It would be nearly two months later that another note appeared.
'By now Willow is totally addicted to black magic, she even has a dealer that Amy introduced her to, he goes by Rack.'
"I didn't just use black magic, I got addicted to it in this other timeline?" Willow exclaimed. "I didn't even know that was possible!"
"Ethan and I used to summon Eyghon partly to get hi, Willow." Giles reminded her.
"Oh, gods, Giles. How could I have let things get so bad?"
"Until you crash Willow, you don't know it's bad." Giles told her. "Your friends and loved ones can tell you it is, but you believe you're in control. Then you fall off the cliff you've been racing towards. I crashed when Eyghon took over Randal and I had to kill him to keep him from killing us."
"And Amy apparently got addicted too." Buffy pointed out. "In this timeline, she stopped doing Magic after she turned herself into a rat when that fear demon made mom and all the other parents nearly burn us at the stake."
"Something I've been wondering, Giles." Faith said. "Why didn't other Xander just leave one big list of things to avoid?"
"Two reasons. One, every event changes things, which means anything else he knew might no longer be relevant and two, it's Magic, he can only tell us what he originally knows on that date. Which means today's date is the date he found out Willow was seeing a black magic dealer."
"Then I say we find out if this Rack is active in this timeline and deal with him. If he was a drug dealer, we could turn him over to the cops, but he's not, he's human. So he needs to be dealt with in a human manner." Xander suggested.
"Are you advocating killing him, Xander?" Buffy asked.
"No, I'm saying fight Magic with Magic. Stripping his powers is possible, isn't?"
"Yes, it is." Giles answered. "But depending on how long he's been using Magic, it might kill him anyway."
"It's a risk, yes." Faith said. "But I know dealers, the neighborhood I grew up in was full of them. They're like roaches, they keep coming back. We strip his power and save everyone he could addict."
"And the ones that are already addicted? What happens to them?" Joyce asked.
"Some get clean, some find another dealer." Faith answered.
"And some die." Joyce said. "I'm not sure this is the right approach, it could domino."
"Unfortunately, she's right. Though I am loath to say it, perhaps we should just let this one go. He may be hooking people, but they go to him in the first place of their own free will. We can't change that and we may just make things worse by trying. If he was a demon, we could simply kill him, if he was an immediate threat to an innocent, we could kill him. But stripping his power risks other deaths."
"The tone of the notes has changed." Tara said.
"How do you mean?" Giles asked.
"Before they warned us about things that might happen. Now it's documenting Willow's fall. This one and the one before focused on her. What if there's a reason, something other Xander is leading us to?"
"My use of black magic led to me killing someone." Giles said.
"You think one of these notes is going to say I killed someone?!" Willow exclaimed. "I couldn't! Xander, tell them! You know me, I couldn't!"
"Except under extreme conditions. Remember when we were dealing with the Mayor? Back then I said, that it would take extreme conditions for you to kill. If Oz was threatened or killed for instance, you probably would kill. Your wolf would definitely push you do so, just like his would. You faced the truth of his wolf, Willow. Have you faced the truth of your own wolf? If you haven't, the scenario I outlined for Oz back then, him thinking it might make him a danger to you, could work for you too. You need to deal with your own dual nature, before it explodes in your face." Xander advised.
"I guess I haven't. Dealt with it, I mean. It only affects me three nights a month after all. But if something happened that changed that, then I could end up doing something I'd regret. Oz, I guess we're going to be doing a lot of talking."
"You talk, I listen."
"Yeah, you still don't talk much do you? Given how little you talk, one could almost forget you're here. Except I always know where you are, because I can feel you in my heart. Xander's probably right, if something happened to you, I'd go crazy."
"Same." Oz assured her.
"Hey, if something happened to Cordy I'd be on the crazy train too." Xander pointed out. "And I've already said I'd hunt any idiot who did do something to the ends of the Earth."
"Some days I already think you're on the crazy train, Doofus." Cordelia snarked. "Which implies I'm right there beside you since we've practically been joined at the hip for years now!"
"So, back on a serious matter." Xander said, after the laughter from Cordelia's statement had died down. "We're going to let the matter of Rack go. At least the Scoobies are, I mean. I can pass on his name to Mayor Finch, there may be something the police can do. What, I'm not sure, but Giles and Joyce are probably right and he's just not a problem with a good solution."
"We can't win every battle, Xander." Giles told him. "Sometimes we have to accept defeat and we have to face the reality that we can't save everyone. Not to mention, some people just don't want to be saved."
