"Ford! What are you doing?!" Buffy demanded to know.

"Choosing immortality over death."

"No, you're not. You'll die and your soul will face judgement for this." Alexander told him. "A daemona will take up residence in what used to be your body. It'll have access to your memories, but it won't be you. It'll eat your family first, because they're easy to find and convince that it's you. Then it'll eat others. It'll go on killing until someone stops it. It needs blood to sustain the body, and the negative psychic energy to sustain itself. You do this and you're responsible for all those deaths."

The boy's face twisted. "I have to do something! Don't you understand?! I'm dying! There's a nest of tumors liquifying my brain. In six months, when they bury me, it won't even look like me anymore! What else can I do?!"

"Asked me for help." Alexander said.

"What?"

"Ask me to help you. That's all you have to do."

"Help me? How can you help me?"

"Like this." He answered and to everyone's surprise, except his and Corda's, his hand glowed and he placed it against Ford's head. As the light touched Ford, Corda was moving, she lashed out at the blood daemona nearest her with a foot and sent it flying. Buffy, taking a cue from Corda, struck out as well. Drusilla hissed.

"No fair! No fair! Kitten would never have known!" And raced for the door, only to be tripped by a quick thinking Willow. Buffy slammed a stake into Drusilla's back and she exploded in a cloud of dust. The humans were panicking, as Buffy began staking vampires. Corda broke a wooden coffin apart and staked another, between the two of them, all six were soon dust.

"What is going are here?!"

"You just saw the truth of what vampires really are." Alexander said. "There would have been no Blessing . You would have been food for them, nothing more. Is there another way out of here?"

"Yes." One the girls said. "There's a back door."

"Show us, please." She led them to it and the five of them, including Ford, left.

"What did you do, Xander? How did you do that?" Willow asked, bewildered.

"It's called the healing touch and all of our people can do it, to varying degrees."

"Not now." Corda said, not wanting to trust Ford. "We can discuss it later. How do you feel now, Ford?"

"Better. My head doesn't hurt anymore."

"Then go home and if I see you again, I may just strike you. I can understand being afraid of dying, but to trade innocent lives to save your own is cowardly. Go home." He went home.

Later they gathered in the library to fill Giles in on what had happened.

"You can heal?" He asked. "By what Magic?"

"It's not Magic. It's a naturally occurring ability that all Alteran eventually developed. It works in varying degrees in every Alteran."

"But Xander's not an Alteran." Willow protested.

"But he is descended from one. The ability was dormant within his body. I merely activated it."

"You can heal as well?" Giles asked Corda.

"Yes. As Alexander said, it's something that all Alterans can do. It was dormant in Cordelia's genetics as well."

"This is astonishing. There are rumors, that occasionally, throughout history, some humans have had the ability to heal. Sometimes, they're regarded as Saints or blessed by a god or other times, as having made a deal with evil. If it was a naturally occurring ability that activated, that would explain it."

"Why was Drusilla interested in you?" Buffy asked.

"She knew something about us. She called me the Captain and Ford said she referred to me as the Defender of Man. Willow told Ford that, that's what Alexander means. Who was this Drusilla?" Alexander asked.

"Angel told me, she was Angelus' worst crime. She was a pure girl who wanted to be a nun." Buffy told them. "And she was a seer."

"That's how she knew about us. Depending on what form her ability took, she could have gotten glimpses of the future or been somewhat telepathic." Corda said. "She called Alexander 'the Lion that roars across the sky' and said that he was what Xander would have been if he'd never met the the Slayer. Xander's path was disrupted by meeting you, Buffy. She also said Xander would never have known he could heal, if it wasn't for us. She knew quite abit about Xander."

"You're saying Xander was supposed to be like you? A Captain of a ship, maybe?" Giles asked. "And meeting Buffy changed that? Interesting, Xander had a destiny of his own and Buffy or the knowledge of vampires, derailed it."

"Sounds like it." Alexander agreed. "It's possible that many incarcerations of our soul have pursued similar career paths. Souls tend to do that, have similar lives, interests, etc."

"True." Giles said. "That healing touch of yours is going to come in very handy I think."

"It's meant to be used." Alexander agreed.

"What other kinds of abilities do you have?" Willow asked.

"Well, we have some psychic abilities. Corda and I have a mental link. We can 'see' each other mind to mind. Our people believed we were on the verge of an evolutionary leap. Within a few generations, we would have been able to shed our physical form, if we wished and live as pure energy. I personally don't see the appeal in it. I like being a physical being. There's so much we can experience being physical that I don't think we'd be able to experience as energy."

"I agree." Corda said. "It's not something I ever had any interest in either."

"Well, I suggest we call it a night. I have no doubt, you are all tired. I'll see you tomorrow." Giles said and the group dispersed.