Airman Harris
This one fought me a bit. I may go back and reconsider parts later.
Airman Harris
Chapter Fifteen
Rated: Adult
Pairing: Xander/Daniel (and who the hell knows where this is going)
Two worlds... one collision course.
Previous chapters: One : Two : Three : Four : Five : Six : Seven : Eight : Nine : Ten : Eleven : Twelve : Thirteen : Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
"Oh my god. It's so wonderful to see you back." Willow clung to his arm like... well, like Willow.
"And buff. You definitely have some buff going for you, mister," Buffy added.
Xander raised his free arm and flexed it. "That's me, the Xan, Xan the buff dishwashing man."
Buffy looked at him sideways. "Okay, that needs work," she informed him.
"You look very good," Tara said before Xander could take offense at Buffy's rhyme-hating. "We've missed you."
"And I've missed my girls. I kept telling the guys on base that I had the three bestest girls ever, and they seemed to think I was lying. Imagine that."
"They're just jealous of your buffliness. Buffness?" Buffy shrugged.
"That they are," Xander agreed. He didn't point out that a couple of the kitchen staff were jealous of Daniel. Daniel would sit on the back counter and punctuate his lessons with stories. So one hieroglyph thingy that looked like a squadron of flying arrows came with a colorful story about a warrior king and the goddess who fell in love and out of love and a borderline inappropriate relations with a horse and no one in the kitchen would ever forget a few Akkadian words. The SGC had the only dishwashers in the Air Force who could recognize Sumerian for bestiality. And frighteningly enough, that might actually come in useful at some point, what with the way things went at the SGC. Either SGC dishwashers were really open-minded or that alien viagra thingy had really convinced everyone to have a new view of homosexuality.
"Hey!" Xander stopped. "Why are we going to the cemetery? I mean, I'm really kinda not interested in doing any more hunting."
"We have to pick up Dawn and Mom," Buffy said.
"We... what?" Xander stopped. "Has everyone gone crazy?"
"Hey!" Willow aimed a mock punch at his arm.
"I didn't swear."
"You called us crazy."
"If Buffy put her mom and Dawn in a cemetery, you are," Xander countered.
Buffy crossed her arms over her chest. "I needed a safe place to hide them."
"So you put them with a vampire? Newsflash, Buffy, that's like the anti-safe."
"Xander, don't start with this again. Spike is our strongest fighter."
"Which is kinda not good considering the doesn't have a soul."
"He's protecting them." Buffy started walking fast, but before he lost sight of her face, Xander could see the stone-faced fury there. Great. Yeah, it wasn't like he could expect anything to change just because he'd gone and changed.
"He's been helpful," Willow said, but she let go of his arm, and that right there pretty much said everything. "It's not fair to make Buffy feel guilty when she's doing her best."
"I didn't mean to pull the guilt card," Xander said. "I was more going for the vampires-evil card."
"Well you missed," Willow said with an edge in her voice. She looked ahead to where Buffy was quickly outpacing them with her long, angry strides.
Xander could feel the guilt and the plain wrong wrongness clinging to him like cobwebs. Buffy was turning to Spike, only Spike was more the sort to talk someone into joining the military to get them out of the way while he set everyone else up. But on the other side, Xander wasn't here anymore. He couldn't protect his girls, and Spike had stepped up to do the protecting.
"I should--" Willow gestured toward Buffy.
"Go on," Tara urged her softly, and with that, Willow started running to catch up with Buffy and Xander was left in their shadow. Again. Maybe this was karma for all the years it was him and Jesse and Willow was left in their shadow.
"Spike truly is doing his best to help," Tara said softly.
"He doesn't have a soul." Xander considered Angel--who he also hated. "And even if he did have a soul, he still considers us food, and a lamb who goes and makes friends with a wolf... well, he has that right, but I'm still going to call it stupid."
At least Tara was nodding. It was more than Willow and Buffy would do. "He has no aura. It makes it hard for me to trust him."
Xander snorted.
Tara moved closer, and Willow and Buffy had slowed down enough that they weren't pulling ahead, but there was definitely still a distance there. "However, as much as I am cautious, I have to admit that he has acted against his own interests to protect us. Perhaps the wolf needs a pack enough that a pack of lambs is better than being alone."
Xander gritted his teeth. Spike wasn't some warm fuzzy thing to feel sympathy for. "And what about if the wolf gets really, really hungry?"
Tara pursed her lips as she thought about that. "Then we have to be ready to put it down. But until the wolf turns against the pack, the other lambs can't live in fear of their protector."
"They can if they're smart."
Tara gave him a sad smile, but Xander wasn't stupid. He did get what Tara was saying. He just didn't want to get it. It was so much easier to keep shouting from the rooftops that Spike was evil, mostly because he was. Evil. Totally evil. And having him near Dawn was enough to make Xander's gut ache.
"How bad is it?" Xander asked softly as he walked with Tara down the dimly lit cemetery path. His eyes tracked the shadows.
"Bad," Tara confirmed. "Even before we knew she was a god, we knew we were in trouble."
"I still want to know what 'god' means," Xander complained softly. If there was even one Jaffa involved, Xander was calling O'Neill, even if it turned his life into a big steaming pile of shit. O'Neill would definitely kill him, especially considering that this was going to put Daniel in a really hard position, and O'Neill really liked Daniel.
"She's powerful. She thinks we have some key that will open a door to her universe."
"Do we?"
Tara seemed to genuinely think about that. "I don't know."
"Well that's just great." Xander ran a hand over his face. He felt about a hundred years old. It was like he could fall over from age at any point. Buffy and Willow turned toward a mausoleum and Xander stopped. He really didn't need to have Spike make fun of him, not today. He felt entirely too rough. The fact that prison was looming in his near future wasn't really helping, either. Well, maybe. His sergeant in basic training had said that if anyone of the little worms wanted to run home to mommy, the Air Force wouldn't chase them. It would dishonorably discharge them with a swift kick to the ass and a big dishonorable across their records. Oddly, the sergeant had looked right at Xander when he said it. However, O'Neill wasn't nearly as nice as the drill sergeant.
Sitting on a gravestone, Xander waited for the others to come back, and Tara hovered near him. Xander wasn't sure if she was trying to make him feel better or just avoiding Spike.
"So, is anything new with you?" Tara asked as they waiting between the long shadows.
"Um. Not really. I've gotten really good at washing dishes, but only if I have a really big dishwasher with this drive-through dishwashing thing. It's actually pretty awesome."
Tara nodded and ducked her head, and Xander had the feeling that he'd given the wrong answer. Or maybe he simply felt wrong overall. That could be it.
"Xander!" Dawn squealed his name and came running over, throwing herself in Xander's arms, and Xander hugged her as hard as he could. He felt so strange in his own skin that for the length of one heartbeat, he felt like he'd never done this before, never held Dawn close as she clung to him.
Joyce followed. "Xander! Oh my. How wonderful to see you." She came over and put her hand on Xander's shoulder, and the knot of wrong unwound.
"I heard about you getting sick. I'm really sorry," Xander said.
"I'm okay now," Joyce said with a smile, but Xander could see the difference. She had tight lines around her eyes she'd never had before.
"The doctors said that?" Xander asked. He could read the awkward pause and flickering glances as easily as a comic book. The doctors hadn't said that.
"I'll be fine, Xander. It's just so nice to see you back home. And you've grown so much. I can't even believe you're the same young man who used to eat all my oatmeal cookies," Joyce said.
"Hey, that was totally Buffy," Xander pointed out. He ate a lot, but he didn't eat nearly as much as Buffy.
"Hey!" Buffy protested. "Was not." But her smile made it clear that she was teasing him.
"Can we go home now? Is that woman gone?" Joyce asked.
"Yep, all gone. Only maybe we should be a little careful for a while." Buffy added that last part after a brief pause. The problem was that Xander didn't know what it meant to be a little careful around a god. Personally, he'd like some personal armor and a P90, but he was guessing Buffy wasn't planning on being that kind of comfortable. Xander opened his mouth to ask just what she would suggest since a stake probably wasn't going to cut it around a god; however, he spotted Spike. The vampire leaned against the wall of the crypt with a cigarette hanging from his one hand as he scanned the entire cemetery like a big cat searching for prey. Yeah, Xander did not plan on trusting the bleached one.
"Spike, would you like to come over?" Joyce called. Xander watched Dawn's face light up, and his mood darkened even more. Spike lazily finished his scan before looking over. He glanced at Joyce before his gaze caught Xander.
"No thank you, luv. I've got some business of my own."
Joyce gave him one of her mom-smiles, and Xander’s jealousy found whole new levels of unhappy. "Oh, well then, I hope we can continue our conversation later."
"Oh god, remind me to not be in the same room," Dawn complained. "They like the same stupid show." Dawn pulled away from Xander and rolled her eyes in an elaborate pattern. “Do you know what it’s like to listen to them talking about some stupid soap?”
"I can't wait until I can start embarrassing you in front of your friends," Joyce said dryly.
"You already do," Dawn countered.
Xander grinned. This was familiar, and he had missed it enough that he could even overlook the fact that the others were including Spike, which was still creepy in his book.
"Dawn, that isn't nice," Willow hissed as though being not-nice were the worst thing in the world. It was all so normal. Xander listened to the banter as they all headed back to Buffy's house. The group moved slow, but Joyce still seemed to be out of breath by the time they turned onto the street where Buffy lived. Dawn had migrated to Xander's side, chatting about boys and how much all her teachers hated her. Willow and Tara walked hand in hand and Buffy came up the rear, walking at her mother's side. Xander could imagine that the Air Force was a dream, no more real than his soldier memories from that Halloween night. His girls were his world, and surrounded by them, Xander couldn’t care about anything else. That lasted all the way up to the point when a dark figure separated from the trees lining the street.
Immediately, Buffy moved forward with Tara and Willow sliding back to stand in front of Xander and Dawn. Until this moment, he’d never really noticed that the others always put him in the most sheltered position. Yeah, he was the normal one, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t fought his share of battles. Besides, this was his fight. It had come a little quicker than he expected, but he’d known that he would have to face it at some point.
“Colonel O’Neill,” Xander said as he detoured around Buffy. He tried to sound friendly, like he was happy someone had come to arrest him. But happy was better than running because then O’Neill would chase him and Buffy would take O’Neill down, and it would be one big mess.
“Harris.” Oh yeah, O’Neill sounded all kinds of pissed. Hoping for some help in defusing the situation, Xander searched the shadows, but there wasn’t a Daniel in sight. Xander definitely expected the worst. He really needed to get these two groups away from each other before some seriously badness happened to someone who wasn’t him.
“Hey, maybe we could go talk… oh, I don’t know… somewhere else?” Xander gave his goofiest grin, but O’Neill’s eyes just narrowed.
“Xander?” Joyce asked. Xander could hear the shifting behind him as Joyce moved forward.
Okay, introduce the adults and hope the rest of the problem disappeared on its own-that was Xander’s new plan. “Joyce, this is Colonel O’Neill, who is technically my boss. Colonel O’Neill, this is Joyce Summers, the mother of a friend.” Xander didn’t introduce anyone else, as he stepped closer to O’Neill. His guts were so heavy that he could actually feel his stomach squeeze into one small, tight ball of fear. He thought he’d have more time. “We probably need to go,” Xander said as he gestured down the street, praying that O’Neill would just let him exit stage left with a little bit of dignity left.
“Your commanding officer came to California?” Joyce asked, and Xander found himself really wishing that Joyce was just a little bit less smart.
“And his friend is definitely setting off the wiggins,” Buffy said. Xander looked over his shoulder, and Buffy was eyeing Teal’c with her slaying look.
“Hey, no. He’s a friend,” Xander said as he quickly moved to block her. “He’s teaching me how to not get my ass kicked, which is good.” Xander figured it come in handy in jail. Shit. He really thought he’d have time to help Buffy deal with whatever she’d been hiding from Riley before he had to face this music. “But this isn’t the time or place to discuss my amazing skills at ass kickage. I bet the guys need to get back to their hotel.” Xander gave O’Neill a hopeful look.
“Nope. We’re good,” O’Neill said. Xander’s heart dropped. Shit, that was the colonel’s amused face-the one he made before he did something really embarrassing… like break into Daniel’s apartment to listen to Daniel and Xander have sex. Xander really hated that look.
“So,” O’Neill said with that annoyingly playful tone. “Nice little town you folks have here. The costume party theme is a little unusual, but then I never have gone for the whole knights of the round table look. Should you really let people run around with swords? Personally, I’d ask city hall to pass an ordinance about that if I were you.”
“What?” Xander frowned.
“You ran into guys with swords?” Buffy definitely sounded guarded.
“Yeah, you betcha. Interesting lot. Not a lot upstairs,” O’Neill said tapping his head, “but at least I don’t feel like the strangest guest at the party around here. I wouldn’t suggest asking for the slayer if you meet them, however. They have a very limited sense of humor.”
Xander cringed. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, and one more fuck for good measure, and that was a lot of fucks for someone who normally avoided that word.
“Slayer?” Buffy’s voice was brittle and Xander could almost feel her fury stabbing out of those words. Behind him, he could hear feet shifting, but it was like watching a car accident-Xander couldn’t take his eyes off O’Neill and Buffy.
“Yep,” O’Neill said, still as cheerful as ever. “Well, Finn didn’t tell us which of you was the slayer, but I’m guessing you,” O’Neill said as he looked right at Buffy. “You look like a woman who would blow up the NID, and as someone who has wanted to do that for decades, congratulations. I don’t suppose you kept video, did you?”
Xander watched as O’Neill managed to do something a legion of teachers, hordes of vampires and her mother had all failed to do: he left Buffy speechless.
O’Neill shrugged. “Between Finn’s stories and Xander here going AWOL, I had to assume there was something interesting going on in town. I was hoping you wanted to blow up more NID bases because I have to tell you, I’m feeling a little cranky that no one called me for that party.”
“You didn’t come to arrest me?” The words blurted out of Xander before his brain could do a common sense check; however, the gasps from the girls reminded him that he was supposed to hide that fact.
O’Neill turned his attention toward Xander. “If I was here to arrest you for going AWOL, I would have a couple of airmen with me. Colonels don’t do that sort of paperwork. Besides, Danny would never forgive me and I’d have to listen to him complain for the next decade.” About the time Xander had decided he’d dodged the metaphorical bullet, O’Neill’s expression turned hard. “However, you will face the consequences of that action, clear airman?”
“Yes, sir,” Xander agreed.
“Wait,” Buffy moved to Xander’s side. “What are you talking about? AWOL? Consequences? What is going on?”
O’Neill turned his back to them and headed for the front steps, sitting down like he was some neighbor who’d come over to chat. Teal’c, however, continued to be very Teal’c like in his corner of the yard. “It turns out that Harris didn’t have permission to leave, but something Finn said sent him running. You feel like sharing with the class, Harris?” O’Neill asked.
“My Finn? Riley Finn?” Buffy hadn’t sounded this confused since the Russian revolution in tenth grade.
O’Neill leaned back. “Yep. Harris’ hometown set off a few alarm bells in our background search, and when I went poking around, I found Finn. We have some mutual acquaintances since we’re in the same line of work.”
“Is that supposed to be some sort of subtle hint, because if it is, you need to be way less subtle,” Buffy suggested.
For a second, O’Neill considered her. Xander held his breath as the two parts of his world collided, and then O’Neill shrugged and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I’m special ops. I’ve been doing the sort of work Finn’s in for a long time, although generally I go up against humans. Yeah. I know about the hellgate. Now, did I expect to hear that we have some sort of gate to hell in the middle of California?” O’Neill tilted his head. “Actually, if you’re going to have a gate to hell, having it in California makes some sense. But trust me, I did not appreciate the fact that the NID kept that little secret to itself.”
Xander watched as the Sunnydale group shifted. The others maneuvered Dawn and Joyce to the far side of the porch, away from O’Neill and Teal’c while Tara stood near them, and Willow took a position halfway between Buffy and the others. Xander stood next to Buffy, not because this was his place but because he really didn’t want any slaying. On either side.
“What do you want?” Buffy demanded.
“World peace, a really good chicken wing and time to catch up on all my taped episodes of The Simpson,” O’Neill said with a straight face. Yeah, he was feeling amused, and Xander did not trust an amused Colonel O’Neill. Clearly Buffy didn’t either because she crossed her arms and didn’t move.
Sighing, O’Neill stood up. “Look, I’m not the diplomatic one. Usually someone else does the meet and greet; however, since my favorite meet and greet scientist is stupidly in love with Harris, I pointed out that his biases made him a liability in the field.”
“Ouch,” Xander whispered as he imagined how that conversation had gone over.
“Xander, you’re in love?” And that was Willow, always focusing on the happily ever after ending, even in the middle of imminent disaster.
However, O’Neill’s glare made it clear that he wasn’t all that amused. “You will pay for every moment of misery I endured,” he warned Xander before focusing back on Buffy. “Summers, right?” Buffy nodded.
“Summers, I’m a fighter, and I get the feeling there’s a fight to be had here. Either that or your friends are displaying an unhealthy level of paranoia. So, what I want is a clear idea of what you need help fighting, a clear chain of command with the understanding that Harris reports to me, and a clear requisition order. I get the feeling you have a serious battle brewing here, but I can’t tell if you need P90s and flak jackets or unmanned drones and Javelin anti-tank missiles. The paperwork you have to fill out for anti-tank missiles…” O’Neill whistled as he held up his fingers to measure out an inch or so. “Now, that doesn’t mean I can’t get you those Javelins if you need them, but right now, I’m flying in the dark, and I hate flying in the dark unless I have some really good instruments and a co-pilot I trust.”
“You’re offering me weapons?”
O’Neill shrugged. “Do you have a clear idea of who we’re supposed to be shooting at?”
Buffy didn’t answer, but Willow inched closer. “Buffy, maybe they could help. You said it, we don’t have the firepower to take her down.”
“Her?” O’Neill pounced on the word.
Buffy looked around, her eyes finally settling on Teal’c. “He’s not all human.”
“Nope,” O’Neill agreed without offering any other explanation.
Xander could feel the lines of power draw tight as each side pulled back, each holding their secrets. Xander swallowed around the lump in his throat and forced the words out through his fear-fear of court-martial, fear of losing his friends or disappointing people or prison. But his fears didn’t matter in the face of his girls being in real danger.
“A god has targeted them. She thinks they can help her open a door to her dimension, and apparently she has some godly powers of indestruction,” Xander blurted out before he could chicken out.
“Xander!” The punch Buffy aimed at his arm was hard enough to leave a bruise.
“A god?” O’Neill’s eyebrows went up. “Well, crap. You couldn’t settle for vampires and the soul-sucking NID, could you? Okay, so you’re the expert here, Summers. How do you fight a god in this neck of the woods?”
“You don’t. I do.” Buffy said fiercely, “You think you know what’s going on, but you don’t know anything. I’m the slayer. This god, she can come to my town and made a lot of noise. She can play her psychological games and annoy me with her ability to recover from a punch and questionable fashion sense. But in the end, I’m going to take her down just like I’ve taken down every threat that has ever come to town. That’s my destiny. Slayers have been guarding hellmouths since the beginning of time. Literally. So you don’t come in here and play soldier-boy.”
Xander braced himself for the explosion.
“I wasn’t planning to. That’s where a clear chain of command comes in,” O’Neill agreed with an easy shrug, and Xander was so shocked that he could almost feel his balance wobble.
“So, you’re the slayer and you’re in command. I’m here to provide tactical support wherever you need it, so I’m going to repeat myself… do you want sidearms, explosives, automatic weaponry or the really good stuff? Personally, I find blowing up god particularly effective, but this is your turf, and you know the rules.
“But before that, Harris and I need to have a little talk about our own chain of command and where he fits on it. So you discuss your tactical needs and decide where we can provide support. Teal’c and I are experts in shooting things, and we have a good comedy act on the side if that helps, but I also brought a linguist who doubles as my diplomatic officer and a technology expert who can turn two paperclips into cell phone. So you figure out where you could use those sorts of resources, and I’ll get in touch tomorrow.”
O’Neill reached out and caught Xander’s arm, pulling him close before shoving him toward the street. Then Buffy caught Xander’s other arm, and Xander definitely felt like the stick in a tug of war between two really scary dogs.
“Leave Xander alone,” Buffy warned. Weirdly, Xander chose that moment to realize that Tara, Dawn and Joyce were gone. He supposed they had gone to safer ground. And Joyce had painted the shutters. Xander knew full well that his brain was doing the crack-monkey on a gerbil wheel thing, but trying to focus would mean focusing on two people he liked in a showdown over him, and that was more than he could handle.
“Airman Harris is a member of the military and under my command. Any disciplinary action he faces for his desertion is not part of your turf.” O’Neill didn’t wait for an answer before striking down the walk toward the street. For a second, Buffy held on, and Xander’s arms developed bruises before she let go, allowing O’Neill to pull him out toward the street.
Xander almost felt like some thread connecting him to the others snapped at that point. They couldn’t protect him, no matter how much they wanted to. And he’d done all this to protect them, and he couldn’t do that, either. This wall separated them, and Xander wasn’t sure if the wall was called the Air Force or growing older or growing apart or a simple case of not knowing how to help. However, something rose up, and Xander could feel a door close on his life. And worse, Xander really had no idea what sort of trouble he was in; he only knew that it wasn’t in his control to fix any of this. Whatever O’Neill wanted to do, Xander didn’t have the strength-not the emotional strength or the legal right-to stop him. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling.
Airman Harris
Chapter Fifteen
Rated: Adult
Pairing: Xander/Daniel (and who the hell knows where this is going)
Two worlds... one collision course.
Previous chapters: One : Two : Three : Four : Five : Six : Seven : Eight : Nine : Ten : Eleven : Twelve : Thirteen : Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
"Oh my god. It's so wonderful to see you back." Willow clung to his arm like... well, like Willow.
"And buff. You definitely have some buff going for you, mister," Buffy added.
Xander raised his free arm and flexed it. "That's me, the Xan, Xan the buff dishwashing man."
Buffy looked at him sideways. "Okay, that needs work," she informed him.
"You look very good," Tara said before Xander could take offense at Buffy's rhyme-hating. "We've missed you."
"And I've missed my girls. I kept telling the guys on base that I had the three bestest girls ever, and they seemed to think I was lying. Imagine that."
"They're just jealous of your buffliness. Buffness?" Buffy shrugged.
"That they are," Xander agreed. He didn't point out that a couple of the kitchen staff were jealous of Daniel. Daniel would sit on the back counter and punctuate his lessons with stories. So one hieroglyph thingy that looked like a squadron of flying arrows came with a colorful story about a warrior king and the goddess who fell in love and out of love and a borderline inappropriate relations with a horse and no one in the kitchen would ever forget a few Akkadian words. The SGC had the only dishwashers in the Air Force who could recognize Sumerian for bestiality. And frighteningly enough, that might actually come in useful at some point, what with the way things went at the SGC. Either SGC dishwashers were really open-minded or that alien viagra thingy had really convinced everyone to have a new view of homosexuality.
"Hey!" Xander stopped. "Why are we going to the cemetery? I mean, I'm really kinda not interested in doing any more hunting."
"We have to pick up Dawn and Mom," Buffy said.
"We... what?" Xander stopped. "Has everyone gone crazy?"
"Hey!" Willow aimed a mock punch at his arm.
"I didn't swear."
"You called us crazy."
"If Buffy put her mom and Dawn in a cemetery, you are," Xander countered.
Buffy crossed her arms over her chest. "I needed a safe place to hide them."
"So you put them with a vampire? Newsflash, Buffy, that's like the anti-safe."
"Xander, don't start with this again. Spike is our strongest fighter."
"Which is kinda not good considering the doesn't have a soul."
"He's protecting them." Buffy started walking fast, but before he lost sight of her face, Xander could see the stone-faced fury there. Great. Yeah, it wasn't like he could expect anything to change just because he'd gone and changed.
"He's been helpful," Willow said, but she let go of his arm, and that right there pretty much said everything. "It's not fair to make Buffy feel guilty when she's doing her best."
"I didn't mean to pull the guilt card," Xander said. "I was more going for the vampires-evil card."
"Well you missed," Willow said with an edge in her voice. She looked ahead to where Buffy was quickly outpacing them with her long, angry strides.
Xander could feel the guilt and the plain wrong wrongness clinging to him like cobwebs. Buffy was turning to Spike, only Spike was more the sort to talk someone into joining the military to get them out of the way while he set everyone else up. But on the other side, Xander wasn't here anymore. He couldn't protect his girls, and Spike had stepped up to do the protecting.
"I should--" Willow gestured toward Buffy.
"Go on," Tara urged her softly, and with that, Willow started running to catch up with Buffy and Xander was left in their shadow. Again. Maybe this was karma for all the years it was him and Jesse and Willow was left in their shadow.
"Spike truly is doing his best to help," Tara said softly.
"He doesn't have a soul." Xander considered Angel--who he also hated. "And even if he did have a soul, he still considers us food, and a lamb who goes and makes friends with a wolf... well, he has that right, but I'm still going to call it stupid."
At least Tara was nodding. It was more than Willow and Buffy would do. "He has no aura. It makes it hard for me to trust him."
Xander snorted.
Tara moved closer, and Willow and Buffy had slowed down enough that they weren't pulling ahead, but there was definitely still a distance there. "However, as much as I am cautious, I have to admit that he has acted against his own interests to protect us. Perhaps the wolf needs a pack enough that a pack of lambs is better than being alone."
Xander gritted his teeth. Spike wasn't some warm fuzzy thing to feel sympathy for. "And what about if the wolf gets really, really hungry?"
Tara pursed her lips as she thought about that. "Then we have to be ready to put it down. But until the wolf turns against the pack, the other lambs can't live in fear of their protector."
"They can if they're smart."
Tara gave him a sad smile, but Xander wasn't stupid. He did get what Tara was saying. He just didn't want to get it. It was so much easier to keep shouting from the rooftops that Spike was evil, mostly because he was. Evil. Totally evil. And having him near Dawn was enough to make Xander's gut ache.
"How bad is it?" Xander asked softly as he walked with Tara down the dimly lit cemetery path. His eyes tracked the shadows.
"Bad," Tara confirmed. "Even before we knew she was a god, we knew we were in trouble."
"I still want to know what 'god' means," Xander complained softly. If there was even one Jaffa involved, Xander was calling O'Neill, even if it turned his life into a big steaming pile of shit. O'Neill would definitely kill him, especially considering that this was going to put Daniel in a really hard position, and O'Neill really liked Daniel.
"She's powerful. She thinks we have some key that will open a door to her universe."
"Do we?"
Tara seemed to genuinely think about that. "I don't know."
"Well that's just great." Xander ran a hand over his face. He felt about a hundred years old. It was like he could fall over from age at any point. Buffy and Willow turned toward a mausoleum and Xander stopped. He really didn't need to have Spike make fun of him, not today. He felt entirely too rough. The fact that prison was looming in his near future wasn't really helping, either. Well, maybe. His sergeant in basic training had said that if anyone of the little worms wanted to run home to mommy, the Air Force wouldn't chase them. It would dishonorably discharge them with a swift kick to the ass and a big dishonorable across their records. Oddly, the sergeant had looked right at Xander when he said it. However, O'Neill wasn't nearly as nice as the drill sergeant.
Sitting on a gravestone, Xander waited for the others to come back, and Tara hovered near him. Xander wasn't sure if she was trying to make him feel better or just avoiding Spike.
"So, is anything new with you?" Tara asked as they waiting between the long shadows.
"Um. Not really. I've gotten really good at washing dishes, but only if I have a really big dishwasher with this drive-through dishwashing thing. It's actually pretty awesome."
Tara nodded and ducked her head, and Xander had the feeling that he'd given the wrong answer. Or maybe he simply felt wrong overall. That could be it.
"Xander!" Dawn squealed his name and came running over, throwing herself in Xander's arms, and Xander hugged her as hard as he could. He felt so strange in his own skin that for the length of one heartbeat, he felt like he'd never done this before, never held Dawn close as she clung to him.
Joyce followed. "Xander! Oh my. How wonderful to see you." She came over and put her hand on Xander's shoulder, and the knot of wrong unwound.
"I heard about you getting sick. I'm really sorry," Xander said.
"I'm okay now," Joyce said with a smile, but Xander could see the difference. She had tight lines around her eyes she'd never had before.
"The doctors said that?" Xander asked. He could read the awkward pause and flickering glances as easily as a comic book. The doctors hadn't said that.
"I'll be fine, Xander. It's just so nice to see you back home. And you've grown so much. I can't even believe you're the same young man who used to eat all my oatmeal cookies," Joyce said.
"Hey, that was totally Buffy," Xander pointed out. He ate a lot, but he didn't eat nearly as much as Buffy.
"Hey!" Buffy protested. "Was not." But her smile made it clear that she was teasing him.
"Can we go home now? Is that woman gone?" Joyce asked.
"Yep, all gone. Only maybe we should be a little careful for a while." Buffy added that last part after a brief pause. The problem was that Xander didn't know what it meant to be a little careful around a god. Personally, he'd like some personal armor and a P90, but he was guessing Buffy wasn't planning on being that kind of comfortable. Xander opened his mouth to ask just what she would suggest since a stake probably wasn't going to cut it around a god; however, he spotted Spike. The vampire leaned against the wall of the crypt with a cigarette hanging from his one hand as he scanned the entire cemetery like a big cat searching for prey. Yeah, Xander did not plan on trusting the bleached one.
"Spike, would you like to come over?" Joyce called. Xander watched Dawn's face light up, and his mood darkened even more. Spike lazily finished his scan before looking over. He glanced at Joyce before his gaze caught Xander.
"No thank you, luv. I've got some business of my own."
Joyce gave him one of her mom-smiles, and Xander’s jealousy found whole new levels of unhappy. "Oh, well then, I hope we can continue our conversation later."
"Oh god, remind me to not be in the same room," Dawn complained. "They like the same stupid show." Dawn pulled away from Xander and rolled her eyes in an elaborate pattern. “Do you know what it’s like to listen to them talking about some stupid soap?”
"I can't wait until I can start embarrassing you in front of your friends," Joyce said dryly.
"You already do," Dawn countered.
Xander grinned. This was familiar, and he had missed it enough that he could even overlook the fact that the others were including Spike, which was still creepy in his book.
"Dawn, that isn't nice," Willow hissed as though being not-nice were the worst thing in the world. It was all so normal. Xander listened to the banter as they all headed back to Buffy's house. The group moved slow, but Joyce still seemed to be out of breath by the time they turned onto the street where Buffy lived. Dawn had migrated to Xander's side, chatting about boys and how much all her teachers hated her. Willow and Tara walked hand in hand and Buffy came up the rear, walking at her mother's side. Xander could imagine that the Air Force was a dream, no more real than his soldier memories from that Halloween night. His girls were his world, and surrounded by them, Xander couldn’t care about anything else. That lasted all the way up to the point when a dark figure separated from the trees lining the street.
Immediately, Buffy moved forward with Tara and Willow sliding back to stand in front of Xander and Dawn. Until this moment, he’d never really noticed that the others always put him in the most sheltered position. Yeah, he was the normal one, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t fought his share of battles. Besides, this was his fight. It had come a little quicker than he expected, but he’d known that he would have to face it at some point.
“Colonel O’Neill,” Xander said as he detoured around Buffy. He tried to sound friendly, like he was happy someone had come to arrest him. But happy was better than running because then O’Neill would chase him and Buffy would take O’Neill down, and it would be one big mess.
“Harris.” Oh yeah, O’Neill sounded all kinds of pissed. Hoping for some help in defusing the situation, Xander searched the shadows, but there wasn’t a Daniel in sight. Xander definitely expected the worst. He really needed to get these two groups away from each other before some seriously badness happened to someone who wasn’t him.
“Hey, maybe we could go talk… oh, I don’t know… somewhere else?” Xander gave his goofiest grin, but O’Neill’s eyes just narrowed.
“Xander?” Joyce asked. Xander could hear the shifting behind him as Joyce moved forward.
Okay, introduce the adults and hope the rest of the problem disappeared on its own-that was Xander’s new plan. “Joyce, this is Colonel O’Neill, who is technically my boss. Colonel O’Neill, this is Joyce Summers, the mother of a friend.” Xander didn’t introduce anyone else, as he stepped closer to O’Neill. His guts were so heavy that he could actually feel his stomach squeeze into one small, tight ball of fear. He thought he’d have more time. “We probably need to go,” Xander said as he gestured down the street, praying that O’Neill would just let him exit stage left with a little bit of dignity left.
“Your commanding officer came to California?” Joyce asked, and Xander found himself really wishing that Joyce was just a little bit less smart.
“And his friend is definitely setting off the wiggins,” Buffy said. Xander looked over his shoulder, and Buffy was eyeing Teal’c with her slaying look.
“Hey, no. He’s a friend,” Xander said as he quickly moved to block her. “He’s teaching me how to not get my ass kicked, which is good.” Xander figured it come in handy in jail. Shit. He really thought he’d have time to help Buffy deal with whatever she’d been hiding from Riley before he had to face this music. “But this isn’t the time or place to discuss my amazing skills at ass kickage. I bet the guys need to get back to their hotel.” Xander gave O’Neill a hopeful look.
“Nope. We’re good,” O’Neill said. Xander’s heart dropped. Shit, that was the colonel’s amused face-the one he made before he did something really embarrassing… like break into Daniel’s apartment to listen to Daniel and Xander have sex. Xander really hated that look.
“So,” O’Neill said with that annoyingly playful tone. “Nice little town you folks have here. The costume party theme is a little unusual, but then I never have gone for the whole knights of the round table look. Should you really let people run around with swords? Personally, I’d ask city hall to pass an ordinance about that if I were you.”
“What?” Xander frowned.
“You ran into guys with swords?” Buffy definitely sounded guarded.
“Yeah, you betcha. Interesting lot. Not a lot upstairs,” O’Neill said tapping his head, “but at least I don’t feel like the strangest guest at the party around here. I wouldn’t suggest asking for the slayer if you meet them, however. They have a very limited sense of humor.”
Xander cringed. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, and one more fuck for good measure, and that was a lot of fucks for someone who normally avoided that word.
“Slayer?” Buffy’s voice was brittle and Xander could almost feel her fury stabbing out of those words. Behind him, he could hear feet shifting, but it was like watching a car accident-Xander couldn’t take his eyes off O’Neill and Buffy.
“Yep,” O’Neill said, still as cheerful as ever. “Well, Finn didn’t tell us which of you was the slayer, but I’m guessing you,” O’Neill said as he looked right at Buffy. “You look like a woman who would blow up the NID, and as someone who has wanted to do that for decades, congratulations. I don’t suppose you kept video, did you?”
Xander watched as O’Neill managed to do something a legion of teachers, hordes of vampires and her mother had all failed to do: he left Buffy speechless.
O’Neill shrugged. “Between Finn’s stories and Xander here going AWOL, I had to assume there was something interesting going on in town. I was hoping you wanted to blow up more NID bases because I have to tell you, I’m feeling a little cranky that no one called me for that party.”
“You didn’t come to arrest me?” The words blurted out of Xander before his brain could do a common sense check; however, the gasps from the girls reminded him that he was supposed to hide that fact.
O’Neill turned his attention toward Xander. “If I was here to arrest you for going AWOL, I would have a couple of airmen with me. Colonels don’t do that sort of paperwork. Besides, Danny would never forgive me and I’d have to listen to him complain for the next decade.” About the time Xander had decided he’d dodged the metaphorical bullet, O’Neill’s expression turned hard. “However, you will face the consequences of that action, clear airman?”
“Yes, sir,” Xander agreed.
“Wait,” Buffy moved to Xander’s side. “What are you talking about? AWOL? Consequences? What is going on?”
O’Neill turned his back to them and headed for the front steps, sitting down like he was some neighbor who’d come over to chat. Teal’c, however, continued to be very Teal’c like in his corner of the yard. “It turns out that Harris didn’t have permission to leave, but something Finn said sent him running. You feel like sharing with the class, Harris?” O’Neill asked.
“My Finn? Riley Finn?” Buffy hadn’t sounded this confused since the Russian revolution in tenth grade.
O’Neill leaned back. “Yep. Harris’ hometown set off a few alarm bells in our background search, and when I went poking around, I found Finn. We have some mutual acquaintances since we’re in the same line of work.”
“Is that supposed to be some sort of subtle hint, because if it is, you need to be way less subtle,” Buffy suggested.
For a second, O’Neill considered her. Xander held his breath as the two parts of his world collided, and then O’Neill shrugged and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I’m special ops. I’ve been doing the sort of work Finn’s in for a long time, although generally I go up against humans. Yeah. I know about the hellgate. Now, did I expect to hear that we have some sort of gate to hell in the middle of California?” O’Neill tilted his head. “Actually, if you’re going to have a gate to hell, having it in California makes some sense. But trust me, I did not appreciate the fact that the NID kept that little secret to itself.”
Xander watched as the Sunnydale group shifted. The others maneuvered Dawn and Joyce to the far side of the porch, away from O’Neill and Teal’c while Tara stood near them, and Willow took a position halfway between Buffy and the others. Xander stood next to Buffy, not because this was his place but because he really didn’t want any slaying. On either side.
“What do you want?” Buffy demanded.
“World peace, a really good chicken wing and time to catch up on all my taped episodes of The Simpson,” O’Neill said with a straight face. Yeah, he was feeling amused, and Xander did not trust an amused Colonel O’Neill. Clearly Buffy didn’t either because she crossed her arms and didn’t move.
Sighing, O’Neill stood up. “Look, I’m not the diplomatic one. Usually someone else does the meet and greet; however, since my favorite meet and greet scientist is stupidly in love with Harris, I pointed out that his biases made him a liability in the field.”
“Ouch,” Xander whispered as he imagined how that conversation had gone over.
“Xander, you’re in love?” And that was Willow, always focusing on the happily ever after ending, even in the middle of imminent disaster.
However, O’Neill’s glare made it clear that he wasn’t all that amused. “You will pay for every moment of misery I endured,” he warned Xander before focusing back on Buffy. “Summers, right?” Buffy nodded.
“Summers, I’m a fighter, and I get the feeling there’s a fight to be had here. Either that or your friends are displaying an unhealthy level of paranoia. So, what I want is a clear idea of what you need help fighting, a clear chain of command with the understanding that Harris reports to me, and a clear requisition order. I get the feeling you have a serious battle brewing here, but I can’t tell if you need P90s and flak jackets or unmanned drones and Javelin anti-tank missiles. The paperwork you have to fill out for anti-tank missiles…” O’Neill whistled as he held up his fingers to measure out an inch or so. “Now, that doesn’t mean I can’t get you those Javelins if you need them, but right now, I’m flying in the dark, and I hate flying in the dark unless I have some really good instruments and a co-pilot I trust.”
“You’re offering me weapons?”
O’Neill shrugged. “Do you have a clear idea of who we’re supposed to be shooting at?”
Buffy didn’t answer, but Willow inched closer. “Buffy, maybe they could help. You said it, we don’t have the firepower to take her down.”
“Her?” O’Neill pounced on the word.
Buffy looked around, her eyes finally settling on Teal’c. “He’s not all human.”
“Nope,” O’Neill agreed without offering any other explanation.
Xander could feel the lines of power draw tight as each side pulled back, each holding their secrets. Xander swallowed around the lump in his throat and forced the words out through his fear-fear of court-martial, fear of losing his friends or disappointing people or prison. But his fears didn’t matter in the face of his girls being in real danger.
“A god has targeted them. She thinks they can help her open a door to her dimension, and apparently she has some godly powers of indestruction,” Xander blurted out before he could chicken out.
“Xander!” The punch Buffy aimed at his arm was hard enough to leave a bruise.
“A god?” O’Neill’s eyebrows went up. “Well, crap. You couldn’t settle for vampires and the soul-sucking NID, could you? Okay, so you’re the expert here, Summers. How do you fight a god in this neck of the woods?”
“You don’t. I do.” Buffy said fiercely, “You think you know what’s going on, but you don’t know anything. I’m the slayer. This god, she can come to my town and made a lot of noise. She can play her psychological games and annoy me with her ability to recover from a punch and questionable fashion sense. But in the end, I’m going to take her down just like I’ve taken down every threat that has ever come to town. That’s my destiny. Slayers have been guarding hellmouths since the beginning of time. Literally. So you don’t come in here and play soldier-boy.”
Xander braced himself for the explosion.
“I wasn’t planning to. That’s where a clear chain of command comes in,” O’Neill agreed with an easy shrug, and Xander was so shocked that he could almost feel his balance wobble.
“So, you’re the slayer and you’re in command. I’m here to provide tactical support wherever you need it, so I’m going to repeat myself… do you want sidearms, explosives, automatic weaponry or the really good stuff? Personally, I find blowing up god particularly effective, but this is your turf, and you know the rules.
“But before that, Harris and I need to have a little talk about our own chain of command and where he fits on it. So you discuss your tactical needs and decide where we can provide support. Teal’c and I are experts in shooting things, and we have a good comedy act on the side if that helps, but I also brought a linguist who doubles as my diplomatic officer and a technology expert who can turn two paperclips into cell phone. So you figure out where you could use those sorts of resources, and I’ll get in touch tomorrow.”
O’Neill reached out and caught Xander’s arm, pulling him close before shoving him toward the street. Then Buffy caught Xander’s other arm, and Xander definitely felt like the stick in a tug of war between two really scary dogs.
“Leave Xander alone,” Buffy warned. Weirdly, Xander chose that moment to realize that Tara, Dawn and Joyce were gone. He supposed they had gone to safer ground. And Joyce had painted the shutters. Xander knew full well that his brain was doing the crack-monkey on a gerbil wheel thing, but trying to focus would mean focusing on two people he liked in a showdown over him, and that was more than he could handle.
“Airman Harris is a member of the military and under my command. Any disciplinary action he faces for his desertion is not part of your turf.” O’Neill didn’t wait for an answer before striking down the walk toward the street. For a second, Buffy held on, and Xander’s arms developed bruises before she let go, allowing O’Neill to pull him out toward the street.
Xander almost felt like some thread connecting him to the others snapped at that point. They couldn’t protect him, no matter how much they wanted to. And he’d done all this to protect them, and he couldn’t do that, either. This wall separated them, and Xander wasn’t sure if the wall was called the Air Force or growing older or growing apart or a simple case of not knowing how to help. However, something rose up, and Xander could feel a door close on his life. And worse, Xander really had no idea what sort of trouble he was in; he only knew that it wasn’t in his control to fix any of this. Whatever O’Neill wanted to do, Xander didn’t have the strength-not the emotional strength or the legal right-to stop him. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling.