Partial Truths

A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter.

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June 13-16, Cascade

Relative peace reigned for all of twenty-four hours after Rafe gave Jim what information he had been able to get on the various people in Xander's life. Then there was a nasty murder and for the next three days Jim and Blair were running themselves into the ground trying to solve the murder and catch the killer, on very little admissible evidence, which meant Jim was pushing his senses as hard and as far as he could. Worse, Blair was stretched paper-thin with trying to be with Jim during investigations and interrogations and keeping an eye on Xander, who couldn't fend for himself yet.

The results were inevitable. Late in the evening on the third day, an exhausted Jim more or less stumbled into the apartment and headed for the kitchen to get something to eat. Unfortunately, as exhausted as he was, the gleam and glitter of light on metal caught his attention and he zoned. Blair had collapsed an hour previously in his room, having come home early to help Xander, and Xander had been asleep until Jim arrived. Still mostly asleep, it took him a bit to realize that Jim had stopped dead in his tracks and wasn't moving.

"Jim?" He called. Nothing. "Jim?" Louder now. "JIM!" Still nothing. Crap. What the hell? Xander's first worry was some sort of Hellmouth-style possession or something of that stripe, even though they were a long, long way from the Hellmouth. "Blair! Get out here! Something's wrong with Jim!" Xander yelled. He was rather surprised at just how fast Blair responded to that yell.

Blair catapulted out of his room within moments of Xander's call, still clearly mostly asleep, at least until he got a good look at Jim, whereupon he cursed softly and hustled over, squeezing his body between Jim and the door frame so that he was between Jim and the kitchen, one hand rubbing up and down Jim's arm while he spoke softly, trying to break Jim out of the zone. Xander couldn't hear what Blair was saying, but the quietly worried tone was plain. After a few moments, Jim twitched, then gave his head an almost violent shake before looking down at Blair.

"Z - Dozed off, didn't I?" He asked, shooting a glance in Xander's direction as he spoke.

Blair nodded. "I'm calling the station. You need ... "

"No can do, Chief, you know that. Especially not in the middle of a case." Jim grumped.

Blair sighed, then nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I know, but if you're ... falling asleep on your feet ... you need a break."

Jim just looked mulish, turned away from the kitchen and headed up the stairs to his room.

Xander watched the whole thing in quiet confusion. What the heck had that been about? That had been more than just dozing off standing up. Xander ought to know, he'd been there a few times in the last few months, so tired from chasing vamps (or being chased by them, more like) and school he couldn't see straight. A seizure, maybe? Was Jim a mild epileptic or something? Possible, possible. He'd have to see what Willow discovered when she came up in the next couple of days ... though he might have to call her and tell her to wait a few days if this kept up. Neither Jim nor Blair was in any condition to deal with another guest at the moment. He decided discretion was the better part of valor and let the two of them head to their separate beds. At least the whole gay thing was debunked ... whatever the heck was going on, it was clear that Blair was not here for the sex, and could Xander just say he was so very, very, painfully glad? That would have been more awkward than he had words for. Still mulling over the possibilities, he fell asleep.

Jim and Blair got home early on Day Four, Jim looking quietly pleased (if exhausted) and Blair bouncing a good three inches off the ground with every step, exhaustion be damned, and a big grin on his face. Xander couldn't help but grin back at him. "Got the bad guy, huh?"

"Totally. He'd holed up at the docks." Blair confirmed. "Took two hours to get him out of there, but we got him."

"Cool. Should I have Willow wait until next week? You two look pretty shattered after the last few days." Xander wanted to know.

Jim shook his head. "No. We'll be fine. A day's sleep and we'll both be good as new."

"Long's you're sure."

Jim snorted. "This is far from the first time I've had to run myself ragged for a long period, Xander, and Blair's pretty used to it too, though usually for different reasons. We'll be fine."

"Ok, if you say so." Xander so wasn't going to argue. He missed Willow something fierce.

The next day was very quiet, what with Jim and Blair sleeping well into the morning and then rumbling around the loft. The next day, though, was Willow's arrival. Jim took off to pick her up at the airport, since travel was still a pain in the ass for Xander.

She bounced into the loft grinning like a madwoman and flung herself at Xander. "Xander!" Despite the fling, Willow was very careful to be exceedingly gentle with the hug, and kept it mostly around the neck, rather than trying to hug his very ouchy middle. Xander wrapped his arms around her and was pleased that he was able to squeeze enough for it to register as a hug, if only barely, thanks to the splints.

"Hey Willow. Man, I missed you." He mumbled into her hair before pulling away a bit to get a good look at her face. "So, what has the life of Willow been like the last week?"

Willow pouted. "Boring. It's just me and Giles and it's really not fun. Cordelia's being a pain, but then, that's not really news, right?"

Xander laughed. "Definitely not." He agreed. Jim and Blair decided to head out for some takeaway for dinner. Jim was also hoping like hell that Xander and Willow would start talking once he and Blair were gone.

Once they were gone, Xander looked over at Willow. "Ok, girlie, you're bouncing out of your seat. Tell!" He mock-commanded.

Down in the lobby, Jim pulled Blair aside and they tucked themselves into an out of the way spot while Jim eavesdropped shamelessly. He gave Blair a tight grin and a thumbs up. Blair was torn between unease at eavesdropping and a burning desire to figure out what the heck the deal was with Xander.

"Well, they're actually really good people, Xander." Willow said. "I mean, I couldn't find anything really negative about either of them. Blair and his mom seem to have been gypsies, well, sort of anyway. They've been all over, and he's really, really smart. He started college at sixteen! And Jim's an Army Ranger. Or, well, was, anyway. He's got lots and lots of decorations, and about eight years ago or so he got double-crossed by some dirty superior, and his entire team got killed in a helicopter crash, but he still managed to carry out the mission he'd been sent to do, with just him and a bunch of jungle tribesmen."

Xander gave an impressed whistle. "Damn. Remind me never to sign up, right?" He said.

"Yeah, no kidding. I really wouldn't want to have been him. That was more than a little harsh." Willow agreed. "And after he finally got rescued, he quit, then became a cop, and he's been here ever since. He used to work for Vice, but then got transferred to the Major Crimes squad. And then last year Blair popped up, started riding with him for his thesis, and it's been that way since."

Xander nodded. In a lot of ways, it made him feel better. Made it less likely that whatever the hell was going on was something sinister. "Well, Cascade's definitely got either no or next to no demonic crap going on. But something's definitely going on with Jim. I think he might have epilepsy or something. He sort of froze up like someone'd hit his off switch the other day, and oh hell, I really hope he's not a robot."

Willow laughed. "Xander, I don't think he can be a robot if he's your dad, you know?"

"But, but, the real Jim could have been replaced ... " Xander offered. "It would totally be the sort of thing that would happen to me. I mean, heck, after the last year?"

Willow made a face as she nodded her agreement. Weird stuff definitely was their stock in trade at this point. "Anyway, that's what I could find on him. Oh, and his dad's some rich business guy, but they pretty much ignore each others' existence. And he has a little brother, too."

Xander wrinkled his nose. "Ahhh, so the sucky relationships thing is inherited, huh? Oh well. Any word on the gorilla demons?"

"Giles found them a couple days ago, in a really, really old book. They're lower demons, basically used as muscle by the ones that don't want to get their hands dirty."

Xander grimaced. "And no idea who they may have been working for."

"Giles thinks they were working for the Master, and just clearing out now that he's, you know, all dusty. Well, mostly anyway." Willow offered.

"That makes sense. Anything on the hyena?"

"Not a thing." Willow said regretfully. "Everything Giles has found says he did the exorcism right and there shouldn't be any lingering traces or anything, so he's kind of stuck on why you saw it."

"Damn." Xander sighed. "Well, there goes that. At least I haven't seen it again since that one time. Maybe it was just the pain meds? They do say that people can have very trippy reactions."

"Maybe." Willow agreed tentatively. "So how've things been here?"

"Pretty good. Quiet mostly, at least for me. Jim and Blair had to deal with a nasty murder case. That's what led to Jim's seizure or whatever it was, I think. They had kind of been running themselves ragged for several days with next to no sleep. They finally got the bastard, though."

"That's good!" Willow said.

Jim, realizing nothing more was going to be said on the subject of Xander's attack, his past (or, to his consternation, himself) pulled Blair out to the truck and told him what he'd overheard.

"Demons, Jim?" Blair echoed. "And a girl who either can hack like crazy or knows someone who can, to pick up that much information on both of us. Damn. I knew he'd noticed you zoning. I've actually been waiting for him to comment on it somehow, but he's been keeping remarkably quiet."

"This may be why." Jim grumbled. "He has his own secrets and isn't in a mood to share. Dammit, Blair, what the hell is going on in that town?"

"I don't know, Jim, and from what you told me, finding out's going to be an exercise in futility if we try to drag stuff out of the internet." Blair said. "We need to go the direct route."

"Ask him." Jim agreed. "Right, let's get some Chinese and then deal with this."

They returned to the loft about a half hour later, laden with fragrant bags of food. "Hey you two. Hope you're hungry. We didn't know what Willow might like so we got a bit of everything." Blair said.

Xander and Willow both grinned. "Chinese is good." Xander agreed. "Not quite as good as pizza, but definitely up there in the food stakes."

For quite a while, there was nothing except the munching of food, but finally, the cartons were either empty or stashed in the fridge (in their own tupperware containers, thank you. Jim did not tolerate things lying uncontained in his fridge). Jim sat back in his chair, with Blair plopping down on the couch.

"So, ask already." Xander said, startling both men. Willow blinked a bit but grinned at Jim and Blair's startlement.

"Wha? You ... " Blair sputtered.

"You two kept sneaking looks at me and Willow all through dinner." Xander pointed out. "Plus, you've been giving me sideways looks whenever you weren't dead tired from chasing bad guys. So ask. But keep in mind, I will be wanting to ask my own questions later. And I totally, totally disclaim all responsibility if what you learn freaks you out. If you even believe me, that is."

Jim mentally shrugged and decided to dive into the deep end. "So. Demons?" He asked.

That startled Xander in his own turn. "How ... nevermind. I'll ask later. Yes, demons. And before you give me shit, remember, you asked. Basically, all the monsters under the bed you read about in horror stories? They're real. And more besides. And Sunnydale is sort of their hometown." Ok, so that wasn't quite the way it went, but it was close enough, and Xander wasn't about to dish on Buffy unless he got her permission to. He shot a glance at Willow, who reached over and gripped his hand.

Blair looked like he very much wanted to bounce off his seat. "Demons are real? Well, I guess it makes sense. Lots of tribes have tales ... " He started.

Jim interrupted him. "Chief ... demons aren't real." Xander certainly believed what he was saying, since he wasn't giving off any of the physical cues that he was lying, but that didn't mean much. There were people out there, after all, that sincerely believed they'd been abducted by aliens.

"Actually, they so are. I can even introduce you to one who's not out to eat people ... at least not anymore ... if you're willing to take a road trip to Sunnydale once I heal up a bit more." Xander insisted. Part of him was highly amused at the thought of using Angel as a 'show and tell' project. So he was petty and easily amused, sue him! Angel just bugged the shit out of him. Ok, be truthful. Vampires in general pissed him off.

Jim, who'd caught Xander's hesitation earlier, frowned now. "I think that attack hit you harder ... " He started.

"Oh no. Hell no. I am not crazy." Xander said. "Look, vampires are real. Demons are real. They like to munch on people and they tend to be attracted to Sunnydale in droves. That's how I ended up in LA."

Willow nodded fervently. "They really do exist. Xander got jumped by ... hang on, I have a copy of the picture of what attacked Xander in my suitcase." She hurried over to the case and rummaged through it, finally pulling something out with a triumphant noise. "Here it is. Giles had me make a copy to show to Xander to make sure we found the right demon that grabbed him."

She showed the copy of the picture to Xander, who immediately went pale. "Yeah." He said, voice strained. "That's them."

Jim immediately snatched the picture out of Willow's hand, ignoring her outraged "Hey!". Xander's distress at the picture had been very real. He stare down at the picture in something like confusion. Whatever the hell it was, it looked like a cross between a crocodile and a gorilla.

"What the hell is this thing?" He demanded.

"Demon." Xander said, his tone conveying 'duh!' rather clearly. "You get a name for it from Giles, Willow?"

"He said it was something called a Yigint." Willow informed him. "They're sort of demon enforcers, I guess. Muscle-men."

Jim had the picture snatched out of his grasp in turn by Blair, who studied it. While bouncing in place on the couch. "Oh man, this is so ... I mean, there are no words ... how ... I ... shit, I don't even know where to start! Wait, you said you could introduce us to a demon? Who?"

"His name is Angel." Willow supplied. "He's a vampire. Normally vampires are really bad news, but about a hundred years ago, Angel pissed off a bunch of gypsies and they cursed him to have a soul. Ever since then, he's stopped eating people and has been trying to make up for all the bad he did."

Xander made a face. "I really don't like him. He's a broody, sneaky, lying, cowardly son of a bitch, but he has his uses, I suppose."

"Xander!" Willow scolded.

"Willow, he claims to love Buffy like nobody's business, but I had to force him at stake and cross-point to actually, you know, DO something about her being in danger. Giles at least tried, until Buffy conked him over the head. And how long did he lie to her about what he really was? She likes him, so I won't, you know, forcibly try to break them up, even if I think she's completely insane for wanting to get busy with a dead body, but there is no force on this planet that will ever make me like him." Xander glowered and wished he could cross his arms, but that didn't work so well with the splints.

"Wait, Buffy's life was in danger?" Blair asked.

"Yeah. There was a big-time vamp that wanted her dead. Had everybody more than slightly freaked out." Xander said. "Giles was going to try to do something about it, but Buffy was all 'I have to fix this myself' and conked him on the head. When I found out, well ... " Xander shrugged. "I knew I couldn't save her by myself, so I went to Angel. He'd heard about the other vamp wanting to eat Buffy and pretty much locked himself in his room to have a brood-fit about it and mourn her death way prematurely. I kind of had to get in his face to kick his ass into gear."

Jim eyed Xander. There was a lot more to that story than Xander was telling, but what exactly the missing information was, he couldn't even begin to guess. "So how in the name of hell did you even get involved in this shit?" He demanded, giving up on the hope that this was some sort of delusion. Not with Willow backing him up.

Xander's face tightened. "I used to have two best friends." He said quietly. Willow bit her lip and tightened her grip on his hand, looking down to hide the tears that thinking of Jesse brought on. "The other one was named Jesse. Like with Willow, we knew each other from the time we were really little. He got grabbed earlier this year. And vamped. And ... " Xander choked for a minute. "I was the one that staked him. After that ... I just couldn't play blind anymore. Neither could Willow."

"It got personal." Jim said, understanding that sentiment. Keeping the Chopec safe had become rather painfully personal for him after the crash. "Dammit, Xander, you're just kids. This shouldn't be your fight!"

"Who the heck else is going to do it?" Xander wanted to know. "Practically the entirety of Sunnydale pretends there's nothing going on. But our school newspaper has an obituary section, we have almost as many cemeteries as Cascade, and probably as many churches, though I didn't check that."

"You ... checked for demon activity here?" Jim sputtered.

"Yeah. If Sunnydale's anything to go by, the ratio of cemeteries to people is a real good indicator of whether or not things are going to hell ... literally. Cascade seems to be fine." Xander said, then sighed. That was as much as he was comfortable telling them. Neither one was quite ready for apocalypse talk, and Slayers were off the chat menu until he could see if Buffy was ok with it. "So ... seizures?"

Jim grimaced, wanting to know more, but allowed the subject change. "No, not really seizures." He grumbled. "My senses are really enhanced, and before you even ask, I'm human. Sometimes, they get out of control, and I freeze up." Overly simplified explanation, that, but Jim wasn't really in a mood to explain in greater detail.

Blair, though, was. "Jim is what's called a Sentinel. They used to exist a long time ago, when people still lived in tribes all the time, and served as a ... " Abruptly, he cut off, eyes going wide. " ... sentry ... Jim? I think I just figured out what else the Sentinels protected their tribes from, other than wild animals and really nasty weather."

Jim glowered at Blair, but he had to admit, if only to himself, that if demons were real, having a sentry who could spot them before they got close enough to snack on the tribe would probably have been a damn good thing.

On the couch, Willow seemed to be on the same page as Blair, giving Xander a significant look. Hell, for that matter, even Xander was on that page. It made a weird sort of sense. After all, there was only ever one Slayer at a time. No matter how badass she was, there was only so much she could do at any given time. Having an early-warning system in place so tribes could mount an effective defense made a ton of sense. The only question was if the whole Sentinel thing was another 'magicked into existence' thing or nature trying to find a solution to a damn big problem.

"Oh man. You so have got to talk to Giles. He's our go-to-guy when it comes to demons." Xander said, Willow nodding her enthusiastic agreement. "He might be able to confirm whether or not you've got the right of it."

"It would help explain why Sentinels seemed to die out, too." Blair said, thinking out loud. "Clearly, at some point, the overall danger lessened to the point where the sentries weren't needed, so the trait went underground, basically."

"Makes sense to me." Xander offered. "But then, I was never all that good in school."

Willow glowered at him. "Xander Harris, you take that back!"

Xander grinned. "Willow, we both know that the only reason I've made it this far in school is because you help me out."

Willow blushed, but shook her head. "You're not dumb, mister, and I won't have you saying that about yourself! Or have you forgotten that talk we had?" She wanted to know.

Xander grinned, even as he leaned his head briefly on her shoulder by way of a hug. "Thanks, Wills."

"Wait." Jim said. "Giles is your go-to-guy when it comes to demons?"

Xander nodded. "He's studied them for a long time. And fought them. He's got a whole bunch of books about demons of various sorts, written by folks that found out about demons. And in a couple cases, written by the demons themselves."

Blair looked like he wanted nothing more than to track Giles and his library down, bouncing to the point that Jim reached over and clamped a hand on the nearest shoulder, holding Blair down by main force. "Chief, you're starting to make me think there's an earthquake."

Blair gave Jim an abashed grin and tried to settle. "Sorry, big guy."