case – they know the cost right from the start, but are prepared to accept it anyway," Xander said, unable to shrug due to his arm being in a cast.
"So. Time to go back to Illinois, right?" he asked bluntly.
"Was it worth it?" Sam suddenly asked, as she stopped and faced Xander directly. She rubbed her own gunshot wound as she added, "Now that it's all over, do you think it was worth it taking that man's life the way you did?"
"Sam," Xander sighed as he shook his head. "Andrew took certain oaths upon joining the Watchers, just like all the rest of us. One of them was to be loyal to your colleagues and your superiors. Myself, I always knew Andrew had issues with where his loyalty lay; first it was Warren, then it was Buffy, then it was Giles.
"Hell, for a while there I'm sure he was even loyal to me," Xander said as he scratched his cast. "But in the end, he failed to be loyal enough to himself and to his own vows. And he DID sell Willow and Buffy out, I saw it in Warren's eyes. He wanted me to know the truth, just before he was gonna fill me full of bullets."
Sam stared into that one remaining brown eye. "So what about Dawn?"
"It's Eve Winters nowadays. Dawnie threatened to beat me up yesterday if I didn't start using her new name already," Harris chuckled. "I'm sure she'll be alright, though. She's a Summers woman, and they're tough; she'll eventually get past shooting Warren like that. It was in order to save my life, after all."
"That wasn't what I meant. She doesn't want to lose you," Sam shook her head. "We had a talk, woman-to-woman. And Daw...Eve pointed out that somebody who had saved the First Lady's life in such a public fashion would be pretty much untouchable right now, even if a convicted murderer were to escape her custody. Myself, I have to agree; what do you think?"
Xander was suddenly reminded of Mulqueen and the movie "The Jackal", back when all this had truly begun. "Doesn't matter what I think. What does Riley think?"
"You were a good friend to him once, and you helped him stop an assassin out to kill the woman he was sworn to protect. I doubt he'll get too miffed. And even if Riley does get upset, I'm his wife. Wives have this uncanny ability of making their husbands see things their way, if you know what I mean." Sam looked him straight in the eye as she said that.
"Yeah, I know," Xander replied wistfully. He certainly hadn't forgotten what his girls had been able to talk him into years ago, including Dawn.
"Eve mentioned that she was going to be waiting at Grand Central Station all day today, suitcase and all," Sam said as she dropped a piece of paper onto the ground. "Personally, I hope she doesn't go home after sunset unhappy."
Just before she turned around and left towards her car, Mrs. Finn added, "What with all the traffic, I'm pretty sure there's a train station just a few hundred meters up the road."
Xander bent down and picked up the paper Riley's wife had dropped. As he'd expected, it was a train ticket to New York City. ( Well, I'll be. I never expected her to go this far for me! )
Harris quickly started walking away, after silently wishing Samantha Finn a fond farewell for giving him his life back.
***
Next: Story 14 - Let's Talk About Sex