The Alpha and the Omega (4/?)
Ye Gods, has it really been since February since I updated this thing?
Tomorrow I will work on putting this and Mercy Seat into organized archive blocks. For tonight, I thought I'd update.
Previous part here
Xander lay shirtless on Buffy's dining room table, his ankles crossed, his arms out-stretched. He stared up at the Scoobies seated around him, their faces grim. The potentials gathered at his feet, their eyes wide, hopeful. Giles stood at the head of the table, his left hand resting on a large book next to Xander's left ear. His right hand clutched at a knife, which he held high in the air. A starched white collar tucked into his black shirt. Giles scanned the gathered group without seeming to acknowledge Xander's presence.
Xander lifted his head slightly. Molly, standing at the front of the potentials, her hands folded demurely in front of her, stared hungrily at him. Xander shivered.
"And Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said 'take this, all of you, and eat it.'" Giles lowered the knife to Xander's shoulder and made a small, precise cut. Blood sprang to the surface, which Buffy wiped into a wine glass. Giles made a second cut, perpendicular to the first, and lifted the triangle of Xander's flesh onto a paper plate. "'This is my body,'" he intoned, lifting the plate into the air, and then passing it to Willow, who carried it to Molly. "Which has been given up for you.'"
Molly's expression turned rapturous as she picked up the slice of shoulder and placed it on her tongue. She swallowed it whole and licked Xander's blood from her fingers. Somewhere behind Giles, a bell rang softly, twice.
Giles took the wine glass from Buffy and handed her the knife. He lifted it into the light and swirled it slightly. As he spoke, Buffy sliced more meat from Xander's shoulder, arms, and ribs, and passed the pieces to the congregation.
"And Christ took the wine, lifted it up and said 'take this, all of you, and drink from it. This is my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant, which has been poured out for you.'"
And Giles lowered the glass to his lips and drained it, his eyes changing momentarily to gold as he savored the flavor of Xander's blood.
The bell chimed again.
All around Xander, his friends feasted on his flesh. Buffy passed around dixie cups of his blood, which they drank greedily. Willow turned to Kennedy, a blue vein caught in her teeth.
"Isn't it noble?" She said. "He's dying for our sins."
Xander opened his mouth to protest, but no words came out.
Anya lifted his heart from his chest and bit into it with a grin.
Xander screamed.
His hand flew to his chest, covered by his undershirt. Light shone in from the window, filling Willow's bedroom with the midday sun. He was covered in sweat, which, as he began to calm down from his nightmare, he took as a good sign that his perpetual dehydration was finally fading.
He thought back over the dream, recognizing Giles' speech from a scene in 'the Exorcist', which they'd watched "for research purposes" the night before. It was a traditional part of the Catholic mass.
"Three cheers for ritualized cannibalism." Xander shoved himself out of bed and staggered to the bathroom, his awkward movements caused more by residual sleepiness than pain, for once. He stared into the mirror at his pale face, his wild hair. He shook his head, trying to banish the image of Giles as a vampiric priest from his mind. "So very disturbing."
"Xander?" Willow knocked on the bathroom door, then opened it and stuck her head in before he could answer . "Good. You're awake, Sleepy McSleeperson."
He stared at her, his heart still pounding. Would she think it was noble, when he died from this?
"Are you okay?" Willow's eyebrows tilted up. She stepped into the bathroom, resting a warm hand on his arm.
No, of course she wouldn't. Willow wouldn't let him die, for her sins or otherwise, if she could possibly help it.
Besides, she was Jewish. Or Wiccan, rather. They didn't go for martyrdom.
"Yeah," he said finally. "Nightmare." He unwrapped the clean white bandage from his hand. The wound had finally stopped bleeding. "I think I might actually be able to go home today."
"That's great!" Willow smiled and started pulling the gauze from his other hand. Her grin was a little bit too fixed, her expression a little bit too bright. She was hiding something. "There's something I want us to . . . um . . . try first. It's a grounding ritual. I learned it in England. I think it could really help."
"Help how"
"Help ground you." Willow said, as though this was obvious. She bit her lip.
Definitely hiding something. "Um, okay."
The two of them finished unwrapping Xander's bandages and Xander shooed Willow from the room so he could shower, promising to meet her in the garden when he finished. As she left, he shook his head. What was she hiding? He thought of her biting into his flesh in his dream and shuddered. Well, he'd get it from her soon enough.
* * *
"Just close your eyes and relax." Willow demonstrated, settling into a cross-legged position, resting her hands lightly, palms up, on her knees. Xander leaned back slightly against the tree behind him, gingerly settling his own hands on his knees. The wounds might not have required bandages any more, but they still stung. He glanced over to make sure his bottle of gatoraide was within reach, should he get hit with another bout of dehydration. He hadn't been brave enough to drink actual water since the incident in the kitchen with Spike. Nothing as alien looking as gatoraide could possibly become holy. He hoped. He closed his eyes.
"Good. Now focus on the feeling of the ground underneath you. Imagine your energy as a root system, extending into the earth. You draw energy through your roots, and from your branches in the sky."
"So . . . I'm a tree, then."
"Xander," Willow's voice took on a note of warning. He smiled slightly, and tried to focus. He felt rather foolish. After a moment, he cracked an eye open. Willow sat perfectly still, her face serene. She hummed very softly to herself. This was apparently favorite technique of hers. It was the most relaxed he'd seen her in . . . well, a very, very long time. Xander was hard pressed to name when he'd last seen such a beatific expression on her face. Not since before the battle with Glory at the very least. These days, she usually just looked anxious. He hated to interrupt her. But the "don't tell Xander" air wasn't just Willow. Buffy had been avoidy with him, too, what little he'd seen of her that morning. He leaned forward slightly.
"Will?"
"Hmm?" She didn't open her eyes.
"Why are we doing this?"
Willow frowned, then slumped. She opened her eyes, exasperated. "It's to ground you, Xander."
"Yeah, you said that." Xander reached for his gatoraide. "But what does that MEAN?"
"It connects you to the earth and the sky. You can draw energy from it, to revive yourself." Willow looked over to one side. "I thought it might help with your . . . um . . . condition. With the pain and all."
"Mmhm." Xander took a long sip, then took a moment to set his drink to one side. "And the other reason?"
Willow jerked. "No other reason! Just the energy, and the pain thing. Nothing else at all!"
"Willow, you're a terrible liar."
Her whole face fell. "I know. But, um, I'm not lying."
Xander shrugged. "Yeah. Fine. Not lying."
Willow nodded firmly, then shut her eyes again. Xander watched her for a moment.
"So why was Buffy looking for Molly earlier?"
Willow's eyes shot open again. "What?!"
"She seemed really serious about something, and Molly was looking pretty nervous. What's going on?"
"N-nothing. Buffy . . . Buffy was just asking her to calm down, you know? With-with the whole God thing. Because we know how uncomfortable it makes you, and she kept trying to organize a church group, and she actually yelled at Kennedy for using 'Jesus' as an explanation and then I found--eh."
Xander smiled slightly. Willow-babble did it every time. "Found what?"
Willow blinked at him for a very long moment. "My notes," she said finally, twisting her head slightly to one side while keeping her eyes on his, as though challenging him to contradict her. "From last summer in England. With this grounding ritual in them. And I just thought, hey, what a really great way to help my old pal Xander feel better!"
Xander rolled his eyes. "Willow,"
She continued as though it had been her intention to the whole time, her intonation never changing. "And not accidentally kill things with his mind." Her smile returned.
That wasn't the whole truth yet. On the other hand, Xander really, really, really wanted to make sure he wasn't going to go around killing people with the 'evil eye'. He sighed. "Okay. We'll do this grounding thingy." Willow relaxed. "And then we'll go find Buffy, and she can tell me what you found."
Willow slumped again.
* * *
Molly clasped her hands together in her lap. Her left leg bounced. She looked at anything she could that wasn't Buffy.
Buffy bit back a sigh. Great. Her army of specially trained demon fighters was afraid of her. Well, maybe that could work to her advantage. For now, she wanted answers.
"You borrowed Willow's laptop."
Molly nodded, staring at the coffee table.
"You were updating your blog."
Molly nodded again.
"Wanna tell me what you wrote?" Buffy knew, of course, having read the whole thing, from the first entry once Molly had arrived in Sunnydale to the thrilling conclusion in last night's post. She wanted Molly to tell her though. And then, when she'd admitted that, Molly would tell her WHY.
"I wrote about being here." Molly's gaze switched over to the doorway of the room. Buffy leaned forward. "Um, not about being a potential, or about slayers or the hellmouth or anything, but about my family and my watcher . . . um, I didn't call her my watcher . . . about them dying. I made it into an accident."
Buffy was silent. She stared into the potential in front of her, who was shooting short glances in her direction, and wincing.
"I'm sorry. I just needed to talk about it."
"And you felt that livejournal was the place to talk about it?"
"People online understand." Molly looked up at her. She had the faint glimmer of tears in her eyes. "I mean, not totally understand, but, um, they've lost people. They've had to move. They make me feel better."
"You couldn't talk to the other potentials?"
"Of course I could. And-and I do. Vi, mostly. And Chloe, before she--but I needed someone from the outside, you know? Haven't you ever just wanted to get it all out?"
Buffy sighed inwardly, while maintaining her stern expression. Of course she had. That's why she'd refused to let Giles push Willow and Xander away when she'd first gotten there. But that didn't mean she was sharing her woes with a billion faceless readers.
"What else did you write?"
Molly started to get defensive. "You already know."
"I want you to tell me."
"Why?! Why do we have to keep it a secret? It's a miracle, Buffy! It's the second coming, and people have to know!"
"You're announcing what might be one of greatest assets in battle to the world at large. If the First Evil didn't already know about Xander, it does now. Do you want us to lose, Molly? You're sabotaging us."
"No I'm not!" Molly crossed her arms. "There're people out there who are going to understand more about what's happening to Xander than any of us do. They can help us, Buffy!"
"These knowledgeable people, they're reading a teenager's blog."
"No." Molly said this very softly. Buffy stiffened.
"What are they reading, Molly?"
"My emails. I, um, sent an email to the pastor of my old church. He said he'd ask around. He let the Cardinal know."
Buffy paled. "How do you know we can trust them? How do you know they won't come in here and take Xander away from us? Is that what you want?!" She could feel her anger rising, and struggled to reign it in. She didn't need to be General Buffy right now. Well, she did, but she needed to be Counselor Buffy, too.
"No! They wouldn't do that! He told me they wouldn't do that!"
"Your pastor told you."
"No." Molly looked Buffy dead in the eye. "God did."
* * *
Xander concentrated, trying to picture the tree in his mind. An oak, maybe, roots digging through the soil, branches stretching up into the sky. It flourished for a second, and he felt something surge through him, but then it withered and he felt his body slump.
"Focus, Xander."
"Easy for you to say."
"Just think of the magic. It's all around you here. Feel it around you, and let yourself connect to it."
Xander sighed. "This is too abstract, Willow. I've never been good at abstract."
"Xanderrrrrr . . . ." Willow put a hand on his knee. "Try. You had it for a second."
Xander didn't bother to question how Willow knew that. Willow always knew these things. It was just like when she was trying to teach him geometry. "Fine." He straightened his back, and thought of magic.
The hellmouth, he knew, wasn't far away. A pool, like the one Buffy had drowned in, lying rippling beneath them. He imagined it, a swirl of red covering the whole town, and shuddered slightly.
But there had to be good magic here, too. The hellmouth drew demons, but the good magic, maybe, was what drew the Slayer, and the witches like Tara. It was in the air, in the plants. He imagined it as a blue mist, hovering over everything, blocking out the evil. That was what he wanted to tap into.
"Connect the ground to the sky with the magic."
Connect them? Through himself, right, she'd said that. He tried for the tree again, but that didn't feel right. He pictured the blue mist, above, below, and circling him. It started to coalesce.
"That's it, now connect yourself to it."
Down into the ground and up into the sky. The top of his head and the base of his spine tingled, as the magic started pouring into him.
He was only half aware that he'd tilted his head back. The mist circled once, turned a bright, blinding white, and then shot through him like a spike from the sky into the ground. His eyes shot open, but all he could see was white light. His body seemed to swell as the line of light split somewhere, miles above his head, shooting out perpendicular to the original line.
Somewhere in the distance, Willow gasped.
The energy continued to swell and roil within him, and he could feel his hands and feet knitting back together. For the first time since his date, Xander wasn't in any pain. He drifted on the sensation, and felt a smile grow on his face.
"Xander,"
And the energy continued to build. The stab wound in his chest finished healing, and Xander took a deep breath. As he exhaled, the magic filled his lungs. It seeped into his stomach, his heart, and his skin.
"Xander."
And it filled him up until he was full of nothing but pure white energy, and still it kept coming. Above his head, the glowing cross brightened into something blinding, stretching up to the stars. He felt prickling, tingling tears on his cheeks. The magic started to spill over, spiraling around him, shooting in and out of his pores.
"Xander!" Willow's hands grabbed onto his shoulders, and his head snapped down. She gasped.
He couldn't see her face. He couldn't see anything but white, all around him. The energy kept building around him, and somewhere inside he found room for fear.
* * *
Buffy stared at Molly. "God told you."
"Yes."
"What, did one of my bushes catch fire?"
Molly flushed. "No! He came to me, and He told me to let the Church know. He said that Xander was the one, the second coming of Christ, and that the world needed to prepare."
Buffy shuddered. "What did he look like?"
"Like God, okay? Big guy? Robes? Long white beard? He knew everything about us, about me and you and Xander and everyone and He told me He chose me, to be Christ's voice on Earth."
Buffy's eyes widened. "Did he touch you?"
"What?"
"Did he touch you? Or anything else in the room? Did he?"
"No, He's GOD. He doesn't need material things. He just IS!"
"Oh, Jesus."
Molly leaped to her feet. "Stop it! Stop saying His name like that! You don't understand anything, you're not even Catholic. You're just, you're like an abomination!"
Buffy stared up at her, her face hardened. "Oh? Did 'God' tell you that, too?"
"He didn't have to." Molly stared at her. "I figured that out for myself. He can see you, you know, what you're doing here, how you're messing all this up. You think you're doing it right, but you're not. He said that if I let the world know, they would help us stop the First Evil. Without you."
Buffy closed her eyes. "And it didn't occur to you ONCE that this god-figure WAS the first evil?"
Molly slapped Buffy. She jumped back and stared at her hand, then glared at the Slayer again. "How dare you?"
Buffy stood. "Do you know how many people have died in the history of the world who fit your description of God? How--"
The room flooded with white light. Buffy blinked. Molly looked stunned. They both turned to the window. A streaming line of light extended out over the sky. They looked at each other, then rushed as one to the front door.
Other potentials were coming as well. They poured from the basement where they'd been working with Spike, calling out questions that no one had any answers to. Buffy threw open the front door and lead the group out into the yard.
A giant cross stretched up from the back garden, almost too painful to look at. The potentials gasped. Molly grinned. Buffy frowned.
"See?" Molly bounced, pointing. "See? What did I tell you?"
Buffy let out a long breath. "Dammit Willow," she growled. "You were supposed to HIDE Xander, not paint a big 'Miracles-R-Us' sign across the sky."
* * *
Willow's mouth dropped open as sparkles of pure white magic crackled around her friend's body. The light poured through the thick material of his jeans and his jacket. His hands slowly lifted off his knees, and as the light grew, they drifted out to the side, his arms straightening, his palms still aimed at the sky. His wide eyes stared at her, the irises and pupils completely sublimated, giving him an otherworldly look. Above them, a white cross erased the shadows of the afternoon, its arms stretching over the town.
"Xander, it's too much!" She shifted to her knees, and he peered up at her. His gaze seemed to pierce through her, burning into the darkest corners of her soul. "Oh, goddess,"
Xander cocked his head slightly, smiling. His expression seemed to say "Yes, that too."
If Willow had any doubt that something deeply ancient and powerful was happening to her best friend, it was erased.
The energy surged up and down her arms, and she gasped again, the familiar sensation of magic filling her. Too much magic. She had to stop him. She fought to control the magic. "Send it back out!"
His smile faded, but left an afterimage on her eyes. "How?" he intoned, his voice echoing through her. Through the power, she could hear Xander, almost smothering in energy, starting to panic.
"Calm down." She said this almost as much to herself as to him. "I'll-I'll help. Picture the magic returning to the ground. Push it back out."
Willow held his gaze, and slowly started drawing the energy out of him and back into the world around them. Xander stared aback, and bit by bit, the light started to fade. Concentric circles slowly appeared against the whites of his eyes, then darkened as the iris and pupil reappeared. As the last of the energy faded into their surroundings, Willow slumped, exhausted from channeling that much energy. Xander's hands snapped to her upper arms, holding her upright with surprising strength. His body fairly quivered as he stared at her. Willow smiled weakly.
"That?" She shrugged. "Not so much with the subtle."
Xander nodded slowly. He was breathing heavily through his nose. He seemed afraid to speak, and Willow wondered if the chilling, hollow tone would remain now that the magic was gone. She touched his hand.
"Your hand's all better, though. At least we know that worked. Um, kinda more than I expected."
He stared at his hand on her shoulder. Ever so slowly, he lifted it off. His movements were precise, economical.
"Um, we should probably tell Giles."
Xander nodded again, then started to stand. He paused halfway, and gently touched her upper lip. "You're bleeding." His voice cracked, but at least it was his voice. He swallowed twice. "Can we not do that again? Ever?"
Willow shrugged, wiping at her nose. "Not until we've learned more, anyway."
He shook his head. "Ever."
She smiled slightly. Well, at least he wasn't still trying to figure out what was going on with Molly. "We'll see what Giles has to say."
"EVER, Willow."
"Yes, Xander."
* * *
Ethan Rayne closed the blinds over the motel room window. The First had told him, of course, of the strange new developments in the Scooby Gang, but he hadn't quite believed it until now. Of course, the children were foolish enough to let the world know about it. He grinned.
"Well, Ripper, you've found yourself a golden boy."
He crossed the room to where his laptop sat open on his bed and closed the browser window. He didn't need the little girl's journal anymore. He began arranging his spell components on the dresser.
He had no intention in allowing the First Evil to win, of course. The First wanted to get rid of the Scoobies, which Ethan was all in favor of, and had released him from prison, so he would make a token contribution to the First's side of the battle. But what the First was looking for was not chaos. The First Evil's reign would be ordered, just ordered to the dark instead of the light.
Order held no interest for Ethan. It wasn't any fun.
He opened his book on practical voodoo. It wasn't his usual style, of course, but then his usual style had landed him nothing but trouble. He looked over his ingredients. It had taken quite awhile to collect the proper components, snippings of hair and toe nail of each of the so-called slayerettes. He'd had to call in quite a few favors in the demon community to get them. It would surprise some, what demons collected. But Ethan and his demon contacts both knew the importance of DNA samples to some spells, and every creature had his price. The dolls were nearly complete.
This should throw quite a wrench into the gears of the Slayer's machine. He only hoped that Ripper, when the time came, would appreciate the special effort Ethan was putting in to his work.
Ethan Rayne was, if nothing else, a show man. He always liked to put on a good performance. And Ripper was such an . . . entertaining audience.
<--{4}
In other news, Donna has decided to set me up with her new Temp. Just what I need, another Jersey Boy....
Tomorrow I will work on putting this and Mercy Seat into organized archive blocks. For tonight, I thought I'd update.
Previous part here
Xander lay shirtless on Buffy's dining room table, his ankles crossed, his arms out-stretched. He stared up at the Scoobies seated around him, their faces grim. The potentials gathered at his feet, their eyes wide, hopeful. Giles stood at the head of the table, his left hand resting on a large book next to Xander's left ear. His right hand clutched at a knife, which he held high in the air. A starched white collar tucked into his black shirt. Giles scanned the gathered group without seeming to acknowledge Xander's presence.
Xander lifted his head slightly. Molly, standing at the front of the potentials, her hands folded demurely in front of her, stared hungrily at him. Xander shivered.
"And Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said 'take this, all of you, and eat it.'" Giles lowered the knife to Xander's shoulder and made a small, precise cut. Blood sprang to the surface, which Buffy wiped into a wine glass. Giles made a second cut, perpendicular to the first, and lifted the triangle of Xander's flesh onto a paper plate. "'This is my body,'" he intoned, lifting the plate into the air, and then passing it to Willow, who carried it to Molly. "Which has been given up for you.'"
Molly's expression turned rapturous as she picked up the slice of shoulder and placed it on her tongue. She swallowed it whole and licked Xander's blood from her fingers. Somewhere behind Giles, a bell rang softly, twice.
Giles took the wine glass from Buffy and handed her the knife. He lifted it into the light and swirled it slightly. As he spoke, Buffy sliced more meat from Xander's shoulder, arms, and ribs, and passed the pieces to the congregation.
"And Christ took the wine, lifted it up and said 'take this, all of you, and drink from it. This is my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant, which has been poured out for you.'"
And Giles lowered the glass to his lips and drained it, his eyes changing momentarily to gold as he savored the flavor of Xander's blood.
The bell chimed again.
All around Xander, his friends feasted on his flesh. Buffy passed around dixie cups of his blood, which they drank greedily. Willow turned to Kennedy, a blue vein caught in her teeth.
"Isn't it noble?" She said. "He's dying for our sins."
Xander opened his mouth to protest, but no words came out.
Anya lifted his heart from his chest and bit into it with a grin.
Xander screamed.
His hand flew to his chest, covered by his undershirt. Light shone in from the window, filling Willow's bedroom with the midday sun. He was covered in sweat, which, as he began to calm down from his nightmare, he took as a good sign that his perpetual dehydration was finally fading.
He thought back over the dream, recognizing Giles' speech from a scene in 'the Exorcist', which they'd watched "for research purposes" the night before. It was a traditional part of the Catholic mass.
"Three cheers for ritualized cannibalism." Xander shoved himself out of bed and staggered to the bathroom, his awkward movements caused more by residual sleepiness than pain, for once. He stared into the mirror at his pale face, his wild hair. He shook his head, trying to banish the image of Giles as a vampiric priest from his mind. "So very disturbing."
"Xander?" Willow knocked on the bathroom door, then opened it and stuck her head in before he could answer . "Good. You're awake, Sleepy McSleeperson."
He stared at her, his heart still pounding. Would she think it was noble, when he died from this?
"Are you okay?" Willow's eyebrows tilted up. She stepped into the bathroom, resting a warm hand on his arm.
No, of course she wouldn't. Willow wouldn't let him die, for her sins or otherwise, if she could possibly help it.
Besides, she was Jewish. Or Wiccan, rather. They didn't go for martyrdom.
"Yeah," he said finally. "Nightmare." He unwrapped the clean white bandage from his hand. The wound had finally stopped bleeding. "I think I might actually be able to go home today."
"That's great!" Willow smiled and started pulling the gauze from his other hand. Her grin was a little bit too fixed, her expression a little bit too bright. She was hiding something. "There's something I want us to . . . um . . . try first. It's a grounding ritual. I learned it in England. I think it could really help."
"Help how"
"Help ground you." Willow said, as though this was obvious. She bit her lip.
Definitely hiding something. "Um, okay."
The two of them finished unwrapping Xander's bandages and Xander shooed Willow from the room so he could shower, promising to meet her in the garden when he finished. As she left, he shook his head. What was she hiding? He thought of her biting into his flesh in his dream and shuddered. Well, he'd get it from her soon enough.
* * *
"Just close your eyes and relax." Willow demonstrated, settling into a cross-legged position, resting her hands lightly, palms up, on her knees. Xander leaned back slightly against the tree behind him, gingerly settling his own hands on his knees. The wounds might not have required bandages any more, but they still stung. He glanced over to make sure his bottle of gatoraide was within reach, should he get hit with another bout of dehydration. He hadn't been brave enough to drink actual water since the incident in the kitchen with Spike. Nothing as alien looking as gatoraide could possibly become holy. He hoped. He closed his eyes.
"Good. Now focus on the feeling of the ground underneath you. Imagine your energy as a root system, extending into the earth. You draw energy through your roots, and from your branches in the sky."
"So . . . I'm a tree, then."
"Xander," Willow's voice took on a note of warning. He smiled slightly, and tried to focus. He felt rather foolish. After a moment, he cracked an eye open. Willow sat perfectly still, her face serene. She hummed very softly to herself. This was apparently favorite technique of hers. It was the most relaxed he'd seen her in . . . well, a very, very long time. Xander was hard pressed to name when he'd last seen such a beatific expression on her face. Not since before the battle with Glory at the very least. These days, she usually just looked anxious. He hated to interrupt her. But the "don't tell Xander" air wasn't just Willow. Buffy had been avoidy with him, too, what little he'd seen of her that morning. He leaned forward slightly.
"Will?"
"Hmm?" She didn't open her eyes.
"Why are we doing this?"
Willow frowned, then slumped. She opened her eyes, exasperated. "It's to ground you, Xander."
"Yeah, you said that." Xander reached for his gatoraide. "But what does that MEAN?"
"It connects you to the earth and the sky. You can draw energy from it, to revive yourself." Willow looked over to one side. "I thought it might help with your . . . um . . . condition. With the pain and all."
"Mmhm." Xander took a long sip, then took a moment to set his drink to one side. "And the other reason?"
Willow jerked. "No other reason! Just the energy, and the pain thing. Nothing else at all!"
"Willow, you're a terrible liar."
Her whole face fell. "I know. But, um, I'm not lying."
Xander shrugged. "Yeah. Fine. Not lying."
Willow nodded firmly, then shut her eyes again. Xander watched her for a moment.
"So why was Buffy looking for Molly earlier?"
Willow's eyes shot open again. "What?!"
"She seemed really serious about something, and Molly was looking pretty nervous. What's going on?"
"N-nothing. Buffy . . . Buffy was just asking her to calm down, you know? With-with the whole God thing. Because we know how uncomfortable it makes you, and she kept trying to organize a church group, and she actually yelled at Kennedy for using 'Jesus' as an explanation and then I found--eh."
Xander smiled slightly. Willow-babble did it every time. "Found what?"
Willow blinked at him for a very long moment. "My notes," she said finally, twisting her head slightly to one side while keeping her eyes on his, as though challenging him to contradict her. "From last summer in England. With this grounding ritual in them. And I just thought, hey, what a really great way to help my old pal Xander feel better!"
Xander rolled his eyes. "Willow,"
She continued as though it had been her intention to the whole time, her intonation never changing. "And not accidentally kill things with his mind." Her smile returned.
That wasn't the whole truth yet. On the other hand, Xander really, really, really wanted to make sure he wasn't going to go around killing people with the 'evil eye'. He sighed. "Okay. We'll do this grounding thingy." Willow relaxed. "And then we'll go find Buffy, and she can tell me what you found."
Willow slumped again.
* * *
Molly clasped her hands together in her lap. Her left leg bounced. She looked at anything she could that wasn't Buffy.
Buffy bit back a sigh. Great. Her army of specially trained demon fighters was afraid of her. Well, maybe that could work to her advantage. For now, she wanted answers.
"You borrowed Willow's laptop."
Molly nodded, staring at the coffee table.
"You were updating your blog."
Molly nodded again.
"Wanna tell me what you wrote?" Buffy knew, of course, having read the whole thing, from the first entry once Molly had arrived in Sunnydale to the thrilling conclusion in last night's post. She wanted Molly to tell her though. And then, when she'd admitted that, Molly would tell her WHY.
"I wrote about being here." Molly's gaze switched over to the doorway of the room. Buffy leaned forward. "Um, not about being a potential, or about slayers or the hellmouth or anything, but about my family and my watcher . . . um, I didn't call her my watcher . . . about them dying. I made it into an accident."
Buffy was silent. She stared into the potential in front of her, who was shooting short glances in her direction, and wincing.
"I'm sorry. I just needed to talk about it."
"And you felt that livejournal was the place to talk about it?"
"People online understand." Molly looked up at her. She had the faint glimmer of tears in her eyes. "I mean, not totally understand, but, um, they've lost people. They've had to move. They make me feel better."
"You couldn't talk to the other potentials?"
"Of course I could. And-and I do. Vi, mostly. And Chloe, before she--but I needed someone from the outside, you know? Haven't you ever just wanted to get it all out?"
Buffy sighed inwardly, while maintaining her stern expression. Of course she had. That's why she'd refused to let Giles push Willow and Xander away when she'd first gotten there. But that didn't mean she was sharing her woes with a billion faceless readers.
"What else did you write?"
Molly started to get defensive. "You already know."
"I want you to tell me."
"Why?! Why do we have to keep it a secret? It's a miracle, Buffy! It's the second coming, and people have to know!"
"You're announcing what might be one of greatest assets in battle to the world at large. If the First Evil didn't already know about Xander, it does now. Do you want us to lose, Molly? You're sabotaging us."
"No I'm not!" Molly crossed her arms. "There're people out there who are going to understand more about what's happening to Xander than any of us do. They can help us, Buffy!"
"These knowledgeable people, they're reading a teenager's blog."
"No." Molly said this very softly. Buffy stiffened.
"What are they reading, Molly?"
"My emails. I, um, sent an email to the pastor of my old church. He said he'd ask around. He let the Cardinal know."
Buffy paled. "How do you know we can trust them? How do you know they won't come in here and take Xander away from us? Is that what you want?!" She could feel her anger rising, and struggled to reign it in. She didn't need to be General Buffy right now. Well, she did, but she needed to be Counselor Buffy, too.
"No! They wouldn't do that! He told me they wouldn't do that!"
"Your pastor told you."
"No." Molly looked Buffy dead in the eye. "God did."
* * *
Xander concentrated, trying to picture the tree in his mind. An oak, maybe, roots digging through the soil, branches stretching up into the sky. It flourished for a second, and he felt something surge through him, but then it withered and he felt his body slump.
"Focus, Xander."
"Easy for you to say."
"Just think of the magic. It's all around you here. Feel it around you, and let yourself connect to it."
Xander sighed. "This is too abstract, Willow. I've never been good at abstract."
"Xanderrrrrr . . . ." Willow put a hand on his knee. "Try. You had it for a second."
Xander didn't bother to question how Willow knew that. Willow always knew these things. It was just like when she was trying to teach him geometry. "Fine." He straightened his back, and thought of magic.
The hellmouth, he knew, wasn't far away. A pool, like the one Buffy had drowned in, lying rippling beneath them. He imagined it, a swirl of red covering the whole town, and shuddered slightly.
But there had to be good magic here, too. The hellmouth drew demons, but the good magic, maybe, was what drew the Slayer, and the witches like Tara. It was in the air, in the plants. He imagined it as a blue mist, hovering over everything, blocking out the evil. That was what he wanted to tap into.
"Connect the ground to the sky with the magic."
Connect them? Through himself, right, she'd said that. He tried for the tree again, but that didn't feel right. He pictured the blue mist, above, below, and circling him. It started to coalesce.
"That's it, now connect yourself to it."
Down into the ground and up into the sky. The top of his head and the base of his spine tingled, as the magic started pouring into him.
He was only half aware that he'd tilted his head back. The mist circled once, turned a bright, blinding white, and then shot through him like a spike from the sky into the ground. His eyes shot open, but all he could see was white light. His body seemed to swell as the line of light split somewhere, miles above his head, shooting out perpendicular to the original line.
Somewhere in the distance, Willow gasped.
The energy continued to swell and roil within him, and he could feel his hands and feet knitting back together. For the first time since his date, Xander wasn't in any pain. He drifted on the sensation, and felt a smile grow on his face.
"Xander,"
And the energy continued to build. The stab wound in his chest finished healing, and Xander took a deep breath. As he exhaled, the magic filled his lungs. It seeped into his stomach, his heart, and his skin.
"Xander."
And it filled him up until he was full of nothing but pure white energy, and still it kept coming. Above his head, the glowing cross brightened into something blinding, stretching up to the stars. He felt prickling, tingling tears on his cheeks. The magic started to spill over, spiraling around him, shooting in and out of his pores.
"Xander!" Willow's hands grabbed onto his shoulders, and his head snapped down. She gasped.
He couldn't see her face. He couldn't see anything but white, all around him. The energy kept building around him, and somewhere inside he found room for fear.
* * *
Buffy stared at Molly. "God told you."
"Yes."
"What, did one of my bushes catch fire?"
Molly flushed. "No! He came to me, and He told me to let the Church know. He said that Xander was the one, the second coming of Christ, and that the world needed to prepare."
Buffy shuddered. "What did he look like?"
"Like God, okay? Big guy? Robes? Long white beard? He knew everything about us, about me and you and Xander and everyone and He told me He chose me, to be Christ's voice on Earth."
Buffy's eyes widened. "Did he touch you?"
"What?"
"Did he touch you? Or anything else in the room? Did he?"
"No, He's GOD. He doesn't need material things. He just IS!"
"Oh, Jesus."
Molly leaped to her feet. "Stop it! Stop saying His name like that! You don't understand anything, you're not even Catholic. You're just, you're like an abomination!"
Buffy stared up at her, her face hardened. "Oh? Did 'God' tell you that, too?"
"He didn't have to." Molly stared at her. "I figured that out for myself. He can see you, you know, what you're doing here, how you're messing all this up. You think you're doing it right, but you're not. He said that if I let the world know, they would help us stop the First Evil. Without you."
Buffy closed her eyes. "And it didn't occur to you ONCE that this god-figure WAS the first evil?"
Molly slapped Buffy. She jumped back and stared at her hand, then glared at the Slayer again. "How dare you?"
Buffy stood. "Do you know how many people have died in the history of the world who fit your description of God? How--"
The room flooded with white light. Buffy blinked. Molly looked stunned. They both turned to the window. A streaming line of light extended out over the sky. They looked at each other, then rushed as one to the front door.
Other potentials were coming as well. They poured from the basement where they'd been working with Spike, calling out questions that no one had any answers to. Buffy threw open the front door and lead the group out into the yard.
A giant cross stretched up from the back garden, almost too painful to look at. The potentials gasped. Molly grinned. Buffy frowned.
"See?" Molly bounced, pointing. "See? What did I tell you?"
Buffy let out a long breath. "Dammit Willow," she growled. "You were supposed to HIDE Xander, not paint a big 'Miracles-R-Us' sign across the sky."
* * *
Willow's mouth dropped open as sparkles of pure white magic crackled around her friend's body. The light poured through the thick material of his jeans and his jacket. His hands slowly lifted off his knees, and as the light grew, they drifted out to the side, his arms straightening, his palms still aimed at the sky. His wide eyes stared at her, the irises and pupils completely sublimated, giving him an otherworldly look. Above them, a white cross erased the shadows of the afternoon, its arms stretching over the town.
"Xander, it's too much!" She shifted to her knees, and he peered up at her. His gaze seemed to pierce through her, burning into the darkest corners of her soul. "Oh, goddess,"
Xander cocked his head slightly, smiling. His expression seemed to say "Yes, that too."
If Willow had any doubt that something deeply ancient and powerful was happening to her best friend, it was erased.
The energy surged up and down her arms, and she gasped again, the familiar sensation of magic filling her. Too much magic. She had to stop him. She fought to control the magic. "Send it back out!"
His smile faded, but left an afterimage on her eyes. "How?" he intoned, his voice echoing through her. Through the power, she could hear Xander, almost smothering in energy, starting to panic.
"Calm down." She said this almost as much to herself as to him. "I'll-I'll help. Picture the magic returning to the ground. Push it back out."
Willow held his gaze, and slowly started drawing the energy out of him and back into the world around them. Xander stared aback, and bit by bit, the light started to fade. Concentric circles slowly appeared against the whites of his eyes, then darkened as the iris and pupil reappeared. As the last of the energy faded into their surroundings, Willow slumped, exhausted from channeling that much energy. Xander's hands snapped to her upper arms, holding her upright with surprising strength. His body fairly quivered as he stared at her. Willow smiled weakly.
"That?" She shrugged. "Not so much with the subtle."
Xander nodded slowly. He was breathing heavily through his nose. He seemed afraid to speak, and Willow wondered if the chilling, hollow tone would remain now that the magic was gone. She touched his hand.
"Your hand's all better, though. At least we know that worked. Um, kinda more than I expected."
He stared at his hand on her shoulder. Ever so slowly, he lifted it off. His movements were precise, economical.
"Um, we should probably tell Giles."
Xander nodded again, then started to stand. He paused halfway, and gently touched her upper lip. "You're bleeding." His voice cracked, but at least it was his voice. He swallowed twice. "Can we not do that again? Ever?"
Willow shrugged, wiping at her nose. "Not until we've learned more, anyway."
He shook his head. "Ever."
She smiled slightly. Well, at least he wasn't still trying to figure out what was going on with Molly. "We'll see what Giles has to say."
"EVER, Willow."
"Yes, Xander."
* * *
Ethan Rayne closed the blinds over the motel room window. The First had told him, of course, of the strange new developments in the Scooby Gang, but he hadn't quite believed it until now. Of course, the children were foolish enough to let the world know about it. He grinned.
"Well, Ripper, you've found yourself a golden boy."
He crossed the room to where his laptop sat open on his bed and closed the browser window. He didn't need the little girl's journal anymore. He began arranging his spell components on the dresser.
He had no intention in allowing the First Evil to win, of course. The First wanted to get rid of the Scoobies, which Ethan was all in favor of, and had released him from prison, so he would make a token contribution to the First's side of the battle. But what the First was looking for was not chaos. The First Evil's reign would be ordered, just ordered to the dark instead of the light.
Order held no interest for Ethan. It wasn't any fun.
He opened his book on practical voodoo. It wasn't his usual style, of course, but then his usual style had landed him nothing but trouble. He looked over his ingredients. It had taken quite awhile to collect the proper components, snippings of hair and toe nail of each of the so-called slayerettes. He'd had to call in quite a few favors in the demon community to get them. It would surprise some, what demons collected. But Ethan and his demon contacts both knew the importance of DNA samples to some spells, and every creature had his price. The dolls were nearly complete.
This should throw quite a wrench into the gears of the Slayer's machine. He only hoped that Ripper, when the time came, would appreciate the special effort Ethan was putting in to his work.
Ethan Rayne was, if nothing else, a show man. He always liked to put on a good performance. And Ripper was such an . . . entertaining audience.
<--{4}
In other news, Donna has decided to set me up with her new Temp. Just what I need, another Jersey Boy....