| The Mercy Seat
Chapter Three: In London
Xander leaned heavily against the brick wall as the world came back into focus again. For the second (third?) time that day he found himself somewhere else entirely. The voices seemed to have quieted down, though, and Willow was nowhere in sight, so he allowed himself to slide slowly down the brick to the concrete beneath him and close his eyes.
He was exhausted.
He wasn't entirely sure what happened, whether Willow had cast a spell on him, or if he was somehow still being affected by whatever had changed his circumstances so dramatically earlier. It hadn't quite sunk in, yet, that it wasn't still that afternoon in Johannesburg, when he and Malia had been planning their attack on the local evil demon boss. Of course, the fact that the alley he found himself in was barely lit by a street lamp and the sun had somehow set on him was telling him pretty firmly that it wasn't afternoon anymore, at all. He knew that he had to get up and get his bearings, that he was painting a pretty "eat me!" picture to anything that might be lurking in the dark. He was just too tired and confused to move.
He still couldn't remember much of anything about the past four years. He had faint images of Kelly, his second slayer, in his head, of her death, and of Malia's, but they bled together. He now had a fairly strong memory of visiting his great-aunt in the hospital in Santa Barbara, but that memory was strange, too. Like he'd lived it only a few moments ago, between Willow and here, like he'd somehow time traveled before arriving . . . wherever he was now.
When he was in the hospital, though, he'd known what was going on. He'd remembered everything that came before it, because he remembered remembering, but he couldn't grasp those memories now.
He squeezed his eye shut. That thought had barely even made sense. He remembered remembering things, not spending every moment confused. He missed that feeling, but it was too far away from him to really connect to it. So he leaned back against the brick, shivered in the cool air, and concentrated on breathing.
Willow was evil. He'd seen it in her eyes, and in the way she'd been so quick to cast a spell. He had to do something about that, had to find some other cute little anecdote about their shared history to bring her back. Of course, to do that he had to figure out where he was, and then figure out where she was, get to her , and get her to talk without casting spells that made him go away. He opened his eye.
There was something vaguely familiar about the alley, a stronger feeling than that he'd felt at the crater, and in the Hole. It nagged not just at his missing memories, but at the ones he still had as well. He'd been here before, possibly on a patrol. If he knew the alley, then he'd know the street, too. He slowly forced himself to his feet, using his staff for leverage and wishing he had shoes. He reholstered the staff and rubbed at his arm. The cool air raised goose bumps and made him shiver. He wondered how much time he'd lost this time.
Was he now in 2011? Or was he only a few months displaced? Maybe Willow had sent him to the other end of the world, where June was winter. He hoped not. He'd had enough trouble with inverse seasons when his mind was operating properly. He'd hate to have to deal with the winter in the summer months when he was as lost as he was now.
He was in luck; he immediately recognized his surroundings once he reached the street. A few blocks away was a familiar stone bridge, surrounded on all sides by funky shops with graffiti styled signs. He was in Camden, only a few stops on the London Underground from the new Council offices in Soho. He could go find Giles, then, let him know, if he didn't already, that Willow had slipped. He could get a change of clothes there, and maybe even a shower. Things would be better once he was dressed and clean. Maybe his brain would start functioning again.
He started towards the tube station, his hand automatically slipping into his pocket, then he stopped short in the street and shut his eye again for a moment.
He didn't have any money. He'd have to walk to the council, if he could figure out the way. No money meant he couldn't get an A-Z, though, and the tube map wouldn't help much in the way of getting his bearings. It was a common joke that the colorful lines on the maps were little more than a fanciful pattern, bearing no resemblance to the real shape of London. Maybe if he called the council collect, someone could come and pick him up. Did England have collect calls? He wasn't sure.
"Harris!"
Xander started, spinning around, his hand going straight for his staff. A tall man wearing a wide- brimmed black hat grinned at him, showing an impressive array of impossibly white teeth. He squinted at him. "Do I know you?"
"Funny." The man stopped grinning. "You got the money you owe me?"
Xander took a step back. "What money?"
"I'm not in the mood for this, Harris." The man matched Xander's retreat with an advance, step for step. "I pull off your job, you assure me of payment, and then you disappear. Working like that doesn't get you any respect." The man grinned again, and Xander noticed his teeth were faintly pointed. "Working like that gets you dead."
Xander turned and ran.
His feet slammed down against the rough sidewalk, the sounds of his own footsteps filling his ears and combined with his fear, pushing everything else out of his mind. He didn't pay attention to where he was running, knowing only that he had to get AWAY, and he had to do it quickly. He didn't check to see if the man had followed, didn't even reach for his staff. He kept moving forward, out of Camden, across intersecting streets, without hearing or seeing the traffic that braked and careened out of his way. He kept running even when his side seized up in a stitch, even when his breath started rasping painfully against his dry throat, until he slammed into someone on the sidewalk, rebounded off, and went spinning into a wall.
He collapsed then, breathing hard and shaking. The woman he'd practically run over cursed harshly in a language he didn't know, struggling to gather together her spilled shopping. She spun on him, ready to berate him for his behavior, then seemed to freeze.
"Xander!"
He groaned and turned his face away. He really didn't want to face any more strangers who knew him. He could feel the world swarming up on him, overwhelming him with information through sound and smell. He clutched his hands around the staff, not even aware that he'd drawn it, and swung it blindly when a hand, not his own, landed on his arm.
"Xander, no, Xander, it's okay, it's me. Calm down. It's okay."
The voice repeated this litany over and over as Xander continued to swing wildly at the woman. Finally, the staff stopped moving as she caught it and was nearly pulled off her feet. She gripped it hard, and twisted it out of his hands. He threw himself back against the wall, curling in on himself. She cursed again.
"Xander. Look at me, okay? Just look at me. Please?"
She crouched over him, and something in him finally realized she wasn't trying to hurt him. She hadn't even touched him after he'd reacted to her hand on his arm. She hovered a few inches away, her body shaking almost as much as his did. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and refocused.
"Dawn?"
She smiled at him. Her hair was cut into an attractive bob, falling to just below her ears, and she was wearing more make-up than he was used to, but it was her. He let himself fall forward into her, wrapping his arms tightly around her body, and she dropped the staff to get a better grip on him.
"It's me, Xan, it's okay. When did you get back?"
"Back?" Of course. He'd been missing, the slayers in the Hole had told him that. She didn't answer him, just carefully rubbed his back and murmured soothingly in his ear. Her voice didn't hurt or overwhelm him the way all the other noises did, but seemed to quiet everything that was going on in his head.
"Can you stand up?" She asked after awhile. He nodded, but didn't release her as they got to their feet. She gripped him back just as hard, then pulled away slightly to look him in the eye.
"We should go home, yeah?"
Relief flooded through Xander, and without warning his knees gave way. Dawn tried to hold him up, but ended up back on the sidewalk with him. She let him rest for a long moment.
"Okay, walking is out, huh?" She smiled softly at him. "I'll get us a cab."
Xander didn't reply, just rested on his knees, feeling safe for the first time since he'd arrived in Sunnydale earlier. He could trust Dawn, even the whispering noises in his head seemed to agree with that. She'd take care of him, and they'd figure out what was going on.
Everything was going to be okay.
Willow leaned back against the sofa, pressing a tissue to her nose. The teleport back to the council, combined with the botched spell from earlier, had left her drained. It would be at least a few hours before she could even attempt a location spell for Xander. She hoped that when she did, she wouldn't be too late.
"He was . . . ." She swallowed, peering over her lower lashes and Giles and Buffy, who wore matching expressions of worry. "It was bad. He was wild. He recognized me, but he was so scared. I think . . . I think he might have killed them. Amelia and Jude. I don't know if he knew what he was doing."
"That sounds about right." Buffy shrugged. There were deep circles under both her eyes, and she flopped down on the couch bonelessly. "When Angel came back he was the same way. That's . . . that's what hell does to people."
Giles inclined his head, exchanging a glance with Willow. "Did he say anything to you?"
Willow sighed. "Not so much. He was talking to someone in the bathroom though. And his mind . . . . It was like there were a couple of other people in there with him, all screaming. I couldn't really make out what they were saying, but he was terrified. We have to find him. He could really hurt himself, or someone else, like this." She clenched her teeth, willing herself not to cry. "I screwed up. Big time. I'm sorry."
"Not at all." Giles lay a hand on her shoulder. "You did what you thought was best. There was no telling what state his mind was in. We have no idea what he went through when he and Genevieve went into that portal."
"Yeah." Willow sat up slightly, pulling the tissue away from her nose. It didn't seem to be bleeding anymore. "I wonder where she is."
"Genny?" Buffy folded her arms. "They must have gotten separated. I don't think Xander would have left her there, if he had any choice." She glanced at Willow. "This is my fault."
"Would you stop it?!" Willow glared at her friend. "You had no idea what the Immortal was doing! I mean, hey, been around for millennia, probably learned a thing or two about manipulation and being evil. You helped us stop him, as soon as you figured out what was going on. This is NOT your fault."
Buffy looked away. They'd had this argument countless times over the last year. Willow sighed inwardly and leaned back again. Eventually, Buffy would come around. Getting Xander back would help, once he was back to his old self. Buffy never operated at top level when one of her people was in trouble.
"You should both get some sleep." Giles adjusted his glasses. "If Xander is in London, as I suspect he may be, one of our slayers will find him, or he will find us. If he is somewhere else, we have no way of helping him until you two are rested."
Buffy made as if to argue, but Willow just stood. "Wake me up in two hours. I should be able to do the location spell by then." She walked out to the stairs without looking back.
It was looking more and more like Giles was right. Willow couldn't ignore the evidence she'd seen at the Hole. Xander was very, very much not okay. And when Willow found out what had done this to him, there would be hell to pay.
Her blood sang at the very thought of it. She was long past petty revenge, but when her friends were threatened, she was more dangerous than anyone else on the planet.
"Buffy," Giles drew the senior slayer's attention away from the doorway Willow had just exited through. She rubbed at her eyes a bit and turned toward her watcher. "If I might have a moment?"
"Can it be a short moment?" Buffy smiled slightly. "Because, way tired."
"Indeed." Giles did not return her smile. He settled himself on the couch where Willow had been a moment before. "It's important that I talk to you about Xander."
Buffy swallowed. This was it. This was the Giles-lecture, on how she'd failed her friend, again. She might have been twenty-six years old, but there were moments when Giles could make her feel fifteen all over again. She nodded slightly. "I know, Giles, it's--"
"Oh for god's sake, if you make one more comment about this situation being your fault I'm going to string you up by your ears!"
Buffy blinked. "O-kay. . . . If that's not the lecture, what's the up?"
Giles shook his head. "I have no intention of ‘lecturing' you tonight, Buffy. I merely wish to provide you with a warning." He held up a hand to forestall any further comment she might make. "I'm well aware that you're capable of handling yourself, against nearly any enemy. But in light of recent . . . developments, I can't help but find it appropriate to let you know about something worrying Willow and myself. Something that has been worrying us for quite some time now. Xander may be a threat to you, when he returns."
"I know." Buffy shrugged. "I've handled people coming back from hell before, Giles. I've BEEN back from hell before. I'll be on my guard, but that's not going to stop me from helping him."
"I mean to you, specifically." Giles removed his glasses, but made no move to clean them. "Willow and I have been . . . concerned for quite some time. As you know, we had a remarkably high slayer- death rate in the two years preceding the Immortal's bid for power."
"He was hunting them, Giles. I was there, I know what was going on."
"The Immortal may not have been responsible for all of the deaths."
"Yeah," Buffy frowned at her watcher. "They were killed by demons, too. That's what happens when you're a slayer. We couldn't reach all of them on time."
"That does not explain the sudden drop in slayer death, or the lack of it in the year after Sunnydale. We have reason to suspect that the Immortal may not have been the only individual hunting slayers."
Buffy shook her head. She was beginning to see where Giles was going with this, but she couldn't be right. It was simply beyond the realm of possibility, in this or any other universe that she could imagine. She wondered if the stress of the job was getting to him. "What are you trying to say?"
"There is no delicate way to put this." Giles fiddled briefly with one ear piece of his glasses, before replacing them and looking his slayer directly in the eye. "Xander himself may have been killing slayers."
Dawn loosened her grip slightly as Xander slowly stopped shaking. She couldn't believe it. That she would turn a corner in London and literally run into the man she and her friends had spent the last year searching for was beyond coincidence. Had she brought him here? Was she somehow able to channel the seemingly dormant key energy to breach the boundaries between hell and her own world? She had been hoping, certainly, that he would return, and soon, but she'd expected it to be when Willow had found a spell, when they could retrieve Xander and comfort him from the safe confines of the council, not find him here on the street. She leaned back slightly, studying him. She squeezed his arm, once, just to reassure herself that he was real.
He was. And he was looking back at her with an expression of absolute relief. She shuddered internally, imagining what he might have gone through. "You ready?"
Xander twitched slightly, his head moving in a minute nod. Before they could climb to their feet, however, he shot backwards out of her grasp, muttering to himself. Dawn jumped. "What--"
"How sweet."
Dawn spun. A grathnal demon in a long coat and wide-brimmed hat grinned at them. Xander pushed himself further away, seemingly about to bolt. Dawn caught what he was muttering now: a simple repetition of the word "no" at a rapid pace. Had the demon followed him?
"Is this another one, Harris?" The demon stepped closer. "Tell you what, I'll do her for free. Then we can talk about debts."
Xander snapped his head back to the demon, his lips curling in a feral snarl. Before Dawn could react, he was on his feet, pushing her none-too-gently out of the way, and attacking the demon.
Barehanded.
"Xander!" Dawn screamed.
"Run!" He screamed back, not even turning from the creature. She watched in frozen fascination for a moment as they fought.
Xander had never been a very skilled fighter. His method was geared more towards body blows and bar brawl moves than any distinct fighting style. What he lacked in skill he made up in enthusiasm. When he managed to defeat an enemy, it was usually due to sheer determination and a few underhanded tricks.
This was not the Xander she knew.
He was nowhere near a match for a slayer in strength or dexterity, but he moved with a wild agility that he'd never had before. Where once he might have tried to tackle the demon, here he ducked and wove like a boxer, swinging wide, uncontrolled limbs at it whenever there appeared to be an opening.
Grathnal demons had more tricks than just pointed teeth, though. Xander should have known that, he'd fought them before. As he moved, she caught glimpses of the scar he bore to prove it. The demon was toying with him for now, but at any moment it would bring that large, curving claw into play, and Xander would most likely die.
She shook her head sharply to clear it. She was not about to let that happen. She searched around her for a weapon, then snatched up the long stick Xander had been swinging at her only a short while before. It wasn't perfect; grathnals, unlike vampires, had no particular aversion to wood, and even a heart blow wouldn't be enough to kill it. It would be enough to slow it down and let them get away.
She gripped the staff loosely, placing the forked end against her shoulder for added range and power. Neither combatant seemed to notice her, so she stepped back, circling around them, and took careful aim. Then, just as the grathnal's claw sliced through Xander's shoulder, she screamed and lunged.
The wood of the staff bowed slightly, but held as it slid through skin and muscle, straight through the creature's heart. It shook slightly, then collapsed. Dawn had to struggle for a moment to pull the staff back out. Xander stared down at the demon for a long moment, his hand gripping his arm. She stepped over the demon to his side and tugged on his elbow.
"We've got to get going, Xan. It's not--"
A hissing noise drew her attention. The demon on the ground had begun to bubble, and slowly dissolved into a brownish-goo. Dawn stared.
She looked at the weapon in her hand, with the point on the one end and the sling on the other, then back at the goo, which was rapidly evaporating. She looked at the weapon. She recognized it, though she'd never seen one in "real life" before. Xander himself had loaned her the books, back before she even knew what a slayer was. She looked at Xander, then shook him to get his attention.
"Xander," she kept her voice low, so as not to startle him. She maintained eye contact, speaking slowly. "Where the hell did you get a magic hoopak?"
Xander stared at her for a long moment, then gently took the staff from her. He held it in his hands, turning it slightly, as though looking at it for the first time. He started to chuckle, though his face showed a combination of shock, confusion, and fear.
After a moment, she shook his arm again. He looked up at her, shaking his head. "I have no idea."
Xander moved to slide the staff back into its place, then stopped as he realized that the demon had managed to cut one of the leather straps, leaving the sheath dangling off-center on his shoulder. Things just kept getting weirder, though he hadn't really thought that was possible. The weapon he'd very quickly come to count on turned out to be a work of fiction. He giggled again. Dawn kept shaking his arm, demanding his attention. It was very distracting.
He turned to her to ask her to stop, but felt the word and the laughter die on his lips as his eye caught the necklace that had spilled loose from her top.
It was an extremely realistic representation of a human eye, down to the faint red lines of veins that tickled the edges, attached to a long, silver chain. Phantom pain flashed across the left side of his face, and he winced. Dawn frowned at him, confused.
The pendant had a long, rough scratch that ran straight through the iris and the pupil. He felt a burning in his eye socket as his other eye teared in sympathy. He flinched away from the sight, shifting out of Dawn's grasp.
"Xander, what--"
"Where'd you get that?" He gestured vaguely in the direction of the necklace, turning back to study his staff. The material of the sling was his old eyepatch; he recognized the small tear in one corner, and the general shape of it. How had he not noticed that before?
"It's yours." Dawn's voice was confused, and it seemed to echo somewhere in the back of his head. It WAS his. His glass eye. "It was damaged when Kelly--when you and Kelly fought the grathnals in Botswana. You had it made into a pendant by one of the artists there, remember? You said you wanted something to remind you of your mistakes. Kind of a good-sense charm."
Xander shook his head against the flashes of tooth, claw, and blood, and the pain flaring again over his face. "Why . . . ."
"Do I have it?"
Xander nodded. That wasn't what he was going to ask, but it would do for now. The voices were getting louder again, clamoring for his attention. Dawn's voice seemed to drown them out a little. He'd do anything just to keep her talking.
"I found it. On the floor after we defeated the Immortal. The string was broken--it must have fallen off. I put it on a chain. I knew you'd want it back, so I've been keeping it for you." Her small hand gripped his larger, scarred one, pulling it away from his staff. She pressed the necklace into his palm, then wrapped his fingers over it. "You don't remember, do you?"
Xander shook his head. He didn't remember, that was the problem. He didn't remember Kelly enough to know why she had meant so much to him. He didn't remember what had happened to Malia, or fighting Buffy's boyfriend. He didn't remember much of anything.
"You're bleeding." She touched his chest lightly. "We'll go back to my place and patch this up; it's just a few blocks down."
He nodded again, though he wasn't really paying much attention. When he finally looked up, Dawn's eyes sported tiny glimmers of tears. He didn't remember, but she might. "What happened?"
"That's crazy." Buffy crossed her arms over her chest, staring at Giles.
"I am aware."
"I've known Xander for years. YOU'VE known Xander for years. He couldn't just . . . he wouldn't kill slayers. He wouldn't kill anybody!"
"I disagree."
"Demons, okay, he'd kill demons. He has killed demons. Slayers aren't demons. Xander loves slayers. He'd die for them!"
Giles placed a hand on her shoulder, pausing her in her pacing. "Xander loves you, Buffy. He cared for the slayers he found, yes, but he didn't love all of them, not unconditionally. He could barely even speak to Faith."
"Giles, explain this to me." Buffy didn't start pacing again, instead choosing to tap her foot. She wanted to be looking Giles in the face for this. "Because right now? This is making a whole lot of the kind of sense that doesn't."
Giles removed his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose. "You remember Xander's behavior, after Kelebeletse died?"
Buffy nodded. He'd grown distant, very distant. But that was why he'd taken a vacation.
"It was shortly after her death, approximately two months, that the slayers started dying."
"That doesn't mean anything."
"By itself, no." Giles replaced his glasses. "When Xander returned to work, he continued looking for slayers in Africa. As you'll recall, he was unable to find a single, surviving slayer."
"Africa is a dangerous place."
"Yes." Giles leaned back on the couch. "He found more slayers, albeit dead ones, than any of the other scouts combined. Do you think that is a coincidence?"
Buffy sighed. "The Immortal was hunting slayers then, Giles, and Italy's just across the Mediterranean from Africa. Xander was just really good at locating slayers, and really bad at timing."
"All those things are also true."
"Then why are you jumping to these weird conclusions?" Buffy spun and started pacing again. "Xander was wrecked by those girls! It tore him apart, each time he found another one too late! You saw that, just as well as I did. You sent him back on vacation!"
"And it was at that time that rumors started coming in from the council's contacts in the demon world. Rumors of a one-eyed, dark haired man contracting demons specifically to hunt down and eliminate slayers, all over the world."
"The Immortal was trying to tear us apart, remember? He kept telling me things about the slayers and about the watchers, that they were working against me." Buffy whirled and started toward the desk. "Okay, so he was usually more subtle than ‘hey, a guy who looks just like one of your best friends is ordering the assassination of slayers', but I certainly wouldn't put it past him." She paused, then slammed her fist into the desktop, leaving a visible dent. Her shoulders slumped. "I screwed up with him, Giles. I let the Immortal walk all over me. And now you're bringing up more ways that he did it. You're telling me he was walking all over you, too."
"That is one possibility, Buffy, but I have looked over the Immortal's surviving records in great detail. He makes no mention of such a plan, though he rambled on for pages about his other manipulations. He did not mention at least half the slayer deaths that we are aware of." Giles stood, moving to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Buffy shrugged him off a little more violently than she should have. "I've mentioned Xander's behavior, the way he was pulling away from us for those two years. Did you happen to notice how morose he'd become, how much more morbid his sense of humor was? How he came to refuse to even mention the slayers? We were barely able to contact him, when we learned of the Immortal's plans. He was cutting himself off from us."
Buffy did not turn from the desk. She stared down at the almost perfect mark of her hand on the wood. "I understood that, Giles. When the gang pulled me out of heaven, I was the same way. He had so many things piling on top of each other, the loss of Anya, of his home, of Malia and Kelly, and all those other slayers . . . when his aunt died, I think that did him in. He wasn't well, I know that. But he didn't turn into a killer."
"And Jude and Amelia?"
"You didn't see Angel when he came back, Giles, not like I did. Hell does that. It makes you crazy, and it makes you kill. He might not even have known he was back. Willow said he was terrified. He probably didn't even know they WERE slayers."
"That's all a possibility." She could hear Giles' footsteps moving away from her, towards the door. "I merely bring all of this up to warn you. Xander may well not be the man we remember. The possibility exists, is even likely, if what Willow tells me of his family history is true, that he has lost his ability to reason. I only want you to be careful."
"You're saying Xander's gone crazy."
"I'm saying that we will not know until we have Xander back here. Until then, we must be prepared for every possibility."
Dawn had left her stereo on in her apartment (flat, in London they live in flats), and Xander walked into the sound like he was walking into a fog bank. The music was thick and humid, something that hugged his skin and tasted like barbeque sauce. It vibrated against him and throbbed in his chest, making him feel his exhaustion even more. The music was a rainy August evening in a Louisiana garden, or a smokey bar lit by gas-fueled street lamps. He stood in the middle of the room, closing his eye, letting the sound wash over and through him. Though it was quiet, the music filled all the room's corners.
When Dawn turned it off, he felt the absence of its warmth and shivered.
"Hey." Dawn was touching his arm, leading him to the couch. He let her maneuver him until he was seated before looking at her. She smiled, an echo of the music's melancholy touching her eyes. "Where'd you go?"
He shook his head to show he didn't understand.
"You wandered off a minute ago. You never used to do that."
"The music . . . ." He wanted to tell her what it had made him feel, but he couldn't find the words.
"Did you like it?" Dawn was suddenly glowing, her pride illuminating her whole face. "It was Stevie Ray Vaughan. Oz introduced me to it."
Xander nodded, but his eye was already drifting from hers, wandering around the room. The flat had a cinematic quality to it, the way none of her lamps were just white or yellow. A green turtle glowed from a mahogany end table, a pink and white scarf muffled the glare from a standing lamp. Even the overhead light was tined by an elaborate Chinese lantern. The walls were a deep red and covered with bolts of colored fabric, stain and linen, with tiny mirrors embroidered into Hindu designs. The muffled sounds of night traffic brushed against the spaces the blues music had filled. He felt like he'd stepped into Dawn's heart, like her blood rushed just behind the red walls, and the living room was one of its four chambers. He ran a hand over the faded floral print of the couch, leaving behind a smear of mud and dust.
"There." Dawn pressed a strip of medical tape against his shoulder and sat back. He realized with a start that his arm and shoulder were cool with water, that disinfectant had tined the incense and curry air. She'd bandaged him up and he hadn't even noticed. "You wandered off again. You must be exhausted. Do you need to sleep before we find the others?"
Xander shook slightly. "I need to know what happened."
She nodded, blues in her eyes again. "What do you remember?"
"Nothing. Malia. Africa." He rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed the traces of water into the skin of his upper arm. "We were talking."
He could hear the slayer, just barely, in his head, but couldn't make out the words. He thought about scratching the walls, to see if they would bleed.
"Arguing. We were arguing."
Dawn was staring at him, with an expression he couldn't read. "You did that a lot."
"We did?" Xander's hand moved to his forehead, then it flinched away as he touched the edge of the scar. He felt something tickle his throat and escape as a laugh. "We did."
Dawn nodded, reaching out to brush hair from his face. He dodged her. The hair kept the hole in his face covered, and he liked it that way. "She died." Her voice was low, and Xander barely caught the words. "I don't know too many details. Or, any details, really. She died fighting. I think you might have been there, but you never talked about it. You left Johannesburg a few weeks after that. Went to Gavarone, in Botswana."
"Kelly."
Dawn brightened again. "Right! Kelly. You guys got along better than you and Malia did. Kelly would have followed you anywhere." She swallowed, looking away. "Her granddad didn't like you so much. He . . . um . . . wanted you to go away."
And a dusty voice spoke up: //Understand Africa//. Strong smoke, turning to sand. Xander frowned, shaking his head. That couldn't be right.
". . . .with Buffy, then he stopped." Dawn kept her eyes on the curling leaves of the cushion. "Kelly loved you; she would have left home if he hadn't."
Xander didn't bother trying to figure out the words he'd missed. The way Dawn's voice broke on "loved" was more important than the croaking of a blurry miner in his head. "Kelly, she . . . ?"
Dawn watched him from the corner of her eye for a long moment, and the engine sounds started filling the room again. She was waiting for him, like he might fill in the gaps he was leaving himself. He shrugged, pulling the bandage on his shoulder. He wanted to let his mind drift again, but forced himself to remain focused. He had to know.
"She would have followed you anywhere. And-and she did." Dawn wrapped her arms around herself. "When she . . . died, you kinda shut down. We didn't hear from you for weeks, and then you called Buffy from California. You said you were going on vacation. We thought it was a good idea--Africa really shook you up." She shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "Eventually, you came back to work. Buffy and I were fighting, by then, about the Immortal, and I started school at Oxford. I don't know what else happened to you until Ireland."
Xander blinked. California was where Edna was. The memory of visiting her must be real. "And in Ireland?"
"Buffy and the Immortal moved there, and Buffy figured out that he was up to something. We got everyone together in Galway: all the survivors of Sunnydale, and Angel, too, while Buffy worked on sabotaging the Immortal's plans." Her mouth twisted down. "I'm not really sure what he was trying to do. He wanted to open a portal to something he called ‘Dreaming'. He was going to use me--the key- -to do it, but you and Faith kept him away. His ritual didn't really work--Willow said the portal opened to hell, not fairyland or whatever. Genny . . . um, Genevieve, she was the local slayer, she got pulled in. You jumped after her, and before we could do anything, the whole portal collapsed. The Immortal went through it, too, so I guess we won, but you were gone."
Xander shifted on the couch. The material suddenly chafed his lower back. He tried to process what Dawn was saying, but there was some sort of screen there, separating the words into jumbled clumps. He understood their meanings, but they didn't seem to fit together. They didn't feel like they applied to him.
"That was a year ago. We've been looking for a way to get you back, but since the original ritual was botched, we couldn't figure out which hell you'd gone to. Willow kept--"
Dawn broke off when Xander's head snapped up. He pictured Willow, her tar black eyes mocking him outside the Hole. "Willow!"
"She brought you back?" Dawn's brow wrinkled.
"She's gone evil. I saw her. We have to stop--"
"Willow isn't evil,"
"I SAW her, Dawn, black yes, too much magic, she DID something to me. Made it all mixed up--"
"Xander, calm down." Dawn gripped his arms, and he realized he'd started rocking again. "We'll go to the council. I don't know what happened, but we'll find out, okay?"
Xander nodded.
"Listen to me, though." She gripped his chin with gentle fingers, forcing him to look at her. "Willow's okay. She hasn't gone evil again. You're safe, okay? You're just confused."
"I SAW--"
"Hey." She pressed her thumb to his mouth. "Trust me?"
He thought about that. He'd seen Willow be evil, he knew he did, but his head was filled with things he couldn't understand. He couldn't remember what had happened; could he have misunderstood? He'd seen Willow's black eyes, but he'd also heard voices that didn't exist. He thought about what Dawn had said. He was confused. Maybe Edna-confused.
And Dawn kept the voices quiet.
"Yeah. I trust you."
* * *
Rupert Giles had never been much of a number cruncher. Being a field watcher, the most he'd ever really had to deal with when it came to numbers was the odd calculation of dates using ancient calendars, which admittedly he'd always had difficulty with. And while the new council enjoyed remarkable success in locating surviving trainers and fighters, and in recruiting new librarians and researchers, they had not yet managed to find a single suitable accountant or statistician. The combination of interest in the static logic of numbers and knowledge of the occult was extremely rare, and the statisticians that had been under the old council's employ had all been killed when their London based headquarters had been destroyed. He'd considered going to a numerologist, but remembered his father's complaints: they were always much too concerned with the mystical and prophetic implications of the numbers, rather than the numbers themselves.
So Giles found himself in the unenviable position of attempting to sift through the numbers on his own. Willow and Dawn had jokingly supplied him with an abacus, only to be appalled when he actually put it to use. Willow had eventually volunteered to maintain a database and spreadsheet for him on the council's network, which he was currently attempting to access.
"Damn and blast!"
Giles gave the monitor a solid whack with his open palm. It didn't help his limited computer literacy in any way, but it did make him feel somewhat better. Normally, he would be calmly reviewing the Immortal's journals, lovingly handwritten with an old fashioned quill and inkpot, over a cup of steaming English Breakfast while Willow made the numbers dance. But Willow was asleep, and Giles was loathe to wake her unless Xander himself made an appearance, or she'd been out a good couple of hours. The witch had the tendency to run herself to the absolute end of her endurance this year, and deserved her rest.
He clicked angrily at the icons on the monitor, no longer concerned with which might be the file he was looking for. If he opened every file on the "desktop", he'd be bound to stumble upon the one he required.
A complex graph covered in jagged, brightly colored lines and marked with red Xs and green circles sprung into existence. Giles let out his breath. A graph. He could read that, at the very least.
The dizzying image charted the level of disruptive demonic activity in specified areas across the globe. Cleveland topped the chart, of course, with a dark orange rising slope, showing a steady increase of activity from September to May, with a sharp drop-off into a trough over the summer. It was exactly as Giles expected, having viewed similar graphs in his training days with the old council. Beneath Cleveland lay London, Berlin, New York, and Los Angeles, with Rome trailing a bit further behind. Los Angeles and Rome, he suspected, would have shown somewhat higher on the chart prior to the defeat of Wolfram and Hart and the Immortal.
The circles and Xs, he noted, indicated the arrival of and death of a slayer, respectively. He glanced at those placements before moving to close the file. While informative in a purely scholarly manner, this was not the data that he had been looking for. He needed concrete evidence for Buffy, to ensure that she took the threat Xander presented seriously.
He removed his glasses and shook his head. He was getting senile in his old age. Buffy was not the only slayer who required warning. It was entirely possible that the combination of Willow's spell and the residual hellmouth energy would have transferred Xander to Cleveland, rather than London. He had to notify Faith and Wood as well. He rubbed at his eyes and dialed up the long distance codes from memory. It would only be six pm in Ohio; he should have plenty of time to contact the couple before their evening patrol. He replaced his glasses and scanned the graph again while the phone clicked and rang.
He blinked.
He cradled the phone against his shoulder, removed his glasses again, and cleaned them. He held them up to the light to check for smudges, then slid them back on. He blinked again, then cursed.
The graph remained unchanged.
It couldn't be accurate.
He re-read the legends. The x-axis represented months, May 2003 through the current date. The y- axis showed the average number of demonic related attacks on humanity, in tens. The lines swooped and crossed each other on the screen. Xs and Os marked the beginnings of sharp declines and inclines in demonic activity.
Respectively.
A click, followed by a buzz, reminded Giles that he had a phone to his ear. A formal, somewhat stilted female voice came on the line.
"Your party is not answering. Please check the number and try again."
Giles pulled the phone from his ear and shuddered as he hung up. Willow had to have noticed these trends when she was processing the data and putting this graph together, yet she had not said a single word about it. Why would she keep this a secret?
And why wasn't the Cleveland branch answering? If they were out, surely the voicemail would have--
The chirp of an interoffice call interrupted his thoughts. He punched the speaker button absently and did his best to keep his whirling confusion out of his voice.
"Yes?"
"Giles?" Andrew's voice was tense and excited. "He's here! Xander's HERE!"
"Thank you, Andrew."
Giles placed his hands on his desk and took a moment to just breathe. He then pulled the tranquilizer gun from the shelf. Whether or not his theory regarding the man's actions prior to last May was correct, Xander presented a danger to the people present in the council headquarters. Giles had no intentions of allowing that danger to become a reality, as much for Xander's sake as for that of his charges in the building. He knew the man was not in his right mind, and would deeply regret any violent actions taken once he had fully recovered.
Giles strode purposefully to the door and down the hallway to the lobby where Andrew's desk stood. He briefly considered waking Willow and Buffy before going to meet Xander, but discarded the idea. He would take responsibility for this onto himself alone. The girls were not ready to have to face their friend in such a condition. They had been through enough already.
Xander stood just in front of Dawn, to the right of the front door of the lobby. He was barefoot, with a long sleeved, button down dress shirt Giles recognized of having belonged to Dawn's last boyfriend. A large, white bandage was visible just under the collar on his right shoulder. Andrew perched cheerfully at his desk, his arms folded across the raised edge. He was grinning at Xander, and Xander was staring warily back.
That in itself was no indication of his mental state, Giles decided. Xander pretty much always regarded Andrew with such a guarded look. Pretty much everyone in the council did.
"Giles will be right down!" Andrew, never at a stand still, began gesturing wildly. Xander took a small step backwards, herding Dawn further behind him, but Andrew seemed to take no notice. "When did you get back? Was it awful? You look pretty good, you know, considering. Very post-apocalyptic."
"Andrew," Giles called, holding the tranquilizer gun just behind him.
"Giles! Look! Xander's back!"
"Yes. I see."
Xander turned to face Giles, still keeping Dawn behind him. Dawn gripped Xander's arm, a look of concern on her face. She was watching Xander alone, and clutching some sort of staff in her other hand. Though it was apparent that Xander was trying to act as some sort of protector, Dawn's posture indicated that she was only humoring him. Giles nodded slightly. Xander had apparently not taken any serious action against the younger girl, which fit in well with the profile he had been compiling regarding the man's current state.
Xander took a step towards Giles, his face relaxing into an expression of relief. He opened his mouth to speak, but only gasped softly as the watcher drew his gun and fired.
The dart struck Xander in his uninjured shoulder. He didn't so much as glance at it, choosing instead to stare into Giles' eyes.
Giles held his gaze. "I'm sorry,."
"Giles!" Dawn pushed her way past Xander as he crumpled silently to the floor. Giles ignored the look of anger on the girl's face and set the gun carefully on top of Andrew's desk.
"Dawn, go wake Willow and Buffy." Giles stepped forward to kneel by his friend's side. "Andrew, notify the others and prepare the holding cell. We're going to need to work quickly--I'm not certain how long the sedative will last."
"Giles, what the hell--"
"I will explain LATER, Dawn. Go get your sister."
Dawn leveled her very best glare at Giles, then turned to look sadly at Xander. "You'd damned well better have a really good explanation for this."
"I am aware."
Giles gently rolled Xander over onto his back, careful not to put too much pressure on the bandaged area. The man looked haggard, worn, and gaunt. He had been too thin before entering into the Immortal's portal; now it looked as though he might break under the slightest strain. Giles swallowed softly.
The expression on Xander's face when he'd realized what Giles had done had harbored no anger or violence. It had been a look of pure shock and fear. It would stay with Giles for the rest of his life.
"I'm so very sorry, Xander." Giles rocked back on his heels, ignoring the protests of his knees. "For everything."
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