Fic Commentary: I Am What I Am (50/67)
Spoilers. You know that.
Chapter 26: Reflections, Transitions, and Cowboys - With Commentary
It felt kind of strange being back in her room. Being there, laying on her back in the dark, she could almost pretend that things were still as simple as they'd been before Xander had gone to Boston.
She could hardly believe she was looking back at the time when she was "just" the Slayer as a simpler time. When life was just about juggling school, home, and Slaying, and not visions of the future, children, and marriages that might never be.
Angel's arrival had been the icing on the cake, as far as Buffy was concerned. The final little complication that made the whole situation completely crazed.
He was back, and though it had barely been a few weeks, it felt like a lifetime since he'd left. So much had changed since then. She had changed, her life had changed, and all of her expectations for the future had changed. She'd received Companion, begun having the strange dreams, met and connected to Faith, and had spent some time living with her and Xander.
Angel's sleazy friend Doyle had supposedly been having visions about the two of them. In some of the visions, she and Angel were together again, and great victories were achieved. In others, she and Angel being together meant death and destruction.
What was she supposed to do with that kind of information? Jump back in Angel's arms? Run away from him forever? She wasn't even sure which one of those things she was hoping was the correct answer.
She was different now than she was even a few short weeks ago. Looking at Angel, she wasn't sure that she still felt the kind of storybook romance that had so defined her feelings for him in the past.
I always feel a little cheap whenever I have Buffy moving on from her relationship with Angel. As much as I like the Buffy/Xander relationship, I don't hate the Buffy/Angel one. I even like it, most of the time. I just like it more for its inherent drama than because I think it's good for either one of them. At the end of the day, their relationship is pretty immature. It's very much the teenaged Romeo and Juliet style tortured romance, complete with melodramatic proclamations of loving the other beyond life itself.
So while I feel it's important for Buffy as a character to move on, I also feel it's unfair to dismiss her feelings for Angel and his for her. In a different world, they'd be together, and maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing. I try to respect that relationship, just as I try to respect the strange relationship of Buffy and Spike or any other canon relationship in the show. Dismissing those feelings, even belittling or otherwise making light of them is a disservice to the characters.
Because she'd had a taste of romance now. She'd experienced a deep, loving relationship. In her dreams, Xander had shown her a bit of what his love, what their love could be. It didn't feel like she'd always felt with Angel, it didn't feel like that fiery burst of passion that could never possibly burn that brightly for that long. It felt simple. Simple and good. It was comfortable, it was loving, and it was breathtakingly beautiful.
Could being with Angel have compared to the way she felt during those special dreams, with her intimate encounters with the man Xander had once been? Could those dreams compare to passionate love that flared so strongly between her and Angel? Could one claim to be somehow "better" than the other?
This new edited version added a little more to this paragraph, mostly to make it less "Oh that Xander is so dreamy" and more about the equality of her feelings between Xander and Angel. Again, I don't want to somehow claim that Angel was not deserving of Buffy's love, nor imply that he was somehow less devoted to Buffy than Xander is. Life is just not fair to them, and not fair to Angel in particular.
Of course that's part of what makes Angel an interesting character. Tortured to the end, that's our Angel. He's much more interesting when he can't have what he really wants, as depressing as that is.
Buffy groaned and rolled over, putting her arm beneath her pillow to grasp Companion's scabbard. It wasn't fair. None of this was fair. She loved Xander, sure, as a friend. Her best friend, along with Willow. But romantically, she had never really entertained the idea.
Now that idea was forced upon her, and she couldn't deny that some part of her really enjoyed her dreams, really enjoyed being with Xander in them. There was still that part of her that regarded Xander as just a friend. To be married to Xander, it just...It didn't mesh.
She'd thought she'd wanted to be alone, running off to Angel's (supposedly) abandoned apartment. When Faith had showed up she was surprised at how grateful she felt for the intrusion. The surprise connection between the two of them had shocked her, but it had also helped her calm down tremendously. It was infinitely easier to cope with such mind-boggling ideas when you shared that stress with another.
Even now she could feel the faint trace of the connection, stretching across town to where Faith was currently having a late night talk with a very sleepy Xander. It wasn't as powerful as when they normally connected, or that brief experience in Angel's apartment when it had first opened even without the weapons, and it certainly wasn't as powerful as the first time they'd ever connected. But it was there, a constant comforting pulse of empathy between the two of them. It was probably how Faith had found her in the first place.
She was glad for it. It was strange, how alone she could feel in her own home, in her own room. The ease with which she had settled into life in Boston had never really occured to her until this moment. Now, as she lay in the dark, she found that she missed it, and was comforted to know that at least she was still connected.
Connected how?
She was holding Companion by the scabbard now, which was not generally the kind of physical contact that they needed to initiate the connection, and she'd certainly not been in contact with Companion all night. Faith had somehow initiated it on her own back in Angel's apartment, without using her weapon as the conduit.
Maybe Xander had been right. Maybe the connection wasn't because of their weapons. Maybe it was just helped along by their weapons, as their minds, or souls, or whatever it was learned how to control the connection.
She couldn't even begin to wonder what that might mean, particularly in the context of her knowledge of the future. She and Faith were connected one way or another, and they just so happened to be married to Xander in the future. Was there a correlation?
Nope. Sometimes things really are just a coincidence. Or as Freud would say, sometimes a random connection on the psychic level between two seperate individuals is just a cigar.
He said that, right?
In all seriousness, I never wanted it to seem like it was the common factor of Xander that linked Buffy and Faith. He's an afterthought to what connects them, not the cause. It's more like Xander is attracted both of them because of what links them, not that they are linked because Xander is attracted to them.
Xander had claimed that they'd shown signs of their connection in his timeline too. Something about dreams. But so far, she didn't think she and Faith had ever experienced something like that. Yes, Faith was sometimes in her "dreams" of the future, but that was really more of a memory than a shared experience. And yes, if Faith were holding onto Tommy or Tammy as she slept, Buffy could catch glimpses of the girl's own dreams. As far as she knew, Faith didn't ever experience Buffy's dreams.
The way Xander had talked about it sounded like they connected while dreaming, which had never happened to them in their time.
Buffy sighed and rolled over again. It was all so confusing, and it was bound to get even more confusing. Apparently Willow had been through some kind of ordeal that had given her some knowledge of Xander's future as well, and now Angel and his friend Doyle were here to figure out future events as well. Combine that with the mystery of this new weaponless connection she and Faith shared, and her knowledge that her dreams were not exactly dreams, and Buffy was one stressed Slayer.
Luckily, she thought as she tossed and turned in a fitful mockery of sleep, the Hellmouth couldn't possibly heap any more trouble onto the already mountainous pile.
Right?
Oh, Buffy. Haven't you learned by now?
"Hot damn! I'm lucky as hell tonight!" Tector Gorch proclaimed as he swept his winnings off the table. To his right a Calvorl demon snarled and threw down his cards.
Huzzah!
Now I'm sure I could be accused of self-indulgent writing here, but as the observant reader may have noticed, I LOVE writing for the Gorch brothers. Maybe I go overboard with their stupidity, their slang, their stupidity, their stupidity, and their unbridled stupidity, but hot damn! They are just fun to write.
Sure are stupid though.
"Little too lucky, if you ask me," said a Mohra demon.
"You callin' me a cheater?"
"What if I am, vampire?"
"Maybe we oughtta pound that pretty little trinket outta yer thick skull then, pardner," threatened Lyle Gorch, the bigger and (marginally) smarter of the two Gorch brothers.
The Mohra drew his sword at once, screaming as it rose. The Calvorl demon dove across the smoke filled bar to get away from the impending violence, slamming into two vampires as he did so. Two large mugs of fresh blood crashed against the wall.
"Hey!" Willy the Snitch called from behind the bar. "You're payin' for that!"
Lyle Gorch slammed a meaty fist into the forehead of the Mohra demon, staggering it backwards as Tector leaped onto its back, his powerful arms pulling against its neck. The Mohra roared in anger and slashed its sword, cutting the table in two.
"Time ta learn you a lesson about messin' with the Gorch brothers!" Lyle grabbed the Mohra by the head, and quickly slammed it down against his knee. Tector, still holding onto the things neck, was brought down too, and received a glancing blow across his own head.
"Watch it, Lyle!"
"Don't you start, Tector!" Lyle shook a warning finger at his brother.
"Sorry, Lyle."
The Mohra staggered back, clutching its forehead. The jewel resting there was slightly cracked. It roared, and was soon enveloped in a burst of light. When it was gone, nothing remained.
"Damn Lyle, the jewel done disappeared with the rest of him."
"Well you shoulda plucked it off his fool head then! Do I gotta think of everything?"
"How'm I supposed ta take it off his head when yer busy beatin' on him?"
"Maybe I oughtta have started beatin' on you instead," Lyle threatened. "Can't even fool a horse turd like that. I told ya ta never pull your aces on a turn like that!"
" I was distracted by this gnawin' hunger in my gut. Come on, Lyle, we ain't had nothin' but scraps and homeless folk fer three days now. When are we gonna get us someone tasty ta eat?"
"When I say we are. Who does the thinkin' 'round here?"
"You do Lyle," Tector admitted.
"You think you could do better? Go ahead on."
"Come on Lyle, don't make me do the thinkin'. You know I ain't got yer smarts."
"Yer damn right you don't. Half the time I can't even figger why I don't just toss your stupid ass out in the sunshine one of these days."
"Shit," Tector grinned. "You think you could do it?"
Lyle pointed at him warningly. "Don't tempt me, boy."
Tector brought his fingers to his palms in a "come on" gesture.
"You done asked for it!" Lyle bellowed, and swung a heavy fist as Tector's head. Tector rolled with the punch, and came back grinning.
"Bar brawl!" He yelled, and dove for his brother.
Or at least that's what he tried to do, until he found himself floating in midair.
"Well I'll be a monkey's uncle," he remarked, confused.
"Hey fellas, we were just wondering if we could have a few minutes of your time."
Tector turned his head to see what was holding him up. It was a large metallic-gray demon. His armored hide might have been natural, or it might have been manufactured, but it looked very menacing. He held Tector up by his coat with one hand, and didn't look the least bit strained by it.
"Who the hell are you?" Lyle demanded.
"Folks call me Skip."
I still like Skip. Even after it turns out he's kind of evil, I like him. He's very Mayor-ish in that quality. He's just a likable fella, even if he's a murderous and extremely powerful demon.
Tector guffawed. "Skip! What kinda sissy name is that?"
Skip dropped him unceremoniously to the floor. "It's a nickname, and I happen to like it."
"I happen ta like bustin' yer face in," Lyle said, his face vamping out as he charged Skip. The large gray demon rolled his eyes and punched the vampire in the face, sending him sailing across the room.
"Really now guys, we just want to talk."
"Who the hell is we?"
"What?" Skip furrowed his brow and looked from side to side. "Hey Whis, where'd ya go?"
"Trying to have a simple beer in peace," Whistler said, scowling as he stared into his glass.
Poor Whistler.
"Well come on, I got their attention."
Across the room the pile of rubble that had collapsed atop Lyle Gorch shifted and gave way as he sat up. He clutched his head in a bit of a daze. "Shit, I fall off my horse again?" *snort*
"Nah Lyle," Tector laughed. "You got knocked on yer ass!"
"You shut yer mouth afore I," Lyle staggered as he tried to stand and put a hand against the wall to steady himself.
"This is so stupid," Whistler sighed as he slid off his stool. He took one last swig of beer, slammed the glass down on the counter, and wiped his chin with the back of his hand. "Let's get it over with."
"Aw hell yeah," Tector grinned, his hands balling into fists in a classic boxer's pose. "Let's get it on!"
I love these two.
Whistler smirked at him. "That's not what I meant, sunshine. Just shut up for two minutes while I lay down the deal, okay?"
"Who do you think yer callin' sunshine, shorty?" He stepped forward menacingly, but Skip was suddenly beside him, a massively powerful hand gripping his shoulder. Tector cried out in pain. "Ow! Okay okay! Uncle!"
"Now you boys play nice, and you'll get a nice fat paycheck at the end of this."
"Paycheck?" Lyle slurred, shaking his head clear of cobwebs. "You mean, like money?"
Whistler rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Yeah. Like money."
"Well shee-it," Lyle grinned. "Why didn't you say so? What's what the deal, boys?"
"We need you to do something for us."
"Yeah, I figgered that part all on my own. You want we should kill someone for ya?"
"I told you he was smart," Skip smiled charmingly. "He got it on the first try."
"Killin' is it? Hell, that ain't no big to do. Who you want killed?"
"And more important-like, how much does we get paid?" Tector added.
Skip shrugged. "I'm not sure. How much do you want?"
"We get ta name our price?"
"Sure, I guess so."
Lyle's eyes lit up, and he grabbed his brother by his shirt, pulling him in close for a private word. Tector kept one hand on his hat, holding it on tight as he was dragged across the room.
"You hear that?" Lyle hissed.
"Yeah! We get ta kill somebody!"
Good to see Tector has his priorities in order.
Lyle smacked him upside the head. "No ya damned fool! We get ta name our price."
"Oh yeah, that too. So how much we askin' for?"
"I dunno. Don't wanna go too high, 'less we scare 'em off."
Tector licked his lips eagerly and rubbed his hands together. "I know, let's ask fora - a hunnerd dollars! We'd be set fer the next coupla months!"
"Ya stupid idjit," Lyle snorted. "A hunnerd dollars ain't been a hunnerd dollars fer a hunnerd years."
"It ain't?"
"Hell no. Can't even get a decent horse fer a hunnerd dollars no more," he hawked and spit in the corner. "Money just ain't what it usedta be. We gotta ask fer a lot more than that."
"Two hunnerd?"
"Not two hunnerd. A thousand."
Did I mention they're kind of stupid?
"A thousand dollars?" Tector whispered in disbelief. "You think they'll go for it?"
"Let's find out."
Lyle stood up straight, adjusting his hat and tugging on his belt before swaggering over to Skip and Whistler.
"All right, first things first, who're we killin'?"
"Oh it's real simple," Skip assured them. "Just a teenaged girl, that's all."
"Girl is it?" Lyle grinned, licking his lips. "She ah, she pretty?"
"Oh yeah. A real beauty."
Behind Lyle, Tector hopped back and forth from one foot to the other in anticipation.
"This girl, maybe we could uh, have some fun with her before we kill't her?"
Skip shrugged. "I don't see why n-"
"No," Whistler interrupted. His face was ashen, and he looked like he might be ill. "No fun. If you kill her, you do it quick and clean."
"Shee-it," Lyle complained. "In that case, we want...We want a thousand dollars."
"Sure," Skip nodded.
Lyle's face split into a grin as he put his hand out for Skip to shake. They did. "Now a deal's a deal, right? No goin' back on yer word. A thousand dollars."
He's a shrewd negotiator, that Lyle.
"Not a problem."
"So where do we find this girl?" Tector asked.
Whistler sighed and pulled a folder out of his jacket. "That's her," he said as he handed it to Lyle. The vampire pulled a few photographs and a sheet of paper with personal information written on it out of the folder. He leered at the picture, grinning lustily. He passed it back to his brother.
"Hot damn!" Tector exclaimed. "You wasn't kiddin'!"
Lyle's eyes scanned the information sheet. His lips moved as he whispered each syllable under his breath, reading slowly. Sixteen years old, attends Sunnydale High School.
"Wait just a damn minute!" Lyle turned the paper around and pointed at a single word. "Is that for real?"
"Oh yeah. Did we forget to mention that?" Skip asked disarmingly.
"What is it Lyle?"
Lyle growled and shoved the piece of paper at his brother. "She's the damned Slayer."
I wonder if anyone really thought they were going after Buffy or even Faith, or if it was obvious from the beginning that they were going after Kendra. I kept it vague for a while, but I suspect that wasn't necessary.
Then again with Ethan supposedly gunning for Faith I suppose it might seem that Whistler and Skip are taking orders from him, something like that.
"The Slayer? Well shit. That don't hardly seem worth a hunnerd dollars."
"Idiot! Weren't you payin' no mind ta what we was just sayin'? We ain't gettin' a hunnerd dollars. We're gettin' a thousand."
Tector blinked. "Oh. Then what's the problem?"
"The problem is they ain't said she was the Slayer when we made the deal!"
"That mean we ain't gettin' our thousand dollars? You ain't scared of the Slayer, is ya Lyle?"
Lyle slugged his brother across the face. "Don't you go mouthin' off to me, boy. Don't forget who raised yer sorry ass when Momma skipped town."
"I won't. I'm sorry, Lyle."
"I ain't scared of no damn Slayer. Just think a thousand dollars ain't hardly worth the job."
"Are you backing out?" Skip asked.
"Hell no!" Lyle spat. "I done told ya. A deal's a deal. You just make sure ya got our money when we get back. A thousand dollars. That's five hunnerd each!"
Oh man, I forgot to mention it, but the Gorch brothers? They're actually not very intelligent. I don't know how I let that slip my mind.
It was hard for Xander to be upset. In fact, it was hard just to keep the grin off of his face, which was definitely not helpful, because there really was some stuff to be worried about. He hadn't talked to Buffy since she ran out the night he'd told her about her dreams. Faith assured him that Buffy was just taking some time to deal with things, but that didn't really make him feel better.
Especially since Faith was a little strange with him since that night as well. They still got along well, laughing and joking and that sort of thing, but there was a definite something else to their relationship now. Every now and again he'd catch Faith looking at him oddly. Was it a good look or a bad look? With Faith, it could very well be both. It was definitely something to worry about. And of course there was still that mysterious mage out there somewhere, apparently gunning for Faith.
There was also the question of her connection with Buffy. According to Faith, she'd somehow initiated a connection without using Tommy or Tammy. It lent weight to Xander's theory that they had always had some kind of natural connection, but he was still at a loss as to what it was, or what it could mean.
I doubt Xander or anyone else will really get to the bottom of it. The connection just is. The why of it is largely unimportant.
Willow. There was another thing. He'd gotten more of a taste of just how extremely her life had been affected by her encounter with her future self. He'd made a conscious decision to try and spend some more time with Willow since he'd been back. In the last few days it had become clear that Willow was going through a very turbulent experience.
According to Giles, Willow was doing a much better job of controlling her emotions than she had been weeks ago, but Xander wasn't sure how that could be. Willow could cry at the drop of a hat, giggle uncontrollably at the corniest of jokes, and had once or twice been made so afraid by the everyday Slaying discussions that she had to be taken into a private room by Oz, Giles, or Ms. Calendar until she could calm down. Occasionally she could also be found staring lustfully at one of the other girls, Ms. Calendar in particular. Xander had actually caught her drooling over the admittedly very beautiful teacher once. If this was Willow doing better, he didn't want to think about how bad she must have been before.
Then there was Angel and his friend Doyle. The pair had come to see Xander the day after what Xander was beginning to think of as "Conversation Day." In Marvel comics it would be C Day. Apparently he was supposed to somehow figure out why this Doyle was having conflicting visions. As resident Future-Boy, it was in his jurisdiction.
At first, Xander had been just a little annoyed at what he considered an unnecessary mystery thrust upon him. It wasn't until later that day when he remembered.
Cordelia had visions. The two of them had spoken very rarely after she'd left Sunnydale, but he knew that much at least. She'd received some power of future-sight, which she used to help Angel. She'd only ever mentioned how she'd gotten the power once, and had made it seem like an off-hand comment.
It always bothered me that most of the Scooby gang had very little to do with Cordelia after she left for L.A. None of them even show up (onscreen at least, we fanfiction authors can make up all kinds of crap on our own) at the hospital when she's in the coma that will eventually take her life.
But suddenly he was certain that she had mentioned the name Doyle. It couldn't be a coincidence, could it?
On the Hellmouth? Of course not.
So he was forced to put more of his attention on Angel and Doyle. Why would the Powers-That-Be want Angel to be back with Buffy, but also want him not to be back with Buffy? It made no sense.
Luckily, the Scooby Gang were the world's foremost experts on things that didn't make sense. That was why Xander was currently spending the Christmas vacation stuck in the school library, researching visions along with the rest of the gang.
Only instead of reading Glempyle's Visionaries Okay, this is now officially the front-runner of crappiest "fake mystical book title"., Xander was trying not to grin, despite how Buffy sat at the other side of the room, glancing at him whenever she thought he wouldn't notice. Despite how Willow was still stifling giggles from a bad pun he'd made ten minutes earlier. Despite how Angel was being his normal broody self.
Despite it all, Xander was in a great mood.
Because Jess was going to live. For once, the never-ending troubles that the Hellmouth produced were simply not powerful enough to break his good spirits. The soul of Jessica Harris was going to exist one way or the other. Xander can be amazingly short-sighted sometimes. Okay, Jessie is going to exist someday. That barely scratches the surface of all the possibilities of HOW she might exist. Xander's so blinded by his exuberance that he's not really thinking of all the ways that his daughter's life can still get messed up.
Which isn't really a bad thing, just thought I'd point out that Jessie is not guaranteed to automatically be born to Faith and Xander in the year 2010. Her soul will exist. Everything else is up for grabs. It was the best news he'd heard all lifetime.
It allowed him to finally reflect on and approve of so many of the changes that had been made since his return. He could finally allow himself to be happy that things were the way they were. Before, when he would find himself in awe that Faith was alive, smiling and happy, he would always have that nagging doubt in the back of his mind. What if he messed something up? What if Jessie never came to be?
Now though, he could simply enjoy her presence. He could enjoy that Buffy was alive and mostly happy, although clearly stressed out from recent revelations. To be able to see a Buffy that hadn't been through some of the terrible ordeals she'd faced after Angel had lost his soul was a joy he didn't think he would ever experience. Even now, as she moped around the library avoiding Xander, he couldn't be that upset. She was alive, and if he had anything to say about it, she wouldn't go through anything like she had in the original timeline.
Giles and Jenny were another happy side effect. Without the hiccup in their relationship that was the Eyghon affair, the two had become perhaps even closer than they'd been in the original timeline. In the days since Xander, Buffy and Faith had returned, it was clear that Giles and Jenny were no longer pretending to be "just colleagues." Their relationship was something of an unspoken truth that no one felt the need to spell out.
Cordelia continued to exceed his every expectation of her, which was pretty difficult since he'd already had such high expectations of her. That was just how Cordelia was, however. In the original timeline she had constantly astounded him by being much more than she appeared to be. He'd thought he had her pretty well figured out the second time around, but it seemed that Cordelia had redoubled her efforts to always be original.
I think if Xander came back in time over and over again for a thousand lifetimes, Cordelia would still astonish him every single time. To do otherwise would be Un-Cordelia.
Her training with Giles had come along very quickly, to the point where Giles had actually made a few mutterings that he might have to switch to a one-on-one teaching style with her. She was quickly surpassing Oz, Willow, and Jonathon in their self-defense classes. According to Willow, Cordelia had actually clocked Jacob Hammond in the nose on the last day of school when he'd made a too-aggressive pass at her. From Xander's own observations of Giles's last training session, Cordelia was indeed coming along very quickly. Xander was thinking about maybe asking Giles if he could train Cordelia himself once his arm had healed. At the very least it would free up some of Giles's time, and he could focus on the slower and steadier progress of the other three.
Perhaps, at first anyway, Faith could replace Cordelia in the training sessions with Giles. Xander wanted to be sure to get Faith trained as soon as possible, and Faith herself seemed very excited about the idea. She'd even expressed some passing interest in learning magic, which had surprised Xander. When Faith idly mentioned she was interested in something that generally meant she was absolutely fascinated by the idea. Faith of the old timeline had never really seemed to care for magic.
Faith's the Slayer in the original timeline. First she doesn't want to learn magic because she thinks she doesn't need it. She's a superhero now. Then her watcher is killed and her life spirals out of control. By the time she's in a good enough place again that she could conceivably get someone to teach her it, she no longer sees power of any kind as something all that enjoyable, and so has no desire to learn it.
Regardless, Xander thought it was a good idea if Faith wanted to learn magic. There could be no telling if Faith would ever actually become a Slayer. Faith might be too old to be activated as a Slayer, assuming they were able to acquire the Scythe in the same way they had last time. He wasn't about to let Kendra die just so Faith could be activated, so any advantages Faith could get were okay by him.
He was thinking about teaching Faith personally when it came to martial arts, but decided that if she wanted to learn magic too, Giles was the better way to go for now. Xander knew a great deal about magic, but for him, it was mostly all theory. The practical spells he could cast were limited to a few simple illusions Mostly the blobs-of-light stuff we saw in the last Interlude, the temporary enhancement spell, and a few other assorted and very minor spells. He felt it would be better for Faith to learn both martial arts and magic from the same teacher, at least at first. The two practices had some very similar aspects. Two different teachers with different philosophies would be confusing, especially in the beginning.. If and when Faith advanced to around Cordelia's level, he could think about stepping in for more advanced training. Pre-Slayer Faith might not ever even reach that level. Cordelia's a prodigy at this stuff.
Training with Giles would also have the added benefit of having Faith spend some time with the others, particularly the others who weren't super powerful Slayers. He wanted Faith to see that she wouldn't be the only one in the group that wasn't a Slayer or a time-travelling weaponsmith. He also wanted Faith to integrate into the group as best she could.
It would probably be difficult at times considering how distrusting Faith could be of people she'd never met. Xander and Buffy had both cheated in one way or another, Xander with his future knowledge of her, and Buffy with their connection. Faith's relationships with the others in the Scooby Gang would have to be forged the old fashioned way, and with Faith that could very well mean slowly and painfully. Hopefully her experiences with Buffy and Xander would help her get over some of that mistrust, but he wasn't going to count on it.
I think I was trying to stress for a while why it was that Faith was so easily trusting and befriending the group, Buffy and Xander included. We don't have interludes to show us why Faith is different here than on the show. We can only infer why she's different based on the experiences she DIDN'T have, so I felt I had to stress every once in a while why she reacted the way she did.
I didn't want it to seem like I was just rewriting Faith's personality to my own whims, although I guess her basic intelligence and subsequent love of reading is something of my own creation, but everything else is just what I figured Faith would be like if she hadn't gone through some of what the S3 Faith had gone through. If instead she was treated with trust, love, and caring by two people with an extraordinary ability to care, this is the person I thought Faith would evolve into.
It could also be that the changed Scooby Gang would ingratiate themselves to Faith far better than the old one had. It was strange, but the inclusion of Kendra and Jonathon seemed to make the group far more accessible. Where before it had been a cliquish and very small group consisting of the "core four" of Buffy, Giles, Willow and himself, there was now a group that had no real focal point. He supposed that since Kendra was herself a Slayer, the group was much more of a team focused on group strength than several people backing up one Slayer.
Speaking of Jonathon, there was another reason to be amazed by Cordelia. While Xander had a very hard time changing his fashion sensibilities like Cordelia wanted, Jonathon seemed to go along with her pretty easily. As a result, Jonathon was always decked out in suave looking outfits that seemed to give him just a hint of confidence.
Of course, that confidence was usually shattered when Cordelia spent ten minutes preening and poking at him to make sure everything was properly in its place, but Xander suspected that deep down, Jonathon didn't mind that too much. When you had someone as beautiful as Cordelia Chase taking that kind of interest in you, it tended to feel good.
Jonathon's joining of the Scoobies was also far more helpful to research than Xander would have ever guessed. In the original timeline, they'd never really had much to do with Jonathon, except when he was causing trouble with his magical knowledge. This time around, they were seeing first hand what a gifted young man Jonathon really was. In the last week or so Giles had begun to teach him the basic tenets of magic.
He was no Willow when it came to the magic stuff, but he was definitely in a pretty high percentile. Jonathon had the makings of a very succesful mage. Where Willow had, at least in the first timeline, focused more on power and ability than on knowledge, Jonathon was all about absorbing every little fact he could get his hands on. The same mind that had learned to speak Klingon Star Trek reference #19 in two and a half weeks was now focusing that obsessive desire to learn on some very archaic, and very useful new skills.
Even though Willow had suggested it to him, Xander would never have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes. To his amazement, Jonathon and Kendra actually seemed to be in the very beginning stages of a very timid and awkward attraction. Earlier in the day Xander had watched them for a little while as Jonathon helped Kendra and Cordelia study. One could definitely see a glimmer of admiration in Kendra's eye when Jonathon was in his element. It was just about too sweet for words.
The Jonathon/Kendra relationship was interesting to me because I didn't really build it up onscreen. It's mostly from the observations of the others that we see it build, and I'm not used to doing that. I should probably make a note of it though, because I think it actually worked out well the way it is now. It feels as if the relationship does somehow evolve naturally between the two of them, even though we see so very little of that firsthand. We get a few glimpses, such as when they're shopping or when Kendra's thinking about spending the day hanging out with Jonathon in later chapters, but the rest is how the others seem them.
I guess it reminds me that subtle and background development can, in my opinion, work very well. I need to remind myself to do that more often, as I think I have a tendency, especially these days, to want to show everything all the time.
Xander sighed, a small smile etched upon his face. Things weren't great, but for once they weren't absolutely horrible either. There was a lot to deal with, but he was glad that he was finally able to stop and take a look around at the good things as well.
The question then became, what was he going to do next? What were his plans for the immediate future?
His arm was still in pretty bad shape, although it was getting better every day. It was true that his broken bones always seemed to heal faster than the average person, and he had a few magical and mundane techniques to help speed that along even further. Still, it would be at least another week before he was able to take the cast off, let alone work steel in the forge.
He could begin gathering materials, however, and figuring out which weapons he would be making first.
Cordelia definitely. He was very interested in seeing what her weapon might be like. Maybe that should have been "M. McGregor was very interested in seeing what her weapon might be like." I was far too excited to get to Cordelia's weapon already, and I think this is one of those few times when the character really is speaking for me. Luckily it's not really that big of a deal. If that's the worst kind of soap-boxing I ever do with a character, I'll consider myself lucky. He already had a firm vision in mind as to exactly what type of weapon it would be.
Maybe Kendra after that, since having two Slayers with magical weapons would be a huge benefit to everyone in Sunnydale. That might have to wait just a little while longer, since he wanted to get more of a feel for the type of person Kendra was before forging her weapon.
There was also Xander himself to think of. He'd made a decision back in Boston that he was no longer going to deny himself a weapon. It was foolish of him to stubbornly try and rely without it. He was using every advantage he could muster this time around.
Still, that didn't mean he couldn't experiment a little with his own weapon. He had the inkling of an idea where that was concerned. If it worked, his weapon might be somehow different than an ordinary magical weapon, if a magical weapon could ever be referred to as ordinary in the first place.
I had planned out for a long time that Xander would create a weapon that was re-forged from an older weapon, specifically Cleaver, the axe mentioned way back in the earlier chapters. The idea was that Cleaver would have the tiniest little thread of the kind of magic that a forged weapon had - that indeed any weapon that had been used long enough had some kind of miniscule percentage of magic in it, and the older and more used a weapon was, the more it resembled, in an EXTREMELY minor way, the strange sort of luck that a forged weapon had.
That would be one of the reasons why it would transform into Protector. As Xander's weapon throughout much of his life, it would, once re-forged, be almost aware that what Xander needed wasn't a weapon, but a shield. That's not to say that's the only reason why Cleaver II transforms into Protector, but it's a large part.
Basically it's about what Willow said about how the forged weapons somehow manage to influence their own destinies. As a weapon that already had a destiny, Cleaver II exhibits properties that a brand-new forged weapon would not have. Xander kind of discovers an unknown aspect to the forging of magical weapons because of this, opening up a whole new category of weapons.
Looking up over his book, he spotted Buffy sitting on the steps near the stacks. She had an old dusty book in her hand, but wasn't paying much attention to it. Occasionally she would glance either at Angel or at himself. He sighed, inwardly debating whether or not he should try and talk to her.
He glanced at Faith, sitting beside him with her feet propped up on the table. She was leaning back in her chair slightly and looking very interested in the book in her hands. It was one of the books Giles had gotten together for Jonathon as a sort of basic primer of the supernatural, one that was useful both for new Scooby members, as well as those that might be interested in magic.
"Like it?" Xander asked, putting his own book down and stretching his arms.
"This shit is wild." She shook her head in disbelief. "This motherfucker right here fought a dude with seven wings for like a year and a half. Is that for real?"
"I dunno," Xander admitted. "I get real confused with that kind of stuff. I can never tell when it's a metaphor and when it's for real, but Giles would know." He looked up and called out to Giles, "Hey Giles!"
Giles looked up from where he was currently balancing six books in one hand while carefully pulling another off of a shelf. "Yes Xander? What is it?"
"Guy with seven wings fighting for a year and a half, is that a Ripley moment?"
"A Ripley moment?"
"Yeah, you know. Believe it or not. Is it true?"
"Of course it's true," Giles said. "Denlizarra fought for 18 moons before finally besting the Gehatroli."
"How do you know it's true though? Couldn't it just be someone's whacked out fantasy?"
"I could always direct you to the appropriate tomes if you wish to find proof, Xander."
Xander put his hand up. "No thanks! I'll uh, I'll take your word for it."
"Very well," Giles sighed, muttered something under his breath, and pulled another book off the shelf.
"If Giles says it's true, then it's probably true," Xander remarked to Faith.
"Damn, that's mad crazy."
"So how are you doing anyway? You're not really bored by all the research are you? It's kind of what we do during the downtimes."
"Bored? Shit, I feel like my brain's gonna overload, there's so much stuff to check out."
"So not bored?"
"Hell no," she grinned.
"You like reading this stuff?"
"Yeah, of course I do. I always liked readin'. That's why they skipped me in first grade. I read all the damn time."
"You do?" Faith had rarely ever read when he'd known her. In fact, she'd downright avoided it most of the time.
She frowned at him. "You didn't know that?"
He shook his head. "I guess...I guess maybe you stopped liking it at some point."
Gotta wonder what happened to Faith in the months between now and after she becomes a Slayer that makes her give it up.
For a moment he wondered just what could have happened to Faith to change her mind about something that seemed so trivial. He was surprised to really learn something new about Faith. It felt kind of good.
"Does that mean you're not going to be all grumpy when school starts up again after the break?"
She sucked her teeth and groaned. "Shit, you're really serious about that, aren't you?"
"Of course."
She didn't look too happy about the idea.
"Come on," he pressed. "It'll give you something to do at least. Plus we can hang out in school and whatnot."
"You're like fuckin' ninety years old," Faith pointed out. "What do you need to go to school for?"
"Hey, you're never too old to go back to school. Didn't you ever see uh, that bad movie about the old guy who goes back to school? I think Rodney Dangerfield was in it."
She chuckled softly. "Guess I missed that one."
"Oh, it's an instant classic. We should rent it sometime." He nudged her arm with his elbow. "So whaddya say? You, me, a school on top of a Hellmouth, how bad could it be?"
Her expression turned distant for a moment. Across the room, Buffy frowned and looked over at them. Xander put a hand on Faith's arm.
"Hey," he whispered. "Not that bad. I promise, okay? Believe it or not, but school's pretty normal around here when we're not fighting zombies or invisible people. Most of the teachers are real cool. Snyder might be a troll, but he's a pretty harmless troll. I mean really the only bad seed was that one cafeteria lady who..." Xander paused and turned his head.
"Hey Giles!"
"What?"
"Did I tell you about the cafeteria lady who's going to put rat poison in the food next year?"
"I-I don't believe you did," Giles replied.
"Oh, okay. Well there's a cafeteria lady who's going to put rat poison in the food next year."
Way to ease your way into it, Xander.
"Uh, yes. Thank you Xander. I'll add it to the list."
"For real?" Faith asked when Xander turned his head back.
"Yeah, but don't worry, that's not until next year."
"You're really weird sometimes, X."
"See? That's just because you have to get to know me," he said with a grin and a waggling of his eyebrows. "Soon you'll learn that I'm weird all the time."
She laughed and rolled her eyes.
"All right," she relented. "I guess I'll try it out. But if anyone gives me any shit..."
"Flush it down the toilet?"
She laughed again, pushing him away playfully. "That's sick!" Urgh. Yes it is.
"Hey you said it, not me."
"Yeah well you know what I meant."
"I do," Xander said. "And if anyone gets on your nerves, I'm sure Buffy will be more than happy to beat them in a vaguely oozelike creature of minimal intelligence."
"Yeah," Faith said sadly, looking over to Buffy. Their eyes met for a brief instant before Buffy went back to looking at her book. "This kinda sucks, you know?"
"She just needs some time."
Faith shook her head. "What she needs is for you to get your ass up and go talk to her."
Again, Faith exhibits a unique perspective when it comes to Xander, and by extension to Buffy. Even now she knows to call him on his bullshit.
"I don't know about tha-"
"Hey, which one of us has got some fucked up brain connection to her?"
"Okay, point taken," Xander admitted. "But still I-"
She punched him in the arm. "Go."
"Ow," he whined, rubbing the spot just above his cast. "No punching the broken arm, thank you very much."
"I'll fuckin' slam a pipe into it if you don't wise your ass up," Faith threatened. "This shit ain't cool, us pretending like nothing's going on while she's sitting there by herself. You need to go talk to her."
"But I'm the problem," he argued. "I'll just make things worse."
"Fuck Xander, right now she's freakin' out cause she thinks everything's gonna be different between us all cause of this. You sittin' on your ass while she's stressin' over it doesn't help at all."
"Hey, no fair," Xander began, then paused as he searched for the right words. He finished lamely, "Making sense and knowing stuff." That's cheating!
She glared at him.
"Okay, okay," he gave in. "I'll go try and talk to her. But if this doesn't work, I'm telling her it was all your idea."
He got up and smiled as he looked down at Faith. "Of course, if it does work, it was completely my plan all along."
A philosophy I live by every day. I highly recommend it. It does wonders for your self esteem.
Chapter 26: Reflections, Transitions, and Cowboys - With Commentary
It felt kind of strange being back in her room. Being there, laying on her back in the dark, she could almost pretend that things were still as simple as they'd been before Xander had gone to Boston.
She could hardly believe she was looking back at the time when she was "just" the Slayer as a simpler time. When life was just about juggling school, home, and Slaying, and not visions of the future, children, and marriages that might never be.
Angel's arrival had been the icing on the cake, as far as Buffy was concerned. The final little complication that made the whole situation completely crazed.
He was back, and though it had barely been a few weeks, it felt like a lifetime since he'd left. So much had changed since then. She had changed, her life had changed, and all of her expectations for the future had changed. She'd received Companion, begun having the strange dreams, met and connected to Faith, and had spent some time living with her and Xander.
Angel's sleazy friend Doyle had supposedly been having visions about the two of them. In some of the visions, she and Angel were together again, and great victories were achieved. In others, she and Angel being together meant death and destruction.
What was she supposed to do with that kind of information? Jump back in Angel's arms? Run away from him forever? She wasn't even sure which one of those things she was hoping was the correct answer.
She was different now than she was even a few short weeks ago. Looking at Angel, she wasn't sure that she still felt the kind of storybook romance that had so defined her feelings for him in the past.
I always feel a little cheap whenever I have Buffy moving on from her relationship with Angel. As much as I like the Buffy/Xander relationship, I don't hate the Buffy/Angel one. I even like it, most of the time. I just like it more for its inherent drama than because I think it's good for either one of them. At the end of the day, their relationship is pretty immature. It's very much the teenaged Romeo and Juliet style tortured romance, complete with melodramatic proclamations of loving the other beyond life itself.
So while I feel it's important for Buffy as a character to move on, I also feel it's unfair to dismiss her feelings for Angel and his for her. In a different world, they'd be together, and maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing. I try to respect that relationship, just as I try to respect the strange relationship of Buffy and Spike or any other canon relationship in the show. Dismissing those feelings, even belittling or otherwise making light of them is a disservice to the characters.
Because she'd had a taste of romance now. She'd experienced a deep, loving relationship. In her dreams, Xander had shown her a bit of what his love, what their love could be. It didn't feel like she'd always felt with Angel, it didn't feel like that fiery burst of passion that could never possibly burn that brightly for that long. It felt simple. Simple and good. It was comfortable, it was loving, and it was breathtakingly beautiful.
Could being with Angel have compared to the way she felt during those special dreams, with her intimate encounters with the man Xander had once been? Could those dreams compare to passionate love that flared so strongly between her and Angel? Could one claim to be somehow "better" than the other?
This new edited version added a little more to this paragraph, mostly to make it less "Oh that Xander is so dreamy" and more about the equality of her feelings between Xander and Angel. Again, I don't want to somehow claim that Angel was not deserving of Buffy's love, nor imply that he was somehow less devoted to Buffy than Xander is. Life is just not fair to them, and not fair to Angel in particular.
Of course that's part of what makes Angel an interesting character. Tortured to the end, that's our Angel. He's much more interesting when he can't have what he really wants, as depressing as that is.
Buffy groaned and rolled over, putting her arm beneath her pillow to grasp Companion's scabbard. It wasn't fair. None of this was fair. She loved Xander, sure, as a friend. Her best friend, along with Willow. But romantically, she had never really entertained the idea.
Now that idea was forced upon her, and she couldn't deny that some part of her really enjoyed her dreams, really enjoyed being with Xander in them. There was still that part of her that regarded Xander as just a friend. To be married to Xander, it just...It didn't mesh.
She'd thought she'd wanted to be alone, running off to Angel's (supposedly) abandoned apartment. When Faith had showed up she was surprised at how grateful she felt for the intrusion. The surprise connection between the two of them had shocked her, but it had also helped her calm down tremendously. It was infinitely easier to cope with such mind-boggling ideas when you shared that stress with another.
Even now she could feel the faint trace of the connection, stretching across town to where Faith was currently having a late night talk with a very sleepy Xander. It wasn't as powerful as when they normally connected, or that brief experience in Angel's apartment when it had first opened even without the weapons, and it certainly wasn't as powerful as the first time they'd ever connected. But it was there, a constant comforting pulse of empathy between the two of them. It was probably how Faith had found her in the first place.
She was glad for it. It was strange, how alone she could feel in her own home, in her own room. The ease with which she had settled into life in Boston had never really occured to her until this moment. Now, as she lay in the dark, she found that she missed it, and was comforted to know that at least she was still connected.
Connected how?
She was holding Companion by the scabbard now, which was not generally the kind of physical contact that they needed to initiate the connection, and she'd certainly not been in contact with Companion all night. Faith had somehow initiated it on her own back in Angel's apartment, without using her weapon as the conduit.
Maybe Xander had been right. Maybe the connection wasn't because of their weapons. Maybe it was just helped along by their weapons, as their minds, or souls, or whatever it was learned how to control the connection.
She couldn't even begin to wonder what that might mean, particularly in the context of her knowledge of the future. She and Faith were connected one way or another, and they just so happened to be married to Xander in the future. Was there a correlation?
Nope. Sometimes things really are just a coincidence. Or as Freud would say, sometimes a random connection on the psychic level between two seperate individuals is just a cigar.
He said that, right?
In all seriousness, I never wanted it to seem like it was the common factor of Xander that linked Buffy and Faith. He's an afterthought to what connects them, not the cause. It's more like Xander is attracted both of them because of what links them, not that they are linked because Xander is attracted to them.
Xander had claimed that they'd shown signs of their connection in his timeline too. Something about dreams. But so far, she didn't think she and Faith had ever experienced something like that. Yes, Faith was sometimes in her "dreams" of the future, but that was really more of a memory than a shared experience. And yes, if Faith were holding onto Tommy or Tammy as she slept, Buffy could catch glimpses of the girl's own dreams. As far as she knew, Faith didn't ever experience Buffy's dreams.
The way Xander had talked about it sounded like they connected while dreaming, which had never happened to them in their time.
Buffy sighed and rolled over again. It was all so confusing, and it was bound to get even more confusing. Apparently Willow had been through some kind of ordeal that had given her some knowledge of Xander's future as well, and now Angel and his friend Doyle were here to figure out future events as well. Combine that with the mystery of this new weaponless connection she and Faith shared, and her knowledge that her dreams were not exactly dreams, and Buffy was one stressed Slayer.
Luckily, she thought as she tossed and turned in a fitful mockery of sleep, the Hellmouth couldn't possibly heap any more trouble onto the already mountainous pile.
Right?
Oh, Buffy. Haven't you learned by now?
"Hot damn! I'm lucky as hell tonight!" Tector Gorch proclaimed as he swept his winnings off the table. To his right a Calvorl demon snarled and threw down his cards.
Huzzah!
Now I'm sure I could be accused of self-indulgent writing here, but as the observant reader may have noticed, I LOVE writing for the Gorch brothers. Maybe I go overboard with their stupidity, their slang, their stupidity, their stupidity, and their unbridled stupidity, but hot damn! They are just fun to write.
Sure are stupid though.
"Little too lucky, if you ask me," said a Mohra demon.
"You callin' me a cheater?"
"What if I am, vampire?"
"Maybe we oughtta pound that pretty little trinket outta yer thick skull then, pardner," threatened Lyle Gorch, the bigger and (marginally) smarter of the two Gorch brothers.
The Mohra drew his sword at once, screaming as it rose. The Calvorl demon dove across the smoke filled bar to get away from the impending violence, slamming into two vampires as he did so. Two large mugs of fresh blood crashed against the wall.
"Hey!" Willy the Snitch called from behind the bar. "You're payin' for that!"
Lyle Gorch slammed a meaty fist into the forehead of the Mohra demon, staggering it backwards as Tector leaped onto its back, his powerful arms pulling against its neck. The Mohra roared in anger and slashed its sword, cutting the table in two.
"Time ta learn you a lesson about messin' with the Gorch brothers!" Lyle grabbed the Mohra by the head, and quickly slammed it down against his knee. Tector, still holding onto the things neck, was brought down too, and received a glancing blow across his own head.
"Watch it, Lyle!"
"Don't you start, Tector!" Lyle shook a warning finger at his brother.
"Sorry, Lyle."
The Mohra staggered back, clutching its forehead. The jewel resting there was slightly cracked. It roared, and was soon enveloped in a burst of light. When it was gone, nothing remained.
"Damn Lyle, the jewel done disappeared with the rest of him."
"Well you shoulda plucked it off his fool head then! Do I gotta think of everything?"
"How'm I supposed ta take it off his head when yer busy beatin' on him?"
"Maybe I oughtta have started beatin' on you instead," Lyle threatened. "Can't even fool a horse turd like that. I told ya ta never pull your aces on a turn like that!"
" I was distracted by this gnawin' hunger in my gut. Come on, Lyle, we ain't had nothin' but scraps and homeless folk fer three days now. When are we gonna get us someone tasty ta eat?"
"When I say we are. Who does the thinkin' 'round here?"
"You do Lyle," Tector admitted.
"You think you could do better? Go ahead on."
"Come on Lyle, don't make me do the thinkin'. You know I ain't got yer smarts."
"Yer damn right you don't. Half the time I can't even figger why I don't just toss your stupid ass out in the sunshine one of these days."
"Shit," Tector grinned. "You think you could do it?"
Lyle pointed at him warningly. "Don't tempt me, boy."
Tector brought his fingers to his palms in a "come on" gesture.
"You done asked for it!" Lyle bellowed, and swung a heavy fist as Tector's head. Tector rolled with the punch, and came back grinning.
"Bar brawl!" He yelled, and dove for his brother.
Or at least that's what he tried to do, until he found himself floating in midair.
"Well I'll be a monkey's uncle," he remarked, confused.
"Hey fellas, we were just wondering if we could have a few minutes of your time."
Tector turned his head to see what was holding him up. It was a large metallic-gray demon. His armored hide might have been natural, or it might have been manufactured, but it looked very menacing. He held Tector up by his coat with one hand, and didn't look the least bit strained by it.
"Who the hell are you?" Lyle demanded.
"Folks call me Skip."
I still like Skip. Even after it turns out he's kind of evil, I like him. He's very Mayor-ish in that quality. He's just a likable fella, even if he's a murderous and extremely powerful demon.
Tector guffawed. "Skip! What kinda sissy name is that?"
Skip dropped him unceremoniously to the floor. "It's a nickname, and I happen to like it."
"I happen ta like bustin' yer face in," Lyle said, his face vamping out as he charged Skip. The large gray demon rolled his eyes and punched the vampire in the face, sending him sailing across the room.
"Really now guys, we just want to talk."
"Who the hell is we?"
"What?" Skip furrowed his brow and looked from side to side. "Hey Whis, where'd ya go?"
"Trying to have a simple beer in peace," Whistler said, scowling as he stared into his glass.
Poor Whistler.
"Well come on, I got their attention."
Across the room the pile of rubble that had collapsed atop Lyle Gorch shifted and gave way as he sat up. He clutched his head in a bit of a daze. "Shit, I fall off my horse again?" *snort*
"Nah Lyle," Tector laughed. "You got knocked on yer ass!"
"You shut yer mouth afore I," Lyle staggered as he tried to stand and put a hand against the wall to steady himself.
"This is so stupid," Whistler sighed as he slid off his stool. He took one last swig of beer, slammed the glass down on the counter, and wiped his chin with the back of his hand. "Let's get it over with."
"Aw hell yeah," Tector grinned, his hands balling into fists in a classic boxer's pose. "Let's get it on!"
I love these two.
Whistler smirked at him. "That's not what I meant, sunshine. Just shut up for two minutes while I lay down the deal, okay?"
"Who do you think yer callin' sunshine, shorty?" He stepped forward menacingly, but Skip was suddenly beside him, a massively powerful hand gripping his shoulder. Tector cried out in pain. "Ow! Okay okay! Uncle!"
"Now you boys play nice, and you'll get a nice fat paycheck at the end of this."
"Paycheck?" Lyle slurred, shaking his head clear of cobwebs. "You mean, like money?"
Whistler rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Yeah. Like money."
"Well shee-it," Lyle grinned. "Why didn't you say so? What's what the deal, boys?"
"We need you to do something for us."
"Yeah, I figgered that part all on my own. You want we should kill someone for ya?"
"I told you he was smart," Skip smiled charmingly. "He got it on the first try."
"Killin' is it? Hell, that ain't no big to do. Who you want killed?"
"And more important-like, how much does we get paid?" Tector added.
Skip shrugged. "I'm not sure. How much do you want?"
"We get ta name our price?"
"Sure, I guess so."
Lyle's eyes lit up, and he grabbed his brother by his shirt, pulling him in close for a private word. Tector kept one hand on his hat, holding it on tight as he was dragged across the room.
"You hear that?" Lyle hissed.
"Yeah! We get ta kill somebody!"
Good to see Tector has his priorities in order.
Lyle smacked him upside the head. "No ya damned fool! We get ta name our price."
"Oh yeah, that too. So how much we askin' for?"
"I dunno. Don't wanna go too high, 'less we scare 'em off."
Tector licked his lips eagerly and rubbed his hands together. "I know, let's ask fora - a hunnerd dollars! We'd be set fer the next coupla months!"
"Ya stupid idjit," Lyle snorted. "A hunnerd dollars ain't been a hunnerd dollars fer a hunnerd years."
"It ain't?"
"Hell no. Can't even get a decent horse fer a hunnerd dollars no more," he hawked and spit in the corner. "Money just ain't what it usedta be. We gotta ask fer a lot more than that."
"Two hunnerd?"
"Not two hunnerd. A thousand."
Did I mention they're kind of stupid?
"A thousand dollars?" Tector whispered in disbelief. "You think they'll go for it?"
"Let's find out."
Lyle stood up straight, adjusting his hat and tugging on his belt before swaggering over to Skip and Whistler.
"All right, first things first, who're we killin'?"
"Oh it's real simple," Skip assured them. "Just a teenaged girl, that's all."
"Girl is it?" Lyle grinned, licking his lips. "She ah, she pretty?"
"Oh yeah. A real beauty."
Behind Lyle, Tector hopped back and forth from one foot to the other in anticipation.
"This girl, maybe we could uh, have some fun with her before we kill't her?"
Skip shrugged. "I don't see why n-"
"No," Whistler interrupted. His face was ashen, and he looked like he might be ill. "No fun. If you kill her, you do it quick and clean."
"Shee-it," Lyle complained. "In that case, we want...We want a thousand dollars."
"Sure," Skip nodded.
Lyle's face split into a grin as he put his hand out for Skip to shake. They did. "Now a deal's a deal, right? No goin' back on yer word. A thousand dollars."
He's a shrewd negotiator, that Lyle.
"Not a problem."
"So where do we find this girl?" Tector asked.
Whistler sighed and pulled a folder out of his jacket. "That's her," he said as he handed it to Lyle. The vampire pulled a few photographs and a sheet of paper with personal information written on it out of the folder. He leered at the picture, grinning lustily. He passed it back to his brother.
"Hot damn!" Tector exclaimed. "You wasn't kiddin'!"
Lyle's eyes scanned the information sheet. His lips moved as he whispered each syllable under his breath, reading slowly. Sixteen years old, attends Sunnydale High School.
"Wait just a damn minute!" Lyle turned the paper around and pointed at a single word. "Is that for real?"
"Oh yeah. Did we forget to mention that?" Skip asked disarmingly.
"What is it Lyle?"
Lyle growled and shoved the piece of paper at his brother. "She's the damned Slayer."
I wonder if anyone really thought they were going after Buffy or even Faith, or if it was obvious from the beginning that they were going after Kendra. I kept it vague for a while, but I suspect that wasn't necessary.
Then again with Ethan supposedly gunning for Faith I suppose it might seem that Whistler and Skip are taking orders from him, something like that.
"The Slayer? Well shit. That don't hardly seem worth a hunnerd dollars."
"Idiot! Weren't you payin' no mind ta what we was just sayin'? We ain't gettin' a hunnerd dollars. We're gettin' a thousand."
Tector blinked. "Oh. Then what's the problem?"
"The problem is they ain't said she was the Slayer when we made the deal!"
"That mean we ain't gettin' our thousand dollars? You ain't scared of the Slayer, is ya Lyle?"
Lyle slugged his brother across the face. "Don't you go mouthin' off to me, boy. Don't forget who raised yer sorry ass when Momma skipped town."
"I won't. I'm sorry, Lyle."
"I ain't scared of no damn Slayer. Just think a thousand dollars ain't hardly worth the job."
"Are you backing out?" Skip asked.
"Hell no!" Lyle spat. "I done told ya. A deal's a deal. You just make sure ya got our money when we get back. A thousand dollars. That's five hunnerd each!"
Oh man, I forgot to mention it, but the Gorch brothers? They're actually not very intelligent. I don't know how I let that slip my mind.
It was hard for Xander to be upset. In fact, it was hard just to keep the grin off of his face, which was definitely not helpful, because there really was some stuff to be worried about. He hadn't talked to Buffy since she ran out the night he'd told her about her dreams. Faith assured him that Buffy was just taking some time to deal with things, but that didn't really make him feel better.
Especially since Faith was a little strange with him since that night as well. They still got along well, laughing and joking and that sort of thing, but there was a definite something else to their relationship now. Every now and again he'd catch Faith looking at him oddly. Was it a good look or a bad look? With Faith, it could very well be both. It was definitely something to worry about. And of course there was still that mysterious mage out there somewhere, apparently gunning for Faith.
There was also the question of her connection with Buffy. According to Faith, she'd somehow initiated a connection without using Tommy or Tammy. It lent weight to Xander's theory that they had always had some kind of natural connection, but he was still at a loss as to what it was, or what it could mean.
I doubt Xander or anyone else will really get to the bottom of it. The connection just is. The why of it is largely unimportant.
Willow. There was another thing. He'd gotten more of a taste of just how extremely her life had been affected by her encounter with her future self. He'd made a conscious decision to try and spend some more time with Willow since he'd been back. In the last few days it had become clear that Willow was going through a very turbulent experience.
According to Giles, Willow was doing a much better job of controlling her emotions than she had been weeks ago, but Xander wasn't sure how that could be. Willow could cry at the drop of a hat, giggle uncontrollably at the corniest of jokes, and had once or twice been made so afraid by the everyday Slaying discussions that she had to be taken into a private room by Oz, Giles, or Ms. Calendar until she could calm down. Occasionally she could also be found staring lustfully at one of the other girls, Ms. Calendar in particular. Xander had actually caught her drooling over the admittedly very beautiful teacher once. If this was Willow doing better, he didn't want to think about how bad she must have been before.
Then there was Angel and his friend Doyle. The pair had come to see Xander the day after what Xander was beginning to think of as "Conversation Day." In Marvel comics it would be C Day. Apparently he was supposed to somehow figure out why this Doyle was having conflicting visions. As resident Future-Boy, it was in his jurisdiction.
At first, Xander had been just a little annoyed at what he considered an unnecessary mystery thrust upon him. It wasn't until later that day when he remembered.
Cordelia had visions. The two of them had spoken very rarely after she'd left Sunnydale, but he knew that much at least. She'd received some power of future-sight, which she used to help Angel. She'd only ever mentioned how she'd gotten the power once, and had made it seem like an off-hand comment.
It always bothered me that most of the Scooby gang had very little to do with Cordelia after she left for L.A. None of them even show up (onscreen at least, we fanfiction authors can make up all kinds of crap on our own) at the hospital when she's in the coma that will eventually take her life.
But suddenly he was certain that she had mentioned the name Doyle. It couldn't be a coincidence, could it?
On the Hellmouth? Of course not.
So he was forced to put more of his attention on Angel and Doyle. Why would the Powers-That-Be want Angel to be back with Buffy, but also want him not to be back with Buffy? It made no sense.
Luckily, the Scooby Gang were the world's foremost experts on things that didn't make sense. That was why Xander was currently spending the Christmas vacation stuck in the school library, researching visions along with the rest of the gang.
Only instead of reading Glempyle's Visionaries Okay, this is now officially the front-runner of crappiest "fake mystical book title"., Xander was trying not to grin, despite how Buffy sat at the other side of the room, glancing at him whenever she thought he wouldn't notice. Despite how Willow was still stifling giggles from a bad pun he'd made ten minutes earlier. Despite how Angel was being his normal broody self.
Despite it all, Xander was in a great mood.
Because Jess was going to live. For once, the never-ending troubles that the Hellmouth produced were simply not powerful enough to break his good spirits. The soul of Jessica Harris was going to exist one way or the other. Xander can be amazingly short-sighted sometimes. Okay, Jessie is going to exist someday. That barely scratches the surface of all the possibilities of HOW she might exist. Xander's so blinded by his exuberance that he's not really thinking of all the ways that his daughter's life can still get messed up.
Which isn't really a bad thing, just thought I'd point out that Jessie is not guaranteed to automatically be born to Faith and Xander in the year 2010. Her soul will exist. Everything else is up for grabs. It was the best news he'd heard all lifetime.
It allowed him to finally reflect on and approve of so many of the changes that had been made since his return. He could finally allow himself to be happy that things were the way they were. Before, when he would find himself in awe that Faith was alive, smiling and happy, he would always have that nagging doubt in the back of his mind. What if he messed something up? What if Jessie never came to be?
Now though, he could simply enjoy her presence. He could enjoy that Buffy was alive and mostly happy, although clearly stressed out from recent revelations. To be able to see a Buffy that hadn't been through some of the terrible ordeals she'd faced after Angel had lost his soul was a joy he didn't think he would ever experience. Even now, as she moped around the library avoiding Xander, he couldn't be that upset. She was alive, and if he had anything to say about it, she wouldn't go through anything like she had in the original timeline.
Giles and Jenny were another happy side effect. Without the hiccup in their relationship that was the Eyghon affair, the two had become perhaps even closer than they'd been in the original timeline. In the days since Xander, Buffy and Faith had returned, it was clear that Giles and Jenny were no longer pretending to be "just colleagues." Their relationship was something of an unspoken truth that no one felt the need to spell out.
Cordelia continued to exceed his every expectation of her, which was pretty difficult since he'd already had such high expectations of her. That was just how Cordelia was, however. In the original timeline she had constantly astounded him by being much more than she appeared to be. He'd thought he had her pretty well figured out the second time around, but it seemed that Cordelia had redoubled her efforts to always be original.
I think if Xander came back in time over and over again for a thousand lifetimes, Cordelia would still astonish him every single time. To do otherwise would be Un-Cordelia.
Her training with Giles had come along very quickly, to the point where Giles had actually made a few mutterings that he might have to switch to a one-on-one teaching style with her. She was quickly surpassing Oz, Willow, and Jonathon in their self-defense classes. According to Willow, Cordelia had actually clocked Jacob Hammond in the nose on the last day of school when he'd made a too-aggressive pass at her. From Xander's own observations of Giles's last training session, Cordelia was indeed coming along very quickly. Xander was thinking about maybe asking Giles if he could train Cordelia himself once his arm had healed. At the very least it would free up some of Giles's time, and he could focus on the slower and steadier progress of the other three.
Perhaps, at first anyway, Faith could replace Cordelia in the training sessions with Giles. Xander wanted to be sure to get Faith trained as soon as possible, and Faith herself seemed very excited about the idea. She'd even expressed some passing interest in learning magic, which had surprised Xander. When Faith idly mentioned she was interested in something that generally meant she was absolutely fascinated by the idea. Faith of the old timeline had never really seemed to care for magic.
Faith's the Slayer in the original timeline. First she doesn't want to learn magic because she thinks she doesn't need it. She's a superhero now. Then her watcher is killed and her life spirals out of control. By the time she's in a good enough place again that she could conceivably get someone to teach her it, she no longer sees power of any kind as something all that enjoyable, and so has no desire to learn it.
Regardless, Xander thought it was a good idea if Faith wanted to learn magic. There could be no telling if Faith would ever actually become a Slayer. Faith might be too old to be activated as a Slayer, assuming they were able to acquire the Scythe in the same way they had last time. He wasn't about to let Kendra die just so Faith could be activated, so any advantages Faith could get were okay by him.
He was thinking about teaching Faith personally when it came to martial arts, but decided that if she wanted to learn magic too, Giles was the better way to go for now. Xander knew a great deal about magic, but for him, it was mostly all theory. The practical spells he could cast were limited to a few simple illusions Mostly the blobs-of-light stuff we saw in the last Interlude, the temporary enhancement spell, and a few other assorted and very minor spells. He felt it would be better for Faith to learn both martial arts and magic from the same teacher, at least at first. The two practices had some very similar aspects. Two different teachers with different philosophies would be confusing, especially in the beginning.. If and when Faith advanced to around Cordelia's level, he could think about stepping in for more advanced training. Pre-Slayer Faith might not ever even reach that level. Cordelia's a prodigy at this stuff.
Training with Giles would also have the added benefit of having Faith spend some time with the others, particularly the others who weren't super powerful Slayers. He wanted Faith to see that she wouldn't be the only one in the group that wasn't a Slayer or a time-travelling weaponsmith. He also wanted Faith to integrate into the group as best she could.
It would probably be difficult at times considering how distrusting Faith could be of people she'd never met. Xander and Buffy had both cheated in one way or another, Xander with his future knowledge of her, and Buffy with their connection. Faith's relationships with the others in the Scooby Gang would have to be forged the old fashioned way, and with Faith that could very well mean slowly and painfully. Hopefully her experiences with Buffy and Xander would help her get over some of that mistrust, but he wasn't going to count on it.
I think I was trying to stress for a while why it was that Faith was so easily trusting and befriending the group, Buffy and Xander included. We don't have interludes to show us why Faith is different here than on the show. We can only infer why she's different based on the experiences she DIDN'T have, so I felt I had to stress every once in a while why she reacted the way she did.
I didn't want it to seem like I was just rewriting Faith's personality to my own whims, although I guess her basic intelligence and subsequent love of reading is something of my own creation, but everything else is just what I figured Faith would be like if she hadn't gone through some of what the S3 Faith had gone through. If instead she was treated with trust, love, and caring by two people with an extraordinary ability to care, this is the person I thought Faith would evolve into.
It could also be that the changed Scooby Gang would ingratiate themselves to Faith far better than the old one had. It was strange, but the inclusion of Kendra and Jonathon seemed to make the group far more accessible. Where before it had been a cliquish and very small group consisting of the "core four" of Buffy, Giles, Willow and himself, there was now a group that had no real focal point. He supposed that since Kendra was herself a Slayer, the group was much more of a team focused on group strength than several people backing up one Slayer.
Speaking of Jonathon, there was another reason to be amazed by Cordelia. While Xander had a very hard time changing his fashion sensibilities like Cordelia wanted, Jonathon seemed to go along with her pretty easily. As a result, Jonathon was always decked out in suave looking outfits that seemed to give him just a hint of confidence.
Of course, that confidence was usually shattered when Cordelia spent ten minutes preening and poking at him to make sure everything was properly in its place, but Xander suspected that deep down, Jonathon didn't mind that too much. When you had someone as beautiful as Cordelia Chase taking that kind of interest in you, it tended to feel good.
Jonathon's joining of the Scoobies was also far more helpful to research than Xander would have ever guessed. In the original timeline, they'd never really had much to do with Jonathon, except when he was causing trouble with his magical knowledge. This time around, they were seeing first hand what a gifted young man Jonathon really was. In the last week or so Giles had begun to teach him the basic tenets of magic.
He was no Willow when it came to the magic stuff, but he was definitely in a pretty high percentile. Jonathon had the makings of a very succesful mage. Where Willow had, at least in the first timeline, focused more on power and ability than on knowledge, Jonathon was all about absorbing every little fact he could get his hands on. The same mind that had learned to speak Klingon Star Trek reference #19 in two and a half weeks was now focusing that obsessive desire to learn on some very archaic, and very useful new skills.
Even though Willow had suggested it to him, Xander would never have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes. To his amazement, Jonathon and Kendra actually seemed to be in the very beginning stages of a very timid and awkward attraction. Earlier in the day Xander had watched them for a little while as Jonathon helped Kendra and Cordelia study. One could definitely see a glimmer of admiration in Kendra's eye when Jonathon was in his element. It was just about too sweet for words.
The Jonathon/Kendra relationship was interesting to me because I didn't really build it up onscreen. It's mostly from the observations of the others that we see it build, and I'm not used to doing that. I should probably make a note of it though, because I think it actually worked out well the way it is now. It feels as if the relationship does somehow evolve naturally between the two of them, even though we see so very little of that firsthand. We get a few glimpses, such as when they're shopping or when Kendra's thinking about spending the day hanging out with Jonathon in later chapters, but the rest is how the others seem them.
I guess it reminds me that subtle and background development can, in my opinion, work very well. I need to remind myself to do that more often, as I think I have a tendency, especially these days, to want to show everything all the time.
Xander sighed, a small smile etched upon his face. Things weren't great, but for once they weren't absolutely horrible either. There was a lot to deal with, but he was glad that he was finally able to stop and take a look around at the good things as well.
The question then became, what was he going to do next? What were his plans for the immediate future?
His arm was still in pretty bad shape, although it was getting better every day. It was true that his broken bones always seemed to heal faster than the average person, and he had a few magical and mundane techniques to help speed that along even further. Still, it would be at least another week before he was able to take the cast off, let alone work steel in the forge.
He could begin gathering materials, however, and figuring out which weapons he would be making first.
Cordelia definitely. He was very interested in seeing what her weapon might be like. Maybe that should have been "M. McGregor was very interested in seeing what her weapon might be like." I was far too excited to get to Cordelia's weapon already, and I think this is one of those few times when the character really is speaking for me. Luckily it's not really that big of a deal. If that's the worst kind of soap-boxing I ever do with a character, I'll consider myself lucky. He already had a firm vision in mind as to exactly what type of weapon it would be.
Maybe Kendra after that, since having two Slayers with magical weapons would be a huge benefit to everyone in Sunnydale. That might have to wait just a little while longer, since he wanted to get more of a feel for the type of person Kendra was before forging her weapon.
There was also Xander himself to think of. He'd made a decision back in Boston that he was no longer going to deny himself a weapon. It was foolish of him to stubbornly try and rely without it. He was using every advantage he could muster this time around.
Still, that didn't mean he couldn't experiment a little with his own weapon. He had the inkling of an idea where that was concerned. If it worked, his weapon might be somehow different than an ordinary magical weapon, if a magical weapon could ever be referred to as ordinary in the first place.
I had planned out for a long time that Xander would create a weapon that was re-forged from an older weapon, specifically Cleaver, the axe mentioned way back in the earlier chapters. The idea was that Cleaver would have the tiniest little thread of the kind of magic that a forged weapon had - that indeed any weapon that had been used long enough had some kind of miniscule percentage of magic in it, and the older and more used a weapon was, the more it resembled, in an EXTREMELY minor way, the strange sort of luck that a forged weapon had.
That would be one of the reasons why it would transform into Protector. As Xander's weapon throughout much of his life, it would, once re-forged, be almost aware that what Xander needed wasn't a weapon, but a shield. That's not to say that's the only reason why Cleaver II transforms into Protector, but it's a large part.
Basically it's about what Willow said about how the forged weapons somehow manage to influence their own destinies. As a weapon that already had a destiny, Cleaver II exhibits properties that a brand-new forged weapon would not have. Xander kind of discovers an unknown aspect to the forging of magical weapons because of this, opening up a whole new category of weapons.
Looking up over his book, he spotted Buffy sitting on the steps near the stacks. She had an old dusty book in her hand, but wasn't paying much attention to it. Occasionally she would glance either at Angel or at himself. He sighed, inwardly debating whether or not he should try and talk to her.
He glanced at Faith, sitting beside him with her feet propped up on the table. She was leaning back in her chair slightly and looking very interested in the book in her hands. It was one of the books Giles had gotten together for Jonathon as a sort of basic primer of the supernatural, one that was useful both for new Scooby members, as well as those that might be interested in magic.
"Like it?" Xander asked, putting his own book down and stretching his arms.
"This shit is wild." She shook her head in disbelief. "This motherfucker right here fought a dude with seven wings for like a year and a half. Is that for real?"
"I dunno," Xander admitted. "I get real confused with that kind of stuff. I can never tell when it's a metaphor and when it's for real, but Giles would know." He looked up and called out to Giles, "Hey Giles!"
Giles looked up from where he was currently balancing six books in one hand while carefully pulling another off of a shelf. "Yes Xander? What is it?"
"Guy with seven wings fighting for a year and a half, is that a Ripley moment?"
"A Ripley moment?"
"Yeah, you know. Believe it or not. Is it true?"
"Of course it's true," Giles said. "Denlizarra fought for 18 moons before finally besting the Gehatroli."
"How do you know it's true though? Couldn't it just be someone's whacked out fantasy?"
"I could always direct you to the appropriate tomes if you wish to find proof, Xander."
Xander put his hand up. "No thanks! I'll uh, I'll take your word for it."
"Very well," Giles sighed, muttered something under his breath, and pulled another book off the shelf.
"If Giles says it's true, then it's probably true," Xander remarked to Faith.
"Damn, that's mad crazy."
"So how are you doing anyway? You're not really bored by all the research are you? It's kind of what we do during the downtimes."
"Bored? Shit, I feel like my brain's gonna overload, there's so much stuff to check out."
"So not bored?"
"Hell no," she grinned.
"You like reading this stuff?"
"Yeah, of course I do. I always liked readin'. That's why they skipped me in first grade. I read all the damn time."
"You do?" Faith had rarely ever read when he'd known her. In fact, she'd downright avoided it most of the time.
She frowned at him. "You didn't know that?"
He shook his head. "I guess...I guess maybe you stopped liking it at some point."
Gotta wonder what happened to Faith in the months between now and after she becomes a Slayer that makes her give it up.
For a moment he wondered just what could have happened to Faith to change her mind about something that seemed so trivial. He was surprised to really learn something new about Faith. It felt kind of good.
"Does that mean you're not going to be all grumpy when school starts up again after the break?"
She sucked her teeth and groaned. "Shit, you're really serious about that, aren't you?"
"Of course."
She didn't look too happy about the idea.
"Come on," he pressed. "It'll give you something to do at least. Plus we can hang out in school and whatnot."
"You're like fuckin' ninety years old," Faith pointed out. "What do you need to go to school for?"
"Hey, you're never too old to go back to school. Didn't you ever see uh, that bad movie about the old guy who goes back to school? I think Rodney Dangerfield was in it."
She chuckled softly. "Guess I missed that one."
"Oh, it's an instant classic. We should rent it sometime." He nudged her arm with his elbow. "So whaddya say? You, me, a school on top of a Hellmouth, how bad could it be?"
Her expression turned distant for a moment. Across the room, Buffy frowned and looked over at them. Xander put a hand on Faith's arm.
"Hey," he whispered. "Not that bad. I promise, okay? Believe it or not, but school's pretty normal around here when we're not fighting zombies or invisible people. Most of the teachers are real cool. Snyder might be a troll, but he's a pretty harmless troll. I mean really the only bad seed was that one cafeteria lady who..." Xander paused and turned his head.
"Hey Giles!"
"What?"
"Did I tell you about the cafeteria lady who's going to put rat poison in the food next year?"
"I-I don't believe you did," Giles replied.
"Oh, okay. Well there's a cafeteria lady who's going to put rat poison in the food next year."
Way to ease your way into it, Xander.
"Uh, yes. Thank you Xander. I'll add it to the list."
"For real?" Faith asked when Xander turned his head back.
"Yeah, but don't worry, that's not until next year."
"You're really weird sometimes, X."
"See? That's just because you have to get to know me," he said with a grin and a waggling of his eyebrows. "Soon you'll learn that I'm weird all the time."
She laughed and rolled her eyes.
"All right," she relented. "I guess I'll try it out. But if anyone gives me any shit..."
"Flush it down the toilet?"
She laughed again, pushing him away playfully. "That's sick!" Urgh. Yes it is.
"Hey you said it, not me."
"Yeah well you know what I meant."
"I do," Xander said. "And if anyone gets on your nerves, I'm sure Buffy will be more than happy to beat them in a vaguely oozelike creature of minimal intelligence."
"Yeah," Faith said sadly, looking over to Buffy. Their eyes met for a brief instant before Buffy went back to looking at her book. "This kinda sucks, you know?"
"She just needs some time."
Faith shook her head. "What she needs is for you to get your ass up and go talk to her."
Again, Faith exhibits a unique perspective when it comes to Xander, and by extension to Buffy. Even now she knows to call him on his bullshit.
"I don't know about tha-"
"Hey, which one of us has got some fucked up brain connection to her?"
"Okay, point taken," Xander admitted. "But still I-"
She punched him in the arm. "Go."
"Ow," he whined, rubbing the spot just above his cast. "No punching the broken arm, thank you very much."
"I'll fuckin' slam a pipe into it if you don't wise your ass up," Faith threatened. "This shit ain't cool, us pretending like nothing's going on while she's sitting there by herself. You need to go talk to her."
"But I'm the problem," he argued. "I'll just make things worse."
"Fuck Xander, right now she's freakin' out cause she thinks everything's gonna be different between us all cause of this. You sittin' on your ass while she's stressin' over it doesn't help at all."
"Hey, no fair," Xander began, then paused as he searched for the right words. He finished lamely, "Making sense and knowing stuff." That's cheating!
She glared at him.
"Okay, okay," he gave in. "I'll go try and talk to her. But if this doesn't work, I'm telling her it was all your idea."
He got up and smiled as he looked down at Faith. "Of course, if it does work, it was completely my plan all along."
A philosophy I live by every day. I highly recommend it. It does wonders for your self esteem.