Author's Note: This is my chapter from the story 'Tales From The Barman…Part II' by Methos on Twisting the Hellmouth.
Xander looked up from polishing a bar glass when the woman decked Andrew.
It was a nice, clean hit, with a good follow-through, instantly knocking Andrew out, so that his unconscious body bonelessly dropped to the floor, with his chin bouncing off the tiles as the man finally came to a rest. It was indeed resting, not death, as shown by Andrew's stentorian breathing.
Xander continued his polishing. While Andrew had truly improved his personality ever since Sunnydale, the man still had an occasional attack of the stupids. On his first visit to Xander's new version of his rebuilt bar again called "Nights", the former member of that incompetent gang of would-be super-villains had insisted he knew the rules on how to behave in the bar. From the looks of things, maybe he needed a refresher course. And an ice pack.
Waiting a few discreet moments, Xander edged over from his former position behind the bar to stand closer to the woman in the trench coat who'd turned on her stool back to the bar, all while the man concentrated on getting the glass really, really clean. Still not looking directly in the hard face of the blonde woman staring blankly ahead at the wall over her double Scotch, Xander murmured, as if to his bar towel, "Sorry about that. Would you like a drink on the house?"
There wasn't any response from the woman for several seconds, until she reached into her front jeans pocket, pulling out a wad of cash and tossing this onto the bar counter. In a slightly hoarse voice, the woman muttered, "Just give me a bottle of the same stuff, and leave it."
Xander blinked. That was her second double Scotch, and she'd just asked for a lot more. Reluctantly putting away the glass, Xander flipped the towel to rest on his shoulder, and cleared his throat to cautiously say, "Ah, you might want to consider a taxi service, if you're driving-"
A raspy chuckle came from the woman, who now turned bitter eyes to look at an uncomfortable California native. "I'm not. Get me the booze, or I'll get it somewhere else."
The bartender hesitated. That didn't sound good, but deep inside the woman's voice, Xander also heard a desperate need. So, he reached under the bar for the good stuff, looking down to see he was collecting the correct bottle. During that, he heard the woman speak in a savage rasp, "What a bunch of steaming crap!"
A startled man looked up, the bottle of Scotch in his hand, to see the woman's face now having a disdainful sneer, as she stared at something behind Xander, on the trophy wall. The one-eyed man had been starting again his collection of items signifying a story told by bar patrons, placing these on shelves or hooks, or otherwise attaching them to the wall. Xander followed her gaze at a sheet of paper pinned to the partition, which had written on it a short phrase, "Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased; thus do we refute entropy... Mike."
Xander's attention was jerked away from what Mike Callahan had once given him by the woman's jeering remark, "Hey, you!" His head snapped around, to be pinned by glittering eyes of rage and grief and anger and so many more emotions, as the woman snarled to Xander, "So, you think pain gets less when shared? Okay, let me tell you about a...'friend' of mine." The harsh voice had actual acid etch itself in the air to signify the quotation marks around that specific word. Without waiting for Xander to make his decision, the speaker grabbed her glass and completely drained it, slamming it back on the bar, to cough, "Gimme 'nother, and leave the damn bottle!"
An unspeaking Xander obeyed, placing the bottle of Scotch at the woman's elbow, and made her another double. Then he took a step back, folding his arms across his chest, and looked steadily into the woman's embittered features.
"My...friend was an assassin."
Xander kept his own face blank over this, as the woman continued. "Yeah, a good one too, along with her...associates, some of the bloodiest bitches that ever walked the face of the earth. They were a pack of killers that named themselves after the deadliest, most poisonous snakes on earth. Of course, with every pack, there's always a top dog. In this case, a guy named Bill." About half of the new drink was now gulped.
"He was charming, sweet, took care of everyone, made sure they had everything to do their jobs, and my friend started thinking here was the one for her, and he was quite willing to go along. So, they got closer...until one day my friend found out exactly what Bill was like. A stone-cold monster, pure evil, and perfectly fine with it." The last half of the glass was finished, and the woman pushed it again to Xander, who unthinkingly refilled it, caught up in the story.
"She ran. As far as she could get, ending up at a small town well off the beaten path, and hid. Until she met a genuinely kind man, who didn't know anything about her except she seemed to be nice, so he asked her to marry him. And she said yes." Another gulp.
"At the start of the wedding, the church was filled with the groom's family, because naturally my friend didn't have anyone there for her. Until Bill and the rest of the snakes showed up." The glass was raised to the woman's lips, only to shake in her hand so hard it clattered against her teeth, and this was dropped back onto the bar.
"They killed everyone there. Him, his family and friends, the minister, the bridesmaids, the flower girls. And before she could tell Bill she was pregnant with his child, he shot her, too, in the head."
A horrified Xander stared at a long scar easily discernable at the top of the woman's head.
"She was in a coma for years, and during that, she was raped and abused by the hospital orderlies. Until one day, she woke up, found out how long it had been, and got out of there. All knowing she no longer had a child." This time, she managed a swallow of her drink.
"She recovered, got back into shape, and tracked them all down, to make them pay. Every one of the snakes, and an ocean of blood later, only Bill was left. Finally, she found him...with her child, a daughter."
Xander grabbed a glass, poured the nearest bottle at hand into it, and gulped the alcohol without even tasting it.
"They had a fine day as a family, and that night, my friend and Bill had a nice, civilized discussion that ended up with her killing him." The ice in the woman's glass rattled as she tilted it up to drain the very last drops. Putting her empty glass gently back onto the bar, the woman looked Xander full in the face and gave him a crazed smile. "So, she walked away with her daughter, happy ending, roll credits, head to the exits through the sticky movie theater floors, right?"
Xander didn't say anything, as the woman then slowly turned her head to stare once more at the phrase on the wall that had started it all. Her eyes blank, she whispered, "A couple of months later, my friend woke up in her bed crying so hard the entire bed shook, did it all day. Couldn't stop, scared B.B. nearly to death, felt so miserable that killing myself looked appealing."
With extreme difficulty, the man kept his face blank over the woman's slip.
"Exactly one year later, to the day, the same thing happened, and it was even worse since I knew exactly how it would be like when it happened again. Not even my daughter could get my mind off it. The only thing that kept me from ending it was that maybe there was some kind of reason for it, so I tried to think of anything to explain it. And...I did."
Still looking at the wall, the woman closed her eyes, and tears trickled down her cheeks. "That day...would have been the anniversary of my marriage." She gulped. "In all my life…all the deaths...at least there was a reason for it. Not then, at that wedding with all those innocents, when they came to see two people joined together in joy, only to be murdered for just being there. And it was all my fault."
Xander opened his mouth, stopping at the woman's weary shake of her head. "Please, don't. I've tried all the justifications, the rationalizations. They don't work. No excuses. But...I managed to convince myself that penance can be made, if done in the proper way, and so far, it's worked."
The distressed man watched the woman look at the wall clock of the bar, which was close to midnight. Staggering to her feet from the stool, the woman reached under her trench coat, and produced a scabbarded Japanese samurai sword, carefully laying this across the bar counter. She then reached into a coat pocket, and pulled out more cash, tossing this by the sword.
Ignoring the money, but staring at the sword, the woman spoke, knowing Xander was listening. "My daughter will be taken care of, no matter what, and she knows I love her. So...I'm gonna take this bottle with me, walk to the nearest combat zone, drain the bottle completely...and then whatever happens, happens. Maybe in a few days, you'll get a message telling you where to send the sword, using that money there. If not...then hang it on your wall, and tell the story to whoever you like."
Not looking at Xander, the drunk woman clumsily grabbed the bottle of Scotch, and started towards the bar door, weaving slightly, but her back straight, as she went on her way to battle the demons of her mind.
Xander spent a long time gazing after the blonde woman, even when the door closed. He kept on doing this, until a now-awake Andrew pulled himself up from the floor by gripping the stool, with that man with the aching jaw finally scrambling onto that seat. Elbows resting on top of the bar, Andrew clutched his head, and moaned, "All I did was to ask her if she still had her yellow jumpsuit."
"Shut up, Andrew."