Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Hey!” Andrew said, grinning, as Xander, Willow, and Buffy joined him in their usual Tuesday gaming spot.

“Hey, Andj.”

Willow pulled out her stuff and a new netbook she'd found and printed up for Jon to take a look at, and Xander got out his own dice, and notebook with his character sheet and various GURPS-related scribblings. They didn't have to wait too long for Jonathan, and after Willow had passed him the printout and he'd gotten out the books and his GM notes, Buffy leaned forward toward them.

“So, uh, what would I need to do if I wanted to, um, join you guys?”

“You, you mean like, join the game?” Jon asked, blinking.

“Mm-hm.”

###

Darla hissed.

“This isn't over.”

She moved backward, stepping back into the total darkness behind the stage door of the Bronze, and was gone.

Giles banged on the console, and the strobe stopped, leaving moonlight and silence in its wake. Buffy slumped down to sit against the inside of the bar, and Xander slowly got up, joined by Willow and Giles, going down the stairs as Buffy dragged herself up and toward them.

“Where's Angel?” Willow asked. Buffy looked at her, eyes empty, then turned her head to look at the dusty floor on the other side of the room. Then she started tearing up.

“Oh.” Willow stepped forward and hugged her, and Buffy clung to her and buried her face in the redhead's shoulder.

###

“I need to tell you guys something,” Willow said, shoulders firm, tense. Xander and Buffy and Amy looked at her across Buffy's kitchen table.

“Go for it, Wills,” Xander said. Willow nodded and took a deep breath, then let it out quickly.

“I, um. I like girls, like, like-like girls.”

###

Buffy sat on the bench in the school courtyard, her arms across her satchel, and Xander crosslegged next to her, facing her.

“You either feel a thing, or you don't.”

Even as he said it, he knew which one it was. Buffy looked down, sniffed once, and in a slightly choked voice, confirmed,

“I don't.” She swallowed and looked up at him. “Xander I'm, I'm sorry. I just don't think of you that way. You feel like, I dunno... I dunno if brother is the right word, but that's sort of how I see you. It'd be like dating Willow.”

“I'd date Willow,” Xander said, because his brain function was dealing with rejection and letting his mouth just say honest things, which frequently went poorly. He reeled it in.

Buffy gave him a sad smile, and rested her hand on top of his. She swallowed again.

“Xander... you're... you're like family. Can't that be enough?”

A weird burning sensation blossomed behind his eyes, and a pressure followed in his chest.

“Family?” he repeated weakly.

Buffy looked at whatever expression was currently on his face, took a breath, and then leaned in for a loose hug. Her forehead pressed against his shoulder.

“Please... my life is tough enough. Can we just... keep this?”

Past the lump in his throat and a ragged breath, Xander choked out a quiet,

“Okay.”

###

Xander and Darla stared at each other in the school hallway.

“My name is Xander Harris. You killed my best friend. Prepare to die.”

The shotgun was already fully ready as he swung it down from his shoulder and pulled the trigger. The blur that was the blonde vampire barreling toward him twisted, and he thought she dodged, until she skidded past him and slammed into a wall of lockers, some of them bending, others swinging open from the impact. She spun toward him, game face on, and snarled, then leapt for him again, arms- no, arm- extended. He'd shot off her left arm at the bicep.

###

Darla's eyes went wide, and she spun toward where Buffy was fighting the Master, and screamed.

“NO!”

Xander, ey e ing her sternum, dug in his pocket for his stake, or his cross; she whirled back with a venomous glare, seized him smoothly by the front of his hoodie, and chucked him into the lockers.

When Xander groaned and opened his eyes, Buffy was kneeling over him, hair falling on either side of her face, looking worried; that shifted to relief as he looked at her.

“Hey, Buff. You get him?”

“I got him.”

Chapter Text

Monday, September 8th, 1997

“You're... still in school, right? When does that start, again?” Xander's mom asked him tiredly over her morning coffee. He'd ended up waking up earlier than usual, so he actually got to see her today.

“Next Monday,” Xander groaned. It was annoying how summer just sort of went nebulously on, and then suddenly stopped. Sort of like a car crash on a road trip.

His mom nodded.

“Alright, well...” She stared into her coffee for a while, then shook herself and took a sip before nodding again. She got up and left, then came back with her purse, and slumped back into her seat with a sigh. “I'm sorry, I'm just so busy- if your father would get off his ass, then- nevermind. Um. Here, you need to get school supplies, don't you?”

She slid a number of bills across the table, and he nodded.

“Yeah... thanks Mom.”

At least she tried.

She sipped her coffee, then glanced at the clock.

“Damn. I'll see you later, Alexander,” she quipped, with a slight, tired smile at the old joke, and then shrugged on her jacket and left, taking her coffee with her.

Xander finished his breakfast and grabbed some clothes, then went into the bathroom to shower. He grabbed his toothbrush and started brushing, looking at himself in the mirror as he did.

He'd grown a whole inch over the summer; so had Willow, though, so he hadn't noticed until Joyce said something the week before. He was fairly certain he was supposed to be having an actual growth spurt about now, so he was a little annoyed, but at least it was something. He still couldn't grow any facial hair, but he was actually okay with that; the Harris men, a group to which he at least nominally belonged, tended to have pretty sparse beards until at least their late twenties, which - as the person who was going to have to live with it - ew. Plus not needing to shave saved time in the mornings.

He spit in the sink, keeping his hair out of his face with one hand. He'd also managed to avoid haircuts over the summer, so his hair hit the tops of his shoulders for about the first time in his life. He kinda liked that. Not that it changed the fact that he still didn't look right, somehow, but that had been a long-standing issue. Jesse'd always figured-

Xander stopped short and twitched when he realized-

I haven't thought about Jesse for an entire week!

And that was even including that weird dream he'd had a week earlier where he was Diana and Jesse was Al Fayed.

What's wrong with me, it's only been half a year! God, I'm a horrible person.

He showered and got dressed, and about two hours after his mom, Xander had left the house himself, and had only just finished telling Willow about his morning when they walked into the Summers house.

“Oh, gosh, right, school,” Joyce said, blinking at the reminder. “Tell you what, I have to make sure Buffy has what she needs for the year too... I think I can get away from the gallery early day after tomorrow, why don't I drive you to the store and you can help me stock up for Buffy?”

He and Willow traded a glance and agreed via eyebrows.

“Works for me,” he vocalized.

“And I need another composition notebook, I only got one extra when I went. And maybe an extra eraser,” Willow considered. “Just in case.”

So, Wednesday, Xander and Willow hopped in the Summersmobile and headed to the store. Joyce got a basket, and they loaded it up with binders and notebooks and pencils and highlighters and pens - even a couple packs of colored pens, although Xander didn't think he'd be color-coding his notes like Willow did.

“You kids are lucky,” Joyce said, looking at a calculator before adding it to the basket. “When I was in high school, we didn't have calculators. I had to use a slide rule.”

Xander made a face, unintentionally matching the one Joyce was making, which Willow pointed out. All three of them cracked up.

“Alright kids, grab yourselves a candy or a soda and we'll head out,” Joyce declared. Xander grabbed a Milky Way and followed.

“Hmm. I'll catch up in a sec,” Willow said, waving them away while she looked over her options.

When they got to the checkout line, they kept Xander's stuff separate from the stuff for Buffy, not bothering with a divider but leaving a gap on the conveyor. The cashier, an older lady going grey, made small talk.

“Back to school shopping? Cutting it a little close, eh?”

“Yep, getting stuff together for my daughter, she's been with her dad all summer,” Joyce explained.

“Oh! I'm sorry, I thought- but, yes, she takes after you in the eyes.”

The cashier was looking at him.

Xander choked on his chocolate bar.

“Um, what did I miss?” Willow asked a moment later, coming up and setting her notebook and candy on the conveyor, although Xander only peripherally noticed that while Joyce was thumping him on the back while he coughed.

He finally stopped coughing and moaned slightly, and Joyce helped him straighten up, looking him over.

“Oh, Xander, honey, are you okay?”

“You ever get water in your sinuses?” he croaked. “Chocolate hurts more.”

So it wasn't until after they'd had dinner and Joyce had dropped them off at their houses that he actually remembered what had started his coughing fit.

Maybe I should get a haircut?

He axed that line of thought quickly at the sudden deep revulsion he felt at the idea - which, he decided, was probably the feeling one got from the idea of becoming what their father wants them to be.

He got all his school stuff organized that night and Thursday, goofed off on Friday, watched a movie at Joyce's with Amy and Willow on Saturday as a last gasp of the summer, and then lounged around at Willow's house on Sunday.

“Ice cream?” Xander suggested, after they'd gotten tired of reruns on TV and exhausted any other ideas of entertainment they could come up with - you could really only play a board game so many times in a row.

“I could do ice cream,” Willow agreed. She opened the freezer and dug around for a minute, then closed the door and turned back to Xander.

“We're out of ice cream.”

“Hm. Baskin-Robbins?” Xander suggested.

“I could do Baskin-Robbins.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She nodded. He nodded. She nodded twice. He nodded twice back.

With that decided, they headed to the ice cream bar.

###

The night air was warm and comfortably muggy as Xander and Willow walked down the wide hard-packed dirt path, lit by occasional soft yellow streetlamps. Now and then, a car drove past on the other side of the buildings to their left, but the sound was muffled by their presence. To their right, an elbow-high stone wall divided them from one of Sunnydale's ubiquitous cemeteries.

Willow had already finished her ice cream, and was strolling along thinking, one arm folded to prop the other one on. Xander had ordered two scoops, and was down to the second, as he watched the redhead think.

“Okay, um...”

“It's your turn,” he reminded her, around a mouthful of ice cream.

“O-okay, okay, uh...” She took a quick breath when inspiration hit. “In the few hours that we had together, we loved a lifetime's worth.”

Xander thought for a second, himself, for a response; then snapped his fingers on his free hand when he got it.

“Terminator!”

“Good! Right!”

Okay, my turn.

“Um - oh! Okay, I got one.” He pulled out his best Heston impression. “‘It's a madhouse! A mad-’”

“Planet of the Apes!” Willow blurted, grinning.

Xander stopped and looked at her.

“...Can I, finish, please?”

“Oh- sorry, go ahead,” she allowed, nodding.

“Thank you... ‘-house!’” He dragged it out a moment, then turned to her.

“Planet of the Apes.”

He nodded.

“Okay good. Me. Uh...”

“Well?”

“I'm thinking! ...‘Use the Force, Luke!’”

Xander's only response to that was a slow blink.

“Do I really even have to dignify that with a guess?” he asked flatly.

“I couldn't think of anything!” Willow defended. “It's a dumb game, anyway.”

“Well, what else d'you wanna do? We already played rock-paper-scissors, my hand's cramped up,” he reminded her, waving the hand holding his ice cream cone.

Willow smirked. “Well, yeah, if you're always scissors, of course your tendons are gonna start-”

He shook his head. That wasn't the point.

“I just gotta say that this has been the most boring summer ever.”

“Yeah,” Willow admitted, shrugging. “But on the plus side, no monsters or stuff.” She stopped walking a little past a tree and hopped up to sit on the stone border wall of the cemetery. Xander followed her and leaned his folded arms onto it, looking out past her as he continued working on his ice cream.

“I'm just so restless! I'm actually looking forward to school startin' up again!”

“And that wouldn't have anything to do with a certain blonde we both know, whose house we hang out at?”

Xander groaned.

“I mean, if she'd just call, y'know? When's she gettin' back?”

“I haven't heard anything you haven't.” Willow's voice took on a teasing lilt. “And you are over her, right?”

Xander twisted to look up at her.

“Oh, totally. It'd be like kissing my sister. I know- I've tried it. It was like kissing my sister.”

Willow snickered.

“I guess Joyce has kind of adopted you.”

Xander rolled his eyes.

“Now you're being silly. Well, it sounded like she's having a good time with her dad, at least.” He had a thought, pushing off the fence to stand face to face with Willow. “Hey- I got a movie for ya!” He reached out with his cone and swiped ice cream onto her nose.

“Xander!” Willow protested, stiffening.

“‘You're Amish!’” He grinned as she relaxed. “‘You can't fight back, because you're Amish! I mock you with my ice cream cone, Amish Guy!’”

“Witness,” the redhead said, a little flatly. She pouted, cute as usual. “My nose is cold.”

“Aw, here, lemme get that for ya.” He leaned forward, mouth open to lick it off. She laughed and ducked, hands landing on his shoulders to push him away.

“Xanderrr!”

“Sorry, I can't help myself! Your nose just looks so tasty!” He unwrapped his napkin from his cone and started to wipe her nose off, as Willow steadied herself, her hands still pressing against him.

They were warm.

A something buzzed through him from where they rested on his collarbones.

Her face was pretty- was pretty close, was...

Her hair was slipping into her face. He tucked it behind her ear.

Warm breath tickled his lips.

His eyes moved to her lips, soft, and pink, and...

He could feel her nose, brushing his-

They were closer- had one of them leaned forward? Had both-

Gah!

Nononono, what are you doing, she's a lesbian, she'll hate you you're gonna ruin everything!

Xander yanked himself away. Something else tickled his nose - something old, and dead, and-

They both whirled at the growl of a vampire, standing just on the other side of the cemetery wall, his face looming inches away from theirs, a predatory grin spreading across it.

Willow screamed. Xander hauled her off the wall and to the other side of the path, pushing her ahead of him.

“Willow go!” he yelled, voice cracking. Dammit, fuckfuckfuck, no stakes, no cross, why did I stop carrying my gear??

“Xander-” she said as he spun around.

The vamp growled again, leaping over the fence and chasing; Xander swallowed, stepped forward, and swung.

The vampire's head snapped to the side, but he just turned it back, and growled again, not even deigning to speak, and then- his hands snapped out, seized Xander by the shoulders, his face moved toward Xander's neck as Xander pushed against him, Willow grabbed the vamp by the arm and tried to wrench him off- a cold lip touched Xander's neck-

And then the vampire flew backward, a hand grabbing his shoulder and pulling him off. Willow steadied Xander as the hand's owner punched the vamp, kneed him in the crotch, rolled him over her arm to slam him flat onto his back on the ground, then turned her head to Xander and Willow.

Buffy grinned.

“Hi guys. One sec.”

The vampire snarled and got up as she turned to him again, kicked him - in heels - and sent him flying back into a broken-off branch of the tree, exploding into dust. She turned back, grinned, and raised an eyebrow.

“Miss me?”

“Buffy!” Willow cried happily, and they both ran to her, Xander getting there first as they both wrapped her in a hug.

“Hey,” Xander croaked into her shoulder.

“Hey. Hey, Will.”

“Man, your timing really doesn't suck, huh?” Xander said rhetorically. He took a slow breath and then he and Willow both pulled away.

“When'd you get back?” Willow asked.

“Ah, just now, Dad drove me down,” Buffy said, with a casual wave, and smirked at them. “And I figured you two losers would be getting into some kind of trouble.”

Will nodded with a face of determination. “I think we had the upper hand,” she joked. “In a... subtle, way.”

“Does either of you even have a cross?” Buffy looked at Willow, and then Xander, getting matching sheepish expressions, and tsk'ed teasingly. “Very sloppy.”

“Well, it's been a slow summer, I mean that's the first vampire we've seen since you killed the Master,” Xander retorted.

Something crossed the blonde's face fleetingly, too quick for him to place, then she smiled again.

“It's like they knew I was coming back, heh.”

Buffy stepped forward, starting to walk down the path, so Xander and Will fell into step to either side; mostly because he looked at Willow and then immediately looked away and stared at his feet, face burning, because now that the life-threatening bit was over he could reflect on the fact that I almost kissed Willow! and he had no idea what he was supposed to be feeling about that, or which of the many feelings he was experiencing that feeling was.

“So! What about you, how was your summer, did you slay anything?” Xander asked, since it wasn't really a subject they could discuss via postcard, or on the phone while her mom was in the room.

“Nope!” Buffy said, popping the p. “Strictly R&R. Just, hung out, partied some... shopping was also a major theme.”

“Well, you haven't lost your touch, that vampire...” Xander complimented, looked up at her and actually taking in what she was wearing now that his fight-or-flight had mostly calmed down - a short pink patterned skirt, a white top, and a black coat, and her hair had been cut to brush her shoulders. It looked good on her.

I haven't seen that skirt before, I wonder if she got that in L.A.

“I did kinda wale on him, didn't I?” Buffy noted.

Hey, all our hair's the same length, he realized.

He felt some kind of way about that, for certain.

“I like your hair,” he told her, with finger guns. She laughed.

“So how'd you guys fare, did you have any fun without me?”

“Yes!” Willow said. “Okay, so in the game-”

Xander groaned, and Buffy gave him a curious look.

“Jon's evil! Evil, I say!”

Willow giggled.

“Yeah, well, you're just mad 'cause you didn't get a lightsaber.”

“I did get a lightsaber! And then he cut off my hand!” Xander gripped his wrist with his left hand as he shook his right.

“Hey, you still did better than Andrew!”

Xander bowed his head and crossed himself at the reminder.

“Poor R'Sula the legally-not-an-Orion. May she rest in peace.”

“Hey, we still have the ship, though,” Willow reminded him.

Buffy made a face.

“Man! I'm sorry I missed it.”

“Other than that, the biggest excitement was burying the Master,” Xander said, shrugging and changing the subject at her mopey expression. “Which you were still in town for, right?”

“Oh, but she missed it!” Willow said, pointing at him across Buffy when she realized. “That thing with her Mom-”

“Oh yeah!”

“Anyway, we did it... right out by that tree, actually,” Willow said, pointing out into the cemetery. “Giles buried the bones, we poured holy water... we got to wear robes!”

Xander nodded. “Very intense, you shoulda been.”

“Have you seen Giles?” Willow asked.

“Why would I do that?” Buffy dismissed. “I'll see him at school.”

Yay. School. Oh well, least I've got my friends along.

“Man, I'm really glad you're back.”

Buffy glanced at him, and then off over the cemetery.

“Me too,” she agreed softly.

They were all quiet for a moment, then Buffy shook herself and clapped her hands.

“Well, anyway - since you guys are unarmed - lemme walk you home.”

Chapter Text

Monday, September 15th, 1997

Xander lay in bed awake well after midnight, mostly screaming quietly into his hands pressed against his face and doing a terrible job of not thinking about kissing Willow-

-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-

-until he finally fell asleep.

The alarm went off, and Xander Harris groaned and stumbled out of bed so he could stagger over and turn it off. Then he dug through his dresser to find some clothes for the day. Cargo pants, white tee, striped button-up shirt. Boom, done.

He headed for the bathroom, chucked off the boxers and tanktop he slept in, took a shower (after a moment of thought, he used his mom's shampoo and conditioner, instead of the 3-in-1 stuff, since his hair was getting longer), and got dressed, then he grabbed his backpack and skateboard and headed for the kitchen.

After he'd made a peanut butter and Reese's Puffs sandwich, he slung his backpack on his shoulders, dropped his board, and headed for Willow's sandwich in hand.

Okay Xander, be normal, be normal goddamnit. It's Willow.

“Hi, Xander!” she said, opening the door at his knock. She was wearing a shortsleeve top and a skirt patterned with sea life, and had her bag on her shoulder.

“Mornin'!” he said, around his sandwich. “Like the skirt.” See? I can be normal!

“Thanks!”

Willow locked the door behind her and hopped down to the sidewalk, and they headed to school.

“So, how long do you think until Giles has to check his books?” he asked.

“It was just one vampire. Half an hour?”

“Yeah, but it's Giles. Bet you a dollar it's under ten minutes.”

She thought about it for a moment, then nodded.

“You're on.”

They got to school just in time to see Joyce dropping off Buffy. As the latter got out of the car, Xander saw she had on heels, an ankle-length dress, and a shirt overtop with fish printed on it. Xander raised an eyebrow at Willow, ‘did you guys coordinate?’

Willow shook her head and shrugged, but somehow he still felt left out.

Joyce rolled the window down on the passenger side and leaned over toward them.

“Have fun, kids!”

“We will!”

Joyce waved and pulled out of the drop-off lane while they waved back.

They went and found their lockers, which were on the second floor this year, and then went back down the stairs to get to their first class, rounding the corner to the landing, to come down the last few steps to the indoor commons by the doors to the courtyard.

“Giles!” Willow called happily, grabbing Xander's attention, and he looked up to see Giles and Miss Calendar at the bottom of the stairs. Oh, she got a haircut!

“Yo, G-man, Miss C, what's up?”

“Nice to see you! And don't ever call me that,” Giles said with a smile.

“Hey, kids,” Miss Calendar followed.

“Hi!” Willow repeated, and Xander waved. Giles grinned at Buffy.

“How are you?”

The blonde returned a tight smile.

“Live and kickin'!”

“Buffy killed a vampire last night!” Willow said proudly.

They all froze for a second and remembered the crowd of teenagers roaming around them.

“Uh, I think you can get a little more volume if you speak from the diaphragm,” Buffy said, with a slight smirk. Willow rolled her eyes and smiled.

“Sorry,” she said, as the five of them stepped a little closer together.

“We've got vampires?” Ms. Calendar asked, leaning toward Giles uneasily. “I thought the Hellmouth was closed.”

“Closed,” Giles agreed. “Not gone. The mystical energy that, emanates from it is still concentrated in this area.”

“Which means we're still the undead's favorite party town,” Xander summed up. Giles nodded and looked to Buffy thoughtfully.

“This vampire - could you tell where he might be from?”

“Local talent. Fresh. He was still wearing his funeral ensemble.”

Which means there are other vampires about, and they're already killing.” Giles frowned. “I should have been on top of that. I wonder if they're here for any purpose, particularly...”

Buffy shrugged.

“You're the Watcher! I just work here.”

“Yes, I, I must consult my books,” Giles said, nodding and starting to turn away.

Xander grinned and checked his watch.

“Ohhh, eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, pay up!” Willow pulled a dollar out of her backpack and rezipped it as he held out his hand. At everyone else's confused expressions, he elaborated, “I called ten minutes before you had to consult your books about something.” WIllow handed him the money, and he nodded to her. “Thank you.”

They both smiled at Giles. He gave them a mostly-fake one back and nodded. Before Xander could say anything else, the bell rang, Willow looking up at the ceiling and took Xander's arm.

“We'd better get to class.”

It would, Xander admitted, probably be a bad start to be late on the first day.

Giles kept pace with them for a moment as the three teens headed down the hall.

“Buffy, I realize you've only just returned, but when you're ready, I think we should start your training again.”

“I'm ready!” the blonde said. “I'll see you after school.”

“Well, I-I understand, if you want a few days, to-”

Buffy stopped and looked at him.

“I'm ready,” she repeated.

“Yeah, sounds like fun!” Xander added, for his and Willow's sake. He had greatly appreciated the self-defense stuff they'd done the previous school year, he definitely wouldn't object to more of it.

Giles looked at the three of them, then nodded, and let them head off to class where they met up with Amy and the guys. Their first class was History, with Mr. Baird - vastly preferable to what it would have been if they hadn't tweaked their schedules, which was Chemistry. This early in the morning? No thank you!

It was only the first day, so it was mostly an introduction and such, and - impressively for a high school teacher, a lot of whom Xander figured were secretly sadists - he didn't assign any homework on the first day.

This was much appreciated.

After that was Health. Amy had a free period, her aerobics class was first hour, which the rest of them were not at the school for, since, as Juniors, they had the option not to be. She said the warmups they'd done had helped her wake up, though.

Xander figured he got enough aerobics helping fight monsters.

4th-period Chemistry didn't suck majorly, except that their no-homework run ended there. 5th period was their computer class, where Ms. Calendar immediately appointed Willow as Teacher's Aide. And then 6th period was Government, and they were done for the day. All in all, not that bad.

It still sucked, on account of being school, but it could've been a lot worse.

After school, they all filed into the library where Giles got them set up. Buffy, being Buffy, was doing handstands on the railing, flips and cartwheels, spin-kicks, kip-ups, and various other impressively acrobatic maneuvers, to a backing track provided by the boombox. That left Xander and Willow to take turns switching between sparring with Giles and practicing with the wooden dummy, at least until Buffy was ready to go at him with the quarterstaff. And then sped up until she knocked Giles backward onto a chair at the table. The librarian called a break on his part - at which point Xander and Willow were both happy to sit down with a glass of water anyway - and Buffy took over at the dummy, her punches getting faster and faster.

“Er, Buffy?” Willow mentioned, when they realized the cracking was actually a splintering, not the sound of impacting fists.

“Buff?” Xander raised, slightly louder.

“Buffy, that's enough. Buffy!”

She kicked the dummy, and the pole holding it snapped in half.

She hunched in on her self slightly and turned back to them. Giles took his glasses off.

“..well, it's safe to say you've stayed in shape,” he said, wiping them and then replacing them.

Buffy took a deep breath and nodded.

“I'm ready,” she said, letting it out. “Whatever they got comin' next - I'm ready.” She ran her hands through her hair, holding it back, and nodded to herself. “Yeah.”

###

Absalom stood, hands waving as he preached like some fire-spitting pastor on television. Darla was, very intentionally, not listening, but the Anointed One watched calmly from beside her.

The blonde huffed and leaned back against the post, arms- arm-and-half-of-arm, it had only regrown about a centimeter since her fight with that blasted child - folded. She looked away from the Anointed One and kept an eye on Absalom instead, still tuning him out but watching his expressions, and those of the few eager vampires absorbing his words.

“Like I said. We'll try it your way. Just don't ask me to help.”

She wasn't scared of the Slayer and her friends - wasn't even worried, really - but even with her, their numbers had been reduced to the preacher, a child, and five vampires that were not excelling in the brains department. It was simple cost-benefit analysis to say that they needed to wait, to build up again, before they tried. Their Master had waited for sixty years, and this child couldn't wait for six months?

Foolish.

She wasn't dumb enough to try something so soon, but all her reason hadn't convinced them to abandon their plan, so she'd step back and watch.

And when it goes wrong, I'll come pick up the pieces. Teach the kid some respect for his elders.

Then maybe they could actually get something done.

###

Tuesday, Willow was looking cute in a flowered dress, with a short braid decorating one side of her hair. Xander was trying not to think about it. He stressed the important bit to his brain: it wasn't like she'd be into him, she liked girls, and he was a guy.

After their geology class (again, no homework, although the teacher's monotone voice didn't fill Xander with hope for the school year, especially), they did the locker round- their lockers were all close together this year, which made it easier. They'd just finished mentioning to Buffy that they weren't gaming at lunch, since they figured they'd wait until the second week of school when they were settled in, as the blonde closed her locker and they started walking toward their next class.

“Oh hey!” Xander remembered, seeing one of the posters on the wall. “Did you guys hear that Cibo Matto's gonna be at the Bronze tonight?” He nodded at the poster.

Willow's eyes went wide, and her jaw dropped.

“CIbo Matto they're playing?”

“No Willow, they're gonna be clog dancing,” he said flatly.

“Cibo Matto can clog dance?” she said, with the same expression.

He just stared at her.

“...Oh. Sarcasm. Right.” She laughed it off awkwardly, but he rubbed his neck guiltily.

“Yeah, my fault, sorry. But hey, we should attend, no?” he suggested, looking between the girls. “If you're not busy with fighting or anything,” he added to Buffy.

She nodded.

“Sounds like fun.”

As they neared the door to a classroom, Cordelia walked out of it.

“Oh, look, it's the Three Musketeers.”

They stopped and looked at each other. Buffy blinked once.

“Was that an insult?” she asked him and Willow.

“It kinda lacked punch.”

They looked at Cordy.

“The Three Musketeers were cool,” Willow reminded her.

Cordelia, after a quick glance side to side he guessed was to check for any of her social circle, looked back at them.

“I see your point.”

“I woulda gone with Stooges,” he suggested. WIllow waved a hand in front of her face, and he made to poke her in the eyes, which she blocked.

Cordy smiled slightly.

“Noted. So, did you guys fight demons all summer?”

“Uh, yes! Our own personal demons!” Willow said loudly, covering, and he nodded and built on.

“Uh, such as lust, and um, thrift!”

Buffy looked at them flatly.

“I would have to go with Stooges also.”

The brunette rolled her eyes.

“Oh, relax. You guys are always doing that make-believe stuff at lunch, they'd just think you were talking about that. As long as nobody pays attention to me talking to you, it's fine!”

Xander glanced at Willow. Neither of them had a rebuttal to that.

“Look, I was just asking because it was really freaky, okay?” Cordelia said quietly. “That Master guy, all the screaming... I don't even like to think about it. It's not like I'm gonna tell anyone Buffy's the Slayer.”

“Well, that works out great!” Buffy said. “You won't tell anyone that I'm the Slayer, and I won't tell anyone that you're a moron!” With a tight smile, she strode off.

Xander stared at the floor between the three of them that were left.

“Now that was a good insult,” he allowed, pointing after her.

“A bit too good,” Willow agreed, frowning.

“Yeah...” Cordy crossed her arms, and sounded a teeny bit concerned as she went on, “what's up with her? I thought we were, you know.” She made a face. “Maybe not friends, but...”

“Yeah...” Willow stared after Buffy, still with a frown that made that cute little crinkle show up between her eyebrows.

Gah!

He couldn't actually slap himself, since there were people right next to him, but he marked one down for later.

They had health class next, or 'preparation for adult living' or something, and then he and Buffy and Amy and Jon had Trigonometry while Willow had Calculus. After that, he, Jonathan, and Buffy were doing Woodworking Technology. He'd mostly only decided on it because he needed an elective and Buffy expressed some vague interest. Amy and Andrew were doing some kind of two-year cosmetology qualification course, which he was a little worried would get the guy beat up but at least Amy was there to make sure he didn't try to hide it if it happened.

Sort of to Xander's surprise, he felt like he might actually enjoy this woodworking thing. Buffy and Jon were less enthused, but they both agreed it didn't seem too unlike fun.

And it wasn't like Buffy would need a hammer.

###

When he and Willow got to the Bronze, there was a big sign posted by the door yelling ‘CIBO MATTO’. They went in and up to the bar, where Xander got a soda in a cup, and Willow an ice cream sundae in a paper bowl. They snagged a table and sat to eat and take in the ambiance.

“I just think something's up, is all,” Willow said, shrugging, capping off her concerns about Buffy.

“Will, are you sure you're not being paranoid?”

She shook her head.

“Buffy's never acted like this before. Ever since she got back, she's... different.”

“Well, Buffy's always been different.”

WIllow tilted her head down toward her food, but looked up at Xander, through her eyelashes.

“She's never been mean.”

Xander took the excuse of looking around for Buffy to not look at Willow, because aside from the eyelashes thing, her currently eating ice cream brought to mind the other night, and he didn't want to be gross and crush on his lesbian best friend like a creep. Still, he couldn't stop himself from glancing back toward her now and then.

“Any sign of her? She said she was coming.”

“No... The band's cool, though.”

“Yeah... cool.”

When he looked back again, she'd managed to dip her nose in her ice cream. He turned quickly away again before she caught his blush.

“Y-you, um, got something on your nose,” he managed.

And the fact that he had Ice Cream by Sarah McLachlan playing in his head meant absolutely nothing.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Clicking heels neared the table, and they looked up to see Buffy in a little black dress, coming toward them.

“Hi!” Buffy announced, palms on the table, propping herself up to lean onto her arms. “We gonna dance?”

“Eh, I thought we'd wait for a faster song,” Willow said. She sounded a little down. They had been playing a lot of stuff low on the beats, if she was really wanting to dance that might explain it. “Besides, we haven't finished.” She gestured to her ice cream and Xander's drink.

Buffy rolled her eyes.

“Alright, fine. See you there.”

She pushed away from the table, Xander catching it before it rocked his soda over, and then walked toward the dance floor. She grabbed some guy they didn't know and pulled him with her. The music was moody and lyrical as they started dancing, and then Xander saw what Willow was talking about. The blonde's moves were close, hot - way more ‘bad girl’ than ‘Buffy’.

The guy tried to grab her butt, and she shoved him away, hard enough he stumbled and fell on his own. Buffy looked at him for a moment - she was facing away, and Xander couldn't see her expression - then turned and left.

Xander looked at Willow, whose eyebrows were up and face expectant.

“Okay. I'm with you now.”

Chapter Text

Wednesday, September 17th, 1997

He and Willow talked for a while over the evening and decided on an answer as to what was up with Buffy, though they had to wait for Wednesday to raise it with Giles. They found him on their way into the school, and convinced him to follow them to the indoor commons. Xander and Willow sat on one side of one of the round tables, where they had a view out toward the hallway with the front doors, for anti-Jock safety purposes - there wasn't usually much trouble this early in the year but it was best not to let down their guard. Willow, in overalls over an orange longsleeve, turned around in her seat to talk to Giles, unable to wait any longer while the librarian walked over to one of the vending machines and got a soda.

“She's possessed!” Willow declared.

“Possessed,” Giles repeated, not sounding like he believed her, as he walked back around the table to stand opposite them.

“I mean that's the only explanation that makes any sense! You should have seen her last night, that wasn't Buffy.”

“She was kinda un-Buffy-like,” Xander backed up. Last night, she'd honestly reminded him of some of the bits he remembered from the whole hyena thing. Which was kinda weird.

Giles raised one eyebrow.

“Possessed by what?”

“A, a possessing thing!” Willow guessed.

“Well that narrows it down.” The librarian took a sip of his soda and made a face at it.

“Well you're the expert,” Xander reminded him. “Hey, maybe when the Master uh, killed her, some mystical bad guy transference thing happened.”

“That's what it was!” WIllow nodded quickly, pointing at him. “I mean why else would she be acting like such a bee-eye-tee-sea-aitch?”

Giles said something, but Xander was puzzling out Willow's statement.

“A... ‘bitca’?”

“Yes.” Giles said, looking at him for a moment. Xander felt like he'd missed something. “Well, I suggest that uh, the explanation for her behavior may be something, well, more mundane.” A bell rang, and people started moving around, as Giles sat down. “She may simply have what you Americans refer to as ‘issues’. Her experience with the Master must have been extremely traumatic. She was - for at least a few minutes - technically dead. I- I don't think she's dealt with that on a conscious level. It's too painful.”

Behind him, Buffy had started to walk past the entrance to the room and then paused to look at the three of them.

Giles was still talking, and Xander scrambled for a counter.

“She's convinced herself that she's invulnerable, for the very reason that she feels-”

“That's a very interesting point about trout, you just brought up now,” Xander interrupted.

Giles blinked.

“Trout?”

Buffy walked up to stand to Giles' right, and the librarian figured out what was going on and turned to her.

“Trout! Yes. Trout, i-is a fish, good morning. Did you sleep well?”

“Like a rock.” Buffy answered, tonelessly, staring at the table. Which wasn't particularly a marker of restful sleep. Her head turned to look at Giles, and with more tone in her voice, she said, “Master's gone.”

Giles stared, his eyebrows slowly lowering.

“...I'm sorry?”

“The Master,” Buffy repeated. “I went by his grave last night, and they have a vacancy.”

GIles' eyes went wide, and Xander half expected his glasses of comedically fall off.

“Good God.”

“What would somebody want with Master bones?” Willow asked.

“Trophy?” Xander suggested. “Horrible conversation piece?”

“They're gonna bring him back.” Buffy took a breath, then stared at Giles. “They're gonna bring the Master back to life and I seem to recall you telling me he was history.”

“Buffy, I-I've never heard of a, a revivification ritual being successful,” Giles defended.

“But you've heard of them?” Buffy said, half-disbelieving. “Thanks for the warning,” she spit out.

“Buffy, Giles did bury him in hallowed-” Willow started, but Buffy cut her off.

“This is Slayer stuff, okay, can we just have a little less from the civilians please?”

Xander shoved himself to his feet, throwing his chair back and planting on hand on the table as he pointed at Buffy, because she yelled at Willow, which was not okay!

“Okay that's just about enough!”

Willow grabbed the arm he wasn't pointing with, and Xander swallowed his next words as Snyder appeared to their right.

“I believe some of us have class?” He looked at Giles. “And some of us have jobs.”

Giles looked at him, and then at the teens.

“Yes, well, I-I'll see you all in the library, later, we'll, we'll continue this discussion.”

“About trout,” Willow said, supporting herself with Xander's arm as she stood.

He and Willow looked at Buffy again; she looked back at them silently, then turned to leave. At a distance, he and Willow followed.

“Xander, are you okay?” the redhead asked quietly. Xander blinked, taking a second to figure out why she asked, then realizing he was shaking. Then he thought about what he'd just done. He swallowed.

He didn't have a problem getting angry, not at vampires and monsters and stuff, but...

“Will, I just yelled at one of my best friends. Am, am I turning into my dad?”

Willow stopped, then turned to him and put the back of her hand on his forehead.

“Hmm... have you felt any burning desires to drink Coors and yell at the TV?”

He blinked at her. She smiled.

“I think you're okay, Xander. I mean, I was feeling a little of the annoyage myself. I'm just worried about her. Especially if Giles is right.”

“Yeah...” he admitted, watching Buffy's steadily receding back, and slowly relaxing. “Yeah, me too.”

###

“Hey, is, um, is everything okay?” Amy asked him quietly, leaning over to him and Willow as they all got up to leave the classroom, Buffy stalking out ahead.

“She's...”

“She had a rough end of the school year. Giles thinks she's working through it still,” Willow explained. Xander nodded and pointed to her.

“Yeah, that.”

“Mm.” Amy frowned toward the doorway the blonde had already vanished through. “Well... let me know if I can help.”

Buffy didn't actually talk to them much the rest of the school day, but the three of them went to the library together after class was out, the blonde dropping her stuff on the counter on the way in while he and Willow set their bags on the floor.

They started the usual research procedures, and after a while, Xander was leaning against a shelf on the upper level looking through a book; Willow was sitting at the table; and Buffy was sitting on the table, in front of her.

Giles, also on the upper level, paged through a book and then made a noise of satisfaction.

“Alright, alright I, I've got something,” Giles said, heading for the stairs and starting down. “It's Latin, so bear with me, um. To revive the vampire they need his bones, wh-which they have, and, uh, the blood - this is very unclear - of his closest person... uh, someone connected, to the vampire.”

“That'd be me,” Buffy said flatly.

“Perhaps.”

“We were close. We killed each other, okay, it really... promotes togetherness.”

“I mean, or it's Darla,” Xander suggested, straightening from his lean and starting to step forward. “She's pretty much his daughter, right? Is there anything on when the ceremony might take-”

The window above him shattered, and he yelped and ducked as a large rock flew past his head. Buffy caught it, Willow hopping up to see.

There was a piece of paper, held onto the rock by a wrapped silver chain- no-

“This is Cordelia's necklace,” Buffy realized, turning the rock over. Everyone gathered around quickly as she tore the packaging tape around the paper's edges off of the rock and flipped the note over. “‘Come to the Bronze before it opens, or we make her a meal,’” she read off.

Xander frowned.

“They're gonna cook her dinner?” He looked at the others and got it, wincing. “Please pretend I didn't say that.”

“What do we do?” Willow asked quickly, taking attention off of him, thanks Wills!

Buffy sighed, slipping off the table to stand and start walking toward the counter.

“I go to the Bronze and save the day.”

“I don't like this,” Xander stated the obvious.

“Nor I!” Giles agreed.

“Yeah, well, you guys aren't going.” Buffy didn't look up at them as she said it.

“What do you mean?” Willow said.

“Yeah, what happened to the Slayerettes?” Xander reminded her.

“I can't do it anymore. I can't look after the three of you guys while I'm fighting.” She still wasn't looking at them.

“Look after?” Xander repeated. “You're not the only one who can stake a vampire, Buffy, we've all lost our vamp virginity here!” He paused for a moment. Nobody else said anything either. “Let's pretend I didn't say that either.”

“What about the rest of the note?” Willow said, and Buffy finally looked at her.

“What rest of the note?”

“The part that says ‘PS: this is a trap’!” Willow said, like she was talking to an elementary-schooler.

“You'll be playing straight into their hands,” Giles agreed.

“And their hands are gonna get slapped.”

“We should at least go in force. Stock up stakes,” Xander said, sort of desperately.

“I can handle this.”

“Stop saying that!” Willow said, taking a step forward. “God, what's wrong with you?”

“Cordelia may be dead,” Xander said, not that any of them wanted to think about it.

Buffy set her jaw.

“This is my fight.”

The blonde wheeled and stormed out, snatching her stuff off of the library counter as she left.

Willow stared after her, wavering a little, and her eyes started to tear up. Xander looked away from the doors and across the room instead, clenching his jaw.

Giles sighed.

The librarian took the book and sat down at the table, at the end toward the doors. Willow took a second book he'd pulled out, and started pacing while she read it.

After about a quarter of an hour, Xander gave up on research and started playing with a funky-looking knife Giles had, sitting on the end of the table opposite Giles, closer to the shelves.

Willow walked around the table over to Xander, still glancing at the pages of her book.

“I still think we should've gone with her.”

“If Buffy's about to lose it, I think we should be trying to reach minimum safe distance,” Xander said bitterly. He realized that Willow was being the one reasonable one of their trio right now, but that didn't actually make him feel better. Plus, something was tickling his nose, probably all the dust from the old books, but he was on edge for some reason because of it and it wasn't making him any less irritable.

“Xander, you know it's a trap!”

“Aah!” Giles interrupted. “Aa-ah, ah!” They looked over to see him pointing one finger in the air, one bar of his glasses' frame between his teeth as he looked up at them. He took his glasses with his raised hand so he could speak. “Th-the, the Latin is translated from the Sumerian. A-a-and rather, badly. Closest to the Master actually translates as nearest. Physically! The-the person, or persons, who... were with him, when he-...” He looked up, past Willow and Xander, some sort of realization dawning in his eyes. “It is a trap. It just isn't for her.”

“Okay, then we gotta get you and Will outta here-” before the vampires show up, Xander started to say- then he recognized the smell that was wigging him and spun around.

Four vampires loomed over the railing from the upper level, faces in deadly grins.

Shit- Will!

Desperately, he raised the knife he'd been holding in what he doubted was actually a proper hold, given the way he nearly fumbled it, but Giles hadn't graduated them to weapons yet and he had to do something as the vampires leapt over the railing at frightful speeds, he swung, missed, they crashed to the floor and threw over the table, he managed to kick one away, tried with the knife again and-

###

Xander's vision swam as he opened his eyes.

What...

Right.

After he'd gotten a vamp-elbow in the face, he'd had just enough time to see them grabbing Willow and Giles before something shoved him at the floor. That must have knocked him out.

He reached up and gripped the edge of the turned-on-its-side table to pull himself up, panting a little. He could taste blood, and feel something cool crusting under his nose and over his lips.

“Xander!” Buffy- where the hell was she? -ran up to him, reaching toward his upper arm to pull him up, but he threw her off. “What happened?”

“Vampires. The ones you could handle yourself,” he said, sarcastic.

Buffy took a step back.

“Where are the others?” she asked, less certain.

“I don't know.” He shook his head, panting for a moment, and swallowed. “And I don't know what your problem is, what your issues are, but as of now I officially don't care. If you'd worked with us for five seconds, you coulda stopped, this.” He looked around, at the tipped over shelf near the doors, overturned stool near the counter, the monitor and keyboard from the library computer knocked onto the floor, scattered broken chairs, and swallowed again, wiping at the blood on his face.

Buffy had spun around when he spoke, facing away, and she ran her left hand over her face.

“W-we just have to think. Where would they have taken them?”

Xander stared at her. He could feel... some emotion, boiling in his chest, and... he knew it had been there, that anger that he sometimes had to push down, but this time he pulled it up, and pulled up a... some sort of confidence, from his fragmented memory of the hyena. He fed it into his voice, low and firm, a hint of a snarl coming out.

“If they hurt Willow I'm gonna kill you.”

Buffy went still, then turned around. Her eyes were wet, and at least half the fight went out of him right there. Not enough that he stepped closer to comfort her, but...

“Why did they take them and not you?” the blonde asked quietly.

Xander shook his head, closing his eyes, and took a breath.

“Giles said the ritual was um. They needed people who were close to the Master. Physically close. When he uh...”

“The ones who were with the Master when he died.”

He nodded, looking at her.

“Willow. Giles. Cordelia.”

“Ms. Calendar.”

“Odds are they've got a complete set by now.”

Buffy's eyebrows lowered, and her voice filled with determination. “We need to find out where.”

He had to admit, he liked that ‘we’.

“How?”

“Um... okay. When I got to the Bronze, there was a vampire there, I guess just a distraction. When I figured that out, I tied her up to one of the posts - if she's still there...”

“We've got answers.”

The blonde nodded.

“Let's go.”

They walked to the counter, where Xander pulled on his bomber jacket, the weight settling comfortable over his shoulders, and moved a couple of stakes from his backpack to the pockets. Then they left the school, striding determined side by side.

###

“Where are my friends?”

The vampire, a dark-haired chick in silvery pants, a dark top indeterminate in the dim light of the Bronze, and a thigh-length leather jacket, just stared at Buffy, a cruel smile tugging at her lips.

Xander watched, arms folded, while Buffy slammed a palm into the post above the vamp's head.

“Tell me!”

The vampire giggled and turned her face away, but still didn't respond.

Buffy growled and tore the bindings away, then chucked the vamp over her shoulder, down onto her back on the floor. Her Slayer-growl ran under her voice.

“One more time. Where are they?”

The vampire finally answered, grinning.

“You're too late. Your friends are dead.”

Buffy yanked her back up, holding her in the air by the upper arms.

“Tell me where they are.”

The vamp chuckled.

“What are you gonna do? Kill me?”

“As a matter of fact...” Buffy flipped the vamp over her shoulder to slam her back-down onto a pool table, pool balls scattering. “Yes.” The Slayer yanked her cross necklace off her neck. “But, since I'm not gonna kill you any time soon, the question becomes-” She dropped it into the vamp's open mouth and pressed her hands over to keep her from spitting it out. “-how are we gonna pass the time 'til then?”

She gave it six seconds, keeping position motionlessly as the vampire writhed on the table, gasping audible over the sound of sizzling.

He knew he should probably feel bad about what was, probably, torture, or would at the very least have been if the vamp had had a soul - but he really, really didn't.

Buffy pulled the cross out, dangling the necklace by her shoulder where the vamp could see.

“So. One more time.”

After that, it didn't take long to get their answer.

Buffy staked the vamp, and they headed to the abandoned Bric & Broc factory.

###

They avoided the front doors and found a side exit, with a few pallets leaned against the door. They moved them away, and Buffy popped the lock; they walked inside in time to hear a voice, as if preaching, and quickly began to work their way through the junk, machinery, and piles of old straw toward an illuminated area in the center of the room.

“Behold, these four mortals. Witness to our Master's wretched demise. They will breathe their last this night. The blood that boils from their throats will bring NEW LIFE! to the old one. Gather, for his resurrection. For the dawn, of this new end.”

When they reached a good vantage point, Xander swallowed. His eyes found WIllow first, though it wasn't hard.

Willow, Giles, Cordy, and Ms. Calendar, in order from right to left, dangled by their ankles from meathooks over a butcher's table, with the Master's bones on it. Willow's fingertips just brushed his skull.

He felt sick, that they'd make her touch it.

Past the ‘head’ of the table were a pair of tiki torch type things; they weren't really needed, with the fluorescent light, so he guessed they were involved somehow in the ritual.

Four vampires stood nearby, facing away from him and Buffy, with a child - Xander guessed the Anointed One - standing calmly near the table.

The preacher - the vampire was black, which somehow Xander hadn't realized was a thing. He felt slightly weird about that - was that racist?

The preacher held up a goblet, dipping his thumb into it and using what was probably blood to make an X on Willow's forehead, and then doing the same to the others down the line. The other four vampires gathered around the table.

“Buffy. Buffy.” When he got her attention, Buffy turned. “We gotta do somethin' now.”

“You get the others out of here.”

“What are you gonna do?”

Her voice sounding sort of distant, she said, “I'm gonna kill them all.” She turned back toward the vampires and sounded more present when she added, “that oughta distract 'em.”

She walked toward the vampires under the fluorescent light.

As Xander started working his way over to where it looked like there was a ladder up to the loft, which should have access to the conveyor thingy the others were hanging from, the preacher held up a narrow blade and spoke.

“For the old one. For his pain. For the dark.”

“For the dark,” the vampires echoed.

Or, three of them did. One of them, a tall guy with longish hair, only got out 'da-' before he was interrupted by a stake rammed into his back. He dusted, leaving Buffy in plain view.

Xander stopped, careful not to make a noise at all, as the vampires all stared at the blonde.

Then the preacher sort of scream-yelled, and the other three ran at her. Xander took that opportunity to move faster and made it to the ladder, scaling it up to the loft where the machinery was operated from. He scrambled over to the chain, from which position he could look over the floor and see the preacher rushing the Anointed One out the back door, then toward Buffy, knife raised - and, finally, all of the vampires were looking away from where his friends were hanging. He started pulling the chain, and the four of them began to move toward him.

He got a good foot out of this before the preacher noticed.

“The sacrifices!” He looked at one vamp that seemed to be catching his breath - or whatever the undead equivalent was - after Buffy had knocked him into a crate, and flailed his arm up toward Xander. “Stop him!”

The vamp ran for the ladder.

Which was just swell.

Xander pulled harder.

Ms. Calendar got to him first, and he had to pause to lift her down and lay her to the side - from the corner of his eye, he saw the preacher running for the same door the Anointed One had left through - then do the same for Giles and Cordy before he finally got to Willow. He was lifting her down - and somehow he felt like she should be heavier, she felt too light in his arms, and... warm, and- no! Stop it! - when the vampire that had been pointed at him burst through the ladder opening with a snarl. Xander put Willow down as quickly as he could and turned.

Okay. It's just one, and you've staked vampires before. Hell, I shot off Darla's arm, I can do this.

Plus, unlike earlier in the library, he had a stake.

His assertion was immediately tested, but he managed to block a punch, one he had picked up enough to recognize as really messy form, and then throw a punch of his own that whipped the vamp's head back. The guy had unsteady footing on the boards of the wooden loft, and Xander managed to dodge it when the guy tried to lunge at him, so they'd repositioned to swap places-

Ooh- hey-

Xander tried a move he'd seen Buffy do, and kicked the vamp in the chest. The vamp staggered backward, and as Xander jumped forward with a stake, the vamp tripped over the unconscious Giles to land on, and crash through, a hole covered with old boards. Xander had only just shoved the stake into him, not far enough to dust him, but that problem was solved when he slammed stake-first into the floor below and exploded into ash.

Xander dropped to the floor of the loft with an exhale of relief, sitting and pulling the unconscious Willow up to rest her head at his collar instead of the hard loft. He looked back down at the floor below while he caught his breath.

He heard rustling from behind him, and narrowed it down to Ms. Calendar, and Giles.

“Are you alright?” Giles asked quietly.

“Yeah,” she murmured. “I'm okay.”

Giles coughed, and then a little louder asked, “Where's Buffy?”

Xander figured that was probably directed to him. He glanced back at the librarian to check, then at Buffy, fighting the only remaining vampire.

“Eh. She's- workin' out her issues.”

She continued beating the shit out of the guy, eventually tossing him into a set of shelves that collapsed on top of him.

The door the preacher had left from flew open again as the vamp in question returned.

“ENOUGH!” He brandished a sledgehammer as Buffy turned to see him. “Your day is done, girl. I'll grind you into a sticky paste! And hear you beg - before I smash in your face.”

Buffy waited a beat, though Xander couldn't see her expression from behind.

“Soo, are you gonna kill me, or,” she shrugged, “are we just making small talk?”

The vamp started to shake, and then yelled, enraged, raising the sledgehammer and running toward her. At the same moment, the vamp she'd thrown into the shelves got up and ran at her from the other direction. Buffy grabbed the burning torch beside her, snapped it off, spun it, and rammed the sharp end into the second vamp while the other end lit the preacher on fire.

He screamed as the flames caught on his clothes, then looked at Buffy, raised the sledgehammer high, and burned to nothing.

The sledgehammer dropped to the floor, and everything went quiet.

Buffy stared at it, slowly lowering the extinguished torch before dropping it; then she turned about forty-five degrees and looked at the Master's skeleton. Willow mumbled, and then shifted a little, looking up at Xander, and then quickly toward the floor below, the two of them easing apart and helping each other stand to watch from the railing.

“It's over,” Willow said.

Xander shook his head.

“No it's not.”

Buffy turned back and knelt, almost reverently picking up the sledgehammer, and then stepped to the table. She breathed. Then, she raised the hammer and brought it down with something between a whimper and a yell, on the Master's skull, shattering it. She then followed suit with the rest of the bones, yelling, wordless and ragged.

Giles stepped up beside Xander and Willow to watch, staying silent.

Finally, when the bones were broken and scattered upon the table and the floor, Buffy's right hand released the sledgehammer, the end clanging to the floor, and covered her face. Her left released the handle, and it clattered to the ground, and she started to cry audibly.

Willow looked at Xander and tugged on his arm. He nodded, and the two of them descended the ladder and walked over to where Buffy had fallen to her knees with both hands covering her face, kneeling on either side to wrap their arms around her. They murmured soothing nothings, until her sobs finally trickled off.

She sniffled.

“Hey,” she rasped.

“Hey.” “Hey, Buff.”

“Sorry. About... earlier.”

“It's okay,” Willow said, and Xander nodded.

“Water under the bridge.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled, into his shoulder.

“Hey... what say we get out of here?”

“...'kay.”

###

A few hours later, the quiet of the abandoned factory was disturbed again by footsteps. The smaller pair crunched on the shattered fragments of bone as their owner walked into the room.

The Anointed One looked around, face expressionless.

Darla leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, having numerous Emotions about what was scattered irreverently across the floor but suppressing them for the purposes of dealing with the kid.

“So... how'd the whole ‘kidnapping her dearest friends’ thing work for you?”

The child looked at her, face twisted into a pout, and answered petulantly.

“...I hate that girl!”

Darla grinned.

Now he was getting it.

She pushed herself away from the post and walked closer - careful of her feet - to loom over him.

“Ready to try my way, then?”

Chapter Text

Thursday, September 18th, 1997

Buffy had been pretty much completely wiped by the time they got her home, especially since they'd had to go by the Bronze to drop Cordy off at her car, then back to the school to get to the teachers' cars, so they'd just left her with a couple hugs and headed home themselves.

But...

He wasn't mad at her anymore.

###

As frequently happened when Will's folks were home, she'd been driven to school Thursday morning, so Xander had to make his way there alone. Still, it did give him an excuse to skateboard the whole way. He was pretty sure he was getting good at it.

He was walking toward the front door of the school when he noticed a girl see him coming and duck.

Huh. That wasn't normal.

Wait... He peered around the curtain of hair she was trying to hide behind.

“Heidi Barrie?”

She flinched and shrunk inward a little, then looked at him.

“Oh. H-hey, Xander.”

Man, she like totally disappeared from school, last time I saw her was...

Oh. Right.

“How, uh. How are you holdin' up?”

She blinked at him, slowly.

“Why do you... care?”

He shrugged. He felt a little protective of her; maybe just because she'd had it worse. And honestly she just looked like she needed it.

“We went through the same freaky thing. Getting possessed together. Sorta like getting lost running a three-legged race.”

“I'm... okay.” She pulled out a faint smile. “Went vegetarian.”

“Hey, cool, cool.” He'd thought about it, but he liked burgers too much. It had taken him a while to be able to look bacon in the face again, though. He thought about asking her if she'd seen any of the others around, but...

Nah. That's enough reminders of that whole mess.

“Which way you goin'? I'll walk you to class.”

Her smile widened a little bit, and they talked about nothing in particular until he left her at the door to her class. It wasn't too far from his Geology class, so he still made it well before the bell rang. Willow, of course, was already there, reading her textbook. He slipped into the seat in front of her, backwards with his arms over the back so they could chat, and she could give him a rundown of different types of rocks.

He wasn't really sure why they'd decided on this class, but none of the other options in the timeslot looked that great either.

And hey, I guess there's a chance we could get some use out of it... somehow. Maybe if we're ever getting attacked by an evil river.

A few minutes later, Willow looked up, over his shoulder; he turned and saw Buffy enter the room.

Buffy walked slowly over to them, and her empty seat.

“Hey, Buffy,” Willow said carefully. The blonde pulled out a brief grin.

“Hey.”

“We saved you a seat,” Willow added. Not so much that they actually had, as to reassure her she could still sit with them.

She did.

“There's a rumor going around that, uh,” Xander nodded to the front of the room. “Mr. Cox is the most boring teacher in the entire world. I think he won a belt or something?”

Buffy smiled a little, then looked at her desk.

“Lucky us.”

Willow shrugged. “Well I hear he nods off a lot, so, that's a plus.”

Buffy looked back up - he'd almost say she looked startled? Like she hadn't quite expected that they'd let her back in so easily.

Which was just silly.

After all-

She was family.

“So, we Bronzin' it tonight?” Xander asked. Bronzin' it- ugh, never say that again. Willow made a face.

“Wednesdays it's kinda beat.”

“Well, we could grind our enemies into talcum powder with a sledgehammer but, gosh. We did that last night.” He and Willow both grinned at Buffy; slowly, shyly, the blonde smiled wider at them. He snapped his fingers. “Hey, I got a plan, how 'bout miniature golf?”

Willow made the salient point,

“There's no course here.”

“Okay, uh, miniature tennis! A very tiny form of tennis, that we could invent!”

“You mean ping-pong?”

He paused.

“Miniature soccer?”

“That's foosball,” Buffy said.

He opened his mouth and then thought for a minute.

“...okay, I'm out of ideas.”

Buffy snickered, and he and Willow smiled.

“Oh!” Willow said. “Buffy, did I tell you - my folks got me a pager?” She started digging in her bag.

“You didn't, no.”

“It's great! It can even get messages!”

“Like a telegram,” Xander said. Willow had explained how it worked but he didn't really get it.

“Here, let me give you the number...”

In their break after second period, Buffy asked if they could sit down and talk, so they found on out-of-the-way corner and bracketed her on a bench.

“I know... when I threw him through the window, I, I should've felt like it was over, but... I just felt done - like I hit pause, instead of eject. He- in the cave, he did this thing, and I couldn't move, even when he was breathing in my hair, and then he just dropped me, and-” she took a couple of breaths and ran her hands through her hair with a shudder. “Um, so, a couple weeks after- after the fight, I started having these nightmares. And, and then, I started... it was like I could feel him there, right in the corner of my eye, and if I turned he'd be standing there-” She choked up, and Willow started rubbing circles on her back; Xander took her hand and squeezed. She swallowed after a minute and kept talking. “So, I hadn't been sleeping, and when I saw the empty grave, I just- for a moment I thought ‘oh god, he woke up and I'm next’, you know? But, but then... last night, it just...” She shook her head. “I don't know, maybe- maybe the way I dusted his bones, I just- it all came out of me, I guess. I feel... lighter, finally. I think...

I think I can actually believe that he's gone.”

###

Jenny Calendar was hunched slightly forward in her office, tapping away at her keyboard. She was getting really tired of vampires showing up all the time.

...Someone was talking to her. That or it was another announcement, like the one about when PTA night was- no, this was a person, not a speaker.

“Mm-hm,” she muttered, going back a couple of lines of code to make a small tweak.

“What is that?”

Oh- Rupert, she realized. Okay, that was worth answering.

“HEX. I'm writing a warding spell to this PROM, since the whole ‘only when invited’ thing doesn't apply to public spaces.” Once she was done she'd wire it to the library doors and hopefully take care of the ‘vampires keep showing up there’ problem. Maybe I'll make one for my office, too. Unfortunately, it wouldn't stop, say, her family - she'd managed to stay out of contact all summer, but she suspected they might get around to checking on her soon.

“Isn't the prom er, in the spring?”

“Huh? Oh! No, uhm.” She chuckled. “No, Intel HEX is a programming language. PROM stands for ‘physical read-only memory.’ It's like, a computer that can only run one program. HEX combines pretty well with magic, and the spells that use crystals work pretty well with silicon ones in the PROM, so if I'm making a spell that I want to be active without constant maintenance, I usually use those to program it. Speaking of which, that Madison woman had some pret-ty obscure stuff, thanks for letting me skim through those.”

###

“Ah, there it is,” Xander noticed, as some guy shoved him into a locker Friday morning. I knew I shouldn't have gone to the bathroom alone. And- oh, yep, great, there went my backpack. It had slipped off his shoulder and fallen open, because of course it had. He knelt down and started slipping stuff in.

“Hey, dweeb.”

He looked up at the hand sliding one of his notebooks into his backpack, and followed it up to its face.

“Oh, hey, Sheila. Thanks.”

“Eh, we're skipping-buddies,” she said, shrugging like it was nothing. She picked up something else and raised an eyebrow.

“Is that a stake?”

“It's for, uh, self defense,” Xander said. “Last year was kinda... wild.”

I feel like I've been in this conversation before?

“You know vampires aren't real, right? This isn't a, uh,” she snapped her fingers a couple of times until she got it, “White Wolf game.”

“Hh-h-haaah,” he nervous-laughed. How I wish that were true.

“You cutting?”

He looked off toward his next class and thought about it.

“Y'know what? Yeah.”

“C'mon.”

He followed her, mentioning his plans to a passing Amy on her way to class, and then he and Sheila wandered off to lounge under the bleachers. There was already someone there, leaning against them and lighting a cigarette. She looked familiar...

“Oh, Laura, hey! You got the Rachel?”

“Yeah... it looks cute, but it's kind of a bitch to handle. Hi guys.”

“I never really... I mean, all I've ever done with my hair is let it grow, or go to the barber.” Well, get dragged to the barber, usually, when his dad decided his hair looked too girly.

“I think it looks fine,” Laura said. “It's a lot better than some of the guys I've seen.”

“Too much work,” Sheila said, waving a hand while the other dug out a pack of cigarettes. “I mean, unless I wanna look hot for something, me? Gel, comb.” She raised her eyebrows and spread her hands. “Done.”

###

They wandered out of the 7-11 into Saturday night's patrol. Xander took a sip of his slushie.

“Do you think, like, Fondren or St. Michael's have to deal with this stuff, or are we just special?” Xander wondered.

“Well, SHS is right over the Hellmouth,” Willow said.

“Who the heck builds a town on top of a hellmouth, anyway?” Buffy asked, flipping a stake in her free hand.

Willow pursed her lips and thought for a moment, then nodded.

“I can think of three possibilities. One, the Hellmouth formed after the town was founded, which I don't think is how it works but I don't know for sure. Two, it's just a coincidence, which considering the stuff we deal with we probably shouldn't count on. Or three, which I think is the most likely, whoever founded Sunnydale knew exactly what they were doing.”

Giles frowned.

“That is a... concerningly reasonable theory.”

“So the real question is - why?”

Chapter Text

Sunday, September 21st, 1997

Xander was leaning against the back side of a gravestone, well after dark, with Buffy's shoes periodically bumping into his arm as she sat on top of the gravestone messing with a yo-yo.

“C'mon Stephan, rise and shine,” Buffy complained. “Some of us have a ton of trig homework waiting.”

“And we're sure this is the right guy?”

“Yup. Sunnydale nighttime barbecue fork accident, number who-the-hell-knows.”

He sighed, then chuckled.

“I know it's not, but what if it really was a freak grilling incident? And then we just sat out here. All night.”

Buffy snorted.

“Okay, that would sorta suck. But we'd probably have company eventually.”

Xander nodded an agreement. This was Sunnydale, after all.

He perked up when he heard a muffled crack, and Buffy's foot slid away from him as she turned to stand beside the gravestone.

“Oh, finally. Here we go.”

It was over pretty quick; Xander didn't actually have a chance to provide a distraction or anything. Buffy grinned when the guy dusted.

“Now we just have the homework,” Xander said. Buffy groaned.

“Ugh. Right. Girls' night on Friday?” she checked, as they started walking away from the grave. Xander shrugged.

“I'm free.” He did still feel a little weird whenever they called it that, but it was nice to be included.

“Cool. We can-”

Xander lost track of whatever else she said when his next footstep hit air instead of nice solid ground, and he fell about six feet to land facefirst on something that was not quite soft enough to keep the fall from being noticeable.

“Xander!” Buffy gasped.

“...ow,” he mumbled, more out of surprise than pain, into- a pillow? Huh?

“Are you okay?”

He groaned and rolled over; Buffy was looking down at him from the top of a rectangular hole. That sort of confirmed a suspicion.

He sat up in the empty coffin.

“Uh, Buff?” he asked, as he stood up and took her offered hand for help out of the grave. “Do we have another vampire to deal with?”

“I don't- hup! - think so.” They both ended up flat on the ground, but Buffy sat up first. “This was definitely dug up. And here, look at these tracks.”

“Is that... drag marks?”

“And footprints.”

In fact, the grass was matted down by two sets of footprints, and a pair of lines like something- someone's feet- has been pulled along after them.

Buffy held up another piece of evidence - a broken heel, abandoned in the grass.

“Whoever was buried here didn't rise from the grave. And, she was our age.”

“How can you tell?”

“Her heel.” Buffy wiggled the shoe. “Style came out this summer, saw 'em in the teen section.”

“Like a really twisted Cinderella.”

Buffy walked over to the gravestone, Xander following. “Meredith Todd. Ring a bell?”

Xander shook his head. “Nope.” He glanced back at the coffin, and the pristine white of the padding. “She wasn't in there long, though.” He thought for a moment too long about what if she had been. “Thank god. She must've died recently.”

Buffy punched him lightly in the arm.

“C'mon, Prince Charming, let's head home. We'll see if we can track her down tomorrow.”

He made a face and shoved her, equally lightly.

“Why do I have to be Prince Charming? You found the shoe.”

###

Xander got to school in time to see Buffy hop out of her mom's car, and he waved on his way to meet up with her. Willow bounced down the steps a moment later. She was wearing deep blue pants, and a fitted short-sleeved cream shirt with a collar, patterned with a grid of flowered squares.

It was a good look. Cute, but also professional somehow, and-

gah!

And he'd been doing so well.

“Hey, guys. How was last night?” she asked, falling in step beside them as they walked inside, past the science-fair sign up table in the indoor commons.

He and Buffy looked at each other, then at the many, many people around.

“We'll fill you in later,” Buffy decided. Willow looked concerned.

“Uh-oh. That's not a ‘good’.”

“I'd say a ‘new’,” Xander said.

“Uh-oh,” Willow repeated. She nodded at a poster for the mandatory science fair, changing the subject. “Do you guys know what you're doing for the science fair yet?”

Xander spread his hands.

“I am devoid of ideas. You know, I'm really not a fan of this whole ‘mandatory education’ thing.”

“Hear, hear!” Buffy agreed, as they got to their lockers.

“Next they'll want us to be in every class, every day!”

“You're supposed to do that anyway, Xander,” Willow said, opening her locker. She looked somewhere between amused and exasperated.

He opened his mouth to retort, then realized she was right and turned to look into his locker instead of at her.

“...right.”

“Alright, well, I'm going to go sign up. See you in a bit.”

They parted ways, and he and Buffy went to the library. They walked in to the sound of Giles' voice; he was sitting in a chair, pulled a bit away from the table, facing away from them. Xander thought at first that he was talking to someone, then realized the other chair - in front of him, back against the table - was empty.

“A-and I don't mean to appear indecorous, is, is um, uh, uh a social engagement, um, uh, a, a date, if you're amenable, I-” Giles made a frustrated sound and shook his head. “Idiot!”

“Boy,” Buffy teased, causing Giles to leap from the chair and spin to see them. “I guess we never realized how much you like that chair.”

Giles looked at him and Buffy, reaching a hand back toward the table.

“I-I was just working on-”

His hand landed on a pile of books, and he proceeded to knock all of them over and stumble backward another step to actually steady himself.

“-Your pick-up lines?” Xander finished. Giles knelt to collect the books.

“Um. I-in a manner of speaking, yes.”

“Then if you wouldn't mind a little Gene and Roger?” Buffy offered. “Leave off the ‘idiot’ part. Being called an idiot tends to take people out of the dating mood.”

“Mm...” Xander shrugged. “Actually kinda turns me on.”

Buffy stared at him.

“I fear you.”

He grinned.

The blonde walked over to the table to set her stuff down, looking at Giles.

“You also might wanna avoid words like ‘amenable’ and ‘indecorous’, y'know? Speak English, not whatever they speak in um,” She waved a hand. Xander leaned against the counter and let her speak; Buffy, having actually dated people before, probably had better advice.

“England?” Giles said, one eyebrow raised, as he straightened up. Buffy nodded.

“Yeah. You just say, ‘Hey! I got a thing, you have a thing, maybe we could have a thing.’”

“Well, thank you Cyrano,” Giles said dryly.

“I'm not finished. Then you say, ‘how do you feel about Mexican?’”

Giles tilted his head.

“About Mexicans?”

“...Mexican. Food. You take her for food, for which you then pay.”

The blonde rolled her eyes and sat down at the table.

“Oh! Right.”

Xander took that moment to snag Giles' abandoned chair and drop into it.

“So this chair woman. We are talkin' Miss Calendar, right?”

“W-what makes you think that?” Giles stammered. Xander folded his hands.

“Simple deduction. Miss Calendar is reasonably dollsome, 'specially for someone in your age bracket. She already knows that you're a school librarian, so you don't have to worry about how to break that embarrassing news to her.” He shared an amused glance with Buffy.

“And she's the only woman we've actually ever seen speak to you,” the blonde said, and shrugged. “Add it up it all spells duh.”

Xander leaned forward.

“Now, is it time to have a talk about the facts of life?”

Giles looked at him, and then yanked his glasses off, which was a pretty polite way to say you didn't want to have to look at someone anymore. “You know, I'm suddenly deciding this is none of your business.” He turned and started walking up to the second level. Xander raised his voice a little, leaning back in his chair and gesturing with his hands.

“Y'know, 'cause that whole stork thing is a smokescreen!”

Buffy laughed silently into her hand. Giles turned back around, saw Buffy, and then closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head.

“So, um, how did things go last night, did Mr. Corshack show up on schedule.”

Buffy huffed one more time and then answered.

“More or less. There's something else, though.”

“We found an empty grave.” Xander was being very generous with that ‘we’.

“Another vampire?”

Buffy shook her head.

“No. No, this one was dug up and the body was taken out.”

Xander made a face.

“Left the coffin, though.”

“At least it was open,” Buffy reminded him. He tilted his head in a nod.

“This is true,” he allowed. “Much softer.”

“Grave-robbing?” Giles said. He walked back down the stairs. “Well that's new. Interesting!”

Buffy raised an eyebrow.

“I know you meant to say ‘gross and disturbing.’”

“Ye-ye, yes of course, terrible thing, must, must put a stop to it... damn it,” the librarian said, woodenly and unconvincing.

Xander got up and moved to sit on the table to close the circle a bit.

“So. Why does someone want to dig up graves?”

“Well, I'll, uh. Collate some theories. Uh... would help if we knew who the body belonged to.”

“Meredith Todd,” Buffy said. “She died recently, she was our age.”

“Past that...” Xander shrugged.

Giles nodded slowly.

“Why don't we ask Willow to uh, fire this, thing up-” he patted the monitor of the computer on the table “-and uh, track Meredith down.”

“I'll get her,” Buffy offered. “Be right back.”

###

The library doors reopened and Buffy and Willow came in.

“I filled her in on the way.”

“Mm-hm,” Willow confirmed. “This shouldn't take long. I'm probably the only girl in school who has the coroner's office bookmarked.”

Cordelia trailed behind, reopening the doors as they swung shut.

Xander lifted his legs up onto the table, drawing his knees to his chest and resting his arms on them as Willow moved past and sat down at the computer in the middle of the table; Buffy sat on the other side of the table, with her knees sideways on it and her legs hanging off.

Cordy walked up and stood right in front of Xander.

“When you're done with that, can you help me with my science fair project?”

Willow didn't look up from the computer. “It's a fruit.”

“I would've asked Chris to help me, but...”

“Daryl?” Xander asked carefully. Cordy nodded and turned away, but he heard her sniffle slightly; a moment later, one of her hands came up to surreptitiously wipe at her face. She sniffed again and turned back, looking as composed as always.

“Sorry,” she said quietly. “Painful memories.”

“Meredith Todd died in a car accident last week,” Willow announced, and they all looked to her. Behind her, Giles emerged from his office and walked up to the shelves.

Buffy leaned closer, and Xander slipped off the table to stand beside her.

“How was her neck?” Buffy asked.

“Fine, except for being broken.” Her eyes moved further down the page. “It says that Meredith and two other girls in the car were killed instantly. They were all on the Fondren High pep squad. On the way to a game.”

Buffy frowned.

“You know what this means.”

“Fondren might have a chance in the crosstown bodycount competition this year?” Xander raised.

“She wasn't killed by vampires. Somebody did dig up her corpse.”

Cordelia made a face.

“Why does it feel like every conversation we have has the word corpse in it?”

Xander chewed on his lip.

“Okay, so we got a bodysnatcher. What does that mean?”

“Here's what I've come up with.” Giles moved to the railing. “Demons who eat the flesh of the dead to absorb their souls. Or, it could obviously be a, a voodoo practitioner.”

Willow looked up from the screen. “You mean, making a zombie?”

“Zombies, more likely. For most traditional purposes, a voodoo priest would require more than one.” The librarian walked to the stairs and down them.

Buffy tapped her fingers on the table. “So... we should see if the other girls from the accident are AWOL too. Maybe we can figure out what this creep has in mind if we know whether or not he's dealing in volume.”

“So we dig up some graves tonight?” Xander checked. Willow perked up.

“Oh boy, a field trip!”

Xander nodded. “So, we're set then. Say, nineish? BYO-shovel?”

“And I'll pack some food.” Willow smiled, looking at him and then Cordy. “Cordy, do you like those little powdered donuts?”

Xander hummed in anticipation, nodding. Cordelia made a face.

“Darn, I have cheerleader practice tonight. Boy, I wish I knew you were gonna be digging up dead people sooner - I would've canceled,” she said, in a brightly facetious tone.

Xander smiled back at her. “Alright,” he said, like they were both disappointed, “but if you come across the army of zombies, can you page us before they eat anyone?”

Cordelia rolled her eyes and left. Xander smirked at Willow and Buffy.

“Xander?” Giles said.

“Yeh?”

“Zombies don't eat the flesh of the living.”

“Psh, yeah, I knew that,” Xander lied. He smiled. “But did you see the look on her face?”

They broke up and went to class, only after Giles informed them that he had enough shovels. Because of course he does, why wouldn't he?

They met up at the school that night and all got into Giles' car.

“I still dunno about the science fair,” Xander admitted.

“Oooh, oh, I have one,” Buffy announced, turning around in the front seat to look at him and Willow. “‘Tomato: Fruit or Vegetable’?”

Willow shook her head.

“No good, Cordy's doing that.”

Buffy pouted. “Damn.”

“It's a fruit,” Giles mentioned.

“Huh!” Xander said. “The more you know.”

###

When they got to the first grave, Giles handed Xander one of the shovels while the girls started putting the snacks by a nearby headstone. That somehow led into Xander and Giles digging by themselves for a good couple of feet.

“You know this might go a bit faster if you guys picked up a shovel too,” Xander said, leaning on his shovel and wiping at his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Hear, hear,” Giles panted.

Buffy smirked at them.

“Sorry, but, I'm an old-fashioned gal, I was raised to believe that women have the babies, and men dig up the corpses!” she said sarcastically.

Is that- is that a thing? Some other new thing he had to follow? Or, though- his dad said similar stuff, and he tried not to listen to him, so- oh, wait, was that a joke?

Willow made a face.

“I'll take a turn in a minute, Xander. C'mon and have a donut.”

“Thanks.” He dragged himself out of the hole and collapsed on the ground, looking at the girls and panting. While Giles stopped digging to lean on his shovel, Xander wiped the dirt off his hands in the dewy grass and ate a donut, then opened a can of coke and drank it possibly too fast.

“What was Cordelia's whole deal about, ‘painful memories’?” Buffy asked. “Who's Daryl?”

“Daryl Epps. Chris' older brother,” Willow explained. “He was a big football star. All-State two years ago. He was a running... he was a running, uh, someone who runs and catches.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow. “Was he a studly?”

“Big-time,” Willow agreed. “All the girls were crazy for him.”

“And he broke Cordy's heart? Thus, possibly proving its' existence.”

“She has one,” Xander said, somber at the memory of the hours after the AV club incident in June, though the seriousness was negated a little by him wiping his mouth after finishing the can.

Willow nodded and swallowed. “You didn't see her, after...” she shook her head. “But, uh, no. He died. Rock-climbing or something. He fell.”

Xander thought for a second about all the boys he knew Cordy had genuinely liked - Daryl, Jesse, Kevin...

Maybe we should keep an eye on her next boyfriend. Just in case.

“Man, that's lousy. Poor Cordy. And Chris!” Buffy said.

“Ever since then, Chris has been, real quiet,” Willow said. “Kind of in his own world.”

“I heard their mom doesn't even leave the house anymore.” Xander looked at Willow, who nodded that she'd heard the same.

They rested a little longer, and then Willow took the shovel from Giles and slipped into the hole.

They switched off a few more times, and when Xander and Willow were in the hole together, Will hit wood with a thunk.

Willow looked back over her shoulder to Xander. “By the way, are we hoping to find a body, or, no body?”

“Call me an optimist, but I'm hopin' to find a fortune in gold doubloons.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“A body would mean ‘flesh-eating demon’,” Giles said, from his spot next to Buffy. “No body would point towards the uh, army of zombies theory. Take your pick really.”

Willow nodded. “Right, uh.” She looked down at the lid, then back at Xander. “You wanna...?”

“You're closer.”

“Scaredy-cats,” Buffy snorted, standing up. “Scoot over.” She hopped down into the hole, and Xander and Willow followed instructions. She leaned down and opened the lid.

“Sorry, Xander. Empty.”

“Eh, it was a long shot,” he said, shrugging. “Maybe the next one?”

They refilled the grave and moved on to the next, taking more regular turns with the shovels. Giles opened the coffin and shook his head.

“Empty as well.”

Xander frowned. “So both coffins are empty, that makes three girls signed up for the army of zombies.”

“Is it an army if you just have three?” Willow asked.

“Zombie drill team, then,” Buffy said. He and Will nodded.

“Come along, let's go back to the library and regroup, shall we?” Giles suggested. They got back in his car and tried to come up with suggestions.

Then Willow snapped her fingers.

“Miss Calendar!”

The car swerved.

“Wh-what, ah, where?” Giles looked at them and then back at the road, slightly frantic.

“Sorry,” Willow said, hunching in a little. “Um, I just meant- maybe she knows some kind of... tracking spell?”

“Ah.” The librarian blinked at her, then nodded and looked back at the road. “Er, ye-, yes, that, she might, yes.”

“Relax,” Buffy said, patting him on the arm. “We'll do the explaining. That way you can pretend you're capable of speech around her.”

Giles sort of scoffed, but he didn't actually make a protest.

They got back to the library, and Willow went to the phone while Giles put the shovels away and Xander and Buffy went back out the doors to the school bathrooms to start cleaning themselves off. Xander generally stayed out of the bathrooms when he could, but they were probably alone in the building at this point so he could let down his guard more than usual. When he left the bathroom he almost bumped into Buffy coming out of the girls'; she looked at him, then at his hair, and then started brushing at it with her fingers.

“H-hey, wha-?”

“I'm getting the dirt outta your hair, didn't you look in the mirror?”

“What mirror?”

“You guys don't have a mirror in there?” Buffy walked into the mens' room and he followed.

He hadn't really thought about it in a while; he was fine with it 'cause there was less chance of seeing something he didn't want to from one of the guys at the urinals, and it wasn't like he was a big fan of his own reflection anyway.

“Buffy. This is the guys' bathroom. For men. Caring about how you look is gay. Unless you're a Jock, apparently,” he added. “And they like the no-mirrors thing 'cause it gives them more leeway when they're giving someone a swirlie in the end stall.” Thus the only bathroom that did still have a mirror was over near the office.

Buffy stared around the bathroom, then at him.

“You live like this?”

He shrugged.

“Hey, what else am I gonna do?”

###

“Okay,” Miss Calendar said. She opened the satchel she'd brought and started pulling things out. “I might be able to cast a couple of tracking spells, if I had something that belonged to one of them.”

Buffy pulled out a plastic bag from her backpack and unwrapped it to reveal the broken heel. “Will this work?”

“Really twisted Cinderella,” Xander emphasized.

“You already used that one,” Buffy reminded him.

“It bore repeating.”

Miss Calendar laid out a map of Sunnydale on the table, and then set out a small jar of something that looked like iron filings.

“What's that?”

“Iron filings,” she said, tipping some of them onto the map. “Alright, I'll need... okay.” She pulled out a tape recorder and then hit play; her own voice came out, speaking, Xander assumed, Latin. Ms. Calendar tapped the fast forward button, then play, and then repeated to find the right track. Then, she pulled four candles in glass jars out and set them at each of the corners of the map.

“How did you get all this ready so fast?” Buffy wondered.

“I lost my pager the other week,” the teacher admitted. “This took a lot longer when I had to start at the beginning. Okay. Each of you hold one of these candles, at the corners of the table. Great. Here goes.”

She pressed play, and then started chanting along with the words.

The candles flickered, and then the iron filings shot across the map to congregate in one location. Ms. Calendar stopped the cassette player and then looked at the map. She cocked an eyebrow.

“Huh.”

“The school?”

“Are you, er, certain?” Giles asked. Miss Calendar looked at him; the librarian quickly looked away, and while he missed the raised eyebrow, and the slight smirk, the rest of them didn't.

“One way to find out.”

Ms. Calendar pulled out a crystal on a leather cord, and something that looked like a handheld metal detector crossed with a geiger counter.

“Alright, um, what was the...” She set them to the side and slid into the computer chair. “Hang on a minute, need to check with the group.”

A few minutes later she nodded, scribbled something in a small spiral notebook, and shut the computer down. “Ecce, ecce,” she repeated. “Right.”

She held the detector thing in one hand, and dangled the crystal above it with the other, then spoke in Latin, swinging the crystal in a circle. It moved as she spoke, then stopped, hanging in the air at an angle pointing away from them. She kept repeating the Latin, but a nod of her head conveyed an instruction as she started walking toward the doors, and the rest of them hurried to follow, Giles stepping forward to open the door for her.

Unexpected by all of them, the spell led them to a dumpster behind the school.

Miss Calendar stopped chanting, and the crystal dropped to hang in obedience with gravity. She looked at the dumpster, and the pile of trash, brow furrowed.

“Well, that can't be right. Can it?”

Xander was covering his nose, but it wasn't helping much, even when he closed his nostrils like he was going swimming.

“Do you smell that?” he asked nasally.

“The odor of eau de vomitous?” Buffy asked, muffled by the hand pinching her own nose shut.

“It smells like death.”

“Well, I could've told you that,” Willow said, shielding her nose with the back of her hand.

“No, no, I mean...” Xander shook his head and then made himself open the lid and start pushing things to the side, something making the scent easy to follow. “It's right- Jesus!”

“What, what is it?” Giles came up behind him, as Xander looked down at his hand.

And the cleanly-severed arm it was holding.

“Death.”

###

They regrouped a few feet further away from the dumpster. Once they'd found that arm, they'd been able to notice the other body parts scattered within, visible even without digging much. Xander frantically rubbed his hand with a wipe Ms. Calendar had had in her bag. The girls looked faintly green. Giles was pacing.

“So much for our zombie theory,” Willow said.

Giles frowned. “So much for all our theories.”

Buffy shook her head.

“I don't get it. Why go to all that trouble to dig up three girls only to, chop them up and throw them away? It doesn't make any sense!” She made a face and rubbed her probably-sore bicep. “Especially from a time management standpoint.”

“We're assuming what we see here would, er, add up to three,” Giles pointed out. Miss Calendar stared at him.

“Are you saying they kept some of them?” she asked, aghast.

“Okay, does that feel worse to anyone else?” Xander asked. “Somehow, I feel like that's worse.”

“Could this get yuckier?” Buffy agreed. Willow's face shifted further toward disgust.

“They probably kept the other parts to eat.”

Buffy's face copied hers. “Question answered.”

Giles stopped pacing.

“Why dispose of the remains, five miles from the cemetery? At a, at a school of all places?”

Buffy's eyes went wide.

“Maybe because whoever did it had some business in the neighborhood. Like, say, classes?”

“Oh... ah.” Giles frowned at the dumpster with the body parts. “Though, whoever did this, they cut with, with almost surgical precision. What student here is going to be that well-versed in physiology?”

Willow looked up thoughtfully. “I can think of five or six guys in the science club,” she said casually. She shrugged. “And, me.”

“So, Will, come clean. Promise to never do it again, and we'll call it a night.” Everyone stared at him. “He joked,” Xander stressed.

“Willow, why don't you get these guys' locker numbers so we can do some checking?” Buffy suggested. Willow nodded.

“What about, the bodies?” Miss Calendar asked Giles, as they all moved toward the doors.

“I, I'll, ah, I'll call the police when we've, er. Finished.”

It didn't take Willow long - well, duh, she's Willow - to pull up the locker combos and numbers and then print them out, one to each of the five of them, and then they went to the hallway. Luckily, they all had lockers pretty close together, so Buffy handed out the papers to him, Will, and Ms. Calendar, and was standing in the middle of the hallway with hers and Giles when the librarian walked over.

“You understand in our capacity as school officials, this search is completely unauthorized and I- I cannot condone it.”

“Fine, your butt's covered,” Buffy said, not looking up from the paper. “Wanna grab a locker?”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

Buffy handed him the sheet and moved to the other remaining locker.

“Hoh-kay, Eric. let's see what's on your annoying little mind.”

Willow got her assigned locker open.

“Nothing in here but back issues of Scientific American. Ooh, I haven't read this one!”

Miss Calendar popped hers.

“No dice. Well, actually, a lot of dice. But nothing suspicious.”

Giles was next.

“Nothing remarkable here.”

Xander's had a stuck lock, but he finally managed to get it open; he opened the door, blinked, and tilted his head. There were three books in the locker at an angle. He scanned the titles.

“Guys,” he called casually.

Buffy kept working at hers, but the other three closed theirs and came over.

“Your friend Chris's locker,” Xander said, as he slipped to the side a little for Willow to stand next to him. She read the titles off.

“Grey's Anatomy, Mortician's Desk Reference, Robicheaux's Guide to Muscles and Tendons.”

Giles reached over Xander's shoulder and pulled out a newspaper Xander hadn't seen on top of the books.

It was the same one with the article about the dead cheerleaders, and folded so the article was at the front.

“I think it's fair to say Chris is involved,” Giles said.

“He's into corpses alright, but we still don't know why,” Xander said.

“Yes, we do,” Buffy said in a low voice. She was looking back over her shoulder at them when they turned around. Then she swung Eric's locker door open.

There was a collage pasted to the inside of the door, pieces of photos of different girls taped together. A left leg here, lower right leg, upper right leg and hips and torso, two different arms, head, and an unrelated pair of eyes stuck over top of it.

Okay, Xander decided, his nausea growing by the second as he took in what that, plus the severed body parts, meant.

I think I'll go lose my donuts.

Chapter Text

Tuesday, September 23rd, 1997

Xander walked to school with Willow on Tuesday; she was wearing jeans and a multicolored shirt, and the bead choker he'd given her for her 14th birthday. History was uneventful, and during break Buffy decided to check Chris and Eric's classes; since she was faster, they left her to it, and were sitting at the end of the railing of the balcony walkway with their backs to the courtyard below. Willow had her History book open on her lap so both of them could read; his arm felt warm where it was pressed against hers.

The door opposite them opened, and Buffy walked out. Xander looked up at her.

“Any sign of our young Frankensteins?”

“Frahnkenshteens,” Willow corrected absently. She blinked and looked up and around, closing her book.

Buffy shook her head.

“Not yet.” She looked over to the side to watch a passing girl. “I don't get it. Why would anybody wanna make a girl?”

“You mean when there are so many premade ones just layin' around?” Xander shrugged. “The things we do for love?” he suggested. Buffy's lip twisted.

“Love has nothing to do with this.”

“Maybe not, but I'll tell you this. People want the dream.” He bit his lip, not quite managing to not glance at Willow. “What they can't have. The more unattainable...” He swallowed. “The more attractive.”

“And for Eric,” Willow said, standing up, “the unattainable would include everyone... that's alive.”

She and Buffy rounded the railing and started down the stairs, Xander swiveling around the corner before standing and following behind.

“Eric's sick enough to do something like this, but... what about Chris? He seems like a- human, person,” Buffy asked.

“I don't know,” Willow said slowly. “The thing with his brother was really hard on him. He talked about death a lot. Maybe he just wanted to get one up on it.”

“But, it's not- doable,” Buffy protested hopefully. “I mean, making someone from scraps, actually- making them live.”

“If it is, my science project's definitely coming in second this year.”

After Willow's comment, they were quiet for a few steps. Xander looked past the bottom of the stairs and saw Giles ahead of them, holding some books and staring off into the distance, or at least off into the courtyard toward where Ms. Calendar was standing.

“And speaking of love...” He nodded toward the librarian.

“We were talking about the reanimation of dead tissue,” Willow argued.

“Do I deconstruct your segues? Nah!”

“Hey!” Buffy called, as they walked up behind the man. Giles turned at the call to see them, then back where he had been looking.

“Oh! Yes. Hello.”

“Still no sign of our mad doctors?”

“What? Oh, uh, corpses, yes, evil, uh. Very good.” He still wasn't actually looking at them; he was watching Ms. Calendar walk nearer, then stop to talk to a student. “Very, very good.”

The three of them grinned at each other behind his back. Xander thought if he disregarded the fact that they were old, it was kinda cute.

Buffy tapped his shoulder, gaining his attention. “Okay, Giles. Just remember. ‘I feel a thing, you feel a thing-’ but personalize it.”

“Personalize it?”

“She's a techno-pagan, right? Ask her to bless your laptop.” As they started to walk off, she added a parting, “Have fun.”

He looked back at them, startled, as Willow patted him on the shoulder in passing.

“What? Uh, don't-”

Xander patted him on the other shoulder.

“Best of luck.”

The three of them walked off; once they were a couple yards away, they all shared a high-five.

“Y'know,” Buffy said, linking her arms with theirs on either side, “if you ignore the fact that they're old, it's kinda cute.”

Xander laughed.

###

“Alright, who's ready to get started?” Jonathan flipped open his notebook and clicked his mechanical pencil.

“Yes!” Buffy said. “Ugh, I'm still mad I missed out. At least you guys had fun with the other game?”

“Yeah! And your mom's great!” Andrew said, chewing. Buffy's face went weird.

“How do you know my mom?”

“Well, all our houses suck, so we ended up gaming at your place over the summer,” Jon explained. “She cooked us dinner, Buffy. Cooked!”

Buffy, with the same weird expression, looked at Xander and Willow.

“Well, we were over there mowing the lawn every couple weeks anyway, and she offered, so...” He shrugged, while Willow nodded.

“Your mom's kinda cool,” Amy agreed.

Buffy, face unchanged, stared down at her lunch.

“Okay, c'mon, my character's all ready, let's play,” Amy urged, and they got started.

###

After Government, Xander followed Willow toward the science lab, rather than going toward the front doors like everyone else. Willow wanted one of the teacher's college-level science books, which she sat down with at the table at the back of the room; Xander sat on the next table forward, facing her. He watched the way her eyebrows twitched occasionally while her eyes scanned the page; one strand of hair had slipped to hang in front of her face, and now and then her lips pursed to blow it out of the way with a puff of air, only for it to drift back into place.

Then Xander realized he'd been staring at his best friend for five minutes; face burning, he looked away for something to distract himself with. He picked up a plastic model of a head, with the skull and all the stuff that wasn't hair, and transparent hard plastic in place of skin.

It was kinda weird to think about all that stuff hanging out inside his face. Especially the eyeballs. They looked weird without lids.

“I still don't get how Chris could do it,” Willow murmured, hunched over her science book. “I mean, arresting the cell deterioration is one thing, but...”

“Hello!” Xander said, in a silly voice. Willow looked up to meet eyes with the head, which he wiggled. “I wanna get ahead.”

Willow grinned, then looked back at her book.

“Maybe an electrical current combined with an adrenaline boost!”

“For the love, of god, can somebody scratch, my, nose?” Xander Shatner'ed.

Willow rolled her eyes, but she was smiling so he still counted it as a win.

“Well, it's official,” Buffy said, walking in the room. “Chris and Eric didn't come to school today.”

Willow looked up from her book.

“That's no coincidence,” he said.

“Maybe they finished their project,” Willow guessed. Buffy grimaced.

“God, what if it worked, what- what if that poor girl is walking around?”

“Poor girls, technically,” Xander pointed out. Buffy ignored him.

“What could she be thinking?”

“And what are they gonna... do with her?” Willow asked.

All three of them made disgusted faces at that thought.

“I don't think we have to worry about that just yet.”

They looked up as Giles entered the room, and Xander set the head down on the table as the man walked up to stand next to him.

“I spoke to a, a press person this morning about the, remains. The police have finished sorting through them and, apparently they found three heads in the dumpster.”

“They only had three girls,” Buffy sort of half-queried.

“Precisely,” Giles confirmed.

“So they don't have the whole, uh, package?” Willow said.

“The heads must be no good. Huh.” Xander frowned. “I thought they were foxish enough.”

Willow nodded, then made a face. Buffy and Giles stared at them both.

“Well, obviously we're not as sick as Chris and Eric,” Xander said.

Giles let out a quiet breath and leaned back against the table.

“Based on what the police have, put together, I would say they're one step short of, completing their masterpiece.”

“One step?” Willow looked uncomfortably at the plastic head. She shook her head and stood up. “Right. Okay, let's see what they have to work with.”

They moved to the library, where Willow got on the computer; Xander sat next to her, watching her work. Giles found a book and sat against the end of the table looking through it. Near the book cage, Buffy paced with a water bottle.

After a while, Willow looked away from the screen.

“I checked the obits. Nothing that would make for a likely candidate.”

“They seem kinda picky for guys with three heads to begin with,” Xander mentioned.

“Formaldehyde,” Willow told him.

“Come again?”

“Formaldehyde,” repeated Giles, who'd obviously gotten more out of the statement. “Oh- yes, yes yes, of course, it would accelerate neural decay in the brain cells.”

Willow made a sound of agreement.

“After a couple days, they're useless. They're gonna need something really fresh.”

“How fresh?” Buffy asked cautiously.

“As fresh as possible,” Willow said. She went still. “Buffy, you don't think that they would...”

“I think anyone who cuts dead girls into little pieces does not get the benefit of any doubt,” Buffy said sharply. “I wanna end this thing now.” She set her water bottle firmly on the table, punctuating her statement.

“I second that,” said Giles.

“Okay, fine.” Buffy nodded. “You guys go to Eric's,” she said, looking at Xander and Willow, and then turned to Giles, “we can go to Chris' and, meet up.” Willow nodded, quickly pulling up the guys' addresses and printing them out.

“I, I'm supposed to be at the... big game, I believe it's called,” Giles stammered.

“Fine- go ahead. We'll take care of this.”

“Yes, but shouldn't I, I-I-I'm...”

“Okayy, then why don't we all meet there?”

“Fine, yes.” Giles hurried off. Buffy rolled her eyes.

“Buffy?” Willow said, handing her the half a sheet with Chris' address on it. “Don't be too hard on Chris. I mean, he's not a vampire.”

Buffy looked at her.

“No. He's just a ghoul.”

She turned and strode toward the doors.

###

Xander peered through the living room window.

“Nobody's home,” he said, after Willow had finished her sweep of the other side of the house.

“Right.” Willow nodded, then pulled out her lockpicks.

Two minutes later, they found Eric's room thanks to the caution tape around the frame and the nameplate on the door. They took care of that lock as well, and then stepped inside.

Willow lit up at the sight of at least three computers and a lot of associated paraphernelia. She rubbed her hands together and slid into the chair at his desk, hand over the trackball. Xander, being not Willow, started looking around for anything in hard copy.

There were a lot of magazines under the bed, and numerous loose photos. Very few of them featured clothes, and a number of them were a bit... intense.

He was both uncomfortable, and aroused. Which made him excited, but also uncomfortable, so he was sort of conflicted.

After a while, he held up one copy of Playboy and waved it at Willow.

“Would it be wrong of me to, uh, liberate some of these?”

“Yes! Xander, I think- ooh.” She cut herself off when his grip slipped and let it fall open to show the centerfold. She stared at the page for a moment, then shook her head and covered her eyes. “No. Nope, nope. No.” She swallowed and turned back to the computer.

“See something you like?” he asked, replacing the magazine.

“Um.” She coughed. “Okay, I never really got the interest in those before. I've, um, always liked stories more than photos.”

“Yeah, well, you can read a thousand words in the time it takes me to look at a picture, so I guess that makes sense.”

And then it hit him that he was sitting here having a discussion about porn, with Willow. And yes, maybe they'd been prepper for that when they found Jesse's collection cleaning out his room, and Amy and Andrew distracted Miz McNally while he and Will and Jon went through it, but since then he'd almost kissed her and he'd already been feeling things about her he shouldn't be feeling, he didn't need to give his subconscious any ideas.

It was quiet for a while, the kind you could tell was intentional on both parties' sides.

“Ha!” Willow crowed. “Thought you were safe behind a hidden partition, didn't you! Well, we'll just see about that!”

Her fingers went rapidly over the keyboard.

“Oh! Oh. Ohhhh. ...whoa.”

“Find something?” Xander asked, stumbling over and smacking his shin into the coffee table in the process. Ow ow ow-

“Um, just a lot of, erm. Wow. I did not know people could bend like that...” Willow trailed off into a mumble. Xander made it over behind the computer chair and blinked at the screen.

“Whoa. Limber.”

“Okay! Well, there's um, nothing on there. I hope. I don't wanna dig through all of these to see if he hid a picture of something else in with them.”

“Yeah, we'd be here all night.”

Willow, face very red, started shutting things down.

“Alright, let's head back to the school.”

###

They walked toward the noise of the football field.

“Xander,” Willow said, lip jutting out as her eyebrows mimicked despair, “we're attending a football game.”

Xander groaned.

“Two sports games in a year - there goes our reputation.”

“Let's go find Giles and wait for Buffy.”

They walked around for a while before they found him, sitting on the upper half of the bleachers, on the second row up from the railing; Miss Calendar was next to him. They ascended the steps; once they got closer they could see that she had a pennant and a bag of popcorn, and he had two paper cups and another bag.

Willow called out as they walked up to stand in front of the railing.

“Hi, Miss Calendar! Hi, Giles!”

Miss Calendar smiled at them.

“Hey guys, what's up?”

Willow shrugged. “Eric's was a bust. Nothing there.”

“Except a bunch of computer equipment and a pornography collection so prodigious, it even scared me.” And considering he'd heard some of the stuff the guys talked about in the locker room - including, in a couple instances, some bragging about collections - that was saying something.

“I sort of wonder if he even uses the internet for anything else,” Willow said to him, then looked up at the teachers. “Did Buffy get back yet?”

“No, uh, no. Perhaps you should, uh, circulate nearer the field. See what you can find,” Giles suggested.

Xander raised an eyebrow at Willow; she shook her head slightly. Their reputation was in enough danger from the walk over here without being seen wandering around. On the other hand, if they sat here they had the plausible deniability of just watching the cheerleaders.

They slipped under the bar at the front of the stands and pulled themselves up to sit in the front row, right in front of Giles and Miss Calendar. Xander reached back and grabbed Giles' popcorn - Miss Calendar had a bag anyway, so really he was only helping Giles get closer.

“So, what's the score?”

He tilted his new popcorn so Willow could share.

They watched Jocks give each other head trauma for maybe ten minutes before Chris Epps came sprinting up the steps toward them, waving off an annoyed yell from someone whose soda had spilled on his way past.

“Ohhh, thank God,” he gasped, holding onto the railing in front of them and slumping a little as he panted.

“Chris?” Willow leaned forward, eyes wide. She glanced at Xander, then back at him. “Uh, what's going on?”

“Buffy sent me. We, uh. I, uh.” He licked his lips, then took a deep breath. “I- after the accident, I brought my brother back to life. And, uh... he was, he was lonely, you know? So, so, Eric and I, we uh...” He stumbled, searching for words.

“Decided to try a little Bride of Frankenstein?” Miss Calendar guessed. Chris nodded.

“And, uh... the, the brains wouldn't work, so... Daryl and Eric, they wanted something fresher, and... I gave up, Buffy was right, but- Daryl took Cordelia!”

“What?”

Xander and Willow lunged forward to grab the railing and get closer, and he felt Giles and Miss Calendar stand up behind them.

“Where are they?” Giles asked firmly.

“The, the old science lab.”

“Uh, where, where is-” Giles started to ask; Xander looked at Willow, who nodded. He dopped back through the railing and took off; she'd make sure everyone else caught up.

Xander ran.

He was away from the field in half a minute, and his surroundings blurred as his focus narrowed to the path under him and the way to the old science building. He only slowed enough to yank open the doors, then got his momentum back as his sneakers burned rubber on the old tile.

He vaguely noticed he'd need new ones soon - these weren't providing as much traction as he usually liked to have for escape purposes.

He saw light through the open right side of the double doors to the lab room at the end, and his feet skidded as he tried to stop; he caught himself on the far side of the open door and took in the scene.

To his right, someone, probably Eric, lay unmoving on the floor near a couple of steel barrels.

In the middle of the room, Buffy was squaring off with- holy shit, Daryl! Xander recognized the guy- hard not to remember a face that had hung a foot above yours before shoving you into a toilet bowl - but he was covered in sutures, and pale in the light.

Past them, a small fire flickered under an overturned steel tray toward the right wall; then, Cordelia, strapped to a gurney. On her other side, another gurney had a form covered by a sheet. Behind that was a blackboard with a detailed anatomical illustration of a woman's body.

“Buffy!” he called out. She looked at him, then quickly back at Daryl.

“Get Cordelia!” She lured the ex-Jock to the left to give him easier passage.

“Xander?” Cordelia called, pleading and hopeful.

He slipped between the fight and the fire to get to the gurney, rounding it to stand between Cordy's and the other.

“Hey.”

Cordelia's eyes were wide and white in the low light. “Get me out of here!”

Xander started working on the straps at her wrists, one eye on the fight as he did.

Daryl seized Buffy by the jacket and flipped her, slamming her into the floor on her back; as she caught her breath and got up, Daryl grabbed a tank of something from a cart near the door and hefted it over his head. He chucked it, and Buffy ducked and it sailed toward Xander and Cordy. He ducked slightly by reflex, but it hit the ground by the flames and started spitting out something that quickly caught fire.

Shit!

He ducked again as a burst of fire swelled up, cutting the room in half.

“Stop watching them!” Cordy yelled, not turning her head to see. “C'mon, c'mon! Get it off!”

Daryl lifted Buffy in a very angry bear hug, but Xander decided she'd probably be okay. Anyway, he had an idea.

He'd gotten Cordy's hands free, but he stopped there - the fire would make it difficult to run through, and it spreading, but...

Okay, she's on top of the gurney, so if I push fast enough she should be insulated from the heat and the gurney will clear me a path through the fire? No, that won't work- I'll have to get on too.

On the one hand he felt a little awkward, but on the other, ehh, she's slept on top of me before, probably fine, right?

He glanced at the fire spreading along both walls toward them, then quickly moved the other gurney out of the way so he could turn Cordy's.

“Get me out of here!”

Xander grabbed the foot of her gurney, turning and pulling it backward toward the wall, for the most possible lead-up distance. He glanced up to make sure there was room, and saw Giles arrive to throw open the other of the double doors, Willow in tow.

Awesome, more room.

The two of them picked up Eric between them and got him away, leaving the doors wide.

Xander started running, pushing the gurney ahead of him like a shopping cart, and then jumped on as it neared the flames, the jump pushing them forward faster and letting him get on top of the gurney, his cheek resting against Cordy's knuckles, on her lap. The force carried them through the flames, Cordelia screaming the whole time, and they raced past the ongoing fight and out the doors. Xander dropped off the gurney to his feet to stop it before it ran into the lockers on the far wall of the hallway, and then Miss Calendar appeared, catching him from slipping and helping him guide the gurney away down the hall, meeting Chris running toward them.

“I, I gotta stop him,” Chris said. “He, he'll listen to me, he's gotta.”

Miss Calendar looked at him, nodded, and ran back to the room with him.

Xander shoved the gurney further. Cordelia gasped and panted, looking around.

“Okay, okay, get me off of here, oh God...”

“Almost there,” he said quickly, nearing the front doors, where Willow and Giles were coming back in. He slid to a stop, and Willow helped him with the ankle strap while Giles ran past. The moment they got it, he yanked his side of the strap away at the same time Willow did. “Okay!”

Cordelia rolled off the gurney and he and Willow caught her and helped her stand up and stumble out the doors. When they got to the asphalt, she pulled them together into a hug and started sobbing.

Sirens neared, a fire truck and two ambulances, followed by a police car, speeding into the parking lot. One of the EMTs ran toward them, while the other ran to Eric, who Xander had only just noticed sitting on the sidewalk and holding his head.

“What's going on?”

Willow told the medic the basics of Cordy's situation, and the medic helped her to the ambulance and opened the back door so she could sit down while she checked her over. Behind them, Buffy came out of the building with Chris, and Giles with Miss Calendar.

Nobody else followed.

Xander let out a breath and ran his hands through his hair.

“Jeezus.”

He hadn't even had to fight anybody this time, but it had felt just as dangerous, with the fire spreading toward them, the reanimated Jock fighting Buffy...

Willow nodded slowly.

“You said it.”

“How did our lives end up like this?” he wondered out loud.

A couple of yards away, Buffy raised her hand.

“Sorry.”

The three of them looked at each other for a moment, then the girls snorted, and he chuckled and shook his head. Oh, well.

I'd probably be bored out of my skull otherwise.

A while later, the medic let Cordelia go, though Eric was on his way to the hospital with a concussion to get checked for a skull fracture. The brunette walked up to them, her face still darkened by soot.

“Xander, I just wanted to, thank you, for saving my life. Again, I mean, this is what, three? What you did in there was... pretty brave and heroic, and I just wanted to tell you if there was anything I could ever do...”

“Cordy. We're... friends, or something. Friends help friends. 'Kay?” He thought about it for a second. “Although, if the opportunity ever comes up for you to return the favor...”

She huffed one laugh, and smiled.

“Noted.” Her smile twitched, a little larger. “Later, losers.”

She turned and walked away.

Chapter Text

Wednesday, September 24th, 1997

After school, Xander sat on one side of the table in the school library; to his right, Willow sat at the head, and Amy sat across from him.

Amy raised an eyebrow.

“So, what's up?”

“We've gathered here today for one reason,” Willow said. She looked at him. “Xander, you have the floor.”

Xander stood, planting his palms on the table.

“I think we should disband the ‘We Hate Cordelia’ club.”

Amy steepled her fingers.

“I see... reasoning?”

Xander laid it out - all the times she'd not been an asshole to them going all the way back to last March, the times she'd helped out, and that, going by the night after they killed the Master, she was actually pretty okay.

“All in favor?” Willow checked.

“Aye.”

“Aye.”

“Aye,” Willow finished. “It's unanimous - motion carried.”

“Thanks?” Cordelia said skeptically, from her seat at the far end of the table. “Why do I have to be here?”

Xander looked at the girls, who nonverbally nominated him to explain.

“Well, we, uh... Miz McNally moved away. And, she asked us to help her go through stuff, so...”

“We thought you might want this,” Willow said.

He pulled a photo frame out of his backpack, then opened the back of it and laid out the contents in front of Cordelia.

A photo of Cordelia at their eighth-grade dance, actually genuinely laughing instead of faking it or holding herself back, that Jesse had kept in the frame on a bookshelf; one of Jesse, grinning at his kitchen table with his AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide open in front of him; and one from kindergarten, of both Jesse and Cordelia, kneeling in the sandbox in the playground.

“This is...” Cordy's eyes filled with moisture, and a hand went to her mouth. “This... oh my god, you... Thank you!” she sobbed, wiping at her eyes with the heels of her hands. She covered her face for a while, before she sniffled a few times and brushed at her eyes again. She looked at them, her eyes still moist and makeup blurred.

“You guys, are the best nerds I could ask for.”

“Don't you mean friends?”

“Sure.” Cordy rolled her eyes as she said it, but her lips twitched up all the same. She closed her eyes and took a breath, then opened them and frowned, reaching for her purse. “God, I must look horrid.”

###

Xander's Thursday was utterly devoid of note.

Which, compared to other Thursdays he'd had, was pretty nice.

###

“Ugh. Done,” Buffy announced, clapping the book shut and then immediately falling sideways off the arm of the Summers' couch onto the cushions, and Xander's lap.

“Mm,” Amy agreed, from her spot on the floor facedown in a pillow.

Xander leaned over Buffy to snag another slice of pizza from the coffee table.

“Time for a movie?” Willow asked from Xander's other side, closing her calculus book and setting it to the side.

“I want brownies,” Buffy said. She rolled over to look up at Xander. “Xanderrr! Make brownies!”

“Well, what if I don't wanna make brownies?” he asked - hypothetically, as it was untrue.

She pouted.

“Please?”

He covered her face with his non-pizza hand.

“Ha! Your puppy-dog eyes have no power over the Hand!”

“What about mine?” Joyce asked, leaning against the doorframe.

He looked up at her. She raised her eyebrows and looked hopeful.

###

“Mm, goob brownies,” Amy mentioned through about half of her first one.

“As usual,” Joyce agreed. Xander grinned. “You kids need anything else, or should I go watch something in my room and leave you be?”

“'Night Mom” “Night Joyce,” Buffy and Xander said simultaneously. Joyce chuckled.

“Goodnight, kids.”

““Goodnight!”” Willow and Amy returned.

“Should I put in the next one?” Willow asked, putting their first movie back in the case.

“Ooh, yeah, thanks Will,” Buffy agreed, from her spot cross-legged on her blankets. She leaned over to the coffee table and started digging through her box of nail polish. “Ames, what are you thinking?”

“Hmm... oh, that purple one!”

Xander leaned back against the bottom of the couch and watched Amy get started while he savored his brownie.

“I'll take the buttercup,” Willow decided, reaching for it.

“Xander?”

“'M eating,” he pointed out.

“Well, eat faster!” Rather than lean over, Buffy reached behind Amy's back to bat at his knee with her pillow; he caught it and tugged it out of her grip before she could actually try to hold onto it. Then he threw it at her.

The pillow whumped against her face and fell to the floor.

Buffy gaped.

“That's my pillow!” she sputtered. “You can't hit me with my pillow!”

“Can too!”

Buffy seized the pillow and lunged at him past Amy, who yelped.

“Ahh! My nails!”

Another Friday well-spent.

“Gah! Buffy, getoff!”

Chapter Text

Tuesday, September 30th, 1997

“Buff, what's up?” Xander asked, as Government class wound down. “You seem tense.”

One corner of Buffy's mouth turned toward a frown, and she glanced toward the windows on the right side of the classroom.

“I dunno... just... today's been boring. Actually, everything since, what, Wednesday? It's almost been a week of normal. I can't help feeling like there's a shoe dropping, somewhere.”

“Miss Summers, come see me, please,” the teacher said. Buffy looked at Xander with a 'See?' expression, and walked up to talk to the teacher. The rest of them waited by the door as the teacher spoke, then handed Buffy a note. The blonde read it as she walked back toward them, and made a face.

Willow leaned over to look at it. “What's up?”

“Snyder wants to see me.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Nice knowin' ya,” Jonathan said somberly, patting her on the shoulder.

“We'll come with you to the office,” Amy offered. “For moral support.”

“Thanks, guys.”

They were stopped briefly halfway there by the arrival of Andrew.

“Uh, hey guys... why do we look like someone's on the way to the firing squad?” the sophomore asked.

“Worse,” Buffy lamented.

“Snyder demanded her presence,” Amy elaborated.

Andrew made a face.

They waited for her outside the office door, until she emerged, followed, to Xander and Willow's surpise, by Sheila.

“Sheila?” Will said.

“Hey, Willow. Dweeb,” she added, sort of affectionately, with a nod at Xander. He nodded back. “Dorks,” she greeted the others offhand.

Buffy, meanwhile, fixed a withering glare on a reminder notice for Thursday's Parent-Teacher night as they passed. She sighed and looked at Sheila as they all exited the building.

“Well, it shouldn't be that hard. We can work on the banners at lunch tomorrow, and figure out refreshments then?”

“Yeah, sure,” Sheila said, looking off to the parking lot. She grinned and waved. “Hey, Meatpie!” She sped off to meet up with the guy, a dude in shorts and sunglasses and blonde hair past his elbows, and they kissed by his car. Xander put that together, never having met the guy before, and realized this was her on-again, off-again boyfriend - meaning, during the day they were on, and when it was night, she was off again.

Buffy stared after her, abandoning another comment silently.

“Snyder's got you guys making party favors?” Xander gathered.

“His two worst students,” Buffy confirmed, in a tone of voice that would be proud if it wasn't so sarcastic. She laughed awkwardly and stopped walking, looking at them. “That's what my mom sees when she looks at me. A Sheila.”

“Well, Sheila's definitely intense,” he admitted. “That guy with her? That's the guy she can bring home to mother.”

“She was already smoking in fifth grade,” Willow said. “Once, I was lookout for her.”

“You're bad to the bone, Will,” Amy said, grinning.

“I'm a rebel,” Willow agreed casually.

Have I ever actually told them I hang out with her sometimes? Xander realized.

“It's not fair.” Buffy started walking again, and the rest of them kept pace. “I'm a Slayer, it requires a certain amount of cutting and fighting. What's Sheila's excuse?”

“Homework,” Xander said, “She won't do it. And most of the teachers respect that now. Actually, I saw her light her cigarette with her math homework the other day.”

“Oh, you might wanna keep away any sharp implements when you're working with her,” Jonathan suggested.

“She's okay otherwise though,” Xander added.

“Do you think any of the other Slayers ever had to go to high school?” Buffy asked. Xander gave a theatrical eyeroll.

“It's no biggie, you'll have a nice soiree, the parents'll love it. As long as nothing bad happens between now and then, you'll be fine.”

Everyone stopped at stared at him, and he winced.

“Are you crazy?” Buffy and Andrew asked at the same time.

“Yep, caught it the moment I said it, sorry.”

Willow groaned.

“I'll get my stakes together.”

###

In what was merely one of Sunnydale's bizarrely large number of abandoned factories, Darla watched from the shadows of the balcony as the Anointed One spoke to- interviewed, sort of - the new vampires that had joined them since Absalom's debacle, though a couple of others had survived that by benefit of being absent. The Anointed One sat on a raised box at the bottom of the spiral stairs; Darla watched, bored, as a vampire who'd arrived from out of town boasted about his prowess, and urged the Anointed One to have them kill the Slayer.

The Anointed One tilted his head.

“Can you do it?”

“Yes,” the vampire said, his bloodthirst obviously overriding whatever small amount of common sense he had. Having watched him for a while, Darla doubted it was much. He grinned. “This weekend - the night of St. Vigeous, our power shall be at its peak. When I kill her, it'll be the greatest event since the crucifixion. And I should know - I was there.”

Darla snorted; she moved to say something, and perhaps to jump down from the balcony and startle him, but then something caught her eye - a shock of bleached white, at the back of the room.

Oh?

She settled back and pursed her lips, waiting.

Interesting.

“You, were there?” The owner of the hair - lanky, British, and quite familiar to Darla, all in black with a long leather coat and his vampire features on display - chuckled, approaching the child and the vampires gathered around him. “Oh, please! If every vampire who said he was at the crucifixion was actually there, it would've been like Woodstock!”

The boastful vampire - she couldn't be bothered to remember his name, not until he'd done something worth noting - stepped toward Spike and growled.

“I oughta rip your throat out!”

Spike continued to mosey toward them, hands in his pockets. He took one out as he spoke.

“I was actually at Woodstock. That was a weird gig. I fed off a flower person, and I spent the next six hours watching my hand move.” He moved his hand slowly in front of his face, affecting a dazed wonder as he slowly turned to put his back to the other vampire.

Darla couldn't resist.

“And that's any different from usual?” she asked, stepping out of the shadows to the top of the stairs. Spike spun back, looking genuinely surprised for an instant, but wiped it away and replaced it with a broad smile.

“Darla! Well, well! So there are some vampires here who didn't just fall off the back of the hearse.”

The boastful one, obviously too impatient to stand being ignored, ran at Spike while he was seemingly distracted; not bothering to actually look at him, Spike grabbed him by the face and shoved forward so he slipped and fell onto his back. Still smiling, Spike looked from Darla to the other vampires gathered below her.

“So, who do you kill for fun around here?”

“Who are you?” the Anointed One asked, looking from Spike to Darla in confusion. She started to descend the stairs.

“Spike,” she introduced. Spike gave a casual half bow and pointed to the child.

“You're that Anointed guy. I read about you.” He looked at him for a moment, then back at Darla as she reached the bottom of the stairs and stood behind the child. He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “So! Hear you got Slayer problems. Have you tried killing her?”

“If you think you can succeed where I and the Master have failed, be my guest. This one is... different,” Darla admitted, reluctantly.

“How different can she be?” Spike scoffed. “I've done Slayers before. There was this one, during the Boxer rebellion-”

Darla found a welcome opportunity to ignore Spike, at the sight of a dark-haired young woman in a long white shift dress emerging from the same entrance Spike had used. Spike, too, noticed her approach, cutting himself off and turning as she walked slowly toward him.

“Drusilla!” He walked to her side, taking her arms to steady her as he stood in front of her. “You shouldn't be walking around. You're weak.”

And indeed, she was, moving sluggish and unsteady. Darla frowned. What happened to her? She hadn't thought Spike so careless as to allow an injury so grave as hers must be, but she could see now that she gave him too much credit.

Drusilla looked away from Spike, and her eyes landed on Darla; they lit up, and she pulled out of Spike's gentle grip.

“Grandmother!” Drusilla called, delighted. She stumbled to Darla, as if she wished to run but was too sleepy to manage, and fell against her in a hug, arms draped around her neck. “Hello. Hello. Hello.”

“Hello, Dru,” Darla returned, feeling a twinge of something... unusually, perhaps, almost, maternal - doubtless only from long separation and the address Drusilla had used.

Drusilla leaned back, her hands still steadying herself upon Darla's shoulders, and frowned.

“The stars said you had vanished. I wonder why it changed?” She stared up at the ceiling for a while, swaying side to side, then gasped. “Daddy!” She looked quickly back at Darla, then blinked quickly and swayed until she regained her balance. “He took your place...”

“Angelus is dead?” Spike said, a look of shock upon his face when Darla confirmed it with a nod. “By a Slayer? What is this town coming to?”

Drusilla looked at Spike when he spoke, then her vision wandered, to the other vampires, who had watched this reunion in bemused silence.

“Look at all the people... are these nice people?” She looked to Darla, and to Spike.

“We're gettin' along,” Spike said easily. Dru's hands slipped from Darla's shoulders, sliding down her arms and away, and she walked to the Anointed One.

“This one has power... I could feel it from the outside...” She nodded slowly.

“Yeah. He's big noise, I hear,” Spike said wryly. “Anointed, and all that.”

Drusilla leaned closer to the boy's face.

“Do you like daisies?”

“Hm?” He frowned, perplexed, and looked at Darla as if she could explain Dru's eccentricity. She wouldn't have bothered; Dru was who she was, though her unsteadiness and lack of vigor was a reason for concern.

“I plant them, but they always die... everything I put in the ground withers and dies...” Drusilla's gaze wandered off to look up and to the left, then she swayed a little and looked down. “Spike? I'm cold...”

In the time Darla took a step toward her, Spike stripped off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

“I got you.”

“I'm a princess...” Drusilla said hazily.

“That's what you are,” he agreed.

“What happened to her?” Darla asked him - snapped, really.

“Prague.” He sneered. “Inquisitor caught her, while I was busy escaping an angry mob.” His lip twitched. “Taught him better, but she was...” he shook his head. “Anyway, I thought we'd come here. Get a little of that Hellmouth essence in her, get her sparkle back.”

“You let her be tortured?” Darla growled, stepping closer, looming. He took a step back, eyes wide.

“I had a stake an inch from my heart! I got there as quickly as I could. Don't you think I'm angry enough at myself?”

She stared him in the eyes, not breaking her gaze, until Drusilla moved. The brunette blinked slowly, and then lifted her hand, looking at it. She looked to Darla, miming the motion Dru had done before, of slipping her hands down her arms, and then stared at Darla's stump.

“Grandmother, your arm has gone away...”

Spike blinked, and looked, and whistled.

“Damn. The Slayer did that? Maybe this one is worth something.”

Darla twitched and looked away, gritting her teeth.

“...no.”

“Yeah, well, if she's that handy in a fight, I disagree a little.”

Darla didn't inform him of his mistake. Drusilla looked at the remainder of Darla's arm, touching gently where it was slowly regrowing, and tilted her head.

“Hmm... naughty... kitten!” she decided, in a hazy delight. “Naughty kitten... 'tis quite a scratch... And the Slayer...” Drusilla put her hands to her temples, staring at the ground. “...I can't see her. The Slayer - I can't see.” She looked to Spike, lowering her hands. “It's dark where she is. Kill her. Kill her, Spike. Kill her for me? Like she did Daddy?”

“It's done, baby.”

“Kill her for princess?”

“I'll chop her into messes.”

Drusilla leaned closer, her eyes drifting half-shut. She ran her fingernail up his cheek, slicing it open, then licked away the blood and rested her forehead on his.

“You are my sweet. My little Spike.”

Spike chuckled.

Darla rolled her eyes and gagged silently. She'd never understood what Drusilla saw in her little drooling idiot.

The two gazed into each other's eyes for a little longer, then turned to Darla.

“So - tell me more about this Slayer.”

###

During break on Wednesday, the teens had started getting things ready - a couple of large yellow banners, making the outlines of the letters of 'Parent Teacher Night', and of a border. They'd decided they'd hang one of them over the front doors, and another over the stairs to the second floor across the hall from the lounge. Another banner, on white butcher paper since they hadn't had any more blank banners, would read 'Welcome Parents', to hang over one of the open sides of the lounge.

During lunch, they took their food to the lounge to help Buffy work while they ate; they draped the Parent Teacher Night banners over a couple of rectangular tables, with the 'Night' hanging off the ends, and Xander and Willow started filling in the letters on one with red paint, while Amy and Jonathan worked on the other. Buffy and Andrew had black paint, to shade the letters. The extra paint was on a separate table, which Xander walked over to to get more red paint so he and Willow didn't have to keep knocking their knuckles together over the one they had.

“So, are we gonna conclude that Sheila's a no-show?” Amy asked.

“I haven't seen her yet today,” Jon said.

“She goes to this really rank bar, the Fish Tank,” Willow said. “Sometimes they have raids and, other stuff that could make you tardy.”

“Will, d'you think you could help me cram some French tonight?” Buffy asked hopefully, as she put her hair in a bun to keep it out of her face, holding it with an extra paintbrush. “I don't want Mr. DeJean telling my mother that I'm un imbécile.”

“Sure!”

“Thought we were goin' to the Bronze,” Xander queried, walking back to Willow's side with a lid full of red.

“Uhhh.” Buffy looked conflicted. “We can study at the Bronze- can't we?”

“Buffy!”

They looked up at the call to see Giles and Ms. Calendar walking toward them; after his call was acknowledged Giles turned back to Ms. Calendar and continued a conversation.

“There is nothing in the Chronicles about an extraneous lunar cycle.”

They stopped near the teens, pretty close to each other. Ms. Calendar put her hands on her hips.

“The Order never accurately calculated the Mesopotamian calendar. Rupert, you have got to read something that was published after 1066.”

“Very funny.”

“Uh, what's the up, guys?” Xander interrupted, before they could move on to, say, public displays of affection.

“Don't suppose it's something about happy squirrels?” Buffy asked.

“Vampires,” the librarian answered. The blonde sighed.

“That was my next guess.”

“Um, Ms. Calendar has been researching- well, um, surfing, on her computer, and she's... well, according to her calculations, this Saturday is the night of St. Vigeous.”

“Let me guess. He didn't make balloon animals,” Jon said.

“No. Ah, he led a crusade of, of, uh, vampires. They swept through Edessa, Harran, and points east.”

“And they didn't leave much behind,” Ms. Calendar added.

“So Saturday's kind of a big do for bloodsuckers,” Amy said, folding her arms.

“It's a Holy Night of Attack,” Ms. Calendar said. She looked Buffy in the eyes. “They'll come in numbers.”

“Well, if I survive Parent-Teacher night tomorrow, I'll see what I can do about Saturday.”

“You're being a tad flip, don't you think?” Giles asked. “This is serious.”

Buffy raised her eyebrows.

“And getting kicked out of school is laughs aplenty?” she retorted. Giles' brow furrowed, and he leaned forward to rest his palms on the table.

“You know what happens-” he cut himself off and lifted his hands off the banner, rubbing at the paint they were now sporting. “-er, when you let your life interfere with your slaying.”

Buffy rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, I found that out the last time I had a date.”

“You just need to keep the two things separate.”

Xander sort of wondered how Giles' brain worked, what with saying that while surrounded by Buffy's friends, half of whom helped her fight bad guys on a daily basis.

Buffy huffed.

“Okay, well, if my slaying doesn't get me expelled, then I promise my banner-making won't get me killed, okay? Just, please, let me get through this week.”

“This Saturday's going to need a great deal of preparation,” Giles said, rubbing at his palms with a paper towel.

“Well, we'll help!” Willow said. Xander nodded.

“Yeah, I'll whittle stakes.”

“Me too,” Amy agreed; beside her, Jonathan nodded.

“A-and I can research stuff,” Willow added.

“And while I'm whittling, I plan to whistle a jaunty tune,” Xander mentioned to Will. Buffy gave him a weirded look. He shrugged. “May as well have fun with it.”

“Really?” Buffy said, looking at the other three. “You guys'd help?”

“Sure,” Jon said, shrugging. “I don't want in on the action, but it'd be kinda cool to say I slew a vampire by proxy.” Andrew nodded.

Giles pulled the conversation back. “Yes, your help will be greatly appreciated, but, ahem, when it comes to battle, Buffy must fight alone- you are, after all, the Slay-”

Ms. Calendar cleared her throat; Giles looked past the teens, and they turned their heads to see Snyder by the water fountain.

“-Slay...vv- slaves. You're, you're all slaves to the, uh, television.”

They turned the rest of the way toward Snyder, and Xander his his brush behind his back, the others also taking steps to appear unhelpful.

“Yeah. Yes,” Ms. Calendar built on.

“Mm, young people nowadays- shall we go?”

“Lets.”

The librarian and the teacher left, as Snyder walked over to the teens.

“You wouldn't be helping Buffy in Sheila's place, would you?”

Andrew forced a laugh.

“Haha, no.”

“We're hindering,” Willow said.

“You know- watching, laughing, mocking,” Xander said.

“She ditched,” Snyder said, eyes narrowing. He sniffed, then hummed, sounding happy, a bad sign on any occasion. “I feel an expulsion coming on.”

“No, no, actually, Sheila's been helping us for hours, um, she just, went out to get some more... paint!” Buffy bs'ed. Snyder looked at her, then looked past her; they turned to see Sheila stumble through the side door into the school and lean against a corner, sporting pants, a blue tanktop, and very probably a hangover. She slowly took her sunglasses off and squinted at all of them.

“Oh!” Buffy said. “Oh, is there no more teal in the art room?” She walked over to Sheila and said, in a voice loud enough for Snyder to hear but probably quiet enough not to stab Sheila in the hangover, “I know you wanted everything to be perfect, but, let's just go with what we have.”

Xander checked Snyder's expression to see him unimpressed.

“Hmm. Just make sure everything is perfect on Thursday.”

The principal turned and left, and they all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“Thanks for covering,” Sheila said. “Guy's a serious rodent.”

“No problem.” Buffy walked back to the table, Sheila following.

“Did you really burn down a school building one time?” Sheila asked.

“Well.” Buffy grimaced. “Not, actually, one time.”

Sheila nodded slowly.

“...cool.”

“Mm...” Xander reminisced. “I remember it like it was just last week.”

“It was last week,” Willow said. He shrugged.

“I didn't feel good about it or anything, I mean, I don't condone...” Buffy defended, then gave up. “So. We're goin' to the Bronze tonight, if you wanted to come.”

Sheila made a face.

“Uhh... yeah, I dunno. You threaten one bartender with a broken bottle, they get kinda uptight about it.”

“It's cool - we sorta have a rep,” Willow assured her. Sheila raised an eyebrow.

“A rep?” she asked, not sounding like she believed.

“Yeah, after that, uh, gang attack in March?” Xander explained. “We helped people get out, got free drinks for like a month. If you're with us it's probably fine.”

“We'll pretend like we're keeping you out of trouble,” Jonathan suggested.

Sheila looked at them and then shrugged.

“What the hell, sure.”

###

They met up at the Bronze later, Xander joining most of the gang in cutting loose on the floor, while Buffy and Willow studied at one of the tables. Xander and Sheila danced close for a while, a little hot, just for fun.

“Still not my type, by the way,” Sheila said, leaning in toward his face so he could hear.

“And I'm okay with that,” Xander agreed. “Fun to dance, though?”

Sheila nodded her head side-to-side.

“Yeah, you're alright, Harris.”

Xander danced over to the table after a bit.

“Guys, c'mon! We're all dancin' without you!”

“Well, we are studying,” Willow said.

“Come on, one dance.” Xander knew full well that Willow could get distracted studying for a full day, which was a horrible way to waste one. “You've been studying nearly twelve minutes.”

“No wonder my brain's fried,” Buffy said, smiling, and hopped up from her seat. She tapped Will on the arm. “Come on.”

“Bu-”

Buffy took Willow's left arm, and Xander grabbed her opposite shoulder, and they tugged her away from the table to join the rest of the group.

“Where's the phone?” A british accent came from behind him partway through the next song, which Xander noted mostly for the novelty since it came from a younger voice than Giles'. The next part was what actually grabbed his attention. “I need to call the police. There's some big guy out there tryin' to bite someone.”

Buffy switched from regular-girl-having-fun to determined-Slayer in an instant, and she headed for the exit.

“Damn, maybe this place is cool after all,” Sheila said. “That's usually how the night ends at the Fish Tank.”

Xander and the others exchanged a glance.

“Hey, you guys keep dancing, we'll be right back,” he said, nodding toward the exit. Amy and Jon and Andj nodded, and he and Willow split, heading to the exit, speeding up once they were further out of view. They entered the alleyway to see Buffy duking it out with a vamp a head or two taller, and a black girl their age in a silk dress looking a bit shell-shocked. Xander and Willow went to the girl's side quickly. Buffy glanced back at them.

“Get her out of here!” she called, then faced the vamp again, punching him in the face about once a second. “And- a stake- would be nice!”

They pulled the girl back toward the Bronze, and then when Xander saw that Willow had a handle on it, he moved faster to get back to their table, moving the school books to dig through Buffy's purse.

Okay, okay - yo-yo - tampon - here we go!

He got back out to see Buffy and the vamp at a further distance than before, the vamp readying himself to rush at her.

“Buffy!”

He chucked the stake overhand when she looked, and she caught it and then rammed it in with the vamp's own momentum. He dusted.

Buffy's shoulders slackened, and she brushed hair out of her face.

“Whew,” she started- then stopped, when they heard slow clapping from the shadows behind where the vamp had started. Willow arrived just in time to watch along with them when a man emerged from the darkness - all in black, with a long leather coat hanging to his ankles, and short hair bleached white.

“Nice work, luv,” he said, and Xander realized he'd been the one with the accent before.

Buffy's eyes narrowed.

“Who are you?”

“You'll find out on Saturday.”

“What happens on Saturday?”

“I kill you.”

He smirked, and walked away, keeping his gaze fixed on Buffy until he rounded the corner.

“Okay, do you guys know who that was, or are you as in the dark as I am?” Xander asked. Buffy frowned.

“The other vampire... he called him ‘Spike’.”

Willow's brow furrowed.

“Spike... why does that sound familiar?”

He and Buffy looked at her for a moment. She blinked and looked back.

“No, I'm asking. Why does that sound familiar? I have no idea.”

Willow called Giles once they went back into the Bronze, and most of them gathered, after, back at the library; Sheila left, after meeting some guy on the dance floor and heading out in his car, but the others joined Xander and Willow and Buffy for safety-in-numbers purposes, and after they got to the school Ms. Calendar promised to drive them home.

“Spike, Spike, Spike,” Giles muttered. “That's, you're right, I've heard the name somewhere...” He continued paging through his own Watcher's diary, one bar of his glasses in his mouth, while the rest of them looked through what felt like just about every other book they'd ever needed.

“The Whirlwind!” Giles said suddenly.

“Spike... William the Bloody?” Willow realized. “That's, that's bad. Right?”

“Undoubtedly.”

Seeing the uncomprehending looks from everyone else, Giles scanned another line, then closed his diary and dug through the pile for a specific book. He flipped to a page.

“The Whirlwind. Darla, Angelus, and Drusilla; later, Spike joined the numbers- erm, replacing Angelus, I believe, though it's somewhat unclear here. He took his name from his method of killing. With railroad spikes.”

“Well, whoever he is, we're gonna need all the help we can get come this Saturday,” Ms. Calendar said.

“So, this Night of St. Vigeous deal,” Xander said, leaning back against the shelves by the table. “If they're gonna attack in force, aren't we thinking vacation?”

“We can't run. That would be wrong,” Willow reminded him, glancing back from her seat on the table. She looked forward again at the others. “Can we hide? I mean, if that Spike guy is leading the attack, yeee...” She shuddered.

Andrew slowly raised a hand.

“Um. Can we go back to when none of this stuff was real, please?” He swallowed. “Or, can I borrow a stake?”

Ms. Calendar sat down on the edge of the table beside him and spoke to him and Amy quietly; Xander was distracted by the beep of Willow's pager. She read the number.

“It's Joyce. She probably wants to know where we are.”

Buffy frowned.

“Why does my mom have your pager number?”

###

5 o'clock Thursday found them all gathered in the library again. The girls were all at least somewhat dressed up; Xander and the guys were... well, they were wearing clothes. Admittedly Xander though his bomber jacket was a nice touch. On the other hand, Willow was in a green dress, her hair held back by a hairband; Buffy in a white skirt with a tulip on it, a peach tee, and a shrug, with her hair loose; Cordelia, in an oriental-type silk dress with her hair in a bun and bangs loose; and Amy in a slouchy oatmeal sweater and black leggings and boots.

Well, it was fine. It wasn't like guys' clothes really did 'looking nice' all that much anyway.

Xander was leaning on the table, carving a stake - sharp, rounded, with a bit of unevenness for grip, experience having taught the importance of that bit. To his left was Cordelia, not as far along with her stake; to her left, Willow looked down the sights of a crossbow.

Jon sat behind them, on the steps, carving a stake of his own, and Amy was across from Cordelia. Andrew was on Xander's right, at the end of the table, helping Buffy; the blonde was across from Xander, using a machete to chop veggies, currently a cucumber; she and Andrew had two plates half-made up in the middle of the table, bell peppers and cauliflower chopped and arranged with carrots, lettuce, broccoli, sliced mushrooms, and green and black olives mixed in the center.

Ms. Calendar walked past, laying another two chunks of wood between Xander and Cordy, then one by Amy, as she rounded the table.

“Do you think Sheila will show?” Willow asked, lowering the crossbow, then raising it and sighting down it again as Buffy answered.

“I doubt it,” Buffy said. “She doesn't seem to care about getting kicked out- about anything. I sort of envy that,” she admitted.

Xander thought about some of the things Sheila had mentioned before when they were cutting class.

“I dunno. I don't think she's very happy.”

Giles read from a book as he walked out of his office toward them.

“‘For three nights, the unholy ones scourge themselves into a fury,’ um-” He paused beside Willow and moved the crossbow so it wasn't pointed quite so much at him. “-‘culminating in a savage attack on the night of St. Vigeous.’”

“Does anybody remember when Saturday night meant date night?” Xander raised.

“You sure don't,” Cordy fired immedately. Xander looked at her flatly. She was smirking.

“Ooh,” Buffy said, checking the clock on the wall behind him and Cordy as she filled the empty sections of the plates. “Parents are arriving in an hour. Okay, so, um. Banners are in place, the lounge is comfy. What am I forgetting?”

“Punch?” Amy suggested.

“Punch. I nee- I need punch!”

“The important thing in punch is the ratio of Vodka to Schnapps,” Jonathan said. Xander nodded, then stopped when he realized everyone else was giving Jon a look. Jon raised his nose in the air, haughty. “Obviously, that was far too sophisticated a joke for this crowd.”

Cordelia set her stake in progress on the table and whined, rubbing her fingers.

“My fingers are cramping- how long have I been doing this?”

“Three minutes,” Amy said, after a quick glance at the clock.

“So can I go now? She doesn't need this many stakes.” Cordy looked at Buffy. “I mean if this guy Spike is as mean as you all said, it should be over pretty quickly.” She looked back at the stake and carved another strip off. Everyone looked at her, and she looked up when nobody said anything for a moment. “Because he'll wanna fight! Not because you'll- I mean, we're all rooting for you on Saturday! I'd be there for you myself, if I didn't have a leg wax!”

Buffy smiled wryly.

“Alright. You guys hold down the fort,” she said as she stood up. “I'm punch-bound.”

Xander and Cordelia both watched her go; as soon as the door closed behind her, they set their stakes down and reached for the veggie platters. They each had a slice of pepper nearly to their mouths when the library doors opened again, and Buffy leaned her head back in. She pointed at them.

“No.”

Chapter Text

Thursday, October 2nd, 1997

About an hour later, Xander and Willow decided to make an appearance in the lounge, to check on Buffy, and maybe say hi to Joyce and keep her away from the principal while they were at it.

“Hey, Buff,” Xander greeted. The lounge had been fully transformed; they'd hung the 'Welcome Parents' banner over one of the open sides, and set out two rectangular tables, one in each side, with table skirts; now, one of them had a coffeepot and paper cups, and the other had a punchbowl and cups, which Buffy was filling. He and Willow set the veggie platters on a couple of the smaller round tables in the lounge.

“Hey, guys.”

“What kind of punch did you make?” Will asked.

“Uh, I made lemonade. Made it fresh and everything!” Buffy finished filling a cup and handed it to Willow, then reached for another for Xander.

“How much sugar did you use?” Will asked, as she put it to her lips.

Buffy paused.

“Sugar?”

While the blonde was staring at the punchbowl, Willow's face scrunched in disgust and she spit it back into the cup. She set the cup down.

“It's... very good,” she said, working her face until it looked normal.

Xander slowly set his cup down while Buffy wasn't looking.

Buffy took a breath.

“Okay. Now all I have to do is keep my mother and Snyder from crossing paths for the rest of the night.”

“Hey, that's why we're here,” Xander assured her. She smiled.

“Hi, Joyce!” Willow called over their shoulders, and he and Buffy turned.

“Hey!” he agreed, as Joyce walked into the lounge and up to them

“Hi, kids. Hi, honey. Did you uh, do all this?” she asked, looking around at the decor.

“Yeah!” Buffy said proudly. “Um, here, have some lemonade!”

She handed her mother a cup; behind Buffy, Willow shook her head urgently, and Xander gave Joyce a wide-eyed warning look of his own.

Buffy's eyebrows shot up as she looked past her mom, right at Snyder who was moving away from a group of adults and straight toward them.

“-while Will and Xan show you the library,” she said quickly. “I have to stay here and hostess.”

“Right, the library,” Willow agreed, as she and Xander each took one of Joyce's arms, and then froze. “Uh- oh, no, Giles and everyone-”

“-is locked in there studying,” Buffy finished. “Right. French class it is!”

He and Will nodded, then ushered Joyce away down the hall. The older woman chuckled.

“So what's up with the lemonade?” she asked quietly, when they were out of earshot.

“She forgot the sugar,” Willow said. Joyce laughed.

“A little nervous?”

“Pff, why would she be- yeah, very,” Xander said. Joyce smiled. She took a sip from her cup anyway, then made a face and swallowed.

“Yep.” She poured the rest down a water fountain as they passed. “So, Xander, where are your parents?” Joyce asked. He blinked.

“Uhhh... probably at home?” he guessed. He wasn't sure why it was relevant. “Dad might be at the bar.”

Joyce's eyes widened briefly, narrowed into a glare at nothing in particular, and then she replaced it with a tight smile.

“Well, then I suppose they won't mind you staying the night,” she said cheerfully. “Willow, are yours somewhere?”

“Richmond, I think.”

Joyce's cheek twitched.

“Virginia?” she asked flatly.

“Mm-hm.” Willow nodded. “Dad's giving a lecture.”

“How do you kids feel about lasagna?”

“Um... can we do veggie?” Willow asked. “It's Rosh Hashanah, I... maybe we could keep kosher?”

Joyce's cheek twitched again.

“Absolutely! I should have a recipe somewhere.”

They spent the next three and a half hours showing Joyce around the school, doing, Xander thought, a highly commendable job of ensuring there were no teachers around any time they showed her one of their classrooms.

And since we didn't point it out, maybe she didn't even notice?

Willow had gushed for fifteen minutes at one point on the amenities of the computer lab, which Xander thought definitely ought to have distracted Joyce from such subjects as ‘grades’ and ‘teachers’ and ‘meeting the principal’.

Eventually, they ran out of things to show her or distract her with, and found themselves coming down the stairs across from the lounge, where Buffy was talking to Cordelia; Amy and Jon and Andj had joined them as well, and were plundering one of the veggie platters.

Joyce led them back to Buffy.

“Well, I believe that I have seen every classroom on campus, and, just as I get there all your teachers miraculously have stepped out.” She side-eyed Xander and Willow at that; they hunched their shoulders a little, awkwardly.

“Oh,” Buffy said unconvincingly, glancing off to the side, a brief flash of fear passing over her face. “Oh. Um, but you haven't seen the boiler room yet! And you know, that's really interesting, what with the boiler being in the room and all...”

Snyder appeared, between Buffy and Cordelia. Joyce stuck out her hand in greeting.

“Hi, I'm Joyce Summers,” she offered genially; then, slowly, lowered her hand when Snyder didn't so much as glance at it. “I'm... Buffy's mother?”

Snyder looked at Buffy, who sort of whimpered quietly, then back at Joyce.

“I'm afraid we need to talk.” He gestured down the hall. “My office is down here.”

He turned and walked away, Joyce following after a glance at Buffy, who turned to watch them go. Andrew and Jonathan and Amy ceased their grazing and walked up beside the rest of them, following suit.

“He didn't look very happy,” Buffy said.

“But you did such a good job,” Willow encouraged.

“When they're done talking...” Cordelia trailed off.

“What?” Buffy asked, shifting uneasily.

“My guess? Tenth high school reunion...” She turned and looked at Buffy, nodding once. “You'll still be grounded.”

Buffy bore a despondent expression in silence.

“Cordy?” Willow said.

“Hm?”

“Have some lemonade.”

Xander turned away to hide a snicker.

###

The other teens wandered off, but Xander and Willow waited with Buffy - not just because they were coming to her house later - sitting around one of the tables, as Parent-Teacher Night wound down and people started to leave; Buffy sort of morosely picked at a veggie plate. They stood when they saw Joyce and Snyder returning. Joyce looked at Buffy. She didn't look thrilled.

“In the car,” she said, firmly. Buffy whimpered. “Now.”

She turned and started walking, Buffy following; Joyce paused and raised an eyebrow at Xander and Willow, who'd remained where they were, then she nodded toward the exit.

Cool, well, at least we still get food.

They followed, Xander leaning back at the last moment to grab another slice of pepper. Snyder, looking extremely satisfied, walked past them toward the upper part of the lounge. Behind them, the lights started turning off, first the one to the upper part, then the one to the lounge and the hallway sections around it, dropping them into the evening darkness.

Glass shattered.

Xander spun to see three people leaping through the big picture windows on the upper level of the lounge, the glass scattering around them, followed by more.

Vampires, snarling, growling.

Remaining parents and teachers screamed and ran; Buffy took a step closer, coming up beside him and Willow.

In the middle of the vampires, Spike stood, in game face; two big burly guys were to his right, another to his left with a shorter chick.

Spike shrugged, languid.

“What can I say? Couldn't wait.”

For a moment, neither group moved; then the vampires ran forward, leaping down the short flight of steps; Buffy seized a plastic chair and hurled it, into Spike, knocking him back into two of his buddies, all of them falling backward onto the steps. Buffy grabbed her mom's hand.

“Run!”

The four of them ran from the lounge; to the right, they saw a vampire enter from the door down that hallway; they turned, running the other way.

“Nobody gets out,” Spike commanded from behind. “Especially the girl!”

They slid to a stop, another vampire standing just inside the front doors ahead of them.

“They've got the exits,” Buffy realized. “This way!” she yelled, at the remaining adults. “Everybody this way, come on!” She urged people down the hallway further into the school, Xander and Willow following suit, the three of them turning to put the hallway behind them, and facing as many of the vampires as possible. “Come on!”

Adults screamed and ran past them as directed; as the vampires ran after them, Xander grabbed a janitor's cart and shoved it, knocking them over, and then followed the girls and the adults down the hallway.

“The library!” Willow suggested, and Buffy nodded and led them that direction; they burst through a set of doors to see Giles and Ms. Calendar run out of the library ahead of them as they all ran toward them.

“What the hell-” Giles raised.

“It's Spike and an army!” Buffy yelled; then, a warning, “Look out!”

Giles and Ms. Calendar spun to see the vampire that stood down the hall past them; Ms. Calendar yelled, and Giles urged, “Back!”

They ran back into the library and slammed the door, the vampire ramming it ineffectively while Buffy led the rest of them the other way into a science lab.

“In here! Now!” She stood at the door while Xander and Willow stood inside and pulled anyone moving too slow, the three of them being admittedly slightly less gentle with Snyder. “Barricade the door!” Buffy ordered as she slipped inside, and Xander helped a couple of adults drag a cabinet in place while Buffy ran across the room to close and lock the other door. As soon as it slammed, the blonde slumped against it with a sigh of relief.

The classroom lights went out.

“Oh my god!” Snyder blurted.

“They cut the power,” Willow realized.

“Great,” Xander said.

It was not great.

###

Amy, Jonathan, and Andrew skidded around the corner and into a classroom, running to the back of the room to dive behind the teacher's desk.

“Ohhh, oh god, oh god,” Andrew whimpered quietly.

“Okay, it's fine, we just gotta hide until Buffy takes care of it,” Jonathan whispered. “She's like Power Girl or something. We just gotta-”

“-stay quiet,” Amy hissed, and the boys shut themselves up.

###

Cordelia slammed the utility room door shut and shoved a set of shelves in front of it, then seized a broom for self-defense and backed into the middle of the room.

“Okay. Okay. Oh, god, why don't I carry stakes?”

###

“Who are those people?” one of the parents demanded, while Xander and Willow helped Buffy stack some boxes in front of the second door. “What do they want?”

“I didn't get much of a look, but is there something wrong with their faces? I...” Joyce started, to be interrupted by Snyder, whose breathing was starting to pick up.

“Yes! PCP! It's, a gang. On PCP. We've gotta get out of here.”

The principal grabbed a stool and moved to set it under the high window at the back of the room and climb on top of it. Buffy rushed to him.

“You can't go outside they'll kill you!”

“You don't tell me! I tell you!” Nevertheless, he moved to jump down as Buffy tugged him, landing on his feet. Buffy took hold of his jacket.

“They will kill everybody in this room,” she said, before pushing away from him and making eye contact with the rest of the adults. “Nobody goes out, nobody comes in until I say so. Do you hear me?”

Snyder ground his teeth.

“Who do you think you are?”

“I'm the one that knows how to stop them.”

Buffy started to cross the room, looking up at the drop ceiling, but her mom took her by the arms.

“Buffy, are you crazy? Look, I know you've been accused of fighting and other things, but those guys are serious, you can't go out there!”

“I know. That's why I'm going up there.” Buffy nodded to the ceiling. Joyce let go of her and blinked as Buffy hoisted a stool up onto the lab table, then climbed up and slid open the ceiling. She glanced at Xander and Willow. “Guys?”

“We got it,” Xander agreed, Willow nodding. Buffy smiled. She looked at Joyce.

“Don't worry, Mom.”

She reached up, grabbing a couple of pipes, and lifted herself up by the arms to slither into the ceiling.

Joyce covered her mouth with her hands, staring after her; Willow walked over to her.

One of the other parents slumped against a table.

“Oh, oh god, what about my daughter? Amy's out there, somewhere, I-”

“Hey, whoa. Mr. Madison?” Xander guessed, and the man nodded. “It's gonna be okay. Okay?”

“But, but...”

Sure, he didn't know, for sure, but he knew Buffy would do her very best to save as many people as possible; and, he knew Amy and the guys at least knew about what was going on, which gave them a leg up on handling whatever they had to. He had to have faith in his friends.

The alternative was freaking out, which would probably have been nice but wouldn't help anyone at all.

###

“Hey hey hey, what are you doing?” Jenny demanded, her heart in her throat, as Rupert took an axe from the table and walked toward the doors. “There are at least three vampires in that hall, goddess only know how many others in the building!”

Rupert, starting to move a chair away from the pile blocking the doors (sure, she had the place warded now, but that was no reason to skimp on precautions), turned to her.

“Listen, I am the Watcher. I am responsible for her, and I, I have to go.”

“Rupert...” She swallowed, and gave in. “Be careful.”

Rupert nodded.

“Push these back as soon as I'm-”

With a crash, the ceiling opened, and a blur slammed into the ground. Buffy stood up.

“Buffy! You're alright!” Rupert realized, lowering the axe he'd raised defensively. Buffy stripped off her shrug, and Jenny took it as the blonde walked to the library counter where her purse lay.

“How are the others?”

Buffy slung her purse across her body as she answered.

“Principal Snyder, my mom, and four others are locked in the science room across the hall with Xander and Willow. Amy and Cordy and the guys ran the other way. I don't know if they're...” She trailed off and took a breath. “Okay, I'm going to take the vamps out in the hall, after that, you get my mom and the others out- through the stacks?” she suggested.

Rupert frowned.

“Let me help you.”

Buffy fixed him with an even gaze.

“Giles. My mother's in that room. If I don't make it out of here, I know you'll make sure she does.”

“Bloody right, I will.” He adjusted his grip on the axe. “Fair enough, what's your plan?”

“Well, they split us up to hold us here, so I'm gonna take 'em one on one. Set 'em up- and knock 'em down.” The blonde slid a stool over from the counter, and Jenny held it as she climbed back into the ceiling.

“Watch your back,” Rupert called after her. When she'd gone, he closed his eyes and breathed, then opened them. “Right, then. Let's go get that way out opened.”

###

Xander and Willow perched on one of the lab tables to wait, Xander fiddling with the stake in one of his jacket pockets. Vampires continued to bang on the doors, and Snyder paced.

“Why don't you sit down?” Joyce suggested tersely. Snyder stopped and looked at her.

“This is my school. What I say goes, and I say this is not happening.”

“Well, then, I guess the danger's over!” Joyce said, sarcastic.

“I'm not waiting for them to open the doors, I'm gettin' out!” one of the adults decided, rushing toward the window. Xander and Willow slid off the table to stop him.

“Don't be an idiot!” Joyce snapped.

“I'm beginning to see a certain mother-daughter resemblance,” Snyder said, glaring. Joyce stared at him, and Xander was pretty sure he saw her mouth twitch briefly into a proud smile.

The adult elbowed him in the chest, which made him let go more from surprise than any pain - the guy really hadn't done it very hard - and pulled out of Willow's grip, climbing on the table at the back of the room and hoisting the window open.

“No!” Joyce called. “Look, you heard what Buffy said!”

Yet again, Xander sort of envied Buffy - that confidence Joyce had in her, to side with her in this situation rather than the school principal, was almost unfathomable; sure, his uncle Rory might believe him in a situation like this, but he'd believe most things once. His dad would probably have sided with Snyder even if Snyder said out loud that he was wrong.

The principal stripped off his jacket and tossed it to the side.

“She's a student, what does she know?”

He shoved Willow away from grabbing the other adult's leg and pulling him down, Xander catching her, then started to help the man bend the lowest two metal slats out of the way.

Xander growled a little and moved toward the two of them, but Willow held him back.

A louder crack replaced the thudding that had been coming from the second door of the lab, and he turned to see a fire axe being pulled out of a narrow hole in the door.

The un-obedient adult finished prying the slats out of the way and stuck his head and shoulders through; then there was a snarling sound, and he started thrashing and yelling. Xander seized his legs and tried to pull him back, Joyce appearing at his side and reaching to help-

then the man slipped out of his grip, and Xander was left holding his shoes as the man was yanked out the window.

Joyce pulled a stunned Snyder out of the way and pushed the upper slat back, and Xander joined her to bend the lower, before the woman swung the glass back down and latched it again. She turned and fixed Snyder with a glare almost strong enough to burn the remainder of the man's hair away. Xander folded his arms and stood to her side between her and Willow, feeling more confident than he usually was when facing the principal.

Yeah- I'm with Joyce Summers. What are you gonna do about it?

They moved back into the middle of the room, and Snyder backed further away from the window, so Xander called that a win.

From outside, they heard one of the vampires tell his buddy he was almost in. Xander handed Willow his second stake, and they walked to the door. Joyce grabbed the stool from atop the lab table and raised it; Xander decided not to try telling her to leave it to them. They could just see out the hole in the door; they could see the vamp pull the axe away, pull it back, ready to swing once more, the hole almost large enough he could worm inside; then a blur fell from the ceiling and slammed into him. Buffy raised a stake and dealt with him swiftly, then stood and tossed her head to throw her hair out of her face.

Joyce pushed between him and Willow.

“Buffy, are you okay?”

“I'm fine, mom.”

“Buffy, look, get out of here, okay? We'll be all right,” Joyce urged. Buffy shook her head.

“Look - just hold on for one more minute, until I tell you to open the door.”

She moved away from the hole, out of view. Joyce leaned back, biting her lip.

###

Amy startled as the classroom door opened, and Andrew slammed his hands over his mouth to muffle a squeal; Amy stuck her head around the corner of the desk.

They hadn't been found; Sheila entered, entangled with some guy in his early twenties. Flirty, she pushed him away and turned - and she didn't see what Amy did- the guy's face went horrible, his brow twisted, yellow eyes and fangs.

###

Xander released a breath of relief, and Joyce almost sagged, when Buffy reappeared at the hole, fire axe in one hand. He and Willow and Joyce made quick work of the boxes they'd piled up before, and Joyce pulled the door open and hugged her daughter. Buffy let her for a moment, then pushed away.

“Okay, come on, everyone out,” Buffy said, ushering everyone out of the room. “Come on, there's a way out through the library.”

She led the way to the library doors and waited outside them, Xander and Willow bringing up the rear of the pack until everyone had filed in. Her mother stopped beside her as well.

“You're coming, too.”

“In a minute. Go!” Buffy said, then ran off before her mother could stop her. Joyce looked helplessly at him and Willow.

“We'll be right there,” he agreed, then he and Willow followed Buffy down the hall.

###

Amy's eyes went wide.

Vampire!

Sheila was sort of half-giggling, as the vampire's hand landed on her collar from behind, the other on her waist.

“Jesus, handsy, ain't ya? C'mon, there's a closet in here.”

Then the vampire spun her around, putting his back to Amy and the guys, and letting Sheila see his face.

“Holy shitfuck!” she got out, before he sank his fangs into her neck.

Amy muffled a gasp.

“We gotta help her, gotta do something!” Andj whimper-hissed.

Jonathan looked at him, and Amy, and over at the scene playing out before them; then swallowed, took a deep breath, and squeezing his eyes shut he kicked at the wooden leg of the desk as hard as he could with a yell of effort. It snapped off, the desk crashing to the ground as Jon grabbed the desk leg and ran at the vampire. The vampire had started pulling away from Sheila, turning at Jon's yell and the crash of the desk, and he was just in time for Jon's second yell as he slammed thestake into the vampire's chest.

The vampire exploded into dust, Jonathan stumbling another step and then stopping. Jon stood there, panting, and brushed hair off his forehead with the back of his hand.

Amy felt warm, suddenly. And a little fluttery.

Jon stared at his makeshift stake and then started breathing more heavily.

“Oh shit, holy shit I just- oh my god, I'm never doing that again, how does Buffy do that?”

He started shaking, and the stake clattered to the floor. Next to it, Sheila had collapsed to her hands and knees, one hand on her neck covering the bite, and sort of whimpering. Amy and Andrew scrambled over to her.

“Hey, hey, it's okay now,” Andj soothed.

“You're gonna be alright,” Amy agreed, peeling her hand away a little to look at the bite. Ohhh, yikes.

“What the fuck what the fuck what the fuuuuck?” Sheila whispered, staring at the floor.

“Jon, um, can, can you take off your shirtsleeve?” Amy asked quickly. “And, Andj, pass me my purse?” Andrew leaned over toward the desk and then slid her purse over. “Thanks.” She started digging through it quickly for a pad with one hand, holding her other hand out to take Jonathan's sleeve, then glanced up and choked.

“What? You said to take off my shirt!” he protested, as he dropped the bundle of fabric into her frozen hand. She yanked her eyes away - when the hell had he gotten muscles? - and started tearing the sleeve off.

“Shirt sleeve. Sleeve!”

“Oh. I- I heard please,” he said. He sounded sheepish but she didn't let herself check.

###

Xander and Willow readied their stakes as they followed Buffy back toward the lounge. She paused just outside the double doors, looking through the window where Spike stood in the indoor commons with his back to them, a pair of vampires nearby, one of the big guys and the chick.

“What are you guys doing?” she asked, quietly, not turning to face them.

“Now that Parent-Teacher Night's over, I figured I'd raid those veggie platters,” Xander said blandly.

“I could really go for some lemonade,” Willow agreed, “my throat's kinda dry.”

Buffy huffed a laugh.

“Fine. C'mon.”

She pushed open the doors.

###

Amy quickly opened the pad, and replaced Sheila's shaking hand with the absorbent side, then wrapped Jon's sleeve around her neck twice before tying it off.

“Is that too tight?” she asked, nudging Sheila slightly to catch her attention. The other girl took a startled breath, then another, and then blinked at her, feeling at the makeshift bandaging; Amy pressed on her hand to signal her to keep pressure on it.

“It's, 'sfine... was that a fucking vampire?”

“Uh, yeah.” “Yep.” “Pretty much,” the three of them said, after sharing a quick look.

“Jesus. Was that why he had a stake in his backpack?” Sheila muttered, although it seemed rhetorical.

More importantly...

“It sounds like the screaming stopped,” Amy said, perking up.

And, pressure or no pressure, given sanitary pads weren't exactly designed to stop bleeding- they should probably get her to a hospital.

###

Xander and Willow followed Buffy through the doors. Slowly, Spike turned to face them. He was holding a tall metal pole, maybe one of the frame sections from the picture windows in the lounge.

“Do we really need weapons for this?” Buffy said, axe at the ready; that got the other two vamps to turn and see them as well, though Spike held them back with a hand.

“I just like them. They make me feel all manly.”

They looked at each other for a moment, then Spike tossed the pole to the side, and Buffy dropped the axe and folded her hands behind her back.

“The last Slayer I killed... she begged for her life.” As Buffy moved to the center of the hallway, Spike walked toward her, Xander and Willow holding their position. “You don't strike me as the begging kind.”

“You shouldn't have come here.”

Spike chuckled.

“No. I messed up your doilies and stuff. Hell, Darla said the same thing. Had some plan or something, but what does she know?” He waved a hand dismissively, though Xander tensed at the mention of the vampire's name, cold dread and hot anger in equal measure. She's back? “But I just got so bored.” Spike chuckled again. “I'll tell you what. As a personal favor - from me to you, I'll make it quick. It won't hurt a bit.”

Buffy shook her head slowly.

“No, Spike. It's gonna hurt a lot.”

Then Spike swung, signaling the other vamps to rush Xander and Willow, and he didn't have a lot of time to watch the fight. He and Will moved, dodging, ending up back to back further down the hall from Spike and Buffy's fight.

“Duck!” Will called from behind; he did, letting the chick's fist swing over both their heads, then he pushed up and kicked out, getting the guy in the knee. he heard something crack, but it mostly seemed to piss the guy off as he lunged.

“Move right!” Xander said, and he and Will skipped to his left as the vamp rushed forward and into the chick, who growled at him and shoved him back toward them as the two teens reoriented - now they were backed against one of the walls, side by side. The guy stumbled toward them, the damage to his knee now more obvious, and Xander lashed out with a punch, snapping his face to the side. Beside him, Willow reached down the collar of her dress - which he very much did not pay attention to, nosiree - and pulled out a Star of David half the size of her palm. Both vamps hissed and pulled back, which distracted them so Xander could lunge forward and stake his opponent. That got the chick angry enough to ignore the pain or whatever and lunge; Xander dodged and kicked her toward where he'd been standing, enough that her momentum rammed her head into the wall, and while she braced herself to pull out, Willow rammed a stake into her back.

Willow laughed in relief, and they high-fived before turning back toward Buffy.

The vampire had ended up, somehow, with his fist stuck into the wall like the chick-vamp's head had been, and Buffy was quite literally kicking his ass.

“Now that hurt.” Spike pulled, and with a crash, yanked half a wall stud out, smacking her in the face with it before they could move and knocking her to the ground. “But not as much as this will.”

Looming over her, he raised the two-by-four high, and Xander and Willow rushed toward them, hoping they could do something.

It wasn't needed.

The flat of the fire axe smacked into Spike's head, and he stumbled and fell to the ground, staring up. Joyce raised the axe high again.

“You get the hell away from my daughter.”

Buffy pushed to her feet, standing beside her mother. Spike growled, looking at the two of them - then, back down the hall at Xander and Willow.

“Women!”

He stood, dropping the board, then turned and ran, leaping up the stairs in the lounge and leaving through the very window from whence he came.

Okay did he just include me in that? Xander realized, feeling hot. It was probably rude, but on the other hand, Willow had just staked a vampire, and Joyce had just smacked one with an axe, so it was sort of a compliment too?

Joyce sighed in relief, dropping the axe. Buffy stared at her, face a picture of disbelief. Joyce shook her head.

“Nobody lays a hand on my little girl.”

Buffy seized her in a hug, which Joyce returned. Xander and Willow moseyed over, only to be surprised by Joyce pulling them into it as well.

Which was okay, really.

Xander wondered, though, if maybe being the Slayer wasn't the reason, or the only one, that Buffy was such a badass- maybe she got it from her mom.

###

The cops arrived not long after; Xander rolled his eyes. Given the way the local PD always showed up after they were actually needed, he didn't exactly have a high opinion of them.

Amy had a tearful reunion with her father, and Sheila ended up in an ambulance and headed toward the hospital with a barbecue fork injury, apparently. The lights were back on, and Joyce led the three of them out of the school, Xander and Willow behind her and Buffy on the sidewalk.

“So, what did you and Principal Snyder talk about, anyway?” Buffy finally asked.

“Principal Snyder said you were a troublemaker.” They stopped walking, Joyce turning to face her daughter. “And I couldn't care less. I have a daughter who can take care of herself. Who's brave, and resourceful, and thinks of others in a crisis.” She laughed. “No matter who you hang out with or what dumb teenage stuff you think you need to do - I'm gonna sleep better knowing that.”

While a slow smile spread across Buffy's face, Joyce looked over and ruffled Xander's hair.

“Gah, hey!”

“And that goes for you two, too,” she said.

“But how long 'til this wears off, and you start ragging on me again?” Buffy asked skeptically.

“Oh, at least a week and a half.” Joyce turned and started walking again. Buffy grinned, glancing at him and Willow smiling back.

“Very cool!”

“Now, come on, kids. I believe I promised you lasagna.”

Chapter Text

Thursday, October 2nd, 1997

Xander and the girls gathered in the Summers kitchen, him and Willow leaning against the counter while Buffy opened the fridge. She looked over her shoulder at him and raised a can of cola in question; he nodded, and she tossed it. He caught it, then realized they'd just thrown a can of soda around and now he couldn't drink it.

As Joyce looked through her cookbooks, she said, “Now, I had a Jewish friend in college, so I know about the holidays-”

“Aunt Lisa?” Buffy asked, and Joyce nodded and continued,

“-but I thought Rosh Hashanah was in September?”

“Um, yeah, usually,” Willow said. “It's a lunar calendar, though, so, it changes.”

“Ahh, gotcha.”

Joyce pulled out a cookbook full of added sheets of lined paper in between the printed pages, and turned through it.

“Here it is!” she announced. “Okay - Buffy, you can handle the veggies, you did such a nice job earlier and I didn't get to try any - Willow, if you could turn the oven on to 375, and get the marinara sauce out of the pantry - Xander, we'll need the big bowl, the measuring spoons for the spices, and if you could start by grating the cheese, that would be lovely.”

Buffy leaned around her shoulder. “Spinach, garlic onion, mmhm, mmhm - on it.”

“Uh, which- right, got it,” Xander said, after checking quickly for the list of spices.

“I found the noodles, too,” Willow said, pulling them out of the pantry.

“Oh, perfect.”

They went on like that, with Joyce giving directions as the three teenagers worked, until they finally closed the door on the pan and Willow set the timer for an hour. Which did mean they'd be eating around midnight, but frankly they'd eaten worse meals at worse times.

Once it was in, the three of them settled in to watch part of Some Kind of Wonderful and relax after the day they'd had - dealing with all those vampires was almost as stressful as the rest of the day had been already, so Xander figured their relaxation was well-deserved - and Joyce went up to her room.

“Oh, timer's going off,” Willow noticed, and Xander got off the couch.

“I'll go tell Joyce.”

“I got it,” Buffy said.

“It's fine, I'm already up,” Xander assured her, on his way to the stairs.

“Yeah, but I wanted to get my water from my room anyway,” she said, keeping pace.

“Well, I'm already on the stairs.”

They stared at each other for a second, each with a hand on the banister.

“Both go?”

“Sure.”

Buffy laughed.

“What was that all about?” she asked, sounded as bewildered as Xander felt.

“I have no idea,” he said, laughing with her as they ascended the steps. Xander knocked on Joyce's door, and Buffy spoke up.

“The timer's going off!”

“I, I'll, be out in a minute kids,” Joyce called; her voice sounded strange, thick, like...

“Is she crying?” Buffy mouthed, eyes wide.

“What do we do?” Xander mouthed back.

Buffy frowned for a second, then nodded when she thought of something.

“Okay!” Buffy called back. “We'll go set the table!”

“Why was she crying?” Xander wondered as they went back down the stairs; then had a thought, “Stress?”

Buffy nodded slowly.

“I bet you're right. I guess I forgot Mom's not really as used to this kind of thing as we are.”

“Imagine if all our problems could be solved by Joyce swinging an axe at them.”

Buffy chuckled.

“Let's just... give her some space, and I'll talk to her later, if she wants to talk about it,” she suggested, and Xander nodded an agreement.

Willow had already pulled the lasagna out to cool when they rejoined her, so he and Buffy pulled out the dishes and silverware and got the table set up. When Joyce came down, Xander could only tell her eyes were red because he knew she'd been crying; she seemed back to her normal self, other than the occasional quiet glances, and smiles of relief, that she'd make at them when she thought they weren't looking.

It made him feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy.

Xander and Willow had spent the night at Joyce's insistence, what with the events of the evening and Willow's parents not even being home, and he and Will didn't have any desire to argue. The next morning, Willow borrowed a skirt and top off Buffy, and Xander threw on a shirt he'd left at Buffy's at some point and was otherwise fine. Joyce got a call that confirmed that school was canceled for the day, which was even better - that left them with a three-day weekend.

They ended up rewatching a lot of John Hughes movies.

###

The phone rang, and Rupert answered.

“Hi, Rupert Giles?”

“Er, yes?” He had been about to begin preparing lunch, which Jenny would be arriving to join him for in about an hour, so he was hoping this call would be resolved quickly. The voice sounded familiar, however...

“This is Joyce Summers. I need your help.”

Rupert immediately leapt up and began pulling on his jacket, keeping the telephone pinned between his chin and shoulder.

“Where are you? I'll come at once.”

“What? No, it's, it's about Xander and Willow.”

He stopped, with one arm half in the sleeve.

“Hm?”

“Did you know it's Rosh Hashanah?” Mrs. Summers said, which was something of a non sequitur.

“The, ah, Jewish new year?”

“Yes. And Willow's parents - who supposedly celebrate it - are in Richmond. Virginia.”

“Ah.”

“As far as I can tell, they're gone at least half the month. And Xander... leaving aside some of the things I've overheard from the kids, I've driven Xander home before, and...”

“Yes, I, have some idea as to what you are referring.”

“Someone needs to be looking out for these kids, and if their parents won't, I'm happy to.”

He returned to his seat, slipping his arm back out of his sleeve as he did and returning the telephone to his hand.

“I, I agree, but, I'm not quite clear on what you need my help with.”

“Report cards. I seriously doubt Xander's parents bother to look, and Willow's parents barely even live here. I want copies. And I'd like to be listed as an emergency contact.”

He could likely take care of adjusting the relevant records easily, but he was also aware that the school had a tendency to collate the strangest collections of information on the computer system, which he was not anywhere like as well-versed with.

He did, however, know someone who was.

And knowing how she, too, felt about the children, Jenny would likely want to be involved in any case.

“I believe I could manage that. Although, if it's a matter of printing additional copies, it would perhaps be best to, to hand them over in person.”

“Can you get free for lunch? Maybe next week?”

Hmm... Well, he could never be certain when the children would decide they wished to eat in the library, but- ah!

“Tuesday?” he suggested. “Eleven?”

“Tuesday,” Mrs. Summers agreed. “I'll see you then.”

Chapter Text

Tuesday, October 7th, 1997

“Deliverance aims her crossbows at the guy. ‘Repent, you fiend! Make manifest Mister Madness' malevolent machinations!’” Amy threatened.

Jonathan whistled, and the rest of them clapped.

“Nice one,” Jon complimented.

“Thanks!” Amy said with a wide smile. “Worked that one up in the lunch line.”

“Roll, uh, make it Intimidation plus two,” Jon decided.

“Cool!”

###

Joyce Summers arrived at the small cafe, and recognized the car that would sometimes drop the kids off when they were studying late at school, so she parked beside it.

While she was getting her purse, both front doors of the car opened, and Mr. Giles stepped out of the drivers' seat, while from the other door emerged a dark-haired young woman a bit younger than Joyce. She recognized the woman, having met her briefly in the chaos that was Parent-Teacher Night, but had never gotten her name.

Joyce got out of the jeep and rounded to hood to meet them on the sidewalk in front of the cafe.

“Mr. Giles - may I call you Rupert?” she asked, and he nodded. “It's nice to see you again. And, I don't think we were ever introduced...?”

“Jenny Calendar,” the other woman said, shaking her hand. “I'm the kids' Computer Science teacher, Rupert asked me to help with the digital part. He's still not comfortable with computers.”

“Oh, I'm with you,” Joyce told him. “I had Willow help set up some program for the gallery. She had to explain it to me about four times.”

“Mm. She is rather knowledgeable,” Rupert said, and Jenny nodded.

“She doesn't even do assignments in my class, I just have her help me teach.”

“Well, shall we, ah, sit?” Rupert suggested, indicating a table. The women agreed, and the three of them sat, Joyce on one side and them on the other. Once a waitress had come and taken their order for drinks, Rupert opened his bag and removed a pair of envelopes, which he set on the center of the table.

“September's report cards, as well as those from the latter semester of last year. And here,” he said, adding two further sheets of paper atop, “are the forms for the, the emergency contact. If you will fill out your information, and, um, sign, I will file them when we return to the school.”

Joyce smiled, taking a pen from her purse and spinning the papers to face her.

“Thank you.”

She finished up as the waitress brought their drinks - Rupert's tea, which he made a face at and did not drink more of, and coffee for Joyce and Jenny - and then opened the first of the envelopes after they'd ordered their lunch.

She hummed thoughtfully a few times as she paged back through the grade reports, having started with Xander's - it was odd that he had a barely-passing grade in Gym, considering the fact he seemed fairly athletic - and then noticed something.

“Huh!”

“What is it?” Jenny asked. Joyce looked up and smiled.

“Here,” she said, handing over the page, one of Xander's grades from the year before. “This is the first time the kids came over to study.”

“Oh, whoa.”

“Yep. I saw the same thing in Buffy's report cards.”

Xander's grades weren't As down the line or anything, but they were nowhere near failing; and after that first study session, in most of his classes there was at least a ten-percent rise on average.

Joyce had suspected the reason, but hadn't been able to confirm it - when it was just Buffy's, it could have been her getting settled into a new routine and new friendships after the move. Which was still the case, but the added knowledge of the benefit of their study nights made her feel better about her decision to sign up for the student exchange the school was doing, and the kids' grade prospects even if they got distracted by the exchange student.

The kids are over all the time, so that should be fun for them.

Not to mention, having someone else stay in her home for a couple of weeks would be a good way to figure out if she needed to change anything she hadn't thought of, should Xander ever need to do the same.

###

Wednesday morning, Xander got to school to discover that it was short schedule; after class, they'd be going to the museum.

Woo, field trip!

And, as a bonus, he and the girls had the bus seat entirely to themselves this time.

Now, as long as he didn't get possessed again, he saw no downsides to this.

Buffy interrupted their casual conversation with a groan as they arrived at the museum, and Xander followed her gaze to see a sign near the parking lot announcing CULTURAL EXCHANGE.

“What?” he checked, as they all got out of the bus and ignored the teacher's instructions. They put on their sunglasses - in three different styles, Buffy's round sxties-chic ones with the translucent pink frames, Willow's oval ones with thin black frames, and Xander's aviators he'd found in Jesse's closet - and started walking.

“Ugh. Mom signed up to host an exchange student,” Buffy said. “She told me this morning, and I managed to forget until just now. This is so unfair,” she groused, as they walked between across the grassy grounds toward the front entrance. Willow tilted her head.

“I don't think it's that bad.”

Buffy looked at her. “It's the uber-suck. Mom could have at least warned us.”

“Well, a lot of parents are doing it this year,” Xander reminded her. “It's part of this whole cultural exchange megillah. The exhibit, the dance...”

“I have the best costume for the dance,” Willow said, with a happy hop - though looking off to the side, more excited about it than wanting to elaborate.

“A complete stranger in my house for two weeks. I'm gonna be insane!” Buffy said, looking between the two of them as she finished speaking. “A danger to myself and others within three days, I swear.”

“I think the exchange student program is cool.” The girls looked at him. “I do!” he insisted. “It's a beautiful melding of two cultures!”

“Have you ever done an exchange program?” Buffy asked, one eyebrow rising above the frame of her sunglasses. He thought about it.

“My dad tried to sell me to some Armenians once, does that count?” he checked. Buffy gaped for a moment, then shook her head.

“No, Xander. I think that's child abuse.”

He wasn't sure that was accurate. Abuse was supposed to be really bad, he just had a kinda shitty home life - it wasn't even as bad as some of the people he knew. Poor parenting, he'd grant her, but only because she had Joyce so the bar was a lot higher.

They ascended the steps of the museum, taking their shades off as they passed beneath the banner hanging between the pillars, proclaiming 'CULTURAL EXCHANGE - SPECIAL EXHIBIT - TREASURES OF SOUTH AMERICA'. It was all something the town was putting on - supposedly, a couple of the other schools were doing the student exchange too, although if they were doing a dance as well, it wasn't Friday at the Bronze like SHS's was.

The South America exhibit wasn't actually where they started; they roamed around the natural history part, stopping for a while at a display of a tyrannosaurus skeleton menacing a triceratops, while Willow regaled them with dinosaur facts over the voice of the dinosaur exhibit's guide a few yards away.

It's just like we're six again.

Not that he minded listening to her talk.

Cordelia's voice came from off to their left, the brunette gabbing with a couple of her social group as they walked past, looking at some kind of booklet. Buffy stepped over.

“What are you lookin' at?” she asked. Cordy tilted the paper slightly so Buffy could see.

“Pictures of our exchange students, look - one hundred percent Swedish, one hundred percent gorgeous, one hundred percent staying at my house!” she said, voice rising toward a squeal in the last part. Buffy kept pace with her, and Xander and Willow stepped up to join them, as they moved toward the South American exhibit - a rectangular room, with exhibits in glass cases along the long walls, some on a couple of groups of stands in the center, and a far wall open in the left half to reveal further space and a sign reading 'Inca Princess Exhibit'.

“So how's yours?” Cordy asked. “Visually, I mean.”

“I dunno. Guy-like?” The blonde shrugged.

“Guy-like?” Xander repeated.

“I was just told ‘guy’.”

Cordy pursed her lips.

“You didn't look at him first? He could be dogly.” She shook her head. “You live on the edge,” she said, walking off.

“I mean, you don't know!” Buffy called after her, though her voice trailed off a little. “He could be cute...”

Xander raised his eyebrows, and mimed like he was holding a microphone toward her, as they kept walking along the right side of the room.

“Ooh, a cute boy, living in your house? And how do you feel about that, Miss Summers?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

Buffy rolled her eyes and shoved his hand away, turning her face away from him - and toward Willow, who grinned.

“Ooh, she's blushing!”

They stopped at the end of the wall, and Buffy changed the subject, looking to the middle of the room where Rodney Munson stood by a stand with some sort of golden mask on it; it looked like he was trying to scrape gold dust off of it into a plastic baggie.

“What's he doing?”

“Eh, that's Rodney Munson,” Xander said, mostly keeping his deep loathing for the guy out of his voice. “God's gift to the bell curve.”

Another guy leaned toward Rodney to see what he was up to; Rodney pulled his lips back and growled, showing off his braces. Xander rolled his eyes.

“What he lacks in smarts, he makes up, in lack of smarts.”

“You just don't like him 'cause of that time he beat you up every day for five years,” Willow said sarcastically.

“Yeah. I'm irrational that way,” he sarcasmed back; then, genuinely, “I still don't get why you're tutoring him.”

“I get twenty dollars every time he gets a C+ or better. Which I can then use to buy you snacks!”

Xander thought about that for a moment, then nodded grudgingly.

“Acceptable”

While they talked, Buffy was staring at the guy, frowning.

“I'm... gonna stop him before he gets in trouble,” she finally said.

Willow put a hand out to stop her.

“I got it. The nonviolent approach is probably better here,” she said, walking off to him. Buffys eyebrows pulled together.

“I wasn't gonna use violence. I don't always use violence. ...do I?” she asked, looking to Xander awkwardly.

“The important thing is, you believe that.” He patted her on the shoulder.

The blonde pouted.

“I might have used reason. Or my feminine wiles. Or, roughed him up a little...” she admitted. “But only 'cause he did it to you.”

It did make Xander feel kinda nice to know that she was willing to go to bat for him.

Probably with an actual bat, if necessary.

Someone cleared their throat into a microphone, and they looked around until they spotted a museum guide standing in the open half of the end of the room.

“Welcome, students. We shall now proceed into the Incan burial chamber. The human sacrifice is about to begin.” With that, he walked backward into the next room.

Xander and Buffy followed as Willow walked to them. Rodney grinned at Xander as they walked past; Buffy growled back at him. Rodney stopped walking and blinked in confusion, and Xander looked away and grinned.

The guide turned around, and they followed him through a narrower hallway, two people wide, or three people uncomfortable, wider at the base than the apex, with the walls designed to look like stone; it let out in a room displaying carved stones on low platforms, and a small, wide-topped stepped pyramid on the far side, rising halfway up the wall. On the other walls hung woven textiles, and other stuff like golden plates and bowls.

“Typical museum trick,” Xander said. “Promise human sacrifice, deliver old pots and pans.”

The guide led them all up the left side of the small pyramid, Xander ending up in the front of the three of them.

“Five hundred years ago, the Incan people chose a beautiful teenage girl to become their princess,” the guide said.

“I hope this story ends with ‘and she lived happily ever after’,” Willow said.

Xander got to the top first, looking into the stone box.

“No, I think it ends with ‘and she didn't moisturize for five centuries’.”

Within the sarcophagus, surrounded by woven fabrics, was a girl; her hair still a rich black, but her skin was discolored, and wrinkled like beef jerky, her lips pulled back to show her teeth. Actually, Xander admitted, she looks pretty healthy for five hundred years old. Her hands at her waist held a plate-sized disc with intricate decorations.

The guide stood at the foot of the sarcophagus; some students stayed on the pyramid, listening, Xander and the girls among them standing at the head of the coffin, while others crossed the pyramid, glancing into the sarcophagus and making various sorts of faces before descending the other side. The guide continued speaking.

“The Incan people sacrificed their princess to the mountain Sabancaya, an offering buried alive for eternity in this dark tomb.”

Willow looked into the sarcophagus, her expression somewhere between sad and grossed out.

“They couldn't at least have wrapped her in those nice white bandages, like in the movies?”

“The princess remained there, protected only by a cursed seal, placed there as a warning to any who would wake her,” the guide said, indicating the plate with a pointer. Down below, off the pyramid, Cordy and her friends giggled at something in the exchange student facebook, reminding Xander.

“So, Buffy, when's exchange boy making his appearance?”

“His name's Ampata. He'll be at the bus station tomorrow night.”

“Ooh, the Sunnydale Bus Depot. Classy! What a better way to say ‘welcome to our country’ than with the stench of urine.” He made a face, and Buffy laughed.

“Now, if you'll follow me this way, please?” The guide looked pointedly at him and the girls, and they followed him off the platform and joined the students grouping behind him as he began to descrbe the grave goods.

While the best part of the trip was the lack of anything awful or supernatural happening to him, he had to admit afterward he'd enjoyed the rest of it as well.

###

Thursday was back to the normal schedule, although Friday was supposed to be different sort of to welcome the kids from elsewhere. After school, Willow headed off to her usual tutoring space near the office to meet up with Rodney, while Xander and Buffy headed to the library for more training stuff.

While Xander went a few rounds with Giles holding the punching pads, Buffy changed in the bathroom and came out in a Girls Football tanktop with her hair up. Once Xander sat down to take a breather and a drink of water, she took over.

“You know, Giles, there's the dance at the Bronze tomorrow,” Buffy said. “To welcome the exchange students and stuff.”

“I've heard.”

Buffy threw a few more punches, then asked,

“So can I go?”

“I think not.”

Buffy scowled, and pounded at the pads he was holding. She stepped back and brushed hair from her face.

“How come?”

The Watcher set down the pads, picking up the larger one for kicking.

“Because you are the Chosen One.”

“Just this once I'd like to be the Overlooked One.”

“Yes, well, I'm afraid that is not an- option,” Giles said, the last word turning into a grunt as Buffy kicked the pad and he staggered two steps back. “You have responsibilities that other girls do not.”

“Oh! I know this one!” Buffy said cheerfully. “‘Slaying entails certain sacrifices, blah, blah, bitty blah, I'm so stuffy, give me a scone’.”

Giles looked at her, unimpressed. “It's as if you know me.” Buffy began shin-kicking the pad. “Your secret identity is going to be- difficult enough to maintain while this- exchange student is- living with you,” he continued, in-between impacts. Buffy stopped kicking and stood.

“So, then going to the dance like a normal person would be the best way to keep that secret...” She raised her eyebrows expectantly; Xander snorted, and she grinned at him.

“You're, you're twisting my words,” Giles protested.

“No, I'm just using them for good!” When she got no response, she huffed. “Giles, come on, budge! No one likes a non-budger.”

Giles looked at her; she took a step back, and cocked her leg to kick again, starting to smile.

“Fine!” Giles yelled quickly, cutting her off. She lowered her leg, and he sighed and lowered the pad. “Go.”

Buffy grinned brightly.

“Yay! I win.”

“I shall just go and introduce my shoulder to a, an ice pack.”

While Giles went into his office, Buffy looked at Xander, and the two of them laughed.

Xander stood up to help put things away.

“So I guess we're dance-bound,” he said happily, following Buffy into the book cage once she'd picked up the pads. “Cool, I think I can get my mom's car, so I'm wheel-man.” Joyce had taken him to get his license recently; and, unless something came up, his mom should be home, and not going anywhere, by the time he'd need to leave on Friday.

Buffy looked over her shoulder as she walked into the cage.

“I thought you were taking Willow?”

He stopped and leaned against the frame of the cage door.

“W-well, yeah, I'm gonna take Willow, but I'm not gonna take Willow, in the sense of ‘take me’. See, with you, we're three, and everybody's safe,” he explained. Buffy emerged from the book cage, and he followed her back toward the table. “Without you, we're two.”

“Ahh, and we enter Dateville. Romance, flowers...” Buffy reached the table and sat on it, crossing her ankles. Xander faced her, his back to the library doors.

“Lips...” he finished awkwardly, feeling his face warm at the thought.

Buffy grinned.

“Oh, come on. In all the years you've known Willow, you've never thought about her lips?”

“Buffy, I love Willow. And she's my best friend. And she's a lesbian, so it doesn't matter how much I keep reliving the time we almost kissed-” or the way her waist felt, when I caught her last Thursday; or Saturday night, when she fell asleep on my shoulder and mumbled my name “-I am not gonna make a move on her and ruin that for me.”

He heard something that sounded like a slap from behind him; he turned around and saw Willow walking toward them, so he guessed she'd probably just taken a hard step.

“Hey, guys!” Willow said brightly. “What'cha talking about?”

“Uh, normal- normal things!” Xander said, walking to meet her and accompanying her back to the table. “Like, the three of us going to the dance together. See?” he chuckled, a little awkwardly. “Normal.” He glanced at her face, then frowned and looked closer. “Will, you okay? Your forehead's all red.”

“I, uh, opened my locker wrong.”

“Mm, yep, happens all the time,” Buffy said. “What's up?”

“Um. Rodney's missing.”

“Trouble with Mr. Munson again?” Giles asked, as he emerged from his office with a bag of ice.

“His parents said he never came home last night. The police are still looking for him.”

“‘Police are looking for Rodney Munson’,” Xander repeated. “Surprised we haven't heard that phrase more.”

Buffy frowned thoughtfully. “You know, I don't think I remember seeing Rodney on the bus back from the field trip.”

“I didn't either,” Willow said, blinking as she realized. “I hope he didn't get into trouble at the museum.”

Xander chuckled.

“Hey, maybe he awakened the mummy,” he suggested. Willow giggled.

“Heh, right, and it rose from its tomb,” she intoned, holding her arms out stiffly in front of her. Buffy laughed.

“And attacked him,” she finished, making grabby motions.

They all stopped laughing.

“You don't think...” Willow voiced. Giles looked at her.

“I think it's worth thinking.”

That led to them all getting into Giles' car, which led to their return to the museum. Somehow, Xander and Willow ended up in the front as they walked through the narrow passage into the mummy exhibit, with Buffy and Giles behind.

“On the other hand maybe Rodney just, stepped out for a smoke,” Willow said uneasily as they entered.

“For twenty-one hours?” Xander said, leading the way over to the pyramid.

“It's addictive, you know.”

“We'll consider that idea when we've, ruled out evil curses,” Giles said, taking in the room.

“One day, I'm gonna live in a town where evil curses are just generally ruled out without even saying,” Buffy lamented as she followed Xander up the steps, Xander stopping at the foot of the sarcophagus with Buffy to his left. His paranoia spiked just before he actually forced himself to look inside.

Yep- that's a mummy.

He let out a relieved breath.

“Where was the seal?” Giles asked.

“It was right here.” Buffy reached into the sacrophagus, and held up two chunks, together a roughly central maybe a third of the seal. “And it's broken.”

“Does that mean the mummy's loose?” Willow asked, coming last up the steps.

“No,” Buffy said, looking over the mummy. “Comfy as ever.” She handed one of the shards to Giles. The librarian frowned at it.

“Look at this series of pictograms...”

Xander heard a yell from behind, and at the same time the librarian shouted to him “Look out!”; he dropped, and something whistled past where his head had been, and Willow screamed. Xander ducked to his right, and under the arm that had swung it, to stand behind what turned out to be a large and muscled Native guy in a white shirt, with black hair in a ponytail and a very sharp machete. Xander jumped on the guy's back while he was distracted from Buffy's dodge away from his next swing, and Xander wrapped his arms around the guy's neck and started to squeeze. The guy grabbed his arm, and Xander realized the problem of being on the guy's back, feet dangling, rather than on the ground with good old leverage; Machete-man yanked and Xander was thrown off as the guy leapt down the pyramid and ran. Buffy stepped back to where she'd been, and Xander steadied himself on the rim of the sarcophagus and caught his breath.

“Okay, I just saved us, right?”

“Something did,” Buffy said. He made a face at her, 'cause come on, what else could it have been?

“Well, we'll fret about the details later, let's just get out of here before he comes back,” Giles suggested. “Come on.”

Gently, he put an arm behind Xander and Buffy and started guiding them back down the stairs.

“Giles?” Willow said, still standing by the sarcophagus. They paused on their way down the steps to look to her. “The Incas were, pretty advanced, right?”

“Yes. Yes, very.”

In a small voice, Willow continued,

“Did they have orthodontists?”

Giles blinked at her, then took the stairs back up skipping a couple in his haste, to stand beside Willow. His face went pale.

“Oh, dear.”

Xander and Buffy returned to their side and saw what Willow had seen: braces.

And then Xander recognized the haircut.

Rodney's haircut.

“Oh my god,” Buffy voiced for both of them.

###

They did things not involving talking about it on the way back to Giles' car, which was just as well - sure, the guy wasn't gonna punch Xander in the stomach anymore, but just because he was an asshole didn't actually mean Xander wanted him dead. When they got back to the school, a couple of teachers and a janitor were still around in the hallways, so they couldn't talk about it then, either, until they got back to the library.

“Rodney looked like he'd been dead for five hundred years, how could that be?” Willow burst out as she pushed through the library doors.

“Maybe we should ask the crazy man with the big old knife,” Xander said.

“I don't think he seemed overly chatty,” Buffy mentioned. Willow shook her head.

“The way he bolted when he saw Rodney, I'd say he was as freaked out as we were.”

Wait - was that why he ran?

Okay, Xander admitted. That was fair, although he did feel a little deflated to realize he'd not, in fact, scared the guy off all on his own. Too good to be true anyway.

Giles sighed.

“My resources on this subject are extremely limited. Uh, I gather that this particular mummy was from the Sabancaya region of southern Peru. The Inca had no written language, and anything that would be helpful would be in the Spanish texts. Otherwise, if- if there's an answer, then it's, it's locked in the-”

“In the seal,” Buffy finished with him, looking at the two large shards in her hands and fitting them together.

“It could take me weeks to translate these- well, it's not writing, it's, pictographic, representational.” Giles took a deep breath, and let it out. “Well, we'll start tonight with-”

“Ampata!” Buffy blurted.

“...I was going to suggest hunting.”

Buffy shook her head.

“No, I'm late, I told my mom I'd pick him up.”

“Buff, I don't care how cute he is, priorities much?” Xander reminded her. She rolled her eyes.

“Ampata's there alone. A-and I don't know how good his English is, he's from South A-” She cut herself off and blinked in surprise. “South America. Hey, he's from Peru, maybe he could help with the seal.”

“I suppose it's not out of the question,” Giles mused.

“Come on, just say ‘good idea’,” Buffy complained. “Anyway, I gotta jet. You guys wanna come?”

“Sure.” “Alright.”

Xander wanted a look at this Ampata guy, anyway, especially if he was gonna be around for two weeks.

“I shall see you tomorrow, then,” Giles said. Buffy blinked.

“'Kay. Guess we're walking.”

###

When they finally arrived at the bus station, it was totally quiet. They stepped through the open gates of the chain-link fence. Ahead of them were parked buses, and to their left the waiting room up a ramp, but there was a notable lack of people.

“We're forty minutes late,” Buffy said as they headed up to the waiting room, and added, sarcastically, “welcome to America.”

Willow tested the handle on the door to the waiting room; it didn't turn.

“What if he left already?”

She and Xander went back down to the ground, while Buffy waited a moment to lean out over the railing of the upper landing.

“Ampata? Ampata Duarte?” She groaned and followed them down.

“So, do we have to speak Spanish when we see him?” Xander asked, hands in his pockets. “'Cause, I don't know much besides ‘doritos’ and ‘chuhuahua’.”

Buffy sighed as she joined them, then stepped forward and led the way forward toward the buses.

“Ampata?” she called again.

From the shadows between the buses, a soft voice answered.

“Here.”

He and Willow stepped up beside Buffy and stopped, staring.

A Native girl walked out from between two buses; about sixteen, in loose tan trousers with a black belt, a white shirt knotted in the front with the sleeves rolled up, and a canvas backpack over her shoulder. She had full lips, dark eyes, and skin the color of golden afternoon sun on stained mahogany; her long dark hair fell in waves over the left side of her shirt.

“Hello,” she said.

“Whoa,” Willow said, quiet enough that only Xander, and maybe Buffy, heard.

The girl stopped a few paces away from them.

“It is a, a misprint,” she said apologetically. “I am, ah, Amparo?”

“¡Ay, caramba!” Xander said, in the same quiet voice Willow had used. The redhead nodded.

“¡Ídem!”

Buffy shook herself and stepped forward.

“Hi. I'm Buffy Summers. Sorry I'm late- it's nice to meet you. These are my friends, Xander and Willow.”

“Uhm, hi,” Xander got out, his mouth dry.

“Hello,” Willow agreed.

Amparo smiled, which Xander sort of wanted a picture of.

“It is nice to meet you, as well.”

“Well, shall we get going? I was thinking we'd walk home,” Buffy invented, “you probably wanna stretch your legs after being stuck in one spot for a while, right?”

“Yes,” Amparo agreed. “I would love to.”

As they walked, Buffy kept an eye out for vamps, which would probably ruin the night for Amparo, while Amparo kept looking around like she was impressed by the astonishing sights of a small Southern California town.

“Different from home?” Willow asked.

“Very different!” Amparo nodded. “It is so...” she gestured helplessly, and with a musical laugh and a shake of her head, finished, “different!”

“It's probably... flatter, too, right? Peru's got a lot of mountains?” Xander said, hoping he'd paid attention in his geography classes.

“Mm, yes. This is true as well. And the people - so many different people, so many styles,” she said, watching with her head tilted as they passed a couple of old-school punks going the other way. She smiled at the three of them after. “It is wonderful.”

“Your English is very bueno,” Xander said. Actually, it's probably better than mine, he admitted.

“I listen much.”

“Well, that works out well, because we talk much.”

When they got to Buffy's house, Amparo startled when Buffy turned on the light by the front door, and Buffy gave her a curious look.

“I have heard of electricity, but... my home was not so, ‘high-tech’,” she said, glancing up at the light.

“Ah,” Buffy said with a nod. “Well, we'll get you all modernized,” she promised, smiling. “Maybe take you to the mall, too.”

“That'd be fun!” Willow agreed.

Buffy started giving the nickel tour, pointing out the sections of the ground floor as she led them down the hallway of the house.

“...dining room, and this...” Buffy flicked the switch to the side of the door, and the lights switched on. “...is the kitchen.”

“It is very good!” Amparo declared.

“Yeah, you've got your stove, your fridge, it's, fully functional! We're very into it.”

While Amparo and Xander followed Buffy past the kitchen table toward the fridge, Willow broke off to open the snack cupboard.

“Do you want something to drink?” Xander offered. Amparo nodded, so Buffy opened the fridge.

“Ahh, let's see, we've got... milk, and, uh- huh, older milk. Someone drank all the soda, so...” she turned and suggested, smiling, “juice?”

“Please.”

Amparo took a seat at the table, and Xander sat down to her left.

“Why did you look at me when you said that?” Xander protested to Buffy as the blonde brought the pitcher of orange juice to the table.

“Well, some of us have to watch our weight.”

“Who, you? Miss world's highest metabolism?”

Buffy stuck her tongue out at him and turned to get cups.

Willow closed the cupboard and came over to them with the bag of powdered donuts, sitting on Amparo's other side.

“So Amparo. You're a girl.”

“Yes. For, many years now.”

Willow's eyebrows went up at that for some reason, and she nodded.

“Cool - we thought a boy was coming, but, here you are! And, that's fine with us.”

“It's just one of those crazy mix-ups, Will,” Xander agreed.

Buffy stood opposite them, setting the cups down.

“So, have you ever been to America before?”

“Uh, I-I have toured,” Amparo said, which made her sound like some rich heiress, which was sort of cool.

“Where did you go?” Xander asked. Buffy walked back to the snack cupboard while Willow reached over for the pitcher and poured Amparo a glass.

“I was taken to... Atlanta, Boston... New York.”

“New York?” Willow repeated. “That's exciting! What was that like?”

“I-I did not see so much,” Amparo admitted.

Buffy came back with the box of goldfish and dragged a seat around to sit on the other side of the table from the three of them. Amparo took a sip of her juice and started.

“Oh!”

“You okay?” Xander checked.

“Yes! I have not had this,” she explained, and took another sip. “I like it.”

The door opened, and Joyce called,

“I'm home!”

“Oh- that's mom,” Buffy told Amparo. “Need any help?” she called back.

“Could you give me a hand with the groceries?”

“Be right there!” Xander agreed, as he hopped up and followed Buffy out of the kitchen.

“Hi, honey. Hi, Xander,” Joyce greeted as they met her at the front door. “Is Ampata here?”

“Funny thing,” Buffy said, while they followed Joyce back to the car. “Apparently, there was a misprint?”

“Oh?”

“Her name's Amparo,” Xander finished, as they loaded up with bags, him and Buffy taking the heavier ones.

“Oh!” Joyce took that in, then smiled. “Well, I'm sure you kids'll make her feel right at home.” She glanced at the clock as they walked back inside. “Speaking of home, if you were planning on going there, I'd like to leave soon if I'm giving you a ride back.”

“That'd be great,” Willow said, coming down the hall and taking one of the bags from Joyce.

It wasn't so much that Xander wanted to leave as it was that he needed to get back and ask his mom to use her car, but he nodded and thanked Joyce anyway.

He and Willow said goodbye to Amparo, who sent them off with a smile, and got into the backseat of Joyce's car.

###

Xander's mom was in the kitchen when he walked in - his dad was in the living room, so he must have arrived in a lull.

“Hey, mom?”

“Hm?”

“So... there's a dance, tomorrow night. The girls and I were gonna go, and... I was thinking maybe I could borrow your car?”

She blinked.

“You can drive?”

“Legally, even - got my license and everything,” he confirmed.

His mom smiled.

“My little boy, growing up.” She ruffled his hair, ignoring his sort of instinctual frown probably due to the babying. She sighed. “Yeah, alright. But you stay out of the backseat,” she warned.

He made a face.

Ew, mom, one, Buffy's gonna be there, he protested, and two, why would I want a girl I was interested in to have to look at me without clothes on?

“Thanks, mom,” he said out loud.

Moving during their conversation had ended up taking them past the living room, so he took the opportunity to escape before his dad saw he was unoccupied, and headed to bed.

Now I just need to figure out a costume.