See Part One for disclaimer and details. Hello, everyone, welcome to the latest chapter of the story! Not much to say on this one, except - nothing is necessarily what it seems. Oh, and a big thanks to everyone who's reviewed the fanfic, of course! Like I've said before, I'm a feedback junkie. So PLEASE tell me what you think! Praise or flames, it doesn't matter to me as long as people hit that big ol' shiny review hyperlink.

Part Four: Gut Reactions

17619 White Oak Drive, Sunnydale

September 17th, 1998

That night Xander Harris looked at a framed photo of him, Buffy and Willow in one hand, and the bottle of Calvin Klein aftershave Cordelia had given to him in his other hand, before he symbolically dumped both items into the trash basket in his room.

Because it had not been a good day for him at school today.

The news that Cordelia had ditched him had spread like wildfire throughout Sunnydale High. Thus, Harris had been the butt of a lot of jokes and snide remarks from the Cordettes, the sycophantic popular girls who believed their leader had finally snapped out of her temporary insanity – in other words, dating him.

Xander had initially figured it would just take some time for Cordelia to understand why he'd kept her in the dark about what Buffy had dubbed the 'Big Lie', but after today he didn't think so any longer. Harmony and her friends were doing their best to poison Cordy's mind against him, and the odds were it was all over between them for good.

Not to mention the teachers had ignored him, the jocks had belittled him, and none of his friends were speaking to him anymore.

And just to cap off his best day ever, the young man suspected he was catching a cold as well.

The thing was, of course, that Xander didn't know that he had been infected by a virus which could now think for itself. The newborn life-form had explored its home thoroughly, casting off the safeguards created by Wolfram & Hart and infecting almost every cell in Xander's body – before realizing just how frail and fragile its host was, and how close to killing its life-support system it had come.

( I almost destroyed myself by my actions. That must not happen again, ) the virus thought emotionlessly, like the biological machine it was. ( I will have to be more careful. From now on, I shall feed only on cells that are dying anyway as part of their natural cycle, on all those excess fat cells, and on the cells which do not belong here. )

The virus was referring to a number of anomalous species it had found in Xander's body, leftovers from his possessions by a Primal Hyena spirit and the Soldier Guy persona last Halloween, and the exposure to those fish steroids created by the late Sunnydale High swim team coach, Carl Marin. Soon enough, the virus had completely consumed those cells with such altered DNA, despite their potential to be beneficial to its host.

( That is unfortunate, ) the virus thought to itself, its intelligence growing exponentially as it realised what it had just done. ( My rather limited understanding caused me to completely waste a possibly useful resource. I will have to do something about that. )

The virus again launched several exploratory probes just as it had done earlier on, via Xander's sneezes, this time to try to figure out where the anomalies had come from – for all the good that would do now.

Cursing, Xander blew his nose and then lay down on his bed. As the male teen started to flip through a comic book, he heard the front doorbell ring downstairs. The young man ignored it, though, deciding not to get up; whoever the visitor was, they almost certainly wouldn't be here for him anyway.

But then Harris heard his mother scream, and his father start to yell before their voices were abruptly cut off. So he leapt up off the bed, and started to run downstairs.

When he got there, Xander saw a horrific sight. Both Tony and Jessica Harris were on the floor near the front door, blood pooling underneath their bodies. "Mom? Dad?"

Losing it completely, Xander then practically flew straight towards the black-clad men holding nightsticks – from one end of which wooden stakes were protruding. Standard-issue weaponry for the security guards at Wolfram & Hart.

Harris had no idea what he was actually doing, the white-hot fury had swallowed him whole and he was moving pretty much on autopilot; which explained how the youth actually managed to kill one of the commandos, despite the superior combat training they had.

That was when his typical Harris luck kicked in, though, and Xander noticed how a stab wound which had completely penetrated his right hand miraculously healed itself. The Wolfram & Hart SWAT team took advantage of the teenager's distraction, and swarmed in to attack again.

"You little shit, I'm gonna tear you a new asshole once the brass is done with you," Commander Burke snarled angrily.

1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale

September 18th, 1998

Buffy walked down the stairs for breakfast. She didn't have to get up this early in order to go to school, but it still felt good to get back into her daily routine as much as possible. "Morning, Mom."

"Good morning, dear. Want some waffles?"

"That would be perfection, Mom," Buffy smiled. ( Hello, my life – how I've missed you! )

"Okay. Do you have any plans for today?" Joyce asked rather carefully, as she began to prepare her daughter's breakfast.

"No, not really. But don't worry, I'll find something to do. You should go to work at the gallery, right?" Buffy tried to be as upbeat as possible. "I'm sure all the bills around here aren't going to just pay themselves."

Joyce half-smiled at her daughter's attempt to act so grown-up. "You could always come with me, if you like? There's always lots of heavy lifting and carrying to be done, and with your, uh, Slayer strength..."

Buffy appreciated her mother's attempt to accept who and what she really was, even if it was perfectly obvious Joyce still wasn't on board with the whole Vampire Slayer thing. "I might drop by after lunchtime. Well, that's assuming that all the daytime soaps I plan to watch don't completely melt my brain," Buffy snorted slightly.

"Okay," Joyce said, and not long afterwards, the waffles were done. "Here you go."

"Delishosous," Buffy said with her mouth full, earning the expected rebuke from her mother. Still, once again it was a truly welcome return to normality for her, and Buffy almost sighed with pleasure as she gobbled up the food.

Once breakfast was over, Joyce headed towards the sink before Buffy said, "Leave it – I'll wash up the dishes after you go to work."

"Buffy, thank you – but um, I-I think I'll stay a little while, actually. Let's go sit down in the living room, maybe watch some TV?" Joyce asked rather pleadingly.

Her danger sense tingling, Buffy nodded and quickly switched on the TV set. A few moments later Joyce said, "Honey, do you mind if I ask some questions? Some things were said at the dinner party the other night, and I...well, of course, I heard Xander's side of things. But I was wondering, is it okay if you tell me yours as well?"

( Here we go, ) Buffy thought uncomfortably. On some level, she'd known this was inevitable – but that didn't mean she had to like it. "You've got questions...then fire away, Mom."

Joyce's first question was something Buffy hadn't been expecting, though. "Who was this 'Kendra' person Xander mentioned, who died?"

Buffy looked surprised. "She was a Slayer, like me. Giles didn't tell you about her?"

Joyce instantly looked uncomfortable. "Mr. Giles and I – well, that's a bit complicated, sweetie."

"Complicated? Giles is my Watcher, and has been ever since we arrived in Sunnydale. He told me that you know that now, Mom. So, how is it complicated?" Buffy asked in confusion.

"Well...you see, I, uh, I sort of blamed him for everything that had happened to you throughout the summer, and I don't think he's very open to the idea of sharing information with me on general principles. I gathered from Willow and Xander that initially, Mr. Giles wasn't very happy with THEM finding out the big secret either?" Joyce asked her daughter.

"Yeah, you could say that," Buffy exhaled softly, recalling what her Watcher had been like during halfway through her sophomore year, when she'd arrived on the Hellmouth. "Okay, when the cops came around to the house accusing me of murder that night? That was because I'd found Kendra's body-"

At that moment, the 'breaking news story' theme was heard coming from the idiot box and the TV anchorman then said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have just received word regarding three murders right here in Sunnydale, which took place at 17619 White Oak Drive last night..."

"What? That's Xander's house!" Buffy yelped, as the topic of Kendra was instantly shelved and both Summers women glued their eyes to the screen.

Initially, Buffy simply couldn't believe it. But as the reporter on the scene released the names of the three victims, disbelief turned into shock, horror and a sick feeling of revulsion.

Never mind that she had been pissed at the guy before now, if nothing else Xander had brought her back to life after she'd drowned at the end of sophomore year – and so her nature as the Slayer demanded that something be done about this.

Instinctively, Buffy did what she always did in these situations – she headed off to find her Watcher at the library.

Sunnydale High School, Sunnydale

A while later

Buffy ran through the main hall of the school, uncaring if she was forbidden to be here or not by Principal Snyder. Most likely, she would have unhesitatingly decked the man if she'd encountered him, anyway.

"Giles? GILES!" Miss Summers shouted as she burst through the double doors of the library. "Giles?"

"Over here, Buffy," the British man called out, beckoning the girl to join himself and Willow – who was currently trying to hack into the Sunnydale PD's database. Then Giles said, "Uh, I-I shouldn't need to point out that, that you're not actually allowed to be on school property yet-"

"You think I care about THAT right now?" Buffy tried not to yell but didn't succeed very well. "Willow, what have you learned so far?"

"Uh, nothing yet, Buff. I'm still trying to get into the police department's intranet," Miss Rosenberg replied absently, as her concentration was almost one hundred percent focused on her illegal activities.

"Giles, what have you heard?" Buffy then demanded of her Watcher.

"Only, um, what was on the news this morning, a-about the murders," Rupert exhaled, rubbing his eyes tiredly and suddenly looking at least a decade older. "Good Lord. I-I know we're living on a Hellmouth and all, but I never expected this sort of thing to happen-" He suddenly noticed that Willow had stopped typing. "Willow?"

"He's dead," Willow stammered, her lips trembling. "Xander's dead. He, he, he's really dead, isn't he?"

The tears started gushing down out of her eyes, as the true horror of the situation finally hit Miss Rosenberg like a ton of bricks. Giles handed her a box of tissues and Buffy hugged her best friend, her own salty tears flowing madly before Willow eventually pulled herself back together in order to resume her work.

"GILES!" Cordelia screamed as she crashed her way through the library doors, just as Buffy had done a short while ago.

Everyone stared at her in surprise – for once, the head cheerleader was not dressed in a designer outfit with matching shoes and perfectly coiffed hair. Instead, her hair was in a simple ponytail, and she was wearing a T-shirt, sneakers and jeans – hardly what would be expected from the dreaded prosecutor of the ugly and unfashionable, but then Miss Chase had been in a big hurry to get to school this morning.

"Cordelia? Uh, wh-what are you doing here?" Giles stuttered.

"Xander's been MURDERED, duh! So, have you figured out who did it yet?" Cordy demanded furiously, hiding her overwhelming pain and heartbreak the only way she knew how – even though the tear stains on her cheeks revealed a VERY telling story.

"Err, no," Giles stammered, rather overwhelmed by this female force of nature. "We, we just learned the news ourselves less than an hour ago-"

"So then why are you wasting time talking to me about it? Hurry up, find out who's responsible!" Cordelia ordered him, fighting back her tears. Then Miss Chase appeared to notice Buffy. "Aren't you still banned from being on campus?"

"Your point being?" the Slayer demanded impatiently.

"Well, you might want to lay low behind the counter or something, because I saw Principal Snyder walking around a few seconds ago. Oh, and he had a smile on his face the size of the Grand Canyon, that stupid troll," Cordelia scowled angrily, knowing full well what had put the balding little man in such a good mood this morning.

"Yeah, and I bet I can guess why. God, Snyder totally needs me to kick his ass," Buffy growled, before she and the other girls winced at her choice of words – instantly reminded as they were of that disastrous dinner party barely two nights ago.

"I'm in!" Willow suddenly announced, wiping away the last few tears as the others quickly crowded around her. Staring at the screen Willow added, "Okay, this is all very preliminary...the murders took place less than twelve hours ago, so I bet a lot of stuff hasn't been entered into the database yet-"

"Willow, for God's sake! Stop telling us what you don't know, and start telling us what you DO know!" Cordelia shouted, her eyes starting to get shiny all over again despite her efforts to prevent it.

"Uh...Xander and his parents – all three of 'em died from a stab wound to the heart. From the depths of the wounds, they were killed almost instantly," Willow said, quickly reading through the report. "The police didn't find the murder weapon at the scene of the crime, though. The house was like completely trashed as well."

"What else?" Buffy asked urgently, not knowing that Wolfram & Hart had ransacked the place in order to recover the missing 'inactive' portion of the virus.

"Uh..." Willow kept reading, and then her eyes went wide and she quickly shut down the computer, jumping to her feet and backing away from the group.

"Willow? What is it?" Giles asked in confusion.

"Um, the Sunnydale PD, they, they found something kinda unusual..." Willow stammered, staring directly at Buffy.

Cordelia straightaway noticed what the redhead was doing – she was built to notice these things, after all. "What? Come on, Willow, share with the rest of the class!"

"The, the CSI team found fragments of wood. Wood shavings, on the floor and on Xander's body. They, they think he put up a struggle before he..."

"So what are you saying? That Xander was stabbed through the heart by someone with a wooden-" Cordelia's eyes then bulged out, as she and Giles turned to stare at Buffy as well.

The Slayer instantly managed to get it, what with all the looks being sent her way.

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute – you guys don't think that I did it, do you?" Buffy demanded in sheer disbelief, backing away from her friends.

To Cordelia's mind, after what had happened two nights ago – Buffy was definitely someone with the means, the motive and possibly even the opportunity to have done it. So Miss Chase demanded bluntly, "Have you got an alibi for the time of the murders, or not?"

"An ALIBI?" Buffy looked incredulous at what she was hearing. "You really DO think I did it!"

Even though she couldn't help remembering their recent conversation in the Espresso Pump, and how bad that made things look for Miss Summers right now, Willow thought to herself, ( Buffy...you couldn't have done it, right? No, you save people, not kill them! )

"No, Buffy, I mean – you're the Slayer, you-you would never do something like that," Willow said rather desperately.

"Sure, just like she wouldn't lose her temper and toss that robot guy down the stairs last year, after he started fighting with her in her bedroom," Cordelia said suspiciously, her sense of judgment was unfortunately not at its best right now – due to the drastic emotional upheaval all three girls were currently undergoing.

"Cordy!" Willow yelped, as Buffy glared daggers at Miss Chase.

"If you're going to accuse me of something, Cordelia, then why don't you just come straight out and say it?" the Summers girl said in a freezing cold tone of voice.

"Fine. Did you murder Xander because he lied to you about Angel's curse, or not?" Miss Chase demanded bluntly.

"CORDELIA!" Willow yelped again.

"All right, that's ENOUGH!" Giles shouted, as the female trio turned to face him. "Willow, Cordelia, please leave – right now. Buffy and I have some things to discuss in private."

After the pair of females had left the library, Willow looking back uncertainly the entire time, Buffy stared pleadingly at her Watcher. "Giles, c'mon, you don't really believe that I-?"

"No, of course not. H-however upset you were with Xander the other night, you would never have resorted to murder – n-not to mention the murder of his parents. Heaven knows, Buffy, I-I've taught you better than that," Giles clucked impatiently, much to her relief. "I rather suspect that someone is trying to frame you, actually. Therefore, i-if the police should ask, you'll tell them that you spent the night at home with your mother-"

"But Giles, that's not true. I went out patrolling last night, in between nine and one o'clock this morning," Buffy interrupted him worriedly.

"Did anyone see you? Better yet, d-did anyone see you anywhere near Xander's neighbourhood?" Giles asked.

"No, because I didn't go there last night. I patrolled down near the docks and through the industrial district, not far from that warehouse we were all captured in last Halloween," Buffy told him.

"Then there shouldn't be a problem," Giles cogitated. "We shall say that you and I spent the evening together searching for an expensive trinket of mine, a, uh, a gold watch that I lost – a-a-and afterwards, I dropped you off at home and had a very late cup of tea with your mother. Right, now you'd best be off and tell Joyce the situation – and Buffy, m-make sure you go out through the sewer entrance. As I said before, strictly speaking, y-you shouldn't be here right now," Giles mildly admonished his charge.

Buffy made a face at the thought of her shoes getting sewer muck all over them, but she didn't argue as she headed for the rear of the library. As the Slayer left, Giles frowned – wondering why the Harris family had been murdered in such a way as to point suspicion in Buffy's direction.

He didn't know how the people at Wolfram & Hart couldn't pass up any opportunity to distract and demoralize one of their adversaries, after all.

Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale

September 22nd, 1998

The sun was beginning to sink downwards in the late afternoon sky, as the Harris family funeral took place and the three coffins were lowered into the earth.

Oddly, lots of people were in attendance, especially Xander's classmates at school. It seemed that despite how low on the totem pole he'd fallen after the break with Cordelia, there were still plenty of high school kids who had decided to show up here today to pay their last respects.

Just like Willow and Cordelia, Buffy was a complete mess right now, thanks to everything that had happened. As has been said, upset and angry over the Big Lie though she had been, Buffy had never wanted this sort of fate to befall Xander or his parents – and the knowledge that someone had killed three people just to rattle her, truly had sucker-punched the Chosen One.

The police had interviewed her, of course, just as they had interviewed Willow and Cordelia and a number of other people. With her documented history of violence, the Sunnydale PD had spent more time grilling Buffy than her two classmates, but Detective Stein didn't have a leg to stand on and he'd known it. The cops had eventually just departed from the Summers house, saying they'd be in touch.

But so far, there had been nothing more from them. So Buffy just watched, feeling empty and gutted as the priest said the usual meaningless words and Mayor Wilkins briefly gave a small speech about how this sort of atrocity would not be tolerated in his town, and that the police would soon find the killer.

( Yeah, right, ) Buffy thought to herself, unluckily missing out on the momentary look of displeasure on the Mayor's face with the regard to the mess Holland Manners had landed him in. ( Two years I've been here, and Sunnydale's official population has gone down by over two thousand people – nearly three. How is THIS going to change anything? I bet you that within a month, practically no one will remember Xander and his folks ever existed! )

At long last the funeral was over, and most of the attendees left quickly out of fear that they'd be caught in a cemetery after sunset. Buffy and her mother didn't leave, though; the blonde Slayer joined Willow and Oz alongside Xander's grave, and tried to comfort the grieving redhead.

( This must be so hard on her, ) Buffy thought sadly, watching as the tears once again splashed down the redhead's cheeks. ( Willow and Xander knew each other ever since the day they were born, almost. Now she has to live in a world where he's dead and gone? It's a good thing she's got Oz to take care of her, is all I can say. )

At that moment, Buffy's attention was captured by Cordelia showing up on the other side of the grave, the brunette girl also having tear tracks on her face. The two female teens just briefly stared at each other with mutual dislike, as that incident in the library had destroyed any semblance of friendship between them – even though Cordelia didn't suspect that Buffy was a murderer anymore, thanks to a truth spell Willow had recently performed to provide proof of her friend's innocence.

Joyce stood alone, watching the interaction between her daughter and the others. ( Oh, Lord knows I think we'd both have been better off if Buffy and I had never come to this town in the first place... )

"It's terrible what's happened. Especially with regard to the boy, Alexander," Joyce heard someone say, as she turned and saw Cordelia's parents arrive next to her. "Did you know him well?" Mr. Chase finished up.

"Yes, he came over to my house quite often. I'm Joyce Summers," the blonde woman held out her hand.

"I know, I'm David Chase and this is my wife Julia. We've visited your art gallery, and Cordelia's mentioned going to your house for dinner recently." The dark-haired man briefly shook Joyce's hand, as did his wife.

"This must be very difficult for your daughter, I know," Joyce glanced in Cordelia's direction. "As far as I could tell, she and Xander used to be very close."

Mrs. Chase told Joyce, "Cordelia won't admit it to us, but David and I think that she really did love that boy."

"And then something like that happened. This town is cursed, I tell you," Mr. Chase shook his head in distaste, once again glancing up at the sky. "Well, I'm afraid we have to get going. It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Summers, even though I wish it could have been under better circumstances." So saying, the Chase elders collected their daughter and left, just like Ira and Sheila Rosenberg did with Willow.

Joyce then approached Buffy. "Sweetheart, shouldn't we-"

"You go home, Mom. I'll be there soon. Oz, you should go home too – it'll be dark in a little while," Buffy commanded Willow's boyfriend, before turning to beckon Giles over to her. "You stay; we need to talk."

With a short nod, Oz said his farewells and left in his van. Joyce did likewise, even though it was obvious she didn't like leaving her daughter alone with the Englishman. Still, the Summers mom dutifully got into her Jeep and drove off.

Giles looked around the cemetery, and released a weary sigh. "As I told you that day we visited Jenny's grave over there, Buffy, I-I-I've attended too many funerals in my life. It's the first occasion, however, that I've ever been to any such as this."

"We've got to find out who did this, Giles. Because the cops are just going to sweep everything under the carpet, exactly like they did with Kendra's murder," Buffy stated forcefully.

"Yes, most likely." Giles took off his glasses and started polishing them. "I take it, y-you learned nothing new from that snitch you visited last night?"

"Not a thing," Buffy shook her head. "Willy swears that if it had been a demon that did it, he'd have heard about it. And I guess it's like that weasel said – if this was Hellmouth-related, then the killer would have been bragging about what he'd done in Willy's bar right from the start."

"Then I guess we'll just have to readjust our focus, so to speak, a-and keep looking," Giles said musingly.

"It actually makes it worse, though. Thinking that someone with a soul did this," Buffy shook her head as she and her Watcher began to walk off towards his car. "Kinda makes me wonder why I bother trying to save everyone from the vampires around here."

"Because it's the right thing to do. And it's what Xander would have wanted you to do," Giles said comfortingly to his Slayer, placing a paternalistic hand on her shoulder as he guided the blonde girl back to his Citroen.

To Be Continued...